Ohio History Journal

BOOK REVIEWS

 

 

A History of Kentucky. By Thomas D. Clark. Prentice-Hall

History Series. Ed. by Carl Wittke. (New York, Prentice-

Hall, Inc., 1937. 702p. $5.00.)

To present in one volume a general history of Kentucky was

the purpose of this book. In a concise narrative of the political,

economic, and social development of the state Kentucky has been

viewed as an important factor in the larger life of the Nation, and

especially as a factor in the settlement of the South and West.

Each chapter has been well fortified with a bibliography of use

not only to the general reader but also to the researcher.

Before the story begins the reader is acquainted with the

physiography of Kentucky and with certain geographical influences

on the state's history. The story moves rapidly but interestingly

through the English and French rivalries, the early settlement of

Kentucky, the Revolutionary War, the Indian wars, and the move-

ment for statehood. Succeeding chapters tell of the Burr con-

spiracy, the Kentucky expansionists in the War of 1812, the state's

agricultural, industrial, and commercial development, and the po-

litical struggles within the commonwealth, particularly between

the rich landowners and the poorer classes, such as the bank,

courts, and slavery controversies.

Chapters on social and cultural history tell of the evolution

of educational facilities from Mrs. Coome's school at Fort Harrod

in 1775 to the comparatively recent expansion of the University

of Kentucky, the productions and influence of newspaper, periodi-

cal, and book presses, and the awakening of an interest in art,

architecture, literature, and music. While the rise of religious

sects is not overlooked, their importance in the state's history is

perhaps not sufficiently discussed.

The final pages deal with the economic revolution which ac-

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BOOK REVIEWS                     79

companied the Civil War, the cut-throat competition between

Louisville and Cincinnati, the expansion of railroads, the utiliza-

tion of natural resources, and the development of the manufactur-

ing industry, tobacco cultivation, and live-stock breeding. Also

discussed are certain philanthropic and charitable enterprises, such

as the temperance, women's rights, and prison, labor, and social

reform movements, and the political struggles since the Civil War,

including agitation for the new Constitution of 1873, third party

movements, the assassination of William Goebel, and the turbu-

lent administration of Democratic Governor Laffoon. It seems,

however, that the treatment of the period since the Civil War is

too sketchy as compared to the rest of the book.

Maps, illustrations, and a good index add to the understand-

ing and utility of the text. The volume has an attractive cover

and is well printed, typographical errors being found only on

pages 208 and 641.

JAMES H. RODABAUGH.

 

 

Bibliographie des Deutschtums der Kolonialzeitlichen Einwander-

ung in Nordamerika 1683-1933. By Emil Meynen. (Leipzig,

Otto Harrassowitz, 1937. xxxvi+ 636p.)

This extensive bibliography of the Pennsylvania-German

element and their descendants, promoted by the Pennsylvania-

German Society of Pennsburg, Pennsylvania, was compiled prin-

cipally for research students. The 8,000 items listed in the bibli-

ography were compiled from the catalogues located in the prin-

cipal libraries of Europe, the United States and Canada. The

volume is arranged alphabetically by author under a subject

system.

This bibliography furnishes the essential materials for a com-

prehensive history of the Pennsylvania-German element in North

America. The first eighty-six pages of the bibliography contains

a list of works which deal with the American and European back-

ground of German settlement, emigrant ships and registers, re-

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80     OHIO ARCHEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

demptioners and indentured servants, German settlements in co-

lonial Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and New England.

Meynen also includes a few references on the neighbors of the

colonial Germans, the Swedes, the Dutch, the English, and the

Scotch-Irish. Then follows a list of works from which one may

trace the expansion of the Pennsylvania-German element as far

south as North and South Carolina and Tennessee, north to On-

tario, Canada, and west through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa.

There are other sections in which are listed the principal works

which treat of the participation of the Pennsylvania-Germans in

politics, local and state administration, and in the wars in which

the United States was a belligerent. With special regard for

social and cultural history, the compiler lists the works which deal

with the contributions made by the Pennsylvania-Germans to

American religion, art, science, literature, and music. The last

131 pages of the bibliography, besides containing a list of German

guides, manuscript materials, genealogical institutions and socie-

ties, lists 1786 family histories and biographies of Pennsylvania-

Germans and their descendants.

In examining the list of works cited in the bibliography one

is amazed at its accuracy and completeness. There are, however,

certain omissions of titles, especially in the sections listing trav-

eler's accounts of the Pennsylvania-Germans, and in the section

listing the works dealing with the "Pennsylvania-German Part in

the Winning of the West." On the other hand, Meynen has pro-

duced a bibliography so exhaustive that it is discouraging even

to attempt to check it for omissions. The register of surnames and

the index to authors facilitate the use of the work.

JOHN O. MARSH

 

Solon Robinson, Pioneer and Agriculturist; Selected Writings.

Ed. by Herbert Anthony Kellar. Indiana Historical Collec-

tions XXII. (Indianapolis, Indiana, Historical Bureau, 1936.

Vol. II: ⁵⁵⁶p.)

The first volume of Solon Robinson's writings (1825-45)

which was published in 1936 has been reviewed in this QUARTERLY,

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BOOK REVIEWS                     8l

 

Vol. XLV, p. 374. In the second volume selections from his writ-

ings during the years 1846-51 are presented. In these years "Solon

Robinson of Indiana" was continuing his extensive travels into

the rural sections of all parts of the United States and Canada.

While making these journeys he frequently contributed his acute

observations to various newspapers and periodicals. These ar-

ticles, as selected by Kellar, Director of the McCormick Histori-

cal Association, are a source of valuable information to the eco-

nomic and social historian.

The calendar of 154 writings from which the 113 selections

for this volume have been made include 106 from the American

Agriculturist, published in New York, and others from the Cin-

cinnati Daily Gazette, the Chicago Prairie Farmer, the Western

Ranger, of Valparaiso, Indiana, the Richmond, Virginia Inquirer,

the Indiana Sentinel, the National Intelligencer, the American

Farmer, DeBow's Review, the Southern Cultivator, of Augusta,

Georgia, the Plow, of New York, the Northern Almanac (1851),

and the Planters' Pictorial Almanac (1851). There were also

eighteen manuscripts published from the Amos Allman, Ewing,

and Harry Robinson Strait collections.

Among these writings are notes on the Cherokee Rose Hedge,

seen near Natchez, and notes on fences, pork and bacon, uses for

corn cobs, a "Visit to General Zachary Taylor at New Orleans,"

manufacturing and cotton manufacturing in the South, negro

slavery, the use of guano, strawberries, and many other topics.

All selections are fully edited in footnotes. A sixteen-page bibli-

ography pertaining to Robinson and an extensive index conclude

the volume.

JAMES H. RODABAUGH

 

 

Sons of the Wilderness: John and William Conner. By Charles

N. Thompson. (Indianapolis, Indiana Historical Society,

1937. lx+283p. Illus., maps. Paper, $1.50; Cloth, $2.)

This little volume, as the title indicates, is essentially a bi-

ography of a family and the part Richard Conner and his two sons,

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82     OHIO ARCHEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

John and William, played in the winning of the wilderness. Be-

ginning with a resume of Indian affairs in the years preceding the

American Revolution, the author unfolds the familiar story of In-

dian wars, British Indian policy following the expulsion of the

French (1763), and the conditions on the frontier during and

after the American Revolution. It is against such a background

of western events that Thompson relates the story of the Conner

family, their conversion by Moravian missionaries in Ohio, their

settlement at Schoenbrunn, and finally the incidents of their re-

moval, with the dispossessed Moravians, to Detroit by Major

De Peyster, British commander at Detroit, who, with other British

military leaders, was convinced that the Moravian Indians and

their teachers were secretly aiding the Americans in their struggle

for independence. The author traces with dramatic interest the

incidents of their winter journey from Schoenbrunn to Detroit,

the events in the trial before the British commandant, the removal

of the Conner family to Lower Sandusky (Fremont), and later

to New Gnadenhutten, twenty miles from Detroit, where Richard

Conner established a permanent home.

John and William Conner, after spending the most impres-

sionable years of their lives in the Moravian settlements in Ohio

and Michigan, abandoned a settled agricultural life for that of the

Indian trader. After some wandering along the northern frontier

the brothers settled in the Indiana Territory. Both married Dela-

ware Indians, engaged in trading, and served as Indian inter-

preters and scouts before, during and after the War of 1812.

The termination of the war was a transitional period not only

in the history of Indiana, but also in the lives of the "Sons of the

Wilderness." Largely through the efforts of the Conner brothers

the Delaware Indians were persuaded to sign the Treaty of St.

Mary's (1818) whereby the central portion of Indiana was sur-

rendered to the United States. With the marriage of John to

Lavina Winship, following the death of his Indian wife, and the

marriage of William to Elizabeth Chapman, following the migra-

tion of his Indian wife, Mekinges, and his hybrid siblings beyond

the Mississippi, the ties which bound the Conner brothers to their

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BOOK REVIEWS                      83

 

Indian life were gone. Both John and his brother William

emerged from the wilderness to high positions in the newly cre-

ated state of Indiana, the one to become the founder of Conners-

ville (later to be designated as the county seat of Fayette County),

one of the ten commissioners appointed to select a site for the

permanent seat of government of Indiana, a member of the state

senate, and later a successful Indianapolis merchant, the other to

become the founder of Noblesville (later to be designated as the

county seat of Hamilton County), a member of the general as-

sembly, a railway promoter, and a charter member of the Indiana

Historical Society. Both John and William, as sons of the wild-

erness, and later as members of the legislature, helped to fashion

a state "out of the primeval forest and virgin prairie."

Thompson has, with varying degrees of success, interwoven

the narrative of John and William Conner with western and na-

tional events. Unfortunately the author was unable to locate let-

ters of the Conner family and the narrative is not as complete as

could be desired. The lengthy classified bibliography which the

author used during his five years of research is reasonably com-

plete, although the omission of such well-known works as Samuel

F. Bemis' Jay's Treaty, Julius S. Pratt's Expansionists of 1812,

and Alfred T. Mahan's Sea Power in Its Relation to the War

of 1812, are surprising. Although the use of such works would

probably have modified some of the author's statements, they

would not materially have changed his point of view. Aside from

a slightly anti-British tone in the chapters dealing with the events

leading up to the War of 1812, the author's treatment is scholarly

and impartial. The placing of the footnotes at the back of the

book is inconvenient for those readers wishing to follow both

notes and text.

Some, of course, may doubt whether the Conners deserve so

much attention. But the author, in his introduction, makes it

clear that "'historical understanding is perhaps advanced as much

by the biographies of secondary individuals as by the reiterated

accounts and appraisals of the lives of the truly great'."

JOHN O. MARSH.

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84     OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

Twelve Virginia Counties: Where the Western Migration Began.

By John H. Gwathmey. (Richmond, Virginia, Dietz Press,

1937. 469p. Illus.)

Gwathmey, the author of Love Affairs of Captain John

Smith, now turns his attention to twelve central Virginia counties

which, he contends, furnished a majority of the "families who

first settled west of the Alleghanies." The twelve historic Vir-

ginia counties under consideration are: Albemarle, Augusta, Car-

oline, Essex, Glouster, Goochland, Hanover, King William, King

and Queen, Louisa, New Kent, and Orange. Each county is al-

loted a section.

The contents of the volume, partaking of the nature of a

museum guide, is a peculiar mixture of descriptions of court-

houses, churches, and portraits, genealogical information concern-

ing the owners of houses, plantations and estates, lists of county

and state officials, rosters of soldiers, short biographical sketches,

and a thread of historical narrative which, in some instances, does

not approximate the standards set by modern historians.

The complete lack of documentation, and the fact that the

author did not see fit to include a classified bibliography, will render

the volume of little value to students of history. But since this

interesting volume was evidently not written for the specialist and

is comparatively free from serious errors, it can be highly recom-

mended to the general reader, to those people who are descended

from the early Virginia pioneers, to those interested in genealogy,

and to tourists who are interested in visiting any one of the twelve

Virginia counties. The book is attractively bound, well printed,

and contains twelve illustrations of courthouses, and an index.

JOHN O. MARSH

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