Tuckahoe Doublehead

Tuckahoe Doublehead (~1758 – ~1807) was purportedly the son of Chickamauga Cherokee war chief Chuqualatague Doublehead who spent time in present-day Scott County, Tennessee. However, his existence is doubted by historians.

Biography

Purportedly born about 1758, Tuckahoe (or Tal-tsu’ska) Doublehead was said to be the son of Chief Chuqualatague Doublehead. Born in the early 18th century in present-day McCreary County, Ky., Doublehead was a notorious Cherokee war chief and part of the Chickamauga resistance — known as one of the fiercest fighters among the Cherokee, and the chief who led the Indian attack on White’s Fort (which became Knoxville, Tenn.) in 1788.

Real or Fictional?

While Chief Doublehead very much existed, and his life is fairly well documented, much of what has been written about his family is not true. Historians doubt the existence of Tuckahoe and his sister, Princess Corn Blossom. Both were first written about in Thomas Troxel’s 1958 book, Legion of the Lost Mine. In his foreword, Troxel (who was a surveyor in Oneida) wrote that some of the characters in the book were fictional, but he did not specify which. In 1975, retired U.S. Forest Service agent Robert Collins wrote A History of the Daniel Boone National Forest, which included a chapter on Chief Doublehead’s family. He said he sourced his information from a then-unpublished manuscript (which has since been published online) compiled by Dan Troxel, which tells the story of a massacre of Cherokee women and children at Yahoo Falls in the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area that was carried out by white settlers in 1810. All books and articles that reference the Yahoo Falls Massacre reference Dan Troxel’s manuscript or Collins’ book.

Historians and genealogists have generally come to believe that both Tuckahoe and Corn Blossom were among those fictional characters created by Thomas Troxel in Legion of the Lost Mine.

What the authors wrote

Citing Thomas Troxel’s work, Collins wrote in his 1975 book that Jacob Troxel befriended Tuckahoe Doublehead while posing as a trader among the Cherokee in the Cumberland River Valley during the Revolutionary War. His assignment was to convince the Native Americans to join the colonists in their fight against the British. Troxel accompanied Tuckahoe back to the Chickamauga Cherokee village in present-day McCreary County, where he met and was smitten by Tuckahoe’s sister, Corn Blossom. They were later married.

Collins wrote that Tuckahoe met and married a white woman, Margaret Mounce: “Shortly after the close of the Revolutionary War, the family of John Mounce moved to a homestead located at the mouth of the Rock Creek on the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River. Mounce had two beautiful daughters. Tuckahoe, son of Chief Doublehead, fell in love with one of them, Margaret Mounce by name. ”

Margaret Mounce appears to have actually existed, and was likely a sister to Susannah Mabel Mounts, the wife of Richard Harve Slaven, who was the first settler of the Big South Fork region.

Collins went on to write that the courtship of Tuckahoe and Margaret Mounce is what resulted in Chief Doublehead’s death: “The young couple decided that it would be romantic if the girl were to be stolen by Tuckahoe in an elopement. All went well initially. After the eloping party had been gone for several hours, the sister of the bride notified her father that Tuckahoe had stolen Margaret. The angry father, accompanied by a neighbor named Jones, pursued the elopers for many miles overtaking them near the present town of Monticello, the county seat of Wayne County, Kentucky. Knowing the reaction of her father the girl threw her arms around her lover to protect him from harm, thus preventing her father from shooting Tuckahoe. However, Jones drew a bead on Chief Doublehead and killed him instantly. Thus in the year of 1807 ended the life of the last great Indian chief to rule over the Indians of the Cumberland Plateau. Chief Doublehead was buried where he fell. His grave may still be found at Doublehead Gap on the Little South Fork near the town of Monticello.”

Following this sequence of events, Collins wrote, Tuckahoe and Margaret Mounce were married and made their home in Scott County: “Soon after the tragic death of Chief Doublehead, John Mounce gave his consent to the marriage of his daughter Margaret to the handsome Tuckahoe, now in line to become the chief of his tribe. Young Tuckahoe and Margaret Mounce were married and established a home on Cherry Fork, now Helenwood, Tennessee, on US-27 south of Somerset, Kentucky.”

Still citing Thomas Troxel’s book, Collins goes on to recount the story of the Cherokee’s secret silver mine in Wayne County, Ky. He said that Tuckahoe was killed there by two white men: “The location of this silver mine was a tribe secret which had never been given to a white man. A white trader, Han Blackberne, learned of this mine and was determined to find it. He offered to sell young Tuckahoe a fine rifle decorated with silver, together with a fancy powder horn and a fringed bullet pouch for a small amount of silver from the mine. Tuckahoe eagerly agreed. As he went to the secret mine for the silver, he was followed by Blackberne and a hired laborer by the name of Monday. As Tuckahoe was digging the silver to pay for his new rifle, the two white men appeared. While remonstrating with Blackberne for following him, he laid down a pick which he had been using. Monday, a simple-minded individual, grabbed the pick and struck Tuckahoe on the head killing him instantly. Monday then threw Tuckahoe’s body down a deep crevice between two large rocks and covered it with leaves, dead branches and loose rock. He and Blackberne then started digging for silver.”

Collins wrote that Tuckahoe’s sister, Corn Blossom, arrived on the scene and avenged his death by killing the two white men.

What Actually Happened

There is a purported grave site for Chief Doublehead in Wayne County, Ky. that matches what Collins wrote. However, newspaper accounts from the time tell a completely different story of Doublehead’s death. He was killed near the Hiwassee River in southern Tennessee by Cherokee rivals. He had fallen out of favor with some of the Cherokee after becoming wealthy and being suspected of siphoning off money from the sale of Cherokee land to the U.S. government. He was seriously wounded at McIntosh’s Tavern, then finished off at the home of a schoolmaster named Jonathan Blacke, where he had sought refuge in an attic.

Aftermath

In his book, Collins details the massacre of Cherokee women and children at Yahoo Falls in present-day McCreary County, Ky., an attack supposedly carried out by white settlers led by Hiram “Big Tooth” Gregory. The white men were said to have brutally attacked a group of Cherokee that had assembled in the rock shelter behind the falls as they prepared to journey to Rev. Gideon Blackburn’s Cherokee school near Chattanooga, Tenn. The women and girls were raped, many of their bodies were mutilated, and more than 100 Indians were killed or seriously wounded, as the story goes.

Jacob Troxel was severely wounded and scalped in the attack and later died, according to the legend. Corn Blossom and their son, Peter or “Little Jake,” arrived on the scene as the slaughter was winding down, and managed to kill most of the white men, though both were mortally wounded.

However, there is no contemporary evidence of the Yahoo Falls Massacre, and historians doubt that it actually occurred. (While Thomas Troxel said some of the characters in his Legion of the Lost Mine were fictional, Dan Troxel wrote in his manuscript detailing the Yahoo Falls incident that it was a true story.) Jacob Troxel did exist and was the father of Catherine “Katy” Troxel, the first wife of Jonathan Blevins. However, many historians and genealogists doubt that her mother was the daughter of Chief Doublehead. They also doubt that Jacob Troxel died in 1810, although there is a grave marker for him near Yahoo Falls that was placed by his descendants. That Jacob Troxel was not buried on Alum Ford Road is not disputed, but those who believe the Yahoo Falls account is factual believe he was buried in an unmarked grave at Otter Creek in McCreary County. Meanwhile, historians and genealogists who doubt the veracity of the Yahoo Falls story believe that Jacob Troxel left the region for Alabama, and lived until 1843.

Further Reading: A History of the Daniel Boone National Forest (Robert F. Collins, 1975)
Further Reading: Legion of the Lost Mine (Thomas Troxel, 1958)
Further Reading: The Great Cherokee Children Massacre at Ywahoo Falls (Dan Troxel)