General observations upon Kentucky.—Nature of the soil.—First settlements in the state.—Right of property uncertain.—Population.
The state of Kentucky is situated 36 deg. 30 min. and 39 deg. 30 min. north latitude, and 28 deg. and 89 deg. west longitude; its boundaries to the northwest are the Ohio, for an extent of about seven hundred and sixty miles, to the east of Virginia, and to the south of Tennessea; it is separated from Virginia by the river Sandy and the Laurel Mountains, one of the principal links of the Alleghanies. The greatest length of this state is about four hundred miles, and its greatest breadth about two hundred. This vast extent appears to lie upon a bank of chalky stone, identic in its nature, and covered with a stratum of vegetable earth, which varies in its composition, and is from ten to fifteen feet thick. The {156} boundaries of this immense bank are not yet prescribed in any correct manner, but its thickness must be very considerable, to judge of it by the rivers in the country, the borders of which, and particularly those of the Kentucky and Dick rivers, which is one branch of it, rise, in some parts, three hundred feet perpendicular, where the chalky stone is seen quite bare.
The soil in Kentucky, although irregular, is not mountainous, if we except some parts contiguous to the Ohio and on this side Virginia. The chalky stone, and abundant coal mines which lie useless, are the only mineral substances worthy of notice. Iron mines are very scarce there, and, to the best of my remembrance, but one was worked, which is far from being sufficient for the wants of the country.
The Kentucky and Green rivers empty themselves into the Ohio, after a course of three hundred miles; they fall so low in summer time, that they are forded a hundred and fifty miles from their embouchure; but in the winter and spring they experience such sudden and strong increases that the waters of the Kentucky rise about forty feet in four-and-twenty hours. This variation is still more remarkable in the secondary rivers which run into it; the latter, {157} though frequently from ten to fifteen fathoms broad, preserve such little water in summer, that there is scarcely one of them which cannot be crossed without wetting the feet; and the stream of water that serpentines upon the bed of chalky rock is at that time reduced to a few inches in depth; in consequence of which we may look upon the Kentucky as an immense bason, which, independent of the natural illapse of its waters through the channel of the rivers, loses a great part of them by interior openings.
The Atlantic part of the United States in that respect affords a perfect contrast with Kentucky, as on the other side of the Alleghanies not the least vestige of chalky stone is seen. The rivers, great and small, however distant from their source, are subject to no other change in the volume of their waters but what results from a more or less rainy season; and their springs, which are very numerous, always supply water in abundance; this applies more particularly to the southern states, with which I am perfectly acquainted.
According to the succinct idea that we have just given of Kentucky, it is easy to judge that the inhabitants are exposed to a very serious inconvenience, {158} that of wanting water in the summer; still we must except those in the vicinity of great rivers and their principal channels, that always preserve water enough to supply their domestic wants; thence it results that many estates, even among the most fertile, are not cleared, and that the owners cannot get rid of them without the greatest difficulty, as the emigrants, better informed now a days, make no purchases before they have a correct statement of localities.
Kentucky is that of the three states situated west of the Alleghanies which was first populated. This country was discovered in 1770, by some Virginia sportsmen, when the favourable accounts they gave of it induced others to go there. No fixed establishment, however, was formed there before 1780. At that time this immense country was not occupied by any Indian nation; they went there to hunt, but all with one common assent made a war of extermination against those who wished to settle there. Thence this country derives the name of Kentucky, which signifies, in the language of the natives, the Land of Blood. When the whites made their appearance there, the natives showed still more opposition to their establishment; they carried for a long {159} time death and desolation, and dispatched, after their usual mode, their prisoners in the most cruel torments. This state of things lasted till 1783, at which time the American population having become too strong for them to penetrate to the centre of the establishment, they were reduced to the necessity of attacking the emigrants on their route; and, on the other hand, they were deserted by the English in Canada, who had abetted and supported them in the war.
In 1782 they began to open roads for carriages in the interior of the country; prior to this there were only paths practicable for persons on foot and horseback. Till 1788 those who emigrated from the eastern states travelled by way of Virginia. In the first place, they went to Block House, situated in Holston, westward of the mountains; and as the government of the United States did not furnish them with an escort, they waited at this place till they were sufficiently numerous to pass in safety through the Wilderness, an uninhabited space of a hundred and thirty miles, which they had to travel over before they arrived at Crab Orchard, the first post occupied by the whites.[48] The enthusiasm for emigrating to Kentucky was at that time carried to {160} such a degree in the United States, that some years upwards of twenty thousand have been known to pass, and many of them had even deserted their estates, not having been able to dispose of them quick enough. This overflow of new colonists very soon raised the price of land in Kentucky, from two-pence and two-pence halfpenny per acre, it suddenly rose to seven or eight shillings. The stock-jobbers profited by this infatuation, and, not content with a moderate share of gain, practised the most illegal measures to dispose of the land to great advantage. They went so far as to fabricate false plans, in which they traced rivers favourable for mills and other uses; in this manner many ideal lots, from five hundred to a hundred thousand acres, were sold in Europe, and even in several great towns of the United States.
Till the year 1792, Kentucky formed a part of Virginia; but the distance from Richmond, the seat of government belonging to this state, being seven hundred miles from Lexinton, occasions the most serious inconveniences to the inhabitants, and their number rising considerably above that required to form an independent state, they were admitted into the union in the month of March following. The {161} state of Virginia, on giving up its pretensions to that country, consented to it only on certain conditions; it imposed on the convention at Kentucky an obligation to follow, in part, its code of laws, and particularly to keep up the slave-trade.
Prior to the year 1782, the number of inhabitants at Kentucky did not exceed three thousand; it was about a hundred thousand in 1790, and in the general verification made in 1800, it amounted to two hundred thousand. When I was at Lexinton in the month of August 1802, its population was estimated at two hundred thousand, including twenty thousand negro slaves. Thus, in this state, where there were not ten individuals at the age of twenty-five who were born there, the number of the inhabitants is now as considerable as in seven of the old states; and there are only four where the population is twice as numerous. This increase, already so rapid, would have been much more so had it not been for a particular circumstance that prevents emigrants from going there; I mean the difficulty of proving the right of property. Of all the states in the union it is that wherein the rights of an individual are most subject to contest. I did not stop at the house of one inhabitant who was persuaded of {162} the validity of his own right but what seemed dubious of his neighbour’s.
Among the numerous causes which have produced this incredible confusion with respect to property, one of the principal may be attributed to the ignorance of the surveyors, or rather to the difficulty they experienced, in the early stage of things, in following their professions. The continual state of war in which this country was at that time obliged them frequently to suspend their business, in order to avoid being shot by the natives, who were watching for them in the woods. The danger they ran was extreme, as it is well known a native will go upwards of a hundred miles to kill a single enemy; he stays for several days in the hollow of a tree to take him by surprise, and when he has killed him, he scalps him, and returns with the same rapidity. From this state of things, the result was that the same lot has not only been measured several times by different surveyors, but more frequently it has been crossed by different lines, which distinguish particular parts of that lot from the lots adjacent, which, in return, are in the same situation with regard to those that are contiguous to them; in short, there are lots of a thousand acres where a hundred {163} of them are not reclaimed. Military rights are still looked upon as the most assured. One very remarkable thing is, that many of the inhabitants find a guarantee for their estates that are thus confused; as the law, being always on the side of agriculture, enacts that all improvements shall be reimbursed by the person who comes forward to declare himself the first possessor; and as the estimation, on account of the high price of labour, is always made in favour of the cultivators, it follows that many people dare not claim their rights through fear of considerable indemnifications being awarded against them, and of being in turn expelled by others, who might attack them at the moment when they least expected it. This incertitude in the right of property is an inexhaustible source of tedious and expensive law-suits, which serve to enrich the professional gentlemen of the country.