As mentioned earlier, James Vann helped get the Cherokee Nation's first highway built by convincing the chiefs that a road would be beneficial to the Indians (and perhaps more importantly, to James Vann). In 1803 the Cherokees granted informal permission for the Federal government to build a road across heir land. This major thoroughfare became known as the Federal Road and connected Tennessee with points to the southeast.
Mr. Lewis Richardson again shares his knowledge of early North Georgia history as follows: . . . These [roads] served a dual purpose: provide easier movement of supplies to the [Indian] agencies and western settlements and, if war came, speed the passage of army baggage trains . . .
The informal agreement was ratified by the Treaty of Tellico in 1805 and the road was opened for wagons by the next year. Mr. Richardson continues:
By this time, there was no money available from the federal coffers. The Administration referred the matter to the Governors of Tennessee and Georgia, suggesting that the states pay for locating and opening the road. Both states refused any responsibility. The road was actually opened by private effort, for the most part by tavern owners and trading post operators. No federal money was expended on any part. It should have been christened the "Cherokee Road."
In a few years there was an increasing flow of traffic on the route. At first there were the heavy freight wagons with four and six horse teams; later lightly built post stages began to carry the mail and an occasional passenger. By 1820, there were the "movers," families passing through the Nation seeking new homes in Tennessee or Northern Alabama. Some few liked what they saw in the Cherokee country, made an accomodation with the Indians and settled along the road. The track also became an important drovers route, with herds of cattle and droves of hogs, from Hast Tennessee to markets in Georgia. And always there were the individual horsemen, politicians, military men, traders, missionaries and curious travelers.
It was inevitable that other connecting toads would be opened to serve the larger villages. New Echota and Ellijay, for example. By the rnid-1830's, there was a considerable network of wagon roads, cart tracks and pack horse trails in the Nation, ll should be noted, however, there had been almost no attempt to improve any of these roads There was no grading, bridges, or surface treatment other than poles d brush thrown in the worst stretches of mud and swamp. By our standards, they could hardly be classed as roads. This was the transportation system in the region when the removal of the Cherokees began in the late 1830's.
The Old Federal Road began west of Athens, went to Vann's Ferry near present-day Lake Lanier, curved north and west through several modern counties, and entered Murray County near Carters. In the early 1950's John H. Goff, a professor at Emory wrote this description of the Road in Murray County:
Travelers......forded the [Coosawattee) river just above [the old bridge | .where the stream widened into swift but shallow shaols ... At Cuniston, two miles farther on. the old road strikes U.S. 411...
Near this place also, not far from a present large dairy barn, in frontier days was an interesting place named "Bloodtown." Origin of the name is obscure, but the site was a noted spot where south-bound cattle drovers penned their stock at night for feeding and resting while en route to markets. Traces of Bloodtown have long since disappeared, but tales of the reveling and brawling which took place there persisted long.
Up the road a little farther, in front of a filling station which now marks Ramhurst, Georgia, on U.S. 411, the Old Federal Road branched. One fork . . . turned left toward Chattanooga and Nashville. The other continued straight ahead, approximately along the course of U.S. 411. via prcscnt-day Chatsworth, Eton, and Cisco to Tennga on the Georgia-Tennessee line.
(The U.S. 411 mentioned is old 411 today.)
Goff gave additional information about the western fork of the Road from Ramhurst as follows:
... the left branch leads northwest by historic Spring Place in Murray County toward Chattanooga. No one living along its course now seems to remember it as a Federal route; generally it is referred to as the "Old Chattanooga Road," although in rare instances a few old timers recall it as the "Georgia Road." The last is its oldest name, under which the government first sought a passageway through the Cherokee country. At Spring Place the road bore to the north of the village and the majestic old Vann house that stands just notth of that place.
A stretch of the early trail is missing along here, But it takes up again at Free Hope Church Crossroads, northwest of Spring Place, and runs straight north to the Old Chattanooga l-ord below the mouth of Mill Creek on Conasauga River. The ford is no longer used, but the former trace is still there.
The road then went through Whitfield County.
The Old Federal Road soon became the major post and stagecoach route in the Cherokee Nation. A stage began running through Spring Place as early as '825 and by 1833 regularly ran to Athens, Tennessee. A post office had been established at Spring Place earlier.
Another important event during this era was the beginning of a canal system in Georgia. Designed to improve "internal" transportation, these canals were very ambitious undertakings, but the canal era did not last long due to the coming of railroad and almost none were even begun in Georgia. However, "the Conasauga River was once a busy artery of commerce and was twice considered as part of a canal system," according to historian Lewis Richardson. One proposal was for the River to become a portion of Georgia's Northwest Canal. "In 1825. Wilson Lumpkin and State Engineer Hamilton Fulton led an exploratory party through the area and selected the river as the best route." The Cherokees refused to permit the canal building at that time or in 1826 and 1827 when the Tennessee General Assembly chartered the Hiwassee Canal Company. Plans were drawn to connect the Conasauga with the Ocoee River by means of 15 locks spaced over 10 miles. However the canals were not to be.
Murray County Heritage