by entry and upon which he settled with his family after the
Revolutionary War.

When he removed from Maryland, he settled near the borderline of
Virginia and North Carolina, then not well defined. Believing his
residence on Virginia soil, he was elected to the Virginia Legislature
in 1779. But the survey of the boundary line determined him a citizen
of North Carolina, and as such he was officially known after until his
final removal to Kentucky. In the gloomiest period of the War for
Independence, in the southern colonies, after the defeat at Camden and
the surrender of Charleston, Shelby became famous as a border leader of
what seemed the forlorn hope of the colonists, and for his frequent
victories over the enemy. With Colonels Sevier and Clarke, he led his
command to the attack and capture of a strong fort in the Cherokee
country, which had, garrisoned by British, Tories, and Indians, greatly
harassed the settlers in west North Carolina. Soon after, in August,
1780, he inflicted a loss of several hundred by an attack on the British
at Musgrove's Mill, South Carolina, and escaped with little loss of his
own men. But his greatest victory, and one of the most decisive of the
war, was won at King's Mountain. Joining forces with Colonels Sevier and
Campbell, a bold attack was planned and made on the notorious General
Ferguson, encamped on King's Mountain. Without artillery, these
frontiersmen, with their flint-lock rifles, boldly attacked Ferguson's
veterans, advancing on the enemy up the mountain side, and keeping up
the fight until Ferguson and nearly four hundred of his men were slain,
and over seven hundred made prisoners.

[Illustration: ISAAC SHELBY.

First and Sixth Governor of Kentucky.]

After the close of the war, in the winter of 1782-3, General Shelby
removed to Kentucky and settled in Lincoln County, where he remained
through life at his elegant home and upon his ample estate, the model
citizen and patriot. His civic and military fame preceded him, for many
of his soldiers of the Revolution were his emigrant neighbors. When
Kentucky took the initial steps toward Statehood in the Union, Shelby
was a member of the convention of 1787-8, and also of the convention to
frame the first constitution, of 1792. By unanimous consent, he became
the first Governor of the Commonwealth, in 1792, and was inaugurated as
Governor at Lexington on the first of June. On the sixth of June, in
courtly style, the Governor appe