Color version of the same photo (below) of the portrait of John Buchanan, my 4 Gr grandfather

MY 4TH G-GRANDFATHER: Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) and Sons of the American Revolution (SAR) membership (of Patrick M.Harrison) is available on the line of Major John Buchanan. He was ordered by the Committee of the Cumberland Association on April 1, 1783 to lay off a road with Capt. Daniel Williams, from Nashborough toward Mansker's Station. Listed on the 1787 Davidson C o., tax roll with 1 taxable. Land purchase on Cedar Lick Creek, 1788. Summoned for Davidson Co., jury duty November 1788.

The following is taken from the Bible Records-Tombstone Inscriptions records in the Mississippi Department of Archives, [929.3,T25D V2 C3.] The history of the Buchanan Family is written by Henry Buchanan
There was no more eventful occasion in the life of the nation than this expedition in the year 1779 from the Watauga Valley to the new settlement on the Cumberland. The party of John Buchanan, father and son, arrived at the French Lick, where Nashville now stands, in the early spring of 1780. Less than five hundred souls, of whom one hundred and fifty were all that were able to bear arms, constituted the entire colony of the Cumberland Valley. 'The pioneer settlers were considered intruders, and a war of extermination was waged upon them by the Indians for fifteen years. Every settler became an armed occupant who held his life and his fort or block-house only by the strength of his arm. (Ellet's, The Women of the Revolution)

Davidson Co. Tenn., Deeds: Page 96, NC #135, By an act for the relief of the officers and soldiers of the Continental Line, in consideration for the bravery and zeal of Thomas Thompson, a private in said Line, granted unto John Buchanan, assignee of Thomas Thompson, a tract of land containing 640 acres in Davidson Co., on the waters of Mill Creek adjoining lands of John Tuckey, Jason Thompson, and Lardner Clark's preemption.

This 14 March 1786, surveyed 20 July 1785 by John Buchanan, by virtue of a military warrant #817, located 19 April 1785.

Four miles east of Fort Nashborough was an inviting scope of country, through which a small creek found its way to the Cumberland River, not far distant. It was on the east bank of this stream, later known as Mill Creek - because its waters furnished the power for the first grist mill in the community - that Major John Buchanan built his second station, which bore his name. The spot was a natural fortification: a bluff of rock rising perpendicular from the creek some thirty or forty feet high, so as to make it impregnable from an enemy approaching from the west. Stretching out in an eastwardly direction was a wide expanse of level land, from which the approach was protected by stockade and block-house. The creek makes a bend around the bluff which added much to its defense. It was a picturesque place for a home as well as a fort, the natural beauties of which still exist. A large spring under the bluff, whose sparkling waters once cooled the lips of the tribal hunter and quenched the thirst of the hardy pioneer, continues to flow.

John Buchanan Sr was tall, spare, blue eyed and black headed, John Jr. was a thick set man, five feet, six inches tall. They had both been soldiers in the Carolinas under Colonel Pickens. On account of his great bravery and fearlessness in continuous warfare with the Indians, Major Buchanan had become the terror of the savages as well as the pride of the Cumberland Valley. It is said that he was ever dressed in buckskin from head to foot, equipped with rifle and powder horn, ready for a scouting expedition when he courted Sarah Ridley (better known as Sally) who lived in a fort, two miles distant.(John's first wife Margaret Kennedy had died in 1789).