On July 2, 1782, William Blount, Governor of the Southwest Territory at White's Fort in Knoxville, made a treaty with the Cherokees in which they agreed to give up their claim to lands south of the Clinch River. Following the treaty, some of the Indians were bitterly hostile to the whites for several months. In order to protect themselves, the settlers built a cordon of stations from Holmack's on Bull Run Creek to Yokum's Station on Richard Henderson and Company lots in Powell Valley.
The roads and distances from place to place along the stage and steam boat routes was drawn by J. & W. W. Warr and published by H. S. Tanner of Philadelphia as a New Map Tennessee in 1833. The "new map" traces the Jacksboro Road from Knoxville by way of Church Grove at Bull Run Creek, to Loy's Cross Roads, then on to Jacksboro, the county seat of Campbell County, Tennessee. No evidence of other settlements on the stage route was indicated by the 1833 map.
Very little history of this stage and wagon road has been recorded, and only recently has this writer had time to collect information and research the turnpike route that served the traveler from the capital at Knoxville to Jacksboro. Until Knox County gave up a portion of its boundary to new and younger counties, it held jurisdiction over a vast frontier. In its first year in 1792, Knox County court ordered roads to be built in the county in several directions from Knoxville--to Kelley's Mill and Craig's Mill on Nine Mile Creek west to Campbell's Station; east to the mouth of the French Broad River; and north to the Clinch River (one reference states to Jacksboro). The northern route was probably chosen because of the early settlement at Sharp's Station. Some reseach indicates Sharp's Station was settled before James White came to Knoxville.
Road building and maintainance was done by private unrecompensed labor, under the direction of an overseer appointed by the court and having power to summons on three days' notice all white males from 18 to 50. He also notified slave owners to send their male slaves between 15 to 50. Overseers were responsible for specific sections of roads and were subject to prosecution for failing to perform their duty. One of the first major implementations of the Union County court in the 1850's was the appointment of overseers to build and maintain county roads. (See early road crews) River ferries as well as roads were under the authorization and supervision of county courts, which controlled their locations and dictated placement according to access roads. They fixed the rates to be charged, and in the first half of the nineteenth century prices, ranged from two-cents for hogs, six and one-half cents for individuals, to one dollar for a four or five horse wagon. County court also attended to the usefulness of rivers and streams by supervising the building of mill dams on the waterways so as not to obstruct navigation.
Goodspeed's map of the region drawn in 1889, reflects only the stations or forts established to protect the early settlers against Indians in East Tennessee. Tracing the route northward along the Jacksboro Road, the map's draftsman was only interested in placing the many stations on the map and did not detail his sketch very accurately in relationship to the roads, streams, and rivers. However, the map does list the stations in the general vicinity of the road: Holmack's Station, Well's Station, and Sharp's Station, are the only ones mentioned.
For more information on this article or any article or publication of the Union County Historical Society please write them at:
Union County Historical Society
P.O. Box 95
Maynardville, TN 37807
Or
E-mail the Union County Historical
Society.
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