In the winter of 1779 - 1780, the family of John and Jane Trindle Buchanan was among the earliest permanent American settlers of the bend in the Cumberland River where Nashville, Tennessee now stands. In the spring of 1784, the Buchanans and other families began building a fortified settlement on Mill Creek about four miles east of Nashville, and it is thought to have been completed in 1785; the complex later included one of the area's earliest grist mills. Middle Tennessee was a hunting ground for numerous Native American tribes who contested settlers' right to remain there, and in those early years many settlers at the station, including John Buchanan, Sr. and his son Samuel Buchanan, were killed by Indians. By 1787, leadership had passed to the oldest surviving son, John Buchanan, later known as Major John Buchanan, a farmer, land speculator, surveyor, businessman, and writer who in 1781 authored Buchanan's Arithmetic, a handwritten deerskin-bound manuscript covering arithmetic operations, square roots, and other equations. Constantly threatened, the settlement faced its most famous attack on Sunday, September 30, 1792, when several hundred Creek, Cherokee, and Shawnee warriors struck it while en route to Fort Nashborough. Only about 20 men were present with the small group of families then occupying the station, but from its four corner blockhouses the settlers killed and severely wounded a number of Indian leaders, including Kiachatallee. During the fighting, Sarah (Sally) Ridley Buchanan, Major John Buchanan's wife, kept the defenders supplied with black powder and musket balls and urged them on although she was pregnant with the first of their 13 children; the child was born 11 days after the battle. Sally Buchanan died in November 1831, Major John Buchanan died in 1832, and members of the Buchanan family and others remained there until the property was sold in 1841.