Cherokee Oak

The tree stands on the old Walton Road, and the story attached to it is a Cherokee (Tsalagi) one. Local legend says a woman named Frances Hammock passed this oak while fleeing soldiers enforcing Indian removal. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 only authorized treaties. The Treaty of New Echota followed in 1835, signed by Treaty Party representatives who spoke for about a tenth of the Cherokee, and the forced removal began in 1838. Cherokee claims to this part of the plateau ended with the 1805 Treaty of Tellico. Whether Hammock walked this road is legend, not record.

What the plaque says

Cherokee Oak As of 2026, this oak stands along what was the Old Walton Road, which was completed in 1801 as the major throughfare connecting East and Middle Tennessee. Legend says the tree was named for Frances Hammock, remembered locally as a Cherokee woman. It is said she passed this tree while fleeing from soldiers enforcing the 1830 Indian Removal Act. The tree also served as s resting spot for Willis Hyder, one of the last horseback mail carriers, who delivered mail from 1908 into the early 1950s.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Cookeville Depot Museum — 4.7 mi
  The 1909 Tennessee Central Railroad depot in Cookeville's west side, now a museum with a model of the town in 1955 and a steam engine in the yard.
• Cummins Falls State Park — 9.7 mi
  A 75-foot waterfall and swimming hole on the Blackburn Fork, saved from a housing development in 2011 and opened as Tennessee's 54th state park.
• Burgess Falls State Park — 13 mi
  A day-use park on the Falling Water River, where a short trail passes three smaller falls on its way to a drop of more than 130 feet into a limestone gorge.
• Muddy Pond Mennonite Community — 18 mi
  A Mennonite farming community in Overton County near Monterey, known for sorghum syrup pressed and boiled each fall and for the farm stores along its roads.

More markers nearby

• White Plains — 1.3 mi
• Mount Granger — 2.6 mi
• Capshaw School — 3.9 mi
• Israel Putnam 1717 - 1790 — 4.2 mi