The overmountain men no longer needed to complain bitterly of the
lack of legal machinery to keep them "the best members of
society." They now had courts to spare. Frankland had its courts,
its judges, its legislative body, its land office--in fact, a
full governmental equipment. North Carolina also performed all
the natural functions of political organism, within the western
territory. Sevier appointed one David Campbell a judge. Campbell
held court in Jonesborough. Ten miles away, in Buffalo, Colonel
John Tipton presided for North Carolina. It happened frequently
that officers and attendants of the rival law courts met, as they
pursued, their duties, and whenever they met they fought. The
post of sheriff--or sheriffs, for of course there were two--was
filled by the biggest and heaviest man and the hardest hitter in
the ranks of the warring factions. A favorite game was raiding
each other's courts and carrying off the records. Frankland sent
William Cocke, later the first senator from Tennessee, to
Congress with a memorial, asking Congress to accept the territory
North Carolina had offered and to receive it into the Union as a
separate State. Congress ignored the plea. It began to appear
that North Carolina would be victor in the end; and so there were
defections among the Franklanders.
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