General Notes

David was the Third of the Ten Brothers.
According to John A. Shields, went to Louisville, Kentucky in 1808 and,
for 40 years, operated a flatboat on the river. Was said to have many
descendants there, throughout Kentucky and Tennessee and around Canton,
Illinois. Buried at Athens, Tennessee.
Some accounts say he was born in Rockingham County (Harrisonburg),
Virginia
John A. Shields says David was called "Big Dave." He was a powerful,
large-framed man, and few men could beat him in bare-fisted fights that
were popular on the frontier. Men came to Sevierville from throughout
East Tennessee to challenge him, and none succeeded. In later years, his
nephew James assumed the title.
He lived at the Shields Fort from 1784 until 1808 and brought the first
bride to the fort. The name of this wife, who died, is not recorded. In
1808 David and his family settled at Louisville, and he engaged in
flat-boating freight from Cincinnati to New Orleans, floating downstream
and walking back to Louisville. He was noted for his strength and his
rowing ability on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.
He was bitterly opposed to slavery and is credited with helping scores of
slaves escape from the South. He had effective slave-running
organizations at several points along the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers
and, in his later years, was an associate of Levi Coffin in the
Underground Railroad.
John A. Shields says David's second wife, Susan, was from New York.
Christine Brown says David's first wife is unknown. She says they
probably lived in Jefferson County, Kentucky, where David was on jury
duty in the August 1794 term of court and appeared as defendant in an
action by David Black. (But Jacob Edwards Shields was born 1803 in
Tennessee, undoubtedly at the fort.] In about 1808, Ms. Brown says, David
took his family to Louisville.
David spent his last years at Athens, Tennessee, where he died and is
buried.