He married Susannah Hart on April 19, 1783, at Boonesborough, Ky. The young couple settled on land Shelby had staked out for himself in 1782, when he was a commissioner to adjust pre-emption claims on the Cumberland River. Eleven children were born of their marriage. Shelby devoted tireless energy to the creation of the New State of Kentucky. With the adoption in 1792 of a State constitution by the convention of which he was a member, his efforts were rewarded. Shortly after, he became the first governor of Kentucky. After Shelby left the governor’s mansion, he performed several other public services. Among the most important of these was his command of 4,000 Kentucky volunteers in the American army of Gen. William Henry Harrison, during the Canadian campaign in 1813. He was stricken with paralysis in 1820 and died of apoplexy 6 years later. Shelby’s friend and associate _John Sevier_ (whose name was anglicized from Xavier), likewise was well suited to frontier life. Sevier, born to Valentine and Joana Goode Sevier on September 23, 1745, was of Huguenot ancestry. The Sevier family lived in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia where they farmed and traded with the Indians. Sevier received a haphazard education, but this was in keeping with the times. It included schooling at Fredericksburg Academy and the Staunton School. At 16 he left school to marry Sarah Hawkins. About 7 months after her death in 1780, he married Catherine Sherrill, the “Bonny Kate” in song and story of the Tennessee frontier. Wherever this leader of varied training, great courage, and personal magnetism went, he brought change. Moreover, from the day he founded the town of New Market, Va., where he engaged in trade as a merchant, innkeeper, and farmer, until his death September 24, 1815, his actions stirred controversy. In December 1773, he moved with his family to the Holston River settlements. Here he helped to create the short-lived “State of Franklin” of which he became governor. After the “state” was dissolved and the area fully reincorporated into North Carolina, his enemies circulated an unfounded report that he had used it to further his own fortunes. The report gained such wide acceptance that he felt impelled to move far out on the frontier. His was a reputation that was made and then damaged, but his fall from grace was only temporary. He later took advantage of the movement to form the State of Tennessee and, regaining his political influence, became its first governor in 1796.