G. R. Clark to Jonathan Clark, April
20,178.] In Kentucky, while much land was taken up under Treasury
warrants, much was also allotted to the officers of the Continental
army; and the retired officers of the Continental line were the best of
all possible immigrants. A class of gentlefolks soon sprang up in the
land, whose members were not so separated from other citizens as to be
in any way alien to them, and who yet stood sufficiently above the mass
to be recognized as the natural leaders, social and political, of their
sturdy fellow-freemen. These men by degrees built themselves
comfortable, roomy houses, and their lives were very pleasant; at a
little later period Clark, having abandoned war and politics, describes
himself as living a retired life with, as his chief amusements, reading,
hunting, fishing, fowling, and corresponding with a few chosen friends.
[Footnote: _Do._, letter of Sept. 2, 1791.] Game was still very
plentiful: buffalo and elk abounded north of the Ohio, while bear and
deer, turkey, swans, and geese, [Footnote: _Magazine of American
History_, I., Letters of Laurence Butler from Kentucky, Nov. 20, 1786,
etc.] not to speak of ducks and prairie fowl swarmed in the immediate
neighborhood of the settlements.
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