Chapter 2

When peace came, Clark settled about eight miles from Louisville and fell into habits of intemperance which unfitted him for public service. He was given large land bounties by Virginia, in recognition of services rendered, but conflicting claims prevented him coming into possession of the land for years, thus leaving him helpless and poor in his old age. The Virginia legislature voted him a jeweled sword, which was sent to the old man by a special messenger. When the young man made his speech presenting the sword, Clark replied, “Young man, go tell Virginia, when she needed a sword I found one. Now, I need bread.” The worn-out old soldier lived only a little while longer, and in 1818 died and was buried at Locust Grove, Ky. It has been said that a French officer who met Clark at Yorktown, on his return to France, said to the king: “Sire, there are two Washingtons in America.” “What do you mean?” said the king. “I mean,” said the officer, “that there is Washington whom the world knows; and there is George Rogers Clark, the conqueror of the Northwest, as great a man as Washington in his field of action and for his opportunity.”

Simon Kenton shared a like fate. Losing his land, acre by acre, this simple-hearted old pioneer found himself penniless in his old age. He was then allowed by law, to the shame of all civilization, to be cast into prison for debt upon the same spot upon which he had built his first cabin in 1775. In 1799, as a beggar, he moved into Ohio. In 1813, he joined Governor Shelby’s troops and was with them in the Battle of the Thames. In 1820, this poor old man moved to a site on Scioto river, where the Indians forty years before had tied him to a stake to be burned. Near the close of his life he was given some mountain lands and a small pension.

Daniel Boone lost all his fine lands in Kentucky, also, and came to such poverty as to lead him in one of his petitions to say, “I have not a spot of ground whereon to lay my bones.” He left Kentucky, saying he would never return to live in a country so ungrateful. About 1796 he moved to Missouri and settled fifty miles from St. Louis. Spain owned that territory then, and the Spanish government gave him a liberal grant of land. Around him his sons and daughters and their families settled. The broad forests were full of game, and here Boone again indulged his passion for a hunter’s life. The old hunter neglected to complete his titles to his new lands, and these he also lost. Congress afterward made him a smaller grant. He died in Missouri in 1820, at the age of eighty-six, and was buried in a coffin which he had made for himself some years before. In 1845, the Legislature of Kentucky had the remains of the pioneer and his wife removed and buried with honor in the cemetery at Frankfort. A suitable monument was erected to mark their resting place.

In the early days of the settlement of Kentucky, all men were not engaged in fighting Indians, building forts and clearing ground. On the contrary, the fertility of the soil and the wealth of timber and mineral led men to look to the commercial value of real estate, and consequently there was formed a powerful company known as The Transylvania Land Company, which had for its purpose the ownership and control of the valuable lands. Judge Richard Henderson, a native of Virginia, was the leader in the formation of this Company.

Taking advantage of the unsettled boundaries west of the mountains and knowing that the several states claimed the country by right of grants from the kings of the countries of Europe, the Transylvania Company attempted to organize the territory into a separate government. These men gave the settlers no little worry over the ownership of their lands, and because Virginia was engaged in the War of the Revolution little attention was paid to affairs in Kentucky. Finally, in 1776, the settlers in Kentucky called a meeting at Harrodsburg and sent Gabriel Jones and George Rogers Clark to the Legislature of Virginia with a statement that unless Virginia should protect the settlers against the Transylvania Company and others, the people would organize the territory into a separate government, and take their place among the States. To this statement the Virginia Legislature gave heed, and cut off from Fincastle County, Virginia, all that unsurveyed territory west of the Allegheny Mountains, and organized it into the County of Kentucky, as a part of Virginia. This act enabled the settlers to have a regular form of county government with a sheriff and other county officials, as well as two representatives in the Virginia Assembly.

Things went well in the new county for awhile. Agriculture was engaged in more extensively and the good work of developing the country went steadily on, interrupted all too frequently by the attacks of the Indians from the north, in very much the same manner as before, though less frequently.

People in the eastern colonies heard of the fertility of the soil and of the many attractive features of the country, and as a result large numbers from all the older settlements determined to try their fortunes in the favored land. Population increased to such an extent that it was thought advisable to divide the territory into three counties (Jefferson, Lincoln and Fayette), and courts were established.

After the Revolution

The treaty of peace which ended the War of the Revolution was concluded in November, 1782, but the people of Kentucky did not get the news for nearly four months later. All were rejoiced that the struggle was ended and confidently expected that trouble with the Indians would cease, since there seemed no further reason for inciting them to make war on the Kentuckians. The people were doomed to disappointment. The treaty left possessions so poorly defined that not only did the Indians make occasional invasions into the territory to plunder, under the direction of the military commanders of the north, but the people were threatened by a still graver danger. The unsettled boundaries and titles of lands along the Mississippi River caused a question of ownership to arise between France, England and Spain. Spain at that time controlled the lower Mississippi River, and men from that country secretly came to Kentucky attempting to arouse the people to the act of establishing a separate nation under the protection of Spain. The loyalty of the good men of Kentucky to the rights of Virginia cannot be too highly praised. There were some persons, though, who for glory and private gain did all in their power to stir up the rebellion and to establish a separate government. Kentucky was virtually left to her fate beyond the mountains during the trying times following the close of the Revolution.

The needs of the territory and the constant menace from these Spanish agents led the better class of men in Kentucky to consider the question of asking Virginia to be allowed the privilege of separation, with the expectation of the territory’s being formed into a State, equal with others of the Union. This would give a better administration of affairs and would put an end to the efforts of agents from other countries desiring to establish a separate nation.

On May 23, 1785, a convention of delegates met at Danville and sent the following resolution to the Virginia Assembly: “Resolved: That it is the duty of the convention, as they regard the prosperity and happiness of their constituents, to pray the General Assembly at the ensuing session for an act to separate this district from the present government, on terms honorable to both and injurious to neither, in order that it may enjoy all the advantages and rights of a free, sovereign and independent republic.”

In 1786, Virginia passed the act providing for the separation of Kentucky, but she made it conditional on the willingness of the Congress of the United States to admit Kentucky as one of the States of the Union, and upon the willingness of Kentucky to become a member of the Union as soon as separated from Virginia, thus preventing Kentucky from becoming an independent republic, or a part of any foreign nation. It was during these days that enemies to both Kentucky and the nation were busiest in their efforts secretly to plan for either an independent government or an alliance with Spain. Kentucky became a State in 1792, being the fifteenth in the Union.

Progress

While the preceding pages have dealt largely with the struggle for existence in the frontier country, it must not be understood that during these years the entire attention of the settlers was given to waging war against the Indians. The Indian invasions were altogether too frequent, and their savage cruelty entirely too terrible to be mentioned here, and this continued for many years after the country was supposed to be entirely free from terrors of the sort. Yet the people had all the while been doing remarkably well, not only in their efforts to conquer the wilderness, but to establish a civilization which compared favorably with the progress made in the more settled sections of our country at that time.

The question of land titles offered a fine field for litigation, and among the brilliant lawyers attracted to the country was Henry Clay of Virginia, who in his twenty-fifth year was elected to the State Legislature of Kentucky, and at thirty was a United States Senator. From this period, with but few brief intervals, his long life was spent in the public service, and in the highest positions within the gift of the people. It was he who said, “I would rather be right than be President.”

In 1787, there was established at Lexington The Kentucky Gazette, by John Bradford. This was the first newspaper to be published west of the Allegheny Mountains. Since they had no rural delivery in those days the paper was sometimes weeks old before the people received it. It was practically the only medium for the general dissemination of knowledge throughout the settlements. With great eagerness would the people of any particular section assemble at their fort, store or tavern, on “paper day,” and the brightest youngster or the most accomplished reader in the community would delight his auditors by reading aloud the things that had happened in the world at large, the colonies in general, and in Kentucky in particular.

Early Schools and the First Seminary

At this early date, schools were established in Kentucky and taught in the stockade forts. A Mrs. Coons “kept” school at Harrod’s Station; John May at McAfee, and a Mr. Doniphan at Boonesborough. Later, log cabin school houses were built farther out into the settlements. The school boys were required to carry guns with them to school, that they might be ready to meet any danger. School books were rare and very expensive. The diligent teacher would copy from his rare and expensive texts lessons to be learned in the subject of arithmetic and other branches, often one copy serving a whole family. In 1798, local school books appeared. The Kentucky Primer and The Kentucky Speller were printed at Washington, the old county seat of Mason county, and Harrison’s Grammar was printed at Frankfort in the same year.

Twenty thousand acres of land were given by Virginia for the establishment of Transylvania Seminary in 1783. Its first principal was the Rev. David Rice, a pioneer Presbyterian preacher and a graduate of Princeton University. In 1787 the institution was moved from near Danville to Lexington. George Washington contributed liberally to the maintenance of this school, and Lafayette, on his return to America, visited the school and made a donation to its support. From this seminary grew the now famous Transylvania University, Lexington, Ky.

In 1798 the Legislature of Kentucky donated six thousand acres of land to each county then in existence, for the purpose of establishing county seminaries. In many sections of the state these old pioneer buildings of brick and stone may be seen today. These institutions did much for education in their time.

Our Commonwealth had, even at this early period, produced an unusual number of inventors of note. John Fitch, in 1786, first successfully applied steam as a motor power to passenger boats. James Rumsey, the same year, propelled a boat with steam. Edward West, in 1794, constructed a model boat and propelled it by steam, on Elkhorn Creek, near Lexington. He later invented the nail-cutting machine which made it possible to cut nails rapidly from wrought iron, whereas they had formerly been hammered out by hand. Thomas H. Barlow invented the Planetarium, an instrument by which the movements of the earth and moon around the sun were shown.

State Government and Foreign Intrigue

Isaac Shelby, a native of Maryland, but who had spent his early life in North Carolina with the frontiersmen, fighting the Indians and rendering valiant service in the War of the Revolution, after the conclusion of peace with England had come to Kentucky in 1783. He, like Clark, was a great leader of men. He took an active interest in political, civil, military and social affairs in Kentucky, and was elected the first Governor of the State. On the fourth of June, 1792, the Legislature assembled at Lexington. The chief business of the first Legislature seems to have been the selection of a site for a permanent seat of government, or capital. Frankfort was finally decided upon, and a State House of stone was erected.

Intrigue on the part of foreign governments, however, did not cease with the organization of State government. The Spanish governor at New Orleans continued to send emissaries into the State, seeking to arouse a spirit of discontent, and if possible bring about a separation of the State from the Union. So successful were these agents that they were able to secure the good will of some men in high places, by paying as high as two thousand dollars a year salary. One Thomas Power seems to have been the most active agent of the Spanish government, and he held out as an inducement the great commercial privileges that would come to Kentucky through the free navigation of the Mississippi River, and he further offered to place two hundred thousand dollars at the disposal of his friends if they would bring about a separation from the nation. These treasonable offers, however, were spurned, with one or two exceptions, by the sturdy and loyal manhood of Kentucky.

After the overtures of the Spanish agents, came the royal offers of an English protectorate, and later the offensive scheme of Genet and his French agents to arm and equip a flotilla of two thousand Kentuckians for the purpose of capturing New Orleans, and thus reopen the Mississippi River for navigation, which had been so profitable to Kentuckians prior to the withdrawal of that privilege by the Spanish government.

In 1805, Aaron Burr, whose term as Vice-President of the United States had expired, became unpopular because of his criticisms of the administration of President Jefferson, and because of his having killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel. Being ambitious, Burr was morbidly restless because of the turn his fortunes had taken. He visited Kentucky and different points between New Orleans and St. Louis. He succeeded in drawing into his plans one Blennerhassett, a wealthy man who lived on a beautiful island in the Ohio River. It is supposed that his plan was to found an empire in the West, and to make himself the ruler of the same. During Burr’s visits to Kentucky, it is said that he frequently made his headquarters at an old brick residence in Eddyville, overlooking the Cumberland River. In November, 1806, Burr was brought into court at Frankfort, charged with organizing a military expedition against Mexico. He was defended by Henry Clay and the grand jury failed to indict him. This acquittal was celebrated by a ball at Frankfort. A few months later he was arrested in Alabama, taken to Richmond, Va., and acquitted of treason after a trial lasting six months.

Indian Wars and War of 1812

The great Shawnee chief, Tecumseh, formed a federation of all the northern tribes of Indians for a general massacre of all settlers west of the Alleghenies. Kentucky contributed a great number of soldiers to the army under General William Henry Harrison. This army, with Governor Shelby at the head of the Kentucky brigade, marched against the northern tribes and defeated them at the Battle of Tippecanoe. The fleeing Indians were overtaken at the River Thames, and the cry of the Kentuckians was, “Remember the Raisin and revenge.” In this battle, Col. Richard F. Johnson of Kentucky slew the noted chief, Tecumseh.

In the second war between the United States and England, in 1812, Kentuckians took a prominent part in nearly all battles against the British. Especially did they distinguish themselves as expert riflemen at the Battle of New Orleans. Most of the cannon ball used in this battle had been made at the old iron furnace in Bath County, near where Owingsville now stands, and a great portion of the powder had been manufactured from the saltpeter leached from the soil in Mammoth Cave, Edmonson County, Kentucky.

While Kentuckians were winning laurels on the battlefields of the Indian wars and the War of 1812, literary pursuits were not neglected. In 1785, John Filson wrote the first history of the State, and drew maps of the region. In 1812, Humphrey Marshall, Sr., also wrote a history of Kentucky. Colleges were being established, and young men were being trained in classical lore and oratory. Among the prominent orators of the early day were Thomas F. Marshall and Richard M. Menefee. The genius, ready wit, satire, and forensic power of Marshall made him a favorite with all audiences at all times; but unfortunately his habit of intemperance lessened his powers and closed his career. The oratory of Menefee was so pleasing and convincing as to cause him to be called the Patrick Henry of the West.

Internal Improvements

The wealth of timber, mineral, and farm products of the State was so great as to cause early improvements in the building of macadamized roads or pikes, and as early as 1830 the turnpike from Maysville to Lexington was built to facilitate the movement of freight and farm products from the bluegrass region to the towns along the Ohio River on the northern boundary. A similar road was built from Louisville through Glasgow and Bowling Green to Nashville, Tenn., and this road not only served as a commercial outlet to the South, but has played an important part in the history and subsequent development of the State.

Early in the past century, interest was shown in the making of the water courses of Kentucky navigable throughout the year by the building of locks and dams. These were built on Kentucky, Barren and Green Rivers. Kentucky is said to have a greater number of miles of navigable streams than is owned by any other State. Its territory was supposed, in the early days, to extend to low water mark on the eastern side of the Big Sandy River, to the northern bank of the Ohio River, and to the western bank of the Mississippi on the western border, while the Kentucky, Barren and Green rivers lie wholly within its borders, and the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers cross the State in the western section. Green River is said to be one of the deepest river waterways in the world, and the scenery along its banks is indeed picturesque. The towering walls on either side of the Kentucky River between Frankfort and Beattyville rival in grandeur and majestic beauty the famous palisades of the Hudson or the castellated southern shore of the beautiful Columbia River.

Railroad construction was early commenced in Kentucky. While traveling from Lexington to Frankfort today over the L. & N. railroad, one can see from the car windows the old grade and the cuts indicating the line along which ran the early cars on stones in which grooves were cut for the guidance of the wheels instead of the steel rail and the flange wheel of the present day. These early cars were drawn by mules, after they had been pulled by a windlass up the cliff from the boat landing at Frankfort. The mules and the rock rails were soon replaced by two locomotives and iron rails. One engine brought the train from Frankfort to a point half way, by noon, and after the passengers had eaten dinner at Midway, the other engine took the train on to Lexington.

Kentucky and Slavery

The early settlers from Virginia brought their slaves with them, and when the State was established, no one thought of abolishing the institution of slavery. The melodious voices of the blacks could be heard in the clearing grounds and the “black mammies” and the little pickaninnies were familiar objects about every well-to-do home. For the most part, the Kentuckian was considerate of the welfare of his slaves, and both master and slave were happy in the olden day. Those who are old enough to remember, can tell some stories of the loyalty of the slave to his master, and of the kindly relationship that existed between the two races. About 1829 there began to develop in the minds of many Kentuckians a sentiment which afterward grew into strong opposition to the state of affairs which made it possible for one man to own the body and control the actions of another. In 1831, Cassius M. Clay, while attending Yale College, became thoroughly aroused to the evils of slavery, and when he returned to Kentucky he began to speak and to write in opposition to the institution. He established a paper in Lexington by means of which he was able to arouse sentiment in support of his contention against slavery. He was probably the first pronounced and powerful abolitionist in the State, and became almost as famous in the South as was William Lloyd Garrison in the North.

The question continued to be one of absorbing interest, and the anti-slavery party gained in strength steadily. When Texas declared her independence from Mexico, and sought admission into the Union of States, the slavery question was discussed in that connection in Kentucky as heatedly as in any other section. General Zachary Taylor, a native Kentuckian, born and reared near Louisville, was placed in command of the American forces when war was about to be declared against Mexico. This and the fact that William O. Butler and Thomas Marshall were commissioned officers under Taylor, and also from Kentucky, served to increase the interest in the approaching struggle with Mexico, and intensified the zeal of both the slavery and the anti-slavery parties. Everywhere the question was, “Shall Texas come to us as a slave or a free state?”

On the third of June, 1808, just about four years before our Kentucky soldiers were called upon to enlist to do battle against the British in the War of 1812, there was born in an old-fashioned log house in that part of Kentucky where the town of Fairview now stands, a boy named Jefferson Davis, who was destined to become one of the conspicuous characters in the nation. As a child, he was mild of manner and rather timid, but possessed a strong and resolute will. He willingly and easily learned the contents of such books as the schools of the time afforded, and at an early age he matriculated as a student at Transylvania Seminary, where he distinguished himself as a gentleman and a scholar. A point of interest in Lexington is the quaint little house where he roomed while he was a student at the Seminary.