It would be hard for us to imagine the spirit of excitement that these settlers must have had as they set off that cold day. They were heading off into the unknown and leaving many friends behind who they would never see again.

It would be even harder for us to imagine the sense of frustration that they must have had three days later, when their boats ran aground and they found themselves stuck in the ice. Unable to return to the fort, the 180 people spent the entire winter there, waiting for the ice to melt.

Finally, on February 27, the boats set out again. But there was more trouble; several of the boats ran aground that day, and it took a long time to get everyone together. Soon they were drifting along, and for the next few days things seemed to go well. On March 2 they passed by the site that would later be the city of Knoxville, but there was nothing there at the time but trees and a steep hill. Two days later came the first death on the journey: an African-American man died of an infection that had resulted from his feet being frozen.

This wasn’t the only horrifying development. Smallpox broke out among some of the settlers. In an attempt to keep the disease from spreading, Donelson ordered everyone with the disease to board the same boat, and ordered them to stay behind the other boats.

A few days later the settlers stopped to rest at the mouth of South Chickamauga Creek, on the site of a Cherokee town that had been burned to the ground by white invaders a year earlier. It was there that Mrs. Ephraim Peyton gave birth to a child.

The next day the settlers began seeing Cherokees on the shoreline, and at first the natives seemed to be friendly. But when Donelson saw canoes filled with armed Indians, painted red and black, paddling in their direction, he realized that they were not friendly. He ordered everyone to keep going.

A few miles later the settlers ran into an ambush. As the fleet of flatboats passed Moccasin Bend, Cherokees fired guns and then tried to attack the boats from canoe. They were unable to catch up with most of the boats, however – all except the one that was carrying all the people with smallpox. “The Indians fell upon this straggler and soon killed or captured all the party,” one book says. “The yells of the Indians, the crack of guns, the screams of the women were borne along the gorge to the ears of the voyagers. But the current, now increasingly rapid, prevented any turning back. They could not reach [the] boat in time to do any good. An attempt at rescue might endanger the whole expedition. Their only solace was the grim certainty that the smallpox would wreak revenge for them.”

Twenty-eight people were on that smallpox-laiden boat, none of them heard from again.

There was no time to grieve. As the remaining boats floated downstream, warriors lined the left side of the river, shooting guns and arrows and ready to attack any craft that got stuck. Meanwhile the boats were entering the very dangerous part of the water known as “The Suck,” where the current was rapid and unpredictable and where a boat could be crashed into a boulder at any moment. Everyone pitched in. On one boat, the man steering was shot, and a woman named Nancy Gower took his place. She steered the boat for a while and then she noticed that she had been shot too.

In the confusion of the moment, one of the boats -- headed by a man named Jonathan Jennings -- was missing. The remaining boats kept on, certain that Jennings’ boat – which contained Mrs. Ephraim Peyton and her child – had capsized.

The next couple of days went more smoothly, as the boats entered the present-day boundaries of Alabama. Then, early one morning, Jennings’ boat caught up. As it turned out, his boat hadn’t wrecked but had run aground while it was being fired upon by the Cherokees. In the frantic attempt to get the boat off the reef two men drowned, Jennings’ son had been captured, and Mrs. Peyton’s infant child had died.

    Now, as you remember, James Robertson and some other men had come to the French Lick via the land route. Under the original plan, Robertson was to have sent some men down from French Lick to the area just above Muscle Shoals to greet the settlers and tell them whether they had found a good way to proceed via land from there.  

    When the boats arrived at Muscle Shoals, several men got off and started looking for Robertson’s men, or at least some sign that they had been there. But there was no sign of Robertson’s men.  

    Can you even imagine how much the settlers despaired? I’m sure by now many of them were wondering if Robertson’s men had even made it to French Lick. Was it possible that they were heading for a settlement that didn’t even exist?  

    Next came the terrifying journey through the Muscle Shoals, the steepest and most treacherous part of the Tennessee River . To everyone’s relief they made it with no accidents. But, two days after leaving the shoals they were attacked by Creeks. Five more men were wounded.  

    Somehow, the next few weeks went smoothly. Now out of Cherokee and Creek territory, the boats drifted along quietly through pleasant weather. In a week the boats had floated 250 miles downstream to the junction of the Tennessee and the Ohio. It was here that the journey became physically more difficult, because the boats now had to turn upstream on the Ohio and subsequently on the Cumberland. Every able-bodied person had to paddle.  

Like to read more about the journey of the Adventure? Read Perilous Journey, a novel by Peyton Cockrill Lewis -- a work of historical fiction that recounts the incredible trip.