CHAPTER 17.

John Sevier, Chronology.

1745-September 23, born Rockingham County, Virginia. 1761-Married Sarah Hawkins.

1772-Appointed Captain in the Virginia Line by Lord Dunmore. 1772-Went on a visit to Evan Shelby at King's Meadow, now Bristol, Tennessee, and visited Watauga settlers. 1773-Located on North Holston and ran a mercantile business. 1778-Left Watauga to which he moved from Holston and located on the Nollichucky.

1779-April 10-Organized with Evan Shelby successful expedition against the Chickamaugas.

1780-August 14-Married Miss Catherine Sherrill. 1780-Took part in the Battle of King's Mountain.

1780-December 16-Defeated the Indians at the Battle of Boyd's Creek.

1780-Defeated the Indians on the Chota Expedition and burned their houses and destroyed their stock.

1780-Commissioned by Governor Nash of North Carolina Colonel Commandant of Washington County.

1781-Legislature of North Carolina by resolution asked Sevier and Shelby to return to North Carolina in the defense of that colony.

1781-March-Moved against Erati Cherokees in Smoky Moun

tains.

1781-In November, with Shelby, joined Marion's command in South Carolina.

1782-Made successful expedition against Chickamaugas. 1785-Appointed Brigadier-General of Washington District by the Legislature of North Carolina.

1785-1788-Governor of the State of Franklin.

1788-Arrested and taken to Morganton, N. C., on a charge of treason, where he was rescued by his friends.

1789-Elected to the North Carolina Senate from Greene County. 1789-Disabilities of treason removed, and he became a member of the Senate.

1789-Reinstated as Brigadier-General of Washington District. 1790-Member of Congress from North Carolina.

1791-February-Appointed Brigadier-General of the United States.

1793-Conducted the Etowah Expedition against the Indians, it being the last military service rendered by him, and the only expedition or campaign for which he ever received compensation from the government. Etowah is the site of the present city of Rome, Ga.

1797-September 9-Moved to Knoxville from Nollichucky. 1798-July 19 to June 1, 1800-Brigadier-General United States Army.

1796-1801-Governor of Tennessee three terms.

1803-December 30-Valentine Sevier, his father, died, 100 years

old.

1803-1809-Governor of Tennessee three terms.

1811-1815-Member of the United States Congress.

1813-Presented a sword by the Legislature of North Carolina. 1815-Appointed by President Monroe on a mission to Alabama to settle the boundary between the Creek Indians and the white settlers.

1815-Re-elected to Congress, but died before he knew of his

re-election.

1815 September 24-Died near Fort Decatur, Alabama. 1889-June 18-Remains brought back to Tennessee, and buried in the courthouse yard, at Knoxville.

CHAPTER 18.

John Sevier-His History.

The Sevier family is French in origin, and is "Xavier" in French, but was Anglicized to "Sevier" when the grandfather of John Sevier settled in London and there married. He had a son Valentine who, it seems ran away from home and came to America about the year 1740. Valentine Sevier was the father of John Sevier, and he had some dissipated habits. He landed at Baltimore, where he later married Miss Joanna Good, and he and his wife settled in Rockingham County, Virginia, where he cultivated a farm, and where John Sevier was born September 23, 1745. The family moved to Fredericksburg, where John attended school for two years, and later came back to Rockingham County and opened up a store and traded with the Indians. John Sevier also went to school at Staunton. After arriving at the age of usefulness in the store, he worked with his father, and in 1761, before he was seventeen years old he married Miss Sara Hawkins. He laid out the village of New Market, and kept a store there for some time. In 1771 he is said to have visited the Western waters-the Holston, Watauga and Nollichucky-on a prospecting and trading expedition with goods, and it is certain that he went there in 1772. In 1772 he was appointed a Captain in the Virginia line by Lord Dunmore, and Evan Shelby was also a Captain in the Virginia line, and had settled at King's Meadows, Bristol, Tennessee, and he invited young Sevier to visit him, which he did and during that visit, General Shelby and his son, Isaac, and Sevier, all rode horseback down to the Watauga, and became acquainted for the first time with James Robertson, who had been located there about one year.

In 1773, Captain Sevier started with his family to the Western waters, and with him came his father and mother, his brothers, Robert, Joseph and Abraham, and sisters, Polly and Catherine. His brother Valentine was already there. They reached their new home December 25, 1773, which was located on the North

Holston River, where Sevier conducted a mercantile business for a length of time that does not clearly appear. He then moved to the Watauga, and lived there for a length of time which also does not clearly appear, but it is certain that in 1778 he moved from the Watauga to Mount Pleasant, on the Nollichucky River, and there spent the remainder of the time until he moved with his family to Knoxville in 1797. He conducted his farm on the Nollichucky with slave labor. His father, Valentine Sevier, died December 30, 1803, one hundred years old. Sevier, like Andrew Jackson, was a good business man, and was successful in accumulating property, both after he came to Tennessee, as well as in Virginia, and had he not spent his fortune in equipping expeditions against the Indians, and keeping open house, he would have died a wealthy man for his day, and not, as he did, practically broken up.

He was at Watauga fort when it was attacked by the Indians in July, 1776, and it was upon this occasion that Catherine Sherrill, who afterwards became his wife, is said to have made her historical run to get over the palisade from which she jumped, and was caught by Captain Sevier. The assault of the Indians was successfully repulsed, and a number of them killed. With this defense of Fort Watauga began the career of John Sevier as a patriot, soldier, and Indian fighter, that was not to cease until 1815, when he died on a mission connected with the Creek Indians, in the State of Alabama.

In 1775 he was elected Clerk of the first Court, and the next year was made a delegate to the North Carolina Convention at Halifax. He served on Colonel Christian's expedition against the Cherokees, and was later appointed Lieutenant-Colonel for Washington County, which had been created out of all of the territory west of the mountains.

Sevier's relations to the people of the Western waters were probably never duplicated anywhere. It did not take the mountain men long to discover that he was a natural leader in whom they could absolutely confide, and we probably could not do better than to adopt the opinion of Roosevelt, who is usually none too enthusiastic about Sevier, but whose opinion, nevertheless, in this instance, is a magnificent tribute to him. Roosevelt says:

"Sevier, who came to the Watauga early in 1772, nearly a year after Robertson and his little colony had arrived, differed widely from his friend in almost every respect save high-minded

ness and dauntless, invincible courage. He was a gentleman by birth and breeding, the son of a Huguenot, who had settled in the Shenandoah Valley. He had received a fair education, and though never fond of books, he was, to the end of his days an interested and intelligent observer of men and things, both in America and in Europe. He corresponded on intimate and equal terms with Madison, Franklin, and others of our most polished statesmen; while Robertson's letters, when he had finally learned to write them himself, were almost as remarkable for their phenomenally bad spelling as for their shrewd common sense and homely straight-forward honesty. Sevier was a very handsome man; during his lifetime he was reputed the handsomest in Tennessee. He was tall, fair-skinned, blue-eyed, brown-haired, of slender build, with erect military carriage and commanding bearing; his lithe, finely proportioned figure being well set off by the hunting shirt which he almost invariably wore. From his French forefathers he inherited a gay, pleasure-loving temperament that made him the most charming of companions. His manners were polished and easy, and he had great natural dignity. Over the backwoodsmen he exercised an almost unbounded influence, due as much to his ready tact, invariable courtesy, and lavish, generous hospitality as to the skill and dashing prowess which made him the most renowned Indian fighter of the southwest. He had an eager, impetuous nature, and was very ambitious, being almost as fond of popularity as of Indian fighting. He was already married and the father of two children when he came to the Watauga, and, like Robertosn, was seeking a new and better home for his family in the west. So far his life had been as uneventful as that of any other spirited young borderer; he had taken part in one or two unimportant Indian skirmishes. Later he was commissioned by Lord Dunmore as Captain in the Virginia Line."

WHY HE CAME WEST.

In nothing that has been written about John Sevier, and the amount written has not been large, is there an adequate explanation of why he took up with the mountain men, unless it be his love of adventure. While very young during his business ventures in Virginia, he was evidently very successful, and he is reputed to have been a man of independent means for that day. There is no evidence of his making money an object after he came to the Watauga; on the contrary, it was a constant loss, and he finally died a poor man; his home, hospitality, pocketbook, horses and stock, appear to have all been at the disposal of his friends, and he kept practically open house for everybody. This course would naturally make him an exceedingly popular man, and it also made him a poor man, and finally broke him up. He