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 ROGERSVILLE, TN Posted by:  vhasler
N 36° 24.430 W 083° 00.387
17S E 320086 N 4030981
Rogersville is the second oldest town in Tennessee, established on land given to Joseph Rogers and his wife Mary Amis.
Waymark Code: WMA0RN
Location: Tennessee, United States
Date Posted: 10/27/2010
Views: 3
ROGERSVILLE (1,170 alt, 1,590 pop.), is the seat of Hawkins County. Settlements were made in this area in 1772, three years after the first whites came to live in what is now Tennessee. About 1780
Thomas Amis erected a stone house three miles northeast of this place and in the following year he established a store, a blacksmith shop, a distillery, a gristmill, and a hotel. In 1785, when Joseph Rogers, an Irishman employed by Amis as storekeeper, married Mary Amis, Thomas' daughter, Amis gave the couple the tract of land upon which Rogersville was established in 1786. One of the last acts of the General Assembly of North Carolina that affected what is now Tennessee was the naming of Rogersville as seat of Hawkins County. The county was named for Benjamin Hawkins, U. S. Senator from North Carolina, who, with his colleague, Senator Johnson, executed the deed of cession that conveyed the Territory of Tennessee to the United States on Feb. 25, 1790.
The town is a trade center for an area in which tobacco-growing and livestock-raising are the principal activities. Walnuts are collected nearby in large quantities.
Three of the earliest newspapers in the State began publication here. The Knoxville Gazette, which first appeared on November 5, 1791, had been published here weekly by G. Roulstone and R. Fergueson for about a year before the plant was moved to Knoxville. The paper devoted much space to Thomas Paine's Rights of Aian.
The second issue carried this news story which reveals the state of mind of the whites when meeting the natives whose lands they were expropriating: "About the 10th inst. a company going through the wilderness to Cumberland was met on the road by a party of Indians. Upon first sight the men, being seven in number, rode off with the utmost precipitation and left the women, four in number, who were so terrified that they were unable to proceed"
A typical Gazette advertisement read:
"Mr. James Miller informs his friends and the public that he has just arrived from Philadelphia and Richmond and has brought with him a large and general assortment of goods among which are best rum, wine, brandy, and whisky, a few young, likely Virginia-born Negroes and will pay the highest prices for bear, otter, wild cat, and other kinds of fur"
The Railroad Advocate, one of the earliest publications in the United States devoted exclusively to railroad news, first appeared here on June 21, 1831. The Calvinistic Magazine, which had a five-year existence, began publication in 1827.
----- TENNESSEE - A Guide to the State (third printing 1949)
Coordinates are for the Hawkins County Courthouse.
Rogersville has grown to 4,341 population over the 70 years. Primary employers in this town are the county government and school system plus TRW.
Book: Tennessee
Page Number(s) of Excerpt: 310-311
Year Originally Published: 1939
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