Collins historical sketches of Kentucky. History of Kentucky: Vol. II, Part 73

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 73

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" Fellow citizens !- Being one of the first, after Colonel Daniel Boone, who aided in the conquest of Kentucky, and the west, I am called upon to address you. My heart melts on such an occasion ; I look forward to the contemplated meeting with melancholy pleasure ; it has caused tears to flow in copious showers. I wish to see once more before I die, my few surviving friends. My solemn promise, made fifty years ago, binds me to meet them. I ask not for myself ; but you may find in our assembly some who have never received any pay or pension, who have sustained the cause of their country, equal to any other service ; who in the decline of life are poor. Then, you prosperous sons of the west, forget not those old and gray-headed veterans on this occasion ; let them return to their families with some

* He died as the troops descended the hill where Cincinnati now stands, and was buried near the block-house at the month of the Licking, on the Kentucky side.

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little manifestation of your kindness to cheer their hearts. I add my prayer . . nay kind heaven grant us a clear sky, fair and pleasant weather-a safe journey and a happy meeting, and smile upon us and our families, and bless us and our nation on the approaching occasion.

Jimin Janton

URBANA, Ohio, 1832.

The day at last came so long looked for by our "old fathers of the west," and the terrible cholera, more barbarous than the savages, who fifty years before bat- tled the pioneers, spread death far and wide over the west, sparing neither age nor sex. Cincinnati was wrapt in gloom, yet many of the veteran patriots assem- bled, and the corporation voted them a dinner. General Kenton, in spite of his ardent desire, was unable from sickness and old age, to attend. He met his beloved companions no more until he met them in the spirit land.

After the volunteers disbanded at the mouth of Licking, Kenton returned to Harrod's station. He had acquired many valuable tracts of land, now becoming of importance, as population began to flow into the country with a rapid in- crease, as the sounds of savage warfare grew fainter in the distance. He set- tled on his lands on Salt river, and being joined by a few families in 1782-3, he built some rude block-houses, cleared land, and planted corn. His settlement thrived wonderfully. In the fall, having gathered his corn, he determined to visit his father, ascertain his circumstances, and bring him to Kentucky. He had not seen his family for thirteen years, a period to him full of dangers, sufferings and triumphs. Who can paint the joy of the returning adventurer, young in years, but old in deeds and reputation, on reaching home, to find that his aged father "yet lived." The reunion was joyful to all, especially so to his friends, who had long considered him dead. He visited with delight the friends and the scenes of his early childhood, so different from his boisterous manhood, and the gaunt- let, the stake, and the fierce foray, and the wild war-whoop were to him as the confused image of some uneasy dream. Veach and the ungracious fair one, his first love, were still living ; he saw them, and each forgot the old feud.

He gathered up his father and family and proceeded as far as Redstone Fort, journeying to Kain-tuck-ee, where his old father died, and was buried on the winding banks of the Monongahela, without marble or inscription to mark the last resting place of the father of the great pioneer. Kenton, with the remainder of his father's family, reached his settlement in safety in the winter of 1784.

Kentucky was now a flourishing territory, and emigrants came flocking in to appropriate her fertile lands. Kenton determined to occupy his lands, around his old camp, near Maysville, remarkable for their beauty and fertility. This part of Kentucky was still uninhabited, and infested by the Indians. In July, 1784, collecting a small party of adventurers, he went to his old camp, one mile from Washington, in Mason county. 'The Indians being too troublesome, the party returned to Salt river. In the fall of the same year Kenton returned, built some block-houses, and was speedily joined by a few families. In the spring of '85, many new settlements were made around Kenton's station, and that part of the country soon assumed a thriving appearance, in spite of the incursions of the savages. In 1786, Kenton sold (or according to M'Donald), GAVE Arthur Fox and William Wood one thousand acres of land, on which they laid out the town of Washington; "Old Ned Waller" had settled at Limestone (Maysville) the year before.

The Indians were too badly crippled, by Clark's last expedition, to offer any considerable opposition to the settlers ; nevertheless, they were exceedingly trou- blesome, during their many small predatory incursions, and plied the fashionable trade of horse-stealing with praiseworthy activity. . To put a stop to such pro- ceedings. on the part of their red neighbors, an expedition, seven hundred strong, composed of volunteers from all the surrounding stations, assembled at Washing- ton under the command of Colonel Logan. Fighting, in those days, cost our affectionate "Uncle Sam" very little, as every man paid his own war expenses.

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Kenton commanded a company from his settlement, and. as usual, piloted the way into the enemy's country. The expedition fell upon Mackacheek and Pick- away very suddenly, defeated the Indians with considerable loss, burnt four other towns, without resistance, and returned to Washington with only ten men killed and wounded.

Notwithstanding this successful blow, the Indians, all next year, kept the inhabitants around Kenton's station in perpetual alarm. Kenton (1787) called on the stations to rendezvous at Washington, for the purpose of punishing the In- dians, by " carrying the war into Africa ;" a trick he had learned from his old commander, General Clark. It was essentially to the interest of the interior stations to see Kenton's well sustained, as thereby the savages were kept at a distance from them. They were, consequently, always ready to render their more exposed brethren any assistance required. Several hundred hardy hunters, under Colonel Todd, assembled again at Washington. Kenton again commanded his company, a gallant set of young men, trained by himself, and piloted the expedition. Near Chillicothe a detachment, led by majors Hinkson and Kenton, fell upon a large body of Indians, about day-break, and defeated them before Todd came up. Chillicothe was burned down, and the expedition returned without losing a man.

The pioneers had now become formidable to the Indians, and kept them at bay. Kenton's station was a frontier for the interior settlements, and manfully beat back the foe, in his incursions into the State. The country around Washington was fast filling up, and bid fair soon to be in a condition to set the Indian at defiance. Kenton, universally esteemed and beloved, was acknowledged to be the chief man in the community. His great experience and reputation as a fron- tier man ; his superior courage and skill in the fight, as well as the extent of his possessions, rendered him conspicuous. In all the incursions made into the country of the enemy, and the many local contests that took place with the Indi ans, Captain Kenton was invariably the leader selected by the settlers.

From 1788 to 1793, many small but bloody conflicts came off around the set- tlements in Mason county, in which the Indians were severely punished by Cap- tain Kenton and his volunteers. In 1793 the Indians made the last incursion into this, or perhaps any other part of Kentucky. On that occasion (see Mason county ) Kenton ambushed them at the place where they crossed the Ohio, killed six of the party, and dispersed the remainder. They never afterwards invaded the long contested shore of their beloved hunting ground. After a desperate and sanguinary struggle of more than twenty years, Kain-tuck-ee, "the dark and bloody ground," was lost to the red man forever. The Saxon, in his insatiable thirst for land, had felled her forests, driven out her elk and buffalo, ploughed up her virgin sod, polluted her soil with the unfamiliar city and village, and in the blood of the red man written his title to the country, which he held with a grasp of iron. Cornstalk, Blackfish, Logan, Little Turtle, Elinipsico, Meshawah. the young Tecumseh, and the thousand north-western braves, bled in vain. Equal courage, superior intellect, and the destiny of the Saxon, overthrew the heroism. the perseverance, and the despair of the sons of the forest.

In 1793, General Wayne came down the Ohio to prepare for his successful ex- pedition. Kenton, at that time a major, joined Wayne with his battalion, and proceeded to Greenville, where he was conspicuous among the hardy hunters composing the army, on account of his superior reputation, courage, skill. and activity. He was not in the battle of the Fallen Timber, having been discharged with his battalion the winter previous. The Indians, being defeated by Wayne, and their power completely broken, sued for peace, which was granted, and the war was over.

. Kentucky and the west, after the peace of Greenville, rushed forward with rapid strides in the career of population and wealth. Emigrants came pouring over the Alleghanies into the fertile valley of the Ohio, to occupy the beautiful " land of the cane." These lands rose rapidly in price and importance, and Ken- ton was now thought to be one of the wealthiest men in his State, and deserved to be so, for he had purchased his wealth by many a bloody conflict, and by many incredible hardships. But behold the gratitude of his countrymen !

The crafty offsprings of peace, who slept in the lan of eastern ease and secu- rity, while this noble pioneer was enduring the hardships of the wilderness, and

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braving the gauntlet, and stake, and tomahawk of the Indian to redeem the soil of the west, creep in when the fight, and toil, and danger are past, and by dis- honorable trick, miserable technicality, and cunning procedure, wrest the pos- sessions bought at such a terrible price from the gallant, unlettered, simple hearted man, unversed in the rascality of civilization. He lost his lands acre after acre, the superior skill of the speculator prevailing over the simplicity and ignorance of the hunter. What a burning, deep disgrace to the west, that the hero who had suffered so much and fonght so well to win the soil of his glorious "cane land " from the savage, should, when the contest was ended, be compelled to leave it to those who never struck a blow in its defence ! Together with Boone and numerous other brave old frontier men, who bore " the heat and burden of the day," Kenton, like an old shoe, was kicked aside when he was no longer of any use, or had become too antiquated for the fashion of the times. Kentucky treated her earliest and staunchest defenders scarcely so well as they treated their dogs-after running down the game, she denied thein the very offal.

The fate of General Simon Kenton was still more hard than that of the other simple hearted fathers of the west. His body was taken for debt upon the cov- enants in deeds to lands, which he had, in effect, given away, and for twelve months he was imprisoned, upon the very spot where he first built his cabin in '75-where he planted the first corn ever planted on the north of the Kentucky river by the hand of any white man-where he ranged the pathless forest in free- dom and safety-where he subsequently erected his foremost station house, and battled the Indians in an hundred encounters, and, nearly alone, endured the hardships of the wilderness, while those who then reaped the fruits of his for- mer sufferings were yet unborn, or dwelt afar in the lap of peace and plenty.

In 1799, beggared by law-suits and losses, he moved into Ohio, and settled in Urbana. He was no longer young, and the prospect of spending his old age in independence, surrounded by plenty and comfort, which lightened the toils and sufferings of his youth. was now succeeded by cheerless anticipations of poverty and neglect. Thus, after thirty years of the prime of his life, spent faithfully in the cause of Kentucky and the west, all that remained to him was the recollec- tion of his services, and a cabin in the wilderness of Ohio. He himself never repined, and such was his exalted patriotism, that he would not suffer others to upbraid his country in his presence, without expressing a degree of anger alto- gether foreign from his usual mild and amiable manner. It never occurred to his ingenuous mind that his country could treat any body, much less him, with neg- lect, and his devotion and patriotism continued to the last unimpaired.

In 1805, he was elected a brigadier general in the Ohio militia, and in 1810 he joined the Methodist Episcopal church. It is a consoling fact, that nearly all the " old fathers of the west" devoted the evening of their stormy lives to the service of their Maker, and died in the triumphs of the Christian faith. In 1813, the gallant old man joined the Kentucky troops under Governor Shelby, into whose family he was admitted as a privileged member, and was in the battle of the Thames. This was his last battle, and from it the old hero returned to ob- scurity and poverty in his humble cabin in the woods. He remained in Urbana till 1820, when he moved to the head of Mad river, Logan county, Ohio, in sight of Wapatomika, where he had been tied to the stake by the Indians when a prisoner in their hands. Here he was harassed by judgments and executions from Ken- tucky, and to prevent being driven from his cabin by his white brethren, (as fo !- merly by the savages) to the forest for a shelter, he was compelled to have some land entered in the name of his wife and children. He still had many tracts of mountain land in Kentucky of little value, which, however, were forfeited to the State for taxes. In 1824, then seventy years of age, he undertook a journey to Frankfort, in tattered garments and on a sorry horse, to endeavor to get the legis- lature, then in session, to release the claim of the State on his mountain lands.

Here, where he had roved in an unbroken wilderness in the early day, now stood a flourishing city, but he walked up and down its streets, an object of curiosity to the boys, a stranger, recognized by no one. "A new generation had arisen to people and possess the land which he had defended, and his old friends and com- panions were gone. At length General Z'homas Fletcher, from Bath county, saw and knew him, and by his means the old pioneer was clothed in a decent suit. and entertained in a kind and becoming manner. When it became known that

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Simon Kenton was in the town, numbers speedily assembled to see the celebra- ted warrior and hunter, and testify their regard for him. He was taken to the capitol and placed in the speaker's chair, "and then was introduced the second great adventurer of the west, to a crowded assembly of legislators, judges, offi- cers of the government, and citizens generally." This the simple hearted old man was wont to call " the proudest day" of his life. His lands were at once released, and shortly afterwards, by the exertions of Judge Burnet and General Vance of Congress, a pension of two hundred and forty dollars a year was ob- tained for him, securing his old age from absolute want.

Without any further reward from his government, or particular notice from his fellow-citizens and contemporaries, General Kenton lived in his quiet and obscure home to the age of eighty-one, beloved and respected by all who knew him; 29th April, 1836, in sight of the place where the Indians, fifty-eight years before, pro- posed to torture him to death, he breathed his last, surrounded by his family and neighbors, and supported by the consolations of the gospel.

The following is a description of the appearance and character of this remark- able man, by one who often shared with him in the dangers of the forest and the fight:

" General Kenton was of fair complexion, six feet one inch in height. He stood and walked very erect ; and, in the prime of life, weighed about one hundred and ninety pounds. He never was inclined to be corpulent, although of sufficient fullness to form a graceful per- son. He had a soft, tremulous voice, very pleasing to the hearer. He had laughing, gray eyes, which appeared to fascinate the beholder, and dark auburn hair. He was a pleasant, good-humored, and obliging companion. When excited, or provoked to anger, (which was seldom the case). the fiery glance of his eye would almost curdle the blood of those with whom he came in contact. His rage, when roused, was a tornado. In his dealing, he was perfectly honest ; his confidence in man, and his credulity, were such, that the same man might cheat him twenty times; and if he professed friendship, he might cheat him still."

The thing which strikes us most forcibly, in contemplating the lives of the great leading men, who pioneered the march of civilization to the west, is their complete simplicity of character. Some have not hesitated to pronounce this stupidity, but we can not agree with them. The pioneers of the west, in addi- tion to a plentiful lack of education and mental discipline, were certainly chil- dren in their knowledge of the great book of human nature. Still the courage, skill, sagacity, perseverance and endurance exhibited in their life of privation and danger, prove them to have been men of no ordinary mould, and the same intellectual and physical forces called into action in any other sphere of life, expressed with the same energy, would have rendered their possessors distin- guished.

We can easily see how unfit for civilized life, were Boone and Kenton, sud- denly transposed from an almost primitive and savage state of society, unsophis- ticated and simple-minded as they were. The great questions of property, regu- lated by law, and liberty, regulated by policy. in their profound mysteries, were to them as sealed books : they had not studied them ; but for more than twenty years, battling with the savages. and enduring bitter privations with constant and necessary activity, they lived in the free wilderness, where action was unfettered by law, and where property was not controlled by form and technicality, but rest- ed on the natural and broader foundation of justice and convenience. They knew how to beat back the invader of their soil, or repel the aggression of the private wrong-doer-they knew how to bear down a foe in the open field, or circumvent him by stratagem, or destroy him by ambush. But they knew not how to swindle a neighbor out of his acres, by declaration, demurrer, plea and replication, and all the scientific pomp of chicanery-they knew not how damages could salve a pri- vate injury or personal wrong, or how the verdict of a jury could remove the poison from the tongue of the slanderer, or medicine the incurable wounds inflicted by the seducer. Hence, in the broad and glorious light of civilization, they were stupid. Their confidence in men, their simplicity. their stupidity, by whatever name proper to call it, rendered them an easy prey to selfish and un- principled speculators. Certain it is, that hundreds arose to prey upon the sim- ple Fathers of the West ; and they were driven out in their old age yet farther into the wilderness. Instead of seeing their children possess and people the beauti- ful land won by their fathers, after so long and terrible a conflict, we see them.

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like their sires, on the borders of civilization, beating back the savage, them- selves ever driven back by that wave of population which follows on their steps, by a strange decree, the exterminators of the red man, soon thereafter, them- selves to be exterminated.

It is now perhaps too late, to repair the injustice done to these old heroes by the west ; yet one act remains to Kentucky, demanded alike by gratitude and a just sense of honor. It is to gather up the sacred remains of Simon Kenton, from their last, obscure resting place, and placing them in the cemetery of her capi- tal, in the bosom of that beloved soil which he was among the first and stoutest to defend; to erect a monument over his grave, commemorating throughout all succeeding years the services and virtues of her Great Pioneer. Will it ever be done ?

BANK LICK is a beautiful stream, emptying into the Licking river, five miles from its confluence with the Ohio, in Kenton county. This stream received its name from the early settlers, and its banks have, doubtless, been trodden by Boone and Kenton. The engraving represents a scene on this stream, about a mile above its junction with the Licking. The picture is by Frankenstein, 2 young artist of Cincinnati.

VIEW OF BANK LICK, KENTON CO., KY.

455

KNOX COUNTY.

KNOX county, the 41st erected in the state, was formed in 1799, out of Lincoln county. It is situated in the extreme southeastern part of the state (separated only by Josh Bell county from Cum- berland Gap), and lies on both sides of the Cumberland river ; is bounded N. by Laurel and Clay counties, E. and s. by Josh Bell, and w. by Whitley and Laurel. The face of the country, except on the river bottoms, is hilly and mountainous ; the staple product is corn, while hogs and cattle are raised in large numbers.

Barboursville, the county seat, is situated on the right bank of the Cumberland river, about 150 miles from Frankfort, 28 miles S. E. of London, Laurel co., and 32 N. E. of Cumberland Gap; established in 1812; population in 1870, 438, nearly doubled in ten years.

STATISTICS OF KNOX COUNTY.

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

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

Population, from 1800 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 Latitude and longitude p. 257

white males over 21 .p. 266

children bet. 6 and 20 ..... p. 266

Distinguished citizens. ..... see Index.

MEMBERS OF THE LEGISLATURE FROM KNOX COUNTY, SINCE 1815.

Senate .- Jos. Eve, 1817-21 ; Richard Ballinger, 1821-26; John P. Bruce, 1848, '50 ; Radford M. Cobb, 1851-55. From Knox, Laurel, Rockcastle, and Whitley counties -- Jos. Gilless, 1842-45. [See Harlan co.]

House of Representatives .- Jos. Eve, 1815 ; Hiram Jones, 1816 : Jos. Parsons, 1817, '18; Jas. F. Ballinger, 1819; Westley M. Garnett, 1822; Henry Tuggle, 1831, '32; John P. Bruce, 1837; Green Adams, 1839, '40 ; Jas. Hayes, 1841; Silas Woodson, 1842, '53-55 ; Radford M. Cobb, 1846 ; Wm. D. Miller, 1849; Jas. W. Davis, 1857-59, '63-65 ; John Word, 1859-61 ; Jas. W. Anderson, 1861-63; Wm. B. Anderson, 1865-67 ; Dempsey King, 1867-69. From Knox and Whitley counties-Dr. -. Wil- son, 1834. [See Harlan co.] From Knox and Harlan counties-Andrew Craig, 1820, '21. From Knox-W. W. Sawyers, 1873-75.

Fortification .- Three miles from Barboursville, on the N. bank of the Cum- berland river, there are the remains of an ancient fortress-around which a circular ditch, enclosing about four acres of ground, was discernible as late as 1840.

Prominent Men .- Barboursville has been the home of a number of distin- guished men : JOSEPH EVE represented Knox county for some ten years in the house of representatives and senate of Kentucky, was circuit judge for many years, and in 1841 appointed by President Harrison Charge d'affaires to the republic of Texas, and died in that service. FRANKLIN BALLINGER served in the state senate, and was circuit judge for many years. SAMUEL F. MILLER, who married, and for some years practiced law, in Barboursville before his removal to Iowa, is now one of the ablest of the justices of the U. S. su- preme court. GREEN ADAMS was a representative in congress for four years, - 1847-49, 1859-61, and appointed by President Lincoln 6th auditor of the U. S. treasury. His nephew, GEORGE MADISON ADAMS enjoys the remarkable popularity and distinction of being one of only 19 members of the lower house of congress (out of the entire number of 183 from Kentucky in 83 years) who were chosen for 8 years-James B. Beck, also being chosen, and Garret Davis, Matthew Lyon, Samuel McKee (1809-17), Thos. P/ Moore, and Jos. R. Under- wood. having served for 8 years, Jas. Clark and' Henry Grider for 9, John Fowler, Ben. Hardin, Robert P. Letcher, Thos. Metcalfe, David Trimble, and John White for 10, Ifenry Clay for 11. Chas. A. Wickliffe for 12, Linn Boyd

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for 18, and Richard M. Johnson for 20 years. SILAS WOODSON represented Knox county in the legislature for some years, was a delegate to the conven- tion in 1849-50 which formed the present Constitution of Kentucky and the only member of that body who was in favor of the gradual emancipation of the slaves; he emigrated to northwest Missouri, was a Southern man in the times of " border ruffianism " in Kansas, circuit judge of an important district, and is now (March, 1873) governor of that great state.

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Collins historical sketches of Kentucky. History of Kentucky: Vol. II, Part 73

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