Obion River Notes
December 29, 2003, "Joe W. Stout" <jwstout@charter.net>

The 4 forks of the Obion River merge into the main river before reaching Obion, TN. It then flows southwest and flows into the Forked Deer River just before that river flows into the Mississippi. This is west of Halls, TN. According to the info below it was mentioned by Thomas Hutchins in 1765.

The first survey may have been made in 1819 by James Brown. Nothing definite but he did surveys of the Chickasaw lands that included West TN in the Jackson Purchase. This from a book I have, Tennessee History of Survey & Land Law, by Jerry K. Price of Dyer County, TN. I met him while researching old deeds in the courthouse in Dresden. http://www.rootsweb.com/~tngibson/towns/town-rutherford.htm

This excerpt from: http://www.ceri.memphis.edu/compendium/subject.html has some interesting information on the Obion River and the comet and earthquake of 1811-1812.

VI. The Chickasaw Bluffs & Obion River/Lake

1. Berry, Daniel (1908). "The Illinois Earthquake of 1811 and 1812" p. 78. mention of Obion Lake ... many square miles of heavily timbered highland sank in western Tennessee where Obion and Reelfoot lakes are now."

3. Culp, Frederick M. & R. E Ross (1961). "Gibson County Past and Present"  p. 223-24. "...Goodspeed's 'History of Tennessee,' says on page 831: 'The Obion River, from its junction with the Mississippi to the mouth of Beaver Creek, in Carroll County, was by Act of the "General Assembly, in 1824, declared to be a navigable stream. It has, however, never been utilized for navigation ..."  

3. Hutchins, Thomas (1784). "...Description of Louisiana and West-Florida...." [1765]  p. 57. "This river [the Chickasaw (Obion) river] may be ascended during high floods upwards of 30 miles with boats of several tons burthen."

10. Glass, P. T. (1900). "Sketch of Henry Rutherford" (info on early surveys) - brief description of early surveys around Obion River (1785); says Reelfoot wasn't there; no mention of log raft at mouth of the Obion.

1. Kroll, Harry Harrison (1919-1965). Mississippi Valley Collection Papers p. 263, Note on Sources, in "Fury in the Earth." Describes exploring deep fissures in "the hills back of Dyersburg". Says trees would not grow in the fissures (sand?) 

15. Montulé, Edouard de (1821; 1950). "Travels in America, 1816-1817" p. 108. "We had 150 miles to travel [from B. Foy's house, opposite Memphis] without finding a single house, and stopped on the 2nd [June, 1817] in the entrance to a bayou which the Mississippi, in receding, has left clogged with a surprising number of tree trunks, some of them measuring over six feet in diameter. This mass of ruins, whose disorder has been further increased by an earthquake, looks everywhere like a battlefield covered with débris."

4. Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway (Map, 1906). "Geographically Correct Map of the Territory Traversed by the Railway"  - clearly shows Lake Obion, in the style of Rhea (1832) - 
Saucier, R. T. (1987). "Geomorph Interpretations of Late Quat. Terraces...W. Tenn."

12. Shaler, Nathaniel Southgate (1869). "Earthquakes of the Western United States"  "...the Obion River*" [footnote "*This expanse of water includes Obion Lake, which is on the same level and seems to have been formed at the same time and by the same barrier.]" "In Obion County, Tennessee .. depressions are even now visible one hundred feet deep, and varying from a few feet to one hundred feet wide. They are said to have had more than twice this depth when originally formed. Many of these fissures were produced by the escape of gases which broke forth with all the violence of volcanic eruptions, throwing out great quantities of sand & water."

12. Rodbell, Donald T. (1996). "...Fluvial Terrace Deposits in NW Tenn." [Obion River] 

10. Vaughan, Virginia C. (1983). "Tennessee County History Series: Weakley County"  p. 38 ... first settlers had to come overland over the Tenn. River; could not use the Cumberland-Ohio-Mississippi-Obion River route because "...the mouth of the river [Obion] was choked by immense piles of logs and driftwood ... very little was done toward improving the Obion until 1840."

10. Williams, Joseph S. (1873). "Old Times in West Tennessee..."  - describes the "Cole Creek Bluffs" ("Cold Creek" on 15' quads) from Key Corner on the Forked Deer SW for 15 Miles to 1st Chickasaw Bluff as "the famed hunting ground" of Davy Crockett before the "rents and cracks produced by the shakes of 1811-12 had all healed over." Also describes the Cole Creek bottomlands between the bluffs and the Miss. River as "the land of many newly made lakes." p. 214 speaks of "sunk lakes."

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