The Mt. Sterling advocate., 1922-09-26

No state In the union has ben NOR,
fortunate in having her history re
corded voluminously than his Ken
lucky. The chronicles of the com
monwealth. for the most part fair and
accurate. are also, in addition. inter
esting. The narrative of the trans
formation of the Dark and Bloody
Ground" into a land OF happy homes
and peaceful communities is one oi
thrills and romance, teeming with
spectacular incidents and dramatic
episodes.
In a recent issue of the Louisville
Herald, Dr. r. s. Cottrell, comment
ing upon the written record of this
states progress since the days it
formed the Red Mans favored hunt
ing ground, said:
From the time that good DR..
Thomas Walker climbed the Cumber-
lands down to the day when the to-
bacco growers made their last pool,
Kentucky has been in the limelight."
Nevertheless" he declares, "our
record of Kentucky history as it is
| written is far from perfect and in
number of instances weirdly at fault"
| He continues:
Zone defect that encounters us at
the beginning of our Investigation of
our own historiography is the pervert-
ed point of view of many of our his
tories. Our colonial periodic 1899
lis commonly treated as a period of
Indian lighting, and the impression is
given that the struggle with the In
dians was the chief intrest of the set
tiers in Kentucky. AS a matter of
fact Kentucky suffered less from the
Indians than Virginia, Massachusetts,.
or even Maryland.
The settling of Kentucky was at
tended with no undue difficulty as far
as the Indians were concerned. Ken
lucky no doubt was a dark and bloody |
ground before the coming of the |
white pen, but it hardly merited the |
name afterward. This view of the |
settling of Kentucky as period of
constant Indian fighting has thrown
into false relief many of the individ- |
ual settlers. 1t has made Boone and |
Clarke leaders in affairs because of
their spectacular part in the fighting. |
Todd and Floyd and Logan were
much more influential men among the
early Kentuckians than were the two
just named because their leadership
was a leadership in the routine things
of peace and not merely the excep-
tional war times"
The Kentuckian, as rule, will be
slow to detract from the place in
history awarded to Daniel Boone or
to admit that his work from the time
he entered this state with a hatchet
in one hand and a rife in the other,
through all those trying days in which
he fought Indians, killed bar"
swung in a grapevine swing, blazed
a trail and built a fort, were not of
the utmost Importance.
Yet even in the earliest days there
were others. And all those pioneers
who laid the groundwork for the Ken
lucky of today we're not unlike the
adventurous Boone or those who in
the year 1863 left Virginia and North
Carolina on a trip in search of game
and stayed so long that they have
gone down in tradition as the Lost
Hunters"
There we're surveyors, including
James Douglas, who found the bones
of the mastadon scattered on the
ground and used the huge ribss he
discovered for tent poles. There were
teachers among the number and 9TH
er men of constructive callings work
ing for the good of old Kentucky,
even before rugged pioneers fought
Chief Cornstalk from sunrise to sun
set and chased him and his Shawnees
to less attractive scenes.
DR.. Cottrell undoubtedly is correct
in pointing out that Kentucky his
tory gives too little place to the work
of quiet men, constructive workers
who do their tasks willingly and well
outside the spotlight's glare.
OF warriors bold and adventurers
daring, Kentucky has had many, and
their part will ever shine through the
story of the states development, like
some fancy thread in a woven gar
ment.
But of the men and women who in
a less sensational but more substantial
fashion performed services whose re-
suits are still to be realized, more
should be written.
If history, as Mr.. Webster says. "re-
cords and explains past events as
steps in human progress" then his
tory falters when it fails to give due
space to road builders, school advo-
Gates, physicians who lead those of
their profession, statesmen, men who
are pioneers inthought as well as ac-
tion and those whom business and in
itN N-f IsasaxF Al.