Collins historical sketches of Kentucky. History of Kentucky: Vol. II, Part 47

Author: Collins, Lewis, 1797-1870. cn; Collins, Richard H., 1824-1889. cn
Publication date: 1874
Publisher: Covington, Ky., Collins & Co.
Number of Pages: 1654

USA > Kentucky > Collins historical sketches of Kentucky. History of Kentucky: Vol. II > Part 47

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"" BIG JOE LOGSTON."-About the year 1790, an individual, known as " Big Joe Logston," removed from near the source of the north branch of the Potomac to Kentucky, and resided many years in the family of Andrew Barnett, in Greene county. He subsequently removed to Illinois. Big Joe seems to have been a rare chap. Mr. Felix Renick has given some anecdotes of him in the Western Pioneer, in which he says-" No Kentuckian could ever, with greater propriety than he, have said, 'I can out-run. out-hop, out-jump, throw down, drag out, and whip any man in the country.'" The following account is given by Mr. Renich of a desperate fight between Joe and two Indians :

" The Indians made a sudden attack, and all that escaped were driven into a rude fort for preservation, and, though reluctantly, Joe was one. This was a new life to him, and did not at all suit his taste. He soon became very restless, and every day insisted on going out with others to hunt up the cattle. Knowing the danger better, or fearing it more, all persisted in their refusal to go with him. To indulge his taste for the woodman's life, he turned out

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alone, and rode till the after part of the day without finding any cattle. What the Indians had not killed, were scared off. He concluded to return to the fort. Riding along a patn which led in, he came to a fine vine of grapes. He turned into the path and rode carelessly along, eating his grapes, and the first intimation he had of danger, was the crack of two rifles, one from each side of the road. One of these balls passed through the paps of his breasts, which, for a male, were remarkably prominent, almost as much so as that of many nurses. The ball just grazed the skin between the paps, but did not injure the breast bone. The other ball struck his horse behind the saddle, and he sunk in his tracks. Thus was Joe eased off his horse in a manner more rare than welcome. Still he was on his feet in an instant, with his rifle in his hands, and might have taken to his heels ; and I will venture the opinion, that no Indian could have caught him. That, he said, was not his sort. He had never left a battle ground without leaving his mark, and he was resolved that that should not be the first. The moment the guns fired, one very athletic Indian sprang towards him with tomahawk in hand. His eye was on him, and his gun to his eye, ready, as soon as he approached near enough to make a sure shot, to let him have it. As soon as the Indian discovered this, he jumped behind two pretty large saplings, some small distance apart, neither of which were large enough to cover his body, and to save himself as well as he could, he kept springing from one to the other.

" Joe, knowing he had two enemies on the ground, kept a look out for the other by a quick glance of the eye. He presently discovered him behind a tree loading his gun. The tree was not quite large enough to hide him. When in the act of pushing down his bullet, he exposed pretty fairly his hips. Joe, in the twinkling of an eye, wheeled and let him have his load in the part so exposed. The big Indian then, with a mighty " ugh !" rushed towards him with his raised tomahawk. Here were two warriors met. each determined to conquer or die -each the Goliah of his nation. The Indian had rather the advantage in size of frame, but Joe in weight and muscular strength. The Indian made a halt at the distance of fifteen or twenty feet, and threw his tomahawk with all his force, but Joe had his eye on him, and dodged it. It flew quite out of the reach of either of them. Joe then clubbed his gun, and made at the Indian, thinking to knock him down. The Indian sprang into some brush or saplings, to avoid his blows. The Indian depended entirely on dodging, with the help of the saplings. At length Joe, thinking he had a pretty fair chance, made a side blow with such force, that, missing the dodging Indian, the gun, now reduced to the naked barrel, was drawn quite out of his hands, and flew entirely out of reach. The Indian now gave an exulting "ugh!" and sprang at him with all the savage fury he was master of. Neither of them had a weapon in his hands, and the Indian, seeing Logston bleeding freely, thought he could throw him down and dispatch him. In this he was mistaken. They seized each other, and a desper- ate struggle ensued. Joe could throw him down, but could not hold him there. The Indian being naked, with his hide oiled, had greatly the advantage in a ground scuffle, and would still slip out of Joe's grasp and rise. After throwing him five or six times, Joe found that, between loss of blood and violent exertions, his wind was leaving him, and that he must change the mode of warfare, or lose his scalp, which he was not yet willing to spare. He threw the Indian again, and without attempting to hold him, jumped from him, and as he rose, aimed a fist blow at his head, which caused him to fall back, and as he would rise, Joe gave him several blows in succession, the Indian rising slower each time. He at length suc- ceeded in giving him a pretty fair blow in the burr of the ear, with all his force, and he fell, as Joe thought, pretty near dead. Joe jumped on him, and thinking he could dispatch him by choking, grasped his neck with his left hand, keeping his right free for contingencies. Joe soon found that the Indian was not so dead as he thought, and that he was making some use of his right arm, which lay across his body, and on casting his eye down, discov- ered the Indian was making an effort to unsheath a knife which was hanging at his belt. The knife was short, and so sunk in the sheath, that it was necessary to force it up by press- ing against the point. This the Indian was trying to effect, and with good success. Joe kept his eye on it, and let the Indian work the handle out, when he suddenly grabbed it, jerked it out of the sheath, and sunk it up to the handle into the Indian's breast, who gave a death groan and expired.

"Joe now thought of the other Indian, and not knowing how far he had succeeded in kill- ing or crippling him, sprang to his feet. He found the crippled Indian had crawled some distance towards them, and had propped his broken back against a log and was trying to raise his gun to shoot him, but in attempting to do which he would fall forward and had to push against his gun to raise himself again. Joe seeing that he was safe, concluded that he had fought long enough for healthy exercise that day, and not liking to be killed by a crippled Indian, he made for the fort. He got in about nightfall, and a hard looking case he was-blood and dirt from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, no horse, no hat, no gun, with an account of the battle that some of his comrades could scarce believe to be much else than one of his big stories, in which he would sometimes indulge. He told them they must go and judge for themselves.

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GREENUP COUNTY.

"Next morning a company was made up to go to Joe's battle ground. When they ap- proached it, Joe's accusers became more confirmed, as there was no appearance of dead Indians, and nothing Joe had talked of but the dead horse. They however found a trail as if something had been dragged away. On pursuing it they found the big Indian, at a little distance, beside a log, covered up with leaves. Sti'l pursuing the trail, though not so plain, some hundred yards farther, they found the broken backed Indian, lying on his back with his own knife sticking up to the hilt in his body, just below the breast bone, evidently to show that he had killed himself, and that he had not come to his end by the hand of an enemy. They had a long search before they found the knife with which Joe killed the big Indian. They at last found it forced down into the ground below the surface, apparently by the weight of a person's heel. This had been done by the crippled Indian. The great efforts he must have made, alone, in that condition, show, among thousands of other instances, what Indians are capable of under the greatest extremities."

The concluding paragraph of Mr. Renick's sketch of Logston, must have refer- ence to the frontier of Illinois, and not of Kentucky, as we have the best authority for saying that Joe left Greene county for the then territory of Illinois. The fol- lowing is the paragraph :

" Some years after the above took place, peace with the Indians was restored. That frontier, like many others, became infested with a gang of outlaws, who commenced stealing horses and committing various depredations. To counteract which, a company of regulators, as they were called, was raised. In a contest between these and the depredators, Big Joe Log- ston lost his life, which would not be highly esteemed in civil society. But in frontier settle- ments, which he always occupied, where savages and beasts were to be contested with for the right of soil, the use of such a man is very conspicuous. Without such, the country could never have been cleared of its natural rudeness, so as to admit of the more brilliant and ornamental exercises of arts, sciences and civilization."

Caves .- The caves in Green county are generally smail. That in the edge of Greensburg, with an average height of eight feet and width of ten feet, ex- tends over six hundred yards. More than seventy years ago, in this cave a human skeleton was discovered, in a recess, about which an outer wall of stone had been built by some extinct race. At the extreme limit of the cave is an exhaustless spring of pure water, claimed to be the source of the town spring. Green county abounds in remarkable springs, several of which still furnish ample water-power for mills, and others did so in former years. "The Drip " is the fanciful name of a popular bathing resort, a short distance below Greensburg, where the united waters of three springs fall over a projecting river cliff, like heavy rain, from a height of sixty feet.

Col. War. B. ALLEN was born near Greensburg, Kv., May 19, 1803; edu- cated in the celebrated schools of Rev. John How, of Greensburg, and of Dr. Jas. Priestly, of Nashville, Tenn .; taught school awhile; studied law with Samuel Brents, and began the practice before he was 21: postmaster at Greensburg, 1823-28; representative in Ky. legislature, 1829, and made a speech in favor of a system of common schools ; attorney Greensburg branch of Bank of the Commonwealth, 1829; an editor, 1834; clerk Greensburg branch of Bank of Kentucky, 1835-37, and cashier of same, 1837-57; master in chancery for Green county, 1843-45 ; resumed practice of law, 1858; com- piled " The Kentucky Officer's Guide," 400 pp., 8vo., 1859; county attorney, 1862-70; again master in chancery, 1866-70; was for many years colonel 16th Ky. militia ; and for nearly fifty years has been one of the most active and prominent members and officers of the Masonic order in the state. But the crowning act of a long and useful life is his "History of Kentucky," just issued, Nov., 1872, 449 pp., Svo.

For sketches of some of the distinguished men of Green county-Rev. John How, D.D., Rev. David Rice, Rev. John HI. Brown, D. D., Robert Wickliffe, Col. Wm. Casey, Henry C. Wood-see those names in General Index.

299

GREENUP COUNTY.

GREENUP county, erected in 1803, out of part of Mason county, and named in honor of Gov. Christopher Greenup, was the 45th formed in the state. Part of its original territory has been taken, in forming Lawrence county in 1821, Carter in 1838, and Boyd in 1860. Until the latter was made, Greenup was the extreme N. E. county of the state; it lies on the waters of the Ohio and Little Sandy rivers ; is bounded N. by the Ohio river, E. by Boyd county, s. by Carter, and w. by Lewis county ; is rich in mineral resources-her iron ore being of a very superior character and the supply inexhaustible, while coal is found in great abundance ; there are five blast furnaces in operation, employing a heavy capital and a large number of hands; the water-power of the county is not excelled in the state.

Towns .- Greenup, the county seat-incorporated, Feb. 4, 1818, as Greenupsburg, and always known by that name until an act of the legislature, March 13, 1872, changed it to Greenup (to pre- vent further inconvenience from confounding it in the mails with Greensburg, Green co.)-is 132 miles from Frankfort, 19 miles below Catlettsburg, 13 miles below Ashland, 20 miles above Portsmouth, 72 miles above Maysville, and 133 miles above Cin- cinnati ; is situated on the Ohio river, immediately above the Little Sandy river, on an elevated and beautiful bottom ; popu- lation in 1870, 507. Springville, on the Ohio river, in the lower part of Greenup co., and opposite Portsmouth, Ohio, has about 250 population. Linn, formerly called Liberty, 10 miles s. of Springville and 6 miles w. of Greenup, was famous in 1846 for the number of shoemakers, and the business done in making shoes. Riverton, on the Ohio river, 1} miles above Greenup, is the terminus on the river of the Eastern Kentucky railroad, which is finished to Grayson, Carter co. ; population about 50. Hunnewell, at Hunnewell Furnace, 8 miles s. from Riverton, has the machine shops of the railroad, and is a thriving point ; popn- lation about 400. Laurel Furnace, is 12 miles s., Pennsylvania Furnace 6 miles s. E., Raccoon Furnace 6, and Buffalo Furnace 8 miles s. w. from Greenup. There are other furnaces, out of blast.

STATISTICS OF GREENUP COUNTY.

When formed. See page 26 Corn, wheat, hay, tobacco .. pages 266, 268

.. p. 258 Horses, mules, cattle, hogs -. p. 268

Population, fromn 1810 to 1870. whites and colored. .p. 260 : Taxable property, 1846 and 1870 .... p. 270

towns. .p. 262 ! Land-No. of acres, and value ....... p. 270

white males over 21. .p. 266 : Latitude and longitude. .p. 257

children bet. 6 and 20 .. .. p. 266 : Distinguished citizens .............. sce Index.

MEMBERS OF THE LEGISLATURE FROM GREENUP COUNTY, SINCE 1815.

Senate .- Thompson Ward, 1820-26; John M. McConnell, 1826-30; Win. Conner, 1830-34, '42-46 ; Wm. G. Carter, 1834-38 ; John C. Kouns, 1850 ; Henry M. Rust, 1857-61 ; Wm. J. Worthington, 1863-69.

House of Representatives .- Thompson Ward, 1815, '17, '18, '30 ; Francis II. Gaines, 1816, '20; Thos. T. G. Waring, 1819 ; John M. McConnell, 1822, '24, '25 ; Win. Conner, 1826, '27, '47 ; John C. Kouns, 1828, '29, '31 ; \Samuel Scaton, 1832, '33, '45 } John Hollingsworth, 1834, '35; David Trimble, 1836, '37, '38, '39; Basil Waring, 1540 ;

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Robinson M. Biggs, 1841; Joseph D. Collins, 1842, '43; Jesse Corum, 1844; Jeff. Evans, 1846 ; Jas. W. Davis, 1848 ; Richard Jones, 1849, '55-57 ; Marcus L. Williams, 1850 ; Win. C. Grier, 1851-53; Christopher C. Chinn, 1853-55 ; Joseph Patton, 1857- 59; Wm. C. Ireland, 1859-63 ; Edward F. Dulin, 1863-65 ; John D. Russell, 1865-69 : Jas. L. Waring, 1869-73; Dr. Samuel Ellis, 1873-75.

Greenup County in 1857 .- Three years before the erection of Boyd county, which took off a large portion of the upper or eastern end, Greenup county bordered 40 miles on the Ohio river, with an average width of 12 miles. The principal crop was corn, with about 75,000 bushels of wheat. Eleven steam furnaces were in operation-manufacturing about 1,800 tons of pig iron per annum each ; and 2 more furnaces were out of blast. In the county were 2 iron foundries, 3 steam flouring mills, 4 water saw and grist mills, and. 2 fire-brick factories.

Iron Ores .- Seven varieties of ore from one neighborhood in this county (which then included Boyd) were analyzed by Prof. Robert Peter, in con- nection with the state geological survey ; five of these were hydrated oxides, and two mixed carbonates of iron and oxides of iron. The "big block ore" was the richest, yielding 47.69 per cent. ; and the "red ochre " the poorest, containing only 18.62 per cent. Including this last, the average per cent. of iron which the seven ores yielded was 37.60; or, excluding the red ochre ore, 40.56. These required about one-tenth of limestone as a flux. A yellow limestone ore, in the Greenup hills, contains so large a percentage of car- bonate of lime that it can be worked by itself, without any limestone as a flux. The richest ore found in the county yielded 60.90, and the poorest 11.35 per cent. of iron. At the furnaces, in 1856, the cost of delivering the ore was from $2.25 to $3 per ton ; 200 bushels of charcoal were consumed in making a ton of iron. Dr. Peter ascertained, from chemical analysis of ores from all parts of Greenup county, that they would average at least one-third the weight of iron from the raw ore. "Taking the united thickness of the different beds in a single hill at 5 feet, and the specific gravity of the ore at 3 .- then each acre of land underlaid by these ores is capable of yielding from 6,000 to 7,000 tons of iron, worth in the form of pig iron at least $180,000. The same hills usually contain beds of coal with a united thickness of 5 to 6 feet-which, after deducting for waste and slack, would yield 8,000 to 10,000 tons of coal, worth from $16,000 to $20,000."

Col. Daniel Boone, for a time, just at the close of the last century, was a citizen of Greenup county-living on the bank of the Ohio river, where River- ton now is (the terminus of the Eastern Kentucky railroad), 1} miles above the county seat. In March, 1857, old Mr. Warnock, then 79 years old, made oath that in the fall of 1799 he saw Daniel Boone, at a point 13 miles up Lit- tle Sandy river, cut down a tree out of which to make a canoe ; and that, soon after, he saw Boone in the canoe when he started for his new home in Mis- souri. At that time, 1857, it was contemplated to dig up the roots of the tree, to make up into canes.

The First Village in Kentucky-and the only one village within the borders of the state prior to the settlement at Harrodsburg in 1774-75-was in Greenap county, opposite the then mouth of the Scioto river, where in 1805 stood the little village of Alexandria, about a mile below where Ports- mouth, Ohio, now stands -- built by the Shawnee Indians and some French traders, years before the French war in 1753. It consisted, in 1773, of 19 or 20 log cabins, with clapboard roofs, doors. windows, chimneys, and some cleared ground. There is no evidence of those French traders having ever penetrated into the interior of the state, and the cabins and all vestiges of

such a village disappeared before 1800. On July 23, 1765, Col. Croghan, an agent of the British government among the Indians, was here-with two bat- teaux, at least two white men, and a delegation of Seneca, Shawnee and Del- aware Indians, on his way down the Ohio to the mouth of the Wabash river, thence up that river to Vincennes, and on horseback thenee to Detroit. In his journal, of this date. he says :

"On the Ohio, just below the month of the Scioto, on a high bank, near 40 feet, formerly stood the Shawnesse town called Lower Town-which way all carried away, except 3 or 4 houses, by a great flood in the Scioto. I was in

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GREENUP COUNTY.

the town at the time. Although the banks of the Ohio were so high, yet the water was 9 feet over the top: which obliged the whole town to take to their canoes, and move with their effects to the hills. The Shawnesse afterwards built their town on the opposite side of the river-which during the French war they abandoned (for fear of the Virginians), and removed to the plains on the Scioto."*

Previous to this, on Tuesday, Jan. 29, 1751, Christopher Gist-in a journey "undertaken on the account of the Ohio company," ard having as his " old company the above-named George Croghan, Andrew Montour, Robert Kal- lendar, and a servant to carry their provision "-reached the mouth of "the Sioto creek, opposite to the Shawane town. Here we fired our guns to alarm the traders, who soon answered and came and ferried us over. The land about the mouth of Sioto creek, is rich but broken. fine bottoms upon the river and creek. The Shawane town is situated on both sides of the Ohio, just below the mouth of Sioto creek, and contains about 300 men. There are about 40 houses on the south side of the river, and on the north side about 100, with a kind of state house of about 90 feet long, with a light cover of bark, in which they hold their councils."t

On June 11, 1773, Capt. Thos. Bullitt and Hancock Taylor, both surveyors, each with a surveying party, bound for the Kentucke region, and also the " McAfee company " who had joined them on the Kanawha, were at this place. From the journal of one of the McAfees, the information first above iş taken.

The First White Child, born of American parents, west of the Allegheny mountains-Mrs. Lucy Downs -- was a resident of Old Town, Greennp county, for over 40 years. She was the daughter of Jeremiah and Lucy Virgin, born Sept. 17, 1769, in what is now Fayette county, Pa., near Uniontown, which was then called Beesontown. She removed in 1790, with her parents and brother Brice Virgin, to Limestone, now Maysville, Ky., and thence in 1792 to Cincinnati-where she was married Sept. 20, 1800, under a marriage license issued by Gen. Arthur St. Clair, as governor of the territory of the United States north-west of the Ohio. In June, 1845, part of her regular family at Old Town were her daughter, grand-daughter, and great-grand- daughter; she then distinctly remembered Gen. Washington's visit to her father's and a neighbor's in 1773, when surveying what was afterwards called Washington's Bottom.

Old Town for many years has been claimed to have been, in early times, an Indian village. Old residents, as far back as 1800, considered it such, from all they could learn. Tomahawks, flints, pipes, and other articles of Indian wear and use, were once found there in abundance. If it be true that com- paratively modern Indians ever dwelt there-as they certainly did on the Ohio river opposite the old mouth of the Scioto-this is the only portion of Ken- tucky ever inhabited by them ; except a part of the land along the Cumberland river, south and west of it-which was once the home of the Shawnees, who afterwards emigrated to the Scioto river valley in Ohio. Kentucky was the middle ground where the Indian tribes of the north and the south met to bunt and to fight.

The Fourth White Child born in Kentucky, Mrs. Ann Poage. wife of Gen. John Poage, was a resident of this county from the spring of 1802 (when there were only six families in what is now Greenup county ) until her death, April 24, 1848. She was the daughter of Wm. Pogne, whose family came with Col. Richard Callaway and his family to Boonesborough, in Sept .. 1775. He removed to Harrod's Station, near where Harrodsburg now is, in Feb., 1776-and there this daughter was born, Aug. 26, 1777. Wm. Pogue was shot by Indians, Ang. 25, 1778, while going from Danville to Lincoln court.

Longevity and Numbers .- Mrs. Mary Gray died in Greenup co., Ky., Nov. 25, 1872, aged 113 years 8 months and 16 days. Her mother, Mrs. Bonafil, lived to be 100 years old. Her husband, Thomas Gray, was born in 1755 and died in 1819, aged 64 years. Their first born, a son, lived to the age of 90. Four of their children are now living: Mrs. Elizabeth Gray Smith,

* Journal of Col. Geo. Croghan.

t Journal of Christopher Gist.

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GREENUP COUNTY.

aged 83; Elias Gray, aged 88; Miss Nancy Gray, aged 73; and Joseph Gray, aged 70. Mary Gray's descendants are : 1st generation, children 13; 2d generation, grandchildren 65; 3d generation, great-grandchildren 617; 4th generation, great-great-grandchildren 337; 5th generation, great-great-great- grandchildren 44; total 1,076.

The accompanying sketch is a modified view of the remarkable works known in the " Ancient Monnments of the Mississippi Valley " as the Ports- mouth Group. We have condensed the description given by Prof. C. S. Rafin- esque, about 1820, and preserved in the splendid collection of the works of the Pre-Historic Inhabitants of the Ohio Valley.

The beautiful plain at the confluence of the Scioto and Ohio rivers, where the flourishing city of Portsmouth, Ohio, is located, is the site of a remarkably interesting series of works. They consist of three groups, extending along the Ohio river for 8 miles, and connected by parallel lines of embankments. Two of these groups are on the Kentucky side; the larger and connecting one on the Ohio side. The engraving shows the relative positions and general plan. Many persons have assigned them a military origin, but many others ascribe them to the superstitious notions of the mound-builders. The total length of the parallels traceable in 1820 was about 8 miles, giving to the parallels 16 miles of embankment, and, including the walls of the entire series, a grand total of upwards of 20 miles.

Group A occurs on the Ky. side of the Ohio, opposite the old mouth of the Scioto, and two miles below the city of Portsmouth. The terrace on which it is situated is some 50 feet higher than the first bottom and extends back to the hills, which at this point are some distance from the river. It is much cut up by ravines, and is quite uneven. The principal work is an exact rectangle, 800 feet square. The walls are about 12 feet high, by 35 or 40 feet of base. At the southern angle is a bastion, which commands the hollow way or ditch between the south-eastern wall and the terrace bank. The wall here is not more than 3 feet high. On the south-western side is a sort of runway, resembling a ditch. The outworks-the most singular feature of this structure-consist of parallel walls, 30 feet apart, and each 2,100 feet long, leading N. E. and s. w., and exactly parallel to the sides of the main work. The parallel to the s. w. is broken by a deep ravine, 400 or 500 feet wide, near its extremity. On the plain beyond, are two clay mounds ; also, a small circle 100 feet in diameter, with walls 2 feet high. The parallel to the N. E. starts from the center of the main work, and is interrupted by two ravines-the walls running to their very edges.

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Collins historical sketches of Kentucky. History of Kentucky: Vol. II, Part 47

Author: Collins, Lewis, 1797-1870. cn; Collins, Richard H., 1824-1889. cn Publication date: 1874 Publisher: Covington, Ky., Collins & Co. Number of Pages: 1654

Author: Collins, Lewis, 1797-1870. cn; Collins, Richard H., 1824-1889. cn
Publication date: 1874
Publisher: Covington, Ky., Collins & Co.
Number of Pages: 1654