John Coffee Memorial Bridge

"Today on our journey up the Natchez Trace Parkway from Natchez, Mississippi to Nashville, Tennessee we are crossing the Tennessee River at the JOHN COFFEE MEMORIAL BRIDGE.

"John Coffee was an old Indian fighting buddy of Andrew Jackson and one of Jackson's Generals who fought with him against the British at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815.  Coffee was chosen by Jackson to negotiate for the United States with the Choctaw at Dancing Rabbit Creek in 1830 and with the Chickasaw at Pontotoc Creek in 1832. In both cases Coffee was successful in getting the Indians to give up all their tribal lands to the United States. These negotiations resulted in later banishment of the Indians from their ancestral home to lands West of the Mississippi during the painful Indian Removal that has come to be known as the Trail of Tears. In 1839, along this infamous trail to exile the Chickasaw Indian Chief, Tishomingo, died of smallpox before reaching the new lands in Oklahoma. This old respected leader of the Chickasaw Indians was buried west of Little Rock, Arkansas near Fort Coffee.

"Join us next time when we will visit ROCK SPRING. For Natchez Trace a road through the wilderness, I'm Frank Thomas."

For more about Natchez Trace: A Road Through the Wilderness, visit eddieandfrank.com