Thomas Sparks Lowe first spied out the beautiful Chattanooga country when he was sent here in 1845 to help superintend the completion of the Western and Atlantic Railroad into town. He was so taken by a rich farm at South Chickamauga Creek at the site of an Indian village that he left the railroad and became a farmer.

Lowe (or Low) was born May 23, 1820, in Pennsylvania. His wife, Anna, was born in Georgia. She was of Cherokee blood and was “a woman of excellent character.” Their daughters were Sarah, Harriet “Hattie” and Dora.

The all-important rail line was finally completed into Chattanooga so that the first train could pass in December 1849. Lowe was in charge of the construction of all culverts and fills. The track went by the farm Lowe had selected, which was near the same site chosen by Little Owl, a brother of the famous Chief Dragging Canoe, for his village.

It was no wonder Lowe was lured away to farm since the naturalist Robert Sparks Walker described his acquisition as “one of the most beautiful stretches of land to be found anywhere in the South.” He bought a piece of land bordering Chickamauga Creek at Gum Spring, which became known as Lowe Spring. He acquired other land a mile and a half away and here he constructed his farm home. He would ride to and from his fertile creekbottom property each day.

Thomas Lowe was an authority on the history of the recently departed Indians. He recorded that Spring Frog, or Too-an-tuh, was born in 1754 in a cabin that was preserved near the creek. He pointed out that a cabin built by an Indian could be identified from one built by a white man by noticing the Indian's method of fitting the ends of the logs. These were first chopped out at right angles and then laid flat. The white man notched the ends into v-shapes to keep them from slipping.

W.T. Walker, the father of Robert Sparks Walker, moved from Hawkins County, Tenn., and settled near the Lowes in 1871. Four of his children were born in the Spring Frog log cabin. The Sparks in the name of Robert Sparks Walker came from that of Thomas Sparks Lowe. He spent much time traipsing the woods with his namesake. He said Lowe was “a prince of a gentleman as well as a first-class neighbor.”

Lowe was one of those “farmers of yesterday who did not appreciate the valuable work done by hawks and owls.” Robert Sparks Walker said Lowe was “a hawk's enemy, and enlisted my service as a detective to locate the nests of hawks on Wake Robin Hill.
When I had found it, Mr. Lowe took his sharp axe and felled the big tree.” The naturalist said farmers then “had not learned that for every chicken taken, a hawk kills enough rats to save a hundred times more food than the worth of the fowl. If he had lived into the 20th Century, he doubtless would have become an exponent of hawk and owl protection.”

When the Civil War broke out, Thomas S. Lowe chose his adopted homeland over his native one. He joined the Confederacy's 19th Infantry in Co. D. He was not far from home defending against the Union charge up Missionary Ridge when he was captured Nov. 25, 1863. He was sent to Nashville, then to the prison at Louisville. He arrived at the Rock Island Prison in Illinois Dec. 9. He took the oath of allegiance to the union on May 22, 1865, and was allowed to go home.

Anna Lowe died March 5, 1875. Thomas S. Lowe afterward lived with his daughter, Hattie, who “lived to be more than 80 years old and looked more like an Indian than a white person.” She never married. Hattie Lowe died in 1928.

Dora married George Starnes on Nov. 6, 1870. Their son, Falcon, was a bachelor. The daughters included Ira who married Andy Lockman and Nona who married Tom Self.

Thomas Sparks Lowe died March 2, 1897. Robert Sparks Walker erected marble markers at the graves of Lowe and his wife “in a forsaken cemetery near Graysville, Ga.,” in 1910. This is the Blackwell Cemetery at the Council Fire golf course.

The Spring Frog log cabin is preserved at the 110-acre Elise Chapin Wildlife Sanctuary at the end of Gunbarrel Road in East Brainerd. The cabin, dating to the 1740s, is said to be the only cabin built by the Cherokees that is left in Tennessee.