Rice S. Eubank

“ About 1829 there began to develop in the minds of many Kentuckians a sentiment which afterward grew into strong opposition to the state of affairs which made it possible for one man to own the body and control the actions of another. In 1831, Cassius M. Clay, while attending Yale College, became thoroughly aroused to the evils of slavery, and when he returned to Kentucky he began to speak and to write in opposition to the institution. He established a paper in Lexington by means of which he was able to arouse sentiment in support of his contention against slavery. ”

“ Now that her railways are penetrating into even the remotest districts, bringing her citizens into closer and quicker communication with the outside world, her people rapidly are becoming united in their efforts to make her future eclipse her glorious past. ”

“ During one of the Indian attacks on them the supply of water in the fort became exhausted, and surrender seemed unavoidable. The women of the fort volunteered to go for water, and taking buckets marched down to the spring. The Indians were surprised, superstitious, and panic-stricken, and refused to fire on them. The women filled their buckets and returned in safety to the stockade.
Notwithstanding the bounteous provision made by Nature to supply the needs of the settler in the way of fruits, wild meats, and skins for clothing, life in the settlements was plain in the extreme. ”

“ In the second war between the United States and England, in 1812, Kentuckians took a prominent part in nearly all battles against the British. Especially did they distinguish themselves as expert riflemen at the Battle of New Orleans. Most of the cannon ball used in this battle had been made at the old iron furnace in Bath County, near where Owingsville now stands, and a great portion of the powder had been manufactured from the saltpeter leached from the soil in Mammoth Cave, Edmonson County, Kentucky. ”

“ About two hundred years after Columbus discovered America, a young man twenty-two years of age came to [pg 4] Canada from the Old World. On his arrival he learned from the settlers and Indians the possibility of a passage to the South Sea, which they then thought the Gulf of Mexico to be. Desirous of making this journey, and lured by the possibility of reaching the Pacific by water, he secured the assistance of Indians and some white hunters as guides and set out upon an expedition of exploration into the country concerning which he had heard such fascinating stories. ”

“ The notorious renegade, Simon Girty, a white man who for certain reasons forsook civilized society and associated himself with the Indians of Northern Ohio, was willing at all times to harass the settlers on the frontier at the suggestion of the French military commanders. This man cared not for spilling the blood of his own race, and frequently would lead his hostile bands in attacks against the unprotected settlements. His favorite time for attack seemed to be in the spring of the year, when the men were at work in the fields and offered the least resistance by a speedy rally of forces. ”

“ Beginnings of Settlements The party passed the present site of Richmond in Madison County, and reached a point on the Kentucky River, in 1775, where Boonesborough was built. The site selected was a broad, level stretch of land, with the river to the north, and high hills to the south. This particular spot was selected because of a fine spring of water, and high hills that could be used for sentinel towers, inclosing fine level ground for cultivation. The settlers cut trees and constructed a stockade in the form of a hollow square. ”

“ Built by George Rogers Clark in 1776. After the wives of the settlers in the various forts came to Kentucky, home life took on the appearance of a settled community. Homes were built outside the stockades, nearly every man of family had a farm of his own, land was cleared, fruit trees were set out, attention was given to the raising of hogs, sheep, cattle and horses, and a little Empire of the West began to appear. ”

“ The Virginians and Daniel Boone Near the middle of the eighteenth century, or about 1750, a party of Virginia hunters, growing weary of the monotony of home life and desiring to find better hunting grounds, penetrated the Appalachian Mountains by way of Powell’s Valley and through Cumberland Gap, into the eastern portion of what is now Kentucky, and hence were the first white men to approach the land from the eastern side. ”

“ State Government and Foreign Intrigue Isaac Shelby, a native of Maryland, but who had spent his early life in North Carolina with the frontiersmen, fighting the Indians and rendering valiant service in the [pg 24] War of the Revolution, after the conclusion of peace with England had come to Kentucky in 1783. He, like Clark, was a great leader of men. He took an active interest in political, civil, military and social affairs in Kentucky, and was elected the first Governor of the State. On the fourth of June, 1792, the Legislature assembled at Lexington. ”

“ So successful were these agents that they were able to secure the good will of some men in high places, by paying as high as two thousand dollars a year salary. One Thomas Power seems to have been the most active agent of the Spanish government, and he held out as an inducement the great commercial privileges that would come to Kentucky through the free navigation of the Mississippi River, and he further offered to place two hundred thousand dollars at the disposal of his friends if they would bring about a separation from the nation. ”

“ Yet the people had all the while been doing remarkably well, not only in their efforts to conquer the wilderness, but to establish a civilization which compared favorably with the progress made in the more settled sections of our country at that time. ”

“ He was chosen President of the Southern Confederacy at a time when another [pg 31] great Kentuckian, who had been born in the same section of the state, was President of the United States.
In a rude log hut, not many miles from the place where Jefferson Davis first saw the light, was born a boy whom the world has placed on the highest pedestal of fame. Abraham Lincoln was born in Larue County on February 12, 1809; his life is so well known that there is little of it not familiar to the average school boy. ”

“ People in the eastern colonies heard of the fertility of the soil and of the many attractive features of the country, and as a result large numbers from all the older settlements determined to try their fortunes in the favored land. ”

“ Daniel Boone lost all his fine lands in Kentucky, also, and came to such poverty as to lead him in one of his petitions to say, “I have not a spot of ground whereon to lay my bones.” He left Kentucky, saying he would [pg 18] never return to live in a country so ungrateful. About 1796 he moved to Missouri and settled fifty miles from St. Louis. Spain owned that territory then, and the Spanish government gave him a liberal grant of land. ”

“ From this seminary grew the now famous Transylvania University, Lexington, Ky.
In 1798 the Legislature of Kentucky donated six thousand acres of land to each county then in existence, for the purpose of establishing county seminaries. In many sections of the state these old pioneer buildings of brick and stone may be seen today. These institutions did much for education in their time. ”

“ In 1767, John Finley and Daniel Boone, hearing of the fine hunting in this section, came to Kentucky from North Carolina and built a cabin on Red River, near where Estill, Powell, and Clark counties are now joined. Two years later, about forty hunters and adventurers came to the territory and made their [pg 5] camp at what they then called Price’s Meadows, about six miles from the present site of Monticello in Wayne County. ”

“ Meat constituted the chief article of diet for the workers of the salt factory. It required no small amount to satisfy the appetites of thirty vigorous men. Boone, as the most expert hunter among them, undertook to supply the camp with meat. ”