_Clark's Birth and Parentage.--Wholesomeness of the Family's Home Life.--Achievements of George and his Five Brothers.--George's Lack of Book-learning.--How he became a Surveyor.--Great Opportunities enjoyed by Surveyors in his Day.--His Introduction to the West.--Learns of George Washington's Great Acquisitions of Land.--How Clark acquired his Craving for Liquor.--His Acquaintance with the Rev. David Jones, Missionary to the Shawnees.--Their Encampment near the Site of Wheeling, W. Va.--A Trip to Pittsburg.--His Claim for a Piece of Land on the Ohio.--Takes Service in Dunmore's War.--His Work as a Surveyor in Kentucky.--Becomes a Leader of Pioneers into Kentucky.--The Conflict between Clark and the Transylvania Company.--He becomes the Leader of the Kentucky Movement.--His Brilliant Military Leadership in the Conquest of Illinois.--The Founding of Louisville.--Clark draws a Plan of the Future City.--His Efforts to induce Immigration to the Lower Ohio.--He is discarded by the State of Virginia._ GEORGE ROGERS CLARK: FOUNDER OF LOUISVILLE [Illustration] ABOUT two miles east of Charlottesville, Virginia, and more than a mile south of Thomas Jefferson's famous homestead, Monticello, on a sunny knoll by the little Rivianna River, stood the humble farmer's home in which George Rogers Clark was born, November 19, 1752. The baby's father and mother, John Clark and Ann Rogers Clark, had moved into Albemarle County two years before from King-and-Queen County, Virginia, where they had been married in 1749. Their first child was born August 1, 1750, and was given his grandfather's name, Jonathan; this second son was given the name George Rogers, from one of his mother's brothers--as though his parents had looked with prophetic vision through the long years to a time when the baby should become the idol and savior of Kentucky, and had named him from a Kentucky pioneer. It was a busy farmer's home to which the young child came and in which he received the first hard lessons of life. His parents were sturdy, hard-working people, like their ancestors as far back as the records went, even to the first John Clark, who came from England to Virginia about the same time that the Puritans came to Plymouth Rock, or to Giles Rogers, on his mother's side, who also came from England at very nearly the same time. Giles Rogers's son John married Mary Byrd of the well-known Virginian Byrd family, and George Rogers Clark's mother was the second daughter of that union.