Backcountry Notes

I have had the good fortune to find a digital version of Ramsey's Map of Cumberland and Franklin, published in 1853.  The map is titled in the original:

MAP OF

CUMBERLAND & FRANKLIN

As refered to in Ramsey's Annals of Tennessee

Engraved by W. Keenan, Charleston, S.C.           

    For Ramsey's Annals of Tennessee.             

The map depicts Tennessee during the time of settlement, when it was the frontier of the Backcountry.  It shows the road, named "Robertson's Route," leading southwest from the Wilderness Road (from Virginia to central Kentucky) into Middle Tennessee.  Two areas of settlement are illustrated: Northeast Tennessee, lying between the Great Smokies and the Cumberland Mountains; and upper Middle Tennessee, accessed by way of Robertson's Route.  In between these areas there was no settlement in early Tennessee history.

In Northeast Tennessee, the route of the Great Road was along the way that Ramsey's Map designates by its aboriginal name, the "Great Indian War Path."  The pattern of settlement is constrained by the mountain ridges which define Northeast Tennessee. As Ramsey's Map implies, there was no direct route from North Carolina to the land west of the Great Smokies, which was considered part of North Carolina at the time of independence.  This isolation led to the secessionist movement of the State of Franklin and to the eventually-successful attempts of North Carolina to unload the Tennessee territory on the national government.

North Carolina had given grants to land in Middle Tennessee to its Revolutionary War veterans in order to encourage settlement there.  Thus Middle Tennessee was settled in substantial part by former North Carolinians while Northeast Tennessee was settled by Scotch-Irish, yeoman English, and similar communities which came through Pennsylvania and Maryland, down through the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia by way of the Great Wagon Road, and then along the Great Road into the valleys of the Holston, Clinch, and Tennessee Rivers. The Northeast Tennessee settlers, most of whom had no prior connection with North Carolina, provided much of the militia which fought and won the Battle of Kings Mountain; were the impetus for the State of Franklin movement; and later were notoriously Unionist during the Civil War.

Click on the map below to access a full-sized view (you will have to navigate; it is a large file):

To navigate using Mozilla Firefox, right-click on the image and select "View Image."  The complete map should appear in small format; you can then place the cursor over any section of the map and left-click for the enlarged view (left-click again to toggle back to the large image).  To navigate using Safari, right-click on the large image, select "Open in New Window," then position the cursor and left-click to toggle in and out of the close/enlarged views.  If you are using Internet Explorer . . . well, either you can figure it out - - I won't open that bugware program until they get the security holes patched - - or better yet, download and install Firefox or Safari.