- Sycamore Shoals State Historic Park -
Fort Watauga and the Overmountain Men
Elizabethton, Tennessee
state.tn.us/environment/parks/SycamoreShoals
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sycamore_Shoals
Monument to the Overmountain Men of Tennessee.
This stands at the front entrance to the park visitor center.
My first stop was this park of historic significance in northeast Tennessee - it offers a terrific story of early pioneer life, peril, heroism and survival in this part of the country. This location represents one of the first pioneer communities beyond the original 13 American colonies. Colonists began settling here along the Watauga River in 1772, and were collectively known as the "Overmountain Men" because they resided on the far western side of the Blue Ridge Mountains. There, they established their own constitutional government, although they still considered themselves loyal to Britain at that time. But they soon found reason to question that loyalty.
The Watauga River at Sycamore Shoals
Sycamore Shoals was a desirable place for the early settlements because large fields had been cleared of trees by Indians at some point in the past, but had been abandoned. Settlers found it easy to prepare these fields for agriculture. Also, a shallow place along the Watauga River provided a convenient ford where river crossings could be made quite easily, even on foot.
At that time, this was sheer wilderness dominated by the Cherokee Indians, who were at first apparently content to lease their land to white pioneers; later, however, some had second thoughts as their new neighbors became ever more populous. The Cherokee became sorely divided amongst themselves over the issue of a sale of land to the white settlers in 1775; those opposed to the sale rallied behind a fellow named Dragging Canoe, who encouraged his supporters to attack the pioneer settlements.
Around the same time, the British were clashing with their own colonies in the early events of the American Revolution; to help dislodge the stubbornly independent pioneers from their new settlements in Tennessee, British forces found it useful to supply guns and ammunition to Dragging Canoe and his cohorts, making an attack against the settlements inevitable. The pioneers built Fort Watauga as a defense against these attacks.
Fort Watauga consisted of little more than a wall raised between the closely-grouped buildings on the farm homestead of Mathew Talbot. In July of 1776, the fort was attacked by 300 Cherokee, and about 150 settlers were obliged to take shelter in the compound, living in crowded and miserable conditions during a two-week period of attacks. The current fort at Sycamore Shoals, seen in these photos, is a reconstruction based on written records; the original fort was apparently no longer needed after 1777. Dragging Canoe's forces were defeated, and he and his remaining supporters fled south to continue their struggle in future campaigns known as the Chickamauga Wars.
Only a few years later, Sycamore Shoals was once again a center of action as the settlers prepared to defend themselves against direct attacks from the British. As the Revolutionary War continued, the pioneers of Tennessee refused to announce an oath of loyalty to Britain, and also offered shelter and protection for American militiamen involved in the war. This led a British colonel, Patrick Ferguson, to issue a message to the residents of Tennessee, warning that if they did not “desist from their opposition to the British army, and take protection under his standard, he would march his army over the mountains, hang their leaders, and lay their country waste with fire and sword.”
The pioneers didn't much care for this ultimatum, so they formed militias who came from all the surrounding communities and crossed the river ford at Sycamore Shoals to gather together in the field seen in the photo below. You can see a glimpse of Fort Watauga in the background:
Having survived in the unforgiving wilderness of the frontier, these were the toughest men imaginable. They were expert sharpshooters, as well. In September of 1780, over 1,000 of these men were mustered here before launching a preemptive attack against the British. The militiamen crossed the Appalachian Mountains - adding even deeper meaning to their title as the "Overmountain Men" - and surprised their British Loyalist opponents at King's Mountain, South Carolina, where the Americans defeated the British in less than an hour. This victory was an important event that contributed heavily to the wider American success in the War for Independence, since it foiled the British plan to win the war by securing control over the Southern colonies.
To this day, the march of the Overmountain Men is reenacted each September
by members of the Overmountain Victory Trail Association:
or