It will be remembered that the first permanent settlement in East Tennessee was on the banks of the Watauga River near the present Elizabethton; and that there, in 1780, the “Back-water men,” as the British Colonel, Ferguson, called them, gathered under Shelby, Sevier and Campbell for their patriotic military expedition to King’s Mountain. The natural surroundings of the spot are now attractive in summer. From the site of the Old Fort, which was built in early days for defence against the Indians on an elevation 300 yards south of the river, the eye may rest on the blue front of Holston Mountain, seven or eight miles distant. To the east is Lynn Mountain, three miles away; to the south is the blue outline of the Unaka and Roan mountains; in the southwest is the bold and craggy front of the Buffalo Mountain, that may easily be fancied to resemble an ancient castle of massive strength, and standing in solitude, its brow uplifted into the skies, impresses the mind of the spectator with a feeling of awe for its grandeur and majesty. And among all these mountains are pleasant vallies, through which flow the Doe River, Buffalo Creek, the Watauga River, Indian Creek, and twenty miles away, the Nolachucky River. The various features of the landscape combine to form a sublime and beautiful panorama. At a dinner party given at Memphis after the recent war ended, to members of the Mississippi Bar, Gen. N. B. Forest, of Confederate memory, intended, it is said, to administer in pleasantry a sharp stimulus to the rhetorical powers of his friend. Col. Landon C. Haynes, who was present and had the reputation of being one of Tennessee’s most brilliant orators. It was the habit of certain persons in 1861 and for some years afterwards, to speak contemptuously of East Tennessee because of its devotion to the Union. The habit seems not yet to have expired, seeing that not long ago a leading journal at the metropolis of the State could utter the historical solecism that the people of East Tennessee were descendants of men who were friends of Great Britain in the War of the American Revolution! Gen. Forest, merely to incite Col. Haynes to make an eloquent response, adopted a reproachful phrase, current among Secessionists, in giving this toast: “Col. L. C. Haynes: our honored guest from East Tennessee--that God-forsaken country.” Col. Haynes was instantly on his feet, and in the spirit that dictated the lines: “Breathes there a man, with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land!” spoke in his best style of voice and manner, as follows: