BRISTOL, Tenn. – With a volley of gunfire blasting from antique muskets Monday afternoon, a band of more than 100 people remembered Isaac Shelby’s place as a pioneering frontiersman in the late 1700s.
Representatives of the Overmountain Victory Trail Association fired the muskets – just after a historic marker honoring Shelby was unveiled on the grounds of the Old Custom House at 620 Shelby St.
Members of the Fort Chiswell chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution launched plans to place the marker in 2005, said the DAR’s Billie Whisnant.
"One of the best things that DAR ladies do is preserve history," Bana Weems Caskey, Virginia’s state regent for the DAR, said Monday during a ceremony preceding the unveiling.
As regent for the Fort Chiswell chapter, Whisnant worked with Dr. Sudie Wike, who provided a wealth of historic research on Shelby, Whisnant said.
A son of the famed Evan Shelby, a frontiersman who is buried at Bristol’s East Hill Cemetery, Isaac Shelby was born in 1750 and died in 1826. He lived in the Bristol area, then known as Sapling Grove, for about a dozen years, arriving around 1770.
In 1780, Isaac Shelby helped lead frontier American forces to resist the forces of British officer Patrick Ferguson, said Whisnant, who praised Shelby’s "drive and determination."
Teaming with fellow militia leader John Sevier, who later became Tennessee’s first governor, Isaac Shelby helped organize a volunteer force from the mountains of present-day North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.
Shelby and the other "Overmountain Men" stormed off with a rallying cry of "Catch Ferguson." They charged across the mountains along the present Tennessee-North Carolina border – and ultimately defeated Ferguson at The Battle of King’s Mountain near the North Carolina-South Carolina border in October 1780.
Historians often cite that victory as a turning point and important morale booster during the American Revolution, Whisnant said.
Still, Shelby did not remain in the Sapling Grove area. By 1782, he had moved to an area of Western Virginia, which is now Kentucky. Over the next few years, he helped establish Kentucky’s statehood.
Shelby served as Kentucky’s first and fifth governor, Whisnant said.
"Historic preservation of our heritage is important even if the member of the community moves away," Whisnant said. "Isaac did move away."
But, Whisnant added, "What Isaac did while in Bristol ... helped to turn the tide of the Revolution in favor of the Patriots."
jtennis@bristolnews.com | (276) 791-0704
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