[1] Timothy Flint (1780-1840) was a native of Reading, Massachusetts. Graduated from Harvard College (1800), he became a Congregational minister, and in 1815 went as a missionary to the Far West. Until 1822 his headquarters were at St. Charles, Missouri; in that year he descended the Mississippi in a flatboat and settled in Louisiana, conducting a seminary on Lake Pontchartrain. Ill health compelled him to return to the North (1825), and thereafter he gave his attention to literature. For three years he edited the Western Review at Cincinnati; but later, removing to New York (1833), conducted the Knickerbocker Magazine. In addition to publishing a number of romances and biographies of Western life, he was the author of two well-known books on the West: Recollections of the Last Ten Years Passed in the Valley of the Mississippi (1826), and Condensed History and Geography of the Western States (1828).—Ed.
[2] Josiah Stoddard Johnston was born in Salisbury, Connecticut (1784), but when a small boy removed with his parents to Washington, Kentucky. He was graduated from Transylvania University (1805), and soon after began the practice of law in Alexandria, a frontier village of Louisiana. Gaining reputation as a lawyer, he served as district judge from 1812-21, was elected to the 17th congress, and in 1823 became a member of the federal senate, where he supported a protective tariff and the other measures advocated by Henry Clay. In 1833, Johnston was killed in the explosion of the steamboat "Lyon," on Red River.—Ed.
[3] James Riley (born in Connecticut, 1777, died at sea, 1840) was a sea captain, who experienced some romantic adventures. In 1815 he sailed from Hartford on the brig "Commerce," was shipwrecked on the coast of Africa, and for eighteen months held as a slave by the Arabs until ransomed by the British consul at Mogadove. In 1817, Anthony Bleecker published from Riley's journals An Authentic Narrative of the Loss of the American Brig Commerce, on the Western Coast of Africa, in the Month of August, 1815 ... with a Description of Tombuctoo. The book had a wide circulation both in England and America, but until other survivors of the vessel returned and confirmed the account, was popularly supposed to be fictitious. In 1821 Riley settled in Van Wert County, Ohio, founding the town of Willshire, and in 1823 was elected to the legislature. He resumed a seafaring life (1831), and an account of his later voyages and adventures was published by his son (Columbus, 1851).—Ed.
[4] This station, five miles northeast of Lexington, had been established in 1779 by four Bryan (later, Bryant) brothers from North Carolina, one of whom married a sister of Daniel Boone. It contained about forty cabins in 1782 when, August 16, it was attacked by a force of Canadians and Indians under the leadership of Simon Girty. Failing to draw the men out of the stockade, as had been planned, the Indians besieged the station until the following day, when they withdrew. For a full account, see Ranck, "Story of Bryant's Station," Filson Club Publications, xii.—Ed.
[5] For a brief sketch of Colonel Benjamin Logan, see A. Michaux's Travels, volume iii of our series, p. 40, note 34.—Ed.
[6] An account of the battle of the Blue Licks may be found in Cuming's Tour, in our volume iv, pp. 176, 177.—Ed.
[7] This expedition, to avenge the battle of the Blue Licks and the attack on Bryant's Station, rendezvoused at the mouth of the Licking. A force of a thousand mounted riflemen under George Rogers Clark marched thence against the Shawnee towns in the neighborhood of the present Chillicothe. These were completely destroyed, the expedition meeting with no resistance.—Ed.
[8] A footnote cannot do justice to the services of General George Rogers Clark in Western history. Born in Albemarle County, Virginia (1752), he became a surveyor on the upper Ohio. Serving in Dunmore's campaign in 1774, the following year he settled in Kentucky. Returning to Virginia to urge upon the legislature the conquest of the Illinois territory, he was made a lieutenant-colonel and authorized to raise troops for the undertaking. June 24, 1778, he set out from the Falls of the Ohio, upon his memorable campaign, capturing Kaskaskia July 4, and Vincennes the following February. See Thwaites, How George Rogers Clark won the Northwest, etc. (Chicago, 1903). The attack upon the Shawnee towns in 1782 was his last important work; an expedition up the Wabash against Detroit, was undertaken in 1786; but part of the troops mutinied, and Clark was forced to turn back before reaching his destination. He died at his sister's home, "Locust Grove," near Louisville, in February, 1818.—Ed.
[9] The war with the Sauk and Foxes was part of the general War of 1812-15. These Indians had in 1804 signed a treaty at St. Louis, by which they surrendered all their lands in Illinois and Wisconsin. But the cession was repudiated by the Rock River band of the united tribes, who eagerly joined with the British in the hope of saving their hunting grounds. The noted warrior Black Hawk accepted a commission in the British army.—Ed.
[10] For the early history of St. Charles, see Bradbury's Travels, volume v of our series, p. 39, note 9.—Ed.