CHAPTEE YII 

 JOHN SEVIER AND HIS BRAVE WIFE 



Xavier 1740 



Natural 

 Leader 



J 



OHN SEVIER, "The Commonwealth builder," is 

 among the notable descendants of the Huguenot 

 stock in Virginia. His father, Valentine Xavier, 

 came from London in 1740 and settled in Rockingham 

 County where Sevier was born in 1745. John received a 

 fair education until he was sixteen years old, and the fol- 

 lowing year he married and founded the village of New- 

 market, in the Shenandoah valley, thus early showing his 

 propensity. He was a young man of exceptional dash and 

 courage and soon became known throughout the region 

 as an invincible Indian fighter. In 1772 he was made a 

 captain in the Virginia line for the services he had ren- 

 dered in the Indian wars, and that same year, he moved 

 out to Watauga, a new and rude settlement on the west 

 slope of the Alleghanies, npw eastern Tennessee. Through 

 his courage, popular address, and ability as a commander, 

 he became the undisputed leader throughout the whole of 

 that fertile wilderness. Space does not permit the recital 

 of all the Indian campaigns he engaged in, or a list of the 

 victories he won. In this manner his years were occupied 

 until the breaking out of the Revolution, when we find 

 him petitioning the North Carolina legislature on behalf 

 of the settlers at Watauga, asking to be annexed to that 

 province that "they might aid in the unhappy contest 

 and bear their full proportion of the expenses of the 

 war." The request was granted, and under the title of 

 Washington District the whole of that territory which is 

 now Tennessee was added to North Carolina as a county. 

 Sevier was active in the local government of this vast new 



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