Haywood County TNGenWeb

Petition of the Inhabitants of Washington District 1776 INCLUDING THE RIVER WATAUGAH, NONACHUCKIE, &C., 1776 In 1772, the white settlements south of the Holston River, although acknowledged to be an unorganized part of North Carolina, were without any form of government. In 1772, they “exercised the divine right of governing themselves,” forming a “written association and articles for the management of general affairs. Five Commissioners were appointed, by the decision of a majority of whom all matters in controversy were…

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  Having, on the 12th of December last, been employed for a certain consideration to go to the Westward in order to discover a proper Place for a Settlement, I left my house on the Sixth day of March, at ten o’clock, 1749-50, (1) in the Company with Ambrose Powell, William Tomlinson, Colby Chew, Henry Lawless and John Hughs. Each man had a horse and we had two to carry the baggage. I lodged this night at Col. Joshua Fry’s…

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The Incredible Journey of James Needham & Gabriell Arthur… As Told in the Letter of Abraham Wood to John Richards August 22, 1674 From First Explorations of the Trans-Allegheny Region by the Virginians, 1650-1674 by Clarence W. Alvord and Lee Bidgood, Arthur H. Clark Co., Cleveland, Ohio: 1912. † To my Honoured Frend, Mr. Richards in London, present.    That I have been att ye charge to the value of two hundered pounds starling in ye discovery of ye south or west sea…

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A Journey from Virginia to beyond the Appalachian Mountains, September, 1671. From Annals of Southwest Virginia, 1769-1800. © Lewis Preston Summers, Abingdon Virginia, 1929 (Pages 1-7)  Thomas Batts,1 Thomas Woods and Robert Fallows having received a commission from the honourable Major General Wood for the finding out the ebbing and flowing of the Waters on the other side of the Mountaines in order to the discovery of the South Sea accompanied with Penecute a great man of the Apomatack Indians and Jack…

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In the Summer of 1540 the Indian villages in the valley of the Tennessee River were ransacked by a strong mounted company of Spaniards from Florida. Before entering Tennessee, they had followed Hernando De Soto through what is now Georgia and the Carolinas, believing that somewhere in the vast reaches of the wilderness there would be treasure cities to plunder. From the Tennessee valley the Spaniards moved westward for almost a year. Many of them – including grim, iron- willed…

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Just what was East Tennessee before the 1796 statehood? First, it was not named Tennessee back then. That name came with statehood. There was an earlier Tennessee County in what we now call Middle Tennessee, and of course there was the original – the Tennessee River. For our purposes, we start with the white European claims. North Carolina owned her Western Lands beyond the Great Smoky Mountains. She ceded her rights to her Western Lands in 1790, and in the…

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Just what was Middle Tennessee before the 1796 statehood?   First, it was not named Tennessee back then. That name came with statehood. There was an earlier Tennessee County in what we now call Middle Tennessee, and of course there was the original – the Tennessee River.   Second, it was not called “Middle” either. It was called “West,” until the 1820s.   For our purposes, we start with the white European claims. North Carolina owned her Western Lands beyond…

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