dressed limestone coping, forming a square overlooks the town, lending dignity and solemnity to the grave. The slab bears this inscription: GENERAL EVAN SHELBY DIED DEC. 4, 1794 Though the age marked is seventy-four, the record of his baptism in Wales, recently come to light, now shows that he was seventy-five. "No monument marks General Shelby's burial place... He, himself, did grand service for pioneer America, and his sons did even more than he; he founded a family that historically is one of the greatest American families; his descendants can point to patriotic acts all along the line of their ancestry, from the French and Indian Wars, down to the time when the ascendancy of the white man was no longer disputed, and when his aims, aspirations an ideals dominated the western world, and the red-man had taken up his retreat to practical extinction.”—Heiskell. In 1899, the Evan Shelby Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, at Owensboro, Kentucky, sent four shrubs with the request that they be planted at the four corners of General Shelby's grave. Accordingly the ladies Memorial Association, on Memorial Day, June 1, 1899, planted them with the following sentiments: Tree No. 1-Mrs. F. J. Hicks. try thus buys immortality." "He who meets death for his coun Tree No. 2-Mrs. E. T. Jones. "Here rests a hero. The idols of today push the heroes of yesterday out of recollection and in turn be supplanted by his ancestors tomorrow." Tree No. 3-Mrs. J. C. Anderson. "Strong and great, a hero sleeps here." Tree No. 4-Mrs. W. C. Carrington. "Here sleeps, until awakened at the grand reveille of God, a link between two centuries-a soldier, a veteran, and a hero." Evan Shelby has been described as a man of commanding appearance. "He was of low and heavy build; his countenance was stern— a fair index of his mental traits. He was one of the outstanding figures at every stage of his long and truly honorable career." His will is dated 21st day of February, 1778. It was proved in Washington County, Virginia, October 16, 1798. The date of probate in Tennessee, which was of course much earlier, is now unknown, since the probate records of Sullivan County were burned during the Civil War. SUSANNAH SHELBY Susannah, said to have been the first child of General Evan and Letitia (Cox) Shelby, was born in 1746. She was not mentioned in her father's will and evidently died young. JOHN SHELBY John, eldest son of General Evan and Letitia (Cox) Shelby, was born in 1748. He married Elizabeth Pile. He is mentioned in his father's will as living, in 1778, on the Watauga River and Buffalo Creek, Sullivan County. He also owned land on Hickman Creek in Kentucky. GOVERNOR ISAAC SHELBY Isaac, the "most eminent of the name" and hero of three early American Wars, was probably the third child of General Evan and Letitia (Cox) Shelby. He was born December 11, 1750, at the foot of the North Mountain, a few miles west of the site of Hagerstown, Maryland. He evidently received the best education possible at that time, which is demonstrated by the personal letters in the possession of the family, the "handwriting of which is not only that of an educated person, but the clearness of diction and smoothness of style those of a trained mind." He also learned surveying at Frederickstown and it is said that before he was of age he served as deputy sheriff of Frederick County. "He was the counterpart of his father though built upon a larger scale both in body and mind. He had the same herculean frame, the same firm, compressed lips, double chin, and heavy features, but in his fixed deepset, resolute eye there was a steady glow that spoke a more exalted character. He was now barely turned of twenty-one, but he had already established a character for uncommon intelligence, and a stern unbending integrity, that made him to be looked upon as a rising man upon the border." The eyes of Isaac Shelby dropped at the corners so decidedly that this characteristic, handed down to some of the present generation, is referred to as "the Shelby eye." Isaac Shelby removed from Maryland to southwest Virginia when about twenty-one years of age and at the time the Indians became troublesome in 1774 he was commissioned a lieutenant by Colonel William Preston, the County-Lieutenant of Fincastle. "Upon receiving the commission Isaac Shelby took his seat. Evan Shelby was present and, thinking his son had not shown the proper respect, he reprimanded him saying, 'Get up, you young dog you, and make your abeisance to the colonel.' Whereupon Isaac, considerably abashed, arose and extended the proper courtesy." In the battle of Point Pleasant, October 10, 1774, Isaac Shelby was second in command in his father's company. It was during the latter part of the fight, when his father assumed the command of the field following the disablement of the ranking officers, that Lieutenant Shelby became the acting captain of the company and it was the flanking movement of this company that turned the tide of battle and caused the retirement of the enemy. After the troops left for home the place was garrisoned and Shelby remained there as second in command until next year, when the post was abandoned by order of Lord Dunmore. While Shelby was with this garrison the Indian Chief, Cornstalk, came "to shake the hand of the young pale-face brave, Lieutenant Isaac Shelby, who had stampeded his army." After the "purchase" of Kentucky by Henderson & Company in April 1775, he was employed by that Association as a surveyor and for nearly a year thereafter was engaged in surveying land in the Kentucky wilderness. Being without bread or salt his health became impaired and he returned home in 1776. During his absence in 1776, the Virginia Committee of Safety appointed Isaac Shelby a captain of a Company of Minute Men. In 1777, Governor Patrick Henry made him a Commissary to supply with rations the several frontier garrisons and to lay in supplies for the peace conference with the Cherokees, which was to be held on Long Island in the coming spring. In 1778 he was engaged by the Commissary Department to obtain supplies for the Continental Army and also for General McIntosh's proposed expedition from Fort Pitt against Detroit. He was also called upon to furnish boats for Colonel George Rogers Clarke's expedition against the British strongholds in the Illinois Country. In the spring of 1779 he and David Campbell were elected members of the Virginia Legislature from Washington County. At the time of Evan Shelby's Chickamauga Expedition, the governments of North Carolina and Virginia were so straightened in their resources, on account of the Revolution, that they were unable to make any advances for supplies or furnish transportation necessary for this campaign. These supplies "were procured by the indefatigable exertions and on the individual responsibility of Isaac Shelby." In the summer of 1779 he was commissioned by Governor Thomas Jefferson major of the escort of guards for the Commissioners, who had been appointed to determine the boundary between Virginia and North Carolina. When the survey was completed and Isaac Shelby found that he was living in North Carolina, he resigned his military commission and his seat in the Virginia Legislature. Governor Caswell of North Carolina, on November 19, appointed him Colonel Commandant of the new county of Sullivan in the latter state. In February 1780, he became a magistrate of that county. Colonel Shelby was back in Kentucky in the summer of 1780, perfecting his title to the lands which he had marked out for himself five years before, when he received a dispatch from Colonel Charles McDowell, informing him of the fall of Charleston and the desperate situation of the southern colonies. Ferguson who had been dispatched by Cornwallis to overrun the south, was rapidly approaching North Carolina. McDowell was not strong enough at that time to attack Ferguson, but feeling that he could inflict sufficient damage by harassing the Tories and keeping up the hope of the Patriots until he could gain strength, dispatched Shelby and others to the Loyalist camps. Colonel Shelby immediately returned home to take up his military duties. Through his "appeal to the Chivalry of Sullivan County," two hundred mounted riflemen volunteered and joining Lieutenant Colonel Sevier's troops from Washington County, they crossed the mountains and engaged the enemy at Thicketty Fort, Cedar Spring, and Musgrove's Mill. These actions, unimportant as they seemed at the time, were really the seed from which grew the resistance of the South to being conquered and the final overthrow of the British power in the entire country. Following Musgrove's Mill it was Shelby's intention to push farther south and attack Ninety-Six, one of the strongest of the British outposts. When hearing of the defeat of Gates at Camden, Shelby and Sevier hastily retreated over the mountains to their homes. How Colonel Shelby saved his regiment after hearing of the defeat of General Gates near Camden is a story in itself. "When others were appalled by the magnitude of their disaster Shelby seemed to have awakened to a full sense of his really great military power." Though his men and horses were exhausted by fifteen hours of marching and fighting, he escaped by a "most perilous march," distributing the seventy prisoners among as many horsemen, each of whom took a footman behind him in order to hasten their journey, and with a wave of his hand Colonel Shelby said, "Now, boys, to the mountains." They marched two days and a night without stopping to take refreshment. When they did stop, "after fortyeight hours of such fatigue as men seldom endure, scarcely one among them could recognize his most intimate acquaintance. The faces of all were so bloated, their eyes so swollen, as to have altogether lost their characteristic appearance." About the last of August an insolent message came to Colonel Shelby, from Major Patrick Ferguson, who had been detached by Lord Cornwallis to overrun the region and who was enraged at Shelby's interference with his plans, this message threatening that, "if the mountain men do not desist from their opposition to the British Arms, I will march my army over the mountains and hang their leaders and lay their country waste with fire and sword." Colonel Shelby not only did not flinch, but lost no time in riding southward sixty miles to consult with Colonel John Sevier, Commandant of Washington County, North Carolina, at Jonesboro about getting up an expedition to visit again the lowland and surprise Ferguson by attacking him first. On the twenty-fifth of September, Shelby, Sevier, and two other officers met with their men as agreed at the Sycamore Shoals of the Watauga River. They were joined by Colonel William Campbell's Virginia troops and commenced their march on Ferguson. After they crossed the mountains and reached Quaker Meadows, the plantation of Colonel McDowell in Burke County, Cleveland and Winston joined them with their forces, which caused Colonel Shelby to remark that they now needed one efficient head to take general command. Colonel McDowell should have had this by right of seniority; but Shelby felt that he was too far advanced in life and too inactive for such an enterprise. He also knew that it would be inadvisable to single out for this purpose any of the North Carolina officers present, who were all of the same military rank. He therefore proposed that the place be given to Colonel Campbell, who was from another state. A well-known authority writes, "I am well informed that had it been left to an election, Shelby would have been elected; but he was not the oldest officer, and he was aware that should he contend for the command, the jealousy and offended pride of the others might defeat the expedition." Colonel Campbell then assumed the chief command in which, however, he was "to be directed and regulated by the determination of the Colonels who were to meet every day for consultation." This matter settled and now feeling themselves strong enough to encounter Ferguson, they started out in earnest to find him. The latter had learned of the approach of the Back Water men, as he termed them, and, being then uncertain of his own strength, began edging otwards Cornwallis and the main British army at Charlotte. The pursuit of the mountaineers was relentless. They reached the Cowpens in South Carolina on the fifth day and, learning of the close proximity of their quarry to the northeast, turned and pushed rapidly forward from there in a pouring rain. The men and horses were nearly exhausted by this effort and some of the officers thought it would be best to allow them to rest before meeting the enemy. Riding up to Colonel Shelby and expressing this opinion, he answered with an oath, "I will not stop until night if I follow Ferguson into Cornwallis's lines." Without a word these officers turned back to their respective commands and the army, tired almost to exhaustion, continued the pursuit. In the meanwhile Ferguson had taken a stand on top of a high hill at the southern end of the King's Mountain range and his pursuers caught up with him that afternoon, October 7, 1780. The hill was surrounded and stormed and the whole British force captured after an hour's fighting, its commander being killed in the action. The immediate effect of this defeat of his most important detachment, on which he had built his hopes of arousing the Loyalist element and frightening the Patriots into submission, was to cause Lord Cornwallis to abandon his plan of overrunning North Carolina and to retreat out of the state. It encouraged the Patriots of the south to again resist the enemy and from then on the Revolution was virtually lost to the British. For these services the Legislature of North Carolina passed a vote of thanks |