USA > Kentucky > Fayette County > Lexington > History of Lexington, Kentucky : its early annals and recent progress, including biographical sketches and personal reminiscences of the pioneer settlers, notices of prominent citizens, etc., etc. > Part 1
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Gc 976.902 L59r 822057
M. L.
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
1
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01715 2494
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016
https://archive.org/details/historyoflexingt00ranc_0
BLOCKHOUSE ERECTED 1779
CARTY BUILDING 1872 SITE OF BLOCKHOUSE
MITLOLD FORT
HISTORY
OF
LEXINGTON,
KENTUCKY
ITS EARLY ANNALS AND RECENT PROGRESS
INCLUDING
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES AND PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF THE PIONEER SETTLERS, NOTICES OF PROMINENT CITIZENS, ETC., ETC. (
By GEORGE W. RANCK
Gc
976.902
159 r
CINCINNATI ROBERT CLARKE & Co 1872
Entered according to Act of Congress, In the year one thousand eight hundred and seventy-two, BY G. W. RANCK, In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
BELE
822057
TO MY WIFE
heten Marty Ranch
A DESCENDANT OF EARLY SETTLERS OF LEXINGTON AND FAYETTE COUNTY, AND THE ONE WHO SUGGESTED THIS WORK AND WAS THE CAUSE OF ITS COMPLETION
THESE PAGES ARE
AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED
0
1
149
PREFACE.
No American city of its age has clustering around it more interesting associations than Lexington. Founded in the midst of a great revolution; built up by daring men in the heart of an almost boundless wilderness, and nur- tured and protected through years of hardship and Indian warfare, she played the most prominent part in the early and tragic days of the Dark and Bloody Ground. Lexing- ton then was substantially Kentucky herself. She was more. She was the Jamestown of the West; the advance-guard of civilization ; the center from which went forth the con- querors of a savage empire.
During another long and eventful era, she was the polit- ical, literary, and commercial metropolis of "the great Northwest." She was crowded with men who made her famous.
She has now entered upon the third epoch of her exist- ence, an epoch material, during which steam will give her an industrial prosperity proportionate to her great natural advantages.
Very much of the rich past of Lexington has died with her founders. Even the traditions of her pioneer days are dim, and the old landmarks are being rapidly obliterated. Realizing these sad truths, and appreciating Lexington's history, the author of this book resolved to save for those who will come after us all that could be gathered from this
PREFACE.
wreck of time. These pages are the result of his efforts. If he has preserved something which ought not to have been lost, or if his work will encourage some abler hand to gather and perpetuate other annals of our city which he overlooked or slighted, he will have attained his object.
The author has used every means to make his work ac- curate. If it is not entirely so, the fault is to be attributed to the peculiar disadvantages which always surround the local historian. In the preparation of these pages, he has consulted many of the oldest and best-informed inhabitants of Lexington and Fayette county, and also every other at- tainable authority considered reliable. For reasons obvious to every fair-minded person, he has ignored the many ex- citing events which occurred in Lexington during the late war between the States. It is to be hoped that they will receive attention of a chronicler in the unprejudiced future. As propriety required as little extended mention of the living as possible, the writer confined himself, in that re- spect, to sketches of a few aged citizens, and brief notices of ministers of the gospel and persons in some official connection.
As it is the work of the local historian to furnish the first elements of general history, to record facts rather than deductions from facts, the author has contented himself with a plain statement of past events, to the neglect of or- namental rhetoric and romantic conclusions.
LEXINGTON, KY., August, 1872.
HISTORY OF LEXINGTON.
CHAPTER I.
Ancient Lexington.
THE city now known as Lexington, Kentucky, is built of the dust of a dead metropolis of a lost race, of whose name, and language, and history not a vestige is left. Even the bare fact of the existence of such a city, and such a people, on the site of the present Lexington, would never have been known but for the rapidly decaying remnants of ruins found by early pioneers and adventurers to the " Elkhorn lands."
But that these remains of a great city and a mighty people did exist, there can be not the shadow of a doubt. The somewhat notorious Ashe, who published a volume of travels in 1806, says : "Lexington stands on the site of an old Indian town, which must have been of great extent and magnificence, as is amply evinced by the wide range of its circumvallatory works and the quantity of ground it once occupied." These works he declares were, at the time he saw them (1806), nearly leveled with the earth by the ravages of time and the improvements that had been made by the settlers. The testimony of the learned Prof. C. S. Rafinesque,* of Transylvania University, fully corresponds with this, and proves the former existence in and about the present Lexington of a powerful and somewhat enlight- ened ante-Indian nation. Other proofs are not wanting.
* Western Review, 1820.
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HISTORY OF LEXINGTON.
The first settlers of Lexington found here a well, regularly and artificially built with stone,* a domestic convenience unknown among the American Indians, and they plowed up curious earthen vessels,t such as could only have been manufactured by at least a semi-civilized people. In 1790, an old lead mine, which had every appearance of having been once worked and abandoned, was opened near this city. Kentucky's first historian[ tells us of stone sepul- chres, at Lexington, built in pyramid shape, and still ten- anted by human skeletons, as late as two years after the siege of Bryant's Station. "They are built," says he, "in a way totally different from that of the Indians." Early in this century, a large circular earthen mound, about six feet in height, occupied a part of what is now called Spring street, between Hill and Maxwell. It was located between the property of Dr. Bell and the rear outbuildings of Mr. P. Yeiser. In course of time it was leveled, and was found to consist of layers of earth of three different colors. In the center was discovered an earthen vessel of curious form and a quantity of half-burnt wood.§ The mound is supposed to have served the purpose of a sacrificial altar. A stone mound, which stood not far from Russell's cave, in this county, was opened about 1815 and found to contain human bones .*
These well-attested facts, together with the tradition re- lated to this day of an extensive cave existing under the city of Lexington, relieve of its improbable air the state- ment that a subterranean cemetery of the original inhab- itants of this place was discovered here nearly a century ago .; In 1776, three years before the first permanent white settlement was made at Lexington, some venturesome hunters, most probably from Boonesborough, had their curi- osity excited by the strange appearance of some stones they saw in the woods where our city now stands. They removed these stones, and came to others of peculiar workmanship,
* Morse. t Imlay, page 369.
¿ Old Kentucky Gazette, 1790.
TJohn Filson. ¿ Benj. Keiser.
* Prof. Rafinesque.,
+ Letter to Robt. Todd, published in 1809.
3
ANCIENT LEXINGTON.
which, upon examination, they found had been placed there to conceal the entrance to an ancient catacomb, formed in the solid rock, fifteen feet below the surface of the earth. They discovered that a gradual descent from the opening . brought them to a passage, four feet wide and seven feet high, leading into a spacious apartment, in which were numerous niches, which they were amazed to find occupied by bodies which, from their perfect state of preservation, had evidently been embalmed. For six years succeeding this discovery, the region in which this catacomb was located, was visited by bands of raging Indians and aveng- ing whites; and during this period of blood and passion, the catacomb was dispoiled, and its ancient mummies, prob- ably the rarest remains of a forgotten era that man has ever seen, were well nigh swept out of existence. But not entirely. Some years after the red men and the settlers had ceased hostilities, the old sepulchre was again visited and inspected .* It was found to be three hundred feet long, one hundred feet wide, and eighteen feet high. The floor was covered with rubbish and fine dust, from which was extracted several sound fragments of human limbs. At this time the entrance to this underground cemetery of Ancient Lexington is totally unknown. For nearly three-quarters of a century, its silent chamber has not echoed to a human footfall. It is hidden from sight, as effectually as was once buried Pompeii, and even the idea that it ever existed is laughed at by those who walk over it, as heedless of its near presence as were the generations of incredulous peasants who unconsciously danced above the long lost villa of Diomedes,
That Lexington is built upon the site of an ancient walled city of vast extent and population, is not only evi- dent from the facts here detailed, but the opinion becomes almost a certainty when viewed in the light of the historic proofs that can be produced to support the claim, that all
Ashe.
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HISTORY OF LEXINGTON.
the region round about her was at a distant period in the past the permanent seat of a comparatively enlightened people. As early as 1794,* it was well and widely known that in the neighborhood of Lexington there existed two distinctly defined fortifications furnished with ditches and bastions. One of these ancient monuments was visited in 1820 by Rafinesque, the celebrated professor of natural history in Transylvania University, a gentleman whose opinions on the subject of the ancient remains in the Mis- sissippi Valley are so often quoted by historians and so much respected. His map and plate of the remains near Lexington constitute one of the most valuable features of the " Smithsonian Contributions."+ He sayst of the forti- fication already named :
"I have visited, with a friend, the ancient monument or fortification situated about two and a half miles from Lexington, in an easterly direction, and above the head of Hickman creek; and we have ascertained that it is formed by an irregular circumvallation of earth, surrounded by an outside ditch.
"The shape of this monument is an irregular polygon of seven equal sides. The whole circumference measures about sixteen hundred of my steps, which I calculate at nearly a yard, or three feet each ; or, altogether, four thou- sand eight hundred feet-less than a mile. The different sides measure as follows : west side, three hundred and sixty feet ; southwest side, seven hundred and fifty feet; south side, seven hundred and fifty feet; east-southeast side, six hundred and sixty feet; east-northeast side, one thousand and eighty feet; northeast side, six hundred feet; north- west side, six hundred feet. Total, 4,800 feet.
" The angles are rather blunt. Two of the angles have deep ravines; one lies at the angle between the west and the southwest sides, and the other between the east-south- east and the east-northeast sides. This last is the largest and deepest-it reaches to the limestone, and had water in
* Imlay's Western Territory, page 368.
t Vol. I, page 27.
# Western Review, April,
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ANCIENT LEXINGTON.
it. It forms a brook running easterly, and is formed by two rills meeting near the angle and nearly surrounding the central. Another ravine comes out near the north cor- ner. All these originate within the circumvallation, which incloses one of the highest grounds near Lexington, and particularly a large, level hill which is higher than any in the immediate neighborhood, and stretches, in part, toward the northwest.
"The sides are straight. The earthen walls are raised upon a level or raised ground, and are nowhere lower than the outside ground, except for a few rods toward the north- east side. The situation is, therefore, very well calculated for defense, and it is very probable that there were for- merly springs within the walls.
"The whole surface is covered with trees of a large growth, growing even on the walls and in the ditch; ex- cepting, however, a small corner toward the northwest, which is now a corn-field. It may include from five to six hundred acres.
" At present the heighth and breadth of the wall and ditch are variable-from eight to sixteen feet in breadth, and from two to four in depth, the average being twelve in breadth and three in depth; but these dimensions must have been greater formerly. The wall was probably six- teen feet broad throughout, and four feet high, while the ditch was rather narrower, but deeper. The walls are made of the loose earth taken from the ditch. There is only one large distinct gateway, on the northeast side, where there is no ditch and hardly any wall."
After this survey some little interest was excited in the subject, and other remains were visited and inspected. Several in the vicinity of the one described; another, a square inclosure, west of Lexington, "near the northern Frankfort road; " many mounds and graves south of the city, and two groups lying on the south side of North Elk- horn, about a mile from each other. Extraordinary as it may appear, these monuments, though so near our city, and as singular as any on this continent, were never sur- veyed till as late as 1820. Some months after he had ex-
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HISTORY OF LEXINGTON.
amined and described the fortification at the head of Hick- man creek, Prof. Rafinesque surveyed the upper group on North Elkhorn, near Russell's cave, or what is now known as the West place. We quote his description of it, which will be read with more and more interest and wonder as time passes, and slowly but surely levels with the earth and blots out forever all that is left to remind us of a lost race, whose stupendous structures covered the fertile tract which afterward became the favorite hunting ground of savage tribes. He says :*
"I visited this upper group of monuments, a few days ago, in company with two gentlemen of Lexington. They are situated about six miles from this town, in a north- northeast direction, on the west and back part of Colonel Russell's farm, which stands on the road leading from Lex- ington to Cynthiana.
"The ground on which they stand is a beautiful level spot, covered with young trees and short grass, or fine turf, on the south side of a bend of North Elkhorn creek, nearly opposite the mouth of Opossum run, and close by Hamil- ton's farm and spring, which lie west of them. They ex- tend as far as Russell's cave, on the east side of the Cyn- thiana road.
"No. 1, which stands nearly in the center, is a circular inclosure, six hundred feet in circumference, formed of four parts : 1. A broad circular parapet, now about twenty feet broad, and two feet high. 2. An inward ditch, now very shallow and nearly on a level with the outward ground. 3. A gateway, lying due north, raised above the ditch, about fifteen feet broad, and leading to the central area. 4. A square central area, raised nearly three feet above the ditch, perfectly square and level, each side seventy feet long and facing the four cardinal points.
" No. 2 lies northeast of No. 1, at about two hundred and fifty feet distance; it is a regular, circular, convex mound, one hundred and seventy-five feet in circumference, and nearly four feet high, surrounded by a small outward ditch.
*Western Review, 1820, page 53.
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ANCIENT LEXINGTON.
"No. 3 lies nearly north of No. 1, and at about two hun- dred and fifty feet distance from No. 2. It is a singular and complicated monument, of an irregular square form, nearly conical, or narrower at the upper end, facing the creek. It consists: 1. Of a high and broad parapet, about one hundred feet long and more than five feet high, as yet, above the inward ditch on the south base, which is about seventy-five feet long. 2. Of an inside ditch. 3. Of an area of the same form with the outward parapet, but rather uneven. 4. Of an obsolete broad gateway at the upper west side. 5. Of an irregular raised platform, con- nected with the outward parapet, and extending toward the north to connect it with several mounds. 6. Of three small mounds, about fifty feet in circumference, and two feet high, standing irregularly around that platform, two on the west side and one on the east.
"No. 4. These are two large sunken mounds, connected with No. 3. One of them stands at the upper end of the platform, and is sunk in an outward circular ditch, about two hundred and fifty feet in circumference, and two feet deep. The mound, which is perfectly round and convex, is only two feet high, and appears sunk in the ditch. An- other similar mound stands in a corn-field, connected by a long raised way to the upper east end of the parapet in No. 3.
"No. 5 is a monument of an oblong square form, con- sisting of the four usual parts of a parapet, an inward ditch, a central area, and a gateway. This last stands nearly opposite the gateway of No. 3, at about one hun- dred and twenty-five feet distance, and leads over the ditch to the central area. The whole outward circumference of the parapet is about four hundred and forty feet. The longest side fronts the southwest and northeast, and is one hundred and twenty feet long, while the shortest is one hundred feet long. The central area is level, and has exactly half the dimensions of the parapet, being sixty feet long and fifty wide. It is raised two or three feet as well as the parapet. The end opposite the gateway is not far from Hamilton's spring.
8
HISTORY OF LEXINGTON.
"No. 6 is a mound without a ditch, one hundred and ninety feet in circumference, and five feet high. It lies nearly west from No. 1.
" No. 7 is a stone mound, on the east side of Russell's spring, and on the brim of the gulley. It lies east from the other monuments and more than half a mile distant. It is ten feet high and one hundred and seventy-five feet in circumference, being formed altogether by loose stones heaped together, but now covered with a thin soil of stone and grass.
"No. 8 is a similar stone mound, but rather smaller, lying north of No. 7, at the confluence of Russell's spring with North Elkhorn.
"Among the principal peculiarities, which I have no- ticed in this group of monuments, the square area of No. 1, inclosed within a circular ditch and parapet, is very in- teresting, since it exhibits a new compound geometrical form of building. The ditch must have been much deeper once, and the parapet, with the area, much higher; since, during the many centuries which have elapsed over these monuments, the rains, dust, decayed plants, and trees must have gradually filled the ditch, etc. I was told by Mr. Martin that within his recollection, or about twenty-five years ago, the ditch in the monument at the head of Hick- man's creek was at least one foot deeper. Whenever we find central and separated areas in the Alleghawian monu- ments, we must suppose they were intended for the real places of worship and sacrifices, where only the priests and chiefs were admitted, while the crowd stood probably on the parapet to look on; and, in fact, these parapets are generally convex and sloping inward or toward the central area.
"The ditched mound, No. 2, is remarkable, and must have had a peculiar destination, like the sunken mounds, No. 4, which differ from No. 2 merely by being much lower, and appearing, therefore, almost sunk in the ditch.
"The stone mounds, Nos. 7 and 8, are also peculiar and evidently sepulchral. But why were the dead bodies cov- ered here with stone instead of earth? Perhaps these
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ANCIENT LEXINGTON.
mounds belonged to different tribes, or the conveniency of finding stones, in the rocky neighborhood of Russell's cave and spring, may have been an inducement for employ- ing them."
Some of these mounds described by Rafinesque were visited in 1846, and found to be nearly obliterated ; others, however, near the dividing line between the old military survey of Dandridge and Meredith, were still distinct, and were described in 1847* as follows, viz: "The most east- erly work is on the estate of C. C. Moore. It is on the top of a high bluff, on the west side of North Elkhorn, in the midst of a very thick growth, mostly of sugar trees, the area within a deep and broad circular ditch is about a quar- ter of an acre of land. The ditch is still deep enough in some places to hide a man on horseback. The dirt taken from the ditch is thrown outward ; and there is a gateway where the ditch was never dug, some ten feet wide on the north side of the circle. Trees several hundred years old are growing on the bank and in the bottom of the ditch and over the area which it incloses, and the whole region about it. . There is another work a quarter of a mile west of the above one. It commences on the Meredith estate and runs over on the Cabells' Dale property, and contains about ten acres of land. The shape of the area is not unlike that of the moon when about two-thirds full. The dirt from the ditch inclosing this area is thrown sometimes out, sometimes in, and sometimes both ways. An ash tree was cut down in the summer of 1845, which stood upon the brink of this ditch, which, upon being examined, proved to be four hundred years old. The ditch is still perfectly dis- tinct throughout its whole extent, and in some places is so deep and steep as to be dangerous to pass with a carriage.
A mound connected with this same chain of works was opened in the summer of 1871. It issituated about half a mile west of the earthwork already described as on top of the bluff, and about a quarter of a mile north of the larger oval one. It is on the farm of Mr. James Fisher, adjoining the
Collins.
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HISTORY OF LEXINGTON.
plantation on which Dr. Robert Peter at present resides, and is part of the old Meredith property before mentioned .* The mound has a diameter of about seventy feet, and rises with a regular swell in the center to the height of three and a half to four feet above the general level of the valley pas- ture on which it is located, only about fifteen feet above low water in the North Elkhorn creek, and about three hundred and twenty-five feet south from its margin. Mr. Fisher made an excavation into the center of this mound about four to five feet in diameter and about three and a half feet deep, in which, in a bed of wood-ashes containing charred fragments of small wood, he found a number of in- teresting copper, flint, bone, and other relics of the ancient Mound Builders, which were carefully packed by Dr. Robert Peter (who resides on the adjoining Meredith farm), and transmitted to the Smithsonian Institute, at Washing- ton, for preservation.
The copper articles were five in number; three of which were irregularly oblong-square implements or ornaments, about four inches in length and two and one-eighth to three and three-quarter inches wide and one-quarter inch thick at lower end (varying somewhat in size, shape, and thickness) ; each with two curved horns attached to the corners of one end, which is wider and thinner than the other end. These were evidently made of native copper, by hammer- ing, are irregular in thickness and rude in workmanship, and have been greatly corroded in the lapse of time, so that they not only have upon them a thick coating of green car- bonate and red oxide of copper, but the carbonate had cemented these articles, with adjoining flint arrow-heads, pieces of charcoal, etc., into one cohering mass, in the bed of ashes, etc., in which they were found lying irregu- larly one upon the other.
The other two copper implements were axes or hatchets ; one nearly six inches long, the other nearly four inches ; each somewhat adze-shaped wider at one end, which end had a sharp cutting edge.
* Description by Dr. Peter.
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ANCIENT LEXINGTON.
With these were found nearly a peck of flint arrow-heads, all splintered and broken, as by the action of fire; also, three hemispherical polished pieces of red hematitic iron ore about two inches in diameter; some door-button shaped pieces of limestone, each perforated with two holes ; several pieces of sandstone, which seemed to have been used for grinding and polishing purposes ; and many fragments of bones of animals, mostly parts of ribs, which appeared to have been ground or shaped; among which was one, blackened by fire, which seemed to have been part of a handle of a dag- ger; also, some fragments of pottery, etc. The fragments of charcoal, lying near the copper articles, were saturated with carbonate of copper, resulting from the oxidation of the copper articles, parts of which were oxidized to the cen- ter, although a quarter of an inch in thickness; and many pieces of this coal and portions of flint arrow-heads remain strongly cemented to the copper implements by this carbo- nate.
To what uses these rude, oblong-square horned copper articles were put, except for ornament, can not be conjec- tured. No inscription or significant mark was found on any of them.
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