Wear's Fort

The Wear family was among the 1780s settlers of the community then called Fanshiers, later Pigeon Forge, alongside the Fanchers and Loveladys. Samuel Wear's public career ran longer than his fort. On January 11, 1796, he was one of five Sevier County men sent to the convention in Knoxville that wrote Tennessee's first state constitution, with Spencer Clack, John Clack, Peter Bryant and Thomas Buckingham. John Clack went to the state Senate; Wear and Spencer Clack were elected to the House.

What the plaque says

Wear's Fort Col. Samuel Wear settled near the Mouth of Waldens Creek in 1783. He fought at Kings Mountain and later in Indian Wars, was first county court clerk of Sevier County. State of Franklin, and held the same office later under the territorial government and the State of Tennessee.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Newfound Gap — 16 mi
  The lowest drivable pass through the Smokies, at 5,046 feet on the Tennessee and North Carolina line, where Roosevelt dedicated the park in 1940 and Kuwohi's Cherokee name was restored in 2024.
• Cades Cove — 18 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.
• Beck Cultural Exchange Center — 21 mi
  Knoxville's Black history museum and archive, opened in 1975 in the 1912 Dandridge Avenue house the community bought for $22,500.
• Blount Mansion — 22 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.

More markers nearby

• Pigeon Forge — 2.8 mi
• John Porter McCown — 3.7 mi
• New Salem Baptist Church — 3.9 mi
• The McMahan Indian Mound — 4.0 mi