




                      INSTRUCTOR LITERATURE SERIES


                         The Story of Kentucky


                         _By R. S. Eubank, A. B._



F. A. OWEN PUBLISHING COMPANY,
DANSVILLE, N. Y.

_Copyright 1913, by F. A. Owen Publishing Co._





                            TABLE OF CONTENTS


   Geography and First White Visitor
   The Virginians and Daniel Boone
   Beginnings of Settlements
   How the Pioneers Lived and Fought
   George Rogers Clark and the Revolution
   Later Days of Famous Pioneers
   After the Revolution
   Progress
   Early Schools and the First Seminary
   State Government and Foreign Intrigue
   Indian Wars and War of 1812
   Internal Improvements
   Kentucky and Slavery
   The Civil War and Later






                          THE STORY OF KENTUCKY





                    Geography and First White Visitor


Lying west of the Allegheny Mountains and extending westward for some
three hundred miles, bounded, for the most part, on the north by the Ohio
River and extending to the Mississippi, lies the State of Kentucky. In its
eastern portion, constituting nearly one-third of its area, the surface is
broken, and so high as to be termed mountainous. A large area occupying
the central third, and in the early day mostly a prairie land, is now
known as the famous Blue Grass section. The western third of the State is
practically level, being but a few feet above the sea, and cypress swamps
are not infrequent. This section is commonly termed "The Pennyrile."

In the middle of the eighteenth century, Kentucky was a portion of that
unexplored western realm belonging by grant to the State of Virginia, and
designated as a part of Fincastle County. The eastern portion in the early
day abounded in wild game common to the Appalachian forests. The
undulating grass lands in the central part of the State provided ample
grazing for the herds of buffalo and deer that were found there at the
time of the coming of man. The skeletons that have been exhumed indicate
that it was the feeding ground of the giant mastodon before the discovery
of America.

About two hundred years after Columbus discovered America, a young man
twenty-two years of age came to Canada from the Old World. On his arrival
he learned from the settlers and Indians the possibility of a passage to
the South Sea, which they then thought the Gulf of Mexico to be. Desirous
of making this journey, and lured by the possibility of reaching the
Pacific by water, he secured the assistance of Indians and some white
hunters as guides and set out upon an expedition of exploration into the
country concerning which he had heard such fascinating stories.

Crossing the St. Lawrence and traveling southward, he came to what is now
called Allegheny River. Securing birchbark canoes, he and his party
descended the Allegheny to its junction with the Monongahela, then turning
southwestward on the beautiful stream formed by these two small rivers and
now known as the Ohio, he explored the country along the banks of the
river to what was called by him the Rapids of the Ohio. Thus, LaSalle was
the first to gaze upon the country from the mouth of the Big Sandy to the
present site of Louisville, and to make a record of such discoveries.





                     The Virginians and Daniel Boone


Near the middle of the eighteenth century, or about 1750, a party of
Virginia hunters, growing weary of the monotony of home life and desiring
to find better hunting grounds, penetrated the Appalachian Mountains by
way of Powell's Valley and through Cumberland Gap, into the eastern
portion of what is now Kentucky, and hence were the first white men to
approach the land from the eastern side. In 1767, John Finley and Daniel
Boone, hearing of the fine hunting in this section, came to Kentucky from
North Carolina and built a cabin on Red River, near where Estill, Powell,
and Clark counties are now joined. Two years later, about forty hunters
and adventurers came to the territory and made their camp at what they
then called Price's Meadows, about six miles from the present site of
Monticello in Wayne County. This camp, by virtue of its location near the
Cumberland River, developed into a distributing point for the country
lying along the Cumberland, now included in Wayne, Green, Barren and
Warren counties. Another station was built near Greensburg. These stations
or camps seem to have served only the immediate needs of the hunters while
they were in the territory.

  [Illustration: Daniel Boone]

Daniel Boone seems to have been the only one of these hunters to whom the
wilderness especially appealed. Consequently, for many years he made
frequent trips into the territory, staying as long as two years on one
occasion, and winning the title of The Long Hunter. Boone was alone on
many of these trips, never seeing the face of a white man, but frequently
meeting roving bands of Indians. From a cave in the side of Pilot Knob in
Powell County, he could catch glimpses of the joyous sports of the Shawnee
boys at Indian Fields; and from the projecting rocks he feasted his eyes
on the herds of buffalo winding across the prairie.

No permanent Indian villages were found in Kentucky. It seems to have been
a choice bit of hunting ground strongly contested by the tribes of the
North and the tribes of the South. The Shawnees had a village at Indian
Fields, in the eastern portion of Clark County, near the beautiful stream
called Lulbegrud Creek.

Boone seems to have been endowed with the faculty that enabled him to
pass, in his first years of wandering, from tribe to tribe; and from these
Indians he learned that the common name of the country, known to all, was
Kan-tuckee (kane-tooch-ee), so called by the Indians because of the
abundance of a peculiar reed growing along the river, now known as
pipe-stem cane.

Boone remained in the wilderness so long that his brother and a searching
party came to find him. They found him in good health and spirits,
enjoying life, and living in peace with the Indian tribes. The party, with
Boone, returned to the valley of the Yadkin, and told such stories of the
enchanted land as caused the settlers of the region to listen eagerly, and
to feel the stirring of the pioneer spirit. Not caring for the growing
crops and with no relish for the monotonous labor, Boone easily persuaded
a company of men to come with him to the wilderness and to bring their
families.

  [Illustr