[figure description] Page 007.[end figure description]

Who that hath ears to hear hath not heard of
“Old Kentucky,” which, having now arrived at
the age of almost forty years, is entitled to assume
the honours of a patriarch among the young fry
of empires springing up like mushrooms in the
vast valley of the great father of waters? Its
early history is a romance; its growth a miracle;
its soil a garden; its women half angel, half heroine;
and a portion of its men, as hath been
credibly asserted, half horse, half alligator; to
which has lately been added a third ingredient, in
compliment to those monstrous productions of the
genius of Fulton that now float on the rivers of
the west, smoking like volcanoes, and scattering
showers of fire, to wit, “a small sprinkling of the
steamboat.”

Less than seventy years ago there breathed not
a single white man within its wide limits. In
that short period, which scarcely comprises the
life of a single individual, the face of the earth
and the face of man have undergone a total change
in this land of wonders. The wild exuberance
of nature has given place to the rich products of

[figure description] Page 008.[end figure description]

human labour; the wild animals of the forest
have been superseded by peaceful flocks and
herds; and the wild Indian has retired before that
destiny which pursues him everywhere. Nothing
but the rivers, the mountains, and the traditions,
remain to attest the truth of the picture given by
the early adventurers to this rich, romantic region.
The nations of hunters, the wandering
kings of the woods, who once claimed dominion
over the deep, dark forests, and the beasts that
inhabited them, and which might be termed, in
truth, their only constant occupants, have by degrees
disappeared, after a struggle of half a century,
so keen, so extensive, so bloody and revengeful;
so full of peril, suffering, and disasters; so fatal
to the red man and the white, that this smiling,
fruitful region, now the abode of almost a million
of prosperous people, obtained, and still retains,
in the traditions of past times, and in the
memory of the old surviving settlers, the ominous,
melancholy appellation of “THE DARK AND
BLOODY GROUND.”

The free, daring, and adventurous life of the
early settlers in this land of promise, gave to themselves
and their posterity a character of enthusiasm,
vivacity, courage, hardihood, frankness, and
generosity, which in some respects distinguishes
them from the rest of mankind. Reared in the
midst of dangers, and residing at a distance from
each other; possessing in general large estates
and numerous slaves; seeing few equals, and recognising
no superiors; accustomed to think and
act for themselves; their characters have a primitive
energy, a singularly bold, fresh, and original
cast. The settled forms and opinions, which have
been adopted without inquiry, and followed as a
matter of course by the older states have in a

[figure description] Page 009.[end figure description]

great measure given place to a code of their own,
originating in their early peculiar situation and
circumstances. Their ideas partake of a strong
infusion of poetical exaggeration; they speak on
a large scale, and know none of the degrees of
comparison but that of the superlative; their passions
are far more in want of the bridle than the
spur; and the popular language of the boatmen
is a singular compound of tropes, figures, and
metaphors, all drawn from, or having allusion to,
their early modes of life, and the scenes and occupations
to which they are most accustomed.

Nurtured in the wilds, in the midst of all the
grand features of nature, and familiar with dangers,
or at least the recent recollection of dangers,—
accustomed from their youth upwards to hear
the surviving pioneers of the west relate the hardships
and sufferings they encountered, endured,
and overcame, when they stood alone in the wilderness,
watched, waylaid, and beset in secret by
cunning and revengeful savages,—they acquired
an habitual consciousness of the presence of perpetual
perils, and learned to look death and tortures
in the face without flinching. The result of their
peculiar situation, habits, and modes of thinking
has been a race of men uniting a fearlessness of
danger, a hardy spirit of enterprise, a power of supporting
fatigues and privations, an independence
of thought, which perhaps were never associated
with the pursuits and acquirements of civilized
life in any other country than the United States.

This is, indeed, the great peculiarity of that
newest of all possible worlds, called the Western
Country. Nowhere else will be found that union
of apparent incongruities which exists in this remarkable
region. Nowhere else do we find in

[figure description] Page 010.[end figure description]

logcabins, in the midst of primeval forests, and beyond
the reach of all social intercourse, women
whose manners were formed in the drawing-room,
and men who have figured in the great world as
warriors, statesmen, and orators. The tale we are
about to relate connects itself with the early history
of this vast and growing empire of the west.

Previous section

Next section