The Watauga Association, was formed in 1772 by settlers living along the Watauga and Nolichucky rivers in what is now northeast Tennessee. The Watauga Association's articles of government provided a system for administering justice and conducting civil affairs. No copy of these articles has been found to date. In 1775, the Wataugans changed their name to “Washington District.” The main settlements in the Washington District were Watauga, near present-day Elizabethton; North of the Holston, near present day Bristol; Carter’s Valley, just below the fork of the Holston River; and Nolichucky, near present-day Erwin. On March 19th, 1775, leaders of the Watauga Association purchased the lands residents were already living on in upper East Tennessee from the Cherokee.

This example of pioneering self-governance is considered by many historians as the first independent democratic government in North America formed by American-born individuals. Over a hundred years later, President Theodore Roosevelt would call the Wataugans "the first men of American birth to establish a free and independent community on the continent."

In 1776, the North Carolina Provincial Council received a petition from the residents of the Watauga Association asking for annexation into North Carolina. The Washington District sent representatives to the Provincial Congress in November, 1776, and was accepted into North Carolina as Washington County in 1777.

To access Watauga Association Era Documents visit the Washington County, Tennessee Department of Records Management and Archives located at 103 West Main Street, Jonesborough, Tennessee, or view Watauga Era Documents and The Watauga Purchase online.

Washington County was formed in 1777 by an Act of North Carolina

LAWS OF NORTH CAROLINA 1777, CHAPTER 31:

"An Act for erecting the district of Washington into a county, by the name of Washington County."

BE IN ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA, and it is hereby enacted by the authority of the same, that the late district of Washington, and all that part of this state comprehended with in the following lines, shall be erected into a new and distinct county, by the name of Washington County, viz.  Beginning at the most north-westerly part of the county of Wilkes on the Virginia line;  thence running with the line of Wilkes County, to a point thirty-six miles south of the Virginia line;  thence due west, to the ridge of the great Iron Mountain which henceforth divided the Hunting Grounds of the Overhill Cherokee, from those of the Middle Settlements, and Valley;  thence running a south-westerly course, along the said ridge, to the Unacoy [sic.] Mountain, where the trading path crosses the same from the Valley to the Overhills;  thence south with the line of the state, adjoining the state of South-Carolina;  thence due west, to the great River Mississippi;  thence up the same river the counties thereof, to a point due west from the beginning;  thence due east with the line of this state, to the beginning:  And it is hereby declared, that all that part of this State comprehended within the lines aforesaid, shall from henceforth be and remain the county of Washington, and shall be, and is hereby declared to be part of the district of Salisbury.

Taken from The First Laws of the State of North Carolina (Cushing, 1984)

Jonesborough was selected as county seat and in 1779 construction began on a courthouse.

Sullivan County was created in 1779 from a portion of Washington County, North Carolina and named for John Sullivan, a Patriot general in the Revolutionary War.

Tidence Lane organized Buffalo Ridge Baptist Church in 1779, reportedly the first church in Washington County.

Greene County was formed in 1783 from the original Washington County, North Carolina, part of the former Washington District. The county is named for Major General Nathanael Greene, a major general in the Continental Army.

In June 1784, North Carolina ceded its western “Overmountain” lands to the United States to pay its part of the Revolutionary War debts with the provision that a new state would be formed from these new lands. Settlers west of the Appalachians felt they were without government. In December 1784, a constitutional convention was held in Jonesborough to establish the new state of Franklin (also Frankland). A constitution for the state was proposed for voting by a second constitutional convention held in Greeneville on November 14, 1785. The proposed constitution was rejected and John Sevier, as convention president, proposes revising the North Carolina state constitution to serve as the basis for Franklin’s constitution. This was approved. John Tipton, who had supported the Jonesborough document, opposed this change and began to transition from a supporter of Franklin’s statehood to the most important opponent.

John Sevier became the governor of the new state of Franklin. In 1786, Franklin’s representatives sent to Philadelphia to seek approval of the new state by the Continental Congress. They had Franklin’s constitution printed in booklet form, under the following title: A Declaration of Rights, Also, the Constitution, or Form of Government, Agreed to, and Resolved upon, by the Representatives of the Freemen of the State of Frankland, Elected and Chosen for that Particular Purpose, in Convention Assembled at Greeneville, the 14th of November, 1785. Francis Bailey, the printer of this Franklin Constitution, was the official printer for the Continental Congress at the time. Visit the Washington County, Tennessee Department of Records Management and Archives website to view a copy of the Constitution of the State of Frankland.

Both the State of Franklin and North Carolina’s Washington County claimed the Overmountain country and both had functional governments that issued marriage licenses, probate wills and deeds. North Carolina appointed Col. John Tipton as senator. A bitter political rivalry emerged between John Sevier and John Tipton. The Battle of the Lost State of Franklin in 1788 at Tipton’s farm heralded the end for the State of Franklin.

Andrew Jackson crossed the mountains and settled in Jonesborough briefly, living in the home of Christopher Taylor in 1788. While living in Jonesborough, Jackson passed the bar exam before migrating westward to the Cumberland settlement.

Very few such documents survive from the Franklin era. The records that survived at the Washington County Courthouse are now housed in the Washington County Archives. The documents have been scanned are available to researchers in their State of Franklin Era Documents digital collection.

North Carolina ceded the state’s western lands to the federal government in 1790, forming the “Territory of the Unites States, South of the River Ohio” (Southwest Territory). The area included all of that which became the state of Tennessee. President George Washington appointed William Blount, a signer of the U.S. Constitution, as governor. From 1790 to 1792 Blount lived with the William Cobb family at Rocky Mount. Governor Blount's leadership made Rocky Mount the first federal capital beyond the original thirteen states. Today, Rocky Mount is a State Historic Site and museum located at 200 Hyder Hill Road in Piney Flats, TN.

Carter County was formed from Washington County, North Carolina on April 9, 1795. 

In January 1796, the first constitution of the state of Tennessee was drafted in Knoxville by a convention consisting of 55 delegates. The delegates sent the constitution for review by Congress. A vote for statehood was taken. On June 1, 1796, President George Washington signed the bill admitting Tennessee to the Union as the sixteenth state. The original 1796 constitution of the state of Tennessee is kept at the Tennessee State Library and Archives. Visit the Tennessee Virtual Archive to view the 1796 Tennessee Constitution.