First explorations of Kentucky

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Preface

"\ ^ 7HEN explorations of the unknown wilderness west ' ' of the Alleghanies were begun a century and a half ago, it was customary for explorers to keep journals of what they saw and did. Some of these journals have been published, others remain in the original manuscripts, and yet others have perished. As a matter of course, where there are only the original manuscripts, they are not attainable except through the individual owners ; and even of those that have been published, some have grown so scarce as to be practically inaccessible to the general reader. Some of these journals are too valuable as historic documents to continue of use to so few readers and to remain in such danger of being lost forever on account of their singleness or fewness of copies.

It is the purpose of The Filson Club to make selections from these journals, and from time to time to include them in its series of publications. Their appearance in this form will not only bring them within reach of the members of the Club and of the reading public, but will secure them against the destruction which has already overtaken many of them and which threatens the others with a like fate.

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The earliest of these explorations, in what is now Kentucky, that are known to us by written records, were by Doctor Thomas Walker and Colonel Christopher Gist, about the middle of the last century. La Salle was probably the first white man to see this country, but he saw it from the Ohio River, which he conceived to be a transcontinental stream which might float him to the Pacific Ocean. He probably paid but little attention to the lands on either side of the river while descending it toward an imaginary China. His description of the Falls of the Ohio, which he reached in 1669, is sufficiently inaccurate to suggest that Kentucky lands were not of his seeking. Other explorers, as missionaries or traders, were on these rivers and lands before Walker and Gist, but they left no account of the country which has come down to us. Authoritative records of explorations in this region begin with the journal of Doctor Walker in 1750, and that of Colonel Gist in 1751. Walker went through the eastern part of what is now Kentucky, and Gist through the northeastern. Their combined explorations, therefore, acquaint us with a goodly portion of the State while in its original condition, inhabited only by savages and wild beasts. When these explorers were here, not a house had been built for habitation nor a field opened for cultivation by civilized man. The primeval forest, with its

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mighty trees and awful shade, covered the whole land except where severed by rivers or interrupted by canebrakes and prairies. It is something to see this goodly land, wild, grand, and beautiful in its state of nature, and these journals are the medium through which the best view is to be had.

These journals have been edited for the thirteenth number of The Filson Club publications by Colonel J. Stoddard Johnston, Vice-President of the Club. His knowledge of the history of the country and his familiarity with its geography made him the man of all others for the work to be done. He had personally gone over parts of the routes of both Walker and Gist, and had familiarized himself with the records left by other explorers in the same country. He had left nothing undone to make himself master of his subject. As evidence of his exceptional qualifications as editor of these journals, it may be stated that in 1888 Mr. William C. Rives, a descendant of Doctor Walker, published a partial edition of his journal — partial because there were absent from it a number of pages of the original manuscript that could not then be found. In spite of these missing leaves. Colonel Johnston, with his superior knowledge of the country and its history, was able to follow the route of Doctor Walker through the State and supply missing names and facts. These iv Preface.

absent leaves have since been found, and confirm the route marked out by Colonel Johnston, as well as names and facts supplied by him. The Walker journal, as here published by The Filson Club, contains these missing leaves, and therefore for the first time appears in full as the author wrote it.

The foot-notes, the comments, and the appendices of Colonel Johnston will be found to be valuable additions to these journals. They explain much that the lapse of time and changes in the country had rendered obscure, and adapt the text of the eighteenth century to the readers of the nineteenth. It is believed that the reproduction of the journals of Walker and Gist as the thirteenth publication of The Filson Club will be accepted as a valuable contribution to our early knowledge of the country embraced, and especially of that part of it which has since become the State of Kentucky.

R. T. DURRETT,

President.

Introduction

*" I ^HE discovery of America four hundred years ago was * an event not only remarkable for its influence upon human civilization, but also as indicating the ignorance of mankind, prior to that event, of the conformation of the globe and of the existence of so large a component of territory embraced in the Western Hemisphere. Grecian and Roman civilization had risen and perished ; the Middle Ages had passed, and the revival of the arts and literature had set in ; the empires of the East had become effete with age, and the wise men of the world believed that human knowledge had exhausted the field of inquiry, while yet the vast continents of America remained undiscovered. The event which brought them to light marked a new era in the world's history as distinct as the founding of Rome or the advent of the Christian era. The four centuries which have elapsed since Columbus sailed from Palos embrace a record in the progress of civilization before which all that preceded them appears as but the dawn of a brighter day. And yet, while the period during which this progress has reached the zenith of its present stage is small compared to the antecedent centuries, an analysis of the steps by which it has been attained will vi Ititrodiiction.

show that the progress was slow and that the real development of the new continent has taken place in the past century and a half, while the present century alone contains the record of the material development wrought by the arts and sciences which characterizes our present civilization.

When we reflect that Columbus first discovered land in the Western Hemisphere October 12, 1492, that Sebastian Cabot landed in North America in 1498, and Amerigo Vespucci in South America in 1499, it must be borne in mind that it was not until 1607, more than one hundred 3'ears after the discovery of America, that the first white settlement was made at Jamestown, Virginia, and 1620 when the Mayflower landed at Plymouth. For nearly an hundred years after this the founders of these colonies and their descendants were confined in their knowledge of the geography of the great continent west of them to a narrow coast territory, practically bounded by the Blue Ridge and its northern extension.

The first authentic explorer who penetrated the interior of North America from the eastern coast was De Soto, the Spanish Governor of Cuba, who in 1539-42 marched from Florida to the Mississippi, near the present site of Memphis, and lost his life in the venture ; but the account left by Garcilaso, the historian of the expedition, is so

Introduction. vii

vague that his route for the greater part can not be defined, and for all practical results the exploit was a failure, no territorial acquisition enuring to the country whence he hailed, except that of Florida.

The main idea which animated Columbus in his voyage, to find a new route to China, continued for more than two centuries after his death to be the one which dominated his successors ; and the theory that this continent was really a part of the Flowery Kingdom was only succeeded by one that only a comparatively narrow strip of land separated the Atlantic Ocean from the South Sea or Pacific Ocean. In 1603, when Champlain entered the Gulf of St. Lawrence and discovered the rapids of the St. Lawrence River, he called the stream ' ' La Chine, " indicating that he believed it a river of China.

In 1 67 1 was made the first exploration from the Virginia coast beyond the Blue Ridge. It was projected upon the theory that the waters which flowed westward beyond the Appalachian chain, of which that range was believed to be the backbone, flowed to the South Sea, and in the belief that this ocean was not far distant. General Abram Wood, who lived at the Falls of the Appomattox, the present site of Petersburg, Virginia, was commissioned by Governor Berkeley to solve the problem. The history of this expedition has come down to us in viii Introduction.

the quaint journal of Thomas Batts, who was one of its members, and begins thus: "A commission being granted the Honble Major Genl Wood for ye findeing out of the Ebbing and flowing of ye waters behind the mountains in order to the Discovery of the South Sea ; Thomas Batts, Thomas Wood, Robert Fallam, accompanied by Perecute, a great man of the Apomatock Indians and Jack Nesam formerly servant to Major Genl Wood with 5 horses set forward from the Apomatock Town in Virginia about Eight of the Clock in the morning being Fryday Septr ist 1671, that they travelled about 40 miles, took up their quarters and found they had travelled from the Okenechee path due West." A daily entry in the journal records their adventures until September 25th, at which time they returned to the point from which the expedition parted. In that interval they followed approximately the line of 36° 30', which afterward became the boundary line between Virginia and North Carolina, until they came to the Alleghany Mountains, into which at this point the Blue Ridge had become merged. This they ascended, and, proceeding northwest, came to the river which General Wood named the New River, as it is now called, but which was long known as Wood's River. It is the principal tributary of the Kanawha, which being for a time called Wood's River, the name was erroneously

Introduction. ix

said to have been derived from an Indian name signifying the River of the Woods. After having for several days had distant views of the river, the entry of the i6th of September says: "About lo of the Clock they set forward and after they had travelled lo miles one of the Indians killed a dear ; presently after they had a sight of a curious River like the Thames agt. Chelcey (Chelsea), but had a fall yt made a great noise whose Course was then N. and so as they supposed ran W. about certain pleasant mountains which they saw to the Westward. Here they took up their quarters and found their course had been W. and by N. Here they found Indian Fields with Corn Stalks in them and understood afterward the Mohetans had lived there not long before."

They then took formal possession of the country by marking the trees with branding - irons with the initials of the members of the company, and made formal proclamation in these words : ' ' Long live King Charles ye 2nd King of England, Scotland, France, Ireland and Virginia and all the teretoryes thereunto belonging Defender of ye Faith."

' ' When they came to ye River side they found it better and broader than they expected full as broad as the Thames over agt. Waping, ye Falls much like the Falls of James River, in Virginia, and imagined by the water-

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marks it flowed there about 3 feet. It was then ebbing water. They sett up a stick by the water but found it ebb very slowly."

The Indian guides whom they had brought with them from the Tolera nation eastward being impatient to return, they reluctantly started on their homeward journey without having been able to reach the South Sea, which they believed not far off, but the journal adds that "when they were on the Top of the Hill they took a prospect as far as they could see and saw westerly over certain delightful hills a fogg arise and a glimmering light as from water and suppose they may be some great Bog."

It was many years after this before the delusion of the proximity of the South Sea, which this exploration seemed to confirm, was relinquished, and even then that theory only gave way to another equally erroneous, that the waters beyond the mountains, if not flowing westward to the ocean, found their way to the northern lakes. As late as 17 16, Alexander Spottswood, Governor of Virginia, was the first white man who had crossed the Blue Ridge proper. In that year he made his celebrated Golden Horse Shoe Expedition, crossing the Blue Ridge at the head of the Rappahannock, through Swift Run Gap, and, entering the Shenandoah Valley, discovered the river of that name, which, from the fertility of the soil adjacent.

Introduction. xi

he named the Euphrates. As its course was northward, he concluded it emptied into the lakes. One of the company, Mr. John Fontaine, has left a journal giving an interesting account of the expedition. Reaching the top of the Blue Ridge, he says: "We drank King George's health and all the Royal Family's at the very top of the Appalachian Mountains," and, upon reaching the river, he adds : ' ' The Governor had graving irons, but could not grave anything, the stones were so hard. I graved my name on a tree by the river side ; and the Governor buried a bottle with a paper inclosed on which he writ that he took possession of this place in the name and for King George the First of England. We had a good dinner, and after it we got the men together and loaded all their arms and we drank the King's health in champagne, and fired a volley — the Princess's health in Burgundy and fired a volley, and all the rest of the Royal Family in claret and a volley. We drank the Governor's health and fired another volley. We had several sorts of liquors, viz : Virginia red wine and white wine, Irish usquebaugh, brandy, shrub, rum, champagne, canary, punch water, cider, &c. . . . We called the highest mountain Mount George and the one we crossed over Mount Spottswood. " As a memorial of this jolly expedition Governor Spottswood, on his return to Williamsburg, the Capital, instixii Introduction.

tuted the order of the Golden Horse Shoe, presenting each of the gentlemen who accompanied him with a small horse shoe of gold, inscribed with the legend, Sic Juvat transcendere monies. The condition requisite for further admission into the order was that the applicant should prove that he had crossed the mountain and drunk his Majesty's health upon Mount George. Sixteen years after this, in 1732, Andrew Lewis was one of the pioneer settlers in the Shenandoah Valley, leading the van of the great Scotch-Irish immigration which soon set in in that direction, and whence Kentucky drew so largely for its pioneers.

Between the time of Wood's discovery of the New River as a supposed tributary of the South Sea and Spottswood's discovery of the Shenandoah as a possible tributary of the northern lakes, a great step had been taken in the solution of the problem of the relation of this continent with a western ocean. The French had, early after taking possession of Canada, availed themselves of the water route afforded by the St. Lawrence and the lakes to push expeditions of discovery and trade to the west. They had, as early as the middle of the seventeenth century, penetrated as far as the site of Detroit, and soon after began to establish trading-posts and missions at various points in the territory adjacent. In the fall

Introduction. xiii

or early winter of 1 669 Robert Cavalier Sieur de la Salle, inspired by the idea of solving the problem of the great river which was said to empty into the South Sea, made an expedition from Canada by way of the head waters of the Ohio to the Falls, the present site of Louisville, but prosecuted his adventure no further, and returned to the lakes to pursue his explorations along that line.'

In 1673 Marquette, passing from Lake Michigan by way of the Fox and Wisconsin rivers, penetrated to the Mississippi, gave the first authentic account of its existence since its discovery by De Soto, and exploded the fallacy of a water connection from the westward of the Alleghanies to the South Sea. But the identity of this stream with that of De Soto was not fully established until in 1682, when La Salle in that year descended the great river from the Illinois to the Gulf of Mexico. He reached the mouth April 19th, and took formal possession of the territory in the name of Louis XIV, the Grand Monarque, after the manner of that day, and gave it the name of Louisiana in his honor. For his great achievement, as the result of many years of labor and adventure, honors were lavished upon him by his sovereign, and he was intrusted with the command of a great expedition for

'The Centenary of Louisville, by Colonel R. T. Durrett. Filson Club Publications Number 8, 1893, page 20.

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the settlement of the new territory, but fell a victim to treachery in the perilous undertaking. Soon afterward military posts and missions were established on the Illinois, Mississippi, and Wabash rivers, which, in conjunction with these rivers and the lakes, formed a chain of military communication and trade from Montreal to New Orleans. Long before the English had projected settlements beyond the Alleghany Mountains the French were in possession of the Mississippi Valley, had mapped and described its geography and topography, and until the termination of the seven years' war by the treaty of Paris, February lo, 1763, claimed all the land watered by streams flowing westward from the Alleghanies. Prior to 1750 there is no record of English exploration, much less of settlement, in the trans-Alleghany region north of the latitude of 36° 30'. The only exception as to the territory south of that line is in the case of a few traders among the Indian tribes which inhabited territory now embraced in Northwestern Georgia and Tennessee. From Eastern Virginia there was a brisk trade in the early part of the eighteenth century with the Indians of North and South Carolina, and thence to the northwest with the Cherokees and Creeks of North Georgia and the Valley of the Tennessee. James Adair, a Scotch trader from North Carolina, who lived for thirty years among the Cherokees,

Introduction. xv

published in London in 1775 an extensive work upon the manners and customs, and especially the religious character of these Indians, evincing much erudition and minuteness of observation. He claimed that they were red Jews, had many Hebrew words in their vocabulary, carried the Ark of the Covenant, and observed many Jewish rites and customs. (History of the American Indians, etc., by James Adair, a trader with the Indians and resident in their country forty years. London. 1775.)

But it was not until 1748 that any organized movement was made looking to the acquirement or settlement of lands west of the Alleghany. In that and the succeeding year two large land companies were organized in London, under Royal Charter — the Loyal Land Company, authorized to survey and locate eight hundred thousand acres in the territory now embraced in Kentucky north of 36° 30', and the Ohio Company, authorized to locate and settle five hundred thousand acres between the Kanawha and Monongahela rivers, and upon the waters of the Ohio, below the junction of the Monongahela and the Alleghany. As representative of the Loyal Land Company Doctor Thomas Walker made an exploration westward of the Alleghany Mountains in the spring of 1750, in search of suitable lands for settlement, passing through Kentucky from Cumberland xvi Introduction.

Gap northward, and in the autumn of the same year Christopher Gist passed through Ohio westward to the Great Miami, and thence from the mouth of the Scioto southward through Kentucky. They were the earhest white men who explored this territory who have left a record of their observations, and their journals are given in the following pages, with full explanatory foot-notes. That of Gist was published more than an hundred years ago in a work the full title of which is as follows : "A Topographical Description of such parts of North America as are contained in the annexed Map of the Middle British Colonies, &c., in North America. By T. Pownall, M. P., late Governor, &c., of his Majesty's Provinces of Massachusetts and South Carolina and Lieutenant Governor of New Jersey. London. Published for J. Almon, opposite Burlington House in Piccadilly. 1776." The text of this work has been followed in all its details of spelling, capitals, and punctuation. It has been republished and largely drawn on by historians, but has been the occasion of many errors, from a failure to interpret correctly some parts of the route pursued.

The journal of Doctor Walker is now for the first time given in complete form. Although its existence has been long known, and brief reference is made to it in various histories of the West, no part of it was published until

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within the last decade, when it appeared with the following title : ' ' Journal of an Exploration in the Spring of the Year 1750 by Dr. Thomas Walker, of Virginia, with a Preface by William Cabell Rives, LL. B., Member of the American Historical Association. Boston : Little, Brown & Co. 1888." This publication, issued by a descendant of Doctor Walker, while a valuable contribution to Western history, was defective in the omission of the sheets of the journal for the first ten days from March 6th to March i6th, 1749-50, and for ten days from April loth to April 20th, 1750. Four years ago it came under the observation of the editor of the present publication, who became interested in correctly defining Doctor Walker's route through Kentucky, which he was satisfied had been incorrectly laid down by all others. By a close study of the journal, notwithstanding the second hiatus embraced the period through which Doctor Walker passed into Kentucky, he succeeded in his effort, and read a paper covering the subject before the Filson Club, November 13, 1894, accompanied by a map showing his route, together with the location of the house erected by him on the Cumberland River, which always theretofore had been laid down on the early maps as due south of Louisville, more than an hundred miles too far west. He then addressed himself to the effort to find xviii Introduction.

the missing sheets of the journal, and, after corresponding with Doctor William C. Rives, son of the gentleman above named, who first placed the journal in print, they were fortunately recovered after a search among some of the family papers long laid away. Doctor Rives kindly sent them to the editor, with permission to restore them to the journal in their proper place, and they, together with the entire journal, from the text of Mr. William Cabell Rives' publication cited, are given in the following pages, with strict adherence to the spelling and other features. The foot-notes, which have been made as brief as is consistent with their object, give the location of the explorer from day to day, together with such information and explanation as will enable the reader to follow his route. The missing leaves confirmed the editor in every particular in which, in his original Filson Club paper, he by hypothesis mapped out the route not embraced in the mutilated journal, and no corrections of the map made to illustrate his paper were found necessary. The present paper is an expansion and elaboration of the orig inal one, and after very careful preparation is submitted as a contribution to pioneer history, the necessity for which has long been apparent to the student and compiler. It was at first his purpose to present it unaccompanied with any other, but the coincidence as to time of the explora-

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tion by Christopher Gist, the fact that they traversed different parts of the State, and the important influence the two explorers and their labors had upon the settlement of the West and of Kentucky, have induced him to include both journals in one publication. The editor makes his acknowledgments for valuable assistance derived from "Christopher Gist's Journals," by William M. Darlington, published in Pittsburgh by J. R. Welden, 1888 ; to Colonel R. T. Durrett, Captain James M. Bourne, and others who have assisted him in preparing this work.

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Sketch of Doctor Thomas Walker.

pvOCTOR THOMAS WALKER was born in King * — ^ and Queen County, Virginia, January 25, 17 15. His father, of the same name, was of a family long settled in the tide - water section of Virginia, his first American ancestor having come from Staffordshire, England, in 1650, and been a member of the Colonial Assembly in 1662, as a representative from Gloucester County. While the records of the family do not contain much of the details of the lives of its earlier representatives, they show them to have been of a sturdy stock, and to have belonged to the class of Virginia planters which constituted the most respectable and influential element of the colonial population. Doctor Walker's mother was Susanna Peachy, to whom his father was married September 24, 1709. Their children were Mary Peachy, born in 17 10, who married Doctor George Gilmer, of Williamsburg, Virginia, who left many descendants of distinction, including a Governor each of Virginia and Georgia; John, born April 29, 18 10, who married Miss Baylor, of Essex County, and Thomas, the subject of this sketch. It is to be regretted that but little is known of the early life of Doctor Walker or of his educational advantages, but it is inferred that he enjoyed the best afforded at that time in the Colony, and that he attended the academical or medical course, one or both, of William and Mary College. That, as the title which he bore indicates, he was a physician, though not confining himself strictly to the practice, may be inferred from the evidence afforded by his journal. But, as one of his biographers says in correcting an error stating that he was a divine, "a more conclusive proof of his being a physician is the fact that in June, July, and August, 1757, he made oft-repeated visits to Colonel Peter Jefferson, and stood by his bedside when he died on the 17th of August in that year. " It is more than probable that with an adventurous spirit he preferred a more active life and one which offered more remunerative returns, and laid aside his saddle-bags to become a surveyor — a profession which at that time and later drew to its service the most representative Virginians. Besides, another inducement naturally led him to make this change. In 1741, when he was twenty-six years of age, he married a lady who brought to him a landed estate of fifteen thousand acres, and the proper care and subdivision of it afterward made it an object of sufficient importance to induce him to take this step. The companion whom he chose and

Sketch of Doctor Thomas PValker. 3

who became the mother of his twelve children and the ancestress of a long line of distinguished descendants was a young widow several years older than himself — Mrs. Nicholas Meriwether, whose maiden name was Mildred Thornton. She was a second cousin of Washington, whose elder brother Samuel had married one of her near relatives. Her land was situated in Albemarle County, east of Charlottesville, in one of the most historic portions of Virginia, and here he afterward erected the homestead known as Castle Hill, which is still occupied by his lineal descendants. He was the intimate friend of Peter Jefferson, the father of the author of the Declaration of Independence, and at his death became his executor and the guardian of his illustrious son. From association with him it is easy to conceive how naturally his mind was influenced and his life turned into the current of adventure for which his new calling so well fitted him. The civilization of Virginia had long been confined to a comparativel}' narrow strip of territory between the Blue Ridge and the Atlantic. In 1728 the increase in population prompted the extension of the boundary line between North Carolina and Virginia, and in that and the succeeding year it was established as far west as the foot of the Alleghany Mountains by a commission, at the head of which was Colonel William Byrd, of Westover. His account of the survey, as given in the "Westover Papers," is one of the most interesting contributions to colonial history, and discloses the fact that he ran the line seventy-two miles beyond the limit fixed by his associates, who protested that they had already reached a point to which it would require fifty years for the settlements to extend. Yet in twenty years the tide of immigration had reached the base of the Alleghanies, and a further extension of the line westward was required. For this service were selected by the Colonial Assembly Joshua Fry, a graduate of Oxford, the distinguished Professor of Mathematics of William and Mary College, and Peter Jefferson, whose calling was that of a surveyor. In 1749, accompanied by Daniel Weldon and William Churton, Commissioners on the part of North Carolina, they extended the line on the parallel of 36° 30' seventy-three miles further to Steep Rock, a point about twenty-five miles southeast of Abingdon, Virginia. Fry and Jefferson were further associated as civil engineers in the preparation of the map of Virginia which bears their name, published by them in 1751, and which was used in the treaty of peace between England and the United States at the close of the Revolutionary War. To still further show the impetus which had required this extension and its rapid progress, it was only thirty years when, in 1779, this line was extended five hundred miles further