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Letter from Elijah Calloway to Lyman C. Draper
The foregoing link was rotted as of 24 May 2009. The letter is presumably in the Draper Manuscript Collection
June 10, 1845
Walnut Grove, Ashe County, N.C.
Benjamin Cutbirth, the great hunter and explorer of the West, was born
in Augusta County, Virginia, about the year 1740. The reader will take
notice that it's the object of the author to write history of the most
enterprising and adventurous pioneers of the 1st settlers which came in
the scope of his knowledge such as Daniel Boone; Benjamin Cleveland,
Isaac Shelby. All who obtained their 1st honor by their exploits like
Nimord the great, the first Monarch that ever was on the face of the
earth, obtained his first honors by his firearms exploits."
"Benjamin Cutbirth, the object of this history, as his father died when
he was young and his widowed mother married when he was grown to manhood
and his being an interprising nature he early left his stepfather's house
and emigrated to Roan County, N.C. When he immediately became acquainted
with Daniel Boone, the great hunter.
As the woods was Cutbirth's great delight and as he was a hunter himself
he set out to hunt with Boone. They ranged the forest far and wide and
were frequently among the Indians who very often expressed
dissatisfaction with them for killing their game and in one of their
hunting tours and when they had killed and Indians came upon them and
took everything they had. The author has been many a time where the
robbery was committed as Cutbirth long afterwards became the author's
father-in-law, and as he and Cutbirth was frequently together they
frequently covered these subjects."
"About this time a marriage contract was made between Cutbirth and
Elizabeth Wilcockson, a niece of Daniel Boone's and as Cutbirth was
married in the family he and Boone continued to range the forest for all
the Indians would sometimes rout them . . .
"Cutbirth having lost his lands (in Kentucky) and his Brother-in-law,
Samuel Wilcoxen, a nephew of Boone, returned back to North Carolina where
they lived until they raised all their children. Cutbirth in his old age
moved to Tennessee where the speculators again took away his lands. He
and his old Lady which was a niece of Daniel Boone's has long since laid
down their bodies upon Elke River in Tennessee after living in the
Baptist Church about 40 years."
"I have very many times heard Mother as well as Father speake of the Trip
of myGrandFather Cutbirth and his companions to the Mississippi River and
to New Orleans - at the time he made this trip which must have been about
1765 he lived in the Forks of the Yadkin, Rowan County, N. C., now Davie
County.- At the time GrandFather Cutbirth Left home on this long and most
hazardous Trip or Hunt, my Grand Mother his wife had but two children
sons - and her only sons- Daniel and Benjamin and after his return home
he had two Daughters borne to him by my Grand Mother - Mary and Sally.
Mary which is my Mother was the eldest of the two and was born in some
Twelve or Eighteen Months after the return of my G.Father to his Family
and was in the year 1770.
I only saw my Uncle Daniel Cutbirth once some 20 years ago and I well
recollect to have heard him tell Mother that he could recollect his
Father leaving home and his long absence on this Western trip across the
Blue Ridge, Alleghanies and other Mountains to the Mississippi.
My other uncle Benjamin Cutbirth I never saw - he now resides in the Iowa
Territory - and my Brother, B. C. Calloway who saw him some two or three
years ago tells me that he could well recolect his Father's return Home
from this western trip but had no recolection of his leaving home on the
Trip he being too young at the time.
I have no recolection of ever seeing my GrandFather Cutbirth he having
left N.C.
- transcription truncated
Misc. Notes
from various ephemeral sources which provided few if any sources
- Buried beside wife Elizabeth Boone Wilcoxsen, who died 2 years later, in Major Howell Cemetery, Giles Co., TN
- State Grants No. 1300 and 1330 Recorded 1795, 1797
- In 1797 - Carter Co TN
- Sold lands in east TN in 1799 and left for middle TN., where he was one of signers to form Maury County and where he appears on tax list for 1811 with son Daniel Cutbirth.
- Lived briefly in the west Shoal Creek area of north Alabama in the Cherokee Nation. August 24, 1814, or (August 25) issue of The Columbia (TN) Chronicle shows him as one of the petitioners forced off the Cherokee land.
- Listed by the DAR as a Revolutionary patriot.
- Maury Co. Gen Web One of the Signers of Petition to Form Maury County, Presented to the General Assembly of Tennessee, August 1807.
- Revolutionary Soldiers Who Once Resided in Maury County Source: July 3, 1976 Bicentennial edition of The Daily Herald
- CUTBIRTH, Benjamin
- CUTBIRTH, Daniel
Current links
The following links were "alive" 24 may 2009
BENJAMIN CUTBIRTH, SR. COMPANION OF DANIEL BOONE
KENTUCKY LONGHUNTER (Good Chronology, decent documentatoin)
Cuthburth family Tree
This family tree on Ancestry, provides detailed information about Benjamin's life, and provides a few traceable sources:
- KINGS, MOUNTAIN AND ITS HEROES, History of the Battle of King's Mountain, Pges. 438, 441: Ben Cutbirth mentioned.
- THE EAST TENNESSEE HISTORICAL SOCIETY'S PUBLICATIONS OF EARLY EAST TENNESSEE TAXPAYERS, Carter Co., TN Tax List for 1796, Pges. 144 & 145: Cutberth, Benjamin, Senr. 1 Poll
- The 1782 Wilkes County Tax List showed Benjamin (Cuthbert) living in Captain Robert Cleveland's District.
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