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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
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VOICES; BIRTH-MARKS; THE MAN AND THE ELEPHANT ***
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This file was produced from images generously made available by The Kentuckiana Digital Library
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 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.”
“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; 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, 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 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 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. * *”
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?”
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 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? 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 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.
“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.
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. 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 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.”
“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 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.
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.
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.
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, 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.
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 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 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.
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, “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 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 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 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 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.”
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 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 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 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.
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 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.
I.Why was not room made for thy mother in the inn?Why wert thou manger-cradled, Lord? Could not heirshipFrom Israel’s greatest king procure for herWho 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; believingBattalions 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.“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 starAnd 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,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, decreeA massacre of babes; and in blind and willfulDestruction, mark our mad way with the red blossomsOf martyrdom; until Rama is a land of tearsAnd 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.”
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 hillsOf Gennesareth, Valley of Abundance, was God’s giftTo His son; the place to begin his ministry to men.II.Capernaum, on the western shore, where loved to restDesert-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.”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.
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,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 InfinityA 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.”
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.
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.”
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, 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.
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?”
“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.”
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 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.
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 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? 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 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 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.
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?”
“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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.”
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 whisperAs 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 paradiseWill always remain quite this nice,Unless real love shall come as guest?Fair one, think you the summer sunWill last until your life is doneAnd 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;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 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.”
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.
I.Chorister of the hearth,When stillness reigns, I singTo 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 wideFor young and happy bride,With husband by her side;May their sweet dream come true.IV.When morning star doth riseJoy 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.
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.
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!
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 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 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!”
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 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 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 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.”
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 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 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 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. 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 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.”
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.
“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 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.”
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.
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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 bloodThat 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 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 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 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.’
“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.
“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 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.’”
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 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.
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 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 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, 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 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 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 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.
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 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 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 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; 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.
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 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 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.
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 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.”
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 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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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, 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 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 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.
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.
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 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 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.
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 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 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.
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 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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
“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 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.
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 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 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, 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 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).
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, 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 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,” 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 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 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 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; 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 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.
“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 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.”
“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 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 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.
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 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.
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 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.”
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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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.
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.
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 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 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 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.
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 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 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 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 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: “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.
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 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 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.
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.
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.
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 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. 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.
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.
“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 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 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.”
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 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.”
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.”
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 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 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 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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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 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, 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 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.
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 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 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 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 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 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:
“* * * 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, 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.”
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.
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 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, 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 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 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 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.
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.
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 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?”
(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 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; 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.
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.
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 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 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 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.
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 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 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 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.
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 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 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.
“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; 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,And the abyss of Hades had not yet opened its arms,Then the chaos of waters gave birth to all of themAnd the waters were gathered into one place * *The moon he appointed to rule the nightAnd 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 nightIt shot forth its horns to illuminate the heavens.On the seventh day he appointed an holy dayAnd 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 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; 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 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.
“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 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, 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 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.”
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.
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 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, 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 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, 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 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.
“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 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 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 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 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.
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 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.”
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 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, 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.”
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.
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.
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 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.
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 * * *”
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 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. 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.’
“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.
“‘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?”
“‘“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 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.”
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 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 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.”
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 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.
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.
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 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 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 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 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.
“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 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 “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 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.
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 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 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.
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.
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:
“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.
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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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.
“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 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, 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.
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 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 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 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.)
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 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.
“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 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.
“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 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?
“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 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.
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. 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.”
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, 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.”
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 themAnd 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 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 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.
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.
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 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 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 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.
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 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 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 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 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.
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; 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 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 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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