IN the very heart of our United States is a vast and wonderful valley.
Through the primeval hardwood forests of its hillsides, long ago, ran the naked, rollicking boys of the Stone Age, choosing the best paths as they hurried out to play, each one with his pet wolf puppy.
Afterward, in the rich alluvial soil of the bottom-lands, fur-clouted lads of the Mound-Builders laid out good trails whereon every one could drive tandem his team of captured fawns.
Later still, Indian striplings found the streams that might best bear, with least portage, the birch-bark canoe in which, with his doeskin blanket aflutter and his trained hawk on prow, many a one has shot the rapids.
Then came the white men.
They discovered these routes and followed them.
Over the waterways, in the native canoes which he borrowed, sailed the Jesuit missionary explorer with standard and altar; then the French trading "voyageur" with bundles of skins and bead trinkets.
Through the old forest paths marched the scarlet-coated British soldier and the ragged Continental volunteer who defied him.
By the trails advanced the best of all scouts, the backwoodsman. His suit of fringed buckskin, with his 'coonskin cap and his moccasins, made up the most artistic, the most serviceable, and the most characteristic garb the New World has yet evolved. His vigorous body, his keen intelligence, and his warm heart bespoke the true American—the father of a mighty race.
Following fast upon the heels of these trooped the home-seekers, the builders of a nation.
For picturesque effect and political significance, the groups who floated down the Ohio River in home-made flatboats, and the families who crossed overland through the romantic Cumberland Gap in their wagon-trains, have never been excelled.
The saboted French, the wide-breeched Germans, the straw-crowned Swiss, the beshawled Irish, the shad-coated New-Englander, the gray-frocked Quaker, the sandy Scotch, all mingled in the brotherhood of citizenship, while laughing black slaves looked on.
The wings of the air—geese, ducks, and songbirds; the hoofs of the fields—deer, buffalo, and boar; the fins of the rivers—bass, trout, and pickerel—all added to the zest of this new life, as did also the luscious growth of plants and the odor of flowers.
One hundred years ago, this Middle West of ours had reached a most interesting period. Never before and never since could there have been more curious happenings than in those stirring times.
One boy, coming down the river then to seek his fortune, heard tales of the past and hopes for the future from the people whom he met.
Strong Parson Cutler, quaint Johnny Appleseed, brave Simon Kenton, Colonel Johnson's Long Hunters, pious Lorenzo Dow, the reformer Rapp, the statesman Henry Clay, the legislator Jennings, and the boy Abraham Lincoln were all his friends.
The strange stories about them in this book arealmosttrue! For that boy told them to a person who told them to another person who told them to me. In substance they are a faithful picture of the sort of adventures that helped pioneer lads of the Great Valley to grow into the full measure of men.
J. G.
Indiana, 1917
STRANGE STORIES OF THEGREAT VALLEY