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Chapter 3 The Cavetts The Cavetts were among the thousands of white settlers who moved south in the valleys of the Appalachian Mountains after the British victory in the French and Indian War. According to Cavett family tradition (also spelled Cavet, Cavit, Cavitt, and Calvit on early documents), the family originated in France, moving through England to settle in Ulster, Northern Ireland. Like so many of their Scots-Irish brethren, they emigrated to America, and in 1711, Richard Cavett was living in Paxton Township near Linglestown, Pennsylvania . Richard was killed by Indians in 1757 and was survived by his wife, Susannah Whitley Cavett and seven children, including a daughter Margaret and six sons: John, Moses, Alexander, Michael, Richard, and George. Moses and Alexander appear to have been very close, the former estimated to have been born ca. 1743 and the latter ca. 1746 in Goochland County, Virginia (Carter 2000). By 1763, Moses was living near Lexington, Virginia, and in February 1775, Moses and Alexander Cavett were in Fincastle County (later Botetourt County), Virginia, where they were appointed by the County Court to appraise an estate. Two years later, the brothers appear to have resided in what is now upper East Tennessee where they signed a petition in Washington County pertaining to the establishment of a courthouse in November 1777. It is possible that their older brother Joseph (John?) preceded them into the Tennessee country since a Joseph Calvit is listed on the 1776 Petition of the Watauga Association (Dixon 1976:75). Capt. Moses Cavett fought at the battle of King’s Mountain under the command of Col. Isaac Shelby on October 7, 1780 (Cavett n.d.). Moses’ son Richard recorded that: Shortly prior to that battle [King’s Mountain], tho then in my fifteenth year, I was enrolled in my father’s company, not by a 66 The Cavetts regular draft but from the exigencies of the settlement. I carried some clothing to Col. Shelby’s quarters and asked him to prevail on my father to let me go with them against the Tories. He spoke to my father on the subject but he refused because of the necessity of guarding the settlement from the cruel inroads and butcheries of the hostile Indians (Cavett n.d.). Between 1782 and 1790, land deeds record Moses and Alexander Cavett purchasing considerable acreage in what was then Sullivan County, North Carolina, on or near the Holston River (Knox County, Tennessee, Deed records 1782–1790). In 1777, the General Assembly of the State of North Carolina created Washington County, which roughly corresponded to the present boundaries of Tennessee. In 1778, a man named Alexander Cavil is listed on the Washington County List of Taxables (Alderman 1970:58). This is probably Alexander Cavett. Two years later, Washington County was again divided, the new county being named Sullivan (Rothrock, ed. 1946:42). At that time, the Holston River extended through what later became Knox County down to the confluence of the Little Tennessee River. Since the Cavett tracts were in Sullivan County, there is no clear evidence exactly when Alexander first moved to what is now Knox County, created in 1792 by Gov. William Blount. The first recorded land acquisition by Alexander Cavett in Knox County was 640 acres at the head of Sinking Creek, purchased from Thomas Hutchings in 1790, and afterwards he made improvements on the land until his death in 1793 (Tennessee Superior Court 1807). That Alexander Cavett was in Knox County by November 1792, is recorded in a summons for one Daniel Allen to appear as a witness in a civil suit between A. Cavett and Samuel Shipley in the Knox County Court of Pleas and Quarter sessions. Concerning a debt, the case was dismissed. Virtually nothing is known about Alexander Cavett’s immediate family except for what is found in the accounts of the massacre. One important clue is that on the first day of the Knox County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, July 16, 1792, the court received the oath of Alexander Cavett “that Susannah Cavett departed this life the 29th day of April 1792” (Rothrock, ed. 1946:51). If Susannah was Alexander Cavett’s wife, why would an oath that she died be required in the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions as to her death? Judge Carroll Ross wrote the author that: “my initial thought would be that, since there were no official death certificates in those days, any pleading or court proceeding that required the signatures...

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