To Chote, Old Town

The Story of Old Fort Loudon (published 1899):

"Along the buffalo paths, from one salt-lick to another, a group of pioneers took a vagrant way through the dense cane-brakes."

"Dark, gloomy, with long, level summit-lines, a grim outlier of the mountain range, since known as
the Cumberland, stretched from northeast to southwest, seeming as they approached to interpose an insurmountable barrier to further progress, until suddenly...showed a gap...and a new and beautiful land."

"The Indian gazed upon her doubtfully. He had evidently only a few disconnected sentences of English at command, although he understood far more than he could frame... . "...even previous to the present outbreak and despite the stipulations of their treaties with the English, the Cherokees were known to have hesitated long in taking sides in the struggle between France and Great Britain, still in progress now in 1758, for supremacy in this western country, and many were suspected of yet inclining to the French, who had made great efforts to detach them from the British interest."

"Where go?" demanded the chief, suspiciously. "To Choté, old town," she averred at haphazard, naming the famous "beloved town, city of refuge," of the Cherokee nation."