Where did Rachel live before she came to Tennessee?
Rachel was born in Pittsylvania County, Virginia. Her father was a member of the Virginia legislature, a surveyor, a militia leader, a landowner, and an iron manufacturer. He moved his family to East Tennessee in 1779 with the intention of joining James Robertson in an expedition to settle in the middle Tennessee area. Rachel joined her father on the flatboat “Adventure,” along with other women, children, and men as they traveled the Holston, Tennessee, Ohio, and Cumberland rivers until they reached the “French Lick,” where the Robertson party awaited them, on April 24, 1780.
