page_title: Richard Henderson (jurist)
section_title: The Transylvania Purchase at Sycamore Shoals
hierarchical_section_title: Richard Henderson (jurist) / The Transylvania Purchase at Sycamore Shoals
context_page_description: Richard Henderson was an American pioneer and merchant who attempted to create a colony called Transylvania just as the American Revolutionary War was starting. After the Declaration of Independence and the organization of the state government in North Carolina, he was re-elected judge, but was prevented from accepting that position by his participation in a scheme organized under the name of the Transylvania Compact.
context_section_description: In 1775, Henderson gathered chiefs of the Cherokee Indians and negotiated the Treaty of Watauga at Sycamore Shoals at present day Elizabethton, Tennessee, during which time he purchased all the land lying between the Cumberland River, the Cumberland Mountains, and the Kentucky River, and situated south of the Ohio River.
  The land thus delineated encompassed an area half as large as the present state of Kentucky. In order to facilitate settlement, Henderson hired Daniel Boone, who had hunted extensively in Kentucky, to blaze the Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap and into the Transylvania land purchase. Henderson also purchased the land known as the Path Grant that allowed access to the Transylvania lands. That purchase is described on the Path Grant Deed.
  To appease other prominent early explorers, Henderson held out other rewards. He offered Joseph Martin, founder of Martin's Station on Martin's Creek in present-day Rose Hill, Lee County, Virginia, a spot as an agent and entry taker for the company, in charge of keeping tabs on settlers moving westward; Henderson offered Martin's brother Bryce a tract of 500 acres (2.0 km²) adjacent to the Cumberland Gap.
caption: The Transylvania Purchase at Sycamore Shoals in Elizabethton, Tennessee and The Wilderness Road into Kentucky.
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