- : -- Ill -' WEB'SITE http//www.kenton.lib.ky.us/~histsoc/ 1 but their hgIish speech and was located. You then had 12 months :. thoughtbeywmcharacteristi-

certain thaxetica.1likeness of to go back and survey the land and mark ' cally lazy, but rather an entire religion. Cincinnati represented your "meets and bounds" on the site. lack of all traditions to the " the motives ofthe Nineteenth You must then return the warrant and relation of labour to life. . . . Century,Newport those ofthe the survey and, for a small fee, be issued Landwasthebasisdthesocial . Sinth,For there is esscn- a "patentwor deed for the pope@. system whicb was fe;dal at &-roo& tidyall that difference between One observer stated that , . thc motives offree communities surveys were never correct unless by where all are of equal rights accident. before the law, and where in the led the first party other, slavery holds. of settlers up the Wilderness Road in . - ... -. - I775 to establish Boonesborough. The He ,ooes on to describe how results were chaotic. These pioneers land in had been sold mainly by forgot to build shelter, they forgot to the U.S. to settlers from the northeastern clear gardens; and worst of all, they states. The land had been surveyed built no defenses. Until ordered to by prior to sale into sections of one square the developer, Richard Henderson. they mile (650 acres) but few of the farms did nothing but survey. Roughly 200 were larger than one fourth of a section. first year settlers managed to survey In Kentucky, the notorious over 900entries containing almost Virginia Land Act of 1789 prevailed. 540.000 acres. Land grants were given for military The "market" in those days was service, or they were sold by the state. not in stock. but in acreage. By 1790, or you cddsimply go out and claim the London newspapers were offering land for "cabin rights" if you cleared a millions of acres of Kentucky to the Simon Kenton 1836 field, planted acrop, built a cabin, and highest bidder. In short order, all of the most importantly, made sure that the I st class bottom land was surveyed and The Virginia land system led to a three land had not been previously claimed. surveyed again until overlapping or tiered class system, the wealthy propri- This ,a you 400 acres and the right to "shingled claims" filled the courts until etors with thousandsdams who with "pteempt a contiguous IOOOacres sortedout by new laws enacted in the their lawyers were abie to protect and provided it was free and clear." With a 1883s. "Clear Title" was the privilege increase their holdings, the poor landless land grant, you had the right to go to the of those with the earliest claims and the whites who were "tenants" on the land county seat. or Richmond. and make an best lawyers. with the latter often more of the proprietors, andfinally the slaves entry, describing about where your land important than the former. According to of the proprietors. Shaler. He described how land in The first movement into Campbell County flowed from the Kentucky was made by men of smaller owners into the hands d the the higher social rank and by the Taylors and Southgates as the natural frontierclass generally shiftless outcome of what he saw as Virginia people who had the habit of the slave feudalism. The tenants were used frontier, living mostly by hunting to having little, and so didn't make a or trapping ...... There were fuss. In Ohio, fann owners worked perhaps a hundred families of their own land. This was unthinkable in this kind on the lands of my the Virginiamodel, Small proprietors kindred, the SouthSes. would act as their own ovemxrs and The frontiersmen were direct their slaves, but manuai labor was honest. kindly .....with noother socially incomct. vice than drunkenness, and this Kenton and Boone and the mainly in binges. Except. of other frontier leaders understood that course, for the fighting and land meant status, and they were able to feuding..... which seldom led to amass large holdings. However, being murder...... The shiftlessness uneducated men of action, Boone and was not mere indolence, al- Kenton didn't tend to the other side of .. - proprietorship. They didn't clear their father to fdlow him. Whether he went under a fancy monument erected in tides, they didn't keep their books, and for the 10,000 acres, or the hunting and 1885. they didn't find ,aood lawyers. Neither trapping in the unsettled Ckarks, or the These men were neighbors and man was a bit interested infarming. cheap landon all sides, we will never , landed proprietors in Mason County for Kenton braggoed that "he had never know. Boone summed it up as "elbow a six year period in the late 18809. They done aday's work in his life." Spending room." built large stone houses and lived endless hours surveying millions of He was a bitter man and had mundedby friends and relatives. acres far others wasn't work, d course. bad memories of Kentucky. In 1803, They owned stores and taverns and In return they usually ,pt one half of the the bought Missouri ,but treated all comers with generosity, but it land for their part. This fed another all refused to recognize Boone's Spanish didn't last. consuming thirst that they shared, the land titles. Friends gave him 300 acres Both Boone and Kenton - thirst far land. They didn't & it for in 1819and when he died the fdlowing achieved more than wealth, more than much. The thrill was in ownership. historical recognition, more than fame. In 1779,~setoutfor ...... of the great names, which in our They became legendary figures . Boone Richmond to buy patents with $50,000 jkes stare. and Kenton's frontier spirit influenced in currency and enough surveys to use it The General Boone, backwoodsman of the Romantic Period in the arts of all. Almost half of the entries and cash Ken~ccky. Europe, including the writings of men were his own. the rest from his "clients." Was huppiest umongst mortals my- from Lord Byron to Alan Eckardt. At an inn in James City, Virginia, he where .....- Gil ben Irnlay, a man well known in the awoke to find his saddlebags missing, Lord Byron solons of Europe, wrote about Boone in even though his room was still locked. 1797 after cheating him out of LOO0 I bs. His land problems only increased as he year, he did have land in which to "inter on a land purchase. Lord Byron wrote ...... *.* tried to pay off his debts. hi's bones." In 1845, however. the an extensive poem on Daniel Boone. Boone could read and write newly proud Kentucky recaptured the after reading the writings of May. but Kenton signed his name with an X old patriot and reburied him in Frankfort Jean Francois Millet's painting, unti l he was 30 years dd. He had with great festivity along with a number "Mazepppa Ride of Simon Kenton," problems with keeping up with his land of hiscompatriots including Elliston was known throughout Europe. and so hdding in Virginia, Kentucky, Florida; Williams of Kenton County. inspired Franz Liszt to write the Ohio. Missouri. and Indiana and were Simon Kenton, under threat of LMazeppa Ovemue. worse as he tried to settle down. He arrest, had protected Mason County By 1820, these men. practi- spent two stints in jail in the 1820s. once from Indians for 20 years. All of his cally penniless. without the starus of far almost two years in Urbam Ohio. best land was gone or under threat for land. nonetheless had their status. They although the door was unlocked and his his debts. He. therefore. went with his were a part of Western Culture. as the family was with him. new wife to Cincinnati for the birth of prototype "Frontiersmen." Land debts and taxes were her child in 1799. and determined to problems which got worse for both move on to Ohio where good land was Boone and Kenton as they aged. It can still available. He assigned his brother be safely said that each of them had . John to settle his affairs with 145,000 been owners. more or less. of at least a acres of remaining land in Kentucky. half million acres over time. For most Hesoldagooddealoflandand of seven years they both resided near managed to buy a quarter damillion Washington, in Mason County, Ken- acres in the Symmes purchase north of tucky. According to his son, "Kenton Cincinnati. He continued to amass was landcrazy. He didn't care for riches property by "locating" land for others, because, he didn't use it. Land in vast but by 1820. his holdings had declined. areas was his passionate hobby." His later years were spent in an 18 by 18 In 17%. both were issued arrest foot cabin on land owned by his &ugh- wmtsin Mason County. Within a ter. In 1827, Congress passed a pension year Boone was a resident of Missouri, specifically for General Simon Kenton a Spanish temtory. His son had re- and the years before his death in April, ceived a land grant and had been 1836, were comfortable if landless. In encouraged by the Lt. Governor Don 1865, Ohio moved his bones to the Zemm T~deauto entice his famous cemetery in Urbana where he lies today .- Richard Sourhgute - . -- WEB SITE http//www.kenton.lib.ky.us/-histsocl 1