Evan Shelby, Jr., soldier and frontiersman, was baptized in October 23, 1720 at Tregaron, Cardiganshire, Wales. He came to America with his parents, Evan and Catherine Morgan 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, MD where his father died in July 1751. Evan Jr. continued to reside in Maryland, near the North Mountain, Frederick County, 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 tn Capt. Alexander Beall's company in 1757-68, 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 River with more than half his company of scouts, making a daring reconnaissance of the fort. On November 12, 1758, near Loyalhanna, in a personal encounter, Shelby is said to have slain with his own hand one of the principal Indian chiefs. In the same 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 ha previously visited where he engaged in farming, merchandising, and cattle-raising. He again became a prosperous land-owner 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 lead 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, the first officer of that grade on the "Western Waters". 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". In August 1787, he was elected
governor of the "State of Franklin", to succeed Sevier but declined the honor. Having resigned his
post as brigadier-general on October 29,1787, he withdrew from public life.
He married first in 1744, Letitia Cox, a daughter of David Cox of Frederick County, MD. She died in 1777. His second wife, whom he married early in 1787, was Isabella Elliott, who survived him. He is buried in East Hill Cemetery, Bristol on the Tennessee-Virginia line.
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 noted for his probity and patriotism. He left many descendants,
of whom the most celebrated was his son, Isaac Shelby, the first governor of Kentucky.
Taken from: The Dictionary of American Biography, vol. IX (1935), with references from: "Correspondence of Gov, Horatio Sharpe" (3 vols.), being Archives of Maryland, vols. VI (1888), IX (1890), XIV (1895); J.T. Scharf, History of Western Maryland (2 vols. 1882); Joseph Banvard, Tragic Scenes in the History of Maryland and the Old French War (1856); J.G.M. Ramsey, The Annals of Tennessee (1853); L.P. Summers, History of Southwest Virginia (1903) and Annals of Southwest Virginia (1929); R.G. Thwaites and L.P. Kellogg, Documented History of Dunmore's War (1905); G.N. Mackenzie, Colonial Families of the U.S.A. II (1911), 652-57; Zella Armstrong, Notable Southern Families, vol. II (1922); S.C. Williams, History of the Lost State of Franklin (1924); T.W. Preston, History Sketches of the Holston Valleys (1926); Cass K. Shelby, A Report on the First Three Generations of the Shelby Family in the U.S. (Privately printed, 1927); A.M. Moon, Sketches of the Shelby, McDowell, Deaderick and Anderson Families (1933); D.C. Rees, Tregaron Historical and Antiguardian (Llandyssul, 1934).
