Two New States Come with Struggle

Frontier unity had broken down between two contending factions - state advocates vs. North Carolina loyalists.  The National Ordinance of 1787 was one of the last acts before the US Constitution replaced the Continental Congress.  The Old Northwest was divided into no more than five districts, ruled by administrators and judges appointed by Congress.

In 1784 settler's representatives met at the town of Jonesboro and voted to seek immediate admission to the Union as the state of Franklin, so named in hopes of enticing Benjamin Franklin's aid for their cause.  Meanwhile North Carolina came to regret her offer to Congress to cede her territory and withdrew their offer.

John Tipton was the leader of the North Carolina loyalists, and John Sevier led the state advocates.  Sevier drew up a constitution for the proposed states, but no one listened.  Tipton put the secessionists to rest at Jonesboro in 1788. North Carolina once again ceded the Tennessee territory back to the government in 1790.

After six years of being a US territory off and on, the territory became the state of Tennessee with Sevier as a six-term governor.  Sevier had been a military hero, frontier aristocrat, and a land speculator...and ironically enough became a later legislator from North Carolina.


Kentucky, which had gone through similar struggles with Virginia, became a state in 1792.  It was the result of a long battle in Congress to admit the two states.  A population of 60,000, a constitution and a petition to Congress was required.  Slavery was prohibited in all the state constitutions organized in the Old Northwest as far back as the 1780s.

Some Congressmen still believed that the West would forever be a financial burden on the East...too poor and underpopulated to ever take an equal place among the states.  Others saw the West as America's future, a rich source of revenues from land sales as well as a buffer between the East and Spain's Mississippi holdings. 

The first planned community in the new west was Marietta, Ohio in 1788.  It had a church, school, and industrial sites. 

Next time - scandel problems in the new western territories
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Today in Pioneer History: On November 9, 1872, a fire in Boston destroys hundreds of buildings and kills 14 people. In the aftermath, the city established an entirely new system of firefighting and prevention. The fire also led to the creation of Boston’s financial district.