I spent a fair portion of today driving through what was once the Free Republic of Franklin, a portion of present-day East Tennessee ceded to the federal government as a payment for war debt stemming from the American Revolution. Turns out, the government didn't want it, at least not as a state; the vote to accept Franklin as the 14th state failed by two votes. Spurned, the people of the Appalachians decided that maybe they didn't want to be part of this new-fangled United States anyway, and so seceded from the one year-old nation and operated independently for about four years (1784-1788). The most famous Franklonian? None other than Mr. David Crockett, born in 1786 smack dab in the middle of Franklin.
3 comments:
I demand university campus pictures!
Here you go: http://www.appstate.edu/about/img/slideshow/slide-01.jpg
Our family lived in that part of Tennessee, hard time finding records because they were in the state of Franklin!
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