Biography

John Sevier (pronounced “severe”) was born in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, and was married by 16. He supported his family the usual frontier ways: furs, farming, land, and a tavern. The family moved to what now is Tennessee (then part of North Carolina) in the 1770s, and he was elected to the N.C. Provincial Congress. He fought Native Americans immediately prior to the Revolution. In 1776 he was named lieutenant colonel in the Washington District Militia, which he led