Nancy indicated that her mother was the daughter of a man named Thomas Ridge.

Was this Thomas related to "THE" Ridge of Cherokee fame?

Cherokee names were often confused because several could have the "same" name.

Could it be that "her" Ridge was a different line? Or was it indeed the same?

Major Ridge, The Ridge (and sometimes Pathkiller II) (c. 1771 – 22 June 1839)

for more check out https://www.paulridenour.com/mrmain.htm

(Major Ridge was also known as Nunnehidihi, and later Ganundalegi) The Ridge was a Cherokee leader, a member of the tribal council, and a lawmaker.

Ridge's maternal grandfather was an unidentified Scots trader who returned to Europe and left an unnamed Cherokee wife and his own mixed blood daughter behind in America.

So his Grandfather left America, and that grandmother is also unknown or known only as a Cherokee Woman.

There is a bit of disagreement even about who his parents were.

Who were Ridge's parents?

ALTERNATE: Ridge was born about 1772 into the Deer clan of his mother, Oganotota (O-go-nuh-to-tua), a mixed Scots-Cherokee woman, in the Cherokee town of Great Hiwassee, along the Hiwassee River (an area later part of Tennessee).

ALTERNATE: Oo-wat-ie "David" Watie and his brother, The Ridge, full-blood Cherokees of the Deer Clan, were probably born near Hiwassie in the old Cherokee Nation. Their mother's name is unknown, but Emmet Starr recorded their father as a man named Oganstotah (not the famous chief).

His father was believed to be full-blood Cherokee.

Ridge was the third son born to Oganotota, but the first to survive to adulthood.

He had two younger brothers,

one of whom became known as David Uwatie (or Watie).

When Uwati accepted Christianity, he took the name of David Uwatie (later he dropped the "u" from his name.)

David Watie is Buried at Polson Cemetery, OK, near Southwest City, MO.

From his early years, Ridge was taught patience and self-denial, and to endure fatigue.

On reaching the proper age, he was initiated as a warrior.

The Cherokee believed that a man's achievements as a warrior were a sign of his spiritual power and part of his leadership.

Until the end of the Cherokee – American wars, the young man was known as Nunnehidihi, meaning "He Who Slays The Enemy In His Path" or "The Pathkiller" (not the same as another chief of the same name).

Later Ridge was named Ganundalegi (other spellings include Ca-Nun-Tah-Cla-Kee, Ca-Nun-Ta-Cla-Gee, and Ka-Nun-Tah-Kla-Gee), meaning "The Man Who Walks On The Mountain Top Ridge."

White men knew him by the simplified English name, "The Ridge".

Marriage and family

In 1792, Ridge married Sehoya, also known as Suzannah Catherine Wickett, a mixed-blood Cherokee of the Wild Potato clan.

Her name was also spelled Sehoyah; she was the daughter of Kate Parris and Ar-tah-ku-ni-sti-sky ("Wickett").

The couple had several children, including John Ridge.

They sent John Ridge in 1819 as a young man to Cornwall, Connecticut to be educated in European-American classical studies at the Foreign Mission School.

After the Cherokee–American wars, the Ridges lived in the Cherokee town of Oothcaloga. (The modern city of Calhoun, Georgia developed near that location.)

About 1819, they moved near the Cherokee town of Chatuga (modern-day Rome) at the confluence of the Oostanaula and Etowah rivers, which forms the Coosa River.

Ridge acquired 223 acres that fronted on the Oostanaula River, upstream of the confluence.

Starting with a log dogtrot house on the property, Ridge expanded the house to a two-story white frame house with extensions on either end.

Like European-American planters, Ridge used enslaved African Americans to work the cotton fields on his plantation.

Nearby, Ridge's protégé John Ross had established his own home and plantation.

Ridge had no formal education and could neither read nor write English.

But he was known as a noted orator and dynamic speaker.

Ridge appreciated the value of education and believed that the Cherokee must learn to communicate with European Americans and to understand their ways in order to survive as a nation.

Major sent his son John to a mission boarding school at Springhill.

Ridge became a wealthy planter, slave owner, and ferryman in Georgia.

As a warrior, he fought in the Cherokee–American wars against American frontiersmen.

Later, Major Ridge led the Cherokee in alliances with General Andrew Jackson and the United States in the Creek and Seminole wars of the early 19th century.

Along with Charles R. Hicks and James Vann, Ridge was part of the "Cherokee triumvirate," a group of rising younger chiefs in the early nineteenth-century Cherokee Nation who supported acculturation and other changes in how the people dealt with the United States.

All identified as Cherokee; they were of mixed race and had varying amounts of exposure to European-American culture.

Under increasing pressure for removal from the federal government, Ridge and others of the Treaty Party signed the controversial Treaty of New Echota of 1835.

They believed removal was inevitable and tried to protect Cherokee rights in the process. It required the Cherokee to cede their remaining lands in the Southeast to the US and to relocate to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River.

Opponents strongly protested to the US government and negotiated a new treaty the following year, but were still forced to accept removal. Blamed for the ceding of communal land and the deaths of the Trail of Tears, Ridge was assassinated in 1839 by members of the Ross faction who believed they were acting in accordance with the Cherokee Blood Law.

Nancy Shadrick