I’m very familiar with some early history of what became Tennessee, many younger brothers of my various greats went “over the mountain” into the backwoods while it was still NC, before the Revolution. In many instances this was due to essentially a price on their heads, a royal warrant, from participating in the “Regulator War” in NC.
These were the men who formed the core of the “Overmountain Men,” who made their mark on history at Kings Mountain. An entirely volunteer army, the source of Tennessee’s “Volunteer State” motto. Watauga Settlement, the post-Revolution and short-lived State of Franklin. That territory on the west side of the Appalachians had two state governments in dispute for a brief period after TN statehood in 1796.
One ran a land office and has a TN county named for him, Landon Carter. Land offices could be sort of shady, though, and that one appears to have been, sad to say. Accomplished man, captain of the Revolution, illustrious family, but just as prone to being blinded by the possibility of acquiring more wealth as so many others have been, I suppose.
The Old TN and KY are dead: all they mean today are Lamar! and McC and perpetual incumbency.