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.
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.
The Battle of Kings Mountain was a military engagement between Patriot and Loyalist militias in South Carolina during the Southern Campaign of the American Revolutionary War, resulting in a decisive victory for the Patriots. The battle took place on October 7, 1780, 9 miles (14 km) south of the present-day town of Kings Mountain, North Carolina. In what is now rural Cherokee County, South Carolina, the Patriot militia defeated the Loyalist militia commanded by British Major Patrick Ferguson of the 71st Foot. The battle has been described as "the war's largest all-American fight".
Patrick Ferguson was a Scottish officer in the British Army, an early advocate of light infantry and the designer of the Ferguson rifle. He is best known for his service in the 1780 military campaign of Charles Cornwallis during the American Revolutionary War in the Carolinas, in which he played a great effort in recruiting American Loyalists to serve in his militia against the Patriots.
James Henderson Williams was an American pioneer, farmer, and miller from Ninety-Six District in South Carolina. In 1775 and 1776, Williams was a member of the state's Provisional Assembly. During the War of Independence, he held a colonel's rank in the South Carolina militia. He was killed at the decisive Battle of Kings Mountain.
The Battle of Cowpens was an engagement during the American Revolutionary War fought on January 17, 1781 near the town of Cowpens, South Carolina, between American Patriot forces under Brigadier General Daniel Morgan and British forces, nearly half American Loyalists, under Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton, as part of the campaign in the Carolinas. The battle was a turning point in the American reconquest of South Carolina from the British.
The Battle of Waxhaws was a military engagement which took place on May 29, 1780 during the American Revolutionary War between a Patriot force led by Abraham Buford and a British force led by Banastre Tarleton near Lancaster, South Carolina. Buford's men consisted of Continental Army soldiers, while Tarleton's force was mostly made up of Loyalist troops. After the two forces sighted each other, Buford rejected an initial demand to surrender. Tarleton's cavalrymen launched a charge against the Patriot troops, which led many of Buford's men to throw their arms down in surrender. However, as Tarleton was shot under his horse during the charge, his infuriated soldiers attacked their Patriot opponents, killing several.
Kings Mountain National Military Park is a National Military Park near Blacksburg, South Carolina, along the North Carolina/South Carolina border. The park commemorates the Battle of Kings Mountain, a pivotal and significant victory by American Patriots over American Loyalists during the Southern Campaign of the Revolutionary War. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996. Thomas Jefferson considered the battle "The turn of the tide of success."
The Battle of Kettle Creek was the first major victory for Patriots in the back country of Georgia during the American Revolutionary War that took place on February 14, 1779. It was fought in Wilkes County about eleven miles (18 km) from present-day Washington, Georgia. A militia force of Patriots decisively defeated and scattered a Loyalist militia force that was on its way to British-controlled Augusta.
The Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail (OVHT) is part of the U.S. National Trails System, and N.C. State Trail System. It recognizes the Revolutionary War Overmountain Men, Patriots from what is now East Tennessee who crossed the Unaka Mountains and then fought in the Battle of Kings Mountain in South Carolina.
The Overmountain Men were American frontiersmen from west of the Blue Ridge Mountains which are the leading edge of the Appalachian Mountains, who took part in the American Revolutionary War. While they were present at multiple engagements in the war's southern campaign, they are best known for their role in the American victory at the Battle of Kings Mountain in 1780. The term "overmountain" arose because their settlements were west of, or "over", the Blue Ridge, which was the primary geographical boundary dividing several of the 13 American states from the Native American lands to the west. The Overmountain Men hailed from parts of Virginia, North Carolina, and what is now Tennessee and Kentucky.
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, more properly Fort Caswell, was an American Revolutionary War fort that once stood at the Sycamore Shoals of the Watauga River in what is now Elizabethton, Tennessee. The fort was originally built in 1775–1776 by the area's frontier government, the Watauga Association, to help defend Watauga settlers from Native American attacks, which were in part instigated by the British. Fort Watauga was originally named Fort Caswell after North Carolina Governor Richard Caswell.
Sycamore Shoals State Historic Area is a state park located in Elizabethton, in the U.S. state of Tennessee. The park consists of 70 acres (28.3 ha) situated along the Sycamore Shoals of the Watauga River, a National Historic Landmark where a series of events critical to the establishment of the states of Tennessee and Kentucky, and the settlement of the Trans-Appalachian frontier in general, took place. Along with the historic shoals, the park includes a visitor center and museum, the reconstructed Fort Watauga, the Carter House and Sabine Hill . For over a thousand years before the arrival of European explorers, Sycamore Shoals and adjacent lands had been inhabited by Native Americans. The first permanent European settlers arrived in 1770, and established the Watauga Association—one of the first written constitutional governments west of the Appalachian Mountains—in 1772. Richard Henderson and Daniel Boone negotiated the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals in 1775, which saw the sale of millions of acres of Cherokee lands in Kentucky and Tennessee and led to the building of the Wilderness Road. During the American Revolution, Sycamore Shoals was both the site of Fort Watauga, where part of a Cherokee invasion was thwarted in 1776, and the mustering ground for the Overmountain Men in 1780.
The Battle of Musgrove Mill, August 19, 1780, occurred near a ford of the Enoree River, near the present-day border between Spartanburg, Laurens and Union Counties in South Carolina. During the course of the battle, 200 Patriot militiamen defeated a combined force of approximately 300 Loyalist militiamen and 200 provincial regulars.
Frederick Hambright was a military officer who fought in both the local militia and in the North Carolina Line of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. He is best known for his participation in the Battle of Kings Mountain in 1780. Serving as a statesman early in the Revolution, Hambright joined the war in 1777, ranked a lieutenant colonel in a local militia. His early actions were limited to occasional checks on Loyalist groups. This changed in 1780 with Hambright's important role at the Battle of Kings Mountain, which occurred near his lands in the newly formed Lincoln County, North Carolina. Hambright was commended for his bravery during the battle, though suffering a wound which forced him to permanently resign from military service.
Sinking Creek Baptist Church is a Baptist church located in Johnson City, Tennessee. It is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. It is considered the oldest church in Tennessee.
