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The great Tennessee, Hiwassee and Valley rivers were mined
for gold as evidenced by old tunnels, shafts, Spanish cannon balls,
pistols bearing the Spanish coat of arms and coin molds found along
their river banks.
In the early
1800s, President Jackson sent 7,000 troops into Western North
Carolina who built six forts to oversee the removal of the Cherokee
to Oklahoma. The largest of these was Fort Butler, built at the
present site of Murphy on the Hiwassee River. The removal of the
Cherokee along the "Trail of Tears" was described and recorded as
"the greatest blot on America's history." More than 4,000 Native
Americans died before they reached Oklahoma. Indians who were able
to elude their captors hid in the hills and were later granted lands
in Cherokee County.
As early as 1820 a Baptist mission school was established at the Old
Natchez Town on the Hiwassee River and the first Methodist Church,
Harshaw Chapel (a standing historic site) was built in Murphy in
1869.
In 1861 Cherokee County raised 1,100 men for the Confederate Army as
the state seceded from the union. In 1865 Kirk's Raiders burned the
County Courthouse in Murphy (the first of four courthouse fires
between 1865 and 1926). The present Courthouse, now over 70 years
old, is constructed of solid masonry and blue marble quarried from
the county.
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