Note 189 — {264} CHAPTER XLV

The first fort known to have been erected on the site of Memphis (Fourth Chickasaw Bluff) was that built by Bienville, governor of Louisiana, during his campaigns against the Chickasaws (1735-40) and called by him Fort Assumption. After the expedition of 1740, however, this was abandoned, the place not being fortified until the Spanish commandant Gayoso, in defiance of the authority of the United States, crossed (1794) to the Chickasaw territory and built Fort San Fernando. Two years later, after Pinckney’s treaty was signed, the Spaniards reluctantly surrendered this outpost, whereupon the American Fort Pike was built (1796).

Judge Benjamin Foy, of the Arkansas town of Foy’s Point, was a pioneer of German descent, whose settlement is said to have been the most healthful, moral, and intelligent community between the Ohio and Natchez—due to the influence of its first settler, and his magisterial powers. Volney, the French traveller, spent the winter of 1805 with Foy in his Arkansas home.—Ed.