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King's Mountain and Its Heroes: History of the Battle of King's Mountain, October 7th, 1780, and the Events Which Led to It; John Sevier and Valentine Sevier Sketches
KING'S MOUNTAIN
AND
ITS HEROES:
HISTORY OF THE
BATTLE OF KING'S MOUNTAIN,
OCTOBER 7TH, 1780,
AND THE
EVENTS WHICH LED TO IT,
BY
LYMAN C. DRAPER, LL. D.,
Secretary of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, and member of various Historical
and Antiquarian Societies of the Country.
WITH STEEL PORTRAITS, MAPS, AND PLANS.
1881 Col. John Sevier
Near the close of the seventeenth century, the grandfather of the subject of this sketch fled from his native Paris, on account of
religious persecution, and settled in London. The family name of Xavier was now Anglicized to Sevier. Here he married a Miss Smith, and had two sons, Valentine and William, who, when scarcely grown, ran away, and took
passage for America. This was not far from 1740. Among their fellow-passengers were several young men of a wild and sporting character, from whom Valentine Sevier acquired habits of gambling and dissipation. Landing at
Baltimore, he subsequently married a Miss Joanna Goade, and settled in then Augusta, now Rockingham County, in the Valley of Virginia, six miles south-west of where the little village of New Market was subsequently
located. Here he opened a farm, and carried on trade with the Indians. and here John Sevier was born, September twenty-third, 1745. After the Indian war of 1755 broke out, the family removed for safety to
Fredericksburg, where they remained nearly two years, and where young Sevier attended school.Returning to his old home in the Valley, Valentine Sevier found his domicil had been burned by the Indians. The cabins were
re-built, and trade re-commenced. John Sevier was sent to Staunton to school; and while there, he one day accidentally fell into a mill-race, and was saved from drowning by the heroic efforts of two young ladies--one of
whom subsequently became the wife of George Matthews, one of the heroes of Point Pleasant, and subsequently a Colonel in the Revolution, and Governor of Georgia. He now engaged with his father in trade; and, in 1761,
before he had turned of seventeen, he married Miss Sarah Hawkins, cleared up a farm, and engaged in excursions against the Indians--on one occasion, he and his party narrowly escaping a fatal ambuscade by a timely
discovery of the trap their enemies had set for them. He laid out the village of New Market, and there for some time he kept a store and inn, and carried on a farm; and then engaged in merchandizing in the neighboring
village of Middletown. About 1771, he visited the Holston country, carrying some goods with him for trade, and repeated the visit in 1772. At the Watauga Old Fields, on Doe river, near its junction with the Watauga,
he witnessed a horse-race, where a large, savage fellow, named Shoate, took from a traveling stranger his horse, pretending that he had won him in a bet. Such an act disgusted Sevier with the country, naturally
beautiful; but the elder Evan Shelby remarked: "Never mind these rascals: they'll soon take poplar"meaning canoes, and put off. This Shoate became a noted horse-thief, and was pursued and killed about 1779-80.
Late in 1773, John Sevier removed his family to the Holston country, and first located in the Keywood settlement, on the north shore of Holston, half a dozen miles from the Shelbys. Before his removal from Virginia, he
had been commissioned a Captain by Governor Dunmore. He was at Watauga Fort when attacked, July twenty-first, 1776. At day-break, when there were a large number of people gathered there, and the women were out-side milking
the cows, a large body of Cherokees fired on the milkers; but they all fortunately escaped to the fort, the gates of which were thrown open for their reception. Among the young girls thus engaged was Catharine Sherrill,
who, when she reached the gate, found it shut; but equal to the emergency, she threw her bonnet over the pickets, and then clambered over herself, and, as she jumped within, was caught in the arms of John
Sevier--her future husband. A warm attack on the fort ensued, during which Captain Sevier thought he killed one of the Indians. A man stole out of the stockade at night, went to the Holston, when a large party marched
to the relief of the beleaguered garrison. It was because the people refused to join and cooperate with the enemies of their country, that the savages were instigated to murder them, destroy their crops and
improvements, and drive off their cattle and horses. John Sevier was among the foremost in the defence of the Watauga and Nolachucky settlements. He had been elected Clerk of the first self-constituted court in 1775; and,
in 1776, he was chosen one of the representatives of the united settlements to the North Carolina Convention at Halifax, and took his seat, securing the establishment of the district of Washington. Hastening back home,
he reached there in season to serve on Christian's expedition against the Cherokees at the head of a fine company of riflemen; and also, at Colonel Christian's request, he acted as a spy during the campaign. He
continued his services, till the conclusion of the treaty at Long Island of Holston in July, 1777. In the fall of that year, he was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel for Washington County. During the period 1777-79, the
Indians, Tories and horse-thieves required Colonel Sevier's constant vigilance. In the summer of 1780, he was left in defence of the settlements, while Major Charles Robertson led the Watauga troops on the campaign in
South Carolina. During their absence, August fourteenth, having some time previously lost his wife, he was married to Miss Catharine Sherrill. His gallant services at King's Mountain cannot be too highly extolled.
December sixteenth following, he defeated the Cherokees at Boyd's creek, killing thirteen, and taking all their baggage, and then joined Colonel Arthur Campbell on an expedition against the hostile Indian towns. On the
third of February, 1781, he was made a full Colonel; and in March, he led a successful foray against the Middle Cherokee Settlements, killing about thirty of their warriors, capturing nine prisoners, burning six
towns, and bringing off about two hundred horses. "What time from right to left there rang the Indian war-whoop wild, Where Sevier's tall Watauga boys through the dim dells defiled." Having, in February,
been appointed by General Greene one of the Commissioners to hold a treaty with the Indians, a conference took place with the Cherokees at the Long Island of Holston in July, Colonel Sevier and Major Martin attending,
but without any permanent results. In the autumn of this year, Colonel Sevier served under Generals Greene and Marion in South Carolina; and, in 1782, he carried on a campaign against the Cherokees. In November,
1784, he was appointed Brigadier-General, which he declined because of his leadership in the effort to establish the republic of Franklin. During the period of 1784 to 1788, he was made its Governor and defender. He was
apprehended by the North Carolina authorities, on a charge of rebellion against the State, and conveyed to Morganton, where he was rescued by a party of his friends ; and returning home, "Chucky Jack" led a
campaign against the Indians. As the East Tennesseans were divided in sentiment, the Franklin Republic, after a turbulent career of some four years, ceased to exist. In 1789, General Sevier was chosen a member of the
Legislature of North Carolina, when an act of oblivion was passed, and he was re-instated as Brigadier-General. In 1790-91, he was elected to represent the East Tennessee district of North Carolina in Congress.
When Tennessee was organized into a Territory, he was appointed by President Washington a Brigadier-General in the militia; and he continued to protect the frontier settlements, carrying on the Hightower campaign
against the Cherokees in 1793. In 1798, he was made a General in the Provisional army. On the organization of a State Government in 1796, General Sevier was chosen the first Governor, and by successive re-elections
was continued in that office till 1801. In 1802, he served as a Commissioner in running the boundary line between Tennessee and Virginia. He again served as Governor from 1803 till 1809, and then a term in the State
Senate. He was chosen to a seat in Congress in 1811, serving, during the war, on the important committee on military affairs, till 1815; when President Madison appointed him one of the Commissioners, to ascertain the
boundary of the Creek territory, and died while on that service, in camp, on the east side of the Tallapoosa, near Fort Decatur, Alabama, September twenty-fourth, 1851, closing a busy, useful life at the age of
seventy years. As a proof of the love and veneration of his neighbors and friends, while absent in the Creek country, they had again elected him to Congress without opposition. In the language of the distinguished
Hugh L. White, who had served under him in the old Indian wars: "General Sevier was considered in his day, among the most gallant, patriotic, and useful men in the country where he lived."
Valentine Sevier
was born in what is now Rockingham County, Virginia, about 1747, and settled at an early period in East Tennessee. He was a Sergeant, and one of the spies, at the battle of Point Pleasant, where, says Isaac Shelby, "he was distinguished for vigilance, activity, and bravery." He subsequently served in the Indian wars in East Tennessee, and commanded a company at Thicketty Fort, Cedar Springs, Musgrove's Mill, and King's Mountain. He was the first Sheriff of Washington County, a Justice of the court, and rose in the militia to the rank of a Colonel. He removed to the mouth of Red river on Cumberland, now Clarksville, where he was attacked by Indians, November eleventh, 1794, killing and wounding several of his family. After long suffering from chronic rheumatism, he died at Clarksville, February twenty-third, 1800, in his fifty-third year; his widow surviving till 1844 in her one hundred and first year, His younger brother, Robert Sevier, who also commanded a company at King's Mountain, and was mortally wounded in the conflict, was previously much engaged in ridding the Watauga and Nolachucky region of Tories and horse thieves.
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