The coming of Governor Blount was the beginning of the greatness of Knoxville. Blount was a notable man. He had been a silent but respected and not uninfluential member of the convention that framed the Federal Constitution. He was the friend of Washington, and his lineage was most ancient and most honorable, reaching back to the time of William the Conqueror, in whose train, and among the beneficiaries of whose bounty, was one of his ancestors. The family had been settled long, in opulent circumstances and in social and political prominence, in North Carolina. The Governor was a man of education, of fine presence, of graceful and winning manners and of unfailing, if dignified, urbanity. He was unquestionably the first gentleman as well as the chief magistrate of the “Territory of the United States South of the River Ohio,” although neither honorable lineages nor good manners were wanting there. In addition to all this his Excellency was most fortunate in his wife. The praises of the lovely and accomplished Mary Grainger Blount were in the mouths of all men, and even of many women in those days. It was a memorable occasion when the Governor brought his gracious lady from North Carolina to Knoxville, and placed her at the head of his court, which was conducted with no little circumstance and dignity. It is said that he imported, likewise, weather-boarding, wherewith he encased the logs of a great house which he had constructed as a home for his wife, and that no sooner had this attractive and expensive transformation been accomplished, than the front yard was converted into a flower garden, the first of its kind in the town, and certainly one of the most admired anywhere. In July, 1791, Governor Blount made at Knoxville a treaty with the Cherokees. Nearly fifteen hundred Indians were present, including forty-one chiefs. The Governor had caused to be erected in a conspicuous place on a hillside overlooking the river a large tent, wherein he remained withdrawn until all the expected company had assembled. Then the doors of the tent were thrown open and he stood forth, arrayed in splendor, and surrounded by the chief civil and military notables of the territory. The resplendency of his Excellency’s dress-sword, laced coat and cocked hat are much commented on by historians. Second in splendor of raiment and dignity of deportment to the Governor only, was James Armstrong, known as “Trooper,” formerly a dragoon in his Britannic Majesty’s service, and versed in the ways of courts. The _Annalist_ of Tennessee characterizes him, for this occasion, as “_arbiter elegantiarum_.” The Governor stood upon a platform, and one by one in due order the Cherokee chiefs were presented by Mr. Armstrong, while the assembled warriors gazed in awe upon the imposing ceremony. A treaty was solemnly entered into, and was speedily broken by both whites and Indians.