XXVII The Brothers
“My claim is as just as the book we swear by.”
The hero of the heroic age of the Middle West was discussing his debts for the conquest of Illinois. “I have given the United States half the territory they possess, and for them to suffer me to remain in poverty in consequence of it will not redound to their honour. I engaged in the Revolution with all the ardour that youth could possess. My zeal and ambition rose with my success, determined to save those countries which had been the seat of my toil, at the hazard of my life and fortune.
“At the most gloomy period of the war when a ration could not be purchased on public credit, I risked my own credit, gave my bonds, mortgaged my lands for supplies, paid strict attention to every department, flattered the friendly and confused the hostile tribes of Indians, by my emissaries baffled my internal enemies (the most dangerous of all to public interest), and carried my point.
“Thus at the end of the war I had the pleasure of seeing my country secure, but with the loss of my manual activity. Demands of very great amount were not paid, others with depreciated paper. Now suits are commenced against me, for those sums in specie. My military and other lands, earned by my services, are appropriated for the payment of these debts, and demands yet are remaining, to a considerable amount more than the remains of a shattered fortune will pay.
“This is truly my situation. I see no other recourse remaining but to make application to my country for redress.”
Brooding over his troubles, George Rogers Clark had built himself a little cabin at the Point of Rock, overlooking the Falls of the Ohio, and gone into a self-chosen St. Helena. The waves dashed and roared below and the mist arose, as he looked out on Corn Island, scene of his earliest exploit.
A library of handsome books was the principal ornament the house contained. Reading, hunting, fishing, he passed his days, while the old negro servants attended to the kitchen and the garden.
“I have come,” answered his brother William, “I have retired from the army, to devote myself to you. Now what can be done?”
“Done? Look at these bills. Gratiot’s is paid, thank God, or he would have been a ruined man. Monroe helped him through with that. And Menard’s? That is shelved at Richmond for fifty years.” General Clark turned the leaves of his note-book.
“And Vigo? But for him I could never have surprised Vincennes. He was the best friend I had, and the best still, except you, William.”
A singular affection bound these two brothers. It seemed almost as if William took up the life of George Rogers where it was broken off, and carried it on to a glorious conclusion.
“Virginia acknowledges Vigo’s debt, certifies that it has never been paid but she has ceded those lands to the Government. Who then shall pay it but Congress? The debt was necessary and lawful in contracting for supplies for the conquest of Illinois. Could I have done with less? God knows we went with parched corn only in our wallets and depended on our rifles for the rest. Tell him to keep the draft, Virginia will pay it, or Congress, some time or other, with interest.”
Again, at William’s persuasion, the General came home to Mulberry Hill. An expert horseman, everybody in Louisville knew Captain Clark, who, wrapped in his cloak, came spurring home night after night on his blooded bay, with York at his side, darkness nor swollen fords nor wildly beating storms stopping his journey as he came bearing news to his brother.
“I have ridden for brother George in the course of this year upwards of three thousand miles,” wrote the Captain to his brother Edmund, in December, 1797, “continually in the saddle, attempting to save him, and have been serviceable to him in several instances. I have but a few days returned from Vincennes attending a suit for twenty-four thousand dollars against him.”
These long journeys included tours to St. Louis, Vincennes, Kaskaskia, among the General’s old debtors, proving that the articles for which he was sued were for his troops, powder and military stores.
“The General is very ill again,” said father Clark, walking up and down the entry before the chamber door. The old man’s severe countenance always relaxed when he spoke of “the General.” Of all his children, George Rogers was the one least expected to fall into dissipation, but now in rheumatic distress, old before his time, George Rogers sometimes drank.
“Cover him, shield him, let not the world witness my brother’s weakness,” William would say at such times, affectionately detaining him at Mulberry Hill.
Glancing into the dining-room, the white-haired cavalier noticed Fanny and her children and others sitting around the table. Preoccupied, the old man approached, and leaning over a chair delivered an impressive grace.
“Now, my children, you can eat your dinner. Do not wait for me,” and again he took up his walk in the entry outside the chamber door. A smile wreathed the faces of all; there was no dinner; they were simply visiting near the table.
With children and grandchildren around him, the house at Mulberry Hill was always full. At Christmas or Thanksgiving, when Lucy came with her boys from Locust Grove, “Well, my children,” father Clark would say, “if I thought we would live, mother and I, five years longer, I would build a new house.”
But the day before Christmas, 1798, the silky white hair of Ann Rogers Clark was brushed back for the last time, in the home that her taste had beautified with the groves and flowers of Mulberry Hill.
More and more frequently the old cavalier retired to his rustic arbour in the garden.
“I must hunt up father, he will take cold,” William would say; and there on a moonlight night, on his knees in prayer, the old man would be found, among the cedars and honeysuckles of Mulberry Hill.
“Why do you dislike old John Clark,” some one asked of a neighbour when the venerable man lay on his death-bed.
“What? I dislike old John Clark? I revere and venerate him. His piety and virtues may have been a reproach, but I reverence and honour old John Clark.”
By will the property was divided, and the home at Mulberry Hill went to William.
“In case Jonathan comes to Kentucky he may be willing to buy the place,” said William. “If he does I shall take the cash to pay off these creditors of yours.”
“Will you do that?” exclaimed George Rogers Clark gratefully. “I can make it good to you when these lands of mine come into value.”
“Never mind that, brother, never mind that. The honour of the family demands it. And those poor Frenchmen are ruined.”
“Indians are at the Falls!”
Startled, even now the citizens of Louisville were ready to fly out with shotguns in memory of old animosities.
Nothing chills the kindlier impulses like an Indian war. Children age, young men frost and wrinkle, women turn into maniacs. Every log hut had its bedridden invalid victim of successive frights and nervous prostration. Only the stout and sturdy few survived in after days to tell of those fierce times when George Rogers Clark was the hope and safety of the border. To these, the Indian was a serpent in the path, a panther to be hunted.
“Hist! go slow. ’Tis the Delaware chiefs come down to visit George Rogers Clark,” said Simon Kenton.
In these days of peace, remembering still their old terror of the Long Knife, a deputation of chiefs had come to visit Clark. In paint and blankets, with lank locks flapping in the breeze, they strode up the catalpa avenue, sniffing the odours of Mulberry Hill. General Clark looked from the window. Buckongahelas led the train, with Pierre Drouillard, the interpreter.
Drouillard had become, for a time, a resident of Kentucky. Simon Kenton, hearing that the preserver of his life had fallen into misfortune since the surrender of Detroit, sent for him, gave him a piece of his farm, and built him a cabin. George Drouillard, a son, named for George III., was becoming a famous hunter on the Mississippi.
“We have come,” said Buckongahelas, “to touch the Long Knife.”
Before Clark realised what they were doing, the Indians had snipped off the tail of his blue military coat with their hunting knives.
“This talisman will make us great warriors,” said Buckongahelas, carefully depositing a fragment in his bosom.
Clark laughed, but from that time the Delaware King and his braves were frequent visitors to the Long Knife, who longed to live in the past, forgetting misfortune.
But George Rogers Clark was not alone in financial disaster. St. Clair had expended a fortune in the cause of his country and at last, accompanied by his devoted daughter, retired to an old age of penury.
Boone, too, had his troubles. Never having satisfied the requirements of law concerning his claim, he was left landless in the Kentucky he had pioneered for civilisation. Late one November day in 1798 he was seen wending his way through the streets of Cincinnati, with Rebecca and all his worldly possessions mounted on packhorses.
“Where are you going?” queried an old-time acquaintance.
“Too much crowded, too many people. I am going west where there is more elbow room.”
“Ze celebrated Colonel Boone ees come to live een Louisiana,” said the Spanish officers of St. Louis. The Stars and Stripes and the yellow flag of Spain were hung out side by side, and the garrison came down out of the stone fort on the hill to parade in honour of Daniel Boone.
No such attentions had ever been paid to Daniel Boone at home. He dined with the Governor at Government House and was presented with a thousand arpents of land, to be located wherever he pleased, “in the district of the Femme Osage.”
Beside a spring on a creek flowing into the Missouri Boone built his pioneer cabin, beyond the farthest border settlement.
“Bring a hundred more American families and we will give you ten thousand arpents of land,” said the Governor.
Back to his old Kentucky stamping ground went Boone, and successfully piloted out a settlement of neighbours and comrades. Directly, Colonel Daniel Boone was made Commandant of the Femme Osage District. His word became law in the settlement, and here he held his court under a spreading elm that stands to-day, the Judgment Tree of Daniel Boone.