State of Franklin,—Washington County
J James Sevier, State of Franklin James Sevier clerk of
Washington County State of Franklin
Franklin
Franklin
Franklin
Inside, in the same handwriting, will be found the following:
Good deeds are very commendable in youth,
Good many men of good many minds
Good birds of Good many kinds
State of —— Court Adg’d, till court In course from a general insurrection of the times, to this date 7th, of May 1786,
On the next page the record continues as follows:
Something ambiguous will say he went to the Indians, no witnesses, no opportunity, they are not able to proove anything, The meaning is to be taken, the latter in contracts, deeds and wills, construed differantly was there a ejectment, and he never tryed, nothing can be done until Injunction issue from the judge. The law says no party shall be tryed without witnesses Hobgobblins, and Ghosts. So many tryals
Read and interpret this record in the flickering light of the history of the times. The court had been broken up and the justices driven out of the house—this, I suppose, is the “ejectment” referred to. John Sevier was at this time on the frontier, fighting the Indians—hence, he “went to the Indians.” There was at this time in the hands of the North Carolina sheriff a bench warrant for the arrest of Sevier; if he was arrested, the charges against him could not be proven without witnesses; these would be hard to procure against John Sevier, and yet no one could be fairly “tryed without witnesses.” So this clerk, alone at midnight, with no company except the flask whose odor seems still perceptible in the pages of his record, reasoned and wrote—until the “Hobgobblins and Ghosts” got after him!
In January or February of 1788, John Sevier’s property was seized under a fieri facias issued by North Carolina. Sevier and Tipton, with their respective followers, met and fought a slight battle two miles south of the present site of Johnson City, in which the former was repulsed. In the following October, Sevier was arrested and carried to North Carolina for trial. Soon afterward, the government of Franklin collapsed, and North Carolina passed an act of “pardon and oblivion,” and reassumed her government of these people.