AT THE MORNING STAR OF OUR AMERICAN REVOLUTION
(…an account of a journey into the wilderness of Kentucky in the Fall of 1775)

We’re pausing here to set aside our usual commentaries about the issues and concerns of our world today, because we have recently received what had been thought to be a long lost journal of a great grandsire of ours (seven generations back). A journal at the morning star of our American Revolution, in which he gave an account of his journey into the wilderness of Kentucky in the Fall of 1775…barely ten months before the Declaration of Independence and the start of our war of independence from England.

While this document may not have any major historical importance itself, compared to many others from that time, it fills a gap in the lore of the history of that branch of our family, illustrating the way things were at the time of his journey; and more importantly, how its micro-part fit into the swirl of the social, economic, and political events of those times. It is in that broader context that his journal, terse and laconic as it is, is so fascinating, after sitting in silence for some two hundred and forty years.

Simply put, from Massachusetts to Georgia, the thirteen colonies of British America were in turmoil, with a growing open resistance and protest against the Home government’s taxation edicts and other restrictive regulations imposed upon its royal governors of those colonies, with the most vehement of such protests being in Massachusetts and Virginia. In the midst of all that turmoil, the pressures of population growth and expanding settlements during the previous one hundred years had also built up to an intense level of interest about what lay beyond the mountains of the Appalachian Chain, an interest which, by the time of that distant grandsire of ours, had begun to generate private ventures to penetrate those mountains to see things for themselves.

Up until then such efforts were made mostly by individual maverick frontiersmen-hunters living along the western edges of those colonies, along with various renegades and outcasts of one kind of another, perhaps even a few actual runaway outlaws, who adapted a semi-native semi-colonial life-style in that environment…by hunting, trapping, trading…all seeking to carve out a refuge from the encroachments of “civilization” steadily lapping up behind them against the foothills and slopes of those mountains.

The native nations and tribes, such as the Shawnee, the Delaware, Cherokee, etc., generally tolerated such individual interlopers into their lands, seeing these as useful “middlemen” to trade and make deals with the colonial authorities. Many of them developed close personal relationships with these, and even joined them, by marrying into such tribes.

By the time of this journal, however, the increasing trickle of such people, and the growing trend for organized settlement ventures into those lands had been set in motion, and it is in that double-barreled context of growing tensions with Britain, and surging interest in westward expansion, that this journal should be viewed…as a snippet of American history from those times, that foretold a similar pattern of expansion which would follow later… over the rest of the continent to the Pacific.

Our grandsire author of this journal was James Lachlan, the eldest son of a Scottish family tracing its origins back to the Strathclyde-Argyle region of Scotland. Having immigrated to the colonies barely more than a generation earlier, like many other families of similar Scottish origins it had settled in the hill country of Western Maryland, perhaps attracted to it because of its resemblance to their homelands back across the Atlantic. In any event they were soon successful planters and prosperous landholders, and still maintaining many of the cultural aspects of their clan and highland customs.

Although they had prospered (most likely as tobacco growers, the cash crop of those times) the growing flow of rumors and reports about those Kentucky lands beyond the mountains must have piqued their interest. Who knew what other and grander opportunities might be there? Thus, the recent Henderson-Boone-Calloway trailblazing and settlement efforts in what is today called the Blue Grass country of Kentucky must have generated a very keen interest. The fact that many leading members of Virginia society, such as Washington, Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and others, were speculating in such ventures as well, would have been a further motivation for that interest. Such news, back then, quickly travelled through the grapevine…and since they had kinfolk in Virginia…that part of Maryland was just a short hop across the Potomac from them…making the Lachlans undoubtedly well aware of such developments.

So, far from it being just a youthful impulse for adventure, James Lachlan’s expedition seems to have been a carefully planned, organized, and outfitted family venture, and as the eldest son, he was chosen to lead it. Although only 19 at the time, he seems to have been mature for his age, very tall and physically imposing, of iron will, and great strength of character. From what we know of him, and the results of that expedition, bringing them all back home safe and sound, it was a good choice. In any case there soon were a half-dozen or so of his age peers recruited for that expedition. Of similar backgrounds, they were all well-mounted on good quarter-type horses (known for their agility, strength, and endurance), well-armed frontier-hunter style, and equipped and provided with necessary supplies for what would turn out to be a very long trip.

As we read through his journal we get the impression that these were not just an ad hoc band of hardy and tough young men gathered from his neighborhood. More than likely these were carefully selected ones from their local militia unit. While neither names nor numbers are specifically mentioned, there’s a strong sense that there was a disciplined militia structure to their group.

They rode an average of 25-35 miles per day over rough terrain, crossing major creeks and rivers, travelling up and over very steep hills and mountains, to reach the Cumberland Gap, pass through it, cross the Cumberland River there, following something called Scaggs Trace, to arrive at Harrodsburg, Kentucky, after covering some 700 miles from their home in Rockville, Maryland, in just 35 days. By any standard it was quite an accomplishment, and only an organized and disciplined group could have done so.

Though they had to stay there through a very harsh and difficult winter, they apparently were able to explore the region northwest of Harrodsburg up by the south banks of the Ohio River. There, just a few miles above its falls (near present day Louisville), and just above the mouth of the Salt River flowing into it, James took up a claim for some 10,000 acres along its eastern bank, and other parcels further upstream along it, ending up with holdings totaling some 18,000 acres. Several of his companions did likewise. If that was the object of their expedition, and the haste of their travel to the area suggests that it was, then they were indeed successful, and their families would have been well pleased by it.

Unfortunately his journal ends at this point, and there are no entries in it about what happened to those land claims, or anything about their return trip to Maryland (a round trip of some 1400 miles…all on horseback!). We do know that, thanks to his leadership qualities, they all arrived safe and sound back home in the late spring of 1776, just before the Declaration of Independence, and just in time to join up with the 29^th Battalion of Maryland’s Militia a few months later. James was commissioned a 2^nd Lieutenant in that unit, and served for the entire period of the Revolutionary War. Whether that unit became part of the famed Maryland Line regiments of Washington’s Continental Army, how or where it fought in its battles and campaigns, we do not know. Nor do we know what rank he may have reached by the end of the war.

We do know that he survived it all, later married well, and then established the first (and only) double mill enterprise in Maryland near the Potomac. He died in 1814, highly respected and admired by most who knew him…leaving we…who are some of his descendants to wonder if any of us are worthy of that kinship.

Well, great grandsire, perhaps after those pipers played for you…your soul has lived on… and some part of you is still with us.

CENTURION

SKETCH MAP: NOT TO SCALE