What Do Peaceful Native Americans Have To Do With My Debut Novel?

In my last post I introduced you to the man responsible for establishing the area that’s the setting for my debut novel, Toward the Corner of Mercy and Peace.

Without General George Rogers Clark, Paducah would not be Paducah. And I can’t imagine (well, I could, but I don’t want to) any other town as the setting for Mrs. Minerva Place to live.

My main character HAD to be from Paducah. You’ll see.

But now I want to tell you the rest of Clark’s story

Back in the ’90s I wrote a dramatization about Clark for the city of Paducah to celebrate the amazing murals that Robert Dafford had created.

This is the second portion of the monologue an actor portraying Clark gave. You can read the first part here.

 

Clark’s Monologue Continues

GENERAL GEORGE ROGERS CLARK: I served as a Brigadier General during the American Revolution. Once again I found myself leading men through the treacherous conditions of the wilderness.

In 1778, I oversaw an expedition in flatboats down the Ohio River. We hit the falls at Louisville and pushed downstream to Fort Massac. About twelve miles below the mouth of the Tennessee River, we abandoned our boats and trudged through swamps and dead forests. We successfully captured many areas, most without bloodshed.

Years later, 1795 to be exact, the federal government gave me two tracts of land containing portions of that land I had claimed. It was almost 74,000 acres of southwestern Kentucky.

One of those grants encompassed nearly a fifth of McCracken County and included the present site of Paducah. Then it was called Pekin, though, and it was only a small clearing by the Ohio River.

My Theory Proves True

I learned so much more in my years in the wilderness than I would have in private school. I developed a theory, for instance, that was questioned at the time; but now is generally accepted.

In those days, a mystery existed about what unusual mounds of the land were. These swells populated the Ohio and Mississippi valleys.

Ezra Stiles, then president of Yale College, thought the followers of Madoc, a Welsh prince of the 12^th century, had constructed them. Noah Webster suggested they were by followers of Ferdinand DeSoto—a view also advanced by Benjamin Franklin.

I submitted that the builders of the mounds were the ancestors of the Indian tribes occupying that region. Webster and others eventually agreed with me.

Clark’s Later Years

By 1796, I had grown ill and suffered from rheumatism, but I hadn’t given up on life. I still enjoyed the annual visits from Indian chiefs and warriors. We would smoke the pipe of peace and friendship together.

I also continued corresponding with my friend Thomas Jefferson and others and developed a many new acquaintances with young men who were interested in my knowledge of history, geography, and the development of the West.

Then, in 1809 I fell unconscious in front of the fireplace in my cabin at Clark’s Point and my right leg was badly burned. The accident left my right side paralyzed.  I never fully recovered from this stroke.

Things went from bad to worse when an infection set in, making amputation necessary.

I requested martial music to help me cope with the pain I knew this surgery would entail. So, drummers and fifers played outside my home for about two hours while they took my leg off. In the evening they returned, marching around the house, playing elegant marches.

The music didn’t eliminate the pain, of course, but it brought me comfort and pleasure. I could refocus when the tunes filled the air.

During the remaining nine years of my life, I lived at the home of my sister Lucy and got about in a wheelchair. Then, after I died on February 13, 1818, the western Kentucky land went to my youngest brother, General William Clark.

The deed transfer was accomplished for $5 – not much by today’s standards, I’d wager. William gave your town the name it bears today when he visited it in 1827. You might have heard of my little brother, too. He was redheaded, like me, red-faced, and never stern nor silent. He kept everybody laughing with his cheerfulness. He not only named the town, he laid out its streets.

The Indians who lived in Paducah were extraordinarily friendly and peaceful people. When William renamed this new town in honor of the “Padouca” Indians he wrote his son a letter dated April 27, 1827. In it he said, “I expect to go to the mouth of the Tennessee on the 26^th of next month and be absent about two weeks. I have laid out a town there and intend to sell some lots in it, the name is Pa-du-cah, once the largest nation of Indians known in this Country, and now almost forgotten.”

Puh-doo-kuh

So, there you go—the birth of Paducah as told by General George Rogers Clark, who is still honored by the town today with an outstanding elementary school that we simply call Clark.

It was at Clark, in fact, that I developed my love of writing. My first work of fiction won an award when I was in the first grade. After that, I was hooked.

And I was hooked on Paducah, too. It was a great place to grow up in the ’60s and ’70s…and then turned out to be an even better place to rear two boys.

If you’re a Paducahan, you know how good we’ve got it. If you’re not, come for a visit! We’re still a peaceful village.

So, did you learn anything from Clark’s monologue? Leave a comment!