Life of General John Sevier

Contents

PAGE

Preface 7

CHAPTER

Preface

When a boy reads the biography of a great man, he is especially interested in the hero's boyhood days — his joys and sorrows, struggles and victories; and he is always disappointed if nothing has been said about that period of the hero's life. The fact that the youthful period of Sevier's life had been neglected, led me to write this little volume. During my school days, when I read about the wonderful battles which General Sevier fought with the dusky warriors of the forest, and about the terrible clash with the British at King's Mountain I wondered if anything reliable * lu been written about his boyhood days. Later I was disappointed to find that the biography of an American hero, a man who had been instrumental in turning the tide of the Revolution at King's Mountain, had been sadly neglected. In all my early investigations I could not find a book ! that furnished the information I was seeking. I read Ramsey's " Annals of Tennessee " and Gilmore's " Rear-guard of the Revolution" and "John Sevier

8 PREFACE

as a Commonwealth-Builder," the last-named not being a biography and very unreliable history; these books, though full of interesting matter, did not give me enough about the early life of General Sevier and about other neglected parts of his interesting career.

Next I wrote letters of inquiry. By this plan I found, in the Draper Manuscript Collection in the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, many letters and manuscript statements containing much desirable information about Sevier. In 1844, Doctor Draper visited three sons of General Sevier and had personal interviews with them, taking notes of the information he gathered. He also received many letters from them, some of which contain much biographical and genealogical material. It was pure love for historical investigw :*i that led the venerable Doctor Draper thus to preserve for mankind much information of this kind. This is the first time this valuable manuscript matter about Sevier's life has been presented in history or biography.

This book was written for those who love to read about the deeds of the heroes who fought for our freedom and caused the light of peace and civilization to shine upon our " land of the free and home of the brave."

PREFACE 9

My thanks are due to Mr. L. C. Burke, Librarian of the State University of Wisconsin, who went through the Draper manuscripts carefully and copied for me such material as I desired. My thanks are also due to Doctor Reuben Gold Thwaites, the wellknown author, who, as Secretary of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, very kindly aided me with information concerning the Draper manuscripts. I must also thank Doctor E. W. Kennedy, Professor of History in the Peabody College for Teachers, Mr. A. V. Goodpasture, author and Secretary of the Tennessee Historical Society, Mr. J. W. Shepherd, Nashville, Author, and Doctor Arthur Howard Noll, of the University of the South, Sewanee, who kindly read my manuscript and made suggestions and corrections.

Francis M. Turner.

Christiana High School, April 24, 1909.

Chapter I The Sevier Family

In the sixteenth century the town of Xavier, in Navarre, in the French Pyrenees, gave its name to the family of one of its most famous citizens, upon whom the Roman Church a century later conferred the title of Saint. St. Francis was of noble parentage and was born in the castle of Navier on April 7th, 1506. He w^as educated at the College of St. Barbe, Paris, and during his student days he became acquainted with Ignatius de Loyola. Some years later these two, w r ith others, founded the Society of Jesus, or the Order of the Jesuits, as it is usually called. St. Francis was afterwards sent by the Order to the East as a missionary. He visited Japan and many of the islands, and, with his staff of assistants, baptised in a single month ten thousand natives of the little kingdom of Travancore. He died in 1552 on his way to undertake a mission to China. Seventy years later he was canonized, that is, dey clared by the Roman Church entitled to be called Saint Francis, though he is generally known as the " Apostle of the Indies."

About this time the Protestants of France, called Huguenots, were becoming numerous and powerful, despite the persecutions to which they were subjected in the reign of Francis I. and the famous massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day, August 24th, 1572. They were the Puritans of France and were generally noted for their virtuous conduct and the purity of their lives. In 1598 King Henry IV. of France issued the Edict of Nantes, which secured to them full political and civil rights and protected them from persecution. In 1685 Louis XIV. revoked the Edict, and the persecution of the Huguenots began again and was pursued with such violence as to force hundreds of them into exile in Prussia, the Netherlands, Switzerland, England, and America, or wherever the rights of Protestants were respected.

Strange as it may seem, some of the family of St. Francis Xavier, living at Xavier, and bearing the name of the town as a family name, had embraced the Protestant religion, and one of them, a devout young Huguenot, was among the first to leave France after the revocation of the Edict of

Nantes. He settled in London and there the family name of Xavier was gradually changed to Sevier. He married a woman named Smith, by whom he had a son, born some time in the year 1703. In or before 1740, this son, Valentine Sevier, ran away from home and came to the New World. He found a home in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, in what was then Augusta County, but is now within the limits of Rockingham County. 1

In course of time Valentine Sevier met Miss Joanna Goade, 2 and some time later married her. It was a very happy marriage and the two were held in high esteem by all the neighbors and friends. On September 23, 1745, this marriage was blessed with a son, to whom the name John was given. Little did these young parents fancy their babe would live to be one of the world's heroes; little did they think then that he would one day help to smite the enemy of his country and make way for peace and civilization ; little did they dream, perhaps, that he would ever be a ruler among his people, General John Sevier.

Valentine Sevier, John's father, had a country store, a small mercantile business,

1 Draper MSS. 2 Draper MSS.

i 4 THE LIFE OF SEVIER

and a farm; and his son John was taught to labor in the field, learning the noblest of occupations. John was very fond of horses and dogs, and living on the frontier of thecolony, near the region of wild game, he also became exceedingly fond of hunting. When tired of the monotony of farm life, nothing pleased him more than to shoot squirrels and turkeys in the mountains or, in company with his boy friends, to mount his favorite horse and ride away into the distant woodlands with the pack of hounds for a fox-chase or a deer-hunt. The yelping of the hounds was fascinating to him, and he would put the spurs to his horse and gallop away to some high hill to listen to the music of the chase. Hunting wild game developed his powers as a marksman, and riding the chase gave him the fine physical form for which he was distinguished in after life as a soldier and general.

In Sevier's youth the South had no public free schools, though there existed in most communities the " old-field school," supported by those who chanced to have an interest in it. But at best this was a very poor place to obtain an " education." The school-house, built of logs and daubed with mud or mortar, was often so open in construction that school could not be kept in it during the winter months. It was furnished with benches made of slabs hewed from split logs, each slab * resting upon four legs driven in auger holes, two at each end. An opening or two, made in the wall of the building and furnished usually with wooden shutters, served as windows, and a " stick and dirt" chimney formed a very wide fire-place at one end of the room.

As for the teacher, he was usually a stern old fellow whom the scholars feared rather than loved or respected. He was much more skilful in the use of the rod than in imparting knowledge, for he had very little learning to impart. Spelling and writing, a little grammar, and a smattering of arithmetic were about all he could teach. He usually had a long list of rules which he read daily to his pupils for the regulation of their conduct, and often some unfortunate pupil who had violated the " rules " had to w T ear the " dunce cap" or was caned. There were no copy books, except what the schoolmaster and his pupils contrived to make of fool's cap paper. Pens were made of goose-quills. The schoolmaster was very skilful in making these pens and in " setting copies " for his pupils. The pupils studied their lessons aloud, and now and then the stern voice of the old master, followed by a rap on a bench, awakened some idle pupil to greater efforts to get his lesson. But there existed throughout the country a few academies and private schools in which some of our greatest patriots and statesmen were educated after they had left the old-field schools. Books were rare in the colonies, but well read. Shakespeare, a few volumes of history and biography, and the Bible comprised the library of the frontier settlements.

In spite of these drawbacks young Sevier was fairly well educated for his time. He was a student for some time in the academy at Staunton, Virginia, and applied himself with reasonable diligence and acquired a good knowledge of English, as his subsequent correspondence shows. While attending school at Staunton, he fell into a mill race one day and would have been drowned had he not been rescued by two ladies, sisters, one of whom was later the wife of Governor Matthews of Georgia. 3 As long as he lived, whenever opportunity offered, he showed his gratitude to these ladies for their rescue of him in his youth.

When his school days were over, John re- 3 Draper MSS.

turned to his home and became a clerk in his father's store. 4 His father had become somewhat dissipated and spent a good part of his time at Culpeper Court House, gambling and drinking. Such indulgences were very common in those days and were not regarded in the way they are at present. Fortunately John never had any such bad habits, and was not even addicted to the use of tobacco. He had pleasant manners which won him many friends, and he was naturally kind and courteous to his customers; best of all, he was so honest and sincere that he had the respect of all with whom he was associated.

About the time young Sevier was attending school at Staunton, Benjamin Franklin was postmaster-general, the mail was beginning to be carried by stage-coaches, cities w r ere growing rapidly, and there were seven newspapers published in the colonies. Many planters read the papers and kept informed on the political, social, and religious topics of the day. Books by American authors were beginning to be read. Franklin's wise sayings in " Poor Richard's Almanac " were eagerly read by people in all the colonies. It was not by any means a time of mental stagnation; the tide of political, social, and relig- 4 Draper MSS.

ious affairs forced the minds of men to great activity.

The school days of Sevier ended at Staunton. William and Mary College was the best-equipped of the colonial institutions of learning, and it was customary for the sons of the better class of planters who desired an education to enter that institution for their degrees and training for professional life. But study was irksome to John Sevier's active nature, and he did not enter William and Mary. He seems not to have aspired to distinction in a professional career in the fields of science or literature. His was the mission of the soldier and statesman, and he was to become one of the pioneers of civilization in its westward journey.

A great many wild tales are told of Sevier's fights with the Indians in his youth; and, while we cannot rely upon them all as true, we do know ; that he grappled with the dusky fellows while yet in his teens. In a letter to Doctor Draper in 1844, Major James Sevier, son of John Sevier, says of his father: "Near the close of the old French war, Sevier was out on, several scouts on the Virginian frontiers and on one occasion, with others, came near getting into an ambuscade, but fortunately discovered the net in good time to escape. This was his first military service and experience." 5

After leaving the academy at Staunton, and while yet a merchant in his father's store, young Sevier began to devise plans for launching out into the sea of life in his own little bark. Like many another American, he had learned early to paddle his own canoe. The cause of such serious considerations, suffice it to say, was the fact that he had fallen in love. This passion of love, growing stronger day by day, may have been one of the chief causes of his leaving the academy and ending his school days when he did. History is silent as to this. He seems to have been devoted entirely to the young woman, Sarah Hawkins. She was a tender, delicate young lady; and her delicacy and pure modesty constituted the youth's ideal. She may have been a schoolmate, and was doubtless the first lover of his youth. The wedding took place in 1761. 6

After this union, which proved a happy one, young Sevier tried his hand at farming on a tract of land called Long Meadows. 7 This work was well suited to his taste, as he could here indulge his fondness for horses and dogs and hunting more freely than he

5 Draper MSS. 6 Ibid. 7 Ibid.

could if engaged in the mercantile pursuits. Those who have enjoyed the freedom and independence of farm life, and the peace and happiness which dwell in the humble cottage, can easily imagine the supreme happiness of this young husband and wife on the little farm at Long Meadows.

Sevier's business at Long Meadows was on too small a scale to satisfy his ambitions and he remained there only a few years. He bought a tract of land in the Shenandoah Valley, near Mt. Jackson, and laid off town lots, founding a little town which he named New Market, and which still exists under that name, and has a population of about seven hundred. In this town he established himself as a farmer, inn-keeper, and merchant. He gave the Baptist Church three acres of land on which to erect a church building. He dealt in dry-goods, groceries and such other articles as were in demand, the settlers along the valley and from the hills proving good customers. It often happened that the Indians came down from the mountains and exchanged their peltries for beads, looking-glasses, ga^-colored cloths, and such other things as were attractive to them.

Sevier remained in New Market several years and prospered, but, desirous of doing greater things in the world for his wife, and rapidly increasing family, he began to yearn for a new field of activity. So, in 1770, he moved to Millerstown in Shenandoah County, 8 only a few miles from New Market. While living here he began to travel and explore. Formerly he had been seeking his fortune in the northern part of the Shenandoah Valley; now he turned his attention towards the wilderness of the great Southwest in the region known to-day as East Tennessee.

s Draper MSS.

Chapter II Early Settlements In East Tennessee

Before considering the early settlements in the regions now known as East Tennessee and the advent of our hero into that territory, it will be well to take a panoramic view of the vast wilderness west of the stately mountains which tower above the rippling waters of the Watauga, and to take a look at its early dwellers.

Standing on these lofty mountain heights, the explorer might have beheld a wide expanse of forest, a forest clothing one of the richest and most beautiful spots on the face of the earth. In the distance vast herds of buffaloes grazed, bear lurked in the dense cane-brake, and deer fled over the hills. By day, the wilderness was flooded with the music of countless song-birds; by night, the solitude was broken by the howls of wolves, the screams of panthers, and the hoots of horn-owls. This wild but beautiful country was the inter-tribal park and hunting-ground of the Red Man of the forest. Living among these mountains as the Cherokee did, we do not wonder that he left us so many poetical names. Think of the sweetness of sound in the name Watauga.

The taste and disposition of the Indians differed from those of the white men. They were naturally very fond of athletic games; 1 they enjoyed foot-racing and wrestling, and dancing was a favorite pastime. The wardance was usually indulged in before going upon the war-path. One of their most popular games was played with balls and rackets, somewhat like the modern game of lacrosse. The ball, usually about the size of a baseball, was made of deer-skin, stuffed hard with hair. This ball was knocked by rackets made of sticks about two feet long, strung with raw-hide. The game was sometimes played by select players, but often by all the young men of a village. One village frequently played against another, or one tribe strove for the championship against another tribe. When they came together at the appointed time and place, every player arrayed in his best, they found great crowds of spectators assembled to see the contest. All things being ready, the game was ushered in by sol- 1 Bartram, Adair.

emn dances and religious ceremonies. During the game a successful hit was followed by loud applause from the enthusiastic crowd. The excited players often rushed together in a scrimmage, each side eager to win, and one or two players came out of the contest with broken bones. All these games and sports helped to develop the fine physique of the Indian warrior.

Many tribes claimed access to the common hunting-ground, but no tribe dared to make a home within its boundaries, lest the other tribes combine for its complete extermination. The particular tribes claiming an interest in the coveted hunting-ground were the Creek, the Chickasaw, the Uchee, the Shawnee, the Chickamauga, and the Cherokee. The last two most directly concern us at present.

In order to appreciate the peculiar difficulties which confronted the white man in his attempts to settle in this wilderness, we shall have to understand the fiery, martial spirit of the Cherokees especially. Their tribal name is derived from Cheera, which means fire, and fire is regarded their lower heaven. They call their medicine men Cheera-tahge, or the men possessed of divine fire. Forty years before the breaking out of the Revolutionary war, this powerful tribe had, it is said, sixty- four towns; and old traders estimated the number of their warriors to be above six thousand. They liked war and were not content unless engaged in martial conflicts. In reply to an earnest appeal of the white people, that they establish peace between themselves and the Tuscaroras, they said : " We cannot live without war. Should we make peace with the Tuscaroras, we must immediately look out for some other, with whom we can be engaged in our beloved occupation/' They loved a brave man and despised a coward.

Speaking of the Indian's passion for revenge, one writer has said : " I have known them to go a thousand miles for the purpose of revenge, in pathless woods, over hills and mountains, through large cane-swamps full of grape-vines and briars, over broad lakes, rapid rivers, and deep creeks; all the way endangered by poisonous snakes, if not with the rambling and lurking enemy; while, at the same time, they were exposed to the extremities of heat and cold, the vicissitudes of the seasons, to hunger and thirst, to fatigues and other difficulties. Such is their over-boiling revengeful temper, that they utterly contemn all those as imaginary trifles, if they are so happy as to get the scalps of the murderer or enemy, to satisfy the supposed craving ghost of their deceased relations." 2 These characteristics, existing to a more or less degree in all Indians, were fully developed in the Cherokee and the Chickamauga. Intellectually, the Cherokee tribe was among the strongest of American tribes. We shall learn more of this tribe, and find that John Sevier was perhaps the only man on the frontier who could outgeneral its cunning warriors.

The English pushed into this romantic region, and established Fort Loudon in 1756. This region was included in the grant which Charles II. made in 1663 to a company of men called Lords Proprietors, the grant including the country between the present States of Virginia and Florida, and extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean. A small settlement sprang up under the protection of this fort, but the old fort has a sad story to tell.

The Cherokees assisted the English in their second expedition against the French at Fort Duquesne, which brought victory and peace to the English, gaining for the crown of Great Britain the Ohio country and all the territory south to the Gulf of Mexico and east 2 Adair.

of the Mississippi River, except the Isle Orleans. The Indian warriors had lost many of their horses in this expedition, and, as they were returning to their homes, they caught some horses running at large in Virginia. The Virginians became offended at the Indians and killed some of their warriors, and then the Cherokee warriors, of course, desired revenge. Gathering together a large band of warriors, they took the war-path and in 1758 laid siege to Fort Loudon under the command of Captains Demere and Stuart. The whites sent out for help, but their messengers were murdered by the Indians. A few friendly squaws stole in by a secret passage at night with a small supply of beans, but this was not sufficient to satisfy their hunger, and the starving inmates fell to eating the flesh of their horses and dogs. Finally Captain Stuart went to Chota to ask for terms. It was agreed that the w T hites should abandon the fort, with its guns and powder, and return to their homes in Virginia and North Carolina. They had the promise of a safe passage through the Indian country under the protection of an escort of Indian warriors. They encamped the night after their departure near an Indian village on the Tellico plains. The next morning about daylight a band of infuriated Cherokees fell upon them, and few were left to tell the mournful story of the massacre that ensued. It is said that the Indians afterwards made a fence of the bones of the dead white men left upon the plains after this terrible massacre.

From this time on, the Indians were very jealous of the encroachments of the white men upon their lands, but traders continued to traffic with them, and hunters and trappers frequently crossed over the mountains, exploring and hunting in the new country. Returning to the East, they fascinated their neighbors with glowing descriptions of the magnificent region. Daniel Boone, the celebrated hunter and explorer, was among the first to explore and hunt in these western wilds. It is said that while standing on the summit of the Alleghanies, facing the beautiful region into which he was about to enter, he exclaimed to his companion : " I am richer than the man in Scripture who owned the cattle on a thousand hills. I own the wild beasts of a thousand valleys."

Boone pushed on into the unexplored wilderness, hunting the wild beasts with his flint-lock rifle. He caused the light of his bravery and invincible spirit of adventure to illuminate the pathway of the pioneer when he took his hunting-knife and carved on a large beech-tree standing on the bank of Boone's Creek the inscription : " D Boon Cilled A Bar On Tree in The yEar 1760."

Story after story about the new country was related till it became common talk in the towns along the Atlantic. After the French and Indian War, a few people, impelled by British tyranny and allured by hopes of obtaining better lands and more independence, made up their minds to move into the new country. The French had told the Indians that the English, if victorious in gaining possession of the territory claimed by France, would take their lands from them and deprive them of their hunting-grounds. So, when the French were defeated, the Indians believed that the English would next fall upon them and seize their hunting-grounds. To quiet their apprehensions, George III. of England issued a proclamation in 1763 prohibiting any private purchase of land by any citizen or any grant of lands, by any governor, west of the sources of the streams which flow into the Atlantic. He also said that none of his subjects should make settlements on individual lands west of the sources of these streams.

3 o THE LIFE OF SEVIER

This order of the king prevented many people from settling in the fertile region explored by Boone and his companions, but the thrilling stories stirred the adventurous spirit of a few pioneers who were willing to risk the king's displeasure. So they crossed the mountains and made their settlements, claiming, as an excuse for violating the proclamation, the treaty of Fort Stanwix, a treaty made in October, 1767, which fixed a boundary line for the Indians of the Six Nations and conceded to the British the whole country south of the Ohio River.

The physical formation of this beautiful region was very favorable for an inflow of immigration. It was as if some Titanic power had plowed a deep furrow in the middle of the great Alleghanies, forming the beautiful long valley extending from Virginia into the picturesque region explored by Boone and others. Along this valley ran the old war-path of the various Indian tribes. It was an inviting pathway to the Southwest, and it received the impress of some of the best families of Virginia.

The North Holston Settlement was founded in what is now Sullivan County, Tennessee. The leading family in it was the Shelbys. General Evan Shelby, who settled at

King's Meadows, was a noted Indian fighter, and his son, Colonel Isaac Shelby, later fought heroically in the battle of King's Mountain. In Tennessee the family name is preserved in Shelby County, in the southwestern part of the State, and in the town of Shelbyville, the county-seat of Bedford County, near the center of the State. The Carter's Valley Settlement, made about 1770, was in what is now Hawkins County, Tennessee, and was a part of the Virginia settlement which had been extended down from Wolf Hills.

The most noted of the four western settlements was the one made at Watauga, on the Watauga River, near the present Elizabethton, Tennessee. The first settler was William Bean, a bold hunter from Virginia, who had previously hunted with Boone in this region. Their old camping-ground was on Boone's Creek, a tributary of Watauga River, not very far from that river, and in 1769 Bean built his hut on the very spot where he and Boone had previously camped together. There in that lonely cabin his son, Russell Bean, was born, the first white child born in what is now the State of Tennessee. Other people, from Virginia, settled near Bean's cabin; and, soon afterwards, came many settlers from Wake County, North Carolina, in search of homes, many of whom, as soldiers, had seen the rich country as they went to the relief of Fort Loudon in 1758.

An important event in the early days oi Watauga was the arrival of James Robertson in the spring of 1770. Though he came from North Carolina, he was a native of Brunswick County, Virginia. He was taciturn and thoughtful, and in every way a man well suited to the trying position which he was about to assume. He was hospitably entertained by a hunter and recent settler at Watauga named Honeycut and by William Bean. Deciding at once to make h : s home at Watauga, he selected and cleared a spot of ground and planted and raised a crop of corn.

After harvesting his first crop of corn, Robertson set out for North Carolina for his family and a few neighbors who were desirous of moving to the new settlements. On recrossing the mountains, he got lost. Wandering about for some time, he came to a cliff where he had to leave his horse. Heavy showers fell and drenched his powder so that he could not kill any game for food. For fourteen days he trudged about in the mountains without anything to eat, except a few nuts and berries, and became so weak that he despaired of ever reaching his home again. Accidentally two hunters chanced to find him. They gave him food, furnished him a horse to ride, and soon he returned to Watauga with his family and the neighbors he had guided to their new homes.