Under pressure from the United States, The Morganton area was part of the lands ceded by the Cherokee with the signing of the First Treaty of Tellico in 1798. The first Euro-American settlers had arrived at the mouth of Bakers Creek in 1796, however, when the land was still claimed by the Cherokee. Ethnologist James Mooney recorded a Cherokee legend regarding blazed trees on the banks "opposite Morganton" that supposedly marked the location of hidden mines; he first published it in his volume on myths in 1900. This and a companion volume were republished in 1972.