FOOTNOTES:
[113] An ear of corn, in most parts of Ireland, England, and Scotland, and other parts of Europe, is deemed a great curiosity, and is carefully preserved, when it can be procured, for a number of years by some families as a shew of a singular production of nature, and is as much admired and as closely examined as would be here the shoe of a Chinese lady of quality. A young Irish gentleman tells me, when a boy in Ireland he once carried a corn cob fourteen miles in his pocket to shew it to his relatives, who viewed it as a great curiosity from America, and could form no just idea of the manner of its growing, or of its utility, but concluded it grew like oats or barley, and like these were cut with sickles or scythes. The cob had been previously stripped of its grains by as many individuals, each taking one, as a sight of singular curiosity for their families and neighbourhood.—Cramer.
[114] For a sketch of the town of Washington, see F. A. Michaux’s Travels, vol. iii of this series, p. —, note 37. Cuming is mistaken in making it the seat of Bracken instead of Mason County.—Ed.
[115] For biographical sketch of General Henry Lee, see Michaux’s Travels, vol. iii of this series, p. 36, note 25.—Ed.
[116] Boonesborough was one of the first settlements of Kentucky, laid out in 1775 by the pioneer for whom it was named. It was the capital of the Transylvania Company, and the scene of some of the most noted events of early Kentucky history, particularly during the siege of 1778. Boonesborough declined in importance after the Indian wars; in 1810 it was a mere hamlet, and since that but the site of a farm. For further details see the excellent monograph of Ranck, Boonesborough (Filson Club Publications, No. 16; Louisville, 1901).—Ed.
[117] The Lower Blue Licks, which Cuming here describes, were discovered in 1773 by a party of surveyors led by John Finley. It was a well-known spot in early Kentucky annals, and Daniel Boone was here engaged in making salt when captured by Indians (1778). The most famous event in its history was the disastrous battle fought here, August 19, 1782, in which the flower of Kentucky frontiersmen lost their lives. See Young, “Battle of Blue Licks” in Durrett, Bryant’s Station (Filson Club Publications, No. 12; Louisville, 1897). The Lower Blue Licks later became, as Cuming indicates, a favorite watering-place for the vicinity.—Ed.