USA > Kentucky > The history of Kentucky, from its earliest discovery and settlement, to the present date, V. 1 > Part 34
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In the year 1784, Colonel Robert Johnson, whose residence had hitherto been at Bryan's station, removed to the Great Crossing, on Elkhorn, in Scott county. This was yet a very exposed frontier, and subsequently much in- fested by Indians, but steadily supported with the fortune and fortitude of others in like peril.
1 Marshall, Vol. I., p. 165.
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
This year Rev. Augustine Eastin, of Bourbon county, and family, of whom Mrs. Taylor, of Newport, was a member, were moving to Kentucky. in company with a large party of emigrants. They were overtaken by an- other party coming in also, whom Mr. Eastin urged to camp with them that night, as Indian signs had been seen near. 1 They declined, and camped further on, without even putting out pickets for the night. At midnight, they were attacked by Indians in force, and some twenty men, women, and children killed and scalped. A man, his wife, and two children became separated in the strife. The mother caught the youngest in her arms, and escaped to the woods, and finally reached Mr. Eastin's camp. The oldest child was slain, but the father escaped to the settlements. Two weeks after the arrival of Mr. Eastin's party at the settlements, the husband and wife were reunited, each supposing, up to that time, the other dead.
An instance of generosity on the part of an Indian shows that they were not all, and always, destitute of the noble sentiments of our human nature, and is worthy to be recorded. Toward the close of 1784, Andrew Rowan was descending the Ohio with a party, in a boat, some two or three hundred miles below Louisville. 2 The boat tied up on the Indiana bank, one day, when Rowan strolled to the woods with a gun on his shoulder, but no am- munition. When he returned, the boat was gone, his comrades having been alarmed by Indian signs. Rowan started toward Vincennes. the nearest post. one hundred miles distant, but lost his way and got bewildered in the woods. Hearing a gun fire, and approaching the sound, he was discovered by an Indian, who raised his gun to shoot. Rowan presented the butt of his gun, when the Indian, with French politeness, did the same with his gun. Taking pity on Rowan's helpless condition, he led him to his wigwam, and treated him with great hospitality for a time, and then took him to Vin- cennes. Wishing to reward such generosity, Mr. Rowan arranged with a merchant to pay him three hundred dollars ; but the Indian refused to receive a dollar. He finally, to please Rowan, accepted a blanket; and wrapping it around him, with feeling, said, "When I wrap myself in it, I will think of you."
Among the notable traditions of these eventful days was an incident of which the distinguished Judge Rowan was a witness in his boyhood days :
"In the latter part of April, 1784, the father of the late Judge Rowan, with his family and five other families. set out from Louisville in two flat- bottomed boats for the Long Falls of Green river. 3 The intention was to descend the Ohio to the mouth of Green river, and ascend that river to the place of destination. The families were in one boat and their cattle in the other. When the boats had descended the Ohio about one hundred miles, and were near the middle of it, gliding along very securely, as it was thought, about ten o'clock in the night, a prodigious yelling of Indians was heard some two or three miles below, on the northern shore; and they
1 Collins, Vol. I., p. 115.
2 Collins, Vol. I., p. 153. 3 Dr. Drake's Oxford Address.
255
OUTMANEUVERING THE INDIANS.
had floated but a short distance further down the river when a number of fires were seen on that shore. The yelling continued, and it was concluded they had captured a boat, which had passed these two about midday, and were massacreing the captives. The two boats were lashed together, and the best practicable arrangements were made for defending them. The men were distributed by Mr. Rowan to the best advantage in case of an attack; they were seven in number, including himself. The boats were neared to the Kentucky shore, with as little noise by the oars as possible; but avoided too close an approach to that shore, lest there might be Indians there also. The fires of the Indians were extended along the bank at intervals for half a mile or more, and as the boats reached a point about opposite the central fire, they were discovered and commanded to come to. All on board re- mained silent, for Mr. Rowan had given strict orders that no one should utter any sound but that of his rifle, and not even that until the Indians should come within powder-burning distance. They united in a most terrific yell, rushed to their canoes, and gave pursuit. The boats floated on in silence-not an oar was pulled. The Indians approached within less than a hundred yards, with a seeming determination to board. Just at this moment Mrs. Rowan arose from her seat, collected the axes, and placed one by the side of each man, where he stood with his gun, touching him on the knee with the handle of the ax, as she leaned it up by him against the side of the boat, to let him know it was there, and retired to her seat, retaining a hatchet for herself. The Indians continued hovering on the rear, and yelling, for nearly three miles, when, awed by the inference which they drew from the silence observed on board, they relinquished further pursuit. None but those who have a practical acquaintance with Indian warfare can form a just idea of the terror which their hideous yelling is calculated to inspire. Judge Rowan, who was then ten years old, states that he could never forget the sensations of that night, or cease to admire the fortitude and composure displayed by his mother on that trying occasion. There were seven men and three boys in the boats, with nine guns in all. Mrs. Rowan, in speaking of the incident afterward, in her calm way, said : 'We made a providential escape, for which we ought to feel grateful.'"
1 About this time, some Southern Indians from Chickamauga town stole some horses in Lincoln county, and were pursued through Tennessee to the neighborhood of their village by three young men-Davis, Caffree, and McClure. There they fell in with three Indians, and in the desperate man- to-man fight that followed, Davis and Caffree and two of the Indians were killed. McClure, alone in the enemy's country and surrounded by dead bodies, set out toward Kentucky. In half an hour's travel, he met an In- dian advancing on a horse with a bell on, and accompanied by an Indian boy on foot. McClure advanced with a friendly air of confidence and ex- tended his hand, which greeting the Indian seemed as frankly to reciprocate.
: Collins, Vol. II., p. 473.
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
Dismounting, he sat down on a log, lighted his pipe, took a few puffs, and handed it to the white. Pretty soon another bell was heard, and another party of Indians appeared. The first Indian now coolly informed McClure that as soon as his comrades arrived he would be bound, with his feet tied under the horse, and carried off a prisoner. To make the matter more lucid than his Indian-English words could convey, and to spice his taunts with a little grim humor of sarcasm, he got astride the log, and, locking his legs under it, mimicked the actions of a prisoner in such a predicament. McClure, brave and desperate as a baffled lion, determined to acknowledge the playful candor of his sudden acquaintance, as quick as thought raised his rifle, drove a bullet through his brain, and dashed off into the woods, while the boy sprang on the belled horse and scampered off in the opposite direction.
McClure had not gone over a mile or two before he was beset by half a dozen little dogs, which the Indians had put upon his trail. They were ex- ceedingly tenacious and worrying, frequently running between his legs and throwing him down. After repeated falls, his eyes blinded with dust, and exhausted with the worry, he finally fell, and lay with his face to the ground, expecting each moment to be tomahawked. To his agreeable sur- prise, no Indians appeared ; and the dogs, after tugging at him until they had torn his clothes nearly all off, turned away and left him. He resumed his journey, and reached Kentucky in safety. So ragged, tattered, and be- grimed was his person and the remnants of his garments, that an old lady member of the family, who first spied him some distance from the cabin. ran toward the house in alarm. He ran after her, and, to reassure her, began to whistle a familiar reel he was accustomed to play on the violin. She caught the numbers of the air, and, turning, recognized him, and cried out, " Lord, Rab, is that you?" "Yes, Aunt Jenny, all that's left of me," was the answer; when soon the open arms of all received him home.
1 Captain James Ward, afterward a citizen of Mason county, with his nephew and five others, was descending the Ohio in an old boat, encumbered with some baggage and seven horses, with no bulwark other than a pine plank above each gunnel. As the boat drifted near the Ohio shore, sud- denly a large body of Indians appeared on the bank and opened a heavy fire. The nephew started and seized his rifle at sight of the enemy, but was shot dead before he could fire. The horses were all killed or fatally wounded. By the coolness and skillful management of Captain Ward, the boat was oared toward the opposite shore, and the defense made as efficient as pos- sible. In the midst of the scene of terror and blood, a most ludicrous part was played by a fat Dutchman, whose weight was about three hundred pounds. He found it impossible to hide all his ponderous bulk behind the narrow plank above the gunnels; and, try as he would, there was always some part of his person in sight for the Indians to fire at, and bullets
I McClung, p. 185.
257
MRS. M'CLURE'S PREDICAMENT.
whizzed close by continually. He changed his position several times; but, shift as he would, the balls came only faster. Throwing himself at last on his face, the vastness of his posterial luxuriance remained an elevated object of attraction to the marksmanship of the savages. In a frenzy of despair, he raised his head and turned his eye toward his tormentors, and exclaimed, "Oh, now, quit tat tam nonsense tere, vill you?" The boat and crew es- caped without further loss, the Indians having no canoes to follow.
In March of 1785, a body of Indians surrounded the house of Mr. Elliott, situated at the mouth of Kentucky river, Carroll county, and furi- ously assaulted it. Most of the family escaped, but Elliott was killed and the house burnt. A year or two after, Captain Ellison built a block-house near the same spot. and was successively driven from the post for two sum- mers after, by superior Indian forces. Though General Charles Scott built another block-house and picketing here in 1789, it was still much troubled by Indian marauders. In 1792, the town of Port William, now Carrollton, was laid out.
1 " In 1785, the camp of an emigrant by the name of McClure was assaulted in the night by Indians, near the head of Skaggs' creek, in Lin- coln county, and six whites killed and scalped.
"Mrs. McClure ran into the woods with her four children, and could have made her escape with three, if she had abandoned the fourth; this, an infant in her arms, cried aloud, and thereby gave the savages notice where they were. She heard them coming. The night, the grass, and the bushes offered her concealment without the infant, but she was a mother, and de- termined to die with it. The like feeling prevented her from telling her three eldest to fly and hide. She feared they would be lost if they left her side; she hoped they would not be killed if they remained. In the meantime, the Indians arrived and extinguished both fears and hopes in the blood of three of the children. The youngest and the mother they made captives. She was taken back to the camp, where there was plenty of provisions, and compelled to cook for her captors. In the morning, they compelled her to mount an unbroken horse and accompany them on their return home.
"Intelligence of this catastrophe was conveyed to Whitley's station, but he was not at home. A messenger, however, was dispatched after him by Mrs. Whitley, who at the same time sent others to warn and collect his company. On his return, he found twenty-one men collected to receive his orders. With these, he directed his course to the war-path, intending to intercept the Indians returning home. Fortunately, they had stopped to divide their plunder, and Whitley succeeded in gaining the path in ad- vance of them. He immediately saw that they had not passed, and prepared for their arrival. His men, being concealed in a favorable position, had not waited long before the enemy appeared, dressed in their spoils. As they
I Collins, Vol. 11., 765.
17
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
approached, they were met by a deadly fire from the concealed whites, which killed two, wounded two others, and dispersed the rest. Mrs. McClure, her child, and a negro woman were rescued, and the six scalps taken by the Indians at the camp recovered."
Ten days after this event, a Mr. Moore and his party, also emigrants, were defeated two or three miles from Raccoon creek, on the same road. In this attack, the Indians killed nine persons and scattered the rest. Upon the receipt of the news, Captain Whitley raised thirty men, and, under a similar impression as before, that they would return home, marched to inter- cept them. On the sixth day, in a cane-brake, he met the enemy, with whom he found himself face to face before he received any intimation of their proximity. He instantly ordered ten of his men to the right, as many to the left, and the others to dismount on the spot with him. The Indians, twenty in number, were mounted on good horses, and dressed in the plun- dered clothes. Being in the usual Indian file, and the rear pressing on the front, they were brought into full view; but in an apparent panic, they took to flight. In the pursuit, three Indians were killed, and twenty-eight horses and other property recaptured.
As Colonel Thomas Marshall, from Virginia, was descending the Ohio in a flat-boat, he was hailed from the northern shore by a man who announced himself as James Girty, and who said that his brother, Simon Girty. had placed him there to warn all boats of the danger of being attacked by In- dians. He told them that efforts would be made to decoy them ashore by renegade white men, under various pretexts. He bade them steel their hearts against all such appeals. and to keep the middle of the river. He said that his brother Simon regretted the injuries he had done the whites, and would gladly repair them as much as possible, to be re-admitted to their society, having become estranged from the Indians. 1
This repentance of Girty, if sincere, availed him nothing, and he re- mained with his red friends until he was cut down and trodden under foot by Colonel Richard M. Johnson's mounted Kentuckians at the battle of the Thames, in 1814. However mitigating the indignities and slights which formed the pretexts for abandoning his own people and adopting life with the savages, the acts of remorseless cruelty and the injuries he had inflicted stigmatized him as an unpardonable outlaw against his race. His acquies- cence and exultation at the slow torture and burning at the stake, of his old neighbor and acquaintance from Pennsylvania. Colonel Crawford. and other bloody crimes against humanity known of him, would have made it worth his life to come again among his kind. There is a traditional account that his resentment and treason had their beginning in the camp of General Lewis, on the day before the bloody battle of Point Pleasant. at the mouth of Kanawha. Girty and an associate had been acting as scouts and spies for the Virginia army for some weeks or months, for which they had been
I Collins, Vol. II., p. 567.
259
ACCOUNT OF GIRTY'S DESERTION.
paid nothing. They called at General Lewis' quarters and urgently sought a compensation. On some words of provocation, the general violently assaulted them with a cane. As they retreated through the door, Girty, with bruised and bleeding face, turned to General Lewis, with either hand resting on a door post, and fiercely said to him : " D-n you, sir, your quarters shall swim in blood for this!" and instantly placed himself beyond pursuit. On the next day, as the colonel was preparing to cross the Ohio and unite his forces with the main body under Governor Dunmore, his wing of the army was suddenly attacked by fifteen hundred warriors under the noted chief Cornstalk, and the heaviest and bloodiest battle on Virginia soil was fought. Girty had deserted to the Indian army, and piloted it to the best advantage for a surprise attack on the Virginians. Only the veteran bravery and skill of the latter saved them from bloody disaster. But the glamour of romance is spoiled by the better authenticated facts of history, that Girty, Elliott, and McKee did not desert their kind and color until 1778. In that year they left Pittsburgh together and joined the Indians. Whether a breach between General Lewis and himself had anything to do with his unnatural alienation, we can not learn from the data. The only redeeming trait in Girty's career was his rescue of Simon Kenton and kindly care of him afterward. He and Kenton had been comrades in years gone by, and the old feelings of friendly sympathy overcame the indulged ferocity of his nature.
260
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
CHAPTER XIX.
(1786-90.)
Madison county organized.
Population of Kentucky thirty thou- sand.
Virginia passes the act for separation.
Conditions that Congress admits Ken- tucky to the Union.
Intrigues of France and Spain to induce separation.
Incited by Spain, Southern tribes more hostile.
Fifteen hundred settlers murdered by Indians in Kentucky in seven years.
Clark's treaties broken.
United States Constitution adopted.
Virginia the tenth State to ratify.
Federal inabilities.
Old confederacy dissolved.
First administration.
Indians raid the Beargrass settlements.
Colonel Christian pursues them, and is killed.
His character.
Higgins attacked.
John Logan follows Indians south.
Massacre of McKnitt's immigrants.
Hardin's fight at Saline.
Congress gives no relief against Indian raids.
Clark authorized, marches against the Wabash towns.
Poor results.
Demoralized army returns without meet- ing the enemy.
Clark's intemperance disqualifies him.
Fourth convention for separation.
No quorum.
Virginia Legislature passes a second act of consent.
Surprise and confusion at postpone- ment.
British still retain the forts, and incite the Indians.
Jealousy of States' rights.
Federal Union yet in doubt.
Grandeur of the experiment of free gov- ernment.
Kentucky delegates to the Virginia As- sembly vote eleven to three against the Federal Constitution.
The spirit of open secession rife.
General Wilkinson leads the party.
Minister Jay suspected by Western men.
Letter of Pittsburgh committee.
Of Kentucky committee.
Selfishness of North-east States.
The facts.
Jay's treaty, surrendering the naviga- tion of the Mississippi, fails in Congress.
The Kentucky Gazette, the first newspa- per published west of the mountains, ap- pears.
Convention at Danville.
Its proceedings.
General Wilkinson opens trade with the Spanish authorities at New Orleans.
The commandant, General Miro, grants him exclusive privileges of the sale of tobacco, of deposit in the Government stores, and of the navigation of the lower Mississippi.
The Federalist party charges Wilkinson with becoming a Spanish subject, and with treasonable designs.
Congress grants Kentucky a member. John Brown elected.
Sixth convention for separation meets
at Danville, Kentucky.
So tantalized with delays, that disunion is proposed.
Only veneration for Virginia restrains.
Congressman Brown reports strong op- position from New England to the admis- sion of Kentucky.
261
MADISON COUNTY ORGANIZED.
Don Gardoqui, the Spanish minister, urges Kentucky to secede and erect an independent government.
Offers the free navigation of the Mis- sissippi, and exclusive trade through New Orleans with Mexico and all the American provinces of Spain.
Refuses this to the United States.
Two parties form in Kentucky.
The Court Party favor contingent seces- sion.
The Country Party for union upon any terms.
Violent agitations.
Spanish intrigues and tempting offers.
Many leading men and the majority of the people of the Court party irritated by Federal neglect and delays.
General Government warned of the dan- ger.
Propositions made through Congress- man Brown.
Judge Muter's letter warning of treason.
Judge Innes declines to prosecute men who, in self-protection, kill raiding In- dians.
Seventh convention, at Danville, dis- cusses the mode of separation.
All finally agree to wait on State and Federal relief for a time longer.
General Wilkinson's address.
Address to Congress.
Kentucky disbarred from commerce with
the Atlantic by distance and mountain bar- riers.
The navigation of the Mississippi vital to her future.
By delay, Virginia absorbing or selling the best lands in Kentucky.
Wilkinson a Revolutionary soldier.
His life and history.
Of bold and enterprising spirit.
His party determined that the right of navigating the Western waters shall not be bartered away.
No party desired to make Kentucky a Spanish dependence.
Colonel Thomas Marshall's letter to President Washington.
Mrs. Skegg's house attacked by Indians. Bloody results.
Merrill shot in his door.
Mrs. Merrill barricades, and kills or wounds seven Indians.
Drennon's Lick station captured.
Attack on a boat on Salt river.
Desperate and bloody fighting under Cripps and Crist.
Harassing warfare on Ohio river boats. Lancaster's hardships.
Dr. Connolly sent from Canada by Brit- ish authority to Lexington, to sound the sentiment for secession.
Escapes lynching as a spy.
Cincinnati first platted.
Mason and Woodford counties created.
1 On the 26th of August, 1786, the county of Madison was organized at the house of Captain George Adams, about two miles north of Richmond, Kentucky. Its first justices were George Adams, John Snoddy, Christopher Irvine, David Gass, James Barnett, John Boyle, James Thomson, Archie Wood, Nicholas, George, and Joseph Kennedy. These officials were all commissioned by Patrick Henry. then, for the second time, governor of Virginia. Colonel James Barnett was placed in command of the militia of the county.
The population of Kentucky had increased at this date to about thirty thousand, and a feeling of confidence in their ability for self-defense and self-government was well nigh universal. The memorial of the Danville convention had been received by the parent Commonwealth in that spirit of indulgence and magnanimity which characterized the temper of its people
1 Manuscript notes of William Chenault's History of Madison County.
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
in its political relations of that day. In January, 1786, the Virginia Assem- bly passed the act in favor of the proposed separation. 1 The arrival of the act did not tend to allay the discussions among the people of the important step about to be taken. The provisions for prudent delays in the successive procedures were at variance with the ardor and impatience observable in the convention which applied for separation, and among the people, who had seen no reasons for delay. It was satisfactory, however, that the act of severance was placed on the will of the free citizenship, holding still to the parent precedent of equal representation by counties. The act con- stituted a main feature in the birth of the new Commonwealth, and we transcribe it, with small abridgment, for the more intelligible view of the reader :
"The preamble referred to the express desire of the good people of the District of Kentucky that the same should be erected into a separate State, and be formed into an independent member of the American Union; and the General Assembly, judging that such a partition of the Commonwealth was rendered expedient by the remoteness of the more fertile, which must be the most populous, part of the said district, and by the interjacent natural impediments to a convenient and regular communication therewith ; where- fore,
"'Be it enacted, etc., That on the respective court days in August next ensuing, the free male inhabitants of the district should elect representatives, to continue in appointment for one year, with the powers and for the pur- poses to be mentioned in the act-for Jefferson, five; for Nelson, five; for Fayette, five; for Bourbon, five; for Lincoln, five; for Madison, five, and for Mercer, five, representatives; to meet in Danville on the fourth Monday of September following, to determine whether it be expedient that it should be erected into an independent State, on the terms and conditions following :
"'First-That the boundary between the proposed State and the State of Virginia shall remain the same as at present separates the district from the residue of the Commonwealth.
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