Kentucky in the nation's history

Contents

Author's Preface I. The Vanguard of the Westward Movement . II. Transylvania, the Last Experiment in Proprietary Government .....

III. Kentucky's Part in the American Revolution

IV. Kentucky Enters the Union .

Preface

As this volume represents a conscious departure from the customary method of deahng 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, indeed, 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 history," 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 private collections. For the student of purely local history, most of this material is of little value, relating, as it does, to distinctly national questions, vv^hile, 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 1798, 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 available material, bearing upon Kentucky. His priceless collection 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.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE ,

Henry Clay as a young man .... Frontispiece

From a miniature now in possession of Mrs. John 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 Jarvis, now in the possession of Colonel Reuben T. Durrett, of Louisville, Kentucky.

George Rogers Clark 17°

From a life-size portrait by Matthew Harris Jouett, now in the possession 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 courtesy 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 1798, 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. J.

The Document given to General Simon Bolivar Buckner by President Lincoln, stating his attitude toward Kentucky neutrality 536

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 continent 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 almost as ignorant in 1692 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 assimilate 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 discovered and Magellan had been the first to cross. It is quite natural also that among the instructions sent by the Virginia Company (1608) to Captain John Smith and his fellow colonists at Jamestown, was the command to dis-

Kentucky — i i 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.^

What was true of these men was true of many who followed them. It took an enormous amount of investigation 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 native 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 Allegheny near its source, he passed down the Ohio, until he came to the Falls where the city of Louisville now stands.^

"In making this long journey," says Colonel Durrett,^ "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. 165; J. E. Cooke, "Virginia,"

' 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'a "Filson," p. 32, accepts the story. "Encyclopaedia Britannica," La Salle.

4 Durrett'a "Centenary of Kentucky," p. 15.

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 167 1, General Abraham Wood, by the authority of the testy old Tory Governor of Virginia, Sir William Berkeley, sent out Captain Thomas Batts with a party in search of the river which would lead to the Pacific Ocean. ^ 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.^

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 1730,^ 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. Ill 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 Colonel Wood of Virginia, who had discovered various branches of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Durrett's "Centenary of Kentucky," p. 12; Butler's Kentucky, 2d Ed., p. 499; Collins, I, p. 14; 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 captured 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 escaped a second time, he returned to Virginia, probably by way of the Cumberland Gap. "The Annals of Kentucky" (Collins, I, p. 15) 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.

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 Virginia, 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 western 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 standpoint 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 fronn 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. 15.

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. 15, note.

in the summer of 1749 he prepared his expedition, consisting 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.^ 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.^ 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. 510. 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 Wilderness Road," p. 50.

2 The year of the discoveiy, says Collins, was preserved by the distinct recollection 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 1770. Collins, II, p. 416.

Marshall, 1824 Ed., I, p. 6, is evidently at error when he assigns the discovery of Cumberland Gap to an expedition made by Walker in 1758. 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 1888 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. ..."

the river they selected the site for the erection of the headquarters 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 beyond the mountains.

Meanwhile the Ohio Company^ 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.^ 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 Wilderness 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 1787, 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 500,000 acres in the western country. For stockholders, regulations, etc., see Bancroft, 1890 Ed., II, p. 343; Wilson's "History of the American People," II, p. 77.

* 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.

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,^ "he had a view to the southwest 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, 1 75 1 , 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,^ 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.

port must have impressed the stockholders of the Ohio Company with the value of their grant. He also doubtless 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, therefore, why Robert Dinwiddie, one of the twenty stockholders of the Ohio Company, when made Lieutenant Governor of Virginia in 1752,^ should have displayed so keen an interest in what the French were doing in the Ohio Valley.^ 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 Company,^ 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 Valley 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.^ " The Journals " of Walker and Gist ^ give us the first descriptions 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 inhabitants, with the exception of a few Indians gathered in towns along the northern boundary line ^ and a few

1 Wilson's "History of the American People," II, pp. 76 and 77.

2 living's "Washington," 1875 Ed., I, p. 27.

3 Wilson's "History of the American People," II, p. 79.

* The war known in European History as The Seven Years' War.

5 Pownall's "North America," Appendix VI, for Gist's " Journal." Durrett MSS. contain copies of both " Journals."

8 Gist's "Journal" describes a Shawnee town located near the site of the present city of Portsmouth, Ohio, containing about three hundred Indians and 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 established 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), explains 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," 1824 Ed., I, p. i. On pages 8 and 9 of the same volume, however, Marshall adds that in consequence 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."

lo 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 people called by the non-committal name of "Mound Builders," have been for years the puzzle of archaeologists. They are often of solid masonry and indicate 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 traveler 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 superficies 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 Kentucky and Ohio, were the productions of those white inhabitants." Durrett 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 Indians 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 interesting old documents, revealed a multitude of human bones, and an "Indian Chief . . . told General Clark . . . that the battle of Sandy 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 1800 expressed astonishment that anyone should live in Kentucky, "filled," as they said, "with the manes of its butchered inhabitants." The statement was also repeated 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 the days of Moses or Lycurgus." Durrett MSS.

advance guard of their allies, "the Iroquois," and their presence was not noticed by the first explorers.^

These expeditions of Walker and Gist, however, attracted so little attention that when the first Kentucky historian, 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 Kentucky 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.^ Corporate

For brief description of mounds on the site of Louisville, see Durrett's "Centenary of Louisville," pp. 9-11.

The great Shawnee Chief Cornstalk, repeating a tradition very common among the Indians along the Ohio, told Colonel M'Kee that Ohio and Kentucky had once been inhabited by white men who possessed arts vastly superior 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.

1 The position of their villages is marked on Filson's Map, 1784; cf. Gist's "Journal," March 13.

2 The pioneers declared that Filson "could ask more questions than everybody and answer fewer than anybody." Durrett's "Life and Writings of John Filson," p. 16; Collins, I, pp. 16 and 519.

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.:

enterprise, such as that contemplated by the " Loyal Company" and the "Ohio Company," had ceased as soon as the war began, and, at its close. King George the Third issued 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 Alleghany 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. 127-173, and contains, under the dates of May 30 and 31, 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 16), "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 distance, and is reckoned the safest passage for those who are unacquainted. ..." showing that the Ohio was even at this early period considerably used as a highway.

1 A Map on p. 137 of Channing's "Student's History of the United States" shows the limits of this reserved strip. The Proclamation says: "... And we do further declare it to be our royal will and pleasure, for the present, . . . to reserve under our sovereignty, protection, and dominion, for the use of the said Indians, all the land and territories not included within the limits of our said three new governments, or within the limits of the territory granted to the Hudson's Bay Company; as also the westward of the sources of the rivers which fall into the sea from the west and north-west; . . . and we do hereby strictly forbid ... all our loving subjects from making any purchases or settlements whatever, or taking possession of any of the lands above reserved, without our special leave and license for that purpose first obtained." Text of Proclamation of 1763, Macdonalds "Select Charters," p. 271.