This country is more temperate and healthy than the other settled parts of America. In summer it has not the sandy heats which Virginia and Carolina experience, and receives a fine air from its rivers. In winter, which at most lasts three months, commonly two, and is but seldom severe, the people are safe in bad houses; and the beasts have a goodly supply without fodder. The winter begins about Christmas, and ends about the first of March, at farthest does not exceed the middle of that month. Snow seldom falls deep or lies long. The west winds often bring storms and the east winds clear the sky; but there is no steady rule of weather in that respect, as in the northern states. The west winds are sometimes cold and nitrous. The Ohio running in that direction, and there being mountains on that quarter, the westerly winds, by sweeping along their tops, in the cold regions of the air, and over a long tract of frozen water, collect cold in their course, and convey it over the Kentucky country; but the weather is not so intensely severe as these winds bring with them in Pennsylvania. The air and seasons depend very much on the winds as to heat and cold, dryness and moisture.
QUADRUPEDS
[From the same]
Among the native animals are the urus, bison, or zorax, described by Cesar, which we call a buffalo, much resembling a large bull, of a great size, with a large head, thick, short, crooked horns, and broader in his forepart than behind. Upon his shoulder is a large lump of flesh, covered with a thick boss of long wool and curly hair, of a dark brown color. They do not rise from the ground as our cattle, but spring up at once upon their feet; are of a broad make, and clumsy appearance, with short legs, but run fast, and turn not aside for any thing when chased, except a standing tree. They weigh from 500 to 1000 weight, are excellent meat, supplying the inhabitants in many parts with beef, and their hides make good leather. I have heard a hunter assert, he saw above 1000 buffaloes at the Blue Licks at once; so numerous were they before the first settlers had wantonly sported away their lives. There still remains a great number in the exterior parts of the settlement. They feed upon cane and grass, as other cattle, and are innocent, harmless creatures.
There are still to be found many deer, elks, and bears, within the settlement, and many more on the borders of it. There are also panthers, wild cats, and wolves.
The waters have plenty of beavers, otters, minks, and muskrats: nor are the animals common to other parts wanting, such as foxes, rabbits, squirrels, racoons, ground-hogs, pole-cats, and opossums. Most of the species of the domestic quadrupeds have been introduced since the settlement, such as horses, cows, sheep, and hogs, which are prodigiously multiplied, suffered to run in the woods without a keeper, and only brought home when wanted.
BOONE'S FIRST VIEW OF KENTUCKY
[From the same]
It was on the 1st of May, in the year 1769, that I resigned my domestic happiness for a time, and left my family and peaceable habitation on the Yadkin river, in North Carolina, to wander through the wilderness of America, in quest of the country of Kentucky, in company with John Finley, John Stewart, Joseph Holden, James Monay, and William Cool. We proceeded successfully; and after a long and fatiguing journey, through a mountainous wilderness, in a westward direction, on the seventh day of June following we found ourselves on Red river, where John Finley had formerly been trading with the Indians, and, from the top of an eminence, saw with pleasure the beautiful level of Kentucky. Here let me observe, that for some time we had experienced the most uncomfortable weather as a prelibation of our future sufferings. At this place we encamped, and made a shelter to defend us from the inclement season, and began to hunt and reconnoiter the country. We found everywhere abundance of wild beasts of all sorts, through this vast forest. The buffaloe were more frequent than I have seen cattle in the settlements, browsing on the leaves of the cane, or cropping the herbage on those extensive plains, fearless, because ignorant, of the violence of man. Sometimes we saw hundreds in a drove, and the numbers about the salt springs were amazing. In this forest, the habitation of beasts of every kind natural to America, we practiced hunting with great success, until the 22d day of December following.
JOHN BRADFORD
John Bradford, Kentucky's pioneer journalist, was born near Warrenton, Virginia, in 1749. He saw service in the Revolutionary War, and came to Kentucky when thirty years of age. He fought against the Indians at Chillicothe, and, in 1785, brought his family out from Virginia to Kentucky, locating at Cane Run, near Lexington. Two years later he and his brother, Fielding Bradford, founded _The Kentucke Gazette_, the first issue of which appeared Saturday, August 18, 1787--the second newspaper west of the Alleghanies. The following year John Bradford published _The Kentucke Almanac_, the first pamphlet from a Western press; and this almanac was issued every twelvemonth for many years.
Fielding Bradford withdrew from the _Gazette_ in May, 1788, and "Old Jawn," as he was called, carried the entire burden until 1802, when his son, Daniel Bradford, assumed control. In March, 1789, under instructions from the Virginia legislature, Bradford discarded "Kentucke" for "Kentucky," one of the many interesting facts connected with the _Gazette_. John Bradford was the first state printer; and the first book he published was the laws passed by the first Kentucky legislature, which assembled at Lexington in 1792. The Bradfords published many of the most important early Western books, and a "Bradford" brings joy to the heart of any present-day collector of Kentuckiana. The column in the _Gazette_ devoted to verse, headed "Sacred to the Muses," preserved many early Western poems; but the little anecdotes which seldom failed to be tucked beneath the verse, were nearly always coarse and vulgar, giving one a rather excellent index to the editor's morals or the morals of his readers. Bradford appears to have taken a great fancy to the poems of Philip Freneau (1752-1832), the first real American poet, for he "picked up" more than twenty of them from the _Freeman's Journal_. The most complete files of the _Kentucky Gazette_ are preserved in the Lexington Public Library, though the vandals that have consulted them from time to time have cut and inked out many valuable things. John Bradford was a public-spirited citizen, being, at different times, chairman of the town trustees, and of the board of trustees of Transylvania University. He was a profound mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher, his contemporaries tell us, and in proof thereof they have handed down another of his sobriquets, "Old Wisdom." Though his fame as the first Kentucky editor is fixed, as an author his reputation rests upon _The General Instructor; or, the Office, Duty, and Authority of Justices of the Peace, Sheriffs, Coroners, and Constables, in the State of Kentucky_ (Lexington, Ky., 1800), a legal compilation; and upon his more famous work, _Notes on Kentucky_ (Xenia, Ohio, 1827). These sixty-two articles were originally printed in the _Gazette_ between August 25, 1826, and January 9, 1829. Upon this work John Bradford is ranked among the Kentucky historians. At the time of his death, which occurred at Lexington, Kentucky, March 31, 1830, he was sheriff of Fayette county.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. No biography of Bradford has been written, but any of the histories of Kentucky contain extended notices of his life and work.
NOTES ON KENTUCKY. SECTION I
[From the _Kentucky Gazette_ (August 25, 1826)]
This country was well known to the Indian traders many years before its settlement. They gave a description of it to Lewis Evans, who published his first map of it as early as 1752.
In the year 1750,[2] Dr. Thomas Walker, Colby Chew, Ambrose Powell and several others from the counties of Orange and Culpepper, in the state of Virginia, set out on an excursion to the Western Waters; they traveled down the Holstein river, and crossed over the Mountains into Powell's valley, thence across the Cumberland mountain at the gap where the road now crosses, proceeded on across what was formerly known by the name of the Wilderness until they arrived at the Hazlepath; here the company divided, Dr. Walker with a part continued north until they came to the Kentucky river which they named Louisa or Levisa river. After traveling down the excessive broken or hilly margin some distance they became dissatisfied and returned and continued up one of its branches to its head, and crossed over the mountains to New River at the place called Walker's Meadows.
In the year 1754 James McBride with some others, passed down the Ohio river in canoes, and landed at the mouth of the Kentucky river, where they marked on a tree the initials of their names, and the date of the year. These men passed through the country and were the first who gave a particular account of its beauty and richness of soil to the inhabitants of the British settlements in America.
No further notice seems to have been taken of Kentucky until the year 1767, when John Finlay with others (whilst trading with the Indians) passed through a part of the rich lands of Kentucky. It was then called by the Indians in their language, the Dark and Bloody Grounds.
Some difference took place between these traders and the Indians, and Finlay deemed it prudent to return to his residence in North Carolina, where he communicated his knowledge of the country to Col. Daniel Boone and others. This seems to have been one of the most important events in the history of Kentucky, as it was the exciting cause which prompted Col. Boone shortly afterwards to make his first visit to the Dark and Bloody Grounds.
FOOTNOTE:
[2] Marshall in his _History_, v. i, p. 7, says it was 1758. Mr. H.
Taylor thinks Dr. Walker informed him it was in 1752, but Col. Shelby states implicitly that, in 1779 in company with Dr. Walker on Yellow creek a mile or two from Cumberland mountain, the Doctor observed "upon that tree," pointing to a beech across the road to the left hand, "Ambrose Powell marked his name and the date of the year." I examined the tree and found _A. Powell 1750_ cut in legible characters.
MATTHEW LYON
Matthew Lyon, "the Hampden of Congress," was born in County Wicklow, Ireland, July 14, 1750. He emigrated to America when he was fifteen years old, and settled in Woodbury, Connecticut, as an apprentice of Jabez Bacon, the wealthiest merchant in all New England. Lyon left Connecticut, in 1774, and removed to Vermont, where he became one of the famous Green Mountain Boys of the Revolution. He was a member of the Vermont legislature for four years; and in 1783 he founded the town of Fair Haven, Vermont. Lyon became one of the great men of Vermont, a disciple of Thomas Jefferson, "the pioneer Democrat of New England." In 1796 he was elected to Congress and he went to Philadelphia in May, 1797, to enter upon his duties. He at once became one of the powerful men in that body. Lyon had published a newspaper at Fair Haven for several years, besides issuing a number of books from his press, but during the years of 1798 and 1799 he edited the now famous _Scourge of Aristocracy_, a semi-monthly magazine. At the present day this is a rare volume, and much to be desired. In 1801 Lyon cast Vermont's vote for Thomas Jefferson against Aaron Burr for the presidency, and this vote is said to have made certain Jefferson's election. Late in this year of 1801 Lyon left Vermont for Kentucky, and he later became the founder of Eddyville, Lyon county, Kentucky. The county, however, was named in honor of his son, Chittenden Lyon. In 1802 Matthew Lyon was a member of the Kentucky legislature; and from 1803 to 1811 he was in the lower House of Congress from his Kentucky district. His opposition to the War of 1812 retired him to private life. At Eddyville he was engaged in shipbuilding, in which he had great success, but after his defeat for reelection to Congress, in 1812, disasters came fast upon him, and he was reduced from affluence to comparative poverty. At the age of sixty-eight years, however, he recovered himself, paid all his debts, and died in easy circumstances. In 1820 Lyon was appointed United States Factor to the Cherokee Indians of Arkansas territory, and he set out for his future home at Spadra Bluff, Arkansas. He was later elected as Arkansas's second delegate to Congress, but he did not live to take his seat, dying at Spadra Bluff, August 1, 1822. Eleven years later his remains were returned to Kentucky, and re-interred at Eddyville, where a proper monument marks the spot to-day. Matthew Lyon's reply to John Randolph of Roanoke, in 1804, in regard to the old question of the Yazoo frauds, is his only extant speech that is at all remembered at the present time.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _The History of Kentucky_, by R. H. Collins (Covington, Kentucky, 1882); _Matthew Lyon_, by J. F. McLaughlin (New York, 1900).
REPLY TO JOHN RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE[3]
[From _Matthew Lyon_, by J. F. McLaughlin (New York, 1900)]
The Postmaster General [Gideon Granger] has not lost my esteem, nor do I think his character can be injured by the braying of a jackal, or the fulminations of a madman. But, sir, permit me to inquire from whom these charges of bribery, of corruption, and of robbery, come? Is it from one who has for forty years, in one shape or other, been intrusted with the property and concerns of other people, and has never wanted for confidence, one whose long and steady practice of industry, integrity, and well doing, has obtained for him his standing on this floor? Is it from one who sneered with contempt on the importunity with which he has solicited to set a price on the important vote he held in the last Presidential election? No, sir, these charges have been fabricated in the disordered imagination of a young man whose pride has been provoked by my refusing to sing encores to all his political dogmas. I have had the impudence to differ from him in some few points, and some few times to neglect his fiat. It is long since I have observed that the very sight of my plebeian face has had an unpleasant effect on the gentleman's nose, for out of respect to this House and to the State he represents, I will yet occasionally call him gentleman. I say, sir, these charges have been brought against me by a person nursed in the bosom of opulence, inheriting the life services of a numerous train of the human species, and extensive fields, the original proprietors of which property, in all probability, came no honester by it than the purchasers of the Georgia lands did by what they claim. Let that gentleman apply the fable of the thief and the receiver, in Dilworth's Spelling Book, so ingeniously quoted by himself, in his own case, and give up the stolen men in his possession. I say, sir, these charges have come from a person whose fortune, leisure and genius have enabled him to obtain a great share of the wisdom of the schools, but who in years, experience, and the knowledge of the world and the ways of man, is many, many years behind those he implicates--a person who, from his rant in this House, seems to have got his head as full of British contracts and British modes of corruption as ever Don Quixote's was supposed to have been of chivalry, enchantments and knight errantry--a person who seems to think no man can be honest and independent unless he has inherited land and negroes, nor is he willing to allow a man to vote in the people's elections unless he is a landholder.
I can tell that gentleman I am as far from offering or receiving a bribe as he or any other member on this floor; it is a charge which no man ever made against me before him, who from his insulated situation, unconversant with the world, is perhaps as little acquainted with my character as any member of this House, or almost any man in the nation, and I do most cordially believe that, had my back and my mind been supple enough to rise and fall with his motions, I should have escaped his censure.
I, sir, have none of that pride which sets men above being merchants and dealers; the calling of a merchant is, in my opinion, equally dignified, and no more than equally dignified with that of a farmer, or a manufacturer. I have a great part of my life been engaged in all the stations of merchant, farmer and manufacturer, in which I have honestly earned and lost a great deal of property, in the character of a merchant. I act like other merchants, look out for customers with whom I can make bargains advantageous to both parties; it is all the same to me whether I contract with an individual or the public; I see no constitutional impediment to a member of this House serving the public for the same reward the public gives another. Whenever my constituents or myself think I have contracts inconsistent with my duties as a member of this House, I will retire from it.
I came to this House as a representative of a free, a brave, and a generous people. I thank my Creator that He gave me the face of a man, not that of an ape or a monkey, and that He gave me the heart of a man also, a heart which will spare to its last drop in defence of the dignity of the station my generous constituents have placed me in. I shall trouble the House no farther at this time, than by observing that I shall not be deterred by the threats of the member from Virginia from giving the vote I think the interest and honor of the nation require; and by saying if that member means to be understood that I have offered contracts from the Postmaster-General, the assertion or insinuation has no foundation in truth, and I challenge him to bring forward his boasted proof.
FOOTNOTE:
[3] This reply was made in answer to one of Randolph's ranting Yazoo philippics, several of which are among the bitterest speeches ever heard in Congress. Lyon at this time (1804) was a member of Congress from Kentucky. The Yazoo land grant frauds had aroused the public mind, and a commission had endeavored to settle by compromise the claims of Georgia, and those holding under the Georgia act of 1795, to the vast territory in dispute. Randolph denounced the frauds committed, and opposed any settlement of the controversy, while Lyon desired to see the country settled, and the compromise of the commissioners carried out.
GILBERT IMLAY
Gilbert Imlay, the first Kentucky novelist, was born in New Jersey, about 1755. He was captain of a company in the Revolution. The war over, Imlay turned his face toward the West; and he reached the Falls of the Ohio--Louisville--in 1784. In the little river town he worked under George May as a "commissioner for laying out lands in the back settlements." Imlay had not been a Kentuckian many months before he had obtained patents for many thousand acres of land--all of which he subsequently lost. It is not certainly known how long he remained in Kentucky, but it was about eight years. He went to London in 1792 and, in that year, the first edition of his _Topographical Description of the Western Territory of North America_ was published. This work is made up of a series of descriptive letters which the author wrote from Kentucky to an English friend. The second edition of 1793, and the third edition of 1797, reproduced John Filson's _Kentucke_ and Thomas Hutchins's _History_, together with much new material. While a resident of Kentucky Gilbert Imlay wrote the first Kentucky novel, entitled _The Emigrants, or the History of an Expatriated Family, being a Delineation of English Manners drawn from Real Characters. Written in America, by G. Imlay, Esq._ (London, 1793, 3 vols.; Dublin, 1794, 1 vol.). The epistolary form is adopted throughout, and the narrative relates the fortunes of "an eminent merchant in the city of London," Mr. T----n, who loses his great fortune and emigrates with his family to America. His daughter, the beautiful Caroline, is the heroine of the story. Landing in Philadelphia, they travel to Pittsburgh, and from there drift down the Ohio river in a Kentucky flatboat, or "ark," to Louisville. Caroline's lover, Capt Arl----ton, had preceded the family and gone on to Lexington, but he soon returned to Louisville when he learned that his sweetheart awaited his coming. "The emigrants" remained in Kentucky some three months, or from June until August. Caroline's capture by the Indians in August decided the family to forsake the "dark and bloody ground," though she was safely rescued. They finally find their way to London, and all ends well. _The Emigrants_, in the three-volume edition, is exceedingly scarce, but the Dublin one-volume edition may be occasionally procured in the rare book shops of London. In 1793 Gilbert Imlay went to Paris, where he met the famous Mary Wollstonecraft, with whom he was soon living, as they both held mutual affection equivalent to marriage. In 1794 a daughter was born to them, Fanny Imlay, who committed suicide at Swansea, October 10, 1816. In April, 1796, Imlay and Mary agreed to go separate paths after much stormy weather together; and a short time later she became the wife of William Godwin, the English philosopher and novelist. In giving birth to the future wife of the poet Shelley, she surrendered her own life. Mary Wollstonecraft's _A Vindication of the Rights of Woman_ is the chief memorial of her pathetic and eventful career. After having parted on that April morning of 1796 with the woman he had so outrageously treated, Gilbert Imlay, "the handsome scoundrel," is lost to history. When, where, or how he died is unknown.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _London Monthly Review_ (August, 1793); _Kentuckians in History and Literature_, by John Wilson Townsend (New York, 1907); _Dictionary of National Biography_; biographies of Shelley, Godwin, and Mary Wollstonecraft.
THE FLIGHT OF A FLORID LOVER
[From _The Emigrants_ (Dublin, 1794)]
LETTER XLVI. CAPT. ARL--TON TO MR. IL--RAY.
Louisville, June.
It is impossible for me to see Caroline in the present state of my mind, and therefore I hope you will not look upon it in the least disrespectful, my friend, if I should happen to be absent when you arrive; for to be candid with you, I shall make a journey purposely to Lexington.
Your obliging favour from Pittsburg, which you meant should give me spirits, has had quite a contrary effect.