* Whatever value this paper has is so largely due toProfessor Procter that I desire to make to him the mostexplicit acknowledgments. One of the very best results ofthe war was keeping him in the Union.
This museum and the geological department, the intelligent management of which has been of immense service to the commonwealth, is in one of the detached buildings which make up the present Capitol. The Capitol is altogether antiquated, and not a credit to the State. The room in which the Lower House meets is shabby and mean, yet I noticed that it is fairly well lighted by side windows, and debate can be heard in it conducted in an ordinary tone of voice. Kentucky will before many years be accommodated with new State buildings more suited to her wealth and dignity. But I should like to repeat what was said in relation to the Capitol of Arkansas. Why cannot our architects devise a capitol suited to the wants of those who occupy it? Why must we go on making these huge inconvenient structures, mainly for external display, in which the legislative Chambers are vast air-tight and water-tight compartments, commonly completely surrounded by other rooms and lobbies, and lighted only from the roof, or at best by high windows in one or two sides that permit no outlook—rooms difficult to speak or hear in, impossible to ventilate, needing always artificial light? Why should the Senators of the United States be compelled to occupy a gilded dungeon, unlighted ever by the sun, unvisited ever by the free wind of heaven, in which the air is so foul that the Senators sicken? What sort of legislation ought we to expect from such Chambers? It is perfectly feasible to build a legislative room cheerful and light, open freely to sun and air on three sides. In order to do this it may be necessary to build a group of connected buildings, instead of the parallelogram or square, which is mostly domed, with gigantic halls and stair-ways, and, considering the purpose for which it is intended, is a libel on our ingenuity and a burlesque on our civilization.
Kentucky has gone to work in a very sensible way to induce immigration and to attract settlers of the right sort. The Bureau of Immigration was established in 1880. It began to publish facts about the State, in regard to the geologic formation, the soils, the price of lands, both the uncleared and the lands injured by slovenly culture, the kind and amount of products that might be expected by thrifty farming, and the climate; not exaggerated general proclamations promising sudden wealth with little labor, but facts such as would attract the attention of men willing to work in order to obtain for themselves and their children comfortable homes and modest independence. Invitations were made for a thorough examination of lands—of the different sorts of soils in different counties—before purchase and settlement. The leading idea was to induce industrious farmers who were poor, or had not money enough to purchase high-priced improved lands, to settle upon lands that the majority of Kentuckians considered scarcely worth cultivating, and the belief was that good farming would show that these neglected lands were capable of becoming very productive. Eight years’ experience has fully justified all these expectations. Colonies of Swiss, Germans, Austrians, have come, and Swedes also, and these have attracted many from the North and North-west. In this period I suppose as many as ten thousand immigrants of this class, thrifty cultivators of the soil, have come into the State, many of whom are scattered about the State, unconnected with the so-called colonies. These colonies are not organized communities in any way separated from the general inhabitants of the State. They have merely settled together for companionship and social reasons, where a sufficiently large tract of cheap land was found to accommodate them. Each family owns its own farm, and is perfectly independent. An indiscriminate immigration has not been desired or encouraged, but the better class of laboring agriculturists, grape-growers, and stock-raisers. There are several settlements of these, chiefly Swiss, dairy-farmers, cheese-makers, and vine-growers, in Laurel County; others in Lincoln County, composed of Swiss, Germans, and Austrians; a mixed colony in Rock Castle County; a thriving settlement of Austrians in Boyle County; a temperance colony of Scandinavians in Edmonson County; another Scandinavian colony in Grayson County; and scattered settlements of Germans and Scandinavians in Christian County. These settlements have from one hundred to over a thousand inhabitants each. The lands in Laurel and Lincoln counties, which I travelled through, are on a high plateau, with good air and temperate climate, but with a somewhat thin, loamy, and sandy soil, needing manure, and called generally in the State poor land—poor certainly compared with the blue-grass region and other extraordinarily fertile sections. These farms, which had been more or less run over by Kentucky farming, were sold at from one to five dollars an acre. They are farms that a man cannot live on in idleness. But they respond well to thrifty tillage, and it is a sight worth a long journey to see the beautiful farms these Swiss have made out of land that the average Kentuckian thought not worth cultivating. It has not been done without hard work, and as most of the immigrants were poor, many of them have had a hard struggle in building comfortable houses, reducing the neglected land to order, and obtaining stock. A great attraction to the Swiss was that this land is adapted to vine culture, and a reasonable profit was expected from selling grapes and making wine. The vineyards are still young; experiment has not yet settled what kind of grapes flourish best, but many vine-growers have realized handsome profits in the sale of fruit, and the trial is sufficient to show that good wine can be produced. The only interference thus far with the grapes has been the unprecedented late freeze last spring.
At the recent exposition in Louisville the exhibit of these Swiss colonies—the photographs showing the appearance of the unkempt land when they bought it, and the fertile fields of grain and meadow and vineyards afterwards, and the neat, plain farm cottages, the pretty Swiss chalet with its attendants of intelligent comely girls in native costumes offering articles illustrating the taste and the thrift of the colonies, wood-carving, the products of the dairy, and the fruit of the vine—attracted great attention.
I cannot better convey to the reader the impression I wish to in regard to this colonization and its lesson for the country at large than by speaking more in detail of one of the Swiss settlements in Laurel County. This is Bernstadt, about six miles from Pittsburg, on the Louisville and Nashville road, a coal-mining region, and offering a good market for the produce of the Swiss farmers. We did not need to be told when we entered the colony lands; neater houses, thrifty farming, and better roads proclaimed it. It is not a garden-spot; in some respects it is a poor-looking country; but it has abundant timber, good water, good air, a soil of light sandy loam, which is productive under good tillage. There are here, I suppose, some two hundred and fifty families, scattered about over a large area, each on its farm. There is no collection of houses; the church (Lutheran), the school-house, the store, the post-office, the hotel, are widely separated; for the hotel-keeper, the store-keeper, the postmaster, and, I believe, the school-master and the parson, are all farmers to a greater or less extent. It must be understood that it is a primitive settlement, having as yet very little that is picturesque, a community of simple working-people. Only one or two of the houses have any pretension to taste in architecture, but this will come in time—the vine-clad porches, the quaint gables, the home-likeness. The Kentuckian, however, will notice the barns for the stock, and a general thriftiness about the places. And the appearance of the farms is an object-lesson of the highest value.
The chief interest to me, however, was the character of the settlers. Most of them were poor, used to hard work and scant returns for it in Switzerland. What they have accomplished, therefore, is the result of industry, and not of capital. There are among the colonists skilled laborers in other things than vine-growing and cheese-making—watch-makers and wood-carvers and adepts in various trades. The thrifty young farmer at whose pretty house we spent the night, and who has saw-mills at Pittsburg, is of one of the best Swiss families; his father was for many years President of the republic, and he was a graduate of the university at Lucerne. There were others of the best blood and breeding and schooling, and men of scientific attainments. But they are all at work close to the soil. As a rule, however, the colonists were men and women of small means at home. The notable thing is that they bring with them a certain old civilization, a unity of simplicity of life with real refinement, courtesy, politeness, good-humor. The girls would not be above going out to service, and they would not lose their self-respect in it. Many of them would be described as “peasants,” but I saw some, not above the labors of the house and farm, with real grace and dignity of manner and charm of conversation. Few of them as yet speak any English, but in most houses are evidences of some German culture. Uniformly there was courtesy and frank hospitality. The community amuses itself rationally. It has a very good brass band, a singing club, and in the evenings and holidays it is apt to assemble at the hotel and take a little wine and sing the songs of father-land. The hotel is indeed at present without accommodations for lodgers—nothing but a Wirthshaus with a German garden where dancing may take place now and then. With all the hard labor, they have an idea of the simple comforts and enjoyments of life. And they live very well, though plainly. At a house where we dined, in the colony Strasburg, near Bernstadt, we had an excellent dinner, well served, and including delicious soup. If the colony never did anything else than teach that part of the State how to make soup, its existence would be justified. Here, in short, is an element of homely thrift, civilization on a rational basis, good-citizenship, very desirable in any State. May their vineyards flourish! When we departed early in the morning—it was not yet seven—a dozen Switzers, fresh from the dewy fields, in their working dresses, had assembled at the hotel, where the young landlady also smiled a welcome, to send us off with a song, which ended, as we drove away, in a good-byeyodel.
A line drawn from the junction of the Scioto River with the Ohio south-west to a point in the southern boundary about thirty miles east of where the Cumberland leaves the State defines the eastern coal-measures of Kentucky. In area it is about a quarter of the State—a region of plateaus, mountains, narrow valleys, cut in all directions by clear, rapid streams, stuffed, one may say, with coals, streaked with iron, abounding in limestone, and covered with superb forests. Independent of other States a most remarkable region, but considered in its relation to the coals and iron ores of West Virginia, western Virginia, and eastern Tennessee, it becomes one of the most important and interesting regions in the Union. Looking to the south-eastern border, I hazard nothing in saying that the country from the Breaks of Sandy down to Big Creek Gap (in the Cumberland Mountain), in Tennessee, is on the eve of an astonishing development—one that will revolutionize eastern Kentucky, and powerfully affect the iron and coal markets of the country. It is a region that appeals as well to the imagination of the traveller as to the capitalist. My personal observation of it extends only to the portion from Cumberland Gap to Big Stone Gap, and the head-waters of the Cumberland between Cumberland Mountain and Pine Mountain, but I saw enough to comprehend why eager purchasers are buying the forests and the mining rights, why great companies, American and English, are planting themselves there and laying the foundations of cities, and why the gigantic railway corporations are straining every nerve to penetrate the mineral and forest heart of the region. A dozen roads, projected and in progress, are pointed towards this centre. It is a race for the prize. The Louisville and Nashville, running through soft-coal fields to Jellico and on to Knoxville, branches from Corbin to Barboursville (an old and thriving town) and to Pineville. From Pineville it is under contract, thirteen miles, to Cumberland Gap. This gap is being tunnelled (work going on at both ends) by an independent company, the tunnel to be open to all roads. The Louisville and Nashville may run up the south side of the Cumberland range to Big Stone Gap, or it may ascend the Cumberland River and its Clover Fork, and pass over to Big Stone Gap that way, or it may do both. A road is building from Knoxville to Cumberland Gap, and from Johnson City to Big Stone Gap. A road is running from Bristol to within twenty miles of Big Stone Gap; another road nears the same place—the extension of the Norfolk and Western—from Pocahontas down the Clinch River. From the north-west many roads are projected to pierce the great deposits of coking and cannel coals, and find or bore a way through the mountain ridges into south-western Virginia. One of these, the Kentucky Union, starting from Lexington (which is becoming a great railroad centre), has reached Clay City, and will soon be open to the Three Forks of the Kentucky River, and on to Jackson, in Breathitt County. These valley and transridge roads will bring within short hauling distance of each other as great a variety of iron ores of high and low grade, and of coals, coking and other, as can be found anywhere—according to the official reports, greater than anywhere else within the same radius. As an item it may be mentioned that the rich, pure, magnetic iron ore used in the manufacture of Bessemer steel, found in East Tennessee and North Carolina, and developed in greatest abundance at Cranberry Forge, is within one hundred miles of the superior Kentucky coking coal. This contiguity (a contiguity of coke, ore, and limestone) in this region points to the manufacture of Bessemer steel here at less cost than it is now elsewhere made.
It is unnecessary that I should go into details as to the ore and coal deposits of this region: the official reports are accessible. It may be said, however, that the reports of the Geological Survey as to both coal and iron have been recently perfectly confirmed by the digging of experts. Aside from the coal-measures below the sandstone, there have been found above the sandstone, north of Pine Mountain, 1650 feet of coal-measures, containing nine beds of coal of workable thickness, and between Pine and Cumberland mountains there is a greater thickness of coal-measures, containing twelve or more workable beds. Some of these are coking coals of great excellence. Cannel-coals are found in sixteen of the counties in the eastern coal-fields. Two of them at least are of unexampled richness and purity. The value of a cannel-coal is determined by its volatile combustible matter. By this test some of the Kentucky cannel-coal excels the most celebrated coals of Great Britain. An analysis of a cannel-coal in Breathitt County gives 66.28 of volatile combustible matter; the highest in Great Britain is the Boghead, Scotland, 51.60 per cent. This beautiful cannel-coal has been brought out in small quantitiesviathe Kentucky River; it will have a market all over the country when the railways reach it. The first coal identified as coking was named the Elkhorn, from the stream where it was found in Pike County. A thick bed of it has been traced over an area of 1600 square miles, covering several counties, but attaining its greatest thickness in Letcher, Pike, and Harlan. This discovery of coking coal adds greatly to the value of the iron ores in north-eastern Kentucky, and in the Red and Kentucky valleys, and also of the great deposits of ore on the south-east boundary, along the western base of the Cumberland, along the slope of Powell’s Mountain, and also along Wallin’s Ridge, three parallel lines, convenient to the coking coal in Kentucky. This is the Clinton or red fossil ore, stratified, having from 45 to 54 per cent, of metallic iron. Recently has been found on the north side of Pine Mountain in Kentucky, a third deposit of rich “brown” ore, averaging 52 per cent, of metallic iron. This is the same as the celebrated brown ore used in the furnaces at Clifton Forge; it makes a very tough iron. I saw a vein of it on Straight Creek, three miles north of Pineville, just opened, at least eight feet thick.
The railway to Pineville follows the old Wilderness road, the trail of Boone and the stage-road, along which are seen the ancient tavern stands where the jolly story-telling travellers of fifty years ago were entertained and the droves of horses and cattle were fed. The railway has been stopped a mile west of Pineville by a belligerent property owner, who sits there with his Winchester rifle, and will not let the work go on until the courts compel him. The railway will not cross the Cumberland at Pineville, but higher up, near the great elbow. There was no bridge over the stream, and we crossed at a very rough and rocky wagon-ford. Pineville, where there has loner been a backwoods settlement on the south bend of the river just after it breaks through Pine Mountain, is now the centre of a good deal of mining excitement and real-estate speculation. It has about five hundred inhabitants, and a temporary addition of land buyers, mineral experts, engineers, furnace projectors, and railway contractors. There is not level ground for a large city, but what there is is plotted out for sale. The abundant iron ore, coal, and timber here predict for it a future of some importance. It has already a smart new hotel, and business buildings, and churches are in process of erection. The society of the town had gathered for the evening at the hotel. A wandering one-eyed fiddler was providentially present who could sing and play “The Arkansas Traveller” and other tunes that lift the heels of the young, and also accompany the scream of the violin with the droning bagpipe notes of the mouth-harmonica. The star of the gay company was a graduate of Annapolis, in full evening dress uniform, a native boy of the valley, and his vis-à-vis was a heavy man in a long linen duster and carpet slippers, with a palm-leaf fan, who crashed through the cotillon with good effect. It was a pleasant party, and long after it had dispersed, the troubadour, sitting on the piazza, wiled away sleep by the break-downs, jigs, and songs of the frontier.
Pineville and its vicinity have many attractions; the streams are clear, rapid, rocky, the foliage abundant, the hills picturesque. Straight Creek, which comes in along the north base of Pine Mountain, is an exceedingly picturesque stream, having along its banks fertile little stretches of level ground, while the gentle bordering hills are excellent for grass, fruit orchards, and vineyards. The walnut-trees have been culled out, but there is abundance of oat, beech, poplar, encumber, and small pines. And there is no doubt about the mineral wealth.
We drove from Pineville to Cumberland Gap, thirteen miles, over the now neglected Wilderness road, the two mules of the wagon unable to pull us faster than two miles an hour. The road had every variety of badness conceivable—loose stones, ledges of rock, bowlders, sloughs, holes, mud, sand, deep fords. We crossed and followed up Clear Creek (a muddy stream) over Log Mountain (full of coal) to Canon Creek. Settlements were few—only occasional poor shanties. Climbing over another ridge, we reached the Yellow Creek Valley, through which the Yellow Creek meanders in sand. This whole valley, lying very prettily among the mountains, has a bad name for “difficulties.” The hills about, on the sides and tops of which are ragged little farms, and the valley itself, still contain some lawless people. We looked with some interest at the Turner house, where a sheriff was killed a year ago, at a place where a “severe” man fired into a wagon-load of people and shot a woman, and at other places where in recent times differences of opinion had been settled by the revolver. This sort of thing is, however, practically over. This valley, close to Cumberland Gap, is the site of the great city, already plotted, which the English company are to build as soon as the tunnel is completed. It is called Middleborough, and the streets are being graded and preparations made for building furnaces. The north side of Cumberland Mountain, like the south side of Pine, is a conglomerate, covered with superb oak and chestnut trees. We climbed up to the mountain over a winding road of ledges, bowlders, and deep gullies, rising to an extended pleasing prospect of mountains and valleys. The pass has a historic interest, not only as the ancient highway, but as the path of armies in the Civil War. It is narrow, a deep road between overhanging rocks. It is easily defended. A light bridge thrown over the road, leading to rifle-pits and breastworks on the north side, remains to attest the warlike occupation. Above, on the bald highest rocky head on the north, guns were planted to command the pass. Two or three houses, a blacksmith’s shop, a drinking tavern, behind which on the rocks four men were playing old sledge, made up the sum of its human attractions as we saw it. Just here in the pass Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia touch each other. Virginia inserts a narrow wedge between the other two. On our way down the wild and picturesque road we crossed the State of Virginia and went to the new English hotel in Tennessee. We passed a magnificent spring, which sends a torrent of water into the valley, and turns a great millwheel—a picture in its green setting—saw the opening of the tunnel with its shops and machinery, noted the few houses and company stores of the new settlement, climbed the hill to the pretty hotel, and sat down on the piazza to look at the scene. The view is a striking one. The valley through which the Powell River runs is pleasant, and the bold, bare mountain of rock at the right of the pass is a noble feature in the landscape. With what joy must the early wilderness pilgrims have hailed this landmark, this gate-way to the Paradise beyond the mountains! Some miles north in the range are the White Rocks, gleaming in the sun and conspicuous from afar, the first signal to the weary travellers from the east of the region they sought. Cumberland Gap is full of expectation, and only awaits the completion of the tunnel to enter upon its development. Here railways from the north, south, and west are expected to meet, and in the Yellow Creek Valley beyond, the English are to build a great manufacturing city. The valleys and sides of these mountain ranges (which have a uniform elevation of not much more than 2000 to 2500 feet) enjoy a delightful climate, moderate in the winter and temperate in the summer. This whole region, when it is accessible by rail, will be attractive to tourists.
We pursued our journey up the Powell River Valley, along the base of the Cumberland, on horseback—one day in a wagon in this country ought to satisfy anybody. The roads, however, are better on this side of the mountain; all through Lee County, In Virginia, in spots very good. This is a very fine valley, with good water, cold and clear, growing in abundance oats and corn, a constant succession of pretty views. We dined excellently at a neat farm-house on the river, and slept at the house of a very prosperous farmer near Boon’s Path post-office. Here we are abreast the White Rocks, the highest point of the Cumberland (3451 feet), that used to be the beacon of immigration.
The valley grows more and more beautiful as we go up, full fields of wheat, corn, oats, friendly to fruit of all sorts, with abundance of walnut, oak, and chestnut timber—a fertile, agreeable valley, settled with well-to-do farmers. The next morning, beautifully clear and sparkling, we were off at seven o’clock through a lovely broken country, following the line of Cumberland (here called Stone) Mountain, alternately little hills and meadows, cultivated hill-sides, stretches of rich valley, exquisite views—a land picturesque and thriving. Continuing for nine miles up Powell Valley, we turned to the left through a break in the hills into Poor Valley, a narrow, wild, sweet ravine among the hills, with a swift crystal stream overhung by masses of rhododendrons in bloom, and shaded by magnificent forest-trees. We dined at a farm-house by Pennington’s Gap, and had a swim in the north fork of Powell River, which here, with many a leap, breaks through the bold scenery in the gap. Farther on, the valley was broader and more fertile, and along the wide reaches of the river grew enormous beech-trees, the russet foliage of which took on an exquisite color towards evening. Indeed, the ride all day was excitingly interesting, with the great trees, the narrow rich valleys, the frequent sparkling streams, and lovely mountain views. At sunset we came to the house of an important farmer who has wide possessions, about thirteen miles from Big Stone Gap. We have nothing whatever against him except that he routed us out at five o’clock of a foggy Sunday morning, which promised to be warm—July 1st—to send us on our way to “the city.” All along we had heard of “the city.” In a radius of a hundred miles Big Stone Gap is called nothing but “the city,” and our anticipations were raised.
That morning’s ride I shall not forget. We crossed and followed Powell River. All along the banks are set the most remarkable beech-trees I have ever seen—great, wide-spreading, clean-boled trees, overbading the stream, and giving under their boughs, nearly all the way, ravishingly lovely views. This was the paradisiacal way to Big Stone Gap, which we found to be a round broken valley, shut in by wooded mountains, covered more or less with fine trees, the meeting-place of the Powell River, which comes through the gap, and its south fork. In the round elevation between them is the inviting place of the future city. There are two Big Stone Gaps—the one open fields and forests, a settlement of some thirty to forty houses, most of them new and many in process of building, a hotel, and some tents; the other, the city on the map. The latter is selling in small lots, has wide avenues, parks, one of the finest hotels in the South, banks, warehouses, and all that can attract the business man or the summer lounger.
The heavy investments in Big Stone Gap and the region I should say were fully justified by the natural advantages. It is a country of great beauty, noble mountain ranges, with the valleys diversified by small hills, fertile intervales, fine streams, and a splendid forest growth. If the anticipations of an important city at the gap are half realized, the slopes of the hills and natural terraces will be dotted with beautiful residences, agreeable in both summer and winter. It was the warmest time of the year when we were there, but the air was fresh and full of vitality. The Big Stone Gap Improvement Company has the city and its site in charge; it is a consolidation of the various interests of railway companies and heavy capitalists, who have purchased the land. The money and the character of the men behind the enterprise insure a vigorous prosecution of it. On the west side of the river are the depot and switching-grounds which the several railways have reserved for their use, and here also are to be the furnaces and shops. When the city outgrows its present site it can extend up valleys in several directions. We rode through line forests up the lovely Powell Valley to Powell Mountain, where a broad and beautiful meadow offers a site for a suburban village. The city is already planning for suburbs. A few miles south of the city a powerful stream of clear water falls over precipices and rocks seven hundred feet in continuous rapids. This is not only a charming addition to the scenic attractions of the region, but the stream will supply the town with excellent water and unlimited “power.” Beyond, ten miles to the north-east, rises High Knob, a very sightly point, where one gets the sort of view of four States that he sees on an atlas. It is indeed a delightful region; but however one may be charmed by its natural beauty, he cannot spend a day at Big Stone Gap without being infected with the great enterprises brooding there.
We forded Powell River and ascended through the gap on its right bank. Before entering the gorge we galloped over a beautiful level plateau, the counterpart of that where the city is laid out, reserved for railways and furnaces. From this point the valley is seen to be wider than we suspected, and to have ample room for the manufacturing and traffic expected. As we turned to see what we shall never see again—the virgin beauty of nature in this site—the whole attractiveness of this marvellously picturesque region burst upon us—the great forests, the clear swift streams, the fertile meadows, the wooded mountains that have so long secluded this beauty and guarded the treasures of the hills.
The pass itself, which shows from a distance only a dent in the green foliage, surprised us by its wild beauty. The stony road, rising little by little above the river, runs through a magnificent forest, gigantic trees growing in the midst of enormous bowlders, and towering among rocks that take the form of walls and buttresses, square structures like the Titanic ruins of castles; below, the river, full and strong, rages over rocks and dashes down, filling the forest with its roar, which is echoed by the towering cliffs on either side. The woods were fresh and glistening from recent rains, but what made the final charm of the way was the bloom of the rhododendron, which blazed along the road and illuminated the cool recesses of the forest. The time for the blooming of the azalea and the kalmia (mountain-laurel) was past, but the pink and white rhododendron was in full glory, masses of bloom, not small stalks lurking like underbrush, but on bushes attaining the dignity of trees, and at least twenty-five feet high. The splendor of the forest did not lessen as we turned to the left and followed up Pigeon Creek to a high farming region, rough but fertile, at the base of Black Mountain. Such a wealth of oak, beech, poplar, chestnut, and ash, and, sprinkled in, the pretty cucumber-magnolia in bloom! By sunset we found our way, off the main road, to a lonely farm-house hidden away at the foot of Morris Pass, secluded behind an orchard of apple and peach trees. A stream of spring-water from the rocks above ran to the house, and to the eastward the ravine broadened into pastures. It seemed impossible to get farther from the world and its active currents. We were still in Virginia.
Our host, an old man over six feet in height, with spare, straight, athletic form, a fine head, and large clear gray eyes, lived here alone with his aged spouse. He had done his duty by his country in raising twelve children (that is the common and orthodox number in this region), who had all left him except one son, who lived in a shanty up the ravine. It was this son’s wife who helped about the house and did the milking, taking care also of a growing family of her own, and doing her share of field-work. I had heard that the women in this country were more industrious than the men. I asked this woman, as she was milking that evening, if the women did all the work. No, she said; only their share. Her husband was all the time in the field, and even her boys, one only eight, had to work with him; there was no time to go to school, and indeed the school didn’t amount to much anyway—only a little while in the fall. She had all the care of the cows. “Men,” she added, “never notice milking;” and the worst of it was that she had to go miles around in the bush night and morning to find them. After supper we had a call from a bachelor who occupied a cabin over the pass, on the Kentucky side, a loquacious philosopher, who squatted on his heels in the door-yard where we were sitting, and interrogated each of us in turn as to our names, occupations, residence, ages, and politics, and then gave us as freely his own history and views of life. His eccentricity in this mountain region was that he had voted for Cleveland and should do it again. Mr. Morris couldn’t go with him in this; and when pressed for his reasons he said that Cleveland had had the salary long enough, and got rich enough out of it. The philosopher brought the news, had heard it talked about on Sunday, that a man over Clover Fork way had killed his wife and brother. It was claimed to be an accident; they were having a game of cards and some whiskey, and he was trying to kill his son-in-law. Was there much killing round here? Well, not much lately. Last year John Cone, over on Clover Fork, shot Mat Harner in a dispute over cards. Well, what became of John Cone? Oh, he was killed by Jim Blood, a friend of Harner. And what became of Blood? Well, he got shot by Elias Travers. And Travers? Oh, he was killed by a man by the name of Jacobs. That ended it. None of ‘em was of much account. There was a pleasing naivete in this narrative. And then the philosopher, whom the milkmaid described to me next morning as “a simlar sort of man,” went on to give his idea about this killing business. “All this killing in the mountains is foolish. If you kill a man, that don’t aggravate him; he’s dead and don’t care, and it all comes on you.”
In the early morning we crossed a narrow pass in the Black Mountain into “Canetucky,” and followed down the Clover Fork of the Cumberland. All these mountains are perfectly tree-clad, but they have not the sombreness of the high regions of the Great Smoky and the Black Mountains of North Carolina. There are few black balsams, or any sort of evergreens, and the great variety of deciduous trees, from the shining green of the oak to the bronze hue of the beech, makes everywhere soft gradations of color most pleasing to the eye. In the autumn, they say, the brilliant maples in combination with the soberer bronzes and yellows of the other forest-trees give an ineffable beauty to these ridges and graceful slopes. The ride down Clover Fork, all day long, was for the most part through a virgin world. The winding valley is at all times narrow, with here and there a tiny meadow, and at long intervals a lateral opening down which another sparkling brook comes from the recesses of this wilderness of mountains. Houses are miles apart, and usually nothing but cabins half concealed in some sheltered nook. There is, however, hidden on the small streams, on mountain terraces, and high up on the slopes, a considerable population, cabin dwellers, cultivators of corn, on the almost perpendicular hills. Many of these cornfields are so steep that it is impossible to plough them, and all the cultivation is done with the hoe. I heard that a man was recently killed in this neighborhood by falling out of his cornfield. The story has as much foundation as the current belief that the only way to keep a mule in the field where you wish him to stay is to put him into the adjoining lot. But it is true that no one would believe that crops could be raised on such nearly perpendicular slopes as these unless he had seen the planted fields.
In my limited experience I can recall no day’s ride equal in simple natural beauty—not magnificence—and splendor of color to that down Clover Fork. There was scarcely a moment of the day when the scene did not call forth from us exclamations of surprise and delight. The road follows and often crosses the swift, clear, rocky stream. The variegated forest rises on either hand, but all along the banks vast trees without underbrush dot the little intervales. Now and then, in a level reach, where the road wound through these monarch stems, and the water spread in silver pools, the perspective was entrancing. But the color! For always there were the rhododendrons, either gleaming in masses of white and pink in the recesses of the forest, or forming for us anallée, close set, and uninterrupted for miles and miles; shrubs like trees, from twenty to thirty feet high, solid bouquets of blossoms, more abundant than any cultivated parterre, more brilliant than the finest display in a horticultural exhibition. There is an avenue of rhododendrons half a mile long at Hampton Court, which is world-wide famous. It needs a day to ride through the rhododendron avenue on Clover Fork, and the wild and free beauty of it transcends all creations of the gardener.
The inhabitants of the region are primitive and to a considerable extent illiterate. But still many strong and distinguished men have come from these mountain towns. Many families send their children away to school, and there are fair schools at Barbersville, Harlan Court-house, and in other places. Long isolated from the moving world, they have retained the habits of the early settlers, and to some extent the vernacular speech, though the dialect is not specially marked. They have been until recently a self-sustaining people, raising and manufacturing nearly everything required by their limited knowledge and wants. Not long ago the women spun and wove from cotton and hemp and wool the household linen, the bed-wear, and the clothes of the family. In many houses the loom is still at work. The colors used for dyeing were formerly all of home make except, perhaps, the indigo; now they use what they call the “brought in” dyes, bought at the stores; and prints and other fabrics are largely taking the places of the home-made. During the morning we stopped at one of the best houses on the fork, a house with a small apple-orchard in front, having a veranda, two large rooms, and a porch and kitchen at the back. In the back porch stood the loom with its web of half-finished cloth. The farmer was of the age when men sun themselves on the gallery and talk. His wife, an intelligent, barefooted old woman, was still engaged in household duties, but her weaving days were over. Her daughters did the weaving, and in one of the rooms were the linsey-woolsey dresses hung up, and piles of gorgeous bed coverlets, enough to set up half a dozen families. These are the treasures and heirlooms handed down from mother to daughter, for these handmade fabrics never wear out. Only eight of the twelve children were at home. The youngest, the baby, a sickly boy of twelve, was lounging about the house. He could read a little, for he had been to school a few weeks. Reading and writing were not accomplishments in the family generally. The other girls and boys were in the cornfield, and going to the back door, I saw a line of them hoeing at the top of the field. The field was literally so steep that they might have rolled from the top to the bottom. The mother called them in, and they lounged leisurely down, the girls swinging themselves over the garden fence with athletic ease. The four eldest were girls: one, a woman of thirty-five, had lost her beauty, if she ever had any, with her teeth; one, of thirty, recently married, had a stately dignity and a certain nobility of figure; one, of sixteen, was undeniably pretty—almost the only woman entitled to this epithet that we saw in the whole journey. This household must have been an exception, for the girls usually marry very young. They were all, of course, barefooted. They were all laborers, and evidently took life seriously, and however much their knowledge of the world was limited, the household evidently respected itself. The elder girls were the weavers, and they showed a taste and skill in their fabrics that would be praised in the Orient or in Mexico. The designs and colors of the coverlets were ingenious and striking. There was a very handsome one in crimson, done in wavy lines and bizarre figures, that was called the Kentucky Beauty, or the Ocean Wave, that had a most brilliant effect. A simple, hospitable family this. The traveller may go all through this region with the certainty of kindly treatment, and in perfect security—if, I suppose, he is not a revenue officer, or sent in to survey land on which the inhabitants have squatted.
We came at night to Harlan Court-house, an old shabby hamlet, but growing and improving, having a new court-house and other signs of the awakening of the people to the wealth here in timber and mines. Here in a beautiful valley three streams—Poor, Martin, and Clover forks—unite to form the Cumberland. The place has fourteen “stores” and three taverns, the latter a trial to the traveller. Harlan has been one of the counties most conspicuous for lawlessness. The trouble is not simply individual wickedness, but the want of courage of public opinion, coupled with a general disrespect for authority. Plenty of people lament the state of things, but want the courage to take a public stand. The day before we reached the Court-house the man who killed his wife and his brother had his examination. His friends were able to take the case before a friendly justice instead of the judge. The facts sworn to were that in a drunken dispute over cards he tried to kill his son-in-law, who escaped out of the window, and that his wife and brother opposed him, and he killed them with his pistol. Therefore their deaths were accidental, and he was discharged. Many people said privately that he ought to be hanged, but there was entire public apathy over the affair. If Harlan had three or four resolute men who would take a public stand that this lawlessness must cease, they could carry the community with them. But the difficulty of enforcing law and order in some of these mountain counties is to find proper judges, prosecuting officers, and sheriffs. The officers are as likely as not to be the worst men in the community, and if they are not, they are likely to use their authority for satisfying their private grudges and revenges. Consequently men take the “law” into their own hands. The most personally courageous become bullies and the terror of the community. The worst citizens are not those who have killed most men, in the opinion of the public. It ought to be said that in some of the mountain counties there has been very little lawlessness, and in some it has been repressed by the local authorities, and there is great improvement on the whole. I was sorry not to meet a well-known character in the mountains, who has killed twenty-one men. He is a very agreeable “square” man, and I believe “high-toned,” and it is the universal testimony that he never killed a man who did not deserve killing, and whose death was a benefit to the community. He is called, in the language of the country, a “severe” man. In a little company that assembled at the Harlan tavern were two elderly men, who appeared to be on friendly terms enough. Their sons had had a difficulty, and two boys out of each family had been killed not very long ago. The fathers were not involved in the vendetta. About the old Harlan court-house a great many men have been killed during court week in the past few years. The habit of carrying pistols and knives, and whiskey, are the immediate causes of these deaths, but back of these is the want of respect for law. At the ford of the Cumberland at Pineville was anchored a little house-boat, which was nothing but a whiskey-shop. During our absence a tragedy occurred there. The sheriff with a posse went out to arrest some criminals in the mountain near. He secured his men, and was bringing them into Pineville, when it occurred to him that it would be a good plan to take a drink at the houseboat. The whole party got into a quarrel over their liquor, and in it the sheriff was killed and a couple of men seriously wounded. A resolute surveyor, formerly a general in our army, surveying land in the neighborhood of Pineville, under a decree of the United States Court, has for years carried on his work at the personal peril of himself and his party. The squatters not only pull up his stakes and destroy his work day after day, but it was reported that they had shot at his corps from the bushes. He can only go on with his work by employing a large guard of armed men.
This state of things in eastern Kentucky will not be radically changed until the railways enter it, and business and enterprise bring in law and order. The State Government cannot find native material for enforcing law, though there has been improvement within the past two years. I think no permanent gain can be expected till a new civilization comes in, though I heard of a bad community in one of the counties that had been quite subdued and changed by the labors of a devout and plain-spoken evangelist. So far as our party was concerned, we received nothing but kind treatment, and saw little evidences of demoralization, except that the young men usually were growing up to be “roughs,” and liked to lounge about with shot-guns rather than work. But the report of men who have known the country for years was very unfavorable as to the general character of the people who live on the mountains and in the little valleys—that they were all ignorant; that the men generally were idle, vicious, and cowardly, and threw most of the hard labor in the field and house upon the women; that the killings are mostly done from ambush, and with no show for a fair fight. This is a tremendous indictment, and it is too sweeping to be sustained. The testimony of the gentlemen of our party, who thoroughly know this part of the State, contradicted it. The fact is there are two sorts of people in the mountains, as elsewhere.
The race of American mountaineers occupying the country from western North Carolina to eastern Kentucky is a curious study Their origin is in doubt. They have developed their peculiarities in isolation. In this freedom stalwart and able men have been from time to time developed, but ignorance and freedom from the restraints of law have had their logical result as to the mass. I am told that this lawlessness has only existed since the war; that before, the people, though ignorant of letters, were peaceful. They had the good points of a simple people, and if they were not literate, they had abundant knowledge of their own region. During the war the mountaineers were carrying on a civil war at home. The opposing parties were not soldiers, but bushwhackers. Some of the best citizens were run out of the country, and never returned. The majority were Unionists, and in all the mountain region of eastern Kentucky I passed through there are few to-day who are politically Democrats. In the war, home-guards were organized, and these were little better than vigilance committees for private revenge. Disorder began with this private and partly patriotic warfare. After the war, when the bushwhackers got back to their cabins, the animosities were kept up, though I fancy that politics has little or nothing to do with them now. The habit of reckless shooting, of taking justice into private hands, is no doubt a relic of the disorganization during the war.
Worthless, good-for-nothing, irreclaimable, were words I often heard applied to people of this and that region. I am not so despondent of their future. Railways, trade, the sight of enterprise and industry, will do much with this material. Schools will do more, though it seems impossible to have efficient schools there at present. The people in their ignorance and their undeveloped country have a hard struggle for life. This region is, according to the census, the most prolific in the United States. The girls marry young, bear many children, work like galley-slaves, and at the time when women should be at their best they fade, lose their teeth, become ugly, and look old. One great cause of this is their lack of proper nourishment. There is nothing unhealthy in out-door work in moderation if the body is properly sustained by good food. But healthy, handsome women are not possible without good fare. In a considerable part of eastern Kentucky (not I hear in all) good wholesome cooking is unknown, and civilization is not possible without that. We passed a cabin where a man was very ill with dysentery. No doctor could be obtained, and perhaps that, considering what the doctor might have been, was not a misfortune. But he had no food fit for a sick man, and the women of the house were utterly ignorant of the diet suitable to a man in his state. I have no doubt that the abominable cookery of the region has much to do with the lawlessness, as it visibly has to do with the poor physical condition.
The road down the Cumberland, in a valley at times spreading out into fertile meadows, is nearly all the way through magnificent forests, along hill-sides fit for the vine, for fruit, and for pasture, while frequent outcroppings of coal testify to the abundance of the fuel that has been so long stored for the new civilization. These mountains would be profitable as sheep pastures did not the inhabitants here, as elsewhere in the United States, prefer to keep dogs rather than sheep.
I have thus sketched hastily some of the capacities of the Cumberland region. It is my belief that this central and hitherto neglected portion of the United States will soon become the theatre of vast and controlling industries.
I want space for more than a concluding word about western Kentucky, which deserves, both for its capacity and its recent improvements, a chapter to itself. There is a limestone area of some 10,000 square miles, with a soil hardly less fertile than that of the blue-grass region, a high agricultural development, and a population equal in all respects to that of the famous and historic grass country. Seven of the ten principal tobacco-producing counties in Kentucky and the largest Indian corn and wheat raising counties are in this part of the State. The western coal-field has both river and rail transportation, thick deposits of iron ore, and more level and richer farming lands than the eastern coal-field. Indeed, the agricultural development in this western coal region has attracted great attention.
Much also might be written of the remarkable progress of the towns of western Kentucky within the past few years. The increase in population is not more astonishing than the development of various industries. They show a vigorous, modern activity for which this part of the State has not, so far as I know, been generally credited. The traveller will find abundant evidence of it in Owensborough, Henderson, Hopkinsville, Bowling Green, and other places. As an illustration: Paducah, while doubling its population since 1880, has increased its manufacturing 150 per cent. The town had in 1880 twenty-six factories, with a capital of $600,000, employing 950 men; now it has fifty factories, with a cash capital of $2,000,000, employing 3250 men, engaged in a variety of industries—to which a large iron furnace is now being added. Taking it all together—variety of resources, excellence of climate, vigor of its people—one cannot escape the impression that Kentucky has a great future.