John Sevier Sr. (1745 - 1815)

Born 23 Sep 1745 in Augusta County, Colony of Virginia

Ancestors

Husband of Sarah Jane (Hawkins) Sevier — married 1761 in Frederick County, Colony of Virginia

Husband of Catherine (Sherrill) Sevier — married 14 Aug 1780 in Jonesborough, Tennessee

Descendants

Died 24 Sep 1815 at age 70 in Fort Decatur, Alabama Territory, United States

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Preceded by Governor of the Southwest Territory William Blount 2nd Governor Archibald Roane

John Sevier 1st Governor of Tennessee 1796—1801 and 1803—1809

Succeeded by 2nd Governor Archibald Roane 3rd Governor Willie Blount

John Sevier Sr. participated in the American Revolution. Join: 1776 Project Discuss: 1776

John Sevier Sr. is a part of Tennessee history. Join: Tennessee Project Discuss: tennessee

Biography

John Sevier Sr. is Notable.

Colonel John Sevier Sr. served with North Carolina Militia during the American Revolution.

John Sevier Sr. is an NSSAR Patriot Ancestor.
NSSAR Ancestor #: 287281
Rank: Colonel

John Sevier Sr. is a DAR Patriot Ancestor, A102092.

Governor John Sevier. Source:^[1]

Born 23 Sep 1745. Augusta, Rockingham, Virginia, United States. Source:^[2]

Died 24 Sep 1815. Fort Decatur, Alabama. Source:^[3]

Buried Knoxville, Knox County, Tennessee, USA. <e

John Sevier: American soldier, frontiersman, politician, and a founding father of the State of Tennessee.

Vitals

John Sevier

b. 1744/5^[4] Augusta Co., VA

Early Life

p. Valentine 'the immigrant' Sevier/Xavier (b. London)^[4] and Joanna Goad^[5]

Family

m. 1761 Sarah Hawkins (d. ante 1780)^[4]

m.2 Catherine Sherrill 1780 Nollichucky^[4]

Occupation

• Revolutionary War: Overmountain Men commander
• TN founding father
• March 1775: Attorney for the Treaty of Sycamore Shouls
• Commitee Member and signer of the 1776 Petition of the Washington District
• 1784-1788 Only Governor of the State of Franklin
• TN state senator
• U.S. House of Reps, TN 2nd Congressional District

Legacy

• There are Sevier Counties, named for John Sevier, in the states of Tennessee and Utah.

Burial

Old Knox County Courthouse Grounds, Knoxville, Knox, Tennessee

Find A Grave Memorial# 6364660

Notes

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 (1), 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 (2), 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 [Josiah] 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, 1815, 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."

(Excerpted from 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, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1881, pp. 418-424)

Sources

1. ↑ Source: #S1610648342 Volume: 270
2. ↑ Source: #S1610648342 Volume: 270
3. ↑ Source: #S1610648342 Volume: 270
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3} Karns, 1904
5. ↑ See also: Valentine Sevier, DAR Patriot Ancestor #A102104 (accessed 9 May 2023).

• Karns, T.C. (1904). "The Coming of Sevier." Tennessee History Stories, (pp.50-56). B.F. Johnson Publishing Co. E-book.

• The Winning of the West (1896) by Theodore Roosevelt. archive.org

• John Sevier as a Commonwealth-builder: A Sequel to The Rear-guard of the Revolution (1887). archive.org

• "Pedigree Resource File," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/2:2:3NCL-G7V : accessed 2 April 2019), entry for John Sevier, cites sources; "Johnson/Gagliano" file (2:2:2:MM6C-SKK)[https://archive.org/stream/annalstennessee00ramsgoog#page/n129/mode/2up

• The Annals of Tennessee to the End of the Eighteenth Century: Comprising Its Settlement, as the ...] :by James Gettys McGready Ramsey Published 1853

• Wikipedia: John Sevier on Wikipedia [1]

• Source: S1610648275 Repository: #R1600607482 Ancestry Family Trees Publication: Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. Ancestry Family Tree https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/tree/75461168/family

• Source: S1610648342 Repository: #R1600607482 U.S., Sons of the American Revolution Membership Applications, 1889-1970 Ancestry.com Publication: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.

• George W. Sevier, filing on behalf of the heirs of Catherine (Sherrill) Sevier, widow of John Sevier. Pension application #W6011, transcribed by Will Graves, posted by Southern Campaign American Revolution Pension Statements, accessed 9 May 2023.

• KnowSouthernHistory Link
• Fact: Residence (1765) Established New Market, Virginia New Market, Virginia
• Fact: Residence (1770) Moved to Millerstown (Woodstock?), Virginia Woodstock, Dunmore, Colony of Virginia, British Colonial America
• Fact: Residence (December 1773) Moved to North Carolina in what is now East Tennessee Colony of North Carolina, British Colonial America
• Fact: Residence (from 1777 to 1778) Moved to his plantation, “Plum Grove", Washington County, now in Tennessee Jonesborough, Washington, Tennessee, United States
• Fact: Residence (1781) Moved Across Nolachucky River to a New Home and Plantation, Mount Pleasant Washington, Tennessee, United States
• Fact: Residence (about 1809) Moved to Marble Springs Farm - Governor's Old Place Marble Springs Farm, Knoxville, Knox, Tennessee, United States
• Fact: Burial (1815; Reinterred 1889) Old Knox County Courthouse Grounds, Knoxville, Knox, Tennessee, United States
• Fact: Governor Governor of the State of Franklin 1785-1788
• Fact: Governor 1796 - Elected 1st Governor of the State of Tennessee
• Fact: http://familysearch.org/v1/LifeSketch General John Sevier
• "Family Tree," database, FamilySearch (http://familysearch.org : modified 14 March 2018, 14:21), entry for Governor and General John Sevier(PID https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/4:1:KNHZ-J3F); contributed by various users.
• John 'Nolichucky Jack' Sevier, 1st Gov. of Tennessee;
• Armstrong, Zella. Notable Southern Families. Baltimore, MD: 1974. v. 4.
• Bailey, Rev. J. D.. Commanders at Kings Mountain. Gaffney, SC: E. H. DeCamp, 1926.
• Letter from N. M. Sevier to Mr. Turner (1922). Transcript
• Sevier, C. B. and Madden, N. S. S.. Sevier Family History. Washington, D. C.: N. S. Madden. 1961.
• Heitman, Francis B. Historical Register of Officers of the Continental Army during the war of the revolution, April 1775, to December, 1783, Washington, D.C. The Rare Book Shop Publishing Company, Inc. 1914, p. 489.