Volume II Part 5 (1/2)
Long before the Revolution, shrewd and far-seeing speculators had organized land companies to acquire grants of vast stretches of western territory; but the land only acquired an actual value for private individuals after the incoming of settlers. In addition to the companies, many private individuals had acquired rights to tracts of land; some, under the royal proclamation, giving bounties to the officers and soldiers in the French war; others by actual payment into the public treasury. [Footnote: The Ohio Company was the greatest of the companies. There were ”also, among private rights, the ancient importation rights, the Henderson Company rights, etc.” See Marshall, I., 82.] The Virginia Legislature now ratified all t.i.tles to regularly surveyed ground claimed under charter, military bounty, and old treasury rights, to the extent of four hundred acres each. Tracts of land were reserved as bounties for the Virginia troops, both Continentals and militia. Each family of actual settlers was allowed a settlement right to four hundred acres for the small sum of nine dollars, and, if very poor, the land was given them on credit. Every such settler also acquired a preemptive right to purchase a thousand acres adjoining, at the regulation State price, which was forty pounds, paper money, or forty dollars in specie, for every hundred acres. One peculiar provision was made necessary by the system of settling in forted villages. Every such village was allowed six hundred and forty acres, which no outsider could have surveyed or claim, for it was considered, the property of the townsmen, to be held in common until an equitable division could be made; while each family likewise had a settlement right to four hundred acres adjoining the village. The vacant lands were sold, warrants for a hundred acres costing forty dollars in specie; but later on, towards the close of the war, Virginia tried to buoy up her ma.s.s of depreciated paper currency by accepting it nearly at par for land warrants, thereby reducing the cost of these to less than fifty cents for a hundred acres.
No warrant applied to a particular spot; it was surveyed on any vacant or presumably vacant ground. Each individual had the surveying done wherever he pleased, the county surveyor usually appointing some skilled woodsman to act as his deputy.
In the end the natural result of all this was to involve half the people of Kentucky in lawsuits over their land, as there were often two or three t.i.tles to each patch, [Footnote: McAfee MSS.] and the surveys crossed each other in hopeless tangles. Immediately, the system gave a great stimulus to immigration, for it made it easy for any incoming settler to get t.i.tle to his farm, and it also strongly attracted all land speculators. Many well-to-do merchants or planters of the seaboard sent agents out to buy lands in Kentucky; and these agents either hired the old pioneers, such as Boon and Kenton, to locate and survey the lands, or else purchased their claims from them outright. The advantages of following the latter plan were of course obvious; for the pioneers were sure to have chosen fertile, well-watered spots; and though they asked more than the State, yet, ready money was so scarce, and the depreciation of the currency so great, that even thus the land only cost a few cents an acre. [Footnote: From the Clay MSS. ”Virginia, Frederick Co. to wit: This day came William Smith of [illegible] before me John A.
Woodc.o.c.k, a Justice of the peace of same county, who being of full age deposeth and saith that about the first of June 1780, being in Kentuckey and empowered to purchase Land, for Mr. James Ware, he the deponent agreed with a certain Simon Kenton of Kentucky for 1000 Acres of Land about 2 or 3 miles from the big salt spring on Licking, that the sd.
Kenton on condition that the sd. Smith would pay him 100 in hand and 100 more when sd. Land was surveyed,... sd. Kenton on his part wou'd have the land surveyed, and a fee Simple made there to.... sd. Land was first rate Land and had a good Spring thereon.... he agreed to warrant and defend the same ... against all persons whatsoever.... sworn too before me this 17th day of Nov. 1789.” Later on, the purchaser, who did not take possession of the land for eight or nine years, feared it would not prove as fertile as Kenton had said, and threatened to sue Kenton; but Kenton evidently had the whip-hand in the controversy, for the land being out in the wilderness, the purchaser did not know its exact location, and when he threatened suit, and asked to be shown it, Kenton ”swore that he would not shoe it at all.” Letter of James Ware, Nov. 29, 1789.]
Inrush of Settlers.
Thus it came about that with the fall of 1779 a strong stream of emigration set towards Kentucky, from the backwoods districts of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina. In company with the real settlers came many land speculators, and also many families of weak, irresolute, or s.h.i.+ftless people, who soon tired of the ceaseless and grinding frontier strife for life, and drifted back to the place whence they had come. [Footnote: Thus the increase of population is to be measured by the net gain of immigration over emigration, not by immigration alone. It is probably partly neglect of this fact, and partly simple exaggeration, that make the early statements of the additions to the Kentucky population so very untrustworthy. In 1783, at the end of the Revolution, the population of Kentucky was probably nearer 12,000 than 20,000, and it had grown steadily each year. Yet Butler quotes Floyd as saying that in the spring of 1780 three hundred large family boats arrived at the Falls, which would mean an increase of perhaps four or five thousand people; and in the McAfee MSS. occurs the statement that in 1779 and 1780 nearly 20,000 people came to Kentucky.
Both of these statements are probably mere estimates, greatly exaggerated; any westerner of to-day can instance similar reports of movements to western localities, which under a strict census dwindled wofully.] Thus there were ever two tides--the larger setting towards Kentucky, the lesser towards the old States; so that the two streams pa.s.sed each other on the Wilderness road--for the people who came down the Ohio could not return against the current. Very many who did not return nevertheless found they were not fitted to grapple with the stern trials of existence on the border. Some of these succ.u.mbed outright; others unfortunately survived, and clung with feeble and vicious helplessness to the skirts of their manlier fellows; and from them have descended the s.h.i.+ftless squatters, the ”mean whites,” the listless, uncouth men who half-till their patches of poor soil, and still c.u.mber the earth in out-of-the-way nooks from the crannies of the Alleghanies to the canyons of the southern Rocky Mountains.
In April, before this great rush of immigration began, but when it was clearly foreseen that it would immediately take place, the county court of Kentucky issued a proclamation to the new settlers, recommending them to keep as united and compact as possible, settling in ”stations” or forted towns; and likewise advising each settlement to choose three or more trustees to take charge of their public affairs. [Footnote: Durrett MSS., in the bound volume of ”Papers relating to Louisville and Kentucky.” On May 1, 1780, the people living at the Falls, having established a town, forty-six of them signed a pet.i.tion to have their t.i.tle made good against Conolly. On Feb. 7, 1781, John Todd and five other trustees of Louisville met; they pa.s.sed resolutions to erect a grist mill and make surveys.] Their recommendations and advice were generally followed.
Bowman Attacks Chillicothe.
During 1779 the Indian war dragged on much as usual. The only expedition of importance was that undertaken in May by one hundred and sixty Kentuckians, commanded by the county lieutenant, John Bowman, against the Indian town of Chillicothe. [Footnote: MS. ”Notes on Kentucky,” by George Bradford, who went there in 1779; in the Durrett collection.
Haldimand MSS., Letter of Henry Bird, June 9, 1779. As this letter is very important, and gives for the first time the Indian side, I print it in the Appendix almost in full. The accounts of course conflict somewhat; chiefly as to the number of cabins burnt--from five to forty, and of horses captured--from thirty to three hundred. They agree in all essential points. But as among the whites themselves there is one serious question. Logan's admirers, and most Kentucky historians, hold Bowman responsible for the defeat; but in reality (see Butler, p. 110) there seems strong reason to believe that it was simply due to the unexpectedly strong resistance of the Indians. Bird's letter shows, what the Kentuckians never suspected, that the attack was a great benefit to them in frightening the Indians and stopping a serious inroad. It undoubtedly accomplished more than Clark's attack on Piqua next year, for instance.] Logan, Harrod, and other famous frontier fighters went along. The town was surprised, several cabins burned, and a number of horses captured. But the Indians rallied, and took refuge in a central block-house and a number of strongly built cabins surrounding it, from which they fairly beat off the whites. They then followed to hara.s.s the rear of their retreating foes, but were beaten off in turn. Of the whites, nine were killed and two or three wounded; the Indians' loss was two killed and five or six wounded.
The defeat caused intense mortification to the whites; but in reality the expedition was of great service to Kentucky, though the Kentuckians never knew it. The Detroit people had been busily organizing expeditions against Kentucky. Captain Henry Bird had been given charge of one, and he had just collected two hundred Indians at the Mingo town when news of the attack on Chillicothe arrived. Instantly the Indians dissolved in a panic, some returning to defend their towns; others were inclined to beg peace of the Americans. So great was their terror that it was found impossible to persuade them to make any inroad as long as they deemed themselves menaced by a counter attack of the Kentuckians. [Footnote: Haldimand MSS. De Peyster to Haldimand, Nov. 20, 1779.]
Occasional Indian Forays.
It is true that bands of Mingos, Hurons, Delawares, and Shawnees made occasional successful raids against the frontier, and brought their scalps and prisoners in triumph to Detroit, [Footnote: Haldimand MSS. De Peyster to Haldimand, Oct. 20, 1779.] where they drank such astonis.h.i.+ng quant.i.ties of rum as to incite the indignation of the British commander-in-chief. [Footnote: Haldimand MSS. Haldimand's letter, July 23, 1779.] But instead of being able to undertake any formidable expedition against the settlers, the Detroit authorities were during this year much concerned for their own safety, taking every possible means to provide for the defence, and keeping a sharp look-out for any hostile movement of the Americans. [Footnote: Haldimand MSS., April 8, 1779.]
The incoming settlers were therefore left in comparative peace. They built many small palisaded towns, some of which proved permanent, while others vanished utterly when the fear of the Indians was removed and the families were able to scatter out on their farms. At the Falls of the Ohio a regular fort was built, armed with cannon and garrisoned by Virginia troops, [Footnote: One hundred and fifty strong, under Col.
George Slaughter.] who were sent down the river expressly to reinforce Clark. The Indians never dared a.s.sail this fort; but they ravaged up to its walls, destroying the small stations on Bear Gra.s.s Creek and scalping settlers and soldiers when they wandered far from the protection of the stockade.
The Hard Winter.
The new-comers of 1779 were destined to begin with a grim experience, for the ensuing winter [Footnote: Boon, in his Narrative, makes a mistake in putting this hard winter a year later; all the other authorities are unanimous against him.] was the most severe ever known in the west, and was long recalled by the pioneers as the ”hard winter.”
Cold weather set in towards the end of November, the storms following one another in unbroken succession, while the snow lay deep until the spring. Most of the cattle, and very many of the horses, perished; and deer and elk were likewise found dead in the woods, or so weak and starved that they would hardly move out of the way, while the buffalo often came up at nightfall to the yards, seeking to a.s.sociate with the starving herds of the settlers. [Footnote: McAfee MSS. Of the McAfees'
horses ten died, and only two survived, a brown mare and ”a yellow horse called Chickasaw.” Exactly a hundred years later, in the hard winter of 1879-80, and the still worse winter of 1880-81, the settlers on the Yellowstone and the few hunters who wintered on the Little Missouri had a similar experience. The buffalo crowded with the few tame cattle round the hayricks and log-stables; the starving deer and antelope gathered in immense bands in sheltered places. Riding from my ranch to a neighbor's I have, in deep snows, pa.s.sed through herds of antelope that would barely move fifty or a hundred feet out of my way.] The scanty supply of corn gave out, until there was not enough left to bake into johnny-cakes on the long boards in front of the fire. [Footnote: _Do._] Even at the Falls, where there were stores for the troops, the price of corn went up nearly fourfold, [Footnote: From fifty dollars (Continental money) a bushel in the fall to one hundred and seventy-five in the spring.] while elsewhere among the stations of the interior it could not be had at any price, and there was an absolute dearth both of salt and of vegetable food, the settlers living for weeks on the flesh of the lean wild game, [Footnote: McAfee MSS.] especially of the buffalo. [Footnote: Boon's Narrative.] The hunters searched with especial eagerness for the bears in the hollow trees, for they alone among the animals kept fat; and the breast of the wild turkey served for bread. [Footnote: McAfee MSS.]
Nevertheless, even in the midst of this season of cold and famine, the settlers began to take the first steps for the education of their children. In this year Joseph Doniphan, whose son long afterwards won fame in the Mexican war, opened the first regular school at Boonsborough, [Footnote: _Historical Magazine_, Second Series, Vol.
VIII.] and one of the McAfees likewise served as a teacher through the winter. [Footnote: McAfee MSS.] But from the beginning some of the settlers' wives had now and then given the children in the forts a few weeks' schooling.
Through the long, irksome winter, the frontiersmen remained crowded within the stockades. The men hunted, while the women made the clothes, of tanned deer-hides, buffalo-wool cloth, and nettle-bark linen. In stormy weather, when none could stir abroad, they turned or coopered the wooden vessels; for tin cups were as rare as iron forks, and the ”noggin” was either hollowed out of the knot of a tree, or else made with small staves and hoops. [Footnote: McAfee MSS.] Every thing was of home manufacture--for there was not a store in Kentucky,--and the most expensive domestic products seem to have been the hats, made of native fur, mink, c.o.o.n, fox, wolf, and beaver. If exceptionally fine, and of valuable fur, they cost five hundred dollars in paper money, which had not at that time depreciated a quarter as much in outlying Kentucky as at the seat of government. [Footnote: Marshall, p. 124.]
As soon as the great snow-drifts began to melt, and thereby to produce freshets of unexampled height, the gaunt settlers struggled out to their clearings, glad to leave the forts. They planted corn, and eagerly watched the growth of the crop; and those who hungered after oatmeal or wheaten bread planted other grains as well, and apple-seeds and peach-stones. [Footnote: McAfee MSS.]
Many New Settlers Arrive in the Spring.
As soon as the spring of 1780 opened, the immigrants began to arrive more numerously than ever. Some came over the Wilderness road; among these there were not a few haggard, half-famished beings, who, having stalled too late the previous fall, had been overtaken by the deep snows, and forced to pa.s.s the winter in the iron-bound and desolate valleys of the Alleghanies, subsisting on the carca.s.ses of their stricken cattle, and seeing their weaker friends starve or freeze before their eyes. Very many came down the Ohio, in flat-boats. A good-sized specimen of these huge unwieldly scows was fifty-five feet long, twelve broad, and six deep, drawing three feet of water; [Footnote: Lettres d'un Cultivateur Americain, St. John de Creve Coeur, Paris, 1787. p.
407. He visited Kentucky in 1784.] but the demand was greater than the supply, and a couple of dozen people, with half as many horses, and all their effects, might be forced to embark on a flat-boat not twenty-four feet in length. [Footnote: MS. Journals of Rev. James Smith. Tours in western country in 1785-1795 (in Col. Durrett's library).] Usually several families came together, being bound by some tie of neighborhood or purpose. Not infrequently this tie was religious, for in the back settlements the few churches were almost as much social as religious centres. Thus this spring, a third of the congregation of a Low Dutch Reformed Church came to Kentucky bodily, to the number of fifty heads of families, with their wives and children, their beasts of burden and pasture, and their household goods; like most bands of new immigrants, they suffered greatly from the Indians, much more than did the old settlers. [Footnote: State Department MSS. No. 41, Vol. V., Memorials K, L, 1777-1787, pp. 95-97, Pet.i.tion of Low Dutch Reformed Church, etc.]
The following year a Baptist congregation came out from Virginia, keeping up its organization even while on the road, the preacher holding services at every long halt.
De Peyster at Detroit.
Soon after the rush of spring immigration was at its height, the old settlers and the new-comers alike were thrown into the utmost alarm by a formidable inroad of Indians, accompanied by French partisans, and led by a British officer. De Peyster, a New York tory of old Knickerbocker family, had taken command at Detroit. He gathered the Indians around him from far and near, until the expense of subsidizing these savages became so enormous as to call forth serious complaints from head-quarters.
[Footnote: Haldimand MSS. Haldimand to Guy Johnson, June 30, 1780.] He constantly endeavored to equip and send out different bands, not only to retake the Illinois and Vincennes, but to dislodge Clark from the Falls [Footnote: _Do._ Haldimand to De Peyster, Feb. 12 and July 6, 1780.]; he was continually receiving scalps and prisoners, and by May he had fitted out two thousand warriors to act along the Ohio and the Wabash.