Stories of Old Kentucky Part 10

As the party deferred surveying and staking off lots for a while, Filson's restless spirit again urged him on; and, after surveying the Great Miami with a party, he ventured still farther alone and was never seen again. His friends supposed he was killed by the Indians; but there is no record of the time, place, or manner of his death, and nothing to mark his grave. His name has been aptly given to that body of earnest, eminent workers of Louisville, the Filson Club, who have done so much to collect and preserve the many interesting facts about Kentucky's early days.

SPANISH CONSPIRACY

Kentucky, the land of soldiers and statesmen, has erected in the hearts of her patriotic sons a monument, ever enduring, to Clark, Logan, Bowman, Scott, Shelby, Hardin, and scores of others whose work and courage won for us this fair domain. It can be truly said of each:

"An empire is his sepulcher, His epitaph is fame."

Though these brave men had conquered the wild beasts and barbarous red men, there were still other forces to meet. When this far-away West, between the Alleghenies and the Mississippi River, began to prosper, homes were built, forests became fields, and products sought a market.

As railroads were undreamed of, nature's method of transportation was their only outlet. To be able to load a flatboat with corn and other Kentucky crops, and float down the Ohio and the "Father of Waters" to New Orleans, would have made that city a great haven for the western pioneers. But Spain owned the mouth, and though Great Britain had ceded us free navigation of the river, Spain in the early nineties refused the free navigation and the right to deposit at New Orleans. Subsequent events will disclose how long this privilege was withheld.

We have elsewhere told how out of Fincastle County, Virginia, 1776, the county of Kentucky was erected, while in 1780 it was divided into the counties of Fayette, Jefferson, and Lincoln, and in 1783 they were united into a Kentucky District. But so far removed was this district from the capital of the commonwealth, so insurmountable were the natural barriers at that time, so inadequate was the mother state to protect the pioneers, that they began seriously to consider a separation and the erection of another member of the general government. Yet so great was their love for Virginia, it was only with the most delicate suggestion they began. Convention after convention met and adjourned with nothing more accomplished than a postponement of the desire nearest their hearts.

Vainly the people who had subdued this wilderness pet.i.tioned. Futile were the efforts of the national Congress or of the commonwealth of Virginia to grant their prayers. We can scarcely censure General James Wilkinson for wishing to cut the "Gordian knot of difficulty" by immediate separation and the erection of an independent government. At the same time the subtle music of the siren's song fell upon the ears of those who had won their homes through privations.

In June, 1785, Don Gardoqui was sent by the Spanish government to treat with the American government on any subject of dispute. The Honorable John Jay was commissioned to meet him, but the far-seeing members of Congress fortunately put the following check upon Mr. Jay: "That he enter into no treaty, compact, nor convention whatever with the said representative of Spain, which did not stipulate the right of the United States to the navigation of the Mississippi and boundaries as established by their treaty with Great Britain."

In a few months, Jay urged upon Congress a commercial treaty, which would, he claimed, redound to the benefit of the United States; the consideration on her part was "she should forbear the use of the navigation of the Mississippi for twenty-five or thirty years." Jay, that had stood "like a stone wall" at Madrid and Paris, was now willing to barter away the privileges of the nation for a mere sectional gain.

Happily, only seven of the requisite nine states voted favorably, and the chimerical plot failed. The facilities for knowing the actions of Congress were not nearly so great then as now; so when a communication was made, 1787, from Pittsburgh by "A Committee of Correspondence for Western Pennsylvania" to Kentucky pioneers, viz.: "That John Jay, the American Secretary for Foreign Affairs, had made a proposition to Don Gardoqui, the Spanish minister to the United States, to cede the navigation of the Mississippi to Spain for twenty-five or thirty years, in consideration of some commercial advantages to be granted to the United States; but such as the western country could derive no profit from," the effect may be easily imagined.

The people sent out a circular letter and prepared to hold a convention to oppose such oppression; but learning that the project had failed, after merely meeting and discussing the subject, they adjourned without any action upon it.

In June, 1787, General James Wilkinson secured the privilege from General Miro, Commandante, of shipping a vast quant.i.ty of tobacco to New Orleans annually and of depositing it in the government's warehouse.

More than ever he now urged the importance to Kentuckians of the free navigation of this great river, and the right to deposit at New Orleans.

Meanwhile, the Honorable John Brown of Danville had been chosen to represent the Kentucky District in Congress. Again the frontiersmen were doomed to disappointment when news came that the government had postponed the admittance of Kentucky, indeed, would refer the question to the new government.

As Don Gardoqui had failed in his scheme with John Jay, he now very opportunely sought Representative Brown; with what effect may be read in this part of a letter from Mr. Brown to Samuel McDowell, president of the various Kentucky conventions: "In a conversation I had with Mr.

Gardoqui, the Spanish minister, relative to the navigation of the Mississippi, he stated that, if the people of Kentucky would erect themselves into an independent state and appoint a proper person to negotiate with him, he had authority for that purpose, and would enter into an arrangement with them for the exportation of their produce to New Orleans on terms of mutual advantage." In a letter to Judge Muter, Mr. Brown sets forth the same, and in addition says: "This privilege can never be extended to them while part of the United States, by reason of commercial treaties existing between that court and other powers of Europe."

In 1788, at Danville, sat the seventh convention earnestly endeavoring to be loyal to both the people and the parent state. In this a.s.sembly General Wilkinson said: "There is one way and but one way, that I know for obviating these difficulties, and that is so fortified by const.i.tutions and guarded by laws, that it is dangerous of access and hopeless of attainment, under present circ.u.mstances." He dilated on the population, production, and prosperity of the country and its inalienable rights to the Mississippi. With natural adroitness, he caused the Honorable John Brown to tell the convention, "That provided, we are unanimous, everything we could wish for is within our reach."

Wilkinson also read a message he had addressed to the "Intendant of Louisiana" wherein he urged that should Spain persist in her refusal of the navigation of the Mississippi and cause a resort to arms, Great Britain would join the western people in securing it, and thus all Spanish-America would be endangered. Whatever individual profit Wilkinson derived from his connection with the Spanish authorities may be forgotten when we realize that he and the court party he represented would forever have fought any act to lose to Kentucky the navigation of the Mississippi.

June 1, 1792, Kentucky became the fifteenth state, and at last some of her trials were over. Still the British retained their forts and the Indians continued their depredations. At this time, the Revolution was shaking France from center to circ.u.mference. Remembering the aid of the French allies in our war for liberty and hating England with an implacable hatred, many of our people, especially the Kentuckians, were prepared to rally around the French flag.

Democratic clubs, modeled after the Jacobean clubs of France, sprang up; and the one at Lexington was so urgent as to pa.s.s the following resolution:

"That the right of the people on the waters of the Mississippi to the navigation thereof was undoubted, and it ought to be peremptorily demanded of Spain by the United States."

In November, 1793, the persons sent to Kentucky by Genet to arrange an expedition against the Spaniards at the mouth of the Mississippi, found a field ripe for harvest. They raised a company of two thousand men and induced General George R. Clark, at the head of the expedition, to accept the position of "Major general in the armies of France and commander in chief of the revolutionary legions on the Mississippi." He then proceeded to call for volunteers to reduce the Spanish forts on the Mississippi, and open it for free navigation. Flattering offers were made to all who would engage. Governor Shelby of Kentucky felt it was beyond his jurisdiction to attempt to restrain these forces. So, early in 1794, President Washington warned the people of the unlawfulness of such an undertaking, and the dangers of such an expedition. General Wayne was ordered to Fort Ma.s.sac, to prevent the descent of armed men.

Soon after, Genet was recalled, and his acts disavowed, and Washington's "friendship for all, but entangling alliances with none" was the policy of the hour.

In the summer of 1795, Governor Carondelet of Louisiana sent a messenger to Judge Benjamin Sebastian of the Court of Appeals of Kentucky, requesting him to send agents to New Madrid to negotiate with Colonel Gayoso on the subject of the Mississippi and regulation of commerce between the local authorities at New Orleans and the people of Kentucky.

In the latter part of the year, Judge Sebastian went to New Madrid, thence to New Orleans, where he secured the promise of the navigation of the Mississippi and New Orleans as a place of deposit, with duty payable only on imports. Fortunately for posterity, news came that in October, 1795, a treaty was consummated with Spain which acknowledged the United States as extending southward to 31, and westward to the middle of the Mississippi. It granted us the free navigation of that stream and the right of deposit at New Orleans for a period of three years, and a promise to continue these privileges longer.

Whether or not the proposals of Don Gardoqui and Baron Carondelet were merely a commercial consideration on the part of Spain, yet dastardly in the extreme were the futile attempts she made in 1797 to have Kentucky withdraw from the Union, seize Fort Ma.s.sac, and become an independent government.

Money and arms galore were promised those infamous enough to enter into this conspiracy to extend the northern boundary of Spain's possessions east of the Mississippi to the Yazoo. Again Spanish conspiracy received a blow.

A KENTUCKY INVENTOR

Though the stalwart pioneers, dressed in their primitive suits of deerskin or homespun, pushed farther and farther into Kentucky, stopping not for privation or peril, danger or disaster, climbing cliffs, fording streams, fighting savages, yet they were not all merely unlettered backwoodsmen hunters and fighters. Though the education of nearly all was more or less limited, a number of these early courageous Kentuckians have made unusual contributions to the useful sciences. If not the birthplace, Kentucky was the home and the burial place of a trio who can claim priority in the invention of the steamboat.

In 1778 there came to Kentucky from Connecticut a man of vigorous intellect and remarkable powers of perseverance, John Fitch. He had formerly been a silversmith, clock maker, and lieutenant in the Revolutionary forces from New Jersey. Though made captive by the Indians and held prisoner for a year, yet in 1780, as he gazed upon the beautiful Ohio, he had the first conception of overcoming currents by a new mode of navigation. Retiring to his surveyor's camp he pondered, and, remembering the work of Watt with steam, concluded that boats could be propelled by the same power.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fitch's steamboat.]

The story of his struggles, in pet.i.tions and disappointments, reminds one of Columbus, as he so long in vain sought aid to make his first voyage to America. In 1787, 1788, and 1789, Fitch built several boats, that made from four to seven and one half miles per hour between Philadelphia and Burlington. He pet.i.tioned the legislatures of a number of states as well as England, France, and Spain, and obtained not money, but the exclusive privileges of navigating certain streams by boats propelled by fire or steam. He became discouraged and finally despaired; he died at Bardstown, 1798, where his remains rest.

A pathetic circ.u.mstance connected with his invention is related. He wrote three volumes of ma.n.u.script, sealed them, and placed them in the Philadelphia Library to be opened thirty years after his death. When opened, they touchingly related his disappointments, brilliantly foretold the perfection of his plans, and sorrowfully and bitterly said, "The day will come when some more powerful man will get fame and riches from my invention; but n.o.body will believe that poor John Fitch can do anything worthy of attention."

By a coincidence two others, who chose Kentucky as their home, James Rumsey and Edward West, also were pioneers in this work. Both Fitch and Rumsey in 1784 exhibited their plans to General Washington. While Rumsey made his project public first, by means of a model, Fitch successfully plied a boat on the Delaware in 1785 and Rumsey on the Potomac the following year. Fitch claimed that he told Rumsey of his own plans to effect navigation by steam. In 1794, in the presence of hundreds of citizens, a miniature boat invented by Edward West, who had removed from Virginia to Lexington in 1785, proudly moved through the waters of the town branch of the Elkhorn, which had been dammed up near the center of the city.

In 1802 Mr. West secured a patent not only for his steamboat invention, but for a gun lock and a nail cutting and heading machine, the first invention of the kind in the world, reputed to cut five thousand three hundred and twenty pounds of nails in twelve hours. The patent of it sold for $10,000 and its operation enabled Lexington to export nails of her own manufacture to Louisville, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh.

So, while it remained for Robert Fulton in 1807 to gain honor from his invention, yet when in 1813 he brought suit to establish his claims as the inventor of steam navigation, he was defeated by a pamphlet of John Fitch's, which proved conclusively there were inventions that antedated the _Clermont_.

OTHER KENTUCKY INVENTIONS

In 1792, the year that Kentucky became a state, there came to Lexington a man named Nathan Burrows, who was a pioneer, not only as a settler, but as an inventor of the manufacture of hemp and a machine for cleaning it. He failed to reap any real benefit from this, but later manufactured a mustard that took a premium at the World's Fair in England in 1851.

Another resident of Lexington, John Jones, in 1803 invented a machine for sawing stone, and a speeder spindle.

It remained for a Kentuckian, Dr. Joseph Buchanan, while a student of medicine at Lexington in 1805, to originate the conception of the music of light to be accomplished by means of harmonific colors, luminously displayed, and to invent an instrument that produced its music from gla.s.ses of different chemical composition.

Lexington, then the Athens of the West, was for many years the home of a native Kentuckian, a Mr. Barlow, whose fertile mind made him the most celebrated of this group of interesting inventors. Having built a steamboat at Augusta, after his removal to Lexington, he invented in 1826-1827 a steam locomotive for a railroad with a car attached for two pa.s.sengers, with power to ascend an elevation of eighty feet to a mile.

An oval track was constructed for it in a room. It was opened to the public for exhibition and several took rides at fifty cents a ticket on the first "railroad train" ever run successfully in western America.

This was sold to a Mr. Samuel Robb, who exhibited the novelty at various cities including Louisville, Nashville, Memphis, and New Orleans; at the latter place it was burned while on exhibition. In 1837 Mr. Barlow built another locomotive and likewise sold it to a person who traveled and exhibited it.

The versatile mind of Mr. Barlow also produced a nail and tack machine, which was at once purchased and put into use by some capitalists. His rifled cannon, invented in 1840, patented later, caused Congress to appropriate three thousand dollars for an experimental gun, which, when finished and tested, was of greater accuracy and range than was even expected, and which is believed to have suggested most of the rifled guns since patented in both America and Europe.

The crowning invention of this great genius was his wonderfully complex production, a planetarium, that perfectly imitated the motions of the solar system, the first and only instrument of the kind in the world.

This was so perfected as to produce the minute relative revolutions of the planets. The first instrument was sold to Girard College, Philadelphia. A number of small ones were later made for colleges and inst.i.tutions, and one large one for the Military Academy at West Point, one for the Naval Academy at Annapolis, and one for New Orleans.

Some of these brought two thousand dollars each. One was exhibited at the World's Fair Exhibition, Paris, France, 1867, as Kentucky's contribution, and received the highest premium awarded any ill.u.s.trative apparatus.