Sevier, << see VEER, >> John (1745-1815), was an American soldier, frontiersman, and politician. He served as governor of “the lost state of Franklin” and later became the first governor of Tennessee.
Sevier, the son of a tavernkeeper, was born on Sept. 23, 1745, near New Market, Virginia. He received little education and as a young man supported himself by farming and trading. In 1773, he moved to the Holston River Valley, then an unsettled region of the colony of North Carolina. It is now in eastern Tennessee.
Sevier actively supported the Revolutionary War but fought little until 1780. That year, he led an expedition over the Smoky Mountains and helped defeat the British at Kings Mountain. Later, he led an expedition against the Cherokee Indians in the first of many campaigns that brought him fame as an Indian fighter. After the Revolutionary War, settlers in Tennessee began a movement to make the region a separate state. In 1784, the state of Franklin was organized, and Sevier was elected governor in 1785. Indian troubles, land speculation plots, and quarrels with rivals led to his downfall and the practical end of the state of Franklin in 1788. North Carolina regained the area. From 1789 to 1791, Sevier represented North Carolina in the U.S. House of Representatives.
In 1796, the former state of Franklin became part of the new state of Tennessee. Sevier was elected Tennessee’s first governor. He held that office from 1796 to 1801 and from 1803 to 1809. He served in the Tennessee Senate from 1809 to 1811. Then he represented Tennessee in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1811 until his death on Sept. 24, 1815.
See also Franklin, State of ; Watauga Association .
