General Notes

Thomas, the oldest of the Ten Brothers was killed by Indians in
Tennessee. John A. Shields says Thomas had descendants in Tennessee and
Indiana.
Judge Littell says Thomas enlisted in the Revolutionary War under General
John Sevier. He fought in the Battle of King's Mountain 7 October 1780.
After being mustered out of the Army, he spent a year or two hunting and
exploring in what is now Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
In 1795, Thomas and his two small sons were boiling sap in the
sugar-maple orchard on Birch Creek when he was shot from ambush. He
ordered his sons to run and rolled behind a log within reach of his
rifle. He shot one Indian before being killed himself. His death was
reported in the Knox Gazette of 6 March 1797: "Just as this paper was
going to press, we received information that Thos. Shields had been
killed by Indians in Sevier County. They cut his head nearly off, took
out his bowels, otherwise shockingly cut and mangled him. The youth lived
with his parents, Robert and Nancy Shields, at Upper Middle Creek section
of the county."
John A. Shields says in 1780, Thomas Shields visited his cousins at the
Yadkin Settlement in North Carolina, intending to proceed to Daniel
Boone's new town at Boonesboro, Kentucky. But, instead, he enlisted in
the Revolutionary army under John Sevier. This was a loosely organized
but extremely effective band of pioneer mountaineers. On 7 October 1780,
he fought at the Battle of King's Mountain, where the British were
repulsed and their power in the South broken.
After being mustered out of the army, he spent a year hunting and
exploring in what is now Great Smoky Mountain National Park, coming out
through the Valley of the Little Pigeon, which would later be his home.
For nearly two years after that, he wandered through the highest
mountains east of the Rockies in East Tennessee and West North Carolina,
returning to his father's home, where he was married in 1783. His son
Joshua was the first white child born in what is now Sevier County,
Tennessee. Joshua was born in 1785.
John A. Shields says there were 12 Cherokees in the party that ambushed
Thomas and his sons.