At one place, where steep bluffs opposed him, he was
obliged to abandon his horse and scale the mountain side on foot.
He was in extremity when he chanced upon two huntsmen who gave
him food and set him on the trail. If this experience proves his
lack of the hunter's instinct and the woodsman's resourcefulness
which Boone possessed, it proves also his special qualities of
perseverance and endurance which were to reach their zenith in
his successful struggle to colonize and hold western Tennessee.
He returned to Watauga in the following spring (1771) with his
family and a small group of colonists. Robertson's wife was an
educated woman and under her instruction he now began to study.
Next year a young Virginian from the Shenandoah Valley rode on
down Holston Valley on a hunting and exploring trip, and loitered
at Watauga. Here he found not only a new settlement but an
independent government in the making; and forthwith he determined
to have a part in both. This young Virginian had already shown
the inclination of a political colonist, for in the Shenandoah
Valley he had, at the age of nineteen, laid out the town of New
Market (which exists to this day) and had directed its municipal
affairs and invited and fostered its clergy. This young
Virginian--born on September 23, 1745, and so in 1772
twenty-seven years of age--was John Sevier, that John Sevier
whose monument now towers from its site in Knoxville to testify
of both the wild and the great deeds of old Tennessee's beloved
knight.
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