USA > Kentucky > A history of Kentucky and Kentuckians; the leaders and representative men in commerce, industry and modern activities, Volume I > Part 4
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
Christopher Gist, another adventurous char- acter, as agent for the "Ohio Company," next led an expedition, the objective point of which was the territory which is now Ohio, setting out from the Potomac October 3, 1750. After scouting through the lands north of the Ohio river, he came finally to that stream which he descended to within fifteen miles of the pres- ent site of Louisville. Discovering there signs of large bodies of Indians, Gist turned back to the mouth of the Kentucky river. Under many difficulties Gist and his party continued their retreat and on May 1. 1751. first came in sight of the beautiful Kanawha river plunging over rapids and through moun-
3
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY AND KENTUCKIANS
tain gorges on its tempestuous way to the sea. Gist finally reached his home in safety after traversing the most beautiful section of the future Kentucky, which he found without in- habitants and temporarily peopled only by bands of Indians intent upon the chase and these, in the main, confined their operations to points near the Ohio river north of which stream they lived.
Irving in his life of Washington says of Gist: "From the top of a mountain in eastern Kentucky near the Kentucky river, he had a view of the southward as far as the eye could reach over a vast wooded country in the fresh garniture of Spring and watered by abundant streams, but as yet only the hunting ground of savage tribes and the scene of their sanguin- ary conflicts. In a word, Kentucky lay spread out before him in all its wild magnificence. For six weeks was this hardy pioneer making his toilsome way up the valley of the Cuttawa or Kentucky river, to the banks of the Blue Stone; often checked by precipices and obliged to seek fords at the head of tributary streams, and happy when he could find a buf- falo-path broken through the tangled forests or worn into the everlasting rocks."
When Gist reported to the Ohio Company what he had seen it must have impressed them with the belief that fortune was in their grasp, and lay to the westward, as fortune has ever laid to the Anglo-Saxon. Robert Dinwiddie, one of the twenty stockholders of the Ohio Company and lieutenant governor of Virginia in 1752, impressed by the reports of Gist, de- veloped a strong interest in the movements of the French in the Ohio valley to all parts which they had asserted a claim, setting up tablets at the mouth of each river reached by them in support of these claims.
A protest against such procedure by a for- eign power was an immediate necessity, and there seems to have been a special Providence in the selection by Dinwiddie of a messenger to the French commander bearing a message
of warning against further encroachments. He chose as this messenger a youthful Vir- ginian, one George Washington, a half-broth- er of Augustine Washington, president of the Ohio Company, and Lawrence Washington, one of its stockholders. That young Virgin- ian, piloted by Christopher Gist in this expedi- tion, took that first step which was to lead him ever forward and upward to the highest position in the affairs of men. It was the step which led to the French and Indian war, the greatest contest known to this western continent until the day when the War of the Revolution claimed Washington as its leader and under his splendid guidance, preclaimed "liberty throughout all the land and to all the inhabitants thereof." Some authorities claim that Washington came with Gist to Kentucky ; but there seems no foundation for this claim, as it does not authoritatively appear that Washington came further west than the mouth of the Kanawha river in what is now West Virginia.
Kentucky does not seem to have been the permanent home of the Indians, though often occupied by them on their hunting trips or warlike forays. It was their "happy hunting ground" and, on occasion. their battle ground, before the coming of the white man when they came in contact with their enemies of other tribes. North of the Ohio river were the powerful Iroquois, who claimed the ter ritory as their own. To the South were the Cherokees, who fewer in number, were equal- ly warlike, and who likewise claimed Ken- tucky as their own, with the result that when the hunting parties of these tribes met they became war parties and there was some beau- tiful fighting all along the savage lines. Hav- ing thus to struggle for their prolific hunting grounds, it is not strange that the Indians should have bitterly resented the coming of the white man to possess the land and that his coming meant the writing of blood-red chap- ters in the history of the first occupancy of
4
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY AND KENTUCKIANS
the state. The Indian knew the bountiful land to be worth fighting for, and used all his sav- age strategy to retain its possession. The white man found the land not alone worth fighting for, but, if need be, dying for, and set out to possess it and with his rifle filed a deed of possession with the result known to all the world-the Indian was overcome and driven towards the western sun, while the white man remained to make a garden spot where he had found a wilderness, albeit a beauteous and bountiful wilderness.
There are several accounts given as to the origin of the name of Kentucky. John Filson says the Delaware and Shawnee Indians called the vast undefined tract of land south of the Ohio river "Kuttawa," meaning the "Great Wilderness." This name was long used in- terchangeably with "Kantake;" meaning "the place of meadows," or the "Hunting Grounds." Filson also referred to it as "The Middle Ground." McElroy, in "Kentucky in the Nation's History," says that another ori- gin of the name is given by John Johnson who for years resided among the Shawnees. He declares that Kentucky is a Shawnee word meaning "at the head of the river." Marshall, however, declares that the name was derived from "a deep channeled and clifty river called by the Indians Ken-tuck-kee," which they pronounced with a strong emphasis. He adds
that in consequence of frequent combats be- tween the savages upon Kentucky soil-the country being thickly wooded and deeply shaded-was also called in their expressive language "The Dark and Bloody Ground." There is doubtless something that in other matters would be called poetic license in this statement of Marshall-more of license than historic accuracy, perhaps, but the expression has taken so firm a hold upon the public mind that it cannot be broken. Whatever the ac- tual facts relative to the derivation of the name may be, the state has passed into history and song as "The Dark and Bloody Ground," and there it will remain, protest as one may. To all good citizens of the state it is a matter for the deepest regret, that in recent years in a few sections of the State there have been stich occurrences brought about by lawless and misguided men, as have seemed to justify the term as not only truly descriptive but just. It is a gratifying reflection that the confines of a prison and the narrower confines of cer- tain graves render it improbable that further acts of the kind referred to will again darken the history of the state. The fires of a more complete civilization light the darkness of the land of the feud and where the minister of God and the schoolmaster carry their banners, murder will find none to excuse it.
CHAPTER II.
WAR VS. EXPLORATION-DEBT TO SIR WILLIAM JOHNSON- BOONE, SAVIOR OF KENTUCKY -"NUMEROUSLY" BORN-BOONE'S EARLY LIFE-BOONE AND PARTY ENTERS KENTUCKY.
It is not the purpose of this history to fol- low the failures or the successes of the French and Indian war. While it had its effect upon Kentucky, there were other events of the same era that bore more particularly upon the des- tiny of the territory which was later to be known as Kentucky. In 1763 the Peace of Paris ended the tremendous contests between England and France for the possession of Canada and the Ohio valley, with the result that the cross of St. George waved over the hitherto disputed territory undisturbed and with none to dispute the sovereignty of Eng- land.
During the pendency of the war but little had been done in the matter of exploration in Kentucky and there are no absolutely ac- cttrate data covering that period. In the midst of wars the laws are silent and it seems to be true of this period that exploration ceased, though there are apochryphal claims made of certain expeditions of which no conclusive rec- ords have been found. It is probably true that adventurous parties came and went in those perilous days, as no sense of danger has ever been strong enough to destroy in the Anglo-Saxon his desire to spy out the land and appropriate to himself that part of it which, to him, seemed good. But that this was done is mere harmless conjecture. There is no record of the doings of the fearless ad- venturer in those days.
At the close of the war in 1763, King George the Third, whom the American col-
onies were to more intimately know and de- test a short twelve years later, issued a proc- lamation which had it not been ignored in large part, would have left Kentucky for years as the mere hunting ground of the sav- age, and closed its teeming fields and forests to the enterprise of the sturdy pioneers, who daring all dangers, had taken their lives in their hands and pressed forward into the wil- derness to make homes for themselves and theirs, and to make straight the ways for those who were to come later into the new land which so generously invited them.
King George, in this proclamation, declared that the British possessions west of the Alle- gheny mountains and south of Canada should be set apart as an Indian reservation, into which white settlers should not enter. The line of demarcation between the white and Indian territories was ordered marked, the commissioners for this work being Sir Wil- liam Johnson, agent for the northern district, and John Stuart, for the southern colonies. This Sir William Johnson was later to become an important factor in the affairs of the Mo- hawk Valley and to play a great and danger- ous part with the Indians, in the War of the Revolution, then but a few short years re- moved in point of time. But Kentucky owes a debt to Sir William Johnson, despite his fu- ture actions in favor of the British crown. McElroy says of his action in running this line: "Johnson, deliberately neglecting his in- structions, ran his part of the line down the
5
6
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY AND KENTUCKIANS
Ohio river to the mouth of the Tennessee, thus leaving east of the line of demarcation, almost all of what is now Kentucky and exempting it from the restrictions which the proclamation imposed upon the reserved district. Thus Kentucky was thrown open to white explorers and settlers, while the other regions west of the Alleghenies were closed by royal decree,
from its original savage holders who fought so strongly to retain its possession.
What ever others may have done earlier and during the strenuous after days when Boone was struggling for possession of the fair land, he was the real hero, "the voice of one crying in the wilderness," who gave Ken- tucky to the white man and whose place in
.DANIEL BOONE
DANIEL BOONE MONUMENT FRANKFORT. Kr.
OLU FORT AT HOONESBOROUGH
and to this fact it is due, in no small degree. that she became the pioneer colony of the West; for in the valley of the Yadkin, in North Carolina, the prince of pioneers was waiting to head the host who were waiting to invade the 'Dark and Bloody Ground' and to make it an inhabited land."
Daniel Boone now appears on the great canvass upon which is depicted the early strug- gles which made Kentucky a bright jewel in the crown of the states which form the Amer- ican Union. There had been, as has been shown, adventurous spirits who came into Kentucky before Boone, some of whom were later to join him in the conquest of the land
song and story of the new land none may take. Kentucky and Daniel Boone are synonymous terms in history, though he left the new land early in its history for Virginia and later, find- ing his holdings too much encroached upon there, with the spirit of the true pioneer, he journeyed to the westward in search of elbow room, and finally laid down the burden of his years in Missouri. Later Kentucky, mindful of its debt to the brave old pioneer, brought back his remains and those of his patient old wife and side by side they sleep in the State Cemetery at Frankfort, an appropriate and modest monument marking their last resting place.
7
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY AND KENTUCKIANS
Daniel Boone appears to have been born very numerously and over a large stretch of territory. As a matter of fact, his exact birth- place and the date of his birth cannot be defi- nitely stated. Those who wrote nearest to the era in which he flourished and who would therefore be supposed to be most correct in their statements, differ widely as to time and place. Bogart says he was born Feb. 1I, 1735; Collins, Feb. 1I, 1731 ; Marshall, about 1746; McClung says he was born in Virginia ; Marshall says in Maryland, while Nile goes far away from all these and declares that Daniel Boone was born in Bridgeworth, Somersetshire, England-a statement which, if made in his presence, would doubtless have brought a frown to the face of the grim old pioneer. Peck says Boone was born in Bucks county, Pennsylvania, and this is commonly accepted as correct, though upon what facts the hypothesis is founded is not stated. Bo- gart says: "Near Bristol, on the right bank of the Delaware about twenty miles from Philadelphia." While it would be interesting to know the exact date and place of his birth, it is yet sufficient to know of the brave deeds of his after life and the splendid part which he played in freeing Kentucky of the savage and opening to civilization and freedom one of the fairest spots upon the western hemisphere.
It is definitely known that Boone's father, wherever may have been his former home, re- moved to North Carolina settling in a valley south of the Yadkin river, where it is pre- summed that the young Boone grew to manhood. It is also fair to assume from his subsequent career that Daniel was not to be depended upon as a farmer, and was no great help to his father or family in the care of the crops upon which, and the results of the chase, their subsistence depended. A party of hunters from Boone's vicinity who had penetrated the then unknown wilds of Kentucky, returned with such thrilling stories of their experiences that the fires of the pioneer were lighted in
Boone's breast, which were destined never to burn out until he laid down the burden of life in the wilds of Missouri.
Filson in his own language, far different from that of the pioneer, says that Boone gave to him in his old age this account of his first coming to Kentucky :
"It was the first of May, 1769, that I re- signed my domestic happiness for a time and left my family and peaceable habitation on the Yadkin River, in North Carolina, to wander through the wilderness of North America in quest of the country of Kentucky."
Colonel Durrett, that inimitable student of history, remarks on this with a sort of grim humor "that for a pretended farmer to start to the wilderness on a hunting expedition just at corn-planting season, is a suspicious cir- cumstance, and leads one to suppose that Daniel was not overfond of the hoe." This is probably true. Daniel Boone's place in his- tory is that of a pioneer, a hunter and a fighter in all of which stations he played his manly part. It was well for Kentucky and its early settlers that Daniel Boone was not fond of the farmı.
Boone's party on this, his first expedition into Kentucky, consisted with himself, of John Findlay, who had been one of the hunt- ing party whose wondrous stories had fired Boone's imagination ; John Stewart, Joseph Holden, James Mooney and William Cool. They had a desire far beyond that of the de- lights of the chase, for they were uncon- sciously following the manifest destiny of the race from which they sprang and were search- ing out a fair land which they might possess and claim as their own.
Peck, in his biography of Boone, thus from a fervent imagination describes him at the head of his little band of adventurers: "The leader of the party was of full size with a hardy, ro- bust, sinewy frame, and keen, piercing hazel eyes that glanced with quickness at every ob- ject as they passed on; now cast forward in
8
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY AND KENTUCKIANS
the direction they were traveling for signs of an old trail, and, in the next moment, directed askance into the dense thicket or into the deep ravine as if watching some concealed enemy. The reader will recognize the pioneer Boone at the head of his companions. Towards the time of the setting of the sun, the party had reached the summit of the mountain range up
All of this is very beautiful and not alto- gether a figment of fancy, because it is fairly descriptive of the physical Kentucky of that and the present day, but Daniel Boone less poetically described the event to John Filson in these terms: "We proceeded successfully, after a long and fatiguing journey, through a mountainous wilderness, in a westward direc-
DANIEL BOONE'S CABIN ON KENTUCKY RIVER
which they had toiled for some three or four hours and which had bounded their progress to the west during the day. Here new and indescribable scenery opened to their view. Before them, for an immense distance, as if spread out on a map, lay the rich and beautiful vales watered by the Kentucky river; far in the vista was seen a beautiful expanse of level country over which the buffalo, deer and other forest animals roamed unmolested."
tion; on the seventh day of June following, we found ourselves on the Red river and from the top of an eminence saw with pleasure the beautiful level of Kentucky."
It will be observed with a degree of pleasure by present-day Kentuckians, that even the stern old pioneer found beauty in Kentucky on his first view of the new land he had come out to redeem from the savages who claimed it as their own.
CHAPTER III.
BOONE AND STEWART GO FORTH-CAPTURED BY INDIANS-RETURN TO DESERTED CAMP- JOINED BY BOONE'S BROTHER-A GREAT AGENT OF DESTINY-ALONE IN THE WILDER- NESS-REJOINED BY FAITHFUL BROTHER-"HAPPIEST OF MORTALS ANYWHERE."
Throughout the summer and into the fall, the little party loitered in the fairy land, now hunting, now "loafing and inviting their souls," leaving to those whom they had left behind in North Carolina the less con- genial and burdensome task of planting, hoeing and reaping the crops. They were care-free, game was abundant, their wants were few and easily supplied; they were free to go and come as they chose and so far, there had been none to disturb or make them afraid.
At last came the day of separation and, for wider exploration and convenience in hunting, Boone and John Stewart left the main party and proceeded to the Louisa river. Here John Filson takes up the story in the biography of Boone and himself grows poetical though one would think that recitals of the grim events of Kentucky's early days had but little of poetry about them. Filson makes Boone say : "We practiced hunting with great success until the twenty-second day of December. This day John Stewart and I had a pleasing ramble, but fortune changed the scene in the close of it. We had passed through a great forest on which stood myriads of trees, some gay with blossoms, others rich with fruit. Nature was here a series of wonders and a fund of de- light. Here she displayed her ingenuity and industry in a variety of flowers and fruits, beautifully colored, elegantly shaped and charmingly flavored; and we were diverted
with innumerable animals presenting them- selves perpetually to our view."
Fancy Daniel Boone of the Yadkin river, in North Carolina-sometime hunter, trapper, surveyor and Indian fighter-rhapsodizing after that fashion. It is evident that Filson was something of a poet himself and that he adorned the plain language of Boone out of the exuberance of his own fancy.
But there was to be a quick transition from the beauties of nature as exemplified in Ken- tucky, to the sterner realities which filled the lives of the pioneers of the state. Filson, quitting his study of the flora and fruits of the forests of Kentucky by a sharp transition, brings one to a realization of the sterner fea- tures of life in those same forests. In the fol- lowing statement he has Boone saying: "In a decline of a day near the Kentucky river, as we ascended the brow of a small hill, a num- ber of Indians rushed out of a thick canebrake upon us and made us prisoners. The time of our sorrow had now arrived and the scene was fully opened. The Indians plundered us of what we had and kept us in confinement seven days, treating us with common savage usage. At last, in the dead of night as we lay in a thick canebrake by a large fire, when sleep had locked up their senses, my situation not disposing me for rest," says Boone, "I touched my companion and gently awoke him. We improved this favorable opportunity and de- parted, leaving them to take their rest."
9
10
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY AND KENTUCKIANS
Boone and Stewart then set out to the camp where they had left their comrades, which they reached after several days travel, only to find it plundered and deserted ; their compan- ions gone they knew not whither. It is pre- sumed, of course, that the plundering had been done by Indians, and their comrades mur- dered by them though this is conjecture only. Certain it is that their names no more appear in history. Boone and Stewart, not dismayed by the misfortunes of their comrades, did not turn their faces towards North Carolina, but constructed another camp and, though short of ammunition, continued hunting and explor- ing as before. It must be assumed that on their escape from the Indians, they had brought away their guns and ammunition. One historian reports them as amusing them- selves in hunting and exploring, which state- ment, if correct, indicates that certain natures can find amusement under the most adverse circumstances. But even this method of amusement drew near its end as their slender stock of ammunition was nearly exhausted, when there happened an incident tending to show that Providence was on the side of the gallant hunters and explorers.
The family of Daniel Boone grew alarmed because of his long absence, during which, of course, they had heard nothing from him, and his faithful brother. Squire Boone, with a single companion whose name is to history unknown, set forth to find him. This illus- trates the spirit of the pioneer: his careless- ness of danger ; his purpose to go on and do that which his duty called him to do, fearing nothing. daring all things and through these high qualities winning in the end, as Squire Boone and his unknown companion did in this instance. McElroy says of them: "With no chart to guide them, with no knowledge of the location of the wanderers, amid thousands of miles of unbroken forest, it seems little short of a miracle that early in January, 1770, they came upon the camp in which Boone and
Stewart had spent the previous night. Even after this discovery. it might have been a suf- ficiently difficult task for any but an Indian or pioneer to find the wanderers. But to a woods- man so new a trail could not be missed, and shortly afterward Boone and Stewart were startled to see two human forms approaching through the forest. Instantly alert and on guard against surprises, they watched the fig- ures until, as they came within the range of clear vision, Boone recognized the beloved form of his faithful brother."
John Filson, the biographer of Boone. makes the old hero describe this momentous event in the following terms: "About this time my brother, Squire Boone, with another adventurer, who came to explore the country shortly after us, was wandering through the forest, determined to find me, if possible and accidentally found our camp." Again there is a failure to name Squire Boone's fellow ad- venturer who appears to have wandered away from his comrades and never returned either to them or to his home in North Carolina. And so he passed into the early history of Kentucky and out of it again, nameless and unknown so far as most historical research has shown. But John Filson reports Daniel Boone as saying to him: "The man who came with my brother returned home by himself. We were then in a dangerous, helpless situ- ation, exposed daily to perils and death amongst the savages and wild beasts, not a white man in the country but ourselves." Boone, it will be observed, does not give the name of this man. It is charitable to suppose that he did not desert his comrades, but fell at the hands of the savages ; and there let him rest.
Boone had no thought of turning back. Fil- son does him the high honor of saying that Boone considered himself "an instrument or- dained to settle the wilderness." Bogart in his "Boone" says: "On the safety of these men rested the hope of a nation. Their defeat.
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.