Page:Historic towns of the southern states (1900).djvu/556

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GEORGE ROGERS CLARK.

FROM A PAINTING IN THE POSSESSION OF COL. R. T. DURRETT, LOUISVILLE, KY.

being a resident of Harrodsburg, Ky., during the years 1776 and 1777. The incidents connected with the settlement he established at the Falls are memorable in the annals of the West. The British leaders were seeking to strike an effectual blow at all the American frontier fortresses, and with this end in view were enlisting the sympathies and co-operation of the Indian tribes. Detroit, Vincennes, Kaskaskia and similar British stations were well fortified, and plans were speedily forming for a descent on the unprepared and unsuspecting pioneers in the Ohio Valley. Clark instinctively discerned this scheme and secretly but courageously determined to thwart it. He