Jessamine County KyArchives History - Books .....Kentucky Pioneers 1898
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/ky/kyfiles.html
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com August 5, 2007, 12:11 am

Book Title: A History Of Jessamine County, Kentucky

Kentucky Pioneers.

   God always provides men for occasions. In emergencies they invariably arise
to fill the measure of the hour. Men are fashioned by their surroundings and
they must be judged by the same standard.

   The settlement of Kentucky and its wresting from the savage, made an unusual
demand upon the Ruler of the Universe. It required a man unknown in the past
history of the human race. It must be a man devoid of fear, filled with love of
adventure, with an instinct of freedom as strong as that of the eagle; as
self-reliant as the king of beasts, as hospitable as the Arab—who in the mighty
desert despises the yoke of the oppressor and who protects with his life the
guest who sits at his board; as patriotic as the Roman, as enterprising as the
Carthaginian, as fearless as the Saxon, as defiant of death as the Turk; and,
with all these, the subtle instincts of the Indian and his heroism under
misfortune.

   The Virginia cavalier, with his superb gallantry, ennobled by his lofty,
gentlemanly instincts, would not meet the requirements. The Pennsylvania
settler, with his indomitable patience and unfailing courage, fell short of the
demands, and the sturdy Scotch-Irishman of North Carolina, with his unquenchable
love of freedom backed by his superb bravery and uplifted by his abiding faith
in God, was not equal to what the time and circumstances exacted of the men who
should undertake the seemingly impossible task of conquering Kentucky.

   As we turn backward one hundred years to commemorate the character, lives and
virtues of our forefathers and to understand their sacrifices, their valor and
their splendid achievements, let us briefly picture their surroundings.

   These Kentucky pioneers were to conquer a land four hundred miles away from
help or succor. It was an untrodden forest, with no roads or path except such as
the buffalo in his migrations had trampled through the canebrake, or beasts of
prey had traced in their seach [sic] for food. It had no human inhabitants, and
its defense was by common consent imposed upon the savage red men, who claimed
as their lands that vast country which stretches from the great lakes in the
Northwest to the waters of the Tennessee, the Cumberland, Ohio, and Mississippi
rivers; covering an area of over 300,000 square miles. No survey had marked its
lines; he who traversed the solitude and depths of the forest must rely upon the
stars, or nature's marks upon the trees, as his guide. All supplies must be
carried on pack-horses or pack-men: powder and lead were to be transported over
six hundred miles; not a single blade of wheat or stalk of corn as yet had
sprung from its virgin and fertile soil. He who entered its domain must always
be prepared to meet an alert, savage, brave and merciless foe. The cooing of the
babe, the wail of defenseless women, or the appeal of the helpless prisoner,
found no sympathy or response in the foe who defended this land. Death by the
tomahawk or at the stake was the punishment the Indian meted to those who
invaded his beloved hunting ground. As he asked and expected no quarter for
himself, he gave none to his white foe. By day and by night the merciless
warfare was to be waged. The coming of the morning sun only quickened and
vitalized anew his barbarous plans, and its departure at night only gave time
for more relentless resolve to drive out the intruder.

   What race, what country, could produce men for such a task?

   The settlement of Kentucky and its possession and the maintenance of the
white man's supremacy was a part of God's plan to make the colonies free and to
form in America a republic—a government of the people by the people, which was
to be the great beacon light of freedom and the vanguard of mankind for the
establishment in the world of true national liberty.

   The thousand pioneers flung out into the wilds of Kentucky, with their log
stations and forts, close by the homes of the savages, whom England was arming
and teaching to slay white men and white women and white children—with their
skill as woodsmen, with their courage as soldiers, and with their endurance as
frontiersmen, and with their fierce hatred of the barbarous Indians, were worth
ten thousand men on the Atlantic under leaders as great as even Washington,
Greene, or La Fayette.

   These Kentucky pioneers stayed savage invasion of Virginia and Pennsylvania.
They kept back the herd of marauders and murderers, which in the wilds of Ohio,
Indiana, and Illinois, longed for an opportunity to imbrue their hands in white
men's blood, and the savage wrath which would have poured itself with
irresistible tide over the settlements of the upper Ohio, Monongehela and the
Kanawha, turned its savage and bitter force upon the stations in Kentucky. The
thousands of brave and noble men, and still braver women, who from 1775 to 1783,
died in the Kentucky wilderness, surrendered their lives to protect Virginia and
Pennsylvania and stood the red men at bay, while the colonists were enabled to
fight and defeat the British soldiers along the Atlantic coast.


Additional Comments:

Extracted from:

A HISTORY OF JESSAMINE COUNTY, KENTUCKY,
FROM ITS EARLIEST SETTLEMENT TO 1898.
By BENNETT H. YOUNG,
PRESIDENT POLYTECHNIC SOCIETY; MEMBER FILSON CLUB; MEMBER CONSTITUTIONAL
CONVENTION, 1890; AUTHOR HISTORY OF THE CONSTITUTIONS OF KENTUCKY, OF "BATTLE OF
BLUE LICKS, ETC, ETC.

S. M. DUNCAN, ASSOCIATE AUTHOR.

Every brave and good life out of the past is a treasure which cannot  be
measured in money, and should be preserved with faithfullest care.

LOUISVILLE, KY.: COURIER-JOURNAL JOB PRINTING CO., 1898.


File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ky/jessamine/history/1898/ahistory/kentucky248gms.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/kyfiles/