Elizabethton is the county seat

County seat

A county seat is an administrative center, or seat of government, for a county or civil parish. The term is primarily used in the United States....

 of Carter County

Carter County, Tennessee

Carter County is a county located in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of 2010, the population was 57,424. Its county seat is Elizabethton.Carter County is part of the Johnson City Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is a component of the Johnson City–Kingsport–Bristol, TN-VA Combined...

, Tennessee

Tennessee

Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. Elizabethton is also the historical site both of the first independent American government (known as the Watauga Association, created in 1772) located west of both the Eastern Continental Divide

Eastern Continental Divide

The Eastern Continental Divide, in conjunction with other continental divides of North America, demarcates two watersheds of the Atlantic Ocean: the Gulf of Mexico watershed and the Atlantic Seaboard watershed. Prior to 1760, the divide represented the boundary between British and French colonial...

 and the original thirteen British American colonies

British colonization of the Americas

British colonization of the Americas began in 1607 in Jamestown, Virginia and reached its peak when colonies had been established throughout the Americas...

.

Elizabethton is also the historical site of the Transylvania Purchase (1775), a major historic muster site during the American Revolutionary War

Southern theater of the American Revolutionary War

The Southern theater of the American Revolutionary War was the central area of operations in North America in the second half of the American Revolutionary War. During the first three years of the conflict, the primary military encounters had been in the north, focused on campaigns around the...

 for both the Battle of Musgrove Mill

Battle of Musgrove Mill

The Battle of Musgrove Mill, August 19, 1780, occurred near a ford of the Enoree River, near the present-day border between Spartanburg, Laurens and Union Counties in South Carolina...

 (1780) and the Battle of Kings Mountain

Battle of Kings Mountain

The Battle of Kings Mountain was a decisive battle between the Patriot and Loyalist militias in the Southern campaign of the American Revolutionary War...

 (1780), and a local community within the secession

Secession

Secession is the act of withdrawing from an organization, union, or especially a political entity. Threats of secession also can be a strategy for achieving more limited goals.-Secession theory:...

ist North Carolina

North Carolina

North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...

 "State of Franklin

State of Franklin

The State of Franklin, known also as the Free Republic of Franklin or the State of Frankland , was an unrecognized autonomous United States territory created in 1784 from part of the territory west of the Appalachian Mountains that had been offered,...

" territory (1784–1788).

The population of Elizabethton was enumerated at 14,176 during the 2010 U.S.