Hunters' Roots

 I just came across the below paragraph again (I forgot I have it). The paragraph mentions several parts of history (Trail of Tears, Civil War, etc) that our relatives had a part in; This Samuel Hunter (1793-1852) is not an ancestor but an ancestor’s nephew. Samuel married Catherine Poteat and they had eleven children.

Samuel was born in the Hunter Homestead at the mouth of Big Ivy on the French Broad River. Samuel and two of his sons are said to have assisted in the removal of the Cherokee Indians in 1838. Part of the "Ocoee Purchase" of Cherokee land south of the Hiwassee River was organized in 1838 into Meigs County, Tennessee. It was there, near the old post office in Limestone, that Samuel Hunter received a grant of land for a farm in 1838, and in the following year, December 11, 1838, he received an additional grant, No. 911 of Ocoee Grants, listed in Book B-430 of the Tennessee State Archives. Two of his sons served as officers in the Union Army during the Civil War; one of these sons was killed by bushwhackers at the close of the war, and the other died in a Confederate prison camp. Two other sons of Samuel became ministers of the Gospel and held pastorates in the Methodist Episcopal Church.

PS. I don't know where the Big Ivy's mouth is on the French Broad River, but I do know the French Broad River flows through Buncombe County, and in Buncome it flows through the Biltmore Estate. it is feasible that Samuel Hunter's farm was on what would become the Biltmore property.