CLEVELAND, Tenn. — An 1821 surveyor’s map slowly is revealing some details about local history and the Trail of Tears.
Bryan Reed, historian at Cleveland State Community College, and members of the Charleston/Calhoun/Hiwassee Historical Society have been following the faint lines on a sketch of the Hiwassee River where it makes a big bend between Bradley and McMinn counties.
“It’s been on microfilm for years,” Reed said, but it is getting fresh attention now.
The survey was done, Reed said, because the U.S. Indian Agency moved from Meigs County to the Charleston, Tenn., area in Bradley County. McMinn was in the United States while Bradley was Cherokee territory, Reed said.
The agency issued travel permits for whites seeking to enter Indian lands and disbursed payments to Indians from past land purchases by the U.S., among other duties, Reed said.
The 1821 survey marked the boundary of the one-square-mile agency land, he said.
By overlaying a well-known 1838 map of the same location, when Cherokee families were being held there in encampments before leaving for Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears, details emerge, showing the changes that occurred during the 17 years between the surveys, Reed told members of the Charleston/Calhoun/Hiwassee Historical Society recently.
The big bend of the river, known in Charleston as the Varnell Farm, has changed over the years. Its depth and riverbanks were altered by TVA for flood control, Reed said.
Overlay an aerial photo of present-day Charleston on the two maps, and old wagon roads become clear as current highways and city streets.
“We are sitting on a big piece of American history,” Historical Society President Faye Callaway said.
Not only is the region important to Cherokee history, she said, but Union and Confederate armies clashed there over the key railroad bridges.
“We have stories to tell that have never been told before,” she said.