Isaac Shelby was an American soldier and governor of Kentucky. He was well- known as a commissioner to negotiate the Jackson Purchase from the Chickasaw Indian tribe.
Background
He was born on December 11, 1750 near the North Mountain, in Frederick (now Washington) County, Maryland, United States, the son of Evan and Letitia (Cox) Shelby. Brought up to the use of arms, he early became inured to the dangers and hardships of frontier life.
Education
He received a fair English education.
Career
He worked on his father's plantation, was occasionally employed as a surveyor, and served as a deputy sheriff of the county.
About 1773 the Shelby family moved to the Holston region of Southwest Virginia, now East Tennessee, where they established a new home. Isaac Shelby served as a lieutenant in his father's Fincastle Company, at the battle of Point Pleasant, October 10, 1774; his report of the action is one of the best contemporary accounts now in existence. He remained as second in command of the garrison of Fort Blair, erected on the site of the battle, until July 1775, when he visited Kentucky and surveyed lands for the Transylvania Company. In 1776 he returned to Kentucky and marked and improved lands on his own account, and also perfected military surveys previously selected and entered by his father.
In July 1776 he was appointed by the Virginia committee of safety captain of a company of minute men. In 1777, Governor Henry made him commissary of supplies for a body of militia detailed to garrison frontier posts. He attended the Long Island Treaty with the Cherokees, concluded at Fort Patrick Henry, on July 20, 1777, at which his father was one of the Virginia commissioners.
In 1778, he aided in furnishing supplies for the Continental Army and for the expedition projected by General McIntosh against Detroit and the Ohio Indians. The following year, he provided boats for Clark's Illinois campaign and collected and furnished supplies - mainly upon his own personal credit - for the successful campaign waged about the same time against the Chickamauga Indians. In the spring of 1779 he was chosen a member for Washington County of the Virginia legislature, and, the ensuing fall, Governor Jefferson made him a major in the escort of guards for the commissioners appointed to run the western boundary line between Virginia and North Carolina.
Early in 1780, he became colonel of the militia of Sullivan County, North Carolina. In the spring and summer of the same year he was again in Kentucky, supervising the surveying of lands for himself and others. News of the fall of Charleston (May 12, 1780) having reached him, he hurried home and found an urgent summons for help from Col. Charles McDowell. He at once organized a force and about July 25 joined McDowell at the Cherokee Ford, South Carolina. On July 30, 1780, at the head of a detachment, Shelby captured a formidable Loyalist stronghold, Thicketty Fort (or Fort Anderson), on the headwaters of the Pacolet River.
In the second battle of Cedar Springs, August 8, 1780, his command successfully repulsed a strong party sent against it by Major Ferguson, and on August 18, he was largely responsible for the victory won over a superior force at Musgrove's Mill, on the north side of the Enoree River. The term of enlistment of Shelby's volunteer regiment being about to expire, he proposed that an army of volunteers be raised on both sides of the mountains. A threatening message dispatched by Ferguson, instead of intimidating Shelby, fired him with greater resentment and determination.
He initiated and, in concert with John Sevier and others, organized and conducted the expedition against Ferguson, whose combined Provincial and Loyalist force was overwhelmingly defeated in the decisive battle of King's Mountain, October 7, 1780. To Shelby, also, has been accorded credit for the scheme of attack, which led to the battle of the Cowpens, January 17, 1781. In February 1781, the legislature of North Carolina adopted resolutions of thanks to Shelby and his compatriots for their services at King's Mountain, similar resolutions having been adopted by the Continental Congress on November 13, 1780.
Shelby, in joint command with Col. Hezekiah Maham, of the Carolina dragoons, rendered conspicuous service in the capture of a strong British post at Fair Lawn, near Monck's Corner, South Carolina, on November 27, 1781. While on this expedition, he was elected a member of the North Carolina legislature, and, obtaining leave of absence, attended its sessions in December. Many years later, he declared: "For myself, for the whole services of 1780 and 1781, both in camp and in the Assembly, I received a liquidation certificate which my agent in that country, after my removal to Kentucky, sold for six yards of middling broadcloth, and I gave one coat of it to the person who brought it out to me - indeed I was proud of receiving that".
Reelected to the North Carolina Assembly in 1782, he attended the legislative sessions held at Hillsboro, in April. He was appointed one of three commissioners to superintend the laying off of the land south of the Cumberland River allotted by North Carolina for military service in the Revolution. This task was performed in the early months of 1783.
In 1783 he was appointed a trustee of Transylvania Seminary (later Transylvania University). He was chairman of the convention of militia officers held at Danville on November 7-8, 1784, called to consider an expedition against the Indians and separation from Virginia; he was also a member of the succeeding conventions (1787, 1788, 1789), which prepared the way for independent statehood. He helped to organize the Kentucky Society for Promoting Useful Knowledge, formed at Danville, December 1, 1787.
In January 1791, he was appointed a member of the board of war, created by Congress for the District of Kentucky, with power to provide for the defense of the frontier settlements and to prosecute punitive expeditions against the Indians. For several years he served as high sheriff of Lincoln County. He was a member of the convention (April 2-19, 1792) which framed the first constitution of Kentucky, and in May he was elected governor, taking office on June 4, and serving four years.
At the close of his term, he declined reelection, and for the next fifteen years gave attention to his private affairs. The imminence of war with Great Britain called him from retirement, and in August 1812 he was a second time elected governor. He cooperated vigorously in the prosecution of the war, and in 1813 assembled and led in person 4, 000 Kentucky volunteers to join General Harrison in the Northwest for the invasion of Canada, an expedition which resulted in the decisive defeat of the British, October 5, 1813, at the battle of the Thames.
He was commissioned, with Gen. Andrew Jackson, to hold a treaty with the Chickasaw Indians for the purchase of their lands west of the Tennessee River, and performed this service most acceptably. He was president of the first Kentucky Agricultural Society, formed at Lexington in 1818, and was chairman of the first board of trustees of Centre College, founded in 1819 at Danville, Kentucky.
Achievements
Personality
In person, Shelby was of a sturdy and well-proportioned frame, slightly above medium height, with strongly marked features and florid complexion. He had a hardy constitution capable of enduring protracted labor, great privations, and the utmost fatigue. Habitually dignified and impressive in bearing, he was, however, affable and winning.
A soldier born to command, he nevertheless evidenced a high degree of political sagacity and executive ability. He showed himself not only a prudent and farseeing counselor, but an active, resourceful, and patriotic leader. His energy, determination, and perseverance knew no bounds, and his devotion to duty was unflagging.
Connections
At Boonesborough, he was married, on April 19, to Susannah Hart, a daughter of Capt. Nathaniel Hart, by whom he had eleven children.