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Isaac Shelby, soldier and first governor of Kentucky, was born near the North Mountain in Frederick (now Washington County, MD, 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. He received a fair English education, worked on his father's plantation, was occasionally employed as a surveyor, and served as 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, distinguishing himself by his skill and gallantry; his report of the action is one of the best contemporary accounts now in existence (printed in Thwaites and Kellogg). 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 marked and improved lands on his own account, and also perfected ilitary 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 minutemen. 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, 1 777, 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 fat!, 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.
After various adventures in North Carolina and Kentucky, he went regularly into the army in 1780 and he distinguished himself, as commander of a body of three hundred men whom he had enlisted, in the warfare in Western North Carolina and Tennessee. For his service at King's Mountain, he received the thanks of the legislature of North Carolina with a beautiful sword. In 1782, he was a member of the legislature of North Carolina and later served as commissioner to settle claims on the Cumberland River and to lay off solders' lands near the site of Nashville. Then he went to Boons borough, Kentucky, where he married Susanna Hart.
He was a member of the convention which framed the first constitution of Kentucky. Having
participated in the separation of the State from Virginia, and was elected the first Governor of
Kentucky. He was again elected in 1812, and served four years. In 1813, he headed a body of
4,000 troops under General Harrison and marched into Canada. He was then sixty-three years of
age, but for his gallantry at the battle of the Thames, Congress gave him a gold medal. In 1817,
President Monroe offered to appoint him Secretary of War, but he declined. He died July 18,
1826. No less than nine counties in as many States have been named after him as well as a number
of towns.
Taken from: The Dictionary of American Biography, vol. IX (1935), with references from:
"Correspondence of Coy. Horatio Sharpe" (3 voIs.), being Archives of Maryland, vols. Vi
(1888), TX (1890), XIV (1895); J.T. Schad, History of Western Maryland (2 vols. 1882); Joseph
Banvard, Tragic Scenes tn rite History of Maryland and the Old French War (1856); J.G.M,
Ramsey, The Annals of Tennessee (1853); L.F. Summers, History of Southwest Virginia (1903)
and Annals of Southwest Virginia (1929); RG. Thwaites and L.P. Kellogg, Documented History
of Dunmore's War (t905); Gen. Mackenzie, Colonial Families of the U.S.A. 1! (1911), 652-57;
ZelIa Armstrong, Notable Southern Famihes, vol. If (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. Private1y
printed, 1927); A.M. Moon, Sketches of the Shelby, McDowell, Deaderick and Anderson
Families (1 933); D.C. Rees, Tregaron Historical and Antiguardian (Llandyssul, 1934).