Tennessee Division of Forestry

About forestry service, 37830, Oak Ridge, TN, US, Tennessee

Wartburg is a city in and the county seat of Morgan County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 918 at the 2010 census. == History == In 1805, the Cherokee ceded what is now Morgan County to the United States by signing the Third Treaty of Tellico. The first settlers arrived in the area shortly thereafter. Wartburg was founded in the mid-1840s by Georg Friedrich Gerding (later anglicized as George Frederick), a land speculator who bought up large tracts of land in what is now Morgan County and organized the East Tennessee Colonization Company with plans to establish a series of German colonies in the Cumberland region. Born in Germany in 1800, he became a successful businessman after moving to New York. He was decorated by Belgium King Leopold I for establishing the first ship line between Antwerp and New York. He was U.S. Consul to Baden-Baden 1845-47. Acquiring 300,000 acres of land, he established the East Tennessee Land Colonization Co. for Swiss, German, and French immigrants.