Henry Timberlake

Who was Henry Timberlake?

Henry Timberlake was a colonial Anglo-American officer, journalist, and cartographer. He was born in 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 1760s.

Timberlake's account of his journeys to the Cherokee, published as his memoirs in 1765, became a primary source for later studies of their eighteenth-century culture. His detailed descriptions of Cherokee villages, townhouses, weapons, and tools have helped historians and anthropologists identify Cherokee structures and cultural objects uncovered at modern archaeological excavation sites throughout the southern Appalachian region. During the Tellico Archaeological Project, which included a series of salvage excavations conducted in the Little Tennessee River basin in the 1970s, archaeologists used Timberlake's 'Draught of the Cherokee Country to help locate major Overhill village sites.