Located in the far northeast corner of the state, Jonesborough was founded by European Americans in 1779, 17 years before Tennessee became a
state and while the area was under the jurisdiction of
North Carolina. It was named after North Carolina legislator
Willie Jones, who had supported the state's westward expansion across the
Appalachian Mountains. that is on the National Register of Historic Places The town was renamed "Jonesboro" for a period of time, but it took back its historic spelling. Jonesborough was originally a part of the
Washington District. In 1784, it became the capital of the autonomous
State of Franklin (ostensibly named after American founding father,
Benjamin Franklin). Congress, however, never recognized Franklin, which was reclaimed by North Carolina in late 1788. Tennessee and other border states into the 1830s were strong centers of abolitionist activity. The Tennessee Manumission Society was founded in 1815. East Tennessee was especially an area of
Unionist leanings, made up of subsistence farmers who raised tobacco as a market crop. They had small holdings that also produced family needs. They held relatively few slaves compared to landowners in Middle Tennessee or the plantation areas of the Delta near the Mississippi River. Many became Republicans and continued to vote with that party after the war, when the other two regions of the state were dominated by Democrats. In the 1840s, the
Jonesborough Whig was published here. Its publisher was
William G. "Parson" Brownlow, who relocated it from
Elizabethton, Tennessee, after about two years, under his own name. Brownlow and rival editor
Landon Carter Haynes, who was also a Methodist preacher and circuit rider, brawled in the streets of Jonesborough in May 1840. Over the next several years, the two newspapermen bashed one another in their respective papers, each managing at times to thwart the other's political ambitions. Haynes left the newspaper business in 1845, and Brownlow, who later was elected as governor, moved the
Whig to the larger city of Knoxville in 1849. From 1865 to 1873 the town was served by
The Union Flag. In this period, the Jonesboro
Herald & Tribune, and the Jonesboro
Tennessee Echo, the latter edited and published by Colonel George E. Gresham, were also published.
Cholera pandemic, 1873 During the summer of 1873, a
cholera epidemic spread throughout the Mississippi River system, having originated in
New Orleans. Part of the fourth cholera pandemic that started in India and spread west into Europe and across the Atlantic Ocean, it was believed to have been introduced to the Louisiana port by immigrants or other travelers. It spread to river towns visited by steamboats, and among neighboring settlements. None of the towns had adequate sanitation systems. The
Jonesborough Historic District was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places in 1969. The oldest surviving building in the town, the Christopher Taylor House (built in 1777 about a mile outside of the original town limits), was relocated to a lot within the historic district. Jonesborough is the home of the International Storytelling Center, which holds the annual
National Storytelling Festival on the first full weekend in October. The festival builds on the
Appalachian cultural tradition of
storytelling, and has been drawing people from around the world for more than 35 years. Large tents are pitched in parks around town, and storytellers sit on stages or at the head of the main tent to perform. Occasionally, performances are interrupted for a moment by passing
Norfolk Southern Railway trains. Past storytellers included
Carmen Agra Deedy,
Syd Lieberman, and
Kathryn Tucker Windham. The festival inspired the development of a successful storytelling graduate degree program at nearby
East Tennessee State University. ==Geography==