Settlement

The Tipton-Haynes Historic Site in Johnson City represents several eras of early Tennessee history. Woodland Period Indians and later the Cherokees frequented the area, hunting the buffalo that traveled to its natural spring. In later years, that buffalo trail became…

Prominent backcountry era settler and political leader best known for his opposition to the Franklin statehood movement, John Tipton was born in Baltimore County, Maryland, in 1730. He served in Lord Dunmore's War, was a recruiting officer for the Continental…

Toqua was an eighteenth-century Overhill Cherokee village located on the Little Tennessee River in present day Monroe County. Toqua means "place of a mythic great fish." Toqua (site 40MR6) also designates a late Mississippian Dallas culture (ca. A.D. 1200-1600) village…

The Trail of Tears (or Nunna-da-ul-tsun-yi in the Cherokee language: "the place were they cried"), next to the practice of black slavery, is arguably the most tragic story in Tennessee history. Covering the period from May 1838 to March 1839,…

The Transylvania Purchase occurred on March 14, 1775, when Richard Henderson, a North Carolina land speculator, met with Cherokee representatives at Sycamore Shoals near the present site of Elizabethton. Henderson wanted to purchase a tract of land in what is…

Relationships between Tennessee's Native Americans and the Europeans who came to settle most of the state were regulated by various treaties negotiated between 1770 and 1835. A series of ten treaties defined the areas assigned to both groups and the…

Thomas Walker, a colonial Virginian, significantly marked Tennessee through his discovery and naming of the Cumberland River in 1750 and his establishment of the North Carolina-Virginia western line in 1780. He was born in Tidewater Virginia, probably in King and…

The Walton Road played a major part in the settlement of the area between the Cumberland Plateau and the Cumberland River. Passing through what are today Roane, Cumberland, Smith, and Putnam Counties, it was not the first road through the…

Jesse Walton, pioneer soldier and settler, was born in Virginia. By the outbreak of the American Revolution, Walton was living in Surry County, North Carolina, along the Virginia border north of Winston-Salem. A patriot, Walton was active in the Surry…

By 1772 about seventy homesteads or farms had been established along the Watauga River in northeastern Tennessee (now Carter County). The area lay outside the boundaries of British colonial government and within the recognized boundaries of Cherokee territory. Disregarding the…

James White, statesman, military figure, and philanthropist, was born in 1747 in Rowan County, North Carolina. He married Mary Lawson in 1770, and the Whites had seven children; their oldest son, Hugh Lawson White, achieved national prominence as a presidential…

The Wilderness Road served as the principal route from the east coast colonies to the interior lands drained by the Ohio River. The configuration of the Wilderness Road may be described as a broad loop, open on the north. Its…

James Winchester, pioneer, entrepreneur, military commander, and founder of Memphis, was born in Westminster, Maryland, and served in Maryland regiments during the American Revolution. He was wounded and captured in a raid on Staten Island in mid-1777 and imprisoned until…

Marcus B. Winchester, land developer and first mayor of Memphis, was born on May 28, 1796, at Cragfont, the eldest son of James Winchester and Susan Black. Winchester was educated in Baltimore but left school at age sixteen to serve…

The Yuchi Indians are a North American Indian tribe belonging to the Southeastern Indian cultural group. Ethnohistorians indicate that during the historic period there were three principal bands of Yuchi: one on the Tennessee River, one in west Florida, and…

Constructed between 1847 and 1849, Zion Presbyterian Church is built in the Greek Revival style and serves as a landmark for an important early settlement in Middle Tennessee. The church serves the oldest active congregation in Maury County, the descendants…