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By Henry P. Scalf We now approach with hesitancy a discussion of the real or mythical Jonathan Swift, who, with several companions is said to have explored Eastern Kentucky in the decade of 1760-1769. That there was a real Jonathan Swift, historians are quite generally agreed. Whether or not he was an Englishman, no one knows, but it is quite reasonably accepted that he was. That he explored Eastern Kentucky is also generally accepted, but that he engaged in extensive operations of silver mining is heavily discounted. He kept a journal, it is said, of his trips into Eastern Kentucky, and recorded his adventures as well as the place he cached his vast silver stores. We cannot say the journal is genuine. There exists numerous copies of what is said to be Swift s original journal. The copies may be partially or wholly spurious, or if copied from what was considered as the original penned by Swift, this so-called original may have been a complete fabrication. What is said to be the original was left by Swift with Mrs. Joseph Renfro of Bean s Station in East Tennessee. Copies, or partial copies, were in circulation on Big Sandy at one time. Judge Richard Apperson of Mount Sterling had a copy or copies. Robert Alley of Johnson Co., KY, brought a copy from East Tennessee. Other so-called copies existed, and in substance these manuscripts agree. It is chiefly from these old manuscripts, supplemented by other questionable material, that we reconstruct the story of Jonathan Swift - a story approached with hesitancy. But as the legend is so persistent, the interest so widespread in East Kentucky, and the fact that historians of the past have given his "explorations" a varying credence, it is related here as one of the many legends of history that intrude so often upon the careful record of events. Jonathan Swift was an Indian fur trader previous to Braddock s defeat. He had been upon the waters of the Ohio some time in the early p art of the 1750-1760 decade, and was an accomplished woodsman. He spent considerable time with the Shawnee Indians, perhaps had a wife of their tribe. Swift was with Braddock on his disastrous march into the Western woods, and while upon this journey met with those men that became his companions in the years to come. These men were North Carolinans and their names were Samuel Blackburn, James Ireland, Abrom Flint, Harman Staley, Isaac Campbell, Jonathan Mundy, and Shadrach Jefferson. With Swift as leader, they began to trade with the Indians. Just how Swift and his men acquired knowledge of silver mines even legend does not state very accurately, but having learned of the mines, Swift took other men into the proposed working project. These were John Watts, Seth Montgomery, Jeremiah Bates, Alexander Bartal, William Wilton, Joshua McClintock, Henry Hazlitt, and Moses Fletcher. With the party were Shawnee and Frenchmen. Obtaining supplies from Alexandria, VA, this group entered the Ohio Valley in 1760 to operate the mines. They came by way of Braddock s Trail to Fort Pitt and to the site of Charleston on the Kanawha, arriving finally at the forks of the Big Sandy where Louisa now stands. The expedition split, one group going up the Louisa Fork and the other going on westward. The Louisa Fork detail of the expedition built furnaces and mined around "The Breaks" of Sandy. This early expedition of Swift and his men to Big Sandy seems to have been more or less an exploratory journey, but having located mines and in general prepared for the next year s trip, they went back to Alexandria, arriving on December 10, 1760. Seth Montgomery, one of the party, had worked in the Royal Mint at London. After his arrival at Alexandria, he began to engrave and cut the dies for coinage of silver and gold. The Alley Journal says: "Montgomery bought two additional vessels to sail to the Spanish seas and return with cargoes suited to our enterprise." This is one of the many bits of internal evidence from the journals that Swift and his men were really pirates, operating upon the Spanish seas, and carrying their metal booty into the Western woods for coinage. In 1761, a reorganized expedition set out for the mines. At the forks of Big Sandy the expedition again divided, as the year before. Having made considerable progress in mining this year, the leaders returned to Alexandria, arriving at that city, December 2, 1761. Mining crews had been left to continue operations through the winter. When the leaders reached Alexandria they found that their vessels from the Spanish Seas had arrived and five more vessels were put into this service. Five more vessels, it seems to us, was quite a flotilla for the purpose of bringing supplies to a small wilderness mining party. By the year 1762 this business of wilderness mining had grown apace. Their western pack trains were enlarged, and leaving Fort Pitt in March, they proceeded to the Forks of Sandy. Though the winter mining had been satisfactory, the crew had been in the wilderness so long they were dissatisfied. This may have been the reason that the summer s operations were cut short, for Swift and others started back to Alexandria the first of September. The succeeding year s record is much the same. They mined in 1763 and in 1764. The latter year seemed to have been one of little profit, due to the disturbed border situation. In the year 1765, a new route was used by way of Ingles Ferry on the New River. What they called their lower mines were worked this year. It was a very profitable year; immense sums of metal were recovered, coined, and cached in the wilderness. This season they returned by way of the Louisa Fork and through Pound Gap to Mundy s house on the Yadkin River. At Christmas 1765 Fletcher and Flint, in a drunken row, so severely wounded each other that recovery was doubtful. Thinking they must surely die, each buried here on the Yadkin his part of the treasure. Flint deposited in the earth 240,000 crowns, and Fletcher stored in mother earth somewhere the fabulous sum of 360,200 crowns. Fletcher died in early July, but Flint recovered. Meantime, the expedition had again gone out, having left on June 6, 1766. This year was one of serious mutiny on the part of the men, who deserted and returned to the Eastern settlements. The year 1767 was of little event in their operations. They were ambushed by Indians the next year, 1768, at the Forks of Sandy. Campbell was killed and Staley and Hazlitt wounded. Their operations ceased in 1769 because they had prospered to satisfy ever their greatest desires, and because years on the frontier had "worn away our strength." According to the Swift story, fabulous sums of money in bullion had been cached in the wilderness, with no attempt, it seems, to recover it until 1790. In that year, Swift, who was growing old and whose eyesight was fading, came back to the Western woods. Besides Swift, the party consisted of McClintock, Mundy, two Frenchmen, and two Shawnee Indians. They found their great but scattered stores secure and untouched, and when at last they came to the largest accumulation of treasure which had been stored in a great cave, Swift conceived the idea of murder to obtain all of it for himself. At length, when his companions slept, unconscious of the bloody treachery in the heart of their leader, Swift stealthily arose from the group of prostrate forms about the fire. He was consumed with his passion for murder and blood-stained riches. His countenance was changed. The keen blade of his scalping knife glittered coldly in the baleful light that fitfully fluttered up from the dying camp fire. Noiseless did he glide from one victim to another. The panther of the forest, a ghost, a phantom, a spectre, could not have moved or acted with greater stealth. Quickly was the dastardly deed done. With stoke sudden, silent, deadly, did the reeking blade enter the heart of each of his associates, companions, friends. But not yet was his crime fully consummated. The Shawnees were sleeping in the great cave. Thither came Swift on further murder. His every faculty was quickened, his every act deliberate. There was no haste - there manifested no premeditated order of events. With torches held aloft, at his solicitation, they together looked upon the treasure. At sight of it, his inflamed passions broke into an insane fury. With the yell of a demoniac, he leaped upon the aged and unsuspecting Shawnees. In a moment they were lying lifeless, and Swift was alone in the darkness, and from that hour did providence smite him with an almost total blindness. He groped his way from the wilderness to civilization. The riches, bought with his soul, were left in the trackless forest wasters. They are guarded by the bones of the innocent slain. And no man hath looked upon them to this day. From Kentucky s Last Frontier by Henry P. Scalf, pages 44 to 47. Published by Pikeville College Press of the Appalachian Studies Center, Pikeville, KY, 1972. |
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