Jackson Purchase Historical Society

On a 600 acre plantation located on the Cumberland River, near Iaka, Livingston County, three (3) miles below Grand River owned by the George family.   It is another place Dr. Wesler is trying to locate for possible future field research.

Recounted in the Black Indian Slave Narratives (ISBN: 0-89587-298-6) by Patrick Minges (see pages 6-10), former slave George Fortman was interviewed by a W.P.A. field worker for the W.P.A. Slave Narrative Project.  He was the descendent of a Blackhawk brave and a Choctaw maiden and African slaves.  His owner was Patent George.

Patent George married a Hester who upon his death married a Mr. Lam.  Hester George Lam is said to have been buried on the plantation sometime prior to the Civil War.

Patent George worked his full-blooded Indian slaves in the iron-ore mills of western Kentucky (Hillman, Dixon, Boyer, Kelley, and Lyons Furnaces, owned by a Mr. Trigg(?) and collectively called the “Chimneys”) .

If you have any knowledge of this plantation, please send it to us either by email or regular mail.  Because of his busy schedule, Dr. Wesler has asked the JPHS to act as a gathering point.  There is no time limit for sending us your information.  We will check out each submission, do further research, and present what facts we uncover to Dr. Wesler.

This is another part of our dialogue with Dr. Wesler.

Nashville, Kentucky that is!  Dr. Wesler is wanting to locate the site of  this Nashville for a possible future field research dig.   And we, the Jackson Purchase Historical Society, have offered to help!

An 1825 map of the Kentucky portion of the Jackson Purchase shows a town called Nashville sitting on the western bank of the Clarks River almost due east from Fort Jefferson on the banks of the Mississippi.  Its approximate location appears to be at 36.55 degrees latitude, 88.20 degrees longitude.  This map can be viewed by going to www.davidrumsey.com (click on directory, click on the “K” on the upper left side of the site, then scroll down to the Kentucky and Tennessee map by Henry S. Tanner, 1825).  Once on the map, you can enlarge it and get a close up of Nashville.

If you have any knowledge of this Nashville, please send it to us either by email or regular mail.  Because of his busy schedule, Dr. Wesler has asked the JPHS to act as a gathering point.  There is no time limit for sending us your information.  We will check out each submission, do further research, and present what facts we uncover to Dr. Wesler.

“An even more fundamental problem, one that occurs in all areas of the country and not just Kentucky, is that historians, geographers, and archaeologists, have not talked among themselves enough to direct fruitful studies.” Dr. Wesler, JOURNAL 1982 article, pg. 62

We have begun such a dialogue with Dr. Wesler.

Dr. Kit Wesler, Speaker at Fall Meeting, November 14, 2009, Kappis Restaurant, Martin, Tennessee.  This meeting was held jointly with the West Tennessee Historical Society

Dr. Wesler earned his B.A. from Washington University-St. Louis and his M.A. and Ph.D from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.   Dr. Wesler is a past contributor to the Journal (Vol. X, June 1982).  He was Director of Murray State University’s Wickliffe Mounds Research Center until it became a state historic site under the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

Dr. Wesler ‘s presentation was an update of his historical archaeology prospectus published in the 1982 issue of the Jackson Purchase Historical Society’s Journal. Beginning with a discussion of the “Vacant Quarter”, an area of the Lower Ohio-Mississippi Valley where total depopulation occurred around the period A.D. 1400-1500, he showed slides of his field research and some of the artifacts recovered on sites at Whitehaven in Paducah,  at Columbus-Belmont State Park in Columbus,  at the Thomas Moore home in Ballard County and in the Hematite area of the Land Between The Lakes, to name a few.  He also discussed the new imaging equipment that allows him to locate ground areas that have been disturbed and therefore contain likely evidence of habitation.

He concluded with a brief discussion of his ongoing research into “lost” towns in the Jackson Purchase area.   Among two mentioned were Nashville, KY once located in southwest McCracken County, and the  other the first county seat of McCracken county, Wilmington.  By maps and the written word, Dr. Wesler knows these towns existed but as he said, archaeology “puts them on the ground” and to do that he needs physical locations to begin his research design. A brief question and answer period followed his presentation.

The West Tennessee Historical Society brought several publications that were given away by raffle; a wonderful surprise for the attendees!!

We recently sat down to talk to Dr. Kit Wesler, the upcoming speaker at the Fall 2009 Quarterly meeting. To listen to our conversation, click on the podcast link below.

JPHS Podcast – A Link To The Past with Dr. Kit Wesler