History of the Lost State of Franklin [Hardcover]

Samuel Cole Williams (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0932807968 | ISBN-13: 978-0932807960 | Publication Date: January 1, 1993 | Edition: 3rd

In the decade following the American Revolution, a bitter political battle developed over the land west of the Appalachian Mountains. Pressure from the federal government resulted in the 1784 cession of the western claims of North Carolina. Shortly afterward, the North Carolina legislature rescinded the cession, but the settlers had already taken action. A new and independent state was declared—the state of Franklin. A former justice of the Supreme Court of Tennessee, the author goes into extraordinary detail as he documents the history of the ill-fated state. For four years the Franklin government functioned under its own laws, courts, and elected officials. Simultaneously, North Carolina continued to claim sovereignty over the region, enforcing the claim with its own laws, courts, and officials.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Samuel Cole Williams was a jurist and historian born in Gibson County in 1864. He was educated in the schools of Humboldt, Tennessee, and attended Vanderbilt University law school.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 378 pages
• Publisher: Overmountain Press; 3rd edition (January 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0932807968
• ISBN-13: 978-0932807960
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #348,746 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #23 in Books > Education & Reference > Genealogy > United States

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Beginning of States Rights, January 14, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: History of the Lost State of Franklin (Hardcover)

I found this book to be excruciatingly detailed about the movement of people to the west in an attempt to escape the overpowering influence of an omnipotent federal government. It's words demonstrated that a people steeped in the idea of freedom can come together to create a government. For those who are interested in the history not found in academic texts, this is real eye opener. Buy it. Read it. Learn from it.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What else is out there??, March 16, 2007

By 

Scholar "18th century student" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: History of the Lost State of Franklin (Hardcover)

Believe it or not, there really has not been much scholarship on Franklin since this book was written. Others have of course touched on it but there's no modern monograph or narrative of the "lost state" (it never got lost, and never was a state, so the title is clearly misleading!) The writing style is dated and the research while pretty well done is, let us say, incompletely cited. Oh well.

5.0 out of 5 stars Pubisher's Synopsys of the 2006 reprint edition by Clearfield Publishing., July 19, 2007

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Watershed Books (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: History of the Lost State of Franklin (Paperback)

This scarce work should be of interest to all researchers with early Tennessee ancestors inasmuch as it covers the period prior to statehood when the settlement in eastern Tennessee was under quasi-independent rule.

During the decade of the 1780s, one of the thorniest issues facing the new nation was the disposition of territorial lands held along the frontier by some of the original 13 states. By the time the Constitution had been ratified in 1788, this issue had largely been resolved in favor of the federal government, and states like Connecticut, Virginia, and North Carolina had agreed to cede their western lands to the national government. The question of the western lands was not sorted out without some conflict, however, because many of the inhabitants of the western territories distrusted the motivations of their parent state legislatures, which, for the most part, reflected the interests of the eastern establishment and not those of the pioneering Germans and Scotch-Irish on the frontier.

One such controversy involved the creation in 1784 by John Sevier and others of a separate, self-governing territorial unit from lands in western North Carolina known as the State of Franklin. Prior to the adoption of the Constitution, Sevier and his associates had assembled all the apparatus of a functioning self-government for Franklin, including a court system. Ultimately, when the North Carolina legislature voted to cede its western lands to the federal government in 1788, the government of Franklin was compelled to disband, and its territory was reorganized as part of eastern Tennessee.

Samuel Williams's History of the Lost State of Franklin is a masterly account of this separatist movement, which portrays the figures on both sides and their motivations, chronicles the various meetings of the legislative assemblies concerned with the movement for a separate government in the west, clarifies the role of the Spanish government in fostering the separatist cause, and discusses the way of life and people of Franklin and the survival of the "spirit of Franklin" among eastern Tennesseeans. A full 60 pages of the work, moreover, are devoted to biographical sketches of John Sevier (who would become the first governor of Tennessee), Arthur Campbell, and scores of other personalities who took part in the Franklin episode. In addition, researchers will find a list of the names of all the signatories to the 1784 petition for a free Franklin as well as a complete index.