changed state of affairs with regard to Great Britain, "That as the means of acquiring and possessing property is an unalienable right, so such Confederacy, Declaration of Independence, or non-allegiance to the King of England, or any other Power or State whatever, and declaring ourselves to be a free people, does by no means interfere with the rights of individuals; and that every attempt to destroy such idea of property, as well with respect to them as others, is injurious, and they hope will be considered as infringements on the rights of humanity, and treated accordingly." Forgetful now of their former purpose of setting up a Fourteenth Colony, they now declared that they had never harbored any such intentions: "That, well aware of the impropriety and danger of erecting or suffering a separate Government within the limits or verge of another, they do declare they never entertained thoughts of such an absurdity, and that their doings, together with the Delegates chosen by the inhabitants of Transylvania for the purpose of legislation, were intended as mere temporary by-laws for the good of their little community, and which the necessity of the case, too obvious to need explanation, they hope will sufficiently justify; and that, from the beginning, their constant attention and tenour of conduct has been to make the benefit of their lands as diffusive as possible, and that they now are, and at all times have been, ready to submit to such Government as should be placed by authority over them, wishing and desiring their case may be thought of sufficient importance to call the attention of such power." 20

This position, in fact, represented a long retreat from their former stand. They were now willing to sacrifice the glittering jewel of political power in order to save the more substantial and valuable right of private property in their vast territory.

But the situation was fast resolving itself into a solution from causes originating in another quarter. There now came prominently onto the stage George Rogers Clark, who had been planning the destruction of Transylvania for some time and was now soon to succeed. Clark had been in the Western country as early as 1773, and was greatly impressed with the fertility and attractiveness of the land. He was back surveying in 1775, when he came in contact with the Henderson project.21 From the beginning he had no sympathy with this scheme to lay hold of the best lands of the West, and before the end of the year he returned to the East, resolved to put a stop to it. But Clark's plans did not end here. Transylvania was far from Eastern Virginia and he believed a spirit of independence was fast developing among its inhabitants. This situation called for initiative and daring statesmanship. Destroy Transylvania, but do not let the advantage of exacting a desirable position from Virginia escape. Clark made his plans accordingly. He said: "I immediately fixed on my plans, that of assembling the people, get them to elect deputies and send them to the assembly of Virginia, and treat with them Respecting the Country. If Valuable Conditions were procured, to declare ourselves Citizens of the State; otherwise Establish an Independent Government, and by giving away great part of the Lands and disposing of the Remainder other ways we could not only gain great. numbers of Inhabitants, but in good measure protect them to carry this scheme into effect."

Clark had been laying good foundation for his plans, for when the proprietors called another convention for April 10 (1776), to sit at Harrodsburg, some of the settlers, fearful that "the proprietors would wish to establish some laws which might operate to their disadvantage," requested that the convention be postponed until a "few men of better

20 American Archives, Series IV, Vol. VI, 1573-1575. Paraphrased report in the minutes of the Virginia Convention.

21 A. B. Hulbert, Pilots of the Republic (Chicago, 1906), 171.

abilitys come among them to assist in making such laws." Might this not have reference to Clark, who had not yet returned from the East? This convention was never held, but another was. In pursuance of his plans, Clark called a convention to meet in Harrodsburg in the early part of June, but failed to mention the purpose of the meeting. The assembly met and, with Clark absent during most of the first day's session, not knowing what else to do, elected him and Gabriel John Jones as delegates to the Virginia Assembly and made preparations to draw up a petition asking that they be admitted and that this region be erected into a county. This was not Clark's purpose at all, but he preferred not to balk the proceedings at this stage. It wholly ignored the independent position that Clark would have the people assume, and left him no grounds to negotiate on. The petitions formulated and other proceedings carried out, retrieved in a way the people's former independent stand. Transylvania was wholly ignored as a designation for the region in "The Humble Petition of the Inhabitants of Kentucke (or Louisa) River on the Western parts of Fincastle County." Other expressions, such as "the inhabitants of the north and south side of the Kentucke river," were used. Henderson was declared to have set up a policy "which does not at all harmonize with that lately adopted by the United Colonies." After expressing loyalty to the Revolution, the petitioners added: "And we cannot but observe how impolitical it would be to Suffer such a Respectable Body of Armie Rifle Men to remain in a state of Neutrality.' As this meeting had wholly repudiated and ignored the Transylvania Company, it was felt that some sort of a governing body should be constituted. The assembly, therefore, set up a Committee of Twenty-one, "as it is the request of the inhabitants that we should point out a number of men capable and most acquainted with the laws of this Colony to act as civil Magistrates. * * *" The petition to the Virginia Assembly noted that the committee had been selected "for, without law or authority, vice here could take its full scope, having no laws to restrain, or power to control." 22

Clark and Jones now set out for Williamsburg, but learned before reaching there that the Assembly had adjourned. Jones turned back, but Clark continued on to carry out his negotiations with Patrick Henry, who was governor at that time. Governor Henry introduced him to the Council of State, whom Clark immediately asked for 500 pounds of powder for frontier defense. He knew that if Virginia should once assume the protection of this region that such action would automatically be a disallowance of Henderson's government. The council so sensing refused to deliver it to Clark as a representative of the Harrodsburg meeting, but agreed to lend him the powder, provided he would stand personally responsible for it. This Clark refused to do, on the ground that he did not have the money necessary to purchase it, and added, with compelling effect, "that I was sorry to find that we should have to seek protection elsewhere which I did not doubt of getting that if a Countrey was not worth protecting it was not worth Claiming & &." 23 The powder was granted and conveyed to Pittsburg, there to remain subject to the order of Clark.

When the Virginia Assembly met in the fall, Clark and Jones were on hand, but seats were refused them. However, they secured a victory

22 George Rogers Clark Papers, 1771-1781 (Illinois Historical Collections, Vol. VIII, Springfield, 1912), edited by J. A. James, 11-13; 14-16; J. M. Brown, Battle of the Blue Licks (Frankfort, 1882), booklet, 55 pp.

23 Clark Papers, 212, 213. This was most likely an empty threat Clark used, knowing the effect it would have on the Council. However, William Wirt Henry believed Clark had the Spaniards in mind; while Lyman C. Draper held that it was nothing more than a threat to set up an independent government. See footnote 2, in Alden, New Government West of the Alleghanies, 61.

in the erection of the County of Kentucky out of the western stretches of Fincastle. The limits were practically the same as the present State of Kentucky. According to the act setting it off (December 31, 1776): "All that part thereof which lies to the south and westward of a line beginning on the Ohio at the mouth of the Great Sandy Creek and running up the same and the main or northeasterly branch thereof to the Great Laurel Ridge or Cumberland Mountain, then southwesterly along the said mountain to the line of North Carolina shall be one distinct county and called and known by the name of Kentucky." It was to have the regular county organization and the franchise was to rest in "every white man possessing twenty-five acres of land with house and plantation thereon." 24

This action of the Virginia Assembly in effect sounded the death knell of Transylvania. During this session Henderson had been present, feverishly working to prevent unfavorable action by the Assembly. It was

to a great extent a battle between Clark and Henderson. The beginning of the end of Henderson's scheme had already come on June 24 (1776), when the Virginia Convention announced its policy regarding the Transylvania lands. It was resolved: "That all persons actually settled on any of the said Lands ought to hold the same, without paying any pecuniary or other consideration whatever to any private person or persons, until the said petitions [from the dissatisfied settlers], as well as the validity of the titles under such Indian deeds and purchases, shall have been considered and determined on by the Legislature of this country; and that all persons who are now actually settled on any unlocated or unappropriated Lands in Virginia, to which there is no other just claim, shall have the preemption or preference in the grants of such Lands.

"Resolved, That no purchases of Lands within the chartered limits of Virginia shall be made, under any pretence whatever, from any Indian

24 Robertson, Petitions of the Early Inhabitants of Kentucky, 41. Harrodsburg was made the county seat. H. A. Scomp, "Kentucky County Names" in Magazine of History, Vol. 7, (1908), 144-154; Mann Butler, A History of the Commonwealth of Kentucky (Cincinnati, 1836), 2nd edition, 89; Proceedings of the American Historical Association, IV, 351, 353.

tribe or nation, without the approbation of the Virginia Legislature." 25 With the Transylvania government definitely destroyed by the establishment of the County of Kentucky and with the above land policy announced by Virginia, it only remained for the Transylvania Company to fight for private ownership of the vast area they claimed. The Virginia Assembly carried out exhaustive investigations, while Judge Henderson on behalf of his company carried on the contest for the recognition of ownership. Finally, on November 4, 1778, the Assembly declared: "That the purchases heretofore made by Richard Henderson and Company, of the tract of land called Transylvania, within the commonwealth, of the Cherokee Indians, is void; but as the said Richard Henderson and Company have been at very great expense in making the said purchase, and in settling the said lands, by which this commonwealth is likely to receive great advantage, by increasing its inhabitants, and establishing a barrier against the Indians, it is just and reasonable to allow the said Richard Henderson and Company a compensation for their trouble and expense. Henderson and his associates were finally given 200,000 acres in the present State of Kentucky, lying between the Ohio and Green rivers. North Carolina appropriated the remainder of the Transylvania purchase, lying within her borders, and recompensed the proprietors in Powell's Valley.

"26

The Transylvania proprietary idea was too belated to secure popular support, and the scene of its operations, amid a self-willed people there through the operations of natural selection, made the project doubly hazardous. But the Transylvania Company did a valuable work, and it was so recognized by Virginia. The fall of Transylvania was the fall of Henderson as the Kentucky state-maker, and the rise of Clark.

25 American Archives, Series IV, Vol. IV, 1044.

26 Hall, Sketches of the West, I, 277.

CHAPTER XII

KENTUCKY IN THE REVOLUTION

The strategy of the American Revolutionary war as contemplated by Great Britain was by no means limited to the area of the seaboard. The conduct of the war in the West was a very material and important part of her general plan for carrying on the conflict, and she was not long in realizing it. The Colonies were much longer in making this realization, if, indeed, they ever did fully; and it was only due to the broad vision of George Rogers Clark and to those whom he could interest that Kentucky and the whole West was not lost to the British and the terms of the final treaty of peace vastly changed from what they came to be. Kentucky was, in fact, the keystone to the Western arch. Had the hardy pioneers faltered in their determination to hold their new homes, the back door to Virginia would have been thrown open for the inroads of the Indians and their British allies, and many troops would have been diverted from the major operations on the seaboard to repel these new invasions. The isolated raids by the Indians during 1775 and their greater frequency and persistence during the following year gave indication enough that events were shaping themselves for a general war in the West. The British in Detroit under Lieut-Gov. Henry Hamilton early saw the advantage of arraying the Indians against the outlying settlements, and undeterred by the barbarities sure to accompany savage warfare, had in the fall of 1776 held councils with the northwestern tribes for the purpose of cementing an alliance against the Americans. There was soon let loose on the frontiers a war of virtual extermination, for which the British were largely to blame, but in which the pioneers were little behind their opponents in cunning and severity. Hamilton to the frontiersmen represented the sum total of all villanies, and was popularly known as the "hair-buyer" on account of the general belief that he paid the Indians for the scalps they took.1

John Bowman, being the County Lieutenant of Kentucky, was technically the military leader of the western settlers; but George Rogers Clark came, in fact, to be the most outstanding military figure in the West. As has been already noted, he assumed virtual leadership when he maneuvered Virginia into granting him 500 pounds of powder in the fall of 1776. Having succeeded in getting Kentucky erected into a county organization, Clark and Jones set out for Pittsburg to convey the powder down the Ohio. They reached the mouth of Limestone Creek without any serious mishap, despite the fact that they were pursued by the Indians. Using a little strategy they eluded the enemy, hid their cargo on the banks of the Limestone, and proceeded to Harrodsburg to secure aid. They had gone only a short distance when they met surveyors, who informed Clark that a sufficient number of men could be gathered up in the neighborhood to safely convey the powder to the settlers. Jones remained to supervise the work, while Clark, piloted by Simon Kenton, who had already largely identified himself with this region, proceeded on to Harrodsburg by the way of McClelland's Fort. Jones with the aid 1 Theodore Roosevelt, The Winning of the West (New York, 1897), II, 1-7. 2 Collins, History of Kentucky, I, 10.