Thomas Shelby, a brother of Gen. Evan Shelby, joined the great tide of southern emigration and settled on Caldwell’s Creek, in the eastern part of Mecklenburg county (now Cabarrus) about 1760.  He died near the beginning of the Revolutionary war, leaving four sons, William, John, Evan and Thomas.  One of these sons (Thomas) served as a private in Captain Charles Polk’s company in the spring of 1776, in the Wilmington campaign.

Col.  Isaac Shelby, the immediate subject of this sketch was born to the use of arms, blessed with a strong constitution and capable of enduring great exposure and fatigue.  His whole educational training was such as fitted him for the stirring scenes in which he was destined by Providence to become so prominent an actor.

His first essay in arms was as a Lieutenant in a company commanded by his father, in the celebrated battle, previously mentioned, at the mouth of the Kenhawa, the most sanguinary conflict ever maintained against the northwestern Indians, the action lasting from sunrise to sunset, with varying success.

Night closed the conflict and under its cover, the celebrated chief Cornstalk, who commanded the Indians, abandoned the ground.  In July, 1776, he was appointed Captain of a company of minute men by the Virginia committee of safety.  In 1777, he was appointed by Governor Henry, a commissary of supplies for an extensive body of troops to guard the frontiers and one of the commissioners appointed to form a treaty with the Cherokees at the Long Island of the Holston river.  In 1778, he was elected a member of the Virginia Legislature from Washington county, and was appointed by Thomas Jefferson, then Governor of that State, a Major in the escort of guards for the commissioners, engaged in running the line between Virginia and North Carolina.  On the completion of that line, his residence was found to be in North Carolina, which circumstance induced Richard Caswell, then Governor of the State, to appoint him Colonel of the militia of Sullivan county.  In the summer of 1780, he was engaged in Kentucky in surveying, locating and securing the lands which five years previously, he had marked out, and improved.  It was at this time, that he heard of the surrender of Charleston.  This disaster aroused his patriotic spirit, and caused him to return home, determined to enter the service of his bleeding country and never to leave it until her liberty and independence were secured.  On his arrival at home, he found a requisition from General Charles McDowell to furnish all the aid in his power to check the enemy, who flushed with their late success in overrunning South Carolina and Georgia, had entered North Carolina with a similar object in view.  He immediately sought enlistments from the militia of Sullivan county and in a few days crossed the mountains at the head of two hundred and forty riflemen.

He reported to Gen. McDowell near the Cherokee Ford, on Broad river, and was by that officer detached, with Colonels Sevier and Clarke, to surprise and take a fort held by Captain Patrick Moore, a noted Tory leader, on the Palcolet river.  This service was promptly executed without losing any of his men.  The fort was surrounded, and, after a short parley as to terms the enemy surrendered as prisoners of war.