Washington County, then part of North Carolina, was established in 1777 during the American Revolution, replacing the Washington District of 1776 and the Watauga Association of 1772. On February 23, 1778, the first court of the new county convened at the home of Charles and Susannah Robertson along Catbird Creek, just north of this site. Colonel Charles Robertson, born about 1733 and died in 1798, was a prominent leader among the area's early white settlers, one of the thirteen original commissioners of the Watauga Association, trustee for the 1775 Watauga Purchase from the Cherokee under Chief Oconostota, a chief militia officer for Washington County, a member of the North Carolina Provincial Congress, a representative of Washington County in the North Carolina Senate, and, as a close associate of John Sevier, speaker of the senate of the short-lived State of Franklin. In 1796, the new state of Tennessee created Carter County from eastern Washington County, with the boundary running through this area. On the night of May 18, 1776, an unidentified horseman delivered a letter to the Robertson farm offering British protection to settlers who would swear allegiance to King George III and take up arms for the British, while warning that otherwise they faced inevitable ruin and that a British army, joined by Creek, Chickasaw, and Cherokee allies, would seize the North Carolina and Virginia frontier; although Henry Stuart denied writing it, the message strengthened most frontier inhabitants in their support for the Patriot cause.