Orange County, Virginia, was formed by Colonial act in 1734; and its
boundary was: "to the uttermost limits of Virginia." The limits of
Virginia were; "westward to the Mississippi and so much further as the
Colony had a mind to claim."
From Orange County, Augusta County was formed in 1738, extending beyond
the Alleghanies to the "uttermost limits of Virginia." Botetourt was
carved from Augusta in 1769 and Fincastle from Botetourt in 1772.
Kentucky County was carved by a partition of Fincastle in 1776, under
one of the earliest acts of the new Commonwealth of Virginia; and
Kentucky County, known as the District of Kentucky, was, in 1780,
subdivided into Lincoln, Fayette and Jefferson Counties. These three
counties were resubdivided in the making of the additional counties of
Nelson, Bourbon, Mercer, Madison, Mason and Woodford; and these nine
counties of Virginia, on June 1, 1792, became the State of Kentucky.
The days following the Revolution found the people of Virginia restless,
poor and out of touch with the ordinary occupations of pre-war days.
Their market for tobacco, the product which had sustained the aristocrat
in lavish prodigality and supported the colony, was lost and the
plantations were mazes of briars and underbrush.
As was the intention of the statute, the abolition of entails by the
legislature of the new Commonwealth of Virginia, first diluted, then
dissipated the power of the aristocracy. The family estate, the
plantation of thousands of acres, which had been kept intact in the
family for generations, was subdivided and resubdivided between the
proprietor's heirs and creditors and their vendors, until the old-style,
feudal-lord-like life was impossible.
These still land-hungry "First Families," looked to the District of
Kentucky, where land, more fertile than Tidewater Virginia, was almost
free for the taking--to re-establish themselves as proprietors of vast
landed estates, as their fathers had been; thus to revive the prestige
and influence of the old family name; and many such emigrated to
Kentucky. A great many plain farmers, impoverished by the war and seeing
no hope for improved fortune at the old home, hazarded a try for better
fortune in the new country. A yet more numerous and important element
was the discharged veterans of the Continental Army; they had desired a
more adventurous life than was to be found in clearing their old fields
to start afresh the life of a poor farmer; and they came to Kentucky.
These three classes of emigrants, and a conservative estimate places
their number at exceeding ten thousand a year for the decade succeeding
the Revolution, were of pure English stock, democratic, courteous,
hardy, self-willed and trained to defend their rights--created the
Kentucky Spirit.
Those who had preceded them could not be classified as settlers. As a
rule they were wilderness tramps, or land jobbers, or conscienceless
traders, who built cabins surrounded by picketings of timbers planted
deep in the ground to protect their "stations" from surprises by the
Indians; and such cabins soon became widely known. It was around these
stations the real immigrant settled.
In case of attack, the settlers near gathered at the "station." The
owner, of course, assumed command and exercised all the rights of
proprietor. Thus by consent he was designated as Colonel Boone, or
Colonel Morgan, or Colonel Gibson, or Colonel Cresap; which title he
retained, as is the way of such adventurers, though his "station"
frequently degenerated into a joint for the sale of rum or brandy and a
resort for the dissolute or criminal of those early days.
Thus the title "Colonel" was applied to any one temporarily in
authority; and in Kentucky might be said to have a local meaning. Not
all "Kentucky Colonels" have seen military service or are holders of
commissions designating them as such; though the secretaries of
Kentucky's recent governors, spend much of their time issuing such
commissions.
The writer has known instances where Kentuckians holding a commission as
lieutenant or captain during actual service; as they grew in importance
locally, or became a celebrity because the owner of a great race horse,
or in appearance venerable, have been raised by the courtesy of their
neighbors to the rank of "General."
Emigrants from Virginia to the District of Kentucky had the choice of
the river route down the Ohio, or overland by way of the Old Wilderness
Road.
Those coming by river had first to travel caravan style to the head of
navigation of the Allegheny, Monongahela, or Kanawha river or to
Pittsburgh. There they loaded their cattle into flat boats, or batteaux,
or on rafts of poplar logs and floated down the Ohio; carefully keeping
to the center of the stream, out of range from the shore. Reaching their
destination, usually Limestone (Maysville) or Louisville, they sold
their boat or raft and took to pack horse or wagon, completing their
journey as they traveled on the first stage of it.
In 1787, M. St. John de Crevecoeur, a native of Normandy published in a
Paris journal an account of his river trip from Pittsburgh to
Louisville. Considering the date, the narrative seems somewhat
overdrawn.
In part he said:
"After having waited twenty-two days at Pittsburgh I took advantage of
the first boat which started for Louisville. It was 55 feet long, 12
wide and 6 deep, drawing 3 feet of water. On its deck had been built a
low cabin, but very neat, divided into several compartments, and on the
forecastle the cattle and horses were kept in a stable. It was loaded
with bricks, boards, planks, bars of iron, coal, instruments of
husbandry, dismounted wagons, anvils, bellows, dry goods, brandy, flour,
biscuit, lard, salt meat, etc. These articles came in part from the
country in the vicinity of Pittsburgh and from Indiana. (The Indiana
here referred to was a section of Virginia lying east of the
Alleghanies.) I observed the larger part of the passengers were young
men who came from nearly all of the middle (coast) states; pleasant,
contented, full of buoyant hopes; having with them money coming from the
sale of their old farms, or from the share received from their parents.
They were going to Kentucky to engage in business, to work at their
trades and to acquire and establish new homes. What a singular but happy
restlessness, that which is constantly urging us all to become better
off than we are and which drives us from one end of a continent to the
other. In the evening after laying up, the more skillful hunters would
go to the land to shoot wild turkeys, which you are aware wait for the
last rays of the sun to fade away before going to roost in the tops of
the highest trees."
When the settler fixed upon his location he appropriated a four hundred
acre boundary, the settler's allowance; and taking possession, held it
by what was then known as the "Tomahawk Claim;" that is, he blazed his
boundary lines with a tomahawk and hacked his initials on the corner
trees. He then built a log cabin and felled a few trees to give notice
to the world that the blazed boundary was appropriated. His
appropriation was usually respected, mainly from custom and sentiment;
though the right, if questioned, was usually defended by the rifle.
In the mid-summer of 1787 the Campbells with Mrs. McDonald, the Clarks,
and the Fairfaxes, having sold their plantations, emigrated overland by
the Wilderness Trail to Kentucky.
Their experiences were much the same as the many who had preceded them;
except as they had Indian guides, Oliuachica and two Mingo braves, they
were in little danger of attack from the Indians.
What was then known as the Wilderness Road extended from the last
settlements on the east side of the Alleghanies, over the mountain on to
the headwaters of Clinch River, down that river valley, thence across
the mountain into Powell's Valley, thence with the valley to Cumberland
Gap and thence through the Gap into the District of Kentucky.
The road had been marked off by Daniel Boone in 1774-5, some said at the
direction of Lord Dunmore and others at the direction of Colonel Richard
Henderson, as a highway to his colony of Transylvania; a vast boundary
mostly in Kentucky, which he had purchased from the Cherokees at the
Council of Sycamore Falls.
The road after crossing Cumberland Gap, as shown by John Filson's map of
"Kentucke," forked at Flat Lick; the Indian trail known as the
"Warrior's Path," passing north across the Ohio River to old
Shauane-Town and to the chief settlement of the Mingo Nation on the
"Sciotha" River. The other fork, Boone's or the Wilderness Road, from
Flat Lick followed a southwest course to Rock Castle River, where the
road again forked, the right to Blue Licks and Boonesboro, the left on
to the head of Dick's River, to Logan Station or St. Asaph's Plantation,
then forks to Danville, to Lexington and to the Green River Settlements.
It was little more than a bridle path, being intended for pack horses
and foot travelers, though it was possible to follow it in a wagon.
After 1780, quite a few came through carrying their heavy household
effects in wagons; and a few of the aristocrats drove through their
family carriages, the tops of which were usually torn off by trailing
vines from the trees or overhanging limbs.
Along a good portion of the road at intervals of the average day's
journey, were "stations" or taverns where travelers usually passed the
night; but if these were not reached they used well-known camp grounds
cleared of underbrush and near a good spring, where they bivouaced
around a great open fire and slept under awnings or in their wagons.
The caravan led by Colonel Campbell, used to frontier life, preferred
the camping grounds. The taverns or stations had a bad name, as
headquarters for bandits who frequently robbed and murdered travelers
and then spread the rumor of an Indian raid.
The four families, with their slaves, servants and three Indian guides
made a total of thirty-two persons. There were eight wagons, two
carriages, thirty horses, six oxen, more than eighty head of beef and
milk cattle, a small flock of sheep and on the back of each wagon,
resting on the tail gate, was either a coop of chickens or a crate of
pigs. The camp outfits were carried on pack horses so as not to disturb
the loaded wagons. The five negro slaves with their three children,
driving the three ox wagons and bringing up the rear, whistling, singing
and laughing, were the boisterous ones of the party. The three Indians,
Colonel Campbell and Richard Cameron took the lead, and John, when he
was not driving the Fairfax carriage, rode with them, conversing with
his Indian friends. The Indians were the watchful, silent leaders by
day, and one of them with a white companion, the guard by night.
The train bore a marked resemblance to the caravan of a patriarch of
ancient days, searching for verdant pasture lands and sweet water
courses; who rode at the head with a body-guard and was followed by his
dependents and herds.
They had cause to be thankful for their three Indian guides. Traveling
through Powell's Valley, in a dense forest, one of the braves gave the
signal for a halt and silence, while he stole silently ahead. In a half
hour he returned accompanied by more than thirty Mingoes and Shauanese
who had placed themselves in ambush, expecting to massacre the party.
Several were members of the Prophet's own tribe and treated him and
Chief Cross-Bearer with formal courtesy. In fact they had been sent to
escort the Prophet back to his village. Had it not been for the three
Indians it is probable some of their party would have been murdered,
before John's girdle had been noticed or their identity discovered. At
their suggestion his sign was painted with puccoon root stain upon the
sides of the wagon covers. The Indians remained with them until they
crossed over Cumberland Gap into the Yellow Creek Valley, where
Middlesboro now stands.
There, Colonel Campbell, reminded of his old home in Scotland and his
more recent one in Virginia, pleased with the beautiful meadow free of
timber and the fruitful valley, which was a great deer and buffalo
pasture, decided to settle; and sought to persuade his friends to do so;
but they, with the exception of the Camerons, concluded to travel on
until they reached the "cane-brake" or blue grass country.
He fixed upon his "Tomahawk Claim" of four hundred acres as did Mr.
Cameron; and their boundaries which joined were blazed off and marked by
them and re-marked by their Indian friends with the Indian sign that
this was the lodge of Chief Cross-Bearer and therefore sacred from
attack. Then the Indians left them and took the "Warrior's Trail" for
the Scioto Valley, the land of the Mingo nation.
The Clarks and Fairfaxes remained for a week at Campbell Station and
helped get out the timbers for cabins and barns, but could not be
persuaded to remain longer. Then they moved on to Logan's Station and
subsequently pre-empted land in the vicinity of Danville, then the
capital of the District of Kentucky.
On the Sunday before they left Dorothy and John rode horseback to
Cumberland Gap; where, tying their horses in a dense copse of pawpaw
bushes, fearing they might otherwise be stolen, they climbed to the
Pinnacle overlooking the valleys on either side of the range.
The path to the Pinnacle was as old as man in America. The outcropping
layers of stone, which made a rough natural stairway, in places was worn
deep by the Indians and those who before them had trod its windings and
on the highest point built their signal fires. Now white settlers coming
through the Gap, mounted to the summit by the same trail and looked over
the Valley and the lesser mountains to the northward into the land of
promise; and then back the way they had come towards their old home.
"Dorothy, when you visit a place like this do you take in the view as
you climb? I do not like to raise my eyes from the path until I reach
the top; therefore I see first the footworn stones, which have the
polish of a floor worn smooth by countless feet, though this path's
surface is worn by the feet of uncounted generations.
"When I first come upon a peak, which like this over-towers its fellows,
in thought I always entreat: Speak, gray mountain head! You know the
past, which to me is speechless! Do not thy members reach inward to the
spirit of the mountain, which like a great beast of burden has lain
asleep for a million years, yet has a heart of life? Tell of those who
have gone before; of the sun worshippers, who from your apex, making of
an attribute a god, have glorified the day, God's first creation; of the
Indians, creatures of the forest shade, as silent as its shadows; who,
coming into the bright light of your summit, from this wider vista, have
felt more completely the power and dignity of God and lacking a better
name have called him the Great Spirit; of the white man, the servant of
ten talents, who, having bitten deeper into the fruit of the tree of
knowledge and knowing the true God, must be lifted in spirit above the
earth and things earthly as from this altar he looks out and sees that
which though of the earth is not earthly, and things above which though
of the heavens are not heavenly. When I go into the high places of the
mountains I feel I am led of the Spirit that I may be near the Lord and
receive from Him my commandments. Such places are either shrines of
worship, or sanctuaries where God abides.
"I look out and at first view see the earth below, the tree and mountain
tops, the clouds, the azure under-pinions of the everlasting wings;
then, if my thoughts are clear as crystal, the veil may be rent, and I
may see His face through a haze of glory.
"Dorothy, when you come as today, I feel that you too are led of the
Spirit and that our spirits in unison offer praise to God. I am glad
that mind and spirit are in communion and I recall that God hath said
that man shall not travel the way alone and hath made for each his
helpmate. If you are not to be, God hath not yet shown her face to me in
life or dream; nor has fancy painted any other or fairer vision than thy
sweet face."
"John, I do not see all this. Below I see the green and gray and brown
of earth, except off in the valley the silver thread-like rivulet. When
I lift my eyes towards the sun I see only the clouds and the sky. That
is all; though my face is fanned and my hair tousled by the south wind
that whispers to me. Do you hear what the south wind says? You have
never tousled it, John, except when as little children we played
together; never so much as caught a button of your coat in a stray
strand and only the wind has played sweetheart and kissed my face. Oh!
You need not move over. But when you were at William and Mary's and I
climbed to John Calvin Rock--I like the name--you are not tempest-tossed
like other men, but sail a stormless sea or ride too deep for
tossing--and looked out upon the valley, I always saw the same, allowing
for change of season and sky. But when I closed my eyes, I looked
through the peep hole of the old partition and saw a little boy in
homespun of oak-bark brown--and when I said ''ittle boy peek through,'
he would not peek, but sat on the church bench as a thing of bronze,
doubtless greatly shocked at my frivolity. Then the same little fellow
took me to the mountain top and showed me the valley and the kingdom of
men below; and talked of things I did not understand, as he continues to
do. Again it was the same little boy who was the knight of my first
adventure, and without a show of fear wiped away my tears. Then we came
to live in the Valley and he was my nearest neighbor and, though my own
age, taught me more than the master. I have long since given up hope of
escape from him. Why has it always been the same little boy?--because it
is going to be the same man, John. Oh, John! John!" And her eyes were
filled with tears and John wiped them away.
That night John met Captain Fairfax as he was returning from looking
after his horses, which had been grain-fed preparatory to continuing
their journey in the morning; and without preliminary, as was his way,
asked for his daughter.
The Captain, taken by surprise, as bluntly declined. Then ashamed of his
bluntness, explained: "You know Dorothy is of gentle birth as are you on
your father's side. Your mother's people for generations have been
preachers or teachers, they are of an old family though not of the
nobility, and she is as good a woman as ever lived. My objection is not
to your family; and I know you would make Dorothy a good husband; but
you have been educated for and expect to be a Presbyterian minister. As
such you will not make a living sufficient to support Dorothy. Your
father and I are no longer rich men, having given all except our lands
to the cause of the Colonists. I am a Presbyterian, but I want Dorothy
to marry a lawyer, or a planter--not a minister. I doubt if a minister
in this new country should marry; he is almost a creature of charity. If
you will go to Lexington or Danville and practice law or to the 'cane
country' and with your father's and my help buy a thousand acres and
improve it, in two or three years I will give my consent. If not, in my
opinion, you should remain unmarried. It is the church or Dorothy for
your bride. Son, it is up to you."
John did not answer but walked out into the night.
When Captain Fairfax went into the partly finished house and told his
wife what had occurred, she burst into tears and upbraided him for
showing an unchristian spirit, saying: "No good will result from your
decision. John is just the husband I would have chosen for Dorothy. I
had hoped that they would marry."
She left the room, looking for Dorothy and sent her to find John.
Though the moon was full and one could see quite distinctly it was
sometime before she found him in the shadow of a great elm near the
creek. She came up as though it were accidental.
"Why in the shadow and so pensive when we were so happy today? Let us
walk in the moonlight or sit on that great rock at the head of the
riffle and watch the moonbeams play with the running water."
John, before answering, took her by the hand and led her to a seat on
the great boulder. Then he said: "Your father refuses. He looks at the
matter from a different view point and his may be the correct one.
Whether he or I am right rests with you; not upon your decision but your
nature. If we do not marry it may mean a happier life for you, though
for me a necessary sacrifice. I offer very little more than my love and
fidelity; offsetting this, as he puts it, is a life of privation,
hardship and sacrifice--if service can be so called. What he expects for
you to have is what you have been brought up to expect--and I can never
give."
"John, I love life and joy and gayety but I also love helping others. I
love serving God; but as a king should be served, with praise and
thankfulness. I think a song of thanksgiving is as divine worship as
tears of penitence, though each in order. If you will wait, and you and
I are but twenty, in time he will come around to mother's and my way of
thinking. We run the Captain, though he is often victor in the
preliminary skirmish. Mother said she had always expected me to be your
wife and I have never thought of any one else for a husband."
An hour later they came to the house chatting happily; Dorothy having
convinced John that her happiness was dependent upon their marriage; and
that before the end of another year Captain Fairfax would give his
consent.
----
John and Richard rode with the Fairfaxes and the Clarks to the ford of
the Cumberland and after farewells and many promises of extended visits,
left them to continue their journey over the Wilderness Trail to Logan
Station; and they returned home.
Two years passed before John saw Dorothy again, though he wrote her many
letters sending them by travelers from Virginia to the settlements. He
received fewer than he sent, as the travel was mainly to and not from
the settlements.
----
Colonel Campbell, his son, their one servant and Richard Cameron were
kept busy through the fall and winter completing their buildings,
foraging for grain and roughness for their cattle, more than thirty
head, and making necessary clearings for the spring crops. There was not
a great deal of clearing, as they used the meadow of nearly a hundred
acres across the creek, from which the Indians by their repeated fires
had years before burned off the timber to make pasture land for buffalo.
More than half of this, after being cleared of briars and bush growth,
they expected to cultivate in corn. John and the servants were assigned
to this work while Colonel Campbell and Richard attended to the cattle
and other duties. Their work was somewhat retarded by immigrants, who,
coming through the gap, stopped overnight, sometimes longer, at
Campbell's Station, as the place from the first was called. Several
traders made a proposition to Colonel Campbell to open a tavern; which
he declined, although it was an excellent place for one.
Their life was a rude and busy one. The days were given to great
physical labor, particularly during that first winter. Under it and the
plain wholesome diet of meat, corn bread, milk and dried fruits, John
thrived and grew muscular and broad of shoulder.
The windows of their house were without glass and there were many
crevices between the logs, but the great fireplaces were heaped with
seasoned logs, which burned through the night and which as they burned
out were replaced by John; though an oak or hickory one occasionally
taxed even his strength.
From the ingoing settlers they procured small quantities of flour, grain
and tea, voluntarily exchanged or offered for their entertainment; as
Colonel Campbell always refused to charge a guest.
Late in the fall two other families settled in the Valley and increased
their colony by eight persons. One of these was a girl nearly John's
age; who when she saw him cast her vote in favor of the valley location.
The first of December two young men with a pack horse, delayed by a
severe snow storm, were employed by the Colonel to help with the work of
clearing and plowing the meadow and remained until the following April.
One of them carried off as his bride the girl, who first only had eyes
for John; but when he did not respond to her advances, named him the
"Moon Calf," saying: "His mind is in the moon or some other planet."
By the first of June the Campbells had more than forty acres planted to
corn and Richard about fifteen acres. Twenty acres of the meadow had
been fenced for a hay field and the balance with some open woodland had
been made into a pasture. The summer was a fine one for their crops,
rain and sun as needed; and when the corn was shocked in the fall the
station had much the appearance of an old plantation.
After a year in Yellow Creek valley, Richard Cameron sold his place and
moved to the blue grass. There he bought a large boundary of land,
became a successful planter, having given up the ministry. In his old
age he was sent to congress from his district. He died a rich man.