XXIV
_ST. CLAIR_
"Kentucky! Kentucky! I hear nothing else," exclaimed the FightingParson of the Revolution, who had thrown aside his prayer-book andgown to follow the armies of Washington. "If this western exoduscontinues Virginia bids fair to be depopulated." Even Jack Jouett, whohad ridden to warn Jefferson of Tarleton's raid, had gone to become anhonoured member of Kentucky's first legislature.
"Father, let me go."
Charles Mynn Thruston, the son of the Fighting Parson, had longdesired to follow Fanny Clark, but his father held him back. Smilingnow at the ardour of his son, he said, "You may go, my boy. I amthinking of the western country myself."
Preparations were immediately made, business affairs settled, and afarewell dinner brought friends to historic Mount Zion, the famousShenandoah seat of the Fighting Parson.
"A strangah desiahs to know, sah, if he can get dinnah, sah,"announced black Sambo.
"Certainly, certainly." Parson Thruston was the soul of hospitality."Bring him at once to the table, Sambo."
The stranger seated himself and ate in silence.
"I perceive," remarked the Parson after the courses had been removed,"I perceive that you are a traveller. May I inquire whence you come?"
Every ear was intent. "From Kentucky, sir," answered the stranger.
"Ah, that is fortunate. I am about to leave for that country myself,"exclaimed young Thruston, "and shall be glad to hear such news as youmay have to communicate."
The stranger smiled and pondered. "The only interesting incident thatI recall before my departure from Louisville, was the marriage of theKentucky belle, Miss Fanny Clark, to Dr. O'Fallon."
As if struck by a bolt from heaven, Charles Mynn Thruston fellunconscious to the floor.
Dr. O'Fallon was a young Irish gentleman of talent and learning. Anintimate friend of the Governor of South Carolina, just before theRevolution he had come to visit America, but espousing the cause ofthe colonists, the Governor promptly clapped him into prison.
"Imprisoned O'Fallon!" The people of Charleston arose, liberated him,and drove the Governor to the British fleet in the harbour.
Dr. O'Fallon enlisted as a private soldier. But surgeons wereneeded,--he soon proved himself one of skill unexcelled in America.General Washington himself ordered him north, and made himSurgeon-General in his own army. Here he remained until the close ofthe war, and was thanked by Congress for his services.
And now he had visited Kentucky to assist in securing the navigationof the Mississippi, and met--Fanny. With the charming Fanny as hiswife, Dr. O'Fallon rode many a mile in the woods, the first greatdoctor of Louisville.
Other emigrants were bringing other romances, and other tragedies."Ohio! Ohio! We hear nothing but Ohio!" said the people of NewEngland.
One rainy April morning the "Mayflower," a flatboat with a secondPlymouth colony, turned into the Muskingum and founded a settlement.
"Marie, Marie Antoinette,--did she not use her influence in behalf ofFranklin's mission to secure the acknowledgment of Americanindependence? Let us name our settlement Marietta."
So were founded the cities of the French king and queen, Louisvilleand Marietta. A few months later, Kentuckians went over and startedCincinnati on the site of George Rogers Clark's old block-house.
Into the Ohio, people came suddenly and in swarms, "institutionalEnglishmen," bearing their household gods and shaping a state.
"These men come wearing hats," said the Indians. Frenchmen worehandkerchiefs and never tarried.
Surveyors came.
Squatting around their fires, with astonishment and fear the Indianswatched "the white man's devil," squinting over his compass and makingmarks in his books. Wherever the magical instrument turned all thebest lands were bound with chains fast to the white man.
The Indians foresaw their approaching destruction and hung nightlyalong the river shore, in the thick brush under the sycamores,stealing horses and sinking boats. With tomahawk in hand, a leaderamong them was young Tecumseh.
"The Ohio shall be the boundary. No white man shall plant corn inOhio!" cried the Indian.
"Keep the Ohio for a fur preserve," whispered Detroit at his back.
While wedding bells were ringing at Mulberry Hill, Marietta wassuffering. The gardens were destroyed by Indian marauders, the gamewas driven off, and great was the privation within the walled town.
That was the winter when Governor St. Clair came with his beautifuldaughter Louisa, the fleetest rider in the chase, the swiftest skateron the ice, and, like all pioneer girls, so skilled with the riflethat she could bring down the bird on the wing, the squirrel from thetree.
Creeping out over the crusty February snow, every family in thesettlement had its kettle in the sugar orchard boiling down the maplesap. Corn-meal and sap boiled down together formed for many the dailyfood.
But with all the bravado of their hearts, men and women passedsleepless vigils while the sentinel stood all night long in the lonelywatchtower of the middle blockhouse. At any moment might arise thecry, "The Indians! The Indians are at the gates!" and with the longroll of the drum beating alarm every gun was ready at a porthole andevery white face straining through the dark.
When screaming wild geese steering their northern flight gave token ofreturning spring, when the partridge drummed in the wood and theturkey gobbled, when the red bird made vocal the forest and thehawthorn and dogwood flung out their perfume, then too came the Indianfrom his winter lair.
"Ah," sighed many a mother, "I prefer the days of gloom and tempest,for then the red man hugs his winter fire."
Always among the first in pursuit of marauding Indians, William Clarkas a cadet had already crossed the Ohio with General Scott, "a youthof solid and promising parts and as brave as Caesar," said Dr.O'Fallon.
Joseph Brant, Thayendanegea, presented a memorial to Congressinsisting upon the Ohio as the Indian boundary. His son came down toMarietta.
"Ah, yes," was the whispered rumour at Marietta, "young Brant, theeducated son of the famous Mohawk leader, aspires to the hand ofLouisa St. Clair." But the Revolutionary General spurned hisdaughter's dusky suitor.
The next day after New Year's, 1791, the Indians swept down onMarietta with the fiendish threat, "Before the trees put forth theirleaves again no white man's cabin shall smoke beyond the Ohio."
"Capture St. Clair alive," bade the irate Mohawk chieftain. "Shoot hishorse under him but do not kill him." Did he hope yet to win consentto his marriage with Louisa?
The next heard of St. Clair was when the last shattered remnant of hisprostrate army fell back on Cincinnati, a defeat darker, moreannihilating, more ominous than Braddock's.
"My God," exclaimed Washington, "it's all over! St. Clair'sdefeated--routed; the officers are nearly all killed, the men bywholesale; the rout is complete--too shocking to think of--and asurprise into the bargain."
No wonder Secretary Lear stood appalled as the great man poured forthhis wrath in the house at Philadelphia.
Fifteen hundred went out from Cincinnati,--five hundred came back. Athousand scalps had Thayendanegea.
The news came to Mulberry Hill like a thunderbolt. Kentucky, evenPittsburg, looked for an immediate savage inundation,--for was not allthat misty West full of warriors? The old fear leaped anew. Like anirresistible billow they might roll over the unprotected frontier.
From his bed of sickness General Clark started up. "Ah, Detroit!Detroit! Hadst thou been taken my countrymen need not have been soslaughtered."
At Marietta, up in the woods and on the side hills, glitteredmultitudes of fires, the camps of savages. Hunger added its pangs tofear. The beleaguered citizens sent all the money they could raise bytwo young men to buy salt, meat, and flour at Redstone-Old-Fort on theMonongahela. Suddenly the river closed with ice; in destitutionMarietta waited.
"They have run off with the money," said some.
"They have been killed by Indians," said others. But again, assuddenly, the ice broke, and early in
March the young men joyfullymoored their precious Kentucky ark at the upper gate of the garrisonat Marietta.