it unrivaled scenery. Cleaveland had been a
terror to the Tories. Two notorious characters of their
band, (Jones and Coil) had been apprehended by him and hung.
Cleaveland had gone alone, on some private business, to New
river, and was taken prisoners by the Tories, at the 'Old
Fields, on that stream. They demanded that he should furnish
passes for them.

"Being an indifferent penman he was some time in preparing
these papers, and he was in no hurry as he believed that
they would kill him when they had obtained them. While thus
engaged Captain Robert Cleaveland, his brother, with a party
followed him, knowing the dangerous proximity of the Tories.
They came up with the Tories and fired on them. Colonel
Cleaveland slid off the log to prevent being shot, while the
Tories fled, and he thus escaped certain destruction.

"Some time after this circumstance the same Riddle and his
son, and another were taken and brought before Cleaveland,
and he hung all three of them near the Mulberry
meeting-house, now Wilkesboro. The depredations of the
Tories were so frequent, and their conduct so savage, that
summary punishment was demanded by the exigencies of the
times. This Cleaveland inflicted without ceremony."

COLONEL JOHN SEVIER.

Colonel John Sevier was born in Shenandoah county, Virginia, in 1734.
His father descended from an ancient family in France, the name being
originally spelled Xavier.

About 1769 young Sevier joined an exploring and emigrating party to
the Holston river, in East Tennessee, then a part of North Carolina.
He assisted in erecting the first fort on the Watauga river, where he,
his father, his brother Valentine, and others settled. Whilst engaged
in the defence of the Watauga fort, in conjunction with Captain James
Robertson, so known and distinguished in the early history of Middle
Tennessee, he espied a young lady, of tall and erect stature, running
rapidly towards the fort, closely pursued by Indians, and her approach
to the gate cut off by the savage enemy. Her cruel pursuers were
doubtless confident of securing a captive or a victim to their
blood-thirty purposes; but, turning suddenly, she eluded the savages,
leaped the palisades of the fort at another point, and gracefully fell
into the arms of Captain John Sevier. This remarkably active and
resolute woman was Miss Catharine Sherrill, who, i