While the preceding pages have dealt largely with the struggle for
existence in the frontier country, it must not be understood that during
these years the entire attention of the settlers was given to waging war
against the Indians. The Indian invasions were altogether too frequent,
and their savage cruelty entirely too terrible to be mentioned here, and
this continued for many years after the country was supposed to be
entirely free from terrors of the sort. 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.
The question of land titles offered a fine field for litigation, and among
the brilliant lawyers attracted to the country was Henry Clay of Virginia,
who in his twenty-fifth year was elected to the State Legislature of
Kentucky, and at thirty was a United States Senator. From this period,
with but few brief intervals, his long life was spent in the public
service, and in the highest positions within the gift of the people. It
was he who said, “I would rather be right than be President.”
In 1787, there was established at Lexington The Kentucky Gazette, by John
Bradford. This was the first newspaper to be published west of the
Allegheny Mountains. Since they had no rural delivery in those days the
paper was sometimes weeks old before the people received it. It was
practically the only medium for the general dissemination of knowledge
throughout the settlements. With great eagerness would the people of any
particular section assemble at their fort, store or tavern, on “paper
day,” and the brightest youngster or the most accomplished reader in the
community would delight his auditors by reading aloud the things that had
happened in the world at large, the colonies in general, and in Kentucky
in particular.