Collins historical sketches of Kentucky. History of Kentucky: Vol. II, Part 83

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 83

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Jediah Ashcraft,

Wm. Fields, Wm. Gaffata,

John Maxwell,

Samuel Pottinger,

Thomas Bathugh,

Joseph Gwynne

Wm. McElroy,

Isaac Pritchard,

John Beesor,

John Hardin,

Hugh McMillion,

Archibald Reeves,

David Brooks,

Jehu Harlan,

Elijah Mills,

Wm. Rice,

Edward Brownfield, Silas Harlan,

John Mills,

John Severn,

James Calley,

James Harrod,

John Moore,

Wm. Shepherd,

John Camron,

Levi Harrod,

Samuel Moore,

John Simms, sen.,

J. Zebulon Collins, Herman Consoley, John Conway,

Wm. Hartley,

Thomas Moore,

Adam Sınith, Henry Thomas,

Leonard Cooper,

Meredith Helm, Jr., Ralph Naylor,

Michael Thomas,

John Corby,

Abraham Hite, Jr.,

Robert Naylor,

Moses Thomas,

Charles Cracraft,

Andrew House,

Barnet Neal,

Samuel Thomas,

Wm. Crow,

John House, Simeon House,

Richard Owen,

George Uland, Abraham Vanmeter,

Thomas Dean,

Wm. House,

Benjamin Parkison,

Barnard Walter,

Robert Doak,

James Hughes,

Joseph Parkison,

James Willie,

Patrick Doran,

Arthur Ingram,

Thomas Parkison,

Thomas Wilson,

Benjah Dunn,

Thomas Kennedy, John Kilpatrick,

Wm. Parkison,

Wm. Wood, S

John Dunn,

Peter Paul,

Conrad Woolter.

The date of the foregoing rather energetic protest-signed by 84 men, mostly in and around Harrodsburg, of whom only a few ever became promi- nent citizens-has not been preserved. From internal evidence, and from a letter to the proprietors of Transylvania colony from Col. John Williams, himself one of the proprietors and their agent, dated Boonesborough, Jan. 3, 1776, it would seem to have been written about Dec., 1775. In that letter, Col. Williams complains of " a small party about Harrodsburg who, it seems, have been entering into a confederacy not to hold lands on any other terms ' than those of the first year. .. . The principal man, I am told, at the head of this confederacy, is one Hite ; and him I make no doubt but to convince he is in an error.

A Meeting of the Proprietors of Transylvania was held at their old home in Oxford, Granville county, North Carolina, on Monday, Sept. 25, 1775-at which seven were present, of the nine. Col. Richard Henderson, Col. Thomas Hart, and Capt. John Luttrell had returned from Kentucky, for the purpose of. the meeting. Capt. Nathaniel Hart and his brother David remained in Kentucky. At this meeting, whose action had an important bearing on the success of their scheme of aggrandizement in the west-

Col. John Williams was constituted the agent of the company and general manager of their business interests in Kentucky, whither he was to remove immediately and remain until April 12, 1776, at a salary for that term of £150 proclamation money of North Carolina-payable out of the profits aris- ing from the sale of lands after discharging the company's present engage- ments. In the event of his death or removal, Col. Richard Henderson, Capt. Nathaniel Hart, and Capt. John Luttrell, or any one of them, were to be temporarily agents for the company.

James Hogg was appointed to represent the colony of Transylvania in the Continental Congress then sitting at Philadelphia; he was to bear to that body a memorial "requesting that Transylvania be added to the number of the united Colonies," and Mr. Hogg be admitted to a seat as their delegate-

Hall's Sketches of History in the West, vol. ii, pp. 236-239.

Joseph Lyon,

Jesse Pigman, -

Robert Atkinson,

Wm. Harrod,

Simon Moore,

Henry Simons,

John Helm,

. Wm. Myers,

Adam Neilson,

Benjamin Davis,

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MADISON COUNTY.

representing that " the memorialists having made this purchase from the ab- origines and immemorial possessors, the sole and uncontested owners of the country, in fair and open treaty, and without the violation of any British or American law whatever, are determined to give it up only with their lives."

The agent was prohibited from granting any lands adjoining salt springs, gold, silver, copper, lead, or sulphur mines ; and all deeds were to reserve to the proprictors one-half of all gold, silver, copper, lead, and sulphur mines. He was to appoint one or more surveyors-who should make all surveys " by the four cardinal points, except where rivers or mountains make it too incon- venient." Surveys on navigable rivers should extend two poles out for one pole along the river, and other surveys not be above one-third longer than wide. The price of lands until June 1, 1776, was fixed at £2} sterling ($12.10) per hundred acres, and $8 fees for each survey-an average of about 133 cents per acre. Besides this, an annual quit-rent should be reserved of two shillings sterling (nearly 50 cents) per 100 acres, or half a cent per acre- but this rent not to begin until the year 1780. At these rates, any settler before June, 1776, was privileged to take up not over 640 acres for himself, and for each taxable person he might take with him and settle there 320 acres more. Any person who should not immediately settle might buy not over 5,000 acres, at £33 per 100 acres (about 17 cents per acre).

Col. Henderson was directed to survey not less than 200,000 acres for the company, to be equally divided between them; and each of the members might lay off not over 2,000 acres for himself. A present of 2,000 acres was made to Col. Daniel Boone for his "signal services." The thanks of the company were presented to Col. Richard Callaway "for his spirited and manly behavior in behalf of the colony," and a present made to his youngest son of 640 acres [none to himself]. A present of 640 acres was tendered to Rev. Henry Patilio, on condition he would settle in the colony (which he never did).

Precisely what inducements Col. Henderson and company held out to the large number of persons whom they induced to immigrate to Kentucky in 1775 does not appear. In their memorial to congress, Jan. 6, 1795, they claim to have " hired between 200 and 300 men," to go to Kentucky, begin the settle- ment at Boonesborough, build a fort, etc. Gen. Benjamin Logan, one of the earliest and most influential of the settlers, deposed, June 20, 1798, that " Col. Henderson & Co. offered 640 acres as a gratuity to those who raised eorn in 1775 or 1776-one or both of those years, but i am not certain which. They also sold land in larger quantities by entries." At the meeting at Oxford, N. C., above mentioned, Sept. 25, 1775, they evidently made a serious change in their programme or terms; but did not indicate their first offers. It was the action of this meeting which precipitated the sharp protest above, and helped to concentrate the opposition of the settlers about Harrodsburg.

Non-success of the Colony of Transylvania .- It would be singular, indeed, if so spirited and significant a demonstration of opposition to the proprietary government of Transylvania, or Col. Henderson & Co., were the only evidence of its want of acceptability to the adventurers and emigrants to Kentucky. It was not only not heartily supported by any portion of the people, but was positively unacceptable. The proprietors themselves, who had come out to foster and build up an enterprise which at one time promised magnificent results, were men of no ordinary character. Col. Richard Henderson, the three brothers Hart (Thomas, Nathaniel, and David), Capt. John Luttrell, and Col. John Williams, were all men of great energy and decision. Col. Hen- derson (see sketch under Henderson county) died at his home in Granville, N. C., Jan. 30, 1785; Nathaniel Hart was killed by Indians, just outside of his White Oak Spring fort, about a mile above Boonesborough, in Aug., 1782; John Luttrell was killed by the tories in the Revolution, near his home in North Carolina, in 1781; John Williams became a judge in North Carolina in 1777, and a member of the Continental Congress in 1778; Thos. Hart was a member of the provincial congress of North Carolina in 1774, and a Revo- lutionary officer some years later. They seemed discouraged by the opposi- tion that was gradually developed to their government, and did not rise in energy equal to the occasion. This may have been because the very founda-

513

MADISON COUNTY.

tion upon which they were building was slippery and unsubstantial-because their co-proprietor, James Hogg, whom they commissioned as a delegate to the Continental Congress from the colony of Transylvania, was not invited to a seat in that body-because their approaches to the provincial congress of Virginia were not encouraged by Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson, whom they first sought to convince of the wisdom and justice of their enter- prise-and because Gov. Josiah Martin, of North Carolina (an Englishman by birth and a soldier by profession, with the most rigid notions of govern- mental sovereignty), promptly issued his proclamation in 1775, declaring illegal the Watauga purchase from the Cherokee Indians so far as it embraced lands now in Tennessee but then the western extension or portion of that state, as the Kentucky country was of Virginia ; and not because they were appalled or disheartened by the rising difficulties all around them in their Transylvania colony. The strong men-the men of force and brains-who adventured into the wilderness, were not attracted to Boonesborough, but rather repelled. Such men, the world over, will not voluntarily go where from the nature of things they must be overshadowed. They shrink from an unequal contest. They will not fight against hope. They will dare any thing in a field that is inviting. They sought Harrodsburg, Logan's Station, Mc- Connell's Station and Lexington, Beargrass and the Falls. The proprietors of Transylvania did not grapple such men to them with hooks of steel. Their movement evidently did not proceed from the people, was not for the good of the greatest number. There was at bottom, cropping out through it every- where, a selfishness and a contractedness that did not consist with the largest liberty ideas which obtained a few miles further west. The only man of note after Daniel Boone (and his mission of opening a road was already finished) whom they propitiated, was Col. John Floyd; and that was in a subordinate position, as a surveyor-which involved faithful labor, but did not draw to them and develop for them his brains and influence.

Col. Henderson and his partners were too well read, too observing, and too good judges of human nature, to hope for success against the power of the state. As soon as they realized that they could not be upheld and acknowl. edged in their claim to sovereignty, and that the state of Virginia whenever suitable occasions for legislation presented never ceased or hesitated to exer- cise her right of sovereignty, they quietly abandoned some of their preten- tious claims, and acted wisely in locating and preempting, each for himself, 400 and 1,000 acres of land, as provided for in the laws of Virginia. They exerted themselves-in perfect good faith to those who had entered land in their land-office, and paid the fees they charged-in endeavoring to procure from the state of Virginia an official acknowledgment of their own title to these lands as owners. They failed in this, too-a step that would have been wise on the part of the state, at once conciliating and assuring all who had ventured their lives and their property in a well-meant effort to secure a home and lands in the new El Dorado. Instead of promptly disavowing the acts of Henderson & Co., it was not until Wednesday, Nov. 4, 1778, that the Virginia house of delegates

"Resolved-That all purchases of lands, made or to be made, of the Indians within the chartered bounds of this commonwealth, as described by the constitution or form of government, by any private persons not authorized by public authority, are void.

"Resolved-That the purchases heretofore made by Richard Henderson and Company, of that tract of land called Transylvania within this commonwealth, of. the Cherokee Indians, is void. But as the said Richard Henderson and Company have been at very great expense in making the said purchase, and in settling the said lands-by which this commonwealth is likely to receive great advantage, by increasing its inhabitants and establishing a barrier against the Indians-it is just and reasonable to allow the said Richard Hen- derson and Company a compensation for their trouble and expense."

-Whichi action of the house, on Tuesday, Nov. 17, 1778, was "agreed to by the senate." Accordingly, not long after, rehearsing the second reso- lution above ---

II ... 33

514

MADISON COUNTY.

" It was enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia, That all that tract of land situate, lying, and being on the waters of the Ohio and Green rivers, bounded as follows, to wit: Beginning at the mouth of Green river; thence running up the same twelve and a half miles when reduced to a straight line; thence running at right angles with the said reduced lines twelve and a half miles on each side the said river; thence running lines from the ter- mination of the line extended on each side the said Green river, at right angles with the same, till the said lines intersect the Ohio, which said Ohio shall be the western boundary of the said tract-be, and the same is hereby granted the said Richard Henderson and Company, and their heirs, as tenants in common ; subject to the payment of the same taxes as other lands in this commonwealth are, but under such limitation of time, as to the settling the said lands, as shall be hereafter directed by the General Assembly.

" But this grant shall, and it is hereby declared to, be in full compensation to the said Richard Henderson and Company and their heirs, for their charge and trouble, and for all advantage accruing therefrom to this commonwealth ; and they are hereby excluded from any further claim to lands, on account of any settlement or improvements heretofore made by them, or any of them, on the lands so as aforesaid purchased from the Cherokee Indians."*

The First Ferry established in the now state of Kentucky by act of the Virginia legislature, was in Oct., 1779, "at the town of Boonesborough, in the county of Kentucky, across Kentucky river, to the land on the opposite shore-the price for a man three shillings [50 cents], and for a horse the same; the keeping of which ferry, and emoluments arising therefrom, are hereby given and granted to Richard Callaway, his heirs or assigns, so long as he or they shall well and faithfully keep the same according to the direc- tions of this act." [Only 8 other ferries were established by the state of Virginia, up to 1792, when Kentucky became a state. These were, in 1785, across the Kentucky river, to James Hogan, at the mouth of Hickman's creek in now Jessamine co; to David Crews, at the mouth of Jack's creek in now Madison co; to Wm. Steele, at Stone Lick ; and two over the Ohio river to John Campbell, one each to the mouths of Silver creek and Mill run; in 1786, to Jolin Curd, over the Kentucky river at the month of Dick's river, and one to James Wilkinson, at Frankfort; and in 1791, to Joseph Martin, across Cumberland river.]

Boonesborough, " on the Kentucky river, in the county of Kentucky," was "established a town, for the reception of traders," by act of the Virginia legislature in Oct., 1779-in accordance with the petition of the inhabitants. Twenty acres had already been laid off into lots and streets, 50 more were directed to be so laid off, and the balance of 640 acres (570 more) were to be laid off for "a common." Lots were " to be conveyed to the persons first making application-subject to the condition of building within three years on each lot a dwelling-house at least 16 feet square, with a brick, stone, or dirt chimney." Richard Callaway, Chas. Minn Thruston, Levin Powell, Ed- mund Taylor, James Estre [mistake for Estill], Edward Bradley, John Ken- nedy, David Gist [mistake for Gass], Pemberton Rollins, and Daniel Boone, gentlemen, were appointed trustees, but refused to act; and by "an act to explain and amend," in '1787, Thos. Kennedy, Aaron Lewis, Robert Rodes, Green Clay, Archibald Woods, Benj. Bedford, John Sappington, Wm. Irvine, David Crews, and Higgason Grubbs, gentlemen, were made the trustees.

The following sketch of the Town Plat of Boonesborough is taken from a copy of the original, which copy was kindly loaned for this purpose by John Stevens, who now owns as a beautiful farm nearly all the 640 acres embraced in this plat. The original was probably worn out or destroyed more than 80 years ago-about which time this copy was taken. Mr. Stevens' residence is on Lot No. 51. Spring street is named after one of the three fine springs which caused the selection of the spot originally as a fort; the spring is on the river bank at the foot of the street-where there was, and still is, a ford in low water. The other two springs, one of them a sulphur spring, are near A on the Lick Commons. The Elm

" Littell's Laws of Kentucky [and Virginia], Appendix to vol. iii, page 5 -.

BOONE SBOROUGH

٢٠,١

516

MADISON COUNTY.

Tree under which the first legislative council was held and the first sermon preached [see page 501,] was at B, on the Lick commons. John Stevens, David Oldham, and other boys played marbles under its shade, on many a Sunday, about 1825. It was cut down for its wood (of which it made many cords), by the servants of Samuel Halley, about 1828. Mr. Stevens, when 60 years of age, was as eloquent and enthusiastic in describing it to the author of this, when visiting the spot, on April 10, 1873, as was Col. Henderson in lis Journal (see page 500). The old (large) fort stood on the lot after- wards used as a public barving-ground-and where Col. Richard Callaway and other pioneers killed by the Indians were buried within the fort or stock- ade. Nothing now marks the site of the fort except a few stones which com- posed the foundations of two chimneys. The temporary small fort first built stood near the elm tree. The ferry house is on Lot 76. " Boone's Road " is the old trace by which the fort was originally reached, passing up a branch and over the ridge; the present turnpike crosses it in several places, where it is still plainly visible. At D are still standing parts of the thick walls of the tobacco warehouse, built some 80 years ago when Boonesborough was a ship- ping point of considerable importance. Its glory, in this regard, too, has de- parted, although in 1871 a little steamer called " Daniel Boone " was built here. The bank in front of where the fort stood is quite steep and high, and could be easily tunneled-as was attempted by the Indians during their great siege, in Aug., 1778 (see page 529). French street was named after James French, the father of the late Judge Richard French, of Mountsterling, who represented the district in congress for six years, between 1835 and 1849; and Calk street after Wm. Calk, who lived here in 1775, and who built the first cabin in now Montgomery co., near Mountsterling, in 1779. . We curi- ously inspected the three sycamore trees still standing on the Lick commons, which were silent witnesses of the sieges in 1777-78. Of two of them, the trunks (some 20 feet in circumference) are mere shells, entirely open on the side next the fort. That side and their center were literally killed by the bullets fired, during the long siege, into them, but at the Indians concealed behind them. For 40 years, until the supply was exhausted a few years ago, Mr. Stevens obtained from these two trees all the bullets he used for sinkers of his fishing-lines.

To a Daughter of Daniel Boone was granted by the legislature of Vir- ginia a body of land on Hayes' fork of Silver creek, just s. E. of Kingstou- now owned (1873) by John E. McHenry.

The Form of Henderson & Co.'s Warrant, or order of survey, exists nowhere in print. From an original, written in a clear bold hand, issued in favor of Wm. Poague, father of the late Gen. Robert Pogue, of Mason co., Ky., and carefully preserved among the papers of the latter, is copied below the form used after the foregoing meeting of the Proprietors in Sept., 1775. (Wm. Poague died Sept. 3, 1778, from wounds by Indians near Danville-see under Mercer county.)

Transylvania, SS. RICHARD HENDERSON & Co., Proprietors of the Colony of Transylvania.

Boonesborough, S

TO JOHN FLOYD, Esquire, Surveyor of the said Colony : SEAL. O You are hereby authorized and required to survey and lay off for Win. Poague six hundred and forty acres of land, lying on the west branches of Clark creek, known by the name of Gilmer's lick, abt. three miles west of Wm. Whitley's place where he lives, and marked on a tree with powder, WPOAGE.

And the same having surveyed, pursuant to the rules of our office laid down and our instructions by the surveyor to be observed; two fair and correct plots of the same you make or cause to be made, with your proceedings thereon, into our office, within three months from the date hereof, wherever then held within our said Colony. Given under our seal at Boonesborough, the fifteenth day of January, 1776.

JNO. WILLIAMS, Agt., &c. Endorsed .- No. 676. Win. Poague's War! for 640 acres of land, Gilmer's lick.

517

MADISON COUNTY.

First Settlement of Kentucky .- [To correct a prevailing but erroneous opinion that the first settlement of Kentucky was at Boonesborough in April, 1775, the following is inserted here, instead of under Mercer county, where it otherwise more appropriately belongs :]

The present state of Kentucky was visited by various parties, at different periods from 1747 to 1772. (See Collins' Annals of Kentucky, vol. i, pp. 15 to 17; also, under the counties of Boone, Boyd, Bracken, Carroll, Fleming, Franklin, Greenup, Henry, Jefferson, Josh Bell, Lewis, Lincoln, Madison, Mason, Mercer, and other counties herein. ) The first visits that gave prom- ise of return and settlement were those of 1773, with the large number of surveys in that year. An "improver's cabin "-i. e., a square of small logs erected breast high, but not roofed nor inhabited-was built in Bracken county, that year (see under Bracken county), but none elsewhere in the state.

In May, 1774, Capt. James Harrod's company of adventurers, of 31 men,*

James Blair, Jared Cowan,

- David Glenn, Evan(or John) Hinton

James Brown, John Cowan,

Thomas Glenn,

Rees,

Abraham Chapline, John Crow,

Silas Harlan, John Shelp,

John Clark, Azariah Davis,

James Harrod,

James Wiley,

John Crawford, William Fields,

Thomas Harrod, James Harlan,

John Wilson, f

And 10 others whose names we can not ascertain, came down the Mononga- hela and Ohio rivers in periogues or canoes, to the mouth of the Kentucky river, which they ascended to the mouth of a creek called (from that fact) Landing run (now Oregon), in the lower end of the present county of Mercer, and east of the village of Salvisa ; thence across to Salt river near McAfee's station, and up that river to Fountain Blue, and to the place where Harrods- burg now stands. In two or three weeks this was followed by Isaac Hite's company of adventurers, of 11 men-

Robert Gilbert, James Knox,

Jacob Sandusky, David Williams,

James Hamilton,

James McColloch,

James Sodousky, and one other name

Isaac Hite, Alexander Petrey,

Benjamin Tutt,

not preserved.t

Capt. Harrod and his company encamped at the Big Spring on the east of the place where it was agreed to lay off a town. Thence the men scattered in small companies, to select locations, improve lands, and build cabins, which they divided among themselves by lot-and as the "lottery cabins they were known as long as they lasted. Thus-John Crow's lottery cabin was near the town spring of Danville, Jumnes Brown's on Clark's run 2ths of a mile s. E. of said spring, and James Blair's 1} miles s. w., Wm. Field's 1} miles w. of Dauville, # John Crawford's 4 miles s. of Danville, and James Wiley's 3 miles E. of Harrodsburg. There is good reason to believe that cabins were not built for all of the company, and therefore those built were apportioned by lot. The men of Hite's company "improved," but generally without building cabins. James Harrod found what he called the Boiling Spring, and which in May, 1775, was called the "Boiling Spring Settlement,' 6 miles s. of Harrodstown, where he cut down brush and made his improve- ment; and which became his home until his murder, and that of his widow for many years after.

But the Big Spring was the rallying point or camp of Harrod's company, where they were joined by Hite's men ; and on June 16, 1774,|| they laid off a town, giving each man a half-acre lot and a ten-acre outlot. While this surveying was going on, Daniel Boone and Michael Stoner-then on their way to or from the Falls of the Ohio (at Louisville), whither they were sent by Gov. Dunmore, of Virginia, to warn Col. John Floyd and other surveyors sent out by him of threatened Indian hostilities (which culminated shortly

* Sketch of First Settlement of Kentucky, written in June, 1841, by Gen. Robert B. McAfee, and another sketch by same, Aug., 1845.

t Depositions of Capt. David Williams in 1794, James Sodousky in 1797, Capt. John Cowan in 1798, Hon. James Brown in 1790, Col. Abraham Chapline in 1805, and others. Also, Sneed's Printed Decisions of the Ky. Court of Appeals, and Records of Ky. Land Office.

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Collins historical sketches of Kentucky. History of Kentucky: Vol. II, Part 83

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