John Tipton (August 15, 1730 – August 9, 1813) was an American frontiersman and statesman who was active in the early development of the state of Tennessee. He is best remembered for leading the opposition to the State of Franklin movement in the 1780s, as well as for his rivalry with Franklinite leader John Sevier. He served in the legislatures of Virginia, North Carolina, the Southwest Territory, and Tennessee, and was a delegate to Tennessee's 1796 constitutional convention. Tipton's homestead still stands and is managed as the Tipton-Haynes State Historic Site.
John Tipton was born in 1730 in Baltimore County, Maryland, one of eight children of Jonathan Tipton, a farmer, and Elizabeth (Edwards) Tipton. His ancestors hailed from England, and his paternal grandfather migrated to Maryland from Jamaica. In 1747, his family moved to the Shenandoah Valley, then on Virginia's western frontier.[2]
Tipton married Mary Butler in 1751, and they had nine sons: Samuel, Benjamin, Abraham, William, Isaac, Jacob, John, Thomas and Jonathan.[2] By the late 1750s, Tipton as a young man owned a 181-acre (73ha) farm along the Shenandoah River in Frederick County, where he raised crops and livestock, and produced whiskey. In 1761, he supported George Washington's campaign for the House of Burgesses.[2]
When Dunmore County (modern Shenandoah County) was created from Frederick in 1772, Tipton was appointed justice of the peace in the new county by Governor Lord Dunmore. In June 1774, Tipton was elected to the county's Committee of Safety and helped craft the Woodstock Resolutions, which denounced the British Crown's actions in closing the port of Boston. He was also elected to the county's seat in the House of Burgesses.[3] During Dunmore's War later that year, Tipton served as a captain under Andrew Lewis and saw action at the Battle of Point Pleasant in October.[2]
In the spring of 1776, Tipton, who had aligned with the growing Patriot cause, represented Dunmore County at the Virginia Conventions.[2] He was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates that year, where he served from 1776 to 1777, and from 1778 to 1781.[3] In 1777, he was reappointed justice of the peace by Governor Patrick Henry. Two years later, he was appointed recruiting officer for the Continental Army's Virginia line. In 1780, he was appointed Commissioner of the Provision of Law by Governor Thomas Jefferson. As principal officer of the Shenandoah militia during the war, he obtained the title of colonel.[2]
During the course of the American Revolution, Tipton suffered a number of personal tragedies. His wife, Mary, died in 1776 while giving birth. He married a widow, Martha (Denton) Moore.[2] His son, Abraham, was killed while fighting under George Rogers Clark. When Tipton and his second wife had a son together, they named him Abraham, for the son who had died. His son, William, was badly wounded during the Siege of Savannah.[2]
State of Franklin
In the 1770s, Tipton's brothers Jonathan and Joseph, along with their aging father, moved to the Tennessee frontier, which at the time was controlled by a fledgling government known as the Watauga Association. Jonathan Tipton (frequently confused with John Tipton by historians) signed the Watauga Petition in 1776 and fought at the Battle of Kings Mountain in 1780. John Tipton followed his brothers to Watauga in 1783 and purchased what is now known as the Tipton-Haynes site in May 1784.[2]
In June 1784, North Carolina ceded its lands west of the Appalachian Mountains (i.e., modern Tennessee) to the Continental Congress. Though the North Carolina legislature rescinded this cession in October, a movement to form a new state (eventually known as the State of Franklin) had already developed and had called for a convention to meet in December.[4] At this convention, a resolution was introduced to move forward with the formation of a new state. Tipton voted against the resolution, but it passed, 28 to 15.[5]
The supporters of the State of Franklin elected John Sevier as governor of the proposed state. Tennessee residents who sought to remain with North Carolina threw their support behind Tipton, electing him to Washington County's seat in the North Carolina Senate in 1786. The Franklinites and loyalists (the latter sometimes called "Tiptonites") set up parallel governments that gradually grew hostile to one another. They raided each other's courthouses and seized each other's court documents. At one point, Tipton and Sevier scuffled in the streets of Jonesborough.[5]
The rivalry between Sevier and Tipton climaxed in late February 1788 in an incident known as the "Battle of Franklin". While Sevier was away campaigning against the Cherokee, Tipton ordered some of Sevier's slaves to be seized for taxes supposedly owed to North Carolina. When Sevier learned of what had occurred, he led around 150 militia to Tipton's farm and demanded he return the slaves. Tipton refused, and gunfire was briefly exchanged as Sevier's forces surrounded Tipton's house. Two days after the siege began, a Sullivan County militia loyal to North Carolina arrived on the scene and scattered Sevier's forces. Two of Sevier's sons were captured, and Tipton initially demanded they be hanged. He was persuaded to release them.[5] Following this engagement, the State of Franklin movement largely collapsed.[6]
Tipton attended North Carolina's Hillsboro Convention in March 1788, where he voted against the state's ratification of the newly proposed United States Constitution,[7] arguing the document lacked a Bill of Rights.[2] He was reelected to the state senate later that year.
In July 1788, Governor Samuel Johnston issued a warrant for Sevier's arrest. In October, Sevier was involved in a melee in Jonesborough, and Tipton was notified that he was staying in the home of Mrs. Jacob Brown. Tipton formed a posse and surrounded the Brown home. Mrs. Jacob Brown sat down in the doorway to prevent Tipton from entering, while Sevier stepped out through a side door and surrendered to a more amiable loyalist, Colonel Robert Love. Tipton sent Sevier to North Carolina to stand trial for treason. Upon his arrival in Morganton, however, he was promptly released.[6]
Southwest Territory and Tennessee
In November 1789, North Carolina ratified the U.S. Constitution and passed a second cession act in December, ceding its trans-Appalachian lands to the new U.S. government. The U.S. government organized the new lands into the Southwest Territory, and William Blount was appointed governor of the new territory.
Upon his arrival in East Tennessee, Blount sought to end the feud between Tipton and Sevier. He initially offered Tipton a position as justice of the peace, but Tipton turned it down. In March 1792, Blount visited Tipton's home and personally convinced him to curtail his enmity toward Sevier. In Blount's presence, Tipton burned a petition that had been circulating to discredit Sevier.[8]
In 1794, Tipton was elected to the territorial legislature, where he served on the Committee for Petitions and Grievances alongside James White and William Cocke.[2] In 1796, Tipton was a delegate from Washington County to the state constitutional convention, which crafted Tennessee's first constitution. That same year, he was elected to the Tennessee Senate, in which he served until 1799.[3] He aligned with rising politician Andrew Jackson and tried to help Jackson and Governor Archibald Roane prove land fraud accusations against Sevier in 1803.[2]
In 1795 and 1796, French botanist André Michaux stayed with Tipton while on a trip to study new plant species on the Appalachian frontier. Tipton spent his later years at his home in Washington County, where he farmed and bred racehorses.[2] He died in August 1813 and was buried in a family plot on his farm.
Family and legacy
Tipton's eldest son, Samuel (1752–1833), is considered the founder of Elizabethton, Tennessee. He deeded the land on which the city was founded in the 1790s as Tiptonville.[9][10] Tipton's son, Jacob (1765–1791), was killed at St. Clair's Defeat in 1791.[11] He was the second son to die in war. Tipton County, Tennessee, is named in Jacob's honor.[12]
In the early 19th century, Tipton's son, William (1761–1849), known as "Fighting Billy," acquired much of the land in Cades Cove, in the Great Smoky Mountains. Tipton's in-law, Joshua Jobe, convinced John Oliver to become the Cove's first white settler in 1818.[11][13] The Tipton Place, built by Tipton's descendants in the 1880s, still stands along the Cades Cove Loop Road.
For years after Tipton's death, the leader was criticized by historians, most of whom held favorable views of his rival, Sevier. Sevier's early biographer, James B. Gilmore, was particularly hostile toward Tipton, and historian James Phelan, in his 1888 History of Tennessee, describes Tipton as a temperamental and jealous individual who "lacked intellectual force."[15] Later historians, among them Theodore Roosevelt (Winning of the West), gave more nuanced accounts of the Tipton-Sevier feud.[16]
Related Research Articles
Elizabethton is a city in, and the county seat of Carter County, Tennessee, United States. Elizabethton is the historical site of the first independent American government located west of both the Eastern Continental Divide and the original Thirteen Colonies.
William Blount was an American politician, landowner and Founding Father who was one of the signers of the Constitution of the United States. He was a member of the North Carolina delegation at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and led the efforts for North Carolina to ratify the Constitution in 1789 at the Fayetteville Convention. He then served as the only governor of the Southwest Territory and played a leading role in helping the territory gain admission to the union as the state of Tennessee. He was selected as one of Tennessee's initial United States Senators in 1796, serving until he was expelled for treason in 1797.
The State of Franklin was an unrecognized proposed state located in present-day East Tennessee, in the United States. Franklin was created in 1784 from part of the territory west of the Appalachian Mountains that had been offered by North Carolina as a cession to Congress to help pay off debts related to the American War for Independence. It was founded with the intent of becoming the 14th state of the new United States.
The Territory South of the River Ohio, more commonly known as the Southwest Territory, was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 26, 1790, until June 1, 1796, when it was admitted to the United States as the State of Tennessee. The Southwest Territory was created by the Southwest Ordinance from lands of the Washington District that had been ceded to the U.S. federal government by North Carolina. The territory's lone governor was William Blount.
Liberty! The Saga of Sycamore Shoals, formerly known as The Wataugans, is an outdoor historical drama that takes place in Elizabethton, Tennessee, at the Sycamore Shoals Historic Area. Designated the official outdoor drama of the state of Tennessee, it is presented by the Friends of Sycamore Shoals every June each night of the first four weekends. Employing a mixed cast of volunteering professional and amateur local actors and re-enactors engaged through an open casting call, Liberty depicts the early history of the area that is now northeast Tennessee.
John Sevier was an American soldier, frontiersman, and politician, and one of the founding fathers of the State of Tennessee. A member of the Democratic-Republican Party, he played a leading role in Tennessee's pre-statehood period, both militarily and politically, and he was elected the state's first governor in 1796. He served as a colonel of the Washington District Regiment in the Battle of Kings Mountain in 1780, and he commanded the frontier militia in dozens of battles against the Cherokee in the 1780s and 1790s.
Archibald Roane was the second Governor of Tennessee, serving from 1801 to 1803. He won the office after the state's first governor, John Sevier, was prevented by constitutional restrictions from seeking a fourth consecutive term. He quickly became caught up in the growing rivalry between Sevier and Andrew Jackson, and was soundly defeated by Sevier after just one term. Roane served as an attorney general in the Southwest Territory in the early 1790s, and later served as a judge on the state's Superior Court of Law and Equity (1796–1801) and the Supreme Court of Errors and Appeals (1815–1819).
William Cocke was an American lawyer, pioneer, and statesman. He has the distinction of having served in the state legislatures of four different states: Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Mississippi, and was one of the first two United States senators for Tennessee.
James Robertson was an American explorer, soldier and Indian agent, and one of the founding fathers of what became the State of Tennessee. An early companion of explorer Daniel Boone, Robertson helped establish the Watauga Association in the early 1770s, and to defend Fort Watauga from an attack by Cherokee in 1776. In 1779, he co-founded what is now Nashville, and was instrumental in the settlement of Middle Tennessee. He served as a brigadier general in the Southwest Territory militia in the early 1790s, and as an Indian Commissioner in later life.
James White was an American pioneer and soldier who founded Knoxville, Tennessee, in the early 1790s. Born in Rowan County, North Carolina, White served as a captain in the county's militia during the American Revolutionary War. In 1783, he led an expedition into the upper Tennessee Valley, where he discovered the future site of Knoxville. White served in various official capacities with the failed State of Franklin (1784–1788) before building James White's Fort in 1786. The fort was chosen as the capital of the Southwest Territory in 1790, and White donated the land for a permanent city, Knoxville, in 1791. He represented Knox County at Tennessee's constitutional convention in 1796. During the Creek War (1813), White served as a brigadier general in the Tennessee militia.
The Watauga Association was a semi-autonomous government created in 1772 by frontier settlers living along the Watauga River in what is now Elizabethton, Tennessee. Although it lasted only a few years, the Watauga Association provided a basis for what later developed into the state of Tennessee and likely influenced other western frontier governments in the trans-Appalachian region. North Carolina annexed the Watauga settlement area, by then known as the Washington District, in November 1776. Within a year, the area was placed under a county government, becoming Washington County, North Carolina, in November 1777. This area covers the present day Washington County, Carter County, and other areas now located in the northeast part of the state of Tennessee.
The Sycamore Shoals of the Watauga River, usually shortened to Sycamore Shoals, is a rocky stretch of river rapids along the Watauga River in Elizabethton, Tennessee. Archeological excavations have found Native Americans lived near the shoals since prehistoric times, and Cherokees gathered there. As Europeans began settling the Trans-Appalachian frontier, the shoals proved strategic militarily, as well as shaped the economies of Tennessee and Kentucky. Today, the shoals are protected as a National Historic Landmark and are maintained as part of Sycamore Shoals State Historic Park.
Fort Watauga, also known as Fort Caswell, was a fortification located in the Watauga River's Sycamore Shoals near modern-day Elizabethton, Tennessee. It was constructed from 1775 to 1776 by the Watauga Association, a semi-autonomous government founded by American settlers living near the river, to defend the settlers against attacks from British-allied Indians. The fort was originally named Fort Caswell after the governor of North Carolina, Richard Caswell.
Samuel Cole Williams was an American jurist, historian, educator, and businessman. He was born and raised in the state of Tennessee, where he primarily had his career in Johnson City in East Tennessee.
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.
Tipton-Haynes State Historic Site, known also as Tipton-Haynes House, is a Tennessee State Historic Site located at 2620 South Roan Street in Johnson City, Tennessee. It includes a house originally built in 1784 by Colonel John Tipton, and 10 other buildings, including a smokehouse, pigsty, loom house, still house, springhouse, log barn and corncrib. There is also the home of George Haynes, a Haynes family slave.
The Washington District of North Carolina was in a remote area west of the Appalachian Mountains, officially existing for only a short period, although it had been self-proclaimed and functioning as an independent governing entity since the spring of 1775. The district was the bureaucratic successor to the Watauga Association, a group of Virginian settlers that colonized the area in 1769, originally believing themselves to be in trans-Appalachian Virginia territory. When the settlement's application to be united with Virginia was denied, they asked North Carolina to annex the settlement, which occurred in November, 1776.
Samuel Wear was an American Revolutionary War soldier who fought at the Battle of Kings Mountain. He was one of the early inhabitants of, and a founder of, the "Lost State of Franklin". He later helped draft the Constitution of the State of Tennessee.
Evan Shelby was a Welsh-American trapper and militia officer in the Washington District Regiment of the North Carolina militia on the frontier of the Southern colonies.
The North Carolina General Assembly of April to June 1784 met in New Bern from April 19 to June 3, 1784. The assembly consisted of the 120 members of the North Carolina House of Commons and 50 senators of North Carolina Senate elected by the voters in April 1784. As prescribed by the 1776 Constitution of North Carolina, the General Assembly elected Alexander Martin to continue as Governor of North Carolina. In addition, the assembly elected members of the Council of State.
References
↑ William B. Nicholson, Profiles of Early Tennessee Leaders, 1780–1861 (Nicholson, 1977), p. 40.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
United States 
