Willis, Joseph - Apostle to the Opelousas; St. Landry par., Louisiana Submitter: Randy Willis Date: July 2001 ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** TIPS FOR SEARCHING RECORDS ON THE INTERNET Netscape & Ms Explorer users: If searching for a particular surname, locality or date while going through the records in the archives or anywhere....try these few steps: 1. Go to the top of the report you are searching. 2. Click on EDIT at the top of your screen. 3. Next click on FIND in the edit menu. 4. When the square pops up, enter what you are looking for in the FIND WHAT ___________blank. 5. Click on DIRECTION __DOWN. 6. And last click on FIND NEXT and continue to click on FIND NEXT until you reach the end of the report. This should highlight the item that you indicated in "find what" every place it appears in the report. You must continue to click on FIND NEXT till you reach the end of the report to see all of the locations of the item indicated. JOSEPH WILLIS The Apostle to the Opelousas The First Baptist Preacher of the Gospel of Jesus Christ West of the Mississippi River Joseph Willis’ monument at his grave reads: “First Baptist Preacher of the Word West of the Mississippi River.” This fact is of historical interest but is of lesser importance when compared to this remarkable man’s life. His life reads as a history book and a dramatic play performed on the stage of life. He was born a Cherokee Indian slave to his own father. His family took him to court to deprive him of his inheritance – a battle that involved the governor of the state. He fought in the Revolutionary War under the most colorful of all the American generals, Francis Marion, “The Swamp Fox.” He crossed the most hostile country and entered a land under a foreign government while the dreaded “Black Code” was in effect. He preached a message there that put him in constant danger for his life. He fought racial and religious prejudice of the most dangerous kind. He lost three wives and several children in the wilderness but never wavered in his belief in God. But our story does not begin here. It begins in Southeast Virginia in the Chesapeake Bay area, the same area that the pilgrims first settled. There in the 1740’s, in Isle of Wight County and Nansemond County (now the city of Suffolk) was the place that Joseph Willis’ father, three uncles and one aunt called home. The family had come to America from Devonshire, England. I believe, but I cannot prove it beyond the shadow of a doubt, the English father of these five children was Benjamin Willis, Jr. (born circa 1690) and the grandfather was Benjamin Willis, Sr. (born circa 1670). The four Willis brothers were Joseph’s father Agerton Willis (born circa 1727; died 1777), and his brothers Daniel Willis (born circa 1716; died 1785), Benjamin Willis III (born circa 1725; died 1785), and George Willis (born circa 1730). The one known sister of these four brothers was Joanna Willis (born circa 1730; died 1791). Joanna married James Council (born circa 1716) of Isle of Wight County, Virginia in about 1751. James was the son of John Council and Benjamin Willis Jr.’s sister Josie Willis (born circa 1681), and grandson of Hodges Council. Hodges had also immigrated from Devonshire, England to America. In the early 1750’s, the family including James and Joanna moved south. Between 1740 and 1770, hundreds of Virginians moved to North Carolina as a result of the Virginia legislature passing a law requiring all non-residents to acquire ten acres of land for each head of stock ranging in the colony or to become citizens. Thus the family left Virginia, probably by sea, and landed down the coast at New Hanover (now named Wilmington), North Carolina. New Hanover had North Carolina’s most navigable seaport and even though it was not used much for transatlantic trade, this meant the area of the state was easily accessible from all other English settlements along the coast. Well-to-do North Carolina Planters It was here that Joseph’s father, Agerton, first bought land in North Carolina. On December 13, 1754, he purchased 300 acres in New Hanover in what is now southeastern Pender County “on the East Side of a Branch of Long Creek.” Pender was not established until 1874. New Hanover included what is now Pender and parts of Brunswick County. Agerton was taxed on this property the next year, 1755. There were only 362 white people taxed in New Hanover that year. About twenty families owned a great number of slaves there during that time. These families and others like them in southeastern North Carolina controlled the affairs of the counties in which they lived and set the standards of morals and religion. Between 1755 and 1758, Agerton moved to Bladen County, just to the northeast. Daniel, Benjamin and Joanna and her husband James Council, had been living there since 1753. It was there between 1755 and 1758, that Agerton’s only son, Joseph, was born. Joseph would someday play a major roll in early Louisiana Baptist history. Most of the early Bladen County deeds before 1784 were lost due to a series of fires; thus we are unable to find Agerton’s first purchase of land in Bladen County. Nevertheless a description of the bulk of his lands can be gleaned from later deeds. He purchased 640 acres from his brother Daniel on May 21, 1762, on the West Side of the Northwest Cape Fear River. He then purchased an additional 2,560 acres between October 1766 and May 1773, which was on both sides of the Northwest Cape Fear River near Goodman’s Swamp. Altogether, Agerton’s holdings formed a very large and nearly contiguous extent of land on both sides of the Northwest Cape Fear River near the current Cumberland County line in present-day northwest Bladen County. Agerton, Daniel, Benjamin, James, and Joanna were neighbors on the Northwest Cape Fear River. The other brother, George Willis, came first to New Hanover, obtaining a land grant on Widow Creek in 1761 and selling out in 1767. He then moved to Robeson County (formerly part of Bladen County) not very far west from the rest of the family. The four brothers were all well-to-do planters with large land holdings. As a planter, Agerton owned slaves many of which were Indian. At this time in North Carolina many slaves were Indian; in fact as late as the 1780’s in North Carolina a third of all slaves were Indian. Indians were made slaves by the whites from the very beginning. A Trail of Tears It was to a Cherokee Indian slave of Agerton’s that his only son, Joseph, was born. The relationship of Agerton and Joseph’s mother can only be speculation, but under the North Carolina laws of 1741 all interracial marriages were illegal. Since Joseph’s mother was a slave he was born to a slave status. It is clear that his father considered him as an only son and loved him as one. This fact did not sit well with some other members of the family. Clearly, Agerton intended to free Joseph, but this presented great legal problems. The laws of 1741 in North Carolina stated in “An Act Concerning Servants and Slaves” “That no Negro or Mulatto Slaves shall be set free, upon any Pretense whatsoever, except for meritorious Services, to be adjudged and allowed of by the County Court and License thereupon first had and obtained.” In her book, North Carolina Indian Records, Donna Spindel writes about the Indians of this area of the state: “The Lumbee Indians, most of whom reside in Robeson County, constitute the largest group of Indians in eastern North Carolina. Although their exact origin is a complex matter, they are undoubtedly the descendants of several tribes that occupied eastern Carolina during the earliest days of white settlement. Living along the Pee Dee and Lumber rivers in present-day Robeson and adjacent counties, these Indians of mixed blood were officially designated as Lumbees by the General Assembly in 1956. …Most of the Indians have Anglo-Saxon names and they are generally designated as ‘black’ or ‘mulatto’ in nineteenth-century documents; for example, in the U.S. Censuses of 1850-1880, the designation for Lumbee families is usually ‘mulatto.” According to one of North Carolina’s top genealogists and historians, the late William Perry Johnson, “ . . . In North Carolina, American Indians up until Mid 1880’s, were labeled Mulattos…” Joseph’s mother may have very well been related to these Indians. Joseph could not be freed solely by Agerton’s wishes. Agerton was in poor health and Joseph was still too young to prove “meritorious Services,” therefore Agerton attempted to free him through his will written September 18, 1776, and also to bequeath to him most of his property. Just eighty days before this will was written, the Declaration of Independence was signed and times were, to say the least, chaotic. This was not the time to get anything through the court and time was running out, for Agerton would be dead within a year. My Cousin’s Keeper The problem for Joseph was that the family was advised that this part of the will could be overturned, and thus, Joseph would not be freed according to his father’s wishes. This was an important legal point for a slave could not legally inherit real estate at this time in North Carolina. Therefore, if Joseph was not freed he could not be a legal heir. Since Agerton had no other children, this would make his eldest brother “legal heir at law” under the laws of primogeniture in effect until 1784. Agerton had intended the trustee to obtain Joseph’s freedom and then he could obtain his inheritance, but Agerton’s brother Daniel ignored these wishes as the following letter to the governor of North Carolina reveals: Daniel Willis Senr. To Gov. Caswell Respecting Admtn. & C. (From MS Records in Office of Secretary of State.) “Oct. 10th 1777. MAY IT PLEASE YOUR EXCELLENCY I have a small favr. [sic] to beg if your Excellency will be pleased to grant it Viz. as my Deceas’d [sic] Brother Agerton Willis gave the graitest [sic] Part of his Estate to his Molata [sic] boy Joseph and as he is a born slave & not set free Agreeable to Law my Brothers heirs are not satisfied that he shall have it. I am One of the Exectrs. [sic] and by Mr. M. Grice’ s Directions have the Estate in my possession as the Trustee Refused giving Security that the boy should have it when off [sic] Age If he Could Inherit it and now this seting [sic] of counsel some of them Intends to Apply for Administration as graitest [sic] Credittors [sic]. I am my Brothers heir at Law and if Administration is to be obtained I will apply myself Before the Rise of the Counsel and begg [sic] your Excellency will not grant it to any off [sic] them Untill [sic] I Come your Excellency’s Compliance will graitly [sic] Oblige your most Obedient Humble Servt [sic] to Command DAN. WILLIS, SEN. Pray Excuse my freedm. [sic]” The term “Molata boy” used by Daniel could indicate his attitude toward Joseph, although virtually all Indians of mixed-blood were known as mulattos in North Carolina at that time. The following bit of history can graphically illustrate the strong feelings of hate and prejudice toward Indians. Approximately seventy years after Joseph was born, President Andrew Jackson persuaded Congress in 1829 to pass a bill that ordered all Indian tribes of the South to be moved west of the Mississippi River. The Cherokees appealed to the Supreme Court and Chief Justice John Marshall upheld their claim that there was no constitutional right to remove them from their ancestral lands. Jackson called this decision “too preposterous,” then ignored the Supreme Court and ordered the army to “get them out.” The Cherokees were then driven out on the appropriately named “Trail of Tears” to Oklahoma. Along the way a quarter of them died. The Cherokees were one of the so-called Five Civilized Tribes and were the most advanced of all Indians with their own road system and libraries before any white person came into contact with them. They considered all men to be brothers, yet this was of little importance to many of that day. Daniel’s petition to the court also reveals that Joseph was not of legal age as of the date of the will, September 18, 1776. Legal age was then twenty-one; therefore, Joseph could not have been born before September 18, 1755 as some have supposed. It should also be pointed out that technically this case should have proceeded to the District Superior Court at Wilmington, but this court was in abeyance until 1778 following the collapse of the Court Law in November 1772. Therefore, Daniel was writing to the Governor and Council instead. The Bladen County tax list of 1784 indicates that the case had been decided by then since Agerton’s property was taxed in that year under different family member’s names. Even though Agerton’s will had been probated and Joseph was living as if he were free, as he had always done, he was still technically a slave. In November of 1787, Joseph’s first cousin John Willis, by then a member of the General Assembly of North Carolina and ironically the eldest son of Daniel, introduced a “bill to emancipate Joseph, a Mulatto Slave, the property of the Estate of Agerton Willis, late of Bladen, deceased.” The bill passed its third reading on December 6, 1787, and Joseph was free. The following quotes from the settlement listed in the final act are of interest: “Whereas, Agerton Willis, late of Bladen County…did by his last will and testament devise to the said Joseph his freedom and emancipation, and did also give unto the said Joseph a considerable property, both real and personal: And whereas the executor and next of kin to the said Joseph did in pursuance of the said will take counsel thereon, and were well advised that the same could not by any means take effect, but would be of prejudice to the said slave and subject him still as property of the said Agerton Willis; whereupon the said executor and next of kin, together with the heirs of the said Agerton Willis, deceased, did cause a fair and equal distribution of the said estate, as well as do equity and justice in the said case to the said Joseph, as in pursuance of their natural love and affection to the said Agerton, and did resolve on the freedom of the said Joseph and to give an equal proportion of the said estate…Joseph Willis shall henceforward be entitled to all the rights and privileges of a free person of mixed blood: Provided nevertheless, That this act shall not extend to enable the said Joseph by himself or attorney, or any other person in trust for him, in any manner to commence or prosecute any suit or suits for any other property but such as may be given him by this act…” There is a lot revealed in this document. First, note that they call themselves the “next of kin” to the said Joseph. The “fair and equal distribution” that is spoken of turns out to be considerably less than the “graitest Part” mentioned in Daniel’s letter. A later deed reveals that Joseph got 320 acres as settlement and the above document indicates he also received some personal property as “consideration” for what “…he may have acquired by his own industry…” As we are about to see, Joseph Willis could certainly relate to another Joseph, from the Bible, who later in his life would say “they meant it for evil but God meant it for good.” The other property that Joseph should have received is described as “unbequeathed lands of Agerton” in later deeds because this part of the will was overturned. These deeds reveal that Joseph should have received at least 2,490 acres and other deeds are no doubt lost. There was also a vast amount of personal property that Joseph did not get. There was also an additional 970 acres deeded directly to other members of the family. Agerton’s will is lost and this information is gleaned from other documents and later deeds. Nothing but a Horse, Bridle and Saddle Many years later in Louisiana, Joseph would tell his grandchildren, Polk and Olive Willis, who were tending to him in his last months, that he left North Carolina “with nothing but a horse, bridle and saddle.” Polk and Olive later told their nephew Greene Strother this fact and Greene Strother told me (also see Greene Strother’s Unpublished Th.M. thesis About Joseph Willis and his book: The Kingdom Is Coming). Different grandchildren also asked him from time to time about the family, and he would tell how his mother was Cherokee Indian and his father was English, and that he was born in Bladen County, North Carolina. Family tradition is consistent among all the different branches of the family that I have traced. Every branch of the family, including some that have had no contact during the twentieth century, has this identical family tradition handed down. Whatever became of Joseph’s first cousin, John Willis, who helped emancipate him? He became a member of the General Assembly of North Carolina in 1782, 1787, 1789 and 1791, a member of the Senate in 1794, and of the House of Representatives in 1795. In the same year that he helped obtain Joseph’s “legal freedom,” 1787, he was appointed one of a committee of five from North Carolina to ratify the Constitution of the United States. This was done just in time for North Carolina to enter the Union as the twelfth state and to assist in the election of George Washington as the first President. In 1795, Governor Samuel Ashe commissioned John Willis as a Brigadier General in the 4th Brigade of the Militia Continental Army. The land that the county seat of Robeson County, North Carolina (Lumberton), is located on was donated by him from his Red Bluff Plantation. The area, in recent years, has been more infamous as the location for the trial of the men responsible for the death of the father of basketball star Michael Jordon. A statue of General John Willis stands there today. John Willis moved to Natchez, Mississippi, in about 1800 and died April 3, 1802. He is buried behind the Natchez Cathedral. His son Thomas was almost elected Attorney General of Louisiana. The Swamp Fox It was during these trying times for Joseph that the Revolutionary War began. Joseph and a friend of his from Bladen County, Ezekiel O’Quin, left for South Carolina to join up with General Francis Marion, the “Swamp Fox.” Marion operated out of the swampy forest of the Pedee region in the lower part of South Carolina. His strategy was to surprise the enemy, cut his supply lines, kill their men and release any American prisoners they might have. He and his men then retreated swiftly back again to the thick recesses of the deep swamps. They were very effective and their fame was widespread. They also took great pride in themselves. Marion’s orderly book states, “Every officer to provide himself with a blue coatee, faced and cuffed with scarlet cloth, and lined with scarlet; white buttons; and a white waistcoat and breeches…also, a cap and a black feather…” Joseph would later proudly tell the family, “We were called Marion men.” The lessons learned with Marion would serve him well his entire life. Joseph was proud of his service under Marion for at the time in Bladen County in 1777, it was estimated that two-thirds of the people were Tories. An oath of allegiance to the state was required at that time in North Carolina and those refusing to take it were required to leave the state within sixty days. It was in South Carolina, with the Marion men, that Joseph would become a friend with Richard Curtis, Jr. Curtis was to play a major role in Joseph’s decision to go west. Later, in 1791, Curtis would become the first Baptist minister to establish a church in Mississippi. Ezekiel O’Quin would later follow Joseph to Louisiana as the second Baptist minister west of the Mississippi River in Louisiana. In 1786, part of Bladen County became Robeson County and Ezekiel is listed as the head of a household there in 1790. Early Louisiana author, W. E. Paxton, in his book A History of the Baptist of Louisiana, from the Earliest Times to the Present (1888), would write many years later that Ezekiel was born in 1781, and every major author that followed used that date. Of course, this could not be true if he fought in the Revolutionary War and was a head of a household in 1790. Ezekiel’s son John also wrote that Ezekiel “grew up in the same area as Joseph.” Perhaps the Ezekiel listed in the 1790 census was his father. Soon after the war Joseph would marry Rachel Bradford. Rachel was born about 1762. Their first child, Agerton Willis, was born circa 1785, and was named after Joseph’s father Agerton. I’m a descendant of this son. Then Mary Willis was born about 1787. Both children were born in North Carolina. Later Louisiana census records confirm North Carolina as their place of birth. The last mention of Joseph in North Carolina was in the 1788 tax list of Bladen County. He was listed with 320 acres. Taxed in the same district in 1784 was a William Bradford, whom I suspect was Rachel’s father. By 1790 Joseph was living with Rachel in Cheraws County (now Marlboro, Chesterfield and Darlington Counties), South Carolina, just southwest of the Bladen, across the state line. The 1790 census lists him as the head of the household with two females and one male over 16. It was also here that Rachel died about 1794; she would have only been about 32 years old. It is of interest to note that Richard Curtis, Sr. was on a jury list in 1779 for the Cheraws District. This indicates that the Curtis family lived in this area for at least a short while. Other historians have stated that the family was living in southern South Carolina at this time. By 1794 Joseph had moved to Greenville County (the Washington Circuit Court District), South Carolina, and purchased 174 acres on the south side of the Reedy River on May 3, 1794. Two adjoining tracts of 226 acres were purchased on August 16, 1794, and 200 acres were purchased on May 8, 1775, on the Reedy River. These three tracts totaled 600 acres. The 226 acres had rent houses and orchards on it. These deeds also give us the name of Joseph’s second wife, Sarah an Irish woman. In South Carolina two more “known children” were born to Joseph and Rachel: Joseph Willis, Jr., born about 1792 and Rachel’s last child named after her, Rachel Willis, born circa 1794. Joseph’s wife Rachel may well have died in childbirth. Also, two children were born in South Carolina to Joseph and Sarah: Jemima Willis born circa 1796, and Sarah’s last child named after her, Sarah Willis born 1798 (later married Nathaniel West). Sarah is called Joseph’s wife in a deed dated August 8, 1799, but died soon thereafter. Joseph lost two wives in about six years. These were the first of a series of personal tragedies. A Baptist Through & Through In Greenville County, South Carolina Joseph became more active in the church joining the Main Saluda Church. He attended the Bethel Association as a delegate from Main Saluda from 1794 to 1796 with church reports. Bethel Association was the most influential Baptist Association in the “Carolina Back Country” at that time. Main Saluda was declared extinct by 1797 and Joseph became a member of the Head of Enoree Baptist Church. Head of Enoree (known as Reedy River since 1841) was also a member of the Bethel Association. Joseph is listed in the Head of Enoree Chronicles, along with William Thurston, as an “outstanding member” of Head of Enoree. It was this same William Thurston that would buy Joseph’s 600 acres for $1,200 on August 8, 1799, after Joseph returned from a trip to Mississippi in 1798. It was also here at Head of Enoree that Joseph was first licensed to preach. After the 1798 trip to Mississippi, Joseph returned to South Carolina to move his family and sell his property. Never one to squander time, he helped in incorporating the “Head of Enoree Baptist Society” in 1799 before leaving. It seems that he tarried until the spring of 1800 to depart on his second trip west, thereby avoiding the winter weather. Joseph’s religious background seems to have been strongly influenced by the Separate Baptists in North Carolina as well as South Carolina, although he came into contact with other influences in both states. The Bethel Association, prior to 1804, held in general Calvinistic sentiments. The majority of Baptists that entered the South Carolina back country, which included Greenville County, were at first known as Separates. Another member of the Bethel Association in 1797 was William Ford. Later, in Louisiana, Joseph was closely associated with a William Prince Ford and gave his diary to him, but it seems this William Ford was originally from Kentucky. The Separates came from New England and were one of the effects of the Great Awakening led by Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield. This “new awareness” caused a division in the Congregational churches into groups called Old Lights and New Lights. The New Lights claimed the religion of the Old Lights had grown soulless and formal and no longer had the light of scriptural inspiration. Therefore, since the New Lights withdrew from the Congregational churches, the New Lights were known as Separates. The Separates had great missionary zeal and spread at a rapid pace to the other colonies. It was Shubal Stearns that led the Separates into North Carolina. He established Sandy Creek Church in Guilford (now Randolph) County in 1755. Stearns and his followers ministered mainly to the English settlers. Forty-two churches were established from Sandy Creek in seventeen years. An interesting side note is that just a few years before Joseph became a member at Head of Enoree, the pastor of Head of Enoree in 1793, Thomas Musick was excommunicated for immorality. This same man later organized the Fee Fee Baptist Church in Missouri in 1807 (according to their church history) located just across the Mississippi River near St. Louis. Fee Fee would certainly be the oldest Baptist church west of the Mississippi River in the entire United States if this were accurate. Calvary Baptist Church at Bayou Chicot was not established until 1812. Nevertheless, Musick did not preach west of the Mississippi River until several years after Joseph Willis and after the Louisiana Purchase. Mississippi Missionary As mentioned before, Joseph was a member of Head of Enoree in 1797. Late that year or the next, he made his first trip to Mississippi with Richard Curtis, Jr. This trip was made without his family, as was the custom of the time to venture farther west, find a safe place and then return for the family. W. E. Paxton records the results of this first trip: “…They sought not in vain, for soon after their return they were visited by William Thompson, who preached unto them the Gospel of our God: and on the first Saturday in October, 1798, came William Thompson, Richard Curtis and Joseph Willis, who constituted them into a church, subject to the government of the Cole's Creek church, calling the newly constituted arm of Cole's Creek, ‘The Baptist Church on Buffaloe.” This church was located near Woodville, Mississippi, near the Mississippi River east of Alexandria, Louisiana. Joseph returned for his family by 1799, but it would seem he might have made a trip across the river into Louisiana before this date since this is where he returned with his family. Curtis had already made one trip to this part of the country in 1780. In that year Richard Curtis, Jr. along with his parents, half-brother and three brothers, and all their wives, together with John Courtney and John Stampley and their wives, set out for Mississippi. Mississippi Baptist historian T. C. Schilling wrote that: “...two brothers by the name of Daniel and William Ogden and a man by the name of Perkins, with their families, most of whom were Baptists” were also along on this first trip. The late Dr. Greene Strother, maternal great-grandson of Joseph Willis, told me that it was family tradition in his family that Joseph's first trip into Louisiana was in search of a Willis Perkins. Years later in Louisiana (1833), a Willis Perkins is a member of Occupy Baptist Church while Joseph was pastor. Census records reveal that this Willis Perkins would have had to be a son of the latter. The Curtises, like the Willises, were originally from Virginia. W. E. Paxton wrote: “The Curtises were known to be Marion men, and when not in active service, they were not permitted to enjoy the society of their families, but they were hunted like wild beasts from their hiding places in the swamps of Pedee.” They were a thorn in the side of the British and their Tory neighbors. Paxton continued: “They left South Carolina in the spring of 1780 traveling by land to the northeastern corner of Tennessee. There they built three flat boats and when the Holston River reached sufficient depth toward the end of that year, they set out for the Natchez country of Mississippi by way of the Holston, Tennessee, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers. Those mentioned above traveled on the first two boats; the names of those on the last boat are not known. Those in the last boat had contracted smallpox and were required to travel a few hundred yards behind the other two boats. Somewhere near the Clinch River, on a bend in the Tennessee River near the northwestern corner of Georgia, they were attacked by Cherokee Indians. The first two boats escaped, but the third boat was captured. The price paid for this attack was high, for the Indians contracted smallpox from them and many died.” “Those on the first two boats continued on their voyage and landed safely at the mouth of Cole's creek about 18 miles above Natchez by land. Here in this part of the state they lived. They called Richard Curtis, Jr., who was licensed to preach in S. Carolina, as their preacher. He would later organize the first Baptist Church in Mississippi, in 1791, called Sa1em. As time passed the population increased. Some were Baptists such as William Chaney from South Carolina and his son Bailey. A preacher from Georgia by the name of Harigail also arrived here and zealously denounced the ‘corruptions of Romanism.’ This, along with the conversion of a Spanish Catholic by the name of Stephen d'Alvoy, brought the wrath of the Spanish authorities. To make an example of d'Alvoy and Curtis, they decided to arrest them and send them to the silver mines in Mexico. Warned of this plan, d'Alvoy and Curtis and a man by the name of Bill Hamberlin fled to South Carolina, arriving in the fall of 1795. Harigail also escaped and fled this area.” Paxton said that the country between Mississippi and South Carolina was “then infested by hostile Indians.” It is for this reason and others, I believe, that Curtis brought Joseph Willis with him when he returned to Mississippi in 1798, and the fact that Joseph was a licensed Baptist preacher and Curtis was an ordained Baptist preacher. Curtis also knew well Joseph Willis’ courage under fire since both were Marion men in the Revolutionary War. It also seems likely that Joseph knew at least part of the Cherokee language since he was half Cherokee, an asset that could be of great help if the Cherokees were encountered again on the way to Mississippi.