Capitol of State of Franklin

Franklin began as a revolt against a land grab. In 1783 North Carolina's lawmakers, with prior knowledge, claimed over four million acres in the west, then ceded the territory to Congress. Voters turned them out, the new legislature repealed the cession, and statehood became technically a rebellion. John Sevier was elected governor in 1786. Support faded as John Tipton led opponents in Washington County, and held longest south of the French Broad, where settlers wanted a hard line toward the Cherokee. A token group of chiefs signed the Dumplin Creek treaty; Hopewell soon drew a line north of Greeneville.

What the plaque says

Capitol of State of Franklin This is a replica of the building which is believed to have served as the capitol of the State of Franklin from 1785 until 1788 and which originally stood near the intersection of Main and Depot Streets. At constitutional conventions held there, competing proposals engendered bitter controversy and resulted in the first political pamphlets produced west of the Appalachians. Chief protagonists were three Presbyterian clergymen, Rev. Samuel Houston, Rev. William Graham, and Rev. Hezekiah Balch. The Franklin Legislature, which also met there, challenged the authority of North Carolina by passing laws to levy taxes, raise a militia, establish courts, authorize the performance of marriages, and open a land office.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Andrew Johnson National Historic Site — steps away
  The tailor shop, homestead and grave of the seventeenth president in Greeneville, where the people he enslaved are named and where the Eighth of August emancipation celebration took root.
• Rogersville Historic District — 19 mi
  Tennessee's first newspaper was printed in this Hawkins County seat in 1791, and Swift Memorial College, founded in 1883, educated Black students after the state's 1901 law forced Maryville College to expel them.
• Jonesborough Historic District — 22 mi
  Tennessee's oldest town, chartered in 1779, where Elihu Embree printed The Emancipator in 1820 and a hay wagon by the courthouse started the National Storytelling Festival in 1973.
• Unicoi County Heritage Museum and the Erwin Rail Yard — 24 mi
  A museum in the old fish hatchery superintendent's house in Erwin, a Clinchfield railroad town where the elephant Mary was hanged in 1916 and Black residents were driven out in 1918.

More markers nearby

• Benjamin Lundy — steps away
• Ellen "Nelly" VanVactor Free Black Female Landowner — steps away
• Greeneville Union Convention — steps away
• Sgt. Elbert L. Kinser — steps away