Elkhorn: Evolution of a Kentucky Landscape by Richard Taylor

Abstract

Reviewed by: Elkhorn: Evolution of a Kentucky Landscape by Richard Taylor Nancy O’Malley (bio) Elkhorn: Evolution of a Kentucky Landscape. By Richard Taylor. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2018. Pp. xii, 312. $35.00 cloth; $35.00 ebook) Richard Taylor’s new book, Elkhorn: Evolution of a Kentucky Landscape, is part memoir, part history, part geography, and part narrative storytelling. His multidisciplinary approach is an appealing way to investigate his subject, the Elkhorn Creek drainage, through various lenses of perspective. Taylor grabbed my attention right away with his introduction that opened with his and his wife’s purchase of an old house and the ensuing restoration, an endeavor that will resonate with anyone who has undertaken the resurrection of a historic structure. But the house is really metaphor for what comes in the following chapters—a deep dive into the past that illuminates exactly what his title promised, an evolutionary tale. Following the author’s note and introduction, the book is divided into ten chapters and closes with an epilogue, acknowledgements, and four appendices. The text is well referenced with detailed [End Page 197] endnotes, expansive bibliographical references, and a good index. Except for chapter one, which opens with a poem, the stage for each subsequent chapter is set with a narrative vignette that Taylor calls “embroidered facts” and selected quotations. (p. xi) His versatile background as a poet, English professor, and writer of fiction and nonfiction is amply demonstrated as he weaves together fact, speculation, lyrical observation, and personal experience. Taylor’s kayaking excursions enabled him to weave geography inextricably throughout the book. Even if the reader has never visited the Elkhorn, the book gives a good a sense of what it is like to paddle down the creek and what you will see as you go. The descriptions in the first chapter made me want to jump into a canoe and experience it for myself. The author reaches far back in time with chapters two and three to discuss the prehistoric occupants, both human and animal, of the Elkhorn drainage. Dipping into paleontological and archaeological research as well as myth, the wooly mammoths of the glacial age spring to life followed by a summary of what archaeology tells us about some of the Native American people that called Elkhorn home. For the remainder of the book, Taylor turns his attention to events and people who are intimately connected to the history of the Elkhorn drainage. His subjects are not people and events of national renown but fascinating examples of how Kentucky was settled, who came here, how they made a living, and what happened to them. Consider those hardy men who penetrated the land known as Kentucke in the late-eighteenth century to survey land claims for permanent Euroamerican settlement. Their forays were dangerous for many reasons; the most compelling being that their surveys were not officially authorized and, in fact, trespassed on land set aside for Native American people. Native people understandably viewed the surveyors as intruders and thieves and continually tried to thwart their efforts. Chapter five examines Judge Harry Innes, a well-known and influential man in his own time but is, as the author asserts, “hardly [End Page 198] a household name” today (p. 69). His life spanned the transition from the tumultuous years of Kentucky’s historic settlement punctuated by Native American attacks (including one on the Innes homestead) to the establishment of the state’s civil society for which he served as one of the architects. Taylor’s research reclaims Innes’ little-heralded but significant role in Kentucky’s development. Chapter six is devoted to a gruesome event that took place in 1792, nearly ten years after the official close by treaty of the American Revolution. Known as the Cook Massacre, the event underscores the state of danger that persisted in parts of Kentucky as Native American tribes continued to attack the Kentucky frontier even after their alliance with the British during the Revolution ended. The hydrology of the Elkhorn Creek is ideal for water powered milling. Chapters seven and eight focus on papermaker Hiram Stead-man and grist miller A. W. Macklin. As a longtime researcher of the milling industry...