who
lived round the Tennessee head-waters, and also in direct communication
with North Carolina, to which State they belonged. It was not until 1779
that a portion of these Holston people moved to the bend of the
Cumberland River and started a new community, exactly as Kentucky had
been started before. At first this new community, known as the
Cumberland settlement, was connected by only the loosest tie with the
Holston settlements. The people of the two places were not grouped
together; they did not even have a common name. The three clusters of
Holston, Cumberland, and Kentucky settlements developed independently of
one another, and though their founders were in each case of the same
kind, they were at first only knit one to another by a lax bond of
comradeship.

In 1776 the Watauga pioneers probably numbered some six hundred souls in
all. Having at last found out the State in which they lived, they
petitioned North Carolina to be annexed thereto as a district or county.
The older settlements had evidently been jealous of them, for they found
it necessary to deny that they were, as had been asserted, "a lawless
mob"; it may be remarked that the Transylvanian colonists had been
obliged to come out with a similar statement. In their petition they
christened their country "Washington District," in honor of the great
chief whose name already stood first in the hearts of all Americans. The
document was written by Sevier. It set forth the history of the
settlers, their land purchases from the Indians, their successful effort
at self-government, their military organization, with Robertson as
captain, and finally their devotion to the Revolutionary cause; and
recited their lack of proper authority to deal promptly with felons,
murderers, and the like, who came in from the neighboring States, as the
reason why they wished to become a self-governing portion of North
Carolina. [Footnote: The petition, drawn up in the summer of '76, was
signed by 112 men. It is given in full by Ramsey, p. 138. See also
Phelan, p. 40.] The legislature of the State granted the prayer of the
petitioners, Washington District was annexed, and four representatives
therefrom, one of them Sevier, took their seats that fall in the
Provincial Congress at Halifax. But no change whatever was made in the
government of the Watauga people until 1777. In the spring of that year
laws were passed providing for the establishment of courts of pleas and
quarter ses