Nick of the woods: or, The Jibbenainosay ; a tale of Kentucky

Front matter

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Preface

5 bold spirits who met him with his own weapons ing-grounds and villages, and, with a natural venid in the shadow of his own wigwam some few of butchery with which he so often stained the hearth- ;ler — necessarily formed the writer's dramatis perdrew his Indian portraits with Indian ink, rejecting gments which might have yielded more brilliant ed an " Indian-hater " to the group, it was because e, not the appearance of truth, but truth itself— or > be truth — to the picture, d when " Nick of the Woods " was written, the jaubriand and of our own Cooper (not to speak before them) had thrown a poetical illusion over icter ; and the red men were presented — almost the popular mind — ^as the emboCdiments of grand itiment — a new style of the beau-ideal — ^brave, •efined, honorable, romantic personages — nature's valry of the forest. It may be submitted that le lineaments of the race — that they never were of any race existing in an uncivilized state — not be— and that such conceptions as Atala 3 beautiful unrealities and fictions merely, as contrary to nature as the shepherd swains of the lool of rhyme and romance ; — at all events, that id beings of this class, or any thing in the slightest ins tJiQiji, §mons the tribes now known to traveltorsf.: Itife IniJianh fe^ dou^tl,e6s a gentleman ; but an who T^ears'a very dirty' sBirt, and lives a very hiaving noflpngj {oJ&mjAdy him or keep him alive Lsures.of .^tbVcfc^Q apji^ of the scalp-hunt — which 1 the nahifei)f*\yar:r*"ttie jmter differed from his and from many phifanthropists, in believing the apable — perfectly capable, where restraint assists iendly instruction— of civilization : the Choctaws and the ancient Me^dcans and Peruvians, prove natural barbaric state, he is a barbarian — ^and it is

PREFACE. V

not possible he oonld be any thing else. The purposes of the author, in his book, confined him to real Indians. He drew them as, in his judgment, they existed — ^and as, according to all observation, they still exist wherever not softened by cultivation, — ignorant, violent, debased, brutal : he drew them, too, as they appeared, and still appear, in war— or the scalp-hunt — ^When all the worst deformities of the savage temperament receive their strongest and fiercest development

Having, therefore, no other, and certainly, no worse, desire than to make his delineations in this regard as correct and true to nature as he could, it was with no little surprise he found himself taken to account by some of the critical gentry, on the charge of entert^ning the humane design of influencing the passions of his countrymen against the remnant of an unfortunate race, with a view of excusing the wrongs done to it by the whites, if not of actually hastening the period of that "final destruction" whidi it pleases so many men, against all probability, if not against all possibility, to predict as a^ certain future event. Had the accusation been confined to the reviewers, he might not, perhaps, have thought it safe to complain ; but currency was given to it in a quarter which renders a disclaimer the more reasonable or the less pr^umptuous. One may contend with a brother author who dares not resist the verdict of the critics. In the English edition of the novel, published at the same time as the American, in a preface furnished by Mr. Ainsworth, the distinguished author of " Rookwood," "Crichton," &c., &c., to whom he is indebted for many polite and obliging expressions respecting it, it is hinted, hypothetically, that the writer's views were "colored by national antipathy, and by a desire to justify the encroachments of his countrymen upon the persecuted natives, rather than by a reasonable estimate of the subject." The accused notices this fency, however injurious he first felt it to be, less to refute than to smile at it. He prefers to make a more philosophic and practical application. The real inference to be drawn is, that he has succeeded very ill in this, somewhat essential, portion of his plan,— on the principle that the composition must be amiss the

PREFAOS.

I is so readily misapprehended. He may plead feet ; but he camiot admit the charge to have had in truth.

onfesses to have felt a little more — ^but still not at another imputation, which was once ^intly >e made, he scarcely now remembers by whom, 'acter of Nathan Slaughter, he intended to throw peaceful Society of Friends, of which Nathan is ving been an unworthy member. This notion is ving of serious challenge. The whole object was r the peculiar characteristics of a class of men, * course, in number, but found, in the old Indian at intervals, along the extreme frontier of every w York to Georgia ; men in whom the terrible the savages, suffered through their femilies, or id neighbors, had wrought a change of temper as •ful. That passion is the mightiest which over- . powerful restraints and prostrates the strongest here was a dramatic propriety, at least, in assoh a character as Nathan's, obstacles of faith and ,ve the greater force to his deeds and a deeper story. No one conversant with the history of m fail to recollect some one or more instances , bereaved fethers or orphaned sons, the sole surnes, of exterminated households, who remained themselves to lives of vengeance ; and " Indiani implied the fullest indulgence of a rancorous ood could appease) was so far from being an un n in some particular districts, that it was thought I, occasionally, persons, otherwise of good repute, woods, intent on private adventures, which they » conceal from the public eye. The author re- 3 published journal of an old traveller — an Eng- } he thinks, a Friend ; but he cannot be certain name having escaped him and the loose memole at the time having been mislaid — ^who visited

Preface To The First Edition

A PECULIARLY romautic interest has ever been atta< name and history of Kentucky, — ^the first region of tl tramontane Wilderness penetrated by the Saggenah^ man, — ^the first torn fi'onf its aboriginal possessors verted from a desert hunting-ground into the home < men. The ramblings of the solitary Boone, in whose adventures we recognize the influence of the wild common on the American frontier as in the poet's clo

To roam for food, and be a naked man, And wander np and down at liberty,—

and the fierce strife of those who followed in his pat) lords of the fi)rest, are chapters in its annals which, if 1 themselves poetry, are productive of all the effects of the minds of the dreamy and imaginative.

But apart from the charm the history of Kentucky for the romantic, it has an interest scarcely inferi grave and reflecting. This is derived from a consi( the character of the men by whom — ^in the midst of and dangers as numerous and m*gent, — ^perhaps mo ever attended the establishing any colony in North 1 were laid, upon a basis as firm as if planned by the si wisest spirits of the age, the foundations of a great an State. They were, with but few exceptions, men d what, in our vanity, we call the humbler sphere of life 1* ' •

TO THE FIRST EDITION.

taineers of Virginia and the Carolinas, — 3 words of their own historian, "in indi-

ignorance, thrown upon the world withguide, or even the rudiments by which it but who, under all these disadvantages, ' any great and experienced mind to imucceeded in their vast enterprise, wrested xden-land of his domain, and secured to benefits of civil government and laws, lonsidered a phenomenon in history : but r will perhaps find in it an illustration of >lican principle in enlarging the mind and ' men whom the influence of another code

have kept ii^ the darkness and insigmfi- •e born. It is not to be denied that men aent were to be found among the earlier ut the most prominent and distinguished lers of the Stations, the leaders of the who are, and must continue to be, recolrs of the State, were such persons as we b but ardent, unpoliadied and unpretends, and energetic, — ^the very men, in feet, asion.

>rve as an explanation, and, if it be necesme of the characters that figure in the arly that of the honest Colonel of Militia. Uustrate the early period in which those d strengthening and securing their little 'kest and stormiest in the annals of the both fittiQg and necessary that some re- \ should appear. The outlines may be or just; but they will be the better foil is pf spirit, common, at that day, to all same kind may perfiaps apply to the kpole. But that, we beg the Reader to

FBEFACE TO THE FIKST EDITION. XI

understand, is no portrait drawn from imagination. The histo of this wild scape-gallows, his prowess in the pinfold and 1 battle-field, his adventure on the beech-tree, and his escape fire the meshes of the law, with other characteristic events not eluded in our relation, are recollections still cherished in soi parts of Kentucky, and made the theme of many a gleesoi story.

The story of Wandering Nathan has a similar foundation truth; but its origin belongs to one of the Western counties Pennsylvania.

We owe, perhaps, some apology for the hues we have throi around the Indian portraits in our picture, — ^hues darker than £ usually employed by the painters of such figures. But, we c< fess, the North American savage has never appeared to us t gallant and heroic personage he seems to others. The sin^ feet that he wages war — systematic war — ^upon beings incapal of resistance or defence, — ^upon women and children, whom i other races in the world, no matter how barbarous, consent spare, — ^has hitlierto been, and we suppose, to the end of o days will remain, a stumbling-block to our imagination: ^ look into the woods for the mi^ty warrior, *• the feather-cii tured chiei^' ru^iing to meet his foe, and behold him retirii laden with the scalps of miserable squaws and their babes. E roical ? Hoe verhum quid vaUaty rum vident.

NICK OF THE WOOD^

Chapter I

The world was all before them, where to choose Their place of rest, and Providence their guide : They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow, Through Eden took their solitary way.

ParadiaeL

If we can believe the immortal poet, from whom tak^i the above lines, to serve as our letter of intro< the gentle reader, the grief of our first parents for tl Paradise was not so deep and overwhelming but that tl immediately found comfort when they reflected the changed it for the land of Eden, — ^itself a paradise, t earthly and unsanctified one :

Some natural tears they dropt» but wiped them soon.

The exiles of America, who first forsook their hom< I: orders of the Atlantic, to build their hearths among tl of the West, had a similar consolation ; they were ben steps towards a land, to which rumor at first, and after reports of a thousand adventurous visitants, had affixed acter of a second elysium. The Dorado of the Spanij its cities built of gold, its highways pavjd^with diam rubies, was not more captivating to the brains of Si

Rfdeigh and his fellow freebooters of the 16th century, than was the Kentucky of the red men, with its fertile fields and everblooming forests, to the imaginations of their descendants, two hundred years after. It was not imnatural, indeed, that men should regard its an Eden the land in which the gallant Daniel Boone, while taking his "pleasing ramble" on the 22d of December, 1769, discovered "myriads of trees, some gay with blossoms, others rich with fruits ;" which blossoms and fruits, as he tells us, were "beautifully colored, elegantly shaped, and charmingly flavored."*

It might be difficult, in these degenerate^ days, to find fruits and flowers adorning any forest in Kentucky at Christmas ; yet there was enough, and more than enough, in the wild beauty and unexampled fertility of the country, to excuse the rapture of the hunter and to warrant high expectations on the part of the eastem emigrants, to whom he had opened a path through the wilderness, which they were not slow to follow. A strong proof of the real attractions of the land was to be seen in the crowds rushing towards it, year after year, regardless of all adverse droumstances. Suffering and privation of all kinds were to be endured on the long and savage road, in which mountain, river, b<^, and forest were to be passed, and often, too, in the teeth of a lurking foe; while peril of every imaginable aspect was still to be encountered, when the journey was at an end. The nek fields, — the hunting-grounds of a dozen tribes of Indians, — to be possessed, were first to be won, and won from an enemy at once brave and cruel, resolute and wily, who had shown no disposition to yield them except with life, and who had already stained them with the best blood of the settler. Such evils were well known to exist ; but they imposed little check on the ardor of adventurers : the tide of emigration, at first a little rivulet, lost among forests, increased to a river, the river grew into a flood, overflowing the whole land ; and, in 1792, sixteen years after the first block-house was built in the woods, the ^^ mldemess*^ of

• See the worthy pioneer's "Adventures," purporting to be written by himself, though undoubtedly furbished up by some flowery friend.

K^itucky was admitted into the Federal Union, a free and sovereign State, with a population of seventy^ve thousand souls.

Ten years before that happy event — ^for it is to this early period we must ask the attention of the reader, — ^the Shawanee and thQ Wyandot still hunted the bear and buffalo in the cane-brake, and waylaid the settler at the gates of his solitary stronghold. The " District of Kentucky," then within the territorial jurisdiction of Virginia, comprised but tiiree inhabited counties, Fayette, Jefferson, and Lincoln; of whidi, to play the geographer briefly, it needs only to say, tiiat the first occupied all the country north and east of the Kentucky river ; the second all the region west of that river as far as Green river, whidi, with the redoubtable Salt, the river of Roarers, formed also its southern bounds ; while the third extended over all the territory lying south of the two others, and was therefore the first reached by emigrants coming from Virgioia and the Carolinas through the Gap of the Cumberlands. In these counties the settlements were already somewhat numerous, although confined, tor the most part, to the neighborhood of the stations^ or forts, which were the only effectual places of refuge for the husbandman and his fiunily, when the enemy was abroad in the iMid. These stations "Were mere assemblages of huts, sometimes, in number, approadiing to villages, surrounded, or at least connected, hut to hut, by ranges of strong palisades, easily defended against assailants armed only with knives and rifles. Founded, in the first place, by some bold and resolute pioneer, each station, as the land filled with settlers, was enlarged to receive other inhabitants, who were glad to unite with the founder in defendiog from attack a place so necessary to their own safety, and easily conceded him a kind of military authority over them, which was usually confirmed by a commission from the State, on the division of the District into counties, and exercised with due military spirit, on all proper occasions.

The sun of an August afternoon, 1782, was yet blazing upon the rude palisades and equally rude cabins of one of the principal stations in Lincoln county, when a long train of emigrants, issu-

Ifi T^imr OP THE WOODS.

Bt, wound its way over the cleariogs, uze-fields tliat surrounded the settleduef gate of its enclosure.

J, consisting perhaps of seven or eight 0, women, and children, the last bearothers in point of numbers usually lily, and thus, with the help of packaegroes, the property of the more id here and there throughout the asole train the aj^>earanoe of an army, als in quest of some new home to be sword. Of the whole number there med ; some of these, however, being II one or two instances, even of twelve, m their shoulders, or sustained it over the gravity and dignity of grown warthe negroes were provided with the

In fact, the dangers of the journey aired that every iudividual of a party ) was at all capable of bearing arms ; city which necessity instilled into the he earliest infancy, [i as it was, the two principal divisions, 3t provided with horses, which they eized them, were distributed in mili-

in the rear ; while scouts, leading in IS beating the woods on either side, intry permitted, indicated still further pirit on the part of the leaders. The d careftilly away, for the most part s, on the backs of pack-horses, were btle in the centre, many of which were ^ell as the horses. Of wheeled car- 1^ one in the whole train, the difficula mere bridle-path, being sudi that early day, attempted to be brought

NIOK OF THE WOODS. 17

into the country, unless when wafted in boats down the Ohio.

Thus m«*shalled, and stealing from the depth of the forest into the clearings around t^e Nation, there was something in the appearance of the train wild, singular, and striking. Hie tall and robust fhmies of the men, wra(^>ed in blanket coats and hunting-frocks,^ — some of which, where tke wearers were young and of gidlant tempers, w^:^ profusely decked with fringes of yellow, green, ai»l scarlet ; the gleam of ^ir weapons, and the tr^Cmp of their horses, gave a warlike air to the whole, typical, it might be supposed, of the sanguinary stru^le by which alone tiie desert was to be wrung frcHn the wandering barbarian ; while the appearance of their fomilies, with their domestic beasts and the implements of husbandry, was in harmony with what might be supposed t^e future destinies of the land, when peac^id labor should succeed to the strife of conquest

The exiles were already in the heart of their land of promise, and miany within view of the haven where ikej were to end their wanderings. Smiles of pleasure lighted their way-worn countenances, as they beheld the waving fields of maize and the gleam of the distant cabins ; and their sati^tction was still further increased when the people of the Station, catdung sight of them, rushed out, some mounted and others on foot, to meet them, uttering loud shouts of welcome, such as, in that day, greeted every band of new comers ; and addiog to the clamor of the reception a feu-de-joie, which they fired in honor of the numbers and martial appearance of the^ present company. Hie salutation was requited, and the stirring hurrahs returned, by the travellers, most of whom pressed forward to the van in disord^, eager to take part in the merry-making ere it was over, or perhaps to seek for friends who had preceded them in the journey through the wilderness. Such friends were, in many instances, found, £^d their loud and affectionate greetmgs were mingled with the scarce less cordial welcomes extended by t^ colonists, even to the unknown stranger. Sudi was the reoeption of the emigrants at that period and in that country, where men were united together hj a sense of common danger ; and where every armed visitor, besides being an accession to the strength of the colonists, broi^t with him such news of absent friends and still remembered homes as was sure to recommend him to fevor.

The only individual who, on this occasion of rejoidng, preserved a melancholy count^iance, and who, instead of riding forward, like the others, to shake hands with the people of the Station, betrayed an inclination to avoid Uieir greetings altogether, was a young man, who, from l^e position he occupied in the band, and from other causes, was entiUed to superior attention. With the rank and nominal title of second captain, — ^a dignity conferred upon him by his, companions, he was, in reality, the commander of the party, tiie ostensible leader being, although a man of good repute on the Virginia border, entirely wanting in the military reputation and skill which the other had acquired in the armies of the Eepublics, and of which the value was fully appreciated, when danger first seemed to threat^i the exiles on their march. He was a youth of scarce twenty-three years of age ; but five of those years had been passed in camps and battles ; and the labors, passions, and privations of lus profession had antedated the period of manhood. A frame tall and athletic, a countenance which, although retaining the smoothness and freshness of youth, was yet marked with the manly gravity and decision of mature life, added, in appearance, at least six years to his age. He wore a hunting-frock of the plainest green color, with cap an^ leggifigs of leather, sudi as were worn by many of the poorest or least pretending exiles ; like whom also he bore a rifle on his shoulder, with the horn and other equipments of a hunter. There was little, therefore, to distinguish him at the first view, from among his companions ; although his erect military bearing, and the fine blooded bay horse which he rode, would have won him more than a passing look. The holsters at his saddle-bow, and the sabre at his ^de, were weapons not indeed very generally worn by frontiersmen, but still common enough to prevent their being regarded as badges of rank.

u Digitized by VjOOQIC

]^CK OF THE WOODS. 19

With this youthftil officer, the rear-guard, which he commanded, having deserted him, to press forward to the van, there remained only three perscms, two of whom were negro slaves, both mounted and armed, that followed at a little distance behind, leading thrice their number of pack-horses. The third was a female, who rode closely at his side, the rein of her pony being, in fact, grasped in his hand ; though he looked as if scarce conscious that he held it, — ^a degree of insensibility that would have spoken little in his favor to an observer ; for his companion was both yoimg and beautiftd, and watched his moody countenance on her part wiUi looks of the most amdous and affectionate interest. Her riding-habit, chosen, like his own garments, with more regard to usefulness than beauty, and perhaps somewhat the worse for its encounters with the wind and forest, could not conceal the graceful figure it defended ; nor had the sunbeam, though it had darkened the bright complexion exposed to its summer fury, during a journey of more than six weeks, robbed her fair visage of a single charm. Hiere was, in the general cast of features, a sufficient resemblance between the two to indicate near relationship ; although it was plain that the gloom seated upon the brow of her kinsman, as if a permanent characteristic, was an unwelcome and unnatural visitant on her own. The clear blue eye, the golden locks floating over her temples, the ruddy cheek and look of seventeen, and, generally, the frank and open character of her expression, betokened a spirit too joyous and elastic to indulge in those dark anticipations of the future or mournful recollections of the past, whidi clouded the bosom of her relative. And well for her that such was tiie cheerful temper of her mind ; for it was manifest, from her whole appearance, that her lot, as originally cast^ must have been among the gentie, the refined, and the luxurious, and that she was now, for the first time, exposed to discomfort, hardship, and suffering, among companions, who, however kind and courteous of conduct, were unpolished in their habits, conversation, and feelings, and, in every otiier respect, unfitted to be her associates.

She looked upon the fisu)e of her kinsman, and seeing that it

20 NIOK OF THE W00D8.

grew the darker and gloomier the nearer they approached Uie scene of rejoicing, she laid her hand upon his arm, and murmured sofUy and afiecdonatelj, —

" Roland,— cousin, — ^brother! — ^what is it that disturbs youl Will you not ride forward, and salute the good people that are making us welcome f

" Us !" muttered the young man, with a bitter voice ; " who is there on earth, Edith, to welcome us ? Where shall we look for the friends and kinsfolk, that the meanest of the company are now finding among yonder noisy barbarians *?"

" You do them iajustice, Roland," said the maid^i. " Yesternight we had experience at the Station we left, that these wild people of the woods do not confine their welcomes to kinsm^L Kinder and more hospitable people do not exist in the world."

" It is not that, Edith," said the young man ; " I were but a brute to doubt their hospitality. But look, Edith ; we are in Kentucky, almost at our place of refuge. Yonder hovels, lowly, mean, and wretched, — are they the mansions that should shelter the chUd of my fether's brother % Yonder people, the outcasts of our borders, the poor, the rude, the savage, — ^but one degree elevated above the Indians, with whom they contend, — are they liie society from whom Edith Forrester should choose her friends?"

"They are," said Edith, firmly; "and Edith Forrester asks none better. In such a cabin as these, and, if need be, in one still more humble, she is content to pass her life, and dream that she is still in the house of her fathers. From such people, too, she will choose her friends, knowing that, even among the humblest of them, there are many worthy of her regard and affection. What have we to mourn in the world we have left behind us % We are the last of our name and race ; fortune has left us nothing to regret. My only relative on earth, saving yourseli^ Roland,—flaving yourself my cousin, my brother," — ^her lip quivered, and, for a moment, her eyes were filled with tears, — "my only other living relation re^des in this wilderness-land; and i^e, tenderly nurtured as myself, finds in it enough to inCK OF THE WOODS. 21

engage her thoughts and secure her happiness. Why, then, should not I ? Why should not you i Trust me, dear Roland, I should myself be as happy as the day is long, oould I cmly know that you did not grieve for me."

" I cannot but choose it," said Roland. " It is to me you owe the loss of fortune and your present banishment from the world."

" Say not so, Roland, for it is not true ; No ! I never can believe that our poor unde would have carried his resentment, for such a cause, so far. But supposing that he could, and granting that all were as you say, I am prouder to be the poor cousin of Roland Forrester, who has bled in the battles of his country, than if I were the rich and courted kinswoman of one who had betrayed the memory of his father."

" You are, at least, an angel," said the youth ; " and I am but a villain to say or do anything to give you pain. Farewell then to Fell-hallow, to old James River, and all ! If you can forget these things, Edith, so will I ; at all events, I will try."

" Now," said Edith, " you talk like my true cousin."

" Well, Edith, the world is before us ; and shame be upon me, if I, who have health, strength, and youth to back my ambition, cannot provide you a refuge and a home. I will leave you for a while in the hands of this good aunt at the Falls ; and then, with old Emperor there for my adjutant, and Sam for my rank and file, I will plunge into the forest, and scatter it as I have seen a band of tories scattered by my old major, (who, by the by, is only three years older than myself) Henry Lee, not many years back. Then, when I have built me a house, furrowed my acres with my martial plough-share, (for to that, it appears, my sword must come,) and reaped my harvest with my own hands, (it will be hard work to beat my horse-pistols into a sickle,) then, Edith "