The first Anglos to settle the Louisville area were connected with a military expendition led by George Rogers Clark, who led revolutionary militias against larger British and Native American military forces to secure what became Kentucky and the Northwest Territory (the later Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin - for the United States. After helping found Corn Island - what became Louisville and neighboring Clarksville, Indiana - Clark - whose younger brother was half of Lewis and Clark - spent the declining years of his life - after debt, health problems, and involvement in the Citizen Genet conspiracy with France robbed his name of some of its sheen - with his sister and brother-in-law - interesting folks themselves - at Locust Grove, a farm/estate just east of Louisville. The restored farm/estate is just a couple of miles from our house. To our discredit, we have not been there.
On the Fourth of July the historic site unveiled a new museum about Clark, Louisville, and the the Revolutionary West, with free entrance. I didn't make it to the guided tour of the house and grounds, but I did catch the very end of a reenactors' demonstration and I went quickly through the museum. The museum was very good, putting Clark, Locust Grove, and Louisville in the middle of social and political changes in the last few decades of the 1700s and first few decades of the 1800s. I was impressed at all the important visitors Locust Grove has had. The museum didn't flinch and talked about the estate's reliance on slave labor and the dirty little secret that the Revolution in the West was essentially white speculators and settlers versus Native Americans for land, whatever high and mighty words might have been written back in Philadelphia. On the other hand, the way the Northwest Territory was eventually opened - without slaves and with smaller plots, land for public schools, and with territories in line to become new states, equal with the original thirteen - set up the way for a freer country (with the Native Americans getting sacrificed - including the several hundred Christian convert, pro-U.S. Delaware Indians - massacred in Ohio at this time - an event that was part of Clark's military campaign).
Now I'm all set to bring any guests back to this local history treasure. We've already taken Mom to the Falls of Ohio and Carnegie museums in Southern Indiana. And perhaps eventually we'll get to more of the three or four additional historic homes around town.
On the Fourth of July the historic site unveiled a new museum about Clark, Louisville, and the the Revolutionary West, with free entrance. I didn't make it to the guided tour of the house and grounds, but I did catch the very end of a reenactors' demonstration and I went quickly through the museum. The museum was very good, putting Clark, Locust Grove, and Louisville in the middle of social and political changes in the last few decades of the 1700s and first few decades of the 1800s. I was impressed at all the important visitors Locust Grove has had. The museum didn't flinch and talked about the estate's reliance on slave labor and the dirty little secret that the Revolution in the West was essentially white speculators and settlers versus Native Americans for land, whatever high and mighty words might have been written back in Philadelphia. On the other hand, the way the Northwest Territory was eventually opened - without slaves and with smaller plots, land for public schools, and with territories in line to become new states, equal with the original thirteen - set up the way for a freer country (with the Native Americans getting sacrificed - including the several hundred Christian convert, pro-U.S. Delaware Indians - massacred in Ohio at this time - an event that was part of Clark's military campaign).
Now I'm all set to bring any guests back to this local history treasure. We've already taken Mom to the Falls of Ohio and Carnegie museums in Southern Indiana. And perhaps eventually we'll get to more of the three or four additional historic homes around town.
1 comment:
Thanks for posting about the Grove :) I participate in the events there in the spring and fall, and stumbled into your blog that way. I have to make an eensy correction though--the Gnadenhutten massacre you reference was not part of Clark's campaign, but was carried out by a Pennsylvania militia. Thanks for posting :)
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