Portal:Tennessee/Selected biography/4

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John Sevier (23 September 1745 – 25 September 1815) was the only governor of the State of Franklin (1785–1789), the first Governor of the State of Tennessee (1796–1801 and 1803–1809), and a U.S. Congressman from Tennessee from 1811 until his death in 1815. In the American Revolutionary War he was the commander of the Washington County, Tennessee, contingent of the Overmountain Men in the Battle of Kings Mountain.

Sevier was born in New Market, Virginia. Along with his first wife, Sarah Hawkins, and their children, he settled in the Holston River valley in what is now East Tennessee. That area was then claimed by Virginia. Sevier served briefly in Lord Dunmore's War in 1774. In this war John Sevier began to win the reputation as an Indian fighter that would make him a hero in his own day, though making some modern historians uncomfortable with his legacy.

Soon after settling in Northeast Tennessee, Sevier became involved in local politics, helping to organize a petition to North Carolina to become part of that state, and commanding Washington County militia in the Cherokee siege of Fort Caswell (or Fort Watauga) near Sycamore Shoals (present-day Elizabethton, Tennessee). After this battle he was promoted from Lieutenant Colonel to Colonel, and in this capacity led 240 of over 1,000 militiamen over the Appalachian Mountains to fight against Major Patrick Ferguson and a similar number of British Regulars and Carolina Loyalists at the Battle of Kings Mountain. The tremendous victory for the Overmountain Men increased Sevier's fame and popularity on the frontier, and when the time came for the people of the area to govern themselves, Sevier was more than once their first choice.

In 1784, North Carolina, bowing to the pressure from the Continental Congress and eager to be rid of an expensive and unprofitable district, ceded all her lands west of the Appalachian Mountains to the United States Government. However, the Congress did not immediately accept the lands, creating a vacuum of power in what is now East Tennessee. Sevier was one of several prominent men who stepped into that vacuum, accepting the role of governor of the new State of Franklin. When North Carolina rescinded her cession, Sevier initially wanted to return to the Old North State, in part because he was offered a promotion to brigadier general, but William Cocke, another prominent Franklinite (and later U.S. Senator from Tennessee), convinced him to stay the course. (Read more...)