But, if the front
of the trousers were good and the seat of them patched, no dealings of
any nature were to be had with the dictator of the valley, for to Old
Coonrod it meant the man "was like a rabbit; he could not stop without
sitting down."
But the residents of the valley, many of them Methodists, claim this
estimate works a hardship upon members of their faith for a good
Methodist could wear the knees out at prayer and the seat out in
"backsliding."
Old Coonrod's trading with the Indians was a series of successes. He is
known to have had their confidence and friendship, and he was arbitrator
between them and his neighbors whenever disputes arose.
Fentress county lying on the western slope of the Cumberlands was part
of the great hunting-grounds of the Shawnees, Cherokees, Creeks,
Chickamaugas, Chickasaws, and even the Iroquois of New York. The basin
of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, that part now Tennessee and
Kentucky, was claimed by each of these tribes as its own, not as home
but as a hunting-ground, and when bands of hunters of rival tribes met
in the territory each fought the other as an invader, and their battles
gave to Kentucky its Indian name, meaning in the Indian tongue the "Dark
and Bloody Ground."
But Old Coonrod kept pace with all of them and prospered from their
friendship, and an Indian trail turned and led close to where he lived.
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