Volume I Part 24 (1/2)
In Mr. Shaler's entertaining ”History of Kentucky,” there is an account of the population of the western frontiers, and Kentucky, interesting because it ill.u.s.trates some of the popular delusions on the subject. He speaks (pp. 9, 11, 23) of Kentucky as containing ”nearly pure English blood, mainly derived through the old Dominion, and altogether from districts that shared the Virginian conditions.”
As much of the blood was Pennsylvanian or North Carolinian, his last sentence means nothing, unless all the ”districts” outside of New England are held to have shared the Virginian conditions. Turning to Marshall (I., 441) we see that in 1780 about half the people were from Virginia, Pennsylvania furnis.h.i.+ng the next greatest number; and of the Virginians most were from a population much more like that of Pennsylvania than like that of tide-water Virginia; as we learn from twenty sources, such as Waddell's ”Annals of Augusta County.” Mr.
Shaler speaks of the Huguenots and of the Scotch immigrants, who came over after 1745, but actually makes no mention of the Presbyterian Irish or Scotch Irish, much the most important element in all the west; in fact, on p. 10, he impliedly excludes any such immigration at all. He greatly underestimates the German element, which was important in West Virginia. He sums up by stating that the Kentuckians come from the ”truly British people,” quite a different thing from his statement that they are ”English.”
The ”truly British people” consists of a conglomerate of as distinct races as exist anywhere in Aryan Europe. The Erse, Welsh, and Gaelic immigrants to America are just as distinct from the English, just as ”foreign” to them, as are the Scandinavians, Germans, Hollanders, and Huguenots--often more so. Such early families as the Welsh Shelbys, and Gaelic McAfees are no more English than are the Huguenot Seviers or the German Stoners. Even including merely the immigrants from the British Isles, the very fact that the Welsh, Irish, and Scotch, in a few generations, fuse with the English instead of each element remaining separate, makes the American population widely different from that of Britain; exactly as a flask of water is different from two cans of hydrogen and oxygen gas. Mr. Shaler also seems inclined to look down a little on the Tennesseeans, and to consider their population as composed in part of inferior elements; but in reality, though there are very marked differences between the two commonwealths of Kentucky and Tennessee, yet they resemble one another more closely, in blood and manners, than either does any other American State; and both have too just cause for pride to make it necessary for either to sneer at the other, or indeed at any State of our mighty Federal Union. In their origin they were precisely alike; but whereas the original pioneers, the hunters and Indian fighters, kept possession of Tennessee as long as they lived,--Jackson, at Sevier's death, taking the latter's place with even more than his power,--in Kentucky, on the other hand, after twenty years' rule, the first settlers were swamped by the great inrush of immigration, and with the defeat of Logan for governor the control pa.s.sed into the hands of the same cla.s.s of men that then ruled Virginia. After that date the ”tide-water” stock a.s.sumed an importance in Kentucky it never had in Tennessee; and of course the influence of the Scotch-Irish blood was greatly diminished.
Mr. Shaler's error is trivial compared to that made by another and even more brilliant writer. In the ”History of the People of the United States,” by Professor McMaster (New York, 1887), p. 70, there is a mistake so glaring that it would not need notice, were it not for the many excellencies and wide repute of Professor McMaster's book. He says that of the immigrants to Kentucky, most had come ”from the neighboring States of Carolina and Georgia,” and shows that this is not a mere slip of the pen, by elaborating the statement in the following paragraphs, again speaking of North and South Carolina and Georgia as furnis.h.i.+ng the colonists to Kentucky. This shows a complete misapprehension not only of the feeding-grounds of the western emigration, but of the routes it followed, and of the conditions of the southern States. South Carolina furnished very few emigrants to Kentucky, and Georgia practically none; combined they probably did not furnish as many as New Jersey or Maryland. Georgia was herself a frontier community; she received instead of sending out immigrants.
The bulk of the South Carolina emigration went to Georgia.
APPENDIX C--TO CHAPTER VI.
OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF STATE, NASHVILLE, TENN., June 12, 1888.
Hon. THEODORE ROOSEVELT, SAGAMORE HILL, LONG ISLAND, N. Y.
DEAR SIR:
I was born, ”raised,” and have always lived in Was.h.i.+ngton County, E.
Tenn. Was born on the ”head-waters” of ”Boone's Creek,” in said county. I resided for several years in the ”Boone's Creek Civil District,” in Was.h.i.+ngton County (this some ”twenty years ago”), within two miles of the historic tree in question, on which is carved, ”D.
Boon cilled bar &c.”; have visited and examined the tree more than once. The tree is a beech, still standing, though fast decaying. It is located some eight miles northeast of Jonesboro, the county seat of Was.h.i.+ngton, on the ”waters of Boone's Creek,” which creek was named after Daniel Boone, and on which (creek) it is certain Daniel Boone ”camped” during a winter or two. The tree stands about two miles from the spring, where it has always been understood Boone's camp was. More than twenty years ago, I have heard old gentlemen (living in the neighborhood of the tree), who were then from fifty to seventy years old, a.s.sert that the carving was on the tree when they were boys, and that the tradition in the community was that the inscription was on the tree when discovered by the first permanent settlers. The posture of the tree is ”leaning,” so that a ”bar,” or other animal could ascend it without difficulty.
While the letters could be clearly traced when I last looked at them, still because of the expansion of the bark, it was difficult, and I heard old gentlemen years ago remark upon the changed appearance of the inscription from what it was when they _first_ knew it.
Boone certainly camped for a time under the tree; the creek is named after him (has always been known as Boone's Creek); the Civil District is named after him, and the post-office also. True, the story as to the carving is traditionary, but a man had as well question in that community the authenticity of ”Holy Writ,” as the fact that Boone carved the inscription on that tree.
I am very respectfully
JOHN ALLISON.
APPENDIX D--TO CHAPTER VI.
The following copy of an original note of Boon's was sent me by Judge John N. Lea:
July the 20th 1786. Sir, The Land has Been Long Survayd and Not Knowing When the Money would be Rady Was the Reason of my not Returning the Works however the may be Returned when you pleas. But I must have Nother Copy of the Entry as I have lost that I had when I lost my plating instruments and only have the Short Field Notes. Just the Corse Distance and Corner trees pray send me Nother Copy that I may know how to give it the proper bounderry agreeable to the Location and I Will send the plat to the offis medetly if you chose it, the expense is as follows
Survayer's fees L9 3 8 Ragesters fees 7 14 0 Chanman 8 0 0 purvisions of the tower 2 0 0 -------- L26 17 8
You will also Send a Copy of the agreement betwixt Mr. [illegible]
overton and myself Where I Red the warrants. I am, sir, your omble servant,
DANIEL BOONE.
APPENDIX E--TO CHAPTER VII.
Recently one or two histories of the times and careers of Robertson and Sevier have been published by ”Edmund Kirke,” Mr. James R.
Gilmore. They are charmingly written, and are of real service as calling attention to a neglected portion of our history and making it interesting. But they entirely fail to discriminate between the provinces of history and fiction. It is greatly to be regretted that Mr. Gilmore did not employ his powers in writing an avowed historical novel treating of the events he discusses; such a work from him would have a permanent value, like Robert L. Kennedy's ”Horseshoe Robinson.”
In their present form his works cannot be accepted even as offering material on which to form a judgment, except in so far as they contain repet.i.tions of statements given by Ramsey or Putnam. I say this with real reluctance, for my relations with Mr. Gilmore personally have been pleasant. I was at the outset prepossessed in favor of his books; but as soon as I came to study them I found that (except for what was drawn from the printed Tennessee State histories) they were extremely untrustworthy. Oral tradition has a certain value of its own, if used with great discretion and intelligence; but it is rather startling to find any one blandly accepting as gospel alleged oral traditions gathered one hundred and twenty-five years after the event, especially when they relate to such subjects as the losses and numbers of Indian war parties. No man with the slightest knowledge of frontiersmen or frontier life could commit such a mistake. If any one wishes to get at the value of oral tradition of an Indian fight a century old, let him go out west and collect the stories of Custer's battle, which took place only a dozen years ago. I think I have met or heard of fifty ”solitary survivors” of Custer's defeat; and I could collect certainly a dozen complete accounts of both it and Reno's fight, each believed by a goodly number of men, and no two relating the story in an even approximately similar fas.h.i.+on. Mr. Gilmore apparently accepts all such accounts indiscriminately, and embodies them in his narrative without even a reference to his authorities. I particularize one or two out of very many instances in the chapters dealing with the Cherokee wars.
Books founded upon an indiscriminate acceptance of any and all such traditions or alleged traditions are a little absurd, unless, as already said, they are avowedly merely historic novels, when they may be both useful and interesting. I am obliged to say with genuine regret, after careful examination of Mr. Gilmore's books, that I cannot accept any single unsupported statement they contain as even requiring an examination into its probability. I would willingly pa.s.s them by without comment, did I not fear that my silence might be construed into an acceptance of their truth. Moreover, I notice that some writers, like the editors of the ”Cyclopedia of American Biography,” seem inclined to take the volumes seriously.