tic Colonel George Rogers Clark marched
northwest out of Virginia and descended the Ohio River, to seize the
Illinois country bordering the Mississippi, on his way he camped at the
Falls of the Ohio, drilled his men upon Corn Island, built a
block-house and left thirteen families to form a settlement.

The little settlement crossed to the mainland on the Kentucky side, and
the present city of Louisville was founded.

By 1785 it numbered about 150 persons, on Corn Island, and on the
mainland, living in log cabins upon clearings amidst the forest.

Among the settlers whose cabins were the farthest out from the village
was Colonel Pope. He and several other men formed a small settlement
of their own. They lived scarcely within shouting distance of one
another, and were independent, like all pioneers.

This winter of 1784-1785 Colonel Pope engaged a tutor for his two boys,
to teach them the three R's--Reading, 'Riting and 'Rithmetic. He did
not wish them to grow up numbskulls. He invited his neighbors to send
their boys over and be tutored at the same time. It was a backwoods
school.

Of course, on Saturday the school had vacation. And on a Saturday
morning of February, 1785, the two Linn boys (whose father, Colonel
William Linn, had been killed by Indians), young Brashear, young
William Wells, and a fifth who perhaps was one of the Pope boys,
started out duck-hunting.

The War of the Revolution had ceased by treaty of peace almost a year
and a half before, but the Indians had not quit. They still were of
the belief that the British had not given up their lands "across the
Ohio," and that the king their father was "only resting." So they
continued their forays along the Ohio River. They killed many more
Long Knives.[1]

After having been kept at school for most of the week, frontier boys
were not the kind to stay at home on Saturday for fear of Indians. Not
when there was good hunting, and they could borrow their fathers' or
brothers' guns and skip the chores. A successful hunter made a
successful Indian-fighter. It was the right training. A fellow who
did not know how to shoot was useless as a soldier, and a fellow who
could not take care of himself in the forest and prairies was useless
as a scout. Besides, the settler had to depend on his rifle for his
meat.

In those days there was wonderful hunting along the Ohio. The boys
knew exactly where to go. For turkeys, squirrels and deer they need
no