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OF

KENTUCKY AND KENTUCKIANS

The Leaders and Representative Men in Commerce,
Industry and Modern Activities

BY

E. POLK JOHNSON

VOLUME I

ILLUSTRATED

PUBLISHERS:

THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY

CHICAGO-NEW YORK

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Introduction

Virginia is not alone the Mother of Presidents, but of states as well, Kentucky being her first and best-loved child. From territory ceded by Virginia to the Federal government, the splendid states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and a portion of Minnesota, were formed. This imperial domain, willingly and graciously bestowed, would seem sufficient to have granted the Old Dominion immunity from despoilment, but this was not to be. In the midst of the horrors of internecine strife during the War between the States, her fair territory was despoiled by force of arms and the state of West Virginia was formed from the mountainous western section, much of which lies adjacent to Kentucky. Virginia, which had given to the Union Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Patrick Henry, "Light Horse" Harry Lee and a host of other illustrious sons, did not escape the devastating effect of war. Even her first-born child, divided in sentiment, with the hand of father against the hand of the son, of brother opposing brother on war's red field, could not or would not raise a voice against the despoilment of the Mother State. The great wrong has at last come to be acquiesced in, and there is nothing left to the historian but to set forth the fact and pass on to other and more pleasing themes.

Kentucky, from its first entrance into history, has been a land of romance, of story and of song. The story of its first explorers and

that of the gallant "Hunters of the West," of whom one of her sons has sung, is an epic poem. Along the pages of this poem move those grim hunters of men: Daniel Boone, Simon Kenton, Logan, Floyd, George Rogers Clark and scores of others of their manly kind in stately tread, making clear the way for those who were to come after and give the then wilderness of the west its proud place in the sisterhood of states a place so unique and distinctive as to set Kentucky apart from all other states, and to make her sons claim the whole broad commonwealth and no small section thereof as their own.

A Kentuckian traveling in France was asked by a Virginian whence he came and replied "I am a Kentuckian;" when the other responded "You Kentuckians are the most loyal sons of their state whom I have met. Ask an Ohio man whence he comes and he is from Cincinnati; an Illinois man is from Chicago; but a Kentuckian is from Kentucky, and I honor him for it. The whole commonwealth is his." This is as it should be. Patriotism knows no narrow boundary lines.

When civil war came to divide and distract the state's peaceful and happy communities, Kentucky's sons took up arms as the sense of duty impelled them, but, each from his own. point of view, was fighting the battle of Kentucky and the Union, or Kentucky and the Confederate states; and it is to the eternal honor of the state that with few exceptions,

each did his duty bravely and brought no shame to the name of his state nor his pioneer fathers.

Upon whatever fields Kentucky's sons have fought they have added imperishable honor to the state. Whether in pioneer days they met the savage in the wilderness, or later the disciplined forces of England at New Orleans; the half-savage hordes of Santa Ana on the arid plains of Mexico, or in the fraternal strife of 1861-5, always "there stood Old Kentucky" in the person of her stalwart sons doing their duty every one, avoiding no service however arduous, shirking no duty however dangerous, and writing large upon the history of their country the magic name Kentucky. A learned judge charging the grand inquest of his court, enthused by his love for his state and his appreciation of the manly valor and love of justice always exhibited by her sons, declared: "Kentuckians are an imperial race. They love justice because it is

justice, and detest vice and wrong-doing because they are abhorrent to their sense of right and justice."

Of the great masses of Kentucky's people these words are true, despite the efforts of sensation mongers at home and elsewhere to magnify local happenings in certain localities into state-wide import. In the subsequent pages of this work these disturbances and their impelling causes will receive notice and explanation, and no pride of state nor locality will be permitted to gloss over wrong-doing, nor shall excuse be sought for those who, forgetting their heritage as sons of a proud state, have ruthlessly violated its laws. In a word, every effort is to be made to set down truthfully the history of the state with favors to none; animosity to none; with freedom from political bias or predilection, and a sincere desire to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth-let it hurt or help whom it

may.

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