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   :PG.Id: 35694
   :PG.Released: 2011-02-26
   :PG.Title: Voices; Birth-Marks; The Man and the Elephant
   :PG.Creator: Matt J. Holt
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   :DC.Title: Voices; Birth-Marks; The Man and the Elephant
   :DC.Creator: Matt J. Holt
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1922

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Voices; Birth-Marks; The Man and the Elephant
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   This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
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      Title: Voices; Birth-Marks; The Man and the Elephant
      
      Author: Matt J. Holt
      
      Release Date: February 26, 2011 [EBook #35694]
      
      Language: English
      
      Character set encoding: UTF-8

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      \*\*\* START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VOICES; BIRTH-MARKS; THE MAN AND THE ELEPHANT \*\*\*

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      Produced by David Garcia, Katherine Ward, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.

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.. container::
   :class: titlepage

   .. class:: center x-large

   | VOICES
   | BIRTH-MARKS
   | THE MAN AND THE ELEPHANT

   .. class:: center larger

   | MATT J. HOLT
   |
   | *Author of Chit-Chat, Nirvana*

   .. class:: center smaller

   | LOUISVILLE
   | THE STANDARD PRINTING CO., Inc.
   | 1922
   |
   | Copyrighted 1922
   | by The Author



.. contents:: INDEX
   :depth: 1
   :page-numbers:


[pg 7]



VOICES
======

.. epigraph::

   | Knowest thou only the language of man?
   | Hast never heard the plaintive flute of Pan,
   | Or those gladsome carols that greet the light?
   | Or the wild, strange voices of darkest night?
   | Each of earth’s creatures when at work or play,
   | Each of nature’s force in some strange way,
   | Has a manner of attaining to God’s ear,
   | And a voice which those attuned may hear.
   | Voices of spring are love songs of the birds,
   | Fragrant poems of lilacs, lacking words;
   | Summer voices are of riper, mellower strain;
   | Autumn’s, sing of harvest and life not vain;
   | Winter tells the story of what has been,
   | Season of reflection, of the voice within,
   | Promise of tomorrow, freedom from sin.


Big Creek bisects the narrow valley and the road to
Hyden follows the bank, crossing from side to side as the
sheerness of the mountain side makes necessary. Here
and there the valley broadens until there is almost
enough level land for a farm; and always where there is
a little width of valley you find a mountain home. The
mountain tops and sides are great wildernesses, though
sometimes in a cove or on the plateau a hermit or outcast
family makes its home.

At old man Litman’s place the valley is quite narrow,
except below the “Rock House,” where there is an old
field cleared by his grandfather, who came from Virginia
[pg 8]
in 1795. A sprawling rail fence, hedged about by thrifty
bush growth, encircles the old field; pawpaw bushes
growing in the fence corners encroach to the ruts of the
road; and each year new growth of sumac and persimmon
appropriate yet more of the old field; which having
been cultivated for near a century and grown unproductive,
is given over to a volunteer crop of broom sedge,
which furnishes meager pasturage for an old mule and
two cows.

On the edge of the road at the fence corner nearest
the cabin, Litman’s granddaughter has a doll house; if
mere tracings of pebbles and shells gathered from the
creek shallows can be called partitions and the bushes
and vines, walls and a roof. The white room is traced in
white pebbles the red room in red pebbles and the kitchen
in the commoner blue ones. The furnishings are bits of
broken crockery, glass and shell. The dolls are small
bleached bones or bits of peeled pawpaw sticks, dressed
in blouses made from a worn out sleeve of grandpa’s
red undershirt and skirts from scraps of worn and faded
calico. She has never seen a doll house, never a real
doll, only pictures. This, her creation, was suggested by
instinctive motherhood and love for home.

A passing traveler would have thought several children
were playing at the fence corner. The little make-believe
mother was talking to her babies and answering
for them in even thinner and more subdued voice than
her own; though she had the low voice of a child accustomed
to play alone.

“Now Jeanne, let’s make grandpa some nice pone
bread; the meal is fresh and sweet. When it is ready
you run to the spring and bring him a cup of cold milk.”

“Granny, while you are mixing the bread maybe I
can find an egg in the loft. I heard Old Speck cackling.”

[pg 9]
“There is grandpa calling, I will go and see what he
wants.”

“He says, would you mind moving him a wee bit?
His bones shore do ache.”

Here the dialogue ended, the girl’s attention having
been caught by the voice of an old friend; except for
which the valley had the quietude not alone of a warm
mid-afternoon but of a great solitude, so profound that
you might even fancy hearing the smoke curling up from
the chimney of the cabin, a hundred yards away. Yet,
if you listen you may hear the chirping of the grass
creatures and the rippling water washing along the
pebbly bed of the creek.

A lone tree, long dead, and bleached to bony whiteness,
stands in the center of the old field and from its
topmost snag a lark gives voice to a series of pensive,
dreamy, flute-like notes. The girl, after listening for
some time, resumes the dialogue.

“Children, we will climb on the fence and hear what
Yellow Vest has to say. I think he is whistling to his
wife, who hunts crickets in the broom sedge.”

“Maw, tell us what he says?”

“‘Love, thou art safe! art safe! I watch for thee! for
thee! and babies.’ It is not so much what he says as the
way in which he says it.”

The feeble voice of the old grandmother calls:
“Jeanne, come help your granny;” and placing her dolls
in their little beds of sticks, moss and bird feathers, and
the little baby in its cradle, the half of a mussel shell, she
goes to the house.

-----

John Morgan Allen lived in Lexington, Kentucky.
His father was a lawyer of considerable prominence; his
mother, a Morgan, granddaughter of a distinguished soldier;
[pg 10]
his grandmother was the daughter of John Calvin
Campbell, an eloquent pioneer preacher; her husband, a
lawyer when she married him, afterwards became a professional
gambler and, an exception to the rule, accumulated
a considerable fortune.

It was young Allen’s mother’s desire that he should
be a soldier; his father’s that he should be a lawyer, and
his grandmother’s that he should be a preacher. When
he finished high school, his mother insisting, he was sent
to Culver Military Institute, where he remained a year.
Then his grandmother, having promised to give him
$25,000.00 the day he should graduate at the Louisville
Presbyterian Theological Seminary; he was sent to that
institution. In the beginning of his senior year she died
intestate, leaving an estate of only $60,000.00 to be divided
between three living children and the heirs of three dead
children. As there was no chance of the fulfillment of
her promise when he should graduate at the seminary;
and his conduct had been such that his professors had
suggested a reformation in conformity with his prospective
calling, he wrote asking his father’s consent to leave
the seminary and take the law course at the University
of Virginia; and he cheerfully consented. In spite of
the fact that he gave much of his time to a local military
company and enjoyed the reputation of being the best
poker player at the university, he graduated with class
honors in 1912.

Several weeks after his return home, on his twenty-second
birthday, his father took him to the office and with
great gladness in his heart, pointed to the name, Allen &
Allen, which had been painted on the office door the day
before; showed him the new embossed stationery on
which his name appeared as a member of the firm; and
his own room, newly painted, carpeted and furnished,
[pg 11]
with the name John Morgan Allen (Private) on the door.
Though John’s face wore a smile of appreciation, it was
merely reflective of his father’s love and enjoyment; disposition
and temperament suggested rebellion, but were
overcome by a sense of gratitude and duty.

In the early summer of 1913 the firm were employed
by the Lockard heirs to clear the title to a large boundary
of land in Leslie county; and it became necessary for
John and the executor to go to Hyden for that purpose.

Just at sundown as they were riding by Litman’s old
field, John’s horse shied and backed through the pawpaw
bushes into Jeanne’s doll house. He dismounted and
patched the partition walls into shape; then parting the
bushes, showed it to Mr. Lockard.

To John, the little bone and stick dolls, dressed in
rags and resting in their beds of moss and feathers were
pathetic. He picked several up, and was examining them
when a slender girl of twelve, in an outgrown, worn and
faded dress, which did not reach to her knees, ran up
crying: “Do not hurt my babies.” John rose hastily,
somewhat disconcerted by the accusation, and lifting his
hat and gravely bowing, assured her he had no such
intention; whereupon without uttering another word, she
turned and ran into the Litman cabin.

The cabin, built in the days when the family was
relatively prosperous, had a spare room for visitors. As
it was now sundown the men asked and were given shelter
for the night.

Jeanne showed them where their horses were to be
stabled; and then went into the house to help with supper.
Her grandmother noted that she was very exact in
setting the table; getting out the only white cloth they
had and doing her best with their meager stock of china
to make it attractive. This special attention was due to
[pg 12]
the lifted hat and formal bow with which John had
greeted the child. It was the first time a man had ever
tipped his hat to her.

After supper John and Mr. Lockard seated themselves
for a smoke on a great rock that jutted into the
creek and enjoyed not only the profound repose but the
mystic beauty of the scene, which was accentuated by
the light of a full moon and the deep shadows made by
the trees and mountain.

John, a person of moods and imagination—possibly
due to his complex ancestry—gave expression to his
thoughts: “How soothing, how delightfully peaceful,
how homelike, is this humble home. There is no place
here for sorrow and tears, no room for envy, no cause
for covetousness or discontent. Some people, and I
believe I am one, might be happy here, happier than in a
city, just getting his part of the sunlight, just breathing
his part of this untainted air.”

While he was talking in this strain, Jeanne, coming
up, stood listening; and when he had finished said:

“We have our troubles. You have not seen grandpa.
He’s sick in bed. He can’t move except his hands and
head and they shake all the time. He says he is a corpse
with a chill and lies in his bed with nothing to do but
wait. When I ask ‘Wait for what?’ He answers,
‘Tomorrow.’ To me tomorrow is like today. The cows
will go to pasture, the creek will run over the same pebbles,
the mail man will come at noon and stop for dinner,
the lark will sing the same song; but if I stump my toe
it will be well tomorrow. Go in and talk to grandpa. He
likes to hear things. He lies on his bed until his bones
ache. He looks out at the same trees and rocks and the
same reach of the creek. I hope when he sleeps there is
a change and he has dreams like mine and hears voices
[pg 13]
sweeter than those of the day; though I love the voice of
the lark and the red bird and the wren; the murmur of
the water on the rocks and most of all the little creatures
we do not see and will not hear, unless we are very still.
They are hidden in the grass and in the rocks. Alone not
one of them can be heard, but together they make soft
music, a chorus of glad hearts. One little blackbird
makes a noise, but when a thousand speak at once it
makes a song. So it seems to me, if I should live here
always, with just grandpa and granny, what I said would
be as the chirp of one little bug or the call of a lost blackbird;
but if I chirp or call out with a thousand, my voice
is the thousandth part of a song.”

“Jeanne, we will go in and talk with your grandpa.
Can he read, or do you read to him?”

“He used to read before he broke his specks. I am
trying hard to learn to read good, so I can read to him.
The teacher sometimes boards with us; she says I will
soon know how. It will be nice then. I try to read his
Bible to him but the words are too big. Teacher says I
need a book to tell me the meaning of big words. I know
just the part of the Bible he loves and I am learning it
by heart. I stand and say it to him, looking in the book
and he thinks I read it.”

“What do you say to him, Jeanne?”

“‘And God shall wipe all tears from their eyes; and
there shall be no more death; neither sorrow nor dying;
neither shall there be any more pain.’ And I know all
of the fourteenth chapter of John, which tells us not to
let our troubles worry us, because in the Father’s house
there is a home of many rooms and one is for me. And
when I say, ‘Peace I leave with you, my peace I give
unto you; not as the world giveth, give I unto you;’ he
makes me read it again. \* \*”

[pg 14]
They went in and spent an hour with the old man.
Seeing them was a break in his bedridden monotony,
shifting scene and introducing new characters.

His had been a calm, relatively happy life until he
was seventy years of age; then misfortune overwhelmed
him. He lost his savings; his son, Sylvester, Jeanne’s
father, died; a few weeks later he had a stroke of apoplexy
and now a shivering palsy possessed his limbs.
For more than five years he had lain in his bed, nursed
by wife and granddaughter.

His wife by most rigid economy had managed to feed
the family of three; though they were poorly clad and
were frequently denied many things deemed essential to
life.

-----

Simeon Blair for ten years had been carrying the mail
from the mouth of Big Creek to Hyden, going up one day
and returning the next. He usually ate his noon-day
meal at Litman’s, which he called the “Half-way
House.”

About ten days after Mr. Allen and his client had
spent the night at the Litman cabin, Blair rode up on his
old gray mare and seeing Jeanne coming from the
spring, took from a gunny sack a parcel post package
about a foot square; and holding it above his head called
out: “Guess whose this is?”

“Grandpa’s.”

He shook his head, saying: “Guess again.”

“Granny’s.”

“Wrong, guess again.”

“Is it for us?”

“Yes.”

“Then it must be for me; but I have never had anything
before. It is not Christmas. O! who could have
sent it?”

[pg 15]
She took it with timid joy and examined it carefully,
reading aloud in a halting way—“Miss Jeanne—no it’s
not Jeanne; what is it Simeon?”

“Jeannette.”

“Miss Jeannette Litman, Big Creek, Leslie County,
Ky.”

And in the upper left-hand corner—

“From John M. Allen, Lexington, Ky.”

“Open it, let’s see what’s inside.”

“Not till grandpa wakes up.”

She went to his door, he was awake; so she called her
grandmother and Simeon.

“Look, grandpa, see what’s come by mail. Listen:
‘Miss Jeannette Litman, Big Creek, Leslie County, Kentucky.
From John M. Allen, Lexington, Ky.’ What can
it be?”

“Open it and find out.”

“Simeon, you untie the string.”

“Cut it, it’s dinner time.”

(Granny) “No, it’s a piece of good whip-cord, undo
the knot.”

“Well, Miss Jeannette Litman, there it is.”

“Can you see, grandpa?”

“Yes, dear.”

“Watch close—O! this is for you, grandpa. See your
name? Shall I open it?—Some silver specks, in a bright
new case. Now I know why he asked me for the broken
ones.”

“Look! Look! this has granny’s name on it, what
can it be?”

“You open it, dear.”

“No, granny, you must open your own bundle.”

“Just what I wanted. I remember saying that when
I went to Hyden I would have to buy a pair of shears
[pg 16]
and a black shawl with the money we got for the goose
feathers. Now we can get a sack of flour and goods for
Jeanne’s dress.”

“It is my turn now, ‘For Jeannette Litman,’ such
purty shoes; how did he know my size? O! he had me
step in the dusty road and then he measured the track,
saying a fairy had passed this way; and here is a little
blue silk handkerchief and two books. What does this
spell, Simeon? :gesperrt:`University Dictionary`? What
is a dictionary?”

“A book that tells what big words mean.”

“Here is the other book, ‘The Little Colonel at Boarding
School;’ and here’s more, two boxes—dolls! real
dolls! all dressed and asleep in their best clothes, shoes
and real hair. O, you beautiful things! You sweet darlings!
Look granny! the top dress is just like spider web
with dew on it. We will name this one after you, granny.
I bet you was as purty when you were a little girl. This
is Jane Wilson and the other I will call Ruth, Ruth Dixon,
after mother.”

Jeanne insisted on writing the letter thanking Mr.
Allen for the gifts; and it was a momentous undertaking.
Simeon brought a stamp, envelope and two sheets of
paper in a thread box from the general store at the mouth
of Big Creek. There was a pen and ink in the house,
though it was necessary to dilute the ink before using it.

At a loss as to how to address the envelope and commence
her letter, she consulted her grandmother; but
would hear no other suggestions. At the end of the second
day’s series of efforts on her slate she was sufficiently
satisfied to transcribe what she had printed to
paper. In her many attempts to find out how to spell
certain words she discovered that the new dictionary was
[pg 17]
marvelously arranged in alphabetical order, and in possession
of this key, finally mastered it.

In searching through the dictionary by chance she
came upon the word correspondence and learned its
meaning. The word had caught her eye, because among
their few books, all of which had belonged to her great
grandfather, there was a set in old sheep binding of
“Jefferson’s Correspondence.” She took down Volume
IV; and opening it at letter CXXVIII, was better pleased
with the style of address, in writing a person of Mr.
Allen’s greatness; and concerning such matters of importance,
than the one her grandmother had given her
and adopted it.

So she began tediously to print:

“To John Allen.

“Dear Sir:

“The simultaneous movements in our correspondence
have been remarkable on several occasions. It would
seem as if the state of the air, or the state of the times,
or some other unknown cause, produced a sympathetic
effect in our mutual recollections. i has to say grandpas
specks was the first thing we found in the box. you know
i could a got along with them bone dolls dressed in his
old red shirt but times would a been hard outen them
specks he lays on the bed with a chair under his head and
reads his bible now when onct he had to wait tell i had
time he says now the windows are open. how did you
come to send granny a black shawl you had not seen her
shake with the cold like I has done. my feet is tuf i could
a done outen the shoes but she jest had ter have the shawl
and the shears. i know now why you had me step in the
dust. granny says men are sly and gals must be shy but
why dident you jest say Jeannette let me see your feet
i keeps them purty clean.

[pg 18]
“o the dolls the purty dolls they is too fine for the fence
corner so i puts them in bed with me and holds them when
i says my prayers and sees them in my dreams. they left
the words tuf and purty and outen outen the dictionary
you tell the man what made it i am shore he will hate it
he says ter means three ter with us means same as to. i
knows now what correspondence, dictionary and Colonel
mean. i spect when i read the book ter find out why they
calls a gal a little Colonel but i cant say now. give me
time. granny says i is set in my ways like grandpa and i
is set ter learn

“correspondence is nice but hard work but let us correspondence.
last year when Christmas come i had roast
chestnuts and to red apples. granny told me a tale about
santaclaws i think you is it. the paper is all gone. i must
stop

“I salute you with all affection. T. J. whats the T. J.
fer. i found it at the end of a letter in Jefferson’s Correspondence
truly Jeannette i say that is my name sense
you writ it

   |   T. J.”

When Mr. Allen received the letter he was as proud
of it as if it had been written him by the recently inaugurated
Democratic president. He showed it to several of
his girl friends, including Miss Bradley, who insisted
upon keeping it, saying she wished to send some little
presents the following Christmas.

At that time he felt the world would have been a barren
waste except for that young lady. The letter passed
into her possession; was kept for several weeks and then
forgotten and misplaced. Memory of the little mountain
girl passed from her mind long before Christmas. John
remembered her, merely as one might a visit from a
dream fairy.

[pg 19]
An hour before John awoke on Christmas morning
his mother came to his room and placing a chair near his
bed, piled upon it his Christmas presents. There was a
check from his father, handkerchiefs, neckties, gloves, a
smoking jacket and even a stocking full of nuts and candies
from his mother—he was her only child; still her
little boy. There were several small remembrances from
relatives and friends, a box of cigars from Miss Bradley;
and beneath all a parcel in brown wrapping paper and
unadorned by either Christmas seal, holly or ribbon.

The breakfast gong sounded; it scarcely disturbed his
dreams. Then the house boy came to his room and shook
him saying: “Mars John, it’s near nine er’clock, your
maw says git up. Christmas gift!”

“Christmas morning and a fine day, cool, clear, a
white Christmas! Sammy, you caught me, didn’t you?
I will give you my last winter’s overcoat; it’s as good as
new, or three one dollar bills; which shall it be?”

“Boss, that’s a mighty fine overcoat, but I’s got ter
git that yaller gal Melinda something, I guess I better
take them three dollars.”

“Well, here it is, Sammy.”

Sammy went down the stairs muttering: “This hayr
nigger ain’t no fool, not yit! Unless I gits drunk and
loses this place, I’ll git that overcoat for a New Year’s
gift.”

John, slipping on the new smoking jacket, sat on the
edge of the bed and with the pleased curiosity of a boy of
twelve inspected his presents.

“Well Pip (meaning his father) must be feeling good
this Christmas; his check will come in handy. What
nice things mother buys; she’s always thinking of my
comfort. Perfectos from Sally Bradley and strong black
ones; she should know by now I don’t like that brand.
[pg 20]
That’s the cigar that Jelly Bean Stoll smokes. He’s been
there quite a bit lately. I bet she sent the brand I like
to him; got things mixed up. Oh! what a beautiful cigar
case, and from Fannie Scott! She’s the hot stuff! That
girl has some taste! She gets better looking every day.
I’ll go to see her tomorrow night; but I really should go
to Sally’s. Hello! here’s a beefsteak or ten pounds of
nails; it looks like it just came from the butcher shop or
the hardware store. No, it’s from Big Creek! Where’s
Big Creek? Oh, I remember that little girl, all legs and
arms. She looked like a mosquito and talked like a
preacher. Well! Well! Well! mittens and yarn socks;
the first I have seen in ten years, and a letter.

-----

   |   “Big Creek, Kentucky.
   |   “December 18th, 1914.

“John M. Allen, Esq.

“Dear Friend:

“It is seven months today since you were here and I
have grown a lot. My birthday was last month, November
7th. I am now thirteen. Miss Smith, the teacher,
says: ‘Jeannette at last you know how to write a letter.
No wonder, you have spent half your time trying.’
The dictionary is nearly worn out. I look up every word.

“Last summer I hunted ‘Sang’ on the mountain for
three days and when granny went to Hyden to sell the
feathers, the eggs and a basket of chickens, she sold it and
the store man gave her 1 dollar and 60 cents, all mine.

“Hi Lewis lives up the creek. He has some sheep and
I bought 2 pounds of wool from him with part of my
money. I washed the wool until it was as white as the
whiskers of Santa Clans then I spun it into yarn on
granny’s spinning wheel and gave Sim Blair the mail
man two bit to buy me some red and blue dyes and some
I made red and some blue. With the blue I made granny
[pg 21]
some mits and grandpa some socks but I kept the red for
your Christmas gift and last night I finished it.

“I hope you will like your red mittens and red and
black socks. They are just as purty as the red bird that
roosts in the cedar trees near the barn. Granny said
most of the men in the blue grass wore black socks but I
said they is not nice enough for you, so to please everybody
I made them red with black toes and tops. Maybe
my gay little soldier of the cedar trees was the cause I
made them red and black. He has so much to whistle
about even when it is cold and the snow is deep. Just
now he lit on the window sill, knocking off the snow. I
had a good look into his bright black face. How purty
and red his coat was against the snow. If it was not for
him and my dolls and the books you gave me I would be
lonesome. Granny says I am too old to play with dolls;
but she does not know what they whisper to me.

“How still it is in the winter time. By day we hear
the red bird and the crows; at night if it storms, the
wind; if it is still and snowing, the murmur of the flakes;
if the moon is full a great owl calls; if I wake in the night
and it is dark and still I hear the whispers of either the
angels or of my dolls who sleep with me. One of the
dolls is granny and the other is my mother, and they tell
me what they used to do when they were girls like me.
Sometimes grandpa calls and when I go to him he asks:
‘Did you hear that?’ ‘What, grandpa?’ ‘Someone calling,
it sounded like your pa.’ Grandma says he is going
to die soon. I believe up here we hear voices you cannot
hear where there is so much noise.

“I know Santa Claus will bring you nice things because
you are so good.

   | “Yours truly,
   |   “Jeanette.”

[pg 22]

“Well, it is nice to be remembered, even though the
remembrance is impossible. I will put them and the letter
away with other treasured and impractical things
that have been sent me by girl friends. I feel sorry for
that lonesome little half-starved thing. She will grow up
into a scrawny, tired-looking woman; marry some man
who will work her to death. No telling what she might do
with advantages and in another environment.”

After breakfast, he telephoned a book store asking
that a dictionary and some appropriate books be sent to
Miss Jeannette Litman, Big Creek, Kentucky. The clerk
who took the order, having recently read Mark Twain’s
Joan of Arc, mailed a copy of that book with the dictionary.

A week later Mr. Allen received a letter from Jeannette
thanking him for the books.

-----

   | Verona, Italy.
   | ——— Hospital, Ward 11.
   |   December 2, 1917.

Dear Little Jeannette:

To children like you nothing is unexpected. You believe
witches are abroad on dark nights, while fairies
dance in the moonlight; and that angels protect you from
evil spirits.

When you grow older experience plucks these pinions
of fancy; you can no longer soar but become an earth
stained materialist, surprised if your plans of the morrow
miscarry and you find yourself in New York when
you expected to be in Washington.

A year ago today I was defending a suit against the
Lexington Railway Company; had become reconciled to
law and expected to continue in that comparatively
thrill-less profession. I might have thought by now I
[pg 23]
would be married—but I certainly did not think that I
would occupy a bed in Ward 11 of an army hospital at
Verona; so far away that it is impossible to send you
even a book for Christmas.

Looking backward, it is easy enough to explain why
I am here. Not understanding what war was; not appreciating
what a government undertakes that declares war,
I grew impatient at our country’s apparent criminal
slowness in getting into the war; and in February, 1917,
went to Montreal and enlisted. In March 1,500 of us were
loaded aboard the Burmah and that transport steamed
a thousand miles down the St. Lawrence to the ocean
and at the end of a two weeks’ voyage by the northern
passage, over a gray fog-burdened ocean by day, a phosphorescent
billowy one by night, we landed at Liverpool.

At a cantonment, a few miles from London, we were
subjected to four months’ strenuous training; and presumedly
because I had attended a military school for a
year, I was commissioned a lieutenant in the British army.
At the end of the four months our regiment was loaded
aboard a transport and many of us did not learn our
destination until we were landed at ——, Italy. (We
are not allowed to name the port.)

We reported to General, the Earl of Cavan, commanding
the British forces in Italy; and after several weeks’
training were ordered to the Piave front.

On the 24th of October at the battle of Caporetto, I
experienced the same sensation as though I had been
struck in the chest by a brick, when it was but a small
calibre, soft nosed bullet; and remember having been
loaded into, and it seemed riding for days in, an overfilled
ambulance, just enough alive to have a dull sense of pain
and to feel the concussion of the great guns, though the
reports seemed muffled and far away.

[pg 24]
I lost consciousness; was no longer near the battlefield,
but at your home in the mountains of Kentucky. I heard
no sounds save the murmur of running water and the
song of a wood thrush. All about was the implacable
serenity of the blue sky and the everlasting hills. The
face of nature was unscarred; there were no shell holes,
no splintered trees, no pools of blood, no dead and dying.

Strange that I should think of you and your mountain
home in the midst of battle, violence and death. Strange
that when I went on my journey into the valley of the
shadow, falling, falling, falling, into a darkness that
seemed to freeze my soul, you, a little girl, were the only
one near. Strange that when I came back to consciousness,
it was by way of the creek valley and your home
and you were leading me by the hand. Returning to consciousness
I discovered it was not you but a soft-voiced,
patient, white-robed Italian nurse; and I was here. What
brought you so vividly to mind? Can you tell? It must
have been the contrast between your home as I saw it
that moonlit night and the battle field, with its barbarities,
vengeances, and human abominations.

There is a sharp pain when I breathe or cough. I am
ill, homesick, among strangers, I feel deserted. To you,
a little girl, the acquaintance of a day, some influence
impels me to write, though I have heard nothing since
you sent the red socks and mittens, and wrote thanking
me for the books. Since I have been wounded I have
learned there are many things I may not know.

Tell me of your own life and picture it in your own
way; and also of your part of Kentucky. Even now I
see your face and hear your voice; it seems nearer than
my mother’s—and she is a wonderful, much-loved
woman.

[pg 25]
I do not recover my strength as I should and will be
here for some time—if you care to write.

   | Your friend,
   |   John M. Allen.

-----

   | Lieutenant John M. Allen,
   | ——— Hospital, Ward 11, Verona, Italy.

Dear Mr. Allen:

For several years I have been waiting, not daring to
hope, but longing for a letter—and it came on Christmas
Eve. I am answering the afternoon of Christmas Day.

The earth is mantled in white, and crystals of crisp
snow give back myriad rays of dazzling light stolen from
the sun. The cedar trees bend low with their fluffy white
burdens; and the creek is frozen, except the riffle just
above Big Rock. I was just going to say that all life had
taken to itself the silence of the mountain——which is a
speaking silence to its own people—when I saw a hungry
little nut-hatch bobbing up and down the elm; and my
red birds, thinking it time I served their dinner, flew
from the cedar trees and are now whistling for me from
the lilac bush.

Granny is quite feeble; so she takes a nap each afternoon
in the great rocking chair, with its padded sheepskin
back and bottom; and from the noise she is making
seems to be enjoying it. I also hear an intimate voice,
though I rarely see my friend. He is the cricket of our
hearth; and now since the days are short, begins his
chirping when it is time for me to feed the chickens, milk
the cow and look after Silas, the old mule. We have no
earthly use for that mule, but I cannot let him go. He
was in the prime of his days of usefulness when I first
saw the light; and now when I go out to feed him, there
is a look in his old gray-lashed eyes that speaks to my
heart with the voice of an old and trusting friend.

[pg 26]
When people live as we do, the fowls of the barnyard
and the creatures of the manger become their friends.
They speak with a look; they come towards you with a
caress; they bind themselves to your heart with an untimid
trust. That old mule’s look approaches worship;
and his trust shall not be vain.

Grandad is not here. I stand at the door and see his
grave on a knoll a little way up the mountain side. It is
hedged about by a white picket fence, which I repaint
each spring.

Last evening as I was wreathing it with holly and
mistletoe I thought how, when I was a little girl, he carried
me over the rough places and when he went to the
store on Red Bird or to town, brought back something
he knew would delight a little girl. Then, how the last
year or two before he died, I partly paid the debt by
ministering unto him. As I stood beside his grave it
seemed his spirit spoke to me of unutterable things. \* \*

I have finished with the chickens, the cow and the old
mule. We have had supper. The cricket is chirping
away quite comfortably in his cozy corner under the
warm hearthstones and I hear the click of Granny’s
knitting needles.

My thoughts have been mainly of you since your letter
came. Joys are the scarlet buds and tears are the
white flowers of life. Your letter has made this a Christmas
of white flowers; yet it brought a gift filigreed with
happiness, as tears are wont to be, except those of despair.
It seems sadness lives next door neighbor to a
very pure happiness. I can pray and weep and the tears
are a holy joy. I think if God would speak to me I would
shed tears of joy; and if he comes tonight and tells me
he will make you well and bring you back to Kentucky,
[pg 27]
I shall shed tears of great joy. That you return in
health is one of the hopes my life lives on.

You will understand, when I say I have always looked
upon you, much as I imagine the old mule feels towards
me. For a long time there was little in my life, but that
little was all joy. Then you came our way and introduced
me to real dolls and to books. While I have outgrown
the dolls, I have many cold but safe friends in my books;
friends you leave at your convenience and return to at
your pleasure.

Do not think that I am unhappy or lonely; nor must
you think that while you have been moving along in
years, I have remained the same little girl whose doll
house you disturbed. I was seventeen last month; and
a girl of my age in the mountains is supposed to be
grown. I am more—a business woman; the bread winner
of the Litman family; and having outgrown “sang
digging,” for nearly a year have had the Big Creek
school.

Last June I obtained my teacher’s certificate; and in
doing so surrendered my great ambition, which was to
be an actress. You can judge what a creature of fancy I
am, when I tell you. I have never been inside a theatre. I
dreamed of a stage career and—landed in a school room.
The very first day of teaching I realized that it was the
next best thing. I had a wonderful audience and a stage
setting unique and clever. Teaching now seems a high-class
of play acting—just lots, anyway—and children are
such fun.

I should like for you to see my school room and know
the boys and girls. I would like for you to be associated
with certain other experiences of mine. I’d like—but
what’s the use? I feel as though, if or when I need you,
you will be my friend. In other words, I trust you.

[pg 28]
The glorious fun of being poor is that the little things
that come your way are greatly appreciated. Now Big
Creek is my Brook Cherith; and the school children are
the ravens during the stress of high prices incident to
the war. They not only bring bread and meat but a few
modest dresses and a few books and magazines. Should
the brook fail and the ravens receive other commands,
Granny and I can depend upon the unfailing jar of meal
and the cruse of oil for our daily bread; and should you
like to play the part of Elijah to the widow and the orphan,
you are welcome to your share. We will give you
a cup of water and make you a little cake.

I have even had a beau and a proposal of marriage
by a red-headed man from Red Bird. I answered: “I
have no idea of considering such a proposition for several
years as I expect first to graduate at the University
of Kentucky. When my Prince Charming comes wooing,
he may come with empty pockets but he must be able to
read and write.” The next day Sandy came to my
school, but I refused to take him in. He has since spread
the information that “Jeannette does not want ‘a feller’
but expects to remain a ‘school marm’”—and so I shall
until a real man comes along. Sandy Blair is as near the
“sweet evening breeze” kind as we have up here. I call
him my knight of the pink shirt and green store clothes.
He never misses a dance; and Solomon in all his glory
was never arrayed as he then is.

When the evening is warm and the moon full I often
spend an hour or two on Big Rock; and musing by night,
with the water and moon for company, I feel happy and
queer and both. Remembrance frequently retenders
that night of long ago; and I hear you speaking in a voice
no bigger than the heart of a whisper. The reason it is
[pg 29]
your voice is because you gave me my first doll and what
is a little girl’s life without a doll?

The night of October twenty-fourth, the night of the
day you were wounded, I was out on the rock a long
while; and never before had I heard your voice nor seen
you as distinctly as then. On that night you and I held
quite a conversation; and this may be the mystical explanation
why I was the one with you as you passed
through the valley of the shadow. Life on Big Creek
has taught me, that not alone to the Elijahs, to the
shepherds of the hills and to the Jean d’Arcs come
voices and visitation. All who will may hear.

I knew then that you were snared in the net of tragedy
and distress spread over most of the world by this
horrible war; which the honest men of every land condemn
and regret, as utterly useless and wish at an end.
They ask to live in peace and on good terms with everybody.
But honest men have nothing to do with making
war or dictating terms of peace. They are cannon fodder;
mere pawns in the game of nations, moved about
by one who sits in the sun and serves the devil.

Before the millennium, there must be a world wide
charity, to take the place of what we call patriotism;
which is either national selfishness or a make-shift
provincialism. There must be a development of the
national soul until man knows no nation; and in a
national sense loves his neighbor as himself. The first
step towards it is to understand that those calamities
that are destroying an enemy country do not halt at the
yellow map boundary that marks our own land.

When you escape from beneath the sombre shadow of
war, come to our mountains. Here we look at the peaceful
face of nature and enjoy the poetry of silence. We
are never very much alone, Granny and I. The soul in
[pg 30]
the radiance of its love creates friends and though we
are isolated from the world we are rich in love and happiness.

Bear your sufferings and loneliness as best you may,
until your ship comes home. Know that to suffer is the
dowry of God’s elect and when all else is lost you still
have Him. I know He cares for the birds; and “are ye
not much better than they?” You know why and when
the birds sing?—because they are building or have a
nest. May you soon recover, find peace and love; and
some day your nook-nest lined with soft down, awaiting
treasures God will send.

I have tried to put a few thoughts into words. There
is enough of the seed of thought in my mind and it germinates—but
alas, it dies before I can put it into words.
My treasures come forth, half smothered by the burden
of the flesh. I hope you may understand what I have
tried to tell you.

I am, and ever shall be, your friend,

   |   Jeannette.

-----

Jeannette counted upon receiving an answer to her
letter about the first of March. She waited patiently
until the seventh, then there was a great rain and the
creek was so swollen they had no mail until the tenth;
and even then, among the letters and papers that came,
there was no letter from Italy.

She reasoned: he is well and fighting again; he has
not gotten my letter; the censor held it because of my
comments upon the war.

-----

Lieutenant Allen was in the hospital at Verona until
the twentieth of April, 1918, when he was discharged as
an incurable, his lungs having been horribly lacerated
by a soft-nosed bullet.

[pg 31]
When discharged from the hospital he was taken to
Genoa and there placed aboard ship and sent to Liverpool;
and on a returning transport which had brought
over fifteen hundred Canadians, he and forty-seven
other helpless, war-wrecked men, were returned to Montreal,
Canada, the city where they had enlisted.

On Sunday, the twenty-sixth of May, he arrived in
Lexington and to keep from frightening his mother, by
a mighty effort managed to walk from a taxicab to his
father’s door and into the house; when he had a severe
coughing spell which prostrated him. His father and
the servants carried him to his own room; while his
mother lay unconscious on a lounge where they had
placed her.

A little space was given to his return, his war record
and present precarious condition in the Lexington and
Louisville papers. A few of his old friends called and
not being able to see him, left cards and sent flowers.
Some of the men he had known were on their way to
Europe, some already in France and one of his friends,
Lieutenant Gardner, had been killed. The attention of
the public was on those over there or leaving—not upon
the wounded and disabled who were being returned.

For several weeks he seemed to improve, as the
weather was pleasant and he had the most careful nursing.
But one night he had a severe hemorrhage and
after it was checked his doctor informed his parents that
there was no chance for his recovery. He did not suffer
greatly, but grew slowly weaker until he knew the
end was near.

The postman, several days before his death, brought
Jeannette’s letter. It was marked with many addresses;
and by the censor “To be held.” Then later stamped,
[pg 32]
“Passed by base censor No. ——. Verificato per censura.”

The letter, which he read several times, first brought
a few big tears; then he seemed to gather resignation;
then happiness from it.

-----

Early in June, the month of brides and roses, Jeannette
received a letter from Mrs. Allen:

“Dear Jeannette:

“John, my boy, died last Sunday, with your letter in
his hand and it was buried with him. He requested that
his books be sent to you, and they will be forwarded tomorrow.

“As soon as you can get away from your school and
leave your grandmother, if she will not come too,
come and see me. I must have some one to talk with
about John; some one whom he knew and loved. When
I try it with his father, he rushes from the room. John
was an only child—now I am childless.

“He claimed to have seen you before he died, saying:
‘Mother, I have just seen Jeannette; she is very beautiful.’
Then he described you. I believe he really saw;
and if his description fits, you can help me now. You
were sitting on the Big Rock by the creek. It was the
night of the fourth of June. I can write no more.

   | “John’s mother,
   |   “Mary R. Allen.”

Jeannette had always felt that her life, which she
knew was a silent, empty and colorless one without, was
gloriously full and lit up within by a mystical treasure,
which in some way she had stumbled upon and appropriated.
She had soul companions who spoke to her
with voices she alone could hear; that told of things in
her own and other people’s lives, that she and they might
[pg 33]
know, if they would but listen. She had lived a soul life;
and it had a far-flung horizon.

When she received Mrs. Allen’s letter telling of the
death of her son, who had been her one friend around
whom her childlike super-idealism and innocence had
built a gorgeous bower, her heart was rent by its first
great shock. She felt that her God of providence and
love had cast her from heaven into a place of utter darkness
where she had been caught by the net of fate and
was now being dragged through all the sorrows and tragedies
of life. Her voices were gone; she hated the silence
about her; the mountain seemed dark and dangerous;
the sun seemed harsh and cold; the grass but to
cover graves; and the trees but mourners for the departed.
He is gone! God has deserted me! She had
yet to learn that the voices would return; that other
friends would come; that life is neither tragic nor sad,
though it has its hours of sadness and tragedy; and that
sorrows make for themselves deep beds in our hearts
wherein they sleep until life draws near its end and more
than half of all our soul loves has passed to the other
side.

All of Thursday night she sat in Granny’s great rocking
chair, and when day came, while her joys seemed
gone forever, her grief had been dulled. She found a
dulling consolation in working about the house and in
looking after the creatures of the barnyard. In the
afternoon her head ached so, she laid down; and sleep
came and comforted her.

Friday night after her grandmother was in bed and
asleep, she went out upon Big Rock and in the quiet of
the night listened for her voices, but they would not
come. For more than an hour she cried, her frame shaking
with sobs and low, gasping moans. Then she was
[pg 34]
still a long time—thinking of what life had been, what it
now was, and hereafter would be to her broken soul.
Gradually she drew out from under the shadow of her
sorrow, until instead of being overwhelmed by it, it was
a sorrow which her soul possessed. She began to think
that the wound might some day close but she knew her
heart would always bear the scar and her days
never again be quite so bright. She found that although
she was still unhappy she was consoled, and thanked God
that she had this man’s friendship, perhaps his love; and
began to look upon death as a very simple affair; the
soul shedding the shackles of flesh.

She slept. In her dreams the voices came back; and
her sorrows were cast off as one does a cloak, serviceable
in a shower, but when the sun comes out an uncomfortable
burden. Past midnight she awoke, stiff and sore from
her hard bed, and went to the house.

Sunday afternoon, she wrote Mrs. Allen:

“About four years ago, your son on his way to Hyden,
asked for and found shelter for the night at our home.
Ten days later he sent us a few little things; among them
my first real dolls. I have never seen him since except
as fancy pictured nor heard his voice as a materialist
may hear, though many times it seemed he spoke to me
in a way I cannot explain. I have four letters; they are
the four treasures of my life.

“His death is my greatest loss; and through life I
shall carry a scar from the wound. But what I suffer is
not worth mentioning when compared with the grief his
mother must feel. She who gave him life; who felt his
little chubby, helpless hands moving about over her
breasts seeking his food; who taught him to stand alone;
to walk; to lisp his first words; who tried to teach him
first to say father, but nature and his own heart put the
[pg 35]
name of mother in his mind and in his mouth. Then you
taught him to say his prayers; and those prayers have
been answered. He prayed: ‘Thy kingdom come,’—and
it has come for him; while you and I weep, refusing to
be comforted; until we learn that those we love must pass
to the other side, in order that His kingdom may come
for us, and we escape death for ourselves and lose the
fear of death for our dear ones.

“It is thus we find happiness in our anguish; and love
for God while we suffer from the raw realities of life;
knowing he has found us worthy of both love and unhappiness.

“How I shall love his books when they come. I hope
he has marked the passages which pleased him and noted
some of his own thoughts upon their margins.

“I shall come to you. Just now it is impossible. My
school is not out until July; and teaching to me is more
than bread; it is an implacable duty. Granny is very
feeble; her condition may also delay my coming. I have
been planning for a year to take a teacher’s course at
the State University. If this hope is realized, Lexington
will be my home for some time; and if you wish it, I will
come many times to talk with you about your son.

   | “With love and sympathy,
   |   “Jeannette.”

The following week one of the freight wagons hauling
goods from the railroad to Hyden stopped at the house
and unloaded four heavy packing cases. They contained
nearly five hundred books; which had been shipped, still
in the sections of the mahogany sectional book cases; and
just as John had arranged them. She had two of her
school boys unpack and set up the cases in her room.

These, with the books she had accumulated, and those
which her father’s grandfather had brought overland
[pg 36]
from Virginia, gave to her simple bed room much the
appearance of a library.

On Sunday the 18th of August, Jeannette’s grandmother,
the last of her blood kin, died, and was buried on
the mountain side, where were the white, picketed graves
of her father, mother and grandfather and the unpicketed,
almost unmarked, sunken-in graves of those of the Litmans
she did not know, who had gone before her day.

The day after the funeral she rented the place to
Simeon Blair but as his family was small, they had only a
child, a girl of seven, there was room for Jeannette; so
she kept her room and paid four dollars a week board.
The Blairs bought her cows and chickens, but refused the
mule as a gift; so she paid Simeon five dollars a month
for looking after old Silas.

On the fifth of September she left Big Creek for Lexington,
Kentucky; and upon her arrival on the seventh,
went directly to the room she had reserved at the University
dormitory; and on the tenth matriculated as a
junior.

The eighth, she spent in most careful shopping. Sunday,
the ninth, she attended services at the First Presbyterian
Church and heard her first pipe organ. As she
walked back to the dormitory she drew comparisons between
her new clothes and those of the girls she passed.
While satisfied with her modest blue suit and her shoes
and stockings, she concluded her hat had too great variety
and quantity of coloring and on Monday, as soon as they
were dismissed, exchanged it; having first informed the
milliner that she had worn it to church. The milliner
replied: “That’s nothing, many of my customers have
hats sent on approval and wear them to church, returning
them on Monday.”

[pg 37]
After exchanging her hat she called upon Mrs. Allen.
The Allen home, an old red brick house with massive
colonial pillars, a slate roof, thick walls and large rooms
with high ceilings, was more than sixty years old; and
Judge Allen, who was fifty-five, had been born in it.
Several of the rooms had open fire places. It had first
been heated in that way; then with grates and a large
anthracite stove; then a furnace had been installed. Recently
it had been remodeled and fitted with steam heating
and the most modern electrical appliances. These things
were now demanded by the servants, who refused service
in houses not having them.

The Judge would not permit the open fire place of the
library to be removed. They used this as a sitting and
informal reception room and an open fire was kept burning
from October to May. One of his clients who had
an extensive woodland on Elkhorn, furnished the oak
and hickory logs. It was in this room that Mrs. Allen
received Jeannette.

Mrs. Allen was about fifty years of age, with beautiful,
wavy, white hair. She and Jeannette were of the same
weight, one hundred and thirty pounds, though Jeannette
was more than an inch taller. Both had the general
appearance of women who trace their lineage from English
ancestry, through the cavalier stock of Colonial
Virginia; brunettes, of clear cut feature and slender,
graceful bodies; eyes either gray or brown—Mrs. Allen’s
were brown, Jeannette’s were gray.

When shown into the library, she took a seat in a great
chair in an alcove which commanded a view of the street,
and while waiting sat thinking how many times John
might have sat in that place and perhaps in that very
chair. Mrs. Allen came to the door, where she stood looking
at Jeannette a moment or two, until she turned her
[pg 38]
head and saw her; then she stepped forward and took
Jeannette’s hands and stood looking her in the face.

“You are just as John said you looked; a serene and
beautiful face; eyes that make even an old mule trust
you.” Then she put her arms about her and kissed her;
and led her back to the chair in which she had been
sitting.

“Mrs. Allen, I believe I would have known you anywhere.
John had your nose and eyes and the same general
expression. I am glad I look as John said I did. If
you had shown surprise at my appearance I would have
been disappointed.”

“I do not understand how John could have described
you so accurately. I could have picked you out among
the hundreds of girls in the University. There are many
things we will never be able to understand.”

Mrs. Allen did most of the talking; telling Jeannette
all about John from the first hour she held him in her
arms, until he died with her arms about him. They shed
no tears, feeling that he was with them and wished they
should be happy when together.

When Jeannette rose to go Mrs. Allen said: “No!
You must remain for dinner. My husband will be home
soon and he is anxious to see you. Only the other night
he said: ‘I am sorry John did not marry Jeannette before
he died. She would be here as our daughter and we would
have something to live for. It would be nice to have the
young people coming to our home again; and we could
find a good husband for her; such as our boy would have
made. When she comes do not let her go until I see
her’.”

Jeannette sat down again.

A little later they heard a step in the hall; the door
was opened and a man stood in the doorway. Just such
[pg 39]
a looking person as John would have been at his age, only
slightly larger.

“Mary you need not introduce us. It is Jeannette.
We are glad to have you in our home; would be glad to
have you make it your own.” He came forward as she
arose and took her hand; and as he held it looking into
her face his eyes slowly filled with tears.

From then until after dinner, which was almost immediately
announced, the conversation was general. When
they returned to the library Jeannette had to relate her
past life in detail and disclose all her plans for the future.
When they finally let her go it was late, and though she
told them she did not mind walking home alone, they
accompanied her to the dormitory.

Upon their insistent invitation she gave up her room
at the dormitory and came to live with them at the beginning
of the mid-winter term; remaining a welcome guest
until the close of the school year in June, 1919, when she
returned to Big Creek.

Mrs. Allen wrote repeatedly, addressing her as daughter;
and in each letter insisted that she must return to
Lexington and live with them as such. She also received
a letter from Judge Allen in which he stated: “Mary
and I desire formally to adopt you as our daughter.”
She answered: “You and Mrs. Allen have taken from
life much of its loneliness and filled it with more happiness
and love that I expected to be mine. When I return,
if you still wish it, I will live at your home as a daughter
during my remaining school year; and though I must
leave you then, will always give you a daughter’s love.
I cannot consent to a formal adoption, which necessitates
a change of name. I owe it to my parents to bear the
name they gave me until I am married. Had your son
[pg 40]
lived, I have indulged the dream-like joy, that at his
suggestion it would have been changed to your own.”

She telegraphed when she took the train for Lexington.
They drove to Winchester where they met her and
taking her into their car brought her home with them.
She was given John’s room which was large and cheerful
and was delighted with it.

Mrs. Allen made the young people of her set welcome
at her home; and it was not long before all the time that
Jeannette could spare from her studies was given to
entertaining her friends and being entertained by them.
Late in November she gave Jeannette a formal party;
and it was reported in the Lexington and Louisville
papers as a brilliant affair. From then on, the old home,
which had been closed to social gayety so long witnessed
many entertainments; the first being a Christmas house-party
of Jeannette’s school friends.

She graduated with class honors the following June.
Judge Allen, in order to keep her with them, used his
influence to secure a position for her as a substitute
teacher in the university; and it was tendered, though she
was not yet nineteen. She declined, saying: “I am too
young and inexperienced for so responsible a position.
They can easily find some one better fitted for the work;
I must return to Big Creek to my own people; they need
me.”

She took leave of Judge and Mrs. Allen, who were as
a father and mother; gave up a luxurious home, agreeable
society, the association with educated people; refused
a position of some honor, with a salary of fifteen hundred
dollars a year; and returned to Big Creek; where the
only human ties were the hill-side graves; where she had
no personal friends, only the old mule, the birds, her
mountain, the creek, Big Rock and her books.

[pg 41]
At a salary of fifty dollars a month she resumed
teaching the Big Creek school. There were thirty-three,
boys and girls of all sizes; she had to mother some, to
whip others, to use diplomacy with those too big to whip;
she had to teach them manners and religion; the girls to
sew and read and write; the boys to respect their mothers
and their sisters; to leave moonshine alone; to quit swearing
and “chawing” tobacco; to inject ambition into them—make
them understand that the “big man” was not he
who could drink the most moonshine and spit the furthest.
It required no study on her part to teach them;
that is the book part, as they were intelligent. The mental
strain was to manage them, to improve their manners
and morals, in the face of adverse home influence in many
instances—this required much patience; and once when
very severely tried, she murmured: “What would Job
have done today?”

The Blairs still occupied her house; and she boarded
with them, walking two miles to the school house, except
when the creek was up when she rode the old mule. Her
world had suddenly narrowed to the two miles of creek
valley; her companions were the Blairs, the children and
her books; life had grown lonely and serious. She still
heard voices, but they were sad; what they told she wrote
into story and verse. These stories and verses she mailed
to the editors of the magazines she read. They were all
returned with printed declarations: “The editor regrets
that the enclosed manuscript is not available for publication,
etc., etc.”

She would then read the verse and stories published
by the periodicals which had rejected her productions;
and being satisfied that hers were equal in thought and
literary merit, despite the rejections, persevered in her
[pg 42]
attempts, accumulating quite a collection of rejected manuscripts.

Last week’s mail had brought back two poems, which
scanned perfectly and which she thought quite satisfactory.
She had called them—“A Questionnaire,” and
“Other Little Boats.” At the foot of the printed
rejection slip the reader had scribbled in an almost illegible
hand: “Why not select a more cheerful subject and
adopt a jazzier style—we of today would reject Milton’s
Paradise Lost. M. A.” Bearing this criticism in mind,
she wrote and forwarded “A Genealogy” and it was
accepted.

These three poems are reproduced in order that the
reader may himself judge of their merit; and because to
a certain extent they convey an idea of Jeannette’s
mental state at the time.


A Questionnaire.
----------------

   |     I.
   |
   | Why was not room made for thy mother in the inn?
   | Why wert thou manger-cradled, Lord? Could not heirship
   | From Israel’s greatest king procure for her
   | Who bore thee, more than a pallet of straw in a stall;
   | And for thee a cradle of fine linen and soft down?
   | Why did not an angel whisper: “Blest inn-keeper,
   | Give thy best, this is Christ, Son of the Living Lord?
   | Is the world to know only its own? Thankless man,
   | Never to practice thy teaching; or see thy star?
   | Is he waiting for signs and wonders; believing
   | Battalions of angels will compel him to worship?
   | Thy birth-night, did not the heavens declare thy glory?
   | Did not an angel choir sing thy cradle hymn?
   | Yet to man thou remainest the carpenter’s son;
   | Though the wise of earth waited—and prophets foretold;
   | Lauding Bethlehem of Judah as thy birthplace.
   | [pg 43]
   |   “And thou Bethlehem, Land of Judah,
   |   Art in no wise least among the princes of Judah,
   |   For out of thee shall come forth a ruler,
   |   Who shall be shepherd of thy people Israel.”
   |
   |     II.
   |
   | Are only common people, pawns of life, shepherds,
   | Who abide in the fields and keep watch day and night,
   | To see thy angel herald and hear his evangel:
   | “Behold I bring to you good tiding of great joy,
   | For unto you is born a saviour—Jesus the Lord?”
   | Do only dreamy shepherds like the Maid of France,
   | See and hear thy choir as it sings: “Glory to God,
   | Exalted One—on earth peace, good will towards men?”
   | Do only the old and feeble, living in the past,
   | Or waiting for the consolation of Israel,
   | Like Simeon; cling to life until they see the Lord?
   | Do only the lonely Annas, eighty years widowed,
   | Know thy face because of their fasting and prayers?
   | When will we who delve for gold, lift our eyes skyward;
   | And seeing the star, worshipfully come and give;
   | Remembering thou didst come and give—as prophets sang:
   |   “And thou Bethlehem, Land of Judah,
   |   Art in no wise least among the princes of Judah,
   |   For out of thee shall come forth a ruler,
   |   Who shall be shepherd of thy people Israel.”
   |
   |     III.
   |
   | Is thy epiphany known only to wise men,
   | Living near the morning sun?—Those who saw thy star
   | And followed as it led, came to worship, saying:
   | “Israel, where is the One born king of the Jews?”
   | Are only those who are led by an angel or a star,
   | To know and worship thee? While we, though thou art here,
   | In our own town, to be our guest and bear our sins;
   | Refuse to take thee in; saying: “There is no room.”
   | Will but the few, the wise and great, coming a long way,
   | Find thee—having found, worship—having worshipped,
   | Give treasured gold, frankincense and myrrh; while we,
   | When thou knockest at the door of our dwelling,
   | [pg 44]
   | Tenanted by false gods, say: There is no room here;
   | We entertain more appropriate guests, old friends;
   | Go to the public khan; there you will find shelter,
   | A stall, a manger and a little straw—Yet the prophets sang:
   |   “And thou Bethlehem, Land of Judah,
   |   Art in no wise least among the princes of Judah,
   |   For out of thee shall come forth a ruler,
   |   Who shall be shepherd of thy people Israel.”
   |
   |     IV.
   |
   | As Herod the King, not loving thy appearing,
   | Shall we, when Magi tell us thou hast come, decree
   | A massacre of babes; and in blind and willful
   | Destruction, mark our mad way with the red blossoms
   | Of martyrdom; until Rama is a land of tears
   | And Rachel unconsoled weeps for her children?
   | Since it was not God’s will that the babe should perish,
   | The foster-father a dreamer, was angel-warned;
   | “Hearken! Arise! take the young child and his mother;
   | Flee to Egypt and remain until I bring word;
   | At Herod’s death return.” Thus the child escaped.
   | Not so the man, whose mission was death in my place.
   | Though he went about doing good, teaching and healing;
   | I followed to betray; and after his arrest,
   | Cried: “Give us Barabbas! Crucify him! Crucify!”
   | He died for his sheep, deserted, though prophets sang:
   |   “And thou Bethlehem, Land of Judah,
   |   Art in no wise least among the princes of Judah,
   |   For out of thee shall come forth a ruler,
   |   Who shall be shepherd of thy people Israel.”




Other Little Boats.
-------------------


.. epigraph::

   |     I.
   |
   | For His chosen of the land of Canaan, God made six seas;
   | But low-lying Galilee, skirted by oleander trees,
   | Resting in the bosom—reflecting the emerald hills
   | Of Gennesareth, Valley of Abundance, was God’s gift
   | To His son; the place to begin his ministry to men.
   | [pg 45]
   |
   |     II.
   |
   | Capernaum, on the western shore, where loved to rest
   | Desert-dried camel drivers, traveling to Damascus;
   | Was to the Messiah, nearest home, the place loved best.
   | These homeless wanderers, by sweet visions were elated,
   | Charmed by music of the sea, God had consecrated.
   |
   |     III.
   |
   | The fisher boats of Bethsaida, manned by forceful men,
   | Pinnaces of Herod, patrols of the Roman nation,
   | Glided over the limpid sea, or rode at their station;
   | While near the vine-clad villas, moored to wave-kissed wall,
   | Cushioned craft rocked sleepily, waiting twilight’s call.
   |
   |     IV.
   |
   | To Capernaum, one day, came a man whose face was sad;
   | They should have cried Hosanna! but her people were not glad.
   | A few thrilled with gladness and asked: Who might be he?
   | Wise blind, among them, answered: “Why, a carpenter, he;”
   | And their evil spirits trembled, while gladness lit the sea.
   |
   |     V.
   |
   | With eyes of gladness, He beheld shepherds guarding the flocks;
   | Husbandmen hedging tender vines about with walls of rocks;
   | And workmen toiling mightily to harvest the ripe grain.
   | With eyes of sadness, He saw man, whom God had made master,
   | Unprotected; straying, shepherdless, courting disaster.
   |
   |     VI.
   |
   | The father whispered: “The hour is here, shepherd my sheep;
   | The wage for atonement.” So He gave the call: “Do not weep;
   | I come to offer the bread of life to the hungry soul;
   | To open the eyes of the blind; to make the broken whole.”
   | Did his own receive Him? They crowded Him into a boat.
   |
   |     VII.
   |
   | From this floating altar, He spoke to them of the sower:
   | “Behold, there went out a sower to sow; it came to pass;”
   | And other parables; until twilight, dispersed the mass.
   | Then His message delivered and the day’s work done at last,
   | Said to His disciples: “Let us pass to the other side.”
   | [pg 46]
   |
   |     VIII.
   |
   | Following after, “there were with Him other little boats;”
   | Bearing those minded to receive him, having heard His call.
   | The Master slept, cradled on the bosom of His own sea.
   | His deep serenity was not troubled. Why should it be?
   | He had spent the day healing; and tendering life to all.
   |
   |     IX.
   |
   | Mid-way a storm arose and whipped the sea to anger.
   | His disciples watching the wild, wind-lashed waves pile high,
   | Were frightened. Thinking the boat sinking, began to cry:
   | “Master, carest thou not that we perish? The boat will fill!”
   | And he arose, rebuked the wind, saying: “Peace be still.”
   |
   |     X.
   |
   | They wondered at the calm. The wind knew the voice of God.
   | They had not said: “O Master! save the other little boats!
   | The men following us are in distress! We are with Thee.
   | There is no one with them who can still tempest and sea!”
   | And the Master wept, knowing His own received Him not.


A Genealogy.
------------

   | Fancy, fairest of the fairies,
   | Wedded Light, first of creation.
   | Unto them was born a daughter,
   | Hope, most graceful of earth’s creatures.
   | Vision, traveling from earth to heaven,
   | Saw her flitting in high places;
   | Charmed by her face and figure,
   | Boldly made her his prisoner.
   | When he found all dreams were of her,
   | And his thoughts clung close about her,
   | Fearful now that he might lose her,
   | To increase the ties that bound her,
   | Gave her Love and thus he held her.
   | Thus was born earth’s fairest daughter;
   | Eldest child, and the most tender;
   | Who brought with her of God’s treasure,
   | Service in unending measure.
   | This was given unto Adam,
   | [pg 47]
   | As he slept in peaceful Eden.
   | To them came a second daughter,
   | Of mystic, immobile figure,
   | Who never strayed from her way,
   | Nor wavered in her purpose.
   | ’Twas Faith, invisible virgin;
   | Pure priestess of Immortality.
   | The incense from her altar fires,
   | Bears man’s prayers to infinity.
   | Next unto them was born Reason,
   | Skeptical chemist, who would test.
   | All pearls in mind’s muddy acid;
   | And if found unsoluble bury them,
   | Wrapped in the shroud of denial.
   | Reason wandering in the dark,
   | Met Caution, a sombre maiden;
   | To them was given a son, Doubt;
   | Dark visaged and night loving;
   | Shadow to himself and others;
   | Blind leader of the nearly blind.
   | Hope saddened by a first shadow,
   | Sought relief in fair Tomorrow,
   | Land of Sunshine, Realm of Gladness;
   | And there found Truth, dwelling sublime,
   | In isolation, on a mountain.
   | “Come unto man’s world, brightest jewel;
   | Cure earth’s sadness, dispel darkness;
   | Bring light to Vision, end Doubt’s mission,
   | Demonstrate Reason, cure sick Faith.”
   | Truth, unarrayed, unafraid, came;
   | First beseeching from Infinity
   | A kindly monitor for man.
   | “Give to man’s soul to know the right.”
   | “Thou goest, and thou art the right.”
   | “But Darkness, Doubt and Reason,
   | Hedge him about. What shall be done,
   | To keep his soul from strangulation?”
   | “I have given Vision, Hope and Faith;
   | And Truth when found will make him free.”
   | “He needs more; Darkness and the Devil,
   | Have entered thy fair garden.”
   | “Take then, and bear to him, O Truth,
   | The flame-like, still, small voice, Conscience.”

[pg 48]
The first month Jeannette resumed teaching was the
stormiest; the children tried her out; she came through
victorious, her supremacy established. By the end of
the third month all the children loved her; and then things
ran along so smoothly that she described her life to Mrs.
Allen as: “so contemplative and uneventful as to make
the social dissipations you promise an inducement; a
year’s shopping, of clothing, stationery, a typewriter and
books, makes the visit almost necessary; and then I shall
see you and Judge Allen, that makes it most attractive.”

During the year her school had slowly grown until it
ranked as the best country school in the county. The
children had been transformed in appearance and disposition,
until the neighborhood noticed the change, and
people would say, “there goes one of Jeannette’s children.”

In the spring of 1922 one of the young men who had
graduated in Jeannette’s class came to Hyden. He made
inquiry and found out that she was earning fifty dollars
a month teaching a small school on Big Creek. He then
called upon the county superintendent and the county
judge and informed them that a year or so before she
had refused a position in the State University that paid
more than three times the salary she was receiving; giving
as the reason, that her duty was to her own people.

This information, with the trimmings that gossip
added, made Jeannette a heroine locally. It was suggested
that they should elect her county school superintendent;
but the man who wanted the office called their
attention to the fact that the statute declared the incumbent
must be twenty-four years of age. Then she was
suggested as a candidate for several other county offices
by the local newspaper, “The Thousand Sticks;” but
when interviewed, declined with thanks.

[pg 49]
Then at a meeting of the school board she was elected
principal of the Hyden public school. When the place
was tendered she asked until August first, to answer;
and the board agreed to keep the place open for her.

Jeannette’s school in 1922 closed on the twenty-third
of June. She was in the habit of visiting the Allens each
year at the beginning of her vacation, but Mrs. Allen’s
health being poor they had gone to the sea shore for a
couple of months and did not expect to return until the
last of July. They had written asking her to join them,
but this she declined to do, saying: “I will defer my
visit until you return, probably coming to Lexington the
middle of August, unless I can be of real service by
helping you.”

About the first of July, Simeon Blair informed her
that his cousin Sandy Blair was coming to spend a few
days with him. There was plenty of room as she had
built a wing of two rooms, which she occupied as a study
and bed room.

Although she had never liked Sandy, she could not
object. She looked upon his visit as of little importance;
though she was sufficiently interested to inquire as to
what he had been doing since he had joined the army in
1917. Simeon replied: “Sandy was in Germany three
years. He came back last January and was sent to
Mexico. I asked him but he did not say what he was
doing, except that he had quit the army. I guess he has
been dancing and frolicing around with them Mexican
senorinas. You know how he loves to dance and fiddle.
He’s a big fellow. He hasn’t been working much. There
are no corns on his hands; they are almost as soft as
yours, Miss Jeannette. I saw him yesterday at the mouth
of Big Creek. He don’t gab as much as he used to.”

[pg 50]
When Mrs. Blair blew the horn for supper, Jeannette
came in from the Big Rock, where she had been reading.
The others were already at the table; and as she entered
the room, a tall, broad shouldered, red headed man,
dressed in blue overalls, a hickory shirt and laced army
boots rose up and came forward to meet her. She saw it
was Sandy and was surprised that he rose to greet her
and did not resume his seat until she was first seated.
He also called her Miss Litman, instead of Jeannette, as
he had always done.

She watched him during the meal. He had little to
say; did not eat with his knife or drink his coffee from
the saucer as he used to do. All his clothing except his
boots appeared to be new. After watching a while, she
thought: “the same old Sandy; nothing worries him; he
has a pleasant, intelligent face and he certainly is good
looking; but his hands are too white and soft for a working
man’s. I guess he will marry some poor woman who
will work herself to death supporting his family, while
he fiddles and dances through life.”

After supper, Simeon asked him to play. She noticed
that his violin was of German make and evidently a fine
instrument. He played “Turkey in the Straw,” “The
Arkansaw Traveler” and such other local dance music
as had been played when her granny was a girl. He did
it so well that she was satisfied with training he would
make an accomplished musician.

She got out her own violin, an inferior instrument,
with the idea of giving him a lesson; first showing him
how to hold the bow properly. For some cause he could
not get his fingers just right until she placed them. Then
they played together. He made many mistakes; but her
teaching had made her very patient. They sat up until
eleven o’clock, which was a late hour for that household,
[pg 51]
because they arose at daylight, about four o’clock at that
season; when Jeannette said: “I must go to bed; you
have had enough instruction for one lesson.”

“But, Miss Litman, play just one piece for me as it
should be played.”

She got out her most difficult music and by lamplight
played it for him. He seemed enchanted.

“Please just show me how that last part goes.”

She did so, saying: “Now you try.”

He played well, though he made many mistakes. As
she rose to leave, the clock having struck twelve, he
played a few short connected bars, the part she had found
difficult, so divinely, that she said: “Do that again. You
seem gifted of the gods; they have let you stumble
into the perfect way.”

He tried; but the way was as strangely closed as it
had been opened.

“Oh! it is half past twelve! Good night, Sandy.”

She went to bed; and dreamed of choirs invisible.
Sandy walked up the creek until he was beyond hearing
at the house; then he played “Angel Voices” as it
should have been played. He came to the house, slept
and dreamed; not of angel choirs, but of graceful wood
nymphs; and their queen’s name was Jeannette.

The following evening, Sandy got out his fiddle, saying:
“This hayr fiddle is shore a fine box;” and he
played Turkey in the Straw, improvising variations that
put life into their feet and made them think dancing was
close akin to worship.

“Miss Litman, will you give me another lesson?”

She declined; thinking it might lead to a misunderstanding.
He might think that she desired his company;
and she only liked educated men.

-----

[pg 52]
Sandy Blair, on December 15, 1917, left Red Bird
for Louisville and on the 18th enlisted in the regular
army. He was sent to Camp Taylor; and when fitted out
by the supply sergeant, insisted that he must have a fit.
He pursued the policy of the importunate widow so persistently
that when he came forth his well developed
chest, broad shoulders and lean muscular legs were so
fittingly encased as to make him the most conspicuous
of the four hundred and sixty “rookies” who that day had
been received and outfitted.

He represented that he had been sergeant in a company
of the state guards for more than two years and in
order to substantiate the declaration paid his corporal
to induct him to the manual of arms and follow up the
introduction by several strenuous drills; in the meanwhile
finding an excuse for evading the first drill or two
to which his raw company was subjected; though he stood
to one side watching and listening carefully.

He paid the corporal two dollars to drill him all
Sunday afternoon; and when he suggested that he would
be too stiff and sore to drill the following morning,
answered: “Not on your tin type. I may have a rookie
head but my legs are veterans. Don’t think these few
pranks will worry these hayr arms and legs; I have put
in the last five winters swinging big fat gals. And I’ve
got a back like a pack mule, made to tote things on; but
it’s never been broke to a pack saddle and never will be.”

On Monday he took his place with his company and
went through the drill with the snap and precision of a
veteran. As intended, he caught the eye of the captain;
and when he was told to step forward, saluted him like
a general; and stood at attention.

“Well, my man, what experience have you had?”

[pg 53]
“Two years as drill sergeant, Company C, ————
Regiment of the Kentucky State Guards.”

“What is your name?”

“William L. Blair, though most people call me Sergeant
Sandy Blair.”

“Return to the ranks.” (This order came near getting
him—but as the captain turned away, he resumed his
place in line.)

The captain looked his way and wrote something in
a note book.

A few days later the company was reorganized and he
was made a junior drill sergeant, the superior of the
corporal who had drilled him.

The corporal considered the story too good to keep.
It reached the ears of the captain and he told it to the
Colonel, threatening to send Blair to the guard house.
But the Colonel said: “No, send him to me.”

Blair presented himself; and after a most deferential
salutation, stood at attention. The Colonel leisurely
looked him over. While Blair guessed the cause of the
summons, he never shifted his eyes from a spot about an
inch above the Colonel’s head. He stood as a marble
statue, and without the least change of expression;
though he heard the Colonel laugh and a moment later
snappily say:

“Sergeant Blair, where are you from?”

“Red Bird, Clay County, Kentucky.”

“So you are an accomplished drill sergeant?”

“Have me shot as a liar, if my legs are not veterans.”

“Are you a good marksman?”

“The best in America.”

“Go at once to the rifle range. I’ll be over shortly.
We will see if you are as good a marksman as drill
sergeant.”

[pg 54]
At the rifle range he found about twenty-five other
soldiers who had been selected for a test of marksmanship.
As the colonel and his captain had not yet arrived,
he stepped up and from a dozen rifles chose one and
examining it carefully appeared satisfied and laid it to
one side. When the officers came up the men were
informed that each was to fire five rounds at the three
hundred yard target.

The Colonel turning to Blair, said: “Blair, you begin
the test, as your nerve might be shattered by the strain
of delay.”

From the time Blair could hold a rifle out and reach
the trigger he had scarcely laid one aside, except to
attend a dance, eat and sleep. His first shot missed the
bull’s eye about an inch, the second was on the edge and
all the others went square into it. He made a better
score than any of his competitors. The next day he was
promoted to sergeant major and made instructor on the
rifle range.

On the sixth of March, 1918, his company sailed for
France. In May they were doing service in the front
line trenches.

After the armistice was signed, Lieutenant Blair was
sent to Coblenz, Germany, where he remained until January,
1922, when he was ordered home, returning on the
transport Crook. He came back as Captain Blair, of
———— Infantry. During the more than three years
he was in Germany, he gave all of his leisure time to study
and music; and when he left, spoke German and French
fluently and played the violin like an inspired professional.

Upon arrival in New York he retired from the army;
and with the recommendations given him by his general,
his former colonel and the captain who wanted to send
[pg 55]
him to the guard house, who was now a major, asked and
was given a position in the general offices of the Standard
Oil Company. When it was discovered that he spoke
German and French fluently, had considerable executive
ability, particularly in handling red-blooded men; he was
sent as an agent to Tampico, Mexico, to see what he could
do towards straightening out the rows between the Mexican
and American employees. In June he was ordered to
return to New York to make a detailed report and for
instructions. The officers were so well satisfied with his
report and what he had accomplished that he was tendered
a responsible position in Mexico at a salary of
$300.00 per month, American money. He accepted; and
before returning, asked and was granted a month’s leave,
to visit his old home on Red Bird; where he had not been
since December, 1917.

-----

It was late afternoon. Up the valley where the
shadow of the mountain rested, the night creatures were
waking up and had begun their chorus, which would
grow in volume as the shadow deepened. Jeannette, who
had been reading under the shade of a great vine, which
formed a natural bower in which she had placed a rude
table and chair, came out upon Big Rock, where the light
was stronger. She did not reopen her book, but sat meditating—how
the memory of John Allen, which had clung
to and filled her mind and life for so long, seemed slowly
becoming a memory. She had never loved the real John
Allen, but a spiritual personality; a creation of her own
fancy, which she had placed in the body of John Allen as
she had remembered him, and made this creation a living
soul; and the combination a standard by which she
gauged all men.

[pg 56]
She recalled, how five years before she had rejected
Sandy Blair, feeling his wooing an insult. Had done it
because—he was ignorant—was shiftless—no, but because
she measured him by the Allen standard; and since, looking
for her Allen, had discouraged every man who had
attempted to make love to her.

And Sandy Blair—he had again come into her life.
Strange, that now whenever she thought of John, she
should think of Sandy. “My books, the creatures of
this quiet nook, the trees, the creek, the mountains, God’s
altar for my prayers, these are my companions. John
is my thought love, with whom I enjoy a mystic union
that will last through life—as long as I am faithful.
These are my interests, my life, other than teaching, and
form and fill it and keep it free from what might otherwise
have made it a weary materialism. These have
transformed my very common, every-day life, raised me
above a dark loneliness to contentment and at rare intervals
into the company of the stars. Yet now the change
threatens, I do not understand, I seem to feel a slow suffocation
of the soul threatening me. Can it mean that—must
I find some one to love? Must I quit weaving the
web of my life with that of a mystical love?”

She was just beginning to realize that while her mind
spun with this fantastic thread of life, another part of her
being, the flesh, demanded other company, and held
another distaff and spun quite another thread. She had
yet to learn that a perfect love gives not only the mind
but the body. That without the giving of both, love ends
in darkness; and that to find happiness the two threads
must be entwined and followed into the light.

She did not comprehend why now, when she saw
John’s face, which had always been so distinct, it seemed
gradually to fade and merge into Sandy’s. Sandy as he
[pg 57]
looked, when several nights before he had sat and played
to her. She was vexed with herself—but even more with
Sandy.

Young lady; you are about to have that experience
which has come to every woman since Eve. God’s plan
is breaking from its chrysalis before you. The slowly
fading spirit of John is entering the lists in conflict with
Sandy’s materialism; it is the conflict of the intangible
with the tangible, the memories of yesterday with the
hopes of tomorrow. You will act as second for one or
the other. Faithful in the start you may follow behind
the spirit; but if you follow the way of your sisters, and
they go the right way, you will end by wishing you were
second to the man who seeks to drive the wraith away.
Mayhap you may shift your allegiance early in the conflict—who
knows? You do not, nor do I. Take care!
Beware! Your long dream of John may end by kissing
Sandy.

“Nonsense.”

At this inopportune moment Sandy climbed upon the
rock, saying:

“This shore is a nice place, may I set down.”

“You are welcome to the seat Mr. Blair, but you must
excuse me, I was just going to the house.”

He sat down; his face as red as his hair; provoked at
Jeannette’s abrupt departure. But when he recalled
that she had called him Mr. Blair for the first time in his
life, he was consoled, believing that it evidenced progress
in his suit. He realized that he had made an impression
of some kind; and his experiences, which were not limited,
suggested that even an awakened animosity was
better than the indifference of the past years.

Jeannette felt ashamed for having run away. “Running
from Sandy Blair—sakes alive! Why did I do it?
[pg 58]
Have I grown timid? Am I afraid of Sandy Blair? I
suppose he’s laughing at me. Well, tonight I’ll give him
another lesson on the violin, just to show him, light-footed,
empty-headed young men of his class mean nothing
to me.”

Sandy rose from the supper table and after a yawn
remarked: “It’s too quiet around here for me; I think
I’ll go up to Hiram Lewis’.” He took his fiddle from
its case and tucking it under his arm, put on his hat and
stood for a moment in the doorway. Hiram Lewis was
their nearest neighbor and had two daughters of marriageable
age.

Jeannette who had read all the afternoon and really
desired to hear him play their mountain music, which he
did so capably, was disappointed. Without understanding
the cause, she felt embarrassed at the thought of asking
him to remain; and would not do so directly.

“If you are going you better put your violin in its
case. It’s going to rain.”

“My what?”

“O, your fiddle then; if it gets wet it will affect its
tone.”

“O! the sound it makes. If I stay will you teach me
to play that hard piece of yours?”

“That was my intention; but do not let me detain
you.”

“My intention—is that the name of the piece?”

“No, sit down Sandy, I’ll get my fiddle.”

Jeannette went to her room for the violin and music.
While there the thought occurred they had better use her
reading lamp instead of Mrs. Blair’s smoky, smelly, tin
one, which gave but a feeble flame; removing the green
shade, she substituted one of pink silk which was much
prettier and which transformed the light into a more becoming
[pg 59]
tint. Carrying it into the other room she placed
it on the small table near the door, and sat down beside
it, her face tinted by the shade. The Blair family were
on the porch, just beyond the doorway; and Sandy sat
on the door-step, almost at her feet; his bright red hair
and smiling, healthy face in the full glare of the light.

As he played she noted his mobile features, which
betrayed their owner’s feelings by sudden changes of
expression. She had always thought his face an agreeable
one; now first she noted its expressiveness and evidences
of character and determination; attributes, which
she had said he lacked.

Her musing was interrupted by the Blair family
coming in the door. They were in the habit of retiring
with the chickens; and their cousin’s playing was no reason
for a violation of the rule. After they were gone
Sandy seemed to play with even more perfect expression.
She marveled at the ease and certainty with which he
played his homely pieces. “He is quick and with a few
lessons would soon learn to play better than I can—perhaps
with training he might make one of the world’s
great musicians. I will teach him the notes, and how to
hold the bow. His habits are good; he neither chews nor
drinks, as most of our boys. I believe he would make a
good hus—; but he is uneducated.”

Just here Sandy looked up: “Listen! I worked this
out yesterday and call it ‘Voices Jeannette Hears.’”
He played something not much louder than a whisper,
a chorus of all the still small voices she had heard
about her home—the wind, the birds, the brooks,
the crickets, the spirits of the hills and dells; little prayers
of praise, little prattlings of joy and happiness—yes, and
of love. She felt so happy; and yet so very, very lonely,
for someone or something to love. A tear found its way
[pg 60]
down each cheek and two others nestled on her lashes,
loath to leave the fountains of their birth. When he
finished neither spoke. He did not look towards her, but
out into the darkness of the peaceful, starry night.

While thus they sat it seemed to Jeannette that something
with a touch light as a feather and lips soft as the
petals of a rose brushed her ear and a joyous little spirit
with a dulcet young voice, such as she had never heard
before, whispered: “Is he not handsome? Do you not
see how quick he is to learn? Teacher, teach him! you
can in a few months. How delightful to educate him;
mould his fresh, open, plastic mind; make of him not
alone a husband but a soul companion; which you could
not do were his soul awake to its full strength and vision.
Jeannette, it is springtime for you; be not a virgin of
steel; let your soul bud and flower, the blossom of life
is love, let it bear fruit. Would you die a spinster with
a drying heart, knowing only a spirit love, little better
than a dream? Cast off this sombre veil that you have
wound about your heart; open your eyes; do you not love
him? I have brought Sandy to you.”

She rose from her seat and in a voice not much louder
than the one she had been listening to, managed to say:
“Good night, Sandy,” and left the room.

He did not move, though he answered: “Good night,”
and as her door closed added: “O Life! O Life! I have
found the place of thy dwelling.”

He laid his violin upon the table and went out into
the night. The night was not dark, though there was no
moon. The stars were bright, they seemed to be holding
a carnival. The night was not cold; a midsummer breeze
stirred the trees; the leaves whispered of love and threw
kisses to the stars.

[pg 61]
Jeannette slept with a red rose on her pillow; and before
she slept looked out the window at the stars and
thought of many things.

-----

“Jeannette, have you any letters to mail, I am going
to the Big Creek postoffice?”

She gave him one addressed to the editors of ——,
which contained the manuscript of some verses—“The
Heart of Things”—the first of her published poems. She
offered the loan of the old mule, saying: “It’s more than
twelve miles; will you be back tonight?”

“Yes, I’m traveling light; twenty-four miles is a mere
stroll; and I shall return, much as I imagine the old mule
would, at a brisker gait, because I’m coming home.”

She said nothing more; being surprised by Sandy’s
speech, which had suddenly dropped the mountain idiom.

When night came she sat on the porch until after nine
o’clock, then she went to her room, fearful that if Sandy
should come and find her there he might misunderstand;
might think she had been waiting—but the idea, that’s
impossible. She tried to read, she had not read much
lately, she was not in the mood; blew out the lamp—and
just afterward the gate opened; and she heard him enter
the house and go to his room.

She spent most of the following day until late afternoon
in her bower under the great vine; then went for a
walk along the path which skirted the left bank of the
creek, the way of the foot-traveler, to avoid repeated
fordings, necessary if one followed the road.

Along the path were scattered scraps of letter paper
and a little further on she saw an empty envelope from
the War Department, addressed to Captain William L.
Blair. When she returned, she asked Simeon: “Who is
Captain William L. Blair?”

[pg 62]
“I don’t know no Captain Blair. Sandy’s name is
William Lees Blair, but everybody calls him Sandy.
O! I saw that name the other day on a letter he brought
back from Big Creek—‘Captain William L. Blair, U.
S. A.’—the letter had been sent him from Coblenz, Germany.
Do you reckon Sandy was a captain?”

Jeannette began to suspect that Sandy might be
amusing himself at their expense. At supper she was
formally courteous; she first thought of calling him Captain
Blair, but changed her mind and addressed him as
Mr. Blair.

When the supper dishes had been put away and the
chores done, all of them sat upon the porch until Simeon
announced it was his bedtime; when he and his family
retired.

“Jeannette, will you give me a lesson on the fiddle?”

“All right, Sandy. Would you like to know how to
read music? In music there are signs standing for
sounds, as the letters of the alphabet in combination form
words, by which we express our thoughts. Do you catch
what I mean?”

“Yes, I guess. But that’s funny. I thought you just
learned the tune.”

“Put your chair near mine; I will show you some of
the signs and symbols. What’s a symbol, Sandy?”

“Down in Mexico they tell me the gals play on them;
banging them on their elbows and knees; that is the big
ones and the little ones they click in their fingers.”

“Well, Sandy, this is another kind. Now this is a
symbol in music, telling—” and so she went on for some
time, Sandy listening attentively, with his head very
near hers and their chairs as close together as he
thought the occasion would justify.

[pg 63]
When she finished he said: “Miss Jeannette, please
play that fine piece of yourn?”

She played it through, then arranging his fingers on
his bow, showed him just how he should stand; and
playing a few notes at a time, instructed him to replay
them.

That part of the music which was difficult and she
felt satisfied she had not played correctly, it struck her
Sandy played with greater ease and expression than she
could do; but he made horribly ludicrous mistakes in the
easy portions. Intentionally, she had misplayed a portion
and when he reached this part he played it correctly.
Then she knew that for some reason he was fooling them.

“Now Sandy, play it alone. Do your best, I shall go
out on the porch and listen.”

He started off in a halting amateurish way, making
many blunders; as he played his mistakes became fewer,
his touch fuller; gradually he forgot his purpose to deceive,
the music was a favorite; towards the end he
played as she had never dreamed the piece could be
played.

He came out on the porch and sat down beside her.
Neither spoke. He knew she was no longer fooled.

“Jeannette, I can read and write.”

“Write something so I can see; you may be fooling
me.”

He felt in his pockets for a scrap of paper but found
nothing. Then he opened a card case and taking out his
card, wrote on the back a few words.

She went into the light and read: “*Chi si marita alla
svelta si pente adagio*. William L. Blair.”

She turned the card over and read “William Lees
Blair.” She called out the door, “Good night, Captain
William Lees Blair;” and went to her room.

[pg 64]
He did not see her again until the next afternoon.
He heard her singing on Big Rock, and walking down to
the creek, followed up the bank until he came to the foot
of the rock. It was very steep on that side, almost unscalable.
She heard him climbing up. His hat fell off; a
moment later his bare red head peeped above the surface,
then his smiling, ruddy face rose slowly over the edge,
much as she had seen the full red moon rise over the edge
of the cliff that capped her mountain.

“Jeannette, really, I can read.”

“Let me see.”

And he wrote on another card:

“*Ah vie! Ah vie! Jai trouve la place ou tu demeures.*”

She took it saying: “Now since you have had your
second lesson in penmanship, you may go home. I am
busy embroidering a Christmas present for a friend and
as this is the twenty-third of July, am too busy upon it
to be disturbed.”

That evening Simeon and his wife sat out upon the
porch; Jeannette and Sandy upon the door-step. He
had his fiddle and was playing “Turkey in the Straw,”
keeping time with his foot, his face lit by a happy smile.
Jeannette’s slipper tapped the floor in minor accompaniment.
She looked into his face; saw the brightness of it
in the darkness, and whispered: “Your music is most
suggestive: I never felt so much like dancing as I do
tonight.”

Sandy thought his cousins had forgotten their rule of
retiring with the chickens. The old rooster crowed.
“Listen at Old Speck, he thinks it’s almost day.” Simeon
gave an enormous yawn; they thought he would never
close his mouth. It went shut with a snap, followed by
the remark: “It’s time all honest folks were in bed.” It
was nearly nine o’clock; and he and his wife went in.

[pg 65]
How glorious the night; how peaceful and starry; a
time for visions, not words, therefore no one spoke. The
bold, bad captain, taking advantage of the darkness,
made Jeannette’s hand a prisoner. It fluttered as a
frightened bird; then it lay still, either having lost hope
of escape or resigned to a captive fate. Suddenly it
escaped.

“Captain, I’m surprised! Get pencil and paper;
you must have your third lesson in penmanship. Look
on the mantel and bring me a couple of matches.”

He took a card from his case and wrote: “*Jeannette,
Mein Liebchen: Willst Du mich Heiraten?*”

He handed her the card; she read it; the match went
out. There was a little scuffle, a smothered exclamation.
A great owl, whose downy wings made no noise, lit in the
elm by the gate and observing them through his night
optics, exclaimed: “Who! Who!” Surprised, the captain
released his prisoner; she darted into the doorway,
calling: “Goodnight, Captain, hope to see you tomorrow.”

Her dream love ended that night; the talisman that
drove it from this material to the spirit world, where it
was doubtless happier, was a very human kiss. Most of
you girls know the kind—they were smuggled in from
Europe when our boys came home.

The following afternoon, Jeannette, book in hand,
sought the shelter of her vine-clad bower. On the bench
was a note which she read. She had just finished it, when
the Captain stood at the entrance.

“Come in, Captain, it is time for a reading lesson.”

He sat down beside her, took the book and read—almost
a page.

[pg 66]
“If you do not care for the book read this.” She
handed him a card, marked in the upper left-hand corner,
“Lesson No. 1,” and he read:

“*Chi si marita alla svelta si pente Adagio.*”

“Translate; I do not read Italian, or is it Spanish?”

“Teacher, I do not want to.”

“If you do not I will send you home.”

“Well, here goes: ‘Marry in haste and repent at
leisure’.”

“Just such sentiment as I expected. May I ask if you
are speaking from European experience?”

“No, merely quoting an absurd axiom.”

She handed him another card, marked “Lesson
No. 2.”

“Read.”

“*Ah vie! Ah vie! Jai trouve la place on tu demeures.*”

“Translate.”

“O Life! O Life! I have found the place where thou
dwellest.”

“You may give a more specific interpretation of your
meaning at the close of your lesson. Read this,” giving
him a card marked: “Lesson No. 3.”

“*Jeannette, Mein Liebchen: Willst Du mich
Heiraten?*”

“Translate.”

“Sure, sure. ‘Jeannette, My Love: Will you marry
me?’”

“Now you may read the poem I found in here. It
seems to be in your handwriting.”

[pg 67]


A Voice Jeannette Should Hear.
------------------------------

   |     I.
   |
   | Jeannette, by man though rarely seen;
   | Is a friend of Running Water,
   | To the Mountain, fairest daughter,
   | To the forest, stateliest queen.
   | She hears mystic voices whisper
   | As a spirit to his sister.
   | Songs you and I have never known.
   | The trees speak of coming showers,
   | Earth creatures of twilight hours;
   | The owl tells secrets of the night,
   | The robin sings of dawn’s delight,
   | The lark of harvest and ripe moon;
   | But when love whispers I’ll call soon,
   | She’s thinking of the distant moon.
   |
   |     II.
   |
   | Jeannette, think you your paradise
   | Will always remain quite this nice,
   | Unless real love shall come as guest?
   | Fair one, think you the summer sun
   | Will last until your life is done
   | And spirit love not flit away;
   | Nor sun sink low in golden west,
   | Nor night come round at end of day?
   | Do you not fear those long, black nights,
   | Which come with winter’s storm and rain,
   | And put an end to life’s delights,
   | Giving voice to trouble and pain?
   | Then whisper to love the password,
   | And he will enter, having heard.
   |
   |     III.
   |
   | Sentiment may own yesterday,
   | But love today has right of way;
   | Hope builds castles for tomorrow,
   | Of warm sunbeams, not of sorrow;
   | Memories drape life with sadness;
   | [pg 68]
   | Love walks hand in hand with gladness.
   | To the past we dedicate tears,
   | Love owns today and coming years;
   | Take his warm hand and walk with me;
   | Let life be what the future be,
   | I wish it spent, Jeannette, with thee;
   | And when old age delves in the past,
   | May love say, “I have held full sway,
   | For memories fair crown each day.”

-----

Then, for more than an hour, an angel without the
bower, kept strangers away and enjoined silence. He
did not stand with flaming sword, but with finger on his
lips.

-----

They walked down to the old field below the Rock
House. Near its center was an old dead tree; and on the
tip of the topmost snag a lark sang.

“Listen, do you hear what he says.”

“No, he’s whistling like any other meadow lark.”

“Translate.”

“I do not know the language.”

“I do; ‘Love, thou art safe! art safe! I watch for
thee! for thee!’”

They led the old mule to the barn, and gave him ten
ears of corn and two bundles of oats. Sandy got up at
daylight the next morning and repeated the dose; the
old mule knew something was up. Then Sandy came to
the house and put on some clothes that had been sent up
from Red Bird. Jeannette came to breakfast a little
late; she had on a short-skirted riding habit. Simeon
and his wife tried not to show their surprise. She kept
still; he exercised less restraint or exhibited more curiosity
than his wife—they say men have more. “What’s
[pg 69]
up, Sandy? Why have you put on your Sunday clothes,
this is Saturday?”

And Sandy answered: “Jeannette and I are going to
Hyden to be married.”

“Well, I’ll be d——d! How’re you going?”

“She’ll ride the old mule; I’ll walk and lead the
beast.”

“Why it’s fifteen miles; it’ll take all day.”

“That’s all right.”

“You better take my horse.”

“No, Jeannette wants to ride the old mule and wants
me to lead him. She’s boss until tomorrow.”

“Well, I’ll be d——d!”

-----

It was nearly midnight when they came home again.
After feeding the old mule, they sat down on the door-step.

“My Captain, will you get your violin and play some
real music?”

“Jeannette, how did that old mule ever manage to
travel to Hyden and back with such a load of sweetness?”

“By dint of placing one foot before the other, Sandy.
We were only sixteen hours on the road; we made nearly
two miles an hour. I do not think I would care to hear
‘The Arkansaw Traveler’ after that journey; but suppose
you end the day, it must be merging into the morrow, by
playing ‘Turkey in the Straw.’”

The old familiar tune awoke Simeon and he awoke
his wife. “Listen, Mandy! those crazy things are back.
Hear Sandy, he’s playing ‘Turkey in the Straw;’ that
boy will never settle down.” He called out: “Go to bed
and give other people a chance to sleep; or else keep still
and start breakfast.”

[pg 70]
In a little while the house was very still. There was
no sound except the chirping of the cricket of the hearth.
You who dwell in cities and know nothing of firesides,
may not appreciate his simple song.


The Cricket’s Song.
-------------------

   |     I.
   |
   | Chorister of the hearth,
   | When stillness reigns, I sing
   | To God, Eternal King,
   | Praises for the fireside.
   |
   |     II.
   |
   | Thy simple souls dwell here,
   | Content throughout the year.
   | Love garlands every day;
   | Peace keeps harsh words away.
   |
   |     III.
   |
   | Grant the door open wide
   | For young and happy bride,
   | With husband by her side;
   | May their sweet dream come true.
   |
   |     IV.
   |
   | When morning star doth rise
   | Joy comes; the baby cries;
   | New mother with glad eyes,
   | Beholds hers and Thine own.
   |
   |     V.
   |
   | Make this a place of rest;
   | The place that God loves best;
   | The place where love abides;
   | God bless our happy home.

[pg 71]




BIRTH-MARKS
===========




CHAPTER I.—“And to Every Seed His Own Body.”
--------------------------------------------


When we speak of birth-marks our mind first pictures
a physical impression, probably some bodily characteristic
transmitted from an ancestor; though mental habit
or mind trait of ancestry is transmitted with more consistent
regularity than mere physical resemblance.

In a sense our ancestors in us are immortal; not because
there is a human imperishableness, but we are
heirs to certain family peculiarities and sometimes are
afflicted with a restlessness that causes us to fan pinionless
wings to reach heights we never fathom and of which
we scarcely dream. My meaning can best be conveyed
by example.

On a certain day in May a species of plover appear
in great number on the northern plains of British America.
There they nest and rear their young. The Indians
take these birds when unfledged nestlings and make pets
of them; and as they grow pluck their sprouting pinions.
By environment they are robbed of all life suggesting
the migration; yet when the day of southward flight rolls
round, the cripples grow restless and seeking to rise on
pinionless wing, end by climbing to a perch, where for
several days, unceasingly, they beat the air with stubby,
outstretched wings; uttering the while that plaintive whistle,
which is never heard, except when the bird is on its
migratory flight.

-----

[pg 72]
The fire on the hearth, forgotten and dying, cast a
faint glow disclosing a home-like room of good proportions
and two men seated at a red deal table facing each
other: Donald McDonald, a Scotch Presbyterian preacher,
and his son, Archibald Campbell, who though a gentleman
farmer, was a kinsman of the Campbells of Argyll.
A casual observer would have noted that the men were
nervously anxious, watching, waiting, perhaps praying
for some one dear to both and ill in the adjoining chamber.

The young farmer, as the silence is broken by a shrill
wail of protest from his for-some-time-expected son and
heir, starts from his chair in a clumsy effort at noiselessness
and moves towards the bedroom door. His companion,
rising, lifts his hands as in benediction and prays
aloud in a tense, subdued voice, which seems to blend
with the now lowered voice of the whimpering babe. The
father does not hear the old man; his thoughts are of
and for the mother and the babe; and unknown to him,
tears channel an unused course down his cheeks. So
they stand for some time; until the baby, hastily cared for
and placed near his mother’s breast, grows quiet, having
discovered there is more in life than a wail; then the fat
old mid-wife opening the door tells them that the baby
is asleep and they may see the mother for a moment.

They tiptoe into the other room and to her bedside,
trying hard not to make a noise, though the thick oak
floor boards seem to creak as never before. She holds
out a hand to each. Her husband, trembling, bends and
kisses her quivering lips. She draws down the covers
and he looks upon a little red and wrinkled thing, that
might almost sleep in comfort in his hands—his boy! his
only son!

[pg 73]
For the first time he calls her “mother,” saying:
“Mother, we shall call him McDonald Campbell, using
your family name, he is more yours than mine.”

“No, neither by my name nor after you, Archibald, but
John Calvin. He is our first born; and the nurse says is
without mark or blemish.”

And the boy was called John Calvin Campbell.

-----

Prior to the Rebellion, Donald McDonald of the
McDonald Clan, had lived in the vicinity of Fort William.
At its close, with his family, a wife and two daughters,
he moved to a small fishing village on the North Channel
in Ulster, to which point most of his congregation had
been transported.

His son-in-law, Archibald Campbell, was born in
Argyllshire, in 1740. In 1766, disregarding the protest
of his family he married Mary McDonald, whereupon his
father sent word: “In this marriage you have disregarded
my advice and disobeyed me. Your wife, the
daughter of Dissenter McDonald, will not be received as
one of my family. You are welcome to come home when
you wish; but it is hardly probable that you will visit
where your wife is not an honored guest.”

In the spring of 1766, Donald McDonald and family,
with some twenty members of his small and more or less
persecuted congregation, emigrated to the Virginia
Colony; and after several weeks spent in the Tidewater
country, moved westward and settled in the western foothills
of the Virginia Valley, in the vicinity of Jackson
River Meeting House.

As Archibald Campbell’s family continued to treat
his wife as a stranger and her friends and relatives, except
a sister, had gone to America, she found it very
[pg 74]
lonely. Seven months after her father and mother sailed
she received letters from them telling how satisfactory
they found the new life and what pleasant prospects the
new country offered; and from that day she persistently
importuned and finally prevailed upon her husband to
sell their farm and join the colony.

The day before sailing they sent the effects they intended
taking aboard ship, including a young cow, two
heifers and a coop of chickens, surrendered possession of
their home and were just leaving for the inn, when Mr.
Campbell’s father, who had been watching them, drove
up in the family carriage and made them go home with
him. There his son’s wife was at last received as a
daughter. His mother and sisters met her at the door
and cried when they kissed her. They remained over
night and when the time came for sailing, the whole
household accompanied them to the ship.

His father in a voice husky with feeling, though he
managed to keep back his tears, said: “\* \* \* Here
is a letter of introduction to Peyton Randolph of Virginia;
he is not as loyal to the Crown as he might be but
he is a good man; and here is a wallet containing three
hundred guineas. This sum with the four hundred and
fifty which your cousin paid for your farm, will give you
a fair start. I have paid the passage of Richard Cameron;
you know him, the son of the gatekeeper. He is to go
with you as an indentured servant; but I had first to
promise his father that you would see that the boy is
educated and brought up in the Presbyterian faith and
when discharged from your service shall be given seventy
guineas. This sum I will provide, either by forwarding
it to you or by making provision for its payment in my
will. I understand that there are several servants and
slaves aboard for sale. I would advise the purchase of
[pg 75]
a slave; he becomes your absolute property, whereas the
term of service of an indentured servant seems always
to expire at a most inopportune time. Here are ten
guineas to buy a pony for my grandson, John Calvin.
The little Dissenter is every inch a Campbell of Argyll.
God bless and keep you and your family safe on the voyage
and in that far land. I am sorry I ever said anything
against your marriage, Mary is as fine a woman as
there is in Scotland. God bless you, boy!”

[pg 76]




CHAPTER II.—Emigrants.
----------------------


Their ship, a large, slow trader, plying between English
and Scottish ports and Norfolk, Virginia, sailed
from Greenock on the twenty-seventh day of August.
She belonged to the Colonial Merchant Marine and was
owned and operated by three rich planters, whose exports
of tobacco and imports of plantation supplies and
labor guaranteed half a cargo for each voyage.

The usual passenger list from America consisted of
planters with their families visiting the “Old Country;”
or their children coming over to be educated in European
universities. The list and cargo of the return trip, as
usual, consisted of emigrants, slaves and supplies for
the plantations, a few merchants, adventurers and travelers.
There were twenty-five cabin and sixty-three
steerage passengers. The majority of the steerage were
indentured servants and slaves; though there were perhaps
as many as twenty emigrants, artisans, trades people
and petty farmers who traveled in that manner, husbanding
their small capital to purchase lands in the new
country. Of the cabin passengers, ten were returning
planters and members of their families; the other fifteen
consisted of five gentlemen and their families, who,
like Archibald Campbell and his wife, followed kindred
or friends and expected to enjoy better material conditions
and greater freedom in the New World.

Among these were David Clark and his family, natives
of Argyllshire and the only persons aboard Mr. and
Mrs. Campbell had known prior to the voyage. Mrs.
Clark, who was Mrs. Campbell’s sister, had expected to
[pg 77]
make the trip to America with the McDonald Colony, but
had been prevented by a serious illness.

The voyage proved slower than usual, owing to the
prevalent light winds. The ocean was as placid as an
inland lake, the weather quite warm and sultry; and
nearly every day there was a light shower or thunder
storm.

A friendly spirit, such as exists in isolated rural communities
pervaded the ship. Class distinctions were
eliminated. Even those sailing as steerage passengers
were allowed greater deck privileges because of the extreme
heat of their quarters; and thus made the acquaintance
of the planters and their families and shared in the
general cordial spirit.

Each planter became a zealous emigrant agent for his
community and plantation, promising employment to
such of the passengers as might settle in his neighborhood.
Their efforts induced quite a few to change their
original plans, and decision as to location rather than social
cast finally grouped the passengers, those becoming
intimates who expected to be neighbors in the new
country.

There were three distinct groups. Those destined
for the Northern Neck and for the York and James river
plantations headed by the three planters, made the most
numerous and affluent party. Those crossing the Blue
Ridge into the Virginia Valley, intending to settle at the
McDonald Settlement on the headwaters of Jackson
river, nearly all Presbyterians from Ulster or Dissenters
from Scotland, made a second, nearly as strong numerically,
though not so rich a party. A third group of
twenty-two persons consisting of four former small land
owners who had lost their holdings, three recently released
political prisoners and their families, with a Baptist
[pg 78]
preacher, William Hickman, driven from home by
misfortune or persecution, intended settling where class
and religious restrictions were unknown or disregarded;
and therefore were headed for the extreme frontier settlements
on the Ohio.

One cabin passenger was treated as a pariah by all.
Mrs. Campbell asking her husband about him was told:
“O that Spaniard, Carlo Sebastian! ‘He’s a spirit,’ that
is, one who lives in a seaport town and lures young people
to his tavern, where they are kidnapped and held prisoners
until they can be sold and transported to the colonies
as indentured servants. He started in that way and still
continues the practice, though his business has grown
until now he contracts with the government and buys at
first hand political prisoners and criminals. Under the
English code there are three hundred offences punishable
with death; sometimes the judge trying the case
deems this too severe; and having the option, sentences
such prisoners to transportation. Sebastian buys and
resells them to the planters. He has a third source of
supply from rural or peasant laborers who find conditions
of life almost impossible at home and yet have no
means of getting away. Under the law, such can only
labor in the fields of their own parish. When they find
it impossible to subsist on the very small wage they earn
at home they indenture themselves to him, willing to pay
five years of service for transportation to the Colony;
where labor is the only thing that is high. At the end
of their bondage, they emigrate to the frontier, take out
a patent for land and start in for themselves as landed
proprietors, usually becoming substantial citizens.

“Yesterday, telling him that I expected to buy a slave
or two, he showed me his stock. He has seven men, three
grown women, a girl of fourteen and three boys about
[pg 79]
Richard’s age, all of whom are indentured. He also has
four black slaves, three men and a clean looking young
negro wench. He holds the indentured servants at prices
ranging from twelve to eighteen guineas delivered at
Norfolk and the slaves at twenty-five to thirty-five
guineas. The young white girl seems quite frail, but is
refined looking. I believe she will die during the voyage,
confined in the foul air of her quarters and with such
food as Sebastian provides. We better buy the negro
wench at twenty-five guineas to help you; and if he will
shave his price to thirty-three guineas, I will pay that for
my choice of the negro men. Father says the slaves are
better investments than the indentured servants; they
stand the climate of the lowlands and are your absolute
property; by the time the indentured servants are broken
in and acclimated they have formed, and are only interested
in, their own plans; and it is almost impossible to
hire them after they are freed.”

“Oh, Archibald! We must not buy any slaves. It is
wrong. One person should not be sold to another as a
cow or a horse. It is bad enough to own the right to the
services of another for a term of years, even though he
voluntarily sells himself, or is so punished by the law.
I should like to talk with the poor women and the sick
girl. Can we not go down and see them?”

“Not unless Sebastian asks us to do so.”

“Here he comes. If you ask, he will show us his
servants, the indentured ones.”

“Sebastian, my wife desires to see your indentured
women servants. It is possible we might make you an
offer for one.”

“Very well, come this way. I am not responsible for
their filthy condition; I offer them clean clothing and
water, but they prefer their dirt.”

[pg 80]
Mrs. Campbell, when she saw the little girl, was
deeply moved and inclined to express her indignation,
but controlling herself, said:

“This girl must have attention at once. She is quite
ill.”

“No. She is sea sick.”

“What do you ask for her? She might help me with
the baby and the housework.”

“She is to be bound for seven years and her price is
fifteen guineas.”

“But Sebastian, you offered her to me yesterday for
twelve. I will give you that for her.”

“Yes, but your wife needs the girl.”

The girl, roused from the lethargy of her fever by the
talking, held out her hands to Mrs. Campbell and in a
voice broken by fear and sickness, pleaded:

“O, Lady! Take me away! You do not know what I
am forced to endure. This man dragged me aboard and
will sell me as a slave. I am very ill and so dirty. I
cannot eat the food. Do not leave me in this place and
with him. I am afraid.”

“Dear, we have made him an offer and if he will sell,
will give you a good home. He sees our hearts are moved
and has raised the price he asked. Mr. Sebastian, the
girl is ill and you will lose her if she is not given immediate
attention. My husband will give you twelve guineas
and we will move her at once.”

“No. If you want her you must pay fifteen.”

“Come Mary, that will do. Let the trafficker in human
flesh keep her and bear the loss. Let him have the
burden of her murder on his conscience.”

“O, Lady! If you do not take me I shall not try to
live. I would rather die than complete the voyage and
[pg 81]
be sold as a beast of burden. If you buy me I shall get
well and be a faithful and willing servant.”

Mrs. Campbell, stooping down, kissed the dirty face
of the sick girl and whispered: “We have every intention
of buying you. Refuse to eat anything except what I
send you. I will send Richard down today with clean
clothing and something nice to eat.”

Within the hour Richard was sent to the hold with
clean clothing, bed linen and some broth. The Spaniard
took the articles saying:

“Hand them to me; you cannot go to my quarters.”

As soon as Richard was out of sight he drank the
broth; calling it sloppy stuff; and that evening sold the
clothing and bedding to the wife of an emigrant.

The next day he told the girl: “Your fine friends have
forgotten you. That is the way people do. Some old
bachelor or an Indian chief will be glad to get you.”

Each day Mrs. Campbell sent food to the girl and
asked to see her, but Sebastian would not permit it. He
ate the food himself or threw it away.

Several days later when he was showing his stock to
one of the planters, he found the girl raving in delirium.
Believing that she would die within a day or two, he
hunted up Mr. Campbell and offered to sell her for twelve
guineas.

Mr. Campbell looked at the girl. She was quiet at the
moment and conscious, though her face was flushed, her
hands twitched and her breathing was labored. He believed
she would die and regretted not having bought her
for fifteen guineas. To punish the Spaniard for his inhumanity,
he told him the girl was dying; then after some
delay offered eight guineas for her. This he accepted,
after much swearing at his ill luck, complaining that he
[pg 82]
had paid four guineas for her transportation and two
to her aunt.

Mrs. Campbell immediately arranged for more comfortable
quarters and when she had been moved, removed
her filthy clothing and sponged to cleanliness and comfort
her hot, dirty body. With a sigh of exhaustion she
dropped into a deep sleep which lasted several hours.
Within a few days she was convalescent; then she gained
strength and flesh rapidly and before the voyage ended
had completely recovered.

One of Sebastian’s servants had voluntarily indentured
himself for five years to obtain transportation to
America, with the design to become a landed proprietor
at the end of his service. He had seen Mr. Campbell
purchase Ruth Crawford and judging by the act that he
would make a considerate master sent a note to him,
stating that he was a farm hand of experience and proposed
to serve his master faithfully until the end of his
service.

Mr. Campbell looked him over; and satisfied with his
physical appearance and appreciating that an experienced
and willing servant was a better investment than
a stubborn and inexperienced one; for seventeen guineas,
became the master of John Mason.

Mr. Clark purchased the negro wench and a black
man slave. He would not invest in the indentured servants,
giving as his reason that he did not care to drill a
servant five years and lose him just when he was most
needed or had become efficient.

The ship came to anchor in Elizabeth river, off Norfolk,
at noon on the twenty-second day of September.
The next day those bound for the Virginia Valley chartered
a river boat to carry them to Ricketts, just below
[pg 83]
Richmond, and shifting their belongings to it, sailed up
the James River, making their first landing at Williamsburg.

At Williamsburg, while their wives were shopping,
the men called upon Peyton Randolph and presented the
letter which Mr. Campbell’s father had given him. At
the time he had more influence than any other man in the
colony.

He read the letter and turning to Mr. Campbell said:

“I recall the very pleasant visit I made your father.
We were great friends and were at the Temple together.
He says you desire my advice in the selection of a location.
If you were a man of considerable means you
might buy a plantation on the York or James River or in
the Northern Neck; but he says you have less than a
thousand pounds. I therefore advise that you ascend
the James River in boats or canoes to Balcony Falls and
then proceed overland into the Valley. There you and
your wife as Scotch-Presbyterians will feel more at home
than with the Conformist planters of Tidewater, Virginia.
You know Virginia was settled by rural Englishmen,
who brought their church and class distinctions with
them. Class distinctions are more closely drawn in the
Colony than in England; and in eastern Virginia it would
be some time before you would be treated as a neighbor.
Even though you are a kinsman of the Duke of Argyll,
the women would never forget that your wife is the
daughter of Dissenter McDonald.

“Since 1745 Irish and Scotch Presbyterians have
been pouring into the colony and traveling westward
have settled in the valley between the Blue Ridge and
the Alleghanies, where they engage in raising cattle and
growing wheat and Indian corn. They are democratic
in their ideals, insisting upon religions freedom and self-government.
[pg 84]
On the other hand planters of the Tidewater
country are satisfied with things as they are; as
the law recognizes their church and they as social and
political leaders rule the colony insofar as Parliament
has delegated authority to the colonists. They live in
great plantation houses conveniently near to navigable
streams; so as to have access and a highway to the ocean.
The streams swarm with small craft which furnish a way
of social intercourse between plantations and a gateway
to salt water.

“About fifteen years ago eastern Virginia was very
prosperous. It was the golden age of the planter. In 1758
the colony exported seventy thousand hogsheads of tobacco;
but its culture is declining, labor is dearer, the land
is becoming impoverished and there are threatened embargoes
and even a prospect of war with the mother country;
which would destroy the industry and bankrupt the
planters, as its growing is almost wholly for export. The
labor in its production is severe, the initial outlay is
great and the plantations growing it buy all their food
and forage. Its almost exclusive cultivation and facilities
for water transportation has given a fictitious value
to land along navigable streams and created the slave
and bond-servant market, which in my opinion is a curse
to Virginia.

“I therefore advise that you cross the mountains into
the Virginia Valley and there buy a considerable acreage,
if possible partly improved, and engage in raising cattle
and growing wheat and Indian corn, for which products
there is always a demand and a local market.”

His visitors were not only grateful for, but were impressed
by the advice he gave them and told him they
intended to follow it. Then after an exchange of invitations
and pleasant farewells, they joined their wives in
[pg 85]
the capitol grounds as had been arranged and returned
by carriage to the landing; where, hailing their boat, they
were taken aboard and the voyage resumed.

A short while after re-embarking they passed Jamestown,
where the first English colony in America maintained
an almost futile effort for existence against starvation,
the lowland fevers and, worse still, the dissensions
and jealousies of their leaders. Little was left of the old
settlement. On the low ground a few tumbling ruins
washed by the tide marked the town-site; and on a point
above, some ivy grown walls and moss covered, weather
stained tombstones with half obliterated inscriptions
marked the site of a once pretentious church.

They knew the history of those first colonists; how
landing they spread an old sail overhead from the trees,
“to shadow them from the sunne,” and all, one hundred
and five, gave thanks to God. How in a few days, they
had a more substantial place of worship, where they held
“daily common prayer, morning and evening, every Sunday
two sermons and every three months holy communion.”
Here also in 1612 they built “an hospital with
four score lodgings—for the sick and wounded or lame,
with keepers to attend them for their comfort and recoverie.”

How in that first winter, when their food was exhausted,
Pocahontas came with burden bearers, bringing
hampers of venison and corn, which “saved many of
their lives, that else, for all this had starved of hunger.”
How years later, Captain John Smith writing of her to
the Queen said: “During the time of two or three years,
she next to God, was still the instrument to preserve this
colony from death, famine and utter confusion, which if
in those days had once been dissolved, Virginia might
have lain as it was at our first arrival to this day.”

[pg 86]
During the voyage from Norfolk to Richmond, the
party learned much of the country and the people. Archibald
Campbell wrote his father describing people and
country:

“The shores of the broad, sluggish, brackish river are
a succession of tobacco and corn fields or marshy overflowed
land. The plantation houses, usually of lumber,
have a dozen rooms; and as the family grows in size or
importance, wings are added to the main building to
meet demands. The houses are furnished in such style as
to indicate that tobacco, if not now, has been a paying
crop.

“The men and women of the planter class dress in
clothing imported from England or France. The men
wear camlet coats, lace ruffles, blue waistcoat and trousers
of broadcloth or velvet; and their shoes are adorned
with silver buckles. You should see the women! They
wear gorgeous silk and satin gowns of bright colors;
their bonnets and petticoats are trimmed with silver and
gold lace; their stomachers and mantles are ornate and
gorgeously colored.

“They seem to have everything to eat. Food is cheap
and abundant. Great flocks of duck and geese feed in
the salt marshes; they get fish and oysters from the shallows
and inlets; deer and wild turkey are common in the
swamps and in the interior. Their orchards furnish
fruit; and they have such vegetables as we grow in England
and also native melons, cymlins, pumpkins and
Indian corn.

“At the public gatherings and entertainments the
planters and small farmers are inclined to a spirit of
carousal, but not more so than the English country gentleman.

[pg 87]
“Dancing is commonly engaged in; cards and dice are
the gambling games; the livelier outdoor sports are horse
and boat racing, wolf drives, fox hunting, turkey shooting
and at night coon hunts; while fishing, gigging or
striking by torchlight, nine pins and competitive marksmanship
are the quieter outdoor sports.

“Weddings, muster and court days are general holidays.
A wedding is a season of extravagant and protracted
gayety, lasting a week. Guests in the main come
from considerable distances, in their private barges or in
carriages, or on horseback, with their wives and daughters
riding behind on pillions. All are entertained at the
plantation house, usually remaining for several days.

“The law requires all to attend church. Thus great
crowds gather and mingle, not alone for worship, but
before and after the service, for social and business intercourse.
Many bring their dinners in hampers and
friends gathering in groups share a common spread. The
women thus exhibit their latest gowns and the men talk
politics, trade horses and barter for tobacco.

“The plantation house is the community center and
from it a lavish hospitality is dispensed. The planters
are jealous of their social and political honors, which
seem attached as prerogatives to the plantation. They
even object to the establishment of a church in the neighborhood
of the one supported by the plantation. They
intermarry with the neighboring planter’s family; and
are slow to take up a stranger, though of good family.

“At Curles landing, at the site of the old Nathaniel
Bacon plantation, we were given and accepted an invitation
to spend the night. The house was a ten room structure,
built upon an eminence overlooking distant reaches
of the river. Its white stuccoed walls and commodious
pillared porch, made it very distinguishable in contrast
[pg 88]
with the background of green timbered hills. Four less
pretentious buildings flanked each corner and back of all
were the whitewashed cabins of the ‘quarters.’

“The dining room walls were decorated with English
hunting scenes and a great sideboard held the silver and
pewter ware. The library had many shelves of books,
quite a few of which were Elzevir editions. The walls
of the hall were covered with portraits of a cavalier ancestry.
All the furniture of the lower floor was of solid
mahogany and imported.

“Two sons of the family are attending Cambridge
and have not been home for a year. The daughter who
is at home is to be married before the Christmas holidays.

“Judging by Mr. Lee and his visitor, the planters are
essentially English; having all of the Englishman’s pride
of race and love for home. They spoke of England as
home, until the conversation turned to England’s right
to tax the colony and the law requiring tobacco to be exported
in British bottoms; then they flared up, declaring:
‘We of the colony will never submit to such unjust and
arbitrary laws; and if necessary will fight before submitting
to such tyranny.’

“We are now at Richmond, which was first called
‘None Such,’ then Forte Charles, then was known as
Byrd’s Warehouse. The town, founded by Colonel Byrd,
was incorporated in 1742.”

[pg 89]




CHAPTER III.—The Settlement.
----------------------------


The Meeting House, or as they were beginning to call
it, The McDonald Settlement, capped a half dozen of the
eastern Alleghany foothills at the head of Jackson River.

It was a community of some twenty farms, grouped
for protection and company in such a way that four farm
houses occupied each hill top near the central intersection
of their respective boundaries. All were huddled
about a large hill, capped by a grove of oak and sugar
maple trees, which sheltered the stone church and the
community school house of hewn logs. This arrangement
had been possible because the whole boundary had been
purchased and laid off by the trustees of the church.

The settlement was not only prosperous, but peaceful
and homelike. Its inhabitants had never deemed it necessary
to build a block house though more Indians visited
their community than the less remote settlements
which had suffered from attack and depredation, while
they had escaped; it may have been in part due to the
natural mountain barrier just at their back, but they
attributed it to their treatment of the Indians, with whom
they made friends.

The log houses were ruggedly comfortable. As each
house had in turn been built at a community log rolling,
all exhibited a similarity of style and construction. Each
was carefully and cozily built, had four rooms and an
attic, a front and ell porch and two large sandstone chimneys.
At the edge of the side porch was the well with
its pole sweep and back of each house was a barn, the
lower story of which was of stone and set in the hill-side,
where possible.

[pg 90]
While to the casual observer these homes presented
little apparent difference, individuality of ownership
was perceptible in ornamentation as also prosperity or
the reverse by the situation and fertility of the farm and
the live stock in the farm yard and pastures.

The church marked the center of the community and
was the most pretentious building west of Blue Ridge.
It was of hewn stone with a wooden roof and spire; and
in the belfry hung a sweet-toned bell which Angus Cameron
had brought from Scotland in 1758. There were
two front doors; the one on the right for the men and the
one on the left for the women; and between, extending
from the front wall to within six feet of the pulpit,
exactly bisecting the church, was a six foot partition,
over or through which no one saw except some of the
boys and possibly a girl or two; who during one of the
regular two hour services each Sunday, had surreptitiously
with jack-knife or gimlet or hair ornament, perforated
it.

By crowding, three hundred persons could find seats
on the slab benches. They were filled to capacity each
Sunday and some of the communicants and visitors rode
more than fifteen miles rather than miss the meeting.

When in 1759, Samuel Davies had preached the dedication
sermon, more than five hundred had crowded it.
All the settlers of the valley had attended as well as many
from Blue Ridge, the Shenandoah and Greenaway Court.
Now eleven years old, the church was looked upon as an
ancient landmark and known throughout Virginia as the
Jackson River Meeting House.

More than once its doors had been closed in the name
of the law, as enacted and administered by the Burgesses,
most of whom were conformists. When this had happened
Davies and other Scotch and Irish Presbyterian
[pg 91]
preachers and long and solemn faced ruling elders, refugees
from Scotland and Ulster, Ireland, had gathered at
Williamsburg; and so insistently and ably petitioned,
that the easy-going planter delegates, worried by importunities;
not only rashly promised their influence against
further persecution, but legislation permitting to Presbyterians
religious freedom throughout the colony.
When the Baptists and Quakers learned of these promises,
they demanded the same rights for themselves, but
met with less favor.

The school house was a large structure of two rooms.
The girls sat in one and the boys in the other; though the
classes made up of both, recited in either room. There
were two teachers, Jeremiah Tyler, a graduate of Oxford
and an elder of the church, who taught the advanced
classes, and Grandma McDonald, who taught the little
children.

The Shorter Catechism and the Westminster Creed
were printed in the back of the primer; and were taught
all beginners. No one was promoted to the higher grade
until he could recite the catechism without material blunder
and could answer the essentials of doctrine propounded
by the creed. The Bible was the text book
of the advanced pupils, not only for its precepts but for
its style and because it was the only book, a copy of which
each family possessed.

Friday afternoon the boys and girls of the advanced
grade held spelling and quotation battles. The sly old
teacher watched to catch a boy exhibiting an interest in
a girl pupil; then he chose the boy for captain of the boys
and the girl for captain of the girls. The side lost whose
captain was first quoted or spelled down. All quotations
and words were from the Bible and no quotation once
recited could be repeated. Each captain when first called
[pg 92]
upon was supposed to recite such quotations as he knew
were known by the opposing captain; but no quotation
could exceed a chapter or psalm in length. One of the
lazy boys, having learned from the little brother that
his sweetheart knew the 119 Psalm memorized and recited
the 176 verses as his first quotation.

When supposed sweethearts were not available as
captains, the master would select the laziest boy and girl.
Then the school and sometimes the whole community,
exhibiting an interest, would get behind the captains and
by threat and persuasion urge each to earnest effort.

Jeremiah Tyler had emigrated to Virginia from Ulster
and was one of the first to come to the settlement.
He had assisted in building the church and upon its completion
had made the journey to Williamsburg to bring
Rev. Samuel Davies of Princeton for the dedicatory
service.

While at Williamsburg, being a thrifty Scotchman, he
had patented one thousand acres of fertile land adjoining
the community boundary of seven thousand acres. His
patent included a broad and fertile mountain cove of
several hundred acres, overlooking the settlement.

He married Judith Preston in 1762; and they had
built their home in the outer edge of the cove. From the
house you looked down upon the houses of the settlement;
and the white church and school house on the hill stood
out against the grove and the green valley beyond, as
two full-rigged ships, with expanded sails on a calm sea.

There they had lived for four happy years, until the
winter of 1776; when in the night, bears came out of the
mountains and breaking into their sheep shed, killed half
the flock.

Then he built a bear pen of great logs and caught a
large black bear. The bear in his struggles for freedom
[pg 93]
displaced a log, which as Tyler was passing, fell upon
his foot and crushed it. His wife unable to lift it, leaving
their daughter of three months in her cradle, ran to the
nearest neighbor’s, more than a mile distance, for help and
not waiting until a horse could be caught and saddled,
hastened home. Then unmindful of her own condition,
helped with her husband.

The next day a doctor from Blue Ridge removed her
husband’s foot and gave her some medicine for “a misery
in her side.” Within the week she died of pneumonia;
then Tyler and his little daughter went to live with
Grandma Preston. Since that time, no longer able to
farm, he had taught the school, hobbling back and forth
from the Preston farm.

Archibald Campbell, seeking a location, visited the
Tyler clearing and, enchanted by the view, brought his
wife to the place. It was a fine October day; the earth
was still and warm; the valley green; the mountain side
clothed in vivid autumnal shades made the view perfect
in its loveliness. She insisted that providence had led
them to this paradise.

When school was out he sought the master and together
they rode over the boundary. Tyler told of the
four happy years when Judith and he had toiled in this,
their Eden, counting it play, to make it a place of beauty
and peace and altogether a home. He pointed to a cedar
grove upon the mountain side where she was buried; and
reserving a hundred acres around this spot, sold the place
to Mr. Campbell for four hundred pounds. Thus it was
the Campbells found their home on the edge of civilization.

Through October and until the first snow in late
November, they toiled, fitting and provisioning the place
for winter; the family living with Mr. McDonald, while
[pg 94]
their servants remained at the farm. The house was
repaired and enlarged, the barn loft filled with forage
and the shed with firewood.

Then on Thanksgiving day, established by the Pilgrim
fathers in 1621, and now observed by all the colonies;
after a three hour church service and a family dinner
at the McDonalds; they moved to their own home, where
the servants, though the day was warm, had built great
fires to welcome them.

All were pleased with the location and glad to be at
home; though for the first few nights, a timid strangeness
thrilled them when the mountain owls hooted and wolves
howled in dolorous cadence at the edge of their clearing.

The following spring, needing work horses, and learning
that Herman Hite had several for sale, Mr. Campbell,
taking his servant Richard and accompanied by David
Clark, rode northward across the divide, to the Joist Hite
Settlement, more than eighty miles distant.

When they arrived at Mr. Hite’s they were celebrating
his daughter’s wedding and the festivities were to continue
for several days. He refused to exhibit or sell his
horses until the festivities ended. They were quartered
with the men in the big red barn, where they slept comfortably
on the hay wrapped in homespun blankets.

Mr. Clark succeeded in stealing the bride’s slipper,
which the groomsmen were supposed to guard; and if
stolen they were forced to redeem before she could dance.
One of them was permitted to redeem it with a bottle of
wine, after Mr. Clark had extorted the promise of a kiss
from the bride and the privilege of replacing the slipper,
which doings, being a Dissenter deacon, he failed to mention
to either his wife or his father-in-law.

When the marriage celebration finally ended and the
other guests had departed old man Hite expressed a
[pg 95]
readiness to transact business. They purchased four
horses from him; and then rode to Winchester.

It was St. Patrick’s day, and as they rode down the
single business street they met a procession of Dutchmen
carrying crude effigies of St. Patrick and his wife Sheeley.
She wore a necklace of potatoes and carried a peck
or more in the folds of her check apron. As the procession
marched by the mouth of an alley, it was set upon by
a half dozen husky Irishmen, who after a fierce struggle
rescued the Saint and his lady.

Home again, they found Rev. Donald McDonald in
conference with the other three Presbyterian preachers
of the Valley churches.

Under the Act of Toleration, all Dissenter ministers
were required to apply in person to the Council at Williamsburg,
the capital, for license to preach and for permits
to establish churches. This law, the Presbyterian
preachers had found they could now disregard and had
been doing so for some time; enjoying greater religious
freedom than the Act in letter permitted; or than was
enjoyed by any other of the Dissenter denominations.
The Baptists petitioned the House of Burgesses that they
might be given “the same indulgences as the Presbyterians.”

This caused the Presbyterians to fear that their privileges
might be curtailed; and learning that a bill was in
preparation affecting “His Majesty’s Protestant Subjects
in The Colony,” the Valley ministers met at Donald
McDonald’s and after a lengthy conference and long
prayers decided that he should go to Williamsburg as
their representative; carrying petitions from the Valley
churches protesting against the proposed law. In
his absence it was arranged that the schoolmaster, who
[pg 96]
was also a ruling elder, should fill the pulpit of the Jackson
River Meeting House.

It was on this first Sunday that he delivered a sermon
on “Civil and Religious Liberty,” taking as his
text Acts 5:38, 39; which was said to have roused the
Valley settlements to active open opposition against the
Mother Country.

On Sunday morning the church doors were opened
regularly at nine o’clock, though service did not begin
until ten. From sunrise a person might stand in the
church yard and looking out over the Valley see the worshippers
leaving their distant homes and in convergent
and ever-increasing numbers approach the church from
every direction. They came in family groups or singly;
on foot and on horseback; a few in carriages and farm
wagons; sometimes a family on a single horse; the wife
riding behind her husband, with a baby in her lap and a
child of tender years clinging on behind her.

At nine-thirty, the sweet voiced bell was first tolled;
most of the congregation had already gathered in neighborly
little groups under the trees. The women on their
side of the yard discussed family news and local gossip;
while the men on their side talked of crops and sports,
hinted at horse trades to be consummated on the morrow
and argued over politics, taxation and religion.

There was a distinct group of several families from
far away Greenaway Court; in the main conformists
who at the time having no church of their own to attend,
came to Jackson River. They were kindly received in
the settlement and welcomed by the congregation. They
remained to themselves until the last church bell rang,
when they, too, separated; the men going in the door to
the right and the women to the left, as was the custom of
the Valley congregations. Each mother with her girls
[pg 97]
about her, walked down the aisle and shooed them into a
pew; while beyond the partition, over which the top of a
tall man’s head might be glimpsed, the fathers found
seats for themselves with their boys.

The schoolmaster announced and read the hymn,
which was considered necessary, as books were few; then
whanging his tuning fork until the key suited his trained
ear, led in singing the hymn—Reconsecration—by Rev.
Samuel Davies.

   | Here at that cross where flows the blood
   | That bought my guilty soul for God;
   | Thee, my new Master, now I call,
   | And consecrate to Thee my all.

As he was in the midst of his first long prayer; the
one in which it was the custom to pray by name for the
sick, afflicted and dissolute; and for the heads and representatives
of government from the King to the county
magistrate; he was interrupted by the piping voice of
four-year-old Dorothy Fairfax, of Greenaway Court, who
sitting near the partition and peeping through a gimlet
hole made by some bad boy, saw little John Calvin Campbell,
of her own age, not more than a foot away.

In the unsubdued voice of infant innocence, she piped
out: “’ittle boy, peep through the ’ole.”

He was the grandson of the minister, and while minister’s
sons are not always well behaved, it is said their
grandsons are; at least John Calvin, an infant non-conformist,
knew better than to talk to a daughter of the
conformist church during meeting. He remained quiet
with his eyes fixed on the preacher with a sleepy stare,
while Dorothy’s voice grew louder and more insistent;
to the amusement of the younger members of the congregation,
until the thought occurred, that now all peep
[pg 98]
holes would be hunted out and plugged by Deacon Cressler,
the carpenter.

The schoolmaster, knowing the ways of and accustomed
to interruptions by children, did not waver in the
fervency of his prayer, except as the child’s voice grew
louder his own was raised in seeming greater earnestness.

With eyes apparently fixed on a small gable window
in the front church wall, through which a beam of sunlight
made a slanting bar of silver he began his sermon:

“When a stranger far out in the Valley of Virginia
sees this church he is struck by its location and impressed
by its look of age and permanence. He asks its
history and is told: ‘It is the Jackson River Meeting
House, built by Dissenters, Presbyterians, who came to
this wild land from far Scotland and Ireland, counting
the cost and danger nothing, if they might but find a
place to worship God as conscience told them God should
be worshipped. But they have found that even the
groves of the wilderness are not God’s free and holy
temples.’

“Christ’s mission was to wipe out persecution, to
tear out the partitions of prejudice in his kingdom, to
establish a universal faith; yet history shows that persecution,
the murderous offspring of prejudice, remains;
that all that is necessary to unleash it, start the rack
creaking and the stake burning is a minor doctrinal
divergence; it may be as to the form of baptism, belief
in trans-substantiation or predestination.

“Churchmen clothed with a little brief authority become
venomously intolerant; instigate the sovereign to
acts of oppression, particularly against kindred sects;
against other spiritual warriors serving under the banner
of the cross; leading lives much as theirs were before
[pg 99]
they occupied the seats of the mighty and struggling as
they once did against religious intolerance. The commission,
‘Go ye into all the world,’ is neglected and the
torch of evangelism kindled in the white flame of sacrifice
to light the way, is perverted to light the pyre of
martyrdom of believers, as they, that the Son of God was
crucified that Jew and Gentile, Greek and barbarian
might live.

“During the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, at the
very time Columbus financed by them was cruising unknown
seas and finding a new world, Torquemada, a
Spanish monk, having shown special aptitude for persecution
was raised to Inquisitor General; and carried on
against the Jews the greatest religious persecution that
as yet has disgraced a world drenched scarlet by persecutions;
which did not end until 8,000 had been burned at
the stake, 90,000 had been imprisoned for life and 800,000
had been expelled from Spain.

“In your prejudice you say: ‘But Spain is a Catholic
country.’ Do not the Catholics believe that there is a
God who made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in
them is; and that there is a Christ who made atonement
for the sins of the world? And what more believe you?
And are not they as charitable as you?

“Has Protestant America clean hands? The New
World’s record of persecution, opportunity and environment
considered, is no cleaner than that of the Old. The
Pilgrim fathers coming to America, seeking religious
freedom, brought with them their prejudices. The
churchman of the Old World brought his doctrinal issues
to the New, as the caravan camel under his burden of
ivory and dates and spices, carries his hump. He was no
sooner established by the finding of shelter for his goods
and chattels than unloading the pack he exhibited the
[pg 100]
old hump, declaring that God should only hear prayers
of repentance and praise in his particular church.

“Our age of greater freedom and new thought demands
a severance of church and state; but our colonial
government, assuming to know and prescribing as physician
its only remedy for a sick soul and a contrite heart,
commands that the penitent shall only offer prayers and
God shall only answer, if they are offered within the
walls of the Church of England.

“Human laws cannot control men in their attitude of
mind and heart towards God; the state cannot compel
uniform prayers and hours of prayer; and faith is an
issue between God and the individual. Coercion makes
opinion stronger and constraint makes hypocrites, not
converts.

“Again history demonstrates that the persecutor
accomplishes nothing except his own undoing; while the
persecuted one, if an advocate of a great truth, grows to
greater things. By persecution faith grows; it lifts the
vail for the persecuted one and he sees into the Holy of
Holies.

“Truth can stand alone. Truth is inherently inextinguishable.
It offers something the world must have.
It will never die an outcast. If Scribes and Pharisees
will not hear, Publicans and sinners will listen.

“Because truth is all powerful and will prevail, the
Christian religion will evangelize the world, led by the
light of religions freedom. Gamaliel recognized the infallibility
of this truth when he advised the Sanhedrin, ‘And
now I say unto you; refrain from these men and let them
alone; for if this council or this work be of men it will
come to naught, but if it be of God ye cannot overthrow
it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.’

[pg 101]
“When the path of prophet and believer is too easy,
the growth is slow. The sting of persecution is necessary
to fructify the seed, to harrow the field; then follows
occasional abundant harvests—never a failure.

“You have read or been told how our fathers were
harassed in the Old Country until they were driven to
the New. From 1745, the year of the Rebellion, until
now, our people have been coming to this colony; and at
infrequent intervals have felt that victory, not of religious
liberty, but of toleration, was at hand.

“The fall and winter of 1758-9, we quarried and
hauled the stone for this church and in the summer of
1759 it was completed. Then Mr. Preston and I went to
Williamsburg, where we met the Rev. Samuel Davies and
brought him back to preach the dedicatory sermon.

“On that day the whole Valley was in attendance, as
were many from Blue Ridge and Greenaway Court and
Winchester. There were even a few from Williamsburg
and Richmond. Every Presbyterian within a hundred
miles who was able to ride or walk came; and with them
many of their friends among the Quakers, the Baptists,
the Lutherans, the Mennonites, the Dippers and communicants
of the English Church. It was God’s House;
God’s people filled it; the spirit of the Holy Ghost was
upon it; the commandment of the Son was regarded; and
crowded out all thought of sect and doctrinal intolerance.
It looked as though there was to be a religious peace in
the colony: and all rejoiced.

“Who brought this about? That greatest of preachers,
Samuel Davies, the greatest orator who has ever
spoken in the colony. But I am wrong—not all rejoiced.
Who strangled the movement? Clergymen of the Conformist
Church.

[pg 102]
“The seat of an established church is no birthplace
for a new faith. The birthplace of the Christian faith
was not in Jerusalem but on the shores of that placid
inland sea on which the boats of the fisher apostles rested.
To the Christian, the first mind pictures of Jerusalem are
of the Garden, the crucifixion and the resurrection. After
these comes the picture of the Savior’s lamentation:
‘O Jerusalem! Jerusalem! thou that killest the prophets,
and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would
I have gathered thy children together; even as a hen
gathereth her chickens under her wing, and ye would not.’

“When I think of the Church of England, it is not of
the communicants, but of their intolerant clergy; who in
selfishness of heart undid the great work of Davies and
smothered with tares the seed he had sown. For them,
the vision of Peter has no significance; the command,
‘Rise, Peter, kill and eat’ is not heard; the conclusion,
‘of a truth I perceive God is no respecter of persons,’ is
impossible.

“The Conformist Church is not without the Kingdom.
It is an agency of God for the salvation of the
world. Many a communicant loves his Presbyterian
neighbor as he does himself; but some of their intolerant
clergy, nursing jealousy, loving blindness and perversity,
delighting in persecution, would provoke from the Savior
of the World, that scathing denunciation: ‘Woe unto
you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites—woe for your injustice
and oppression; woe for your hair-splitting doctrinal
folly, which strains the gnat and swallows the
camel.’

“Today the old issue of intolerance is resurrected and
becomes a vital one by the pending bill to regulate, ‘His
Majesty’s Protestant Subjects.’ If necessary to bury
it past disinterment, many of the people of the Colony
[pg 103]
will support the new issue: That the Burgesses of Virginia
shall take precedence of authority over the King;
and if need be, these two issues, religious liberty and self-government
for the Colony, shall become yoke-fellows to
drag to destruction giant oppression.

“The Presbyterian Church recognizes the divine origin
of government; and that each subject must ‘render
to Caesar the things which are Caesar’s;’ but the right
to worship God as God commands and as conscience dictates
is more sacred than obedience and allegiance to the
King. We love peace, but more our freedom; we love
our home, but more our equities in the Kingdom of God;
and we will give all for civil and religious freedom.

“It is as great to give your life to, as for a cause. In
the Beatitudes we are told: ‘Blessed are they that are
persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom
of heaven. Blessed are ye when men shall revile
you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil
against you falsely for my sake; rejoice and be exceeding
glad; for great is your reward in heaven.’

“Visions come with persecution. Paul tells how, after
the stoning at Lystra, he was caught up into Paradise
and saw unutterable things. Again in the account of
Stephen’s stoning we are told how he looked steadfastly
up into heaven and saw the glory of God; and while they
stoned him he called upon God, saying, ‘Lord Jesus, receive
my spirit’ and he kneeled down and cried with a
loud voice, ‘Lord lay not this sin to their charge;’ and
when he had said this, he fell asleep.

“He fell asleep. While asleep, the tears were wiped
from his eyes; his vision was strengthened; he awoke in
a land where there was no night, in the presence of God,
who said unto him: ‘I will be your God and you shall be
my son.’”

[pg 104]




CHAPTER IV.—John Calvin Campbell and Dorothy Fairfax.
-----------------------------------------------------


John Calvin Campbell was a beautiful child, with
strangely clear, deep blue eyes, close clinging golden curls,
a complexion fair to paleness, though tinted to a delicate
ruddiness by exposure. He was thoroughly self-reliant
and independent.

The neighbors spoke of him as a strange boy; not that
he was mentally or physically weak; but his manner and
thoughts and method of expression were unnatural in
one so young.

His mother looked after him with such solicitude that
his father, half vexed, said: “You are spoiling that boy;
give him a chance to live his own life; I want him to find
interest and pleasure in the same things other boys do.”

“If you do, you are going to be disappointed; he is
not like other boys. He is more like his grandfather
than little David Clark. He is not contentious, yet without
apparent effort, for the mere asking, he seems to
have his way with other children. Though he is just
seven and wanders about the mountain side alone, I am
not worried. When I remonstrated, he replied with calm
assurance: ‘Mother, you need not worry, I will not get
hurt, I am learning things;’ I have come to believe that
what he said is true. I asked why he climbed out upon
the Pinnacle Rock and he answered: ‘When on the big
rock, I think and learn and see things I cannot here. I
see earth and heaven as one great whole.’ The boy
seems not to mind in the least being alone; though he
often acts as guide for one of the older boys to the rock,
any one of whom will quit his games to go. Several
[pg 105]
times when he went off alone, I followed and unseen
watched him climb carefully to the Pinnacle, where, finding
a seat not too near the edge, he sat looking out over
the Valley and seemed to dream in wide-eyed wonder.
The birds flew about as though he were not there; and
the little ground squirrels that burrow in the rocks came
out and sat up and rubbed their faces and combed their
bushy tails within a foot of his hand. When he rose up
to come home he held out his little hands towards the
valley as though he would take all that he saw within his
tiny arms saying: ‘O the joy of it! the joy of it!’ What
are we to do with a boy like that? Let us watch over him
carefully and let us follow the way God leads. Sometime
have him tell you what he sees.”

He began making his little journeys to the rocks when
he was five years old; first with his mother or Ruth, then
alone. Each day from the spring of 1773 until the following
May, his little feet wore a distinct and narrow
path from the kitchen door to his aerie. The people of
the Valley seeing the little boy on the big rock, called it
John Calvin’s Rock; and it is so called to this day, though
very few know the reason. A local historian writing of
the early Presbyterian settlements of the Valley, making
fact fit theory, refers to the rock as having in some unknown
way been called after the father of Calvinism.

Mr. Campbell first made the acquaintance of Thomas
Fairfax and his wife on the trip to Winchester in 1771,
stopping at their plantation on his way from the Hite settlement.
This acquaintance, renewed at the meeting
house, had ripened into a warm friendship mainly
through Dorothy’s instrumentality; who, beginning with
the peep hole conversation three years before, insisted on
talking with John Calvin every time she saw him.

[pg 106]
The two families occasionally lunched together in the
church grove; or if it rained, the Fairfaxes spent the
night with the Campbells, as the distance to Greenaway
Court was great.

The two men for more than a year had planned a bear
hunt in the Kanawha cliffs and at last Mr. Fairfax had
come to the plantation for that purpose, bringing his
wife and little Dorothy, who were to remain with Mrs.
Campbell.

He and Mr. Campbell, accompanied by two servants
and half a dozen dogs, crossing over the mountains,
camped on the benches overlooking the wilderness of the
Kanawha.

One day, Mr. Campbell with his servant, John Mason,
went down into the river meadows hunting for deer, and
while quietly stalking, themselves unperceived, saw
three Indians traveling the path towards the settlement.
As small parties occasionally visited them or hunted in
the valley of the Kanawha, it never occurred to him that
it was a war party; nor were they decorated with pigments
and root stain as a war party.

When he got back to camp he told of seeing the Indians;
whereupon Mr. Fairfax suggested they better return
home as he had heard just before leaving Winchester of
trouble between the whites and Indians, growing out of
the recent killing of the Logan family by Captain Cresap
and his men at the mouth of Yellow Creek.

-----

The morning after Dorothy’s arrival, John Calvin
started for school, nearly two miles away. Dorothy, who,
since the day she had commanded him to peep through
the hole, had continued issuing her commands, demanded
to accompany him and had her way as usual. She insisted
on sitting with him in the boys’ room. There they
[pg 107]
sat together and studied and recited from the same
primer. Dorothy could read almost as well as the boy;
but he knew all the Shorter Catechism, while she knew
only the first three pages.

After they had returned home and had dinner John
Calvin started for his accustomed aerie overlooking the
valley and Dorothy waited to be called; then seeing she
was forgotten, followed slowly after, up the narrow path;
too hurt to call out and too anxious to follow to be piqued
into remaining.

The little girl of the valley, half way up and nearly
out of breath, stumbled, and slightly hurt, cried out with
pain. The boy looked round, saw and ran back, saying:
“O Dorothy! I did not know you would care to come.
Let me have your hand and help you. I will show you the
big valley and tell you what I see beyond.”

Hand in hand they finished the ascent; and on the top
in the very center of the great rock he made a heap of
pine straw, where they sat side by side; the boy
blue eyed and golden haired, birth-marked by his
Anglo-Saxon ancestry, and the girl carrying from the
centuries past her Norman birthright of brown eyes and
dark tresses. As they sat, looking down upon the valley,
her dark curls, tousled by the wind, played tag with his
golden locks.

How different the two children were. Dorothy’s eyes
and thoughts were of the valley, which the distance transformed
into toyland. The houses suited the people, who
were tiny dolls. The cattle as they came from the barns
looked like the tiny creatures of a toy ark. These she
talked about in a chirpy, rambling way; but the boy,
mind-marked by his forebears, did not hear. He sat
and gazed into the May-blue sky, blotted at intervals
[pg 108]
with fluffy, half transparent clouds, wind rolled from the
Blue Ridge towards the Alleghanies.

He began to talk of them: “The clouds are the chariots
of the angels and if you watch closely you may see
them driving with reins of gold. Above the clouds, if
you look hard and pray the while, you may see the face
of God. The angels watch over us; and if we do something
we should not they drop a tear to wipe out the
deed. Sometimes the tears miss their mark and fall into
the sea, and they become pearls. The little shell fish
which live upon the bottom where it is dark gather and
store these treasures in their homes, because in passing
from sky to sea they have taken into their hearts the
colors of the rainbow and the sun. When the Son of God
was nailed upon the cross, the angels hiding their faces
lost track of earth and drove their chariots far out to sea,
where, in the dark, undisturbed depths the sad old shell
fish dwell; and as they traveled most of them were too
sad even for tears; but a few great tears were shed and
fell great, perfect pearls into the sea. These the old shell
fish found and gathered up. Once in many years one
of these old fellows is torn from his moorings in the
darkness of the deep and washed towards the shore. A
fisherman gathers in and opens the old moss grown shell
and, finding the pearl, is very glad—‘Wherefore, do
ye spend money for that which is not bread and your
labor for that which satisfieth not. Hearken diligently
unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul
delight itself in fatness. Incline your ear and come unto
me; hear and you shall live.’”

The boy turned towards the girl; and saw an Indian
with uplifted tomahawk standing over her ready to strike.
The girl looking up, saw too, and cowering in terror,
crept close to the boy. He, without fear or hesitancy,
[pg 109]
rose and on tiptoe reached up and took him by the arm.
So they stood for several moments; then the Indian,
strangely moved by the face of the boy, in which there
with neither fear nor anger but calm confidence that he
would not strike, lowered his arm and smiled; and the
boy smiled back.

The Indian, a Mingo chief, who spoke a little English
said: “No hurt little boy and girl but they must come
with Logan.” He called the two braves who stood guard
at the foot of the rock and ordered them to take up the
children. The boy uttered no sound, but the little girl
whimpered for her mother.

They were carried hastily over the mountain and by
the time the stars came out were on the head waters of
the Kanawha. Resting for an hour or more, until the
moon rose over the tree tops, they traveled an old trail
far into the night and, camping, slept until the first light
of day; then on again until they reached the mouth of
Meadow Creek, where they breakfasted on venison and
parched corn. Then while Logan destroyed all evidences
of the camp the other two dragged a canoe from the
willows and paddled to a projecting rock, from which
the party embarked.

As they were leaving a small black dog with a bark
of joy ran up and jumped into the canoe. It was Jerry,
christened Jeremiah when a puppy by Mr. Campbell,
because he was given to much lamentation; later the name
had been changed to Jerry at the suggestion of the boy’s
grandfather.

The dog as the canoe left the bank gave a couple of
sharp barks which were answered by some one from the
woods. One of the Indians, lifting the dog out of the canoe,
silently placed it in the water; knowing that if he killed
it the children would cry out. They paddled hastily
[pg 110]
along the shore screened by the willows. The dog for a
moment swam after them, then turned and swam back to
the rock.

As they circled a bend some distance below, a man
stepped out on the rock and stooped and helped Jerry
out of the river. It was Richard Cameron.

School had been out some time; even the older boys
and girls who were kept an hour longer than the little
ones, had all gone home; yet the master sat by the window
thinking of his dead wife. Glancing towards the grove
of cedars on the mountain he barely made out the two
small children on John Calvin Rock and beside them he
saw three men whom he supposed were the returned
hunters.

When he reached home he learned that the two children
were lost and that a searching party had been sent
out into the mountains.

Mrs. Campbell and Mrs. Fairfax becoming uneasy at
the long absence of the children climbed to the rock and
not finding them, sent Ruth Crawford, the servant, to
the settlement asking for help. They then called Richard
Cameron and after he had gotten his rifle the three, followed
by Jerry, began the search.

It was not long before Jerry picked up the trail which
Richard followed a weary way to the river landing.
On the way, in the moist earth at the spring he had found
a few tracks of the Indians and the foot prints of the
children; searching the willows he had found where the
canoe had been cached.

Realizing that the children were prisoners and that
unaided he could not effect their rescue, he hastened
back towards the settlement.

Several hours travel back the trail, he came upon the
hunters who had been joined by Mr. Clark and who, having
[pg 111]
spent the day in search for the children, were making
camp for the night.

He told what he had learned; and after piecing this
with the schoolmaster’s story and what they had discovered,
they were satisfied the children were captives of
the three Indians they had seen two days before and who
now were making for the Ohio River country.

Resting several hours, they traveled that night to the
mouth of Meadow Creek and in the morning followed
down the river bank; finding on every portage around
the rapids traces of the Indians and the children. At the
Indian lead mines they found a canoe and in that paddled
down the river to Point Pleasant.

Here they found the station of Caleb Smith in ashes;
saw a large war party of Indians and felt assured that
from its leader they could get definite information of the
children. Richard Cameron offered to walk to the camp
and surrender as a prisoner to be with the children; but
Mr. Campbell would not hear of it believing that he would
be tortured to death, as it was evident the Indians were
on the war path. The whole Indian country was in arms
and the Ohio, about the mouth of the Kanawha, literally
swarmed with war canoes.

For two weeks they sought the children and each day
were exposed to the gravest danger. Even if found,
they recognized, that their rescue was next to impossible;
and, disappointed, they decided to return home, feeling
satisfied the children were alive and in no immediate
danger, and hoping when the present trouble blew over
to return and rescue them.

The morning after their return to the Campbell plantation,
Mr. Fairfax and his wife left for home. Then he
went to Williamsburg, where he made application for
assistance to Lord Dunmore, governor of Virginia, hoping
[pg 112]
through his influence with the Indians to procure the
release of the children; as Dunmore was said to be on
intimate terms with the tribes of the Kanawha and Scioto
country and was then engaged in buying pelts from them;
from which trade he derived a considerable private revenue.

The Governor gave him very little satisfaction, saying:
“I would be glad to do it if we had the time, but
as you know, my whole time is taken up by pending
political troubles.”

Governor Dunmore was extremely unpopular. It was
charged that through Connelley and other agents he was
then inciting the Mingoes, who had always been allies of
the British to attack the frontier settlements and thus
keep the attention of the western portion of the colony
from the political troubles that exercised and oppressed
the people of Tidewater, Virginia.

Revolution was in the air, England was determined
to collect direct impost duties from the colonies and
insist upon an enforcement of the recently enacted law
that any colonist charged with treason or inciting rebellion
should be transported to England for trial. British
troops were quartered in Boston and the Port Bill had
been passed, closing Boston Harbor. Nevertheless, in the
Valley and throughout Virginia, the first of June, 1774,
was observed as a day of fasting and prayer because all
recognized that war was impending with the mother
country.

In the meanwhile Mr. Campbell began organizing the
settlers, looking to a forcible rescue of the children.
This activity was reported to the Governor, by him construed
as treasonable conduct and his arrest was ordered.

Mrs. Campbell was not greatly depressed by the abduction
of her little son. She felt that he would be
restored to her unharmed.

[pg 113]




CHAPTER V.—An Unbidden Guest.
-----------------------------


Beginning with the abduction of the children, the
whole Virginia frontier was subjected to Indian raids.
While the majority of the settlers attributed the uprising
to Governor Dunmore’s agency, the better informed knew
that it was traceable to the murder of the Logan family.

As Jackson River was a frontier settlement, the
farmers met at the school house and made preparations
for defense.

All able bodied freemen between the ages of fifteen
and fifty were enrolled in the local militia. All realized
that serious days were ahead for the colony, which must
not only suppress the Indians, but be prepared to join
with the other colonies in resisting, even by force of
arms, the oppressive measures adopted by the mother
country.

In the reorganization, they insisted upon choosing
new and competent officers to command them; men who
had seen military service and whose loyalty to the colony
was not tainted by Toryism.

Mr. Campbell’s efforts at organization coupled with
the knowledge that he had been an officer in and seen
actual service in the British army and that a warrant had
been issued for his arrest resulted after careful consideration
in his selection as their captain. This selection
after some delay was confirmed upon the recommendation
of Mr. Peyton Randolph and Mr. Fairfax.

After receiving his commission he worked zealously
in organizing, drilling and equipping his company of 170
[pg 114]
men; all of whom were experienced woodsmen and excellent
marksmen.

With this command he counted not only upon protecting
the frontier; but if all peaceful means failed, at an
opportune time of rescuing his son and little Dorothy.

His plantation, well up the mountain side, was the
first settlement on the trail coming over the mountain
from the Kanawha country, and at night half a dozen
men used his barn as barracks, while he and his two
servants slept in the house, their rifles within easy reach
of their beds. A guard of three men was also placed in
the mountain pass to watch the trail and give warning.

Signal flags were set upon John Calvin Rock to give
warning by day and a great pile of wood and timber,
ready for flint and steel, was placed upon its summit to
give a blaze of warning by night.

On the night of the thirtieth of July, the party in the
barn were awakened by Indians stealing the two horses.
They gave the alarm by firing at them just as they were
leaving the lot, and then followed up the mountain trail in
close pursuit, occasionally taking a shot when a rolling
stone or the noise made by the horses indicated the location
of the marauders.

The shooting warned the guards at the pass, and they,
at close range, making out the figures of the Indians even
in the darkness, killed one and recovered one of the
horses.

When daylight came, Mr. Campbell and his two servants
scoured the western mountain side in search of
the other horse and found him. He had been shot
through the fleshy part of the neck and the halter rope
was entangled in a laurel bush.

While they were examining his wounds, Jerry, who
had followed them, kept up an incessant barking and
[pg 115]
growling in a thick cluster of laurels. Investigating the
cause they found an Indian, shot through the chest and
murmuring in unconscious monotone.

Richard said: “Let’s kill him, he is going to die any
way and a dead Indian is always a good Indian.” But
Mr. Campbell forbade it, not only from kindness of heart
but with the hope that from him he might learn news of
the children.

He was placed upon the horse; and supported on
either side by his captors was carried to the Campbell
home. There, exhausted and delirious, he was put to
bed in a small shed used as a store room.

After two weeks’ careful nursing he began to recover
and shortly after Mr. Campbell was told by the Valley
doctor: “In a few days you will have a dangerous
Indian on your hands, but he is yet too weak to leave his
bed.”

The morning after the doctor’s visit Mr. Campbell
found the bed empty and the patient gone. Scratched
on the wall in charcoal, he read: “One white man good
to Indian; before cahonks fly bring back papoose. Tah-gah-jute.”

Tah-gah-jute, son of Skikellemy, a Cayuga Indian
chief, was born in 1725, at Shamokin, on the Susquehanna.
He was given the name of Logan, after John
Logan, then Secretary of the Pennsylvania Colony, a
man who many times had shown himself a friend of the
Cayugas.

Logan grew to be a man of intelligence and fine personal
appearance; and until he moved westward on the
Ohio River in 1770, was of good personal habits. There,
because of his friendliness with the whites, he, with his
family, usually camped in the neighborhood of the stations
[pg 116]
of the white traders and by the association not only
he but his family acquired habits of intemperance.

On the twentieth of April, 1774, they moved to the
mouth of Yellow Creek, on the north bank of the Ohio,
just across the river from Joshua Baker’s joint and
trading station.

Shortly afterwards some land jobbers near the month
of Sandy Creek were robbed by a band of Indians. In
retaliation Captain Cresap gathered a gang of men and
began killing Indians in the neighborhood of Wheeling.
On Grave Creek, below Wheeling, they killed two of
Logan’s kinsmen. Hearing a rumor of this and wishing
to ascertain the truth, Logan on the twenty-seventh of
April accompanied by two braves traveled down to Grave
Creek. In the meantime, Captain Cresap and Daniel
Greathouse with their gang came to Baker’s.

Logan’s mother, sister and cousin, a little girl, with
four Indian men, crossed in a canoe to Baker’s; where
after being made drunk, they were all murdered, except
the little girl who was carried off a prisoner.

In retaliation, Logan with several Indians, not being
able to find Cresap, came up the river to the mouth of the
Kanawha, where they murdered several white men; then
ascending the Kanawha to its head, crossed the mountain
to Campbell’s plantation and stole the two children. They
carried them to Shauane-Town, on the Scioto, near the
present site of Circleville.

The first of July, Logan, accompanied by seven Mingoes,
into which confederacy he had been adopted and
made a chief, ascended the west fork of the Monongahela
into what was then West Augusta county where they
came upon William Robinson and two farm hands working
in a field. They killed one of his men and made Robinson
and the other prisoners, carrying them to Shauane-Town;
[pg 117]
Logan declaring it to be his purpose to kill or make
captive as many whites as they had murdered of his
kindred.

Though Logan spoke English he could write very
little. He therefore made Robinson write a note to
Captain Cresap, in the nature of a declaration of war,
which was tied to a war club and thrown into the first
white settlement he passed. It read:

    “Captain Cresap:

    “What did you kill my people on Yellow Creek for?
    The white people killed my kin at Conestoga and I let
    it pass. But you killed my kin, even my mother and sister
    on Yellow Creek and took my cousin prisoner. Then
    I thought I must kill too; and I have been three times to
    war since; but the Indians are not angry, only myself.

       | “July 21, 1774.
       |   John Logan.”


Cresap, Greathouse and certain other traders continued
murdering Indians, until they stirred up the whole
Indian country; then the tribes in retaliation began killing
the settlers west of the Alleghanies, making no discrimination
between the settlers and traders. The settlers
deserting their homes fled eastward across the
mountains.

A man by the name of Connelley, the confidential
agent of Governor Dunmore, came to Shauane-Town and
there met in council with the chiefs of the Shauanese, Delawares,
Wyandottes and Mingoes; his mission being to
induce them to war with the “Long Knives,” or Virginians.
He was successful and war was declared.

Four hundred of the Virginia militia assembled at
Wheeling, marched down the Ohio and up the Muskingum,
killing Indians and destroying their towns.

[pg 118]
Jefferson in his “Notes on Virginia,” comments upon
these incidents as follows:

“In the spring of the year 1774 a robbery was committed
by some Indians on certain land adventurers on
the Ohio River. The whites in that quarter, according to
their custom undertook to punish this outrage in a summary
way. Captain Michael Cresap and a certain Daniel
Greathouse leading on these parties, surprised at different
times traveling and hunting parties of Indians, having
their women and children with them and murdered
many. Among these were unfortunately the family of
Logan, a chief celebrated in peace and in war and long
distinguished as a friend of the whites. This unworthy
return provoked his vengeance. He accordingly signalized
himself in the war which ensued.”

-----

On the fifth of September Captain Campbell received
orders from General Andrew Lewis, directing that he
with his company report for service at Fort Union on the
tenth of September, prepared for a sixty day campaign
into the Ohio River country. He and his wife were delighted
at the receipt of the order, believing the opportunity
was now presented to rescue the children.

His company of ninety-seven left the settlement on
the morning of the eighth, and about noon on the ninth
reached Fort Union on the western slope of the Alleghanies.

On September eleventh, General Lewis led his detachment
of eleven hundred men down the mountain side
into the Kanawha valley, beginning a one hundred and
sixty mile tramp through the pathless, rough and heavily
timbered wilderness of the valley to Point Pleasant, where
they arrived on the first of October. Here Governor
[pg 119]
Dunmore was supposed to meet him with two thousand
men, who were to march over the mountains to the Monongahela
River and descend that stream and the Ohio
to the rendezvous in canoes and batteaux.

After waiting nine days he received word that the
Governor had changed his plans, and instead of meeting
them as agreed, had come down the Ohio to the mouth of
the Hocking River and ascended that stream to the falls;
declaring it his intention to march across country and
attack the Indian towns on the Scioto.

On the afternoon of the day this information was received,
Captain Campbell and one of his men, thinking
to supplement his company’s rations by killing a deer or
two, left the camp and traveled more than a mile back
into the timbered river valley.

There a large party of Indians hiding in a cane brake
attacked them, killing the soldier. Two Indians close at
hand rushed the captain, intending to take him a prisoner.
He killed one, the other, a powerful man, throwing him to
the ground rolled upon him. Each looked into the other’s
face and recognition was mutual. It was Logan. He
muttered: “Throw Indian off and run to camp.” This
he did, and was so closely pursued by the chief, who kept
even with but apparently could not overtake him, that
the other Indians dared not fire.

General Lewis expecting every day to be joined by
Governor Dunmore had neglected to fortify his camp
near the junction of the Ohio and Kanawha rivers. There
the Indians, superior numerically, cornered his detachment
and cut off retreat.

The morning following Captain Campbell’s escape,
while the camp was being broken up to join Dunmore’s
forces, the Indians in great numbers, began the attack
with a well directed fire, howling and screeching as only
[pg 120]
wild men can; and for several hours had the best of the
conflict. They were commanded by Chief Cornstalk,
who moving back and forth along their line when it began
to waver, could be heard above the din of conflict, calling
out in Indian tongue: “Be strong! Be strong!” The
battle continued throughout the day and by evening it
was evident the whites were victorious. At dark the Indians
withdrew, and during the night crossed the Ohio.

Of the colonists, ten officers, including two colonels
and five captains and more than a hundred private soldiers
were killed. Of the Jackson River Company, seven
were killed and eleven were wounded. Among the
wounded was Captain Campbell, who with the other
wounded were left behind at the camp, now strongly entrenched
and well guarded, while the General with most
of his men marched up the river to join Lord Dunmore.

Opposite the mouth of the Hocking River they ferried
the Ohio in the Governor’s boats and marched rapidly
northward expecting to join Dunmore who had entrenched
about five miles east of Shauane-Town, giving
the camp the name of Fort Charlotte.

Learning of General Lewis’ approach, he rode out
and met him several miles from his fort, having as his
escort several officers and Indian chiefs, two of whom had
been in the Point Pleasant battle. When they met he
peremptorily ordered Lewis to return to Virginia. This
order the General reluctantly obeyed; his men grumbling
and threatening, even charging that the Governor had
been cognizant of the contemplated attack upon them,
perhaps had instigated it; and was now showing his disappointment
because they had defeated the Indians.

After the battle of Point Pleasant the Indians had
repaired to Shauane-Town, where Cornstalk convened a
general council.

[pg 121]
His advice was that they slay their women and children
and then fight until all were slain. Some of the
chiefs seemed not to dread surrender to Lord Dunmore
and his proposition was met with silent disapprobation.
Finding the Indians either disheartened or apathetic or
anxious for peace, he drove his tomahawk into a log, the
sign of submission, and said: “I will sue for peace.”

The peace council was held at Fort Charlotte. Lord
Dunmore and the Indians had no difficulty in coming to
terms. All the chiefs of prominence were represented
except Logan. He had opposed making peace and disdained
to be seen among the suppliants at Fort Charlotte;
but lest the sincerity of the treaty should be distrusted,
he sent by messenger (John Gibson) the following speech
to be delivered to Lord Dunmore:

“I appeal to any white man to say, if ever he entered
Logan’s cabin hungry and he gave him not meat; if ever
he came cold and naked and he clothed him not. During
the last long and bloody war, Logan remained idle in his
cabin, an advocate for peace. Such was my love for the
whites that my countrymen pointed as they passed and
said: ‘Logan is the friend of the white man.’ I had even
thought to have lived with you but for the injuries of one
man. Colonel Cresap, the last spring, in cold blood and
unprovoked, murdered all the relatives of Logan, not
sparing my women and children. There runs not a drop
of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This
called on me for revenge. For my country I rejoice at
the beams of peace. But do not harbor the thought that
mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will
not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to
mourn for Logan? Not one.”

At the peace conference, in the absence of Logan, the
usual Speaker, Cornplanter presented the cause of the
[pg 122]
Indians. He began by complaining of the white men
who had disregarded their treaties; settling upon Indian
lands without even an offer of purchase; even upon soil
which by treaty had been reserved as sacred from settlement
or incursion, then continued: “\* \* \* and have
robbed again and again and murdered Indians and their
families while peacefully hunting. For years we have
patiently endured these wrongs, till at length we were
driven into this bloody war. We do not wish for war;
we wish for peace. We know the power of the white
man and that he can overpower the Indian. But this is
a white man’s war. Yet had we not resented the wrongs
done us even the white man would have despised us for
cowardice.”

[pg 123]




CHAPTER VI.—The Children.
-------------------------


Logan had brought the two captive children directly
to Shauane-Town. As they were too young to effect their
escape, they were allowed to wander at will in and around
the village, where they played with and were treated as
the native children.

A week after his return, at a tribal council he referred
to the massacre of his family at the mouth of Yellow
Creek, spoke of his present loneliness and asked to adopt
the two children as his own, saying: “\* \* \* They are
so young they will soon forget their own people and language
and I shall bring them up as my own children.”
His request having been granted the two children were
brought before the council.

The adoption of the girl was quite simple; she was
stripped of her clothing and sent out naked to play with
the other little girls. The boy’s adoption was more
formal. After being stripped he was seated in the center
of the council; two old squaws, called in for the purpose,
deliberately plucked out his curls, strand by strand,
until only the scalp lock was left; a small tuft, three
inches in diameter on his crown, which was stiffened and
discolored with an ointment of graphite and bear grease,
then certain tribal designs were painted upon his body
with the juice of the puccoon root. This completed the
ceremony.

They were just sending him out, when a very old and
highly respected medicine man, the chief priest of the
nation, and to whom were attributed occult powers of a
high order; came into the council hall and walking over
[pg 124]
to the boy, stooped and removed from his neck a gold
chain to which was attached a cross of ebony and pearl;
this he examined carefully. Then turning to the council
he said: “This child is of the sacred priesthood. He has
the look in his face and eyes and his body is without blemish,
as is required by the order. Let no one do him harm
or cross his will, because in what he does he will be
guided by the Great Spirit. The night before Logan
brought him I saw the boy in a dream and was told of
his coming and his mission. It is one of peace. He will
be the friend of all men; of Long Knives and Indians
alike. He does not know your language and will be carried
home by Logan before the flying of the cahonks or
the first snow-fall. By then he will speak your tongue as
well as your own children and will never forget a word.
It is the will of the Great Spirit. In proof that what I
say is true, as he steps over the threshold of your council
lodge he will drop as one dead; and for some days will
lie in coma. When this passes he will not speak the language
of the Long Knives so long as he remains with
you. You will see in him many things that are strange;
because his are a mind and spirit that see where yours
cease seeing.”

After mumbling certain incantations which no one
understood, he drew from his girdle a case made from a
hollow bone and taking from it needles of fish bone and
certain pigments; tattooed upon the chest of the boy an
enlarged likeness of the cross he wore; and beneath it
pricked the tribal sign of the Mingo priesthood. All this
the little boy endured without outcry, though his face was
ashy pale and his colorless lips moved in prayer.

Then the priest took from his own waist a girdle of
wampum of unusual pattern and fastened it about the
waist of the boy and extending his hands above the boy’s
[pg 125]
head, murmured yet more of his incantations. Then indicating
the ceremony was completed, walked away.

The boy was told to go to his lodge. As he stepped
over the threshold he dropped apparently lifeless; and
no wonder; he had been subjected to a terrible strain and
his blood was filled with impure pigments.

He was carried by Logan to their lodge and placed
upon a pallet of deer skins. An old woman was called to
attend him. He lay in a deep sleep until sundown, when
he sat up and was given food and drink. A few minutes
later he dropped back into unconsciousness which lasted
for eighteen hours; at the end of which time, rousing
from his torpor, he walked to a brook, where he bathed,
removing all the grease and pigment. The tattooed cross
and Mingo tribal signs stood out upon his body like a
great blotch of blood on a statue of white marble. He
returned to his pallet, smiled at Dorothy and after eating
slept again.

For several days he was in a stupor and slept much
of the time. At the end of a week the tattooed marks
were no longer inflamed and he had recovered.

Not far from the village on the brow of a hill was a
green mound, which rumor said was a place of burial;
though the Indians knew not what people had made or
used it. As the view from its summit was extensive, the
timber having been burned away, the mound was used
for signal fires and because of superstition, never visited
except for that purpose.

John Calvin, who was the only child in the village
permitted to go where he pleased, even to the council
lodge and that of the medicine man, each day climbed to
the summit and for an hour or more sat upon the signal
rock, scarcely moving, lost in dreams or visions. The
whole tribe watched him with superstitious awe.

[pg 126]
Rumor of the child’s strange conduct spread throughout
the Mingo nation and fierce, wild chiefs and warriors
would watch him seated in silence upon the mound and
as he walked about the village deferentially made room
for him. They said: “The boy is so different from other
Long Knives, he says nothing, they talk all the time.”

Dorothy grew half afraid of her old playmate, who
when she spoke to him in English answered by a word or
two in the Mingo tongue if he answered at all, having
very quickly picked up a few common words. When he
was not alone upon the mound they would go to the playground
of the children and listen to and watch them. It
was thus they learned to speak the language, he very
quickly and Dorothy more slowly. In a little while they
were playing with the Indian children, usually on or in
the river; and both soon learned to swim and to paddle
about in small canoes.

While they were prisoners at Shauane-Town the widow
of Pukeshirrwan, whose husband was killed in the battle
of Point Pleasant, gave birth to three posthumous children,
one of whom was the Prophet. Dorothy grew very
fond of the three little babies and spent much of her time
playing the part of nurse to them.

Tecumseh, a brother of the three babies, was of the
same age and a playfellow of the prisoners. Between
them a friendship grew up, which lasted until he was
killed at the battle of the Thames.

These Indian children were of the family or totem of
the Panther. The name Tecumseh for a while was applied
to all the male children of the family and meant
flying across. When John Calvin was dedicated to the
priesthood, he was adopted into their family instead of
Logan’s; and under the cross on his breast was inscribed
the sign of the Panther.

[pg 127]
The young prisoners throughout the summer into
mid-September ran naked, grew dark of skin and lapsed
into the habits and speech of the Indian children. It
seemed they were beginning to forget their own people.
They were even taken with a hunting party into the country
south of the “Oyo” into the land Kentucke, given in
Charlevoix’s map of New France as the “Pays du
Chouarrons” (Land of the Shauanese). Here while hunting,
a fawn closely pursued ran to John Calvin, who put
his arms about it and would not let it be killed. After the
hunters left he turned it loose.

When the weather grew frosty they were dressed in
doe skin clothing and moccasins, ornamented as those of
a chief’s children; and slept on a bear skin wrapped in
a vividly colored blanket, purchased from a French trader
at Chicasaw Falls.

One morning in early November they were roused
from sleep by Logan and told they were to be carried
home across the great mountain. Many of the tribe
gathered to see them off. Tecumseh gave John a bow,
quiver and arrows and to Dorothy beaded moccasins.
The priest took the old girdle from around him and in its
place substituted a new one; which in sign language recited
that he had been adopted into the family of the
Panther and belonged to the Mingo priesthood. He was
told to preserve and wear it and that no Indian henceforth
would harm him.

The children were placed upon a doe skin pallet in the
bottom of the canoe; then Logan and the two Indians who
had helped kidnap them took their seats in the canoe,
which, shoved from the shore, glided out into the river,
and was soon paddled out of sight around a bend of the
river; their Indian friends standing on the bank and
watching until it disappeared.

[pg 128]
Twelve days later they reached the head of canoe
travel on the Kanawha and rested for the night. The
next morning at first light, Logan with the two children,
leaving the two Indians, traveled eastward along a narrow
trail, following the stream until it became a mountain
torrent, dashing in spray over boulders and down declivities.
At night they slept at its very head under an overhanging
cliff, from the foot of which the river’s first
waters gurgled forth.

Mid-afternoon of the next day they crossed the divide
through the pass; and from a projecting rock on the eastern
slope saw again their own home and below in the Valley,
the church and school house of the settlement.

Richard Cameron was milking the cows. He saw
Jerry run up the mountain path and heard several glad,
sharp barks. He looked up and saw an Indian, whom he
recognized as Logan, and accompanying him two small
Indian children.

The children ran forward, the dog barking and frisking
at their heels. When they were near they called out:
“Hello, Richard! Hello, Mr. Mason!” and together they
all ran to the house.

For the moment Logan was forgotten. He seated
himself on a log near the gate. In a short while Captain
Campbell came out and cordially though formally greeted
him. He remained some weeks a welcome guest.

Mrs. Campbell was too happy to sleep soundly that
night. Sometime after midnight, she heard the “Cahonk,
cahonk” of the wild geese flying southward, the first of
the season.

[pg 129]




CHAPTER VII.—Diamond Cut Diamond.
---------------------------------


The purpose of the easy going settler of Virginia in
coming to America was not to find religious freedom,
but to better his financial condition. He parted from old
England with regret; found the same church in Virginia
he had left at home; lived under the same laws and in
many ways under the same conditions. He venerated
the laws of England and contributed without grumbling
towards the support of the Established Church under a
general taxation system for that purpose; but appeals
by his clergy to curtail privileges granted by acts of toleration
aroused no such zeal as was exhibited by his New
England non-conformist brother in his attitude towards
Baptist and Quaker.

America was fallow soil for new thought; and the
first seed sown was that which led to the first constitutional
amendment. Sowers of new thought, argued:
“You cannot by law control men in their attitude of mind
and heart toward God. Religious freedom must come.
It is an inalienable right and cannot be denied. It is useless
for the state to disturb itself by enacting rules of
regulation.” Finally they threatened: “To obtain this
right you will force us to support the new issue of local
self-government; and if the two, religious freedom and
self-government for the colony join forces, it means war.”

So the dissenters, and particularly the Presbyterians,
in the first instance, contending for religious freedom
only, were forced into the newer controversy to procure
the old; and to such an extent were the issues assimilated,
[pg 130]
that the English correctly attributed the Revolution to
the Presbyterians. Walpole, addressing parliament
made the statement: “Cousin America has run away
with a Presbyterian parson.”

The first act of toleration was passed in 1699. The
Act of 1705 provided that if a person denied the existence
of God or the Trinity or the divine authority of the
scriptures or asserted there are more gods than one;
upon conviction of the first offense was deprived of the
right to hold an office of trust or emolument; upon the
second conviction he was denied the right to sue or to
inherit property or to act as trustee for any person or
estate and was subject to a sentence of three years’ imprisonment;
his own children could be taken from him
and placed in more orthodox hands; upon the third conviction
he was put to death, though this statute was never
invoked.

Before 1750 the spirit of the clergy of the English
Church had subsided into moderation; and the dissenter
or non-conformist preacher had grown more aggressive;
though the laws against him were still oppressive.

Rev. Francis MaKemie established the first Presbyterian
churches in the Virginia colony. He was forced
repeatedly to appear before the magistrates and once
before the Governor; and is accredited with having obtained
the first act of toleration in 1699; though Samuel
Davies is looked upon as the founder of the Presbyterian
Church in Virginia; and to him and Thomas Jefferson,
more than to any other men, thanks are due for services
in behalf of religious liberty.

From 1732, dissenters, in the main Presbyterians,
began to settle the great Valley of Virginia. Within ten
years from the establishment of the first Presbyterian
[pg 131]
church there were Presbyterian churches in nine of the
then few counties; they had also obtained promises from
the authorities not to disturb them in their worship;
though this was a protection guaranteed by the Act of
Toleration then in force.

The Presbyterian Synod meeting in Philadelphia in
1738, petitioned the Governor of Virginia that Presbyterians
of the valley might have “the free enjoyment of
their civil and religious liberties.” They received a favorable
reply; which stimulated the emigration of Presbyterians
into the valley not only from the less liberal
colonies but from the Old Country.

Samuel Davies, protected by compliance with the Act
of Tolerance, came to Virginia when but twenty-three
years of age and immediately went to work establishing
churches. He appeared before the Virginia committee
which under a show of compliance with the law, licensed
as few non-conformist ministers as was possible; and
from that body procured licenses for several ministers
and permits to establish several churches in new territory.
In the General Court of Virginia, where he was
forced to appear; he argued that not only inherently but
by the Act of Toleration, applicants for the ministry
must be granted the power and place to preach. In this
he was opposed by Peyton Randolph, then attorney general
for the colony, and though he lost the case was said
to have had the better of the argument. He procured
from the attorney general of the Mother Country an opinion
to the effect that the English law of Toleration, somewhat
broader than the colonial, was applicable to, and the
law of, the colony. Eventually his fight procured for
Presbyterians a liberal interpretation of the Act.

He was always careful to declare that his opposition
was not to the Church of England but the clergy, expressing
[pg 132]
himself “as not against the peculiar rights and
ceremonies of the English Church, much less against
their excellent articles; but against the general strain of
the doctrine delivered from the pulpit, in which their
articles were opposed or not mentioned.”

His was a fight, not only for religious liberty, but for
the supremacy of Christ in the church, the authenticity of
the Bible, equal rights under the law for all denominations
and individual right to freedom of conscience.

Because of his work, peace would have prevailed between
all confessors of the Trinity and laws curtailing
religious freedom would have been annulled; had not the
Tidewater clergy bestirred themselves and fanned to
flame the last expiring embers of intolerance in Virginia.

He died in 1761; at the time head of what is now
Princeton University, having succeeded Jonathan Edwards
as president.

After Davies’ efforts ended, other influences at work
ultimately brought about the result.

The non-conformists through immigration, natural
causes and religious teachings, grew rapidly in strength
and influence and became aggressive.

Presbyterian ministers no longer thought of applying
in person at the capital, Williamsburg, for license and
location as required under the Act, but preached the word
of God “wherever duty and conscience inspired them.”
This was particularly true in the remoter settlements
west of the Blue Ridge.

The French-Indian war was highly favorable to the
growth of religious liberty. The non-conformist frontier
settlements stood as a barrier to Indian invasion and
bore the brunt of the struggle. Tidewater, Virginia, felt
grateful towards the Presbyterians and for that reason
was inclined to give a liberal construction to the Act.

[pg 133]
In 1755, just when the colony was feeling most heavily
the burden incident to this war, the clergy of the English
Church, who were paid from the public treasury,
made demand for increased salaries. Though backed by
the King, the demand was unpopular and the colonists
were slow in complying; whereupon the clergy instituted
a test Suit, known as the Parsons’ case, to recover damages.

Patrick Henry was employed to represent certain citizens
in opposition to the parsons. At the time he was
an unknown, ungainly and somewhat dissipated young
lawyer. It was his first big case. In the beginning he
was almost too embarrassed to speak, but as he talked he
gained confidence, until with great eloquence and passion
he assailed the clergy and finally the King; declaring that
the Burgesses of Virginia were “the only authority
which could give force to the laws for the government of
the colony;” one of the first public utterances declaring
for self-government for the colony.

When the case was submitted the jury was peremptorily
instructed to find for the plaintiff; and they did so
by awarding damages in the sum of one penny. It was a
great victory for Henry; the beginning of his greatness
and popularity.

The clergy, incensed by the verdict, instituted proceedings
for violations of the Act of Toleration. Under these
persecutions and counter attacks instituted by the non-conformists
charging the conformist clergy with habits
of dissipation, Toryism and of laying upon them increased
burdens of taxation, the colony was greatly disturbed.

Conformist attacks were chiefly against the Baptists;
the Presbyterians had grown too strong. They charged
the Baptists with being followers of the German Anabaptists;
and predicted horrors similar to those of Munster.

[pg 134]
Three Baptist preachers, James Chiles, John Waller
and Lewis Craig, were arrested; but were offered their
release if they would discontinue preaching. They
declined. As they were being carried to prison through
the streets of Fredericksburg they sang: “Broad is the
way that leads to death;” and while confined, preached
to the people who congregated beneath the windows of
the jail.

They were arraigned for “preaching the gospel contrary
to law.” Patrick Henry, when he heard the charge
arose and said: “What do I hear read? Did I hear an
expression that these men whom Your Worships are
about to try for misdemeanor are charged with preaching
the Gospel of the Son of God?”

The result of these persecutions made the conformist
clergy yet more unpopular; more of the people became
non-conformists, until they numerically exceeded the conformists.
Then the non-conformists assumed the role of
aggressor; objected to the term dissenter, demanded
the repeal of all acts of toleration, religious freedom for
all and that the clergy of no sect be paid by general taxation.

Tory influence dominated the conformist clergy; the
non-conformist preachers, advocating religious liberty,
quite naturally became the first advocates of civil liberty
and freedom for the colonies. Thus in the issue that
brought about the Revolution, one side of the religious
controversialists favored the colony, the other the king;
and by the end of the struggle the conformist or English
Church was practically non-existent.

Rev. Donald McDonald, going to Williamsburg in the
spring of 1772 to lobby against the Bill, “To Regulate
His Majesty’s Protestant Subjects,” was forced to remain
indefinitely. Of necessity he gave up his church in
[pg 135]
the valley; and in order to make a living, accepted the
call of a small church in Williamsburg.

Here he made the acquaintance of and was vastly
aided in his fight for religious freedom by Patrick Henry,
Thomas Jefferson, George Mason, Richard Henry Lee
and Edmund Pendleton; three of whom were members
and vestrymen of the English Church. Each being members
of the Upper House of Assembly bore the title of
Esquire, which, though now used indiscriminately, was
then a title of great respect.

In the old Bruton Church of Williamsburg, a commemorative
tablet is inscribed: “To the glory of God
and in memory of the members of the committee which
drafted the law establishing religious freedom in Virginia;
Thomas Jefferson, vestryman of St. Ann’s Parish;
Edmund Pendleton, vestryman of Drysdale Parish;
George Wyth, vestryman of Bruton Parish; George Mason,
vestryman of Truro Parish; Thomas Ludwell Lee,
vestryman of Overwharton Parish; being all members of
the committee.”

It was George Mason of Gunston Hall, vestryman of
Truro Parish, who wrote the Virginia Bill of Rights;
and it was copied by Jefferson in preparing the Declaration
of Independence.

In the Virginia Bill of Rights it is declared: “That
religion is the duty which we owe to our Creator and the
manner of discharging it can be directed only by reason
and conviction, nor by force or violence; and therefore
that all men should enjoy the fullest toleration in the exercise
of religion according to the dictates of conscience,
unpunished and unrestrained by the magistrate.”

Jefferson has come down as “The father of modern
democracy and religious toleration.” It was his bill establishing
[pg 136]
religious freedom, beginning: “Well aware
that Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all
attempts to influence it by temporal punishment or burdens
or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits
of hypocrisy and meanness \* \* \*” that Virginia in
territory, then an empire, established perfect religious
freedom.

The Bill of the Virginia General Assembly, of December
17, 1785, slightly modified and pushed through by
James Madison and Patrick Henry, became the First
Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

[pg 137]




CHAPTER VIII.—The Awakening of Virginia.
----------------------------------------


The result of the French-Indian war destroyed the
chance of France to dominate America; and gave birth
to a new issue; whether America should be a British
Colony or an independent sovereignty.

Virginia had always been the most favored of the colonies
and responded with the kindest feeling for the
Mother Country. Long after Massachusetts had proven
a refractory daughter, Virginia, better satisfied, seemed
to New England to lack independence of spirit, political
skill, and to possess only a dormant sense of liberty.

The propaganda of the non-conformists, declaring
for civil and religious liberty, suddenly gripped most
potently the conformist or Tidewater families, who overnight,
seemed to throw off their lethargy; and thenceforth
exhibited such valor, high patriotism and broad
statesmanship as to give them first place in the struggle
for liberty and domination of America for the next two
generations. History, however, shows that there was no
sudden change of sentiment.

Gradual and ever-breaching causes, preceded the
transition; among them the Stamp Acts, the Boston Port
Bill, the enactment of laws by Parliament directing that
colonists charged with treason should be transported to
England for trial, and Lord Dunmore’s mistaken policies
while Governor of the colony. The colony as early as
1624, by its Assembly had declared: “\* \* \* that it and
none other” had power to levy colonial taxes. Charles
II in 1676 had conceded this by declaring that “taxes
ought not to be laid on the inhabitants of the colony except
by its own general assembly.” This policy had
[pg 138]
never been questioned nor violated until the advisers of
George III in 1764 proposed that the colonies should pay
a portion of the debt incurred by the war with France;
which they said was but fair as a portion of the debt
accrued from aid given the colonies. The proposition,
met with indignant protest and opposition.

In March, 1765, the Stamp Act was passed by Parliament.
When it came up for discussion in the Virginia
House of Burgesses, the division was a close one and
great excitement prevailed. Patrick Henry offered a
resolution, that: “The General Assembly of this Colony
has the sole right and power to lay taxes and impositions
upon the inhabitants of this Colony.”

His speech in favor of the resolution was frequently
interrupted by cries of “Treason,” “Traitor.” In
closing these cries caused him to exclaim: “Caesar had
his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell and George
the Third may profit by their example. If this be treason,
make the most of it.” The resolution carried by a bare
majority.

When Virginia’s action was officially noticed, Pitt
speaking against the Act said: “I rejoice that America
has resisted! Three millions of people so dead to all the
feelings of liberty as voluntarily to submit to be slaves,
would have been fit instruments to have made slaves of
all the rest. I know the valor of your troops, the force
of this country; but in such a case success would be hazardous.
America, if she fell, would fall like a strong
man; she would embrace the pillars of the state and pull
down the constitution with her.”

In March, 1766, the Stamp Act was repealed.

In 1767, because of riotous opposition in New England
to a new revenue act, placing a tax on paper, glass and
tea, two English regiments were sent over and quartered
in Boston. In 1770 this Act was repealed except as to
[pg 139]
the duty on tea; which was not retained for the purpose
of revenue but to discipline the colonists; to show them
that Britain had the power to tax; as it was declared
by its advocates that it should remain, “till America is
prostrate at our feet.”

Virginians were more exercised over the law directing
that those accused of treason should be transported to
the mother country for trial than by the tax on tea. The
Burgesses met and passed resolutions declaring such
transportation and trial an act of tyranny.

During this excitement Lord Botetourt, the most popular
of the colonial governors, died and was succeeded by
Lord Dunmore, the most unpopular. From the beginning
of his administration he seems to have been obsessed with
the idea of subduing what he termed “the lawless and
traitorous spirit of the colonists.”

In 1773, Parliament passed a new Act insisting without
equivocation upon England’s right to transport her
colonial subjects across the sea for trial. The direct result
was the adoption of a resolution by the Virginia
Assembly making provision for the appointment of a
Committee of Correspondence, who were directed to co-operate
with the other colonies and organize for action.
All opposition until then had been without concerted action
between the detached colonies. This committee was
composed of ten members, including Thomas Jefferson,
Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee and Edmund Pendleton.

Massachusetts, the first to engage in overt acts of rebellion,
was logically the first sufferer. Virginia was
drawn into the struggle at a later period; not in revenge
for oppression but in devotion to the cause of liberty and
because of sympathy, and co-operated with her northern
neighbors.

[pg 140]
Boston, on May 10, 1774, received news of the passage
of the Port Bill, closing Boston Harbor. She notified
the other colonies and asked their support by declaring
an embargo against British commerce.

This communication was received at Williamsburg on
the 29th of May. Several days before Governor Dunmore
had dissolved the Colonial Assembly because it had
passed a resolution expressing sympathy for Massachusetts.
Quite a few of the members were yet in Williamsburg;
and they met and drafted the call for the First
Virginia Convention. This was signed by Jefferson,
Henry, Lee, Washington, Randolph and twenty other
members of the House of Burgesses.

Randolph was elected president of the First Convention.
During the six-day session it passed resolutions
expressing sympathy with Boston and discussed means
of aiding that city. The spirit of the convention is shown
by what was said by Washington, a member: “I will
raise one thousand men, subsist them at my own expense
and march myself at their head for the relief of Boston.”

After the adjournment of the First Continental Congress
all the colonies prepared for war. In Virginia a
committee of safety was appointed in every county and
six thousand “minute men” were mustered into service.

On March 20, 1775, the Second Virginia Convention
met at Richmond in St. John’s Church, because Williamsburg,
patrolled by Lord Dunmore’s marines, was not a
safe place for patriots voicing rebellion. Edmund Pendleton
was elected its president.

When Henry submitted his resolution to the convention
“for embodying, arming and disciplining the militia,”
many voted against it; showing that a respectable
number yet desired peace. These pacifists caused Henry
to make his great speech: “\* \* \* If we wish to be free
[pg 141]
we must fight. It is too late to retire from the contest.
There is no retreat but in submission and slavery. The
war is inevitable, let it come! The next gale that sweeps
from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding
arms. I know not what course others may take, but
as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”

His resolution, because of the opposition of Pendleton,
Nicholas, Harrison and Bland, would have been defeated
except for his eloquence, though he was supported
by Lee and Jefferson. Its adoption, coupled with his
speech of “War is inevitable, let it come!” defined Virginia’s
position; not only to the colonies but to the world.

After many prorogations of the House of Burgesses,
it was convened on June 1, 1775, to consider “Lord
North’s Compromise;” a separate offer of peace to Virginia.

Peyton Randolph left the Second Continental Congress
to be present at its deliberations. As he approached
Williamsburg, a procession of several companies
of horse and foot, equipped as though for instant
service, met and escorted him to the Capitol.

He found the Burgesses in session with their rifles
handy. While they were discussing the North Compromise,
one of the members accompanied by two private
citizens, examining the magazine, were wounded by guns
set at the direction of the Governor.

A committee of the House appointed to examine the
magazine, reported: “Several kegs of powder have been
placed under the floor and preparations made to blow it
up.” In the discussion of this report, it came out that
Lord Dunmore had declared his intention to free and
arm the slaves against the colonists. Thereupon a Bill
was passed placing a duty of five pounds on each imported
slave. The last official act of the Governor was
to veto this measure.

[pg 142]
The Burgesses refused to treat with Lord North without
the concurrence of the other colonies, and adjourned.

The Governor, frightened because of the excitement
and open opposition to him, on June 7th, with his family,
took refuge aboard the Fowey, a British man-of-war anchored
at York.

On July 17th, the Third Virginia Convention assembled
at Richmond and continued in session until August
26th. Its acts heretofore had been of the nature of resolutions;
but as Dunmore had deserted his post, threatening
to attack the colony and as the royal government no
longer existed; the convention assumed the functions of
a legislative body and established a provisional government.

Preparations were made to organize Virginia for defense;
laws were enacted to raise revenue and to elect
delegates to the next annual convention. Patrick Henry,
colonel of the First Regiment, was made commander of
the Virginia forces; and delegates to the Continental
Congress were elected.

The Baptists asked that their ministers be allowed to
address troops of their own denomination. Their petition
was granted, “for the ease of such scrupulous consciences.”

The convention vested the executive power of the
colony in a Committee of Safety with Edmund Pendleton
as president, whose duties (inter alia) were to commission
military officers, direct military movements and
issue treasury warrants. Its first aggressive act was to
resist the fugitive Governor; who shortly after his flight
began bombarding the shores of the Chesapeake.

In September one of his ships was blown ashore in a
storm and burned by the incensed inhabitants of Hampton.
Several weeks later he led an assault against the
[pg 143]
town; but was driven off by the villagers, reinforced by
the Culpepper minute men.

A body of marines, landing at Norfolk, seized the
equipment of a newspaper office and carried it aboard
the Fowey. It was on this press Lord Dunmore printed
his proclamation of November 7th, declaring all colonists
traitors who did not rally to his standard and offering
freedom to “all indentured servants, negroes or others,
apprenticed to rebels.”

On January 1, 1776, he set fire to Norfolk and while it
was burning sailed into the bay. From then, until midsummer
he sailed along the shores of the Chesapeake,
devastating small villages and plantations. On July 9th,
he landed upon and fortified Guinn’s Island. Attacked
by General Andrew Lewis, he abandoned his fort, fled to
New York, and shortly afterwards sailed for England.

The Fourth Virginia Convention met at Richmond on
December 1, 1775; but after organizing, no longer in
fear of Lord Dunmore, adjourned to meet at Williamsburg.

The session was consumed in preparation for war. A
committee of five was appointed in each county to try
those charged as enemies of the colonist cause; a court
of admiralty was established; laws were enacted regulating
commerce and provision made for increasing the
militia, which as enrolled was merged into the Continental
Army.

The chief theme of discussion, not only of the convention
but of all Virginians, was how formally to shift
the government from a royal colony to an independent
government and retain status as belligerents. It was
finally agreed that the colonies in convention should declare
their independence and organize as independent
commonwealths.

[pg 144]
The Fifth and last convention met at Williamsburg on
May 6, 1776, with Edmund Pendleton again as president.

On May 15th, it passed a resolution instructing their
delegates in the Continental Congress to propose to that
body to “declare the United Colonies free and independent
states.” The next day the British flag on the capitol
was hauled down and the American flag substituted;
while soldiers and civilians cheered and cannon roared.

A Bill of Rights and State Constitution, prepared by
George Mason, was adopted on June 12th; and on June
29th, the Commonwealth of Virginia came into being.

Under the state constitution, the legislative department
was divided into a House of Delegates and a Senate;
eligibles were to be freeholders elected by freeholders.
The executive department was to be presided over by a
governor, to be elected annually by the House and Senate.
Patrick Henry was chosen as first governor and
Edmund Randolph attorney general. Henry qualified as
governor on July 5, 1776.

Richard Henry Lee, a member of the Continental
Congress from Virginia, in compliance with instructions
given him by the Virginia Convention, offered in Congress
on June 7, 1776, the resolution: “That these United
States are and ought to be free and independent states
and that all political connection between them and the
State of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved.”
His resolution, seconded by John Adams, after
several days’ discussion, was passed.

In the absence of Mr. Lee, because of his wife’s illness,
Thomas Jefferson was made chairman of the committee;
and it was thus he came to draft the Declaration
of Independence, which after a few minor amendments,
was adopted on July 4, 1776.

[pg 145]




CHAPTER IX.—Chronicles.
-----------------------


The Committee of Safety in September, 1775, promoted
Captain Archibald Campbell. He was commissioned
Colonel of the Minute Men of Botetourt and Fincastle
counties. From the date of this appointment his
whole time was consumed by his military duties.

John Mason, the former bond servant, still remained
with him; and made a most efficient and trustworthy
foreman. While he was yet an indentured servant, he
had been made a deacon of the Jackson River Meeting
House; receiving more votes at the congregational meeting
than a rich and respected planter.

He and Richard Cameron in the winter of 1773 had
built for themselves a comfortable cabin of heavy hewn
logs, near the plantation house; and on winter nights
long after the Campbells were asleep; their windows
glowed from a bright light-wood fire.

Mr. Campbell, curious to know why they kept such
late hours, several times stealthily peeped in and found
that they were either reading from an old sheep-bound
Bible, which Mason had brought with him from England,
or some book borrowed from Mr. McDonald or the
schoolmaster.

Little John Calvin Campbell, after his supper, habitually
went to the cabin and Mason read aloud to him or
told stories of some patriarch or martyr; and by this influence
helped to mold the boy’s character yet more into
that sweet, serious nature, which was its hereditary
trend.

[pg 146]
While Logan had been a visitor at the plantation, he
and Mason became great friends. Mason made a list of
three hundred common words and Logan gave him the
Mingo word corresponding to each; he also gave him a
number of lessons in idiomatic construction. These words
he quickly committed to memory; and at every opportunity
increased his vocabulary; until now he and John Calvin
were the best interpreters in the county.

Passing Indians continued to make the Campbell
plantation their stopping place and thus he made the acquaintance
of many; treating all of them with such uniform
kindness, that they upon their return spoke of him
as their white brother.

In the early summer of 1775 it was rumored throughout
the colonies that Lord Dunmore’s agent, Connelley,
and Sir John Stewart had been sent to the Ohio tribes
and Col. Guy Johnson had been sent to western New
York to organize and perfect alliances between the British
and the Indians.

It obviously being advisable to offset this influence,
the colonial government organized three departments, in
charge of commissioners, to win the Indians; or failing in
that, to induce them to remain neutral.

The Virginia Committee of Safety, acting in conjunction
with the commissioners sent agents into the Indian
country; and Col. John Morgan was named as chief of
the colonial agents.

Colonel Campbell was ordered to send a fit man into
the Ohio River country for that purpose. At a loss, just
whom to send, he asked the schoolmaster and Donald
McDonald for suggestions and when both without hesitancy
named Mason; he was surprised that he had not
thought of him.

[pg 147]
Mason was called before the county executive committee,
a local subdivision of the Colonial Committee of
Safety, composed of Colonel Campbell, Captain Fairfax,
Jeremiah Tyler, Samuel Preston and James Speed, and
asked to undertake the mission.

He expressed a willingness to go not as a soldier but
as a missionary, and requested that he be licensed for
such service by the Valley Presbytery, instead of the
committee. This was arranged.

Several days later, carrying nothing but his sheep-bound
Bible, a change of clothing, blanket, hunting knife,
frying pan and a small bag of parched corn, he accompanied
Colonel Morgan to Pittsburgh. Several days later
they traveled down the river in a canoe and arranged a
council with several chiefs from the Scioto, Muskingum
and Miami River valleys.

The British agents, who had preceded them, by presents
of arms and rum, had made allies of most of the Indians;
who even now were organizing for a raid upon
the white settlements.

When their council met, two British agents were in attendance;
and though there were sixteen chiefs present,
none favored the cause of the colonies; four, Cornstalk,
White Eyes, Red Hawk and Logan voted in favor of
neutrality; the other twelve favored active co-operation
with the British. These four had sufficient influence to
procure a ten-day armistice.

As soon as the council adjourned Cornstalk and Red
Hawk, accompanied by a Shauanese warrior, traveled by
canoe to Fort Randolph at the mouth of Kanawha, where
they held a conference with Captain Arbuckle and
warned him of the pending danger.

Cornstalk, who had been defeated by General Lewis
near the site of the fort, convinced that the Long Knives
[pg 148]
would win the struggle; knowing that the Indians were
not strong enough to fight the colonists after peace; was
anxious that they remain neutral. He told the officers
of the fort that of all the chiefs of that section only six
favored neutrality; and that he and Red Hawk had come
to confer with him, hoping that something might be done
to prevent hostilities.

Arbuckle, keeping the three Indians as prisoners, as
also Cornstalk’s son, who came to visit his father, sent
word to the Shauanese that if they murdered any Americans
he would shoot his prisoners.

While they were held, two soldiers hunting at some
distance from the fort were fired upon by Indians; one
was killed, the other escaped. When the soldiers of the
fort learned of this, over the protest of their officers
they killed the prisoners.

Cornstalk met death like a stoic; but his son, hearing
the soldiers approaching, was greatly frightened. The
father counseled: “My son, do not give place to fear. If
the Great Spirit has sent you here to be killed, submit
to his will. Die like a man.”

When the council reconvened the Indians were wildly
incensed; twenty-two chiefs were present and all but one,
White Eyes, voted for war.

Buckoulongas presiding, first addressed the council,
saying:

“Friends, listen! A great nation is divided. The
sons, the Long Knives, fight their father, the British. The
father has called on his Indian children to help him
punish his white children. We should do what Lord
Dunmore asks. He stood between us and destruction
after the battle of Point Pleasant, when the Long Knives
wished to burn our villages and murder our women and
children.

[pg 149]
“I took time to consider whether I should receive the
hatchet of my father to assist him. At first I thought it
a family quarrel in which I was not interested. At length
it appeared to me that the father was right and his white
sons should be punished.

“The father has promised to arm and provision us
and to treat us as his children, so we shall never want.
But we have a greater cause for war. The Long Knives
have broken their treaty with us. They steal our property;
they murder without provocation; even those of
us who would be their friends, who when they seek the
shelter of their forts in peace and for council and to do
them a service are set upon and murdered. Look at the
murders committed by them upon the kindred of our
friend and their friend also; who were living in peace on
the banks of the Ohio. Did they not kill them without
provocation and in cold blood? Will they be any better?
No. Even Logan, who so many times has spoken for
them, is forced to remain silent; he cannot plead their
cause.

“There is no course but war, as they will continue to
rob and murder so long as we have a foot of land remaining.

“We respect Colonel Morgan, but are unfriendly to
his cause. He must return to Pittsburgh. John Mason,
who has been our friend so long and who comes to teach
us about the white man’s God, may remain.”

Of all the council but one chief dissented, White Eyes,
a Delaware; and he alone of all his tribe desired to remain
neutral. When he spoke for neutrality, believing
that the war would bring only disaster and suffering to
the Indians, Chieftain Pipe, a rival chief of his own nation,
rose and said: “I declare that every man should be
[pg 150]
called an enemy to his nation, who opposes war with the
Long Knives.”

To which White Eyes replied:

“If this council declares for war, you shall not go
without me. I have been for peace that I might save my
tribe from destruction; but all think me wrong. I hope
you are right. I am a warrior and a Delaware. If you
insist on fighting the Americans, go! and I will go with
you. And I will not go like the bear hunter who sets his
dogs upon the animal to be beaten about by his paws
while he keeps himself at a distance. No! I will lead my
people. I will be in the front. I will fall with the first
of you. I will not live to bewail the destruction of a
brave people who deserve a better fate.

“I ask that John Mason, who has fed my people when
they were hungry and who has proved himself our friend,
lodge with my tribe, many of whom believe in the white
man’s God, having been instructed by Mr. Heckewelder.
My tribe wished to drive him away; but I would not allow
it, believing that something is to be learned from
everyone. I am an old man and know not how long I
shall live. I now rejoice that I have been able to induce
my people to hear of this God. Our children and grandchildren
will reap the benefit. Now I am ready to die
whenever God pleases.”

A guard of Indians in three war canoes, escorted
Colonel Morgan to his friends near Pittsburgh, but declined
his invitation to land fearing they might be massacred.

John Mason remained with the Delawares; was taken
into the family of White Eyes and treated by the whole
tribe, except Chieftain Pipe, as an honored guest.
Colonel Morgan had advised that he remain, hoping his
influence would keep the tribe from joining the British.

[pg 151]
He had been with them less than two months, when
White Eyes was taken with the smallpox. As the disease
usually assumes a malignant form with Indians, he
nursed the old chief and kept his people from the lodge.

When it was evident that White Eyes was near death,
he called for Mason’s Bible and holding it in his hands
asked to be placed upon a pallet without the lodge. There
in the twilight of the day, and of his life, he talked to his
assembled people.

“My friends, it is my dying wish that the Delawares
should hear the word of God. I have therefore gathered
together my young men and their children. I will kneel
down before the Great Spirit who created them and me
and I will pray unto Him that He will have mercy upon
us and reveal His will to us. And as we cannot declare
that will to those who are yet unborn, we will pray unto
the Lord our God, to make it known unto our children’s
children.”

White Eyes was succeeded by Chieftain Pipe, who
hated all white men; but the promises and bounties of
the British bought his allegiance. He sent Mason away
and for several years willingly joined cause with the
British.

The longer the war lasted, the less he relished it; noting
that his people, as White Eyes had foretold, were the
chief sufferers and fully aware that when peace was made
between the whites a war of extermination would be
waged against the Indian.

These reflections and disappointments made him moodily
superstitious. He spoke of being visited and advised
by the spirit of White Eyes to withdraw from the war
and to become a Christian. He had always listened to
Mason’s talks to his people. Towards the end of the war
he exhibited much sympathy for the settlers; commanding
[pg 152]
his braves not to molest women and children and to
disarm and capture, rather than kill their enemies. His
people murmured because secretly he turned captives
loose; and the belief prevailed among them that he had
been converted to Christianity.

He attended a council between the British authorities
and their Indian allies at Detroit; and, though an ally,
could not disguise his growing hostile spirit.

Addressing the commanding officer, he said:

“Father—though I do not know why I should call
you father; I have never known any father but the
French; still as this name is imposed upon us I will use
it.

“Father, some time ago, you put a war hatchet in
my hands; you said: ‘Take this, and try it on the heads
of my enemies, the Long Knives, then let me know if it
is sharp and good.’

“I have obeyed your commands. The hatchet I found
sharp. This is what has been done with it. These are
the scalps we have taken. (Handing the Commandant,
known as ‘the Hair Buyer,’ a package of forty-three
scalps, cured, dried, hooped and painted, to indicate how
and from whom taken.) And yet I did not do all I might
have done. No, I did not. I felt compassion for your
enemy. Innocent women and children had no part in your
quarrels; therefore I spared them. These are the scalps
of men killed in battle.

“I took some prisoners. As I was bringing them to
you I spied one of your large canoes, in which I placed
them. They will arrive in a few days. If you will examine
their skin you will find it the same color as your
own. Father, I hope you will not kill those I have spared.
You have the means of preserving them from want. The
[pg 153]
Indian is poor. His cabin is always empty. Your house
is always full.

“He has helped you because you have furnished him
with rifles, hatchets, blankets, food and rum, though
this is not his quarrel. That is the reason he has risked
his life. For this you think the Indian a fool.

“You and the Long Knives raised a quarrel among
yourselves and you ought to fight it out. You should
not compel your children, the Indians, to fight for you.
Many lives have already been lost. The tribes have
suffered and have been weakened. It is not known how
many more will perish before your war shall end.

“Father, I have said that you may think me a fool
for rushing thoughtlessly on your enemy, as the hunter
sets his dogs upon the bear. The Indian expects to see
the father shake hands with his enemy, the Long Knives.
Do not think that I am ignorant that soon you may make
peace with them. What then is to become of the Indian?
You say you love him. It is for your interest to say so,
that you may have him to serve you.”

“The Hair Buyer” at this council paid the bounties
and collected his scalps. These were forwarded (eight
packages) to the Governor of Canada with the following
communication:

“May it Please Your Excellency:

“At the request of the (illegible), I hereby send your
Excellency, under the care of James Hoyd, eight packages
of scalps, cured, dried, hooped and painted with all
the triumphal marks of which the following is the invoice
and explanation:

“No. 1. Containing forty-three scalps of Congress
soldiers, killed in different skirmishes. These are
stretched on black hoops four inches in diameter. The
inside of the skin is painted red, with a small black spot,
[pg 154]
to note their being killed with bullets; the hoops painted
red, the skin painted brown and marked with a hoe; a
black circle all around to denote their being surprised in
the night; and a black hatchet in the middle, signifying
their being killed with that weapon.

“No. 2. Containing ninety-eight of farmers killed in
their houses; hoops red, figure of a hoe, to mark their
profession; great white circle and sun to show they were
surprised in the day time; a little red foot to show they
stood upon their defense, and died fighting for their lives
and families.

“No. 3. Containing ninety-seven of farmers; hoop
green to show they were killed in the fields; a large white
circle with a little round mark on it for a sun to show that
it was in the day time; black bullets marked on some, a
hatchet mark on others.

“No. 4. Containing one hundred and two—eighteen
marked with a little yellow flame, to denote their being
of prisoners burnt alive after being scalped; their nails
pulled out at the roots and other tortures. One of these
latter being supposed to be an American clergyman; his
hand being fixed to the hoop of his scalp. Most appear
to have been young or middle aged men; there being but
sixty-seven very gray heads among them all, which makes
the service more essential.

“No. 5. Containing eighty-eight scalps of women;
hair long, braided in Indian fashion to show they were
mothers; hoops blue, skin yellow ground with little red
tadpoles to represent by way of triumph the tears of
grief occasioned to their relatives; black scalping knife
or hatchet at the bottom, to mark their being killed by
those instruments. Seventeen others hair very gray,
black hoops, plain brown color; no marks but the short
[pg 155]
club or cassetete, to show they were knocked down or had
their brains beat out.

“No. 6. Containing one hundred and ninety-three
boys’ scalps of various ages. Small green hoops, whitish
ground on the skin, with red tears on the middle and
black marks, knife, hatchet or club as their death happened.

“No. 7. Containing two hundred and eleven girls’
scalps, big and little, small yellow hoops, white ground,
tears, hatchet, scalping knife.

“No. 8. This package is a mixture of all the varieties
above mentioned, to the number of one hundred and
twenty-two; with a box of birch bark containing twenty-nine
little infants’ scalps.

“With these packages the chiefs send to your Excellency
the following speech delivered by Conicogatachie
in council:

“‘Father—We send you herewith many scalps that
you may see we are not idle friends. We wish to send
these scalps to the great King, that he may regard them
and be refreshed; and that he may see our faithfulness in
destroying his enemies and be convinced that his presents
have not been made to an ungrateful people—etc—.’”

-----

(This communication was published by Benjamin
Franklin in the American Remembrance; was reprinted
in many European publications; and the revolting practice
universally condemned in Europe and America).

[pg 156]




CHAPTER X.—The End and After the War.
-------------------------------------


The General Assembly of the new Commonwealth,
made up of the delegates of the Fifth Virginia Colonial
Convention, met at Williamsburg, October 7, 1776.

To Donald McDonald and his friends, the most important
pending legislation involved the old religious
contentions, this time waged by Dissenters, who, finding
themselves in the majority, demanded the enactment
of laws effectively severing church and state; and
repealing all existing revenue measures for the support
of the Established Church. Their fight was led by Jefferson,
a member of the Established Church, who was much
more an advocate of severance of church and state than
a churchman. The opposition was led by Edmund Pendleton
and John Page.

Donald McDonald, Lewis Craig and Charles Marshall
were present as Dissenter lobbyists; while several rich
planters and a couple of bishops argued and pleaded with
the members and before committees that the proposed
measures were not only attacks upon the church but an
assailment of the Protestant faith.

As liberalism and equality were at the time in the
saddle, the advocates of severance were successful. Laws
were passed removing all civil disabilities because of
religious belief; placing all sects upon the same footing
and taxing only Conformists for the support of Conformist
churches.

Emboldened by their successes, the advocates of equal
rights introduced bills abolishing entails and the existing
statute of descent. Under the English law of primogeniture,
[pg 157]
bolstered by local statutes since the organization
of the colony, the family plantation had descended to
the eldest son, the law prohibiting its sale or encumbrance.
All such laws were attacked and repealed, upon
the ground that they established and maintained an
aristocracy.

As this legislative action placed all freeholders upon
the same footing, civil and religious, Donald McDonald’s
long continued labors in Williamsburg were at an end
and he and his fellow laborers returned home.

There, he was made to feel that he was an old man.
All able-bodied men of the community were away; either
in the new State militia or the Continental Line service.
He, however, was still able to preach, and most effectively,
to the women, the children and his more or less
afflicted comrades among the men.

Nothing was talked of but the war. Patriotism fired
every heart. All at home were making the supreme sacrifice;
eating insufficient bread; going with the minimum
clothing; doing with the least bedding, and in other ways
denying themselves in order that those in the field might
have their share of the scanty store. Though each soldier
had left home properly equipped, as months went
by this outfit became rags and the army had no fresh
supplies to issue. It rent the hearts of those at home
to hear that their soldiers were forced to march barefooted
in the snow and live for weeks on the scantiest
allowance.

The sacrifice made by those at home, coupled with
most material aid from the French, enabled the Colonial
armies finally to entrap and capture the army of Lord
Cornwallis; which surrendered on the 19th day of October,
1781. The victory was decisive; it freed Virginia
[pg 158]
of all alien forces and virtually ended the Revolutionary
war.

Early in 1782 the old British Ministry was replaced
by an anti-war ministry headed by the Marquis of Rockingham;
and orders were issued to all British forces in
America to discontinue hostilities. September 3, 1783,
Great Britain, by treaty, recognized the independence
of the Thirteen Colonies.

For some unknown reason the forts of the Northwest
Territory were not surrendered until 1795. This retention
aggravated the desultory warfare between the settlers
and the Indians in the Western Country. The settlers
claimed that the Indians were encouraged in their
acts of violence by the commanders of the forts.

The spring and summer after the battle of Yorktown
were busy days on the plantation. Colonel Campbell,
who had resigned his commission, supervised and helped
with the work of clearing the briars and undergrowth
and putting in the spring crops. He was aided by
Richard Cameron and his son, John Calvin, who was
now a husky lad of fifteen. When extra help was needed
they called on their neighbors; always having refused
to purchase slaves, though just now, because of the breaking
up of the great plantations they could be bought at
bargain prices.

By the fall of 1782, the plantation was again in first
class condition and in balancing up, it was found had
more than supported the family for the year.

In the winter of 1782, Richard Cameron and Ruth
were married. It was a most happy match, approved by
the neighborhood generally, though some of the women
said: “If Ruth were the kind of a girl to consider her
ease and comfort she would marry Carter Harrington,”
[pg 159]
a rich young planter who had moved to the Valley from
the Tidewater Country.

At the request of Donald McDonald, who had grown
very feeble, the Jackson River Meeting House accepted
his resignation and called Richard Cameron as their pastor.
He was installed in January, 1783.

The school in 1782 had been reorganized by Jeremiah
Tyler, who was its principal. There were more than a
hundred children in attendance. Assisting him as instructors
were his daughter Judith and Mrs. Harris, a
widow, who the year before had taken the place of Mrs.
McDonald. Mrs. Harris was from Boston, where she
had taught a girls’ school for several years. The school
now enjoyed the reputation of being the best west of
Richmond; in fact, many contended it was the best in
Virginia.

John Calvin was conceded champion in the spelling
and quotation battles, which continued the neighborhood
attraction and the regular Friday afternoon entertainment.

The Fairfax family, in 1782, moved from Greenaway
Court to Jackson River, where Captain Fairfax bought
an extensive boundary on the edge of the Valley between
the Preston farm and the Campbell plantation. The
three families were inseparable and visited at all hours
without the slightest formality.

Captain Fairfax and his wife said that Dorothy had
made them move to the Valley and tried to tease her
by telling John he was the attraction. The two children
treated the jest in the most matter-of-fact way, Dorothy
saying: “He is almost as dear to me as you and father
are,” and John, that: “I am very glad that Dorothy lives
so near, she is the best friend I ever had.” Theirs was
a close friendship of more than ten years, beginning
[pg 160]
almost in infancy with never a thought about the relations
of the future.

They were much together, frequently visiting John
Calvin Rock, where they would take their books and
spend the whole afternoon. He would read aloud or
write for her what she called prose poems; little practical
essays on everyday things, yet possessed of a spirit
of individual mysticism and beauty of thought. Considering
them her greatest treasures they were carried
home and locked up in a small cabinet of inlaid woods,
which had belonged to her distinguished and aristocratic
uncle, Lord Fairfax.

The two were as dissimilar in disposition and appearance
as possible. She was petite, inclined to be innocently
giddy; quick with tears of sympathy and capable of
making one forget his sorrows by her chirpy gladness;
yet as John knew, a very sensible girl when confronted
by something of importance.

He was tall for his age with big hands and feet; and
apparently, though not in reality, clumsy. His light hair
was always in wavy, riotous disorder. He loved the
solitudes of the mountain and the great forest beyond,
and spent much of his time climbing over the mountain
and in long tramps through the forest. He never carried
a gun, refusing to kill any wild thing, and wearing his
girdle, had no fear of the Indians. He told Dorothy
that when alone he could almost touch the wild deer or
walk into the midst of a drove of turkeys; and if in
his rambles he came upon timber wolves or bear, they
passed him without showing either concern or friendliness.

He was uniformly courteous to every one; yet his
only intimates were his own family, including the servants
of the household, Dorothy, the school master and
[pg 161]
his daughter, the Clarks and a few silent Indian friends,
who whenever they passed through the settlement called
at the Pinnacle and talked with him.

When one of the tribe into which he had been adopted
visited him he always sent remembrances to Tecumseh
and the Prophet, the woman who had nursed him in his
strange illness and the medicine man whose tattooing
probably had caused it; and to John Mason, who for
eight years had been a missionary with the Ohio tribes,
he wrote long letters and sent a book or two at every
opportunity. Strange that this man so land hungry; so
possessed with the dominant Anglo-Saxon passion of land
ownership, as to have sold himself for five years in order
that he might pay his passage to America, expecting
there to become a freeholder and a gentleman farmer;
at the expiration of his servitude had chosen to become a
missionary to the Indians and never, even to his intimates,
mentioned the dream of his earlier days.

The Indians marked the boundary of the Campbell
plantation and the mountain trail passing it with the
Mingo sign of ownership and the sign name and office of
John Calvin, to protect it from Indian depredation. Their
friendliness while partly due to Mason’s unselfish service
and because they were kind and respectfully received and
entertained at the plantation, in the main was a tribute
to John Calvin, to whom they paid reverence as a
chief and as a member of the Mingo priesthood. He was
called in the Indian tongue, Chief Cross-Bearer, because
of the tattooed marks on his chest, which as he grew
seemed to grow not only in size but the more vividly
manifest.

The Indians, deep students of nature and attributing
to the Great Spirit a closer fellowship with men than did
the white men and possessing therefore a more intimate
[pg 162]
or innate insight into the spiritual phases of life, saw and
appreciated that John Calvin felt yet deeper these spiritual
phases and was gifted with an inexplicable capacity,
rarely given man, for grasping the teachings and purposes
of the Great Spirit; though his scarcely definable
gift was as yet unsuspected by him.

Even they did not know that when he came into a
room where some one was ill and raving in delirium, the
ravings ceased; and that when he placed his hands, which
were cool and dry and pleasant to the touch, upon a person
suffering with pain or fever the pain or fever departed
for the time and the patient usually slept. This
had first been noticed by his mother and Dorothy, though
neither mentioned it.

Once when the schoolmaster was ill the boy came in
and sat with him and when he spoke of the pain which
felt like a great spike being driven through his head, the
boy in sympathy placed his hand upon his forehead and
stroked it several times. The touch was pleasant and
soothing and in a moment or two the pain was gone.
The master said: “Boy, you are a great nurse,” and in a
few moments was asleep.

As he slept he dreamed that an holy one of God went
forth about the earth, comforting the afflicted, ministering
unto the needy and unfortunate, lifting the weary,
telling of God’s love and in such a way that it seemed
but a part of his everyday life, not as a duty, not in
service, but as he slept and ate and performed such
other functions as were necessary to his being.

His path finally led to the palace of the King, and the
King came out and greeted him, saying: “Come, blessed
of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from
the foundation of the world; for I was an hungered and
you gave me meat; I was thirsty and you gave me drink;
[pg 163]
I was a stranger and you took me in; naked and you
clothed me; sick and you visited me.” And this holy one
asked: “When did I all this?” And the King answered:
“Inasmuch as you did it unto one of the least of my
sheep, you did it for me, their shepherd.”

It was thus rumor of the boy’s attributed power
started and spread throughout the settlement. A few wise
in their own conceit, explained it by saying: “He is so
good, so free of sin, so pure of heart that his very presence
is a tonic.” And the boy, when he learned what was
said, hastened to his rock and prayed long and fervent
prayers that he might be kept from sin and fitted in some
way to render service.

When some of the other boys asked: “How do you
keep so good?” he would answer: “Would that I were
better and my life cleaner. If I am better than some
boys, mine is not the credit, because I am not tempted as
they are. It may be that the men of my mother’s people
have been so long in the service of God and my father
and his father are such good men, that it is almost
natural for me not to wish to do mean things.”

In the summer of 1783, John Calvin completed the
course in the Tyler school. At his request, which was
seconded by his mother, Colonel Campbell arranged for
their son to attend William and Mary’s.

The boy’s mother was very much concerned about his
associations in Williamsburg. She objected to the college
dormitory, insisting that her husband write his most
trustworthy friend to find if possible the right sort of
family with whom their son might board.

He wrote Judge George Nicholas, a lawyer of prominence
and an intimate friend, asking that he act for him
in line with his wife’s wishes. Mr. Campbell received
a letter from Mrs. Nicholas, wherein she expressed her
[pg 164]
sympathy with and an under standing of Mrs. Campbell’s
anxiety and offered to take him into their family and
look after him as her own son.

With no further understanding, as it was now time
to leave, Colonel Campbell took his son to Williamsburg.
The night of their arrival they were guests of Judge
Nicholas. When the Colonel returned home, his report
of arrangements and particularly that her son was happily
domiciled with the Nicholas family, lessened the
worry of his mother.

During the four years he was in college, their house
was his home. Much of the finished manner and scholarly
way of expression for which he became conspicuous, was
acquired by association with this accomplished family.

When he came home in the summer of 1787 he was so
tall that his mother, though she stood on tiptoe, was unable
to kiss him, until he lifted her up in his arms. For
the first time as he and his father stood looking, the one
into the face of the other as they had a way of doing, he
did not look up but down. Colonel Campbell, who stood
slightly over six feet in his moccasins, said: “Well boy,
you seem to have the best of me; you have grown out of
my class and are broad of shoulders and narrow of loin,
as a young man should be; but you are pale. It will do you
good to spend a few weeks in the wilderness. You might
find it helpful to visit your Indian friends. Mason is
here and expects to return next week. How would you
like the trip?

“I am just home; it is too soon to think about leaving.
Where is Dorothy? Does she know I am here? She
always met me before.”

“Yes,” and the father smiled, leaving his wife to
answer the question.

[pg 165]
“You would hardly expect Dorothy to call upon you;
you are six feet two, and one would think large enough
to find your way to her.” Which remark caused him to
blush and change the subject.

Richard Cameron and his wife were still a part of the
family; and they had two children, a little boy two years
old, Archibald, and the baby, Mary.

Mason, who had been a missionary with the Indians
so long that their tongue seemed the more familiar
speech, when he greeted John, unconsciously lapsed into
the Mingo dialect. His life had given a new expression
to his face; not a sad, but a winsome and wistful one.
If one looked closely into his eyes, he felt a sense of
peace and reverence.

They talked about their Indian friends and he told
John that always when he came to the Settlement they
sent word that they wished to see their chief, “The Cross-Bearer;”
and John half promised to return with him.

In the late afternoon he climbed to the Pinnacle and
watched the shadow of the mountain extend itself until
it covered the whole valley and the clouds like great
white ships sail with the wind on an inverted azure
ocean; then, as the sun sank, the shadow of the mountain
reached upward and transformed the white and fleecy
clouds to deeper tints, then to dark banks of fog, and the
azure into a gray twilight sky.

All about were evidences of Dorothy’s daily visits to
the rock. In a niche he found a book and the place mark
was his last letter. About were scattered almost an arm
load of half wilted flowers. She had been there that very
morning and he wondered why she had not come in the
afternoon.

He was still thinking of her when the plantation bell
gave three tolls, his call, and he hurried home. The family
[pg 166]
were around the table waiting for him. When he had
taken the old place at the right of his mother, where he
had sat since his high-chair days, his father as head of
the family asked the blessing and then helped all bountifully.

“Mother, have you seen Dorothy today? Is she well?”

“Yes, she is well; you better go down after supper and
see Captain Fairfax; she will likely be at home.”

-----

Dorothy lost little time in washing the supper dishes
and tidying up a bit. Then she placed the porch chairs
to her satisfaction, blushing as she did so. For five
minutes she waited in restless anticipation wondering
what made John late; finally she feared he might not
come. The dog gave a bark of warning. A second or two
later she heard a step upon the road; and a tall man stood
for a moment upon the stile. As he drew near her heart
gave little jumps of joy at the sound of each footstep.

She stood in the shadow until John reached the step;
then they called, “Dorothy”—“John”—and each held
out both hands in greeting.

Captain Fairfax and his wife came out, as was the
custom in those days, instead of retiring to the back
porch or going upstairs as now; and all sat and talked;
John of his college days and the news of Williamsburg
and the coast, and they of the news of the Valley and the
frontier.

Conversation drifted to their childhood and the time
of their captivity; which led John to speak of his intended
visit to the Mingo country. “I shall go back with Mason
and remain for several weeks. Father says I look pale
and need the outdoor life. I would be glad to have you
go, Captain.”

[pg 167]
“If it can be arranged I am sure I would enjoy the
trip. It is more than five years since I was on the Ohio.”

“Father if you are going, there is no reason why I
might not go too, though Mr. Campbell has not asked me.
I am a daughter of the tribe and have been told to come
with Chief Cross-Bearer.”

“Well Dorothy, when did I get to be Mr. Campbell?
You know how much I wish you might go. There is no
danger.”

When he left for home is was tentatively arranged
that Dorothy and her father were to go and the young
people were very happy.

Some days later, in the gray of early morning, Dorothy
and her father met the others on the trail near the
plantation; and John, without asking, added to his own
pack all of the traps Dorothy carried except her rifle.

All were dressed in Indian costume, not only for convenience
but protection; as their only real danger was in
being taken for unfriendly whites and ambushed before
their identity should be discovered.

The trail through the gap and down the mountain
side, centuries old, had been made by the Indians and
great herds of buffalo. After passing through the gap
to the western side one had a superb view down the deep
valley of the upper Kanawha and the opposite mountain
range, which seemed a twin to the one on which you
stood. A virgin forest clothed its side and great bald
peaks and precipices peeped out in grayish, rugged contrast.
The trail threaded narrow coves, in which were
great chestnut and poplar trees, and wound in ever
descending curves and spirals around the base of great
cliffs and from one natural terrace to a lower one.

The distance from the divide as the trail followed
the river from its head fountains to where Mason and
[pg 168]
his Indian friends had cached their canoe was thirty
miles, the usual first day’s tramp; but as a concession to
Dorothy, though she said it was not necessary, they
camped when two-thirds of the distance had been covered.

While Dorothy, Mason and John made ready the
camp and began supper; Captain Fairfax and the Indians
hunting in the cliffs, killed a yearling bear, steaks from
which were broiled for supper and breakfast.

By nine the next morning they made the willows,
where the canoe was concealed; and from there in four
days and without unusual incident paddled to Point
Pleasant; and also in good time they completed their
voyage from the mouth of the Kanawha, down the Ohio
and up the Scioto, to Shauane-Town.

Word of their coming having preceded them they
were met at the river by the whole village. John Calvin
was lodged with his brothers by adoption, Tecumseh or
the Crouching Panther and Oliuachica or the Prophet;
the others were taken to the guest lodge.

Their visit was made the occasion for several big
hunts and festivals which were enjoyed by all. Oliuachica
and two braves returned to Jackson River with
them; not only as a guard for that journey but to act as
guides and to protect their party upon its contemplated
emigration to the District of Kentucky, by way of the
Wilderness Road.

While they were away Donald McDonald died. Mrs.
McDonald going from the room wherein she was spinning
to the adjoining one, found him sitting in his old hickory
split-bottom chair, with his Bible resting in his lap.
Though the door between the rooms had been open, she
had heard no sound. His death was not unexpected; he
was quite feeble and in his eighty-third year. They
[pg 169]
buried him in the kirkyard of the church where he had
preached for so many years.

Though his kindred a month or so later moved to
Kentucky and never again visited the old place, his grave
was not neglected. Friends and members of his flock, in
testimony that his work was appreciated and his life
had not been in vain, trimmed the turf of the green mound
and in season strewed it with apple, laurel and rhododendron
bloom.

[pg 170]




CHAPTER XI.—The Kentucky Spirit or Why the Kentucky Colonel.
------------------------------------------------------------


Orange County, Virginia, was formed by Colonial act
in 1734; and its boundary was: “to the uttermost limits
of Virginia.” The limits of Virginia were; “westward
to the Mississippi and so much further as the Colony had
a mind to claim.”

From Orange County, Augusta County was formed
in 1738, extending beyond the Alleghanies to the “uttermost
limits of Virginia.” Botetourt was carved from
Augusta in 1769 and Fincastle from Botetourt in 1772.
Kentucky County was carved by a partition of Fincastle
in 1776, under one of the earliest acts of the new Commonwealth
of Virginia; and Kentucky County, known as
the District of Kentucky, was, in 1780, subdivided into
Lincoln, Fayette and Jefferson Counties. These three
counties were resubdivided in the making of the additional
counties of Nelson, Bourbon, Mercer, Madison,
Mason and Woodford; and these nine counties of Virginia,
on June 1, 1792, became the State of Kentucky.

The days following the Revolution found the people
of Virginia restless, poor and out of touch with the ordinary
occupations of pre-war days. Their market for
tobacco, the product which had sustained the aristocrat
in lavish prodigality and supported the colony, was lost
and the plantations were mazes of briars and underbrush.

As was the intention of the statute, the abolition of
entails by the legislature of the new Commonwealth of
Virginia, first diluted, then dissipated the power of the
[pg 171]
aristocracy. The family estate, the plantation of thousands
of acres, which had been kept intact in the family
for generations, was subdivided and resubdivided between
the proprietor’s heirs and creditors and their vendors,
until the old-style, feudal-lord-like life was impossible.

These still land-hungry “First Families,” looked to
the District of Kentucky, where land, more fertile than
Tidewater Virginia, was almost free for the taking—to
re-establish themselves as proprietors of vast landed estates,
as their fathers had been; thus to revive the prestige
and influence of the old family name; and many such
emigrated to Kentucky. A great many plain farmers,
impoverished by the war and seeing no hope for improved
fortune at the old home, hazarded a try for better
fortune in the new country. A yet more numerous and
important element was the discharged veterans of the
Continental Army; they had desired a more adventurous
life than was to be found in clearing their old fields to
start afresh the life of a poor farmer; and they came to
Kentucky.

These three classes of emigrants, and a conservative
estimate places their number at exceeding ten thousand a
year for the decade succeeding the Revolution, were of
pure English stock, democratic, courteous, hardy, self-willed
and trained to defend their rights—created the
Kentucky Spirit.

Those who had preceded them could not be classified
as settlers. As a rule they were wilderness tramps, or
land jobbers, or conscienceless traders, who built cabins
surrounded by picketings of timbers planted deep in the
ground to protect their “stations” from surprises by the
Indians; and such cabins soon became widely known. It
was around these stations the real immigrant settled.

[pg 172]
In case of attack, the settlers near gathered at the
“station.” The owner, of course, assumed command
and exercised all the rights of proprietor. Thus by consent
he was designated as Colonel Boone, or Colonel
Morgan, or Colonel Gibson, or Colonel Cresap; which
title he retained, as is the way of such adventurers,
though his “station” frequently degenerated into a joint
for the sale of rum or brandy and a resort for the dissolute
or criminal of those early days.

Thus the title “Colonel” was applied to any one temporarily
in authority; and in Kentucky might be said to
have a local meaning. Not all “Kentucky Colonels” have
seen military service or are holders of commissions
designating them as such; though the secretaries of Kentucky’s
recent governors, spend much of their time issuing
such commissions.

The writer has known instances where Kentuckians
holding a commission as lieutenant or captain during
actual service; as they grew in importance locally, or
became a celebrity because the owner of a great race
horse, or in appearance venerable, have been raised by
the courtesy of their neighbors to the rank of “General.”

Emigrants from Virginia to the District of Kentucky
had the choice of the river route down the Ohio, or overland
by way of the Old Wilderness Road.

Those coming by river had first to travel caravan
style to the head of navigation of the Allegheny, Monongahela,
or Kanawha river or to Pittsburgh. There they
loaded their cattle into flat boats, or batteaux, or on
rafts of poplar logs and floated down the Ohio; carefully
keeping to the center of the stream, out of range from
the shore. Reaching their destination, usually Limestone
(Maysville) or Louisville, they sold their boat or raft
[pg 173]
and took to pack horse or wagon, completing their journey
as they traveled on the first stage of it.

In 1787, M. St. John de Crevecoeur, a native of Normandy
published in a Paris journal an account of his
river trip from Pittsburgh to Louisville. Considering
the date, the narrative seems somewhat overdrawn.

In part he said:

“After having waited twenty-two days at Pittsburgh
I took advantage of the first boat which started for Louisville.
It was 55 feet long, 12 wide and 6 deep, drawing
3 feet of water. On its deck had been built a low cabin,
but very neat, divided into several compartments, and
on the forecastle the cattle and horses were kept in a
stable. It was loaded with bricks, boards, planks, bars
of iron, coal, instruments of husbandry, dismounted
wagons, anvils, bellows, dry goods, brandy, flour, biscuit,
lard, salt meat, etc. These articles came in part from
the country in the vicinity of Pittsburgh and from Indiana.
(The Indiana here referred to was a section of
Virginia lying east of the Alleghanies.) I observed the
larger part of the passengers were young men who came
from nearly all of the middle (coast) states; pleasant,
contented, full of buoyant hopes; having with them money
coming from the sale of their old farms, or from the share
received from their parents. They were going to Kentucky
to engage in business, to work at their trades and
to acquire and establish new homes. What a singular
but happy restlessness, that which is constantly urging
us all to become better off than we are and which drives
us from one end of a continent to the other. In the evening
after laying up, the more skillful hunters would go
to the land to shoot wild turkeys, which you are aware
wait for the last rays of the sun to fade away before
going to roost in the tops of the highest trees.”

[pg 174]
When the settler fixed upon his location he appropriated
a four hundred acre boundary, the settler’s allowance;
and taking possession, held it by what was then
known as the “Tomahawk Claim;” that is, he blazed his
boundary lines with a tomahawk and hacked his initials
on the corner trees. He then built a log cabin and felled
a few trees to give notice to the world that the blazed
boundary was appropriated. His appropriation was usually
respected, mainly from custom and sentiment; though
the right, if questioned, was usually defended by the
rifle.

In the mid-summer of 1787 the Campbells with Mrs.
McDonald, the Clarks, and the Fairfaxes, having sold
their plantations, emigrated overland by the Wilderness
Trail to Kentucky.

Their experiences were much the same as the many
who had preceded them; except as they had Indian guides,
Oliuachica and two Mingo braves, they were in little danger
of attack from the Indians.

What was then known as the Wilderness Road extended
from the last settlements on the east side of the
Alleghanies, over the mountain on to the headwaters of
Clinch River, down that river valley, thence across the
mountain into Powell’s Valley, thence with the valley to
Cumberland Gap and thence through the Gap into the
District of Kentucky.

The road had been marked off by Daniel Boone in
1774-5, some said at the direction of Lord Dunmore and
others at the direction of Colonel Richard Henderson, as
a highway to his colony of Transylvania; a vast boundary
mostly in Kentucky, which he had purchased from
the Cherokees at the Council of Sycamore Falls.

The road after crossing Cumberland Gap, as shown
by John Filson’s map of “Kentucke,” forked at Flat
[pg 175]
Lick; the Indian trail known as the “Warrior’s Path,”
passing north across the Ohio River to old Shauane-Town
and to the chief settlement of the Mingo Nation on the
“Sciotha” River. The other fork, Boone’s or the Wilderness
Road, from Flat Lick followed a southwest course
to Rock Castle River, where the road again forked, the
right to Blue Licks and Boonesboro, the left on to the
head of Dick’s River, to Logan Station or St. Asaph’s
Plantation, then forks to Danville, to Lexington and to
the Green River Settlements.

It was little more than a bridle path, being intended
for pack horses and foot travelers, though it was possible
to follow it in a wagon. After 1780, quite a few came
through carrying their heavy household effects in wagons;
and a few of the aristocrats drove through their
family carriages, the tops of which were usually torn
off by trailing vines from the trees or overhanging limbs.

Along a good portion of the road at intervals of the
average day’s journey, were “stations” or taverns
where travelers usually passed the night; but if these
were not reached they used well-known camp grounds
cleared of underbrush and near a good spring, where
they bivouaced around a great open fire and slept under
awnings or in their wagons.

The caravan led by Colonel Campbell, used to frontier
life, preferred the camping grounds. The taverns
or stations had a bad name, as headquarters for bandits
who frequently robbed and murdered travelers and then
spread the rumor of an Indian raid.

The four families, with their slaves, servants and
three Indian guides made a total of thirty-two persons.
There were eight wagons, two carriages, thirty horses, six
oxen, more than eighty head of beef and milk cattle, a
small flock of sheep and on the back of each wagon, resting
[pg 176]
on the tail gate, was either a coop of chickens or a
crate of pigs. The camp outfits were carried on pack
horses so as not to disturb the loaded wagons. The five
negro slaves with their three children, driving the three
ox wagons and bringing up the rear, whistling, singing
and laughing, were the boisterous ones of the party. The
three Indians, Colonel Campbell and Richard Cameron
took the lead, and John, when he was not driving the
Fairfax carriage, rode with them, conversing with his Indian
friends. The Indians were the watchful, silent
leaders by day, and one of them with a white companion,
the guard by night.

The train bore a marked resemblance to the caravan
of a patriarch of ancient days, searching for verdant
pasture lands and sweet water courses; who rode at the
head with a body-guard and was followed by his dependents
and herds.

They had cause to be thankful for their three Indian
guides. Traveling through Powell’s Valley, in a dense
forest, one of the braves gave the signal for a halt and
silence, while he stole silently ahead. In a half hour he
returned accompanied by more than thirty Mingoes and
Shauanese who had placed themselves in ambush, expecting
to massacre the party.

Several were members of the Prophet’s own tribe and
treated him and Chief Cross-Bearer with formal courtesy.
In fact they had been sent to escort the Prophet
back to his village. Had it not been for the three Indians
it is probable some of their party would have been murdered,
before John’s girdle had been noticed or their
identity discovered. At their suggestion his sign was
painted with puccoon root stain upon the sides of the
wagon covers. The Indians remained with them until
[pg 177]
they crossed over Cumberland Gap into the Yellow Creek
Valley, where Middlesboro now stands.

There, Colonel Campbell, reminded of his old home in
Scotland and his more recent one in Virginia, pleased
with the beautiful meadow free of timber and the fruitful
valley, which was a great deer and buffalo pasture, decided
to settle; and sought to persuade his friends to do
so; but they, with the exception of the Camerons, concluded
to travel on until they reached the “cane-brake”
or blue grass country.

He fixed upon his “Tomahawk Claim” of four hundred
acres as did Mr. Cameron; and their boundaries
which joined were blazed off and marked by them and
re-marked by their Indian friends with the Indian sign
that this was the lodge of Chief Cross-Bearer and therefore
sacred from attack. Then the Indians left them and
took the “Warrior’s Trail” for the Scioto Valley, the
land of the Mingo nation.

The Clarks and Fairfaxes remained for a week at
Campbell Station and helped get out the timbers for
cabins and barns, but could not be persuaded to remain
longer. Then they moved on to Logan’s Station and subsequently
pre-empted land in the vicinity of Danville,
then the capital of the District of Kentucky.

On the Sunday before they left Dorothy and John
rode horseback to Cumberland Gap; where, tying their
horses in a dense copse of pawpaw bushes, fearing they
might otherwise be stolen, they climbed to the Pinnacle
overlooking the valleys on either side of the range.

The path to the Pinnacle was as old as man in America.
The outcropping layers of stone, which made a
rough natural stairway, in places was worn deep by the
Indians and those who before them had trod its windings
and on the highest point built their signal fires. Now
[pg 178]
white settlers coming through the Gap, mounted to the
summit by the same trail and looked over the Valley and
the lesser mountains to the northward into the land of
promise; and then back the way they had come towards
their old home.

“Dorothy, when you visit a place like this do you take
in the view as you climb? I do not like to raise my eyes
from the path until I reach the top; therefore I see first
the footworn stones, which have the polish of a floor
worn smooth by countless feet, though this path’s surface
is worn by the feet of uncounted generations.

“When I first come upon a peak, which like this over-towers
its fellows, in thought I always entreat: Speak,
gray mountain head! You know the past, which to me is
speechless! Do not thy members reach inward to the
spirit of the mountain, which like a great beast of burden
has lain asleep for a million years, yet has a heart
of life? Tell of those who have gone before; of the sun
worshippers, who from your apex, making of an attribute
a god, have glorified the day, God’s first creation;
of the Indians, creatures of the forest shade, as silent as
its shadows; who, coming into the bright light of your
summit, from this wider vista, have felt more completely
the power and dignity of God and lacking a better name
have called him the Great Spirit; of the white man, the
servant of ten talents, who, having bitten deeper into the
fruit of the tree of knowledge and knowing the true God,
must be lifted in spirit above the earth and things earthly
as from this altar he looks out and sees that which
though of the earth is not earthly, and things above which
though of the heavens are not heavenly. When I go into
the high places of the mountains I feel I am led of the
Spirit that I may be near the Lord and receive from Him
[pg 179]
my commandments. Such places are either shrines of
worship, or sanctuaries where God abides.

“I look out and at first view see the earth below, the
tree and mountain tops, the clouds, the azure under-pinions
of the everlasting wings; then, if my thoughts are
clear as crystal, the veil may be rent, and I may see His
face through a haze of glory.

“Dorothy, when you come as today, I feel that you
too are led of the Spirit and that our spirits in unison
offer praise to God. I am glad that mind and spirit are
in communion and I recall that God hath said that
man shall not travel the way alone and hath made for
each his helpmate. If you are not to be, God hath not
yet shown her face to me in life or dream; nor has fancy
painted any other or fairer vision than thy sweet face.”

“John, I do not see all this. Below I see the green
and gray and brown of earth, except off in the valley the
silver thread-like rivulet. When I lift my eyes towards
the sun I see only the clouds and the sky. That is all;
though my face is fanned and my hair tousled by the
south wind that whispers to me. Do you hear what the
south wind says? You have never tousled it, John, except
when as little children we played together; never
so much as caught a button of your coat in a stray strand
and only the wind has played sweetheart and kissed my
face. Oh! You need not move over. But when you were
at William and Mary’s and I climbed to John Calvin
Rock—I like the name—you are not tempest-tossed like
other men, but sail a stormless sea or ride too deep for
tossing—and looked out upon the valley, I always saw
the same, allowing for change of season and sky. But
when I closed my eyes, I looked through the peep hole of
the old partition and saw a little boy in homespun of
oak-bark brown—and when I said ‘’ittle boy peek
[pg 180]
through,’ he would not peek, but sat on the church bench
as a thing of bronze, doubtless greatly shocked at my
frivolity. Then the same little fellow took me to the
mountain top and showed me the valley and the kingdom
of men below; and talked of things I did not understand,
as he continues to do. Again it was the same little boy
who was the knight of my first adventure, and without a
show of fear wiped away my tears. Then we came to
live in the Valley and he was my nearest neighbor and,
though my own age, taught me more than the master. I
have long since given up hope of escape from him. Why
has it always been the same little boy?—because it is
going to be the same man, John. Oh, John! John!”
And her eyes were filled with tears and John wiped them
away.

That night John met Captain Fairfax as he was returning
from looking after his horses, which had been
grain-fed preparatory to continuing their journey in the
morning; and without preliminary, as was his way, asked
for his daughter.

The Captain, taken by surprise, as bluntly declined.
Then ashamed of his bluntness, explained: “You know
Dorothy is of gentle birth as are you on your father’s
side. Your mother’s people for generations have been
preachers or teachers, they are of an old family though
not of the nobility, and she is as good a woman as ever
lived. My objection is not to your family; and I know
you would make Dorothy a good husband; but you have
been educated for and expect to be a Presbyterian minister.
As such you will not make a living sufficient to
support Dorothy. Your father and I are no longer rich
men, having given all except our lands to the cause of the
Colonists. I am a Presbyterian, but I want Dorothy to
marry a lawyer, or a planter—not a minister. I doubt if
[pg 181]
a minister in this new country should marry; he is almost
a creature of charity. If you will go to Lexington or Danville
and practice law or to the ‘cane country’ and with
your father’s and my help buy a thousand acres and improve
it, in two or three years I will give my consent. If
not, in my opinion, you should remain unmarried. It is
the church or Dorothy for your bride. Son, it is up to
you.”

John did not answer but walked out into the night.

When Captain Fairfax went into the partly finished
house and told his wife what had occurred, she burst into
tears and upbraided him for showing an unchristian
spirit, saying: “No good will result from your decision.
John is just the husband I would have chosen for Dorothy.
I had hoped that they would marry.”

She left the room, looking for Dorothy and sent her
to find John.

Though the moon was full and one could see quite distinctly
it was sometime before she found him in the
shadow of a great elm near the creek. She came up as
though it were accidental.

“Why in the shadow and so pensive when we were so
happy today? Let us walk in the moonlight or sit on
that great rock at the head of the riffle and watch the
moonbeams play with the running water.”

John, before answering, took her by the hand and led
her to a seat on the great boulder. Then he said: “Your
father refuses. He looks at the matter from a different
view point and his may be the correct one. Whether he
or I am right rests with you; not upon your decision but
your nature. If we do not marry it may mean a happier
life for you, though for me a necessary sacrifice. I offer
very little more than my love and fidelity; offsetting this,
as he puts it, is a life of privation, hardship and sacrifice—if
[pg 182]
service can be so called. What he expects for
you to have is what you have been brought up to expect—and
I can never give.”

“John, I love life and joy and gayety but I also love
helping others. I love serving God; but as a king should
be served, with praise and thankfulness. I think a song
of thanksgiving is as divine worship as tears of penitence,
though each in order. If you will wait, and you
and I are but twenty, in time he will come around to
mother’s and my way of thinking. We run the Captain,
though he is often victor in the preliminary skirmish.
Mother said she had always expected me to be your wife
and I have never thought of any one else for a husband.”

An hour later they came to the house chatting happily;
Dorothy having convinced John that her happiness
was dependent upon their marriage; and that before the
end of another year Captain Fairfax would give his consent.

-----

John and Richard rode with the Fairfaxes and the
Clarks to the ford of the Cumberland and after farewells
and many promises of extended visits, left them to continue
their journey over the Wilderness Trail to Logan
Station; and they returned home.

Two years passed before John saw Dorothy again,
though he wrote her many letters sending them by travelers
from Virginia to the settlements. He received
fewer than he sent, as the travel was mainly to and not
from the settlements.

-----

Colonel Campbell, his son, their one servant and Richard
Cameron were kept busy through the fall and winter
completing their buildings, foraging for grain and roughness
for their cattle, more than thirty head, and making
[pg 183]
necessary clearings for the spring crops. There was not
a great deal of clearing, as they used the meadow of
nearly a hundred acres across the creek, from which the
Indians by their repeated fires had years before burned
off the timber to make pasture land for buffalo. More
than half of this, after being cleared of briars and bush
growth, they expected to cultivate in corn. John and the
servants were assigned to this work while Colonel Campbell
and Richard attended to the cattle and other duties.
Their work was somewhat retarded by immigrants, who,
coming through the gap, stopped overnight, sometimes
longer, at Campbell’s Station, as the place from the first
was called. Several traders made a proposition to Colonel
Campbell to open a tavern; which he declined, although
it was an excellent place for one.

Their life was a rude and busy one. The days were
given to great physical labor, particularly during that
first winter. Under it and the plain wholesome diet of
meat, corn bread, milk and dried fruits, John thrived
and grew muscular and broad of shoulder.

The windows of their house were without glass and
there were many crevices between the logs, but the great
fireplaces were heaped with seasoned logs, which burned
through the night and which as they burned out were replaced
by John; though an oak or hickory one occasionally
taxed even his strength.

From the ingoing settlers they procured small quantities
of flour, grain and tea, voluntarily exchanged or
offered for their entertainment; as Colonel Campbell always
refused to charge a guest.

Late in the fall two other families settled in the Valley
and increased their colony by eight persons. One of
these was a girl nearly John’s age; who when she saw
him cast her vote in favor of the valley location.

[pg 184]
The first of December two young men with a pack
horse, delayed by a severe snow storm, were employed by
the Colonel to help with the work of clearing and plowing
the meadow and remained until the following April.
One of them carried off as his bride the girl, who first
only had eyes for John; but when he did not respond to
her advances, named him the “Moon Calf,” saying: “His
mind is in the moon or some other planet.”

By the first of June the Campbells had more than
forty acres planted to corn and Richard about fifteen
acres. Twenty acres of the meadow had been fenced for
a hay field and the balance with some open woodland had
been made into a pasture. The summer was a fine one
for their crops, rain and sun as needed; and when the
corn was shocked in the fall the station had much the
appearance of an old plantation.

After a year in Yellow Creek valley, Richard Cameron
sold his place and moved to the blue grass. There
he bought a large boundary of land, became a successful
planter, having given up the ministry. In his old age he
was sent to congress from his district. He died a rich
man.

[pg 185]




CHAPTER XII.—Raise Us Up, Oh Lord.
----------------------------------


The work of tending the corn fell to John and a single
servant. As it was done with a bull-tongue plow and with
hoes it was no easy job; but it was well done, as its green
thriftiness and fresh, healthy night odor bore witness.
After it was laid by the workers passed into the meadow,
and with their blades in the slow, olden way, mowed the
twenty acres of grassland. Under a sultry mid-summer
sun they moved forward, step and stroke in unison, sometimes
humming in concert. At the end of each cross section,
they rested and whetted their blades and the noise
was in key with the rasping song of the harvest fly.

After the hay was stacked in four great ricks near the
barn, they worked a week getting in the winter wood;
and then ten days in repairing the fences, which in places
a deer or straying buffalo had tossed aside with his horns
and in splitting walnut and chestnut rails to extend the
woodland pasture, which had to be enlarged as the flocks
grew. If the cattle and sheep ran at large they strayed
into the mountains and were eaten by timber wolves and
bears. By the time this was done it was the first of October;
the corn was ripe; the heavy ears had dropped
over to protect the hardening grain from the fall rains;
and the ripening blades rustled in the wind, which bore
a message of coming frost. For three weeks John was
busy pulling fodder and shocking and husking the corn,
which work lacerated and hardened his hands.

He was working on the last row of shocks, when
Michael Stoner, a one-time companion scout with Kenton,
but now trader, traveling to Virginia to return in
[pg 186]
the spring with a pack train of goods, handed him a letter
from Dorothy. Scarcely waiting for John to thank
him, much less answer questions as to friends in the cane-brake
country, he hastened on to join his companions,
yet in sight, near the foot of the Gap.

The evening of the day they finished shucking and
housing the corn, the fall rains set in. They were ready
for winter; and John should have been enjoying the
sleepy quietude that follows hard physical labor; but
never before had his parents seen him so restless and disquieted.
The poise of the sober, dreamy John was disturbed.

Dorothy’s letter had done it. He had carried it for
several days and read it many times. Ashamed to let
his mother see him do so again, he walked to the creek
and would have climbed out upon the great boulder where
they sat the night before she left but the swift, swollen
stream intervened. Then he read the letter again; and
stamping his foot with vexation, tore it into fragments
and cast them forth upon the yellow stream.

She wrote: “\* \* \* Father leaves Danville for Boston
the first of November, taking me with him. I am to
remain and attend a finishing school for young ladies,
making my home for the winter with Aunt Mildred and
Uncle John. Father will remain but a few days.

“He has become quite intimate with General Wilkinson,
who makes our home his headquarters whenever he
comes to Danville. He seems to like me; though he is
not the sort of man I would ever fancy. He came to Kentucky
in 1784; has a large store in Lexington and a small
plantation on the Town Fork of Elkhorn Creek; is more
than thirty years old, is short and fat, though elegant and
fastidious in appearance, with a bland and courteous
manner, an easy address and his general manner uphold
[pg 187]
his title, which was conferred upon him for distinguished
service at Saratoga.

“Recently he has obtained a permit from Governor
Miro, of Louisiana, to transport tobacco by river to New
Orleans, where it is bought at a good price by the Spanish
Government. Father is acting as one of his purchasing
agents and can talk of nothing else except the General
and the prospect of wealth that is presented to us
because of this business connection.

“I do not like the spirit that pervades his talks with
father. He does not seem to have any love for Virginia
and little regard or patriotism for the Union. He is one
of the leaders of what is spoken of as the Court Party;
and he, father, Judge Sebastian and Colonel Harry Innes,
with several other men I do not know, meet at our
house. One is a Spaniard, Don Pedro Wouver d’Arges;
and they treat him with great deference.

“From what I gather, they advocate immediate severance
of Kentucky from Virginia as an independent
state; and declare that unless the federal government
will protect them from the Indians of the Northwest
territory and procure an open market by river to New
Orleans for their tobacco and other surplus produce,
Kentucky, having nothing to gain by remaining in the
union of states had better become a province of Spanish
Louisiana; as only in that way can we enjoy free navigation
of the Mississippi and trade privileges with New
Orleans, our only market. They say the original thirteen
states oppose free navigation, as it diverts trade from the
Atlantic; and when we say trade between us and the Atlantic
is impossible, they talk of building canals connecting
the Potomac and the Ohio.

“General Wilkinson has told father that should Kentucky
become a Spanish province, he will use his influence
[pg 188]
to procure his appointment as commander of the
military forces or as governor.

“It is at his suggestion that I am being sent to Boston.
He has persuaded father that such an aristocrat as
poor, little, insignificant Dorothy, must be educated in
accord with her prospective station. When he left, I
mentioned to father that I expected to marry you, at
which he flew into a passion and said: ‘Not while I am
alive shall you marry a mountain preacher; if he wants
you let him first come down here and live like a man.’ I
left the room. He and mother quarreled for some time
because she took out part. He seems a different man
since we left Jackson River. There he was deacon of the
church; now he never goes to church.

“If you wish to see your Dorothy as much as she
longs for a sight of her John, you must come to Danville
before the first of November. \* \* \*”

John stood for a long time looking down the trail that
led northward to Danville and the cane-brake country;
then he saddled his horse and took the trail in the opposite
direction to the Gap. Having tied his horse at the
foot of the path leading to the Pinnacle, he climbed to
the apex of the peak, as at the old home he climbed John
Calvin Rock when mentally disturbed.

It was a stormy day; heavy, black, threatening clouds
rode the northwest wind. Only at rare intervals did the
sun break through; yet from his aerie, always, somewhere
to the north or south, a sunbeam found a rift and
bathed in golden glory the red and brown foliage of a
portion of the great forest; which from where he sat,
seemed to cover the earth, save the little clearing round
their station. Today as always from the Pinnacle, the
earth’s upturned face, marked by rift and shadow, presented
a new, though a kindly and varied expression.

[pg 189]
In such altitudes and surroundings, John had always
been able to unravel the mesh that bound his mind, recover
his poise and deliver his spirit; though today the
struggle was long and fierce.

He looked northward, ready, it afterward seemed, to
give up that work which the men of his mother’s people
had followed for many generations and become a planter
in the cane-brake country; the price Captain Fairfax demanded
for Dorothy. To John an insistent voice kept
saying: “A planter can do almost as much good as a
preacher; you can still serve God but in another way;
merely dilute the stringency of your puritanism; be human,
a he-man; make life more a game and less a crusade;
smile and the world will smile with you; God gave
Dorothy to you!”

Through a sudden rift he saw the clear blue of the
sky; and indistinctly as though a long way off, yet looking
at him; the face, that as a boy he had seen before.
His mind projected upon the black clouds in letters of
gold, a portion of the gospel of Matthew, which he had
learned in Jeremiah Tyler’s school: “Then was Jesus
led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of
the devil, \* \* \* the devil taketh him up into an exceeding
high mountain and showeth him all the kingdoms
of the world and the glory of them; and sayeth
unto him; all these things will I give thee, IF \* \* \*”

John saw below the great forest, and above the black
clouds, with rarely a rift; and from the shadow of the
forest and from the face of the clouds, Dorothy’s face
peeped out in the glory of its loveliness. Finding himself
he answered: “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy
God and Him only shalt thou serve.”

If the devil thought to tempt John on the Pinnacle he
made a mistake; the valley was a better place. To John
[pg 190]
the path upward to the Pinnacle was a series of upward
stepping stones to the heights of clearer vision and the
table land of God’s glory. As John climbed he left behind
the earthly and entered into the glory of God’s distant,
actual presence. Such had been his belief since a
little boy; as also that before he descended, angels ministered
unto him.

When he returned home it was twilight. They were
waiting supper. After his father had asked the blessing,
which the present generation would think too long and
comprehensive; taking in the world as little Tim’s
prayer—“God bless everybody;” they ate a meal, such
as people who live in the open and earn their bread by
toil, enjoy.

His mother was happy because her son had found his
appetite, which had departed with his peace of mind
upon the receipt of Dorothy’s letter. After she had respread
the table for breakfast, she went into the room
where he lay on a buffalo rug reading by the firelight;
and sat down beside him. In a little while her son’s head
was resting in her lap and she with loving fingers arranged
his hair.

“John, you did not read me Dorothy’s last letter as
you usually do.”

“No, mother I have torn it up,” and he detailed its
contents.

“Are you going to Danville, John?”

“I think not, mother.”

“Is that fair to Dorothy?”

“We cannot marry if her father will not consent.
Would you have me give up being a preacher to become
Dorothy’s husband?”

“Certainly not, John, nor can you. You have been
called and you will preach, though carried to your destination
[pg 191]
in a whale’s belly. That is Calvinism. But you
must go to Dorothy; and no time is to be lost. Besides
you should have a finishing course before starting in on
your work and a few months training at Rev. David
Rice’s Seminary will do you good. Your father and I
have talked it over and we can spare you until next
harvest. Go out and feed your horse and go in the morning.
We will miss you; but your father and I can be
happy together; we are still sweethearts.”

“Mother, I am glad you think I should go. That was
my desire; but I feared desire had warped judgment and
had decided to remain, fearing that in the end I might
give up my work. It strengthens your faith to believe
that you are a part in God’s plan and must do your part
of his service.”

“Dorothy is a girl of good judgment. She knows
just the life that will be hers as your wife; she is prepared
for it and may not count it a sacrifice but a privilege.
It is right that you should wait for her father’s
consent, which he will give in time. The Lord answers
my prayers but not always my way. Before you marry
you must be better fitted for your work and it must be
established. A year or so seems a long time now but if
you both are busy it will soon pass by and will give you
time to demonstrate if her father’s wish is to be Dorothy’s
future. Good night, John. Call me at daylight.”

When John awoke, the waning light of the morning
star, which he could see through the sashless window,
heralded the birth of a clear October day. He arose and
pushed together the back-logs that had burned apart
through the night, adding fresh fuel. A great crackling
of wood and dense, pungent smoke poured forth, followed
by a bright and cheery glow, which filled the room with
light. He finished dressing, called his mother and went
[pg 192]
out into the red frosty morning to feed the horses and
milk the cows.

When he came in again ruddiness of sky had given
place to the golden glow of sunrise and the morning sun
tinted the mountain tops. His breakfast was ready and
his mother had packed his best clothing into the saddle
bags which his father had carried at Monmouth, at
King’s Mountain and at Yorktown; two home-made
blankets of fine, long wool, light of weight and soft and
warm, were rolled and wrapped to be tied behind his
saddle, with a small sack containing his mess kit and provisions
and lying over all was the Mingo girdle. He was
probably the only person in Kentucky who would undertake
such a journey without carrying a rifle. He felt no
need for one.

At noon, twenty miles from home, he unsaddled and
rested an hour, picketing his horse. Twelve miles below
Flat Lick, near Brown’s Station, he came upon Dick
Martin and his family in a sorry plight. Two days before
they had passed Campbell Station traveling to Danville
from Tidewater, Virginia. The night before in
crossing a stream, their wagon had been swept by high
water below the ford and one of their two horses had
been drowned. It was impossible to continue their journey
with but one.

Martin, a shiftless fellow, had not even removed the
harness from the drowned horse. The wagon stood with
the rear wheels in the edge of the receding flood; and
their scanty chattels were spread about drying in the sun.
While his wife was rustling the fire wood, looking after
the children and attempting to cook a few potatoes and
slices of bacon, he sat by the camp fire smoking a corncob
pipe, while the youngest of the children sat near him
[pg 193]
on a dirty piece of rag carpet munching a raw bacon
rind.

John hitched his horse and Martin’s surviving one to
the wagon and drew it into the road. Then he helped reload
it; and after night they drove on to Brown’s Station.
As they rode along, learning the man had no money,
John, having his year’s savings, fifty dollars, loaned
Martin forty to buy a horse, which loan he accepted in
a matter-of-fact way. Brown, having but one horse, refused
to sell it and informed them it was impossible to
buy another nearer than Logan’s Station; more than
seventy miles distant.

There seemed no solution, except that John’s horse
should be hitched to the wagon and that they travel together
to Logan’s Station. The other horse was so weak
and emaciated that they only made twenty miles the first
day; and John grew fearful lest Dorothy might leave
for Boston before his arrival. The following morning
it seemed he would never get Martin started; so telling
him to keep the horse until he got to Danville, he went
ahead on foot. That night when he was miles ahead, the
thought occurred that though Martin had his horse he
had not returned his money.

The following noon-day, as he was resting at a spring
near the head of Dick’s River, two Indians unexpectedly
came upon him; their manner was threatening until they
saw his girdle, when they shook hands in greeting, saying:
“How do, How do.” He spoke to them in their own
tongue and they traveled along with him to Jenkins Station.

While they were at supper, Jenkins, hiding the rifles
of the Indians, suddenly appeared at the door of the room
with three companions who, with rifles presented, declared:
[pg 194]
“We are going to kill you three horse thieves;”
merely making the statement as an excuse for robbing
and assassinating them.

John, rising from his chair, stated that he had no
money except ten dollars, which he offered to give them.
This Jenkins took, saying: “This will pay for your lodging.
We will let you go but we are going to kill the redskins.”

At this he struck Jenkins with his fist, who sank to
the floor as he rushed the man nearest him, seizing his
rifle. The Indians following his example, had rushed the
other two men, who, surprised by the suddenness of
the attack, had no opportunity to use their rifles effectively,
though one of the Indians was slightly wounded.

John, drawing two of the men to him, pounded their
heads together until they sank to the floor unconscious.
He was just in time to save Jenkins and the other man
from being scalped and tomahawked. The Indians disarmed
the men while John, forcing Jenkins to disclose
the hiding place of the rifles of the Indians, placed them
in a heap on the floor beside him and sat down at the
table with the Indians and resumed eating; while Jenkins
and his companions sat beside the fire nursing
bruises in sullen silence.

After they had eaten, John gave Jenkins a lecture on
the entertainment of future guests and at its close ordered
the men to take blankets and sleep in the stable loft;
while he and the Indians, retaining possession of all
weapons, barred and occupied the cabin; John saying:
“The price I have paid justifies sole occupancy.” At
this Jenkins laughed and said: “I think so too.” He
came to the house at daybreak and prepared breakfast
and they all sat down and ate together.

[pg 195]
The Indians having removed the hammers from the
four rifles returned them to the owners; and Jenkins,
at John’s request, accompanied them for a mile or so on
their journey. When he left he was given the hammers
and cautioned to treat Martin and his family with proper
courtesy when they should arrive.

At mid-day the Indians left him, taking a trail to the
eastward. They told their adventure to the Prophet;
and in such an embellished form, narrating how John had
tossed the four men about like pumpkins, that the story
established a not altogether undeserved reputation for
great strength and courage.

Mid-afternoon the next day, Martin drove up to Jenkins’,
and was received with great friendliness.

“Well, I expected you yesterday. Young Campbell
told me you were coming, to make ready the feast and
kill the fatted calf. This has been done. Get out; the
place is yours.” And they were entertained in Jenkins’
best style.

John was the chief subject of conversation, each telling
the other such a tale as suited his fancy and both vieing
to make him the greater hero. Jenkins told how
young Campbell had saved his life, having put to rout
a band of robbers, of three white men and two Indians;
and his guest, of how the hero swam into the turbid
waters of the Cumberland and after rescuing his entire
family from drowning, saved one of his horses, pulled
his loaded wagon out of the river, gave him his own saddle
horse and some money; and being in a great hurry
rushed off afoot.

The night that Martin and his family spent at Jenkins’,
John passed at St. Asaph’s Plantation, in the most
comfortable and commodious house he had seen since
leaving Jackson River. It was the home of General Benjamin
[pg 196]
Logan, to whom his father had sent a letter introducing
his son, who was very cordially received. The
two men had been friends when both were officers in the
Virginia militia. The General came to Kentucky in 1775
and founded Logan Station; to which place he brought
his family from Holston, Virginia, in 1776.

He found the young people of the Station assembled
at the house, and participating in their amusements, soon
became quite a favorite.

About 8 o’clock some negro musicians were called in
and the company started dancing. John attempted to
withdraw from the room, but they insisted that he join
them and would listen to no excuse. He was led out upon
the floor and a daughter of General Logan was assigned
as his partner. The head musician’s name was Gallagher;
and some of the crowd called out: “Let her go,
Gallagher.”

Then John making a sign for silence, stated: “I am
licensed for the ministry and it is my habit when I enter
upon any unaccustomed thing or business to ask the
blessing of God upon it. As I am placed in an unexpected
position I ask permission to implore Divine guidance.”
He sank upon his knees and offered an impassioned
prayer.

Several of those present began to weep, his partner
among them, declaring they would never dance again.
They insisted that he talk to them about their souls’ salvation.
This he did and after he had finished all sat together
singing old and familiar hymns, led by John and
accompanied by the negro musicians. When the party
broke up all agreed that they had enjoyed the evening
more than if they had spent it in dancing.

John borrowed a horse from General Logan on which
he rode to Danville, arriving October 30, at eight o’clock
[pg 197]
in the evening. Inquiring the way, he rode directly to
Captain Fairfax’s house. Dismounting he knocked upon
the door, which after a moment was opened by Mrs. Fairfax.

“Good evening, Mrs. Fairfax. I have come to see
Dorothy; she wrote that she and her father were leaving
for Boston on the first.”

“Come in, John, I am glad to see you. You are looking
well. How are your father and mother? Take that
chair. I am so sorry, but Dorothy and her father left yesterday
morning and are by now at Limestone: from which
point they expect to travel up the Ohio and Monongahela
to the head of navigation; then over the mountains to the
Potomac; thence by boat and schooner to Boston.”

“But she wrote they would not leave before the
first.”

“They left sooner than we had expected; her father,
for business reasons and to make the boat, was forced to
expedite his plans. Dorothy was a little rebellious about
leaving before she heard from you; but her father insisted,
saying it was impossible to wait. She had quite
a cry and told me to tell you when you came that if you
waited she would marry you or remain an old maid for
a thousand years.”

John thought that Captain Fairfax, learning that
Dorothy was expecting him, hastened their departure on
that account. He was confirmed in this belief, when he
learned that they waited four days for their boat; which
left Limestone on the third of November.

Mrs. Fairfax insisted that he remain for the night;
but thanking her he asked and was directed to the Clark
Plantation, where he remained some time. He returned
General Logan’s horse by a messenger, using one belonging
to his uncle until Martin returned his own.

[pg 198]
Many people of Danville inquired the name of the
young stranger riding about with David Clark. For a
day or two they learned nothing except that he was the
son of Colonel Campbell of Cumberland Gap. This information
in a day or two was supplemented by exaggerated
reports of the incident at the dance; coupled with the
story of his captivity and adoption by the Mingoes; of
the girdle of wampum; of his strange name as a chief
of that nation; of the tattooed cross upon his breast, from
which it was said drops of blood fell. Talk about him was
at its height when Dick Martin drove into town. He told
of his generosity and gave out the story of his adventure
at Jenkins’ Station, laying stress upon his strength and
courage.

John was forced to hunt up Dick Martin, who when
found was very profuse in his thanks and promised to
return his horse that night. When asked where the horse
was, he explained that his brother had ridden him to
Harrods Town. He showed John his two horses feeding
at ease in the barn. The old one had improved in condition;
the other which he had purchased at Logan Station
with thirty-five dollars of John’s money, was a fine animal.
It should have been as the price was a good one.

At that time, the wages of a laborer did not exceed
eight dollars a month; beef sold at two cents a pound,
venison and buffalo meat at a cent and a half, potatoes at
fifty cents a barrel, turkeys at fifteen cents each and
whiskey at forty cents a gallon.

When Martin returned the horse he handed John five
dollars; but made no mention as to when he would pay
the other thirty-five. John’s horse was thin, out of condition
and his back was saddle-galled, and looked as though
he had seen constant service since changing masters.

[pg 199]
Any other man in vexation would have repented his
generosity, but John said: “I am glad I was able to serve
you; if I can do it again do not hesitate to call upon me.
Do not trouble to return the money until you can afford
to do it.” He meant what he said, though he had saved
it to pay his way at the Rice Seminary; and he now had
no money to do so.

The thought never once entered his mind to sell his
horse, which was even then nudging his master’s
shoulder; or to write to his father for money; or to borrow
it from his uncle. He thought, I must wait and work
and save for another year.

[pg 200]




CHAPTER XIII.—The Tempter Speaks.
---------------------------------


John Brown, a member of congress from the Kentucky
District of the Commonwealth of Virginia, by letters
notified Judges McDowell and Muter, that Don Gardoqui,
the Spanish minister to the United States, had
authority to extend to the people of Kentucky, free navigation
of the Mississippi and a duty-free market and
place of deposit at New Orleans, “if they would erect
themselves into an independent state and appoint a
proper person to negotiate with the minister, but that
this privilege never can be extended to them while part
of the United States by reason of commercial treaties
existing between Spain and other powers of Europe.”

This communication had fanned into a popular flame
the dormant sentiment that General Wilkinson and his
friends had been nurturing, by personal influence, by
argument, by the aid of Spanish gold discreetly distributed
and by the big prices they were paying for tobacco,
hides and produce to be sent down the river to Spanish
Louisiana, under a personal permit granted by Governor
Miro to General Wilkinson; and by reason of which tobacco
which had been selling at two cents a pound, was
now being bought by the Spanish Government at nine and
one-half cents.

Tobacco, as had been the case in Colonial Virginia, to
residents of the District of Kentucky was the only practical
export crop and means the settlers had of adding to
their very scanty supply of cash. No wonder General
Wilkinson was at this time head of the Court Party and
[pg 201]
very popular; and that his proposed suggestions carried
popular approval.

As Danville was the district capital, and the District
Convention was called for November 4, all the conspirators
assembled there, with the exception of Captain Fairfax,
who it was reported had been sent east to confer with
the Spanish minister. Even Dr. John Connelly, agent
of the British Government, was in Danville proposing a
counter conspiracy.

The Political Club, formed in 1786, met each Saturday
night at Grayson’s Tavern. By its constitution
membership was limited to fifty persons, though any resident
of the District was eligible. On its roll were the
names of Harry Innes, John Brown, Benjamin Sebastian,
George Muter, Judge McDowell, Thomas Speed and
thirty others.

The purpose of the club was to discuss in a free and
unrestrained manner, political issues affecting the District
of Kentucky. After the discussion closed a vote
was usually taken to arrive at the sentiment of the members.

Discussions incident to the adoption of the proposed
constitution of the United States is supposed to have
given birth to the club. These discussions ended with its
adoption. Afterward the club took up such pertinent
issues as—Should there be an emission of paper currency
for the District? Should tobacco be grown for export?
(First decided in the negative, but after General Wilkinson
obtained his permit, in the affirmative). Shall
slaves be imported into the district? Why does not
Congress force the British to surrender forts of the
Northwest Territory? Questions of special interest repeatedly
debated were: The propriety of separation
from Virginia; in favor of which the club voted unanimously.
[pg 202]
Then Wilkinson and his friends after considerable
log rolling, sprung the added issue: “Resolved,
that after separation as an independent state, this Commonwealth
should sever relations with the Union and
if expedient unite with Spanish Louisiana.” They
claimed that only in this way could Kentucky obtain a
free river and market for her products. This had been
the only question discussed since the receipt of Mr.
Brown’s communication; and for a better name was called
by its opponents—The Spanish Conspiracy.

John began accompanying his uncle, who was a member,
to these meetings when this discussion was at fever
heat; and had very decided views upon the issue. He
felt tempted many times to raise his voice in argument
upon the minority side—That Kentucky should remain
with the Union; feeling assured that relief would be
procured by treaty.

Saturday night, following the adjournment of the
Sixth Convention, the club had an open meeting which
was addressed by General Wilkinson, who spoke strongly
in favor of Kentucky’s withdrawal from the Union; at
the time being an agent and pensioner of the Spanish
Government.

As the discussion, like the meeting, was an open one,
when Wilkinson had finished, the chairman, as was the
custom, stated: “The club would like to hear from an
advocate of the other side. Any one feeling himself
competent to answer General Wilkinson’s very able address,
is invited to the stand.”

John, trembling with excitement and desire to speak,
but too modest to respond, hoped that some one of
capacity would answer him. He felt that the argument
was a specious one and that the orator’s pleasant manner
masked a hypocrite and a traitor.

[pg 203]
When it was evident that no one else would respond,
the chairman, a member of the Court Party, remarked:
“All seem to think the argument unanswerable. We
thank the General for his address, which was prompted
by his generous and unselfish spirit as a friend of the
District. The applause indicates that the sentiment he
expressed seems to meet with universal approval. We
will now proceed with other business.” It was then
John asked permission to be heard, and the chairman
with a smile invited him to the stand.

The crowd recognized the lanky and evidently considerably
embarrassed young man, as the hero of the wild
rumors which had been circulated for several days and
in a buzz of whisperings about these tales John began
his rather immature response:

“The very capable speaker, to whom you have listened
for more than an hour and with evident approval because
his scheme puts ready money in your pockets, won
his title by distinguished service at Saratoga. The majority
of your members either fought valiantly at Monmouth
and King’s Mountain, or followed General Clark
through the winter floods that covered the plains of
Illinois to Vincennes, or bore with Washington the hardships
of that hopeless winter at Valley Forge. Captain
Fairfax, a member, received distinguished recognition
before the assembled armies of France and the colonies at
Yorktown. Every family represented upon your roster,
tendered their all of property, of service, of life itself to
the cause of freedom. It was thus you purchased your
independence from British oppression. Yet the most
unfavored of Britain’s colonies has never borne such a
yoke of servitude as the most favored Spanish colony
must wear.

[pg 204]
“Is your poverty, due to sacrifice, so unbearable that
you will barter your freedom in order that you may be
made temporarily prosperous by the sale of a few pounds
of tobacco?

“Is the need for money so pressing, is your impatience
for its possession such, that you cannot allow the Federal
Government time to organize, to put into operation a
constitution just adopted and to make treaties which in
decency and in order and without color of treason, will
gain for you the perpetual free navigation of the river
and commercial privileges, which will never be hampered
by export duties? Has your independence of five years
already become so burdensome, that like the frogs you
wish a stork for king?

“If it is your desire to surrender your freedom, to be
slaves, let us go back to our own people. I would rather
be taxed without representation by my father’s own
people, who speak and think as I and who are a growing,
virile, prosperous race and who respect their treaties,
than be a citizen of such a decadent power as Spain;
which even the least astute back-woodsman can perceive
has passed the zenith of her power, though temporarily
mistress of Louisiana and the Mississippi.

“England frequently has shown her supremacy of
Spain. We drove the armies of Britain from our shores;
why then should we conspire with either power to procure
that which we can take for ourselves—if time shall disclose
that it cannot be gained by amity and treaty?”

In this spirit young Campbell spoke for half an hour,
carrying conviction, not by logic and eloquence, but by
an earnest faith in the righteousness of his cause. It
was not so much what he said as that he had made suggestions
which caused his hearers to think. There radiated
from him a spirit of conviction that took possession
[pg 205]
of his hearers, so they said to themselves: “That’s
true, that’s right.” What he said was uttered in a tense,
distinct, conversational tone and after the first few words
in apparent self-forgetfulness, he lost self in his cause.

The button from the collar of his hunting shirt had
dropped off before he had begun to speak and, unknowingly
to him, his shirt front standing open disclosed the
upper portion of the vivid cross tattooed upon his
breast. His intent face and pallid flesh gave to the
blood red cross a setting that impressed the more superstitious
and convinced all that rumor rested on a foundation
of fact.

General Wilkinson, noting the effect of his remarks,
made a sign to Judge Sebastian not to introduce the
resolution they had expected to offer and in a white rage
of passion, was the first to take the hand of the young
man and congratulate him when he had finished. He
thought: “What an ally he would make in the promotion
of our conspiracy; how he would stir the backwoodsmen;
yet if he did not believe in our cause it is my guess he
would be as mum and flabby as an oyster. But for him
my resolution which Sebastian was to offer would have
gone over and revived the sentiment throughout the
District, which met with defeat before the District Convention;
now I dare not offer it. I must attend to the
young gentleman; and Fairfax will help when he returns;
possibly we can fool him. I wonder if we can catch him
with Fairfax’s daughter for bait.”

John’s speech broadened the breach between the
Country and the Court Party; the one led by Colonel
Thomas Marshall, the other by General Wilkinson; both
of whom were delegates to the District Convention from
Fayette County. The speech and the action of the convention
had also made the General’s co-conspirators timid
[pg 206]
in their utterances and cautious in their work. It caused
John’s name to be presented and favorably voted upon
as a member of the club.

The District Convention had been called for the third
of November, but no quorum appearing, the members
being delayed by high water, an adjournment was had
to the fourth. On that day it was organized with Judge
Samuel McDowell as president.

The chief fight centered upon a motion made by
Wilkinson to refer the resolution of the last convention
upon the subject of the Mississippi Navigation. The
motion brought about an animated debate led by Wilkinson,
Brown, Innes and Sebastian, who spoke in favor of
the reference. They were opposed by Marshall, Muter,
Crockett, Allen and Christian.

Wilkinson argued for immediate separation from Virginia
by an act of separation and the setting up of a
separate government; intimating that it was desirable
for purposes of trade and as the only means to procure
the free navigation of the Mississippi; and that then the
District unite with Spain.

He said in part: “Spain had objections to granting
the navigation in question to the United States—it was
not to be presumed that congress would obtain it for
Kentucky, or even the western country only; her treaties
must be general. There was one way and but one for
obviating these difficulties and that was so fortified by
constitutions and so guarded by laws, that it was dangerous
of access and hopeless under present circumstances.
Spain might concede to Kentucky alone what
she would not concede to the United States—and—there
is information within the power of the convention and
upon this subject of the first importance, which I have no
doubt a gentleman present will communicate.”

[pg 207]
Looking at Mr. Brown he sat down, expecting Brown
to fulfill his portion of the preconcerted program.

Mr. Brown arose and after a few preliminaries,
stated:—that he did not consider himself at liberty
to disclose the private conferences he held with Don
Gardoqui, but this much he could say: “If we are unanimous
everything we wish for is within our reach.”

Then Governor Wilkinson took the floor and read,
“An Address Presented to the Governor and Intendant
of Louisiana.”

The temper of the convention was shown at this
stage of the proceedings by the adoption of a resolution
offered by Edwards and seconded by Marshall; “To
appoint a committee to draw up a decent and respectful
address to the Legislature of Virginia for obtaining the
independence of Kentucky, agreeable to the late resolution
and recommendation of Congress.” After the adoption
of this resolution nothing more was said in furtherance
of the Spanish Conspiracy.

-----

John now had spent the five dollars which Martin had
returned; and he was compelled to go to work or return
home.

One of the earliest settlers of Kentucky, John Filson,
was at this time in Danville, gathering material for a
supplemental edition of his history of Kentucky; which
had first been published at Wilmington in 1784, and was
entitled: “Discovery, Settlement and Present State of
Kentucke.” Historically it was chiefly of value for a
map showing the location of the trails and stations of the
District.

He had been present when John addressed the Political
Club. A day or two later they met in Grayson’s
[pg 208]
Tavern and he invited John to his room. When they
were seated he began the conversation by saying:

“Young man, how would you like to help me survey
out a new town on the Ohio, this winter?”

“I am quite anxious to find something to do; in fact,
I must, or return to Campbell Station.”

“Have you met Matt Denham? He came from New
Jersey along with the Stites Colony and stopped for a
while at the mouth of the Little Miami, but he liked the
north bend opposite the mouth of the Licking better as
a town-site and purchased it from Judge Simmes, 800
acres for $500.00, continental money. Then he came to
Lexington and from there here, looking for Robert Patterson
and me to help with his colony. He intends to
call it Losanteville, but why I do not know, except that
he claims to be of French descent and has coined the
name from the words, *L’os ante ville*, which he may have
translated, the village opposite the mouth. We have
gone in with him; and while Denham procures his townsmen,
Patterson and I are to survey the boundary, lay
off a town on the river bank, and cut away some of the
timber in the streets, so the purchasers can get to their
lots with their wagons. We leave for Lee’s Town tomorrow
and shall then travel down the Kentucky and up
the Ohio in canoes to the town-site. We need a dozen
husky young fellows to help us out. Would you and
young Clark care to go? We will pay $40.00 a month
continental money or $10.00 in specie.”

“I accept at once. I cannot say positively for David,
but believe he will go too. What time do we leave?”

“At seven in the morning.”

“Well, I will see David at once as we must arrange
a few matters before starting. Good bye.”

[pg 209]
On the morning of the twenty-fourth, the party
under the leadership of Colonel Patterson set out in four
canoes, three men to the canoe, and on the twenty-eighth
arrived at Losanteville.

Though considerable ice was running they met with
no adventures until in North Bend at the mouth of the
big Miami. Hugging the north shore, on account of
rough water caused by a strong north wind, they were
surprised by a large Mingo war party of more than a
dozen canoes, which unexpectedly paddled out of the
willows near the mouth of the river.

Colonel Patterson, John and David were in the forward
canoe and not more than fifty yards distant. A
battle seemed inevitable, which doubtless would have resulted
disastrously for the whites as they were greatly
outnumbered and taken by surprise. John, recognizing
several of the Indians, called them by name; and Colonel
Patterson, having been told John’s story, ordered his men
not to fire.

Word was passed among the Indians that Chief Cross-Bearer
was the leader of the white men. They ceased
their hostile demonstrations and made peace signs. The
white men were invited to land and a great pow-wow
ensued.

The Mingoes were on their way home from a council
with certain Shauanese, who at that time were camping
some miles up the Big Miami. Three canoe loads of the
Shauanese had come to the Ohio with the Prophet’s
party, which was returning to the Scioto.

The Prophet, when told of the intention of the whites
and their destination, shook his head and asked that they
build on the south side of the river, saying: “If no,
cause big heaps of trouble with Miami.”

[pg 210]
After some delay the whites re-embarked and paddled
up the river accompanied by the Mingoes. When they
reached Losanteville the whole party landed, the Indians
spending the night with the whites. Again the Prophet
told Mr. Filson and John of the danger that threatened
all settlements on the north bank of the river.

Filson had about completed marking off the town
and surveying the 800-acre boundary, when one day
taking his rifle he wandered off into the wilderness looking
for game. He had been gone about an hour, when
several shots in rapid succession were heard. The men
of the colony suspecting that he had been attacked by
the Indians started into the woods but at John’s suggestion
remained where they were on guard, while he alone,
without a rifle, but wearing his girdle, went in the direction
of the shooting.

In a half hour he returned, carrying the dead surveyor
on his shoulders. He had found him still alive, though
scalped and shot through the body in several places.
He died shortly after telling John he had been assaulted
by a dozen Shauanese.

They buried him under a great elm on the bank of
the river, just beyond the boundary of the town-site; the
name of which was changed to Cincinnati a short time
after his death.

John and David spent all of January and February
working for the town company. When the preliminary
work was completed they were paid off and with most of
the men who had come with them from Lee’s Town,
started for home in their canoes.

On the sixth of March at the mouth of the Kentucky
river they came upon Wilkinson’s flotilla of five large
batteaux loaded with tobacco and produce consigned to
[pg 211]
the Spanish Intendant at New Orleans. The boats were
temporarily delayed because they had not procured a
sufficient guard for the voyage.

The General, seeing John Campbell and David Clark,
both of whom he knew, called them into his cabin and
suggested that they and their companions act as guard
of the flotilla, promising to pay John, whom he had
noticed acted as leader of the party $12.00 per month in
specie and the men $10.00 for the trip.

This offer John declined as did the other men at his
suggestion. But when General Wilkinson, knowing
John’s sentiments, explained that none of them because
of the employment were expected to adopt his views
upon treaty relations with Spain and had nothing to do
but guard the cargo from Indians and river pirates; and
also learning that Wilkinson was only going as far as
Louisville, at the request of the others he accepted the
employment.

General Wilkinson insisted that John and David share
his cabin to Louisville and occupy it the rest of the voyage,
which was the custom of the captain of the guard.

Floating down the broad river with little to do; the
General, to gauge the strength of John’s character, asked
him many questions and by flattery and argument sought
to make him compromise the views he had expressed.
In part he said:

“I was much surprised by your speech. It showed a
knowledge of history and the political situation confronting
this district which in one of your age and experience
is remarkable. Your manner was earnest, your argument
plausible and at first blush, convincing; but you are
wrong. Disregarding the question of policy, which is
rarely done and then usually regretted; saying nothing
[pg 212]
of the District’s commercial salvation, which to a settler
should be his first great law; without compromise of
honor or conscience my better judgment advises that
Kentucky is entitled to state sovereignty. Virginia east
of the Alleghanies is as distant, knows nothing and cares
less for our wants, has no more right to tax us, to grant
away lands in Kentucky and exercise other rights of
sovereignty over the District than had King George
and his ministers to exercise similar power over the
colonies. What is vital to Kentucky does not interest
Tidewater, Virginia, except as one is interested in the
other as a competitor. That section naturally wishes
to maintain its monopoly of commerce with the District,
to be the only outlet for all we produce; therefore it
opposes a southern and independent commercial outlet
by way of the Mississippi. Again they grumble when
called upon to help protect us from Indian raids, or at
being taxed for such a purpose and refuse to furnish
soldiers and arms for our protection. General George
Rogers Clark, whose loyalty to the Union has never been
questioned, expressed my point in his epigrammatic plea
to the Virginia Assembly. ‘That a country which they
did not think worth defending was not worth claiming.’
You concede that Kentucky should be carved off as an
independent state from Virginia. Now we begin to
differ. You are dramatically violent in declamation
though not convincing in argument, that it should be a
part of the Union; and that a majority of the states shall
fix its commercial policies and regulate by treaty or
contract, commercial relations with a foreign power,
Spain for instance; and thus obtain free navigation of
the Mississippi; which can be done in no other way and
is vital to our commercial prosperity. If this right, which
it seems is inherent as a law of necessity, is opposed by
[pg 213]
the other states from a selfish commercial policy or as
inexpedient from a governmental policy such as Jay suggests;
then the independent state, as is Kentucky’s case,
has a right to withdraw from the confederacy and make
such treaties with foreign powers as will preserve her
commercially.

“If your conscience would permit you to champion
such a commercial policy, I see before you the prospect
of great wealth and happiness. First, as a mere starter,
I could make you captain of my flotilla and advance you
some capital with which you could buy tobacco and other
produce and a stock of goods. With these resources, trading
along the river and bartering your produce for merchandise
in New Orleans, you would make five times your
wages as captain. You would in a sense be my junior
partner; and Captain Fairfax, I am convinced, would be
delighted to have you marry his very charming daughter.”

“General, that is enough. I will have nothing to do
with your Spanish Conspiracy. Even Captain Fairfax’s
daughter is no inducement. If you mention this matter
again I shall be convinced that my employment is a mere
subterfuge to corrupt my loyalty to the Union and leave
your boat.”

“As you will, as you will—but in some ways you are
acting the part of a fool.”

A few hours later the flotilla arrived at Louisville;
where after passing the falls the boats took on additional
cargo and resumed their voyage. General Wilkinson as he
left the boat handed John a letter, saying: “This communication
is very important. You must deliver it in
person. It contains the invoice of the cargo and a demand
for payment. You will in return be handed $9,000 in gold
[pg 214]
for the consignment. May you see and learn much before
your return; experience is a great teacher.”

The letter was addressed to Don Estevan Miro, Governor
and Intendente of Louisiana; and supposing it to
contain what General Wilkinson had represented and
therefore of great importance, John placed it in the inner
pocket of his hunting shirt.

[pg 215]




CHAPTER XIV.—The Conspirator.
-----------------------------


General Wilkinson made his first trip to New Orleans
with a cargo of tobacco, flour, hides and bacon in June,
1787. It was seized by the authorities; but after an interview
with Governor Miro was released and sold without
the payment of duty.

He remained in New Orleans until August, when he
traveled home by ship to the Virginia coast and thence
overland to the District of Kentucky, where he arrived in
September.

He reappeared in Lexington in an ornate coach drawn
by four horses and attended by several slaves. Always
of prodigal habits, he now seemed to have money to
indulge his every whim. In his pocket he carried a paper
to which he gave the widest publicity and which made
him popular. It was a private trading treaty signed by
Governor Miro, authorizing him to import the raw products
of Kentucky to New Orleans duty free; and an offer
on behalf of the Spanish Government to purchase all
tobacco he should deliver at New Orleans at nine and one-half
cents a pound.

Because of this permit, he was treated by some as the
idol of the hour; by others with indifference, and by
partisans of the Country Party he was declared a traitor
to his country.

He became the head of the Court Party to which
Innes, then attorney general, Brown, Kentucky’s first
delegate to Congress, and Sebastian, Judge of the Court
of Appeals, belonged.

[pg 216]
It might be said that at that time, Kentucky had at
least four local political issues, but two political parties.

    FIRST (Advocated by Wilkinson wing of the Court
    Party)—That Kentucky should become a province of
    Louisiana. The bribe they held out was the Wilkinson
    permit, a promise of unrestricted navigation of the Mississippi,
    trade privileges with New Orleans and free
    grants to actual settlers of great boundaries of land in
    Louisiana Territory.

    SECOND (Advocated by the Brown wing of the
    Court Party)—That Kentucky should become a sovereign
    state independent of the Union, a new republic which was
    to enter into treaty relations as an independent power.

    THIRD (A surviving Tory influence)—That Kentucky
    as a sovereign state, independent of the Union,
    with the assistance of the British Northwest should declare
    war upon Spain and seize New Orleans.

    FOURTH (The Country Party, led by Colonel
    Thomas Marshall)—An immediate severance of Kentucky
    from Virginia; an independent commonwealth but
    remain one of the confederacy of states; confident that
    the Union in good time would by treaty or by force, open
    the Mississippi to free navigation.

In June, 1788, another flotilla of Wilkinson’s arrived
in New Orleans; the tobacco of the cargo was sold to the
Spanish Government for seven thousand dollars.

The boats on the return trip were loaded with merchandise
worth “$18,246 and six reals.” This cargo had
been purchased for Wilkinson by his agent, Daniel Clark,
Sr., a citizen of Spain, a resident merchant of New Orleans
and a cousin of David Clark, Sr., of Danville.

[pg 217]
The flotilla in charge of John Calvin Campbell made
the voyage of fourteen hundred miles to New Orleans in
twenty-four days, arriving on the second day of April,
1789.

The city at that time had a population of exceeding
5,500 persons, and had fully recovered from the disastrous
fire of Good Friday, March 21, 1788, when more than
eight hundred and fifty-six houses had been destroyed;
among them the principal stores, the town hall, the
prison and the arsenal.

John immediately upon arrival went to the palace of
the Governor to deliver the sealed package given him by
General Wilkinson. Informed that Miro was out of the
city he returned to the wharf and began unloading the
cargo.

The following day as they were unloading the last
boat and almost the last hogshead of tobacco, it slipped
from the derrick hooks and rolled upon his foot. While
the injury was not serious it so crippled him that when
Governor Miro returned he was unable to deliver the
letter in person. He handed it to David Clark with positive
instructions to give it to no one but the Governor.

David after quite a wait was admitted to the Governor’s
office and handing the sealed package to him was
told to be seated.

The Governor broke the seal and took from the package
an invoice of the cargo and several other papers.
He attempted to read a letter accompanying them; finding
it hard to do so because he read English rather indifferently,
though he spoke it with comparative ease, he sent
a messenger for his secretary, Daniel Clark, Jr. As it
happened he was out; and supposing the letter referred
merely to the cargo invoices, he handed it to David, asking
him to read it aloud.

[pg 218]
Just as David began, they were interrupted by the
arrival of an important personage, who was escorted
by the Governor into an adjoining room where they
remained in conference for some time. David, to familiarize
himself with the handwriting rather than from
curiosity, began reading the letter; as he read he became
interested and finally alarmed. This is what he read:

   |   “Kentucky, March 8, 1789.

“My loved and venerated Sir:

“I have again the pleasure of writing you and take
this opportunity to acknowledge the receipt of your letter
and the money sent by Major Isaac Dunn.

“The information given you by Oliver Pollock that
John Brown also advocates an independent government
for Kentucky and the Northwest Territory with treaty
relations with Spain, is as far as I have yet succeeded
in committing him. He, Sebastian, Innes and I are in
accord to this extent—That Kentucky must be erected
into a state independent of the Union and at liberty to
align itself with Spain. Innes and Brown say this should
be by treaty, while Fairfax, Sebastian and I insist that
Kentucky shall be a province of Louisiana, I have
no doubt we shall all be in accord when the convention
meets at Danville on the third Monday in July. Until
then I shall be busy with the delegates. At the convention,
if the occasion is auspicious I shall disclose our
great plan or so much thereof as the circumstances require
and am convinced that it will meet with a most
favorable reception.

“The Virginia Assembly has passed a third enabling
act, expressing a willingness for the regular separation
of Kentucky as soon as possible; though stipulating as a
necessary condition of our independence, that Congress
[pg 219]
recognize us as a State of the Federal Union; but a convention
has been called and members elected for the
purpose of forming a constitution for Kentucky and I am
persuaded that no action of Congress or the State of
Virginia, will ever induce this people to abandon the plan
they have adopted; although I have recent news to the
effect that we shall be recognized as a sovereign state
by Congress. In the meantime I hope to receive your
orders and I shall labor hard and faithfully to promote
what you may order.

“If the new government succeeds in establishing itself,
it will encounter difficulties that will keep it without
vigor for three or four years; before which time I have
good reasons to hope we shall complete our negotiations
and shall be too strong to be subjected by whatever force
may be sent against us. My fears then, arise solely from
the policy that may prevail in your Court. I fear the
change of the present ministry and more, that of the
administration of Louisiana; an event which you are able
to judge better than I; and I beg you to speak to me
clearly on this subject.

“I have applied to Mr. Clark, my agent, with regard
to sending me merchandise by the Mississippi. This is
highly important for our interests; because the only link
that can preserve the connection of this country with the
United States is the dependency in which we are placed
to supply ourselves with those articles that are manufactured
by us; and when this people find out that this
capital can supply them more conveniently through the
river, this dependency will cease and with it all motive
of connection with the other side of the Appalachian
Mountains. Our hope then will be turned towards you
and all obstacles in the way of our negotiations will disappear;
for which reason I trust that you will find it
[pg 220]
advisable to favor this measure and will have the kindness
to grant to Mr. Clark the help necessary to carry
it out.

“The tobacco in this consignment, at the price agreed
upon, 9½ cents, comes to $9,350.00 in specie; which I ask
you to deliver to Mr. Clark, sending me a statement by
Mr. Jennings, who is the real captain of my flotilla,
though he has instructions to act as a deck hand until you
have disposed of the bearer of this communication, John
Calvin Campbell, who fights our cause in Kentucky as
zealously as John Calvin fought your religion. Do not
let his youthful appearance deceive you. He has the
innocent look of a cow but the wisdom of a serpent. Had
it not been for him and that hard-head Tom Marshall,
I would in this letter have announced the consummation
of all our plans.

“Keep him a safe prisoner until we are assured his
power to harm our cause is ended. I would advise sending
him to one of the insular colonies. He knows too
much for my safety and the prosperity of our cause.
You understand that in support of your projects towards
procuring the reciprocal happiness of the Spaniards of
Louisiana and of the Americans of Kentucky, I have voluntarily
sacrificed my domestic felicities, my time, my
fortune, my comfort and what is more important, I abandoned
to do so, my personal fame and political honor.
You are using me as I in turn propose to use Brown,
Sebastian, Fairfax and Innes and some lesser gentry.

“It is not necessary to suggest to a gentleman of
your knowledge and experience that the human race in
all parts of the world is governed by its own interest,
although variously modified. Some men are sordid, some
vain, others ambitious. To detect the predominant passion,
[pg 221]
to lay hold of it and to derive advantage from it, is
the most profound part of political science.

“Be *un buen Espanol*, and not alone for this cause
but for my personal safety take good care of the bearer
of this. I wish I might have sent Marshall also.

“Sebastian suggests that I remind you of his pension,
which for some cause has been delayed.

“I beg you to accept my wishes for your happiness
and to believe me, with the highest and warmest personal
regard, your obedient, ready and humble servant.

   |   “Don Jayme Wilkinson.”

David had just finished reading the letter when the
Governor returned. As the door opened he laid it on the
table. The Governor after resuming his seat directed
him to read it aloud.

He was at first so surprised and excited by its contents
that his voice trembled and his hands shook;
gradually he recovered his poise. When he came to that
portion asking that the bearer be detained as a prisoner
he laid the sheet with the preceding one he had just read
upon the table and finished by reading the closing clause
and the signature.

The Governor, who regretted having asked a stranger
to read such a communication, was listening intently and
noticed the break in the connection and his confusion.
He called a couple of guards and saying something to
them in Spanish which David did not understand; took
the letter and turning to the unread page, after a time
deciphered its meaning.

He gave a command, and the two guards one on either
side, took David by the arms and led him from the room.
As they passed out his cousin, Daniel Clark, Governor
Miro’s secretary and interpreter, came in. Though he
[pg 222]
recognized David, who called at their home the night
before, he remained silent; exhibiting the trained self-possession
of one occupying his position.

The Governor handed him Wilkinson’s letter, with
directions to transcribe it in Spanish. This he did, handing
the original and a translation to the Governor, but he
retained a copy in Spanish.

David, held a prisoner in the barracks guardhouse
was not concerned about himself; feeling confident that
when his identity was disclosed his discharge would follow.
He was worried about John and how he might
warn him; knowing that he must have time to escape
before the Governor discovered he held the wrong man.

Some time after he had been placed in the guardhouse
Daniel Clark came to see him. While they were still
planning how to warn John and effect his escape, a squad
of marines from a Spanish frigate entered the barracks
and presented an order to the commandant from the
Governor that David be delivered to them. This was
done and he was taken aboard their ship.

This precipitate action alarmed both David and his
cousin. The thought occurred to both that since David
knew the contents of Wilkinson’s letter, he might be
detained a prisoner even after the Governor was informed
of his identity.

Daniel Clark returned to his office and hurriedly
wrote a letter to David’s father, explaining the situation
and in order to make the gravity of it clear, enclosed
the copy of Wilkinson’s letter. He then went to the
municipal wharf and hunting up John Campbell, told
what had happened, without mentioning his fears as to
David, and impressed upon him that for his own and
David’s safety he must return immediately to Kentucky.

[pg 223]
A pirogue was gotten ready, loaded with provisions
and John’s personal effects; he was given the letter for
Mr. Clark and told to take two men from the crew. He
selected two friends and they were getting into the canoe
when Jennings came up and asked that one of the crew
named Ballinger be substituted in place of one of the men
as he had a communication for Wilkinson which required
immediate delivery. Jennings seeing the Governor’s secretary
helping John off assumed that he was leaving as a
special messenger in the Governor’s service and did all
he could to help; glad that without friction he could now
assume command and load the boats with the return
cargo.

Shortly before sundown of the afternoon of David’s
arrest the three hardy back-woodsmen, and by recent experiences
capable river-men began their river voyage to
Frankfort, of more than fifteen hundred miles. John was
now fully impressed with the importance of getting away
before the Governor discovered his mistake. As Clark
had not told him of the secrets David had learned by
reading Wilkinson’s letter, he knew of no reason why
David should not be released as soon as he was beyond
the reach of the Governor. Before leaving he made Daniel
Clark promise that on the afternoon of the next day he
would demand of the Governor why his cousin was held
as a prisoner; when an investigation would ensue and the
Governor discover his own mistake.

The early morning of the day following John’s departure,
the frigate set sail for Spain with David Clark
prisoner aboard.

Thirty hours later the ship passed through the mouth
of the river and the swells of the gulf soon caused him
to forget his own identity; or at least for the time being,
to wish that he was John Campbell or any person other
[pg 224]
than David Clark. When he felt better they were out of
sight of land and thinking it time to exhibit an interest
in his own welfare, asked to speak to the captain and
was brought before him.

“Be brief, what is it?”

“My name is not John Calvin Campbell but David
Clark.”

“Well I had nothing to do with naming you. Sergeant,
bring me the files and the commitment of the
prisoner.” (The Captain examines the papers) “I do
not care who you are, the commitment does not disclose
your name; and my instructions are simply to—‘deliver
this prisoner with the letter attached to this commitment
to the commandant of the fortress of Barcelona’—and
this I am going to do. The letter may mention your name
but I have no authority to open it. If a mistake has been
made I am not to blame. I must follow my instructions.
It is not my business to inquire who you are and why
you are held. As we are out of sight of land you will
be permitted on the lower deck during the day but at
night you will be locked up. That is all.”

-----

Wilkinson on his first river venture, at Governor
Miro’s suggestion, had engaged Daniel Clark, Sr., to dispose
of that portion of his cargo not purchased by the
Spanish Government; and Clark, at the Governor’s suggestion,
had advanced three thousand dollars on the
consignment. Before Wilkinson had left for the Virginia
coast he had made arrangements with Clark to represent
him in disposing of other consignments; and later through
Major Isaac Dunn as intermediary, the agency had ripened
into a partnership.

Wilkinson, remaining in Kentucky, was to buy the
produce and ship it to New Orleans; there Clark was to
[pg 225]
sell it; invest the proceeds in such merchandise as the
Kentucky trade demanded, which was to be shipped to
Wilkinson and sold by him. So long as they were associated,
about two years, the business prospered.

-----

When Daniel Clark, Jr., learned that David had been
carried away on the Spanish frigate he was forced to
tell his father the whole transaction.

His father went immediately to the Governor and
demanded to know why the son of his first cousin had
been made a prisoner, taken aboard ship and transported
to Spain.

The Governor was not only greatly surprised but
exercised to learn that the prisoner was not the man
Wilkinson had requested him to hold. He asked Mr.
Clark to excuse him for a moment and going to the captain
of the palace guard, sent him at once to apprehend
John Campbell.

Returning to the room where he had left Mr. Clark,
he made profuse apology and expressed sincere regret
for the mistake; promising to rectify it by commanding
the immediate return of his kinsman; which he was sorry
to say would take several months, due to the time consumed
in the voyage and the uncertainty of sailings.
He however made up his mind to keep Clark a prisoner
when he was returned.

Shortly after Mr. Clark left the Governor’s office the
captain returned and reported that Campbell had departed
for Kentucky the night before. The Governor,
put out by this information, told the captain: “His
capture is of the utmost political importance; you are
to take him dead or alive; waste no time and take a
sufficient force to do so. If necessary, pursue him to
[pg 226]
New Madrid or even to the Ohio River. The man who
captures or kills him is to have a reward of one thousand
pesetas.”

When the pursuit began the pirogue in which John
and his friend Ben Logan and Mr. Ballinger were traveling
had a start of sixty miles. He told Logan why he
was fleeing from New Orleans, but did not dare tell Ballinger,
who assumed that the cause for haste was business
of vital importance; and himself anxious to get to
Kentucky was no laggard with his paddle.

The first twenty-four hours they never landed from
the canoe; all the while two paddled while the third
rested. At the end of that time they went ashore to
relieve their cramped limbs and to prepare food. Logan
shot a wild turkey, which they roasted over the hot coals
of their camp fire; resuming their journey they paddled
twelve hours before making the second stop. By the
evening of the third day, feeling comparatively safe, they
spent the night ashore, and from that time, whenever
they were cramped or needed rest, went ashore.

At sundown one evening, they landed at Chickasaw
Bluffs, the deserted site of an old Chickasaw town and
where in 1698 the French had built a fort. Pulling their
pirogue well up on the bar, they climbed the bluff to buy
provisions at Isaac Taylor’s Station.

Ballinger and Logan went into the cabin but John
stood outside looking first up and then down the river,
charmed by the magnificent view and for a time oblivious
of immediate surroundings. Then down the river not
more than a quarter of a mile, he observed two boats
loaded with Spanish soldiers, and headed for their landing.

He ran to the cabin and telling Logan what he had
seen, directed him to buy a few supplies, while he ran
[pg 227]
down to the pirogue and gathered up their belongings.
Then he and Logan telling Ballinger that they were
pursued by two boat loads of Spanish soldiers, advised
that they take to the forest.

Ballinger, frightened on account of the money and
messages in his possession which he had been instructed
to deliver to Wilkinson, readily agreed and the three
taking to their heels disappeared into the forest.

The soldiers, who had not seen John, immediately
upon landing examined the canoe. It was readily identified
as the one they sought. They came carefully up the
bank and quietly surrounded the cabin, supposing their
quarry within. Then the Captain and two soldiers, with
muskets cocked and presented entered the cabin door and
found old man Taylor, sitting by the fire, pipe in mouth
and half asleep.

Informed that the men had left the cabin not more
than ten minutes before, they spent a good part of the
night scouring the woods and at daylight resumed the
search which was continued for several days; while those
they sought with the unerring instinct of woodsmen were
traveling, as the crow flies, toward Cumberland Gap.
When they reached a river they did not hunt for ford
or boat, but binding several dry logs together with grape
vines, placed their clothing and dunnage upon them and
swam for the opposite bank, resting upon and shoving
their light raft before them. Twelve days later, the men,
footsore and ragged, arrived at Campbell Station.

Logan and Ballinger, re-outfitted by John and Colonel
Campbell, rested several days and resumed their journey;
Logan to St. Asaph’s carrying Daniel Clark’s letter to
David’s father, which he had promised to deliver immediately;
and Ballinger bound for Lexington, where he
expected to deliver to Wilkinson the sealed communication
[pg 228]
of Governor Miro and the three thousand dollars,
which was the second payment from Spain for his traitorous
efforts to make Kentucky a province of Louisiana.

-----

By some subtle shift of sentiment, the scheme of Miro
and Wilkinson became very unpopular. It may have
been partly due to the letter David Clark received. At
any rate the quiet old farmer rode about the country and
had many confidential talks with other farmers.

Wilkinson complained to Sebastian: “\* \* \* things
look blue; sentiment is shifting; conditions in Kentucky
are no longer favorable. They seem to be straightening
the kinks out of the new government; we may be in personal
danger; our fair weather friends are deserting us;
Brown and Innes have deserted and Fairfax grows
timid.”

He was right. Conditions were not favorable. The
Union was proving itself a capable organization. The
states were forgetting their jealousies under the wise
and firm administration of Washington. The constitution
was in operation. Of all the men who had declared
themselves in favor of Wilkinson’s project, only one now
stood firm and that was Judge Sebastian. He subsequently
was impeached and confessed his infamy.

Wilkinson was a scoundrel of more nerve, with greater
capacity to deceive. He was twice impeached and each
time acquitted. Long after Spain had parted with title
to Louisiana returning it to France; and France in turn
had sold it to the United States; long after he died in
Mexico; access was obtained to Spanish state papers
which established his guilt.

As early as January 8, 1788, Governor Miro in an
official communication to his government wrote:

[pg 229]
“\* \* \* I have been reflecting many days whether
it would be proper to inform D’Arges of the idea of Wilkinson
and the latter of the errand of the former in order
to unite them, that they may work in accord with each
other, \* \* \* Wilkinson \* \* \* would be greatly disgusted
that another person should share a confidence on
which depended his life and honor. For these reasons I
am not able to declare the matter to D’Arges, nor could
I confide the errand of the latter to the former before
knowing the intention of His Majesty about Wilkinson.
The delivery of Kentucky to His Majesty, the principal
object to which Wilkinson has promised to devote himself
entirely, would assure forever, this province as a
rampart to New Spain, for which reason I consider the
project of D’Arges a misfortune.”

On May 15, 1788, General Wilkinson wrote a letter to
Miro and Navarro, in which he said:

“I anticipate no obstacle on the part of Congress,
because under the present confederation that body cannot
dispose of men or money and the new government, if
it succeeds in establishing itself, will encounter difficulties
that will keep it without vigor for three or four years;
before which time I have good reason to hope we shall
complete our negotiations, and we will be too strong to
be subjugated by whatever force may be sent against us.”

On the 22nd of May, 1790, Governor Miro, wrote to
the Spanish Minister, Antonio Valdes:

“Although I thought with Wilkinson that the commercial
concessions made to the western people might
deter them from effecting their separation from the
United States, \* \* \* yet I never imagined that the
effect would be so sudden and that the large number of
influential men whom Wilkinson in his previous letters
had mentioned as having been gained over to our party,
[pg 230]
would have entirely vanished, as he now announces it,
since he affirms having no other aid at present than Sebastian. \* \* \*

“\* \* \* Nevertheless, I am of opinion that said
brigadier general ought to be retained in the service of
His Majesty with an annual pension of two thousand
dollars, which I have already proposed in my confidential
despatch No. 46, because the inhabitants of Kentucky
and of the other establishments on the Ohio will not be
able to undertake anything against this province, without
his communicating it to us, and without his making
at the same time all possible efforts to dissuade them
from any bad designs against us, as he has already done
repeatedly. \* \* \* A pension should be granted to Sebastian
because I think it proper to treat with this individual,
who will be able to enlighten me on the conduct
of Wilkinson and on what we have to expect from the
plans of said brigadier general.”

[pg 231]




CHAPTER XV.—Dorothy Again a Prisoner.
-------------------------------------


John, after eight months’ absence, was home again.
The quiet of the valley was profound and satisfying.
Though he brought back in money less than he had taken
away, he had stored up much worldly wisdom and experience;
and like all men had paid the price.

His guilelessness was gone; the old faith that he could
love all men as he loved everything of the valley was no
more. Before, he had looked out and seen that everything
was good; now he knew that all were not good and
that not every spoken word was true; and without ever
having wronged any one, he had been forced to flee as a
criminal. It made him morbid.

His heart overflowed with love for his mountains; for
the deep silent forest and for the Pinnacle—from it he
might look forth and see so much of nature’s pleasant
face and feel the peace that reigned. How he loved the
smell of the growing corn, the clover fragrance of the
meadow and nature’s minor voices; of rippling waters,
of summer breezes, of singing birds, of chirping crickets
by night, of harvest flies and katydids by day, of summer
daylight showers and on sultry nights the low distant
thunder rumbling in the mountains.

How much purer life seemed, how much simpler than
in the Settlements. Here, God in nature reigned; there,
where man seemed master, the face of nature was defaced.
It was a confusion of ugliness, of new cabins,
brush heaps, stumps, the decaying skeletons of dead and
belted trees; and the earth was barren and torn.

[pg 232]
He would spend his whole life in the valley—if only
Dorothy were here; \* \* \* man must not live alone;
\* \* \* she alone were needed to make this as paradise,
before the fall of man.

\* \* \* What have you to do with fallen men? “Thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” \* \* \* Not as you
love the stars. Are you to remain here cradled in the lap
of nature? A wood nymph of six feet two? Why your
great strength?—your broad shoulders? Why a man
that can discern? Why a voice? Why a soul?—and one
that has visions of the glory of God. What use for a
teacher in this solitude? What use for broad shoulders
where burdens are light? What use for vision if you
are not a prophet? Visions but beget broader vision.
Are you not of those whose honors come after death?
Since you first began to think and speak have you not
thought and said: I will go forth to service, in order that
the grain ripe for harvest may not perish from my neglect?
Wouldst be questioned and commanded: Wist you
not that you must be about the Master’s business? Go!

Through the last days of June and into July, John
hoed and sweated in the corn; the weeds came thicker
than the year before; the tares grew denser and closer—and
whence the tares? And his mind was on the call to
go to the Settlements to serve men—where Dorothy \* \* \*

The corn was laid by, the days grew sultry and hot,
it was early August. Then he went into the meadow;
with each swing of the blade and each rasp of the whetstone
he heard the call to service—or to Dorothy.

Each Sunday afternoon and when unfit weather made
a holiday, he climbed to the Gap and the Pinnacle; and
always his eyes were turned northward towards the Settlements;
where the harvest was ripe and needed reapers
and where Dorothy, if she were home again, \* \* \* but
[pg 233]
why always was his call to service coupled with thoughts
of Dorothy? Was it in truth a call—or did he merely
wish to leave the valley to be with Dorothy?

This Sunday afternoon on the Pinnacle resolutely he
turned his back to the Settlements, facing the unbroken
forest of Powell’s Valley, saying: “I fought this out a
year ago; my call comes first.”

His vision became fixed upon a fleecy cloud way to
the southward or was it the smoke from a burning forest?
Did he sleep; or did he see the misty filmy substance take
shape? He never knew with certainty. In any event he
saw a great river and floating upon it a large flat boat,
such as river emigrants used. As he looked the boat
rounded a great bend and approached the mouth of a
smaller river emptying into it from the northward. Hid
in the willows at the mouth of the smaller river, he
counted, one by one, ten large war canoes filled with Indians
waiting.

He recognized the location. It was the mouth of the
Big Miami; where John Filson and Colonel Patterson,
with their men, had held the pow-wow with the Indians,
on their way up river to lay off Losanteville.

Two white men running along the bank of the Ohio,
some distance above the willows, were calling to the boat:
“Come ashore and take us aboard. We escaped from
the Indians last night and shall be found and murdered.”
They were the decoys of the war party.

The boat had heavy bulwarks and was heavily loaded;
aboard were more than a dozen men and several women
and children. On the deck fastened to a chain running
between two heavy supports were eight horses and several
cows.

The crew, confident of their strength, approached the
shore though warned not to do so by Captain Fairfax,
[pg 234]
who with his daughter were passengers. The captain of
the boat said: “They may be decoys as you say, but we
will not land; merely go in close enough to ascertain who
the men are and if they are in distress throw out a line,
if they cannot swim to us. It seems hard to believe that
white men could be found to decoy us; and if they are
closely pursued and murdered in our sight or recaptured
we would never forgive ourselves for not helping them.
Several of you men have your rifles ready in case of attack.
The beach is clear of undergrowth until we reach
the willows and we will shove out again before we get that
far.”

They came within a short distance of the shore, calling
to the men to swim to them. One answered he could
not swim and they ran along the shore abreast of the
boat, all the while drawing near the willows. When the
men reached a wash-out they dropped into it out of sight.
At the same time the Indians dashed out in their canoes
and the battle began.

The men at the sweeps were killed at the first volley;
the boat drifted yet nearer the shore and the canoes were
almost upon it.

The horses and cattle frightened by the firing and by
the noise began to struggle and plunge and to crowd and
push towards the off-shore or port side of the boat; which
was tilted until the water flowed in and the overloaded
boat sank in seven feet of water.

Some of the crew and passengers struggled in the
water, the children were drowned in the cabin. Those
yet on deck stood shoulder deep in the water but their
rifles were useless; and the Indians coming very close,
tomahawked and scalped the survivors.

John saw Captain Fairfax strike with his rifle barrel
an Indian sitting in the bow of a canoe. Several Indians
[pg 235]
with the muzzles of their rifles within a foot of his face
fired; he sank into the water, but reaching down they recovered
his body and scalped him. Then he saw a young
woman swimming from the sunken boat out into the
river towards the swift running current, hoping thus to
escape. She swam well, and for a while he thought she
would escape; but one of the Indians pointed her out to
those in his canoe and they gave chase. When almost
near enough to strike, she dived and rose again twenty
feet down the stream; but the canoe was also riding with
the current and each time she rose it was near. She
dived again and when she came up the Indian in the bow
who had first seen her, caught her by the hair and hauled
her into the canoe.

John saw her face. He had felt all the while it was
Dorothy. The Indians were strangers to him and he
grew sick with fear for her. They were from the headwaters
of the Big Miami. For the first time in his life
he was possessed with an overwhelming desire to kill.

The Indians again landed at the willows; removed
from their canoes several of their dead and wounded and
four captives, two men and two women. The men were
bleeding from wounds and nearly drowned. A little
later two canoes came ashore, leading by their halters
three horses and two cows.

They bound the two half drowned men to stakes and
built great fires about them. They killed the two cows
and roasted the men and their meat in the same fires.

A few small pieces of drift and an upturned canoe
marked the site of the battle; otherwise the bosom of the
river was as placid as before. \* \* \* And the vision
faded.

John, as deeply moved as if he had been tied to a stake
and helplessly witnessed it all, knew that the vision he
[pg 236]
had seen had just occurred as pictured, though he was
more than two hundred miles from the mouth of the Big
Miami.

He went home in a very frenzy of passion; ate his
supper in silence and as his parents noticed in a sort of
semi-consciousness; eating more than he habitually did.

After supper he told them of his dream, as he chose
to call it, saying: “After I have rescued Dorothy I will
take her to her mother; then I will attend a theological
school for some months. After I have finished, I will
come back here and help during the summer; then I shall
give my whole time to preaching.”

He made hasty preparation to leave for the Miami
country; knowing in an unaccountable way that Dorothy
was yet alive. He went to bed and slept until the moon
rose over the mountains, which gave sufficient light to
travel, then set forth afoot, carrying only his girdle, a
hunting knife, hatchet, blanket and several days’ rations
of parched corn and jerked meat.

He took the Warrior’s Trail northward, traveling the
first sixty miles in twenty hours, stopping only for a
drink of water now and then, munching an occasional
mouthful of parched corn or dried meat as he walked.
Darkness having come again and, needing rest, he bathed
in a small stream, and in a dry, sheltered spot under an
overhanging cliff slept until the gray of morning; then
he hurried on, breakfasting upon the corn and meat as he
walked.

On the afternoon of the fourth day, he reached the
south bank of the Ohio, opposite the mouth of the Miami,
and could see the willows where the Indians had waited in
their canoes. Walking up the stream to offset the distance
the current would wash him down while swimming
across, he selected from a pile of drift two small, dry
[pg 237]
cottonwood logs and lashed and launched them into the
river; having tied his clothing on one end and holding
to the other, he swam across, landing on the opposite
shore at the mouth of the draw a few yards above the
willows.

Having dressed again, he ate the last of his ration
of corn and meat, which was supplemented by a few late
dewberries which he found growing on the bluff. Then
hiding in the willows at the mouth of the river, he spread
his blanket on the soft white sand and almost immediately
went to sleep.

Some hours later he was aroused by the grating of
the prow of a canoe upon the sandy beach a few yards
above him; then another landed. Though the sound may
have been made by hostile Indians, it was a break in his
loneliness; as since leaving home, he had not seen or heard
a human being. It was too dark to see, but listening intently
he was convinced his neighbors were Indians because
they were stealthy of movement and talked in brief
and subdued monotone.

He finally made out they were Mingoes; and thought
he recognized one by his voice as Deer Runner; one of
the Indians who had been with him at Jenkins’ Station
the year before.

Greeting them as friends, he called the name of this
Indian and announced his own. There was a moment of
absolute silence; then he asked about the Prophet and
several others of his friends. Then he heard one say to
his companions: “It is Chief Cross-Bearer, the strong
armed. Let us light a fire so we can see his face and cook
something. I am hungry.” Then he came over to where
John sat, and for an Indian, greeted him cordially; the
others followed.

[pg 238]
He told them the cause of his journey; and in turn
was informed that two white women who had been taken
from a boat on the Ohio, were held prisoners at an Indian
town about fifty miles up the Miami.

Convinced that Dorothy was one of them he asked Deer
Runner to take him in the small canoe to the village and
ordered the other four Indians to hasten to Shauane-Town,
and tell the Prophet of Dorothy’s capture and ask
his assistance.

At daylight he and Deer Runner left for the village in
the small canoe, while the others were yet making preparations
to continue up the Ohio to the mouth of the
Scioto, the Mingo country.

Just before sundown, John and Deer Runner beached
their canoe at the Indian village; while the Indians in
sullen, almost hostile, silence watched them. The tribe
at the time was at war with the whites and they resented
and were curious to know the purpose of this unarmed
white man who dared to come among them.

John would have been made prisoner and tortured
except for his adoption and rank as a Mingo chieftain;
which was satisfactorily established by the girdle and
the tattoo marks on his chest, both of which he was forced
to exhibit. When it was understood that by adoption he
was a brother of Tecumseh and the Prophet, he was
assigned a lodge and given food.

When he asked to talk with the white prisoners the
request was denied; though the chief took him so near
that he and Dorothy recognized and waved a greeting to
each other. He was told that the following morning a
council would be called and he would be given an opportunity
to explain why he had visited their village, after
which he might be permitted to confer with the prisoners.

[pg 239]
He lay down on the deer skins over which he had
spread his blanket and slept through the night. Dorothy
was alive and well; and he was near to protect her; and
friends would soon arrive to help in her rescue.

When he awoke the sun was filling the valley with its
first light; the dew sparkled on the leaves and grass; his
morning prayer was a song of praise; his heart was so
full of the love of life that he felt attuned with and understood
as his own tongue the songs of the birds that warbled
so sweetly in the tree tops along the river.

Walking up the river beyond sight of the village, he
undressed on a bar of white sand and swam across and
back again; then returned to the village, where he found
Deer Runner waiting to begin their breakfast of meat,
green corn and potatoes, all of which had been cooked
together with some seasoning herbs by an old woman,
who had been assigned as their servant.

On the way to the council hall he passed near Dorothy,
who waved a good morning; and entered, feeling fit to
plead with confidence even so momentous a cause as involved
her freedom—and his happiness.

The chief asked that he explain in the Mingo dialect,
which all understood, being members of the Confederacy,
the purpose of his visit to their village.

“As you saw, I came among you unarmed, showing
that my mission was one of peace. I am a man of peace
and have never yet shed blood of or wronged either Indian
or Long Knife. Before coming to Kentucke I lived
in the Jackson River Country and my father’s lodge was
the stopping place of all Indians. They were not only
entertained as guests but treated as friends.

“When a little boy I was taken prisoner by Logan,
who driven to violence by the murder of all his kindred,
thought for a while to even scores; but he learned before
[pg 240]
his death that an act of violence following another in retaliation,
neither righted wrong nor salved injury.

“He brought me to Shauane-Town on the Scioto. I
was adopted into the family of Tecumseh and the
Prophet, in place of Tecumseh’s twin brother who had
died. While they are warriors, I belong to the priesthood;
and my body, which no Indian at peace with the
Mingoes dare mutilate, bears the marks of dedication to
the Great Spirit.

“When I was taken prisoner, a little girl, now a
grown woman and your prisoner, was carried off and she
by adoption is a Mingo; the daughter of Logan, himself
an adopted chief of the Sciotha tribe. He was murdered
at Detroit as you have heard.

“Are you at peace with the Mingoes? If so, what
right have you to hold the daughter of Logan a prisoner?
Does she not speak the Mingo tongue? Is that acquired
in a day? Has she not told you she is the daughter of
Logan? As I now say and as Deer Runner will tell you.

“Her white father was aboard the boat and was shot
and scalped by you; but his daughter did not fight, she
killed no one; her hands are not stained by blood. She
merely sought to escape as the wild duck flees from the
eagle; swimming way out into the river, she was pursued
by Gray Wolf and his men in a canoe and taken prisoner.
By the law between allies, and you are allies of the Mingoes,
you cannot hold her prisoner unless she has killed
one of your people and then her fate is fixed by the family
of whom the one killed was a member. Only three of
your warriors were killed in the battle, a fourth has since
died. None of these were kindred of Gray Wolf, nor was
he even wounded. What right has he to hold this woman
prisoner?”

[pg 241]
(The Chief) “How do you know all this?”

“I saw the battle from the Pinnacle at Cumberland
Gap, more than two hundred miles away. If any doubt,
let him ask what occurred and I will tell him.”

(Gray Wolf) “How many braves were in the canoe
when we took the woman? And if any here were present
point them out.”

“Five, you sat in the bow, and after the woman had
dived three times, she came up within reach, when you
caught her by the hair and pulled her aboard. You and
the brave on your left held her until you came ashore.
The fourth one from you on the right was with you and
the seventh. The fifth man is not here; he has gone up
the river.”

(The Chief) “Who has told Cross-Bearer these
things? Have any of you gossipped like old women, either
with him or with Deer Runner?”

“No one has spoken. I saw it as it has been told. If
Gray Wolf refuses to release the prisoner, he will die
tonight by his own hand; it is the will of the Great Spirit.
My brother, the Prophet, comes tomorrow. He loves you
people, but he loves his brother more; nor will he permit
a woman of his tribe to be held a prisoner without cause.
Let there be peace. Let the prisoner go. I have no right
to demand the release of the other prisoner. You are at
war with the whites. She was taken in battle; she is an
enemy, not an ally; but as your friend I would advise
you not to war upon women and children.”

(The Chief) “Chief Cross-Bearer is right; the woman
who is the daughter of Logan must be released. It is the
law of the Confederacy.”

(Gray Wolf) “I will not be frightened into releasing
the woman. Chief Cross-Bearer has spoken. He has
told of strange things; but he may have learned them
[pg 242]
from the prisoner. I have heard of but never seen a
person who could see where others were blind and who
could foretell what was to happen on the morrow. He
claims to know too much when he says I shall die tonight
unless the prisoner is released. What is to be will happen.
It is not in his power to know the time of my death.
Gray Wolf, though he has no cause to kill himself, is not
afraid to die. The woman shall go free at the rising of
the sun but not before. Gray Wolf will not then release
her because of threats but because she is the daughter
of Logan. I have spoken.”

He was next in authority to the chief; and as all
thought no harm could come of the woman remaining a
prisoner over night the council adjourned without further
comment.

Gray Wolf, about four months before, leading a war
party had attacked a flat boat floating down the Ohio.
After killing all the crew he had boarded it and found a
small shepherd puppy aboard which he had brought back
with him. The now half grown dog was his constant
companion and his most prized possession.

In the afternoon, while John, the chief and several of
the braves, were seated under a great elm near the river,
the dog came near them and before lying down on an
absolutely bare spot, turned about many times tramping
with his feet as though to crush down a heavy growth of
grass. This started a discussion of the hereditary or
birthmark traits of birds, animals and men, which lasted
some time. The dog, his nap over, left them and began
playing in the open some distance from Gray Wolf’s
lodge. He gave a yelp of terror, just as a great bald eagle,
dropping as it seemed from the sky, caught him in her
talons and flew away. The weight and struggles of the dog
caused the bird to light after a flight of a hundred yards;
[pg 243]
and Gray Wolf, snatching up his rifle, started running
for the spot. Intent to reach the eagle which was tearing
the life out of his dog, he carelessly stumbled over a
bramble. His rifle was thrown from his hand and, striking
a stone, was discharged, the bullet passing through his
chest. They carried him into his lodge and laid him upon
a pallet of skins. Two hours after sunset he choked to
death, from the accumulation of blood in his lungs.

A few minutes before his death he asked for Chief
Cross-Bearer and when he came near, in a choking voice
said: “You are a true prophet—the prisoner is yours.
Take her and go. You will have peace and she will be
your wife.”

When he came out the chief met him and calling two
of his braves directed them to place food and some deer
skins in the Mingo canoe, then turning to John said: “We
wish you to leave at once. Take both women. The Great
Spirit is offended and may punish others than Gray
Wolf.”

John, the two women and Deer Runner departed
within the hour.

Near daylight, they came within sight of the willows.
On the beach a camp fire blazed and beside it by its light
they recognized the Prophet and some thirty of his warriors,
who were just breaking camp, on their way to demand
the release of Dorothy.

They paddled to the shore and after greetings were
asked to land and rest; but Dorothy said no. She wished
to leave the place at the earliest moment.

Their belongings were transferred to a large canoe,
then they climbed in followed by four Indians, who paddled
lustily and silently down stream, while their passengers
slept; Dorothy beside John with her head pillowed
on his arm.

[pg 244]




CHAPTER XVI.—A Wedding.
-----------------------


Reverend David Rice, known to everyone as “Father
Rice,” was a graduate of Princeton, the first ordained
Presbyterian minister of Kentucky, and a firm believer
and practitioner of the three ideals of Presbyteranism:
First, the family as a unit in human life; second, the
necessity for a true understanding of the faith; third,
the importance of education.

He came to Kentucky from Hanover County, Virginia,
in 1783, and between that time and 1785 organized
three churches—at Danville, at Cane Run and at the
Forks of Dick’s River.

The first Presbytery of Transylvania met in the court
house at Danville, Tuesday, October 17, 1786. Father
Rice was chosen as moderator and the other ministers
present were Adam Rankin, Andrew McClure, James
Crawford and Terah Templin.

He was the first teacher at Transylvania Seminary,
founded at Lexington in 1793. For several years prior
to that time, being deeply interested in the education of
young men for the ministry, he had conducted a private
school for Presbyterian theological students at his home;
and the class or school was usually attended by from four
to seven students.

In January, 1790, John Calvin Campbell, a graduate
of William and Mary’s entered Rice’s Seminary, from
which he graduated and was shortly thereafter ordained,
after an examination and services conducted by Father
Rice, James Crawford and Adam Rankin.

[pg 245]
Among those present at the service, were Dorothy
and her mother, David Clark and his wife and Richard
Cameron.

Clark and his wife were a lonely couple, broken and
aged by sorrow. They had never had word of their son,
from the departure of the Spanish frigate on which he
had been taken as a prisoner; nor had they ever told John
the contents of Daniel Clark’s letter; thinking it might
bring sorrow into his life; and he was ignorant of the
cause of their son’s continued absence.

Mrs. Fairfax’s chief aim in life was her daughter’s
happiness; living anew her own life in that of her daughter.
She loved John because her daughter did; not as a
prospective son-in-law, but as a part of her daughter’s
life. She seemed to have recovered from the shock of
her husband’s tragic death; or at least treated the incident
as a closed chapter in her life. It may have been
that she dreaded to inflict her sorrows upon others;
rarely speaking of him even to Dorothy. It may have
been the easier borne because her husband for several
years before his death had been in the habit of making
long business trips for Wilkinson and these had severed
the companionable relationship that had existed in Virginia.

It was understood among the young people of Danville
that Dorothy and John were engaged. They were much
together. The comradeship that had existed between them
when they were little children had been renewed by the
journey home after Dorothy’s rescue. Each took it for
granted that they were to be married and spoke of it as
a matter of course. If Dorothy had been called upon to
tell when and how John proposed, she first would have
been amused, and then after a moment’s thought embarrassed
by the question. If John had been asked if they
[pg 246]
were engaged, he would have answered: “Why, certainly.”

At the close of the service of ordination, Dorothy was
the first to congratulate him. As they stood talking
Father Rice came up, and taking her left hand, because
John retained the right, said:

“Miss Fairfax, we have made a preacher of your
sweetheart. As he stood before us, I was impressed by
his strong face, his great frame and his deep voice, thinking
what a leader of men he would make, fighting the battles
of men among men; dress him in the uniform of a
soldier and he would look the part; place him in the Congress
of our nation and he would make a name for himself
and be an honor to his State. Yet, he has elected to
lay these opportunities aside and answered a call to service,
which many consider an humble one. He is now a
warrior of peace; may he in truth become Chief Cross-Bearer
among us, as with the Mingoes. His greatest
reward shall come after death; but he shall find here the
peace of a clear conscience, the satisfaction of work well
done and shall be blessed by the love of a woman, who
will make him a happy home and help him always in his
work; though his wife should know that a preacher belongs
to his people rather than to his family. John, am
I to be asked to marry Dorothy and you? If so shall it
be within a day or two or after the Presbytery has assigned
you a definite field and you are established? You
know I think all preachers should be married and that
the home next to the church is the most important institution.”

“Father Rice, that is as Dorothy wishes. We shall
talk it over tonight.”

Mrs. Fairfax, Mrs. McDowell, Miss Logan and Mr.
and Mrs. Clark coming forward, their intimate conversation
[pg 247]
was broken off and John forced to release Dorothy’s
hand to respond to the congratulations of his friends.

He walked home with Mrs. Fairfax and Dorothy. It
was one of the most attractive places in Danville. Practically
all of its furnishing had been imported from England
to Virginia by Lord Fairfax and brought by his
nephew’s family to Kentucky.

In the drawing room were magnificent mirrors, fine
tapestries, a virginal and hand lyre; the floor was covered
with heavy velvet carpets and the window curtains
were of the finest linen lace; in an alcove was a large and
well-selected library. On the hall walls hung portraits
of preceding generations, some by great masters; and in
the beamed dining room a massive sideboard was covered
with silver plate which bore the heraldic symbol of one
of the first families of Old England.

After her mother left them, Dorothy, the aristocrat,
talked with John, the newly-ordained circuit rider
preacher about their marriage. John said: “I wish to
impress upon you that I am a tramp preacher, a calling
which in this new country, forces me to tramp long distances
by forest trails from one settlement to another
and to be from home weeks at a time.” Nor did Dorothy
count such marriage a sacrifice, as after he left, with eyes
overflowing with tears of happiness, she thanked God
that He had given her John.

They agreed that they would marry as soon as his territory
had been assigned by the Presbytery; in the meanwhile
he was to go home and help with the harvest.

-----

Mid-afternoon of the tenth of June, John, laying aside
his cradle, sickle in hand was gleaning the last of the
wheat about the fence corners and stumps of the two-acre
[pg 248]
field. It is the first they have grown since leaving Virginia.
He planted it the October before, thinking of his
wife to be and his mother.

Corn pone bread, baked in the Dutch oven, heated by
being buried in the red hot coals of the great fireplace
was all right for the Colonel and himself, in fact, they
preferred it; but Dorothy and his mother should have
wheaten bread, which could now be ground and bolted at
the water mill at Cumberland Falls.

As almost in tenderness he bound and knotted the
last bundle, some one near called.

“John! John!”

Thrilled, he turned, Dorothy stood before him—and
he caught her and held her in his arms.

“Father Rice and mother are at the house. You have
been assigned to this district, in which you are to live
and establish new churches. It is nearly a hundred miles
square; there is only one church and you are the only
preacher. You are to begin work on the first of July;
and so to be with you the longer before you leave, I have
come to you, John. Father Rice and mother thought I
should do this. We shall live here as it is near the center
of your district. He has all the papers ready and
must go on at once to Powell’s Valley, where he preaches
tonight. Kiss me as much as you wish, but hurry, John.
He is waiting to marry us; if you are not ready, he can
do it when he returns in about a week—I thought that
would hurry you a bit.”

John, absent-minded in his happiness, picked up the
sickle, and carrying it in his left hand, with his right arm
around Dorothy’s waist, hastened towards the house.
There, after greetings, and without further preparation
on John’s part, other than removing his hat, they were
married.

[pg 249]
At the close of the service, Father Rice, in his prayer,
called attention to the sickle, which unconsciously John
still held, and when he released Dorothy’s hand, had
transferred from his left to his right hand. “\* \* \*
Oh, Lord! We know that you will bless this union of
faithful hearts; and the work which thy harvester will
soon assume. As he now stands ready, make him fit and
ready for thy harvest in this his field, where the grain
is ripe and waiting; and may he never leave it except to
gladden a heart as he has done today, standing as now
prepared to return. \* \* \*”

Only those who love as did these two, can understand
the happiness of that Valley honeymoon, which lasted
until John was forced to go to work. Though their journey
was but to the Pinnacle and home again and the
bride’s trousseau in the main of homespun and buckskin,
they knew of nothing more and wished for no greater
blessings than were theirs.

One late afternoon, when the breeze blew cool, and
the shadow of the western mountains covered half the
valley, they left home; John carrying a hamper of good
things and a blanket for Dorothy; and climbed to the
Pinnacle, just as the sun sank behind the distant western
hills. They watched the red and the gold of the sunset
shift and fade to purple and then to a night gray; and
while the stars were struggling to show themselves in
the light, half day, half night, the golden red harvest
moon came up over the eastern mountains and greeted
them with his full ruddy face and broad smile—and Dorothy
smiled back, saying: “The man up there is an awful
flirt. No wonder a woman grows less coy under first
the golden, now the silver mantle of his smile.”

When the night grew old and was gray from the
morning light they walked home again; knowing yet more
[pg 250]
intimately and loving the more, their mountains, the
valley and the trackless wilderness beyond.

-----

John brought the wealth of a princely intellect, an
educated and quietly happy mind and tireless energy as
his offering to the church. Character takes color from
its surroundings and he seemed to possess the impenetrable
calmness of the mountains.

His work called him from one distant settlement to
another. It was his practice to travel from twenty to
forty miles a day and preach at night. Occasionally his
work required him to stop for several days in a place to
organize a church or to hold a protracted meeting or to
build a church. He was called upon to marry couples, to
organize schools, to visit the sick, to bury the dead and
to arbitrate neighborhood controversies.

Wherever he went, he carried a holy influence which
in a year or two spread over his district and an improved
social and spiritual influence seemed to follow his preaching
as a benediction.

He broke no appointments because of swollen
streams, deep snows or other physical causes. If the horse
gave out or the stream was too turbid to swim horseback,
he dismounted and picketing him, swam across, his Bible
within his coon skin cap and the cap tied tight beneath
his chin.

He rode along the trails carrying his Bible and a
reference book or two in his saddle bags. When the
trail was one the horse knew and would follow, he gave
him the rein and studied as he rode along.

Wherever he stopped at night, after family prayers,
which he asked the privilege of conducting if not asked;
he sat until very late before the open light-wood fire and
[pg 251]
prepared the outline for his next day’s sermon. Frequently
he was forced to camp in the forest; then he built
a great fire and by its light worked long and zealously
upon another sermon. He knew the solitudes; and having
lived the life of those to whom he preached, he knew his
hearers and from homely incidents in their lives or from
the parables illustrated his sermons, talking to half a
dozen primitive settlers with the same conscientious
fervor as when his audience was of considerable proportions
because of some social or political gathering in the
neighborhood.

After the first few months he was treated with respect
by all the residents of his district. Occasionally visitors
were not so respectful. Once at a distant county seat, he
put up for the night at a tavern where several lawyers,
attending court, were quartered. Seeing him reading his
Bible before the fire, and rather to test his mettle than in
an irreverent spirit, they began discussing the subject of
religion; but he seemed not to hear. When the time came
to retire the landlord, as was the custom of the country,
invited him to lead the evening’s devotions. He read a
chapter, then all knelt in prayer. In his deep, kindly
voice he prayed: “\* \* \* O Lord! Thou hast heard the
conversation tonight, pardon its folly \* \* \*” and
the lawyers, impressed by his earnestness and repentant
of their folly, asked his pardon also.

It was at no small cost of danger and privation that
he preached the gospel to these distant settlements. He
never carried a rifle and had never felt that his life was
in danger. Several times when he sat alone at night by
his wilderness camp fire he would hear a stealthy tread
behind him, but knew better than to turn or even move
in a startled way. Sometimes he would hear the steps
[pg 252]
approach very near and after several minutes silently
steal away again. He knew his girdle had again protected
him.

Once or twice several Indians came out of the night
and sat beside his camp fire talking with him in the
Mingo tongue; and once several of his Mingo friends
spent the night at his camp fire. They were in the country
for the purpose of attacking some isolated settlement;
and when he asked them to leave the “Long Knives” of
his district alone, they reluctantly consented.

When it was rumored Indians were about, the settlers
offered to act as guard to his next appointment; but he
assured them he was in no danger when unarmed and unaccompanied.
This they came to believe.

Slowly his reputation as an exemplary citizen and
a preacher of power and conviction was made, and his influence
as an earnest advocate and defender of the new
Union made his district the strongest Federalist section
of Kentucky. Yet more slowly there spread about a belief
that he was gifted with the miraculous power of curing
by laying his hands upon the head of the sick. It was
told that several times after he did this and kneeling
prayed beside his bed, the raving of delirium ceased and
after a long sleep the patient speedily recovered.

As head of the Presbytery Father Rice began to get
letters and to be importuned: “Send us Reverend Calvin
Campbell; our district is much more populous than the
one to which he has been assigned and needs just such a
preacher. \* \* \*” Special messengers were sent to
him from the Can Run and Forks of Dick’s River
churches requesting that he help in their protracted meetings.
These invitations were declined, because his large
district which was growing rapidly provided more labor
than he could perform.

[pg 253]
Thus it came about that Dorothy saw less and less of
her husband. She too was busy, else she might have rebelled
at the loneliness or by importunities have hindered
her husband’s work. Mrs. Campbell had grown feeble;
there were baby clothes to make; and many people visited
them, coming to Kentucky or returning to Virginia;
these must be cooked for and entertained. Every hunter
or trader of the district thought it a duty to call at the
preacher’s house and stopped overnight or remained for
a meal. They left a ham of venison or a brace of turkeys
or a deer skin for Mrs. Campbell; and always wanted to
know how soon their preacher was coming to their station.
At the end of the first year Dorothy, because of
these inquiries and John’s mail, realized that her husband,
locally at least, was becoming a famous man and paying
the price of greatness.

Father Rice in the spring of 1791 rode up to the house
one afternoon and said to Dorothy: “I have come to help
Calvin out for a couple of weeks; but he must pay me
back by attending the Presbytery and filling my appointments
at Danville, Lexington and Little Mountain.”

John came home that night; the next day they
preached to a big gathering at Powell’s River Meeting
House. After the meeting, which beginning in the afternoon
lasted until eleven o’clock, he rode home alone,
leaving Father Rice to follow in the morning. It was
nearly two o’clock when the long ride was ended; but it
gave him a few hours more with his wife.

While Father Rice remained they held meetings at
each of the five churches of his district, four of which had
been organized by him. It was true they were little more
than large pens of logs, covered by a clapboard roof and
warmed by a great fireplace built of mud and sticks; but
they were crowded at every service and many stood outside
[pg 254]
looking in and listening at the doors and windows.
They were as sheep seeking a fold and came great distances
to find one.

When the meetings closed they left to attend Transylvania
Presbytery at Danville. There he met again an old
acquaintance, Robert Marshall, who when a boy of sixteen
had been wounded in the battle of Monmouth and
had come home with Colonel Campbell to rest and grow
strong again. Several months before he had moved from
Virginia to Kentucky.

After the Presbytery adjourned the three went to
Lexington and John filled Father Rice’s pulpit.

The Lexington Gazette made favorable mention of his
sermon:

“Calvin Campbell, the young mountain preacher, who
lives at Campbell Station and is a descendant of the
Campbells of Scotland, filled Father Rice’s pulpit last
Sunday and preached one of the greatest sermons ever
heard in Lexington.

“In a voice of great compass and power, without
strain or apparent mental effort, and in a deft, finished
and homiletic style, plain to all in its perfectness, he
made plain the most difficult of truths; dwelling upon
scriptural interpretation rather than doctrinal theme. All
who heard him were captivated by his magnetism and
convinced by his earnest spirituality. We have never
before heard a preacher who could picture the life and
mission of the Saviour so effectively, or who by apt lessons
from the parables makes the truths they teach so
personal to each hearer.”

The following Sunday John preached in Danville,
where he had many friends and acquaintances. A great
crowd came to hear him. It was here he had gone to the
seminary, had married Dorothy Fairfax and at the political
[pg 255]
club had answered most convincingly, considering
his age, General Wilkinson’s then popular argument. His
sermon which follows indicates his liberal, and as Father
Rice felt tempted to say, his almost unorthodox views.


Making the World Christian.
```````````````````````````

“Christianity is the development of a great universal
partnership, organized for the redemption of man, between
God in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit
and man; in which man before Abraham, and Abraham,
Moses, Paul, Augustine, Savonarola and Luther have
participated and men yet unborn will participate.

“Though light was the first thing God made, man to
shut out light draws closely about his eyes the curtains
of conceit and prejudice. The white man, defining his
God as a spirit, in his conceit says, he has a material
white body and I am made in his image; while the red
man gives to his god, a spirit, at times a material red
body. This is logical in that if God, a spirit, sees fit to
appear to man, or if man appears to see God, it will be
in the highest comprehensive form known to man.

“Again, though Christianity is one of the three religions
that teaches universality and though God knows
no race and no people, extending to all a universal promise,
man in combined conceit and prejudice declares I am
of God’s chosen people. The reason is obvious; take
Judaism; it has never countenanced universality; to the
Jew, God was the god of the Jews—and surrounded by
idolatrous nations—to their inspired prophets they were
the chosen people of God, having been taught by precept
and by experience that God discriminates in his temporal
blessings between an idolater and a follower. It took a
vision to remove this prejudice from the mind of Peter;
[pg 256]
and today there are those in Christian churches who
could not learn the lesson of universality by many visions,
and like Jonah sit by the roadside hoping and waiting
for Nineveh’s destruction.

“God, infinite—that is, great past being measured—is
not alone the God of the Presbyterians, of any nation, of
the men of today, of this little world, but all the worlds
that have been and that make and are to make the universe.
What right have we to think that the universe was
made simply for the man we know? Is it an unreasonable
flight of fancy to assume that God has spoken through his
prophets and given his Son for the redemption of the
men of other worlds than our own? The Bible literally
says, the universe was made for man, because, though
inspired, it is man-worded and God spoke to man through
his prophets in a comprehensive language. He told what
was fit in language not to be restricted to the letter, which
is not the custom of the East, but to be interpreted as man
grew in comprehension. Nor is it necessary to a true
faith in God and Christianity to believe that God’s
prophets never spoke to humanity or wrote down his
messages on tablet or cylinder seal before those messages
were given by the Bible to the Jewish nation.

“Those who question the Bible as an inspired book,
say the account of the creation follows too closely the
Babylonian and Chaldean records. Prophets even figuratively
recounting a fact or interpreting a message, would
give it in such form that to the mind of man, the account
would be similar in essentials; and such similarity but
tends to prove the truth of the fact and the same general
source of information. A brief portion of the Chaldean
account reads:

   | “‘When the upper region was not yet called heaven,
   | When the lower region was not yet called earth,
   | [pg 257]
   | And the abyss of Hades had not yet opened its arms,
   | Then the chaos of waters gave birth to all of them
   | And the waters were gathered into one place \* \*
   | The moon he appointed to rule the night
   | And to wander through the night until the dawn of day.
   | Every month without fail he appointed assembly days.
   | In the beginning of the month at the rising of the night
   | It shot forth its horns to illuminate the heavens.
   | On the seventh day he appointed an holy day
   | And to cease from all business he commanded.’

“The supposed seat of earliest civilizations, as also
the birthplace of several religions, was in the valley of
the Euphrates. There man, enjoying the benefits of a
tropical region, which counted for much in the beginning,
had opportunity for intellectual leisure and gave thought
to religion. These civilizations passed away and the seat
passed on to the Mediterranean coast, where attention
primarily was given to the development of material government;
again the seat passed on to Europe and seems
passing to America and to nations devoting their energies
to the material wants of man. We are promised yet another;
when ‘the earth shall be filled with the knowledge
of the Lord as the waters cover the sea;’ and that is the
task assigned to Christendom.

“To make the world Christian must we modify our
definition—‘That God is a spirit, infinite, eternal and
*unchangeable*, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice,
goodness and truth’—to ‘God is a spirit, infinite,
eternal, but not *immutable*, seeking to preserve all his
creatures as the best of shepherds each of his hundred
lambs; anxious that all find the shelter of the fold—not
[pg 258]
having decreed from the beginning the fate of each lamb—but
as time shows fitness culling for service; so anxious
to save all the flock as to send his Son as a vicarious
atonement.’

“Thus there comes into the continuity of the partnership
between God and man, the chief character, the Son;
transformed into the lowly man of sorrows, acquainted
with grief, having no place to lay his head, hunted by
enemies, stoned out of a city, disowned by kindred and
by Peter, fleeing for his life, betrayed, crucified, suffering
the fate of all reformers, to be despised and rejected, to
be misunderstood, to live alone; yet not alone, because the
Father was with him and he and the Father are one, and
he had his mission of redemption.

“His coming, consummating the purpose of the partnership,
precipitated a conflict, which at its physical inception
seemed a most uneven struggle. Arrayed on the
one side were a few fishermen under the leadership of a
Nazarene, the son of a carpenter; and on the other, the
educated, self-righteous Jew, the Jewish law, the Jewish
church, Greece, decadent because of her many gods and
voluptuousness, mighty Rome, mistress of the world, enthroned
on seven hills and reaching out and drawing to
herself all known realms and empires.

“The trend of victory was first apparent on the land
locked sea of Galilee, the growth spread to Jerusalem, to
Antioch, the east coast cities of the Mediterranean, Rome,
Europe, America, the civilized world; because it offered
a gift the world must have. If Scribes and Pharisees,
priests and Levites stopped their ears, Gentiles and prodigals,
Publicans and sinners listened. It preached the
true faith, which is inherently inextinguishable and
must live and grow. Some find it easier to crucify and
to part His raiment than to grasp the spirit of His teaching;
[pg 259]
yet many hear, and, born again, lead transformed
and beautiful lives.

“Its growth is as ‘a lump of leaven which a woman took
and hid in three measures of meal until the whole was
leavened.’ When the path of prophet and believer is too
easy the growth is slow. The sting of persecution is
necessary to fructify the seed, to make ready the field;
but there are occasional seasons of abundant harvest and
never a failure. Gamaliel, in Acts 5:34-39, gives the reason.

“‘Then stood there up in the council, a Pharisee,
named Gamaliel, a doctor of the law, had in reputation
among all the people, and the apostles having been excluded,
he said unto them: Ye men of Israel take heed
to yourselves what ye intend to do touching these men.
\* \* \* And now I say unto you, refrain from these men
and let them alone, for if this council or this work be of
men it will come to nought; but if it be of God ye cannot
overthrow it; lest haply ye be found to fight against God.’

“Who is to help in the growth? Missionaries who
earn such credentials as were given Paul and Silas by
the Jewish colony of Thessalonica, who wrote to their
orthodox brethren at Jerusalem: ‘Those that have turned
the world upside down have come hither also.’ The
world when wrong side up must be turned upside down
by men like Paul and Silas.

“To make the world Christian the modern preacher
must understand that Christ’s gospel is to be preached
not alone to Presbyterians but to ‘all the world’ and that
not he but God brings about the transformation and conversion.
That it is not his province to defend the faith,
which needs not defense, but to preach it. He must stick
to his last with the same zealousness and persistency as
is required in other lines of endeavor, or his message is
[pg 260]
soon delivered. A preacher who shirks his work, remouthing
to a weary congregation his old sermons, must
not complain if men do not listen. He must work in the
vineyard; men do not go to a theatre to hear a sermon or
to a church to see vaudeville. He is not to give his time
to platitudes and polemics and phylacteries and lectures
and dissertations on doctrinal divergences. He must
be free and must speak from his heart as the ambassador
of Christ, preaching Christ; and preaching is the giving
of the message of Jesus to a needing soul.

“The church must be more universal, laying aside
doctrinal jealousies and divergences; turn its energies
to the harvest; self-sacrifice and co-operation must reign;
love must seek her own and think no evil—then when all
ask, expecting to obey, ‘Lord, what wilt Thou have me
do?’—the Mussulman will turn Christian and the wolf
and the lamb lie down together.

“The easy field of labor is not with the so-called
Christian people. Canton may be converted before Boston
and Timbuktu before Louisville. The most sterile
earth is that overgrown with the tares of false doctrine
and the most infertile seed is that mouldy with the supercilious
consciousness of no sin, or which having once
sprouted has dried out from inanition. God, tempering
the wind to the shorn lamb, has given to the heathen a
mind to receive his truths as a little child. Life, two hundred
fathoms deep in the sea, knows nothing of the storms
that rile the surface, nor of the brightness and warmth of
the sun, yet life and light are there. The deep sea fishes
are of vivid colors, many have an individual lighting system,
the waters are phosphorescent, the plant growth, as
near mineral as vegetable, spreads about tendrils and
filaments tipped by lamps, which transform that underworld
into a gorgeously illuminated garden.

[pg 261]
“Those who hearken to the final commission, ‘Go ye
into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature’
are armed with the promise that ‘in my name shall
ye cast out devils,’ speak with new tongues and travel
about unharmed. They have Christ for a companion and
are builders of God’s tabernacle, in which when completed,
he shall dwell with men and wipe all tears from
their eyes.”

-----

John was very fond of his cousin, David Clark, and
was worried by his continued absence. Now, as always
when he came to Danville, he stopped with David’s parents
and of course inquired if they had received any word
from him.

His inquiries seemed to cause his uncle and aunt embarrassment;
at least they answered so indefinitely as to
give him the impression that they knew more than they
told.

Near midnight of the Sunday he preached at Danville,
Mrs. Clark came to his room in great distress, saying:
“John, Mr. Clark is very ill and I have sent for the doctor.
He is deathly pale and complains of pain about his
heart. He wishes to see you at once.”

He went immediately to his uncle’s room, who took
from under his pillow a much handled letter, and handing
it to him, said:

“You must find David for his mother, we have never
heard a word from our boy since Daniel Clark sent this
letter to me; and it only tells why he was made a prisoner
and taken aboard a Spanish frigate which the next morning
sailed for Spain. I am sure he is not dead because
several times I have seemed to see him; and tonight saw
him very distinctly for the first time. I believe he would
have spoken and told me how to find him had not the pain
[pg 262]
in my heart awakened me. He was walking in a desert
land beside a large white camel, heavily loaded with merchandise
and with him were some half-wild men with long
muskets guarding a train or caravan of camels. He is
very far from here and in a strange way I am informed
that neither his mother nor I will see him again, but you
will. He will grow happy in that distant land, make it
his home and rear a family. I have told his mother what
I have dreamed; and she says, she too knows he is not
dead. Since the receipt of the letter all we have ever
learned is that the ship which sailed for Spain was
wrecked on the shore of northwest Africa, a hundred
miles south of Gibraltar; that a part of the crew were
picked up in a boat at sea; part were drowned and a few
reached the shore, where they were taken prisoners and
supposedly sold as slaves. I believe this is David’s fate
and you must find out.

“Raise me up a bit; that is better; my heart feels as
though it were being torn in two—how I wish I might see
the face of my boy. Give me your hand, little David, and
you too, Annie. It grows dark. Is the candle burning or
has the wind blown it out?”

How quiet the house was the day after the burial; it
seemed the soul of the place was dead. John went to
his room and thinking of David was reminded of the letter
Mr. Clark had given him. It was near night; and
lighting a tallow candle he read the copy of the letter
General Wilkinson had sent by him to Governor Miro,
requesting that the bearer should be held a prisoner. It
was the letter he had promised Wilkinson to deliver in
person.

Slowly it dawned upon him that whatever might be
David’s fate, whatever David might now be suffering, if
alive, it was vicarious, a voluntary substitution for him,
[pg 263]
as the sufferer had hid his identity to shield a friend, to
give him the opportunity to escape—and he had supposed
that David was under a cloud and afraid or
ashamed to return home.

Then he saw red with resentment against Wilkinson,
the traitor, the conspirator. He wished that he might
lay his hands upon him and rend him limb from limb.
His soul was torn with the thought that David had done
all this for him, perhaps submitted voluntarily to the supreme
sacrifice, laid down his life for a friend. He suffered
as only twice before he had done; once when a boy
of fifteen, sitting on the pinnacle overlooking Jackson
River Valley, he had suddenly appreciated and was overwhelmed
by the sacrifice that Christ had made for him;
and again when he had seen Dorothy swimming to escape
from the Indians.

He prayed throughout the night. When morning
came, before the sun was up, he was at the home of
Father Rice; and giving him the letter told all that was
necessary to make it understood.

“Father Rice, there is only one thing for me to do;
find David and bring him home to his mother. What
Uncle David and Aunt Mary must have suffered every
time they saw me!”

“I doubt that, in fact I would advise against you undertaking
such a thing, had you not promised Mr. Clark
to do so. A promise given to one now dead is certainly as
binding as one made to the living. I believe that God
disclosed to Mr. Clark that his son lived and had been
given work to do. You are bound to conclude that if
David cannot come home you cannot go to him. I think
it your duty to find out if he is yet alive and if so his
whereabouts. Then if necessary the government must be
appealed to to procure his release. You must remember
[pg 264]
you are not your own master. You are the Lord’s servant;
and having put your hand to the plow you cannot
turn back. This may be one of your crosses, to believe
that your friend is suffering for you. If by the providence
of God he has been transplanted for particular service,
he must follow, as you must follow your predestined
work, even though you should be called upon to leave the
side of Dorothy. The destiny of David, as your own, is
in the hand of the Lord and if it is His plan that David
shall live and return to his own country and people he
will. However, we must do for ourselves and our friends
all things possible. The Lord when he fed the thousands
made use of the boy’s loaves and fishes.

“I would advise that you go to New Orleans and make
inquiry for David; but do not disclose your identity to
the Spanish Governor or tell any one except Mrs. Clark
your destination. Go at once so as to return the more
quickly to your work. Robert Marshall, though not yet
ordained, will be given your district until your return
and will bear letters and messages to your wife.”

[pg 265]




CHAPTER XVII.—David Clark.
--------------------------


Fortune when she deserted Wilkinson politically, deserted
him financially. The river trade partnership with
Major Dunn proved a failure and was dissolved, leaving
Wilkinson heavily indebted to Dunn, an obligation he
never met. In midsummer, 1791, his partnership with
Peyton Short ended so disastrously as to make him a
bankrupt. His only source of income now was the two
thousand dollar pension which he received from Spain
and it was altogether inadequate to meet his extravagances.

Having in mind to get beyond the vexatious importunities
of his creditors, he filed an application for reappointment
in the United States army, which received
favorable action. He was first appointed a lieutenant
colonel under General Whayne and stationed at Fort
Washington, Cincinnati, and the next year advanced to a
brigadier generalship.

John Calvin Campbell, riverman, known to the crew
only as John, was the operator of a large sweep or steering
car on a Wilkinson & Short flat boat, bound for New
Orleans in the spring of 1791, Wilkinson’s last commercial
venture.

Immediately upon his arrival, hunting up Daniel
Clark, he inquired for news of David, but learned nothing
except that several Spanish sailors and the American
prisoner of the wrecked frigate had been swept ashore
from their vessel; and that one of these sailors, Esteban
Luna, was now in Habana and might be able to give him
definite news of David.

[pg 266]
Their conversation naturally turned to Wilkinson.
Daniel, expressing the hope that he would some day be
punished for his traitorous conduct, said: “I have absolute
proof of his perfidy, but my position with the Spanish
Government closes my mouth. Only to rescue David
would I tell what I know; and with that purpose in view
I have been making abstracts from certain letters which
establish his guilt. I have two now in my pocket which
I made today. This one is copied from a letter written
by Wilkinson to Miro:

“\* \* \* But you may rest assured that the constant
persecution of Congress cannot produce the slightest
impression on my attachment and zeal for the interests
of Spain, which I shall always be ready to defend
with my tongue, my pen and my sword.”

The Governor in reply to this letter wrote Wilkinson:

“\* \* \* Your countrymen will soon find out that
the advantages they expect from the navigation of the
Mississippi, on their paying an import duty of 15 per
cent when entering Louisiana and an export duty of 6
per cent when leaving it, amounts to nothing. So far, tobacco
has been the only produce of any importance which
they have brought to New Orleans and which the King
has reserved to himself the privilege of buying. Should
he not choose to do so on the ground that the article
wanted is not furnished in sufficient quantity or not of
the quality required, it would remain a dead weight in
the hands of the owner. Several inhabitants who are
now here have discovered this to be the case. With regard
to your supposition that they will evade paying the
duty of 15 per cent under the pretext of coining to settle
in Louisiana, it is without any sort of foundation what
ever, and you may rest assured that I shall take care that
the law be executed on that point. \* \* \* I much regret
[pg 267]
that General Washington and Congress suspect your connection
with me, but it does not appear to me opportune
that you declare yourself a Spaniard, for the reasons
which you state. I am of opinion that this idea of yours
is not convenient and that on the contrary it might have
prejudicial results. Therefore continue to dissemble and
to work as you promise and as I have above indicated.”

When Mr. Clark finished reading the above extracts,
he handed them to John who placed them in his pocket
without comment, and said: “Let us go at once and inquire
when I can sail for Habana. I must find out and
at once all this sailor knows. I believe the suspense will
kill my aunt.”

“I am quite sure a ship sails tomorrow noon; we will
make certain and engage your cabin. My father has a
branch house in Habana and buys quite a lot of tobacco.
I wrote his agent several days ago to interview the sailor
and he has doubtless found him by now.”

They walked to the wharf and in a short time located
the ship. Mr. Clark knew the captain, who spoke English.
He introduced Mr. Campbell and engaged his cabin.
When they were leaving the captain said: “Mr. Campbell,
I am glad to have you for a passenger and will most
cheerfully aid you in locating Esteban Luna. We will
have no trouble in finding him. I know just where to
look for sailors in Habana. You better come aboard by
eleven o’clock, we sail at twelve, sharp.”

After an uneventful voyage of several days the ship
anchored in Habana harbor. Mr. Campbell came ashore
with the captain and about the first person the captain
saw was the sailor they sought. They invited him to the
tavern, where dinner was ordered for the three. After
they had been eating some time, the captain noticing that
John, who had ordered the dinner, had not included wine,
[pg 268]
which all Spaniards drink at dinner, supplemented the
meal by a liter of strong red wine. Then turning to John
asked in English: “Just what is it you desire to learn
from the sailor? In a few minutes he will grow quite
talkative; nothing loosens a Spaniard’s tongue like a good
dinner and a bottle of wine.”

Having learned what was wanted the captain put several
questions to the sailor, which he answered in monosyllables,
as he was not quite through eating. When he
had eaten a little more and finished the wine, he wiped
his mouth with the back of his hand, tilted back the chair
on which he sat, lighted a long cigarette and gave a grunt
of contentment. Then the captain knew he was ready to
talk and asked him to tell of his shipwreck off the African
coast.

“You see it was this way: we were about three days
out from the Strait of Gibraltar when it came on to blow
the hardest I have ever seen in my fifteen years before
the mast. We would have gone down in the first few
hours, except that our frigate was the stanchest of the
navy. For a while we pointed her nose angling to the
wind and as best we could kept our course. It was no
use, we had to turn tail and run with the wind; and that
frigate under bare poles made greater speed than she
would sailing in a fair wind before a stiff breeze with all
sail set. On the second night, near daybreak, when it was
so dark because of the spray and rain and clouds that
you could not see your hand before you, nor hear a sound
because of the roar of the wind and the pounding of the
waves and the creaking of the ship, she was suddenly
thrown in the air and seemed to come down in a thousand
pieces. Many of the boys were killed outright as she was
crushed as a nail keg by a sledge. Quite a few of those
on deck were thrown clear over the rock into a quieter
[pg 269]
sea and swept upon a sandy beach, even into the desert
grass, where the water rarely reached. There we lay
waiting in the darkness until the day, too exhausted and
wounded to move. With daylight all clouds vanished and
the moisture of the spray and storm was soon wiped out
by a hot, drying sun. We seemed in a land where it never
rained. There was a fringe of salt water grasses on the
edge of the beach and beyond nothing but gray and brown
sand; a land as bare as the palm of your hand; of sand
hills that shifted over night, riftling and moving like the
surface of the ocean, riled by a squall.

“With daylight, the least crippled, searching along the
beach, gathered together a few casks of provisions, some
cordage, a torn sail and one small cask of water. With
the broken timbers of our ship and the sail we built a
rude shelter from the parching sun; then a signal fire
upon a nearby sand hill, hoping thus to attract the attention
of a ship, if any ever passed that way. Thus we
spent the first day and night.

“On the morning of the second day, the prisoner, his
name was Clark, and two of the sailors, being the least
injured of any of us, went into the sand hills looking for
food and water, as we had nothing but wet biscuit flour
and salt pork. They climbed the highest sand hill and
came running back, saying: ‘We have seen one of the
ship’s boats; it is lodged in a crevice just over the crest
of the big rock, else you could see it from here. We will
swim out and bring it ashore.’

“These three, with Antonio, the cook, and I swam to
the rock and after much labor lowered the boat and
pulled ashore. It was fitted out as required by the ship’s
rules, with a set of oars, a small cask of water, like the
one we had found on the beach, a case of biscuits and a
small sail; all securely strapped inside. By overloading,
[pg 270]
it might have kept afloat with eighteen persons. Out of
a crew of ninety-two, twenty-seven of us had survived the
wreck; of these two had broken legs, one a broken back
and several broken or dislocated arms; and all were cut
and bruised by the jagged rocks.

“It was decided that we five who brought the boat
ashore should have places in the boat as also thirteen
others who should draw lots, and so all did except the
man with the broken back.

“While Clark and his two companions again made
search for food and water we prepared and launched the
boat, tying it to a stake awaiting their return.

“Five men who had lost out in the drawing, arming
themselves with heavy clubs from the wreckage, rushed
out, climbed into the boat and shoved out to deep water.
There they rested, saying: ‘Ten more may swim out to
us, one at a time, and we will let them aboard.’ So again
those of us on the beach drew lots, disregarding the
claims of the badly crippled and the three absent men.
As each lucky man drew a place he swam out and was
hauled aboard. After the boat was loaded, as there was
ample room for another man, we agreed to wait off shore
until the three hunters returned and take one of them in
with us.

“In a little while they came running towards the
beach pursued by a troop of Arabs, camel-back and carrying
long muskets and great curved knives.

“The man, Clark, seeing the boat some distance from
the shore, loaded and pulling away, turned towards the
Arabs and held up his hands in surrender. One of them,
dismounting, bound his hands behind his back. The
others rode forward to the water’s edge and fired a volley
at us. Two of the five men who had captured our
[pg 271]
boat were killed, the others were unhurt. Then we
pulled out beyond musket range.

“The Arabs killed the crippled men; then they drank
the water from the cask and divided the flour and other
stores, including the clothing of the dead sailors; but as
they considered the pork unfit food for a true believer,
made signs to the prisoners to divide it up and carry it
for their food; and each made a small bundle wrapping it
in scraps of sail cloth. They also made signs for them
to drink from the cask and after they had finished one
of the camels drank the remainder. Then driving their
prisoners before them they disappeared among the sand
hills.

“When we were satisfied they were no longer in the
vicinity, we came ashore for a short while, then setting
up the sail, sailed northward along the coast.

“Our boat seemed to be leaking, and the water in the
bottom soon became discolored by the blood of the two
sailors the Arabs had killed and by the dirt from our
shoes. When several asked for a drink, our lieutenant,
the only officer who survived and who had assumed command,
examining the cask, discovered that it had been
perforated by a bullet and that more than two-thirds of
the water had leaked out and run into the boat.

“Telling us what had happened, he forbade anyone to
drink from the cask, saying: ‘We have at least a hundred
mile voyage before us. One drink a day for each man is
all you can have. If you are thirsty drink the water in
the bottom of the boat, it is fresh.’ He set the example
by doing so; and more than half of us within the hour
drank our fill of the dirty, blood-discolored water; and
we nine who drank were the only ones who lived to reach
the coast of Spain.

[pg 272]
“The man, Clark, I am satisfied, is alive, but held as
prisoner or slave by some Barbary pirate or desert
chief.”

This finished the sailor’s narrative. Mr. Campbell
and the Captain were both satisfied that he had told them
the truth and realized that it was useless to pursue the
investigation or unaided attempt the rescue of David
Clark. The only hope lay in his escape if near the coast;
if in the interior, which was very probable, only Captain
Eaton, the United States minister, dealing directly with
the Barbary powers could effect his rescue. There was
nothing for John to do but return to New Orleans and
this he did on the return trip of the vessel.

There, having told Daniel Clark what he had learned,
he asked his assistance in finding a way to return to Kentucky,
and was told:

“That is easy. Governor Miro is sending some papers
to Colonel Portell of New Madrid, and Mr. Owen,
his messenger, leaves tomorrow in a pirogue and can
make room for you. The boat you came down on left
three days ago, but you can soon overtake it. We will
hunt up Mr. Owen. Be sure not to tell him you are unfriendly
to Wilkinson.”

When Mr. Owen learned that John was a friend of
Mr. Clark’s and an experienced river man he readily
consented, saying: “It seems providential, we are short-handed,
the pirogue is a large one and a good hand with
a paddle quite an acquisition. I have three men but need
a fourth. If you make the trip through to New Madrid
I will pay you regular wages.”

John was assigned the seat in the stern and Mr. Owen
took the one next to him. Between them he placed three
small kegs, which he looked after very carefully, saying:
“They contain gun powder, which is badly needed at
[pg 273]
New Madrid. It is not much of a supply but will last
until the arrival of the barge which follows us.” This
John believed, until he had occasion to move one of the
kegs to make room for his feet, then he was convinced by
the weight and a jingling noise, that they contained coin.

The three men who had been hired for the journey
proved to be adepts with the paddle; and hugging the
shore to avoid the current they made good headway. On
the seventh day they passed the boat on which John had
made the down trip and in due course arrived at New
Madrid where the three kegs and some papers were delivered
to Colonel Portell, the commandant of the fort.

After remaining several days they boarded a galiot
commanded by Captain Langois and were carried to the
mouth of the Ohio. There the vessel tied up, the pirogue
was relaunched, the kegs placed in it and the original
crew, supplemented by two Spaniards from the galiot,
paddled off up the Ohio.

John felt apprehensive of the rivermen and so informed
Mr. Owen. He even suggested that when night
came they should conceal the three kegs in the forest and
travel along the river bank until they could find a canoe,
when they could return for them. It was impossible to
take their own as two of the rivermen slept in it.

Mr. Owen first laughed at this suggestion; then grew
suspicious of John, thinking it was his purpose to separate
him from his companions and rob, possibly murder,
him. When he expressed his suspicions, John became
offended and refused to accompany him further, though
he again warned him against the designs of his companions;
at which Mr. Owen, with an oath, jumped into the
canoe and ordered the men to shove off, leaving John on
the bank. Calling a good-bye he wished them a successful
voyage to Fort Washington, their destination; then
[pg 274]
turned into the forest and two weeks later arrived at
Campbell Station.

Some months later, he learned from Daniel Clark that
the three kegs had contained six thousand dollars, sent
by Governor Miro to General Wilkinson, who was then
stationed at Fort Washington; and that Owen had been
murdered by his crew for the money. Three of them were
apprehended, and though guilty were permitted to escape,
for fear that at their trial it might be disclosed that
the money was the pension of Wilkinson and Sebastian.

-----

John had been four months from home. As he drew
near he saw his wife standing in the doorway, looking
down the road, watching for his coming. When she saw
him she held high their infant son, now almost two
months old.

“\* \* \* And how have you been?”

“As happy as were possible with you away. What
do you think of the boy? Stop kissing me and look at
him.”

“What a fine little fellow, a soul entrusted to our
keeping. How can a woman endure to live without being
a mother? See how he smiles into our faces; not that he
knows us; but he looks through the gates of heaven and
takes us for angels. Son, I guess your mother thinks you
know me, but your only thoughts are of heaven and your
stomach. In an instinctive way he likes you about; he
connects you with the joy of living.”

“John! John! He thinks of you. He knows his
father. Look how he opens wide his eyes and smiles into
your face. I do believe he approves of his father—the
little darling! Oh, you little deserter; you would leave
your mother for him and after what he has said. That’s
[pg 275]
it; hold out your arms pleading: ‘Father take me in your
strong arms; I will come back to mother when I am hungry.’
Oh, what a wonderful boy! Just two months old!
Just like his father!”

“Oh wonderful son, that can so astonish a mother.”

The day following his return John rode over into
Powell’s Valley, where Robert Marshall, who was substituting
for him, was conducting a series of meetings.
The people of the district liked Mr. Marshall, but told
John that no one could ever fill his place.

He was also told that the people of Lincoln county,
which at that time embraced nearly a fifth of Kentucky,
were going to send him as delegate to the Constitutional
Convention, which was to assemble at Danville on April
2, 1792, to draft the constitution for the new state, which
was to be admitted into the Union on June 1, 1792.

At first he demurred; but when not only his neighbors
but delegations from distant points in the county came to
see him and insisted, he consented; giving all to understand
that he would only run as an anti-slavery candidate;
as did also Rev. David Rice and James Crawford,
two other Presbyterian preacher candidates.

They were elected in December, 1791; and when the
convention assembled quickly ascertained that the only
real controversy was upon the issue of slavery or no-slavery
for the new state.

The constitution as adopted was modeled after that
of the United States, which in turn had been modeled
after that of Virginia. This was quite logical as Kentucky
had been settled by Virginians. Such modifications
as were made in the instrument exhibit a more democratic
spirit than the Virginia instrument. For the first
time in the history of any state, all male citizens of age
were given the right of suffrage, excepting only men convicted
[pg 276]
of felony and not pardoned. Ministers of the gospel
were excluded from legislative bodies, a relict of
British Conformist prejudice. No provision was made
for a public school system. Slavery was recognized and
approved after the bitter fight of the convention; though
the opposition succeeded in placing in the constitution
many limiting restrictions.

The leaders who fought out this issue ably seconded
by their followers were David Rice and George Nicholas.
Father Rice resigned on April 14, and was succeeded by
Mr. Innes, who voted as his district instructed, against
slavery; though he lacked the zeal for the cause that had
fired his predecessor.

Article IX of the constitution dealing with slavery had
been drafted by Nicholas. After many amendments, a
motion was made to expunge it from the constitution. A
vote on the motion was taken on April 18, and the record
shows that all the ministers who were members of the
convention voted in the affirmative. The motion was
lost by a vote of 16 yeas and 26 nays. There were some
who charged that the clause in the constitution providing
that ministers of the gospel should be excluded from legislative
bodies was due to the unanimity of their vote in
opposition to slavery.

[pg 277]




CHAPTER XVIII.—State Rights.
----------------------------


As the non-conformist preachers of Virginia were
aggressive men, so were the early preachers of Kentucky.

In Virginia they fought for religious freedom and
social liberty; in Kentucky William McKendrie, Father
Rice and such men fought to preserve Kentucky to the
Union and to embody in her first constitution provisions
to abolish slavery. Some years after she was admitted
to the Union, as militant preachers they used their power
of thought, speech and example to curb a strong anti-federalist
sentiment that would have torn her from the
Union upon the issues presented by the Genet Mission,
in sympathy for France against England and Spain; in
opposition to Jay’s policies and the Federal alien and
sedition laws. The state was strongly anti-federal; and
Jefferson its political idol.

The early citizens of Kentucky, limited in resource
for entertainment, organized in the large towns debating
clubs or societies which held weekly meetings. Debates
upon religious and political subjects were common and
popular. It is said, where two or three Kentuckians are
gathered together, there will a speech be made.

Reference has heretofore been made to the political
club at Danville, one of this kind; but such clubs were succeeded
by those of anti-federalist tendencies. In August,
1793, a club of French sympathizers, known as The Lexington
Democratic Society, was organized at Lexington
and others of like character at Paris and Georgetown.

There were several cogent reasons why Kentuckians
should sympathize with France in the war she was then
[pg 278]
waging with England and Spain. The American colonies
in return for aid in the Revolution had bound themselves
to France in any defensive war she should be forced into
with Great Britain. In addition resentment against the
British was at fever heat, because they continued to hold
the forts of the Northwest Territory despite the treaty
of 1783 and the officers in charge of the forts aided and
abetted the Indians to intermittently raid the settlements
of Ohio and Kentucky. Again, Kentuckians desired the
United States to become an ally of France; in which event
it would give them the opportunity to procure by force
of arms the free navigation of the Mississippi; which the
Spaniards controlled and hedged about with such commercial
restrictions as to create a bitter hatred in Kentucky
against Spain.

When Washington by proclamation of April 22, 1793,
declared this country’s neutrality in the then war in
which France was engaged, Citizen Edmund Charles
Genet, the agent in the United States of the new French
Republic, did everything in his power to excite opposition
against the federal government, by organizing political
clubs in communities where French sympathy was
strong, and his agents were most successful in Kentucky.

Seeing the hopelessness of procuring direct aid from
the United States he concentrated his efforts in an attempt
to excite Kentucky and the western country into
making a river attack upon New Orleans, thus hoping
to force war between Spain and the United States.

In November, 1793, five of his agents came to Kentucky.
They conferred with General George Rogers
Clark and prevailed upon him to accept a French commission
as “Major General of the armies of France and
Commander in Chief of the Revolutionary Legions of
the Mississippi.”

[pg 279]
General Clark issued a proclamation to the effect that
each person participating in the planned expedition
against New Orleans should receive a great boundary of
land in payment for his services, or, if he preferred it, be
paid one dollar a day; and that all should share in the
plunder taken. His reputation was such and the scheme
so enticing that many volunteered.

The Kentucky Gazette, a Lexington paper, on October
12, 1793, declared editorially:

“How long will America submit to the operation of
paying a heavy degrading tribute to a Spanish officer
for a license (in his power even to deny) to proceed to
sea with their vessels and produce and under restrictions
of making such vessels Spanish bottoms \* \* \*? If
they wish to export their produce they must not only
make use of the most humble solicitations but they are
compelled besides to pay a very high duty for the permission
of sailing out of the Mississippi under the colors
of a foreign nation at war with our allies. How degrading
such restrictions! How humiliating to an American!”

In the same issue appeared certain resolutions of the
Lexington Democratic Society: “\* \* \* Resolved
that the free and undisturbed use and navigation of the
river, Mississippi, is the natural right of the Citizens of
this Commonwealth; and is inalienable except with the
soil; and that neither time, tyranny nor prescription on
the one side nor acquiescence, weakness or non-use on
the other can ever sanctify the abuse of this right.”

Again this society on November 11, 1793, published in
the Gazette an address giving its plan for forcing this
issue: “\* \* \* It will be proper to make an attempt
in a peaceable manner to go with an American bottom
properly registered and cleared into the sea through the
channel of the Mississippi, that we may either procure an
[pg 280]
immediate acknowledgment of our right from the Spaniards
or if they obstruct us in the enjoyment of that right,
that we may be able to lay before the Federal Government
such unequivocal proofs of their having done so,
that they will be compelled to say whether they will abandon
or protect the inhabitants of the Western Country.”

The reply of Governor Shelby to a communication of
Secretary of State Jefferson as to the matter, indicates
sympathy with the movement. In part he says: “I have
grave doubts even if they attempt to carry this plan into
execution (provided they manage the business with prudence)
whether there is any legal authority to restrain or
to punish them, at least before they have actually accomplished
it. For if it is lawful for any one citizen of this
state to leave it, it is equally as lawful for any number of
them to do it. It is also lawful for them to carry with
them any quantity of ammunition, provisions and arms.
And if the act is lawful in itself there is nothing but the
intention with which it is done which can make it unlawful.
But I know of no law which inflicts a punishment
upon intention only or any criterion by which to decide
what would be sufficient evidence of that intention \* \*
much less would I assume power to exercise it against
men whom I consider as friends and brothers, in favor of
a man whom I view as an enemy and a tyrant. I shall
also feel but little inclined to take an active part in punishing
or restraining my fellow citizens for a supposed
intention only to gratify or remove the fears of the minister
of a prince who openly withholds from us an invaluable
right and who secretly instigates against us a most
savage and cruel enemy.”

On March 24, 1794, President Washington issued a
proclamation: “Whereas I have received information
that certain persons in violation of the laws have presumed,
[pg 281]
under color of a foreign authority, to enlist citizens
of the United States and others within the State of
Kentucky; and have there assembled an armed force for
the purpose of invading and plundering the territory of
a nation at peace with the said United States, \* \* \* I
have, therefore, thought proper to issue this proclamation,
hereby solemnly warning every person not authorized
by the laws, against enlisting any citizen or citizens
of the United States for the purpose aforesaid or proceeding
in any manner to the execution thereof as they
will answer the same at their peril.”

About this time the Girondists lost control of the
French Government. Citizen Genet was recalled and his
acts repudiated. Believing that if he returned he would
be guillotined, he went to New York, where he established
his domicile, married the daughter of Governor Clinton
and remained until his death in 1836.

The failure of the Genet Mission did not close the old
controversy so vital to the Western Country—the control
of the commerce of the Mississippi.

In Kentucky, no man has ever been so unpopular as
John Jay. This feeling originated in 1785 because of his
proposition to concede to Spain absolute control of the
Mississippi river for twenty-five years for certain concessions
which would only benefit the Atlantic coast
states.

James Monroe, referring to this suggestion in a letter
written to Governor Henry of Virginia, said: “The object
of this is to break up the settlements on the western
waters \* \* \* so as to throw the weight of the population
eastward and keep it there, to appropriate the vacant
lands in New York and Massachusetts.”

[pg 282]
Jay in 1794 was appointed as an envoy to England for
the purpose of negotiating a treaty between that country
and the United States. Relations were strained because
of British aggression against our commerce in retaliation
for very open sympathy for France and a belief that
a secret treaty existed between France and the United
States.

While he was yet on the ocean, a great meeting was
held at Lexington, on May 24, 1794, protesting against
his appointment and mission and the following resolution
was adopted and published:

“\* \* \* That the inhabitants west of the Appalachian
Mountains are entitled by nature and by stipulation
to the free and undisturbed navigation of the river
Mississippi.

“That we have a right to expect and demand that
Spain should be compelled immediately to acknowledge
our right or that an end be put to all negotiations on that
subject.

“That the injuries and insults done and offered by
Great Britain to America call loudly for redress and that
we will to the utmost of our abilities support the General
Government in any attempt to obtain redress.

“That the recent appointment of the enemy of the
Western Country to negotiate with that nation and the
tame submission of the General Government, when we
alone were injured by Great Britain, make it highly necessary
that we should at this time state our just demands
to the President and Congress. \* \* \*”

Jay succeeded in his mission; a treaty was made, followed
in May, 1796, by the surrender of the British forts
in the Northwest Territory; which finally relieved Kentucky
from British accessorial influence in the Indian
aggressions.

[pg 283]
In 1795, Governor Carondelet, of Louisiana, renewed
the efforts instituted by Miro and Wilkinson to separate
Kentucky from the Union. As Wilkinson at the time was
a general in the United States army and no longer a resident
of Kentucky, his chief agent in Kentucky was Judge
Sebastian. Carondelet’s agents soon discovered that the
people of Kentucky no longer cared to surrender their
interest in the Union in exchange for Spanish commercial
privileges.

On October 25, 1795, a treaty was entered into between
Spain and the United States by Article IV of which it
was stipulated that: “His Catholic Majesty has likewise
agreed that the navigation of the said river in its whole
breadth from its source to the ocean shall be free only to
his subjects and the citizens of the United States unless
he should extend this privilege to the subjects of other
powers by special convention.” On August 2, 1796, this
treaty became operative by presidential proclamation.

So far as known, after the adoption of the treaty,
Spain made no effort to procure the withdrawal of Kentucky
from the Union until 1797. Then Governor Carondelet’s
agent, Thomas Power, came to Kentucky with a
letter to Sebastian in which it was suggested that Kentucky
was “\* \* \* to withdraw from the federal union
and form an independent western government.”

After Power had conferred with Judge Sebastian he
visited Wilkinson, at the time a major general in the
United States army and stationed at Detroit. Wilkinson
was much put out by the visit and told Power he had been
instructed to arrest him. He did not do this but sent him
under guard to Fort Massac, from which point he was
permitted to go to New Madrid and from there returned
to New Orleans.

[pg 284]
Power reported to Carondelet that Wilkinson received
him ungraciously and said: “We are both lost
without deriving any benefit from your journey. \* \* \*
The project is chimerical, as the western country has obtained
by the treaty of 1795 all she wants. Spain had
best abide by the treaty which has overturned all my
plans and rendered ten years’ labor useless.”

As is known, the Jay treaty came very near causing
war between France and the United States. Many Kentuckians
felt that France had good reason for declaring
war. Her charge against this government was that by
the concessions made to Great Britain, America had disregarded
her commercial and defensive allegiance with
France.

-----

From the organization of the Union Virginia, and,
after Kentucky was carved from it, Kentucky were anti-federal
states, championing state rights and declaring in
no uncertain terms that the Federal Government was a
creature of the states.

The Federal Government and the State of Kentucky
kept close watch upon each other; the State jealously
guarding her rights and the Federal Government ever
suspicious of the separatist spirit of Kentucky; though
a reference by vote of the people would have disclosed
that only a small though influential minority advocated
such a policy.

Just preceding the passage by Congress of the alien
and sedition laws, political conditions in Kentucky were
such as to at last make the Federal Government popular.
Indian outrages had been suppressed; free navigation of
the Mississippi had been procured; the British forts of
the Northwest had been surrendered; but a storm of protest
against the centralizing tendencies of the government
[pg 285]
swept Kentucky upon the enactment of these laws;
though their purpose was to curb the anti-federalist
spirit.

They thought but little of the alien law, providing for
the expulsion of foreigners, but were greatly incensed at
the sedition statute which made it a high misdemeanor to
abuse the president or congress. Their protest was not
evidence of sedition but a well developed sensitiveness
against the danger of over-government.

They contended, the object of the Revolution had been
to secure local government and in recognition of this purpose,
the convention had refrained from providing means
whereby the states could be coerced into submission.

As a counter attack the Kentucky legislature passed
certain resolutions in which there was an element of sedition;
but the resolutions were justified by the alien and
sedition laws.

Mr. Jefferson is chargeable with the authorship of
the Kentucky resolutions. At a conference held at Monticello,
he was asked to and drafted the resolutions, which
somewhat modified were presented by Mr. Breckenridge
to the Kentucky Legislature on November 8, and adopted
November 10, with but one dissenting vote, Mr. Murray,
in the House, and unanimously by the Senate.

The resolution charged Congress with usurpation of
power in enacting the Alien and Sedition laws and defined
and declared for state rights: to the effect that when
a state deemed a federal law unconstitutional or oppressive,
if Congress refused to repeal it, the state had the
right to declare it inoperative within her boundaries and
to protect her citizens against penalty for its violation.

Virginia was the only other state siding with Kentucky
in the controversy, which it did by milder resolutions.

[pg 286]
These resolutions gave birth to the new Democratic
party and raised a great political question, state rights,
which for more than three score years, continued a
national issue.

The alien law fixed the period of residence before naturalization
at fourteen years and gave to the president
power to expel all aliens whom he judged dangerous to
the peace and safety of the United States.

The sedition act, in the face of constitutional provisions
guaranteeing freedom of speech and of the press,
made it a crime “for any person unlawfully to combine
and conspire to oppose or impede any governmental measure
or to intimidate any person holding a public office or
to incite insurrection, riot or unlawful assembly or to
print or publish any false, scandalous and malicious writing
against the Government or either house of congress
or the president with intent to defame them or bring them
into contempt or disrepute or to excite against them
hatred of the good people of the United States, or to stir
up sedition or with intent to excite any unlawful combination
therein for opposing or resisting any law—or to
aid, abet or encourage any hostile design of any foreign
nation against the United States.”

Mr. Jefferson, called the father of the new Democratic
Party, wrote Mr. S. T. Mason: “For my part I consider
these laws as only an experiment on the American mind,
to see how far it will bear an avowed violation of the constitution.
If this goes down, we shall immediately see
attempted another Act of Congress, declaring that the
President shall continue in office during life, reserving
to another occasion the transfer of the succession to his
heirs, and the establishment of the Senate for life \* \* \*”

[pg 287]
Many speeches were made in the summer and fall of
1798 to arouse and organize sentiment against these
laws. As Kentucky was in sympathy with France and
anti-federalist in politics the sentiment against the laws
was almost unanimous.

A great Democratic meeting was held at Lexington
and was addressed by George Nicholas. More than a
thousand men were assembled around the wagon from
which he spoke.

Reverend Calvin Campbell, who at the time was
assisting Father Rice in a protracted meeting at the
Presbyterian Church, stood on the sidewalk within convenient
distance of the speaker and appeared greatly interested
in the speech, though he did not agree with what
Mr. Nicholas had to say. His experiences with Wilkinson
and his dupes and accomplices had made of him an
ardent supporter of the Federal Union.

Nicholas, who was instructor in the law department
of Transylvania University, was a very able lawyer, a
logical debater, a man of good character and fine attainments.
His speech impressed all his hearers. He dwelt
at length upon the great debt the United States owed to
France; assailed the Jay treaty as a most selfish policy
and the desertion of the truest ally a country ever had;
and finally congress for having usurped power and disregarded
the constitution by the enactment of the alien
and sedition laws.

Yet Calvin Campbell felt that the speaker knew that
it was the duty of every Kentuckian to stand by his government
even in her mistakes and as a matter of policy
it was all Kentucky could do. He felt sure that such a
lawyer as Nicholas knew that if each state reserved to
itself power to say what laws of congress it would or
would not regard, that the Union must of necessity fail
[pg 288]
and Kentucky end by surrendering her liberty to decadent
Spain for a mess of pottage.

He felt that he could answer every argument made by
Nicholas, and in such a way as to gain his hearers from
him; and wondered if others were affected as he had
been: Though he acknowledged the strength of the
speaker’s argument, instead of being persuaded, his sense
of opposition had been accentuated.

The crowd was beginning to disperse when several began
calling for Henry Clay. In answer to these calls, a
tall, slender and delicate looking young man, little more
than twenty-one, climbed into the wagon and began to
speak.

For several minutes, the majority of the crowd hesitated
whether to go or remain. The speaker had an excellent
voice, an earnest manner and, they soon found
out, something to say and knew how to say it. He spoke
upon the sole theme of federal usurpation and his speech
was so remarkably good, his manner so earnest and the
impression he made so unexpected that his hearers were
captivated and convinced. Even Calvin Campbell felt
his opposition disintegrating. The arguments his mind
had framed against what Nicholas had said seemed losing
their potency; not so much by what the speaker said
as by the magnetic way in which he said it. He seemed
to put into words the thoughts of your own mind. Yet
Calvin Campbell after he recovered from the influence,
said to himself: “That speech would not read well,” and
this impression was confirmed when in later years he
read many speeches of the Great Commoner.

When Clay finished there was a moment of absolute
silence, then a great burst of applause.

First Mr. Murray, then Mr. McLean, Federalists, attempted
to respond but the people would not hear them.
[pg 289]
Mr. McLean said something that incensed the crowd. In
a high state of excitement many rushed at him and he
would have suffered bodily harm had not Nicholas, Clay
and Calvin Campbell prevented it.

The two Democratic speakers were lifted first upon
the shoulders of several of the crowd, then into the wagon
from which they had spoken and drawn at the head of a
very noisy procession through the streets of Lexington.

The week that Nicholas and Clay spoke in Lexington,
only one voice was raised in support of the Union; and
that was at the Presbyterian Church, where Calvin Campbell,
reading as the Scripture Lesson Matthew 22:15-22
and Romans 13:1-10, preached on citizenship: “Render
therefore to all their dues, custom to whom custom; fear
to whom fear; honor to whom honor.”

The Kentucky Gazette published a notice of and summary
of the sermon, in which it was said:

“The editor never misses an opportunity to hear
Rev. Calvin Campbell. On Sunday he spoke on ‘Citizenship’
to a great crowd at the Presbyterian Church.

“I know of no man who can as quickly transform a
partisan Democrat into a Federalist. At least, all of
Sunday afternoon after his sermon, I felt it my duty to
support the present federal administration.

“The first thought when you hear him is: ‘What a
great statesman he would make,’ then your better judgment
suggests, ‘He is better placed for service; he is doing
greater work; he is the ambassador of Christ and I
believe, lives up to his credentials.’

“It is regrettable the whole city did not hear that
sermon; it would have created a fairer spirit towards the
federal government, and each who heard to question:
‘Am I as a citizen responsible for the very things I condemn
in the government.’

[pg 290]
“I quote the beginning of the sermon:

“‘A. D. 30, Rome was master of Jerusalem; the city
had a Roman governor, but the Sanhedrin ruled the temple,
which to the Jew was the seat of government; and
Rome was too wise to interfere with the religions of her
conquered people.

“‘The priesthood discover that the glory of the temple
is being eclipsed; that their religious domination is
being questioned; and by whom? A Nazarene—the son
of a carpenter—a mere upstart; who claims to be and is
beginning to be acclaimed the Messiah.

“‘At a most inopportune time, when the city is filled
with Jews from every corner of the civilized world, he
enters as a king and multitudes going before cry: ‘Hosanna
to the Son of David.’ When business is best he
cleanses the temple and curtails revenues; and even now
stands before the multitude and by forceful parables
which all understand, condemn their organization and
question their authority; they, the fathers of the church,
the real head of the nation.

“‘Something must be done and speedily. The Sanhedrin
is hastily called in executive session to sit in judgment—to
pass sentence of death.

“‘Annas, feeble, old, hard, proud, resentful of Roman
power and secret head of and real ruler of the Theocracy,
says: “But we have not the power to put him to death.”

“‘His son-in-law, Caiaphas, he who plays the part of
sycophant to Pilate, and is supposed by the Governor to
be the High Priest, answers: “We will make Rome our
instrument; we will expose him as a revolutionist and as
guilty of sedition and Pilate will crucify him.” And so
Christ of a truth in that day was a revolutionist, but of
character not of government.

[pg 291]
“‘As they sat discussing means towards this end, the
doorkeeper reported that certain Herodians were without
and desired to speak with Caiaphas.

“‘“What can these Romanized Jews, these members
of the Court Party, these worshippers of expediency,
who say that it is lawful to pay tribute to Caesar, wish
with me? or of us? We are patriots and devotees of
our Theocracy. We despise Rome and Roman power and
in loathing and with curses and in resentment, pay a head
tax to Caesar. \* \* \* Ah! I have the plan! We will
send certain of our lesser priests with the Herodians to
this teacher of false doctrine and have them say: ‘Master,
we know that thou art true, and teachest the way of
God in truth; neither carest thou for any man, for thou
regarded not the person of men. Tell us therefore what
thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar
or not?’ And this Jesus swallowing our bait of flattery,
let as hope shall answer: ‘It is not lawful;’ then these
limbs of Satan, the Herodians, will report him to Pilate.
If he answers: ‘It is lawful,’ it will not be so bad for our
cause; since we will spread his answer among our people,
who will no longer listen to his teachings, knowing
he is not in truth a Jew. He perforce must answer the
one or the other way.”

“‘The plan of Caiaphas is adopted. Pharisees and
Herodians, implacable enemies, as incongruent a group
of conspirators, as a combination of orange and shamrock
in a St. Patrick day procession, uniting for this purpose,
come to Jesus on Tuesday of Passion Week as he
stands on a porch of the temple; and propound to the
Lord their question: “Is it lawful to pay tribute to Caesar?”

[pg 292]
“‘“Hand me a penny;” (doubtless not possessing
one) and holding it up asked: “Whose this image and
superscription?”

“‘“Caesar’s.”

“‘“Render therefore to Caesar the things which are
Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.”

“‘Knowing that all knew the right to coin and to tax
are attributes of sovereignty; or as Paul puts it: “The
powers that be are ordained of God—render therefore
to all their dues; tribute to whom tribute is due.”

“‘Towards God and the State, maintain separate relations
and render a separated allegiance; and to each
obedience, and reverence; and to the latter a conscientious
citizenship. These are guiding principles; true in
all times, for all governments—and when disregarded
cost misery and bloodshed.

“‘Church as well as state has tried to do away with
this separated allegiance. The medieval church, assuming
the province of temporal sovereign, trampled underfoot
the laws and the people and made of itself the most
tyrannous and grasping government of history. They
taxed the people to starvation for the crusades, to maintain
the church fathers in affluence, to build great cathedrals,
not for the glory of God; but as palaces to advertise
the power of the church. The Pilgrim Fathers, who
in their narrowness and bigotry persecuted Baptists and
Quakers, were no better citizens than the churchmen of
Colonial Virginia who denied to non-conformists the
right to worship God as conscience dictated. Possibly
they were no better Christians, since neither understood
in full measure the commandment: “Thou shalt love thy
neighbor as thyself.”

“‘Are you a follower of Christ and not a supporter of
the Union? Impossible! A good Christian must be a
[pg 293]
good citizen; he must render unto Caesar, unto the Union,
his allegiance.

“‘While all Christians are good citizens not all good
citizens are Christians. Are you a politician devoted to
Caesar? A better citizen than Christian? Then balance
conscience with citizenship and render unto God yourself;
if for no other reason, because you bear his image;
as a coin from his mint.

“‘The parties of today come to the voter with a great
question and attempt to make it a quibble, as the Pharisees
and Herodians came to Christ \* \* \*’

“At this point the writer became so interested at the
argument Calvin Campbell was making in support of the
infant Union and as yet untried constitution; asking that
we give to the Federal Government an honest, patient
opportunity to make good, that he neglected to take notes.

“In any event further space is impossible in this
issue. Perhaps some day papers may grow in size from
a single sheet giving in the main local news, to great
journals offering a medium of education towards better
citizenship.”

[pg 294]




CHAPTER XIX.—The Great Awakening.
---------------------------------


The first decade succeeding the Revolution was
marked by a serious demoralization which found expression
in an increase of vice and crime; and as never a
crime wave sweeps state or nation that great reformers
do not arise to combat it, so now Baptist, Methodist and
Presbyterian preachers, enjoying at last a provident religious
emancipation; preaching a gospel of law and retribution
rather than of love, worked zealously and courageously
combating the condition.

At the end of the second decade, they had not only
checked the demoralization, but brought about a widespread
revival, historically known as “The Great Awakening;”
leaving in its wake a decidedly improved moral
condition.

The converts at many of these meetings were smitten
to the earth under paroxysms of religious fervor or excitement,
locally known as “the jerks;” a name given
by those criticising the demonstration.

Fully a half of the state was dominated by the spell
of this extraordinary religious revival, generally exhibited
at union or undenominational religious meetings. It
began at the Gasper River Meeting House in Logan
county in 1799 at a protracted meeting held by Calvin
Campbell and William McGee, two Presbyterian evangelists,
who were assisted by James McGee, a Methodist
minister and brother of William McGee.

When it was reported that the converts were smitten
to the earth under paroxysms of religions zeal, interest
[pg 295]
in the meeting grew rapidly. Thus advertised great
crowds attended and many who came to scoff remained
to pray. Every person physically able, living within a
radius of fifty miles came to the meeting; some on foot,
some horseback and some in rude farm wagons.

This vast crowd gathering in and around the church,
slept in the fields and the forests. It was remarked that
no one was stricken with sickness, and that no one seemed
hungry; if they were the little they brought with them
supplied their wants.

Services began at noon and were continued far into
the night. Each lasted practically two hours, followed
by a short intermission. The preachers alternated in
their exhortations. As the meeting progressed the crowd
grew so great, that not all, even with this arrangement,
had an opportunity to attend one service daily.

It was suggested that a stand or pavilion be erected
in an oak grove near the church. This was done and
there twice daily, at three in the afternoon and at seven
at night, the Rev. Calvin Campbell, as John was now
generally known throughout the state, preached to the
multitude. Under the influence of his preaching many
were awakened and converted.

At night great fires were built on either side of the
pavilion and in front an area a hundred feet square was
cleared and covered with straw, on which the congregation
sat and listened in rapt attention to his powerful
exhortations.

What he said had a holy influence and burned its way
into the hearts of the most hardened of his hearers. After
he had been talking many began to weep softly, then rose
to their feet and with eyes and hands upraised towards
heaven prayed in a low voice for forgiveness; the more
[pg 296]
excitable, or as some said, those who most needed pardon,
walked down the aisle, which was roped off through
the center, to a small space just in front of the pavilion
and were there taken with “the jerks.”

A man known as Red Jenkins, one of the toughest
and most notorious characters in that section of the state,
and who had been tried several times for murder (the
charge was killing and robbing travelers who stopped at
his station), but had never been convicted—though each
jury, had it been in their power, would have rendered the
Scotch verdict—had for several years been badly crippled
by rheumatism and hobbled about from settlement
to settlement on crutches. On the first night of the pavilion
meetings he staggered forward and was seized by
violent paroxysms, at the end of which he lay as one dead.

Calvin Campbell came down from the platform,
tossed Jenkins’ crutches into the fire and lifting the man
laid him on the floor of the pavilion. In a little while
he arose, and walking down the aisle, resumed his former
seat. When told about his crutches he replied: “I do
not need them now; my body was bent and shriveled to
accommodate a crooked, shrunken soul.”

Another night, just as the meeting was beginning, a
young girl running behind the pavilion, fearful that some
one would take her seat near her mother, was jostled
and thrown into the edge of one of the fires. Her homespun
dress blazed up, and enveloped in the flames she
ran to the edge of the pavilion, where she was caught by
Calvin Campbell and wrapped in the folds of his great
coat. He laid her as one dead on the floor. The crowd
began to gather around, but he said: “Take your seats,
the girl is not dead, but has swooned. While she lies thus,
we will ask God, who shields innocence from harm and
who takes care of his lambs, to make her whole.”

[pg 297]
While all stood in silent, prayerful reverence, he asked
God to restore the girl sound in body and cleansed of
sin to her mother. All, even the wicked and curious,
joined in this prayer.

When it was finished, without so much as looking
towards the girl, he began the regular service with song;
and as there were less than a dozen books among them,
he read the lines aloud.

At its close the girl sat up, wrapped about in the great
coat and smiled at her mother. Turning to her he said:
“Little one, keep the coat about you and go sit with your
mother.”

He preached that night upon the power and purpose
of prayer and began by saying: “Prayer is the only way
in which a sinner can ask God for pardon and in which a
saint can commune with his Saviour. It is man’s way of
talking with God and God’s way of hearing what men
have to say. Prayer is the powder of the Christian soldier
and by it victories are won for the Cross. \* \* \*”
There were many conversions that night.

The meetings were continued until the end of the
week. At the closing services the audience asked that
each year at the same place and season open air union
services be held. So in the summer of 1800, a great camp
meeting was held and the pavilion was used as the rostrum.
This was the first camp meeting ever held in
Christendom and the practice was continued for many
years at the Gasper River Meeting House and other
places in Kentucky.

The hallowing influence of “The Great Awakening”
thus started, spread to other communities and eventually
throughout the state and into northwestern Tennessee.
Similar meetings were held by other preachers, at Masterson’s
Station in Fayette County, Clark’s Station in
[pg 298]
Mercer, Ferguson and Chaplin chapels in Nelson, Level
Woods (now Larue county), Brick Chapel in Shelby,
Ebenezer in Clark, Grassy Lick in Montgomery, Muddy
Creek and Foxtown in Madison, Mount Gerizim in Harrison,
Thomas Meeting House in Washington (now Marion),
Sandusky Station, now Pleasant Run in Marion,
and Cane Ridge in Bourbon county.

The first Gasper River camp meeting held in the summer
of 1800 was attended by a great multitude and
proved a success. Baptist, Methodist and Presbyterian
preachers were each given the opportunity to expound
their particular doctrine. There were many conversions
and among them several who in later years became distinguished
preachers.

In the early summer of 1801, Father Rice, James McCready
and Calvin Campbell conducted a great camp
meeting in the Cumberland country. Rumors of its success
spread throughout Kentucky and many men rode
weary miles through lonely forest trails to attend.

Among those who came a great way, was Barton W.
Stone. In 1796 he had been licensed by the Orange Presbytery
of North Carolina. Soon afterwards, emigrating
to Kentucky he settled in Bourbon county and occasionally
preached for the Cane Ridge and Concord churches.
He was ordained in 1798 by the Transylvania Presbytery
and received a unanimous call to become the pastor of
these two churches.

Greatly impressed by the good work done at the camp
meeting; filled with the spirit which took possession of
all, the refined as well as the uneducated, he returned to
his congregations and relating his experiences, fired them
with the zeal of the meeting which yet inspired him; and
by his preaching produced upon them the same effect,
even to “the jerks,” or bodily demonstrations.

[pg 299]
They decided to hold a camp meeting of their own; and
did so from August 6 to 13, 1801, near Cane Ridge church,
in a grove seven miles east of Paris. It was attended by
more than twenty-five thousand persons and it is yet historically
known as “The Great Cane Ridge Camp Meeting.”

Some even attended from Cincinnati and points north.
They came on foot, on horseback and in all sorts of conveyances.
Eleven hundred and forty-three vehicles were
counted at the meeting; five hundred candles besides many
lamps and fires were used for illumination; and more
than three thousand persons, mostly men, were said to
have made confessions and to have subsequently united
with some church.

Among the Presbyterian preachers heard at the camp
meeting were Father Rice, Barton W. Stone, Robert Marshall,
Joseph P. Howe, who led the singing, and Calvin
Campbell. Though the movement was instituted by
Stone, then a Presbyterian, it was for all purposes a union
service and the great crowd was addressed by Methodist
and Baptist preachers as frequently as by Presbyterian.

As evidencing the interest manifested, it is conservatively
estimated that more than one-tenth of the total
population of the state attended the meeting. The census
of 1800 gave the population of Kentucky at 220,955,
and many estimated the crowd in attendance at exceeding
25,000.

The fifth day of the meeting was known as Roger
Williams or Baptist day and only Baptist preachers were
heard. The crowd was so great that three different congregations
were addressed at a time. The principal sermon
was preached by John Gano.

[pg 300]
The sixth day of the meeting was known as John Wesley
or Methodist day and only Methodist ministers spoke.
The chief service was conducted by William Burke.

Sunday, August 9, was known as John Calvin day;
and John Calvin Campbell conducted the afternoon service.
He was mentally and physically in his prime; a
man of great spirituality, great mental force, great voice
and untirable physically. To his preaching was attributed
the beginning of The Great Awakening, now sweeping
Kentucky and marvelous tales were told of him and
his work. As the crowd was very great, arrangements
were made for others to address overflow meetings, including
Barton Stone and Robert Marshall, both of whom
were very able preachers; but when it became evident
that the crowd wished to hear Calvin Campbell and that
the range of his voice was such that all might hear him
if closely grouped, the other meetings were dismissed and
all gathered to hear him. It was said that more than
eight thousand persons listened in marked attention to
his sermon.

The scripture lesson was taken from the seventeenth
chapter of Acts. His text was “Paul in Athens” or
“Worshipping Our Own Handiwork” and a portion of
the sermon is preserved.

“Paul, driven from Thessalonica, departed for Corinth.
On the way he stopped at Athens waiting for Timothy
and Silas.

“Visit the grave of the great, the tomb of one of the
Pharaohs, and though you know the body is long since
dust, you feel the spirit of a reflective greatness. Thus
Paul visiting Athens must have been impressed by the
mother of art, eloquence and philosophy. Decadent
Athens, her liberty gone, paying tribute to Caesar. Even
a Caesar could not take away the heritage of the children
[pg 301]
of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle; this her citizens alone could
rob themselves of; and this they were doing by worshipping
false gods, by following the precepts of an Epicurean
philosophy, and by vain, wordy babbling. They
still thought Athens the abode of wisdom, and like children
of the great, still thought themselves the world’s
great thinkers and philosophers because their fathers
had been; when as Paul puts it, ‘They spent their time
in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new
thing;’ piling words on words, metaphysical and unfathomable;
and knowing nothing of the beginning of
wisdom, which is to fear the Lord and depart from evil.

“Paul’s biographer tells us that, ‘His spirit was
stirred when he saw the city full of idols;’ gods of gold
and silver and stone, with even a shrine to THE UNKNOWN
GOD.

“Though such sights would have stimulated our curiosity,
Paul had seen enough. There was work to do; he
could not remain silent; and spoke first in the synagogues
and the Agora, the market place. Then he was taken to
the Areopagus. North of the market place was the Areopagus
or Mars Hill, a spur of the Acropolis which
towered three hundred feet higher and on which stood
the citadel, the Parthenon and the Temple of Winged
Victory. Whether Paul spoke from the top of Mars Hill
or the Athenian Council, which having in earlier days
met on the Areopagus and for that reason was so called,
is immaterial. We know he spoke to an Athenian audience,
who were curious to hear from a Jewish Socrates,
a new man on a new subject, THE UNKNOWN GOD.

“From the summary of his discourse we know it was
framed upon that pedagogical dictum that one should
proceed from the known to the unknown. That he talked
first of their gods, of their poets, of their belief that there
[pg 302]
was an unknown god; then of a universal God, unknown
to them, but known to him, of Christ, of the resurrection.
He quoted from their poet Epimenides; and considering
the subject, we have a right to assume that he quoted
from his own prophet, Isaiah. How a man taketh an ash
log, and with part thereof he roasteth flesh ‘and is satisfied;
yea he warmeth himself and saith, Aha I am warm,
I have seen the fire; and the residue thereof he maketh a
god, even a graven image; he falleth down unto it, and
worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me,
for thou art my god.’

“But man is wrong. God dwelleth not in temples
made with hands. God is not an image of gold or silver
or stone; but himself made the earth and all things
therein; and in him we live and move and have our being.

“When Paul talked to them, not of gods of appetite and
ambition, which sometimes rule in our hearts, or of hand
made gods, such as decorated the streets of Athens and
were enshrined in their temples, which even while we
worship have a habit of disintegrating to dust and ashes,
but of the Divine Creator, the Universal God, the Bountiful
Giver, the Almighty Ruler, the Unseen Spirit, the
Tender Father, the Righteous Judge, they called him a
babbler; and when he spoke of the Eternal Son of God and
the resurrection, many of them mocked, some said we
will hear you again—and a few believed.

“Until he came to Athens, the opposition he had met
was Jewish prejudice and mob violence; it was a tangible
thing; but at Athens he encountered something harder
to overcome, philosophy, conceit, contempt. Having delivered
his message, discouraged, he departed in sorrow.

“We have heard many times the expression, ‘When
Greek meets Greek, then comes the tug of war.’ That
day in the Areopagus Paul started a tug of war that shall
[pg 303]
continue long after we and what we know of the tangible
handiwork of man is in dust and ashes; started it because
his spirit was troubled at beholding that the world’s
greatest city intellectually, was given over to idol worship.
His discourse on Mars Hill, or if you prefer in the
Athenian Council, started the conflict between pagan
philosophies and Christianity; and while Christianity
prevailed, the converts from paganism brought into it
too much of the metaphysical, the doctrinal, and that simple
faith become contaminated by what was borrowed
from these philosophies.

“The Epicureans taught that pleasure is the only
possible end of rational action. They believed that everything
started from an atom. That the gods were not interested
in men and that there was no future life.

“The Stoics believed in the school of philosophy
founded by Zeno. That man should submit to the inevitable;
they were fatalists; did not believe in exhibiting
joy or sorrow; lived lives of sternness and austerity and
many believed in the immortality of the soul.

“Athens, a city posing as the most enlightened,
where polemics and philosophers gathered to discuss
metaphysical questions, did not relish being told by a barbarian,
a mere Jew, that all they believed in and argued
about was false; and that he knew things unknown to
them; of a God concerning whom they had never heard.
He discoursed of God, Christ, the resurrection, the unity
of mankind, the sovereignty of God. He told of God the
Father, whose habitation was not made with hands; who
had made of one blood all nations and had fixed the
bounds of their habitation. A God easily found because
always near; and through whom we live and move and
have our being. This being true, how foolish to worship
gods of our own make. Rather let us worship the God I
[pg 304]
worship and whom I preach unto you; the God that made
YOU. Then he spoke of the love of God for man; how
he gave his Son as a vicarious atonement; how that Son
living as a man among men, taught that a life of selfish
pleasure, Epicureanism, was a sin; and that fatalism,
Stoicism, was remorse without faith or hope. Then how
that Son, crucified for men that they might live, rose and
returned from the land of silence, a messenger to those
who loved and trusted him, that they might have a pledge
of glory and honor and immortality.

“But the ‘superior persons’ who in that day peopled
Athens, were harder to win than the barbarians of Lycaonia,
the land of the wolves, because they were men of
intellectual sensitiveness and dead hearts; men who,
though they do not know it, live in the dark and after
death reaching out find nothing to lay hold on. Though as
Paul says, God is not far from any one, He is farthest
from them. God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb and
those that hear best and are nearest are those who have
fresh and simple hearts like children and heathen; for
them the way is made straight and plain.

“That day on Mars Hill, Paul preached but three
things: ‘Idolatry is foolish—Given the new light you
must repent—On an appointed day you will be judged
by Jesus, the righteous judge.’

“The application of the lesson I can put in a simple
question: How many of us today are as the Athenians,
worshipping false gods and spending our time in nothing
else but either to tell or to hear some new thing? How
many of us seeking new things are willing to trade the
old lamp, the faith of our fathers, for a new one; even
though the old is infinitely greater than Aladdin’s, when
the new will prove a will o’ the wisp, a delusion and a
snare.

[pg 305]
“Suppose Paul should come to Lexington and spend
a day or two looking about; would he say of the people
of Lexington as of Athens: ‘Still spending your time in
nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing;’
still seeking false gods. He might strengthen the charge:
Still lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God; though
the price of the Gospels is a farthing and all know of the
mission of Christ and its fulfillment.

“What he told to the Athenians was a new story;
many mocked, some said we will hear you again—a few
believed. But Athens was Athens after Paul left. What
Paul told to them is to us an old story. Do we love it?
Do we love to tell it? We can hear it and mock and delay.
We cannot tell it unless we believe.

“Listen to the word of God:

“‘Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is
the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the
wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of
God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God
by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.
For the Jews require a sign and the Greeks seek after
wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews
a stumbling block and unto the Greeks foolishness but
unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ
the power of God and the wisdom of God \* \* \* but
God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound
the wise and God hath chosen the weak things of
the world to confound the things that are mighty; \* \* \*
that no flesh should glory in his presence. \* \* \* That
according as it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory
in the Lord.’”

The Rev. Calvin Campbell continued his preaching
for more than an hour and it resulted in the conversion
of some souls. Though many said his views were not
[pg 306]
wholly orthodox; all agreed that he preached the essentials
of Christianity and was a faithful ambassador of
his Lord.

-----

The effect of the “Great Awakening” was evidenced
by the remarkable growth of the churches during and just
succeeding it. The Baptists, then as now the strongest
religious denomination in the State, exhibited a phenomenal
growth. The Elkhorn Association at its annual
meeting in 1801 reported 3,011 new members during the
current year. The South Kentucky Association reported
a practically similar growth; the Tate Creek Association
1,148 new members, the Salem Association more than
2,000 new members, and the Green River Association, organized
in 1800 with 350 members, increased to over one
thousand in less than a year.

Although much criticism attaches to the physical
demonstrations as contrary to a sober Christian faith;
there is no doubt but that these meetings were most potent
in the development of a serious Kentucky spirit. It
is estimated that at least half the population of the state
was brought directly under their influence and their
minds lifted from material to spiritual things. Thousands
were converted who otherwise would never have
attended a religious service. It would be a very narrow
person who would condemn the great good done because
of the attendant physical demonstrations.

Another result of these meetings was to revive the
anti-slavery movement, which had been put to sleep by
the action of the First Constitutional Convention.

This movement assumed a tangible form, when in
1804 an organization of Baptist ministers calling themselves
“Friends of Humanity,” but known to others as
[pg 307]
“Emancipators,” declared with the members of their
churches for the abolition of slavery: “\* \* \* that no
fellowship should be extended to slaveholders, as slavery
in every branch of it, both in principle and in practice,
was a sinful and abominable system, fraught with peculiar
evils and miseries, which every man ought to abandon
and bear testimony against.”

The Baptist Church, acting upon the matter, in assembly
decided it was: “\* \* \* improper for ministers,
churches or associations to meddle with the emancipation
of slavery or any other political subject,” and by
resolution advised their ministers to have nothing to do
with it in their religious capacity.

This resolution was offensive to the Friends of Humanity
and they withdrew from the organization of the
church. In 1807 they formed an association of their own,
calling it “The Baptist Licking-Locust Association,
Friends of Humanity.” Strong at the time of organization
they soon dwindled in numbers, and in a few years
the name became a mere memory.

-----

Though Presbyterian preachers instituted the series
of meetings which resulted in the “Great Awakening”
and were active at all the camp meetings, their denomination
profited less, numerically, than either the Baptist
or the Methodist.

The reason was that several of their most influential
preachers, Barton W. Stone, Robert Marshall, John Dunlavy,
Richard McNemar and John Thompson, began
preaching certain schisms, contrary to Calvinism.

The orthodox of the church were not only worried but
frightened by the growth of the schism of doctrine. For
a long time they dared not oppose it, thinking that it
[pg 308]
would split the church. It was first officially considered
by the Presbytery of Springfield, who placed Richard
McNemar under dealings.

When the Kentucky synod met in Lexington on September
6, 1803, with Samuel Shannon as moderator, he
called the attention of the body to a petition signed by
eighty Presbyterians and letters from Mr. William
Lamme, charging that Revs. Richard McNemar and John
Thompson, of Washington Presbytery, were promulgating
erroneous doctrines and that their Presbytery had
refused to consider the petition implicating their orthodoxy.
The synod decided to enter upon an examination
and trial of the two members.

When this vote was announced they with Barton W.
Stone, Robert Marshall and John Dunlavy protested and
withdrew.

Two days later those withdrawing announced they
had formed an organization of their own, which they
called the Springfield Synod. Thereupon the Kentucky
synod, over the protest of Calvin Campbell and several
others, suspended them; leaving it to their respective
presbyteries to restore them upon satisfactory proof of
repentance.

The five suspended ministers were the founders of
“The New Light Christians.” Already having large
churches, the most of their congregations followed them
and they immediately went to work and because of their
popularity, zeal, force of character and the sympathy of
many who believed them persecuted, their denomination
spread rapidly. The organization continued to grow in
strength until 1859, at which time they had sixty conferences,
fifteen hundred ministers and more than two hundred
and fifty thousand communicants. The sect has disappeared
from Kentucky.

[pg 309]
McNemar and Dunlavy joined the Shakers in 1805.
In 1807 Marshall and Thompson, declaring their repentance
were taken back into the presbytery. Barton W.
Stone repudiated infant baptism; declared that the ordinance
was for the remission of conscious sin and should
be administered to all believing penitents, even though
they had been baptized in infancy.

At a great meeting at Concord church he selected
Acts 2:38 for his text and convinced a great many who
had been baptized in infancy that they must be rebaptized.
He afterwards said that he was never led into the
full spirit of the doctrine “until it was revised by Bro.
Alexander Campbell some years after.” Stone is the
author of the hymn once so popular: “The Lord is the
Fountain of Goodness and Love.”

-----

While the churches of Kentucky were adjusting themselves
to and assimilating the new growth brought about
by The Great Awakening, the State politically was again
disturbed by the old Mississippi navigation question and
threatened with another Spanish conspiracy.

After the treaty of 1795, making the river free, the
State had made great growth; but on December 16, 1802,
trade was suspended by order of Morales, the Spanish
Intendant, who denied to Americans the right of deposit
at New Orleans and refused to fix or grant another.

His proclamation excited the whole western country
and was the first intimation the people had that Spain
on October 1, 1800, by secret treaty at St. Ilfonso, had
agreed to return Louisiana to France.

Governor Garrard received a copy of the proclamation
by special messenger and submitted it to the Kentucky
legislature which was in session at the time. On
[pg 310]
December 1, 1802, the Kentucky legislature passed a resolution
calling upon the Federal Government to enforce
the treaty provisions of deposit, declaring:

“We rely with confidence on your wisdom and justice
and pledge ourselves to support at the expense of our
lives and fortunes, such measures as the honor and interest
of the United States may require.”

Then Kentucky, expecting immediate war with Spain,
began organizing companies of volunteer militia and
making preparations to invade New Orleans.

On January 18, 1803, President Jefferson wrote Governor
Garrard acknowledging the receipt of the resolution;
declaring he was informed that the action of the
Spanish intendant was unauthorized by his government
and—“In order however to provide against the hazards
which beset our interests \* \* \* I have determined
with the approbation of the Senate to send John Monroe
\* \* \* with full powers to him and our ministers in
France and Spain to enter with these governments into
such arrangements as may effectually secure our rights
and interests in the Mississippi.”

The spirit of Kentucky after the receipt of this letter
is indicated by a communication printed in the Kentucky
Gazette of March 8, 1803.

“If the result of Mr. Monroe’s mission should prove
inauspicious one opinion will pervade all America. We
shall then possess but one mind and one arm. The patriotism
of the country will banish all party distinctions,
and the breast of every citizen will burn with indignation.
\* \* \* Let us await with patience his return—with that
silent expectation, which, prepared to meet with joy the
news of a happy issue, is nevertheless, if disappointed,
ready to inflict a blow that will let all Europe know
[pg 311]
that, though difficult to be aroused, America acts with
vigor and effect.”

The same paper of July 19, 1803, contained news from
Paris, under the caption, “Important if True—Paris,
May 13, Louisiana is ceded to the United States on the
most honorable terms; and indemnification will be made
for French spoliation.”

This report proved correct. The great Territory of
Louisiana had been ceded to the United States for eighty
million francs.

On Tuesday, December 20, 1803, the United States
took possession by her two commissioners, William C.
Claiborne and General James Wilkinson.

[pg 312]




CHAPTER XX.—Another Conspiracy.
-------------------------------


On Saturday, March 2, 1805, at the close of the administration,
Vice-President Burr took formal leave of the
United States Senate. The Washington Federalist referring
to his farewell address, declared it “\* \* \*
the most dignified, sublime and impressive ever uttered.
\* \* \* The whole Senate was in tears and so unmanned
that it was half an hour before they could recover themselves
sufficiently to come to order and choose a vice-president
pro tem.”

Yet his great abilities were marred by an instinct for
traitorous intrigue and an unconscionable untrustworthiness
which made his life a failure.

Upon retirement, he felt forced to shift his residence
and at the suggestion of his friend, General James Wilkinson,
a man much more dangerous and less trustworthy
than Burr and at the time chief officer of the United
States Army, he traveled westward with the presumed
intent of establishing his domicile at Nashville.

Many who know Wilkinson’s secret history, now believe
that even then he had instigated Burr to the adoption
of his traitorous plot to drive Spain from North
America and establish a great empire; which in due
course was to take over the Western Country and if expedient,
by force of arms, would then spread its dominion
eastward to the Atlantic.

On April 10, Burr left Philadelphia for Pittsburgh,
where he arrived on the 29th, and the next day purchasing
an ark or house boat, left for Kentucky.

[pg 313]
As illustrating the purchasing power of the dollar in
those days, the ark, which was sixty feet long, fourteen
wide and had four rooms or compartments with glass
windows, cost one hundred and thirty-three dollars.

Fourteen miles below Marietta the boat tied up at
Blannerhassett’s Island; and it was then he made the
acquaintance of Colonel Blannerhassett and his very
charming wife, who was the daughter of Governor Agnew
of the Isle of Mann and the granddaughter of General
Agnew, who had been killed at Germantown.

At Cincinnati he was the guest over-night of John
Smith, United States Senator from Ohio and at his home
met an old friend, Jonathan Dayton. These men with
Blannerhassett became partners in his designs and were
indicted and arrested when the details of the Burr conspiracy
became public property.

Upon Burr’s arrival at Louisville, he instructed his
boatmen to float down the river and await him at the
mouth of the Cumberland, and rode through to Nashville
on horseback.

There he remained four days, the distinguished guest
of General Jackson; then in a small boat was paddled
to the mouth of the Cumberland, where he re-embarked
in his ark and floated down to Fort Massic. At Fort
Massic he and Wilkinson perfected plans incident to the
conspiracy. When he left it was in Wilkinson’s own
barge and in a style more befitting the head of a proposed
scheme of conquest. He traveled to New Orleans
in “an elegant barge, sails, colors and ten oars, with a
sergeant and ten able and faithful hands;” bearing letters
of introduction to Wilkinson’s friends, by whom he was
received with great honor and entertained in a most lavish
style. The letter of introduction to Mr. Clark read:

[pg 314]
“My Dear Sir:

“This will be delivered to you by Colonel Burr, whose
worth you know well how to estimate. If the persecution
of a great and honorable man can give title to generous
attentions he has claim to all your civilities and all your
services. You can not oblige me more than by such conduct;
and I pledge my life to you it will not be misapplied.

“To him I refer you to many things *improper for
letter* and which he will not say to any other. I shall
be at St. Louis in two weeks and if you were there we
could open a gold mine, a commercial one at least. Let
me hear from you. Farewell, do well, and believe me
always your friend.”

Colonel Burr’s engagements, social and otherwise,
kept him three weeks in New Orleans. He then returned
to Nashville, traveling horseback through the wilderness,
where he arrived on August 6th. After a few days’ rest
he visited Louisville and other Kentucky towns, then
went to St. Louis to talk over matters with General
Wilkinson.

In October he returned to Philadelphia, where he spent
the greater part of the winter soliciting funds to finance
his designs.

In August, 1806, with plans matured and money to
finance them, he came to Pittsburgh, accompanied by his
daughter and Colonel Dupiester. While there he confided
his plans to Colonel Morgan, of Washington County, who
as a patriot felt bound to give the information to President
Jefferson. This was probably the first notice the
government had of Burr’s conspiracy. Here he also met
Comfort Taylor and arranged for recruiting men and
building and outfitting several barges for the expedition;
and as he voyaged down the Ohio made similar arrangements
with Blannerhassett, Floyd Smith, of Indiana Territory,
and others.

[pg 315]
Upon his arrival in Kentucky every thing seemed
propitious. Recruits in plenty offered their services and
many prominent men, among them General Adair,
though not openly joining in, favored his scheme.

At Nashville he arranged with General Jackson to
build and equip several barges and gave him four thousand
dollars to be applied to the purpose.

In October, The Western World, a Frankfort newspaper,
made attacks on Innes and Sebastian, the one
United States Judge for the District of Kentucky and the
other a judge of the Court of Appeals of Kentucky,
charging their connection with the old Spanish Conspiracy
and their effort to renew it. In an uncertain
and confused way they connected Burr with the conspiracy
and charged that the three, with others, were
traitors to the United States government. The articles
created considerable excitement and led Joseph H.
Daviess, then the United States District Attorney for
Kentucky, to investigate Burr’s purpose and the cause
of his extensive and repeated visits to Kentucky.

Learning his intent, he sent warning to President
Jefferson; and on November 3rd, in the United States
Court at Frankfort, made motion and application for
his apprehension supported by his affidavit charging him
with recruiting men with the design to attack the Spanish
dominions and thereby endanger the peace of the United
States.

Judge Innes denied the motion as unprecedented and
illegal.

In the papers of Fleming Campbell, a descendant of
Rev. Calvin Campbell, was found a letter written by him
to his wife, Dorothy, giving a detailed account of Burr’s
trial at Frankfort; and as when possible, it is always
[pg 316]
better to have an account from an eye witness the author
has seen fit to quote at length from that letter.

“\* \* \* As only at infrequent intervals, can a messenger
be found to bear my letters to you, you will
readily understand why they are occasionally continued
as a diary from day to day over a considerable period.
This time I have more important and as I believe more
interesting news than usual.

“As you know, I came to Frankfort the first of November
to attend the United States Court in reference
to our church property case; and since coming have been
subpoenaed as a witness in the case of the United States
against Burr; though that trial is now finished, I am
forced to remain as a witness before the committee of
the Legislature investigating the charges preferred
against Judge Sebastian, who is declared to have been
a pensioner of Spain for years. It seems as though
the old Spanish Conspiracy follows me like a shadow.
In the meanwhile I am conducting a series of
meetings in the Presbyterian Church which are well attended
and which the people are kind enough to say are
bearing fruit for the Master. This first page of my letter
was in fact the last written—chronologically, now begins
the first page.

“I have today for the first time seen Colonel Burr
and at his best—in action, pretending to address Judge
Innes, but in fact talking to the benches. To me he
appears the most perfect model of the fashionable gentleman.
When he speaks it is with animation, apparent
frankness and guilelessness; yet something inside warns
against him, saying: ‘Beware, that is not the man. The
real man is reserved, secretive, inscrutable.’ His face to
me gives the same warning. At first blush it pleases, but
upon closer scrutiny lines are seen which suggest that
[pg 317]
he would toss the settled things of life about as the wind
scatters dried leaves.

“I may be prejudiced because I know he has been
associating with Wilkinson, whom no man can touch without
contamination unless the fear of God is in his heart.
He is said to be a friend of Wilkinson, but Wilkinson
knows no friends. Burr is a more gifted man than he,
but has not his satanic poise and patience. Burr suggests
a general who would cut himself off from his base
and risk all in one fierce attack.

“The Court having denied Mr. Daviess’ motion to
apprehend Colonel Burr, the latter was under no obligation
to answer, yet he presented himself and demanded a
trial, declaring his innocence.

“Pleased at the great audience, which from curiosity
and excitement had gathered, though he faced the court,
he talked to the benches; and the judge perceiving his
purpose became an accomplice to it, by leaving the bench
and taking a seat in the jury box, so that while talking
to him he faced the crowd. He closed by saying: ‘Your
Honor has treated the application as it deserved, but
it may be renewed by Mr. Daviess in my absence; therefore,
voluntarily I have appeared and demand a speedy
trial upon the charge.’

“Burr misread Daviess if he believed such tactics would
intimidate or embarrass him. He arose and in turn—and
I believe for the first time in the discharge of his duties—seemed
to talk to the benches; and the court perceiving
it, moved his seat from the jury box to the bench—but
Daviess continuing to face the audience, made a Federalist
speech in support of the Union and the constitution and
revealed at some length the conspiracy of Burr and his
followers. What he said pleased me greatly and was
not without effect upon the audience, though the majority
[pg 318]
were Democrats and in sympathy with Burr. He announced:
‘I am ready to proceed as soon as the attendance
of the government’s witnesses can be procured.’
The Court asked him to fix a day and conferring with
the United States marshal he named the following Wednesday,
which, proving satisfactory to Colonel Burr, was
named for the hearing.

“Burr, until Wednesday, appeared to pass the time in
easy tranquillity. On Wednesday, the court room was
filled to suffocation. Mr. Daviess, calling his witnesses,
discovered that Davis Floyd, the most important one, was
absent; but Judge Innes, who, all the while, has shown
partiality for the accused, discharged the grand jury.

“Colonel Burr, accompanied by his counsel, Henry
Clay and Col. Allen, came forward, expressed regret that
the grand jury had been discharged and asked the reason.

“(Daviess) ‘The Government’s witness, Davis Floyd,
is a member of the Indiana Territorial Legislature and
as it is in session he cannot attend.’

“(Burr) ‘Will the Court have noted of record the
reason for postponement.’ Then bowing to the Court,
he addressed the audience upon the subject of the accusation
and with such power, fervor and air of injured
innocence, that the majority present looked upon Daviess
as a persecutor for political reasons. Burr said: ‘I assure
you good people of Kentucky of my innocence and beg
you will dismiss your apprehension of danger from me,
if such you have. I am a man of peace and feel hurt that
your able district attorney is striving so zealously to connect
me with schemes and rumors of war. I am engaged
in no enterprise that can endanger the peace or tranquillity
of our country as you will most certainly learn, when
the district attorney shall be ready, which I surmise will
never be. Though pressing business demands my presence
[pg 319]
elsewhere, I feel compelled to give your zealous official
one more opportunity of proving his charge; or acknowledging
my innocence and admitting that it is persecution.’

“Nevertheless, watching Burr day by day, I notice he
is slowly losing his tranquillity; even his face, when at
rest, has a nervous expression.

“I learn that he has sought to engage my friend, John
Rowan, as one of his counsel; but Mr. Rowan declined,
saying: ‘My position as a congressman-elect precludes
the employment, as the charge involves fidelity to the
Government.’

“This reason did not satisfy Burr, who offered him a
thousand dollars (what I earn in three years by preaching)
and began arguing against his objection; but Mr.
Rowan interrupted him: ‘Pardon me, Colonel Burr, but
I have been taught from earliest childhood not to reason
on subjects which my conscience in the first instance condemns.’

“Rumor of this conversation reached Mr. Clay, who
was also a member-elect of Congress, and he came to Mr.
Rowan asking advice as to his employment. Rowan advised:
‘Since you have already appeared as counsel, I
think you should continue; that is, if your client will give
you written assurance of his innocence.’

“At Mr. Clay’s request Colonel Burr, on December 1,
gave him this statement: ‘I have no design nor have I
taken any measure to promote a dissolution of the Union,
or a separation of any one or more states from the residue.
I have neither published a line on this subject nor
has any one through my agency or with my knowledge.
I have no design to intermeddle with the government,
or to disturb the tranquillity of the United States, nor of
its territories, or any part of them. I have neither issued
[pg 320]
nor signed, nor promised a commission to any person
for any purpose. I do not own a musket or bayonet or
any single article of military stores nor does any person
for me by my authority or my knowledge. My views
have been explained to and approved by several of the
principal officers of the government and I believe are
well understood by the administration and seen by it with
complacency; they are such as every man of honor and
every good citizen must approve. Considering the high
station you now fill in our national councils, I have
thought these explanations proper, as well as to counteract
the chimerical tales, which malevolent persons have
industriously circulated, as to satisfy you that you have
not espoused the cause of a man in any way unfriendly
to the laws, the government or the interests of his country.’

“This statement Burr gave without hesitancy, though
his guilt is now established. Some months prior to giving
it, on July 29th, he wrote General Wilkinson:

“‘I have obtained funds and have actually commenced
the enterprise. Detachments from different points and
on different pretences, will rendezvous on the Ohio on the
1st of November. Everything internal and external favors
views \* \* \* Already are orders given to contractors
to forward six months’ provisions to point Wilkinson
may name. The project is brought to the point so
long desired. Burr guarantees the result with his life
and honor and with the lives and fortunes of hundreds—the
best blood of the country. Wilkinson shall be second
only to Burr. Wilkinson shall dictate the rank of his
officers. Burr’s plan of operations is to move down rapidly
from the falls by the 15th of November, with the first
five or ten hundred men, in light boats now constructing,
to be at Natches between the 5th and 15th of December,
[pg 321]
there to meet Wilkinson; there to determine whether it
will be expedient in the first instance to seize on or pass by
Baton-Rogue.’

“On the 25th of November Mr. Daviess announced to
the Court that he could have Davis Floyd present on
December 2nd and asked that a second grand jury be
empaneled for that date; which was done.

“But on the 2nd Mr. Daviess was again forced to
ask a postponement because of the absence of John
Adair; though he asked that the grand jury be retained
until he could enforce Adair’s attendance by attachment.

“This occasioned a lively and prolonged argument
between Burr’s counsel and Daviess, to which all the
overcrowded court room listened with marked attention.

“Clay had the sympathy of the majority of the audience.
The proposed expedition and its leader were popular.
Clay was a Democrat. Daviess was a Federalist,
a decidedly minority party in Kentucky. The people
believed in the innocence of the smiling and composed
Burr. The judge was with him and refused to retain the
grand jury after the disposition of pending business. It
was up to Daviess to make business until Adair could be
found. He asked an attachment for him, which the
Court denied, holding he was not in contempt until the
end of the day’s session. He drafted an indictment
charging Adair with complicity in the Burr conspiracy;
but the grand jury returned it, ‘not a true bill.’ As it
was late, Daviess asked for and procured an adjournment
until the next day.

“When the court reassembled, Daviess asked, as prosecuter,
to go before the grand jury to examine his witnesses
so they would understand and be able to piece
together the detached evidence constituting the conspiracy.
The request was resisted by counsel for Burr
[pg 322]
and refused by the court, though the judge himself had
suggested it the evening before.

“The grand jury at the close of the hearing returned
the indictment submitted against Col. Burr, ‘Not a true
bill’—and further declared in their report, that the evidence
submitted completely exonerated him from any
designs against the peace and dignity of the United
States.

“Burr’s acquittal was celebrated by a great ball given
by his friends; and was followed by another given in
honor of the defeated district attorney—and privately,
I felt very much inclined to attend the Daviess ball; and if
I had, would have been tempted to dance, as I was at my
own wedding to my Dear Dorothy.

“On November 27th the President by proclamation
denounced the Burr enterprise and warned the people of
the Western country against participation in it.

“In the meantime preparations for the enterprise
continued until the arrival of the proclamation, which in
conjunction with the efforts of Mr. Graham, the government’s
special agent, effectively scotched it.

“The way this came about, Blannerhassett, under the
impression that Graham was a friend of Col. Burr, disclosed
the details of the expedition. Graham informed
Blannerhassett to the contrary and sought to persuade
him from participation, but without avail; then he proceeded
to Chillicothe, where the Ohio legislature was in
session and interviewed Governor Tiffin. The governor
sent a message to the legislature and that body, in secret
session, passed an act to suppress the expedition. Thereupon
the Ohio authorities seized the boats and provisions
on the Ohio shore and the Ohio recruits abandoned the
expedition.

[pg 323]
“Graham then hastened to Kentucky, where the legislature,
then in session, passed a similar law; and orders
were given to apprehend all boats in Kentucky waters.
Several days before Graham’s arrival, Burr had departed
for Nashville.

“Graham, following after him, induced the governor
of Tennessee to order all boats in Tennessee waters seized
and all persons implicated arrested. Burr and his confederates
were informed and made their escape in two
small boats, paddling to the mouth of the Cumberland.

“There they joined the remnant of the great flotilla,
eleven boats and sixty men and proceeded down the Ohio
to the Mississippi and down that stream towards the
trap which Wilkinson had prepared for his former co-conspirator.

“Wilkinson had always been a careful and calculating
conspirator; disregarding all connections and shifting
about as self interest dictated. He was the servant of the
highest bidder and in the Burr conspiracy doubtless the
instigator; as also the first to recognize that the scheme
was chimerical. Soon learning the real Kentucky spirit,
he made up his mind to abandon Burr and at the first
opportunity traitorously disclosed the plans to President
Jefferson; and towards the end did everything in his
power to frustrate Burr’s designs.

“When Burr, visiting Wilkinson in St. Louis, spoke
of discontent in Kentucky, he replied: ‘If you have not
profited more by your journey in other respects than this,
you would better have staid in Washington. The
Western people dissatisfied to the government! They
are bigoted to Jefferson and Democracy.’

“When the enterprise collapsed, Wilkinson, like many
others who had been loudest in Burr’s praise and deepest
in his schemes, was now the loudest in denouncing
[pg 324]
the conspiracy and the most zealous with suggestions to
apprehend him.

“I understand that Burr, blaming its failure upon
Wilkinson, denounced him: ‘As to any prospects which
may have been formed between General Wilkinson and
myself heretofore; they are now completely frustrated
by his perfidious conduct, and the world must pronounce
him a perfidious villain. If I am sacrificed my portfolio
will prove him to be such.’

“One can readily understand why his expedition appealed
to a great many Kentuckians. The people are
hardy and adventurous. There are yet many among us
who lived through the most heroic era of our history;
and the younger generation, fired by their tales, are
ready for any adventurous enterprise. Spain is an old
enemy, the State is growing rapidly, many feel crowded
if they live within sight of a neighbor; the enterprise
offered great opportunities for adventure, for a new
pioneer life; and land was to be had for the taking.

“Even the longest letter must have an ending, and
I have found a friend going to Powell’s Valley, who has
promised to deliver mine. I shall come home in January.
My heart bleeds because I will not be able to spend
Christmas with you and the boy. I feel I have no home,
but my Master had not a place to lay his head, nor a wife
and son. I pray daily for your safety and good health.
The Lord bless and keep both of you.

   | “Your husband,
   |   “Calvin.”

The Kentucky Legislature was petitioned in December,
1806, to make inquiry into the conduct of Judge
Sebastian, a member of the Court of Appeals, as an intriguer
with Spain in an effort to bring about Kentucky’s
secession from the Union. In an effort to stifle the inquiry,
[pg 325]
Sebastian resigned, but the inquiry continued.
Evidence submitted, including his confession, disclosed
that he had been a pensioner of Spain for many years,
receiving $2,000.00 per annum. Many believed Judge
Innes implicated; and at the session of the succeeding legislature,
a resolution was passed recommending that
Congress inquire into his conduct, as being United States
judge for the district of Kentucky it was beyond the
province of Kentucky authority. This was done and resulted
in his acquittal.

The disclosures of the Sebastian investigation, and
the Burr conspiracy, resulted in a renewal by the Atlantic
states of the old and oft-repeated charge that Kentucky
was disloyal to the Union. The people of Kentucky resented
the charge.

A great mass meeting was held in Lexington when the
people of the State understood the charges made by the
eastern states. After a patriotic speech by Rev. Calvin
Campbell, which Henry Clay declared the smoothest argument
he had ever heard in support of centralized power
against state rights, the meeting unanimously adopted
a resolution:

“\* \* \* That all charges or insinuations against the
people of this State of disaffection to the Union or Government
of the United States are gross misapprehensions
and without foundation.” This resolution was published
in the Palladium on January 7, 1807.

-----

On January 14, 1807, Burr, a fugitive in the then
great Southwest Wilderness, was apprehended on the
Tombigbee river by Captain Gaines, of the United States
army, and carried to Richmond for trial.

[pg 326]




CHAPTER XXI.—Controversies and Peace.
-------------------------------------


Calvin Campbell, ordained in 1790, slowly rose to
first place among all the preachers of Kentucky. His
popularity was deserved. He was not only a great
preacher, but a scholar, a patriot, and a modest, winsome
and most unselfish Christian worker. His zeal was not
smothered by a clammy conservatism and his work was
of the highest order; though his hearers occasionally
gave sensational physical manifestations of their conversion,
there was nothing sensational about his preaching.

For the decade beginning with the Great Awakening
in 1800, religious growth of all denominations in Kentucky
had been phenomenal, exceeding a thousand per
cent.

Churches having large congregations were organized
and no ministers were available to preach to them. This
was especially true of the Presbyterian Church, grown
strong in a land suffering from a dearth of schools and
colleges—a church which under its rules of government
could only license and ordain for service candidates
having classical and theological training. In Kentucky,
as elsewhere, the growth of the kingdom does not wait
for a preacher to be educated to grammatically enunciate
the gospel of Christ.

The greatest growth from these revivals had been in
the Cumberland country—a section taking this name
because it embraced the Cumberland River valley in
Kentucky and Tennessee, and which subsequently gave
[pg 327]
name to the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. The
cause of its severance from the Presbyterian Church is
not without interest.

Father Rice, the patriarch of Presbyterianism in
Kentucky, visiting the Green River and Cumberland
country, saw the need of preachers and, knowing of no
other way to meet it, suggested to the Cumberland and
Green River Presbyteries that they select pious and
promising young men from their churches and prepare
them for the ministry, saying: “You understand they
should be trained to meet the requirements of the church
rules, but the harvest is going to waste; there is no other
way to save it, and such training is beyond our reach.”

This suggestion was adopted, and several young men,
after a primitive theological course, were advanced to
the ministry.

This was the beginning of a great controversy between
the liberal preachers and those ministers who
were sticklers for the old ecclesiastical order. The
sticklers not only found fault with this method of supplying
the demand, but criticised the revivals and their
attendant demonstrations. There was also between the
liberals and the conservatives some divergences in doctrinal
belief centered upon that portion of the confession
of faith and the catechism which it was claimed taught
the doctrine of fatalism.

These divergences, protracted through several years,
grew with time, until finally they became so serious that
the Synod of Kentucky appointed a commission to meet
at Gasper River Meeting House and endeavor to adjust
them. The attempt failed, the controversy seemed unending.
To end it, these two presbyteries were dissolved
by order of the Synod, but they still continued to advance
[pg 328]
to the ministry men not up to the educational
standard of the church, nor in accord with the doctrine
of predestination. This was very offensive to the conservative
membership and ministry of the church, while
the liberal or revival party, deeming themselves oppressed
and wronged argued: “There is no other way
to supply our churches with preachers. Your doctrine
of predestination is the fatalism of the ancients.”

The final result was a revolutionary measure headed
by Samuel McAdoo, Finis Ewing and Samuel King, men
taken into the ministry and ordained under the expedience
policy. They met and formed their own presbytery,
calling it the Cumberland Presbytery after the one recently
dissolved by the Kentucky Synod.

A short while after this schism, the Synod of Kentucky
met to devise ways and means of adjusting the
differences pending between the church organization and
the churches of the Cumberland country.

Every Presbyterian church of the state was represented
by either a presiding or ruling elder. The feeling
from the first was intense. Three distinct groups of
partisans were in attendance.

The conservatives, led by the Reverend Thomas
Small, were in the majority. They insisted that all
ministers who did not believe in predestination and who
had been ordained without possessing the educational
qualifications set forth under the rules of the church
should be suspended, and that all physical manifestations
or exhibitions of an exuberant Christian spirit by the
congregation should be forbidden.

The radicals, led by Samuel McAdoo, who, though he
admitted he was not up to the Presbyterian educational
standard, insisted he was called, possibly predestined to
[pg 329]
preach, and declared that the Synod to close the breach,
must take the Cumberland Presbytery with its uneducated
preachers and its schism denying predestination
into the organization else they would be forced to establish
a distinct organization.

A third party, not exceeding a half dozen, led by Rev.
Calvin Campbell, looked upon their differences as not so
divergent as to justify a split in the church, rather demanding
the exercise of a Christian spirit, as all yet believed
in the Trinity and in the Bible.

After the organization of the Synod, Rev. Calvin
Campbell rose and offered a resolution that: “No stationed
or local preacher shall retail spirituous or malt
liquors without forfeiting his ministerial character
among us.”

Speaking upon the resolution he told of the good work
Dr. Benjamin Rush had been doing in Kentucky by his
prohibition movement; what a curse Bourbon whiskey
had proved to be since its manufacture began in 1789;
and deeply regretted that so many preachers in Kentucky
found an easy way of supplementing their meager salary
by vending it almost under the shadow of their churches.
He said: “I call your attention to this resolution because
no preacher should profit by the weakness of his brother,
and as indicating how dense is the wilderness in which
Dr. Rush has raised his voice, crying for prohibition. I
admit that a preacher must engage in some other business
to live, but like Paul we may make tents, or shoes or
grow corn; follow any occupation which does not tend to
bring misfortune to a weak brother.”

Upon a vote by secret ballot, the resolution was lost.
(In 1813, this identical resolution was offered at a
Methodist Conference in Kentucky and voted down.)

[pg 330]
Rev. Small, though Rev. Campbell did not know it,
was a part owner in a distillery and looked upon the resolution
as directed at him. Therefore, when he rose as the
advocate of conservatism, the champion of predestination,
and of an educated ministry fully alive and thoroughly
grounded in all doctrinal tenets of the church, he
was in no mood for compromises.

He dwelt at length upon the ludicrousness of the
“jerks” or physical manifestations, and called attention
to the fact, which many had forgotten, that they were
first indulged in at the Gasper River Meeting, conducted
by the Rev. Calvin Campbell in 1799, and therefore should
be called the “Campbell Jerks.”

He then spoke upon the theme of the necessity for a
thorough theological education, else a man could never
be an able polemic, a well read theologian, capable at all
times and with all comers of holding his own in a denominational
controversy between learned men, so essential
for the spread of Presbyterianism; nor could he by logic
convince all hearers that all were predestined from the
beginning of eternity, which in itself established the
creation of all souls when the soul of the first man was
created; nor that a man once converted could never fall
from grace—beliefs essential to a Christ-like faith.

He closed by saying: “My mind is set like flint upon
the proposition that when a man doubts either doctrine
there is no room for him as a member, much less a minister,
in the Presbyterian church. I shall therefore vote
to suspend all newly ordained ministers until they are
properly qualified to preach this doctrinal gospel and
can use 1 Corinthians 9:27, or the book of the prophet
Jonah, as their text to establish the doctrine of predestination.
I shall therefore vote to expel all who do not
[pg 331]
believe in every declaration in the confession of faith and
particularly in predestination.”

When he had finished, the Reverend Samuel McAdoo
presented the cause of the Cumberland Presbytery. He
expressed regret that the “split” had occurred and willingness
on the part of the churches of their presbytery to
continue in the Kentucky Synod, if permitted to retain
the preachers already ordained and serving them, all of
whom were holy men selected from their congregations
to meet urgent needs, when highly educated and regularly
trained ministers were not available, stating: “It seems
this is not a great or unreasonable concession, nor the
further request that we be given a greater liberty of interpretation
of the Holy Scriptures and more freedom in
preaching the gospel and supplying our churches with
ministers, provided that what they teach is in accord
with the teachings of Christ.”

When McAdoo sat down, the assemblage, feeling that
only one man had sufficient influence to close the breach,
expectantly turned towards Calvin Campbell. He rose
and spoke from beside his chair, until many of the assemblage
insisted that he occupy the pulpit.

“Twenty years ago, when I was ordained, this state
had a population of less than 74,000 and this denomination
but five preachers and less than a dozen churches.
The state has grown rapidly, now it is seventh in importance,
with a population of 406,000, and our organization
has maintained a proportionate growth, doing its part
ably and faithfully to spread the gospel of Christ and
make of this a Christian Commonwealth. It is a record
of which this Synod, representing several hundred
churches, is justly proud.

[pg 332]
“Occasionally doctrinal controversies have arisen,
but they have always been taken up and considered in a
spirit of love and prayer, and adjusted by following the
precepts of and in the footsteps of the Master.

“We are met today by questions not more difficult of
solution, but we seem in their consideration to be guided
by a different spirit. There is more of contention and
feeling and less of the old spirit of love and prayer. May
God soften our hearts and so solve the trouble. I ask
that the words I speak may picture the thoughts of a
purged soul, and that what I say shall be acceptable to
and in the service of God.

“I must confess that within my heart there is no disapproval
of physical manifestations on the part of any
one feeling himself emancipated from the shackles of sin.
Let him, like David, sing his songs of thanksgiving or
dance before the altar of God. God’s grace to some of
you is not a new thing; may it never become trite to our
souls. How can you judge of your neighbor’s spirit of
praise for his salvation? He may have a clearer perception
than you or be lifted from a deeper darkness into
a brighter light. Do you think that the meeting on the
great day of Pentecost was without shouts of praise
and physical manifestations? Do you think that Christ’s
entry into Jerusalem when the multitude sang ‘Hosanna
to the Son of David, Blessed is He that cometh in the
name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!’ was devoid
of physical manifestation, or the less pleasing because it
was not? We are told that when the chief priests and
scribes saw these things ‘they were sore afraid’ and
questioned Jesus, saying: ‘Hearest thou what they say?’
and He answered: ‘\* \* \* have ye never read, out of
the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected
[pg 333]
praise?’ I beseech, you, that you do not as high priests,
as clammy conventionalists, criticise the gambols of a
new born lamb into the shelter of the fold.

“Again I must confess that to me there is nothing
inconsistent with true Christianity, if one of the brethren
asks a freer interpretation of and more liberty in preaching
the Bible. The essentials of true Christianity, taught
by the Bible, are so simple that a child may understand,
and so complex as to be beyond the grasp of a mind lost
in a wilderness of doctrinal phrase worship, or of conventionality
or in the regulation of the width of their
phylacteries.

“A preacher whose soul is filled with the power and
the zeal of the Holy Ghost, though he is a mender and
caster of nets, has a greater message and is better fitted
to interpret the Bible than the scribe lost in a theological
hair-splitting discussion upon some phase of non-essential
doctrine. A man’s own conscience is the best interpreter
of his theology, especially if quickened by prayer,
when he talks with God, and by the Scriptures, when God
talks with him. Thus there becomes fixed in his soul the
essential doctrine which nothing can shake.

“Again I have never been thoroughly convinced that
predestination as taught in our creed is not tinctured
with fatalism. To accept predestination, without a belief
in fatalism, is to believe that man is a free moral
agent; and this, as the years go by, I am inclined less
and less to believe. I have a friend, a physician, full of
theories, who contends that a child born with a misshapen
head or diseased brain cells is frequently a born
criminal; and that a surgeon’s knife may in rare instances
transform such a criminal into a saint.

[pg 334]
“Nor do I believe that a man once truly converted
cannot fall from grace. While Calvin insists this is true,
it is denied by Luther and Augustine. Man can only
remain within the grace of God by constant struggle and
endeavor and by insistent and persistent prayer. His
spiritual life like his temporal has its days of sunshine
and of shadow. The doctrine that once converted, you
can never fall from grace, tends to a careless spiritual
life and leads to discarding the teaching that all are sinners
and life a succession of falls, a never ending struggle
and prayer to live like the Master. Many a sinner
has been saved who never had one thought about predestination.
Belief in it is unessential for salvation. No
soul who does not believe in it will be damned, if that
soul believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, loves the Lord
his God with all his heart and his neighbor as himself.

“The danger of educated religious organizations is
that these non-essential doctrines are apt to suppress the
growth of the real faith. There is a tendency to formalism,
to doctrinal subtleties, to measuring the relative
importance of each commandment, to spending time in
fixing the character and location of hell, rather than striving
to avoid it, to fixing the form of baptism, to word
weaving, hair-splitting, letter worship; thus becoming
blind leaders of the blind; eyes set upon unessential and
exaggerated regalia, while the spirit loses sight of the
light of the world.

“Think you a penitent sinner cannot be baptized, because
there is not water at hand? Baptize him with sand.
Think you that the ordinance of the Lord’s supper cannot
be observed because the wine is spilled? Fill the
vessel with water and the spirit of observance will symbolically
transform water into wine, as the wine stands
[pg 335]
for the blood of Christ. Must the gospel of Christ remain
unpreached because there are no theologically educated
ministers to expound it? Do you propose to create
a sort of purgatory in which these immature preachers
may have an opportunity to ripen until you say they are
fit harvesters for the grain, over-ripe and wasting?

“A seminary education is a good, but not the great
thing. Shall you or the Master say who is fit to serve
as his messenger? Would you have picked his twelve?
Would you have chosen from the fishing village or from
the school of Gamaliel or the Sanhedrin? Any of you
would have considered himself more fitted to preach the
Pentecostal sermon than Peter. Had you done so, it
is probable there would have been no physical demonstrations
and at most half a dozen conversions. Yet
Peter was but a fisherman, filled with the power of the
Holy Ghost and telling in his own heart to heart way
what the Master had taught him in that itinerant seminary
of one teacher and twelve students on the shores
of Galilee. Who among you would have chosen Saul as
disciple for the Gentiles, as he traveled the road to Damascus,
anxious to continue his persecutions.

“I cannot claim because I am the graduate of a seminary
and a classical college that God has given to me a
greater perception and measure of the power of the Holy
Ghost to lead sinners to repentance than to Samuel McAdoo;
nor for the same reason that I and not he, am
God’s minister. A preacher not fired with the Holy
Ghost soon delivers his message.

“Brother Small, what has the Master taught these
preachers of the Cumberland Presbytery that you and I
may not know?

[pg 336]
“So often when I look back over the days that are
gone, recalling my follies, my mistakes, my presumptions
and my prayer, my way, Lord, not yours—I drop upon
my knees and pray—God be merciful to me a fool.

“Do not think that I condemn the faith of our fathers,
or advocate an uneducated ministry. God can use the
deformed, the broken vessel; He can make the crooked
straight and the blind to see; His the greater glory, the
more feeble the minister. God, Gideon, the three hundred,
defeated the host of Midian. When it comes to the sacrifice,
God will provide himself a lamb, but we should give
as best we may for his service.

“And the Presbyterian Church, praise God for its
glorious history. It has always waged a never ending,
uncompromising war against wrong and oppression. The
organization is a body of conservatives until aroused,
which must be by a cataclysm. Then we never sleep
until right prevails, though the road we travel grows wet
with blood and tears. Presbyterians came to America
for conscience’s sake. They claimed the right to worship
God as their conscience dictated. The first settlement
was at New Amsterdam in 1628. The church grows as
the community is raised to a higher educational standard.
With them, religion and education go hand in hand and
the catechism used to be found in their school primers.
The history of the Presbyterian Church is interwoven
with America’s struggle for freedom. In England the
revolution was attributed to the Presbyterians. Walpole
addressing Parliament said, ‘Cousin America has run
away with a Presbyterian parson’.”

After a discussion by others, lasting for hours, a vote
was had upon a resolution, the adoption of which would
recognize the Cumberland Presbytery, license their lapses
and confirm the ordination of Samuel McAdoo and
[pg 337]
others advanced to the ministry by that Presbytery. The
resolution was lost.

Whereupon all the representatives from their
churches withdrew from the synod and on February 4th
perfected a tentative organization, members of which
took to themselves the name of Cumberland Presbyterians.
Its growth was rapid. In three years there were
three presbyteries and sixty churches. They held their
first synod on October 5, 1813, when they proclaimed and
published a summary of their faith. As this church
came into birth with a great revival movement, so always
it has advocated revivals.

-----

On the night of Wednesday, November 10, 1813,
several Shauanese Indians came to the home of Rev.
Calvin Campbell. They were runners who had been sent
by the nation to notify him that he had been made their
chief in place of Tecumseh, who had been killed in the
battle of the Thames on October 5th.

The next morning before day he left with them and
was gone from home nearly three months. Upon his
return he had little to say about his trip, never mentioning
its purpose except to his wife.

He told her that a great remnant of the Mingo confederacy
including many Shauanese had moved several
hundred miles west of the Mississippi, two hundred miles
from the nearest white settlement, and had there built
new villages upon the banks of the great river, near
which were plains on which grazed vast herds of buffalo.
That John Mason, who was still a missionary, had gone
with them and he had assisted him in reorganizing the
nation and in building a church, much like the old Jackson
River Meeting House, except it was of logs instead
of stone.

-----

[pg 338]
In the early days of Kentucky, when churches were
few and far between, the people found it impossible to
follow the custom of their ancestors, of burying their
dead in the kirkyard. This resulted in each family of
prominence having its own burial plot about sixty feet
square hedged about by a wall of cut stone and overgrown
with ivy or Virginia creeper. Several cedar trees
planted within the inclosure kept pace of growth with
the family death rate and their branches sheltered the
slowly widening circle of graves. The family graveyard
was hallowed or consecrated ground which could not be
bought. Plantations changed owners, but all conveyances
exempted this plot, which descended from father
to son, from generation to generation. Laws were made
to protect it from incursion or desecration; it was a misdemeanor
to tear down the wall or a tombstone, or to
plow over the grave of a white person. A statute gave
to relatives the right of ingress to such a place, “situate
within the lands of another—to visit and to repair the
graves or inclosure protecting same.”

These desolate and usually neglected grave yards of
half forgotten stranger dead became to the superstitious,
“hanted places” to be shunned by night, and the
favorite site of many a ghost story told by the “black
mammy” to the children of her master.

There is reserved to the memory of Rev. Calvin
Campbell but small space in the history of his state.
He was buried at Campbell Station in the family grave
yard, beside his father and mother, as later was his wife
and years after her death their son.

Campbell Station is now the site of a thriving mining
and manufacturing town, Middlesboro, which, financed by
English capital, sprang over-night into being and prosperity.
[pg 339]
As a boom town, its founders claimed it would
rival Birmingham, possibly Pittsburgh, saying: “Just
across the mountain from us, easily reached through the
Gap, are inexhaustible beds of iron ore, and on this side,
less than a dozen miles from the ore are great veins of
the finest coking and smelting coal, and our city lies
between.”

In building Middlesboro, Yellow Creek was made
straight. The redeemed curves, filled by moving a mountain,
were laid off into building lots, which sold for a
price that paid expenses and rewarded the promoter.
Streets were laid off and graded through the old family
grave yard. The tombstone which marked the grave of
Colonel Archibald Campbell and briefly reviewed his
record as a colonel in the Continental Army, was placed
on exhibition in the city hall. The markers of the other
graves, as the earth that held the remains of the dead,
was carted and dumped into the old creek bed, to redeem
and transform a bend into a building lot.

The Town Company was a progressive corporation,
and corporations are soulless institutions, yet the recitation
upon the tombstone of Calvin Campbell might have
saved for it a place of honor in the city hall. But what
matter, he is risen, he is present with his Lord who gives
every man according as his work shall be.

The inscription, after giving his name, date of birth
and death read:

“This monument is erected to the father of this
Presbytery by shilling contributions from those persons
who were brought to Christ by him. After 1,800 had contributed,
the fund being sufficient, further contributions
were refused.”

[pg 341]




THE MAN AND THE ELEPHANT
========================


In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful,
who created the soul and gave to the tongue words of
wisdom, Listen! and I will tell you the story of a king
and an elephant; of a man who rose above environment
and of an elephant who was a victim of it; though this is
not the rule.

Let me illustrate. If a hog is shifted from the sty to a
state of nature, he lifts his snout from the mud and in time
acquires the courage of a wild boar; if a man returns
to a state of nature, he becomes a savage. Take an
Indian, educate him in your great school Harvard; if he
returns to his tribe, he cuts the seat from his trousers
and wraps himself in a blanket. The desert nomads,
wandering over the site of the birthplace of civilization,
philosophy and religion, scarcely glance at the half-buried
ruins about them, and live as did their fathers
five thousand years ago.

In your youth, do not let conceit shut your mind to the
acquisition of wisdom. Do not think that the world was
in darkness until you were born. Old age will shatter
hope and you will lose confidence in your generation and
become an ancestor worshiper, because you are birth-marked
mentally and physically by your ancestors;
because old age loves youth, and the present the past, and
contrasts the joys and sports of childhood with the toil
and pain and poverty of old age; because the evil days
have come, the clouds return after the rain, the house you
live in trembles, your grinders cease because they are few,
[pg 342]
your windows are darkened; and having eaten, you know
you are naked and are ashamed and afraid.

Solomon the Wise, philosopher and preacher, says:
“All is vanity \* \* \* one generation passeth away and
another generation cometh, but the earth abideth forever.
\* \* \* Fear God and keep his commandments, for this
is the whole duty of man.”


The Story.
----------

More than five thousand years before the birth of our
prophet Muhammed, The Praised One; even before Ur
was; the ancestors of King Surgulla, who belonged to a
Turanian tribe, came down from the Heights of Elam
on the east, into the plain country and finally settled
near Nun-ki, that is, the place of the first water, on the
left bank of the Euphrates.

Here was the temple of Hea, the water god; here the
palm trees grew in a great garden watered by crystal
springs; which place the Jews, a modern people, call the
Garden of Eden. Here sat the fathers in judgment under
a great palm tree and the chief mufti read from the
tablets:

   | “When the upper region was not yet called heaven,
   | And the lower region was not yet called earth,
   | And the abyss of Hades had not yet opened its arms,
   | Then the chaos of waters gave birth to all of them
   | And the waters were gathered together into one place.”

The first settlement of tents grew into a city and was
called the City of The Good God, Urugudda, which in
time was shortened to Eridu. Eridu enjoying several
centuries of peace and prosperity, became the capital of
[pg 343]
a great nation; a seat of learning, philosophy and religion
and architecturally beautiful. Its many white public
buildings, palaces and temples of fretted marble and porphyry
with their red and green tiled roofs and cupolas
and gold crescent-crowned minarets, resplendent under a
tropic sun, excited the cupidity of every bold robber,
who, riding from the desert, viewed its greatness from
the distant sand hills.

The people of Girsu were nomads; and worshiped the
sun, the moon and water. Their chief had a half grown
son, born to sit in the light of the sun, Chalginna. His
sole possessions were a light, keen spear, a swift white
camel, a water bottle made from a goat skin and a mat
on which to sleep. In the stillness of the night as he
rested on his mat of camel cloth, though he slept too
soundly to hear the roar of the camels or the bleating of
the goats or the barking of the jackal, he saw the city
and dreamed of its conquest and pillage. Each morning
fearful that during the night something might have
happened to it, he rode the miles across the desert to the
highest of the sand hills, from which with eyes keen as
an eagle’s, he looked, the while whetting his wolf-like
appetite to feed upon it.

In the city there was a boy his own age, the son of the
king, and nearly as strong and brave as he, who day
after day was drilled to take his father’s place; and who
had dreams of empire more extensive than his father’s.
When he was grown, he journeyed with a considerable
retinue eastward into Persia, where he was to marry
the daughter of a great prince. It was well his caravan
guard was strong; because Chalginna, who had gathered
about him near a hundred kindred spirits ruled by his
fiercer spirit hovered upon its flanks, as a band of hungry
[pg 344]
wolves from the shelter of the thicket eye the lambs
while the shepherd is about and lick their chops in
anticipation of mutton at the first lapse of vigilance.

The band reasoning that the wedding party, returning,
would be richer by the princess and her dowry, deferred
their attack; but reckoned not that part of that dowry
would be a dozen elephants, the first brought into the
valley of the Euphrates.

In a seemingly boundless desert, where the hills of
sand were shifted by the winds and famine and thirst
held cheerless dominion, they charged the caravan; but
their camels balked and ran away, never before having
seen or scented such monsters. Two, crazed by the sight
of the great beasts, lost their heads and charged alone,
bearing their now unwilling riders who rolled off and
sought to hide in the sand drifts. The prince and his
mahout, on a young male elephant hunted them. The
elephant threshed the camels into helpless cripples and
the prince killed the two robbers with shafts from his
cross-bow.

This failure taught Chalginna a lesson. When the
elephants were placed to pasture in the rich river plains;
under cover of the night, he drove his war camels into
their vicinity, until they knew the herd and the herd knew
the camels. The boldest of his men provided themselves
with short staffs, tipped with an iron point and hook,
first walked among the elephants and then rode about
upon their heads as did their mahouts. All the elephants
grew to know and mind them, except Gisco, the young
bull which the prince rode. He trumpeted wrathfully
and beat about dangerously with his trunk whenever a
Semite or camel approached him.

[pg 345]
Seven years have passed since the marriage of the
prince. Chalginna, first captain of the robber band, then
chief of his tribe is now ruler of Yemen and head of a
great confederacy of desert tribes. Erigalla is king of
Eridu, having succeeded his father.

Each of his caravans is pillaged or made to pay tribute
and his subjects are kidnapped and held for ransom, by
Chalginna. It is impossible to follow the robber into
the desert or to corner him in battle; because when
attacked, his force riding camels, scatters as chaff across
the desert of loose sand; and neither horses nor elephants
nor man can follow.

There are now thirty-three elephants, Gisco the bull,
which bears the king’s howdah, is leader of the herd
and knows no master except his mahout and the king.

One night, the uproar and trumpeting of the elephants
awoke the city, though their pasture was more than a
mile down the river. A company of horsemen sent to
investigate reported that seven of the elephants were
missing and the king’s great elephant was badly
wounded, having thirty spear heads buried in his fleshy
sides and many wounds about the head and neck; while
trampled into the earth about his feet or torn and
maimed almost beyond identification of form were the
bodies of seven camels and four of Chalginna’s troopers.

King Erigalla sent out five hundred horsemen and a
hundred and fifty chariots to recover his elephants.
When they came to the camp of Chalginna, he did not
run but gave battle and drove them back to the very
gates of the city. Then he dared the king to meet him
in the great river valley; but the king declined, feeling
that now he should reserve his strength, expecting an
assault upon the city.

[pg 346]
Again by night Chalginna visited the river pastures,
having a dual purpose; one was to kill the bull elephant,
but he had been taken to the palace garden, where,
soothed by the cooling spray from the great fountain,
he was being nursed back to his great strength; the other
was to cut down a great tree and a number of saplings,
which were dragged to the desert camp by thirty work
camels and need in the construction of a portable ram.
The great tree trunk was rigged to swing from a frame
on raw hide belts and a platform built on either side on
which men might stand and, grasping pegs driven in the
log, propel it back and forth with great force. Above
the whole Chalginna built an oval canopy of saplings,
broad enough not only to cover the machine, but to
shield the four great elephants which would bear it. When
finished the strongest of his men, twelve on each side,
took places on the platforms; and for some days men
and elephants were drilled in its manipulation. When
the training was completed, Chalginna having gathered
six thousand troopers, five thousand on camels and a
thousand horsemen, at twilight started on the march
against the city of Eridu. The portable ram, suggesting
an immense land tortoise, led the advance; Chalginna
and his staff rode beside it on the other elephants and
the troopers followed.

-----

Gisco, the king’s bull elephant, though fully recovered,
was still chained to a stake in the palace garden. There
he stood, swaying his great body, feeding upon rank and
tender rushes brought from the river marsh; and to drive
away the flies and reduce the heat occasionally sprayed
his body and the earth around with water from the fountain.
The wind blew from the desert. Shortly past
[pg 347]
midnight he ceased swaying and lifted his great ears,
stood for a moment as a great beast of bronze; then he
raised his trunk aloft and trumpeted an alarm that was
heard by half the city. The wind had borne to his keen
sense of smell the pungent odor of the camel, the scent
of the missing from his herd and given warning that his
old enemies, Chalginna’s troopers, were at hand.

The watchman on the wall looking carefully desertward,
saw a great black mass approaching the main gate
and gave a general alarm. The palace is awakened. The
king, his mahout and two of his guard come into the garden;
slaves having placed the war howdah upon Gisco,
they take their places, and the elephant lumbers off towards
the great gate. At the gate the king climbs from
the howdah into a midwall opening and ascends to the
barbican. Looking about, he sees his soldiers in place
behind the parapets; the city is on guard; then looking
desertward, he sees the black mass quite near and gradually
severs from it Chalginna’s tortoise, which he knows
is some implement of war and surmises its purpose.

When the tortoise is within fifty feet of the wall, darts
and arrows of the besieged are showered upon it, but
as it is well shielded by the sapling cover thatched with
rawhide, there is no halt until it is against the wall.
Then the great ram pounds upon the gate of bronze and
iron and the thuds are heard above the noise of conflict.
Chalginna has called and is knocking for admittance;
and the city trembles.

Barrels of boiling water are poured upon the machine
and great stones and darts are cast upon it; but it turns
all as a tortoise shell turns rain and the sticks and
pebbles of a boy. Then they throw burning pitch and
[pg 348]
firebrands upon it, but they have so water soaked it that
it will not burn.

The gates begin to give and in a last effort to destroy
the dread machine Gisco and half dozen elephants loaded
with warriors are let out a secret gate and charge upon
it. Three of the elephants reached the ram but are so
violently assailed by Chalginna and his staff and the
elephants on which they are riding, which turn against
their old mates, that they can do nothing more than
protect themselves. Gisco strikes at the machine and
nearly upsets it. The operator shifts the ram from the
gate and drives the great log against his side with such
force as to break several of his ribs and knock him to
the earth.

Chalginna, who has seen the king in the howdah borne
by Gisco, jumps to the back of the fallen elephant, but
slips and falls within reach of his trunk; his left arm
is seized and broken, almost wrenched from its socket.
His followers after rescuing their leader, swarm about
the king and overpower him. He is bound and borne
to the rear; and Chalginna is lifted back upon his elephant.
The gates yield; the robbers enter; and the city
is given over to pillage, violence and slaughter.

Many of Erigalla’s soldiers are slain, many of the
women are made slaves. The queen and her young son,
a boy of three years, though the city is searched, cannot
be found. Chalginna by conquest becomes its ruler and
adopts its standard as his own; an eagle with
outstretched wings bearing in her talons the cab of a lion.

-----

On a bare spot, but a few hundred yards beyond the
city wall, almost beside the dusty road leading to the
great gate; a place where lepers and the blind are wont
[pg 349]
to sit and beg; Chalginna placed along the edge of a
huge, half buried, flat rectangular stone, great cubes of
hewn granite four inches apart, so that they formed
a little doorless chamber not much larger than one of the
granite blocks used in its construction. The people passing
said to one another: “Our new king is building a
shrine or a tomb.”

When finished, except the dropping into place of the
cap stone weighing ten tons, the captive king is brought
forth and placed within. Then the cap stone is shifted
into place and the doorless prison closed upon the
prisoner.

Upon the front Chalginna cut this inscription:

“The palace of King Erigalla. His subjects are the
beggars and lepers of the city; they may render
obeisance to their sovereign; but let no other person
dare, or to speak with, save to revile him. He who disobeys
shall be made a beggar and blind.”

-----

Gisco, the day after the battle, lay where he had
fallen. When night came on, driven by thirst to move
despite the pain, slowly he rose on his great columnar
legs and stumblingly dragged his ungainly body to the
river where on the low bank he sank exhausted and filled
himself with the tepid water. Screened by a dense
growth of water palm and creepers, he lay there for
several days; then having recovered sufficiently to move
about a bit, fed upon the tender rushes of the marsh.

After many days his strength returned. Going forth
to feed in the pastures he found another bull had usurped
his place as leader of the herd. After a battle lasting
for hours he regained his supremacy.

[pg 350]
Chalginna’s mahouts, wishing to use the elephants to
move some great stones to strengthen the wall came
down to drive the herd to the city. Gisco would not let
one of them approach him, but followed after the submissive
herd, trumpeting his resentment.

Instinctively he shunned the prison of Erigalla until
he sensed his master was within, then pressing his head
against the great front stone, backed by his seven tons
of bulk he shoved upon it but could not shake or budge it
as the stones were set in cement mortar and riveted with
bars of iron. Then he passed his trunk into one of the
apertures; and the captive reached out his arm and
stroked the end of it with his hand.

A trooper passing on a camel jabbed the elephant in
the flank with the point of his spear. He turned more
quickly than seemed possible and killed both trooper and
camel; then driven to madness by the scent of the nomad
horde in possession of the city, or possibly to revenge
his master, he charged through the gate, killing and destroying
as he went, and for an hour was master of the
city.

They set out poisoned fruit to tempt him but he
would not eat. They sought to blind him with darts,
but his small eyes were uninjured, though his head and
great sides bristled with arrows.

At the order of Chalginna, a gang of workmen set a
great stake deep in the earth, without the wall beside the
road near the great gate and not more than fifty yards
from King Erigalla’s prison; to this they fixed a few
links of heavy chain.

The mahout who had driven him before the city had
been sacked was forced by threats of death to bring him to
the stake and fasten the chain upon his leg, a few inches
[pg 351]
above his five great toes; and Gisco too was a prisoner,
and so near that when the king spoke his name he heard
and answered.

It was well for the sanity of the king in the first
months of that imprisonment that the elephant was a
fellow prisoner; and by his low trumpetings conveyed to
him his sympathy and loyalty. No other being dared,
though a dirty beggar woman, bearing a small boy child
upon her hip, frequently passed, hoping to see the king,
but he sat in a corner out of sight, with his head bent forward
upon his breast or overcome by despair rolled in
the dust upon the floor.

Had the woman seen the face of the king she would
not have known him. The bones of his cheeks stood out,
his eyes were sunk in their sockets, and his face and body
were black from the dust of the highway, which nearly
choked him. Given barely sufficient water to sustain life,
he constantly suffered from thirst, and in a parched voice
mumbled half unconscious prayers: “Cast me not off,
Oh God! for no one else can help me. Grant that in my
affliction my eyes shall not grow blind to Thy goodness!
Feeble as I am, Thou only art my refuge.”

The man was nearly mad; the elephant ate his rushes
in contentment.

Once, when the sirocco blew so fiercely that the beggars
sought shelter behind the angles of the city wall and
the highway was deserted, a bunch of blue lotus flowers
rolled at the King’s feet and a familiar voice whispered
his name. He rose from his corner and peering through
a crevice between the stones saw the face of the beggar
woman whom he had seen pass and repass so often, always
carrying on her hip a little boy or now and again
feeding a handful of green rushes to Gisco. Reaching
[pg 352]
out his grimy hand and arm he touched the tips of her
fingers, and when his eyes had grown accustomed to the
light, he saw beside her face, that of his little son. Think
you they cared for the sandstorm?

The baby slept and woke and spoke of being hungry
and the wind blew on. The woman, because the jailer
would shortly come, bringing a small earthen jar of
water and a cake of bread made of millet seed, was forced
to leave. From a small leather bag, hidden in the breast
of her dress she took several priceless gems and tossed
them through to the king, retaining several less valuable
ones; then saying she would return between midnight
and morning she went to a hovel built against the outer
wall, in the beggar colony and prepared food for her boy.
When the morning star showed itself, lifting the sleeping
boy she came again to the prison, bringing a small
skin of water and a bag of dried fruit. From that day
she rose with the morning star and visiting her husband,
brought water and food. When the boy slept in the
afternoon, she sat in the narrow shade of the prison and
held him, but dared not speak a word.

In time, other beggars seeing the beggar woman resting
in the shade of the prison came there to rest and talk,
and they came to know the king and talk with him, telling
him what had occurred throughout the kingdom.

The captain of the gate guard, who had supervision of
the king and Gisco, noticed that the beggar children
played with and climbed over the elephant and fed him
grass and bits of bread, though he would not let one of
Chalginna’s troopers approach him. He also noticed that
the beggars were beginning to gather about the king’s
prison and to talk with him. This he thought to forbid,
but before doing so asked Chalginna for instructions. He
[pg 353]
thought it a great joke, saying: “It seems the inscription
is to be fulfilled. The prison is being converted into the
palace of the king of the beggars. Do not interfere with
the king’s court, let his subjects render obeisance. How
have the mighty fallen.”

One day a beggar from a far country resting against
the prison wall, heard the king bemoaning his fate and
asked:

“Why weepest thou?”

“Once I was king of this country, but now I am a
beggar and a prisoner.”

“What matter it? God giveth to one man a diadem
and a throne; another as great in his sight, sitteth in
the dust at the gate of the city and soliciteth alms; time
may shift the one to the other’s place, and one is as well
off as the other. If you would have peace, strike not the
feeble, soothe the afflicted, do good as it is offered to
your hand. If you would make the night of your prison
as bright as day, light it with the lamp of your good
works. The less you have here, the smoother your road
to paradise. A camel carrying only his hump of curses
and blessings makes the best time. You see before you a
beggar who would not exchange his peace of mind for the
sceptre of Chalginna. A king must be a light sleeper or
lose his head with his crown.”

The king thought over this counsel. A few days
later he asked the beggar woman to bring him a bag of
silver coins, and among them she placed a few gold ones.

Thereafter, when a beggar spoke to the king of being
hungry—after he had promised not to mention the gift—a
silver coin found its way into his hand. A poor water
carrier with a large family, who had lost his donkey, received
a gold coin to buy another. A mother of three
[pg 354]
small children was given one with which to buy a goat
and some food. A crippled beggar, forced to visit a far
country, was given two gold coins, with which he purchased
an old but serviceable camel.

The king advised with and comforted all who sought
him. His subjects grew in number, the homage they rendered
was prompted by affection and the tribute they
paid was love.

On his birthday, in the second year of his imprisonment,
the prison house was dressed in blue lotus flowers
and wreathed with palm leaves, and a great collar of
flowers was placed about the neck of Gisco.

Chalginna, riding in state beyond the great gate, was
impressed by the decorations and the gathering. More
than three hundred beggars, mainly women and children,
bearing palm branches, were gathered around the little
prison house and on a throne covered with goat skins, just
under the inscription, sat a little boy, wearing a crown of
blue lotus flowers and holding a palm branch sceptre.

Contemptuously curious, he asked the child’s name
and was told, “He is the son of a beggar woman, probably
a leper, that lives in a hovel near the gate,” whereat
he laughed and rode on.

The celebration ended by the planting of a thrifty
young palm to the right of the prison. From the day of
its planting, each beggar when he had water to spare,
poured it about its root, and the tree grew rugged and
thrifty from these libations.

On each succeeding birthday the same ceremony was
repeated, until a grove of fifteen thrifty young palms
shaded the prison and made a comfortable resting place
for the beggars and the traveling poor.

[pg 355]
The boy who took the part of king, now almost a man,
continued in that character. The assembly of beggars
at these birthday ceremonies now numbered thousands.
They looked upon the imprisoned king with more favor
than on Chalginna, who to feed his extravagances, became
an extortionist and was fast making beggars of
even his most loyal subjects. It was beginning to be
whispered about that many of those who participated in
the ceremony were not really beggars, and the captain
of the gate suggested to Chalginna that the crowd was
growing dangerous. He rode out to see and, impressed
by its proportions, determined in the future to forbid
the ceremony.

Ants ate to a mere shell the stake to which the chain
that bound Gisco was attached, and it parted almost of
its own accord. He was a great overfed elephant, ponderous
in bulk and frame, weighing more than seven
tons, and at last grown as tractable and lazy as a puppy.

When the stake parted, he had no thought to move
beyond the radius of the circle of the chain, but continued
to walk the old beat, or stand and sway his great bulk
as he had done for so many, many days. He no longer
struck at or trumpeted with rage when Chalginna’s
troopers rode within reach, but ate nuts and dates from
their hand.

His old mahout visiting the spot and seeing how the
long imprisonment had affected the elephant was moved
to tears. He made up his mind, by some expedient, to
rouse the spirit of the great beast. Coming through the
gate before it was closed, he spent the night without the
city and after midnight mounting to the old place on the
elephant’s head, sought to ride him to the river pastures;
[pg 356]
but he circled the old limit of his chain and could not be
budged beyond.

As the beggars looked after the material wants of
Gisco, so they had cared for the king; and he within the
confines of his prison, which was a space not a fiftieth as
great as Gisco’s circle, had found room to exercise and
keep his body in condition. Gradually, the wants and
wrongs of his subjects, which were many, forced upon
him the resumption of the cares of a sovereign, until he
was now the servant of the beggars, though he advised,
counciled and commanded them.

The man had lived above his environment, the elephant
had not.

Environment tended to Chalginna’s destruction; he
was too primitive by nature to be the king of a great city.
Had he been as capable as when he took the city, he would
long since have been alarmed by the influence of Erigalla,
and have placed him where deposed kings are harmless;
but power and the vices of the city had ruined a great
nomad chieftain. He was ambitious now only to indulge
new vices and extravagances, and energetic only in the
collection of tribute.

In the sixteenth year of Erigalla’s imprisonment the
beggars with certain of his former subjects, men who
could remain loyal to a deposed king, if he were a just
man, made extensive preparations to celebrate his birthday.
Many who heretofore had worn disguises as beggars,
came this time armed and habited in their usual
garb. More than ten thousand gathered without the
gates to celebrate the occasion.

Chalginna had forgotten his resolve to forbid the
ceremony. In these days he forgot many things. When
told of the great gathering, he called together his personal
[pg 357]
guard and rode out, curious to see and if he should
deem it expedient, forbid the ceremony.

He was scarcely noticed by the multitude, though a
few, feeling safe in the crowd, hooted their derision.

As he approached the prison, three strange elephants
drew a derrick against the wall and the great cap stone
was lifted half off. The captive king, wearing the crown
which Chalginna had never found, and dressed as was
his wont in the olden days, was lifted over the wall and
took his seat on a throne in the palm grove in front of the
prison.

Gisco, whose neck was bound about with a great
wreath of lotus flowers, seeing his old master or disturbed
by the three strange elephants, stepped gingerly
beyond the circle of his captivity and came slowly towards
them, giving low trumpetings of joy.

Chalginna, who assumed to treat the king’s temporary
release as a part of a farcical ceremony, but was so
exercised by it as to determine upon his death that night,
was incensed beyond self-control when the elephant
which had disabled his arm, passing near seemed to
sneeze contemptuously in his very face.

He struck at the great beast with his short sword, and
though he did little more than scratch through the thick
hide, he severed the wreath of lotus flowers and it dropped
to the ground.

Gisco the spiritless, the lazy, for a moment was transformed
into Gisco the war elephant. He struck the
king’s horse lifeless; grasped the king about the middle
and lifting him high above the heads of the astonished
multitude, dropped him head down, through the roof of
the prison; then shoving the half removed cap stone
[pg 358]
into place, slowly walked back to his old circle and began
eating from his rack of rushes.

While yet the multitude stood apathetic in astonishment,
the beggar seer, who was consulted as an oracle,
the same who had advised the captive king in the early
days of his imprisonment, climbed upon the cap stone of
the prison and addressed the multitude: “Let no one
oppose the decree of God. Chalginna is deposed.” And
the people echoed: “It is the will of God! Long live King
Erigalla! Long live the King!”

And he reigned in peace sixty and seven years from
that day, saw his son’s sons and their children, died in
honor and full of days, and was succeeded by his son,
the beggar boy, known as Surgulla the Great, who for
forty and three years ruled all the land from the Red Sea
east to the Persian Gulf and from the Black Sea south
to the Gulf of Aden.


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