Maid and matron were clad in fabrics of their own handiwork, each a Joan of Arc in moral and physical prowess and power, and a Venus in rounded symmetry and development, with all the unaffected graces of natural and unspoiled womanhood, “the red wine of lusty life mantling and blushing in the alabaster face”; the men garbed in skins or the coarsest textures of the loom, athletic of limb and fleet of foot as the roe, more than a match for all the cunning stratagems of Indian warfare, “lion-hearted to dare and win, and yet with gentleness and generosity to melt the soul.” The log structure rose in the wilderness, with puncheon floor, slab benches, port-hole windows and rifle-rack, in whose cribbed and darkened shrine alternated the thunderous vociferations of the fire-and-brimstone preacher and the cries of the truant urchin under the savage birch of the pitiless schoolmaster. These people were without any local form of civil government, without executive, military, civil or peace officers; but they had among them John Sevier, Isaac Shelby, James Robertson and others, who kept the good of the community at heart. It will be remembered that there has been much controversy, at times in the not very distant past, as to when, where and by whom the first declaration of a free and independent government was made and entered into on this continent--some claiming that Mecklenburg, North Carolina, was the place, its citizens the people, and May, 1775, the date; others asserting that the association formed for Kentucky, “under the great elm tree outside the fort at Boonsboro”--this also in 1775--was the first. I propose to show that neither one of these associations, declarations or formations of government was the first “free and independent government” established on this continent; but that this honor belongs to the settlers on the Watauga. Haywood, in his history of Tennessee (page 41), says: “In 1772 (May), the settlement on the Watauga, being without government, formed a written association and articles for their conduct. They appointed five commissioners, a majority of whom was to decide all matters of controversy, and to govern and direct for the common good in other respects”; and again (page 46): “This committee settled all private controversies, and had a clerk, Felix Walker, now or lately a member of Congress from North Carolina. They had also a sheriff. This committee had stated and regular times for holding their sessions, and took the laws of Virginia for the standard of decision.” Haywood further says that they were living under this government in November, 1775.