* *

" 31

Regardless of the amount of influence Virginia played in the formation of Kentucky institutions, there can be no doubt that she sent more of her population thither than was contributed by any other state. As has been said, Kentucky was an edition de luxe of Virginia.30 Francois Michaux, who visited the state in 1802, declared that the "inhabitants of Kentucky * are nearly all natives of Virginia, and particularly the remotest parts of the state;" and that with few exceptions "they have preserved the manner of the Virginians.' The influence of Virginia from the very nature of the situation must have been great. Virginians transplanting themselves into another part of the commonwealth and later becoming a separate state could not possibly divest themselves of their innate character and life-long training and habits of thought. Their unconscious actions were those of Virginians; and however much they may have been influenced by conditions differing from those in Virginia, and by dislike for the treatment they had received at the hands of Virginia, still they were Virginians living in Kentucky. Whatever petulant animosities that may have grown up during the period of her statehood efforts were soon afterwards forgotten; and up until the Civil War, Virginia was affectionately remembered as a mother who still could give good counsel. The great majority of early Kentucky politicians and statesmen were born in Virginia, educated in her political philosophy, and remembered it when they were playing their role in Kentucky. An unconscious blossoming forth of Virginia in Kentucky is seen in the names chosen for counties. Out of the 118 counties existing in Kentucky in 1884, nearly one-half were named for Virginians or for Virginians who had migrated to Kentucky.

Generally speaking, the life in Kentucky was rough and vigorous as, indeed, it was in all frontier communities. And wherever Kentucky differed from other, a greater degree of intensification marked the former. The people had rude and energetic sports and hard habits. They raced, wrestled, played leap-frog, kicked the hat, fought, gouged, gambled, drank, and practiced marksmanship. In later times the "Kentuc" riverman came to represent a terror to everybody. The worst were described as half horse, and half alligator tipped with snapping turtle. Life in Louisville, which was now a growing river town, and had a tendency to catch the scum of western migration, as was the case with all river towns during this period, was as rough as the roughest, and its sports were as vigorous as could be found. The town consisted of 350 people living in houses of boat-planks and of logs, small but arranged in regular streets. Much dancing, drinking, and fighting marked the regular tenor of life here. Sunday was not considered as deserving any more respect than any other day. One of the more conscientious Louisvillians described his experience with the people on this point: "One Sunday morning, when we all came into breakfast, they observed my store was not opened, and asked the reason why. I answered, Because it was Sabbath day. Oh! they replied, Sunday had not yet come over the Mountains. Yes, I answered, it had, that I brought it with me. Well, said they, you are the first person who has kept his Store shut in this Village on the Sabbath day." 82

Major Érkuries Beatty, a paymaster in the United States Army was

beauty of the country and richness of the soil, however, excited general attention after the peace [1783] and many persons of respectability and fortune fell in with the current of population rushing westward. Niles Register, VI, 249.

30 Library of Southern Literature, XI, 5083.

*

31 F. A. Michaux, "Travels to the West of the Alleghany Mountains in the States of Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee * * in the Year 1802" in R. G. Thwaites, Early Western Travels, III, 247.

82 McMaster, History of the People of the United States, II, 152, quoting from Autobiography of Maj. Samuel S. Forman in Historical Magazine Dec. 1869, 326.

stationed at the Falls of the Ohio during 1786 and 1787. He kept a diary in which he made rather close and interesting observations on the lives and customs of the people. He gives this description of Louisville society and sports:

*

"In the morning we started in a great hurry, the Colonel and myself, over to Louisville, * * saw the genteeler sort of people in numbers coming in from the country, each with a young girl behind them or woman on the same horse (the way of riding in this country), to a great Barbecue on the Island opposite Louisville, and to conclude with a dance in the town in the evening; we got a very polite invitation to attend it some days before, but Colonel Harmar would not stay; only two officers of the troops stationed here intended to go, for the people and they do not agree very well. Suppose there will be near 100 men and women at this frolick; saw some of the young ladies in town dressed in all their finery for the honor of the treat; some of them middling handsome, rich enough dressed but tawdry. Saw the barbarous custom of Gouging, practiced between two of the Lower Class of people here; their unvaried way of fighting. When two men quarrel they never have an idea of striking, but immediately seize each other, and fall and twist each others thumbs or fingers into the eye and push it from the socket till it falls on the cheeks, as one of those men experienced to-day, and was obliged to acknowledge himself beat, altho he was on top of the other-but he, in his turn, had bit his adversary almost abominably. * * * It chilled my blood with horror to see the unmanly, cruel condition these two men were left in today from this manner of fighting, and no person, altho a number stood by, ever attempted to prevent them from thus butchering each other, but all was acknowledged fair play. Soon after our troops came here, one of the officers being in a public house in Louisville, was grossly insulted by one of these Virginia Gougers, a perfect bully; all the country round stood in awe of him, for he was so dexterous in these matters that he had, in his time, taken out five eyes, bit off two or three noses and ears and spit them in their faces-this fellow our officer was obliged to encounter without side arms or any weapon but his hands, and the insult could not be got over."

The fight is then described with all of its barbarity, in which the officer came out winner. Major Beatty hastened to add that gouging and ill will toward the officers was not universal. "I dont speak generally of the people," he said, "for certainly there are some very genteel families in this country, and treat the officers very politely.

* * *" 33

There was, however, the beginnings of a refined and cultivated society evident in the Bluegrass Region by the time Kentucky had become a state. Of course, the better class of people that had moved into this new country did not forget their culture and gentility but they were forced to leave behind much of the material evidences of it. No homes had yet been built that could correspond to the Virginia manors, and the furniture was in general of home production. Lexington early became the center of refinement, for the District and State, and for many years held first place in this respect throughout the whole western country. Memories of horse racing in Virginia led to the establishing of a race course here as early as August, 1789.4 Dancing was a social qualification not to be unknown or forgotten. In 1788, a dancing school was started.35 By 1791, the town had so far advanced in its ideas of public safety and sanitation that it passed an ordinance forbidding the construction of wooden chimneys and also banished from the town limits slaughter

33 Diary of Maj. Erkuries Beatty, paymaster in the Western Army, May 15, 1786, to June 5, 1787, in Magazine of American History, 1877, 432, 433.

34 Kentucky Gazette, Aug. 22, 1789. The rules of entry, etc., were given here. 35 Ibid., March 22, 1788.

houses. The people were also forbidden to permit their hogs to run loose in the streets.36

Five towns were listed in the first United States census with their population. They were: Lexington with 834 people; Washington, 462; Bardstown, 216; Louisville, 200; and Danville, 150.

The country had been so completely possessed that the dangers of Indian wars had almost ceased. With the successful conclusion of Wayne's campaign in the Northwest in 1795, Kentucky was to have peace from that quarter until the preliminaries of the War of 1812 once more set the Kentuckians on the march. The actual invasion of the country south of the Ohio by formidable forces had ceased in the early 1780s. For some years following prowling bands of Indians of a half dozen or fewer made their way across the Ohio on horse-stealing forays; but by 1792 these were becoming rare.37 In that year André Michaux, in traveling from Maysville to Lexington, noted farm houses scattered all along the way. Apart from the dangers of the abominable road, he found travel otherwise safe.38

Ac

But the wars and massacres the people had heretofore passed through left an indelible impress on their thoughts and characteristics. cording to an early chronicler, "There is hardly a family which does not preserve the reminiscence of some mournful catastrophe, or cherish the recollections, they cannot be other than an original and highly romantic people." 39 Thomas Corwin, Kentucky-born but soon afterwards moved to Ohio, said of Kentucky's experiences in war, "If any community of people have lived, since the dispersion on the plains of Shinar, to this day, who were literally cradled in war, it is to be found in the state of Kentucky. The Indians' path of incursion in the West was moistened. with Kentucky blood-our battlefields are white with Kentucky bones." 40

Kentucky started out on statehood with a rich heritage of experiences, with a population vigorous and sturdy, and with unbounded enthusiasm for any task in the future. Gilbert Imlay, who had been a spectator of much that had happened, thus summed up Kentucky's achievements and her outlook: "Such has been the progress of the settlement of this country, from dirty stations or forts, and smoky huts, that it has expanded into fertile fields, blushing orchards, pleasant gardens, luxuriant sugar groves, neat and commodious houses, rising villages, and trading towns. Ten years have produced a difference in the population and comforts of this country, which to be portrayed in just colours would appear marvellous. To have implicit faith or belief that such things have happened. it is first necessary to be (as I have been) a spectator of such events." 41

36 Ibid., June 18, 1791.

37 Collins, History of Kentucky, I, 23; II, 567. They did not completely cross in 1793 as here stated by Collins.

38 Journal of André Michaux, 1793-1796, in Thwaites, Early Western Travels, III, 38.

39 Hall, Sketches of the West, II, 93-97.

40 Quoted in Isaac Smucker, "1750-Kentucky History-1800" in Magazine of Western History, X, 504.

41 Gilbert Imlay, A Topographical Description of the Western Territory of North America [London, 1797], third edition, 168.

CHAPTER XXVI

MATERIAL AND INTELLECTUAL PROGRESS, 1775-1792

The development of social conditions and the characteristics of Kentuckians has been discussed in the preceding chapter. It is now necessary in order to give a complete description of the people to note their material and intellectual progress. In no state in the Union did the economic welfare of the people hang on a more slender thread. Stagnation or prosperity depended entirely on the navigation of the Mississippi. This became the besetting problem from the time the country began to produce more than it consumed until the question was finally settled with the purchase of Louisiana in 1803.1 Kentucky's material outlook was in the minds of the people predicated absolutely on the free use of this great highway.

Methods and ways of reaching Kentucky as well as communication within the country were necessarily of prime importance to its economic developments. Travel and transportation on land were confined almost altogether to horseback; while progress on the rivers was limited to pirogues and flatboats-down-river traffic alone being profitable or feasible. As has been heretofore noted, the chief ways leading to Kentucky were the Wilderness Trail and the Ohio River. The ease of floating down the river was largely neutralized by the constant danger from Indian attacks. For this and other reasons the land route over the Wilderness Trail was the chief highway to the West down until about 1790. It not only served the North Carolina and Virginia pioneers, but it also offered a feasible road westward to people further north. Many immigrants from Maryland and even as far north as Philadelphia, rather than travel 300 miles to Fort Pitt to brave the dangers of the Ohio, came southward through the Shenandoah Valley to pick up the Wilderness Trail. Virtually all travel back eastward went over this road. Extensive as travel was by this course, it all went on foot or on horseback. No wheeled vehicle passed over it before 1795. Virginia had before the close of the Revolution enacted a law for the improvement of this great way, but nothing came of it. In 1792 a private subscription was taken up in Kentucky for this purpose, and during the summer of the same year work was carried on for about a month.5

As an increasing number of people began to use the Ohio River, the northern parts of Kentucky soon began to accumulate a considerable population. Louisville and Limestone now became important towns and their connection with the regions south of the Kentucky River assumed importance. In 1779 a ferry across the Kentucky River at Boonesbor

1 Long after the value of the river had been largely dissipated by other means and routes of communication, the Kentuckians still cherished the right to navigate it. When the Southern Confederacy was set up 1861, Kentucky entered a vigorous protest against closing the river.

2 Some boats had been towed up the Mississippi and Ohio rivers during the Revolution; but it had been a slow and costly process.

3 Thomas Speed, The Wilderness Road [Louisville, 1886], 1-47; Speed, Political Club, 21, 22.

4 Parties generally collected at Crab Orchard to begin their journey. Speed, Wilderness Road, 47-51.

ough was authorized by act of the Virginia General Assembly. This was the first link in the road system that was now growing up to make communication throughout the Central Kentucky region possible. During this period, Danville was the most important road center in Kentucky. The Wilderness Trail, leading directly to this place, poured out its stream of settlers to be scattered over the country. The road from Maysville to Lexington and on to Danville was the important highway for travel north and south. From Danville ran a road to Louisville; this road, in connection with the Maysville-Lexington-Danville road, formed the land route from Maysville to Louisville. For travel to regions south of Kentucky there was the Maysville and Nashville road, which made up the northern link of the old Natchez Trace. were the main lines of travel in Kentucky when it became a state. Minor roads led off from Lexington, Danville and other places in all directions, as the large trees composing the forests stood well apart, making travel easy, with scarcely no clearing away of undergrowth necessary.

There were no post roads in existence in Kentucky at this time. Letters from the East were carried by responsible settlers moving westward; letters from Kentucky were often carried across the mountains. by the groups that frequently gathered at Crab Orchard in order to make the trip over the Wilderness Trail in greater safety. Notices of the date of departure of these parties were regularly put in the Kentucky Gazette for the purpose of collecting their numbers as well as for announcing their willingness to carry letters back east. There was always a certain amount of travel back and forth of responsible people on business, as, for example, the Kentucky representatives in the Virginia General Assembly. They offered a safe and convenient way for carrying letters. In the earliest days of Kentucky settlements there was felt little need for money. The economic order had not advanced to that stage where trade and traffic could no longer be conveniently carried on by barter. The earliest money was, of course, the Virginia paper currency, which had been carried westward by Virginia settlers. Interspersed with this were stray continental currency notes. But these paper notes were practically worthless. Virginia, by a law in 1781, took away the legal tender qualities of her paper issues, with the result that within a short time it required $1,000 of them to buy one Spanish dollar. Kentucky was thus given an early insight into the dangers that beset the issuing of paper money. But, as the region developed, some kind of money became absolutely necessary. In 1786 John Brown was calling for paper money as the only hope of saving the people from ruin. He would have the Virginia Assembly start its printing presses immediately.8

As Kentucky's trade connections became broader, she began to accumulate small amounts of gold and silver money. Dealings with the Spaniards brought in at times considerable amounts of Spanish coins. Wilkinson's tobacco trade with New Orleans not only gave the Kentucky farmers a market for their crops, but also brought back Spanish dollars and piasters. Just as this region became a refuge for many people of many kinds, so it became a till for the floating coins, good and bad, of almost every country that had reached that stage of civilization where money was coined. According to Durrett: "In addition to British and United States coins there was scarcely a civilized country on the globe with a mint whose coins did not circulate in Kentucky. The doubloons and piasters of Spain, the louis and ecus of France, the duccatoons and

• Robertson, Petitions of the Early Inhabitants of Kentucky. This was soon followed by acts authorizing the establishment of other ferries.

7 Breckinridge MSS. [1786], John Brown to John Breckinridge, May 20, 1786. 8 B. W. Duke, History of the Bank of Kentucky [Louisville, 1895], 7-9.