Dropped stitches in Tennessee historyAllison, John
History
Dropped stitches in Tennessee history
Allison, John
Jackson, Andrew, 1767-1845 -- Homes and haunts -- Tennessee; Tennessee -- History
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.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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