Paint Rock stones tribute
local circle fire charcoal with stones (stone on the right is a solid Yellow Ochre composite 2' x 2' x 3'), vegetation,
Water & Earth cosmologies
Nolichucky River
Erwin TN
Nolichucky River
While the origins of the name-place have long
been debated and remain unclear, it is believed to be derived from the name of
the Cherokee village Na’na-tlu
gun’yi, or "Spruce-Tree Place," that once stood near modern Jonesborough,
Tennessee. Others argue that, according to local lore, it actually
means "Rushing Water(s)", "Dangerous Water(s)", or
"Black Swirling Water". …
During the 1770s, European frontiersmen
established the "Nolichucky settlements" along the river in modern Greene
County, Tennessee, in what was then part of Cherokee territory.
These settlements were aligned with the Watauga
settlements in what is now Elizabethton,
Tennessee. As hostilities intensified in the mid-1770s between the
settlers and a faction of the Cherokee, known as the "Chickamaugas,"
who were opposed to the settlements, John Sevier, at the time a
young militia officer, began overseeing the construction of Fort Lee. After an
invasion was launched by Chickamauga leader Dragging Canoe in July
1776, Sevier abandoned the unfinished fort and fled to the Watauga settlements.
Sevier would later acquire the nickname "Nolichucky Jack," or
"Chucky Jack," for his exploits along the river and in its vicinity.
Famed frontiersman Davy Crockett was born
along the river near Limestone,
Tennessee, in 1786. The site is now the focus of Davy Crockett
Birthplace State Park.
The turn of the century brought trains hauling
passengers (until 1955) and mostly coal on the Clinchfield
Railroad (now operated by CSX), which
still runs alongside the river through the gorge with bridged crossings at
Unaka Springs (Erwin,
Tennessee) and Poplar, North Carolina. At least one sunken railcar
sits at the bottom of the river near the entrance to the Lost Cove
Settlement, a civil-war era ghost town just upriver (and uphill)
from the once-disputed Tennessee-North Carolina border.
Between
Poplar, North
Carolina, and Unaka
Springs, Tennessee, the Nolichucky River Gorge provides one of the
more scenic and technical whitewater trips in the Southern United States, due in
large part to its constant (and often rapid) fluctuations… wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolichucky_River
Love, Peace and CoCreativity
Water is Life
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