Perceptual and Pervasive State of Franklin

“Rock me, momma”

On a road trip to San Juan Capistrano, I relearned that all the state’s 5th graders go on a field trip to a California mission. The mission was returned to the Catholic Church by President Abraham Lincoln.

I had a flashback to my own elementary school history experience: a story of Western settler colonialism which ended with a deep appreciation for the etymology of the word “colorado” and proud affiliation with Broncos Country.

However, I never learned Tennessee state history in school.

I absorbed East Tennessee state history informally and consumed Southern culture via the poetry of country music, before Google or Wikipedia was a thing.

I did learn Jonesborough is in the Tri-Cities region, consisting of Bristol, Kingsport, and Johnson City.

Jonesborough is the oldest town in Tennessee and was established seventeen years before Tennessee was granted statehood. Jonesborough was the capital of the short-lived State of Franklin. The town was considered a center of abolitionism.

Jonesborough is the home of the International Storytelling Center, which hosts an annual festival on the first full weekend in October which inconveniently conflicts with my birthday and the Tennessee football schedule.

I think historical trivia, especially American, can be a gray rhino. History is replete with neglected stories, each with the high potential to be highly impactful, occasionally generating narrative violations for even well-informed constituents.

The same year as the Missouri Compromise of 1820, Elihu Embree of Jonesborough started publication of the Emancipator, the first newspaper in the United States solely devoted to the abolition of slavery.

I learned to drive a stick-shift on East Tennessee hills. My idea of a good time is sticky tires, down a curvy road, on a summer day, with the windows rolled down, listening to country radio turned up. I’m a rather simple person.

The Scottish Enlightenment deeply influenced the intellectualism and philosophy behind patriots of the American Revolution, including Benjamin Franklin, etc. After immersing during formative years, I’m still constantly impressed by the pervasive nature of quirky, contrarian, and Scots-Ulster-influenced Appalachian culture through out America’s story. Even Barack Obama had Scots-Irish ancestry on his mother's side.

Whenever “Wagon Wheel” comes on the radio, I make sure to turn up the volume, and - to my children’s great chagrin - loudly and proudly sing along to this specific chorus and verse:

So rock me momma like a wagon wheel
Rock me momma any way you feel
Hey momma rock me
Rock me momma like the wind and the rain
Rock me momma like a south bound train
Hey momma rock me

Walkin' to the south out of Roanoke
I caught a trucker out of Philly had a nice long toke
But he's a-heading west from the Cumberland gap
To Johnson City, Tennessee