This is the history of the Carter family, who moved to Watauga in the early 1770s. Notable members of the family include: Colonel John Carter, owned and operated one of the first, if not the first, store in what would become Tennessee. He was the Chairman of the Watauga Association. The articles of government they wrote were the first free representative government on this continent. He participated in great Indian land trades which opened the new west and beyond for settlement. He was a member of the North Carolina Provincial Congress, which established the first North Carolina Constitution. General Landon Carter, played a major role in five of the six governments that have governed Tennessee. He signed the Watauga Petition; he served in both houses of the North Carolina General Assembly and was a member of the North Carolina Constitutional Convention, in which he voted for North Carolina to ratify the Constitution of the United States. As one of the wealthiest men in North Carolina he put his affairs in the hands of other men and went to fight as a Captain in the swamps of South Carolina, under General Francis Marion during the Revolution. He was the speaker of the senate and was involved in writing the Constitution for the State of Franklin, which helped to define the way new states would be added to the union. He was appointed as the Eastern Treasurer for the Southwest Territory and he would represent Washington County in the First Tennessee Constitutional Convention, where he would review the write up of the daily proceedings before they would go to the printer. The early leaders of Tennessee showed their respect for him by voting him to be the Eastern Treasurer for the new State of Tennessee and naming a newly formed county for him and named the county seat after his wife. Congressman William Blount Carter Sr., was a United States Congressman and the Chairman of the second Tennessee Constitutional Convention. Reverend William Blount Carter Jr. under direct orders of President Abraham Lincoln organized bridge burnings to disrupt the Southern army’s transportation system. After the Civil War he was a member of Tennessee’s third Constitutional Convention, where the government of Tennessee was put back together. Admiral Samuel P. Carter, is the only man to serve this country in the capacity as both an Admiral in the Navy and a General in the Army. James P.T. Carter was one of the three men who escorted then senator and future President of the United States, Andrew Johnson, through hostile territory back to Washington, DC, after Tennessee voted to join the Confederacy. During the war he was wounded and became a prisoner of war. After the war he served as the Secretary and acting Governor of the Arizona Territory.