MORGANTON, TENNESSEE

'Morganton' was the name of a town once located along the Little Tennessee River in modern-day Loudon County, Tennessee. Although now submerged by Tellico Lake, during its heyday in the 1800s Morganton was a key flatboat port and regional business
center. An important ferry operated at Morganton for nearly 170 years.
Before the late 1800s, there were no major bridges across the Little Tennessee River. The only way to cross was to either attempt to ford at a low point or make use of one of several ferries along the river.^[1] Wear's Ferry, one of the earliest of these crossings, was constructed in the 1790s and would spawn the town that eventually became Morganton.^[2] Historian Carson Brewer describes how a typical ferry of this period worked:

The early ferries were propelled by wires run through pulleys on each side of the stream. A wooden stick notched to hook through a loop in the cable was the usual method an operator used to move the ferry. The crossing, in most cases, took about ten minutes.^[3]

As trade along the river expanded with the rise of Knoxville to the north, Maryville to the east, and the Tellico Blockhouse less than a mile upstream, Wear's Ferry prospered. As early as 1799, a grist mill and sawmill were operating at the site, and a village— known as "Portville"— slowly developed.^[2] By 1813, the town was chartered as "Morganton", probably after Gideon Morgan (1751-1830), a Revolutionary War veteran and prominent merchant and surveyor in the Tennessee Valley in the early 1800s.^[3]
The ferry's appeal for Morgan was probably rooted in its situation near the Overhill Cherokee towns that dotted the Little Tennessee in Monroe County. Mialoquo, or "Great Island", was the northern-most of these villages, located on a large island (now submerged) within site of the ferry. 19th-century anthropologist James Mooney, who lived among the Cherokee for several years, recorded at least one legend regarding Morganton:

On a rocky hill on the old Indian trail on the west side of the Little Tennessee River, above and nearly opposite Morganton, in Loudon County, are four trees blazed in a peculiar manner, concerning which the Indians had several unsatisfactory stories, the most common of which was that the marks were very old and indicated the position of hidden mines.^[6]

While Cherokee influence in the area waned after the Overhill towns were ceded in 1819 [1], the flatboat trade continued to grow. Whiskey and locally-grown hemp were traded for products such as clothing, salt and spices. It wasn't uncommon for a flatboat to travel from Morganton all the way to New Orleans, following the Little Tennessee River, the Tennessee River, and the Mississippi River all the way down to the Gulf.^[7]

By the 1830s, Morganton had grown to become the main shipping hub and business center in the Little Tennessee region.^[3] In 1832, the town had its own doctor, hatter's shop, hemp factory, wagon factory, cabinet shop, and silversmith.^[7] Morganton Road, which connected Morganton and Maryville, was one of the more heavily-traveled roads in the region.^[3] The Norwood Inn, located near the modern-day Greenback Industries building in Greenback, thrived as an important stopover for merchants.^[2] In 1863, at the height of the Civil War, General William T. Sherman, en route to
Chattanooga, used the Morganton Ferry to cross the Little Tennessee.^[12]
After the Civil War, railroads slowly replaced riverboats as the preferred mode of shipping and transportation. When L&N Railroad laid tracks through Greenback in the late 1800s, Morganton slowly declined. In 1947, a bridge near Niles Ferry became toll-free, putting most of the ferries along the Little Tennessee River out of business. The Morganton Ferry was the last to go, folding in 1961.^[13] By the time the TVA's construction of Tellico Dam flooded the area in the 1970s, the town had largely been abandoned.^[3]
Although the original site of Morganton is now under water, a few traces of the town remain. The town's cemetery can be accessed off Tellico Parkway, just west of Greenback. Morganton Road, now a paved two-lane highway, still stretches between the town's former site and Maryville, Tennessee. A TRDA boat ramp along Tellico Lake is named after Morganton.

Contents

External links

Notes

External links

★ Loudon County - TNGenWeb Project

★ The Keelboat and Flatboat - Article detailing the early flatboat trade in Tennessee

★ Morganton - Topozone.com

★ Morganton Cemetery - ePodunk.com

Notes

1. Alberta and Carson Brewer, ''Valley So Wild'' (Knoxville: East Tennessee
Historical Society, 1975), 92.
2. Brewer, 95.
3. Brewer, 94.
4. Brewer, 95.
5. Brewer, 94.
6. James Mooney, ''Myths of the Cherokee and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokee'' (Nashville: Charles Elder, 1972),
414.
7. Brewer, 96.
8. Brewer, 94.
9. Brewer, 96.
10. Brewer, 94.
11. Brewer, 95.
12. Brewer, 164-5.
13. Brewer, 97.
14. Brewer, 94.