This year, America turns 250.
Rocky Mount is one of the few places in the country where you can stand on the ground of a federal territorial capital that predates the nation as we know it. This was a seat of American government before Tennessee was even a state.
But this ground is even older than that.
In the fall of 1780, a British officer named Patrick Ferguson sent a threat across the Appalachian Mountains: lay down your arms, or I will march over the mountains, hang your leaders, and lay waste to your country with fire and sword.
Farmers and fathers from East Tennessee and Southwest Virginia did not lay down their arms. These men, including David Crockett’s own father John Crockett, refused to stand down. They grabbed their rifles, left their families on an unprotected frontier, and marched. They had no uniforms. No supply chain. No guarantee they would come home.
They crossed the mountains and on October 7, 1780, surrounded Ferguson’s army at Kings Mountain in South Carolina. The battle lasted one hour. Ferguson was killed. His entire force was destroyed. Thomas Jefferson called it “the turn of the tide of success” of the American Revolution.
The Virginia militia met Tennessee forces at Rocky Mount on September 24, 1780, the day before the combined army gathered at Sycamore Shoals. That march came through here.
On May 28 at 6:00 PM, Thomas Batchelor tells that story at Rocky Mount as part of the 250 Speaker Series. Batchelor is an interpretive Ranger at the David Crockett Birthplace State Park, an East Tennessee State University history graduate, and an Overmountain Men reenactor with the Overmountain Victory Trail Association. He grew up in this region, studied this history here, and walks the trail the original militia marched. In the year America marks 250 years since independence and Tennessee marks 230 years of statehood, he is telling that story on the ground where it began.
Thursday, May 28. Doors at 5:30 PM. Program at 6:00 PM. Free admission. Reservations recommended.
rockymountmuseum.com | 423-538-7396