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Mendota Fire Tower Overlook - OU03A9
Please do not review. I relisted this cache on OC.com
Owner: KnowsOpie
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Altitude: m. ASL.
 Region: United States > Virginia
Cache type: Traditional
Size: Small
Status: Archived
Date hidden: 2012-02-12
Date created: 2012-02-12
Date published: 2012-02-12
Last modification: 2016-04-06
0x Found
0x Not found
1 notes
watchers 0 watchers
681 visitors
0 x rated
Rated as: n/a
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Cache attributes

Poison Plants  Snakes  Ticks  Dangerous  In the Woods 

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Comment from OC Team

Data: 02/14/2013 02:59:03, add by DudleyGruntSet to "Temporarily Unavailable". Once you update the page and relocate the cache, you can activate it when you're ready.

Description EN

Mendota, meaning "bend in the river," is located on the north fork of the Holston River in the eastern section of Scott County along Rte 58. The river is a great spot for paddlers seeking solitude or trophy-caliber smallmouth bass. Not far outside town, up a scenic mountain road, visitors also flock to the Mendota Fire Tower on the peak of the Clinch Mountain every fall to view birds of prey. Mendota is widely recognized as the Hawk Capitol of the World, and it lives up to its name. More than 16 species of raptors (hawks) soar down the spine of the Clinch Mountain every autumn, heading south for the winter along the Appalachian Flyway. The Mendota Fire Tower is a great location to view these hawks, especially at the peak of migration in mid September when up to 1,000 birds per day can be seen soaring past. Broad-winged Hawks are the most common raptors sighted, but the sharp-eyed birder will notice Sharp-shinned, Red-shouldered, and Coopers Hawks, Osprey, Bald and Golden Eagles, American Kestrels, Northern Harriers, Merlins, Peregrine Falcons, and Swallow-tailed Kites. We were here in the fall of 2011 to view the raptor migration as they follow the Clinch Mountain along the Appalachain Flyway. We counted over 300 Turkey Vulture in one group that took about twenty minutes for them to pass. Later that day in Gate City I counted another group passing through the Moccasin Gap. I'm not sure how many there were, at least 400 or more and it took about 45 minutes for that group to pass. The word Mendota is Cherokee and means Bend in the River, where there once stood a Village before the White Settlers moved into the area. In 1770, Peter Livingston and his family settled on 2,000 acres beside the North Fork of the Holston River at the mouth of Livingston Creek near present day Mendota, Virginia. The beautiful and fertile river bottoms of his farm yielded good crops and he soon had expanded his cleared land to several acres and eventually brought in slaves to help him work it. All appeared well until the morning of April 6, 1794, when the dreaded half-breed Cherokee Chief Benge and his followers quietly crept upon the unsuspecting cabins in an attempt to steal slaves to sell to the British. Working some distance away in the fields, Peter and his brother Henry only suspected trouble when they saw smoke rising from the direction of their homes. Rushing back to the scene, they soon learned that their wives and some of their slaves had been carried off. Not knowing the exact route the Indians might take, Peter and Henry followed the trail while others were sent to notify the militias in the surrounding area. Lt. Vincent Hobbs and his Lee County Militia (of 13) were drilling at Yokum’s Station on April 9 when they receive the word. Hurrying toward Big Stone Gap, he overtook some of Benge’s advance party and quietly dispatched them. Then the Lee County Militia hastily set up an ambush in an obscure hollow near the gap. But before Hobbs and his men were ready, the lead element of Benge’s group came into view. Although the red-headed Benge fired from cover, the Cherokee chief was killed and the captives released. Hearing the gun fire, Peter and Henry Livingston rushed ahead and were soon reunited with their wives. The last recorded history that I have researched of Cherokee returning back to their homeland was in 1927. A group of Cherokee from Oklahoma driving expensive vehicles (rumor is they were in the oil business) obtained permission and made camp there in the bend of the River at the old Village site. They preformed their ceremonys and camped there for two weeks and then returned to Oklahoma. Someone in that group had a ancient map of the area made of deer hide. My guess is that it followed the Trail of Tears in the 1830's during Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal Act, one of the most racially bigoted acts ever carryed out by the American Government. Sadly, our County is named after Winfield Scott (June 13, 1786 – May 29, 1866) he was a United States Army general, and unsuccessful presidential candidate of the Whig Party in 1852. Brigadier General Winfield Scott also supervised removal of the Cherokees to the trans-Mississippi region in 1838. Following the orders of President Martin Van Buren, Scott assumed command of the "Army of the Cherokee Nation", headquartered at Fort Cass and Fort Butler. President Martin Van Buren, previously Secretary of State and then Vice President under President Jackson, thereafter directed Scott to forcibly move all those Cherokee still in the east to comply with the Treaty of New Echota. Arriving at New Echota, Cherokee Nation, on 6 April 1838, Scott immediately divided the Cherokee Nation into three military districts. He designated 26 May 1838 as the beginning date for the first phase of the removal. The first phase involved the Cherokees in Georgia. He preferred Army regular troops to Georgia militiamen for the operation because the militiamen stood to benefit from the removal; some militiamen, for example, already laid claim to Cherokee properties. Because the promised regulars did not arrive in time, however, Scott proceeded with four thousand Georgia militia. The moral implications of the policies of Presidents Jackson and Van Buren did not make Scott's orders easy. He reassured the Cherokee people of proper treatment. In his instructions to the militiamen under his command, Scott called any acts of harshness and cruelty "abhorrent to the generous sympathies of the whole American people." Representative (and ex-President) John Quincy Adams opposed the removal, imputing it to "Southern politicians and land grabbers;" many Americans agreed. Scott also admonished his troops not to fire on any fugitives they might apprehend unless they should "make stand and resist." Scott detailed help to render the weak and infirm: "Horses or ponies should be used to carry Cherokees too sick or feeble to march." Also, "Infants, superannuated persons, lunatics, and women in a helpless condition with all, in the removal [deserve] peculiar attention, which the brave and humane will seek to adopt to the necessities of the several cases." Scott's good intentions, however, did not adequately protect the Cherokees from terrible abuses, especially at the hands of "lawless rabble that followed on the heels of the soldiers to loot and pillage." At the end of the first phase of the removal in August 1838, three thousand Cherokees left Georgia and Tennessee by water toward Oklahoma, but camps still retained another thirteen thousand. Thanks to the intercession of John Ross in Washington, these Cherokees traveled "under their own auspices, unarmed, and free of supervision by militiamen or regulars." Though white contractors, steamboat owners, and others who provided food and services to the government at profit protested, Scott did not hesitate to carry out this new policy (despite demand of ex-President Andrew Jackson to the Attorney General that another general replace Winfield Scott and the government arrest chief Ross). Within months, Scott captured (or killed) every Cherokee in north Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama who could not escape. His troops reportedly rounded up the Cherokee and held them in rat-infested stockades with little food. Private John G. Burnett later wrote, "Future generations will read and condemn the act and I do hope posterity will remember that private soldiers like myself, and like the four Cherokees who were forced by General Scott to shoot an Indian Chief and his children, had to execute the orders of our superiors. We had no choice in the matter." More than four thousand Cherokee died in this confinement before ever beginning the trip west. As the first groups herded west died in huge numbers in the heat, the Cherokee pleaded with Scott to postpone the second phase of the removal until autumn, and he complied. Determined to accompany them as an observer, Scott left Athens, Georgia, on 1 October 1838 and traveled with the first "company" of a thousand people, including both Cherokees and black slaves, as far as Nashville. The Cherokee removal later became known as the Trail of Tears. More recently, Mendota was an important point on a railroad line connecting Bristol and Hiltons. In the 1920s, a town council worked to turn Mendota into a thriving community, but the government eventually faded due to lack of organization. Today, Mendota is just a sleepy little town leading to recreational opportunities on the Clinch Mountain and Holston River.

Parking Coordinates: N36 43.706 W082 18.170

Just remember, attempt to find this cache at your own risk; cache owner assumes no responsibility or liability for any damage to person, property, or any other conceivable anything.

Cache is located just off the main trail past the tower.

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