State Parks
A replica of Fort Watauga stands on the grounds of Sycamore Shoals State Historic Area.
Sycamore Shoals State Historic Area
Sycamore Shoals State when Richard Henderson, a Historic Area is located in North Carolina land speculator, Elizabethton. The state park met with Cherokee representapreserves the history of not tives at Sycamore Shoals near only the community but the present site of Elizabethton. events that helped to shape Henderson wanted to purchase the state and nation. a tract of land in what is now Sycamore Shoals was Kentucky and Middle Tennessee, the site of the first permawhere he planned to establish a nent American settlement fourteenth colony. The venture outside of the original 13 posed several problems: the colonies and was the site of Cherokees held the strongest the first government formed among competing claims to independently of the British the region, and there was no crown in the new country. Displays in the museum at Sycamore Shoals State guarantee of British recogniThe Watauga Association, the Historic Park share the stories of some of the area’s first tion of the purchase since it first majority-rule system of residents, including notable figures the Reverend Doak represented a violation of the American democratic govern- and gunpowder maker Mary Patton. Proclamation of 1763. Neverment, was founded here in theless, Henderson had spent 1772. the previous year organizing Prior to the American Revolution, Sycamore Shoals the Transylvania Company and conducting negotiations served as the site of the largest private real estate transwith the Cherokees. Four days after the conference began, action in the history of the nation — The Transylvania the Cherokees agreed to the Sycamore Shoals Treaty, Purchase. whereby they transferred to the Transylvania Company a The Transylvania Purchase occurred on March 14, 1775, tract of 20 million acres lying north of the Cumberland Page 6 • Carter County Visitors Guide Spring/Summer 2022
