Pamela Vick wrote: > J. Ray Young, > > I just read on a website two days ago about the State of > Franklin. I had never heard of it before and it existed for > a short time. I believe Sumner Co. was part of this State. > Here is the website, go and check me out on this. > http://www.wizard.com/~bascs/tnchron.htm > > Luck, Pam Vick Those of us fortunate to have grown up in Tennessee will likely remember seventh grade Tennessee History class, in which we learned about the late great State of Franklin. The state of Franklin precipitated a minor crisis in the US Congress, because while the constitution provides for admitting new states, it does not prescribe just HOW this was to be done. Franklin applied for admission and Congress had no idea how to do it. They went back to the drawing board, set up some guidelines, and then admitted Kentucky and Vermont. The original State of Franklin did not have a large enough population to meet the guidelines set by Congress. The State of Franklin only expended from Bristol down to Knoxville (as I recall) so in order to have a large enough population, they simply extended the northern and southern borders of North Carolina to the US border, which then was the Mississippi River. Voila! Tennessee! You will note that the officers of Franklin (Blount, Sevier, et alia) were by and large the same men as the first officers of Tennessee. So, in effect, Franklin was a dry run for the formation of the state of Tennessee, but it did not include the Cumberland Valley settlements of Nashville or Gallatin. All this is from school 35 years ago, so if there is any better authority than my feeble memory, I will gladly stand corrected. Charlie Ellis