Stories of Old Kentucky. Mrs. Martha C. Grassham Purcell
KENTUCKIANS IN TEXAS AND MEXICO
KENTUCKY IN THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES
KENTUCKY IN THE FIELD OF SCIENCE
KENTUCKY IN THE FIELD OF LETTERS
PREFACE
To be easily assimilated, our mental food, like our physical food, should be carefully chosen and attractively served.
The history of the "Dark and Bloody Ground" teems with adventure and patriotism. Its pages are filled with the great achievements, the heroic deeds, and the inspiring examples of the explorers, the settlers, and the founders of our state. In the belief that a knowledge of their struggles and conquests is food that is both instructive and inspiring, and with a knowledge that a text on history does not always attract, the author sets before the youth of Kentucky these stories of some of her great men.
This book is intended as both a supplementary reader and a text, for, though in story form, the chapters are arranged chronologically, and every fact recorded has been verified.
Thanks are due to the many friends who have granted access to papers of historical value, to many others who have assisted in making this book a reality, and especially to my husband, Dr. Clyde Edison Purcell, for his valuable suggestions, careful criticisms, and untiring coöperation.
MARTHA GRASSHAM PURCELL.
A LIST OF BOOKS ABOUT KENTUCKY
Audubon, Lucy: "Life and Journals of John James Audubon." Putnam.
Collins, R.H.: "History of Kentucky." Collins & Co.
Eggleston, E.: "Stories of American Life and Adventure." "Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans." American Book Co.
Hulbert, A.B.: "Boone's Wilderness Road." Arthur H. Clark Co.
Johnson, E.P.: "History of Kentucky and Kentuckians." Lewis Publishing Co.
Kinkead, E.S.: "History of Kentucky." American Book Co.
Marshall, H.: "History of Kentucky." Frankfort.
Otis, James: "Hannah of Kentucky." American Book Co.
Price, S.W.: "Old Masters of the Blue Grass." Morton & Co.
Shaler, N.S.: "Kentucky." Houghton Mifflin Co.
Smith, H.I.: "Prehistoric Ethnology of a Kentucky Site." Amer. Museum of Nat. Hist.
Smith, Z.F.: "History of Kentucky." Courier-Journal Co.
Stockton, F.R.: "Stories of New Jersey." American Book Co.
Thompson, E.P.: "A Young People's History of Kentucky." A.R. Fleming Publishing Co.
Townsend, J.W.: "Kentuckians in History and Literature." Neale Publishing Co. "Kentucky in American Letters." Torch Press.
Young, B.H.: "Prehistoric Men of Kentucky." Filson Club.
STORIES OF OLD KENTUCKY
WHEN THE OCEAN COVERED KENTUCKY
Facts are stranger than fiction; and when we read the great volume of Nature, we find it more intensely interesting, instructive, and exciting than any "tale" told by our master minds.
It is difficult enough for the youth of to-day to realize there was ever a time when Kentucky did not have a place on the map and in the march of events. Still more difficult is it for them to realize that there was a time when the ocean covered our state. Geological annals show that the surface of Kentucky was once the bed of the sea. This primitive ocean is supposed to have covered a large part of North America to the depth of several thousand feet. As we read the record in the soil and as we study the strata, we find evidence of a gradual retreat of the briny waters without proofs of any very violent or sudden disruptions of the ocean. The creation or appearance of sea animals, fishes, polyps, and the formation of limestone, sandstone, slate, grit, and pebble, are parts of the story here recorded.
The retreat of the briny waters continued and continued for ages, until finally the Cumberland or Wasioto Mountains emerged, followed by the Black, Laurel, Pine, Long, and Galico Mountains; other lower elevations then rose until only an inland sea, surrounded by sandy hills, remained. Then the grasses, reeds, and mosses left their impress; land animals, insects, birds, and reptiles appeared; vegetation increased, and trees and shrubs grew.
Still the waters receded; marshes, muddy swamps, licks, small lakes, ponds, clay and marl deposits were left; sinks and caves were formed; and land plants and animals increased.
As the waters still slowly but surely receded, creeks, rivers, and valleys received their present shape, the ocean reached its actual level, and the American continent assumed its shape. The huge animals—the big bears, buffaloes, jaguars, elephants, and mastodons—roamed over what is now Kentucky, and left their impress at Big Bone Lick, Drennon's Lick, and other points where the savage, the settler, and the man of science have successively meditated and marveled over their prehistoric remains.
THE ABORIGINES OF KENTUCKY
When but a little girl one of my greatest delights was to sit at the feet of my maternal grandfather and listen to the tales of the olden times. Grandfathers and grandmothers always love to tell stories, and boys and girls love to hear them. Our grandparents were not the only ones that enjoyed telling stories of the great past; Indians also related many things to their children of what had happened in the long ago. But as the red men had no books in which to record these happenings, some of their stories may be of real incidents and a great deal may be purely imaginary, for we know the Indian was always very superstitious.
There is a story told by the Lenni-Lenape Indians, who lived in eastern United States, that their ancestors