The early history of the colonies and “new settlements” in North America is and has been for many years a fascinating field for writers; and it must be confessed that too often a little incident or tradition has been so magnified by a too vivid imagination that it has appeared in print as a very readable but colossal falsehood. It is also lamentable that the plain, unvarnished truth of history has, in many instances, been so colored and distorted in the effort to make it romantic, that many persons who could have contributed much valuable information in the way of simple facts have not done so, because of a lack of that faculty of imagination which some writers possess to such a degree that they can inform you beforehand that they are going to tell you a lie--in part, at least--and yet will tell it in such beautiful language and in so smooth and plausible a way as to make you believe the whole story. The Tennessee pioneers did not have any one with them in their earliest days to write an account of their experiences, or to portray their lives and characters; nor did they have any newspapers to make a record of their doings in the business concerns and affairs of life; and if they wrote any letters on these matters, they have not been preserved. They had, however, at Jonesboro, a “County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions,” in which they made and left a record showing much that they did, and from which, even at this late day, we can get a very clear insight into their views as to the duties and responsibilities of citizenship, the power and duty of courts, as well as their notions concerning the business and social relations of life, and indeed on all matters which, in their judgment, pertained in any way to the peace, good fame and welfare of the community and of individuals. I shall, therefore, quote literally much from these old original records kept in Washington county--the quotations being taken from the records of that county only, for the reason that it was the first county established and organized in what is now Tennessee, and included for quite a time all of the early settlements in what is commonly known as “upper East Tennessee.” The same character of entries will no doubt be found in the old records kept in Sullivan, Greene, Davidson, Hawkins, Sumner, Tennessee and Knox counties, in all of which Jackson practised as an attorney or presided as a judge. The proceedings in the courts of the counties named, especially those that will be set out, will be of interest not alone to Tennesseans, but also to the descendants, scattered throughout the southwest and west, of the men who made these records.