Doublehead, also called Talo Tiske meaning "two heads," was an influential Cherokee leader in the Decatur area who lived for a long time at the old Browns Ferry crossing west of Decatur and controlled this country with an iron fist. Born about 1744, he established a town on the Tennessee River at the head of Muscle Shoals in 1790 at the mouth of Blue Water Creek in Lauderdale County. The Cherokee occupied northeast Alabama, much of Tennessee, and northwest Georgia, with villages at Muscle Shoals marking the southwestern tip of their domain. Although Muscle Shoals was long disputed between the Chickasaws and Cherokees and was known as Chickasaw Hunting Grounds, Chickasaw Chief George Colbert confirmed that Doublehead was there by his permission, and Colbert had married two of Doublehead's daughters. Doublehead's brother was Chief Old Tassel, and after Old Tassel was murdered with the aid of white mayor James Hubbert, Doublehead attacked white settlers throughout the Cumberland Mountains of Tennessee in a six-year warpath from 1788 to 1794. He was accused of severe atrocities, including encouraging cannibalism of the dead. At the end of this period he met President George Washington in the nation's capital and returned changed, adopting some white ways, building a large cabin, and continuing to defend Cherokee land rights in treaties until his death in 1807. He also formed the Doublehead Company, which leased 1,000 acres to more than 50 white settlers between the Elk River and Cypress Creek. He and his last wife Katelia Wilson had a daughter in 1805 called Suzanna, thought to have later been Suzanna McBride, and many people in Decatur, including the Vanns descended from the Cherokee David Vann, have ties to the original Cherokee people of the area.