Historic Biographies:

John Sevier

Pioneer, Statesman, and one of the founders of the republic, Governor of the state of Franklin, six times Governor of Tennessee, four times elected to Congress, a typical pioneer who conquered the Wilderness and fashioned the State, a projector and hero of King's Mountain, fought thirty-five battles, won thirty-five victories, his Indian War Cry: "Here they are! Come on boys!"

Inscribed on the monument in his honor, Knoxville Courthouse Lawn

John Sevier "Nolichucky Jack"
Capsule Biography

     SEVIER, John, a Representative from North Carolina and from Tennessee; born near Harrisonburg, Rockingham County, Va., September 23, 1745; attended the common schools and the academy at Fredericksburg, Va.; moved with his brothers to Watauga County, N.C., in 1773 and settled on the Holston River, N.C. (now Tennessee); county clerk and district judge 1777-1780; elected Governor of "the proclaimed" State of Franklin in March 1785 and served for three years; elected from North Carolina to the First Congress and served from June 16, 1790, until March 3, 1791; appointed in 1791 as brigadier general of militia for the Washington district of the territory south of the Ohio; upon the admission of Tennessee as a State into the Union was chosen Governor and served from 1796 to 1801, and again from 1803 to 1809; appointed in 1798 as brigadier general of the Provisional Army; served one term in the State senate 1810-1811; elected as a Republican from Tennessee to the Twelfth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth Congresses and served from March 4, 1811, until his death; appointed in 1815 as one of the commissioners to determine the boundary between Georgia and the Creek territory in Alabama and served until his death, near Fort Decatur, Ala., September 24, 1815; interment at Fort Decatur, Ala.; reinterred in Knoxville, Tenn., in 1889.

Bibliography: DAB; Driver, Carl S. "John Sevier, A Pioneer of the Old Southwest." Phd dissertation, Vanderbilt University, 1929.

From the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress