Jesse Wharton (d. 1833), attorney and public official, was a native of Covesville in Albemarle County. He graduated from Dickinson College in 1794, qualified at the bar in Albemarle County two years later, and moved to Nashville around 1797. Wharton served in the Tennessee House of Representatives, 1801–03, and in the United States House of Representatives, 1807–09, filled a vacancy in the United States Senate, 1814–15, and ran unsuccessfully for governor of Tennessee in the latter year. He served as a trustee of Cumberland College, which became during his tenure the University of Nashville, 1816–33, and was appointed to the Board of Visitors of the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1832. Wharton practiced law briefly after his time in the Senate and before retiring to an estate outside Nashville. Three years before his death in that city, he owned thirty-three slaves (Robert M. McBride, Dan M. Robison, and others, Biographical Directory of the Tennessee General Assembly [1975– ], 1:773–4; Joshua A. Lippincott and Ovando B. Super, Alumni Record of Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pa. [1886], 32; Woods, Albemarle description begins Edgar Woods, Albemarle County in Virginia, 1901, repr. 1991 description ends , 380; TJ to Wharton, 19 Apr., and Wharton to TJ, 21 Apr. 1808 [both in DLC]; Washington Daily National Intelligencer, 12 Apr. 1814, 5 Aug. 1833; Michael J. Dubin, United States Gubernatorial Elections, 1776–1860: The Official Results by State and County [2003], 240–1; DNA: RG 29, CS, Tenn., Davidson Co., 1820, 1830; New-York Spectator, 15 May 1832).

As governor of Virginia, TJ appointed Thomas Walker and Daniel Smith to be boundary commissioners following a 15 June 1779 resolution of the House of Delegates that the state work with North Carolina to extend their border westward (PTJ description begins Julian P. Boyd, Charles T. Cullen, John Catanzariti, Barbara B. Oberg, James P. McClure, and others, eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 1950– , 43 vols. description ends , 3:13–4, 278–9; JHD description begins Journal of the House of Delegates of the Commonwealth of Virginia description ends [1779 sess.], 48–9). The 1781 Virginia law calling for the extention of lands reserved for military bounties set aside property situated north of the North Carolina boundary, between the Mississippi, Ohio, and Tennessee rivers, in place of lands formerly in Virginia that had become part of North Carolina on establishment of the border (Acts of Assembly description begins Acts of the General Assembly of Virginia (cited by session; title varies over time) description ends [Nov. 1781 sess.], 13). On 7 Dec. 1791 the Virginia General Assembly passed “An Act concerning the Southern Boundary of this State,” which expressly established the line between Virginia and North Carolina as that surveyed by Walker, Smith, and others, 1779–80 (Acts of Assembly description begins Acts of the General Assembly of Virginia (cited by session; title varies over time) description ends [1791–92 sess.], 9–10).

The recent dispute concerned the portion of this survey line that had long served as the boundary between Kentucky and Tennessee. Subsequent surveys had shown that Walker’s Line, as it was known, was actually 3′ north of its intended latitude of 36° 30′. In February 1820 Kentucky and Tennessee appointed commissioners to ascertain the border. Their decision to use Walker’s Line was confirmed by both states and approved on 12 May 1820 by the United States Congress (Edward M. Douglas, Boundaries, Areas, Geographic Centers and Altitudes of the United States and the Several States [2d ed., 1939], 183; U.S. Statutes at Large description begins Richard Peters, ed., The Public Statutes at Large of the United States … 1789 to March 3, 1845, 1845–67, 8 vols. description ends , 3:609).