George Rogers Clark

“ The only answer to that long unanswered question is, that of all men possible to be sent or kept in the west to hold in check the British and their Indian allies, and hold the valley of the Mississippi for any possible result of the war, George Rogers Clark was the first choice—the man that could be trusted and who was equal to the momentous importance of the position. ”

“ George Rogers Clark now steps into the position occupied by Henderson as the leader and sustainer of the Kentucky movement.
The brilliancy of Clark's military leadership during the next few years, while he was effecting [Pg 174] a conquest of Illinois, has entirely put into shade the genuine influence and merit of his service previously rendered. No herald of empire in the Middle West who was especially prominent in military affairs did more to accelerate and assure the victory of the army of axe-bearing pioneers than did George Rogers Clark in these critical years, 1775, 1776, and 1777. ”

“ To these, the Indian was a serpent in the path, a panther to be hunted.
"Hist! go slow. 'Tis the Delaware chiefs come down to visit George Rogers Clark," said Simon Kenton.
In these days of peace, remembering still their old terror of the Long Knife, a deputation of chiefs had come to visit Clark. In paint and blankets, with lank locks flapping in the breeze, they strode up the catalpa avenue, sniffing the odours of Mulberry Hill. General Clark looked from the window. Buckongahelas led the train, with Pierre Drouillard, the interpreter. ”

“ There should be two leaders, to provide against accident to one. Whom would he have, as comrade? He asked for his friend, William Clark, younger brother to the famed General George Rogers Clark, who in the Revolution had won the country west of the Alleghanies from the British and the Indians, afterward had saved the Ohio Valley from the angry redmen, and then had defied the Spaniards who would claim the Mississippi. ”

“ But Sacajawea knew the spot. "Here my people gather the kouse and the camas; here we take the beaver; and yonder, see, a door in the mountains."
On her little pony, with her baby on her back, the placid Indian girl led the way into the labyrinthine Rockies. 284
Clark followed, descending into the beautiful Big Hole prairie, where in 1877 a great battle was to be fought with Chief Joseph, exactly one hundred years after the 1777 troubles, when George Rogers Clark laid before Patrick Henry his plan for the capture of Illinois. ”

“ Under these circumstances, George Rogers Clark, trapper and expert woodsman and Indian fighter, set himself, with the confident idealism of the frontiersman, to achieve an object which must have seemed to most men no more than a forlorn hope. It was in 1777 that he crossed the mountains to Virginia, secured the secret and semi-official authorization of Patrick Henry, the Governor of the State, and raised a company of one hundred and fifty men with which to undertake nothing less than the destruction of British power in the great Northwest. ”

“ The man to whom this conquest was due was a famous backwoods leader, a mighty hunter, a noted Indian-fighter, George Rogers Clark. He was a very strong man, with light hair and blue eyes. He was of good Virginian family. Early in his youth, he embarked on the adventurous career of a backwoods surveyor, exactly as Washington and so many other young Virginians of spirit did at that period. ”

“ There was an interval of twenty years between Jefferson's first efforts for such an expedition and his success in sending out Lewis and Clark. As early as December 4, 1783, he wrote as follows to Gen. George Rogers Clark, the virtual savior of the old Northwest to the United States, and a brother of the William Clark who afterwards was associated with Meriwether Lewis in the exploration:
"I find they have subscribed a very large sum of money in England for exploring the country from the Mississippi to California. They pretend it is only to promote knowledge. ”

“ With his privy council, Mason, Wythe, and Jefferson, Patrick Henry discussed the plan, and at their instance the House of Delegates empowered George Rogers Clark "to aid any expedition against their western enemies."
"Everything depends upon secrecy," said the Governor as he gave Clark his instructions and twelve hundred pounds in Continental paper currency. "But you must recruit your men west of the Blue Ridge ”

“ No English officer appeared to take command at Vincennes until 1777; meanwhile General Gage had endeavored to expel the French inhabitants therefrom (1772-73) . It is not surprising, therefore, that they received the Americans under George Rogers Clark (1778) , with cordiality; or that after Hamilton’s re-capture of the place, they were unwilling to aid the English in maintaining the post against Clark’s surprise (February, 1779) , which resulted in the capture of Hamilton and all the British garrison. ”

“ With the exception of Detroit and several other posts on the Canadian frontier the whole of the North-West was thus brought under American influence; many of the Indians, previously hostile, became friendly, and the United States was put in a position to demand the cession of the North-West in the treaty of 1783. For this valuable service, in which Clark had freely used his own private funds, he received practically no recompense either from Virginia or from the United States, and for many years before his death he lived in poverty. ”

“ Louis, Vincennes, Kaskaskia, among the General's old debtors, proving that the articles for which he was sued were for his troops, powder and military stores.
"The General is very ill again," said father Clark, walking up and down the entry before the chamber door. The old man's severe countenance always relaxed when he spoke of "the General." Of all his children, George Rogers was the one least expected to fall into dissipation, but now in rheumatic distress, old before his time, George Rogers sometimes drank. ”

“ CLARK, GEORGE ROGERS (1752–1818) , American frontier military leader, was born near Charlottesville, in Albemarle county, Virginia, on the 19th of November 1752. Early in life he became a land-surveyor; he took part in Lord Dunmore’s War (1774) , and in 1775 went as a surveyor for the Ohio Company to Kentucky (then a district of Virginia) , whither he removed early in 1776. His iron will, strong passions, audacious courage and magnificent physique soon made him a leader among his frontier neighbours, by whom in 1776 he was sent as a delegate to the Virginia legislature. ”

“ Clark, George Rogers, wishes to acquire Spanish territory; intrigues with French; accepts a French commission; organizes expedition; collapse of expedition. Clark, Major, killed at St. Clair's defeat. Clark, William, serves under Wayne; defeats Indians in skirmish; at Fallen Timbers; his ability respected by Spaniards; starts across continent with Lewis; their voyage up the Missouri; their wonder at the strange animals; their good qualities as explorers; their attitude towards the Indians; they halt at Mandan for the winter; start west in the spring; travel through vast hunting grounds ”

“ By the mid-1860s the demonstrated need for thread manufacturers in America brought George A. Clark and William Clark, third generation cotton-thread manufacturers of Paisley, Scotland, to Newark, New Jersey, where they built a large mill. George Clark decided that a thread having both a softer finish and a different construction was needed. He produced a six-cord cabled thread, made up of three two-ply yarns (see fig. 67) . The thread was called “Clark’s ‘Our New Thread,’” which was later shortened to O.N.T. The basic machine-thread problem was solved. ”

“ In every generation since, that red hair had re-appeared.
"A strain of heroic benevolence runs through the red-headed Clarks," said an old dame who knew the family. "They win the world and give it away."
But the dark-haired Clarks, they were the moneymakers. Already Jonathan, the eldest, had served as Clerk in the Spottsylvania Court at Fredericksburg, where he often met Colonel George Washington. Three younger brothers, John, Richard, and Edmund, lads from twelve to seventeen, listened not less eagerly than Ann, Elizabeth, Lucy, and Fanny, the sisters of this heroic family. ”

“ Jumping in as the last boat pulled out of Pittsburg, Captain William Linn handed Clark a letter. He broke the seal.
"Ye gods, the very stars are for us! The French have joined America!"
With strange exhilaration the little band felt themselves borne down the swift-rushing waters to the Falls of the Ohio.
Before them blossomed a virgin world. Clark paused while the boats clustered round. "Do you see that high, narrow, rocky island at the head of the rapids? It is safe from the Indian. While the troops erect a stockade and blockhouse, let the families clear a field and plant their corn." ”

“ The savages in Cahokia were as the leaves of the forest. Curiosity, that mainspring of the Indian character, had brought the chiefs, big and little, to see with their own eyes the great Captain of the Long Knives. In vain had the faithful Bowman put them off. They would wait. Clark must come. And Clark was coming, for he was not the man to quail at such a crisis. For the crux of the whole matter was here. And if he failed to impress them with his power, with the might of the Congress for which he fought, no man of his would ever see Kentucky again. ”

“ He was a man of tact and influence with the Indians, and, although he wore the red coat, a man of humanity. He interpreted for me at Fort McIntosh and at the Great Miami. He comes with Buckongahelas."
William Clark remembered.
"That old Frenchman has a son, George, chip of the old block, brought up with the Indians and educated at a mission. He is your man,—at St. Louis, I think."
"Always demand of the Indians what you want, William, that is the secret. Never let them think you fear them. Great things have been effected by a few men well conducted. Who knows what fortune may do for you?" ”

“ On the third of February Captain McCarty arrived from Cahokia with his volunteers. That same day the men finished work on the riverboat, which Clark had named the Willing. They had made it into a warship equipped with armament of two four-pounders and four swivels. It required a crew of forty men to man, and Clark put Captain John Rogers in charge of it.
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He ordered Rogers to go down the Kaskaskia and Mississippi Rivers to the Ohio and ascend the Ohio and Wabash Rivers; then he was to take his station thirty miles below Vincennes and wait there for further orders. ”

“ Watched by red men over the hills, dogged by savages in the brakes, scalped by demons in the wood, the frontier surveyor must be ready at any instant to drop chain and compass for the rifle and the knife.
Like Wayne and Washington, Clark had drilled boy troops when he and Madison were pupils together under the old Scotch dominie, Donald Robertson, in Albemarle.
While still in his teens George and a few others, resolute young men, crossed the Alleghanies, went over Braddock's route, and examined Fort Necessity where Washington had been. They floated down the Monongahela to Fort Pitt. ”

“ As he became known to the public his talents were highly appreciated, not because they kindled to a blaze calculated to excite the huzzas of the multitude, but because they were surrounded by the halo of pure patriotism, strict justice, moral worth, and undeviating rectitude.
When the storm of oppression was poured upon his native land by the mother country, Mr. Clark was among the first who openly contended for equal rights and liberal principles. Cool, reflecting, and deliberate, he had the confidence of his fellow citizens, and exercised over them a wise and salutary influence. ”

“ Here and there, in untidy brown patches, were Indian settlements, and far away to the westward the tawny Father of Waters gleamed through the cottonwoods.
Through the waning day the men lay resting under the trees, talking in undertones. Some cleaned their rifles, and others lost themselves in conjectures of the attack. But Clark himself, tireless, stood with folded arms gazing at the scene below, and the sunlight on his face illumined him (to the lad standing at his side) as the servant of destiny. ”

“ Although the life was gayer and easier in these French villages than in the frontier settlements, and although the taking of Kaskaskia and Vincennes had been easy, Clark still had a hard task before him. His small force was made up of men who were in the habit of doing as they pleased, and over them he had no control except through their personal liking for him.
Furthermore, he was so many hundred miles from Virginia that he could not hope to get any advice or help from the government for months, or perhaps for an entire year. He must rely entirely upon himself. ”

“ These knives, bought of the traders, were invaluable to the Indian mother. With it she dug roots, cut wood, meat, or fish, split rushes for her flag mats and baskets, and fashioned skins for dresses and moccasins. Ever busy they were, the most patient, devoted women in the world.
Sacajawea, with her beautiful dress and a husband who sometimes carried the baby, was a new sort of mortal on this Pacific coast.
While they were conversing, a flock of ducks lit on the water. Clark took his rifle and shot the head off one. The astonished Indians brought the bird and marvelled. ”

“ With pale berries they stained their porcupine quills, with ochre painted the buffalo lodges, with vermilion rouged their faces, but none like these growing on the heads of men!
Seating themselves with all due dignity, Lewis and Clark scarce lifted their eyes from the ground as the Grand Chief, Weucha, extended his decorated pipe in silence. A full hour elapsed before Weucha, slipping his robe to give full play to his arm, arose before them.
"I see before me my Great Father's two sons. We very poor. We no powder, ball, knives. Our women and children at the village no clothes. ”