USA > Kentucky > The history of Kentucky, from its earliest discovery and settlement, to the present date, V. 1 > Part 43
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"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 be- hind 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 toward him with his raised tomahawk. Here were two warriors met, each determined to conquer or die-each a 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 savage 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 In- dian 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 desperate 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
329
CONFIRMING JOE'S STORY.
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 succeeded in giving him a pretty fair blow in the rear 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. He 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, dis- covered the savage 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 pressing 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 killing or crippling him, sprang to his feet. He found the crippled Indian had crawled some distance toward 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 this he would fall forward, and had to push against his gun to raise himself again. Joe, seeing that he was safe, con- cluded 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.
"Next morning a company was made up to go to Joe's battle-ground. When they approached it, his 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. Still 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 great- est extremities."
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330
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
1 During the year 1884, David Chapman, of Warren county, died at the age of ninety-three years. He was the first white child believed to have been born in Southern Kentucky. His father, Thomas Chapman, with sev- eral others, moved their families from Virginia to Kentucky, and located at a station on Barren river, three miles eastward from Bowling Green. A year after, he removed his family to a stockaded dwelling he had prepared, some four miles above the valley of Drake's creek. Here, every morning and evening, with beat of drum and shouldered rifles, he marched around his stockade at the head of his family. Besides himself, six sons could carry guns ; and his wife, daughter, and a negro woman, with hats, coats, and guns, joined the procession. This was kept up as long as hostile bands . of Indians roamed and hunted through Kentucky. Every tree and shrub within rifle shot of the stockade. behind which an Indian could hide, was cleared away. Often of a morning they found the print of moccasined feet, showing where Indians had watched and waited through the night for some member of the family to show himself outside the stockade. After sunset no one ventured out; nor even in daylight without the trusty rifle. Fre- quently the cows were intercepted and driven back into the cane-brake, to lure some member of the family out to drive them home. One of the sons, Abner, was thus decoyed into an ambush. As he galloped out, with his gun and dogs, to drive the cows home, the dogs struck a bear-trail, as he thought, and he pressed on eagerly almost into the trap that had been pre- pared for him. The peculiar bristling of the dogs warned him just in time. He wheeled and put spurs to his horse. The Indians arose and fired from behind a bank after him. He escaped, but not unscathed. A bullet pierced his powder-horn, and exploded it.
This portion of Kentucky was an extensive prairie at that time, with belts of timber along the creeks and rivers, and here and there a little scrub oak or black jack just peering above the tall grass covering the great undulating plain. It was called the Barrens, from the lack of forests. One spring, the Indians stole every horse Mr. Chapman had; and the wife and mother, who had shed so many tears for her old Virginia home and its white wheaten bread, saw starvation staring her in the face. But one day a poor foundered horse hobbled to the door, and Mr. Chapman took it in, as he did every- thing and everybody who asked shelter at his hands, made it some leather moccasins when it got better, and raised a crop of corn with it.
Near his station Fleenor was killed and a comrade mortally wounded, the latter lingering seven weeks under the roof and care of the Chapman household. On another occasion, a man named Drake was hunting a mile or two up the creek, when Indians, by answering his turkey-call, lured him nigh to death. Catching a glimpse of them concealed in the cane, he turned and ran some distance, then up a steep bluff. They fired as he ran, but he did not know he was wounded until he saw the bushes sprinkled with blood
I Courier Journal correspondent.
331
THE LAST INDIAN RAID.
as he ran up the bluff. He snatched a handful of hickory leaves and stuffed in the wound, and made his way to Mr. Chapman's. The ball passed clear through him, just missing his heart. The doctor drew a silk handker- chief through the orifice, dressed it, and Mr. Chapman nursed him until he got well. Drake's creek was named after him.
The last Indian incursion into Kentucky, McDonald describes thus :
. " In the course of the summer of 1793, the spies who had been down the Ohio, below Limestone, discovered where a party of about twenty In- dians had crossed the Ohio, and sunk their canoes in the mouth of Holt's creek. The sinking of their canoes, and concealing them, was evidence of the intention of the Indians to re-cross the Ohio at the same place. When Kenton received this intelligence, he dispatched a messenger to Bourbon county, to apprise them that the Indians had crossed the Ohio, and had taken that direction; while he forthwith collected a small party of choice spirits, whom he could depend upon in cases of emergency. Among them was Cornelius Washburn, who had the cunning of a fox for ambuscading, and the daring of a lion for encountering. With this party, Kenton crossed the Ohio, at Limestone, and proceeded down to opposite the mouth of Holt's creek, where the Indian canoes lay concealed. Here his party lay in ambush four days, before they saw or heard anything of the Indians. On the fourth day of their ambuscade, they observed three Indians come down the bank, and drive six horses into the river. The horses swam over. The Indians then raised one of their canoes they had sunk, and crossed over. When the Indians came near the shore, Kenton discovered, that of the three men in the canoe, one was a white man. As he thought the white man was probably a prisoner, he ordered his men to fire alone at the In- dians, and save the white man. His men fired; the two Indians fell. The headway which the canoe had, ran it upon the shore; the white man in the canoe picked up his gun, and as Kenton ran down to the water's edge, to receive the man, he snapped his gun at the whites. Kenton then ordered his men to kill him. He was immediately shot. About three or four hours afterward, on the same day, two more Indians, and another white man, came to the river, and drove in five horses. The horses swam over; and the Indians raised another of their sunk canoes, and followed the horses across the Ohio. As soon as the canoe touched the shore with the Indians, Kenton's men fired upon them and killed them all. The white man who was with this party of Indians had his ears cut, his nose bored, and all the marks which distinguish the Indians. Kenton and his men still kept up the ambuscade, knowing there were still more Indians, and one canoe be- hind. Some time in the night, the main body of the Indians came to the place where their canoes were sunk, and hooted like owls; but not receiv- ing any answer, they began to think all was not right. The Indians were as vigilant as weasels. The two parties who had been killed, the main body expected to find encamped on the other side of the Ohio; and as no an-
332
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
swer was given to their hooting, which was doubtless agreed upon as a countersign, one of the Indians ventured to swim the river to reconnoiter. and discover what had become of their friends. The Indian who swam the river, must have discovered the ambuscade. He went upon a high hill, or knob, which was immediately in Kenton's rear, and gave three long and loud yells; after which he informed his friends that they must immediately make their escape, as there was a party of whites waylaying them. Kenton had several men who understood the Indian language. Not many minutes after the Indian on the hill had warned his companions of their danger, the Bourbon militia came up. It being dark, the Indians broke and ran, leav- ing about thirty horses, which they had stolen from about Bourbon. The next morning, some attempts were made to pursue the savages; but they had scattered and straggled off in such small parties, that the pursuit was abandoned, and Kenton and his party returned home, without the affair making any more noise or eclat than would have taken place on the return of a party from a common hunting tour. Although Kenton and his party did not succeed as well as they could wish, or their friends expected, yet the Indians were completely foiled and defeated in their object; six of them were killed, and all the horses they had stolen were retaken, and the re- mainder of the Indians scattered, to return home in small squads. This was the last inroad the Indians made in Kentucky; from henceforward the settlers lived free from all alarms."
333
EVENTS OF THE PERIOD FROM 1795 TO 1800.
CHAPTER XXI.
(1795-1800.)
Changes of the judiciary.
Salaries of officials.
Treaty at Greenville with Indians. With Southern Indians.
British treaty arouses opposition. Treaty with Spain.
Its timely effects.
Spanish intrigues revived.
Mission of Thomas Power.
Agency of Sebastian. Innes and Nicholas.
Plans of intrigue.
Humphrey Marshall, as senator, offends Kentucky sentiment.
Attempt to address Judges Muter and Sebastian from the Appellate bench.
Final adjustment.
Garrard made governor.
John Adams president.
Imperfect land laws.
Distressing litigation and troubles.
The occupying claimant never safe.
Marshall's relief law.
Alien and sedition laws.
Odious to the sentiment of Kentuckians.
Protest in the resolutions of 1798-9.
Virginia adopts similar resolutions.
Importance of their doctrines in the fu- ture of national politics.
Murray opposes and Breckinridge de- fends.
Jefferson the author.
Calhoun the advocate.
South Carolina nullification a first fruit. Our late civil war the final fruit. Justifying causes of the resolutions. Some good effects.
Retraction in 1833, by legislative re- solve. The effect after 1798.
Democratic administrations for twenty- four years.
Daniel Boone wrecked by land-sharks.
Disheartened, he moves to Missouri, then a Spanish territory.
Made commandant, and given ten thou- sand arpents of land.
In Greenup county, in 1799.
Again becomes a hunter in the wilder- ness.
Loses his Spanish land-grant.
His wife dies.
His own death.
Last years of George Rogers Clark.
His misfortunes and death.
Kenton's fate yet more sad.
Wrecked by bad laws and land-sharks, and imprisoned for debt.
Takes refuge at Urbana, Ohio.
Revisits Kentucky. Legislature restores his titles to lands sold for taxes. His death, in 1836.
Movements for a new constitution.
Convention, in 1799, makes one.
Its provisions.
Alienations with the French Govern- ment.
President Adams calls an extra session of Congress.
Preparations for war.
The president makes further overtures.
Our ministers rejected by the French cabinet.
Hostile acts of France.
Retaliations by United States.
Resolutions by both parties in Ken- tucky.
Naval battles.
A treaty of peace at last.
African slavery. Its phases in pioneer days. Henry Clay's early sentiments. Efforts to abolish.
334
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
In the session of 1795, the Legislature passed an act divesting the Court of Appeals of original jurisdiction in land cases, and established six district courts; one each at Washington, Paris, Lexington, Frankfort, Danville, and Bardstown. 1 The court of Oyer and Terminer was superseded by these. They were held twice a year by two judges ; their jurisdiction embracing all matters at common law or in chancery arising within their districts, except for assault and battery, for slander, and for actions for less than fifty pounds. At the next session, a court of quarter sessions in each county, to be com- posed of three justices to be appointed for the purpose, was provided for. A third act reconstructed the county courts, the judges of which, like the judges of the quarter sessions, were legislated out of office by repealing the law of their creation. This dangerous precedent of assuming, by an indirection, control of the inferior courts by the Legislature, occasioned severe comment; and afterward became, in the history of the State, the cause of violent and embittered controversy, in its application to the Court of Ap- peals. The civil list at this period was in accordance with the economic spirit of the times, the habits of life, and the enhanced value of money. The salary of the governor was one thousand dollars per annum; of the appellate judges, six hundred and sixty-six; of the secretary of state, treas- urer, auditor, and attorney-general, three hundred and thirty-three dollars each. The number of representatives in the General Assembly was forty- two, as follows : Bourbon, five; Clark, two; Fayette, six; Green, one; Har- din, one; Harrison, one; Jefferson, two; Logan, one; Lincoln, three; Mercer, three; Madison, three; Mason, three; Nelson, three; Shelby, one; Scott, two; Washington, two, and Woodford, three.
In 1795, a treaty was made at Greenville, Ohio, with the Northern In- dians, which established comparative peace for many years afterward, and put an end for all future time to Indian invasions of Kentucky. The next year a similar treaty was made with the Southern Indians, with much the same results. On the auspicious events coincident, Butler writes : 2
"These pacific measures, so important to the prosperity of the one party, and the existence of the other, were most essentially promoted by the British treaty concluded on the 19th of November, 1794, and the equally important treaty with Spain, agreed to on the 17th of October, 1795.
"In regard to the British treaty, which convulsed this country more than any measure since the Revolution, and which required all the weight of Washington's great and beloved name to give it the force of law, no section of the country was more deeply interested than Kentucky; yet perhaps in no part of the Union was it more obnoxious. Its whole contents encoun- tered the strong prepossession of the Whigs against everything British; and this feeling seems to have prevailed in greater bitterness among the people of the Southern States (possibly from more intense sufferings in the Revolu- tionary war) than in any other portion of the Union, on account of their
I Marshall, Vol. II., p. 55.
2 Butler, p. 242.
.
335
EFFECTS OF THE SPANISH TREATY.
sympathies with France. Yet now, when the passions which agitated the country so deeply, and spread the roots of party so widely, have subsided, the award of sober history must be, that the British treaty was dictated by the soundest interests of this young and growing country. What else saved our infant institutions from the dangerous ordeal of war? What restored the Western posts, the pledges of Western tranquillity, but this much-abused convention? The military establishments of the British upon the Western frontiers were to be surrendered before the Ist day of June, 1796. Further ยท than this, Kentucky was not particularly interested; but it is due to the reputation of the immortal father of his country, and the statesmen of Ken- tucky who supported his administration in this obnoxious measure, to men- tion that Mr. Jay informed the president, in a private letter, that 'to do more was impossible; further concessions on the part of England could not be obtained.' 1 Fortunate was it for the new Union and young institutions of the infant republic, that they were allowed by this treaty time to obtain root, and to fortify themselves in the national sympathies and confidence."
The other treaty, with Spain, referred to, was of not less importance in its immediate bearings on the future of the Commonwealth, affecting both the peace of society and the interests of commerce and trade. We have already adverted to the aborted overtures of Don Gardoqui, and the intrigues of Wilkinson and his associates. The failure of all previous efforts to seduce and to dissever Kentucky from allegiance to the Union and to the people of her own kindred did not utterly extinguish the hope of the Spaniards. Their dream of a western empire for more than a century placed in the magnifi- cent vision, as the central feature, the dominion and control of the great Mississippi valley, and consequently of the navigation of the main artery of commerce which flowed through its center, and led to the ocean. En- tranced by the grandeur and glory of this promise to the eye, they could not consent to abandon the hope of its realization. While open negotiations were pending, therefore, between the Federal capital and the Spanish court, they were protracted for indefinite years, with alternate encouragement and neglect upon the part of Spain, as her affairs with France or Great Britain promised a continuance of peace, or to involve her in the maelstrom of war which was devastating the central nations of Europe. Thomas Pinckney, our minister to London, was commissioned by Washington to proceed to Madrid, with plenary powers to negotiate terms of treaty, about the last of June, 1795. By the end of October, terms mutually satisfactory were agreed upon, which acknowledged our southern limits to the north of the thirty-first degree of latitude, and our western, to the middle of the Missis- sippi. Our right of the navigation of the Mississippi to the sea was con- ceded, and also the right of deposit at New Orleans for our produce for three years. 2 Yet behind these fair prospects of an amicable arrangement
I Jay's Life, Vol. II., p. 235.
2 Journal House of Representatives; Wilkinson's Memoirs, Vol. II.
336
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
of our long-pending differences at Madrid, insidious conspiracy was again busily marplotting, with little less than treasonable intent, between the leaders at New Orleans and in Kentucky, to consummate the first hope and wishes of the Spaniards.
1 " In July, 1795, Governor Carondelet dispatched Thomas Power to Kentucky with a letter to Benjamin Sebastian, then a judge of our Court of Appeals. In this communication he declares that the . confidence reposed in you by my predecessor, Brigadier-General Miro, and your former cor- respondence, have induced me to make a communication to you highly inter- esting to the country in which you live, and to Louisiana.' He then mentions that the king of Spain was willing to open the navigation of the Mississippi to the Western country, and desirous to establish certain regula- tions, reciprocally beneficial to the commerce of both countries. To effect these objects, Judge Sebastian was expected, the governor says, 'to procure agents to be chosen and fully empowered by the people of your country to negotiate with Colonel Gayoso on the subject, at New Madrid, whom I shall send there in October next, properly authorized for the purpose, with directions to continue at the place or its vicinity until the arrival of your agents.' Some time in November or early in December of this year, Judge Innes and William Murray received a letter from Judge Sebastian request- ing them to meet him at Colonel Nicholas' house, in Mercer county. The gentlemen addressed went, as desired, to Colonel Nicholas', and met Judge Sebastian there, who submitted the letter quoted above. Some deliberation ensued, which resulted in the unanimous opinion of all the gentlemen as- sembled that Judge Sebastian should meet Colonel Gayoso, to ascertain the real views of the Spanish Government in these overtures. The judge ac- cordingly descended the Ohio, and met the Spanish agent at the mouth of the river. In consequence of the severity of the weather, the gentlemen agreed to go to New Madrid. Here a commercial agreement was partially approved by Sebastian; but, a difference of opinion occurring between the negotiators whether any imposts, instead of a duty of four per cent., should be exacted upon importations into New Orleans by way of the river, the negotiators repaired to the metropolis, in order to submit the difference of opinion to the governor. This officer, upon learning the nature of the dif- ference between the gentlemen acting in this most insidious negotiation, readily consented to gratify the Kentucky envoy. It was deferred, on ac- count of some pressing business. A few days after this interview, the Spanish governor sent for Judge Sebastian, and informed him that a courier had arrived from Havana with the intelligence that a treaty had been signed be- tween the United States and Spain, which put an end to the business between them. Judge Sebastian, after vainly urging the Spanish governor to close this sub-negotiation, in the expectation that the treaty would not be ratified, returned to Kentucky by the Atlantic ports.
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