ackwoods ever headed for the vague beyond. They had no sympathy
with the feeling which drove these humbler wilderness-wanderers always
onwards, and made them believe, wherever they were, that they would be
better off somewhere else, that they would be better off in that
somewhere which lay in the unknown and untried. On the contrary, these
thriftier settlers meant to keep whatever they had once grasped. They
got clear title to their lands. Though they first built cabins, as soon
as might be they replaced them with substantial houses and barns. Though
they at first girdled and burnt the standing timber, to clear the land,
later they tilled it as carefully as any farmer of the seaboard States.
They composed the bulk of the population, and formed the backbone and
body of the State. The McAfees may be taken as a typical family of this
class.

The Gentry.

Yet a fourth class was composed of the men of means, of the well-to-do
planters, merchants, and lawyers, of the men whose families already
stood high on the Atlantic slope. The Marshalls were such men; and there
were many other families of the kind in Kentucky. Among them were an
unusually large proportion of the families who came from the fertile
limestone region of Botetourt County in Virginia, leaving behind them,
in the hands of their kinsmen, their roomy, comfortable houses, which
stand to this day. These men soon grew to take the leading places in the
new commonwealth. They were of good blood--using the words as they
should be used, as meaning blood that has flowed through the veins of
generations of self-restraint and courage and hard work, and careful
training in mind and in the manly virtues. Their inheritance of sturdy
and self-reliant manhood helped them greatly; their blood told in their
favor as blood generally does tell when other things are equal. If they
prized intellect they prized character more; they were strong in body
and mind, stout of heart, and resolute of will. They felt that pride of
race which spurs a man to effort, instead of making him feel that he is
excused from effort. They realized that the qualities they inherited
from their forefathers ought to be further developed by them as their
forefathers had originally developed them. They knew that their blood
and breeding, though making it probable that they would with proper
effort succeed, yet entitled them to no success which they could not
fairly earn in open contest with their rivals.