West, in 1794, constructed a
model boat and propelled it by steam, on Elkhorn Creek, near Lexington. He
later invented the nail-cutting machine which made it possible to cut
nails rapidly from wrought iron, whereas they had formerly been hammered
out by hand. Thomas H. Barlow invented the Planetarium, an instrument by
which the movements of the earth and moon around the sun were shown.

State Government and Foreign Intrigue

Isaac Shelby, a native of Maryland, but who had spent his early life in
North Carolina with the frontiersmen, fighting the Indians and rendering
valiant service in the War of the Revolution, after the conclusion of
peace with England had come to Kentucky in 1783. He, like Clark, was a
great leader of men. He took an active interest in political, civil,
military and social affairs in Kentucky, and was elected the first
Governor of the State. On the fourth of June, 1792, the Legislature
assembled at Lexington. The chief business of the first Legislature seems
to have been the selection of a site for a permanent seat of government,
or capital. Frankfort was finally decided upon, and a State House of stone
was erected.

[Illustration: Gov. Isaac Shelby]

Intrigue on the part of foreign governments, however, did not cease with
the organization of State government. The Spanish governor at New Orleans
continued to send emissaries into the State, seeking to arouse a spirit of
discontent, and if possible bring about a separation of the State from the
Union. So successful were these agents that they were able to secure the
good will of some men in high places, by paying as high as two thousand
dollars a year salary. One Thomas Power seems to have been the most active
agent of the Spanish government, and he held out as an inducement the
great commercial privileges that would come to Kentucky through the free
navigation of the Mississippi River, and he further offered to place two
hundred thousand dollars at the disposal of his friends if they would
bring about a separation from the nation. These treasonable offers,
however, were spurned, with one or two exceptions, by the sturdy and loyal
manhood of Kentucky.

After the overtures of the Spanish agents, came the royal offers of an
English protectorate, and later the offensive scheme of Genet and his
French agents to arm and equip a flotilla of two thousand Kentuckians for
the purpose of capturing New Orleans, and thus reopen t