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| 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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