History of the Ohio falls cities and their counties : with illustrations and bibliographical sketches, Vol. I, Part 7

Author: Williams, L.A., & Co., Cleveland
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Cleveland, Ohio : L. A. Williams & Co.
Number of Pages: 814

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Next came Christopher Gist, sent out in Sep- tember, 1750, by the Ohio company, to "go out to the westward of the great mountains, in order to search out and discover the lands upon the river Ohio down as low as the great falls there- of ; and to take an exact account of all the large bodies of good level land, that the company may the better judge where it will be the most con- venient to take their grant of five hundred thou- sand acres." After making his way across the Ohio wilderness to the Great Miami, and down that stream to the great river, he, says the West- ern Annals, "went as far down the Ohio as the Falls, and was gone seven months." No record of his observations or adventures here has been left.

HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

In 1765 Colonel George Croghan, a deputy or sub-commissioner of Sir William Johnson, the noted Indian agent in the employ of Great Britain, came down the river on a mission to the distant Western Indians, to secure the alliance of the French at the Illinois settlements, and prevent their inciting the savages to war. The following is an extract from his Journal :

June rst-We arrived within a mile of the Falls of the Ohio, where we encamped, after coming about fifty miles this day.

2d-Early in the morning we embarked, and passed the Falls. The river being very low, we were obliged to lighten our boats, and pass on the north side of the little island which lays in the middle of the river. In general, what is called the Falls here is no more than rapids ; and in the least fresh a battean of any size may come and go on each side without any risk. This day we proceed sixty miles, in the course of which we pass Pigeon river. The country pretty high on each side of the Ohio.

Colonel Croghan pursued his way to the Wa- bash, where he found a breastwork, made by the Indians, as he supposed. He remained at the mouth of the river the following day, and at day- break the next morning was surprised by a party of Kickapoos and "Musquattimes," who killed five of his party, wounded him and all the rest but three, and carried the survivors off as prisoners. He was released soon after, and ac- complished the objects of his mission.

Captain Harry Gordon, an official engineer for the British Government, who passed the rapids July 22, 1766, says in his journal:

Those Falls do not deserve the name, as the stream on the north side has no sudden pitch, but only runs over a ledge of rocks. Several boats passed them in the driest season of the year, unloading half of their freight. They passed on the north side, where the carrying place is three-quarters of a mile; on the southeast side it is about half the distance, and is reckoned the safest passage for those who are acquainted with it, as, during the summer and autumn, the batteaux-men drag their boats over the rock. The fall is about half a mile rapid water, which, however, is passable by wading and dragging the boat against the stream when lowest, and with still greater ease when the water is raised a little.

Within a very few years after this came the voy- ages of the pioneer surveyors to the Falls, with which we begin the annals of Louisville in sub- sequent chapters.

CHAPTER IV.

GEORGE ROGERS CLARK.+

Introduction-His Earlier Life-He Saves Kentucky-The Illinois Campaign-The Ohio Campaign-Clark Never Defeated-Character of His Enemy-Clark never Caught Asleep-"A Shakspeare in His Way"-The General's Death and Burial.

This sketch can give but a faint idea of the courage, energy, capacity, and indomitable tenac- ity of General George Rogers Clark. The stern and appalling difficulties he encountered assume the wild charm of a startling romance, and had I space for the details of time, place, and circum- stances, it would transcend fiction itself. In short, his life was a life of self-reliant and daring deeds that stand pre-eminent above all the heroes that ever lived or led an army. For brave, humane, and high-toned chivalry he was truly pre-eminent. Though daring and fierce to his enemies, his generous and social impulses made him the idol of his friends. Quick to re- sent an injury, yet prompt to forgive it; fiery in pursuit, yet cool and calculating in action, he never stooped nor shrunk but in wisdom to gain strength for the rebound. Full of generous deeds and native nobility of soul, he was a brave defender of the " Dark and Bloody Ground," the splendid country now called Kentucky.

HIS EARLIER LIFE.

George Rogers Clark was born November 19, 1752, in Albemarle county, Virginia. In early life he was, like Washington, a surveyor, and then a major in the wars of Lord Dunmore against the Canadian, French, and Northern In- dians. Hearing much said about the newly dis- covered world called Kentucky, and the bloody conflict between the white and red men for pos- session, he determined to see for himself the present condition and future prospect of the disputed land. His arrival in the promised land was in 1775, where he found a few isolated forts in the heart of a vast wilderness claimed by the most savage and warlike people in the world, against whom unaided individual courage, though great, could not prevail. He at once set his plans, and went mentally and bodily into the work; and marvelous was the result.

* From a communication to the Louisville Daily Commer- cial, February 24, 1878, by the veteran Kentuckian, Dr. Christopher C. Graham, now in his ninety-eighth year.

GEN. CLARK.

HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

HE SAVES KENTUCKY.

Clark, with his bold and penetrating mind, saw but one course to settle the many conflicting claims to the richest region on earth. All the country south of Kentucky river at that time was claimed by the noted Colonel Henderson and the great Transylvania Land company, in which the most influential men of the Union and no- bility of England were interested. This claim was by a purchase made by the above company from the Cherokees South, at the treaty of Watanga, while the colony of Virginia claimed the whole region from the Ohio river to the Cumberland mountains, by her purchase from the Delawares and Shawnees, and from other tribes of the Northwest, called the Six Nations, at the celebrated treaty of Fort Stanwix, by Sir William Johnson and his co-English authorities. This rumor of a purchase and lasting peace with the Indians produced a flood of immigration to Kentucky, which caused great alarm among the Six Nations, many of whose chiefs had not been in the treaty, and knew nothing about it; and the Six Nations not being paid according to contract, and being egged on by the British trading-posts, where large prices were paid for Kentucky scalps, all the tribes were about to unite and exterminate the intruders. Clark, seeing the hopeless con- dition of the early settlers and the danger they were in, determined to put his life at stake in their defense. The powder and lead being well- nigh exhausted, and the forts being widely sepa- rated, there was no concert of action; so he called a meeting of the citizens at Harrodsburg station, to send delegates to Virginia to ask for a supply of ammunition, at which convention Gabriel Jones and Clark were appointed com- missioners, signed by Harrod and eighty-seven others.

Clark and Jones now set off through a path- less wilderness of three hundred miles, over rugged mountains, on to the seat of government, Williamsburg, and, finding the Legislature ad- journed, Jones despaired and gave it up. But not so with Clark, who, with undaunted resolve, went straightway to Patrick Henry, then Gover- nor of Virginia, and implored him to save the people of Kentucky from their threatened de- struction. The Governor being sick in bed, gave Clark a letter to the Executive Council, and they declining to take any responsibility, Clark said to

them, in firm and threatening language, that if Virginia did not think Kentucky worth saving, he would apply to a_power that was ready, willing, and waiting to save and protect it. The execu- tive council, understanding Clark's stern and in- dependent remarks, granted him the ammunition asked for. Spain at that time controlled the navigation of the Mississippi river, and New Or. leans being the only market for Kentucky, many of the leading men of Kentucky, aware of the great commercial advantages Spain offered, pre- ferred the protection of Spain to that of Eng- land. Clark, from his penetrating knowledge of human nature, now obtained, as I have said, the ammunition for Kentucky, but found great diffi- culty in getting it to the different forts in the far- off wilderness. He at last getting it to Pitts- burgh fort, was joined by Jones, and improvising a craft, they descended the Ohio, and though fired at frequently by Indians on the shore, they landed near Limestone, took the powder and lead out, set their craft afloat, and hid the treas- ure in the woods. Jones went to the nearest station, and procuring some ten men, started back to bring in the powder, but was attacked by the Indians and himself and others were killed. Clark, however, kept on to Harrodsburg station, got Kenton and others, brought the treas- ure safely in, and supplied the different stations with the means of defense.

THE ILLINOIS CAMPAIGN.

Clark was always ready to sally out against the invaders of Kentucky, but with quick perception he saw no end to such petty warfare, and that the ax must be laid at the root of the tree; and as there was not sufficient force in Kentucky to in- vade the savage strongholds and break up the British trading-posts, he again went back to both Virginia and Pennsylvania, through a wilderness of hundreds of miles, and, procuring a hundred and fifty men and boats at Pittsburg fort, came on to the Falls. Being here joined by a few Kentuckians, swelling his army of invasion, he floated on down to a point nearest to Kaskaskia, the then great trading-post of the Canadians, French, and English, and where all the Western tribes resorted. His march was rapid, and the night before his attack he led his men through a tangled forest of thirty miles, and, taking the enemy by surprise, captured them all, ten times

HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

his number. In like manner did he take Kaho- kia and St. Louis forts, making prisoners of the English officers and sending them to Virginia.

The French traders and missionaries were the first whites to mix and intermarry among the Indians and gain their friendship. The English having taken possession of Canada, sent their officers and traders to those posts where they were not welcomed either by the French or In- dians, and Clark, by his inherent knowledge of mind, soon made friends of both French and Indians by pledging exclusive trade for the French traders, and protection to all by the powers of Virginia and Kentucky. Thus, having by his shrewdness accomplished more than many officers with an army of ten thousand men could have done, he swore his newly made friends to their allegiance to Virginia and peace with Ken- tucky. He left a single officer, with the aid of the inhabitants, to hold the place, and prepared for his march to Fort Vincennes.

Before leaving, he kindly took the French priests and Indian chiefs by the hand, saying to the chiefs: "We are brothers, and in you I have confidence, and if I hear of the English dis- turbing your command I will bring an army to your defense ;" and expressing a hope to meet the priests in heaven, he asked for prayer and de- parted with his little fragment of an army to at- tack the British stronghold in the West. He sent spies ahead, one being the noted Colonel Vigo, a Spaniard of St. Louis, and the other an influential chief, to gain the friendship of the French and Indians in the British fortress in ad- vance of the assault. All things being made ready, Clark again plunged into the dark and dismal wilderness, and after marching day and night through rain, sleet, and mud, they came near the Wabash, which being out of its banks, the low flats were for miles inundated and frozen over with ice an inch thick. The shivering men, already being worn down and half-starved, halted, and, gazing in each other's faces with feelings of despair, muttered, "Let us go back;" but seeing their commander with his tomahawk cut a club and black his face with powder, some of which he drank, all eyes were upon him as he turned his face to his command and, with a voice of de- termination, ordered Colonel Bowman to fall in the rear, and put to death any that might refuse to follow him. In he plunged, waist deep and

sometimes to the chin, breaking the ice as he went, till he came to shallow water, where he halted for the moment to see whether he had lost any of his men; and seeing some of them like to faint, he put the weaker men by the side of the stronger for the next two miles, till they came to trees and bushes which afforded some support. They, at last, getting on higher ground within hearing of the guns of the fort, the enjoy- ment of fire and rest gave such life and hope to the whole company that when Clark addressed them, with one voice they exclaimed, "We will take the fort or die. in the attempt."

One of Clark's spies came to his camp and told him that Colonel Hamilton, the British com- mander, had knowledge of his approach, but that the French and Indian inhabitants, six hundred in number, were in sympathy with the Ameri- cans.

Stop here and think of the wonderful sagacity of Clark. Having already taken three fortresses with numbers more than his command, without the loss of a man, now we see he has laid the foundation for the capture of Fort Vincennes. He marched boldly on, and with the eye of an cagle scanned the ground, marching and countermarching behind high ground where his scant numbers could not be seen, and where one man by hoisting the flag higher might be thought a full company. He, moreover, placed his sharp- shooters behind a hillock close to the port-holes of the artillery, and as soon as they opened, a shower of balls cut down the gunners; after which not a man could be got to work the guns. Hamilton, seeing this and that the citizens were against him, was paralyzed by alarm, of which Clark took the advantage, and with pretended feelings of humanity addressed him in the language both of a conqueror and a friend, showing his astonishing insight into human na- ture. He said to the commander that he was fully able and determined to storm the place, but to save bloodshed and the destruction of prop- erty, he was willing simply to hold his men prisoners instead of killing them, and to let him- self march out with his side-arms, and that he would send a safeguard with him to Detroit ; but if he had to take the place by assault, he would not be responsible for the revengeful conse- quences; that his army was largely composed of Kentuckians, who had come with frantic and

HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

firm resolve to recover the scalps of their friends, for which he had paid high prices, and if any of them lost their lives in the attempt, he might ex- pect the most excruciating torture. And now this singular epistle, which Clark knew would touch the feeling of self-preservation, soon brought an answer, "Walk in," and thus it is seen that Clark's magic power over the minds of men accomplished more, with but little over a hundred men, without the loss of a single man, than others by brute force could have done with an army of a thousand and the loss of one-half. He now (after sending his British prisoners, eighty in number, off to Fort Pittsburg) organ- ized a colonial government, and, leaving a suffi- cient force, returned to Louisville and built a fort, where he established his headquarters as Commander in chief of the Northwest.

THE OHIO CAMPAIGN.

The four British posts that had furnished the savages with arms and ammunitions of war and paid premiums for scalps being broken up by our noble defender, Kentucky felt safe, and the flood of immigration became great. Kentucky's se- curity, however, did not continue; it was not long till the foe again lurked in every path from fort to fort and house to house, crouched in the cane, and murdered all who passed, till Clark, becoming wearied in his conflicts with them, de- termined to invade Ohio and desolate their own homes. His voice being as great a charm to his friends as a terror to his enemies, he called for troops, and soon had an army by his side wait- ing his orders, with which force he defeated the enemy in every pitched battle, and like a tornado swept over their country. Shouts of victory rent the air, and seeing their towns in flames, the savages for the first time felt the power of the white man and begged for peace.

NEVER DEFEATED.

The conflicts that Clark had with the Indians and British from time to time are too numerous for detail, but suffice it to say he was never de- feated, even by an enemy of double his number, while other white commanders contending with the same foes, with double their numbers, were defeated with great slaughter. In Braddock's defeat, of twelve hundred men engaged, there were seven hundred and fourteen killed. In St. Clair's defeat, out of fourteen hun-

dred men, eight hundred and ninety were killed .and wounded. Braddock's officers were eighty-six in number, of whom sixty- three were slain, himself among them. St. Clair had from eighty-six to ninety officers, of whom sixteen were killed and wounded-a second Braddock's defeat. Harmar's defeats were gen- erally calamitous, and that of the Lower Blue Lick even more distressing, where, out of one hundred and eighty-two who went into the battle, near one-half were killed, seven taken prisoners and tortured in the flames.

This latter little army was composed of the first men in Kentucky, whose loss was not only heart-rending to their families, but fearful to all, as all hope for the lives of the few left had de- parted with the dead. Isolated and hopeless in the far-off wilderness, surrounded by fiends that sought their lives, what but dread fear could tor- ment them by day and startle their slumbers by hideous shouts at night ? Clark, stationed at Louisville, was their only hope left, and he, when he heard of the sad defeats, quickly col- lected a large force, followed them to their homes, defeated them in every battle, and burnt their towns, to the great joy of Kentucky.

CHARACTER OF HIS ENEMY.

I will only mention a few more of the many calamitous defeats, both in Ohio and Kentucky, to show the kind of men Clark had to contend with, and the contrast of his and other com- mands. The destruction of Colonel Estill and his command where Mt. Sterling now stands, and the defeat of Captain Holden at the Upper Blue licks, are but drops of blood in the hogs- head that was spilt on this once "dark and bloody ground."

I will now indulge in but one more incident, which may be of interest to the reader, to show how the savages tortured their prisoners. When Colonel Crawford was defeated by the Indians in Northern Ohio, he, the almost only one left alive, was, a few days after his capture, put to the torture. They blacked his face that he might know his fate, bound him tight, and kept him long enough to suffer more than death; then they stripped him naked and shot some twenty loads of powder into his body, and having burned down wood to lively coals they put him on them, and piling brush around him quickly

HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

engulfed him in flames. His hair was first burned from his head, his eyes were next burned out, all of which he bore with incredible forti- tude, uttering only in low and solemn tones, "The Lord have mercy upon my soul"-till his tongue was parched beyond utterance and his feet (on which he had walked round upon the coals) were crisped to the bone, when he quietly laid himself down with his face upon the fire, when an old squaw, with a wooden shovel, poured hot embers on his back till life became extinct. Dr. Knight, the surgeon of Crawford's command, was captured with him, and with his own face painted black for execution, witnessed the whole horrid scene. They beat him (as they did Colonel Crawford before his execution) almost to a jelly, and often threw the bloody scalps of his friends in his face, and knocking down a fellow prisoner a squaw cut off his head, which was kicked about and stamped into the ground. Dr. Knight, after great suffering, was saved. I marched over Crawford's battle-ground in our War of 1812, and saw the trees scarred by the balls.

NEVER CAUGHT ASLEEP.

General George Rogers Clark never suffered such a fate, nor did one of his command; he never was caught asleep, but often took his ene- my a-napping, conquering as he went, as he often did, through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Mis- souri, till his name was a terror to the Western tribes. His first arrival in Kentucky was marvel- ous. Having made his way down the Ohio river, lined on either side with savages that almost daily captured boats and murdered whole fami- lies, he landed in a wild and trackless forest, filled with a lurking foe, and alone, without map or guide, traveling over a hundred miles, and crossing deep and dangerous streams, he struck the isolated fortress of Harrodsburg, after which he was seen foremost in the defense of all the interior forts, and then beyond the border in the Far West in bloody conflicts with fearful odds, yet ever victorious. No general ever led an army with more celerity and secresy, and his battle-cry in the onset was "victory or death, honor or disgrace;" and he invariably led the way. He had the foresight of Napoleon in strat- egy, the heroism of Cæsar in execution, and the wisdom of Scipio Africanus in leading an army

into the enemy's country. His addresses to his men going into battle had much to do with his brilliant victories: "We are now about to engage with a savage and cruel enemy who, if they take you, will torture you in the flames, and better a thousand times to die in battle; but victory being better than either, you can, by a manly and un- flinching courage, gain it, when cowardice and confusion will be death to all."

HIS WIDE RENOWN.

The fame of General George Rogers Clark was not confined to Kentucky or the United States, but reached the ears of Napoleon, whose Minister to the United States, the noted Genet, conferred upon him the office of generalissimo, with the title of major-general in the armies of France. Clark was expected to lead an army of Kentuckians to seize upon New Orleans and hold it in the name of France, then at war with Spain ; but Spain having shortly ceded Louisiana to France, and Napoleon, about to engage in a war with England, knowing that her fleet would quickly sail for New Orleans, offered the whole of Louisiana, reaching from the Gulf to the head of the Mississippi, and west to the Pacific, for $15,000,000. So Clark's expedition, in which all Kentucky was ready to embark, was rendered unnecessary by Spain's cession to France aud France's cession to the United States.

Monuments have been reared in honor of politicians whose lives were frolic and feasting, while those who have risked their lives a hundred times, and worn themselves out by hardships and privations to save their country from ruin, sleep in their graves forgotten and unthanked by those who now slumber upon their downy beds, un- startled by the Indian's war-whoop, the sharp crack of the rifle, and the cry of distress. Then forget not those who saved your fathers from death, and enabled them to transmit to you the blessings you now enjoy.

The writer lived in those days of sadness and sorrow when our fate seemed certain either by the tomahawk or the torturing flames. Isolated families and forts far apart, two hundred miles from any help; in the midst of a vast wilderness, surrounded by cruel savages that lurked upon every path and crouched around the little forts, total destruction to all without concert and foreign aid was certain. True, we had men as willing

HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

and ready as Clark to meet the foe face to face and hand to hand in bloody conflict, a thing of daily occurrence; but we had no men of Clark's strategic and magic powers of combining and controlling masses. When the reader knows that our war with Great Britain commenced in 1776, and that the colonies beyond the moun- tains being themselves hard pressed, could afford us no aid, he will see us as we were, in a helpless condition, struggling against fearful odds.

"A SHAKESPEARE IN HIS WAY."

The English immediately and wisely seized the Western trading-posts in order to set the Indians upon the frontier settlements of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Kentucky, and the red men, like the whites, preferring the strong side, listened to the promises of the English to restore to them their homes that Kentuckians had, in violation of the treaty of Fort Stanwix, taken possession of. The Six Nations now determined to join the Southern and Western tribes in the recovery of their common hunting-grounds. Clark, from his unerring knowledge of human nature, kept such spies as Kenton and Ballard on the alert, and finding out that Governor Hamilton, of Fort Vincent, had promised the chiefs that if they would assemble five thousand warriors by the middle ot May he would furnish two hundred British soldiers and light artillery to quickly rid Kentucky of every man, woman, and child in it, and to nip this plot in the bud and take them by surprise, Clark (not being able to get sufficient force in Kentucky) made a third trip to Virginia and Pennsylvania, and begged from these colo- nies (themselves hard pressed) one hundred and seventy-five men, with which he made his winter campaign, wading in mud and ice-water chin deep, and taking Governor Hamilton's strong- hold without losing a man. Thus were saved the lives of the parents and grandparents of many now in Louisville, who but for the exer- tions of General George Rogers Clark, would never have had an existence; and who, in the chase of fortune and the luxuries of life, have no time to visit the grave of one of the greatest mili- tary men of this globe; one who accomplished more by his strategy, through a long series of brilliant victories; than Washington did with the aid of a powerful nation or than Jackson did in a single battle behind his breastworks. Clark 6

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History of the Ohio falls cities and their counties : with illustrations and bibliographical sketches, Vol. I, Part 7

Author: Williams, L.A., & Co., Cleveland Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Cleveland, Ohio : L. A. Williams & Co. Number of Pages: 814

Author: Williams, L.A., & Co., Cleveland
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Cleveland, Ohio : L. A. Williams & Co.
Number of Pages: 814