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Official Website
History
Campbell County was formed in 1806 from parts of Anderson and Claiborne counties. It was named in honor of Colonel Arthur Campbell (1743–1811), a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses and an officer during the American Revolutionary War.
New Mammoth Cave, located in Elk Valley, just west of Jellico, was mined for saltpeter (the main ingredient of gunpowder) during the War of 1812. It is possible that this cave was also mined during the Civil War. In 1921 the cave was developed as a tourist attraction and was open to the public until at least 1928. Today, New Mammoth Cave is securely gated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and is a sanctuary for bats, including the federally endangered Indiana bat.
During the Civil War, the county's sympathies were predominantly with the Union. On June 8, 1861, Campbell Countians rejected Tennessee's Ordinance of Secession by a vote of 1,094 to 60. On August 1, 1861, Campbell County became the first Tennessee county to form a Union Army unit for the Civil War, organizing Company B of the 1st Tennessee Infantry at Jacksboro.
Adjacent Counties
Cities, Towns & Communities
- Alder Springs
- Anthras
- Block
- Caryville
- Clinchmore
- Coolidge
- Cotula
- Duff
- Elk Valley
- Fincastle
- Habersham
- Jacksboro (County Seat)
- Jellico
- LaFollette
- Morley
- Newcomb
- Pine Crest
- Pioneer
- Rocky Top (part)
- Stinking Creek
- Stony Fork
- Vasper
- Westbourne
- White Oak
- Wooldridge
- Wynn
Powell’s Valley & the Transylvania Co.
In 1774, Richard Henderson and some associates established the Louisa Company, which began negotiations with the Cherokee Indians to purchase land south of the Ohio and west of the Kanawha rivers. The company was reorganized at the start of 1775 as the Transylvania Company, and on March 17, 1775, the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals was signed by the Transylvania Company and the Cherokee, which gave a large area of land to the Transylvania Company.
The colony of Transylvania was short-lived: the Continental Congress in Virginia nullified the Transylvania Company’s treaty with the Cherokee shortly thereafter. But the land was granted to Richard Henderson and Others pursant to an Act of the North Carolina Assembly in 1783 and recorded as land grant number 714 in book 89, page 155. A survey of the land, number 995, was entered 5 December 1795 in Hawkins County, of which Claiborne was a part at the time. It broke the land along the Clinch and Powell Rivers up into lots. Land was distributed by Joseph Martin.
At the time of the original grant, what would become Tennessee was still North Carolina. Tennessee became a state on June 1, 1796.
Early residents:
Johnson Basham
Jonathan Basham
John Kincaid
James Miller, Jr
Resources
Land grants: https://sos.tn.gov/tsla/guides/early-north-carolina-tennessee-land-...
Links
Resources
Marriage Records
land records
court minutes
Campbell County, Tennessee, USA : "A history of places, faces, happenings, traditions and things"; Vol. 01
TN Gen Web
Genealogy Trails
USGW Archives
RAOGK
