William Blount (March 26, 1749–March 21, 1800)[2] was an American statesman and land speculator, and a signer of the United States Constitution. He was a member of the North Carolina delegation at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, and led efforts in North Carolina to ratify the Constitution in 1789 at Fayetteville. He subsequently 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 U.S. senators in 1796.[3]
Born to a prominent North Carolina family, Blount served as a paymaster during the American Revolutionary War. He was elected to the North Carolina legislature in 1781, where he remained in one role or another for most of the decade, the exception being two terms in the Continental Congress in 1782 and 1786. Blount pushed efforts in the legislature to open the lands west of the Appalachians to settlement. As governor of the Southwest Territory, he negotiated the Treaty of Holston in 1791, bringing thousands of acres of Indian lands under U.S. control.[3]
An aggressive land speculator, Blount gradually acquired millions of acres in Tennessee and the trans-Appalachian west. His risky land investments left him in debt, and in the 1790s, he conspired with Great Britain to seize the Spanish-controlled Louisiana in hopes of boosting western land prices. When the conspiracy was uncovered in 1797, he was expelled from the Senate and became the first federal official to face impeachment.[4] Blount nevertheless remained popular in Tennessee and served in the state senate during the last years of his life.[3]
Early life
Blount was born on Easter Sunday at Rosefield, the home of his maternal grandfather, John Gray, near Windsor in Bertie County, North Carolina.[5]:5 He was the eldest child of Jacob Blount (1726–1789) and Barbara Gray Blount. The Blounts had gradually risen to prominence in the first half of the 18th century as William's grandfather and father had steadily built the family fortune. In the years following William's birth, Jacob Blount built a plantation, Blount Hall, in Pitt County, North Carolina.[5]:7
Blount Hall, childhood home of William Blount
Outside of tutors, William and his brothers had little formal education but were involved in their father's business ventures at a young age. Jacob Blount raised livestock, cotton and tobacco, produced turpentine, and operated a mill and horse racing track for the local community.[5]:7 His land acquisitions, consisting of several thousand acres by the end of the 1760s, taught his sons the profit potential of aggressive land speculation.[5]:11
During the Regulator Movement of the late 1760s and early 1770s, the Blounts remained loyal to the North Carolina government. Jacob Blount, a justice of the peace, furnished Governor William Tryon's army with supplies as it marched to defeat the Regulators at the Battle of Alamance in 1771. William Blount, along with his brothers Jacob and John Gray Blount, were among Tryon's soldiers, though they saw little action.[5]:17
American Revolution
Reading Blount
As tensions heightened between Britain and the American colonies in the 1770s, the Blount family gradually aligned themselves with the Patriot cause. In April 1776, Jacob Blount was appointed paymaster of the 2nd North Carolina Regiment, and William Blount was appointed paymaster for the New Bern District Brigade of the North Carolina militia the following month.[5]:32 William's brothers, Reading and Thomas Blount, accepted commissions in the Continental Army. The Blounts provided provisions for the Colonial army and militias, and they profited both financially and politically from the war.[5]:43 They also began looking westward, with John Gray Blount acquiring a portion of Richard Henderson's Transylvania Purchase in mid-1776.[5]:32[6]
In December 1776, Willaim Blount was appointed paymaster of the 3rd North Carolina Regiment and spent the first few months of 1777 with the unit as it marched north to join George Washington's main forces in the defense of Philadelphia.[5]:36 In November 1777, political rivals in the North Carolina legislature removed Blount as paymaster, though he was restored to the office in April 1778.[5]:38 He helped organize regiments for the defense of Charleston, which fell to the British in 1780 as a result of the Siege of Charleston. William's brother, Thomas, was captured during its fall.[5]:38
In early 1780, Blount was appointed official commissary to General Horatio Gates, who had arrived in North Carolina to command southern colonial forces.[5]:42 Blount was present at Gates's defeat at the Battle of Camden in August 1780, and in the confusion of the battle, lost $300,000 of soldiers' pay.[5]:43
North Carolina politics and the Continental Congress
Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United StatesKey, William Blounty, No 18
In late 1779, Blount ran for the vacant New Bern state House of Commons seat against Richard Dobbs Spaight in a campaign described by Blount's biographer, William Masterson, as "violent in an age of fierce elections."[5]:40 Spaight won by a narrow margin, but Blount successfully convinced election officials that voter fraud had occurred, and the election was voided.[5]:41 In the weeks following the Battle of Camden, Blount again ran for the seat, and this time was successful. He took his seat in the House of Commons in January 1781.
In May 1782, Blount was elected one of North Carolina's four delegates to the Continental Congress. At the Congress's 1782 session, Blount helped defeat a poll tax and a liquor tax, and opposed a reduction of the army. He also agreed to consider a land cession act to satisfy North Carolina's massive tax debt owed to the Confederation.[5]:57–59 Blount left Philadelphia in January 1783 and resigned from the Congress three months later to accept an appointment to the North Carolina House of Commons steering committee.[5]:66
During the House's 1783 and 1784 sessions, Blount introduced several bills that would prove critical in the early history of what is now Tennessee. One bill, known as the "Land Grab Act," opened the state's lands west of the Appalachians (i.e., the parts of Tennessee not under Indian domain) to settlement. One individual who took advantage of this act was militia captain James White, who acquired a tract of land that would later become Knoxville, Tennessee. Another bill rendered soldiers with at least two years of military service eligible for land grants.[5]:69 Some soldiers used their grants to acquire land in the Tennessee Valley, while others sold their grants to the Blounts and other land speculators. In 1784, Blount sponsored a bill establishing the city of Nashville in what was then the Cumberland settlements.[5]:88
In June 1784, Blount sponsored another bill critical to early Tennessee history—a bill calling for North Carolina lands west of the Appalachians (i.e., modern Tennessee) to be ceded to the Continental Congress to satisfy the state's share of the nation's tax burden. The bill was hotly contested but passed by a 52-43 margin.[5]:89 Opponents of the cession gained control of the House and repealed the act in October,[5]:94 but not before a movement by the Tennessee Valley residents to establish a separate state, known as the State of Franklin, had gained momentum. A friend of both North Carolina Governor Richard Caswell and Franklinite leader John Sevier, Blount waffled on the Franklin issue for the next four years.[5]:99
In spite of the cession debacle, Blount was elected to the Continental Congress for the 1785 session.[5]:94 As he prepared to depart, however, word came that the Congress had appointed a commission to negotiate a new treaty, eventually known as the Treaty of Hopewell, with the southern tribes. Fearing the new treaty would be unfavorable to North Carolina, Blount, with Governor Caswell's blessing, headed south in hopes of negotiating a separate treaty for the state. He arrived too late, however, and the Hopewell Treaty negotiated by the commissioners returned a sizeable portion of western lands claimed by North Carolina speculators to the Indians. Fearing a backlash back home, Blount merely signed the treaty as a witness.[5]:103–6
In March 1786, Blount hurried to New York to take his seat in the Continental Congress, hoping to prevent ratification of the Hopewell Treaty, but once again arrived too late, and the treaty was ratified.[5]:114 Disappointed, he went home, but with anger rising over his handling of the Hopewell Treaty, he returned to the Continental Congress in November 1786.[5]:118 In 1787, he was a candidate for president of the Congress, but Arthur St. Clair was chosen instead.[5]:121
In March 1787, Blount was chosen as one of five delegates to represent North Carolina at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Blount arrived at the convention on June 20, after debates had already begun.[7] He sent Caswell a copy of the Virginia Plan (in violation of Convention rules), and, expressing pessimism in the Convention's outcome, he stayed for just a few days before heading to New York to rejoin the Continental Congress in early July.[5]:126 He was present for the Congress's debate and passage of the Northwest Ordinance, and heard Henry Knox's report recommending a North Carolina land cession.[5]:128 By August 7, however, he had returned to the Convention in Philadelphia for final debates. Still reeling from the fallout from the Hopewell Treaty, he was wary of signing the final document, but was finally convinced by Gouverneur Morris to do so.[5]:133
Confident that North Carolina would gain more than it would lose with the new Constitution, Blount returned home to campaign for its ratification. Elected to the North Carolina Senate from Pitt County in 1788 and 1789, Blount and his allies successfully countered attempts by anti-federalists Willie Jones and William Lenoir to thwart adoption of the new Constitution, and North Carolina voted for its ratification in November 1789.[5]:147–165 On December 1, the state legislature voted to cede its trans-Appalachian lands to the new federal government. Blount sought one of North Carolina's inaugural U.S. Senate seats in November 1789 but was defeated by Benjamin Hawkins.[5]:166–7
Southwest Territory
Blount Mansion, home of William Blount in Knoxville, built in the early 1790s
Congress accepted North Carolina's western cession, which consisted of what is now Tennessee, on April 2, 1790. In May, the Southwest Territory was created from the new cession and was to be governed under the Northwest Ordinance. On June 8, President George Washington appointed Blount governor of the new territory. Blount visited Washington at Mount Vernon on September 18 and was sworn in by Supreme Court Justice James Iredell two days later.[5]:182–3 In October 1790, he set up a temporary capital at William Cobb's house, Rocky Mount, in what is now Piney Flats, Tennessee, and began organizing a government for the new territory.[8]
The western frontiersmen were initially skeptical of Blount, who came across as an aristocratic easterner. Blount managed to gain their trust, however, by recommending John Sevier and James Robertson as brigadier generals of the territorial militia, and appointing Landon Carter, Stockley Donelson and Gilbert Christian as colonels. Former Franklinites appointed to lower government offices included Joseph Hardin, William Cage, James White, Dr. James White and Francis Alexander Ramsey. Others receiving appointments included future president Andrew Jackson, future governor Archibald Roane and naval officer George Farragut.[5]:189–90 Blount hired his half-brother, Willie Blount, as a personal secretary,[5]:212 and recruited Fayetteville, North Carolina, publisher George Roulstone to establish a newspaper for the new territory, known as the Gazette.[5]:181
In December 1790, following his trip to the Cumberland territories, Blount's family joined him at Rocky Mount. The following year, he chose James White's Fort, near the confluence of the Holston and French Broad rivers, as the territory's new capital. He named the capital "Knoxville" after his superior, the United States Secretary of War Henry Knox.[5]:208 Following the initial sale of lots in October 1791, he began construction of his mansion in the new city.
Portrait of Blount by Albert Rosenthal
Throughout his term as governor, Blount was torn between angry western frontiersmen, who demanded war against hostile Indians, and a War Department that consistently pushed for peaceful negotiations with the Indians.[5]:233 In June 1791, he negotiated the Treaty of Holston with Cherokee leader John Watts and several other chiefs, resolving land claims south of the French Broad and obtaining permission for a permanent road between the territory's eastern settlements and the Cumberland settlements. In spite of this treaty, Chickamauga attacks increased the following year.[5]:203 Frustrated settlers demanded federal troops intervene, but the War Department refused, blaming settlers for intruding on Indian lands.
William Cocke, an ex-Franklinite, blamed Blount for the lack of action against the Chickamaugas and began publishing attacks against Blount in the Gazette. Blount responded with a series of articles (published under pseudonyms) rejecting Cocke and calling for patience.[5]:234–6 Following attacks by the Chickamaugas against Ziegler's Station in 1792 and against Cavet's Station in 1793, however, Blount was unable to contain the rage of frontiersmen, and called up the militia. Sevier led the militia south into Georgia and attacked and destroyed several Chickamauga villages. Knox blasted Blount for the invasion and refused to issue pay for the militiamen.[5]:236 Blount finally negotiated a truce with the Chickamauga at the Tellico Blockhouse in 1794.
Toward the middle of his term, Blount began implementing the steps stipulated in the Northwest Ordinance for a territory to gain statehood. One of these steps was to call for the election of a legislature and submit nominees for appointments to a territorial council, which Blount did in 1794.[5]:263–4 On September 15, 1795, he directed county sheriffs to conduct a census. The census placed the territory's population at 77,000, substantially more than the 60,000 required for statehood. Blount ordered a state constitutional convention to be held at Knoxville in January 1796, which he personally attended as part of the Knox County delegation.[5]:284–7 The government of the new state, Tennessee, convened in late March 1796, before it had been officially admitted to the Union.[5]:292
Blount realized he had little chance of defeating Sevier in a race for governor of the new state, so he instead sought one of the state's two United States Senate seats. He received this appointment (along with William Cocke) on March 30, 1796, and headed to Philadelphia to campaign for Tennessee's statehood. Blount's brother, Thomas (then a Congressman from North Carolina), along with James Madison, convinced the house to vote for Tennessee's admission to the Union on May 6. The Senate voted to admit the new state on May 31.[5]:292–5
Blount Conspiracy
Throughout the 1780s and 1790s, William Blount and his brothers gradually bought up large amounts of western lands, acquiring over 2.5 million acres by the mid-1790s.[5]:298 Much of this land was bought on credit, pushing the family deeply into debt. In 1795, the market for western lands collapsed, and land prices plummeted. A number of land speculators, including Blount associate David Allison, went bankrupt.[5]:301 Blount partnered with Philadelphia physician Nicholas Romayne in an attempt to sell land to English investors, but their efforts were unsuccessful.[5]:300 Compounding Blount's problems, Timothy Pickering, who despised Blount, replaced Henry Knox as Secretary of War in 1795.[5]:271
Following France's defeat of Spain in the War of the Pyrenees, land speculators, already on the financial brink, worried that the French would eventually gain control of Spanish-controlled Louisiana and shut off American access to the Mississippi River.[5]:302 In hopes of preventing this, Blount and his friend, a Native American agent named John Chisholm, concocted a plan to allow Britain to gain control of Florida and Louisiana, and in return give free access to both New Orleans and the Mississippi River to American merchants. The plan called for territorial militias, with the aid of the British fleet, to attack New Madrid, New Orleans, and Pensacola.[5]:307
To help carry out the plan, Blount recruited Romayne, who never showed more than lukewarm support for the idea, and a Knoxville merchant named James Carey. Chisholm, meanwhile, sailed to England to recruit British supporters. In April 1797, Carey was at the Tellico Blockhouse near Knoxville when he gave a government agent a letter from Blount outlining the conspiracy. The agent turned the letter over to his superior, Colonel David Henley in Knoxville, and Henley in turn sent it to Pickering (who had since become Secretary of State). Elated at the opportunity to crush Blount, Pickering turned the letter over to President John Adams.[5]:316
Determining that the actions of Blount, now a senator from Tennessee, constituted a crime, Adams sent Blount's letter to the Senate, where it was presented on July 3, 1797, while Blount was out for a walk. When Blount returned, the clerk read the contents of the letter aloud as Blount stood in stunned silence. Vice President Thomas Jefferson asked Blount if he had written the letter. Blount gave an evasive answer and asked that the matter be postponed until the following day, which was granted.[5]:316
On July 4, Blount refused to return to the Senate and had fellow Tennessee Senator William Cocke read a letter which again requested more time.[5]:319 The Senate rejected this request and formed an investigative committee. Ordered to testify before the committee, Blount initially attempted to flee by ship to North Carolina, but federal deputies seized the ship and most of his belongings. On July 7, Blount, after consulting with attorneys Alexander Dallas and Jared Ingersoll, testified before the committee and denied writing the letter. The following day, the House of Representatives voted 41 to 30 to hold impeachment hearings, and the Senate voted 25 to 1 to "sequester" Blount's seat, effectively expelling him, with Henry Tazewell casting the lone dissenting vote.[5]:321–2
Drawing depicting a brawl between congressmen Matthew Lyon and Roger Griswold, which took place at one of Blount's impeachment hearings in January 1798
Rather than await trial, Blount posted bail and fled to Tennessee.[5]:323 John Chisholm remained in England in a debtors' prison for several months and confessed the entire scheme upon his return. Romayne was arrested and forced to testify before the committee, where he confessed to his part in the conspiracy.[9] The House continued to consider evidence for Blount's impeachment in early 1798. At one session on January 30, a bizarre brawl erupted between two congressmen, Matthew Lyon and Roger Griswold.[clarification needed] Blount's trial in the Senate took place in January 1799, though Blount refused to attend, in spite of a visit to Knoxville from the Senate sergeant-at-arms.[5]:339 On January 11, 1799, the Senate voted 14 to 11 to dismiss the impeachment, arguing that impeachment did not extend to senators.[9]
The unraveling of the conspiracy destroyed Blount's reputation at the national level and touched off a series of accusations between Federalists and Anti-federalists. George Washington called for swift justice against Blount and hoped he would be "held in detestation by all good men."[10]Abigail Adams called the conspiracy a "diabolical plot"[9] and bemoaned the fact that there was no guillotine in Philadelphia.[5]:318 Pickering argued the conspiracy was part of a greater French plot and accused Thomas Jefferson of being involved. Oliver Wolcott suggested the conspiracy was an attempt to blackmail Spain.[5]:317
Later life
Coat of Arms of William Blount
While Blount's national reputation was ruined, he remained popular in Tennessee. Upon his return to Knoxville in September 1797, he was paraded triumphantly through the city by a military procession led by James White and James Stuart. Most of his old Tennessee allies, among them Andrew Jackson, Joseph Anderson, James White (North Carolina politician), Charles McClung and William C. C. Claiborne, remained loyal, and helped repair his image among locals. Blount, likewise, adopted a staunchly pro-western attitude.[5]:325–8
In 1798, Congress appointed commissioners to survey the boundary between U.S. and Cherokee lands set by the Treaty of Holston. Concerned the commissioners would run the boundary in a way that favored the Cherokee over the settlers, Blount and Sevier sent agents to harass the commissioners.[5]:335 To further push western interests, they sent representatives to federal treaty negotiations at the Tellico Blockhouse in 1798, frustrating federal negotiators sent by Congress and confusing Cherokee representatives.[5]:337
In his report on the Tellico treaty, one of the commissioners, Elisha Hall, accused Blount of trying to thwart the treaty, and Blount sued him for libel.[5]:337 After the suit was thrown out by Judge David Campbell, Blount sought Campbell's impeachment, calling him a "meddling blockhead."[5]:339 In October 1798, William Blount was elected to Knox County's state senate seat, following James White's resignation. On December 3, he was named Speaker of the Senate.[5]:339 He spent his first few days in office pushing for Judge Campbell's impeachment. The House voted to impeach Campbell on December 17, but he was acquitted by the Senate on December 26.[5]:340–1
In March 1800, an epidemic swept through Knoxville, and several members of the Blount family fell ill. Blount was tending to his sick family when he, too, fell ill on March 11.[5]:345 After 10 days, he died on the night of March 21, 1800. He was buried at the First Presbyterian Church Cemetery a few blocks from his home in Knoxville. His half-brother, Willie, consolidated the family estate and took charge of the education of Blount's children.[5]:346
Legacy
Copy of Acts of the First Congress signed by Blount on display at the East Tennessee History Center in Knoxville
Blount's home, Blount Mansion, still stands in Knoxville, and is currently a museum operated by the non-profit Blount Mansion Association. The house has been designated a National Historic Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Blount's childhood home in Pitt County, North Carolina, Blount Hall, burned down in the 1960s, though a historical marker stands near the site.
Blount's father, Jacob (1726–1789), married Barbara Gray, the daughter of Scottish businessman John Gray, and they had eight children; William, Anne, John Gray, Louisa, Reading, Thomas, and Jacob. After Barbara Gray's death, Jacob married Hannah Salter, and they had five children, though only two lived to maturity, Willie and Sharpe.[17] Thomas Blount represented North Carolina in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 1790s and 1800s. Willie Blount was governor of Tennessee from 1809 to 1815.
William Blount married Mary Grainger in 1778,[11] and they had six children; Ann, Mary Louisa, William Grainger, Richard Blackledge, Barbara and Eliza. William Grainger Blount represented Tennessee in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1815 to 1819. Mary Louisa Blount was married to Congressman Pleasant Miller, and Barbara Blount was married to General Edmund P. Gaines.[18]
Willie Blount was an American politician who served as Governor of Tennessee from 1809 to 1815. Blount's efforts to raise funds and soldiers during the War of 1812 earned Tennessee the nickname, "Volunteer State." He was the younger half-brother of Southwest Territory governor, William Blount.
The State of Franklin was an unrecognized and autonomous territory located in what is today Eastern Tennessee, 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 fourteenth state of the new United States.
Hugh Lawson White was a prominent American politician during the first third of the 19th century. After filling in several posts particularly in Tennessee's judiciary and state legislature since 1801, thereunder as a Tennessee Supreme Court justice, he was chosen to succeed former presidential candidate Andrew Jackson in the United States Senate in 1825 and became a member of the new Democratic Party, supporting Jackson's policies and his future presidential administration. However, he left the Democrats in 1836 and was a Whig candidate in that year's presidential election.
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.
John Sevier was an American soldier, frontiersman, and politician, and one of the founding fathers of the State of Tennessee. 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.
Joseph Inslee Anderson was an American soldier, judge, and politician, who served as a United States Senator from Tennessee from 1797 to 1815, and later as the First Comptroller of the United States Treasury. He also served as one of three judges of the Southwest Territory in the 1790s, and was a delegate to the Tennessee state constitutional convention in 1796.
James White was an American physician, lawyer, and politician. He was an early settler at Nashville, Tennessee and in Louisiana. He was a member of the Province of North Carolina House of Burgesses and a delegate for North Carolina in the Continental Congress and a non-voting member of the U.S. House for the Southwest Territory. In historical writings, he is usually referred to as "Dr. James White" to distinguish him from General James White, the founder of Knoxville, Tennessee.
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 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 Treaty of Holston was a treaty between the United States government and the Cherokee signed on July 2, 1791, and proclaimed on February 7, 1792. It was negotiated and signed by William Blount, governor of the Southwest Territory and superintendent of Indian affairs for the southern district for the United States, and various representatives of the Cherokee peoples, most notably John Watts. The treaty established terms of relations between the United States and the Cherokee, and established that the Cherokee tribes were to fall under the protection of the United States, with the United States managing all future foreign affairs for all the loosely affiliated Cherokee tribes.
The Knoxville Gazette was the first newspaper published in the U.S. state of Tennessee and the third published west of the Appalachian Mountains. Established by George Roulstone (1767–1804) at the urging of Southwest Territory governor William Blount, the paper's first edition appeared on November 5, 1791. The Gazette provided an important medium through which Tennessee's frontier government could dispense legislative announcements, and the paper's surviving editions are now an invaluable source of information on life in early Knoxville.
The Cherokee–American wars, also known as the Chickamauga Wars, were a series of back-and-forth raids, campaigns, ambushes, minor skirmishes, and several full-scale frontier battles in the Old Southwest from 1776 to 1795 between the Cherokee and American settlers on the frontier. Most of the events took place in the Upper South. While the fighting stretched across the entire period, there were times of little or no action, at times spanning several months.
The Ramsey House is a two-story stone house in Knox County, Tennessee, United States. Also known as Swan Pond, the house was constructed in 1797 by English architect Thomas Hope for Colonel Francis Alexander Ramsey (1764–1820), whose family operated a plantation at the site until the U.S. Civil War. In 1969, the house was added to the National Register of Historic Places for its architecture and its role in the region's early 19th-century history.
The Blount Mansion, also known as William Blount Mansion, located at 200 West Hill Avenue in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee, was the home of the only territorial governor of the Southwest Territory, William Blount (1749–1800). Blount, also a signer of the United States Constitution and a U.S. Senator from Tennessee, lived on the property with his family and ten African-American slaves. The mansion served as the de facto capitol of the Southwest Territory. In 1796, much of the Tennessee Constitution was drafted in Governor Blount's office at the mansion. Tennessee state historian John Trotwood Moore once called Blount Mansion "the most important historical spot in Tennessee."
The Tellico Blockhouse was an early American outpost located along the Little Tennessee River in Vonore, Monroe County, Tennessee. Completed in 1794, the blockhouse operated until 1807 with the purpose of keeping the peace between nearby Overhill Cherokee towns and early Euro-American settlers in the area in the wake of the Cherokee–American wars. The Tellico Blockhouse was the site where several treaties were negotiated in which the Cherokee were induced to cede large portions of land in Tennessee and Georgia. During this period, the blockhouse was the site of official liaisons between the United States government and the Cherokee.
The Cherokee have participated in over forty treaties in the past three hundred years.
David Campbell (1750–1812) was a prominent politician and judge who was a member of the North Carolina state assembly, a leader in the State of Franklin, and a judge in the North Carolina Superior Court, Southwest Territory, and state of Tennessee.
Charles McClung was an American pioneer, politician, and surveyor best known for drawing up the original plat of Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1791. While Knoxville has since expanded to many times its original size, the city's downtown area still roughly follows McClung's 1791 grid. McClung also helped draft Tennessee's constitution in 1796, surveyed and planned what is now Kingston Pike in 1792, and served as Knox County's first court clerk. His home, Statesview, still stands in West Knoxville, and has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Samuel Czar Carrick was an American Presbyterian minister who was the first president of Blount College, the educational institution to which the University of Tennessee traces its origin.
John Tipton 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.
The North Carolina General Assembly of April to June 1784 met in Raleigh 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.
↑ James Madison, Gaillard Hund and James Brown Scott (eds.), Notes on the Debates in the Federal Convention (Oxford University Press, 1920). Accessed at the Yale University Avalon Project website, 11 September 2012.
↑ Walter Durham, "The Southwest Territory: Progression to Statehood," Journal of East Tennessee History, Vol. 62 (1990), p. 7.
1 2 3 William Eigelsbach, "The Blount Conspiracy: Notes of Samuel Sitgreaves on the Questioning of Dr. Nicholas Romayne On July 13 and 14, 1797, Before the House Impeachment Committee," Journal of East Tennessee History, Vol. 66 (1994), pp. 81–94.
↑ Bernard C. Steiner and James McHenry, The life and correspondence of James McHenry (Cleveland: Burrows Brothers Co., 1907).
1 2 Mary Rothrock, The French Broad-Holston Country: A History of Knox County, Tennessee (Knoxville, Tenn.: East Tennessee Historical Society, 1972), pp. 380–82.
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