Read aloud by your device's voice. It sounds different on each device.
Otter Place
The Cherokee called the cove Tsiya'hi, or Otter Place
By 1797 the Cherokee had a settlement in the cove known as Tsiya'hi, or Otter Place, possibly little more than a seasonal hunting camp. The cove was named for a leader of that village, Chief Kade. In 1819 the Treaty of Calhoun ended all Cherokee claims to the Smokies, and the village was abandoned soon after.
The Olivers
John and Lucretia Oliver wintered on dried pumpkin in 1818
John Oliver and his wife Lucretia Frazier were the first permanent European settlers in the cove. They arrived in 1818 and struggled through the winter, living on dried pumpkin given to them by friendly Cherokees. By 1850 the cove held 671 people.
671people living in the cove by 1850
The raids
In 1864 a militia of elderly men routed Confederate raiders
From 1863 Confederate bushwhackers raided the cove, stealing livestock and killing Union supporters. Russell Gregory organized a small militia, mostly the cove's elderly men, and in 1864 it ambushed a band of raiders. Two weeks later a band of Confederates sneaked in and killed Gregory.
The sign
A sign at the cove's entrance told the park's land buyer to leave
In 1927 the General Assembly gave the Park Commission the power to seize land by eminent domain, and the cove was outraged. Its head, Colonel David Chapman, found a sign near the entrance ending in a 40 mile limit, the distance to his home in Knoxville. In 1929 he filed a condemnation suit against John W. Oliver.
“COL. CHAPMAN: YOU AND HOAST ARE NOTFY, LET THE COVE PEOPL ALONE. GET OUT. GET GONE. 40 M. LIMIT.”
A sign near the cove's entrance, as the article gives it
Christmas Day, 1937
John W. Oliver left his land on Christmas Day in 1937
Oliver lost the second suit, which went to the Tennessee Supreme Court. The court awarded him less than he said his 375 acres were worth. After a series of one-year leases he left his property on Christmas Day in 1937. The Primitive Baptist congregation kept meeting in the cove into the 1960s, in defiance of the Park Service.
Day 3, morning
Next is Cable Mill.
More stories from this trip idea
The words are a retelling of the Wikipedia article Cades Cove, and are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. They are checked against those articles, and a fact that is not in them is left out.