Writing Memory:
Early Historians of America's First Western Frontier
Ned L. Irwin
University Archivist
East Tennessee State University
The approach of the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence
was marked by a sudden flurry of histories, which attempted to highlight
the young nation's history and the figures who had shaped it. Many of these
histories were of a regional, state, or local nature and focused on the
people and events in those areas that had contributed to the American character
and to an "American" history. This paper examines the work of two such
early historians, John Haywood (1753-1826) of Tennessee and Humphrey Marshall
(1760-1841) of Kentucky, whose state histories were the first important
attempts to preserve the "memory" of the people who had settled those states
and to raise the "heroes" of the early western frontier as models of citizenship
for the later generation for which they were writing, parochial figures
to match the national images of the "heroes" of the Revolution like Washington,
Jefferson, and Adams. In so doing, Haywood and Marshall helped give future
scholars an historical base on which to build and provided their contemporaries
with a greater sense of regional identity and pride.