Kennessee is a term coined to denote land along the

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

state border that historically lay between the Walker Line surveyed by Dr. Thomas Walker and Daniel Smith in 1779-1780 and the true

parallel Parallel is a geometric term of location which may refer to: Computing * Parallel algorithm * Parallel computing * Parallel metaheuristic * Parallel (software), a UNIX utility for running programs in parallel * Parallel Sysplex, a cluster of IBM ...

36 degrees and 30 minutes surveyed by Thomas J. Matthews in July–September 1826.James W. Sames III: ''Four Steps West, A Documentary Concerning the First Dividing Line in America, and Its Three Extensions, Between Virginia and North Carolina, Kentucky and Tennessee''. Versailles, Ky., 1971. The 6-to-12-mile-wide strip of land below the present southern border of Kentucky between the

Cumberland Gap The Cumberland Gap is a pass through the long ridge of the Cumberland Mountains, within the Appalachian Mountains, near the junction of the U.S. states of Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee. It is famous in American colonial history for its rol ...

and the point where the

Tennessee River The Tennessee River is the largest tributary of the Ohio River. It is approximately long and is located in the southeastern United States in the Tennessee Valley. The river was once popularly known as the Cherokee River, among other names, ...

enters Kentucky was claimed both by Kentucky and Tennessee at the same time. Even after the decision was made in 1820 that the land in the strip east of the Tennessee River belonged to Tennessee, Kentucky was given the right to grant the remaining open land to settlers. If a person was born in the disputed strip after 1796, when Tennessee's claim to the Walker line as its northern boundary was recognized, and before 1826, when the dispute was settled, they could have been uncertain as to just which state to say they were born in, especially if they owned or

squatted Squatting is the action of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied area of land or a building, usually residential, that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have lawful permission to use. The United Nations estimated in 2003 that there ...

on land right on the border, leading some residents to say they lived in "Kennessee."Vernon E. Roddy: "The Kentucky Land Grants South of Walker's Line, 1825-1923 -- A New Emphasis" in ''The Upper Cumberland Genealogical Association Bulletin'', Vol. 5, No. 4 (November, 1980), pp. 3-4.

References

{{coord, 36, 35, N, 85, 35, W, type:edu_region:US-TN_scale:2000000, display=title Regions of the Southern United States Regions of Kentucky Regions of Tennessee Border irregularities of the United States