ABRAHAM SCHOLL lacked five days of eighteen, when, on foot and under a hail of bullets, he forded the Licking river
in the awful rout of the whites at Blue Licks. This battle, recorded by Theodore Roosevelt as the "last battle
of the Revolution," occurred under a blistering sun on August 19, 1782. When news of the terrible disaster
reached the fort at Louisville, General George Rogers Clark launched a formidable expedition into the Indian country,
resulting in the destruction of the principal Indian towns on the Miami and Scioto rivers. Abraham Scholl participated
in this expedition with his brother Peter, the latter a lieutenant under Colonel Daniel Boone, this being the last
expedition in which Colonel Boone was engaged for the protection of the Kentucky settlements.
Prior to this, the Scholl and Boone families had settled at Boone's Station; within this stockade dwelt the families
of Daniel, Samuel and Edward Boone, William Hays and William Scholl. Edward Boone had been killed by the Indians
in 1780 but his family remained on at Boone's Station. In the fall of 1784, Daniel Boone and his son-in- law, William
Hays, and Joseph Scholl (elder brother of Abraham who, at this time, married Daniel Boone's daughter Levina) moved
from Boone's Station and settled about five miles away on Marble Creek, north of the Kentucky river.
About 1786, Daniel Boone left the neighborhood of the Kentucky river and lived some time at Limestone (now Maysville,
Kentucky), at the mouth of Limestone Creek, a tributary of the Ohio, in then Bourbon (now Mason) county. He was
there a tavern-keeper and merchant and one of the first trustees of the town. In 1788 he moved from Limestone to
the mouth of the Great Kanawha, near Point Pleasant, at the junction of the Kanawha and Ohio rivers, in what was
then the northwest part of Virginia, now within the limits of Mason county, West Virginia. In the same year Boone
and his wife and son Nathan went by horseback to the old Pennsylvania home in Berks county to visit kin and friends.
Authorities disagree as to the year Daniel Boone left the Great Kanawha to take up his residence in Upper Louisiana
(now Missouri). Some say it was in 1796; others say 1797; still others claim it was 1799. Collins' History of Kentucky,
Volume 3, Page 62, says: "Rev. Thomas S. Hinde saw him (Boone) in October, 1797, on Packhorses, take up his
journey to Missouri, then Upper Louisiana." Bryan and Rose, in their "Pioneer Families of Missouri,"
Page 44, state: "Col. Boone and family were first Americans that settled within the present limits of the
State of Missouri. The French had established trading posts at several points, and had formed a village of 400
or 500 inhabitants at St. Louis, but there were no regular settlements beyond these."
(Note: The John Lewis family, from whom the early Lewises at Pleasant Hill were descended, had brought the English
tongue to the banks of the Missouri in 1795, probably two years before Boone's arrival.)
In Upper Louisiana, Boone and his family settled in the wilderness in old St. Charles county, which once embraced
all of present Missouri north of the Missouri river. He built his cabin about 30 miles southwest of the southern
tip of present Calhoun county, formerly Pike county, Illinois. He hunted and camped on extended trips into present
Pike county, Illinois, and Callaway county, Missouri, where stands a white oak tree about a mile south of present
Williamsburg, bearing the initials D. B., known and referred to for more than a century in that neighborhood as
the "Daniel Boone tree." Boone's grandson, Joseph Scholl, Jr., grandfather of Jesse Proctor Crump of
Kansas City (an important contributor to Scholl and Boone history), owned at one time a farm of 500 acres in this
neighborhood.
William Scholl, abiding for a while at Boone's Station, obtained and moved to 100 acres of land about 12 miles
from Lexington, on the Tate's Creek Pike, where he died about the turn of the century. He is known to have been
alive in 1795 and dead in 1803; his eldest son, Peter, was appointed administrator of his estate.
In the year 1781 there came out to Kentucky a large number of unmarried women from the older settlements, seeking
husbands among the young men of the Kentucky frontier. Among them was a young woman by the name of Nellie Humble,
sometimes spelled "Umble" in old manuscripts. Abraham Scholl's name also appears as "Abram"
in numerous manuscripts, and that spelling frequently appears in official Pike county records; in fact, one deed
is of record at the Pike county court house that was so signed by Scholl himself.
No record has been found of Abraham Scholl's first marriage; when his marriage to Nellie Humble occurred is unknown.
The first child of record of this marriage was born in 1788, this being the boy Morgan, who came to Pike county
with his father in 1825. Most of the Scholl family historians say there were six children born of this first marriage
and twelve of the second. Jesse Proctor Crump, in Mrs. Spraker's book, "The Boone Family," says Abraham
Scholl was twice married and had ten children by each wife; E. B. Scholl in Draper Manuscripts also ascribes ten
children to each family. Some claim that there were four sons born to Abraham Scholl prior to Morgan Scholl, who
were either sons by Nellie Humble or by a wife preceding her. John Wilson of Baylis, a Scholl descendant, thinks
from things he has heard related by his forebears that Abraham Scholl was probably three times married, Nellie
Humble being his second wife and Tabitha Noe his third; of this there is no official confirmation. It is Mr. Wilson's
impression that there were sons earlier than Morgan, who turned out a wold lot and whose wildness was at least
in part responsible for Abraham Scholl leaving Kentucky to get away from Morgan's friends, fearing they might get
him into trouble.
In 1792 (the year that Kentucky became a state), Peter, Joseph and Abraham Scholl established themselves on a 1400-acre
tract that had been preempted by Daniel Boone about ten miles east of present Winchester in present Clark county,
Kentucky, and about 15 miles northeast of Boonesborough. Here the three Scholls established the station of Schollsville,
site of the present railroad station of Hedges, which stands near the center of the old Boone- Scholl tract. A.
K. Wilson, a Scholl descendant, who visited the place some years ago, says that over the school house door and
over that of the old brick church in Hedges may still be seen the name "Schollsville." This land was
settled and preempted by Daniel Boone, who afterward assigned it to William Scholl. William intended it for his
three sons, Peter, Abraham and Joseph, but made no legal transfer and died without a will, and the rest of his
children brought suit for an equal partitioning of this land and won. The land was divided among the heirs of William
Scholl by an order of the court. Abraham, Peter and Joseph then bought out the other heirs and continued in possession
of Schollsville.
A. C. Barrow, a great grandson of Abraham Scholl, in recent years has owned and lived on a portion of the old Schollsville
estate. In 1920, in a letter to Adeline Cochran (Abraham Scholl's granddaughter), he wrote: "A portion of
the house Peter Scholl lived in is still standing and is just across the hill from where I live."
Schollsville Station was never attacked but was threatened in 1793. Says Mr. Barrow: "The Scholls were warned
and all the men nearby came into the fort to defend it. The Indians suddenly turned east and attacked Morgan's
Station and captured or killed all the inmates excepting an old Negro who saw a crow light on the barn and regarded
it as an evil omen and he made his way out of the fort and escaped."
It was probably a combination of circumstances that prompted Abraham Scholl to turn his back upon Kentucky, even
as did Daniel Boone. For one thing, he abominated the institution of slavery. He became a Whig in politics and
an admirer of young Abraham Lincoln. He condemned slavery even in his own family and quarreled with at least one
of his brothers whom he upbraided for whipping his slaves. He refused to have slaves himself or to work those who
were the chattels of his wife.
For years before the final move was made, we find Abraham Scholl making ready to leave Kentucky for the free land
of Illinois. As early as 1816 we find him on a prospecting trip to the Illinois country. In 1819 he prepares to
leave Kentucky, joining with a party of six others (three married men with their families and three unmarried men),
who start that year for the Illinois country. One of these six was John Scott, who died in Griggsville township
in 1855, and for whom, according to some accounts, Scott county, Illinois, was named.
James Scott, brother of John and a member of the party, in an interview in 1864, related to Judge Henderson, historian
of the Sangamon country, the circumstances of the trip to Illinois, the trail that was followed, the harrowing
experiences enroute. With this party, he said, was to have come one Abram Shull, who, however, for some unknown
reason, did not appear at the rendezvous and the others came on without him. Scholl followed a few years later,
taking, it is believed, the same route that had been agreed upon in 1819.
(Note: In the early Sangamon country records, the name of "Scholl" is invariably spelled "Schull"
or "Shull," these spellings also appearing on old grave stones yet standing in isolated cemeteries in
present Scott county.)
A. C. Barrow says, with respect to his great grandfather's attitude toward slavery: "Abraham Scholl would
not own slaves nor have anything to do with working his wife's slaves. He and his brother Peter nearly came to
blows because Peter whipped one of his slaves."
Mr. Barrow, an eminent historian of the Scholl family in Kentucky and a member of the Filson Club of Louisville,
Kentucky, the leading historical society in the state, comes of a line of slave haters. His great grandfather,
David Barrow, a Baptist preacher of Virginia and Kentucky, freed his slaves before he left Virginia and preached
emancipation and for this he was "churched," being expelled from the North District Baptist Association.
He established an association of Baptist churches who called themselves "Friends to Humanity." Prior
to 1810, Mr. Barrow says, Peter Scholl gave an acre of land for a church of this persuasion in Kentucky, although
Peter Scholl himself was a slave-holder.
"It is my theory," says Mr. Barrow, "that this church was built by those who loved and admired David
Barrow, notwithstanding they did not agree with him on the slavery question." David Barrow is said to have
been the ablest writer and speaker of his day, among the Baptists of Virginia and Kentucky. When Abraham Lincoln's
father, Thomas Lincoln, started for Indiana, he had a church letter from a church that was a member of David Barrow's
association — "Licking Locust Association Friends to Humanity."
David Barrow organized the first Anti-Slavery Association west of the Alleghenies. One of David Barrow's sons,
Hinchea Gilliam Barrow, married Rachel, daughter of Abraham and Nellie (Humble) Scholl, June 9, 1810. David Barrow
performed the wedding ceremony at the marriage of Abraham Scholl and Tabitha Noe in Kentucky December 15, 1803.
Two of David Barrow's granddaughters married grandsons of Peter Scholl, brother of Abraham.
"It is quite an interesting coincidence," wrote A. C. Barrow to Abraham Scholl's granddaughter, Adeline
Cochran, in 1920, "that my great grandfather, Abraham Scholl, was opposed to slavery, as was also my great
grandfather, David Barrow, who organized the first movement to free the slaves and wrote a book on that subject
and sent a copy to Thomas Jefferson, to which Jefferson replied, and I have a copy of that letter. My people were
all Democrat politically, but when I went to school and studied history, and came to the Civil War, I became intensely
opposed to the South, secession and slavery, and became a Republican, much to the dismay of my people. I had heard
nothing about my ancestors' view on the subject then. You see it was born in me; I could not help it, especially
since four of my ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War and one in the War of 1812."
Says Mr. Barrow: "I have since childhood been intensely interested in Abraham Lincoln. I have read the Lincoln
and Douglas debates twice. I would like very much to know any jokes told by Abe Scholl on Abe Lincoln. I would
like to know if A. Lincoln ever visited Pike county and what was Abe Scholl's politics." He says further that
he has long believed that Abraham Scholl was named for Abraham Lincoln (grandfather of the President), who came
out to Kentucky with the Scholls in 1779.
Trouble over land titles probably was another factor contributing to Abrham Scholl's decision to abandon Kentucky.
There is a record at Winchester, county seat of Clark county, Kentucky, of the litigation involving the 1400-acre
tract at Schollsville, which was entered by Daniel Boone and assigned to William Scholl, father of Abraham, Joseph
and Peter Scholl, who finally controlled this tract, after buying out the heirs who sued for its equitable apportionment,
probably suffered serious losses through overlapping claims. William Scholl had intended this tract for Abraham,
Joseph and Peter but failed to take the necessary steps and when he died his other children claimed and obtained
their shares.
Kentucky was admitted as a state in 1792, the year that Abraham, Peter and Joseph settled at Schollsville. They
doubtless were victims of the same circumstances that embittered Daniel Boone against this land he had preserved
for civilization. As courts of justice became established in every community, litigation increased and was carried
on to a distressing extent. Many of the old pioneers, who had cleared farms in the midst of the wilderness, and
were prepared to spend the remainder of their days surrounded by peace and plenty, had their lands and homes wrested
from them through lack of legal titles, by greedy and avaricious speculators, and were cast adrift in their old
age to again fight the battle of existence. Colonel Boone was among the victims, as perhaps was Abraham Scholl.
Every foot of Boone's land was taken from him, and he was left penniless. His recorded descriptions of location
and boundary were defective, and shrewd speculators had the adroitness to secure legal titles by more accurate
and better defined entries.
Thus Abraham Scholl turned his back upon Kentucky, even as had Daniel Boone; the latter embittered by his treatment
in the land to which he had given the best years of his life, and where, as he said, his "footsteps had been
often marked with blood." Edward Boone Scholl, writing from Griggsville in 1861, said: "Daniel Boone
visited Ky. on his way to the Kanhawy (Kanawha) Salt Works in 1801; his son-in-law went from Clark Co. with him
- Jo. Scholl. He was much incensed at the ingratitude of Ky."
Says W. H. Saunders, great grandson of Abraham Scholl: "Abraham Scholl left Kentucky because he did not like
the institution of slavery and possibly also on account of others filing on his lands, owing to imperfect titles.
D. Boone and Wm. Scholl settled these lands together and only roughly marked the boundaries and these were probably
not recorded, so there was trouble for both of them. D. Boone finally went to Missouri in disgust at the treatment
he received regarding his lands - he never returned to Kentucky, although later the state tried to make amends."
Daniel Boone, renouncing Kentucky, first settled at the mouth of the Great Kanawha, and later, some time in the
period 1795-99, emigrated to the wilderness of Upper Louisiana and for the fourth time in his life threw up a log
cabin and began with his faithful wife, Rebecca, to pioneer a new wilderness, this time at a spot about a two hours'
drive from present Pittsfield, county seat of Pike county, Illinois. Here it was that Colonel John Shaw, great
Pike county pioneer, coming to this region in 1808, met Colonel Boone, as recorded in earlier chapters of this
history, and formed that enduring friendship with the Boone family, noted with the Colonel's sons, Daniel Morgan
and Nathan, his son-in-law, Flanders Callaway, and the latter's son, James Callaway, and Daniel's grandson, Boone
Hays.