She wrote: “* * * Father leaves Danville for Boston the first of November, taking me with him. I am to remain and attend a finishing school for young ladies, making my home for the winter with Aunt Mildred and Uncle John. Father will remain but a few days.
“He has become quite intimate with General Wilkinson, who makes our home his headquarters whenever he comes to Danville. He seems to like me; though he is not the sort of man I would ever fancy. He came to Kentucky in 1784; has a large store in Lexington and a small plantation on the Town Fork of Elkhorn Creek; is more than thirty years old, is short and fat, though elegant and fastidious in appearance, with a bland and courteous manner, an easy address and his general manner uphold [pg 187] his title, which was conferred upon him for distinguished service at Saratoga.
“Recently he has obtained a permit from Governor Miro, of Louisiana, to transport tobacco by river to New Orleans, where it is bought at a good price by the Spanish Government. Father is acting as one of his purchasing agents and can talk of nothing else except the General and the prospect of wealth that is presented to us because of this business connection.
“I do not like the spirit that pervades his talks with father. He does not seem to have any love for Virginia and little regard or patriotism for the Union. He is one of the leaders of what is spoken of as the Court Party; and he, father, Judge Sebastian and Colonel Harry Innes, with several other men I do not know, meet at our house. One is a Spaniard, Don Pedro Wouver d’Arges; and they treat him with great deference.
“From what I gather, they advocate immediate severance of Kentucky from Virginia as an independent state; and declare that unless the federal government will protect them from the Indians of the Northwest territory and procure an open market by river to New Orleans for their tobacco and other surplus produce, Kentucky, having nothing to gain by remaining in the union of states had better become a province of Spanish Louisiana; as only in that way can we enjoy free navigation of the Mississippi and trade privileges with New Orleans, our only market. They say the original thirteen states oppose free navigation, as it diverts trade from the Atlantic; and when we say trade between us and the Atlantic is impossible, they talk of building canals connecting the Potomac and the Ohio.
“General Wilkinson has told father that should Kentucky become a Spanish province, he will use his influence [pg 188] to procure his appointment as commander of the military forces or as governor.
“It is at his suggestion that I am being sent to Boston. He has persuaded father that such an aristocrat as poor, little, insignificant Dorothy, must be educated in accord with her prospective station. When he left, I mentioned to father that I expected to marry you, at which he flew into a passion and said: ‘Not while I am alive shall you marry a mountain preacher; if he wants you let him first come down here and live like a man.’ I left the room. He and mother quarreled for some time because she took out part. He seems a different man since we left Jackson River. There he was deacon of the church; now he never goes to church.
“If you wish to see your Dorothy as much as she longs for a sight of her John, you must come to Danville before the first of November. * * *”
John stood for a long time looking down the trail that led northward to Danville and the cane-brake country; then he saddled his horse and took the trail in the opposite direction to the Gap. Having tied his horse at the foot of the path leading to the Pinnacle, he climbed to the apex of the peak, as at the old home he climbed John Calvin Rock when mentally disturbed.
It was a stormy day; heavy, black, threatening clouds rode the northwest wind. Only at rare intervals did the sun break through; yet from his aerie, always, somewhere to the north or south, a sunbeam found a rift and bathed in golden glory the red and brown foliage of a portion of the great forest; which from where he sat, seemed to cover the earth, save the little clearing round their station. Today as always from the Pinnacle, the earth’s upturned face, marked by rift and shadow, presented a new, though a kindly and varied expression.