Others, without more definite knowledge for
foundation, maintain that as he settled in Tennessee he had lived in
North Carolina. The written word was rarely used and the stories of the
earlier days in the "Valley of the Three Forks o' the Wolf" are
tradition.
In a newly settled territory a man's birthplace and antecedents are
facts immaterial to the community's welfare and many incidents
historical in nature concerning Old Coonrod have been lost in the
waste-basket of forgetfulness and no one now at Pall Mall has "heard
tell of jes' where he come from." Yet some readily say that he came from
"over yonder," and they point back across the mountains toward North
Carolina.
In the first map of Tennessee, made by Daniel Smith, there is a dip in
the northern boundary of the state line where Fentress county is
located. But this was found to be an error of survey and later
corrected. The surveyors of those days were men of courtesy and
accommodation, for in the establishment of the Tennessee-Virginia line
they surveyed around the southern boundary of the farm of a hospitable
host and left his lands in Virginia because the old fellow maintained he
had never had any health except in the mountains of Virginia.
That Coonrod was of English descent there seems scarcely room for doubt,
and "Pile," or "Pyle" and "Pall Mall" stand as mute testimony.
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