In addition, the Cherokee County Historical Museum, located in Murphy, provides information about the Trail of Tears. There are no visible remains of Fort Butler, but the site can be visited and historical markers provide facts and interpretation about its history. Today, the Unicoi Turnpike is known as the Joe Brown Highway. From Fort Butler, the Cherokee were taken over the mountains on the Unicoi Turnpike to the main internment camps at Fort Cass (today Charleston, Tennessee), prior to their forcible removal to territory west of the Mississippi River, in what became known as Indian Territory (today's Oklahoma). Fort Butler was used as the main collection point by the government for Cherokee east of the mountains. In 1836, during the Cherokee removal known as the Trail of Tears, the United States army built Fort Butler in what is today Murphy. The original spelling of the town was to be 'Murphey' but the 'e' was lost, or dropped at some point in history. He was influential in educational advances for the people of North Carolina in the early 19th century.

Murphy in 1938Įuropean Americans later renamed the settlement as Murphy for North Carolina politician Archibald Murphey. He was also appointed as the settlement's first postmaster, erecting the first Post Office in June 1839. Army soldiers on expeditions, or stationed at nearby Fort Butler. He established the first trading post prior to 1828, where he would trade with the Cherokee, early European-American settlers, and U.S. Īfter European Americans began to settle here, they named the site 'Hunnington/ Huntington' after A.R.S. The Trading Path (later called the 'Unicoi Turnpike') passed by the future site of Murphy, connecting the Cherokee lands east of the mountains with what were known to European colonists as the ' Overhill Towns' of Tennessee. They had a legend about a giant leech named Tlanusi, that lived in the river here. They knew this site along the Hiwassee River as Tlanusi-yi (the Leech Place). This area had long been part of the homelands of the Cherokee people. The population of Murphy was 1,608 at the 2020 census. It is the westernmost county seat in the state of North Carolina, approximately 360 miles (580 km) from the state capital in Raleigh. It is situated at the confluence of the Hiwassee and Valley rivers. Murphy is a town in and the county seat of Cherokee County, North Carolina, United States.

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