George Rogers Clark and William Croghan: A Story of the Revolution, Settlement, and Early Life at Locust Grove

In the heart of Louisville, Kentucky, stands the Cave Hill Cemetery. Among the twisting paths and monuments lay the remains of two of early America's most significant figures, George Rogers Clark and William Croghan. In George Rogers Clark and William Croghan: A Story of the Revolution, Settlement, and Early Life at Locust Grove, Gwynne Tuell Potts offers a parallel biography of Clark and Croghan that weaves together the men's military, diplomatic, and business careers and families. From their exploits during the American Revolution to their poignant final years spent together at Croghan's Locust Grove estate, Potts chronicles the role these two men played in the founding of the United States and the transformation of the first American West.

William Croghan is the nephew of George Croghan, Native American intermediary and failed western land speculator. Prior to the Revolution, George Croghan played a central role in the development of the Britishcontrolled backcountry and numerous seminal events shaping the western frontier, including: the French and Indian War, Pontiac's Rebellion, and two speculative colonization efforts in the region (Illinois and Vandalia). George Rogers Clark was born into a prominent and influential Virginia family, which offered him numerous economic and military opportunities. Clark was also influential in the development of the prerevolutionary frontier, participating in Lord Dunmore's War and the Indian warfare surrounding Kentucky's settlements. During the Revolution, both Clark and William Croghan played vital roles in the American victory, albeit in two very different theaters of war.

Potts uses Clark's and Croghan's revolutionary experiences to reveal the dichotomy between the eastern and the western Revolution. Clark's Revolution was primarily spent defending American interests and communities on the western frontier from British-backed Indians groups (Shawnee), assaulting British-allied communities (Vincennes and Kaskaskia) and forts (Detroit), and conducting diplomacy with Spanish officials and Ohio Indians (Miami Confederacy). Croghan served in the East in a Virginia Company comprising soldiers from the Fort Pitt area. From the early battles around New York to the British southern offensive, Croghan fought in a number of significant engagements of the American Revolution, eventually being commissioned brigadier major by George Washington. Following the British surrender at Yorktown, Clark and Croghan found themselves confronting the chaos, violence, and uncertainty of the postrevolutionary trans-Appalachian West.

During the immediate postwar period, Clark and Croghan resigned their military positions and engaged in lucrative and risky frontier land speculation. The two men opened a land office in Kentucky, where they worked together for the rest of their careers. Despite the potential wealth of land speculation, both men found themselves enmeshed in regional Indian violence, threats from foreign powers, and political disarray. After being commissioned a US Indian agent, Clark began a futile effort to end the cycle of violence in the region. After the failure of diplomacy at the 1785–56 Treaty of Fort Finney, Clark led the botched 1786 Shawnee Expedition. The unsuccessful negotiations on the Miami River and the disastrous expedition on the Wabash River undermined Clark's authority and rumors of his filibuster plans on the Spanish town of Natchez and possible alcoholism tarnished his regional image. Unlike Clark's, Croghan's postrevolutionary career proved quite successful. After settling in Louisville, Croghan constructed an estate at Locust Grove, became principle surveyor for the Kentucky District, expanded his landholdings, and eventually married Clark's sister Lucy. While Clark's life and career lay in ruins, Croghan established himself as the western version of a Tidewater slaveholding planter.

During the final decade of the eighteenth century, Clark was embroiled in the United States' first foreign policy crisis. Former wartime ally Spain maintained lower Mississippi Valley landholdings and from its Louisiana and Florida colonies defended its economic and strategic interests from American advances. Spain's policy included supporting regional Indian communities (Creeks, Shawnee, et cetera), blocking...