USA > Kentucky > A history of Kentucky and Kentuckians; the leaders and representative men in commerce, industry and modern activities, Volume I > Part 20
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86
James Brown was appointed Secretary of State and George Nicholas. Attorney General. The first United States Senators were John Brown and John Edwards. Brown had rep- resented the District of Kentucky as a Dele- gate from Virginia in the old Congress. There had been charges against him to the effect that he was engaged in what has come to be known as "the Spanish Conspiracy," but
it is believed that he was not culpable nor guilty of any wrong-doing. his efforts, which led to the charge, growing out of his intense desire to secure for the people of Kentucky the free navigation of the Mississippi river which was necessary to their commercial prosperity.
It has been facetiously declared that "where two or three Kentuckians are gathered to- gether, some one of them makes a speech," a compliment to the oratorical capacity of the true Kentuckian. It has also been stated by some envious outsider, not so fortunate as to have been born in the State, that "if a Ken- tuckian is not already holding an office, he expects to do so before he dies," which is also a compliment, as it recognizes the willingness and capacity of the Kentuckian to assume the burdens of any public duty which may be thrust upon him by his admiring fellow-citi- zens. These reflections are induced by the fact that the very first enactment of the first gen- eral assembly of the state created an office, by a bill entitled: "An act establishing an Aud- itor of Public Accounts." This act was ap- proved by the Governor June 22, 1792, and became a law upon that date. Auditors of the state therefore have the right to feel that their office is of very honorable lineage and confers distinction even though it may occasionally fail to lead to governorships or other higher positions. It is to the credit of our first leg- islature that its first act was in the direction of a proper keeping and disbursement of the public funds. One is led to speculate upon the need for such an officer, however, when there is no appearance of such funds or custo- dian therefor. The first demand upon the assembly, under ordinary circumstances, would appear to have been an act to raise revenue, and the choice of a treasurer to care for it. This, however, was later attended to.
The session of the general assembly began, as has been stated. on June 4, and ended on June 22, 1702. the shortest legislative session
123
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY AND KENTUCKIANS
on record. Thomas Todd was clerk of the per barrel ; flour, five dollars per barrel ; whis- house and Buckner Thruston, of the senate. James E. Stone, later to win appreciative lau- rels as clerk in both house and senate, was not then eligible for the position in either body. owing to his youth, but was later elected and has since been retained as a permanency in one body or the other, as the one or the other was in political accord with his opinions.
The general assembly recognized then, as now, that it needed praying for, and therefore elected the Rev. John Gano as chaplain. John Bradford was elected public printer and the author sincerely trusts that he escaped the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" which, in later years, were a portion of the emoluments of that unhappy position.
Nicholas Lewis was sergeant at arms of the house : Kenneth McKoy, of the senate : Roger Divine was doorkeeper of the house; David Johnson, of the senate. These subordinate officials secure this historical recognition, be- cause they were the first men in Kentucky who ever held these positions. To enumerate those who succeeded them and those who at- tempted to do so and failed, would change this publication from a history to an excerpt from a census report.
The members of the general assembly re- ceived one dollar per diem and twelve dollars extra, for the session: the presiding officers receiving twenty dollars extra. The clerk was paid $50 and the sergeant at arms. $12 "in full of all demands."
A treasurer was next provided for, and then an anomalous condition was found to exist- there was no treasure. In view of this dis- tressing condition, the new treasurer was au- thorized to borrow money-if he could.
Smith, in his "History of Kentucky," says : "To give an idea of the market prices of the times, beef was two cents per pound; buffalo meat, one and one half cents; venison, one and a quarter cents; butter, eight cents; tur- keys, fifteen cents each; potatoes, fifty cents
ky, fifty cents per gallon." There was no internal revenue tax on whisky then and con- sequently no "moonshine" nor revenue officers to disturb and make afraid the proprietors of mountain distilleries. "The scarcity of money, the greater purchasing value of what little there was, brought the wage standard to a corresponding level."
For years it has been difficult to secure the service in the general assembly of the best men of the State, for many reasons, one of which has been the deterioration of the house and senate in the good opinion of the elec- torate. For this, the people are themselves to blame. They should force their best men to the front; should elect them to the house or senate, with or without their consent. Henry Clay was willing to serve and did serve as a member of the Kentucky legislature, after he had won renown in the congress of the United States. Though there may be today no Henry Clays in Kentucky, there are thousands of good men, honest men, intelligent and capable, who should be drafted into the service of their constituents and sent to Frankfort not to rep- resent this or that political party ; this or that special interest ; but the sovereign people of the commonwealth regardless of petty parti- san politics. There are interests predominant today which know nothing, care nothing, for the public good, and work alone for selfish advancement, choosing that party as their own which, for the moment, seems predominant, and deserting it at that time when the oppos- ing party appears to be about to gain the ascendancy. The people complain when they see the wrong about to triumph, yet when the next election comes they go "like dumb, driven cattle," into the election booths and place the stamp of their approval beneath the emblems of their respective parties, utterly regardless of the character of the men who are candidates upon that ticket. Then they strut among their fellow men and loudly proclaim
124
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY AND KENTUCKIANS
that they "always vote the straight ticket," and have never yet "scratched a ballot." The people who do these things, and they represent each of the two great parties in Kentucky, deserve all the evil that comes to them and more. They worship a fetich and are blinded by a partisanship that would be discreditable to an unlettered savage. The millennium is a
promise in which many millions believe. It is sure to come some day. When it does come, the electorate will possibly forget party shibboleths and, if there are elections held then, will vote as duty and patriotism require, but it is a strain upon the imagination to con- sider such a proposition.
CHAPTER XXIII.
INDIAN PEACE COMMISSIONERS MURDERED-EASTERN VIEW OF INDIAN QUESTION-INDIANS REJECT PEACE PROPOSAL-"MAD ANTHONY" MOVES AGAINST THEM-KENTUCKY REIN- FORCEMENTS-CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE MAUMEES-DEFEAT OF INDIANS AND ALLIES- WAYNE GIVES BRITISH OFFICER "LIGHT"-TREATY OF GREENVILLE.
It is necessary at this point to revert to the their camp, but the Delawares refused to Indian question again for a short time. Ma- jor John Adair, commanding about one hun- dred Kentuckians, on the 6th of November, 1792, was attacked near Fort St. Clair in Ohio, by a large body of Indians under command of Little Turtle. After repulsing the savages several times Major Adair was forced to re- treat with a loss of six killed, all of his camp equipage and more than one hundred pack horses. The enemy, whose losses were be- lieved to have been greater in killed and wounded, than those of Major Adair, made no effort to pursue him being content with the plunder they had secured. General Wilkinson, who, for the time being, deserted politics for the army in which he now held a position, complimented Major Adair and his command for the gallantry with which they had con- fronted superior numbers.
Later in the same year, Wilkinson selected Colonel John Hardin and Major Trueman as commissioners to treat for peace with the Indians of the Miami towns in Ohio. Pro- ceeding upon their mission, they were well re- ceived by the first Indians whom they met who showed respect for the peace messengers. Soon afterwards a party of five Delaware In- dians arrived at the camp and Colonel Hardin proposed that he and his comrade should visit
accede to the proposal. They remained in the camp during the night and seemed peace- able. On the following morning, inquiries were made of them as to the country, when they became excited and murdered Colonel Hardin. Major Trueman they made pris- oner, and on the march to Sandusky, mur- dered him also. When the news reached the Indian towns of the murder of the peace com- missioners, much excitement prevailed and the perpetrators were censured as it was unusual for the Indians to attack those who came to talk of peace. This was poor consolation to the families and comrades of the murdered men. In the Eastern states there were then as now, Pharisees of the "holier-than-thou" sect who affected to believe that the western people provoked and kept alive Indian aggres- sion by cruelties inflicted and outlawry prac- ticed, and that the poor Indians "were perse- cuted, murdered and outraged beyond all for- bearance," and were therefore, justified in re- prisals in self-defense. The pulpit and the press, together with the demagogue on the platform, whom the country has always with it, fostered this idea, forgetting how their own ancestors had been harried by the savages in. the early days of the eastern colonies and how they had as ruthlessly slaughtered those sav-
125
126
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY AND KENTUCKIANS
ages as had the westerners those who made torial limit of the Ohio. But no territorial their lives a burden and the lives of their limit could permanently arrest the ruin of the wives and children unsafe during every hour one race. or the progress of the other. The decree of their fate was passed by natural causes which no human exertions could coun- teract." of the day and night. These people of the eastern states it was, whose representatives in the congress had for so long a time resisted the admission of Kentucky into the Union. To their minds the Union belonged to the saints and never for a moment did they then, nor do they now, fail to believe that they were and are the saints.
"President Washington," says Smith, "to counteract the pernicious impression which possessed the minds of the people of the At- lantic states, and also, that the Indians were willing to listen to and accept terms of peace on just grounds, ordered a treaty council at Sandusky, Ohio. In the meantime, all citi- zens were forbidden to engage in any hostili- ties with the savages, a very painful and hard necessity laid on the Kentuckians after the many and very recent and distressing barbari- ties perpetrated on them."
The historian Butler considering the condi- tions at that time, says :
"Nor can the necessity of this action of the president be appreciated without attentively noticing the deep-rooted prejudice of the country at large on the subject of Indian atrocities. They showed themselves in the debates in congress, and were too much con- firmed by the history of the national inter- course with the aborigines in general. Sym- pathy with the interests of a race of men incompatible with the existence of our agri- people east of the mountains when it had no longer room to operate against themselves. No thought then seemed to exist that the same causes of inconsistent states of social existence prevailed on the western side of the mountains, just as they had presented them- selves on the eastern side for the preceding century and a half. Our people would gladly have abided, for the present, with the terri-
The commissioners announced to the gov- ernment at Washington that the Indians re- fused to enter into a treaty. The government had tendered the olive branch and on its rejection had but one recourse. The Indians should be taught to fear, if they did not re- spect the white man.
Gen. Anthony Wayne, the "Mad Anthony" of the Revolution, the soldierly fires of whose nature had not abated with the advancing years, had massed his forces at Fort Wash- ington and was ordered in October, 1793, to move upon the Indians along the Maumee. He called upon the governor of Kentucky for a detachment of mounted volunteers. So deep was the distrust of Kentuckians of the capacity of the regular forces, owing to the disasters attendant on the recent expeditions of Harmar and St. Clair, that there was but a feeble response to the call of the governor for volunteers. It was the first as it was the last time, when Kentuckians failed to respond at once to a call to arms. They had no objec- tion to warfare; they rather enjoyed it, but they were careful about their military associ- ates. They had serious objections to being slaughtered to make an Indian holiday.
Finally, however, General Scott marched at the head of a thousand mounted Kentuckians October this force encamped within four miles of the headquarters of the army, six miles in advance of Fort Jefferson and eighty miles from the Ohio river. The weather was cold, the army not well equipped for a cam- paign against savages in the forest, their nat- ural battle ground, and General Wayne de- cided to suspend his march and build Fort Greenville. The regulars went into winter
cultural people, seems to have occupied the . to reinforce General Wayne. On the 26th of
127
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY AND KENTUCKIANS
quarters and the Kentucky troops were dis- missed on furlough, returning to their homes with a renewed respect for regular troops born of the soldierly methods of General Wayne.
On the 26th of the following July, General Scott, his force increased to 1,600 men, re- ported to General Wayne for duty. The lat- ter with a force of about the same number of regular troops, marched upon the nearest In- dian towns with the intention of destroying them, but the enemy had fled before he reached the junction of the Maumee and Au Glaize rivers where the towns were lo- cated. He destroyed the growing crops and continued his march down the Maumee to a point within seven miles of a new fort re- cently constructed by the British and where there was reported to be a large force of In- dians. Stopping in his march long enough to erect Fort Defiance, he then continued his advance movement. Soon the officer com- manding the advance guard reported the en- emy in line of battle within a mile or two of the British fort, their left resting upon the Maumee river and their right upon the forest in the thick undergrowth of which the Indian was at home and from which it was not easy to dislodge him.
General Wayne drew up his regulars in two lines, their right resting on the Maumee, while he sent General Scott with his mounted Kentuckians to turn the extreme right of the enemy and attack him in the rear. The regu- lars advanced and in a bayonet charge drove the Indians and the Canadians and other white volunteers with them, into a disorderly panic. So rapid was their flight that General Scott had time to bring into action but a portion of his command. The Indians and their white allies suffered heavily. One, writing of the battle, states that "the woods for two miles were strewed with the dead bodies of the red men and their white auxiliaries." The Indi- ans were in high favor with the British offi-
cers so long as they were successful in their attacks upon the whites, but when the latter were successful and drove the Indians back the latter lost something of their popularity. It was so in this instance, for when the sav- ages, flying before the victorious troops of Wayne and Scott, arrived at the British fort, they were surprised to find it closed against them.
General Wayne remained on the battle- ground for three days, during which time he destroyed the growing crops and all other property within his reach, including the house and stores of Colonel McKee, the British In- dian agent, who bore the ignominy of inciting the savages to commit murder and other atrocities upon the Americans.
General Wayne, while his troops were en- gaged in this work, was addressed by Major Campbell, the commander of the British fort, who wished to know "in what light he was to view such near approaches, almost in reach of the guns of a fort belonging to His Majesty, the king of Great Britain."
General Wayne promptly replied to this request for information that "were you en- titled to an answer, the most full and satisfac- tory was announced to you from the muzzles of my small arms yesterday morning, in the action against hordes of savages in the vicin- ity of your fort, which terminated gloriously for the American arms." There were no fur- ther requests for information received from the fort.
Following this correspondence, everything in view of the fort was destroyed. The com- mander had difficulty in restraining the Ken- tucky volunteers from a direct attack upon the fort. Deprived of this pleasure, they tauntingly fired their rifles in the direction of the fort, hoping to provoke a response. There was a beautiful opportunity for a fight, but the commandant of the fort was evidently a discreet person and the opportunity was per- mitted to pass.
123
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY AND KENTUCKIANS
The decisive victory of General Wayne; the failure of the British to come to their aid, and the closing of the gates of the fort in their faces at the moment of their great peril, broke the spirits of the Indians for the time, and when they were invited soon afterwards to a peace meeting at Greenville they attended and a treaty was arranged and signed whereby large cessions of land were made to the United States and all claims south of the Ohio river were given up by the savages. The terms of this treaty were observed until the war be- tween England and the United States in 1812. when the English again incited the Indians to renew their warfare upon the Americans. It is a gratifying reflection even at this day, nearly one hundred years later, that both the
English and the Indians paid heavily for this violation of a treaty and the rules of civilized warfare.
There were occasional excursions of small bodies of Indians from north of the Ohio and from Tennessee, the object of which was prin- cipally plunder, but with no objection to the commission of murder as opportunity pre- sented but the whites had now become so numerous that swift punishment followed these raids and the Indians came far less fre- quently into Kentucky than had formerly been their wont. Swift and sure punishment for offenses is a great deterrent of crime, not among Indians alone, but among men who are civilized and knowing better must be made to do better.
CHAPTER XXIV.
AMERICAN LOVE FOR FRANCE-DEMOCRATIC SOCIETIES OF KENTUCKY-KENTUCKY VS. SPAIN -WASHINGTON'S NEUTRALITY PROCLAMATION-FRENCH-AMERICAN EXPEDITION UNDER CLARK-GOVERNOR SHELBY TO THE FEDERAL SECRETARY-THEN, THE PRESIDENTIAL PROCLAMATION-FRENCH MINISTER IGNORES IT-PROPOSED CAPTURE OF NEW ORLEANS- GENET RECALLED-NEW ORLEANS PROJECT ABANDONED-DEMOCRATIC SOCIETIES DIS- SOLVED.
So much has been said of the navigation of the Mississippi river that the subject has probably become as tiresome to the reader as it has to the writer. But it was so vital to the people of the young state as to enter into the consideration of all political questions. He would have been a rash Kentuckian who, in those days, had expressed a sense of weariness at the thought of reading or writing about the free navigation of the great river. Kentucky was so situated geographically as to be practi- cally cut off from eastern trade and the river was the only avenue leading to traffic, the selling of her products, the purchase of neces- sities. This fact made and could unmake pol- iticians. It produced some strange and un- looked for complications, reaching far beyond the borders of the state, across the deep sea and to the foot of the throne of France.
The people of the United States owed and proudly recognized a debt to France for the assistance given in the darkest days of the Revolutionary war. But some of the people misled by a too enthusiastic spirit, adopted methods of evincing their affection that when analyzed, suggested the opposite of what they intended. In 1793 there was organized in Philadelphia what was known as a "Demo- Vol. I-9.
cratic Society," the word Democratic not hav- ing the political significance pertaining to the politics of today. Broadly stated, the Phila- delphia organization might with justice have been called the "People's Society." It pro- fessed the greatest esteem for France while at the same time, perhaps unconsciously, closely following the precepts of the clubs of France which were sowing widespread the seeds of anarchy and ruin throughout that land which were to grow in a few years to a red harvest of death. These Americans acted from the heart, rather than from the brain, and little dreamed of the deeds of their whilom friends in the near future. They knew that they loved France with the same fervor with which they hated England. They heard but little of the happenings in France save that which came from English sources and, with one accord, they refused to believe any of this.
The war with England was scarcely ended at this time; many of those who had won dis- tinction in command, had come to Kentucky, after the peace, full of gratitude to France and equally as full of prejudice against England. It is not strange therefore that Democratic societies, such as that at Philadelphia, should have been organized at Lexington, Paris and
129
130
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY AND KENTUCKIANS
Georgetown, all after the model of the Jacobin clubs of Paris, France. There had been, as yet, no outbreak in France; the right of rev- olution was claimed, but there was no hint of bloodshed. Fresh from the fields of a suc- cessful revolution, it was not to be wondered at that these American soldiers should find themselves in sympathy with men across the seas of like aspirations as their own. These men believed in the rights of the states and of the people. They were bitter against the Fed- eralists who, they feared, were endeavoring to set up an aristocracy rather than "a gov- ernment of the people, by the people and for the people." Some of them created a preju- dice against the president, with whom they had starved and suffered and fought for seven years and until the sunlight of liberty had shone upon the land. These clubs demanded that those rights which they conceived to be their own, should be guaranteed by the gov- ernment.
The Lexington Society used no uncertain language in its demands. It imperiously re- solved "that the right of the people on the waters of the Mississippi to the navigation thereof was undoubted, and that it ought to be peremptorily demanded of Spain by the Government of the United States."
There is something typical of the Kentuck- ian in the defiant ring of that resolution, how- ever one may decry the judgment embodied in its adoption. Contrary to the opinion of the misinformed, the Kentuckian does not go about with a bowie-knife in his boot-leg and a revolver in his belt, breathing forth threat- enings and slaughter. He is very peaceful until his rights are infringed upon ; when that occurs, he is ready to resist and to maintain those rights in a manly way.
This Lexington Society justly felt that the people of Kentucky had the right to navigate the Mississippi river and so believing, they so stated and if Spain did not like it, why Spain knew what she could do. They were not over
belligerent : they merely stood upon what they conceived to be their rights and though the smoke of recent conflict with England had scarcely been dissipated; though the rever- berations of hostile cannon seemed scarcely to have died away, yet they were ready to gird up their loins, take up shield and buckler and spear and go forth again to battle, if need be to protect and defend that which at the expense of so much precious blood they had won from the savage. It mattered little to them that Spain was allied with England and all of Europe, save France, against that latter country. So much the better; the fighting would be more beautiful and the final victory - of which they had no doubt-would there- by be the sweeter. Besides, they would have the great river all for their own when the fighting was over and they came home again to rest under the shadow of their own vines and fig-trees.
Some of the more ardent of the friends of France now reminded the government that the colonies had promised that government to "make war on England whenever that coun- try did" and they wanted the contract carried out; but Washington was a prudent man, as well as a successful soldier, and knew that the United States were in no condition either physically or financially, to engage in a war with any country at that time. Instead of a declaration of war, he issued on April 22, 1793, the following.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.