page_title: Franklin County, Virginia
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Franklin County, Virginia / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Historic marker for Franklin County, Virginia, Virginia Conservation Commission.
context_page_description: Franklin County is a county located in the Blue Ridge foothills of the U.S. state of Virginia. As of the 2010 census, the population was 56,159. Its county seat is Rocky Mount.
  Franklin County is part of the Roanoke, VA Metropolitan Statistical Area and is located in the Roanoke Region of Virginia. The Roanoke River forms its northeast boundary with Bedford County.
context_section_description: The Blue Ridge Foothills had long been inhabited by indigenous peoples.  At the time of European encounter, mostly Siouan-speaking tribes lived in this area.
  A few colonists moved into the area before the American Revolutionary War, but most settlement happened afterward, as people moved west seeking new lands. Cultivation of tobacco had exhausted soils in the eastern part of the state. The county was formed in 1785 from parts of Bedford and Henry counties.  It was named for Benjamin Franklin. The Piedmont and backcountry areas were largely settled by Scots-Irish, who were the last major immigrant group from the British Isles to enter the colonies before the Revolutionary War. There were also migrants from coastal areas, including free people of color, who moved to the frontier to escape racial strictures associated with the slave society of Virginia.
caption: Franklin County historic marker, State of Virginia
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