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 beginning, and climbed slowly up the hill until it reached the highest point overlooking the river, which was crowned with a blockhouse known as the barracks, where a scanty garrison of regulars was intended to protect the settlers and to overawe the Cherokees. The barracks boasted at least one great gun, which was fired morning and evening with punctuality and impressiveness.

The coming of Governor Blount was the beginning of the greatness of Knoxville. Blount was a notable man. He had been a silent but respected and not uninfluential member of the convention that framed the Federal Constitution. He was the friend of Washington, and his lineage was most ancient and most honorable, reaching back to the time of William the Conqueror, in whose train, and among the beneficiaries of whose bounty, was one of his ancestors. The family had been settled long, in opulent circumstances and in social and political prominence, in North Carolina. The Governor was a man of education, of fine presence, of graceful and winning manners and of unfailing, if dignified, urbanity. He was unquestionably the first gentleman as well as the chief magistrate of