John Sevier (September 23, 1745 September 24, 1815) was an American soldier, frontiersman, and politician, and one of the founding fathers of Tennessee. A member of the Democratic-Republican Party, he played a leading role in Tennessee's pre-statehood period, both militarily and politically, and he was elected the state's first governor in 1796. He served as a colonel of the Washington District Regiment in the Battle of Kings Mountain in 1780, and he commanded the frontier militia in dozens of battles against the Cherokee in the 1780s and 1790s.

Sevier settled in the Tennessee Valley frontier in the 1770s. In 1776, he was elected one of five magistrates of the Watauga Association and helped defend Fort Watauga against an assault by the Cherokee. At the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, he was chosen as a member of the Committee of Safety for the association's successor, the Washington District. Following the Battle of Kings Mountain, he led an invasion that destroyed several Cherokee towns in northern Georgia. In the 1780s, he served as the only governor of the State of Franklin, an early attempt at statehood by the trans-Appalachian settlers. He was brigadier general of the Southwest Territory militia during the early 1790s.

Sevier served six two-year terms as Tennessee's governor: from 1796 until 1801, and from 1803 to 1809, totaling 11 years. Term limits prevented a fourth consecutive term in both instances. His political career was marked by a growing rivalry with rising politician Andrew Jackson, which nearly culminated in a duel in 1803. After his last term as governor, Sevier was elected to three terms in the United States House of Representatives from Tennessee, serving from 1811 until his death in 1815.

John Sevier was the oldest of seven children of Valentine Sevier and Joanna Goad. His father, who was of Spanish ancestry (the surname Sevier was an anglicization of the surname Xavier derived from the village Xavier in present-day Spain.), had immigrated from England to Baltimore in 1740 and gradually made his way to the back country and Shenandoah Valley. One of his brothers, Valentine Sevier, became a frontiersman, Revolutionary War officer, and the builder of the Sevier Station frontier outpost.

Sevier's father worked variously as a tavern keeper, fur trader, and land speculator; young John pursued similar work.

In 1761 at age 16, Sevier married Sarah Hawkins and initially settled into a life of farming. Some sources suggest Sevier served as a captain in the Virginia colonial militia, under George Washington, in Lord Dunmore's War in 1773 and 1774.

The Royal Proclamation of 1763 forbade Anglo-American settlement on Indian lands west of the Appalachian Mountains. As the Watauga settlements were in Cherokee territory, British colonial authorities considered them illegal. In March 1775, the settlers purchased the lands from the Cherokee, with Sevier listed as a witness to the agreement.

left|225px|thumb|Sketch in Goodpasture's History of Tennessee (1903), showing Sevier pulling Catherine Sherrill to safety during the Cherokee assault on Fort Watauga

American Revolutionary War

With the outbreak of the American Revolution, in April 1775, the Wataugans, most of whom were sympathetic to the Patriot cause, organized the Washington District and formed a 13-member Committee of Safety. The committee, which included Sevier, submitted the "Watauga Petition" to Virginia in the spring of 1776, formally asking to be annexed, but Virginia refused. (Historian J. G. M. Ramsey suggested Sevier wrote the petition, but later historians reject this). The combined force departed across the mountains on September 26, eventually linking up with the remnants of McDowell's men.

On October 7, the Overmountain Men caught up with and surrounded Ferguson, who had entrenched his Loyalist forces atop Kings Mountain, near the present-day North Carolina-South Carolina border. Sevier's men comprised part of the south flank, along with the forces of Campbell and McDowell. Patriot forces initially failed to break through the Loyalist lines, but the frontier sharpshooters gradually decimated the American Loyalist ranks. At the height of the battle, Sevier and Campbell charged the high point of the Loyalist position, giving the Overmountain men a foothold atop the mountain.

State of Franklin

right|220px|thumb|[[Howard Pyle drawing in an 1885 edition of Harper's Magazine, showing a romanticized account of Sevier's 1788 escape from North Carolina (he was never tried by the state)]]

In June 1784, North Carolina, bowing to pressure, from the Continental Congress and eager to be rid of an expensive and unprofitable district, ceded its lands west of the Appalachian Mountains to the federal government. However, Congress did not immediately accept the lands, creating a vacuum of power in what is now Tennessee. In August 1784, Sevier served as president of a convention held at Jonesborough with the aim of establishing a new state.

As North Carolina and Franklin competed for the loyalties of the residents of the area, Sevier became involved in intrigues with Georgia to gain control of Cherokee lands in what is now northern Alabama. He had taken out claims on several thousand acres of land. He also considered an alliance with Spain, whose Governor Esteban Rodríguez Miró tried to sway Sevier, but the American eventually abandoned that idea.

In June 1785, Sevier negotiated the Treaty of Dumplin Creek, in which the Cherokee gave up claims to lands south of the French Broad River as far as the Little River–Little Tennessee River divide. The following year, he negotiated the Treaty of Coyatee, which extended the boundary to the Little Tennessee River. The State of Franklin created three new counties (modern Cocke, Sevier, and Blount counties).

thumb|Newspaper page printing John Sevier’s January 12, 1789 report of the Battle of Flint Creek (published May 2, 1789).

In the summer of 1788, several Kirke family settlers were killed by renegade Cherokee warriors, in Blount County, in what became known by European Americans as the "Nine Mile Creek Massacre". In response, Sevier invaded and destroyed several Cherokee towns in the Little Tennessee Valley. Several Cherokee leaders met with Sevier under a flag of truce to discuss peace. But John Kirke, a member of the murdered family, attacked the delegation and killed several chiefs, including Old Tassel and Old Abraham of Chilhowee. The Cherokee were enraged, resulting in new supporters for Dragging Canoe in his resistance to the European Americans. That same year, he was appointed to the first board of trustees of Blount College, the forerunner of the University of Tennessee.

Governor of Tennessee

In 1796, the Southwest Territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Tennessee. Sevier missed the state's constitutional convention while serving on the territorial council in Washington, but he was elected the new state's first governor. Sevier made the acquisition of Indian lands a priority. He consistently urged Congress and the Secretary of War (then responsible for relations with Native American tribes) to negotiate new treaties to that end, to extinguish Indian land claims and promote European-American settlement.

Sevier was a Freemason, and, while in office as governor, he helped establish the first Masonic lodge in East Tennessee. Tennessee Lodge #2 in Knoxville received its charter from the Grand Lodge of North Carolina on November 30, 1800, and John Sevier was its first Worshipful Master. Tennessee Lodge was the second Masonic lodge within the state of Tennessee, the first being St. Tammany Lodge #1, chartered in Nashville in 1796.

After Sevier's third (two-year) term as governor, term limits prevented him from seeking a fourth consecutive term. Archibald Roane was elected as his replacement. Both Sevier and Jackson campaigned for major-general of the militia: the vote ended in a tie, and Roane chose Jackson.

In 1815, Sevier died in the Alabama Territory while conducting a survey of lands which Jackson had recently acquired from the Creek tribe (Muscogee) through the Treaty of Fort Jackson. He was buried along the Tallapoosa River near Fort Decatur.

Legacy

In his book, The Lost State of Franklin, Kevin Barksdale says that Sevier was driven, at least in part, by a desire to acquire his own land claims in the trans-Appalachian region. For many East Tennesseans, he represented "rugged individualism, regional exceptionalism, and civic dignity." Later authors, such as Theodore Roosevelt (Winning of the West) and Samuel Cole Williams (History of the Lost State of Franklin), added a more objective perspective to accounts of this period. But the sections were also divided by their geography, land characteristics, and settlement patterns. East Tennessee was dominated by yeoman farmers who generally owned few slaves. Middle Tennessee had numerous planters and slaveowners, who cultivated commodity crops such as tobacco and hemp based on the labor of enslaved African Americans. West Tennessee, along the lowlands of the Mississippi River, became dominated by large cotton plantations and planters who held numerous slaves. East Tennessee voters gradually developed support for the Whig Party in the 1830s, and most were Unionists during the Civil War. Following the war, majority-white East Tennessee remained one of the South's few predominantly white Republican regions into the early 20th century.

Monuments and memorials

left|thumb|upright=0.75|[[John Sevier (National Statuary Hall Collection)|Statue of Sevier in the National Statuary Hall Collection]]

In the 1770s, Sevier established a plantation, Mount Pleasant, along the Nolichucky River south of Jonesborough. This site inspired his nickname, "Nolichucky Jack." Marble Springs has been designated as a state historic site associated with Sevier and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Numerous municipal and civic entities are named in honor of Sevier. These include Sevier County, Tennessee, and its county seat, Sevierville; Governor John Sevier Highway in South Knoxville; John Sevier Middle School in Kingsport; and John Sevier Elementary School in Maryville. Other entities named for him include a coal-fired power plant operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority near Rogersville, a railroad classification yard operated by Norfolk Southern in east Knox County, and a dormitory at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville.

The Knoxville-based Bonny Kate Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution is named for Sevier's wife, Catherine Sherrill. The later Bonny Kate Elementary in South Knoxville was also named for her. The John Sevier-Sarah Hawkins chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution in Johnson City is also named in honor of Sevier and his first wife.

In 1931, a statue of Sevier, created by Leopold and Belle Kinney Scholz, was dedicated at the National Statuary Hall Collection of the U. S. Capitol. Other monuments include a bust on the first floor of the Tennessee State Capitol, and Daughters of American Revolution monuments at Marble Springs in Knoxville and at Myrtle Hill Cemetery in Rome, Georgia. A monument to Sevier's father, Valentine Sevier ("the immigrant ancestor," as distinguished from John's brother, also named Valentine), has been placed at Sycamore Shoals State Historic Park in Elizabethton.

Tennessee's first office building built specifically for state government offices is the John Sevier State Office Building. The six-story building opened in 1940 adjacent to the State Capital Building in downtown Nashville.

Family

thumb|upright=0.75|Grave marker of John Sevier, Knoxville, Tennessee A marker exists on the current grave of John Sevier on the lawn of the Old Knox County Courthouse. This marker claims his birth date was September 23, 1744, in contradiction to most sources that claim his birth year of 1745.

One area of dispute seems to be whether John Sevier’s ancestry can be traced back to intersect with the ancestry of St.Francis Xavier. Several facts seem to be in agreement with both family lines. Both John Sevier’s ancestry and the ancestry of St. Francis can be traced back to the Kingdom of Navarre. Both families were dispersed by the Edict of Nantes and its later revocation. While a number of sources agree that there is a connection, others firmly dispute that assertion.

John Sevier married Sarah Hawkins (1746–1780) in 1761. They had ten children: Joseph, James, John, Elizabeth, Sarah, Mary Ann, Valentine (namesake of the paternal grandfather), Rebecca, Richard, and Nancy. Following Sarah's death, Sevier married Catherine Sherrill (1754–1836). They had eight children together: Catherine, Ruthe, George Washington, Samuel, Polly, Eliza, Joanna, and Robert.

Sevier's descendants followed other migrants south and west. His grandnephew, Ambrose Hundley Sevier, served as one of the first U.S. senators from Arkansas. Sevier County, Arkansas, is named for him. The Conway family, which dominated early Arkansas state politics, were cousins of the Seviers. Henry Conway was a friend of John Sevier, and served as Treasurer of the State of Franklin. Two of Sevier's sons, James and John, married Conway's daughters, Nancy and Elizabeth, respectively. Henry Conway was the grandfather of Ambrose Sevier and James Sevier Conway, who was Arkansas's first governor.

See also

  • Daniel Boone
  • David Crockett
  • Joseph Hardin, Sr.
  • List of members of the United States Congress who died in office (1790–1899)

References

  • Tennessee State Library & Archives, Papers of Governor John Sevier, 1796–1801 and Tennessee State Library & Archives, Papers of Governor John Sevier, 1803–1809
  • John Sevier's diary
  • Letter 1804 July 19, Knoxville, Tennessee, to Colonel William Barnett and Brigadier General Buckner Harris, Jackson County, Georgia / John Sevier, Governor of Tennessee from the Digital Library of Georgia