11 Facts About William Bean

William Bean was an American pioneer, longhunter, and Commissioner of the Watauga Association.

William Bean is accepted by historians as the first permanent European American settler of Tennessee.

In 1762, William Bean set camp close to the junction of Boone's Creek and the Watauga River, near present-day Johnson City during a longhunting excursion with fellow pioneers and friends Daniel Boone and Richard Callaway, on behalf of Richard Henderson, a land surveyor who played an important role in the early settlement of Tennessee.

Shortly after the cabin's completion, Lydia William Bean gave birth to a son, Russell William Bean, who would be historically accepted as the first European American born in present-day Tennessee.

The William Bean family encountered aggressive confrontations with the inhabiting Cherokee tribes, and found distaste in the growing popularity of the Watauga Association.

Nevertheless, William Bean pursued a career in politics and be elected as a commissioner of the Watauga Association in 1772, serving a crucial role in the absorption of the settlement into the state of North Carolina by 1775.

In 1775, William Bean collaborated with Daniel Boone on a new longhunting excursion, as Bean wanted to move west with the Watauga Association gaining popularity, and Boone was wanting to expand his Wilderness Road southward towards the Great Indian Warpath.

The cabin served as his family's home, and as an inn for prospective settlers, fur traders, and longhunters, named William Bean Station, establishing the first reportedly permanent settled community in present-day Tennessee.

In 1780, William Bean served in his position of captain in the Battle of Kings Mountain.

William Bean Station emerged as an important stopover, due to its strategic location on the crossroads of present-day US Route 25E and US Route 11W, between Washington, DC, and New Orleans for early travelers through Tennessee into the 18th century.

The town and cabin established by William Bean were lost following the flooding of the Holston River valley for the construction of the Cherokee Dam by the Tennessee Valley Authority in 1942.