xt78pk06x79w https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt78pk06x79w/data/mets.xml McElroy, Robert McNutt, 1872-1959. 1909  books b92-145-29449834 English Moffat, Yard and Co., : New York : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Kentucky History. Kentucky Bibliography. Kentucky in the nation's history  / by Robert McNutt McElroy... ; illustrated with map and historical portraits. text Kentucky in the nation's history  / by Robert McNutt McElroy... ; illustrated with map and historical portraits. 1909 2002 true xt78pk06x79w section xt78pk06x79w 



















   KENTUCKY
      IN THE
NATION'S HISTORY

 This page in the original text is blank.


 








































                 Henry Clay as a young man
From a miniature now in possession of Mrs. J7ohn Clay, of Lexington, Kentucky.

 


        KENTUCKY

                  IN


THE NATION'S HISTORY


                  BY
    ROBERT McNUTT McELROY, PH. D.
         ASSISTANT PRGFESSOR OF AMERICAN HISTORY
              PRINCETON UNIVERSITY


  ILLUSTRATED, WITH MAP AND HISTORICAL PORTRAITS



          NEW YORK
MOFFAT, YARD AND
            1 909



COMPANY

 
























        Copyright, xoog, by
MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY



         AlU righis reserved


    PUBLISHED, NOVEMBER, 1909

 











TO MY FATHER

 This page in the original text is blank.

 

PRE FACE



  As this volume represents a conscious departure from
the customary method of dealing with State history, a
word of explanation, as to my object, is necessary. The
real aim of the study of State history, as I conceive it,
should be to add to our knowledge of the nation, as the
day for the cultivation of a purely local patriotism-if, in-
deed, that day ever existed-has passed forever. To write
of the history of a State as though it were something apart
from the nation is not only to violate the "unity of his-
tory," but also to deprive the nation of a valuable source
of information concerning national events. In making
historical investigations, from time to time, I have been
impressed by the fact that much material, bearing upon
the nation's history, lies buried in local archives and pri-
vate collections. For the student of purely local history,
most of this material is of little value, relating, as it does,
to distinctly national questions, while, to the national
historian, it is inaccessible, it being obviously impossible
for the investigator, in such broad fields, to delve very
deeply into local treasuries.
  In the preparation of the present volume, I have studied
the local collections from the point of view of one primarily
interested in the nation. Such local events as have had a
distinctly national influence, as well as such national events
as have particularly affected local conditions, have been
my concern. A typical example of the first is presented in

 
PREFACE



the Kentucky Resolutions of I798, and, of the second, in
the purchase of Louisiana.
  I have been primarily aided, in my work, by the fact
that, for over half a century, Colonel Reuben T. Durrett,
the father and president of the Filson Club, has devoted
himself to the task of collecting and preserving all avail-
able material, bearing upon Kentucky. His priceless col-
lection has been placed at my disposal, and I have, also,
freely drawn upon his unexcelled knowledge of Kentucky
history, in all of its phases; while a large portion of my
manuscript, when completed, was carefully examined and
criticised by him.
  For information, given in personal interviews, I am
particularly indebted to General Simon Bolivar Buckner,
Colonel J. Stoddard Johnston, and Mr. Justice Harlan of
the United States Supreme Court, of whom the latter
rendered me the great service of reading the major part of
the proof sheets of the book.
   WODONEYO,"
   NORTH NEW CASTLE, MAINE,
     September 23, 1909.


 

                   CONTENTS

CHAPTER                                             PAGE
     Author's Preface
   I. The Vanguard of the Westward Movement .    .   I
   II. Transylvania, the Last Experiment in Proprietary
        Government            .    .    .           33
 III. Kentucky's Part in the American Revolution .  .62
 IV. Kentucky Enters the Union.    .   .    .    . 1 14
 V. Harmar, Wilkinson and St. Clair.  .    .    . 147
 VI. One Phase of the Genet Mission.   .    .    . I63
 VII. Conflicts over the Commercial Highway of the West. 185
VIII. The Kentucky Resolutions of I798 and I799     . 2I I
IX. Kentucky and the Purchase of Louisiana   .    . 265
  X. The Burr Conspiracy .    .    .    .    .    . 277
  XI. Kentucky in the War of I812  .    .    .    . 3 15
XII. A Chapter in Financial History.   .    .    . 377
XIII. Kentucky in the War with Mexico   .    .    . 408
XIV. Last Days of the "1 Great Commoner." .    .    . 455
XV. Atchison, Dixon and the Repeal of the Missouri Com-
        promise.    .    .    .    .    .    .    . 483
XVI. Loyal to the Union  .    .    .    .    .    . 500
     A Critical Bibliography of Kentucky History   . 547
     Index    .    .    .    .    .    .         . 579

 This page in the original text is blank.


 

              LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

                                                                 PAGE
Henry Clay as a young man        .    .   .   .  Frontispiece
      From a miniature now in possession of Mrs. Yohn Clay, of Lexington,
   Kentucky.
Daniel Boone     .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .    26
      From a sketch by John Trumbull, now in the possession of Colonel
    Reuben T. Durrett, of Louisville, Kentucky.
General James Wilkinson      .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   142
      From a life-size portrait by Yarvis, now in the possession of Colonel
    Reuben T. Durrett, of Louisville, Kentucky.
George Rogers Clark      .   .   .   .    .  .    .   .   .   .  I70
      From a life-size portrait by Matthew Harris Jouett, now in the posses-
    sion of Colonel Reuben T. Durrett, of Louisville, Kentucky.
Fac-simile of letter from Thomas Jefferson to J. Cabell
     Breckinridge regarding the Kentucky Resolutions         .  230
     Reproduced by the c urtesy of Mr. Desha Breckenridge and his sister,
   Dean Breckenridge, of the University of Chicago.
Reduced fac-simile of the original text of the Kentucky
     Resolutions of I798, as printed and distributed by
     order of the Legislature    .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   258
Map of Battle of the Thames .        .   .   .   .   .   .   .   352
Henry Clay as an old man .       .    .   .  .    .  .    .   .  480
     From a daguerreotype now in the possession of Mrs. Robert Dick Wilson,
   of Princeton, N. .
The Document given to General Simon Bolivar Buckner
     by President Lincoln, stating his attitude toward
     Kentucky neutrality     .   .   .   .   .                   3. .   .   .;6

 This page in the original text is blank.


 

KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S
                   HISTORY

                   CHAPTER I

    THE VANGUARD OF THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT

  FOR almost two hundred years after the first voyage
of Columbus the interior of the North American conti-
nent remained a trackless wilderness. The adventurous
Spaniards in the South, in their mad search for gold,
had indeed discovered the Mississippi River, and had
buried within its mysterious waters the body of their
heroic leader, De Soto, but of the sources of that river,
and of the great valley drained by it, the world was al-
most as ignorant in I692 as it had been two hundred years
earlier. Those two centuries had been centuries of such
rapid progress in geographical discovery that it had been
quite impossible for even the educated classes to assimi-
late the geographical knowledge laid before them, and it
is in no wise remarkable that, even after the permanent
colonization of the Atlantic seaboard was well under way,
men should have followed with eagerness every strip of
water extending westward, in the hope that it would lead
them into the great South Sea which Balboa had discov-
ered and Magellan had been the first to cross. It is quite
natural also that among the instructions sent by the Vir-
ginia Company (i6o8) to Captain John Smith and his
fellow colonists at Jamestown, was the command to dis-
     Kentucky-i          I

 

2    KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY



cover a passage to the South Sea,' and that Henry Hudson
should have followed, with the same hope, the course of
the mighty river which bears his name.2
  What was true of these men was true of many who
followed them. It took an enormous amount of investi-
gation to convince the world that the continent of North
America was a vast mainland, through which it was vain
to seek a passage by water to the Pacific, and it should
not astonish us, therefore, to find that the two men who,
at almost the same time, discovered the Kentucky region
were engaged in this search.
  Of these the first was no less a personage than the
famous explorer, Robert Cavelier de La Salle, a na-
tive of Rouen in France, who at the age of twenty-three
had migrated to Canada and was soon deeply involved
in studying this problem. His faith in the existence of
such a stream was strengthened from time to time by
Indian tales, those uncertain guides which had led many
a gallant explorer to his death.     Entering  the Alle-
gheny near its source, he passed down the Ohio, until
he came to the Falls where the city of Louisville now
stands.3
  "In making this long journey," says Colonel Durrett,4
"he was the discoverer of Kentucky from the Big Sandy
to the Rapids of the Ohio, and was the first white man
whose eyes looked Eastward from the beautiful river to
  1 J. A. Doyle, "The English in America," p. z65; J. E. Cooke, "Virginia,"
p. 45-
  2 Fiske, " Discovery of America," II, p. 546.
  3 I purposely omit the somewhat doubtful claim that Louis de Moscoso in
1543 passed along the southern boundary line of Kentucky with his forlorn
band of Spanish adventurers. Collins, I, 14 and 509. Durrett's "Filson,"
p. 32, accepts the story. "Encyclopwdia Britannica," La Sal.
  4 Durrett's "Centenary of Kentucky," p. IS.

 

VANGUARD OF THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 3



the Bluegrass Land which forms the Garden Spot of the
State."
  Only two years after La Salle's visit, there came into
the Kentucky region the representative of the race which
was soon to dispute with France the possession of the
district. In i671, General Abraham Wood, by the au-
thority of the testy old Tory Governor of Virginia, Sir Wil-
liam Berkeley, sent out Captain Thomas Batts with a
party in search of the river which would lead to the Pa-
cific Ocean.1 Whether or not Batts actually crossed the
Big Sandy and entered the territory now comprised in
the State of Kentucky, it is quite impossible to determine
from his journal, but he at least traced the pathway from
the old settlements of Virginia to the trackless wilderness
beyond the mountains.2
  For almost half a century after the Batts expedition, we
have no record or tradition of visits of white men to the
wilderness of Kentucky. And when we again come, with
the year I730,3 to brief records of such visits they tell us
  1 Cf. Durrett's "Centenary of Kentucky," p. 13. Colonel Durrett has in
his collection a MS. copy of Captain Batts' " Journal." It is published in
Vol. III of the "Documents Relative to the Colonial History of New York,"
pp. 193-197.
  2 This is probably the journey which Daniel Coxe had in mind when, in his
"Description of the English Province of Carolana," he tells of a certain Col-
onel Wood of Virginia, who had discovered various branches of the Ohio and
Mississippi Rivers. Durrett's "Centenary of Kentucky," p. I2; Butler's Ken-
tucky, 2d Ed., p. 499; Collins, I, p. I4; Long's " Expedition," I, p. 236;
Albach's "Western Annals," p. 94, repeat the story.
  3 In 1730, however, a certain John Sailing of Williamsburg, Va., was cap-
tured near the James River by a band of Cherokee Indians and carried as far as
the Salt Licks of Kentucky. Here he made his escape, but was again captured
by a band of Illinois Indians and taken on to Kaskaskia, whence, having es-
caped a second time, he returned to Virginia, probably by way of the Cumber-
land Gap. "The Annals of Kentucky" (Collins, I, p. IS) state that Sailing
was ransomed at Kaskaskia and returned to Virginia by way of Canada. Cf.
also Wither's "Border Warfare," p. 43; Butler's "Kentucky," 2d Ed., p. 21.

 

KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY



still only of chance wanderings in the region, and give very
little beyond the bare statement of personal hardships and
dangers.'
  The knowledge of the western wilderness which the
reports of such casual visitors gave to the people of Vir-
ginia, and of the other settlements east of the mountains,
must have been extremely vague, but in spite of their
ignorance concerning the district lying beyond the west-
ern mountains the people of Virginia, as early as 1749, had
begun to cast wistful glances in that direction, suspecting
that the day was soon to come when this country would
be of value, and questioning how they could best secure
those lands, whose ownership the French were already
preparing to dispute with them. Following the precedent
set by England in her efforts to colonize the Atlantic
seaboard, some of her leading citizens organized land
companies with a view to buying up vast tracts of this
western wilderness, inducing settlers to migrate thither
by giving them grants of land, and thus causing the rest
to rise in value so as to repay the expenses of the venture.
  The most important of these companies, from the stand-
point of Kentucky history, were the so-called " Loyal
Company" and the "Ohio Company." Of these the
former was the first to act, and Dr. Thomas Walker of
Albemarle County, Virginia, was selected to take charge
of the task of locating lands granted it by Virginia. Late

  1 In 1739 Longueil descended the Ohio from Canada and discovered the
famous Big Bone Lick in Kentucky, and the same year the hostile attitude of
the Chickasaw Indians caused the French authorities in Canada to send troops
down the Ohio to punish them. "Annals," Collins, I, p. I.
  Durrett's "Filson," pp. 31-32; De Hass, "Western Virginia," p. 48, note;
for description of visit of John Howard, in 1742, which served as one of the
grounds for the English claim to the Ohio Valley. Collins, I, p. xI, note.



4

 

     VANGUARD OF THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 5

in the summer of 1749 he prepared his expedition, con-
sisting of himself and five companions.'
  On March 6, 1750, they began their journey toward
the west and shortly reached the pass in the mountains
named by them Cumberland Gap.2 Crossing through
this they came into southeastern Kentucky, which had
never before been visited by white men, and proceeding
to the Cumberland River, ascended it to a point near the
present town of Barboursville.3 On the northwest side of
  1 Colonel Durrett, in his "Centenary of Kentucky," which I follow largely
in discussing this topic, says that of these five men the names of only three,
Ambrose Powell, Colby Chew and      Tomlinson are preserved. P. 21.
   Collins, however, gives two lists, one mentioning only Walker, Powell and
Chew (Vol. II, p. 415), while in the other he mentions Walker, Wood, Paton,
Buchanan and Captain Charles Campbell by name and adds that others also
were with him. Vol. I, p. 5Io. Walker's own journal, however, settles the
matter at the very beginning thus: "Having, on the 12th of December last,
been employed for a certain consideration to go Westward in order to discover
a proper place for settlement, I left my house on the sixth day of March, at
ten o'clock, 1749-50, in company with Ambrose Powell, William Tomlinson,
Colby Chew, Henry Lawless and John Hughes...."   Journal reproduced
in Johnson's "First Explorations of Kentucky" (Filson Club Publications,
No. 13). This opening sentence is quoted by Hulbert- "Boone's Wilder-
ness Road," p. 50.
   2 The year of the discovery, says Collins, was preserved by the distinct recol-
lection of Dr. Walker himself and by the fact that Powell carved his name and
the date 1750 upon a tree near the gap. This inscription was pointed out to
Isaac Shelby by Dr. Walker in I770. Collins, II, p. 416.
   Marshall, 1824 Ed., I, p. 6, is evidently at error when he assigns the dis-
covery of Cumberland Gap to an expedition made by Walker in I758. The
"Journal" of this expedition, a copy of which is among the Durrett MSS.,
omits ten days, and they happen to be the ten days which should contain an
account of the passage through the "Gap." This probably accounts for the
confusion which has arisen concerning the discovery of the "Gap." Walker's
"Journal" was published in i888 by Little, Brown  Co.
   3 The Barboursville in what is now Knox County, Kentucky, must not be
confused with the Barboursville just east of Huntington in West Virginia.
Pownall, in his "North America," p. 34, says, "As for the branches of the
Ohio which head in the New Virginia, I am particularly obliged to Dr. Thomas
Walker, for the intelligence of what names they bear, and what Rivers they
fall into. . .."

 

6    KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY



the river they selected the site for the erection of the head-
quarters of the proposed settlements. Land was cleared
and a log house constructed. It was completed on April 25,
1750, and was the first house erected by white men within
the  State.'   But the    builders, terrified  by  wandering
bands of savages, deserted their "settlement" only a few
days after its completion, and twenty years passed before
this or any other site within the Kentucky wilderness served
as a permanent abode for the hardy adventurers from be-
yond the mountains.
  Meanwhile the Ohio Company2 had been organized
with the same purpose,- and on October 31, 1750, its
agent, Christopher Gist, had set out from the banks of
the Potomac, following an Indian trail which led from
Wills' Creek to the Ohio.4      After an extended tour through
the country north of the Ohio, Gist returned to the mouth
of the Scioto, and prepared to descend to the Great Falls.
  This he was cautioned by his Indian friends not to do,
as a large party of Indians, allies of the French, they told

  1 Durrett's " Centenary of Kentucky," p. 22; Hulbert's " Boone's Wilder-
ness Road," p. 64, give one possible exception, 12 cabins by French at mouth
of Scioto. Durrett's "Filson," p. 32, says, "A French Map, published by
Robert de Vaugondy in 1755, shows 'Walker's Etabliss Anglois,' on a
branch of the Cumberland River, in 1750." It, however, does not appear on
Filson's Map.
  2 This should not be confused with the Great Ohio Company formed in
z787, to plant colonies in the Northwest Territory, whose influence caused the
old Congress of the Confederation to pass the famous Ordinance of 1787,
which was confirmed by Congress under the Constitution and which laid the
foundations of our territorial system. Fiske's "Critical Period," p. 203.
  3 It had received royal permission to select and settle 500,ooo acres in the
western country. For stockholders, regulations, etc., see Bancroft, x890 Ed.,
II, p. 343; Wilson's "History of the American People," II, p. 77.
  4 Gist's "Journal" contains text of his instructions, "to search out . . .
lands upon the river Ohio . . . down as low as the great falls thereof." .
Durrett MSS.

 

VANGUARD OF THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 7



him, were hunting in that neighborhood. Gist, however,
was not to be easily deterred, and, attended only by a boy,
he proceeded cautiously down the Kentucky side of the
Ohio until within fifteen miles of the Falls. Here he
came upon unmistakable signs that he was indeed in the
midst of considerable bands of hostile savages. Wisely
abandoning his plan of visiting the Falls he turned back
to the Kentucky River. From the top of a mountain
in this region, says Irving,1 "he had a view to the south-
west as far as the eye could reach, over a vast wooded
country in the fresh garniture of Spring, and watered by
abundant streams; but as yet only the hunting ground of
savage tribes, and the scene of their sanguinary combats.
In a word, Kentucky lay spread out before him in all
its wild magnificence. . . . For six weeks was this hardy
pioneer making his toilsome way up the valley of the
Cuttawa, or Kentucky River, to the Banks of the Blue
Stone; often checked by precipices, and obliged to seek
fords at the heads of tributary streams; and happy when
he could find a buffalo path broken through the tangled
forests, or worn into the everlasting rocks."
  On the first of May, 1751, from a tall rock on the top of a
mountain, he saw the great Kanawha forcing its passage
through the enclosing cliffs. After crossing this river and
traveling many weary days, he reached his own frontier
abode on the banks of the Yadkin. Upon this long
journey Gist had seen some of the best parts of Kentucky,
as well as of the country north of the Ohio,2 and his re-
  1 Irving's "Washington," 1875 Ed., I, p. 23.
  2 Copy of Gist's "Journal," Durrett MSS., in Pownall's "North America,"
Appendix VI. It indicates that Gist traveled by the aid of a compass, while
Walker's "Journal" gives nothing to indicate that he had a compass with him.
Durrett's "Centenary of Kentucky," p. 34.

 

8    KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY



port must have impressed the stockholders of the Ohio
Company with the value of their grant. He also doubt-
less impressed upon their minds the fact that the French
were encroaching upon that grant with all the energy
which they could command. It is quite easy to see, there-
fore, why Robert Dinwiddie, one of the twenty stock-
holders of the Ohio Company, when made Lieutenant
Governor of Virginia in 1752,1 should have displayed so
keen an interest in what the French were doing in the Ohio
Valley.2 It is also easy to see why, when he thought
the time for protest had arrived, he should have chosen
as his official herald, George Washington, half-brother to
Augustine Washington, the President of the Ohio Com-
pany,3 and to Lawrence Washington, one of the leading
stockholders. The story of how that young Virginian,
piloted by Gist, conveyed the message of Governor
Dinwiddie to the French Commander in the Ohio Val-
ley and returned with what was really a declaration of
war, belongs to the history of the world, marking as it
does the opening of one of the greatest wars in all history.4
  "The Journals" of Walker and Gist 5 give us the first de-
scriptions of the wilderness of Kentucky "as it came from
the hands of the Creator." They tell of a country as rich
and as beautiful as any on earth, yet utterly devoid of in-
habitants, with the exception of a few Indians gathered
in towns along the northern boundary line 6 and a few
  1 Wilson's "History of the American People," II, pp. 76 and 77.
  2 Irving's "Washington," 1875 Ed., I, p. 27.
  3 Wilson's "History of the American People," II, p. 79.
  4 The war known in European History as The Seven Years' War.
  6 Pownall's "North America," Appendix VI, for Gist's " Journal." Durrett
MSS. contain copies of both " Journals."
   Gist's " Journal" describes a Shawnee town located near the site of the
present city of Portsmouth, Ohio, containing about three hundred Indians and

 

VANGUARD OF THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 9



along the Mississippi River. This was due to the fact
that Kentucky-"the Dark and Bloody Ground," or "The
Middle Ground," as John Filson, following the practice
of the Indians themselves, names it '-lay just between
the territory north of the Ohio, occupied by the Iroquois,
and the home of the less powerful Cherokees who dwelt
to the south. Each of these savage nations laid claim
to Kentucky, and each used every art known to savage
warfare to make good its claim. Their war parties often
met within the disputed territory, and so constant was the
conflict that no permanent Indian villages could be estab-
lished in the district. Thus it happened that Gist and
Walker found it a solitary wilderness, containing few signs
even of former habitation, with the exception of very
ancient mounds and fortifications thickly scattered along
the eastern borders and becoming less frequent as they

having "about forty houses on the South side of the river and about one hundred
on the North side." Under date of Tuesday, the 29th of January, 1751,
George Croghan, in his "Journal of 1765" (reprint Butler Appendix), ex-
plains that the houses on the south side had been built after a great flood,
which had rendered the lower banks of the northern side uninhabitable.
  1 "The Discovery, Settlement, and Present State of Kentucke," by John
Filson, p. 7. The Delawares and Shawnees called the vast undefined tract
of land south of the Ohio by the name "Kuttaawa," meaning "The Great
Wilderness." This name was long used interchangeably with the Iroquois
word "Kentake," meaning "The Place of Meadows" or "The Hunting
Grounds."
  Another origin of the name is given by John Johnson, who for years resided
among the Shawnees. He declared that Kentucky is a Shawnee word meaning
"At the head of the River" ("Archaeologia Americana," I, p. 299). Marshall,
however, declares that the name was derived from that of a "deep channeled
and clifty river, called by the Indians, Kan-tuck-kee, which they pronounced
with a strong emphasis." Marshall's "History of Kentucky," i824 Ed., I, p. I.
On pages 8 and 9 of the same volume, however, Marshall adds that in con-
sequence of frequent combats between the savages upon the Kentucky soil-
"the country being thickly wooded, and deeply shaded-was called in their
expressive language, The Dark and Bloody Ground."

 

s0   KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY



approached     the west.'     There were, it is true, a few
Shawnee villages to the north, but they were merely the


   1 These mounds, formerly believed to have been built by a prehistoric peo-
ple called by the non-committal name of "Mound Builders," have been for
years the puzzle of archeologists. They are often of solid masonry and indi-
cate a degree of building skill far beyond that of the historic savages of the
regions near the Ohio River. There are indications also that the use of metal
as well as stone was well understood in Kentucky before the historic period
begins. In the "Kentucky Gazette" of June 7, 1790, appears an account of
the discovery of an old lead mine near Lexington which had been worked
apparently years before the appearance of the earliest explorers.
   In a manuscript, dated Philadelphia, March 17, 1792, an unnamed trav-
eler has left this record of his visit to some of the mounds of this western
region, "Many tokens remain," he says, "of that country being in ancient
ages as well cultivated and as thickly inhabited as the country on the Danube
or the Rhine." "A copper mine," he continues, "was opened some years
since, farther down the Mississippi, and, to the great surprise of the labourers,
a large collection of mining tools were found several fathoms below the super-
ficies of the earth." Durrett MSS.
   Mr. Thomas Bodley was informed by Indians of various tribes northwest
of the Ohio, that they had a tradition, common among many tribes, "that
Kentucky had been settled by whites, and they had been exterminated by war.
They were of the opinion that the old fortifications, now to be seen in Ken-
tucky and Ohio, were the productions of those white inhabitants." Dur-
rett MSS.
   Another tradition asserts that the last battle for the extermination of these
original white inhabitants was fought at the Falls of the Ohio-" that the In-
dians succeeded in driving the Aborigines into a small island below the rapids,
where the whole of them were cut to pieces." Durrett MSS.
   An examination at low water of this island, so runs another of these inter-
esting old documents, revealed a multitude of human bones, and an "Indian
Chief . . . told General Clark . . . that the battle of Saady Island decided
finally the fall of Kentucky, with its ancient inhabitants." Durrett MSS.
   Colonel Joseph Davies reports that a few remaining members of an almost
extinct tribe of Sacks whom he interviewed at St. Louis in i8oo expressed
astonishment that anyone should live in Kentucky, "filled," as they said,
"with the manes of its butchered inhabitants." The statement was also re-
peated by them that the aborigines of this country were white and possessed
such arts as were unknown by the Indians. Durrett MSS.
   Another of these accounts reports the discovery of "a furnace of brick work
five fathoms below the present surface; and in this furnace were found a quantity
of coals and firebrands which, for aught we know, might have been kindled
in thle days of Moses or Lycurgus." Durrett MSS.

 

VANGUARD OF THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT i I



advance guard of their allies, "the Iroquois," and their
presence was not noticed by the first explorers.'
  These expeditions of Walker and Gist, however, at-
tracted so little attention that when the first Kentucky his-
torian, John Filson, set about gathering data for his book,
he seems to have heard no hint of them, but settled upon
James McBride as the discoverer of the region, upon the
very insufficient evidence that his initials and the year
had been carved upon a tree at the mouth of the Ken-
tucky River in 1754. From this visit of McBride, if such
a visit ever occurred, and the evidence for it is indeed
slight, until the Peace of Paris (1763), which closed the
long wars between France and England for the possession
of Canada and the Ohio Valley, we have no clear record of
any voluntary visit of white men to Kentucky.3 Corporate

  For brief description of mounds on the site of Louisville, see Durrett's
"Centenary of Louisville," pp. 9-i r.
   The great Shawnee Chief Cornstalk, repeating a tradition very common
among the Indians along the Ohio, told Colonel M'Kee that Ohio and Ken-
tucky had once been inhabited by white men who possessed arts vastly supe-
rior to those of the Indian tribes. These inhabitants, he said, after many
bloody contests, had been exterminated.
   Among the Durrett MSS. are a number of ancient depositions preserving
tales of this character which have been, from time to time, collected by the
owner.
  I The position of their villages is marked on Filson's Map, 1784; cf. Gist's
"Journal," March I3.
  2 The pioneers declared that Filson "could ask more questions than every-
body and answer fewer than anybody." Durrett's -" Life and Writings of
John Filson," p. I6; Collins, I, pp. i6 and 5X9.
   "On croit que M. James Bride est le premier homme blanc qui ait eu con-
naissance de Kentucke. En I754, acompagn6 de quelques amis il descendit
l'Ohio dans des canots, aborda l'embouchure de la rivicre Kentucke, et y
marqua trois arbres, avec les premibres lettres de son nom, et la date du jour
et de l'annee." "Histoire de Kentucke," par MI. Parrand. This is a transla-
tion of Filson's " Kentucke."
  3 A number of expeditions to Kentucky and the neighboring regions along
the Ohio took place soon after the Peace of Paris, 1763, e. g.:

 

I2   KENTUCKY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY



enterprise, such as that contemplated by the " Loyal Com-
pany" and the "Ohio Company," had ceased as soon as
the war began, and, at its close, King George the Third is-
sued his famous Proclamation of 1763, which seemed a
deathblow to all projects for the settlement of the vast
wilderness beyond the mountains, as it provided that the
British possessions south of Canada and west of the Al-
leghany Mountains should be marked off and kept as an
Indian reservation ' into which no white settlers might
enter.
  Arrangements were promptly made for the survey of

  (a) Col. George Croghan's tour down the Ohio in 1765 is of considerable
interest on account of the elaborate " Journal " which he kept. This " Journal,"
with an account of the various forms in which it has been published, is given
in Vol. I of Thwaite's "Early Western Travels," pp. 127-r73, and contains,
under the dates of May 30 and 3r, an interesting account of the Great Bone
Licks of Kentucky.
   (b) In 1766 occurred the trip of Captain Harry Gordon, Chief Engineer in
the Western Department in North America, from Fort Pitt down the Ohio
River. In speaking of the Falls opposite the present site of Louisville, Gordon
says (July i6), "The waters at the Falls were low; it being the Summer....
Several boats passed it at the very dryest season of the year, when the waters
are at the lowest, by unloading one-third their freight. ... They passed on
the North side, where the carrying place is three-fourths of a mile long; and
on the Southeast side it is about half that d