Thursday, June 19, 2014

William Weatherford (c. 1780 or 1781 – March 24, 1824)

Weatherford surrenders to Jackson.
From “Chapter LVII: The County of Monroe” in “Alabama: Her History, Resources, War Record and Public Men From 1540 to 1872” by Willis Brewer:

Several prominent men have lived in Monroe. One of these was WILLIAM WEATHERFORD. He was born in what is now the county of Montgomery, on the east bank of the river, nearly opposite Coosada, about the year 1780. His father was a Scotch trader, and a man noted for wealth and the “blooded” horses he brought into the Indian country; and his mother was Sehoy Durant, a half sister of the chief Alexander McGillivray.*

Weatherford cared nothing for education, but much for the martial exercises and pursuits of a savage life. He inherited his fathers taste for horses and horsemanship, and became proficient in the acquirements of the athlete. He also gained great influence among the chiefs by his eloquence and his wealth and debaucheries made him a favorite with the young warriors.

He established a plantation on the Alabama in what is now the county of Lowndes, just north of where Econochaca was built shortly after. Weatherford was greatly influenced by the talents and prowess of Tecumseh, and imbibed his opinions of the necessity of checking the encroachments of the whites, which he had long viewed with ill-concealed dislike.

But he saw the magnitude of the task of driving them back, and came to consult his half-brother Tait, and brother, Jack Weatherford, on Little River, as to his course. They dissuaded him from commencing the war; but when he went back, the war party had been to his plantation, and had taken his Negroes and stock to the Hickory Ground, and threatened to retain them, and kill him also if he joined the peace party. It was then that he entered reluctantly but resolutely into their scheme.

He was at Fort Mimms, and on that terrible day he was everywhere seen urging his forces to the assault. Mounted on a powerful black steed he was unremitting in his efforts to make the attack a victory; but when the butchery began he interposed vainly to prevent it. On his return from this expedition, he was made tustenuggee, or war chief of the tribe.

He animated his men in the fight at Econochaca, and when they fled he made his famous leap into the river and escaped. At Calibee he concealed his men within a bowshot of the Georgians, and suffered a courier from General Claiborne to pass through the swamp to General Floyd without betraying their presence; then arose at daylight, and effectually checked the whites, obliging them to retreat to Fort Mitchell.

The whites regarded Weatherford as the leader in the massacre at Fort Mimms and were greatly incensed at him. Shortly after the battle of Tohopeka, he went to Gen. Jackson’s tent at the Hickory Ground. Surprised by the boldness of the act, Jackson asked him how he dared to come into his presence after his conduct at Fort Mimms.

“General Jackson, I am not afraid of you,” said Weatherford. “I fear no man, for I am a Creek warrior. I have nothing to ask in my own behalf; you can kill me if you wish.

“But I come to ask you to send for the women and children of the war party, who are now starving in the woods. Their cribs and fields have been destroyed by your people, who have driven them into the woods without an ear of corn. I hope you will send out, and have them brought in and fed.

“I tried to stop the killing of the women and children at Fort Mimms. I am done fighting. The Red Sticks are nearly all killed. If I could fight you any longer I would do it. Send for the women and children. They have done you no harm. But kill me if the whites want it done.”**

Many soldiers had now gathered around the group and cried “Kill him! Kill him!”

“Silence!” said Jackson. “Anyone who would kill as brave a man as that would rob the dead!”

Jackson took him into his tent, and treated him with marked courtesy. Weatherford’s life was in constant danger, however, from the relatives of those killed at Fort Mimms. He made his residence on Little River in this county, and gave his attention to his plantation nearby in Baldwin.

He was a quiet citizen till his death, which occurred here in 1824. He was a man of excellent natural sense, honorable, brave and hospitable. He married a sister of Alexander Cornells, and left a number of descendants in the state.

* Capt. Marchand, a French officer murdered at Fort Toulouse by this mutinous men in 1822, left a child by Sehoy, a Muscogee princess of the noble tribe of the Wind. This child, Sehoy Marchand, when she reached womanhood, became the wife of a Tookabatchee chief and her daughter by this union, Sehoy, first the wife of Capt. Tait, a British officer stationed at Fort Toulouse, (whence the wealthy mixed breed family of the Taits in Baldwin) afterwards married Charles Weatherford, and became the mother of William Weatherford. But Sehoy Marchand was afterwards the wife of Lachlan McGillivray, a Scotch trader of wealth, and thus became the mother of three children – Alexander McGillivray, a daughter who married Gen. Leclerc Milforte, and a daughter who married Benjamin Durant, who became the common mother of the family of that name in Baldwin, who gave name to Durant’s Bend in Dallas County. The Cornells, Taits, Baileys, Moniacs, Tunstalls, Durants, Weatherfords, wealth mixed bloods of this state, are all connected by ties of consanguinity Opothleyhallo was a Cornells.

** This is the account of the speech as given by Weatherford in after years to Gen. Tom Woodward of Macon, Col. Robert James of Clarke and Mr. Wm. Sisemore of Baldwin. The account given by many of the historians is from Eaton’s “Life of Jackson,” and is fictitious.


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