The author has had his home for more
than a generation in Washington
County, Tennessee, which was the midland
and capital county of the State of
Franklin. The romantic history of that
Commonwealth, unique in American
history, and the history of the decades
that preceded its rise and fall, have
always appealed to Tennesseans, and
peculiarly so to one who lives in the
immediate region where the early history
of the Tennessee country was made.
The collection of Tennesseana was
deliberately chosen by the author as his
hobby, and this in turn led to research
in the leading archives and libraries of
America, in intervals of leisure, and to
the making of notes on the early history
of his native State. On retiring from
public service in 1918, an opportunity
was presented to carry out an earlier
conception and plan—to avail of these
materials in writing three or more
volumes on the early history of
Tennessee; and, in so doing, to treat of
that history by eras or periods.
The Franklin State epoch was chosen for
development first, though the plan
covers the discussion of an anterior
era, under the title of The Dawn of
Tennessee History. Another work of the
series is Early Travels in the Tennessee
Country.
It is conceived that this plan will the
better permit of a detailed and
definitive treatment of each period.
There can be no excuse for an historical
work which merely revamps and repeats
what Haywood and Ramsey wrote, though
the histories of those writers are now
out of print. Any one who attempts to
write of the early history of Tennessee
will find himself debtor to both. Ramsey
borrowed heavily from Haywood; but he
had access to materials that his
predecessor had not—documents handed
down by his father, Francis A. Ramsey,
Sevier, and other Franklin leaders.
However, Ramsey wrote long before
valuable source materials had been made
accessible, in the archives of Virginia,
North Carolina, and Georgia. Coming
later into the field, Roosevelt in
preparing his Winning of the West was
enabled to draw in a measure upon such
ampler stores of information which had
then been assembled, and arranged for
consultation by historical students.
The purpose of the author has been to
extend the research, to correct errors
and supplement the work of these earlier
writers, and to amplify even to the
point of risking the lodgement of a
valid criticism of over-elaboration. If
explanation is necessary, it is to be
found in the fact that source materials
relating to Tennessee history, in the
archives of that and other States, have
never been collected and published. This
seemed to warrant the bringing forward
in text, notes or appendices of many
documents which otherwise might have
been summarized. The documents have been
edited, in disregard of rules laid down
for historical writing. This was almost
compelled since Ramsey modernized the
documents he set out in his text and
notes; and these, having been destroyed
by fire since he wrote, cannot be given
in their original form. Many of these
constituted essential parts of the story
of The Lost State. To incorporate them
as edited by Ramsey, leaving others
unchanged as to spelling and syntax,
would be unfair to some of the pioneers
who wrote the documents and would
detract from the symmetry of the volume.
It has been in purpose to treat of the
State of Franklin not merely as a local
movement, but to give it a broader
setting: to discuss the effort to
establish a new State, as the fourteenth
in the Union, as a part of the movement
for separation that was at that time
rife on all frontiers, eastern as well
as western. Franklin was without doubt
the most pronounced and significant
manifestation of the spirit of
separation which gave deep concern to
the national leaders. No other movement
for separate statehood reached, even
approximately, the stage attained by
Franklin—that of a de facto government,
waging war, negotiating treaties and
functioning for a term of years in the
three great departments that mark an
American State, the legislative,
executive, and judicial.
The author has endeavored to make the
volume one of value to those interested
in genealogical research. He has put on
the printed page the names of minor
participants in the struggle, for or
against separate statehood. Of the
leaders, a fuller account is given. For
some of these, even, this is a rescue of
their names and deeds from
near-oblivion. Aid in this effort has
been received from contributions made
from time to time to local newspapers by
such writers as Doctor George F. Mellen
and Selden Nelson, of Knoxville, A. B.
Wilson, of Greeneville, and the late
John S. Mathes, of Jonesborough. The
author's thanks are due also to Dr.
Edmund C. Burnett, of the department of
historical research of the Carnegie
Institution, and to Mr. W. W. DeRenne,
of "Wormsloe," Savannah, Georgia, owner
of the invaluable DeRenne Collection,
for kindnesses shown while the volume
was in preparation.
SAMUEL C. WILLIAMS
Emory University Atlanta, Georgia
January 15, 1924 |
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