This early map of Bradley County roads, preserved in J.M. Wooten’s scrapbook, gives a sense of the landscape the Foster families moved into in 1837. The Hiwassee River is clearly visible, forming the natural boundary between Bradley and McMinn Counties — and it is along its banks, where Candies Creek enters from the south, that the Foster families and their Union County South Carolina neighbours established their first Tennessee homes. Trace the northeastern bank of Candies Creek to where it meets the Hiwassee and you are looking at Foster country. Better and more detailed maps of the Ocoee District survey are ahead, but this weathered page from Wooten’s scrapbook is where the story begins to take shape on the ground.