The Winning of the West, Volume Three | Page 8

of
the defenders. Sometimes this barring out represented a revolt against
tyranny; often it was a conventional, and half-acquiesced-in, method of
showing exuberance of spirit, just before the Christmas holidays. In
most of the schools the teaching was necessarily of the simplest, for the
only books might be a Testament, a primer, a spelling book, and a
small arithmetic.
Frontier Society.
In such a society, simple, strong, and rude, both the good features and
the bad were nakedly prominent; and the views of observers in
reference thereto varied accordingly as they were struck by one set of
characteristics or another. One traveller would paint the frontiersmen as
little better than the Indians against whom they warred, and their life as
wild, squalid, and lawless; while the next would lay especial and
admiring stress on their enterprise, audacity, and hospitable
openhandedness. Though much alike, different portions of the frontier
stock were beginning to develop along different lines. The Holston
people, both in Virginia and North Carolina, were by this time
comparatively little affected by immigration from without those States,
and were on the whole homogeneous; but the Virginians and
Carolinians of the seaboard considered them rough, unlettered, and not
of very good character. One travelling clergyman spoke of them with
particular disfavor; he was probably prejudiced by their indifference to
his preaching, for he mentions with much dissatisfaction that the
congregations he addressed "though small, behaved extremely bad."
[Footnote: Durrett MSS. Rev. James Smith, "Tour in Western

Country," 1785.] The Kentuckians showed a mental breadth that was
due largely to the many different sources from which even the
predominating American elements in the population sprang. The
Cumberland people seemed to travellers the wildest and rudest of all, as
was but natural, for these fierce and stalwart settlers were still in the
midst of a warfare as savage as any ever waged among the
cave-dwellers of the Stone Age.
The opinion of any mere passer-through a country is always less
valuable than that of an intelligent man who dwells and works among
the people, and who possesses both insight and sympathy. At this time
one of the recently created Kentucky judges, an educated Virginian, in
writing to his friend Madison, said: "We are as harmonious amongst
ourselves as can be expected of a mixture of people from various States
and of various Sentiments and Manners not yet assimilated. In point of
Morals the bulk of the inhabitants are far superior to what I expected to
find in any new settled country. We have not had a single instance of
Murder, and but one Criminal for Felony of any kind has yet been
before the Supreme Court. I wish I could say as much to vindicate the
character of our Land-jobbers. This Business has been attended with
much villainy in other parts. Here it is reduced to a system, and to take
the advantage of the ignorance or of the poverty of a neighbor is almost
grown into reputation." [Footnote: Wallace's letter, above quoted.]
The Gentry.
Of course, when the fever for land speculation raged so violently, many
who had embarked too eagerly in the purchase of large tracts became
land poor; Clark being among those who found that though they owned
great reaches of fertile wild land they had no means whatever of getting
money. [Footnote: Draper MSS. G. R. Clark to Jonathan Clark, April
20,178.] In Kentucky, while much land was taken up under Treasury
warrants, much was also allotted to the officers of the Continental army;
and the retired officers of the Continental line were the best of all
possible immigrants. A class of gentlefolks soon sprang up in the land,
whose members were not so separated from other citizens as to be in
any way alien to them, and who yet stood sufficiently above the mass
to be recognized as the natural leaders, social and political, of their
sturdy fellow-freemen. These men by degrees built themselves
comfortable, roomy houses, and their lives were very pleasant; at a

little later period Clark, having abandoned war and politics, describes
himself as living a retired life with, as his chief amusements, reading,
hunting, fishing, fowling, and corresponding with a few chosen friends.
[Footnote: _Do._, letter of Sept. 2, 1791.] Game was still very plentiful:
buffalo and elk abounded north of the Ohio, while bear and deer, turkey,
swans, and geese, [Footnote: _Magazine of American History_, I.,
Letters of Laurence Butler from Kentucky, Nov. 20, 1786, etc.] not to
speak of ducks and prairie fowl swarmed in the immediate
neighborhood of the settlements.
The Army Officers.
The gentry offered to strangers the usual open-handed hospitality
characteristic of the frontier, with much more than the average frontier
refinement; a hospitality, moreover, which was never marred or
interfered with by the frontier suspiciousness of strangers which
sometimes