3 H The Winning of the West 



were sold respectively for $2.66 2-3 and 16 2-3 

 cents per pound. The payment was rarely made in 

 coin; and how high the above prices were may be 

 gathered from the fact that ordinary labor was 

 credited at 33 1-3 cents per day, while fifty cents a 

 day was paid for ranging, hunting, and working on 

 the roads. 19 



Henderson immediately proceeded to organize the 

 government of his colony, and accordingly issued 

 a call for an election of delegates to the Legisla- 

 ture of Transylvania, each of the four stations men- 

 tioned above sending members. The delegates, sev- 

 enteen in all, met at Boonesborough and organized 

 the convention on the 23d of May. Their meetings 

 were held without the walls of the fort, on a level 

 plain of white clover, under a grand old elm. Be- 

 neath its mighty branches a hundred people could 

 without crowding find refuge from the noon-day 

 sun ; it was a fit council-house for this pioneer legis- 

 lature of game hunters and Indian fighters. 20 



These weather-beaten backwoods warriors, who 

 held their deliberations in the open air, showed that 

 they had in them good stuff out of which to build a 

 free government. They were men of genuine force 

 of character, and they behaved with a dignity and 

 wisdom that would have well become any legisla- 

 tive body. Henderson, on behalf of the proprietors 



19 Mann Butler, p. 31. 



80 Henderson's journal. The beauty of the elm impressed 

 him very greatly. According to the list of names eighteen, 

 not seventeen, members were elected ; but apparently only 

 seventeen took part in the proceedings. 



