was
won and settled by a number of groups of men, all acting independently
of one another, but with a common object, and at about the same time.
There was no one controlling spirit; it was essentially the movement of
a whole free people, not of a single master-mind. There were strong and
able leaders, who showed themselves fearless soldiers and just
law-givers, undaunted by danger, resolute to persevere in the teeth of
disaster; but even these leaders are most deeply interesting because
they stand foremost among a host of others like them. There were
hundreds of hunters and Indian fighters like Mansker, Wetzel, Kenton,
and Brady; there were scores of commonwealth founders like Logan, Todd,
Floyd, and Harrod; there were many adventurous land speculators like
Henderson; there were even plenty of commanders like Shelby and
Campbell. These were all men of mark; some of them exercised a powerful
and honorable influence on the course of events in the west. Above them
rise four greater figures, fit to be called not merely State or local,
but national heroes. Clark, Sevier, Robertson, and Boon are emphatically
American worthies. They were men of might in their day, born to sway the
minds of others, helpful in shaping the destiny of the continent. Yet of
Clark alone can it be said that he did a particular piece of work which
without him would have remained undone. Sevier, Robertson, and Boon only
hastened, and did more perfectly, a work which would have been done by
others had they themselves fallen by the wayside. [Footnote: Sevier's
place would certainly have been taken by some such man as his chief
rival, Tipton. Robertson led his colony to the Cumberland but a few days
before old Mansker led another; and though without Robertson the
settlements would have been temporarily abandoned, they would surely
have been reoccupied. If Henderson had not helped Boon found Kentucky,
then Hart or some other of Henderson's associates would doubtless have
done so; and if Boon had been lacking, his place would probably have
been taken by some such man as Logan. The loss of these men would have
been very serious, but of no one of them can it be said, as of Clark,
that he alone could have done the work he actually did.] Important
though they are for their own sakes, they are still more important as
types of the men who surrounded them.

The individualism of the backwoodsmen, however, was tempered by a sound
common-sense, and capacity for combi