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The Governor of the State had given orders to seize him because of his violation of the laws and treaties in committing wanton murder on friendly Indians; and a warrant to arrest him for high treason was issued by the courts. As long as "Nolichucky Jack" remained on the border, among the rough Indian fighters whom he had so often led to victory, he was in no danger.
Jonesborough, the oldest town in Tennessee, was laid out as the county seat of Washington; and in the same year Sevier moved to the bank of the Nolichucky River, so-called after the Indian name of this dashing sparkling stream, meaning rapid or precipitous. Thus the nickname given John Sevier by his devotees had a dual application. He was well called Nolichucky Jack.
Nolichucky Jack was presently holding a court of his own in the tavern, with North Carolina's men at arms as many as were within call drinking his health. So his sons and a company of his Wataugans found him, when they rode into Morgantown to give evidence in his behalf with their rifles.
The sheriff seized all his negro slaves, as they worked on his Nolichucky farm, and bore them for safe-keeping to Tipton's house, a rambling cluster of stout log buildings, on Sinking Creek of the Watanga. Sevier raised a hundred and fifty men and marched to take them back, carrying a light fieldpiece. Tipton's friends gathered, thirty or forty strong, and a siege began.
The little town of Jonesboro, the first that was not a mere stockaded fort, was laid off midway between the Watauga and the Nolichucky. As soon as the region grew at all well settled, clergymen began to come in.
The scandal was, of course, used in an attempt to ruin Sevier's candidacy for a fourth term as Governor and to make certain Roane's reflection. To this end Jackson bent all his energies but without success. Nolichucky Jack was elected, for the fourth time, as Governor of Tennessee. Not long after his inauguration, Sevier met Jackson in Knoxville, where Jackson was holding court.
Sevier continued to be a leading man in that backwoods region, and when, some years later, Robertson, as you remember, left Watauga to go to the Cumberland valley, Sevier became the most prominent man in the colony. He was so prosperous that he could surround himself with much comfort. He built a rambling, one-story house on the Nolichucky Creek, a branch of the French Broad River.
Nolichucky Jack spurred out in front of his men and rode along the line. Fired by his courage they sounded the war whoop again and renewed the attack with fury. "These are the same yelling devils that were at Musgrove's Mill," said Captain De Peyster to Ferguson. Now Shelby and Sevier, leading his Wataugans, had reached the summit. The firing circle pressed in.
When Shelby on the Holston received Ferguson's pungent letter, he flung himself on his horse and rode posthaste to Watauga to consult, with Sevier. He found the bank of the Nolichucky teeming with merrymakers. Nolichucky Jack was giving an immense barbecue and a horse race.
They fondly called him "Nolichucky Jack"; and when, later, the settlements became the State of Tennessee, again and again they elected him governor, and sent him to Congress. Without doubt few men of his day were his equal as a fighter against the Indians. It is said that in all his warfare with them he won thirty-five victories and never lost a battle.
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