Port Royal | |
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Coordinates: 36°33′13″N87°08′31″W / 36.55361°N 87.14194°W | |
Country | United States |
State | Tennessee |
County | Montgomery, Robertson |
Time zone | UTC-6 (Central (CST)) |
• Summer (DST) | UTC-5 (CDT) |
Port Royal is an unincorporated community on the border of Montgomery and Robertson counties, Tennessee. [1] It is home to Port Royal State Park and is located at the confluence of the Red River and Sulphur Fork Creek.
Port Royal was an early tobacco and trade center in what is now northern middle Tennessee. Euro-Americans settled the Red River valley, where Port Royal was located, beginning in the early 1780s. While there were numerous settlements in the Red River valley, Prince's Station was the heart of the community that later became Port Royal. In 1791 with the aid of a missionary, this settlement founded the Red River Baptist Church at the mouth of the Sulphur Fork Creek. [2] This church is still active today in Adams, Tennessee. [3] In 1788, Davidson County was divided to create Tennessee County, embracing the settlements along the Red River. When the State of Tennessee was founded in 1796, five delegates from Tennessee County were selected for representation at the Tennessee Constitutional Convention in Knoxville. Four of these five delegates were from the settlement at Port Royal. [3]
The Second Tennessee General Assembly formally established the town of Port Royal on October 24, 1797. The legislation states that this was by petition of the local inhabitants. Soon after in 1799, the town was made a State tobacco inspection point and public warehouse. Initially, Port Royal was only a seasonal hub of tobacco commerce. The first post office here was established in 1802. Due to Port Royal's location on a major route west from Nashville, businesses like taverns, inns, and stables were built to accommodate the flow of travellers to the west. However, Port Royals growth was minimal. In 1818, a traveler referred to Port Royal as a "village rather on the decline". From around 1815 until his death, Dr. George Hopson kept his practice at Port Royal. Dr. Hopson is better known for his role in the story of the Bell Witch.
In the fall of 1838 over ten thousand Cherokees slept in the State of Tennessee for the last time at Port Royal. All detachments of Cherokees that were removed via the Northern Route of the Trail of Tears. A letter from detachment leader Elijah Hicks to Principal Chief John Ross, tells of the stay at Port Royal. [4] This letter is one of few remaining documents describing the Cherokees experience at Port Royal.
New investment in the town in 1839 sparked a flurry of redevelopment and growth that lasted for nearly three decades. As the town moved away from a seasonal, rural community, it shifted toward a developed townscape featuring all the usual shops, stores, and warehouses common to small towns. In 1842, the Tennessee Silk Manufacturing Company and Agricultural School was opened. At his 1843 inauguration Governor James C. Jones wore a silk suit manufactured in Port Royal. [5] Other endeavors included the Port Royal Manufacturing Company (1844), the Port Royal Turnpike Company (1847), the Port Royal Female Academy (1853), and Hampton's Lodge, Free & Accepted Mason's, Lodge No. 137 (1859). By 1845, occasional small steamboats visited Port Royal and by 1859, railroads in the region disrupted Port Royal's traditional role as a tobacco trade town.
After 1865, newly emancipated African Americans established Black-owned businesses, churches, and fraternal organizations. The book Pioneer Colored Christians, by Harriett Parks Miller, records the stories of Port Royal's Black community.
While some businesses continued to operate, Port Royal noticeably declined in the 1890s. However, in 1904, the creation of the Planter's Protective Association at Port Royal eventually led to the Black Patch Tobacco War. In 1908, masked vigilates in support of the Association, known as Night Riders, raided Port Royal. Port Royal is the only recorded town in Tennessee attacked by Night Riders in Tennessee.
With the closure of the Masonic Lodge in 1921, Port Royal had become a small crossroads community. In 1941, the 139 year old post office closed. In 1978, the Tennessee Department of Conservation, Division of State Parks acquire a significant portion of Port Royal. The historic town is now a preseerved and protected historic site called Port Royal State Park. It is also an officially certified site on the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail. [6] The preserved section of the Trail of Tears and the 1890 Iron Pratt truss bridge are both listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
The 1940s all-female, integrated big band International Sweethearts of Rhythm was led by Anna Mae Winburn, who was born in Port Royal in 1913.
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.
Clarksville is the county seat of Montgomery County, Tennessee, United States. It is the fifth-largest city in the state, after Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville, and Chattanooga. The city had a population of 166,722 as of the 2020 United States census.
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Sevierville is a city in and the county seat of Sevier County, Tennessee, United States, located in eastern Tennessee. The population was 17,889 at the 2020 United States Census.
The French Broad River is a river in the U.S. states of North Carolina and Tennessee. It flows 218 miles (351 km) from near the town of Rosman in Transylvania County, North Carolina, into Tennessee, where its confluence with the Holston River at Knoxville forms the beginning of the Tennessee River. The river flows through the counties of Transylvania, Buncombe, Henderson, and Madison in North Carolina, and Cocke, Jefferson, Sevier, and Knox in Tennessee. It drains large portions of the Pisgah National Forest and the Cherokee National Forest.
The Holston River is a 136-mile (219 km) river that flows from Kingsport, Tennessee, to Knoxville, Tennessee. Along with its three major forks, it comprises a major river system that drains much of northeastern Tennessee, southwestern Virginia, and northwestern North Carolina. The Holston's confluence with the French Broad River at Knoxville marks the beginning of the Tennessee River.
The Calfkiller River is a 42.4-mile-long (68.2 km) stream in the east-central portion of Middle Tennessee in the United States. It is a tributary of the Caney Fork, and is part of the Cumberland, Ohio, and Mississippi watersheds. The river is believed to be named for a Cherokee chief who once lived in the area.
The Rocky River is a 31.0-mile-long (49.9 km) stream in the east-central portion of Middle Tennessee in the United States. It is a tributary of the Caney Fork River, and is part of the Cumberland, Ohio and Mississippi watersheds. The lower portion of the river is part of the reservoir created by Great Falls Dam, which is located near the river's confluence with the Caney Fork.
The Red River, 100 miles (161 km) long, is a major stream of north-central Tennessee and south-central Kentucky, and a major tributary of the Cumberland River.
Port Royal State Historic Park is a 26 acre historic area on the border of Montgomery and Robertson. The community of Port Royal is the namesake of the site. Port Royal existed as a town from 1797 to 1940, when the post office officially closed. The Red River runs through the center of the park. The park was established to preserve the former town and the elements of early Tennessee history, the history of the Red River Valley, as well as the heritage of the Trail of Tears and the Black Patch Tobacco Wars.
Rock Island is an unincorporated community in the northeasternmost portion of Warren County, Tennessee, United States. The town is named after an island on the Caney Fork River just below the confluence of the Rocky River. Rock Island is home to the Great Falls Dam and Rock Island State Park.
New Echota was the capital of the Cherokee Nation in the Southeast United States from 1825 until their forced removal in the late 1830s. New Echota is located in present-day Gordon County, in northwest Georgia, 3.68 miles north of Calhoun. It is south of Resaca, next to present day New Town, known to the Cherokee as Ꭴꮝꮤꮎꮅ, Ustanali. The site has been preserved as a state park and a historic site. It was designated in 1973 as a National Historic Landmark District.
Standing Stone State Park is a state park in Overton County, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. The park consists of 855 acres (3.46 km2) along the shoreline of the man-made 69-acre (0.28 km2) Standing Stone Lake. The 11,000-acre (45 km2) Standing Stone State Forest surrounds the park.
Long Island, also known as Long Island of the Holston, is an island in the Holston River at Kingsport in East Tennessee. Important in regional history since pre-colonial times, the island is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is designated as a U.S. National Historic Landmark District.
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.
Blythe Ferry was a ferry across the Tennessee River in Meigs County, Tennessee, United States. In 1838, the ferry served as a gathering point and crossing for the Cherokee Removal, commonly called the Trail of Tears, in which thousands of Cherokee were forced to move west to Oklahoma from their homeland in the southeastern United States.
The Hair Conrad Cabin is a historic log cabin in Bradley County, Tennessee, United States, and the oldest residential structure in the county.
Passenger Creek, formerly called Parsons Creek, is a creek in Montgomery County, Tennessee, United States, flowing northwest from Sango, Tennessee, to the Red River which flows through Port Royal, Tennessee, and is east of Clarksville, Tennessee. The creek flows through both farmland and rural neighborhoods: "Passenger Creek, confluence with Red River is in sight [of a home located in Brad Bury Farms - a neighborhood ~12.3 miles from Downtown Clarksville, TN]".
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.