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JOHN FILSON 
 From a miniature in an old book that once belonged to him, 
 
 NOW IN POSSESSION OP REUBEN T. DURRETT, OF LOUISVILLE, Ky. 
 
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 John Filson, 
 
 The First Historian of Kentucky. 
 
 AN ACCOUNT OF 
 
 HIS LIFE AND IVRITINGS, 
 
 JJrinripallu. from Original ©nurtcs. 
 
 PREPARED FOR THE 
 
 FILSON CLUB 
 
 And Read at its Meeting, in Louisville, Ky., June 26, 1884, by 
 
 REUBEN T. DURRETT, 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE CLUB. 
 
 LOUISVILLE, KY: 
 
 JBrtnteD for the jftifion Club 
 
 BY JOHN P. MORTON & CO. 
 
 1884. 
 
F45J 
 
 (£op$jrigl}icb 
 
 ^ig Jleubfiit ©. -purrelL 
 
 1BS4. 
 
 
& 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 -^^..4, — 
 
 N the 15th of May, 1884, Richard H. Collins, 
 William Chenault, John Mason Brown, Basil 
 W. Duke, George M. Davie, James S. Pirtle, Thomas W. 
 Bullitt, Alexander P. Humphrey, Thomas Speed, and 
 Reuben T. Durrett organized the Filson Club, in Louis- 
 ville, Ky. , for the purpose of collecting and preserving the 
 history of Kentucky, and especially those perishing scraps 
 of history and biography which have never been published. 
 The organization limited its membership to persons known 
 to take an interest in historic studies and to be capable of 
 so arranging and presenting the information they may 
 obtain as to be useful to others. The Club was named 
 in remembrance of John Filson, the first historian of 
 Kentucky, and Mr. Durrett, who was made its President, 
 was requested to prepare and read at its next meeting an 
 account of the life and writings of the author whose name 
 had been assumed. This request was complied with, and 
 the article so prepared and read at the meeting, June 26, 
 1884, elaborated with an appendix and embellished with a 
 likeness of Filson, a specimen of his chirography, and his 
 map of Kentucky, is here published as the first contribution 
 of the Filson Club to the historic literature of the State. 
 
 THOMAS SPEED, Secretary 
 
 Louisville, Ky., June 26, 1884 
 
John piLSON, 
 
 THE FIRST HISTORIAN OF KENTUCKY. 
 
 2Uji> SGittle 2£ttotan about Hf'xlaan. 
 
 NE hundred years have now elapsed since John 
 Filson published what has been regarded as the 
 first history of Kentucky, and indeed the first, in English, 
 of any portion of our vast domain west of the Alleghany 
 Mountains. During this long period all that has been 
 made known concerning this author and his work might 
 be told in an ordinary paragraph. Volumes have been 
 published about Daniel Boone, the hunter and Indian- 
 fighter, but scarcely a page concerning Filson — his first 
 biographer — who did more than any one else to make the 
 name of Boone immortal. Beginning with the first pub- 
 lished notice of Filson, written for the Cincinnati Direc- 
 tory of 1 8 19, probably by Nathan Guilford, all that is there 
 told concerning him is that he bargained, in 1788, with 
 Denman and Patterson, for one-third of the ground on 
 
5 John Filson: 
 
 which Cincinnati was afterward built, projected a town 
 on the site by the name of Losantiville, and made an 
 excursion into the country in which he was killed by the 
 Indians. To this brief account Burnet's Letters, pub- 
 lished by the Ohio Historical Society in 1839, added that 
 Filson had been a surveyor, and Perkins' Annals of the 
 West, in 1846, that he had been a school-master. Nothing 
 further was contributed by any author with whom I am 
 familiar until Ranck, in his History of Lexington, in 1872, 
 added that he was teaching school there in 1782, writing 
 the narrative of Boone soon after the battle of the Blue 
 Licks, and exerting himself in behalf of the Transylvania 
 Seminary in 1788. The few facts concerning Filson, thus 
 scattered through different publications, were gathered 
 together by Richard H. Collins in his History of Ken- 
 tucky, in 1874, with additional particulars about the time 
 and place of his death and the republications of his book in 
 Paris and London, the whole presented in the first form of 
 a narrative or biographical sketch that had been attempted. 
 Kentuckians who take an interest in the history of their 
 State can hardly rest satisfied with such a meager account 
 of their first historian and author; and especially must 
 this be true with the members of the Club which has 
 assumed the name of Filson, and which was organized 
 for the purpose of collecting and preserving the history 
 
His Life and Writings. j 
 
 of the State, particularly the fragmentary and perishing 
 parts thereof. In response, therefore, to the desire of the 
 Filson Club, that the first contribution to its archives 
 should be more knowledge of the author whose name it 
 bears, I have collected and herewith commit to its keep- 
 ing, in addition to what has been previously published, 
 such information concerning him and his writings as I 
 have been able to gather from the words of some who 
 knew him in life and others who knew of him, and from 
 public records and private papers yet spared by time. 
 
 <Ube Okauufatber of iFtlson. 
 
 Among the English-speaking families who succeeded 
 the Swedes and the Dutch in the rich valley of the beau- 
 tiful Brandywine, a small stream in Southeastern Pennsyl- 
 vania, made famous by the victory of General Howe over 
 General Washington in the early stages of the American 
 Revolution, were the Filsons. Here John Filson, the 
 grandfather of the historian, on his little farm of two 
 hundred acres, in the township of East Fallowfield, died in 
 1 75 1. In accordance with the law of primogeniture, then 
 in force in the colonies, he bequeathed his lands to his 
 oldest son, Davison, to the exclusion of his younger sons 
 and daughters. 
 
8 yohn Filson: 
 
 Slje Iffattftr of Wilson. 
 
 Davison Filson, the father of the historian, was a thrifty 
 farmer, and added to the number of acres he had inher- 
 ited. At his death, in 1776, he left money in his purse, 
 debts against his neighbors, grain in his barn, crops grow- 
 ing in his fields, and stock running upon his pastures. 
 Before his death he deeded to his sons, John and Robert, 
 the lands he intended them to have, and by will provided 
 for his six other children. Independent of his lands, his 
 personal property was valued by the appraisers appointed 
 by the court at about ,£300, which, though insignificant 
 in comparison with some of the Virginia estates on the 
 James, was quite a sum for an humble farmer on the 
 Brandywine. 
 
 Slj? Itrth. of % l^iatortan. 
 
 John Filson, the historian, the second son of Davison 
 Filson, was born and raised on the Brandywine farm; but 
 no record has been found to fix the exact date of his 
 birth. In the ninth volume of the second series of the 
 Pennsylvania Archives the marriage of Davison Filson to 
 Agnes Boggs is given, in the First Presbyterian Church 
 of Philadelphia, as of the date of February 9, 1768. John 
 
His Life and Writings. g 
 
 Filson, the historian, could hardly have been born of this 
 marriage, if the date is rightly given. It would make him 
 at most only about eight years old when he received 
 deeds from his father for lands, and not to exceed sixteen 
 when he published his history of Kentucky. Either the 
 date is wrongly given, or the historian came of a pre- 
 vious marriage. In the will of John Filson, the grand- 
 father of the historian, which bears the date of September 3, 
 1748, a grandson named John is mentioned, and to him 
 bequeathed a Bible. This grandson was probably John 
 Filson, the historian, and if so, his birth can not be fixed 
 earlier than 1747. Some books known to have belonged 
 to the historian, and now in my possession, have the sig- 
 nature of John Filson on the seventeenth and forty-sev- 
 enth pages. It has been the habit of some owners of 
 books to write their names upon particular pages, the fig- 
 ures of which indicate the date of purchase, others the 
 time of the owner's arriving at the age of twenty-one, etc. 
 It was, possibly, the peculiarity of Filson to write his name 
 on two separate pages, the figures of which, when joined 
 together, would represent the year of his birth. Thus 
 17 and 47, when brought together, made 1747 as the year 
 of his birth, which, though entirely conjectural, is not 
 inconsistent with the will of his grandfather. 
 
IO John Filson: 
 
 Sjta lEarlg ICtft an \\\t Iranogfatttf. 
 
 Previous to his coming to Kentucky, at the probable 
 age of six and thirty, but little is known of Filson. 
 Through some of the Kentucky pioneers with whom he 
 was thrown after coming to this region, something has 
 come down in tradition concerning his early life in Penn- 
 sylvania. The son and grandson of humble farmers in 
 the valley of the Brandywine, he passed his child- 
 hood, his youth and his early manhood in the pursuits 
 common to the agriculturists of his neighborhood. He 
 plowed the ground, cultivated the crop, harvested the 
 grain, mowed the meadow, and rode to mill on the bag 
 of corn to be ground into meal, as did other boys. In 
 1784, when Isaac Hite was erecting his mill on Goose 
 Creek, above Louisville, Filson was present, and told the 
 following anecdote on himself, which the late Abram Hite 
 used to repeat as a souvenir of what the boys did in 
 early times: On one occasion, while on his way to mill 
 on the Brandywine, Filson avoided the usual ford for the 
 purpose of seeing new sights, and attempted to cross the 
 water at another point where the depth was unknown. 
 When near the middle of the stream his horse suddenly 
 plunged into water too deep to be waded, and had to 
 swim for the shore. The bag of corn left the back of 
 
His Life and Writings. \ \ 
 
 the horse as the water rose over it, and was lost in the 
 current. Filson, however, held fast to the mane of the 
 horse, and, dangling his legs on the surface like streamers 
 from a masthead, was safely borne to the shore. The loss 
 of the bag of grain he found somewhat serious, when he 
 returned to the empty meal-barrel at home with nothing 
 to make the family hoe-cake. However, the children were 
 put on short rations until the next day, when another 
 bag was sent to mill. It was not sent by John this time, 
 however, but by his brother Robert, while John engaged 
 in the more disagreeable work of hoeing the corn in the 
 field. 
 
 %\& Education. 
 
 In addition to the neighborhood schools of the valley 
 of the Brandywine, Filson is said to have had the advan- 
 tage of some instruction from Rev. Samuel Finley, who 
 once had an academy in that vicinity, and afterward 
 became President of New Jersey College. The writings of 
 Filson, though occasionally marred by serious faults of 
 composition, indicate that he was taught at school some- 
 thing more than simple reading, writing, and arithmetic. 
 He is credited with having composed the word Losanti- 
 ville, the name first given to the present city of Cincin- 
 nati. This name, being made up of the initial letter L, 
 
I 2 yohn Filson : 
 
 for Licking, the Latin word os meaning mouth, the Greek 
 anti meaning opposite to, and the French ville, meaning 
 city — all, together, signifying the city opposite the mouth 
 of Licking — indicates that he had some knowledge of the 
 Greek, Latin, and French languages. He is known to 
 have understood the French language, and to have used 
 it to advantage in his intercourse with the French in the 
 Illinois country. He also proposed to teach French in a 
 school that he projected at Lexington, Kentucky, in 1788. 
 
 iftH Hani of a iHUttarg Iwnro. 
 
 What part, if any, Filson took in the great struggle 
 for American independence is not known. No military 
 epithet seems to have been attached to his name. On 
 the rolls of none of the companies engaged in the colo- 
 nial or revolutionary wars has his name been found. The 
 name of Samuel Filson appears as a private in the com- 
 pany of Captain Bond, in 1759. Robert Filson was a 
 lieutenant in the corps of six hundred and fifty-two vol- 
 unteers called for by the Committee of Safety in 1776. 
 George Filson, a private in Captain Wilson's company, 
 was wounded at the battle of Trenton, and Thomas Fil- 
 son was a sergeant in Captain Semple's company in 1780. 
 The Filsons do not seem, therefore, to have been of the 
 
His Life and Writings. ig 
 
 non-combatant class, and yet we fail to find the name of 
 the historian on the company lists of his day. It is pos- 
 sible that he may have been engaged in teaching school, 
 and in this useful vocation was released from the neces- 
 sity which called others into the field. He was a sur- 
 veyor also, and in the patriotic use of the ferule and 
 compass may have reposed in comparative quiet from the 
 throes of the tremendous military struggle around him. 
 
 %t ffipabpa ppttttoglhattta for 2Cpnturkg. 
 
 If, however, his occupation gave him rest and immu- 
 nity during the revolutionary war, he was destined to six 
 short years of activity and danger when that struggle 
 ended. Scarcely had the thunders of the revolutionary 
 guns been silenced, when, borne upon the tide of land 
 speculation which was sweeping from all directions toward 
 Kentucky, he made his way from the Brandywine to the 
 Elkhorn, in the midst of what he justly described as "the 
 most extraordinary country upon which the sun had ever 
 shone." Over the mountains from Chester to Pittsburgh, 
 and down the Ohio to Limestone, and through the dark 
 forests to Lexington, he made his way with the enthu- 
 siasm of the adventurer who stops not at difficulties or 
 dangers in his path to the new "land of promise." 
 
i a "John Filson: 
 
 iipfl Arrttral in Xratitrkg, anil lEntrtea of £ian&. 
 
 The date of Filson's first arrival in Kentucky is not 
 known with precision. Mr. Ranck, in his history of Lex- 
 ington, has him teaching school in that place in 1782, 
 and writing the adventures of Daniel Boone after the 
 return of the old pioneer from the Chillicothe expedition, 
 in the fall of that year. The first recorded evidence of 
 his presence in Kentucky was his entry of lands a year 
 later. On the 19th of December, 1783, he entered in 
 the books of Colonel Thomas Marshall, then surveyor of 
 Fayette County, two tracts of land, one for 4,922 and the 
 other for 5,000 acres, and on the following day another 
 tract of 2,446}^ acres. These entries were made on treas- 
 ury warrants assigned to Filson by Clem Moore and John 
 Boyd, and the 12,368^ acres thus obtained, in the aggre- 
 gate had not probably cost the locator more than that 
 number of cents. Virginia had offered her public lands 
 for the paper money she had put in circulation during 
 the revolutionary war, and long before' Filson came to 
 Kentucky to locate these lands, this currency had depre- 
 ciated as a thousand of paper for one of silver. Besides 
 these twelve thousand and odd acres in Fayette, Filson had 
 1,500 acres in Jefferson County, which he had purchased of 
 Squire Boone, and other possessions in the Illinois coun- 
 try which I have not been able to ascertain on account 
 of the burning of the records at Vincennes in 18 14. 
 
His Life and Writings. 15 
 
 ^ia JTirat uJboitnbt of a i^fltoru. of ICrnturkg. 
 
 It is probable that Filson came to Kentucky for the 
 purpose of acquiring lands on warrants brought with 
 him. When he once got here and examined the rich 
 country and mingled with the hospitable pioneers and 
 saw the tide of immigration constantly flowing in from 
 all quarters, he shrewdly enough foresaw a great country 
 here in the future, and concluded to write a book and draw 
 a map that might help to people it more rapidly. He, 
 himself, in his preface to his work, says that he pub- 
 lished it "solely to inform the world of the happy climate 
 and plentiful soil of this favoured region." Filson, how- 
 ever, could not have been ignorant of the fact that his 
 own lands, as well as others, would be increased in value 
 in proportion to the number of immigrants that his book 
 might draw to this region. 
 
 i£oto Ije (gathered ^Information for %x& look and Map. 
 
 Although the year 1783 was not entirely free from 
 Indian depredations, the terrible damages they had re- 
 ceived in their own homes beyond the Ohio, the year 
 previous, at the hands of General Clark, rendered them 
 comparatively harmless. Filson had access enough to 
 
1 6 yohn Filson: 
 
 such pioneers as Daniel Boone, Levi Todd, James Har- 
 rod, Christopher Greenup, John Cowan, and William Ken- 
 nedy, all of whom he mentions with gratitude, to gather 
 the needed information for his book, and could go over 
 the country to make surveys and observations for his 
 map without the dangers that beset the forest in previous 
 and subsequent years. He has come down through tradi- 
 tion as exceedingly persistent in his searches for informa- 
 tion, so much so that it was understood among the pio- 
 neers that the only way to get rid of his inquiries was 
 to answer them. The proverb was, he could ask more 
 questions than everybody and answer fewer than any- 
 body. 
 
 if 10 Sank and Mnp i|JubltBh*i> at itffiertttt parra. 
 
 In 1784 his work was ready for publication. There 
 was then no printing press west of the Alleghany Moun- 
 tains, and the author had to make his way up the Ohio 
 to Pittsburgh, and across the mountains to Philadelphia 
 and Wilmington, to find publishers. He took the man- 
 uscript of his book to Wilmington, in the State of Dela- 
 ware, where it was printed by James Adams. The draw- 
 ing of his map was taken to Philadelphia, where it was 
 engraved by H. D. Pursell and printed by T. Rook. 
 Both the map and the book bear the date 1784, and 
 have now reached the venerable age of an hundred years. 
 
His Life and Writings. \j 
 
 GlijarartrriuttrH of iFilamt'B fHajj. 
 
 This map by Filson was the first ever made of Ken- 
 tucky, and forms an important part of his history. It 
 was a vast improvement upon the general maps of Char- 
 levoix, Evans, Hutchins, Pownall, and others, which had 
 preceded it and given a very inadequate idea of the 
 country on the Ohio River. It presented the three coun- 
 ties of Jefferson, Fayette and Lincoln, into which the 
 district of Kentucky was then divided, and gave the to- 
 pography of the country — its rivers and creeks, its moun- 
 tains and hills, its prairies and canebrakes, its barrens 
 and forests, its mineral, salt and medical springs, and 
 other characteristics, with wonderful accuracy for the early 
 period at which the work was done. The only towns 
 then in the district were Louisville and Bardstown in 
 Jefferson County; Harrodsburg, Boonesborough, and Dan- 
 ville in Lincoln, and Lexington, Leestown, and Green- 
 ville in Fayette, all of which are laid down in their 
 proper places. The two last named have long since dis- 
 appeared and passed from the memory of the living. 
 They are placed, by this map, on the north side of the 
 Kentucky River, a short distance below where Frankfort 
 now stands. Leestown was an important resort for the 
 hunters and improvers north of the Kentucky River; 
 
 3 
 
j8 yohn Filson: 
 
 and the main road from Louisville to Lexington passed 
 through it about a mile below Frankfort. This road had 
 been originally made by the buffaloes, and crossed the 
 Kentucky River at one of the few places along its ex- 
 tended course where it was practicable to make the pas- 
 sage. A striking feature of this map is the number of 
 forts laid down upon it and indicating the circumscribed 
 life of the pioneers. In the triangular space bounded 
 by a line drawn from the Falls of the Ohio to the great 
 bend of the Licking, in which the battle of the Blue 
 Licks was fought, thence southwardly, through Boones- 
 borough to the old English station toward the head 
 waters of Dick's River, and thence through Bardstown 
 and back to Louisville, more than fifty fortifications are 
 exhibited. In these forts the thirty thousand inhabitants 
 of Kentucky were then shut up, something like cattle 
 in pens, for protection against the wily savage. There 
 was no going out from the pickets which surrounded 
 these block-houses during what was called the Indian 
 season without danger. The crop was cultivated within 
 range of the rifles of the fort, some keeping guard while 
 others hoed the corn and weeded the vegetables. The 
 roads, first made by the buffaloes and adopted by the 
 pioneers, are laid down with such accuracy that the po- 
 sition of the old historic places may be ascertained at 
 
His Life and Writings. ig 
 
 this distant day by measurements from known objects 
 whose positions have not changed. On the old roads 
 leading out from Louisville to Lexington and to Bards- 
 town are the fortified stations known by the names of 
 Spring, Floyd, Low Dutch, Sturgis, Linn, Sullivan, and 
 Boone, just where they stood an hundred years ago, with 
 a scale on the map to show how far they were from 
 the Falls and the distances of one from the other. On 
 this map, too, are located the few dwelling houses of 
 our pioneers that stood outside of the pickets of the 
 forts. The Hite house in Jefferson, the Marshall, the 
 Wilkinson, the Todd, the Johnson, and the Boone in 
 Fayette, each appears in its proper place and may now 
 be traced to its location by the descendants of the his- 
 toric characters who occupied it in 1784. Between Salt 
 and Green rivers is laid down that mysterious forma- 
 tion which our forefathers called the Barrens, because 
 they found it without the forest trees which covered 
 other portions of the country. To the east appeared the 
 warriors' path leading from Cumberland Gap to the 
 Shawnee town at the mouth of the Scioto, and a little 
 southeast of it the trace that Boone marked out for the 
 adventurers of Transylvania in 1775. That wonderful 
 bend of the Ohio opposite to the Great Miami, in which 
 the huge bones of the mastodon were found, and that 
 
20 jfohn Filson: 
 
 no less striking curve of the Licking, in which the bat- 
 tle of the Blue Licks was fought, may be examined as 
 specimens of the accuracy with which the rivers are 
 laid down. Take it all together, this map of the Dis- 
 trict of Kentucky in 1784 was a masterly work to have 
 been produced more from conversations with the pio- 
 neers than from the use of the compass and chain. In 
 this day of triangulation, etc., for charts, it is incompre- 
 hensible how such men as Boone and Todd and Har- 
 rod could take a hunt up and down a long river and 
 then give such an account of it as to enable a surveyor 
 to lay it down upon paper with its windings and peculi- 
 arities so as to distinguish it from all other streams 
 and give it a fixed place in the geographical knowledge 
 of the country. This, however, was done, and done so 
 well that the subsequent maps of Kentucky by Barker, 
 Imlay, Crevcoeur and others have been but little more 
 than reproductions of Filson's map with the additional 
 counties and towns established since it was made. The 
 early history of the State of Kentucky can not be prop- 
 erly understood without this map, and it must forever 
 remain the best authority for the topography of the State 
 one hundred years ago. 
 
 Filson knew well enough that his map of Kentucky 
 was an excellent work, far in advance of anything of 
 
His Life and Writings. 2 1 
 
 the kind previously attempted. He was proud of it and 
 dedicated it to the Congress of the United States and 
 to General Washington. In the just pride of his accom- 
 plishment, however, he did not forget those who had 
 given him their aid in the good work. At the top of 
 his map he drew a scroll, and in it placed the following 
 inscription : 
 
 While this work shall live let this inscription remain a monument of the 
 gratitude of the author to Col'ls Dan'l Boone, Levi Todd, and Jas. Harrod; 
 Capt. Christ. Greenup, Jno. Cowan, and Wm. Kennedy, Esq'rs, of Kentucke, 
 for the distinguished assistance with which they have honored him in its com- 
 position, and a testimony that it has received the approbation of those whom 
 he justly esteems the best qualified to judge of its merit. 
 
 The names thus presented on the scroll of Filson show 
 us the kind of men with whom he associated when he came 
 to Kentucky, and indicate the sources of the information 
 which made up his book and his map. Daniel Boone, Levi 
 Todd, James Harrod, Christopher Greenup, John Cowan, 
 and William Kennedy are the six who make up the roll of 
 honor. They were among the earliest and most efficient of 
 those who laid the foundation of our Commonwealth. They 
 were soldiers, statesmen, citizens, fathers, neighbors, and 
 friends peculiarly suited to the conditions in which their 
 
22 yohn Filson: 
 
 lot was cast. Boone appears first on the list, as well he 
 might, for he was the first of them to see the fair land of 
 Kentucky, and, like another Adam in the garden of Eden, 
 to give names to the waters and lands which spread out in 
 their wild majesty before him. Levi Todd, the cultured 
 pioneer whose careful habits and beautiful chirography 
 made him the first clerk of the first court ever held in 
 Kentucky and afterward first clerk of the county of Fay- 
 ette, appears second on Filson's list. Filson spent consid- 
 erable of his time at the house of Todd, near Lexington, 
 and there did much of his writing and drawing for his 
 book and map. He next mentions the name of James 
 Harrod, after whom Harrodsburg, claimed to be the first 
 settlement in Kentucky, was named. Harrod was a woods- 
 man almost as famous as Boone, and remembered the 
 country so well as he saw it that the information he im- 
 parted was well suited for the purposes of Filson. He 
 had one of those kind and generous hearts, moreover, that 
 never grew weary of the inquiries made of him for what 
 he knew. Like Filson, Harrod mysteriously disappeared 
 from the circle of the living while exploring the wild 
 woods, and no one knows the manner of his death be- 
 yond the conjecture that he fell at the hands of one who 
 enticed him into the wilderness ostensibly to show him 
 the mystic silver mine of Swift, but in reality to murder 
 
His Life and Writings. 27 
 
 him. Christopher Greenup is next mentioned by Fil- 
 son, who, although fourth on the list, afterward became 
 the most renowned of them all. He first became clerk 
 of the District Court of Kentucky; next a member of 
 Congress; then clerk of the Senate, and finally Governor 
 of the State. Filson next mentions John Cowan, who 
 antedates them all, except Boone, in his coming to Ken- 
 tucky. Cowan was among the first surveyors at the Falls 
 of the Ohio, in 1773, and saw Captain Bullitt run the lines 
 of the Connelly tract, on which the great city of Louisville 
 was afterward built. He then selected for himself a tract 
 of land on the Ohio opposite to Twelve-Mile Island, above 
 Louisville, where he reared a cabin and raised a crop of 
 corn the following year. In spite of all his toils about 
 Harrodsburg and other places, he claimed this land in 
 Jefferson County as his settlement in Kentucky, and secured 
 four hundred acres for this right, with a pre-emption of 
 another thousand adjoining. He was a woodsman, scarcely 
 inferior to Boone or Harrod, and had a memory from 
 which nothing escaped that he had ever seen or heard. 
 In the autumn of life he was a frequenter of the place 
 of my birth and early years, where he told again 
 and again his stories of pioneer life to willing listeners 
 who forgot them not but repeated them and sent them 
 on their way to our times. Some of these stories con- 
 
2 a yohn Filson: 
 
 cerned Filson, and have been embodied in this article. 
 Lastly, the name of William Kennedy appears in the list 
 of Filson. Kennedy was a member of the second and 
 third conventions which met at Danville, in 1785 and 
 1787, for the purpose of separating Kentucky from Vir- 
 ginia, and when the new State was erected was one of 
 the electors from Mercer County for choosing senators 
 under the first constitution. He was one of the earliest 
 comers to Kentucky, and a woodsman of marvelous tact 
 and prudence. With such men as these to impart infor- 
 mation, we need not wonder that Filson should have 
 made such a map of Kentucky as he produced in 1784. 
 There was scarcely a river or creek in the whole district 
 along which one or more of them had not been hunting 
 or exploring, and when the individual information of each 
 was combined into a whole, Filson had a knowledge of 
 the country both vast and reliable. Hence, a map was 
 produced that was the wonder of the day, and that must 
 forever remain the only picture of our State an hundred 
 years ago. It is the map not only of Filson, the accom- 
 plished surveyor and cartographer, but of Boone and 
 Todd and Harrod and Greenup and Cowan and Ken- 
 nedy, the best informed pioneer woodsmen of their day. 
 
His Life and Writings. 2 c 
 
 SKbliorjrattbir Error abnitf Jffilaon'a ffltxp. 
 
 Quite a dispute arose some years ago as to whether 
 a map of Kentucky accompanied the original history of 
 Filson. The exceeding great rarity of the map and its 
 repeated absence from the few copies of the book that 
 got into the hands of sellers induced them to account 
 for its want by asserting that it had never existed. This, 
 too, in the face of the statement more than once made 
 in the book itself, that it was accompanied by a map, 
 and in spite of the equally emphatic announcement of 
 Parraud, in the French edition of 1785, that he had 
 translated the map as well as the book. When Geo. 
 A. Leavitt & Co., of New York, sold the Murphy copy 
 last March they followed the example of their predeces- 
 sors and boldly made the following announcement in 
 their catalogue: "It is proper to state that although the 
 title calls for a map, none appears to have been pub- 
 lished; when found it is usually supplied from the 
 French translation." This was too grave an error to 
 have been committed by parties professing such superior 
 knowledge of the books they offered as to herald them 
 with an elaborate descriptive catalogue. If they had 
 simply said the book they offered for sale had not the 
 map and they could not account for its absence, it 
 
 4 
 
26 yohn Filson: 
 
 would have been well enough; but to presume to say 
 the map was never published was going decidedly too 
 far for truth. In 1882, when Col. John Mason Brown 
 delivered his centennial address in commemoration of the 
 battle of the Blue Licks, it was his wish to have the 
 oration, when published, accompanied by a facsimile of 
 the original map of Kentucky by Filson. He attempted 
 to find an original from which a copy could be obtained, 
 with the following result published in a note to the 
 pamphlet containing his oration: 
 
 The original edition of Filson's work was published at Wilmington in 1784, 
 with a certificate under the hands of Daniel Boone, Levi Todd, and James Har- 
 rod. It also purported to contain a "Map of Kentucke." 
 
 It is strange that no copy of the edition of 1784 can be found containing 
 the map referred to, though very diligent search has been made. I have to 
 thank Mr. A. R. Spofford, Librarian of the Congressional Library at Washington, 
 Mr. Lloyd P. Smith, of the Philadelphia Public Library, Mr. James L- Whitney, 
 of the Boston Public Library, Mr. Lyman C. Draper, the veteran collector and 
 historical writer, and Robert Clarke, Esq., of Cincinnati, for their kindness in 
 searching out this matter. 
 
 The better opinion seems to be that Filson did not publish his map with 
 his book, but made it public afterward. It is hardly possible otherwise to account 
 for the absence of the map from every known copy of the edition of 1784. 
 
 Yet, on the other hand, Reuben T. Durrett, Esq., of Louisville, Kentucky, 
 is very positive in his recollection that the map referred to was in the copy of 
 Filson which he presented to the Public Library of Louisville, Kentucky, and 
 which has since been stolen. 
 
His Life and Writings. 27 
 
 The high authorities thus arrayed against the map 
 in the note of Colonel Brown's pamphlet had not, like 
 Leavitt & Co., denied the existence of the map, but had 
 suggested its publication at a time different from the 
 book. In this they were mistaken, because the book 
 and map both appeared in 1784; but the whole dis- 
 pute was calculated to produce the impression that I 
 had been mistaken in the statement that I had a book 
 and map together. I myself knew that I could not be 
 mistaken, because I had made copious notes from my 
 map before giving it to the Public Library, and those 
 very notes furnished the information which I have used 
 in this article concerning this map. The weight of evi- 
 dence forming the "better opinion," as Colonel Brown's 
 note expressed it, was against me, however, and I deter- 
 mined to find one of these maps if it could be done. 
 I had understood that William M. Darlington, Esq., of 
 Pittsburgh, had one, and I wrote to him about it but got 
 no answer. Finally, I examined an old catalogue which 
 I had of the maps in the library of Harvard Univer- 
 sity, published in 1831, and there found, on page 199, 
 such a description of the map in question as to leave 
 no doubt that it was the one I wanted. I communi- 
 cated my discovery to Colonel Brown, who was person- 
 ally acquainted with Justin Winsor, Esq., the accomplished 
 
28 yohn Filson: 
 
 librarian, to whom he wrote about the map. Mr. Winsor 
 promptly answered that the map was there. I then 
 determined to place myself right about its existence by 
 securing a facsimile copy to accompany this article. Mr. 
 Winsor accommodatingly placed the original in the hands 
 of the Heliotype Printing Company, of Boston, who have 
 furnished the photo-lithographic reproduction which here 
 vindicates me and resurrects the buried work. It is possi- 
 ble that the printing of Filson's book at Wilmington, and 
 his map at Philadelphia, caused a separation in the first 
 place, and furnishes a reason for the books offered for 
 sale, as well as others, being found without maps. The 
 map, moreover, was sold by Filson separately from the 
 book, as shown by an account of sales made out by him 
 now in my possession. 
 
 Analyttral (Stotltne of Wilson's ipBtorg. 
 
 The book of Filson, as it came from the press of James 
 Adams, was a quaint little leather-bound octavo of one 
 hundred and eighteen pages. It had a title-page, an ad- 
 vertisement, and a preface with as much formality as if it 
 had been a volume of a thousand or more pages; and what 
 is odd enough, its title-page was quite out of proportion 
 to the matter which followed. It reminded one of a huge 
 
,>.^ 
 
 >v^^ 
 
 "jus ^j^k 
 
 Sca/ecf/OMlYes to anu 
 
 TA<J?rrant of t/re C/u'o u /» tony 
 Barf Modem fe.exee/i/- tfit Rapid*. . 
 
■PMa^'Enjr^W fy S/,„ryZ>.PujM. %&<»/«/ /y TlXr^yer Mr vdaffor IJ S 4 . 
 
His Life and Writings. 20 
 
 portico in front of a small house, or a great door leading 
 into a diminutive apartment. When we take up the tenth 
 great volume of Bancroft, and find upon the title-page the 
 simple inscription, "History of the United States from the 
 Discovery of the American Continent," we can but be 
 struck with the following voluminous inscription copied, 
 word for word, from Filson's little book: 
 
 DISCOVERY, SETTLEMENT, 
 and Present State of 
 
 KENTUCKE: 
 
 An Essay towards the Topography, and Nat- 
 ural History of that important Country: 
 
 AN APPENDIX, 
 
 I. The Adventures of Col. Daniel Boon, one of the first 
 Settlers, comprehending every important Occurrence 
 in the political History of that Province. 
 II. The Minutes of the Piankashaw Council, held at Post 
 St. Vincennes , April 15, 1784. 
 
 III. An Account of the Indian Nations inhabiting within 
 the Limits of the Thirteen United States, their Manners 
 and Customs, and Reflections on their Origin. 
 
 IV. The Stages and Distances between Philadelphia and 
 the Falls of the Ohio; from Pittsburg to Pcnsacola and 
 several other Places. 
 
 The Whole illustrated by a newandaccurateMAPof AWiracfo 
 and the Country adjoining, drawn from actual surveys. 
 
 By JOHN FILSON. 
 
 Wilmington: Printed by James Adams, 1784. 
 
oq John Filson: 
 
 SJjp A&foritHMtwnt and iJrefare. 
 
 If it was necessary, however, to have in the title-page 
 anything more than Filson's account of Kentucky, it must 
 be conceded that what the author gave fairly indicated the 
 singular medley which followed. After the title-page came, 
 under the head of "Advertisement," a card signed by Dan- 
 iel Boone, Levi Todd, and James Harrod, certifying that 
 they had revised the author's work, and recommending 
 it to the public "as an exceeding good performance, con- 
 taining as accurate a description of our country as we 
 think can possibly be given." Then followed the author's 
 preface, in which he acknowledged himself indebted to 
 Colonels Boone, Todd, and Harrod, and especially to Colonel 
 Boone, for the assistance they had given him, and in which 
 he makes the remarkable declaration that his book was not 
 published for lucrative motives, "but solely to inform the 
 world of the happy climate and plentiful soil of this favoured 
 region." The preface of Filson and the advertisement of 
 Boone, Todd, and Harrod suggest a little four-handed mu- 
 tual admiration society. 
 
 "ultj? Itarobwu, ^rttlment, and iPurrljaap of 
 2Centurkg." 
 
 Next under the above head come four pages in which 
 are briefly given the supposed discovery of the country, 
 the purchase of the soil from the Indians by Henderson 
 
His Life and Writings. <? \ 
 
 & Co. south of the Kentucky River, and by Donaldson 
 north of it, and the adventures of those who first settled 
 upon it. In this short sketch, however, are serious errors, 
 which have had their influence in misleading public opin- 
 ion as to what may be called the discovery of Kentucky. 
 Filson makes James McBride to have been the discoverer 
 of Kentucky in 1754, when he cut his name on a tree at 
 the mouth of the Kentucky River. McBride was in no 
 sense the discoverer of Kentucky. The French, at a much 
 earlier date, used the Ohio River as a channel of commu- 
 nication between their settlements in Canada and those 
 on the Mississippi, and French traders as well as English 
 were on the Ohio and along the Kentucky shore, if not 
 upon the inland rivers, long before the date of McBride. 
 The Duke de Mirepoix, in a communication to the British 
 Ministry in 1755, stated that the detachment of French 
 troops sent against the Chickasaw Indians in 1739 went 
 by way of the Ohio River; and in the great history of New 
 France, by Charlevoix, the sixth volume contains a map of 
 this country in 1744, on which the Falls of the Ohio are 
 laid down, and above them a place designated at which 
 the bones of the elephant were found in 1729. Of course 
 this place was the Big Bone Lick, and the bones those 
 of the mastodon afterward supposed to be first found by 
 later discoverers. John Howard crossed the mountains 
 
^2 yohn Filson: 
 
 from Virginia and sailed down the Ohio to the Missis- 
 sippi in a canoe in 1742, where he was captured by the 
 Indians. In 1750 Thomas Walker passed through the 
 eastern portion of Kentucky, and a French map, published 
 by Robert de Vaugondy in 1755, shows "Walker's Etabliss 
 Anglois," on a branch of the Cumberland River, in 1750. 
 In 1 75 1 Christopher Gist passed through Kentucky on his 
 way to North Carolina, and his journal, published in Pow- 
 nall's North America in 1776, shows the route he took. 
 Indeed, so far from McBride's being entitled to the honor 
 of discovering Kentucky in 1754, he is no more entitled 
 to that glory than Moscoso, who sailed along its shore 
 from the mouth of the Ohio to the Tennessee line in 1543; 
 or LaSalle, who went from the headwaters of the Alle- 
 gheny to the Falls of the Ohio in 1669-70. In 1727 Dan- 
 iel Coxe published at London a book descriptive of the 
 province of Carolana, in North America, in which he sets 
 forth the travels and discoveries of an Englishman, called 
 Col. Wood, in this country in 1654, J ust one hundred years 
 before McBride carved his record on the tree at the mouth 
 of the Kentucky River. With such records as these we 
 can hardly concede the honor of discovering Kentucky 
 to him, of whom we know nothing except his name upon 
 a tree at the mouth of the Kentucky, with the date 1754. 
 
His Life and Writings. n o 
 
 QJopographtral ano Mixeb fljtatorg. 
 
 We next have thirty-eight pages of mixed topographical, 
 natural, and civil history, somewhat after the manner in 
 which a real-estate agent of modern times would pre- 
 sent the merits of a country in which he had lands for 
 sale. It consists of descriptive essays under the following 
 ten heads: 1st. Situation and Boundaries; 2d. Rivers; 
 3d. Nature of the soil; 4th. Air and Climate; 5th. Soil 
 and Produce; 6th. Quadrupeds; 7th. Inhabitants; 8th. Cu- 
 riosities; 9th. Rights of Land; 10th. Trade of Kentucky. 
 These headings indicate that but little civil or political 
 history is given, while all that can be said of the coun- 
 try as an inducement to strangers to come and buy and 
 settle has ample attention. It is described as a land as 
 good as that which the inspired writer of old called "a 
 land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that 
 spring out of the valleys and hills; a land of wheat and 
 barley and vines." No one can read this part of the his- 
 tory of Filson without concluding that it was intended 
 to advertise the rich lands of Kentucky, and enable spec- 
 ulators to sell as many acres as possible to those whom 
 the book might induce to come to the country. Under 
 the last of these headings, "Trade of Kentucky," appears 
 an allusion to the steamboat invented by James Rum- 
 
 5 
 
34 yohn Filson; 
 
 say, of Virginia. It was to carry a burden of ten tons, 
 and move from twenty-five to forty miles per day, up 
 stream, against a current of ten miles an hour. This was 
 in 1784, and is remarkable for an early mention of the 
 practicability of propelling vessels on water by steam. It 
 was three years before Fitch launched his steamer upon 
 the Delaware, and twenty-three years before the Clermont 
 of Fulton moved upon the waters of the Hudson. 
 
 Hani of Inmratir $mt?& 
 
 The fault of this part of Filson's history is that too 
 much is said about the country and too little about the 
 people. If the author had drawn a picture of domestic 
 life, in the times about which he was writing, how much 
 more interesting it would have been than his descriptions 
 of a country soon to change as the forest faded away 
 before the ax of civilization, and farms and villages 
 usurped the abode of the deer and the buffalo! He 
 should have conducted his readers into the picketed fort 
 and shown them the pioneer mothers, in time of peace, 
 spinning the yarn and weaving the cloth that was to 
 clothe the family, and, in time of war, molding the bul- 
 lets that their husbands were to fire at the besieging 
 savage. He should have made them guests at a mar- 
 
His Life and Writings. n r 
 
 riage feast, where the joyous hearts of a whole station 
 gathered around the puncheon table loaded with those 
 luxuries of the season, venison, corn-bread and hominy, 
 served in wooden vessels; and the next day conducted 
 them to the house-raising, where all the neighbors joined 
 in building a cabin for the newly married couple to 
 begin wedded life; and yet again to the "house-warm- 
 ing," in which the neighbors all danced the new cabin 
 into use. He should have shown us a funeral, where 
 the lamented hunter was laid in his rough board coffin 
 and sunk into his unmarked grave, or hidden beneath 
 piles of stone and wood amid the sorrows and tears of 
 all. The children in their log school-house; the congre- 
 gation in the solemn woods listening to the itinerant 
 preacher, with rifles in hand and no walls around except 
 the trunks of the native trees and no roof above except 
 their arching branches; the Sunday gathering of the 
 neighbors outside of the fort-gate to chat over the affairs 
 of the settlement; the evening dance to the stirring 
 sound of the violin in the hands of some old family 
 negro at the cabin of a pioneer mother ever ready to 
 sacrifice her own comfort to the pleasure of the young — 
 these and other scenes in domestic life would have im- 
 parted an interest and value to the narrative that nothing 
 else could replace. 
 
n 6 John Filson. 
 
 (Eh* Apprnfctx to % ISjiaiflnj. 
 
 After finishing his sketch of the discovery, purchase, 
 and settlement of Kentucky, Filson added an appendix 
 which was greater than the previous work. The appen- 
 dix was as much out of proportion to the preceding 
 matter as the title-page was to the succeeding. While 
 only forty-eight pages were required for the main work, 
 the appendix consumed seventy. 
 
 ®h* Soon? Narrattbr. 
 
 The first article in the appendix appears under the 
 head of "The adventures of Colonel Daniel Boon, 
 formerly a hunter, containing a narrative of the wars of 
 Kentucke." This article covers thirty-three and one-half 
 pages, and is the most interesting, as well as the most 
 valuable, part of the work. It is the gem of the col- 
 lection. It is the little fountain from which have flowed 
 so many enchanting streams of Indian conflict and pio- 
 neer adventure in the "dark and bloody ground." It 
 begins with Boone's first coming to Kentucky, in 1769, 
 and gives the scenes in which he was engaged until 
 1784, when the work was published. The events in the 
 
His Life and Writings. 07 
 
 career of Boone thus narrated were the initial steps of 
 Kentucky's settlement, and make up the charming first 
 chapter of our Western annals. The little work is not 
 without its faults, such as representing herds of buffalo 
 ignorant of the violence of man, when the Indians had 
 been killing them for ages unknown; trees gay with 
 blossoms on the 22d of December, when the forests of 
 Kentucky seldom show a leaf; views of the Ohio River 
 and the mountains at the same time from an eminence 
 in Kentucky, when there is no known point from which 
 such a sight could be had without the use of a tele- 
 scope, which Boone does not say he had; and making 
 the plain old pioneer compare the ragged tops of the 
 Cumberland Mountains to the ruins of Palmyra and Per- 
 sepolis, when it may be doubted if he could distinguish 
 these ancient cities from Gog and Magog, or that he had 
 any just conception of the classical allusion. Never- 
 theless, with all its faults and all its omissions of scenes 
 in which Boone was not engaged, it is the charming first 
 story of border wars in Kentucky, and will grow more 
 enchanting as the scenes it presents recede further and 
 further into the past. The author gives the old pioneer 
 the full credit of the narrative by stating, in the pref- 
 ace, that it was written from his own mouth, and by pub- 
 lishing it with his full name subscribed thereto. It was 
 
^8 yohn FUson: 
 
 from this sketch by Filson that the fame of Boone took 
 its rise — that he became an historic character, occupying 
 conspicuous pages in books, not only in his own but in 
 foreign languages, and even secured a place in the death- 
 less verse of the immortal Byron. 
 
 Wt\t Aborigines of HCrnturku. 
 
 The next article in the appendix is a short one of 
 four and a half pages, giving the proceedings of a coun- 
 cil held by Thomas J. Dal ton with the Piankashaw In- 
 dians at Vincennes, in 1784. This is followed by an 
 essay on the Indians, covering twenty pages, giving the 
 different tribes east of the Mississippi and nearest to 
 Kentucky, their numbers and origin, their persons and 
 habits, their genius and religion. He enumerates thirty- 
 four different tribes, and estimates their total number at 
 20,000, with from 4,000 to 5,000 warriors. In this article on 
 the Indians Filson takes occasion to give his views about 
 Prince Madoc planting a Welsh colony in America in the 
 twelfth century. He does not say, in so many words, 
 that he believed the story, but the inference is not vio- 
 lent that he did believe it. After premising that frequent 
 accounts had come to the Western settlements of a tribe 
 
His Life and Writings. 39 
 
 of Indians dwelling far up the Missouri River, who spoke 
 the Welsh language and retained some ceremonies of the 
 Christian worship, he thus brings forward a prominent 
 Kentuckian in support of the theory: 
 
 "Captain Abraham Chaplain, of Kentucke, a gentleman whose veracity 
 may be entirely depended upon, assured the author that in the late war, being 
 with his company in garrison at Kaskasky, some Indians came there, and speak- 
 ing in the Welsh dialect, were perfectly understood and conversed with by two 
 Welshmen in his company, and that they informed them of the situation of their 
 nation as mentioned above." 
 
 If Filson had added to this testimony of Captain 
 Chaplain the letter of Rev. Morgan Jones, in 1685, and 
 the narrative of Isaac Stewart, in 1782, he would have 
 presented in a group three of the best arguments that 
 have ever been made in favor of the old Welsh Chroni- 
 cle found in the history of Caradoc. The discoveries 
 of the last hundred years have left no place on our con- 
 tinent for the abode of the descendants of Prince Madoc; 
 but it is strange that when an Indian chief of the tribe 
 of Modoc was captured in the Black Hills a few years 
 ago, the antiquarians did not again revive the discussion of 
 the Welsh colony of the twelfth century in America. 
 
4.0 yohn Filson: 
 
 Errata of 17B3 anil ©able of iiatanrra. 
 
 Filson completed his work with an extract from the 
 treaty of 1783, followed by a table of distances, in which 
 he gives the route by land from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh 
 and around through Virginia and Cumberland Gap to 
 the Falls of the Ohio. Recent measurements have shown 
 unimportant errors of computation in the 320 miles he 
 gives from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, and the 826 through 
 Virginia and the Gap to the Falls. 
 
 Sarity of tbr Sjiainry and fftap 
 
 Thus, at the risk of being tedious, I have given an 
 outline of the contents of Filson's book, now become 
 so rare as to be absolutely beyond the reach of the 
 general reader. It is the rarest of the rare Kentucky 
 books, and not one in a thousand of the present gen- 
 eration has ever seen it. The few copies that exist are 
 either locked up in public libraries or in the collections 
 of private citizens, who exclude them from the shelves 
 of booksellers until death separates an owner from his 
 treasure, and thus enables a new bibliophile to obtain it 
 at an exorbitant price. Recently a copy in the Brinley 
 
His Life and Writings. a\ 
 
 collection was sold at auction in New York for $120, 
 about three hundred times the original pittance realized 
 by the author for it when first published. An account 
 made out by Filson against Jones, in the spring of 
 1785, shows that the book was charged at two shillings 
 and sixpence and the map at five shillings, or about 
 forty-one cents for the book and eighty-three cents for 
 the map. It is probable that the exceedingly great 
 scarcity of the map would make one of them bring a 
 proportionately high price if thrown upon the market 
 in our times. This great rarity of both the book and 
 map has induced Robert Clarke & Co., of Cincinnati, to 
 re-issue them, and they will probably soon appear in 
 the excellent Ohio Valley Historical Series of these 
 publishers. 
 
 2fe»rhtta of WHboub ipatnnj. 
 
 In 1785, the year after the first appearance of the 
 work, it was translated into French and published at 
 Paris by M. Parraud. From the French edition was 
 omitted Filson's table of distances, but to it added the 
 acts of Congress as to the admission of new States and 
 the disposition of the lands ceded by the States; ex- 
 tracts from classical authors, indicating a knowledge of 
 
 6 
 
a 2 fohn Filson: 
 
 America among the ancients; a collection of passages 
 showing the government, the councils, and the eloquence 
 of the Indians; and an extract from Isaac Stewart's 
 account of his captivity among the savages. Imlay, in 
 the second edition of his "Topographical Description 
 of North America," published at London in 1793, em- 
 bodied the entire work of Filson, and repeated it in 
 his third edition of 1797. In the year 1793 Samuel 
 Campbell, of New York, issued an edition of the works 
 of Imlay and Filson in two volumes, the second of which 
 contained the work of Filson. In each of these publi- 
 cations Filson was given full credit for his entire work, 
 but not so with some other reprints. In the American 
 Museum, a monthly periodical printed at Philadelphia 
 from 1787 to 1793, was set the mean example of sep- 
 arating one part of Filson's work from the rest, and 
 reprinting it without credit to the author. In the Oc- 
 tober number of that journal for 1787 appeared the 
 adventures of Daniel Boone, as written and published 
 by Filson, with the statement that Boone was the author. 
 No one from reading the article in this magazine would 
 have known that such a man as Filson had ever existed. 
 The unkind thing thus begun by this magazine found 
 plenty of congenial imitators afterwards; and, even in 
 Kentucky, Samuel L. Metcalf published a collection of 
 
His Life and Writings. 43 
 
 narratives at Lexington, in 1821, in which that of Boone 
 appears first in the book, without one word to indicate 
 that it had been written by Filson. Thus, partly by the 
 inadvertence of the author in publishing this narrative 
 with the name of Daniel Boone subscribed in full thereto, 
 and partly by the meanness of reprinters, the most im- 
 portant part of his work has been separated from him 
 and the authorship thereof given to Boone, who never 
 himself claimed any such honor. There is not a page in 
 it that would not have cost Boone more hard work than 
 an Indian campaign. Boone could hunt, shoot, roam the 
 woods, and fight the Indians as well as anybody, but 
 when it came to writing it was hard labor for him to 
 put the simplest ideas in the crudest form on paper. 
 
 Ws\t loom? Narratibr Attributed to marshall. 
 
 Outside of books and magazines, tradition attempted 
 to bring down to us the shabby report that the narra- 
 tive of Boone had been written by Humphrey Marshall, 
 the historian. This report probably grew out of the fact 
 that Filson may have submitted his manuscript to Mar- 
 shall for correction. There is some indication in the 
 narrative of the pen of Marshall having made revisory 
 touches here and there. I have manuscripts of Filson 
 
a a yohn Filson: 
 
 which show that his spelling was not always good, his 
 grammar sometimes incorrect, his use of capitals often 
 bad, and his words now and then illy chosen. It was 
 lucky for him if his manuscript could pass under the 
 correcting hand of such a scholar as Marshall, and I 
 doubt not this was done. I have as little doubt, however, 
 that Filson was the author of the Boone narrative, and 
 that he wrote it, as he says in his preface, from the 
 mouth of Boone himself. Marshall lived in Kentucky 
 for half a century after the death of Filson, and pub- 
 lished and republished his history without laying claim 
 to the Boone narrative. He would not have failed to 
 appropriate so precious a jewel if it had belonged to 
 him. Not only did he lay no claim to it, but, in the 
 preface to the second edition of his history, he expressly 
 alludes to the Boone narrative as having been written 
 by Filson. 
 
 2jiH Srturtt tn iKntturku after Publishing his l|istnrg- 
 
 While Filson was writing his book and the work was 
 passing through the press, he considered himself a citi- 
 zen of his native Pennsylvania. In his preface to his 
 book he stated that he was not an inhabitant of Ken- 
 
His Life and Writings. ac 
 
 tucky. When his book was published, however, he pre- 
 pared for another trip to Kentucky, and this time with 
 the seeming intention of a permanent home. He was 
 then the owner of lands in the new country, had writ- 
 ten its history, had many acquaintances there, and it was 
 natural that he should wish to become a citizen thereof. 
 
 Glh* Wagntt Journpg to Pittsburgh. 
 
 In the spring of 1785 he secured a Jersey wagon 
 with a canvas top for the purpose of transporting him- 
 self and such articles as he wanted to carry with him 
 to Kentucky. It seems that he had but one horse to 
 draw his wagon built for two, and consequently he made 
 arrangements with John Rice Jones, a young lawyer who 
 wished to go to Kentucky, to use a horse belonging to 
 Jones in his team, and furnish seats in the wagon for 
 the wife and child of Jones. With the Joneses as passen- 
 gers and their luggage, added to some books and maps and 
 other articles of his own for freight, the vehicle set out from 
 Wilmington April 25, 1785, and arrived at Philadelphia the 
 same day. On the following day it started on the long, 
 weary, mountainous road to Pittsburgh, distant 320 miles, 
 through Lancaster, Middletown, Harris' Ferry, Carlisle, 
 Shippinsburg, Chamberstown, Fort Loudon, Fort Little- 
 
4 6 John Filson: 
 
 ton, Juniata Creek, Bedford, Stony Creek, and Fort Lig- 
 onier. He reached Pittsburgh on the 26th of May, and 
 the twenty-six days consumed in making the trip give 
 some idea of the difficulties of travel in those times. 
 The average distance made per day was about twelve 
 miles, and they were thankful to accomplish that much 
 in the midst of the obstacles that beset them. No 
 wonder Jones was out of sorts when he reached Pittsburgh. 
 Filson had to doctor him, which he did by administer- 
 ing two doses of Peruvian bark and two "vomits," for 
 which he charged him nine shillings. Jones, however, 
 seems to have grown well enough under the treatment 
 of Filson to have disposed of two of Filson's books and 
 maps at Pittsburgh for fifteen shillings. Nothing is said 
 about Mrs. Jones and the baby, but, as they are charged 
 nothing for Filson's barks and emetics, it is to be sup- 
 posed that they stood the wagon's joltings better than 
 Jones himself. 
 
 QJIje 3Uatbnat ©rip to SumiatriUp. 
 
 On Sunday, May 27, 1785, the wagon was abandoned 
 at Pittsburgh for the more easy-going flatboat, better 
 known as the Kentucky boat. The party took passage 
 in one of these arks loaded with horses, cattle, grocer- 
 
His Life and Writings. 47 
 
 ies, dry goods, hardware, farming implements, and human 
 beings bound for the Falls of the Ohio. Along the 
 channel of "the beautiful river," severing the dark for- 
 ests on either side like the zig-zag lightning's path 
 through the black clouds, they floated on the gentle 
 current. The huge old sycamores and cottonwoods that 
 had sentineled the wild banks for untold years stood at 
 the water's edge and leaned over the stream and beheld 
 their widespreading arms and giant forms mirrored in 
 the crystal waters. Everything along the shores indicated 
 the uninterrupted abode of the wild animals of the for- 
 est, except here and there, upon some rich bottom raised 
 above the vernal floods, peeped from the rank foliage 
 solitary mounds that had been reared so long ago by 
 human beings that their builders had passed away with- 
 out a tradition, a history, or a name. The haughty buffalo 
 and the timid deer, disdaining the smaller streams that 
 paid tribute to the Ohio, came to the margin of the 
 main river to slake their thirst, and there was nothing 
 in all the vast solitude to remind one of civilized life ex- 
 cept the rude vessel that floated along the current. On 
 the thirteenth day after leaving Pittsburgh the boat was 
 moored in the mouth of Beargrass Creek, June 10, 1785. 
 The long journey was now ended, and the day of reck- 
 oning arrived. Filson having acted as paymaster on the 
 
a 8 "John Filson: 
 
 way, when they arrived at Louisville made out an account 
 
 against Jones for his share of the expenses of the trip. 
 The following is a copy of the original, in the handwrit- 
 ing of Filson, now in my possession: 
 
 JOHN RICE JONES Dr. TO JOHN FILSON. 
 
 £ S. D. 
 April 30, 1785. To cash paid for his freight and passage from Phila- 
 delphia to Wilmington, 15 
 
 To keeping his horse before our procedure on our journey 15 days, . . 15 
 May 26. His passage in the wagon to Pittsburgh; his wife and child's 
 
 passage to Pittsburgh, 3 76 
 
 Carriage of 217 lbs at 45s pr C, 4 7 7 
 
 Two books and two maps of mine in Pittsburgh, 15 
 
 Cash in pay for bread and butter in do., 6 
 
 Two vomits, 40 
 
 Pulverized Peruvian barks at twice, 50 
 
 Cash for his horse feed after arrival in Pittsburgh 12 
 
 Removing his property from the town in Pittsburgh on board the 
 
 boat, 05 
 
 Pennsylvania currency 11 11 3 
 
 Equal to do. in Virginia currency 9 50 
 
 June 10. To one of my maps at Louisville, 5 ... 
 
 £9 10 
 
 1 12 5 
 
 Balance due in Virginia currency, £7 17 7 
 
 CONTRA CR. 
 
 Reed from John Rice Jones the services of his horse in my team to 
 Pittsburgh in consequence of an agreement in Wilmington with 
 him on act. of his passage in the wagon. 
 
His Life and Writings. a q 
 
 April 29, 1785. Reed from him in Wilmington one thermometer and £. S. D. 
 
 case, 19 
 
 One Book of Carver's Travels, 90 
 
 One Book of Gibson's surveying, 12 
 
 Pennsylvania currency, 2 06 
 
 Equal do. in Virginia currency, £\ 12 5 
 
 About 3Ul0mt. 
 
 This account Jones, possibly somewhat exhausted by 
 the two "vomits" Filson had given him at Pittsburgh, 
 and not quite restored by the Peruvian barks, did not 
 promptly pay when they reached the Falls. Filson applied 
 to Esquire Richard Terrell for advice as to the mode of 
 making the tardy hurry up payment in this country. Ter- 
 rell satisfied his inquiries, and having sworn Filson to the 
 correctness of the account and the balance of £7 17s 7d, 
 proceeded to enforce its payment by the pressing aid of 
 the law. In due season judgment was rendered for the 
 debt and execution issued against the goods and chat- 
 tels of Jones for the amount, but no property could be 
 found to satisfy it, and Filson watched his opportunity for 
 better results. Finally he discovered what he thought was 
 an extra cow on the premises of Jones, and got an 
 
ro John Filson: 
 
 attachment from Esquire Alexander Breckinridge to secure 
 it. Deputy Sheriff Reuben Eastin was hunted up and 
 sent immediately with the attachment after the cow. But 
 it turned out that the animal was "a gentleman cow," 
 as Mrs. Jones expressed it, at her house on a visit, and 
 so disregardful of fences and gates that she would be 
 glad to get rid of him. The laugh as well as the costs 
 were now upon Filson, and he quitted the case in dis- 
 gust. Jones, who afterwards became a prominent member 
 of the early bar of Louisville, used to tell this as well as 
 the following anecdote about Filson: On one occasion, 
 while their wagon was crossing the mountains, Filson, 
 being in front and leading the horses, stooped down to 
 examine a curious rock that had attracted his attention. 
 While thus intent upon his lithological investigation, one 
 of the horses passed on each side of him, and the wagon 
 went over him until the rear axletree was above his head. 
 Filson, then awaking to his situation, threw up his head 
 which, coming in contact with the axletree, pretty nearly 
 made an end of him. He was almost scalped, and made 
 the balance of the way to Pittsburgh with a bandaged 
 head. Filson took the accident good naturedly, however, 
 and joked about manufacturing axletrees on a large scale 
 and selling them to the Indians for an improved kind of 
 scalping knives. 
 
His Life and Writings. § i 
 
 %t g>?lla hia Anrratral Sjmtt? ano §wka £fato A&tonturra 
 in the 3IUtnma (Country. 
 
 After Filson's return to Kentucky in 1785, his roving 
 habits and restless spirit caught the excitement then 
 prevalent about the Illinois country, and he made several 
 trips into this new region with the intention, perhaps, of 
 publishing an account of it, as he had of Kentucky. In 
 July, 1785, he left Louisville in a canoe and paddled his 
 way down the Ohio and up the Wabash to Post St. 
 Vincent. In August he returned through the woods to 
 the Falls. Again in Louisville, he consummated his 
 purpose to become a citizen of Kentucky. On the 14th 
 of October he executed and delivered to Daniel Henry, 
 a merchant of Louisville, a bond for a deed to his 
 patrimonial estate of 240 acres on the west branch of 
 the Brandywine, in the township of East Fallowfield, in 
 Chester County, Pennsylvania. The penalty of this bond 
 was .£2,000, and in it Filson describes himself as a citi- 
 zen of Kentucky. A singular feature of this bond is 
 that it was witnessed by David Morgan, Benjamin Ear- 
 ickson, Daniel Buckley, Martin Carney, John Williams, 
 and James Morrison, besides being acknowledged in open 
 court and attested by William Johnston the clerk. The 
 
c 2 John Filson : 
 
 tie that bound Filson to his native Brandywine was 
 now loosed, and, although he was the owner of 1,500 
 acres of land which he had purchased of Squire Boone 
 in Jefferson County, and described himself as a resident of 
 that county, he does not appear to have been long 
 enough in any one place, during his short career in Ken- 
 tucky, to entitle it to the name of home. He was a 
 restless, roving, visionary adventurer, making his sudden 
 appearance at distant and unexpected places in exceed- 
 ingly short intervals of time. Toward the close of the 
 year 1785 he again went in a canoe over the long 
 water-way down the Ohio and up the Wabash, from 
 Louisville to Post St. Vincent, computed at 450 miles. 
 This time he took the courses of the rivers with his 
 compass, and estimated the distances by the time con- 
 sumed in going over them in his canoe. He reached 
 Vincennes about Christmas, and on the last day but 
 one of the year executed an obligation to John Brown, 
 then a rising young lawyer in Kentucky, who afterwards 
 became not only the first member of Congress from Ken- 
 tucky but the first from the great Valley of the Missis- 
 sippi. This obligation, quaint in itself, is suggestive of 
 a necessary custom of the times in which it was given. 
 There was then but little trade between Kentucky and the 
 Spanish possessions on the Mississippi, and the gross pro- 
 
His Life and Writings. 53 
 
 ducts of the country, such as corn and tobacco, could not 
 be easily transported to Philadelphia, the principal source 
 from which goods were obtained. The fur of the beaver, 
 however, was light for its value, and could be profitably 
 sent to Philadelphia in exchange for goods. Hence 
 beaver fur became a medium of exchange, and supplied 
 the place of money. Obligations were made payable in 
 money or in beaver fur at a fixed price per pound. The 
 obligation given by Filson to Brown was in accordance 
 with this custom. Filson owed Brown $61, maybe for 
 borrowed money but possibly for professional services, for 
 Brown was a lawyer and Filson one of those unfortu- 
 nates who was forever needing legal help. The original 
 obligation is now in my possession, and the following is 
 a copy: 
 
 "I acknowledge myself indebted to John Brown the amount of sixty one 
 dollars or sixty-one pounds of beaver, which I promise to pay to him upon demand 
 next spring either at Post St. Vincent or Falls of Ohio. Witness my hand this 
 30th day of Deer., Anno Domini 1785. 
 
 Testes, John Adams. John Filson." 
 
 3TU0ott iitfltakra Mmkvzta far IteatorB. 
 
 While this obligation on the part of Filson to pay 
 a debt in money or beaver fur indicates nothing more 
 than a custom of the times, an anecdote which has been 
 
ca John Filson: 
 
 handed down concerning him makes it probable that 
 he was engaged in the fur trade. Before he became an 
 expert in judging of furs, a trapper proposed to sell him 
 some muskrat skins. Filson told him he was dealing in 
 beaver furs only, and that the skins offered would not suit 
 him. The cunning old trapper, quickly measuring Fil- 
 son's capacity as a fur trader, went away, removed the 
 tails from his muskrat skins, and returned with them. 
 He now offered them to Filson as young beavers, the 
 most valuable of all. Filson bought the supposed young 
 beavers and paid well for them, but when he came to sell 
 them again found himself badly sold. He never bought 
 any more muskrat skins for young beavers. John San- 
 ders, a famous old hunter, used to tell this story about 
 Filson, and was suspected of having planned the joke 
 and profited by the fraud. 
 
 A Steafc Hooq Eaia at 3Filaon*a Snnr. 
 
 The first half of the year 1786 was spent by Filson 
 in the Illinois country, with his residence at Post St. 
 Vincent, then the headquarters of that region. In his 
 will he states that he owned property here, and some of 
 his known transactions indicate that he was here engaged 
 in trade, with business connections extending to the Falls 
 
His Life and Writings. r c 
 
 of the Ohio. It is probable, however, that much of his 
 time was spent here in collecting information for his 
 contemplated publication about this country. His vision- 
 ary character suited him better for making books than 
 success in business pursuits. An anecdote, told to me by 
 William Marshall concerning him at Vincennes, illus- 
 trates the recklessness of life and the serious subjects 
 about which jokes were perpetrated in those times. A 
 French trader had been killed in a drunken frolic with 
 the Indians on New Year's night, and while the orgies 
 continued some grim wags of the town stole away the 
 corpse in the night and laid it before Filson's door. It 
 was the purpose of these cadaverous jokers to see how 
 much Filson would be frightened the next morning when 
 he found the lifeless visitor at his door. As a matter of 
 course, Filson could not see where the joke came in, but 
 supposed the corpse had been laid at his door to divert 
 suspicion from the murderer and direct it to him. Fil- 
 son vehemently denounced the hardened criminal who 
 could thus heartlessly direct suspicion against an inno- 
 cent character, but never once suspected the ghastly 
 humor that lay at the bottom of the transaction. 
 
r6 yohn Filson: 
 
 Jfftlann'fl Inpublialjrii Unlinks. 
 
 What Filson wrote about the Illinois country, though 
 designed by him for publication, was never published, so 
 far as I have been able to ascertain. After his death and 
 the death of General George Rogers Clark, four of his 
 manuscripts were found among the papers of Clark, with 
 whom he had probably left them in his lifetime. These 
 manuscripts are now in the possession of Dr. Lyman 
 C. Draper, of Madison, Wisconsin, and may be briefly 
 described as follows : 
 
 1. A diary of his journey from Pennsylvania down 
 the Ohio and up the Wabash rivers to Post St. Vincent 
 in the spring and summer of 1785. Small quarto, 32 
 pages. 
 
 2. An account of his trip from Vincennes to Louis- 
 ville by land in August, 1785. i2mo, 14 pages. 
 
 3. "A journal of two voyages from the Falls of Ohio 
 to Post St. Vincent, on Wabash River, containing a variety 
 of remarks and intelligence from that remote quarter, 
 by the author of a late publication, with a few remarks 
 upon the situation of Pittsburgh and the voyage down 
 the rapids." Foolscap, 12 pages. 
 
 4. An account of his attempted trip by water from 
 Vincennes to Louisville in August, 1786, the attack upon 
 
His Life and Writings. en 
 
 him by the Indians on the Wabash, and his subsequent 
 trip to the Falls of the Ohio by land. Small folio, 22 
 pages. 
 
 The last named manuscript affords more of the indi- 
 viduality of Filson than any of the others, and an extract 
 from it will be acceptable to those who have not access 
 to the original. These manuscripts contain information 
 about the Illinois country that has never been published, 
 and Dr. Draper expects to use it in the life of General 
 Clark he intends to publish. He has no objections, how- 
 ever, to my use of the information relating particularly to 
 Filson, but, on the contrary, has generously furnished me 
 with it. On the 1st of June, 1786, Filson set out from 
 Vincennes to go down the Wabash and up the Ohio to 
 Louisville. He secured a pirogue and placed in it his 
 trunks and such other articles as he wished to transport 
 to the Falls of the Ohio. Having employed three men 
 to assist on the trip, he started out, with two of them so 
 drunk that himself and the other could only be depended 
 upon for attention to the boat. When they reached the 
 mouth of White River what were called Indian signs in 
 those days began to appear. Six miles further on they 
 saw a large wigwam on the western bank of the Wabash, 
 and when they got opposite to it the Indians rushed out 
 and began an attack upon their frail vessel. The rest of 
 
5 8 yohn Filson: 
 
 the narrative is given in the language of Filson himself, 
 copied by Dr. Draper from his manuscript, word for word 
 and letter for letter, punctuation, spelling, grammar, and 
 all just as Filson wrote it, as follows: 
 
 iExtrart frnm Jffilann'B HJatutarrtpt. 
 
 "I told my men there was Indians and immediately 
 about fifteen guns were fired at us, accompanied with that 
 infernal yell, which ever carries they idea of terror with 
 the sound. Being too far distant from shore to receive 
 much damage, though several bullets lodged in our boat, 
 we steered across the river, but was immediately pursued 
 by a pirogue, crowded with savages, firing upon us, and 
 yelling to discourage flight; My place being in the steer- 
 age, they directed their balls at me, numbers struck the 
 boat, but although they came like hail, yet we gained the 
 shore unhurt, my hat only received damages. It is impos- 
 sible to paint the manner of our flight & the pursuit; no 
 human warriors pursue more violently pursue the unhappy 
 objects of their rage, than savages. Our arms consisted 
 of only two fuzees and one sword; the savages being ad- 
 vanced within fifty yards of shore, I directed my men to 
 stand and fight them, they being advanced a few steps to 
 flee, turned to me with a melancholy look, and saw cruel 
 
His Life and IVritings. rq 
 
 death approaching; self-preservation determined their an- 
 swers for escape. I then told them with speediest flight 
 to save themselves, if possible. As I advance to land took 
 up two small trunks, containing some valuable articles; 
 these I cast under the nettles, a little distance from shore, 
 and entered the woods in a different direction from my 
 men. like the unhappy mariner ready to sink with his 
 vessel in the foaming surge, used prayers and a vigorous 
 flight for safety, the last hope of relief. These were not 
 ineffectual; a wonderful deliverance indeed! Sure some 
 guardian angel averted the impending danger. Who can 
 reflect upon the circumstances without terror? the shore 
 red with bloody savages, I may say just at my heels, who, 
 that have not experienced such a situation can possibly 
 conceive the distress? In flight I oft turned my eyes from 
 behind some ancient friendly tree, to view some blood- 
 thirsty savage, in full chase, with his terrible right hand, 
 to lodge me in the land of silence. Sometimes I lay con- 
 cealed in the thickest of cane and nettles, but immediately 
 quitted the insecure covering, for to the sagacious savage 
 my track must be obvious, as the herbage yielded to every 
 step; and being wet did not recover their rectitude. Con- 
 cluding that a crafty flight was the only possible means to 
 ensure safety, I used many turnings and windings by cross- 
 ing my track and walking back and on logs and spaces 
 
6o yohn Filson: 
 
 clear of herbage. Wandering about two hours through 
 the woods, I assayed to return to the spot where we were 
 obliged to fly, and finding that the savages were gone over 
 with their prize, I came near where I left my trunks, and 
 seeing them safe, took them up, and departed, bending my 
 course toward Post Vincent, which was thirty miles distant 
 on a N. E. course, two of my men had directed their course 
 up White river, and about half a mile from Wabash was 
 cruelly massacred: my third man had concealed himself 
 under a large fallen tree, a little distance from the river, 
 that was closely fenced on either side by nettles: there 
 trembling and pale he saw the savages returning with the 
 clothing and scalps of his companions. 
 
 "Whether these bloodhounds concluded me out of 
 reach, or passed my footsteps unobserved, or attended more 
 to the plunder, is a mystery: but as we had some spiritu- 
 ous liquor on board, that probably might be the Lethe in 
 my favor. With hasty steps I left the dangerous place, 
 bearing the trunks, the reliques of my property, to the 
 amount of 800 dollars in that country. In passing a few 
 miles up White river, I saw many late indian camps which 
 induced me to cross it the first opportunity: and having 
 found some drift wood, by fastening a few logs with bark, 
 I formed a raft, on which I comited my body to the full 
 flowing stream: My trunks I had fastened on part of an 
 
His Life and Writings. 6j 
 
 old plank separately. Having advanced a little distance 
 from shore, my raft parted, and rendered my situation des- 
 perate; when I escaped the savages I thought the bitter- 
 ness of death was past, but now concluded my time must 
 be near a period. A gleam of hope was yet left, in this 
 dilemma I fastened upon one the logs, which being small, 
 scarcely supported me from total immersion; with my left 
 hand I held the little plank & with my right rowed across 
 the river, about 400 yards wide. Thus I escaped again 
 and continued my course through the shadow of death; 
 for although I met no savages, there was the greatest prob- 
 ability I should. The day began to decline, and heavy 
 showers fell; the briers and thorns tore my cloaths, and 
 my flesh experienced the most excrutiating pain, from their 
 repeated assaults, and the invenomed nettles. Hunger now 
 began to rage. I felt languid and my burthen increased 
 with wet. Those lines in homer came lively 
 
 "Oh f rends a thousand ways frail mortals to lead 
 "To the cold tomb, and dreadful all to tread; 
 "But dreadful most, when by a slow decay 
 "Pale hunger wastes the manly strength away. 
 
 "Late in the evening I advanced to the river Destice, 
 on the east side of the Wabash, six leagues below the 
 Post, and attempting to ford, it was near being drowned, 
 but recovering the shore again I made a small raft and 
 
62 John Filson: 
 
 went over, being soon overtaken by night, the moon 
 shone clear, I continued to travel by its light, though a 
 disagreeable walk: at length worn down with fatigues, 
 I sat down, and attempted to strike fire, but my powder 
 being damp, it was impracticable. Miriads of misketoes 
 surrounded me, humming their unwelcome tune to my 
 distressed body, and though in a very uncomfortable state, 
 and under the power of these tormentors, sunk into sleep, 
 and awoke not until day appeared again; when rousing 
 up I continued my course, and arrived about noon at 
 the Grand Parery containing about 10,000 acres; being 
 then about six miles from town, it being visible. Along 
 this extensive tract, which is exceedingly level and fertile, 
 where scarcely a tree or shrub is seen, but variegated 
 with pastures, meadows, fields of corn, and other fruits; 
 and not the smallest enclosure with a fence or hedge 
 throughout. The different plantations were conspicuous, 
 with numbers of the inhabitants cultivating the corn- 
 fields; had I beheld this in a day of prosperity, it must 
 have afforded me pleasure; but all these laborious people 
 were in dread of the savages, for if any imprudently fired 
 a gun, with trembling hearts they all prepared for flight — ■ 
 The french laboured without guards, being less the object 
 of indian aversion than the americans; who at this time 
 could not turn up the earth with a plow, unless guarded 
 
His Life and IVritings. 6? 
 
 by armed men. To one of these military occupants I first 
 advanced, who scarcely believed their eyes, so greatly was 
 my condition altered: such is the difference between pros- 
 perity and adversity. Here I met the warmest and most 
 unfeigned sympathy, for in a land of suffering the unfor- 
 tunate have that consolation. The humane people flocked 
 around me to hear the melancholy tale, and gave me 
 some wholesome provisions to refresh my emaciated spirits. 
 Immediately quiting their tillage, conducted me to town 
 in a carriage. 
 
 "I took my lodging at the house of Colonel Small; and 
 after having related the consequences of my adventure to 
 the alarmed inhabitants, I advised to send a party to de- 
 stroy the robbers, and retake the property; which then 
 was easily practicable; many professed a willingness to 
 proceed, but the Major part maturely considering that it 
 would weaken their number in town, the indians by 
 taking advantage of their absence, might make themselves 
 masters of their fort, and destroy the women & children; 
 it was therefore thought prudent to omit so interesting a 
 design. Much distressed in body and mind, for some days, 
 I was an object of pity; but recovering a little of the 
 fatigue, was advised to use some sportive exercises to pre- 
 vent a malady; the good effects of this I soon experienced; 
 by which I am satisfied that a concise and diligent exer- 
 
64. yohn Filson: 
 
 cise of body and mind, is essential to overcome the bad 
 consequences that often result from a capital misfortune. 
 Two principal causes moved me to expose myself at this 
 time to danger on Wabash, one was the unhappy con- 
 tentions existing between the french and american inhab- 
 itants of the Post, on account of the unavoidable disputes 
 daily multiplied between the latter and the savages; the 
 former opposing every measure to which they were impelled 
 by necessity to defend themselves from savage hostilities, 
 so much influence has interesting commerce with man- 
 kind, that in effect it causes social and civilized beings 
 to laugh at the calamity of others, though unjustly and 
 barbarous the cause, secondly a desire to see my friends, 
 and native soil — Chester county in Pennsylvania. Being 
 now unhappily convinced that a passage by water was 
 impossible, I determined to go by land, It was then 
 thought impossible to leave the Post either by land 
 or water, without iminent danger; the savages being 
 insiduously ambuscaded round the parery. My friends 
 earnestly desired me to stay, representing the danger con- 
 sequent upon such an undertaking. I thanked them for 
 their advice, adding that from the late interposition of 
 heaven in my favor it was plain that I was not reserved 
 for a severer fate, but some valuable purpose. Being 
 well refreshed in ten days, and finding a good hardy woods- 
 
His Life and Writings. 6 <- 
 
 man intending the journey also, we agreed to leave the 
 Post in the night of the twelfth of June. The moon 
 shone with an agreeable lustre, and accompanied a small 
 distance by some of our most valuable friends, we directed 
 our course for the falls of ohio; and during the noctur- 
 nal hours traveled about fifteen miles: Although every 
 step was disagreeable through brushy woods, and swampy 
 grounds, yet safety from savages, afforded us some pleas- 
 ure: next day rafted over White river, A. M., continuing 
 our course one and a half point south of east; concluding 
 ourselves out of the reach of the savages lurking around 
 the Post. The country lying between the Post and Louis- 
 ville or Clarksville has a diversity of soil and timber and 
 this being my second tour, suppose myself able to form 
 a good judgment thereof; which for the information and 
 satisfaction of my gentle readers for whose sake I write; 
 have delineated my two journeys on my map of the coun- 
 try, which from my own and some others observation I 
 rest assured, is the best that can be given at this day. 
 The explanation thereof, with the plan annexed, points 
 out the particulars referring thereto. I concluded the 
 journey in seven painful days, and arrived safe at the falls 
 of ohio.* 
 
 * Sailed in a barge to the Post from the falls of ohio in July, 1785, which time 
 I truely took the meanders of ohio and wabash with my compass, and returned 
 through the woods with the indians for my guides, and having the prospect of 
 a publication, made the best observations possible." 
 
 9 
 
66 yohn Filson: 
 
 ije (gora from HCwttakg to fpttttBtjlbania bg Sano. 
 
 The sad experience which Filson had thus had with 
 the Indians, in his attempt to go from Vincennes to 
 Louisville by water, seems to have given him a kind of 
 hydrophobia and determined him, after he reached the 
 Falls, to continue his journey to Pennsylvania by land. 
 It was a serious undertaking to go on horseback from 
 Louisville to Chester County, Pennsylvania. With boats 
 constantly ascending the Ohio to Pittsburgh, more than 
 two-thirds of the distance, it would appear like a Quixotic 
 adventure to attempt the whole journey by land. Filson, 
 however, remembering no doubt the Indians on the Wa- 
 bash, did attempt and accomplish it. Baffled at first at 
 Louisville by the running away of his horse, he secured 
 another, threw his saddlebags across its back, and early 
 in September he was jogging along the old wilderness 
 road. The very names of the stations along this dismal 
 route suggest the dreary wilderness in which most of 
 them were situated. Here is the list of the stopping 
 places and their distances apart, as Filson made it out 
 himself: From the Falls of the Ohio to the Salt works, 
 20 miles; thence to Bardstown 25, Harbison's 25, Har- 
 land's 10, Harrod's Station 4, Logan's Station 7, Whitly's 
 Station 5, Col. Edward's at Crab Orchard 5, English Sta- 
 
His Life and Writings. 67 
 
 tion 3, Ford on Rock Castle River 25, Hazle Patch 10, 
 Laurel River 15, Raccoon Spring 2, down Richland 
 Creek 6, Richland Creek 8, Stinking Creek 7, Flat Lick 
 
 2, Fork of Cumberland River 9, Cumberland Mountain 
 
 3, Martin's Cabins 20, Valley Station 25, Walden's Ridge 
 
 4, POwel's Mountain 3, Block House 33, Washington 
 Court House 15, Head of Holstein 45, Boyd's 5, Stone 
 Mill 8, Fort Chisel 11, Forks of the Road 12, New 
 River 16, Alleghany Mountain 12, Patterson's on Roanoak 
 8, Wood's on Catawba River 9, Bottetout Court House 21, 
 James River 12, North Fork of James River 18, Stanton 
 37, North Branch of Shenandoah 15, Shenandoah River 
 29, Woodstock 15, Storer's Town 12, Newtown 10, Win- 
 chester 8, Martinsburg 20, Wadkin's Ferry on Potomack 
 13, Stone House Tavern 13, other side of the Mountain 
 25, Mountain at Black Gap 7, Hunterstown 3, Abbottstown 
 10, Yorktown 15, Wright's on Susquehannah 12, Lancaster 
 10, and thence to the Brandy wine 50 miles, making in all 
 from Louisville to his home about 800 miles. Such a 
 distance on horseback over mountains, across rivers, and 
 through forests is frightful to us of the age of railroads 
 and steamboats, but it did not deter Filson. Neither was 
 it considered much of an undertaking by our pioneer 
 mothers, who either walked it or rode over it on horseback 
 with dauntless hearts when they first came to Kentucky. 
 
68 John Filson; 
 
 At ^ia (§lb l^ome in Olljealrr. 
 
 When the weary journey was ended, and Filson had 
 reached the banks of the Brandywine, September and Oc- 
 tober had passed and the month of November had come. 
 At his old home, in the midst of relatives and friends, 
 with no Indians to disturb, and peace and plenty around, 
 he recalled and reflected upon the dangers and hardships 
 through which he had passed, and resolved again to be- 
 come a citizen of his native country. The scenes he had 
 witnessed brought to his mind the uncertainty of life, and 
 on the 2 1 st of November he made his will, in the follow- 
 ing words: 
 
 I, John Filson, of East Fallowfield Township, in Chester County, State of 
 Pennsylvania, being in perfect health and sound memory, and calling to mind 
 the mutability of my body, knowing it is appointed for all men once to die do 
 constitute make and ordain this my last will and testament in manner and form 
 following, viz. I first & principally commend my soul to God who gave it hop- 
 ing to receive the same again at the general resurrection, my body I also com- 
 mend to the care of Providence and the discretion of my friends or fellow crea- 
 tures to be buried in a Christian like manner; and as to such worldly substance 
 wherewith it hath pleased God to bless me I give and bequeath the whole and 
 every part thereof both real and personal to my dear brother Robert Filson 
 and his heirs forever; viz 500 acres of land in Jefferson county in Virginia and 
 1000 acres in the same county and State as will appear due from Squire Boone 
 of said county upon two certain bonds to John Kephart which sd bonds were 
 assigned to me; also all the property of the lands entered on Big Bone and Step- 
 stone creeks as will appear by entries in Col Marshall's office in Fayette county 
 
His Life and Writings. 6g 
 
 in Virginia aforesaid; also all the amount of bonds due to me in Kentucky and 
 recovering by law as will appear by a list thereof in the hands of Capt James 
 Patten my attorney at the Falls of Ohio; also all the amount of my property in 
 Post St Vincent as will appear by a list of notes deeds etc in the hands of Col 
 John Small my attorney in said town of St Vincent, hereby constituting and 
 ordaining my brother Robert Filson aforesaid my true and lawful executor of 
 all my estate both real and personal and by his discretion to be ordered as may 
 be most just and equitable in every of my affairs wherewith he is or may be ac- 
 quainted. In witness whereof I have to these presents set my hand and seal 
 ordaining as afaresaid this to be my last will and testament and no other, hereby 
 revoking and disannulling all other will or wills heretofore made by me this 21st 
 day of November A D 1786. 
 
 JOHN FILSON. 
 (seal) 
 
 Sjta 2U>iurtt to SCntturkg Again. 
 
 After the life that Filson had lived in Kentucky, a 
 quiet home among the farmers of the Brandywine was 
 not endurable. The wild and stirring scenes of the bor- 
 der, with all their hardships and dangers, were preferable. 
 Early in the year 1787 the great distance between Penn- 
 sylvania and Kentucky had again been crossed, and he 
 was among the pioneers of the land whose history he 
 had written and with whose destiny he had linked his 
 own. But little is known of him for this year, however, 
 except what has been gleaned from the records of courts. 
 In the District Court, at Danville, he had a long suit 
 against Robert Daniel, which was compromised by Dan- 
 
jo yohn Filson: 
 
 iel's paying the debt and giving his obligation for the 
 costs, which had become harder to pay than the original 
 debt. Another suit had finally to be brought in Louis- 
 ville for this bill of costs. At Stanford he had sued John 
 K. Simpson, and gotten judgment for whatever sum he 
 might prove at the next court to be due. This suit was 
 also probably compromised, as no further proceedings 
 have been found to have been taken in it. At Harrods- 
 burg he sued John Morrison on a debt for one hundred 
 and sixteen livres and eight sous, showing that it had 
 been contracted among the French, at Post St. Vincent. 
 Morrison could not be found for a long time, but finally 
 he made his appearance in the neighborhood of Harrods- 
 burg, and Filson accompanied the summons that went 
 into the hands of Robert Patterson, the sheriff of Fay- 
 ette County, with the following energetic note, copied ver- 
 batim et literatim from the original: 
 
 Mr. Patterson. You must execute this immediately the man is near har- 
 rodsburg he is lately from Post St. Vincent a middle aged man. by strict 
 enquiry you will hear of him. Delay no time Spare no search for him Yours 
 
 JOHN FILSON. 
 
 In this note we find the same want of punctuation 
 and the same ill use of capital letters which characterize 
 the writings of Filson. It is the only piece of his com- 
 position, however, which indicates the nervousness, the 
 
His Life and Writings. n \ 
 
 impatience, and the dictatorial spirit which this one bears 
 upon its face, addressed, as it was, to an officer of the 
 law in the official discharge of his duty. 
 
 It would seem to us that a spirited man like Patterson, 
 holding as important an office as that of sheriff of Fayette 
 County in those days, would hardly have relished the re- 
 ception of such a dictatorial note. It may be, however, 
 that Filson was upon such terms of intimacy with Patter- 
 son as to justify this kind of a letter. It was not long 
 after this transaction when Filson and Patterson entered 
 into a contract with Denman for the establishing of a 
 town on the site of Cincinnati, and tradition has repre- 
 sented them as having been great friends in their rela- 
 tions. Indeed it has been handed down to us that when 
 Filson became involved in somewhat of an affair of honor 
 in consequence of a peculiar letter which he published in 
 the Kentucky Gazette about establishing a seminary at 
 Lexington, Patterson was his adviser. A reply to Filson's 
 letter by an anonymous writer was so witty and sarcastic 
 that the town of Lexington was laughing at Filson, and 
 Patterson advised him to demand the author's name and 
 put him out of his humorous vein. The anonymous writer 
 would not, however, be put out of his humor by giving 
 his name, and so left Filson to get satisfaction as best he 
 could. Probably these intimate relations between Filson 
 
72 John Filson: 
 
 and Patterson induced Filson to write him such a letter 
 as he would not have presumed under other circumstances, 
 for his general character was that of exceeding politeness 
 and affability. 
 
 IBrofom Bms Wilson. 
 
 While Filson was suing others in 1787 he did not 
 himself escape the pressure of the law. The obligation 
 he had executed to John Brown, and of which a copy has 
 heretofore been given, had not yet been liquidated. Brown 
 could get neither the money nor the beaver-skins which 
 the obligation bound Filson to pay. On his way to his old 
 home in Pennsylvania the previous year Filson had writ- 
 ten to Brown about this debt, and advised him to trade 
 the note to George Caldwell or some one else, as he had 
 more good will than money with which to pay it. The 
 following is a facsimile of Filson's letter, the original 
 of which is in my possession, showing not only his hand- 
 writing, but such peculiarities of his style as beginning the 
 words Friend and Harrod's Station with small letters, 
 and delayed, creature — meaning his horse — and cash with 
 capitals. 
 
/«&-»-?./£ 
 
 /l^r^f^ -^#^ 
 
 
 S'd^+s* y<rt^ frA^Cs Ge^n^ fa ^~ 
 
 0%-v^eyi ^J/~^ry ^Je^t^f *^3 y 
 
 
His Life and Writings. yn 
 
 Nolljttig but a Bickh to Makt a $i>bt 
 
 On the back of this letter Filson indorsed, "I expect 
 to return before Christmas, farewell my friend adeiu." But 
 when he returned he still did not pay the note, and in 
 September, 1787, Brown brought suit on it in Louisville. 
 Strange to relate, when the execution issued on the judg- 
 ment, nothing could be found belonging to Filson upon 
 which to levy it. An attachment was issued to the county 
 of Lincoln, and there levied on a sickle— not even a scythe 
 or cradle for cutting grain, but an old-fashioned reaping- 
 hook with teeth for biting off a handful at a time. As 
 the ostensible owner of more than thirteen thousand acres 
 of land in Kentucky, his finances must have been in a 
 pitiable condition for him to have suffered suit on a note 
 for sixty-one dollars, that had been due for more than a 
 year, and then disclose no personal property out of which 
 to make the debt, except an old rusty reaping-hook, that 
 had possibly been sawing grain all over the country for 
 years. 
 
 IffH Arttrlp in Stebor of tl}? Stmittarg. 
 
 In 1788 the six years in which Filson had been con- 
 nected with affairs in Kentucky were brought to a sudden 
 and tragical end. His last year in this region, however, 
 
 10 
 
j a yohn Filson: 
 
 associated his name with matters scarcely less important 
 than the publication of his book. On the 19th of January 
 he published an article in the Kentucky Gazette in favor 
 of establishing a seminary in Lexington, in which a liberal 
 education could be procured. The manners and morals 
 of the pupils were to be cared for as well as their mental 
 culture, and the French language was to be a part of 
 the curriculum. This article, however, was peculiar both 
 in matter and manner, and what it indicated about the 
 superiority of Northern teachers over Southern, and said 
 about country boys having their manners and appearance 
 polished by town influences and Northern teachers, was 
 not well received. The article drew a very sarcastic reply 
 from some one over the anonymous signature of "Agricola." 
 Filson felt the satire, and not conceiving any better way 
 of meeting it, wrote a short reply demanding the name 
 of the author. The only answer that he got was a sar- 
 castic paraphrase of his own note, again signed "Agricola." 
 Whether "pistols and coffee for two," or parched corn and 
 jerk for all who might want to engage in a "free for all" 
 followed, does not appear; but both of the writers having 
 survived the correspondence, it is not likely that either of 
 their communications was stained with blood. 
 
His Life and Writings. 75 
 
 8je ta Jfarpman of % Surg in a 2|nrap §§>u\t. 
 
 On the 7th of March, 1788, at the trial in Louisville, 
 Filson sat on the jury in the case of Floyd's executor 
 against Pomeroy. As evidence of the position he held 
 in society he was made foreman of this jury, composed 
 of such prominent citizens as Benjamin Johnston, Richard 
 Woolfolk, John Thruston, and Daniel Broadhead. The 
 suit had been brought for the killing of a valuable race 
 mare, under the following circumstances: A blooded mare 
 belonging to Colonel John Floyd's estate was exceedingly 
 fond of leaping fences and making visits to neighboring 
 fields to crop the young grain when it was tender and 
 sweet. She made her appearance in the rye-field of George 
 Pomeroy, and was browsing away as if the rye had been 
 raised especially for her. Pomeroy set his old cur dog 
 upon her to chase her out of the field, and he was doing 
 pretty good service, barking at her heels and biting at 
 her tail, when a bulldog, belonging to a neighbor, came 
 along and joined in the chase. This bulldog was famous 
 for seizing cattle and horses by the nose and causing 
 them to turn somersaults. He had not had a case for 
 some time and was, no doubt, out that morning in search 
 of one. So when he saw the old cur biting at the tail of 
 
7 6 yohn Filson: 
 
 the mare he went straight for the nose, caught a death 
 grip in the nostrils, darted back and pulled down the 
 head of the animal with such violence that her heels flew 
 over her head. As the mare fell her back came in contact 
 with a log of wood, which broke it and killed her. The 
 proof before the jury was clear that Pomeroy had set his 
 own dog upon the mare to chase her out of a field not 
 surrounded by a lawful fence, and that she had been killed 
 in the chase. Most of the jurors had made up their 
 minds to make Pomeroy pay for the mare before they 
 retired, but when they got into their room Filson con- 
 tended that it was not Pomeroy's dog that did the mis- 
 chief, but a villainous old bulldog that got into the chase 
 without being asked. After this suggestion, shrewd as 
 an advocate if not learned as a lawyer, it was not long 
 before Filson, as foreman of the jury, brought in a verdict 
 for the defendant. 
 
 5jis iinrtrg on UeargraHB dmk. 
 
 The last known act of Filson, in Louisville, was the 
 writing of some verses, on the 30th of June, 1788. The 
 manuscript was recently found by Americus Symmes, of 
 the vicinity of Louisville, among the papers of his 
 father, the famous author of the theory of the internal 
 
 
His Life and Writings. 77 
 
 habitation of the earth. It is possible that Filson, just 
 before his death at Losantiville, may have left this paper 
 with Judge Symmes, from whom it passed into the col- 
 lection of his nephew, where it was found. Whether 
 the lines were written by or for some love-sick youth, 
 who really attempted to end his sorrows by a plunge 
 in Beargrass, or whether the scene was one simply of 
 the imagination, can not now be determined. At the 
 foot of Second Street, in Louisville, an old tree thrown 
 across Beargrass in early times served as a bridge, and 
 went by the name of "lover's leap." It is possible that 
 some such scene as is described in these verses may 
 have given this name to this bridge. There is nothing 
 in the verses to impart poetic fame to Filson or any 
 one else, but found, as they were, in the handwriting 
 of Filson, they become a necessary part of his me- 
 moirs. The following is a copy from the original in 
 my possession: 
 
 Written at Beargrass 30th June, 1788. 
 Adieu ye limpid streams and cooling shades, 
 Adieu ye groves, ye meadows, fields and meads, 
 Adieu to all this scene and yon green bowers, 
 Adieu to sweets and all this field of flowers; 
 Adieu ye warbling train in every grove, 
 Adieu, awhile, to all on earth but love. 
 Adieu the sounding harp and cheerful lute 
 
yohn Filson: 
 
 Adieu the viol bass or german flute. 
 
 Adieu these rural scenes that once could please, 
 
 Adieu to every joy and to my ease. 
 
 Adieu most merry dances on the green, 
 
 Adieu those blithesome hours I once have seen. 
 
 Adieu to every joy which time invades, 
 
 Adieu ye faithful swains and beauteous maids. 
 
 Adieu Amanda who my soul ensnares, 
 
 Adieu till fate this mortal wound repairs. 
 
 Adieu my peace, the busy world farewell, 
 
 Adieu to all but plains of Asphodel. 
 
 Farewell yon mountains — brow and all the plain; 
 
 One leap in yonder gulf shall end my pain. 
 
 Then to Elysium fields I'll wing my way, 
 
 Through dreary wastes to reach perpetual day, 
 
 There with happy souls I'll careless rove 
 
 And in their realms forget the pains of love. 
 
 iijtH IFatal (Eontrart taith Sftmtatt and Patterson. 
 
 It was not long after Filson wrote these verses when 
 he left Louisville for Lexington, never more to return. 
 His restless mind, ever grasping for things new, was soon 
 to be gratified with the grandest of his schemes. In Au- 
 gust, 1788, his opportunity came, and he entered into a con- 
 tract with Matthias Denman and Robert Patterson, which, 
 though grand, was destined to cost him his life. Den- 
 man, a citizen of New Jersey, had by contract with Judge 
 Symmes secured a right to about eight hundred acres of 
 
His Life and IVritings. jq 
 
 land on the high bank of the Ohio River opposite to the 
 mouth of the Licking, which he believed to be a good 
 site for a town. He wanted partners to help him lay out 
 the town and people it, and thus increase the value of his 
 property. Patterson, a brave soldier and popular citizen 
 of Kentucky, could bring settlers to the new town; and 
 Filson, a surveyor and author of a popular history of the 
 same State, could lay out the town and make known to 
 the world its merits by publishing articles about it. These 
 were the kind of partners that Denman wanted, and when 
 they got together and talked the matter over they soon 
 came to an understanding. Denman sold to Patterson 
 and Filson each an undivided third of his land, and, re- 
 taining the remaining third himself, the three became ten- 
 ants in common of the original site of the present city of 
 Cincinnati. The following is a copy of their contract from 
 an old manuscript in my possession: 
 
 (Untenant faith, rrfmnrp in EnaantiniUp. 
 
 A covenant and agreement made and concluded this 25th day of August 
 1788, between Matthias Denman of Essex County New Jersey State of the one 
 part and Robert Patterson and John Filson of Lexington in Fayette County, 
 Kentucky of the other part witnesseth; that the said Matthias Denman having 
 made entry of a tract of land on the north west side of Ohio river opposite the 
 mouth of Licking river, in that district in which Judge Symmes has purchased 
 from Congress and being seized thereof by right of entry to contain 640 acres 
 
John Filson: 
 
 and the fractional parts that may pertain, do grant bargain and sell the ful 1 
 two thirds thereof by an equal undivided right in partnership with the said 
 Robert Patterson and John Filson their heirs and assigns; and upon producing 
 indisputable testimony of his the said Denman's right and title to the said prem- 
 ises they the said Patterson and Filson shall pay the sum of £"X> Virginia currency 
 to the said Denman or his heirs or assigns as full remittance for moneys by him 
 advanced in pay of said lands, every other institution, determination, and regu- 
 lation respecting the laying off a town and establishing a ferry at and upon the 
 premises to be the result of the united advice and consent of the parties in cove- 
 nant aforesaid; and by these presents the parties bind themselves for the true 
 performance of these covenants to each other in the penal sum of ^'1000 specie, 
 hereunto affixing their hands and seals the day and year above written. 
 
 MATTHIAS DENMAN 
 Signed sealed and delivered in R. PATTERSON 
 
 the presence of JOHN FILSON 
 
 Henry Owen 
 
 Abr McConneu. 
 
 At the date of this contract the people of the United 
 Colonies had not arrived at the blessing of a uniform or 
 national currency. The coins of Spain, France, and Ger- 
 many were in circulation, as well as those of England, and 
 the confusion was great. The English pound and shilling 
 had one value, in the dollars and cents of this country, in 
 the New England States, another value in New York, an- 
 other in Pennsylvania, another in Carolina, and another 
 in New Jersey. Hence a contract like this between the 
 citizens of different States had to specify the State whose 
 standard was to give value to the money employed. The 
 
His Life and Writings. g i 
 
 English pound in Virginia was then equal to $3-33/4 cents, 
 and the shilling 16^ cents. Hence the price to be paid 
 by Patterson and Filson for the two-thirds of the six hun- 
 dred and forty acres and the fractions that pertained, all 
 of which amounted to about eight hundred acres, was 
 $66.66^3— cheap enough, it would seem, especially when 
 contrasted with the millions that ground is now worth. 
 It is possible that the character and efficiency of his part- 
 ners for the work of establishing the contemplated town, 
 and thus rendering the whole property more valuable, was 
 estimated at considerable in addition to the low price put 
 upon the land. 
 
 fJrDfinwtns of ffioaanttfaiUp. 
 
 On the 30th of August, 1788, they had agreed upon a 
 plan of operations, and published in the Kentucky Gazette 
 the following prospectus, evidently written by Filson: 
 
 The subscribers being proprietors of a tract of land opposite the mouth 
 of the Licking river, on the north west side of Ohio, have determined to lay 
 off a town upon that excellent situation. The local and natural advantages 
 speak its future prosperity, being equal if not superior to any on the bank of 
 Ohio between the Miamis. The in-lots to be each half an acre, the out-lots 
 four acres, thirty of each to be given to settlers upon paying one dollar and fifty 
 cents for the survey and deed of each lot. The fifteenth day of September is 
 appointed for a large company to meet in Lexington and mark a road from thence 
 to the mouth of Licking, provided Judge Symmes arives, being daily expected. 
 
 II 
 
82 yohn Filson: 
 
 When the town is laid off lots will be given to such as may become residents 
 
 before the first of April next. 
 
 MATHIAS DENMAN 
 ROBERT PATTERSON 
 JOHN FILSON 
 
 Sty* Name of JKilantt'a ©ohm. 
 
 Having thus matured their plans and platted on 
 paper their town of Losantiville and published their pro- 
 gramme, the next thing to be done was to meet on 
 the site and lay off the town on the ground itself. 
 The wonder is that familiarity with the location on the 
 bank of the Ohio, with the Little Miami above, the 
 Great Miami below, and the Licking opposite, a name 
 was not invented for the contemplated town meaning 
 the city of four rivers, instead of opposite the mouth 
 of one of them. I must not be understood, however, 
 as objecting to the name of Losantiville for this reason, 
 nor for the reasons assigned by others. To my ear 
 Losantiville is quite as musical as Cincinnati, and not a 
 syllable longer. The meaning of the name, too, is quite 
 as appropriate as any that can be derived from the 
 Roman farmer or the society formed by the leaders of 
 our armies at the close of the Revolution. If an analy- 
 sis of the word leads any one to the conclusion that it 
 
His Life and Writings. $* 
 
 is pedagogical, then let him avoid separating it into 
 parts and take it as a concatenation of euphonious syl- 
 lables, making a musical whole. The last historian of 
 Cincinnati, while sporting with a pedantry that could 
 produce such a name, himself falls into a show of learn- 
 ing by calling it "an eccentric polyglot neologism"; and 
 the charming McMaster improves upon the grim humor 
 of our own Collins, who hoped that the name "had no 
 connection with his early death," by stating that a few 
 weeks after coining the name "the Indians scalped him." 
 Instead of thus ridiculing the school-master for inventing 
 the name of Losantiville, his critics would have been no 
 worse employed in deeming him a prophet who cast the 
 eye of the seer far down the course of time, and seeing 
 the grand Hall of sweet sounds in the Queen City of 
 another century, gave to the incipient town a corre- 
 sponding musical name. No one with "an ear for the 
 concord of sweet sounds" will risk his reputation by 
 saying that Cincinnati is more musical than Losantiville. 
 
 (Elfatu}? of ®imp m Starting. 
 
 According to the prospectus, a large party was to set 
 out on the 15th of September, to go from Lexington to 
 the mouth of the Licking and mark out a road on the 
 
84 yohn Filson: 
 
 journey. But before the 15th of September arrived, word 
 came from Limestone that Judge Symmes would meet 
 the party at the mouth of the Licking on the 22d, and 
 therefore the day of starting from Lexington was changed 
 by the following notice, which appeared in the Kentucky 
 Gazette on the 13th: 
 
 N. B. The time appointed to go to the mouth of Licking is put off from 
 the 15th as published last week to the 18th inst, when a large party will start 
 from Lexington in order to meet Judge Symmes on Monday the 22d at that place 
 agreeable to his own appointment and the business will then go on as proposed. 
 
 R. PATTERSON 
 
 3Ftlao«*a Snail to ffioHantuJUlp. 
 
 This notice in the Gazette of the 13th, postponing the 
 time of leaving Lexington for the mouth of the Licking, 
 is signed by Patterson alone, and nothing is said in it 
 specifically about marking out a road between these points. 
 There was a reason for Denman and Filson not having 
 signed this notice, as they had the contract and prospectus, 
 and that reason is supplied by their absence from Lexing- 
 ton on the 13th, when the notice appeared in the Gazette. 
 Denman had gone back to Limestone to meet Judge 
 Symmes, but where was Filson? Tradition says that he 
 was in the woods with his compass determining the 
 course the new road was to take, while Patterson was 
 
His Life and Writings. 85 
 
 collecting the party to go over it. Filson determined the 
 line of this road, and Isaac Taylor and his woodsmen 
 marked it upon the trees. His anxiety to get to the site 
 of his Losantiville and begin the work of laying out its 
 streets and lots put him upon this road as early as possi- 
 ble. The determining of this new road from Lexington 
 to the mouth of the Licking was not as easy a matter 
 when it was first done by Filson as it would now appear. 
 The wilderness to be gone through had been traversed 
 by no roads except that over which Colonel Byrd led his 
 murderers against Ruddle's and Martin's stations in 1780, 
 and that over which the avenging soldiers of General 
 Clark had swept like an angry whirlwind soon afterward. 
 Byrd had moved up the Licking and Clark down the Ken- 
 tucky from Leestown to the mouth of Eagle Creek, and 
 thence across the country to the mouth of the Licking. 
 Filson, with a knowledge of the country that suggested a 
 route better than either of these and the genius of an 
 engineer to determine it, started from Lexington on a 
 course almost north through Georgetown, then known as 
 the Royal Spring, McLellan's Station, or Lebanon, and 
 following the ridge that divided the waters flowing into 
 the Licking from those that ran to the Kentucky and 
 Ohio, reached the mouth of the Licking in almost a 
 straight line. Modern engineering has not improved upon 
 
85 yohn Filson: 
 
 the line of road thus marked out by Filson through the 
 original forest, and for the simple reason that it was the 
 best that could be selected. The Kentucky Central Rail- 
 road in an evil hour ignored it for the winding way of 
 the valley of the Licking, but the Cincinnati Southern 
 adopted it as the best route between Lexington and the 
 mouth of the Licking, and now sends its locomotives 
 thundering along the path over which Filson led his 
 Losantiville adventurers ninety-six years ago. 
 
 ICaginn GDut JLoaantUriUp. 
 
 It may never be known to what extent Filson suc- 
 ceeded in the laying out of his Losantiville after he 
 reached its site in September, 1788. In 181 1, Judge Bur- 
 net, as attorney for the heirs of Israel Ludlow, brought 
 suit in Cincinnati against John Kidd and Joel Williams 
 for Lot No. 401. In the petition the cunning attorney 
 adroitly avoided any mention of the name of Filson or 
 the town of Losantiville, and made Cincinnati begin with 
 its own name under the plan of Ludlow, who had been 
 thrust into Filson's place after his death. But Filson 
 and Losantiville were not such unsubstantial things as 
 thus to be kept out of the Temple of Justice by the 
 subtile plea of the lawyer in behalf of his clients. They 
 
His Life and Writings. 87 
 
 were real things of the past, matters of history too indel- 
 ibly impressed upon the memories of the living to be 
 thus annihilated for the benefit of those whose interest it 
 was to have them no more. In the answer of the defend- 
 ants and in the depositions taken on both sides, the town 
 of Losantiville loomed up like a thing of life in advance 
 of Cincinnati and on its site, and guilty consciences 
 might have seen wandering through its deserted streets 
 the melancholy specter of Filson, murdered by his red 
 enemies and despoiled by his white friends. The answer 
 filed in this suit by E. Glover, as attorney for Kidd and 
 Williams, and the proof taken by both plaintiffs and 
 defendants, made and perpetuated an issue of fact as to 
 what Filson did or did not in the laying out of Losantiville, 
 each side of which may always have its advocates. The 
 dead Filson had been despoiled of his estate in Cincin- 
 nati, and it was the interest of the spoilers to blot out 
 his name and his works from everything that could tell 
 against them. Robert Patterson, one of the original pro- 
 prietors of Losantiville and partners of Filson, deposed 
 that the plan of a town to be called Losantiville was agreed 
 upon, but before it was laid out on the ground Filson 
 was killed by the Indians. On the contrary, Joel Williams, 
 one of the first lot-owners in Cincinnati, stated in his 
 answer that on or about the 22d of September, 1788, 
 
88 yohn Filson: 
 
 John Filson landed upon the ground, and that on the 
 following day he was surveying some of the lines and 
 streets of Losantiville, whose location he fixed as they 
 afterwards remained when the name was changed to Cin- 
 cinnati. Patterson and Williams are here referred to 
 only as representative men, for there were other witnesses 
 who testified in unison with each of them. They were 
 both intelligent and credible citizens testifying as to a 
 fact about which we should think them both too familiar 
 for doubt, and yet their statements are diametrically op- 
 posed. If they could differ so widely as to what they 
 learned in the very shadow of its occurrence, how are 
 we, so far removed by time, to reconcile their statements 
 or say which was right? 
 
 Bjts liaappearanrp in ih? HJiami Waobs. 
 
 Filson went on the ground opposite to the mouth 
 of the Licking, with his compass and chain, for the pur- 
 pose of laying off his Losantiville; and there is no con- 
 clusive reason why he should not have run some of the 
 lines and streets, as Williams says he did. He has come 
 down to us in tradition as having laid out a town called 
 Losantiville on the site of Cincinnati; and while there is 
 no good reason for supposing that a complete survey of 
 
His Life and Writings. 8o 
 
 the town was made by him in the short interval between 
 his reaching the site and losing his life, a generous con- 
 cession to a life sacrificed in the act would allow him 
 to have done even more than Williams says he did. 
 There was a difficulty in more than a rudimental survey 
 at the time, which arose from a want of precise knowl- 
 edge as to the external lines of section eighteen and 
 fractional section seventeen, on which the town was to be 
 laid out. It was known that the lands pre-empted by 
 Denman lay opposite to the mouth of the Licking, and 
 this was definite enough for Eastern Row, now Broad- 
 way, to take its place immediately opposite to the mouth 
 of the Licking, and eight parallel streets to follow in a 
 westerly direction to Western Row, now Central Ave- 
 nue — this being the direction from which the townships 
 were to be ranged from the Great Miami. Possibly, 
 while making these limited surveys in the midst of the 
 doubts of external boundary, Judge Symmes arrived from 
 Limestone, and with a view to determine, among other 
 things, how far east of the Great Miami the western line 
 of the Losantiville lands should begin, Filson joined the 
 Symmes party in an exploring and surveying expedition 
 to the Great Miami. In this excursion, after the country 
 had been explored as high as the upper line of the fifth 
 range of townships, Filson separated from his companions, 
 
 12 
 
go yohn Filson: 
 
 disappeared in the woods, and was never seen more. 
 Hostile Indians were then lurking in the woods, and it 
 was assumed that he had fallen beneath the stroke of 
 the tomahawk or been pierced by the ball of a savage. 
 His remains were never found, and none of his clothes 
 or papers were ever recovered. No reports ever came 
 from any of the Indian tribes that he had been either 
 killed or captured by them. Numerous searches were 
 made for his skeleton as the lapse of time deepened the 
 melancholy tints of his fate, but none of his bones were 
 ever found. The insidious panther, crouched amid the 
 overhanging boughs, may have sprung upon him, or the 
 surly bear have crushed him within its terrible embrace; 
 the deadly crotalus may have sent fatal poison into his 
 veins, or his own worn-out heart may have suddenly ceased 
 to beat. Among the mighty sycamores and great maples 
 of the valley of the Miami he took his departure from his 
 companions, and these silent witnesses have told no story 
 of the manner of his going. 
 
 Hworiia of Jfftlaon'a Ifcattj. 
 
 In the possession of Robert Clarke, of Cincinnati, is 
 an old Dilworth's Arithmetic which once belonged to 
 Filson and which served the purposes of many books 
 
His Life and Writings. g i 
 
 in his hands. When he was in Louisville the scarcity 
 of books of this kind made it necessary for him to make 
 copies of parts of it for the use of others. Among the 
 papers of the sheriff of Jefferson County for 1785 was 
 found a manuscript in the handwriting of Filson, which 
 I now have, giving the rules and examples of Dilworth 
 for adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing vulgar 
 fractions, for calculating interest, etc. Filson gave this 
 arithmetic to his brother Robert, whom he made the sole 
 devisee and executor of his will, and who after his death 
 wrote on its last page the following memorial : "This Book 
 was given to me by my brother, john filson, who was 
 killed by an indian on the north side of the ohio, 
 October the First, 1788, about five miles from the 
 Great Miami River and 20 or 25 from the Ohio." 
 Robert Filson came to Kentucky early in the year 1789, 
 and from those who were familiar with the circumstances 
 learned the fact thus recorded. With a single exception 
 it is the earliest known record of the sad event, and thus 
 recorded by a loving hand with all the probabilities in its 
 favor it should be accepted as the truth. Joseph Buell, 
 a sergeant stationed at Fort Harmar, in 1788 in his jour- 
 nal, published in Hildreth's Pioneer History, noted in 
 October of that year that one of the surveyors of Judge 
 Symmes had been killed by the Indians. The surveyor 
 
o 2 yohn Filson ; 
 
 thus alluded to was without doubt John Filson, and this 
 was the earliest known record of the event. In the suits 
 of Cincinnati against Joel Williams in 1803, and Ludlow's 
 heirs against Kidd and Williams in 181 1, it was stated in 
 depositions under oath and in pleadings sworn to by the 
 litigants, that Filson had been killed by the Indians in 
 September or October, 1788, and such has been the un- 
 broken chain of accepted evidence. 
 
 ifeatlj at Ungrateful l^anite. 
 
 And yet Filson, though full of premonitions, had not 
 expected to die in that way. In his history of Kentucky 
 he had traced the origin of the Indians from the wilds of 
 Asia, across Bering Strait, to their home in the new 
 world, and had enumerated and located their tribes, with 
 many kind words and few harsh ones about their mode 
 of life. In none of the wars of the English against the 
 Indians has the name of John Filson been found among 
 those who, in the name of civilization and Christianity, 
 drove the red men from their ancestral hunting-grounds 
 and appropriated their lands to their own use. He looked 
 upon them as of the great family of humanity, and, though 
 groping their way in the darkness of ignorance and bar- 
 barism, yet human beings. When he was attacked by them 
 
His Life and Writings. go 
 
 on the Wabash, and had to flee for his life, he deemed his 
 escape an "interposition of heaven" that had preserved 
 him for a valuable purpose. Alas! that miraculous pres- 
 ervation was but to afford an opportunity for him to fall 
 at their hands at another time and place, when no friendly 
 help was near and no kind eye could see the final strug- 
 gle. In his will he had commended his soul to Him who 
 gave it, and his body to his "fellow creatures, to be buried 
 in a Christian-like manner"; but he had no Christian pall 
 nor funeral anthem. In the loneliness of the wild woods 
 of the Miami the shadows of the great trees were his 
 winding-sheet, and the melancholy winds which sighed 
 through their pitying branches his requiem. No little 
 mound attracts to his last resting-place, and no inscription 
 tells of his deeds; but he will live, in his map of Ken- 
 tucky and in his narrative of Boone, when others, laid be- 
 neath marble columns surmounted by brazen epitaphs, are 
 remembered no more. 
 
 PneatH about JFtlanti. 
 
 There was poetry in the death-scene of Filson, in the 
 midst of the awful solitude of the "forest primeval," sol- 
 emn with autumn's "sere and yellow leaf"; but only two 
 of our poets with whose verses I am familiar have remem- 
 
qa John Filson: 
 
 bered the event. W. D. Gallagher, who had laid the scene 
 of his most elaborate poem in the "Miami Woods," could 
 hardly have failed to note the death of Filson there. I 
 have the manuscript of two unpublished stanzas he wrote 
 about Filson, which are as follows: 
 
 SHADOWS. 
 
 Among the mist-dimmed memories 
 
 That from the past come down, 
 Is one of the brave John Filson 
 
 And his survey for a town. 
 Oh ! how he felt his bosom 
 
 With emotions throb and thrill 
 As, asleep or awake, in his dreamings 
 
 He beheld Losantiville ! 
 And down between the Miamis, 
 
 With his compass and his chain, 
 How he marked the ways of the Future, 
 
 Which the Future sought in vain. 
 Well has it been said, "What shadows 
 
 We are, and what shadows pursue." 
 Now we see them — and now we miss them- 
 
 Forever, yet never in view. 
 
 II. 
 
 In the vigor of life, with a spirit 
 That shrank from no duty imposed, 
 
 John Filson's career as surveyor 
 Between the Miamis closed. 
 
His Life and Writings. g r 
 
 If pierced with an Indian arrow, 
 
 Or if with a tomahawk slain, 
 Or else, none knew, for the wild woods 
 
 Were searched for him often in vain. 
 To his memory, in Cincinnati, 
 
 On a street was conferr'd his name; 
 But e'en this was a fleeting tribute, 
 
 For ere long a shadow came, 
 (As shadow and shadow and shadow 
 
 Forever and ever will come), 
 And the brave and adventurous Filson 
 
 Became and remained but a Plum. 
 
 The statement in the last line of Mr. Gallagher's verses, 
 that Filson became and remained but a Plum, is in allu- 
 sion to the street named after him in Losantiville, which 
 became Plum Street when Losantiville became Cincin- 
 nati. The other poet who forgot not Filson was Prof. W. 
 H. Venable, whose ballad, published in his "June on the 
 Miami, and other Poems," in 1877, is given in the supple- 
 ment to this article. 
 
 pUlagri» after Jfeaih. 
 
 So soon as death had put Filson out of the way those 
 harpies that feed upon dead men's estates began their 
 loathsome repast. His solemn contract, written, signed, 
 
o6 yohn Filson: 
 
 sealed, and delivered with all the formalities of the bind- 
 ing law, for one-third of the ground on which the great 
 city of Cincinnati was afterward built, was set aside by 
 his partners as if they had been the only objects of pro- 
 tecting law, and all the rights of their dead equal had 
 perished with him. His partners assumed that as he had 
 paid no money on the contract and could render no serv- 
 ices in death, his interest reverted to Denman; but we 
 look in vain for any such conditions of forfeiture in the 
 contract itself. Instead of sorrow for his tragical end 
 and sympathy for his surviving representatives manifesting 
 themselves in something like a show of justice, his in- 
 heritance was seized by a cold avarice scarcely less sav- 
 age than the hand that had taken his life. It is probable 
 that those who robbed him of his estate in Losantiville 
 really thought that death was an end of his covenant, and 
 that they would have shrunk from the wrong they did 
 if they had fully comprehended it; for their character in 
 other things in life comports not with this act. In the 
 suit of Ludlow's heirs against Kidd and Williams, hereto- 
 fore referred to, it was stated and sworn to in the answer 
 of the defendants that after Filson's death his trunks 
 were ransacked and his papers destroyed for the purpose 
 of vesting in another his interest in the Losantiville lands. 
 After his death his share of these lands was transferred 
 
His Life and Writings. g 7 
 
 to Israel Ludlow and away from his heirs forever without 
 consulting, at the time of transfer, the living representa- 
 tive any more than the dead proprietor. I am aware of 
 the statement in the history of Cincinnati published by 
 Mr. and Mrs. Ford in 1781 to the effect that a brother 
 of John Filson was with the party of Kentuckians when 
 he was killed, and that he informed the surviving partners 
 that no claim would be set up by his legal representatives 
 for his interest in the Losantiville venture. In my search 
 for information concerning Filson, which has neither been 
 short in time nor circumscribed in extent, I have found 
 nothing to make me favor this statement in the Cincin- 
 nati history, while I have come upon much to make me 
 doubt its truth. There was but one brother of Filson 
 who could have given his surviving partners any such 
 assurance, and that was Robert Filson, the sole devisee 
 and executor of his will. On the 28th of November, 1788, 
 Robert Filson was in Chester County, Pennsylvania, where 
 he had proven in court the will of his dead brother, and 
 did not make his appearance in the West until the follow- 
 ing year. He spent much of his time in Louisville, and 
 owned a little farm of one hundred and twenty-five acres 
 on Beech Creek, in Jefferson County, which he purchased 
 of Benjamin Roberts. When he reached this region in 
 1789, he found Ludlow in possession of his dead brother's 
 
 13 
 
q8 yohn Filson : 
 
 interest in Losantiville, with the strong arms of Patter- 
 son and Denman ready to support him. As the prospect 
 of ousting the usurper may not have seemed favorable, 
 nor the property itself in its wild state been deemed of 
 sufficient value to justify a contest for its recovery, it is 
 not strange that the executor and devisee should have 
 succumbed to the situation as he found it. He has, how- 
 ever, been handed down to us by old citizens who knew 
 him well as entertaining any but an approving view of 
 the manner in which Ludlow got possession of his brother's 
 interest in Losantiville. He was not given to swearing, 
 but was reported by Gabriel J. Johnston, an early member 
 of the Louisville bar, to have said of this transaction that 
 no matter how it might be regarded in the Northwest 
 Territory, it would be "counted dinged nigh robbin' in 
 Pennsilvany." 
 
 It is possible that the placing of a brother of Filson 
 in the company of the Kentuckians at the time of his 
 death, and making him disclaim any interest in Losanti- 
 ville before Denman and Patterson took in Ludlow, as 
 stated in the history of Cincinnati, came of a misinterpre- 
 tation of the language used by Robert Patterson in his 
 deposition in the case of the city of Cincinnati against 
 Joel Williams in 1803. Some notes which I have from 
 the papers in this suit do not make Patterson say that a 
 
His Life and Writings. gg 
 
 brother of Filson was present, and thus acted at or im- 
 mediately after his death. He does say, however, that a 
 brother of Filson told him that as no money had been 
 paid upon the purchase, no claim would be made for the 
 interest of his dead brother. Patterson, however, does not 
 fix the time when he was told this by the brother of Fil- 
 son, so as to shut out the inference that it was after Lud- 
 low had been accepted by him and Denman in the place 
 of Filson. All the probabilities are in favor of Patterson's 
 having been told this by Filson's brother after Ludlow had 
 been accepted in the place of the dead partner; for if it 
 had been otherwise Patterson would most likely have fixed 
 the date of his getting this assurance before the arrange- 
 ment with Ludlow, and distinctly have so stated it. 
 
 On account of the burning of the early records of Vin- 
 cennes, Ind., I have not been able to ascertain what be- 
 came of Filson's lands in that region. In Kentucky, where 
 he supposed he had laid the foundation of a large fortune 
 in lands, his evil genius seems to have hovered over him 
 in life and to have pursued his representatives after him. 
 The subtleties of the law, which had been invoked by 
 astute attorneys to get rid of the loose entries of the 
 unsuspecting and careless pioneers in the books of the 
 surveyors, bore heavily and disastrously upon the entries 
 of Filson. All over the district warrant had been laid 
 
IO o "fohn Filson: 
 
 upon warrant until in many places, where the lands were 
 exceptionally good, they were three or four- fold deep; and 
 in the merciless scramble of one for another's lands, the 
 titles of Filson, without his presence to explain and en- 
 force them, were swept away like chaff before the whirl- 
 wind. In the county of Jefferson I have not been able to 
 find that any deeds ever passed for the 1,500 acres he had 
 bought of Squire Boone; and in Fayette the 12,368^ acres 
 he had entered in the books of the surveyor do not seem 
 to have brought to his devisee anything more than the 
 poverty with which they afflicted Filson in his lifetime. 
 When Filson's executor settled his estate in Kentucky 
 and made his returns to the office from which letters of 
 administration had been granted, his accounts showed that 
 he had paid out in litigation and otherwise the sum of 
 ^280 6s. yd. more than he had received as assets. What 
 a financial ending for the holder of 13,873^ acres of land 
 in Kentucky, and one-third of the site on which the great 
 city of Cincinnati was reared! 
 
 Nothing Nantfo after Jftlaon. 
 
 In the year 1802 Joel Williams, in compliance with the 
 territorial law requiring it, filed in the register's office of 
 Hamilton County a plat of "the town of Cincinnati, for- 
 
His Life and Writings. IO i 
 
 merly called Losantiville." On this plat the present Plum 
 Street of Cincinnati was laid down by the name of Filson 
 Street. The same day, however, and at an earlier hour of 
 that day, Israel Ludlow filed for record another plat of the 
 town, on which there was no Filson Street, but on which 
 the present Plum Street, which took the place of the Fil- 
 son Street on the plat of Williams, was spelled Plumb — 
 not so designed, of course, but nevertheless indicating the 
 leaden line of policy by which the very name of Filson 
 was to be obliterated from the new town. Each of the 
 parties claimed that the plat he filed represented the orig- 
 inal town; and if Williams' was an original, it was the 
 wish of Filson that his name should be perpetuated in one 
 of the streets of the town he had projected. If such was 
 his hope, however, it was based on a supposed sense of 
 justice in his associates and successors that was destined 
 to a disappointment as ungrateful as the savage hand 
 which deprived him of his life. 
 
 Patterson and Denman, the partners of Filson, who 
 were out of danger when he lost his life, have been hon- 
 ored with two streets named after each of them; and Lud- 
 low, who succeeded to the estate and the office which had 
 cost Filson his life, has been honored by a bountiful no- 
 menclature, with a street, an avenue, and an alley named 
 after him. But what has the Queen City, the successor of 
 
IQ 2 yohn Filson: 
 
 Losantiville, done for Filson, who first planted the Jacob 
 staff upon her foundation, and sighted the first lines of 
 her streets through the dense woods that covered it? Not 
 even a hovelled alley, much less a business-bound street 
 or palaced avenue, bears his name. Nothing has been 
 done but ignore him, and worse than that, erase his name 
 from a street that already bore it. If misfortune ever pur- 
 sued the projector of a great city — in his name, in his prop- 
 erty, and in his life — that projector was John Filson. 
 
 Cincinnati, however, has been no more unmindful of 
 one of her founders than Kentucky has of her first histo- 
 rian and cartographer. Of all the rivers and creeks, moun- 
 tains and hills, plains and valleys, counties and towns in 
 Kentucky, not one is named after him who first described 
 the country and recorded its early annals. Even of our 
 blooded stock, for the names of which the heavens, the 
 earth and the waters are searched from year to year, not 
 one owner has thought of the name of Filson. He came 
 upon our pioneer stage, played his part amid deserved 
 plaudits, and disappeared behind the curtain never more to 
 be recalled. Our Club has been the first to recognize the 
 debt of gratitude that posterity owes him, by taking to 
 itself the name of Filson, and it is to be hoped that the 
 good example thus set may find imitators. 
 
His Life and Writings. 103 
 
 iCtkeneaB of 3\\w\\. 
 
 Unlike the gifted Macaulay, who, to excite new interest 
 in his renowned subject, began his brilliant essay on the 
 great Milton with an account of his long-lost and recently- 
 found Latin work on Christian doctrine, I have reserved 
 for the last a more humble book that once belonged to 
 the less famous Filson, and which has become his chief 
 relic by preserving his likeness and bringing it down to 
 our times. It is an old-fashioned leather-bound volume of 
 three hundred and sixteen small octavo pages, printed in 
 London, in 1754, with the following quaint title-page: 
 
 "Admonitions from the dead in epistles to the living ad- 
 dressed by certain spirits of both sexes to their friends or 
 enemies on earth with a view either to condemn or justify 
 their conduct while alive and to promote the cause of religion 
 and moral virtue." 
 
 There are evidences in the wear and tear of this book 
 that it was read by the owner. Some of the epistles, and 
 especially that horrid one written by Miss Keppel from 
 the spirit world and giving her mother an account of the 
 treatment of her dead body in the dissecting-room, bear 
 marks of having been read. So does the letter of Mad- 
 ame Maintenon to Voltaire, that of Archbishop Tillotson 
 
ioa yohn Filson: 
 
 to a late bishop, and that of the Duke of Buckingham to 
 his mother. What Filson found to admire in these 
 strangely conceived and not remarkably well executed 
 epistles from the dead to the living I shall not attempt 
 to determine, but the book was evidently a favorite of his. 
 On the front fly-leaf is a miniature likeness of Filson, 
 possibly drawn by himself with a pen, and preserved from 
 injury by the accidental adhering of the leaf to the back of 
 the book with the picture side folded under. Immediately 
 beneath the picture is the signature of Filson, evidently 
 written by himself, as it corresponds with his name to 
 legal documents known to have been subscribed by him. 
 When Filson was in Louisville he usually stayed at 
 the house of Captain James Patten, whom he mentions in 
 his will as his attorney at the Falls of the Ohio. Filson 
 left this book at the house of Captain Patten, and after 
 his death it began its wanderings to the book-shelves of 
 other owners. William Marshall, who obtained it by inter- 
 marriage with the widow of Captain Patten, transferred it 
 to Dr. Charles Caldwell, after whose death it came to me 
 from his estimable widow, who afterward married Judge 
 Hunter and now resides at her country seat on the Bards- 
 town Road in the vicinity of Louisville. It is not likely that 
 it will again change ownership during the remaining few 
 years that may be allotted to the present owner. 
 
His Life and Writings. L r 
 
 Filson has not been flattered in the likeness by a face 
 that would be pronounced either handsome or prepossess- 
 ing. It is about as melancholy a countenance as one 
 would find in a long search among the votaries of II Pen- 
 seroso. Beneath an ample forehead, broad enough and 
 high enough for intellect of no ordinary degree, are 
 thoughtful if not dreamy eyes, a snub nose decisively 
 marked, and a large mouth that would seem to sternly say 
 it were a sin to smile. He appears bound up in the 
 superabundant cravat, high-buttoned vest, and full collared 
 coat of the era preceding the French Revolution, and looks 
 as uncomfortable as a martyr to that fashion need have 
 been. The likeness was evidently taken in his Sunday 
 clothes, and tradition has said of him that he was exceed- 
 ingly particular as to his dress and personal appearance. 
 When he was in the woods he wore the homely costume 
 of the early hunters, but when he listened to the three- 
 or-four-hour sermon of a pioneer preacher, or attended 
 the evening dance of the neighborhood, or sat at the 
 dinner-table of "one of the quality" of the times, he was 
 the seemingly suffering victim of the precise habiliments 
 in which he was bound. He would be called a dandy in our 
 day if arrayed for our times as he was for his. On the 
 whole, while the picture does not represent him to have been 
 as handsome or genial as we would have had the first 
 
 14 
 
io6 yohn Filson. 
 
 historian of Kentucky, we can not say that it is not the 
 likeness of just such a man as would have written what 
 Filson wrote and done what Filson did during the six 
 short years that he was in this region. An exact copy of 
 this likeness, from a plate, engraved for the purpose, forms 
 the frontispiece to this article; and if, in this attempt to 
 collect and preserve information concerning him whose 
 image the picture preserves, I have rescued from oblivion 
 any facts that ought not to have perished, and directed the 
 attention of those whom it may concern to a worthy author 
 too long neglected, the full measure of my wishes will 
 have been accomplished, and I shall regard the effort 
 as a fitting commemoration of the one hundredth anni- 
 versary of the publication of his history and his map of 
 Kentucky. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 Colonel R. T. DURRETT 
 President of The Filson Club since organization 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 WILL OF JOHN FILSON. 
 
 The following is a copy of the will of John Filson, the 
 grandfather of the author of the first history and map of 
 Kentucky. It is taken from the original at Westchester, 
 Penn., where it was proven in court and ordered to record 
 April 29, 1 75 1. I have not felt at liberty to correct the 
 spelling, the grammar, nor any other error, however ap- 
 parent, but give the document as I find it, with whatever 
 faults of composition it may have: 
 
 I John Felson of Fallowfield Township in Chester County, Pennsilvania, 
 being very sick and Weack in body, but of sound and disposoing mind and memory, 
 Do make and ordain this my last Will and Testament, that is to say, principally 
 and first of all I give and renounce mye Soul, into the hand of God, that gave 
 it, and for my Body I recommend it to the Earth to be Buried in a Christian 
 Like and decent mannor at the discretion of Executors, and as touching such 
 worldly Estate, wherewith it hath pleased God to bless me in this life, I give, 
 devise and dispose of the same in the following mannor and form, My will is, 
 that first of all my debts and f unerall Charges be paid and Satisfied : 
 

 no 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 Imprimis: I give and Bequeath unto Jane my Beloved wife one half of 
 my new dwelling house which part shee shall think proper, and her bed and 
 beding, and such further furniture in the house as shee shall have need of, and 
 Likewise a sufncently of Breas meal, for her own use, and two Cows and a Rising 
 horse, and their keeping Winter and Summer one the plantation I now dwell 
 one at the praper Cost and Charges of my son Davison, and Likewise, fire wood 
 Cut and brought to the dore sufficiant for one fire at my son's cost, which privi- 
 ledge, she shall enjoy duroing her naturall life, and at her deceased, what she 
 Leaves shall be given to my son Davison to his only proper use forever. 
 
 Item: I give to my beloved Son Davison whome with my son John. I con- 
 stitute my executor of this my Last Will and Testament, all and singular the Lands 
 Messuages and Tenements, by him freely to be posessed and enjoyed by him 
 his heirs and assigns forever, being the place whereone I now dwell, Containing 
 by Estimation two hundred acres be it more or less, But in Case he should without 
 Issue, then the said Messuage or Plantation shall be sold, and the value of it 
 shall be Euqually divided to all my Children, except my wife's previledge which 
 shall still remain to her as aforesaid. 
 
 Item: I give to my son William Felson Ten Shillings to be Levied out of 
 my Estate. 
 
 Item: I give to my daughter Margaret two cows. 
 
 Item: I give Martha Peoples, a two year old heifer, if she remain in my 
 house at my death. 
 
 Item: I give to my three Grandsons John, and two Robert Felsons each of 
 them a pocet bible, to be procured by my executors. 
 
 Item: My will is that after all my debts and funerall Charges, be paid and 
 satisfied, with those above mentioned Legacies, that the rest of my personall 
 Estate shall be Equally divided between my two sons John, and Davison part 
 and share alike, John paying his Mother three pounds a year, Yearly and every 
 year dureing her naturall life, if demanded. And I doe Constitute and ordain 
 John Filson and Davison Felson, to be my Executors of this my Last will and 
 
Appendix. 
 
 in 
 
 Testament Utterly disallowing and revoking all and every other Wills Testaments, 
 Legacies and executors by me in any way before this time named. Willed and 
 Bequeathed, Ratifying and confirming this and no other to be my Last Will and 
 Testament. 
 
 In Witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal this 3rd day of 
 September in the year 1748. 
 
 JOHN FELSON. (seal] 
 
 WILL OF DAVISON FILSON. 
 
 The following is an exact copy of the last will and 
 testament of Davison Filson, the father of the first his- 
 torian and cartographer of Kentucky. The original is 
 on file at Westchester, Pennsylvania, where it was proven 
 in court and ordered to be recorded August 23, 1776. 
 As in the case of his father's will, I have made no alter- 
 ations, but given the bad spelling, bad grammar, etc., as 
 I found them. Testators in dying conditions don't have 
 much thought about the elegance of composition, and 
 all of them can't attain it even if it enters their thoughts; 
 but it should be borne in mind by those who undertake 
 to improve upon the general distribution of estates as 
 made by law, that some regard should be paid to the 
 English language as well as other things. The law 
 makes a very good will and does it in good English, 
 
112 Appendix. 
 
 and those who undertake to make a better should not 
 do so by violating the ordinary rules of the spelling-book 
 and grammar: 
 
 In the naim of God Amen the seckeent day of August in the year 1776 I Davi- 
 son Filson of Eaist Follofild in Chester County and Province of Pencelvania, 
 yeoman, being weak in Boddey but of sound mind & memory do make this my 
 
 last Will & Testament in manner Following 
 
 Imprimes: I Bequeath my soul to God who gave it, & my body to the dust 
 to be decently Interred at the discretion of my Excu's: 
 
 Itim: after payment of all my just debtes and Funerall expences, I Bequeath 
 to my beloved Wife Agness Filson hir Bed and Bed clothes, with one hors and 
 
 sadle and one Cow 
 
 Itime: I Bequeath unto my beloved son John Filson two Cows out of my 
 Esteat — along with the Land he gat by deed from me and no more, onley the two 
 first Bonds he give me for the Land, is to be forgiven him, which is Fiftey Pounds, 
 and the next Fiftey Pounds my son John is to pay it to my two doughters, Ann 
 Filson & Ellenor Filson when their com of age, which will be Twenty-five Pounds 
 
 to ech of them 
 
 Itime: I alow my beloved doughter Ann Filson the Bed & Bead-Cloths in 
 
 the Beack Room 
 
 Itime: I alow my beloved dougher Elenor Filson the Chist of draers in the 
 
 Beack Room 
 
 Itim: I alow Ann Filson & Elenor Filson ech of them one Cow and two yous 
 out of my Esteate — 
 
 Itime: I Bequeath unto my beloved son Robert Filson one Bead and one 
 Cow, and his pick of one Hors out of my Esteat along with his Land I mead him 
 by Leas and no more. 
 
 Itim: I alow the pleace I bought of William Filson to be sold all but the 
 Fiftey acors I made over to my son Robert Filson to pay the debt that is upon it 
 and the remender of it to be equely devided between my dougher Ann Filson, 
 
Appendix. 
 
 ll 3 
 
 Elenor Filson, Mosis Filson, Jean Filson, Elisabeth Filson, & the last one bourn 
 and not naimed ase yeat and the mother to have hir shear of the saim 
 
 Mm: After all my just debts and Legocys before menchened be paid & 
 settesfyed. I alow that the remender of my parsenal esteat be sold and equely 
 be devided betwen my belovid wife & Ann Filson Elenor Filson, Mosis Filson 
 Jean Filson Elisabeth Filson and the last bourn Child on naimed part and shear 
 
 alike 
 
 Itime: I alow my wif to live with my son Robert one year after my death 
 and no more — without the cean agray longer. 
 Itime: I alow my son Mosis to go to a tread — 
 
 Finally, I apoint and ordain my son— John Filson and my son Robert Filson 
 to rase keep and mintan and scool my two doughters Jean Filson and Elisabeth 
 Filson till the are of age. 
 
 Itime: I confes the Land I bought of James Harlen is to be Bettey Ring's 
 after she pays John Pasmore the money he hes against mee — 
 
 Finaly, I apoint & ordain my beloved son Robert Filson and my beloved 
 frend William Grant to be the executers of this my last Will and Testament, 
 Revoking & disinuling aney other person or persons from having aney Right 
 by birthrit and all other Wills and Testaments by me heretofore made and pub- 
 lished Ratifing this ase my last Will ase Witness my hand and sail the day and 
 year above ritten. 
 
 DAVISON FILSON. [seal.] 
 
 ENTRY OF FIVE THOUSAND ACRES 
 OF LAND. 
 
 The following is a copy of the first land entry made 
 by John Filson in the register of Col. Thomas Marshall, 
 surveyor of Fayette County, Ky. : 
 
 15 
 
1 14. Appendix. 
 
 John Filson assee of Clem Moore Enteres 5000 acres of Land on part of a 
 Treasury Warrant No 19606 lying on the waters of ohio and about 10 or 11 miles 
 Eastward of the big Bone Lick. Beginning at the northeastward corner of an 
 Entry made in the name of Benjamin Netherland for 7000 acres and running 
 north with the lines of older Entries 1200 poles and also from said Beginning 
 south 20 west with Netherlands line to the line of an Entry made in the name of 
 James Lyle Jr for 500 acres, thence South 70 East to the corner of said Entry, 
 then and also from the Termination of the line of 1200 poles East for quantity. 
 Deer 19th 1783. 
 
 ENTRY OF FORTY-NINE HUNDRED AND 
 TWENTY-TWO ACRES OF LAND. 
 
 The following is a copy of the second land entry made 
 by John Filson in the register of Col. Thomas Marshall, 
 surveyor of Fayette County: 
 
 John Filson assee &c Enteres 4922 acres of Land on the ballance of a Treasury 
 Warrant No 19606 lying about 5 or 6 miles from the ohio River, Beginning at the 
 most West corner of an Entry made in the name of Humphrey Marshall for 3,000 
 acres and runing from, thence and with the line of Said Entry South 40 East 
 and continuing the Same course 800 poles, thence and from the Beginning running 
 South 50 West so far that a line runing from the Termination of one to the other 
 and parallel to the line of 800 poles will include the quantity Deer 19th 1783. 
 
Appendix. n r 
 
 ENTRY OF TWENTY-FOUR HUNDRED AND 
 FORTY-SIX ACRES OF LAND. 
 
 The following is a copy of the third land entry made 
 by John Filson in the Register of Colonel Thomas Mar- 
 shall, surveyor of Fayette County: 
 
 John Filson, assee, Enteres 2446^ acres on two Treasury Warrants one Be- 
 longing to John Boyd No. 14,934, the other assigned to John Filson No. 10,758 as 
 tenant adjoining on the northerly side with said Boyd about 10 or 11 miles south 
 of Ohio River, beginning at the most westerly corner of an entry of John Filson's 
 thence by the line of said Entry of 4922 acres south 40 East and continuing the 
 same course 625 poles, thence and from the beginning south 50 west 626 poles or. 
 so far that a line running parallel to the former will include the quantity Deer 
 20th 1783. 
 
 FILSON'S BOND FOR A DEED TO 
 HENRY. 
 
 The following is a copy of the bond for a deed made 
 by John Filson in favor of Daniel Henry, and recorded 
 in the Clerk's Office of Jefferson County, in Louisville, Ky. : 
 
 Know all men by these presents, that I, John Filson, of Jefferson County, 
 and Commonwealth of Virginia, am held and firmly bound unto Daniel Henry, 
 merchant of the same place, in the just and full sum of two thousand pounds 
 lawful money of Virginia, to be paid unto the said Daniel Henry, his heirs, execu- 
 
1 1 6 Appendix. 
 
 tors, administrators, or assigns, to the which payment well and truly to be made 
 and done I bind myself, my heirs, Ex'r's and administrators firmly by these 
 presents, sealed with my seal and dated this fourteenth day of October, one 
 thousand seven hundred and eighty five. 
 
 The condition of the above obligation is such that if the above bounden 
 John Filson, his heirs, executors, or administrators, or either of them do or shall 
 well and truly make over, a good sure and indefeasable Estate of Inheritance 
 in Fee Simple of in and to a certain tract of land, lying and being situate upon 
 the west branch of Brandywine Creek about two miles south of the Gap road in 
 East fallowfield Township, Chester County, and Commonwealth of Pennsyl- 
 vania, containing two hundred and forty acres, free and clear off and from all 
 and all manner of Incumbrances, and demands whatsoever, against the first 
 day of April in the year one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven unto 
 the above mentioned Daniel Henry, his heirs, executors, administrators or assigns 
 together with full possession, of the aforesaid premises against the first day of 
 April next ensuing the date hereof and that without any Let hindrance, Inter- 
 ruption or Disturbance of the aforesaid John Filson, his heirs or assigns or any 
 other person or persons whatsoever, then the above obligation to be void and 
 of none effect, otherwise remain in full force and virtue in law. 
 
 JOHN FILSON. [sEal.1 
 
 Signed, sealed, and delivered in the presence of 
 
 David Morgan, 
 
 Benjamin Earickson, 
 
 Daniel Buckley, 
 
 Martin Carney, 
 
 John Williams, 
 
 James Morrison. 
 
 Jefferson Set. November Court, 1785. 
 
 The foregoing Bond was duly acknowledged in open court and admitted to 
 
 record. Teste: 
 
 WILL JOHNSTON, Clerk. 
 
Appendix. uy 
 
 PROPOSED SCHOOL IN LEXINGTON. 
 
 On the 19th of January, 1788, the following article, writ- 
 ten by Filson, advocating the establishment of a seminary 
 at Lexington, was published in the Kentucky Gazette, a 
 weekly newspaper then printed there by John Bradford. 
 The article led to a comical as well as a serious corre- 
 spondence, as will appear by what followed: 
 
 The public has been informed that a seminary is proposed in Lexington. 
 In consultation of the respectable inhabitants upon that subject, there appeared 
 a proper spirit of encouragement: every gentleman present was suitably im- 
 pressed with the importance of the plan, and seriously wished the accomplish- 
 ment. Many valuable advantages will probably arise from this institution, as 
 the situation will be popular and healthy, in the center of a fertile country, where 
 accomodations for students may be had at the lowest rates. The teachers are 
 determined to pay the strictest attention to their pupils, and hope their success 
 will merit encouragement. With the discipline of northern teachers to suppress 
 every species of vice and immorality, and give the greatest encouragement to 
 the fruit and practice of virtue, party spirit will be exploded, and to instruct in 
 the general system of Christianity only, considered as their indispensable duty. 
 
 The ideas of mankind with respect to the seats of education are various, 
 some prefer a town or city, others the country; the latter, viewing the many 
 temptations youths are exposed to in towns, and supposing they are fewer in 
 the country, think that the most eligible: however probable this may appear, 
 yet experience proves that a being, determined on folly, will find as many oppor- 
 
1 1 8 Appendix. 
 
 tunities in the country, as in town, with the addition of a greater secresy in 
 accomplishing his designs : many mean and vicious practices can be effected, 
 which in a public situation the unavoidable idea of detection would effectually 
 prevent; this obvious from a view of a country student walking out of school, 
 he carelessly hulks his body along in clownish gestures, pays no respect to a 
 genteel movement, from a consciousness that no eye beholds him, fears not the 
 contempt or ridicule which must be consequent upon such a conduct in a respect- 
 able town, or if in a public situation indecorum should pass unnoticed by all, 
 but the teachers, then is the most pertinent season for admonitions, when the 
 culprit must be sensible upon the smallest observation of the ruinous conse- 
 quences to all character and future reputation, which he must unavoidably sus- 
 tain. I conceive the voice of thunder could not make more serious impressions. 
 Experience beyond doubt will confirm these observations. 
 
 The advantage of knowing mankind also, which those in a recluse situation 
 can not, and after a series of time, except their studies, are mere infants, and fre- 
 quently upon their first approach into public life, by awkwardness, blast all 
 their future fame ; the contrary is evident with the young gentleman educated in 
 public life, by frequently viewing the deformity of vice, he naturally abhors it, 
 especially where it is treated with contempt; with the knowledge of science he 
 becomes acquainted with human nature, has a proper idea of the world, and by 
 the time his studies are accomplished is the gentleman as well as the scholar. 
 
 This investigation may extend to every country, at present it is designed 
 for Kentucky, in which it is sufficient to say Lexington is not the least in account 
 for this situation. 
 
 The tuition will be five pounds per annum, one half cash the other property, 
 good boarding, washing and lodging may be had about one mile from town for 
 twenty or thirty at nine pounds per year, and that in property, and in case of 
 providing a bed the boarding will be eight pounds for each one. Those who wish 
 to secure lodgings will apply to Mr. Barr and Mr. Coburn in Lexington for 
 information. 
 
Appendix. 
 
 i ii 
 
 The education will commence some time in April, and the French language 
 will be taught, with all the arts and sciences used in academies. In the beginning 
 of April all students will apply for entrance, as I shall be constantly in Lexington 
 from that time. I am, with respect, the public's obedient humble servant. 
 
 JOHN FILSON. 
 
 AGRICOLA'S REPLY TO FILSON. 
 
 On the 8th of March, 1788, the following sarcastic and 
 unexpected reply to Filson's article on the proposed semi- 
 nary appeared in the Kentucky Gazette: 
 
 To Mr. Filson: 
 
 Sir : As I am a citizen of Kentucky and have a number of children to educate 
 it gives me a great deal of pleasure to see schools rising so thick in various parts 
 of the district. How happy for this infant country that we have so many gentle- 
 men of learning and abilities, who are ready to take our youth by the hand and 
 lead them through the whole circle of arts and sciences, at so moderate an expense. 
 Only a few months ago I was puzzled to find a proper school for my sons : now the 
 scene is changed, and I seem equally embarrassed to know which seminary to 
 prefer. 
 
 At one time I had concluded to suffer my boys to drink at the Royal Springs, 
 and try the efficacy of that wondrous font; but, being a very staunch whig, I 
 hate even the name of royal, though applied to the waters of Parnassus. I 
 then turned my attention to Lexington school, and was about putting my sons 
 under the tuition of the former professor of Philadelphia college, but before 
 this could be accomplished an ingenious production from some of the promising 
 youths of Jessamine seemed to press me to send them to that celebrated seat of 
 the Muses. 
 
1 20 Appendix. 
 
 However, Sir, upon a careful revisal of your late production and seriously 
 weighing the matter in my own mind, I have at length come to a fixed resolution 
 to keep my boys at home until your academy is opened. For of all plans of educa- 
 tion hitherto offered to the public yours certainly bears the palm, and promises 
 the most extensive utility. Your design is great and important. To unite the 
 scholar, the gentleman and the Christian all in one, is the supreme, the ultimate 
 end of science. Indeed a design like this will stamp divinity on your institution, 
 success to philosophy, and raise humanity to a consummation which every good 
 man must devoutly wish. And in this view of it, I have the pleasure to inform 
 you that all my acquaintances are charmed, are delighted with the institution, 
 and determined to give it every encouragement. And, as we feel so deeply 
 interested in this institution, we wish to know more of it, and fully to understand 
 every syllable that has dropped from your learned pen concerning it. 
 
 But, here, Sir, we labor under an unhappy disadvantage. In my neighbor- 
 hood all are illiterate, and unaccustomed to high, flowery language or abstruse 
 reasoning. Your sentiments are, many of them, so new, your style is so lofty, 
 your periods are so lengthy and crowded with such a variety of matter, your 
 conclusions are often so remote from their premises, and relatives quite out of 
 sight of their antecedents, that we are totally left in the maze, and the longest 
 line of our understandings are not able to fathom the depth of such erudition. 
 I have therefore, by the desire of my neighbors, flung those parts of your adver- 
 tisement that we could not understand into a few questions. As 
 
 1. What is meant by the word popular, as applied to the situation of your 
 intended academy? 
 
 2. Is it necessary that your scholars should travel a mile every day, in all 
 weather, in order to find boarding at eight or nine pounds a year? 
 
 3. Are youth who receive their education in populous cities generally more 
 virtuous than such as have a private education? 
 
 4. What peculiar charms have northern teachers to inspire virtue, suppress 
 vice, and explode all party spirit, that southern teachers do not possess? 
 
Appendix. 
 
 121 
 
 5. What is the meaning of the verb hulk? 
 
 6. Are young ladies, educated in the country, guilty of the sin— of hulking? 
 This question comes from the fair sex themselves, who have taken the alarm. 
 
 They fully believe that the crime of hulking, which you have so indiscriminately 
 charged upon their brothers, is a rude stroke of satire, indirectly aimed at them. 
 Take heed, good Sir; 'tis death to provoke the Fair. 
 
 Lastly, for the benefit of such as can not give their children a public educa- 
 tion, be pleased to point out that peculiar moment, that particular nick of time 
 when admonition, like a thunderbolt, shall knock a hulking boy out of his "awk- 
 ward gestures" into a "genteel movement." 
 
 By giving a plain, easy solution to these questions, you will, sir, much oblige 
 many of your well-wishers, and, with the rest, your most obedient and humble 
 servant, 
 
 AGRICOLA. 
 
 FILSON'S REJOINDER TO AGRICOLA. 
 
 On the 19th of April, 1788, the following rejoinder of 
 Filson to Agricola was published in the Kentucky Gazette: 
 
 To Agricola: 
 
 You have taken the liberty to animadvert upon the publication of the in- 
 tended Seminary, proposing a few silly and impertinent questions, which I shall 
 take no notice of. Your officious performance Reflects no reputation, indicating 
 a Spirit of altercation, which in every attitude I view with contempt. As you 
 have been so personal with me, you will please to leave your name with the Printer, 
 and oblige 
 
 JOHN FILSON. 
 16 
 
12 2 Appendix. 
 
 AGRICOLA'S SURREJOINDER TO FILSON. 
 
 On the 17th of May, 1788, the following surrejoinder 
 of Agricola to Filson appeared in the Kentucky Gazette, 
 and closed the correspondence so far as is known, as noth- 
 ing further appeared in the paper: 
 
 To Mr. Filson, Sir: 
 
 You have taken the liberty to animadvert upon the (viz. my) publication 
 of the intended seminary, proposing a silly and impertinent question, which I 
 shall take no notice of. Your officious performance reflects no reputation, indi- 
 cating a spirit of altercation, which in every attitude I view with contempt. 
 
 AGRICOLA. 
 
 EXTRACT FROM THE ANSWER OF KIDD 
 AND WILLIAMS. 
 
 In March, 181 1, Jacob Burnet, as attorney for the heirs 
 at law of Israel Ludlow, filed in the Court of Common 
 Pleas, in Cincinnati, a petition against John Kidd and 
 Joel Williams for the recovery of Lot No. 401. The 
 petition ignored John Filson as one of the founders of 
 Cincinnati, and also ignored Losantiville as being the 
 predecessor of Cincinnati; and began Cincinnati with its 
 own name as laid out by Israel Ludlow. On the 25th 
 
Appendix. 121 
 
 of July, 181 1, E. Glover, as attorney for John Kidd and 
 Joel Williams, filed an answer in which Filson was put 
 forth as the original layer-out of the town of Losantiville, 
 and Losantiville as the predecessor of Cincinnati. From 
 this answer of Kidd and Williams the following extracts 
 are taken concerning Filson: 
 
 On the 25th day of August, 1788, he, the said Matthias Denman, entered 
 into a contract in writing under his hand and seal with the said Robert Patterson 
 named in the complainant's bill and one John Filson, then of Lexington, Fayette 
 County, and State of Kentucky, but who is since deceased, whereby the said 
 Matthias did grant, bargain, and sell the full two thirds part of said six hundred 
 and forty acres to be located by virtue of the aforesaid warrant by an equal 
 undivided right in partnership to the said Robert Patterson and John Filson, 
 their heirs and assigns, and the said Matthias, Robert, and John did, by said 
 agreement, covenant with each other that every other institution, determination, 
 and regulation respecting the laying off of a town and establishing a ferry at and 
 upon the premises should be the result of the united advice and consent of the 
 parties in covenant as aforesaid. By virtue of which said contract the said John 
 Filson became entitled to an equal undivided third part of all the right and title 
 of him the said Matthias, the said Robert to one other third part thereof, and the 
 remaining third part was retained by the said Matthias as a tenant in common 
 with the said John and Robert. . . . And these defendants further state that they 
 are informed and believe that after the aforesaid contract had been made between 
 the said Denman, Patterson, and Filson, they agreed to lay out a town upon 
 the premises, and on or about the 22d day of September, in the year 1788, they, 
 the said Denman, Patterson, and Filson, landed on the ground where Cincinnati 
 now stands, and on the following day commenced surveying some of the lines 
 and streets of said town and then and there agreed upon the site thereof as the 
 same has since been laid out, to which they then gave the name of Losantiville. . . . 
 
1 24 Appendix. 
 
 And these defendants further state that sometime in or about the month of Octo- 
 ber, in the year 1788, the said John Filson was killed by the Indians in defense of 
 the Miami country. And they further aver that the said John Filson did not 
 at any time prior to his death sell or in any manner dispose of his right purchased 
 from the said Matthias as aforesaid, or any part thereof, either to the said Israel 
 Ludlow or any other person, but that he died possessed of all the right he had 
 acquired by virtue of the aforesaid contract with the said Matthias whereupon 
 all the right and title of the said John Filson descended and became vested in 
 his heirs at law who, as these defendants are informed and believe, reside in some 
 of the Eastern States. And these defendants further state that shortly after 
 the death of the said John Filson the said Matthias Denman, Robert Patterson, 
 and Israel Ludlow entered into a combination, as these defendants are informed 
 and believe, to defraud the heirs of the said John Filson of the right he had ac- 
 quired in his lifetime by virtue of the before mentioned contract with the said 
 Matthias. And for the purpose of effecting and concealing their unjust and 
 fraudulent designs, after having ransacked his trunks and destroyed such of his 
 papers as they could find, they agreed with each other that the said Israel should 
 appear to the world and act as proprietor of all that part of the said premises 
 which belonged to said John at the time of his death ; and that he should proceed 
 in all respects in the same manner as if the said Israel had in fact been the pur- 
 chaser from the said Denman in the place and stead of the said John. And in 
 pursuance of said unjust, wicked and fraudulent combination, the said Israel 
 did usurp the right which belonged to the said John Filson at the time of his death, 
 and did act as proprietor of one third part of the said premises, and they and each 
 of them did conceal and deny the right of the said John Filson and did hold out 
 the said Israel as an equal proprietor with the said Matthias and Robert, whereas 
 in truth the said Israel had no right or title in the premises, but the same belonged 
 to the said Filson at the time of his death as herein before stated. 
 
Appendix. 
 
 I2 5 
 
 EXTRACT FROM PATTERSON'S DEPOSITION. 
 
 In the case of Ludlow's heirs against Kidd & Williams, 
 Robert Patterson, one of the original proprietors and part- 
 ners of Filson, gave his deposition January 6, 1814, from 
 which the following extract is taken concerning Filson: 
 
 Matthias Denman purchased of John C Symmes a section and fraction oppo- 
 site the mouth of Licking, containing somewhere about 710 acres, and admitted 
 this deponent and one Filson as partners in said purchase ; that they agreed to 
 lay out a town on said tract shortly afterwards, and before the town was laid off 
 Filson was killed by the Indians ; that he never had advanced or paid any money 
 for his proportion of said tract either to Symmes or Denman, and after his death 
 Israel Ludlow was by the consent of the other proprietors admitted an equal 
 partner in said purchase. 
 
 VENABLE'S BALLAD ON FILSON. 
 
 The following ballad was written by W. H. Venable, 
 principal of the Chickering Institute at Cincinnati, and 
 appeared in his book, entitled "June on the Miami, and 
 other Poems," published at Cincinnati in 1877: 
 
 JOHN FILSON. 
 
 John Filson was a pedagogue, 
 
 A pioneer was he; 
 I know not what his nation was, 
 
 Nor what his pedigree. 
 
126 Appendix. 
 
 Tradition's scanty records tell 
 
 But little of the man, 
 Save that he to the frontier came 
 
 In immigration's van. 
 
 Perhaps with phantoms of reform 
 
 His busy fancy teemed; 
 Perhaps of new Utopias 
 
 Hesperian he dreamed. 
 
 John Filson and companions bold 
 
 A frontier village planned, 
 In forest wild, on sloping hills, 
 
 By fair Ohio's strand. 
 
 John Filson from three languages 
 
 With pedant skill did frame 
 The novel word Losantiville 
 
 To be the new town's name. 
 
 Said Filson, "Comrades, hear my words — 
 Ere threescore years have flown 
 
 Our town will be a city vast." 
 Loud laughed Bob Patterson. 
 
 Still John exclaimed, with prophet tongue, 
 
 "A city fair and proud, 
 The Queen of Cities in the West " ! 
 
 Mat. Denman laughed aloud. 
 
 Deep in the wild and solemn woods, 
 Unknown to white man's track, 
 
 John Filson went one autumn day, 
 But never more came back. 
 
Appendix. 127 
 
 He struggled through the solitude 
 
 The inland to explore, 
 And with romantic pleasure trac'd 
 
 Miami's winding shore. 
 
 Across his path the startled deer 
 Bounds to its shelter green, 
 
 He enters every lonely vale 
 And cavernous ravine. 
 
 Too soon the murky twilight comes, 
 The night wind 'gins to moan; 
 
 Bewildered wanders Filson, lost, 
 Exhausted, and alone. 
 
 By lurking foes his steps are dogged; 
 
 A yell his ear appalls ! 
 A ghastly corpse upon the ground, 
 
 A murdered man he falls. 
 
 The Indian, with instinctive hate, 
 
 In him a herald saw 
 Of coming hosts of pioneers, 
 
 The friends of light and law; 
 
 In him beheld the champion 
 
 Of industries and arts, 
 The founder of encroaching roads 
 
 And great commercial marts; 
 
 The spoiler of the hunting-ground, 
 
 The plower of the sod, 
 The builder of the Christian school 
 
 And of the house of God. 
 
1 28 Appendix. 
 
 And so the vengeful tomahawk 
 John Filson's blood did spill — 
 
 The spirit of the pedagogue 
 No tomahawk could kill. 
 
 John Filson had no sepulcher, 
 Except the wild wood dim; 
 
 The mournful voices of the air 
 Made requiem for him. 
 
 The druid trees their waving arms 
 
 Uplifted o'er his head; 
 The moon a pallid vail of light 
 
 Upon his visage spread. 
 
 The rain and sun of many years 
 Have worn his bones away, 
 
 And what he vaguely prophesied 
 We realize to-day. 
 
 Losantiville, the prophet's word, 
 The poet's hope, fulfills — 
 
 She sits a stately Queen to-day 
 Amid her royal hills. 
 
 Then come, ye pedagogues, and join 
 
 To sing a graceful lay 
 For him the martyr pioneer 
 
 Who led for you the way. 
 
 And may my simple ballad be 
 
 A monument to save 
 His name from blank oblivion 
 
 Who never had a grave. 
 
Appendix. I2 g 
 
 THE FIRST LOT-OWNERS IN CINCINNATI. 
 
 The interval was so long between the initial steps of 
 Filson in laying out Cincinnati, under the name of Lo- 
 santiville, in September, 1788, and the first distribution of 
 lots under Ludlow, in January, 1789, that the friends of 
 Filson, who expected to become settlers under his plan, 
 may not have acquired lots. And yet there are good rea- 
 sons for believing that the lots acquired by the first own- 
 ers in the city of Cincinnati differed but little, if any, from 
 those that Filson had marked out in his original plan of 
 Losantiville. Even Judge Burnet, who insisted on having 
 Filson dead before a chain was stretched upon the site 
 of Losantiville, and always spoke of the forfeiture of his 
 interest in that town on account of his death and the 
 non-payment of the purchase-money as a matter of course, 
 without the least regard to the conditions of his written 
 contract, gave good testimony through another witness as 
 to the similarity between Filson's plan of Losantiville and 
 Ludlow's plan of Cincinnati — the main difference con- 
 sisting in Filson's plan giving more ground for public use 
 than Ludlow's gave. Here is what the judge said in his 
 letter of October 5, 1844, published in Cist's Cincinnati 
 Miscellany: 
 
 17 
 
130 Appendix. 
 
 I was informed by Judge Turner, one of the earliest adventurers to the West, 
 that he had seen both plats, and that the general outline and plan of division 
 were nearly the same in both, but that the first or Filson plat, to which the name 
 of Losantiville was to have been given, set aside two entire blocks for the use 
 of the town, and that it gave as a public common all the ground between front 
 street and the river extending from Eastern Row to Western Row, then the 
 extreme boundaries of the town plat ; and it is impressed upon my mind, though 
 I can not say what caused that impression, that on the first or Filson plat Front 
 Street was laid down nearer to the river or made more southing in its course 
 westward than we find it on the plat of Cincinnati. I was also informed that some 
 of the names which had been selected for streets of the Losantiville plan were 
 given to streets on the plan of Cincinnati, and that others were rejected. 
 
 The presumption can not be regarded as violent, there- 
 fore, that the first owners of lots in the great city of Cin- 
 cinnati acquired them as they had been originally laid out 
 by Filson in his plan of Losantiville. Believing that such 
 was the fact, and that the pledge of Filson, in the pros- 
 pectus of August 30, 1788, to give thirty half-acre lots and 
 thirty four-acre lots to the first settlers was thus redeemed, 
 I subjoin a list of the in-lots and the out-lots acquired 
 on the 7th of January, 1789, with the names of the owners: 
 
 THE OUT-LOTS OF FOUR ACRES EACH. 
 
 No. 1, James Carpenter, No. 4, Ephraim Kibby, 
 
 2, John Porter, 5, James McConnell, 
 
 3, Joel Williams, 6, David McClure, 
 
Appendix. 
 
 *3* 
 
 • 7, 
 
 Harry Lindsay, 
 
 No. 19, 
 
 Davison, 
 
 8, 
 
 Matthew Cammel, 
 
 20, 
 
 Isaac Freeman, 
 
 9, 
 
 Scott Traverse, 
 
 21, 
 
 James Cammel, 
 
 10, 
 
 Jonas Menfer, 
 
 22, 
 
 Noah Badgley, 
 
 II, 
 
 James Dument, 
 
 23- 
 
 Jesse Fulton, 
 
 12, 
 
 Archibald Stewart, 
 
 24, 
 
 John Vance, 
 
 13. 
 
 Luther Kitchel, 
 
 25, 
 
 Benjamin Dument, 
 
 14, 
 
 Samuel Mooney, 
 
 26, 
 
 Elijah Martin, 
 
 15- 
 
 Sylvester White, 
 
 27, 
 
 Daniel Shoemaker, 
 
 16, 
 
 Henry Buchtel, 
 
 28, 
 
 Joseph Thornton, 
 
 17, 
 
 Thomas Gizzel, 
 
 29, 
 
 Samuel Blackburn, 
 
 18, 
 
 Isaac Vanmeter, 
 
 30, 
 
 Jesse Stewart, 
 
 31, William McMillan. 
 
 THE IN-LOTS OF HALF AN ACRE EACH. 
 
 No. I, Samuel Blackburn, 
 
 2, Sylvester White, 
 
 3, Robert Caldwell, 
 
 4, John Vance, 
 
 5, James Dument, 
 
 6, Jesse Fulton, 
 
 7, Elijah Martin, 
 
 8, Isaac Vanmeter, 
 
 9, Thomas Gizzel, 
 
 No. 26, Joshua McClure, 
 27, Davison, 
 
 28, Nathaniel Rolstein, 
 
 29, Jonas Menfer, 
 
 30, James McConnell, 
 
 31, Noah Badgley, 
 
 32, James Carpenter, 
 
 33, Samuel Mooney, 
 
 34, James Cammel, 
 
i g 2 Appendix. 
 
 No. 51, Isaac Freeman, No. 57, Archibald Stewart, 
 
 52, Scott Traverse, 58, Luther Kitchel, 
 
 53, Enoch McHenry, 59, Ephraim Kibby, 
 
 54, Jesse Stewart, 76, Harry Lindsay, 
 56, Henry Bechtel, 77, John Porter, 
 
 [ Daniel Shoemaker, 
 [ Joel Williams. 
 
 DEPOSITION OF COL. PATTERSON. 
 
 It was my purpose to insert in this appendix the depo- 
 sition given by Col. Robert Patterson, in December, 1803, 
 in the suit brought by the city of Cincinnati against Joel 
 Williams for the recovery of the old Losantiville common. 
 This deposition, however, could not be found among the 
 records, in their confused state, as rescued from the late 
 fire which destroyed the Cincinnati court-house, and it is 
 possible that the original perished in the flames. The 
 view I have presented of what passed between Col. Pat- 
 terson and a brother of John Filson concerning the Filson 
 interest in the Losantiville lands is based upon notes made 
 from this deposition years ago. I may add, however, that 
 a comparison of my notes with some made from the same 
 deposition by Mr. John D. Caldwell, of Cincinnati, a very 
 accurate collector, shows perfect agreement in every im- 
 portant particular. 
 
, : 3Q