Page images
PDF
EPUB

record them, they should find an honorable place in the annals of the respective states. They belong to them and to their history.

The shores of the Mississippi, and its tributary streams, present to the world a singular and most enchanting picture-one which future ages will contemplate with wonder and delight. The celerity with which the soil has been peopled, and the harmony which has prevailed in the erection of the governments, have no parallel in history, and seem to be the effect of magic, rather than of human agency. Europe was at one time overrun by numerous hordes, who, rushing like a torrent from the north, in search of a more genial climate, captured or expelled the effeminate inhabitants of the south, and planted colonies in its richest provinces; but these were savages, who conquered with the sword, and ruled with the rod of iron. The "arm of flesh" was visible in all their operations. Their colonies, like ours, were formed by emigration; the soil was peopled with an exotic population; but here the parallel ends. The country, gained by violence, was held by force; the blood-stained soil produced nothing but "man and steel, the soldier and his sword."

What a contrast does our happy country present to scenes like these! It remained for us to exhibit to the world the novel spectacle of a people coming from various nations, and differing in language, politics, and religion, sitting down quietly together, erecting states, forming constitutions, and enacting laws without bloodshed or dissension. Never was there

an experiment of greater moral beauty, or more harmonious operation.

Within a few years past, there has been much curiosity awakened in the minds of the American people, in relation to the recent history, and present state of their country. The struggle for independence, so brilliant in its achievements, so important in its results, so gratifying to national pride in all its details, long absorbed the sympathies, and occupied the thoughts of our countrymen. From that period they drew their brightest recollections; to. that period they referred for all their examples of national virtue. There was a classic purity and heroism in the achievements of our gallant ancestors which hallowed their deeds-but there were also substantial comforts and privileges secured to us by these disinterested patriots, which called forth all our gratitude, and in some measure blunted our perceptions of more recent and cotemporary events. With the recollections of Bunker's Hill and Brandywine before him, what American exulted in the trophies of an Indian war? What political transaction could awaken the admiration of those who had witnessed the fearful energies which gave existence to a nation? What hero or statesman could hope to win the applause of a people whose hearts dwelt with reverence upon the exalted standards of civil and military greatness exhibited in the founders of the American republic? Those luminaries, while they shed an unfading lustre on their country, cast a shadow over succeeding events and rising men; but their mantles silently fell upon the shoulders of their successors, who, with unpretending assiduity, pursued

the course which was to consummate the glory of the nation.

The excitement caused by those splendid national events has passed away, and they are now contemplated with calmness, though still with admiration. Other incidents have occurred in our history, sufficiently striking to attract attention. Of these the settlement and growth of the country lying west of the Alleghany mountains, are among the most important, and those which, perhaps, are destined to affect, more materially than any other, the national character, institutions, and prosperity.

But a few years have elapsed since the fertile regions watered by the beautiful Ohio, began to allure the footsteps of our countrymen across the Alleghany mountains. Covered with boundless forests, and protected by Alpine barriers, terrific to the eye, and almost inaccessible to the most adventurous foot, this lovely country remained not only uninhabited, but wholly unexplored, until Boone and his associates resolved to people and subdue it. The dangers and inquietude of a border life presented no obstacles to the adventurous spirit of the first settlers; nor were those hardships altogether new to those who thus voluntarily sought them. They were generally men inured to danger, or whose immediate predecessors had been, what they now became, warriors and hunters.

The revolutionary war, which had just terminated with infinite glory to the American arms, had infused a military spirit into the whole nation, besides affording to all whose bosoms glowed with the love of lib

erty, or swelled with the aspirations of ambition, opportunities of acting a part, however trivial, in the bloody but interesting drama. With the return of peace, when our citizens resumed their domestic avocations, cheerfully abandoning the arms they had reluctantly assumed, the inhabitants of the western frontiers alone formed an exception to the general tranquillity. Here the tomahawk was still bathed in gore; the husbandman reaped his harvest in the garb of the soldier, and often forsook his plough to mingle in the tumult of the battle, or enjoy the dangerous vicissitudes of the chase.

Of these hardy woodsmen or their immediate descendants, was composed that gallant band of pioneers, who first peopled the shores of the Ohio; men whose infant slumbers had been lulled by the midnight howl of the panther, and to whose ears the warwhoop of the Indian was as familiar as the baying of the faithful watch-dog. To such men home has no indissoluble tie, if that word be employed in its usual sense, as referring to local attachments, or implying any of those associations by which the heart is bound to a spot endeared by fond recollections. The dwelling-place of the woodsman is a frail cabin, erected for temporary shelter, and abandoned upon the lightest cause. His home is in the bosom of his family, who follow his erratic footsteps, as careless of danger, and as patient under privation as himself.

With these men were mingled a few others, whose character ranked higher in the scale of civilization, and who gave a tone to the manners of the new settlements, while they furnished the people with lead

ers in their military, as well as their civil affairs Several revolutionary officers of gallant name-many promising young men, seeking, with the eagerness of youthful ambition, for scenes of enterprise more ac tive than the quiet prosperity of their own homes afforded-and substantial farmers from the vicinity of the frontiers, who to the hardihood and experience of the woodsman, added the industry and thrift of rural pursuits-such were the men who laid low the forest, expelled the ferocious Indian, and the prowling beast of prey, and possessed themselves of a country of vast extent and boundless fertility.

They came in a manner peculiar to themselves; like men fond of danger, and fearless of consequences. Instead of settling in the vicinity of each other, insuring to themselves society and protection by presenting the front of a solid phalanx to the foe, they dispersed themselves over the whole land in small companies, selecting the most fertile spots without reference to the locality of others. The tide of emigration, as it is often called, came not like the swelling billows of the ocean, overwhelming all the land with one vast torrent, but like the gradual overflowing of a great river, whose waters at first escape the general mass in small streams, which, breaking over the banks, glide through the neighboring country by numberless little channels, and forming diminutive pools, swell and unite, until the whole surface is inundated. So came the pioneers. Depending more upon their valor than their numbers, these little com munities maintained themselves in the wilderness, where the Indian still claimed dominion, and the wolf

« PreviousContinue »