OCR Text |
Show i j 216 Early Western Travels [ Vol. * 6 and for the first time were the beautiful fields of Kentucky turned up by the ploughshare of the Virginia emigrant; yet their very descendants of the first generation we behold plunging deeper into the wilderness West. How would the worthy old Governor Spotswood stand astounded, could he now rear his venerable bones from their long resting- place, and look forth upon this lovely land, far away beyond the Blue Ridge of the Alleghany hills, the very passage of which he had deemed not unworthy " the horseshoe of gold " and " the order tramontane." " Sic juvat transcenderemantes" Twenty years before Daniel Boone, " backwoodsman of Kentucky," was [ 196] born, Alexander Spotswood, governor of Virginia, undertook, with great preparation, a passage of the Alleghany ridge. For this expedition were provided a large number of horseshoes, an article not common in some sections of the " Old Dominion;" and from this circumstance, upon their return, though without a glimpse of the Western Valley, was instituted the " Tramontane Order, or Knights of the Golden Horseshoe" with the motto above. The badge of distinction for having made a passage of the Blue Ridge was a golden horseshoe worn upon the breast. Could the young man of that day have protracted the limits of life but a few years beyond his threescore and ten, what astonishment would not have filled him to behold now, as " the broad, the bright, the glorious West," the region then regarded as the unknown and howling wilderness beyond the mountains! Yet even thus it is. 141 active leader of the successful Nickajack expedition, directed against the Indians south of Tennessee River. He fell at the Battle of the Thames ( 1813), whereat it was maintained by some of his admirers, he killed the Indian chief Tecumseh. See Collins, Kentucky, ii, pp. 403- 410; but this doubtful honor was also claimed by others.- ED. 141 Alexander Spotswood ( 1676- 1740) was appointed governor of ' Virginia ( 1710). Taking a lively interest in the welfare of the colonists, he attained among them high popularity. Quite early, he conceived the idea of extending the Virginia settlement beyond the mountains, to intercept the French <' d> i^| bMfni4* wt, f> f^ between •. |