USA > Kentucky > The story of Kentucky > Part 4
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For a brief season, there was fighting and victory and praise of men -even Frederick the Great complimented the American general. But defeat soon came again, and the restrained movements of a terribly inadequate force; spring, summer and autumn went by, and no chance for even a fair fight. Then the dreadful winter at Valley Forge; Congress complaining - itself meanwhile faring sumptuously every day - that the half-starved little band did not annihilate the British army; blaming the hard-pressed general, and trying to put the swaggering Gates in command; even his own offi- cers finding fault with Washington's management and intimating that they could have done better,
Through all the starving and freezing, the criti- cism and complaint, young Cabell stood firm in
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his allegiance to his general; gaining slowly but steadily in rank and popular esteem. Then came another turn in the tide; the young King of France, catching the enthusiasm of the gallant Lafayette. sent over the much-needed supplies of men, money and other munitions of war. At last the English people demanded peace for their sorely-tried kin- dred, and the long struggle came to an end.
But the country was still in a sad condition. For seven years war had ravaged the land. Towns had been burned, crops destroyed, the treasury drained, and the spiritual tone of the people lowered. The British still held Charleston, Savannah and New York; war might be resumed any day, The States hung but loosely together. The favorite toasts in the army were : " Cement to the Union :" "A hoop to the barrel."
The soldiers, whose families had suffered for food and clothing, while they fought for their coun. try, now demanded payment for their services : but Congress, which throughout the struggle had sat there at Philadelphia quibbling and quarrelling. said there was nothing to pay. The soldiers, who knew how much rich land was lying fallow across the Alleghanies waiting to be tilled were justly in- censed at this; for a while it was doubtful whether this country was to be a free republic or a monarchy. with George Washington, or a younger son of King
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George, or one of the Bourbons as king. But Washington persuaded Congress to arrange for the payment of the impoverished patriots, some of whom had sunk their patrimony in their country's cause, and harmony was restored.
Many of Virginia's soldiers were paid in Ken- tucky lands; the long struggle of this valorous little province for independence having resulted only in her recognition, by the mother State, as the " County of Kentucky." For several years after the close of the war long trains of emigrants might have been seen moving through the wilderness in that direction.
Young Cabell had changed a good deal in tastes and looks. He had sickened of rudeness and crude- ness, and was now one of the most elegant officers in the army. His youthful ambition was at last real- ized. He was a distinguished man. But Lord Dunmore and his beautiful daughters were not there to see. Long ago they had shaken the dust of a rebellious and stiff-necked country from the soles of their shoes, and sailed across the sea to England.
In the meantime a warfare even more bitter had been going on in Kentucky. Early in 1777 oc- curred the long siege of St. Asaph's, when for three months Logan and his fifteen men defended the fort against one hundred Indians. The cruel murder of Cornstalk, the great Shawanese chief, in
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June, 1777, while on a peaceful mission to Captain Arbuckle, at Point Pleasant, had served to intensify the hostility of the Indians throughout the West: and almost daily Kentucky soil was the scene of bloodshed and violent death.
In February, 1778, Daniel Boone and thirty other men were captured at the Blue Licks where they were making salt. In June came the attack on Boonesboro' by Du Quesne, with his twelve Cana- dians and four hundred and thirty-two Indians, Boone had escaped captivity, and after a walk of one hundred and sixty miles in four days, arrived just in time to take command of the garrison, which had only twenty-two men; he conducted the nine days' siege to a successful termination with the loss of but two men to the enemy's thirty-seven.
In the spring of 1779, Colonel David Rogers lost the greater part of his command in a battle nearly opposite Cincinnati (then a wilderness). Only ten out of the forty or fifty escaped and these reached home through untold suffering. In July of the same year occurred Colonel Bowman's fiasco di Chillicothe, by which he secured one hundred and sixty horses at the sad cost of nine brave soldiers.
Meanwhile, Colonel George Rogers Clarke had distinguished himself by the conquest of Kaskaskia and Vincennes, the principal British strongholds in the west. In the summer, Colonel Byrd, with
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one thousand Indians and Canadians, retaliated by in attack on Ruddle's and Martin's Stations; in these affrays numbers of men, women and children were butchered by the Indians. Colonel Clarke replied by a counter-stroke, and with nine hundred ind ninety-eight men destroyed the two Indian vil- lages, Piqua and Pickaway. He also cut down the standing corn, that the warriors might be com- pelled to remain at home and provide meat for their families.
Little time was given to corn-planting in 1779, and notwithstanding serious disadvantages, the in- crease in population was so great during that year, that the price of grain during the winter rose from fifty to one hundred and sixty-five dollars per bushel; man and beast alike suffered from hunger.
In 1780, Kentucky, still a province of Virginia, was divided into three counties; Jefferson, named for the governor, who always seemed to have had a warm place in his heart for the neglected out-post ; Fayette, in honor of America's ardent friend, the Marquis de Lafayette, and Lincoln, for General Benjamin Lincoln, a brave officer in the Revolution.
That same year the towns of Louisville and Lex- ington were established; one named in honor of the young king of France, whose adoption of the cause of liberty was to cost him so dear, the other a
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tribute of respect - and the first -to the now revered Massachusetts patriots who inauguratei the Revolution.
In 1781, during General Clarke's absence, a fo. midable body of Indians entered Kentucky. The destroyed a large amount of property, depopulatu. settlements, and killed or captured over a hundred people. A detachment of Clarke's force under Colonel Laughrey, while passing a sand-bar or their way down the river, was suddenly attackve from both sides and almost annihilated -losing one hundred and ten men.
Meanwhile Fort Jefferson, which the year before had been established near the mouth of the Ohio. was holding at bay with only thirty men, twelve hundred painted warriors After a three days siege re-enforcements reached them, the assailants were put to flight, and the isolated fort abandoned. Fort Nelson, the most formidable fortification in Kentucky, was begun at Louisville during the fa .! of this year.
Early in 1782 hostilities commenced with in- creased fury. In March was fought the battle of Little Mountain, one of the fiercest on record : i: that border fight the combatants fought man t. man, until a fourth of their number had fallen.
On the sixteenth of August occurred the terrib" battle of Blue Lick in which one hundred and eighty-
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two horsemen, rather than bear the reproach of being called cowards by a reckless comrade, rushed into a suspected ambush, and nearly half of them were slaughtered. Boone escaped, bearing off his wounded son, who died on the way. Netherland, . previously suspected of cowardice, returned when beyond danger to defend his friends who were still in the river. Reynolds gave up his horse to the wounded Captain Patterson; he was captured by the Indians, but finally made his escape, and was rewarded for his self-sacrifice with two hun- dred acres of land. In this battle the flower of Kentucky fell. Many widows and orphans were left unprotected ; - twenty-three widows attend- ing court at Logan's Station at one time to administer on their husbands' estates.
Emboldened by their success, the Indians be- came even more active in assault than before. Men were shot down while hunting; families were mur- dered while asleep, and a general sense of insecurity prevailed. This however resulted in weeding out from the population the cowards and the weak- lings who fled the fearful country, until only men of courage and resolution remained.
Kentucky bore her part in the Revolution, but the end brought her neither peace nor inde- pendence. Her bitter warfare with the savages continued; a vast wilderness lay between her
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and her seat of government, and left her almost lawless.
The spring of 1784 again found Edmund Cabri: journeying toward the wilderness, but this time he went accompanied by a long train, including three hundred people. Many trains had passed that way during the preceding year; the population o! Kentucky had increased in twelve months fron. twelve thousand to thirty thousand. The passage upon the Ohio had become more dangerous than the journey by land. Cowardly captives had been used as decoys, their cries of distress bringing the whites to their rescue and to their own captivity or death.
The caravan has paused for the noon lunch. There is Cabell in his uniform of blue, looking more important, but no less sensible, than of yore. He is engaged in conversation with a roughly- dressed, middle-aged man, whose pale, finely-chis- eled features wear an indefinable look of cruelty. The incongruity of the delicate face and fierce expression both interests and irritates Cabell. 1: is like an exquisite painting of an unworthy sub- ject. His name is Westlake, and he claims to lx. descended from a noble English family. He is of no occupation and ranks little higher in Cabell's estimation than his friend, the peddler, that moon- faced man seated on a log near by, who during
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the intervals in their journeying, drives a thriving trade among the emigrants.
But the real object of Cabell's interest, possibly, is the daughter, who at present is roasting a piece of venison before the fire. The girl is young and . pretty, like a lovely flower one finds unexpectedly in the woods. More interested in the fine young officer than in her cookery, the girl, in turning to see if he is observing her, suddenly drops the steak into the ashes. " Dolly!" shrieks her father, whose thoughts are bent upon his dinner, "just see what you've done !" And he struck her fiercely.
Dolly threw her apron over her face and began to sob, unmindful of the burning meat. "Pick it up," cried the man with an oath. " Yesterday you burnt the potatoes, to-day it's the meat. Who could stand such a creature!" and he added a few more oaths.
" The man is possessed ! He is not responsible," thought Cabell, whose longing for easy relations with his fellow-creatures often induced unwarrant- able leniency, and usually ended in unwarrantable harshness. Indeed, the fierce eyes and white face had a wild look. Cabell hurriedly took his leave.
There were several army officers in the party. There were gentlemen, educated and uneducated ; there were roughs -- some claiming high descent. others claiming no descent at all. There were
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cows and horses; oxen, mules, pigs, pack-horses and covered wagons. Day after day the long train crept slowly through the wilderness, like a huge serpent crawling toward its lair.
Daily Cabell paused for a few words with West lake and his friend Scraper the peddler, who was evidently wooing Westlake's fair daughter. A. evidently he was regarded with more favor by the father than by the pretty Dolly. The girl's only hope of the future had been to marry the peddler and go on all her days cooking for him and he- father; but now she began to have vague vision- of an indefinite holiday with nice dresses, a rose- embowered cottage and (for nothing seemed im- possible to this masterful young man whom every one seemed to obey) perhaps even real glass in the windows. As these fine fancies did not tend to improve Dolly's culinary efforts she was occasion. ally soundly cuffed for burned meat and potatoc- and so life had its shady streaks.
Cabell disliked Westlake even more than he did Scraper; soon he began to distrust him. "I): you ever happen to meet a man by the name . Tuggs? " Westlake asked him one day. " He went to Kentucky in '75, I heard."
" Yes," returned Cabell, and not caring to mak a confidant of this man, added; " I knew very litt .. about him."
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" A cousin o' mine knowed him," said Westlake, with a sly glance. "Thought him a purty smart sort o' feller, too."
As Dolly's liking for Cabell increased, that of her father and the peddler seemed to diminish, until at length the false harmony of the uncongenial group was broken by a trivial disagreement.
" It's cur'us," Westlake said one day as they sat on a log - Westlake, as usual, smoking a pipe - "it's cur'us what rediklous notions some o' yo' book-men git into they heads. 'Tother day I heard one o' them officers a-beatin' Jim Ferry down that the worl' turned round every day. Ha! ha!"
" Turned round !" exclaimed Cabell with a stare. "Yes, sir; turned round ! I like to died a-laughin'."
" Well, it does."
" Turn round ? " with a smile of pity. " Turn round !" with an omi- nous glare. " Anybody with three grains o' sense knows better'n that. Can't I see? How could we stick on the under side? Any man that b'lieves such C
" HOW COULD WE STICK ON ?"
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trumpery's an idiot." And angry red spots began to flare out on the white face. Cabell retreated in good order, thereafter refraining from exposing himself to such attacks.
One moonlight night, as he hurriedly passed Westlake's wagon, he heard Dolly softly call his name. " You mus'n't mind what pap says," and her voice trembled slightly, "he's so cross to me : and I hev to stand it, day in an' day out. I git so tired sometimes. I'm most ready to die," and she began to sob.
The curly head, thrust out at the torn place in the wagon-covering, locked very pretty in the moon- light. Poor child! Hers was indeed a thankless servitude. He said a few kindly words and passed on, neither dreaming how soon she was to be re- leased from the hated "servitude." The very next day while hunting alone in the woods Westlake was shot by a wandering party of Indians.
No one, not even Scraper, knew anything about Westlake's previous history or his destination. Dolly knew that her " Uncle Jeems " had a home ready for them somewhere, she did not know exactly where. The dead man was buried, Dolly was placed in the care of a family who were going to Harrodsburg, and the party moved on.
When Cabell reached Boonesboro' he found the tract of land he had purchased from Henderson
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and Company occupied by another party, who said he had bought it of a man named Tuggs. As Tuggs could not be found, the only alternative was to sue the man in possession. Already courts of justice were established, and there were numerous- attornies who had all they could do, too, in settling land claims. The Virginia land-office system which permitted settlers to locate on any unoccupied lands and settle their own boundaries, kept up a perpet- ual legal warfare, some of which has endured even to the present day.
As a rule they were an order-loving people, in- heriting political tastes from generations of law- makers. They kept up a fair show of government, though every man was a law unto himself, and Public Opinion ruled over each with an iron rod.
Very few of the settlers of 1775 remained. Colonel Floyd, the attractive, well-bred gentleman, brave Captain Estill, Squire Boone, the intrepid hunter-preacher - each had been killed by the Indians. Also the Reverend John Lythe of the Episcopal church, Colonel John Todd, and numer- ous other highly-esteemed citizens. There still remained the generous, kindly Harrod, the reso- lute Daniel Boone and the dauntless Kenton. Clarke, too, was there ; but his early brilliancy had faded. The failure through no fault of his, of his expedition against Detroit, had lost him the fickle
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popular favor. This was always his greatest stim- ulus, and after his discharge from the service in 1782 a sense of injustice and wrong seemed to weigh upon his mind, helping to sap his energies and diminish his resolution. From this time for- ward he took but little part in the history of the Kentucky people.
The vast tide of emigration which had set in at the first note of peace in 1781 served to push the pioneers more and more into the background, until finally nearly all were swept out of the State.
Cabell sold his military land-grant and bought a tract near Lexington. This had grown to a town of nearly a thousand inhabitants. He had brought two slaves with him, and at the earliest oppor- tunity he bought two more. After the glory of the battle-field and the chase, hoeing corn was intolerable. He built a large log-house of four rooms with a long hall running through the centre. roofed with hand-made walnut shingles. In the fall he went over to Harrodsburg and married Dolly Westlake, whose " Uncle Jeems " had never turned up.
Dolly wore a cottonade dress and a white ker- chief which was fastened around her neck with a gorgeous green glass pin. It was her best; she would have worn more finery if she had possessed any. Far from appreciating Cabell's delicacy in
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appearing in the usual hunting garb of buckskin trousers and flannel shirt, Dolly was grievously disappointed that he did not wear his gorgeous vel- vet coat, embroidered satin waistcoat, lace ruffles and silver shoe-buckles. And when he preferred . to spend the evening of his wedding-day talking with Colonel Harrod and other old acquaintances, instead of going to the feast and dance given in honor of the occasion at the biggest house in the town, Dolly was almost offended.
It did seem a little odd, it must be confessed ; even the calm-faced moon and stars looked down in wide-eyed amazement at this serious young bride- groom sitting by the fire, talking over political mat- ters with a lot of old men while his blooming bride went to the marriage-feast with the rejected suit- ors -for Dolly had been very popular at the station.
The following day Dolly was taken to her new home. The windows had small panes of greenish glass in them; roses were growing against the sides of the house, and the housekeeping began.
CHAPTER IV.
THE STATE OF KENTUCKY.
HE first History of Kentucky was written by John Filson and published by James Adams of Wilming- John Filgon ton, Delaware. It ap- peared in 1784. The map accompanying it was a remarkable pro- duction considering the few facilities and the many dangers attending the collection of material. This map has been re- published in the Duerrett's Life of John Filson .* Upon it appear the towns of Louisville, Lexington. Danville, Bardstown, Harrodsburg, Boonesboro'. Greenville, I.eestown, and over forty " stations."
Lexington and Danville were the leading towns in wealth and culture; Harrodsburg came third, and fourth in importance, Louisville, located on two thousand acres granted by the royal Government to
* The Life of John Filson, by R. T. Dierrett (Louisville, 1994), was the initial number of the Filson Club Series of publications on Kentucky History.
ES
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John Connolly for services in the French and Indian war, and " escheated " by a Lexington jury because of the owner's activity in the English service. It had then barely two hundred inhabitants.
Four years after the publication of his history, the chequered career of Filson was brought to an untimely close by the inevitable tomahawk. He had just assisted in founding the town of Cincin- nati, and had named it Losantiville. Starting to join a surveying party, he disappeared in the woods never to return.
In 1785 a convention met at Danville, firmly re- solved on separation from Virginia. The members were all men of intelligence, well-instructed in legis- lative lore and they prudently referred their rather truculent resolutions to another and larger conven- tion, by which, in due time, they were confirmed.
It was well they had resolved on patience as well as persistence, for six years passed away before Virginia could see her way clear to grant a separa- tion. And Congress was too busy wrangling over the Constitution to heed the little colony knocking at its doors.
In this Constitution, Kentucky, though an un- recognized fragment, was as deeply interested as any of them ; like the others she had her doubts. The penurious objected to the regular collection of taxes; the lawless feared interference with their
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personal liberty; only the better class recognized in the law a friendly wall, shutting out the evil-doer. But the chief objection was that it condemned State independence. Why put themselves into the hands of a scheming set of politicians, who, for aught they knew, might manage to sit perpetually ?
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Jefferson, Kentucky's best friend, only half ap- proved it, men said. Hadn't the very men who framed this new code of laws fought over it themselves ? Who knew what tyranny it might hold? Franklin. it had been hinted in New York, was in his dotage; Randolph, though an adept in pulling down, had never been conspicuous in build- ing up. Hamilton and Madison were visionary young upstarts, and Washington - a fine soldier doubtless, but no politician !
A standing army, indeed ! Only tyrants had need of standing armies. What do those Eastern people care for us, any way ? Kentuckians argued. Hadn't John Jay proposed to barter away for twenty-five years the right of navigation of the Mississippi in exchange for a favorable commercial treaty with Spain ? The Mississippi is ours and the Government ought to demand from Spain its free navigation. Is it a craven fear that Spain will unite with. England and whip the Americans? or is it mere indifference to the vital interests of the West, that holds them back? Either was
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equally bad in the eyes of a Kentuckian. In her long isolation and self-dependence Kentucky had grown even more Democratic than Virginia.
In 1786 a treaty of peace brought a slight lull in Indian depredation. Of this treaty there are num- erous conflicting accounts. General George Rogers Clarke, General Richard Butler and Col. R. H. Parsons joined in the negotiations, and by their skill and courage, it is believed, averted a bloody war. General Clarke bore the leading part.
But the murder of an Indian by a vicious white man put an immediate end to all friendly relations between the races; the old barbarities were re- sumed. Throughout '87 and '88 ceaseless enmity and warfare ensued. Scarcely a day passed that there was not some new tale of horror to relate.
It is easy for the inhabitants of this peaceful, luxurious land to sit in judgment on the pioneers who bought the land with their blood and with the blood of their best beloved. Beside the dismal and depressing task of subduing the earth - break- ing the thick turf, felling vast forests, hewing paths through impenetrable thickets with only the rudest weapons, the body sustained by the coarsest food and clad in the roughest clothes - there was the ever-present dread of sudden death. For the In- dian's favorite method of warfare was to steal in at the serenest hour and let none escape.
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" You should not have driven the Indian away from his lands," says the righteous judge of to-day. " When he smote you on one cheek, you should have turned the other. Poor fellow! He was only avenging the murder of his brother by some white man, according to the traditions of his race."
The First Printing House in Kentucky.
Office of
the"Kentucky Gazette 1787
Helen Hunt Jackson's " Century of Dishonor" is an eloquent book. It was well that such a volume was written. Mr. Brooks's later "Story of the American Indian" is a sad but moving tale. We cannot have too much of the truth: too few of us fully realize how cruelly the Indian was often
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treated ; not only by his white brother, but by the Government which had promised to protect and care for him. In the sad treaty speeches of the slowly decreasing red men their evident premoni- tion of coming decline and extinction would touch the hardest heart. True, other races have gone the same way. The poor Philistines and Canaan- ites, the Goths and Vandals, the Parthians and Huns, all reached their summit and descended helplessly on the other side ; a fate which, for aught we know, may be lying in wait for us farther on.
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