The Lost State of Franklin

Long before Tennessee existed, the hills around Greeneville were the capital of a country that never quite came to be. For a few turbulent years in the 1780s, this corner of the Appalachian frontier tried to become the 14th state of the new United States — a breakaway republic its founders called the State of Franklin. It failed, which is why most Americans have never heard of it. But for a stretch of that struggle, Greeneville was its capital, and you can still visit the spot today.

How a 14th state almost happened

In April 1784, cash-strapped after the Revolutionary War, North Carolina ceded its western lands — the mountain country that is now East Tennessee — to the federal government to help settle its war debts. Then, just months later, the legislature had second thoughts and repealed the cession. That left the frontier settlers in an uncertain limbo: promised to Congress, then reclaimed, and a long, hard ridge of mountains away from the North Carolina government that was supposed to protect them.

Rather than wait to find out who governed them, the settlers of the western counties took matters into their own hands. In August 1784 they met in convention and declared themselves an independent state. They named it Franklin, after Benjamin Franklin, hoping the great man's reputation might help win them a seat in the Union. (An earlier proposal had called it Frankland — "land of freedom.") Franklin's reply was gracious but noncommittal.

Greeneville becomes the capital

The new state's first business was done in Jonesborough, in neighboring Washington County. But it was in Greeneville — founded in 1783 and named for Revolutionary War general Nathanael Greene — that Franklin took its most formal shape. The first legislature met in Greeneville in December 1785, where delegates adopted a permanent constitution modeled closely on North Carolina's. From that point until its collapse, Greeneville was the capital of the State of Franklin.

And it governed like a real state. The Franklin legislature levied taxes, raised a militia, established courts, opened a land office, and authorized marriages — all in open defiance of North Carolina, which still claimed the same ground. The constitutional debates held in Greeneville grew so heated that they produced what are often called the first political pamphlets printed west of the Appalachian Mountains. For a raw frontier town barely two years old, it was an extraordinary thing to be at the center of.

Governor John Sevier

Leading the new state was John Sevier, a Revolutionary War hero of the Battle of Kings Mountain and a leader of the earlier Watauga Association, the frontier self-government that had preceded Franklin. Elected governor in 1785 — by some accounts reluctantly — Sevier became the face of the breakaway state, and its fate became bound up with his own.

Why the state was lost

Franklin never won the votes it needed in Congress, and its problems multiplied. Under the Treaty of Hopewell of November 1785, much of the land Franklin claimed — including Greeneville itself — lay inside territory guaranteed to the Cherokee, fueling conflict on the frontier. Meanwhile, North Carolina never truly let go, running a rival government in the very same counties. Settlers found themselves choosing between two sets of courts, two sets of taxes, and two sets of officials.

The rivalry finally turned violent in February 1788, when Sevier led an armed force to the home of John Tipton, the leading North Carolina loyalist in the region, in a skirmish sometimes called the "Battle of Franklin." By then the state was already unraveling. Sevier's term ran out, support drained away, and North Carolina reasserted control. He was arrested later that year, and in early 1789 he and the last holdouts swore allegiance back to North Carolina. The Lost State of Franklin was finished after roughly four years.

The story didn't end badly for the region, though. The same country was soon organized as the federal Southwest Territory, and in 1796 it became the State of Tennessee — the 16th state. Its first governor? John Sevier. The man who had governed a state that never was went on to govern the one that lasted.

See it in Greeneville today

Greeneville still remembers its brief run as a capital. A reconstructed log "Capitol of the State of Franklin" stands downtown, near where the original is believed to have stood by Main and Depot Streets, and it's one of the stops on the town's historic walking tour. The building you see is a 20th-century reconstruction based on old descriptions rather than the original logs — but it marks the ground where the Franklin story played out.

It's a short stroll from the rest of Greeneville's remarkable history. A generation later this same town became the home of President Andrew Johnson, whose homes, tailor shop, and grave are preserved at the Andrew Johnson National Historic Site downtown. Walk a few blocks and you can stand on ground that was, in turn, a failed nation's capital and a U.S. president's hometown. If a visit is in your future, our guide to Greeneville and Greene County covers the towns, schools, and everything else worth knowing, and the events calendar shows what's happening while you're here.