Sycamore Shoals State Historic Area is a

state park State parks are parks or other protected areas managed at the sub-national level within those nations which use "state" as a political subdivision. State parks are typically established by a state to preserve a location on account of its natural ...

located in

Elizabethton Elizabethton is a city in, and the county seat of Carter County, Tennessee, United States. Elizabethton is the historical site of the first independent American government (known as the Watauga Association, created in 1772) located west of both th ...

, in the U.S. state of

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 ...

. The park consists of situated along the Sycamore Shoals of the Watauga River, a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

where a series of events critical to the establishment of the states of Tennessee and

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 ...

, and the settlement of the Trans-

Appalachia Appalachia () is a cultural region in the Eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York State to northern Alabama and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Newfoundland and Labrador, Ca ...

n frontier in general, took place. Along with the historic shoals, the park includes a visitor center and museum, the reconstructed

Fort Watauga Fort Watauga, more properly Fort Caswell, was an American Revolutionary War fort that once stood at the Sycamore Shoals of the Watauga River in what is now Elizabethton, Tennessee. The fort was originally built in 1775–1776 by the area's front ...

, the

Carter Mansion The Carter Mansion is a historic house located in Reading, Massachusetts. Description and history The -story wood-frame house was built in 1802 by Daniel Chute, owner of one of the first shoemaking businesses in Reading. Originally a Federal ...

(at a satellite location in Elizabethton)Carroll Van West
Sycamore Shoals State Historic Park
''Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture'', 2009. Retrieved: 11 February 2013. and

Sabine Hill Sabine Hill, also known as Happy Valley, Watauga Point, and the General Nathaniel Taylor House, is a historic house in Elizabethton, Tennessee. The two-story Federal architecture, Federal style building was listed on the National Register of His ...

(also at a satellite location in Elizabethton). For over a thousand years before the arrival of European explorers, Sycamore Shoals and adjacent lands had been inhabited by Native Americans.Polly Rettig and Hugh Lawing (form preparation), . 11 February 1976. Retrieved: 28 June 2009. PDF file. The first permanent European settlers arrived in 1770, and established the

Watauga Association The Watauga Association (sometimes referred to as the Republic of Watauga) was a semi-autonomous government created in 1772 by frontier settlers living along the Watauga River in what is now Elizabethton, Tennessee. Although it lasted only a few ...

—one of the first written constitutional governments west of the

Appalachian Mountains The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, (french: Appalaches), are a system of mountains in eastern to northeastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period. They ...

—in 1772. Richard Henderson and Daniel Boone negotiated the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals in 1775, which saw the sale of millions of acres of Cherokee lands in Kentucky and Tennessee and led to the building of the

Wilderness Road The Wilderness Road was one of two principal routes used by colonial and early national era settlers to reach Kentucky from the East. Although this road goes through the Cumberland Gap into southern Kentucky and northern Tennessee, the other (mo ...

. During the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolut ...

, Sycamore Shoals was both the site of Fort Watauga, where part of a Cherokee invasion was thwarted in 1776, and the mustering ground for the

Overmountain Men The Overmountain Men were American frontiersmen from west of the Blue Ridge Mountains which are the leading edge of the Appalachian Mountains, who took part in the American Revolutionary War. While they were present at multiple engagements in th ...

in 1780.Samuel Cole Williams (1919). "Henderson and Company's Purchase Within the Limits of Tennessee." ''Tennessee Historical Magazine'', Vol. 1 (1919), pp. 5-23.

Facilities

Visitors center

The visitors' center at Sycamore Shoals State Historic Area houses: * interpretive displays about the area's history during the American Revolution * a theater offering free screenings of a short

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

of the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

history pertaining to Sycamore Shoals and the Overmountain Men, as narrated by

John Cullum John Cullum (born circa 1930) is an American actor and singer. He has appeared in many stage musicals and dramas, including '' Shenandoah'' (1975) and ''On the Twentieth Century'' (1978), winning the Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Mus ...

* park offices * bookstore and gift shop.

Fort Watauga

A reconstruction of the 18th-century Fort Watauga is located behind the visitors center. The fort, originally called Fort Caswell, was originally built in the mid-1770s. The reconstructed fort's design is based on archaeological finds, scant historic descriptions of the fort, and the typical design of forts on the Appalachian frontier.

Amphitheater

A 450-seat amphitheater at Sycamore Shoals is located immediately adjacent to the reconstructed fort. The amphitheater is the site of the Official Outdoor Drama of the State of Tennessee, ''Liberty: The Saga of Sycamore Shoals'' (formerly billed as ''The Wataugans'').

Mountain River Trail

The , graveled Mountain River Trail follows the partially wooded south bank of the Sycamore Shoals of the Watauga River. Interpretive signs along the trail explain the various historical events that occurred at Sycamore Shoals.

Picnic pavilions

There are three handicapped accessible picnic shelters that can be reserved at Sycamore Shoals State Historic Area. A picnic area with grills is also located beside the Visitor's Center.

Apollo 14 "Moon Tree"

The Sycamore Shoals State Historical Area is a recipient of a

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

sycamore "moon tree" that was grown from one of hundreds of tree seeds that were launched into space on board the Apollo 14 mission (

Commander Commander (commonly abbreviated as Cmdr.) is a common naval officer rank. Commander is also used as a rank or title in other formal organizations, including several police forces. In several countries this naval rank is termed frigate captain. ...

Alan Shepard, Command Module Pilot Stuart Roosa, and Lunar Module Pilot

Edgar Mitchell Edgar Dean Mitchell (September 17, 1930 – February 4, 2016) was a United States Navy officer and aviator, test pilot, aeronautical engineer, ufologist, and NASA astronaut. As the Lunar Module Pilot of Apollo 14 in 1971 he spent nine hour ...

on January 31, 1971, as part of a joint project between NASA and the

U.S. Forest Service The United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands. The Forest Service manages of land. Major divisions of the agency in ...

. These moon tree seeds were packed in small containers and carried within astronaut Stuart Roosa's personal kit that orbited above the moon with Roosa in the Apollo 14 Command/Service Module ''Kitty Hawk". After returning to Earth, the hundreds of Apollo 14 moon tree seeds were germinated by the Forest Service, and later during April 1976, a single young sycamore tree was delivered to and planted at the Sycamore Shoals State Historical Area was part of the celebration of the Bicentennial of the American Revolutionary War.

The Carter Mansion

Listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

and built between 1775 and 1780, the Carter Mansion may be the only surviving material link to the

and is the oldest frame house standing in Tennessee. John Carter and his son, Landon, built the frontier mansion, and the finely detailed interior and over-mantle paintings place the mansion among the most significant historic houses in Tennessee. John and Landon Carter were both prominent in political and military affairs, serving during the American Revolution and several conflicts with Native Americans. When Tennessee was admitted into the United States in 1796, Carter County was named for Landon Carter, and the county seat of Elizabethton was named for his wife, Elizabeth Maclin Carter.

Historical significance of the Sycamore Shoals State Historic Area

Colonial settlement

The flatlands around Sycamore Shoals have been sporadically inhabited by Native Americans for thousands of years, and were probably cultivated during the

Mississippian period The Mississippian ( , also known as Lower Carboniferous or Early Carboniferous) is a subperiod in the geologic timescale or a subsystem of the geologic record. It is the earlier of two subperiods of the Carboniferous period lasting from roughly ...

(ca. 1000–1600 C.E.). When the first European explorers arrived in the area in the early 18th century, the

Cherokee The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, t ...

were using the flats as a gathering place for hunting expeditions. In the 1760s,

long hunter A longhunter (or long hunter) was an 18th-century explorer and hunter who made expeditions into the American frontier for as much as six months at a time. Historian Emory Hamilton says that "The Long Hunter was peculiar to Southwest Virginia o ...

s and traders established stations and hunting camps in the Watauga Valley in the vicinity of Sycamore Shoals. These early explorers called the flats the Watauga "Old Fields" due to their resemblance to once-cultivated lands that had been left fallow. In 1770, James Robertson (a later founder of

Nashville Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and the ...

) made an excursion into the Watauga Valley, possibly to locate settlement sites for families fleeing the turmoil of the

Regulator Movement The Regulator Movement, also known as the Regulator Insurrection, War of Regulation, and War of the Regulation, was an uprising in Province of North Carolina, Provincial North Carolina from 1766 to 1771 in which citizens took up arms against colo ...

in his native North Carolina. A trader pointed Robertson to the Old Fields, which Robertson later described as a "Promised Land" and planted a corn crop and built a cabin and corn crib. Robertson then departed for North Carolina, but returned to the Old Fields, a few months later, with several families to establish what became known as the Watauga settlement.Samuel Cole Williams (1937). ''Dawn of Tennessee Valley and Tennessee History'' (Johnson City, Tenn.: Watauga Press), pp. 338–348.

Watauga Association

After surveyors placed the Watauga settlement and the other "south-of-Holston" settlements officially within the domain of the

tribe in 1771, Robertson negotiated a 10-year lease for the Watauga lands. Being outside the authority of any of the British colonies, the Watauga settlers established a regional constitutional government known as the "Watauga Association." Tragedy struck as the lease was being celebrated, when a Cherokee warrior was murdered by a white man. Robertson's skillful diplomacy made peace with the irate Cherokee, who threatened to expel the settlers by force if necessary.John Finger (2001). ''Tennessee Frontiers: Three Regions in Transition'' (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press), pp. 43-64.

American Revolution

In March 1775, the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals, sometimes called the

Transylvania Purchase The Transylvania Colony, also referred to as the Transylvania Purchase, was a short-lived, extra-legal colony founded in early 1775 by North Carolina land speculator Richard Henderson, who formed and controlled the Transylvania Company. Henders ...

, was signed by Richard Henderson and Cherokee leaders Attakullakulla and

Oconastota Oconostota (c. 1710–1783) was a Cherokee ''skiagusta'' (war chief) of Chota, which was for nearly four decades the primary town in the Overhill territory, and within what is now Monroe County, Tennessee. He served as the First Beloved Man of Ch ...

. The treaty involved the purchase of some of land between the

Kentucky River The Kentucky River is a tributary of the Ohio River, long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed June 13, 2011 in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), U.S. Commonwealth of Kentuc ...

and the

Cumberland River The Cumberland River is a major waterway of the Southern United States. The U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed June 8, 2011 river drains almost of southern Kentucky and ...

, which included a large part of what is now Kentucky and part of Tennessee. Henderson's purchase was in violation of the

Royal Proclamation of 1763 The Royal Proclamation of 1763 was issued by King George III on 7 October 1763. It followed the Treaty of Paris (1763), which formally ended the Seven Years' War and transferred French territory in North America to Great Britain. The Procla ...

, however, which prohibited private purchase of American Indian land, and the Virginia and North Carolina assemblies refused to recognize it. The purchase, nevertheless, led to the blazing of the

by Daniel Boone. In the weeks following the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals, a faction of Cherokee opposed to the sale, led by Dragging Canoe, aligned themselves with the British with plans to drive the settlers back across the Appalachian Mountains. The Watauga and Nolichucky settlers organized themselves into the Washington District and formed a Committee of Safety, which acquired arms and built forts, including Fort Watauga. In July 1776, the Cherokee invaded the south-of-Holston settlements. On July 21, 1776, a Cherokee invasion force attacked Fort Watauga, but was thwarted by the fort's garrison, which was led by John Carter, James Robertson, and John Sevier. On September 25, 1780, Sycamore Shoals served as the staging area for the Overmountain Men, the frontier militia that crossed the mountains to engage and defeat an army of British loyalists at the Battle of Kings Mountain in South Carolina. Overmountain Men had previously fought at the

Siege of Charleston The siege of Charleston was a major engagement and major British victory in the American Revolutionary War, fought in the environs of Charles Town (today Charleston), the capital of South Carolina, between March 29 and May 12, 1780. The British ...

(these included what one historian dubbed the first "Tennessee volunteers") and the

Battle of Musgrove Mill The Battle of Musgrove Mill, August 19, 1780, occurred near a ford of the Enoree River, near the present-day border between Spartanburg, Laurens and Union Counties in South Carolina. During the course of the battle, 200 Patriot militiamen defeate ...

, both in 1780, and participated in two campaigns against the Cherokee, in 1776 and 1780. William Tatham, Watauga Association clerk and drafter of the Watauga Petition, was present at the

Battle of Yorktown The Siege of Yorktown, also known as the Battle of Yorktown, the surrender at Yorktown, or the German battle (from the presence of Germans in all three armies), beginning on September 28, 1781, and ending on October 19, 1781, at Yorktown, Virgi ...

in 1781.Samuel Cole Williams (1947). ''William Tatham, Wataugan'' (Johnson City, Tenn.: The Watauga Press), pp. 11–28.

Annual events

* Traditional Arts Workshops, January–December * Garrisons and Living History Weekends, January–December * Sunday Jams at the Carter Mansion and the Shoals, January–October * Mountain River Concerts, January–October * Muster at Fort Watauga, May * Native American Festival, June * Colonial Kids Day Camp, June * '' Liberty! The Saga of Sycamore Shoals'', The Official Outdoor Drama of the State of Tennessee, July * Watauga Valley Art League Art Show and Competition, July * Carter Mansion Celebration, August * Overmountain Victory Trail Celebration, September * Fort Watauga Knap-In, October * Mysterious Candlelight Tours of the Carter Mansion, October

References

External links

Official website

Friends of Sycamore Shoals State Historic Area

Article from Tennessee History for Kids
{{authority control Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Tennessee Houses completed in 1780 State parks of Tennessee Protected areas of Carter County, Tennessee Museums in Carter County, Tennessee Historic house museums in Tennessee Military and war museums in Tennessee Elizabethton, Tennessee Protected areas established in 1975 1975 establishments in Tennessee Houses in Carter County, Tennessee National Register of Historic Places in Carter County, Tennessee