X01B - The Lost History of Bourbon: The Wilds of Kentucke Country

Transcript

THE SEARCH FOR FRONTIER DISTILLERS

Stories like Robert Miller, Jr’s were not uncommon for the early settlers who dared to travel beyond the Alleghenys. Frontier legend Daniel Boone lost his oldest son James in an ambush of Shawnee and Cherokee in 1773. At Boonsboro his daughters were abducted while wandering in a nearby corn field. He lost another son Israel at the Battle of Blue Licks nine years later. Yet most of the stories of the early pioneers like Boone focus on triumph over tragedy. And perhaps it’s this belief in frontier invincibility that leads historians and marketers to assume the first thing on early settlers' minds was the distilling of corn whiskey. 

It’s true rum, brandy, and whiskey played a part in the bartering society as frontier communities matured. But in the earliest days, tending corn was a dangerous pursuit, as outposts needed to remain vigilant. It was the job of each settler to work for the betterment of the whole. Farmers tilling the soil on their own land was out of the question for most until dangers subsided. 

What corn was grown near the stockade would be rationed. And without salt to preserve meat, settlers were highly dependent on wild game and tried their best to make stalks of corn survive the winter. If they didn’t, they might be boiling and eating tree bark to survive until spring. 

The scarcity of corn, combined with poor frontier record keeping, makes finding distillers in 1770s Kentucky nearly impossible. But that hasn’t stopped historians from naming potential first distillers. They lean into names of people with distilling in their heritage or those who are associated with whiskey or stills through tax records or oral tradition. From there, likely candidates are drawn from the earliest to arrive.

But this first to arrive/first to distill concept neglects several factors. First, it assumes the earliest instinct of this proposed settler is to distill—after all, early farmers lacked cash thus requiring whiskey to barter. But this is a very whiskey-centric line of thinking. It neglects all of the other items settlers eventually had to barter, like eggs, meat, buckskins, fruit, furniture, tools, or services like blacksmithing, milling, or carpentry. And unlike whiskey, these items would avoid any religious stigmas present in some communities. And as a whiskey fan it might be disappointing to hear it, but few settlers brought stills with them on their first journey west. Perhaps they made later trips back east or purchased one at a mercantile. Yet even early frontier mercantiles focused on the essentials, especially as the Revolutionary War made shipping down the Ohio treacherous, so stills would be in short supply. Even if those obstacles were overcome, until farmers could till their own land, distilling was still a community pursuit. 

So instead of looking for the first distiller in Kentucky, perhaps a better question is: which settlements matured early enough to develop a distilling culture? Historians have their theories for that as well.

The most logical early candidate is James Harrod’s settlement located on a natural spring near the Salt River. With his first arrival in June 1774, he was the quickest to develop a community. But it didn’t happen overnight. As soon as the men arrived, they were called off to fight in the Battle of Point Pleasant. When they returned the following March, they grew crops and invited their families to join them in early fall. But the first two years of Harrod’s Station were spent fighting off Shawnee and starvation. It wasn’t until the arrival of 23 year old George Rogers Clark that the community’s fortunes changed for the better. Stationed at the fort, Clark was placed in charge of the Kentucky County militia and given 500 pounds of gunpowder for its defense. The added protection allowed Harrodsburg to become the seat of government. And by 1778, the community had matured enough that it became a stopping point for travelers. And the need for lodging created a demand for taverns, which provided a place for resting horses, catching up on frontier news, while providing a place for food and drink. With war disrupting trade along the Ohio River in these early days, popular colonial drinks like island rum and applejack would be hard for the tavern to source. The need for local distilling became more acute. But with the British encouraging Shawnee attacks on frontier settlements, corn remained too valuable and scarce to divert into whiskey. Tavern owners may have instead turned to continental rum, which was distilled from the syrup of widely available sugar maple trees.  

Daniel Boone’s settlement is another possible source of early distilling. William Calk, a man with distilling in his family’s background, arrived at Boonsboro by way of the Wilderness Road in 1775. He is mentioned as a candidate for Kentucky’s first commercial distiller. But again, the fort was under heavy threat from the Shawnee and the trail through Virginia’s Cumberland Gap was a hot bed of Indian activity. Early expeditions traveled light, carrying only the items needed to survive the winter. There is no mention of a still in Calk’s early inventory—instead he brought an iron kettle that could be used for cooking, and the extracting of salt from mineral rich water. Even if he sourced a copper still later, there were no grist mills around Boonsboro to grind any significant amount of grain, and the war made outside markets less accessible. If Calk produced any whiskey in the 1770s, the local tavern would have offered one of the few available markets. 

Louisville seems like an obvious choice for early distilling. But a land dispute held off settlement of the town until 1783. Only then did the first commercial enterprise appear—Daniel Broadhead’s dry goods store. This was followed by taverns and Evan Williams’ distilling operation at the corner of 5th and Water Street. 

Outside of Louisville, an earlier option was nearby Dunmore’s Island. Located beside the Falls of the Ohio, it served as a military staging point for George Rogers Clark’s Illinois Campaign in 1778. The military families that lived there found corn so easy to grow, they renamed it Corn Island. But if distilling happened there, it was communal and short lived. The island was only to be a temporary home. By 1779, families were moving off the island to forts along Beargrass Creek—including the Millers, These forts were frequently attacked so again, what little distilling may have occurred was communal.

If the more populated forts were unsafe in the late 1770s, then early candidates with isolated cabins seem less plausible. Jacob Myers and Wattie Boone are mentioned as potential firsts, but Wattie taking wagons and hauling barrels through the wilderness in 1776 is a little far fetched. As for land speculator Jacob Myers, he is mentioned as having a distillery and grist mill by 1779. The reality is, the grist mill wasn’t built on Dix River until around 1782-3. Still, his use of whiskey as an inducement for votes outside the polling place in his 1781 campaign for the Virginia General Assembly does suggest he had a still running by then. But one wonders if his loss to Benjamin Logan in that election spoke to the quality of his spirit more than his popularity as a candidate.

While all of these areas and distilling names provide fertile ground for early distilling, one candidate remains curiously absent from the discussion—the region settled by Hinkston, Miller, Cooper, Townsend, and McClelland. What makes this omission from the realm of speculation more perplexing is the name the area will soon be known by—Bourbon County. With its name eventually becoming the same as Kentucky’s prized spirit, it seems an obvious place to investigate. 

Why has it been ignored? Were there no future distillers among the earliest settlers? Did the Miller’s avoidance of the area after Robert’s disappearance show the place was uninhabitable? Or was this just a historical oversight? 

It seems a forgotten frontier outpost, the site of one of the last battles of the Revolutionary War, holds the answers.

RUDDELL’S FORT

To the settlers on Corn Island, word of Lt. Colonel George Rogers Clark's victories in the Illinois Campaign brought hope that peace on the frontier was close at hand.

For Captain Isaac Ruddell, the man Clark had put in charge of the families on Corn Island, the campaign's success brought him an opportunity to venture deeper into the wilds. Nearing fifty and with a large family, he hoped his next move would be his last.

Born in Chester County, Pennsylvania in 1737, Isaac’s family moved to Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley when he was still a boy. His new frontier neighbors, John, Joseph, Abraham, and Isaac Bowman, became fast friends and their skill as horsemen inspired him to military pursuits. Isaac was also drawn to another Bowman, the boy’s sister Elizabeth. As she blossomed into a young woman, Isaac proposed and took her hand in marriage. Their first child George was born in 1757.

In the years following the French and Indian War, Isaac raised a large family and accumulated land in Frederick County. But when treaties in New York and Western Carolina opened the great Indian Reserves for settlement, Isaac moved his family to the Holston River near modern day Bristol, Tennessee. Here he crossed paths with Daniel Boone, Captain Evan Shelby, and his son Isaac. Isaac Ruddell and his son George served under Captain Shelby during Lord Dunmore's War in 1774. Elizabeth's brother Colonel John Bowman also served, taking part in the victory over the Shawnee and Mingo at the Battle of Point Pleasant on the Ohio River. 

At the close of battle, the Ruddells and Bowmans made their way to Daniel Boone’s frontier outpost in Kentucke Country. There Isaac got a taste of what it was like to defend a stockade against Shawnee attacks. With the arrival of Lt. Colonel George Rogers Clark at Harrodsburg, he joined his brother-in-law John as an officer in the Virginia militia. 

When Colonel Clark lobbied Governor Patrick Henry for a mission into Illinois Country, the brash young military leader sought reinforcements and traveled to Redstone Old Fort on the Monongahela to bring military men and their families to Dunmore’s Island. While the men trained for frontier battle, Captain Ruddell was put in charge of protecting the civilian blockhouses and the development of food sources. Under the care of Captain James Patton, corn grew so plentifully that Dunmore's Island soon earned a new name—Corn Island. For Ruddell, the abundant crop gave him one less thing to worry about. When Lt. Colonel Clark made his march north, Captain Ruddle stayed behind with his family and managed the settlement.

While Clark didn’t accomplish his ultimate goal of reaching Fort Detroit, there was still a sense that the British were on the run and their Indian allies would be less prone to engage in organized attacks. Captain Ruddle, still a citizen-soldier in the militia, saw an opportunity to finally establish his family on the frontier. One location along the South Fork of the Licking River looked especially promising. It was the abandoned outpost of John Hinkston, one of Corn Island's residents. Deserted in '76, the old station offered Ruddell a chance to reestablish a foothold in the interior while scouting prime land for his family. In the spring of 1779, his and several families left Corn Island to bring the old station back to life. 

As frontier forts go, Ruddell's Station was one of the largest. Nearly the size of Boone's Station, its stockade had the capacity to house over 200 inhabitants. Inside were blockhouses and cabins, while walls tall enough for riflemen to spot approaching intruders surrounded the station. With experienced frontier families settling there and Captain Palmer planting corn outside the stockade, Ruddell's also seemed one of the region's most promising settlements. 

It wasn’t the only stockade in the area. Martin's Station lay just six miles to the south on Stoner Creek, with John Grant’s station a couple of miles farther south on Houston Creek. The growing network of forts provided enough security for several families to venture onto their own land and begin planting. With crops now being grown both at and out of sight of the stockades, the area was developing the same potential for surplus grain as the more familiar settlements at Harrodsburg and Boonesboro. By the harvest of 1780, Ruddell's Station might have been ready to take that next step. 

But then an unforeseen enemy arrived.

By all accounts, the winter of 1779-80 was one of the worst on record. Rivers froze as far south as the Cumberland River around Fort Nashborough. The smaller creeks and the Licking River froze solid while boat traffic ended on the Ohio. The fall’s harvest provided some relief, with stored corn helping sustain the settlers longer into the winter. But their horses and cattle weren't so fortunate. Along with the local wildlife, many froze to death where they lay. 

When the long, torturous season finally came to a close, lush green grass returned to the rolling hillsides, bringing renewed optimism to the area. Wanting to make sure they weren’t caught unawares again, the families doubled their efforts in planting corn, beets, cabbage, squash, and potatoes. 

But the Shawnee had endured their own struggles during the brutal winter, and attacks resumed with the spring. News of little boys being scalped after straying too far from isolated cabins sent renewed fear through the hillsides.

Planting went on tentatively, but several families abandoned their homes for the safety of the stations. Behind the stockade walls they found more than protection. It was also where news from across the frontier traveled fastest. The latest stories suggested the British were planning retaliatory strikes following Lt. Colonel Clark's successes in Illinois. 

A pragmatist, Captain Ruddell didn't hesitate, directing his men to strengthen the stockade. If war returned to the region, the fort offered the settlers their best chance of survival. 

Then the weather again had its say. Storm after storm pelted the area with heavy rains. Hunters, normally patrolling the rolling hills for wild turkeys, elk, deer, and bison, were stuck inside the stockade hoping to keep dry and stave off sickness. Rising rivers, fewer patrols, and the belief that the British were too preoccupied with Lt. Colonel Clark to look their way left the settlement dangerously exposed.  

It didn’t go unnoticed by the British. At Fort Detroit, Major Arent DePeyster, a British loyalist from New York was still seething after Clark’s capture of Lieutenant-Governor Hamilton. Clark had made no bones about his desire to capture Fort Detroit, but couldn't muster enough troops willing to stray so far from their Kentucky homes. Major DePeyster gathered a force of 150 British, Canadians, and Colonial Tories and put them under the command of Colonel Henry Byrd. To bolster their ranks, several hundred sympathetic Mingo, Delaware, Shawnee, Huron, Ottawa, and Chippewa joined the expedition, eager to fight the southern invaders.  

Their initial target was Corn Island. And as it turns out, had they stayed focused on that destination, they might have taken it easily. Colonel Clark was away fighting along the Tennessee River. But as Byrd's massive force made its way down the Maumee River with two cannons in tow, advance scouts reported that the Licking River was overflowing its banks, creating opportunity. Byrd immediately changed course. The frontier stations along the Licking would come first. 

Colonel Byrd ordered a camp and staging area set up at the forks of the Licking River at modern day Falmouth. His first move was to send an advance detachment of Indians to keep the forts distracted while he brought his cannons and men into position. 

The plan was flawless. The British and their Indian allies arrived at Ruddell’s Station unmolested and undetected. When the first cannon fired its three-pound ball into the stockade wall, the inhabitants jumped out of their skin. Not only was the attack a shock, the manner of the attack was unprecedented this deep into the frontier. For some, it was the first time they'd ever heard a cannon, much less witnessed the violence of a three-pound ball sending splinters of wood in every direction. 

Chaos ensued. Men, women, children, and animals scrambled for safety within the stockade. Captain Ruddell, trying to keep his wits about him, prepared his defenses. 

Hearing the fear raging through the stockade, Colonel Byrd ordered an ensign to deliver terms of surrender to the fort. When the ensign arrived at the gate he informed Captain Ruddell of the size of the force waiting outside. Ruddell asked for a moment to weigh his options. John Hinkston, who had come back to the fort on William Steele's recent expedition, lobbied Ruddell to defend the fort. But Ruddell knew a fight meant certain death for many of the stockade’s inhabitants. 

At two that afternoon, Ruddell offered to surrender, but only if the prisoners remained under British control rather than being turned over to their Indian allies. Byrd agreed. The British would take custody of the men, women, and children, while the Indians would be allowed to plunder the station without interference from the settlers.

With those terms agreed upon, Captain Ruddell ordered the gates opened.

What happened next took everyone by surprise—that is, everyone but the natives. As soon as Ruddell's men dropped their arms, the Indians, now unrestrained, crashed through the gates yelling war cries. They grabbed men, women, and children, stripped them of their clothes, and tied up whoever they could. Two women and a man were killed in the initial chaos, while others were scalped. Several who fled through the gates were also killed. A terrified Elizabeth Ruddell clung to her three-year-old son, but he was yanked from her arms and thrown into the fire. Later accounts describe families being ripped apart, never knowing if they would see one another again. The bloodshed happened so quickly there was hardly time to react. Captain Ruddell screamed at Colonel Byrd to stop the madness. But Byrd, knowing the Indians outnumbered his troops perhaps five to one, claimed he was powerless to stop it. At least twenty people died in the melee. 

Eight miles away at Martin's Station, the sound of cannon fire confused its occupants. Two men were dispatched to find out what was happening. Both were intercepted along the way. One was taken prisoner; the other managed to make his way back to the station. But there was little time to prepare for such an overwhelming force. Byrd arrived the following morning and gave the inhabitants two hours to surrender or face the Indian warriors. Not a shot was fired. Having satisfied their desire for revenge the day before, the Indians were content to take their plunder. 

If the arrival of the British sent a rush of fear through the stockade, the next six weeks brought a slower, more debilitating kind of heartbreak. 

For Christian Spears, the 320-mile march to Fort Detroit was the least of his concerns. He and his new bride Maria had been separated when the Indians stormed the gates. As the days passed marching along the Licking River, he asked everyone he knew if they'd seen her. No one knew what had happened. 

As the hours passed, Christian kept replaying the decision that brought them to the fort. He and his neighbor John Burger had been content to take their chances defending their own cabins against Shawnee attacks. Their wives weren't nearly as comfortable. As talk of isolated attacks increased, Maria pressed her husband harder and harder for the move to Ruddell’s Station. When John Burger saw his wife weakening from the stress, he took her, his son John Jr. and his daughter Ann Mary to the safety of Ruddell’s stockade. Christian couldn’t fight it any longer and the Spears soon followed. 

Sadly, the fate of Burger's wife was revealed soon after the attack. Weakened by stress, she was unable to keep pace with the march. She and several small children were killed not far from the fortress. Maria was young and healthy, but Christian still feared the worst. 

On the third day, a woman approached Christian and asked if he was the man searching for his young bride. She told him how Maria had been tied to a wagon. When the wagon entered Hinkston Creek, Maria and a neighbor's baby drowned. 

While many were reunited once they reached Fort Detroit, others soon realized their wives and young children had been abducted or may have died or been lost. George Lail had lost both of his sons, George Jr. and Johnnie. Isaac Ruddell had lost a son during the attack, while his wife Betty and their remaining children had been taken captive. 

At Fort Detroit, Isaac protested the Indians' treatment of the prisoners to the commandant and worked tirelessly to recover the missing captives. Betty and two children were eventually reunited with Isaac, but 12 year old Stephen and six year old Abraham remained missing as did George Lail’s two boys. Christian Spears received one more bit of news about Maria. The woman who pulled her out of the Hinkston handed him Maria’s wedding ring. Apparently she had placed it on her toe to hide it from the Indians so they wouldn’t find it. Its appearance brought little solace.

During their long captivity, Isaac tried to keep busy caring for the other prisoners. His friendly disposition helped him develop relationships with some of the British officers, leading to permission to grow corn and tend cattle. These benefits fed bellies and made life slightly more comfortable, but everyone remained eager to secure their release, especially after news arrived of General Washington's victory at Yorktown. 

Now with the war nearing an end, the British faced a dilemma. If they released prisoners, the Indians might feel they were being left at the mercy of the Americans. The fear of a native revolt delayed the release of some Fort Detroit’s captives for years, a few until as late as 1795. 

But George Lail and Christian Spears eventually secured release and made plans to travel across Lake Erie to Niagara and then over land to Fort Pitt where they could secure passage back to Kentucke. 

Isaac Ruddell's return wouldn't be so easy. At first, things looked promising. The family, minus their two missing sons, made their way to Montreal, traveled down the Hudson to New York, and continued on to Pennsylvania. But once Isaac reached Virginia, he was arrested and charged with treason. Rumors had spread that Ruddell was a turncoat, as he’d appeared to have befriended British officers and was said to be seen in Montreal walking the streets in fine dress clothes. In Frederick County Court in January 1783, Ruddell pleaded not guilty and asked for the opportunity to face his accusers. The court found the evidence less than credible and ordered him released and discharged. To clear his name, he sent a letter to the printer of the Virginia Gazette asking that the entire affair be presented to its readers so he might “wipe off the aspersions which have been ungenerously cast on my character.” 

Upon their return in 1783, the Kentucke they returned to had changed significantly in just a couple of years. 

The change was set into motion by one of the inhabitants of Ruddell’s Station. It seems Captain John Hinkston, who had left his wife and children at Corn Island, had snuck out of the fortress when the attack began, traveling through the countryside on foot until he reached Lexington. There he provided the first news of the tragedies at the stations of Ruddell, Martin, and Grant. 

Upon hearing the news, now General George Rogers Clark went into action, rampaging across Kentucky destroying several Indian villages. Two years later came the disastrous American defeat at the Battle of Blue Licks. Clark wasn't present for the battle, but the loss damaged his reputation and prompted an even larger response. That fall, he led more than a thousand men north of the Ohio, destroying Shawnee villages and helping bring the frontier war in Kentucke to a close. 

Yet the war wasn't over for many. Of the 470 prisoners who marched north, estimates suggest only half eventually returned to their families. Some died or were killed along the way. Others remained in captivity, where their fate might be enslavement, adoption into an Indian family, eventual release, or death. Some, like George Lail’s son George Jr. never returned. Others, like his son Johnnie or Stephen and Abraham Ruddell returned but they were never the same. 

John and Ann Miller and many of the other early settlers along Hinkston’s creek at the buffalo trace returned from their temporary residences at Beargrass Creek or up in Pennsylvania. The fate of Robert Jr. was never resolved—although years later, John saw a man at his grist mill wearing Robert’s old silver buckles. John asked the man where he got them to which he replied, from the Shawnee. He asked if there was a white man with them, but he said he didn’t know. John purchased the buckles from the man, keeping them to his dying day. Robert’s spirit would remain with the family in another way. During their temporary stay at Beargrass Creek, John and Ann brought a new child into the world, naming him Robert Eagan Miller in honor of John's lost brother. 

While the Ruddells avoided a return to Ruddell’s Station, Martin’s Station found a new occupant—a war hero and member of the Virginia General Assembly—James Garrard. Arriving in 1783, he served in the assembly as a representative of the recently formed Fayette County, Virginia, which included the families living along Stoner, Hinkston, and Townsend creeks. 

Garrard was that new breed of western settler. Having fought in the Revolutionary War, he was now part of a government that was crafting a new way forward for Americans. His particular interest lay in the fight for religious freedom, where in the Virginia State House he fought alongside the likes of James Madison and the Reverend Elijah Craig. 

The frontier hadn't become safe overnight. But the days of simply fighting to survive behind stockade walls were fading. Families could spread out onto their land, plant larger crops, build mills, and set up their stills. The conditions were finally right for the story of Bourbon to begin.