colonel from North Carolina settled in the Kentucky District, he and other colonels from the territory's counties began meeting in Danville regularly discussing secession from the Commonwealth of Virginia. In 1791, Colonel Shelby was unanimously selected by his peers to become the first governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. The documents seeking statehood incorporated both the Kentucky Magna Charta and the principles of Commonwealth Law. In June 1792 the Commonwealth of Kentucky was admitted to the United States (Union) as the 15th state with Col. Isaac Shelby its Governor. Governor Isaac Shelby was a most experienced statesman, head of colony, warranted land owner and equal rights advocate. He was involved in surveying for the Transylvania Company in August 1775 working under Colonel Daniel Boone and Colonel James Harrod among other colonels, he was paid for his surveying work with a title to lands near Crab Orchard, Kentucky. After his experience surveying for the Transylvania Company and becoming 'unofficially' a lieutenant colonel under Boone, he went off to start his own county getting his own colonelcy for North Carolina's Sullivan County. As a colonel, Shelby was one of the Over the Mountain Men in the Battle of Kings Mountain and he was one of the founding secessionists for the extralegal Free Republic of Franklin which included Sullivan County. Instead of continuing to establish the State of Franklin, knowing what had happened with the Transylvania Company and unclaimed lands; instead in 1783, Shelby moved to Lincoln County in Virginia to claim his land warrants both as a surveyor for the Transylvania Colony and at least 6,667 acres more in bounty lands for his participation in the Battle of Kings Mountain. After becoming governor, most of the colonels in Kentucky that were involved in the founding of the Commonwealth in 1792 became legislators and government officers. The mission of the first Colonel John Bowman and his designates was completed, they formed a civil government and designated one of their own as the new governor. Under the new head-of-state it was Governor Shelby became responsible for designating who would serve with him in government and who would continue to be acknowledged or recognized as a colonel. State records indicate that his first colonelcy commission as a governor of the Commonwealth was granted to his adjutant general and military aide-de-camp, Col. Percival Pierce Butler in 1793. Colonel Butler served in the role until 1817 under