Clay County is a county located in the far western part of U.S. state North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the county population was 11,089. The county seat is Hayesville.
Cherokee County is the westernmost county in the U.S. state of North Carolina. It borders Tennessee to its west and Georgia to its south. As of the 2020 census, the population was 28,774. The county seat is Murphy.
Murphy is a town in and the county seat of Cherokee County, North Carolina, United States. It is situated at the confluence of the Hiwassee and Valley rivers. It is the westernmost county seat in the state of North Carolina, approximately 360 miles (580 km) from the state capital in Raleigh. The population of Murphy was 1,608 at the 2020 census.
Hayesville is a town in Clay County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 311 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Clay County.
Charleston is a city in Bradley County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 664 at the 2020 census. It is included in the Cleveland Metropolitan Statistical Area.
The Unicoi Mountains are a mountain range rising along the border between Tennessee and North Carolina in the southeastern United States. They are part of the Blue Ridge Mountain Province of the Southern Appalachian Mountains. The Unicois are located immediately south of the Great Smoky Mountains and immediately west of the Cheoah Mountains. Most of the range is protected as a national forest, namely the Cherokee National Forest on the Tennessee side and the Nantahala National Forest on the North Carolina side— although some parts have been designated as wilderness areas and are thus more strictly regulated.
Abraham Eustis was a lawyer and notable U.S. Army officer, eventually rising to become a Brevet Brigadier General. He saw service in Florida and became a notable artillery specialist and the first commander of Fort Monroe, located at the entrance to the harbor of Hampton Roads in Virginia.
Great Tellico was a Cherokee town at the site of present-day Tellico Plains, Tennessee, where the Tellico River emerges from the Appalachian Mountains. Great Tellico was one of the largest Cherokee towns in the region, and had a sister town nearby named Chatuga. Its name in Cherokee is more properly written Talikwa, but more commonly known as Diligwa. It is sometimes spelled Telliquo, Telliquah or, in Oklahoma, Tahlequah. There were several Cherokee settlements named Tellico, the largest of which is distinguished from the others by calling it "Great". The meaning of the word "Talikwa" is thought to be lost by the Cherokees. However, in an article authored by reporter Tesina Jackson of the Cherokee Phoenix the meaning of the word is stated as "the open place where the grass grows".
Fort Cass was a fort located on the Hiwassee River in present-day Charleston, Tennessee, that served as the military operational headquarters for the entire Cherokee removal, an forced migration of the Cherokee known as the Trail of Tears from their ancestral homelands in the Southeast to Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma. Fort Cass housed a garrison of United States troops who watched over the largest concentration of internment camps where Cherokee were kept during the summer of 1838 before starting the main trek west to Indian Territory, and served as one of three emigration deports where the Cherokee began their journey west, the others of which were located at Ross's Landing in Chattanooga and Gunter's Landing near Guntersville, Alabama.
Red Clay State Historic Park is a state park located in southern Bradley County, Tennessee, United States. The park preserves the Red Clay Council Grounds, which were the site of the last capital of the Cherokee Nation in the eastern United States from 1832 to 1838 before the enforcement of the Indian Removal Act of 1830. This act resulted in a forced migration of most of the Cherokee people to present-day Oklahoma known as the Cherokee removal. At the council grounds, the Cherokee made multiple unsuccessful pleas to the U.S. government to be allowed to remain in their ancestral homeland. The site is considered sacred to the Cherokees, and includes the Blue Hole Spring, a large hydrological spring. It is also listed as an interpretive center along the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail.
Overhill Cherokee was the term for the Cherokee people located in their historic settlements in what is now the U.S. state of Tennessee in the Southeastern United States, on the western side of the Appalachian Mountains. This name was used by 18th-century European traders and explorers from British colonies along the Atlantic coast, as they had to cross the mountains to reach these settlements.
The Valley River is a tributary of the Hiwassee River. It arises as a pair of springs in the Snowbird Mountains of Cherokee County, North Carolina and descends 2,960 feet (900 m) in elevation in approximately forty miles (64 km) to enter the Hiwassee embayment at present-day Murphy, North Carolina.
Cherokee removal, part of the Trail of Tears, refers to the forced relocation between 1836 and 1839 of an estimated 16,000 members of the Cherokee Nation and 1,000–2,000 of their slaves; from their lands in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama to the Indian Territory in the then Western United States, and the resultant deaths along the way and at the end of the movement of an estimated 4,000 Cherokee and unknown number of slaves.
Coker Creek is an unincorporated community in Monroe County, Tennessee, United States. It is located on Tennessee State Route 68, 6.7 miles (10.8 km) south of Tellico Plains. Its population in the 2020 census was 150.
Cherokee Removal Memorial Park is a public park in Meigs County, Tennessee that is dedicated in memory of the Cherokee who were forced to emigrate from their ancestral lands during the Cherokee removal, in an event that came to be known as the Trail of Tears. It was established in 2005, and has since expanded.
The Hiwassee River Heritage Center is a history museum located in Charleston, Tennessee which was established in 2013. The museum chronicles the region's Cherokee and Civil War history. It is a certified interpretive center on the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail.
Peachtree is a community located in Cherokee County, North Carolina. It is named after the numerous peach trees found in the area. The local schools are Peachtree Elementary School, Murphy and Andrews Middle School, and Murphy and Andrews High School.
Fort Armistead was a U.S. Army fort in the Cherokee National Forest near Coker Creek, Tennessee. It was founded in 1832 and was only periodically used in the following years. In 1838, Fort Armistead was re-stationed as part of an effort to forcibly relocate the Cherokee and became part of the Trail of Tears. It was then permanently abandoned and relinquished to private ownership, though the grounds may have seen brief usage during the Civil War. The site is owned by the United States Forest Service and was excavated in 2011.
Tennessee militia established Fort Hembree 1 mile (1.6 km) southwest of the present town of Hayesville, North Carolina, in October 1837 to prepare for deporting local Cherokee Native Americans during the Trail of Tears. The fort was under the command of General Winfield Scott. Within two week Scott's forces captured around 1,000 Cherokee people who were held prisoner at the fort. A number of Cherokees were stricken with illness while at Fort Hembree and died at the site. The remainder were marched from there to Fort Butler near present-day Murphy and then to deportation camps in Tennessee.
Captain George Washington Hayes was a 19th-century North Carolina politician. The town of Hayesville, North Carolina, is named for him.
