BRIGADIER GENERAL EVAN SHELBY

"Famous Indian Fighter"

Evan, son of Evan and Catherine Shelby, was born in Cardiganshire, Wales, and was baptized in St. Caron's Church, Tregaron, in October 1719. When about fifteen or sixteen years old he was brought to the Colonies by his father and later settled near him in Maryland.

When about twenty-five years of age he married Letitia, daughter of David and Susanna Cox, who lived on a nearby plantation. She was born in 1725. They started their married life on a farm called "Flaggy Meadow," which was a part of the northern end of Maiden's Choice and given to him at that time by his father, probably as a wedding present.

Evan Shelby, Jr. was thirty-one years old when his father died, and since he was appointed an administrator of the estate, this would seem to indicate that he was the oldest son, though there is nothing else to confirm the fact.

Evan Junior farmed and became greatly skilled in hunting and thoroughly acquainted with the country for miles around. During the next twenty years he acquired from the provincial government several grants of land amounting to more than fourteen thousand acres, or nearly twenty-four square miles. The records at Frederick, Maryland, show that he also secured other parcels of land by purchase, all of which lay within the present county of Washington and mostly near the middle of it.

In 1751 the proprietorship of Maryland fell to Frederick, heir of Charles, fifth Baron of Baltimore, who had died this year. Horatio Sharpe became the lieutenant governor at Annapolis in 1753.

In 1749, the first Ohio Land Company, principally a Virginia concern, had been formed with the object of developing the territory west of the Alleghany Mountains, then claimed by Virginia under her interpretation of the Royal Charter. However, the French who also laid claim to it, invaded the territory in 1753 and established military posts there, the purpose of which was to link Canada with her possessions on the Mississippi and to mark the eastern boundary of her claim. Virginia had placed a small garrison at the strategical "Forks of the Ohio." In the spring of 1754 this place was seized by the French, and a stockade was built which was called "Fort DuQuesne."

All these acts brought on the French and Indian War. In February of the next year General Braddock with two British regiments arrived at Alexandria, Virginia, where he enlarged his forces with the troops of that colony together with some Indian allies. Braddock with this company planned to march on Fort DuQuesne, but just before reaching it was ambushed by the enemy and disastrously defeated.

As a result of this defeat the frontier along the eastern side of the mountains was subjected to raids by roving bands of Indians, and fright

ened settlers began to desert their homes. To protect the settlements a chain of forts and stockades was erected extending down into North Carolina. One, a large stone enclosure, called Fort Frederick, built by Maryland on the Potomac, was near the Shelby and Cox homes, and it was probably due to its presence that the western Maryland settlements were comparatively free from attacks. Nevertheless it was a harrassing time for the Shelbys and their friends.

About this time Evan Shelby joined the militia of Frederick County under Colonel Thomas Prather, though in what capacity it is not known; but in the spring of 1757 he held the rank of first lieutenant in Captain Joseph Chapline's Company on duty at Fort Frederick. In May Captain Richard Pearis of Fort Cumberland with Lieutenant Shelby and a party of sixty Cherokee allies were ranging the country along Dunning Creek in Pennsylvania, when they captured two Indians of the enemy's forces whom they sent to Fort Lyttleton for examination.

Lieutenant Shelby was at Winchester, Virginia, from June 13 to June 16, where he had gone in company with six others for a conference with Mr. Edmund Atkins, the King's agent for Indian Affairs in the South, to determine the best way of handling the Indian Allies. When Evan Shelby's captain was promoted in July, Shelby's name does not appear on the muster roll of the company for that month; it is probable that he had been put on detached duty. On October 9, he was assigned to the company of Captain Alexander Beall, in which he served for the next seven. months. Lieutenant Shelby was promoted to the rank of captain on May 28, 1758.

Three years after Braddock's defeat the British ministry decided to prosecute the war with greater vigor, and General John Forbes was selected to carry out the military operations planned for western Pennsylvania. While a choice of routes over the mountains was being considered by Forbes, Governor Sharpe of Maryland was asked to select a competent person to investigate and lay off a route through that province between. Forts Frederick and Cumberland. This territory is crossed by seven mountain ranges and was then heavily wooded and uninhabited. Governor Sharpe ordered Captain Shelby to make the survey, which he did, and reported that a road sixty-six miles long could be built by three hundred and fifty men in about three weeks. Captain Shelby was instructed to immediately blaze the route, and troops were detailed to follow and build the road. On July 5, Governor Sharpe with Shelby and a party reviewed the line, going to within twenty-four miles of Fort Cumberland. This road is now a section of the "Old National Road," or United States Route Number 40, from Cumberland to Hagerstown, Maryland.

General Forbes, finally deciding to move his forces across Pennsyl- · vania through Raystown, now Bedford, transferred his headquarters from Philadelphia to Carlisle and Captain Shelby with a company of volunteers, which he had equipped at his own expense, was sent forward to report to

him on August 1. The status of Captain Shelby's men seems to have been that of rangers or scouts. This Company was ordered to Fort Ligonier, recently built by Bouquet on the site of the old Indian village of Loyal Hanna and was sent forward from there on the twenty-second, and to learn and report on the conditions at and around Fort DuQuesne.

On November 12, 1758, while the army was still at Ligonier, a detachment of Colonials was attacked by enemy Indians, and in this skirmish it is said that "Captain Evan Shelby of Frederick County, Maryland, commanding a company of Maryland volunteers killed with his own hand one of the leading chief's of the enemy."-Green's Gazette-Beacon.

As the season was well advanced, Forbes considered going into winter quarters; but, upon learning of the abandonment of some of the French strongholds and the desertion of their Indians, he decided to push forward without delay. When the English army reached Fort DuQuesne on November 25, they found that it had been abandoned. After securing the place and in honor of the Prime Minister, they renamed the small settlement there Pittsburgh.

It is not known to what command Captain Shelby and his men were assigned while serving with the advance guard at Fort Ligonier. It is probable that towards the end of the campaign at least and while on guard duty, he may have been billetted with the Pennsylvania Regiment, as his name is included in the list of officers of that body. This list was made up after the war for the purpose of allotting pensions. However, against his name there is merely the statement "left the province."

When finally released from military duties the next year Captain Shelby returned home, where he soon entered into partnership with Samuel Postlethwaite and Edward Moran under the firm name of "Evan Shelby and Company." They dealt in general merchandise and furs and engaged in extensive trading with the Indians. Business being resumed in this country, Evan Shelby petitioned the court of Frederick County to open a road from Chamber's Mill to Fort Frederick.

After the great tide of southern migration from Pennsylvania and Maryland had begun, three of Evan Shelby's brothers and one or more of his sisters joined it and removed about 1760 to North Carolina. In 1761 Jonathan Hager of Frederick County laid out just east of Evan's land the village of Elizabethtown, which later became the city of Hagerstown.

In 1762 Pontiac's conspiracy caused the Indian attacks to break out again. Traffic with the Indians was destroyed and the traders ruined or became deeply involved in debt. Evan Shelby was forced to borrow heavily and during the next six or seven years began to sell off portions of his land. The next year the firm of Evan Shelby and Company dissolved. To add to his troubles his house burned down in December, in which fire he lost all his furniture and business papers. Captain Shelby then secured a warrant for ninety-eight hundred and sixty acres of land southeast of

Maiden's Choice, known as "The Resurvey on the Mountain of Wales" probably for exploitation. This was patented to him in April, 1763.

From 1764-1773, Evan Shelby was one of the justices of the peace, or magistrates, of Frederick County. He entertained at his home, in October, 1765, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, the English astronomers who ran the true boundary line between Maryland and Pennsylvania, now known as the Mason-Dixon line. Captain Shelby's place appears to have been local headquarters for these men that winter. For his "spirited conduct" in the late war, the Maryland Assembly on November 16, voted him two hundred pounds, partly in appreciation and partly to reimburse him for the amount paid out by him in equipping his company. In October, 1766, he secured a warrant to add thirty-three hundred and forty acres to the Resurvey on the Mountain of Wales, the patent issuing to him on May 18, 1768.

A stipulation in the treaty of Fort Stanwix, made with the Six Nations. in November, 1768, set aside an immense acreage in the northern part of the present state of West Virginia to compensate the traders for their heavy losses through Pontiac's Conspiracy. Evan Shelby was one of those to be benefited. The Virginia legislature, however, refused to confirm the grant.

Evan Shelby was now over fifty years of age and though he had suffered much from losses sustained in Pontiac's War, he was too active and determined a character to give up easily. So he and his family removed to Fincastle County, Virginia, probably in the winter of 1773-4. Four of his sons were of age at that time and the others were nearly grown.

On February 11, 1773, Evan Shelby and his friend, Isaac Baker, purchased between them from John Buchanan the Sapling Grove tract, nineteen hundred and forty-six acres on the Holston River, each taking half of it. Evan Shelby settled on the southern half. Owing to the general ignorance of boundary location, all of this Holston country was then thought to be within the jurisdiction of Virginia. Here by patent and purchase he came into possession of a great deal more land, on which he and his five sons raised immense herds of cattle. He was from the first the prominent man of his region, for besides having gained position and wealth, Evan Shelby had gained men as his friends and was greatly respected and loved. Twenty years after Shelby's death his part of Sapling Grove was bought by James King and thereafter became known as "King's Meadow." On this site grew up the later city of Bristol, Tennessee, the present bounds of which correspond closely to those of the old Shelby Land.

Evan Shelby erected a stockade on his land, which became known as Shelby's Fort or Station. Many hundreds of people gathered here for protection during the Indian raids. A corner of it occupied what is now the lawn of E. W. King on Seventh Street on the hill overlooking Beaver Creek between Anderson and Locust Streets. A handsome bronze tablet,

which was unveiled on the one hundred and forty-seventh anniversary of the Battle of King's Mountain in 1927, now marks the spot. This marker was made possible through the efforts of the members of the Volunteer Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution of Bristol. The ceremony dedicating this outstanding historic spot in Bristol was most "impressive and important." The inscription borne by the marker was written by Colonel Samuel L. King.

Assuming that the wilderness of Kentucky had been conveyed to her by the Fort Stanwix treaty, surveyors and woodsmen were sent there by Virginia in 1774 to locate and select lands for the men who had taken part in the French and Indian War. To Captain Evan Shelby were allotted two thousand acres on Elkhorn Creek, in the present county of Fayette. The northwestern Indians, refusing to recognize the right of the Six Nations to cede this, their hunting ground, to the whites, "were intensely angered because of this encroachment on their rights" and began their work of destruction and massacre along the Virginia frontier on the Ohio. Lord Dunmore, the governor, then launched a punitive expedition against them, directing the county-lieutenants on the southwestern frontier to raise a brigade and join him on the Ohio. Colonel Andrew Lewis of Botetourt County headed this left wing, attached to which was Captain Evan Shelby who had raised a company of fifty men from around his home. His lieutenant was his son, Isaac, and another son, James, was one of the privates. Lewis's troops marched down the Kenawha River and encamped at Point Pleasant, the place where it enters the Ohio. Here they were attacked by the Indians under Cornstalk on October 10 and in an all-day battle completely defeated them. In this action the field officers were shot down and the command of the battle line thus devolved on Captain Shelby.

While the Virginians were fighting Dunmore's War, the first Continental Congress met in Philadelphia to discuss the grievances of the colonies and to ask the King for better treatment, at the same time advising the colonies to organize for defense. The freeholders of Fincastle County, Virginia, met together on January 20, 1775, and elected a Committee of Safety composed of fifteen of the prominent and active men of the community, one of whom was Evan Shelby, to see that the recommendations of the Congress were at once carried into effect. And so, the American Revolution had begun.

In 1775 Captain Evan Shelby joined in the "bold" Fincastle Address. How he was regarded at his old home and how attached to his family may be seen from the following fragment of a letter from General William Thompson, written to Captain Shelby. It is headed, "Carlisle, 6th July 1775":

"Had General Washington been sure you could have joined the army at Boston without first seeing your family [you] would have been appointed Lieut. Colo. of the Rifle Battalion and an express sent but you being so. __the_general concluded it [would not be possi]ble for you to take the field before seeing your family.

I leave for Boston on Monday night."