Washington District, North Carolina

The Washington District of North Carolina was in a remote area west of the Appalachian Mountains, officially existing for only a short period (November 1776–November 1777), although it had been self-proclaimed and functioning as an independent governing entity since the spring of 1775. The district was the bureaucratic successor to the Watauga Association, a group of Virginian settlers that colonized the area in 1769, originally believing themselves to be in trans-Appalachian Virginia territory. When the settlement's application to be united with Virginia was denied, they asked North Carolina to annex the settlement, which occurred in November, 1776.

After the American Revolution, the now informal district saw a huge growth of the area it encompassed, eventually stretching to the Mississippi River. At the time of North Carolina's final cession of the area to the Federal Government (1790), it had grown to include the seven "Overmountain Counties": Washington, Greene, Davidson, Sullivan, Hawkins, Sumner and Tennessee. These lands would become a large part not only of the subsequent extra-legal State of Franklin, but of the Southwest Territory (1790–1796) and the State of Tennessee (after 1796) as well.

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