126 The Winning of the West 



ser toward the old States ; so that the two streams 

 passed each other on the Wilderness road for the 

 people who came down the Ohio could not return 

 against the current. Very many who did not re- 

 turn nevertheless found they were not fitted to 

 grapple with the stern trials of existence on the 

 border. Some of these succumbed outright; others 

 unfortunately survived, and clung with feeble and 

 vicious helplessness to the skirts of their manlier fel- 

 lows; and from them have descended the shiftless 

 squatters, the "mean whites," the listless, uncouth 

 men who half-till their patches of poor soil, and 

 still cumber the earth in out-of-the-way nooks from 

 the crannies of the Alleghanies to the canyons of 

 the southern Rocky Mountains. 



In April, before this great rush of immigration 

 began, but when it was clearly foreseen that it would 

 immediately take place, the county court of Ken- 

 tucky issued a proclamation to the new settlers, rec- 

 ommending them to keep as united and compact as 

 possible, settling in "stations" or forted towns; and 

 likewise advising each settlement to choose three 

 or more trustees to take charge of their public af- 

 fairs. 6 Their recommendations and advice were 

 generally followed. 



6 Durrett MSS., in the bound volume of "Papers Relating 

 to Louisville and Kentucky." On May i, 1780, the people 

 living at the Falls, having established a town, forty-six of 

 them signed a petition to have their title made good against 

 Conolly. On Feb. 7, 1781, John Todd and five other trustees 

 of Louisville met; they passed resolutions to erect a grist 

 mill and make surveys. 



