Today in History August 23, 1784 This Land Is Their Land Irked by the North Carolina government's neglect, delegates from four western counties declare independence and form their own state. The fractious counties, which North Carolina had once tried to give away to the federal government before thinking better of it, rename themselves the state of Franklin, after Benjamin Franklin, although he refuses to have anything to do with them. Four years later the leader of Franklin, John Sevier, is arrested for treason. Legend has it he escapes from the courthouse by leaping from a second-story window onto a waiting horse. The state of Franklin isn't so lucky: four years after declaring its independence, it returns to North Carolina, and eventually becomes part of Tennessee.