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Note: Major Thomas Murry (Murray) Thomas Murry came to Tennessee in 1785 from Rowan County, NC and settled about four miles from Fort Bledsoe. He and E. Bushnell, who would later become his father in law were surveyors and were paid in land. In this way he amassed large land holdings.
In 1794 while the settlers were attending a musical evening at Fort Bledsoe they were attacked by Creek Indians. Thomas Murry witnessed the will of Col. Anthony Bledsoe who was mortally wounded during the attack. Without the will, at that time, everything would have gone to the nearest male relative and he wished his wife and daughters to receive his estate.
On September 13, 1794 five hundred fifty men of Kentucky and Tennessee, including Captain Thomas Murry sought reprisals against the Indians located on the Tennessee River near Lookout Mountain. They destroyed, by burning, the towns of Nickajack and Running Water. Seventy Indians were killed, twenty captured, and two hundred put to rout. The last reprisal against the Creek Indians was for the massacre of the occupants of Fort Mims, MS.
In 1801 the Tennessee General Assembly named five commissioners to choose a site for the county seat of Sumner. Sumner had been a county for nine years but was without a county seat. One of those named was Major Thomas Murry. They selected land belonging to Captain James Trousdale and bought 42 acres for $490.00. Deed dated February 25, 1802. The town was named for Albert Gallatin, Swiss born American, a leader of the Democratic Party and friend of Andrew Jackson.
The Indian war heated up again in 1813. On August 30 Creek Indians massacred the 553 inhabitants and defenders of Fort Mims in the Mississippi Territory on the Alabama River north of Mobile.
General Jackson sent Brig. Gen. John Coffee's cavalry (1000 men) on the bloody mission to destroy the Creek village of Tallushatchee with its approximately 200 warriors in retaliation for Fort Mims. Major Thomas Murry commanded one of Coffee's battalions in this action. They killed 168 Indian warriors and captured 84 women and children.
He died on November 10, 1821 of unknown causes.
In his book, Old Sumner, A History of Sumner County, TN from 1805 to 1861 Walter T. Durham says that no one knows the extent of the debt owed by the early settlers to Indian scouts such as Thomas Murry and that it is tragic that we don't know more about them.
Nola Tinsley Willeford
Adairville, KY
August 20, 2007
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