Notes for Ona Hildebrand: Assuming these entries are correct, Ona Hildebrand could be the origin of the Smith Family lore that there was Indian blood in the family.
From the Harvey website (http://footprints.org/7ht01006.htm) is recorded the following:
THE HILDEBRAND CONNECTION
According to the previous issue of Footprints, Ona Hildebrand, a full-blood Cherokee Indian, married one _______ Adams. Their daughter ______ Adams married John Harvy and their first son was Thomas H. Harvy, our subject. If John Harvy married ______ Adams in 1819, then, _______ Adams must have married Ona Hildebrand about or before 1800. A check of the roll of Cherokees made by the Government in 1835 and used for the removal in 1838 shows that the only Cherokees with the name Hildebrand lived along the Hiwassee River in what later became Monroe and Polk Counties of Tennessee. Hildebrand became a Cherokee name when John Hildebrand married Susanna Woman Catcher in Hiwassee, probably around 1800. John operated a government sponsored mill for the benefit of the Cherokee. A complete list of his descendants shows no marriages to either an Adams or Harvy. The only explanation would appear to be that other, older relatives of Susannah must have also taken the name Hilderbran at the time of her marriage to John. This was not uncommon. One of these relatives must have been Ona Hildebrand.
HILDERBRAND FAMILY HISTORY
This material was published in the Chattanooga Times, August 12, 1934. The author was Penelope Johnson Allen, a genealogist and expert on Cherokee Indian history who wrote for the Chattanooga Times Sunday Magazine from December 3, 1933 to March 21, 1937.
After the Revolutionary war closed and treaties were concluded between the United States and the Cherokee Indians, the government began a definite policy for civilizing the Cherokees which was carried on through their agent.
One of the first improvements instituted for the benefit of the Cherokees was a mill which was built in the nation at the town of Hiwassee, where the Great War and Trading path crossed the Hiwassee river in the present limits of Polk county Tennessee.
An experienced miller was employed by the government agent to build and operate this mill for the Cherokees and the man who was secured to do this work was John Hildebrand, a Pennsylvania German, who had moved south to Rowan county, North Carolina, before the year 1782. It is probable that he came from Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, where many of his kindred were living in 1790.
When Col. R Jonathan Meigs assumed his duties as agent to the Cherokees in 1801 John Hildebrand was already on the payroll at the agency as official miller at the Hiwassee mill and there are regular entries in Col. Meigs' day-book of payments which were made to him for salary and subsistence during the years Col. Meigs was in charge.
For the year 1802 John Hildebrand received $185.01 for pay in public employment, having charge of a mill for the benefit of the Cherokees. During that year he also was paid $4 for making two looms and one large wheel for the Indians.
In 1803 he sent the following order to Col. Meigs: "Hiwassee, April 5th, 1803. Sir, you will please to send by my son Michael one quarter's pay - Viz. October, November, & December, & his receipt shall be good. I am, Sir, due respects yours. John Hildebrand."
The Meigs Journal, under date of April 18, 1804, show that John Hildebrand was paid $90 for building a schoolhouse and house for the teacher at the Indian school at Hiwassee. This was the school which was organized by Dr. Gideon Blackburn for the education of Cherokee children.
Weds Cherokee Woman
John Hildebrand was a widower with five children when he came among the Cherokees. He married as his second wife, a Cherokee woman whose name was Susannah Woman Catcher, or Woman Holder, and by her had four children.
Because of his marriage to a Cherokee woman John Hildebrand was entitled to a reservation in the Cherokee Nation under the treaties of 1817 and 1819 and, according to the provisions of the said treaties, 640 acres were surveyed and laid off for him on Oct 26, 1820, on the north bank of the Hiwassee river, including the mouth of Conasauga creek, which included his dwelling house and improvements at a place which was later called Columbus.
Because of the on rush of citizens of the United States to possess themselves of lands obtained by the treaties, John Hildebrand was forced to leave his reservation and move south of the Hiwassee river. Later he went west and in 1842 he registered a claim for his reservation and ferry valued at $7,000 for which he had never been paid.
Before the Cherokee removal most of his children lived in what is now Polk county, Tennessee. On the south bank of the Ocoee river stands the old house of Michael Hildebrand, an interesting relic of the Cherokee days. It is said that this house was more than seven years in the building and many fascinating stories are told of the people who frequented it. The old Federal road crossed the Ocoee at this point and the home of Michael Hildebrand was a landmark in the days when people traveled by coach.
The history of the Hildebrand family is especially interesting because two of the sons of John Hildebrand married granddaughters of the famous Cherokee woman, Nancy Ward, whose magnanimity and loyalty to the white people saved the infant settlements on the Watanga and Holston many tragic blows from her tribe.
John Hildebrand
JOHN HILDEBRAND's issue by his first marriage:
(1) Michael Hildebrand, who married Nannie Martin and Lucy____. (2) Peter Hildebrand who married Elizabeth Harlan. (3) George Hildebrand, who married Susannah Graves. (4) John Hildebrand, who married Micatiah Terrapin. (5) Sarah Hildebrand, who married Black Coat and Young Wolf.
Issue by second marriage:
(6) Nannie Hildebrand, who married Hiram McCreary. (7) David Hildebrand, who married Elizabeth McCarty. (8) Mary Hildebrand, who married Mr. Hambright and Daniel Hafer. (9) Elizabeth Hildebrand, who married Mr. Coody.
Michael Hildebrand
Michael Hildebrand, oldest son of John Hildebrand, was born in North Carolina in 1781. He married first Nannie (or Nancy) Martin, who was a daughter of Col Joseph Martin and Elizabeth Ward, daughter of the famous Cherokee "beloved woman," Nancy Ward.
Michael Hildebrand settled on Okoa creek in that part of the Cherokee Nation which later became Polk county, Tennessee, where he was listed in the Cherokee census of 1835 as head of a family of eight people. He owned at that time five slaves, two mills, one ferryboat and had 228 acres of land under cultivation. He married second Lucy ___, by whom he had one son, whose name was Michael, and appears in the federal census of 1850 as a resident of Polk county, aged 68 years. His wife, Lucy Hildebrand, was 56 years old and his son, Michael, was 8 years old.
Peter Hildebrand
Peter Hildebrand, second son of John Hildebrand, was born May 10, 1782, and died Dec 11, 1851, in the old Indian territory. He married Elizabeth Harlan, born Aug 15, 1793; died Sept 19, 1826, daughter of Ellis Harlan, a noted Indian trader among the Cherokees who came from Pennsylvania, and Catherine Ward, daughter of Nancy Ward, the Cherokee prophetess, and Bryant Ward, an English trader.
Peter Hildebrand lived in what is now Polk county, Tennessee, where he acquired considerable property and reared a large family. When the Cherokees moved west in 1838 he was conductor of Company 12, which set out Oct 23, 1838, and arrived at its destination March 25, 1839. His company consisted of about 1,700 persons, 705 riding horses and eighty-eight wagons and teams. Most of his children settled in what is now Oklahoma.
"Uncle Jack" Hildebrand
John Walker Hildebrand, son of Peter and Elizabeth (Marian) Hildebrand, was born Feb 23, 1818, in that part of the Cherokee nation now Polk county, Tennessee, at the Cherokee village of "Uwaga-hi," commonly called Ocoee, and died Sept 17, 1910, in Polk county, Tennessee.
He was known as "uncle Jack" among a large circle of friends and it was from his interesting recollections of happenings in the early days that much of the local history of Polk county has been preserved. As a child of 4 years he attended the funeral of his great-grandmother, Nancy Ward, the famous Cherokee woman whose romantic life has become a part of the history of her tribe, and it was he who located her grave in Polk county, which was marked in 1923 by the Nancy Ward chapter of the D.A.R.
John Walker Hildebrand moved to the Indian territory in 1842, but returned to his former home in Polk county, Tennessee, in 1844, where he spent the remainder of his life. While on a hunting trip on Chilhowee mountain, in company with James C, Donaldson, they discovered a yellowish stream of water trickling over a ledge of rocks, which they traced under the leaves until they located the source which later became noted as the popular Benton Springs.
"Uwaga-hi" or Ocoee, the Cherokee village where John Hildebrand was born, takes its name from the Cherokee word meaning "apricot place" or "may-pop" and was formerly an important settlement on the Ocoee river a mile northwest of Benton, located on the old Indian war-path. John W. Hildebrand married Eliza J. White, born Aug 16, 1821; died March 15, 1894.
George W. Hildebrand
George W. Hildebrand, son of John Hildebrand, was born about 1784. He married Susannah Graves, who was of Cherokee descent.
Nannie Hildebrand, first child of John Hildebrand, Sr. and his Cherokee wife, Susannah Woman Catcher, married Hiram McCreary, by whom she had several children.
David Hildebrand, son of John Hildebrand, Sr., married Elizabeth McCarty. Mary Hildebrand, daughter of John Hildebrand Sr. and Susannah Woman Catcher, married first, Mr. Hambright; second, Daniel Hafer. The descendants of John Hildebrand to the third generation are shown in the figure.
Ona Hildebrand
Notes for Ona Hildebrand: