Henry Timberlake

For the London ship captain and merchant adventurer, see Henry Timberlake (merchant adventurer).

Henry Timberlake
Born1730 or 1735
Hanover County, Virginia
Died(1765-09-30)September 30, 1765
Occupation(s)Military officer, journalist, and cartographer
Known forBritish colonial emissary to the Overhill Cherokee

Henry Timberlake (1730 or 1735 – September 30, 1765) was a colonial Anglo-American officer, journalist, and cartographer. He was born in the Colony of Virginia and died in England. He is best known for his work as an emissary from the British colonies to the Overhill Cherokee during the 1761–1762 Timberlake Expedition.

Timberlake's account of his journeys to the Cherokee, published posthumously as his memoirs in 1765, became a primary source for later studies of the people's eighteenth-century culture. His detailed descriptions of Cherokee towns, townhouses (also known as councilhouses), weapons, and tools have been invaluable to later historians and anthropologists. The details have helped them identify Cherokee structures and cultural objects uncovered at modern archaeological excavation sites throughout the southern Appalachian region.[1] For instance, during the Tellico Archaeological Project prior to construction of the Tellico Dam, which included a series of salvage excavations conducted in the lower Little Tennessee River basin in the 1970s, archaeologists used Timberlake's map, known as Draught of the Cherokee Country, to help locate major Overhill village sites.[2]

  1. ^ Schroedel, G.F. Henry Timberlake in The Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture. Retrieved 2012-04-24.
  2. ^ Gerald Schroedl and Kurt Russ, "An Introduction to the Ethnohistory and Archaeology of Chota and Tanasee", in Overhill Cherokee Archaeology at Chota-Tanasee (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Department of Anthropology — Report of Investigations 38, 1986), 12.