Amongst those adventurous spirits was Lachlan McGillivray, a youth of good Scotch family, of Dumglass, Scotland. A few years found him a successful trader. On one of his visits to the Hickory Ground, a prominent Creek town on the Coosa, situated near the present site of Wetumpka, Alabama, he became acquainted with Sehoy Marchand, a young woman whose mother was a full blood of the Ho-tal-gee, or Wind family, and whose father was a French captain who had been murdered by mutineers at Fort Toulouse, a few miles from Hickory Ground. That meeting resulted in marriage. Shortly afterward, McGillivray made a home, and established a trading house, not far from where he had first met his Indian wife. Of that marriage, Alexander McGillivray was the first born, Sophia the next, and Jenette the third. The father became exceedingly prosperous, partly in consequence of his alliance with the chief family of the Creeks, and in a few years found himself the owner of two plantations on the Savannah river. His trading journeys, however, still had their attractions for him. When Alexander was fourteen years old he induced his wife to let the boy go with him to Charleston, and remain there to be educated. After having been instructed sufficiently for the purpose, he was placed in a counting-house; but having acquired a taste for learning, that occupation became intolerable to him. His father, accordingly, determined to yield to the bent of the boy’s mind, and found him a highly educated teacher in a clergyman of Charleston. With that assistance, and sedulous application, he became a Greek and Latin scholar, and besides, made rapid and extensive progress in other departments of knowledge. He appears to have been a student up to the age of thirty, which he reached about the year 1776. In that year he left Charleston, an educated man, to return to his people, whom he, a little semi-savage of fourteen, had left sixteen years before. The impelling motive to that movement probably was, that being like his father, a loyalist, residence in a rebel colony was no longer agreeable. Possibly, however, he had purposely deferred his return to the Indian nation until he had arrived at such an age as would justify him in looking to the position of Grand Chief. But, be that as it may, the time for his return was judiciously chosen, and consistently with that sagacity which characterized his whole life, of acting opportunely in all exigencies.