Settlement

John Ross, son of Daniel and Mollie McDonald Ross, was born in the fall of 1790 in present-day Cherokee County, Alabama. At the age of seven, the Ross family settled in southern Tennessee near the northern end of Lookout Mountain.…

A Victorian-era village at the northern tip of Morgan County, Rugby was founded by a company of British and American capitalists who cleverly traded on the popularity of Thomas Hughes, a noted English author and social reformer of the time,…

The Ruskin Cooperative Association (RCA) existed in Dickson County from 1894 until 1899. Established at Tennessee City, the colony soon moved five miles away to a site by a large cave on Yellow Creek which still bears the name Ruskin.…

Griffith Rutherford was born in Ireland in 1720. Soon after his birth his parents took voyage to America. Unfortunately, both of his parents died at sea, and Griffith arrived in America a homeless orphan. It is thought that he lived…

Also known as "Bonnie Kate," Catherine S. Sevier was the wife of John Sevier (1745-1815), Revolutionary War hero, Indian fighter, governor of the State of Franklin, and first governor of Tennessee. Legend has it that their courtship began after she…

John Sevier, pioneer, soldier, statesman and a founder of the Republic, was Tennessee's first governor and one of its most illustrious citizens. Married and on his own at age sixteen, he was in the vanguard of frontier life and accomplishment…

Isaac Shelby, early Tennessee settler, Revolutionary War veteran, and governor of Kentucky, was born in Hagerstown, Maryland, in 1750 to Evan and Letitia Cox Shelby, who moved their family to Sapling Grove, the present site of Bristol, in 1771. Their…

Benjamin "Pap" Singleton called himself the "father of the Black Exodus." Singleton and other grassroots black leaders developed the idea that former slaves should migrate to Kansas and other western homesteading sites, rather than remain in the South to suffer…

In the 1760s Anglo-American frontiersmen, determined to settle the land, planted slavery firmly within the borders of what would become Tennessee. Over time, East Tennessee, hilly and dominated by small farms, retained the fewest number of slaves. Middle Tennessee, where…

Daniel Smith, pioneer, surveyor, treaty negotiator, secretary of the Southwest Territory, and U.S. senator, was a native of Stafford County, Virginia, who became infatuated with the trans-Appalachian West while a surveyor on the Virginia frontier. During the early years of…

An expedition led by Hernando de Soto conducted the earliest exploration of Tennessee by non-Native Americans in May, June, and July of 1540. The expedition of some seven hundred Spaniards and their slaves had landed at Tampa Bay the previous…

The Territory of the United States South of the River Ohio, often called the Southwest Territory, was created by an act of Congress on May 26, 1790. The State of North Carolina had ceded the lands and waterways encompassed by…

Thomas S. Spencer is usually regarded as the first white settler in Middle Tennessee. On a long hunt to the area from 1776 to the spring of 1779, he staked out land, planted it, and built cabins on it, and…

A short-lived attempt to create a new state in the trans-Appalachian settlement of present-day East Tennessee, the State of Franklin arose from the general unsettled state of national, regional, and local politics at the end of the Revolutionary War. Under…

The Swaggerty Blockhouse in Cocke County was built ca. 1787 by James Swaggerty on land acquired from the state of North Carolina in 1786 by Abraham Swaggerty. It is the only remaining log blockhouse on its original site in Tennessee.…

In 1848 Knox County's "Swiss Colony" began when Rev. Adrien Chavannes and his family settled on a 275-acre farm four miles north of Knoxville. During the next sixty-five years over seventy-five families settled in the Knoxville area, engaging in various…

This state park in Carter County preserves and interprets the Sycamore Shoals of the Watauga River, a National Historic Landmark that was one of the most significant early settlement areas on the western frontier. Here in 1772 residents established the…

Located southwest of downtown Memphis off Tennessee Highway 61, T. O. Fuller State Park, established in 1933, is the nation's second oldest state park created for use by African Americans. The park currently contains 1,138 acres and includes Chucalissa Indian…

This Monroe County historic site was a key federal outpost on the southwest frontier constructed in 1794-95 at the confluence of the Tellico and Little Tennessee Rivers adjacent to the site of the earlier Fort Loudoun. For protection from aggressive…

An intentional community occupying some 1,750 acres in southeastern Lewis County, The Farm is located near Summertown. In 1971 San Francisco resident and New Age religious leader, Stephen Gaskin, and his followers founded The Farm as a spiritual community. The…