ELLA BARNWELL:

BY

EMERSON BENNETT

PREFACE.

In putting to press a new and revised edition of the following story, the author would state, that his original design was to combine fact and fiction, in such a way, as, while making his story move forward to a proper denouement, to give the reader a correct picture of the dress, customs, and social and war-like habits of the early pioneers of the west; and also embody a series of historical events which took place on the frontiers during that revolutionary struggle by which we gained our glorious independence. For this purpose, Kentucky, in her infancy, was selected as the scene of action; and most of the existing records of her early settlements were read with care, each compared with the others, and only the best authenticated accounts presented to the reader. So much in fact did the author labor to make the present story historical, that there is scarcely a scene or character in its pages that had not its counterpart in reality.

He would only add, that, for important reasons, the original title has been changed to that which now heads its title-page. "What's in a name?" queried the great bard. Had he lived in our day, and been a novelist instead of a poet, he would either not have asked the question, or answered it very differently than he did.

ELLA BARNWELL.

CHAPTER I.

That portion of territory known throughout Christendom as Kentucky, was, at an early period, the theatre of some of the wildest, most hardily contested, and bloody scenes ever placed on record. In fact its very name, derived from the Indian word Kan-tuck-kee, which was applied to it long before its discovery by the whites, is peculiarly significant in meaning—being no less than "the dark and bloody ground." History makes no mention of its being inhabited prior to its settlement by