Our chapter derives its name from the "Overmountain Boys"...When independence was declared on July 4, 1776, only East Tennessee was settled, most of it within what was then the Washington District of North Carolina. The following year, on December 18, 1777, the assembly of North Carolina created Washington County, which remained the only county in east Tennessee throughout most of the Revolutionary War. Estimated thousands of men (and boys) from Washington County fought in the Revolutionary War, the "Overmountain Boys" who, in fact, changed the course of the Revolutionary War when they fought at the Battle of King Mountain in the fall of 1781.

Cornwallis marched across North Carolina in the 1780's on his way to Yorktown, and defeat. It wasn't an easy passage. After occupying Charleston and securing most of South Carolina, the British wanted to march north to join up with their northern army, crushing the rebellious states in between. He got as far as Charlotte Towne in 1780, only to be turned back by the defeat of his favorite field officer, Major Patrick Ferguson, at King's Mountain on the South Carolina border on October 7, 1780.

Ferguson was a dandy who wore a checked hunting shirt over his uniform and directed his troops by blowing on a silver whistle. The colonists thoroughly detested him and the "Overmountain Boys" marched 330 miles from Virginia and Tennessee, picking up volunteers all along the way, to meet him in battle. They were determined to make sure he didn't survive to invade their homesteads.

Ferguson reportedly had eight balls of lead shot in him when he fell. Historians say King's Mountain was the turning point of the Revolution, when the British started to lose.

Cornwallis did eventually make his way across North Carolina, only to meet General Nathaniel Greene's patriot army at a little crossroads called Guilford Courthouse in March, 1781. Technically, the British won the battle, but effectively lost the war. The huge losses his men suffered soured public support for the war in Britain and led to Cornwallis' surrender a few months later in Yorktown, Va.

Re-enactors retrace the patriot march to King's Mountain every September on the Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail, a walking and driving route that was the first designated historic trail in the east. The trail crosses parts of VA, TN, NC, and SC, 330 miles of Revolutionary War history. The national park itself presents remarkably compelling exhibits on the battle, as well as self-guided walking, biking and auto tours. Cornwallis famously compared the North Carolina patriots to a hive of hornets. A visit to the state's Revolutionary War battlefields tells you why.

When traveling to Observation Knob Park, near Bristol, TN you will see numerous Historical Markers, directing you along the Overmountain Victory Trail.