BATTLE CREEK COMMUNITY

 

Battle Creek Community is located near Coopertown.  A post office was started in 1851.  Coopertown derived its name from a large cooper shop where barrels were made for the Red River Mills.  In 1886, Goodspeed lists the businesses as Davis & Son and Hinkle & Glover, general merchandise, R. G. Glover, drugs; F. M. Watts, steam flour mill; J. J. Reeves, undertaking; Scruggs & Reeves, blacksmithing; and S. W. Frey and R. G. Glover, physicians.

 

Caleb Winters and his father, Moses Winters made the overland trip as part of the James Robertson party to present day Nashville by traveling through Cumberland Gap, on through Central Kentucky, fording streams, over mountains and following Indian trails until they finally arrived at the present site of Nashville in December 1779.  Work was started at once to build forts and cabins to have ready when the boats arrived.  Caleb Winters hunted up and down the creek valley that bears his name located near Coopertown.  GoodspeedÂ’s History of Tennessee published in 1886 states that Caleb Winters settled on this land in 1781 and lived in a cave and subsisted on the game which he killed.  Also in this same party with James Robertson were gentlemen by the name of Gower.  The late Harold Gower, a deacon at Battle Creek Church, was a direct descendant of the Gower families that came with James Robertson.

 

David Nave built a log cabin in 1825 on the corner at the cross roads of present day Coopertown, and thus gave his name to the early village.  A stage line connecting Nashville and Hopkinsville ran through NaveÂ’s Crossroads, Turnersville and Port Royal.  In 1850, the Sons of Temperance erected a two-story log house with a storehouse below and a hall above at the crossroads at Coopertown.  Coopertown was the site of the first Church of Christ in the county.

 

In the late 1800s the Union Church at Coopertown was established for nondenominational worship.  Battle Creek Baptist, Mt. Zion Methodist, Mt. Sharon Presbyterian and HeadÂ’s Free Will Baptist were all part owners of the Union Church and each denomination had a time to worship.  Mrs. Ruth Fyke said her mother, Gertrude Cobbs, played the organ at Union Church in the early 1900s.  She also said many commented on the beautiful woodwork in this church.  Mrs. Mary Ellen Walker said her Mother had her graduation service held at Union church.  In later years, services were discontinued because the church needed much repair.  In 1961, representatives from the active churches voted to sell the property and divide the proceeds.

 

Lone Star School was located near the Talton McMahan home located on Hollis Creek Road.  Also located on this road was a sawmill, grist mill and Lone Star Post Office.

 

The Watts School was located on Battle Creek Road on the present J.  L. Watts farm.

 

 

 

 

 

BATTLE CREEK MASSACRE

 

Col. John Donelson and his party arrived in present day Montgomery County on the 22^nd of December 1779, with the destination of the majority of the boats being French Lick Springs, now Nashville.  After a perilous journey of nearly four months down the Tennessee, up the Ohio and Cumberland, through a country inhabited by hostile Indians, during one of the severest winters on record, they reached the mouth of the Red River, just below the present site of Clarksville on April 12, 1780.  They were anxious to join Captain James Robertson and his company who had built a station and fort at the “bluffs” with cabins within the stockade for many people.

 

Moses Renfro and family and Joseph Renfro decided to leave the group and settle on the banks of Red River.  Moses, Isaac, Joseph and James Renfro, Nathan and Solomon Turpin, Isaac Mayfield, James Hollis, James Johns and a widow named Jones, with their respective families made up this settlement known as “RenfroÂ’s Station.”  Not long afterwards, in June or July of 1780, a party of Choctaws and Chickasaws killed and scalped Nathan Turpin and another man at the station.  They felt their isolation and inadequate means of defense and proposed to go to FreelandÂ’s Station or EatonÂ’s Station.  Concealing as many of their goods they could not carry, they set upon their journey, encamping about dusk. At this time, some of the party decided to return for more of their personal effects.  By break of day the next morning, they were ready to resume their journey.  By night of the second day they reached and encamped upon a small stream since known as Battle Creek, about two miles north of Sycamore Creek in what is now Robertson County.  Preparing to resume their journey early the next morning, Joseph Renfro went to the spring to get a drink and was fired upon by the Indians, who lay concealed in the bushes.  About twenty persons were killed, among them Joseph Renfro and James Johns, with his wife and family.  The Indians ripped up their beds and took all the horses and other movable property.  It is believed that some of those who did not return awaited the return of the party with the goods, and were thus included in the general massacre, while other proceeded on their journey to the upper settlements, reaching their destination in safety.  Of those who were attacked, only one escaped to tell the sad tale.  This was Mrs. Jones, who, by following the trail of the first party of fugitives, was enabled to reach EatonÂ’s Station in safety after a perilous journey of about twenty miles through bushes and underbrush.  This was the first massacre of any magnitude which occurred in the settlements near the Cumberland, and resulted in the temporary abandonment of RenfroÂ’s Station.