While the preceding pages have dealt largely with the struggle for existence in the frontier country, it must not be understood that during these years the entire attention of the settlers was given to waging war against the Indians. The Indian invasions were altogether too frequent, and their savage cruelty entirely too terrible to be mentioned here, and this continued for many years after the country was supposed to be entirely free from terrors of the sort. Yet the people had all the while been doing remarkably well, not only in their efforts to conquer the wilderness, but to establish a civilization which compared favorably with the progress made in the more settled sections of our country at that time.

The question of land titles offered a fine field for litigation, and among the brilliant lawyers attracted to the country was Henry Clay of Virginia, who in his twenty-fifth year was elected to the State Legislature of Ken[pg 22]tucky, and at thirty was a United States Senator. From this period, with but few brief intervals, his long life was spent in the public service, and in the highest positions within the gift of the people. It was he who said, “I would rather be right than be President.”

In 1787, there was established at Lexington The Kentucky Gazette, by John Bradford. This was the first newspaper to be published west of the Allegheny Mountains. Since they had no rural delivery in those days the paper was sometimes weeks old before the people received it. It was practically the only medium for the general dissemination of knowledge throughout the settlements. With great eagerness would the people of any particular section assemble at their fort, store or tavern, on “paper day,” and the brightest youngster or the most accomplished reader in the community would delight his auditors by reading aloud the things that had happened in the world at large, the colonies in general, and in Kentucky in particular.