particular views which I may sincerily cherish. between man and his Maker. These are matters The want of a thorough comprehension of the limitations of human responsibility, has led, and now leads, numerous well-meaning and orderly disposed citizens into an improper interference with the rights of others. Many reason from abstract principles without relation to the real condition of things, and thus attempt the justification of actions and conduct which is neither approved by the spirit of religion, nor sanctioned by the instructions of sound reasoning or experience. The conduct of certain classes of society would lead us to suppose that none others possessed rights and consciences excepting themselves, that they were exclusively right, and all others as exclusively wrong; and that God held them responsible for all the sins of omission and commission of the whole world. Let me, in a spirit of kindness, most earnestly assure all such persons, whereever they may exist, or in whatever circle they may move, that each individual in society has a mind and conscience of his own, which he will exercise in determining upon his duties, their nature, extent and limitation; and that he alone will be responsible for their appropriate, honest and judicious exercise. Let them recollect that peradventure others may be able to see as clearly, to reason as profoundly, to judge as correctly and to draw conclusions as accurately as themselves; and that a love of country and a christian spirit are best evidenced in the practice of mutual forbearance, in the exercise of a disinterested charity, in the cultivation of a spirit of conciliation and harmony, and in sacredly respecting the rights, duties and privileges of others. These are indispensable to the well-being of our government, and accord with the genius of our civil and social institutions. Our political union was the result of a noble and sublime spirit of compromise, concession and forbearance; let the influence of that same spirit rest upon us, and prevail over us, now and always, in the discharge of our civil, social and religious obligations. In reaching the concluding portion of my subject, I regret that the length of the article will not permit more than a brief allusion to it. My previous observations will prove comparatively useless unless I can to some extent, interest or endeavor to interest the young mind in the pursuits of learning by referring to the encouragements that animate and the rewards that most assuredly follow all intellectual effort when judiciously directed and diligently pursued. The theme is an inspiring one. It appeals earnestly, eloquently to us all. I would love to dwell upon it. I would love to expatiate upon its merits, sketch its outline with graphic pencil, and paint in vivid colors its dazzling glories. I would love to trace the unfolding of the mind from pratiling infancy brilliant in the sunshine of hope and innocence, to eloquent and venerable old age, ripe in years and honors. I would love to watch the growth of its youthful hopes, its early efforts, its maturer years and its last advances to greatness and to power. I would love to recite the simple, yet thrilling tale of the crushed hopes, the agonizing sorrows and the perilous vicissitudes of genius; its rise, its progress, and its splendor: how it labored and struggled for its existence; how it toiled in the field and in the workshop; how the cold chill of disappointmert nipped its young and ten der blossoms; how the cruel world scowled upon it in its first successful dawnings into active life; how it alternated between hope and fear midst the bosom of cloud and storm and darkness; how, at last, it triumphed over every adversity, overthrew every barrier that obstructed its progress, and burst in its full and matured majesty upon the vision of an astonished world. I would love to call back to this life the spirits of those illustrious dead whose works are consecrated in our memories and in our affections, and ask them if they would exchange the glories and triumphs of learning for the richest jewels and the mightiest honors of earth. I would love to penetrate the youthful mind with the value and beauty of knowledge; to expatiate upon its nature, its personality, its intransmissibility and its permanence; to illustrate and enforce the necessity of perseverance and energy, and to point out the respectability and honor and distinction invariably attendant upon all steady, well directed and resolute effort; and thus enlist his affections and animate his exertions and cheer and establish his hopes in the cause of human progress. In the course of our previous remarks some of these subjects have been incidentally alluded to, and this article is already extended to a greater length than originally intended. I have written warmly and earnestly in behalf of individual education. My design has been to awaken an interest in this important subject, and to arouse the young mind to a sense of the absolute and overwhelming necessity of its early and careful cultivation. How far I have succeeded I know not; perhaps the time employed in the effort might have been more profitably expended; yet, if I have stirred up one mind to thought and action: if I have thrown abroad a single sentiment which may be caught up and rendered useful; if I have elicited a single ray of light to illume the dark and lone path of the care worn student in his wanderings to honor and to fame; if I have touched though with a rude hand the string in which the soul's harmonies are wrapped up, so that its vibrations pour forth that soul's music, if there is one mind which after reading this, feels more of renewed effort, more of awakened hope, more of re-animated energy to persevere in his toils, then I am amply repaid and satisfied. I wish to see the fabric of mind built up and unfolded in all its massive grandeur and beautiful proportion. I wish to diffuse the lights of learning, to enthrone the majesty of genius, and to lay broader and deeper the foundations of the greatness and opulence and splendor of a country so dear as is our own to every American heart, and which promises in the lapse of centuries untold happiness to countless millions. Esto perpetua. There is one more thought connected with this exciting theme to which I must allude. It is near and dear to my heart. It has been cherished as the miser, his hoarded treasure or the young mother, her first- born. It has again and again cast forth its heaven light, dispersing the surrounding darkness, and cheering and reanimating my desponding hopes. It is the eternity of mind. Aye, its eternity of existence. The massive structures of art may crumble into dust, and the noblest achievements of genius lie prostrate beneath the storms of time; yet the mind, the immortal mind will survive with all its mysterious faculties, its rich possessions and its glorious endowments. Genius and imagination, taste and sensibility, science, literature and the arts, all that elevates and refines and ennobles and adorns our spiritual nature, they, too, will survive; and justice herself will survive with all the relations on which her existence depends, she has her abiding place on earth, her throne in heaven, and her existence in intelligent mind. Not more giftedly than sublimely has the poet sung; when speaking of the immortality of the human mind, he exclaims: : "The stars shall fade away, the sun himself The wreck of matter and the crush of worlds!" We live in a period of time where powerful and organized and unexampled efforts are making to multiply the means of education, and render purer and more enlightened the public sentiment. Mighty agents and controlling elements are at work everywhere where christianity and civilization have sown their seeds and planted their standard and if we do not act with decision and energy, we shall soon be left very far behind those arourd us. We cannot pause, if we would. There is no time for deliberation. Surely as water seeks its level, surely as to-morrow's sun will rise, surely as civilization elevates the human race, and religion consecrates the best affections: so surely will we be driven into the back ground, if we are not active and intelligent and persevering in our efforts. We must conduct ourselves as individuals conscious of our position in society and resolved to perform our duty. The age is full of interest, excitement, hope, change; and we must imbue our minds and hearts with its spirit and genius, and launch our enterprize with a generous confidence upon the current of passing events, if we really hope to preserve our learning, our religion and our civilization. There is no other means of progress, no other means of advancement in the arts and sciences, no other means of attaining perfection in all which adorns human character, and imparts value to social intercourse. To these we must look, and upon these we must rely. Come cloud or sunshine, prosperity or adversity, liberty or revolution, we must, we are bound by the most solemn considerations, we are invoked by the spirit of eternal justice and the genius of the loftiest patriotism to sustain all those means, and strengthen and sanctify all those institutions, religious and eleemosinary, literary and scientific which confer individual happiness, develop the social virtues, and establish and perpetuate national freedom and independence. I cannot more appropriately conclude this article than by quoting the lofty sentiment and beautiful language of one of our most profound statesman and gifted orator, himself a splendid illustration of the influence of individual effort and free institutions in elevating the man from the obscurity of private life to the proudest and most commanding position in our republic: "Our proper business is improvement. Let our age be the age of improvement. In a day of peace, let us advance the arts of peace and the works of peace. Let us develop the resources of our land, call forth its powers, build up its institutions, promote all its great interests, and see whether we also in our day and generation may not perform something worthy to be remembered. Let us cuttivate a true spirit of union and harmony. In pursuing the great objects which our condition points out to us, let us act under a settled conviction and an habitual feeling, that these thirty-one States are one country. Let our conceptions be enlarged to the circle of our duties. Let us ex tend our ideas over the whole vast field in which we are called to act. Let our object be our country, our whole country, and nothing but our country. And by the blessing of God may that country itself become a vast and splendid monument, not of oppression and terror, but of wisdom and peace and of liberty, upon which the world may gaze with admiration forever." Valley of the Ohio. BY MANN BUTLER, ESQ. Continued from page 228, vol. XI. No. 68. MIGRATION OF BOONE; MCGARY AND RAY; ADVENTURE OF THREE BOYS, IN 1773 AND 1776; FORT OF HARRODSBURG; GRANTS OF LAND BY HENDERSON & Co.; SOCIAL COMPACT FOR THE COLONY OF TRANSYLVANIA, IN 1775; MEMBERS OF THE 1ST LEGISLATURE IN THE WEST. In despite of these dangers and difficulties so graphically and truthfully pourtrayed by the historian Marshall, who had acted his part in all these various scenes, struggling for life with the wilderness and a wily and savage foe, "there were from a review of the records" more improvements, as cultivation and buildings are expressively termed, "with a view to future settlement in this year (1776), than in any other." Nor were these dispersed parties in so wide a territory so generally exposed as in the fixed and notorions forts. After the fort at Boonesborough had been completed, Boone returned to North Carolina, a second time, in order to bring his family to Kentucky. He had attempted this in 1773, "in company with five families and forty men who joined," as he says, "in Powell's valley, 150 miles from the now settled parts of Kentucky. But on the 10th of October, 1773, says the same brave old woodsman, "the rear of our company was attacked by a number of Indians, who killed six men and wounded one; of those my oldest son was one that fell in the action."* This severe repulse had deterred the party from prosecuting their daring enterprise, until the time just mentioned. When McGary's party had arrived at the head of Dicks river, Boone, with twenty-one men, went to Boonesborough, and left his previous associates to find their way, as well as they could, by his directions, through the pathless forest to Harrodstown. At the time of our narrative, there were but four cabins at this place, and five old soldiers in them, who had followed James Harrod from the Monongahela country. This distinguished explorer, (of whom so little is known beyond the kind, affectionate character given him by Mc Humphrey Marshall,) had likewise settled a place known as Harrod's station, about six miles east of Harrodsburg, on the present road from that place to Danville * Filson. The families with McGary, having got bewildered, while the horses and cattle were left with the boys, James Ray, John Denton and John Hays, then between 14 or 15 years of age, opposite to the mouth of Gilbert's creek, on the east side of Dick's river, the residue of the party attempted the route by themselves; but McGary, finding no passage at the mouth of Dick's river for the families, on account of the precipitous cliffs which overhung the river, went by himself to explore the way. By accident he fell on the path between Harrodsburg and Harrod's station, and taking the eastern end, it brought him to the latter place, where he got Josiah Harlan, of lamented memory, to pilot the families, as well as the three boys, (who had been left behind to watch the stock of cattle,) in safety to Harrodsburg. Thus was formed the first domestic circle of Harrodsburg by Mrs. Denton, Mrs. McGary and Mrs. Hogan with their families; where was lately the resort of the gayest of the gay among the fashionables of the West and the South. The younger woodsmen of whom mention had been made, were not, however, relieved until three weeks had elapsed, instead of three days as first promised them by McGary, when they were left on this forlorn hope. Does it not speak volumes for the hardihood of the times, that three boys of such immature years should be left for three weeks by themselves in an Indian wilderness! To add to their distress, they could not have forgotten the fall of three other boys, the eldest hopes of three families, who had been killed by the Indians in 1773, at the first attempt of Boone and his company to remove their families to the wilderness of Kentucky. They had been left, almost under similar circumstances, to collect some stray horses in Powell's Valley, when on their route. One of those premature victims to Indian hostility had been a playmate of James Ray, in North Carolina. During the winter of 1775 and 1776, was begun the fort of Harrodstown, (or Harrodsburg, as it is now better known,) of enduring importance in the early history of Kentucky. The second attempt of Boone to remove his family to Kentucky just mentioned, seems to have been made about September, 1776. It was in company with a party consisting of Hugh McGary, [afterwards so notorious,] Richard Hogan, and Thomas Denton, with their families, constituting together with Boone and his mere immediate companions, in the language of the times, twenty-seven guns; that is equivalent to twenty-seven fighting men. This party assembled at Powell's Valley, on the head of Holston river, after having waited three months for the junction of Boone's company. They had sent one John Harman before them to raise a crop of corn at Harrodsburg. This labor he performed, in a field east of the present town, where John Thompson lived in 1833. This party seems to have been unmolested; and Boone only says: "we arrived safe without any other difficulties than such as are common to this purpose; my wife and daughter being the first white women that ever stood on the banks of the Kentucky river." When McGary's party had arrived at the head of Dick's river, [a tributary of the Kentucky,] they separated, rom Boone, who with twenty-one men took their course to the new fort, at Boonesborough; leaving their previous associates to find their way to Harrodstown. |