Blue Ridge Country - July/August 2017 - 55

John Sevier-hero of the Battle of Kings Mountain and governor of the short-lived state of Franklin-lived at what is now Marble Springs State Historic
Site from 1801 to 1815.

Four years later, when Pennsylvania and Virginia finally resolved
a long-running boundary dispute
over Pittsburgh and surrounding
counties, the statehood movement
flared up again. In 1782, however,
Pennsylvania passed a law making separatism not only illegal but
punishable by death, effectively
resolving the issue.
To the southwest, the Transylvania settlement-which later became
known as Kentucky-began after
negotiation of the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals with the Cherokee in
1774. Richard Henderson and his
partners hired famed long hunter
Daniel Boone to lead a crew of 30
men through the Wilderness Road
from Castlewood, Virginia, through
the Cumberland Gap to establish
Boonesborough in 1775. Later that
year, 100 settlers drafted a compact
to establish a government.
Henderson petitioned the Continental Congress in 1776 for recognition of Transylvania, but it declined to act without the consent of
North Carolina and Virginia, both
of which maintained claims on the

territory. That year, Virginia General
Assembly absorbed the territory as
Kentucky County; two years later
it voided the Transylvania Company's territorial claim, compensating
Henderson and partners with a land
grant on the Ohio River.
The most dramatic and violent statehood movement came in what is
now eastern Tennessee. Many who
settled the Watauga Valley west of
the Great Smoky Mountains had
fought in the war. A significant
number were among the 1,100
"Overmountain Men" who marched
south to meet Lord Cornwallis's advancing forces at Kings Mountain
near the South Carolina/North Carolina border. The victory for the patriots over the loyalists there proved
pivotal in stopping Cornwallis's advance from the south, forcing him
to cancel his plans to invade North
Carolina and ultimately leading to
his final defeat at Yorktown.
With the war concluded, Congress now had to figure out how to
pay for nearly $40 million in war
debt-a challenging task given the

federal body's weakness under the
Articles of Confederation. Some
states considered paying off their
share in western lands, and in 1784,
the North Carolina legislature voted to cede to the U.S. government
29 million acres from the Appalachian Mountains to the Mississippi
River-including the settlements in
the Watauga Valley. When North
Carolina realized its western lands
couldn't be used as debt payments,
it re-asserted its territorial claims.
The Watauga Valley's leaders,
however, met throughout 1784, and
that winter, driven by discontent
with North Carolina, republican fervor and the possibility of financial
gains from land speculation, they
voted to declare their independence
as the new state of Franklin. Among
the aye votes was John Sevier,
who had lead the patriots at Kings
Mountain along with Isaac Shelby.
Sevier initially opposed forming an
independent state, but shifted his
position when it came time to vote,
and he became Franklin's governor.
A faction at the convention had
strongly opposed separation, and a
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Blue Ridge Country - July/August 2017

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