Briartown Cemetery



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According to C. W. "Dub" West in his book Persons and Places In Indian Territory (Muskogee, Ok: Thomason Printing Co. 1974) Spring Frog was famous as a nauturalist having served as a guide to the renowned bird authority Audubon. According to the Bureau of American Ethnology, he was born in the north side of Chickamaugua Creek at the edge of Lookout Mountain near Chattanooga, Tennessee in 1754. The log cabin in which he was born is in the wildlife sactuary of the Chattanooga Audubon Society.

A contemporary of Sequoyah, Spring Frog was also prominent as a sportsman, especially for his skill in hunting and trapping and also a skilled ball player.

Spring Frog was one of the most feverent advocates of peace among the Cherokees but he fought under Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812 and was a leader of a band of Cherokees which punished an outlaw group of Osage.

Spring Frog came to what was later to be Indian Territory in the early migration of 1817 and 1818. He was one of the signers of the first law passed in the new land providing for a Light Horse Company to preserve the peace, signing as "one of the Chiefs, Headmen, and Warriors of the Cherokee Nation".

According to the September, 1930 Chronicles of Oklahoma Spring Frog, Tooantah, Chief of the Cherokees convened the council and led a party of Osages against the Osages in the Strawberry Moon of 1818.

Spring Frog eventually settled on a farm near Briartown and spent his declining years in agricultural pursuits.




Photos by Sue Tolbert




Background Graphics by Barbara's Background Graphics


©Sue Tolbert 2003