Not much is known of Old Jordan and there is little documentation to be said of his existence as our people mostly kept to themselves in those days. Especially during the time of removal and persecution of us whom stayed behind. We had our communities and knew of each other. Our own tribes un-named by common convention. Our own making and family clans as big to rival any well established recognized tribe.

We recognize our own existence and there fore much is left to our own oral histories when lack of other sources.

Jordon Collins was the Grandfather of King Collins, King understood the healing ways and preferred to sleep under the arbor next to the house, that is where he tended his still. King preferred the roaring fire, and a pile of rusty leaves to make a fine bed. He was happy with just a blanket and the earth, the odors of an Autumn forest, just like his father and grandfather before him. Kings grandfather Old Jordan Collins was a healer and a Cherokee Chief. A full-blooded Cherokee Chief. No doubt about that; and it was on the books.

 

"He was very tall and straight, with hawk-like eye, and long, coarse hair that fell about his well-shapen shoulders with that careless abandon which characterizes the free child of the forest. He wore neither shoes nor stockings, and his trousers were rolled back above the strong, well formed knee, showing the dusky skin which marked him of a race other than white or black.  Indian: the grandson of a chief, and the son of a full-blooded Cherokee. Such he claimed, and the most dubious would have yielded the point."  

"Calloway Collins is an Indian if ever one set foot on Tennessee soil.  He is 
very fond of his red skin, high cheek-bones and Indian like appearance."
~Will Allen Dromgoole  1890

Surely if anything, Chief Old Jordan, was amongst the leaders of "Newmans Ridge" and was well respected.

Citation

Two Tales Publishing 1892 - Last of the Melungeons by Will Allen Dromgoole