The next autumn a large party of settlers went out to Nashborough. Robertson’s family went with them. They did not go through the woods, but took boats to go down the Tennessee river. Their course led them along the Tennessee to the Ohio, then up the Ohio a few miles to the mouth of the Cumberland, and up the Cumberland to their new home. They had a long, dangerous voyage, and some of the party were killed, for the savages fired on them from the banks. One of the boats, carrying twenty-eight grown people and children, had a number of cases of smallpox on board. The Indians attacked this boat and killed or captured the four sick travelers. For their deed the savages were badly punished, for they took the disease, which soon spread widely among the tribes. For a long time after Nashville was begun the pioneers had fierce encounters with the Indians, and in spite of all their care many lives were lost. Robertson was the strong man of the place, and was rewarded with the confidence of the people. When Tennessee became a state he helped to make its constitution. He was a member of the state Senate in 1798, and lived long enough to keep some of the Indians from helping the British in the War of 1812. He died in 1814. [Illustration: FIG. 63. JAMES ROBERTSON] He was brave, and willing to endure hardship, discomfort, and suffering in a good cause. He went alone over the snows to Kentucky to get powder, and returned in time to save the little town from destruction. The Indians killed his own son, but he would not give up the settlement. Plain man though he was, he gained honor from the men of his time, and wrote his name on the pages of American history. We must learn a little more of Isaac Shelby, whom we have seen fighting hard at Point Pleasant and Kings Mountain. He was born in the Great Valley, at Hagerstown. When he was twenty-one years old he moved to Tennessee and then across to Kentucky. He fought in the Revolution in other battles besides that of Kings Mountain, and before he went to Kentucky he had helped to make laws in the legislature of North Carolina. [Illustration: FIG. 64. SEVIER MONUMENT, KNOXVILLE] It is rather strange to read that Kentucky was made a “county” of Virginia. This was in 1776. In 1792, largely through Shelby’s efforts, Kentucky was separated from Virginia and became a state by itself. It was the first state beyond the mountains, being four years older than Tennessee and eleven years ahead of Ohio. Isaac Shelby was the first governor of Kentucky, from 1792 to 1796, and years later he was governor again. He fought in the War of 1812, and his name is preserved in Shelbyville, a town of Kentucky. The Blue Grass region has been called the “dark and bloody ground” from the strifes of the red tribes and the troublous days of the first settlers, but Shelby lived to see it the center of a prosperous state. [Illustration: FIG. 65. OLD STATEHOUSE AT KNOXVILLE]