The area where Calhoun is located was settled by John Walker (c. 1770-1834), a part-Cherokee grandson of Nancy Ward and a prominent figure in the formation of McMinn County. Walker helped contract the Cherokee Turnpike Company in 1808 to maintain a road between Knoxville and Georgia. What is now Cahoun began around 1808, when Walker established a ferry across the Hiwassee River between the present locations of Calhoun and Charleston. In 1819, Walker helped negotiate the Calhoun Treaty, where the Cherokee ceded the remaining lands between the Hiwassee River and the Little Tennessee River to the U.S. government. That same year McMinn County was organized at Walker's home in Calhoun. In 1820, Walker laid out the town of Calhoun, which he named for John C. Calhoun, the Calhoun Treaty's chief U.S. negotiator. Walker's son, John "Jack" Walker Jr., would eventually be assassinated by two anti-removal Cherokees, who felt he had betrayed the Cherokee Nation.