Henderson's employment, blazed a trail from Fort Chiswell in Virginia through the Cumberland Gap, which became part of the Wilderness Road, a major thoroughfare for settlers into Tennessee and Kentucky. The first reported permanent settlement in Tennessee, Bean Station, was established in 1776, but was explored by pioneers Daniel Boone and William Bean one year prior on a longhunting excursion. The duo first observed Bean Station after crossing the gap at Clinch Mountain along a southern expansion of the Wilderness Road from the Cumberland Gap, one of the main thoroughfares into Tennessee. After fighting in the American Revolutionary War one year later, Bean was awarded in the area he previously surveyed for settlement during his excursion with Boone. Bean would later construct a four-room cabin at this site, which served as his family's permanent home, and as an inn for prospective settlers, fur traders, and longhunters, thus establishing the first reported permanent settlement in Tennessee. The settlement was situated at the intersection of the Wilderness Road, that roughly followed what is present-day U.S. Route 25E, and the Great Indian Warpath, an east–west pathway that roughly followed what is now U.S. Route 11W. This heavily trafficked crossroads location made Bean Station an important stopover between Washington, D.C. and New Orleans for early American travelers entering Tennessee, with taverns and inns operating by the 1800s. State of Franklin The westerners' two main demands—protection from the Indians and the right to navigate the Mississippi River—went mainly unheeded during the 1780s. North Carolina's insensitivity led frustrated East Tennesseans in 1784 to form the breakaway State of Franklin. John Sevier was named governor, and the fledgling state began operating as an independent, though unrecognized, government. At the same time, leaders of the Cumberland settlements made overtures for an alliance with Spain, which controlled the lower Mississippi River and was held responsible for inciting the Indian raids. In drawing up the Watauga and Cumberland Compacts, early Tennesseans had already exercised some of the rights of self-government and were showing signs of a willingness to take political matters into their own hands. Such stirrings of independence caught the attention of North Carolina, which began to reassert control over its western counties. These policies and internal divisions among East Tennesseans doomed the short-lived State of Franklin, which passed out of existence by early 1789. Southwest Territory When North Carolina ratified the Constitution of the United States in 1789,