Cochran's Creek

The evidence left no doubt. At this spot a tragedy in America's history had taken place. Perhaps a tragedy that no one was ever aware of, except for the Indians, who obviously had perpetrated the deed.
At any rate, the broken shards of pottery and pieces of cast iron belonging to a stove were grim evidence, scattered over an area of about one hundred and fifty feet wide, just on the down hill side of a mound of dirt sparsely covered with grass. The mound of subsoil had a cedar tree growing out of it. Just some eight feet uphill was a depression. This without a doubt was where a Soddy type of dugout had been constructed.
My father and I in partners had purchased this land in 1963. I was a young man, still unmarried. And for some twenty-one years we were unaware of the fact that this place on our property had such a history.
In 1984 my wife and I decided to build our home at this place, and as we began the excavations for our foundation, the evidence began to emerge, at a depth of about 1 inches. At one spot I unearthed the left hammer of a black powder double barrel shotgun. The evidence seems to indicate that about 125 years ago the Indians happened upon this family's abode. There has not been any indication of skeletons. However, it appears certain that the contents of the dugout were systematically destroyed beyond use.
Once I was aware of this event, I began to talk to elderly people who had lived many years in this area. But, oddly, no one even knew people had lived at this particular site. A second oddity is the name of the creek near the spot. Many people call it Cochran Creek, yet no Cochrans live on it and there were only three home sites known along its short distance of approximately three miles.
So, I have exercised the prerogative of a novelist to create a fictional story, about a young man whose last name is Cochran. I have given him and others ancestral names in my genealogy.
And so, this is Cochran's Creek.

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