Ridge, Major

The following data is extracted from Historical Collections of Georgia.

    In infancy, the subject of this notice was called Nung-noh-hut-tar-hee, or he who slays the enemy in the path. After attaining the age of a hunter, he was asked," Which way did you come into camp?" and he answered, " I came along the top of the mountain." This answer being often repeated, he was called Kah-nung-da-ha-geh, or the man who walks on the mountain's top. We are not able to state precisely the date of his birth, probably about 1771, at a town called Highwassee. His father was a full-blooded Cherokee, and his mother a Cherokee woman, of half-breed. From his earliest infancy, he was inured to patience, fatigue, and self-denial, and upon his reaching the required age, was initiated into the duties of a warrior, with proper solemnities.
    When fourteen years old, he joined a war party against the Americans, at Cheestooyee, and afterwards a large party against Knoxville, in Tennessee. At the age of twenty-one, he was selected as a member of the Cherokee Council. At this time he had no property but the clothes he wore, some silver ornaments, and a white pony, stunted, old and ugly, on which he rode to the Council; the members of which observing his mean appearance, ridiculed him, and proposed to exclude him from their deliberations. At first, he merely listened; but at the second Council he proposed many useful laws. He gradually won the confidence of the Cherokees, and finally became One of the first men in the nation. At the battle of the Horse Shoe, under Gen. Jackson, he greatly distinguished himself. He emigrated to the West with his tribe, and was afterwards murdered, as it was believed, by the emissaries of that portion of the Cherokees opposed to emigration.

Source: Historical Collections of Georgia

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