When peace came, Clark settled about eight miles from Louisville and fell
into habits of intemperance which unfitted him for public service. He was
given large land bounties by Virginia, in recognition of services
rendered, but conflicting claims prevented him coming into possession of
the land for years, thus leaving him helpless and poor in his old age. The
Virginia legislature voted him a jeweled sword, which was sent to the old
man by a special messenger. When the young man made his speech presenting
the sword, Clark replied, “Young man, go tell Virginia, when she needed a
sword I found one. Now, I need bread.” The worn-out old soldier lived only
a little while longer, and in 1818 died and was buried at Locust Grove,
Ky. It has been said that a French officer who met Clark at Yorktown, on
his return to France, said to the king: “Sire, there are two Washingtons
in America.” “What do you mean?” said the king. “I mean,” said the
officer, “that there is Washington whom the world knows; and there is
George Rogers Clark, the conqueror of the Northwest, as great a man as
Washington in his field of action and for his opportunity.”
Simon Kenton shared a like fate. Losing his land, acre by acre, this
simple-hearted old pioneer found himself penniless in his old age. He was
then allowed by law, to the shame of all civilization, to be cast into
prison for debt upon the same spot upon which he had built his first cabin
in 1775. In 1799, as a beggar, he moved into Ohio. In 1813, he joined
Governor Shelby’s troops and was with them in the Battle of the Thames. In
1820, this poor old man moved to a site on Scioto river, where the Indians
forty years before had tied him to a stake to be burned. Near the close of
his life he was given some mountain lands and a small pension.
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
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. Around him his sons and daughters and their families settled. The
broad forests were full of game, and here Boone again indulged his passion
for a hunter’s life. The old hunter neglected to complete his titles to
his new lands, and these he also lost. Congress afterward made him a
smaller grant. He died in Missouri in 1820, at the age of eighty-six, and
was buried in a coffin which he had made for himself some years before. In
1845, the Legislature of Kentucky had the remains of the pioneer and his
wife removed and buried with honor in the cemetery at Frankfort. A
suitable monument was erected to mark their resting place.
In the early days of the settlement of Kentucky, all men were not engaged
in fighting Indians, building forts and clearing ground. On the contrary,
the fertility of the soil and the wealth of timber and mineral led men to
look to the commercial value of real estate, and consequently there was
formed a powerful company known as The Transylvania Land Company, which
had for its purpose the ownership and control of the valuable lands. Judge
Richard Henderson, a native of Virginia, was the leader in the formation
of this Company.
Taking advantage of the unsettled boundaries west of the mountains and
knowing that the several states claimed the country by right of grants
from the kings of the countries of Europe, the Transylvania Company
attempted to organize the territory into a separate government. These men
gave the settlers no little worry over the ownership of their lands, and
because Virginia was engaged in the War of the Revolution little attention
was paid to affairs in Kentucky. Finally, in 1776, the settlers in
Kentucky called a meeting at Harrodsburg and sent Gabriel Jones and George
Rogers Clark to the Legislature of Virginia with a statement that unless
Virginia should protect the settlers against the Transylvania Company and
others, the people would organize the territory into a separate
government, and take their place among the States. To this statement the
Virginia Legislature gave heed, and cut off from Fincastle County,
Virginia, all that unsurveyed territory west of the Allegheny Mountains,
and organized it into the County of Kentucky, as a part of Virginia. This
act enabled the settlers to have a regular form of county government with
a sheriff and other county officials, as well as two representatives in
the Virginia Assembly.
Things went well in the new county for awhile. Agriculture was engaged in
more extensively and the good work of developing the country went steadily
on, interrupted all too frequently by the attacks of the Indians from the
north, in very much the same manner as before, though less frequently.
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. Population increased to such an extent that it was thought
advisable to divide the territory into three counties (Jefferson, Lincoln
and Fayette), and courts were established.