1. John Rhea was born in the parish of Langhorn, County Londonderry in the Kingdom of Ireland.
12 Facts About John Rhea
1. 2.
John Rhea's family immigrated to Pennsylvania when he was 16, settling in Philadelphia.
3.
John Rhea became clerk of the Sullivan County Court in the proposed State of Franklin, and subsequently in North Carolina, from 1785 to 1790.
4.
John Rhea was a member of the North Carolina House of Commons, and served as a delegate from Sullivan County to the Fayetteville Convention that ratified the Federal Constitution in 1789.
5.
John Rhea then studied law and was admitted to bar in 1789.
6.
John Rhea was elected as a Democratic-Republican to the Eighth Congress and the five succeeding Congresses, serving from March 4,1803 until March 3,1815.
7.
John Rhea was a member of the Committee on Pensions and Revolutionary War Claims during the Fifteenth Congress through the Seventeenth Congress.
8.
John Rhea was a witness to the September 1816 Treaty with the Chickasaw that was negotiated by Andrew Jackson, David Meriwether, and Jesse Franklin.
9.
John Rhea was appointed United States commissioner to treat with the Choctaw Nation in 1816.
10.
John Rhea was actively connected with higher education in Tennessee, serving as one of the founders of Blount College, which later became the University of Tennessee.
11.
John Rhea retired from active pursuits and resided on Rhea plantation near Blountville, Sullivan County, Tennessee, where he died on May 27,1832.
12.
John Rhea died, unmarried, and left a very large estate in lands, much of which had been Government grants for special services rendered.