SYCAMORE SHOALS MONUMENT - Elizabethton, TN
Posted by: 
vhasler
N 36° 20.040 W 082° 15.718
17S E 386740 N 4021734
Historical location of Fort Watauga which briefly protected the early white settlers from Cherokee attack, but also where a treaty was negotiated.
Waymark Code: WM9W5W
Location: Tennessee, United States
Date Posted: 10/04/2010
Views: 5
To find this location, you have to take the TN67 highway as it was back in 1939 - not the current US321 bypass through the commercial district. The road now less traveled...
The SYCAMORE SHOALS MONUMENT is a three-sided shaft of river rocks, erected to mark the place where important events occurred. In 1772 settlers from Virginia and North Carolina built Fort Watauga here as a protection against the Indians; in the same year the Transylvania Treaty with the Cherokee was negotiated at the fort, the Cherokee agreeing to sell to the Transylvania Company the area between the Ohio River and the watershed of the Cumberland. Virginia and North Carolina had no interest in these early settlements, and neither State took any steps immediately to extend its jurisdiction. Realizing the necessity of having some form of government, the settlers met during the spring of 1772, at the site of Elizabethton, and entered into a compact forming the Watauga Association. This compact for self-government was the first made by white men west of the Allegheny Mountains. In 1776 a survey definitely determined that what is now northeast Tennessee lay within the boundaries of North Carolina. Accordingly, the association petitioned the General Assembly of North Carolina to include them within the jurisdiction of that Colony. The petition resulted in the creation of Washington County, which comprised all the area settled by whites in what is now Tennessee.
----- TENNESSEE - A Guide to the State (third printing 1949)
A guide at Sycamore Shoals said that the top of the monument had a basketball-sized river rock, which now needs to be replaced. The local DAR group erected the monument in 1909.