never," but always to be blessed." How inscrutable are the ways of Providence! This useful man could not be exempt from the common lot of humanity. Although he had uniformly been one of the most healthy of men, he was suddenly attacked with disease which terminated his mortal career. On the third day of November 1813, he breathed his last and was buried on his farm.

General Massie left a widow, and three sons and two daughters. These are all grown, and occupy a respectable rank in society. They are just such children as will make a parent's heart glad; all industrious, temperate and moral.

I have now recorded all the material incidents in the life of this good and useful man, so far as they have come to my knowledge. There are doubtless many interesting events in his life, during his residence in Kentucky, which are now lost for ever. His character was well suited for the settlement of a new country; distinguished, as it was, by an uncommon degree of energy and activity in the business in which he was engaged. His disposition was ever marked with liberality and kindness.

General Massie's private character, in all the relations of husband, father, and friend, was worthy of imitation: but still it is not claimed that he was "one of those faultless monsters the world never saw ;"" to err is human, to forgive divine." So we will permit his frailties to sleep with him in his grave.

A SKETCH OF THE LIFE

OF

GENERAL DUNCAN MCARTHUR.

CHAPTER I.

GENERAL Duncan McArthur was born on the 14th day of January, in the year 1772, in Duchess county, state of New-York. His parents were natives of the Highlands of Scotland. His mother was of the Campbell clan, which is illustrious in Scottish story. General Mc'Arthur had the misfortune to lose his mother when quite a youth.

In 1780, he being eight years of age, his father moved to the western frontier, in the state of Pennsylvania. Our revolutionary war was then in progress. All the energies of our citizens were concentrated to protect themselves from Indian depredations, and to win independence, from foreign oppression. Under these trying circumstances, subsistence and clothing were difficult to be procured, and schools in the western country were almost unknown. However, by the time he was twelve or thirteen years of age, he had learned to read and write. Duncan being the eldest child, was, as soon as he was able to work, kept at hard labor, to aid in supporting his father's numerous family of children. His father was in indigent circumstances, and as soon as his crop was laid by, Duncan was either hired out by the day, or month, to the neighboring farmers.

At the date of which I am writing, there were no wagon roads across the Alleghany mountains. They were a frightful world of rocks and forests. All the merchandise (and many articles were indispensable), such as powder, lead, salt, iron, pots and kettles, and above all, beloved rum, then used in western Pennsylvania, were conveyed over the mountains on pack-horses. McArthur, when very young, made frequent trips with packers.

Men who were raised in the western country, and are now over sixty years of age, look back with astonishment at the change which has taken place within their remembrance. The world, as they knew it, has been transformed. At that time it was almost an every day occurrence, to see a long line of pack-horses, in single file, cautiously wending their way over the stupendous Alleghany, on a path scarcely wide enough for a single horse. When surmounting the dizzy heights, they often turned round the points of projecting rocks, where the least jostle, or a slip of the horse's foot, would have precipitated it into the abyss beneath, and crushed it to atoms. narrow and dangerous were the passes in many places, that a horse loaded with bulky articles could not pass these projecting rocks, without first being unloaded. The difficulties of the road were not the only danger they had to encounter; the wily Indian frequently lay in ambush to massacre the traveler.

So

So good judges were they of the easy passes over the mountains, that scientific engineers have selected nearly the same tracks, on which the western packers passed with their brigades of pack horses in single file; where now are constructed turnpikes and railroads, on which the traveler glides, or rather floats along through air securely, and almost with the rapid speed of the bird of Jove. Such have been the happy results produced by the daring enterprise and useful labors of the western pioneers. Notwithstanding that their lives were con