He served in the Tennessee State Senate from 1807 - 1809, and became governor in 1815. While governor, he concentrated on peaceful relationships with Native Americans in order to ease the way for more white settlement, particularly to the west. The Chickasaw Purchase Treaty, in which most of what is now West Tennessee was acquired, was accomplished during his tenure as governor. Fourteen new counties were created.
Upon his retirement as governor due to the term limits in the 1796 constitution that he had helped to draft, he became an agent for the Cherokees until the time of his death. The town of McMinnville, Tennessee and McMinn County, Tennessee are named in his honor.
McMinnCounty, located in southeast Tennessee, was established by the Tennessee General Assembly in 1819.
Named for GovernorJosephMcMinn, the county was created from lands ceded by the Cherokees in the Hiwassee Purchase.
McMinnCounty's primary historical attractions are the exhibits at the L&N Depot, Etowah; the Englewood Textile Museum; and the McMinnCounty Living Heritage Museum, Athens, which interprets the county's history from the days of the Cherokees to the economic transformations of the 1940s through thirty exhibits.
JosephMcMinn, farmer, state legislator, Indian agent, and governor, was born at Westchester, Pennsylvania, on June 22, 1758.
McMinn served in the Continental army during the American Revolution.
As a member of the state constitutional convention in 1796, McMinn was chosen to deliver a copy of the state constitution to U.S. Secretary of State Timothy Pickering in Philadelphia.
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