Kingsport Spirit

Recently, I was talking with a historian from Jonesborough/Washington County about Tennessee’s first governor, John Sevier.

I told him that my daughter-in-law is from Sevierville, and her roots go back to the origins of Sevier County. Say what you will, but the word does not exactly flow off the English tongue. Locals pronounce it “Suh-veer-vul.”

As a gateway to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and home to Dollywood, it is a huge tourist destination. So it is easy to spot a visitor when they pronounce it “Seaver-ville.”

I told him a lightbulb went off for me when I learned that “Sevier” is the anglicized version of “Xavier” in French and “Javier” in Spanish.

He was taken aback. He had never heard that, which made me question myself.

If he did not know it, I wondered if others did. And I wondered if I was recalling it correctly.

I could not remember the source of that information, so I went digging and found a couple of sources.

The first is from the Journal of John Sevier by John H. DeWitt, published in the Tennessee Historical Magazine, Vol. 5, No. 3, October 1919.

It explains that John Sevier, the Revolutionary leader and first governor of Tennessee, is the best-known American bearer of the name Sevier. In his family’s case, older historical sources say the surname was originally Xavier. It states that his father, Valentine Sevier, was born in England of Huguenot parents and that “the name was originally Xavier.”

The second is from the Tennessee Society of Sons of the Revolution.

The Tennessee SAR timeline preserves the long-standing family tradition that the Sevier name began as Xavier, a surname tied to Xavier/Javier in Navarre. That requires a little historical context, because Navarre was not simply “Spain” in the modern sense. It was an old border kingdom straddling both sides of the Pyrenees Mountains, which today form the border between France and Spain.

In 1512, the Spanish crown took the southern portion, while the northern, French-side portion of Navarre remained separate and was later united with France in 1589. That meant a family associated with Navarre could, over time, be connected to either the Spanish or French world. So the tradition that the Sevier ancestors were both linked to Xavier in Navarre and later identified as French Huguenots is not contradictory.

According to the SAR document, one member of that Xavier family embraced Protestantism and, after Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685, left France for London. The revocation stripped the protestants of nearly all their legal and personal protections. They lost the right to worship publicly, as their churches were demolished and their ministers were exiled. On a civil level, they lost their religious identity, with the state mandating that all children be baptized and educated as Catholics. Furthermore, they lost their freedom of movement, as emigration was strictly forbidden for laypeople, and those who remained faced the loss of professional rights, being barred from many trades and public offices.

This drove a major refugee movement into Protestant countries such as England. In that setting, the family’s migration was not merely geographic. It was religious and cultural as well. In London, the tradition says, Xavier gradually became Sevier, and Juan or Jean became John, reflecting assimilation into an English-speaking Protestant society.

From that exile story came Valentine Sevier, the immigrant ancestor, who the same timeline says arrived in Baltimore in 1740 and moved into the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. There his family joined the great stream of backcountry migration moving south and west through the Appalachian corridor. His son, John Sevier, born in 1745, carried that journey farther still. In 1773, he moved into the overmountain settlements, became a leader at Watauga and on the frontier during the Revolution, and eventually emerged as the best-known statesman of early Tennessee. When Tennessee entered the Union in 1796, John Sevier became its first governor.

There is a local Kingsport connection as well.

Mount Ida is the historic David Sevier mansion on Sevier Terrace Drive.

With the recent demolition of the West Side Inn, also known, depending on your generational frame of reference, as Howard Johnson or the Tennessee Motor Lodge, and the construction of Friendship Hyundai of Kingsport, you can now easily see the back of it from West Stone Drive.

David Sevier (1820–1890) was the grandnephew of John Sevier. He married Annis Rutledge Netherland, daughter of Colonel Richard Netherland, founder of Netherland Inn.

David’s father, Valentine “The Red Fox” Sevier (1780–1854), was born the same year his father, Robert Sevier, brother of John Sevier, died from injuries sustained on the return from King’s Mountain, a battle many consider a turning point in the American Revolution. Robert was one of the Overmountain Men.

Valentine “The Red Fox” Sevier, was a cornerstone of early Greeneville, serving as Greene County Circuit Court Clerk for over 50 years, Mayor of Greeneville, and trustee of Greeneville College (now Tusculum University). His house is the oldest standing home in Greeneville.

Examining the David Sevier-Annis Netherland family tree offers a window into the history of Kingsport and East Tennessee, including Carson, of Carson-Newman University, Roller, Morison/Morrison, Kyle, and Outlaw.

Their youngest daughter, Nellie Sevier, married William Roller, Sr. They had two sons, David Sevier Roller and William Roller, Jr., neither of whom had children.

The Rollers sold much of the property that would become modern Kingsport and were involved in many of the early businesses of the Model City, including banking, real estate, and business start-ups.

David Sevier Roller died in 1959, and William Roller died in 1971. They are buried in Oak Hill Cemetery.

Branches of the Sevier family continued to fan out across multiple counties of East Tennessee, Middle Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas, and beyond. Institutions like Carson-Newman University and Tusculum University share the Sevier family heritage. Their fingerprints are all around us.

But their origins were in the ancient Kingdom of Navarre, in the Pyrenees on the modern border of France and Spain.

When their Protestant faith became unacceptable to the Catholic crown, they sought life in a new world.

A classic American story of the Butterfly Effect that led to the establishment of a new nation.