Sign Reads:
"1C 6
Washington County
Established 1777: amed in honor of George Washington colonel in the Colonial Army: Commander-in-Chief of the Revolutionary Army and first President of the United States of America."
The county was established in 1777 as Washington County, North Carolina and was named in honor of General George Washington while the Revolutionary War was underway. At that time, "Washington County" included the geographic area that later became the entire State of Tennessee. The County also was part of the "State of Franklin" from 1784 through 1788 (an attempt to create the fourteenth state) prior to Tennessee becoming a state in 1796. The "Washington District" was the first political jurisdiction in the U.S. named for George Washington.
The following is an exerpt from: "Goodspeed's History of Washington County, Tennessee."
The rest of a very detailed history of Washington County can be found at the following web link: (
visit link)
WASHINGTON COUNTY lies between Greene and Carter Counties, and is bounded on the north by Sullivan and on the south by Union. Its area is about 350 square miles. The surface is generally more or less broken, and in the southern part it becomes mountainous. The valleys are fertile, as is also much of the upland. The principal stream in the county is the Nolachucky River, which traverses the southern part. Its chief tributaries are the Big Limestone and Buffalo.
The most valuable mineral of the county is iron, which is found in great abundance.
The first permanent settlement in Tennessee was made in 1769 on Boone Creek by Capt. William Bean, who came in that year from Pittsylvania County, Va. His son, Russell Bean, is said to have been the first white child born in the State. Soon after Bean made his settlement, in 1770 and 1771, James Robertson. Landon Carter and others, laid the foundation of the Watauga settlements, which at first were mainly in what is now Carter County. The steady stream of emigrants from the older States, however, soon forced these to overflow into the territory now embraced in Washington and Greene Counties. In 1772 Jacob Brown, with one or two families from North Carolina, located upon the north bank of the Nolachucky River, which up to this time had remained undisturbed by the white man. Mr. Brown had been a small merchant, and brought with him a packhorse loaded with goods with which he soon purchased from the Indians a lease of a large body of land lying on both sides of the Nolachucky. In 1775 he obtained one deed signed by the chief men of the Cherokee Nation, embracing the greater part of the present Washington County west of the Big Limestone, and another deed for the land lying between the Big Limestone and a line drawn from a point on the Nolachucky Mountains north 32 degrees west to the mouth of Camp Creek; thence across the river; thence northwest to the dividing ridge between Lick Creek and Watauga or Holston; thence up the dividing ridge to the rest of the said Brown's land." This land Mr. Brown sold to settlers at a small price. The government of North Carolina, however, refused to recognize the validity of this deed, and continued to make grants in the territory covered by that instrument.
Among the most prominent of the pioneers who located within the present limits of Washington County were John Sevier, who lived on the Nolachucky, on the farm now owned by William Tyler. His sons, John and James, located on farms near by. John Tipton, the political enemy of the Seviers, lived on Turkey Creek, eight or ten miles east of Jonesboro. The first settlers on Little Limestone were Robert and James Allison, whose descendants still own a portion of the land entered by them. In 1775 Michael Bawn and James Pearn were each granted permission by the county to build a grist-mill on Little Limestone. In the same year an enumeration of the male inhabitants of Washington County, which included all the settlements in East Tennessee, showed that the aggregate number subject to poll tax was 450. Computing from this, upon the usual ratio, the population at that time was not far from 2,500.