Louis Philippe's Visit

After his night at Woods Tavern, the exiled Duke of Orleans rode on to Tellico Blockhouse, a federal post built in 1794 and 1795 at the request of the Overhill Cherokee (Tsalagi) leader Hanging Maw. The government ran it as a trading factory under a 1795 act meant to assimilate Native people. The duke noted that the Cherokee kept its market stocked with game, eggs and fruit, and that women and girls sold strawberries at ninepence a gallon. Federal officials abandoned Tellico in 1807 for a post on the Hiwassee River.

What the plaque says

Louis Philippe's Visit Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans and later king of France, lived in exile in the United States in 1797. Following a route designed by President George Washington he toured the South in that year. On April 29 he spent the night here at Woods Tavern, operated by William Burke, while en route to Tellico Blockhouse to observe Cherokee Life.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Cades Cove — 14 mi
  A Smokies valley ringed by mountains, once the Cherokee hunting ground of Tsiyahi and later a farming community of 685 people, kept by the park after its families were bought out.
• Blount Mansion — 14 mi
  The 1792 frame house of William Blount, governor of the Southwest Territory, Knoxville's only National Historic Landmark, where the people he enslaved are named.
• Beck Cultural Exchange Center — 16 mi
  Knoxville's Black history museum and archive, opened in 1975 in the 1912 Dandridge Avenue house the community bought for $22,500.
• Fort Loudoun State Historic Park — 18 mi
  A reconstructed 1756-57 British fort on the Little Tennessee River in Overhill Cherokee country, besieged in 1760 and surrendered on August 9 of that year.

More markers nearby

• Where Houston Enlisted — steps away
• William Bennett Scott, Sr. ca. 1821-1885 — 0.2 mi
• Montvale Springs — 0.3 mi
• Maryville College — 0.5 mi