This collection brings together papers from the earliest governors of Tennessee, beginning with William Blount, governor of the "Territory of the United States of America South of the River Ohio." These documents detail the day-to-day business of the governor's office including correspondence with citizens, the General Assembly, land agents, and Indian Nations. The papers also include information related to warrants and commissions for Justices of the Peace.

Early Governors' Papers is the first collection that uses the web-based platform FromThePage for crowdsourcing transcription. To see the work in progress, please visit the project webpage https://fromthepage.com/tennessee-state-library-archives/early-governors-papers. Sign up for a free account to begin helping us transcribe these interesting documents!

Items will be added to this collection as they are digitized. The correspondence of the first five administrations are now online:

• William Blount, Territorial Governor (1790-1796)
• John Sevier (1796-1801)
• Archibald Roane (1801-1803)
• John Sevier, second administration (1803-1809)
• Willie Blount (1809-1815)