Declaring Sovereignty
This essentially threatened to make the Franklinites trespassers on their own land. North Carolina changed its mind about giving up territory in 1784, but it was too late. Representatives of Washington, Sullivan, and Greene met in Washington County and declared their sovereignty as the new State of Franklin.
Benjamin Franklin, for whom the state was named. Photo By Universal History Archive/UIG/Shutterstock
At that point, the 14th state was hardly defined – as much as the Great Smoky Mountain fog that clouded the area. Franklin’s boundaries were unclear, and the name wasn’t even agreed upon. One draft of the constitution referred to it as “Frankland,” meaning free land or land of the free. But finally, “Franklin” made it to the final version, in honor of, you guessed it, Benjamin Franklin.