3i 8 The Winning of the West 



sooner than Methodism; and among the original 

 settlers of Harrodsburg were some Catholic Mary- 

 landers. 25 The first service ever held in Kentucky 

 was by a clergyman of the Church of England, soon 

 after Henderson's arrival; but this was merely ow- 

 ing to the presence of Henderson himself, who, it 

 must be remembered, was not in the least a back- 

 woods product. He stood completely isolated from 

 the other immigrants during his brief existence as 

 a pioneer, and had his real relationship with the old 

 English founders of the proprietary colonies, and 

 with the more modern American land speculators, 

 whose schemes are so often mentioned during the 

 last half of the eighteenth century. Episcopacy 

 was an exotic in the backwoods ; it did not take real 

 root in Kentucky till long after that commonwealth 

 had emerged from the pioneer stage. 



When the Transylvania Legislature dissolved, 

 never to meet again, Henderson had nearly finished 

 playing his short but important part in the founding 

 of Kentucky. He was a man of the seacoast re- 

 gions, who had little in common with the back- 

 woodsmen by whom he was surrounded; he came 

 from a comparatively old and sober community, and 

 he could not grapple with his new associates ; in his 

 journal he alludes to them as a set of scoundrels 

 who scarcely believed in God or feared the devil. 

 A British friend 26 of his, who at this time visited 



25 "Life of Rev. Charles Nerinckx," by Rev. Camillus P. 

 Maes, Cincinnati, 1880, p. 67. ' 



26 Smyth, p. 330. 



