The Constitutional Convention of 1796 met at Knoxville in January of that year with William Blount as President, and promulgated the first Constitution of Tennessee. John Sevier was the first Governor and took up his abode at Knoxville. He began to build a large brick house, but hospitality and every form of liberality exhausted his means and he removed to the country before the first story of the house had been constructed. The house was completed by another owner and was designed to overlook the town from a distance. It now stands with its back and one side to intersecting modern streets, and its front to the side yard. Sevier was for eleven years Governor, and then was elected to Congress. He died in 1815 while on a journey to the Creek nation as Commissioner of the United States. His remains reposed in Alabama until 1889, when they were disinterred, brought to Knoxville, and deposited in the Court-House yard, where their final resting-place is marked by a graceful shaft of native white marble. Sevier, always the popular hero of Tennessee, is the most brilliant figure in the pioneer history of the Southwest. Blount was one of the first Senators from Tennessee. His impeachment as Senator upon charges which to this day no man fully understands and which to the Western people seem to have imported no turpitude, did not affect his standing in Tennessee. He is buried in Knoxville in the old First Presbyterian churchyard. [Illustration: HUGH L. WHITE.] Within a few feet of his grave is the tomb of Hugh Lawson White, son of James White, “the founder,” and known as the “American Cato.” He was a Judge of the Supreme Court of Tennessee, many years a member of the United States Senate, and for a time its President. He was long the intimate friend of Andrew Jackson, but was alienated by Jackson’s imperious methods, and became a candidate for the Presidency of the United States against Jackson’s political heir, Martin Van Buren. He was defeated, but carried his own and two other Southern States. He was one of the strongest, purest and most patriotic of American statesmen, and was a conspicuous figure in the Senate even in the days of Webster, Calhoun, Clay and Benton. For fifteen years (from 1812 to 1827) he was President of the Bank of Tennessee, located at Knoxville, which was almost the only bank in the South that weathered the financial storms which followed the War of 1812.