PREFACE

To be easily assimilated, our mental food, like our physical food, should be carefully chosen and attractively served.

The history of the "Dark and Bloody Ground" teems with adventure and patriotism. Its pages are filled with the great achievements, the heroic deeds, and the inspiring examples of the explorers, the settlers, and the founders of our state. In the belief that a knowledge of their struggles and conquests is food that is both instructive and inspiring, and with a knowledge that a text on history does not always attract, the author sets before the youth of Kentucky these stories of some of her great men.

This book is intended as both a supplementary reader and a text, for, though in story form, the chapters are arranged chronologically, and every fact recorded has been verified.

Thanks are due to the many friends who have granted access to papers of historical value, to many others who have assisted in making this book a reality, and especially to my husband, Dr. Clyde Edison Purcell, for his valuable suggestions, careful criticisms, and untiring coöperation.

MARTHA GRASSHAM PURCELL.

CONTENTS

PAGE
When the Ocean Covered Kentucky[9]
The Aborigines of Kentucky[10]
Some Prehistoric Remains[16]
The Discovery of Kentucky[18]
Indian Claims in Kentucky[22]
Scouwa[23]
The Graveyard of the Mammoths[27]
The Druid of Kentucky[28]
A Pioneer Nobleman[33]
Early Kentucky Customs[37]
Boone's Illustrious Peer[41]
Boone's Trace[49]
Boone in Captivity[52]
Boonesborough's Brave Defense[56]
The Lost Baby[61]
The First Romance in Kentucky[64]
A Wedding in the Wilderness[67]
Pioneer Children[70]
How the Pioneers Made Change[72]
A Woman's Will[73]
When the Women Brought the Water[76]
The Result of One Rash Act[83]
Two Kentucky Heroes[86]
The Battle of the Boards[89]
The Faithful Slave and His Reward[91]
The Double Shot[94]
A Man of Strategy and Sagacity[96]
The Kind-hearted Indian[100]
Saved by the Hug of a Bear[101]
A Kentuckian Defeated the British[105]
A Famous March[110]
The First Christmas Party[113]
Fort Jefferson[115]
"The Hard Winter"[118]
Wildcat McKinney[119]
How Kentucky was Formed[122]
Kentucky in the Revolution[123]
Kentucky's Pioneer Historian[125]
Spanish Conspiracy[128]
A Kentucky Inventor[135]
Other Kentucky Inventions[138]
The Man who Knew about Birds[140]
A Hero of Honor[143]
The "Pride of the Pennyrile" [150]
Lucy Jefferson Lewis[153]
Natural Curiosities in Kentucky[155]
The World's Greatest Natural Wonder[159]
How Reelfoot Lake Was Formed[161]
Kentucky Valor in 1812-1815[163]
A Triumvirate of Eloquence[166]
Kentuckians in Texas and Mexico[167]
Clay, the Great Commoner[169]
Kentucky in the War between the States [171]
Why Some Cities were so Named[175]
Kentucky in the Field of Science[179]
"Bessemer Steel" in Kentucky[182]
Kentucky Artists[184]
Kentucky in the Field of Letters[187]
Kentuckians in History[190]