FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59  
60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   >>   >|  
his farm on the Yadkin, which had been for many years under cultivation, and no doubt brought him a sum amply sufficient for the expenses of his journey and the furnishing of a new home in the promised land. He had, of course, to overcome the natural repugnance of his wife and children to leave the home which had become dear to them; and he had also to enlist other adventurers to accompany him. And here we deem it proper, before entering upon the account of his departure, to quote from a contemporary,[20] some general remarks on the character of the early settlers of Kentucky. "Throughout the United States, generally, the most erroneous notions prevail with respect to the character of the first settlers of Kentucky; and by several of the American novelists, the most ridiculous uses have been made of the fine materials for fiction which lie scattered over nearly the whole extent of that region of daring adventure and romantic incident. The common idea seems to be, that the first wanderers to Kentucky were a simple, ignorant, low-bred, good-for-nothing set of fellows, who left the frontiers and sterile places of the old States, where a considerable amount of labor was necessary to secure a livelihood, and sought the new and fertile country southeast of the Ohio River and northwest of the Cumberland Mountains, where corn would produce bread for them with simply the labor of planting, and where the achievements of their guns would supply them with meat and clothing; a set of men who, with that instinct which belongs to the beaver, built a number of log cabins on the banks of some secluded stream, which they surrounded with palisades for the better protection of their wives and children, and then went wandering about, with guns on their shoulders, or traps under their arms, leading a solitary, listless, _ruminating_ life, till aroused by the appearance of danger, or a sudden attack from unseen enemies, when instantly they approved themselves the bravest of warriors, and the most expert of strategists. The romancers who have attempted to describe their habits of life and delineate their characters, catching this last idea, and imagining things probable of the country they were in, have drawn the one in lines the most grotesque and absurd, and colored the other with a pencil dipped in all hues but the right. To them the early pioneers appear to have been people of a character demi-devil, demi-savage, not only with out the rema
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59  
60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Kentucky
 

character

 

States

 

settlers

 

country

 

children

 
cabins
 

dipped

 

number

 

secluded


stream

 

wandering

 

protection

 

surrounded

 
palisades
 

beaver

 

instinct

 

pioneers

 

produce

 

Mountains


northwest
 

Cumberland

 

simply

 
clothing
 
supply
 

planting

 

achievements

 

belongs

 

pencil

 

bravest


warriors

 

expert

 

approved

 

instantly

 

enemies

 

probable

 

strategists

 
romancers
 

things

 

imagining


catching

 

characters

 
attempted
 
describe
 

habits

 

delineate

 
unseen
 

attack

 
listless
 

absurd