The Indian Wars, 1784-1787 303 



they could not fairly earn in open contest with their 

 rivals. 



Such were the different classes of settlers who- 

 successively came into Kentucky, as into other 

 Western lands. There were of course no sharp 

 lines of cleavage between the classes. They merged 

 insensibly into one another, and the same individual 

 might at different times stand in two or three. As 

 a rule the individuals composing the first two were 

 crowded out by their successors, and, after doing 

 the roughest of the pioneer work, moved westward 

 with the frontier; but some families were of course 

 continually turning into permanent abodes what 

 were merely temporary halting places of the greater 

 number. 



With the change in population came the corre 

 sponding change in intellectual interests and in ma 

 terial pursuits. The axe was the tool, and the rifle 

 the weapon, of the early settlers; their business 

 was to kill the wild beasts, to fight the savages, and 

 to clear the soil; and the inthralling topics of con 

 versation were the game and the Indians, and, as 

 the settlements grew, the land itself. As the farms 

 became thick, and towns throve, the life became 

 more complex, the chances for variety in work and 

 thought increased likewise. The men of law sprang 

 into great prominence, owing in part to the inter 

 minable litigation over the land titles. The more 

 serious settlers took about as much interest in mat 

 ters theological as in matters legal; and the con 

 gregations of the different churches were at times 



