Well before Tennessee was a state, and before America was an independent nation, John Sevier was born in 1745, in the Colony of Virginia, the oldest of seven children. His father Valentine Sevier had immigrated to Baltimore and made his way to the Shenandoah Valley. Valentine Sevier married Joana Goad, a native of Virginia, and earned a living as a fur trader, tavern keeper and land speculator.
At the age of sixteen, John Sevier married Sarah Hawkins. In the valley of his birth Sevier farmed, dealt in furs, speculated in land, and ran a tavern, as his father had. By the early 1770s John Sevier moved his family to the Watauga settlements, which today is Elizabethton, Tennessee.
John Sevier would become the first governor of Tennessee when it became a state, and one day be the subject of one of the statues representing Tennessee in the National Statuary Hall Collection in the U.S. Capitol…but there is quite a bit to tell before that happened.
The Watauga settlements, where John Sevier and his family lived was on land leased from the Cherokee. The settlers formed a governing body called the Watauga Association. Sevier and others elected to a five man court purchased land from the Cherokee. The British colonial officials did not recognize this purchase and demanded the settlers leave. Not all of the Cherokee agreed with the Cherokee tribe’s sale of the land.
Fearing invasion, the Overmountain settlers built Fort Caswell (commonly called Fort Watauga) to guard the Watauga settlements. Sevier had begun building Fort Lee to guard settlements in the Nolichucky Valley, but did not complete it due to word of an impending Cherokee invasion. The Nolichucky settlers fled to Fort Watauga.
During July of 1776, when Fort Watauga was under attack by the Cherokee, John Sevier saved Catherine “Bonnie Kate” Sherrill, who with several other women had been outside the fort walls, milking cows, when the attack began. The gate to the fort was locked before Bonnie Kate could get inside! Luckily, John Sevier was able to pull her over the palisades (the wooden staked fence protecting the fort) to safety. Years later after John Sevier’s wife Sarah died, Bonnie Kate would become his second wife.
The battle after declaring independence in July of 1776 was a long one for the Patriots. The fighting in the early years of the Revolutionary War took place in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and the colonies in the more northern areas…but many of the battles that ultimately sealed the deal for our nation’s independence took place in the southern reaches of our country to be.
By 1780 the tide of the Revolution had turned against the colonists. The British, although forced out of New England, had gained new allies in the South. It wasn’t looking good for those seeking freedom from tyranny… but bands of freedom fighters from the highlands of Virginia to the hills of South Carolina joined together and forced the tide to turn at a place called King’s Mountain.
John Sevier and other brave men who became known as the Overmountain Men fought and thwarted the British from gaining control of the region. Many have said the victory at the Battle at Yorktown would not have been possible without the efforts of Overmountain Men like William Campbell who told his men to “Shout like hell and fight like devils!” and John Sevier, who led his men to battle with this war cry, ‘Here they are! Come on boys!‘”
In 1784, after the new nation won its independence, John Sevier became the governor of what some thought might become the 14th state in the United States of America. The STATE OF FRANKLIN was in the westerly portion of the colonial state of North Carolina. North Carolina tried to cede the territory to the Federal government due to reasons having to do with taxation and trouble with the cost of defending the remote area.
Congress did not accept the territory, but some citizens, among them, John Sevier, saw the benefit to the area becoming independent from North Carolina. North Carolina wasn’t on board with that idea and there were a few small battles. John Sevier was elected governor of The STATE OF FRANKLIN, named for Benjamin Franklin ( although Ben Franklin was in France at the time and responded to John Sevier’s letter asking for support of the state, by writing back…
“I am too little acquainted with the circumstances to be able to offer you anything just now that may be of importance, since everything material that regards your welfare will doubtless have occurred to yourselves. “
Ben concluded with a statesman like paragraph. I will endeavor to inform myself more perfectly of your affairs by inquiry and searching the records of Congress and if anything should occur to me that I think may be useful to you, you shall hear from me thereupon.” (Franklin’s letter to Governor John Sevier, 1787)
The STATE of FRANKLIN as the 14th state, was not to be. Sevier was then elected as Representative of North Carolina’s 5th District. Soon after, North Carolina ceded again the region in the west. Franklin became part of Eastern Tennessee by 1796. John Sevier then became the first Governor of the new state of Tennessee. He also was elected as Tennessee’s representative to Congress for several terms.
The other subject of the statue from Tennessee in the National Statuary Hall Collection in the U.S. Capitol is Andrew Jackson. Sevier and Jackson did not get along and nearly had a duel. Political ambitions and disrespectful accusations directed at each other led to the almost duel…but luckily the duel was stopped before either lost their life. (I wonder if their statues are a safe enough distance apart…?)
In 1815, John Sevier died in the Alabama Territory while conducting a survey of lands. He is buried on the lawn of the Old Knoxville Courthouse in Tennessee. Both his wives are buried there too. His first wife Sarah died shortly before the Battle of King’s Mountain, they had ten children. John Sevier and his second wife Bonnie Kate, had eight children. Inscribed on the monument dedicated to him are these words…
“John Sevier, pioneer, soldier, statesman, and one of the founders of the Republic; Governor of the State of Franklin; six times Governor of Tennessee; four times elected to Congress; a typical pioneer, who conquered the wilderness and fashioned the State; a protector and hero of Kings Mountain; fought thirty-five battles, won thirty-five victories; his Indian war cry, ‘Here they are! Come on boys!’”
Diana Erbio is a freelance writer and author of “Coming to America: A Girl Struggles to Find her Way in a New World”. Read more in her series Statues: The People They Salute visit The Table of Contents and the Facebook Page. (I’ll be adding to the Substack Table of Contents as I transfer the Blog Posts. Please subscribe to this Substack 😊🇺🇸🤓)
Very interesting piece Diana. Thanks Bunches!
Great Story Diana! Thank you. ❤️