HANDY BOOK OF CURIOUS
INFORMATION
COMPRISING ; STRANGE
HAPPENINGS IN
THE LIFE OF MEN AND ANIMALS.
ODD
STATISTICS. EXTRAORDINARY
PHENOMENA
AND OUT OF THE WAY FACTS
CONCERNING
THE WONDERLANDS OF THE EARTH
William Shepard Walsh
1913
State of Franklin
An American State occupying
what is now East
Tennessee, which was founded in 1785 and disappeared from the map of the United
States in 1788. At that early period the boundary of North
Carolina extended indefinitely westward, including all of what is
now Tennessee in its
sweep, and, by the treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1788, all this western territory had been
opened up to settlement. The settlers on the Watauga River,
framing a code of laws signed by every adult male, became a body
politic known as the Watauga
Association. Their numbers and their spirit of independence were both increased by immigrants
driven from North
Carolina by the tyranny of the royal governor Tryon.
After the Revolution a
convention held at Joncsboro' on August 23, 1784, supplemented by
another on December l4, formed a separate State government, variously
called Franklin and
Franklan in its official documents. John Sevier was
unanimously chosen governor. The legislature sat at Jonesboro' in
1785. But North Carolina reasserted her jurisdiction, and civil war
seemed imminent. Fortunately, the North Carolina party in Tennessee
overthrew the Franklin party at the polls in May, 1788, and all the
original territory peacefully reverted to the parent State. The North
Carolina legislature passed an act of oblivion and admitted John Sevier
as a member of its own Senate. In 1789 North Carolina ceded the region
to the United States, and in 1790 the Territory of Tennessee was
organized. Tennessee became a State in 1796.
A curious race of people,
who called themselves Malungeons. were among the original Franklanders. They were supposed to be
of Moorish descent. They affiliated
neither with whites nor blacks, were never classed with Indians or
negroes, and claimed to be Portuguese. They lived to themselves
exclusively in the mountain fastnesses of East Tennessee, where their
descendants became moonshiners. They were never slaves, and enjoyed all
the rights of citizenship until the State Constitution of 1834 deprived
them of their vote. This was, of course, restored in reconstruction
times. Such is the mystery which surrounds the origin both of race and
name that today a
Malungeon is the Tennessean bugaboo for frightening children withal. " As tricky as a
Malungeon " is a proverbal expression among Tennesseans. It has been
suggested that for
etymological purposes " Malungo," an African word incorporated into the Portuguese language, and
signifying " comrade,mate,
companion," is sufficiently indicative of the united and exclusive mode of
existence peculiar to the Malungeon-'.