THE FIRST CHURCH AND FIRST SCHOOLHOUSE BUILT IN THE “NEW WORLD WEST OF THE ALLEGHANIES.”
Afterward, and now, Washington College and Old Salem Church. The picture in an exact reproduction of the original log house, with log partition, erected by Samuel Doak, D.D., 1780, eight miles southwest of Jonesboro.
The settlers lived and their public affairs were conducted under the jurisdiction of the County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions for a period of about six years, in a quiet and orderly manner; but ever since that May day of 1772 when they organized the first “free and independent government,” their dream had been of a new, separate and independent commonwealth, and they began to be restless, dissatisfied and disaffected toward the government of North Carolina. Many causes seemed to conspire to increase their discontent. The first constitution of North Carolina had made provision for a future state within her limits, on the western side of the Alleghany mountains. The mother state had persistently refused, on the plea of poverty, to establish a Superior Court and appoint an attorney general or prosecuting officer for the inhabitants west of the mountains. In 1784, many claims for compensation for military services, supplies, etc., in the campaigns against the Indians, were presented to the state government from the settlements west of the Alleghanies. North Carolina was impoverished; and, notwithstanding the fact that these claims were just, reasonable and honest, it was suggested, and perhaps believed, “that all pretences were laid hold of (by the settlers) to fabricate demands against the government, and that the industry and property of those who resided on the east side of the mountains were becoming the funds appropriated to discharge the debts contracted by those on the west.” Thus it came about that, in May, 1784, North Carolina, in order to relieve herself of this burden, ceded to the United States her territory west of the Alleghanies, provided that Congress would accept it within two years. At a subsequent session, an act was passed retaining jurisdiction and sovereignty over the territory until it should have been accepted by Congress. Immediately after passing the act of cession, North Carolina closed the land office in the ceded territory, and nullified all entries of land made after May 25, 1784.
The passage of the cession act stopped the delivery of a quantity of goods which North Carolina was under promise to deliver to the Cherokee Indians, as compensation for their claim to certain lands. The failure to deliver these goods naturally exasperated the Cherokees, and caused them to commit depredations, from which the western settlers were of course the sufferers.
At this session, the North Carolina assembly, at Hillsboro, laid taxes, or assessed taxes and empowered Congress to collect them, and vested in Congress power to levy a duty on foreign merchandise.
The general opinion among the settlers west of the Alleghanies was that the territory would not be accepted by Congress (and in this they were correct); and that, for a period of two years, the people in that territory, being under the protection neither of the government of the United States nor of the state of North Carolina, would neither receive any support from abroad nor be able to command their own resources at home—for the North Carolina act had subjected them to the payment of taxes to the United States government. At the same time, there was no relaxation of Indian hostilities. Under these circumstances, the great body of the people west of the Alleghanies concluded that there was but one thing left for them to do, and that was to adopt a constitution and organize a state and a state government of their own. This they proceeded to do. Was there anything else which these people could have done? Perhaps there was; but did they not adopt just such a course as any people situated as they were would have taken?
They proceeded to take steps for the holding of a convention. Delegates were elected from Washington, Sullivan and Greene counties, who met in convention at Jonesboro, August 23, 1784. Messrs. Cocke, Outlaw, Carter, Campbell, Manifee, Martin, Roberson, Houston, Christian, Kennedy and Wilson were appointed a committee, “to take under consideration the state of public affairs relative to the cession of the western country.” This committee appointed Messrs. Cocke and Hardin a sub-committee to draft a report, which they did. This report was in the nature of an address to the people. The convention then adjourned, to meet again in Jonesboro, September 16. It did not, however, assemble on that date. In October, 1784, the North Carolina assembly repealed the act of cession. In the following November, the delegates again assembled at Jonesboro, but failed to adopt a constitution, and broke up in confusion, because of the repeal of the act of cession. John Sevier, having received official information that the cession act had been repealed, courts established, an attorney general appointed and military officers commissioned, made a speech advising the people to go no further; but Cocke and a majority of the people were unwilling to abandon their dream of a new state—and Sevier went with his people.
December 14, 1784, another convention assembled at Jonesboro, and adopted a constitution, which was to be ratified or rejected by a convention called to meet at Greeneville, November 14, 1785. In the meantime, a general assembly was elected, which met at Greeneville, early in 1785, and chose John Sevier for Governor, David Campbell judge of the Superior Court, and Joshua Gist and John Anderson assistant judges. Landon Carter was chosen Speaker of the Senate, and William Cage Speaker of the House. The same assembly, at the same session, afterward elected Landon Carter Secretary of State and William Cage State Treasurer. Joseph Hardin was then elected Speaker of the House, but I have not been able to ascertain from any source who was elected Speaker of the Senate in place of Carter. Stoakley Donaldson was made Surveyor General, and Daniel Kennedy and William Cocke were appointed Brigadiers General. The assembly elected all other officers, civil and military, being careful to choose those who already held offices under the government of North Carolina—and so the ill-starred “state of Franklin” began its career. The new state was named in honor of Benjamin Franklin, as the correspondence of Sevier conclusively shows, and the name should therefore always be written “Franklin,” and not “Frankland.”
The boundaries of the new state, as set forth in a paper in the handwriting of Col. Arthur Campbell of Virginia, were as follows: “Beginning at a point on the top of the Alleghany or Appalachian mountains, so as a line drawn due north from thence will touch the bank of the New river, otherwise called Kenhawa, at the confluence of Little river, which is about one mile above Ingle’s ferry; down the said river Kenhawa to the mouth of Rencovert or Greenbriar river; a direct line from thence to the nearest summit of the Laurel mountain, and along the highest part of the same to the point where it is intersected by the parallel of thirty-seven degrees north latitude; west along that latitude to a point where it is met by a meridian line that passes through the lower part of the rapids of Ohio; south along the meridian to Elk river, a branch of the Tennessee; down said river to its mouth, and down the Tennessee to the most southwardly part or bend in said river; a direct line from thence to that branch of the Mobile called Donbigbee [Tombigbee]; down said river Donbigbee to its junction with the Coosawatee river to the mouth of that branch of it called the Higtower [Etowah]; thence south to the top of the Appalachian mountains, or the highest land that divides the sources of the eastern from the western waters; northwardly along the middle of said heights and the top of the Appalachian mountains, to the beginning.”
I am not prepared to say whether or not these people intended their new state to become part of the Union, as one of the provisions in their proposed form of government was that “the inhabitants within these limits agree with each other to form themselves into a free, sovereign and independent body politic or state, by the name of the commonwealth of Franklin.” I am inclined to the opinion that in the beginning they did not intend to join the Union of states, but that later they concluded that they would, as there was an effort made to have Congress recognize the new state.
An examination of the boundary lines of the state of Franklin will show that it included fifteen counties of Virginia, six of West Virginia, one-third of Kentucky, one-half of Tennessee, two-thirds of Alabama and more than one-fourth of Georgia. Cast your eye over this magnificent area: see the blue mountains, the sun-browned cliffs, the beautiful rivers, the broad valleys with their golden wheat-fields and verdant meadows, with the hundreds of smaller streams and sparkling springs: it seems like one grand piece of natural embroidery, fashioned and put together by the fingers of infinity and spread out by the hand of the Almighty. Think of the iron, coal, marble, lead, copper, zinc and other minerals hidden within its soil—you might have put a Chinese wall around the people of the “state of Franklin,” and still they could have lived in absolute independence of the outside world. There is more iron and coal in this territory than can be found in the same area elsewhere in the United States, and it is today yielding a vast revenue to its inhabitants. You can stand on some of its mountain-tops, and see the heavens darkened by day with the pillar of cloud, and made luminous by night with the pillar of fire, arising from furnace and forge in the valleys below, and hear the hammer of Thor beating the iron ribs of those majestic old mountains into the marvellous machines of modern invention and the utilities of a grand civilization.