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1 November –
1789 – Louisville, KY. In correspondence from James Robinson and Lardner Clark to John Campbell and William Croghan, both of the recipients seem to be trying to establish towns on their Cumberland River lands. (See 11 Oct 1784; 21 Nov 1789; 25 Mar 1805; 4 Nov 1805.)
1810 - Owensboro, KY. Joseph Hamilton Daveiss again importunes George Rogers Clark for details of his campaign: The recovery of your power of speech has determined me to visit you again in the early part of the winter to learn from your moth certain particulars of your life not to be easily come at other wise. [Potts, p. 89]
Deaths –
1855 – St. Louis, MO. Mann Butler dies from injuries received in a train wreck. Kentucky’s first serious historian, he lived in Louisville from about 1815 until 1817. He met George Rogers Clark: He was staying at Major Croghan’s, in his own private apartment, where every visitor to that hospitable mansion call to pay his respects…His chamber was a public shrine, where every patriotic breast desired to offer worship. (See 13 July 1784.) [Potts, p. 92]
2 November –
1795 – Louisville, KY. George Rogers Clark writes to the French Committee of Public Safety: Citizens, Colo. Fulton hath arrived with the satisfactory inteligence of your having Ratified the proceedings of Mr. Genet and my self relative to the plan of an atrac on on the Governments of Louisiana and the two Floridas. Had not the orders of Citizen Genet been Countermanded by Citizen Fuchet those Countries would have long since been in possession of the Republick, Men we could have got in what numbers we chose… The peculiar situation of Kentucky is such that their only natural Door to Foreign Commerce is the Missisippi. They despair of ever getting it opened through the mediation of the present American Ministrey. This is not the only reason for their desire to assist France but a more powerfull one that of gratitude towards you and the Idea they posess of the rights of Man. I am Citizen yours with esteem. [Potts, p. 74]
3 November –
4 November –
1795 – Treaty of San Lorenzo signed. Spain allows The United States access to the Mississippi River and right of deposit at New Orleans. Western Americans at last have a way to ship out their produce. [Potts, p. 74]
1805 – Livingston County, KY. Town of Smithland established. (See 11 Oct 1784; 1 Nov 1789; 21 Nov 1789; 25 Mar 1805.) [Potts, p. 69]
5 November –
1806 – Louisville, KY. Corps of Discovery arrives. [EL, p. 509-10]
1815 – Louisville, KY, at Locust Grove. George Rogers Clark makes his Last Will and Testament. It is in the handwriting of Dr. John Croghan. (See 16 March 1970; 11 May 1792; 15 September 1795; 15 August 1796; 5 October 1796; 18 August 1797; 14 December 1797; 28 July 1803; 10 July 1826; 4 October 1830; 8 May 1835.) [Potts, p. 93-4]
6 November –
1811 – Tippecanoe Battlefield, IN. Joseph Hamilton Daveiss is wounded and shortly will die. Louise Phelps Kellogg, curator of Lyman Draper’s collection reported to Gwynne Potts and Sam Thomas: Clark sent this new proponent for his biography most of the manuscripts then in his possession, and several chapters of the propsed biography were written. …his executors returned the papers he had borrowed to Clark’s own care.
She further states that much of Daveiss’ work about Clark later appeared in the Kentucky Gazette as John Bradfords’ “Notes on Kentucky.” [Potts, p. 89]
Births –
1858 – Louisville, KY. Rogers Clark Ballard Thruston born. He will be a well educated, successful businessman, he will spend the second half of his life as an historian. The second president of the Filson Club, 1923-46, he will guide it to a permanent headquarters and establish an endowment, both of which help to assure its continuation. (See 30 December 1946.) [KE, p. 883-4]
7 November –
1803 – Louisville, KY. Jefferson County Clerk Worden Pope records William Croghan’s deed to Locust Grove. [Renau, p. 72]
1805 – estuary, Columbia River, Oregon. Mistakenly believing that they have reached the Western Ocean, William Clark records, “Sighted the ocean. Great rejoicing.” [EL, p. 509-10] Dear Brother
8 November –
1806 – near Louisville, KY. Lucy and Bill Croghan host a dinner for William Clark and Meriwether Lewis. [EL, p. 509-10]
9 November –
10 November –
1795 – Paris, France. Samuel Fulton writes to George Rogers Clark: I can give you no accounts relative to our mission. Thare has [been] a very great Change in the affares of the nation For the better Since the execution of Roberspiere and his party, the Gulletines hav Disappeard and a greater Degree of tranquility prevaileing over the nation than Has been Since the revolution. Our armies are eavery whare victorious. In a late ingagement with the Spanards in the Pirenees, we have Kiled and taken 10 thousand slaves, 50 peaces of Cannon… You may rest asuered that I Shall Do eavery thing in my power to obtain indemnefycation to you and all those that have sufferd by the Disappointment. If we are not able to obtain a renuel of the expedition I Shall Return early in the Spring and Settle my self Some Whare near you… Remember to give my Complyments to the Famely if you pleas. Adieu. (See 25 October 1975.) [Potts, p. 73] The Reign of Terror might be over, but the decade long bloodbath of the French Revolution grinds on. Once again, a government will not reimburse George Rogers Clark.
11 November –
1820 – Louisville, KY. The Louisville Public Advertiser carries the following announcement: Doctor Croghan, has resumed the practice of medicine His residence is three doors below the U.S. Branch Bank, and adjoining Forrester’s Apothecary shop [Potts, p. 101]
However, by mid-decade he is put attempting to enter the booming salt industry, drilling wells at Salt Bend, Burkesville, Cumberland County; land he inherited from his father. [Potts, p. 101]
12 November –
1813 – Chillicothe, OH. George Croghan writes to Isaac Clark: It is uncertain whether or not I shall leave this place for some days and therefore shall be in want of my boy Blythe so soon as he can come. Be so good as to send him to me at this place immediately. Try if possible to procure him some sort of saddle. [Potts, p. 96]
2003 – Clarksville, IN. Grace Schneider reports in The Courier-Journal that fire has damaged the representation of George Rogers Clark’s home. [Potts, p. 200, note 79] Embers from the fire in the stone fireplace had fallen through onto the sill plate and set it to smoldering. Neighbors spotted the fire before extensive damage was done.
13 November –
1809 – Louisville, KY. Owen Gwathmey writes to George Rogers Clark: I have been anxious for several years past that you should come and spend the remainder of your days with e. I feel more desirous since you have met with so great a misfortune. … I will do everything in my power to make your time pass off agreably. I have lately purchased me a set of the Dictionary of Arts & Sciences, with Three hundred plates, consisting of Machenery of every kind, Fish, Tools, &c. I think if you was with me you could make me understand many things I am now at a loss for. [Potts, p. 88]
14 November –
1819 – Lexington, KY. Transylvania College. Nicholas Croghan writes to Maria Preston: I have not as yet joined any one of the regular classes of the College but I intend joining the junior or next to the last class when I enter it…I have heard a great many lectures during the last two weeks the most of them on surgery, Natural History, Botany &c, the best of which I think was delivered [by] Doct [Charles] Caldwell on medicine, the most diverting and some thing the most learned was delivered by a Mr. [Constantine Samuel] Rafinesque a Frenchman on Natural History and Botany. [Potts, p. 67]
1868 – Falls of the Ohio. Lyman Draper interviews Charles W. Milholland, whose family lived in George Rogers Clark’s old cabin in 1821, with six-year-old Charles. Draper also spoke with Anderson Stewart, reared in the area: …the Point of Rock…or Clark’s Point…[Clark’s house was] about 90 feet back from the brink of the bank…a little north of the present cement mills of Wm. F. Beach & Co…. 30 ft. by 20 ft. with gables up & down the river. The house fronted on the Ohio and was divided into two rooms, the smaller of which had a chimney in the eastern gable. Three of four locust trees stood in front of the house. Clark’s spring was in a cluster of willows on a lower level of the riverbank southeast of the house and just below an orchard of perhaps a hundred cherry, apple, and peach trees. They thought that some acres around the house and extending east were cultivated. Clark had some negro cabins around his house, where Caesar, “Cupid, Ben McGee and his wife, Venus, lived. Robert Stewart remembered that Gen. Clark’s house was painted white. (See 23 April 1883.) [Potts, p. 83-4]
Deaths –
1860 – Elkton, KY. William Croghan Jesup dies, in a small house his father had purchased or him. In the five months since his father’s death, however, he has mortgaged and sold all of the Todd County property he inherited. Willie is only 27 years old. His brother Charles, West Point graduate and army officer, dies in 1862. (See 14 May 1863.) [Potts, p. 108]
1861 – Louisville, KY. Colonel St. George Croghan dies, 2:00 p.m., Locust Grove. [Renau, p. 258]
15 November –
1805 – Columbia River, Oregon. The Corps of Discovery reaches the Western Ocean. [EL, p. 509-10] York, William Clark’s enslaved servant, and Sacagawea, the Shoshone Indian woman, became the first African American and the first American Indian and American woman to vote in the United States, as they each had a ballot in the decision of where to build the stockade.
1839 – Louisville, KY. John Croghan writes to Thomas Sidney Jesup concerning the health benefits he believes are to be found in Mammoth Cave: Owing to the uniformity of temperature throughout the year 60 Faht. The dryness of the atmosphere and the continual purification thereof by the constant formation of salt Petre, I have no doubt there is no where to be found a spot so desirable for persons laboring under pulmonary affections, chronic Rheumatism, diseases of the eye, etc. etc. Divesting myself of all selfish consideration I have no hesitation in affirming that for enjoyment, for the gratification of ones curiosity, for the restoration & preservation of health it stands unrivaled and in fine is worth all the Niagrara’s and watering places in the Union put together. [Potts, p. 106]
1882 – Louisville, KY. Christopher Columbus Graham, M.D., born 1784, recalls for Lyman C. Draper, that his sister reminded him: that she and I with our mother spent two weeks with Genl. Clark shortly after he built his cabin on the Indiana side of Corn Island, when he laid off a village called for him, Clarksville. The ground being rough and subject to inundation, New Albany just below and Jeffersonville above took the lead. [Potts, p. 83]
1882 – Louisville, KY. Dr. Christopher Columbus Graham writes to Lyman C. Draper concerning the Locust Grove farm that he had “recently been over the Croghan farm hunting fossils, but no one now living there [the Paul family] has any knowledge of the former occupants.” [Potts, p. 115]
Births –
1791 – Louisville, KY. George Croghan born. [Renau, p. 64]
16 November –
1798 – Frankfort, KY. The Kentucky legislature passes a resolutions endorsing the Kentucky Resolutions. Their author is unknown at the time, but Thomas Jefferson has penned them to undermine the Federalists, led by President John Adams. Jefferson is Adams vice-president, and occupied running a covert counter-government at Monticello. A direct refutation of the Alien and Sedition Acts, the Kentucky Resolutions argue that the compact of the “united” states was authored to provide mutual security and prosperity, but that each state’s participation in that union was voluntary; each state is a sovereign government and free to determine the extent of its participation toward the welfare of the others. Westerners eagerly embraced this viewpoint, feeling neglected, if not persecuted, by the federal government. It is this political viewpoint which will be tested by the War Between the States. (See 22 November 1798.) [Potts, p. 76]
17 November –
1817 – William Croghan Jr. writes to Archibald Woods: Had I been alone when in Wheeling last month I should as usual have done myself the pleasure of calling on you. But I was with my Brother (Col. G.C.) who was on the wings of love and scarcely allowed me time to breathe. [Potts, p. 97]
Births –
1791 – Louisville, KY. John O’Fallon eldest child of James and Frances Clark O’Fallon born. [Potts, p. 196, note 4]
18 November –
1868 – Jeffersonville, IN. James Harrison recalls for Lyman C. Draper that George Roger Clark spent the summer of 1811 at Chalybeate Springs. The spa was owned by Harrison’s father Major John Harrison, and General Clark was in company with Jonathan and Edmund Clark, Richard Clough Anderson Sr., Alexander S. Bullitt, and others. The general could speak only with difficulty, but was able to locomote in a large chair with rollers with the aid of his cane. His companions “some in cabins near the Spring, & would have their servants with them to cook & keep house; and these en would hunt some, play whist, &c. They paid every attention & respect to Gen. G.R. Clark.
For a description of the spa itself, Dr. Henry McMurtrie recorded in 1818 that the springs were: mineralized by sulphur and iron, where a large and commodious building has lately been erected, by the proprietor, for the reception of those who seek relief either from physical indisposition, their own thoughts, or disagreeable atmosphere of cities, during the summer season. [Potts, p. 89]
19 November –
1779 – Louisville, KY. George Rogers Clark writes to George Mason concerning his grant from Tobacco’s Son: I had no idea of having Property in the Lands myself, knowing the Laws of my Country Justly against it. I chose it at the fall of Ohio suspecting that I might hereafter find it necessary to fortify that Place for conveniency of free Intercourse.” (See 16 June 1779.) [Potts, p. 79-80] The United States has not yet acquired the land of Indiana from the American Indians, and the government forbade individuals from negotiating to acquire any land contained within the Indian lands. Yet, ever the military man, keenly aware of the many issues unresolved by the War for Independence and anticipating further conflict with Great Britain, George Rogers Clark determines to keep the Ohio River open for United States travel, the Falls having a bottleneck which could stop all commerce.
In this letter, he also says: Continue to favour me with your valuable Lessons. Continue your Reprimands as though I was your Son: when suspicious, think not that promotion or confer’d Honour will occation any unnecessary pride in me. You have infus’d too many of you Valuable precepts in me to be guilty of the like, or to shew any indifference to those that out to be dear to me. [Potts, p. 21]
This 75-page letter, plus his Memoir, also written to George Mason, comprise almost everything we know of the settlement of Kentucky and of the Illinois campaign. [Potts, p. 26]
1794 – London, England. Jay’s Treaty signed. In this commercial treaty, the United States is accorded most-favored-nation status; additionally, Great Britain promises to abandon its forts located in the territory ceded to the United States in 1783’s Treaty of Paris, which ended the American War for Independence. Many of these forts are scattered through the Old Northwest Territory. This part of the treaty, published in the United States in March, 1795, pleased the western people, as they were convinced that the British had been inciting the American Indians to raid the frontier settlements. Ultimately, however, westerners disavowed the treaty, because it failed to secure trade rights for the United States on the Mississippi River and in the Caribbean. [Potts, p. 74]
Births –
1752 – Albemarle County, VA. George Rogers Clark is born. He is the second child and second son of John and Ann Rogers Clark. He is named for his maternal uncle George Rogers. [Potts, p. 21; p. 187, note 2]
20 November –
21 November –
1789 – Louisville, KY. John Campbell writes to William Croghan concerning establishing a town on the land each owns above and below the mouth of the Cumberland River. (See 11 Oct 1784; 1 Nov 1789; 25 Mar 1805; 4 Nov 1805.) [Potts, p. 69]
22 November –
1798 – Frankfort, KY. Kentucky legislature passes another resolution endorsing the Kentucky Resolutions. (See 16 November 1798.) [Potts, p. 76]
1808 – Clarksville, IN. William Clark begins a letter, which he continues on 24 November, to his brother Jonathan Clark: As to my bro. G’s plans about the Slip [for a canal around the Falls of the Ohio], I am desirious that he Should carry them into execution if he can profit by them, but he has not been fortunate in maney of his plans, I wish you make any arrangement you think will be to his interast respecting the Slip and I will confirm what you do as far as I can, I do not wish to give up the Slip lower than Mrs. Fitzhughs lot above the point. The Slip was intended for bro. G and I wish him to have the advantages, even it if Should not Sell for more than $1000. [Potts, p. 82]
23 November –
1793 – Louisville, KY. James O’Fallon writes his last known letter to his estranged wife, Fanny (Frances Eleanor Clark O’Fallon). He blames her parents and George Rogers Clark for their marital problems. [Potts, p. 197, note 16]
1845 – Louisville, KY. John Croghan, his health deteriorating, makes an agreement with Alexander Bayne to rent Locust Grove farm. [Potts, p. 108; p. 205, note 147]
24 November –
1787 – Louisville, KY. Elizabeth Clark marries Richard Clough Anderson Sr., at Mulberry Hill (now George Rogers Clark Park). [EL, p. 37]
25 November –
26 November –
27 November –
1868 – Louisville, KY. Lyman C. Draper interviews Jonathan Clark’s son George Washington Clark: Genl. Clark had some difficulty in talking, can’t say precisely what it was. Had a servant Kitt, who used to wheel him around. Never saw Gen. Clark reading… Would take his place at table, beside Maj. Croghan, & fed himself. It had been arranged…as Maj. Croghan had the best accommodations, that he should go there, & arranged that he should have his toddy at dinner each day, & only then, & Mrs. Croghan or the Major would prepare it & leave it out to him. [Potts, p. 92]
28 November –
1821 – St. Louis, MO. William Clark, widower, and Harriet Kennerly Radford, widow of Dr. John Radford and cousin of Mrs. Julia Hancock Clark (deceased), marry. They will have two children. [EL, p. 199-200]
29 November –
1760 – Detroit. Major Robert Rogers and his Rangers occupy. Major Rogers dispatches troops to claim Fort des Miamis and Ouiatanon for the British. They reach Fort des Miamis in a few days, but Quiatanon must wait until 1761. [Cayton, p. 27]
30 November –
1769 – London, England. George III issues 109,000 acres to George Croghan and 99 other people. [Potts, p. 186, note 89]
1839 – Washington City. Thomas Sidney Jesup cautions John Croghan about his recent purchase of Mammoth Cave: Your purchase, should we have war, will turn out to be a valuable investment from the quantity of salt petre it will produce, but apart from the satisfaction of being the proprietor of so great a curiosity, I do not think it can be made valuable in peace, unless the lands be converted into a stock farm.” [Potts, p. 106]
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