Evan Shelby was born (and baptized) in Tregaron, Cardiganshire, Wales, United Kingdom, in 1719. He came to America with his parents, Evan and Catherine (Davies) Shelby, about 1734, the family first settling in what is now Antrim Township, Franklin County, Pa. In 1739, they moved into Prince George's (later Frederick) County, Maryland, where the father died in June 1750.
There is no information about his education.
Evan Shelby Jr. , continued to reside in Maryland, in which locality, now a part of Washington County, he acquired, by deed or patent, nearly 24, 000 acres of land. He also became interested in the Indian fur trade and was concerned in trading-posts at Michilimackinac and Green Bay. He was in Braddock's campaign in 1755, and laid out part of the road from Fort Frederick to Fort Cumberland.
Having served as first lieutenant in Capt. Alexander Beall's company in 1757-58, he was commissioned by Governor Sharpe of Maryland captain of a company of rangers and also held a commission as captain under the government of Pennsylvania. He was in the advance party of the force under Gen. John Forbes which took possession of Fort Duquesne in 1758, and crossed the Ohio with more than half his company of scouts, making a daring reconnoissance of the fort. In this war, he served later as major of a detachment of the Virginia regiment. For several years he was a justice of the peace.
In May 1762 he was chosen one of the managers for Maryland of the Potomac Company. He sustained heavy losses in the Indian trade from the ravages growing out of Pontiac's Conspiracy of 1763, and most of his property in Maryland was subjected to the satisfaction of his debts.
Hoping to better his fortune he moved, probably in 1773, to Fincastle County, in Southwest Virginia, which he had previously visited, where he engaged in farming, merchandising, and cattle-raising, became again a prosperous landowner and a conspicuous and influential frontier leader. In 1774 he commanded the Fincastle Company in Dunmore's War, and in the battle of Point Pleasant, October 10, 1774, he succeeded near the close of the action to the chief command in consequence of the death or disability of his superior officers.
In 1776 he was appointed by Governor Henry of Virginia a major in the troops commanded by Col. William Christian against the Cherokees, and on December 21 he became colonel of the militia of the newly created county of Washington, of which he was also a magistrate. In 1777, he was entrusted with the command of sundry garrisons posted on the frontier of Virginia, and in association with Preston and Christian negotiated a treaty with the Cherokees near the Long Island of Holston River.
In 1779 he led a successful expedition of two thousand men against the Chickamauga Indian towns on the lower Tennessee River, for which service he was thanked by the Continental Congress. By the extension of the boundary line between Virginia and North Carolina it was ascertained that his residence lay in the latter state, and in 1781 he was elected a member of its Senate.
Five years later, the Carolina Assembly made him brigadier-general of militia of the Washington District of North Carolina. In March 1787, as commissioner for North Carolina, he negotiated a temporary truce with Col. John Sevier, governor of the insurgent and short-lived "State of Franklin. "
Having resigned his post as brigadier-general on October 29, 1787, he withdrew from public life. He died in 1794.
Evan Shelby Jr. led a militia group to the Kanawha River site of the Battle of Point Pleasant during Lord Dunmore's War, made sucessful raids against the Chickamauga and in the result was promoted to the rank of the first brigadier-general of militia on "the Western Waters". He was even elected governor of the State of Franklin, a post which he declined. Besides, Shelby was one of the signers of the Fincastle Resolutions.
He actively supported the war for American independence.
Shelby was of a rugged, stocky build, somewhat low in stature and stern of countenance. He possessed great muscular strength and unbounded energy and powers of endurance. He was straightforward and, at times, rather blunt in speech, absolutely fearless, and always prompt to take the aggressive in any action or enterprise, civil or military, in which he engaged. For a man of his day, he was well educated, and he was noted for his probity and patriotism.
He married first, in 1744, Lititia Cox, a daughter of David Cox of Frederick County, Maryland. She died in 1777. His second wife, whom he married early in 1787, was Isabella Elliott, who survived him.
He left many descendants, of whom the most celebrated was his son, Isaac Shelby, the first governor of Kentucky.
