Re: History of Drakes Creek
In "The Great Leap Westward: A History of Sumner County" by Walter T. Durham, the author gives this account: "Nearer the camp, Joseph Drake came upon a salt lick and a pond near a south-flowing creek, which were designated Drake's Lick, Drake's Pond and Drake's Creek." The author on pages 25 and 26 describes events from the fall of 1771 to August 1772. Joseph Drake is mentioned with several other "long hunters". The camp referred to is mentioned as Station Camp Creek. The author gives a footnote to Haywood's C & P, p. 79 for the above reference to Drake's Creek. A similar account is given in Ramsey's Annals of Tennessee on pages 105 and 106: "The party extended their hunting and exploring excursions--formed a station camp upon a creek, which is still known as Station Camp Creek--each hunter made a discovery, and time has signalized it with the discoverer's name. Thus, Drake's Pond, Drake's Lick, Bledsoe's Lick, Mansco's Lick, etc." My ancestry is in the Trammell line (Sampson Trammell who settled in Allen County near the Tennessee state line) and I have found accounts of a Trammell and Mason being killed by Indians and Trammell's Fork being thusly named as well as accounts of a Trammell and Drake being killed with Trammell's Fork and Drake's Fork so named. Don't know whether that's true or not. I do know that Nicholas Trammell, one of the signers of the Cumberland Compact, had a land grant at Station Camp Creek and was killed by Indians in 1784. Hopes this helps. Good luck on your research.
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