Herald and tribune. [volume] (Jonesborough, Tenn.) 1869-current, 1892-09-01
WHO ARE THE MINERS =?
The Love of Freedom Inherited
from Noble Sires.
Remarkable Genius of those who Form.
ed the State of Franklin.

Just now the following article from
the New York Press of recent date il
of special interest to our people:
The situation at the mines seems to
be pretty well understood outside the
State in every particular but one. Peo.
pie who are not familiar with the sec.
ton where anarchy now practically
reigns, persist in undertaking the
strength of the miners and their power
to resist an invasion. Governor Buch-
anan, weak and vacilating man at
best, has on his hands a job that we'll
might disturb, if not discourage stout
er heart. To begin with, the miners
are not an alien horde of ignorant
slaves. They are natives and to the
manor born. Their great grandfather
settled this country in pre- Revolution
ary times, and they look upon it as their
natural inheritance. They are not
wholly illiterate, as has been so often
stated. East Tennessee has enjoyed
the boon of free schools for more than
century, and the effect of steady tut
tion through three or four generations s
has left plainly mark upon the peo
pie. They are peculiar people peo-
pie that look at effects rather than
causes. They see their living slip
away from them and their homes envi-
roned by stockades and prison pens,
and they resist it, without viewing
with discriminating judgment the le-
gal aspects of the case.
At the outbreak of the civil war East
Tennessee was almost solidly for the
Union, furnishing larger percentage
of troops than any other section of the
country, North or South. An ex-Con-
federate General said to the writer re-
Gently: "If East Tennessee had been
favorable to the Confederacy the war
would have lasted indefinitely. That
tier of counties is natural fortress,
and it is largely self sustaining. A
brigade ought to be able to hold an ar
my corps at bay forever"
Is it any wonder that with such enyi-
ronments the miners are confident in
their ability to overcome the raw mill
tia of Tennessee? Here every man is
reared as freeman and the peer of his
fellows. The mountaineers of East
Tennessee are the descendants of the
SEWERS, the Shelbys, the Cosbys and
the Robertsons of the early days of the
Republic, whose history is as romantic
as that of any Scottish clan, and some
day an American bard like Walter
Scott will immortalize their deeds in
song and story.
They builded the first Commonwealth
west of the Appalachian range, and
they were an exceptional lot. In 1776
there was not Tory among them, and
when under the leadership of John Sc
vier and Evan Shelby they rendezvous
ed at Sycamore Shoals for the purpose
of marching eastward and fighting the
British General Ferguson at Kings
Mountain, the battle that made York
town possible, of the 1,O4O volunteers
1,O3S were able to sign their names to
the roll. This shows how uncommon
it was TO find an illiterate man there
even then.
Their born leader was John Sewer,
who, at the age of 2S, widower with
three sons, left his home in the Shen-
andoah Valley and emigrated to Kings
Meadows on the Wautaga, near what
is now Bristol, Tennessee. He was af-
terward Governor of the now lost State
of Franklin, and six times Governor of
Tennessee after Franklin had been re-
fused admission to the Union, mot be-
cause of the unworthiness of the sturdy
Franks, as the people were called, but
on account of peculiarly Objectionable
features due to the geographical lines
she had traced out for herself"
Sewer, who organized the State of
Franklin, has history without paral-
lei in the Republic. He was member
at different times of both branches of
the North Carolina Legislature, mem-
ber of the Constitutional Convention
of North Carolina, a member and Pres
ident of a similar body for the State of
Franklin, and three times member of
the National Congress, During his
tenure of all these offices he never
once changed his residence, nor was
there at any election in which he stood
as candidate the voice of a single vo-
ter raised against him.
He and Colonel Shelby raised the
overmountain men, and won the Revo-
lutionary battle of Kings Mountain,
which, as stated, made Yorktown pos
sible.
He died in 1915, while on a mission
to the Creek Indians, commissioned by
President Madison, having been one of
the greatest Indian fighters of his day.
His remains lay in an almost unmark-
ed grave until June, 1889, when the
Governor of Tennessee and his staff,
commissioned by the Legislature, bro't
them with much ceremony to his old
home at Knoxville, where in the pres
ence of 10000 people, they were interr-
ed in their final resting place in the
court house yard.
The State of Franklin was born in
this wise: The overmountain men, as