Berry Cawood was born in 1757 in Charles county Maryland. He
was the grandson of Cherokee Chief Keyatory. Keyatory signed the
Treaty of Lochabe in SC in 1770. In this treaty the Cherokees
relinquished claims to land in present day
Southwest West Virginia. His
Cawood family was famous during
England’s
Civil war in 1643.
In
1774, several families moved from Charles
county
MD moved to
Southwest VA on promise of free
land. Cawood’s family may have been apart of them. By 1778,
Cawood’s family is living in
Virginia. In June
1778, Cawood joined George Rogers Clark expedition to Kaskaskia.
They arrived at the British Fort on July 4th 1778.
Clark took the fort without
firing a shot. At Kaskaskia they rang a bell that looks similar
to the liberty
Bell in
Philadelphia
PA. This bell at
Kaskaskia is often called the liberty
Bell of the west.
On
February 4th, 1780, Cawood joined another of Clark’s
expeditions, this time to
Vincennes or
Fort
Sackville.
For 18 days, Cawood and Clark’s sharpshooters marched through
deep snow and frozen terrain. This march is often referred to
as the Impossible March because no ordinary man could march in
conditions such as this. Cawood was definitely no ordinary man.
On February 23, Cawood arrived at
Vincennes with
Clark.
Clark ordered the surrender of
the fort.
Col. Henry
Hamilton, commander of the Fort refused. Clark then brought two
Indians captured along the way to
Vincennes and had
the Indians killed in front of the British eyes. This terrified
Hamilton so much he
surrendered the fort without a shot. This made the second fort
Clark would capture without a
shot.
By
November 1780, Cawood was in
Washington
County
VA. He soon
married Nancy Scott. From this union they had 5 children. Cawood
joined the
Washington county
militia and stayed in the militia from 1780-1796. In December
1780, Cawood would join Sevier on a march to the Cherokee
capitol of Chota where he would burn it to the ground along with
the Indian villages of Tellico and Hiawassee. Cawood would gain
the reputation of a great Indian Fighter. It is ironic Cawood
would fight the Cherokee with his grandfather being a chief.
In
1800 Cawood moved to
Blount
County
TN. By
1810, Cawood had moved to Knox county Kentucky. In 1820, Cawood
moved to
Kentucky near
Samuel Howard. In 1825, Cawood moved near
Martin
Fork
Lake. Even
after moving to KY there were reports of Cawood still fighting
Indians making it safe for other settlers to move to
KY. In 1836, Nancy Scott died and
Cawood married Lucy Bailey. In 1848 at the age of 91 Cawood died
and was buried in
Cawood
KY, a city named
after him.
During the Civil war, descendents of Cawood in Owsley
county
KY were
killed by Union sympathizers.
Owsley
County sent
more troops to the Union army than any other county in KY.
In
1906, Three of Cawood’s descendents names appear on the Guion
Miller Rolls. They received compensation from the federal
government because their Cherokee ancestors were forced off of
their land in 1837. Cawood’s descendents are scattered all over
KY with a large concentration of them in Harlan and Bell County
KY Region