Gordon T. Belt and Traci Nichols-Belt co-wrote “John Sevier: Tennessee’s First Hero.”
“John Sevier: Tennessee’s First Hero” by Gordon Belt, with Traci Nichols-Belt.The authors of a new book about Tennessee’s founding father will present a lecture tonight, Dec. 4, at the Chattanooga History Center.
“John Sevier: Tennessee’s First Hero,” by Gordon Belt, with Traci Nichols-Belt (his wife), details the life of the frontier soldier and politician through the lens of history and memory. Sevier commanded a frontier militia fighting against British Loyalists at Kings Mountain, waged war against the Cherokee people and became Tennessee’s first governor. Following his death, he faded from public memory but, years later, his image was resurrected through romanticized accounts of his exploits, relying heavily on folk tales and recollections from aging early settlers.
Belt, a native of Chattanooga, is the director of public services for the Tennessee State Library and Archives and is an active archives advocate. He is founding editor of The Posterity Project, an award-winning blog devoted to archives and history in Tennessee, and he previously worked as library manager for the First Amendment Center, a nonpartisan think tank in Nashville and Washington, D.C.
Nichols-Belt, a historian and ordained minister, is the author of “Onward Southern Soldiers: Religion and the Army of Tennessee in the Civil War.”
Books will be available for purchase and signing by the authors immediately following the lecture. The program will start at 6 p.m. in the History Center’s orientation theater on the mezzanine of the new facility, which is accessed through the front of the building on the Tennessee Aquarium plaza, 1 Broad St.
Admission is free. Seating will be available on a first-come, first-served basis.
For more information, call 423-265-3247.