Stories of Old Kentucky Part 9

Deep, unmelting snow covered the land; many families coming by river were caught in the ma.s.ses of ice, compelled to abandon their primitive boats, and encamp on the frozen sh.o.r.e; while the traveler by land found trails blocked with snow, creeks frozen solid, and the forest desolate.

Horses, cattle, and many wild animals froze or died from want of nourishment, while so great was the extremity that the settlers were forced to eat the flesh of the animals that had thus fallen, and for months had to go without bread. In this severe cold, through the deep snow and over the solid ice, there could be little traveling. To secure supplies from elsewhere was impossible; and even when spring began to bring some relief, one bushel of corn brought, in the continental currency, from fifty to one hundred and seventy-five dollars. Complete relief could not come until the seedtime and the harvest home were over.

The Pilgrims were not more grateful on their first Thanksgiving Day than were the Kentucky frontiersmen when plenty again abounded.

WILDCAT McKINNEY

Though the pioneers of Kentucky endured many murderous attacks from the Indians, there were other dangers which were not trifling. One of the most exciting of these incidents was the experience of a man named John McKinney, who was employed at an early day by the people of Lexington, as their first teacher.

At that time Kentucky had no newspaper, and items of interest from the states beyond the mountains were eagerly greeted by all. In May, 1783, a traveler pa.s.sing through the embryo city of what is now the capital of our famed blue-gra.s.s section, brought with him a newspaper containing the Articles of Peace with Great Britain. All were anxious to read them.

The fact that the Articles had not yet been ratified did not lessen the interest of the citizens. A copy of any paper was a treat, and such news as the Articles meant great hope for the struggling settlers. As the gentleman would resume his journey the following day and take with him the much-prized paper, some of the citizens appealed to McKinney to copy the Articles of Peace.

At that time Lexington was only a cl.u.s.ter of about thirty cabins, and one which stood just outside the fort, near the present site of the courthouse, was used as a schoolroom.

Thither, the next morning, the teacher went to copy the precious news of peace. While busily writing, he heard a noise and glancing up saw a very unusual and unwelcome guest. A ferocious wildcat with bristles erect, tail curled, and eyes flas.h.i.+ng, had paused on the threshold and was peering around the room. At first she did not see McKinney, but by some involuntary movement he attracted her attention, and she soon exhibited other than friendly emotions.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "The wildcat was not to be frowned down."]

Having been accustomed to subdue the backwoods boys and girls by the awfulness of his frown, the teacher tried the same tactics now; but the cat was not to be frowned down. As the teacher reached for a rule she, with the ferocity of a lion, sprang upon him, fastened her claws in his side, and began tearing his clothes, mangling his flesh, and inflicting such serious wounds that the blood flowed copiously.

Knowing he could not long withstand her power and despairing of aught else to do, he threw his weight upon her and pressed her against the sharp corner of the table. Soon her weird cries were mingled with his calls of distress, and erelong the citizens knew something unusual was happening in the little schoolhouse. The women were first to answer the cry of alarm. Reaching the door, they paused to discover the cause of the commotion and seeing Mr. McKinney bending over the table, writhing and groaning, they at first glance thought that he had a severe attack of cramp, but quickly seeing the cat, one lady exclaimed, "Why, Mr.

McKinney, what is the matter?"

He very gravely replied, "Madam, I have caught a cat."

By this time the cat was lifeless; but her teeth were so deeply imbedded in his side that the neighbors, many of whom had gathered by this time, had great difficulty in disengaging her.

The shock, the wound, and the loss of blood made McKinney very sick and weak, and for several days he was confined to his bed while the boys and girls enjoyed a holiday.

He lived to a ripe old age and was often heard to say he would rather fight two Indians than one wildcat.

HOW KENTUCKY WAS FORMED

When "the embattled farmers stood and fired the shot heard round the world," Kentucky was that portion of the "Old Dominion" that was destined to be the happy homes of so many men, valorous in the field and eloquent in the forum. The state to be, whose toast and boast has ever been her n.o.ble sons and fair daughters, was still called Fincastle County, Virginia.

The last day of 1776, the year that saw the sons of the colonies rise in the majesty of their manhood and declare they would no longer submit to the rule of King George, the Virginia legislature divided Fincastle County into three counties, and called one of them Kentucky. This so remained until May, 1780, when Kentucky County was divided into Jefferson, Fayette, and Lincoln. Then the name of Kentucky was abandoned until in 1783, when an act of the Virginia legislature united the three counties into Kentucky District. On March 3, 1783, the first court convened at Harrodstown; but no house there being large enough, a church, six miles distant, was the home of the first judicial proceedings.

An act of this court caused a log jail and courthouse to be built where Danville now stands. Immigrants continued to come to this "Eden of the West" and the three original counties were divided and subdivided until June 1, 1792, when Kentucky became the fifteenth star in the constellation. There were then nine counties with a total population of 100,000; from this embryo has come a commonwealth of one hundred and twenty counties, with an area of four thousand square miles, rich in minerals and timber, factories and fields.

From the mountains of the east and the blue gra.s.s of the central part, even to the "Pennyrile" of the far west, each son of the "Dark and b.l.o.o.d.y Ground" loves the land settled by Boone, Kenton, and Clark.

KENTUCKY IN THE REVOLUTION

The youth of our state may feel that because Kentucky was not one of the original Thirteen Colonies to make the heroic struggle for freedom, that she played no part in establis.h.i.+ng and extending our national government.

During this period, remote as was this part of Virginia from the centers of civilization, every road blazed, every settlement made, every victory over the red savage, had a far-reaching effect, not alone for the state in embryo, but for the national government.

Had not the pioneers of Kentucky, with the heroism of the Romans of old, subdued the savages, stopped their depredations, and secured to the mother state of Virginia that vast tract out of which have been carved Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, the power of England, to-day, might cut our continent in two.

Kentuckians waited not for opportunity but made it.

At the battle of Point Pleasant, in October, 1774, where the noted "Cornstalk" met defeat, there were with General Andrew Lewis men whose name and fame furnish much of Kentucky history. There were Harrod, the Shelbys, the Boones, and other intrepid leaders who afterwards brought out from chaos our infant commonwealth.

The effect of this battle was more than local. It gave peace to the frontiersmen at the time the colonies were beginning the crucial contest with England and for a while prevented that barbaric warfare waged by the British and Indians united. So severe was the slaughter, it is said, that blood was found on each tree behind which the Indians and pioneers were posted.

In 1780 one of our pioneers who afterwards became our first governor, Colonel Isaac Shelby, was again in Kentucky locating lands that some time before he had marked out and improved, when he heard of the surrender of Charleston. A man with a soul so fired with patriotism could not be contented not to answer his country's call. He hurried home, secured volunteers, and did signal service in both North and South Carolina, and in Georgia. In a measure he overcame the defeat of Gates at Camden; by his momentous move, though not in supreme command, Colonel Shelby will ever be known as the hero of Kings Mountain, where the enemy surrendered after Ferguson with seventy-five officers and men had been killed.

This was at the darkest hour of the Revolution and has been called "the first link in the great chain of events in the South that established the independence of the United States." These conquests by Shelby in the South, coupled with those of Clark at Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and Vincennes, were as important in both immediate and future results as any that illumine the pages of the Revolution.

KENTUCKY'S PIONEER HISTORIAN

To view Kentucky in its primeval beauty and rugged grandeur; to talk face to face with Boone, Harrod, Todd, Cowan, and Kennedy, those hardy hunters who blazed the way and changed the uncertain trail to a broad thoroughfare through the western wilds; to experience the difficulties and encounter the dangers of those dreadful days--were experiences for one who would essay to write a history of the country, the times, and the people. Yet such were the advantages enjoyed by Kentucky's earliest historian, John Filson.

Born in Pennsylvania in 1747, given a common school and academic education, lured either by the spirit of adventure, the locating of lands, or the enthusiastic reports of the far-famed "second paradise"

with its "happy climate and plentiful soil," Filson reached Lexington in 1782. Here he succeeded "Wildcat McKinney" as the second teacher in this "Athens of the West."

While engaged in teaching, Filson was securing information that was to give to the world, not only the first history of Kentucky, but the first authentic account of that vast, transmontane wilderness about which so many exciting experiences had been recounted.

It has been said, "he could ask more questions and answer fewer than any one of his time."

Active, observant, accurate, he gave, in his "Discovery, Settlement, and Present State of Kentucky," in 1784, a work of much merit. It contained the first map ever drawn of this state, showing the three original counties of Jefferson, Fayette, and Lincoln.

As this was before any printing presses had been set up in Kentucky or at any other point in the West, Filson carried his map to Philadelphia and his ma.n.u.script to Wilmington, Delaware.

This little book of one hundred and eighteen pages was deemed of such consequence that one year after its appearance, it was translated into French and published by M. Parraud at Paris. Three editions were printed in England by Gilbert Imlay, Kentucky's first novelist, who incorporated it in his "Topographical Description of the Western Territory."

Not only was Filson a historian, biographer, and teacher, but he was also a practical, skillful surveyor.

He led a restless, strenuous life. Soon after his first visit to Kentucky he was back on his native heath, again in the state of his adoption, next in the Illinois country gathering data for a history of that section, the ma.n.u.scripts of which are now the property of the Wisconsin Historical Society.

[Ill.u.s.tration: John Filson.]

In 1788 Filson was a.s.sociated with Mathias Denman and Robert Patterson, the founder of Lexington, in the purchase of a tract of eight hundred acres opposite the mouth of the Licking River, where they planned a town, now the city of Cincinnati, but named by Filson, Losantiville,--the "city opposite the mouth of the Licking."