USA > Kentucky > The story of Kentucky > Part 6
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knowledge themselves defeated. In 1795 seven tribes whose hostility had been kept alive by the English, entered into a treaty of peace with Gen- eral Wayne at Greenville, Ohio, agreeing to bury the hatchet forever. -
Even the hardest heart must find something in- expressibly sad in the picture, involuntarily sug- gested to our minds, of this humbled, defeated peo- ple gathering up the fragments of their household treasures and slowly journeying westward, only to be driven, again and again, toward the setting sun.
Soon the old pioneers, the great "Indian fight- ers," began to move westward, too. In 1797 (this date seems the most probable among the number given by various writers) Daniel Boone left Ken- tucky. When Cabell heard that his old friend was going away, he rode fifty miles to bid him good-by.
"It's gittin' too crowded here," he said, when Cabell remonstrated with him. "There's good huntin' over on the Missoury, and nobody there but old hunters like me. I love the woods. There's too many clearin's, and too many settlers quarrelin' over the land, and too much law. Their ways ain't my ways. I want elbow room."
The truth was, a sheriff had come and told Daniel Boone that he must move; the land he was living on belonged to somebody else. He ad- dressed a memorial to the Legislature setting forth
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his claim to the land; but there was a defect in the title and the Legislature could discover no way to remedy it. Yet if any one had earned a title to Kentucky, it was Daniel Boone. He had given his two sons, had suffered captivity and untold hardships, and spent the best of his life in her de- fense; services which money could neither obtain nor repay. Yet there was not one foot of her ground he could call his own.
That was why Kentucky was "getting toc crowded for him."
In 1845, however, Kentucky generously donated to Boone all the land he needed -six feet in the Frankfort cemetery. That he occupies at the present day.
Logston, also, soon found the settlements grow- ing too thick, and moved to Illinois. In 1799 Ken- ton went to Ohio to live. All left poor. In 1824, when Kenton returned, old and destitute, he was received by the Legislature with the respect and honor due one of the heroes of the pioneer times. and a pension of twenty dollars a month was voted him.
In 1803 very few of the party of 1775, besides Cabell, remained. Long ago Colonel Henderson had returned to his home in North Carolina. whence, in 1785, he had " gone to his own place." Harrod had been found dead in the woods in 1793.
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murdered, probably, by the Indians. Colonel Calloway had fallen in the same way, while hunt- ing alone in the wilderness.
Cabell had sold his farm near Harrodsburg and bought another near Lexington. He had married again ; a gentle. but resolute and clear-headed young woman. He had built a grand house, modelled
The Grave
In the Frankfort Cemetery
of Daniel B oone .
Photo by Mattina.
after the English manor-house, and surrounded by a large park of forest trees; and though he kept clear of political office - perhaps because he cared nothing for office -- he became one of the leading men of the State, whose opinion was sought by all parties.
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Released from the perpetual fear of death, the country increased rapidly in wealth. In 1802. Michaux, the distinguished French naturalist, " found nowhere in Kentucky a single family with- out plenty of meat, bread, milk and butter for food. The poorest man had always one or two horses. and it was very seldom a planter went on foot to see his neighbors." The wealthy families began to live more luxuriously. and, notwithstanding their eminently democratic principles, the craving to be thought of aristocratic lineage (a weakness not con- fined to crude civilization) began to manifest itself in its own peculiar way.
Of the little town of Louisville it was written : "There is a circle, small 'tis true, but within whose magic round abounds every pleasure that wealth regulated by taste can bestow. There the 'red- heel ' of Versailles may imagine himself in the very emporium of fashion, and, whilst leading beauty through the mazes of the dance, forget that he is in the wilds of America."
The French Republic at this time commanded the strongest sympathy of the people of Kentucky. When the treaty with Spain - the enemy of France - was announced. even though it gave to Kentuck- ians the long-coveted right to the navigation of the Mississippi River, the news, it is said, was received with "a burst of fury that knew no bounds." The
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Judge Innes of the United States court, Colonel Nicholas and Colonel Murray, all men of high stand- ing, were also involved in this deplorable intrigue. These, with the lesser figures who have escaped mention, managed to free themselves from blame. And, indeed, they were less blamable than appears at the present day. The tie binding the States together was then new and regarded with not un- natural doubt and distrust.
Their indignation had been deeply stirred against the alien and sedition laws recently enacted by the Federal Congress which threatened the precious personal freedom - of thought, of speech, of pen - for which they had fought so long. In their strong disapproval they had adopted the famous Resolutions of 1798, written by Jefferson and pre- sented in the Kentucky Legislature by John Breck- enridge, making void any act of the general Govern- ment interfering with personal liberty or authority of the State.
This was the beginning of the great question of nullification and secession - the little cloud no bigger than a man's hand, which was to grow and deepen and at length break into that fearful storm. the great Civil War.
While her father and his compatriots were thus engaged. Augusta Cabell was quietly pursuing her studies in the Virginia town where her grand-
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parents lived, and preparing herself to take her part in life; what part she knew not. Over this preparation, both mental and social, her grand- parents kept careful watch. Augusta was to be a great lady ; to take a prominent place in grand his- toric scenes. They had made up their minds to part with her only for a brief visit home on the completion of her studies, after which she was to return to them and become a distinguished figure in the elegant society of the East. But -
The best laid schemes o' mice an' men Gang aft a-gley.
On the thirteenth of July, 1803, this tall young lady of sixteen, fair, lithe and strongly built - look- ing, with her natural dignity of deportment, more like her grandfather Cabell than ever - sat on the deck of an Ohio River barge, watching the pictur- esque hills go by. She was traveling under the care of an old friend of her grandfather's, General Bowles, who unfortunately had been ill almost con- tinuously since their embarkation at Pittsburg.
There were no steamboats on the Ohio then, nor until ISr1. Although John Fitch of Bardstown had invented his steamboat in 1785 it was many years before he could secure any aid in bringing his invention into use ; and by that time James Rumsey and Edward West, both Kentuckians, had secured
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patents for their steamboats and were ready to di- vide the honors and the profits of the invention with him.
" How much nicer this is than traveling by stage," Augusta remarked to the young man beside her. "And so much faster. Three weeks from Wilmington to Pittsburg, and only eleven days from Pittsburg to Louisville."
" I wish it was the other way," said her compan- ion. . "That it was two more weeks to Louisville instead of two more days."
" What! and have poor General Bowles sick two more weeks ? He says it is the river that makes him ill."
It was only a rude sort of ark, loaded with live- stock and groceries, with but poor accommoda- tions for passengers; but to these two young peo- ple this gentle gliding along the shining stream. with a moving panorama of delightful scenery before them, was a charming experience. Only nine days before Mr. Melville Keith, with his habitual air of careless ease, had stepped on board the boat and into Augusta's life. He discovered in General Bowles an old and valued friend of his father, and that gentleman was glad enough to transfer his fair young charge to the care of so courteous and gen- tlemanly an acquaintance. And most faithfully had he fulfilled the trust ; there was no denying that.
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" I am afraid papa won't be there so soon," said .Augusta. " He was to meet me at Louisville, you know."
" Then," said Mr. Keith firmly, " I shall go with you to Lexington. General Bowles might be very" ill on the way." . He had told her all about his own family, who lived in Pennsylvania, on the historic Brandywine; and she had given him brief glimpses of her own home-life. She had told him, too, how her own mother had been murdered by the Indians ; and how dearly she loved her step-mother.
" Papa had made up his mind never to marry again," she said, "but one Christmas he was at Nora's father's (I call her Nora, too) and there were a lot of wild young men there; and they were all drinking egg-nog and apple punch. And her father had promised that the one who made the best shot should marry his daughter. He was a stubborn old fellow and Nora knew she would have to do just as he said ; and she was dreadfully frightened. Papa saw it, and determined to save her. He beat them all; and her father was greatly pleased. Papa was intending to give her back her liberty, even though it would have offended her father, until he found that the next best shot could claim her. She Is a beautiful face, but papa did not care for that. It was the beautiful soul back of it that he cared about."
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" Yes," assented the young man, rather absently.
Although quite ill General Bowles went all the way home with Augusta and her maid. And Mr. Melville Keith went along to take care of the whole party. He was hospitably received and for some days remained a guest of the house:
Three months afterward we find him still at Lex- ington, received everywhere as an honored guest. He was a fluent conversationalist, had a humorous way of relating an anecdote that made him wel- come in any company, and was always faultlessly dressed. His elegant ruffles, his embroidered waist- coat and his perfectly fitting coats were the admira- tion and the despair of young men less fortunate in their taste and tailor. He was a frequent guest at Colonel Cabell's house, but did not find the ready favor in the Colonel's eyes that he found in the daughter's.
" Why don't you like Mr. Keith, papa ? " Augusta asked. " He is well-bred, well-connected and good- humored ; what more could you ask ? "
" His manner and his dress are both rather too fine for a young man with no visible means of sup- port," said the Colonel, whose own dress was suffi- ciently elaborate; consisting of a dark cloth coat ornamented with brass buttons, short trousers fas- tened at the knee, and long silk stockings. His low-cut shoes had silver buckles, and the long quetic
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behind was tied with a black ribbon. This change in the style of his dress was due more to the taste of his wife than to his own. Her father, notwith- standing his convivial habits, had always been cere- monious and conventional in dress and manners. Her own dress, and that of her step-daughter, was more simple, consisting of plain stuff gowns with cambric frills at the neck and on the sleeves.
" Do you regard his cousin, General Wilkinson, in the light of a recommendation ?" inquired her father ; but his smile was rather serious.
" Every one -except you, papa - likes General Wilkinson," returned Augusta quickly.
" And you? How long is it since I heard you say that every one who approached General Wilkinson retired with a smirch on his character?"
" Well, I don't like General Wilkinson - an un- scrupulous man, who thinks by knocking down others he elevates himself. Mr. Keith isn't at all like him. He would rather help others than him- self."
" Yes, he carries that a little too far." Then, after a pause, he resumed: " I was hardly fair to General Wilkinson the other day when I made him entirely responsible for the public neglect that has befallen General George Rogers Clarke."
" But he gloats over it." interrupted Augusta,
"and as long as he can manage affairs himself he
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will hold a position of honor while General Clarke pines his life away in obscurity."
" Wounded pride and a sense of self-condemnation because of his complicity in Genet's wild scheme - that audacious French minister, you know, who planned to seize all the Spanish possessions along the Mississippi - have helped to unnerve and de- press General Clarke," Colonel Cabell replied. "But . a sign of interest from the people he has served so faithfully would rehabilitate him, and rekindle the old fire of patriotism. Sympathy and appreciation are what the really loving spirit of the man is starving for; but he will never receive them from this generation. When a hundred years or so have passed, perhaps a big stone may be raised to his memory. Meantime his life is wasting away in lonely brooding over his wrongs."
Augusta was never happier than when she could induce her father to talk about the statesmen and governments, the people and affairs, about which he knew so much and she knew so little ; and Mrs. Cabell, too, listened with interest, though each kept busy with her needle-work. We catch only slight glimpses of the women in the histories of that far- off time. We are told that there were looms and spinning-wheels in almost every house ; not many feminine hands were ignorant of spindle and dis- taff. Idleness had not then come into fashion.
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" What does all this ado about the Spanish Gov- ernment mean, papa? " Augusta next inquired. " Is Congress going to declare war against Spain ?"
" The speeches of Senators Breckenridge and White certainly mean war. The cruel treatment which American prisoners - arrested on the merest suspicion of disloyalty - receive from the Spanish Government, is considered sufficient grounds for war. There will be no permanent peace until the United States has purchased from Spain all the territory along the Mississippi. There can never be any congeniality between a despotic old mon- archy and an enthusiastic young republic."
" How foolish men are to be always wanting to fight ! Is there no way to adjust matters without killing each other? Because that rapacious little Bonaparte is snatching at everything that doesn't belong to him and, like a great ugly dog, beating down all the little nations around him, he is thought a great man ; but to my mind he is no better than a cruel, selfish beast. Though the law provides no punishment for the wholesale murderer, he is morally guilty, and some day will suffer the penalty of his crimes."
Mrs. Cabell, whose training had been wholly domestic, sometimes wondered at her step-daugh- ter's keen interest in political movements and affairs of nations; but to Colonel Cabell, who re-
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membered the political atmosphere of his father's house, where such men as Jefferson, Madison and Randolph were frequent guests, it was not a mat- ter of great surprise.
" Some day, perhaps, the world will learn to rule by good statesmanship rather than by blows," re- turned her father. "Now that Napoleon is First Consul we shall see whether he is a great man or not."
" What is the good of fame, after all ? " inquired Augusta with an air of disgust. "Don't we call our negroes and our dogs Cæsar and Pompey ? But, about the Spanish war; Mr. Keith has joined a company of riffemen who are planning to make a furious descent on that old rascal of a Morales, at Orleans, where he has cut off the navigation of the Mississippi again."
" All talk! The Kentuckians are always prepar- ing to make a furious descent on somebody. Poor Philip Nolan ! but for his rash defiance of these same treacherous Spanish he might have been alive now to serve his country which he loved so well. We have no right to make war without the per- mission of Congress ; and the war party is as yet in the minority."
Her grandparents were urging Augusta's return to Virginia, but she pleaded a wish to learn some- thing of domestic affairs, and to become a little
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better acquainted with her own State; and her father had no wish to part with his only child. Her step-mother, too, found her a great help and comfort. But neither of them wished to see her the wife of Mr. Melville Keith, who, though war had not been declared, still hung around Lexing- ton, deferring his departure from day to day on one excuse or another.
Lexington was now the largest and wealthiest town of the State, and its society included some of the brightest minds the country afforded. Henry Clay, who was in 1803, elected to the State Legis- lature, had been for six years a resident of Lex- ington; during that time he had won an enviable reputation for eloquence, and had started the fash- ion of freeing the murderer from the penalty of his crime. With his vivid eloquence, his ready wit and his deeply-sympathetic heart, he swept his no less emotional audience along the current of his own feeling, and wept with them over the unhappy prisoner whom circumstances had driven to the crime.
Among all the multitude whom he defended not one was condemned to death; while the one un- fortunate whom his duty as prosecuting attorney compelled him to appear against, was convicted and hung. So deeply did this incident weigh upon his mind that he lost no time in transferring the office
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to a friend; preferring, as he said, to secure life rather than procure death.
In her long contest with the Indians Kentucky had become inured to violence and bloodshed; her people took life and risked it with equal reckless- ness and indifference. The infidelity of France had stolen like a deadly miasma through the coun- try ; it had weakened all good ; it had strengthened all evil. The works of Voltaire, of Volney and of Tom Paine (an English-American then taking a minor part in the great drama of the French Rev- olution) were more diligently studied than the Bible; and Christianity, whom these great "literary lights " had discovered to be a fiction, became a by-word and a jest.
Bibles were scarce; there were few reputable Christians, and still fewer churches; and the Chris- tian writers of the time complain of an unconquer- able coldness and apathy in themselves. Still, they seem to have labored on with patient per- sistence, till "the great revival " swept over the country.
This season of violent spiritual awakening lasted with various fluctuations for fifty years, during which period infidelity received its death-blow. " Not a few continued infidels and scoffers," writes Rev. J. M. Peck. " but they were shorn of their strength. So many of their number had been con-
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verted, some of whom became efficient preachers of the gospel, that infidelity could no longer boast. Multitudes of strong-minded men, proud in their habits of free-thinking, were converted in so sud- den and impressive a mode as to perplex and con- found their associates."
Even Cabell, fixed as he was on the great Rock, felt at times that chaos had come. His lamp seemed to have gone out, and storms of doubt shook his soul ; but, clinging fast with blind des- peration, the dawn found him safely anchored, while the storm-wrecks still tossed around him ; many impaired beyond hope of repair.
Mr. Keith did not go to New Orleans to put down the insolent Dons; partly because he was engaged to be married, but chiefly be- cause there was no occasion for his going.
At noon, on the twentieth of December, 1803, amid the thunder of cannon and with ceremonies that were witnessed by a vast as- sembly of people, the tricolored flag that had
SEEKING FOR LIGHT.
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floated imperiously over New Orleans for so long. began slowly to descend from the flag-staff in the public square. The stars and stripes mounted aloft in its stead. Louisiana was free. The navi- gation of the Mississippi was permanently open to all.
Unknown to any except those officially con- cerned, Louisiana had passed into Napoleon's hands; and the First Consul (as he was then styled), who wanted money to fight England with, had sold it to the United States for fifteen millions of dollars. He also hoped that America, which had possessed the pluck to fight the British lion once, might, with this increase of naval strength, take occasion again to humble his pride. Yet it is doubtful, but for another incident of less national character, whether Mr. Keith's matrimonial enter- prise would have developed so favorably.
About noon one smiling, sunshiny day, as he was hunting in Colonel Cabell's woods - somehow game always seemed more abundant there - he noticed an immense volume of smoke advancing rapidly from the west; at the same time he saw Augusta walking briskly across the field, carrying a small basket in her hand. He hastened to join her. "The woods are on fire," he said hurriedly. "and it is coming this way. Don't be frightened - but we must hurry back to the house."
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" And leave papa! Oh! indeed, I couldn't do that," cried Augusta. " He is fishing just beyond that strip of woods. I was bringing him his din- ner. Oh! we must find papa.' "
" Well, then, we must run," and he seized her arm, fairly dragging her along as he flew over the ground. " If we can reach the creek we are safe," and his tone expressed a calm assurance which allayed her fears.
A crackling sound could be distinctly heard ; and long tongues of flame were clearly seen shoot- ing upward through the swiftly advancing cloud. Through the fields they rushed; the long grass tangled about their feet, almost tripping them up, but right on they dashed, into the woods already alight with myriads of flames. Heaven be praised ! there is papa far down the creek, peacefully stand- ing neck-deep in the water. Suddenly a pile of drift-wood lying along the bank flashed into flame and shot across their path ; it caught at Augusta's flowing dress and, never pausing, they too rushed into the stream.
During the hour or more in which they stood in the stream, dashing water over their faces and heads from time to time, even the awful grandeur of the scene failed to obliterate the still more thrilling con- sciousness that they were together. What they said matters little; it is looks quite as much as
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words that make up the heart language. Never was wooing framed in a more startling environ- ment. The air was tremulous with heat; the crackling overhead, the crash of falling branches. the gusts of smoke which blinded and choked them - all seemed only a brilliant stage-setting for their own little drama. Burning trees leaning over the stream began to shower fiery missiles around them; but even this brought little sense of danger to the two lovers wholly absorbed in the thought of each other.
At last the air began to clear and they saw Colonel Cabell climb out on the bank, muddy and water-soaked, but unhurt. Then the two young. people looked into each other's shining red faces. seriously at first, but with a real sense of relief which culminated in a happy peal of laughter. " Wasn't it grand ? " exclaimed Augusta. " I forgot all about papa."
"So did I," said Mr. Keith, with a shade of anxi- ety which plainly said he would gladly continue to forget him.
As they stood dripping but radiant on the bank the Colonel slowly approached them. There was something in his look which sobered them. He said little ; even his glance was reticent; but some- how they felt that, with him, all contest was ended ; that he would no longer oppose his will to theirs.
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That his daughter loved him Cabell knew well ; she would do nothing of her own free will to make him unhappy. And yet, while standing there with ner lover she had forgotten him; he had seen that. He saw, too, how in spite of dutiful resistance she had been borne along by a power stronger than her own will; one that had come upon her without her own seeking.
" Come to the house," he said ; and Mr. Melville Keith understood that so far as he was concerned, penance and renunciation were at an end.
CHAPTER VI.
BREAKING THE ROD OF BRITISH POWER.
A
UGUSTA CABEL !. became Mrs. Melville Keith ; but not with- out adequate warning from her father as to the price she would probably pay for that honor. " Keith is a pleasant, good-nat- ured, companionable " An honest, truthful
fellow, I know," he said. gentleman, too, I think ; with a fair education, a keen appreciation of wit, and of quick, impartial judgment of the good points of friend or foe. But he has no enterprise, no business talent, tact or training ; and no wish to have. There are burdens in every life which some one must bear ; and in this case as with the Indians, the burden-bearer will be the wife."
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