Charles McClung (May 13, 1761 – August 9, 1835) was an American pioneer, politician, and surveyor best known for drawing up the original plat of Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1791. While Knoxville has since expanded to many times its original size, the city's downtown area still roughly follows McClung's 1791 grid. McClung also helped draft Tennessee's constitution in 1796, surveyed and planned what is now Kingston Pike in 1792, and served as Knox County's first court clerk. His home, Statesview, still stands in West Knoxville, and has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Biography Early life McClung was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, to Matthew McClung and Martha Cunningham McClung, both of Scots-Irish descent. McClung later claimed that due to his mechanical aptitude, his father gave him an unfair amount of work on the family farm. In 1778, McClung ran away to Philadelphia, where he found work as a clerk. His employer was impressed with McClung's penmanship and record-keeping ability, and McClung gradually accumulated over $1,000 in savings. He was fired, however, after he was caught flirting with his employer's daughter. McClung subsequently returned home, and used his earnings to help his parents make improvements to the family farm. In 1788, he departed again, heading southwestward through the Great Valley until he reached White's Fort (modern Knoxville) that same year. In 1790, he married Margaret White (1771–1827), daughter of James White, the fort's builder. Surveyor and politician After the creation of the Southwest Territory in 1790, the territory's governor, William Blount, selected White's Fort as the territory's capital. James White set aside land adjacent to the fort for a new town, named "Knoxville" after Secretary of War Henry Knox. White employed McClung, who had acquired rudimentary knowledge of surveying while in Philadelphia, to draw up lots for the new town, which were sold at auction on October 3, 1791. McClung's design consisted of a rectangular grid with the Tennessee River (then called the "Holston") as its southern boundary and First Creek as its eastern boundary. The grid's original northern boundary was the road now known as Church Avenue, and its original western boundary was the road now known as Walnut Street. This grid was divided into 64 lots. Most of the early street names for the city (e.g., Front Street) were derived from street names in Philadelphia, where McClung had lived for several years. In 1792, McClung surveyed