Settlement

Anthony Bledsoe, pioneer, surveyor, and early settler of the Cumberland region, was born in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, and became a product of the rolling frontier of his day. He was a justice of the peace for Augusta County in 1769,…

Isaac Bledsoe was born in Culpepper County, Virginia, but as a young man settled with his brother Anthony on the Holston River a few miles west of Bristol. After serving with British colonial troops in Lord Dunmore's War, he hunted…

Knoxville's only National Historic Landmark, Blount Mansion was constructed between 1792 and 1830, with the first period of construction occurring between 1792 and 1796. As the home and office of William Blount, the governor of the Southwest Territory, Blount Mansion…

Territorial Governor and U.S. Senator William Blount was born on Easter Sunday (March 26) 1749, the eldest child of Jacob and Barbara Gray Blount of Bertie County, North Carolina. As a lad, Blount received informal training in commerce at the…

Daniel Boone is perhaps the best known of the early "long hunters" who ventured across the Appalachian Mountains to hunt and explore in the area of present-day Tennessee and Kentucky. Born on November 2, 1734, in Oley, Berks County, Pennsylvania,…

Captain William Bowen brought his family to what is now Sumner County in 1784. He first built a double log cabin on the bank of Mansker's Creek before erecting a brick home in 1787. Now within the present limits of…

Cumberland pioneer William Bowen was born in 1742 in Fincastle County, Virginia, and migrated to the Cumberland Valley in 1784. He and his family first lived at Mansker's Station, and next they lived in a log house nearby the station.…

Cades Cove, a fertile elliptical valley surrounded on all sides by the Great Smoky Mountains, had already been long inhabited by the Cherokees, who called it Tsiyahi, or "otter place," when John Oliver, his wife, and young child arrived there…

Alexander Cameron, British Indian agent among the Cherokees, was a native of Scotland who emigrated to Georgia in the 1730s and enlisted in the British army during the Seven Years' War. In 1764 the British appointed him commissary to Chota…

Arthur Campbell, a political and military leader in Virginia and frontier Tennessee, was born in Augusta County, Virginia, on November 3, 1743. A band of Wyandotte Indians captured fifteen-year-old Campbell and took him to the area of present-day Detroit where…

David Campbell, Revolutionary War captain, State of Franklin supporter, and early Knox County settler and merchant, was born in Augusta County, Virginia, in 1753. His distinguished career began in 1774, when he served in the Virginia militia during Lord Dunmore's…

Judge David Campbell, State of Franklin official and early territorial and state judge, was born in Augusta County, Virginia, in 1750. He served in the Continental Army during the American Revolution, attaining the rank of major. After the war, circa…

The John and Landon Carter Mansion on the Watauga River at Sycamore Shoals, Elizabethton, is one of the oldest and most architecturally significant houses in Tennessee. Local tradition holds that the house was built by John Carter, an early settler…

John Carter, early Tennessee settler and Revolutionary War officer, was born in Virginia in 1737. As an adult John lived in Amherst, Virginia, where he was a merchant. He married Elizabeth Taylor about 1758, and the couple had three sons,…

Landon Carter, Revolutionary War officer and State of Franklin official, was born to John and Elizabeth Carter in Virginia, on January 29, 1760. He moved to northeast Tennessee, now Hawkins County, with his parents in 1770. In 1784 he married…

The Chickamaugas were a diverse group of Cherokees, Creeks, dissatisfied whites, and African Americans who stymied white settlement in Tennessee for approximately nineteen years. On March 19, 1775, one month before the outbreak of fighting in the American Revolution, Richard…

The Overhill Cherokee village of Chota was located in the Little Tennessee River valley of eastern Tennessee in present-day Monroe County. Chota, or Itsa'sa, is also spelled Echota and Chote. The original meaning has been lost. Chota probably developed from…

Chuqualataque, one of the lesser known Cherokee chiefs, was born into the Paint Clan as "Blue Hawk," probably in the early 1760s. This clan was the kin group of many noted Cherokee chiefs, including Dragging Canoe and Hanging Maw. Chuqualataque,…

Ann Robertson Cockrill was the only woman among the early Cumberland settlers to receive a land grant in her own name. In 1784 the North Carolina legislature awarded this honor for her contribution to the "advance guard of civilization." Born…

Cragfont is a beautiful Georgian-style mansion located on a craggy eminence above Bledsoe's Creek seven miles east of Gallatin. James and Susan Black Winchester had the house designed and built between 1798-1802. The masons built the two-story house of gray,…