As we celebrate our nation’s semiquincentennial, I continue to focus on the related contributions and connections of folks of the Fork, the Knox County lands between the French Broad and Holston Rivers.
You wouldn’t be reading many of my articles if he hadn’t settled a little upriver on the French Broad from where I live. His 1804 two-story brick home still stands on what is now Douglas Lake. His name was Samuel McSpadden, and later during the War of 1812, he made gunpowder from the saltpeter (potassium nitrate) formed from bat poop in the cave on his property and floated it to Andrew Jackson down in New Orleans.”
However, decades before that, in 1775, Samuel McSpadden was drafted from his home at Rockbridge, Virginia, and into the Revolutionary War under Captain Charles Campbell, commanded by Colonel Dickerson. He enrolled at Lexington, then served three months at Point Pleasant, was discharged, and was drafted again in 1776. For three months under Captain McDowell, he guarded Fort Donnelly, commanded by the Colonel with the same name. Samuel’s first wife was Sarah Keyes…