Nicholasville--Assembly of birds--Shafts to salt
spring--Millersburgh--Capt. Waller--State of the country at first
settlement--Massacre of the American militia under Col. Todd by
the Indians--Astonishing plenty of game--Mode of killing the
buffaloe--Their extirpation--Canes--Paper mill--Johnston’s--North
branch of Elkhorn--General Russel.
Friday, twenty-first July, we arose early and proceeded on our journey.
At about two miles from Blue Licks we passed a tavern, a double log
gaol and a court-house in a very solitary situation, dignified with
the name of Nicholasville, it being the seat of the county courts of
Nicholas county. In one spot on the road were two crows, two doves,
four red birds, and four partridges, assembled as if in council. They
all took wing at our approach except the partridges, which in this
country are wonderfully abundant, and very tame. They will walk quietly
to the side of the road and look at the passing traveller with innocent
confidence.
There were but one or two houses in the next six miles, which are
through a stony defile between barren hills. The country then becomes
better inhabited and the soil gradually improves to Millersburgh, a
village of about thirty houses, thirteen miles from Blue Licks.[118]
There is on the road an old shaft where an attempt was made to come
at a salt spring {156} without success, but a little further they
succeeded in finding a very strong one, which was rendered useless by
some springs of fresh water flowing into the salt, at such a depth as
to render the turning them away if not impracticable, at least too
expensive.
We breakfasted at Capt. Waller’s tavern, at Millersburgh.[119] Our
host was an obliging and sensible man, and possessed of good general
information relative to this country: he was not destitute of some
particular also. We collected from him, that when he first arrived in
Kentucky, about twenty-three years ago, there was not a house between
Limestone and Lexington, and at the latter place were only a few log
cabins under the protection of a stoccado fort.--That there was not
half a mile of the road between the two places unstained by human
blood.--That in 1782, on the heights above the Blue Lick, 2000 Indians
drew 1500 Americans into an ambush, by partially exposing themselves,
and so tempting the latter to attack them. The American commander, Col.
Todd, and six hundred of his men were killed, and the whole party would
have been destroyed had the remainder not saved themselves by throwing
themselves into the Licking and gaining the opposite bank, to which the
Indians did not chuse to pursue them, satisfied with the slaughter they
had made.[120] He said that buffaloes, bears and deer were so plenty
in the country, even long after it began to be generally settled, and
ceased to be frequented as a hunting ground by the Indians, that little
or no bread was used, but that even the children were fed on game;
the facility of gaining which prevented the progress of agriculture,
until the poor innocent buffaloes were completely extirpated, and the
other wild animals much thinned: And that the principal part of the
cultivation of Kentucky had been within the last fifteen years. He
said the buffaloes had been so numerous, going in herds of several
hundreds together, that {157} about the salt licks and springs they
frequented, they pressed down and destroyed the soil to a depth of
three or four feet, as was conspicuous yet in the neighbourhood of
the Blue Lick, where all the old trees have their roots bare of soil
to that depth.--Those harmless and unsuspecting animals, used to
stand gazing with apparent curiosity at their destroyer, until he
was sometimes within twenty yards of them, when he made it a rule to
select the leader, which was always an old and fat female. When she was
killed, which rarely failed from the great dexterity of the hunter, the
rest of the herd would not desert her, until he had shot as many as he
thought proper. If one of the common herd was the first victim of the
rifle, the rest would immediately fly. The males sometimes exceeded a
thousand pounds weight, but the females were seldom heavier than five
hundred. He said that the whole country was then an entire cane brake,
which sometimes grew to forty feet high, but that the domestick stock
introduced by the settlers have eradicated the cane, except in some
remote and unsettled parts of the state. He described that plant, as
springing up with a tender shoot, like asparagus, which cattle are very
fond of.
Millerstown has been settled about ten years, but it is not thriving,
though it seems well calculated for a manufacturing town, from its
situation on the bank of Hinckson’s fork of the Licking, which is a
good mill stream, and over which there is a wooden bridge.
Several strata of lead ore, parallel to the surface, and from three
inches to a foot in thickness, have been discovered in the town, and
neighbourhood; and about a year ago, a Mr. Elliot, erected a furnace
and made sixteen tons of pure lead, but for want of funds to prosecute
the business to effect, he was obliged to cease exertions, which, with
proper encouragement, might have been a source of very extensive
traffick to {158} this state, independent of the keeping in it a
considerable sum of the circulating medium which is now paid for that
useful metal, with which it is supplied from St. Genevieve in Upper
Louisiana, at a profit of one hundred per cent.[121]
From Millersburgh we travelled about seven miles, over a fine soil,
but not much improved on account of the uncertainty of titles. We then
turned out of the main road into a path through the woods, which we
were informed would shorten our road two miles to Baylor’s mills, where
Mr. A---- had business, but after losing ourselves in a labyrinth of
cross paths, and riding five miles instead of two, we at last found
ourselves at Col. Garret’s fine stone house and extensive farm,[122]
where a young lady from an upper window, gave us directions, by the aid
of which we soon found Mr. Baylor’s.
We had to regret the absence from home of young Mr. and Mrs.
Baylor,[123] as Mr. A. was personally acquainted with them, and we had
promised ourselves a musical feast, from the performance of Mrs. B.
on the piano forte, on which instrument she is said particularly to
excel. They not being at home, we declined the invitation of a younger
Mr. B. to alight, but taking a glass of milk and water on horseback,
we proceeded across Stoner’s fork of the Licking, towards Lexington,
leaving the town of Paris about three miles on the left.[124]
Our ride now was on a charming road finely shaded by woods, with now
and then a good farm, five miles to Johnston’s tavern, where we fed our
horses and got some refreshment. Capt. Johnston is most comfortably
settled on a fine farm, having a son married and settled on an equally
good one, on one side, and a daughter equally well situated on the
other. He and his wife are good looking, middle aged people, {159}
and both in their persons, and in every thing around them, have the
appearance of being possessed of the happy _otium_ of life. He had a
quantity of last year’s produce in his granaries, and his wheat, his
corn and tobacco fields, with a large tract of meadow, were smiling in
luxuriant abundance around him.
The country continued fine, and more cultivated for the next six miles,
hill and dale alternately, but the hills only gentle slopes: we then
ascending a chain of rather higher hills than we had lately crossed,
called Ash ridge, we passed a small meeting-house on the right, and
Mr. Robert Carter Harrison’s large house, fine farm and improvements
on the left, separated by the north branch of Elkhorn river from
Jamison’s mill. We then crossed that river, and soon after, on a fine
elevated situation, we passed general Russel’s house on the right, with
a small lawn in front of it, and two small turrets at the corners of
the lawn next the road. The _tout ensemble_ wanting only the vineyards
to resemble many of the country habitations of Languedoc and Provence.
I have little doubt, but at some future period, that feature will also
be added to it, as in this climate and soil grapes would grow most
luxuriantly; when therefore the population of this country becomes
adequate to the culture of the vine, it will assuredly not be neglected.
Overtaking a gentleman on horseback, who had been overseeing some
mowers in a meadow, he joined company with, and civilly entered into
conversation with us. It was general Russel who had been riding
round his farm. We discussed various topicks respecting the natural
and improved state of the country, and the present state of political
affairs. He had just returned from Richmond in Virginia, where he had
been during the examination of Col. Burr, before the grand jury. He
evinced much good sense, intelligence, candour and liberality in his
opinions, {160} not only with regard to that extraordinary man, who has
caused such a ferment throughout the union, but on the various other
subjects which we conversed on. He obligingly accompanied us about five
miles, as an afternoon’s ride, and at parting, he gave us a friendly
and polite invitation to visit him at his cottage, on our return.[125]
He described the well where he has his spring house, as a great natural
curiosity; there being a grotto under it which terminates in a cavern
in the limestone rock, which has been explored nearly a hundred yards
without finding the termination.
FOOTNOTES:
[118] For sketch of Millersburgh, see F. A. Michaux’s _Travels_, vol.
iii of this series, p. 198, note 38.--ED.
[119] Captain John Waller was one of the party from Virginia who were
associated with Simon Kenton (1775-76) in laying out a station near
Maysville, which later was abandoned because of danger from Indians.
He had been a noted border-fighter and frontiersman during the early
history of Kentucky. In 1792 he represented Bourbon County in the first
legislature.--ED.
[120] The numbers as given here are greatly exaggerated. About sixty
Americans were slain, and the attacking party was not over, at the
most, six hundred.--ED.
[121] The lead vein near Millersburg was but small; it was worked again
to some effect after the War of Secession.--ED.
[122] This was doubtless the residence of General James Garrard, a
Virginian who had emigrated to Kentucky directly after the Revolution,
and was second governor of the state, 1796-1804. He died at his home in
Bourbon County in 1822.--ED.
[123] Daughter of Mr. Henry Weidner, of Pittsburgh.--CRAMER.
[124] For sketch of Paris, see Michaux’s _Travels_, vol. iii of this
series, p. 37, note 29.--ED.
[125] General William Russell was a Virginian by birth, who had lived
in the southwestern part of that state, and from boyhood had been
accustomed to Indian warfare. He participated in the battles of King’s
Mountain and Guilford Court House, and in the expedition against
the Cherokees. After emigrating to Kentucky, he served with Scott,
Wilkinson, and Wayne in their Indian campaigns, showing great military
capacity. Again in 1811, and in the Western battles of the War of
1812-15, the services of General Russell were of much importance. In
politics he was as prominent as in warfare, representing his county
(Fayette) in the Kentucky legislature for thirteen terms, but finally
suffering defeat as a candidate for governor (1824). The following year
he died on his farm, where Cuming had met him.--ED.