The Comet of 1811
“Witnesses described a glowing head with an enormous tail that seemed to spread across half the heavens. By October and November of 1811, the comet had become so brilliant that travelers could navigate by its light. Some accounts compared it to a torch suspended over the frontier.”
The Cumberland Plateau, 1800
“His father James Carruthers had crossed the Atlantic from Ulster into Pennsylvania. Robert himself came of age in the Carolina backcountry during the years surrounding the American Revolution. Now, by 1800, the family once again stood at the edge of a new frontier — this time among the ridges, forests, and isolated mountain valleys of Tennessee.”