USA > Kentucky > A history of Kentucky and Kentuckians; the leaders and representative men in commerce, industry and modern activities, Volume I > Part 30
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During the session of 1811-12 the re-char- tering of the United States Bank came before the senate and presented opportunity for the most impassioned and bitter debate, as well as
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HOME OF HENRY CLAY, NEAR LEXINGTON
the accomplished speaker of the national house of representatives. He continued as a member of the house until 1809, when he resigned and was a second time elected to the United States senate to fill out an unexpired term. Mr. Thrus- ton, a senator from Kentucky, having resigned. This time, his term of service in the senate was for two years. During his term he took part in the discussion of the more important questions before the senate, the most notable of his speeches being that in which he favored giving the preference to home-grown and home- made articles in purchasing supplies for the army and navy. He was but laying the foun-
the display of eloquence. Mr. Clay opposed the charter, but subsequently experienced a change of mind and in 1816 he favored the bank and remained afterward one of its ablest advocates. He was man enough to change his views when he found he was in error, and brave enough to defy all the powers arrayed against him, be- cause of that change.
James Madison, at the expiration of Mr. Jefferson's term in 1809, succeeded him in the presidency. General Charles Scott was elected governor of Kentucky in 1808; Gabriel Slaugh- ter, lieutenant governor, and Jesse Bledsoe was appointed secretary of state.
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The foreign relations of the new republic were far from a satisfactory condition. Great Britain had never seemed to recognize that the United States had gone into business on their own account. The conduct of the former on the high seas had been particularly offensive and war seemed imminent. This was more than ever expected after the attack of the Eng- lish frigate "Leopard" upon the United States man-of-war "Constitution." The survivors of the Revolution were not yet old men in many instances, while their sons were at that fiery age which makes war welcome. No one doubted that war was to come; with true American spirit, no one doubted what the issue of that war would be. "We have whipped you once and can whip you again" said old and young America in unison, and each was ready to put the issue to the touch. There was little if any question as to what was to happen. The real question was as to when it was to happen.
While awaiting events in the discussion be- tween the United States and Great Britain, the material interests of Kentucky were not per- mitted to languish.
In 1807, the Bank of Kentucky, with a cap- ital of $1,000,000 was incorporated. In 1808, the limitation in acts of ejectment was reduced from twenty to seven years, where there was an adverse entry and actual residence. This act, as stated by Mr. Smith in his excellent history, was largely instrumental in quieting land litigation upon conflicting claims and had for its author Humphrey Marshall, one of the first historians of Kentucky. It is not im- probable that the day may come when the people of the state may recognize the great ser- vices rendered them by its historians, who labor alone for the common good with no thought of the adequate financial compensation, which none of them has yet, or will ever receive.
In 1810 the census returns showed Ken- tucky to be the seventh state in the Union in
point of population, the latter numbering 406,- 511. Of these there were 324,237 whites ; 80,567 slaves, and 1,717 free colored people. The general increase in the succeeding ten years had been eighty-four per cent ; of slaves something more than ninety-nine per cent. This latter increase showed that the increase in population was largely from Virginia and ac- counts, in large part, for the affinity between the people of Kentucky and the Old Dominion.
In 1811, the Indians, incited by British offi- cers, renewed activities and outrages upon the whites came to be of frequent occurrence. There was as has been stated, no longer a doubt that there was to be a renewal of hostilities between the people of the United States and Great Britain. The latter government still smarted under its defeat in the War of the Revolution and the loss of the fair colonies populated originally by Englishmen who had breathed the air of freedom in the new world and had learned to successfully defend their homes and families against the trained soldiers of that land which they had once been proud to call their Fatherland. England sought to intimidate the new republic by turning loose upon it the savage hordes as they had brought the Hessians in the Revolution. But as the Hessians were not feared, neither were the Indians. In the early pioneer days, the people had met and conquered the savages and were ready and willing to meet and conquer them again.
They went out to meet the Indians on their own chosen fields and gave them such lessons as were never forgotten. At Tippecanoe, in the then territory of Indiana, the white forces under General William Henry Harrison, one of the greatest of Indian fighters, met the sav- age forces under Tecumseh and his brother, The Prophet. Tecumseh was a born general, savage though he was. With education, con- pled with his natural instincts as a soldier and commander, he would have been well nigh invincible. He knew the value of concen-
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tration and its power. To the end that the pioneers might be entirely destroyed or driven from the land which the Indian claimed as his own, and justly so claimed, let it be said, he had endeavored to form a combination of all the Indian tribes, north and south, his ulti- mate aim being a concentrated attack upon the whites wherever they might be found. He missed the battle at Tippecanoe by reason of his mission to the outlying tribes, but arrived in time to experience the mortification of the defeat which came to his brother The Prophet. General Harrison, shrewd old Indian fighter that he was, had forced the fighting as soon as he came within touch of the Indians and met them at the very doors of their wigwams, scat- tering them to the four winds and administer- ing the most serious defeat they had ever known. General Harrison's regular troops were reinforced in this campaign and decisive battle by Kentucky volunteers, who, then, as always, did honor to themselves and the state for which they fought.
Among the Kentuckians who died upon this field of honor was Colonel Joseph Hamilton Daveiss and Colonel Abraham Owen, each of whom fell with face to the front. Daveiss had
already won civic honors in the attempt to in- dict Aaron Burr for alleged complicity in the Spanish Conspiracy and Owen was a typical pioneer who had many times met and fought the savage foes who made life a burden to the early settlers of Kentucky. He had been a member of the convention which formed the second constitution of Kentucky, and was a member of the Kentucky senate. He fell at the side of General Harrison, for whom he was an aide-de-camp. To many Kentuckians it will be interesting to know that one of his sons, Colonel Clark Owen, led a Texas regiment on the Confederate side in the War Between the States, and fell at the head of his regiment on the deadly field of Shiloh in 1862.
Colonel Joseph Hamilton Daveiss was one of the first of the great lawyers of Kentucky, a brother-in-law of Chief Justice Marshall of the supreme court of the United States, whose sister he married. He was a great orator and those who had heard him said that he was the most impressive of speakers, nor did they ex- cept Henry Clay. He died for his country, a death he would perhaps have chosen above all others, as would any true man who has ever worn the uniform of a soldier.
CHAPTER XXXV.
EARTHQUAKE OF 18II-MISSISSIPPI TURNED AND LAKE FORMED-STATE AID TO PUBLIC WORKS-ACT AGAINST DUELING-PUBLIC LOTTERIES LEGALIZED -- SHELBY AGAIN GOVER- NOR-BOONE'S LAST PLEA.
The closing days of the year 1811 were marked by the most severe seismic disturbance ever known, up to that time, in Kentucky and its neighboring states, Tennessee and Missouri, producing results which have remained to this day.
Early in the morning of December 16, 1811, an earthquake of startling magnitude, awoke the inhabitants of certain portions of the states named, so violent were the movements of the earth and loud the rumbling sounds accom- panying those movements. In the excitement incident to these disturbances, these rumbling sounds were compared to those produced by the simultaneous firing of a thousand pieces of artillery, the comparison having been made, it is evident by some one who had never wit- nessed a battle nor heard the roar of a battery of artillery in action, to say nothing of a thou- sand pieces of artillery. But it was a momen- tous earthquake; of that there can be no doubt.
The current of the Mississippi river, by the upheaval of the earth, was for a time turned up stream; a fact of which there is no doubt. as there were many reliable witnesses. The shock continued with more or less violence until December 21st. The strangest result of this seismic upheaval was the formation in West Tennessee, not far from the Kentucky line, of a lake seventy miles long and from three to twenty miles wide, the depth of which varies from shallow water to one hundred feet,
a greater depth than the Mississippi river, whence came its waters, is known to show along its entire great length. This lake was christened Reel Foot, by which name it has ever since been known. For many years it has been a favored spot with sportsmen of rod and gun, the great number of fish in its waters being seemingly equalled at certain seasons, by the wild geese and ducks which seek food and rest within and upon its water during their migratory periods. In 1908, Reel Foot Lake was the scene of the cowardly murder of one man, and the attempted murder of another, by men who resented what they claimed was an attempt to infringe upon their alleged vested right to hunt and fish upon the waters of the lake. The state of Tennessee made a vigorous prosecution of the participants in this outrage, and appropriate punishment was meted out to a number of them.
In the legislative session of 1811-12 a grant of land was made in aid of the location and erection of salt works in the counties of Wayne and Pulaski. This was the inception of state aid to public works which led to the granting of future sums to improve the navigation of certain streams within the state-notably the Kentucky, Green, Barren and Cumberland rivers, and the construction of turnpikes in certain counties. Of this latter concession what are known as the Blue Grass counties were the principal beneficiaries, the result being apparent to this day, in a system of roads,
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unequalled anywhere else in the United States and only equalled or surpassed by the excellent roadways of England and France, in the for- mer of which countries those unparalleled road builders, the Roman armies of Cæsar, laid the foundations of roads and bridges which exist today in a condition of excellence which would shame the so-called road builders of Kentucky in the counties outside of the Blue Grass sec- tion.
At the period of this writing (1911) efforts
of the legislature should cease to furnish mat- ter for jests in the columns of newspapers. It is a time for men ; men who have done good work at home; men who would do good work for the state; men who have no political axes to grind; men who would recognize the accept- ance of a seat in the general assembly as a duty, sacred to themselves, their families, their dis- tricts and their state. When the good day comes that such men are chosen-and it will come when the people demand it at the polls-
OILED KENTUCKY TURNPIKE, SHOWING STOCK PAI DOCKS
are being made to perfect a "Good Roads Sys- tem" in the state, which will result in good only when the people of Kentucky shall have learned to send to the general assembly their best men who have shown their capacity in the management of their personal affairs, and a public spirit that marks them as worthy of rec- ognition by the state and by the people of their respective counties.
In the progress of this work reference has more than once been made to the necessity for the choice of better men as state senators and representatives and even further reference may be made later. It is time that being a member
Kentucky will take the place to which it is entitled in the sisterhood of states. Kentucky will then remodel its archaic system of taxa- tion which now repels foreign capital and drives from its borders the investments of its own citizens, and will offer to the citizens of other states as to those of its own, a helping rather than a repellant hand.
At the legislative session above alluded to, Kentucky assented to a proposed amendment to the Federal constitution depriving of citizen- ship any who accepted a foreign title of nobility or honor. or who accepted presents or office from any foreign government.
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The growing sentiment against dueling was illustrated in the passage of an act under the provisions of which all state and judicial offi- cers were required to make oath that they had not engaged in or participated as seconds in a duel or negotiated a challenge therefor. This
DANIEL BOONE MONUMENT, CHEROKEE PARK, LOUISVILLE
sentiment was afterwards emphasized in the constitution of the state, where it yet remains, and embraces all persons who are required by law to make oath before accepting office that they have in no wise participated in a duel with a citizen of the state, in or out of the state, or carried a challenge for such duel. As
Kentuckians have been represented to be an office-seeking and office-holding race, it is perhaps, unnecessary to state that dueling long since went out of fashion in this state. It is the usual custom now, to settle on the spot differences which in the earlier days would have resulted in a call upon what was known as "the code of honor."
It is worthy of mention that this same leg- islature inaugurated or legalized public lot- teries. The firse lottery grant was for the im- provement of Kentucky river; the second, in aid of repairs on the public road from Mays- ville to Washington in Mason county ; the third and most remarkable being in aid of the erec- tion on the public square at Frankfort of a church building for the free use of the people of all sects or denominations. If such a church resulted from this lottery, history is si- lent in regard to it, and the probability is that the promoters thereof profited to a larger ex- tent through its management than did "the people of all sects or denominations" for whose ostensible benefit it was originated. This was the origination of a long series of lotteries for the alleged benefit of this or that public insti- tution which obtained in Kentucky for many years, the last of which only discontinued its operations after a long series of judicial con- tests originating in the state courts, and ending finally, in a decision by the supreme court of the United States, adverse to the lotteries. Since that date, no publicly conducted lotteries have existed in Kentucky though the miserable "policy" lottery devised for the robbery of the poorer and more ignorant classes, still leads in secret, a precarious existence in the larger cities.
Isaac Shelby, a hero of the War of the Rev- olution and progenitor of a line of excellent men and women of Kentucky, was in August, 1812, for a second time, elected governor of the state. The secretary of state was Martin D. Hardin, the murder of whose father, Col- onel John Hardin, by the Indians to whom he
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bore a mission of peace, has been elsewhere referred to in this work.
It was during the succeeding session of the legislature that Daniel Boone made his pathetic plea for restitution referred to at an earlier period in this work. Through ignorance of the law and, perhaps through the wrong-doing of others, his imagined title to valuable lands in Kentucky had proven worthless. He had left the land he had aided in wresting from the savage; going first to Virginia and later to Missouri, ill-luck apparently following closely upon his footsteps. He thought himself the legal possessor of ten thousand acres of land in Missouri, but found this belief to be un- founded so far as a legal title was concerned. He came back to Kentucky, and to the legisla- ture made this plaintive plea : "And now, your memorialist is left, at about the age of eighty, to be a wanderer in the world, having no spot he can call his own whereon to lay his bones."
Poor old pioneer! Kentucky owed him much and the poor payment of that debt was sup- posed to have been made when the state brought home his remains and those of his faithful old wife, and gave them sepulture in the state cemetery at Frankfort under a modest monumental stone which the vandal hands of curiosity seekers desecrated in search of relics until its original design was almost obliterated. It is to the credit of the good women of the Kentucky Historical Society that the monu- ment has been restored to its original condi- tion, so far as is possible, and a barrier of iron placed between it and future vandal hands that would seek to mar its simple and appro- priate symmetry.
Boone lost his lands. He has a grave within Kentucky and one of the counties of the state bears his name. And that is all that can be done for his honor and glory now.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
AS BETWEEN ENGLAND AND FRANCE-PATRIOTS IN POWER-KENTUCKIANS EAGER FOR WAR- HUMILIATED AT HULL'S SURRENDER-THE FIGHTING TAYLOR FAMILY-HULL'S DISGRACE -DEFEAT STIRS KENTUCKIANS-UNDER GENERAL HARRISON-RELIEF OF FORT WAYNE- Two FUTURE PRESIDENTS-PROTECTING ARMY SUPPLIES-NATURE DEFEATS HARRISON'S PLANS-HARRISON CONCEIVED NAVAL PROGRAM-AMERICAN VICTORY AT FRENCHTOWN- AMERICAN ROUT AT RAISIN RIVER-KENTUCKY TROOPS HOLD OUT-A BRITISH PROMISE -A DEVILISH MASSACRE-ARMY ALMOST WIPED OUT-SCALPS WANTED, NOT RANSOMS -"HUMANE" PROCTOR REWARDED.
The memory of the War of the Revolution was yet fresh in the minds of men when clouds arose on the foreign political horizon and the veterans of that war took down their arms, burnishing them anew for use in their own hands or in those of their willing and stalwart sons. England, still smarting under the loss of her richest colonies, had sought by every means within her power to humiliate the young giant beginning to grow to the maj- esty of full manhood, in the western world. She held firmly to the military posts of the northwest, a constant menace to the peace and happiness of the people of the United States ; she instigated atrocities by the savages along the then frontiers of the new land; she stopped American vessels upon the high seas, impressing their sailors upon the specious plea that they were deserters from her own marine, and in countless ways seemed to goad the new government into a collision with her own. And Great Britain did not have long to wait. Though many citizens of the United States op- posed a second war with the great power of England, there were not wanting those, and they were in the majority, who felt that in- sults had been too long submitted to; that our vessels should be free from search upon the
seas by any power upon earth, and that the time had come when the world in general, and England in particular, should know that the United States were not only willing but able to maintain their dignity and protect their cit- izens against the attacks of any foreign power whatever.
England and France were at war and each government had declared a blockade of the ports of the other, a declaration of but little effective force, yet of much annoyance to American shipping. England seized and con- fiscated perhaps a thousand American vessels and their cargoes for alleged violation of her "orders in council." This could result in noth- ing less than war, which England seemed fat- uously to seek, though having her military hands full at the time with the legions of Na- poleon. The latter was scourging Europe at that time in what seemed an effort to bring the world under the domination of France, and France, at that period, was Napoleon alone. However much America might deprecate the excesses of the French Revolution; however she might decry the ruthless ambition of Na- poleon, there yet remained the fact that in the stress of our own Revolution, France had come to our aid and that when the army of
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Washington encompassed the British army of Cornwallis upon the land side, the friendly fleet of France, under Rochambeau, lay in the James river as Washington's ever-ready sup- port. Ingratitude, that unpardonable sin, has not been a characteristic of the American peo- ple. Though the Federalists of New England opposed war upon England because they also opposed aid to France, the great heart of the country, largely without regard to party lines. was in favor of immediate war with England. New England was powerful in numbers and in wealth, but it could not withstand the pa- triotic demands of the masses. Perhaps then, as later in the war of 1898 with Spain, it heard. in imagination, the roar of hostile guns bombarding its cities, and, its commercial spirit more dominant than its patriotism, dreaded the reprisals that might he made upon its money chests should one of its cities fall into the hands of the enemy. Be that as it may, New England opposed the war and took but a minor part in its conduct once it had been declared. The Federalists opposed : the Dem- ocrats favored war immediately; and the Democrats won. They had the habit of win- ning in those days-but that was a long time ago.
James Madison, a Virginian, was president of the United States at this critical period and James Monroe, another Virginian, destined also to be president, was secretary of state. Of neither of these two patriots could it be said that
"He who dallies is a dastard ;
He who doubts is damned."
To use the words of an eloquent Kentuckian spoken many years later in the United States Congress-"While they well knew the hor- rors of war; its cost; its failures and suc- cesses ; they faltered not, in the face of duty and the "honor of the country."
Kentucky welcomed the war, if so strong a word may be justly used in such connection. Long a sufferer from the incursions of the
savages driven to deeds of plunder, rapine and murder by the British officers of the northwest posts, Kentucky was anxious to take up arms against the British and, once for all. fight it out with them. It is a characteris- tic of the Kentuckian of today. If he has a difference of whatever character, personal, po- litical or financial, he is ready to fight it out according to established forms and when he has won or lost, to drop the subject and say no more about it. But Kentucky was never to be happy until England was a second time humbled. and her sons enjoyed the opportunity to assist in the performance of that high duty.
The president had authority to call for ac- tive service one hundred thousand volunteers. the quota for Kentucky being five thousand. five hundred. In answer to the call, seven thousand Kentuckians gallantly and promptly responded and were enrolled in ten regiments, commanded by veterans who had learned the art of war in the first contest with England or the ruder conflicts with the Indians. Four regiments. under the command of Gen. John Payne, assembled at Georgetown, whence on August 19, 1812, they marched toward Cin- cinati, enroute to join the forces of General Hull, who had already marched upon Canada from his base at Danville.
These volunteers had but crossed the Ohio river when intelligence was received that Gen- eral Hull, instead of winning an expected vic- tory, had made a surrender not only of his army, but of the base of supplies at Detroit including all the munitions of war in that sec- tion. General Brock, to whom Hull had dis- gracefully surrendered, had a force of Eng- lish, Canadians and Indians only about one- half as strong as his own. Several of his prin- cipal officers, among them General James Tay- lor, of Kentucky, were so humiliated by Hull's conduct that they refused to join him in ar- ranging the terms of capitulation.
Gen. James Taylor came of a family of sol- diers, natives of Virginia. His father Colonel
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James Taylor, was one of eleven brothers, ten of whom served in the war of the Revolution, as officers of the army or the navy, the eleventh brother being alone prevented by his tender years, from also entering the service of his country. Gen. James Taylor visited Ken- tucky in 1793, settling at Newport, in Camp- bell county, of which he was the first circuit clerk. He had the native Taylor fondness for a military life and in 1812 was commissioned by General Scott as a brigadier general of the militia. During the war of 1812, he became successively quartermaster general and pay- master general, serving with much distinction throughout the war. General Taylor, who married the widow of Major David Leitch, left four children, one of them the late Col. James Taylor, long the most distinguished cit- izen of Newport. Gen. Zachary Taylor, the hero of many battles and finally president of the United States, was a first cousin of Gen. James Taylor. There are many descendants of the ten fighting Taylor brothers in Ken- tncky and it is gratifying to record that they have made as fair records in the peaceful pur- suits of life as did their warlike ancestors upon the field of battle.
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