State

Three Men of Kings Mountain Tho.v wore Beiijjiiiiiii Cleveland and Isaac : Shelby on Ihe side of the Loyalists, and Major Ferguson who fought on the side of • Ihe British. MANY famous and well- known names have been associated in recent years with Cleveland County. There's the great statesman. O. Max Gard¬ ner. the learned Judge Webb: Sen¬ ator Hoey: Thomas Dixon, the noted author and playwright: Hatcher Hughes, whose drama. “Hell Bent Fer Heaven." won the Pulitzer prize in 1924. and Violet Thomas, the Negro playwright, whose “Ileavenbound," a musical Cgeant. ranks high in native folk- •e. Three other men. however, whose names loom large in the pages of history, were also closely identified with Cleveland County and its capital. Shelby. They are Colonel Benjamin Cleveland, the hero of the Battle of King’s Moun¬ tain; Colonel Isaac Shelby, the first governor of Kentucky, for whom nine counties in the United States are named, and Major Patrick Fer¬ guson, the inventor of the breech¬ loading rifle. Here arc a few facts about each of them. Benjamin Cleveland Benjamin Cleveland, the hero of the Battle of King's Mountain, was a descendant of an old family who derived their name from a tract of land in Yorkshire. England, still called Cleveland today, llis father was a carpenter who migrated to Virginia where he settled at Bull Run. in Prince William County. His mother was Virginia CofTee. the daughter of a prosperous Vir¬ ginia planter. Soon after Benjamin Cleveland was born on May 26. 17.48. they all moved to North Carolina and settled on Roaring Creek, in the foot hills of the Blue Ridge Moun¬ tains in what is now known as Wilkes County. One of their neigh¬ bors among the pioneer settlers in the Yadkin Valley was Daniel Boone, the intrepid hunter, ex¬ plorer and trapper. Like Boone, Cleveland too was destined to be¬ come a mighty hunter. In those days farmers In the up- l>cr Yadkin Valley took their crops by wagon loads to Cross Creek, on the Cape Fear River, now Fayette¬ ville, where they were sold to io Bv i:\KL DEAIM Scotch merchants. Before they could either buy or sell at Cross Creek, however, they had to take an oath of allegiance to the English king. Benjamin Cleveland was among the first to resist British tyranny in North Carolina and a few years before the beginning of the Amer¬ ican Revolution he organized a company of militia known as “Cleveland's Bull Dogs." which was a terror to tories and helped keep western North Carolina from being dominated entirely by Brit¬ ish rule. In the summer of 1780 when news came from South Carolina that Charleston had surrendered to British forces. Colonel Charles McDowell, of Burke County, begged Cleveland to use his “Bull Dogs" to help check the enemy who by that time had overrun three states and were headed for the borders of western North Carolina. With 350 mountain-bred sharp¬ shooters. Cleveland joined forces led by Col. Isaac Shelby and Col. John Sevier at Quaker Meadows, on the Catawba River, near Morgan ton. Then followed the Battle of King's Mountain on Octo¬ ber 7, 1780, in which the bright red coats of the 1,100 British soldiers made easy targets for the American sharpshooters. Death of Ferguson The British were routed at King’s Mountain with tremendous losses and Major Patrick Ferguson himself fell in the battle, thus marking the end of British power in the southern states during the American Revolution. Cleveland covered himself with enough glorv at King's Mountain to last him the rest of his life even if his last years were somewhat sad. A victim of dropsy, he gradu¬ ally grew fatter and fatter until he attained the enormous weight of 450 pounds. He was appointed a Superior Court Judge in western North Carolina but had as much difficulty getting up on the bench as he did staying awake while a trial was in progress. However, it is said that he always managed to sleep through the lawyer's lengthy legal arguments and awoke in time to render a fair and impartial judgment. His death in October. 1806. was widely lamented by Revolutionary Patriots. Colonel Isaac Shelby was born in Maryland on December 11, 1750. His father. Evan Shelby, was a Welshman who came to America about 1735 where he soon became noted as a woodsman, hunter and Indian trader. As a captain in the French and Indian wars he helped defend the frontier settlements of Maryland and Pennsylvania from Indian attacks. In the spring of 1779 Isaac Shel¬ by was commissioned a Major by the Governor of Virginia to escort the guards who protected the sur¬ veyors during the extension of the boundary line between Virginia and North Carolina begun some years earlier by Cel. William Byrd, of "Westover-on-the James." When the British overran Charleston. S. C., a year later he organized a company of 200 mounted riflemen and crossed the mountains of western North Caro¬ lina to help check the British ad¬ vance at King’s Mountain. He was distinguished for his bravery at the Battles of Cedar Springs, Mus- grove's Mill and other Revolution¬ ary skirmishes with British sol¬ diers in the hills and mountains of Eiiedmont and western North Caro- ina. A Man of Real Prominence Shelby was a member of the con¬ vention of April. 1792. which drew up the first constitution for the state of Kentucky, and the next year he was chosen first governor of the New State which was then populated largely by Tar Heels. He w’as married at Boonesboro, Ky.. to Susannah Hart, the daughter of a Kentucky Army Officer, and she presented him with eleven chil- I Continued on page 20) THE STATE. February 11. 1950