Knoxville, TN news and local guide

Settlers pushed into the Holston and French Broad valleys by the 1780s, despite an order from Congress in 1785 to leave. In 1786 James White, a Revolutionary War officer, and James Connor built White's Fort near the mouth of First Creek. In 1790 White's son-in-law Charles McClung laid out 64 half-acre lots, with land for a town common, a church and graveyard (First Presbyterian, founded 1792) and a school that became Blount College, from which the University of Tennessee dates its founding in 1794. In 1790 President Washington appointed William Blount governor of the Territory South of the River Ohio. Blount negotiated the Treaty of Holston with the Cherokee at White's Fort in 1791, and when the Cherokee refused to give up his first choice of capital site, he chose White's Fort. He named the capital for Henry Knox, the Secretary of War and his superior. The treaty's terms were soon disputed, and violence followed on both sides. Sources Wikipedia: Knoxville, Tennessee