Sycamore Shoals of the Watauga

Determination, Strength & Courage on the Early Frontier

The Overmountain people began settlements along the Watauga River at Sycamore Shoals and the nearby Nolichucky and Holston Rivers during the eighteenth century. The settlers overcame what seemed impossible. They created their own government, bought land from the Cherokee people, and then ultimately had to defend their families from Cherokees hoping to recover their ancestral lands. When the Southern Campaign of the American Revolution began, the Overmountain Men joined the fight for independence, defeating the British in 1780 at Kings Mountain. This nationally significant event changed the direction of the war in favor of the Patriot cause.

Author Jennifer Bauer shares the challenges, conflicts, and accomplishments of both the European and Indigenous people in this fascinating look at the first frontier settlement west of the thirteen English colonies.

Jennifer A. Bauer, an avid lover of history and nature, with a special fondness for being in the mountains, is a three-time graduate of East Tennessee State University. Recently retired after a forty-three-year career with Tennessee State Parks, she first served as a ranger naturalist at Roan Mountain State Park, followed by serving as a park manager at Sycamore Shoals State Historic Park. She enjoys teaching biology at Northeast State Community College, sharing history through eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century reenacting and interpretation, and presently serves on the board of directors of Friends of Roan Mountain and Rocky Mount Historical Association. She has written numerous articles for the Tennessee Conservationist and is the author of five books, with the most current being Wildlife, Wildflowers and Wild Activities: Exploring Southern Appalachia and Roan Mountain: History of an Appalachian Treasure.