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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Daniel Boone, by John S. C. Abbott
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Daniel Boone
+       The Pioneer of Kentucky
+
+Author: John S. C. Abbott
+
+Release Date: December 10, 2007 [EBook #23798]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DANIEL BOONE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by D. Alexander and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ DANIEL BOONE
+
+ THE
+
+ PIONEER OF KENTUCKY.
+
+ [Illustration]
+
+ BY
+
+ JOHN S. C. ABBOTT.
+
+
+ NEW YORK:
+
+ DODD & MEAD, No. 762 BROADWAY.
+
+ 1872.
+
+
+
+
+ Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by
+
+ DODD & MEAD,
+
+ in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
+
+
+
+
+ _AMERICAN PIONEERS AND PATRIOTS._
+
+ DANIEL BOONE
+
+ THE
+
+ PIONEER OF KENTUCKY.
+
+ BY JOHN S. C. ABBOTT.
+
+ ILLUSTRATED.
+
+     "His youth was innocent; his riper age,
+       Marked with some act of goodness every day;
+      And watched by eyes that loved him, calm and sage,
+       Faded his late declining years away.
+      Cheerful he gave his being up and went
+       To share the holy rest that waits a life well spent."
+
+ NEW YORK:
+
+ DODD & MEAD, No. 762 BROADWAY.
+
+ 1872.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+The name of Daniel Boone is a conspicuous one in the annals of our
+country. And yet there are but few who are familiar with the events of
+his wonderful career, or who have formed a correct estimate of the
+character of the man. Many suppose that he was a rough, coarse
+backwoodsman, almost as savage as the bears he pursued in the chase, or
+the Indians whose terrors he so perseveringly braved. Instead of this,
+he was one of the most mild and unboastful of men; feminine as a woman
+in his tastes and his deportment, never uttering a coarse word, never
+allowing himself in a rude action. He was truly one of nature's _gentle_
+men. With all this instinctive refinement and delicacy, there was a
+boldness of character which seemed absolutely incapable of experiencing
+the emotion of fear. And surely all the records of chivalry may be
+searched in vain for a career more full of peril and of wild adventure.
+
+This narrative reveals a state of society and habitudes of life now
+rapidly passing into oblivion. It is very desirable that the record
+should be perpetuated, that we may know the scenes through which our
+fathers passed, in laying the foundations of this majestic Republic. It
+is probable that as the years roll on the events which occurred in the
+infancy of our nation will be read with ever-increasing interest.
+
+It is the intention of the publisher of this volume to issue a series of
+sketches of the prominent men in the early history of our country. The
+next volume will contain the life and adventures of the renowned Miles
+Standish, the Puritan Captain.
+
+                                              JOHN S. C. ABBOTT.
+
+Fair Haven, Conn.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+_The Discovery and early Settlement of America._                      PAGE
+
+Discovery of the New World.--Of Florida.--Conquest and cruelties of De
+Soto.--The Wigwam.--Colony at St. Mary.--Sir Walter Raleigh and his
+Colonies.--Grant of King James.--Settlements in the Virginia.--Adventures
+of John Smith.--Arrival of Lord Delaware.--Terrible massacres.--Pressures
+of Colonists to the West.--Doherty Trade with Indians.--Attempted
+Colony on the Tennessee.--Daniel Boone.                                  9
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+_Daniel Boone, his Parentage, and early Adventures._
+
+Trials of the Colonists.--George Boone and his home.--Squire Boone.--Birth
+and character of Daniel Boone.--His limited education.--A pioneer's
+camp.--A log house and furnishings.--Annoyance of Boone on the arrival of
+Scotch emigrants.--His longings for adventure.--Camp meetings.--Frontier
+life.--Sports.--Squirrel hunting.--Snuffing the candle.                 36
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+_Louisiana, its Discovery and Vicissitudes._
+
+Louisiana, and its eventful history.--The expedition of De Soto.--The
+Missionary Marquette.--His voyage on the Upper Mississippi.--The Expedition
+of La Salle.--Michilimackinac.--Its History.--Fate of the "Griffin."--Grief
+of La Salle.--His voyage of Discovery.--Sale of Louisiana to the United
+States.--Remarks of Napoleon.                                           74
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+_Camp Life Beyond the Alleghanies._
+
+John Finley and his adventures.--Aspect of the Country.--Boone's Private
+Character.--His Love for the Wilderness.--First view of
+Kentucky.--Emigrants' Dress.--Hunter's Home.--Capture of Boone and Stewart
+by the Indians.--Their Escape.--Singular Incident.                      89
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+_Indian Warfare._
+
+Alleghany Ridges.--Voyage in a canoe.--Speech of Logan.--Battle at the
+Kanawha.--Narrative of Francis Marion.--Important commission of
+Boone.--Council at Circleville.--Treaty of Peace.--Imlay's description
+of Kentucky.--Settlement right.--Richard Henderson.--Boone's letter.--Fort
+at Boonesborough.                                                      109
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+_Sufferings of the Pioneers._
+
+Emigration to Boonesborough.--New Perils.--Transylvania
+Company.--Beneficence of its Laws--Interesting incident.--Infamous conduct
+of Great Britain.--Attack on the Fort.--Reinforcements.--Simon Kenton and
+his Sufferings.--Mrs. Harvey.                                          129
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+_Life in the Wilderness._
+
+Stewart killed by the Indians.--Squire Boone returns to the
+Settlements.--Solitary Life of Daniel Boone.--Return of Squire
+Boone.--Extended and Romantic Explorations.--Charms and Perils of the
+Wilderness.--The Emigrant Party.--The Fatal Ambuscade.--Retreat of the
+Emigrants.--Solitude of the Wilderness.--Expedition of Lewis and
+Clarke.--Extraordinary Adventures of Cotter.                           151
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+_Captivity and Flight._
+
+Heroism of Thomas Higgins and of Mrs. Pursley.--Affairs at
+Boonesborough.--Continued Alarms.--Need of Salt.--Its Manufacture.--Indian
+Schemes.--Capture of Boone and twenty-seven men.--Dilemma of the British
+at Detroit.--Blackfish adopts Colonel Boone.--Adoption Ceremony.--Indian
+Designs.--Escape of Boone.--Attacks the Savages.--The Fort Threatened. 182
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+_Victories and Defeats._
+
+Situation of the Fort.--Indian Treachery.--Bombardment.--Boone goes to
+North Carolina.--New Trials.--Boone Robbed.--He returns to
+Kentucky.--Massacre of Colonel Rogers.--Adventure of Col. Bowman.--New
+Attack by the British and Indians.--Retaliatory Measures.--Wonderful
+Exploit.                                                               209
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+_British Allies._
+
+Death of Squire Boone.--Indian Outrages.--Gerty and McGee.--Battle of
+Blue Lick.--Death of Isaac Boone.--Colonel Boone's Narrow Escape.--Letter
+of Daniel Boone.--Determination of General Clarke.--Discouragement of the
+Savages.--Amusing Anecdote of Daniel Boone.                            230
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+_Kentucky organized as a State._
+
+Peace with England.--Order of a Kentucky Court.--Anecdotes.--Speech of Mr.
+Dalton.--Reply of Piankashaw.--Renewed Indications of Indian
+Hostility.--Conventions at Danville.--Kentucky formed into a State.--New
+Trials for Boone.                                                      249
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+_Adventures Romantic and Perilous._
+
+The Search for the Horse.--Navigating the Ohio.--Heroism of Mrs.
+Rowan.--Lawless Gangs.--Exchange of Prisoners.--Boone Revisits the Home
+of his Childhood.--The Realms beyond the Mississippi.--Habits of the
+Hunters.--Corn.--Boone's Journey to the West.                          271
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+_A New Home._
+
+Colonel Boone welcomed by the Spanish Authorities.--Boone's Narrative to
+Audubon.--The Midnight Attack.--Pursuit of the Savages.--Sickness in the
+Wilderness.--Honesty of Colonel Boone.--Payment of his Debts.--Loss of
+all his Property.                                                      292
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+_Conclusion._
+
+Colonel Boone Appeals to Congress.--Complimentary Resolutions of the
+Legislature of Kentucky.--Death of Mrs. Boone.--Catholic
+Liberality.--Itinerant Preachers.--Grant by Congress to Colonel
+Boone.--The Evening of his Days.--Personal Appearance.--Death and
+Burial.--Transference of the Remains of Mr. and Mrs. Boone to Frankfort,
+Kentucky.                                                              320
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+_The Discovery and early Settlement of America._
+
+Discovery of the New World.--Of Florida.--Conquest and cruelties of De
+Soto.--The wigwam.--Colony at St. Mary.--Sir Walter Raleigh and his
+Colonies.--Grant of King James.--Settlements in the Virginia.--Adventures
+of John Smith.--Arrival of Lord Delaware.--Terrible massacres.--Pressures
+of Colonists to the West.--Doherty Trade with Indians.--Attempted Colony
+on the Tennessee.--Daniel Boone.
+
+
+The little fleet of three small vessels, with which Columbus left Palos
+in Spain, in search of a new world, had been sixty-seven days at sea.
+They had traversed nearly three thousand miles of ocean, and yet there
+was nothing but a wide expanse of waters spread out before them. The
+despairing crew were loud in their murmurs, demanding that the
+expedition should be abandoned and that the ships should return to
+Spain. The morning of the 11th of October, 1492, had come. During the
+day Columbus, whose heart had been very heavily oppressed with anxiety,
+had been cheered by some indications that they were approaching land.
+Fresh seaweed was occasionally seen and a branch of a shrub with leaves
+and berries upon it, and a piece of wood curiously carved had been
+picked up.
+
+The devout commander was so animated by these indications, that he
+gathered his crew around him and returned heartfelt thanks to God, for
+this prospect that their voyage would prove successful. It was a
+beautiful night, the moon shone brilliantly and a delicious tropical
+breeze swept the ocean. At ten o'clock Columbus stood upon the bows of
+his ship earnestly gazing upon the western horizon, hoping that the
+long-looked-for land would rise before him. Suddenly he was startled by
+the distinct gleam of a torch far off in the distance. For a moment it
+beamed forth with a clear and indisputable flame and then disappeared.
+The agitation of Columbus no words can describe. Was it a meteor? Was it
+an optical illusion? Was it light from the land?
+
+Suddenly the torch, like a star, again shone forth with distinct though
+faint gleam. Columbus called some of his companions to his side and they
+also saw the light clearly. But again it disappeared. At two o'clock in
+the morning a sailor at the look out on the mast head shouted, "Land!
+land! land!" In a few moments all beheld, but a few miles distant from
+them, the distinct outline of towering mountains piercing the skies. A
+new world was discovered. Cautiously the vessels hove to and waited for
+the light of the morning. The dawn of day presented to the eyes of
+Columbus and his companions a spectacle of beauty which the garden of
+Eden could hardly have rivalled. It was a morning of the tropics, calm,
+serene and lovely. But two miles before them there emerged from the sea
+an island of mountains and valleys, luxuriant with every variety of
+tropical vegetation. The voyagers, weary of gazing for many weeks on the
+wide waste of waters, were so enchanted with the fairy scene which then
+met the eye, that they seemed really to believe that they had reached
+the realms of the blest.
+
+The boats were lowered, and, as they were rowed towards the shore, the
+scene every moment grew more beautiful. Gigantic trees draped in
+luxuriance of foliage hitherto unimagined, rose in the soft valleys and
+upon the towering hills. In the sheltered groves, screened from the sun,
+the picturesque dwellings of the natives were thickly clustered. Flowers
+of every variety of tint bloomed in marvellous profusion. The trees
+seemed laden with fruits of every kind, and in inexhaustible abundance.
+Thousands of natives crowded the shore, whose graceful forms and
+exquisitely moulded limbs indicated the innocence and simplicity of Eden
+before the fall.
+
+Columbus, richly attired in a scarlet dress, fell upon his knees as he
+reached the beach, and, with clasped hands and uplifted eyes, gave
+utterance to the devout feelings which ever inspired him, in
+thanksgiving to God. In recognition of the divine protection he gave
+the island the name of San Salvador, or Holy Savior. Though the new
+world thus discovered was one of the smallest islands of the Caribbean
+Sea, no conception was then formed of the vast continents of North and
+South America, stretching out in both directions, for many leagues
+almost to the Arctic and Antarctic poles.
+
+Omitting a description of the wonderful adventures which ensued, we can
+only mention that two years after this, the southern extremity of the
+North American continent was discovered by Sebastian Cabot. It was in
+the spring of the year and the whole surface of the soil seemed carpeted
+with the most brilliant flowers. The country consequently received the
+beautiful name of Florida. It, of course, had no boundaries, for no one
+knew with certainty whether it were an island or a continent, or how far
+its limits might extend.
+
+The years rolled on and gradually exploring excursions crept along the
+coast towards the north, various provinces were mapped out with pretty
+distinct boundaries upon the Atlantic coast, extending indefinitely into
+the vast and unknown interior. Expeditions from France had entered the
+St. Lawrence and established settlements in Canada. For a time the whole
+Atlantic coast, from its extreme southern point to Canada, was called
+Florida. In the year 1539, Ferdinand De Soto, an unprincipled Spanish
+warrior, who had obtained renown by the conquest of Peru in South
+America, fitted out by permission of the king of Spain, an expedition of
+nearly a thousand men to conquer and take possession of that vast and
+indefinite realm called Florida.
+
+We have no space here to enter upon a description of the fiendlike
+cruelties practiced by these Spaniards. They robbed and enslaved without
+mercy. In pursuit of gold they wandered as far north as the present
+boundary of South Carolina. Then turning to the west, they traversed the
+vast region to the Mississippi river. The forests were full of game. The
+granaries of the simple-hearted natives were well stored with corn; vast
+prairies spreading in all directions around them, waving with grass and
+blooming with flowers, presented ample forage for the three hundred
+horses which accompanied the expedition. They were also provided with
+fierce bloodhounds to hunt down the terrified natives. Thus invincible
+and armed with the "thunder and lightning" of their guns, they swept the
+country, perpetrating every conceivable outrage upon the helpless
+natives.
+
+After long and unavailing wanderings in search of gold, having lost by
+sickness and the casualties of such an expedition nearly half their
+number, the remainder built boats upon the Mississippi, descended that
+rapid stream five hundred miles to its mouth, and then skirting the
+coast of Texas, finally disappeared on the plains of Mexico. De Soto,
+the leader of this conquering band, died miserably on the Mississippi,
+and was buried beneath its waves.
+
+The whole country which these adventurers traversed, they found to be
+quite densely populated with numerous small tribes of natives, each
+generally wandering within circumscribed limits. Though these tribes
+spoke different languages, or perhaps different dialects of the same
+language, they were essentially the same in appearance, manners and
+customs. They were of a dark-red color, well formed and always disposed
+to receive the pale face strangers with kindliness, until exasperated by
+ill-treatment. They lived in fragile huts called wigwams, so simple in
+their structure that one could easily be erected in a few hours. These
+huts were generally formed by setting long and slender poles in the
+ground, inclosing an area of from ten to eighteen feet in diameter,
+according to the size of the family. The tops were tied together,
+leaving a hole for the escape of smoke from the central fire. The sides
+were thatched with coarse grass, or so covered with the bark of trees,
+as quite effectually to exclude both wind and rain. There were no
+windows, light entering only through the almost always open door. The
+ground floor was covered with dried grass, or the skins of animals, or
+with the soft and fragrant twigs of some evergreen tree.
+
+The inmates, men, women and children, seated upon these cushions,
+presented a very attractive and cheerful aspect. Several hundred of
+these wigwams were frequently clustered upon some soft meadow by the
+side of a flowing stream, fringed with a gigantic forest, and exhibited
+a spectacle of picturesque loveliness quite charming to the beholder.
+The furniture of these humble abodes was extremely simple. They had no
+pots or kettles which would stand the fire. They had no knives nor
+forks; no tables nor chairs. Sharp flints, such as they could find
+served for knives, with which, with incredible labor, they sawed down
+small trees and fashioned their bows and arrows. They had no roads
+except foot paths through the wilderness, which for generations their
+ancestors had traversed, called "trails." They had no beasts of burden,
+no cows, no flocks nor herds of any kind. They generally had not even
+salt, but cured their meat by drying it in the sun. They had no ploughs,
+hoes, spades, consequently they could only cultivate the lightest soil.
+With a sharp stick, women loosened the earth, and then depositing their
+corn or maize, cultivated it in the rudest manner.
+
+These Indians acquired the reputation of being very faithful friends,
+but very bitter enemies. It was said they never forgot a favor, and
+never forgave an insult. They were cunning rather than brave. It was
+seldom that an Indian could be induced to meet a foe in an open
+hand-to-hand fight. But he would track him for years, hoping to take him
+unawares and to brain him with the tomahawk, or pierce his heart with
+the flint-pointed arrow.
+
+About the year 1565, a company of French Protestants repaired to
+Florida, hoping there to find the liberty to worship God in accordance
+with their interpretation of the teachings of the Bible. They
+established quite a flourishing colony, at a place which they named St.
+Marys, near the coast. This was the first European settlement on the
+continent of North America. The fanatic Spaniards, learning that
+Protestants had taken possession of the country, sent out an expedition
+and utterly annihilated the settlement, putting men, women and children
+to the sword. Many of these unfortunate Protestants were hung in chains
+from trees under the inscription, "_Not as Frenchmen but as Heretics._"
+The blood-stained Spaniards then established themselves at a spot near
+by, which they called St. Augustine. A French gentleman of wealth fitted
+out a well-manned and well-armed expedition of three ships, attacked the
+murderers by surprise and put them to death. Several corpses were
+suspended from trees, under the inscription, "_Not as Spaniards, but as
+Murderers._"
+
+There was an understanding among the powers of Europe, that any portion
+of the New World discovered by expeditions from European courts, should
+be recognised as belonging to that court. The Spaniards had taken
+possession in Florida. Far away a thousand leagues to the North, the
+French had entered the gulf of St. Lawrence. But little was known of the
+vast region between. A young English gentleman, Sir Walter Raleigh, an
+earnest Protestant, and one who had fought with the French Protestants
+in their religious wars, roused by the massacre of his friends in
+Florida, applied to the British court to fit out a colony to take
+possession of the intermediate country. He hoped thus to prevent the
+Spanish monarchy, and the equally intolerant French court, from
+spreading their principles over the whole continent. The Protestant
+Queen Elizabeth then occupied the throne of Great Britain. Raleigh was
+young, rich, handsome and marvelously fascinating in his address. He
+became a great favorite of the maiden queen, and she gave him a
+commission, making him lord of all the continent of North America,
+between Florida and Canada.
+
+The whole of this vast region without any accurate boundaries, was
+called Virginia. Several ships were sent to explore the country. They
+reached the coast of what is now called North Carolina, and the
+adventurers landed at Roanoke Island. They were charmed with the
+climate, with the friendliness of the natives and with the majestic
+growth of the forest trees, far surpassing anything they had witnessed
+in the Old World. Grapes in rich clusters hung in profusion on the
+vines, and birds of every variety of song and plumage filled the groves.
+The expedition returned to England with such glowing accounts of the
+realm they had discovered, that seven ships were fitted out, conveying
+one hundred and eight men, to colonise the island. It is quite
+remarkable that no women accompanied the expedition. Many of these men
+were reckless adventurers. Bitter hostility soon sprang up between them
+and the Indians, who at first had received them with the greatest
+kindness.
+
+Most of these colonists were men unaccustomed to work, and who insanely
+expected that in the New World, in some unknown way, wealth was to flow
+in upon them like a flood. Disheartened, homesick and appalled by the
+hostile attitude which the much oppressed Indians were beginning to
+assume, they were all anxious to return home. When, soon after, some
+ships came bringing them abundant supplies, they with one accord
+abandoned the colony, and crowding the vessels returned to England.
+Fifteen men however consented to remain, to await the arrival of fresh
+colonists from the Mother Country.
+
+Sir Walter Raleigh, still undiscouraged, in the next year 1587 sent out
+another fleet containing a number of families as emigrants, with women
+and children. When they arrived, they found Roanoke deserted. The
+fifteen men had been murdered by the Indians in retaliation for the
+murder of their chief and several of his warriors by the English. With
+fear and trembling the new settlers decided to remain, urging the
+friends who had accompanied them to hasten back to England with the
+ships and bring them reinforcements and supplies. Scarcely had they
+spread their sails on the return voyage ere war broke out with Spain. It
+was three years before another ship crossed the ocean, to see what had
+become of the colony. It had utterly disappeared. Though many attempts
+were made to ascertain its tragic fate, all were unavailing. It is
+probable that many were put to death by the Indians, and perhaps the
+children were carried far back into the interior and incorporated into
+their tribes. This bitter disappointment seemed to paralyse the energies
+of colonization. For more than seventy years the Carolinas remained a
+wilderness, with no attempt to transfer to them the civilization of the
+Old World. Still English ships continued occasionally to visit the
+coast. Some came to fish, some to purchase furs of the Indians, and
+some for timber for shipbuilding. The stories which these voyagers told
+on their return, kept up an interest in the New World. It was indeed an
+attractive picture which could be truthfully painted. The climate was
+mild, genial and salubrious. The atmosphere surpassed the far-famed
+transparency of Italian skies. The forests were of gigantic growth, more
+picturesquely beautiful than any ever planted by man's hand, and they
+were filled with game. The lakes and streams swarmed with fish. A
+wilderness of flowers, of every variety of loveliness, bloomed over the
+wide meadows and the broad savannahs, which the forest had not yet
+invaded. Berries and fruits were abundant. In many places the soil was
+surpassingly rich, and easily tilled; and all this was open, without
+money and without price, to the first comer.
+
+Still more than a hundred years elapsed after the discovery of these
+realms, ere any permanent settlement was effected upon them. Most of the
+bays, harbors and rivers were unexplored, and reposed as it were in the
+solemn silence of eternity. From the everglades of Florida to the
+firclad hills of Nova Scotia, not a settlement of white men could be
+found.
+
+At length in the year 1607, a number of wealthy gentlemen in London
+formed a company to make a new attempt for the settlement of America. It
+was their plan to send out hardy colonists, abundantly provided with
+arms, tools and provisions. King James I., who had succeeded his cousin
+Queen Elizabeth, granted them a charter, by which, wherever they might
+effect a landing, they were to be the undisputed lords of a territory
+extending a hundred miles along the coast, and running back one hundred
+miles into the interior. Soon after, a similar grant was conferred upon
+another association, for the region of North Virginia, now called New
+England.
+
+Under the protection of this London Company, one hundred and five men,
+with no women or children, embarked in three small ships for the
+Southern Atlantic coast of North America. Apparently by accident, they
+entered Chesapeake Bay, where they found a broad and deep stream, which
+they named after their sovereign, James River. As they ascended this
+beautiful stream, they were charmed with the loveliness which nature had
+spread so profusely around them. Upon the northern banks of the river,
+about fifty miles from its entrance into the bay, they selected a spot
+for their settlement, which they named Jamestown. Here they commenced
+cutting down trees and raising their huts.
+
+In an enterprise of this kind, muscles inured to work and determined
+spirits ready to grapple with difficulties, are essential. In such
+labors, the most useless of all beings is the gentleman with soft hands
+and luxurious habits. Unfortunately quite a number of pampered sons of
+wealth had joined the colony. Being indolent, selfish and dissolute,
+they could do absolutely nothing for the prosperity of the settlement,
+but were only an obstacle in the way of its growth.
+
+Troubles soon began to multiply, and but for the energies of a
+remarkable man, Capt. John Smith, the colony must soon have perished
+through anarchy. But even Capt. John Smith with all his commanding
+powers, and love of justice and of law, could not prevent the idle and
+profligate young men from insulting the natives, and robbing them of
+their corn. With the autumnal rains sickness came, and many died. The
+hand of well-organised industry might have raised an ample supply of
+corn to meet all their wants through the short winter. But this had been
+neglected, and famine was added to sickness, Capt. Smith had so won the
+confidence of the Indian chieftains, that notwithstanding the gross
+irregularities of his young men, they brought him supplies of corn and
+game, which they freely gave to the English in their destitution.
+
+Captain Smith having thus provided for the necessities of the greatly
+diminished colony, set out with a small party of men on an exploring
+expedition into the interior. He was waylayed by Indians, who with
+arrows and tomahawks speedily put all the men to death, excepting the
+leader, who was taken captive. There was something in the demeanor of
+this brave man which overawed them. He showed them his pocket compass,
+upon which they gazed with wonder. He then told them that if they would
+send to the fort a leaf from his pocket-book, upon which he had made
+several marks with his pencil, they would find the next day, at any spot
+they might designate, a certain number of axes, blankets, and other
+articles of great value to them. Their curiosity was exceedingly
+aroused; the paper was sent, and the next day the articles were found as
+promised. The Indians looked upon Captain Smith as a magician, and
+treated him with great respect. Still the more thoughtful of the natives
+regarded him as a more formidable foe. They could not be blind to the
+vastly superior power of the English in their majestic ships, with their
+long swords, and terrible fire-arms, and all the developments,
+astounding to them, of a higher civilization. They were very anxious in
+view of encroachments which might eventually give the English the
+supremacy in their land.
+
+Powhatan, the king of the powerful tribe who had at first been very
+friendly to the English, summoned a council of war of his chieftains,
+and after long deliberation, it was decided that Captain Smith was too
+powerful a man to be allowed to live, and that he must die. He was
+accordingly led out to execution, but without any of the ordinary
+accompaniments of torture. His hands were bound behind him, he was laid
+upon the ground, and his head was placed upon a stone. An Indian warrior
+of herculean strength stood by, with a massive club, to give the death
+blow by crushing in the skull. Just as the fatal stroke was about to
+descend, a beautiful Indian girl, Pocahontas, the daughter of the king,
+rushed forward and throwing her arms around the neck of Captain Smith,
+placed her head upon his. The Indians regarded this as an indication
+from the Great Spirit that the life of Captain Smith was to be spared,
+and they set their prisoner at liberty, who, being thus miraculously
+rescued, returned to Jamestown.
+
+By his wisdom Captain Smith preserved for some time friendly relations
+with the Indians, and the colony rapidly increased, until there were
+five hundred Europeans assembled at Jamestown. Capt. Smith being
+severely wounded by an accidental explosion of gunpowder, returned to
+England for surgical aid. The colony, thus divested of his vigorous
+sway, speedily lapsed into anarchy. The bitter hostility of the Indians
+was aroused, and, within a few months, the colony dwindled away beneath
+the ravages of sickness, famine, and the arrows of the Indians, to but
+sixty men. Despair reigned in all hearts, and this starving remnant of
+Europeans was preparing to abandon the colony and return to the Old
+World, when Lord Delaware arrived with several ships loaded with
+provisions and with a reinforcement of hardy laborers. Most of the idle
+and profligate young men who had brought such calamity upon the colony,
+had died. Those who remained took fresh courage, and affairs began to be
+more prosperous.
+
+The organization of the colony had thus far been effected with very
+little regard to the wants of human nature. There were no women there.
+Without the honored wife there cannot be the happy home; and without the
+home there can be no contentment. To herd together five hundred men upon
+the banks of a foreign stream, three thousand miles from their native
+land, without women and children, and to expect them to lay the
+foundation of a happy and prosperous colony, seems almost unpardonable
+folly.
+
+Emigrants began to arrive with their families, and in the year 1620, one
+hundred and fifty poor, but virtuous young women, were induced to join
+the Company. Each young man who came received one hundred acres of land.
+Eagerly these young planters, in short courtship, selected wives from
+such of these women as they could induce to listen to them. Each man
+paid one hundred and fifty pounds of tobacco to defray the expenses of
+his wife's voyage. But the wickedness of man will everywhere, and under
+all circumstances, make fearful development of its power. Many
+desperadoes joined the colony. The poor Indians with no weapons of war
+but arrows, clubs and stone tomahawks, were quite at the mercy of the
+English with their keen swords, and death-dealing muskets. Fifteen
+Europeans could easily drive several hundred Indians in panic over the
+plains. Unprincipled men perpetrated the grossest outrages upon the
+families of the Indians, often insulting the proudest chiefs.
+
+The colonists were taking up lands in all directions. Before their
+unerring rifles, game was rapidly disappearing. The Indians became fully
+awake to their danger. The chiefs met in council, and a conspiracy was
+formed, to put, at an appointed hour, all the English to death, every
+man, woman and child. Every house was marked. Two or three Indians were
+appointed to make the massacre sure in each dwelling. They were to
+spread over the settlement, enter the widely scattered log-huts, as
+friends, and at a certain moment were to spring upon their unsuspecting
+victims, and kill them instantly. The plot was fearfully successful in
+all the dwellings outside the little village of Jamestown. In one hour,
+on the 22nd of March, 1622, three hundred and forty-seven men, women and
+children were massacred in cold blood. The colony would have been
+annihilated, but for a Christian Indian who, just before the massacre
+commenced, gave warning to a friend in Jamestown. The Europeans rallied
+with their fire-arms, and easily drove off their foes, and then
+commenced the unrelenting extermination of the Indians. An arrow can be
+thrown a few hundred feet, a musket ball more than as many yards. The
+Indians were consequently helpless. The English shot down both sexes,
+young and old, as mercilessly as if they had been wolves. They seized
+their houses, their lands, their pleasant villages. The Indians were
+either slain or driven far away from the houses of their fathers, into
+the remote wilderness.
+
+The colony now increased rapidly, and the cabins of the emigrants spread
+farther and farther over the unoccupied lands. These hardy adventurers
+seemed providentially imbued with the spirit of enterprise. Instead of
+clustering together for the pleasure of society and for mutual
+protection, they were ever pushing into the wild and unknown interior,
+rearing their cabins on the banks of distant streams, and establishing
+their silent homes in the wildest solitudes of the wilderness. In 1660,
+quite a number of emigrants moved directly south from Virginia, to the
+river Chowan, in what is now South Carolina, where they established a
+settlement which they called Albermarle. In 1670, a colony from England
+established itself at Charleston, South Carolina. Thus gradually the
+Atlantic coast became fringed with colonies, extending but a few leagues
+back into the country from the sea-shore, while the vast interior
+remained an unexplored wilderness. As the years rolled on, ship-loads of
+emigrants arrived, new settlements were established, colonial States
+rose into being, and, though there were many sanguinary conflicts with
+the Indians, the Europeans were always in the end triumphant, and
+intelligence, wealth, and laws of civilization were rapidly extended
+along the Atlantic border of the New World.
+
+For many years there had been a gradual pressure of the colonists
+towards the west, steadily encroaching upon the apparently limitless
+wilderness. To us it seems strange that they did not, for the sake of
+protection against the Indians, invariably go in military bands. But
+generally this was not the case. The emigrants seem to have been
+inspired with a spirit of almost reckless indifference to danger; they
+apparently loved the solitude of the forest, avoided neighbors who might
+interfere with their hunting and trapping, and reared their humble
+cottages in the wildest ravines of the mountains and upon the smooth
+meadows which border the most solitary streams; thus gradually the tide
+of emigration, flowing through Indian trails and along the
+forest-covered vines, was approaching the base of the Alleghany
+mountains.
+
+But little was known of the character of the boundless realms beyond the
+ridges of this gigantic chain. Occasionally a wandering Indian who had
+chased his game over those remote wilds, would endeavor to draw upon the
+sand, with a stick, a map of the country showing the flow of the rivers,
+the line of the mountains, and the sweep of the open prairies. The Ohio
+was then called the Wabash. This magnificent and beautiful stream is
+formed by the confluence of the Alleghany and the Monongahela rivers. It
+was a long voyage, a voyage of several hundred miles, following the
+windings of the Monongahela river from its rise among the mountains of
+Western Virginia till, far away in the north, it met the flood of the
+Alleghany, at the present site of the city of Pittsburg. The voyage, in
+a birch canoe, required, in the figurative language of the Indians, "two
+paddles, two warriors and three moons."
+
+The Indians very correctly described the Ohio, or the Wabash, as but the
+tributary of a much more majestic stream, far away in the west, which,
+pouring its flood through the impenetrable forest, emptied itself they
+knew not where. Of the magnitude of this distant river, the Mississippi,
+its source, rise and termination, they could give no intelligible
+account. They endeavored to give some idea of the amount of game to be
+found in those remote realms, by pointing to the leaves of the forest
+and the stars in the sky.
+
+The settlers were deeply interested and often much excited by the
+glowing descriptions thus given them of a terrestrial Eden, where life
+would seem to be but one uninterrupted holiday. Occasionally an
+adventurous French or Spanish trader would cross the towering mountains
+and penetrate the vales beyond. They vied with the Indians in their
+account of the salubrity of the climate, the brilliance of the skies,
+the grandeur of the forests, the magnificence of the rivers, the
+marvelous fertility of the soil and the abundance of game.
+
+As early as the year 1690 a trader from Virginia, by the name of
+Doherty, crossed the mountains, visited the friendly Cherokee nation,
+within the present bounds of Georgia, and resided with the natives
+several years. In the year 1730 an enterprising and intelligent man from
+South Carolina, by the name of Adair, took quite an extensive tour
+through most of the villages of the Cherokees, and also visited several
+tribes south and west of them. He wrote an exceedingly valuable and
+interesting account of his travels which was published in London.
+
+Influenced by these examples several traders, in the year 1740, went
+from Virginia to the country of the Cherokees. They carried on pack
+horses goods which the Indians valued, and which they exchanged for
+furs, which were sold in Europe at an enormous profit.
+
+A hatchet, a knife, a trap, a string of beads, which could be bought for
+a very small sum in the Atlantic towns, when exhibited beyond the
+mountains to admiring groups in the wigwam of the Indian, could be
+exchanged for furs which were of almost priceless value in the
+metropolitan cities of the Old World. This traffic was mutually
+advantageous, and so long as peaceful relations existed between the
+white man and the Indian, was prosecuted with great and ever increasing
+vigor. The Indians thus obtained the steel trap, the keenly cutting ax,
+and the rifle, which he soon learned to use with unerring aim. He was
+thus able in a day to obtain more game than with his arrows and his
+clumsy snares he could secure in a month.
+
+This friendly intercourse was in all respects very desirable; and but
+for the depravity of the white man it might have continued uninterrupted
+for generations. But profligate and vagabond adventurers from the
+settlements defrauded the Indians, insulted their women, and often
+committed wanton murder. But it would seem that the majority of the
+traders were honest men. Ramsay, in his Annals of Tennessee, writes, in
+reference to this traffic:
+
+"Other advantages resulted from it to the whites. They became thus
+acquainted with the great avenues leading through the hunting ground,
+and to the occupied country of the neighboring tribes--an important
+circumstance in the condition of either peace or war. Further the
+traders were an exact thermometer of the pacific or hostile intention
+and feelings of the Indians with whom they traded. Generally they were
+foreigners, most frequently Scotchmen, who had not been long in the
+country, or upon the frontier; who, having experienced none of the
+cruelties, depredations or aggressions of the Indians, cherished none of
+the resentment and spirit of retaliation born with and everywhere
+manifested by the American settler.
+
+"Thus free from animosity against the aborigines, the trader was allowed
+to remain in the village, where he traded, unmolested, even where its
+warriors were singing the war song or brandishing the war club,
+preparatory to an invasion or massacre of the whites. Timely warning was
+thus often given by a returning packman to a feeble and unsuspecting
+settlement, of the perfidy and cruelty meditated against it."
+
+Game on the eastern side of the Alleghanies, hunted down alike by white
+men and Indians, soon became scarce. Adventurers combining the
+characters of traders and hunters rapidly multiplied. Many of the
+hunters among the white men far outstripped the Indians in skill and
+energy. Thus some degree of jealousy was excited on the part of the
+savages. They saw how rapidly the game was disappearing, and these
+thoughtful men began to be anxious for the future. With no love for
+agriculture the destruction of the game was their ruin.
+
+As early as the year 1748 quite a party of gentlemen explorers, under
+the leadership of Doctor Thomas Walker of Virginia, crossed a range of
+the Alleghany mountains, which the Indians called Warioto, but to which
+Doctor Walker gave the name of Cumberland, in honor of the Duke of
+Cumberland who was then prime minister of England. Following along this
+chain in a south-westerly direction, in search of some pass or defile by
+which they could cross the cliffs, they came to the remarkable
+depression in the mountains to which they gave the name of Cumberland
+Gap. On the western side of the range they found a beautiful mountain
+stream, rushing far away, with ever increasing volume, into the unknown
+wilderness, which the Indians called Shawnee, but which Doctor Walker's
+party baptised with the name of Cumberland River. These names have
+adhered to the localities upon which they were thus placed.
+
+In 1756 a feeble attempt was made to establish a colony upon the
+Tennessee river, at a spot which was called London. This was one
+hundred and fifty miles in advance of any white settlement. Eight years
+passed, and by the ravages of war the little settlement went up in flame
+and smoke. As the years rapidly came and went there were occasional
+bursts of the tempests of war; again there would be a short lull and
+blessed peace would come with its prosperity and joy.
+
+"In the year 1760, Doctor Walker again passed over Clinch and Powell's
+rivers on a tour of exploration, into what is now Kentucky. The
+Cherokees were then at peace with the whites, and hunters from the back
+settlements began, with safety, to penetrate deeper and further into the
+wilderness of Tennessee. Several of them, chiefly from Virginia, hearing
+of the abundance of game with which the woods were stocked, and allured
+by the prospect of gain which might be drawn from this source, formed
+themselves into a company composed of Wallen, Seagys, Blevins, Cox and
+fifteen others, and came into the valley, since known as Carter's
+Valley, in Hawkin's county, Tennessee. They hunted eighteen months upon
+Clinch and Powell rivers. Wallen's Creek and Wallen's Ridge received
+their name from the leader of the company; as also did Wallen's Station
+which they erected in the Lee county, Virginia.
+
+"They penetrated as far north as Laurel Mountain, in Kentucky, where
+they terminated their journey, having met with a body of Indians whom
+they supposed to be Shawnees. At the head of one of the companies that
+visited the West, this year, came Daniel Boone from the Yadkin, in North
+Carolina, and travelled with them as low as the place where Abingdon now
+stands, and there left them."
+
+This is the first time the advent of Daniel Boone to the western wilds
+has been mentioned by historians or by the several biographers of that
+distinguished pioneer and hunter. There is reason however to believe
+that he hunted upon Watauga some time earlier than this.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+_Daniel Boone, his Parentage, and early Adventures._
+
+Trials of the Colonists.--George Boone and his home.--Squire Boone.--Birth
+and character of Daniel Boone.--His limited education.--A pioneer's
+camp.--A log house and furnishings.--Annoyance of Boone on the arrival of
+Scotch emigrants.--His longings for adventure.--Camp meetings.--Frontier
+life.--Sports.--Squirrel hunting.--Snuffing the candle.
+
+
+It was but a narrow fringe upon the sea coast of North America, which
+was thus far occupied by the European emigrants. Even this edge of the
+continent was so vast in its extent, from the southern capes of Florida
+to the gulf of St. Lawrence, that these colonial settlements were far
+separated from each other. They constituted but little dots in the
+interminable forest: the surges of the Atlantic beating upon their
+eastern shores, and the majestic wilderness sweeping in its sublime
+solitude behind them on the west. Here the painted Indians pursued their
+game, while watching anxiously the encroachments of the pale faces. The
+cry of the panther, the growling of the bear, and the howling of the
+wolf, were music to the settlers compared with the war-hoop of the
+savage, which often startled the inmates of the lonely cabins, and
+consigned them to that sleep from which there is no earthly waking. The
+Indians were generally hostile, and being untutored savages, they were
+as merciless as demons in their revenge. The mind recoils from the
+contemplation of the tortures to which they often exposed their
+captives. And one cannot but wonder that the Almighty Father could have
+allowed such agony to be inflicted upon any of His creatures.
+
+Notwithstanding the general desire of the colonial authorities to treat
+the Indians with justice and kindness, there were unprincipled
+adventurers crowding all the colonies, whose wickedness no laws could
+restrain. They robbed the Indians, insulted their families, and
+inflicted upon them outrages which goaded the poor savages to
+desperation. In their unintelligent vengeance they could make no
+distinction between the innocent and the guilty.
+
+On the 10th of October, 1717, a vessel containing a number of emigrants
+arrived at Philadelphia, a small but flourishing settlement upon the
+banks of the Delaware. Among the passengers there was a man named George
+Boone, with his wife and eleven children, nine sons and two daughters.
+He had come from Exeter, England, and was lured to the New World by the
+cheapness of land. He had sufficient property to enable him to furnish
+all his sons with ample farms in America. The Delaware, above
+Philadelphia, was at that time a silent stream, flowing sublimely
+through the almost unbroken forest. Here and there, a bold settler had
+felled the trees, and in the clearing had reared his log hut, upon the
+river banks. Occasionally the birch canoe of an Indian hunter was seen
+passing rapidly from cove to cove, and occasionally a little cluster of
+Indian wigwams graced some picturesque and sunny exposure, for the
+Indians manifested much taste in the location of their villages.
+
+George Boone ascended this solitary river about twenty miles above
+Philadelphia, where he purchased upon its banks an extensive territory,
+consisting of several hundred acres. It was near the present city of
+Bristol, in what is now called Buck's County. To this tract,
+sufficiently large for a township, he gave the name of Exeter, in memory
+of the home he had left in England. Here, aided by the strong arms of
+his boys, he reared a commodious log cabin. It must have been an
+attractive and a happy home. The climate was delightful, the soil
+fertile, supplying him, with but little culture, with an ample supply of
+corn, and the most nutritious vegetables. Before his door rolled the
+broad expanse of the Delaware, abounding with fish of delicious flavor.
+His boys with hook and line could at any time, in a few moments, supply
+the table with a nice repast. With the unerring rifle, they could
+always procure game in great variety and abundance.
+
+The Indians, won by the humanity of William Penn, were friendly, and
+their occasional visits to the cabin contributed to the enjoyment of its
+inmates. On the whole a more favored lot in life could not well be
+imagined. There was unquestionably far more happiness in this log cabin
+of the settler, on the silent waters of the Delaware, than could be
+found in any of the castles or palaces of England, France, or Spain.
+
+George Boone had one son on whom he conferred the singular name of
+Squire. His son married a young woman in the neighborhood by the name of
+Sarah Morgan, and surrounded by his brothers and sisters, he raised his
+humble home in the beautiful township which his father had purchased.
+Before leaving England the family, religiously inclined, had accepted
+the Episcopal form of Christian worship. But in the New World, far
+removed from the institutions of the Gospel, and allured by the noble
+character and influence of William Penn, they enrolled themselves in the
+Society of Friends. In the record of the monthly meetings of this
+society, we find it stated that George Boone was received to its
+communion on the thirty-first day of tenth month, in the year 1717. It
+is also recorded that his son Squire Boone was married to Sarah Morgan,
+on the twenty-third day of seventh month, 1720. The records of the
+meetings also show the number of their children, and the periods of
+their birth.
+
+By this it appears that their son Daniel, the subject of this memoir,
+was born on the twenty-second day of eighth month, 1734. It seems that
+Squire Boone became involved in difficulties with the Society of
+Friends, for allowing one of his sons to marry out of meeting. He was
+therefore disowned, and perhaps on this account, he subsequently removed
+his residence to North Carolina, as we shall hereafter show. His son
+Daniel, from earliest childhood, developed a peculiar and remarkably
+interesting character. He was silent, thoughtful, of pensive
+temperament, yet far from gloomy, never elated, never depressed. He
+exhibited from his earliest years such an insensibility to danger, as to
+attract the attention of all who knew him. Though affectionate and
+genial in disposition, never morose or moody, he still loved solitude,
+and seemed never so happy as when entirely alone. His father remained in
+his home upon the Delaware until Daniel was about ten years of age.
+
+Various stories are related of his adventures in these his early years,
+which may or may not be entirely authentic. It makes but little
+difference. These anecdotes if only founded on facts, show at least the
+estimation in which he was regarded, and the impression which his
+character produced in these days of childhood. Before he was ten years
+old he would take his rifle and plunge boldly into the depths of the
+illimitable forest. He seemed, by instinct, possessed of the skill of
+the most experienced hunter, so that he never became bewildered, or in
+danger of being lost. There were panthers, bears and wolves in those
+forests, but of them he seemed not to have the slightest fear. His skill
+as a marksman became quite unerring. Not only raccoons, squirrels,
+partridges and other such small game were the result of his hunting
+expeditions, but occasionally even the fierce panther fell before his
+rifle ball. From such frequent expeditions he would return silent and
+tranquil, with never a word of boasting in view of exploits of which a
+veteran hunter might be proud.
+
+Indeed his love of solitude was so great, that he reared for himself a
+little cabin in the wilderness, three miles back from the settlement.
+Here he would go all alone without even a dog for companion, his trusty
+rifle his only protection. At his camp-fire, on the point of his ramrod,
+he would cook the game which he obtained in abundance, and upon his bed
+of leaves would sleep in sweetest enjoyment, lulled by the wind through
+the tree-tops, and by the cry of the night bird and of the wild beasts
+roaming around. In subsequent life, he occasionally spoke of these hours
+as seasons of unspeakable joy.
+
+The education of young Boone was necessarily very defective. There were
+no schools then established in those remote districts of log cabins. But
+it so happened that an Irishman of some little education strolled into
+that neighborhood, and Squire Boone engaged him to teach, for a few
+months, his children and those of some others of the adjacent settlers.
+These hardy emigrants met with their axes in a central point in the
+wilderness, and in a few hours constructed a rude hut of logs for a
+school-house. Here young Boone was taught to read, and perhaps to write.
+This was about all the education he ever received. Probably the
+confinement of the school-room was to him unendurable. The forest was
+his congenial home, hunting the business of his life.
+
+Though thus uninstructed in the learning of books, there were other
+parts of practical education, of infinitely more importance to him, in
+which he became an adept. His native strength of mind, keen habits of
+observation, and imperturbable tranquility under whatever perils or
+reverses, gave him skill in the life upon which he was to enter, which
+the teachings of books alone could not confer. No marksman could surpass
+him in the dexterity with which with his bullet he would strike the head
+of a nail, at the distance of many yards. No Indian hunter or warrior
+could with more sagacity trace his steps through the pathless forest,
+detect the footsteps of a retreating foe, or search out the hiding place
+of the panther or the bear. In these hunting excursions the youthful
+frame of Daniel became inured to privation, hardship, endurance. Taught
+to rely upon his own resources, he knew not what it was to be lonely,
+for an hour. In the darkest night and in the remotest wilderness, when
+the storm raged most fiercely, although but a child he felt peaceful,
+happy, and entirely at home.
+
+About the year 1748 (the date is somewhat uncertain), Squire Boone, with
+his family, emigrated seven hundred miles farther south and west to a
+place called Holman's Ford on the Yadkin river, in North Carolina. The
+Yadkin is a small stream in the north-west part of the State. A hundred
+years ago this was indeed a howling wilderness. It is difficult to
+imagine what could have induced the father of a family to abandon the
+comparatively safe and prosperous settlements on the banks of the
+Delaware, to plunge into the wilderness of these pathless solitudes,
+several hundred miles from the Atlantic coast. Daniel was then about
+sixteen years of age.
+
+Of the incidents of their long journey through the wood--on foot, with
+possibly a few pack horses, for there were no wagon-roads whatever--we
+have no record. The journey must probably have occupied several weeks,
+occasionally cheered by sunshine, and again drenched by storms. There
+were nine children in the family. At the close of the weary pilgrimage
+of a day, through such narrow trails as that which the Indian or the
+buffalo had made through the forest, or over the prairies, they were
+compelled to build a cabin at night, with logs and the bark of trees to
+shelter them from the wind and rain, and at the camp-fire to cook the
+game which they had shot during the day. We can imagine that this
+journey must have been a season of unspeakable delight to Daniel Boone.
+Alike at home with the rifle and the hatchet, never for a moment
+bewildered, or losing his self-possession, he could, even unaided, at
+any hour, rear a sheltering hut for his mother and his sisters, before
+which the camp-fire would blaze cheerily, and their hunger would be
+appeased by the choicest viands from the game which his rifle had
+procured.
+
+The spirit of adventure is so strong in most human hearts which
+luxurious indulgence has not enervated, that it is not improbable that
+this family enjoyed far more in this romantic excursion through an
+unexplored wilderness, than those now enjoy who in a few hours traverse
+the same distance in the smooth rolling rail-cars. Indeed fancy can
+paint many scenes of picturesque beauty which we know that the reality
+must have surpassed.
+
+It is the close of a lovely day. A gentle breeze sweeps through the
+tree-tops from the north-west. The trail through the day has led along
+the banks of a crystal mountain stream, sparkling with trout. The path
+is smooth for the moccasined feet. The limbs, inured to action,
+experienced no weariness. The axes of the father and the sons speedily
+construct a camp, open to the south and perfectly sheltered on the roof
+and on the sides by the bark of trees. The busy fingers of the daughters
+have in the meantime spread over the floor a soft and fragrant carpet of
+evergreen twigs. The mother is preparing supper, of trout from the
+stream, and the fattest of wild turkeys or partridges, or tender cuts of
+venison, which the rifles of her husband or sons have procured.
+Voracious appetites render the repast far more palatable than the
+choicest viands which were ever spread in the banqueting halls of
+Versailles or Windsor. Water-fowl of gorgeous plumage sport in the
+stream, unintimidated by the approach of man. The plaintive songs of
+forest-birds float in the evening air. On the opposite side of the
+stream, herds of deer and buffalo crop the rich herbage of the prairie,
+which extends far away, till it is lost in the horizon of the south.
+Daniel retires from the converse of the cabin to an adjoining eminence,
+where silently and rapturously he gazes upon the scene of loveliness
+spread out before him.
+
+Such incidents must often have occurred. Even in the dark and
+tempestuous night, with the storm surging through the tree tops, and the
+rain descending in floods, in their sheltered camp, illumined by the
+flames of their night fire, souls capable of appreciating the sublimity
+of such scenes must have experienced exquisite delight. It is pleasant
+to reflect, that the poor man in his humble cabin may often be the
+recipient of much more happiness than the lord finds in his castle, or
+the king in his palace.
+
+No details are given respecting the arrival of this family on the banks
+of the Yadkin, or of their habits of life while there. We simply know
+that they were far away in the untrodden wilderness, in the remotest
+frontiers of civilization. Bands of Indians were roving around them, but
+even if hostile, so long as they had only bows and arrows, the settler
+in his log-hut, which was a fortress, and with his death-dealing rifle,
+was comparatively safe.
+
+Here the family dwelt for several years, probably in the enjoyment of
+abundance, and with ever-increasing comforts. The virgin soil, even
+poorly tilled, furnished them with the corn and the vegetables they
+required, while the forests supplied the table with game. Thus the
+family, occupying the double position of the farmer and the hunter,
+lived in the enjoyment of all the luxuries which both of those callings
+could afford. Here Daniel Boone grew up to manhood. His love of solitude
+and of nature led him on long hunting excursions, from which he often
+returned laden with furs. The silence of the wilderness he brought back
+with him to his home. And though his placid features ever bore a smile,
+he had but few words to interchange with neighbors or friends. He was a
+man of affectionate, but not of passionate nature. It would seem that
+other emigrants were lured to the banks of the Yadkin, for here, after a
+few years, young Boone fell in love with the daughter of his father's
+neighbor, and that daughter, Rebecca Bryan, became his bride. He thus
+left his father's home, and, with his axe, speedily erected for himself
+and wife a cabin, we may presume at some distance from sight or sound of
+any other house. There "from noise and tumult far," Daniel Boone
+established himself in the life of solitude, to which he was accustomed
+and which he enjoyed. It appears that his marriage took place about the
+year 1755. The tide of emigration was still flowing in an uninterrupted
+stream towards the west. The population was increasing throughout this
+remote region, and the axe of the settler began to be heard on the
+streams tributary to the Yadkin.
+
+Daniel Boone became restless. He loved the wilderness and its solitude,
+and was annoyed by the approach of human habitations, bringing to him
+customs with which he was unacquainted, and exposing him to
+embarrassments from which he would gladly escape. The mode of life
+practiced by those early settlers in the wilderness is well known. The
+log-house usually consisted of but one room, with a fire-place of stones
+at the end. These houses were often very warm and comfortable,
+presenting in the interior, with a bright fire blazing on the hearth, a
+very cheerful aspect. Their construction was usually as follows:
+Straight, smooth logs about a foot in diameter, cut of the proper
+length, and so notched at the ends as to be held very firmly together,
+were thus placed one above the other to the height of about ten feet.
+The interstices were filled with clay, which soon hardened, rendering
+the walls comparatively smooth, and alike impervious to wind or rain.
+Other logs of straight fiber were split into clap-boards, one or two
+inches in thickness, with which they covered the roof. If suitable wood
+for this purpose could not be found, the bark of trees was used, with an
+occasional thatching of the long grass of the prairies. Logs about
+eighteen inches in diameter were selected for the floor. These were
+easily split in halves, and with the convex side buried in the earth,
+and the smooth surface uppermost joined closely together by a slight
+trimming with axe or adze, presented a very firm and even attractive
+surface for the feet.
+
+In the centre of the room, four augur holes were bored in the logs,
+about three inches in diameter. Stakes were driven firmly into these
+holes, upon which were placed two pieces of timber, with the upper
+surfaces hewn smooth, thus constructing a table. In one corner of the
+cabin, four stakes were driven in a similar way, about eighteen inches
+high, with forked tops. Upon these two saplings were laid with smooth
+pieces of bark stretched across. These were covered with grass or dried
+leaves, upon which was placed, with the fur upwards, the well-tanned
+skin of the buffalo or the bear. Thus quite a luxurious bed was
+constructed, upon which there was often enjoyed as sweet sleep as
+perhaps is ever found on beds of down. In another corner, some rude
+shelves were placed, upon which appeared a few articles of tin and
+ironware. Upon some buck horns over the door was always placed the
+rifle, ever loaded and ready for use.
+
+A very intelligent emigrant, Dr. Doddridge, gives the following graphic
+account of his experience in such a log-cabin as we have described, in
+the remote wilderness. When he was but a child, his father, with a small
+family, had penetrated these trackless wilds, and in the midst of their
+sublime solitudes had reared his lonely cabin. He writes:
+
+"My father's family was small and he took us all with him. The Indian
+meal which he brought was expended six weeks too soon, so that for that
+length of time we had to live without bread. The lean venison and the
+breast of wild turkeys, we were taught to call bread. I remember how
+narrowly we children watched the growth of the potato tops, pumpkin, and
+squash vines, hoping from day to day to get something to answer in the
+place of bread. How delicious was the taste of the young potatoes, when
+we got them! What a jubilee when we were permitted to pull the young
+corn for roasting ears! Still more so when it had acquired sufficient
+hardness to be made into johnny cake by the aid of a tin grater. The
+furniture of the table consisted of a few pewter dishes, plates and
+spoons, but mostly of wooden bowls and trenchers and noggins. If these
+last were scarce, gourds and hard shell squashes made up the deficiency.
+
+"I well remember the first time I ever saw a tea cup and saucer. My
+mother died when I was six or seven years of age. My father then sent me
+to Maryland to go to school. At Bedford, the tavern at which my uncle
+put up was a stone house, and to make the changes still more complete,
+it was plastered on the inside both as to the walls and ceiling. On
+going into the dining-room, I was struck with astonishment at the
+appearance of the house. I had no idea that there was any house in the
+world that was not built of logs. But here I looked around and could
+see no logs, and above I could see no joists. Whether such a thing had
+been made by the hands of man, or had grown so of itself, I could not
+conjecture. I had not the courage to inquire anything about it. When
+supper came on, my confusion was worse confounded: A little cup stood in
+a bigger one with some brownish-looking stuff in it, which was neither
+milk, hominy, nor broth. What to do with these little cups, and the
+spoons belonging to them, I could not tell. But I was afraid to ask
+anything concerning the use of them."
+
+Daniel Boone could see from the door of his cabin, far away in the west,
+the majestic ridge of the Alleghany mountains, many of the peaks rising
+six thousand feet into the clouds. This almost impassable wall, which
+nature had reared, extended for hundreds of leagues, along the Atlantic
+coast, parallel with that coast, and at an average distance of one
+hundred and thirty miles from the ocean. It divides the waters which
+flow into the Atlantic, from those which run into the Mississippi. The
+great chain consists of many spurs, from fifty to two hundred miles in
+breadth, and receives in different localities, different names, such as
+the Cumberland mountains, the Blue Ridge, etc.
+
+But few white men had ever as yet ascended these summits, to cast a
+glance at the vast wilderness beyond. The wildest stories were told
+around the cabin fires, of these unexplored realms,--of the Indian
+tribes wandering there; of the forests filled with game; of the rivers
+alive with fishes; of the fertile plains, the floral beauty, the
+abounding fruit, and the almost celestial clime. These stories were
+brought to the settlers in the broken language of the Indians, and in
+the exaggerated tales of hunters, who professed that in the chase they
+had, from some Pisgah's summit, gazed upon the splendors of this Canaan
+of the New World.
+
+Thus far, the settlers had rested contented with the sea-board region
+east of the Alleghanies. They had made no attempt to climb the summits
+of this great barrier, or to penetrate its gloomy defiles. A dense
+forest covered alike the mountain cliff and the rocky gorge. Indeed
+there were but few points at which even the foot of the hunter could
+pass this chain.
+
+While Daniel Boone was residing in the congenial solitude of his hut, on
+the banks of the Yadkin; with the grandeur of the wilderness around him
+in which his soul delighted; with his table luxuriously spread according
+to his tastes--with venison, bear's meat, fat turkeys, chickens from the
+prairie, and vegetables from his garden; with comfortable clothing of
+deerskin, and such cloths as pedlars occasionally brought to his cabin
+door in exchange for furs, he was quite annoyed by the arrival of a
+number of Scotch families in his region, bringing with them customs and
+fashions which to Daniel Boone were very annoying. They began to cut
+down the glorious old forest, to break up the green sward of the
+prairies, to rear more ambitious houses than the humble home of the
+pioneer; they assumed airs of superiority, introduced more artificial
+styles of living, and brought in the hitherto unknown vexation of taxes.
+
+One can easily imagine how restive such a man as Boone must have been
+under such innovations. The sheriff made his appearance in the lonely
+hut; the collection of the taxes was enforced by suits at law. Even
+Daniel Boone's title to his lands was called in question; some of the
+new comers claiming that their more legal grants lapped over upon the
+boundaries which Boone claimed. Under these circumstances our pioneer
+became very anxious to escape from these vexations by an emigration
+farther into the wilderness. Day after day he cast wistful glances upon
+the vast mountain barrier piercing the clouds in the distant horizon.
+Beyond that barrier, neither the sheriff nor the tax-gatherer were to be
+encountered. His soul, naturally incapable of fear, experienced no dread
+in apprehension of Indian hostilities, or the ferocity of wild beasts.
+Even the idea of the journey through these sublime solitudes of an
+unexplored region, was far more attractive to him than the tour of
+Europe to a sated millionaire.
+
+Two or three horses would convey upon their backs all their household
+goods. There were Indian trails and streets, so called, made by the
+buffaloes, as in large numbers they had followed each other, selecting
+by a wonderful instinct their path from one feeding ground to another,
+through cane-brakes, around morasses, and over mountains through the
+most accessible defiles. Along these trails or streets, Boone could take
+his peaceful route without any danger of mistaking his way. Every mile
+would be opening to him new scenes of grandeur and beauty. Should night
+come, or a storm set in, a few hours' labor with his axe would rear for
+him not only a comfortable, but a cheerful tent with its warm and
+sheltered interior, with the camp-fire crackling and blazing before it.
+His wife and his children not only afforded him all the society his
+peculiar nature craved, but each one was a helper, knowing exactly what
+to do in this picnic excursion through the wilderness. Wherever he might
+stop for the night or for a few days, his unerring rifle procured for
+him viands which might tempt the appetite of the epicure. There are many
+even in civilized life who will confess, that for them, such an
+excursion would present attractions such as are not to be found in the
+banqueting halls at Windsor Castle, or in the gorgeous saloons of
+Versailles.
+
+Daniel Boone, in imagination, was incessantly visiting the land beyond
+the mountains, and longing to explore its mysteries. Whether he would
+find the ocean there or an expanse of lakes and majestic rivers, or
+boundless prairies, or the unbroken forest, he knew not. Whether the
+region were crowded with Indians, and if so, whether they would be found
+friendly or hostile, and whether game roamed there in greater variety
+and in larger abundance than on the Atlantic side of the great barrier,
+were questions as yet all unsolved. But these questions Daniel Boone
+pondered in silence, night and day.
+
+A gentleman who nearly half a century ago visited one of these frontier
+dwellings, very romantically situated amidst the mountains of Western
+Virginia, has given us a pencil sketch of the habitation which we here
+introduce. The account of the visit is also so graphic that we cannot
+improve it by giving it in any language but his own. This settler had
+passed through the first and was entering upon the second stage of
+pioneer life:
+
+"Towards the close of an autumnal day, when traveling through the thinly
+settled region of Western Virginia, I came up with a substantial-looking
+farmer leaning on the fence by the road side. I accompanied him to his
+house to spend the night. It was a log dwelling, and near it stood
+another log structure, about twelve feet square,--the weaving shop of
+the family. On entering the dwelling I found the numerous household all
+clothed in substantial garments of their own manufacture. The floor was
+unadorned by a carpet and the room devoid of superfluous furniture; yet
+they had all that necessity required for their comfort. One needs but
+little experience like this to learn how few are our real wants,--how
+easily most luxuries of dress, furniture and equipage can be dispensed
+with.
+
+"Soon after my arrival supper was ready. It consisted of fowls, bacon,
+hoe-cake and buckwheat cakes. Our beverage was milk and coffee,
+sweetened with maple sugar. Soon as it grew dark my hostess took down a
+small candle mould for three candles, hanging from the wall on a
+frame-work just in front of the fire-place, in company with a rifle,
+long strings of dried pumpkins and other articles of household property.
+On retiring I was conducted to the room overhead, to which I ascended by
+stairs out of doors. My bed-fellow was the county sheriff, a young man
+of about my own age. And as we lay together a fine field was had for
+astronomical observations through the chinks of the logs.
+
+"The next morning, after rising, I was looking for the washing
+apparatus, when he tapped me on the shoulder, as a signal to accompany
+him to the brook in the rear of the house, in whose pure crystal waters
+we performed our morning ablutions. After breakfast, through the
+persuasion of the sheriff, I agreed to go across the country by his
+house. He was on horseback; I on foot bearing my knapsack. For six miles
+our route lay through a pathless forest; on emerging from which we soon
+passed through the 'Court House,' the only village in the county,
+consisting of about a dozen log-houses and the court building.
+
+"Soon after we came to a Methodist encampment. This was formed of three
+continuous lines, each occupying a side of a square and about one
+hundred feet in length. Each row was divided into six or ten cabins with
+partitions between. The height of the rows on the inner side of the
+enclosed area was about ten feet, on the outer about six, to which the
+roofs sloped shed-like. The door of each cabin opened on the inner side
+of the area, and at the back of each was a log chimney coming up even
+with the roof. At the upper extremity of the inclosure, formed by these
+three lines of cabins, was an open shed; a mere roof supported by posts,
+say thirty by fifty feet, in which was a coarse pulpit and log seats. A
+few tall trees were standing within the area, and many stumps scattered
+here and there. The whole establishment was in the depth of a forest,
+and wild and rude as can well be imagined.
+
+"In many of these sparsely-inhabited counties there are no settled
+clergy, and rarely do the people hear any other than the Methodist
+preachers. Here is the itinerating system of Wesley exhibited in its
+full usefulness. The circuits are usually of three weeks' duration, in
+which the clergymen preach daily. Most of these preachers are energetic,
+devoted men; and often they endure great privations.
+
+"After sketching the encampment I came in a few moments to the dwelling
+of the sheriff. Close by it was a group of mountain men and women seated
+around a log cabin, about twelve feet square, ten high, and open at the
+top, into which these neighbors of my companion were casting ears of
+corn as fast as they could shuck them. Cheerfully they performed their
+task. The men were large and hardy; the damsels plump and rosy, and all
+dressed in good warm homespun. The sheriff informed me that he owned
+about two thousand acres around his dwelling, and that his farm was
+worth about one thousand dollars or fifty cents an acre.
+
+"I entered his log domicile which was one story in height, about twenty
+feet square and divided into two small rooms without windows or places
+to let in the light except by a front and rear door. I soon partook of
+a meal in which we had a variety of luxuries, not omitting _bear's
+meat_. A blessing was asked at the table by one of the neighbors. After
+supper the bottle, as usual at corn huskings, was circulated. The
+sheriff learning that I was a Washingtonian, with the politeness of one
+of nature's gentlemen refrained from urging me to participate. The men
+drank but moderately; and we all drew around the fire, the light of
+which was the only one we had. Hunting stories and kindred topics served
+to talk down the hours till bed time.
+
+"On awaking in the morning, I saw two women cooking breakfast in my
+bedroom, and three men seated over the fire watching the operation.
+After breakfast, I bade my host farewell, buckled on my knapsack and
+left. In the course of two hours, I came to a cabin by the wayside.
+There being no gate, I sprang over the fence, entered the open door, and
+was received with a hearty welcome. It was an humble dwelling, the abode
+of poverty. The few articles of furniture were neat and pleasantly
+arranged. In the corner stood two beds, one hung with curtains, and both
+with coverlets of snowy white, contrasting with the dingy log walls,
+rude furniture, and rough boarded floor of this, the only room in the
+dwelling. Around a cheerful fire was seated an interesting family
+group. In one corner, on the hearth, sat the mother, smoking a pipe.
+Next to her was a little girl, in a small chair, holding a young kitten.
+In the opposite corner sat a venerable old man, of herculean stature,
+robed in a hunting shirt, and with a countenance as majestic and
+impressive as that of a Roman senator. In the centre of the group was a
+young maiden, modest and retiring, not beautiful, except in that moral
+beauty virtue gives. She was reading to them from a little book. She was
+the only one of the family who could read, and she could do so but
+imperfectly. In that small volume was the whole secret of the neatness
+and happiness found in this lonely cot. That little book was the New
+Testament."
+
+The institution of camp-meetings, introduced with so much success by the
+Methodists, those noble pioneers of Christianity, seem to have been the
+necessary result of the attempt to preach to the sparsely settled
+population of a new country. The following is said to be the origin of
+those camp-meetings which have done incalculable good, socially,
+intellectually, and religiously.
+
+In the year 1799, two men by the name of McGee, one a Presbyterian, the
+other a Methodist, set out on a missionary tour together, to visit the
+log-houses in the wilderness. A meeting was appointed at a little
+settlement upon one of the tributaries of the Ohio. The pioneers
+flocked to the place from many miles around. There was no church there,
+and the meeting was necessarily held in the open air. Many brought their
+food with them and camped out. Thus the meeting, with exhortation and
+prayer, was continued in the night. Immense bonfires blazed illuminating
+the sublimities of the forest, and the assembled congregation, cut off
+from all the ordinary privileges of civilized life, listened devoutly to
+the story of a Savior's love.
+
+This meeting was so successful in its results that another was appointed
+at a small settlement on the banks of a stream called Muddy river. The
+tidings spread rapidly through all the stations and farm houses on the
+frontier. It afforded these lonely settlers a delightful opportunity of
+meeting together. They could listen for hours with unabated interest to
+the religious exercises. The people assembled from a distance of forty
+or fifty miles around. A vast concourse had met beneath the foliage of
+the trees, the skies alone, draped with clouds by day and adorned with
+stars by night, the dome of their majestic temple.
+
+The scene, by night, must have been picturesque in the extreme. Men,
+women and children were there in homespun garb; and being accustomed to
+camp life, they were there in comfort. Strangers met and became friends.
+Many wives and mothers obtained rest and refreshment from their
+monotonous toils. There is a bond in Christ's discipleship, stronger
+than any other, and Christians grasped hands in love, pledging
+themselves anew to a holy life. For several days and nights, this
+religious festival was continued. Time could not have been better spent.
+Dwellers in the forest could not afford to take so long a journey merely
+to listen to one half-hour's discourse. These men and women were earnest
+and thoughtful. In the solitude of their homes, they had reflected
+deeply upon life and its issues. When death occasionally visited their
+cabins, it was a far more awful event than when death occurs in the
+crowded city, where the hearse is every hour of every day passing
+through the streets.
+
+These scenes of worship very deeply impressed the minds of the people.
+They were not Gospel hardened. The gloom and silence of the forest,
+alike still by night and by day; the memory of the past, with its few
+joys and many griefs; the anticipations of the future, with its
+unceasing struggles, to terminate only in death; the solemnity which
+rested on every countenance; the sweet melody of the hymns; the earnest
+tones of the preachers in exhortation and prayer, all combined to
+present a scene calculated to produce a very profound impression upon
+the human mind. At this meeting, not only professed Christians were
+greatly revived, but not less than a hundred persons, it was thought,
+became disciples of the Savior.
+
+Another camp-meeting was soon after appointed to meet on Desha's Creek,
+a small stream flowing into the Cumberland river. The country was now
+becoming more populous, and several thousand were assembled. And thus
+the work went on, multitudes being thus reached by the preached Gospel
+who could not be reached in any other way.[A]
+
+ [Footnote A: Bang's History of Methodism.]
+
+Life on the frontier was by no means devoid of its enjoyments as well as
+of its intense excitements. It must have been also an exceedingly busy
+life. There were no mills for cutting timber or grinding corn; no
+blacksmith shops to repair the farming utensils. There were no
+tanneries, no carpenters, shoemakers, weavers. Every family had to do
+everything for itself. The corn was pounded with a heavy pestle in a
+large mortar made by burning an excavation in a solid block of wood. By
+means of these mortars the settlers, in regions where saltpetre could be
+obtained, made very respectable gunpowder. In making corn-meal a grater
+was sometimes used, consisting of a half-circular piece of tin,
+perforated with a punch from the concave side. The ears of corn were
+rubbed on the rough edges, and the meal fell through the holes on a
+board or cloth placed to receive it. They also sometimes made use of a
+handmill, resembling those alluded to in the Bible. These consisted of
+two circular stones; the lowest, which was immovable, was called the
+bed-stone,--the upper one, the runner. Two persons could grind together
+at this mill.
+
+The clothing was all of domestic manufacture. A fabric called
+linsey-woolsey was most frequently in use and made the most substantial
+and warmest clothing. It was made of flax and wool, the former the warp,
+the latter the filling. Every cabin almost had its rude loom, and every
+woman was a weaver.
+
+The men tanned their own leather. A large trough was sunk in the ground
+to its upper edge. Bark was shaved with an axe and pounded with a
+mallet. Ashes were used for lime in removing the hair. In the winter
+evenings the men made strong shoes and moccasins, and the women cut out
+and made hunting shirts, leggins and drawers.
+
+Hunting was a great source of amusement as well as a very exciting and
+profitable employment. The boys were all taught to imitate the call of
+every bird and beast in the woods. The skill in imitation which they
+thus acquired was wonderful. Hidden in a thicket they would gobble like
+a turkey and lure a whole flock of these birds within reach of their
+rifles. Bleating like the fawn they would draw the timid dam to her
+death. The moping owls would come in flocks attracted by the screech of
+the hunter, while packs of wolves, far away in the forest, would howl in
+response to the hunter's cry. The boys also rivalled the Indians in the
+skill with which they would throw the tomahawk. With a handle of a given
+length, and measuring the distance with the eye, they would throw the
+weapon with such accuracy that its keen edge would be sure to strike the
+object at which it was aimed. Running, jumping, wrestling were pastimes
+in which both boys and men engaged. Shooting at a mark was one of the
+most favorite diversions. When a boy had attained the age of about
+twelve years, a rifle was usually placed in his hands. In the house or
+fort where he resided, a port-hole was assigned him, where he was to do
+valiant service as a soldier, in case of an attack by the Indians. Every
+day he was in the woods hunting squirrels, turkeys and raccoons. Thus he
+soon acquired extraordinary expertness with his gun.
+
+The following interesting narrative is taken from Ramsay's Annals of
+Tennessee, which State was settled about the same time with Kentucky and
+with emigrants from about the same region:
+
+"The settlement of Tennessee was unlike that of the present new country
+of the United States. Emigrants from the Atlantic cities, and from most
+points in the Western interior, now embark upon steamboats or other
+craft, and carrying with them all the conveniences and comforts of
+civilized life--indeed many of its luxuries--are, in a few days, without
+toil, danger or exposure, transported to their new abodes, and in a few
+months are surrounded with the appendages of home, of civilization and
+the blessings of law and of society.
+
+"The wilds of Minnesota and Nebraska, by the agency of steam or the
+stalwart arms of Western boatmen, are at once transformed into the
+settlements of a commercial and civilized people. Independence and Saint
+Paul, six months after they are laid off, have their stores and their
+workshops, their artisans and their mechanics. The mantua-maker and the
+tailor arrive in the same boat with the carpenter and mason. The
+professional man and the printer quickly follow. In the succeeding year
+the piano, the drawing-room, the restaurant, the billiard table, the
+church bell, the village and the city in miniature are all found, while
+the neighboring interior is yet a wilderness and a desert.
+
+"The town and comfort, taste and urbanity are first; the clearing, the
+farm house, the wagon road and the improved country, second. It was far
+different on the frontier of Tennessee. At first a single Indian trail
+was the only entrance to the Eastern border of it, and for many years
+admitted only the hunter and the pack-horse. It was not till the year
+1776 that a wagon was seen in Tennessee. In consequence of the want of
+roads--as well as of the great distance from the sources of supply--the
+first inhabitants were without tools, and of course without
+mechanics--much more without the conveniences of living and the comforts
+of housekeeping.
+
+"Luxuries were absolutely unknown. Salt was brought on pack-horses from
+Augusta and Richmond and readily commanded ten dollars a bushel. The
+salt gourd in every cabin was considered as a treasure. The sugar maple
+furnished the only article of luxury on the frontier; coffee and tea
+being unknown or beyond the reach of the settlers. Sugar was seldom made
+and was used only for the sick, or in the preparation of a sweetened
+dram at a wedding, or on the arrival of a new comer.
+
+"The appendages of the kitchen, the cupboard and the table, were scanty
+and simple. Iron was brought at great expense from the forges east of
+the mountains, on pack-horses, and was sold at an enormous price. Its
+use was, for this reason, confined to the construction and repair of
+ploughs and other farming utensils. Hinges, nails and fastenings of that
+material were seldom seen. The costume of the first settlers
+corresponded well with the style of their buildings and the quality of
+their furniture: the hunting shirt of the militia man and the hunter was
+in general use. The rest of their apparel was in keeping with
+it,--plain, substantial and well adapted for comfort, use and economy.
+The apparel of the pioneer's family was all home-made; and in a whole
+neighborhood there would not be seen, at the first settlement of the
+country, a single article of dress of foreign manufacture. Half the
+year, in many families, shoes were not worn. Boots, a fur hat and a
+coat, with buttons on each side, attracted the gaze of the beholder and
+sometimes received censure or rebuke. A stranger from the old States
+chose to doff his ruffles, his broad-cloth and his cue rather than
+endure the scoff and ridicule of the backwoodsman.
+
+"The dwelling house on every frontier in Tennessee was the log-cabin. A
+carpenter and a mason were not needed to build them--much less the
+painter, the glazier and the upholsterer. Every settler had, besides his
+rifle, no other instrument but an axe or hatchet and a butcher-knife. A
+saw, an auger, a file and a broad-axe would supply a whole settlement,
+and were used as common property in the erection of the log-cabin.
+
+"The labor and employment of a pioneer family were distributed in
+accordance with surrounding circumstances. To the men was assigned the
+duty of procuring subsistence and materials for clothing, erecting the
+cabin and the station, opening and cultivating the farm, hunting the
+wild beasts, and repelling and pursueing the Indians. The women spun the
+flax, the cotton and the wool, wove the cloth, made them up, milked,
+churned and prepared the food, and did their full share of the duties of
+housekeeping.
+
+"Could there be happiness or comfort in such dwellings and such a state
+of society? To those who are accustomed to modern refinements the truth
+appears like fable. The early occupants of log-cabins were among the
+most happy of mankind. Exercise and excitement gave them health. They
+were practically equal, common danger made them mutually dependent.
+Brilliant hopes of future wealth and distinction led them on. And as
+there was ample room for all, and as each new comer increased individual
+and general security, there was little room for that envy, jealousy and
+hatred which constitute a large portion of human misery in older
+societies.
+
+"Never were the story, the joke, the song and the laugh better enjoyed
+than upon the hewed blocks or puncheon stools, around the roaring log
+fire of the early western settler.
+
+"On the frontier the diet was necessarily plain and homely, but
+exceedingly abundant and nutritive. The Goshen of America furnishes the
+richest milk and the most savory and delicious meats. In their rude
+cabins, with their scanty and inartificial furniture, no people ever
+enjoyed, in wholesome food a greater variety, or a superior quality of
+the necessaries of life."
+
+A writer of that day describes the sports of these pioneers of Kentucky.
+One of them consisted in "driving the nail." A common nail was hammered
+into a target for about two thirds of its length. The marksmen then took
+their stand at the distance of about forty paces. Each man carefully
+cleaned the interior of his gun, and then placed a bullet in his hand,
+over which he poured just enough powder to cover it. This was a charge.
+A shot which only came close to the nail was considered a very
+indifferent shot. Nothing was deemed satisfactory but striking the nail
+with the bullet fairly on the head. Generally one out of three shots
+would hit the nail. Two nails were frequently needed before each man
+could get a shot.
+
+_Barking of Squirrels_ is another sport. "I first witnessed," writes the
+one to whom we have above alluded, "this manner of procuring squirrels,
+while near the town of Frankfort. The performer was the celebrated
+Daniel Boone. We walked out together and followed the rocky margins of
+the Kentucky river, until we reached a piece of flat land, thickly
+covered with black walnuts, oaks, and hickories. Squirrels were seen
+gambolling on every tree around us. My companion Mr. Boone, a stout,
+hale, athletic man, dressed in a homespun hunting shirt, bare legged and
+moccasined, carried a long and heavy rifle, which, as he was loading it,
+he said had proved efficient in all his former undertakings, and which
+he hoped would not fail on this occasion, as he felt proud to show me
+his skill.
+
+"The gun was wiped, the powder measured, the ball patched with six
+hundred thread linen, and a charge sent home with a hickory rod. We
+moved not a step from the place, for the squirrels were so thick, that
+it was unnecessary to go after them. Boone pointed to one of these
+animals, which had observed us and was crouched on a tree, about fifty
+paces distant, and bade me mark well where the ball should hit. He
+raised his piece gradually, until the head, or sight of the barrel, was
+brought to a line with the spot he intended to strike. The whip-like
+report resounded through the woods, and along the hills, in repeated
+echoes. Judge of my surprise, when I perceived that the ball had hit the
+piece of bark immediately underneath the squirrel, and shivered it into
+splinters; the concussion produced by which had killed the animal, and
+sent it whirling through the air, as if it had been blown up by the
+explosion of a powder magazine, Boone kept up his firing, and before
+many hours had elapsed, we had procured as many squirrels as we wished.
+Since that first interview with the veteran Boone, I have seen many
+other individuals perform the same feat.
+
+"The _Snuffing of a Candle_ with a ball, I first had an opportunity of
+seeing near the banks of Green River, not far from a large pigeon roost,
+to which I had previously made a visit. I had heard many reports of guns
+during the early part of a dark night, and knowing them to be rifles, I
+went towards the spot to ascertain the cause. On reaching the place, I
+was welcomed by a dozen tall, stout men, who told me they were
+exercising for the purpose of enabling them to shoot in the night at the
+reflected light from the eyes of a deer, or wolf, by torch-light.
+
+"A fire was blazing near, the smoke of which rose curling among the
+thick foliage of the trees. At a distance which rendered it scarcely
+distinguishable, stood a burning candle, which in reality was only fifty
+yards from the spot on which we all stood. One man was within a few
+yards of it to watch the effect of the shots, as well as to light the
+candle, should it chance to go out, or to replace it should the shot cut
+it across. Each marksman shot in his turn. Some never hit neither the
+snuff or the candle, and were congratulated with a loud laugh; while
+others actually snuffed the candle without putting it out, and were
+recompensed for their dexterity with numerous hurrahs. One of them, who
+was particularly expert, was very fortunate and snuffed the candle three
+times out of seven; while all the other shots either put out the candle
+or cut it immediately under the light."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+_Louisiana, its Discovery and Vicissitudes._
+
+Louisiana, and its eventful history.--The Expedition of De Soto.--The
+Missionary Marquette.--His voyage on the Upper Mississippi.--The Expedition
+of La Salle.--Michilimackinac.--Its History.--Fate of the "Griffin."--Grief
+of La Salle.--His voyage of Discovery.--Sale of Louisiana to the United
+States.--Remarks of Napoleon.
+
+
+The transfer of Louisiana to the United States is one of the most
+interesting events in the history of our country. In the year 1800,
+Spain, then in possession of the vast region west of the Mississippi,
+ceded it to France. The whole country west of the majestic river
+appropriately called the Father of Waters, was then called Louisiana,
+and its boundaries were very obscurely defined. Indeed neither the
+missionary nor the hunter had penetrated but a very short distance into
+those unknown wilds. It was in the year 1541 that De Soto, marching from
+Florida across the country, came to the banks of this magnificent river,
+near the present site of Memphis. He knew not where it took its rise, or
+where it emptied its swollen flood. But he found a stream more than a
+mile in width, of almost fathomless depth, rolling its rapid, turbid
+stream, on which were floated innumerable logs and trees, through an
+almost uninhabited country of wonderful luxuriance. He was in search of
+gold, and crossing the river, advanced in a north-westerly direction
+about two hundred miles, till he came within sight of the Highlands of
+the White River. He then turned in a southerly direction, and continued
+his explorations, till death soon terminated his melancholy career.
+
+More than one hundred and thirty years passed over these solitudes, when
+James Marquette, a French missionary among the Indians at Saint Marys,
+the outlet of Lake Superior, resolved to explore the Mississippi, of
+whose magnificence he had heard much from the lips of the Indians, who
+had occasionally extended their hunting tours to its banks. He was
+inured to all the hardships of the wilderness, seemed to despise worldly
+comforts, and had a soul of bravery which could apparently set all
+perils at defiance. And still he was indued with a poetic nature, which
+reveled in the charms of these wild and romantic realms, as he climbed
+its mountains and floated in his canoe over its silent and placid
+streams. Even then it was not known whether the Mississippi emptied its
+majestic flood into the Pacific Ocean or into the Gulf of Mexico. The
+foot of the white man upon the shores of Lake Superior, had never
+penetrated beyond the Indian village, where the Fox River enters into
+Green Bay. From this point Marquette started for the exploration of the
+Mississippi. The party consisted of Mr. Marquette, a French gentleman by
+the name of Joliete, five French voyageurs and two Indian guides. They
+transported their two birch canoes on their shoulders across the portage
+from the Fox River to the Wisconsin river. Paddling rapidly down this
+stream through realms of silence and solitude, they soon entered the
+majestic Mississippi, more than fifteen hundred miles above its mouth.
+
+Marquette seems to have experienced in the highest degree the romance of
+his wonderful voyage, for he says that he commenced the descent of the
+mighty river with "a joy that could not be expressed." It was the
+beautiful month of June, 1673, the most genial season of the year. The
+skies were bright above them. The placid stream was fringed with banks
+of wonderful luxuriance and beauty, the rocky cliffs at times assuming
+the aspect of majestic castles of every variety of architecture; again
+the gently swelling hills were robed in sublime forests, and again the
+smooth meadows, in their verdure, spread far away to the horizon.
+Rapidly the canoes, gently guided by the paddles, floated down the
+stream.
+
+Having descended the river about one hundred and eighty miles, they came
+to a very well trod Indian trail leading back from the river into the
+interior. Marquette and Joliete had the curiosity and the courage to
+follow this trail for six miles, until they came to an Indian village.
+It would seem that some of the Indians there, in their hunting
+excursions, had wandered to some of the French settlements; for four of
+their leading men, dressed in the most gorgeous display of barbaric
+pomp, "brilliant with many colored plumes," came out to meet them and
+conducted them to the cabin of their chief. He addressed them in the
+following words:
+
+"How beautiful is the sun, Frenchman, when thou comest to visit us. Our
+whole village welcomes thee. In peace thou shalt enter all our
+dwellings."
+
+After a very pleasant visit they returned to their boats and resumed
+their voyage. They floated by the mouth of the turbid Missouri, little
+dreaming of the grandeur of the realms watered by that imperial stream
+and its tributaries. They passed the mouth of the Ohio, which they
+recognized as the _Belle Rivière_, which the Indians then called the
+Wabash. As they floated rapidly away towards the south they visited many
+Indian villages on the banks of the stream, where the devoted
+missionary, Marquette, endeavored to proclaim the gospel of Christ.
+
+"I did not," says Marquette, "fear death. I should have esteemed it the
+greatest happiness to have died for the glory of God."
+
+Thus they continued their exploration as far south as the mouth of the
+Arkansas river, where they were hospitably received in a very
+flourishing Indian village. Being now satisfied that the Mississippi
+river entered the Gulf of Mexico, somewhere between Florida and
+California, they returned to Green Bay by the route of the Illinois
+river. By taking advantage of the eddies, on either side of the stream,
+it was not difficult for them, in their light canoes, to make the
+ascent.
+
+Marquette landed on the western banks of Lake Michigan to preach the
+gospel to a tribe of Indians called the Miames, residing near the
+present site of Chicago. Joliete returned to Quebec to announce the
+result of their discoveries. He was received with great rejoicing. The
+whole population flocked to the cathedral, where the _Te Deum_ was sung.
+
+Five years passed away, during which the great river flowed almost
+unthought of, through its vast and sombre wilderness. At length in the
+year 1678, La Salle received a commission from Louis the XIV. of France
+to explore the Mississippi to its mouth. Having received from the king
+the command of Fort Frontenac, at the northern extremity of Lake
+Ontario, and a monopoly of the fur trade in all the countries he should
+discover, he sailed from Larochelle in a ship well armed and abundantly
+supplied, in June, 1678. Ascending the St. Lawrence to Quebec, he
+repaired to Fort Frontenac. With a large number of men he paddled, in
+birch canoes, to the southern extremity of Lake Ontario, and, by a
+portage around the falls of Niagara, entered Lake Erie. Here he built a
+substantial vessel, called the _Griffin_, which was the first vessel
+ever launched upon the waters of that lake. Embarking in this vessel
+with forty men, in the month of September, a genial and gorgeous month
+in those latitudes, he traversed with favoring breezes the whole length
+of the lake, a voyage of two hundred and sixty-five miles, ascended the
+straits and passed through the Lake of St. Clair, and ran along the
+coast of Lake Huron three hundred and sixty miles to Michilimackinac,
+where the three majestic lakes, Superior, Michigan and Huron, form a
+junction.
+
+Here a trading post was established, which subsequently attained
+world-wide renown, and to which the Indians flocked with their furs from
+almost boundless realms. Mr. Schoolcraft, who some years after visited
+this romantic spot, gives the following interesting account of the
+scenery and strange life witnessed there. As these phases of human life
+have now passed away, never to be renewed, it seems important that the
+memory of them should be perpetuated:
+
+"Nothing can present a more picturesque and refreshing spectacle to the
+traveler, wearied with the lifeless monotony of a voyage through Lake
+Huron, than the first sight of the island of Michilimackinac, which
+rises from the watery horizon in lofty bluffs imprinting a rugged
+outline along the sky and capped with a fortress on which the American
+flag is seen waving against the blue heavens. The name is a compound of
+the word _Misril_, signifying great, and _Mackinac_ the Indian word for
+turtle, from a fancied resemblance of the island to a _great turtle_
+lying upon the water.
+
+"It is a spot of much interest, aside from its romantic beauty, in
+consequence of its historical associations and natural curiosities. It
+is nine miles in circumference, and its extreme elevation above the lake
+is over three hundred feet. The town is pleasantly situated around a
+small bay at the southern extremity of the island, and contains a few
+hundred souls, which are sometimes swelled to one or two thousand by the
+influx of voyageurs, traders and Indians. On these occasions its
+beautiful harbor is seen checkered with American vessels at anchor, and
+Indian canoes rapidly shooting across the water in every direction.
+
+"It was formerly the seat of an extensive fur trade; at present it is
+noted for the great amount of trout and white fish annually exported.
+Fort Mackinac stood on a rocky bluff overlooking the town. The ruins of
+Fort Holmes are on the apex of the island. It was built by the British
+in the war of 1812, under the name of Fort George, and was changed to
+its present appellation after the surrender to the Americans, in
+compliment to the memory of Major Holmes, who fell in the attack upon
+the island.
+
+"The old town of Michilimackinac stood at the extreme point of the
+peninsula of Michigan, nine miles south of the island. Eight years
+before La Salle's expedition, Father Marquette, the French missionary,
+visited this spot with a party of Hurons, upon whom he prevailed to
+locate themselves. A fort was soon constructed, and became an important
+post. It continued to be the seat of the fur trade, and the undisturbed
+rendezvous of the Indian tribes during the whole period that the French
+exercised dominion over the Canadas."
+
+Here at Michilimackinac, La Salle purchased a rich cargo of furs,
+exchanging for them his goods at an immense profit. The _Griffin_, laden
+with wealth, set out on her return and was wrecked by the way with total
+loss. La Salle with his companions had embarked in birch canoes, and
+descending Lake Michigan to near its southern extremity, they landed and
+erected a fort which they called Miamis. They then carried their canoes
+across to the Illinois river and paddled down that stream until they
+came near to the present site of Peoria, where they established another
+fort, which La Salle, grief-stricken in view of his loss, named
+_Crève-Coeur_, or Heartsore. Here the energetic and courageous
+adventurer left his men in winter quarters, while, with but three
+companions, he traversed the wilderness on foot, amidst the snows of
+winter, to Fort Frontenac, a distance of fifteen hundred miles. After an
+absence of several weeks, he returned with additional men and the means
+of building a large and substantial flat-bottomed boat, with which to
+descend the Illinois river to the Mississippi, and the latter stream to
+its mouth.
+
+The romantic achievement was successfully accomplished. The banners of
+France were unfurled along the banks of the majestic river and upon the
+shores of the Gulf of Mexico. This whole region which France claimed by
+the right of discovery, was named in honor of the king of France,
+Louisiana. Its limits were necessarily quite undefined. In 1684, a
+French colony of two hundred and eighty persons was sent out to effect a
+settlement on the Lower Mississippi. Passing by the mouth of the river
+without discovering it, they landed in Texas, and took possession of the
+country in the name of the king of France. Disaster followed disaster.
+La Salle died, and the colonists were exterminated by the Indians. Not
+long after this, all the country west of the Mississippi was ceded by
+France to Spain, and again, some years after, was surrendered back again
+by Spain to France. We have not space here to allude to the details of
+these varied transactions. But this comprehensive record seems to be
+essential to the full understanding of the narrative upon which we have
+entered.
+
+It was in the year 1763 that Louisiana was ceded, by France, to Spain.
+In the year 1800, it was yielded back to France, under Napoleon, by a
+secret article in the treaty of Sn. Ildefonso. It had now become a
+matter of infinite moment to the United States that the great Republic
+should have undisputed command of the Mississippi, from its source to
+its mouth. President Jefferson instructed our Minister at Paris, Robert
+Livingston, to negotiate with the French Government for the purchase of
+Louisiana. France was then at war with England. The British fleet swept
+triumphantly all the seas. Napoleon, conscious that he could not protect
+Louisiana from British arms, consented to the sale. We are informed that
+on the 10th of April, 1803, he summoned two of his ministers in council,
+and said to them:
+
+"I am fully sensible of the value of Louisiana; and it was my wish to
+repair the error of the French diplomatists who abandoned it in 1763. I
+have scarcely recovered it before I run the risk of losing it. But if I
+am obliged to give it up it shall cost more to those who force me to
+part with it, than to those to whom I yield it. The English have
+despoiled France of all her Northern possessions in America, and now
+they covet those of the South. I am determined that they shall not have
+the Mississippi. Although Louisiana is but a trifle compared with their
+vast possessions in other parts of the globe, yet, judging from the
+vexation they have manifested on seeing it return to the power of
+France, I am certain that their first object will be to obtain
+possession of it.
+
+"They will probably commence the war in that quarter. They have twenty
+vessels in the Gulf of Mexico, and our affairs in St. Domingo are daily
+getting worse, since the death of Le Clere. The conquest of Louisiana
+might be easily made, and I have not a moment to lose in putting it out
+of their reach. I am not sure but that they have already began an attack
+upon it. Such a measure would be in accordance with their habits; and in
+their place I should not wait. I am inclined, in order to deprive them
+of all prospect of ever possessing it, to cede it to the United States.
+Indeed I can hardly say I cede it, for I do not yet possess it. And if I
+wait but a short time, my enemies may leave me nothing but an empty
+title to grant to the Republic I wish to conciliate. They only ask for
+one city of Louisiana; but I consider the whole colony as lost. And I
+believe that in the hands of this rising power, it will be more useful
+to the political and even the commercial interests of France, than if I
+should attempt to retain it. Let me have both of your opinions upon this
+subject."
+
+One of the ministers, Barbé Marbois, cordially approved of the plan of
+"cession." The other opposed it. After long deliberation, the conference
+was closed, without Napoleon making known his decision. The next day he
+sent for Barbé Marbois, and said to him:
+
+"The season for deliberation is over. I have determined to part with
+Louisiana. I shall give up not only New Orleans, but the whole colony
+without reservation. That I do not undervalue Louisiana I have
+sufficiently proved, as the object of my first treaty with Spain was to
+recover it. But though I regret parting with it, I am convinced that it
+would be folly to persist in trying to keep it. I commission you,
+therefore, to negotiate this affair with the envoys of the United
+States. Do not wait the arrival of Mr. Munroe, but go this very day and
+confer with Mr. Livingston.
+
+"Remember, however, that I need ample funds for carrying on the war; and
+I do not wish to commence it by levying new taxes. During the last
+century, France and Spain have incurred great expense in the
+improvement of Louisiana, for which her trade has never indemnified
+them. Large sums have been advanced to different companies, which have
+never returned to the treasury. It is fair that I should require payment
+for these. Were I to regulate my demands by the importance of this
+territory to the United States, they would be unbounded. But being
+obliged to part with it, I shall be moderate in my terms. Still,
+remember I must have fifty millions of francs ($10,000,000), and I will
+not consent to take less. I would rather make some desperate effort to
+preserve this fine country."
+
+Negotiations commenced that day. Soon Mr. Munroe arrived. On the 30th of
+April, 1803, the treaty was signed, the United States paying fifteen
+million dollars for the entire territory. It was stipulated by Napoleon
+that Louisiana should be, as soon as possible, incorporated into the
+Union; and that its inhabitants should enjoy the same rights,
+privileges, and immunities as other citizens of the United States. The
+third article of the treaty, securing to them these benefits, was drawn
+up by Napoleon himself. He presented it to the plenipotentiaries with
+these words:
+
+"Make it known to the people of Louisiana, that we regret to part with
+them; that we have stipulated for all the advantages they could desire;
+and that France, in giving them up, has insured to them the greatest of
+all. They could never have prospered under any European government, as
+they will when they become independent. But while they enjoy the
+privileges of liberty, let them ever remember that they are French, and
+preserve for their mother country that affection, which a common origin
+inspires."
+
+This purchase was an immense acquisition to the United States. "I
+consider," said Mr. Livingston, "that from this day, the United States
+take rank with the first powers of Europe, and now she has entirely
+escaped from the power of England."
+
+Napoleon was also well pleased with the transaction, "By this cession,"
+he said, "I have secured the power of the United States, and given to
+England a maritime rival, who, at some future time, will humble her
+pride."
+
+The boundaries of this unexampled purchase could not be clearly defined.
+There was not any known landmarks to which reference could be made. The
+United States thus had the sole claim to the vast territory west of the
+Mississippi, extending on the north through Oregon to the Pacific Ocean,
+and on the south to the Mexican dominions. From the day of the transfer,
+the natural resources of the great valley of the Mississippi began to be
+rapidly developed.
+
+The accompanying map will enable the reader more fully to understand the
+geography of the above narrative.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+_Camp Life Beyond the Alleghanies._
+
+John Finley and his Adventures.--Aspect of the Country.--Boone's Private
+Character.--His Love for the Wilderness.--First view of
+Kentucky.--Emigrants' Dress.--Hunter's Home.--Capture of Boone and
+Stewart by the Indians.--Their Escape.--Singular Incident.
+
+
+In the year 1767, a bold hunter by the name of John Finley with two or
+three companions crossed the mountain range of the Alleghanies into the
+region beyond, now known as Kentucky. The mountains where he crossed,
+consisting of a series of parallel ridges, some of which were quite
+impassable save at particular points, presented a rugged expanse nearly
+fifty miles in breadth. It took many weary days for these moccassined
+feet to traverse the wild solitudes. The Indian avoids the mountains. He
+chooses the smooth prairie where the buffalo and the elk graze, and
+where the wild turkey, the grouse and the prairie chicken, wing their
+flight, or the banks of some placid stream over which he can glide in
+his birch canoe, and where fish of every variety can be taken. Indeed
+the Indians, with an eye for picturesque beauty, seldom reared their
+villages in the forest, whose glooms repelled them. Generally where the
+forest approached the stream, they clustered their wigwams in its edge,
+with the tranquil river and the open country spread out before them.
+
+John Finley and his companions traversed the broad expanse of the
+Alleghanies, without meeting any signs of human life. The extreme
+western ridge of these parallel eminences or spurs, has received the
+name of the Cumberland mountains. Passing through a gorge, which has
+since then become renowned in peace and war as Cumberland Gap, they
+entered upon a vast undulating expanse, of wonderful fertility and
+beauty. In its rivers, its plains, its forests, its gentle eminences,
+its bright skies and salubrious clime, it presented then, as now, as
+attractive a residence for man as this globe can furnish. Finley and his
+companions spent several months roving through this, to them, new Eden.
+Game of every variety abounded. Through some inexplicable reason, no
+Indians held possession of the country. But wandering tribes, whose
+homes and acknowledged territory were far away in the north, the west,
+and the south, were ever traversing these regions in hunting bands. They
+often met in bloody encounters. These conflicts were so frequent and so
+sanguinary, that this realm so highly favored of God for the promotion
+of all happiness, subsequently received the appropriate name of "The
+dark and bloody ground."
+
+After an absence of many months, Finley and his companions returned to
+North Carolina, with the most glowing accounts of the new country which
+they had found. Their story of the beauty of those realms was so
+extravagant, that many regarded them as gross exaggerations. It
+subsequently appeared, however, that they were essentially true. A more
+lovely and attractive region cannot be found on earth. It is man's
+inhumanity to man, mainly, which has ever caused such countless millions
+to mourn.
+
+Daniel Boone listened eagerly to the recital of John Finley and his
+associates. The story they told added fuel to the flame of emigration,
+which was already consuming him. He talked more and more earnestly of
+his desire to cross the mountains. We know not what were the emotions
+with which his wife was agitated, in view of her husband's increasing
+desire for another plunge into the wilderness. We simply know that
+through her whole career, she manifested the most tender solicitude to
+accommodate herself to the wishes of her beloved husband. Indeed he was
+a man peculiarly calculated to win a noble woman's love. Gentle in his
+demeanor, and in all his utterances, mild and affectionate in his
+intercourse with his family, he seemed quite unconscious of the heroism
+he manifested in those achievements, which gave him ever increasing
+renown.
+
+Life in the cabin of the frontiersman, where the wants are few, and the
+supplies abundant, is comparatively a leisure life. These men knew but
+little of the hurry and the bustle with which those in the crowded city
+engage daily in the almost deadly struggle for bread. There was no want
+in the cabin of Daniel Boone. As these two hardy adventurers, John
+Finley and Daniel Boone, sat together hour after hour by the fire,
+talking of the new country which Finley had explored, the hearts of both
+burned within them again to penetrate those remote realms. To them there
+were no hardships in the journey. At the close of each day's march,
+which but slightly wearied their toughened sinews, they could in a few
+moments throw up a shelter, beneath which they would enjoy more
+luxurious sleep than the traveler, after being rocked in the rail-cars,
+can now find on the softest couches of our metropolitan hotels. And the
+dainty morsel cut with artistic skill from the fat buffalo, and toasted
+on the end of a ramrod before the camp-fire, possessed a relish which
+few epicures have ever experienced at the most sumptuous tables in Paris
+or New York. And as these men seem to have been constitutionally devoid
+of any emotions of fear from wild beasts, or still wilder Indians, the
+idea of a journey of a few hundred miles in the wilderness was not one
+to be regarded by them with any special solicitude.
+
+Gradually they formed a plan for organizing a small party to traverse
+these beautiful realms in search of a new home. A company of six picked
+men was formed, and Daniel Boone was chosen their leader. The names of
+this party were John Finley, John Stewart, Joseph Holden, James Moncey,
+and William Cool. A journey of many hundred miles was before them.
+Through the vast mountain barrier, which could only be traversed by
+circuitous wanderings some hundreds of miles in extent, their route was
+utterly pathless, and there were many broad and rapid streams to be
+crossed, which flowed through the valleys between the mountain ridges.
+Though provision in abundance was scattered along the way, strong
+clothing must be provided, powder and bullets they must take with them,
+and all these necessaries were to be carried upon their backs, for no
+pack horses could thread the defiles of the mountains or climb their
+rugged cliffs. It was also necessary to make provision for the support
+of the families of these adventurers during their absence of many
+months. It does not appear that Mrs. Boone presented any obstacle in the
+way of her husband's embarking in this adventure. Her sons were old
+enough to assist her in the management of the farm, and game was still
+to be found in profusion in the silent prairies and sublime forests
+which surrounded them.
+
+In the sunny clime of North Carolina May comes with all the balminess
+and soft zephyrs of a more northern summer. It was a beautiful morning
+on the first day of May, 1769, when Boone and his companions commenced
+their adventurous journey. In the brief narrative which Boone has given
+of this excursion, we perceive that it was with some considerable regret
+that he separated himself from his much loved wife and children on the
+peaceful banks of the Yadkin.
+
+We must infer that the first part of their journey was fatiguing, for it
+took them a full month to accomplish the passage of the mountains.
+Though it was less than a hundred miles across these ridges in a direct
+line, the circuitous route which it was necessary to take greatly
+lengthened the distance. And as they were never in a hurry, they would
+be very likely, when coming to one of the many lovely valleys on the
+banks of the Holstein, or the Clinch river, to be enticed to some days
+of delay. Where now there are thriving villages filled with the hum of
+the industries of a high civilization, there was then but the solitary
+landscape dotted with herds of buffalo and of deer.
+
+Boone says that in many of these regions he found buffalo roving in
+companies of several hundreds feeding upon the tender leaves of the
+canebrake, or browsing upon the smooth and extended meadows. Being far
+removed from the usual route of the Indian hunters, they were very tame,
+manifesting no fear at the approach of man.
+
+On the seventh of June, our adventurers, at the close of a day of
+arduous travel, reached an eminence of the Cumberland Mountains, which
+gave them a commanding and an almost entrancing view of the region
+beyond, now known as the State of Kentucky. At the height upon which
+they stood, the expanse spreading out to the West, until lost in the
+distant horizon, presented an aspect of nature's loveliness such as few
+eyes have ever beheld. The sun was brilliantly sinking, accompanied by a
+gorgeous retinue of clouds. Majestic forests, wide-spread prairies, and
+lakes and rivers, gilded by the setting sun, confirmed the truth of the
+most glowing reports which had been heard from the lips of Finley. An
+artist has seized upon this incident, which he has transferred to
+canvass, in a picture which he has entitled, "Daniel Boone's first view
+of Kentucky." Engravings have been so multiplied of this painting, that
+it has become familiar to most eyes.
+
+The appearance of our adventurers is thus graphically described by Mr.
+Peck, in his excellent Life of Daniel Boone.
+
+"Their dress was of the description usually worn at that period by all
+forest-rangers. The outside garment was a hunting shirt, or loose open
+frock, made of dressed deer-skins. Leggins, or drawers, of the same
+material, covered the lower extremities, to which was appended a pair of
+moccasins for the feet. The cape or collar of the hunting shirt, and the
+seams of the leggins were adorned with fringes. The undergarments were
+of coarse cotton. A leather belt encircled the body. On the right side
+was suspended the tomahawk, to be used as a hatchet. On the left was the
+hunting-knife, powder-horn, bullet-pouch, and other appendages
+indispensable for a hunter. Each person bore his trusty rifle, and as
+the party made its toilsome way amid the shrubs, and over the logs and
+loose shrubs, that accident had thrown upon the obscure trail they were
+following, each man gave a sharp lookout, as though danger, or a lurking
+enemy were near. Their garments were soiled and rent; the unavoidable
+result of long travel and exposure to the heavy rains which had fallen,
+the weather having been stormy and uncomfortable, and they had traversed
+a mountainous wilderness for several hundred miles. The leader of the
+party was of full size, with a hardy, robust, sinewy frame, and keen
+piercing hazel eyes, that glanced with quickness at every object as they
+passed on, now cast forward in the direction they were travelling, for
+signs of an old trail, and in the next moment directed askance into the
+dense forest or the deep ravine, as if watching some concealed enemy.
+The reader will recognise in this man, the pioneer Boone at the head of
+his companions."
+
+The peculiar character of these men is developed in the fact, that,
+rapidly descending the western declivity of the mountains, they came to
+a beautiful meadow upon the banks of a little stream now called Red
+River. Here they reared their hut, and here they remained in apparently
+luxurious idleness all the summer; and here Daniel Boone remained all of
+the ensuing winter. Their object could scarcely have been to obtain
+furs, for they could not transport them across the mountains. There were
+in the vicinity quite a number of salt springs which the animals of the
+forest frequented in immense numbers. In the brief account which Boone
+gives of these long months, he simply says:
+
+"In this forest, the habitation of beasts of every kind natural to
+America, we practised hunting with great success until the twenty-second
+day of December following."
+
+Bears, buffalo and deer were mainly the large game which fell before
+their rifles. Water-fowl, and also land birds of almost every variety,
+were found in great profusion. It must have been a strange life which
+these six men experienced during these seven months in the camp on the
+silent waters of the Red River. No Indians were seen, and no traces of
+them were discovered through this period. The hunters made several long
+excursions in various directions, apparently examining the country in
+reference to their own final settlement in it, and to the introduction
+of emigrants from the Atlantic border. Indeed it has been said that
+Daniel Boone was the secret agent of a company on the other side of the
+mountains, who wished to obtain possession of a large extent of
+territory for the formation of a colony there. But of this nothing with
+certainty is known. Yet there must have been some strong controlling
+motive to have induced these men to remain so long in their camp, which
+consisted simply of a shed of logs, on the banks of this solitary
+stream.
+
+Three sides of the hut were enclosed. The interstices between the logs
+were filled with moss or clay. The roof was also carefully covered with
+bark, so as to be impervious to rain. The floor was spread over with dry
+leaves and with the fragrant twigs of the hemlock, presenting a very
+inviting couch for the repose of weary men. The skins of buffaloes and
+of bears presented ample covering for their night's repose. The front of
+the hut, facing the south, was entirely open, before which blazed their
+camp-fire. Here the men seem to have been very happy. The climate was
+mild; they were friendly to each other; they had good health and
+abundance of food was found in their camp.
+
+On the twenty-second of December, Boone, with one of his companions,
+John Stewart, set out on one of their exploring tours. There were parts
+of the country called cane-brakes, covered with cane growing so thickly
+together as to be quite impenetrable to the hunter. Through portions of
+these the buffaloes had trampled their way in large companies, one
+following another, opening paths called _streets_. These streets had
+apparently been trodden for ages. Following these paths, Boone and his
+companion had advanced several miles from their camp, when suddenly a
+large party of Indians sprang from their concealment and seized them
+both as captives. The action was so sudden that there was no possibility
+of resistance. In the following words Boone describes this event:
+
+"This day John Stewart and I had a pleasing ramble, but fortune changed
+the scene in the close of it. We had passed through a great forest, on
+which stood myriads of trees, some gay with blossoms, others rich with
+fruits. Nature was here a series of wonders and a fund of delight. Here
+she displayed her ingenuity and industry in a variety of flowers and
+fruits, beautifully colored, elegantly shaped, and charmingly flavored;
+and we were diverted with innumerable animals presenting themselves
+perpetually to our view.
+
+"In the decline of the day, near Kentucky river, as we ascended the brow
+of a small hill, a number of Indians rushed out upon us from a thick
+canebrake and made us prisoners. The time of our sorrow was now arrived.
+They plundered us of what we had, and kept us in confinement seven days,
+treating us with common savage usage."
+
+The peculiar character of Boone was here remarkably developed. His whole
+course of life had made him familiar with the manners and customs of the
+Indians. They were armed only with bows and arrows. He had the
+death-dealing rifle which they knew not how to use. His placid temper
+was never ruffled by elation in prosperity or despair in adversity. He
+assumed perfect contentment with his lot, cultivated friendly relations
+with them, taught them many things they did not know, and aided them in
+all the ways in his power. His rifle ball would instantly strike down
+the buffalo, when the arrow of the Indian would only goad him to frantic
+flight.
+
+The Indians admired the courage of their captive, appreciated his skill,
+and began to regard him as a friend and a helper. They relaxed their
+vigilance, while every day they were leading their prisoners far away
+from their camp into the boundless West. Boone was so well acquainted
+with the Indian character as to be well aware that any attempt to
+escape, if unsuccessful, would cause his immediate death. The Indians,
+exasperated by what they would deem such an insult to their hospitality,
+would immediately bury the tomahawk in his brain. Thus seven days and
+nights passed away.
+
+At the close of each day's travel the Indians selected some attractive
+spot for the night's encampment or bivouac, according to the state of
+the weather, near some spring or stream. Here they built a rousing fire,
+roasted choice cuts from the game they had taken, and feasted abundantly
+with jokes and laughter, and many boastful stories of their
+achievements. They then threw themselves upon the ground for sleep,
+though some one was appointed to keep a watch over their captives. But
+deceived by the entire contentment and friendliness, feigned by Boone,
+and by Stewart who implicitly followed the counsel of his leader's
+superior mind, all thoughts of any attempt of their captives to escape
+soon ceased to influence the savages.
+
+On the seventh night after the capture, the Indians, gorged with an
+abundant feast, were all soundly asleep. It was midnight. The flickering
+fire burned feebly. The night was dark. They were in the midst of an
+apparently boundless forest. The favorable hour for an attempt to
+escape had come. But it was full of peril. Failure was certain death,
+for the Indians deemed it one of the greatest of all crimes for a
+captive who had been treated with kindness to attempt to escape. A group
+of fierce savages were sleeping around, each one of whom accustomed to
+midnight alarms, was supposed to sleep, to use an expressive phrase,
+"with one eye open." Boone, who had feigned sound slumber, cautiously
+awoke his companion who was asleep and motioned him to follow. The
+rustling of a leaf, the crackling of a twig, would instantly cause every
+savage to grasp his bow and arrow and spring from the ground.
+Fortunately the Indians had allowed their captives to retain their guns,
+which had proved so valuable in obtaining game.
+
+With step as light as the fall of a feather these men with moccasined
+feet crept from the encampment. After a few moments of intense
+solicitude, they found themselves in the impenetrable gloom of the
+forest, and their captors still undisturbed. With vastly superior native
+powers to the Indian, and equally accustomed to forest life, Boone was
+in all respects their superior. With the instinct of the bee, he made a
+straight line towards the encampment they had left, with the locality of
+which the Indians were not acquainted. The peril which menaced them
+added wings to their flight. It was mid-winter, and though not very
+cold in that climate, fortunately for them, the December nights were
+long.
+
+Six precious hours would pass before the dawn of the morning would
+struggle through the tree-tops. Till then the bewildered Indians could
+obtain no clue whatever to the direction of their flight. Carefully
+guarding against leaving any traces of their footsteps behind them, and
+watching with an eagle eye lest they should encounter any other band of
+savages, they pressed forward hour after hour with sinews apparently as
+tireless as if they had been wrought of iron. When the fugitives reached
+their camp they found it plundered and deserted. Whether the red men had
+discovered it and carried off their companions as prisoners, or whether
+the white men in a panic had destroyed what they could not remove and
+had attempted a retreat to the settlements, was never known. It is
+probable that in some way they perished in the wilderness, and that
+their fate is to be added to the thousands of tragedies occurring in
+this world which no pen has recorded.
+
+The intrepid Boone and his companion Stewart seemed, however, to have no
+idea of abandoning their encampment. But apprehensive that the Indians
+might have discovered their retreat, they reared a small hut in another
+spot, still more secret and secure. It is difficult to imagine what
+motive could have led these two men to remain any longer in these
+solitudes, five hundred miles from home, exposed to so many privations
+and to such fearful peril. Notwithstanding the utmost care in husbanding
+their resources, their powder and lead were rapidly disappearing, and
+there was no more to be obtained in the wilderness. But here they
+remained a month, doing apparently nothing, but living luxuriously,
+according to their ideas of good cheer. The explanation is probably to
+be found in the fascination of this life of a hunter, which once
+enjoyed, seems almost irresistible, even to those accustomed to all the
+appliances of a high civilization.
+
+A gentleman from New York, who spent a winter among the wild scenes of
+the Rocky Mountains, describes in the following graphic language, the
+effect of these scenes upon his own mind:
+
+"When I turned my horse's head from Pikes Peak, I quite regretted the
+abandonment of my mountain life, solitary as it was, and more than once
+thought of again taking the trail to the Salado Valley, where I enjoyed
+such good sport. Apart from the feeling of loneliness, which anyone in
+my situation must naturally have experienced, surrounded by the
+stupendous works of nature, which in all their solitary grandeur frowned
+upon me, there was something inexpressibly exhilarating in the
+sensation of positive freedom from all worldly care, and a consequent
+expansion of the sinews, as it were, of mind and body, which made me
+feel elastic as a ball of india-rubber, and in such a state of perfect
+ease, that no more dread of scalping Indians entered my mind, than if I
+had been sitting in Broadway, in one of the windows of the Astor House.
+
+"A citizen of the world, I never found any difficulty in investing my
+resting place wherever it might be, with the attributes of a home.
+Although liable to the accusation of barbarism, I must confess that the
+very happiest moments of my life have been spent in the wilderness of
+the Far West. I never recall but with pleasure the remembrance of my
+solitary camp in the Bayou Salado, with no friend near me more faithful
+than my rifle. With a plentiful supply of dry pine logs on the fire, and
+its cheerful blaze streaming far up into the sky, illuminating the
+valley far and near, I would sit enjoying the genial warmth, and watch
+the blue smoke as it curled upward, building castles in its vapory
+wreaths. Scarcely did I ever wish to change such hours of freedom for
+all the luxuries of civilized life; and, unnatural and extraordinary as
+it may appear, yet such are the fascinations of the life of the mountain
+hunter, that I believe that not one instance could be adduced of even
+the most polished and civilized of men, who had once tasted the sweets
+of its attendant liberty, and freedom from every worldly care, not
+regretting to exchange them for the monotonous life of the settlements,
+and not sighing and sighing again for its pleasures and allurements.
+
+"A hunter's camp in the Rocky Mountains, is quite a picture. It is
+invariably made in a picturesque locality, for, like the Indian, the
+white hunter has an eye to the beautiful. Nothing can be more social and
+cheering than the welcome blaze of the camp-fire on a cold winter's
+night, and nothing more amusing or entertaining, if not instructive,
+than the rough conversation of the simple-minded mountaineers, whose
+nearly daily task is all of exciting adventure, since their whole
+existence is spent in scenes of peril and privation. Consequently the
+narration is a tale of thrilling accidents, and hair-breadth escapes,
+which, though simple matter-of-fact to them, appears a startling romance
+to those unacquainted with the lives led by those men, who, with the sky
+for a roof, and their rifles to supply them with food and clothing, call
+no man lord or master, and are as free as the game they follow."
+
+There are many events which occurred in the lives of Boone and his
+companions, which would seem absolutely incredible were they not
+sustained by evidence beyond dispute. Boone and Stewart were in a
+boundless, pathless, wilderness of forests, mountains, rivers and lakes.
+Their camp could not be reached from the settlements, but by a journey
+of many weeks, apparently without the smallest clue to its location. And
+yet the younger brother of Boone, upon whom had been conferred his
+father's singular baptismal name of Squire, set out with a companion to
+cross the mountains, in search of Daniel. One day in the latter part of
+January, Boone and Stewart were quite alarmed in seeing two men approach
+their camp. They supposed of course that they were Indians, and that
+they were probably followed by a numerous band. Escape was impossible.
+Captivity and death seemed certain. But to their surprise and delight,
+the two strangers proved to be white men; one the brother of Daniel
+Boone, and the other a North Carolinian who had accompanied him. They
+brought with them quite a supply of powder and lead; inestimable
+treasures in the remote wilderness. Daniel, in his Autobiography, in the
+following simple strain, alludes to this extraordinary occurrence:
+
+"About this time my brother Squire Boone, with another adventurer, who
+came to explore the country shortly after us, was wandering through the
+forest, determined to find me if possible, and accidentally found our
+camp. Notwithstanding the unfortunate circumstances of our company, and
+our dangerous situation as surrounded by hostile savages, our meeting so
+fortunately in the wilderness made us reciprocally sensible of the
+utmost satisfaction. So much does friendship triumph over misfortune,
+that sorrows and sufferings vanish at the meeting, not only of real
+friends, but of the most distant acquaintances, and substitute happiness
+in their room."
+
+Our hardy pioneer, far more familiar with his rifle than his pen,
+comments as follows on their condition:
+
+"We were in a helpless, dangerous situation; exposed daily to perils and
+death, among savages and wild beasts. Not a white man in the country but
+ourselves. Thus situated, many hundred miles from our families, in the
+howling wilderness, I believe few would have equally enjoyed the
+happiness we experienced. I often observed to my brother, 'You see how
+little nature requires to be satisfied. Felicity, the companion of
+content, is rather found in our own breasts, than in the enjoyment of
+external things; and I firmly believe it requires but a little
+philosophy to make a man happy in whatsoever state he is. This consists
+in a full resignation to the will of Providence; and a resigned soul
+finds pleasure in a path strewed with briers and thorns.'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+_Indian Warfare._
+
+Alleghany Ridges.--Voyage in a canoe.--Speech of Logan.--Battle at the
+Kanawha.--Narrative of Francis Marion.--Important commission of
+Boone.--Council at Circleville.--Treaty of Peace.--Imlay's description
+of Kentucky.--Settlement right.--Richard Henderson.--Boone's letter.--Fort
+at Boonesborough.
+
+
+The valley of the Clinch river is but one of the many magnificent
+ravines amid the gigantic ranges of the Alleghany mountains. Boone,
+speaking of these ridges which he so often had occasion to cross, says:
+
+"These mountains in the wilderness, as we pass from the old settlements
+in Virginia to Kentucky, are ranged in a south-west and north-east
+direction and are of great length and breadth and not far distant from
+each other. Over them nature hath formed passes that are less difficult
+than might be expected from a view of such huge piles. The aspect of
+these cliffs is so wild and horrid that it is impossible to behold them
+without terror. The spectator is apt to imagine that nature has formerly
+suffered some violent convulsion, and that these are the dismembered
+remains of the dreadful shock."
+
+One cannot but regret that no memorials are left of a wonderful journey,
+full of romantic interest and exciting adventure, which Boone at one
+time took to the Falls of the Ohio, to warn some surveyors of their
+danger. He reached them in safety, rescued them from certain death, and
+conducted them triumphantly back to the settlements. So long as the
+white men, with their rifles, could keep upon the open prairie, they
+could defend themselves from almost any number of Indians, who could
+only assail them with bows and arrows. But the moment they entered the
+forest, or any ravine among the hills, the little band was liable to
+hear the war-whoop of a thousand Indian braves in the ambush around, and
+to be assailed by a storm of arrows and javelins from unseen hands.
+
+A few days after Boone's arrival at the encampment near the Falls of the
+Ohio, and as the surveyors were breaking camp in preparation for their
+precipitate retreat, several of their number who had gone to a spring at
+a short distance from the camp, were suddenly attacked on the twentieth
+of July by a large party of Indians. One was instantly killed. The rest
+being nearly surrounded, fled as best they could in all directions. One
+man hotly pursued, rushed along an Indian trail till he reached the Ohio
+river. Here he chanced to find a bark canoe. He jumped into it and
+pushed out into the rapid stream till beyond the reach of the Indian
+arrows. The swift current bore him down the river, by curves and
+head-lands, till he was far beyond the encampment.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+To return against the strong flood, with the savages watching for him,
+seemed perilous, if not impossible. It is said that he floated down the
+whole length of the Ohio and of the Mississippi, a distance not less
+probably, counting the curvatures of the stream, than two thousand
+miles, and finally found his way by sea to Philadelphia, probably in
+some vessel which he encountered near the coast. This is certainly one
+of the most extraordinary voyages which ever occurred. It was
+mid-summer, so that he could not suffer from cold. Grapes often hung in
+rich clusters in the forests, which lined the river banks, and various
+kinds of nutritious berries were easily gathered to satisfy hunger.
+
+As these men never went into the forest without the rifle and a supply
+of ammunition, and as they never lost a bullet by an inaccurate shot, it
+is not probable that our adventurer suffered from hunger. But the
+incidents of such a voyage must have been so wonderful, that it is
+greatly to be regretted that we have no record of them.
+
+The apprehensions of Lord Dunmore, respecting the conspiracy of the
+Indians, proved to have been well founded. Though Boone, with his great
+sagacity, led his little band by safe paths back to the settlements, a
+very fierce warfare immediately blazed forth all along the Virginia
+frontier. This conflict with the Indians, very brief and very bloody, is
+usually called Lord Dunmore's war. The white men have told the story,
+and they admit that the war "arose in consequence of cold-blooded
+murders committed upon inoffensive Indians in the region of the upper
+Ohio."
+
+One of the provocatives to this war was the assassination by fiendlike
+white men of the whole family of the renowned Indian chief, Logan, in
+the vicinity of the city of Wheeling. Logan had been the friend of the
+white man. But exasperated by these outrages, he seized his tomahawk
+breathing only vengeance. General Gibson was sent to one of the
+Shawanese towns to confer with Logan and to detach him from the
+conspiracy against the whites. It was on this occasion that Logan made
+that celebrated speech whose pathetic eloquence will ever move the human
+heart:
+
+"I appeal to any white man to say if ever he entered Logan's cabin
+hungry, and I gave him not meat; if ever he came cold or naked and I
+gave him not clothing. During the course of the last long and bloody
+war, Logan remained in his tent, an advocate of peace. Nay, such was my
+love for the whites, that those of my own country pointed at me and
+said, 'Logan is the friend of white men.' I had even thought to live
+with you, but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Cresap, the last
+spring, in cool blood and unprovoked, cut off all the relatives of
+Logan, not sparing even my women and children. There runs not a drop of
+my blood in the veins of any human creature. This called on me for
+revenge. I have killed many. I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my
+country, I rejoice at the beams of peace. Yet do not harbor the thought
+that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on
+his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan?"
+
+This war, though it lasted but a few months, was very sanguinary. Every
+exposed point on the extensive Virginia frontier was assailed. Cabins
+were burned, harvests were trampled down, cattle driven off, and men,
+women, and children either butchered or carried into captivity more
+dreadful than death. The peril was so dreadful that the most
+extraordinary efforts on the part of the Virginian Government were
+requisite to meet it. An army of three thousand men was raised in the
+utmost haste. This force was in two divisions. One of eleven hundred men
+rendezvoused in what is now Green Briar county, and marched down the
+valley of the Great Kanawha, to its entrance into the Ohio, at a place
+now named Point Pleasant.
+
+Lord Dunmore with the remaining nineteen hundred crossed the Cumberland
+mountains to Wheeling, and thence descended the Ohio in boats, to form a
+junction with the other party at the mouth of the Great Kanawha. Thence
+united, they were to march across the country about forty miles due
+west, to the valley of the Scioto. The banks of this lovely stream were
+lined with Indian villages, in a high state of prosperity. Corn-fields
+waved luxuriantly around their humble dwellings. They were living at
+peace with each other, and relied far more upon the produce of the soil,
+than upon the chase, for their support.
+
+It was the plan of Lord Dunmore to sweep this whole region with utter
+desolation, and entirely to exterminate the Indians. But the savages did
+not await his arrival in their own homes. Many of them had obtained guns
+and ammunition from the French in Canada, with whom they seem to have
+lived on the most friendly terms.
+
+In a well-ordered army for Indian warfare, whose numbers cannot now with
+certainty be known, they crossed the Ohio, below the mouth of the Great
+Kanawha, and marching through the forest, in the rear of the hills, fell
+by surprise very impetuously upon the rear of the encampment at Point
+Pleasant. The Indians seemed to be fully aware that their only safety
+was in the energies of desperation. One of the most bloody battles was
+then fought, which ever occurred in Indian warfare. Though the
+Virginians with far more potent weapons repelled their assailants, they
+paid dearly for their victory. Two hundred and fifteen of the Virginians
+fell dead or severely wounded beneath the bullets or arrows of their
+foes. The loss which the savages incurred could never be ascertained
+with accuracy. It was generally believed that several hundred of their
+warriors were struck down on that bloody field.
+
+The whites, accustomed to Indian warfare and skilled in the use of the
+rifle, scarcely fired a shot which did not reach its mark. In the
+cautious warfare between the tribes, fighting with arrows from behind
+trees, the loss of fifteen or twenty warriors was deemed a great
+calamity. Now, to find hundreds of their braves weltering in blood, was
+awful beyond precedent, and gave them new ideas of the prowess of the
+white man. In this conflict the Indians manifested a very considerable
+degree of military ability. Having constructed a breastwork of logs,
+behind which they could retreat in case of a repulse, they formed in a
+long line extending across the point from the Kanawha to the Ohio. Then
+they advanced in the impetuous attack through the forest, protected by
+logs, and stumps, and trees. Had they succeeded in their assault, there
+would have been no possible escape for the Virginian troops. They must
+have been annihilated.
+
+The Indians had assembled on that field nearly all the warriors of four
+powerful tribes; the Shawnee, Delaware, Mingo and Wyandotts. After the
+repulse, panic-stricken, they fled through the wilderness, unable to
+make any other stand against their foes. Lord Dunmore, with his
+triumphant army flushed with victory and maddened by its serious loss,
+marched rapidly down the left bank of the Ohio, and then crossed into
+the valley of the Scioto to sweep it with flame. We have no account of
+the details of this cruel expedition, but the following graphic
+description of a similar excursion into the land belonging to the
+Cherokees, will give one a vivid idea of the nature of these conflicts.
+
+The celebrated Francis Marion, who was an officer in the campaign, and
+an eye-witness of the scenes which he describes, gives the following
+narrative of the events which ensued:
+
+"Now commenced a scene of devastation scarcely paralleled in the annals
+of this continent. For thirty days the army employed themselves in
+burning and ravaging the settlements of the broken-spirited Indians. No
+less than fourteen of their towns were laid in ashes; their granaries
+were yielded to the flames, their corn-fields ravaged, while the
+miserable fugitives, flying from the sword, took refuge with their
+starving families among the mountains. As the lands were rich and the
+season had been favorable, the corn was bending under the double weight
+of lusty roasting ears and pods and clustering beans. The furrows seemed
+to rejoice under their precious loads. The fields stood thick with
+bread. We encamped the first night in the woods near the fields where
+the whole army feasted on the young corn, which, with fat venison, made
+a most delicious treat. The next morning, by order of Col. Grant, we
+proceeded to burn down the Indian cabins.
+
+"Some of our men seemed to enjoy this cruel work, laughing very heartily
+at the curling flames as they mounted loud crackling over the tops of
+the huts. But to me it appeared a shocking sight. 'Poor creatures!'
+thought I, 'we surely need not grudge you such miserable habitations.'
+But when we came according to orders to cut down the fields of corn, I
+could scarcely refrain from tears; for who could see the stalks that
+stood so stately, with broad green leaves and gaily tasseled shocks,
+filled with the sweet milky flour, the staff of life,--who, I say, could
+see without grief these sacred plants sinking under our swords with all
+their precious load, to wither and rot untasted in the fields.
+
+"I saw everywhere around the footsteps of little Indian children, where
+they had lately played under shelter of the rustling corn. No doubt they
+had often looked up with joy to the swelling shocks, and were gladdened
+when they thought of the abundant cakes for the coming winter. 'When we
+are gone,' thought I, 'they will return, and peeping through the weeds,
+with tearful eyes, will mark the ghastly ruin poured over their homes
+and the happy fields where they had so often played.'"
+
+Such was life among the comparatively intelligent tribes in the
+beautiful and fertile valley of the Scioto. Such was the scene of
+devastation, or of "punishing the Indians," as it was called, upon which
+Lord Dunmore's army entered, intending to sweep the valley with fire and
+sword from its opening at the Ohio to its head waters leagues away in
+the North.
+
+In this campaign the Indians, while with much sagacity they combined
+their main force to encounter the army under Lord Dunmore, detached
+separate bands of picked warriors to assail the settlements on the
+frontier at every exposed point. These bands of painted savages,
+emerging from the solitudes of the forests at midnight, would fall with
+hideous yells upon the lone cabin of the settler, or upon a little
+cluster of log huts, and in a few hours nothing would be left but
+smouldering ruins and gory corpses.
+
+To Daniel Boone, who had manifested wonderful skill in baffling all the
+stratagems of Indian warfare, was assigned the difficult and infinitely
+important task of protecting these frontiers. Three garrisons were
+placed under his command, over which he exercised supreme control. He
+located them at the most available points; noiselessly passed from one
+to the other to see that they were fortified according to the most
+approved principles of military engineering then known in the forest.
+His scouts were everywhere, to give prompt notice of any approach of
+hostile bands. Thus this quiet, silent man, with great efficiency,
+fulfilled his mission to universal satisfaction. Without seeking fame,
+without thinking even of such a reward for his services, his sagacity
+and his virtues were rapidly giving him a very enviable reputation
+throughout all those regions.
+
+The discomfited Indians had become thoroughly disheartened, and sent
+couriers to Lord Dunmore imploring peace. Comstock, their chief, seems
+to have been a man not only of strong native powers of mind, but of
+unusual intelligence. With quite a brilliant retinue of his warriors, he
+met Lord Dunmore in council at a point in the valley of the Scioto,
+about four miles south of the present city of Circleville. Comstock
+himself opened the deliberations with a speech of great dignity and
+argumentative power. In a loud voice, which was heard, as he intended,
+by all in the camp, he portrayed the former prosperous condition of the
+Indian tribes, powerful in numbers and abounding in wealth, in the
+enjoyment of their rich corn-fields, and their forests filled with game.
+With this he contrasted very forcibly their present wretched condition,
+with diminished numbers, and with the loss of their hunting grounds. He
+reproached the whites with the violation of their treaty obligations,
+and declared that the Indians had been forbearing in the extreme under
+the wrongs which had been inflicted upon them.
+
+"We know," said he, "perfectly well, our weakness when compared with the
+English. The Indians desire only justice. The war was not sought by us,
+but was forced upon us. It was commenced by the whites. We should have
+merited the contempt of every white man could we have tamely submitted
+to the murders which have been inflicted upon our unoffending people at
+the hands of the white men."
+
+The power was with Lord Dunmore. In the treaty of peace he exacted terms
+which, though very hard for the Indians, were perhaps not more than he
+had a right to require. The Indians surrendered four of their principal
+warriors as hostages for the faithful observance of the treaty. They
+relinquished all claims whatever to the vast hunting grounds which
+their bands from time immemorial had ranged south of the Ohio river.
+This was an immense concession. Lord Dunmore returned across the
+mountains well satisfied with his campaign, though his soldiers were
+excited almost to mutiny in not being permitted to wreak their vengeance
+upon the unhappy savages.
+
+And here let it be remarked, that deeply wronged as these Indians
+unquestionably were, there was not a little excuse for the exasperation
+of the whites. Fiends incarnate could not have invented more terrible
+tortures than they often inflicted upon their captives. We have no heart
+to describe these scenes. They are too awful to be contemplated. In view
+of the horrid barbarity thus practised, it is not strange that the
+English should have wished to shoot down the whole race, men, women, and
+children, as they would exterminate wolves or bears.
+
+This campaign being thus successfully terminated, Daniel Boone returned
+to his humble cabin on the Clinch River. Here he had a small and fertile
+farm, which his energetic family had successfully cultivated during the
+summer, and he spent the winter months in his favorite occupation of
+hunting in the forests around. His thoughtful mind, during these long
+and solitary rambles, was undoubtedly occupied with plans for the
+future. Emigration to his beautiful Kentucky was still his engrossing
+thought.
+
+It is not wonderful that a man of such fearless temperament, and a
+natural turn of mind so poetic and imaginative, should have been charmed
+beyond expression by a realm whose attractions he had so fully
+experienced. That the glowing descriptions of Boone and Finley were not
+exaggerated, is manifest from the equally rapturous account of others
+who now began to explore this favored land. Imlay writes of that region:
+
+"Everything here assumes a dignity and splendor I have never seen in any
+other part of the world. You ascend a considerable distance from the
+shores of the Ohio, and when you would suppose you had arrived at the
+summit of a mountain, you find yourself upon an extensive level. Here an
+eternal verdure reigns, and the brilliant sun of latitude 39 degrees,
+piercing through the azure heavens, produces in this prolific soil an
+early maturity which is truly astonishing. Flowers full and perfect, as
+if they had been cultivated by the hand of a florist, with all their
+captivating odors, and with all the variegated charms which color and
+nature can produce, here in the lap of elegance and beauty, decorate the
+smiling groves. Soft zephyrs gently breathe on sweets, and the inhaled
+air gives a glow of health and vigor that seems to ravish the
+intoxicated senses."
+
+The Virginian government now resolved to pour a tide of emigration into
+these as yet unexplored realms, south of the Ohio. Four hundred acres of
+land were offered to every individual who would build a cabin, clear a
+lot of land, and raise a crop of corn. This was called a settlement
+right. It was not stated how large the clearing should be, or how
+extensive the corn-field. Several settlements were thus begun in
+Kentucky, when there was a new and extraordinary movement which
+attracted universal attention.
+
+A very remarkable man, named Richard Henderson, appeared in North
+Carolina. Emerging from the humblest walks of life, and unable even to
+read until he had obtained maturity, he developed powers of
+conversational eloquence and administrative ability of the highest
+order.
+
+The Cherokee Indians claimed the whole country bounded by the Kentucky,
+the Ohio, and the Cumberland rivers, and we know not how much more
+territory extending indefinitely to the South and West. Colonel
+Henderson formed an association of gentlemen, which he called the
+Transylvania Company. Making a secret journey to the Cherokee country,
+he met twelve hundred chiefs in council, and purchased of them the whole
+territory, equal to some European kingdoms, bounded by the above
+mentioned rivers. For this realm, above a hundred miles square, he paid
+the insignificant sum of ten wagon loads of cheap goods, with a few
+fire-arms and some spirituous liquors.
+
+Mr. Henderson, to whom the rest of the company seemed to have delegated
+all their powers, now assumed the position of proprietor, governor, and
+legislator of his magnificent domain, which he called Transylvania. It
+seems that Boone accompanied Colonel Henderson to the council of the
+Cherokee chieftains which was held at Wataga, the southern branch of the
+Holston River. Boone had explored nearly the whole of this region, and
+it was upon his testimony that the company relied in endeavoring to
+purchase these rich and fertile lands. Indeed, as we have before
+intimated, it has been said that Boone in his wonderful and perilous
+explorations was the agent of this secret company.
+
+No treaties with the Indians were sure of general acquiescence. There
+were always discontented chieftains; there were almost always
+conflicting claims of hostile tribes; there were always wandering tribes
+of hunters and of warriors, who, exasperated by the treatment which they
+had received from vagabond white men, were ever ready to wreak their
+vengeance upon any band of emigrants they might encounter.
+
+Colonel Henderson's treaty was made in the month of March, 1775. With
+characteristic vigor, he immediately made preparations for the
+settlement of the kingdom of which he was the proud monarch. The first
+thing to be done was to mark out a feasible path through which emigrants
+might pass, without losing their way, over the mountains and through
+the wilderness, to the heart of this new Eden. Of all the men in the
+world, Daniel Boone was the one to map out this route of five hundred
+miles. He took with him a company of road-makers, and in a few months
+opened a path which could be traversed by pack-horses, and even by
+wagons to a place called Boonesville on the Kentucky river, within about
+thirty miles of the present site of Lexington.
+
+The Indian hunters and warriors, notwithstanding the treaties into which
+the chieftains of the North and the South had entered, watched the
+construction of this road with great solicitude. They knew full well
+that it would ere long secure their expulsion from their ancient hunting
+grounds. Though no general warfare was organized by the tribes, it was
+necessary to be constantly on the watch against lawless bands, who were
+determined to harass the pioneers in every possible way. In the
+following letter Boone communicated to Colonel Henderson the hostility
+which they had, perhaps unexpectedly, encountered. It was dated the
+first of April, and was sent back by a courier through the woods:
+
+          "Dear Colonel,--
+
+     "After my compliments to you, I shall acquaint you with my
+     misfortunes. On March the Twenty-fifth, a party of Indians fired
+     on my company about half an hour before day, and killed Mr. Twitty
+     and his negro, and wounded Mr. Walker very deeply; but I hope he
+     will recover. On March the Twenty-eighth, as we were hunting for
+     provisions, we found Samuel Tale's son who gave us an account that
+     the Indians fired on their camp on the twenty-seventh day. My
+     brother and I went down and found two men killed and scalped,
+     Thomas McDowell and Jeremiah McPeters. I have sent a man down to
+     all the lower companies, in order to gather them all to the mouth
+     of the Otter Creek. My advice to you, sir, is to come or send as
+     soon as possible. Your company is desired greatly, for the people
+     are very uneasy, but are willing to stay and venture their lives
+     with you. And now is the time to frustrate their (the Indians)
+     intentions, and keep the country while we are in it. If we give way
+     to them now, it will ever be the case. This day we start from the
+     battle ground to the mouth of Otter Creek, where we shall
+     immediately erect a fort, which will be done before you can come or
+     send. Then we can send ten men to meet you, if you send for them.
+
+          "I am, Sir, your most obedient servant,
+
+                                                     "DANIEL BOONE."
+
+Boone immediately commenced upon the left bank of the Kentucky river,
+which here ran in a westerly direction, the erection of a fort. Their
+position was full of peril, for the road-makers were but few in number,
+and Indian warriors to the number of many hundreds might at any time
+encircle them. Many of these Indians had also obtained muskets from the
+French in Canada, and had become practiced marksmen. Nearly three months
+were busily occupied in the construction of this important fort.
+Fortunately we have a minute description of its structure, and a sketch
+of its appearance, either from the pencil of Colonel Henderson, or of
+some one in his employ.
+
+The fort or fortress consisted of a series of strong log huts, enclosing
+a large interior or square. The parallelogram was about two hundred and
+sixty feet in length and one hundred and fifty in breadth. These cabins,
+built of logs, were bullet-proof. The intervals between them were filled
+with stout pieces of timber, about twelve feet high, planted firmly in
+the ground, in close contact with each other, and sharpened at the top.
+The fort was built close to the river, with one of its angles almost
+overhanging the water, so that an abundant supply could be obtained
+without peril. Each of the corner houses projected a little, so that
+from the port-holes any Indian could be shot who should approach the
+walls with ladder or hatchet. This really artistic structure was not
+completed until the fourteenth day of June. The Indians from a distance
+watched its progress with dismay. They made one attack, but were easily
+repelled, though they succeeded in shooting one of the emigrants.
+
+Daniel Boone contemplated the fortress on its completion with much
+satisfaction. He was fully assured that behind its walls and palisades
+bold hearts, with an ample supply of ammunition, could repel any
+assaults which the Indians were capable of making. He now resolved
+immediately to return to Clinch river, and bring his family out to share
+with him his new and attractive home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+_Sufferings of the Pioneers._
+
+Emigration to Boonesborough.--New Perils.--Transylvania
+Company.--Beneficence of its Laws.--Interesting Incident.--Infamous
+conduct of Great Britain.--Attack on the Fort.--Reinforcements.--Simon
+Kenton and his Sufferings.--Mrs. Harvey.
+
+
+The fortress at Boonesborough consisted of ten strong log huts arranged
+in a quadrangular form, enclosing an area of about one-third of an acre.
+The intervals, as before stated, between the huts, were filled with
+strong palisades of timber, which, like the huts themselves, were
+bullet-proof. The outer sides of the cabins, together with the
+palisades, formed the sides of the fort exposed to the foe. Each of
+these cabins was about twenty feet in length and twelve or fifteen in
+breadth. There were two entrance gates opposite each other, made of
+thick slabs of timber, and hung on wooden hinges. The forest, which was
+quite dense, had been cut away to such a distance as to expose an
+assailing party to the bullets of the garrison. As at that time the
+Indians were armed mainly with bows and arrows, a few men fully supplied
+with ammunition within the fort could bid defiance to almost any number
+of savages. And subsequently, as the Indians obtained fire-arms, they
+could not hope to capture the fort without a long siege, or by assailing
+it with a vastly overwhelming superiority of numbers. The accompanying
+illustration will give the reader a very correct idea of this renowned
+fortress of logs, which was regarded as the Gibraltar of Indian warfare.
+
+Having finished this fort Daniel Boone, leaving a sufficient garrison
+for its security, set out for his home on the Clinch river to bring his
+wife and family to the beautiful land he so long had coveted for their
+residence. It seems that his wife and daughters were eager to follow
+their father to the banks of the Kentucky, whose charms he had so
+glowingly described to them. Several other families were also induced to
+join the party of emigration. They could dwell together in a very social
+community and in perfect safety in the spacious cabins within the
+fortress. The river would furnish them with an unfailing supply of
+water. The hunters, with their rifles, could supply them with game, and
+with those rifles could protect themselves while laboring in the fields,
+which with the axe they had laid open to the sun around the fort. The
+hunters and the farmers at night returning within the enclosure, felt
+perfectly safe from all assaults.
+
+Daniel Boone commenced his journey with his wife and children, and
+others who joined them, back to Boonesborough in high spirits. It was a
+long journey of several hundred miles, and to many persons it would seem
+a journey fraught with great peril, for they were in danger almost every
+mile of the way, of encountering hostile Indians. But Boone, accustomed
+to traversing the wilderness, and accompanied by well armed men, felt no
+more apprehensions of danger than the father of a family would at the
+present day in traveling by cars from Massachusetts to Pennsylvania.
+
+It was beautiful autumnal weather when the party of pioneers commenced
+its adventurous tour through the wilderness, to find a new home five
+hundred miles beyond even the remotest frontiers of civilization. There
+were three families besides that of Boone, and numbered in all
+twenty-six men, four women, and four or five boys and girls of various
+ages. Daniel Boone was the happy leader of this heroic little band.
+
+In due time they all arrived safely at Boonesborough "without having
+encountered," as Boone writes, "any other difficulties than such as are
+common to this passage." As they approached the fort, Boone and his
+family, for some unexplained reason, pressed forward, and entered the
+fortress a few days in advance of the rest of the party. Perhaps Boone
+himself had a little pride to have it said, that Mrs. Boone and her
+daughter were the first of her color and sex that ever stood upon the
+banks of the wild and beautiful Kentucky.
+
+A few days after their arrival, the emigrants had a very solemn
+admonition of the peril which surrounded them, and of the necessity of
+constant vigilance to guard against a treacherous and sleepless foe. One
+of their number who had sauntered but a short distance from the fort,
+lured by the combined beauty of the field, the forest and the river, was
+shot by a prowling Indian, who, raising the war-whoop of exultation and
+defiance, immediately disappeared in the depths of the wilderness.
+
+Colonel Henderson and his partners, anxious to promote the settlement of
+the country, by organising parties of emigration, were busy in making
+known through the settlements the absolute security of the fort at
+Boonesborough, and the wonderful attractions of the region, in soil,
+climate, and abounding game. Henderson himself soon started with a large
+party, forty of whom were well armed. A number of pack-horses conveyed
+the luggage of the emigrants. Following the very imperfect road that
+Boone with much skill had engineered, which was quite tolerable for
+pack-horses in single file, they reached Boonesborough early in the
+following spring.
+
+The Transylvania Company was in the full flush of successful experiment.
+Small parties of emigrants were constantly arriving. Boonesborough was
+the capital of the colony. Various small settlements were settled in its
+vicinity. Colonel Henderson opened a land office there, and in the
+course of a few months, over half a million of acres were entered, by
+settlers or speculators. These men did not purchase the lands outright,
+but bound themselves to pay a small but perpetual rent. The titles,
+which they supposed to be perfectly good, were given in the name of the
+"proprietors of the Colony of Transylvania, in America."
+
+Soon four settlements were organised called Boonesborough, Harrodsburg,
+Boiling Spring, and St. Asaph. Colonel Henderson, on the twenty-third of
+May, 1775, as president or rather sovereign of this extraordinary realm,
+summoned a legislature consisting of delegates from this handful of
+pioneers, to meet at his capital, Boonesborough. Henderson presided.
+Daniel and his brother Squire were delegates from Boonesborough. A
+clergyman, the Reverend John Leythe, opened the session with prayer.
+Colonel Henderson made a remarkable and admirable speech. This
+extraordinary legislature represented only a constituency of one hundred
+and fifty souls. But the Colonel presented to them very clearly the true
+republican principle of government. He declared that the only legitimate
+source of political power is to be found in the will of the people, and
+added:
+
+"If any doubts remain among you with respect to the force and efficiency
+of whatever laws you now or hereafter make, be pleased to consider that
+all power is originally in the people. Make it their interest,
+therefore, by impartial and beneficent laws, and you may be sure of
+their inclination to see them enforced."
+
+Rumors of these extraordinary proceedings reached the ears of Lord
+Dunmore. He considered the whole region of Kentucky as included in the
+original grant of Virginia, and that the Government of Virginia alone
+had the right to extinguish the Indian title to any of those lands. He
+therefore issued a proclamation, denouncing in the severest terms the
+"unlawful proceedings of one Richard Henderson and other disorderly
+persons, his associates." The legislature continued in session but three
+days, and honored itself greatly by its energetic action, and by the
+character of the laws which it inaugurated. One bill was introduced for
+preserving game; another for improving the breed of their horses; and it
+is worthy of especial record that a law was passed prohibiting profane
+swearing and Sabbath breaking.
+
+The moral sense of these bold pioneers was shocked at the desecration of
+the Creator's name among their sublime solitudes.
+
+The controversy between the Transylvania Company and the Government of
+Virginia was short but very sharp. Virginia could then very easily send
+an army of several thousand men to exterminate the Kentucky colony. A
+compromise was the result. The title of Henderson was declared "null and
+void." But he received in compensation a grant of land on the Ohio,
+about twelve miles square, below the mouth of Green River. Virginia
+assumed that the Indian title was entirely extinguished, and the region
+called Transylvania now belonged without encumbrance to the Old
+Dominion.
+
+Still the tide of emigration continued to flow into this beautiful
+region. Among others came the family of Colonel Calloway, consisting of
+his wife and two daughters. For a long time no Indians had been seen in
+the vicinity of Boonesborough. No one seemed to apprehend the least
+danger from them, and the people in the fort wandered about as freely as
+if no foe had ever excited their fears. An accident occurred which sent
+a tremor of dismay through the whole colony, and which we will describe
+as related to the intelligent historian, Peck, from the lips of one of
+the parties, who experienced all the terrors of the scene:
+
+"On the fourteenth of July, 1776, Betsey Calloway, her sister Frances,
+and Jemima Boone, a daughter of Daniel Boone, the two last about
+fourteen years of age, carelessly crossed the river opposite
+Boonesborough in a canoe, at a late hour in the afternoon. The trees
+and shrubs on the opposite bank were thick, and came down to the water's
+edge. The girls, unconscious of danger, were playing and splashing the
+water with their paddles, until the canoe floating with the current,
+drifted near the shore. Five stout Indians lay there concealed, one of
+whom, noiseless and stealthy as the serpent, crawled down the bank until
+he reached the rope that hung from the bow, turned its course up the
+stream, and in a direction to be hidden from the view of the fort. The
+loud shrieks of the captured girls were heard, but too late for their
+rescue.
+
+"The canoe, their only means of crossing, was on the opposite shore, and
+none dared to risk the chance of swimming the river, under the
+impression that a large body of savages was concealed in the woods.
+Boone and Calloway were both absent, and night came on before
+arrangements could be made for their pursuit. Next morning by daylight
+we were on the track, and found they had prevented our following them by
+walking some distance apart through the thickest canes they could find.
+We observed their course, and on which side they had left their sign and
+traveled upwards of thirty miles. We then imagined they would be less
+cautious in traveling, and made a turn in order to cross their trace,
+and had gone but a few miles when we found their tracks in a buffalo
+path. We pursued and overtook them on going about ten miles, as they
+were kindling a fire to cook.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Our study had been more to get the prisoners without giving the Indians
+time to murder them, after they discovered us, than to kill them. We
+discovered each other nearly at the same time. Four of us fired, and all
+of us rushed on them, which prevented them from carrying away anything,
+except one shot-gun without ammunition. Mr. Boone and myself had a
+pretty fair shoot, just as they began to move off. I am well convinced I
+shot one through, and the one he shot dropped his gun. Mine had none.
+The place was very thick with canes, and being so much elated on
+recovering the three broken-hearted girls, prevented our making further
+search. We sent them off without their mocassins, and not one of them
+with so much as a knife or a tomahawk."
+
+The Indians seemed to awake increasingly to the consciousness that the
+empire of the white man in their country could only exist upon the ruins
+of their own. They divided themselves into several parties, making
+incessant attacks upon the forts, and prowling around to shoot every
+white man who could be found within reach of their bullets. They avoided
+all open warfare, and fought only when they could spring from an ambush,
+or when protected by a stump, a rock, or a tree. An Indian would conceal
+himself in the night behind a stump, shoot the first one who emerged
+from the fort in the morning, and then with a yell disappear in the
+recesses of the forest. The cattle could scarcely appear for an hour to
+graze beyond the protection of the fort, without danger of being struck
+down by the bullet of an unseen foe.
+
+The war of the American Revolution was just commencing. Dreadfully it
+added to the perils of these distant emigrants. The British Government,
+with infamy which can never be effaced from her records, called in to
+her aid the tomahawk and the scalping knife of the savage. The Indian
+alone in his wild and merciless barbarity, was terrible enough. But when
+he appeared as the ally of a powerful nation, guided in his operations
+by the wisdom of her officers, and well provided with guns, powder, and
+bullets from inexhaustible resources, the settler had indeed reason to
+tremble. The winter of 1776 and 1777 was gloomy beyond expression. The
+Indians were hourly becoming more bold. Their predatory bands were
+wandering in all directions, and almost every day came fraught with
+tidings of outrage or massacre.
+
+The whole military force of the colony was but about one hundred men.
+Three hundred of the pioneers, dismayed by the cloud of menace, every
+hour growing blacker, had returned across the moutains. There were but
+twenty-two armed men left in the fort at Boonesborough. The dismal
+winter passed slowly away, and the spring opened replete with nature's
+bloom and beauty, but darkened by the depravity of man. On the fifteenth
+of April, a band of a hundred howling Indians appeared in the forest
+before Boonesborough. With far more than their ordinary audacity, they
+rushed from their covert upon the fort. Had they been acquainted with
+the use of scaling ladders, by attacking at different points, they might
+easily, by their superior numbers, have carried the place by storm.
+
+But fortunately the savages had but little military science, and when
+once repulsed, would usually retreat in dismay. The garrison, behind
+their impenetrable logs, took deliberate aim, and every bullet killed or
+wounded some Indian warrior. The savages fought with great bravery, and
+succeeded in killing one man in the garrison. Dismayed by the slaughter
+which they were encountering, they fled, taking their dead and wounded
+with them. But so fully were they conscious, that would they retain
+their own supremacy in the wilderness, they must exterminate the white
+man, that their retreat was only in preparation for a return with
+accumulated numbers.
+
+An intelligent historian writes:
+
+"Daniel Boone appears before us in these exciting times the central
+figure towering like a colossus amid that hardy band of pioneers who
+opposed their breasts to the shock of the struggle which gave a terrible
+significance and a crimson hue to the history of the old dark and bloody
+ground."
+
+The Indians were scattered everywhere in desperate bands. Forty men were
+sent from North Carolina and a hundred from Virginia, under Colonel
+Bowman, to strengthen the feeble settlements. The latter party arrived
+on the twentieth of August, 1776. There were at that time skirmishes
+with the Indians almost every day at some point. The pioneers within
+their log-houses, or behind their palisades, generally repelled these
+assaults with but little loss to themselves and not often inflicting
+severe injury to the wary savages. In the midst of these constant
+conflicts and dangers, the winter months passed drearily away.
+Boonesborough was constantly menaced and frequently attacked. In a diary
+kept within the fort we find the following entries:
+
+     "_May 23._--A large party of Indians attacked Boonesborough fort.
+      Kept a warm fire till eleven o'clock at night. Began it next morning,
+      and kept a warm fire till midnight. Attempting several times to burn
+      the fort. Three of our men were wounded, but not mortally.
+
+     "_May 26th._--A party went out to hunt Indians. One wounded Squire
+     Boone, and escaped."
+
+Very cruel warfare was now being waged by the majestic power of Great
+Britain to bring the revolted colonies back to subjection to their laws.
+As we have mentioned they called into requisition on their side the
+merciless energies of the savage, openly declaring to the world that
+they were justified in making use of whatever weapons God and nature
+might place in their hands. From the strong British garrisons at
+Detroit, Vincennes and Kaskaskia, the Indians were abundantly supplied
+with rifles, powder and bullets, and were offered liberal rewards for
+such prisoners, and even scalps, as they might bring in.
+
+The danger which threatened these settlements in Kentucky was now such
+as might cause the stoutest heart to quail. The savage had been adopted
+as an ally by the most wealthy and powerful nation upon the globe. His
+marauding bands were often guided by the intelligence of British
+officers. Boone organized what might be called a corps of explorers to
+go out two and two, penetrating the wilderness with extreme caution, in
+all directions, to detect any indication of the approach of the Indians.
+One of these explorers, Simon Kenton, acting under the sagacious counsel
+of Colonel Boone, had obtained great and deserved celebrity as among the
+most heroic of the remarkable men who laid the foundation of the State
+of Kentucky. It would be difficult to find in any pages of romance
+incidents of more wonderful adventure, or of more dreadful suffering, or
+stories of more miraculous escape, than were experienced by this man.
+Several times he was taken captive by the Indians, and though treated
+with great inhumanity, succeeded in making his escape. The following
+incident in his life, occurring about this time, gives one a very vivid
+picture of the nature of this warfare with the Indians:
+
+"Colonel Bowman sent Simon Kenton with two other men, Montgomery and
+Clark, on an exploring tour. Approaching an Indian town very cautiously
+in the night, on the north side of the Ohio river, they found a number
+of Indian horses in an enclosure. A horse in the wilderness was one of
+the most valuable of prizes. They accordingly each mounted an animal,
+and not daring to leave any behind, which would aid the Indians to
+pursue them, by hastily constructed halters they led the rest. The noise
+which the horses made awoke the Indians, and the whole village was at
+once in a state of uproar. The mounted adventurers dashed through the
+woods and were soon beyond the reach of the shouts and the yells which
+they left behind them. They knew, however, full well that the
+swift-footed Indian warriors would be immediately on their trail.
+Without a moment's rest they rode all night, the next day and the next
+night, and on the morning of the second day reached the banks of the
+Ohio river. The flood of that majestic stream flowed broad and deep
+before them, and its surface was lashed into waves by a very boisterous
+wind. The horses could not swim across in such a gale, but their desire
+to retain the invaluable animals was so great that they resolved to wait
+upon the banks until sunset, when they expected the wind to abate.
+Having been so well mounted and having such a start of the Indians, they
+did not suppose it possible that their pursuers could overtake them
+before that time.
+
+"Night came, but with it an increase of the fury of the gale, and the
+stream became utterly impassable. Early in the morning Kenton, who was
+separated from his companions, observed three Indians and a white man,
+well mounted, rapidly approaching. Raising his rifle, he took steady aim
+at the breast of the foremost Indian, and pulled the trigger. The powder
+flashed in the pan. Kenton took to his heels, but was soon overtaken and
+captured. The Indians seemed greatly exasperated at the loss of their
+horses. One seized him by the hair and shook his head 'till his teeth
+rattled.' The others scourged him severely with their ramrods over the
+head and face, exclaiming at every blow, 'Steal Indian hoss, hey!'
+
+"Just then Kenton saw Montgomery coming boldly to his assistance.
+Instantly two Indian rifles were discharged, and Montgomery fell dead.
+His bloody scalp was waved in the face of Kenton, with menaces of a
+similar fate. Clark had sought safety in flight. Kenton was thrown upon
+the ground upon his back. His neck was fastened by a halter to a
+sapling; his arms, extended to their full length, were pinioned to the
+earth by stakes; his feet were fastened in a similar manner. A stout
+stick was passed across his breast, and so attached to the earth that he
+could not move his body. All this was done in the most violent and cruel
+manner, accompanied by frequent cuffs, and blows, as the maddened
+Indians called him in the broken English which they had acquired, 'a
+tief, a hoss steal, a rascal,' which expressions the Indians had learned
+to intersperse with English oaths.
+
+"In this condition of suffering Kenton remained through the day and
+through the night. The next morning the savages having collected their
+scattered horses, put Kenton upon a young colt, tied his hands behind
+him and his feet beneath the horse's belly, and set out on their return.
+The country was rough and Kenton could not at all protect himself from
+the brambles through which they passed. Thus they rode all day. When
+night came, their prisoner was bound to the earth as before. The next
+day they reached the Indian village, which was called Chilicothe, on the
+Miami river, forty or fifty miles west of the present city of
+Chilicothe, Ohio. A courier was sent forward, to inform the village of
+their arrival. Every man, woman and child came running out, to view the
+prisoner. One of their chiefs, Blackfish, approached Kenton with a
+strong hickory switch in his hand, and addressing him said,
+
+"'You have been stealing our horses, have you?'
+
+"'Yes,' was the defiant reply.
+
+"'Did Colonel Boone,' inquired the chief, 'tell you to steal our
+horses?'
+
+"'No,' said Kenton, 'I did it of my own accord.'
+
+"Blackfish then with brawny arms so mercilessly applied the scourge to
+the bare head and shoulders of his prisoner, as to cause the blood to
+flow freely, and to occasion the acutest pain.
+
+"In the mean time the whole crowd of men, women and children danced and
+hooted and clapped their hands, assailing him with the choicest epithets
+of Indian vituperation. With loud cries they demanded that he should be
+tied to the stake, that they might all enjoy the pleasure of tormenting
+him. A stake was immediately planted in the ground, and he was firmly
+fastened to it. His entire clothing was torn from him, mainly by the
+Indian women. The whole party then danced around him until midnight,
+yelling in the most frantic manner, smiting him with their hands and
+lacerating his flesh with their switches.
+
+"At midnight they released him from the stake, and allowed him some
+little repose, in preparation for their principal amusement in the
+morning, of having their prisoner run the gauntlet. Three hundred
+Indians of all ages and both sexes were assembled for the savage
+festival. The Indians were ranged in two parallel lines, about six feet
+apart, all armed with sticks, hickory rods, whips, and other means of
+inflicting torture. Between these lines, for more than half a mile to
+the village, the wretched prisoner was doomed to run for his life,
+exposed to such injury as his tormentors could inflict as he passed. If
+he succeeded in reaching the council-house alive, it would prove an
+asylum to him for the present.
+
+"At a given signal, Kenton started in the perilous race; exerting his
+utmost strength and activity, he passed swiftly along the line,
+receiving numerous blows, stripes, buffets, and wounds, until he
+approached the town, near which he saw an Indian leisurely awaiting his
+advance, with a drawn knife in his hand, intent upon his death.
+
+"To avoid him, he instantly broke through the line, and made his rapid
+way towards the council-house, pursued by the promiscuous crowd,
+whooping and yelling like infernal furies at his heels. Entering the
+town in advance of his pursuers, just as he supposed the council-house
+within his reach, an Indian was perceived leisurely approaching him
+with his blanket wrapped around him; but suddenly he threw off the
+blanket and sprung upon Kenton as he advanced. Exhausted with fatigue
+and wounds, he was thrown to the ground, and in a moment he was beset
+with crowds, eager to inflict upon him the kick or blow which had been
+avoided by breaking through the line. Here beaten, kicked and scourged,
+until he was nearly lifeless, he was left to die."[B]
+
+ [Footnote B: Macdonald's Sketches.]
+
+A few hours afterwards he was supplied with food and water, and was
+suffered to recuperate for a few days, until he was enabled to attend at
+the council-house, and receive the announcement of his final doom. It
+was here decided that he should be made a public sacrifice to the
+vengeance of the nation. The Indian town of Wappatomica, upon the
+present site of Zanesville, Ohio, was the appointed place of his
+execution. Being in a state of utter exhaustion his escape was deemed
+impossible, and he was carelessly guarded. In despair he attempted it.
+He was promptly recaptured and punished by being taken to a neighboring
+creek where he was dragged through mud and water, till life was nearly
+extinct. Still his constitutional vigor triumphed, and he revived.
+
+Wappatomica was a British trading post. Here Kenton met an old comrade,
+Simon Girty, who had become a renegade, had joined the Indians, and had
+so adopted their dress and manners as hardly to be distinguished from
+his savage associates. Girty cautiously endeavored to save the condemned
+prisoner. He represented to the band that it would be of great advantage
+to them to have possession of one so intimately acquainted with all the
+white settlements and their resources.
+
+A respite was granted. Another council was held. The spirit of Indian
+revenge prevailed. Kenton was again doomed to death, to be preceded by
+the terrible ordeal of running the gauntlet.
+
+But a British officer, influenced by the persuasions of the Indian chief
+Logan, the friend of the white man, urged upon the Indian chiefs that
+the British officers at Detroit would regard the possession of Kenton,
+with the information he had at his command, as a great acquisition, and
+that they would pay for him a ransom of at least one hundred dollars.
+They took him to Detroit; the ransom was paid, and Kenton became the
+prisoner of the British officers, instead of the savage chieftains.
+Still he was a prisoner, though treated with ordinary humanity, and was
+allowed the liberty of the town.
+
+There were two other American captives there, Captain Nathan Bullit and
+Jesse Coffer. Escape seemed impossible, as it could only be effected
+through a wilderness four hundred miles in extent, crowded with
+wandering Indian bands, where they would be imminently exposed to
+recapture, or to death by starvation.
+
+Simon Kenton was a very handsome man. He won the sympathies of a very
+kind English woman, Mrs. Harvey, the wife of one of the traders at the
+post. She secretly obtained for him and his two companions, and
+concealed in a hollow tree, powder, lead, moccasins, and a quantity of
+dried beef. One dark night, when the Indians were engaged in a drunken
+bout, she met Kenton in the garden and handed him three of the best
+rifles, which she had selected from those stacked near the house. The
+biographer of these events writes:
+
+"When a woman engages to do an action, she will risk limb, life or
+character, to serve him whom she respects or wishes to befriend. How
+differently the same action would be viewed by different persons! By
+Kenton and his friends her conduct was viewed as the benevolent conduct
+of a good angel; while if the part she played in behalf of Kenton and
+his companions had been known to the commander at Detroit, she would
+have been looked upon as a traitress, who merited the scorn and contempt
+of all honest citizens. This night was the last that Kenton ever saw or
+heard of her."
+
+Our fugitives traveled mostly by night, guided by the stars. After
+passing through a series of wonderful adventures, which we have not
+space here to record, on the thirty-third day of their escape, they
+reached the settlement at the Falls of the Ohio, now Louisville. During
+the rest of the war, Kenton was a very active partisan. He died in the
+year 1836, over eighty years of age, having been for more than a quarter
+of a century an honored member of the Methodist Church.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+_Life in the Wilderness._
+
+Stewart killed by the Indians.--Squire Boone returns to the
+Settlements.--Solitary Life of Daniel Boone.--Return of Squire
+Boone.--Extended and Romantic Explorations.--Charms and Perils of
+the Wilderness.--The Emigrant Party.--The Fatal Ambuscade.--Retreat
+of the Emigrants.--Solitude of the Wilderness.--Expedition of Lewis
+and Clarke.--Extraordinary Adventures of Cotter.
+
+
+There were now four hungry men to occupy the little camp of our bold
+adventurers. They do not seem to have been conscious of enduring any
+hardships. The winter was mild. Their snug tent furnished perfect
+protection from wind and rain. With abundant fuel, their camp-fire ever
+blazed brightly. Still it was necessary for them to be diligent in
+hunting, to supply themselves with their daily food. Bread, eggs, milk,
+butter, sugar, and even salt, were articles of which they were entirely
+destitute.
+
+One day, not long after the arrival of Squire Boone, Daniel Boone, with
+his companion Stewart, was a long distance from the camp, hunting.
+Suddenly the terrible war-whoop of the Indians resounded from a thicket,
+and a shower of arrows fell around them. Stewart, pierced by one of
+these deadly missiles, fell mortally wounded. A sturdy savage sprang
+from the ambuscade upon his victim, and with a yell buried a tomahawk in
+his brain. Then, grasping with one hand the hair on the top of his head,
+he made a rapid circular cut with his gleaming knife, and tore off the
+scalp, leaving the skull bare. The revolting deed was done quicker than
+it can be described. Shaking the bloody trophy in his hand, he gave a
+whoop of exultation which echoed far and wide through the solitudes of
+the forest.
+
+Boone, swift of foot as the antelope, escaped and reached the camp with
+the sad tidings of the death of his companion, and of the presence, in
+their immediate vicinity, of hostile Indians. This so affrighted the
+North Carolinian who had come with Squire Boone, that he resolved upon
+an immediate return to the Yadkin. He set out alone, and doubtless
+perished by the way, as he was never heard of again. A skeleton,
+subsequently found in the wilderness, was supposed to be the remains of
+the unfortunate hunter. He probably perished through exhaustion, or by
+the arrow or tomahawk of the savage.
+
+The two brothers, Daniel and Squire, were now left entirely alone.
+
+They selected a favorable spot in a wild ravine where they would be the
+least likely to be discovered by hunting bands, and built for
+themselves a snug and comfortable log-house, in which they would be more
+effectually sheltered from the storms and cold of winter, and into which
+they moved from their open camp. Here they remained, two loving brothers
+of congenial tastes, during the months of January, February, March and
+April. Solitary as their life must have been probably, every hour
+brought busy employment. Each day's food was to be obtained by the
+rifle. Wood was to be procured for their fire. All their clothing, from
+the cap to the moccasin, was to be fashioned by their own hands from the
+skin of the deer, which they had carefully tanned into pliancy and
+softness; and there were to be added to their cabin many conveniences
+which required much ingenuity with knife and hatchet for their only
+tools, and with neither nail nor screw for their construction. In
+addition to this they were under the necessity of being ever on the
+alert to discover indications of the approach of the Indians.
+
+The winter passed away, not only undisturbed, but evidently very
+happily. It is remarkable that their retreat was not discovered by any
+of the Indian bands, who in pursuit of game were constantly roving over
+those rich hunting grounds.
+
+As summer's warmth returned, Squire Boone decided to retrace his steps
+to the Yadkin, to carry to his brother's family news of his safety, and
+to obtain much needed supplies of powder and of lead. There is no
+satisfactory explanation of the motives which could have induced Daniel,
+after the absence of a year from his home, to remain alone in that
+solitary cabin. In his autobiography he has assigned no reason for the
+extraordinary decision. One of the most judicious of his biographers
+makes the following statement which by no means solves the mystery:
+
+"When the spring came it was time for another movement. The spring came
+early, and the awaking to its foliage seemed like the passing from night
+to the day. The game had reduced their powder and lead, and without
+these there was no existence to the white man. Again Daniel Boone rises
+to the emergency. It was necessary that the settlement which they had
+made should be continued and protected, and it was the duty in the
+progress of events that one of them should remain to that task. He made
+the selection and chose himself. He had the courage to remain alone. And
+while he felt the keenest desire to see his own family, he felt that he
+had a noble purpose to serve and was prepared for it."[C]
+
+ [Footnote C: Life of Boone, by W. H. Bogart.]
+
+Daniel Boone, in his quaint autobiography, in the following terms
+alludes to the departure of his brother and his own solitary mode of
+life during the three months of his brother's absence:
+
+"On the first day of May, 1770, my brother returned home to the
+settlement by himself for a new recruit of horses and ammunition,
+leaving me by myself without bread, salt or sugar, without company of my
+fellow creatures, or even a horse or dog. I confess I never before was
+under greater necessity of exercising philosophy and fortitude. A few
+days I passed uncomfortably. The idea of a beloved wife and family, and
+their anxiety on account of my absence and exposed situation, made
+sensible impressions on my heart. A thousand dreadful apprehensions
+presented themselves to my view, and had undoubtedly exposed me to
+melancholy if further indulged.
+
+"One day I took a tour through the country, and the diversity and
+beauties of nature I met with in this charming season, expelled every
+gloomy and vexatious thought. Just at the close of the day the gentle
+gales retired and left the place to the disposal of a profound calm. Not
+a breeze shook the most tremulous leaf. I had gained the summit of a
+commanding ridge, and looking around with astonishing delight beheld the
+ample plain, the beauteous tracts below. On the other hand I surveyed
+the famous river Ohio, that rolled in silent dignity, marking the
+western boundary of Kentucky, with inconceivable grandeur. At a vast
+distance I beheld the mountains lift their venerable heads and penetrate
+the clouds.
+
+"I kindled a fire near a fountain of sweet water, and feasted on the
+loin of a buck. The fallen shades of night soon overspread the whole
+hemisphere, and the earth seemed to gape after the hovering moisture. My
+roving excursion this day had fatigued my body and diverted my
+imagination. I laid me down to sleep, and I woke not until the sun had
+chased away the night. I continued this tour, and in a few days explored
+a considerable part of the country, each day equally pleased as the
+first. I returned to my old camp which was not disturbed in my absence.
+I did not confine my lodging to it, but often reposed in thick cane
+brakes, to avoid the savages, who I believe often visited it, but,
+fortunately for me, in my absence.
+
+"In this situation I was constantly exposed to danger and death. How
+unhappy such a condition for a man tormented with fear, which is vain if
+no danger comes; and if it does, only augments the pain! It was my
+happiness to be destitute of this afflicting passion, with which I had
+the greatest reason to be affected. The prowling wolves diverted my
+nocturnal hours with perpetual howlings, and the various species of
+animals in this vast forest, in the day-time were continually in my
+view. Thus I was surrounded with plenty in the midst of want. I was
+happy in the midst of dangers and inconveniences. In such a diversity it
+was impossible I should be disposed to melancholy. No populous city,
+with all the varieties of commerce and stately structures, could afford
+so much pleasure to my mind, as the beauties of nature I found here.
+
+"Thus through an uninterrupted scene of sylvan pleasures, I spent the
+time until the twenty-seventh day of July following, when my brother, to
+my great felicity, met me, according to appointment, at our old camp."
+
+Boone was at this time thirty-six years of age. He was about five feet
+ten inches in height, and of remarkably vigorous and athletic frame. His
+life in the open air, his perfect temperance, and his freedom from all
+exciting passions, gave him constant health. Squire brought back to his
+brother the gratifying news that his wife Rebecca was in good health and
+spirits, and cheerfully acquiesced in whatever decision her husband
+might make, in reference to his absence. She had full confidence in the
+soundness of his judgment, and in his conjugal and parental love. The
+children were all well, and from the farm and the forest the wants of
+the family were fully supplied.
+
+It appears that Squire Boone had succeeded in bringing one or two
+horses across the mountains. The abundance of grass kept them in fine
+condition. Upon the backs of these horses, the pioneers could traverse
+the treeless prairies without obstruction, and large portions of the
+forest were as free from underbrush as the park of an English nobleman.
+Invaluable as these animals were to the adventurers, they greatly
+increased their perils. They could not easily be concealed. Their
+footprints could not be effaced, and there was nothing the Indians
+coveted so greatly as a horse.
+
+The two adventurers now set out on horseback for an exploring tour to
+the south-west. Following a line nearly parallel with the Cumberland
+Range, after traversing a magnificent region of beauty and fertility for
+about one hundred and fifty miles, they reached the banks of the
+Cumberland river. This majestic stream takes its rise on the western
+slope of the Cumberland mountains. After an exceedingly circuitous route
+of six hundred miles, running far down into Tennessee, it turns
+north-westerly again, and empties its waters into the Ohio, about sixty
+miles above the entrance of that river into the Mississippi.
+
+It was mid-summer. The weather was delightful. The forest free from
+underbrush, attractive as the most artificial park, and the smooth sweep
+of the treeless prairie presented before them as enticing a route of
+travel as the imagination could desire. There were of course hardships
+and privations, which would have been regarded as very severe by the
+dwellers in the sealed houses, but none which disturbed in the slightest
+degree the equanimity of these hardy adventurers. They journeyed very
+leisurely; seven months being occupied in the tour. Probably only a few
+miles were accomplished each day. With soft saddles made of the skin of
+buffalo, with their horses never urged beyond a walk, with bright skies
+above them, and vistas of beauty ever opening before them, and
+luxuriance, bloom and fragrance spread everywhere around, their journey
+seemed replete with enjoyment of the purest kind.
+
+Though it was necessary to practice the extreme of caution, to avoid
+capture by the Indians, our adventurers do not seem to have been annoyed
+in the slightest degree with any painful fears on that account. Each
+morning they carefully scanned the horizon, to see if anywhere there
+could be seen the smoke of the camp-fire curling up from the open
+prairie or from the forest. Through the day they were ever on the alert,
+examining the trails which they occasionally passed, to see if there
+were any fresh foot prints, or other indications of the recent presence
+of their foe. At night, before venturing to kindle their own camp-fire,
+they looked cautiously in every direction, to see if a gleam from an
+Indian encampment could anywhere be seen. Thus from the first of August
+to the ensuing month of March, these two bold men traversed, for many
+hundred miles, an unknown country, filled with wandering hunting bands
+of hostile Indians, and yet avoided capture or detection.
+
+If a storm arose, they would rear their cabin in some secluded dell, and
+basking in the warmth of their camp-fire wait until the returning sun
+invited them to resume their journey. Or if they came to some of
+nature's favored haunts, where Eden-like attractions were spread around
+them, on the borders of the lake, by the banks of the stream, or beneath
+the brow of the mountain, they would tarry for a few days, reveling in
+delights, which they both had the taste to appreciate.
+
+In this way, they very thoroughly explored the upper valley of the
+Cumberland river. For some reason not given, they preferred to return
+north several hundred miles to the Kentucky river, as the seat of their
+contemplated settlement. The head waters of this stream are near those
+of the Cumberland. It however flows through the very heart of Kentucky,
+till it enters the Ohio river, midway between the present cities of
+Cincinnati and Louisville. It was in the month of March that they
+reached the Kentucky river on their return. For some time they wandered
+along its banks searching for the more suitable situation for the
+location of a colony.
+
+"The exemption of these men," said W. H. Bogart, "from assault by the
+Indians during all this long period of seven months, in which, armed and
+on horseback, they seem to have roamed just where they chose, is most
+wonderful. It has something about it which seems like a special
+interposition of Providence, beyond the ordinary guardianship over the
+progress of man. On the safety of these men rested the hope of a nation.
+A very distinguished authority has declared, that without Boone, the
+settlements could not have been upheld and the conquest of Kentucky
+would have been reserved for the emigrants of the nineteenth century."
+
+Boone having now, after an absence of nearly two years, apparently
+accomplished the great object of his mission; having, after the most
+careful and extensive exploration, selected such a spot as he deemed
+most attractive for the future home of his family, decided to return to
+the Yadkin and make preparations for their emigration across the
+mountains. To us now, such a movement seems to indicate an almost insane
+boldness and recklessness. To take wife and children into a pathless
+wilderness filled with unfriendly savages, five hundred miles from any
+of the settlements of civilization, would seem to invite death. A
+family could not long be concealed. Their discovery by the Indians
+would be almost the certain precursor of their destruction. Boone, in
+his autobiography, says in allusion to this hazardous adventure:
+
+"I returned home to my family with a determination to bring them as soon
+as possible, at the risk of my life and fortune, to live in Kentucky,
+which I esteemed a second paradise."
+
+The two brothers accomplished the journey safely, and Daniel Boone found
+his family, after his long absence, in health and prosperity. One would
+have supposed that the charms of home on the banks of the Yadkin, where
+they could dwell in peace, abundance and safety, would have lured our
+adventurer to rest from his wanderings. And it is probable that for a
+time, he wavered in his resolution. Two years elapsed ere he set out for
+his new home in the Far-West.
+
+There was much to be done in preparation for so momentous a movement. He
+sold his farm on the Yadkin and invested the proceeds in such comforts
+as would be available on the banks of the Kentucky. Money would be of no
+value to him there. A path had been discovered by which horses could be
+led through the mountains, and thus many articles could be transported
+which could not be taken in packs on the back. Several of the neighbors,
+elated by the description which Boone gave of the paradise he had
+found, were anxious to join his family in their emigration. There were
+also quite a number of young men rising here and there, who, lured by
+the romance of the adventure, were eager to accompany the expedition.
+All these events caused delays. The party of emigrants became more
+numerous than Boone at first expected.
+
+It was not until the twenty-fifth of September, 1773, that Daniel Boone,
+his brother Squire, and quite a large party of emigrants, probably in
+all--men, women and children--not less than sixty in number, commenced
+their journey across the mountains. There were five families and forty
+pioneers, all well armed, who were quite at home amid the trials and
+privations of the wilderness. Four horses, heavily laden, led the train
+through the narrow trails of the forest. Then came, in single file, the
+remainder of the party, of all ages and both sexes. It must have been a
+singular spectacle which was presented, as this long line wound its way
+through the valleys and over the ridges.
+
+Squire Boone was quite familiar with the path. It was delightful
+autumnal weather. The days were long and calm, and yet not oppressively
+hot. There were no gloved gentlemen or delicate ladies in the company.
+All were hardy men and women, accustomed to endurance. Each day's
+journey was short. An hour before the sun disappeared in the west, the
+little village of cabins arose, where some spring gurgled from the
+cliff, or some sparkling mountain stream rippled before them. In front
+of each cabin the camp-fire blazed. All was animation and apparent joy,
+as the women prepared the evening meal, and the wearied children rested
+upon their couch of dried leaves or fragrant twigs. If a storm arose,
+they had but to remain beneath their shelter until it passed away.
+
+"Traveling," says Madame de Stael, who was accustomed to the most
+luxurious of European conveyances, "is the most painful of pleasures."
+Probably our travelers on this journey experienced as many pleasures and
+as few pains as often fall to the lot of any tourist. The solitary
+wilderness has its attractions as well as the thronged town.
+
+These bold men armed with their rifles, under such an accomplished
+leader as Daniel Boone, penetrated the wilderness with almost the
+strength of an invading army. Upon the open prairie, the superiority of
+their arms would compensate for almost any inferiority of numbers.
+Indeed they had little to fear from the savages, unless struck suddenly
+with overwhelming numbers leaping upon them from some ambush. Pleasant
+days came and went, while nothing occurred to interrupt the prosperity
+of their journey. They were approaching the celebrated Cumberland Gap,
+which seems to be a door that nature has thrown open for passing through
+this great mountain barrier. The vigilance they ought to have practiced
+had been in some degree relaxed by their freedom from all alarm. The
+cows had fallen a few miles behind, seven young men were with them, a
+son of Daniel Boone being one of the number. The main party was not
+aware how far the cattle had fallen in the rear.
+
+It is probable that the savages had been following them for several
+days, watching for an opportunity to strike, for suddenly, as they were
+passing through a narrow ravine, the fearful war-whoop resounded from
+the thickets on both sides, a shower of arrows fell upon them, and six
+of the seven young men were instantly struck down by these deadly
+missiles. One only escaped. The attack was so sudden, so unexpected,
+that the emigrants had scarcely time for one discharge of their
+fire-arms, ere they were struck with death. The party in advance heard
+with consternation the reports of the muskets, and immediately returned
+to the scene of the disaster. But several miles intervened. They met the
+fugitive who had escaped, bleeding and almost breathless.
+
+Hurrying on, an awful spectacle met their view. The bodies of six of
+the young men lay in the path, mangled and gory, with their scalps torn
+from their heads: the cattle were driven into the forest beyond pursuit.
+One of these victims was the eldest son of Daniel Boone. James was a
+noble lad of but seventeen years. His untimely death was a terrible blow
+to his father and mother. This massacre took place on the tenth of
+October, only a fortnight after the expedition had commenced its march.
+The gloom which it threw over the minds of the emigrants was so great,
+that the majority refused to press any farther into a wilderness where
+they would encounter such perils.
+
+They had already passed two mountain ridges. Between them there was a
+very beautiful valley, through which flows the Clinch River. This many
+leagues below, uniting with the Holston River, flowing on the other side
+of Powell's Ridge, composes the majestic Tennessee, which, extending far
+down into Alabama, turns again north, and traversing the whole breadth
+of Tennessee and Kentucky, empties into the Ohio.
+
+Notwithstanding the remonstrances of Daniel Boone and his brother, the
+majority of the emigrants resolved to retreat forty miles over the
+Walden Ridge, and establish themselves in the valley of the Clinch.
+Daniel Boone, finding all his attempts to encourage them to proceed in
+vain, decided with his customary good sense to acquiesce in their
+wishes, and quietly to await further developments. The whole party
+consequently retraced their steps, and reared their cabins on fertile
+meadows in the valley of the Clinch River. Here, between parallel ridges
+of mountains running north-east and south-west, Boone with his
+disheartened emigrants passed seven months. This settlement was within
+the limits of the present State of Virginia, in its most extreme
+south-western corner.
+
+The value of the vast country beyond the mountains was beginning to
+attract the attention of the governors of the several colonies. Governor
+Dunmore of Virginia had sent a party of surveyors to explore the valley
+of the Ohio River as far as the celebrated Falls of the Ohio, near the
+present site of Louisville. Quite a body of these surveyors had built
+and fortified a camp near the Falls, and were busy in exploring the
+country, in preparation for the granting of lands as rewards for
+services to the officers and soldiers in the French war. These pioneers
+were far away in the wilderness, four hundred miles beyond any
+settlement of the whites. They were surrounded by thousands of Indian
+warriors, and still they felt somewhat secure, as a treaty of peace had
+been made by the Governor of Virginia with the neighboring chiefs. But,
+notwithstanding this treaty, many of the more intelligent of the Indians
+foresaw the inevitable destruction of their hunting grounds, should the
+white men succeed in establishing themselves on their lands, and cutting
+them up into farms.
+
+A friendly Indian had informed Governor Dunmore that a very formidable
+conspiracy had been organised by the tribes for the destruction of the
+party encamped at the Falls of the Ohio, and for the extermination of
+every other party of whites who should penetrate their hunting grounds.
+It was in accordance with this conspiracy that Daniel Boone's party was
+so fiercely assailed when near the Gap, in the Cumberland mountains; and
+it was probably the knowledge of this conspiracy, thus practically
+developed, which led the husbands and fathers to abandon their
+enterprise of plunging into the wilderness of Kentucky.
+
+There were about forty men all numbered, in the little band of surveyors
+at the Falls. They were in terrible peril. Unconscious of danger, and
+supposing the Indians to be friendly, they were liable to be attacked on
+any day by overwhelming numbers of savages, and utterly exterminated. It
+consequently became a matter of great moment that Governor Dunmore
+should send them word of their danger, and if possible secure their safe
+return to the settlements. But who would undertake such a mission? One
+fraught with greater danger could not easily be imagined. The courier
+must traverse on foot a distance of four or five hundred miles through a
+pathless wilderness, filled with hunting bands of hostile savages. He
+must live upon the game he could shoot each day, when every discharge of
+his musket was liable to bring upon him scores of foes. He must either
+eat his food raw, or cook it at a fire whose gleam at night, or smoke by
+day, would be almost sure to attract the attention of death-dealing
+enemies. He must conceal his footprints from hunting bands, wandering
+far and wide in every direction, so keen in their sagacity that they
+could almost follow the track of the lightest-footed animal through the
+forest or over the prairie.
+
+The Indians had also well-trained dogs, who being once put upon the
+scent, could with unerring instinct follow any object of search, until
+it was overtaken.
+
+The name of Daniel Boone was mentioned to Governor Dunmore as precisely
+the man to meet this exigency. The Governor made application to the
+practiced hunter, and Boone, without the slightest hesitancy, accepted
+the perilous office. Indeed he seems to have been entirely unconscious
+of the heroism he was developing. Never did knight errant of the middle
+ages undertake an achievement of equal daring; for capture not only was
+certain death, but death under the most frightful tortures. But Boone,
+calm, imperturbable, pensive, with never a shade of boastfulness in
+word or action, embarked in the enterprise as if it had been merely one
+of the ordinary occurrences of every-day life. In the following modest
+words he records the event in his autobiography:
+
+"I remained with my family on the Clinch river until the sixth of June,
+1774, when I, and one Michael Stoner, were solicited by Governor Dunmore
+of Virginia, to go to the Falls of the Ohio to conduct into the
+settlements a number of surveyors that had been sent thither by him some
+months before, this country having about this time drawn the attention
+of many adventurers. We immediately complied with the Governor's
+request, and conducted in the surveyors, completing a tour of eight
+hundred miles, through many difficulties, in sixty-two days."
+
+The narrative which follows will give the reader some idea of the
+wilderness which Boone was about to penetrate and the perils which he
+was to encounter.
+
+An emigrant of these early days who lived to witness the transformation
+of the wilderness from a scene of unbroken solitude into the haunts of
+busy men, in the following words describes this change and its influence
+upon the mind:
+
+"To a person who has witnessed all the changes which have taken place in
+the western country since its first settlement, its former appearance is
+like a dream or romance. He will find it difficult to realise the
+features of that wilderness which was the abode of his infant days. The
+little cabin of his father no longer exists. The little field and truck
+patch which gave him a scanty supply of coarse bread and vegetables have
+been swallowed up in the extended meadows, orchard or grain fields. The
+rude fort in which his people had resided so many painful summers has
+vanished.
+
+"Everywhere surrounded by the busy hum of men and the splendor, arts,
+refinements and comforts of civilised life, his former state and that of
+his country have vanished from his memory; or if sometimes he bestows a
+reflection on its original aspect, the mind seems to be carried back to
+a period of time much more remote than it really is. One advantage at
+least results from having lived in a state of society ever on the change
+and always for the better, that it doubles the retrospect of life. With
+me at any rate it has had that effect. Did not the definite number of my
+years teach me to the contrary, I should think myself at least one
+hundred years old instead of fifty. The case is said to be widely
+different with those who have passed their lives in cities or ancient
+settlements where, from year to year, the same unchanging aspect of
+things presents itself.
+
+"One prominent feature of the wilderness is its solitude. Those who
+plunged into the bosom of this forest left behind them not only the busy
+hum of men, but of domesticated animal life generally. The solitude of
+the night was interrupted only by the howl of the wolf, the melancholy
+moan of the ill-boding owl or the shriek of the frightful panther. Even
+the faithful dog, the only steadfast companion of man among the brute
+creation, partook of the silence of the desert; the discipline of his
+master forbade him to bark or move but in obedience to his command, and
+his native sagacity soon taught the propriety of obedience to this
+severe government.
+
+"The day was, if possible, more solitary than the night. The noise of
+the wild turkey, the croaking of the raven, or the woodpecker tapping
+the hollow beech tree, did not much enliven the dreary scene. The
+various tribes of singing birds are not inhabitants of the desert. They
+are not carnivorous and therefore must be fed from the labors of man. At
+any rate they did not exist in this country at its first settlement.
+
+"Let the imagination of the reader pursue the track of the adventurer
+into the solitary wilderness, bending his course towards the setting sun
+over undulating hills, under the shade of large forest trees, and wading
+through the rank weeds and grass which then covered the earth. Now he
+views from the top of a hill the winding course of a creek whose streams
+he wishes to explore. Doubtful of its course and of his own, he
+ascertains the cardinal points of north and south by the thickness of
+the moss and bark on the north side of the ancient trees. Now descending
+into a valley, he presages his approach to a river by seeing large ash,
+basswood and sugar trees beautifully festooned with wild grape vines.
+Watchful as Argus, his restless eye catches everything around him.
+
+"In an unknown region and surrounded with dangers, he is the sentinel of
+his own safety and relies on himself for protection. The toilsome march
+of the day being ended, at the fall of night he seeks for safety some
+narrow sequestered hollow, and by the side of a large log builds a fire
+and, after eating a coarse and scanty meal, wraps himself up in his
+blanket and lays him self down for repose on his bed of leaves, with his
+feet to the fire, hoping for favorable dreams, ominous of future good
+luck, while his faithful dog and gun rest by his side.
+
+"But let not the reader suppose that the pilgrim of the wilderness could
+feast his imagination with the romantic beauties of nature, without any
+drawback from conflicting passions. His situation did not afford him
+much time for contemplation. He was an exile from the warm clothing and
+plentiful mansions of society. His homely woodman's dress soon became
+old and ragged. The cravings of hunger compelled him to sustain from day
+to day the fatigues of the chase. Often he had to eat his venison,
+bear's meat, or wild turkey without bread or salt. His situation was not
+without its dangers. He did not know at what moment his foot might be
+stung by a serpent, at what moment he might meet with the formidable
+bear, or on what limb of a tree over his head the murderous panther
+might be perched, in a squatting attitude, to drop down upon him and
+tear him in pieces in a moment.
+
+"Exiled from society and its comforts, the situation of the first
+adventurers was perilous in the extreme. The bite of a serpent, a broken
+limb, a wound of any kind, or a fit of sickness in the wilderness
+without those accommodations which wounds and sickness require, was a
+dreadful calamity. The bed of sickness, without medical aid, and above
+all to be destitute of the kind attention of a mother, sister, wife, or
+other female friends, was a situation which could not be anticipated by
+the tenant of the forest, with other sentiments than those of the
+deepest horror."[D]
+
+ [Footnote D: Doddridge's Notes.]
+
+There are no narratives of more thrilling interest than those which
+describe the perils and hair-breadth escapes which some of these bold
+hunters encountered. Immediately after the purchase of Louisiana, an
+expedition under Lewis and Clark was fitted out, under President
+Jefferson's administration, to explore the vast, mysterious, undefined
+realms which the government had purchased. In the month of May, 1804,
+the expedition, in birch canoes, commenced the ascent of the Missouri
+river.
+
+They knew not whence its source, what its length or the number of its
+tributaries, through what regions of fertility or barrenness it flowed,
+or what the character of the nations who might inhabit its banks.
+Paddling up the rapid current of this flood of waters in their frail
+boats, the ascent was slow. By the latter part of October they had
+reached a point fifteen hundred miles above the spot where the Missouri
+enters the Mississippi. Here they spent the winter with some friendly
+Indians called the Mandans.
+
+Early in April, Lewis and Clark, with thirty men in their canoes,
+resumed their voyage. Their course was nearly west. In May they reached
+the mouth of the Yellow Stone river, and on the 13th of June came to the
+_Great Falls of the Missouri_. Here they found a series of cataracts ten
+miles in length. At one spot the river plunged over a precipice
+eighty-seven feet in height. Carrying their canoes around these falls,
+they re-embarked, and paddled through what they called "The Gates of
+the Rocky Mountains." Here for six miles they were in a narrow channel
+with perpendicular walls of rock, rising on both sides to the height of
+twelve hundred feet. Thus these adventurers continued their voyage till
+they reached the head of navigation, three thousand miles from the mouth
+of the Missouri river. Passing through the mountains they launched their
+canoes on streams flowing to the west, through which they entered the
+Columbia river, reaching its mouth, through a thousand perils on the
+15th of November. They were now more than four thousand miles distant
+from the mouth of the Missouri. Such was the breadth of the estate we
+had purchased of France.
+
+Here they passed their second winter. In the early spring they commenced
+their return. When they arrived at the Falls of the Missouri they
+encountered a numerous band of Indians, very bold and daring, called the
+Blackfoot. These savages were astonished beyond measure, at the effect
+of the rifle which could emit thunder and lightning, and a deadly though
+invisible bolt. Some of the boldest endeavored to wrench the rifles from
+some of the Americans. Mr. Lewis found it necessary to shoot one of them
+before they would desist. The rest fled in dismay, but burning with the
+desire for revenge. The explorers continuing their voyage arrived at
+Saint Louis on the 23rd of September, 1806, having been absent more
+than two years, and having traveled more than nine thousand miles.
+
+When the expedition, on its return, had reached the head waters of the
+Missouri, two of these fearless men, Colter and Potts, decided to remain
+in the wilderness to hunt beaver. Being well aware of the hostility of
+the Blackfoot Indians, within whose regions they were, they set their
+traps at night, and took them up in the first dawn of the day. Early one
+morning, they were ascending a creek in a canoe, visiting their traps,
+when they were alarmed by a great noise, like the trampling of animals.
+They could see nothing, as the perpendicular banks of the river impeded
+their view. Yet they hoped that the noise was occasioned simply by the
+rush of a herd of buffaloes.
+
+Their doubts were soon painfully removed. A band of six hundred
+Blackfoot warriors appeared upon each side of the creek. Escape was
+hopeless. The Indians beckoned to the hunters to come ashore. Colter
+turned the head of the canoe towards the bank, and as soon as it touched
+the land, a burly savage seized the rifle belonging to Potts, and
+wrenched it from his hand. But Colter, who was a man of extraordinary
+activity and strength, grasped the rifle, tore it from the hands of the
+Indian, and handed it back to Potts. Colter stepped ashore and was a
+captive. Potts, with apparent infatuation, but probably influenced by
+deliberate thought, pushed again out into the stream. He knew that, as a
+captive, death by horrible torture awaited him. He preferred to provoke
+the savages to his instant destruction. An arrow was shot at him, which
+pierced his body. He took deliberate aim at the Indian who threw it and
+shot him dead upon the spot. Instantly a shower of arrows whizzed
+through the air, and he fell a dead man in the bottom of the boat. The
+earthly troubles of Potts were ended. But fearful were those upon which
+Colter was about to enter.
+
+The Indians, after some deliberation respecting the manner in which they
+would put him to death, stripped him entirely naked, and one of the
+chiefs led him out upon the prairie to the distance of three or four
+hundred yards from the rest of the band who were grouped together.
+Colter then perceived that he was to have the dreadful privilege of
+running for his life;--he, entirely naked and unarmed, to be pursued by
+six hundred fleet-footed Indians with arrows and javelins, and with
+their feet and limbs protected from thorns and brambles by moccasins and
+deerskin leggins.
+
+"Save yourself if you can," said the chief in the Blackfoot language as
+he set him loose. Colter sprung forward with almost supernatural speed.
+Instantly the Indian's war-whoop burst from the lips of his six hundred
+pursuers. They were upon a plain about six miles in breadth abounding
+with the prickly pear. At the end of the plain there was Jefferson
+river, a stream but a few rods wide. Every step Colter took, bounding
+forward with almost the speed of an antelope, his naked feet were torn
+by the thorns. The physical effort he made was so great that the blood
+gushed from his nostrils, and flowed profusely down over his chest. He
+had half crossed the plain before he ventured to glance over his
+shoulder upon his pursuers, who, with hideous yells, like baying
+bloodhounds, seemed close upon his heels. Much to his relief he
+perceived that he had greatly distanced most of the Indians, though one
+stout savage, with a javelin in his hand, was within a hundred yards of
+him.
+
+Hope reanimated him. Regardless of lacerated feet and blood, he pressed
+forward with renovated vigor until he arrived within about a mile of the
+river, when he found that his pursuer was gaining rapidly upon him. He
+could hear his breathing and the sound of his footsteps, and expected
+every moment to feel the sharp javelin piercing his back.
+
+In his desperation he suddenly stopped, turned round and stretching out
+both of his arms, rushed, in his utter defencelessness, upon the armed
+warrior. The savage, startled by this unexpected movement and by the
+bloody appearance of his victim, stumbled and fell, breaking his spear
+as he attempted to throw it. Colter instantly snatched up the pointed
+part, and pinned his foe, quivering with convulsions to the earth.
+
+Again he plunged forward on the race for life. The Indians, as they came
+up, stopped for a moment around the body of their slain comrade, and
+then, with hideous yells, resumed the pursuit. The stream was fringed
+with a dense growth of cotton-wood trees. Colter rushed through them,
+thus concealed from observation, and seeing near by a large raft of
+drift timber, he plunged into the water, dived under the raft and
+fortunately succeeded in getting his head above the water between the
+logs, where smaller wood covered him to the depth of several feet.
+
+Scarcely had he attained this hiding place ere the Indians like so many
+fiends came rushing down to the river's bank. They searched the
+cotton-wood thickets, and traversed the raft in all directions. They
+frequently came so near the hiding place of Colter that he could see
+them through the chinks. He was terribly afraid that they would set fire
+to the raft. Night came on, and the Indians disappeared. Colter, in the
+darkness, dived from under the raft, swam down the river to a
+considerable distance, and then landed and traveled all night, following
+the course of the stream.
+
+"Although happy in having escaped from the Indians, his situation was
+still dreadful. He was completely naked under a burning sun. The soles
+of his feet were filled with the thorns of the prickly pear. He was
+hungry and had no means of killing game, although he saw abundance
+around him; and was at a great distance from the nearest settlement.
+After some days of sore travel, during which he had no other sustenance
+than the root known by naturalists under the name of _psoralea
+esculenta_, he at length arrived in safety at Lisa Fort, on the Big
+Horn, a branch of the Yellow Stone river."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+_Captivity and Flight._
+
+Heroism of Thomas Higgins and of Mrs. Pursley.--Affairs at
+Boonesborough.--Continued Alarms.--Need of Salt.--Its Manufacture.--Indian
+Schemes.--Capture of Boone and twenty-seven men.--Dilemma of the British
+at Detroit.--Blackfish adopts Colonel Boone.--Adoption Ceremony.--Indian
+Designs.--Escape of Boone.--Attacks the Savages.--The Fort Threatened.
+
+
+The following well authenticated account of the adventures of a ranger
+is so graphically described in Brown's _History of Illinois_, that we
+give it in the words of the writer:
+
+"Thomas Higgins, a native Kentuckian, was, in the summer of 1814,
+stationed in a block-house eight miles south of Greenville, in what is
+now Bond County, Illinois. On the evening of the 30th of August, 1814, a
+small party of Indians having been seen prowling about the station,
+Lieutenant Journay, with all his men, twelve only in number, sallied
+forth the next morning, just before daybreak, in pursuit of them. They
+had not proceeded far on the border of the prairie, before they were in
+an ambuscade of seventy or eighty savages. At the first fire, the
+lieutenant and three of his men were killed. Six fled to the fort under
+cover of the smoke, for the morning was sultry, and the air being damp,
+the smoke from the guns hung like a cloud over the scene. But Higgins
+remained behind to have 'one more pull at the enemy,' and to avenge the
+death of his companions.
+
+"He sprang behind a small elm scarcely sufficient to protect his body,
+when, the smoke partly rising, discovered to him a number of Indians,
+upon whom he fired, and shot down the foremost one. Concealed still by
+the smoke, Higgins reloaded, mounted his horse, and turned to fly, when
+a voice, apparently from the grass, hailed him with: Tom, you won't
+leave me, will you?
+
+"He turned immediately around, and seeing a fellow soldier by the name
+of Burgess lying on the ground, wounded and gasping for breath, replied,
+'No, I will not leave you; come along.' 'I can't come,' said Burgess,
+'my leg is all smashed to pieces.'
+
+"Higgins dismounted, and taking up his friend, whose ankle had been
+broken, was about to lift him on his horse, when the animal, taking
+fright, darted off in an instant and left them both behind. 'This is too
+bad,' said Higgins, 'but don't fear. You hop off on your three legs and
+I will stay behind between you and the Indians and keep them off. Get
+into the tallest grass and creep as near the ground as possible.'
+Burgess did so and escaped.
+
+"The smoke which had hitherto concealed Higgins now cleared away, and he
+resolved, if possible, to retreat. To follow the track of Burgess was
+most expedient. It would, however, endanger his friend. He determined,
+therefore, to venture boldly forward and, if discovered, to secure his
+own safety by the rapidity of his flight. On leaving a small thicket in
+which he had sought refuge, he discovered a tall, portly savage near by,
+and two others in the direction between him and the fort.
+
+"He started, therefore, for a little rivulet near, but found one of his
+limbs failing him, it having been struck by a ball in the first
+encounter, of which, till now, he was scarcely conscious. The largest
+Indian pressed close upon him, and Higgins turned round two or three
+times in order to fire. The Indian halted and danced about to prevent
+his taking aim. He saw that it was unsafe to fire at random, and
+perceiving two others approaching, knew that he must be overpowered
+unless he could dispose of the forward Indian first. He resolved,
+therefore, to halt and receive his fire.
+
+"The Indian raised his rifle, and Higgins, watching his eye, turned
+suddenly as his finger pressed the trigger, and received the ball in his
+thigh. He fell, but rose immediately and ran. The foremost Indian, now
+certain of his prey, loaded again, and with the other two pressed on.
+They overtook him. He fell again, and as he rose the whole three fired,
+and he received all their balls. He now fell and rose a third time, and
+the Indians, throwing away their guns, advanced upon him with spears and
+knives. As he presented his gun at one or another, each fell back. At
+last the largest Indian, supposing his gun to be empty, from his fire
+having been thus reserved, advanced boldly to the charge. Higgins fired
+and the savage fell.
+
+"He had now four bullets in his body, an empty gun in his hand, two
+Indians unharmed as yet before him, and a whole tribe but a few yards
+distant. Any other man would have despaired. Not so with him. He had
+slain the most dangerous of the three, and having but little to fear
+from the others, began to load his rifle. They raised a savage whoop and
+rushed to the encounter. A bloody conflict now ensued. The Indians
+stabbed him in several places. Their spears, however, were but thin
+poles, hastily prepared, and which bent whenever they struck a rib or a
+muscle. The wounds they made were not therefore deep, though numerous.
+
+"At last one of them threw his tomahawk. It struck him upon the cheek,
+severed his ear, laid bare his skull to the back of his head, and
+stretched him upon the prairie. The Indians again rushed on, but
+Higgins, recovering his self-possession, kept them off with his feet
+and hands. Grasping at length one of their spears, the Indian, in
+attempting to pull it from him, raised Higgins up, who, taking his
+rifle, dashed out the brains of the nearest savage. In doing this,
+however, it broke, the barrel only remaining in his hand. The other
+Indian, who had heretofore fought with caution, came now manfully into
+the battle. His character as a warrior was in jeopardy. To have fled
+from a man thus wounded and disarmed, or to have suffered his victim to
+escape, would have tarnished his fame for ever. Uttering, therefore, a
+terrific yell, he rushed on and attempted to stab the exhausted ranger.
+But the latter warded off his blow with one hand and brandished his
+rifle barrel with the other. The Indian was as yet unharmed, and, under
+existing circumstances, by far the most powerful man. Higgins' courage,
+however, was unexhausted and inexhaustible.
+
+"The savage at last began to retreat from the glare of his untamed eye
+to the spot where he had dropped his rifle. Higgins knew that if he
+recovered that, his own case was desperate. Throwing, therefore, his
+rifle barrel aside, and drawing his hunting knife he rushed upon his
+foe. A desperate strife ensued--deep gashes were inflicted on both
+sides. Higgins, fatigued and exhausted by the loss of blood, was no
+longer a match for the savage. The latter succeeded in throwing his
+adversary from him, and went immediately in pursuit of his rifle.
+Higgins at the same time rose and sought for the gun of the other
+Indian. Both, therefore, bleeding and out of breath, were in search of
+arms to renew the combat.
+
+"The smoke had now passed away, and a large number of Indians were in
+view. Nothing, it would seem, could now save the gallant ranger. There
+was, however, an eye to pity and an arm to save, and that arm was a
+woman's. The little garrison had witnessed the whole combat. It
+consisted of but six men and one woman; that woman, however, was a
+host--a Mrs. Pursley. When she saw Higgins contending single-handed with
+a whole tribe of savages, she urged the rangers to attempt his rescue.
+The rangers objected, as the Indians were ten to one. Mrs. Pursley,
+therefore, snatched a rifle from her husband's hand, and declaring that
+'so fine a fellow as Tom Higgins should not be lost for want of help,'
+mounted a horse and sallied forth to his rescue.
+
+"The men, unwilling to be outdone by a woman, followed at full gallop,
+reached the spot where Higgins had fainted and fell, before the Indians
+came up, and while the savage with whom he had been engaged was looking
+for his rifle, his friends lifted the wounded ranger up and throwing him
+across a horse before one of the party, reached the fort in safety.
+
+"Higgins was insensible for several days, and his life was preserved by
+continued care. His friends extracted two of the balls from his thigh.
+Two, however, yet remained, one of which gave him a good deal of pain.
+Hearing afterwards that a physician had settled within a day's ride of
+him, he determined to go and see him. The physician asked him fifty
+dollars for the operation. This Higgins flatly refused, saying that it
+was more than half a year's pension. On reaching home he found that the
+exercise of riding had made the ball discernable; he requested his wife,
+therefore, to hand him his razor. With her assistance he laid open his
+thigh until the edge of the razor touched the bullet, then, inserting
+his two thumbs into the gash, 'he flirted it out,' as he used to say,
+'without it costing him a cent.'
+
+"The other ball yet remained. It gave him, however, but little pain, and
+he carried it with him to the grave. Higgins died in Fayette County,
+Illinois, a few years ago. He was the most perfect specimen of a
+frontier man in his day, and was once assistant door-keeper of the House
+of Representatives in Illinois. The facts above stated are familiar to
+many to whom Higgins was personally known, and there is no doubt of
+their correctness."[E]
+
+ [Footnote E: Brown's Illinois.]
+
+This narrative gives one a very vivid idea of the nature of the conflict
+in which Boone, through so many years of his life, was engaged. The
+little fort, whose feeble garrison he commanded, was liable at any time
+to be assailed by overwhelming numbers.
+
+Daniel Boone, during his occupancy of the fort at Boonesborough,
+manifested the most constant vigilance to guard against surprise. He was
+however struggling against a foe whose cunning and strategems were such,
+as not to allow him an hour of quiet. One morning two men laboring in
+the field were shot at by the Indians. Not being hit, they ran for the
+fort. They were pursued by the savages, and one was tomahawked and
+scalped within a few hundred feet of the gate. Boone hearing the alarm,
+inconsiderately rushed out with ten men upon the miscreants. They fled
+before him hotly pursued. In the eagerness of the chase, Boone had not
+counted the number of his foes. Some of them rushing from their ambush
+cut off his retreat. At one discharge, six of his men fell wounded.
+Boone's leg was shattered by a ball.
+
+As he fell to the ground, the tomahawk of a savage was over his head.
+Simon Kenton, who was one of Boone's party, with sure aim pierced the
+heart of the savage with a rifle bullet and he fell dead. Reinforcements
+rushed from the fort, and fortunately succeeded in rescuing the
+adventurous party, the wounded and all. It is said of Boone, that
+though a silent man and not given to compliments, he manifested very
+deep gratitude to his friend Kenton for saving his life. The very
+peculiar character of Boone is vividly presented in the following
+sketch, from the graphic pen of Mr. Peck:
+
+"As dangers thickened and appearances grew more alarming, as scouts came
+in with rumors of Indians seen here and there, and as the hardy and bold
+woodsmen sat around their camp-fires with the loaded rifle at hand,
+rehearsing for the twentieth time the tales of noble daring, or the
+hair-breadth escapes, Boone would sit silent, apparently not heeding the
+conversation, employed in repairing the rents in his hunting shirt and
+leggins, moulding bullets or cleaning his rifle. Yet the eyes of the
+garrison were upon him. Concerning 'Indian signs' he was an oracle.
+
+"Sometimes with one or two trusty companions, but more frequently alone,
+as night closed in, he would steal noiselessly away into the woods, to
+reconnoiter the surrounding wilderness. And in the day time, stealthily
+would he creep along with his trusty rifle resting on his arm, ready for
+the least sign of danger, his keen, piercing eyes glancing into every
+thicket and canebrake, or watch intently for 'signs' of the wiley enemy.
+Accustomed to range the country as a hunter and a scout, he would
+frequently meet the approaching travelers on the road and pilot them
+into the settlement, while his rifle supplied them with provisions. He
+was ever more ready to aid the community, or to engage in public
+services, than to attend to his private interests."
+
+The want of salt had become one of the greatest privations of the
+garrison. It was an article essential to comfort and health, and yet, in
+the warfare then existing, was almost impossible of attainment. Upon the
+Sicking river, nearly a hundred miles north from Boonesborough, there
+were valuable springs richly impregnated with salt. Animals from all
+quarters frequented these springs, licking the saturated clay around
+them. Hence the name of Salt Licks. Evaporating the water by boiling in
+large kettles, salt of a good quality was easily obtained. The
+necessities of the garrison became so great, that Colonel Boone took a
+well-armed party of thirty men, and threading their way through the
+wilderness, at length reached the springs unassailed. It was one of the
+boldest of adventures. It was certain that the watchful Indians would
+learn that a party had left the cover of the fort, and would fall upon
+them with great ferocity.
+
+Colonel Boone, who desired to obtain salt for all the garrisons, deemed
+it consequently necessary to work night and day with the greatest
+possible diligence. They could never venture to move a step beyond the
+grasp of their rifles. For nearly four weeks the salt-makers pursued
+their work unassailed. The news of so strong and well armed a party
+having left the fort, reached the ears of the Indians. They had a very
+great dread of Boone, and knew very well he would not be found sleeping
+or unprotected, at the springs. They shrewdly inferred that the
+departure of so many men must greatly weaken the garrison, and that they
+could never hope for a more favorable opportunity to attack
+Boonesborough.
+
+This formidable fortress was the great object of their dread. They
+thought that if they could lay it in ashes, making it the funeral pyre
+of all its inmates, the weaker forts would be immediately abandoned by
+their garrisons in despair, or could easily be captured. An expedition
+was formed, consisting of more than a hundred Indian warriors, and
+accompanied it is said by two Frenchmen. Boone had sent three men back
+to the garrison, loaded with salt, and to convey tidings of the good
+condition of the party at the springs.
+
+On the morning of the seventh of February, Boone, who was unequalled in
+his skill as a hunter, and also in the sagacity by which he could avoid
+the Indians, was out in search of game as food for the party. Emboldened
+by the absence of all signs of the vicinity of the Indians, he had
+wandered some distance from the springs, where he encountered this band
+of warriors, attended by the two Frenchmen, on the march for the assault
+on Boonesborough. Though exceedingly fleet of foot, his attempt to
+escape was in vain. The young Indian runners overtook and captured him.
+
+The Indians seem to have had great respect for Boone. Even with them he
+had acquired the reputation of being a just and humane man, while his
+extraordinary abilities, both as a hunter and a warrior, had won their
+admiration. Boone was not heading a war party to assail them. He had not
+robbed them of any of their horses. They were therefore not exasperated
+against him personally. It is also not improbable that the Frenchmen who
+were with them had influenced them not to treat their prisoner with
+barbarity.
+
+Boone, whose spirits seemed never to be perturbed, yielded so gracefully
+to his captors as to awaken in their bosoms some emotions of kindness.
+They promised that if the party at the springs would yield without
+resistance--which resistance, though unavailing, they knew would cost
+them the lives of many of their warriors--the lives of the captives
+should be safe, and they should not be exposed to any inhuman treatment.
+Boone was much perplexed. Had he been with his men, he would have
+fought to the last extremity, and his presence not improbably might have
+inspirited them, even to a successful defence. But deprived of their
+leader, taken entirely by surprise, and outnumbered three or four to
+one, their massacre was certain. And it was also certain that the
+Indians, exasperated by the loss which they would have encountered,
+would put every prisoner to death, through all the horrors of fiendlike
+torture.
+
+Under these circumstances, Colonel Boone very wisely decided upon
+surrender. It would have been very impolitic and cruel to do otherwise.
+He having thus given his word, the Indians placed implicit confidence in
+it. They were also perfectly faithful to their own promises. Boone was
+allowed to approach his men, and represent the necessity of a surrender,
+which was immediately effected. The Indians were so elated by this great
+victory, and were so well satisfied with the result of the campaign,
+that instead of continuing their march for the attack of Boonesborough,
+they returned with their illustrious captive and his twenty-seven
+companions to their head-quarters on the Little Miami River.
+
+The modest, unaffected account which Boone himself gives of these
+transactions, is worthy of record here:
+
+"On the seventh of February, as I was hunting to procure meat for the
+company, I met a party of one hundred and two Indians, and two
+Frenchmen, on their march against Boonesborough; that place being
+particularly the object of the enemy. They pursued and took me, and
+brought me the eighth day to the Licks, where twenty-seven of my party
+were, three of them having previously returned home with the salt. I,
+knowing it was impossible for them to escape, capitulated with the
+enemy, and at a distance, in their view, gave notice to my men of their
+situation with orders not to resist, but surrender themselves captives.
+
+"The generous usage the Indians had promised before in my capitulation,
+was afterwards fully complied with, and we proceeded with them as
+prisoners to Old Chilicothe, the principal Indian town on Little Miami,
+where we arrived, after an uncomfortable journey in very severe weather,
+on the eighteenth of February, and received as good treatment as
+prisoners could expect from savages. On the tenth of March following, I
+and ten of my men were conducted by forty Indians to Detroit, where we
+arrived the thirtieth day, and were treated by Governor Hamilton, the
+British commander at that post, with great humanity.
+
+"During our travels, the Indians entertained me well, and their
+affection for me was so great, that they utterly refused to leave me
+there with the others, although the Governor offered them one hundred
+pounds sterling for me, on purpose to give me a parole to go home.
+Several English gentlemen there, being sensible of my adverse fortune,
+and touched with human sympathy, generously offered a friendly supply
+for my wants, which I refused with many thanks for their kindness,
+adding that I never expected it would be in my power to recompense such
+unmerited generosity."
+
+The British officers in Detroit could not venture to interfere in behalf
+of Colonel Boone, in any way which would displease their savage allies,
+for they relied much upon them in their warfare against the colonies.
+
+There was much in the character of our hero to win the affection of the
+savages. His silent, unboastful courage they admired. He was more than
+their equal in his skill in traversing the pathless forest. His prowess
+as a hunter they fully appreciated. It was their hope that he would
+consent to be incorporated in their tribe, and they would gladly have
+accepted him as one of their chiefs. The savages had almost universally
+sufficient intelligence to appreciate the vast superiority of the white
+man.
+
+The Indians spent ten days at Detroit, and surrendered, for a ransom,
+all their captives to the English, excepting Colonel Boone. Him they
+took back on a long and fatiguing journey to Old Chilicothe on the
+Little Miami. The country they traversed, now so full of wealth,
+activity, and all the resources of individual and social happiness, was
+then a vast wilderness, silent and lonely. Still in its solitude it was
+very beautiful, embellished with fertile plains, magnificent groves, and
+crystal streams. At Chilicothe, Colonel Boone was formally adopted,
+according to an Indian custom, into the family of Blackfish, one of the
+distinguished chiefs of the Shawanese tribe.
+
+"At Chilicothe," writes Boone, "I spent my time as comfortably as I
+could expect. I was adopted according to their custom, into a family
+where I became a son, and had a great share in the affection of my new
+parents, brothers, sisters and friends. I was exceedingly familiar and
+friendly with them, always appearing as cheerful and satisfied as
+possible, and they put great confidence in me. I often went hunting with
+them, and frequently gained their applause for my activity, at our
+shooting matches. I was careful not to excel them when shooting, for no
+people are more envious than they in their sport. I could observe in
+their countenances and gestures, the greatest expressions of joy when
+they exceeded me, and when the reverse happened, of envy. The Shawanese
+king took great notice of me, and treated me with profound respect and
+entire friendship, often trusting me to hunt at my liberty. I frequently
+returned with the spoils of the woods, and as often presented some of
+what I had taken to him, expressive of my duty to my sovereign. My food
+and lodging were in common with them. Not so good, indeed, as I could
+desire, but necessity makes everything acceptable."
+
+The spirit manifested by Boone under these circumstances, when he was
+apparently a hopeless prisoner in the hands of the Indians, was not
+influenced by artifice alone. He had real sympathy for the savages,
+being fully conscious of the wrongs which were often inflicted upon
+them, and which goaded their untamed natures to fearful barbarities. He
+had always treated them not only kindly, but with fraternal respect. The
+generous treatment he had received in return won his regards. His
+peculiarly placid nature was not easily disturbed by any reverses. Let
+what would happen, he never allowed himself to complain or to worry.
+Thus making the best of circumstances, he always looked upon the
+brightest side of things, and was reasonably happy, even in this direful
+captivity. Still he could not forget his home, and was continually on
+the alert to avail himself of whatever opportunity might be presented to
+escape and return to his friends.
+
+The ceremony of adoption was pretty severe and painful. All the hair of
+the head was plucked out by a tedious operation, leaving simply a tuft
+three or four inches in diameter on the crown. This was called the
+scalp-lock. The hair was here allowed to grow long, and was dressed with
+ribbons and feathers. It was to an individual warrior what the banner is
+to an army. The victor tore it from the skull as his trophy. Having thus
+denuded the head and dressed the scalp-lock, the candidate was taken to
+the river and very thoroughly scrubbed, that all the white blood might
+be washed out of him. His face was painted in the most approved style of
+Indian taste, when he was led to the council lodge and addressed by the
+chief in a long and formal speech, in which he expatiates upon the honor
+conferred upon the adopted son, and upon the corresponding duties
+expected of him.
+
+Colonel Boone having passed through this transformation, with his Indian
+dress and his painted cheeks, his tufted scalp-lock and his whole person
+embrowned by constant exposure to the open air, could scarcely be
+distinguished from any of his Indian associates. His wary captors
+however, notwithstanding all the kindness with which they treated him,
+seemed to be conscious that it must be his desire to return to his
+friends. They therefore habitually, but without a remark suggestive of
+any suspicions, adopted precautions to prevent his escape. So skilful a
+hunter as Boone could, with his rifle and a supply of ammunition,
+traverse the solitary expanse around for almost any length of time,
+living in abundance. But deprived of his rifle or of ammunition, he
+would soon almost inevitably perish of starvation. The Indians were
+therefore very careful not to allow him to accumulate any ammunition,
+which was so essential to sustain him in a journey through the
+wilderness.
+
+Though Boone was often allowed to go out alone to hunt, they always
+counted his balls and the charges of powder. Thus they could judge
+whether he had concealed any ammunition to aid him, should he attempt to
+escape. He however, with equal sagacity, cut the balls in halves, and
+used very small charges of powder. Thus he secretly laid aside quite a
+little store of ammunition. As ever undismayed by misfortune, he
+serenely gave the energies of his mind to the careful survey of the
+country around.
+
+"During the time that I hunted for them," he writes, "I found the land
+for a great extent about this river to exceed the soil of Kentucky if
+possible, and remarkably well watered."
+
+Upon one of the branches of the Scioto river, which stream runs about
+sixty miles east of the Little Miami, there were some salt springs.
+Early in June a party of the Indians set out for these "Licks" to make
+salt. They took Boone with them. The Indians were quite averse to
+anything like hard work. Boone not only understood the process of
+manufacture perfectly, but was always quietly and energetically devoted
+to whatever he undertook. The Indians, inspired by the double motive of
+the desire to obtain as much salt as possible, and to hold securely the
+prisoner, whom they so highly valued, kept him so busy at the kettles as
+to give him no opportunity to escape.
+
+After an absence of about a fortnight, they returned with a good supply
+of salt to the Little Miami. Here Boone was quite alarmed to find that
+during his absence the chiefs had been marshaling a band of four hundred
+and fifty of their bravest warriors to attack Boonesborough. In that
+fort were his wife and his children. Its capture would probably insure
+their slaughter. He was aware that the fort was not sufficiently guarded
+by its present inmates, and that, unapprehensive of impending danger,
+they were liable to be taken entirely by surprise. Boone was
+sufficiently acquainted with the Shawanese dialect to understand every
+word they said, while he very sagaciously had assumed, from the moment
+of his captivity, that he was entirely ignorant of their language.
+
+Boone's anxiety was very great. He was compelled to assume a smiling
+face as he attended their war dances. Apparently unmoved, he listened
+to the details of their plans for the surprise of the fort. Indeed, to
+disarm suspicion and to convince them that he had truly become one of
+their number, he co-operated in giving efficiency to their hostile
+designs against all he held most dear in the world.
+
+It had now become a matter of infinite moment that he should immediately
+escape and carry to his friends in the fort the tidings of their peril.
+But the slightest unwary movement would have led the suspicious Indians
+so to redouble their vigilance as to render escape utterly impossible.
+So skilfully did he conceal the emotions which agitated him, and so
+successfully did he feign entire contentment with his lot, that his
+captors, all absorbed in the enterprise in which they were engaged,
+remitted their ordinary vigilance.
+
+On the morning of the sixteenth of June, Boone rose very early to take
+his usual hunt. With his secreted ammunition, and the amount allowed him
+by the Indians for the day, he hoped to be able to save himself from
+starvation, during his flight of five days through the pathless
+wilderness. There was a distance of one hundred and sixty miles between
+Old Chilicothe and Boonesborough. The moment his flight should be
+suspected, four hundred and fifty Indian warriors, breathing vengeance,
+and in perfect preparation for the pursuit, would be on his track. His
+capture would almost certainly result in his death by the most cruel
+tortures; for the infuriated Indians would wreak upon him all their
+vengeance.
+
+It is however not probable that this silent, pensive man allowed these
+thoughts seriously to disturb his equanimity. An instinctive trust in
+God seemed to inspire him. He was forty-three years of age. In the
+knowledge of wood-craft, and in powers of endurance, no Indian surpassed
+him. Though he would be pursued by sagacious and veteran warriors and by
+young Indian braves, a pack of four hundred and fifty savages following
+with keener scent than that of the bloodhound, one poor victim, yet
+undismayed, he entered upon the appalling enterprise. The history of the
+world perhaps presents but few feats so difficult, and yet so
+successfully performed. And yet the only record which this modest man
+makes, in his autobiography, of this wonderful adventure is as follows:
+
+"On the sixteenth, before sunrise, I departed in the most secret manner,
+and arrived at Boonesborough on the twentieth, after a journey of one
+hundred and sixty miles, during which I had but one meal."
+
+It was necessary, as soon as Boone got out of sight of the village, to
+fly with the utmost speed, to put as great a distance as possible
+between himself and his pursuers, before they should suspect his attempt
+at escape. He subsequently learned that as soon as the Indians
+apprehended that he had actually fled, there was the most intense
+commotion in their camp, and immediately a large number of their
+fleetest runners and keenest hunters were put upon his trail. He dared
+not fire a gun. Had he killed any game he could not have ventured to
+kindle a fire to cook it. He had secretly provided himself with a few
+cuts of dried venison with which he could appease his hunger as he
+pressed forward by day and by night, scarcely allowing himself one
+moment for rest or sleep. His route lay through forests and swamps, and
+across many streams swollen by recent rains.
+
+At length he reached the Ohio river. Its current was swift and turbid,
+rolling in a majestic flood half a mile in width, filling the bed of the
+stream with almost fathomless waters from shore to shore. Experienced as
+Colonel Boone was in wood-craft, he was not a skilful swimmer. The
+thought of how he should cross the Ohio had caused him much anxiety.
+Upon reaching its banks he fortunately--may we not say
+providentially--found an old canoe which had drifted among the bushes
+upon the shore. There was a large hole at one end, and it was nearly
+filled with water. He succeeded in bailing out the water and plugging
+up the hole, and crossed the river in safety. Then for the first time he
+so far indulged in a feeling of security as to venture to shoot a
+turkey, and kindling a fire he feasted abundantly upon the rich repast.
+It was the only meal in which he indulged during his flight of five
+days.
+
+On his arrival at Boonesborough, he was welcomed as one risen from the
+grave. Much to his disappointment he found that his wife with his
+children, despairing of ever seeing him again, had left the fort and
+returned to the house of her father, in North Carolina. She supposed
+that the Indians had killed him. "Oppressed," writes Boone, "with the
+distresses of the country and bereaved of me, her only happiness, she
+had undertaken her long and perilous journey through the wilderness." It
+is gratifying to record that she reached her friends in safety.
+
+Boone found the fort as he had apprehended, in a bad state of defence.
+His presence, his military skill, and the intelligence he brought,
+immediately inspired every man to the intensest exertion. The gates were
+strengthened, new bastions were formed, and provisions were laid in, to
+stand a siege. Everything was done which could be done to repel an
+assault from they knew not how many savages, aided by British leaders,
+for the band from old Chilicothe, was to be joined by warriors from
+several other tribes. In ten days, Boonesborough was ready for the
+onset. These arduous labors being completed, Boone heroically resolved
+to strike consternation into the Indians, by showing them that he was
+prepared for aggressive as well as defensive warfare, and that they must
+leave behind them warriors for the protection of their own villages.
+
+Selecting a small party of but nineteen men, about the first of August
+he emerged from Boonesborough, marched boldly to the Ohio, crossed the
+river, entered the valley of the Scioto, and was within four miles of an
+Indian town, Paint Creek, which he intended to destroy, when he chanced
+to encounter a band of thirty savages painted, thoroughly armed and on
+the war path, to join the band advancing from Old Chilicothe. The
+Indians were attacked with such vehemence by Boone, that they fled in
+consternation, leaving behind them three horses and all their baggage.
+The savages also lost one killed and two wounded, while they inflicted
+no loss whatever upon the white men.
+
+Boone sent forward some swift runners as spies, and they speedily
+returned with the report that the Indians in a panic had entirely
+abandoned Paint Creek. Aware that the warriors would rush to join the
+four hundred and fifty from Old Chilicothe, and that they might cut off
+his retreat, or reach Boonesborough before his return, he immediately
+commenced a rapid movement back to the fort. Every man would be needed
+there for an obstinate defence. This foray had extended one hundred and
+fifty miles from the fort. It greatly alarmed the Indians. It emboldened
+the hearts of the garrison, and gave them intelligence of the approach
+of their foes. After an absence of but seven days, Boone with his heroic
+little band quite triumphantly re-entered the fort.
+
+The approach of the foe is described in the following terms by Boone:
+
+"On the eighth of August, the Indian army arrived, being four hundred
+and forty-four in number, commanded by Captain Duquesne, eleven other
+Frenchmen and some of their own chiefs, and marched up in view of our
+fort, with British and French colors flying. And having sent a summons
+to me in His Britannic Majesty's name to surrender the fort, I requested
+two days' consideration which was granted. It was now a critical period
+with us. We were a small number in the garrison; a powerful army before
+our walls, whose appearance proclaimed inevitable death; fearfully
+painted and marking their footsteps with desolation. Death was
+preferable to captivity; and if taken by storm, we must inevitably be
+devoted to destruction.
+
+"In this situation we concluded to maintain our garrison if possible. We
+immediately proceeded to collect what we could of our horses and other
+cattle, and bring them through the posterns into the fort; and in the
+evening of the ninth, I returned the answer 'that we were determined to
+defend our fort while a man was living.'
+
+"'Now,' said I to their commander who stood attentively hearing my
+sentiments, 'we laugh at your formidable preparations, but thank you for
+giving us notice, and time for our defence. Your efforts will not
+prevail, for our gates shall forever deny you admittance.'
+
+"Whether this answer affected their courage or not, I cannot tell, but
+contrary to our expectations, they formed a scheme to deceive us,
+declaring it was their orders from Governor Hamilton to take us
+captives, and not to destroy us; but if nine of us would come out and
+treat with them, they would immediately withdraw their forces from our
+walls, and return home peaceably. This sounded grateful in our ears, and
+we agreed to the proposal."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+_Victories and Defeats._
+
+Situation of the Fort.--Indian Treachery.--Bombardment.--Boone goes to
+North Carolina.--New Trials.--Boone Robbed.--He Returns to
+Kentucky.--Massacre of Col. Rogers.--Adventure of Col. Bowman.--New
+Attack by the British and Indians.--Retaliatory Measures.--Wonderful
+Exploit.
+
+
+There were but fifty men in the garrison at Boonesborough. They were
+assailed by a body of more than ten to one of the bravest Indian
+warriors, under the command of an officer in the British army. The
+boldest in the fort felt that their situation was almost desperate. The
+ferocity of the Indian, and the intelligence of the white man, were
+combined against them. They knew that the British commander, however
+humane he might be, would have no power, should the fort be taken by
+storm, to save them from death by the most horrible tortures.
+
+General Duquesne was acting under instructions from Governor Hamilton,
+the British officer in supreme command at Detroit. Boone knew that the
+Governor felt very kindly towards him. When he had been carried to that
+place a captive, the Governor had made very earnest endeavors to obtain
+his liberation. Influenced by these considerations, he consented to
+hold the conference.
+
+But, better acquainted with the Indian character than perhaps Duquesne
+could have been, he selected nine of the most athletic and strong of the
+garrison, and appointed the place of meeting in front of the fort, at a
+distance of only one hundred and twenty feet from the walls. The
+riflemen of the garrison were placed in a position to cover the spot
+with their guns, so that in case of treachery the Indians would meet
+with instant punishment, and the retreat of the party from the fort
+would probably be secured. The language of Boone is:
+
+"We held a treaty within sixty yards of the garrison on purpose to
+divert them from a breach of honor, as we could not avoid suspicion of
+the savages."
+
+The terms proposed by General Duquesne were extremely liberal. And while
+they might satisfy the British party, whose object in the war was simply
+to conquer the colonists and bring them back to loyalty, they could by
+no means have satisfied the Indians, who desired not merely to drive the
+white men back from their hunting grounds, but to plunder them of their
+possessions and to gratify their savage natures by hearing the shrieks
+of their victims at the stake and by carrying home the trophies of
+numerous scalps.
+
+Boone and his men, buried in the depths of the wilderness, had probably
+taken little interest in the controversy which was just then rising
+between the colonies and the mother country. They had regarded the King
+of England as their lawful sovereign, and their minds had never been
+agitated by the question of revolution or of independence. When,
+therefore, General Duquesne proposed that they should take the oath of
+allegiance to the King of Great Britain, and that then they should be
+permitted to return unmolested to their homes and their friends beyond
+the mountains, taking all their possessions with them, Colonel Boone and
+his associates were very ready to accept such terms. It justly appeared
+to them in their isolated condition, five hundred miles away from the
+Atlantic coast, that this was vastly preferable to remaining in the
+wilderness assailed by thousands of Indians guided by English energy and
+abundantly provided with all the munitions of war from British arsenals.
+
+But Boone knew very well that the Indians would never willingly assent
+to this treaty. Still he and his fellow commissioners signed it while
+very curious to learn how it would be regarded by their savage foes. The
+commissioners on both sides had appeared at the appointed place of
+conference, as is usual on such occasions, entirely unarmed. There were,
+however, a large number of Indians lingering around and drawing nearer
+as the conference proceeded. After the treaty was signed, the old Indian
+chief Blackfish, Boone's adopted father, and who, exasperated by the
+escape of his ungrateful son, had been watching him with a very
+unamiable expression of countenance, arose and made a formal speech in
+the most approved style of Indian eloquence. He commented upon the
+bravery of the two armies, and of the desirableness that there should be
+entire friendship between them, and closed by saying that it was a
+custom with them on all such important occasions to ratify the treaty by
+two Indians shaking hands with each white man.
+
+This shallow pretense, scarcely up to the sagacity of children, by which
+Blackfish hoped that two savages grappling each one of the commissioners
+would easily be able to make prisoners of them, and then by threats of
+torture compel the surrender of the fort, did not in the slightest
+degree deceive Colonel Boone. He was well aware of his own strength and
+of that of the men who accompanied him. He also knew that his riflemen
+occupied concealed positions, from which, with unerring aim, they could
+instantly punish the savages for any act of treachery. He therefore
+consented to the arrangement. The grasp was given. Instantly a terrible
+scene of confusion ensued.
+
+The burly savages tried to drag off their victims. The surrounding
+Indians rushed in to their aid, and a deadly fire was opened upon them
+from the fort, which was energetically responded to by all the armed
+savages from behind stumps and trees. One of the fiercest of battles had
+instantly blazed forth. Still these stalwart pioneers were not taken by
+surprise. Aided by the bullets of the fort, they shook off their
+assailants, and all succeeded in escaping within the heavy gates, which
+were immediately closed behind them. One only of their number, Boone's
+brother, was wounded. This escape seems almost miraculous. But the
+majority of the Indians in intelligence were mere children: sometimes
+very cunning, but often with the grossest stupidity mingled with their
+strategy.
+
+Duquesne and Blackfish, the associated leaders, now commenced the siege
+of the fort with all their energies. Dividing their forces into two
+parties, they kept up an incessant fire upon the garrison for nine days
+and nine nights. It was one of the most heroic of those bloody struggles
+between civilization and barbarism, which have rendered the plains of
+Kentucky memorable.
+
+The savages were very careful not to expose themselves to the rifles of
+the besieged. They were stationed behind rocks, and trees, and stumps,
+so that it was seldom that the garrison could catch even a glimpse of
+the foes who were assailing them. It was necessary for those within the
+fort to be sparing of their ammunition. They seldom fired unless they
+could take deliberate aim, and then the bullet was almost always sure to
+reach its mark. Colonel Boone, in describing this attempt of the Indians
+to capture the commissioners by stratagem, and of the storm of war which
+followed, writes:
+
+"They immediately grappled us, but, although surrounded by hundreds of
+savages, we extricated ourselves from them and escaped all safe into the
+garrison except one, who was wounded through a heavy fire from their
+army. They immediately attacked us on every side, and a constant heavy
+fire ensued between us, day and night, for the space of nine days. In
+this time the enemy began to undermine our fort, which was situated
+about sixty yards from the Kentucky river. They began at the water mark
+and proceeded in the bank some distance, which we understood by their
+making the water muddy with the clay. We immediately proceeded to
+disappoint their design by cutting a trench across their subterranean
+passage. The enemy discovering our counter mine by the clay we threw out
+of the fort, desisted from that stratagem. Experience now fully
+convincing them that neither their power nor their policy could effect
+their purpose, on the twentieth of August they raised the siege and
+departed.
+
+"During this siege, which threatened death in every form, we had two men
+killed and four wounded, besides a number of cattle. We killed of the
+enemy thirty-seven and wounded a great number. After they were gone we
+picked up one hundred and twenty-five pounds weight of bullets, besides
+what stuck in the logs of our fort, which certainly is a great proof of
+their industry."
+
+It is said that during this siege, one of the negroes, probably a slave,
+deserted from the fort with one of their best rifles, and joined the
+Indians. Concealing himself in a tree, where unseen he could take
+deliberate aim, he became one of the most successful of the assailants.
+But the eagle eye of Boone detected him, and though, as was afterwards
+ascertained by actual measurement, the tree was five hundred and
+twenty-five feet distant from the fort, Boone took deliberate aim,
+fired, and the man was seen to drop heavily from his covert to the
+ground. The bullet from Boone's rifle had pierced his brain.
+
+At one time the Indians had succeeded in setting fire to the fort, by
+throwing flaming combustibles upon it, attached to their arrows. One of
+the young men extinguished the flames, exposing himself to the
+concentrated and deadly fire of the assailants in doing so. Though the
+bullets fell like hailstones around him, the brave fellow escaped
+unscathed.
+
+This repulse quite disheartened the Indians. Henceforth they regarded
+Boonesborough as a Gibraltar; impregnable to any force which they could
+bring against it. They never assailed it again. Though Boonesborough is
+now but a small village in Kentucky, it has a history which will render
+it forever memorable in the annals of heroism.
+
+It will be remembered that Boone's family, supposing him to have
+perished by the hands of the Indians, had returned to the home of Mrs.
+Boone's father in North Carolina. Colonel Boone, anxious to rejoin his
+wife and children, and feeling that Boonesborough was safe from any
+immediate attack by the Indians, soon after the dispersion of the
+savages entered again upon the long journey through the wilderness, to
+find his friends east of the mountains. In the autumn of 1778, Colonel
+Boone again found himself, after all his wonderful adventures, in a
+peaceful home on the banks of the Yadkin.
+
+The settlements in Kentucky continued rapidly to increase. The savages
+had apparently relinquished all hope of holding exclusive possession of
+the country. Though there were occasional acts of violence and cruelty,
+there was quite a truce in the Indian warfare. But the white settlers,
+and those who wished to emigrate, were greatly embarrassed by
+conflicting land claims. Many of the pioneers found their titles
+pronounced to be of no validity. Others who wished to emigrate,
+experienced great difficulty in obtaining secure possession of their
+lands. The reputation of Kentucky as in all respects one of the most
+desirable of earthly regions for comfortable homes, added to the desire
+of many families to escape from the horrors of revolutionary war, which
+was sweeping the sea-board, led to a constant tide of emigration beyond
+the mountains.
+
+Under these circumstances the Government of Virginia established a
+court, consisting of four prominent citizens, to go from place to place,
+examine such titles as should be presented to them, and to confirm those
+which were good. This commission commenced its duties at St. Asaph. All
+the old terms of settlement proposed by Henderson and the Transylvania
+Company were abrogated. Thus Colonel Boone had no title to a single acre
+of land in Kentucky. A new law however was enacted as follows:
+
+"Any person may acquire title to so much unappropriated land, as he or
+she may desire to purchase, on paying the consideration of forty pounds
+for every one hundred acres, and so in proportion."
+
+This money was to be paid to the State Treasurer, who would give for it
+a receipt. This receipt was to be deposited with the State Auditor, who
+would in exchange for it give a certificate. This certificate was to be
+lodged at the Land Office. There it was to be registered, and a warrant
+was to be given, authorizing the survey of the land selected. Surveyors
+who had passed the ordeal of William and Mary College, having defined
+the boundaries of the land, were to make a return to the Land Office. A
+due record was there to be made of the survey, a deed was to be given in
+the name of the State, which deed was to be signed by the Governor, with
+the seal of the Commonwealth attached.
+
+This was a perplexing labyrinth for the pioneer to pass through, before
+he could get a title to his land. Not only Colonel Boone, but it seems
+that his family were anxious to return to the beautiful fields of
+Kentucky. During the few months he remained on the Yadkin, he was busy
+in converting every particle of property he possessed into money, and in
+raising every dollar he could for the purchase of lands he so greatly
+desired. The sum he obtained amounted to about twenty thousand dollars,
+in the depreciated paper currency of that day. To Daniel Boone this was
+a large sum. With this the simple-hearted man started for Richmond to
+pay it to the State Treasurer, and to obtain for it the promised
+certificate. He was also entrusted with quite large sums of money from
+his neighbors, for a similar purpose.
+
+On his way he was robbed of every dollar. It was a terrible blow to him,
+for it not only left him penniless, but exposed him to the insinuation
+of having feigned the robbery, that he might retain the money entrusted
+to him by his friends. Those who knew Daniel Boone well would have no
+more suspected him of fraud than an angel of light. With others however,
+his character suffered. Rumor was busy in denouncing him.
+
+Colonel Nathaniel Hart had entrusted Boone with two thousand nine
+hundred pounds. This of course was all gone. A letter, however, is
+preserved from Colonel Hart, which bears noble testimony to the
+character of the man from whom he had suffered:
+
+"I observe what you say respecting our losses by Daniel Boone. I had
+heard of the misfortune soon after it happened, but not of my being a
+partaker before now. I feel for the poor people who perhaps are to lose
+their pre-emptions. But I must say I feel more for Boone, whose
+character I am told suffers by it. Much degenerated must the people of
+this age be, when amongst them are to be found men to censure and blast
+the reputation of a person so just and upright, and in whose breast is a
+seat of virtue too pure to admit of a thought so base and dishonorable.
+I have known Boone in times of old, when poverty and distress had him
+fast by the hand, and in these wretched circumstances, I have ever
+found him of a noble and generous soul, despising everything mean, and
+therefore I will freely grant him a discharge for whatever sums of mine
+he might have been possessed at the time."
+
+Boone was now forty-five years of age, but the hardships to which he had
+been exposed had borne heavily upon him, and he appeared ten years
+older. Though he bore without a murmur the loss of his earthly all, and
+the imputations which were cast upon his character, he was more anxious
+than ever to find refuge from the embarrassments which oppressed him in
+the solitudes of his beautiful Kentucky. Notwithstanding his comparative
+poverty, his family on the banks of the Yadkin need not experience any
+want. Land was fertile, abundant and cheap. He and his boys in a few
+days, with their axes, could erect as good a house as they desired to
+occupy. The cultivation of a few acres of the soil, and the results of
+the chase, would provide them an ample support. Here also they could
+retire to rest at night, with unbolted door and with no fear that their
+slumbers would be disturbed by the yell of the blood-thirsty savage.
+
+The wife and mother must doubtless have wished to remain in her pleasant
+home, but cheerfully and nobly she acceded to his wishes, and was ready
+to accompany him to all the abounding perils of the distant West. Again
+the family set out on its journey across the mountains. Of the incidents
+which they encountered, we are not informed. The narrative we have from
+Boone is simply as follows: our readers will excuse the slight
+repetition it involves:
+
+"About this time I returned to Kentucky with my family. And here, to
+avoid an enquiry into my conduct, the reader being before informed of my
+bringing my family to Kentucky, I am under the necessity of informing
+him that during my captivity with the Indians, my wife, who despaired of
+ever seeing me again, had transported my family and goods back through
+the wilderness, amid a multitude of dangers, to her father's house in
+North Carolina. Shortly after the troubles at Boonesborough, I went to
+them and lived peaceably there until this time. The history of my going
+home and returning with my family forms a series of difficulties, an
+account of which would swell a volume. And being foreign to my purpose I
+shall omit them."
+
+During Boone's absence from Kentucky, one of the most bloody battles was
+fought, which ever occurred between the whites and the Indians. Colonel
+Rogers, returning with supplies (by boat) from New Orleans to the Upper
+Ohio, when he arrived at the mouth of the Little Miami, detected the
+Indians in large numbers, painted, armed, and evidently on the war
+path, emerging from the mouth of the river in their canoes, and crossing
+the Ohio to the Kentucky shore. He cautiously landed his men, intending
+to attack the Indians by surprise. Instead of this, they turned upon him
+with overwhelming numbers, and assailed him with the greatest fury.
+Colonel Rogers and sixty of his men were almost instantly killed. This
+constituted nearly the whole of his party. Two or three effected their
+escape, and conveyed the sad tidings of the massacre to the settlements.
+
+The Kentuckians were exceedingly exasperated, and resolved that the
+Indians should feel the weight of their vengeance. Colonel Bowman, in
+accordance with a custom of the times, issued a call, inviting all the
+Kentuckians who were willing to volunteer under his leadership for the
+chastisement of the Indians, to rendezvous at Harrodsburg. Three hundred
+determined men soon assembled. The expedition moved in the month of
+July, and commenced the ascent of the Little Miami undiscovered. They
+arrived in the vicinity of Old Chilicothe just before nightfall. Here it
+was determined so to arrange their forces in the darkness, as to attack
+the place just before the dawn of the ensuing day. One half of the army,
+under the command of Colonel Logan, were to grope their way through the
+woods, and march around the town so as to attack it in the rear, at a
+given signal from Colonel Bowman, who was to place his men in position
+for efficient cooperation. Logan accomplished his movement, and
+concealing his men behind stumps, trees, and rocks, anxiously awaited
+the signal for attack.
+
+But the sharp ear of a watch-dog detected some unusual movement, and
+commenced barking furiously. An Indian warrior came from his cabin, and
+cautiously advanced the way the dog seemed to designate. As the Indian
+drew near, one of the party, by accident or great imprudence, discharged
+his gun. The Indian gave a war-whoop, which immediately startled all the
+inmates of the cabins to their feet. Logan and his party were
+sufficiently near to see the women and the children in a continuous line
+rushing over the ridge, to the protection of the forest.
+
+The Indian warriors, with a military discipline hardly to be expected of
+them, instantly collected in several strong cabins, which were their
+citadels, and from whose loop-holes, unexposed, they could open a deadly
+fire upon their assailants, In an instant, the whole aspect of affairs
+was changed. The assailants advancing through the clearing, must expose
+their unprotected breasts to the bullets of an unseen foe. After a brief
+conflict, Colonel Logan, to his bitter disappointment and that of his
+men, felt constrained to order a retreat.
+
+The two parties were soon reunited, having lost several valuable lives,
+and depressed by the conviction that the enterprise had proved an utter
+failure. The savages pursued, keeping up a harassing fire upon the rear
+of the fugitives. Fortunately for the white men, the renowned Indian
+chieftain Blackfish, struck by a bullet, was instantly killed. This so
+disheartened his followers, that they abandoned the pursuit. The
+fugitives continued their flight all the night, and then at their
+leisure returned to their homes much dejected. In this disastrous
+expedition, nine men were killed and one was severely wounded.
+
+The Indians, aided by their English allies, resolved by the invasion of
+Kentucky to retaliate for the invasion of the Little Miami. Governor
+Hamilton raised a very formidable army, and supplied them with two
+pieces of artillery. By such weapons the strongest log fort could
+speedily be demolished; while the artillerists would be entirely beyond
+the reach of the guns of the garrison. A British officer, Colonel Boyd,
+commanded the combined force. The valley of the Licking River, along
+whose banks many thriving settlements had commenced, was their point of
+destination.
+
+A twelve days' march from the Ohio brought this army, which was
+considered a large one in those times, to a post called Kuddle's
+Station. The garrison was immediately summoned to surrender, with the
+promise of protection for their lives only. Resistance against artillery
+was hopeless. The place was surrendered. Indians and white men rushed
+in, alike eager for plunder. The Indians, breaking loose from all
+restraint, caught men, women and children, and claimed them as their
+prisoners. Three persons who made some slight resistance were
+immediately tomahawked.
+
+The British commander endeavored to exonerate himself from these
+atrocities by saying that it was utterly beyond his power to control the
+savages. These wolfish allies, elated by their conquest, their plunder
+and their captives, now demanded to be led along the valley five miles
+to the next station, called Martin's Fort. It is said that Colonel Byrd
+was so affected by the uncontrollable atrocities he had witnessed, that
+he refused to continue the expedition, unless the Indians would consent,
+that while they should receive all the plunder, he should have all the
+prisoners. It is also said that notwithstanding this agreement, the same
+scenes were enacted at Martin's Fort which had been witnessed at
+Ruddle's Station. In confirmation of this statement, it is certain that
+Colonel Byrd refused to go any farther. All the stations on the river
+were apparently at his disposal, and it speaks well for his humanity
+that he refused to lead any farther savages armed with the tomahawk and
+the scalping knife, against his white brethren. He could order a
+retreat, as he did, but he could not rescue the captives from those who
+had seized them. The Indians loaded down their victims with the plunder
+of their own dwellings, and as they fell by the way, sinking beneath
+their burdens, they buried the tomahawk in their brains.
+
+The exasperation on both sides was very great, and General Clark, who
+was stationed at Fort Jefferson with a thousand picked men, entered the
+Indian territory, burned the villages, destroyed the crops, and utterly
+devastated the country. In reference to this expedition, Mr. Cecil B.
+Hartley writes:
+
+"Some persons who have not the slightest objection to war, very gravely
+express doubts as to whether the expedient of destroying the crops of
+the Indians was justifiable. It is generally treated by these men as if
+it were a wanton display of a vindictive spirit, where in reality it was
+dictated by the soundest policy; for when the Indians' harvests were
+destroyed, they were compelled to subsist their families altogether by
+hunting, and had no leisure for their murderous inroads into the
+settlements. This result was plainly seen on this occasion, for it does
+not appear that the Indians attacked any of the settlements during the
+remainder of this year."
+
+The following incident, well authenticated, which occurred early in the
+spring of 1780, gives one a vivid idea of the nature of this warfare:
+
+"Mr. Alexander McConnel of Lexington, while out hunting, killed a large
+buck. He went home for his horse to bring it in. While he was absent,
+five Indians accidentally discovered the body of the deer. Supposing the
+hunter would return, three of them hid themselves within rifle shot of
+the carcass while two followed his trail. McConnel, anticipating no
+danger, was riding slowly along the path, when he was fired upon from
+ambush, his horse shot beneath him, and he seized as a prisoner. His
+captors were in high glee, and treated him with unusual kindness. His
+skill with the rifle excited their admiration, and as he provided them
+with abundance of game, they soon became quite fond of him. Day after
+day the savages continued their tramp to the Ohio river, to cross over
+to their own country. Every night they bound him very strongly. As they
+became better acquainted, and advanced farther from the settlements of
+the pioneers, they in some degree remitted their vigilance. One evening
+when they had arrived near the Ohio, McConnel complained so earnestly of
+the pain which the tightly bound cords gave him, that they more loosely
+fastened the cord of buffalo hide around his wrists. Still they tied it,
+as they supposed securely, and attached the end of the cord to the body
+of one of the Indians.
+
+"At midnight, McConnel discovered a sharp knife lying near him, which
+had accidentally fallen from its sheath. He drew it to him with his
+feet, and succeeded noiselessly in cutting the cords. Still he hardly
+dared to stir, for there was danger that the slightest movement might
+rouse his vigilant foes. The savages had stacked their five guns near
+the fire. Cautiously he crept towards them, and secreted three at but a
+short distance where they would not easily find them. He then crept
+noiselessly back, took a rifle in each hand, rested the muzzles upon a
+log, and aiming one at the heart, and one at the head of two Indians at
+the distance of a few feet, discharged both guns simultaneously.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Both shots were fatal. The three remaining savages in bewilderment
+sprang to their feet. McConnel instantly seizing the two other guns,
+shot one through the heart, and inflicted a terrible wound upon the
+other. He fell to the ground bellowing loudly. Soon however he regained
+his feet and hobbled off into the woods as fast as possible. The only
+remaining one of the party who was unhurt uttered a loud yell of terror
+and dismay, and bounded like a deer into the forest. McConnel was not
+disposed to remain even for one moment to contemplate the result of his
+achievement. He selected his own trusty rifle, plunged into the
+forest, and with the unerring instinct of the veteran hunter, in two
+days reached the garrison at Lexington to relate to them his wonderful
+escape."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+_British Allies._
+
+Death of Squire Boone.--Indian Outrages.--Gerty and McGee.--Battle of Blue
+Lick.--Death of Isaac Boone.--Colonel Boone's Narrow Escape.--Letter of
+Daniel Boone.--Determination of General Clarke.--Discouragement of the
+Savages.--Amusing Anecdote of Daniel Boone.
+
+
+It was in the autumn of the year 1780 that Daniel Boone, with his
+family, returned to Boonesborough. A year before, the Legislature of
+Virginia had recognized essentially what is now Kentucky as one of the
+counties of Virginia, and had established the town of Boonesborough as
+its capital. By this act Daniel Boone was named one of the trustees or
+selectmen. Town lots were ordered to be surveyed, and a very liberal
+grant of land was conferred upon every one who would erect a house at
+least sixteen feet square, with either brick, stone, or dirt chimney.
+For some reason Colonel Boone declined this office. It is probable that
+he was disgusted by his own experience in the civil courts.
+
+There was little danger now of an attack upon Boonesborough by the
+Indians. There were so many settlements around it that no foe could
+approach without due warning and without encountering serious
+opposition. On the sixth of October Daniel Boone, with his brother
+Squire, left the fort alone for what would seem to be an exceedingly
+imprudent excursion, so defenceless, to the Blue Licks. They reached the
+Licks in safety. While there they were discovered by a party of Indians,
+and were fired upon from ambush. Squire Boone was instantly killed and
+scalped. Daniel, heart-stricken by the loss of his beloved brother, fled
+like a deer, pursued by the whole band, filling the forest with their
+yells like a pack of hounds. The Indians had a very powerful dog with
+them, who, with unerring scent, followed closely in the trail of the
+fugitive. For three miles this unequal chase continued. The dog,
+occasionally embarrassed in his pursuit, would be delayed for a time in
+regaining the trail. The speed of Boone was such that the foremost of
+the savages was left far behind. He then, as the dog came bounding on,
+stopped, took deliberate aim, and shot the brute.
+
+Boone was still far from the fort, but he reached it in safety, leaving
+upon the Indians the impression that he bore a charmed life. He was very
+deeply afflicted by the death of his brother. Squire was the youngest of
+the sons, and the tie which bound the brothers together was unusually
+tender and confidential. They had shared in many perilous adventures,
+and for months had dwelt entirely alone in the wilderness, far away
+from any other society.
+
+The winter of 1780 was one of the saddest in the annals of our country.
+The colonial army, everywhere defeated, was in the most deplorable state
+of destitution and suffering. Our frontiers were most cruelly ravaged by
+a barbarian foe. To add to all this, the winter was severely cold,
+beyond any precedent. The crops had been so destroyed by the enemy that
+many of the pioneers were compelled to live almost entirely upon the
+flesh of the buffalo.
+
+Virginia, in extending her jurisdiction over her western lands of
+Kentucky, now, for the sake of a more perfect military organization,
+divided the extensive region into three counties--Fayette, Lincoln, and
+Jefferson. General Clarke was made commander-in-chief of the Kentucky
+militia. Daniel Boone was commissioned as Lieutenant-Colonel of Lincoln
+County. The emigration into the State at this time may be inferred from
+the fact that the Court of Commissioners to examine land titles, at the
+close of its session of seven months had granted three thousand claims.
+Its meetings had been held mainly at Boonesborough, and its labors
+terminated in April, 1780. During the spring three hundred barges,
+loaded with emigrants, were floated down the Ohio to the Falls, at what
+is now Louisville.
+
+As we have stated, the winter had been one of the most remarkable on
+record. From the middle of November to the middle of February, the
+ground was covered with snow and ice, without a thaw. The severity of
+the cold was terrible. Nearly all unprotected animals perished. Even
+bears, buffalo, wolves, and wild turkeys were found frozen in the woods.
+The starving wild animals often came near the settlement for food. For
+seventy-five years the winter of 1780 was an era to which the old men
+referred.
+
+Though the Indians organized no formidable raids, they were very
+annoying. No one could safely wander any distance from the forts. In
+March, 1781, several bands entered Jefferson County, and by lying in
+ambush killed four of the settlers. Captain Whittaker, with fifteen men,
+went in pursuit of them. He followed their trail to the banks of the
+Ohio. Supposing they had crossed, he and his party embarked in canoes,
+boldly to continue the pursuit into the Indian country. They had
+scarcely pushed a rod from the shore when hideous yells rose from the
+Indians in ambush, and a deadly fire was opened upon the canoes. Nine of
+the pioneers were instantly killed or wounded. The savages, having
+accomplished this feat, fled into the wilderness, where the party, thus
+weakened in numbers, could not pursue them.
+
+A small party of settlers had reared their log-huts near the present
+site of Shelbyville. Squire Boone had been one of the prominent actors
+in the establishment of this little colony. Alarmed by the menaces of
+the savages, these few settlers decided to remove to a more secure
+station on Bear's Creek. On their way they were startled by the
+war-whoop of they knew not how many Indians concealed in ambush, and a
+storm of bullets fell upon them, killing and wounding many of their
+number. The miscreants, scarcely waiting for the return fire, fled with
+yells which resounded through the forest, leaving their victims to the
+sad task of burying the dead and nursing the wounded. Colonel Floyd
+collected twenty-five men to pursue them. The wary Indians, nearly two
+hundred in number, drew them into an ambush and opened upon the party a
+deadly fire which almost instantly killed half their number. The
+remainder with great difficulty escaped, leaving their dead to be
+mutilated by the scalping knife of the savage.
+
+Almost every day brought tidings of similar disasters. The Indians,
+emboldened by these successes, seemed to rouse themselves to a new
+determination to exterminate the whites. The conduct of the British
+Government, in calling such wretches to their alliance in their war with
+the colonies, created the greatest exasperation. Thomas Jefferson gave
+expression to the public sentiment in the Declaration of Independence,
+in which he says, in arraignment of King George the Third:
+
+"He has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the
+merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an
+undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions."
+
+There were two wretched men, official agents of the British Government,
+who were more savage than the savages themselves. One of them, a
+vagabond named Simon Gerty, had joined the Indians by adoption. He had
+not only acquired their habits, but had become their leader in the most
+awful scenes of ferocity. He was a tory, and as such was the bitterest
+foe of the colonists, who were struggling for independence. The other,
+Colonel McGee, with a little more respectability of character, was
+equally fiendlike in exciting the Indians to the most revolting
+barbarities. Thus incited and sustained by British authority, the
+Indians kept all the settlers in Kentucky in constant alarm.
+
+Instigated by the authorities at Detroit, the warriors of five tribes
+assembled at Old Chilicothe to organize the most formidable expedition
+which had as yet invaded Kentucky. These tribes were the Shawanese on
+the Little Miami, the Cherokees on the Tennessee, the Wyandotts on the
+Sandusky, the Tawas on the Maumee, and the Delawares on the Muskingum.
+
+Their choicest warriors, five hundred in number, rendezvoused at Old
+Chilicothe. This Indian village was built in the form of a square
+enclosing a large area. Some of their houses were of logs, some of bark,
+some of reeds filled in with clay. Boone says that the Indians
+concentrated their utmost force and vengeance upon this expedition,
+hoping to destroy the settlements and to depopulate the country at a
+single blow.
+
+Not far from Boonesborough, in the same valley of the Kentucky, there
+was a small settlement called Bryant's Station. William Bryant, the
+founder, had married a sister of Colonel Boone. On the fifteenth of
+August, a war party of five hundred Indians and Canadians, under the
+leadership of Simon Gerty, appeared before this little cluster of
+log-huts, each of which was of course bullet-proof. The settlers fought
+heroically. Gerty was wounded, and thirty of his band were killed, while
+the garrison lost but four. The assailing party, thus disappointed in
+their expectation of carrying the place by storm, and fearing the
+arrival of reinforcements from other settlements, hastily retired.
+Colonel Boone, hearing of the attack, hastened to the rescue, joining
+troops from several of the adjacent forts. The party consisted of one
+hundred and eighty men, under the leadership of Colonel Todd, one of
+"nature's noblemen." Colonel Boone seems to have been second in command.
+Two of his sons, Israel and Samuel, accompanied their father upon this
+expedition.
+
+The Indians, led by British officers, were far more to be dreaded than
+when left to their own cunning, which was often childish. As the little
+band of pioneers, rushing to the rescue, approached Bryant's Station and
+were informed of the retreat of the invaders, a council of war was held,
+to decide whether it were best for a hundred and eighty men to pursue
+five hundred Indians and Canadians, through a region where every mile
+presented the most favorable opportunities for concealment in ambush.
+Gerty was a desperado who was to be feared as well as hated. Contrary to
+the judgment of both Colonels Todd and Boone, it was decided to pursue
+the Indians. There was no difficulty in following the trail of so large
+a band, many of whom were mounted. Their path led almost directly north,
+to the Licking River, and then followed down its banks towards the Ohio.
+
+As the pursuers were cautiously advancing, they came to a remarkable
+bend in the stream, where there was a large and open space, with prairie
+grass very high. A well trampled buffalo track led through this grass,
+which was almost like a forest of reeds. Along this "street" the Indians
+had retreated. The scouts who had been sent forward to explore, returned
+with the report that there were no signs of Indians. And yet, four
+hundred savages had so adroitly concealed themselves, that their line
+really extended from bank to bank of the river, where it bent like a
+horseshoe before them. The combined cunning of the Indian, and the
+intelligence of their white leaders, was now fatally enlisted for the
+destruction of the settlers. A hundred and eighty men were to be caught
+in a trap, with five hundred demons prepared to shoot them down.
+
+As soon as Colonel Todd's party passed the neck of this bend, the
+Indians closed in behind them, rose from their concealment, and with
+terrific yells opened upon them a still more terrific fire. The pioneers
+fought with the courage of desperation. At the first discharge, nearly
+one third of Colonel Todd's little party fell dead or wounded. Struck
+fatally by several bullets, Colonel Todd himself fell from his horse
+drenched with blood. While a portion of the Indians kept up the fire,
+others, with hideous yells sprang forward with tomahawk and scalping
+knife, completing their fiendlike work. It was a scene of awful
+confusion and dismay. The survivors fighting every step of the way,
+retreated towards the river, for there was no escape back through their
+thronging foes. Colonel Boone's two sons fought by the side of their
+father. Samuel, the younger, struck by a bullet, was severely but not
+mortally wounded. Israel, his second son, fell dead. The unhappy father,
+took his dead boy upon his shoulders to save him from the scalping
+knife. As he tottered beneath the bleeding body, an Indian of herculean
+stature with uplifted tomahawk rushed upon him. Colonel Boone dropped
+the body of his son, shot the Indian through the heart, and seeing the
+savages rushing upon him from all directions, fled, leaving the corpse
+of his boy to its fate.
+
+Being intimately acquainted with the ground, he plunged into a ravine,
+baffling several parties who pursued him, swam across the river, and
+entering the forest succeeded in escaping from his foes, and at length
+safely by a circuitous route returned to Bryant's Station. In the
+meantime the scene of tumult and slaughter was awful beyond all
+description. Victors and vanquished were blended together upon the banks
+of the stream. In this dreadful conflict there were four Indians to each
+white man. There was a narrow ford at the spot, but the whole stream
+seemed clogged, some swimming and some trying to wade, while the
+exultant Indians shot and tomahawked without mercy. Those who succeeded
+in crossing the river, leaving the great buffalo track which they had
+been following, plunged into the thickets, and though vigorously
+pursued by the Indians, most of them eventually reached the settlements.
+
+In this dreadful disaster, the colonists lost sixty men in killed and
+seven were taken prisoners. The Indians in counting up their loss, found
+that sixty-four were missing. In accordance with their barbaric custom,
+they selected in vengeance four of the prisoners and put them to death
+by the most terrible tortures which savage ingenuity could devise. Had
+Colonel Boone's advice been followed, this calamity might have been
+avoided. Still characteristically, he uttered not a word of complaint.
+In his comments upon the event he says:
+
+"I cannot reflect upon this dreadful scene but sorrow fills my heart. A
+zeal for the defence of their country led these heroes to the scene of
+action, though with a few men to attack a powerful army of experienced
+warriors. When we gave way, they pursued us with the utmost eagerness,
+and in every quarter spread destruction. The river was difficult to
+cross, and many were killed in the flight; some just entering the river,
+some in the water, others after crossing, in ascending the cliffs. Some
+escaped on horseback, a few on foot; and being dispersed everywhere in a
+few hours, brought the melancholy news of this unfortunate conflict to
+Lexington. The reader may guess what sorrow filled the hearts of the
+inhabitants; exceeding anything I am able to describe. Being reinforced
+we returned to bury the dead, and found their bodies strewed everywhere,
+cut and mangled in a dreadful manner. This mournful scene exhibited a
+horror almost unparalleled; some torn and eaten by wild beasts; those in
+the river eaten by fishes; all in such a putrified condition that no one
+could be distinguished from another."
+
+This battle of the Blue Licks, as it is called, occupies one of the most
+mournful pages in the history of Kentucky. The escape of Boone adds
+another to the extraordinary adventures of this chivalric and now
+sorrow-stricken man. Colonel Boone communicated an official report to
+the Governor of Virginia, Benjamin Harrison, father of William Henry
+Harrison, subsequently President of the United States. In this report,
+it is noticeable that Boone makes no allusion whatever to his own
+services. This modest document throws such light upon the character of
+this remarkable man, and upon the peril of the times, that it merits
+full insertion here. It is as follows:
+
+          "Boone's Station, Fayette Co., Aug. 30, 1782.
+
+     "Sir,--Present circumstances of affairs cause me to write to Your
+     Excellency, as follows: On the sixteenth instant, a large body of
+     Indians, with some white men, attacked one of our frontier
+     stations, known as Bryant's Station. The siege continued from about
+     sunrise until two o'clock of the next day, when they marched off.
+     Notice being given to the neighboring stations, we immediately
+     raised one hundred and eighty-one horsemen, commanded by Col. John
+     Todd, including some of the Lincoln County militia, and pursued
+     about forty miles."
+
+After a brief account of the battle which we have already given, he
+continues:
+
+     "Afterwards we were reinforced by Colonel Logan, which made our
+     force four hundred and sixty men. We marched again to the battle
+     ground, but finding the enemy had gone, we proceeded to bury the
+     dead. We found forty-three on the ground, and many lay about which
+     we could not stay to find, hungry and weary as we were, and dubious
+     that the enemy might not have gone off quite. By the sign, we
+     thought that the Indians exceeded four hundred, while the whole of
+     the militia of the county does not amount to more than one hundred
+     and thirty.
+
+     "From these facts, Your Excellency may form an idea of our
+     situation. I know that your own circumstances are critical; but are
+     we to be wholly forgotten? I hope not. I trust that about five
+     hundred men may be sent to our assistance immediately. If these
+     shall be stationed as our county lieutenant shall deem necessary,
+     it may be the means of saving our part of the country. But if they
+     are placed under the direction of General Clarke, they will be of
+     little or no service to our settlement. The Falls lie one hundred
+     miles west of us, and the Indians north-east; while our men are
+     frequently called to protect them.
+
+     "I have encouraged the people in this county all that I could; but
+     I can no longer justify them or myself to risk our lives here,
+     under such extraordinary hazards. The inhabitants of this county
+     are very much alarmed at the thoughts of the Indians bringing
+     another campaign into our country this fall. If this should be the
+     case, it will break up these settlements. I hope therefore that
+     Your Excellency will take the matter into your consideration, and
+     send us some relief as quick as possible. These are my sentiments
+     without consulting any person. Colonel Logan will I expect
+     immediately send you an express, by whom I humbly request Your
+     Excellency's answer. In the meantime, I remain yours, etc., Daniel
+     Boone."
+
+General Clarke, who was the military leader of Kentucky under the
+Colonial government, was established at _the Falls_. The British
+authorities held their head-quarters at Detroit, from which post they
+were sending out their Indian allies in all directions to ravage the
+frontiers. General Clarke was a man of great energy of character, and
+he was anxious to organise an expedition against Detroit. With this
+object in view, he had by immense exertions assembled a force of nearly
+two thousand men. Much to his chagrin, he received orders to remain at
+the Falls for the present, to protect the frontiers then so severely
+menaced. But when the tidings reached him of the terrible disaster at
+the Blue Lick, he resolved to pursue the Indians and punish them with
+the greatest severity.
+
+The exultant savages had returned to Old Chilicothe, and had divided
+their spoil and their captives. Colonel Boone was immediately sent for
+to take part in this expedition. Clarke's army crossed the Ohio, and
+marching very rapidly up the banks of the Little Miami, arrived within
+two miles of Chilicothe before they were discovered. On perceiving the
+enemy the Indians scattered in all directions. Men, women and children
+fled into the remote forest, abandoning their homes and leaving
+everything behind them. The avenging army swept the valley with fire and
+ruin. Their corn just ripening, and upon which they mainly relied for
+their winter supply of food, was utterly destroyed. Every tree which
+bore any fruit was felled, and five of their towns were laid in ashes.
+The trail of the army presented a scene of utter desolation.
+
+The savages were alike astonished and dismayed. They had supposed that
+the white men, disheartened by their dreadful defeat at the Blue Lick,
+would abandon the country. Instead of that, with amazing recuperative
+power, they had scarcely reached their homes ere another army, utterly
+resistless in numbers, is burning their towns and destroying their whole
+country.
+
+This avenging campaign so depressed the Indians that they made no
+farther attempt for the organised invasion of Kentucky. The termination
+of the war with England also deprived them of their military resources,
+and left them to their own unaided and unintelligent efforts. Still
+miserable bands continued prowling around, waylaying and murdering the
+lonely traveler, setting fire to the solitary hut and inflicting such
+other outrages as were congenial with their cruel natures. It thus
+became necessary for the pioneers always to live with the rifle in hand.
+
+Colonel Boone had become especially obnoxious to the Indians. Twice he
+had escaped from them, under circumstances which greatly mortified their
+vanity. They recognised the potency of his rifle in the slaughter of
+their own warriors at the Blue Lick; and they were well aware that it
+was his sagacity which led the army of General Clarke in its avenging
+march through their country. It thus became with them an object of
+intense desire to take him prisoner, and had he been taken, he would
+doubtless have been doomed to the severest torture they could inflict.
+
+Mr. Peck, in his interesting life of Boone, gives the following account
+of one of the extraordinary adventures of this man, which he received
+from the lips of Colonel Boone himself. On one occasion, four Indians
+suddenly appeared before his cabin and took him prisoner. Though the
+delicacy of Colonel Boone's organization was such, that he could never
+himself relish tobacco in any form, he still raised some for his friends
+and neighbors, and for what were then deemed the essential rites of
+hospitality.
+
+"As a shelter for curing the tobacco, he had built an enclosure of rails
+a dozen feet in height and covered with canes and grass. Stalks of
+tobacco are generally split and strung on sticks about four feet in
+length. The ends of these are laid on poles placed across the tobacco
+house, and in tiers one above another, to the roof. Boone had fixed his
+temporary shelter in such a manner as to have three tiers. He had
+covered the lower tier and the tobacco had become dry; when he entered
+the shelter for the purpose of removing the sticks to the upper tier,
+preparatory to gathering the remainder of the crop. He had hoisted up
+the sticks from the lower to the second tier, and was standing on the
+poles which supported it, while raising the sticks to the upper tier,
+when four stout Indians, with guns, entered the low door and called
+him by name.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"'Now, Boone, we got you. You no get away more. We carry you off to
+Chilicothe this time. You no cheat us anymore.'
+
+"Boone looked down upon their upturned faces, saw their loaded guns
+pointed at his breast, and recognising some of his old friends the
+Shawanese, who had made him prisoner near the Blue Licks in 1778, coolly
+and pleasantly responded:
+
+"'Ah, old friends, glad to see you.'
+
+"Perceiving that they manifested impatience to have him come down, he
+told them he was quite willing to go with them, and only begged that
+they would wait where they were, and watch him closely until he could
+finish removing the tobacco.
+
+"While thus parleying with them, Boone inquired earnestly respecting his
+old friends in Chilicothe. He continued for some time to divert the
+attention of these simple-minded men, by allusions to past events with
+which they were familiar, and by talking of his tobacco, his mode of
+curing it, and promising them an abundant supply. With their guns in
+their hands however, they stood at the door of the shed, grouped closely
+together so as to render his escape apparently impossible. In the
+meantime Boone carefully gathered his arms full of the long, dry tobacco
+leaves, filled with pungent dust, which would be blinding and stifling
+as the most powerful snuff, and then with a leap from his station twelve
+feet high, came directly upon their heads, filling their eyes and
+nostrils, and so bewildering and disabling them for the moment, that
+they lost all self-possession and all self-control.
+
+"Boone, agile as a deer, darted out at the door, and in a moment was in
+his bullet-proof log-hut, which to him was an impregnable citadel.
+Loop-holes guarded every approach. The Indians could not show themselves
+without exposure to certain death. They were too well acquainted with
+the unerring aim of Boone's rifle to venture within its range. Keeping
+the log cabin between them and their redoubtable foe, the baffled
+Indians fled into the wilderness.
+
+"Colonel Boone related this adventure with great glee, imitating the
+gestures of the bewildered Indians. He said that notwithstanding his
+narrow escape, he could not resist the temptation, as he reached the
+door of his cabin, to look around to witness the effect of his
+achievement. The Indians coughing, sneezing, blinded and almost
+suffocated by the tobacco dust, were throwing out their arms and groping
+about in all directions, cursing him for a rogue and calling themselves
+fools."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+_Kentucky organized as a State._
+
+Peace with England.--Order of a Kentucky Court.--Anecdotes.--Speech of Mr.
+Dalton.--Reply of Piankashaw.--Renewed Indications of Indian
+Hostility.--Conventions at Danville.--Kentucky formed into a State.--New
+Trials for Boone.
+
+
+The close of the war of the Revolution, bringing peace between the
+colonies and the mother country, deprived the Indians of that powerful
+alliance which had made them truly formidable. Being no longer able to
+obtain a supply of ammunition from the British arsenals, or to be guided
+in their murderous raids by British intelligence, they also, through
+their chiefs, entered into treaties of peace with the rapidly-increasing
+emigrants.
+
+Though these treaties with the Indians prevented any general
+organization of the tribes, vagabond Indians, entirely lawless, were
+wandering in all directions, ever ready to perpetrate any outrage. Civil
+society has its highway robbers, burglars and murderers. Much more so
+was this the case among these savages, exasperated by many wrongs; for
+it cannot be denied that they were more frequently sinned against than
+sinning. Their untutored natures made but little distinction between the
+innocent and the guilty. If a vagabond white man wantonly shot an
+Indian--and many were as ready to do it as to shoot a wolf--the friends
+of the murdered Indian would take revenge upon the inmates of the first
+white man's cabin they encountered in the wilderness. Thus it was
+necessary for the pioneers to be constantly upon their guard. If they
+wandered any distance from the fort while hunting, or were hoeing in the
+field, or ventured to rear a cabin on a fertile meadow at a distance
+from the stations, they were liable to be startled at any hour of the
+day or of the night by the terrible war-whoop, and to feel the weight of
+savage vengeance.
+
+This exposure to constant peril influenced the settlers, as a general
+rule, to establish themselves in stations. This gave them companionship,
+the benefits of co-operative labor, and security against any small
+prowling bands. These stations were formed upon the model of the one
+which Daniel Boone had so wisely organized at Boonesborough. They
+consisted of a cluster of bullet-proof log-cabins, arranged in a
+quadrangular form, so as to enclose a large internal area. All the doors
+opened upon this interior space. Here the cattle were gathered at night.
+The intervals between the cottages were filled with palisades, also
+bullet-proof. Loop-holes through the logs enabled these riflemen to
+guard every approach to their fortress. Thus they had little to fear
+from the Indians when sheltered by these strong citadels.
+
+Emigration to Kentucky began very rapidly to increase. Large numbers
+crossed the mountains to Pittsburgh, where they took flat boats and
+floated down the beautiful Ohio, _la belle rivière_, until they reached
+such points on its southern banks as pleased them for a settlement, or
+from which they could ascend the majestic rivers of that peerless State.
+Comfortable homesteads were fast rising in all directions. Horses,
+cattle, swine, and poultry of all kinds were multiplied. Farming
+utensils began to make their appearance. The hum of happy industry was
+heard where wolves had formerly howled and buffalo ranged. Merchandise
+in considerable quantities was transported over the mountains on pack
+horses, and then floated down the Ohio and distributed among the
+settlements upon its banks. Country stores arose, land speculators
+appeared, and continental paper money became a circulating medium. This
+money, however, was not of any very great value, as may be inferred from
+the following decree, passed by one of the County Courts, establishing
+the schedule of prices for tavern-keeping:
+
+"The Court doth set the following rates to be observed by keepers in
+this county: Whiskey, fifteen dollars the half-pint; rum, ten dollars
+the gallon; a meal, twelve dollars; stabling or pasturage, four dollars
+the night."
+
+Under these changed circumstances, Colonel Boone, whose intrepidity
+nothing could daunt, and whose confidence in the protective power of his
+rifle was unbounded, had reared for himself, on one of the beautiful
+meadows of the Kentucky, a commodious home. He had selected a spot whose
+fertility and loveliness pleased his artistic eye.
+
+It is estimated that during the years 1783 and 1784 nearly twelve
+thousand persons emigrated to Kentucky. Still all these had to move with
+great caution, with rifles always loaded, and ever on the alert against
+surprise. The following incident will give the reader an idea of the
+perils and wild adventures encountered by these parties in their search
+for new and distant homes.
+
+Colonel Thomas Marshall, a man of much note in those days, had crossed
+the Alleghanies with his large family. At Pittsburgh he purchased a
+flat-boat, and was floating down the Ohio. He had passed the mouth of
+the Kanawha River without any incident of note occurring. About ten
+o'clock one night, as his boat had drifted near the northern shore of
+the solitary stream, he was hailed by a man upon the bank, who, after
+inquiring who he was, where he was bound, etc., added:
+
+"I have been posted here by order of my brother, Simon Gerty, to warn
+all boats of the danger of permitting themselves to be decoyed ashore.
+My brother regrets very deeply the injury he has inflicted upon the
+white men, and to convince them of the sincerity of his repentance, and
+of his earnest desire to be restored to their society, he has stationed
+me here to warn all boats of the snares which are spread for them by the
+cunning of the Indians. Renegade white men will be placed upon the
+banks, who will represent themselves as in the greatest distress. Even
+children taken captive will be compelled, by threats of torture, to
+declare that they are all alone upon the shore, and to entreat the boats
+to come and rescue them.
+
+"But keep in the middle of the river," said Gerty, "and steel your heart
+against any supplications you may hear."
+
+The Colonel thanked him for his warning, and continued to float down the
+rapid current of the stream.
+
+Virginia had passed a law establishing the town of Louisville, at the
+Falls of the Ohio. A very thriving settlement soon sprang up there.
+
+The nature of the warfare still continuing between the whites and the
+Indians may be inferred from the following narrative, which we give in
+the words of Colonel Boone:
+
+"The Indians continued to practice mischief secretly upon the
+inhabitants in the exposed part of the country. In October a party made
+an incursion into a district called Crab Orchard. One of these Indians
+having advanced some distance before the others, boldly entered the
+house of a poor defenseless family, in which was only a negro man, a
+woman and her children, terrified with apprehensions of immediate death.
+The savage, perceiving their defenseless condition, without offering
+violence to the family, attempted to capture the negro, who happily
+proved an over-match for him, and threw the Indian on the ground.
+
+"In the struggle, the mother of the children drew an axe from the corner
+of the cottage and cut off the head of the Indian, while her little
+daughter shut the door. The savages soon appeared, and applied their
+tomahawks to the door. An old rusty gun-barrel, without a lock, lay in
+the corner, which the mother put through a small crevice, and the
+savages perceiving it, fled. In the meantime the alarm spread through
+the neighborhood; the armed men collected immediately and pursued the
+savages into the wilderness. Thus Providence, by means of this negro,
+saved the whole of the poor family from destruction."
+
+The heroism of Mrs. Merrill is worthy of being perpetuated, not only as
+a wonderful achievement, but as illustrative of the nature of this
+dreadful warfare. Mr. Merrill, with his wife, little son and daughter,
+occupied a remote cabin in Nelson County, Kentucky. On the 24th of
+December, 1791, he was alarmed by the barking of his dog. Opening the
+door to ascertain the cause, he was instantly fired upon by seven or
+eight Indians who had crept near the house secreting themselves behind
+stumps and trees. Two bullets struck him, fracturing the bones both of
+his leg and of his arm. The savages, with hideous yells, then rushed for
+the door.
+
+Mrs. Merrill had but just time to close and bolt it when the savages
+plunged against it and hewed it with their tomahawks. Every dwelling was
+at that time a fortress whose log walls were bullet proof. But for the
+terrible wounds which Mr. Merrill had received, he would with his rifle
+shooting through loop-holes, soon have put the savages to flight. They,
+emboldened by the supposition that he was killed, cut away at the door
+till they had opened a hole sufficiently large to crawl through. One of
+the savages attempted to enter. He had got nearly in when Mrs. Merrill
+cleft his skull with an ax, and he fell lifeless upon the floor.
+Another, supposing that he had safely effected an entrance, followed him
+and encountered the same fate. Four more of the savages were in this way
+despatched, when the others, suspecting that all was not right, climbed
+upon the roof and two of them endeavored to descend through the
+chimney. The noise they made directed the attention of the inmates of
+the cabin to the new danger.
+
+There was a gentle fire burning upon the hearth. Mr. Merrill, with much
+presence of mind, directed his son, while his wife guarded the opening
+of the door with her ax, to empty the contents of a feather bed upon the
+fire. The dense smothering smoke filled the flue of the chimney. The two
+savages, suffocated with the fumes, after a few convulsive efforts to
+ascend fell almost insensible down upon the hearth. Mr. Merrill, seizing
+with his unbroken arm a billet of wood, despatched them both. But one of
+the Indians now remained. Peering in at the opening in the door he
+received a blow from the ax of Mrs. Merrill which severely wounded him.
+Bleeding and disheartened he fled alone into the wilderness, the only
+one of the eight who survived the conflict.
+
+A white man who was at that time a prisoner among the Indians and who
+subsequently effected his escape, reported that when the wounded savage
+reached his tribe he said to the white captive in broken English:
+
+"I have bad news for the poor Indian. Me lose a son, me lose a broder.
+The squaws have taken the breech clout, and fight worse than the long
+knives."
+
+But the Indians were not always the aggressors. Indeed it is doubtful
+whether they would ever have raised the war-whoop against the white man,
+had it not been for the outrages they were so constantly experiencing
+from unprincipled and vagabond adventurers, who were ever infesting the
+frontiers. The following incident illustrates the character and conduct
+of these miscreants:
+
+A party of Indian hunters from the South wandering through their ancient
+hunting grounds of Kentucky, accidentally came upon a settlement where
+they found several horses grazing in the field. They stole the horses,
+and commenced a rapid retreat to their own country. Three young men,
+Davis, Caffre and McClure, pursued them. Not being able to overtake the
+fugitives, they decided to make reprisals on the first Indians they
+should encounter. It so happened that they soon met three Indian
+hunters. The parties saluted each other in a friendly manner, and
+proceeded on their way in pleasant companionship.
+
+The young men said that they observed the Indians conversing with one
+another in low tones of voice, and thus they became convinced that the
+savages meditated treachery. Resolving to anticipate the Indians'
+attack, they formed the following plan. While walking together in
+friendly conversation, the Indians being entirely off their guard,
+Caffre, who was a very powerful man, was to spring upon the lightest of
+the Indians, crush him to the ground, and thus take him a prisoner. At
+the same instant, Davis and McClure were each to shoot one of the other
+Indians, who, being thus taken by surprise, could offer no resistance.
+
+The signal was given. Caffre sprang upon his victim and bore him to the
+ground. McClure shot his man dead. Davis' gun flashed in the pan. The
+Indian thus narrowly escaping death immediately aimed his gun at Caffre,
+who was struggling with the one he had grappled, and instantly killed
+him. McClure in his turn shot the Indian. There was now one Indian and
+two white men. But the Indian had the loaded rifle. McClure's was
+discharged and Davis' missed fire. The Indian, springing from the grasp
+of his dying antagonist, presented his rifle at Davis, who immediately
+fled, hotly pursued by the Indian. McClure, stopping only to reload his
+gun, followed after them. Soon he lost sight of both. Davis was never
+heard of afterwards. Doubtless he was shot by the avenging Indian, who
+returned to his wigwam with the white man's scalp.
+
+McClure, after this bloody fray, being left alone in the wilderness,
+commenced a return to his distant home. He had not proceeded far before
+he met an Indian on horseback accompanied by a boy on foot. The warrior
+dismounted, and in token of peace offered McClure his pipe. As they were
+seated together upon a log, conversing, McClure said that the Indian
+informed him by signs that there were other Indians in the distance who
+would soon come up, and that then they should take him captive, tie his
+feet beneath the horse's belly and carry him off to their village.
+McClure seized his gun, shot the Indian through the heart, and plunging
+into the forest, effected his escape.
+
+About this same time Captain James Ward, with a party of half a dozen
+white men, one of whom was his nephew, and a number of horses, was
+floating down the Ohio River from Pittsburgh. They were in a flat boat
+about forty-five feet long and eight feet wide. The gunwale of the boat
+consisted of but a single pine plank. It was beautiful weather, and for
+several days they were swept along by the tranquil stream, now borne by
+the changing current towards the one shore, and now towards the other.
+One morning when they had been swept by the stream within about one
+hundred and fifty feet of the northern shore, suddenly several hundred
+Indians appeared upon the bank, and uttering savage yells opened upon
+them a terrible fire.
+
+Captain Ward's nephew, pierced by a ball in the breast, fell dead in the
+bottom of the boat. Every horse was struck by a bullet. Some were
+instantly killed; others, severely wounded, struggled so violently as to
+cause the frail bark to dip water, threatening immediate destruction.
+All the crew except Captain Ward were so panic-stricken by this sudden
+assault, that they threw themselves flat upon their faces in the bottom
+of the boat, and attempted no resistance where even the exposure of a
+hand would be the target for a hundred rifles.
+
+Fortunately Captain Ward was protected from this shower of bullets by a
+post, which for some purpose had been fastened to the gunwale. He
+therefore retained his position at the helm, which was an oar, striving
+to guide the boat to the other side of the river. As the assailants had
+no canoes, they could not attempt to board, but for more than an hour
+they ran along the banks yelling and keeping up an almost constant fire.
+At length the boat was swept to the other side of the stream, when the
+miscreants abandoned the pursuit, and disappeared.
+
+Quite a large party of emigrants were attacked by the Indians near what
+is now called Scagg's Creek, and six were instantly killed. A Mrs.
+McClure, delirious with terror, fled she knew not where, followed by her
+three little children and carrying a little babe in her arms. The cries
+of the babe guided the pursuit of the Indians. They cruelly tomahawked
+the three oldest children, and took the mother and the babe as captives.
+Fortunately the tidings of this outrage speedily reached one of the
+settlements. Captain Whitley immediately started in pursuit of the
+gang. He overtook them, killed two, wounded two, and rescued the
+captives. Such were the scenes enacted during a period of nominal peace
+with the Indians.
+
+There has been transmitted to us a very curious document, giving an
+account of a speech made by Mr. Dalton, a Government agent, to a council
+of Indian chiefs, upon the announcement of peace with Great Britain, and
+their reply. Mr. Dalton said:
+
+"MY CHILDREN,--What I have often told you is now come to pass. This day
+I received news from my great chief at the Falls of the Ohio. Peace is
+made with the enemies of America. The white flesh, the Americans,
+French, and Spanish, this day smoked out of the peace-pipe. The tomahawk
+is buried, and they are now friends. I am told the Shawanese, the
+Delawares, Chickasaws, Cherokees, and all other red flesh, have taken
+the Long Knife by the hand. They have given up to them the prisoners
+that were in their hands.
+
+"My children on the Wabash, open your ears and let what I tell you sink
+into your hearts. You know me. Near twenty years I have been among you.
+The Long Knife is my nation. I know their hearts. Peace they carry in
+one hand and war in the other. I leave you to yourselves to judge.
+Consider and now accept the one or the other. We never beg peace of our
+enemies. If you love your women and children, receive the belt of wampum
+I present you. Return me my flesh you have in your villages, and the
+horses you stole from my people in Kentucky. Your corn fields were never
+disturbed by the Long Knife. Your women and children lived quiet in
+their houses, while your warriors were killing and robbing my people.
+All this you know is the truth.
+
+"This is the last time I shall speak to you. I have waited six moons to
+hear you speak and to get my people from you. In ten nights I shall
+leave the Wabash to see my great chief at the Falls of the Ohio, where
+he will be glad to hear from your own lips what you have to say. Here is
+tobacco I give you. Smoke and consider what I have said."
+
+Mr. Dalton then presented Piankashaw, the chief of the leading tribe
+assembled in council, with a belt of blue and white wampum. Piankashaw
+received the emblem of peace with much dignity, and replied:
+
+"MY GREAT FATHER THE LONG KNIFE,--You have been many years among us. You
+have suffered by us. We still hope you will have pity and compassion
+upon us, on our women and children. The sun shines on us, and the good
+news of peace appears in our faces. This is the day of joy to the Wabash
+Indians. With one tongue we now speak. We accept your peace-belt.
+
+"We received the tomahawk from the English. Poverty forced us to it. We
+were followed by other tribes. We are sorry for it. To-day we collect
+the scattered bones of our friends and bury them in one grave. We thus
+plant the tree of peace, that God may spread its branches so that we can
+all be secured from bad weather. Here is the pipe that gives us joy.
+Smoke out of it. Our warriors are glad you are the man we present it to.
+We have buried the tomahawk, have formed friendship never to be broken,
+and now we smoke out of your pipe.
+
+"My father, we know that the Great Spirit was angry with us for stealing
+your horses and attacking your people. He has sent us so much snow and
+cold weather as to kill your horses with our own. We are a poor people.
+We hope God will help us, and that the Long Knife will have compassion
+on our women and children. Your people who are with us are well. We
+shall collect them when they come in from hunting. All the prisoners
+taken in Kentucky are alive. We love them, and so do our young women.
+Some of your people mend our guns, and others tell us they can make rum
+out of corn. They are now the same as we. In one moon after this we will
+take them back to their friends in Kentucky.
+
+"My father, this being the day of joy to the Wabash Indians, we beg a
+little drop of your milk to let our warriors see that it came from your
+own breast. We were born and raised in the woods. We could never learn
+to make rum. God has made the white men masters of the world."
+
+Having finished his speech, Piankashaw presented Mr. Dalton with three
+strings of blue and white wampum as the seal of peace. All must observe
+the strain of despondency which pervades this address, and it is
+melancholy to notice the imploring tones with which the chief asks for
+rum, the greatest curse which ever afflicted his people.
+
+The incessant petty warfare waged between vagrant bands of the whites
+and the Indians, with the outrages perpetrated on either side, created
+great exasperation. In the year 1784 there were many indications that
+the Indians were again about to combine in an attack upon the
+settlements. These stations were widely scattered, greatly exposed, and
+there were many of them. It was impossible for the pioneers to rally in
+sufficient strength to protect every position. The savages, emerging
+unexpectedly from the wilderness, could select their own point of
+attack, and could thus cause a vast amount of loss and misery. For a
+long time it had been unsafe for any individual, or even small parties,
+unless very thoroughly armed, to wander beyond the protection of the
+forts. Under these circumstances, a convention was held of the leading
+men of Kentucky at the Danville Station, to decide what measures to
+adopt in view of the threatened invasion. It was quite certain that the
+movement of the savages would be so sudden and impetuous that the
+settlers would be compelled to rely mainly upon their own resources.
+
+The great State of Virginia, of which Kentucky was but a frontier
+portion, had become rich and powerful. But many weary leagues
+intervened, leading through forests and over craggy mountains, between
+the plains of these distant counties and Richmond, the capital of
+Virginia. The convention at Danville discussed the question whether it
+were not safer for them to anticipate the Indians, and immediately to
+send an army for the destruction of their towns and crops north of the
+Ohio. But here they were embarrassed by the consideration that they had
+no legal power to make this movement, and that the whole question,
+momentous as it was and demanding immediate action, must be referred to
+the State Government, far away beyond the mountains. This involved long
+delay, and it could hardly be expected that the members of the General
+Court in their peaceful homes would fully sympathize with the
+unprotected settlers in their exposure to the tomahawk and the scalping
+knife.
+
+Several conventions were held, and the question was earnestly discussed
+whether the interests of Kentucky did not require her separation from
+the Government of Virginia, and her organization as a self-governing
+State. The men who had boldly ventured to seek new homes so far beyond
+the limits of civilization were generally men of great force of
+character and of political foresight. They had just emerged from the war
+of the Revolution, during which all the most important questions of
+civil polity had been thoroughly canvassed. Their meetings were
+conducted with great dignity and calm deliberation.
+
+On the twenty-third of May, 1785, the convention at Danville passed the
+resolve with great unanimity that Kentucky ought to be separated from
+Virginia, and received into the American Union, upon the same basis as
+the other States. Still that they might not act upon a question of so
+much importance without due deliberation, they referred the subject to
+another convention to be assembled at Danville in August. This
+convention reiterated the resolution of its predecessor; issued a
+proclamation urging the people everywhere to organise for defence
+against the Indians, and appointed a delegation of two members to
+proceed to Richmond, and present their request for a separation to the
+authorities there.
+
+"The Legislature of Virginia was composed of men too wise not to see
+that separation was inevitable. Separated from the parent State by
+distance and by difficulties of communication, in those days most
+formidable, they saw that Kentuckians would not long submit to be ruled
+by those whose power was so far removed as to surround every approach to
+it with the greatest embarrassment. It was, without its wrongs, and
+tyranny and misgovernment, the repetition of the circumstances of the
+Crown and Colonies; and with good judgment, and as the beautiful
+language of the Danville convention expressed it, with sole intent to
+bless its people, they agreed to a dismemberment of its part, to secure
+the happiness of the whole."[F]
+
+ [Footnote F: Daniel Boone, by W. H. Bogart.]
+
+It is not important here to enter into a detail of the various
+discussions which ensued, and of the measures which were adopted. It is
+sufficient to say that the communication from Kentucky to the
+Legislature of Virginia was referred to the illustrious John Marshall,
+then at the commencement of his distinguished career. He gave to the
+request of the petitioners his own strong advocacy. The result was, that
+a decree was passed after tedious delays, authorising the formal
+separation of Kentucky from Virginia. On the fourth of February, 1791,
+the new State, by earnest recommendation of George Washington, was
+admitted into the American Union.
+
+It does not appear that Colonel Boone was a member of any of these
+conventions. He had no taste for the struggles in political assemblies.
+He dreaded indeed the speculator, the land jobber, and the intricate
+decisions of courts, more than the tomahawk of the Indian. And he knew
+full well that should the hour of action come, he would be one of the
+first to be summoned to the field. While therefore others of the early
+pioneers were engaged in these important deliberations, he was quietly
+pursuing those occupations, congenial to his tastes, of cultivating the
+farm, or in hunting game in the solitude of the forests. His humble
+cabin stood upon the banks of the Kentucky River, not far from the
+station at Boonesborough. And thoroughly acquainted as he was with the
+habits of the Indians, he felt quite able, in his bullet-proof citadel,
+to protect himself from any marauding bands which might venture to show
+themselves so near the fort.
+
+It seems to be the lot of humanity that life should be composed of a
+series of storms, rising one after another. In the palace and in the
+cottage, in ancient days and at the present time, we find the sweep of
+the inexorable law, that man is born to mourn.
+
+
+          "Sorrow is for the sons of men,
+           And weeping for earth's daughters."
+
+The cloud of menaced Indian invasion had passed away, when suddenly the
+sheriff appears in Boone's little cabin, and informs him that his title
+to his land is disputed, and that legal proceedings were commenced
+against him. Boone could not comprehend this. Kentucky he regarded
+almost his own by the right of his discovery. He had led the way there.
+He had established himself and family in the land, and had defended it
+from the incursions of the Indians. And now, in his advancing years, to
+be driven from the few acres he had selected and to which he supposed he
+had a perfect title, seemed to him very unjust indeed. He could not
+recognise any right in what seemed to him but the quibbles of the
+lawyers. In his autobiography he wrote in reference to his many painful
+adventures:
+
+"My footsteps have often been marked with blood. Two darling sons and a
+brother have I lost by savage hands, which have also taken from me forty
+valuable horses and abundance of cattle. Many dark and sleepless nights
+have I been a companion for owls, separated from the cheerful society of
+men, scorched by the summer's sun, and pinched by the winter's cold, an
+instrument ordained to settle the wilderness."
+
+Agitated by the thought of the loss of his farm and deeply wounded in
+his feelings, as though a great wrong had been inflicted upon him, Boone
+addressed an earnest memorial to the Legislature of Kentucky. In this he
+stated that immediately after the troubles with the Indians had ceased,
+he located himself upon lands to which he supposed he had a perfect
+title; that he reared his house and commenced cultivating his fields.
+And after briefly enumerating the sacrifices he had made in exploring,
+settling and defending Kentucky, he said he could not understand the
+justice of making a set of complicated forms of law, superior to his
+actual occupancy of the land selected, as he believed when and where it
+was, it was his unquestioned right to do so.
+
+But the lawyers and the land speculators were too shrewd for the
+pioneer. Colonel Boone was sued; the question went to the courts which
+he detested, and Boone lost his farm. It was indeed a very hard case. He
+had penetrated the country when no other white man trod its soil. He
+discovered its wonderful resources, and proclaimed them to the world. He
+had guided settlers into the region, and by his sagacity and courage,
+had provided for their wants and protected them from the savage. And now
+in his declining years he found himself driven from his farm, robbed of
+every acre, a houseless, homeless, impoverished man. The deed was so
+cruel that thousands since, in reading the recital, have been agitated
+by the strongest emotions of indignation and grief.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+_Adventures Romantic and Perilous._
+
+The Search for the Horse.--Navigating the Ohio.--Heroism of Mrs.
+Rowan.--Lawless Gangs.--Exchange of Prisoners.--Boone Revisits the
+Home of his Childhood.--The Realms beyond the Mississippi.--Habits
+of the Hunters.--Corn.--Boone's Journey to the West.
+
+
+The Indians still continued hostile. The following incident gives one an
+idea of the nature of the conflict which continued, and of the perils
+which were encountered.
+
+There was a striving station where a few settlers were collected, at a
+spot now called State Creek Iron Works. One or two farm-houses were
+scattered around, but at such a short distance from the fort that their
+inmates could at once take refuge behind its log walls, in case of
+alarm. In the month of August, 1786, a young man residing in the fort,
+by the name of Yates, called at one of these farm-houses and requested a
+lad, Francis Downing, to accompany him in search of a horse, which had
+strayed away. The two friends set out together, and after searching the
+forest in vain, found themselves, the latter part of the afternoon, in a
+lonely uninhabited valley, nearly seven miles from the fort. Here young
+Downing became quite alarmed by some indications that Indians were
+dogging their steps. He communicated his fears to his companion. But
+Yates, who was several years older than Downing, was an experienced
+hunter and inured to life in the woods, had become to a certain degree
+indifferent to danger. He made himself quite merry over his young
+companion's fears, asking him at what price he was willing to sell his
+scalp, and offering to insure it for sixpence.
+
+Still Downing was not satisfied, and his alarm increased as he insisted
+that he occasionally heard the crack of dry twigs behind them, as if
+broken by some one pursueing. But Yates deriding his fears, pressed on,
+making the woods resound with a song, to which he gave utterance from
+unusually full and strong lungs. Downing gradually slackened his pace,
+and when Yates was some thirty yards in advance of him, sprang into a
+dense cluster of tall whortleberry bushes, where he was effectually
+concealed. Scarcely had he done this, when to his great terror he saw
+two Indians peeping cautiously out of a thick canebrake. Deceived by the
+song of Yates, who with stentorian lungs was still giving forth his
+woodland ditty, they supposed both had passed. Young Downing thought it
+impossible but that the savages must have seen him as he concealed
+himself. Greatly alarmed he raised his gun, intending to shoot one and
+to trust to his heels for escape from the other.
+
+But his hand was so unsteady that the gun went off before he had taken
+aim. Terror stricken, he rushed along the path Yates had trod. Yates,
+alarmed by the report of the gun, came running back. As they met, the
+two Indians were seen not far from them in hot pursuit. They soon could
+easily see that the enemy was gaining upon them. In their rapid flight
+they came to a deep gulley which Yates cleared at a bound, but young
+Downing failed in the attempt. His breast struck the opposite almost
+precipitous bank, and he rolled to the bottom of the ditch. Some
+obstruction in the way prevented the Indians from witnessing the fall of
+Downing. They continued the pursuit of Yates, crossing the gulley a few
+yards below where Downing had met his mishap. Thus in less time than we
+have occupied in the narration, the Indians disappeared in their chase
+after Yates.
+
+Downing was in great perplexity. He did not dare to creep out of the
+gulley, lest he should be seen, and as soon as the Indians should
+perceive that he was not with Yates, as they inevitably would ere long
+do, they would know that he was left behind, and would turn back for his
+capture. Unfortunately young Downing had so far lost his presence of
+mind, that he had failed to reload his gun. Just then he saw one of the
+savages returning, evidently in search of him. There was no possible
+resource left but flight. Throwing away his now useless gun, he rushed
+into the forest with all the speed which terror could inspire. He was
+but a boy, the full-grown Indian gained rapidly upon him, he could
+almost strike him with his tomahawk, when they came to an immense tree,
+blown up by the roots. The boy ran on one side of the trunk and the
+Indian on the other, towards the immense pile of earth which adhered to
+the upturned roots.
+
+The boy now gave up all hope in utter despair. It seemed certain that
+the brawny Indian would get ahead of him and intercept his further
+flight. But it so happened--was it an accident or was it a
+Providence--that a she-bear had made her bed directly in the path which
+the Indian with almost blind eagerness was pursuing. Here the ferocious
+beast was suckling her cubs. The bear sprang from her lair, and
+instantly with a terrific hug grasped the savage in her paws. The Indian
+gave a terrific yell and plunged his knife again and again into the body
+of the bear. The boy had but one brief glance, as in this bloody embrace
+they rolled over and over on the ground. The boy, praying that the bear
+might tear the Indian in pieces, added new speed to his flight and
+reached the fort in safety.
+
+There he found Yates who had arrived but a few moments before him, and
+who had outrun the other Indian. The next morning a well armed party
+returned to the tree. Both the bear and the Indian had disappeared.
+Probably both had suffered very severely in the conflict, and both had
+escaped with their lives.
+
+Another incident illustrative of these perilous adventures in the now
+peaceful State of Kentucky. Mr. Rowan, with his own and five other
+families, left the little hamlet at Louisville to float down the Ohio to
+Green River, and to ascend that stream, intending to rear their new
+homes on its fertile and delightful banks. The families were quite
+comfortably accommodated in a large flat-bottomed boat. Another boat of
+similar construction conveyed their cattle and sundry articles of
+household furniture. On the route which they were pursuing, there were
+then no settlements. The Ohio river and the Green river flowed through
+unbroken solitudes.
+
+The flat boats had floated down the beautiful Ohio, through scenes of
+surpassing loveliness, about one hundred miles, when one night about ten
+o'clock a prodigious shouting and yelling of Indians was heard some
+distance farther down the river on the northern shore. Very soon they
+came in sight of their camp-fires, which were burning very brightly. It
+was evident that the Indians were having a great carousal rejoicing
+over some victory. Mr. Rowan immediately ordered the two boats to be
+lashed firmly together. There were but seven men on board who were
+capable of making efficient use of the rifle. Plying the oars as
+vigorously and noiselessly as they could, they endeavored to keep close
+to the Kentucky shore. And yet they were careful not to approach too
+near, lest there might be Indians there also. It was evident that there
+was a large gathering of the Indians on the northern bank, for their
+camp-fires extended for a distance of nearly half a mile along the
+river.
+
+As the boats floated noiselessly along in the gloom of the night, under
+shadow of the cliffs, they were not detected until they were opposite
+the central fire, whose brilliancy threw a flood of light nearly across
+the stream. A simultaneous shout greeted this discovery, and with
+terrific yells the savages rushed to their canoes and commenced a
+pursuit. The two flat boats rapidly floated beyond the illumination of
+the fires into the region of midnight darkness. The timid Indians, well
+acquainted with the white man's unerring aim, pursued cautiously, though
+their hideous yells resounded along the shores.
+
+Mr. Rowan ordered all on board to keep perfect silence, to conceal
+themselves as much as possible, and ordered not a gun to be fired till
+the Indians were so near that the powder of the gun would burn them,
+thus rendering every shot absolutely certain. The Indians, with their
+hideous yells, pursued in their canoes until within a hundred yards of
+the boats. They then seemed simultaneously to have adopted the
+conviction that the better part of valor was discretion. In the
+darkness, they could not see the boatmen, who they had no doubt were
+concealed behind bullet-proof bulwarks. Their birch canoes presented not
+the slightest obstruction to the passage of a rifle ball. Knowing that
+the flash of a gun from the boat would be certain death to some one of
+their number, and that thus the boatmen, with the rapidity with which
+they could load and fire, would destroy a large part of their company
+before they could hope to capture the flat boats, they hesitated to
+approach any nearer, but followed in the pursuit for nearly three miles
+down the river, assailing the white men only with harmless yells.
+
+The heroic Mrs. Rowan, as she saw the canoes approaching, supposing that
+the savages would attempt to board the boats, crept quietly around in
+the darkness, collected all the axes, and placed one by the side of each
+man, leaning the handle against his knee. While performing this
+significant act she uttered not a word, but returned to her own seat in
+silence, retaining a sharp hatchet for herself.
+
+With such determined spirits to assail, it was well for the savages
+that they did not approach within arms-length of those whom they were
+pursuing. They would certainly have met with a bloody reception.
+
+The savages at length, despairing of success, relinquished the pursuit
+and returned to their demoniac orgies around their camp-fires. It was
+supposed that they had captured a boat which was descending the river
+the day before, and that their extraordinary revelry was accompanied by
+the roasting of their captives. A son of Mr. Rowan, but ten years of
+age, who subsequently became one of the most distinguished men in
+Kentucky, was present on this occasion. He frequently, in after-years,
+alluded to the indescribable sensations of sublimity and terror which
+the scene inspired. The gloom of the night; the solemn flow of the
+majestic river; the dim view of the forests on either side; the gleam of
+the camp-fires of the Indians, around which the half-clad savages were
+dancing in hideous contortions; the unearthly yells in which every
+demoniac passion seemed contending for the mastery; the shout which was
+given when they discovered the boats beneath the shadows of the opposite
+cliffs; the pursuit of the canoes with redoubled vehemence of hooting;
+the rapidity with which, with brawny arms, they paddled their boats to
+and fro; the breathless silence which pervaded the flat boat while for
+more than an hour the occupants awaited, momentarily expecting the
+terrible onset; and above all, the fortitude and heroism displayed by
+his mother,--all these combined to leave an impression upon the mind of
+the boy which could never be obliterated. Few will be able to read the
+record of this adventure without emotion. What then must it have been to
+have experienced it in bodily presence, and to have shared in all its
+terrible dangers?
+
+As we have before said, there was no distinctly proclaimed war, at this
+time, between the pioneers and the Indians. While lawless men on both
+sides were committing the most atrocious outrages, the chiefs and the
+legitimate authorities were nominally at peace. The red men, whether
+engaged in what they deemed lawful warfare, or moving in plundering
+bands, were in the habit of inflicting upon their captives the most
+dreadful tortures which their ingenuity could devise. The white men
+could not retaliate by the perpetration of such revolting cruelty.
+
+It probably was a suggestion of Colonel Boone that a council might be
+held with the Indian chiefs, and a treaty formed by which prisoners
+should be exempted from torture and exchanged, as in civilized warfare.
+The Indians were by no means reckless of the lives of their warriors,
+and would probably be very ready to give up a white captive if by so
+doing they could receive one of their own braves in return. A council
+was held at a station where Maysville now stands. Colonel Boone was at
+once selected as the man of all others most fit to take part in these
+deliberations. He was not only thoroughly acquainted with the Indians,
+their habits, their modes of thought, and the motives most likely to
+influence their minds; but his own peculiar character seemed just the
+one calculated to inspire them with admiration.
+
+The principle was here adopted of an exchange of prisoners, which
+notwithstanding the continued violence of the lawless, saved the lives
+of many captives. It is an interesting fact, illustrative of the
+sagacity and extraordinary power of Colonel Boone over the Indian mind,
+that the chiefs with one consent agreed in grateful commemoration of
+this treaty, that if any captive should hereafter be taken by them from
+Maysville, that captive should be treated with every possible degree of
+lenity. And it is worthy of record that such a captive was subsequently
+taken, and that the Indians with the most scrupulous fidelity fulfilled
+their pledge. Indeed, it is difficult for an impartial historian to
+deny, that these poor savages, ignorant and cruel as they were, often
+displayed a sense of honor which we do not so often find in their
+opponents. It is to be feared that were Indian historians to write the
+record of these wars, we should not find that they were always in the
+wrong.
+
+Colonel Boone, ejected from his lands and thus left penniless, felt
+keenly the wrongs which were inflicted upon him. He knew full well that
+he had done a thousand times more for Kentucky than any other man living
+or dead. He had conferred upon the State services which no money could
+purchase. Though to his intimate friends he confided his sufferings, he
+was too proud to utter loud complaints. In silence he endured. But
+Kentucky had ceased to be a happy home for him. Over all its broad and
+beautiful expanse which he had opened to the world, there was not a
+single acre which he could call his own. And he had no money with which
+to purchase a farm of those speculators, into whose hands most of the
+lands had fallen. Could the good old man now rise from his grave, a
+Kentucky Legislature would not long leave him landless. There is
+scarcely a cabin or a mansion in the whole State, where Daniel Boone
+would not meet with as hospitable a reception as grateful hearts could
+give.
+
+As a grief-stricken child rushes to its mother's arms for solace, so it
+is natural for man, when world-weary and struggling with adversity, to
+look back with longing eyes to the home of his childhood. The
+remembrance of its sunny days animates him, and its trivial sadnesses
+are forgotten. Thus with Daniel Boone; houseless and stung by
+ingratitude, he turned his eyes to the far distant home of his
+childhood, on the banks of the Schuykill. More than forty years of a
+wonderfully adventurous life had passed, since he a boy of fourteen had
+accompanied his father in his removal from Reading, in Berk's County, to
+North Carolina. Still the remarkable boy had left traces behind him
+which were not yet obliterated.
+
+He visited Reading, probably influenced by a faint hope of finding there
+a home. A few of his former acquaintances were living, and many family
+friends remained. By all he was received with the greatest kindness. But
+the frontier settlement of log huts, and the majestic surrounding
+forests filled with game, had entirely disappeared. Highly cultivated
+farms, from which even the stumps of the forest had perished, extended
+in all directions. Ambitious mansions adorned the hillsides, and all the
+appliances of advancing civilization met the eye. There could be no home
+here for Daniel Boone. Amid these strange scenes he felt as a stranger,
+and his heart yearned again for the solitudes of the forest. He longed
+to get beyond the reach of lawyers' offices, and court-houses, and land
+speculators.
+
+After a short visit he bade adieu forever to his friends upon the
+Schuykill, and turned his steps again towards the setting sun. His
+feelings had been too deeply wounded to allow him to think of remaining
+a man without a home in Kentucky. Still the idea of leaving a region
+endeared to him by so many memories must have been very painful. He
+remembered vividly his long and painful journeys over the mountains,
+through the wilderness untrodden by the foot of the white man; his
+solitary exploration of the new Eden which he seemed to have found
+there; the glowing accounts he had carried back to his friends of the
+sunny skies, the salubrious clime, the fertile soil, and the majesty and
+loveliness of the landscape; of mountain, valley, lake and river which
+Providence had lavished with a prodigal hand in this "Garden of the
+Lord."
+
+One by one he had influenced his friends to emigrate, had led them to
+their new homes, had protected them against the savages, and now when
+Kentucky had become a prosperous State in the Union, containing thirty
+thousand inhabitants, he was cast aside, and under the forms of law was
+robbed of the few acres which he had cultivated as his own. His life
+embittered by these reflections, and seeing nothing to attract him in
+the wild and unknown regions beyond the Mississippi, Colonel Boone
+turned sadly back to Virginia.
+
+It was an easy task for him to remove. In such an hour, one can
+sometimes well say, "Blessed be Nothing." A few pack-horses were
+sufficient to convey all his household goods. It is probable that his
+wife and children, indignant at the treatment which the husband and
+father had received, were glad to leave.
+
+This was doubtless one of the saddest journeys that Colonel Boone ever
+undertook. Traversing an almost pathless wilderness in a direction a
+little north of east from Boonesborough, he crossed the various speers
+of the Alleghany range, supporting his family with his rifle on the way,
+until after passing over three hundred miles of the wilderness, he
+reached the mouth of the Kanawha river, as that stream flows from
+Virginia due north, and empties into the Ohio river. Here there was a
+point of land washed by the Ohio on the north, and the Great Kanawha on
+the west, to which the appropriate name of Point Pleasant had been
+given. It does not appear that civilization had as yet penetrated this
+region. The emigration to Kentucky had floated by it down the river,
+descending from Pittsburg, or had crossed the mountain passes from North
+Carolina, several hundred miles to the south.
+
+Colonel Boone was now fifty-five years of age. If there were any
+settlement at the time at Point Pleasant, it must have consisted merely
+of a few log huts. Here at all events, Colonel Boone found the solitude
+and the communion with nature alone, for which his heart yearned. The
+world might call him poor, and still he was rich in the abundant supply
+of all his earthly wants. He reared his log hut where no one appeared to
+dispute his claim. The fertile soil around, a virgin soil, rich with
+undeveloped treasures, under the simplest culture produced abundantly,
+and the forest around supplied him daily with animal food more than a
+European peasant sees in a year.
+
+Here Colonel Boone and his family remained for several years, to use a
+popular phrase, buried from the world. His life was mainly that of a
+hunter. Mr. Peck, speaking of the habits of those pioneers who depended
+mainly upon the rifle for support, writes:
+
+"I have often seen him get up early in the morning, walk hastily out,
+and look anxiously to the woods and snuff the autumnal winds with the
+highest rapture; then return into the house and cast a quick and
+attentive look at the rifle, which was always suspended to a joist by a
+couple of buck-horns or little forks. The hunting dog understanding the
+intentions of his master, would wag his tail, and by every blandishment
+in his power, express his readiness to accompany him to the woods."
+
+It probably did not diminish Colonel Boone's interest in his new home,
+that it was exposed to all the perils of border life; that his rifle
+should be ever loaded; that his faithful watch-dog should be stationed
+at the door, to give warning of any approaching footsteps; and that he
+and his family should always be ready for a siege or battle. With these
+precautions, Boone had no more fear of assault from half a dozen
+vagabond Indians, than he had from so many howling wolves.
+
+The casualties of life had greatly reduced his family. Of his three
+sons, the eldest had fallen beneath the arrow and the tomahawk of the
+savages amidst the gloomy defiles of the Alleghany mountains. His second
+son was killed at the dreadful battle of the Blue Licks, as his agonised
+father had been compelled to abandon him to the merciless foe. His third
+son, probably chagrined by the treatment which his father had received
+from the authorities of Kentucky, had bidden adieu to all the haunts of
+civilized life, and traversing the wilderness towards the setting sun
+for many hundred miles, had crossed the Mississippi and sought a home in
+the wilds of the upper Louisiana, then under the dominion of Spain.
+
+As Boone was quietly engaged in his solitary vocation of farmer and
+hunter, where there were no books, no newspapers, nothing whatever to
+inform him of what was transpiring in the busy world of civilization, or
+in the haunts of savage life, two or three hunters came one day to his
+cabin, where of course they met with a very hospitable reception. It was
+not difficult to entertain guests in those days. The floor of the cabin
+supplied all the needed accommodations for lodging. Each guest with his
+rifle could easily furnish more food than was desired for the whole
+family.
+
+A little corn-meal, very coarsely ground in what was called a tub-mill,
+gave quite a variety of palatable food. Boiled in water it formed a dish
+called mush, which when eaten with milk, honey or butter, presented
+truly a delicious repast for hungry mouths. Mixed with cold water, it
+was ready to be baked. When covered with hot ashes, it emerged smoking
+from the glowing embers in the form of Ash Cake. When baked upon a
+shingle and placed before the coals, it was termed Journey Cake, so
+called because it could be so speedily prepared. This name has been
+corrupted in modern times into _Johnny_ Cake. When baked upon a
+helveless hoe, it formed the Hoe Cake. When baked in a kettle covered
+with a heated lid, if in one large cake, it was called a Pone or loaf.
+If in quite a number of small cakes they were called Dodgers.
+
+Corn flour seems to have been peculiarly prepared by Providence for the
+pioneers. For them it possesses some very great advantages over all
+other flour. It requires but few and the most simple cooking utensils.
+It can be rendered very palatable without either yeast, eggs, sugar or
+spices of any kind. It can easily be raised in the greatest abundance,
+and affords the most wholesome and nutritious food.
+
+"Let pæans," writes Mr. Hartly, "be sung all over the mighty West, to
+Indian Corn. Without it, the West would still have been a wilderness.
+Was the frontier suddenly invaded, without commissary, or quartermaster,
+or other sources of supply, each soldier parched a peck of corn. A
+portion of it was put into his pockets, the remainder in his wallet, and
+throwing it upon his saddle with his rifle on his shoulder, he was ready
+in half an hour for the campaign. Did a flood of emigration inundate the
+frontier, with an amount of consumers disproportioned to the supply of
+grain, the facility of raising the Indian corn, and its early maturity,
+gave promise and guarantee that the scarcity would be temporary and
+tolerable. Did the safety of the frontier demand the services of every
+adult militiaman, the boys and women could themselves raise corn, and
+furnish ample supplies of bread. Did an autumnal intermittent confine
+the whole family, or the entire population to the sick bed, this certain
+concomitant of the clearing and cultivating the new soil, mercifully
+withholds its paroxysms till the crop of corn is made. It requires no
+further labor or care afterwards. Pæans, say we, and a temple of
+worshipping to the creator of Indian Corn!"
+
+The hunters to whom we referred were indeed congenial companions to
+Daniel Boone. As day after day they accompanied him in the chase, and
+night after night sat by the blaze of his cabine-fire, related to him
+the adventures they had encountered far away beyond the Mississippi, the
+spirit of his youth revived within him. An irrepressible desire sprang
+up in his heart again to become a pioneer in the pathless forest which
+he loved so well. It is not improbable also that his parental feelings
+might have been aroused by the consideration that his son had gone
+before him to that distant land; and that he might have been animated by
+the hope of being reunited with him in his declining years.
+
+The hunters represented to him that another Kentucky could be found
+beyond the Father of Waters; that the game was abundant and would be
+inexhaustible, until long after his earthly pilgrimage should end; that
+the Spanish Government, desirous of promoting emigration, were ready to
+make the most liberal grants of land to any man who would rear a cabin
+and commence the cultivation of the soil; that over an expanse of
+hundreds of miles of a sunny clime, and as luxurious soil as heart could
+desire, he could select his broad acres with no fear of ever again being
+ejected from his home.
+
+These representations were resistless. Colonel Boone decided again to
+become a wanderer to the far West, though it involved the relinquishment
+of American citizenship and becoming a subject of the crown of Spain.
+
+The year 1795 had now come, as Colonel Boone gathered up his few
+household goods for the fourth great remove of his life. He was born on
+the banks of the Delaware; his childhood was passed amidst the solitudes
+of the Upper Skuylkill; his early manhood, where he reared his cabin and
+took to it his worthy bride, was in North Carolina. Thence penetrating
+the wilderness through adventures surpassing the dreams of romance, he
+had passed many years amidst the most wonderful vicissitudes of quietude
+and of agitation, of peace and of war, on the settlement of which he was
+the father, at Boonesborough, in the valley of the Kentucky river.
+Robbed of the possessions which he had earned a hundred times over, he
+had sought a temporary residence at Point Pleasant, in Virginia. And
+now, as he was approaching the termination of his three score years, he
+was prepared to traverse the whole extent of Kentucky, from the
+Alleghany border on the east, to the mighty flood of the Mississippi,
+which then upon the west rushed with its turbid flood through an almost
+unbroken solitude. It was a long, long journey.
+
+We can only surmise the reasons why he did not float down the Ohio in a
+flat boat. It may be said that he was entirely unaccustomed to boating.
+And as it does not appear that any other families joined him in the
+enterprise, his solitary boat would be almost certain to be attacked
+and captured by some of the marauding bands which frequented the
+northern banks of the Ohio.
+
+Colonel Boone was perfectly at home in the wilderness. He could always
+find a path for himself, where there was no trail to follow. And but few
+Indians now ventured into the interior of the State. We have no record
+of the journey. He reached the Mississippi safely, crossed the river
+into what is now the State of Missouri, and found a warm greeting in the
+cabin of his son Daniel M. Boone, who had established himself upon the
+western banks of the river, near where the city of St. Louis now stands.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+_A New Home._
+
+Colonel Boone welcomed by the Spanish Authorities.--Boone's Narrative to
+Audubon.--The Midnight Attack.--Pursuit of the Savages.--Sickness in the
+Wilderness.--Honesty of Colonel Boone.--Payment of his Debts.--Loss of all
+his Property.
+
+
+At the time when Colonel Boone crossed the Mississippi and entered
+Missouri, the Spanish Government, then in possession of that territory,
+being anxious to promote the settlement of the country, gave a very
+cordial welcome to all emigrants. The fame of Colonel Boone, as one of
+the most bold and valuable of pioneers, had preceded him. The Lieutenant
+Governor under the Spanish crown, who resided at St. Louis, received him
+with marked attention, and gave him the assurance that ample portions of
+land should be given to him and his family.
+
+Colonel Boone took up his residence, with his son, in what is called the
+Femme Osage district. The Spanish authorities appointed him Commandant
+of the district, which was an office of both civil and military power.
+His commission was dated July 11th, 1800. Remote as was this region from
+the Atlantic States, bold adventurers, lured by the prospect of
+obtaining large tracts of land, were rapidly pouring in. Instead of
+collecting together, they scattered wildly over the vast domain. Don
+Charles, the Spanish governor, gave Colonel Boone eight thousand acres
+of land on the north side of the Missouri river. By the law of the
+province he was bound to build upon some part of this land a house
+within the year, and also to obtain a confirmation of the grant from the
+representative of the Spanish crown, then residing in New Orleans. Both
+of these precautions the simple-minded man neglected to adopt. To visit
+New Orleans required a journey through the wilderness of more than a
+thousand miles. Though he might float down the stream in his boat he
+would be exposed continually to attacks from the Indians on its banks,
+and when ready to return he could not surmount the rapid current of the
+river in his boat, but would be compelled to traverse the winding banks,
+often through almost impenetrable forests and morasses. His duties as
+_syndic_ or justice of the peace also occupied much of his time, and the
+Lieutenant Governor at St. Louis agreed to dispense with his residence
+upon his lands. In addition to this, Colonel Boone had no doubt that the
+country would soon come under the power of the United States, and he
+could not believe the United States Government would disturb his title.
+
+Soon after Boone's emigration to Missouri, the Emperor Napoleon, by
+treaty with Spain, obtained possession of the whole of the vast region
+west of the Mississippi and Missouri, then known as Louisiana, and the
+region was transferred to France. It is a curious fact in the history of
+Boone passing through such wonderful adventures, that he had been a
+subject of George II., George III., a citizen of the United States, of
+the temporary nationality of Transylvania, an adopted son and citizen of
+the Shawanese tribe of Indians, a subject of Charles IV. of Spain, and
+now he found himself a subject of the first Napoleon, whose empire was
+then filling the world with its renown.
+
+Not long after this, the Emperor sold the country, as we have recorded,
+to the United States, saying with that prophetic wisdom which
+characterised this extraordinary man, "I have now given England a rival
+upon the seas." The fulfilment of this prophecy has since then been
+every hour in process of development.
+
+Colonel Boone seems to have been very happy in his new home. He still
+enjoyed his favorite pursuit of hunting, for the forests around him were
+filled with game and with animals whose rich furs were every year
+becoming more valuable. The distinguished naturalist, J. J. Audubon,
+visited him in his solitary retreat, and spent a night with him. In his
+Ornithological Biography he gives the following narrative which he
+received from Boone, that evening as they sat at the cabin fire. We give
+the story in the words of the narrator:
+
+"Daniel Boone, or as he was usually called in the Western country,
+Colonel Boone, happened to spend a night with me under the same roof,
+more than twenty years ago. We had returned from a shooting excursion,
+in the course of which his extraordinary skill in the management of the
+rifle had been fully displayed. On retiring to the room appropriated to
+that remarkable individual and myself for the night, I felt anxious to
+know more of his exploits and adventures than I did, and accordingly
+took the liberty of proposing numerous questions to him.
+
+"The stature and general appearance of this wanderer of the western
+forests approached the gigantic. His chest was broad and prominent, his
+muscular powers displayed themselves in every limb; his countenance gave
+indication of his great courage, enterprise and perseverance; and when
+he spoke the very motion of his lips brought the impression that
+whatever he uttered could not be otherwise than strictly true. I
+undressed while he merely took off his hunting shirt and arranged a few
+folds of blankets on the floor, choosing rather to lie there, as he
+observed, than on the softest bed. When we had both disposed of
+ourselves each after his own fashion, he related to me the following
+account of his powers of memory, which I lay before your kind reader in
+his own words, hoping that the simplicity of his style may prove
+interesting to you:
+
+"'I was once,' said he, 'on a hunting expedition on the banks of the
+Green River, when the lower parts of Kentucky were still in the hands of
+nature, and none but the sons of the soil were looked upon as its lawful
+proprietors. We Virginians had for some time been waging a war of
+intrusion upon them, and I among the rest rambled through the woods in
+pursuit of their race, as I now would follow the tracks of any ravenous
+animal. The Indians outwitted me one dark night, and I was as
+unexpectedly as suddenly made a prisoner by them.
+
+"'The trick had been managed with great skill; for no sooner had I
+extinguished the fire of my camp, and laid me down to rest in full
+security, as I thought, than I felt seized by an undistinguishable
+number of hands, and was immediately pinioned as if about to be led to
+the scaffold for execution. To have attempted to be refractory would
+have proved useless and dangerous to my life, and I suffered myself to
+be removed from my camp to theirs, a few miles distant, without uttering
+a word of complaint. You are aware, I daresay, that to act in this
+manner was the best policy, as you understand that by so doing, I proved
+to the Indians at once that I was born and bred as fearless of death as
+any of themselves.
+
+"'When we reached the camp great rejoicings were exhibited. Two squaws
+and a few papooses appeared particularly delighted at the sight of me,
+and I was assured by every unequivocal gesture and word that on the
+morrow the mortal enemy of the red skins would cease to live. I never
+opened my lips, but was busy contriving some scheme which might enable
+me to give the rascals a slip before dawn. The women immediately fell a
+searching about my hunting shirt for whatever they might think valuable,
+and fortunately for me soon found my flask filled with strong whiskey.
+
+"'A terrific grin was exhibited on their murderous countenances, while
+my heart throbbed with joy at the anticipation of their intoxication.
+The crew began immediately to beat their bellies and sing, as they
+passed the bottle from mouth to mouth. How often did I wish the flask
+ten times its size and filled with _aquafortis_! I observed that the
+squaws drank more freely than the warriors, and again my spirits were
+about to be depressed when the report of a gun was heard at a distance.
+The Indians all jumped on their feet. The singing and drinking were both
+brought to a stand, and I saw with inexpressible joy the men walk off
+to some distance and talk to the squaws. I knew that they were
+consulting about me, and I foresaw that in a few moments the warriors
+would go to discover the cause of the gun having been fired so near
+their camp. I expected that the squaws would be left to guard me. Well,
+sir, it was just so. They returned, the men took up their guns and
+walked away. The squaws sat down again and in less than five minutes had
+my bottle up to their dirty mouths, gurgling down their throats the
+remains of the whiskey.
+
+"'With pleasure did I see them becoming more and more drunk, until the
+liquor took such hold of them that it was quite impossible for these
+women to be of any service. They tumbled down, rolled about and began to
+snore, when I, having no other chance of freeing myself from the cords
+that fastened me, rolled over and over towards the fire, and after a
+short time burned them asunder. I rose on my feet, snatched up my rifle,
+and for once in my life spared that of Indians. I now recollected how
+desirous I once or twice felt to lay open the skulls of the wretches
+with my tomahawk. But when I again thought upon killing beings
+unprepared and unable to defend themselves, it looked like murder
+without need, and I gave up the idea.
+
+"'But, sir, I felt determined to mark the spot, and walking to a
+thrifty ash sapling, I cut out of it three large chips and ran off. I
+soon reached the river, soon crossed it, and threw myself into the
+cane-brakes, imitating the tracks of an Indian with my feet, so that no
+chance might be left for those from whom I had escaped to overtake me.
+
+"'It is now nearly twenty years since this happened, and more than five
+since I left the whites' settlement, which I might never probably have
+visited again, had I not been called upon as a witness in a law suit
+which was pending in Kentucky, and which I really believe would never
+have been settled had I not come forward and established the beginning
+of a certain boundary line. The story is this, sir:
+
+"'Mr. ---- moved from Old Virginia into Kentucky, and having a large
+tract granted to him in the new State, laid claim to a certain parcel of
+land adjoining Green River, and, as chance would have it, took for one
+of his corners the very ash tree on which I had made my mark, beginning,
+as it is expressed in the deed, 'At an ash marked by three distinct
+notches of the tomahawk of a white man.'
+
+"'The tree had grown much, and the bark had covered the marks. But
+somehow or other Mr. ---- had heard from some one all that I have already
+said to you, and thinking that I might remember the spot alluded to in
+the deed, but which was no longer discoverable, wrote for me to come
+and try at least to find the place or the tree. His letter mentioned
+that all my expenses should be paid; and not caring much about once more
+going back to Kentucky, I started and met Mr. ----. After some
+conversation, the affair with the Indians came to my recollection. I
+considered for a while, and began to think that, after all, I could find
+the very spot, as well as the tree, if it were yet standing.
+
+"Mr. ---- and I mounted our horses and off we went to the Green River
+bottoms. After some difficulty--for you must be aware, sir, that great
+changes have taken place in those woods--I found at last the spot where
+I had crossed the river, and waiting for the moon to rise, made for the
+course in which I thought the ash trees grew. On approaching the place I
+felt as if the Indians were there still, and as if I were still a
+prisoner among them. Mr. ---- and I camped near what I conceived the
+spot, and waited until the return of day.
+
+"'At the rising of the sun I was on foot, and after a good deal of
+musing thought that an ash tree, then in sight, must be the very one on
+which I had made my mark. I felt as if there could be no doubt about it,
+and mentioned my thought to Mr. ----.
+
+"'Well, Colonel Boone,' said he, 'if you think so I hope that it may
+prove true, but we must have some witnesses. Do you stay hereabouts and
+I will go and bring some of the settlers whom I know.'
+
+"'I agreed. Mr. ---- trotted off, and I, to pass the time, rambled about
+to see if a deer was still living in the land. But ah! sir, what a
+wonderful difference thirty years makes in a country! Why, at the time
+when I was caught by the Indians, you would not have walked out in any
+direction more than a mile without shooting a buck or a bear. There were
+then thousands of buffaloes on the hills in Kentucky. The land looked as
+if it never would become poor; and to hunt in those days was a pleasure
+indeed. But when I was left to myself on the banks of Green River, I
+daresay for the last time in my life, a few _signs_ only of the deer
+were seen, and as to a deer itself I saw none.
+
+"'Mr. ---- returned, accompanied by three gentlemen. They looked upon me
+as if I had been Washington himself, and walked to the ash tree, which I
+now called my own, as if in quest of a long lost treasure. I took an axe
+from one of them and cut a few chips off the bark. Still no signs were
+to be seen. So I cut again until I thought it time to be cautious, and I
+scraped and worked away with my butcher knife until I _did_ come to
+where my tomahawk had left an impression on the wood. We now went
+regularly to work and scraped at the tree with care until three hacks,
+as plain as any three notches ever were, could be seen. Mr. ---- and the
+other gentlemen were astonished, and I must allow that I was as much
+surprised as pleased myself. I made affidavit of this remarkable
+occurrence in presence of these gentlemen. Mr. ---- gained his cause. I
+left Green River for ever, and came to where we are now; and, sir, I
+wish you a good night."
+
+The life of this wonderful man was filled with similar adventures, many
+of which can now never be recalled. The following narrative will give
+the reader an idea of the scenes which were continually occurring in
+those bloody conflicts between the white settlers and the Indians:
+
+"A widow was residing in a lonely log cabin, remote from any settlers,
+in what is now Bourbon County, Kentucky. Her lonely hut consisted of but
+two rooms. One, the aged widow occupied herself, with two sons and a
+widowed daughter with an infant child; the other was tenanted by her
+three unmarried daughters, the oldest of whom was twenty years of age.
+
+"It was eleven o'clock at night, and the members of the industrious
+family in their lonely habitation had retired, with the exception of one
+of the daughters and one of the sons who was keeping her company. Some
+indications of danger had alarmed the young man, though he kept his
+fears to himself.
+
+"The cry apparently of owls in an adjoining forest was heard, answering
+each other in rather an unusual way. The horses in the enclosure by the
+side of the house, who seemed to have an instinct informing them of the
+approach of the Indians, seemed much excited and galloped around
+snorting with terror. Soon steps were heard in the yard, and immediately
+several loud knocks were made at the door, with some one enquiring, in
+good English, 'Who keeps this house?' The young man very imprudently was
+just unbarring the door when the mother sprang from the bed, exclaiming
+that they were Indians.
+
+"The whole family was immediately aroused, and the young men seized
+their guns. The Indians now threw off all disguise, and began to thunder
+at the door, endeavoring to break it down. Through a loop hole prepared
+for such an emergency, a rifle shot, discharged at the savages,
+compelled a precipitate retreat. Soon, however, they cautiously
+returned, and attacking the other end of the cabin, where they found a
+point not exposed to the fire from within, they succeeded at length in
+breaking through, and entered the room occupied by the three girls. One
+of them they seized and bound. Her sister made desperate resistance, and
+stabbed one of the Indians to the heart with a large knife which she was
+using at the loom. They immediately tomahawked her and she fell dead
+upon the floor. The little girl in the gloom of midnight they had
+overlooked. The poor little thing ran out of the door, and might have
+escaped had she not, in her terror, lost all self-control, and ran round
+the house wringing her hands and crying bitterly.
+
+"The brothers, agonized by the cries of their little sister, were just
+about opening the door to rush out to her rescue, when their more
+prudent mother declared that the child must be abandoned to its fate,
+that any attempt to save her would not only be unavailing, but would
+ensure the certain destruction of them all. Just then the child uttered
+a most frantic scream. They heard the dull sound as of a tomahawk
+falling upon the brain. There were a few convulsive moans, and all again
+was silent. It was but too evident to all what these sounds signified.
+
+"Presently the crackling of flames was heard, and through the port holes
+could be seen the glare of the rising conflagration, while the shouts of
+the savages grew more exultant. They had set fire to the end of the
+building occupied by the daughters. The logs were dry as tinder, and the
+devouring element was soon enveloping the whole building in its fatal
+embrace. To remain in the cabin was certain death, in its most appalling
+form. In rushing out there was a bare possibility that some might
+escape. There was no time for reflection. The hot stifling flames and
+smothering smoke were rolling in upon them, when they opened the door
+and rushed out into the outer air, endeavoring as soon as possible to
+reach the gloom of the forest.
+
+"The old lady, aided by her eldest son, ran in one direction towards a
+fence, while the other daughter, with her infant in her arms,
+accompanied by the younger of the brothers, ran in another direction.
+The fire was blazing so fiercely as to shed all around the light of day.
+The old lady had just reached the fence when several rifle balls pierced
+her body and she fell dead. Her son almost miraculously escaped, and
+leaping the fence plunged into the forest and disappeared. The other
+party was pursued by the Indians, with loud yells. Throwing down their
+guns which they had discharged, the savages rushed upon the young man
+and his sister with their gleaming tomahawks. Gallantly the brother
+defended his sister; firing upon the savages as they came rushing on,
+and then assailing them with the butt of his musket which he wielded
+with the fury of despair. He fought with such herculean strength as to
+draw the attention of all the savages upon himself, and thus gave his
+sister an opportunity of escaping. He soon however fell beneath their
+tomahawks, and was in the morning found scalped and mangled in the most
+shocking manner."
+
+Of this family of eight persons two only escaped from this awful scene
+of midnight massacre. The neighborhood was immediately aroused. The
+second daughter was carried off a captive by the savages. The fate of
+the poor girl awakened the deepest sympathy, and by daylight thirty men
+were assembled on horseback, under the command of Col. Edwards, to
+pursue the Indians. Fortunately a light snow had fallen during the
+night. Thus it was impossible for the savages to conceal their trail,
+and they were followed on the full gallop. The wretches knew full well
+that they would not be allowed to retire unmolested. They fled with the
+utmost precipitation, seeking to gain the mountainous region which
+bordered upon the Licking River.
+
+A hound accompanied the pursuing party. The sagacious animal was very
+eager in the chase. As the trail became fresh, and the scent indicated
+that the foe was nearly overtaken, the hound rushing forward, began to
+bay very loudly. This gave the Indians the alarm. Finding the strength
+of their captive failing, so that she could no longer continue the rapid
+flight, they struck their tomahawks into her brain, and left her
+bleeding and dying upon the snow. Her friends soon came up and found her
+in the convulsions of death. Her brother sprang from his horse and tried
+in vain to stop the effusion of blood. She seemed to recognize him,
+gave him her hand, uttered a few inarticulate words, and died.
+
+The pursuit was then continued with new ardor, and in about twenty
+minutes the avenging white men came within sight of the savages. With
+considerable military sagacity, the Indians had taken position upon a
+steep and narrow ridge, and seemed desirous of magnifying their numbers
+in the eyes of their pursuers by running from tree to tree and making
+the forest resound with their hideous yells. The pursuers were, however,
+too well acquainted with Indian warfare to be deceived by this childish
+artifice. They dismounted, tied their horses, and endeavored to surround
+the enemy, so as to cut off his retreat. But the cunning Indians,
+leaving two of their number behind to delay the pursuit by deceiving the
+white men into the conviction that they all were there, fled to the
+mountains. One of this heroic rear-guard--for remaining under the
+circumstances was the almost certain surrender of themselves to
+death--was instantly shot. The other, badly wounded, was tracked for a
+long distance by his blood upon the snow. At length his trail was lost
+in a running stream. Night came, a dismal night of rain, long and dark.
+In the morning the snow had melted, every trace of the retreat of the
+enemy was obliterated, and the further pursuit of the foe was
+relinquished.
+
+Colonel Boone, deprived of his property by the unrelenting processes of
+pitiless law, had left Kentucky impoverished and in debt. His rifle was
+almost the only property he took with him beyond the Mississippi. The
+rich acres which had been assigned to him there were then of but little
+more value than so many acres of the sky. Though he was so far away from
+his creditors that it was almost impossible that they should ever annoy
+him, still the honest-hearted man was oppressed by the consciousness of
+his debts, and was very anxious to pay them. The forests were full of
+game, many of the animals furnishing very valuable furs. He took his
+rifle, some pack-horses, and, accompanied by a single black servant boy,
+repaired to the banks of the Osage River to spend the winter in hunting.
+Here he was taken dangerously sick, and was apprehensive that he should
+die. We know not what were his religious thoughts upon this occasion,
+but his calmness in view of death, taken in connection with his
+blameless, conscientious, and reflective life, and with the fact that
+subsequently he became an openly avowed disciple of Jesus, indicate that
+then he found peace in view of pardoned sin through faith in the
+atonement of Jesus Christ. He pointed out to the black boy the place
+where, should he die, he wished to be buried. He gave very minute
+directions in reference to his burial and the disposal of his rifle,
+blankets, and peltry. Mr. Peck in the following language describes this
+interesting incident in the life of the pioneer:
+
+"On another occasion he took pack-horses and went to the country on the
+Osage river, taking for a camp-keeper a negro boy about twelve or
+fourteen years of age. Soon after preparing his camp and laying in his
+supplies for the winter, he was taken sick and lay a long time in camp.
+The horses were hobbled out on the range. After a period of stormy
+weather, there came a pleasant and delightful day, and Boone felt able
+to walk out. With his staff--for he was quite feeble--he took the boy to
+the summit of a small eminence and marked out the ground in shape and
+size of a grave, and then gave the following directions.
+
+"He instructed the boy, in case of his death, to wash and lay his body
+straight, wrapped up in one of the cleanest blankets. He was then to
+construct a kind of shovel, and with that instrument and the hatchet to
+dig a grave exactly as he had marked it out. He was then to drag the
+body to the place and put it in the grave, which he was directed to
+cover up, putting posts at the head and foot. Poles were to be placed
+around and above the surface, the trees to be marked so that the place
+could be easily found by his friends; the horses were to be caught, the
+blankets and skins gathered up, with some special instructions about
+the old rifle, and various messages to his family. All these directions
+were given, as the boy afterwards declared, with entire calmness, and as
+if he were giving instructions about ordinary business. He soon
+recovered, broke up his camp, and returned homeward without the usual
+signs of a winter's hunt."
+
+One writer says Colonel Boone went on a trapping excursion up the Grand
+River. This stream rises in the southern part of Iowa, and flows in a
+southerly course into the Missouri. He was entirely alone. Paddling his
+canoe up the lonely banks of the Missouri, he entered the Grand River,
+and established his camp in a silent sheltered cove, where an
+experienced hunter would with difficulty find it.
+
+Here he first laid in his supply of venison, turkeys, and bear's meat,
+and then commenced his trapping operation, where no sound of his rifle
+would disturb the beavers and no smell of gunpowder would excite their
+alarm. Every morning he took the circuit of his traps, visiting them all
+in turn. Much to his alarm, he one morning encountered a large
+encampment of Indians in his vicinity, engaged in hunting. He
+immediately retreated to his camp and secreted himself. Fortunately for
+him, quite a deep snow fell that night, which covered his traps. But
+this same snow prevented him from leaving his camp, lest his footprints
+should be discovered. For twenty days he continued thus secreted,
+occasionally, at midnight, venturing to cook a little food, when there
+was no danger that the smoke of his fire would reveal his retreat. At
+length the enemy departed, and he was released from his long
+imprisonment. He subsequently stated that never in his life had he felt
+so much anxiety for so long a period, lest the Indians should discover
+his traps and search out his camp.
+
+It seems that the object of Colonel Boone in these long hunting
+excursions was to obtain furs that he might pay the debts which he still
+owed in Kentucky. A man of less tender conscience would no longer have
+troubled himself about them. He was far removed from any importunity on
+the part of his creditors, or from any annoyance through the law. Still
+his debts caused him much solicitude, and he could not rest in peace
+until they were fully paid.
+
+After two or three seasons of this energetic hunting, Colonel Boone
+succeeded in obtaining a sufficient quantity of furs to enable him, by
+their sale, to pay all his debts. With this object in view, he set out
+on his long journey of several hundred miles, through an almost
+trackless wilderness, to Kentucky. He saw every creditor and paid every
+dollar. Upon his return, Colonel Boone had just one half dollar in his
+pocket. But he said triumphantly to his friends who eagerly gathered
+around him:
+
+"Now I am ready and willing to die. I am relieved from a burden which
+has long oppressed me. I have paid all my debts, and no one will say
+when I am gone, 'Boone was a dishonest man.' I am perfectly willing to
+die."
+
+In the year 1803, the territory west of the Mississippi came into the
+possession of the United States. The whole region, embracing what is now
+Missouri, was then called the territory of Louisiana. Soon after this a
+commission was appointed, consisting of three able and impartial men, to
+investigate the validity of the claims to land granted by the action of
+the Spanish Government. Again poor Boone was caught in the meshes of the
+law. It was found that he had not occupied the land which had been
+granted him, that he had not gone to New Orleans to perfect his title,
+and that his claim was utterly worthless.
+
+"Poor Boone! Seventy-four years old, and the second grasp you have made
+upon the West has been powerless. You have risked life, and lost the
+life next dearest your own for the West. In all its fearful forms, death
+has looked you in the face, and you have moved on to conquer the soil
+which you did but conquer, that it might be denied to you. You have been
+the architect of the prosperity of others, but your own crumbles each
+time as you are about to occupy it. When he lost his farm in
+Boonesborough, he did not linger around in complainings, but went
+quietly away, returning only to fulfil the obligations he had incurred.
+And now this last decision came, even at old age, to leave Daniel Boone,
+the Pioneer of the West, unable to give a title deed to a solitary
+acre."[G]
+
+ [Footnote G: Life of Boone, by W. H. Bogart, p. 369.]
+
+The fur trade was at this time very lucrative. Many who were engaged in
+it accumulated large fortunes. It was in this traffic that John Jacob
+Astor laid the foundations of his immense wealth. A guide of Major Long
+stated that he purchased of an Indian one hundred and twenty beaver
+skins for two blankets, two gallons of rum, and a pocket mirror. The
+skins he took to Montreal, where he sold them for over four hundred
+dollars.
+
+In the employment of the fur companies the trappers are of two kinds,
+called the "hired hand," and the "free trapper." The former is employed
+by the month, receiving regular wages, and bringing in all the furs
+which he can obtain. Be they more or less, he receives his stipulated
+monthly wages. The free trapper is supplied by the company with traps
+and certain other conveniences with which he plunges into the forest on
+his own hook, engaging however to sell to the company, at a stipulated
+price, whatever furs he may secure.
+
+The outfit of the trapper as he penetrated the vast and trackless region
+of gloomy forests, treeless prairies, and solitary rivers, spreading
+everywhere around him, generally consisted of two or three horses, one
+for the saddle and the others for packs containing his equipment of
+traps, ammunition, blankets, cooking utensils, etc., in preparation for
+passing lonely months in the far away solitudes. He would endeavor to
+find, if possible, a region which neither the white man nor the Indian
+had ever visited.
+
+The dress of the hunter consisted of a strong shirt of well-dressed and
+pliant buckskin, ornamented with long fringes. The vanity of dress, if
+it may be so called, followed him into regions where no eye but his own
+could see its beauties. His pantaloons were also made of buckskin
+decorated with variously-colored porcupine quills and with long fringes
+down the outside of the leg. Moccasins, often quite gorgeously
+embroidered, fitted closely to his feet. A very flexible hat or cap
+covered his head, generally of felt, obtained from some Indian trader.
+There was suspended over his left shoulder, so as to hang beneath his
+right arm, a powder horn and bullet pouch. In the latter he carried
+balls, flints, steel, and various odds and ends. A long heavy rifle he
+bore upon his shoulder.
+
+A belt of buckskin buckled tightly around the waist, held a large
+butcher knife in a sheath of stout buffalo hide, and also a buckskin
+case containing a whet-stone. A small hatchet or tomahawk was also
+attached to this belt. Thus rigged and in a new dress the hunter of good
+proportions presented a very picturesque aspect. With no little pride he
+exhibited himself at the trading posts, where not only the squaws and
+the children, but veteran hunters and Indian braves contemplated his
+person with admiration.
+
+Thus provided the hunter, more frequently alone but sometimes
+accompanied by two or three others, set out for the mountain streams, as
+early in the spring as the melting ice would enable him to commence
+operations against the beaver.
+
+Arrived on his hunting ground he carefully ascends some creek or stream,
+examining the banks with practiced eye to discern any sign of the
+presence of beaver or of any other animal whose fur would prove
+valuable. If a cotton-wood tree lies prostrate he examines it to see if
+it has been cut down by the sharp tooth of the beaver; and if so whether
+it has been cut down for food or to furnish material for damming a
+stream. If the track of a beaver is seen in the mud, he follows the
+track until he finds a good place to set his steel trap in the run of
+the animal, hiding it under water and carefully attaching it by a chain
+to a bush or tree, or to some picket driven into the bank. A float strip
+is also made fast to the trap, so that should the beaver chance to break
+away with the trap, this float upon the surface, at the end of a cord a
+few feet long, would point out the position of the trap.
+
+"When a 'lodge' is discovered the trap is set at the edge of the dam, at
+the point where the animal passes from deep to shoal water. Early in the
+morning the hunter always mounts his mule and examines the traps. The
+captured animals are skinned, and the tails, which are a great dainty,
+carefully packed into camp. The skin is then stretched over a hoop or
+frame-work of osier twigs and is allowed to dry, the flesh and fatty
+substance being carefully scraped off. When dry it is folded into a
+square sheet, the fur turned inward, and the bundle, containing from
+about ten to twenty skins, lightly pressed and corded, is ready for
+transportation.
+
+"During the hunt, regardless of Indian vicinity, the fearless trapper
+wanders far and near in search of 'sign.' His nerves must ever be in a
+state of tension and his mind ever present at his call. His eagle eye
+sweeps around the country, and in an instant detects any foreign
+appearance. A turned leaf, a blade of grass pressed down, the uneasiness
+of wild animals, the flight of birds, are all paragraphs to him written
+in nature's legible hand and plainest language. All the wits of the
+subtle savage are called into play to gain an advantage over the wily
+woodsman; but with the instinct of the primitive man, the white hunter
+has the advantage of a civilised mind, and thus provided seldom fails to
+outwit, under equal advantages, the cunning savage.
+
+"Sometimes the Indian following on his trail, watches him set his traps
+on a shrub-belted stream, and passing up the bed, like Bruce of old, so
+that he may leave no track, he lies in wait in the bushes until the
+hunter comes to examine. Then waiting until he approaches his ambush
+within a few feet, whiz flies the home-drawn arrow, never failing at
+such close quarters to bring the victim to the ground. For one white
+scalp, however, that dangles in the smoke of an Indian lodge, a dozen
+black ones at the end of the hunt ornament the camp-fire of the
+rendezvous.
+
+"At a certain time when the hunt is over, or they have loaded their pack
+animals, the trappers proceed to their rendezvous, the locality of which
+has been previously agreed upon; and here the traders and agents of the
+fur companies await them, with such assortments of goods as their hardy
+customers may require, including generally a fair supply of alcohol. The
+trappers drop in singly and in small bands, bringing their packs of
+beaver to this mountain market, not unfrequently to the value of a
+thousand dollars each, the produce of one hunt. The dissipation of the
+rendezvous, however, soon turns the trapper's pocket inside out. The
+goods brought by the traders, although of the most inferior quality, are
+sold at enormous prices. Coffee twenty and thirty shillings a pint cup,
+which is the usual measure; tobacco fetches ten and fifteen shillings a
+plug; alcohol from twenty to fifty shillings a pint; gunpowder sixteen
+shillings a pint cup, and all other articles at proportionately
+exhorbitant prices.
+
+"The rendezvous is one continued scene of drunkenness, gambling,
+brawling and fighting, so long as the money and credit of the trappers
+last. Seated Indian fashion around the fires, with a blanket spread
+before them, groups are seen with their 'decks' of cards playing at
+'euchre,' 'poker,' and 'seven-up,' the regular mountain games. The
+stakes are beaver, which is here current coin; and when the fur is gone,
+their horses, mules, rifles and shirts, hunting packs and breeches are
+staked. Daring gamblers make the rounds of the camp, challenging each
+other to play for the highest stake--his horse, his squaw if he have
+one, and as once happened his scalp. A trapper often squanders the
+produce of his hunt, amounting to hundreds of dollars, in a couple of
+hours; and supplied on credit with another equipment, leaves the
+rendezvous for another expedition which has the same result, time after
+time, although one tolerably successful hunt would enable him to return
+to the settlements and civilised life with an ample sum to purchase and
+stock a farm, and enjoy himself in ease and comfort for the remainder of
+his days.
+
+"These annual gatherings are often the scene of bloody duels, for over
+their cups and cards no men are more quarrelsome than your mountaineers.
+Rifles at twenty paces settle all differences, and as may be imagined,
+the fall of one or other of the combatants is certain, or, as sometimes
+happens, both fall at the same fire."[H]
+
+ [Footnote H: Ruxton's Travels.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+_Conclusion._
+
+Colonel Boone Appeals to Congress--Complimentary Resolutions of the
+Legislature of Kentucky.--Death of Mrs. Boone.--Catholic
+Liberality.--Itinerant Preachers.--Grant by Congress to Colonel
+Boone.--The Evening of his Days.--Personal Appearance.--Death and
+Burial.--Transference of the Remains of Mr. and Mrs. Boone to Frankfort,
+Kentucky.
+
+
+Colonel Boone having lost all his property, sent in a memorial, by the
+advice of his friends, to the Legislature of Kentucky, and also another
+to Congress. Kentucky was now a wealthy and populous State, and was not
+at all indisposed to recognise the invaluable services she had received
+from Colonel Boone. In allusion to these services Governor Moorehead
+said:
+
+"It is not assuming too much to declare, that without Colonel Boone, in
+all probability the settlements could not have been upheld; and the
+conquest of Kentucky might have been reserved for the emigrants of the
+nineteenth century."
+
+What obstacle stood in the way of a liberal grant of land by the
+Kentucky Legislature we do not know. We simply know that by a unanimous
+vote of that body, the following preamble and resolution were passed:
+
+"The Legislature of Kentucky, taking into view the many eminent services
+rendered by Colonel Boone, in exploring and settling the western
+country, from which great advantages have resulted, not only to this
+State, but to this country in general, and that from circumstances over
+which he had no control, he is now reduced to poverty; not having, so
+far as appears, an acre of land out of the vast territory he has been a
+great instrument in peopling; believing also that it is as unjust as it
+is impolitic, that useful enterprise and eminent services should go
+unrewarded by a Government where merit confers the only distinction; and
+having sufficient reason to believe that a grant of ten thousand acres
+of land, which he claims in Upper Louisiana, would have been confirmed
+by the Spanish Government, had not said territory passed by cession into
+the hands of the General Government; therefore
+
+"Resolved by the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky: That
+our Senators in Congress be requested to make use of their exertions to
+procure a grant of land in said territory to said Boone, either the ten
+thousand acres to which he appears to have an equitable claim, from the
+grounds set forth to this Legislature, by way of confirmation, or to
+such quantity in such place as shall be deemed most advisable by way of
+donation."
+
+While this question was pending before Congress, Colonel Boone met with
+the heaviest grief he had thus far encountered on his stormy pilgrimage.
+In the month of March, 1813, his wife, whom he tenderly loved, died at
+the age of seventy-six. She had been one of the best of wives and
+mothers, seeking in all things to conform to the wishes of her husband,
+and aid him in his plans. She was a devoted wife and a loving mother.
+Colonel Boone selected upon the summit of a ridge the place for her
+burial, and marked out the spot for his own grave by her side.
+
+We have no means of knowing what were the religious views which
+sustained Mrs. Boone in her dying hour. Her life was passed in the
+discharge of the humble duties of a home in the wilderness, and she had
+no biographer. But we do know that the religion of Jesus had penetrated
+many of these remote cabins, and had ennobled the lives of many of these
+hardy pioneers.
+
+Under the Spanish Government, the Roman Catholic Religion was the
+established religion of the province, and none other was openly
+tolerated. Still, the authorities were so anxious to encourage
+emigration from the United States, that they avoided any rigorous
+enforcement of the law. Each emigrant was required to be "a good
+Catholic," _un bon Catholique_. But by connivance of the authorities,
+only a few general questions were asked, such as:
+
+"Do you believe in Almighty God? in the Holy Trinity? in the true
+Apostolic Church? in Jesus Christ our Saviour? in the Holy Evangelists?"
+
+The ceremony was closed by the declaration that the applicant was _un
+bon Catholique_. Thus many Protestant families entered the Spanish
+territory, and remained undisturbed in their religious principles.
+Protestant clergymen crossed over the Mississippi river and, unmolested,
+preached the gospel in the log cabins of the settlers. The Catholic
+priests received their salaries from the Spanish crown, and no taxes for
+religion were imposed.
+
+The Reverend John Clark, a very zealous Christian minister, made monthly
+excursions to the Spanish territory. The commandant at St. Louis, Mr.
+Trudeau, would take no notice of his presence till the time when he knew
+that Mr. Clark was about to leave. Then he would send a threatening
+message ordering him to leave within three days. One of the emigrants,
+Mr. Murich, of the Baptist persuasion, who knew the commandant very
+well, petitioned for permission to hold religious meetings at his house
+and to have Mr. Clark preach. Mr. Trudeau replied:
+
+"You must not put a bill upon your house, or call it a church. But if
+any of your friends choose to meet at your house, sing, pray, and talk
+about religion, you will not be molested provided you continue, as I
+suppose you are, _un bon Catholique_."
+
+Thus, in reality, there was scarcely any restraint in those remote
+regions, even under the Spanish regime, imposed upon religious freedom.
+Christian songs, the penitential and the triumphant, often ascended,
+blended with prayers and praises from these lonely and lowly homes in
+the wilderness. Thus characters were formed for heaven, and life was
+ennobled, and often far more of true nobility of soul and more real and
+satisfying enjoyment were found in those log huts, illumined only by the
+blaze of the pitch pine knot, than Louis XIV. and his courtiers ever
+experienced amidst the splendors and the luxuries of Versailles and of
+Marly.
+
+We do not know that Colonel Boone ever made a public profession of his
+faith in Christ, though somewhere we have seen it stated that he died an
+honored member of the Methodist Church. It is certain that the religious
+element predominated in his nature. He was a thoughtful, serious,
+devout, good man. He walked faithfully in accordance with the light and
+the privileges which were conferred upon him in his singularly
+adventurous life.
+
+Colonel Boone was seventy-nine years of age when Congress conferred upon
+him a grant of eight hundred and fifty acres of land. He had never
+repined at his lot, had never wasted his breath in unavailing murmurs.
+He contentedly took life as it came, and was ever serene and cheerful.
+But this grant of land, though it came so late, greatly cheered him. He
+was no longer dependent upon others. He had property rapidly increasing
+in value to leave to the children and the grand-children he so tenderly
+loved. His aged limbs would no longer allow him to expose himself to the
+vicissitudes of hunting, and he took up his abode with one of his sons,
+enjoying, perhaps, as serene and happy an old age as ever fell to the
+lot of mortals. His conversation often gathered charmed listeners around
+him, for he had a very retentive memory, and his mind was crowded with
+the incidents of his romantic career. It is said that at this period of
+his life an irritable expression never escaped his lips. His
+grand-children vied with each other in affectionate attentions to one
+whom they ardently loved, and of whose celebrity they were justly proud.
+
+Colonel Galloway, the gentleman whose two daughters were captured, with
+one of the daughters of Colonel Boone, in a boat by the Indians, which
+event our readers will recall to mind, visited Colonel Boone in Missouri
+about this time. He gives a very pleasing description of the gentle and
+genial old man, as he then found him.
+
+His personal appearance was venerable and attractive, very neatly clad
+in garments spun, woven, and made in the cabin. His own room consisted
+of a cabin by itself, and was in perfect order. "His countenance was
+pleasant, calm, and fair, his forehead high and bold, and the soft
+silver of his hair in unison with his length of days. He spoke feelingly
+and with solemnity of being a creature of Providence, ordained by heaven
+as a pioneer in the wilderness to advance the civilization and the
+extension of his country. He professed the belief that the Almighty had
+assigned to him a work to perform, and that he had only followed the
+pathway of duty in the work he had pursued; that he had discharged his
+duty to God and his country by following the direction of Providence."
+His stormy day of life had passed away into an evening of unusual beauty
+and serenity.
+
+Still he was continually busy, engaged in innumerable acts of kindness
+for his neighbors and his friends. He could repair rifles, make and
+carve powder horns of great beauty, and could fashion moccasins and
+snowshoes of the most approved patterns. His love for the solitude of
+the wilderness, and for the excitement of the hunter's life, continued
+unabated to the last. He loved to cut tender slices of venison, and to
+toast them upon the end of his ramrod over the glaring coals of his
+cabin fire, finding in that repast a treat more delicious than any
+gourmand ever yet experienced in the viands of the most costly
+restaurants of the Palais Royal, or the Boulevard.
+
+Upon one occasion he could not resist the impulse of again going
+hunting, though in the eighty-second year of his age. Exacting from his
+friends the promise that should he die, his remains should be brought
+back and buried by the side of those of his wife, he took a boy with him
+and went to the mouth of the Kansas River, where he remained two weeks.
+
+Returning from this, his last expedition, he visited his youngest son,
+Major Nathan Boone, who had reared a comfortable stone house in that
+remote region, to which emigrants were now rapidly moving. Here he died
+after an illness of but three days, on the 26th day of September, 1820.
+He was then eighty-six years of age.
+
+Soon after the death of his wife, Colonel Boone made his own coffin,
+which he kept under his bed awaiting the day of his burial. In this
+coffin he was buried by the side of his wife. Missouri, though very
+different from the Missouri of the present day, was no longer an
+unpeopled wilderness. The Indians had retired; thousands of emigrants
+had flocked to its fertile plains, and many thriving settlements had
+sprung up along the banks of its magnificent streams. The great respect
+with which Colonel Boone was regarded by his fellow-citizens, was
+manifest in the large numbers who were assembled at his burial. The
+Legislature of Missouri, which chanced then to be in session, adjourned
+for one day, in respect for his memory, and passed a resolve that all
+the members should wear a badge of mourning for twenty days. This was
+the first Legislature of the new State.
+
+Colonel Boone was the father of nine children, five sons and four
+daughters. His two eldest sons were killed by the Indians. His third
+son, Daniel Morgan Boone, had preceded his father in his emigration to
+the Upper Louisiana, as it was then called, and had taken up his
+residence in the Femme Osage settlement. He became a man of influence
+and comparative wealth, and attained the advanced age of fourscore.
+Jesse, the fourth son, also emigrated to Upper Louisiana about the year
+1806, where he died a few years after. The youngest son, Nathan, whose
+privilege it was to close his father's eyes in death, had found a home
+beyond the Mississippi; he became a man of considerable note, and
+received the commission of Captain in the United States Dragoons. The
+daughters, three of whom married, lived and died in Kentucky.
+
+In the meantime Kentucky, which Boone had found a pathless wilderness,
+the hunting ground of Indians who were scarcely less wild and savage
+than the beasts they pursued in the chase, was rapidly becoming one of
+the most populous, wealthy and prosperous States in the Union. Upon the
+eastern bank of the Kentucky River, the beautiful city of Frankfort had
+risen surrounded by remarkably romantic and splendid scenery. It had
+become the capital of the State, and was situated about sixty miles from
+the entrance of the Kentucky into the Ohio River. Many of the houses
+were tastefully built of brick or of marble, and the place was noted for
+its polished, intelligent, and hospitable society.
+
+It was but a few miles above Frankfort upon this same river that Colonel
+Boone had reared the log fort of Boonesborough, when scarcely a white
+man could be found west of the Alleghanies. In the year 1845, the
+citizens of Frankfort, having, in accordance with the refinements of
+modern tastes, prepared a beautiful rural cemetery in the suburbs of
+their town, resolved to consecrate it by the interment of the remains of
+Daniel Boone and his wife. The Legislature, appreciating the immense
+obligations of the State to the illustrious pioneer, co-operated with
+the citizens of Frankfort in this movement. For twenty-five years the
+remains of Col. Boone and his wife had been mouldering in the grave upon
+the banks of the Missouri.
+
+"There seemed," said one of the writers of that day, "to be a peculiar
+propriety in this testimonial of the veneration borne by the
+Commonwealth for the memory of its illustrious dead. And it was fitting
+that the soil of Kentucky should afford the final resting place for his
+remains, whose blood in life had been so often shed to protect it from
+the fury of savage hostility. It was the beautiful and touching
+manifestation of filial affection shown by children to the memory of a
+beloved parent; and it was right that the generation which was reaping
+the fruits of his toils and dangers should desire to have in their midst
+and decorate with the tokens of their love, the sepulchre of this
+Primeval Patriarch whose stout heart watched by the cradle of this now
+powerful Commonwealth."
+
+The honored remains of Daniel Boone and his wife were brought from
+Missouri to Frankfort, and the re-interment took place on the 13th of
+September, 1845. The funeral ceremonies were very imposing. Colonel
+Richard M. Johnson, who had been Vice-President of the United States,
+and others of the most distinguished citizens of Kentucky, officiated as
+pall-bearers. The two coffins were garlanded with flowers, and an
+immense procession followed them to their final resting place. The Hon.
+John J. Crittenden, who was regarded as the most eloquent man in the
+State, pronounced the funeral oration. And there beneath an appropriate
+monument, the body of Daniel Boone now lies, awaiting the summons of
+the resurrection trumpet.
+
+          "Life's labor done, securely laid
+            In this his last retreat,
+          Unheeded o'er his silent dust,
+            The storms of earth shall beat."
+
+
+
+                               _THE END._
+
+
+
+
+TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
+
+Minor corrections have been made to ensure uniform usage of hyphenation
+and abbreviations, and to standardize spelling in the text.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Daniel Boone, by John S. C. Abbott
+
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Daniel Boone, by John S. C. Abbott
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Daniel Boone
+       The Pioneer of Kentucky
+
+Author: John S. C. Abbott
+
+Release Date: December 10, 2007 [EBook #23798]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DANIEL BOONE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by D. Alexander and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<h1>DANIEL BOONE</h1>
+
+<p class="center">THE</p>
+
+<p class="center">PIONEER OF KENTUCKY.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 274px;">
+<img src="images/i001.jpg" width="274" height="300" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<h3>BY</h3>
+
+<h2>JOHN S. C. ABBOTT.</h2>
+
+
+<p class="center">NEW YORK:</p>
+
+<p class="center">DODD &amp; MEAD, No. 762 BROADWAY.</p>
+
+<p class="center">1872.
+</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p class="center">Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by</p>
+
+<p class="center">DODD &amp; MEAD,</p>
+
+<p class="center">in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
+</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p class="center"><i>AMERICAN PIONEERS AND PATRIOTS.</i></p>
+
+<p class="center">DANIEL BOONE</p>
+
+<p class="center">THE</p>
+
+<p class="center">PIONEER OF KENTUCKY.</p>
+
+<p class="center">BY JOHN S. C. ABBOTT.</p>
+
+<p class="center">ILLUSTRATED.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i14">"His youth was innocent; his riper age,<br /></span>
+<span class="i16">Marked with some act of goodness every day;<br /></span>
+<span class="i14">And watched by eyes that loved him, calm and sage,<br /></span>
+<span class="i16">Faded his late declining years away.<br /></span>
+<span class="i14">Cheerful he gave his being up and went<br /></span>
+<span class="i16">To share the holy rest that waits a life well spent."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center">NEW YORK:</p>
+
+<p class="center">DODD &amp; MEAD, No. 762 BROADWAY.</p>
+
+<p class="center">1872.
+</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 700px;">
+<img src="images/i004.jpg" width="700" height="473" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3"></a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The name of Daniel Boone is a conspicuous one in the annals of our
+country. And yet there are but few who are familiar with the events of
+his wonderful career, or who have formed a correct estimate of the
+character of the man. Many suppose that he was a rough, coarse
+backwoodsman, almost as savage as the bears he pursued in the chase, or
+the Indians whose terrors he so perseveringly braved. Instead of this,
+he was one of the most mild and unboastful of men; feminine as a woman
+in his tastes and his deportment, never uttering a coarse word, never
+allowing himself in a rude action. He was truly one of nature's <i>gentle</i>
+men. With all this instinctive refinement and delicacy, there was a
+boldness of character which seemed absolutely incapable of experiencing
+the emotion of fear. And surely all the records of chivalry may be
+searched in vain for a career more full of peril and of wild adventure.</p>
+
+<p>This narrative reveals a state of society and habitudes of life now
+rapidly passing into oblivion. It is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4"></a></span>very desirable that the record
+should be perpetuated, that we may know the scenes through which our
+fathers passed, in laying the foundations of this majestic Republic. It
+is probable that as the years roll on the events which occurred in the
+infancy of our nation will be read with ever-increasing interest.</p>
+
+<p>It is the intention of the publisher of this volume to issue a series of
+sketches of the prominent men in the early history of our country. The
+next volume will contain the life and adventures of the renowned Miles
+Standish, the Puritan Captain.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i30">JOHN S. C. ABBOTT.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Fair Haven, Conn.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_I"><b>CHAPTER I.</b></a><br /></p>
+<p class="center"><i>The Discovery and early Settlement of America.</i></p>
+
+<p>Discovery of the New World.&mdash;Of Florida.&mdash;Conquest and cruelties
+of De Soto.&mdash;The Wigwam.&mdash;Colony at St. Mary.&mdash;Sir
+Walter Raleigh and his Colonies.&mdash;Grant of King James.&mdash;Settlements
+in the Virginia.&mdash;Adventures of John Smith.&mdash;Arrival
+of Lord Delaware.&mdash;Terrible massacres.&mdash;Pressures
+of Colonists to the West.&mdash;Doherty Trade with Indians.&mdash;Attempted
+Colony on the Tennessee.&mdash;Daniel Boone.     Page 9</p>
+
+<p class="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_II"><b>CHAPTER II.</b></a><br /></p>
+<p class="center"><i>Daniel Boone, his Parentage, and early Adventures.</i></p>
+
+<p>Trials of the Colonists.&mdash;George Boone and his home.&mdash;Squire
+Boone.&mdash;Birth and character of Daniel Boone.&mdash;His limited
+education.&mdash;A pioneer's camp.&mdash;A log house and furnishings.&mdash;Annoyance
+of Boone on the arrival of Scotch emigrants.&mdash;His
+longings for adventure.&mdash;Camp meetings.&mdash;Frontier
+life.&mdash;Sports.&mdash;Squirrel hunting.&mdash;Snuffing the
+candle.      36</p>
+
+<p class="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_III"><b>CHAPTER III.</b></a><br /></p>
+<p class="center"><i>Louisiana, its Discovery and Vicissitudes.</i></p>
+
+<p>Louisiana, and its eventful history.&mdash;The expedition of De Soto.&mdash;The
+Missionary Marquette.&mdash;His voyage on the Upper
+Mississippi.&mdash;The Expedition of La Salle.&mdash;Michilimackinac.&mdash;Its
+History.&mdash;Fate of the "Griffin."&mdash;Grief of La
+Salle.&mdash;His voyage of Discovery.&mdash;Sale of Louisiana to the
+United States.&mdash;Remarks of Napoleon.      74</p>
+
+<p class="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><b>CHAPTER IV.</b></a><br /></p>
+<p class="center"><i>Camp Life Beyond the Alleghanies.</i></p>
+
+<p>John Finley and his adventures.&mdash;Aspect of the Country.&mdash;Boone's
+Private Character.&mdash;His Love for the Wilderness.&mdash;First
+view of Kentucky.&mdash;Emigrants' Dress.&mdash;Hunter's
+Home.&mdash;Capture of Boone and Stewart by the Indians.&mdash;Their
+Escape.&mdash;Singular Incident.      89</p>
+
+<p class="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_V"><b>CHAPTER V.</b></a><br /></p>
+<p class="center"><i>Indian Warfare.</i></p>
+
+<p>Alleghany Ridges.&mdash;Voyage in a canoe.&mdash;Speech of Logan.&mdash;Battle
+at the Kanawha.&mdash;Narrative of Francis Marion.&mdash;Important
+commission of Boone.&mdash;Council at Circleville.&mdash;Treaty
+of Peace.&mdash;Imlay's description of Kentucky.&mdash;Settlement
+right.&mdash;Richard Henderson.&mdash;Boone's letter.&mdash;Fort
+at Boonesborough.      109</p>
+
+<p class="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><b>CHAPTER VI.</b></a><br /></p>
+<p class="center"><i>Sufferings of the Pioneers.</i></p>
+
+<p>Emigration to Boonesborough.&mdash;New Perils.&mdash;Transylvania
+Company.&mdash;Beneficence of its Laws&mdash;Interesting incident.&mdash;Infamous
+conduct of Great Britain.&mdash;Attack on the Fort.&mdash;Reinforcements.&mdash;Simon
+Kenton and his Sufferings.&mdash;Mrs.
+Harvey.      129</p>
+
+<p class="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><b>CHAPTER VII.</b></a><br /></p>
+<p class="center"><i>Life in the Wilderness.</i></p>
+
+<p>Stewart killed by the Indians.&mdash;Squire Boone returns to the
+Settlements.&mdash;Solitary Life of Daniel Boone.&mdash;Return of
+Squire Boone.&mdash;Extended and Romantic Explorations.&mdash;Charms
+and Perils of the Wilderness.&mdash;The Emigrant Party.&mdash;The
+Fatal Ambuscade.&mdash;Retreat of the Emigrants.&mdash;Solitude
+of the Wilderness.&mdash;Expedition of Lewis and
+Clarke.&mdash;Extraordinary Adventures of Cotter.      151</p>
+
+<p class="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><b>CHAPTER VIII.</b></a><br /></p>
+<p class="center"><i>Captivity and Flight.</i></p>
+
+<p>Heroism of Thomas Higgins and of Mrs. Pursley.&mdash;Affairs at
+Boonesborough.&mdash;Continued Alarms.&mdash;Need of Salt.&mdash;Its
+Manufacture.&mdash;Indian Schemes.&mdash;Capture of Boone and
+twenty-seven men.&mdash;Dilemma of the British at Detroit.&mdash;Blackfish
+adopts Colonel Boone.&mdash;Adoption Ceremony.&mdash;Indian
+Designs.&mdash;Escape of Boone.&mdash;Attacks the Savages.&mdash;The
+Fort Threatened.      182</p>
+
+<p class="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><b>CHAPTER IX.</b></a><br /></p>
+<p class="center"><i>Victories and Defeats.</i></p>
+
+<p>Situation of the Fort.&mdash;Indian Treachery.&mdash;Bombardment.&mdash;Boone
+goes to North Carolina.&mdash;New Trials.&mdash;Boone
+Robbed.&mdash;He returns to Kentucky.&mdash;Massacre of Colonel
+Rogers.&mdash;Adventure of Col. Bowman.&mdash;New Attack by the
+British and Indians.&mdash;Retaliatory Measures.&mdash;Wonderful
+Exploit.      209</p>
+
+<p class="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_X"><b>CHAPTER X.</b></a><br /></p>
+<p class="center"><i>British Allies.</i></p>
+
+<p>Death of Squire Boone.&mdash;Indian Outrages.&mdash;Gerty and McGee.&mdash;Battle
+of Blue Lick.&mdash;Death of Isaac Boone.&mdash;Colonel
+Boone's Narrow Escape.&mdash;Letter of Daniel Boone.&mdash;Determination
+of General Clarke.&mdash;Discouragement of the
+Savages.&mdash;Amusing Anecdote of Daniel Boone.      230</p>
+
+<p class="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><b>CHAPTER XI.</b></a><br /></p>
+<p class="center"><i>Kentucky organized as a State.</i></p>
+
+<p>Peace with England.&mdash;Order of a Kentucky Court.&mdash;Anecdotes.&mdash;Speech
+of Mr. Dalton.&mdash;Reply of Piankashaw.&mdash;Renewed
+Indications of Indian Hostility.&mdash;Conventions at Danville.&mdash;Kentucky
+formed into a State.&mdash;New Trials for Boone.      249</p>
+
+<p class="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><b>CHAPTER XII.</b></a><br /></p>
+<p class="center"><i>Adventures Romantic and Perilous.</i></p>
+
+<p>The Search for the Horse.&mdash;Navigating the Ohio.&mdash;Heroism of
+Mrs. Rowan.&mdash;Lawless Gangs.&mdash;Exchange of Prisoners.&mdash;Boone
+Revisits the Home of his Childhood.&mdash;The Realms
+beyond the Mississippi.&mdash;Habits of the Hunters.&mdash;Corn.&mdash;Boone's
+Journey to the West.      271</p>
+
+<p class="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><b>CHAPTER XIII.</b></a><br /></p>
+<p class="center"><i>A New Home.</i></p>
+
+<p>Colonel Boone welcomed by the Spanish Authorities.&mdash;Boone's
+Narrative to Audubon.&mdash;The Midnight Attack.&mdash;Pursuit
+of the Savages.&mdash;Sickness in the Wilderness.&mdash;Honesty of
+Colonel Boone.&mdash;Payment of his Debts.&mdash;Loss of all his
+Property.      292</p>
+
+<p class="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"><b>CHAPTER XIV.</b></a><br /></p>
+<p class="center"><i>Conclusion.</i></p>
+
+<p>Colonel Boone Appeals to Congress.&mdash;Complimentary Resolutions
+of the Legislature of Kentucky.&mdash;Death of Mrs. Boone.&mdash;Catholic
+Liberality.&mdash;Itinerant Preachers.&mdash;Grant by
+Congress to Colonel Boone.&mdash;The Evening of his Days.&mdash;Personal
+Appearance.&mdash;Death and Burial.&mdash;Transference of
+the Remains of Mr. and Mrs. Boone to Frankfort, Kentucky.      320</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/iindexend.jpg" width="500" height="99" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>The Discovery and early Settlement of America.</i></h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot2"><p>Discovery of the New World.&mdash;Of Florida.&mdash;Conquest and cruelties of
+De Soto.&mdash;The wigwam.&mdash;Colony at St. Mary.&mdash;Sir Walter Raleigh and
+his Colonies.&mdash;Grant of King James.&mdash;Settlements in the
+Virginia.&mdash;Adventures of John Smith.&mdash;Arrival of Lord
+Delaware.&mdash;Terrible massacres.&mdash;Pressures of Colonists to the
+West.&mdash;Doherty Trade with Indians.&mdash;Attempted Colony on the
+Tennessee.&mdash;Daniel Boone.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>The little fleet of three small vessels, with which Columbus left Palos
+in Spain, in search of a new world, had been sixty-seven days at sea.
+They had traversed nearly three thousand miles of ocean, and yet there
+was nothing but a wide expanse of waters spread out before them. The
+despairing crew were loud in their murmurs, demanding that the
+expedition should be abandoned and that the ships should return to
+Spain. The morning of the 11th of October, 1492, had come. During the
+day Columbus, whose heart had been very heavily oppressed with anxiety,
+had been cheered by some indications that they were approaching land.
+Fresh seaweed was occasionally seen and a branch of a shrub with leaves
+and berries upon it, and a piece of wood curiously carved had been
+picked up.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>The devout commander was so animated by these indications, that he
+gathered his crew around him and returned heartfelt thanks to God, for
+this prospect that their voyage would prove successful. It was a
+beautiful night, the moon shone brilliantly and a delicious tropical
+breeze swept the ocean. At ten o'clock Columbus stood upon the bows of
+his ship earnestly gazing upon the western horizon, hoping that the
+long-looked-for land would rise before him. Suddenly he was startled by
+the distinct gleam of a torch far off in the distance. For a moment it
+beamed forth with a clear and indisputable flame and then disappeared.
+The agitation of Columbus no words can describe. Was it a meteor? Was it
+an optical illusion? Was it light from the land?</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the torch, like a star, again shone forth with distinct though
+faint gleam. Columbus called some of his companions to his side and they
+also saw the light clearly. But again it disappeared. At two o'clock in
+the morning a sailor at the look out on the mast head shouted, "Land!
+land! land!" In a few moments all beheld, but a few miles distant from
+them, the distinct outline of towering mountains piercing the skies. A
+new world was discovered. Cautiously the vessels hove to and waited for
+the light of the morning. The dawn of day presented to the eyes of
+Columbus and his companions a spectacle <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>of beauty which the garden of
+Eden could hardly have rivalled. It was a morning of the tropics, calm,
+serene and lovely. But two miles before them there emerged from the sea
+an island of mountains and valleys, luxuriant with every variety of
+tropical vegetation. The voyagers, weary of gazing for many weeks on the
+wide waste of waters, were so enchanted with the fairy scene which then
+met the eye, that they seemed really to believe that they had reached
+the realms of the blest.</p>
+
+<p>The boats were lowered, and, as they were rowed towards the shore, the
+scene every moment grew more beautiful. Gigantic trees draped in
+luxuriance of foliage hitherto unimagined, rose in the soft valleys and
+upon the towering hills. In the sheltered groves, screened from the sun,
+the picturesque dwellings of the natives were thickly clustered. Flowers
+of every variety of tint bloomed in marvellous profusion. The trees
+seemed laden with fruits of every kind, and in inexhaustible abundance.
+Thousands of natives crowded the shore, whose graceful forms and
+exquisitely moulded limbs indicated the innocence and simplicity of Eden
+before the fall.</p>
+
+<p>Columbus, richly attired in a scarlet dress, fell upon his knees as he
+reached the beach, and, with clasped hands and uplifted eyes, gave
+utterance to the devout feelings which ever inspired him, in
+thanksgiving to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>God. In recognition of the divine protection he gave
+the island the name of San Salvador, or Holy Savior. Though the new
+world thus discovered was one of the smallest islands of the Caribbean
+Sea, no conception was then formed of the vast continents of North and
+South America, stretching out in both directions, for many leagues
+almost to the Arctic and Antarctic poles.</p>
+
+<p>Omitting a description of the wonderful adventures which ensued, we can
+only mention that two years after this, the southern extremity of the
+North American continent was discovered by Sebastian Cabot. It was in
+the spring of the year and the whole surface of the soil seemed carpeted
+with the most brilliant flowers. The country consequently received the
+beautiful name of Florida. It, of course, had no boundaries, for no one
+knew with certainty whether it were an island or a continent, or how far
+its limits might extend.</p>
+
+<p>The years rolled on and gradually exploring excursions crept along the
+coast towards the north, various provinces were mapped out with pretty
+distinct boundaries upon the Atlantic coast, extending indefinitely into
+the vast and unknown interior. Expeditions from France had entered the
+St. Lawrence and established settlements in Canada. For a time the whole
+Atlantic coast, from its extreme southern point to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>Canada, was called
+Florida. In the year 1539, Ferdinand De Soto, an unprincipled Spanish
+warrior, who had obtained renown by the conquest of Peru in South
+America, fitted out by permission of the king of Spain, an expedition of
+nearly a thousand men to conquer and take possession of that vast and
+indefinite realm called Florida.</p>
+
+<p>We have no space here to enter upon a description of the fiendlike
+cruelties practiced by these Spaniards. They robbed and enslaved without
+mercy. In pursuit of gold they wandered as far north as the present
+boundary of South Carolina. Then turning to the west, they traversed the
+vast region to the Mississippi river. The forests were full of game. The
+granaries of the simple-hearted natives were well stored with corn; vast
+prairies spreading in all directions around them, waving with grass and
+blooming with flowers, presented ample forage for the three hundred
+horses which accompanied the expedition. They were also provided with
+fierce bloodhounds to hunt down the terrified natives. Thus invincible
+and armed with the "thunder and lightning" of their guns, they swept the
+country, perpetrating every conceivable outrage upon the helpless
+natives.</p>
+
+<p>After long and unavailing wanderings in search of gold, having lost by
+sickness and the casualties of such an expedition nearly half their
+number, the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>remainder built boats upon the Mississippi, descended that
+rapid stream five hundred miles to its mouth, and then skirting the
+coast of Texas, finally disappeared on the plains of Mexico. De Soto,
+the leader of this conquering band, died miserably on the Mississippi,
+and was buried beneath its waves.</p>
+
+<p>The whole country which these adventurers traversed, they found to be
+quite densely populated with numerous small tribes of natives, each
+generally wandering within circumscribed limits. Though these tribes
+spoke different languages, or perhaps different dialects of the same
+language, they were essentially the same in appearance, manners and
+customs. They were of a dark-red color, well formed and always disposed
+to receive the pale face strangers with kindliness, until exasperated by
+ill-treatment. They lived in fragile huts called wigwams, so simple in
+their structure that one could easily be erected in a few hours. These
+huts were generally formed by setting long and slender poles in the
+ground, inclosing an area of from ten to eighteen feet in diameter,
+according to the size of the family. The tops were tied together,
+leaving a hole for the escape of smoke from the central fire. The sides
+were thatched with coarse grass, or so covered with the bark of trees,
+as quite effectually to exclude both wind and rain. There were no
+windows, light entering only through the almost <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>always open door. The
+ground floor was covered with dried grass, or the skins of animals, or
+with the soft and fragrant twigs of some evergreen tree.</p>
+
+<p>The inmates, men, women and children, seated upon these cushions,
+presented a very attractive and cheerful aspect. Several hundred of
+these wigwams were frequently clustered upon some soft meadow by the
+side of a flowing stream, fringed with a gigantic forest, and exhibited
+a spectacle of picturesque loveliness quite charming to the beholder.
+The furniture of these humble abodes was extremely simple. They had no
+pots or kettles which would stand the fire. They had no knives nor
+forks; no tables nor chairs. Sharp flints, such as they could find
+served for knives, with which, with incredible labor, they sawed down
+small trees and fashioned their bows and arrows. They had no roads
+except foot paths through the wilderness, which for generations their
+ancestors had traversed, called "trails." They had no beasts of burden,
+no cows, no flocks nor herds of any kind. They generally had not even
+salt, but cured their meat by drying it in the sun. They had no ploughs,
+hoes, spades, consequently they could only cultivate the lightest soil.
+With a sharp stick, women loosened the earth, and then depositing their
+corn or maize, cultivated it in the rudest manner.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>These Indians acquired the reputation of being very faithful friends,
+but very bitter enemies. It was said they never forgot a favor, and
+never forgave an insult. They were cunning rather than brave. It was
+seldom that an Indian could be induced to meet a foe in an open
+hand-to-hand fight. But he would track him for years, hoping to take him
+unawares and to brain him with the tomahawk, or pierce his heart with
+the flint-pointed arrow.</p>
+
+<p>About the year 1565, a company of French Protestants repaired to
+Florida, hoping there to find the liberty to worship God in accordance
+with their interpretation of the teachings of the Bible. They
+established quite a flourishing colony, at a place which they named St.
+Marys, near the coast. This was the first European settlement on the
+continent of North America. The fanatic Spaniards, learning that
+Protestants had taken possession of the country, sent out an expedition
+and utterly annihilated the settlement, putting men, women and children
+to the sword. Many of these unfortunate Protestants were hung in chains
+from trees under the inscription, "<i>Not as Frenchmen but as Heretics.</i>"
+The blood-stained Spaniards then established themselves at a spot near
+by, which they called St. Augustine. A French gentleman of wealth fitted
+out a well-manned and well-armed expedition of three ships, attacked the
+murderers by surprise and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>put them to death. Several corpses were
+suspended from trees, under the inscription, "<i>Not as Spaniards, but as
+Murderers.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>There was an understanding among the powers of Europe, that any portion
+of the New World discovered by expeditions from European courts, should
+be recognised as belonging to that court. The Spaniards had taken
+possession in Florida. Far away a thousand leagues to the North, the
+French had entered the gulf of St. Lawrence. But little was known of the
+vast region between. A young English gentleman, Sir Walter Raleigh, an
+earnest Protestant, and one who had fought with the French Protestants
+in their religious wars, roused by the massacre of his friends in
+Florida, applied to the British court to fit out a colony to take
+possession of the intermediate country. He hoped thus to prevent the
+Spanish monarchy, and the equally intolerant French court, from
+spreading their principles over the whole continent. The Protestant
+Queen Elizabeth then occupied the throne of Great Britain. Raleigh was
+young, rich, handsome and marvelously fascinating in his address. He
+became a great favorite of the maiden queen, and she gave him a
+commission, making him lord of all the continent of North America,
+between Florida and Canada.</p>
+
+<p>The whole of this vast region without any accurate boundaries, was
+called Virginia. Several ships were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>sent to explore the country. They
+reached the coast of what is now called North Carolina, and the
+adventurers landed at Roanoke Island. They were charmed with the
+climate, with the friendliness of the natives and with the majestic
+growth of the forest trees, far surpassing anything they had witnessed
+in the Old World. Grapes in rich clusters hung in profusion on the
+vines, and birds of every variety of song and plumage filled the groves.
+The expedition returned to England with such glowing accounts of the
+realm they had discovered, that seven ships were fitted out, conveying
+one hundred and eight men, to colonise the island. It is quite
+remarkable that no women accompanied the expedition. Many of these men
+were reckless adventurers. Bitter hostility soon sprang up between them
+and the Indians, who at first had received them with the greatest
+kindness.</p>
+
+<p>Most of these colonists were men unaccustomed to work, and who insanely
+expected that in the New World, in some unknown way, wealth was to flow
+in upon them like a flood. Disheartened, homesick and appalled by the
+hostile attitude which the much oppressed Indians were beginning to
+assume, they were all anxious to return home. When, soon after, some
+ships came bringing them abundant supplies, they with one accord
+abandoned the colony, and crowding the vessels returned to England.
+Fifteen men however <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>consented to remain, to await the arrival of fresh
+colonists from the Mother Country.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Walter Raleigh, still undiscouraged, in the next year 1587 sent out
+another fleet containing a number of families as emigrants, with women
+and children. When they arrived, they found Roanoke deserted. The
+fifteen men had been murdered by the Indians in retaliation for the
+murder of their chief and several of his warriors by the English. With
+fear and trembling the new settlers decided to remain, urging the
+friends who had accompanied them to hasten back to England with the
+ships and bring them reinforcements and supplies. Scarcely had they
+spread their sails on the return voyage ere war broke out with Spain. It
+was three years before another ship crossed the ocean, to see what had
+become of the colony. It had utterly disappeared. Though many attempts
+were made to ascertain its tragic fate, all were unavailing. It is
+probable that many were put to death by the Indians, and perhaps the
+children were carried far back into the interior and incorporated into
+their tribes. This bitter disappointment seemed to paralyse the energies
+of colonization. For more than seventy years the Carolinas remained a
+wilderness, with no attempt to transfer to them the civilization of the
+Old World. Still English ships continued occasionally to visit the
+coast. Some came to fish, some to purchase furs of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>Indians, and
+some for timber for shipbuilding. The stories which these voyagers told
+on their return, kept up an interest in the New World. It was indeed an
+attractive picture which could be truthfully painted. The climate was
+mild, genial and salubrious. The atmosphere surpassed the far-famed
+transparency of Italian skies. The forests were of gigantic growth, more
+picturesquely beautiful than any ever planted by man's hand, and they
+were filled with game. The lakes and streams swarmed with fish. A
+wilderness of flowers, of every variety of loveliness, bloomed over the
+wide meadows and the broad savannahs, which the forest had not yet
+invaded. Berries and fruits were abundant. In many places the soil was
+surpassingly rich, and easily tilled; and all this was open, without
+money and without price, to the first comer.</p>
+
+<p>Still more than a hundred years elapsed after the discovery of these
+realms, ere any permanent settlement was effected upon them. Most of the
+bays, harbors and rivers were unexplored, and reposed as it were in the
+solemn silence of eternity. From the everglades of Florida to the
+firclad hills of Nova Scotia, not a settlement of white men could be
+found.</p>
+
+<p>At length in the year 1607, a number of wealthy gentlemen in London
+formed a company to make a new attempt for the settlement of America. It
+was their plan to send out hardy colonists, abundantly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>provided with
+arms, tools and provisions. King James I., who had succeeded his cousin
+Queen Elizabeth, granted them a charter, by which, wherever they might
+effect a landing, they were to be the undisputed lords of a territory
+extending a hundred miles along the coast, and running back one hundred
+miles into the interior. Soon after, a similar grant was conferred upon
+another association, for the region of North Virginia, now called New
+England.</p>
+
+<p>Under the protection of this London Company, one hundred and five men,
+with no women or children, embarked in three small ships for the
+Southern Atlantic coast of North America. Apparently by accident, they
+entered Chesapeake Bay, where they found a broad and deep stream, which
+they named after their sovereign, James River. As they ascended this
+beautiful stream, they were charmed with the loveliness which nature had
+spread so profusely around them. Upon the northern banks of the river,
+about fifty miles from its entrance into the bay, they selected a spot
+for their settlement, which they named Jamestown. Here they commenced
+cutting down trees and raising their huts.</p>
+
+<p>In an enterprise of this kind, muscles inured to work and determined
+spirits ready to grapple with difficulties, are essential. In such
+labors, the most useless of all beings is the gentleman with soft hands
+and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>luxurious habits. Unfortunately quite a number of pampered sons of
+wealth had joined the colony. Being indolent, selfish and dissolute,
+they could do absolutely nothing for the prosperity of the settlement,
+but were only an obstacle in the way of its growth.</p>
+
+<p>Troubles soon began to multiply, and but for the energies of a
+remarkable man, Capt. John Smith, the colony must soon have perished
+through anarchy. But even Capt. John Smith with all his commanding
+powers, and love of justice and of law, could not prevent the idle and
+profligate young men from insulting the natives, and robbing them of
+their corn. With the autumnal rains sickness came, and many died. The
+hand of well-organised industry might have raised an ample supply of
+corn to meet all their wants through the short winter. But this had been
+neglected, and famine was added to sickness, Capt. Smith had so won the
+confidence of the Indian chieftains, that notwithstanding the gross
+irregularities of his young men, they brought him supplies of corn and
+game, which they freely gave to the English in their destitution.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Smith having thus provided for the necessities of the greatly
+diminished colony, set out with a small party of men on an exploring
+expedition into the interior. He was waylayed by Indians, who with
+arrows and tomahawks speedily put all the men to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>death, excepting the
+leader, who was taken captive. There was something in the demeanor of
+this brave man which overawed them. He showed them his pocket compass,
+upon which they gazed with wonder. He then told them that if they would
+send to the fort a leaf from his pocket-book, upon which he had made
+several marks with his pencil, they would find the next day, at any spot
+they might designate, a certain number of axes, blankets, and other
+articles of great value to them. Their curiosity was exceedingly
+aroused; the paper was sent, and the next day the articles were found as
+promised. The Indians looked upon Captain Smith as a magician, and
+treated him with great respect. Still the more thoughtful of the natives
+regarded him as a more formidable foe. They could not be blind to the
+vastly superior power of the English in their majestic ships, with their
+long swords, and terrible fire-arms, and all the developments,
+astounding to them, of a higher civilization. They were very anxious in
+view of encroachments which might eventually give the English the
+supremacy in their land.</p>
+
+<p>Powhatan, the king of the powerful tribe who had at first been very
+friendly to the English, summoned a council of war of his chieftains,
+and after long deliberation, it was decided that Captain Smith was too
+powerful a man to be allowed to live, and that he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>must die. He was
+accordingly led out to execution, but without any of the ordinary
+accompaniments of torture. His hands were bound behind him, he was laid
+upon the ground, and his head was placed upon a stone. An Indian warrior
+of herculean strength stood by, with a massive club, to give the death
+blow by crushing in the skull. Just as the fatal stroke was about to
+descend, a beautiful Indian girl, Pocahontas, the daughter of the king,
+rushed forward and throwing her arms around the neck of Captain Smith,
+placed her head upon his. The Indians regarded this as an indication
+from the Great Spirit that the life of Captain Smith was to be spared,
+and they set their prisoner at liberty, who, being thus miraculously
+rescued, returned to Jamestown.</p>
+
+<p>By his wisdom Captain Smith preserved for some time friendly relations
+with the Indians, and the colony rapidly increased, until there were
+five hundred Europeans assembled at Jamestown. Capt. Smith being
+severely wounded by an accidental explosion of gunpowder, returned to
+England for surgical aid. The colony, thus divested of his vigorous
+sway, speedily lapsed into anarchy. The bitter hostility of the Indians
+was aroused, and, within a few months, the colony dwindled away beneath
+the ravages of sickness, famine, and the arrows of the Indians, to but
+sixty men. Despair reigned in all hearts, and this <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>starving remnant of
+Europeans was preparing to abandon the colony and return to the Old
+World, when Lord Delaware arrived with several ships loaded with
+provisions and with a reinforcement of hardy laborers. Most of the idle
+and profligate young men who had brought such calamity upon the colony,
+had died. Those who remained took fresh courage, and affairs began to be
+more prosperous.</p>
+
+<p>The organization of the colony had thus far been effected with very
+little regard to the wants of human nature. There were no women there.
+Without the honored wife there cannot be the happy home; and without the
+home there can be no contentment. To herd together five hundred men upon
+the banks of a foreign stream, three thousand miles from their native
+land, without women and children, and to expect them to lay the
+foundation of a happy and prosperous colony, seems almost unpardonable
+folly.</p>
+
+<p>Emigrants began to arrive with their families, and in the year 1620, one
+hundred and fifty poor, but virtuous young women, were induced to join
+the Company. Each young man who came received one hundred acres of land.
+Eagerly these young planters, in short courtship, selected wives from
+such of these women as they could induce to listen to them. Each man
+paid one hundred and fifty pounds of tobacco to defray the expenses of
+his wife's voyage. But the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>wickedness of man will everywhere, and under
+all circumstances, make fearful development of its power. Many
+desperadoes joined the colony. The poor Indians with no weapons of war
+but arrows, clubs and stone tomahawks, were quite at the mercy of the
+English with their keen swords, and death-dealing muskets. Fifteen
+Europeans could easily drive several hundred Indians in panic over the
+plains. Unprincipled men perpetrated the grossest outrages upon the
+families of the Indians, often insulting the proudest chiefs.</p>
+
+<p>The colonists were taking up lands in all directions. Before their
+unerring rifles, game was rapidly disappearing. The Indians became fully
+awake to their danger. The chiefs met in council, and a conspiracy was
+formed, to put, at an appointed hour, all the English to death, every
+man, woman and child. Every house was marked. Two or three Indians were
+appointed to make the massacre sure in each dwelling. They were to
+spread over the settlement, enter the widely scattered log-huts, as
+friends, and at a certain moment were to spring upon their unsuspecting
+victims, and kill them instantly. The plot was fearfully successful in
+all the dwellings outside the little village of Jamestown. In one hour,
+on the 22nd of March, 1622, three hundred and forty-seven men, women and
+children were massacred in cold blood. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>The colony would have been
+annihilated, but for a Christian Indian who, just before the massacre
+commenced, gave warning to a friend in Jamestown. The Europeans rallied
+with their fire-arms, and easily drove off their foes, and then
+commenced the unrelenting extermination of the Indians. An arrow can be
+thrown a few hundred feet, a musket ball more than as many yards. The
+Indians were consequently helpless. The English shot down both sexes,
+young and old, as mercilessly as if they had been wolves. They seized
+their houses, their lands, their pleasant villages. The Indians were
+either slain or driven far away from the houses of their fathers, into
+the remote wilderness.</p>
+
+<p>The colony now increased rapidly, and the cabins of the emigrants spread
+farther and farther over the unoccupied lands. These hardy adventurers
+seemed providentially imbued with the spirit of enterprise. Instead of
+clustering together for the pleasure of society and for mutual
+protection, they were ever pushing into the wild and unknown interior,
+rearing their cabins on the banks of distant streams, and establishing
+their silent homes in the wildest solitudes of the wilderness. In 1660,
+quite a number of emigrants moved directly south from Virginia, to the
+river Chowan, in what is now South Carolina, where they established a
+settlement which they called <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>Albermarle. In 1670, a colony from England
+established itself at Charleston, South Carolina. Thus gradually the
+Atlantic coast became fringed with colonies, extending but a few leagues
+back into the country from the sea-shore, while the vast interior
+remained an unexplored wilderness. As the years rolled on, ship-loads of
+emigrants arrived, new settlements were established, colonial States
+rose into being, and, though there were many sanguinary conflicts with
+the Indians, the Europeans were always in the end triumphant, and
+intelligence, wealth, and laws of civilization were rapidly extended
+along the Atlantic border of the New World.</p>
+
+<p>For many years there had been a gradual pressure of the colonists
+towards the west, steadily encroaching upon the apparently limitless
+wilderness. To us it seems strange that they did not, for the sake of
+protection against the Indians, invariably go in military bands. But
+generally this was not the case. The emigrants seem to have been
+inspired with a spirit of almost reckless indifference to danger; they
+apparently loved the solitude of the forest, avoided neighbors who might
+interfere with their hunting and trapping, and reared their humble
+cottages in the wildest ravines of the mountains and upon the smooth
+meadows which border the most solitary streams; thus gradually the tide
+of emigration, flowing through Indian trails <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>and along the
+forest-covered vines, was approaching the base of the Alleghany
+mountains.</p>
+
+<p>But little was known of the character of the boundless realms beyond the
+ridges of this gigantic chain. Occasionally a wandering Indian who had
+chased his game over those remote wilds, would endeavor to draw upon the
+sand, with a stick, a map of the country showing the flow of the rivers,
+the line of the mountains, and the sweep of the open prairies. The Ohio
+was then called the Wabash. This magnificent and beautiful stream is
+formed by the confluence of the Alleghany and the Monongahela rivers. It
+was a long voyage, a voyage of several hundred miles, following the
+windings of the Monongahela river from its rise among the mountains of
+Western Virginia till, far away in the north, it met the flood of the
+Alleghany, at the present site of the city of Pittsburg. The voyage, in
+a birch canoe, required, in the figurative language of the Indians, "two
+paddles, two warriors and three moons."</p>
+
+<p>The Indians very correctly described the Ohio, or the Wabash, as but the
+tributary of a much more majestic stream, far away in the west, which,
+pouring its flood through the impenetrable forest, emptied itself they
+knew not where. Of the magnitude of this distant river, the Mississippi,
+its source, rise and termination, they could give no intelligible
+account. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>They endeavored to give some idea of the amount of game to be
+found in those remote realms, by pointing to the leaves of the forest
+and the stars in the sky.</p>
+
+<p>The settlers were deeply interested and often much excited by the
+glowing descriptions thus given them of a terrestrial Eden, where life
+would seem to be but one uninterrupted holiday. Occasionally an
+adventurous French or Spanish trader would cross the towering mountains
+and penetrate the vales beyond. They vied with the Indians in their
+account of the salubrity of the climate, the brilliance of the skies,
+the grandeur of the forests, the magnificence of the rivers, the
+marvelous fertility of the soil and the abundance of game.</p>
+
+<p>As early as the year 1690 a trader from Virginia, by the name of
+Doherty, crossed the mountains, visited the friendly Cherokee nation,
+within the present bounds of Georgia, and resided with the natives
+several years. In the year 1730 an enterprising and intelligent man from
+South Carolina, by the name of Adair, took quite an extensive tour
+through most of the villages of the Cherokees, and also visited several
+tribes south and west of them. He wrote an exceedingly valuable and
+interesting account of his travels which was published in London.</p>
+
+<p>Influenced by these examples several traders, in the year 1740, went
+from Virginia to the country of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>Cherokees. They carried on pack
+horses goods which the Indians valued, and which they exchanged for
+furs, which were sold in Europe at an enormous profit.</p>
+
+<p>A hatchet, a knife, a trap, a string of beads, which could be bought for
+a very small sum in the Atlantic towns, when exhibited beyond the
+mountains to admiring groups in the wigwam of the Indian, could be
+exchanged for furs which were of almost priceless value in the
+metropolitan cities of the Old World. This traffic was mutually
+advantageous, and so long as peaceful relations existed between the
+white man and the Indian, was prosecuted with great and ever increasing
+vigor. The Indians thus obtained the steel trap, the keenly cutting ax,
+and the rifle, which he soon learned to use with unerring aim. He was
+thus able in a day to obtain more game than with his arrows and his
+clumsy snares he could secure in a month.</p>
+
+<p>This friendly intercourse was in all respects very desirable; and but
+for the depravity of the white man it might have continued uninterrupted
+for generations. But profligate and vagabond adventurers from the
+settlements defrauded the Indians, insulted their women, and often
+committed wanton murder. But it would seem that the majority of the
+traders were honest men. Ramsay, in his Annals of Tennessee, writes, in
+reference to this traffic:</p>
+
+<p>"Other advantages resulted from it to the whites. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>They became thus
+acquainted with the great avenues leading through the hunting ground,
+and to the occupied country of the neighboring tribes&mdash;an important
+circumstance in the condition of either peace or war. Further the
+traders were an exact thermometer of the pacific or hostile intention
+and feelings of the Indians with whom they traded. Generally they were
+foreigners, most frequently Scotchmen, who had not been long in the
+country, or upon the frontier; who, having experienced none of the
+cruelties, depredations or aggressions of the Indians, cherished none of
+the resentment and spirit of retaliation born with and everywhere
+manifested by the American settler.</p>
+
+<p>"Thus free from animosity against the aborigines, the trader was allowed
+to remain in the village, where he traded, unmolested, even where its
+warriors were singing the war song or brandishing the war club,
+preparatory to an invasion or massacre of the whites. Timely warning was
+thus often given by a returning packman to a feeble and unsuspecting
+settlement, of the perfidy and cruelty meditated against it."</p>
+
+<p>Game on the eastern side of the Alleghanies, hunted down alike by white
+men and Indians, soon became scarce. Adventurers combining the
+characters of traders and hunters rapidly multiplied. Many of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>the
+hunters among the white men far outstripped the Indians in skill and
+energy. Thus some degree of jealousy was excited on the part of the
+savages. They saw how rapidly the game was disappearing, and these
+thoughtful men began to be anxious for the future. With no love for
+agriculture the destruction of the game was their ruin.</p>
+
+<p>As early as the year 1748 quite a party of gentlemen explorers, under
+the leadership of Doctor Thomas Walker of Virginia, crossed a range of
+the Alleghany mountains, which the Indians called Warioto, but to which
+Doctor Walker gave the name of Cumberland, in honor of the Duke of
+Cumberland who was then prime minister of England. Following along this
+chain in a south-westerly direction, in search of some pass or defile by
+which they could cross the cliffs, they came to the remarkable
+depression in the mountains to which they gave the name of Cumberland
+Gap. On the western side of the range they found a beautiful mountain
+stream, rushing far away, with ever increasing volume, into the unknown
+wilderness, which the Indians called Shawnee, but which Doctor Walker's
+party baptised with the name of Cumberland River. These names have
+adhered to the localities upon which they were thus placed.</p>
+
+<p>In 1756 a feeble attempt was made to establish a colony upon the
+Tennessee river, at a spot which was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>called London. This was one
+hundred and fifty miles in advance of any white settlement. Eight years
+passed, and by the ravages of war the little settlement went up in flame
+and smoke. As the years rapidly came and went there were occasional
+bursts of the tempests of war; again there would be a short lull and
+blessed peace would come with its prosperity and joy.</p>
+
+<p>"In the year 1760, Doctor Walker again passed over Clinch and Powell's
+rivers on a tour of exploration, into what is now Kentucky. The
+Cherokees were then at peace with the whites, and hunters from the back
+settlements began, with safety, to penetrate deeper and further into the
+wilderness of Tennessee. Several of them, chiefly from Virginia, hearing
+of the abundance of game with which the woods were stocked, and allured
+by the prospect of gain which might be drawn from this source, formed
+themselves into a company composed of Wallen, Seagys, Blevins, Cox and
+fifteen others, and came into the valley, since known as Carter's
+Valley, in Hawkin's county, Tennessee. They hunted eighteen months upon
+Clinch and Powell rivers. Wallen's Creek and Wallen's Ridge received
+their name from the leader of the company; as also did Wallen's Station
+which they erected in the Lee county, Virginia.</p>
+
+<p>"They penetrated as far north as Laurel Mountain, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>in Kentucky, where
+they terminated their journey, having met with a body of Indians whom
+they supposed to be Shawnees. At the head of one of the companies that
+visited the West, this year, came Daniel Boone from the Yadkin, in North
+Carolina, and travelled with them as low as the place where Abingdon now
+stands, and there left them."</p>
+
+<p>This is the first time the advent of Daniel Boone to the western wilds
+has been mentioned by historians or by the several biographers of that
+distinguished pioneer and hunter. There is reason however to believe
+that he hunted upon Watauga some time earlier than this.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/ichapend.jpg" width="450" height="120" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Daniel Boone, his Parentage, and early Adventures.</i></h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot2"><p>Trials of the Colonists.&mdash;George Boone and his home.&mdash;Squire
+Boone.&mdash;Birth and character of Daniel Boone.&mdash;His limited
+education.&mdash;A pioneer's camp.&mdash;A log house and
+furnishings.&mdash;Annoyance of Boone on the arrival of Scotch
+emigrants.&mdash;His longings for adventure.&mdash;Camp meetings.&mdash;Frontier
+life.&mdash;Sports.&mdash;Squirrel hunting.&mdash;Snuffing the candle.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>It was but a narrow fringe upon the sea coast of North America, which
+was thus far occupied by the European emigrants. Even this edge of the
+continent was so vast in its extent, from the southern capes of Florida
+to the gulf of St. Lawrence, that these colonial settlements were far
+separated from each other. They constituted but little dots in the
+interminable forest: the surges of the Atlantic beating upon their
+eastern shores, and the majestic wilderness sweeping in its sublime
+solitude behind them on the west. Here the painted Indians pursued their
+game, while watching anxiously the encroachments of the pale faces. The
+cry of the panther, the growling of the bear, and the howling of the
+wolf, were music to the settlers compared with the war-hoop of the
+savage, which often startled the inmates of the lonely cabins, and
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>consigned them to that sleep from which there is no earthly waking. The
+Indians were generally hostile, and being untutored savages, they were
+as merciless as demons in their revenge. The mind recoils from the
+contemplation of the tortures to which they often exposed their
+captives. And one cannot but wonder that the Almighty Father could have
+allowed such agony to be inflicted upon any of His creatures.</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding the general desire of the colonial authorities to treat
+the Indians with justice and kindness, there were unprincipled
+adventurers crowding all the colonies, whose wickedness no laws could
+restrain. They robbed the Indians, insulted their families, and
+inflicted upon them outrages which goaded the poor savages to
+desperation. In their unintelligent vengeance they could make no
+distinction between the innocent and the guilty.</p>
+
+<p>On the 10th of October, 1717, a vessel containing a number of emigrants
+arrived at Philadelphia, a small but flourishing settlement upon the
+banks of the Delaware. Among the passengers there was a man named George
+Boone, with his wife and eleven children, nine sons and two daughters.
+He had come from Exeter, England, and was lured to the New World by the
+cheapness of land. He had sufficient property to enable him to furnish
+all his sons with ample farms in America. The Delaware, above
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>Philadelphia, was at that time a silent stream, flowing sublimely
+through the almost unbroken forest. Here and there, a bold settler had
+felled the trees, and in the clearing had reared his log hut, upon the
+river banks. Occasionally the birch canoe of an Indian hunter was seen
+passing rapidly from cove to cove, and occasionally a little cluster of
+Indian wigwams graced some picturesque and sunny exposure, for the
+Indians manifested much taste in the location of their villages.</p>
+
+<p>George Boone ascended this solitary river about twenty miles above
+Philadelphia, where he purchased upon its banks an extensive territory,
+consisting of several hundred acres. It was near the present city of
+Bristol, in what is now called Buck's County. To this tract,
+sufficiently large for a township, he gave the name of Exeter, in memory
+of the home he had left in England. Here, aided by the strong arms of
+his boys, he reared a commodious log cabin. It must have been an
+attractive and a happy home. The climate was delightful, the soil
+fertile, supplying him, with but little culture, with an ample supply of
+corn, and the most nutritious vegetables. Before his door rolled the
+broad expanse of the Delaware, abounding with fish of delicious flavor.
+His boys with hook and line could at any time, in a few moments, supply
+the table with a nice repast. With the unerring rifle, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>they could
+always procure game in great variety and abundance.</p>
+
+<p>The Indians, won by the humanity of William Penn, were friendly, and
+their occasional visits to the cabin contributed to the enjoyment of its
+inmates. On the whole a more favored lot in life could not well be
+imagined. There was unquestionably far more happiness in this log cabin
+of the settler, on the silent waters of the Delaware, than could be
+found in any of the castles or palaces of England, France, or Spain.</p>
+
+<p>George Boone had one son on whom he conferred the singular name of
+Squire. His son married a young woman in the neighborhood by the name of
+Sarah Morgan, and surrounded by his brothers and sisters, he raised his
+humble home in the beautiful township which his father had purchased.
+Before leaving England the family, religiously inclined, had accepted
+the Episcopal form of Christian worship. But in the New World, far
+removed from the institutions of the Gospel, and allured by the noble
+character and influence of William Penn, they enrolled themselves in the
+Society of Friends. In the record of the monthly meetings of this
+society, we find it stated that George Boone was received to its
+communion on the thirty-first day of tenth month, in the year 1717. It
+is also recorded that his son Squire Boone was married to Sarah Morgan,
+on the twenty-third day of seventh <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>month, 1720. The records of the
+meetings also show the number of their children, and the periods of
+their birth.</p>
+
+<p>By this it appears that their son Daniel, the subject of this memoir,
+was born on the twenty-second day of eighth month, 1734. It seems that
+Squire Boone became involved in difficulties with the Society of
+Friends, for allowing one of his sons to marry out of meeting. He was
+therefore disowned, and perhaps on this account, he subsequently removed
+his residence to North Carolina, as we shall hereafter show. His son
+Daniel, from earliest childhood, developed a peculiar and remarkably
+interesting character. He was silent, thoughtful, of pensive
+temperament, yet far from gloomy, never elated, never depressed. He
+exhibited from his earliest years such an insensibility to danger, as to
+attract the attention of all who knew him. Though affectionate and
+genial in disposition, never morose or moody, he still loved solitude,
+and seemed never so happy as when entirely alone. His father remained in
+his home upon the Delaware until Daniel was about ten years of age.</p>
+
+<p>Various stories are related of his adventures in these his early years,
+which may or may not be entirely authentic. It makes but little
+difference. These anecdotes if only founded on facts, show at least the
+estimation in which he was regarded, and the impression <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>which his
+character produced in these days of childhood. Before he was ten years
+old he would take his rifle and plunge boldly into the depths of the
+illimitable forest. He seemed, by instinct, possessed of the skill of
+the most experienced hunter, so that he never became bewildered, or in
+danger of being lost. There were panthers, bears and wolves in those
+forests, but of them he seemed not to have the slightest fear. His skill
+as a marksman became quite unerring. Not only raccoons, squirrels,
+partridges and other such small game were the result of his hunting
+expeditions, but occasionally even the fierce panther fell before his
+rifle ball. From such frequent expeditions he would return silent and
+tranquil, with never a word of boasting in view of exploits of which a
+veteran hunter might be proud.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed his love of solitude was so great, that he reared for himself a
+little cabin in the wilderness, three miles back from the settlement.
+Here he would go all alone without even a dog for companion, his trusty
+rifle his only protection. At his camp-fire, on the point of his ramrod,
+he would cook the game which he obtained in abundance, and upon his bed
+of leaves would sleep in sweetest enjoyment, lulled by the wind through
+the tree-tops, and by the cry of the night bird and of the wild beasts
+roaming around. In subsequent life, he occasionally spoke of these hours
+as seasons of unspeakable joy.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>The education of young Boone was necessarily very defective. There were
+no schools then established in those remote districts of log cabins. But
+it so happened that an Irishman of some little education strolled into
+that neighborhood, and Squire Boone engaged him to teach, for a few
+months, his children and those of some others of the adjacent settlers.
+These hardy emigrants met with their axes in a central point in the
+wilderness, and in a few hours constructed a rude hut of logs for a
+school-house. Here young Boone was taught to read, and perhaps to write.
+This was about all the education he ever received. Probably the
+confinement of the school-room was to him unendurable. The forest was
+his congenial home, hunting the business of his life.</p>
+
+<p>Though thus uninstructed in the learning of books, there were other
+parts of practical education, of infinitely more importance to him, in
+which he became an adept. His native strength of mind, keen habits of
+observation, and imperturbable tranquility under whatever perils or
+reverses, gave him skill in the life upon which he was to enter, which
+the teachings of books alone could not confer. No marksman could surpass
+him in the dexterity with which with his bullet he would strike the head
+of a nail, at the distance of many yards. No Indian hunter or warrior
+could with more sagacity trace his steps through the pathless <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>forest,
+detect the footsteps of a retreating foe, or search out the hiding place
+of the panther or the bear. In these hunting excursions the youthful
+frame of Daniel became inured to privation, hardship, endurance. Taught
+to rely upon his own resources, he knew not what it was to be lonely,
+for an hour. In the darkest night and in the remotest wilderness, when
+the storm raged most fiercely, although but a child he felt peaceful,
+happy, and entirely at home.</p>
+
+<p>About the year 1748 (the date is somewhat uncertain), Squire Boone, with
+his family, emigrated seven hundred miles farther south and west to a
+place called Holman's Ford on the Yadkin river, in North Carolina. The
+Yadkin is a small stream in the north-west part of the State. A hundred
+years ago this was indeed a howling wilderness. It is difficult to
+imagine what could have induced the father of a family to abandon the
+comparatively safe and prosperous settlements on the banks of the
+Delaware, to plunge into the wilderness of these pathless solitudes,
+several hundred miles from the Atlantic coast. Daniel was then about
+sixteen years of age.</p>
+
+<p>Of the incidents of their long journey through the wood&mdash;on foot, with
+possibly a few pack horses, for there were no wagon-roads whatever&mdash;we
+have no record. The journey must probably have occupied several weeks,
+occasionally cheered by sunshine, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>again drenched by storms. There
+were nine children in the family. At the close of the weary pilgrimage
+of a day, through such narrow trails as that which the Indian or the
+buffalo had made through the forest, or over the prairies, they were
+compelled to build a cabin at night, with logs and the bark of trees to
+shelter them from the wind and rain, and at the camp-fire to cook the
+game which they had shot during the day. We can imagine that this
+journey must have been a season of unspeakable delight to Daniel Boone.
+Alike at home with the rifle and the hatchet, never for a moment
+bewildered, or losing his self-possession, he could, even unaided, at
+any hour, rear a sheltering hut for his mother and his sisters, before
+which the camp-fire would blaze cheerily, and their hunger would be
+appeased by the choicest viands from the game which his rifle had
+procured.</p>
+
+<p>The spirit of adventure is so strong in most human hearts which
+luxurious indulgence has not enervated, that it is not improbable that
+this family enjoyed far more in this romantic excursion through an
+unexplored wilderness, than those now enjoy who in a few hours traverse
+the same distance in the smooth rolling rail-cars. Indeed fancy can
+paint many scenes of picturesque beauty which we know that the reality
+must have surpassed.</p>
+
+<p>It is the close of a lovely day. A gentle breeze <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>sweeps through the
+tree-tops from the north-west. The trail through the day has led along
+the banks of a crystal mountain stream, sparkling with trout. The path
+is smooth for the moccasined feet. The limbs, inured to action,
+experienced no weariness. The axes of the father and the sons speedily
+construct a camp, open to the south and perfectly sheltered on the roof
+and on the sides by the bark of trees. The busy fingers of the daughters
+have in the meantime spread over the floor a soft and fragrant carpet of
+evergreen twigs. The mother is preparing supper, of trout from the
+stream, and the fattest of wild turkeys or partridges, or tender cuts of
+venison, which the rifles of her husband or sons have procured.
+Voracious appetites render the repast far more palatable than the
+choicest viands which were ever spread in the banqueting halls of
+Versailles or Windsor. Water-fowl of gorgeous plumage sport in the
+stream, unintimidated by the approach of man. The plaintive songs of
+forest-birds float in the evening air. On the opposite side of the
+stream, herds of deer and buffalo crop the rich herbage of the prairie,
+which extends far away, till it is lost in the horizon of the south.
+Daniel retires from the converse of the cabin to an adjoining eminence,
+where silently and rapturously he gazes upon the scene of loveliness
+spread out before him.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p><p>Such incidents must often have occurred. Even in the dark and
+tempestuous night, with the storm surging through the tree tops, and the
+rain descending in floods, in their sheltered camp, illumined by the
+flames of their night fire, souls capable of appreciating the sublimity
+of such scenes must have experienced exquisite delight. It is pleasant
+to reflect, that the poor man in his humble cabin may often be the
+recipient of much more happiness than the lord finds in his castle, or
+the king in his palace.</p>
+
+<p>No details are given respecting the arrival of this family on the banks
+of the Yadkin, or of their habits of life while there. We simply know
+that they were far away in the untrodden wilderness, in the remotest
+frontiers of civilization. Bands of Indians were roving around them, but
+even if hostile, so long as they had only bows and arrows, the settler
+in his log-hut, which was a fortress, and with his death-dealing rifle,
+was comparatively safe.</p>
+
+<p>Here the family dwelt for several years, probably in the enjoyment of
+abundance, and with ever-increasing comforts. The virgin soil, even
+poorly tilled, furnished them with the corn and the vegetables they
+required, while the forests supplied the table with game. Thus the
+family, occupying the double position of the farmer and the hunter,
+lived in the enjoyment of all the luxuries which both of those <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>callings
+could afford. Here Daniel Boone grew up to manhood. His love of solitude
+and of nature led him on long hunting excursions, from which he often
+returned laden with furs. The silence of the wilderness he brought back
+with him to his home. And though his placid features ever bore a smile,
+he had but few words to interchange with neighbors or friends. He was a
+man of affectionate, but not of passionate nature. It would seem that
+other emigrants were lured to the banks of the Yadkin, for here, after a
+few years, young Boone fell in love with the daughter of his father's
+neighbor, and that daughter, Rebecca Bryan, became his bride. He thus
+left his father's home, and, with his axe, speedily erected for himself
+and wife a cabin, we may presume at some distance from sight or sound of
+any other house. There "from noise and tumult far," Daniel Boone
+established himself in the life of solitude, to which he was accustomed
+and which he enjoyed. It appears that his marriage took place about the
+year 1755. The tide of emigration was still flowing in an uninterrupted
+stream towards the west. The population was increasing throughout this
+remote region, and the axe of the settler began to be heard on the
+streams tributary to the Yadkin.</p>
+
+<p>Daniel Boone became restless. He loved the wilderness and its solitude,
+and was annoyed by the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>approach of human habitations, bringing to him
+customs with which he was unacquainted, and exposing him to
+embarrassments from which he would gladly escape. The mode of life
+practiced by those early settlers in the wilderness is well known. The
+log-house usually consisted of but one room, with a fire-place of stones
+at the end. These houses were often very warm and comfortable,
+presenting in the interior, with a bright fire blazing on the hearth, a
+very cheerful aspect. Their construction was usually as follows:
+Straight, smooth logs about a foot in diameter, cut of the proper
+length, and so notched at the ends as to be held very firmly together,
+were thus placed one above the other to the height of about ten feet.
+The interstices were filled with clay, which soon hardened, rendering
+the walls comparatively smooth, and alike impervious to wind or rain.
+Other logs of straight fiber were split into clap-boards, one or two
+inches in thickness, with which they covered the roof. If suitable wood
+for this purpose could not be found, the bark of trees was used, with an
+occasional thatching of the long grass of the prairies. Logs about
+eighteen inches in diameter were selected for the floor. These were
+easily split in halves, and with the convex side buried in the earth,
+and the smooth surface uppermost joined closely together by a slight
+trimming with axe or adze, presented a very firm and even attractive
+surface for the feet.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p><p>In the centre of the room, four augur holes were bored in the logs,
+about three inches in diameter. Stakes were driven firmly into these
+holes, upon which were placed two pieces of timber, with the upper
+surfaces hewn smooth, thus constructing a table. In one corner of the
+cabin, four stakes were driven in a similar way, about eighteen inches
+high, with forked tops. Upon these two saplings were laid with smooth
+pieces of bark stretched across. These were covered with grass or dried
+leaves, upon which was placed, with the fur upwards, the well-tanned
+skin of the buffalo or the bear. Thus quite a luxurious bed was
+constructed, upon which there was often enjoyed as sweet sleep as
+perhaps is ever found on beds of down. In another corner, some rude
+shelves were placed, upon which appeared a few articles of tin and
+ironware. Upon some buck horns over the door was always placed the
+rifle, ever loaded and ready for use.</p>
+
+<p>A very intelligent emigrant, Dr. Doddridge, gives the following graphic
+account of his experience in such a log-cabin as we have described, in
+the remote wilderness. When he was but a child, his father, with a small
+family, had penetrated these trackless wilds, and in the midst of their
+sublime solitudes had reared his lonely cabin. He writes:</p>
+
+<p>"My father's family was small and he took us all with him. The Indian
+meal which he brought was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>expended six weeks too soon, so that for that
+length of time we had to live without bread. The lean venison and the
+breast of wild turkeys, we were taught to call bread. I remember how
+narrowly we children watched the growth of the potato tops, pumpkin, and
+squash vines, hoping from day to day to get something to answer in the
+place of bread. How delicious was the taste of the young potatoes, when
+we got them! What a jubilee when we were permitted to pull the young
+corn for roasting ears! Still more so when it had acquired sufficient
+hardness to be made into johnny cake by the aid of a tin grater. The
+furniture of the table consisted of a few pewter dishes, plates and
+spoons, but mostly of wooden bowls and trenchers and noggins. If these
+last were scarce, gourds and hard shell squashes made up the deficiency.</p>
+
+<p>"I well remember the first time I ever saw a tea cup and saucer. My
+mother died when I was six or seven years of age. My father then sent me
+to Maryland to go to school. At Bedford, the tavern at which my uncle
+put up was a stone house, and to make the changes still more complete,
+it was plastered on the inside both as to the walls and ceiling. On
+going into the dining-room, I was struck with astonishment at the
+appearance of the house. I had no idea that there was any house in the
+world that was not built of logs. But here I looked around and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>could
+see no logs, and above I could see no joists. Whether such a thing had
+been made by the hands of man, or had grown so of itself, I could not
+conjecture. I had not the courage to inquire anything about it. When
+supper came on, my confusion was worse confounded: A little cup stood in
+a bigger one with some brownish-looking stuff in it, which was neither
+milk, hominy, nor broth. What to do with these little cups, and the
+spoons belonging to them, I could not tell. But I was afraid to ask
+anything concerning the use of them."</p>
+
+<p>Daniel Boone could see from the door of his cabin, far away in the west,
+the majestic ridge of the Alleghany mountains, many of the peaks rising
+six thousand feet into the clouds. This almost impassable wall, which
+nature had reared, extended for hundreds of leagues, along the Atlantic
+coast, parallel with that coast, and at an average distance of one
+hundred and thirty miles from the ocean. It divides the waters which
+flow into the Atlantic, from those which run into the Mississippi. The
+great chain consists of many spurs, from fifty to two hundred miles in
+breadth, and receives in different localities, different names, such as
+the Cumberland mountains, the Blue Ridge, etc.</p>
+
+<p>But few white men had ever as yet ascended these summits, to cast a
+glance at the vast wilderness beyond. The wildest stories were told
+around the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>cabin fires, of these unexplored realms,&mdash;of the Indian
+tribes wandering there; of the forests filled with game; of the rivers
+alive with fishes; of the fertile plains, the floral beauty, the
+abounding fruit, and the almost celestial clime. These stories were
+brought to the settlers in the broken language of the Indians, and in
+the exaggerated tales of hunters, who professed that in the chase they
+had, from some Pisgah's summit, gazed upon the splendors of this Canaan
+of the New World.</p>
+
+<p>Thus far, the settlers had rested contented with the sea-board region
+east of the Alleghanies. They had made no attempt to climb the summits
+of this great barrier, or to penetrate its gloomy defiles. A dense
+forest covered alike the mountain cliff and the rocky gorge. Indeed
+there were but few points at which even the foot of the hunter could
+pass this chain.</p>
+
+<p>While Daniel Boone was residing in the congenial solitude of his hut, on
+the banks of the Yadkin; with the grandeur of the wilderness around him
+in which his soul delighted; with his table luxuriously spread according
+to his tastes&mdash;with venison, bear's meat, fat turkeys, chickens from the
+prairie, and vegetables from his garden; with comfortable clothing of
+deerskin, and such cloths as pedlars occasionally brought to his cabin
+door in exchange for furs, he was quite <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>annoyed by the arrival of a
+number of Scotch families in his region, bringing with them customs and
+fashions which to Daniel Boone were very annoying. They began to cut
+down the glorious old forest, to break up the green sward of the
+prairies, to rear more ambitious houses than the humble home of the
+pioneer; they assumed airs of superiority, introduced more artificial
+styles of living, and brought in the hitherto unknown vexation of taxes.</p>
+
+<p>One can easily imagine how restive such a man as Boone must have been
+under such innovations. The sheriff made his appearance in the lonely
+hut; the collection of the taxes was enforced by suits at law. Even
+Daniel Boone's title to his lands was called in question; some of the
+new comers claiming that their more legal grants lapped over upon the
+boundaries which Boone claimed. Under these circumstances our pioneer
+became very anxious to escape from these vexations by an emigration
+farther into the wilderness. Day after day he cast wistful glances upon
+the vast mountain barrier piercing the clouds in the distant horizon.
+Beyond that barrier, neither the sheriff nor the tax-gatherer were to be
+encountered. His soul, naturally incapable of fear, experienced no dread
+in apprehension of Indian hostilities, or the ferocity of wild beasts.
+Even the idea of the journey through these sublime solitudes of an
+unexplored region, was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>far more attractive to him than the tour of
+Europe to a sated millionaire.</p>
+
+<p>Two or three horses would convey upon their backs all their household
+goods. There were Indian trails and streets, so called, made by the
+buffaloes, as in large numbers they had followed each other, selecting
+by a wonderful instinct their path from one feeding ground to another,
+through cane-brakes, around morasses, and over mountains through the
+most accessible defiles. Along these trails or streets, Boone could take
+his peaceful route without any danger of mistaking his way. Every mile
+would be opening to him new scenes of grandeur and beauty. Should night
+come, or a storm set in, a few hours' labor with his axe would rear for
+him not only a comfortable, but a cheerful tent with its warm and
+sheltered interior, with the camp-fire crackling and blazing before it.
+His wife and his children not only afforded him all the society his
+peculiar nature craved, but each one was a helper, knowing exactly what
+to do in this picnic excursion through the wilderness. Wherever he might
+stop for the night or for a few days, his unerring rifle procured for
+him viands which might tempt the appetite of the epicure. There are many
+even in civilized life who will confess, that for them, such an
+excursion would present attractions such as are not to be found in the
+banqueting halls at <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>Windsor Castle, or in the gorgeous saloons of
+Versailles.</p>
+
+<p>Daniel Boone, in imagination, was incessantly visiting the land beyond
+the mountains, and longing to explore its mysteries. Whether he would
+find the ocean there or an expanse of lakes and majestic rivers, or
+boundless prairies, or the unbroken forest, he knew not. Whether the
+region were crowded with Indians, and if so, whether they would be found
+friendly or hostile, and whether game roamed there in greater variety
+and in larger abundance than on the Atlantic side of the great barrier,
+were questions as yet all unsolved. But these questions Daniel Boone
+pondered in silence, night and day.</p>
+
+<p>A gentleman who nearly half a century ago visited one of these frontier
+dwellings, very romantically situated amidst the mountains of Western
+Virginia, has given us a pencil sketch of the habitation which we here
+introduce. The account of the visit is also so graphic that we cannot
+improve it by giving it in any language but his own. This settler had
+passed through the first and was entering upon the second stage of
+pioneer life:</p>
+
+<p>"Towards the close of an autumnal day, when traveling through the thinly
+settled region of Western Virginia, I came up with a substantial-looking
+farmer leaning on the fence by the road side. I accompanied <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>him to his
+house to spend the night. It was a log dwelling, and near it stood
+another log structure, about twelve feet square,&mdash;the weaving shop of
+the family. On entering the dwelling I found the numerous household all
+clothed in substantial garments of their own manufacture. The floor was
+unadorned by a carpet and the room devoid of superfluous furniture; yet
+they had all that necessity required for their comfort. One needs but
+little experience like this to learn how few are our real wants,&mdash;how
+easily most luxuries of dress, furniture and equipage can be dispensed
+with.</p>
+
+<p>"Soon after my arrival supper was ready. It consisted of fowls, bacon,
+hoe-cake and buckwheat cakes. Our beverage was milk and coffee,
+sweetened with maple sugar. Soon as it grew dark my hostess took down a
+small candle mould for three candles, hanging from the wall on a
+frame-work just in front of the fire-place, in company with a rifle,
+long strings of dried pumpkins and other articles of household property.
+On retiring I was conducted to the room overhead, to which I ascended by
+stairs out of doors. My bed-fellow was the county sheriff, a young man
+of about my own age. And as we lay together a fine field was had for
+astronomical observations through the chinks of the logs.</p>
+
+<p>"The next morning, after rising, I was looking for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>the washing
+apparatus, when he tapped me on the shoulder, as a signal to accompany
+him to the brook in the rear of the house, in whose pure crystal waters
+we performed our morning ablutions. After breakfast, through the
+persuasion of the sheriff, I agreed to go across the country by his
+house. He was on horseback; I on foot bearing my knapsack. For six miles
+our route lay through a pathless forest; on emerging from which we soon
+passed through the 'Court House,' the only village in the county,
+consisting of about a dozen log-houses and the court building.</p>
+
+<p>"Soon after we came to a Methodist encampment. This was formed of three
+continuous lines, each occupying a side of a square and about one
+hundred feet in length. Each row was divided into six or ten cabins with
+partitions between. The height of the rows on the inner side of the
+enclosed area was about ten feet, on the outer about six, to which the
+roofs sloped shed-like. The door of each cabin opened on the inner side
+of the area, and at the back of each was a log chimney coming up even
+with the roof. At the upper extremity of the inclosure, formed by these
+three lines of cabins, was an open shed; a mere roof supported by posts,
+say thirty by fifty feet, in which was a coarse pulpit and log seats. A
+few tall trees were standing within the area, and many stumps <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>scattered
+here and there. The whole establishment was in the depth of a forest,
+and wild and rude as can well be imagined.</p>
+
+<p>"In many of these sparsely-inhabited counties there are no settled
+clergy, and rarely do the people hear any other than the Methodist
+preachers. Here is the itinerating system of Wesley exhibited in its
+full usefulness. The circuits are usually of three weeks' duration, in
+which the clergymen preach daily. Most of these preachers are energetic,
+devoted men; and often they endure great privations.</p>
+
+<p>"After sketching the encampment I came in a few moments to the dwelling
+of the sheriff. Close by it was a group of mountain men and women seated
+around a log cabin, about twelve feet square, ten high, and open at the
+top, into which these neighbors of my companion were casting ears of
+corn as fast as they could shuck them. Cheerfully they performed their
+task. The men were large and hardy; the damsels plump and rosy, and all
+dressed in good warm homespun. The sheriff informed me that he owned
+about two thousand acres around his dwelling, and that his farm was
+worth about one thousand dollars or fifty cents an acre.</p>
+
+<p>"I entered his log domicile which was one story in height, about twenty
+feet square and divided into two small rooms without windows or places
+to let in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>light except by a front and rear door. I soon partook of
+a meal in which we had a variety of luxuries, not omitting <i>bear's
+meat</i>. A blessing was asked at the table by one of the neighbors. After
+supper the bottle, as usual at corn huskings, was circulated. The
+sheriff learning that I was a Washingtonian, with the politeness of one
+of nature's gentlemen refrained from urging me to participate. The men
+drank but moderately; and we all drew around the fire, the light of
+which was the only one we had. Hunting stories and kindred topics served
+to talk down the hours till bed time.</p>
+
+<p>"On awaking in the morning, I saw two women cooking breakfast in my
+bedroom, and three men seated over the fire watching the operation.
+After breakfast, I bade my host farewell, buckled on my knapsack and
+left. In the course of two hours, I came to a cabin by the wayside.
+There being no gate, I sprang over the fence, entered the open door, and
+was received with a hearty welcome. It was an humble dwelling, the abode
+of poverty. The few articles of furniture were neat and pleasantly
+arranged. In the corner stood two beds, one hung with curtains, and both
+with coverlets of snowy white, contrasting with the dingy log walls,
+rude furniture, and rough boarded floor of this, the only room in the
+dwelling. Around a cheerful fire was seated an interesting <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>family
+group. In one corner, on the hearth, sat the mother, smoking a pipe.
+Next to her was a little girl, in a small chair, holding a young kitten.
+In the opposite corner sat a venerable old man, of herculean stature,
+robed in a hunting shirt, and with a countenance as majestic and
+impressive as that of a Roman senator. In the centre of the group was a
+young maiden, modest and retiring, not beautiful, except in that moral
+beauty virtue gives. She was reading to them from a little book. She was
+the only one of the family who could read, and she could do so but
+imperfectly. In that small volume was the whole secret of the neatness
+and happiness found in this lonely cot. That little book was the New
+Testament."</p>
+
+<p>The institution of camp-meetings, introduced with so much success by the
+Methodists, those noble pioneers of Christianity, seem to have been the
+necessary result of the attempt to preach to the sparsely settled
+population of a new country. The following is said to be the origin of
+those camp-meetings which have done incalculable good, socially,
+intellectually, and religiously.</p>
+
+<p>In the year 1799, two men by the name of McGee, one a Presbyterian, the
+other a Methodist, set out on a missionary tour together, to visit the
+log-houses in the wilderness. A meeting was appointed at a little
+settlement upon one of the tributaries of the Ohio. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>The pioneers
+flocked to the place from many miles around. There was no church there,
+and the meeting was necessarily held in the open air. Many brought their
+food with them and camped out. Thus the meeting, with exhortation and
+prayer, was continued in the night. Immense bonfires blazed illuminating
+the sublimities of the forest, and the assembled congregation, cut off
+from all the ordinary privileges of civilized life, listened devoutly to
+the story of a Savior's love.</p>
+
+<p>This meeting was so successful in its results that another was appointed
+at a small settlement on the banks of a stream called Muddy river. The
+tidings spread rapidly through all the stations and farm houses on the
+frontier. It afforded these lonely settlers a delightful opportunity of
+meeting together. They could listen for hours with unabated interest to
+the religious exercises. The people assembled from a distance of forty
+or fifty miles around. A vast concourse had met beneath the foliage of
+the trees, the skies alone, draped with clouds by day and adorned with
+stars by night, the dome of their majestic temple.</p>
+
+<p>The scene, by night, must have been picturesque in the extreme. Men,
+women and children were there in homespun garb; and being accustomed to
+camp life, they were there in comfort. Strangers met and became friends.
+Many wives and mothers obtained <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>rest and refreshment from their
+monotonous toils. There is a bond in Christ's discipleship, stronger
+than any other, and Christians grasped hands in love, pledging
+themselves anew to a holy life. For several days and nights, this
+religious festival was continued. Time could not have been better spent.
+Dwellers in the forest could not afford to take so long a journey merely
+to listen to one half-hour's discourse. These men and women were earnest
+and thoughtful. In the solitude of their homes, they had reflected
+deeply upon life and its issues. When death occasionally visited their
+cabins, it was a far more awful event than when death occurs in the
+crowded city, where the hearse is every hour of every day passing
+through the streets.</p>
+
+<p>These scenes of worship very deeply impressed the minds of the people.
+They were not Gospel hardened. The gloom and silence of the forest,
+alike still by night and by day; the memory of the past, with its few
+joys and many griefs; the anticipations of the future, with its
+unceasing struggles, to terminate only in death; the solemnity which
+rested on every countenance; the sweet melody of the hymns; the earnest
+tones of the preachers in exhortation and prayer, all combined to
+present a scene calculated to produce a very profound impression upon
+the human mind. At this meeting, not only professed Christians were
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>greatly revived, but not less than a hundred persons, it was thought,
+became disciples of the Savior.</p>
+
+<p>Another camp-meeting was soon after appointed to meet on Desha's Creek,
+a small stream flowing into the Cumberland river. The country was now
+becoming more populous, and several thousand were assembled. And thus
+the work went on, multitudes being thus reached by the preached Gospel
+who could not be reached in any other way.<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a></p>
+
+<p>Life on the frontier was by no means devoid of its enjoyments as well as
+of its intense excitements. It must have been also an exceedingly busy
+life. There were no mills for cutting timber or grinding corn; no
+blacksmith shops to repair the farming utensils. There were no
+tanneries, no carpenters, shoemakers, weavers. Every family had to do
+everything for itself. The corn was pounded with a heavy pestle in a
+large mortar made by burning an excavation in a solid block of wood. By
+means of these mortars the settlers, in regions where saltpetre could be
+obtained, made very respectable gunpowder. In making corn-meal a grater
+was sometimes used, consisting of a half-circular piece of tin,
+perforated with a punch from the concave side. The ears of corn were
+rubbed on the rough edges, and the meal fell through the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>holes on a
+board or cloth placed to receive it. They also sometimes made use of a
+handmill, resembling those alluded to in the Bible. These consisted of
+two circular stones; the lowest, which was immovable, was called the
+bed-stone,&mdash;the upper one, the runner. Two persons could grind together
+at this mill.</p>
+
+<p>The clothing was all of domestic manufacture. A fabric called
+linsey-woolsey was most frequently in use and made the most substantial
+and warmest clothing. It was made of flax and wool, the former the warp,
+the latter the filling. Every cabin almost had its rude loom, and every
+woman was a weaver.</p>
+
+<p>The men tanned their own leather. A large trough was sunk in the ground
+to its upper edge. Bark was shaved with an axe and pounded with a
+mallet. Ashes were used for lime in removing the hair. In the winter
+evenings the men made strong shoes and moccasins, and the women cut out
+and made hunting shirts, leggins and drawers.</p>
+
+<p>Hunting was a great source of amusement as well as a very exciting and
+profitable employment. The boys were all taught to imitate the call of
+every bird and beast in the woods. The skill in imitation which they
+thus acquired was wonderful. Hidden in a thicket they would gobble like
+a turkey and lure a whole flock of these birds within reach of their
+rifles. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>Bleating like the fawn they would draw the timid dam to her
+death. The moping owls would come in flocks attracted by the screech of
+the hunter, while packs of wolves, far away in the forest, would howl in
+response to the hunter's cry. The boys also rivalled the Indians in the
+skill with which they would throw the tomahawk. With a handle of a given
+length, and measuring the distance with the eye, they would throw the
+weapon with such accuracy that its keen edge would be sure to strike the
+object at which it was aimed. Running, jumping, wrestling were pastimes
+in which both boys and men engaged. Shooting at a mark was one of the
+most favorite diversions. When a boy had attained the age of about
+twelve years, a rifle was usually placed in his hands. In the house or
+fort where he resided, a port-hole was assigned him, where he was to do
+valiant service as a soldier, in case of an attack by the Indians. Every
+day he was in the woods hunting squirrels, turkeys and raccoons. Thus he
+soon acquired extraordinary expertness with his gun.</p>
+
+<p>The following interesting narrative is taken from Ramsay's Annals of
+Tennessee, which State was settled about the same time with Kentucky and
+with emigrants from about the same region:</p>
+
+<p>"The settlement of Tennessee was unlike that of the present new country
+of the United States. Emigrants <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>from the Atlantic cities, and from most
+points in the Western interior, now embark upon steamboats or other
+craft, and carrying with them all the conveniences and comforts of
+civilized life&mdash;indeed many of its luxuries&mdash;are, in a few days, without
+toil, danger or exposure, transported to their new abodes, and in a few
+months are surrounded with the appendages of home, of civilization and
+the blessings of law and of society.</p>
+
+<p>"The wilds of Minnesota and Nebraska, by the agency of steam or the
+stalwart arms of Western boatmen, are at once transformed into the
+settlements of a commercial and civilized people. Independence and Saint
+Paul, six months after they are laid off, have their stores and their
+workshops, their artisans and their mechanics. The mantua-maker and the
+tailor arrive in the same boat with the carpenter and mason. The
+professional man and the printer quickly follow. In the succeeding year
+the piano, the drawing-room, the restaurant, the billiard table, the
+church bell, the village and the city in miniature are all found, while
+the neighboring interior is yet a wilderness and a desert.</p>
+
+<p>"The town and comfort, taste and urbanity are first; the clearing, the
+farm house, the wagon road and the improved country, second. It was far
+different on the frontier of Tennessee. At first a single <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>Indian trail
+was the only entrance to the Eastern border of it, and for many years
+admitted only the hunter and the pack-horse. It was not till the year
+1776 that a wagon was seen in Tennessee. In consequence of the want of
+roads&mdash;as well as of the great distance from the sources of supply&mdash;the
+first inhabitants were without tools, and of course without
+mechanics&mdash;much more without the conveniences of living and the comforts
+of housekeeping.</p>
+
+<p>"Luxuries were absolutely unknown. Salt was brought on pack-horses from
+Augusta and Richmond and readily commanded ten dollars a bushel. The
+salt gourd in every cabin was considered as a treasure. The sugar maple
+furnished the only article of luxury on the frontier; coffee and tea
+being unknown or beyond the reach of the settlers. Sugar was seldom made
+and was used only for the sick, or in the preparation of a sweetened
+dram at a wedding, or on the arrival of a new comer.</p>
+
+<p>"The appendages of the kitchen, the cupboard and the table, were scanty
+and simple. Iron was brought at great expense from the forges east of
+the mountains, on pack-horses, and was sold at an enormous price. Its
+use was, for this reason, confined to the construction and repair of
+ploughs and other farming utensils. Hinges, nails and fastenings of that
+material were seldom seen. The costume of the first settlers
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>corresponded well with the style of their buildings and the quality of
+their furniture: the hunting shirt of the militia man and the hunter was
+in general use. The rest of their apparel was in keeping with
+it,&mdash;plain, substantial and well adapted for comfort, use and economy.
+The apparel of the pioneer's family was all home-made; and in a whole
+neighborhood there would not be seen, at the first settlement of the
+country, a single article of dress of foreign manufacture. Half the
+year, in many families, shoes were not worn. Boots, a fur hat and a
+coat, with buttons on each side, attracted the gaze of the beholder and
+sometimes received censure or rebuke. A stranger from the old States
+chose to doff his ruffles, his broad-cloth and his cue rather than
+endure the scoff and ridicule of the backwoodsman.</p>
+
+<p>"The dwelling house on every frontier in Tennessee was the log-cabin. A
+carpenter and a mason were not needed to build them&mdash;much less the
+painter, the glazier and the upholsterer. Every settler had, besides his
+rifle, no other instrument but an axe or hatchet and a butcher-knife. A
+saw, an auger, a file and a broad-axe would supply a whole settlement,
+and were used as common property in the erection of the log-cabin.</p>
+
+<p>"The labor and employment of a pioneer family were distributed in
+accordance with surrounding circumstances. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>To the men was assigned the
+duty of procuring subsistence and materials for clothing, erecting the
+cabin and the station, opening and cultivating the farm, hunting the
+wild beasts, and repelling and pursueing the Indians. The women spun the
+flax, the cotton and the wool, wove the cloth, made them up, milked,
+churned and prepared the food, and did their full share of the duties of
+housekeeping.</p>
+
+<p>"Could there be happiness or comfort in such dwellings and such a state
+of society? To those who are accustomed to modern refinements the truth
+appears like fable. The early occupants of log-cabins were among the
+most happy of mankind. Exercise and excitement gave them health. They
+were practically equal, common danger made them mutually dependent.
+Brilliant hopes of future wealth and distinction led them on. And as
+there was ample room for all, and as each new comer increased individual
+and general security, there was little room for that envy, jealousy and
+hatred which constitute a large portion of human misery in older
+societies.</p>
+
+<p>"Never were the story, the joke, the song and the laugh better enjoyed
+than upon the hewed blocks or puncheon stools, around the roaring log
+fire of the early western settler.</p>
+
+<p>"On the frontier the diet was necessarily plain and homely, but
+exceedingly abundant and nutritive. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>The Goshen of America furnishes the
+richest milk and the most savory and delicious meats. In their rude
+cabins, with their scanty and inartificial furniture, no people ever
+enjoyed, in wholesome food a greater variety, or a superior quality of
+the necessaries of life."</p>
+
+<p>A writer of that day describes the sports of these pioneers of Kentucky.
+One of them consisted in "driving the nail." A common nail was hammered
+into a target for about two thirds of its length. The marksmen then took
+their stand at the distance of about forty paces. Each man carefully
+cleaned the interior of his gun, and then placed a bullet in his hand,
+over which he poured just enough powder to cover it. This was a charge.
+A shot which only came close to the nail was considered a very
+indifferent shot. Nothing was deemed satisfactory but striking the nail
+with the bullet fairly on the head. Generally one out of three shots
+would hit the nail. Two nails were frequently needed before each man
+could get a shot.</p>
+
+<p><i>Barking of Squirrels</i> is another sport. "I first witnessed," writes the
+one to whom we have above alluded, "this manner of procuring squirrels,
+while near the town of Frankfort. The performer was the celebrated
+Daniel Boone. We walked out together and followed the rocky margins of
+the Kentucky river, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>until we reached a piece of flat land, thickly
+covered with black walnuts, oaks, and hickories. Squirrels were seen
+gambolling on every tree around us. My companion Mr. Boone, a stout,
+hale, athletic man, dressed in a homespun hunting shirt, bare legged and
+moccasined, carried a long and heavy rifle, which, as he was loading it,
+he said had proved efficient in all his former undertakings, and which
+he hoped would not fail on this occasion, as he felt proud to show me
+his skill.</p>
+
+<p>"The gun was wiped, the powder measured, the ball patched with six
+hundred thread linen, and a charge sent home with a hickory rod. We
+moved not a step from the place, for the squirrels were so thick, that
+it was unnecessary to go after them. Boone pointed to one of these
+animals, which had observed us and was crouched on a tree, about fifty
+paces distant, and bade me mark well where the ball should hit. He
+raised his piece gradually, until the head, or sight of the barrel, was
+brought to a line with the spot he intended to strike. The whip-like
+report resounded through the woods, and along the hills, in repeated
+echoes. Judge of my surprise, when I perceived that the ball had hit the
+piece of bark immediately underneath the squirrel, and shivered it into
+splinters; the concussion produced by which had killed the animal, and
+sent it whirling through the air, as if it had been <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>blown up by the
+explosion of a powder magazine, Boone kept up his firing, and before
+many hours had elapsed, we had procured as many squirrels as we wished.
+Since that first interview with the veteran Boone, I have seen many
+other individuals perform the same feat.</p>
+
+<p>"The <i>Snuffing of a Candle</i> with a ball, I first had an opportunity of
+seeing near the banks of Green River, not far from a large pigeon roost,
+to which I had previously made a visit. I had heard many reports of guns
+during the early part of a dark night, and knowing them to be rifles, I
+went towards the spot to ascertain the cause. On reaching the place, I
+was welcomed by a dozen tall, stout men, who told me they were
+exercising for the purpose of enabling them to shoot in the night at the
+reflected light from the eyes of a deer, or wolf, by torch-light.</p>
+
+<p>"A fire was blazing near, the smoke of which rose curling among the
+thick foliage of the trees. At a distance which rendered it scarcely
+distinguishable, stood a burning candle, which in reality was only fifty
+yards from the spot on which we all stood. One man was within a few
+yards of it to watch the effect of the shots, as well as to light the
+candle, should it chance to go out, or to replace it should the shot cut
+it across. Each marksman shot in his turn. Some never hit neither the
+snuff or the candle, and were congratulated <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>with a loud laugh; while
+others actually snuffed the candle without putting it out, and were
+recompensed for their dexterity with numerous hurrahs. One of them, who
+was particularly expert, was very fortunate and snuffed the candle three
+times out of seven; while all the other shots either put out the candle
+or cut it immediately under the light."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/ichapend.jpg" width="450" height="120" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Louisiana, its Discovery and Vicissitudes.</i></h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot2"><p>Louisiana, and its eventful history.&mdash;The Expedition of De
+Soto.&mdash;The Missionary Marquette.&mdash;His voyage on the Upper
+Mississippi.&mdash;The Expedition of La Salle.&mdash;Michilimackinac.&mdash;Its
+History.&mdash;Fate of the "Griffin."&mdash;Grief of La Salle.&mdash;His voyage of
+Discovery.&mdash;Sale of Louisiana to the United States.&mdash;Remarks of
+Napoleon.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>The transfer of Louisiana to the United States is one of the most
+interesting events in the history of our country. In the year 1800,
+Spain, then in possession of the vast region west of the Mississippi,
+ceded it to France. The whole country west of the majestic river
+appropriately called the Father of Waters, was then called Louisiana,
+and its boundaries were very obscurely defined. Indeed neither the
+missionary nor the hunter had penetrated but a very short distance into
+those unknown wilds. It was in the year 1541 that De Soto, marching from
+Florida across the country, came to the banks of this magnificent river,
+near the present site of Memphis. He knew not where it took its rise, or
+where it emptied its swollen flood. But he found a stream more than a
+mile in width, of almost fathomless depth, rolling <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>its rapid, turbid
+stream, on which were floated innumerable logs and trees, through an
+almost uninhabited country of wonderful luxuriance. He was in search of
+gold, and crossing the river, advanced in a north-westerly direction
+about two hundred miles, till he came within sight of the Highlands of
+the White River. He then turned in a southerly direction, and continued
+his explorations, till death soon terminated his melancholy career.</p>
+
+<p>More than one hundred and thirty years passed over these solitudes, when
+James Marquette, a French missionary among the Indians at Saint Marys,
+the outlet of Lake Superior, resolved to explore the Mississippi, of
+whose magnificence he had heard much from the lips of the Indians, who
+had occasionally extended their hunting tours to its banks. He was
+inured to all the hardships of the wilderness, seemed to despise worldly
+comforts, and had a soul of bravery which could apparently set all
+perils at defiance. And still he was indued with a poetic nature, which
+reveled in the charms of these wild and romantic realms, as he climbed
+its mountains and floated in his canoe over its silent and placid
+streams. Even then it was not known whether the Mississippi emptied its
+majestic flood into the Pacific Ocean or into the Gulf of Mexico. The
+foot of the white man upon the shores of Lake Superior, had never
+penetrated beyond the Indian village, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>where the Fox River enters into
+Green Bay. From this point Marquette started for the exploration of the
+Mississippi. The party consisted of Mr. Marquette, a French gentleman by
+the name of Joliete, five French voyageurs and two Indian guides. They
+transported their two birch canoes on their shoulders across the portage
+from the Fox River to the Wisconsin river. Paddling rapidly down this
+stream through realms of silence and solitude, they soon entered the
+majestic Mississippi, more than fifteen hundred miles above its mouth.</p>
+
+<p>Marquette seems to have experienced in the highest degree the romance of
+his wonderful voyage, for he says that he commenced the descent of the
+mighty river with "a joy that could not be expressed." It was the
+beautiful month of June, 1673, the most genial season of the year. The
+skies were bright above them. The placid stream was fringed with banks
+of wonderful luxuriance and beauty, the rocky cliffs at times assuming
+the aspect of majestic castles of every variety of architecture; again
+the gently swelling hills were robed in sublime forests, and again the
+smooth meadows, in their verdure, spread far away to the horizon.
+Rapidly the canoes, gently guided by the paddles, floated down the
+stream.</p>
+
+<p>Having descended the river about one hundred and eighty miles, they came
+to a very well trod Indian <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>trail leading back from the river into the
+interior. Marquette and Joliete had the curiosity and the courage to
+follow this trail for six miles, until they came to an Indian village.
+It would seem that some of the Indians there, in their hunting
+excursions, had wandered to some of the French settlements; for four of
+their leading men, dressed in the most gorgeous display of barbaric
+pomp, "brilliant with many colored plumes," came out to meet them and
+conducted them to the cabin of their chief. He addressed them in the
+following words:</p>
+
+<p>"How beautiful is the sun, Frenchman, when thou comest to visit us. Our
+whole village welcomes thee. In peace thou shalt enter all our
+dwellings."</p>
+
+<p>After a very pleasant visit they returned to their boats and resumed
+their voyage. They floated by the mouth of the turbid Missouri, little
+dreaming of the grandeur of the realms watered by that imperial stream
+and its tributaries. They passed the mouth of the Ohio, which they
+recognized as the <i>Belle Rivi&egrave;re</i>, which the Indians then called the
+Wabash. As they floated rapidly away towards the south they visited many
+Indian villages on the banks of the stream, where the devoted
+missionary, Marquette, endeavored to proclaim the gospel of Christ.</p>
+
+<p>"I did not," says Marquette, "fear death. I should have esteemed it the
+greatest happiness to have died for the glory of God."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span></p><p>Thus they continued their exploration as far south as the mouth of the
+Arkansas river, where they were hospitably received in a very
+flourishing Indian village. Being now satisfied that the Mississippi
+river entered the Gulf of Mexico, somewhere between Florida and
+California, they returned to Green Bay by the route of the Illinois
+river. By taking advantage of the eddies, on either side of the stream,
+it was not difficult for them, in their light canoes, to make the
+ascent.</p>
+
+<p>Marquette landed on the western banks of Lake Michigan to preach the
+gospel to a tribe of Indians called the Miames, residing near the
+present site of Chicago. Joliete returned to Quebec to announce the
+result of their discoveries. He was received with great rejoicing. The
+whole population flocked to the cathedral, where the <i>Te Deum</i> was sung.</p>
+
+<p>Five years passed away, during which the great river flowed almost
+unthought of, through its vast and sombre wilderness. At length in the
+year 1678, La Salle received a commission from Louis the XIV. of France
+to explore the Mississippi to its mouth. Having received from the king
+the command of Fort Frontenac, at the northern extremity of Lake
+Ontario, and a monopoly of the fur trade in all the countries he should
+discover, he sailed from Larochelle in a ship well armed and abundantly
+supplied, in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>June, 1678. Ascending the St. Lawrence to Quebec, he
+repaired to Fort Frontenac. With a large number of men he paddled, in
+birch canoes, to the southern extremity of Lake Ontario, and, by a
+portage around the falls of Niagara, entered Lake Erie. Here he built a
+substantial vessel, called the <i>Griffin</i>, which was the first vessel
+ever launched upon the waters of that lake. Embarking in this vessel
+with forty men, in the month of September, a genial and gorgeous month
+in those latitudes, he traversed with favoring breezes the whole length
+of the lake, a voyage of two hundred and sixty-five miles, ascended the
+straits and passed through the Lake of St. Clair, and ran along the
+coast of Lake Huron three hundred and sixty miles to Michilimackinac,
+where the three majestic lakes, Superior, Michigan and Huron, form a
+junction.</p>
+
+<p>Here a trading post was established, which subsequently attained
+world-wide renown, and to which the Indians flocked with their furs from
+almost boundless realms. Mr. Schoolcraft, who some years after visited
+this romantic spot, gives the following interesting account of the
+scenery and strange life witnessed there. As these phases of human life
+have now passed away, never to be renewed, it seems important that the
+memory of them should be perpetuated:</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p><p>"Nothing can present a more picturesque and refreshing spectacle to the
+traveler, wearied with the lifeless monotony of a voyage through Lake
+Huron, than the first sight of the island of Michilimackinac, which
+rises from the watery horizon in lofty bluffs imprinting a rugged
+outline along the sky and capped with a fortress on which the American
+flag is seen waving against the blue heavens. The name is a compound of
+the word <i>Misril</i>, signifying great, and <i>Mackinac</i> the Indian word for
+turtle, from a fancied resemblance of the island to a <i>great turtle</i>
+lying upon the water.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a spot of much interest, aside from its romantic beauty, in
+consequence of its historical associations and natural curiosities. It
+is nine miles in circumference, and its extreme elevation above the lake
+is over three hundred feet. The town is pleasantly situated around a
+small bay at the southern extremity of the island, and contains a few
+hundred souls, which are sometimes swelled to one or two thousand by the
+influx of voyageurs, traders and Indians. On these occasions its
+beautiful harbor is seen checkered with American vessels at anchor, and
+Indian canoes rapidly shooting across the water in every direction.</p>
+
+<p>"It was formerly the seat of an extensive fur trade; at present it is
+noted for the great amount of trout <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>and white fish annually exported.
+Fort Mackinac stood on a rocky bluff overlooking the town. The ruins of
+Fort Holmes are on the apex of the island. It was built by the British
+in the war of 1812, under the name of Fort George, and was changed to
+its present appellation after the surrender to the Americans, in
+compliment to the memory of Major Holmes, who fell in the attack upon
+the island.</p>
+
+<p>"The old town of Michilimackinac stood at the extreme point of the
+peninsula of Michigan, nine miles south of the island. Eight years
+before La Salle's expedition, Father Marquette, the French missionary,
+visited this spot with a party of Hurons, upon whom he prevailed to
+locate themselves. A fort was soon constructed, and became an important
+post. It continued to be the seat of the fur trade, and the undisturbed
+rendezvous of the Indian tribes during the whole period that the French
+exercised dominion over the Canadas."</p>
+
+<p>Here at Michilimackinac, La Salle purchased a rich cargo of furs,
+exchanging for them his goods at an immense profit. The <i>Griffin</i>, laden
+with wealth, set out on her return and was wrecked by the way with total
+loss. La Salle with his companions had embarked in birch canoes, and
+descending Lake Michigan to near its southern extremity, they landed and
+erected a fort which they called Miamis. They <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>then carried their canoes
+across to the Illinois river and paddled down that stream until they
+came near to the present site of Peoria, where they established another
+fort, which La Salle, grief-stricken in view of his loss, named
+<i>Cr&egrave;ve-C&oelig;ur</i>, or Heartsore. Here the energetic and courageous
+adventurer left his men in winter quarters, while, with but three
+companions, he traversed the wilderness on foot, amidst the snows of
+winter, to Fort Frontenac, a distance of fifteen hundred miles. After an
+absence of several weeks, he returned with additional men and the means
+of building a large and substantial flat-bottomed boat, with which to
+descend the Illinois river to the Mississippi, and the latter stream to
+its mouth.</p>
+
+<p>The romantic achievement was successfully accomplished. The banners of
+France were unfurled along the banks of the majestic river and upon the
+shores of the Gulf of Mexico. This whole region which France claimed by
+the right of discovery, was named in honor of the king of France,
+Louisiana. Its limits were necessarily quite undefined. In 1684, a
+French colony of two hundred and eighty persons was sent out to effect a
+settlement on the Lower Mississippi. Passing by the mouth of the river
+without discovering it, they landed in Texas, and took possession of the
+country in the name of the king of France. Disaster followed disaster.
+La Salle died, and the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>colonists were exterminated by the Indians. Not
+long after this, all the country west of the Mississippi was ceded by
+France to Spain, and again, some years after, was surrendered back again
+by Spain to France. We have not space here to allude to the details of
+these varied transactions. But this comprehensive record seems to be
+essential to the full understanding of the narrative upon which we have
+entered.</p>
+
+<p>It was in the year 1763 that Louisiana was ceded, by France, to Spain.
+In the year 1800, it was yielded back to France, under Napoleon, by a
+secret article in the treaty of Sn. Ildefonso. It had now become a
+matter of infinite moment to the United States that the great Republic
+should have undisputed command of the Mississippi, from its source to
+its mouth. President Jefferson instructed our Minister at Paris, Robert
+Livingston, to negotiate with the French Government for the purchase of
+Louisiana. France was then at war with England. The British fleet swept
+triumphantly all the seas. Napoleon, conscious that he could not protect
+Louisiana from British arms, consented to the sale. We are informed that
+on the 10th of April, 1803, he summoned two of his ministers in council,
+and said to them:</p>
+
+<p>"I am fully sensible of the value of Louisiana; and it was my wish to
+repair the error of the French diplomatists who abandoned it in 1763. I
+have scarcely <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>recovered it before I run the risk of losing it. But if I
+am obliged to give it up it shall cost more to those who force me to
+part with it, than to those to whom I yield it. The English have
+despoiled France of all her Northern possessions in America, and now
+they covet those of the South. I am determined that they shall not have
+the Mississippi. Although Louisiana is but a trifle compared with their
+vast possessions in other parts of the globe, yet, judging from the
+vexation they have manifested on seeing it return to the power of
+France, I am certain that their first object will be to obtain
+possession of it.</p>
+
+<p>"They will probably commence the war in that quarter. They have twenty
+vessels in the Gulf of Mexico, and our affairs in St. Domingo are daily
+getting worse, since the death of Le Clere. The conquest of Louisiana
+might be easily made, and I have not a moment to lose in putting it out
+of their reach. I am not sure but that they have already began an attack
+upon it. Such a measure would be in accordance with their habits; and in
+their place I should not wait. I am inclined, in order to deprive them
+of all prospect of ever possessing it, to cede it to the United States.
+Indeed I can hardly say I cede it, for I do not yet possess it. And if I
+wait but a short time, my enemies may leave me nothing but an empty
+title to grant to the Republic I wish to conciliate. They <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>only ask for
+one city of Louisiana; but I consider the whole colony as lost. And I
+believe that in the hands of this rising power, it will be more useful
+to the political and even the commercial interests of France, than if I
+should attempt to retain it. Let me have both of your opinions upon this
+subject."</p>
+
+<p>One of the ministers, Barb&eacute; Marbois, cordially approved of the plan of
+"cession." The other opposed it. After long deliberation, the conference
+was closed, without Napoleon making known his decision. The next day he
+sent for Barb&eacute; Marbois, and said to him:</p>
+
+<p>"The season for deliberation is over. I have determined to part with
+Louisiana. I shall give up not only New Orleans, but the whole colony
+without reservation. That I do not undervalue Louisiana I have
+sufficiently proved, as the object of my first treaty with Spain was to
+recover it. But though I regret parting with it, I am convinced that it
+would be folly to persist in trying to keep it. I commission you,
+therefore, to negotiate this affair with the envoys of the United
+States. Do not wait the arrival of Mr. Munroe, but go this very day and
+confer with Mr. Livingston.</p>
+
+<p>"Remember, however, that I need ample funds for carrying on the war; and
+I do not wish to commence it by levying new taxes. During the last
+century, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>France and Spain have incurred great expense in the
+improvement of Louisiana, for which her trade has never indemnified
+them. Large sums have been advanced to different companies, which have
+never returned to the treasury. It is fair that I should require payment
+for these. Were I to regulate my demands by the importance of this
+territory to the United States, they would be unbounded. But being
+obliged to part with it, I shall be moderate in my terms. Still,
+remember I must have fifty millions of francs ($10,000,000), and I will
+not consent to take less. I would rather make some desperate effort to
+preserve this fine country."</p>
+
+<p>Negotiations commenced that day. Soon Mr. Munroe arrived. On the 30th of
+April, 1803, the treaty was signed, the United States paying fifteen
+million dollars for the entire territory. It was stipulated by Napoleon
+that Louisiana should be, as soon as possible, incorporated into the
+Union; and that its inhabitants should enjoy the same rights,
+privileges, and immunities as other citizens of the United States. The
+third article of the treaty, securing to them these benefits, was drawn
+up by Napoleon himself. He presented it to the plenipotentiaries with
+these words:</p>
+
+<p>"Make it known to the people of Louisiana, that we regret to part with
+them; that we have stipulated <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>for all the advantages they could desire;
+and that France, in giving them up, has insured to them the greatest of
+all. They could never have prospered under any European government, as
+they will when they become independent. But while they enjoy the
+privileges of liberty, let them ever remember that they are French, and
+preserve for their mother country that affection, which a common origin
+inspires."</p>
+
+<p>This purchase was an immense acquisition to the United States. "I
+consider," said Mr. Livingston, "that from this day, the United States
+take rank with the first powers of Europe, and now she has entirely
+escaped from the power of England."</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon was also well pleased with the transaction, "By this cession,"
+he said, "I have secured the power of the United States, and given to
+England a maritime rival, who, at some future time, will humble her
+pride."</p>
+
+<p>The boundaries of this unexampled purchase could not be clearly defined.
+There was not any known landmarks to which reference could be made. The
+United States thus had the sole claim to the vast territory west of the
+Mississippi, extending on the north through Oregon to the Pacific Ocean,
+and on the south to the Mexican dominions. From the day of the transfer,
+the natural resources of the great valley of the Mississippi began to be
+rapidly developed.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p><p>The accompanying map will enable the reader more fully to understand the
+geography of the above narrative.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/ichapend.jpg" width="450" height="120" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Camp Life Beyond the Alleghanies.</i></h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot2"><p>John Finley and his Adventures.&mdash;Aspect of the Country.&mdash;Boone's
+Private Character.&mdash;His Love for the Wilderness.&mdash;First view of
+Kentucky.&mdash;Emigrants' Dress.&mdash;Hunter's Home.&mdash;Capture of Boone and
+Stewart by the Indians.&mdash;Their Escape.&mdash;Singular Incident.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>In the year 1767, a bold hunter by the name of John Finley with two or
+three companions crossed the mountain range of the Alleghanies into the
+region beyond, now known as Kentucky. The mountains where he crossed,
+consisting of a series of parallel ridges, some of which were quite
+impassable save at particular points, presented a rugged expanse nearly
+fifty miles in breadth. It took many weary days for these moccassined
+feet to traverse the wild solitudes. The Indian avoids the mountains. He
+chooses the smooth prairie where the buffalo and the elk graze, and
+where the wild turkey, the grouse and the prairie chicken, wing their
+flight, or the banks of some placid stream over which he can glide in
+his birch canoe, and where fish of every variety can be taken. Indeed
+the Indians, with an eye for picturesque beauty, seldom reared their
+villages in the forest, whose glooms <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>repelled them. Generally where the
+forest approached the stream, they clustered their wigwams in its edge,
+with the tranquil river and the open country spread out before them.</p>
+
+<p>John Finley and his companions traversed the broad expanse of the
+Alleghanies, without meeting any signs of human life. The extreme
+western ridge of these parallel eminences or spurs, has received the
+name of the Cumberland mountains. Passing through a gorge, which has
+since then become renowned in peace and war as Cumberland Gap, they
+entered upon a vast undulating expanse, of wonderful fertility and
+beauty. In its rivers, its plains, its forests, its gentle eminences,
+its bright skies and salubrious clime, it presented then, as now, as
+attractive a residence for man as this globe can furnish. Finley and his
+companions spent several months roving through this, to them, new Eden.
+Game of every variety abounded. Through some inexplicable reason, no
+Indians held possession of the country. But wandering tribes, whose
+homes and acknowledged territory were far away in the north, the west,
+and the south, were ever traversing these regions in hunting bands. They
+often met in bloody encounters. These conflicts were so frequent and so
+sanguinary, that this realm so highly favored of God for the promotion
+of all happiness, subsequently received the appropriate name of "The
+dark and bloody ground."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p><p>After an absence of many months, Finley and his companions returned to
+North Carolina, with the most glowing accounts of the new country which
+they had found. Their story of the beauty of those realms was so
+extravagant, that many regarded them as gross exaggerations. It
+subsequently appeared, however, that they were essentially true. A more
+lovely and attractive region cannot be found on earth. It is man's
+inhumanity to man, mainly, which has ever caused such countless millions
+to mourn.</p>
+
+<p>Daniel Boone listened eagerly to the recital of John Finley and his
+associates. The story they told added fuel to the flame of emigration,
+which was already consuming him. He talked more and more earnestly of
+his desire to cross the mountains. We know not what were the emotions
+with which his wife was agitated, in view of her husband's increasing
+desire for another plunge into the wilderness. We simply know that
+through her whole career, she manifested the most tender solicitude to
+accommodate herself to the wishes of her beloved husband. Indeed he was
+a man peculiarly calculated to win a noble woman's love. Gentle in his
+demeanor, and in all his utterances, mild and affectionate in his
+intercourse with his family, he seemed quite unconscious of the heroism
+he manifested in those achievements, which gave him ever increasing
+renown.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p><p>Life in the cabin of the frontiersman, where the wants are few, and the
+supplies abundant, is comparatively a leisure life. These men knew but
+little of the hurry and the bustle with which those in the crowded city
+engage daily in the almost deadly struggle for bread. There was no want
+in the cabin of Daniel Boone. As these two hardy adventurers, John
+Finley and Daniel Boone, sat together hour after hour by the fire,
+talking of the new country which Finley had explored, the hearts of both
+burned within them again to penetrate those remote realms. To them there
+were no hardships in the journey. At the close of each day's march,
+which but slightly wearied their toughened sinews, they could in a few
+moments throw up a shelter, beneath which they would enjoy more
+luxurious sleep than the traveler, after being rocked in the rail-cars,
+can now find on the softest couches of our metropolitan hotels. And the
+dainty morsel cut with artistic skill from the fat buffalo, and toasted
+on the end of a ramrod before the camp-fire, possessed a relish which
+few epicures have ever experienced at the most sumptuous tables in Paris
+or New York. And as these men seem to have been constitutionally devoid
+of any emotions of fear from wild beasts, or still wilder Indians, the
+idea of a journey of a few hundred miles in the wilderness was not one
+to be regarded by them with any special solicitude.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p><p>Gradually they formed a plan for organizing a small party to traverse
+these beautiful realms in search of a new home. A company of six picked
+men was formed, and Daniel Boone was chosen their leader. The names of
+this party were John Finley, John Stewart, Joseph Holden, James Moncey,
+and William Cool. A journey of many hundred miles was before them.
+Through the vast mountain barrier, which could only be traversed by
+circuitous wanderings some hundreds of miles in extent, their route was
+utterly pathless, and there were many broad and rapid streams to be
+crossed, which flowed through the valleys between the mountain ridges.
+Though provision in abundance was scattered along the way, strong
+clothing must be provided, powder and bullets they must take with them,
+and all these necessaries were to be carried upon their backs, for no
+pack horses could thread the defiles of the mountains or climb their
+rugged cliffs. It was also necessary to make provision for the support
+of the families of these adventurers during their absence of many
+months. It does not appear that Mrs. Boone presented any obstacle in the
+way of her husband's embarking in this adventure. Her sons were old
+enough to assist her in the management of the farm, and game was still
+to be found in profusion in the silent prairies and sublime forests
+which surrounded them.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p><p>In the sunny clime of North Carolina May comes with all the balminess
+and soft zephyrs of a more northern summer. It was a beautiful morning
+on the first day of May, 1769, when Boone and his companions commenced
+their adventurous journey. In the brief narrative which Boone has given
+of this excursion, we perceive that it was with some considerable regret
+that he separated himself from his much loved wife and children on the
+peaceful banks of the Yadkin.</p>
+
+<p>We must infer that the first part of their journey was fatiguing, for it
+took them a full month to accomplish the passage of the mountains.
+Though it was less than a hundred miles across these ridges in a direct
+line, the circuitous route which it was necessary to take greatly
+lengthened the distance. And as they were never in a hurry, they would
+be very likely, when coming to one of the many lovely valleys on the
+banks of the Holstein, or the Clinch river, to be enticed to some days
+of delay. Where now there are thriving villages filled with the hum of
+the industries of a high civilization, there was then but the solitary
+landscape dotted with herds of buffalo and of deer.</p>
+
+<p>Boone says that in many of these regions he found buffalo roving in
+companies of several hundreds feeding upon the tender leaves of the
+canebrake, or <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>browsing upon the smooth and extended meadows. Being far
+removed from the usual route of the Indian hunters, they were very tame,
+manifesting no fear at the approach of man.</p>
+
+<p>On the seventh of June, our adventurers, at the close of a day of
+arduous travel, reached an eminence of the Cumberland Mountains, which
+gave them a commanding and an almost entrancing view of the region
+beyond, now known as the State of Kentucky. At the height upon which
+they stood, the expanse spreading out to the West, until lost in the
+distant horizon, presented an aspect of nature's loveliness such as few
+eyes have ever beheld. The sun was brilliantly sinking, accompanied by a
+gorgeous retinue of clouds. Majestic forests, wide-spread prairies, and
+lakes and rivers, gilded by the setting sun, confirmed the truth of the
+most glowing reports which had been heard from the lips of Finley. An
+artist has seized upon this incident, which he has transferred to
+canvass, in a picture which he has entitled, "Daniel Boone's first view
+of Kentucky." Engravings have been so multiplied of this painting, that
+it has become familiar to most eyes.</p>
+
+<p>The appearance of our adventurers is thus graphically described by Mr.
+Peck, in his excellent Life of Daniel Boone.</p>
+
+<p>"Their dress was of the description usually worn at <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>that period by all
+forest-rangers. The outside garment was a hunting shirt, or loose open
+frock, made of dressed deer-skins. Leggins, or drawers, of the same
+material, covered the lower extremities, to which was appended a pair of
+moccasins for the feet. The cape or collar of the hunting shirt, and the
+seams of the leggins were adorned with fringes. The undergarments were
+of coarse cotton. A leather belt encircled the body. On the right side
+was suspended the tomahawk, to be used as a hatchet. On the left was the
+hunting-knife, powder-horn, bullet-pouch, and other appendages
+indispensable for a hunter. Each person bore his trusty rifle, and as
+the party made its toilsome way amid the shrubs, and over the logs and
+loose shrubs, that accident had thrown upon the obscure trail they were
+following, each man gave a sharp lookout, as though danger, or a lurking
+enemy were near. Their garments were soiled and rent; the unavoidable
+result of long travel and exposure to the heavy rains which had fallen,
+the weather having been stormy and uncomfortable, and they had traversed
+a mountainous wilderness for several hundred miles. The leader of the
+party was of full size, with a hardy, robust, sinewy frame, and keen
+piercing hazel eyes, that glanced with quickness at every object as they
+passed on, now cast forward in the direction they were travelling, for
+signs of an old trail, and in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>next moment directed askance into the
+dense forest or the deep ravine, as if watching some concealed enemy.
+The reader will recognise in this man, the pioneer Boone at the head of
+his companions."</p>
+
+<p>The peculiar character of these men is developed in the fact, that,
+rapidly descending the western declivity of the mountains, they came to
+a beautiful meadow upon the banks of a little stream now called Red
+River. Here they reared their hut, and here they remained in apparently
+luxurious idleness all the summer; and here Daniel Boone remained all of
+the ensuing winter. Their object could scarcely have been to obtain
+furs, for they could not transport them across the mountains. There were
+in the vicinity quite a number of salt springs which the animals of the
+forest frequented in immense numbers. In the brief account which Boone
+gives of these long months, he simply says:</p>
+
+<p>"In this forest, the habitation of beasts of every kind natural to
+America, we practised hunting with great success until the twenty-second
+day of December following."</p>
+
+<p>Bears, buffalo and deer were mainly the large game which fell before
+their rifles. Water-fowl, and also land birds of almost every variety,
+were found in great profusion. It must have been a strange life which
+these six men experienced during these seven <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>months in the camp on the
+silent waters of the Red River. No Indians were seen, and no traces of
+them were discovered through this period. The hunters made several long
+excursions in various directions, apparently examining the country in
+reference to their own final settlement in it, and to the introduction
+of emigrants from the Atlantic border. Indeed it has been said that
+Daniel Boone was the secret agent of a company on the other side of the
+mountains, who wished to obtain possession of a large extent of
+territory for the formation of a colony there. But of this nothing with
+certainty is known. Yet there must have been some strong controlling
+motive to have induced these men to remain so long in their camp, which
+consisted simply of a shed of logs, on the banks of this solitary
+stream.</p>
+
+<p>Three sides of the hut were enclosed. The interstices between the logs
+were filled with moss or clay. The roof was also carefully covered with
+bark, so as to be impervious to rain. The floor was spread over with dry
+leaves and with the fragrant twigs of the hemlock, presenting a very
+inviting couch for the repose of weary men. The skins of buffaloes and
+of bears presented ample covering for their night's repose. The front of
+the hut, facing the south, was entirely open, before which blazed their
+camp-fire. Here the men seem to have been very happy. The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>climate was
+mild; they were friendly to each other; they had good health and
+abundance of food was found in their camp.</p>
+
+<p>On the twenty-second of December, Boone, with one of his companions,
+John Stewart, set out on one of their exploring tours. There were parts
+of the country called cane-brakes, covered with cane growing so thickly
+together as to be quite impenetrable to the hunter. Through portions of
+these the buffaloes had trampled their way in large companies, one
+following another, opening paths called <i>streets</i>. These streets had
+apparently been trodden for ages. Following these paths, Boone and his
+companion had advanced several miles from their camp, when suddenly a
+large party of Indians sprang from their concealment and seized them
+both as captives. The action was so sudden that there was no possibility
+of resistance. In the following words Boone describes this event:</p>
+
+<p>"This day John Stewart and I had a pleasing ramble, but fortune changed
+the scene in the close of it. We had passed through a great forest, on
+which stood myriads of trees, some gay with blossoms, others rich with
+fruits. Nature was here a series of wonders and a fund of delight. Here
+she displayed her ingenuity and industry in a variety of flowers and
+fruits, beautifully colored, elegantly shaped, and charmingly flavored;
+and we were diverted with innumerable <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>animals presenting themselves
+perpetually to our view.</p>
+
+<p>"In the decline of the day, near Kentucky river, as we ascended the brow
+of a small hill, a number of Indians rushed out upon us from a thick
+canebrake and made us prisoners. The time of our sorrow was now arrived.
+They plundered us of what we had, and kept us in confinement seven days,
+treating us with common savage usage."</p>
+
+<p>The peculiar character of Boone was here remarkably developed. His whole
+course of life had made him familiar with the manners and customs of the
+Indians. They were armed only with bows and arrows. He had the
+death-dealing rifle which they knew not how to use. His placid temper
+was never ruffled by elation in prosperity or despair in adversity. He
+assumed perfect contentment with his lot, cultivated friendly relations
+with them, taught them many things they did not know, and aided them in
+all the ways in his power. His rifle ball would instantly strike down
+the buffalo, when the arrow of the Indian would only goad him to frantic
+flight.</p>
+
+<p>The Indians admired the courage of their captive, appreciated his skill,
+and began to regard him as a friend and a helper. They relaxed their
+vigilance, while every day they were leading their prisoners far away
+from their camp into the boundless West. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>Boone was so well acquainted
+with the Indian character as to be well aware that any attempt to
+escape, if unsuccessful, would cause his immediate death. The Indians,
+exasperated by what they would deem such an insult to their hospitality,
+would immediately bury the tomahawk in his brain. Thus seven days and
+nights passed away.</p>
+
+<p>At the close of each day's travel the Indians selected some attractive
+spot for the night's encampment or bivouac, according to the state of
+the weather, near some spring or stream. Here they built a rousing fire,
+roasted choice cuts from the game they had taken, and feasted abundantly
+with jokes and laughter, and many boastful stories of their
+achievements. They then threw themselves upon the ground for sleep,
+though some one was appointed to keep a watch over their captives. But
+deceived by the entire contentment and friendliness, feigned by Boone,
+and by Stewart who implicitly followed the counsel of his leader's
+superior mind, all thoughts of any attempt of their captives to escape
+soon ceased to influence the savages.</p>
+
+<p>On the seventh night after the capture, the Indians, gorged with an
+abundant feast, were all soundly asleep. It was midnight. The flickering
+fire burned feebly. The night was dark. They were in the midst of an
+apparently boundless forest. The favorable <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>hour for an attempt to
+escape had come. But it was full of peril. Failure was certain death,
+for the Indians deemed it one of the greatest of all crimes for a
+captive who had been treated with kindness to attempt to escape. A group
+of fierce savages were sleeping around, each one of whom accustomed to
+midnight alarms, was supposed to sleep, to use an expressive phrase,
+"with one eye open." Boone, who had feigned sound slumber, cautiously
+awoke his companion who was asleep and motioned him to follow. The
+rustling of a leaf, the crackling of a twig, would instantly cause every
+savage to grasp his bow and arrow and spring from the ground.
+Fortunately the Indians had allowed their captives to retain their guns,
+which had proved so valuable in obtaining game.</p>
+
+<p>With step as light as the fall of a feather these men with moccasined
+feet crept from the encampment. After a few moments of intense
+solicitude, they found themselves in the impenetrable gloom of the
+forest, and their captors still undisturbed. With vastly superior native
+powers to the Indian, and equally accustomed to forest life, Boone was
+in all respects their superior. With the instinct of the bee, he made a
+straight line towards the encampment they had left, with the locality of
+which the Indians were not acquainted. The peril which menaced them
+added <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>wings to their flight. It was mid-winter, and though not very
+cold in that climate, fortunately for them, the December nights were
+long.</p>
+
+<p>Six precious hours would pass before the dawn of the morning would
+struggle through the tree-tops. Till then the bewildered Indians could
+obtain no clue whatever to the direction of their flight. Carefully
+guarding against leaving any traces of their footsteps behind them, and
+watching with an eagle eye lest they should encounter any other band of
+savages, they pressed forward hour after hour with sinews apparently as
+tireless as if they had been wrought of iron. When the fugitives reached
+their camp they found it plundered and deserted. Whether the red men had
+discovered it and carried off their companions as prisoners, or whether
+the white men in a panic had destroyed what they could not remove and
+had attempted a retreat to the settlements, was never known. It is
+probable that in some way they perished in the wilderness, and that
+their fate is to be added to the thousands of tragedies occurring in
+this world which no pen has recorded.</p>
+
+<p>The intrepid Boone and his companion Stewart seemed, however, to have no
+idea of abandoning their encampment. But apprehensive that the Indians
+might have discovered their retreat, they reared a small hut in another
+spot, still more secret and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>secure. It is difficult to imagine what
+motive could have led these two men to remain any longer in these
+solitudes, five hundred miles from home, exposed to so many privations
+and to such fearful peril. Notwithstanding the utmost care in husbanding
+their resources, their powder and lead were rapidly disappearing, and
+there was no more to be obtained in the wilderness. But here they
+remained a month, doing apparently nothing, but living luxuriously,
+according to their ideas of good cheer. The explanation is probably to
+be found in the fascination of this life of a hunter, which once
+enjoyed, seems almost irresistible, even to those accustomed to all the
+appliances of a high civilization.</p>
+
+<p>A gentleman from New York, who spent a winter among the wild scenes of
+the Rocky Mountains, describes in the following graphic language, the
+effect of these scenes upon his own mind:</p>
+
+<p>"When I turned my horse's head from Pikes Peak, I quite regretted the
+abandonment of my mountain life, solitary as it was, and more than once
+thought of again taking the trail to the Salado Valley, where I enjoyed
+such good sport. Apart from the feeling of loneliness, which anyone in
+my situation must naturally have experienced, surrounded by the
+stupendous works of nature, which in all their solitary grandeur frowned
+upon me, there was something inexpressibly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>exhilarating in the
+sensation of positive freedom from all worldly care, and a consequent
+expansion of the sinews, as it were, of mind and body, which made me
+feel elastic as a ball of india-rubber, and in such a state of perfect
+ease, that no more dread of scalping Indians entered my mind, than if I
+had been sitting in Broadway, in one of the windows of the Astor House.</p>
+
+<p>"A citizen of the world, I never found any difficulty in investing my
+resting place wherever it might be, with the attributes of a home.
+Although liable to the accusation of barbarism, I must confess that the
+very happiest moments of my life have been spent in the wilderness of
+the Far West. I never recall but with pleasure the remembrance of my
+solitary camp in the Bayou Salado, with no friend near me more faithful
+than my rifle. With a plentiful supply of dry pine logs on the fire, and
+its cheerful blaze streaming far up into the sky, illuminating the
+valley far and near, I would sit enjoying the genial warmth, and watch
+the blue smoke as it curled upward, building castles in its vapory
+wreaths. Scarcely did I ever wish to change such hours of freedom for
+all the luxuries of civilized life; and, unnatural and extraordinary as
+it may appear, yet such are the fascinations of the life of the mountain
+hunter, that I believe that not one instance could be adduced of even
+the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>most polished and civilized of men, who had once tasted the sweets
+of its attendant liberty, and freedom from every worldly care, not
+regretting to exchange them for the monotonous life of the settlements,
+and not sighing and sighing again for its pleasures and allurements.</p>
+
+<p>"A hunter's camp in the Rocky Mountains, is quite a picture. It is
+invariably made in a picturesque locality, for, like the Indian, the
+white hunter has an eye to the beautiful. Nothing can be more social and
+cheering than the welcome blaze of the camp-fire on a cold winter's
+night, and nothing more amusing or entertaining, if not instructive,
+than the rough conversation of the simple-minded mountaineers, whose
+nearly daily task is all of exciting adventure, since their whole
+existence is spent in scenes of peril and privation. Consequently the
+narration is a tale of thrilling accidents, and hair-breadth escapes,
+which, though simple matter-of-fact to them, appears a startling romance
+to those unacquainted with the lives led by those men, who, with the sky
+for a roof, and their rifles to supply them with food and clothing, call
+no man lord or master, and are as free as the game they follow."</p>
+
+<p>There are many events which occurred in the lives of Boone and his
+companions, which would seem absolutely incredible were they not
+sustained by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>evidence beyond dispute. Boone and Stewart were in a
+boundless, pathless, wilderness of forests, mountains, rivers and lakes.
+Their camp could not be reached from the settlements, but by a journey
+of many weeks, apparently without the smallest clue to its location. And
+yet the younger brother of Boone, upon whom had been conferred his
+father's singular baptismal name of Squire, set out with a companion to
+cross the mountains, in search of Daniel. One day in the latter part of
+January, Boone and Stewart were quite alarmed in seeing two men approach
+their camp. They supposed of course that they were Indians, and that
+they were probably followed by a numerous band. Escape was impossible.
+Captivity and death seemed certain. But to their surprise and delight,
+the two strangers proved to be white men; one the brother of Daniel
+Boone, and the other a North Carolinian who had accompanied him. They
+brought with them quite a supply of powder and lead; inestimable
+treasures in the remote wilderness. Daniel, in his Autobiography, in the
+following simple strain, alludes to this extraordinary occurrence:</p>
+
+<p>"About this time my brother Squire Boone, with another adventurer, who
+came to explore the country shortly after us, was wandering through the
+forest, determined to find me if possible, and accidentally found our
+camp. Notwithstanding the unfortunate <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>circumstances of our company, and
+our dangerous situation as surrounded by hostile savages, our meeting so
+fortunately in the wilderness made us reciprocally sensible of the
+utmost satisfaction. So much does friendship triumph over misfortune,
+that sorrows and sufferings vanish at the meeting, not only of real
+friends, but of the most distant acquaintances, and substitute happiness
+in their room."</p>
+
+<p>Our hardy pioneer, far more familiar with his rifle than his pen,
+comments as follows on their condition:</p>
+
+<p>"We were in a helpless, dangerous situation; exposed daily to perils and
+death, among savages and wild beasts. Not a white man in the country but
+ourselves. Thus situated, many hundred miles from our families, in the
+howling wilderness, I believe few would have equally enjoyed the
+happiness we experienced. I often observed to my brother, 'You see how
+little nature requires to be satisfied. Felicity, the companion of
+content, is rather found in our own breasts, than in the enjoyment of
+external things; and I firmly believe it requires but a little
+philosophy to make a man happy in whatsoever state he is. This consists
+in a full resignation to the will of Providence; and a resigned soul
+finds pleasure in a path strewed with briers and thorns.'"</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/ichapend.jpg" width="450" height="120" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Indian Warfare.</i></h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot2"><p>Alleghany Ridges.&mdash;Voyage in a canoe.&mdash;Speech of Logan.&mdash;Battle at
+the Kanawha.&mdash;Narrative of Francis Marion.&mdash;Important commission of
+Boone.&mdash;Council at Circleville.&mdash;Treaty of Peace.&mdash;Imlay's
+description of Kentucky.&mdash;Settlement right.&mdash;Richard
+Henderson.&mdash;Boone's letter.&mdash;Fort at Boonesborough.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>The valley of the Clinch river is but one of the many magnificent
+ravines amid the gigantic ranges of the Alleghany mountains. Boone,
+speaking of these ridges which he so often had occasion to cross, says:</p>
+
+<p>"These mountains in the wilderness, as we pass from the old settlements
+in Virginia to Kentucky, are ranged in a south-west and north-east
+direction and are of great length and breadth and not far distant from
+each other. Over them nature hath formed passes that are less difficult
+than might be expected from a view of such huge piles. The aspect of
+these cliffs is so wild and horrid that it is impossible to behold them
+without terror. The spectator is apt to imagine that nature has formerly
+suffered some violent convulsion, and that these are the dismembered
+remains of the dreadful shock."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p><p>One cannot but regret that no memorials are left of a wonderful journey,
+full of romantic interest and exciting adventure, which Boone at one
+time took to the Falls of the Ohio, to warn some surveyors of their
+danger. He reached them in safety, rescued them from certain death, and
+conducted them triumphantly back to the settlements. So long as the
+white men, with their rifles, could keep upon the open prairie, they
+could defend themselves from almost any number of Indians, who could
+only assail them with bows and arrows. But the moment they entered the
+forest, or any ravine among the hills, the little band was liable to
+hear the war-whoop of a thousand Indian braves in the ambush around, and
+to be assailed by a storm of arrows and javelins from unseen hands.</p>
+
+<p>A few days after Boone's arrival at the encampment near the Falls of the
+Ohio, and as the surveyors were breaking camp in preparation for their
+precipitate retreat, several of their number who had gone to a spring at
+a short distance from the camp, were suddenly attacked on the twentieth
+of July by a large party of Indians. One was instantly killed. The rest
+being nearly surrounded, fled as best they could in all directions. One
+man hotly pursued, rushed along an Indian trail till he reached the Ohio
+river. Here he chanced to find a bark canoe. He jumped into it and
+pushed out into the rapid stream till beyond <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>the reach of the Indian
+arrows. The swift current bore him down the river, by curves and
+head-lands, till he was far beyond the encampment.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 700px;">
+<img src="images/i113.jpg" width="700" height="485" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>To return against the strong flood, with the savages watching for him,
+seemed perilous, if not impossible. It is said that he floated down the
+whole length of the Ohio and of the Mississippi, a distance not less
+probably, counting the curvatures of the stream, than two thousand
+miles, and finally found his way by sea to Philadelphia, probably in
+some vessel which he encountered near the coast. This is certainly one
+of the most extraordinary voyages which ever occurred. It was
+mid-summer, so that he could not suffer from cold. Grapes often hung in
+rich clusters in the forests, which lined the river banks, and various
+kinds of nutritious berries were easily gathered to satisfy hunger.</p>
+
+<p>As these men never went into the forest without the rifle and a supply
+of ammunition, and as they never lost a bullet by an inaccurate shot, it
+is not probable that our adventurer suffered from hunger. But the
+incidents of such a voyage must have been so wonderful, that it is
+greatly to be regretted that we have no record of them.</p>
+
+<p>The apprehensions of Lord Dunmore, respecting the conspiracy of the
+Indians, proved to have been well founded. Though Boone, with his great
+sagacity, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>led his little band by safe paths back to the settlements, a
+very fierce warfare immediately blazed forth all along the Virginia
+frontier. This conflict with the Indians, very brief and very bloody, is
+usually called Lord Dunmore's war. The white men have told the story,
+and they admit that the war "arose in consequence of cold-blooded
+murders committed upon inoffensive Indians in the region of the upper
+Ohio."</p>
+
+<p>One of the provocatives to this war was the assassination by fiendlike
+white men of the whole family of the renowned Indian chief, Logan, in
+the vicinity of the city of Wheeling. Logan had been the friend of the
+white man. But exasperated by these outrages, he seized his tomahawk
+breathing only vengeance. General Gibson was sent to one of the
+Shawanese towns to confer with Logan and to detach him from the
+conspiracy against the whites. It was on this occasion that Logan made
+that celebrated speech whose pathetic eloquence will ever move the human
+heart:</p>
+
+<p>"I appeal to any white man to say if ever he entered Logan's cabin
+hungry, and I gave him not meat; if ever he came cold or naked and I
+gave him not clothing. During the course of the last long and bloody
+war, Logan remained in his tent, an advocate of peace. Nay, such was my
+love for the whites, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>that those of my own country pointed at me and
+said, 'Logan is the friend of white men.' I had even thought to live
+with you, but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Cresap, the last
+spring, in cool blood and unprovoked, cut off all the relatives of
+Logan, not sparing even my women and children. There runs not a drop of
+my blood in the veins of any human creature. This called on me for
+revenge. I have killed many. I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my
+country, I rejoice at the beams of peace. Yet do not harbor the thought
+that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on
+his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan?"</p>
+
+<p>This war, though it lasted but a few months, was very sanguinary. Every
+exposed point on the extensive Virginia frontier was assailed. Cabins
+were burned, harvests were trampled down, cattle driven off, and men,
+women, and children either butchered or carried into captivity more
+dreadful than death. The peril was so dreadful that the most
+extraordinary efforts on the part of the Virginian Government were
+requisite to meet it. An army of three thousand men was raised in the
+utmost haste. This force was in two divisions. One of eleven hundred men
+rendezvoused in what is now Green Briar county, and marched down the
+valley of the Great Kanawha, to its entrance <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>into the Ohio, at a place
+now named Point Pleasant.</p>
+
+<p>Lord Dunmore with the remaining nineteen hundred crossed the Cumberland
+mountains to Wheeling, and thence descended the Ohio in boats, to form a
+junction with the other party at the mouth of the Great Kanawha. Thence
+united, they were to march across the country about forty miles due
+west, to the valley of the Scioto. The banks of this lovely stream were
+lined with Indian villages, in a high state of prosperity. Corn-fields
+waved luxuriantly around their humble dwellings. They were living at
+peace with each other, and relied far more upon the produce of the soil,
+than upon the chase, for their support.</p>
+
+<p>It was the plan of Lord Dunmore to sweep this whole region with utter
+desolation, and entirely to exterminate the Indians. But the savages did
+not await his arrival in their own homes. Many of them had obtained guns
+and ammunition from the French in Canada, with whom they seem to have
+lived on the most friendly terms.</p>
+
+<p>In a well-ordered army for Indian warfare, whose numbers cannot now with
+certainty be known, they crossed the Ohio, below the mouth of the Great
+Kanawha, and marching through the forest, in the rear of the hills, fell
+by surprise very impetuously upon the rear of the encampment at Point
+Pleasant. The Indians seemed to be fully aware that their only safety
+was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>in the energies of desperation. One of the most bloody battles was
+then fought, which ever occurred in Indian warfare. Though the
+Virginians with far more potent weapons repelled their assailants, they
+paid dearly for their victory. Two hundred and fifteen of the Virginians
+fell dead or severely wounded beneath the bullets or arrows of their
+foes. The loss which the savages incurred could never be ascertained
+with accuracy. It was generally believed that several hundred of their
+warriors were struck down on that bloody field.</p>
+
+<p>The whites, accustomed to Indian warfare and skilled in the use of the
+rifle, scarcely fired a shot which did not reach its mark. In the
+cautious warfare between the tribes, fighting with arrows from behind
+trees, the loss of fifteen or twenty warriors was deemed a great
+calamity. Now, to find hundreds of their braves weltering in blood, was
+awful beyond precedent, and gave them new ideas of the prowess of the
+white man. In this conflict the Indians manifested a very considerable
+degree of military ability. Having constructed a breastwork of logs,
+behind which they could retreat in case of a repulse, they formed in a
+long line extending across the point from the Kanawha to the Ohio. Then
+they advanced in the impetuous attack through the forest, protected by
+logs, and stumps, and trees. Had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>they succeeded in their assault, there
+would have been no possible escape for the Virginian troops. They must
+have been annihilated.</p>
+
+<p>The Indians had assembled on that field nearly all the warriors of four
+powerful tribes; the Shawnee, Delaware, Mingo and Wyandotts. After the
+repulse, panic-stricken, they fled through the wilderness, unable to
+make any other stand against their foes. Lord Dunmore, with his
+triumphant army flushed with victory and maddened by its serious loss,
+marched rapidly down the left bank of the Ohio, and then crossed into
+the valley of the Scioto to sweep it with flame. We have no account of
+the details of this cruel expedition, but the following graphic
+description of a similar excursion into the land belonging to the
+Cherokees, will give one a vivid idea of the nature of these conflicts.</p>
+
+<p>The celebrated Francis Marion, who was an officer in the campaign, and
+an eye-witness of the scenes which he describes, gives the following
+narrative of the events which ensued:</p>
+
+<p>"Now commenced a scene of devastation scarcely paralleled in the annals
+of this continent. For thirty days the army employed themselves in
+burning and ravaging the settlements of the broken-spirited Indians. No
+less than fourteen of their towns were laid in ashes; their granaries
+were yielded to the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>flames, their corn-fields ravaged, while the
+miserable fugitives, flying from the sword, took refuge with their
+starving families among the mountains. As the lands were rich and the
+season had been favorable, the corn was bending under the double weight
+of lusty roasting ears and pods and clustering beans. The furrows seemed
+to rejoice under their precious loads. The fields stood thick with
+bread. We encamped the first night in the woods near the fields where
+the whole army feasted on the young corn, which, with fat venison, made
+a most delicious treat. The next morning, by order of Col. Grant, we
+proceeded to burn down the Indian cabins.</p>
+
+<p>"Some of our men seemed to enjoy this cruel work, laughing very heartily
+at the curling flames as they mounted loud crackling over the tops of
+the huts. But to me it appeared a shocking sight. 'Poor creatures!'
+thought I, 'we surely need not grudge you such miserable habitations.'
+But when we came according to orders to cut down the fields of corn, I
+could scarcely refrain from tears; for who could see the stalks that
+stood so stately, with broad green leaves and gaily tasseled shocks,
+filled with the sweet milky flour, the staff of life,&mdash;who, I say, could
+see without grief these sacred plants sinking under our swords with all
+their precious load, to wither and rot untasted in the fields.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p><p>"I saw everywhere around the footsteps of little Indian children, where
+they had lately played under shelter of the rustling corn. No doubt they
+had often looked up with joy to the swelling shocks, and were gladdened
+when they thought of the abundant cakes for the coming winter. 'When we
+are gone,' thought I, 'they will return, and peeping through the weeds,
+with tearful eyes, will mark the ghastly ruin poured over their homes
+and the happy fields where they had so often played.'"</p>
+
+<p>Such was life among the comparatively intelligent tribes in the
+beautiful and fertile valley of the Scioto. Such was the scene of
+devastation, or of "punishing the Indians," as it was called, upon which
+Lord Dunmore's army entered, intending to sweep the valley with fire and
+sword from its opening at the Ohio to its head waters leagues away in
+the North.</p>
+
+<p>In this campaign the Indians, while with much sagacity they combined
+their main force to encounter the army under Lord Dunmore, detached
+separate bands of picked warriors to assail the settlements on the
+frontier at every exposed point. These bands of painted savages,
+emerging from the solitudes of the forests at midnight, would fall with
+hideous yells upon the lone cabin of the settler, or upon a little
+cluster of log huts, and in a few hours nothing would be left but
+smouldering ruins and gory corpses.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span></p><p>To Daniel Boone, who had manifested wonderful skill in baffling all the
+stratagems of Indian warfare, was assigned the difficult and infinitely
+important task of protecting these frontiers. Three garrisons were
+placed under his command, over which he exercised supreme control. He
+located them at the most available points; noiselessly passed from one
+to the other to see that they were fortified according to the most
+approved principles of military engineering then known in the forest.
+His scouts were everywhere, to give prompt notice of any approach of
+hostile bands. Thus this quiet, silent man, with great efficiency,
+fulfilled his mission to universal satisfaction. Without seeking fame,
+without thinking even of such a reward for his services, his sagacity
+and his virtues were rapidly giving him a very enviable reputation
+throughout all those regions.</p>
+
+<p>The discomfited Indians had become thoroughly disheartened, and sent
+couriers to Lord Dunmore imploring peace. Comstock, their chief, seems
+to have been a man not only of strong native powers of mind, but of
+unusual intelligence. With quite a brilliant retinue of his warriors, he
+met Lord Dunmore in council at a point in the valley of the Scioto,
+about four miles south of the present city of Circleville. Comstock
+himself opened the deliberations with a speech of great dignity and
+argumentative power. In <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>a loud voice, which was heard, as he intended,
+by all in the camp, he portrayed the former prosperous condition of the
+Indian tribes, powerful in numbers and abounding in wealth, in the
+enjoyment of their rich corn-fields, and their forests filled with game.
+With this he contrasted very forcibly their present wretched condition,
+with diminished numbers, and with the loss of their hunting grounds. He
+reproached the whites with the violation of their treaty obligations,
+and declared that the Indians had been forbearing in the extreme under
+the wrongs which had been inflicted upon them.</p>
+
+<p>"We know," said he, "perfectly well, our weakness when compared with the
+English. The Indians desire only justice. The war was not sought by us,
+but was forced upon us. It was commenced by the whites. We should have
+merited the contempt of every white man could we have tamely submitted
+to the murders which have been inflicted upon our unoffending people at
+the hands of the white men."</p>
+
+<p>The power was with Lord Dunmore. In the treaty of peace he exacted terms
+which, though very hard for the Indians, were perhaps not more than he
+had a right to require. The Indians surrendered four of their principal
+warriors as hostages for the faithful observance of the treaty. They
+relinquished all claims whatever to the vast hunting grounds which
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>their bands from time immemorial had ranged south of the Ohio river.
+This was an immense concession. Lord Dunmore returned across the
+mountains well satisfied with his campaign, though his soldiers were
+excited almost to mutiny in not being permitted to wreak their vengeance
+upon the unhappy savages.</p>
+
+<p>And here let it be remarked, that deeply wronged as these Indians
+unquestionably were, there was not a little excuse for the exasperation
+of the whites. Fiends incarnate could not have invented more terrible
+tortures than they often inflicted upon their captives. We have no heart
+to describe these scenes. They are too awful to be contemplated. In view
+of the horrid barbarity thus practised, it is not strange that the
+English should have wished to shoot down the whole race, men, women, and
+children, as they would exterminate wolves or bears.</p>
+
+<p>This campaign being thus successfully terminated, Daniel Boone returned
+to his humble cabin on the Clinch River. Here he had a small and fertile
+farm, which his energetic family had successfully cultivated during the
+summer, and he spent the winter months in his favorite occupation of
+hunting in the forests around. His thoughtful mind, during these long
+and solitary rambles, was undoubtedly occupied with plans for the
+future. Emigration to his beautiful Kentucky was still his engrossing
+thought.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p><p>It is not wonderful that a man of such fearless temperament, and a
+natural turn of mind so poetic and imaginative, should have been charmed
+beyond expression by a realm whose attractions he had so fully
+experienced. That the glowing descriptions of Boone and Finley were not
+exaggerated, is manifest from the equally rapturous account of others
+who now began to explore this favored land. Imlay writes of that region:</p>
+
+<p>"Everything here assumes a dignity and splendor I have never seen in any
+other part of the world. You ascend a considerable distance from the
+shores of the Ohio, and when you would suppose you had arrived at the
+summit of a mountain, you find yourself upon an extensive level. Here an
+eternal verdure reigns, and the brilliant sun of latitude 39 degrees,
+piercing through the azure heavens, produces in this prolific soil an
+early maturity which is truly astonishing. Flowers full and perfect, as
+if they had been cultivated by the hand of a florist, with all their
+captivating odors, and with all the variegated charms which color and
+nature can produce, here in the lap of elegance and beauty, decorate the
+smiling groves. Soft zephyrs gently breathe on sweets, and the inhaled
+air gives a glow of health and vigor that seems to ravish the
+intoxicated senses."</p>
+
+<p>The Virginian government now resolved to pour a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>tide of emigration into
+these as yet unexplored realms, south of the Ohio. Four hundred acres of
+land were offered to every individual who would build a cabin, clear a
+lot of land, and raise a crop of corn. This was called a settlement
+right. It was not stated how large the clearing should be, or how
+extensive the corn-field. Several settlements were thus begun in
+Kentucky, when there was a new and extraordinary movement which
+attracted universal attention.</p>
+
+<p>A very remarkable man, named Richard Henderson, appeared in North
+Carolina. Emerging from the humblest walks of life, and unable even to
+read until he had obtained maturity, he developed powers of
+conversational eloquence and administrative ability of the highest
+order.</p>
+
+<p>The Cherokee Indians claimed the whole country bounded by the Kentucky,
+the Ohio, and the Cumberland rivers, and we know not how much more
+territory extending indefinitely to the South and West. Colonel
+Henderson formed an association of gentlemen, which he called the
+Transylvania Company. Making a secret journey to the Cherokee country,
+he met twelve hundred chiefs in council, and purchased of them the whole
+territory, equal to some European kingdoms, bounded by the above
+mentioned rivers. For this realm, above a hundred miles square, he paid
+the insignificant sum of ten wagon loads of cheap goods, with a few
+fire-arms and some spirituous liquors.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p><p>Mr. Henderson, to whom the rest of the company seemed to have delegated
+all their powers, now assumed the position of proprietor, governor, and
+legislator of his magnificent domain, which he called Transylvania. It
+seems that Boone accompanied Colonel Henderson to the council of the
+Cherokee chieftains which was held at Wataga, the southern branch of the
+Holston River. Boone had explored nearly the whole of this region, and
+it was upon his testimony that the company relied in endeavoring to
+purchase these rich and fertile lands. Indeed, as we have before
+intimated, it has been said that Boone in his wonderful and perilous
+explorations was the agent of this secret company.</p>
+
+<p>No treaties with the Indians were sure of general acquiescence. There
+were always discontented chieftains; there were almost always
+conflicting claims of hostile tribes; there were always wandering tribes
+of hunters and of warriors, who, exasperated by the treatment which they
+had received from vagabond white men, were ever ready to wreak their
+vengeance upon any band of emigrants they might encounter.</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Henderson's treaty was made in the month of March, 1775. With
+characteristic vigor, he immediately made preparations for the
+settlement of the kingdom of which he was the proud monarch. The first
+thing to be done was to mark out a feasible path through which emigrants
+might pass, without <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>losing their way, over the mountains and through
+the wilderness, to the heart of this new Eden. Of all the men in the
+world, Daniel Boone was the one to map out this route of five hundred
+miles. He took with him a company of road-makers, and in a few months
+opened a path which could be traversed by pack-horses, and even by
+wagons to a place called Boonesville on the Kentucky river, within about
+thirty miles of the present site of Lexington.</p>
+
+<p>The Indian hunters and warriors, notwithstanding the treaties into which
+the chieftains of the North and the South had entered, watched the
+construction of this road with great solicitude. They knew full well
+that it would ere long secure their expulsion from their ancient hunting
+grounds. Though no general warfare was organized by the tribes, it was
+necessary to be constantly on the watch against lawless bands, who were
+determined to harass the pioneers in every possible way. In the
+following letter Boone communicated to Colonel Henderson the hostility
+which they had, perhaps unexpectedly, encountered. It was dated the
+first of April, and was sent back by a courier through the woods:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Dear Colonel,&mdash;</p></div>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"After my compliments to you, I shall acquaint you with my
+misfortunes. On March the Twenty-fifth, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>a party of Indians fired
+on my company about half an hour before day, and killed Mr. Twitty
+and his negro, and wounded Mr. Walker very deeply; but I hope he
+will recover. On March the Twenty-eighth, as we were hunting for
+provisions, we found Samuel Tale's son who gave us an account that
+the Indians fired on their camp on the twenty-seventh day. My
+brother and I went down and found two men killed and scalped,
+Thomas McDowell and Jeremiah McPeters. I have sent a man down to
+all the lower companies, in order to gather them all to the mouth
+of the Otter Creek. My advice to you, sir, is to come or send as
+soon as possible. Your company is desired greatly, for the people
+are very uneasy, but are willing to stay and venture their lives
+with you. And now is the time to frustrate their (the Indians)
+intentions, and keep the country while we are in it. If we give way
+to them now, it will ever be the case. This day we start from the
+battle ground to the mouth of Otter Creek, where we shall
+immediately erect a fort, which will be done before you can come or
+send. Then we can send ten men to meet you, if you send for them.</p></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I am, Sir, your most obedient servant,<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"<span class="smcap">Daniel Boone.</span>"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Boone immediately commenced upon the left bank of the Kentucky river,
+which here ran in a westerly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>direction, the erection of a fort. Their
+position was full of peril, for the road-makers were but few in number,
+and Indian warriors to the number of many hundreds might at any time
+encircle them. Many of these Indians had also obtained muskets from the
+French in Canada, and had become practiced marksmen. Nearly three months
+were busily occupied in the construction of this important fort.
+Fortunately we have a minute description of its structure, and a sketch
+of its appearance, either from the pencil of Colonel Henderson, or of
+some one in his employ.</p>
+
+<p>The fort or fortress consisted of a series of strong log huts, enclosing
+a large interior or square. The parallelogram was about two hundred and
+sixty feet in length and one hundred and fifty in breadth. These cabins,
+built of logs, were bullet-proof. The intervals between them were filled
+with stout pieces of timber, about twelve feet high, planted firmly in
+the ground, in close contact with each other, and sharpened at the top.
+The fort was built close to the river, with one of its angles almost
+overhanging the water, so that an abundant supply could be obtained
+without peril. Each of the corner houses projected a little, so that
+from the port-holes any Indian could be shot who should approach the
+walls with ladder or hatchet. This really artistic structure was not
+completed until the fourteenth day of June. The Indians from a distance
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>watched its progress with dismay. They made one attack, but were easily
+repelled, though they succeeded in shooting one of the emigrants.</p>
+
+<p>Daniel Boone contemplated the fortress on its completion with much
+satisfaction. He was fully assured that behind its walls and palisades
+bold hearts, with an ample supply of ammunition, could repel any
+assaults which the Indians were capable of making. He now resolved
+immediately to return to Clinch river, and bring his family out to share
+with him his new and attractive home.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/ichapend.jpg" width="450" height="120" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Sufferings of the Pioneers.</i></h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot2"><p>Emigration to Boonesborough.&mdash;New Perils.&mdash;Transylvania
+Company.&mdash;Beneficence of its Laws.&mdash;Interesting Incident.&mdash;Infamous
+conduct of Great Britain.&mdash;Attack on the
+Fort.&mdash;Reinforcements.&mdash;Simon Kenton and his Sufferings.&mdash;Mrs.
+Harvey.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>The fortress at Boonesborough consisted of ten strong log huts arranged
+in a quadrangular form, enclosing an area of about one-third of an acre.
+The intervals, as before stated, between the huts, were filled with
+strong palisades of timber, which, like the huts themselves, were
+bullet-proof. The outer sides of the cabins, together with the
+palisades, formed the sides of the fort exposed to the foe. Each of
+these cabins was about twenty feet in length and twelve or fifteen in
+breadth. There were two entrance gates opposite each other, made of
+thick slabs of timber, and hung on wooden hinges. The forest, which was
+quite dense, had been cut away to such a distance as to expose an
+assailing party to the bullets of the garrison. As at that time the
+Indians were armed mainly with bows and arrows, a few men fully supplied
+with ammunition within the fort could bid defiance to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>almost any number
+of savages. And subsequently, as the Indians obtained fire-arms, they
+could not hope to capture the fort without a long siege, or by assailing
+it with a vastly overwhelming superiority of numbers. The accompanying
+illustration will give the reader a very correct idea of this renowned
+fortress of logs, which was regarded as the Gibraltar of Indian warfare.</p>
+
+<p>Having finished this fort Daniel Boone, leaving a sufficient garrison
+for its security, set out for his home on the Clinch river to bring his
+wife and family to the beautiful land he so long had coveted for their
+residence. It seems that his wife and daughters were eager to follow
+their father to the banks of the Kentucky, whose charms he had so
+glowingly described to them. Several other families were also induced to
+join the party of emigration. They could dwell together in a very social
+community and in perfect safety in the spacious cabins within the
+fortress. The river would furnish them with an unfailing supply of
+water. The hunters, with their rifles, could supply them with game, and
+with those rifles could protect themselves while laboring in the fields,
+which with the axe they had laid open to the sun around the fort. The
+hunters and the farmers at night returning within the enclosure, felt
+perfectly safe from all assaults.</p>
+
+<p>Daniel Boone commenced his journey with his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>wife and children, and
+others who joined them, back to Boonesborough in high spirits. It was a
+long journey of several hundred miles, and to many persons it would seem
+a journey fraught with great peril, for they were in danger almost every
+mile of the way, of encountering hostile Indians. But Boone, accustomed
+to traversing the wilderness, and accompanied by well armed men, felt no
+more apprehensions of danger than the father of a family would at the
+present day in traveling by cars from Massachusetts to Pennsylvania.</p>
+
+<p>It was beautiful autumnal weather when the party of pioneers commenced
+its adventurous tour through the wilderness, to find a new home five
+hundred miles beyond even the remotest frontiers of civilization. There
+were three families besides that of Boone, and numbered in all
+twenty-six men, four women, and four or five boys and girls of various
+ages. Daniel Boone was the happy leader of this heroic little band.</p>
+
+<p>In due time they all arrived safely at Boonesborough "without having
+encountered," as Boone writes, "any other difficulties than such as are
+common to this passage." As they approached the fort, Boone and his
+family, for some unexplained reason, pressed forward, and entered the
+fortress a few days in advance of the rest of the party. Perhaps Boone
+himself had a little pride to have it said, that Mrs. Boone and her
+daughter were the first of her color and sex that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>ever stood upon the
+banks of the wild and beautiful Kentucky.</p>
+
+<p>A few days after their arrival, the emigrants had a very solemn
+admonition of the peril which surrounded them, and of the necessity of
+constant vigilance to guard against a treacherous and sleepless foe. One
+of their number who had sauntered but a short distance from the fort,
+lured by the combined beauty of the field, the forest and the river, was
+shot by a prowling Indian, who, raising the war-whoop of exultation and
+defiance, immediately disappeared in the depths of the wilderness.</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Henderson and his partners, anxious to promote the settlement of
+the country, by organising parties of emigration, were busy in making
+known through the settlements the absolute security of the fort at
+Boonesborough, and the wonderful attractions of the region, in soil,
+climate, and abounding game. Henderson himself soon started with a large
+party, forty of whom were well armed. A number of pack-horses conveyed
+the luggage of the emigrants. Following the very imperfect road that
+Boone with much skill had engineered, which was quite tolerable for
+pack-horses in single file, they reached Boonesborough early in the
+following spring.</p>
+
+<p>The Transylvania Company was in the full flush of successful experiment.
+Small parties of emigrants <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>were constantly arriving. Boonesborough was
+the capital of the colony. Various small settlements were settled in its
+vicinity. Colonel Henderson opened a land office there, and in the
+course of a few months, over half a million of acres were entered, by
+settlers or speculators. These men did not purchase the lands outright,
+but bound themselves to pay a small but perpetual rent. The titles,
+which they supposed to be perfectly good, were given in the name of the
+"proprietors of the Colony of Transylvania, in America."</p>
+
+<p>Soon four settlements were organised called Boonesborough, Harrodsburg,
+Boiling Spring, and St. Asaph. Colonel Henderson, on the twenty-third of
+May, 1775, as president or rather sovereign of this extraordinary realm,
+summoned a legislature consisting of delegates from this handful of
+pioneers, to meet at his capital, Boonesborough. Henderson presided.
+Daniel and his brother Squire were delegates from Boonesborough. A
+clergyman, the Reverend John Leythe, opened the session with prayer.
+Colonel Henderson made a remarkable and admirable speech. This
+extraordinary legislature represented only a constituency of one hundred
+and fifty souls. But the Colonel presented to them very clearly the true
+republican principle of government. He declared that the only legitimate
+source of political power is to be found in the will of the people, and
+added:</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p><p>"If any doubts remain among you with respect to the force and efficiency
+of whatever laws you now or hereafter make, be pleased to consider that
+all power is originally in the people. Make it their interest,
+therefore, by impartial and beneficent laws, and you may be sure of
+their inclination to see them enforced."</p>
+
+<p>Rumors of these extraordinary proceedings reached the ears of Lord
+Dunmore. He considered the whole region of Kentucky as included in the
+original grant of Virginia, and that the Government of Virginia alone
+had the right to extinguish the Indian title to any of those lands. He
+therefore issued a proclamation, denouncing in the severest terms the
+"unlawful proceedings of one Richard Henderson and other disorderly
+persons, his associates." The legislature continued in session but three
+days, and honored itself greatly by its energetic action, and by the
+character of the laws which it inaugurated. One bill was introduced for
+preserving game; another for improving the breed of their horses; and it
+is worthy of especial record that a law was passed prohibiting profane
+swearing and Sabbath breaking.</p>
+
+<p>The moral sense of these bold pioneers was shocked at the desecration of
+the Creator's name among their sublime solitudes.</p>
+
+<p>The controversy between the Transylvania Company and the Government of
+Virginia was short but <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>very sharp. Virginia could then very easily send
+an army of several thousand men to exterminate the Kentucky colony. A
+compromise was the result. The title of Henderson was declared "null and
+void." But he received in compensation a grant of land on the Ohio,
+about twelve miles square, below the mouth of Green River. Virginia
+assumed that the Indian title was entirely extinguished, and the region
+called Transylvania now belonged without encumbrance to the Old
+Dominion.</p>
+
+<p>Still the tide of emigration continued to flow into this beautiful
+region. Among others came the family of Colonel Calloway, consisting of
+his wife and two daughters. For a long time no Indians had been seen in
+the vicinity of Boonesborough. No one seemed to apprehend the least
+danger from them, and the people in the fort wandered about as freely as
+if no foe had ever excited their fears. An accident occurred which sent
+a tremor of dismay through the whole colony, and which we will describe
+as related to the intelligent historian, Peck, from the lips of one of
+the parties, who experienced all the terrors of the scene:</p>
+
+<p>"On the fourteenth of July, 1776, Betsey Calloway, her sister Frances,
+and Jemima Boone, a daughter of Daniel Boone, the two last about
+fourteen years of age, carelessly crossed the river opposite
+Boonesborough in a canoe, at a late hour in the afternoon. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>The trees
+and shrubs on the opposite bank were thick, and came down to the water's
+edge. The girls, unconscious of danger, were playing and splashing the
+water with their paddles, until the canoe floating with the current,
+drifted near the shore. Five stout Indians lay there concealed, one of
+whom, noiseless and stealthy as the serpent, crawled down the bank until
+he reached the rope that hung from the bow, turned its course up the
+stream, and in a direction to be hidden from the view of the fort. The
+loud shrieks of the captured girls were heard, but too late for their
+rescue.</p>
+
+<p>"The canoe, their only means of crossing, was on the opposite shore, and
+none dared to risk the chance of swimming the river, under the
+impression that a large body of savages was concealed in the woods.
+Boone and Calloway were both absent, and night came on before
+arrangements could be made for their pursuit. Next morning by daylight
+we were on the track, and found they had prevented our following them by
+walking some distance apart through the thickest canes they could find.
+We observed their course, and on which side they had left their sign and
+traveled upwards of thirty miles. We then imagined they would be less
+cautious in traveling, and made a turn in order to cross their trace,
+and had gone but a few miles when we found their tracks in a buffalo
+path. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>We pursued and overtook them on going about ten miles, as they
+were kindling a fire to cook.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 700px;">
+<img src="images/i141.jpg" width="700" height="501" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>"Our study had been more to get the prisoners without giving the Indians
+time to murder them, after they discovered us, than to kill them. We
+discovered each other nearly at the same time. Four of us fired, and all
+of us rushed on them, which prevented them from carrying away anything,
+except one shot-gun without ammunition. Mr. Boone and myself had a
+pretty fair shoot, just as they began to move off. I am well convinced I
+shot one through, and the one he shot dropped his gun. Mine had none.
+The place was very thick with canes, and being so much elated on
+recovering the three broken-hearted girls, prevented our making further
+search. We sent them off without their mocassins, and not one of them
+with so much as a knife or a tomahawk."</p>
+
+<p>The Indians seemed to awake increasingly to the consciousness that the
+empire of the white man in their country could only exist upon the ruins
+of their own. They divided themselves into several parties, making
+incessant attacks upon the forts, and prowling around to shoot every
+white man who could be found within reach of their bullets. They avoided
+all open warfare, and fought only when they could spring from an ambush,
+or when protected by a stump, a rock, or a tree. An Indian would conceal
+himself in the night <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>behind a stump, shoot the first one who emerged
+from the fort in the morning, and then with a yell disappear in the
+recesses of the forest. The cattle could scarcely appear for an hour to
+graze beyond the protection of the fort, without danger of being struck
+down by the bullet of an unseen foe.</p>
+
+<p>The war of the American Revolution was just commencing. Dreadfully it
+added to the perils of these distant emigrants. The British Government,
+with infamy which can never be effaced from her records, called in to
+her aid the tomahawk and the scalping knife of the savage. The Indian
+alone in his wild and merciless barbarity, was terrible enough. But when
+he appeared as the ally of a powerful nation, guided in his operations
+by the wisdom of her officers, and well provided with guns, powder, and
+bullets from inexhaustible resources, the settler had indeed reason to
+tremble. The winter of 1776 and 1777 was gloomy beyond expression. The
+Indians were hourly becoming more bold. Their predatory bands were
+wandering in all directions, and almost every day came fraught with
+tidings of outrage or massacre.</p>
+
+<p>The whole military force of the colony was but about one hundred men.
+Three hundred of the pioneers, dismayed by the cloud of menace, every
+hour growing blacker, had returned across the moutains. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>There were but
+twenty-two armed men left in the fort at Boonesborough. The dismal
+winter passed slowly away, and the spring opened replete with nature's
+bloom and beauty, but darkened by the depravity of man. On the fifteenth
+of April, a band of a hundred howling Indians appeared in the forest
+before Boonesborough. With far more than their ordinary audacity, they
+rushed from their covert upon the fort. Had they been acquainted with
+the use of scaling ladders, by attacking at different points, they might
+easily, by their superior numbers, have carried the place by storm.</p>
+
+<p>But fortunately the savages had but little military science, and when
+once repulsed, would usually retreat in dismay. The garrison, behind
+their impenetrable logs, took deliberate aim, and every bullet killed or
+wounded some Indian warrior. The savages fought with great bravery, and
+succeeded in killing one man in the garrison. Dismayed by the slaughter
+which they were encountering, they fled, taking their dead and wounded
+with them. But so fully were they conscious, that would they retain
+their own supremacy in the wilderness, they must exterminate the white
+man, that their retreat was only in preparation for a return with
+accumulated numbers.</p>
+
+<p>An intelligent historian writes:</p>
+
+<p>"Daniel Boone appears before us in these exciting <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>times the central
+figure towering like a colossus amid that hardy band of pioneers who
+opposed their breasts to the shock of the struggle which gave a terrible
+significance and a crimson hue to the history of the old dark and bloody
+ground."</p>
+
+<p>The Indians were scattered everywhere in desperate bands. Forty men were
+sent from North Carolina and a hundred from Virginia, under Colonel
+Bowman, to strengthen the feeble settlements. The latter party arrived
+on the twentieth of August, 1776. There were at that time skirmishes
+with the Indians almost every day at some point. The pioneers within
+their log-houses, or behind their palisades, generally repelled these
+assaults with but little loss to themselves and not often inflicting
+severe injury to the wary savages. In the midst of these constant
+conflicts and dangers, the winter months passed drearily away.
+Boonesborough was constantly menaced and frequently attacked. In a diary
+kept within the fort we find the following entries:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<i>May 23.</i>&mdash;A large party of Indians attacked Boonesborough fort. Kept a
+warm fire till eleven o'clock at night. Began it next morning, and kept
+a warm fire till midnight. Attempting several times to burn the fort.
+Three of our men were wounded, but not mortally.</p></div>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<i>May 26th.</i>&mdash;A party went out to hunt Indians. One wounded Squire
+Boone, and escaped."</p></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p><p>Very cruel warfare was now being waged by the majestic power of Great
+Britain to bring the revolted colonies back to subjection to their laws.
+As we have mentioned they called into requisition on their side the
+merciless energies of the savage, openly declaring to the world that
+they were justified in making use of whatever weapons God and nature
+might place in their hands. From the strong British garrisons at
+Detroit, Vincennes and Kaskaskia, the Indians were abundantly supplied
+with rifles, powder and bullets, and were offered liberal rewards for
+such prisoners, and even scalps, as they might bring in.</p>
+
+<p>The danger which threatened these settlements in Kentucky was now such
+as might cause the stoutest heart to quail. The savage had been adopted
+as an ally by the most wealthy and powerful nation upon the globe. His
+marauding bands were often guided by the intelligence of British
+officers. Boone organized what might be called a corps of explorers to
+go out two and two, penetrating the wilderness with extreme caution, in
+all directions, to detect any indication of the approach of the Indians.
+One of these explorers, Simon Kenton, acting under the sagacious counsel
+of Colonel Boone, had obtained great and deserved celebrity as among the
+most heroic of the remarkable men who laid the foundation of the State
+of Kentucky. It would be difficult to find in any <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>pages of romance
+incidents of more wonderful adventure, or of more dreadful suffering, or
+stories of more miraculous escape, than were experienced by this man.
+Several times he was taken captive by the Indians, and though treated
+with great inhumanity, succeeded in making his escape. The following
+incident in his life, occurring about this time, gives one a very vivid
+picture of the nature of this warfare with the Indians:</p>
+
+<p>"Colonel Bowman sent Simon Kenton with two other men, Montgomery and
+Clark, on an exploring tour. Approaching an Indian town very cautiously
+in the night, on the north side of the Ohio river, they found a number
+of Indian horses in an enclosure. A horse in the wilderness was one of
+the most valuable of prizes. They accordingly each mounted an animal,
+and not daring to leave any behind, which would aid the Indians to
+pursue them, by hastily constructed halters they led the rest. The noise
+which the horses made awoke the Indians, and the whole village was at
+once in a state of uproar. The mounted adventurers dashed through the
+woods and were soon beyond the reach of the shouts and the yells which
+they left behind them. They knew, however, full well that the
+swift-footed Indian warriors would be immediately on their trail.
+Without a moment's rest they rode all night, the next day and the next
+night, and on the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>morning of the second day reached the banks of the
+Ohio river. The flood of that majestic stream flowed broad and deep
+before them, and its surface was lashed into waves by a very boisterous
+wind. The horses could not swim across in such a gale, but their desire
+to retain the invaluable animals was so great that they resolved to wait
+upon the banks until sunset, when they expected the wind to abate.
+Having been so well mounted and having such a start of the Indians, they
+did not suppose it possible that their pursuers could overtake them
+before that time.</p>
+
+<p>"Night came, but with it an increase of the fury of the gale, and the
+stream became utterly impassable. Early in the morning Kenton, who was
+separated from his companions, observed three Indians and a white man,
+well mounted, rapidly approaching. Raising his rifle, he took steady aim
+at the breast of the foremost Indian, and pulled the trigger. The powder
+flashed in the pan. Kenton took to his heels, but was soon overtaken and
+captured. The Indians seemed greatly exasperated at the loss of their
+horses. One seized him by the hair and shook his head 'till his teeth
+rattled.' The others scourged him severely with their ramrods over the
+head and face, exclaiming at every blow, 'Steal Indian hoss, hey!'</p>
+
+<p>"Just then Kenton saw Montgomery coming boldly to his assistance.
+Instantly two Indian rifles were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>discharged, and Montgomery fell dead.
+His bloody scalp was waved in the face of Kenton, with menaces of a
+similar fate. Clark had sought safety in flight. Kenton was thrown upon
+the ground upon his back. His neck was fastened by a halter to a
+sapling; his arms, extended to their full length, were pinioned to the
+earth by stakes; his feet were fastened in a similar manner. A stout
+stick was passed across his breast, and so attached to the earth that he
+could not move his body. All this was done in the most violent and cruel
+manner, accompanied by frequent cuffs, and blows, as the maddened
+Indians called him in the broken English which they had acquired, 'a
+tief, a hoss steal, a rascal,' which expressions the Indians had learned
+to intersperse with English oaths.</p>
+
+<p>"In this condition of suffering Kenton remained through the day and
+through the night. The next morning the savages having collected their
+scattered horses, put Kenton upon a young colt, tied his hands behind
+him and his feet beneath the horse's belly, and set out on their return.
+The country was rough and Kenton could not at all protect himself from
+the brambles through which they passed. Thus they rode all day. When
+night came, their prisoner was bound to the earth as before. The next
+day they reached the Indian village, which was called Chilicothe, on the
+Miami river, forty or fifty miles west of the present <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>city of
+Chilicothe, Ohio. A courier was sent forward, to inform the village of
+their arrival. Every man, woman and child came running out, to view the
+prisoner. One of their chiefs, Blackfish, approached Kenton with a
+strong hickory switch in his hand, and addressing him said,</p>
+
+<p>"'You have been stealing our horses, have you?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes,' was the defiant reply.</p>
+
+<p>"'Did Colonel Boone,' inquired the chief, 'tell you to steal our
+horses?'</p>
+
+<p>"'No,' said Kenton, 'I did it of my own accord.'</p>
+
+<p>"Blackfish then with brawny arms so mercilessly applied the scourge to
+the bare head and shoulders of his prisoner, as to cause the blood to
+flow freely, and to occasion the acutest pain.</p>
+
+<p>"In the mean time the whole crowd of men, women and children danced and
+hooted and clapped their hands, assailing him with the choicest epithets
+of Indian vituperation. With loud cries they demanded that he should be
+tied to the stake, that they might all enjoy the pleasure of tormenting
+him. A stake was immediately planted in the ground, and he was firmly
+fastened to it. His entire clothing was torn from him, mainly by the
+Indian women. The whole party then danced around him until midnight,
+yelling in the most frantic manner, smiting him with their hands and
+lacerating his flesh with their switches.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span></p><p>"At midnight they released him from the stake, and allowed him some
+little repose, in preparation for their principal amusement in the
+morning, of having their prisoner run the gauntlet. Three hundred
+Indians of all ages and both sexes were assembled for the savage
+festival. The Indians were ranged in two parallel lines, about six feet
+apart, all armed with sticks, hickory rods, whips, and other means of
+inflicting torture. Between these lines, for more than half a mile to
+the village, the wretched prisoner was doomed to run for his life,
+exposed to such injury as his tormentors could inflict as he passed. If
+he succeeded in reaching the council-house alive, it would prove an
+asylum to him for the present.</p>
+
+<p>"At a given signal, Kenton started in the perilous race; exerting his
+utmost strength and activity, he passed swiftly along the line,
+receiving numerous blows, stripes, buffets, and wounds, until he
+approached the town, near which he saw an Indian leisurely awaiting his
+advance, with a drawn knife in his hand, intent upon his death.</p>
+
+<p>"To avoid him, he instantly broke through the line, and made his rapid
+way towards the council-house, pursued by the promiscuous crowd,
+whooping and yelling like infernal furies at his heels. Entering the
+town in advance of his pursuers, just as he supposed the council-house
+within his reach, an Indian was perceived <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>leisurely approaching him
+with his blanket wrapped around him; but suddenly he threw off the
+blanket and sprung upon Kenton as he advanced. Exhausted with fatigue
+and wounds, he was thrown to the ground, and in a moment he was beset
+with crowds, eager to inflict upon him the kick or blow which had been
+avoided by breaking through the line. Here beaten, kicked and scourged,
+until he was nearly lifeless, he was left to die."<a name="FNanchor_B_2" id="FNanchor_B_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a></p>
+
+<p>A few hours afterwards he was supplied with food and water, and was
+suffered to recuperate for a few days, until he was enabled to attend at
+the council-house, and receive the announcement of his final doom. It
+was here decided that he should be made a public sacrifice to the
+vengeance of the nation. The Indian town of Wappatomica, upon the
+present site of Zanesville, Ohio, was the appointed place of his
+execution. Being in a state of utter exhaustion his escape was deemed
+impossible, and he was carelessly guarded. In despair he attempted it.
+He was promptly recaptured and punished by being taken to a neighboring
+creek where he was dragged through mud and water, till life was nearly
+extinct. Still his constitutional vigor triumphed, and he revived.</p>
+
+<p>Wappatomica was a British trading post. Here <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>Kenton met an old comrade,
+Simon Girty, who had become a renegade, had joined the Indians, and had
+so adopted their dress and manners as hardly to be distinguished from
+his savage associates. Girty cautiously endeavored to save the condemned
+prisoner. He represented to the band that it would be of great advantage
+to them to have possession of one so intimately acquainted with all the
+white settlements and their resources.</p>
+
+<p>A respite was granted. Another council was held. The spirit of Indian
+revenge prevailed. Kenton was again doomed to death, to be preceded by
+the terrible ordeal of running the gauntlet.</p>
+
+<p>But a British officer, influenced by the persuasions of the Indian chief
+Logan, the friend of the white man, urged upon the Indian chiefs that
+the British officers at Detroit would regard the possession of Kenton,
+with the information he had at his command, as a great acquisition, and
+that they would pay for him a ransom of at least one hundred dollars.
+They took him to Detroit; the ransom was paid, and Kenton became the
+prisoner of the British officers, instead of the savage chieftains.
+Still he was a prisoner, though treated with ordinary humanity, and was
+allowed the liberty of the town.</p>
+
+<p>There were two other American captives there, Captain Nathan Bullit and
+Jesse Coffer. Escape <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>seemed impossible, as it could only be effected
+through a wilderness four hundred miles in extent, crowded with
+wandering Indian bands, where they would be imminently exposed to
+recapture, or to death by starvation.</p>
+
+<p>Simon Kenton was a very handsome man. He won the sympathies of a very
+kind English woman, Mrs. Harvey, the wife of one of the traders at the
+post. She secretly obtained for him and his two companions, and
+concealed in a hollow tree, powder, lead, moccasins, and a quantity of
+dried beef. One dark night, when the Indians were engaged in a drunken
+bout, she met Kenton in the garden and handed him three of the best
+rifles, which she had selected from those stacked near the house. The
+biographer of these events writes:</p>
+
+<p>"When a woman engages to do an action, she will risk limb, life or
+character, to serve him whom she respects or wishes to befriend. How
+differently the same action would be viewed by different persons! By
+Kenton and his friends her conduct was viewed as the benevolent conduct
+of a good angel; while if the part she played in behalf of Kenton and
+his companions had been known to the commander at Detroit, she would
+have been looked upon as a traitress, who merited the scorn and contempt
+of all honest citizens. This night was the last that Kenton ever saw or
+heard of her."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span></p><p>Our fugitives traveled mostly by night, guided by the stars. After
+passing through a series of wonderful adventures, which we have not
+space here to record, on the thirty-third day of their escape, they
+reached the settlement at the Falls of the Ohio, now Louisville. During
+the rest of the war, Kenton was a very active partisan. He died in the
+year 1836, over eighty years of age, having been for more than a quarter
+of a century an honored member of the Methodist Church.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/ichapend.jpg" width="450" height="120" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Life in the Wilderness.</i></h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot2"><p>Stewart killed by the Indians.&mdash;Squire Boone returns to the
+Settlements.&mdash;Solitary Life of Daniel Boone.&mdash;Return of Squire
+Boone.&mdash;Extended and Romantic Explorations.&mdash;Charms and Perils of
+the Wilderness.&mdash;The Emigrant Party.&mdash;The Fatal Ambuscade.&mdash;Retreat
+of the Emigrants.&mdash;Solitude of the Wilderness.&mdash;Expedition of Lewis
+and Clarke.&mdash;Extraordinary Adventures of Cotter.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>There were now four hungry men to occupy the little camp of our bold
+adventurers. They do not seem to have been conscious of enduring any
+hardships. The winter was mild. Their snug tent furnished perfect
+protection from wind and rain. With abundant fuel, their camp-fire ever
+blazed brightly. Still it was necessary for them to be diligent in
+hunting, to supply themselves with their daily food. Bread, eggs, milk,
+butter, sugar, and even salt, were articles of which they were entirely
+destitute.</p>
+
+<p>One day, not long after the arrival of Squire Boone, Daniel Boone, with
+his companion Stewart, was a long distance from the camp, hunting.
+Suddenly the terrible war-whoop of the Indians resounded from a thicket,
+and a shower of arrows fell around them. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span>Stewart, pierced by one of
+these deadly missiles, fell mortally wounded. A sturdy savage sprang
+from the ambuscade upon his victim, and with a yell buried a tomahawk in
+his brain. Then, grasping with one hand the hair on the top of his head,
+he made a rapid circular cut with his gleaming knife, and tore off the
+scalp, leaving the skull bare. The revolting deed was done quicker than
+it can be described. Shaking the bloody trophy in his hand, he gave a
+whoop of exultation which echoed far and wide through the solitudes of
+the forest.</p>
+
+<p>Boone, swift of foot as the antelope, escaped and reached the camp with
+the sad tidings of the death of his companion, and of the presence, in
+their immediate vicinity, of hostile Indians. This so affrighted the
+North Carolinian who had come with Squire Boone, that he resolved upon
+an immediate return to the Yadkin. He set out alone, and doubtless
+perished by the way, as he was never heard of again. A skeleton,
+subsequently found in the wilderness, was supposed to be the remains of
+the unfortunate hunter. He probably perished through exhaustion, or by
+the arrow or tomahawk of the savage.</p>
+
+<p>The two brothers, Daniel and Squire, were now left entirely alone.</p>
+
+<p>They selected a favorable spot in a wild ravine where they would be the
+least likely to be discovered <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>by hunting bands, and built for
+themselves a snug and comfortable log-house, in which they would be more
+effectually sheltered from the storms and cold of winter, and into which
+they moved from their open camp. Here they remained, two loving brothers
+of congenial tastes, during the months of January, February, March and
+April. Solitary as their life must have been probably, every hour
+brought busy employment. Each day's food was to be obtained by the
+rifle. Wood was to be procured for their fire. All their clothing, from
+the cap to the moccasin, was to be fashioned by their own hands from the
+skin of the deer, which they had carefully tanned into pliancy and
+softness; and there were to be added to their cabin many conveniences
+which required much ingenuity with knife and hatchet for their only
+tools, and with neither nail nor screw for their construction. In
+addition to this they were under the necessity of being ever on the
+alert to discover indications of the approach of the Indians.</p>
+
+<p>The winter passed away, not only undisturbed, but evidently very
+happily. It is remarkable that their retreat was not discovered by any
+of the Indian bands, who in pursuit of game were constantly roving over
+those rich hunting grounds.</p>
+
+<p>As summer's warmth returned, Squire Boone decided to retrace his steps
+to the Yadkin, to carry to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>his brother's family news of his safety, and
+to obtain much needed supplies of powder and of lead. There is no
+satisfactory explanation of the motives which could have induced Daniel,
+after the absence of a year from his home, to remain alone in that
+solitary cabin. In his autobiography he has assigned no reason for the
+extraordinary decision. One of the most judicious of his biographers
+makes the following statement which by no means solves the mystery:</p>
+
+<p>"When the spring came it was time for another movement. The spring came
+early, and the awaking to its foliage seemed like the passing from night
+to the day. The game had reduced their powder and lead, and without
+these there was no existence to the white man. Again Daniel Boone rises
+to the emergency. It was necessary that the settlement which they had
+made should be continued and protected, and it was the duty in the
+progress of events that one of them should remain to that task. He made
+the selection and chose himself. He had the courage to remain alone. And
+while he felt the keenest desire to see his own family, he felt that he
+had a noble purpose to serve and was prepared for it."<a name="FNanchor_C_3" id="FNanchor_C_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_C_3" class="fnanchor">[C]</a></p>
+
+<p>Daniel Boone, in his quaint autobiography, in the following terms
+alludes to the departure of his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>brother and his own solitary mode of
+life during the three months of his brother's absence:</p>
+
+<p>"On the first day of May, 1770, my brother returned home to the
+settlement by himself for a new recruit of horses and ammunition,
+leaving me by myself without bread, salt or sugar, without company of my
+fellow creatures, or even a horse or dog. I confess I never before was
+under greater necessity of exercising philosophy and fortitude. A few
+days I passed uncomfortably. The idea of a beloved wife and family, and
+their anxiety on account of my absence and exposed situation, made
+sensible impressions on my heart. A thousand dreadful apprehensions
+presented themselves to my view, and had undoubtedly exposed me to
+melancholy if further indulged.</p>
+
+<p>"One day I took a tour through the country, and the diversity and
+beauties of nature I met with in this charming season, expelled every
+gloomy and vexatious thought. Just at the close of the day the gentle
+gales retired and left the place to the disposal of a profound calm. Not
+a breeze shook the most tremulous leaf. I had gained the summit of a
+commanding ridge, and looking around with astonishing delight beheld the
+ample plain, the beauteous tracts below. On the other hand I surveyed
+the famous river Ohio, that rolled in silent dignity, marking the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>western boundary of Kentucky, with inconceivable grandeur. At a vast
+distance I beheld the mountains lift their venerable heads and penetrate
+the clouds.</p>
+
+<p>"I kindled a fire near a fountain of sweet water, and feasted on the
+loin of a buck. The fallen shades of night soon overspread the whole
+hemisphere, and the earth seemed to gape after the hovering moisture. My
+roving excursion this day had fatigued my body and diverted my
+imagination. I laid me down to sleep, and I woke not until the sun had
+chased away the night. I continued this tour, and in a few days explored
+a considerable part of the country, each day equally pleased as the
+first. I returned to my old camp which was not disturbed in my absence.
+I did not confine my lodging to it, but often reposed in thick cane
+brakes, to avoid the savages, who I believe often visited it, but,
+fortunately for me, in my absence.</p>
+
+<p>"In this situation I was constantly exposed to danger and death. How
+unhappy such a condition for a man tormented with fear, which is vain if
+no danger comes; and if it does, only augments the pain! It was my
+happiness to be destitute of this afflicting passion, with which I had
+the greatest reason to be affected. The prowling wolves diverted my
+nocturnal hours with perpetual howlings, and the various species of
+animals in this vast forest, in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>day-time were continually in my
+view. Thus I was surrounded with plenty in the midst of want. I was
+happy in the midst of dangers and inconveniences. In such a diversity it
+was impossible I should be disposed to melancholy. No populous city,
+with all the varieties of commerce and stately structures, could afford
+so much pleasure to my mind, as the beauties of nature I found here.</p>
+
+<p>"Thus through an uninterrupted scene of sylvan pleasures, I spent the
+time until the twenty-seventh day of July following, when my brother, to
+my great felicity, met me, according to appointment, at our old camp."</p>
+
+<p>Boone was at this time thirty-six years of age. He was about five feet
+ten inches in height, and of remarkably vigorous and athletic frame. His
+life in the open air, his perfect temperance, and his freedom from all
+exciting passions, gave him constant health. Squire brought back to his
+brother the gratifying news that his wife Rebecca was in good health and
+spirits, and cheerfully acquiesced in whatever decision her husband
+might make, in reference to his absence. She had full confidence in the
+soundness of his judgment, and in his conjugal and parental love. The
+children were all well, and from the farm and the forest the wants of
+the family were fully supplied.</p>
+
+<p>It appears that Squire Boone had succeeded in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>bringing one or two
+horses across the mountains. The abundance of grass kept them in fine
+condition. Upon the backs of these horses, the pioneers could traverse
+the treeless prairies without obstruction, and large portions of the
+forest were as free from underbrush as the park of an English nobleman.
+Invaluable as these animals were to the adventurers, they greatly
+increased their perils. They could not easily be concealed. Their
+footprints could not be effaced, and there was nothing the Indians
+coveted so greatly as a horse.</p>
+
+<p>The two adventurers now set out on horseback for an exploring tour to
+the south-west. Following a line nearly parallel with the Cumberland
+Range, after traversing a magnificent region of beauty and fertility for
+about one hundred and fifty miles, they reached the banks of the
+Cumberland river. This majestic stream takes its rise on the western
+slope of the Cumberland mountains. After an exceedingly circuitous route
+of six hundred miles, running far down into Tennessee, it turns
+north-westerly again, and empties its waters into the Ohio, about sixty
+miles above the entrance of that river into the Mississippi.</p>
+
+<p>It was mid-summer. The weather was delightful. The forest free from
+underbrush, attractive as the most artificial park, and the smooth sweep
+of the treeless prairie presented before them as enticing a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>route of
+travel as the imagination could desire. There were of course hardships
+and privations, which would have been regarded as very severe by the
+dwellers in the sealed houses, but none which disturbed in the slightest
+degree the equanimity of these hardy adventurers. They journeyed very
+leisurely; seven months being occupied in the tour. Probably only a few
+miles were accomplished each day. With soft saddles made of the skin of
+buffalo, with their horses never urged beyond a walk, with bright skies
+above them, and vistas of beauty ever opening before them, and
+luxuriance, bloom and fragrance spread everywhere around, their journey
+seemed replete with enjoyment of the purest kind.</p>
+
+<p>Though it was necessary to practice the extreme of caution, to avoid
+capture by the Indians, our adventurers do not seem to have been annoyed
+in the slightest degree with any painful fears on that account. Each
+morning they carefully scanned the horizon, to see if anywhere there
+could be seen the smoke of the camp-fire curling up from the open
+prairie or from the forest. Through the day they were ever on the alert,
+examining the trails which they occasionally passed, to see if there
+were any fresh foot prints, or other indications of the recent presence
+of their foe. At night, before venturing to kindle their own camp-fire,
+they looked cautiously in every direction, to see if a gleam <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>from an
+Indian encampment could anywhere be seen. Thus from the first of August
+to the ensuing month of March, these two bold men traversed, for many
+hundred miles, an unknown country, filled with wandering hunting bands
+of hostile Indians, and yet avoided capture or detection.</p>
+
+<p>If a storm arose, they would rear their cabin in some secluded dell, and
+basking in the warmth of their camp-fire wait until the returning sun
+invited them to resume their journey. Or if they came to some of
+nature's favored haunts, where Eden-like attractions were spread around
+them, on the borders of the lake, by the banks of the stream, or beneath
+the brow of the mountain, they would tarry for a few days, reveling in
+delights, which they both had the taste to appreciate.</p>
+
+<p>In this way, they very thoroughly explored the upper valley of the
+Cumberland river. For some reason not given, they preferred to return
+north several hundred miles to the Kentucky river, as the seat of their
+contemplated settlement. The head waters of this stream are near those
+of the Cumberland. It however flows through the very heart of Kentucky,
+till it enters the Ohio river, midway between the present cities of
+Cincinnati and Louisville. It was in the month of March that they
+reached the Kentucky river on their return. For some time they wandered
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>along its banks searching for the more suitable situation for the
+location of a colony.</p>
+
+<p>"The exemption of these men," said W. H. Bogart, "from assault by the
+Indians during all this long period of seven months, in which, armed and
+on horseback, they seem to have roamed just where they chose, is most
+wonderful. It has something about it which seems like a special
+interposition of Providence, beyond the ordinary guardianship over the
+progress of man. On the safety of these men rested the hope of a nation.
+A very distinguished authority has declared, that without Boone, the
+settlements could not have been upheld and the conquest of Kentucky
+would have been reserved for the emigrants of the nineteenth century."</p>
+
+<p>Boone having now, after an absence of nearly two years, apparently
+accomplished the great object of his mission; having, after the most
+careful and extensive exploration, selected such a spot as he deemed
+most attractive for the future home of his family, decided to return to
+the Yadkin and make preparations for their emigration across the
+mountains. To us now, such a movement seems to indicate an almost insane
+boldness and recklessness. To take wife and children into a pathless
+wilderness filled with unfriendly savages, five hundred miles from any
+of the settlements of civilization, would seem to invite death. A
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>family could not long be concealed. Their discovery by the Indians
+would be almost the certain precursor of their destruction. Boone, in
+his autobiography, says in allusion to this hazardous adventure:</p>
+
+<p>"I returned home to my family with a determination to bring them as soon
+as possible, at the risk of my life and fortune, to live in Kentucky,
+which I esteemed a second paradise."</p>
+
+<p>The two brothers accomplished the journey safely, and Daniel Boone found
+his family, after his long absence, in health and prosperity. One would
+have supposed that the charms of home on the banks of the Yadkin, where
+they could dwell in peace, abundance and safety, would have lured our
+adventurer to rest from his wanderings. And it is probable that for a
+time, he wavered in his resolution. Two years elapsed ere he set out for
+his new home in the Far-West.</p>
+
+<p>There was much to be done in preparation for so momentous a movement. He
+sold his farm on the Yadkin and invested the proceeds in such comforts
+as would be available on the banks of the Kentucky. Money would be of no
+value to him there. A path had been discovered by which horses could be
+led through the mountains, and thus many articles could be transported
+which could not be taken in packs on the back. Several of the neighbors,
+elated by the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>description which Boone gave of the paradise he had
+found, were anxious to join his family in their emigration. There were
+also quite a number of young men rising here and there, who, lured by
+the romance of the adventure, were eager to accompany the expedition.
+All these events caused delays. The party of emigrants became more
+numerous than Boone at first expected.</p>
+
+<p>It was not until the twenty-fifth of September, 1773, that Daniel Boone,
+his brother Squire, and quite a large party of emigrants, probably in
+all&mdash;men, women and children&mdash;not less than sixty in number, commenced
+their journey across the mountains. There were five families and forty
+pioneers, all well armed, who were quite at home amid the trials and
+privations of the wilderness. Four horses, heavily laden, led the train
+through the narrow trails of the forest. Then came, in single file, the
+remainder of the party, of all ages and both sexes. It must have been a
+singular spectacle which was presented, as this long line wound its way
+through the valleys and over the ridges.</p>
+
+<p>Squire Boone was quite familiar with the path. It was delightful
+autumnal weather. The days were long and calm, and yet not oppressively
+hot. There were no gloved gentlemen or delicate ladies in the company.
+All were hardy men and women, accustomed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>to endurance. Each day's
+journey was short. An hour before the sun disappeared in the west, the
+little village of cabins arose, where some spring gurgled from the
+cliff, or some sparkling mountain stream rippled before them. In front
+of each cabin the camp-fire blazed. All was animation and apparent joy,
+as the women prepared the evening meal, and the wearied children rested
+upon their couch of dried leaves or fragrant twigs. If a storm arose,
+they had but to remain beneath their shelter until it passed away.</p>
+
+<p>"Traveling," says Madame de Stael, who was accustomed to the most
+luxurious of European conveyances, "is the most painful of pleasures."
+Probably our travelers on this journey experienced as many pleasures and
+as few pains as often fall to the lot of any tourist. The solitary
+wilderness has its attractions as well as the thronged town.</p>
+
+<p>These bold men armed with their rifles, under such an accomplished
+leader as Daniel Boone, penetrated the wilderness with almost the
+strength of an invading army. Upon the open prairie, the superiority of
+their arms would compensate for almost any inferiority of numbers.
+Indeed they had little to fear from the savages, unless struck suddenly
+with overwhelming numbers leaping upon them from some ambush. Pleasant
+days came and went, while nothing occurred <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>to interrupt the prosperity
+of their journey. They were approaching the celebrated Cumberland Gap,
+which seems to be a door that nature has thrown open for passing through
+this great mountain barrier. The vigilance they ought to have practiced
+had been in some degree relaxed by their freedom from all alarm. The
+cows had fallen a few miles behind, seven young men were with them, a
+son of Daniel Boone being one of the number. The main party was not
+aware how far the cattle had fallen in the rear.</p>
+
+<p>It is probable that the savages had been following them for several
+days, watching for an opportunity to strike, for suddenly, as they were
+passing through a narrow ravine, the fearful war-whoop resounded from
+the thickets on both sides, a shower of arrows fell upon them, and six
+of the seven young men were instantly struck down by these deadly
+missiles. One only escaped. The attack was so sudden, so unexpected,
+that the emigrants had scarcely time for one discharge of their
+fire-arms, ere they were struck with death. The party in advance heard
+with consternation the reports of the muskets, and immediately returned
+to the scene of the disaster. But several miles intervened. They met the
+fugitive who had escaped, bleeding and almost breathless.</p>
+
+<p>Hurrying on, an awful spectacle met their view. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>The bodies of six of
+the young men lay in the path, mangled and gory, with their scalps torn
+from their heads: the cattle were driven into the forest beyond pursuit.
+One of these victims was the eldest son of Daniel Boone. James was a
+noble lad of but seventeen years. His untimely death was a terrible blow
+to his father and mother. This massacre took place on the tenth of
+October, only a fortnight after the expedition had commenced its march.
+The gloom which it threw over the minds of the emigrants was so great,
+that the majority refused to press any farther into a wilderness where
+they would encounter such perils.</p>
+
+<p>They had already passed two mountain ridges. Between them there was a
+very beautiful valley, through which flows the Clinch River. This many
+leagues below, uniting with the Holston River, flowing on the other side
+of Powell's Ridge, composes the majestic Tennessee, which, extending far
+down into Alabama, turns again north, and traversing the whole breadth
+of Tennessee and Kentucky, empties into the Ohio.</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding the remonstrances of Daniel Boone and his brother, the
+majority of the emigrants resolved to retreat forty miles over the
+Walden Ridge, and establish themselves in the valley of the Clinch.
+Daniel Boone, finding all his attempts to encourage them to proceed in
+vain, decided with his customary <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>good sense to acquiesce in their
+wishes, and quietly to await further developments. The whole party
+consequently retraced their steps, and reared their cabins on fertile
+meadows in the valley of the Clinch River. Here, between parallel ridges
+of mountains running north-east and south-west, Boone with his
+disheartened emigrants passed seven months. This settlement was within
+the limits of the present State of Virginia, in its most extreme
+south-western corner.</p>
+
+<p>The value of the vast country beyond the mountains was beginning to
+attract the attention of the governors of the several colonies. Governor
+Dunmore of Virginia had sent a party of surveyors to explore the valley
+of the Ohio River as far as the celebrated Falls of the Ohio, near the
+present site of Louisville. Quite a body of these surveyors had built
+and fortified a camp near the Falls, and were busy in exploring the
+country, in preparation for the granting of lands as rewards for
+services to the officers and soldiers in the French war. These pioneers
+were far away in the wilderness, four hundred miles beyond any
+settlement of the whites. They were surrounded by thousands of Indian
+warriors, and still they felt somewhat secure, as a treaty of peace had
+been made by the Governor of Virginia with the neighboring chiefs. But,
+notwithstanding this treaty, many of the more intelligent of the Indians
+foresaw the inevitable destruction <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>of their hunting grounds, should the
+white men succeed in establishing themselves on their lands, and cutting
+them up into farms.</p>
+
+<p>A friendly Indian had informed Governor Dunmore that a very formidable
+conspiracy had been organised by the tribes for the destruction of the
+party encamped at the Falls of the Ohio, and for the extermination of
+every other party of whites who should penetrate their hunting grounds.
+It was in accordance with this conspiracy that Daniel Boone's party was
+so fiercely assailed when near the Gap, in the Cumberland mountains; and
+it was probably the knowledge of this conspiracy, thus practically
+developed, which led the husbands and fathers to abandon their
+enterprise of plunging into the wilderness of Kentucky.</p>
+
+<p>There were about forty men all numbered, in the little band of surveyors
+at the Falls. They were in terrible peril. Unconscious of danger, and
+supposing the Indians to be friendly, they were liable to be attacked on
+any day by overwhelming numbers of savages, and utterly exterminated. It
+consequently became a matter of great moment that Governor Dunmore
+should send them word of their danger, and if possible secure their safe
+return to the settlements. But who would undertake such a mission? One
+fraught with greater danger could not easily be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>imagined. The courier
+must traverse on foot a distance of four or five hundred miles through a
+pathless wilderness, filled with hunting bands of hostile savages. He
+must live upon the game he could shoot each day, when every discharge of
+his musket was liable to bring upon him scores of foes. He must either
+eat his food raw, or cook it at a fire whose gleam at night, or smoke by
+day, would be almost sure to attract the attention of death-dealing
+enemies. He must conceal his footprints from hunting bands, wandering
+far and wide in every direction, so keen in their sagacity that they
+could almost follow the track of the lightest-footed animal through the
+forest or over the prairie.</p>
+
+<p>The Indians had also well-trained dogs, who being once put upon the
+scent, could with unerring instinct follow any object of search, until
+it was overtaken.</p>
+
+<p>The name of Daniel Boone was mentioned to Governor Dunmore as precisely
+the man to meet this exigency. The Governor made application to the
+practiced hunter, and Boone, without the slightest hesitancy, accepted
+the perilous office. Indeed he seems to have been entirely unconscious
+of the heroism he was developing. Never did knight errant of the middle
+ages undertake an achievement of equal daring; for capture not only was
+certain death, but death under the most frightful tortures. But Boone,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>calm, imperturbable, pensive, with never a shade of boastfulness in
+word or action, embarked in the enterprise as if it had been merely one
+of the ordinary occurrences of every-day life. In the following modest
+words he records the event in his autobiography:</p>
+
+<p>"I remained with my family on the Clinch river until the sixth of June,
+1774, when I, and one Michael Stoner, were solicited by Governor Dunmore
+of Virginia, to go to the Falls of the Ohio to conduct into the
+settlements a number of surveyors that had been sent thither by him some
+months before, this country having about this time drawn the attention
+of many adventurers. We immediately complied with the Governor's
+request, and conducted in the surveyors, completing a tour of eight
+hundred miles, through many difficulties, in sixty-two days."</p>
+
+<p>The narrative which follows will give the reader some idea of the
+wilderness which Boone was about to penetrate and the perils which he
+was to encounter.</p>
+
+<p>An emigrant of these early days who lived to witness the transformation
+of the wilderness from a scene of unbroken solitude into the haunts of
+busy men, in the following words describes this change and its influence
+upon the mind:</p>
+
+<p>"To a person who has witnessed all the changes which have taken place in
+the western country since its first settlement, its former appearance is
+like a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>dream or romance. He will find it difficult to realise the
+features of that wilderness which was the abode of his infant days. The
+little cabin of his father no longer exists. The little field and truck
+patch which gave him a scanty supply of coarse bread and vegetables have
+been swallowed up in the extended meadows, orchard or grain fields. The
+rude fort in which his people had resided so many painful summers has
+vanished.</p>
+
+<p>"Everywhere surrounded by the busy hum of men and the splendor, arts,
+refinements and comforts of civilised life, his former state and that of
+his country have vanished from his memory; or if sometimes he bestows a
+reflection on its original aspect, the mind seems to be carried back to
+a period of time much more remote than it really is. One advantage at
+least results from having lived in a state of society ever on the change
+and always for the better, that it doubles the retrospect of life. With
+me at any rate it has had that effect. Did not the definite number of my
+years teach me to the contrary, I should think myself at least one
+hundred years old instead of fifty. The case is said to be widely
+different with those who have passed their lives in cities or ancient
+settlements where, from year to year, the same unchanging aspect of
+things presents itself.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p><p>"One prominent feature of the wilderness is its solitude. Those who
+plunged into the bosom of this forest left behind them not only the busy
+hum of men, but of domesticated animal life generally. The solitude of
+the night was interrupted only by the howl of the wolf, the melancholy
+moan of the ill-boding owl or the shriek of the frightful panther. Even
+the faithful dog, the only steadfast companion of man among the brute
+creation, partook of the silence of the desert; the discipline of his
+master forbade him to bark or move but in obedience to his command, and
+his native sagacity soon taught the propriety of obedience to this
+severe government.</p>
+
+<p>"The day was, if possible, more solitary than the night. The noise of
+the wild turkey, the croaking of the raven, or the woodpecker tapping
+the hollow beech tree, did not much enliven the dreary scene. The
+various tribes of singing birds are not inhabitants of the desert. They
+are not carnivorous and therefore must be fed from the labors of man. At
+any rate they did not exist in this country at its first settlement.</p>
+
+<p>"Let the imagination of the reader pursue the track of the adventurer
+into the solitary wilderness, bending his course towards the setting sun
+over undulating hills, under the shade of large forest trees, and wading
+through the rank weeds and grass which then covered <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>the earth. Now he
+views from the top of a hill the winding course of a creek whose streams
+he wishes to explore. Doubtful of its course and of his own, he
+ascertains the cardinal points of north and south by the thickness of
+the moss and bark on the north side of the ancient trees. Now descending
+into a valley, he presages his approach to a river by seeing large ash,
+basswood and sugar trees beautifully festooned with wild grape vines.
+Watchful as Argus, his restless eye catches everything around him.</p>
+
+<p>"In an unknown region and surrounded with dangers, he is the sentinel of
+his own safety and relies on himself for protection. The toilsome march
+of the day being ended, at the fall of night he seeks for safety some
+narrow sequestered hollow, and by the side of a large log builds a fire
+and, after eating a coarse and scanty meal, wraps himself up in his
+blanket and lays him self down for repose on his bed of leaves, with his
+feet to the fire, hoping for favorable dreams, ominous of future good
+luck, while his faithful dog and gun rest by his side.</p>
+
+<p>"But let not the reader suppose that the pilgrim of the wilderness could
+feast his imagination with the romantic beauties of nature, without any
+drawback from conflicting passions. His situation did not afford him
+much time for contemplation. He was an exile from the warm clothing and
+plentiful mansions of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>society. His homely woodman's dress soon became
+old and ragged. The cravings of hunger compelled him to sustain from day
+to day the fatigues of the chase. Often he had to eat his venison,
+bear's meat, or wild turkey without bread or salt. His situation was not
+without its dangers. He did not know at what moment his foot might be
+stung by a serpent, at what moment he might meet with the formidable
+bear, or on what limb of a tree over his head the murderous panther
+might be perched, in a squatting attitude, to drop down upon him and
+tear him in pieces in a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Exiled from society and its comforts, the situation of the first
+adventurers was perilous in the extreme. The bite of a serpent, a broken
+limb, a wound of any kind, or a fit of sickness in the wilderness
+without those accommodations which wounds and sickness require, was a
+dreadful calamity. The bed of sickness, without medical aid, and above
+all to be destitute of the kind attention of a mother, sister, wife, or
+other female friends, was a situation which could not be anticipated by
+the tenant of the forest, with other sentiments than those of the
+deepest horror."<a name="FNanchor_D_4" id="FNanchor_D_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_D_4" class="fnanchor">[D]</a></p>
+
+<p>There are no narratives of more thrilling interest than those which
+describe the perils and hair-breadth <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>escapes which some of these bold
+hunters encountered. Immediately after the purchase of Louisiana, an
+expedition under Lewis and Clark was fitted out, under President
+Jefferson's administration, to explore the vast, mysterious, undefined
+realms which the government had purchased. In the month of May, 1804,
+the expedition, in birch canoes, commenced the ascent of the Missouri
+river.</p>
+
+<p>They knew not whence its source, what its length or the number of its
+tributaries, through what regions of fertility or barrenness it flowed,
+or what the character of the nations who might inhabit its banks.
+Paddling up the rapid current of this flood of waters in their frail
+boats, the ascent was slow. By the latter part of October they had
+reached a point fifteen hundred miles above the spot where the Missouri
+enters the Mississippi. Here they spent the winter with some friendly
+Indians called the Mandans.</p>
+
+<p>Early in April, Lewis and Clark, with thirty men in their canoes,
+resumed their voyage. Their course was nearly west. In May they reached
+the mouth of the Yellow Stone river, and on the 13th of June came to the
+<i>Great Falls of the Missouri</i>. Here they found a series of cataracts ten
+miles in length. At one spot the river plunged over a precipice
+eighty-seven feet in height. Carrying their canoes around these falls,
+they re-embarked, and paddled through what they called <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>"The Gates of
+the Rocky Mountains." Here for six miles they were in a narrow channel
+with perpendicular walls of rock, rising on both sides to the height of
+twelve hundred feet. Thus these adventurers continued their voyage till
+they reached the head of navigation, three thousand miles from the mouth
+of the Missouri river. Passing through the mountains they launched their
+canoes on streams flowing to the west, through which they entered the
+Columbia river, reaching its mouth, through a thousand perils on the
+15th of November. They were now more than four thousand miles distant
+from the mouth of the Missouri. Such was the breadth of the estate we
+had purchased of France.</p>
+
+<p>Here they passed their second winter. In the early spring they commenced
+their return. When they arrived at the Falls of the Missouri they
+encountered a numerous band of Indians, very bold and daring, called the
+Blackfoot. These savages were astonished beyond measure, at the effect
+of the rifle which could emit thunder and lightning, and a deadly though
+invisible bolt. Some of the boldest endeavored to wrench the rifles from
+some of the Americans. Mr. Lewis found it necessary to shoot one of them
+before they would desist. The rest fled in dismay, but burning with the
+desire for revenge. The explorers continuing their voyage arrived at
+Saint <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>Louis on the 23rd of September, 1806, having been absent more
+than two years, and having traveled more than nine thousand miles.</p>
+
+<p>When the expedition, on its return, had reached the head waters of the
+Missouri, two of these fearless men, Colter and Potts, decided to remain
+in the wilderness to hunt beaver. Being well aware of the hostility of
+the Blackfoot Indians, within whose regions they were, they set their
+traps at night, and took them up in the first dawn of the day. Early one
+morning, they were ascending a creek in a canoe, visiting their traps,
+when they were alarmed by a great noise, like the trampling of animals.
+They could see nothing, as the perpendicular banks of the river impeded
+their view. Yet they hoped that the noise was occasioned simply by the
+rush of a herd of buffaloes.</p>
+
+<p>Their doubts were soon painfully removed. A band of six hundred
+Blackfoot warriors appeared upon each side of the creek. Escape was
+hopeless. The Indians beckoned to the hunters to come ashore. Colter
+turned the head of the canoe towards the bank, and as soon as it touched
+the land, a burly savage seized the rifle belonging to Potts, and
+wrenched it from his hand. But Colter, who was a man of extraordinary
+activity and strength, grasped the rifle, tore it from the hands of the
+Indian, and handed it back to Potts. Colter stepped ashore and was a
+captive. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>Potts, with apparent infatuation, but probably influenced by
+deliberate thought, pushed again out into the stream. He knew that, as a
+captive, death by horrible torture awaited him. He preferred to provoke
+the savages to his instant destruction. An arrow was shot at him, which
+pierced his body. He took deliberate aim at the Indian who threw it and
+shot him dead upon the spot. Instantly a shower of arrows whizzed
+through the air, and he fell a dead man in the bottom of the boat. The
+earthly troubles of Potts were ended. But fearful were those upon which
+Colter was about to enter.</p>
+
+<p>The Indians, after some deliberation respecting the manner in which they
+would put him to death, stripped him entirely naked, and one of the
+chiefs led him out upon the prairie to the distance of three or four
+hundred yards from the rest of the band who were grouped together.
+Colter then perceived that he was to have the dreadful privilege of
+running for his life;&mdash;he, entirely naked and unarmed, to be pursued by
+six hundred fleet-footed Indians with arrows and javelins, and with
+their feet and limbs protected from thorns and brambles by moccasins and
+deerskin leggins.</p>
+
+<p>"Save yourself if you can," said the chief in the Blackfoot language as
+he set him loose. Colter sprung forward with almost supernatural speed.
+Instantly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>the Indian's war-whoop burst from the lips of his six hundred
+pursuers. They were upon a plain about six miles in breadth abounding
+with the prickly pear. At the end of the plain there was Jefferson
+river, a stream but a few rods wide. Every step Colter took, bounding
+forward with almost the speed of an antelope, his naked feet were torn
+by the thorns. The physical effort he made was so great that the blood
+gushed from his nostrils, and flowed profusely down over his chest. He
+had half crossed the plain before he ventured to glance over his
+shoulder upon his pursuers, who, with hideous yells, like baying
+bloodhounds, seemed close upon his heels. Much to his relief he
+perceived that he had greatly distanced most of the Indians, though one
+stout savage, with a javelin in his hand, was within a hundred yards of
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Hope reanimated him. Regardless of lacerated feet and blood, he pressed
+forward with renovated vigor until he arrived within about a mile of the
+river, when he found that his pursuer was gaining rapidly upon him. He
+could hear his breathing and the sound of his footsteps, and expected
+every moment to feel the sharp javelin piercing his back.</p>
+
+<p>In his desperation he suddenly stopped, turned round and stretching out
+both of his arms, rushed, in his utter defencelessness, upon the armed
+warrior. The savage, startled by this unexpected movement <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>and by the
+bloody appearance of his victim, stumbled and fell, breaking his spear
+as he attempted to throw it. Colter instantly snatched up the pointed
+part, and pinned his foe, quivering with convulsions to the earth.</p>
+
+<p>Again he plunged forward on the race for life. The Indians, as they came
+up, stopped for a moment around the body of their slain comrade, and
+then, with hideous yells, resumed the pursuit. The stream was fringed
+with a dense growth of cotton-wood trees. Colter rushed through them,
+thus concealed from observation, and seeing near by a large raft of
+drift timber, he plunged into the water, dived under the raft and
+fortunately succeeded in getting his head above the water between the
+logs, where smaller wood covered him to the depth of several feet.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely had he attained this hiding place ere the Indians like so many
+fiends came rushing down to the river's bank. They searched the
+cotton-wood thickets, and traversed the raft in all directions. They
+frequently came so near the hiding place of Colter that he could see
+them through the chinks. He was terribly afraid that they would set fire
+to the raft. Night came on, and the Indians disappeared. Colter, in the
+darkness, dived from under the raft, swam down the river to a
+considerable distance, and then landed and traveled all night, following
+the course of the stream.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p><p>"Although happy in having escaped from the Indians, his situation was
+still dreadful. He was completely naked under a burning sun. The soles
+of his feet were filled with the thorns of the prickly pear. He was
+hungry and had no means of killing game, although he saw abundance
+around him; and was at a great distance from the nearest settlement.
+After some days of sore travel, during which he had no other sustenance
+than the root known by naturalists under the name of <i>psoralea
+esculenta</i>, he at length arrived in safety at Lisa Fort, on the Big
+Horn, a branch of the Yellow Stone river."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/ichapend.jpg" width="450" height="120" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Captivity and Flight.</i></h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot2"><p>Heroism of Thomas Higgins and of Mrs. Pursley.&mdash;Affairs at
+Boonesborough.&mdash;Continued Alarms.&mdash;Need of Salt.&mdash;Its
+Manufacture.&mdash;Indian Schemes.&mdash;Capture of Boone and twenty-seven
+men.&mdash;Dilemma of the British at Detroit.&mdash;Blackfish adopts Colonel
+Boone.&mdash;Adoption Ceremony.&mdash;Indian Designs.&mdash;Escape of
+Boone.&mdash;Attacks the Savages.&mdash;The Fort Threatened.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>The following well authenticated account of the adventures of a ranger
+is so graphically described in Brown's <i>History of Illinois</i>, that we
+give it in the words of the writer:</p>
+
+<p>"Thomas Higgins, a native Kentuckian, was, in the summer of 1814,
+stationed in a block-house eight miles south of Greenville, in what is
+now Bond County, Illinois. On the evening of the 30th of August, 1814, a
+small party of Indians having been seen prowling about the station,
+Lieutenant Journay, with all his men, twelve only in number, sallied
+forth the next morning, just before daybreak, in pursuit of them. They
+had not proceeded far on the border of the prairie, before they were in
+an ambuscade of seventy or eighty savages. At the first fire, the
+lieutenant and three of his men were killed. Six fled to the fort <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>under
+cover of the smoke, for the morning was sultry, and the air being damp,
+the smoke from the guns hung like a cloud over the scene. But Higgins
+remained behind to have 'one more pull at the enemy,' and to avenge the
+death of his companions.</p>
+
+<p>"He sprang behind a small elm scarcely sufficient to protect his body,
+when, the smoke partly rising, discovered to him a number of Indians,
+upon whom he fired, and shot down the foremost one. Concealed still by
+the smoke, Higgins reloaded, mounted his horse, and turned to fly, when
+a voice, apparently from the grass, hailed him with: Tom, you won't
+leave me, will you?</p>
+
+<p>"He turned immediately around, and seeing a fellow soldier by the name
+of Burgess lying on the ground, wounded and gasping for breath, replied,
+'No, I will not leave you; come along.' 'I can't come,' said Burgess,
+'my leg is all smashed to pieces.'</p>
+
+<p>"Higgins dismounted, and taking up his friend, whose ankle had been
+broken, was about to lift him on his horse, when the animal, taking
+fright, darted off in an instant and left them both behind. 'This is too
+bad,' said Higgins, 'but don't fear. You hop off on your three legs and
+I will stay behind between you and the Indians and keep them off. Get
+into the tallest grass and creep as near the ground as possible.'
+Burgess did so and escaped.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span></p><p>"The smoke which had hitherto concealed Higgins now cleared away, and he
+resolved, if possible, to retreat. To follow the track of Burgess was
+most expedient. It would, however, endanger his friend. He determined,
+therefore, to venture boldly forward and, if discovered, to secure his
+own safety by the rapidity of his flight. On leaving a small thicket in
+which he had sought refuge, he discovered a tall, portly savage near by,
+and two others in the direction between him and the fort.</p>
+
+<p>"He started, therefore, for a little rivulet near, but found one of his
+limbs failing him, it having been struck by a ball in the first
+encounter, of which, till now, he was scarcely conscious. The largest
+Indian pressed close upon him, and Higgins turned round two or three
+times in order to fire. The Indian halted and danced about to prevent
+his taking aim. He saw that it was unsafe to fire at random, and
+perceiving two others approaching, knew that he must be overpowered
+unless he could dispose of the forward Indian first. He resolved,
+therefore, to halt and receive his fire.</p>
+
+<p>"The Indian raised his rifle, and Higgins, watching his eye, turned
+suddenly as his finger pressed the trigger, and received the ball in his
+thigh. He fell, but rose immediately and ran. The foremost Indian, now
+certain of his prey, loaded again, and with the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>other two pressed on.
+They overtook him. He fell again, and as he rose the whole three fired,
+and he received all their balls. He now fell and rose a third time, and
+the Indians, throwing away their guns, advanced upon him with spears and
+knives. As he presented his gun at one or another, each fell back. At
+last the largest Indian, supposing his gun to be empty, from his fire
+having been thus reserved, advanced boldly to the charge. Higgins fired
+and the savage fell.</p>
+
+<p>"He had now four bullets in his body, an empty gun in his hand, two
+Indians unharmed as yet before him, and a whole tribe but a few yards
+distant. Any other man would have despaired. Not so with him. He had
+slain the most dangerous of the three, and having but little to fear
+from the others, began to load his rifle. They raised a savage whoop and
+rushed to the encounter. A bloody conflict now ensued. The Indians
+stabbed him in several places. Their spears, however, were but thin
+poles, hastily prepared, and which bent whenever they struck a rib or a
+muscle. The wounds they made were not therefore deep, though numerous.</p>
+
+<p>"At last one of them threw his tomahawk. It struck him upon the cheek,
+severed his ear, laid bare his skull to the back of his head, and
+stretched him upon the prairie. The Indians again rushed on, but
+Higgins, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>recovering his self-possession, kept them off with his feet
+and hands. Grasping at length one of their spears, the Indian, in
+attempting to pull it from him, raised Higgins up, who, taking his
+rifle, dashed out the brains of the nearest savage. In doing this,
+however, it broke, the barrel only remaining in his hand. The other
+Indian, who had heretofore fought with caution, came now manfully into
+the battle. His character as a warrior was in jeopardy. To have fled
+from a man thus wounded and disarmed, or to have suffered his victim to
+escape, would have tarnished his fame for ever. Uttering, therefore, a
+terrific yell, he rushed on and attempted to stab the exhausted ranger.
+But the latter warded off his blow with one hand and brandished his
+rifle barrel with the other. The Indian was as yet unharmed, and, under
+existing circumstances, by far the most powerful man. Higgins' courage,
+however, was unexhausted and inexhaustible.</p>
+
+<p>"The savage at last began to retreat from the glare of his untamed eye
+to the spot where he had dropped his rifle. Higgins knew that if he
+recovered that, his own case was desperate. Throwing, therefore, his
+rifle barrel aside, and drawing his hunting knife he rushed upon his
+foe. A desperate strife ensued&mdash;deep gashes were inflicted on both
+sides. Higgins, fatigued and exhausted by the loss of blood, was no
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>longer a match for the savage. The latter succeeded in throwing his
+adversary from him, and went immediately in pursuit of his rifle.
+Higgins at the same time rose and sought for the gun of the other
+Indian. Both, therefore, bleeding and out of breath, were in search of
+arms to renew the combat.</p>
+
+<p>"The smoke had now passed away, and a large number of Indians were in
+view. Nothing, it would seem, could now save the gallant ranger. There
+was, however, an eye to pity and an arm to save, and that arm was a
+woman's. The little garrison had witnessed the whole combat. It
+consisted of but six men and one woman; that woman, however, was a
+host&mdash;a Mrs. Pursley. When she saw Higgins contending single-handed with
+a whole tribe of savages, she urged the rangers to attempt his rescue.
+The rangers objected, as the Indians were ten to one. Mrs. Pursley,
+therefore, snatched a rifle from her husband's hand, and declaring that
+'so fine a fellow as Tom Higgins should not be lost for want of help,'
+mounted a horse and sallied forth to his rescue.</p>
+
+<p>"The men, unwilling to be outdone by a woman, followed at full gallop,
+reached the spot where Higgins had fainted and fell, before the Indians
+came up, and while the savage with whom he had been engaged was looking
+for his rifle, his friends lifted the wounded ranger up and throwing him
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>across a horse before one of the party, reached the fort in safety.</p>
+
+<p>"Higgins was insensible for several days, and his life was preserved by
+continued care. His friends extracted two of the balls from his thigh.
+Two, however, yet remained, one of which gave him a good deal of pain.
+Hearing afterwards that a physician had settled within a day's ride of
+him, he determined to go and see him. The physician asked him fifty
+dollars for the operation. This Higgins flatly refused, saying that it
+was more than half a year's pension. On reaching home he found that the
+exercise of riding had made the ball discernable; he requested his wife,
+therefore, to hand him his razor. With her assistance he laid open his
+thigh until the edge of the razor touched the bullet, then, inserting
+his two thumbs into the gash, 'he flirted it out,' as he used to say,
+'without it costing him a cent.'</p>
+
+<p>"The other ball yet remained. It gave him, however, but little pain, and
+he carried it with him to the grave. Higgins died in Fayette County,
+Illinois, a few years ago. He was the most perfect specimen of a
+frontier man in his day, and was once assistant door-keeper of the House
+of Representatives in Illinois. The facts above stated are familiar to
+many to whom Higgins was personally known, and there is no doubt of
+their correctness."<a name="FNanchor_E_5" id="FNanchor_E_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_E_5" class="fnanchor">[E]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p><p>This narrative gives one a very vivid idea of the nature of the conflict
+in which Boone, through so many years of his life, was engaged. The
+little fort, whose feeble garrison he commanded, was liable at any time
+to be assailed by overwhelming numbers.</p>
+
+<p>Daniel Boone, during his occupancy of the fort at Boonesborough,
+manifested the most constant vigilance to guard against surprise. He was
+however struggling against a foe whose cunning and strategems were such,
+as not to allow him an hour of quiet. One morning two men laboring in
+the field were shot at by the Indians. Not being hit, they ran for the
+fort. They were pursued by the savages, and one was tomahawked and
+scalped within a few hundred feet of the gate. Boone hearing the alarm,
+inconsiderately rushed out with ten men upon the miscreants. They fled
+before him hotly pursued. In the eagerness of the chase, Boone had not
+counted the number of his foes. Some of them rushing from their ambush
+cut off his retreat. At one discharge, six of his men fell wounded.
+Boone's leg was shattered by a ball.</p>
+
+<p>As he fell to the ground, the tomahawk of a savage was over his head.
+Simon Kenton, who was one of Boone's party, with sure aim pierced the
+heart of the savage with a rifle bullet and he fell dead. Reinforcements
+rushed from the fort, and fortunately succeeded in rescuing the
+adventurous party, the wounded and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>all. It is said of Boone, that
+though a silent man and not given to compliments, he manifested very
+deep gratitude to his friend Kenton for saving his life. The very
+peculiar character of Boone is vividly presented in the following
+sketch, from the graphic pen of Mr. Peck:</p>
+
+<p>"As dangers thickened and appearances grew more alarming, as scouts came
+in with rumors of Indians seen here and there, and as the hardy and bold
+woodsmen sat around their camp-fires with the loaded rifle at hand,
+rehearsing for the twentieth time the tales of noble daring, or the
+hair-breadth escapes, Boone would sit silent, apparently not heeding the
+conversation, employed in repairing the rents in his hunting shirt and
+leggins, moulding bullets or cleaning his rifle. Yet the eyes of the
+garrison were upon him. Concerning 'Indian signs' he was an oracle.</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes with one or two trusty companions, but more frequently alone,
+as night closed in, he would steal noiselessly away into the woods, to
+reconnoiter the surrounding wilderness. And in the day time, stealthily
+would he creep along with his trusty rifle resting on his arm, ready for
+the least sign of danger, his keen, piercing eyes glancing into every
+thicket and canebrake, or watch intently for 'signs' of the wiley enemy.
+Accustomed to range the country as a hunter and a scout, he would
+frequently <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>meet the approaching travelers on the road and pilot them
+into the settlement, while his rifle supplied them with provisions. He
+was ever more ready to aid the community, or to engage in public
+services, than to attend to his private interests."</p>
+
+<p>The want of salt had become one of the greatest privations of the
+garrison. It was an article essential to comfort and health, and yet, in
+the warfare then existing, was almost impossible of attainment. Upon the
+Sicking river, nearly a hundred miles north from Boonesborough, there
+were valuable springs richly impregnated with salt. Animals from all
+quarters frequented these springs, licking the saturated clay around
+them. Hence the name of Salt Licks. Evaporating the water by boiling in
+large kettles, salt of a good quality was easily obtained. The
+necessities of the garrison became so great, that Colonel Boone took a
+well-armed party of thirty men, and threading their way through the
+wilderness, at length reached the springs unassailed. It was one of the
+boldest of adventures. It was certain that the watchful Indians would
+learn that a party had left the cover of the fort, and would fall upon
+them with great ferocity.</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Boone, who desired to obtain salt for all the garrisons, deemed
+it consequently necessary to work night and day with the greatest
+possible diligence. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>They could never venture to move a step beyond the
+grasp of their rifles. For nearly four weeks the salt-makers pursued
+their work unassailed. The news of so strong and well armed a party
+having left the fort, reached the ears of the Indians. They had a very
+great dread of Boone, and knew very well he would not be found sleeping
+or unprotected, at the springs. They shrewdly inferred that the
+departure of so many men must greatly weaken the garrison, and that they
+could never hope for a more favorable opportunity to attack
+Boonesborough.</p>
+
+<p>This formidable fortress was the great object of their dread. They
+thought that if they could lay it in ashes, making it the funeral pyre
+of all its inmates, the weaker forts would be immediately abandoned by
+their garrisons in despair, or could easily be captured. An expedition
+was formed, consisting of more than a hundred Indian warriors, and
+accompanied it is said by two Frenchmen. Boone had sent three men back
+to the garrison, loaded with salt, and to convey tidings of the good
+condition of the party at the springs.</p>
+
+<p>On the morning of the seventh of February, Boone, who was unequalled in
+his skill as a hunter, and also in the sagacity by which he could avoid
+the Indians, was out in search of game as food for the party. Emboldened
+by the absence of all signs of the vicinity <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>of the Indians, he had
+wandered some distance from the springs, where he encountered this band
+of warriors, attended by the two Frenchmen, on the march for the assault
+on Boonesborough. Though exceedingly fleet of foot, his attempt to
+escape was in vain. The young Indian runners overtook and captured him.</p>
+
+<p>The Indians seem to have had great respect for Boone. Even with them he
+had acquired the reputation of being a just and humane man, while his
+extraordinary abilities, both as a hunter and a warrior, had won their
+admiration. Boone was not heading a war party to assail them. He had not
+robbed them of any of their horses. They were therefore not exasperated
+against him personally. It is also not improbable that the Frenchmen who
+were with them had influenced them not to treat their prisoner with
+barbarity.</p>
+
+<p>Boone, whose spirits seemed never to be perturbed, yielded so gracefully
+to his captors as to awaken in their bosoms some emotions of kindness.
+They promised that if the party at the springs would yield without
+resistance&mdash;which resistance, though unavailing, they knew would cost
+them the lives of many of their warriors&mdash;the lives of the captives
+should be safe, and they should not be exposed to any inhuman treatment.
+Boone was much perplexed. Had he been with his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>men, he would have
+fought to the last extremity, and his presence not improbably might have
+inspirited them, even to a successful defence. But deprived of their
+leader, taken entirely by surprise, and outnumbered three or four to
+one, their massacre was certain. And it was also certain that the
+Indians, exasperated by the loss which they would have encountered,
+would put every prisoner to death, through all the horrors of fiendlike
+torture.</p>
+
+<p>Under these circumstances, Colonel Boone very wisely decided upon
+surrender. It would have been very impolitic and cruel to do otherwise.
+He having thus given his word, the Indians placed implicit confidence in
+it. They were also perfectly faithful to their own promises. Boone was
+allowed to approach his men, and represent the necessity of a surrender,
+which was immediately effected. The Indians were so elated by this great
+victory, and were so well satisfied with the result of the campaign,
+that instead of continuing their march for the attack of Boonesborough,
+they returned with their illustrious captive and his twenty-seven
+companions to their head-quarters on the Little Miami River.</p>
+
+<p>The modest, unaffected account which Boone himself gives of these
+transactions, is worthy of record here:</p>
+
+<p>"On the seventh of February, as I was hunting to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>procure meat for the
+company, I met a party of one hundred and two Indians, and two
+Frenchmen, on their march against Boonesborough; that place being
+particularly the object of the enemy. They pursued and took me, and
+brought me the eighth day to the Licks, where twenty-seven of my party
+were, three of them having previously returned home with the salt. I,
+knowing it was impossible for them to escape, capitulated with the
+enemy, and at a distance, in their view, gave notice to my men of their
+situation with orders not to resist, but surrender themselves captives.</p>
+
+<p>"The generous usage the Indians had promised before in my capitulation,
+was afterwards fully complied with, and we proceeded with them as
+prisoners to Old Chilicothe, the principal Indian town on Little Miami,
+where we arrived, after an uncomfortable journey in very severe weather,
+on the eighteenth of February, and received as good treatment as
+prisoners could expect from savages. On the tenth of March following, I
+and ten of my men were conducted by forty Indians to Detroit, where we
+arrived the thirtieth day, and were treated by Governor Hamilton, the
+British commander at that post, with great humanity.</p>
+
+<p>"During our travels, the Indians entertained me well, and their
+affection for me was so great, that they utterly refused to leave me
+there with the others, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>although the Governor offered them one hundred
+pounds sterling for me, on purpose to give me a parole to go home.
+Several English gentlemen there, being sensible of my adverse fortune,
+and touched with human sympathy, generously offered a friendly supply
+for my wants, which I refused with many thanks for their kindness,
+adding that I never expected it would be in my power to recompense such
+unmerited generosity."</p>
+
+<p>The British officers in Detroit could not venture to interfere in behalf
+of Colonel Boone, in any way which would displease their savage allies,
+for they relied much upon them in their warfare against the colonies.</p>
+
+<p>There was much in the character of our hero to win the affection of the
+savages. His silent, unboastful courage they admired. He was more than
+their equal in his skill in traversing the pathless forest. His prowess
+as a hunter they fully appreciated. It was their hope that he would
+consent to be incorporated in their tribe, and they would gladly have
+accepted him as one of their chiefs. The savages had almost universally
+sufficient intelligence to appreciate the vast superiority of the white
+man.</p>
+
+<p>The Indians spent ten days at Detroit, and surrendered, for a ransom,
+all their captives to the English, excepting Colonel Boone. Him they
+took back on a long and fatiguing journey to Old Chilicothe on the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span>Little Miami. The country they traversed, now so full of wealth,
+activity, and all the resources of individual and social happiness, was
+then a vast wilderness, silent and lonely. Still in its solitude it was
+very beautiful, embellished with fertile plains, magnificent groves, and
+crystal streams. At Chilicothe, Colonel Boone was formally adopted,
+according to an Indian custom, into the family of Blackfish, one of the
+distinguished chiefs of the Shawanese tribe.</p>
+
+<p>"At Chilicothe," writes Boone, "I spent my time as comfortably as I
+could expect. I was adopted according to their custom, into a family
+where I became a son, and had a great share in the affection of my new
+parents, brothers, sisters and friends. I was exceedingly familiar and
+friendly with them, always appearing as cheerful and satisfied as
+possible, and they put great confidence in me. I often went hunting with
+them, and frequently gained their applause for my activity, at our
+shooting matches. I was careful not to excel them when shooting, for no
+people are more envious than they in their sport. I could observe in
+their countenances and gestures, the greatest expressions of joy when
+they exceeded me, and when the reverse happened, of envy. The Shawanese
+king took great notice of me, and treated me with profound respect and
+entire friendship, often trusting me to hunt at my liberty. I frequently
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>returned with the spoils of the woods, and as often presented some of
+what I had taken to him, expressive of my duty to my sovereign. My food
+and lodging were in common with them. Not so good, indeed, as I could
+desire, but necessity makes everything acceptable."</p>
+
+<p>The spirit manifested by Boone under these circumstances, when he was
+apparently a hopeless prisoner in the hands of the Indians, was not
+influenced by artifice alone. He had real sympathy for the savages,
+being fully conscious of the wrongs which were often inflicted upon
+them, and which goaded their untamed natures to fearful barbarities. He
+had always treated them not only kindly, but with fraternal respect. The
+generous treatment he had received in return won his regards. His
+peculiarly placid nature was not easily disturbed by any reverses. Let
+what would happen, he never allowed himself to complain or to worry.
+Thus making the best of circumstances, he always looked upon the
+brightest side of things, and was reasonably happy, even in this direful
+captivity. Still he could not forget his home, and was continually on
+the alert to avail himself of whatever opportunity might be presented to
+escape and return to his friends.</p>
+
+<p>The ceremony of adoption was pretty severe and painful. All the hair of
+the head was plucked out <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>by a tedious operation, leaving simply a tuft
+three or four inches in diameter on the crown. This was called the
+scalp-lock. The hair was here allowed to grow long, and was dressed with
+ribbons and feathers. It was to an individual warrior what the banner is
+to an army. The victor tore it from the skull as his trophy. Having thus
+denuded the head and dressed the scalp-lock, the candidate was taken to
+the river and very thoroughly scrubbed, that all the white blood might
+be washed out of him. His face was painted in the most approved style of
+Indian taste, when he was led to the council lodge and addressed by the
+chief in a long and formal speech, in which he expatiates upon the honor
+conferred upon the adopted son, and upon the corresponding duties
+expected of him.</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Boone having passed through this transformation, with his Indian
+dress and his painted cheeks, his tufted scalp-lock and his whole person
+embrowned by constant exposure to the open air, could scarcely be
+distinguished from any of his Indian associates. His wary captors
+however, notwithstanding all the kindness with which they treated him,
+seemed to be conscious that it must be his desire to return to his
+friends. They therefore habitually, but without a remark suggestive of
+any suspicions, adopted precautions to prevent his escape. So skilful a
+hunter <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>as Boone could, with his rifle and a supply of ammunition,
+traverse the solitary expanse around for almost any length of time,
+living in abundance. But deprived of his rifle or of ammunition, he
+would soon almost inevitably perish of starvation. The Indians were
+therefore very careful not to allow him to accumulate any ammunition,
+which was so essential to sustain him in a journey through the
+wilderness.</p>
+
+<p>Though Boone was often allowed to go out alone to hunt, they always
+counted his balls and the charges of powder. Thus they could judge
+whether he had concealed any ammunition to aid him, should he attempt to
+escape. He however, with equal sagacity, cut the balls in halves, and
+used very small charges of powder. Thus he secretly laid aside quite a
+little store of ammunition. As ever undismayed by misfortune, he
+serenely gave the energies of his mind to the careful survey of the
+country around.</p>
+
+<p>"During the time that I hunted for them," he writes, "I found the land
+for a great extent about this river to exceed the soil of Kentucky if
+possible, and remarkably well watered."</p>
+
+<p>Upon one of the branches of the Scioto river, which stream runs about
+sixty miles east of the Little Miami, there were some salt springs.
+Early in June a party of the Indians set out for these "Licks" to make
+salt. They took Boone with them. The Indians <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>were quite averse to
+anything like hard work. Boone not only understood the process of
+manufacture perfectly, but was always quietly and energetically devoted
+to whatever he undertook. The Indians, inspired by the double motive of
+the desire to obtain as much salt as possible, and to hold securely the
+prisoner, whom they so highly valued, kept him so busy at the kettles as
+to give him no opportunity to escape.</p>
+
+<p>After an absence of about a fortnight, they returned with a good supply
+of salt to the Little Miami. Here Boone was quite alarmed to find that
+during his absence the chiefs had been marshaling a band of four hundred
+and fifty of their bravest warriors to attack Boonesborough. In that
+fort were his wife and his children. Its capture would probably insure
+their slaughter. He was aware that the fort was not sufficiently guarded
+by its present inmates, and that, unapprehensive of impending danger,
+they were liable to be taken entirely by surprise. Boone was
+sufficiently acquainted with the Shawanese dialect to understand every
+word they said, while he very sagaciously had assumed, from the moment
+of his captivity, that he was entirely ignorant of their language.</p>
+
+<p>Boone's anxiety was very great. He was compelled to assume a smiling
+face as he attended their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>war dances. Apparently unmoved, he listened
+to the details of their plans for the surprise of the fort. Indeed, to
+disarm suspicion and to convince them that he had truly become one of
+their number, he co-operated in giving efficiency to their hostile
+designs against all he held most dear in the world.</p>
+
+<p>It had now become a matter of infinite moment that he should immediately
+escape and carry to his friends in the fort the tidings of their peril.
+But the slightest unwary movement would have led the suspicious Indians
+so to redouble their vigilance as to render escape utterly impossible.
+So skilfully did he conceal the emotions which agitated him, and so
+successfully did he feign entire contentment with his lot, that his
+captors, all absorbed in the enterprise in which they were engaged,
+remitted their ordinary vigilance.</p>
+
+<p>On the morning of the sixteenth of June, Boone rose very early to take
+his usual hunt. With his secreted ammunition, and the amount allowed him
+by the Indians for the day, he hoped to be able to save himself from
+starvation, during his flight of five days through the pathless
+wilderness. There was a distance of one hundred and sixty miles between
+Old Chilicothe and Boonesborough. The moment his flight should be
+suspected, four hundred and fifty Indian warriors, breathing vengeance,
+and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>in perfect preparation for the pursuit, would be on his track. His
+capture would almost certainly result in his death by the most cruel
+tortures; for the infuriated Indians would wreak upon him all their
+vengeance.</p>
+
+<p>It is however not probable that this silent, pensive man allowed these
+thoughts seriously to disturb his equanimity. An instinctive trust in
+God seemed to inspire him. He was forty-three years of age. In the
+knowledge of wood-craft, and in powers of endurance, no Indian surpassed
+him. Though he would be pursued by sagacious and veteran warriors and by
+young Indian braves, a pack of four hundred and fifty savages following
+with keener scent than that of the bloodhound, one poor victim, yet
+undismayed, he entered upon the appalling enterprise. The history of the
+world perhaps presents but few feats so difficult, and yet so
+successfully performed. And yet the only record which this modest man
+makes, in his autobiography, of this wonderful adventure is as follows:</p>
+
+<p>"On the sixteenth, before sunrise, I departed in the most secret manner,
+and arrived at Boonesborough on the twentieth, after a journey of one
+hundred and sixty miles, during which I had but one meal."</p>
+
+<p>It was necessary, as soon as Boone got out of sight <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>of the village, to
+fly with the utmost speed, to put as great a distance as possible
+between himself and his pursuers, before they should suspect his attempt
+at escape. He subsequently learned that as soon as the Indians
+apprehended that he had actually fled, there was the most intense
+commotion in their camp, and immediately a large number of their
+fleetest runners and keenest hunters were put upon his trail. He dared
+not fire a gun. Had he killed any game he could not have ventured to
+kindle a fire to cook it. He had secretly provided himself with a few
+cuts of dried venison with which he could appease his hunger as he
+pressed forward by day and by night, scarcely allowing himself one
+moment for rest or sleep. His route lay through forests and swamps, and
+across many streams swollen by recent rains.</p>
+
+<p>At length he reached the Ohio river. Its current was swift and turbid,
+rolling in a majestic flood half a mile in width, filling the bed of the
+stream with almost fathomless waters from shore to shore. Experienced as
+Colonel Boone was in wood-craft, he was not a skilful swimmer. The
+thought of how he should cross the Ohio had caused him much anxiety.
+Upon reaching its banks he fortunately&mdash;may we not say
+providentially&mdash;found an old canoe which had drifted among the bushes
+upon the shore. There was a large hole at one end, and it was nearly
+filled with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>water. He succeeded in bailing out the water and plugging
+up the hole, and crossed the river in safety. Then for the first time he
+so far indulged in a feeling of security as to venture to shoot a
+turkey, and kindling a fire he feasted abundantly upon the rich repast.
+It was the only meal in which he indulged during his flight of five
+days.</p>
+
+<p>On his arrival at Boonesborough, he was welcomed as one risen from the
+grave. Much to his disappointment he found that his wife with his
+children, despairing of ever seeing him again, had left the fort and
+returned to the house of her father, in North Carolina. She supposed
+that the Indians had killed him. "Oppressed," writes Boone, "with the
+distresses of the country and bereaved of me, her only happiness, she
+had undertaken her long and perilous journey through the wilderness." It
+is gratifying to record that she reached her friends in safety.</p>
+
+<p>Boone found the fort as he had apprehended, in a bad state of defence.
+His presence, his military skill, and the intelligence he brought,
+immediately inspired every man to the intensest exertion. The gates were
+strengthened, new bastions were formed, and provisions were laid in, to
+stand a siege. Everything was done which could be done to repel an
+assault from they knew not how many savages, aided by British leaders,
+for the band from old Chilicothe, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>was to be joined by warriors from
+several other tribes. In ten days, Boonesborough was ready for the
+onset. These arduous labors being completed, Boone heroically resolved
+to strike consternation into the Indians, by showing them that he was
+prepared for aggressive as well as defensive warfare, and that they must
+leave behind them warriors for the protection of their own villages.</p>
+
+<p>Selecting a small party of but nineteen men, about the first of August
+he emerged from Boonesborough, marched boldly to the Ohio, crossed the
+river, entered the valley of the Scioto, and was within four miles of an
+Indian town, Paint Creek, which he intended to destroy, when he chanced
+to encounter a band of thirty savages painted, thoroughly armed and on
+the war path, to join the band advancing from Old Chilicothe. The
+Indians were attacked with such vehemence by Boone, that they fled in
+consternation, leaving behind them three horses and all their baggage.
+The savages also lost one killed and two wounded, while they inflicted
+no loss whatever upon the white men.</p>
+
+<p>Boone sent forward some swift runners as spies, and they speedily
+returned with the report that the Indians in a panic had entirely
+abandoned Paint Creek. Aware that the warriors would rush to join the
+four hundred and fifty from Old Chilicothe, and that they <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>might cut off
+his retreat, or reach Boonesborough before his return, he immediately
+commenced a rapid movement back to the fort. Every man would be needed
+there for an obstinate defence. This foray had extended one hundred and
+fifty miles from the fort. It greatly alarmed the Indians. It emboldened
+the hearts of the garrison, and gave them intelligence of the approach
+of their foes. After an absence of but seven days, Boone with his heroic
+little band quite triumphantly re-entered the fort.</p>
+
+<p>The approach of the foe is described in the following terms by Boone:</p>
+
+<p>"On the eighth of August, the Indian army arrived, being four hundred
+and forty-four in number, commanded by Captain Duquesne, eleven other
+Frenchmen and some of their own chiefs, and marched up in view of our
+fort, with British and French colors flying. And having sent a summons
+to me in His Britannic Majesty's name to surrender the fort, I requested
+two days' consideration which was granted. It was now a critical period
+with us. We were a small number in the garrison; a powerful army before
+our walls, whose appearance proclaimed inevitable death; fearfully
+painted and marking their footsteps with desolation. Death was
+preferable to captivity; and if taken by storm, we must inevitably be
+devoted to destruction.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span></p><p>"In this situation we concluded to maintain our garrison if possible. We
+immediately proceeded to collect what we could of our horses and other
+cattle, and bring them through the posterns into the fort; and in the
+evening of the ninth, I returned the answer 'that we were determined to
+defend our fort while a man was living.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Now,' said I to their commander who stood attentively hearing my
+sentiments, 'we laugh at your formidable preparations, but thank you for
+giving us notice, and time for our defence. Your efforts will not
+prevail, for our gates shall forever deny you admittance.'</p>
+
+<p>"Whether this answer affected their courage or not, I cannot tell, but
+contrary to our expectations, they formed a scheme to deceive us,
+declaring it was their orders from Governor Hamilton to take us
+captives, and not to destroy us; but if nine of us would come out and
+treat with them, they would immediately withdraw their forces from our
+walls, and return home peaceably. This sounded grateful in our ears, and
+we agreed to the proposal."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/ichapend.jpg" width="450" height="120" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Victories and Defeats.</i></h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot2"><p>Situation of the Fort.&mdash;Indian Treachery.&mdash;Bombardment.&mdash;Boone goes
+to North Carolina.&mdash;New Trials.&mdash;Boone Robbed.&mdash;He Returns to
+Kentucky.&mdash;Massacre of Col. Rogers.&mdash;Adventure of Col. Bowman.&mdash;New
+Attack by the British and Indians.&mdash;Retaliatory
+Measures.&mdash;Wonderful Exploit.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>There were but fifty men in the garrison at Boonesborough. They were
+assailed by a body of more than ten to one of the bravest Indian
+warriors, under the command of an officer in the British army. The
+boldest in the fort felt that their situation was almost desperate. The
+ferocity of the Indian, and the intelligence of the white man, were
+combined against them. They knew that the British commander, however
+humane he might be, would have no power, should the fort be taken by
+storm, to save them from death by the most horrible tortures.</p>
+
+<p>General Duquesne was acting under instructions from Governor Hamilton,
+the British officer in supreme command at Detroit. Boone knew that the
+Governor felt very kindly towards him. When he had been carried to that
+place a captive, the Governor had made very earnest endeavors to obtain
+his liberation. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span>Influenced by these considerations, he consented to
+hold the conference.</p>
+
+<p>But, better acquainted with the Indian character than perhaps Duquesne
+could have been, he selected nine of the most athletic and strong of the
+garrison, and appointed the place of meeting in front of the fort, at a
+distance of only one hundred and twenty feet from the walls. The
+riflemen of the garrison were placed in a position to cover the spot
+with their guns, so that in case of treachery the Indians would meet
+with instant punishment, and the retreat of the party from the fort
+would probably be secured. The language of Boone is:</p>
+
+<p>"We held a treaty within sixty yards of the garrison on purpose to
+divert them from a breach of honor, as we could not avoid suspicion of
+the savages."</p>
+
+<p>The terms proposed by General Duquesne were extremely liberal. And while
+they might satisfy the British party, whose object in the war was simply
+to conquer the colonists and bring them back to loyalty, they could by
+no means have satisfied the Indians, who desired not merely to drive the
+white men back from their hunting grounds, but to plunder them of their
+possessions and to gratify their savage natures by hearing the shrieks
+of their victims at the stake and by carrying home the trophies of
+numerous scalps.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span></p><p>Boone and his men, buried in the depths of the wilderness, had probably
+taken little interest in the controversy which was just then rising
+between the colonies and the mother country. They had regarded the King
+of England as their lawful sovereign, and their minds had never been
+agitated by the question of revolution or of independence. When,
+therefore, General Duquesne proposed that they should take the oath of
+allegiance to the King of Great Britain, and that then they should be
+permitted to return unmolested to their homes and their friends beyond
+the mountains, taking all their possessions with them, Colonel Boone and
+his associates were very ready to accept such terms. It justly appeared
+to them in their isolated condition, five hundred miles away from the
+Atlantic coast, that this was vastly preferable to remaining in the
+wilderness assailed by thousands of Indians guided by English energy and
+abundantly provided with all the munitions of war from British arsenals.</p>
+
+<p>But Boone knew very well that the Indians would never willingly assent
+to this treaty. Still he and his fellow commissioners signed it while
+very curious to learn how it would be regarded by their savage foes. The
+commissioners on both sides had appeared at the appointed place of
+conference, as is usual on such occasions, entirely unarmed. There were,
+however, a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>large number of Indians lingering around and drawing nearer
+as the conference proceeded. After the treaty was signed, the old Indian
+chief Blackfish, Boone's adopted father, and who, exasperated by the
+escape of his ungrateful son, had been watching him with a very
+unamiable expression of countenance, arose and made a formal speech in
+the most approved style of Indian eloquence. He commented upon the
+bravery of the two armies, and of the desirableness that there should be
+entire friendship between them, and closed by saying that it was a
+custom with them on all such important occasions to ratify the treaty by
+two Indians shaking hands with each white man.</p>
+
+<p>This shallow pretense, scarcely up to the sagacity of children, by which
+Blackfish hoped that two savages grappling each one of the commissioners
+would easily be able to make prisoners of them, and then by threats of
+torture compel the surrender of the fort, did not in the slightest
+degree deceive Colonel Boone. He was well aware of his own strength and
+of that of the men who accompanied him. He also knew that his riflemen
+occupied concealed positions, from which, with unerring aim, they could
+instantly punish the savages for any act of treachery. He therefore
+consented to the arrangement. The grasp was given. Instantly a terrible
+scene of confusion ensued.</p>
+
+<p>The burly savages tried to drag off their victims. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>The surrounding
+Indians rushed in to their aid, and a deadly fire was opened upon them
+from the fort, which was energetically responded to by all the armed
+savages from behind stumps and trees. One of the fiercest of battles had
+instantly blazed forth. Still these stalwart pioneers were not taken by
+surprise. Aided by the bullets of the fort, they shook off their
+assailants, and all succeeded in escaping within the heavy gates, which
+were immediately closed behind them. One only of their number, Boone's
+brother, was wounded. This escape seems almost miraculous. But the
+majority of the Indians in intelligence were mere children: sometimes
+very cunning, but often with the grossest stupidity mingled with their
+strategy.</p>
+
+<p>Duquesne and Blackfish, the associated leaders, now commenced the siege
+of the fort with all their energies. Dividing their forces into two
+parties, they kept up an incessant fire upon the garrison for nine days
+and nine nights. It was one of the most heroic of those bloody struggles
+between civilization and barbarism, which have rendered the plains of
+Kentucky memorable.</p>
+
+<p>The savages were very careful not to expose themselves to the rifles of
+the besieged. They were stationed behind rocks, and trees, and stumps,
+so that it was seldom that the garrison could catch even <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>a glimpse of
+the foes who were assailing them. It was necessary for those within the
+fort to be sparing of their ammunition. They seldom fired unless they
+could take deliberate aim, and then the bullet was almost always sure to
+reach its mark. Colonel Boone, in describing this attempt of the Indians
+to capture the commissioners by stratagem, and of the storm of war which
+followed, writes:</p>
+
+<p>"They immediately grappled us, but, although surrounded by hundreds of
+savages, we extricated ourselves from them and escaped all safe into the
+garrison except one, who was wounded through a heavy fire from their
+army. They immediately attacked us on every side, and a constant heavy
+fire ensued between us, day and night, for the space of nine days. In
+this time the enemy began to undermine our fort, which was situated
+about sixty yards from the Kentucky river. They began at the water mark
+and proceeded in the bank some distance, which we understood by their
+making the water muddy with the clay. We immediately proceeded to
+disappoint their design by cutting a trench across their subterranean
+passage. The enemy discovering our counter mine by the clay we threw out
+of the fort, desisted from that stratagem. Experience now fully
+convincing them that neither their power nor their policy could effect
+their purpose, on the twentieth of August they raised the siege and
+departed.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span></p><p>"During this siege, which threatened death in every form, we had two men
+killed and four wounded, besides a number of cattle. We killed of the
+enemy thirty-seven and wounded a great number. After they were gone we
+picked up one hundred and twenty-five pounds weight of bullets, besides
+what stuck in the logs of our fort, which certainly is a great proof of
+their industry."</p>
+
+<p>It is said that during this siege, one of the negroes, probably a slave,
+deserted from the fort with one of their best rifles, and joined the
+Indians. Concealing himself in a tree, where unseen he could take
+deliberate aim, he became one of the most successful of the assailants.
+But the eagle eye of Boone detected him, and though, as was afterwards
+ascertained by actual measurement, the tree was five hundred and
+twenty-five feet distant from the fort, Boone took deliberate aim,
+fired, and the man was seen to drop heavily from his covert to the
+ground. The bullet from Boone's rifle had pierced his brain.</p>
+
+<p>At one time the Indians had succeeded in setting fire to the fort, by
+throwing flaming combustibles upon it, attached to their arrows. One of
+the young men extinguished the flames, exposing himself to the
+concentrated and deadly fire of the assailants in doing so. Though the
+bullets fell like hailstones around him, the brave fellow escaped
+unscathed.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span></p><p>This repulse quite disheartened the Indians. Henceforth they regarded
+Boonesborough as a Gibraltar; impregnable to any force which they could
+bring against it. They never assailed it again. Though Boonesborough is
+now but a small village in Kentucky, it has a history which will render
+it forever memorable in the annals of heroism.</p>
+
+<p>It will be remembered that Boone's family, supposing him to have
+perished by the hands of the Indians, had returned to the home of Mrs.
+Boone's father in North Carolina. Colonel Boone, anxious to rejoin his
+wife and children, and feeling that Boonesborough was safe from any
+immediate attack by the Indians, soon after the dispersion of the
+savages entered again upon the long journey through the wilderness, to
+find his friends east of the mountains. In the autumn of 1778, Colonel
+Boone again found himself, after all his wonderful adventures, in a
+peaceful home on the banks of the Yadkin.</p>
+
+<p>The settlements in Kentucky continued rapidly to increase. The savages
+had apparently relinquished all hope of holding exclusive possession of
+the country. Though there were occasional acts of violence and cruelty,
+there was quite a truce in the Indian warfare. But the white settlers,
+and those who wished to emigrate, were greatly embarrassed by
+conflicting land claims. Many of the pioneers found their titles
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>pronounced to be of no validity. Others who wished to emigrate,
+experienced great difficulty in obtaining secure possession of their
+lands. The reputation of Kentucky as in all respects one of the most
+desirable of earthly regions for comfortable homes, added to the desire
+of many families to escape from the horrors of revolutionary war, which
+was sweeping the sea-board, led to a constant tide of emigration beyond
+the mountains.</p>
+
+<p>Under these circumstances the Government of Virginia established a
+court, consisting of four prominent citizens, to go from place to place,
+examine such titles as should be presented to them, and to confirm those
+which were good. This commission commenced its duties at St. Asaph. All
+the old terms of settlement proposed by Henderson and the Transylvania
+Company were abrogated. Thus Colonel Boone had no title to a single acre
+of land in Kentucky. A new law however was enacted as follows:</p>
+
+<p>"Any person may acquire title to so much unappropriated land, as he or
+she may desire to purchase, on paying the consideration of forty pounds
+for every one hundred acres, and so in proportion."</p>
+
+<p>This money was to be paid to the State Treasurer, who would give for it
+a receipt. This receipt was to be deposited with the State Auditor, who
+would in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>exchange for it give a certificate. This certificate was to be
+lodged at the Land Office. There it was to be registered, and a warrant
+was to be given, authorizing the survey of the land selected. Surveyors
+who had passed the ordeal of William and Mary College, having defined
+the boundaries of the land, were to make a return to the Land Office. A
+due record was there to be made of the survey, a deed was to be given in
+the name of the State, which deed was to be signed by the Governor, with
+the seal of the Commonwealth attached.</p>
+
+<p>This was a perplexing labyrinth for the pioneer to pass through, before
+he could get a title to his land. Not only Colonel Boone, but it seems
+that his family were anxious to return to the beautiful fields of
+Kentucky. During the few months he remained on the Yadkin, he was busy
+in converting every particle of property he possessed into money, and in
+raising every dollar he could for the purchase of lands he so greatly
+desired. The sum he obtained amounted to about twenty thousand dollars,
+in the depreciated paper currency of that day. To Daniel Boone this was
+a large sum. With this the simple-hearted man started for Richmond to
+pay it to the State Treasurer, and to obtain for it the promised
+certificate. He was also entrusted with quite large sums of money from
+his neighbors, for a similar purpose.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span></p><p>On his way he was robbed of every dollar. It was a terrible blow to him,
+for it not only left him penniless, but exposed him to the insinuation
+of having feigned the robbery, that he might retain the money entrusted
+to him by his friends. Those who knew Daniel Boone well would have no
+more suspected him of fraud than an angel of light. With others however,
+his character suffered. Rumor was busy in denouncing him.</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Nathaniel Hart had entrusted Boone with two thousand nine
+hundred pounds. This of course was all gone. A letter, however, is
+preserved from Colonel Hart, which bears noble testimony to the
+character of the man from whom he had suffered:</p>
+
+<p>"I observe what you say respecting our losses by Daniel Boone. I had
+heard of the misfortune soon after it happened, but not of my being a
+partaker before now. I feel for the poor people who perhaps are to lose
+their pre-emptions. But I must say I feel more for Boone, whose
+character I am told suffers by it. Much degenerated must the people of
+this age be, when amongst them are to be found men to censure and blast
+the reputation of a person so just and upright, and in whose breast is a
+seat of virtue too pure to admit of a thought so base and dishonorable.
+I have known Boone in times of old, when poverty and distress had him
+fast by the hand, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>in these wretched circumstances, I have ever
+found him of a noble and generous soul, despising everything mean, and
+therefore I will freely grant him a discharge for whatever sums of mine
+he might have been possessed at the time."</p>
+
+<p>Boone was now forty-five years of age, but the hardships to which he had
+been exposed had borne heavily upon him, and he appeared ten years
+older. Though he bore without a murmur the loss of his earthly all, and
+the imputations which were cast upon his character, he was more anxious
+than ever to find refuge from the embarrassments which oppressed him in
+the solitudes of his beautiful Kentucky. Notwithstanding his comparative
+poverty, his family on the banks of the Yadkin need not experience any
+want. Land was fertile, abundant and cheap. He and his boys in a few
+days, with their axes, could erect as good a house as they desired to
+occupy. The cultivation of a few acres of the soil, and the results of
+the chase, would provide them an ample support. Here also they could
+retire to rest at night, with unbolted door and with no fear that their
+slumbers would be disturbed by the yell of the blood-thirsty savage.</p>
+
+<p>The wife and mother must doubtless have wished to remain in her pleasant
+home, but cheerfully and nobly she acceded to his wishes, and was ready
+to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>accompany him to all the abounding perils of the distant West. Again
+the family set out on its journey across the mountains. Of the incidents
+which they encountered, we are not informed. The narrative we have from
+Boone is simply as follows: our readers will excuse the slight
+repetition it involves:</p>
+
+<p>"About this time I returned to Kentucky with my family. And here, to
+avoid an enquiry into my conduct, the reader being before informed of my
+bringing my family to Kentucky, I am under the necessity of informing
+him that during my captivity with the Indians, my wife, who despaired of
+ever seeing me again, had transported my family and goods back through
+the wilderness, amid a multitude of dangers, to her father's house in
+North Carolina. Shortly after the troubles at Boonesborough, I went to
+them and lived peaceably there until this time. The history of my going
+home and returning with my family forms a series of difficulties, an
+account of which would swell a volume. And being foreign to my purpose I
+shall omit them."</p>
+
+<p>During Boone's absence from Kentucky, one of the most bloody battles was
+fought, which ever occurred between the whites and the Indians. Colonel
+Rogers, returning with supplies (by boat) from New Orleans to the Upper
+Ohio, when he arrived at the mouth of the Little Miami, detected the
+Indians in large <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>numbers, painted, armed, and evidently on the war
+path, emerging from the mouth of the river in their canoes, and crossing
+the Ohio to the Kentucky shore. He cautiously landed his men, intending
+to attack the Indians by surprise. Instead of this, they turned upon him
+with overwhelming numbers, and assailed him with the greatest fury.
+Colonel Rogers and sixty of his men were almost instantly killed. This
+constituted nearly the whole of his party. Two or three effected their
+escape, and conveyed the sad tidings of the massacre to the settlements.</p>
+
+<p>The Kentuckians were exceedingly exasperated, and resolved that the
+Indians should feel the weight of their vengeance. Colonel Bowman, in
+accordance with a custom of the times, issued a call, inviting all the
+Kentuckians who were willing to volunteer under his leadership for the
+chastisement of the Indians, to rendezvous at Harrodsburg. Three hundred
+determined men soon assembled. The expedition moved in the month of
+July, and commenced the ascent of the Little Miami undiscovered. They
+arrived in the vicinity of Old Chilicothe just before nightfall. Here it
+was determined so to arrange their forces in the darkness, as to attack
+the place just before the dawn of the ensuing day. One half of the army,
+under the command of Colonel Logan, were to grope their way through the
+woods, and march around the town so as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>to attack it in the rear, at a
+given signal from Colonel Bowman, who was to place his men in position
+for efficient cooperation. Logan accomplished his movement, and
+concealing his men behind stumps, trees, and rocks, anxiously awaited
+the signal for attack.</p>
+
+<p>But the sharp ear of a watch-dog detected some unusual movement, and
+commenced barking furiously. An Indian warrior came from his cabin, and
+cautiously advanced the way the dog seemed to designate. As the Indian
+drew near, one of the party, by accident or great imprudence, discharged
+his gun. The Indian gave a war-whoop, which immediately startled all the
+inmates of the cabins to their feet. Logan and his party were
+sufficiently near to see the women and the children in a continuous line
+rushing over the ridge, to the protection of the forest.</p>
+
+<p>The Indian warriors, with a military discipline hardly to be expected of
+them, instantly collected in several strong cabins, which were their
+citadels, and from whose loop-holes, unexposed, they could open a deadly
+fire upon their assailants, In an instant, the whole aspect of affairs
+was changed. The assailants advancing through the clearing, must expose
+their unprotected breasts to the bullets of an unseen foe. After a brief
+conflict, Colonel Logan, to his bitter disappointment and that of his
+men, felt constrained to order a retreat.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span></p><p>The two parties were soon reunited, having lost several valuable lives,
+and depressed by the conviction that the enterprise had proved an utter
+failure. The savages pursued, keeping up a harassing fire upon the rear
+of the fugitives. Fortunately for the white men, the renowned Indian
+chieftain Blackfish, struck by a bullet, was instantly killed. This so
+disheartened his followers, that they abandoned the pursuit. The
+fugitives continued their flight all the night, and then at their
+leisure returned to their homes much dejected. In this disastrous
+expedition, nine men were killed and one was severely wounded.</p>
+
+<p>The Indians, aided by their English allies, resolved by the invasion of
+Kentucky to retaliate for the invasion of the Little Miami. Governor
+Hamilton raised a very formidable army, and supplied them with two
+pieces of artillery. By such weapons the strongest log fort could
+speedily be demolished; while the artillerists would be entirely beyond
+the reach of the guns of the garrison. A British officer, Colonel Boyd,
+commanded the combined force. The valley of the Licking River, along
+whose banks many thriving settlements had commenced, was their point of
+destination.</p>
+
+<p>A twelve days' march from the Ohio brought this army, which was
+considered a large one in those times, to a post called Kuddle's
+Station. The garrison was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>immediately summoned to surrender, with the
+promise of protection for their lives only. Resistance against artillery
+was hopeless. The place was surrendered. Indians and white men rushed
+in, alike eager for plunder. The Indians, breaking loose from all
+restraint, caught men, women and children, and claimed them as their
+prisoners. Three persons who made some slight resistance were
+immediately tomahawked.</p>
+
+<p>The British commander endeavored to exonerate himself from these
+atrocities by saying that it was utterly beyond his power to control the
+savages. These wolfish allies, elated by their conquest, their plunder
+and their captives, now demanded to be led along the valley five miles
+to the next station, called Martin's Fort. It is said that Colonel Byrd
+was so affected by the uncontrollable atrocities he had witnessed, that
+he refused to continue the expedition, unless the Indians would consent,
+that while they should receive all the plunder, he should have all the
+prisoners. It is also said that notwithstanding this agreement, the same
+scenes were enacted at Martin's Fort which had been witnessed at
+Ruddle's Station. In confirmation of this statement, it is certain that
+Colonel Byrd refused to go any farther. All the stations on the river
+were apparently at his disposal, and it speaks well for his humanity
+that he refused to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span>lead any farther savages armed with the tomahawk and
+the scalping knife, against his white brethren. He could order a
+retreat, as he did, but he could not rescue the captives from those who
+had seized them. The Indians loaded down their victims with the plunder
+of their own dwellings, and as they fell by the way, sinking beneath
+their burdens, they buried the tomahawk in their brains.</p>
+
+<p>The exasperation on both sides was very great, and General Clark, who
+was stationed at Fort Jefferson with a thousand picked men, entered the
+Indian territory, burned the villages, destroyed the crops, and utterly
+devastated the country. In reference to this expedition, Mr. Cecil B.
+Hartley writes:</p>
+
+<p>"Some persons who have not the slightest objection to war, very gravely
+express doubts as to whether the expedient of destroying the crops of
+the Indians was justifiable. It is generally treated by these men as if
+it were a wanton display of a vindictive spirit, where in reality it was
+dictated by the soundest policy; for when the Indians' harvests were
+destroyed, they were compelled to subsist their families altogether by
+hunting, and had no leisure for their murderous inroads into the
+settlements. This result was plainly seen on this occasion, for it does
+not appear that the Indians attacked any of the settlements during the
+remainder of this year."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span></p><p>The following incident, well authenticated, which occurred early in the
+spring of 1780, gives one a vivid idea of the nature of this warfare:</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Alexander McConnel of Lexington, while out hunting, killed a large
+buck. He went home for his horse to bring it in. While he was absent,
+five Indians accidentally discovered the body of the deer. Supposing the
+hunter would return, three of them hid themselves within rifle shot of
+the carcass while two followed his trail. McConnel, anticipating no
+danger, was riding slowly along the path, when he was fired upon from
+ambush, his horse shot beneath him, and he seized as a prisoner. His
+captors were in high glee, and treated him with unusual kindness. His
+skill with the rifle excited their admiration, and as he provided them
+with abundance of game, they soon became quite fond of him. Day after
+day the savages continued their tramp to the Ohio river, to cross over
+to their own country. Every night they bound him very strongly. As they
+became better acquainted, and advanced farther from the settlements of
+the pioneers, they in some degree remitted their vigilance. One evening
+when they had arrived near the Ohio, McConnel complained so earnestly of
+the pain which the tightly bound cords gave him, that they more loosely
+fastened the cord of buffalo hide around his wrists. Still they tied it,
+as they <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>supposed securely, and attached the end of the cord to the body
+of one of the Indians.</p>
+
+<p>"At midnight, McConnel discovered a sharp knife lying near him, which
+had accidentally fallen from its sheath. He drew it to him with his
+feet, and succeeded noiselessly in cutting the cords. Still he hardly
+dared to stir, for there was danger that the slightest movement might
+rouse his vigilant foes. The savages had stacked their five guns near
+the fire. Cautiously he crept towards them, and secreted three at but a
+short distance where they would not easily find them. He then crept
+noiselessly back, took a rifle in each hand, rested the muzzles upon a
+log, and aiming one at the heart, and one at the head of two Indians at
+the distance of a few feet, discharged both guns simultaneously.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 700px;">
+<img src="images/i235.jpg" width="700" height="453" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>"Both shots were fatal. The three remaining savages in bewilderment
+sprang to their feet. McConnel instantly seizing the two other guns,
+shot one through the heart, and inflicted a terrible wound upon the
+other. He fell to the ground bellowing loudly. Soon however he regained
+his feet and hobbled off into the woods as fast as possible. The only
+remaining one of the party who was unhurt uttered a loud yell of terror
+and dismay, and bounded like a deer into the forest. McConnel was not
+disposed to remain even for one moment to contemplate the result of his
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span>achievement. He selected his own trusty rifle, plunged into the
+forest, and with the unerring instinct of the veteran hunter, in two
+days reached the garrison at Lexington to relate to them his wonderful
+escape."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/ichapend.jpg" width="450" height="120" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>British Allies.</i></h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot2"><p>Death of Squire Boone.&mdash;Indian Outrages.&mdash;Gerty and McGee.&mdash;Battle
+of Blue Lick.&mdash;Death of Isaac Boone.&mdash;Colonel Boone's Narrow
+Escape.&mdash;Letter of Daniel Boone.&mdash;Determination of General
+Clarke.&mdash;Discouragement of the Savages.&mdash;Amusing Anecdote of Daniel
+Boone.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>It was in the autumn of the year 1780 that Daniel Boone, with his
+family, returned to Boonesborough. A year before, the Legislature of
+Virginia had recognized essentially what is now Kentucky as one of the
+counties of Virginia, and had established the town of Boonesborough as
+its capital. By this act Daniel Boone was named one of the trustees or
+selectmen. Town lots were ordered to be surveyed, and a very liberal
+grant of land was conferred upon every one who would erect a house at
+least sixteen feet square, with either brick, stone, or dirt chimney.
+For some reason Colonel Boone declined this office. It is probable that
+he was disgusted by his own experience in the civil courts.</p>
+
+<p>There was little danger now of an attack upon Boonesborough by the
+Indians. There were so many settlements around it that no foe could
+approach <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>without due warning and without encountering serious
+opposition. On the sixth of October Daniel Boone, with his brother
+Squire, left the fort alone for what would seem to be an exceedingly
+imprudent excursion, so defenceless, to the Blue Licks. They reached the
+Licks in safety. While there they were discovered by a party of Indians,
+and were fired upon from ambush. Squire Boone was instantly killed and
+scalped. Daniel, heart-stricken by the loss of his beloved brother, fled
+like a deer, pursued by the whole band, filling the forest with their
+yells like a pack of hounds. The Indians had a very powerful dog with
+them, who, with unerring scent, followed closely in the trail of the
+fugitive. For three miles this unequal chase continued. The dog,
+occasionally embarrassed in his pursuit, would be delayed for a time in
+regaining the trail. The speed of Boone was such that the foremost of
+the savages was left far behind. He then, as the dog came bounding on,
+stopped, took deliberate aim, and shot the brute.</p>
+
+<p>Boone was still far from the fort, but he reached it in safety, leaving
+upon the Indians the impression that he bore a charmed life. He was very
+deeply afflicted by the death of his brother. Squire was the youngest of
+the sons, and the tie which bound the brothers together was unusually
+tender and confidential. They had shared in many perilous adventures,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>and for months had dwelt entirely alone in the wilderness, far away
+from any other society.</p>
+
+<p>The winter of 1780 was one of the saddest in the annals of our country.
+The colonial army, everywhere defeated, was in the most deplorable state
+of destitution and suffering. Our frontiers were most cruelly ravaged by
+a barbarian foe. To add to all this, the winter was severely cold,
+beyond any precedent. The crops had been so destroyed by the enemy that
+many of the pioneers were compelled to live almost entirely upon the
+flesh of the buffalo.</p>
+
+<p>Virginia, in extending her jurisdiction over her western lands of
+Kentucky, now, for the sake of a more perfect military organization,
+divided the extensive region into three counties&mdash;Fayette, Lincoln, and
+Jefferson. General Clarke was made commander-in-chief of the Kentucky
+militia. Daniel Boone was commissioned as Lieutenant-Colonel of Lincoln
+County. The emigration into the State at this time may be inferred from
+the fact that the Court of Commissioners to examine land titles, at the
+close of its session of seven months had granted three thousand claims.
+Its meetings had been held mainly at Boonesborough, and its labors
+terminated in April, 1780. During the spring three hundred barges,
+loaded with emigrants, were floated down the Ohio to the Falls, at what
+is now Louisville.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span></p><p>As we have stated, the winter had been one of the most remarkable on
+record. From the middle of November to the middle of February, the
+ground was covered with snow and ice, without a thaw. The severity of
+the cold was terrible. Nearly all unprotected animals perished. Even
+bears, buffalo, wolves, and wild turkeys were found frozen in the woods.
+The starving wild animals often came near the settlement for food. For
+seventy-five years the winter of 1780 was an era to which the old men
+referred.</p>
+
+<p>Though the Indians organized no formidable raids, they were very
+annoying. No one could safely wander any distance from the forts. In
+March, 1781, several bands entered Jefferson County, and by lying in
+ambush killed four of the settlers. Captain Whittaker, with fifteen men,
+went in pursuit of them. He followed their trail to the banks of the
+Ohio. Supposing they had crossed, he and his party embarked in canoes,
+boldly to continue the pursuit into the Indian country. They had
+scarcely pushed a rod from the shore when hideous yells rose from the
+Indians in ambush, and a deadly fire was opened upon the canoes. Nine of
+the pioneers were instantly killed or wounded. The savages, having
+accomplished this feat, fled into the wilderness, where the party, thus
+weakened in numbers, could not pursue them.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span></p><p>A small party of settlers had reared their log-huts near the present
+site of Shelbyville. Squire Boone had been one of the prominent actors
+in the establishment of this little colony. Alarmed by the menaces of
+the savages, these few settlers decided to remove to a more secure
+station on Bear's Creek. On their way they were startled by the
+war-whoop of they knew not how many Indians concealed in ambush, and a
+storm of bullets fell upon them, killing and wounding many of their
+number. The miscreants, scarcely waiting for the return fire, fled with
+yells which resounded through the forest, leaving their victims to the
+sad task of burying the dead and nursing the wounded. Colonel Floyd
+collected twenty-five men to pursue them. The wary Indians, nearly two
+hundred in number, drew them into an ambush and opened upon the party a
+deadly fire which almost instantly killed half their number. The
+remainder with great difficulty escaped, leaving their dead to be
+mutilated by the scalping knife of the savage.</p>
+
+<p>Almost every day brought tidings of similar disasters. The Indians,
+emboldened by these successes, seemed to rouse themselves to a new
+determination to exterminate the whites. The conduct of the British
+Government, in calling such wretches to their alliance in their war with
+the colonies, created the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>greatest exasperation. Thomas Jefferson gave
+expression to the public sentiment in the Declaration of Independence,
+in which he says, in arraignment of King George the Third:</p>
+
+<p>"He has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the
+merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an
+undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions."</p>
+
+<p>There were two wretched men, official agents of the British Government,
+who were more savage than the savages themselves. One of them, a
+vagabond named Simon Gerty, had joined the Indians by adoption. He had
+not only acquired their habits, but had become their leader in the most
+awful scenes of ferocity. He was a tory, and as such was the bitterest
+foe of the colonists, who were struggling for independence. The other,
+Colonel McGee, with a little more respectability of character, was
+equally fiendlike in exciting the Indians to the most revolting
+barbarities. Thus incited and sustained by British authority, the
+Indians kept all the settlers in Kentucky in constant alarm.</p>
+
+<p>Instigated by the authorities at Detroit, the warriors of five tribes
+assembled at Old Chilicothe to organize the most formidable expedition
+which had as yet invaded Kentucky. These tribes were the Shawanese on
+the Little Miami, the Cherokees on the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>Tennessee, the Wyandotts on the
+Sandusky, the Tawas on the Maumee, and the Delawares on the Muskingum.</p>
+
+<p>Their choicest warriors, five hundred in number, rendezvoused at Old
+Chilicothe. This Indian village was built in the form of a square
+enclosing a large area. Some of their houses were of logs, some of bark,
+some of reeds filled in with clay. Boone says that the Indians
+concentrated their utmost force and vengeance upon this expedition,
+hoping to destroy the settlements and to depopulate the country at a
+single blow.</p>
+
+<p>Not far from Boonesborough, in the same valley of the Kentucky, there
+was a small settlement called Bryant's Station. William Bryant, the
+founder, had married a sister of Colonel Boone. On the fifteenth of
+August, a war party of five hundred Indians and Canadians, under the
+leadership of Simon Gerty, appeared before this little cluster of
+log-huts, each of which was of course bullet-proof. The settlers fought
+heroically. Gerty was wounded, and thirty of his band were killed, while
+the garrison lost but four. The assailing party, thus disappointed in
+their expectation of carrying the place by storm, and fearing the
+arrival of reinforcements from other settlements, hastily retired.
+Colonel Boone, hearing of the attack, hastened to the rescue, joining
+troops from several of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>the adjacent forts. The party consisted of one
+hundred and eighty men, under the leadership of Colonel Todd, one of
+"nature's noblemen." Colonel Boone seems to have been second in command.
+Two of his sons, Israel and Samuel, accompanied their father upon this
+expedition.</p>
+
+<p>The Indians, led by British officers, were far more to be dreaded than
+when left to their own cunning, which was often childish. As the little
+band of pioneers, rushing to the rescue, approached Bryant's Station and
+were informed of the retreat of the invaders, a council of war was held,
+to decide whether it were best for a hundred and eighty men to pursue
+five hundred Indians and Canadians, through a region where every mile
+presented the most favorable opportunities for concealment in ambush.
+Gerty was a desperado who was to be feared as well as hated. Contrary to
+the judgment of both Colonels Todd and Boone, it was decided to pursue
+the Indians. There was no difficulty in following the trail of so large
+a band, many of whom were mounted. Their path led almost directly north,
+to the Licking River, and then followed down its banks towards the Ohio.</p>
+
+<p>As the pursuers were cautiously advancing, they came to a remarkable
+bend in the stream, where there was a large and open space, with prairie
+grass very high. A well trampled buffalo track led through <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>this grass,
+which was almost like a forest of reeds. Along this "street" the Indians
+had retreated. The scouts who had been sent forward to explore, returned
+with the report that there were no signs of Indians. And yet, four
+hundred savages had so adroitly concealed themselves, that their line
+really extended from bank to bank of the river, where it bent like a
+horseshoe before them. The combined cunning of the Indian, and the
+intelligence of their white leaders, was now fatally enlisted for the
+destruction of the settlers. A hundred and eighty men were to be caught
+in a trap, with five hundred demons prepared to shoot them down.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as Colonel Todd's party passed the neck of this bend, the
+Indians closed in behind them, rose from their concealment, and with
+terrific yells opened upon them a still more terrific fire. The pioneers
+fought with the courage of desperation. At the first discharge, nearly
+one third of Colonel Todd's little party fell dead or wounded. Struck
+fatally by several bullets, Colonel Todd himself fell from his horse
+drenched with blood. While a portion of the Indians kept up the fire,
+others, with hideous yells sprang forward with tomahawk and scalping
+knife, completing their fiendlike work. It was a scene of awful
+confusion and dismay. The survivors fighting every step of the way,
+retreated towards the river, for there was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>no escape back through their
+thronging foes. Colonel Boone's two sons fought by the side of their
+father. Samuel, the younger, struck by a bullet, was severely but not
+mortally wounded. Israel, his second son, fell dead. The unhappy father,
+took his dead boy upon his shoulders to save him from the scalping
+knife. As he tottered beneath the bleeding body, an Indian of herculean
+stature with uplifted tomahawk rushed upon him. Colonel Boone dropped
+the body of his son, shot the Indian through the heart, and seeing the
+savages rushing upon him from all directions, fled, leaving the corpse
+of his boy to its fate.</p>
+
+<p>Being intimately acquainted with the ground, he plunged into a ravine,
+baffling several parties who pursued him, swam across the river, and
+entering the forest succeeded in escaping from his foes, and at length
+safely by a circuitous route returned to Bryant's Station. In the
+meantime the scene of tumult and slaughter was awful beyond all
+description. Victors and vanquished were blended together upon the banks
+of the stream. In this dreadful conflict there were four Indians to each
+white man. There was a narrow ford at the spot, but the whole stream
+seemed clogged, some swimming and some trying to wade, while the
+exultant Indians shot and tomahawked without mercy. Those who succeeded
+in crossing the river, leaving the great buffalo track which they had
+been <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>following, plunged into the thickets, and though vigorously
+pursued by the Indians, most of them eventually reached the settlements.</p>
+
+<p>In this dreadful disaster, the colonists lost sixty men in killed and
+seven were taken prisoners. The Indians in counting up their loss, found
+that sixty-four were missing. In accordance with their barbaric custom,
+they selected in vengeance four of the prisoners and put them to death
+by the most terrible tortures which savage ingenuity could devise. Had
+Colonel Boone's advice been followed, this calamity might have been
+avoided. Still characteristically, he uttered not a word of complaint.
+In his comments upon the event he says:</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot reflect upon this dreadful scene but sorrow fills my heart. A
+zeal for the defence of their country led these heroes to the scene of
+action, though with a few men to attack a powerful army of experienced
+warriors. When we gave way, they pursued us with the utmost eagerness,
+and in every quarter spread destruction. The river was difficult to
+cross, and many were killed in the flight; some just entering the river,
+some in the water, others after crossing, in ascending the cliffs. Some
+escaped on horseback, a few on foot; and being dispersed everywhere in a
+few hours, brought the melancholy news of this unfortunate conflict to
+Lexington. The reader <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>may guess what sorrow filled the hearts of the
+inhabitants; exceeding anything I am able to describe. Being reinforced
+we returned to bury the dead, and found their bodies strewed everywhere,
+cut and mangled in a dreadful manner. This mournful scene exhibited a
+horror almost unparalleled; some torn and eaten by wild beasts; those in
+the river eaten by fishes; all in such a putrified condition that no one
+could be distinguished from another."</p>
+
+<p>This battle of the Blue Licks, as it is called, occupies one of the most
+mournful pages in the history of Kentucky. The escape of Boone adds
+another to the extraordinary adventures of this chivalric and now
+sorrow-stricken man. Colonel Boone communicated an official report to
+the Governor of Virginia, Benjamin Harrison, father of William Henry
+Harrison, subsequently President of the United States. In this report,
+it is noticeable that Boone makes no allusion whatever to his own
+services. This modest document throws such light upon the character of
+this remarkable man, and upon the peril of the times, that it merits
+full insertion here. It is as follows:</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Boone's Station, Fayette Co., Aug. 30, 1782.</p></div>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Sir,&mdash;Present circumstances of affairs cause me to write to Your
+Excellency, as follows: On the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span>sixteenth instant, a large body of
+Indians, with some white men, attacked one of our frontier
+stations, known as Bryant's Station. The siege continued from about
+sunrise until two o'clock of the next day, when they marched off.
+Notice being given to the neighboring stations, we immediately
+raised one hundred and eighty-one horsemen, commanded by Col. John
+Todd, including some of the Lincoln County militia, and pursued
+about forty miles."</p></div>
+
+<p>After a brief account of the battle which we have already given, he
+continues:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Afterwards we were reinforced by Colonel Logan, which made our
+force four hundred and sixty men. We marched again to the battle
+ground, but finding the enemy had gone, we proceeded to bury the
+dead. We found forty-three on the ground, and many lay about which
+we could not stay to find, hungry and weary as we were, and dubious
+that the enemy might not have gone off quite. By the sign, we
+thought that the Indians exceeded four hundred, while the whole of
+the militia of the county does not amount to more than one hundred
+and thirty.</p>
+
+<p>"From these facts, Your Excellency may form an idea of our
+situation. I know that your own circumstances are critical; but are
+we to be wholly forgotten? I hope not. I trust that about five
+hundred men may be sent to our assistance immediately. If these
+shall <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>be stationed as our county lieutenant shall deem necessary,
+it may be the means of saving our part of the country. But if they
+are placed under the direction of General Clarke, they will be of
+little or no service to our settlement. The Falls lie one hundred
+miles west of us, and the Indians north-east; while our men are
+frequently called to protect them.</p>
+
+<p>"I have encouraged the people in this county all that I could; but
+I can no longer justify them or myself to risk our lives here,
+under such extraordinary hazards. The inhabitants of this county
+are very much alarmed at the thoughts of the Indians bringing
+another campaign into our country this fall. If this should be the
+case, it will break up these settlements. I hope therefore that
+Your Excellency will take the matter into your consideration, and
+send us some relief as quick as possible. These are my sentiments
+without consulting any person. Colonel Logan will I expect
+immediately send you an express, by whom I humbly request Your
+Excellency's answer. In the meantime, I remain yours, etc., Daniel
+Boone."</p></div>
+
+<p>General Clarke, who was the military leader of Kentucky under the
+Colonial government, was established at <i>the Falls</i>. The British
+authorities held their head-quarters at Detroit, from which post they
+were sending out their Indian allies in all directions to ravage the
+frontiers. General Clarke was a man of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>great energy of character, and
+he was anxious to organise an expedition against Detroit. With this
+object in view, he had by immense exertions assembled a force of nearly
+two thousand men. Much to his chagrin, he received orders to remain at
+the Falls for the present, to protect the frontiers then so severely
+menaced. But when the tidings reached him of the terrible disaster at
+the Blue Lick, he resolved to pursue the Indians and punish them with
+the greatest severity.</p>
+
+<p>The exultant savages had returned to Old Chilicothe, and had divided
+their spoil and their captives. Colonel Boone was immediately sent for
+to take part in this expedition. Clarke's army crossed the Ohio, and
+marching very rapidly up the banks of the Little Miami, arrived within
+two miles of Chilicothe before they were discovered. On perceiving the
+enemy the Indians scattered in all directions. Men, women and children
+fled into the remote forest, abandoning their homes and leaving
+everything behind them. The avenging army swept the valley with fire and
+ruin. Their corn just ripening, and upon which they mainly relied for
+their winter supply of food, was utterly destroyed. Every tree which
+bore any fruit was felled, and five of their towns were laid in ashes.
+The trail of the army presented a scene of utter desolation.</p>
+
+<p>The savages were alike astonished and dismayed. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>They had supposed that
+the white men, disheartened by their dreadful defeat at the Blue Lick,
+would abandon the country. Instead of that, with amazing recuperative
+power, they had scarcely reached their homes ere another army, utterly
+resistless in numbers, is burning their towns and destroying their whole
+country.</p>
+
+<p>This avenging campaign so depressed the Indians that they made no
+farther attempt for the organised invasion of Kentucky. The termination
+of the war with England also deprived them of their military resources,
+and left them to their own unaided and unintelligent efforts. Still
+miserable bands continued prowling around, waylaying and murdering the
+lonely traveler, setting fire to the solitary hut and inflicting such
+other outrages as were congenial with their cruel natures. It thus
+became necessary for the pioneers always to live with the rifle in hand.</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Boone had become especially obnoxious to the Indians. Twice he
+had escaped from them, under circumstances which greatly mortified their
+vanity. They recognised the potency of his rifle in the slaughter of
+their own warriors at the Blue Lick; and they were well aware that it
+was his sagacity which led the army of General Clarke in its avenging
+march through their country. It thus became with them an object of
+intense desire to take him prisoner, and had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>he been taken, he would
+doubtless have been doomed to the severest torture they could inflict.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Peck, in his interesting life of Boone, gives the following account
+of one of the extraordinary adventures of this man, which he received
+from the lips of Colonel Boone himself. On one occasion, four Indians
+suddenly appeared before his cabin and took him prisoner. Though the
+delicacy of Colonel Boone's organization was such, that he could never
+himself relish tobacco in any form, he still raised some for his friends
+and neighbors, and for what were then deemed the essential rites of
+hospitality.</p>
+
+<p>"As a shelter for curing the tobacco, he had built an enclosure of rails
+a dozen feet in height and covered with canes and grass. Stalks of
+tobacco are generally split and strung on sticks about four feet in
+length. The ends of these are laid on poles placed across the tobacco
+house, and in tiers one above another, to the roof. Boone had fixed his
+temporary shelter in such a manner as to have three tiers. He had
+covered the lower tier and the tobacco had become dry; when he entered
+the shelter for the purpose of removing the sticks to the upper tier,
+preparatory to gathering the remainder of the crop. He had hoisted up
+the sticks from the lower to the second tier, and was standing on the
+poles which supported it, while raising the sticks to the upper tier,
+when four stout <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span>Indians, with guns, entered the low door and called
+him by name.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 384px;">
+<img src="images/i256.jpg" width="384" height="600" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>"'Now, Boone, we got you. You no get away more. We carry you off to
+Chilicothe this time. You no cheat us anymore.'</p>
+
+<p>"Boone looked down upon their upturned faces, saw their loaded guns
+pointed at his breast, and recognising some of his old friends the
+Shawanese, who had made him prisoner near the Blue Licks in 1778, coolly
+and pleasantly responded:</p>
+
+<p>"'Ah, old friends, glad to see you.'</p>
+
+<p>"Perceiving that they manifested impatience to have him come down, he
+told them he was quite willing to go with them, and only begged that
+they would wait where they were, and watch him closely until he could
+finish removing the tobacco.</p>
+
+<p>"While thus parleying with them, Boone inquired earnestly respecting his
+old friends in Chilicothe. He continued for some time to divert the
+attention of these simple-minded men, by allusions to past events with
+which they were familiar, and by talking of his tobacco, his mode of
+curing it, and promising them an abundant supply. With their guns in
+their hands however, they stood at the door of the shed, grouped closely
+together so as to render his escape apparently impossible. In the
+meantime Boone carefully gathered his arms full of the long, dry tobacco
+leaves, filled <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span>with pungent dust, which would be blinding and stifling
+as the most powerful snuff, and then with a leap from his station twelve
+feet high, came directly upon their heads, filling their eyes and
+nostrils, and so bewildering and disabling them for the moment, that
+they lost all self-possession and all self-control.</p>
+
+<p>"Boone, agile as a deer, darted out at the door, and in a moment was in
+his bullet-proof log-hut, which to him was an impregnable citadel.
+Loop-holes guarded every approach. The Indians could not show themselves
+without exposure to certain death. They were too well acquainted with
+the unerring aim of Boone's rifle to venture within its range. Keeping
+the log cabin between them and their redoubtable foe, the baffled
+Indians fled into the wilderness.</p>
+
+<p>"Colonel Boone related this adventure with great glee, imitating the
+gestures of the bewildered Indians. He said that notwithstanding his
+narrow escape, he could not resist the temptation, as he reached the
+door of his cabin, to look around to witness the effect of his
+achievement. The Indians coughing, sneezing, blinded and almost
+suffocated by the tobacco dust, were throwing out their arms and groping
+about in all directions, cursing him for a rogue and calling themselves
+fools."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/ichapend.jpg" width="450" height="120" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Kentucky organized as a State.</i></h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot2"><p>Peace with England.&mdash;Order of a Kentucky Court.&mdash;Anecdotes.&mdash;Speech
+of Mr. Dalton.&mdash;Reply of Piankashaw.&mdash;Renewed Indications of Indian
+Hostility.&mdash;Conventions at Danville.&mdash;Kentucky formed into a
+State.&mdash;New Trials for Boone.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>The close of the war of the Revolution, bringing peace between the
+colonies and the mother country, deprived the Indians of that powerful
+alliance which had made them truly formidable. Being no longer able to
+obtain a supply of ammunition from the British arsenals, or to be guided
+in their murderous raids by British intelligence, they also, through
+their chiefs, entered into treaties of peace with the rapidly-increasing
+emigrants.</p>
+
+<p>Though these treaties with the Indians prevented any general
+organization of the tribes, vagabond Indians, entirely lawless, were
+wandering in all directions, ever ready to perpetrate any outrage. Civil
+society has its highway robbers, burglars and murderers. Much more so
+was this the case among these savages, exasperated by many wrongs; for
+it cannot be denied that they were more frequently sinned <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>against than
+sinning. Their untutored natures made but little distinction between the
+innocent and the guilty. If a vagabond white man wantonly shot an
+Indian&mdash;and many were as ready to do it as to shoot a wolf&mdash;the friends
+of the murdered Indian would take revenge upon the inmates of the first
+white man's cabin they encountered in the wilderness. Thus it was
+necessary for the pioneers to be constantly upon their guard. If they
+wandered any distance from the fort while hunting, or were hoeing in the
+field, or ventured to rear a cabin on a fertile meadow at a distance
+from the stations, they were liable to be startled at any hour of the
+day or of the night by the terrible war-whoop, and to feel the weight of
+savage vengeance.</p>
+
+<p>This exposure to constant peril influenced the settlers, as a general
+rule, to establish themselves in stations. This gave them companionship,
+the benefits of co-operative labor, and security against any small
+prowling bands. These stations were formed upon the model of the one
+which Daniel Boone had so wisely organized at Boonesborough. They
+consisted of a cluster of bullet-proof log-cabins, arranged in a
+quadrangular form, so as to enclose a large internal area. All the doors
+opened upon this interior space. Here the cattle were gathered at night.
+The intervals between the cottages were filled with palisades, also
+bullet-proof. Loop-holes through the logs <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>enabled these riflemen to
+guard every approach to their fortress. Thus they had little to fear
+from the Indians when sheltered by these strong citadels.</p>
+
+<p>Emigration to Kentucky began very rapidly to increase. Large numbers
+crossed the mountains to Pittsburgh, where they took flat boats and
+floated down the beautiful Ohio, <i>la belle rivi&egrave;re</i>, until they reached
+such points on its southern banks as pleased them for a settlement, or
+from which they could ascend the majestic rivers of that peerless State.
+Comfortable homesteads were fast rising in all directions. Horses,
+cattle, swine, and poultry of all kinds were multiplied. Farming
+utensils began to make their appearance. The hum of happy industry was
+heard where wolves had formerly howled and buffalo ranged. Merchandise
+in considerable quantities was transported over the mountains on pack
+horses, and then floated down the Ohio and distributed among the
+settlements upon its banks. Country stores arose, land speculators
+appeared, and continental paper money became a circulating medium. This
+money, however, was not of any very great value, as may be inferred from
+the following decree, passed by one of the County Courts, establishing
+the schedule of prices for tavern-keeping:</p>
+
+<p>"The Court doth set the following rates to be observed by keepers in
+this county: Whiskey, fifteen <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span>dollars the half-pint; rum, ten dollars
+the gallon; a meal, twelve dollars; stabling or pasturage, four dollars
+the night."</p>
+
+<p>Under these changed circumstances, Colonel Boone, whose intrepidity
+nothing could daunt, and whose confidence in the protective power of his
+rifle was unbounded, had reared for himself, on one of the beautiful
+meadows of the Kentucky, a commodious home. He had selected a spot whose
+fertility and loveliness pleased his artistic eye.</p>
+
+<p>It is estimated that during the years 1783 and 1784 nearly twelve
+thousand persons emigrated to Kentucky. Still all these had to move with
+great caution, with rifles always loaded, and ever on the alert against
+surprise. The following incident will give the reader an idea of the
+perils and wild adventures encountered by these parties in their search
+for new and distant homes.</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Thomas Marshall, a man of much note in those days, had crossed
+the Alleghanies with his large family. At Pittsburgh he purchased a
+flat-boat, and was floating down the Ohio. He had passed the mouth of
+the Kanawha River without any incident of note occurring. About ten
+o'clock one night, as his boat had drifted near the northern shore of
+the solitary stream, he was hailed by a man upon the bank, who, after
+inquiring who he was, where he was bound, etc., added:</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span></p><p>"I have been posted here by order of my brother, Simon Gerty, to warn
+all boats of the danger of permitting themselves to be decoyed ashore.
+My brother regrets very deeply the injury he has inflicted upon the
+white men, and to convince them of the sincerity of his repentance, and
+of his earnest desire to be restored to their society, he has stationed
+me here to warn all boats of the snares which are spread for them by the
+cunning of the Indians. Renegade white men will be placed upon the
+banks, who will represent themselves as in the greatest distress. Even
+children taken captive will be compelled, by threats of torture, to
+declare that they are all alone upon the shore, and to entreat the boats
+to come and rescue them.</p>
+
+<p>"But keep in the middle of the river," said Gerty, "and steel your heart
+against any supplications you may hear."</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel thanked him for his warning, and continued to float down the
+rapid current of the stream.</p>
+
+<p>Virginia had passed a law establishing the town of Louisville, at the
+Falls of the Ohio. A very thriving settlement soon sprang up there.</p>
+
+<p>The nature of the warfare still continuing between the whites and the
+Indians may be inferred from the following narrative, which we give in
+the words of Colonel Boone:</p>
+
+<p>"The Indians continued to practice mischief secretly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span>upon the
+inhabitants in the exposed part of the country. In October a party made
+an incursion into a district called Crab Orchard. One of these Indians
+having advanced some distance before the others, boldly entered the
+house of a poor defenseless family, in which was only a negro man, a
+woman and her children, terrified with apprehensions of immediate death.
+The savage, perceiving their defenseless condition, without offering
+violence to the family, attempted to capture the negro, who happily
+proved an over-match for him, and threw the Indian on the ground.</p>
+
+<p>"In the struggle, the mother of the children drew an axe from the corner
+of the cottage and cut off the head of the Indian, while her little
+daughter shut the door. The savages soon appeared, and applied their
+tomahawks to the door. An old rusty gun-barrel, without a lock, lay in
+the corner, which the mother put through a small crevice, and the
+savages perceiving it, fled. In the meantime the alarm spread through
+the neighborhood; the armed men collected immediately and pursued the
+savages into the wilderness. Thus Providence, by means of this negro,
+saved the whole of the poor family from destruction."</p>
+
+<p>The heroism of Mrs. Merrill is worthy of being perpetuated, not only as
+a wonderful achievement, but as illustrative of the nature of this
+dreadful warfare. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span>Mr. Merrill, with his wife, little son and daughter,
+occupied a remote cabin in Nelson County, Kentucky. On the 24th of
+December, 1791, he was alarmed by the barking of his dog. Opening the
+door to ascertain the cause, he was instantly fired upon by seven or
+eight Indians who had crept near the house secreting themselves behind
+stumps and trees. Two bullets struck him, fracturing the bones both of
+his leg and of his arm. The savages, with hideous yells, then rushed for
+the door.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Merrill had but just time to close and bolt it when the savages
+plunged against it and hewed it with their tomahawks. Every dwelling was
+at that time a fortress whose log walls were bullet proof. But for the
+terrible wounds which Mr. Merrill had received, he would with his rifle
+shooting through loop-holes, soon have put the savages to flight. They,
+emboldened by the supposition that he was killed, cut away at the door
+till they had opened a hole sufficiently large to crawl through. One of
+the savages attempted to enter. He had got nearly in when Mrs. Merrill
+cleft his skull with an ax, and he fell lifeless upon the floor.
+Another, supposing that he had safely effected an entrance, followed him
+and encountered the same fate. Four more of the savages were in this way
+despatched, when the others, suspecting that all was not right, climbed
+upon the roof and two of them <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>endeavored to descend through the
+chimney. The noise they made directed the attention of the inmates of
+the cabin to the new danger.</p>
+
+<p>There was a gentle fire burning upon the hearth. Mr. Merrill, with much
+presence of mind, directed his son, while his wife guarded the opening
+of the door with her ax, to empty the contents of a feather bed upon the
+fire. The dense smothering smoke filled the flue of the chimney. The two
+savages, suffocated with the fumes, after a few convulsive efforts to
+ascend fell almost insensible down upon the hearth. Mr. Merrill, seizing
+with his unbroken arm a billet of wood, despatched them both. But one of
+the Indians now remained. Peering in at the opening in the door he
+received a blow from the ax of Mrs. Merrill which severely wounded him.
+Bleeding and disheartened he fled alone into the wilderness, the only
+one of the eight who survived the conflict.</p>
+
+<p>A white man who was at that time a prisoner among the Indians and who
+subsequently effected his escape, reported that when the wounded savage
+reached his tribe he said to the white captive in broken English:</p>
+
+<p>"I have bad news for the poor Indian. Me lose a son, me lose a broder.
+The squaws have taken the breech clout, and fight worse than the long
+knives."</p>
+
+<p>But the Indians were not always the aggressors. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span>Indeed it is doubtful
+whether they would ever have raised the war-whoop against the white man,
+had it not been for the outrages they were so constantly experiencing
+from unprincipled and vagabond adventurers, who were ever infesting the
+frontiers. The following incident illustrates the character and conduct
+of these miscreants:</p>
+
+<p>A party of Indian hunters from the South wandering through their ancient
+hunting grounds of Kentucky, accidentally came upon a settlement where
+they found several horses grazing in the field. They stole the horses,
+and commenced a rapid retreat to their own country. Three young men,
+Davis, Caffre and McClure, pursued them. Not being able to overtake the
+fugitives, they decided to make reprisals on the first Indians they
+should encounter. It so happened that they soon met three Indian
+hunters. The parties saluted each other in a friendly manner, and
+proceeded on their way in pleasant companionship.</p>
+
+<p>The young men said that they observed the Indians conversing with one
+another in low tones of voice, and thus they became convinced that the
+savages meditated treachery. Resolving to anticipate the Indians'
+attack, they formed the following plan. While walking together in
+friendly conversation, the Indians being entirely off their guard,
+Caffre, who was a very powerful man, was to spring upon the lightest of
+the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span>Indians, crush him to the ground, and thus take him a prisoner. At
+the same instant, Davis and McClure were each to shoot one of the other
+Indians, who, being thus taken by surprise, could offer no resistance.</p>
+
+<p>The signal was given. Caffre sprang upon his victim and bore him to the
+ground. McClure shot his man dead. Davis' gun flashed in the pan. The
+Indian thus narrowly escaping death immediately aimed his gun at Caffre,
+who was struggling with the one he had grappled, and instantly killed
+him. McClure in his turn shot the Indian. There was now one Indian and
+two white men. But the Indian had the loaded rifle. McClure's was
+discharged and Davis' missed fire. The Indian, springing from the grasp
+of his dying antagonist, presented his rifle at Davis, who immediately
+fled, hotly pursued by the Indian. McClure, stopping only to reload his
+gun, followed after them. Soon he lost sight of both. Davis was never
+heard of afterwards. Doubtless he was shot by the avenging Indian, who
+returned to his wigwam with the white man's scalp.</p>
+
+<p>McClure, after this bloody fray, being left alone in the wilderness,
+commenced a return to his distant home. He had not proceeded far before
+he met an Indian on horseback accompanied by a boy on foot. The warrior
+dismounted, and in token of peace offered McClure his pipe. As they were
+seated together upon <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>a log, conversing, McClure said that the Indian
+informed him by signs that there were other Indians in the distance who
+would soon come up, and that then they should take him captive, tie his
+feet beneath the horse's belly and carry him off to their village.
+McClure seized his gun, shot the Indian through the heart, and plunging
+into the forest, effected his escape.</p>
+
+<p>About this same time Captain James Ward, with a party of half a dozen
+white men, one of whom was his nephew, and a number of horses, was
+floating down the Ohio River from Pittsburgh. They were in a flat boat
+about forty-five feet long and eight feet wide. The gunwale of the boat
+consisted of but a single pine plank. It was beautiful weather, and for
+several days they were swept along by the tranquil stream, now borne by
+the changing current towards the one shore, and now towards the other.
+One morning when they had been swept by the stream within about one
+hundred and fifty feet of the northern shore, suddenly several hundred
+Indians appeared upon the bank, and uttering savage yells opened upon
+them a terrible fire.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Ward's nephew, pierced by a ball in the breast, fell dead in the
+bottom of the boat. Every horse was struck by a bullet. Some were
+instantly killed; others, severely wounded, struggled so violently as to
+cause the frail bark to dip water, threatening <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span>immediate destruction.
+All the crew except Captain Ward were so panic-stricken by this sudden
+assault, that they threw themselves flat upon their faces in the bottom
+of the boat, and attempted no resistance where even the exposure of a
+hand would be the target for a hundred rifles.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately Captain Ward was protected from this shower of bullets by a
+post, which for some purpose had been fastened to the gunwale. He
+therefore retained his position at the helm, which was an oar, striving
+to guide the boat to the other side of the river. As the assailants had
+no canoes, they could not attempt to board, but for more than an hour
+they ran along the banks yelling and keeping up an almost constant fire.
+At length the boat was swept to the other side of the stream, when the
+miscreants abandoned the pursuit, and disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>Quite a large party of emigrants were attacked by the Indians near what
+is now called Scagg's Creek, and six were instantly killed. A Mrs.
+McClure, delirious with terror, fled she knew not where, followed by her
+three little children and carrying a little babe in her arms. The cries
+of the babe guided the pursuit of the Indians. They cruelly tomahawked
+the three oldest children, and took the mother and the babe as captives.
+Fortunately the tidings of this outrage speedily reached one of the
+settlements. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span>Captain Whitley immediately started in pursuit of the
+gang. He overtook them, killed two, wounded two, and rescued the
+captives. Such were the scenes enacted during a period of nominal peace
+with the Indians.</p>
+
+<p>There has been transmitted to us a very curious document, giving an
+account of a speech made by Mr. Dalton, a Government agent, to a council
+of Indian chiefs, upon the announcement of peace with Great Britain, and
+their reply. Mr. Dalton said:</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">My Children</span>,&mdash;What I have often told you is now come to pass. This day
+I received news from my great chief at the Falls of the Ohio. Peace is
+made with the enemies of America. The white flesh, the Americans,
+French, and Spanish, this day smoked out of the peace-pipe. The tomahawk
+is buried, and they are now friends. I am told the Shawanese, the
+Delawares, Chickasaws, Cherokees, and all other red flesh, have taken
+the Long Knife by the hand. They have given up to them the prisoners
+that were in their hands.</p>
+
+<p>"My children on the Wabash, open your ears and let what I tell you sink
+into your hearts. You know me. Near twenty years I have been among you.
+The Long Knife is my nation. I know their hearts. Peace they carry in
+one hand and war in the other. I leave you to yourselves to judge.
+Consider and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>now accept the one or the other. We never beg peace of our
+enemies. If you love your women and children, receive the belt of wampum
+I present you. Return me my flesh you have in your villages, and the
+horses you stole from my people in Kentucky. Your corn fields were never
+disturbed by the Long Knife. Your women and children lived quiet in
+their houses, while your warriors were killing and robbing my people.
+All this you know is the truth.</p>
+
+<p>"This is the last time I shall speak to you. I have waited six moons to
+hear you speak and to get my people from you. In ten nights I shall
+leave the Wabash to see my great chief at the Falls of the Ohio, where
+he will be glad to hear from your own lips what you have to say. Here is
+tobacco I give you. Smoke and consider what I have said."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Dalton then presented Piankashaw, the chief of the leading tribe
+assembled in council, with a belt of blue and white wampum. Piankashaw
+received the emblem of peace with much dignity, and replied:</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">My Great Father the Long Knife</span>,&mdash;You have been many years among us. You
+have suffered by us. We still hope you will have pity and compassion
+upon us, on our women and children. The sun shines on us, and the good
+news of peace appears in our faces. This is the day of joy to the Wabash
+Indians. With one tongue we now speak. We accept your peace-belt.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span></p><p>"We received the tomahawk from the English. Poverty forced us to it. We
+were followed by other tribes. We are sorry for it. To-day we collect
+the scattered bones of our friends and bury them in one grave. We thus
+plant the tree of peace, that God may spread its branches so that we can
+all be secured from bad weather. Here is the pipe that gives us joy.
+Smoke out of it. Our warriors are glad you are the man we present it to.
+We have buried the tomahawk, have formed friendship never to be broken,
+and now we smoke out of your pipe.</p>
+
+<p>"My father, we know that the Great Spirit was angry with us for stealing
+your horses and attacking your people. He has sent us so much snow and
+cold weather as to kill your horses with our own. We are a poor people.
+We hope God will help us, and that the Long Knife will have compassion
+on our women and children. Your people who are with us are well. We
+shall collect them when they come in from hunting. All the prisoners
+taken in Kentucky are alive. We love them, and so do our young women.
+Some of your people mend our guns, and others tell us they can make rum
+out of corn. They are now the same as we. In one moon after this we will
+take them back to their friends in Kentucky.</p>
+
+<p>"My father, this being the day of joy to the Wabash Indians, we beg a
+little drop of your milk to let <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span>our warriors see that it came from your
+own breast. We were born and raised in the woods. We could never learn
+to make rum. God has made the white men masters of the world."</p>
+
+<p>Having finished his speech, Piankashaw presented Mr. Dalton with three
+strings of blue and white wampum as the seal of peace. All must observe
+the strain of despondency which pervades this address, and it is
+melancholy to notice the imploring tones with which the chief asks for
+rum, the greatest curse which ever afflicted his people.</p>
+
+<p>The incessant petty warfare waged between vagrant bands of the whites
+and the Indians, with the outrages perpetrated on either side, created
+great exasperation. In the year 1784 there were many indications that
+the Indians were again about to combine in an attack upon the
+settlements. These stations were widely scattered, greatly exposed, and
+there were many of them. It was impossible for the pioneers to rally in
+sufficient strength to protect every position. The savages, emerging
+unexpectedly from the wilderness, could select their own point of
+attack, and could thus cause a vast amount of loss and misery. For a
+long time it had been unsafe for any individual, or even small parties,
+unless very thoroughly armed, to wander beyond the protection of the
+forts. Under these circumstances, a convention was held of the leading
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span>men of Kentucky at the Danville Station, to decide what measures to
+adopt in view of the threatened invasion. It was quite certain that the
+movement of the savages would be so sudden and impetuous that the
+settlers would be compelled to rely mainly upon their own resources.</p>
+
+<p>The great State of Virginia, of which Kentucky was but a frontier
+portion, had become rich and powerful. But many weary leagues
+intervened, leading through forests and over craggy mountains, between
+the plains of these distant counties and Richmond, the capital of
+Virginia. The convention at Danville discussed the question whether it
+were not safer for them to anticipate the Indians, and immediately to
+send an army for the destruction of their towns and crops north of the
+Ohio. But here they were embarrassed by the consideration that they had
+no legal power to make this movement, and that the whole question,
+momentous as it was and demanding immediate action, must be referred to
+the State Government, far away beyond the mountains. This involved long
+delay, and it could hardly be expected that the members of the General
+Court in their peaceful homes would fully sympathize with the
+unprotected settlers in their exposure to the tomahawk and the scalping
+knife.</p>
+
+<p>Several conventions were held, and the question <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span>was earnestly discussed
+whether the interests of Kentucky did not require her separation from
+the Government of Virginia, and her organization as a self-governing
+State. The men who had boldly ventured to seek new homes so far beyond
+the limits of civilization were generally men of great force of
+character and of political foresight. They had just emerged from the war
+of the Revolution, during which all the most important questions of
+civil polity had been thoroughly canvassed. Their meetings were
+conducted with great dignity and calm deliberation.</p>
+
+<p>On the twenty-third of May, 1785, the convention at Danville passed the
+resolve with great unanimity that Kentucky ought to be separated from
+Virginia, and received into the American Union, upon the same basis as
+the other States. Still that they might not act upon a question of so
+much importance without due deliberation, they referred the subject to
+another convention to be assembled at Danville in August. This
+convention reiterated the resolution of its predecessor; issued a
+proclamation urging the people everywhere to organise for defence
+against the Indians, and appointed a delegation of two members to
+proceed to Richmond, and present their request for a separation to the
+authorities there.</p>
+
+<p>"The Legislature of Virginia was composed of men <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span>too wise not to see
+that separation was inevitable. Separated from the parent State by
+distance and by difficulties of communication, in those days most
+formidable, they saw that Kentuckians would not long submit to be ruled
+by those whose power was so far removed as to surround every approach to
+it with the greatest embarrassment. It was, without its wrongs, and
+tyranny and misgovernment, the repetition of the circumstances of the
+Crown and Colonies; and with good judgment, and as the beautiful
+language of the Danville convention expressed it, with sole intent to
+bless its people, they agreed to a dismemberment of its part, to secure
+the happiness of the whole."<a name="FNanchor_F_6" id="FNanchor_F_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_F_6" class="fnanchor">[F]</a></p>
+
+<p>It is not important here to enter into a detail of the various
+discussions which ensued, and of the measures which were adopted. It is
+sufficient to say that the communication from Kentucky to the
+Legislature of Virginia was referred to the illustrious John Marshall,
+then at the commencement of his distinguished career. He gave to the
+request of the petitioners his own strong advocacy. The result was, that
+a decree was passed after tedious delays, authorising the formal
+separation of Kentucky from Virginia. On the fourth of February, 1791,
+the new State, by earnest recommendation of George Washington, was
+admitted into the American Union.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></p><p>It does not appear that Colonel Boone was a member of any of these
+conventions. He had no taste for the struggles in political assemblies.
+He dreaded indeed the speculator, the land jobber, and the intricate
+decisions of courts, more than the tomahawk of the Indian. And he knew
+full well that should the hour of action come, he would be one of the
+first to be summoned to the field. While therefore others of the early
+pioneers were engaged in these important deliberations, he was quietly
+pursuing those occupations, congenial to his tastes, of cultivating the
+farm, or in hunting game in the solitude of the forests. His humble
+cabin stood upon the banks of the Kentucky River, not far from the
+station at Boonesborough. And thoroughly acquainted as he was with the
+habits of the Indians, he felt quite able, in his bullet-proof citadel,
+to protect himself from any marauding bands which might venture to show
+themselves so near the fort.</p>
+
+<p>It seems to be the lot of humanity that life should be composed of a
+series of storms, rising one after another. In the palace and in the
+cottage, in ancient days and at the present time, we find the sweep of
+the inexorable law, that man is born to mourn.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Sorrow is for the sons of men,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And weeping for earth's daughters."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The cloud of menaced Indian invasion had passed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>away, when suddenly the
+sheriff appears in Boone's little cabin, and informs him that his title
+to his land is disputed, and that legal proceedings were commenced
+against him. Boone could not comprehend this. Kentucky he regarded
+almost his own by the right of his discovery. He had led the way there.
+He had established himself and family in the land, and had defended it
+from the incursions of the Indians. And now, in his advancing years, to
+be driven from the few acres he had selected and to which he supposed he
+had a perfect title, seemed to him very unjust indeed. He could not
+recognise any right in what seemed to him but the quibbles of the
+lawyers. In his autobiography he wrote in reference to his many painful
+adventures:</p>
+
+<p>"My footsteps have often been marked with blood. Two darling sons and a
+brother have I lost by savage hands, which have also taken from me forty
+valuable horses and abundance of cattle. Many dark and sleepless nights
+have I been a companion for owls, separated from the cheerful society of
+men, scorched by the summer's sun, and pinched by the winter's cold, an
+instrument ordained to settle the wilderness."</p>
+
+<p>Agitated by the thought of the loss of his farm and deeply wounded in
+his feelings, as though a great wrong had been inflicted upon him, Boone
+addressed an earnest memorial to the Legislature of Kentucky. In this he
+stated that immediately after the troubles <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span>with the Indians had ceased,
+he located himself upon lands to which he supposed he had a perfect
+title; that he reared his house and commenced cultivating his fields.
+And after briefly enumerating the sacrifices he had made in exploring,
+settling and defending Kentucky, he said he could not understand the
+justice of making a set of complicated forms of law, superior to his
+actual occupancy of the land selected, as he believed when and where it
+was, it was his unquestioned right to do so.</p>
+
+<p>But the lawyers and the land speculators were too shrewd for the
+pioneer. Colonel Boone was sued; the question went to the courts which
+he detested, and Boone lost his farm. It was indeed a very hard case. He
+had penetrated the country when no other white man trod its soil. He
+discovered its wonderful resources, and proclaimed them to the world. He
+had guided settlers into the region, and by his sagacity and courage,
+had provided for their wants and protected them from the savage. And now
+in his declining years he found himself driven from his farm, robbed of
+every acre, a houseless, homeless, impoverished man. The deed was so
+cruel that thousands since, in reading the recital, have been agitated
+by the strongest emotions of indignation and grief.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/ichapend.jpg" width="450" height="120" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Adventures Romantic and Perilous.</i></h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot2"><p>The Search for the Horse.&mdash;Navigating the Ohio.&mdash;Heroism of Mrs.
+Rowan.&mdash;Lawless Gangs.&mdash;Exchange of Prisoners.&mdash;Boone Revisits the
+Home of his Childhood.&mdash;The Realms beyond the Mississippi.&mdash;Habits
+of the Hunters.&mdash;Corn.&mdash;Boone's Journey to the West.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>The Indians still continued hostile. The following incident gives one an
+idea of the nature of the conflict which continued, and of the perils
+which were encountered.</p>
+
+<p>There was a striving station where a few settlers were collected, at a
+spot now called State Creek Iron Works. One or two farm-houses were
+scattered around, but at such a short distance from the fort that their
+inmates could at once take refuge behind its log walls, in case of
+alarm. In the month of August, 1786, a young man residing in the fort,
+by the name of Yates, called at one of these farm-houses and requested a
+lad, Francis Downing, to accompany him in search of a horse, which had
+strayed away. The two friends set out together, and after searching the
+forest in vain, found themselves, the latter part of the afternoon, in a
+lonely uninhabited valley, nearly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>seven miles from the fort. Here young
+Downing became quite alarmed by some indications that Indians were
+dogging their steps. He communicated his fears to his companion. But
+Yates, who was several years older than Downing, was an experienced
+hunter and inured to life in the woods, had become to a certain degree
+indifferent to danger. He made himself quite merry over his young
+companion's fears, asking him at what price he was willing to sell his
+scalp, and offering to insure it for sixpence.</p>
+
+<p>Still Downing was not satisfied, and his alarm increased as he insisted
+that he occasionally heard the crack of dry twigs behind them, as if
+broken by some one pursueing. But Yates deriding his fears, pressed on,
+making the woods resound with a song, to which he gave utterance from
+unusually full and strong lungs. Downing gradually slackened his pace,
+and when Yates was some thirty yards in advance of him, sprang into a
+dense cluster of tall whortleberry bushes, where he was effectually
+concealed. Scarcely had he done this, when to his great terror he saw
+two Indians peeping cautiously out of a thick canebrake. Deceived by the
+song of Yates, who with stentorian lungs was still giving forth his
+woodland ditty, they supposed both had passed. Young Downing thought it
+impossible but that the savages must have seen him as he concealed
+himself. Greatly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span>alarmed he raised his gun, intending to shoot one and
+to trust to his heels for escape from the other.</p>
+
+<p>But his hand was so unsteady that the gun went off before he had taken
+aim. Terror stricken, he rushed along the path Yates had trod. Yates,
+alarmed by the report of the gun, came running back. As they met, the
+two Indians were seen not far from them in hot pursuit. They soon could
+easily see that the enemy was gaining upon them. In their rapid flight
+they came to a deep gulley which Yates cleared at a bound, but young
+Downing failed in the attempt. His breast struck the opposite almost
+precipitous bank, and he rolled to the bottom of the ditch. Some
+obstruction in the way prevented the Indians from witnessing the fall of
+Downing. They continued the pursuit of Yates, crossing the gulley a few
+yards below where Downing had met his mishap. Thus in less time than we
+have occupied in the narration, the Indians disappeared in their chase
+after Yates.</p>
+
+<p>Downing was in great perplexity. He did not dare to creep out of the
+gulley, lest he should be seen, and as soon as the Indians should
+perceive that he was not with Yates, as they inevitably would ere long
+do, they would know that he was left behind, and would turn back for his
+capture. Unfortunately young Downing had so far lost his presence of
+mind, that he had failed to reload his gun. Just then he saw one of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span>the
+savages returning, evidently in search of him. There was no possible
+resource left but flight. Throwing away his now useless gun, he rushed
+into the forest with all the speed which terror could inspire. He was
+but a boy, the full-grown Indian gained rapidly upon him, he could
+almost strike him with his tomahawk, when they came to an immense tree,
+blown up by the roots. The boy ran on one side of the trunk and the
+Indian on the other, towards the immense pile of earth which adhered to
+the upturned roots.</p>
+
+<p>The boy now gave up all hope in utter despair. It seemed certain that
+the brawny Indian would get ahead of him and intercept his further
+flight. But it so happened&mdash;was it an accident or was it a
+Providence&mdash;that a she-bear had made her bed directly in the path which
+the Indian with almost blind eagerness was pursuing. Here the ferocious
+beast was suckling her cubs. The bear sprang from her lair, and
+instantly with a terrific hug grasped the savage in her paws. The Indian
+gave a terrific yell and plunged his knife again and again into the body
+of the bear. The boy had but one brief glance, as in this bloody embrace
+they rolled over and over on the ground. The boy, praying that the bear
+might tear the Indian in pieces, added new speed to his flight and
+reached the fort in safety.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span></p><p>There he found Yates who had arrived but a few moments before him, and
+who had outrun the other Indian. The next morning a well armed party
+returned to the tree. Both the bear and the Indian had disappeared.
+Probably both had suffered very severely in the conflict, and both had
+escaped with their lives.</p>
+
+<p>Another incident illustrative of these perilous adventures in the now
+peaceful State of Kentucky. Mr. Rowan, with his own and five other
+families, left the little hamlet at Louisville to float down the Ohio to
+Green River, and to ascend that stream, intending to rear their new
+homes on its fertile and delightful banks. The families were quite
+comfortably accommodated in a large flat-bottomed boat. Another boat of
+similar construction conveyed their cattle and sundry articles of
+household furniture. On the route which they were pursuing, there were
+then no settlements. The Ohio river and the Green river flowed through
+unbroken solitudes.</p>
+
+<p>The flat boats had floated down the beautiful Ohio, through scenes of
+surpassing loveliness, about one hundred miles, when one night about ten
+o'clock a prodigious shouting and yelling of Indians was heard some
+distance farther down the river on the northern shore. Very soon they
+came in sight of their camp-fires, which were burning very brightly. It
+was evident that the Indians were having a great carousal <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span>rejoicing
+over some victory. Mr. Rowan immediately ordered the two boats to be
+lashed firmly together. There were but seven men on board who were
+capable of making efficient use of the rifle. Plying the oars as
+vigorously and noiselessly as they could, they endeavored to keep close
+to the Kentucky shore. And yet they were careful not to approach too
+near, lest there might be Indians there also. It was evident that there
+was a large gathering of the Indians on the northern bank, for their
+camp-fires extended for a distance of nearly half a mile along the
+river.</p>
+
+<p>As the boats floated noiselessly along in the gloom of the night, under
+shadow of the cliffs, they were not detected until they were opposite
+the central fire, whose brilliancy threw a flood of light nearly across
+the stream. A simultaneous shout greeted this discovery, and with
+terrific yells the savages rushed to their canoes and commenced a
+pursuit. The two flat boats rapidly floated beyond the illumination of
+the fires into the region of midnight darkness. The timid Indians, well
+acquainted with the white man's unerring aim, pursued cautiously, though
+their hideous yells resounded along the shores.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Rowan ordered all on board to keep perfect silence, to conceal
+themselves as much as possible, and ordered not a gun to be fired till
+the Indians were so near that the powder of the gun would burn <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>them,
+thus rendering every shot absolutely certain. The Indians, with their
+hideous yells, pursued in their canoes until within a hundred yards of
+the boats. They then seemed simultaneously to have adopted the
+conviction that the better part of valor was discretion. In the
+darkness, they could not see the boatmen, who they had no doubt were
+concealed behind bullet-proof bulwarks. Their birch canoes presented not
+the slightest obstruction to the passage of a rifle ball. Knowing that
+the flash of a gun from the boat would be certain death to some one of
+their number, and that thus the boatmen, with the rapidity with which
+they could load and fire, would destroy a large part of their company
+before they could hope to capture the flat boats, they hesitated to
+approach any nearer, but followed in the pursuit for nearly three miles
+down the river, assailing the white men only with harmless yells.</p>
+
+<p>The heroic Mrs. Rowan, as she saw the canoes approaching, supposing that
+the savages would attempt to board the boats, crept quietly around in
+the darkness, collected all the axes, and placed one by the side of each
+man, leaning the handle against his knee. While performing this
+significant act she uttered not a word, but returned to her own seat in
+silence, retaining a sharp hatchet for herself.</p>
+
+<p>With such determined spirits to assail, it was well <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span>for the savages
+that they did not approach within arms-length of those whom they were
+pursuing. They would certainly have met with a bloody reception.</p>
+
+<p>The savages at length, despairing of success, relinquished the pursuit
+and returned to their demoniac orgies around their camp-fires. It was
+supposed that they had captured a boat which was descending the river
+the day before, and that their extraordinary revelry was accompanied by
+the roasting of their captives. A son of Mr. Rowan, but ten years of
+age, who subsequently became one of the most distinguished men in
+Kentucky, was present on this occasion. He frequently, in after-years,
+alluded to the indescribable sensations of sublimity and terror which
+the scene inspired. The gloom of the night; the solemn flow of the
+majestic river; the dim view of the forests on either side; the gleam of
+the camp-fires of the Indians, around which the half-clad savages were
+dancing in hideous contortions; the unearthly yells in which every
+demoniac passion seemed contending for the mastery; the shout which was
+given when they discovered the boats beneath the shadows of the opposite
+cliffs; the pursuit of the canoes with redoubled vehemence of hooting;
+the rapidity with which, with brawny arms, they paddled their boats to
+and fro; the breathless silence which pervaded the flat boat while for
+more than an hour the occupants <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span>awaited, momentarily expecting the
+terrible onset; and above all, the fortitude and heroism displayed by
+his mother,&mdash;all these combined to leave an impression upon the mind of
+the boy which could never be obliterated. Few will be able to read the
+record of this adventure without emotion. What then must it have been to
+have experienced it in bodily presence, and to have shared in all its
+terrible dangers?</p>
+
+<p>As we have before said, there was no distinctly proclaimed war, at this
+time, between the pioneers and the Indians. While lawless men on both
+sides were committing the most atrocious outrages, the chiefs and the
+legitimate authorities were nominally at peace. The red men, whether
+engaged in what they deemed lawful warfare, or moving in plundering
+bands, were in the habit of inflicting upon their captives the most
+dreadful tortures which their ingenuity could devise. The white men
+could not retaliate by the perpetration of such revolting cruelty.</p>
+
+<p>It probably was a suggestion of Colonel Boone that a council might be
+held with the Indian chiefs, and a treaty formed by which prisoners
+should be exempted from torture and exchanged, as in civilized warfare.
+The Indians were by no means reckless of the lives of their warriors,
+and would probably be very ready to give up a white captive if by so
+doing they could receive one of their own braves in return. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>A council
+was held at a station where Maysville now stands. Colonel Boone was at
+once selected as the man of all others most fit to take part in these
+deliberations. He was not only thoroughly acquainted with the Indians,
+their habits, their modes of thought, and the motives most likely to
+influence their minds; but his own peculiar character seemed just the
+one calculated to inspire them with admiration.</p>
+
+<p>The principle was here adopted of an exchange of prisoners, which
+notwithstanding the continued violence of the lawless, saved the lives
+of many captives. It is an interesting fact, illustrative of the
+sagacity and extraordinary power of Colonel Boone over the Indian mind,
+that the chiefs with one consent agreed in grateful commemoration of
+this treaty, that if any captive should hereafter be taken by them from
+Maysville, that captive should be treated with every possible degree of
+lenity. And it is worthy of record that such a captive was subsequently
+taken, and that the Indians with the most scrupulous fidelity fulfilled
+their pledge. Indeed, it is difficult for an impartial historian to
+deny, that these poor savages, ignorant and cruel as they were, often
+displayed a sense of honor which we do not so often find in their
+opponents. It is to be feared that were Indian historians to write the
+record of these wars, we should not find that they were always in the
+wrong.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span></p><p>Colonel Boone, ejected from his lands and thus left penniless, felt
+keenly the wrongs which were inflicted upon him. He knew full well that
+he had done a thousand times more for Kentucky than any other man living
+or dead. He had conferred upon the State services which no money could
+purchase. Though to his intimate friends he confided his sufferings, he
+was too proud to utter loud complaints. In silence he endured. But
+Kentucky had ceased to be a happy home for him. Over all its broad and
+beautiful expanse which he had opened to the world, there was not a
+single acre which he could call his own. And he had no money with which
+to purchase a farm of those speculators, into whose hands most of the
+lands had fallen. Could the good old man now rise from his grave, a
+Kentucky Legislature would not long leave him landless. There is
+scarcely a cabin or a mansion in the whole State, where Daniel Boone
+would not meet with as hospitable a reception as grateful hearts could
+give.</p>
+
+<p>As a grief-stricken child rushes to its mother's arms for solace, so it
+is natural for man, when world-weary and struggling with adversity, to
+look back with longing eyes to the home of his childhood. The
+remembrance of its sunny days animates him, and its trivial sadnesses
+are forgotten. Thus with Daniel Boone; houseless and stung by
+ingratitude, he turned <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span>his eyes to the far distant home of his
+childhood, on the banks of the Schuykill. More than forty years of a
+wonderfully adventurous life had passed, since he a boy of fourteen had
+accompanied his father in his removal from Reading, in Berk's County, to
+North Carolina. Still the remarkable boy had left traces behind him
+which were not yet obliterated.</p>
+
+<p>He visited Reading, probably influenced by a faint hope of finding there
+a home. A few of his former acquaintances were living, and many family
+friends remained. By all he was received with the greatest kindness. But
+the frontier settlement of log huts, and the majestic surrounding
+forests filled with game, had entirely disappeared. Highly cultivated
+farms, from which even the stumps of the forest had perished, extended
+in all directions. Ambitious mansions adorned the hillsides, and all the
+appliances of advancing civilization met the eye. There could be no home
+here for Daniel Boone. Amid these strange scenes he felt as a stranger,
+and his heart yearned again for the solitudes of the forest. He longed
+to get beyond the reach of lawyers' offices, and court-houses, and land
+speculators.</p>
+
+<p>After a short visit he bade adieu forever to his friends upon the
+Schuykill, and turned his steps again towards the setting sun. His
+feelings had been too deeply wounded to allow him to think of remaining
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span>a man without a home in Kentucky. Still the idea of leaving a region
+endeared to him by so many memories must have been very painful. He
+remembered vividly his long and painful journeys over the mountains,
+through the wilderness untrodden by the foot of the white man; his
+solitary exploration of the new Eden which he seemed to have found
+there; the glowing accounts he had carried back to his friends of the
+sunny skies, the salubrious clime, the fertile soil, and the majesty and
+loveliness of the landscape; of mountain, valley, lake and river which
+Providence had lavished with a prodigal hand in this "Garden of the
+Lord."</p>
+
+<p>One by one he had influenced his friends to emigrate, had led them to
+their new homes, had protected them against the savages, and now when
+Kentucky had become a prosperous State in the Union, containing thirty
+thousand inhabitants, he was cast aside, and under the forms of law was
+robbed of the few acres which he had cultivated as his own. His life
+embittered by these reflections, and seeing nothing to attract him in
+the wild and unknown regions beyond the Mississippi, Colonel Boone
+turned sadly back to Virginia.</p>
+
+<p>It was an easy task for him to remove. In such an hour, one can
+sometimes well say, "Blessed be Nothing." A few pack-horses were
+sufficient to convey <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span>all his household goods. It is probable that his
+wife and children, indignant at the treatment which the husband and
+father had received, were glad to leave.</p>
+
+<p>This was doubtless one of the saddest journeys that Colonel Boone ever
+undertook. Traversing an almost pathless wilderness in a direction a
+little north of east from Boonesborough, he crossed the various speers
+of the Alleghany range, supporting his family with his rifle on the way,
+until after passing over three hundred miles of the wilderness, he
+reached the mouth of the Kanawha river, as that stream flows from
+Virginia due north, and empties into the Ohio river. Here there was a
+point of land washed by the Ohio on the north, and the Great Kanawha on
+the west, to which the appropriate name of Point Pleasant had been
+given. It does not appear that civilization had as yet penetrated this
+region. The emigration to Kentucky had floated by it down the river,
+descending from Pittsburg, or had crossed the mountain passes from North
+Carolina, several hundred miles to the south.</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Boone was now fifty-five years of age. If there were any
+settlement at the time at Point Pleasant, it must have consisted merely
+of a few log huts. Here at all events, Colonel Boone found the solitude
+and the communion with nature alone, for which his heart yearned. The
+world might call him poor, and still he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span>was rich in the abundant supply
+of all his earthly wants. He reared his log hut where no one appeared to
+dispute his claim. The fertile soil around, a virgin soil, rich with
+undeveloped treasures, under the simplest culture produced abundantly,
+and the forest around supplied him daily with animal food more than a
+European peasant sees in a year.</p>
+
+<p>Here Colonel Boone and his family remained for several years, to use a
+popular phrase, buried from the world. His life was mainly that of a
+hunter. Mr. Peck, speaking of the habits of those pioneers who depended
+mainly upon the rifle for support, writes:</p>
+
+<p>"I have often seen him get up early in the morning, walk hastily out,
+and look anxiously to the woods and snuff the autumnal winds with the
+highest rapture; then return into the house and cast a quick and
+attentive look at the rifle, which was always suspended to a joist by a
+couple of buck-horns or little forks. The hunting dog understanding the
+intentions of his master, would wag his tail, and by every blandishment
+in his power, express his readiness to accompany him to the woods."</p>
+
+<p>It probably did not diminish Colonel Boone's interest in his new home,
+that it was exposed to all the perils of border life; that his rifle
+should be ever loaded; that his faithful watch-dog should be stationed
+at the door, to give warning of any approaching footsteps; and that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span>he
+and his family should always be ready for a siege or battle. With these
+precautions, Boone had no more fear of assault from half a dozen
+vagabond Indians, than he had from so many howling wolves.</p>
+
+<p>The casualties of life had greatly reduced his family. Of his three
+sons, the eldest had fallen beneath the arrow and the tomahawk of the
+savages amidst the gloomy defiles of the Alleghany mountains. His second
+son was killed at the dreadful battle of the Blue Licks, as his agonised
+father had been compelled to abandon him to the merciless foe. His third
+son, probably chagrined by the treatment which his father had received
+from the authorities of Kentucky, had bidden adieu to all the haunts of
+civilized life, and traversing the wilderness towards the setting sun
+for many hundred miles, had crossed the Mississippi and sought a home in
+the wilds of the upper Louisiana, then under the dominion of Spain.</p>
+
+<p>As Boone was quietly engaged in his solitary vocation of farmer and
+hunter, where there were no books, no newspapers, nothing whatever to
+inform him of what was transpiring in the busy world of civilization, or
+in the haunts of savage life, two or three hunters came one day to his
+cabin, where of course they met with a very hospitable reception. It was
+not difficult to entertain guests in those days. The floor of the cabin
+supplied all the needed accommodations for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span>lodging. Each guest with his
+rifle could easily furnish more food than was desired for the whole
+family.</p>
+
+<p>A little corn-meal, very coarsely ground in what was called a tub-mill,
+gave quite a variety of palatable food. Boiled in water it formed a dish
+called mush, which when eaten with milk, honey or butter, presented
+truly a delicious repast for hungry mouths. Mixed with cold water, it
+was ready to be baked. When covered with hot ashes, it emerged smoking
+from the glowing embers in the form of Ash Cake. When baked upon a
+shingle and placed before the coals, it was termed Journey Cake, so
+called because it could be so speedily prepared. This name has been
+corrupted in modern times into <i>Johnny</i> Cake. When baked upon a
+helveless hoe, it formed the Hoe Cake. When baked in a kettle covered
+with a heated lid, if in one large cake, it was called a Pone or loaf.
+If in quite a number of small cakes they were called Dodgers.</p>
+
+<p>Corn flour seems to have been peculiarly prepared by Providence for the
+pioneers. For them it possesses some very great advantages over all
+other flour. It requires but few and the most simple cooking utensils.
+It can be rendered very palatable without either yeast, eggs, sugar or
+spices of any kind. It can easily be raised in the greatest abundance,
+and affords the most wholesome and nutritious food.</p>
+
+<p>"Let p&aelig;ans," writes Mr. Hartly, "be sung all over <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>the mighty West, to
+Indian Corn. Without it, the West would still have been a wilderness.
+Was the frontier suddenly invaded, without commissary, or quartermaster,
+or other sources of supply, each soldier parched a peck of corn. A
+portion of it was put into his pockets, the remainder in his wallet, and
+throwing it upon his saddle with his rifle on his shoulder, he was ready
+in half an hour for the campaign. Did a flood of emigration inundate the
+frontier, with an amount of consumers disproportioned to the supply of
+grain, the facility of raising the Indian corn, and its early maturity,
+gave promise and guarantee that the scarcity would be temporary and
+tolerable. Did the safety of the frontier demand the services of every
+adult militiaman, the boys and women could themselves raise corn, and
+furnish ample supplies of bread. Did an autumnal intermittent confine
+the whole family, or the entire population to the sick bed, this certain
+concomitant of the clearing and cultivating the new soil, mercifully
+withholds its paroxysms till the crop of corn is made. It requires no
+further labor or care afterwards. P&aelig;ans, say we, and a temple of
+worshipping to the creator of Indian Corn!"</p>
+
+<p>The hunters to whom we referred were indeed congenial companions to
+Daniel Boone. As day after day they accompanied him in the chase, and
+night after night sat by the blaze of his cabine-fire, related <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span>to him
+the adventures they had encountered far away beyond the Mississippi, the
+spirit of his youth revived within him. An irrepressible desire sprang
+up in his heart again to become a pioneer in the pathless forest which
+he loved so well. It is not improbable also that his parental feelings
+might have been aroused by the consideration that his son had gone
+before him to that distant land; and that he might have been animated by
+the hope of being reunited with him in his declining years.</p>
+
+<p>The hunters represented to him that another Kentucky could be found
+beyond the Father of Waters; that the game was abundant and would be
+inexhaustible, until long after his earthly pilgrimage should end; that
+the Spanish Government, desirous of promoting emigration, were ready to
+make the most liberal grants of land to any man who would rear a cabin
+and commence the cultivation of the soil; that over an expanse of
+hundreds of miles of a sunny clime, and as luxurious soil as heart could
+desire, he could select his broad acres with no fear of ever again being
+ejected from his home.</p>
+
+<p>These representations were resistless. Colonel Boone decided again to
+become a wanderer to the far West, though it involved the relinquishment
+of American citizenship and becoming a subject of the crown of Spain.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span></p><p>The year 1795 had now come, as Colonel Boone gathered up his few
+household goods for the fourth great remove of his life. He was born on
+the banks of the Delaware; his childhood was passed amidst the solitudes
+of the Upper Skuylkill; his early manhood, where he reared his cabin and
+took to it his worthy bride, was in North Carolina. Thence penetrating
+the wilderness through adventures surpassing the dreams of romance, he
+had passed many years amidst the most wonderful vicissitudes of quietude
+and of agitation, of peace and of war, on the settlement of which he was
+the father, at Boonesborough, in the valley of the Kentucky river.
+Robbed of the possessions which he had earned a hundred times over, he
+had sought a temporary residence at Point Pleasant, in Virginia. And
+now, as he was approaching the termination of his three score years, he
+was prepared to traverse the whole extent of Kentucky, from the
+Alleghany border on the east, to the mighty flood of the Mississippi,
+which then upon the west rushed with its turbid flood through an almost
+unbroken solitude. It was a long, long journey.</p>
+
+<p>We can only surmise the reasons why he did not float down the Ohio in a
+flat boat. It may be said that he was entirely unaccustomed to boating.
+And as it does not appear that any other families joined him in the
+enterprise, his solitary boat would be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span>almost certain to be attacked
+and captured by some of the marauding bands which frequented the
+northern banks of the Ohio.</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Boone was perfectly at home in the wilderness. He could always
+find a path for himself, where there was no trail to follow. And but few
+Indians now ventured into the interior of the State. We have no record
+of the journey. He reached the Mississippi safely, crossed the river
+into what is now the State of Missouri, and found a warm greeting in the
+cabin of his son Daniel M. Boone, who had established himself upon the
+western banks of the river, near where the city of St. Louis now stands.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/ichapend.jpg" width="450" height="120" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>A New Home.</i></h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot2"><p>Colonel Boone welcomed by the Spanish Authorities.&mdash;Boone's
+Narrative to Audubon.&mdash;The Midnight Attack.&mdash;Pursuit of the
+Savages.&mdash;Sickness in the Wilderness.&mdash;Honesty of Colonel
+Boone.&mdash;Payment of his Debts.&mdash;Loss of all his Property.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>At the time when Colonel Boone crossed the Mississippi and entered
+Missouri, the Spanish Government, then in possession of that territory,
+being anxious to promote the settlement of the country, gave a very
+cordial welcome to all emigrants. The fame of Colonel Boone, as one of
+the most bold and valuable of pioneers, had preceded him. The Lieutenant
+Governor under the Spanish crown, who resided at St. Louis, received him
+with marked attention, and gave him the assurance that ample portions of
+land should be given to him and his family.</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Boone took up his residence, with his son, in what is called the
+Femme Osage district. The Spanish authorities appointed him Commandant
+of the district, which was an office of both civil and military power.
+His commission was dated July 11th, 1800. Remote as was this region from
+the Atlantic <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span>States, bold adventurers, lured by the prospect of
+obtaining large tracts of land, were rapidly pouring in. Instead of
+collecting together, they scattered wildly over the vast domain. Don
+Charles, the Spanish governor, gave Colonel Boone eight thousand acres
+of land on the north side of the Missouri river. By the law of the
+province he was bound to build upon some part of this land a house
+within the year, and also to obtain a confirmation of the grant from the
+representative of the Spanish crown, then residing in New Orleans. Both
+of these precautions the simple-minded man neglected to adopt. To visit
+New Orleans required a journey through the wilderness of more than a
+thousand miles. Though he might float down the stream in his boat he
+would be exposed continually to attacks from the Indians on its banks,
+and when ready to return he could not surmount the rapid current of the
+river in his boat, but would be compelled to traverse the winding banks,
+often through almost impenetrable forests and morasses. His duties as
+<i>syndic</i> or justice of the peace also occupied much of his time, and the
+Lieutenant Governor at St. Louis agreed to dispense with his residence
+upon his lands. In addition to this, Colonel Boone had no doubt that the
+country would soon come under the power of the United States, and he
+could not believe the United States Government would disturb his title.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span></p><p>Soon after Boone's emigration to Missouri, the Emperor Napoleon, by
+treaty with Spain, obtained possession of the whole of the vast region
+west of the Mississippi and Missouri, then known as Louisiana, and the
+region was transferred to France. It is a curious fact in the history of
+Boone passing through such wonderful adventures, that he had been a
+subject of George II., George III., a citizen of the United States, of
+the temporary nationality of Transylvania, an adopted son and citizen of
+the Shawanese tribe of Indians, a subject of Charles IV. of Spain, and
+now he found himself a subject of the first Napoleon, whose empire was
+then filling the world with its renown.</p>
+
+<p>Not long after this, the Emperor sold the country, as we have recorded,
+to the United States, saying with that prophetic wisdom which
+characterised this extraordinary man, "I have now given England a rival
+upon the seas." The fulfilment of this prophecy has since then been
+every hour in process of development.</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Boone seems to have been very happy in his new home. He still
+enjoyed his favorite pursuit of hunting, for the forests around him were
+filled with game and with animals whose rich furs were every year
+becoming more valuable. The distinguished naturalist, J. J. Audubon,
+visited him in his solitary <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span>retreat, and spent a night with him. In his
+Ornithological Biography he gives the following narrative which he
+received from Boone, that evening as they sat at the cabin fire. We give
+the story in the words of the narrator:</p>
+
+<p>"Daniel Boone, or as he was usually called in the Western country,
+Colonel Boone, happened to spend a night with me under the same roof,
+more than twenty years ago. We had returned from a shooting excursion,
+in the course of which his extraordinary skill in the management of the
+rifle had been fully displayed. On retiring to the room appropriated to
+that remarkable individual and myself for the night, I felt anxious to
+know more of his exploits and adventures than I did, and accordingly
+took the liberty of proposing numerous questions to him.</p>
+
+<p>"The stature and general appearance of this wanderer of the western
+forests approached the gigantic. His chest was broad and prominent, his
+muscular powers displayed themselves in every limb; his countenance gave
+indication of his great courage, enterprise and perseverance; and when
+he spoke the very motion of his lips brought the impression that
+whatever he uttered could not be otherwise than strictly true. I
+undressed while he merely took off his hunting shirt and arranged a few
+folds of blankets on the floor, choosing rather to lie there, as he
+observed, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>than on the softest bed. When we had both disposed of
+ourselves each after his own fashion, he related to me the following
+account of his powers of memory, which I lay before your kind reader in
+his own words, hoping that the simplicity of his style may prove
+interesting to you:</p>
+
+<p>"'I was once,' said he, 'on a hunting expedition on the banks of the
+Green River, when the lower parts of Kentucky were still in the hands of
+nature, and none but the sons of the soil were looked upon as its lawful
+proprietors. We Virginians had for some time been waging a war of
+intrusion upon them, and I among the rest rambled through the woods in
+pursuit of their race, as I now would follow the tracks of any ravenous
+animal. The Indians outwitted me one dark night, and I was as
+unexpectedly as suddenly made a prisoner by them.</p>
+
+<p>"'The trick had been managed with great skill; for no sooner had I
+extinguished the fire of my camp, and laid me down to rest in full
+security, as I thought, than I felt seized by an undistinguishable
+number of hands, and was immediately pinioned as if about to be led to
+the scaffold for execution. To have attempted to be refractory would
+have proved useless and dangerous to my life, and I suffered myself to
+be removed from my camp to theirs, a few miles distant, without uttering
+a word of complaint. You are aware, I daresay, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>that to act in this
+manner was the best policy, as you understand that by so doing, I proved
+to the Indians at once that I was born and bred as fearless of death as
+any of themselves.</p>
+
+<p>"'When we reached the camp great rejoicings were exhibited. Two squaws
+and a few papooses appeared particularly delighted at the sight of me,
+and I was assured by every unequivocal gesture and word that on the
+morrow the mortal enemy of the red skins would cease to live. I never
+opened my lips, but was busy contriving some scheme which might enable
+me to give the rascals a slip before dawn. The women immediately fell a
+searching about my hunting shirt for whatever they might think valuable,
+and fortunately for me soon found my flask filled with strong whiskey.</p>
+
+<p>"'A terrific grin was exhibited on their murderous countenances, while
+my heart throbbed with joy at the anticipation of their intoxication.
+The crew began immediately to beat their bellies and sing, as they
+passed the bottle from mouth to mouth. How often did I wish the flask
+ten times its size and filled with <i>aquafortis</i>! I observed that the
+squaws drank more freely than the warriors, and again my spirits were
+about to be depressed when the report of a gun was heard at a distance.
+The Indians all jumped on their feet. The singing and drinking were both
+brought to a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span>stand, and I saw with inexpressible joy the men walk off
+to some distance and talk to the squaws. I knew that they were
+consulting about me, and I foresaw that in a few moments the warriors
+would go to discover the cause of the gun having been fired so near
+their camp. I expected that the squaws would be left to guard me. Well,
+sir, it was just so. They returned, the men took up their guns and
+walked away. The squaws sat down again and in less than five minutes had
+my bottle up to their dirty mouths, gurgling down their throats the
+remains of the whiskey.</p>
+
+<p>"'With pleasure did I see them becoming more and more drunk, until the
+liquor took such hold of them that it was quite impossible for these
+women to be of any service. They tumbled down, rolled about and began to
+snore, when I, having no other chance of freeing myself from the cords
+that fastened me, rolled over and over towards the fire, and after a
+short time burned them asunder. I rose on my feet, snatched up my rifle,
+and for once in my life spared that of Indians. I now recollected how
+desirous I once or twice felt to lay open the skulls of the wretches
+with my tomahawk. But when I again thought upon killing beings
+unprepared and unable to defend themselves, it looked like murder
+without need, and I gave up the idea.</p>
+
+<p>"'But, sir, I felt determined to mark the spot, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span>walking to a
+thrifty ash sapling, I cut out of it three large chips and ran off. I
+soon reached the river, soon crossed it, and threw myself into the
+cane-brakes, imitating the tracks of an Indian with my feet, so that no
+chance might be left for those from whom I had escaped to overtake me.</p>
+
+<p>"'It is now nearly twenty years since this happened, and more than five
+since I left the whites' settlement, which I might never probably have
+visited again, had I not been called upon as a witness in a law suit
+which was pending in Kentucky, and which I really believe would never
+have been settled had I not come forward and established the beginning
+of a certain boundary line. The story is this, sir:</p>
+
+<p>"'Mr. &mdash;&mdash; moved from Old Virginia into Kentucky, and having a large
+tract granted to him in the new State, laid claim to a certain parcel of
+land adjoining Green River, and, as chance would have it, took for one
+of his corners the very ash tree on which I had made my mark, beginning,
+as it is expressed in the deed, 'At an ash marked by three distinct
+notches of the tomahawk of a white man.'</p>
+
+<p>"'The tree had grown much, and the bark had covered the marks. But
+somehow or other Mr. &mdash;&mdash; had heard from some one all that I have already
+said to you, and thinking that I might remember the spot alluded to in
+the deed, but which was no longer <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span>discoverable, wrote for me to come
+and try at least to find the place or the tree. His letter mentioned
+that all my expenses should be paid; and not caring much about once more
+going back to Kentucky, I started and met Mr. &mdash;&mdash;. After some
+conversation, the affair with the Indians came to my recollection. I
+considered for a while, and began to think that, after all, I could find
+the very spot, as well as the tree, if it were yet standing.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. &mdash;&mdash; and I mounted our horses and off we went to the Green River
+bottoms. After some difficulty&mdash;for you must be aware, sir, that great
+changes have taken place in those woods&mdash;I found at last the spot where
+I had crossed the river, and waiting for the moon to rise, made for the
+course in which I thought the ash trees grew. On approaching the place I
+felt as if the Indians were there still, and as if I were still a
+prisoner among them. Mr. &mdash;&mdash; and I camped near what I conceived the
+spot, and waited until the return of day.</p>
+
+<p>"'At the rising of the sun I was on foot, and after a good deal of
+musing thought that an ash tree, then in sight, must be the very one on
+which I had made my mark. I felt as if there could be no doubt about it,
+and mentioned my thought to Mr. &mdash;&mdash;.</p>
+
+<p>"'Well, Colonel Boone,' said he, 'if you think so I hope that it may
+prove true, but we must have some <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span>witnesses. Do you stay hereabouts and
+I will go and bring some of the settlers whom I know.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I agreed. Mr. &mdash;&mdash; trotted off, and I, to pass the time, rambled about
+to see if a deer was still living in the land. But ah! sir, what a
+wonderful difference thirty years makes in a country! Why, at the time
+when I was caught by the Indians, you would not have walked out in any
+direction more than a mile without shooting a buck or a bear. There were
+then thousands of buffaloes on the hills in Kentucky. The land looked as
+if it never would become poor; and to hunt in those days was a pleasure
+indeed. But when I was left to myself on the banks of Green River, I
+daresay for the last time in my life, a few <i>signs</i> only of the deer
+were seen, and as to a deer itself I saw none.</p>
+
+<p>"'Mr. &mdash;&mdash; returned, accompanied by three gentlemen. They looked upon me
+as if I had been Washington himself, and walked to the ash tree, which I
+now called my own, as if in quest of a long lost treasure. I took an axe
+from one of them and cut a few chips off the bark. Still no signs were
+to be seen. So I cut again until I thought it time to be cautious, and I
+scraped and worked away with my butcher knife until I <i>did</i> come to
+where my tomahawk had left an impression on the wood. We now went
+regularly to work and scraped at the tree with care <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span>until three hacks,
+as plain as any three notches ever were, could be seen. Mr. &mdash;&mdash; and the
+other gentlemen were astonished, and I must allow that I was as much
+surprised as pleased myself. I made affidavit of this remarkable
+occurrence in presence of these gentlemen. Mr. &mdash;&mdash; gained his cause. I
+left Green River for ever, and came to where we are now; and, sir, I
+wish you a good night."</p>
+
+<p>The life of this wonderful man was filled with similar adventures, many
+of which can now never be recalled. The following narrative will give
+the reader an idea of the scenes which were continually occurring in
+those bloody conflicts between the white settlers and the Indians:</p>
+
+<p>"A widow was residing in a lonely log cabin, remote from any settlers,
+in what is now Bourbon County, Kentucky. Her lonely hut consisted of but
+two rooms. One, the aged widow occupied herself, with two sons and a
+widowed daughter with an infant child; the other was tenanted by her
+three unmarried daughters, the oldest of whom was twenty years of age.</p>
+
+<p>"It was eleven o'clock at night, and the members of the industrious
+family in their lonely habitation had retired, with the exception of one
+of the daughters and one of the sons who was keeping her company. Some
+indications of danger had alarmed the young man, though he kept his
+fears to himself.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span></p><p>"The cry apparently of owls in an adjoining forest was heard, answering
+each other in rather an unusual way. The horses in the enclosure by the
+side of the house, who seemed to have an instinct informing them of the
+approach of the Indians, seemed much excited and galloped around
+snorting with terror. Soon steps were heard in the yard, and immediately
+several loud knocks were made at the door, with some one enquiring, in
+good English, 'Who keeps this house?' The young man very imprudently was
+just unbarring the door when the mother sprang from the bed, exclaiming
+that they were Indians.</p>
+
+<p>"The whole family was immediately aroused, and the young men seized
+their guns. The Indians now threw off all disguise, and began to thunder
+at the door, endeavoring to break it down. Through a loop hole prepared
+for such an emergency, a rifle shot, discharged at the savages,
+compelled a precipitate retreat. Soon, however, they cautiously
+returned, and attacking the other end of the cabin, where they found a
+point not exposed to the fire from within, they succeeded at length in
+breaking through, and entered the room occupied by the three girls. One
+of them they seized and bound. Her sister made desperate resistance, and
+stabbed one of the Indians to the heart with a large knife which she was
+using at the loom. They immediately tomahawked her and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span>she fell dead
+upon the floor. The little girl in the gloom of midnight they had
+overlooked. The poor little thing ran out of the door, and might have
+escaped had she not, in her terror, lost all self-control, and ran round
+the house wringing her hands and crying bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>"The brothers, agonized by the cries of their little sister, were just
+about opening the door to rush out to her rescue, when their more
+prudent mother declared that the child must be abandoned to its fate,
+that any attempt to save her would not only be unavailing, but would
+ensure the certain destruction of them all. Just then the child uttered
+a most frantic scream. They heard the dull sound as of a tomahawk
+falling upon the brain. There were a few convulsive moans, and all again
+was silent. It was but too evident to all what these sounds signified.</p>
+
+<p>"Presently the crackling of flames was heard, and through the port holes
+could be seen the glare of the rising conflagration, while the shouts of
+the savages grew more exultant. They had set fire to the end of the
+building occupied by the daughters. The logs were dry as tinder, and the
+devouring element was soon enveloping the whole building in its fatal
+embrace. To remain in the cabin was certain death, in its most appalling
+form. In rushing out there was a bare possibility that some might
+escape. There was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span>no time for reflection. The hot stifling flames and
+smothering smoke were rolling in upon them, when they opened the door
+and rushed out into the outer air, endeavoring as soon as possible to
+reach the gloom of the forest.</p>
+
+<p>"The old lady, aided by her eldest son, ran in one direction towards a
+fence, while the other daughter, with her infant in her arms,
+accompanied by the younger of the brothers, ran in another direction.
+The fire was blazing so fiercely as to shed all around the light of day.
+The old lady had just reached the fence when several rifle balls pierced
+her body and she fell dead. Her son almost miraculously escaped, and
+leaping the fence plunged into the forest and disappeared. The other
+party was pursued by the Indians, with loud yells. Throwing down their
+guns which they had discharged, the savages rushed upon the young man
+and his sister with their gleaming tomahawks. Gallantly the brother
+defended his sister; firing upon the savages as they came rushing on,
+and then assailing them with the butt of his musket which he wielded
+with the fury of despair. He fought with such herculean strength as to
+draw the attention of all the savages upon himself, and thus gave his
+sister an opportunity of escaping. He soon however fell beneath their
+tomahawks, and was in the morning found scalped and mangled in the most
+shocking manner."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span></p><p>Of this family of eight persons two only escaped from this awful scene
+of midnight massacre. The neighborhood was immediately aroused. The
+second daughter was carried off a captive by the savages. The fate of
+the poor girl awakened the deepest sympathy, and by daylight thirty men
+were assembled on horseback, under the command of Col. Edwards, to
+pursue the Indians. Fortunately a light snow had fallen during the
+night. Thus it was impossible for the savages to conceal their trail,
+and they were followed on the full gallop. The wretches knew full well
+that they would not be allowed to retire unmolested. They fled with the
+utmost precipitation, seeking to gain the mountainous region which
+bordered upon the Licking River.</p>
+
+<p>A hound accompanied the pursuing party. The sagacious animal was very
+eager in the chase. As the trail became fresh, and the scent indicated
+that the foe was nearly overtaken, the hound rushing forward, began to
+bay very loudly. This gave the Indians the alarm. Finding the strength
+of their captive failing, so that she could no longer continue the rapid
+flight, they struck their tomahawks into her brain, and left her
+bleeding and dying upon the snow. Her friends soon came up and found her
+in the convulsions of death. Her brother sprang from his horse and tried
+in vain to stop the effusion of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span>blood. She seemed to recognize him,
+gave him her hand, uttered a few inarticulate words, and died.</p>
+
+<p>The pursuit was then continued with new ardor, and in about twenty
+minutes the avenging white men came within sight of the savages. With
+considerable military sagacity, the Indians had taken position upon a
+steep and narrow ridge, and seemed desirous of magnifying their numbers
+in the eyes of their pursuers by running from tree to tree and making
+the forest resound with their hideous yells. The pursuers were, however,
+too well acquainted with Indian warfare to be deceived by this childish
+artifice. They dismounted, tied their horses, and endeavored to surround
+the enemy, so as to cut off his retreat. But the cunning Indians,
+leaving two of their number behind to delay the pursuit by deceiving the
+white men into the conviction that they all were there, fled to the
+mountains. One of this heroic rear-guard&mdash;for remaining under the
+circumstances was the almost certain surrender of themselves to
+death&mdash;was instantly shot. The other, badly wounded, was tracked for a
+long distance by his blood upon the snow. At length his trail was lost
+in a running stream. Night came, a dismal night of rain, long and dark.
+In the morning the snow had melted, every trace of the retreat of the
+enemy was obliterated, and the further pursuit of the foe was
+relinquished.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span></p><p>Colonel Boone, deprived of his property by the unrelenting processes of
+pitiless law, had left Kentucky impoverished and in debt. His rifle was
+almost the only property he took with him beyond the Mississippi. The
+rich acres which had been assigned to him there were then of but little
+more value than so many acres of the sky. Though he was so far away from
+his creditors that it was almost impossible that they should ever annoy
+him, still the honest-hearted man was oppressed by the consciousness of
+his debts, and was very anxious to pay them. The forests were full of
+game, many of the animals furnishing very valuable furs. He took his
+rifle, some pack-horses, and, accompanied by a single black servant boy,
+repaired to the banks of the Osage River to spend the winter in hunting.
+Here he was taken dangerously sick, and was apprehensive that he should
+die. We know not what were his religious thoughts upon this occasion,
+but his calmness in view of death, taken in connection with his
+blameless, conscientious, and reflective life, and with the fact that
+subsequently he became an openly avowed disciple of Jesus, indicate that
+then he found peace in view of pardoned sin through faith in the
+atonement of Jesus Christ. He pointed out to the black boy the place
+where, should he die, he wished to be buried. He gave very minute
+directions in reference to his burial and the disposal <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span>of his rifle,
+blankets, and peltry. Mr. Peck in the following language describes this
+interesting incident in the life of the pioneer:</p>
+
+<p>"On another occasion he took pack-horses and went to the country on the
+Osage river, taking for a camp-keeper a negro boy about twelve or
+fourteen years of age. Soon after preparing his camp and laying in his
+supplies for the winter, he was taken sick and lay a long time in camp.
+The horses were hobbled out on the range. After a period of stormy
+weather, there came a pleasant and delightful day, and Boone felt able
+to walk out. With his staff&mdash;for he was quite feeble&mdash;he took the boy to
+the summit of a small eminence and marked out the ground in shape and
+size of a grave, and then gave the following directions.</p>
+
+<p>"He instructed the boy, in case of his death, to wash and lay his body
+straight, wrapped up in one of the cleanest blankets. He was then to
+construct a kind of shovel, and with that instrument and the hatchet to
+dig a grave exactly as he had marked it out. He was then to drag the
+body to the place and put it in the grave, which he was directed to
+cover up, putting posts at the head and foot. Poles were to be placed
+around and above the surface, the trees to be marked so that the place
+could be easily found by his friends; the horses were to be caught, the
+blankets <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span>and skins gathered up, with some special instructions about
+the old rifle, and various messages to his family. All these directions
+were given, as the boy afterwards declared, with entire calmness, and as
+if he were giving instructions about ordinary business. He soon
+recovered, broke up his camp, and returned homeward without the usual
+signs of a winter's hunt."</p>
+
+<p>One writer says Colonel Boone went on a trapping excursion up the Grand
+River. This stream rises in the southern part of Iowa, and flows in a
+southerly course into the Missouri. He was entirely alone. Paddling his
+canoe up the lonely banks of the Missouri, he entered the Grand River,
+and established his camp in a silent sheltered cove, where an
+experienced hunter would with difficulty find it.</p>
+
+<p>Here he first laid in his supply of venison, turkeys, and bear's meat,
+and then commenced his trapping operation, where no sound of his rifle
+would disturb the beavers and no smell of gunpowder would excite their
+alarm. Every morning he took the circuit of his traps, visiting them all
+in turn. Much to his alarm, he one morning encountered a large
+encampment of Indians in his vicinity, engaged in hunting. He
+immediately retreated to his camp and secreted himself. Fortunately for
+him, quite a deep snow fell that night, which covered his traps. But
+this same snow prevented him from leaving his camp, lest his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span>footprints
+should be discovered. For twenty days he continued thus secreted,
+occasionally, at midnight, venturing to cook a little food, when there
+was no danger that the smoke of his fire would reveal his retreat. At
+length the enemy departed, and he was released from his long
+imprisonment. He subsequently stated that never in his life had he felt
+so much anxiety for so long a period, lest the Indians should discover
+his traps and search out his camp.</p>
+
+<p>It seems that the object of Colonel Boone in these long hunting
+excursions was to obtain furs that he might pay the debts which he still
+owed in Kentucky. A man of less tender conscience would no longer have
+troubled himself about them. He was far removed from any importunity on
+the part of his creditors, or from any annoyance through the law. Still
+his debts caused him much solicitude, and he could not rest in peace
+until they were fully paid.</p>
+
+<p>After two or three seasons of this energetic hunting, Colonel Boone
+succeeded in obtaining a sufficient quantity of furs to enable him, by
+their sale, to pay all his debts. With this object in view, he set out
+on his long journey of several hundred miles, through an almost
+trackless wilderness, to Kentucky. He saw every creditor and paid every
+dollar. Upon his return, Colonel Boone had just one half dollar in his
+pocket. But he said triumphantly to his friends who eagerly gathered
+around him:</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span></p><p>"Now I am ready and willing to die. I am relieved from a burden which
+has long oppressed me. I have paid all my debts, and no one will say
+when I am gone, 'Boone was a dishonest man.' I am perfectly willing to
+die."</p>
+
+<p>In the year 1803, the territory west of the Mississippi came into the
+possession of the United States. The whole region, embracing what is now
+Missouri, was then called the territory of Louisiana. Soon after this a
+commission was appointed, consisting of three able and impartial men, to
+investigate the validity of the claims to land granted by the action of
+the Spanish Government. Again poor Boone was caught in the meshes of the
+law. It was found that he had not occupied the land which had been
+granted him, that he had not gone to New Orleans to perfect his title,
+and that his claim was utterly worthless.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Boone! Seventy-four years old, and the second grasp you have made
+upon the West has been powerless. You have risked life, and lost the
+life next dearest your own for the West. In all its fearful forms, death
+has looked you in the face, and you have moved on to conquer the soil
+which you did but conquer, that it might be denied to you. You have been
+the architect of the prosperity of others, but your own crumbles each
+time as you are about to occupy it. When he lost his farm in
+Boonesborough, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span>he did not linger around in complainings, but went
+quietly away, returning only to fulfil the obligations he had incurred.
+And now this last decision came, even at old age, to leave Daniel Boone,
+the Pioneer of the West, unable to give a title deed to a solitary
+acre."<a name="FNanchor_G_7" id="FNanchor_G_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_G_7" class="fnanchor">[G]</a></p>
+
+<p>The fur trade was at this time very lucrative. Many who were engaged in
+it accumulated large fortunes. It was in this traffic that John Jacob
+Astor laid the foundations of his immense wealth. A guide of Major Long
+stated that he purchased of an Indian one hundred and twenty beaver
+skins for two blankets, two gallons of rum, and a pocket mirror. The
+skins he took to Montreal, where he sold them for over four hundred
+dollars.</p>
+
+<p>In the employment of the fur companies the trappers are of two kinds,
+called the "hired hand," and the "free trapper." The former is employed
+by the month, receiving regular wages, and bringing in all the furs
+which he can obtain. Be they more or less, he receives his stipulated
+monthly wages. The free trapper is supplied by the company with traps
+and certain other conveniences with which he plunges into the forest on
+his own hook, engaging however <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span>to sell to the company, at a stipulated
+price, whatever furs he may secure.</p>
+
+<p>The outfit of the trapper as he penetrated the vast and trackless region
+of gloomy forests, treeless prairies, and solitary rivers, spreading
+everywhere around him, generally consisted of two or three horses, one
+for the saddle and the others for packs containing his equipment of
+traps, ammunition, blankets, cooking utensils, etc., in preparation for
+passing lonely months in the far away solitudes. He would endeavor to
+find, if possible, a region which neither the white man nor the Indian
+had ever visited.</p>
+
+<p>The dress of the hunter consisted of a strong shirt of well-dressed and
+pliant buckskin, ornamented with long fringes. The vanity of dress, if
+it may be so called, followed him into regions where no eye but his own
+could see its beauties. His pantaloons were also made of buckskin
+decorated with variously-colored porcupine quills and with long fringes
+down the outside of the leg. Moccasins, often quite gorgeously
+embroidered, fitted closely to his feet. A very flexible hat or cap
+covered his head, generally of felt, obtained from some Indian trader.
+There was suspended over his left shoulder, so as to hang beneath his
+right arm, a powder horn and bullet pouch. In the latter he carried
+balls, flints, steel, and various odds and ends. A long heavy rifle he
+bore upon his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span></p><p>A belt of buckskin buckled tightly around the waist, held a large
+butcher knife in a sheath of stout buffalo hide, and also a buckskin
+case containing a whet-stone. A small hatchet or tomahawk was also
+attached to this belt. Thus rigged and in a new dress the hunter of good
+proportions presented a very picturesque aspect. With no little pride he
+exhibited himself at the trading posts, where not only the squaws and
+the children, but veteran hunters and Indian braves contemplated his
+person with admiration.</p>
+
+<p>Thus provided the hunter, more frequently alone but sometimes
+accompanied by two or three others, set out for the mountain streams, as
+early in the spring as the melting ice would enable him to commence
+operations against the beaver.</p>
+
+<p>Arrived on his hunting ground he carefully ascends some creek or stream,
+examining the banks with practiced eye to discern any sign of the
+presence of beaver or of any other animal whose fur would prove
+valuable. If a cotton-wood tree lies prostrate he examines it to see if
+it has been cut down by the sharp tooth of the beaver; and if so whether
+it has been cut down for food or to furnish material for damming a
+stream. If the track of a beaver is seen in the mud, he follows the
+track until he finds a good place to set his steel trap in the run of
+the animal, hiding it under water and carefully attaching it by a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span>chain
+to a bush or tree, or to some picket driven into the bank. A float strip
+is also made fast to the trap, so that should the beaver chance to break
+away with the trap, this float upon the surface, at the end of a cord a
+few feet long, would point out the position of the trap.</p>
+
+<p>"When a 'lodge' is discovered the trap is set at the edge of the dam, at
+the point where the animal passes from deep to shoal water. Early in the
+morning the hunter always mounts his mule and examines the traps. The
+captured animals are skinned, and the tails, which are a great dainty,
+carefully packed into camp. The skin is then stretched over a hoop or
+frame-work of osier twigs and is allowed to dry, the flesh and fatty
+substance being carefully scraped off. When dry it is folded into a
+square sheet, the fur turned inward, and the bundle, containing from
+about ten to twenty skins, lightly pressed and corded, is ready for
+transportation.</p>
+
+<p>"During the hunt, regardless of Indian vicinity, the fearless trapper
+wanders far and near in search of 'sign.' His nerves must ever be in a
+state of tension and his mind ever present at his call. His eagle eye
+sweeps around the country, and in an instant detects any foreign
+appearance. A turned leaf, a blade of grass pressed down, the uneasiness
+of wild animals, the flight of birds, are all paragraphs to him written
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span>in nature's legible hand and plainest language. All the wits of the
+subtle savage are called into play to gain an advantage over the wily
+woodsman; but with the instinct of the primitive man, the white hunter
+has the advantage of a civilised mind, and thus provided seldom fails to
+outwit, under equal advantages, the cunning savage.</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes the Indian following on his trail, watches him set his traps
+on a shrub-belted stream, and passing up the bed, like Bruce of old, so
+that he may leave no track, he lies in wait in the bushes until the
+hunter comes to examine. Then waiting until he approaches his ambush
+within a few feet, whiz flies the home-drawn arrow, never failing at
+such close quarters to bring the victim to the ground. For one white
+scalp, however, that dangles in the smoke of an Indian lodge, a dozen
+black ones at the end of the hunt ornament the camp-fire of the
+rendezvous.</p>
+
+<p>"At a certain time when the hunt is over, or they have loaded their pack
+animals, the trappers proceed to their rendezvous, the locality of which
+has been previously agreed upon; and here the traders and agents of the
+fur companies await them, with such assortments of goods as their hardy
+customers may require, including generally a fair supply of alcohol. The
+trappers drop in singly and in small bands, bringing their packs of
+beaver to this mountain <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span>market, not unfrequently to the value of a
+thousand dollars each, the produce of one hunt. The dissipation of the
+rendezvous, however, soon turns the trapper's pocket inside out. The
+goods brought by the traders, although of the most inferior quality, are
+sold at enormous prices. Coffee twenty and thirty shillings a pint cup,
+which is the usual measure; tobacco fetches ten and fifteen shillings a
+plug; alcohol from twenty to fifty shillings a pint; gunpowder sixteen
+shillings a pint cup, and all other articles at proportionately
+exhorbitant prices.</p>
+
+<p>"The rendezvous is one continued scene of drunkenness, gambling,
+brawling and fighting, so long as the money and credit of the trappers
+last. Seated Indian fashion around the fires, with a blanket spread
+before them, groups are seen with their 'decks' of cards playing at
+'euchre,' 'poker,' and 'seven-up,' the regular mountain games. The
+stakes are beaver, which is here current coin; and when the fur is gone,
+their horses, mules, rifles and shirts, hunting packs and breeches are
+staked. Daring gamblers make the rounds of the camp, challenging each
+other to play for the highest stake&mdash;his horse, his squaw if he have
+one, and as once happened his scalp. A trapper often squanders the
+produce of his hunt, amounting to hundreds of dollars, in a couple of
+hours; and supplied on credit with another equipment, leaves the
+rendezvous <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span>for another expedition which has the same result, time after
+time, although one tolerably successful hunt would enable him to return
+to the settlements and civilised life with an ample sum to purchase and
+stock a farm, and enjoy himself in ease and comfort for the remainder of
+his days.</p>
+
+<p>"These annual gatherings are often the scene of bloody duels, for over
+their cups and cards no men are more quarrelsome than your mountaineers.
+Rifles at twenty paces settle all differences, and as may be imagined,
+the fall of one or other of the combatants is certain, or, as sometimes
+happens, both fall at the same fire."<a name="FNanchor_H_8" id="FNanchor_H_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_H_8" class="fnanchor">[H]</a></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/ichapend.jpg" width="450" height="120" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Conclusion.</i></h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot2"><p>Colonel Boone Appeals to Congress&mdash;Complimentary Resolutions of the
+Legislature of Kentucky.&mdash;Death of Mrs. Boone.&mdash;Catholic
+Liberality.&mdash;Itinerant Preachers.&mdash;Grant by Congress to Colonel
+Boone.&mdash;The Evening of his Days.&mdash;Personal Appearance.&mdash;Death and
+Burial.&mdash;Transference of the Remains of Mr. and Mrs. Boone to
+Frankfort, Kentucky.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>Colonel Boone having lost all his property, sent in a memorial, by the
+advice of his friends, to the Legislature of Kentucky, and also another
+to Congress. Kentucky was now a wealthy and populous State, and was not
+at all indisposed to recognise the invaluable services she had received
+from Colonel Boone. In allusion to these services Governor Moorehead
+said:</p>
+
+<p>"It is not assuming too much to declare, that without Colonel Boone, in
+all probability the settlements could not have been upheld; and the
+conquest of Kentucky might have been reserved for the emigrants of the
+nineteenth century."</p>
+
+<p>What obstacle stood in the way of a liberal grant of land by the
+Kentucky Legislature we do not know. We simply know that by a unanimous
+vote of that body, the following preamble and resolution were passed:</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span></p><p>"The Legislature of Kentucky, taking into view the many eminent services
+rendered by Colonel Boone, in exploring and settling the western
+country, from which great advantages have resulted, not only to this
+State, but to this country in general, and that from circumstances over
+which he had no control, he is now reduced to poverty; not having, so
+far as appears, an acre of land out of the vast territory he has been a
+great instrument in peopling; believing also that it is as unjust as it
+is impolitic, that useful enterprise and eminent services should go
+unrewarded by a Government where merit confers the only distinction; and
+having sufficient reason to believe that a grant of ten thousand acres
+of land, which he claims in Upper Louisiana, would have been confirmed
+by the Spanish Government, had not said territory passed by cession into
+the hands of the General Government; therefore</p>
+
+<p>"Resolved by the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky: That
+our Senators in Congress be requested to make use of their exertions to
+procure a grant of land in said territory to said Boone, either the ten
+thousand acres to which he appears to have an equitable claim, from the
+grounds set forth to this Legislature, by way of confirmation, or to
+such quantity in such place as shall be deemed most advisable by way of
+donation."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span></p><p>While this question was pending before Congress, Colonel Boone met with
+the heaviest grief he had thus far encountered on his stormy pilgrimage.
+In the month of March, 1813, his wife, whom he tenderly loved, died at
+the age of seventy-six. She had been one of the best of wives and
+mothers, seeking in all things to conform to the wishes of her husband,
+and aid him in his plans. She was a devoted wife and a loving mother.
+Colonel Boone selected upon the summit of a ridge the place for her
+burial, and marked out the spot for his own grave by her side.</p>
+
+<p>We have no means of knowing what were the religious views which
+sustained Mrs. Boone in her dying hour. Her life was passed in the
+discharge of the humble duties of a home in the wilderness, and she had
+no biographer. But we do know that the religion of Jesus had penetrated
+many of these remote cabins, and had ennobled the lives of many of these
+hardy pioneers.</p>
+
+<p>Under the Spanish Government, the Roman Catholic Religion was the
+established religion of the province, and none other was openly
+tolerated. Still, the authorities were so anxious to encourage
+emigration from the United States, that they avoided any rigorous
+enforcement of the law. Each emigrant was required to be "a good
+Catholic," <i>un bon Catholique</i>. But by connivance of the authorities,
+only a few general questions were asked, such as:</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span></p><p>"Do you believe in Almighty God? in the Holy Trinity? in the true
+Apostolic Church? in Jesus Christ our Saviour? in the Holy Evangelists?"</p>
+
+<p>The ceremony was closed by the declaration that the applicant was <i>un
+bon Catholique</i>. Thus many Protestant families entered the Spanish
+territory, and remained undisturbed in their religious principles.
+Protestant clergymen crossed over the Mississippi river and, unmolested,
+preached the gospel in the log cabins of the settlers. The Catholic
+priests received their salaries from the Spanish crown, and no taxes for
+religion were imposed.</p>
+
+<p>The Reverend John Clark, a very zealous Christian minister, made monthly
+excursions to the Spanish territory. The commandant at St. Louis, Mr.
+Trudeau, would take no notice of his presence till the time when he knew
+that Mr. Clark was about to leave. Then he would send a threatening
+message ordering him to leave within three days. One of the emigrants,
+Mr. Murich, of the Baptist persuasion, who knew the commandant very
+well, petitioned for permission to hold religious meetings at his house
+and to have Mr. Clark preach. Mr. Trudeau replied:</p>
+
+<p>"You must not put a bill upon your house, or call it a church. But if
+any of your friends choose to meet at your house, sing, pray, and talk
+about religion, you will not be molested provided you continue, as I
+suppose you are, <i>un bon Catholique</i>."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span></p><p>Thus, in reality, there was scarcely any restraint in those remote
+regions, even under the Spanish regime, imposed upon religious freedom.
+Christian songs, the penitential and the triumphant, often ascended,
+blended with prayers and praises from these lonely and lowly homes in
+the wilderness. Thus characters were formed for heaven, and life was
+ennobled, and often far more of true nobility of soul and more real and
+satisfying enjoyment were found in those log huts, illumined only by the
+blaze of the pitch pine knot, than Louis XIV. and his courtiers ever
+experienced amidst the splendors and the luxuries of Versailles and of
+Marly.</p>
+
+<p>We do not know that Colonel Boone ever made a public profession of his
+faith in Christ, though somewhere we have seen it stated that he died an
+honored member of the Methodist Church. It is certain that the religious
+element predominated in his nature. He was a thoughtful, serious,
+devout, good man. He walked faithfully in accordance with the light and
+the privileges which were conferred upon him in his singularly
+adventurous life.</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Boone was seventy-nine years of age when Congress conferred upon
+him a grant of eight hundred and fifty acres of land. He had never
+repined at his lot, had never wasted his breath in unavailing murmurs.
+He contentedly took life as it came, and was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span>ever serene and cheerful.
+But this grant of land, though it came so late, greatly cheered him. He
+was no longer dependent upon others. He had property rapidly increasing
+in value to leave to the children and the grand-children he so tenderly
+loved. His aged limbs would no longer allow him to expose himself to the
+vicissitudes of hunting, and he took up his abode with one of his sons,
+enjoying, perhaps, as serene and happy an old age as ever fell to the
+lot of mortals. His conversation often gathered charmed listeners around
+him, for he had a very retentive memory, and his mind was crowded with
+the incidents of his romantic career. It is said that at this period of
+his life an irritable expression never escaped his lips. His
+grand-children vied with each other in affectionate attentions to one
+whom they ardently loved, and of whose celebrity they were justly proud.</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Galloway, the gentleman whose two daughters were captured, with
+one of the daughters of Colonel Boone, in a boat by the Indians, which
+event our readers will recall to mind, visited Colonel Boone in Missouri
+about this time. He gives a very pleasing description of the gentle and
+genial old man, as he then found him.</p>
+
+<p>His personal appearance was venerable and attractive, very neatly clad
+in garments spun, woven, and made in the cabin. His own room consisted
+of a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span>cabin by itself, and was in perfect order. "His countenance was
+pleasant, calm, and fair, his forehead high and bold, and the soft
+silver of his hair in unison with his length of days. He spoke feelingly
+and with solemnity of being a creature of Providence, ordained by heaven
+as a pioneer in the wilderness to advance the civilization and the
+extension of his country. He professed the belief that the Almighty had
+assigned to him a work to perform, and that he had only followed the
+pathway of duty in the work he had pursued; that he had discharged his
+duty to God and his country by following the direction of Providence."
+His stormy day of life had passed away into an evening of unusual beauty
+and serenity.</p>
+
+<p>Still he was continually busy, engaged in innumerable acts of kindness
+for his neighbors and his friends. He could repair rifles, make and
+carve powder horns of great beauty, and could fashion moccasins and
+snowshoes of the most approved patterns. His love for the solitude of
+the wilderness, and for the excitement of the hunter's life, continued
+unabated to the last. He loved to cut tender slices of venison, and to
+toast them upon the end of his ramrod over the glaring coals of his
+cabin fire, finding in that repast a treat more delicious than any
+gourmand ever yet experienced in the viands of the most costly
+restaurants of the Palais Royal, or the Boulevard.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span></p><p>Upon one occasion he could not resist the impulse of again going
+hunting, though in the eighty-second year of his age. Exacting from his
+friends the promise that should he die, his remains should be brought
+back and buried by the side of those of his wife, he took a boy with him
+and went to the mouth of the Kansas River, where he remained two weeks.</p>
+
+<p>Returning from this, his last expedition, he visited his youngest son,
+Major Nathan Boone, who had reared a comfortable stone house in that
+remote region, to which emigrants were now rapidly moving. Here he died
+after an illness of but three days, on the 26th day of September, 1820.
+He was then eighty-six years of age.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after the death of his wife, Colonel Boone made his own coffin,
+which he kept under his bed awaiting the day of his burial. In this
+coffin he was buried by the side of his wife. Missouri, though very
+different from the Missouri of the present day, was no longer an
+unpeopled wilderness. The Indians had retired; thousands of emigrants
+had flocked to its fertile plains, and many thriving settlements had
+sprung up along the banks of its magnificent streams. The great respect
+with which Colonel Boone was regarded by his fellow-citizens, was
+manifest in the large numbers who were assembled at his burial. The
+Legislature of Missouri, which chanced then to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span>be in session, adjourned
+for one day, in respect for his memory, and passed a resolve that all
+the members should wear a badge of mourning for twenty days. This was
+the first Legislature of the new State.</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Boone was the father of nine children, five sons and four
+daughters. His two eldest sons were killed by the Indians. His third
+son, Daniel Morgan Boone, had preceded his father in his emigration to
+the Upper Louisiana, as it was then called, and had taken up his
+residence in the Femme Osage settlement. He became a man of influence
+and comparative wealth, and attained the advanced age of fourscore.
+Jesse, the fourth son, also emigrated to Upper Louisiana about the year
+1806, where he died a few years after. The youngest son, Nathan, whose
+privilege it was to close his father's eyes in death, had found a home
+beyond the Mississippi; he became a man of considerable note, and
+received the commission of Captain in the United States Dragoons. The
+daughters, three of whom married, lived and died in Kentucky.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime Kentucky, which Boone had found a pathless wilderness,
+the hunting ground of Indians who were scarcely less wild and savage
+than the beasts they pursued in the chase, was rapidly becoming one of
+the most populous, wealthy and prosperous States in the Union. Upon the
+eastern <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span>bank of the Kentucky River, the beautiful city of Frankfort had
+risen surrounded by remarkably romantic and splendid scenery. It had
+become the capital of the State, and was situated about sixty miles from
+the entrance of the Kentucky into the Ohio River. Many of the houses
+were tastefully built of brick or of marble, and the place was noted for
+its polished, intelligent, and hospitable society.</p>
+
+<p>It was but a few miles above Frankfort upon this same river that Colonel
+Boone had reared the log fort of Boonesborough, when scarcely a white
+man could be found west of the Alleghanies. In the year 1845, the
+citizens of Frankfort, having, in accordance with the refinements of
+modern tastes, prepared a beautiful rural cemetery in the suburbs of
+their town, resolved to consecrate it by the interment of the remains of
+Daniel Boone and his wife. The Legislature, appreciating the immense
+obligations of the State to the illustrious pioneer, co-operated with
+the citizens of Frankfort in this movement. For twenty-five years the
+remains of Col. Boone and his wife had been mouldering in the grave upon
+the banks of the Missouri.</p>
+
+<p>"There seemed," said one of the writers of that day, "to be a peculiar
+propriety in this testimonial of the veneration borne by the
+Commonwealth for the memory of its illustrious dead. And it was fitting
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span>that the soil of Kentucky should afford the final resting place for his
+remains, whose blood in life had been so often shed to protect it from
+the fury of savage hostility. It was the beautiful and touching
+manifestation of filial affection shown by children to the memory of a
+beloved parent; and it was right that the generation which was reaping
+the fruits of his toils and dangers should desire to have in their midst
+and decorate with the tokens of their love, the sepulchre of this
+Primeval Patriarch whose stout heart watched by the cradle of this now
+powerful Commonwealth."</p>
+
+<p>The honored remains of Daniel Boone and his wife were brought from
+Missouri to Frankfort, and the re-interment took place on the 13th of
+September, 1845. The funeral ceremonies were very imposing. Colonel
+Richard M. Johnson, who had been Vice-President of the United States,
+and others of the most distinguished citizens of Kentucky, officiated as
+pall-bearers. The two coffins were garlanded with flowers, and an
+immense procession followed them to their final resting place. The Hon.
+John J. Crittenden, who was regarded as the most eloquent man in the
+State, pronounced the funeral oration. And there beneath an appropriate
+monument, the body of Daniel <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span>Boone now lies, awaiting the summons of
+the resurrection trumpet.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"Life's labor done, securely laid<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">In this his last retreat,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Unheeded o'er his silent dust,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">The storms of earth shall beat."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><i>THE END.</i></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h3>FOOTNOTES</h3>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a>Bang's History of Methodism.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_B_2" id="Footnote_B_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_2"><span class="label">[B]</span></a>Macdonald's Sketches. </p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_C_3" id="Footnote_C_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_C_3"><span class="label">[C]</span></a>Life of Boone, by W. H. Bogart.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_D_4" id="Footnote_D_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_D_4"><span class="label">[D]</span></a>Doddridge's Notes.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_E_5" id="Footnote_E_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_E_5"><span class="label">[E]</span></a> Brown's Illinois.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_F_6" id="Footnote_F_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_F_6"><span class="label">[F]</span></a> Daniel Boone, by W. H. Bogart.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_G_7" id="Footnote_G_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_G_7"><span class="label">[G]</span></a> Life of Boone, by W. H. Bogart, p. 369.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_H_8" id="Footnote_H_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_H_8"><span class="label">[H]</span></a> Ruxton's Travels.</p></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="TRANSCRIBERS_NOTES" id="TRANSCRIBERS_NOTES"></a>TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:</h3>
+
+<p>Minor corrections have been made to ensure uniform usage of hyphenation
+and abbreviations, and to standardize spelling in the text.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Daniel Boone, by John S. C. Abbott
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+</body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Daniel Boone, by John S. C. Abbott
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Daniel Boone
+       The Pioneer of Kentucky
+
+Author: John S. C. Abbott
+
+Release Date: December 10, 2007 [EBook #23798]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DANIEL BOONE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by D. Alexander and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ DANIEL BOONE
+
+ THE
+
+ PIONEER OF KENTUCKY.
+
+ [Illustration]
+
+ BY
+
+ JOHN S. C. ABBOTT.
+
+
+ NEW YORK:
+
+ DODD & MEAD, No. 762 BROADWAY.
+
+ 1872.
+
+
+
+
+ Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by
+
+ DODD & MEAD,
+
+ in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
+
+
+
+
+ _AMERICAN PIONEERS AND PATRIOTS._
+
+ DANIEL BOONE
+
+ THE
+
+ PIONEER OF KENTUCKY.
+
+ BY JOHN S. C. ABBOTT.
+
+ ILLUSTRATED.
+
+     "His youth was innocent; his riper age,
+       Marked with some act of goodness every day;
+      And watched by eyes that loved him, calm and sage,
+       Faded his late declining years away.
+      Cheerful he gave his being up and went
+       To share the holy rest that waits a life well spent."
+
+ NEW YORK:
+
+ DODD & MEAD, No. 762 BROADWAY.
+
+ 1872.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+The name of Daniel Boone is a conspicuous one in the annals of our
+country. And yet there are but few who are familiar with the events of
+his wonderful career, or who have formed a correct estimate of the
+character of the man. Many suppose that he was a rough, coarse
+backwoodsman, almost as savage as the bears he pursued in the chase, or
+the Indians whose terrors he so perseveringly braved. Instead of this,
+he was one of the most mild and unboastful of men; feminine as a woman
+in his tastes and his deportment, never uttering a coarse word, never
+allowing himself in a rude action. He was truly one of nature's _gentle_
+men. With all this instinctive refinement and delicacy, there was a
+boldness of character which seemed absolutely incapable of experiencing
+the emotion of fear. And surely all the records of chivalry may be
+searched in vain for a career more full of peril and of wild adventure.
+
+This narrative reveals a state of society and habitudes of life now
+rapidly passing into oblivion. It is very desirable that the record
+should be perpetuated, that we may know the scenes through which our
+fathers passed, in laying the foundations of this majestic Republic. It
+is probable that as the years roll on the events which occurred in the
+infancy of our nation will be read with ever-increasing interest.
+
+It is the intention of the publisher of this volume to issue a series of
+sketches of the prominent men in the early history of our country. The
+next volume will contain the life and adventures of the renowned Miles
+Standish, the Puritan Captain.
+
+                                              JOHN S. C. ABBOTT.
+
+Fair Haven, Conn.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+_The Discovery and early Settlement of America._                      PAGE
+
+Discovery of the New World.--Of Florida.--Conquest and cruelties of De
+Soto.--The Wigwam.--Colony at St. Mary.--Sir Walter Raleigh and his
+Colonies.--Grant of King James.--Settlements in the Virginia.--Adventures
+of John Smith.--Arrival of Lord Delaware.--Terrible massacres.--Pressures
+of Colonists to the West.--Doherty Trade with Indians.--Attempted
+Colony on the Tennessee.--Daniel Boone.                                  9
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+_Daniel Boone, his Parentage, and early Adventures._
+
+Trials of the Colonists.--George Boone and his home.--Squire Boone.--Birth
+and character of Daniel Boone.--His limited education.--A pioneer's
+camp.--A log house and furnishings.--Annoyance of Boone on the arrival of
+Scotch emigrants.--His longings for adventure.--Camp meetings.--Frontier
+life.--Sports.--Squirrel hunting.--Snuffing the candle.                 36
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+_Louisiana, its Discovery and Vicissitudes._
+
+Louisiana, and its eventful history.--The expedition of De Soto.--The
+Missionary Marquette.--His voyage on the Upper Mississippi.--The Expedition
+of La Salle.--Michilimackinac.--Its History.--Fate of the "Griffin."--Grief
+of La Salle.--His voyage of Discovery.--Sale of Louisiana to the United
+States.--Remarks of Napoleon.                                           74
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+_Camp Life Beyond the Alleghanies._
+
+John Finley and his adventures.--Aspect of the Country.--Boone's Private
+Character.--His Love for the Wilderness.--First view of
+Kentucky.--Emigrants' Dress.--Hunter's Home.--Capture of Boone and Stewart
+by the Indians.--Their Escape.--Singular Incident.                      89
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+_Indian Warfare._
+
+Alleghany Ridges.--Voyage in a canoe.--Speech of Logan.--Battle at the
+Kanawha.--Narrative of Francis Marion.--Important commission of
+Boone.--Council at Circleville.--Treaty of Peace.--Imlay's description
+of Kentucky.--Settlement right.--Richard Henderson.--Boone's letter.--Fort
+at Boonesborough.                                                      109
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+_Sufferings of the Pioneers._
+
+Emigration to Boonesborough.--New Perils.--Transylvania
+Company.--Beneficence of its Laws--Interesting incident.--Infamous conduct
+of Great Britain.--Attack on the Fort.--Reinforcements.--Simon Kenton and
+his Sufferings.--Mrs. Harvey.                                          129
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+_Life in the Wilderness._
+
+Stewart killed by the Indians.--Squire Boone returns to the
+Settlements.--Solitary Life of Daniel Boone.--Return of Squire
+Boone.--Extended and Romantic Explorations.--Charms and Perils of the
+Wilderness.--The Emigrant Party.--The Fatal Ambuscade.--Retreat of the
+Emigrants.--Solitude of the Wilderness.--Expedition of Lewis and
+Clarke.--Extraordinary Adventures of Cotter.                           151
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+_Captivity and Flight._
+
+Heroism of Thomas Higgins and of Mrs. Pursley.--Affairs at
+Boonesborough.--Continued Alarms.--Need of Salt.--Its Manufacture.--Indian
+Schemes.--Capture of Boone and twenty-seven men.--Dilemma of the British
+at Detroit.--Blackfish adopts Colonel Boone.--Adoption Ceremony.--Indian
+Designs.--Escape of Boone.--Attacks the Savages.--The Fort Threatened. 182
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+_Victories and Defeats._
+
+Situation of the Fort.--Indian Treachery.--Bombardment.--Boone goes to
+North Carolina.--New Trials.--Boone Robbed.--He returns to
+Kentucky.--Massacre of Colonel Rogers.--Adventure of Col. Bowman.--New
+Attack by the British and Indians.--Retaliatory Measures.--Wonderful
+Exploit.                                                               209
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+_British Allies._
+
+Death of Squire Boone.--Indian Outrages.--Gerty and McGee.--Battle of
+Blue Lick.--Death of Isaac Boone.--Colonel Boone's Narrow Escape.--Letter
+of Daniel Boone.--Determination of General Clarke.--Discouragement of the
+Savages.--Amusing Anecdote of Daniel Boone.                            230
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+_Kentucky organized as a State._
+
+Peace with England.--Order of a Kentucky Court.--Anecdotes.--Speech of Mr.
+Dalton.--Reply of Piankashaw.--Renewed Indications of Indian
+Hostility.--Conventions at Danville.--Kentucky formed into a State.--New
+Trials for Boone.                                                      249
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+_Adventures Romantic and Perilous._
+
+The Search for the Horse.--Navigating the Ohio.--Heroism of Mrs.
+Rowan.--Lawless Gangs.--Exchange of Prisoners.--Boone Revisits the Home
+of his Childhood.--The Realms beyond the Mississippi.--Habits of the
+Hunters.--Corn.--Boone's Journey to the West.                          271
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+_A New Home._
+
+Colonel Boone welcomed by the Spanish Authorities.--Boone's Narrative to
+Audubon.--The Midnight Attack.--Pursuit of the Savages.--Sickness in the
+Wilderness.--Honesty of Colonel Boone.--Payment of his Debts.--Loss of
+all his Property.                                                      292
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+_Conclusion._
+
+Colonel Boone Appeals to Congress.--Complimentary Resolutions of the
+Legislature of Kentucky.--Death of Mrs. Boone.--Catholic
+Liberality.--Itinerant Preachers.--Grant by Congress to Colonel
+Boone.--The Evening of his Days.--Personal Appearance.--Death and
+Burial.--Transference of the Remains of Mr. and Mrs. Boone to Frankfort,
+Kentucky.                                                              320
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+_The Discovery and early Settlement of America._
+
+Discovery of the New World.--Of Florida.--Conquest and cruelties of De
+Soto.--The wigwam.--Colony at St. Mary.--Sir Walter Raleigh and his
+Colonies.--Grant of King James.--Settlements in the Virginia.--Adventures
+of John Smith.--Arrival of Lord Delaware.--Terrible massacres.--Pressures
+of Colonists to the West.--Doherty Trade with Indians.--Attempted Colony
+on the Tennessee.--Daniel Boone.
+
+
+The little fleet of three small vessels, with which Columbus left Palos
+in Spain, in search of a new world, had been sixty-seven days at sea.
+They had traversed nearly three thousand miles of ocean, and yet there
+was nothing but a wide expanse of waters spread out before them. The
+despairing crew were loud in their murmurs, demanding that the
+expedition should be abandoned and that the ships should return to
+Spain. The morning of the 11th of October, 1492, had come. During the
+day Columbus, whose heart had been very heavily oppressed with anxiety,
+had been cheered by some indications that they were approaching land.
+Fresh seaweed was occasionally seen and a branch of a shrub with leaves
+and berries upon it, and a piece of wood curiously carved had been
+picked up.
+
+The devout commander was so animated by these indications, that he
+gathered his crew around him and returned heartfelt thanks to God, for
+this prospect that their voyage would prove successful. It was a
+beautiful night, the moon shone brilliantly and a delicious tropical
+breeze swept the ocean. At ten o'clock Columbus stood upon the bows of
+his ship earnestly gazing upon the western horizon, hoping that the
+long-looked-for land would rise before him. Suddenly he was startled by
+the distinct gleam of a torch far off in the distance. For a moment it
+beamed forth with a clear and indisputable flame and then disappeared.
+The agitation of Columbus no words can describe. Was it a meteor? Was it
+an optical illusion? Was it light from the land?
+
+Suddenly the torch, like a star, again shone forth with distinct though
+faint gleam. Columbus called some of his companions to his side and they
+also saw the light clearly. But again it disappeared. At two o'clock in
+the morning a sailor at the look out on the mast head shouted, "Land!
+land! land!" In a few moments all beheld, but a few miles distant from
+them, the distinct outline of towering mountains piercing the skies. A
+new world was discovered. Cautiously the vessels hove to and waited for
+the light of the morning. The dawn of day presented to the eyes of
+Columbus and his companions a spectacle of beauty which the garden of
+Eden could hardly have rivalled. It was a morning of the tropics, calm,
+serene and lovely. But two miles before them there emerged from the sea
+an island of mountains and valleys, luxuriant with every variety of
+tropical vegetation. The voyagers, weary of gazing for many weeks on the
+wide waste of waters, were so enchanted with the fairy scene which then
+met the eye, that they seemed really to believe that they had reached
+the realms of the blest.
+
+The boats were lowered, and, as they were rowed towards the shore, the
+scene every moment grew more beautiful. Gigantic trees draped in
+luxuriance of foliage hitherto unimagined, rose in the soft valleys and
+upon the towering hills. In the sheltered groves, screened from the sun,
+the picturesque dwellings of the natives were thickly clustered. Flowers
+of every variety of tint bloomed in marvellous profusion. The trees
+seemed laden with fruits of every kind, and in inexhaustible abundance.
+Thousands of natives crowded the shore, whose graceful forms and
+exquisitely moulded limbs indicated the innocence and simplicity of Eden
+before the fall.
+
+Columbus, richly attired in a scarlet dress, fell upon his knees as he
+reached the beach, and, with clasped hands and uplifted eyes, gave
+utterance to the devout feelings which ever inspired him, in
+thanksgiving to God. In recognition of the divine protection he gave
+the island the name of San Salvador, or Holy Savior. Though the new
+world thus discovered was one of the smallest islands of the Caribbean
+Sea, no conception was then formed of the vast continents of North and
+South America, stretching out in both directions, for many leagues
+almost to the Arctic and Antarctic poles.
+
+Omitting a description of the wonderful adventures which ensued, we can
+only mention that two years after this, the southern extremity of the
+North American continent was discovered by Sebastian Cabot. It was in
+the spring of the year and the whole surface of the soil seemed carpeted
+with the most brilliant flowers. The country consequently received the
+beautiful name of Florida. It, of course, had no boundaries, for no one
+knew with certainty whether it were an island or a continent, or how far
+its limits might extend.
+
+The years rolled on and gradually exploring excursions crept along the
+coast towards the north, various provinces were mapped out with pretty
+distinct boundaries upon the Atlantic coast, extending indefinitely into
+the vast and unknown interior. Expeditions from France had entered the
+St. Lawrence and established settlements in Canada. For a time the whole
+Atlantic coast, from its extreme southern point to Canada, was called
+Florida. In the year 1539, Ferdinand De Soto, an unprincipled Spanish
+warrior, who had obtained renown by the conquest of Peru in South
+America, fitted out by permission of the king of Spain, an expedition of
+nearly a thousand men to conquer and take possession of that vast and
+indefinite realm called Florida.
+
+We have no space here to enter upon a description of the fiendlike
+cruelties practiced by these Spaniards. They robbed and enslaved without
+mercy. In pursuit of gold they wandered as far north as the present
+boundary of South Carolina. Then turning to the west, they traversed the
+vast region to the Mississippi river. The forests were full of game. The
+granaries of the simple-hearted natives were well stored with corn; vast
+prairies spreading in all directions around them, waving with grass and
+blooming with flowers, presented ample forage for the three hundred
+horses which accompanied the expedition. They were also provided with
+fierce bloodhounds to hunt down the terrified natives. Thus invincible
+and armed with the "thunder and lightning" of their guns, they swept the
+country, perpetrating every conceivable outrage upon the helpless
+natives.
+
+After long and unavailing wanderings in search of gold, having lost by
+sickness and the casualties of such an expedition nearly half their
+number, the remainder built boats upon the Mississippi, descended that
+rapid stream five hundred miles to its mouth, and then skirting the
+coast of Texas, finally disappeared on the plains of Mexico. De Soto,
+the leader of this conquering band, died miserably on the Mississippi,
+and was buried beneath its waves.
+
+The whole country which these adventurers traversed, they found to be
+quite densely populated with numerous small tribes of natives, each
+generally wandering within circumscribed limits. Though these tribes
+spoke different languages, or perhaps different dialects of the same
+language, they were essentially the same in appearance, manners and
+customs. They were of a dark-red color, well formed and always disposed
+to receive the pale face strangers with kindliness, until exasperated by
+ill-treatment. They lived in fragile huts called wigwams, so simple in
+their structure that one could easily be erected in a few hours. These
+huts were generally formed by setting long and slender poles in the
+ground, inclosing an area of from ten to eighteen feet in diameter,
+according to the size of the family. The tops were tied together,
+leaving a hole for the escape of smoke from the central fire. The sides
+were thatched with coarse grass, or so covered with the bark of trees,
+as quite effectually to exclude both wind and rain. There were no
+windows, light entering only through the almost always open door. The
+ground floor was covered with dried grass, or the skins of animals, or
+with the soft and fragrant twigs of some evergreen tree.
+
+The inmates, men, women and children, seated upon these cushions,
+presented a very attractive and cheerful aspect. Several hundred of
+these wigwams were frequently clustered upon some soft meadow by the
+side of a flowing stream, fringed with a gigantic forest, and exhibited
+a spectacle of picturesque loveliness quite charming to the beholder.
+The furniture of these humble abodes was extremely simple. They had no
+pots or kettles which would stand the fire. They had no knives nor
+forks; no tables nor chairs. Sharp flints, such as they could find
+served for knives, with which, with incredible labor, they sawed down
+small trees and fashioned their bows and arrows. They had no roads
+except foot paths through the wilderness, which for generations their
+ancestors had traversed, called "trails." They had no beasts of burden,
+no cows, no flocks nor herds of any kind. They generally had not even
+salt, but cured their meat by drying it in the sun. They had no ploughs,
+hoes, spades, consequently they could only cultivate the lightest soil.
+With a sharp stick, women loosened the earth, and then depositing their
+corn or maize, cultivated it in the rudest manner.
+
+These Indians acquired the reputation of being very faithful friends,
+but very bitter enemies. It was said they never forgot a favor, and
+never forgave an insult. They were cunning rather than brave. It was
+seldom that an Indian could be induced to meet a foe in an open
+hand-to-hand fight. But he would track him for years, hoping to take him
+unawares and to brain him with the tomahawk, or pierce his heart with
+the flint-pointed arrow.
+
+About the year 1565, a company of French Protestants repaired to
+Florida, hoping there to find the liberty to worship God in accordance
+with their interpretation of the teachings of the Bible. They
+established quite a flourishing colony, at a place which they named St.
+Marys, near the coast. This was the first European settlement on the
+continent of North America. The fanatic Spaniards, learning that
+Protestants had taken possession of the country, sent out an expedition
+and utterly annihilated the settlement, putting men, women and children
+to the sword. Many of these unfortunate Protestants were hung in chains
+from trees under the inscription, "_Not as Frenchmen but as Heretics._"
+The blood-stained Spaniards then established themselves at a spot near
+by, which they called St. Augustine. A French gentleman of wealth fitted
+out a well-manned and well-armed expedition of three ships, attacked the
+murderers by surprise and put them to death. Several corpses were
+suspended from trees, under the inscription, "_Not as Spaniards, but as
+Murderers._"
+
+There was an understanding among the powers of Europe, that any portion
+of the New World discovered by expeditions from European courts, should
+be recognised as belonging to that court. The Spaniards had taken
+possession in Florida. Far away a thousand leagues to the North, the
+French had entered the gulf of St. Lawrence. But little was known of the
+vast region between. A young English gentleman, Sir Walter Raleigh, an
+earnest Protestant, and one who had fought with the French Protestants
+in their religious wars, roused by the massacre of his friends in
+Florida, applied to the British court to fit out a colony to take
+possession of the intermediate country. He hoped thus to prevent the
+Spanish monarchy, and the equally intolerant French court, from
+spreading their principles over the whole continent. The Protestant
+Queen Elizabeth then occupied the throne of Great Britain. Raleigh was
+young, rich, handsome and marvelously fascinating in his address. He
+became a great favorite of the maiden queen, and she gave him a
+commission, making him lord of all the continent of North America,
+between Florida and Canada.
+
+The whole of this vast region without any accurate boundaries, was
+called Virginia. Several ships were sent to explore the country. They
+reached the coast of what is now called North Carolina, and the
+adventurers landed at Roanoke Island. They were charmed with the
+climate, with the friendliness of the natives and with the majestic
+growth of the forest trees, far surpassing anything they had witnessed
+in the Old World. Grapes in rich clusters hung in profusion on the
+vines, and birds of every variety of song and plumage filled the groves.
+The expedition returned to England with such glowing accounts of the
+realm they had discovered, that seven ships were fitted out, conveying
+one hundred and eight men, to colonise the island. It is quite
+remarkable that no women accompanied the expedition. Many of these men
+were reckless adventurers. Bitter hostility soon sprang up between them
+and the Indians, who at first had received them with the greatest
+kindness.
+
+Most of these colonists were men unaccustomed to work, and who insanely
+expected that in the New World, in some unknown way, wealth was to flow
+in upon them like a flood. Disheartened, homesick and appalled by the
+hostile attitude which the much oppressed Indians were beginning to
+assume, they were all anxious to return home. When, soon after, some
+ships came bringing them abundant supplies, they with one accord
+abandoned the colony, and crowding the vessels returned to England.
+Fifteen men however consented to remain, to await the arrival of fresh
+colonists from the Mother Country.
+
+Sir Walter Raleigh, still undiscouraged, in the next year 1587 sent out
+another fleet containing a number of families as emigrants, with women
+and children. When they arrived, they found Roanoke deserted. The
+fifteen men had been murdered by the Indians in retaliation for the
+murder of their chief and several of his warriors by the English. With
+fear and trembling the new settlers decided to remain, urging the
+friends who had accompanied them to hasten back to England with the
+ships and bring them reinforcements and supplies. Scarcely had they
+spread their sails on the return voyage ere war broke out with Spain. It
+was three years before another ship crossed the ocean, to see what had
+become of the colony. It had utterly disappeared. Though many attempts
+were made to ascertain its tragic fate, all were unavailing. It is
+probable that many were put to death by the Indians, and perhaps the
+children were carried far back into the interior and incorporated into
+their tribes. This bitter disappointment seemed to paralyse the energies
+of colonization. For more than seventy years the Carolinas remained a
+wilderness, with no attempt to transfer to them the civilization of the
+Old World. Still English ships continued occasionally to visit the
+coast. Some came to fish, some to purchase furs of the Indians, and
+some for timber for shipbuilding. The stories which these voyagers told
+on their return, kept up an interest in the New World. It was indeed an
+attractive picture which could be truthfully painted. The climate was
+mild, genial and salubrious. The atmosphere surpassed the far-famed
+transparency of Italian skies. The forests were of gigantic growth, more
+picturesquely beautiful than any ever planted by man's hand, and they
+were filled with game. The lakes and streams swarmed with fish. A
+wilderness of flowers, of every variety of loveliness, bloomed over the
+wide meadows and the broad savannahs, which the forest had not yet
+invaded. Berries and fruits were abundant. In many places the soil was
+surpassingly rich, and easily tilled; and all this was open, without
+money and without price, to the first comer.
+
+Still more than a hundred years elapsed after the discovery of these
+realms, ere any permanent settlement was effected upon them. Most of the
+bays, harbors and rivers were unexplored, and reposed as it were in the
+solemn silence of eternity. From the everglades of Florida to the
+firclad hills of Nova Scotia, not a settlement of white men could be
+found.
+
+At length in the year 1607, a number of wealthy gentlemen in London
+formed a company to make a new attempt for the settlement of America. It
+was their plan to send out hardy colonists, abundantly provided with
+arms, tools and provisions. King James I., who had succeeded his cousin
+Queen Elizabeth, granted them a charter, by which, wherever they might
+effect a landing, they were to be the undisputed lords of a territory
+extending a hundred miles along the coast, and running back one hundred
+miles into the interior. Soon after, a similar grant was conferred upon
+another association, for the region of North Virginia, now called New
+England.
+
+Under the protection of this London Company, one hundred and five men,
+with no women or children, embarked in three small ships for the
+Southern Atlantic coast of North America. Apparently by accident, they
+entered Chesapeake Bay, where they found a broad and deep stream, which
+they named after their sovereign, James River. As they ascended this
+beautiful stream, they were charmed with the loveliness which nature had
+spread so profusely around them. Upon the northern banks of the river,
+about fifty miles from its entrance into the bay, they selected a spot
+for their settlement, which they named Jamestown. Here they commenced
+cutting down trees and raising their huts.
+
+In an enterprise of this kind, muscles inured to work and determined
+spirits ready to grapple with difficulties, are essential. In such
+labors, the most useless of all beings is the gentleman with soft hands
+and luxurious habits. Unfortunately quite a number of pampered sons of
+wealth had joined the colony. Being indolent, selfish and dissolute,
+they could do absolutely nothing for the prosperity of the settlement,
+but were only an obstacle in the way of its growth.
+
+Troubles soon began to multiply, and but for the energies of a
+remarkable man, Capt. John Smith, the colony must soon have perished
+through anarchy. But even Capt. John Smith with all his commanding
+powers, and love of justice and of law, could not prevent the idle and
+profligate young men from insulting the natives, and robbing them of
+their corn. With the autumnal rains sickness came, and many died. The
+hand of well-organised industry might have raised an ample supply of
+corn to meet all their wants through the short winter. But this had been
+neglected, and famine was added to sickness, Capt. Smith had so won the
+confidence of the Indian chieftains, that notwithstanding the gross
+irregularities of his young men, they brought him supplies of corn and
+game, which they freely gave to the English in their destitution.
+
+Captain Smith having thus provided for the necessities of the greatly
+diminished colony, set out with a small party of men on an exploring
+expedition into the interior. He was waylayed by Indians, who with
+arrows and tomahawks speedily put all the men to death, excepting the
+leader, who was taken captive. There was something in the demeanor of
+this brave man which overawed them. He showed them his pocket compass,
+upon which they gazed with wonder. He then told them that if they would
+send to the fort a leaf from his pocket-book, upon which he had made
+several marks with his pencil, they would find the next day, at any spot
+they might designate, a certain number of axes, blankets, and other
+articles of great value to them. Their curiosity was exceedingly
+aroused; the paper was sent, and the next day the articles were found as
+promised. The Indians looked upon Captain Smith as a magician, and
+treated him with great respect. Still the more thoughtful of the natives
+regarded him as a more formidable foe. They could not be blind to the
+vastly superior power of the English in their majestic ships, with their
+long swords, and terrible fire-arms, and all the developments,
+astounding to them, of a higher civilization. They were very anxious in
+view of encroachments which might eventually give the English the
+supremacy in their land.
+
+Powhatan, the king of the powerful tribe who had at first been very
+friendly to the English, summoned a council of war of his chieftains,
+and after long deliberation, it was decided that Captain Smith was too
+powerful a man to be allowed to live, and that he must die. He was
+accordingly led out to execution, but without any of the ordinary
+accompaniments of torture. His hands were bound behind him, he was laid
+upon the ground, and his head was placed upon a stone. An Indian warrior
+of herculean strength stood by, with a massive club, to give the death
+blow by crushing in the skull. Just as the fatal stroke was about to
+descend, a beautiful Indian girl, Pocahontas, the daughter of the king,
+rushed forward and throwing her arms around the neck of Captain Smith,
+placed her head upon his. The Indians regarded this as an indication
+from the Great Spirit that the life of Captain Smith was to be spared,
+and they set their prisoner at liberty, who, being thus miraculously
+rescued, returned to Jamestown.
+
+By his wisdom Captain Smith preserved for some time friendly relations
+with the Indians, and the colony rapidly increased, until there were
+five hundred Europeans assembled at Jamestown. Capt. Smith being
+severely wounded by an accidental explosion of gunpowder, returned to
+England for surgical aid. The colony, thus divested of his vigorous
+sway, speedily lapsed into anarchy. The bitter hostility of the Indians
+was aroused, and, within a few months, the colony dwindled away beneath
+the ravages of sickness, famine, and the arrows of the Indians, to but
+sixty men. Despair reigned in all hearts, and this starving remnant of
+Europeans was preparing to abandon the colony and return to the Old
+World, when Lord Delaware arrived with several ships loaded with
+provisions and with a reinforcement of hardy laborers. Most of the idle
+and profligate young men who had brought such calamity upon the colony,
+had died. Those who remained took fresh courage, and affairs began to be
+more prosperous.
+
+The organization of the colony had thus far been effected with very
+little regard to the wants of human nature. There were no women there.
+Without the honored wife there cannot be the happy home; and without the
+home there can be no contentment. To herd together five hundred men upon
+the banks of a foreign stream, three thousand miles from their native
+land, without women and children, and to expect them to lay the
+foundation of a happy and prosperous colony, seems almost unpardonable
+folly.
+
+Emigrants began to arrive with their families, and in the year 1620, one
+hundred and fifty poor, but virtuous young women, were induced to join
+the Company. Each young man who came received one hundred acres of land.
+Eagerly these young planters, in short courtship, selected wives from
+such of these women as they could induce to listen to them. Each man
+paid one hundred and fifty pounds of tobacco to defray the expenses of
+his wife's voyage. But the wickedness of man will everywhere, and under
+all circumstances, make fearful development of its power. Many
+desperadoes joined the colony. The poor Indians with no weapons of war
+but arrows, clubs and stone tomahawks, were quite at the mercy of the
+English with their keen swords, and death-dealing muskets. Fifteen
+Europeans could easily drive several hundred Indians in panic over the
+plains. Unprincipled men perpetrated the grossest outrages upon the
+families of the Indians, often insulting the proudest chiefs.
+
+The colonists were taking up lands in all directions. Before their
+unerring rifles, game was rapidly disappearing. The Indians became fully
+awake to their danger. The chiefs met in council, and a conspiracy was
+formed, to put, at an appointed hour, all the English to death, every
+man, woman and child. Every house was marked. Two or three Indians were
+appointed to make the massacre sure in each dwelling. They were to
+spread over the settlement, enter the widely scattered log-huts, as
+friends, and at a certain moment were to spring upon their unsuspecting
+victims, and kill them instantly. The plot was fearfully successful in
+all the dwellings outside the little village of Jamestown. In one hour,
+on the 22nd of March, 1622, three hundred and forty-seven men, women and
+children were massacred in cold blood. The colony would have been
+annihilated, but for a Christian Indian who, just before the massacre
+commenced, gave warning to a friend in Jamestown. The Europeans rallied
+with their fire-arms, and easily drove off their foes, and then
+commenced the unrelenting extermination of the Indians. An arrow can be
+thrown a few hundred feet, a musket ball more than as many yards. The
+Indians were consequently helpless. The English shot down both sexes,
+young and old, as mercilessly as if they had been wolves. They seized
+their houses, their lands, their pleasant villages. The Indians were
+either slain or driven far away from the houses of their fathers, into
+the remote wilderness.
+
+The colony now increased rapidly, and the cabins of the emigrants spread
+farther and farther over the unoccupied lands. These hardy adventurers
+seemed providentially imbued with the spirit of enterprise. Instead of
+clustering together for the pleasure of society and for mutual
+protection, they were ever pushing into the wild and unknown interior,
+rearing their cabins on the banks of distant streams, and establishing
+their silent homes in the wildest solitudes of the wilderness. In 1660,
+quite a number of emigrants moved directly south from Virginia, to the
+river Chowan, in what is now South Carolina, where they established a
+settlement which they called Albermarle. In 1670, a colony from England
+established itself at Charleston, South Carolina. Thus gradually the
+Atlantic coast became fringed with colonies, extending but a few leagues
+back into the country from the sea-shore, while the vast interior
+remained an unexplored wilderness. As the years rolled on, ship-loads of
+emigrants arrived, new settlements were established, colonial States
+rose into being, and, though there were many sanguinary conflicts with
+the Indians, the Europeans were always in the end triumphant, and
+intelligence, wealth, and laws of civilization were rapidly extended
+along the Atlantic border of the New World.
+
+For many years there had been a gradual pressure of the colonists
+towards the west, steadily encroaching upon the apparently limitless
+wilderness. To us it seems strange that they did not, for the sake of
+protection against the Indians, invariably go in military bands. But
+generally this was not the case. The emigrants seem to have been
+inspired with a spirit of almost reckless indifference to danger; they
+apparently loved the solitude of the forest, avoided neighbors who might
+interfere with their hunting and trapping, and reared their humble
+cottages in the wildest ravines of the mountains and upon the smooth
+meadows which border the most solitary streams; thus gradually the tide
+of emigration, flowing through Indian trails and along the
+forest-covered vines, was approaching the base of the Alleghany
+mountains.
+
+But little was known of the character of the boundless realms beyond the
+ridges of this gigantic chain. Occasionally a wandering Indian who had
+chased his game over those remote wilds, would endeavor to draw upon the
+sand, with a stick, a map of the country showing the flow of the rivers,
+the line of the mountains, and the sweep of the open prairies. The Ohio
+was then called the Wabash. This magnificent and beautiful stream is
+formed by the confluence of the Alleghany and the Monongahela rivers. It
+was a long voyage, a voyage of several hundred miles, following the
+windings of the Monongahela river from its rise among the mountains of
+Western Virginia till, far away in the north, it met the flood of the
+Alleghany, at the present site of the city of Pittsburg. The voyage, in
+a birch canoe, required, in the figurative language of the Indians, "two
+paddles, two warriors and three moons."
+
+The Indians very correctly described the Ohio, or the Wabash, as but the
+tributary of a much more majestic stream, far away in the west, which,
+pouring its flood through the impenetrable forest, emptied itself they
+knew not where. Of the magnitude of this distant river, the Mississippi,
+its source, rise and termination, they could give no intelligible
+account. They endeavored to give some idea of the amount of game to be
+found in those remote realms, by pointing to the leaves of the forest
+and the stars in the sky.
+
+The settlers were deeply interested and often much excited by the
+glowing descriptions thus given them of a terrestrial Eden, where life
+would seem to be but one uninterrupted holiday. Occasionally an
+adventurous French or Spanish trader would cross the towering mountains
+and penetrate the vales beyond. They vied with the Indians in their
+account of the salubrity of the climate, the brilliance of the skies,
+the grandeur of the forests, the magnificence of the rivers, the
+marvelous fertility of the soil and the abundance of game.
+
+As early as the year 1690 a trader from Virginia, by the name of
+Doherty, crossed the mountains, visited the friendly Cherokee nation,
+within the present bounds of Georgia, and resided with the natives
+several years. In the year 1730 an enterprising and intelligent man from
+South Carolina, by the name of Adair, took quite an extensive tour
+through most of the villages of the Cherokees, and also visited several
+tribes south and west of them. He wrote an exceedingly valuable and
+interesting account of his travels which was published in London.
+
+Influenced by these examples several traders, in the year 1740, went
+from Virginia to the country of the Cherokees. They carried on pack
+horses goods which the Indians valued, and which they exchanged for
+furs, which were sold in Europe at an enormous profit.
+
+A hatchet, a knife, a trap, a string of beads, which could be bought for
+a very small sum in the Atlantic towns, when exhibited beyond the
+mountains to admiring groups in the wigwam of the Indian, could be
+exchanged for furs which were of almost priceless value in the
+metropolitan cities of the Old World. This traffic was mutually
+advantageous, and so long as peaceful relations existed between the
+white man and the Indian, was prosecuted with great and ever increasing
+vigor. The Indians thus obtained the steel trap, the keenly cutting ax,
+and the rifle, which he soon learned to use with unerring aim. He was
+thus able in a day to obtain more game than with his arrows and his
+clumsy snares he could secure in a month.
+
+This friendly intercourse was in all respects very desirable; and but
+for the depravity of the white man it might have continued uninterrupted
+for generations. But profligate and vagabond adventurers from the
+settlements defrauded the Indians, insulted their women, and often
+committed wanton murder. But it would seem that the majority of the
+traders were honest men. Ramsay, in his Annals of Tennessee, writes, in
+reference to this traffic:
+
+"Other advantages resulted from it to the whites. They became thus
+acquainted with the great avenues leading through the hunting ground,
+and to the occupied country of the neighboring tribes--an important
+circumstance in the condition of either peace or war. Further the
+traders were an exact thermometer of the pacific or hostile intention
+and feelings of the Indians with whom they traded. Generally they were
+foreigners, most frequently Scotchmen, who had not been long in the
+country, or upon the frontier; who, having experienced none of the
+cruelties, depredations or aggressions of the Indians, cherished none of
+the resentment and spirit of retaliation born with and everywhere
+manifested by the American settler.
+
+"Thus free from animosity against the aborigines, the trader was allowed
+to remain in the village, where he traded, unmolested, even where its
+warriors were singing the war song or brandishing the war club,
+preparatory to an invasion or massacre of the whites. Timely warning was
+thus often given by a returning packman to a feeble and unsuspecting
+settlement, of the perfidy and cruelty meditated against it."
+
+Game on the eastern side of the Alleghanies, hunted down alike by white
+men and Indians, soon became scarce. Adventurers combining the
+characters of traders and hunters rapidly multiplied. Many of the
+hunters among the white men far outstripped the Indians in skill and
+energy. Thus some degree of jealousy was excited on the part of the
+savages. They saw how rapidly the game was disappearing, and these
+thoughtful men began to be anxious for the future. With no love for
+agriculture the destruction of the game was their ruin.
+
+As early as the year 1748 quite a party of gentlemen explorers, under
+the leadership of Doctor Thomas Walker of Virginia, crossed a range of
+the Alleghany mountains, which the Indians called Warioto, but to which
+Doctor Walker gave the name of Cumberland, in honor of the Duke of
+Cumberland who was then prime minister of England. Following along this
+chain in a south-westerly direction, in search of some pass or defile by
+which they could cross the cliffs, they came to the remarkable
+depression in the mountains to which they gave the name of Cumberland
+Gap. On the western side of the range they found a beautiful mountain
+stream, rushing far away, with ever increasing volume, into the unknown
+wilderness, which the Indians called Shawnee, but which Doctor Walker's
+party baptised with the name of Cumberland River. These names have
+adhered to the localities upon which they were thus placed.
+
+In 1756 a feeble attempt was made to establish a colony upon the
+Tennessee river, at a spot which was called London. This was one
+hundred and fifty miles in advance of any white settlement. Eight years
+passed, and by the ravages of war the little settlement went up in flame
+and smoke. As the years rapidly came and went there were occasional
+bursts of the tempests of war; again there would be a short lull and
+blessed peace would come with its prosperity and joy.
+
+"In the year 1760, Doctor Walker again passed over Clinch and Powell's
+rivers on a tour of exploration, into what is now Kentucky. The
+Cherokees were then at peace with the whites, and hunters from the back
+settlements began, with safety, to penetrate deeper and further into the
+wilderness of Tennessee. Several of them, chiefly from Virginia, hearing
+of the abundance of game with which the woods were stocked, and allured
+by the prospect of gain which might be drawn from this source, formed
+themselves into a company composed of Wallen, Seagys, Blevins, Cox and
+fifteen others, and came into the valley, since known as Carter's
+Valley, in Hawkin's county, Tennessee. They hunted eighteen months upon
+Clinch and Powell rivers. Wallen's Creek and Wallen's Ridge received
+their name from the leader of the company; as also did Wallen's Station
+which they erected in the Lee county, Virginia.
+
+"They penetrated as far north as Laurel Mountain, in Kentucky, where
+they terminated their journey, having met with a body of Indians whom
+they supposed to be Shawnees. At the head of one of the companies that
+visited the West, this year, came Daniel Boone from the Yadkin, in North
+Carolina, and travelled with them as low as the place where Abingdon now
+stands, and there left them."
+
+This is the first time the advent of Daniel Boone to the western wilds
+has been mentioned by historians or by the several biographers of that
+distinguished pioneer and hunter. There is reason however to believe
+that he hunted upon Watauga some time earlier than this.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+_Daniel Boone, his Parentage, and early Adventures._
+
+Trials of the Colonists.--George Boone and his home.--Squire Boone.--Birth
+and character of Daniel Boone.--His limited education.--A pioneer's
+camp.--A log house and furnishings.--Annoyance of Boone on the arrival of
+Scotch emigrants.--His longings for adventure.--Camp meetings.--Frontier
+life.--Sports.--Squirrel hunting.--Snuffing the candle.
+
+
+It was but a narrow fringe upon the sea coast of North America, which
+was thus far occupied by the European emigrants. Even this edge of the
+continent was so vast in its extent, from the southern capes of Florida
+to the gulf of St. Lawrence, that these colonial settlements were far
+separated from each other. They constituted but little dots in the
+interminable forest: the surges of the Atlantic beating upon their
+eastern shores, and the majestic wilderness sweeping in its sublime
+solitude behind them on the west. Here the painted Indians pursued their
+game, while watching anxiously the encroachments of the pale faces. The
+cry of the panther, the growling of the bear, and the howling of the
+wolf, were music to the settlers compared with the war-hoop of the
+savage, which often startled the inmates of the lonely cabins, and
+consigned them to that sleep from which there is no earthly waking. The
+Indians were generally hostile, and being untutored savages, they were
+as merciless as demons in their revenge. The mind recoils from the
+contemplation of the tortures to which they often exposed their
+captives. And one cannot but wonder that the Almighty Father could have
+allowed such agony to be inflicted upon any of His creatures.
+
+Notwithstanding the general desire of the colonial authorities to treat
+the Indians with justice and kindness, there were unprincipled
+adventurers crowding all the colonies, whose wickedness no laws could
+restrain. They robbed the Indians, insulted their families, and
+inflicted upon them outrages which goaded the poor savages to
+desperation. In their unintelligent vengeance they could make no
+distinction between the innocent and the guilty.
+
+On the 10th of October, 1717, a vessel containing a number of emigrants
+arrived at Philadelphia, a small but flourishing settlement upon the
+banks of the Delaware. Among the passengers there was a man named George
+Boone, with his wife and eleven children, nine sons and two daughters.
+He had come from Exeter, England, and was lured to the New World by the
+cheapness of land. He had sufficient property to enable him to furnish
+all his sons with ample farms in America. The Delaware, above
+Philadelphia, was at that time a silent stream, flowing sublimely
+through the almost unbroken forest. Here and there, a bold settler had
+felled the trees, and in the clearing had reared his log hut, upon the
+river banks. Occasionally the birch canoe of an Indian hunter was seen
+passing rapidly from cove to cove, and occasionally a little cluster of
+Indian wigwams graced some picturesque and sunny exposure, for the
+Indians manifested much taste in the location of their villages.
+
+George Boone ascended this solitary river about twenty miles above
+Philadelphia, where he purchased upon its banks an extensive territory,
+consisting of several hundred acres. It was near the present city of
+Bristol, in what is now called Buck's County. To this tract,
+sufficiently large for a township, he gave the name of Exeter, in memory
+of the home he had left in England. Here, aided by the strong arms of
+his boys, he reared a commodious log cabin. It must have been an
+attractive and a happy home. The climate was delightful, the soil
+fertile, supplying him, with but little culture, with an ample supply of
+corn, and the most nutritious vegetables. Before his door rolled the
+broad expanse of the Delaware, abounding with fish of delicious flavor.
+His boys with hook and line could at any time, in a few moments, supply
+the table with a nice repast. With the unerring rifle, they could
+always procure game in great variety and abundance.
+
+The Indians, won by the humanity of William Penn, were friendly, and
+their occasional visits to the cabin contributed to the enjoyment of its
+inmates. On the whole a more favored lot in life could not well be
+imagined. There was unquestionably far more happiness in this log cabin
+of the settler, on the silent waters of the Delaware, than could be
+found in any of the castles or palaces of England, France, or Spain.
+
+George Boone had one son on whom he conferred the singular name of
+Squire. His son married a young woman in the neighborhood by the name of
+Sarah Morgan, and surrounded by his brothers and sisters, he raised his
+humble home in the beautiful township which his father had purchased.
+Before leaving England the family, religiously inclined, had accepted
+the Episcopal form of Christian worship. But in the New World, far
+removed from the institutions of the Gospel, and allured by the noble
+character and influence of William Penn, they enrolled themselves in the
+Society of Friends. In the record of the monthly meetings of this
+society, we find it stated that George Boone was received to its
+communion on the thirty-first day of tenth month, in the year 1717. It
+is also recorded that his son Squire Boone was married to Sarah Morgan,
+on the twenty-third day of seventh month, 1720. The records of the
+meetings also show the number of their children, and the periods of
+their birth.
+
+By this it appears that their son Daniel, the subject of this memoir,
+was born on the twenty-second day of eighth month, 1734. It seems that
+Squire Boone became involved in difficulties with the Society of
+Friends, for allowing one of his sons to marry out of meeting. He was
+therefore disowned, and perhaps on this account, he subsequently removed
+his residence to North Carolina, as we shall hereafter show. His son
+Daniel, from earliest childhood, developed a peculiar and remarkably
+interesting character. He was silent, thoughtful, of pensive
+temperament, yet far from gloomy, never elated, never depressed. He
+exhibited from his earliest years such an insensibility to danger, as to
+attract the attention of all who knew him. Though affectionate and
+genial in disposition, never morose or moody, he still loved solitude,
+and seemed never so happy as when entirely alone. His father remained in
+his home upon the Delaware until Daniel was about ten years of age.
+
+Various stories are related of his adventures in these his early years,
+which may or may not be entirely authentic. It makes but little
+difference. These anecdotes if only founded on facts, show at least the
+estimation in which he was regarded, and the impression which his
+character produced in these days of childhood. Before he was ten years
+old he would take his rifle and plunge boldly into the depths of the
+illimitable forest. He seemed, by instinct, possessed of the skill of
+the most experienced hunter, so that he never became bewildered, or in
+danger of being lost. There were panthers, bears and wolves in those
+forests, but of them he seemed not to have the slightest fear. His skill
+as a marksman became quite unerring. Not only raccoons, squirrels,
+partridges and other such small game were the result of his hunting
+expeditions, but occasionally even the fierce panther fell before his
+rifle ball. From such frequent expeditions he would return silent and
+tranquil, with never a word of boasting in view of exploits of which a
+veteran hunter might be proud.
+
+Indeed his love of solitude was so great, that he reared for himself a
+little cabin in the wilderness, three miles back from the settlement.
+Here he would go all alone without even a dog for companion, his trusty
+rifle his only protection. At his camp-fire, on the point of his ramrod,
+he would cook the game which he obtained in abundance, and upon his bed
+of leaves would sleep in sweetest enjoyment, lulled by the wind through
+the tree-tops, and by the cry of the night bird and of the wild beasts
+roaming around. In subsequent life, he occasionally spoke of these hours
+as seasons of unspeakable joy.
+
+The education of young Boone was necessarily very defective. There were
+no schools then established in those remote districts of log cabins. But
+it so happened that an Irishman of some little education strolled into
+that neighborhood, and Squire Boone engaged him to teach, for a few
+months, his children and those of some others of the adjacent settlers.
+These hardy emigrants met with their axes in a central point in the
+wilderness, and in a few hours constructed a rude hut of logs for a
+school-house. Here young Boone was taught to read, and perhaps to write.
+This was about all the education he ever received. Probably the
+confinement of the school-room was to him unendurable. The forest was
+his congenial home, hunting the business of his life.
+
+Though thus uninstructed in the learning of books, there were other
+parts of practical education, of infinitely more importance to him, in
+which he became an adept. His native strength of mind, keen habits of
+observation, and imperturbable tranquility under whatever perils or
+reverses, gave him skill in the life upon which he was to enter, which
+the teachings of books alone could not confer. No marksman could surpass
+him in the dexterity with which with his bullet he would strike the head
+of a nail, at the distance of many yards. No Indian hunter or warrior
+could with more sagacity trace his steps through the pathless forest,
+detect the footsteps of a retreating foe, or search out the hiding place
+of the panther or the bear. In these hunting excursions the youthful
+frame of Daniel became inured to privation, hardship, endurance. Taught
+to rely upon his own resources, he knew not what it was to be lonely,
+for an hour. In the darkest night and in the remotest wilderness, when
+the storm raged most fiercely, although but a child he felt peaceful,
+happy, and entirely at home.
+
+About the year 1748 (the date is somewhat uncertain), Squire Boone, with
+his family, emigrated seven hundred miles farther south and west to a
+place called Holman's Ford on the Yadkin river, in North Carolina. The
+Yadkin is a small stream in the north-west part of the State. A hundred
+years ago this was indeed a howling wilderness. It is difficult to
+imagine what could have induced the father of a family to abandon the
+comparatively safe and prosperous settlements on the banks of the
+Delaware, to plunge into the wilderness of these pathless solitudes,
+several hundred miles from the Atlantic coast. Daniel was then about
+sixteen years of age.
+
+Of the incidents of their long journey through the wood--on foot, with
+possibly a few pack horses, for there were no wagon-roads whatever--we
+have no record. The journey must probably have occupied several weeks,
+occasionally cheered by sunshine, and again drenched by storms. There
+were nine children in the family. At the close of the weary pilgrimage
+of a day, through such narrow trails as that which the Indian or the
+buffalo had made through the forest, or over the prairies, they were
+compelled to build a cabin at night, with logs and the bark of trees to
+shelter them from the wind and rain, and at the camp-fire to cook the
+game which they had shot during the day. We can imagine that this
+journey must have been a season of unspeakable delight to Daniel Boone.
+Alike at home with the rifle and the hatchet, never for a moment
+bewildered, or losing his self-possession, he could, even unaided, at
+any hour, rear a sheltering hut for his mother and his sisters, before
+which the camp-fire would blaze cheerily, and their hunger would be
+appeased by the choicest viands from the game which his rifle had
+procured.
+
+The spirit of adventure is so strong in most human hearts which
+luxurious indulgence has not enervated, that it is not improbable that
+this family enjoyed far more in this romantic excursion through an
+unexplored wilderness, than those now enjoy who in a few hours traverse
+the same distance in the smooth rolling rail-cars. Indeed fancy can
+paint many scenes of picturesque beauty which we know that the reality
+must have surpassed.
+
+It is the close of a lovely day. A gentle breeze sweeps through the
+tree-tops from the north-west. The trail through the day has led along
+the banks of a crystal mountain stream, sparkling with trout. The path
+is smooth for the moccasined feet. The limbs, inured to action,
+experienced no weariness. The axes of the father and the sons speedily
+construct a camp, open to the south and perfectly sheltered on the roof
+and on the sides by the bark of trees. The busy fingers of the daughters
+have in the meantime spread over the floor a soft and fragrant carpet of
+evergreen twigs. The mother is preparing supper, of trout from the
+stream, and the fattest of wild turkeys or partridges, or tender cuts of
+venison, which the rifles of her husband or sons have procured.
+Voracious appetites render the repast far more palatable than the
+choicest viands which were ever spread in the banqueting halls of
+Versailles or Windsor. Water-fowl of gorgeous plumage sport in the
+stream, unintimidated by the approach of man. The plaintive songs of
+forest-birds float in the evening air. On the opposite side of the
+stream, herds of deer and buffalo crop the rich herbage of the prairie,
+which extends far away, till it is lost in the horizon of the south.
+Daniel retires from the converse of the cabin to an adjoining eminence,
+where silently and rapturously he gazes upon the scene of loveliness
+spread out before him.
+
+Such incidents must often have occurred. Even in the dark and
+tempestuous night, with the storm surging through the tree tops, and the
+rain descending in floods, in their sheltered camp, illumined by the
+flames of their night fire, souls capable of appreciating the sublimity
+of such scenes must have experienced exquisite delight. It is pleasant
+to reflect, that the poor man in his humble cabin may often be the
+recipient of much more happiness than the lord finds in his castle, or
+the king in his palace.
+
+No details are given respecting the arrival of this family on the banks
+of the Yadkin, or of their habits of life while there. We simply know
+that they were far away in the untrodden wilderness, in the remotest
+frontiers of civilization. Bands of Indians were roving around them, but
+even if hostile, so long as they had only bows and arrows, the settler
+in his log-hut, which was a fortress, and with his death-dealing rifle,
+was comparatively safe.
+
+Here the family dwelt for several years, probably in the enjoyment of
+abundance, and with ever-increasing comforts. The virgin soil, even
+poorly tilled, furnished them with the corn and the vegetables they
+required, while the forests supplied the table with game. Thus the
+family, occupying the double position of the farmer and the hunter,
+lived in the enjoyment of all the luxuries which both of those callings
+could afford. Here Daniel Boone grew up to manhood. His love of solitude
+and of nature led him on long hunting excursions, from which he often
+returned laden with furs. The silence of the wilderness he brought back
+with him to his home. And though his placid features ever bore a smile,
+he had but few words to interchange with neighbors or friends. He was a
+man of affectionate, but not of passionate nature. It would seem that
+other emigrants were lured to the banks of the Yadkin, for here, after a
+few years, young Boone fell in love with the daughter of his father's
+neighbor, and that daughter, Rebecca Bryan, became his bride. He thus
+left his father's home, and, with his axe, speedily erected for himself
+and wife a cabin, we may presume at some distance from sight or sound of
+any other house. There "from noise and tumult far," Daniel Boone
+established himself in the life of solitude, to which he was accustomed
+and which he enjoyed. It appears that his marriage took place about the
+year 1755. The tide of emigration was still flowing in an uninterrupted
+stream towards the west. The population was increasing throughout this
+remote region, and the axe of the settler began to be heard on the
+streams tributary to the Yadkin.
+
+Daniel Boone became restless. He loved the wilderness and its solitude,
+and was annoyed by the approach of human habitations, bringing to him
+customs with which he was unacquainted, and exposing him to
+embarrassments from which he would gladly escape. The mode of life
+practiced by those early settlers in the wilderness is well known. The
+log-house usually consisted of but one room, with a fire-place of stones
+at the end. These houses were often very warm and comfortable,
+presenting in the interior, with a bright fire blazing on the hearth, a
+very cheerful aspect. Their construction was usually as follows:
+Straight, smooth logs about a foot in diameter, cut of the proper
+length, and so notched at the ends as to be held very firmly together,
+were thus placed one above the other to the height of about ten feet.
+The interstices were filled with clay, which soon hardened, rendering
+the walls comparatively smooth, and alike impervious to wind or rain.
+Other logs of straight fiber were split into clap-boards, one or two
+inches in thickness, with which they covered the roof. If suitable wood
+for this purpose could not be found, the bark of trees was used, with an
+occasional thatching of the long grass of the prairies. Logs about
+eighteen inches in diameter were selected for the floor. These were
+easily split in halves, and with the convex side buried in the earth,
+and the smooth surface uppermost joined closely together by a slight
+trimming with axe or adze, presented a very firm and even attractive
+surface for the feet.
+
+In the centre of the room, four augur holes were bored in the logs,
+about three inches in diameter. Stakes were driven firmly into these
+holes, upon which were placed two pieces of timber, with the upper
+surfaces hewn smooth, thus constructing a table. In one corner of the
+cabin, four stakes were driven in a similar way, about eighteen inches
+high, with forked tops. Upon these two saplings were laid with smooth
+pieces of bark stretched across. These were covered with grass or dried
+leaves, upon which was placed, with the fur upwards, the well-tanned
+skin of the buffalo or the bear. Thus quite a luxurious bed was
+constructed, upon which there was often enjoyed as sweet sleep as
+perhaps is ever found on beds of down. In another corner, some rude
+shelves were placed, upon which appeared a few articles of tin and
+ironware. Upon some buck horns over the door was always placed the
+rifle, ever loaded and ready for use.
+
+A very intelligent emigrant, Dr. Doddridge, gives the following graphic
+account of his experience in such a log-cabin as we have described, in
+the remote wilderness. When he was but a child, his father, with a small
+family, had penetrated these trackless wilds, and in the midst of their
+sublime solitudes had reared his lonely cabin. He writes:
+
+"My father's family was small and he took us all with him. The Indian
+meal which he brought was expended six weeks too soon, so that for that
+length of time we had to live without bread. The lean venison and the
+breast of wild turkeys, we were taught to call bread. I remember how
+narrowly we children watched the growth of the potato tops, pumpkin, and
+squash vines, hoping from day to day to get something to answer in the
+place of bread. How delicious was the taste of the young potatoes, when
+we got them! What a jubilee when we were permitted to pull the young
+corn for roasting ears! Still more so when it had acquired sufficient
+hardness to be made into johnny cake by the aid of a tin grater. The
+furniture of the table consisted of a few pewter dishes, plates and
+spoons, but mostly of wooden bowls and trenchers and noggins. If these
+last were scarce, gourds and hard shell squashes made up the deficiency.
+
+"I well remember the first time I ever saw a tea cup and saucer. My
+mother died when I was six or seven years of age. My father then sent me
+to Maryland to go to school. At Bedford, the tavern at which my uncle
+put up was a stone house, and to make the changes still more complete,
+it was plastered on the inside both as to the walls and ceiling. On
+going into the dining-room, I was struck with astonishment at the
+appearance of the house. I had no idea that there was any house in the
+world that was not built of logs. But here I looked around and could
+see no logs, and above I could see no joists. Whether such a thing had
+been made by the hands of man, or had grown so of itself, I could not
+conjecture. I had not the courage to inquire anything about it. When
+supper came on, my confusion was worse confounded: A little cup stood in
+a bigger one with some brownish-looking stuff in it, which was neither
+milk, hominy, nor broth. What to do with these little cups, and the
+spoons belonging to them, I could not tell. But I was afraid to ask
+anything concerning the use of them."
+
+Daniel Boone could see from the door of his cabin, far away in the west,
+the majestic ridge of the Alleghany mountains, many of the peaks rising
+six thousand feet into the clouds. This almost impassable wall, which
+nature had reared, extended for hundreds of leagues, along the Atlantic
+coast, parallel with that coast, and at an average distance of one
+hundred and thirty miles from the ocean. It divides the waters which
+flow into the Atlantic, from those which run into the Mississippi. The
+great chain consists of many spurs, from fifty to two hundred miles in
+breadth, and receives in different localities, different names, such as
+the Cumberland mountains, the Blue Ridge, etc.
+
+But few white men had ever as yet ascended these summits, to cast a
+glance at the vast wilderness beyond. The wildest stories were told
+around the cabin fires, of these unexplored realms,--of the Indian
+tribes wandering there; of the forests filled with game; of the rivers
+alive with fishes; of the fertile plains, the floral beauty, the
+abounding fruit, and the almost celestial clime. These stories were
+brought to the settlers in the broken language of the Indians, and in
+the exaggerated tales of hunters, who professed that in the chase they
+had, from some Pisgah's summit, gazed upon the splendors of this Canaan
+of the New World.
+
+Thus far, the settlers had rested contented with the sea-board region
+east of the Alleghanies. They had made no attempt to climb the summits
+of this great barrier, or to penetrate its gloomy defiles. A dense
+forest covered alike the mountain cliff and the rocky gorge. Indeed
+there were but few points at which even the foot of the hunter could
+pass this chain.
+
+While Daniel Boone was residing in the congenial solitude of his hut, on
+the banks of the Yadkin; with the grandeur of the wilderness around him
+in which his soul delighted; with his table luxuriously spread according
+to his tastes--with venison, bear's meat, fat turkeys, chickens from the
+prairie, and vegetables from his garden; with comfortable clothing of
+deerskin, and such cloths as pedlars occasionally brought to his cabin
+door in exchange for furs, he was quite annoyed by the arrival of a
+number of Scotch families in his region, bringing with them customs and
+fashions which to Daniel Boone were very annoying. They began to cut
+down the glorious old forest, to break up the green sward of the
+prairies, to rear more ambitious houses than the humble home of the
+pioneer; they assumed airs of superiority, introduced more artificial
+styles of living, and brought in the hitherto unknown vexation of taxes.
+
+One can easily imagine how restive such a man as Boone must have been
+under such innovations. The sheriff made his appearance in the lonely
+hut; the collection of the taxes was enforced by suits at law. Even
+Daniel Boone's title to his lands was called in question; some of the
+new comers claiming that their more legal grants lapped over upon the
+boundaries which Boone claimed. Under these circumstances our pioneer
+became very anxious to escape from these vexations by an emigration
+farther into the wilderness. Day after day he cast wistful glances upon
+the vast mountain barrier piercing the clouds in the distant horizon.
+Beyond that barrier, neither the sheriff nor the tax-gatherer were to be
+encountered. His soul, naturally incapable of fear, experienced no dread
+in apprehension of Indian hostilities, or the ferocity of wild beasts.
+Even the idea of the journey through these sublime solitudes of an
+unexplored region, was far more attractive to him than the tour of
+Europe to a sated millionaire.
+
+Two or three horses would convey upon their backs all their household
+goods. There were Indian trails and streets, so called, made by the
+buffaloes, as in large numbers they had followed each other, selecting
+by a wonderful instinct their path from one feeding ground to another,
+through cane-brakes, around morasses, and over mountains through the
+most accessible defiles. Along these trails or streets, Boone could take
+his peaceful route without any danger of mistaking his way. Every mile
+would be opening to him new scenes of grandeur and beauty. Should night
+come, or a storm set in, a few hours' labor with his axe would rear for
+him not only a comfortable, but a cheerful tent with its warm and
+sheltered interior, with the camp-fire crackling and blazing before it.
+His wife and his children not only afforded him all the society his
+peculiar nature craved, but each one was a helper, knowing exactly what
+to do in this picnic excursion through the wilderness. Wherever he might
+stop for the night or for a few days, his unerring rifle procured for
+him viands which might tempt the appetite of the epicure. There are many
+even in civilized life who will confess, that for them, such an
+excursion would present attractions such as are not to be found in the
+banqueting halls at Windsor Castle, or in the gorgeous saloons of
+Versailles.
+
+Daniel Boone, in imagination, was incessantly visiting the land beyond
+the mountains, and longing to explore its mysteries. Whether he would
+find the ocean there or an expanse of lakes and majestic rivers, or
+boundless prairies, or the unbroken forest, he knew not. Whether the
+region were crowded with Indians, and if so, whether they would be found
+friendly or hostile, and whether game roamed there in greater variety
+and in larger abundance than on the Atlantic side of the great barrier,
+were questions as yet all unsolved. But these questions Daniel Boone
+pondered in silence, night and day.
+
+A gentleman who nearly half a century ago visited one of these frontier
+dwellings, very romantically situated amidst the mountains of Western
+Virginia, has given us a pencil sketch of the habitation which we here
+introduce. The account of the visit is also so graphic that we cannot
+improve it by giving it in any language but his own. This settler had
+passed through the first and was entering upon the second stage of
+pioneer life:
+
+"Towards the close of an autumnal day, when traveling through the thinly
+settled region of Western Virginia, I came up with a substantial-looking
+farmer leaning on the fence by the road side. I accompanied him to his
+house to spend the night. It was a log dwelling, and near it stood
+another log structure, about twelve feet square,--the weaving shop of
+the family. On entering the dwelling I found the numerous household all
+clothed in substantial garments of their own manufacture. The floor was
+unadorned by a carpet and the room devoid of superfluous furniture; yet
+they had all that necessity required for their comfort. One needs but
+little experience like this to learn how few are our real wants,--how
+easily most luxuries of dress, furniture and equipage can be dispensed
+with.
+
+"Soon after my arrival supper was ready. It consisted of fowls, bacon,
+hoe-cake and buckwheat cakes. Our beverage was milk and coffee,
+sweetened with maple sugar. Soon as it grew dark my hostess took down a
+small candle mould for three candles, hanging from the wall on a
+frame-work just in front of the fire-place, in company with a rifle,
+long strings of dried pumpkins and other articles of household property.
+On retiring I was conducted to the room overhead, to which I ascended by
+stairs out of doors. My bed-fellow was the county sheriff, a young man
+of about my own age. And as we lay together a fine field was had for
+astronomical observations through the chinks of the logs.
+
+"The next morning, after rising, I was looking for the washing
+apparatus, when he tapped me on the shoulder, as a signal to accompany
+him to the brook in the rear of the house, in whose pure crystal waters
+we performed our morning ablutions. After breakfast, through the
+persuasion of the sheriff, I agreed to go across the country by his
+house. He was on horseback; I on foot bearing my knapsack. For six miles
+our route lay through a pathless forest; on emerging from which we soon
+passed through the 'Court House,' the only village in the county,
+consisting of about a dozen log-houses and the court building.
+
+"Soon after we came to a Methodist encampment. This was formed of three
+continuous lines, each occupying a side of a square and about one
+hundred feet in length. Each row was divided into six or ten cabins with
+partitions between. The height of the rows on the inner side of the
+enclosed area was about ten feet, on the outer about six, to which the
+roofs sloped shed-like. The door of each cabin opened on the inner side
+of the area, and at the back of each was a log chimney coming up even
+with the roof. At the upper extremity of the inclosure, formed by these
+three lines of cabins, was an open shed; a mere roof supported by posts,
+say thirty by fifty feet, in which was a coarse pulpit and log seats. A
+few tall trees were standing within the area, and many stumps scattered
+here and there. The whole establishment was in the depth of a forest,
+and wild and rude as can well be imagined.
+
+"In many of these sparsely-inhabited counties there are no settled
+clergy, and rarely do the people hear any other than the Methodist
+preachers. Here is the itinerating system of Wesley exhibited in its
+full usefulness. The circuits are usually of three weeks' duration, in
+which the clergymen preach daily. Most of these preachers are energetic,
+devoted men; and often they endure great privations.
+
+"After sketching the encampment I came in a few moments to the dwelling
+of the sheriff. Close by it was a group of mountain men and women seated
+around a log cabin, about twelve feet square, ten high, and open at the
+top, into which these neighbors of my companion were casting ears of
+corn as fast as they could shuck them. Cheerfully they performed their
+task. The men were large and hardy; the damsels plump and rosy, and all
+dressed in good warm homespun. The sheriff informed me that he owned
+about two thousand acres around his dwelling, and that his farm was
+worth about one thousand dollars or fifty cents an acre.
+
+"I entered his log domicile which was one story in height, about twenty
+feet square and divided into two small rooms without windows or places
+to let in the light except by a front and rear door. I soon partook of
+a meal in which we had a variety of luxuries, not omitting _bear's
+meat_. A blessing was asked at the table by one of the neighbors. After
+supper the bottle, as usual at corn huskings, was circulated. The
+sheriff learning that I was a Washingtonian, with the politeness of one
+of nature's gentlemen refrained from urging me to participate. The men
+drank but moderately; and we all drew around the fire, the light of
+which was the only one we had. Hunting stories and kindred topics served
+to talk down the hours till bed time.
+
+"On awaking in the morning, I saw two women cooking breakfast in my
+bedroom, and three men seated over the fire watching the operation.
+After breakfast, I bade my host farewell, buckled on my knapsack and
+left. In the course of two hours, I came to a cabin by the wayside.
+There being no gate, I sprang over the fence, entered the open door, and
+was received with a hearty welcome. It was an humble dwelling, the abode
+of poverty. The few articles of furniture were neat and pleasantly
+arranged. In the corner stood two beds, one hung with curtains, and both
+with coverlets of snowy white, contrasting with the dingy log walls,
+rude furniture, and rough boarded floor of this, the only room in the
+dwelling. Around a cheerful fire was seated an interesting family
+group. In one corner, on the hearth, sat the mother, smoking a pipe.
+Next to her was a little girl, in a small chair, holding a young kitten.
+In the opposite corner sat a venerable old man, of herculean stature,
+robed in a hunting shirt, and with a countenance as majestic and
+impressive as that of a Roman senator. In the centre of the group was a
+young maiden, modest and retiring, not beautiful, except in that moral
+beauty virtue gives. She was reading to them from a little book. She was
+the only one of the family who could read, and she could do so but
+imperfectly. In that small volume was the whole secret of the neatness
+and happiness found in this lonely cot. That little book was the New
+Testament."
+
+The institution of camp-meetings, introduced with so much success by the
+Methodists, those noble pioneers of Christianity, seem to have been the
+necessary result of the attempt to preach to the sparsely settled
+population of a new country. The following is said to be the origin of
+those camp-meetings which have done incalculable good, socially,
+intellectually, and religiously.
+
+In the year 1799, two men by the name of McGee, one a Presbyterian, the
+other a Methodist, set out on a missionary tour together, to visit the
+log-houses in the wilderness. A meeting was appointed at a little
+settlement upon one of the tributaries of the Ohio. The pioneers
+flocked to the place from many miles around. There was no church there,
+and the meeting was necessarily held in the open air. Many brought their
+food with them and camped out. Thus the meeting, with exhortation and
+prayer, was continued in the night. Immense bonfires blazed illuminating
+the sublimities of the forest, and the assembled congregation, cut off
+from all the ordinary privileges of civilized life, listened devoutly to
+the story of a Savior's love.
+
+This meeting was so successful in its results that another was appointed
+at a small settlement on the banks of a stream called Muddy river. The
+tidings spread rapidly through all the stations and farm houses on the
+frontier. It afforded these lonely settlers a delightful opportunity of
+meeting together. They could listen for hours with unabated interest to
+the religious exercises. The people assembled from a distance of forty
+or fifty miles around. A vast concourse had met beneath the foliage of
+the trees, the skies alone, draped with clouds by day and adorned with
+stars by night, the dome of their majestic temple.
+
+The scene, by night, must have been picturesque in the extreme. Men,
+women and children were there in homespun garb; and being accustomed to
+camp life, they were there in comfort. Strangers met and became friends.
+Many wives and mothers obtained rest and refreshment from their
+monotonous toils. There is a bond in Christ's discipleship, stronger
+than any other, and Christians grasped hands in love, pledging
+themselves anew to a holy life. For several days and nights, this
+religious festival was continued. Time could not have been better spent.
+Dwellers in the forest could not afford to take so long a journey merely
+to listen to one half-hour's discourse. These men and women were earnest
+and thoughtful. In the solitude of their homes, they had reflected
+deeply upon life and its issues. When death occasionally visited their
+cabins, it was a far more awful event than when death occurs in the
+crowded city, where the hearse is every hour of every day passing
+through the streets.
+
+These scenes of worship very deeply impressed the minds of the people.
+They were not Gospel hardened. The gloom and silence of the forest,
+alike still by night and by day; the memory of the past, with its few
+joys and many griefs; the anticipations of the future, with its
+unceasing struggles, to terminate only in death; the solemnity which
+rested on every countenance; the sweet melody of the hymns; the earnest
+tones of the preachers in exhortation and prayer, all combined to
+present a scene calculated to produce a very profound impression upon
+the human mind. At this meeting, not only professed Christians were
+greatly revived, but not less than a hundred persons, it was thought,
+became disciples of the Savior.
+
+Another camp-meeting was soon after appointed to meet on Desha's Creek,
+a small stream flowing into the Cumberland river. The country was now
+becoming more populous, and several thousand were assembled. And thus
+the work went on, multitudes being thus reached by the preached Gospel
+who could not be reached in any other way.[A]
+
+ [Footnote A: Bang's History of Methodism.]
+
+Life on the frontier was by no means devoid of its enjoyments as well as
+of its intense excitements. It must have been also an exceedingly busy
+life. There were no mills for cutting timber or grinding corn; no
+blacksmith shops to repair the farming utensils. There were no
+tanneries, no carpenters, shoemakers, weavers. Every family had to do
+everything for itself. The corn was pounded with a heavy pestle in a
+large mortar made by burning an excavation in a solid block of wood. By
+means of these mortars the settlers, in regions where saltpetre could be
+obtained, made very respectable gunpowder. In making corn-meal a grater
+was sometimes used, consisting of a half-circular piece of tin,
+perforated with a punch from the concave side. The ears of corn were
+rubbed on the rough edges, and the meal fell through the holes on a
+board or cloth placed to receive it. They also sometimes made use of a
+handmill, resembling those alluded to in the Bible. These consisted of
+two circular stones; the lowest, which was immovable, was called the
+bed-stone,--the upper one, the runner. Two persons could grind together
+at this mill.
+
+The clothing was all of domestic manufacture. A fabric called
+linsey-woolsey was most frequently in use and made the most substantial
+and warmest clothing. It was made of flax and wool, the former the warp,
+the latter the filling. Every cabin almost had its rude loom, and every
+woman was a weaver.
+
+The men tanned their own leather. A large trough was sunk in the ground
+to its upper edge. Bark was shaved with an axe and pounded with a
+mallet. Ashes were used for lime in removing the hair. In the winter
+evenings the men made strong shoes and moccasins, and the women cut out
+and made hunting shirts, leggins and drawers.
+
+Hunting was a great source of amusement as well as a very exciting and
+profitable employment. The boys were all taught to imitate the call of
+every bird and beast in the woods. The skill in imitation which they
+thus acquired was wonderful. Hidden in a thicket they would gobble like
+a turkey and lure a whole flock of these birds within reach of their
+rifles. Bleating like the fawn they would draw the timid dam to her
+death. The moping owls would come in flocks attracted by the screech of
+the hunter, while packs of wolves, far away in the forest, would howl in
+response to the hunter's cry. The boys also rivalled the Indians in the
+skill with which they would throw the tomahawk. With a handle of a given
+length, and measuring the distance with the eye, they would throw the
+weapon with such accuracy that its keen edge would be sure to strike the
+object at which it was aimed. Running, jumping, wrestling were pastimes
+in which both boys and men engaged. Shooting at a mark was one of the
+most favorite diversions. When a boy had attained the age of about
+twelve years, a rifle was usually placed in his hands. In the house or
+fort where he resided, a port-hole was assigned him, where he was to do
+valiant service as a soldier, in case of an attack by the Indians. Every
+day he was in the woods hunting squirrels, turkeys and raccoons. Thus he
+soon acquired extraordinary expertness with his gun.
+
+The following interesting narrative is taken from Ramsay's Annals of
+Tennessee, which State was settled about the same time with Kentucky and
+with emigrants from about the same region:
+
+"The settlement of Tennessee was unlike that of the present new country
+of the United States. Emigrants from the Atlantic cities, and from most
+points in the Western interior, now embark upon steamboats or other
+craft, and carrying with them all the conveniences and comforts of
+civilized life--indeed many of its luxuries--are, in a few days, without
+toil, danger or exposure, transported to their new abodes, and in a few
+months are surrounded with the appendages of home, of civilization and
+the blessings of law and of society.
+
+"The wilds of Minnesota and Nebraska, by the agency of steam or the
+stalwart arms of Western boatmen, are at once transformed into the
+settlements of a commercial and civilized people. Independence and Saint
+Paul, six months after they are laid off, have their stores and their
+workshops, their artisans and their mechanics. The mantua-maker and the
+tailor arrive in the same boat with the carpenter and mason. The
+professional man and the printer quickly follow. In the succeeding year
+the piano, the drawing-room, the restaurant, the billiard table, the
+church bell, the village and the city in miniature are all found, while
+the neighboring interior is yet a wilderness and a desert.
+
+"The town and comfort, taste and urbanity are first; the clearing, the
+farm house, the wagon road and the improved country, second. It was far
+different on the frontier of Tennessee. At first a single Indian trail
+was the only entrance to the Eastern border of it, and for many years
+admitted only the hunter and the pack-horse. It was not till the year
+1776 that a wagon was seen in Tennessee. In consequence of the want of
+roads--as well as of the great distance from the sources of supply--the
+first inhabitants were without tools, and of course without
+mechanics--much more without the conveniences of living and the comforts
+of housekeeping.
+
+"Luxuries were absolutely unknown. Salt was brought on pack-horses from
+Augusta and Richmond and readily commanded ten dollars a bushel. The
+salt gourd in every cabin was considered as a treasure. The sugar maple
+furnished the only article of luxury on the frontier; coffee and tea
+being unknown or beyond the reach of the settlers. Sugar was seldom made
+and was used only for the sick, or in the preparation of a sweetened
+dram at a wedding, or on the arrival of a new comer.
+
+"The appendages of the kitchen, the cupboard and the table, were scanty
+and simple. Iron was brought at great expense from the forges east of
+the mountains, on pack-horses, and was sold at an enormous price. Its
+use was, for this reason, confined to the construction and repair of
+ploughs and other farming utensils. Hinges, nails and fastenings of that
+material were seldom seen. The costume of the first settlers
+corresponded well with the style of their buildings and the quality of
+their furniture: the hunting shirt of the militia man and the hunter was
+in general use. The rest of their apparel was in keeping with
+it,--plain, substantial and well adapted for comfort, use and economy.
+The apparel of the pioneer's family was all home-made; and in a whole
+neighborhood there would not be seen, at the first settlement of the
+country, a single article of dress of foreign manufacture. Half the
+year, in many families, shoes were not worn. Boots, a fur hat and a
+coat, with buttons on each side, attracted the gaze of the beholder and
+sometimes received censure or rebuke. A stranger from the old States
+chose to doff his ruffles, his broad-cloth and his cue rather than
+endure the scoff and ridicule of the backwoodsman.
+
+"The dwelling house on every frontier in Tennessee was the log-cabin. A
+carpenter and a mason were not needed to build them--much less the
+painter, the glazier and the upholsterer. Every settler had, besides his
+rifle, no other instrument but an axe or hatchet and a butcher-knife. A
+saw, an auger, a file and a broad-axe would supply a whole settlement,
+and were used as common property in the erection of the log-cabin.
+
+"The labor and employment of a pioneer family were distributed in
+accordance with surrounding circumstances. To the men was assigned the
+duty of procuring subsistence and materials for clothing, erecting the
+cabin and the station, opening and cultivating the farm, hunting the
+wild beasts, and repelling and pursueing the Indians. The women spun the
+flax, the cotton and the wool, wove the cloth, made them up, milked,
+churned and prepared the food, and did their full share of the duties of
+housekeeping.
+
+"Could there be happiness or comfort in such dwellings and such a state
+of society? To those who are accustomed to modern refinements the truth
+appears like fable. The early occupants of log-cabins were among the
+most happy of mankind. Exercise and excitement gave them health. They
+were practically equal, common danger made them mutually dependent.
+Brilliant hopes of future wealth and distinction led them on. And as
+there was ample room for all, and as each new comer increased individual
+and general security, there was little room for that envy, jealousy and
+hatred which constitute a large portion of human misery in older
+societies.
+
+"Never were the story, the joke, the song and the laugh better enjoyed
+than upon the hewed blocks or puncheon stools, around the roaring log
+fire of the early western settler.
+
+"On the frontier the diet was necessarily plain and homely, but
+exceedingly abundant and nutritive. The Goshen of America furnishes the
+richest milk and the most savory and delicious meats. In their rude
+cabins, with their scanty and inartificial furniture, no people ever
+enjoyed, in wholesome food a greater variety, or a superior quality of
+the necessaries of life."
+
+A writer of that day describes the sports of these pioneers of Kentucky.
+One of them consisted in "driving the nail." A common nail was hammered
+into a target for about two thirds of its length. The marksmen then took
+their stand at the distance of about forty paces. Each man carefully
+cleaned the interior of his gun, and then placed a bullet in his hand,
+over which he poured just enough powder to cover it. This was a charge.
+A shot which only came close to the nail was considered a very
+indifferent shot. Nothing was deemed satisfactory but striking the nail
+with the bullet fairly on the head. Generally one out of three shots
+would hit the nail. Two nails were frequently needed before each man
+could get a shot.
+
+_Barking of Squirrels_ is another sport. "I first witnessed," writes the
+one to whom we have above alluded, "this manner of procuring squirrels,
+while near the town of Frankfort. The performer was the celebrated
+Daniel Boone. We walked out together and followed the rocky margins of
+the Kentucky river, until we reached a piece of flat land, thickly
+covered with black walnuts, oaks, and hickories. Squirrels were seen
+gambolling on every tree around us. My companion Mr. Boone, a stout,
+hale, athletic man, dressed in a homespun hunting shirt, bare legged and
+moccasined, carried a long and heavy rifle, which, as he was loading it,
+he said had proved efficient in all his former undertakings, and which
+he hoped would not fail on this occasion, as he felt proud to show me
+his skill.
+
+"The gun was wiped, the powder measured, the ball patched with six
+hundred thread linen, and a charge sent home with a hickory rod. We
+moved not a step from the place, for the squirrels were so thick, that
+it was unnecessary to go after them. Boone pointed to one of these
+animals, which had observed us and was crouched on a tree, about fifty
+paces distant, and bade me mark well where the ball should hit. He
+raised his piece gradually, until the head, or sight of the barrel, was
+brought to a line with the spot he intended to strike. The whip-like
+report resounded through the woods, and along the hills, in repeated
+echoes. Judge of my surprise, when I perceived that the ball had hit the
+piece of bark immediately underneath the squirrel, and shivered it into
+splinters; the concussion produced by which had killed the animal, and
+sent it whirling through the air, as if it had been blown up by the
+explosion of a powder magazine, Boone kept up his firing, and before
+many hours had elapsed, we had procured as many squirrels as we wished.
+Since that first interview with the veteran Boone, I have seen many
+other individuals perform the same feat.
+
+"The _Snuffing of a Candle_ with a ball, I first had an opportunity of
+seeing near the banks of Green River, not far from a large pigeon roost,
+to which I had previously made a visit. I had heard many reports of guns
+during the early part of a dark night, and knowing them to be rifles, I
+went towards the spot to ascertain the cause. On reaching the place, I
+was welcomed by a dozen tall, stout men, who told me they were
+exercising for the purpose of enabling them to shoot in the night at the
+reflected light from the eyes of a deer, or wolf, by torch-light.
+
+"A fire was blazing near, the smoke of which rose curling among the
+thick foliage of the trees. At a distance which rendered it scarcely
+distinguishable, stood a burning candle, which in reality was only fifty
+yards from the spot on which we all stood. One man was within a few
+yards of it to watch the effect of the shots, as well as to light the
+candle, should it chance to go out, or to replace it should the shot cut
+it across. Each marksman shot in his turn. Some never hit neither the
+snuff or the candle, and were congratulated with a loud laugh; while
+others actually snuffed the candle without putting it out, and were
+recompensed for their dexterity with numerous hurrahs. One of them, who
+was particularly expert, was very fortunate and snuffed the candle three
+times out of seven; while all the other shots either put out the candle
+or cut it immediately under the light."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+_Louisiana, its Discovery and Vicissitudes._
+
+Louisiana, and its eventful history.--The Expedition of De Soto.--The
+Missionary Marquette.--His voyage on the Upper Mississippi.--The Expedition
+of La Salle.--Michilimackinac.--Its History.--Fate of the "Griffin."--Grief
+of La Salle.--His voyage of Discovery.--Sale of Louisiana to the United
+States.--Remarks of Napoleon.
+
+
+The transfer of Louisiana to the United States is one of the most
+interesting events in the history of our country. In the year 1800,
+Spain, then in possession of the vast region west of the Mississippi,
+ceded it to France. The whole country west of the majestic river
+appropriately called the Father of Waters, was then called Louisiana,
+and its boundaries were very obscurely defined. Indeed neither the
+missionary nor the hunter had penetrated but a very short distance into
+those unknown wilds. It was in the year 1541 that De Soto, marching from
+Florida across the country, came to the banks of this magnificent river,
+near the present site of Memphis. He knew not where it took its rise, or
+where it emptied its swollen flood. But he found a stream more than a
+mile in width, of almost fathomless depth, rolling its rapid, turbid
+stream, on which were floated innumerable logs and trees, through an
+almost uninhabited country of wonderful luxuriance. He was in search of
+gold, and crossing the river, advanced in a north-westerly direction
+about two hundred miles, till he came within sight of the Highlands of
+the White River. He then turned in a southerly direction, and continued
+his explorations, till death soon terminated his melancholy career.
+
+More than one hundred and thirty years passed over these solitudes, when
+James Marquette, a French missionary among the Indians at Saint Marys,
+the outlet of Lake Superior, resolved to explore the Mississippi, of
+whose magnificence he had heard much from the lips of the Indians, who
+had occasionally extended their hunting tours to its banks. He was
+inured to all the hardships of the wilderness, seemed to despise worldly
+comforts, and had a soul of bravery which could apparently set all
+perils at defiance. And still he was indued with a poetic nature, which
+reveled in the charms of these wild and romantic realms, as he climbed
+its mountains and floated in his canoe over its silent and placid
+streams. Even then it was not known whether the Mississippi emptied its
+majestic flood into the Pacific Ocean or into the Gulf of Mexico. The
+foot of the white man upon the shores of Lake Superior, had never
+penetrated beyond the Indian village, where the Fox River enters into
+Green Bay. From this point Marquette started for the exploration of the
+Mississippi. The party consisted of Mr. Marquette, a French gentleman by
+the name of Joliete, five French voyageurs and two Indian guides. They
+transported their two birch canoes on their shoulders across the portage
+from the Fox River to the Wisconsin river. Paddling rapidly down this
+stream through realms of silence and solitude, they soon entered the
+majestic Mississippi, more than fifteen hundred miles above its mouth.
+
+Marquette seems to have experienced in the highest degree the romance of
+his wonderful voyage, for he says that he commenced the descent of the
+mighty river with "a joy that could not be expressed." It was the
+beautiful month of June, 1673, the most genial season of the year. The
+skies were bright above them. The placid stream was fringed with banks
+of wonderful luxuriance and beauty, the rocky cliffs at times assuming
+the aspect of majestic castles of every variety of architecture; again
+the gently swelling hills were robed in sublime forests, and again the
+smooth meadows, in their verdure, spread far away to the horizon.
+Rapidly the canoes, gently guided by the paddles, floated down the
+stream.
+
+Having descended the river about one hundred and eighty miles, they came
+to a very well trod Indian trail leading back from the river into the
+interior. Marquette and Joliete had the curiosity and the courage to
+follow this trail for six miles, until they came to an Indian village.
+It would seem that some of the Indians there, in their hunting
+excursions, had wandered to some of the French settlements; for four of
+their leading men, dressed in the most gorgeous display of barbaric
+pomp, "brilliant with many colored plumes," came out to meet them and
+conducted them to the cabin of their chief. He addressed them in the
+following words:
+
+"How beautiful is the sun, Frenchman, when thou comest to visit us. Our
+whole village welcomes thee. In peace thou shalt enter all our
+dwellings."
+
+After a very pleasant visit they returned to their boats and resumed
+their voyage. They floated by the mouth of the turbid Missouri, little
+dreaming of the grandeur of the realms watered by that imperial stream
+and its tributaries. They passed the mouth of the Ohio, which they
+recognized as the _Belle Riviere_, which the Indians then called the
+Wabash. As they floated rapidly away towards the south they visited many
+Indian villages on the banks of the stream, where the devoted
+missionary, Marquette, endeavored to proclaim the gospel of Christ.
+
+"I did not," says Marquette, "fear death. I should have esteemed it the
+greatest happiness to have died for the glory of God."
+
+Thus they continued their exploration as far south as the mouth of the
+Arkansas river, where they were hospitably received in a very
+flourishing Indian village. Being now satisfied that the Mississippi
+river entered the Gulf of Mexico, somewhere between Florida and
+California, they returned to Green Bay by the route of the Illinois
+river. By taking advantage of the eddies, on either side of the stream,
+it was not difficult for them, in their light canoes, to make the
+ascent.
+
+Marquette landed on the western banks of Lake Michigan to preach the
+gospel to a tribe of Indians called the Miames, residing near the
+present site of Chicago. Joliete returned to Quebec to announce the
+result of their discoveries. He was received with great rejoicing. The
+whole population flocked to the cathedral, where the _Te Deum_ was sung.
+
+Five years passed away, during which the great river flowed almost
+unthought of, through its vast and sombre wilderness. At length in the
+year 1678, La Salle received a commission from Louis the XIV. of France
+to explore the Mississippi to its mouth. Having received from the king
+the command of Fort Frontenac, at the northern extremity of Lake
+Ontario, and a monopoly of the fur trade in all the countries he should
+discover, he sailed from Larochelle in a ship well armed and abundantly
+supplied, in June, 1678. Ascending the St. Lawrence to Quebec, he
+repaired to Fort Frontenac. With a large number of men he paddled, in
+birch canoes, to the southern extremity of Lake Ontario, and, by a
+portage around the falls of Niagara, entered Lake Erie. Here he built a
+substantial vessel, called the _Griffin_, which was the first vessel
+ever launched upon the waters of that lake. Embarking in this vessel
+with forty men, in the month of September, a genial and gorgeous month
+in those latitudes, he traversed with favoring breezes the whole length
+of the lake, a voyage of two hundred and sixty-five miles, ascended the
+straits and passed through the Lake of St. Clair, and ran along the
+coast of Lake Huron three hundred and sixty miles to Michilimackinac,
+where the three majestic lakes, Superior, Michigan and Huron, form a
+junction.
+
+Here a trading post was established, which subsequently attained
+world-wide renown, and to which the Indians flocked with their furs from
+almost boundless realms. Mr. Schoolcraft, who some years after visited
+this romantic spot, gives the following interesting account of the
+scenery and strange life witnessed there. As these phases of human life
+have now passed away, never to be renewed, it seems important that the
+memory of them should be perpetuated:
+
+"Nothing can present a more picturesque and refreshing spectacle to the
+traveler, wearied with the lifeless monotony of a voyage through Lake
+Huron, than the first sight of the island of Michilimackinac, which
+rises from the watery horizon in lofty bluffs imprinting a rugged
+outline along the sky and capped with a fortress on which the American
+flag is seen waving against the blue heavens. The name is a compound of
+the word _Misril_, signifying great, and _Mackinac_ the Indian word for
+turtle, from a fancied resemblance of the island to a _great turtle_
+lying upon the water.
+
+"It is a spot of much interest, aside from its romantic beauty, in
+consequence of its historical associations and natural curiosities. It
+is nine miles in circumference, and its extreme elevation above the lake
+is over three hundred feet. The town is pleasantly situated around a
+small bay at the southern extremity of the island, and contains a few
+hundred souls, which are sometimes swelled to one or two thousand by the
+influx of voyageurs, traders and Indians. On these occasions its
+beautiful harbor is seen checkered with American vessels at anchor, and
+Indian canoes rapidly shooting across the water in every direction.
+
+"It was formerly the seat of an extensive fur trade; at present it is
+noted for the great amount of trout and white fish annually exported.
+Fort Mackinac stood on a rocky bluff overlooking the town. The ruins of
+Fort Holmes are on the apex of the island. It was built by the British
+in the war of 1812, under the name of Fort George, and was changed to
+its present appellation after the surrender to the Americans, in
+compliment to the memory of Major Holmes, who fell in the attack upon
+the island.
+
+"The old town of Michilimackinac stood at the extreme point of the
+peninsula of Michigan, nine miles south of the island. Eight years
+before La Salle's expedition, Father Marquette, the French missionary,
+visited this spot with a party of Hurons, upon whom he prevailed to
+locate themselves. A fort was soon constructed, and became an important
+post. It continued to be the seat of the fur trade, and the undisturbed
+rendezvous of the Indian tribes during the whole period that the French
+exercised dominion over the Canadas."
+
+Here at Michilimackinac, La Salle purchased a rich cargo of furs,
+exchanging for them his goods at an immense profit. The _Griffin_, laden
+with wealth, set out on her return and was wrecked by the way with total
+loss. La Salle with his companions had embarked in birch canoes, and
+descending Lake Michigan to near its southern extremity, they landed and
+erected a fort which they called Miamis. They then carried their canoes
+across to the Illinois river and paddled down that stream until they
+came near to the present site of Peoria, where they established another
+fort, which La Salle, grief-stricken in view of his loss, named
+_Creve-Coeur_, or Heartsore. Here the energetic and courageous
+adventurer left his men in winter quarters, while, with but three
+companions, he traversed the wilderness on foot, amidst the snows of
+winter, to Fort Frontenac, a distance of fifteen hundred miles. After an
+absence of several weeks, he returned with additional men and the means
+of building a large and substantial flat-bottomed boat, with which to
+descend the Illinois river to the Mississippi, and the latter stream to
+its mouth.
+
+The romantic achievement was successfully accomplished. The banners of
+France were unfurled along the banks of the majestic river and upon the
+shores of the Gulf of Mexico. This whole region which France claimed by
+the right of discovery, was named in honor of the king of France,
+Louisiana. Its limits were necessarily quite undefined. In 1684, a
+French colony of two hundred and eighty persons was sent out to effect a
+settlement on the Lower Mississippi. Passing by the mouth of the river
+without discovering it, they landed in Texas, and took possession of the
+country in the name of the king of France. Disaster followed disaster.
+La Salle died, and the colonists were exterminated by the Indians. Not
+long after this, all the country west of the Mississippi was ceded by
+France to Spain, and again, some years after, was surrendered back again
+by Spain to France. We have not space here to allude to the details of
+these varied transactions. But this comprehensive record seems to be
+essential to the full understanding of the narrative upon which we have
+entered.
+
+It was in the year 1763 that Louisiana was ceded, by France, to Spain.
+In the year 1800, it was yielded back to France, under Napoleon, by a
+secret article in the treaty of Sn. Ildefonso. It had now become a
+matter of infinite moment to the United States that the great Republic
+should have undisputed command of the Mississippi, from its source to
+its mouth. President Jefferson instructed our Minister at Paris, Robert
+Livingston, to negotiate with the French Government for the purchase of
+Louisiana. France was then at war with England. The British fleet swept
+triumphantly all the seas. Napoleon, conscious that he could not protect
+Louisiana from British arms, consented to the sale. We are informed that
+on the 10th of April, 1803, he summoned two of his ministers in council,
+and said to them:
+
+"I am fully sensible of the value of Louisiana; and it was my wish to
+repair the error of the French diplomatists who abandoned it in 1763. I
+have scarcely recovered it before I run the risk of losing it. But if I
+am obliged to give it up it shall cost more to those who force me to
+part with it, than to those to whom I yield it. The English have
+despoiled France of all her Northern possessions in America, and now
+they covet those of the South. I am determined that they shall not have
+the Mississippi. Although Louisiana is but a trifle compared with their
+vast possessions in other parts of the globe, yet, judging from the
+vexation they have manifested on seeing it return to the power of
+France, I am certain that their first object will be to obtain
+possession of it.
+
+"They will probably commence the war in that quarter. They have twenty
+vessels in the Gulf of Mexico, and our affairs in St. Domingo are daily
+getting worse, since the death of Le Clere. The conquest of Louisiana
+might be easily made, and I have not a moment to lose in putting it out
+of their reach. I am not sure but that they have already began an attack
+upon it. Such a measure would be in accordance with their habits; and in
+their place I should not wait. I am inclined, in order to deprive them
+of all prospect of ever possessing it, to cede it to the United States.
+Indeed I can hardly say I cede it, for I do not yet possess it. And if I
+wait but a short time, my enemies may leave me nothing but an empty
+title to grant to the Republic I wish to conciliate. They only ask for
+one city of Louisiana; but I consider the whole colony as lost. And I
+believe that in the hands of this rising power, it will be more useful
+to the political and even the commercial interests of France, than if I
+should attempt to retain it. Let me have both of your opinions upon this
+subject."
+
+One of the ministers, Barbe Marbois, cordially approved of the plan of
+"cession." The other opposed it. After long deliberation, the conference
+was closed, without Napoleon making known his decision. The next day he
+sent for Barbe Marbois, and said to him:
+
+"The season for deliberation is over. I have determined to part with
+Louisiana. I shall give up not only New Orleans, but the whole colony
+without reservation. That I do not undervalue Louisiana I have
+sufficiently proved, as the object of my first treaty with Spain was to
+recover it. But though I regret parting with it, I am convinced that it
+would be folly to persist in trying to keep it. I commission you,
+therefore, to negotiate this affair with the envoys of the United
+States. Do not wait the arrival of Mr. Munroe, but go this very day and
+confer with Mr. Livingston.
+
+"Remember, however, that I need ample funds for carrying on the war; and
+I do not wish to commence it by levying new taxes. During the last
+century, France and Spain have incurred great expense in the
+improvement of Louisiana, for which her trade has never indemnified
+them. Large sums have been advanced to different companies, which have
+never returned to the treasury. It is fair that I should require payment
+for these. Were I to regulate my demands by the importance of this
+territory to the United States, they would be unbounded. But being
+obliged to part with it, I shall be moderate in my terms. Still,
+remember I must have fifty millions of francs ($10,000,000), and I will
+not consent to take less. I would rather make some desperate effort to
+preserve this fine country."
+
+Negotiations commenced that day. Soon Mr. Munroe arrived. On the 30th of
+April, 1803, the treaty was signed, the United States paying fifteen
+million dollars for the entire territory. It was stipulated by Napoleon
+that Louisiana should be, as soon as possible, incorporated into the
+Union; and that its inhabitants should enjoy the same rights,
+privileges, and immunities as other citizens of the United States. The
+third article of the treaty, securing to them these benefits, was drawn
+up by Napoleon himself. He presented it to the plenipotentiaries with
+these words:
+
+"Make it known to the people of Louisiana, that we regret to part with
+them; that we have stipulated for all the advantages they could desire;
+and that France, in giving them up, has insured to them the greatest of
+all. They could never have prospered under any European government, as
+they will when they become independent. But while they enjoy the
+privileges of liberty, let them ever remember that they are French, and
+preserve for their mother country that affection, which a common origin
+inspires."
+
+This purchase was an immense acquisition to the United States. "I
+consider," said Mr. Livingston, "that from this day, the United States
+take rank with the first powers of Europe, and now she has entirely
+escaped from the power of England."
+
+Napoleon was also well pleased with the transaction, "By this cession,"
+he said, "I have secured the power of the United States, and given to
+England a maritime rival, who, at some future time, will humble her
+pride."
+
+The boundaries of this unexampled purchase could not be clearly defined.
+There was not any known landmarks to which reference could be made. The
+United States thus had the sole claim to the vast territory west of the
+Mississippi, extending on the north through Oregon to the Pacific Ocean,
+and on the south to the Mexican dominions. From the day of the transfer,
+the natural resources of the great valley of the Mississippi began to be
+rapidly developed.
+
+The accompanying map will enable the reader more fully to understand the
+geography of the above narrative.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+_Camp Life Beyond the Alleghanies._
+
+John Finley and his Adventures.--Aspect of the Country.--Boone's Private
+Character.--His Love for the Wilderness.--First view of
+Kentucky.--Emigrants' Dress.--Hunter's Home.--Capture of Boone and
+Stewart by the Indians.--Their Escape.--Singular Incident.
+
+
+In the year 1767, a bold hunter by the name of John Finley with two or
+three companions crossed the mountain range of the Alleghanies into the
+region beyond, now known as Kentucky. The mountains where he crossed,
+consisting of a series of parallel ridges, some of which were quite
+impassable save at particular points, presented a rugged expanse nearly
+fifty miles in breadth. It took many weary days for these moccassined
+feet to traverse the wild solitudes. The Indian avoids the mountains. He
+chooses the smooth prairie where the buffalo and the elk graze, and
+where the wild turkey, the grouse and the prairie chicken, wing their
+flight, or the banks of some placid stream over which he can glide in
+his birch canoe, and where fish of every variety can be taken. Indeed
+the Indians, with an eye for picturesque beauty, seldom reared their
+villages in the forest, whose glooms repelled them. Generally where the
+forest approached the stream, they clustered their wigwams in its edge,
+with the tranquil river and the open country spread out before them.
+
+John Finley and his companions traversed the broad expanse of the
+Alleghanies, without meeting any signs of human life. The extreme
+western ridge of these parallel eminences or spurs, has received the
+name of the Cumberland mountains. Passing through a gorge, which has
+since then become renowned in peace and war as Cumberland Gap, they
+entered upon a vast undulating expanse, of wonderful fertility and
+beauty. In its rivers, its plains, its forests, its gentle eminences,
+its bright skies and salubrious clime, it presented then, as now, as
+attractive a residence for man as this globe can furnish. Finley and his
+companions spent several months roving through this, to them, new Eden.
+Game of every variety abounded. Through some inexplicable reason, no
+Indians held possession of the country. But wandering tribes, whose
+homes and acknowledged territory were far away in the north, the west,
+and the south, were ever traversing these regions in hunting bands. They
+often met in bloody encounters. These conflicts were so frequent and so
+sanguinary, that this realm so highly favored of God for the promotion
+of all happiness, subsequently received the appropriate name of "The
+dark and bloody ground."
+
+After an absence of many months, Finley and his companions returned to
+North Carolina, with the most glowing accounts of the new country which
+they had found. Their story of the beauty of those realms was so
+extravagant, that many regarded them as gross exaggerations. It
+subsequently appeared, however, that they were essentially true. A more
+lovely and attractive region cannot be found on earth. It is man's
+inhumanity to man, mainly, which has ever caused such countless millions
+to mourn.
+
+Daniel Boone listened eagerly to the recital of John Finley and his
+associates. The story they told added fuel to the flame of emigration,
+which was already consuming him. He talked more and more earnestly of
+his desire to cross the mountains. We know not what were the emotions
+with which his wife was agitated, in view of her husband's increasing
+desire for another plunge into the wilderness. We simply know that
+through her whole career, she manifested the most tender solicitude to
+accommodate herself to the wishes of her beloved husband. Indeed he was
+a man peculiarly calculated to win a noble woman's love. Gentle in his
+demeanor, and in all his utterances, mild and affectionate in his
+intercourse with his family, he seemed quite unconscious of the heroism
+he manifested in those achievements, which gave him ever increasing
+renown.
+
+Life in the cabin of the frontiersman, where the wants are few, and the
+supplies abundant, is comparatively a leisure life. These men knew but
+little of the hurry and the bustle with which those in the crowded city
+engage daily in the almost deadly struggle for bread. There was no want
+in the cabin of Daniel Boone. As these two hardy adventurers, John
+Finley and Daniel Boone, sat together hour after hour by the fire,
+talking of the new country which Finley had explored, the hearts of both
+burned within them again to penetrate those remote realms. To them there
+were no hardships in the journey. At the close of each day's march,
+which but slightly wearied their toughened sinews, they could in a few
+moments throw up a shelter, beneath which they would enjoy more
+luxurious sleep than the traveler, after being rocked in the rail-cars,
+can now find on the softest couches of our metropolitan hotels. And the
+dainty morsel cut with artistic skill from the fat buffalo, and toasted
+on the end of a ramrod before the camp-fire, possessed a relish which
+few epicures have ever experienced at the most sumptuous tables in Paris
+or New York. And as these men seem to have been constitutionally devoid
+of any emotions of fear from wild beasts, or still wilder Indians, the
+idea of a journey of a few hundred miles in the wilderness was not one
+to be regarded by them with any special solicitude.
+
+Gradually they formed a plan for organizing a small party to traverse
+these beautiful realms in search of a new home. A company of six picked
+men was formed, and Daniel Boone was chosen their leader. The names of
+this party were John Finley, John Stewart, Joseph Holden, James Moncey,
+and William Cool. A journey of many hundred miles was before them.
+Through the vast mountain barrier, which could only be traversed by
+circuitous wanderings some hundreds of miles in extent, their route was
+utterly pathless, and there were many broad and rapid streams to be
+crossed, which flowed through the valleys between the mountain ridges.
+Though provision in abundance was scattered along the way, strong
+clothing must be provided, powder and bullets they must take with them,
+and all these necessaries were to be carried upon their backs, for no
+pack horses could thread the defiles of the mountains or climb their
+rugged cliffs. It was also necessary to make provision for the support
+of the families of these adventurers during their absence of many
+months. It does not appear that Mrs. Boone presented any obstacle in the
+way of her husband's embarking in this adventure. Her sons were old
+enough to assist her in the management of the farm, and game was still
+to be found in profusion in the silent prairies and sublime forests
+which surrounded them.
+
+In the sunny clime of North Carolina May comes with all the balminess
+and soft zephyrs of a more northern summer. It was a beautiful morning
+on the first day of May, 1769, when Boone and his companions commenced
+their adventurous journey. In the brief narrative which Boone has given
+of this excursion, we perceive that it was with some considerable regret
+that he separated himself from his much loved wife and children on the
+peaceful banks of the Yadkin.
+
+We must infer that the first part of their journey was fatiguing, for it
+took them a full month to accomplish the passage of the mountains.
+Though it was less than a hundred miles across these ridges in a direct
+line, the circuitous route which it was necessary to take greatly
+lengthened the distance. And as they were never in a hurry, they would
+be very likely, when coming to one of the many lovely valleys on the
+banks of the Holstein, or the Clinch river, to be enticed to some days
+of delay. Where now there are thriving villages filled with the hum of
+the industries of a high civilization, there was then but the solitary
+landscape dotted with herds of buffalo and of deer.
+
+Boone says that in many of these regions he found buffalo roving in
+companies of several hundreds feeding upon the tender leaves of the
+canebrake, or browsing upon the smooth and extended meadows. Being far
+removed from the usual route of the Indian hunters, they were very tame,
+manifesting no fear at the approach of man.
+
+On the seventh of June, our adventurers, at the close of a day of
+arduous travel, reached an eminence of the Cumberland Mountains, which
+gave them a commanding and an almost entrancing view of the region
+beyond, now known as the State of Kentucky. At the height upon which
+they stood, the expanse spreading out to the West, until lost in the
+distant horizon, presented an aspect of nature's loveliness such as few
+eyes have ever beheld. The sun was brilliantly sinking, accompanied by a
+gorgeous retinue of clouds. Majestic forests, wide-spread prairies, and
+lakes and rivers, gilded by the setting sun, confirmed the truth of the
+most glowing reports which had been heard from the lips of Finley. An
+artist has seized upon this incident, which he has transferred to
+canvass, in a picture which he has entitled, "Daniel Boone's first view
+of Kentucky." Engravings have been so multiplied of this painting, that
+it has become familiar to most eyes.
+
+The appearance of our adventurers is thus graphically described by Mr.
+Peck, in his excellent Life of Daniel Boone.
+
+"Their dress was of the description usually worn at that period by all
+forest-rangers. The outside garment was a hunting shirt, or loose open
+frock, made of dressed deer-skins. Leggins, or drawers, of the same
+material, covered the lower extremities, to which was appended a pair of
+moccasins for the feet. The cape or collar of the hunting shirt, and the
+seams of the leggins were adorned with fringes. The undergarments were
+of coarse cotton. A leather belt encircled the body. On the right side
+was suspended the tomahawk, to be used as a hatchet. On the left was the
+hunting-knife, powder-horn, bullet-pouch, and other appendages
+indispensable for a hunter. Each person bore his trusty rifle, and as
+the party made its toilsome way amid the shrubs, and over the logs and
+loose shrubs, that accident had thrown upon the obscure trail they were
+following, each man gave a sharp lookout, as though danger, or a lurking
+enemy were near. Their garments were soiled and rent; the unavoidable
+result of long travel and exposure to the heavy rains which had fallen,
+the weather having been stormy and uncomfortable, and they had traversed
+a mountainous wilderness for several hundred miles. The leader of the
+party was of full size, with a hardy, robust, sinewy frame, and keen
+piercing hazel eyes, that glanced with quickness at every object as they
+passed on, now cast forward in the direction they were travelling, for
+signs of an old trail, and in the next moment directed askance into the
+dense forest or the deep ravine, as if watching some concealed enemy.
+The reader will recognise in this man, the pioneer Boone at the head of
+his companions."
+
+The peculiar character of these men is developed in the fact, that,
+rapidly descending the western declivity of the mountains, they came to
+a beautiful meadow upon the banks of a little stream now called Red
+River. Here they reared their hut, and here they remained in apparently
+luxurious idleness all the summer; and here Daniel Boone remained all of
+the ensuing winter. Their object could scarcely have been to obtain
+furs, for they could not transport them across the mountains. There were
+in the vicinity quite a number of salt springs which the animals of the
+forest frequented in immense numbers. In the brief account which Boone
+gives of these long months, he simply says:
+
+"In this forest, the habitation of beasts of every kind natural to
+America, we practised hunting with great success until the twenty-second
+day of December following."
+
+Bears, buffalo and deer were mainly the large game which fell before
+their rifles. Water-fowl, and also land birds of almost every variety,
+were found in great profusion. It must have been a strange life which
+these six men experienced during these seven months in the camp on the
+silent waters of the Red River. No Indians were seen, and no traces of
+them were discovered through this period. The hunters made several long
+excursions in various directions, apparently examining the country in
+reference to their own final settlement in it, and to the introduction
+of emigrants from the Atlantic border. Indeed it has been said that
+Daniel Boone was the secret agent of a company on the other side of the
+mountains, who wished to obtain possession of a large extent of
+territory for the formation of a colony there. But of this nothing with
+certainty is known. Yet there must have been some strong controlling
+motive to have induced these men to remain so long in their camp, which
+consisted simply of a shed of logs, on the banks of this solitary
+stream.
+
+Three sides of the hut were enclosed. The interstices between the logs
+were filled with moss or clay. The roof was also carefully covered with
+bark, so as to be impervious to rain. The floor was spread over with dry
+leaves and with the fragrant twigs of the hemlock, presenting a very
+inviting couch for the repose of weary men. The skins of buffaloes and
+of bears presented ample covering for their night's repose. The front of
+the hut, facing the south, was entirely open, before which blazed their
+camp-fire. Here the men seem to have been very happy. The climate was
+mild; they were friendly to each other; they had good health and
+abundance of food was found in their camp.
+
+On the twenty-second of December, Boone, with one of his companions,
+John Stewart, set out on one of their exploring tours. There were parts
+of the country called cane-brakes, covered with cane growing so thickly
+together as to be quite impenetrable to the hunter. Through portions of
+these the buffaloes had trampled their way in large companies, one
+following another, opening paths called _streets_. These streets had
+apparently been trodden for ages. Following these paths, Boone and his
+companion had advanced several miles from their camp, when suddenly a
+large party of Indians sprang from their concealment and seized them
+both as captives. The action was so sudden that there was no possibility
+of resistance. In the following words Boone describes this event:
+
+"This day John Stewart and I had a pleasing ramble, but fortune changed
+the scene in the close of it. We had passed through a great forest, on
+which stood myriads of trees, some gay with blossoms, others rich with
+fruits. Nature was here a series of wonders and a fund of delight. Here
+she displayed her ingenuity and industry in a variety of flowers and
+fruits, beautifully colored, elegantly shaped, and charmingly flavored;
+and we were diverted with innumerable animals presenting themselves
+perpetually to our view.
+
+"In the decline of the day, near Kentucky river, as we ascended the brow
+of a small hill, a number of Indians rushed out upon us from a thick
+canebrake and made us prisoners. The time of our sorrow was now arrived.
+They plundered us of what we had, and kept us in confinement seven days,
+treating us with common savage usage."
+
+The peculiar character of Boone was here remarkably developed. His whole
+course of life had made him familiar with the manners and customs of the
+Indians. They were armed only with bows and arrows. He had the
+death-dealing rifle which they knew not how to use. His placid temper
+was never ruffled by elation in prosperity or despair in adversity. He
+assumed perfect contentment with his lot, cultivated friendly relations
+with them, taught them many things they did not know, and aided them in
+all the ways in his power. His rifle ball would instantly strike down
+the buffalo, when the arrow of the Indian would only goad him to frantic
+flight.
+
+The Indians admired the courage of their captive, appreciated his skill,
+and began to regard him as a friend and a helper. They relaxed their
+vigilance, while every day they were leading their prisoners far away
+from their camp into the boundless West. Boone was so well acquainted
+with the Indian character as to be well aware that any attempt to
+escape, if unsuccessful, would cause his immediate death. The Indians,
+exasperated by what they would deem such an insult to their hospitality,
+would immediately bury the tomahawk in his brain. Thus seven days and
+nights passed away.
+
+At the close of each day's travel the Indians selected some attractive
+spot for the night's encampment or bivouac, according to the state of
+the weather, near some spring or stream. Here they built a rousing fire,
+roasted choice cuts from the game they had taken, and feasted abundantly
+with jokes and laughter, and many boastful stories of their
+achievements. They then threw themselves upon the ground for sleep,
+though some one was appointed to keep a watch over their captives. But
+deceived by the entire contentment and friendliness, feigned by Boone,
+and by Stewart who implicitly followed the counsel of his leader's
+superior mind, all thoughts of any attempt of their captives to escape
+soon ceased to influence the savages.
+
+On the seventh night after the capture, the Indians, gorged with an
+abundant feast, were all soundly asleep. It was midnight. The flickering
+fire burned feebly. The night was dark. They were in the midst of an
+apparently boundless forest. The favorable hour for an attempt to
+escape had come. But it was full of peril. Failure was certain death,
+for the Indians deemed it one of the greatest of all crimes for a
+captive who had been treated with kindness to attempt to escape. A group
+of fierce savages were sleeping around, each one of whom accustomed to
+midnight alarms, was supposed to sleep, to use an expressive phrase,
+"with one eye open." Boone, who had feigned sound slumber, cautiously
+awoke his companion who was asleep and motioned him to follow. The
+rustling of a leaf, the crackling of a twig, would instantly cause every
+savage to grasp his bow and arrow and spring from the ground.
+Fortunately the Indians had allowed their captives to retain their guns,
+which had proved so valuable in obtaining game.
+
+With step as light as the fall of a feather these men with moccasined
+feet crept from the encampment. After a few moments of intense
+solicitude, they found themselves in the impenetrable gloom of the
+forest, and their captors still undisturbed. With vastly superior native
+powers to the Indian, and equally accustomed to forest life, Boone was
+in all respects their superior. With the instinct of the bee, he made a
+straight line towards the encampment they had left, with the locality of
+which the Indians were not acquainted. The peril which menaced them
+added wings to their flight. It was mid-winter, and though not very
+cold in that climate, fortunately for them, the December nights were
+long.
+
+Six precious hours would pass before the dawn of the morning would
+struggle through the tree-tops. Till then the bewildered Indians could
+obtain no clue whatever to the direction of their flight. Carefully
+guarding against leaving any traces of their footsteps behind them, and
+watching with an eagle eye lest they should encounter any other band of
+savages, they pressed forward hour after hour with sinews apparently as
+tireless as if they had been wrought of iron. When the fugitives reached
+their camp they found it plundered and deserted. Whether the red men had
+discovered it and carried off their companions as prisoners, or whether
+the white men in a panic had destroyed what they could not remove and
+had attempted a retreat to the settlements, was never known. It is
+probable that in some way they perished in the wilderness, and that
+their fate is to be added to the thousands of tragedies occurring in
+this world which no pen has recorded.
+
+The intrepid Boone and his companion Stewart seemed, however, to have no
+idea of abandoning their encampment. But apprehensive that the Indians
+might have discovered their retreat, they reared a small hut in another
+spot, still more secret and secure. It is difficult to imagine what
+motive could have led these two men to remain any longer in these
+solitudes, five hundred miles from home, exposed to so many privations
+and to such fearful peril. Notwithstanding the utmost care in husbanding
+their resources, their powder and lead were rapidly disappearing, and
+there was no more to be obtained in the wilderness. But here they
+remained a month, doing apparently nothing, but living luxuriously,
+according to their ideas of good cheer. The explanation is probably to
+be found in the fascination of this life of a hunter, which once
+enjoyed, seems almost irresistible, even to those accustomed to all the
+appliances of a high civilization.
+
+A gentleman from New York, who spent a winter among the wild scenes of
+the Rocky Mountains, describes in the following graphic language, the
+effect of these scenes upon his own mind:
+
+"When I turned my horse's head from Pikes Peak, I quite regretted the
+abandonment of my mountain life, solitary as it was, and more than once
+thought of again taking the trail to the Salado Valley, where I enjoyed
+such good sport. Apart from the feeling of loneliness, which anyone in
+my situation must naturally have experienced, surrounded by the
+stupendous works of nature, which in all their solitary grandeur frowned
+upon me, there was something inexpressibly exhilarating in the
+sensation of positive freedom from all worldly care, and a consequent
+expansion of the sinews, as it were, of mind and body, which made me
+feel elastic as a ball of india-rubber, and in such a state of perfect
+ease, that no more dread of scalping Indians entered my mind, than if I
+had been sitting in Broadway, in one of the windows of the Astor House.
+
+"A citizen of the world, I never found any difficulty in investing my
+resting place wherever it might be, with the attributes of a home.
+Although liable to the accusation of barbarism, I must confess that the
+very happiest moments of my life have been spent in the wilderness of
+the Far West. I never recall but with pleasure the remembrance of my
+solitary camp in the Bayou Salado, with no friend near me more faithful
+than my rifle. With a plentiful supply of dry pine logs on the fire, and
+its cheerful blaze streaming far up into the sky, illuminating the
+valley far and near, I would sit enjoying the genial warmth, and watch
+the blue smoke as it curled upward, building castles in its vapory
+wreaths. Scarcely did I ever wish to change such hours of freedom for
+all the luxuries of civilized life; and, unnatural and extraordinary as
+it may appear, yet such are the fascinations of the life of the mountain
+hunter, that I believe that not one instance could be adduced of even
+the most polished and civilized of men, who had once tasted the sweets
+of its attendant liberty, and freedom from every worldly care, not
+regretting to exchange them for the monotonous life of the settlements,
+and not sighing and sighing again for its pleasures and allurements.
+
+"A hunter's camp in the Rocky Mountains, is quite a picture. It is
+invariably made in a picturesque locality, for, like the Indian, the
+white hunter has an eye to the beautiful. Nothing can be more social and
+cheering than the welcome blaze of the camp-fire on a cold winter's
+night, and nothing more amusing or entertaining, if not instructive,
+than the rough conversation of the simple-minded mountaineers, whose
+nearly daily task is all of exciting adventure, since their whole
+existence is spent in scenes of peril and privation. Consequently the
+narration is a tale of thrilling accidents, and hair-breadth escapes,
+which, though simple matter-of-fact to them, appears a startling romance
+to those unacquainted with the lives led by those men, who, with the sky
+for a roof, and their rifles to supply them with food and clothing, call
+no man lord or master, and are as free as the game they follow."
+
+There are many events which occurred in the lives of Boone and his
+companions, which would seem absolutely incredible were they not
+sustained by evidence beyond dispute. Boone and Stewart were in a
+boundless, pathless, wilderness of forests, mountains, rivers and lakes.
+Their camp could not be reached from the settlements, but by a journey
+of many weeks, apparently without the smallest clue to its location. And
+yet the younger brother of Boone, upon whom had been conferred his
+father's singular baptismal name of Squire, set out with a companion to
+cross the mountains, in search of Daniel. One day in the latter part of
+January, Boone and Stewart were quite alarmed in seeing two men approach
+their camp. They supposed of course that they were Indians, and that
+they were probably followed by a numerous band. Escape was impossible.
+Captivity and death seemed certain. But to their surprise and delight,
+the two strangers proved to be white men; one the brother of Daniel
+Boone, and the other a North Carolinian who had accompanied him. They
+brought with them quite a supply of powder and lead; inestimable
+treasures in the remote wilderness. Daniel, in his Autobiography, in the
+following simple strain, alludes to this extraordinary occurrence:
+
+"About this time my brother Squire Boone, with another adventurer, who
+came to explore the country shortly after us, was wandering through the
+forest, determined to find me if possible, and accidentally found our
+camp. Notwithstanding the unfortunate circumstances of our company, and
+our dangerous situation as surrounded by hostile savages, our meeting so
+fortunately in the wilderness made us reciprocally sensible of the
+utmost satisfaction. So much does friendship triumph over misfortune,
+that sorrows and sufferings vanish at the meeting, not only of real
+friends, but of the most distant acquaintances, and substitute happiness
+in their room."
+
+Our hardy pioneer, far more familiar with his rifle than his pen,
+comments as follows on their condition:
+
+"We were in a helpless, dangerous situation; exposed daily to perils and
+death, among savages and wild beasts. Not a white man in the country but
+ourselves. Thus situated, many hundred miles from our families, in the
+howling wilderness, I believe few would have equally enjoyed the
+happiness we experienced. I often observed to my brother, 'You see how
+little nature requires to be satisfied. Felicity, the companion of
+content, is rather found in our own breasts, than in the enjoyment of
+external things; and I firmly believe it requires but a little
+philosophy to make a man happy in whatsoever state he is. This consists
+in a full resignation to the will of Providence; and a resigned soul
+finds pleasure in a path strewed with briers and thorns.'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+_Indian Warfare._
+
+Alleghany Ridges.--Voyage in a canoe.--Speech of Logan.--Battle at the
+Kanawha.--Narrative of Francis Marion.--Important commission of
+Boone.--Council at Circleville.--Treaty of Peace.--Imlay's description
+of Kentucky.--Settlement right.--Richard Henderson.--Boone's letter.--Fort
+at Boonesborough.
+
+
+The valley of the Clinch river is but one of the many magnificent
+ravines amid the gigantic ranges of the Alleghany mountains. Boone,
+speaking of these ridges which he so often had occasion to cross, says:
+
+"These mountains in the wilderness, as we pass from the old settlements
+in Virginia to Kentucky, are ranged in a south-west and north-east
+direction and are of great length and breadth and not far distant from
+each other. Over them nature hath formed passes that are less difficult
+than might be expected from a view of such huge piles. The aspect of
+these cliffs is so wild and horrid that it is impossible to behold them
+without terror. The spectator is apt to imagine that nature has formerly
+suffered some violent convulsion, and that these are the dismembered
+remains of the dreadful shock."
+
+One cannot but regret that no memorials are left of a wonderful journey,
+full of romantic interest and exciting adventure, which Boone at one
+time took to the Falls of the Ohio, to warn some surveyors of their
+danger. He reached them in safety, rescued them from certain death, and
+conducted them triumphantly back to the settlements. So long as the
+white men, with their rifles, could keep upon the open prairie, they
+could defend themselves from almost any number of Indians, who could
+only assail them with bows and arrows. But the moment they entered the
+forest, or any ravine among the hills, the little band was liable to
+hear the war-whoop of a thousand Indian braves in the ambush around, and
+to be assailed by a storm of arrows and javelins from unseen hands.
+
+A few days after Boone's arrival at the encampment near the Falls of the
+Ohio, and as the surveyors were breaking camp in preparation for their
+precipitate retreat, several of their number who had gone to a spring at
+a short distance from the camp, were suddenly attacked on the twentieth
+of July by a large party of Indians. One was instantly killed. The rest
+being nearly surrounded, fled as best they could in all directions. One
+man hotly pursued, rushed along an Indian trail till he reached the Ohio
+river. Here he chanced to find a bark canoe. He jumped into it and
+pushed out into the rapid stream till beyond the reach of the Indian
+arrows. The swift current bore him down the river, by curves and
+head-lands, till he was far beyond the encampment.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+To return against the strong flood, with the savages watching for him,
+seemed perilous, if not impossible. It is said that he floated down the
+whole length of the Ohio and of the Mississippi, a distance not less
+probably, counting the curvatures of the stream, than two thousand
+miles, and finally found his way by sea to Philadelphia, probably in
+some vessel which he encountered near the coast. This is certainly one
+of the most extraordinary voyages which ever occurred. It was
+mid-summer, so that he could not suffer from cold. Grapes often hung in
+rich clusters in the forests, which lined the river banks, and various
+kinds of nutritious berries were easily gathered to satisfy hunger.
+
+As these men never went into the forest without the rifle and a supply
+of ammunition, and as they never lost a bullet by an inaccurate shot, it
+is not probable that our adventurer suffered from hunger. But the
+incidents of such a voyage must have been so wonderful, that it is
+greatly to be regretted that we have no record of them.
+
+The apprehensions of Lord Dunmore, respecting the conspiracy of the
+Indians, proved to have been well founded. Though Boone, with his great
+sagacity, led his little band by safe paths back to the settlements, a
+very fierce warfare immediately blazed forth all along the Virginia
+frontier. This conflict with the Indians, very brief and very bloody, is
+usually called Lord Dunmore's war. The white men have told the story,
+and they admit that the war "arose in consequence of cold-blooded
+murders committed upon inoffensive Indians in the region of the upper
+Ohio."
+
+One of the provocatives to this war was the assassination by fiendlike
+white men of the whole family of the renowned Indian chief, Logan, in
+the vicinity of the city of Wheeling. Logan had been the friend of the
+white man. But exasperated by these outrages, he seized his tomahawk
+breathing only vengeance. General Gibson was sent to one of the
+Shawanese towns to confer with Logan and to detach him from the
+conspiracy against the whites. It was on this occasion that Logan made
+that celebrated speech whose pathetic eloquence will ever move the human
+heart:
+
+"I appeal to any white man to say if ever he entered Logan's cabin
+hungry, and I gave him not meat; if ever he came cold or naked and I
+gave him not clothing. During the course of the last long and bloody
+war, Logan remained in his tent, an advocate of peace. Nay, such was my
+love for the whites, that those of my own country pointed at me and
+said, 'Logan is the friend of white men.' I had even thought to live
+with you, but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Cresap, the last
+spring, in cool blood and unprovoked, cut off all the relatives of
+Logan, not sparing even my women and children. There runs not a drop of
+my blood in the veins of any human creature. This called on me for
+revenge. I have killed many. I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my
+country, I rejoice at the beams of peace. Yet do not harbor the thought
+that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on
+his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan?"
+
+This war, though it lasted but a few months, was very sanguinary. Every
+exposed point on the extensive Virginia frontier was assailed. Cabins
+were burned, harvests were trampled down, cattle driven off, and men,
+women, and children either butchered or carried into captivity more
+dreadful than death. The peril was so dreadful that the most
+extraordinary efforts on the part of the Virginian Government were
+requisite to meet it. An army of three thousand men was raised in the
+utmost haste. This force was in two divisions. One of eleven hundred men
+rendezvoused in what is now Green Briar county, and marched down the
+valley of the Great Kanawha, to its entrance into the Ohio, at a place
+now named Point Pleasant.
+
+Lord Dunmore with the remaining nineteen hundred crossed the Cumberland
+mountains to Wheeling, and thence descended the Ohio in boats, to form a
+junction with the other party at the mouth of the Great Kanawha. Thence
+united, they were to march across the country about forty miles due
+west, to the valley of the Scioto. The banks of this lovely stream were
+lined with Indian villages, in a high state of prosperity. Corn-fields
+waved luxuriantly around their humble dwellings. They were living at
+peace with each other, and relied far more upon the produce of the soil,
+than upon the chase, for their support.
+
+It was the plan of Lord Dunmore to sweep this whole region with utter
+desolation, and entirely to exterminate the Indians. But the savages did
+not await his arrival in their own homes. Many of them had obtained guns
+and ammunition from the French in Canada, with whom they seem to have
+lived on the most friendly terms.
+
+In a well-ordered army for Indian warfare, whose numbers cannot now with
+certainty be known, they crossed the Ohio, below the mouth of the Great
+Kanawha, and marching through the forest, in the rear of the hills, fell
+by surprise very impetuously upon the rear of the encampment at Point
+Pleasant. The Indians seemed to be fully aware that their only safety
+was in the energies of desperation. One of the most bloody battles was
+then fought, which ever occurred in Indian warfare. Though the
+Virginians with far more potent weapons repelled their assailants, they
+paid dearly for their victory. Two hundred and fifteen of the Virginians
+fell dead or severely wounded beneath the bullets or arrows of their
+foes. The loss which the savages incurred could never be ascertained
+with accuracy. It was generally believed that several hundred of their
+warriors were struck down on that bloody field.
+
+The whites, accustomed to Indian warfare and skilled in the use of the
+rifle, scarcely fired a shot which did not reach its mark. In the
+cautious warfare between the tribes, fighting with arrows from behind
+trees, the loss of fifteen or twenty warriors was deemed a great
+calamity. Now, to find hundreds of their braves weltering in blood, was
+awful beyond precedent, and gave them new ideas of the prowess of the
+white man. In this conflict the Indians manifested a very considerable
+degree of military ability. Having constructed a breastwork of logs,
+behind which they could retreat in case of a repulse, they formed in a
+long line extending across the point from the Kanawha to the Ohio. Then
+they advanced in the impetuous attack through the forest, protected by
+logs, and stumps, and trees. Had they succeeded in their assault, there
+would have been no possible escape for the Virginian troops. They must
+have been annihilated.
+
+The Indians had assembled on that field nearly all the warriors of four
+powerful tribes; the Shawnee, Delaware, Mingo and Wyandotts. After the
+repulse, panic-stricken, they fled through the wilderness, unable to
+make any other stand against their foes. Lord Dunmore, with his
+triumphant army flushed with victory and maddened by its serious loss,
+marched rapidly down the left bank of the Ohio, and then crossed into
+the valley of the Scioto to sweep it with flame. We have no account of
+the details of this cruel expedition, but the following graphic
+description of a similar excursion into the land belonging to the
+Cherokees, will give one a vivid idea of the nature of these conflicts.
+
+The celebrated Francis Marion, who was an officer in the campaign, and
+an eye-witness of the scenes which he describes, gives the following
+narrative of the events which ensued:
+
+"Now commenced a scene of devastation scarcely paralleled in the annals
+of this continent. For thirty days the army employed themselves in
+burning and ravaging the settlements of the broken-spirited Indians. No
+less than fourteen of their towns were laid in ashes; their granaries
+were yielded to the flames, their corn-fields ravaged, while the
+miserable fugitives, flying from the sword, took refuge with their
+starving families among the mountains. As the lands were rich and the
+season had been favorable, the corn was bending under the double weight
+of lusty roasting ears and pods and clustering beans. The furrows seemed
+to rejoice under their precious loads. The fields stood thick with
+bread. We encamped the first night in the woods near the fields where
+the whole army feasted on the young corn, which, with fat venison, made
+a most delicious treat. The next morning, by order of Col. Grant, we
+proceeded to burn down the Indian cabins.
+
+"Some of our men seemed to enjoy this cruel work, laughing very heartily
+at the curling flames as they mounted loud crackling over the tops of
+the huts. But to me it appeared a shocking sight. 'Poor creatures!'
+thought I, 'we surely need not grudge you such miserable habitations.'
+But when we came according to orders to cut down the fields of corn, I
+could scarcely refrain from tears; for who could see the stalks that
+stood so stately, with broad green leaves and gaily tasseled shocks,
+filled with the sweet milky flour, the staff of life,--who, I say, could
+see without grief these sacred plants sinking under our swords with all
+their precious load, to wither and rot untasted in the fields.
+
+"I saw everywhere around the footsteps of little Indian children, where
+they had lately played under shelter of the rustling corn. No doubt they
+had often looked up with joy to the swelling shocks, and were gladdened
+when they thought of the abundant cakes for the coming winter. 'When we
+are gone,' thought I, 'they will return, and peeping through the weeds,
+with tearful eyes, will mark the ghastly ruin poured over their homes
+and the happy fields where they had so often played.'"
+
+Such was life among the comparatively intelligent tribes in the
+beautiful and fertile valley of the Scioto. Such was the scene of
+devastation, or of "punishing the Indians," as it was called, upon which
+Lord Dunmore's army entered, intending to sweep the valley with fire and
+sword from its opening at the Ohio to its head waters leagues away in
+the North.
+
+In this campaign the Indians, while with much sagacity they combined
+their main force to encounter the army under Lord Dunmore, detached
+separate bands of picked warriors to assail the settlements on the
+frontier at every exposed point. These bands of painted savages,
+emerging from the solitudes of the forests at midnight, would fall with
+hideous yells upon the lone cabin of the settler, or upon a little
+cluster of log huts, and in a few hours nothing would be left but
+smouldering ruins and gory corpses.
+
+To Daniel Boone, who had manifested wonderful skill in baffling all the
+stratagems of Indian warfare, was assigned the difficult and infinitely
+important task of protecting these frontiers. Three garrisons were
+placed under his command, over which he exercised supreme control. He
+located them at the most available points; noiselessly passed from one
+to the other to see that they were fortified according to the most
+approved principles of military engineering then known in the forest.
+His scouts were everywhere, to give prompt notice of any approach of
+hostile bands. Thus this quiet, silent man, with great efficiency,
+fulfilled his mission to universal satisfaction. Without seeking fame,
+without thinking even of such a reward for his services, his sagacity
+and his virtues were rapidly giving him a very enviable reputation
+throughout all those regions.
+
+The discomfited Indians had become thoroughly disheartened, and sent
+couriers to Lord Dunmore imploring peace. Comstock, their chief, seems
+to have been a man not only of strong native powers of mind, but of
+unusual intelligence. With quite a brilliant retinue of his warriors, he
+met Lord Dunmore in council at a point in the valley of the Scioto,
+about four miles south of the present city of Circleville. Comstock
+himself opened the deliberations with a speech of great dignity and
+argumentative power. In a loud voice, which was heard, as he intended,
+by all in the camp, he portrayed the former prosperous condition of the
+Indian tribes, powerful in numbers and abounding in wealth, in the
+enjoyment of their rich corn-fields, and their forests filled with game.
+With this he contrasted very forcibly their present wretched condition,
+with diminished numbers, and with the loss of their hunting grounds. He
+reproached the whites with the violation of their treaty obligations,
+and declared that the Indians had been forbearing in the extreme under
+the wrongs which had been inflicted upon them.
+
+"We know," said he, "perfectly well, our weakness when compared with the
+English. The Indians desire only justice. The war was not sought by us,
+but was forced upon us. It was commenced by the whites. We should have
+merited the contempt of every white man could we have tamely submitted
+to the murders which have been inflicted upon our unoffending people at
+the hands of the white men."
+
+The power was with Lord Dunmore. In the treaty of peace he exacted terms
+which, though very hard for the Indians, were perhaps not more than he
+had a right to require. The Indians surrendered four of their principal
+warriors as hostages for the faithful observance of the treaty. They
+relinquished all claims whatever to the vast hunting grounds which
+their bands from time immemorial had ranged south of the Ohio river.
+This was an immense concession. Lord Dunmore returned across the
+mountains well satisfied with his campaign, though his soldiers were
+excited almost to mutiny in not being permitted to wreak their vengeance
+upon the unhappy savages.
+
+And here let it be remarked, that deeply wronged as these Indians
+unquestionably were, there was not a little excuse for the exasperation
+of the whites. Fiends incarnate could not have invented more terrible
+tortures than they often inflicted upon their captives. We have no heart
+to describe these scenes. They are too awful to be contemplated. In view
+of the horrid barbarity thus practised, it is not strange that the
+English should have wished to shoot down the whole race, men, women, and
+children, as they would exterminate wolves or bears.
+
+This campaign being thus successfully terminated, Daniel Boone returned
+to his humble cabin on the Clinch River. Here he had a small and fertile
+farm, which his energetic family had successfully cultivated during the
+summer, and he spent the winter months in his favorite occupation of
+hunting in the forests around. His thoughtful mind, during these long
+and solitary rambles, was undoubtedly occupied with plans for the
+future. Emigration to his beautiful Kentucky was still his engrossing
+thought.
+
+It is not wonderful that a man of such fearless temperament, and a
+natural turn of mind so poetic and imaginative, should have been charmed
+beyond expression by a realm whose attractions he had so fully
+experienced. That the glowing descriptions of Boone and Finley were not
+exaggerated, is manifest from the equally rapturous account of others
+who now began to explore this favored land. Imlay writes of that region:
+
+"Everything here assumes a dignity and splendor I have never seen in any
+other part of the world. You ascend a considerable distance from the
+shores of the Ohio, and when you would suppose you had arrived at the
+summit of a mountain, you find yourself upon an extensive level. Here an
+eternal verdure reigns, and the brilliant sun of latitude 39 degrees,
+piercing through the azure heavens, produces in this prolific soil an
+early maturity which is truly astonishing. Flowers full and perfect, as
+if they had been cultivated by the hand of a florist, with all their
+captivating odors, and with all the variegated charms which color and
+nature can produce, here in the lap of elegance and beauty, decorate the
+smiling groves. Soft zephyrs gently breathe on sweets, and the inhaled
+air gives a glow of health and vigor that seems to ravish the
+intoxicated senses."
+
+The Virginian government now resolved to pour a tide of emigration into
+these as yet unexplored realms, south of the Ohio. Four hundred acres of
+land were offered to every individual who would build a cabin, clear a
+lot of land, and raise a crop of corn. This was called a settlement
+right. It was not stated how large the clearing should be, or how
+extensive the corn-field. Several settlements were thus begun in
+Kentucky, when there was a new and extraordinary movement which
+attracted universal attention.
+
+A very remarkable man, named Richard Henderson, appeared in North
+Carolina. Emerging from the humblest walks of life, and unable even to
+read until he had obtained maturity, he developed powers of
+conversational eloquence and administrative ability of the highest
+order.
+
+The Cherokee Indians claimed the whole country bounded by the Kentucky,
+the Ohio, and the Cumberland rivers, and we know not how much more
+territory extending indefinitely to the South and West. Colonel
+Henderson formed an association of gentlemen, which he called the
+Transylvania Company. Making a secret journey to the Cherokee country,
+he met twelve hundred chiefs in council, and purchased of them the whole
+territory, equal to some European kingdoms, bounded by the above
+mentioned rivers. For this realm, above a hundred miles square, he paid
+the insignificant sum of ten wagon loads of cheap goods, with a few
+fire-arms and some spirituous liquors.
+
+Mr. Henderson, to whom the rest of the company seemed to have delegated
+all their powers, now assumed the position of proprietor, governor, and
+legislator of his magnificent domain, which he called Transylvania. It
+seems that Boone accompanied Colonel Henderson to the council of the
+Cherokee chieftains which was held at Wataga, the southern branch of the
+Holston River. Boone had explored nearly the whole of this region, and
+it was upon his testimony that the company relied in endeavoring to
+purchase these rich and fertile lands. Indeed, as we have before
+intimated, it has been said that Boone in his wonderful and perilous
+explorations was the agent of this secret company.
+
+No treaties with the Indians were sure of general acquiescence. There
+were always discontented chieftains; there were almost always
+conflicting claims of hostile tribes; there were always wandering tribes
+of hunters and of warriors, who, exasperated by the treatment which they
+had received from vagabond white men, were ever ready to wreak their
+vengeance upon any band of emigrants they might encounter.
+
+Colonel Henderson's treaty was made in the month of March, 1775. With
+characteristic vigor, he immediately made preparations for the
+settlement of the kingdom of which he was the proud monarch. The first
+thing to be done was to mark out a feasible path through which emigrants
+might pass, without losing their way, over the mountains and through
+the wilderness, to the heart of this new Eden. Of all the men in the
+world, Daniel Boone was the one to map out this route of five hundred
+miles. He took with him a company of road-makers, and in a few months
+opened a path which could be traversed by pack-horses, and even by
+wagons to a place called Boonesville on the Kentucky river, within about
+thirty miles of the present site of Lexington.
+
+The Indian hunters and warriors, notwithstanding the treaties into which
+the chieftains of the North and the South had entered, watched the
+construction of this road with great solicitude. They knew full well
+that it would ere long secure their expulsion from their ancient hunting
+grounds. Though no general warfare was organized by the tribes, it was
+necessary to be constantly on the watch against lawless bands, who were
+determined to harass the pioneers in every possible way. In the
+following letter Boone communicated to Colonel Henderson the hostility
+which they had, perhaps unexpectedly, encountered. It was dated the
+first of April, and was sent back by a courier through the woods:
+
+          "Dear Colonel,--
+
+     "After my compliments to you, I shall acquaint you with my
+     misfortunes. On March the Twenty-fifth, a party of Indians fired
+     on my company about half an hour before day, and killed Mr. Twitty
+     and his negro, and wounded Mr. Walker very deeply; but I hope he
+     will recover. On March the Twenty-eighth, as we were hunting for
+     provisions, we found Samuel Tale's son who gave us an account that
+     the Indians fired on their camp on the twenty-seventh day. My
+     brother and I went down and found two men killed and scalped,
+     Thomas McDowell and Jeremiah McPeters. I have sent a man down to
+     all the lower companies, in order to gather them all to the mouth
+     of the Otter Creek. My advice to you, sir, is to come or send as
+     soon as possible. Your company is desired greatly, for the people
+     are very uneasy, but are willing to stay and venture their lives
+     with you. And now is the time to frustrate their (the Indians)
+     intentions, and keep the country while we are in it. If we give way
+     to them now, it will ever be the case. This day we start from the
+     battle ground to the mouth of Otter Creek, where we shall
+     immediately erect a fort, which will be done before you can come or
+     send. Then we can send ten men to meet you, if you send for them.
+
+          "I am, Sir, your most obedient servant,
+
+                                                     "DANIEL BOONE."
+
+Boone immediately commenced upon the left bank of the Kentucky river,
+which here ran in a westerly direction, the erection of a fort. Their
+position was full of peril, for the road-makers were but few in number,
+and Indian warriors to the number of many hundreds might at any time
+encircle them. Many of these Indians had also obtained muskets from the
+French in Canada, and had become practiced marksmen. Nearly three months
+were busily occupied in the construction of this important fort.
+Fortunately we have a minute description of its structure, and a sketch
+of its appearance, either from the pencil of Colonel Henderson, or of
+some one in his employ.
+
+The fort or fortress consisted of a series of strong log huts, enclosing
+a large interior or square. The parallelogram was about two hundred and
+sixty feet in length and one hundred and fifty in breadth. These cabins,
+built of logs, were bullet-proof. The intervals between them were filled
+with stout pieces of timber, about twelve feet high, planted firmly in
+the ground, in close contact with each other, and sharpened at the top.
+The fort was built close to the river, with one of its angles almost
+overhanging the water, so that an abundant supply could be obtained
+without peril. Each of the corner houses projected a little, so that
+from the port-holes any Indian could be shot who should approach the
+walls with ladder or hatchet. This really artistic structure was not
+completed until the fourteenth day of June. The Indians from a distance
+watched its progress with dismay. They made one attack, but were easily
+repelled, though they succeeded in shooting one of the emigrants.
+
+Daniel Boone contemplated the fortress on its completion with much
+satisfaction. He was fully assured that behind its walls and palisades
+bold hearts, with an ample supply of ammunition, could repel any
+assaults which the Indians were capable of making. He now resolved
+immediately to return to Clinch river, and bring his family out to share
+with him his new and attractive home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+_Sufferings of the Pioneers._
+
+Emigration to Boonesborough.--New Perils.--Transylvania
+Company.--Beneficence of its Laws.--Interesting Incident.--Infamous
+conduct of Great Britain.--Attack on the Fort.--Reinforcements.--Simon
+Kenton and his Sufferings.--Mrs. Harvey.
+
+
+The fortress at Boonesborough consisted of ten strong log huts arranged
+in a quadrangular form, enclosing an area of about one-third of an acre.
+The intervals, as before stated, between the huts, were filled with
+strong palisades of timber, which, like the huts themselves, were
+bullet-proof. The outer sides of the cabins, together with the
+palisades, formed the sides of the fort exposed to the foe. Each of
+these cabins was about twenty feet in length and twelve or fifteen in
+breadth. There were two entrance gates opposite each other, made of
+thick slabs of timber, and hung on wooden hinges. The forest, which was
+quite dense, had been cut away to such a distance as to expose an
+assailing party to the bullets of the garrison. As at that time the
+Indians were armed mainly with bows and arrows, a few men fully supplied
+with ammunition within the fort could bid defiance to almost any number
+of savages. And subsequently, as the Indians obtained fire-arms, they
+could not hope to capture the fort without a long siege, or by assailing
+it with a vastly overwhelming superiority of numbers. The accompanying
+illustration will give the reader a very correct idea of this renowned
+fortress of logs, which was regarded as the Gibraltar of Indian warfare.
+
+Having finished this fort Daniel Boone, leaving a sufficient garrison
+for its security, set out for his home on the Clinch river to bring his
+wife and family to the beautiful land he so long had coveted for their
+residence. It seems that his wife and daughters were eager to follow
+their father to the banks of the Kentucky, whose charms he had so
+glowingly described to them. Several other families were also induced to
+join the party of emigration. They could dwell together in a very social
+community and in perfect safety in the spacious cabins within the
+fortress. The river would furnish them with an unfailing supply of
+water. The hunters, with their rifles, could supply them with game, and
+with those rifles could protect themselves while laboring in the fields,
+which with the axe they had laid open to the sun around the fort. The
+hunters and the farmers at night returning within the enclosure, felt
+perfectly safe from all assaults.
+
+Daniel Boone commenced his journey with his wife and children, and
+others who joined them, back to Boonesborough in high spirits. It was a
+long journey of several hundred miles, and to many persons it would seem
+a journey fraught with great peril, for they were in danger almost every
+mile of the way, of encountering hostile Indians. But Boone, accustomed
+to traversing the wilderness, and accompanied by well armed men, felt no
+more apprehensions of danger than the father of a family would at the
+present day in traveling by cars from Massachusetts to Pennsylvania.
+
+It was beautiful autumnal weather when the party of pioneers commenced
+its adventurous tour through the wilderness, to find a new home five
+hundred miles beyond even the remotest frontiers of civilization. There
+were three families besides that of Boone, and numbered in all
+twenty-six men, four women, and four or five boys and girls of various
+ages. Daniel Boone was the happy leader of this heroic little band.
+
+In due time they all arrived safely at Boonesborough "without having
+encountered," as Boone writes, "any other difficulties than such as are
+common to this passage." As they approached the fort, Boone and his
+family, for some unexplained reason, pressed forward, and entered the
+fortress a few days in advance of the rest of the party. Perhaps Boone
+himself had a little pride to have it said, that Mrs. Boone and her
+daughter were the first of her color and sex that ever stood upon the
+banks of the wild and beautiful Kentucky.
+
+A few days after their arrival, the emigrants had a very solemn
+admonition of the peril which surrounded them, and of the necessity of
+constant vigilance to guard against a treacherous and sleepless foe. One
+of their number who had sauntered but a short distance from the fort,
+lured by the combined beauty of the field, the forest and the river, was
+shot by a prowling Indian, who, raising the war-whoop of exultation and
+defiance, immediately disappeared in the depths of the wilderness.
+
+Colonel Henderson and his partners, anxious to promote the settlement of
+the country, by organising parties of emigration, were busy in making
+known through the settlements the absolute security of the fort at
+Boonesborough, and the wonderful attractions of the region, in soil,
+climate, and abounding game. Henderson himself soon started with a large
+party, forty of whom were well armed. A number of pack-horses conveyed
+the luggage of the emigrants. Following the very imperfect road that
+Boone with much skill had engineered, which was quite tolerable for
+pack-horses in single file, they reached Boonesborough early in the
+following spring.
+
+The Transylvania Company was in the full flush of successful experiment.
+Small parties of emigrants were constantly arriving. Boonesborough was
+the capital of the colony. Various small settlements were settled in its
+vicinity. Colonel Henderson opened a land office there, and in the
+course of a few months, over half a million of acres were entered, by
+settlers or speculators. These men did not purchase the lands outright,
+but bound themselves to pay a small but perpetual rent. The titles,
+which they supposed to be perfectly good, were given in the name of the
+"proprietors of the Colony of Transylvania, in America."
+
+Soon four settlements were organised called Boonesborough, Harrodsburg,
+Boiling Spring, and St. Asaph. Colonel Henderson, on the twenty-third of
+May, 1775, as president or rather sovereign of this extraordinary realm,
+summoned a legislature consisting of delegates from this handful of
+pioneers, to meet at his capital, Boonesborough. Henderson presided.
+Daniel and his brother Squire were delegates from Boonesborough. A
+clergyman, the Reverend John Leythe, opened the session with prayer.
+Colonel Henderson made a remarkable and admirable speech. This
+extraordinary legislature represented only a constituency of one hundred
+and fifty souls. But the Colonel presented to them very clearly the true
+republican principle of government. He declared that the only legitimate
+source of political power is to be found in the will of the people, and
+added:
+
+"If any doubts remain among you with respect to the force and efficiency
+of whatever laws you now or hereafter make, be pleased to consider that
+all power is originally in the people. Make it their interest,
+therefore, by impartial and beneficent laws, and you may be sure of
+their inclination to see them enforced."
+
+Rumors of these extraordinary proceedings reached the ears of Lord
+Dunmore. He considered the whole region of Kentucky as included in the
+original grant of Virginia, and that the Government of Virginia alone
+had the right to extinguish the Indian title to any of those lands. He
+therefore issued a proclamation, denouncing in the severest terms the
+"unlawful proceedings of one Richard Henderson and other disorderly
+persons, his associates." The legislature continued in session but three
+days, and honored itself greatly by its energetic action, and by the
+character of the laws which it inaugurated. One bill was introduced for
+preserving game; another for improving the breed of their horses; and it
+is worthy of especial record that a law was passed prohibiting profane
+swearing and Sabbath breaking.
+
+The moral sense of these bold pioneers was shocked at the desecration of
+the Creator's name among their sublime solitudes.
+
+The controversy between the Transylvania Company and the Government of
+Virginia was short but very sharp. Virginia could then very easily send
+an army of several thousand men to exterminate the Kentucky colony. A
+compromise was the result. The title of Henderson was declared "null and
+void." But he received in compensation a grant of land on the Ohio,
+about twelve miles square, below the mouth of Green River. Virginia
+assumed that the Indian title was entirely extinguished, and the region
+called Transylvania now belonged without encumbrance to the Old
+Dominion.
+
+Still the tide of emigration continued to flow into this beautiful
+region. Among others came the family of Colonel Calloway, consisting of
+his wife and two daughters. For a long time no Indians had been seen in
+the vicinity of Boonesborough. No one seemed to apprehend the least
+danger from them, and the people in the fort wandered about as freely as
+if no foe had ever excited their fears. An accident occurred which sent
+a tremor of dismay through the whole colony, and which we will describe
+as related to the intelligent historian, Peck, from the lips of one of
+the parties, who experienced all the terrors of the scene:
+
+"On the fourteenth of July, 1776, Betsey Calloway, her sister Frances,
+and Jemima Boone, a daughter of Daniel Boone, the two last about
+fourteen years of age, carelessly crossed the river opposite
+Boonesborough in a canoe, at a late hour in the afternoon. The trees
+and shrubs on the opposite bank were thick, and came down to the water's
+edge. The girls, unconscious of danger, were playing and splashing the
+water with their paddles, until the canoe floating with the current,
+drifted near the shore. Five stout Indians lay there concealed, one of
+whom, noiseless and stealthy as the serpent, crawled down the bank until
+he reached the rope that hung from the bow, turned its course up the
+stream, and in a direction to be hidden from the view of the fort. The
+loud shrieks of the captured girls were heard, but too late for their
+rescue.
+
+"The canoe, their only means of crossing, was on the opposite shore, and
+none dared to risk the chance of swimming the river, under the
+impression that a large body of savages was concealed in the woods.
+Boone and Calloway were both absent, and night came on before
+arrangements could be made for their pursuit. Next morning by daylight
+we were on the track, and found they had prevented our following them by
+walking some distance apart through the thickest canes they could find.
+We observed their course, and on which side they had left their sign and
+traveled upwards of thirty miles. We then imagined they would be less
+cautious in traveling, and made a turn in order to cross their trace,
+and had gone but a few miles when we found their tracks in a buffalo
+path. We pursued and overtook them on going about ten miles, as they
+were kindling a fire to cook.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Our study had been more to get the prisoners without giving the Indians
+time to murder them, after they discovered us, than to kill them. We
+discovered each other nearly at the same time. Four of us fired, and all
+of us rushed on them, which prevented them from carrying away anything,
+except one shot-gun without ammunition. Mr. Boone and myself had a
+pretty fair shoot, just as they began to move off. I am well convinced I
+shot one through, and the one he shot dropped his gun. Mine had none.
+The place was very thick with canes, and being so much elated on
+recovering the three broken-hearted girls, prevented our making further
+search. We sent them off without their mocassins, and not one of them
+with so much as a knife or a tomahawk."
+
+The Indians seemed to awake increasingly to the consciousness that the
+empire of the white man in their country could only exist upon the ruins
+of their own. They divided themselves into several parties, making
+incessant attacks upon the forts, and prowling around to shoot every
+white man who could be found within reach of their bullets. They avoided
+all open warfare, and fought only when they could spring from an ambush,
+or when protected by a stump, a rock, or a tree. An Indian would conceal
+himself in the night behind a stump, shoot the first one who emerged
+from the fort in the morning, and then with a yell disappear in the
+recesses of the forest. The cattle could scarcely appear for an hour to
+graze beyond the protection of the fort, without danger of being struck
+down by the bullet of an unseen foe.
+
+The war of the American Revolution was just commencing. Dreadfully it
+added to the perils of these distant emigrants. The British Government,
+with infamy which can never be effaced from her records, called in to
+her aid the tomahawk and the scalping knife of the savage. The Indian
+alone in his wild and merciless barbarity, was terrible enough. But when
+he appeared as the ally of a powerful nation, guided in his operations
+by the wisdom of her officers, and well provided with guns, powder, and
+bullets from inexhaustible resources, the settler had indeed reason to
+tremble. The winter of 1776 and 1777 was gloomy beyond expression. The
+Indians were hourly becoming more bold. Their predatory bands were
+wandering in all directions, and almost every day came fraught with
+tidings of outrage or massacre.
+
+The whole military force of the colony was but about one hundred men.
+Three hundred of the pioneers, dismayed by the cloud of menace, every
+hour growing blacker, had returned across the moutains. There were but
+twenty-two armed men left in the fort at Boonesborough. The dismal
+winter passed slowly away, and the spring opened replete with nature's
+bloom and beauty, but darkened by the depravity of man. On the fifteenth
+of April, a band of a hundred howling Indians appeared in the forest
+before Boonesborough. With far more than their ordinary audacity, they
+rushed from their covert upon the fort. Had they been acquainted with
+the use of scaling ladders, by attacking at different points, they might
+easily, by their superior numbers, have carried the place by storm.
+
+But fortunately the savages had but little military science, and when
+once repulsed, would usually retreat in dismay. The garrison, behind
+their impenetrable logs, took deliberate aim, and every bullet killed or
+wounded some Indian warrior. The savages fought with great bravery, and
+succeeded in killing one man in the garrison. Dismayed by the slaughter
+which they were encountering, they fled, taking their dead and wounded
+with them. But so fully were they conscious, that would they retain
+their own supremacy in the wilderness, they must exterminate the white
+man, that their retreat was only in preparation for a return with
+accumulated numbers.
+
+An intelligent historian writes:
+
+"Daniel Boone appears before us in these exciting times the central
+figure towering like a colossus amid that hardy band of pioneers who
+opposed their breasts to the shock of the struggle which gave a terrible
+significance and a crimson hue to the history of the old dark and bloody
+ground."
+
+The Indians were scattered everywhere in desperate bands. Forty men were
+sent from North Carolina and a hundred from Virginia, under Colonel
+Bowman, to strengthen the feeble settlements. The latter party arrived
+on the twentieth of August, 1776. There were at that time skirmishes
+with the Indians almost every day at some point. The pioneers within
+their log-houses, or behind their palisades, generally repelled these
+assaults with but little loss to themselves and not often inflicting
+severe injury to the wary savages. In the midst of these constant
+conflicts and dangers, the winter months passed drearily away.
+Boonesborough was constantly menaced and frequently attacked. In a diary
+kept within the fort we find the following entries:
+
+     "_May 23._--A large party of Indians attacked Boonesborough fort.
+      Kept a warm fire till eleven o'clock at night. Began it next morning,
+      and kept a warm fire till midnight. Attempting several times to burn
+      the fort. Three of our men were wounded, but not mortally.
+
+     "_May 26th._--A party went out to hunt Indians. One wounded Squire
+     Boone, and escaped."
+
+Very cruel warfare was now being waged by the majestic power of Great
+Britain to bring the revolted colonies back to subjection to their laws.
+As we have mentioned they called into requisition on their side the
+merciless energies of the savage, openly declaring to the world that
+they were justified in making use of whatever weapons God and nature
+might place in their hands. From the strong British garrisons at
+Detroit, Vincennes and Kaskaskia, the Indians were abundantly supplied
+with rifles, powder and bullets, and were offered liberal rewards for
+such prisoners, and even scalps, as they might bring in.
+
+The danger which threatened these settlements in Kentucky was now such
+as might cause the stoutest heart to quail. The savage had been adopted
+as an ally by the most wealthy and powerful nation upon the globe. His
+marauding bands were often guided by the intelligence of British
+officers. Boone organized what might be called a corps of explorers to
+go out two and two, penetrating the wilderness with extreme caution, in
+all directions, to detect any indication of the approach of the Indians.
+One of these explorers, Simon Kenton, acting under the sagacious counsel
+of Colonel Boone, had obtained great and deserved celebrity as among the
+most heroic of the remarkable men who laid the foundation of the State
+of Kentucky. It would be difficult to find in any pages of romance
+incidents of more wonderful adventure, or of more dreadful suffering, or
+stories of more miraculous escape, than were experienced by this man.
+Several times he was taken captive by the Indians, and though treated
+with great inhumanity, succeeded in making his escape. The following
+incident in his life, occurring about this time, gives one a very vivid
+picture of the nature of this warfare with the Indians:
+
+"Colonel Bowman sent Simon Kenton with two other men, Montgomery and
+Clark, on an exploring tour. Approaching an Indian town very cautiously
+in the night, on the north side of the Ohio river, they found a number
+of Indian horses in an enclosure. A horse in the wilderness was one of
+the most valuable of prizes. They accordingly each mounted an animal,
+and not daring to leave any behind, which would aid the Indians to
+pursue them, by hastily constructed halters they led the rest. The noise
+which the horses made awoke the Indians, and the whole village was at
+once in a state of uproar. The mounted adventurers dashed through the
+woods and were soon beyond the reach of the shouts and the yells which
+they left behind them. They knew, however, full well that the
+swift-footed Indian warriors would be immediately on their trail.
+Without a moment's rest they rode all night, the next day and the next
+night, and on the morning of the second day reached the banks of the
+Ohio river. The flood of that majestic stream flowed broad and deep
+before them, and its surface was lashed into waves by a very boisterous
+wind. The horses could not swim across in such a gale, but their desire
+to retain the invaluable animals was so great that they resolved to wait
+upon the banks until sunset, when they expected the wind to abate.
+Having been so well mounted and having such a start of the Indians, they
+did not suppose it possible that their pursuers could overtake them
+before that time.
+
+"Night came, but with it an increase of the fury of the gale, and the
+stream became utterly impassable. Early in the morning Kenton, who was
+separated from his companions, observed three Indians and a white man,
+well mounted, rapidly approaching. Raising his rifle, he took steady aim
+at the breast of the foremost Indian, and pulled the trigger. The powder
+flashed in the pan. Kenton took to his heels, but was soon overtaken and
+captured. The Indians seemed greatly exasperated at the loss of their
+horses. One seized him by the hair and shook his head 'till his teeth
+rattled.' The others scourged him severely with their ramrods over the
+head and face, exclaiming at every blow, 'Steal Indian hoss, hey!'
+
+"Just then Kenton saw Montgomery coming boldly to his assistance.
+Instantly two Indian rifles were discharged, and Montgomery fell dead.
+His bloody scalp was waved in the face of Kenton, with menaces of a
+similar fate. Clark had sought safety in flight. Kenton was thrown upon
+the ground upon his back. His neck was fastened by a halter to a
+sapling; his arms, extended to their full length, were pinioned to the
+earth by stakes; his feet were fastened in a similar manner. A stout
+stick was passed across his breast, and so attached to the earth that he
+could not move his body. All this was done in the most violent and cruel
+manner, accompanied by frequent cuffs, and blows, as the maddened
+Indians called him in the broken English which they had acquired, 'a
+tief, a hoss steal, a rascal,' which expressions the Indians had learned
+to intersperse with English oaths.
+
+"In this condition of suffering Kenton remained through the day and
+through the night. The next morning the savages having collected their
+scattered horses, put Kenton upon a young colt, tied his hands behind
+him and his feet beneath the horse's belly, and set out on their return.
+The country was rough and Kenton could not at all protect himself from
+the brambles through which they passed. Thus they rode all day. When
+night came, their prisoner was bound to the earth as before. The next
+day they reached the Indian village, which was called Chilicothe, on the
+Miami river, forty or fifty miles west of the present city of
+Chilicothe, Ohio. A courier was sent forward, to inform the village of
+their arrival. Every man, woman and child came running out, to view the
+prisoner. One of their chiefs, Blackfish, approached Kenton with a
+strong hickory switch in his hand, and addressing him said,
+
+"'You have been stealing our horses, have you?'
+
+"'Yes,' was the defiant reply.
+
+"'Did Colonel Boone,' inquired the chief, 'tell you to steal our
+horses?'
+
+"'No,' said Kenton, 'I did it of my own accord.'
+
+"Blackfish then with brawny arms so mercilessly applied the scourge to
+the bare head and shoulders of his prisoner, as to cause the blood to
+flow freely, and to occasion the acutest pain.
+
+"In the mean time the whole crowd of men, women and children danced and
+hooted and clapped their hands, assailing him with the choicest epithets
+of Indian vituperation. With loud cries they demanded that he should be
+tied to the stake, that they might all enjoy the pleasure of tormenting
+him. A stake was immediately planted in the ground, and he was firmly
+fastened to it. His entire clothing was torn from him, mainly by the
+Indian women. The whole party then danced around him until midnight,
+yelling in the most frantic manner, smiting him with their hands and
+lacerating his flesh with their switches.
+
+"At midnight they released him from the stake, and allowed him some
+little repose, in preparation for their principal amusement in the
+morning, of having their prisoner run the gauntlet. Three hundred
+Indians of all ages and both sexes were assembled for the savage
+festival. The Indians were ranged in two parallel lines, about six feet
+apart, all armed with sticks, hickory rods, whips, and other means of
+inflicting torture. Between these lines, for more than half a mile to
+the village, the wretched prisoner was doomed to run for his life,
+exposed to such injury as his tormentors could inflict as he passed. If
+he succeeded in reaching the council-house alive, it would prove an
+asylum to him for the present.
+
+"At a given signal, Kenton started in the perilous race; exerting his
+utmost strength and activity, he passed swiftly along the line,
+receiving numerous blows, stripes, buffets, and wounds, until he
+approached the town, near which he saw an Indian leisurely awaiting his
+advance, with a drawn knife in his hand, intent upon his death.
+
+"To avoid him, he instantly broke through the line, and made his rapid
+way towards the council-house, pursued by the promiscuous crowd,
+whooping and yelling like infernal furies at his heels. Entering the
+town in advance of his pursuers, just as he supposed the council-house
+within his reach, an Indian was perceived leisurely approaching him
+with his blanket wrapped around him; but suddenly he threw off the
+blanket and sprung upon Kenton as he advanced. Exhausted with fatigue
+and wounds, he was thrown to the ground, and in a moment he was beset
+with crowds, eager to inflict upon him the kick or blow which had been
+avoided by breaking through the line. Here beaten, kicked and scourged,
+until he was nearly lifeless, he was left to die."[B]
+
+ [Footnote B: Macdonald's Sketches.]
+
+A few hours afterwards he was supplied with food and water, and was
+suffered to recuperate for a few days, until he was enabled to attend at
+the council-house, and receive the announcement of his final doom. It
+was here decided that he should be made a public sacrifice to the
+vengeance of the nation. The Indian town of Wappatomica, upon the
+present site of Zanesville, Ohio, was the appointed place of his
+execution. Being in a state of utter exhaustion his escape was deemed
+impossible, and he was carelessly guarded. In despair he attempted it.
+He was promptly recaptured and punished by being taken to a neighboring
+creek where he was dragged through mud and water, till life was nearly
+extinct. Still his constitutional vigor triumphed, and he revived.
+
+Wappatomica was a British trading post. Here Kenton met an old comrade,
+Simon Girty, who had become a renegade, had joined the Indians, and had
+so adopted their dress and manners as hardly to be distinguished from
+his savage associates. Girty cautiously endeavored to save the condemned
+prisoner. He represented to the band that it would be of great advantage
+to them to have possession of one so intimately acquainted with all the
+white settlements and their resources.
+
+A respite was granted. Another council was held. The spirit of Indian
+revenge prevailed. Kenton was again doomed to death, to be preceded by
+the terrible ordeal of running the gauntlet.
+
+But a British officer, influenced by the persuasions of the Indian chief
+Logan, the friend of the white man, urged upon the Indian chiefs that
+the British officers at Detroit would regard the possession of Kenton,
+with the information he had at his command, as a great acquisition, and
+that they would pay for him a ransom of at least one hundred dollars.
+They took him to Detroit; the ransom was paid, and Kenton became the
+prisoner of the British officers, instead of the savage chieftains.
+Still he was a prisoner, though treated with ordinary humanity, and was
+allowed the liberty of the town.
+
+There were two other American captives there, Captain Nathan Bullit and
+Jesse Coffer. Escape seemed impossible, as it could only be effected
+through a wilderness four hundred miles in extent, crowded with
+wandering Indian bands, where they would be imminently exposed to
+recapture, or to death by starvation.
+
+Simon Kenton was a very handsome man. He won the sympathies of a very
+kind English woman, Mrs. Harvey, the wife of one of the traders at the
+post. She secretly obtained for him and his two companions, and
+concealed in a hollow tree, powder, lead, moccasins, and a quantity of
+dried beef. One dark night, when the Indians were engaged in a drunken
+bout, she met Kenton in the garden and handed him three of the best
+rifles, which she had selected from those stacked near the house. The
+biographer of these events writes:
+
+"When a woman engages to do an action, she will risk limb, life or
+character, to serve him whom she respects or wishes to befriend. How
+differently the same action would be viewed by different persons! By
+Kenton and his friends her conduct was viewed as the benevolent conduct
+of a good angel; while if the part she played in behalf of Kenton and
+his companions had been known to the commander at Detroit, she would
+have been looked upon as a traitress, who merited the scorn and contempt
+of all honest citizens. This night was the last that Kenton ever saw or
+heard of her."
+
+Our fugitives traveled mostly by night, guided by the stars. After
+passing through a series of wonderful adventures, which we have not
+space here to record, on the thirty-third day of their escape, they
+reached the settlement at the Falls of the Ohio, now Louisville. During
+the rest of the war, Kenton was a very active partisan. He died in the
+year 1836, over eighty years of age, having been for more than a quarter
+of a century an honored member of the Methodist Church.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+_Life in the Wilderness._
+
+Stewart killed by the Indians.--Squire Boone returns to the
+Settlements.--Solitary Life of Daniel Boone.--Return of Squire
+Boone.--Extended and Romantic Explorations.--Charms and Perils of
+the Wilderness.--The Emigrant Party.--The Fatal Ambuscade.--Retreat
+of the Emigrants.--Solitude of the Wilderness.--Expedition of Lewis
+and Clarke.--Extraordinary Adventures of Cotter.
+
+
+There were now four hungry men to occupy the little camp of our bold
+adventurers. They do not seem to have been conscious of enduring any
+hardships. The winter was mild. Their snug tent furnished perfect
+protection from wind and rain. With abundant fuel, their camp-fire ever
+blazed brightly. Still it was necessary for them to be diligent in
+hunting, to supply themselves with their daily food. Bread, eggs, milk,
+butter, sugar, and even salt, were articles of which they were entirely
+destitute.
+
+One day, not long after the arrival of Squire Boone, Daniel Boone, with
+his companion Stewart, was a long distance from the camp, hunting.
+Suddenly the terrible war-whoop of the Indians resounded from a thicket,
+and a shower of arrows fell around them. Stewart, pierced by one of
+these deadly missiles, fell mortally wounded. A sturdy savage sprang
+from the ambuscade upon his victim, and with a yell buried a tomahawk in
+his brain. Then, grasping with one hand the hair on the top of his head,
+he made a rapid circular cut with his gleaming knife, and tore off the
+scalp, leaving the skull bare. The revolting deed was done quicker than
+it can be described. Shaking the bloody trophy in his hand, he gave a
+whoop of exultation which echoed far and wide through the solitudes of
+the forest.
+
+Boone, swift of foot as the antelope, escaped and reached the camp with
+the sad tidings of the death of his companion, and of the presence, in
+their immediate vicinity, of hostile Indians. This so affrighted the
+North Carolinian who had come with Squire Boone, that he resolved upon
+an immediate return to the Yadkin. He set out alone, and doubtless
+perished by the way, as he was never heard of again. A skeleton,
+subsequently found in the wilderness, was supposed to be the remains of
+the unfortunate hunter. He probably perished through exhaustion, or by
+the arrow or tomahawk of the savage.
+
+The two brothers, Daniel and Squire, were now left entirely alone.
+
+They selected a favorable spot in a wild ravine where they would be the
+least likely to be discovered by hunting bands, and built for
+themselves a snug and comfortable log-house, in which they would be more
+effectually sheltered from the storms and cold of winter, and into which
+they moved from their open camp. Here they remained, two loving brothers
+of congenial tastes, during the months of January, February, March and
+April. Solitary as their life must have been probably, every hour
+brought busy employment. Each day's food was to be obtained by the
+rifle. Wood was to be procured for their fire. All their clothing, from
+the cap to the moccasin, was to be fashioned by their own hands from the
+skin of the deer, which they had carefully tanned into pliancy and
+softness; and there were to be added to their cabin many conveniences
+which required much ingenuity with knife and hatchet for their only
+tools, and with neither nail nor screw for their construction. In
+addition to this they were under the necessity of being ever on the
+alert to discover indications of the approach of the Indians.
+
+The winter passed away, not only undisturbed, but evidently very
+happily. It is remarkable that their retreat was not discovered by any
+of the Indian bands, who in pursuit of game were constantly roving over
+those rich hunting grounds.
+
+As summer's warmth returned, Squire Boone decided to retrace his steps
+to the Yadkin, to carry to his brother's family news of his safety, and
+to obtain much needed supplies of powder and of lead. There is no
+satisfactory explanation of the motives which could have induced Daniel,
+after the absence of a year from his home, to remain alone in that
+solitary cabin. In his autobiography he has assigned no reason for the
+extraordinary decision. One of the most judicious of his biographers
+makes the following statement which by no means solves the mystery:
+
+"When the spring came it was time for another movement. The spring came
+early, and the awaking to its foliage seemed like the passing from night
+to the day. The game had reduced their powder and lead, and without
+these there was no existence to the white man. Again Daniel Boone rises
+to the emergency. It was necessary that the settlement which they had
+made should be continued and protected, and it was the duty in the
+progress of events that one of them should remain to that task. He made
+the selection and chose himself. He had the courage to remain alone. And
+while he felt the keenest desire to see his own family, he felt that he
+had a noble purpose to serve and was prepared for it."[C]
+
+ [Footnote C: Life of Boone, by W. H. Bogart.]
+
+Daniel Boone, in his quaint autobiography, in the following terms
+alludes to the departure of his brother and his own solitary mode of
+life during the three months of his brother's absence:
+
+"On the first day of May, 1770, my brother returned home to the
+settlement by himself for a new recruit of horses and ammunition,
+leaving me by myself without bread, salt or sugar, without company of my
+fellow creatures, or even a horse or dog. I confess I never before was
+under greater necessity of exercising philosophy and fortitude. A few
+days I passed uncomfortably. The idea of a beloved wife and family, and
+their anxiety on account of my absence and exposed situation, made
+sensible impressions on my heart. A thousand dreadful apprehensions
+presented themselves to my view, and had undoubtedly exposed me to
+melancholy if further indulged.
+
+"One day I took a tour through the country, and the diversity and
+beauties of nature I met with in this charming season, expelled every
+gloomy and vexatious thought. Just at the close of the day the gentle
+gales retired and left the place to the disposal of a profound calm. Not
+a breeze shook the most tremulous leaf. I had gained the summit of a
+commanding ridge, and looking around with astonishing delight beheld the
+ample plain, the beauteous tracts below. On the other hand I surveyed
+the famous river Ohio, that rolled in silent dignity, marking the
+western boundary of Kentucky, with inconceivable grandeur. At a vast
+distance I beheld the mountains lift their venerable heads and penetrate
+the clouds.
+
+"I kindled a fire near a fountain of sweet water, and feasted on the
+loin of a buck. The fallen shades of night soon overspread the whole
+hemisphere, and the earth seemed to gape after the hovering moisture. My
+roving excursion this day had fatigued my body and diverted my
+imagination. I laid me down to sleep, and I woke not until the sun had
+chased away the night. I continued this tour, and in a few days explored
+a considerable part of the country, each day equally pleased as the
+first. I returned to my old camp which was not disturbed in my absence.
+I did not confine my lodging to it, but often reposed in thick cane
+brakes, to avoid the savages, who I believe often visited it, but,
+fortunately for me, in my absence.
+
+"In this situation I was constantly exposed to danger and death. How
+unhappy such a condition for a man tormented with fear, which is vain if
+no danger comes; and if it does, only augments the pain! It was my
+happiness to be destitute of this afflicting passion, with which I had
+the greatest reason to be affected. The prowling wolves diverted my
+nocturnal hours with perpetual howlings, and the various species of
+animals in this vast forest, in the day-time were continually in my
+view. Thus I was surrounded with plenty in the midst of want. I was
+happy in the midst of dangers and inconveniences. In such a diversity it
+was impossible I should be disposed to melancholy. No populous city,
+with all the varieties of commerce and stately structures, could afford
+so much pleasure to my mind, as the beauties of nature I found here.
+
+"Thus through an uninterrupted scene of sylvan pleasures, I spent the
+time until the twenty-seventh day of July following, when my brother, to
+my great felicity, met me, according to appointment, at our old camp."
+
+Boone was at this time thirty-six years of age. He was about five feet
+ten inches in height, and of remarkably vigorous and athletic frame. His
+life in the open air, his perfect temperance, and his freedom from all
+exciting passions, gave him constant health. Squire brought back to his
+brother the gratifying news that his wife Rebecca was in good health and
+spirits, and cheerfully acquiesced in whatever decision her husband
+might make, in reference to his absence. She had full confidence in the
+soundness of his judgment, and in his conjugal and parental love. The
+children were all well, and from the farm and the forest the wants of
+the family were fully supplied.
+
+It appears that Squire Boone had succeeded in bringing one or two
+horses across the mountains. The abundance of grass kept them in fine
+condition. Upon the backs of these horses, the pioneers could traverse
+the treeless prairies without obstruction, and large portions of the
+forest were as free from underbrush as the park of an English nobleman.
+Invaluable as these animals were to the adventurers, they greatly
+increased their perils. They could not easily be concealed. Their
+footprints could not be effaced, and there was nothing the Indians
+coveted so greatly as a horse.
+
+The two adventurers now set out on horseback for an exploring tour to
+the south-west. Following a line nearly parallel with the Cumberland
+Range, after traversing a magnificent region of beauty and fertility for
+about one hundred and fifty miles, they reached the banks of the
+Cumberland river. This majestic stream takes its rise on the western
+slope of the Cumberland mountains. After an exceedingly circuitous route
+of six hundred miles, running far down into Tennessee, it turns
+north-westerly again, and empties its waters into the Ohio, about sixty
+miles above the entrance of that river into the Mississippi.
+
+It was mid-summer. The weather was delightful. The forest free from
+underbrush, attractive as the most artificial park, and the smooth sweep
+of the treeless prairie presented before them as enticing a route of
+travel as the imagination could desire. There were of course hardships
+and privations, which would have been regarded as very severe by the
+dwellers in the sealed houses, but none which disturbed in the slightest
+degree the equanimity of these hardy adventurers. They journeyed very
+leisurely; seven months being occupied in the tour. Probably only a few
+miles were accomplished each day. With soft saddles made of the skin of
+buffalo, with their horses never urged beyond a walk, with bright skies
+above them, and vistas of beauty ever opening before them, and
+luxuriance, bloom and fragrance spread everywhere around, their journey
+seemed replete with enjoyment of the purest kind.
+
+Though it was necessary to practice the extreme of caution, to avoid
+capture by the Indians, our adventurers do not seem to have been annoyed
+in the slightest degree with any painful fears on that account. Each
+morning they carefully scanned the horizon, to see if anywhere there
+could be seen the smoke of the camp-fire curling up from the open
+prairie or from the forest. Through the day they were ever on the alert,
+examining the trails which they occasionally passed, to see if there
+were any fresh foot prints, or other indications of the recent presence
+of their foe. At night, before venturing to kindle their own camp-fire,
+they looked cautiously in every direction, to see if a gleam from an
+Indian encampment could anywhere be seen. Thus from the first of August
+to the ensuing month of March, these two bold men traversed, for many
+hundred miles, an unknown country, filled with wandering hunting bands
+of hostile Indians, and yet avoided capture or detection.
+
+If a storm arose, they would rear their cabin in some secluded dell, and
+basking in the warmth of their camp-fire wait until the returning sun
+invited them to resume their journey. Or if they came to some of
+nature's favored haunts, where Eden-like attractions were spread around
+them, on the borders of the lake, by the banks of the stream, or beneath
+the brow of the mountain, they would tarry for a few days, reveling in
+delights, which they both had the taste to appreciate.
+
+In this way, they very thoroughly explored the upper valley of the
+Cumberland river. For some reason not given, they preferred to return
+north several hundred miles to the Kentucky river, as the seat of their
+contemplated settlement. The head waters of this stream are near those
+of the Cumberland. It however flows through the very heart of Kentucky,
+till it enters the Ohio river, midway between the present cities of
+Cincinnati and Louisville. It was in the month of March that they
+reached the Kentucky river on their return. For some time they wandered
+along its banks searching for the more suitable situation for the
+location of a colony.
+
+"The exemption of these men," said W. H. Bogart, "from assault by the
+Indians during all this long period of seven months, in which, armed and
+on horseback, they seem to have roamed just where they chose, is most
+wonderful. It has something about it which seems like a special
+interposition of Providence, beyond the ordinary guardianship over the
+progress of man. On the safety of these men rested the hope of a nation.
+A very distinguished authority has declared, that without Boone, the
+settlements could not have been upheld and the conquest of Kentucky
+would have been reserved for the emigrants of the nineteenth century."
+
+Boone having now, after an absence of nearly two years, apparently
+accomplished the great object of his mission; having, after the most
+careful and extensive exploration, selected such a spot as he deemed
+most attractive for the future home of his family, decided to return to
+the Yadkin and make preparations for their emigration across the
+mountains. To us now, such a movement seems to indicate an almost insane
+boldness and recklessness. To take wife and children into a pathless
+wilderness filled with unfriendly savages, five hundred miles from any
+of the settlements of civilization, would seem to invite death. A
+family could not long be concealed. Their discovery by the Indians
+would be almost the certain precursor of their destruction. Boone, in
+his autobiography, says in allusion to this hazardous adventure:
+
+"I returned home to my family with a determination to bring them as soon
+as possible, at the risk of my life and fortune, to live in Kentucky,
+which I esteemed a second paradise."
+
+The two brothers accomplished the journey safely, and Daniel Boone found
+his family, after his long absence, in health and prosperity. One would
+have supposed that the charms of home on the banks of the Yadkin, where
+they could dwell in peace, abundance and safety, would have lured our
+adventurer to rest from his wanderings. And it is probable that for a
+time, he wavered in his resolution. Two years elapsed ere he set out for
+his new home in the Far-West.
+
+There was much to be done in preparation for so momentous a movement. He
+sold his farm on the Yadkin and invested the proceeds in such comforts
+as would be available on the banks of the Kentucky. Money would be of no
+value to him there. A path had been discovered by which horses could be
+led through the mountains, and thus many articles could be transported
+which could not be taken in packs on the back. Several of the neighbors,
+elated by the description which Boone gave of the paradise he had
+found, were anxious to join his family in their emigration. There were
+also quite a number of young men rising here and there, who, lured by
+the romance of the adventure, were eager to accompany the expedition.
+All these events caused delays. The party of emigrants became more
+numerous than Boone at first expected.
+
+It was not until the twenty-fifth of September, 1773, that Daniel Boone,
+his brother Squire, and quite a large party of emigrants, probably in
+all--men, women and children--not less than sixty in number, commenced
+their journey across the mountains. There were five families and forty
+pioneers, all well armed, who were quite at home amid the trials and
+privations of the wilderness. Four horses, heavily laden, led the train
+through the narrow trails of the forest. Then came, in single file, the
+remainder of the party, of all ages and both sexes. It must have been a
+singular spectacle which was presented, as this long line wound its way
+through the valleys and over the ridges.
+
+Squire Boone was quite familiar with the path. It was delightful
+autumnal weather. The days were long and calm, and yet not oppressively
+hot. There were no gloved gentlemen or delicate ladies in the company.
+All were hardy men and women, accustomed to endurance. Each day's
+journey was short. An hour before the sun disappeared in the west, the
+little village of cabins arose, where some spring gurgled from the
+cliff, or some sparkling mountain stream rippled before them. In front
+of each cabin the camp-fire blazed. All was animation and apparent joy,
+as the women prepared the evening meal, and the wearied children rested
+upon their couch of dried leaves or fragrant twigs. If a storm arose,
+they had but to remain beneath their shelter until it passed away.
+
+"Traveling," says Madame de Stael, who was accustomed to the most
+luxurious of European conveyances, "is the most painful of pleasures."
+Probably our travelers on this journey experienced as many pleasures and
+as few pains as often fall to the lot of any tourist. The solitary
+wilderness has its attractions as well as the thronged town.
+
+These bold men armed with their rifles, under such an accomplished
+leader as Daniel Boone, penetrated the wilderness with almost the
+strength of an invading army. Upon the open prairie, the superiority of
+their arms would compensate for almost any inferiority of numbers.
+Indeed they had little to fear from the savages, unless struck suddenly
+with overwhelming numbers leaping upon them from some ambush. Pleasant
+days came and went, while nothing occurred to interrupt the prosperity
+of their journey. They were approaching the celebrated Cumberland Gap,
+which seems to be a door that nature has thrown open for passing through
+this great mountain barrier. The vigilance they ought to have practiced
+had been in some degree relaxed by their freedom from all alarm. The
+cows had fallen a few miles behind, seven young men were with them, a
+son of Daniel Boone being one of the number. The main party was not
+aware how far the cattle had fallen in the rear.
+
+It is probable that the savages had been following them for several
+days, watching for an opportunity to strike, for suddenly, as they were
+passing through a narrow ravine, the fearful war-whoop resounded from
+the thickets on both sides, a shower of arrows fell upon them, and six
+of the seven young men were instantly struck down by these deadly
+missiles. One only escaped. The attack was so sudden, so unexpected,
+that the emigrants had scarcely time for one discharge of their
+fire-arms, ere they were struck with death. The party in advance heard
+with consternation the reports of the muskets, and immediately returned
+to the scene of the disaster. But several miles intervened. They met the
+fugitive who had escaped, bleeding and almost breathless.
+
+Hurrying on, an awful spectacle met their view. The bodies of six of
+the young men lay in the path, mangled and gory, with their scalps torn
+from their heads: the cattle were driven into the forest beyond pursuit.
+One of these victims was the eldest son of Daniel Boone. James was a
+noble lad of but seventeen years. His untimely death was a terrible blow
+to his father and mother. This massacre took place on the tenth of
+October, only a fortnight after the expedition had commenced its march.
+The gloom which it threw over the minds of the emigrants was so great,
+that the majority refused to press any farther into a wilderness where
+they would encounter such perils.
+
+They had already passed two mountain ridges. Between them there was a
+very beautiful valley, through which flows the Clinch River. This many
+leagues below, uniting with the Holston River, flowing on the other side
+of Powell's Ridge, composes the majestic Tennessee, which, extending far
+down into Alabama, turns again north, and traversing the whole breadth
+of Tennessee and Kentucky, empties into the Ohio.
+
+Notwithstanding the remonstrances of Daniel Boone and his brother, the
+majority of the emigrants resolved to retreat forty miles over the
+Walden Ridge, and establish themselves in the valley of the Clinch.
+Daniel Boone, finding all his attempts to encourage them to proceed in
+vain, decided with his customary good sense to acquiesce in their
+wishes, and quietly to await further developments. The whole party
+consequently retraced their steps, and reared their cabins on fertile
+meadows in the valley of the Clinch River. Here, between parallel ridges
+of mountains running north-east and south-west, Boone with his
+disheartened emigrants passed seven months. This settlement was within
+the limits of the present State of Virginia, in its most extreme
+south-western corner.
+
+The value of the vast country beyond the mountains was beginning to
+attract the attention of the governors of the several colonies. Governor
+Dunmore of Virginia had sent a party of surveyors to explore the valley
+of the Ohio River as far as the celebrated Falls of the Ohio, near the
+present site of Louisville. Quite a body of these surveyors had built
+and fortified a camp near the Falls, and were busy in exploring the
+country, in preparation for the granting of lands as rewards for
+services to the officers and soldiers in the French war. These pioneers
+were far away in the wilderness, four hundred miles beyond any
+settlement of the whites. They were surrounded by thousands of Indian
+warriors, and still they felt somewhat secure, as a treaty of peace had
+been made by the Governor of Virginia with the neighboring chiefs. But,
+notwithstanding this treaty, many of the more intelligent of the Indians
+foresaw the inevitable destruction of their hunting grounds, should the
+white men succeed in establishing themselves on their lands, and cutting
+them up into farms.
+
+A friendly Indian had informed Governor Dunmore that a very formidable
+conspiracy had been organised by the tribes for the destruction of the
+party encamped at the Falls of the Ohio, and for the extermination of
+every other party of whites who should penetrate their hunting grounds.
+It was in accordance with this conspiracy that Daniel Boone's party was
+so fiercely assailed when near the Gap, in the Cumberland mountains; and
+it was probably the knowledge of this conspiracy, thus practically
+developed, which led the husbands and fathers to abandon their
+enterprise of plunging into the wilderness of Kentucky.
+
+There were about forty men all numbered, in the little band of surveyors
+at the Falls. They were in terrible peril. Unconscious of danger, and
+supposing the Indians to be friendly, they were liable to be attacked on
+any day by overwhelming numbers of savages, and utterly exterminated. It
+consequently became a matter of great moment that Governor Dunmore
+should send them word of their danger, and if possible secure their safe
+return to the settlements. But who would undertake such a mission? One
+fraught with greater danger could not easily be imagined. The courier
+must traverse on foot a distance of four or five hundred miles through a
+pathless wilderness, filled with hunting bands of hostile savages. He
+must live upon the game he could shoot each day, when every discharge of
+his musket was liable to bring upon him scores of foes. He must either
+eat his food raw, or cook it at a fire whose gleam at night, or smoke by
+day, would be almost sure to attract the attention of death-dealing
+enemies. He must conceal his footprints from hunting bands, wandering
+far and wide in every direction, so keen in their sagacity that they
+could almost follow the track of the lightest-footed animal through the
+forest or over the prairie.
+
+The Indians had also well-trained dogs, who being once put upon the
+scent, could with unerring instinct follow any object of search, until
+it was overtaken.
+
+The name of Daniel Boone was mentioned to Governor Dunmore as precisely
+the man to meet this exigency. The Governor made application to the
+practiced hunter, and Boone, without the slightest hesitancy, accepted
+the perilous office. Indeed he seems to have been entirely unconscious
+of the heroism he was developing. Never did knight errant of the middle
+ages undertake an achievement of equal daring; for capture not only was
+certain death, but death under the most frightful tortures. But Boone,
+calm, imperturbable, pensive, with never a shade of boastfulness in
+word or action, embarked in the enterprise as if it had been merely one
+of the ordinary occurrences of every-day life. In the following modest
+words he records the event in his autobiography:
+
+"I remained with my family on the Clinch river until the sixth of June,
+1774, when I, and one Michael Stoner, were solicited by Governor Dunmore
+of Virginia, to go to the Falls of the Ohio to conduct into the
+settlements a number of surveyors that had been sent thither by him some
+months before, this country having about this time drawn the attention
+of many adventurers. We immediately complied with the Governor's
+request, and conducted in the surveyors, completing a tour of eight
+hundred miles, through many difficulties, in sixty-two days."
+
+The narrative which follows will give the reader some idea of the
+wilderness which Boone was about to penetrate and the perils which he
+was to encounter.
+
+An emigrant of these early days who lived to witness the transformation
+of the wilderness from a scene of unbroken solitude into the haunts of
+busy men, in the following words describes this change and its influence
+upon the mind:
+
+"To a person who has witnessed all the changes which have taken place in
+the western country since its first settlement, its former appearance is
+like a dream or romance. He will find it difficult to realise the
+features of that wilderness which was the abode of his infant days. The
+little cabin of his father no longer exists. The little field and truck
+patch which gave him a scanty supply of coarse bread and vegetables have
+been swallowed up in the extended meadows, orchard or grain fields. The
+rude fort in which his people had resided so many painful summers has
+vanished.
+
+"Everywhere surrounded by the busy hum of men and the splendor, arts,
+refinements and comforts of civilised life, his former state and that of
+his country have vanished from his memory; or if sometimes he bestows a
+reflection on its original aspect, the mind seems to be carried back to
+a period of time much more remote than it really is. One advantage at
+least results from having lived in a state of society ever on the change
+and always for the better, that it doubles the retrospect of life. With
+me at any rate it has had that effect. Did not the definite number of my
+years teach me to the contrary, I should think myself at least one
+hundred years old instead of fifty. The case is said to be widely
+different with those who have passed their lives in cities or ancient
+settlements where, from year to year, the same unchanging aspect of
+things presents itself.
+
+"One prominent feature of the wilderness is its solitude. Those who
+plunged into the bosom of this forest left behind them not only the busy
+hum of men, but of domesticated animal life generally. The solitude of
+the night was interrupted only by the howl of the wolf, the melancholy
+moan of the ill-boding owl or the shriek of the frightful panther. Even
+the faithful dog, the only steadfast companion of man among the brute
+creation, partook of the silence of the desert; the discipline of his
+master forbade him to bark or move but in obedience to his command, and
+his native sagacity soon taught the propriety of obedience to this
+severe government.
+
+"The day was, if possible, more solitary than the night. The noise of
+the wild turkey, the croaking of the raven, or the woodpecker tapping
+the hollow beech tree, did not much enliven the dreary scene. The
+various tribes of singing birds are not inhabitants of the desert. They
+are not carnivorous and therefore must be fed from the labors of man. At
+any rate they did not exist in this country at its first settlement.
+
+"Let the imagination of the reader pursue the track of the adventurer
+into the solitary wilderness, bending his course towards the setting sun
+over undulating hills, under the shade of large forest trees, and wading
+through the rank weeds and grass which then covered the earth. Now he
+views from the top of a hill the winding course of a creek whose streams
+he wishes to explore. Doubtful of its course and of his own, he
+ascertains the cardinal points of north and south by the thickness of
+the moss and bark on the north side of the ancient trees. Now descending
+into a valley, he presages his approach to a river by seeing large ash,
+basswood and sugar trees beautifully festooned with wild grape vines.
+Watchful as Argus, his restless eye catches everything around him.
+
+"In an unknown region and surrounded with dangers, he is the sentinel of
+his own safety and relies on himself for protection. The toilsome march
+of the day being ended, at the fall of night he seeks for safety some
+narrow sequestered hollow, and by the side of a large log builds a fire
+and, after eating a coarse and scanty meal, wraps himself up in his
+blanket and lays him self down for repose on his bed of leaves, with his
+feet to the fire, hoping for favorable dreams, ominous of future good
+luck, while his faithful dog and gun rest by his side.
+
+"But let not the reader suppose that the pilgrim of the wilderness could
+feast his imagination with the romantic beauties of nature, without any
+drawback from conflicting passions. His situation did not afford him
+much time for contemplation. He was an exile from the warm clothing and
+plentiful mansions of society. His homely woodman's dress soon became
+old and ragged. The cravings of hunger compelled him to sustain from day
+to day the fatigues of the chase. Often he had to eat his venison,
+bear's meat, or wild turkey without bread or salt. His situation was not
+without its dangers. He did not know at what moment his foot might be
+stung by a serpent, at what moment he might meet with the formidable
+bear, or on what limb of a tree over his head the murderous panther
+might be perched, in a squatting attitude, to drop down upon him and
+tear him in pieces in a moment.
+
+"Exiled from society and its comforts, the situation of the first
+adventurers was perilous in the extreme. The bite of a serpent, a broken
+limb, a wound of any kind, or a fit of sickness in the wilderness
+without those accommodations which wounds and sickness require, was a
+dreadful calamity. The bed of sickness, without medical aid, and above
+all to be destitute of the kind attention of a mother, sister, wife, or
+other female friends, was a situation which could not be anticipated by
+the tenant of the forest, with other sentiments than those of the
+deepest horror."[D]
+
+ [Footnote D: Doddridge's Notes.]
+
+There are no narratives of more thrilling interest than those which
+describe the perils and hair-breadth escapes which some of these bold
+hunters encountered. Immediately after the purchase of Louisiana, an
+expedition under Lewis and Clark was fitted out, under President
+Jefferson's administration, to explore the vast, mysterious, undefined
+realms which the government had purchased. In the month of May, 1804,
+the expedition, in birch canoes, commenced the ascent of the Missouri
+river.
+
+They knew not whence its source, what its length or the number of its
+tributaries, through what regions of fertility or barrenness it flowed,
+or what the character of the nations who might inhabit its banks.
+Paddling up the rapid current of this flood of waters in their frail
+boats, the ascent was slow. By the latter part of October they had
+reached a point fifteen hundred miles above the spot where the Missouri
+enters the Mississippi. Here they spent the winter with some friendly
+Indians called the Mandans.
+
+Early in April, Lewis and Clark, with thirty men in their canoes,
+resumed their voyage. Their course was nearly west. In May they reached
+the mouth of the Yellow Stone river, and on the 13th of June came to the
+_Great Falls of the Missouri_. Here they found a series of cataracts ten
+miles in length. At one spot the river plunged over a precipice
+eighty-seven feet in height. Carrying their canoes around these falls,
+they re-embarked, and paddled through what they called "The Gates of
+the Rocky Mountains." Here for six miles they were in a narrow channel
+with perpendicular walls of rock, rising on both sides to the height of
+twelve hundred feet. Thus these adventurers continued their voyage till
+they reached the head of navigation, three thousand miles from the mouth
+of the Missouri river. Passing through the mountains they launched their
+canoes on streams flowing to the west, through which they entered the
+Columbia river, reaching its mouth, through a thousand perils on the
+15th of November. They were now more than four thousand miles distant
+from the mouth of the Missouri. Such was the breadth of the estate we
+had purchased of France.
+
+Here they passed their second winter. In the early spring they commenced
+their return. When they arrived at the Falls of the Missouri they
+encountered a numerous band of Indians, very bold and daring, called the
+Blackfoot. These savages were astonished beyond measure, at the effect
+of the rifle which could emit thunder and lightning, and a deadly though
+invisible bolt. Some of the boldest endeavored to wrench the rifles from
+some of the Americans. Mr. Lewis found it necessary to shoot one of them
+before they would desist. The rest fled in dismay, but burning with the
+desire for revenge. The explorers continuing their voyage arrived at
+Saint Louis on the 23rd of September, 1806, having been absent more
+than two years, and having traveled more than nine thousand miles.
+
+When the expedition, on its return, had reached the head waters of the
+Missouri, two of these fearless men, Colter and Potts, decided to remain
+in the wilderness to hunt beaver. Being well aware of the hostility of
+the Blackfoot Indians, within whose regions they were, they set their
+traps at night, and took them up in the first dawn of the day. Early one
+morning, they were ascending a creek in a canoe, visiting their traps,
+when they were alarmed by a great noise, like the trampling of animals.
+They could see nothing, as the perpendicular banks of the river impeded
+their view. Yet they hoped that the noise was occasioned simply by the
+rush of a herd of buffaloes.
+
+Their doubts were soon painfully removed. A band of six hundred
+Blackfoot warriors appeared upon each side of the creek. Escape was
+hopeless. The Indians beckoned to the hunters to come ashore. Colter
+turned the head of the canoe towards the bank, and as soon as it touched
+the land, a burly savage seized the rifle belonging to Potts, and
+wrenched it from his hand. But Colter, who was a man of extraordinary
+activity and strength, grasped the rifle, tore it from the hands of the
+Indian, and handed it back to Potts. Colter stepped ashore and was a
+captive. Potts, with apparent infatuation, but probably influenced by
+deliberate thought, pushed again out into the stream. He knew that, as a
+captive, death by horrible torture awaited him. He preferred to provoke
+the savages to his instant destruction. An arrow was shot at him, which
+pierced his body. He took deliberate aim at the Indian who threw it and
+shot him dead upon the spot. Instantly a shower of arrows whizzed
+through the air, and he fell a dead man in the bottom of the boat. The
+earthly troubles of Potts were ended. But fearful were those upon which
+Colter was about to enter.
+
+The Indians, after some deliberation respecting the manner in which they
+would put him to death, stripped him entirely naked, and one of the
+chiefs led him out upon the prairie to the distance of three or four
+hundred yards from the rest of the band who were grouped together.
+Colter then perceived that he was to have the dreadful privilege of
+running for his life;--he, entirely naked and unarmed, to be pursued by
+six hundred fleet-footed Indians with arrows and javelins, and with
+their feet and limbs protected from thorns and brambles by moccasins and
+deerskin leggins.
+
+"Save yourself if you can," said the chief in the Blackfoot language as
+he set him loose. Colter sprung forward with almost supernatural speed.
+Instantly the Indian's war-whoop burst from the lips of his six hundred
+pursuers. They were upon a plain about six miles in breadth abounding
+with the prickly pear. At the end of the plain there was Jefferson
+river, a stream but a few rods wide. Every step Colter took, bounding
+forward with almost the speed of an antelope, his naked feet were torn
+by the thorns. The physical effort he made was so great that the blood
+gushed from his nostrils, and flowed profusely down over his chest. He
+had half crossed the plain before he ventured to glance over his
+shoulder upon his pursuers, who, with hideous yells, like baying
+bloodhounds, seemed close upon his heels. Much to his relief he
+perceived that he had greatly distanced most of the Indians, though one
+stout savage, with a javelin in his hand, was within a hundred yards of
+him.
+
+Hope reanimated him. Regardless of lacerated feet and blood, he pressed
+forward with renovated vigor until he arrived within about a mile of the
+river, when he found that his pursuer was gaining rapidly upon him. He
+could hear his breathing and the sound of his footsteps, and expected
+every moment to feel the sharp javelin piercing his back.
+
+In his desperation he suddenly stopped, turned round and stretching out
+both of his arms, rushed, in his utter defencelessness, upon the armed
+warrior. The savage, startled by this unexpected movement and by the
+bloody appearance of his victim, stumbled and fell, breaking his spear
+as he attempted to throw it. Colter instantly snatched up the pointed
+part, and pinned his foe, quivering with convulsions to the earth.
+
+Again he plunged forward on the race for life. The Indians, as they came
+up, stopped for a moment around the body of their slain comrade, and
+then, with hideous yells, resumed the pursuit. The stream was fringed
+with a dense growth of cotton-wood trees. Colter rushed through them,
+thus concealed from observation, and seeing near by a large raft of
+drift timber, he plunged into the water, dived under the raft and
+fortunately succeeded in getting his head above the water between the
+logs, where smaller wood covered him to the depth of several feet.
+
+Scarcely had he attained this hiding place ere the Indians like so many
+fiends came rushing down to the river's bank. They searched the
+cotton-wood thickets, and traversed the raft in all directions. They
+frequently came so near the hiding place of Colter that he could see
+them through the chinks. He was terribly afraid that they would set fire
+to the raft. Night came on, and the Indians disappeared. Colter, in the
+darkness, dived from under the raft, swam down the river to a
+considerable distance, and then landed and traveled all night, following
+the course of the stream.
+
+"Although happy in having escaped from the Indians, his situation was
+still dreadful. He was completely naked under a burning sun. The soles
+of his feet were filled with the thorns of the prickly pear. He was
+hungry and had no means of killing game, although he saw abundance
+around him; and was at a great distance from the nearest settlement.
+After some days of sore travel, during which he had no other sustenance
+than the root known by naturalists under the name of _psoralea
+esculenta_, he at length arrived in safety at Lisa Fort, on the Big
+Horn, a branch of the Yellow Stone river."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+_Captivity and Flight._
+
+Heroism of Thomas Higgins and of Mrs. Pursley.--Affairs at
+Boonesborough.--Continued Alarms.--Need of Salt.--Its Manufacture.--Indian
+Schemes.--Capture of Boone and twenty-seven men.--Dilemma of the British
+at Detroit.--Blackfish adopts Colonel Boone.--Adoption Ceremony.--Indian
+Designs.--Escape of Boone.--Attacks the Savages.--The Fort Threatened.
+
+
+The following well authenticated account of the adventures of a ranger
+is so graphically described in Brown's _History of Illinois_, that we
+give it in the words of the writer:
+
+"Thomas Higgins, a native Kentuckian, was, in the summer of 1814,
+stationed in a block-house eight miles south of Greenville, in what is
+now Bond County, Illinois. On the evening of the 30th of August, 1814, a
+small party of Indians having been seen prowling about the station,
+Lieutenant Journay, with all his men, twelve only in number, sallied
+forth the next morning, just before daybreak, in pursuit of them. They
+had not proceeded far on the border of the prairie, before they were in
+an ambuscade of seventy or eighty savages. At the first fire, the
+lieutenant and three of his men were killed. Six fled to the fort under
+cover of the smoke, for the morning was sultry, and the air being damp,
+the smoke from the guns hung like a cloud over the scene. But Higgins
+remained behind to have 'one more pull at the enemy,' and to avenge the
+death of his companions.
+
+"He sprang behind a small elm scarcely sufficient to protect his body,
+when, the smoke partly rising, discovered to him a number of Indians,
+upon whom he fired, and shot down the foremost one. Concealed still by
+the smoke, Higgins reloaded, mounted his horse, and turned to fly, when
+a voice, apparently from the grass, hailed him with: Tom, you won't
+leave me, will you?
+
+"He turned immediately around, and seeing a fellow soldier by the name
+of Burgess lying on the ground, wounded and gasping for breath, replied,
+'No, I will not leave you; come along.' 'I can't come,' said Burgess,
+'my leg is all smashed to pieces.'
+
+"Higgins dismounted, and taking up his friend, whose ankle had been
+broken, was about to lift him on his horse, when the animal, taking
+fright, darted off in an instant and left them both behind. 'This is too
+bad,' said Higgins, 'but don't fear. You hop off on your three legs and
+I will stay behind between you and the Indians and keep them off. Get
+into the tallest grass and creep as near the ground as possible.'
+Burgess did so and escaped.
+
+"The smoke which had hitherto concealed Higgins now cleared away, and he
+resolved, if possible, to retreat. To follow the track of Burgess was
+most expedient. It would, however, endanger his friend. He determined,
+therefore, to venture boldly forward and, if discovered, to secure his
+own safety by the rapidity of his flight. On leaving a small thicket in
+which he had sought refuge, he discovered a tall, portly savage near by,
+and two others in the direction between him and the fort.
+
+"He started, therefore, for a little rivulet near, but found one of his
+limbs failing him, it having been struck by a ball in the first
+encounter, of which, till now, he was scarcely conscious. The largest
+Indian pressed close upon him, and Higgins turned round two or three
+times in order to fire. The Indian halted and danced about to prevent
+his taking aim. He saw that it was unsafe to fire at random, and
+perceiving two others approaching, knew that he must be overpowered
+unless he could dispose of the forward Indian first. He resolved,
+therefore, to halt and receive his fire.
+
+"The Indian raised his rifle, and Higgins, watching his eye, turned
+suddenly as his finger pressed the trigger, and received the ball in his
+thigh. He fell, but rose immediately and ran. The foremost Indian, now
+certain of his prey, loaded again, and with the other two pressed on.
+They overtook him. He fell again, and as he rose the whole three fired,
+and he received all their balls. He now fell and rose a third time, and
+the Indians, throwing away their guns, advanced upon him with spears and
+knives. As he presented his gun at one or another, each fell back. At
+last the largest Indian, supposing his gun to be empty, from his fire
+having been thus reserved, advanced boldly to the charge. Higgins fired
+and the savage fell.
+
+"He had now four bullets in his body, an empty gun in his hand, two
+Indians unharmed as yet before him, and a whole tribe but a few yards
+distant. Any other man would have despaired. Not so with him. He had
+slain the most dangerous of the three, and having but little to fear
+from the others, began to load his rifle. They raised a savage whoop and
+rushed to the encounter. A bloody conflict now ensued. The Indians
+stabbed him in several places. Their spears, however, were but thin
+poles, hastily prepared, and which bent whenever they struck a rib or a
+muscle. The wounds they made were not therefore deep, though numerous.
+
+"At last one of them threw his tomahawk. It struck him upon the cheek,
+severed his ear, laid bare his skull to the back of his head, and
+stretched him upon the prairie. The Indians again rushed on, but
+Higgins, recovering his self-possession, kept them off with his feet
+and hands. Grasping at length one of their spears, the Indian, in
+attempting to pull it from him, raised Higgins up, who, taking his
+rifle, dashed out the brains of the nearest savage. In doing this,
+however, it broke, the barrel only remaining in his hand. The other
+Indian, who had heretofore fought with caution, came now manfully into
+the battle. His character as a warrior was in jeopardy. To have fled
+from a man thus wounded and disarmed, or to have suffered his victim to
+escape, would have tarnished his fame for ever. Uttering, therefore, a
+terrific yell, he rushed on and attempted to stab the exhausted ranger.
+But the latter warded off his blow with one hand and brandished his
+rifle barrel with the other. The Indian was as yet unharmed, and, under
+existing circumstances, by far the most powerful man. Higgins' courage,
+however, was unexhausted and inexhaustible.
+
+"The savage at last began to retreat from the glare of his untamed eye
+to the spot where he had dropped his rifle. Higgins knew that if he
+recovered that, his own case was desperate. Throwing, therefore, his
+rifle barrel aside, and drawing his hunting knife he rushed upon his
+foe. A desperate strife ensued--deep gashes were inflicted on both
+sides. Higgins, fatigued and exhausted by the loss of blood, was no
+longer a match for the savage. The latter succeeded in throwing his
+adversary from him, and went immediately in pursuit of his rifle.
+Higgins at the same time rose and sought for the gun of the other
+Indian. Both, therefore, bleeding and out of breath, were in search of
+arms to renew the combat.
+
+"The smoke had now passed away, and a large number of Indians were in
+view. Nothing, it would seem, could now save the gallant ranger. There
+was, however, an eye to pity and an arm to save, and that arm was a
+woman's. The little garrison had witnessed the whole combat. It
+consisted of but six men and one woman; that woman, however, was a
+host--a Mrs. Pursley. When she saw Higgins contending single-handed with
+a whole tribe of savages, she urged the rangers to attempt his rescue.
+The rangers objected, as the Indians were ten to one. Mrs. Pursley,
+therefore, snatched a rifle from her husband's hand, and declaring that
+'so fine a fellow as Tom Higgins should not be lost for want of help,'
+mounted a horse and sallied forth to his rescue.
+
+"The men, unwilling to be outdone by a woman, followed at full gallop,
+reached the spot where Higgins had fainted and fell, before the Indians
+came up, and while the savage with whom he had been engaged was looking
+for his rifle, his friends lifted the wounded ranger up and throwing him
+across a horse before one of the party, reached the fort in safety.
+
+"Higgins was insensible for several days, and his life was preserved by
+continued care. His friends extracted two of the balls from his thigh.
+Two, however, yet remained, one of which gave him a good deal of pain.
+Hearing afterwards that a physician had settled within a day's ride of
+him, he determined to go and see him. The physician asked him fifty
+dollars for the operation. This Higgins flatly refused, saying that it
+was more than half a year's pension. On reaching home he found that the
+exercise of riding had made the ball discernable; he requested his wife,
+therefore, to hand him his razor. With her assistance he laid open his
+thigh until the edge of the razor touched the bullet, then, inserting
+his two thumbs into the gash, 'he flirted it out,' as he used to say,
+'without it costing him a cent.'
+
+"The other ball yet remained. It gave him, however, but little pain, and
+he carried it with him to the grave. Higgins died in Fayette County,
+Illinois, a few years ago. He was the most perfect specimen of a
+frontier man in his day, and was once assistant door-keeper of the House
+of Representatives in Illinois. The facts above stated are familiar to
+many to whom Higgins was personally known, and there is no doubt of
+their correctness."[E]
+
+ [Footnote E: Brown's Illinois.]
+
+This narrative gives one a very vivid idea of the nature of the conflict
+in which Boone, through so many years of his life, was engaged. The
+little fort, whose feeble garrison he commanded, was liable at any time
+to be assailed by overwhelming numbers.
+
+Daniel Boone, during his occupancy of the fort at Boonesborough,
+manifested the most constant vigilance to guard against surprise. He was
+however struggling against a foe whose cunning and strategems were such,
+as not to allow him an hour of quiet. One morning two men laboring in
+the field were shot at by the Indians. Not being hit, they ran for the
+fort. They were pursued by the savages, and one was tomahawked and
+scalped within a few hundred feet of the gate. Boone hearing the alarm,
+inconsiderately rushed out with ten men upon the miscreants. They fled
+before him hotly pursued. In the eagerness of the chase, Boone had not
+counted the number of his foes. Some of them rushing from their ambush
+cut off his retreat. At one discharge, six of his men fell wounded.
+Boone's leg was shattered by a ball.
+
+As he fell to the ground, the tomahawk of a savage was over his head.
+Simon Kenton, who was one of Boone's party, with sure aim pierced the
+heart of the savage with a rifle bullet and he fell dead. Reinforcements
+rushed from the fort, and fortunately succeeded in rescuing the
+adventurous party, the wounded and all. It is said of Boone, that
+though a silent man and not given to compliments, he manifested very
+deep gratitude to his friend Kenton for saving his life. The very
+peculiar character of Boone is vividly presented in the following
+sketch, from the graphic pen of Mr. Peck:
+
+"As dangers thickened and appearances grew more alarming, as scouts came
+in with rumors of Indians seen here and there, and as the hardy and bold
+woodsmen sat around their camp-fires with the loaded rifle at hand,
+rehearsing for the twentieth time the tales of noble daring, or the
+hair-breadth escapes, Boone would sit silent, apparently not heeding the
+conversation, employed in repairing the rents in his hunting shirt and
+leggins, moulding bullets or cleaning his rifle. Yet the eyes of the
+garrison were upon him. Concerning 'Indian signs' he was an oracle.
+
+"Sometimes with one or two trusty companions, but more frequently alone,
+as night closed in, he would steal noiselessly away into the woods, to
+reconnoiter the surrounding wilderness. And in the day time, stealthily
+would he creep along with his trusty rifle resting on his arm, ready for
+the least sign of danger, his keen, piercing eyes glancing into every
+thicket and canebrake, or watch intently for 'signs' of the wiley enemy.
+Accustomed to range the country as a hunter and a scout, he would
+frequently meet the approaching travelers on the road and pilot them
+into the settlement, while his rifle supplied them with provisions. He
+was ever more ready to aid the community, or to engage in public
+services, than to attend to his private interests."
+
+The want of salt had become one of the greatest privations of the
+garrison. It was an article essential to comfort and health, and yet, in
+the warfare then existing, was almost impossible of attainment. Upon the
+Sicking river, nearly a hundred miles north from Boonesborough, there
+were valuable springs richly impregnated with salt. Animals from all
+quarters frequented these springs, licking the saturated clay around
+them. Hence the name of Salt Licks. Evaporating the water by boiling in
+large kettles, salt of a good quality was easily obtained. The
+necessities of the garrison became so great, that Colonel Boone took a
+well-armed party of thirty men, and threading their way through the
+wilderness, at length reached the springs unassailed. It was one of the
+boldest of adventures. It was certain that the watchful Indians would
+learn that a party had left the cover of the fort, and would fall upon
+them with great ferocity.
+
+Colonel Boone, who desired to obtain salt for all the garrisons, deemed
+it consequently necessary to work night and day with the greatest
+possible diligence. They could never venture to move a step beyond the
+grasp of their rifles. For nearly four weeks the salt-makers pursued
+their work unassailed. The news of so strong and well armed a party
+having left the fort, reached the ears of the Indians. They had a very
+great dread of Boone, and knew very well he would not be found sleeping
+or unprotected, at the springs. They shrewdly inferred that the
+departure of so many men must greatly weaken the garrison, and that they
+could never hope for a more favorable opportunity to attack
+Boonesborough.
+
+This formidable fortress was the great object of their dread. They
+thought that if they could lay it in ashes, making it the funeral pyre
+of all its inmates, the weaker forts would be immediately abandoned by
+their garrisons in despair, or could easily be captured. An expedition
+was formed, consisting of more than a hundred Indian warriors, and
+accompanied it is said by two Frenchmen. Boone had sent three men back
+to the garrison, loaded with salt, and to convey tidings of the good
+condition of the party at the springs.
+
+On the morning of the seventh of February, Boone, who was unequalled in
+his skill as a hunter, and also in the sagacity by which he could avoid
+the Indians, was out in search of game as food for the party. Emboldened
+by the absence of all signs of the vicinity of the Indians, he had
+wandered some distance from the springs, where he encountered this band
+of warriors, attended by the two Frenchmen, on the march for the assault
+on Boonesborough. Though exceedingly fleet of foot, his attempt to
+escape was in vain. The young Indian runners overtook and captured him.
+
+The Indians seem to have had great respect for Boone. Even with them he
+had acquired the reputation of being a just and humane man, while his
+extraordinary abilities, both as a hunter and a warrior, had won their
+admiration. Boone was not heading a war party to assail them. He had not
+robbed them of any of their horses. They were therefore not exasperated
+against him personally. It is also not improbable that the Frenchmen who
+were with them had influenced them not to treat their prisoner with
+barbarity.
+
+Boone, whose spirits seemed never to be perturbed, yielded so gracefully
+to his captors as to awaken in their bosoms some emotions of kindness.
+They promised that if the party at the springs would yield without
+resistance--which resistance, though unavailing, they knew would cost
+them the lives of many of their warriors--the lives of the captives
+should be safe, and they should not be exposed to any inhuman treatment.
+Boone was much perplexed. Had he been with his men, he would have
+fought to the last extremity, and his presence not improbably might have
+inspirited them, even to a successful defence. But deprived of their
+leader, taken entirely by surprise, and outnumbered three or four to
+one, their massacre was certain. And it was also certain that the
+Indians, exasperated by the loss which they would have encountered,
+would put every prisoner to death, through all the horrors of fiendlike
+torture.
+
+Under these circumstances, Colonel Boone very wisely decided upon
+surrender. It would have been very impolitic and cruel to do otherwise.
+He having thus given his word, the Indians placed implicit confidence in
+it. They were also perfectly faithful to their own promises. Boone was
+allowed to approach his men, and represent the necessity of a surrender,
+which was immediately effected. The Indians were so elated by this great
+victory, and were so well satisfied with the result of the campaign,
+that instead of continuing their march for the attack of Boonesborough,
+they returned with their illustrious captive and his twenty-seven
+companions to their head-quarters on the Little Miami River.
+
+The modest, unaffected account which Boone himself gives of these
+transactions, is worthy of record here:
+
+"On the seventh of February, as I was hunting to procure meat for the
+company, I met a party of one hundred and two Indians, and two
+Frenchmen, on their march against Boonesborough; that place being
+particularly the object of the enemy. They pursued and took me, and
+brought me the eighth day to the Licks, where twenty-seven of my party
+were, three of them having previously returned home with the salt. I,
+knowing it was impossible for them to escape, capitulated with the
+enemy, and at a distance, in their view, gave notice to my men of their
+situation with orders not to resist, but surrender themselves captives.
+
+"The generous usage the Indians had promised before in my capitulation,
+was afterwards fully complied with, and we proceeded with them as
+prisoners to Old Chilicothe, the principal Indian town on Little Miami,
+where we arrived, after an uncomfortable journey in very severe weather,
+on the eighteenth of February, and received as good treatment as
+prisoners could expect from savages. On the tenth of March following, I
+and ten of my men were conducted by forty Indians to Detroit, where we
+arrived the thirtieth day, and were treated by Governor Hamilton, the
+British commander at that post, with great humanity.
+
+"During our travels, the Indians entertained me well, and their
+affection for me was so great, that they utterly refused to leave me
+there with the others, although the Governor offered them one hundred
+pounds sterling for me, on purpose to give me a parole to go home.
+Several English gentlemen there, being sensible of my adverse fortune,
+and touched with human sympathy, generously offered a friendly supply
+for my wants, which I refused with many thanks for their kindness,
+adding that I never expected it would be in my power to recompense such
+unmerited generosity."
+
+The British officers in Detroit could not venture to interfere in behalf
+of Colonel Boone, in any way which would displease their savage allies,
+for they relied much upon them in their warfare against the colonies.
+
+There was much in the character of our hero to win the affection of the
+savages. His silent, unboastful courage they admired. He was more than
+their equal in his skill in traversing the pathless forest. His prowess
+as a hunter they fully appreciated. It was their hope that he would
+consent to be incorporated in their tribe, and they would gladly have
+accepted him as one of their chiefs. The savages had almost universally
+sufficient intelligence to appreciate the vast superiority of the white
+man.
+
+The Indians spent ten days at Detroit, and surrendered, for a ransom,
+all their captives to the English, excepting Colonel Boone. Him they
+took back on a long and fatiguing journey to Old Chilicothe on the
+Little Miami. The country they traversed, now so full of wealth,
+activity, and all the resources of individual and social happiness, was
+then a vast wilderness, silent and lonely. Still in its solitude it was
+very beautiful, embellished with fertile plains, magnificent groves, and
+crystal streams. At Chilicothe, Colonel Boone was formally adopted,
+according to an Indian custom, into the family of Blackfish, one of the
+distinguished chiefs of the Shawanese tribe.
+
+"At Chilicothe," writes Boone, "I spent my time as comfortably as I
+could expect. I was adopted according to their custom, into a family
+where I became a son, and had a great share in the affection of my new
+parents, brothers, sisters and friends. I was exceedingly familiar and
+friendly with them, always appearing as cheerful and satisfied as
+possible, and they put great confidence in me. I often went hunting with
+them, and frequently gained their applause for my activity, at our
+shooting matches. I was careful not to excel them when shooting, for no
+people are more envious than they in their sport. I could observe in
+their countenances and gestures, the greatest expressions of joy when
+they exceeded me, and when the reverse happened, of envy. The Shawanese
+king took great notice of me, and treated me with profound respect and
+entire friendship, often trusting me to hunt at my liberty. I frequently
+returned with the spoils of the woods, and as often presented some of
+what I had taken to him, expressive of my duty to my sovereign. My food
+and lodging were in common with them. Not so good, indeed, as I could
+desire, but necessity makes everything acceptable."
+
+The spirit manifested by Boone under these circumstances, when he was
+apparently a hopeless prisoner in the hands of the Indians, was not
+influenced by artifice alone. He had real sympathy for the savages,
+being fully conscious of the wrongs which were often inflicted upon
+them, and which goaded their untamed natures to fearful barbarities. He
+had always treated them not only kindly, but with fraternal respect. The
+generous treatment he had received in return won his regards. His
+peculiarly placid nature was not easily disturbed by any reverses. Let
+what would happen, he never allowed himself to complain or to worry.
+Thus making the best of circumstances, he always looked upon the
+brightest side of things, and was reasonably happy, even in this direful
+captivity. Still he could not forget his home, and was continually on
+the alert to avail himself of whatever opportunity might be presented to
+escape and return to his friends.
+
+The ceremony of adoption was pretty severe and painful. All the hair of
+the head was plucked out by a tedious operation, leaving simply a tuft
+three or four inches in diameter on the crown. This was called the
+scalp-lock. The hair was here allowed to grow long, and was dressed with
+ribbons and feathers. It was to an individual warrior what the banner is
+to an army. The victor tore it from the skull as his trophy. Having thus
+denuded the head and dressed the scalp-lock, the candidate was taken to
+the river and very thoroughly scrubbed, that all the white blood might
+be washed out of him. His face was painted in the most approved style of
+Indian taste, when he was led to the council lodge and addressed by the
+chief in a long and formal speech, in which he expatiates upon the honor
+conferred upon the adopted son, and upon the corresponding duties
+expected of him.
+
+Colonel Boone having passed through this transformation, with his Indian
+dress and his painted cheeks, his tufted scalp-lock and his whole person
+embrowned by constant exposure to the open air, could scarcely be
+distinguished from any of his Indian associates. His wary captors
+however, notwithstanding all the kindness with which they treated him,
+seemed to be conscious that it must be his desire to return to his
+friends. They therefore habitually, but without a remark suggestive of
+any suspicions, adopted precautions to prevent his escape. So skilful a
+hunter as Boone could, with his rifle and a supply of ammunition,
+traverse the solitary expanse around for almost any length of time,
+living in abundance. But deprived of his rifle or of ammunition, he
+would soon almost inevitably perish of starvation. The Indians were
+therefore very careful not to allow him to accumulate any ammunition,
+which was so essential to sustain him in a journey through the
+wilderness.
+
+Though Boone was often allowed to go out alone to hunt, they always
+counted his balls and the charges of powder. Thus they could judge
+whether he had concealed any ammunition to aid him, should he attempt to
+escape. He however, with equal sagacity, cut the balls in halves, and
+used very small charges of powder. Thus he secretly laid aside quite a
+little store of ammunition. As ever undismayed by misfortune, he
+serenely gave the energies of his mind to the careful survey of the
+country around.
+
+"During the time that I hunted for them," he writes, "I found the land
+for a great extent about this river to exceed the soil of Kentucky if
+possible, and remarkably well watered."
+
+Upon one of the branches of the Scioto river, which stream runs about
+sixty miles east of the Little Miami, there were some salt springs.
+Early in June a party of the Indians set out for these "Licks" to make
+salt. They took Boone with them. The Indians were quite averse to
+anything like hard work. Boone not only understood the process of
+manufacture perfectly, but was always quietly and energetically devoted
+to whatever he undertook. The Indians, inspired by the double motive of
+the desire to obtain as much salt as possible, and to hold securely the
+prisoner, whom they so highly valued, kept him so busy at the kettles as
+to give him no opportunity to escape.
+
+After an absence of about a fortnight, they returned with a good supply
+of salt to the Little Miami. Here Boone was quite alarmed to find that
+during his absence the chiefs had been marshaling a band of four hundred
+and fifty of their bravest warriors to attack Boonesborough. In that
+fort were his wife and his children. Its capture would probably insure
+their slaughter. He was aware that the fort was not sufficiently guarded
+by its present inmates, and that, unapprehensive of impending danger,
+they were liable to be taken entirely by surprise. Boone was
+sufficiently acquainted with the Shawanese dialect to understand every
+word they said, while he very sagaciously had assumed, from the moment
+of his captivity, that he was entirely ignorant of their language.
+
+Boone's anxiety was very great. He was compelled to assume a smiling
+face as he attended their war dances. Apparently unmoved, he listened
+to the details of their plans for the surprise of the fort. Indeed, to
+disarm suspicion and to convince them that he had truly become one of
+their number, he co-operated in giving efficiency to their hostile
+designs against all he held most dear in the world.
+
+It had now become a matter of infinite moment that he should immediately
+escape and carry to his friends in the fort the tidings of their peril.
+But the slightest unwary movement would have led the suspicious Indians
+so to redouble their vigilance as to render escape utterly impossible.
+So skilfully did he conceal the emotions which agitated him, and so
+successfully did he feign entire contentment with his lot, that his
+captors, all absorbed in the enterprise in which they were engaged,
+remitted their ordinary vigilance.
+
+On the morning of the sixteenth of June, Boone rose very early to take
+his usual hunt. With his secreted ammunition, and the amount allowed him
+by the Indians for the day, he hoped to be able to save himself from
+starvation, during his flight of five days through the pathless
+wilderness. There was a distance of one hundred and sixty miles between
+Old Chilicothe and Boonesborough. The moment his flight should be
+suspected, four hundred and fifty Indian warriors, breathing vengeance,
+and in perfect preparation for the pursuit, would be on his track. His
+capture would almost certainly result in his death by the most cruel
+tortures; for the infuriated Indians would wreak upon him all their
+vengeance.
+
+It is however not probable that this silent, pensive man allowed these
+thoughts seriously to disturb his equanimity. An instinctive trust in
+God seemed to inspire him. He was forty-three years of age. In the
+knowledge of wood-craft, and in powers of endurance, no Indian surpassed
+him. Though he would be pursued by sagacious and veteran warriors and by
+young Indian braves, a pack of four hundred and fifty savages following
+with keener scent than that of the bloodhound, one poor victim, yet
+undismayed, he entered upon the appalling enterprise. The history of the
+world perhaps presents but few feats so difficult, and yet so
+successfully performed. And yet the only record which this modest man
+makes, in his autobiography, of this wonderful adventure is as follows:
+
+"On the sixteenth, before sunrise, I departed in the most secret manner,
+and arrived at Boonesborough on the twentieth, after a journey of one
+hundred and sixty miles, during which I had but one meal."
+
+It was necessary, as soon as Boone got out of sight of the village, to
+fly with the utmost speed, to put as great a distance as possible
+between himself and his pursuers, before they should suspect his attempt
+at escape. He subsequently learned that as soon as the Indians
+apprehended that he had actually fled, there was the most intense
+commotion in their camp, and immediately a large number of their
+fleetest runners and keenest hunters were put upon his trail. He dared
+not fire a gun. Had he killed any game he could not have ventured to
+kindle a fire to cook it. He had secretly provided himself with a few
+cuts of dried venison with which he could appease his hunger as he
+pressed forward by day and by night, scarcely allowing himself one
+moment for rest or sleep. His route lay through forests and swamps, and
+across many streams swollen by recent rains.
+
+At length he reached the Ohio river. Its current was swift and turbid,
+rolling in a majestic flood half a mile in width, filling the bed of the
+stream with almost fathomless waters from shore to shore. Experienced as
+Colonel Boone was in wood-craft, he was not a skilful swimmer. The
+thought of how he should cross the Ohio had caused him much anxiety.
+Upon reaching its banks he fortunately--may we not say
+providentially--found an old canoe which had drifted among the bushes
+upon the shore. There was a large hole at one end, and it was nearly
+filled with water. He succeeded in bailing out the water and plugging
+up the hole, and crossed the river in safety. Then for the first time he
+so far indulged in a feeling of security as to venture to shoot a
+turkey, and kindling a fire he feasted abundantly upon the rich repast.
+It was the only meal in which he indulged during his flight of five
+days.
+
+On his arrival at Boonesborough, he was welcomed as one risen from the
+grave. Much to his disappointment he found that his wife with his
+children, despairing of ever seeing him again, had left the fort and
+returned to the house of her father, in North Carolina. She supposed
+that the Indians had killed him. "Oppressed," writes Boone, "with the
+distresses of the country and bereaved of me, her only happiness, she
+had undertaken her long and perilous journey through the wilderness." It
+is gratifying to record that she reached her friends in safety.
+
+Boone found the fort as he had apprehended, in a bad state of defence.
+His presence, his military skill, and the intelligence he brought,
+immediately inspired every man to the intensest exertion. The gates were
+strengthened, new bastions were formed, and provisions were laid in, to
+stand a siege. Everything was done which could be done to repel an
+assault from they knew not how many savages, aided by British leaders,
+for the band from old Chilicothe, was to be joined by warriors from
+several other tribes. In ten days, Boonesborough was ready for the
+onset. These arduous labors being completed, Boone heroically resolved
+to strike consternation into the Indians, by showing them that he was
+prepared for aggressive as well as defensive warfare, and that they must
+leave behind them warriors for the protection of their own villages.
+
+Selecting a small party of but nineteen men, about the first of August
+he emerged from Boonesborough, marched boldly to the Ohio, crossed the
+river, entered the valley of the Scioto, and was within four miles of an
+Indian town, Paint Creek, which he intended to destroy, when he chanced
+to encounter a band of thirty savages painted, thoroughly armed and on
+the war path, to join the band advancing from Old Chilicothe. The
+Indians were attacked with such vehemence by Boone, that they fled in
+consternation, leaving behind them three horses and all their baggage.
+The savages also lost one killed and two wounded, while they inflicted
+no loss whatever upon the white men.
+
+Boone sent forward some swift runners as spies, and they speedily
+returned with the report that the Indians in a panic had entirely
+abandoned Paint Creek. Aware that the warriors would rush to join the
+four hundred and fifty from Old Chilicothe, and that they might cut off
+his retreat, or reach Boonesborough before his return, he immediately
+commenced a rapid movement back to the fort. Every man would be needed
+there for an obstinate defence. This foray had extended one hundred and
+fifty miles from the fort. It greatly alarmed the Indians. It emboldened
+the hearts of the garrison, and gave them intelligence of the approach
+of their foes. After an absence of but seven days, Boone with his heroic
+little band quite triumphantly re-entered the fort.
+
+The approach of the foe is described in the following terms by Boone:
+
+"On the eighth of August, the Indian army arrived, being four hundred
+and forty-four in number, commanded by Captain Duquesne, eleven other
+Frenchmen and some of their own chiefs, and marched up in view of our
+fort, with British and French colors flying. And having sent a summons
+to me in His Britannic Majesty's name to surrender the fort, I requested
+two days' consideration which was granted. It was now a critical period
+with us. We were a small number in the garrison; a powerful army before
+our walls, whose appearance proclaimed inevitable death; fearfully
+painted and marking their footsteps with desolation. Death was
+preferable to captivity; and if taken by storm, we must inevitably be
+devoted to destruction.
+
+"In this situation we concluded to maintain our garrison if possible. We
+immediately proceeded to collect what we could of our horses and other
+cattle, and bring them through the posterns into the fort; and in the
+evening of the ninth, I returned the answer 'that we were determined to
+defend our fort while a man was living.'
+
+"'Now,' said I to their commander who stood attentively hearing my
+sentiments, 'we laugh at your formidable preparations, but thank you for
+giving us notice, and time for our defence. Your efforts will not
+prevail, for our gates shall forever deny you admittance.'
+
+"Whether this answer affected their courage or not, I cannot tell, but
+contrary to our expectations, they formed a scheme to deceive us,
+declaring it was their orders from Governor Hamilton to take us
+captives, and not to destroy us; but if nine of us would come out and
+treat with them, they would immediately withdraw their forces from our
+walls, and return home peaceably. This sounded grateful in our ears, and
+we agreed to the proposal."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+_Victories and Defeats._
+
+Situation of the Fort.--Indian Treachery.--Bombardment.--Boone goes to
+North Carolina.--New Trials.--Boone Robbed.--He Returns to
+Kentucky.--Massacre of Col. Rogers.--Adventure of Col. Bowman.--New
+Attack by the British and Indians.--Retaliatory Measures.--Wonderful
+Exploit.
+
+
+There were but fifty men in the garrison at Boonesborough. They were
+assailed by a body of more than ten to one of the bravest Indian
+warriors, under the command of an officer in the British army. The
+boldest in the fort felt that their situation was almost desperate. The
+ferocity of the Indian, and the intelligence of the white man, were
+combined against them. They knew that the British commander, however
+humane he might be, would have no power, should the fort be taken by
+storm, to save them from death by the most horrible tortures.
+
+General Duquesne was acting under instructions from Governor Hamilton,
+the British officer in supreme command at Detroit. Boone knew that the
+Governor felt very kindly towards him. When he had been carried to that
+place a captive, the Governor had made very earnest endeavors to obtain
+his liberation. Influenced by these considerations, he consented to
+hold the conference.
+
+But, better acquainted with the Indian character than perhaps Duquesne
+could have been, he selected nine of the most athletic and strong of the
+garrison, and appointed the place of meeting in front of the fort, at a
+distance of only one hundred and twenty feet from the walls. The
+riflemen of the garrison were placed in a position to cover the spot
+with their guns, so that in case of treachery the Indians would meet
+with instant punishment, and the retreat of the party from the fort
+would probably be secured. The language of Boone is:
+
+"We held a treaty within sixty yards of the garrison on purpose to
+divert them from a breach of honor, as we could not avoid suspicion of
+the savages."
+
+The terms proposed by General Duquesne were extremely liberal. And while
+they might satisfy the British party, whose object in the war was simply
+to conquer the colonists and bring them back to loyalty, they could by
+no means have satisfied the Indians, who desired not merely to drive the
+white men back from their hunting grounds, but to plunder them of their
+possessions and to gratify their savage natures by hearing the shrieks
+of their victims at the stake and by carrying home the trophies of
+numerous scalps.
+
+Boone and his men, buried in the depths of the wilderness, had probably
+taken little interest in the controversy which was just then rising
+between the colonies and the mother country. They had regarded the King
+of England as their lawful sovereign, and their minds had never been
+agitated by the question of revolution or of independence. When,
+therefore, General Duquesne proposed that they should take the oath of
+allegiance to the King of Great Britain, and that then they should be
+permitted to return unmolested to their homes and their friends beyond
+the mountains, taking all their possessions with them, Colonel Boone and
+his associates were very ready to accept such terms. It justly appeared
+to them in their isolated condition, five hundred miles away from the
+Atlantic coast, that this was vastly preferable to remaining in the
+wilderness assailed by thousands of Indians guided by English energy and
+abundantly provided with all the munitions of war from British arsenals.
+
+But Boone knew very well that the Indians would never willingly assent
+to this treaty. Still he and his fellow commissioners signed it while
+very curious to learn how it would be regarded by their savage foes. The
+commissioners on both sides had appeared at the appointed place of
+conference, as is usual on such occasions, entirely unarmed. There were,
+however, a large number of Indians lingering around and drawing nearer
+as the conference proceeded. After the treaty was signed, the old Indian
+chief Blackfish, Boone's adopted father, and who, exasperated by the
+escape of his ungrateful son, had been watching him with a very
+unamiable expression of countenance, arose and made a formal speech in
+the most approved style of Indian eloquence. He commented upon the
+bravery of the two armies, and of the desirableness that there should be
+entire friendship between them, and closed by saying that it was a
+custom with them on all such important occasions to ratify the treaty by
+two Indians shaking hands with each white man.
+
+This shallow pretense, scarcely up to the sagacity of children, by which
+Blackfish hoped that two savages grappling each one of the commissioners
+would easily be able to make prisoners of them, and then by threats of
+torture compel the surrender of the fort, did not in the slightest
+degree deceive Colonel Boone. He was well aware of his own strength and
+of that of the men who accompanied him. He also knew that his riflemen
+occupied concealed positions, from which, with unerring aim, they could
+instantly punish the savages for any act of treachery. He therefore
+consented to the arrangement. The grasp was given. Instantly a terrible
+scene of confusion ensued.
+
+The burly savages tried to drag off their victims. The surrounding
+Indians rushed in to their aid, and a deadly fire was opened upon them
+from the fort, which was energetically responded to by all the armed
+savages from behind stumps and trees. One of the fiercest of battles had
+instantly blazed forth. Still these stalwart pioneers were not taken by
+surprise. Aided by the bullets of the fort, they shook off their
+assailants, and all succeeded in escaping within the heavy gates, which
+were immediately closed behind them. One only of their number, Boone's
+brother, was wounded. This escape seems almost miraculous. But the
+majority of the Indians in intelligence were mere children: sometimes
+very cunning, but often with the grossest stupidity mingled with their
+strategy.
+
+Duquesne and Blackfish, the associated leaders, now commenced the siege
+of the fort with all their energies. Dividing their forces into two
+parties, they kept up an incessant fire upon the garrison for nine days
+and nine nights. It was one of the most heroic of those bloody struggles
+between civilization and barbarism, which have rendered the plains of
+Kentucky memorable.
+
+The savages were very careful not to expose themselves to the rifles of
+the besieged. They were stationed behind rocks, and trees, and stumps,
+so that it was seldom that the garrison could catch even a glimpse of
+the foes who were assailing them. It was necessary for those within the
+fort to be sparing of their ammunition. They seldom fired unless they
+could take deliberate aim, and then the bullet was almost always sure to
+reach its mark. Colonel Boone, in describing this attempt of the Indians
+to capture the commissioners by stratagem, and of the storm of war which
+followed, writes:
+
+"They immediately grappled us, but, although surrounded by hundreds of
+savages, we extricated ourselves from them and escaped all safe into the
+garrison except one, who was wounded through a heavy fire from their
+army. They immediately attacked us on every side, and a constant heavy
+fire ensued between us, day and night, for the space of nine days. In
+this time the enemy began to undermine our fort, which was situated
+about sixty yards from the Kentucky river. They began at the water mark
+and proceeded in the bank some distance, which we understood by their
+making the water muddy with the clay. We immediately proceeded to
+disappoint their design by cutting a trench across their subterranean
+passage. The enemy discovering our counter mine by the clay we threw out
+of the fort, desisted from that stratagem. Experience now fully
+convincing them that neither their power nor their policy could effect
+their purpose, on the twentieth of August they raised the siege and
+departed.
+
+"During this siege, which threatened death in every form, we had two men
+killed and four wounded, besides a number of cattle. We killed of the
+enemy thirty-seven and wounded a great number. After they were gone we
+picked up one hundred and twenty-five pounds weight of bullets, besides
+what stuck in the logs of our fort, which certainly is a great proof of
+their industry."
+
+It is said that during this siege, one of the negroes, probably a slave,
+deserted from the fort with one of their best rifles, and joined the
+Indians. Concealing himself in a tree, where unseen he could take
+deliberate aim, he became one of the most successful of the assailants.
+But the eagle eye of Boone detected him, and though, as was afterwards
+ascertained by actual measurement, the tree was five hundred and
+twenty-five feet distant from the fort, Boone took deliberate aim,
+fired, and the man was seen to drop heavily from his covert to the
+ground. The bullet from Boone's rifle had pierced his brain.
+
+At one time the Indians had succeeded in setting fire to the fort, by
+throwing flaming combustibles upon it, attached to their arrows. One of
+the young men extinguished the flames, exposing himself to the
+concentrated and deadly fire of the assailants in doing so. Though the
+bullets fell like hailstones around him, the brave fellow escaped
+unscathed.
+
+This repulse quite disheartened the Indians. Henceforth they regarded
+Boonesborough as a Gibraltar; impregnable to any force which they could
+bring against it. They never assailed it again. Though Boonesborough is
+now but a small village in Kentucky, it has a history which will render
+it forever memorable in the annals of heroism.
+
+It will be remembered that Boone's family, supposing him to have
+perished by the hands of the Indians, had returned to the home of Mrs.
+Boone's father in North Carolina. Colonel Boone, anxious to rejoin his
+wife and children, and feeling that Boonesborough was safe from any
+immediate attack by the Indians, soon after the dispersion of the
+savages entered again upon the long journey through the wilderness, to
+find his friends east of the mountains. In the autumn of 1778, Colonel
+Boone again found himself, after all his wonderful adventures, in a
+peaceful home on the banks of the Yadkin.
+
+The settlements in Kentucky continued rapidly to increase. The savages
+had apparently relinquished all hope of holding exclusive possession of
+the country. Though there were occasional acts of violence and cruelty,
+there was quite a truce in the Indian warfare. But the white settlers,
+and those who wished to emigrate, were greatly embarrassed by
+conflicting land claims. Many of the pioneers found their titles
+pronounced to be of no validity. Others who wished to emigrate,
+experienced great difficulty in obtaining secure possession of their
+lands. The reputation of Kentucky as in all respects one of the most
+desirable of earthly regions for comfortable homes, added to the desire
+of many families to escape from the horrors of revolutionary war, which
+was sweeping the sea-board, led to a constant tide of emigration beyond
+the mountains.
+
+Under these circumstances the Government of Virginia established a
+court, consisting of four prominent citizens, to go from place to place,
+examine such titles as should be presented to them, and to confirm those
+which were good. This commission commenced its duties at St. Asaph. All
+the old terms of settlement proposed by Henderson and the Transylvania
+Company were abrogated. Thus Colonel Boone had no title to a single acre
+of land in Kentucky. A new law however was enacted as follows:
+
+"Any person may acquire title to so much unappropriated land, as he or
+she may desire to purchase, on paying the consideration of forty pounds
+for every one hundred acres, and so in proportion."
+
+This money was to be paid to the State Treasurer, who would give for it
+a receipt. This receipt was to be deposited with the State Auditor, who
+would in exchange for it give a certificate. This certificate was to be
+lodged at the Land Office. There it was to be registered, and a warrant
+was to be given, authorizing the survey of the land selected. Surveyors
+who had passed the ordeal of William and Mary College, having defined
+the boundaries of the land, were to make a return to the Land Office. A
+due record was there to be made of the survey, a deed was to be given in
+the name of the State, which deed was to be signed by the Governor, with
+the seal of the Commonwealth attached.
+
+This was a perplexing labyrinth for the pioneer to pass through, before
+he could get a title to his land. Not only Colonel Boone, but it seems
+that his family were anxious to return to the beautiful fields of
+Kentucky. During the few months he remained on the Yadkin, he was busy
+in converting every particle of property he possessed into money, and in
+raising every dollar he could for the purchase of lands he so greatly
+desired. The sum he obtained amounted to about twenty thousand dollars,
+in the depreciated paper currency of that day. To Daniel Boone this was
+a large sum. With this the simple-hearted man started for Richmond to
+pay it to the State Treasurer, and to obtain for it the promised
+certificate. He was also entrusted with quite large sums of money from
+his neighbors, for a similar purpose.
+
+On his way he was robbed of every dollar. It was a terrible blow to him,
+for it not only left him penniless, but exposed him to the insinuation
+of having feigned the robbery, that he might retain the money entrusted
+to him by his friends. Those who knew Daniel Boone well would have no
+more suspected him of fraud than an angel of light. With others however,
+his character suffered. Rumor was busy in denouncing him.
+
+Colonel Nathaniel Hart had entrusted Boone with two thousand nine
+hundred pounds. This of course was all gone. A letter, however, is
+preserved from Colonel Hart, which bears noble testimony to the
+character of the man from whom he had suffered:
+
+"I observe what you say respecting our losses by Daniel Boone. I had
+heard of the misfortune soon after it happened, but not of my being a
+partaker before now. I feel for the poor people who perhaps are to lose
+their pre-emptions. But I must say I feel more for Boone, whose
+character I am told suffers by it. Much degenerated must the people of
+this age be, when amongst them are to be found men to censure and blast
+the reputation of a person so just and upright, and in whose breast is a
+seat of virtue too pure to admit of a thought so base and dishonorable.
+I have known Boone in times of old, when poverty and distress had him
+fast by the hand, and in these wretched circumstances, I have ever
+found him of a noble and generous soul, despising everything mean, and
+therefore I will freely grant him a discharge for whatever sums of mine
+he might have been possessed at the time."
+
+Boone was now forty-five years of age, but the hardships to which he had
+been exposed had borne heavily upon him, and he appeared ten years
+older. Though he bore without a murmur the loss of his earthly all, and
+the imputations which were cast upon his character, he was more anxious
+than ever to find refuge from the embarrassments which oppressed him in
+the solitudes of his beautiful Kentucky. Notwithstanding his comparative
+poverty, his family on the banks of the Yadkin need not experience any
+want. Land was fertile, abundant and cheap. He and his boys in a few
+days, with their axes, could erect as good a house as they desired to
+occupy. The cultivation of a few acres of the soil, and the results of
+the chase, would provide them an ample support. Here also they could
+retire to rest at night, with unbolted door and with no fear that their
+slumbers would be disturbed by the yell of the blood-thirsty savage.
+
+The wife and mother must doubtless have wished to remain in her pleasant
+home, but cheerfully and nobly she acceded to his wishes, and was ready
+to accompany him to all the abounding perils of the distant West. Again
+the family set out on its journey across the mountains. Of the incidents
+which they encountered, we are not informed. The narrative we have from
+Boone is simply as follows: our readers will excuse the slight
+repetition it involves:
+
+"About this time I returned to Kentucky with my family. And here, to
+avoid an enquiry into my conduct, the reader being before informed of my
+bringing my family to Kentucky, I am under the necessity of informing
+him that during my captivity with the Indians, my wife, who despaired of
+ever seeing me again, had transported my family and goods back through
+the wilderness, amid a multitude of dangers, to her father's house in
+North Carolina. Shortly after the troubles at Boonesborough, I went to
+them and lived peaceably there until this time. The history of my going
+home and returning with my family forms a series of difficulties, an
+account of which would swell a volume. And being foreign to my purpose I
+shall omit them."
+
+During Boone's absence from Kentucky, one of the most bloody battles was
+fought, which ever occurred between the whites and the Indians. Colonel
+Rogers, returning with supplies (by boat) from New Orleans to the Upper
+Ohio, when he arrived at the mouth of the Little Miami, detected the
+Indians in large numbers, painted, armed, and evidently on the war
+path, emerging from the mouth of the river in their canoes, and crossing
+the Ohio to the Kentucky shore. He cautiously landed his men, intending
+to attack the Indians by surprise. Instead of this, they turned upon him
+with overwhelming numbers, and assailed him with the greatest fury.
+Colonel Rogers and sixty of his men were almost instantly killed. This
+constituted nearly the whole of his party. Two or three effected their
+escape, and conveyed the sad tidings of the massacre to the settlements.
+
+The Kentuckians were exceedingly exasperated, and resolved that the
+Indians should feel the weight of their vengeance. Colonel Bowman, in
+accordance with a custom of the times, issued a call, inviting all the
+Kentuckians who were willing to volunteer under his leadership for the
+chastisement of the Indians, to rendezvous at Harrodsburg. Three hundred
+determined men soon assembled. The expedition moved in the month of
+July, and commenced the ascent of the Little Miami undiscovered. They
+arrived in the vicinity of Old Chilicothe just before nightfall. Here it
+was determined so to arrange their forces in the darkness, as to attack
+the place just before the dawn of the ensuing day. One half of the army,
+under the command of Colonel Logan, were to grope their way through the
+woods, and march around the town so as to attack it in the rear, at a
+given signal from Colonel Bowman, who was to place his men in position
+for efficient cooperation. Logan accomplished his movement, and
+concealing his men behind stumps, trees, and rocks, anxiously awaited
+the signal for attack.
+
+But the sharp ear of a watch-dog detected some unusual movement, and
+commenced barking furiously. An Indian warrior came from his cabin, and
+cautiously advanced the way the dog seemed to designate. As the Indian
+drew near, one of the party, by accident or great imprudence, discharged
+his gun. The Indian gave a war-whoop, which immediately startled all the
+inmates of the cabins to their feet. Logan and his party were
+sufficiently near to see the women and the children in a continuous line
+rushing over the ridge, to the protection of the forest.
+
+The Indian warriors, with a military discipline hardly to be expected of
+them, instantly collected in several strong cabins, which were their
+citadels, and from whose loop-holes, unexposed, they could open a deadly
+fire upon their assailants, In an instant, the whole aspect of affairs
+was changed. The assailants advancing through the clearing, must expose
+their unprotected breasts to the bullets of an unseen foe. After a brief
+conflict, Colonel Logan, to his bitter disappointment and that of his
+men, felt constrained to order a retreat.
+
+The two parties were soon reunited, having lost several valuable lives,
+and depressed by the conviction that the enterprise had proved an utter
+failure. The savages pursued, keeping up a harassing fire upon the rear
+of the fugitives. Fortunately for the white men, the renowned Indian
+chieftain Blackfish, struck by a bullet, was instantly killed. This so
+disheartened his followers, that they abandoned the pursuit. The
+fugitives continued their flight all the night, and then at their
+leisure returned to their homes much dejected. In this disastrous
+expedition, nine men were killed and one was severely wounded.
+
+The Indians, aided by their English allies, resolved by the invasion of
+Kentucky to retaliate for the invasion of the Little Miami. Governor
+Hamilton raised a very formidable army, and supplied them with two
+pieces of artillery. By such weapons the strongest log fort could
+speedily be demolished; while the artillerists would be entirely beyond
+the reach of the guns of the garrison. A British officer, Colonel Boyd,
+commanded the combined force. The valley of the Licking River, along
+whose banks many thriving settlements had commenced, was their point of
+destination.
+
+A twelve days' march from the Ohio brought this army, which was
+considered a large one in those times, to a post called Kuddle's
+Station. The garrison was immediately summoned to surrender, with the
+promise of protection for their lives only. Resistance against artillery
+was hopeless. The place was surrendered. Indians and white men rushed
+in, alike eager for plunder. The Indians, breaking loose from all
+restraint, caught men, women and children, and claimed them as their
+prisoners. Three persons who made some slight resistance were
+immediately tomahawked.
+
+The British commander endeavored to exonerate himself from these
+atrocities by saying that it was utterly beyond his power to control the
+savages. These wolfish allies, elated by their conquest, their plunder
+and their captives, now demanded to be led along the valley five miles
+to the next station, called Martin's Fort. It is said that Colonel Byrd
+was so affected by the uncontrollable atrocities he had witnessed, that
+he refused to continue the expedition, unless the Indians would consent,
+that while they should receive all the plunder, he should have all the
+prisoners. It is also said that notwithstanding this agreement, the same
+scenes were enacted at Martin's Fort which had been witnessed at
+Ruddle's Station. In confirmation of this statement, it is certain that
+Colonel Byrd refused to go any farther. All the stations on the river
+were apparently at his disposal, and it speaks well for his humanity
+that he refused to lead any farther savages armed with the tomahawk and
+the scalping knife, against his white brethren. He could order a
+retreat, as he did, but he could not rescue the captives from those who
+had seized them. The Indians loaded down their victims with the plunder
+of their own dwellings, and as they fell by the way, sinking beneath
+their burdens, they buried the tomahawk in their brains.
+
+The exasperation on both sides was very great, and General Clark, who
+was stationed at Fort Jefferson with a thousand picked men, entered the
+Indian territory, burned the villages, destroyed the crops, and utterly
+devastated the country. In reference to this expedition, Mr. Cecil B.
+Hartley writes:
+
+"Some persons who have not the slightest objection to war, very gravely
+express doubts as to whether the expedient of destroying the crops of
+the Indians was justifiable. It is generally treated by these men as if
+it were a wanton display of a vindictive spirit, where in reality it was
+dictated by the soundest policy; for when the Indians' harvests were
+destroyed, they were compelled to subsist their families altogether by
+hunting, and had no leisure for their murderous inroads into the
+settlements. This result was plainly seen on this occasion, for it does
+not appear that the Indians attacked any of the settlements during the
+remainder of this year."
+
+The following incident, well authenticated, which occurred early in the
+spring of 1780, gives one a vivid idea of the nature of this warfare:
+
+"Mr. Alexander McConnel of Lexington, while out hunting, killed a large
+buck. He went home for his horse to bring it in. While he was absent,
+five Indians accidentally discovered the body of the deer. Supposing the
+hunter would return, three of them hid themselves within rifle shot of
+the carcass while two followed his trail. McConnel, anticipating no
+danger, was riding slowly along the path, when he was fired upon from
+ambush, his horse shot beneath him, and he seized as a prisoner. His
+captors were in high glee, and treated him with unusual kindness. His
+skill with the rifle excited their admiration, and as he provided them
+with abundance of game, they soon became quite fond of him. Day after
+day the savages continued their tramp to the Ohio river, to cross over
+to their own country. Every night they bound him very strongly. As they
+became better acquainted, and advanced farther from the settlements of
+the pioneers, they in some degree remitted their vigilance. One evening
+when they had arrived near the Ohio, McConnel complained so earnestly of
+the pain which the tightly bound cords gave him, that they more loosely
+fastened the cord of buffalo hide around his wrists. Still they tied it,
+as they supposed securely, and attached the end of the cord to the body
+of one of the Indians.
+
+"At midnight, McConnel discovered a sharp knife lying near him, which
+had accidentally fallen from its sheath. He drew it to him with his
+feet, and succeeded noiselessly in cutting the cords. Still he hardly
+dared to stir, for there was danger that the slightest movement might
+rouse his vigilant foes. The savages had stacked their five guns near
+the fire. Cautiously he crept towards them, and secreted three at but a
+short distance where they would not easily find them. He then crept
+noiselessly back, took a rifle in each hand, rested the muzzles upon a
+log, and aiming one at the heart, and one at the head of two Indians at
+the distance of a few feet, discharged both guns simultaneously.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Both shots were fatal. The three remaining savages in bewilderment
+sprang to their feet. McConnel instantly seizing the two other guns,
+shot one through the heart, and inflicted a terrible wound upon the
+other. He fell to the ground bellowing loudly. Soon however he regained
+his feet and hobbled off into the woods as fast as possible. The only
+remaining one of the party who was unhurt uttered a loud yell of terror
+and dismay, and bounded like a deer into the forest. McConnel was not
+disposed to remain even for one moment to contemplate the result of his
+achievement. He selected his own trusty rifle, plunged into the
+forest, and with the unerring instinct of the veteran hunter, in two
+days reached the garrison at Lexington to relate to them his wonderful
+escape."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+_British Allies._
+
+Death of Squire Boone.--Indian Outrages.--Gerty and McGee.--Battle of Blue
+Lick.--Death of Isaac Boone.--Colonel Boone's Narrow Escape.--Letter of
+Daniel Boone.--Determination of General Clarke.--Discouragement of the
+Savages.--Amusing Anecdote of Daniel Boone.
+
+
+It was in the autumn of the year 1780 that Daniel Boone, with his
+family, returned to Boonesborough. A year before, the Legislature of
+Virginia had recognized essentially what is now Kentucky as one of the
+counties of Virginia, and had established the town of Boonesborough as
+its capital. By this act Daniel Boone was named one of the trustees or
+selectmen. Town lots were ordered to be surveyed, and a very liberal
+grant of land was conferred upon every one who would erect a house at
+least sixteen feet square, with either brick, stone, or dirt chimney.
+For some reason Colonel Boone declined this office. It is probable that
+he was disgusted by his own experience in the civil courts.
+
+There was little danger now of an attack upon Boonesborough by the
+Indians. There were so many settlements around it that no foe could
+approach without due warning and without encountering serious
+opposition. On the sixth of October Daniel Boone, with his brother
+Squire, left the fort alone for what would seem to be an exceedingly
+imprudent excursion, so defenceless, to the Blue Licks. They reached the
+Licks in safety. While there they were discovered by a party of Indians,
+and were fired upon from ambush. Squire Boone was instantly killed and
+scalped. Daniel, heart-stricken by the loss of his beloved brother, fled
+like a deer, pursued by the whole band, filling the forest with their
+yells like a pack of hounds. The Indians had a very powerful dog with
+them, who, with unerring scent, followed closely in the trail of the
+fugitive. For three miles this unequal chase continued. The dog,
+occasionally embarrassed in his pursuit, would be delayed for a time in
+regaining the trail. The speed of Boone was such that the foremost of
+the savages was left far behind. He then, as the dog came bounding on,
+stopped, took deliberate aim, and shot the brute.
+
+Boone was still far from the fort, but he reached it in safety, leaving
+upon the Indians the impression that he bore a charmed life. He was very
+deeply afflicted by the death of his brother. Squire was the youngest of
+the sons, and the tie which bound the brothers together was unusually
+tender and confidential. They had shared in many perilous adventures,
+and for months had dwelt entirely alone in the wilderness, far away
+from any other society.
+
+The winter of 1780 was one of the saddest in the annals of our country.
+The colonial army, everywhere defeated, was in the most deplorable state
+of destitution and suffering. Our frontiers were most cruelly ravaged by
+a barbarian foe. To add to all this, the winter was severely cold,
+beyond any precedent. The crops had been so destroyed by the enemy that
+many of the pioneers were compelled to live almost entirely upon the
+flesh of the buffalo.
+
+Virginia, in extending her jurisdiction over her western lands of
+Kentucky, now, for the sake of a more perfect military organization,
+divided the extensive region into three counties--Fayette, Lincoln, and
+Jefferson. General Clarke was made commander-in-chief of the Kentucky
+militia. Daniel Boone was commissioned as Lieutenant-Colonel of Lincoln
+County. The emigration into the State at this time may be inferred from
+the fact that the Court of Commissioners to examine land titles, at the
+close of its session of seven months had granted three thousand claims.
+Its meetings had been held mainly at Boonesborough, and its labors
+terminated in April, 1780. During the spring three hundred barges,
+loaded with emigrants, were floated down the Ohio to the Falls, at what
+is now Louisville.
+
+As we have stated, the winter had been one of the most remarkable on
+record. From the middle of November to the middle of February, the
+ground was covered with snow and ice, without a thaw. The severity of
+the cold was terrible. Nearly all unprotected animals perished. Even
+bears, buffalo, wolves, and wild turkeys were found frozen in the woods.
+The starving wild animals often came near the settlement for food. For
+seventy-five years the winter of 1780 was an era to which the old men
+referred.
+
+Though the Indians organized no formidable raids, they were very
+annoying. No one could safely wander any distance from the forts. In
+March, 1781, several bands entered Jefferson County, and by lying in
+ambush killed four of the settlers. Captain Whittaker, with fifteen men,
+went in pursuit of them. He followed their trail to the banks of the
+Ohio. Supposing they had crossed, he and his party embarked in canoes,
+boldly to continue the pursuit into the Indian country. They had
+scarcely pushed a rod from the shore when hideous yells rose from the
+Indians in ambush, and a deadly fire was opened upon the canoes. Nine of
+the pioneers were instantly killed or wounded. The savages, having
+accomplished this feat, fled into the wilderness, where the party, thus
+weakened in numbers, could not pursue them.
+
+A small party of settlers had reared their log-huts near the present
+site of Shelbyville. Squire Boone had been one of the prominent actors
+in the establishment of this little colony. Alarmed by the menaces of
+the savages, these few settlers decided to remove to a more secure
+station on Bear's Creek. On their way they were startled by the
+war-whoop of they knew not how many Indians concealed in ambush, and a
+storm of bullets fell upon them, killing and wounding many of their
+number. The miscreants, scarcely waiting for the return fire, fled with
+yells which resounded through the forest, leaving their victims to the
+sad task of burying the dead and nursing the wounded. Colonel Floyd
+collected twenty-five men to pursue them. The wary Indians, nearly two
+hundred in number, drew them into an ambush and opened upon the party a
+deadly fire which almost instantly killed half their number. The
+remainder with great difficulty escaped, leaving their dead to be
+mutilated by the scalping knife of the savage.
+
+Almost every day brought tidings of similar disasters. The Indians,
+emboldened by these successes, seemed to rouse themselves to a new
+determination to exterminate the whites. The conduct of the British
+Government, in calling such wretches to their alliance in their war with
+the colonies, created the greatest exasperation. Thomas Jefferson gave
+expression to the public sentiment in the Declaration of Independence,
+in which he says, in arraignment of King George the Third:
+
+"He has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the
+merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an
+undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions."
+
+There were two wretched men, official agents of the British Government,
+who were more savage than the savages themselves. One of them, a
+vagabond named Simon Gerty, had joined the Indians by adoption. He had
+not only acquired their habits, but had become their leader in the most
+awful scenes of ferocity. He was a tory, and as such was the bitterest
+foe of the colonists, who were struggling for independence. The other,
+Colonel McGee, with a little more respectability of character, was
+equally fiendlike in exciting the Indians to the most revolting
+barbarities. Thus incited and sustained by British authority, the
+Indians kept all the settlers in Kentucky in constant alarm.
+
+Instigated by the authorities at Detroit, the warriors of five tribes
+assembled at Old Chilicothe to organize the most formidable expedition
+which had as yet invaded Kentucky. These tribes were the Shawanese on
+the Little Miami, the Cherokees on the Tennessee, the Wyandotts on the
+Sandusky, the Tawas on the Maumee, and the Delawares on the Muskingum.
+
+Their choicest warriors, five hundred in number, rendezvoused at Old
+Chilicothe. This Indian village was built in the form of a square
+enclosing a large area. Some of their houses were of logs, some of bark,
+some of reeds filled in with clay. Boone says that the Indians
+concentrated their utmost force and vengeance upon this expedition,
+hoping to destroy the settlements and to depopulate the country at a
+single blow.
+
+Not far from Boonesborough, in the same valley of the Kentucky, there
+was a small settlement called Bryant's Station. William Bryant, the
+founder, had married a sister of Colonel Boone. On the fifteenth of
+August, a war party of five hundred Indians and Canadians, under the
+leadership of Simon Gerty, appeared before this little cluster of
+log-huts, each of which was of course bullet-proof. The settlers fought
+heroically. Gerty was wounded, and thirty of his band were killed, while
+the garrison lost but four. The assailing party, thus disappointed in
+their expectation of carrying the place by storm, and fearing the
+arrival of reinforcements from other settlements, hastily retired.
+Colonel Boone, hearing of the attack, hastened to the rescue, joining
+troops from several of the adjacent forts. The party consisted of one
+hundred and eighty men, under the leadership of Colonel Todd, one of
+"nature's noblemen." Colonel Boone seems to have been second in command.
+Two of his sons, Israel and Samuel, accompanied their father upon this
+expedition.
+
+The Indians, led by British officers, were far more to be dreaded than
+when left to their own cunning, which was often childish. As the little
+band of pioneers, rushing to the rescue, approached Bryant's Station and
+were informed of the retreat of the invaders, a council of war was held,
+to decide whether it were best for a hundred and eighty men to pursue
+five hundred Indians and Canadians, through a region where every mile
+presented the most favorable opportunities for concealment in ambush.
+Gerty was a desperado who was to be feared as well as hated. Contrary to
+the judgment of both Colonels Todd and Boone, it was decided to pursue
+the Indians. There was no difficulty in following the trail of so large
+a band, many of whom were mounted. Their path led almost directly north,
+to the Licking River, and then followed down its banks towards the Ohio.
+
+As the pursuers were cautiously advancing, they came to a remarkable
+bend in the stream, where there was a large and open space, with prairie
+grass very high. A well trampled buffalo track led through this grass,
+which was almost like a forest of reeds. Along this "street" the Indians
+had retreated. The scouts who had been sent forward to explore, returned
+with the report that there were no signs of Indians. And yet, four
+hundred savages had so adroitly concealed themselves, that their line
+really extended from bank to bank of the river, where it bent like a
+horseshoe before them. The combined cunning of the Indian, and the
+intelligence of their white leaders, was now fatally enlisted for the
+destruction of the settlers. A hundred and eighty men were to be caught
+in a trap, with five hundred demons prepared to shoot them down.
+
+As soon as Colonel Todd's party passed the neck of this bend, the
+Indians closed in behind them, rose from their concealment, and with
+terrific yells opened upon them a still more terrific fire. The pioneers
+fought with the courage of desperation. At the first discharge, nearly
+one third of Colonel Todd's little party fell dead or wounded. Struck
+fatally by several bullets, Colonel Todd himself fell from his horse
+drenched with blood. While a portion of the Indians kept up the fire,
+others, with hideous yells sprang forward with tomahawk and scalping
+knife, completing their fiendlike work. It was a scene of awful
+confusion and dismay. The survivors fighting every step of the way,
+retreated towards the river, for there was no escape back through their
+thronging foes. Colonel Boone's two sons fought by the side of their
+father. Samuel, the younger, struck by a bullet, was severely but not
+mortally wounded. Israel, his second son, fell dead. The unhappy father,
+took his dead boy upon his shoulders to save him from the scalping
+knife. As he tottered beneath the bleeding body, an Indian of herculean
+stature with uplifted tomahawk rushed upon him. Colonel Boone dropped
+the body of his son, shot the Indian through the heart, and seeing the
+savages rushing upon him from all directions, fled, leaving the corpse
+of his boy to its fate.
+
+Being intimately acquainted with the ground, he plunged into a ravine,
+baffling several parties who pursued him, swam across the river, and
+entering the forest succeeded in escaping from his foes, and at length
+safely by a circuitous route returned to Bryant's Station. In the
+meantime the scene of tumult and slaughter was awful beyond all
+description. Victors and vanquished were blended together upon the banks
+of the stream. In this dreadful conflict there were four Indians to each
+white man. There was a narrow ford at the spot, but the whole stream
+seemed clogged, some swimming and some trying to wade, while the
+exultant Indians shot and tomahawked without mercy. Those who succeeded
+in crossing the river, leaving the great buffalo track which they had
+been following, plunged into the thickets, and though vigorously
+pursued by the Indians, most of them eventually reached the settlements.
+
+In this dreadful disaster, the colonists lost sixty men in killed and
+seven were taken prisoners. The Indians in counting up their loss, found
+that sixty-four were missing. In accordance with their barbaric custom,
+they selected in vengeance four of the prisoners and put them to death
+by the most terrible tortures which savage ingenuity could devise. Had
+Colonel Boone's advice been followed, this calamity might have been
+avoided. Still characteristically, he uttered not a word of complaint.
+In his comments upon the event he says:
+
+"I cannot reflect upon this dreadful scene but sorrow fills my heart. A
+zeal for the defence of their country led these heroes to the scene of
+action, though with a few men to attack a powerful army of experienced
+warriors. When we gave way, they pursued us with the utmost eagerness,
+and in every quarter spread destruction. The river was difficult to
+cross, and many were killed in the flight; some just entering the river,
+some in the water, others after crossing, in ascending the cliffs. Some
+escaped on horseback, a few on foot; and being dispersed everywhere in a
+few hours, brought the melancholy news of this unfortunate conflict to
+Lexington. The reader may guess what sorrow filled the hearts of the
+inhabitants; exceeding anything I am able to describe. Being reinforced
+we returned to bury the dead, and found their bodies strewed everywhere,
+cut and mangled in a dreadful manner. This mournful scene exhibited a
+horror almost unparalleled; some torn and eaten by wild beasts; those in
+the river eaten by fishes; all in such a putrified condition that no one
+could be distinguished from another."
+
+This battle of the Blue Licks, as it is called, occupies one of the most
+mournful pages in the history of Kentucky. The escape of Boone adds
+another to the extraordinary adventures of this chivalric and now
+sorrow-stricken man. Colonel Boone communicated an official report to
+the Governor of Virginia, Benjamin Harrison, father of William Henry
+Harrison, subsequently President of the United States. In this report,
+it is noticeable that Boone makes no allusion whatever to his own
+services. This modest document throws such light upon the character of
+this remarkable man, and upon the peril of the times, that it merits
+full insertion here. It is as follows:
+
+          "Boone's Station, Fayette Co., Aug. 30, 1782.
+
+     "Sir,--Present circumstances of affairs cause me to write to Your
+     Excellency, as follows: On the sixteenth instant, a large body of
+     Indians, with some white men, attacked one of our frontier
+     stations, known as Bryant's Station. The siege continued from about
+     sunrise until two o'clock of the next day, when they marched off.
+     Notice being given to the neighboring stations, we immediately
+     raised one hundred and eighty-one horsemen, commanded by Col. John
+     Todd, including some of the Lincoln County militia, and pursued
+     about forty miles."
+
+After a brief account of the battle which we have already given, he
+continues:
+
+     "Afterwards we were reinforced by Colonel Logan, which made our
+     force four hundred and sixty men. We marched again to the battle
+     ground, but finding the enemy had gone, we proceeded to bury the
+     dead. We found forty-three on the ground, and many lay about which
+     we could not stay to find, hungry and weary as we were, and dubious
+     that the enemy might not have gone off quite. By the sign, we
+     thought that the Indians exceeded four hundred, while the whole of
+     the militia of the county does not amount to more than one hundred
+     and thirty.
+
+     "From these facts, Your Excellency may form an idea of our
+     situation. I know that your own circumstances are critical; but are
+     we to be wholly forgotten? I hope not. I trust that about five
+     hundred men may be sent to our assistance immediately. If these
+     shall be stationed as our county lieutenant shall deem necessary,
+     it may be the means of saving our part of the country. But if they
+     are placed under the direction of General Clarke, they will be of
+     little or no service to our settlement. The Falls lie one hundred
+     miles west of us, and the Indians north-east; while our men are
+     frequently called to protect them.
+
+     "I have encouraged the people in this county all that I could; but
+     I can no longer justify them or myself to risk our lives here,
+     under such extraordinary hazards. The inhabitants of this county
+     are very much alarmed at the thoughts of the Indians bringing
+     another campaign into our country this fall. If this should be the
+     case, it will break up these settlements. I hope therefore that
+     Your Excellency will take the matter into your consideration, and
+     send us some relief as quick as possible. These are my sentiments
+     without consulting any person. Colonel Logan will I expect
+     immediately send you an express, by whom I humbly request Your
+     Excellency's answer. In the meantime, I remain yours, etc., Daniel
+     Boone."
+
+General Clarke, who was the military leader of Kentucky under the
+Colonial government, was established at _the Falls_. The British
+authorities held their head-quarters at Detroit, from which post they
+were sending out their Indian allies in all directions to ravage the
+frontiers. General Clarke was a man of great energy of character, and
+he was anxious to organise an expedition against Detroit. With this
+object in view, he had by immense exertions assembled a force of nearly
+two thousand men. Much to his chagrin, he received orders to remain at
+the Falls for the present, to protect the frontiers then so severely
+menaced. But when the tidings reached him of the terrible disaster at
+the Blue Lick, he resolved to pursue the Indians and punish them with
+the greatest severity.
+
+The exultant savages had returned to Old Chilicothe, and had divided
+their spoil and their captives. Colonel Boone was immediately sent for
+to take part in this expedition. Clarke's army crossed the Ohio, and
+marching very rapidly up the banks of the Little Miami, arrived within
+two miles of Chilicothe before they were discovered. On perceiving the
+enemy the Indians scattered in all directions. Men, women and children
+fled into the remote forest, abandoning their homes and leaving
+everything behind them. The avenging army swept the valley with fire and
+ruin. Their corn just ripening, and upon which they mainly relied for
+their winter supply of food, was utterly destroyed. Every tree which
+bore any fruit was felled, and five of their towns were laid in ashes.
+The trail of the army presented a scene of utter desolation.
+
+The savages were alike astonished and dismayed. They had supposed that
+the white men, disheartened by their dreadful defeat at the Blue Lick,
+would abandon the country. Instead of that, with amazing recuperative
+power, they had scarcely reached their homes ere another army, utterly
+resistless in numbers, is burning their towns and destroying their whole
+country.
+
+This avenging campaign so depressed the Indians that they made no
+farther attempt for the organised invasion of Kentucky. The termination
+of the war with England also deprived them of their military resources,
+and left them to their own unaided and unintelligent efforts. Still
+miserable bands continued prowling around, waylaying and murdering the
+lonely traveler, setting fire to the solitary hut and inflicting such
+other outrages as were congenial with their cruel natures. It thus
+became necessary for the pioneers always to live with the rifle in hand.
+
+Colonel Boone had become especially obnoxious to the Indians. Twice he
+had escaped from them, under circumstances which greatly mortified their
+vanity. They recognised the potency of his rifle in the slaughter of
+their own warriors at the Blue Lick; and they were well aware that it
+was his sagacity which led the army of General Clarke in its avenging
+march through their country. It thus became with them an object of
+intense desire to take him prisoner, and had he been taken, he would
+doubtless have been doomed to the severest torture they could inflict.
+
+Mr. Peck, in his interesting life of Boone, gives the following account
+of one of the extraordinary adventures of this man, which he received
+from the lips of Colonel Boone himself. On one occasion, four Indians
+suddenly appeared before his cabin and took him prisoner. Though the
+delicacy of Colonel Boone's organization was such, that he could never
+himself relish tobacco in any form, he still raised some for his friends
+and neighbors, and for what were then deemed the essential rites of
+hospitality.
+
+"As a shelter for curing the tobacco, he had built an enclosure of rails
+a dozen feet in height and covered with canes and grass. Stalks of
+tobacco are generally split and strung on sticks about four feet in
+length. The ends of these are laid on poles placed across the tobacco
+house, and in tiers one above another, to the roof. Boone had fixed his
+temporary shelter in such a manner as to have three tiers. He had
+covered the lower tier and the tobacco had become dry; when he entered
+the shelter for the purpose of removing the sticks to the upper tier,
+preparatory to gathering the remainder of the crop. He had hoisted up
+the sticks from the lower to the second tier, and was standing on the
+poles which supported it, while raising the sticks to the upper tier,
+when four stout Indians, with guns, entered the low door and called
+him by name.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"'Now, Boone, we got you. You no get away more. We carry you off to
+Chilicothe this time. You no cheat us anymore.'
+
+"Boone looked down upon their upturned faces, saw their loaded guns
+pointed at his breast, and recognising some of his old friends the
+Shawanese, who had made him prisoner near the Blue Licks in 1778, coolly
+and pleasantly responded:
+
+"'Ah, old friends, glad to see you.'
+
+"Perceiving that they manifested impatience to have him come down, he
+told them he was quite willing to go with them, and only begged that
+they would wait where they were, and watch him closely until he could
+finish removing the tobacco.
+
+"While thus parleying with them, Boone inquired earnestly respecting his
+old friends in Chilicothe. He continued for some time to divert the
+attention of these simple-minded men, by allusions to past events with
+which they were familiar, and by talking of his tobacco, his mode of
+curing it, and promising them an abundant supply. With their guns in
+their hands however, they stood at the door of the shed, grouped closely
+together so as to render his escape apparently impossible. In the
+meantime Boone carefully gathered his arms full of the long, dry tobacco
+leaves, filled with pungent dust, which would be blinding and stifling
+as the most powerful snuff, and then with a leap from his station twelve
+feet high, came directly upon their heads, filling their eyes and
+nostrils, and so bewildering and disabling them for the moment, that
+they lost all self-possession and all self-control.
+
+"Boone, agile as a deer, darted out at the door, and in a moment was in
+his bullet-proof log-hut, which to him was an impregnable citadel.
+Loop-holes guarded every approach. The Indians could not show themselves
+without exposure to certain death. They were too well acquainted with
+the unerring aim of Boone's rifle to venture within its range. Keeping
+the log cabin between them and their redoubtable foe, the baffled
+Indians fled into the wilderness.
+
+"Colonel Boone related this adventure with great glee, imitating the
+gestures of the bewildered Indians. He said that notwithstanding his
+narrow escape, he could not resist the temptation, as he reached the
+door of his cabin, to look around to witness the effect of his
+achievement. The Indians coughing, sneezing, blinded and almost
+suffocated by the tobacco dust, were throwing out their arms and groping
+about in all directions, cursing him for a rogue and calling themselves
+fools."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+_Kentucky organized as a State._
+
+Peace with England.--Order of a Kentucky Court.--Anecdotes.--Speech of Mr.
+Dalton.--Reply of Piankashaw.--Renewed Indications of Indian
+Hostility.--Conventions at Danville.--Kentucky formed into a State.--New
+Trials for Boone.
+
+
+The close of the war of the Revolution, bringing peace between the
+colonies and the mother country, deprived the Indians of that powerful
+alliance which had made them truly formidable. Being no longer able to
+obtain a supply of ammunition from the British arsenals, or to be guided
+in their murderous raids by British intelligence, they also, through
+their chiefs, entered into treaties of peace with the rapidly-increasing
+emigrants.
+
+Though these treaties with the Indians prevented any general
+organization of the tribes, vagabond Indians, entirely lawless, were
+wandering in all directions, ever ready to perpetrate any outrage. Civil
+society has its highway robbers, burglars and murderers. Much more so
+was this the case among these savages, exasperated by many wrongs; for
+it cannot be denied that they were more frequently sinned against than
+sinning. Their untutored natures made but little distinction between the
+innocent and the guilty. If a vagabond white man wantonly shot an
+Indian--and many were as ready to do it as to shoot a wolf--the friends
+of the murdered Indian would take revenge upon the inmates of the first
+white man's cabin they encountered in the wilderness. Thus it was
+necessary for the pioneers to be constantly upon their guard. If they
+wandered any distance from the fort while hunting, or were hoeing in the
+field, or ventured to rear a cabin on a fertile meadow at a distance
+from the stations, they were liable to be startled at any hour of the
+day or of the night by the terrible war-whoop, and to feel the weight of
+savage vengeance.
+
+This exposure to constant peril influenced the settlers, as a general
+rule, to establish themselves in stations. This gave them companionship,
+the benefits of co-operative labor, and security against any small
+prowling bands. These stations were formed upon the model of the one
+which Daniel Boone had so wisely organized at Boonesborough. They
+consisted of a cluster of bullet-proof log-cabins, arranged in a
+quadrangular form, so as to enclose a large internal area. All the doors
+opened upon this interior space. Here the cattle were gathered at night.
+The intervals between the cottages were filled with palisades, also
+bullet-proof. Loop-holes through the logs enabled these riflemen to
+guard every approach to their fortress. Thus they had little to fear
+from the Indians when sheltered by these strong citadels.
+
+Emigration to Kentucky began very rapidly to increase. Large numbers
+crossed the mountains to Pittsburgh, where they took flat boats and
+floated down the beautiful Ohio, _la belle riviere_, until they reached
+such points on its southern banks as pleased them for a settlement, or
+from which they could ascend the majestic rivers of that peerless State.
+Comfortable homesteads were fast rising in all directions. Horses,
+cattle, swine, and poultry of all kinds were multiplied. Farming
+utensils began to make their appearance. The hum of happy industry was
+heard where wolves had formerly howled and buffalo ranged. Merchandise
+in considerable quantities was transported over the mountains on pack
+horses, and then floated down the Ohio and distributed among the
+settlements upon its banks. Country stores arose, land speculators
+appeared, and continental paper money became a circulating medium. This
+money, however, was not of any very great value, as may be inferred from
+the following decree, passed by one of the County Courts, establishing
+the schedule of prices for tavern-keeping:
+
+"The Court doth set the following rates to be observed by keepers in
+this county: Whiskey, fifteen dollars the half-pint; rum, ten dollars
+the gallon; a meal, twelve dollars; stabling or pasturage, four dollars
+the night."
+
+Under these changed circumstances, Colonel Boone, whose intrepidity
+nothing could daunt, and whose confidence in the protective power of his
+rifle was unbounded, had reared for himself, on one of the beautiful
+meadows of the Kentucky, a commodious home. He had selected a spot whose
+fertility and loveliness pleased his artistic eye.
+
+It is estimated that during the years 1783 and 1784 nearly twelve
+thousand persons emigrated to Kentucky. Still all these had to move with
+great caution, with rifles always loaded, and ever on the alert against
+surprise. The following incident will give the reader an idea of the
+perils and wild adventures encountered by these parties in their search
+for new and distant homes.
+
+Colonel Thomas Marshall, a man of much note in those days, had crossed
+the Alleghanies with his large family. At Pittsburgh he purchased a
+flat-boat, and was floating down the Ohio. He had passed the mouth of
+the Kanawha River without any incident of note occurring. About ten
+o'clock one night, as his boat had drifted near the northern shore of
+the solitary stream, he was hailed by a man upon the bank, who, after
+inquiring who he was, where he was bound, etc., added:
+
+"I have been posted here by order of my brother, Simon Gerty, to warn
+all boats of the danger of permitting themselves to be decoyed ashore.
+My brother regrets very deeply the injury he has inflicted upon the
+white men, and to convince them of the sincerity of his repentance, and
+of his earnest desire to be restored to their society, he has stationed
+me here to warn all boats of the snares which are spread for them by the
+cunning of the Indians. Renegade white men will be placed upon the
+banks, who will represent themselves as in the greatest distress. Even
+children taken captive will be compelled, by threats of torture, to
+declare that they are all alone upon the shore, and to entreat the boats
+to come and rescue them.
+
+"But keep in the middle of the river," said Gerty, "and steel your heart
+against any supplications you may hear."
+
+The Colonel thanked him for his warning, and continued to float down the
+rapid current of the stream.
+
+Virginia had passed a law establishing the town of Louisville, at the
+Falls of the Ohio. A very thriving settlement soon sprang up there.
+
+The nature of the warfare still continuing between the whites and the
+Indians may be inferred from the following narrative, which we give in
+the words of Colonel Boone:
+
+"The Indians continued to practice mischief secretly upon the
+inhabitants in the exposed part of the country. In October a party made
+an incursion into a district called Crab Orchard. One of these Indians
+having advanced some distance before the others, boldly entered the
+house of a poor defenseless family, in which was only a negro man, a
+woman and her children, terrified with apprehensions of immediate death.
+The savage, perceiving their defenseless condition, without offering
+violence to the family, attempted to capture the negro, who happily
+proved an over-match for him, and threw the Indian on the ground.
+
+"In the struggle, the mother of the children drew an axe from the corner
+of the cottage and cut off the head of the Indian, while her little
+daughter shut the door. The savages soon appeared, and applied their
+tomahawks to the door. An old rusty gun-barrel, without a lock, lay in
+the corner, which the mother put through a small crevice, and the
+savages perceiving it, fled. In the meantime the alarm spread through
+the neighborhood; the armed men collected immediately and pursued the
+savages into the wilderness. Thus Providence, by means of this negro,
+saved the whole of the poor family from destruction."
+
+The heroism of Mrs. Merrill is worthy of being perpetuated, not only as
+a wonderful achievement, but as illustrative of the nature of this
+dreadful warfare. Mr. Merrill, with his wife, little son and daughter,
+occupied a remote cabin in Nelson County, Kentucky. On the 24th of
+December, 1791, he was alarmed by the barking of his dog. Opening the
+door to ascertain the cause, he was instantly fired upon by seven or
+eight Indians who had crept near the house secreting themselves behind
+stumps and trees. Two bullets struck him, fracturing the bones both of
+his leg and of his arm. The savages, with hideous yells, then rushed for
+the door.
+
+Mrs. Merrill had but just time to close and bolt it when the savages
+plunged against it and hewed it with their tomahawks. Every dwelling was
+at that time a fortress whose log walls were bullet proof. But for the
+terrible wounds which Mr. Merrill had received, he would with his rifle
+shooting through loop-holes, soon have put the savages to flight. They,
+emboldened by the supposition that he was killed, cut away at the door
+till they had opened a hole sufficiently large to crawl through. One of
+the savages attempted to enter. He had got nearly in when Mrs. Merrill
+cleft his skull with an ax, and he fell lifeless upon the floor.
+Another, supposing that he had safely effected an entrance, followed him
+and encountered the same fate. Four more of the savages were in this way
+despatched, when the others, suspecting that all was not right, climbed
+upon the roof and two of them endeavored to descend through the
+chimney. The noise they made directed the attention of the inmates of
+the cabin to the new danger.
+
+There was a gentle fire burning upon the hearth. Mr. Merrill, with much
+presence of mind, directed his son, while his wife guarded the opening
+of the door with her ax, to empty the contents of a feather bed upon the
+fire. The dense smothering smoke filled the flue of the chimney. The two
+savages, suffocated with the fumes, after a few convulsive efforts to
+ascend fell almost insensible down upon the hearth. Mr. Merrill, seizing
+with his unbroken arm a billet of wood, despatched them both. But one of
+the Indians now remained. Peering in at the opening in the door he
+received a blow from the ax of Mrs. Merrill which severely wounded him.
+Bleeding and disheartened he fled alone into the wilderness, the only
+one of the eight who survived the conflict.
+
+A white man who was at that time a prisoner among the Indians and who
+subsequently effected his escape, reported that when the wounded savage
+reached his tribe he said to the white captive in broken English:
+
+"I have bad news for the poor Indian. Me lose a son, me lose a broder.
+The squaws have taken the breech clout, and fight worse than the long
+knives."
+
+But the Indians were not always the aggressors. Indeed it is doubtful
+whether they would ever have raised the war-whoop against the white man,
+had it not been for the outrages they were so constantly experiencing
+from unprincipled and vagabond adventurers, who were ever infesting the
+frontiers. The following incident illustrates the character and conduct
+of these miscreants:
+
+A party of Indian hunters from the South wandering through their ancient
+hunting grounds of Kentucky, accidentally came upon a settlement where
+they found several horses grazing in the field. They stole the horses,
+and commenced a rapid retreat to their own country. Three young men,
+Davis, Caffre and McClure, pursued them. Not being able to overtake the
+fugitives, they decided to make reprisals on the first Indians they
+should encounter. It so happened that they soon met three Indian
+hunters. The parties saluted each other in a friendly manner, and
+proceeded on their way in pleasant companionship.
+
+The young men said that they observed the Indians conversing with one
+another in low tones of voice, and thus they became convinced that the
+savages meditated treachery. Resolving to anticipate the Indians'
+attack, they formed the following plan. While walking together in
+friendly conversation, the Indians being entirely off their guard,
+Caffre, who was a very powerful man, was to spring upon the lightest of
+the Indians, crush him to the ground, and thus take him a prisoner. At
+the same instant, Davis and McClure were each to shoot one of the other
+Indians, who, being thus taken by surprise, could offer no resistance.
+
+The signal was given. Caffre sprang upon his victim and bore him to the
+ground. McClure shot his man dead. Davis' gun flashed in the pan. The
+Indian thus narrowly escaping death immediately aimed his gun at Caffre,
+who was struggling with the one he had grappled, and instantly killed
+him. McClure in his turn shot the Indian. There was now one Indian and
+two white men. But the Indian had the loaded rifle. McClure's was
+discharged and Davis' missed fire. The Indian, springing from the grasp
+of his dying antagonist, presented his rifle at Davis, who immediately
+fled, hotly pursued by the Indian. McClure, stopping only to reload his
+gun, followed after them. Soon he lost sight of both. Davis was never
+heard of afterwards. Doubtless he was shot by the avenging Indian, who
+returned to his wigwam with the white man's scalp.
+
+McClure, after this bloody fray, being left alone in the wilderness,
+commenced a return to his distant home. He had not proceeded far before
+he met an Indian on horseback accompanied by a boy on foot. The warrior
+dismounted, and in token of peace offered McClure his pipe. As they were
+seated together upon a log, conversing, McClure said that the Indian
+informed him by signs that there were other Indians in the distance who
+would soon come up, and that then they should take him captive, tie his
+feet beneath the horse's belly and carry him off to their village.
+McClure seized his gun, shot the Indian through the heart, and plunging
+into the forest, effected his escape.
+
+About this same time Captain James Ward, with a party of half a dozen
+white men, one of whom was his nephew, and a number of horses, was
+floating down the Ohio River from Pittsburgh. They were in a flat boat
+about forty-five feet long and eight feet wide. The gunwale of the boat
+consisted of but a single pine plank. It was beautiful weather, and for
+several days they were swept along by the tranquil stream, now borne by
+the changing current towards the one shore, and now towards the other.
+One morning when they had been swept by the stream within about one
+hundred and fifty feet of the northern shore, suddenly several hundred
+Indians appeared upon the bank, and uttering savage yells opened upon
+them a terrible fire.
+
+Captain Ward's nephew, pierced by a ball in the breast, fell dead in the
+bottom of the boat. Every horse was struck by a bullet. Some were
+instantly killed; others, severely wounded, struggled so violently as to
+cause the frail bark to dip water, threatening immediate destruction.
+All the crew except Captain Ward were so panic-stricken by this sudden
+assault, that they threw themselves flat upon their faces in the bottom
+of the boat, and attempted no resistance where even the exposure of a
+hand would be the target for a hundred rifles.
+
+Fortunately Captain Ward was protected from this shower of bullets by a
+post, which for some purpose had been fastened to the gunwale. He
+therefore retained his position at the helm, which was an oar, striving
+to guide the boat to the other side of the river. As the assailants had
+no canoes, they could not attempt to board, but for more than an hour
+they ran along the banks yelling and keeping up an almost constant fire.
+At length the boat was swept to the other side of the stream, when the
+miscreants abandoned the pursuit, and disappeared.
+
+Quite a large party of emigrants were attacked by the Indians near what
+is now called Scagg's Creek, and six were instantly killed. A Mrs.
+McClure, delirious with terror, fled she knew not where, followed by her
+three little children and carrying a little babe in her arms. The cries
+of the babe guided the pursuit of the Indians. They cruelly tomahawked
+the three oldest children, and took the mother and the babe as captives.
+Fortunately the tidings of this outrage speedily reached one of the
+settlements. Captain Whitley immediately started in pursuit of the
+gang. He overtook them, killed two, wounded two, and rescued the
+captives. Such were the scenes enacted during a period of nominal peace
+with the Indians.
+
+There has been transmitted to us a very curious document, giving an
+account of a speech made by Mr. Dalton, a Government agent, to a council
+of Indian chiefs, upon the announcement of peace with Great Britain, and
+their reply. Mr. Dalton said:
+
+"MY CHILDREN,--What I have often told you is now come to pass. This day
+I received news from my great chief at the Falls of the Ohio. Peace is
+made with the enemies of America. The white flesh, the Americans,
+French, and Spanish, this day smoked out of the peace-pipe. The tomahawk
+is buried, and they are now friends. I am told the Shawanese, the
+Delawares, Chickasaws, Cherokees, and all other red flesh, have taken
+the Long Knife by the hand. They have given up to them the prisoners
+that were in their hands.
+
+"My children on the Wabash, open your ears and let what I tell you sink
+into your hearts. You know me. Near twenty years I have been among you.
+The Long Knife is my nation. I know their hearts. Peace they carry in
+one hand and war in the other. I leave you to yourselves to judge.
+Consider and now accept the one or the other. We never beg peace of our
+enemies. If you love your women and children, receive the belt of wampum
+I present you. Return me my flesh you have in your villages, and the
+horses you stole from my people in Kentucky. Your corn fields were never
+disturbed by the Long Knife. Your women and children lived quiet in
+their houses, while your warriors were killing and robbing my people.
+All this you know is the truth.
+
+"This is the last time I shall speak to you. I have waited six moons to
+hear you speak and to get my people from you. In ten nights I shall
+leave the Wabash to see my great chief at the Falls of the Ohio, where
+he will be glad to hear from your own lips what you have to say. Here is
+tobacco I give you. Smoke and consider what I have said."
+
+Mr. Dalton then presented Piankashaw, the chief of the leading tribe
+assembled in council, with a belt of blue and white wampum. Piankashaw
+received the emblem of peace with much dignity, and replied:
+
+"MY GREAT FATHER THE LONG KNIFE,--You have been many years among us. You
+have suffered by us. We still hope you will have pity and compassion
+upon us, on our women and children. The sun shines on us, and the good
+news of peace appears in our faces. This is the day of joy to the Wabash
+Indians. With one tongue we now speak. We accept your peace-belt.
+
+"We received the tomahawk from the English. Poverty forced us to it. We
+were followed by other tribes. We are sorry for it. To-day we collect
+the scattered bones of our friends and bury them in one grave. We thus
+plant the tree of peace, that God may spread its branches so that we can
+all be secured from bad weather. Here is the pipe that gives us joy.
+Smoke out of it. Our warriors are glad you are the man we present it to.
+We have buried the tomahawk, have formed friendship never to be broken,
+and now we smoke out of your pipe.
+
+"My father, we know that the Great Spirit was angry with us for stealing
+your horses and attacking your people. He has sent us so much snow and
+cold weather as to kill your horses with our own. We are a poor people.
+We hope God will help us, and that the Long Knife will have compassion
+on our women and children. Your people who are with us are well. We
+shall collect them when they come in from hunting. All the prisoners
+taken in Kentucky are alive. We love them, and so do our young women.
+Some of your people mend our guns, and others tell us they can make rum
+out of corn. They are now the same as we. In one moon after this we will
+take them back to their friends in Kentucky.
+
+"My father, this being the day of joy to the Wabash Indians, we beg a
+little drop of your milk to let our warriors see that it came from your
+own breast. We were born and raised in the woods. We could never learn
+to make rum. God has made the white men masters of the world."
+
+Having finished his speech, Piankashaw presented Mr. Dalton with three
+strings of blue and white wampum as the seal of peace. All must observe
+the strain of despondency which pervades this address, and it is
+melancholy to notice the imploring tones with which the chief asks for
+rum, the greatest curse which ever afflicted his people.
+
+The incessant petty warfare waged between vagrant bands of the whites
+and the Indians, with the outrages perpetrated on either side, created
+great exasperation. In the year 1784 there were many indications that
+the Indians were again about to combine in an attack upon the
+settlements. These stations were widely scattered, greatly exposed, and
+there were many of them. It was impossible for the pioneers to rally in
+sufficient strength to protect every position. The savages, emerging
+unexpectedly from the wilderness, could select their own point of
+attack, and could thus cause a vast amount of loss and misery. For a
+long time it had been unsafe for any individual, or even small parties,
+unless very thoroughly armed, to wander beyond the protection of the
+forts. Under these circumstances, a convention was held of the leading
+men of Kentucky at the Danville Station, to decide what measures to
+adopt in view of the threatened invasion. It was quite certain that the
+movement of the savages would be so sudden and impetuous that the
+settlers would be compelled to rely mainly upon their own resources.
+
+The great State of Virginia, of which Kentucky was but a frontier
+portion, had become rich and powerful. But many weary leagues
+intervened, leading through forests and over craggy mountains, between
+the plains of these distant counties and Richmond, the capital of
+Virginia. The convention at Danville discussed the question whether it
+were not safer for them to anticipate the Indians, and immediately to
+send an army for the destruction of their towns and crops north of the
+Ohio. But here they were embarrassed by the consideration that they had
+no legal power to make this movement, and that the whole question,
+momentous as it was and demanding immediate action, must be referred to
+the State Government, far away beyond the mountains. This involved long
+delay, and it could hardly be expected that the members of the General
+Court in their peaceful homes would fully sympathize with the
+unprotected settlers in their exposure to the tomahawk and the scalping
+knife.
+
+Several conventions were held, and the question was earnestly discussed
+whether the interests of Kentucky did not require her separation from
+the Government of Virginia, and her organization as a self-governing
+State. The men who had boldly ventured to seek new homes so far beyond
+the limits of civilization were generally men of great force of
+character and of political foresight. They had just emerged from the war
+of the Revolution, during which all the most important questions of
+civil polity had been thoroughly canvassed. Their meetings were
+conducted with great dignity and calm deliberation.
+
+On the twenty-third of May, 1785, the convention at Danville passed the
+resolve with great unanimity that Kentucky ought to be separated from
+Virginia, and received into the American Union, upon the same basis as
+the other States. Still that they might not act upon a question of so
+much importance without due deliberation, they referred the subject to
+another convention to be assembled at Danville in August. This
+convention reiterated the resolution of its predecessor; issued a
+proclamation urging the people everywhere to organise for defence
+against the Indians, and appointed a delegation of two members to
+proceed to Richmond, and present their request for a separation to the
+authorities there.
+
+"The Legislature of Virginia was composed of men too wise not to see
+that separation was inevitable. Separated from the parent State by
+distance and by difficulties of communication, in those days most
+formidable, they saw that Kentuckians would not long submit to be ruled
+by those whose power was so far removed as to surround every approach to
+it with the greatest embarrassment. It was, without its wrongs, and
+tyranny and misgovernment, the repetition of the circumstances of the
+Crown and Colonies; and with good judgment, and as the beautiful
+language of the Danville convention expressed it, with sole intent to
+bless its people, they agreed to a dismemberment of its part, to secure
+the happiness of the whole."[F]
+
+ [Footnote F: Daniel Boone, by W. H. Bogart.]
+
+It is not important here to enter into a detail of the various
+discussions which ensued, and of the measures which were adopted. It is
+sufficient to say that the communication from Kentucky to the
+Legislature of Virginia was referred to the illustrious John Marshall,
+then at the commencement of his distinguished career. He gave to the
+request of the petitioners his own strong advocacy. The result was, that
+a decree was passed after tedious delays, authorising the formal
+separation of Kentucky from Virginia. On the fourth of February, 1791,
+the new State, by earnest recommendation of George Washington, was
+admitted into the American Union.
+
+It does not appear that Colonel Boone was a member of any of these
+conventions. He had no taste for the struggles in political assemblies.
+He dreaded indeed the speculator, the land jobber, and the intricate
+decisions of courts, more than the tomahawk of the Indian. And he knew
+full well that should the hour of action come, he would be one of the
+first to be summoned to the field. While therefore others of the early
+pioneers were engaged in these important deliberations, he was quietly
+pursuing those occupations, congenial to his tastes, of cultivating the
+farm, or in hunting game in the solitude of the forests. His humble
+cabin stood upon the banks of the Kentucky River, not far from the
+station at Boonesborough. And thoroughly acquainted as he was with the
+habits of the Indians, he felt quite able, in his bullet-proof citadel,
+to protect himself from any marauding bands which might venture to show
+themselves so near the fort.
+
+It seems to be the lot of humanity that life should be composed of a
+series of storms, rising one after another. In the palace and in the
+cottage, in ancient days and at the present time, we find the sweep of
+the inexorable law, that man is born to mourn.
+
+
+          "Sorrow is for the sons of men,
+           And weeping for earth's daughters."
+
+The cloud of menaced Indian invasion had passed away, when suddenly the
+sheriff appears in Boone's little cabin, and informs him that his title
+to his land is disputed, and that legal proceedings were commenced
+against him. Boone could not comprehend this. Kentucky he regarded
+almost his own by the right of his discovery. He had led the way there.
+He had established himself and family in the land, and had defended it
+from the incursions of the Indians. And now, in his advancing years, to
+be driven from the few acres he had selected and to which he supposed he
+had a perfect title, seemed to him very unjust indeed. He could not
+recognise any right in what seemed to him but the quibbles of the
+lawyers. In his autobiography he wrote in reference to his many painful
+adventures:
+
+"My footsteps have often been marked with blood. Two darling sons and a
+brother have I lost by savage hands, which have also taken from me forty
+valuable horses and abundance of cattle. Many dark and sleepless nights
+have I been a companion for owls, separated from the cheerful society of
+men, scorched by the summer's sun, and pinched by the winter's cold, an
+instrument ordained to settle the wilderness."
+
+Agitated by the thought of the loss of his farm and deeply wounded in
+his feelings, as though a great wrong had been inflicted upon him, Boone
+addressed an earnest memorial to the Legislature of Kentucky. In this he
+stated that immediately after the troubles with the Indians had ceased,
+he located himself upon lands to which he supposed he had a perfect
+title; that he reared his house and commenced cultivating his fields.
+And after briefly enumerating the sacrifices he had made in exploring,
+settling and defending Kentucky, he said he could not understand the
+justice of making a set of complicated forms of law, superior to his
+actual occupancy of the land selected, as he believed when and where it
+was, it was his unquestioned right to do so.
+
+But the lawyers and the land speculators were too shrewd for the
+pioneer. Colonel Boone was sued; the question went to the courts which
+he detested, and Boone lost his farm. It was indeed a very hard case. He
+had penetrated the country when no other white man trod its soil. He
+discovered its wonderful resources, and proclaimed them to the world. He
+had guided settlers into the region, and by his sagacity and courage,
+had provided for their wants and protected them from the savage. And now
+in his declining years he found himself driven from his farm, robbed of
+every acre, a houseless, homeless, impoverished man. The deed was so
+cruel that thousands since, in reading the recital, have been agitated
+by the strongest emotions of indignation and grief.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+_Adventures Romantic and Perilous._
+
+The Search for the Horse.--Navigating the Ohio.--Heroism of Mrs.
+Rowan.--Lawless Gangs.--Exchange of Prisoners.--Boone Revisits the
+Home of his Childhood.--The Realms beyond the Mississippi.--Habits
+of the Hunters.--Corn.--Boone's Journey to the West.
+
+
+The Indians still continued hostile. The following incident gives one an
+idea of the nature of the conflict which continued, and of the perils
+which were encountered.
+
+There was a striving station where a few settlers were collected, at a
+spot now called State Creek Iron Works. One or two farm-houses were
+scattered around, but at such a short distance from the fort that their
+inmates could at once take refuge behind its log walls, in case of
+alarm. In the month of August, 1786, a young man residing in the fort,
+by the name of Yates, called at one of these farm-houses and requested a
+lad, Francis Downing, to accompany him in search of a horse, which had
+strayed away. The two friends set out together, and after searching the
+forest in vain, found themselves, the latter part of the afternoon, in a
+lonely uninhabited valley, nearly seven miles from the fort. Here young
+Downing became quite alarmed by some indications that Indians were
+dogging their steps. He communicated his fears to his companion. But
+Yates, who was several years older than Downing, was an experienced
+hunter and inured to life in the woods, had become to a certain degree
+indifferent to danger. He made himself quite merry over his young
+companion's fears, asking him at what price he was willing to sell his
+scalp, and offering to insure it for sixpence.
+
+Still Downing was not satisfied, and his alarm increased as he insisted
+that he occasionally heard the crack of dry twigs behind them, as if
+broken by some one pursueing. But Yates deriding his fears, pressed on,
+making the woods resound with a song, to which he gave utterance from
+unusually full and strong lungs. Downing gradually slackened his pace,
+and when Yates was some thirty yards in advance of him, sprang into a
+dense cluster of tall whortleberry bushes, where he was effectually
+concealed. Scarcely had he done this, when to his great terror he saw
+two Indians peeping cautiously out of a thick canebrake. Deceived by the
+song of Yates, who with stentorian lungs was still giving forth his
+woodland ditty, they supposed both had passed. Young Downing thought it
+impossible but that the savages must have seen him as he concealed
+himself. Greatly alarmed he raised his gun, intending to shoot one and
+to trust to his heels for escape from the other.
+
+But his hand was so unsteady that the gun went off before he had taken
+aim. Terror stricken, he rushed along the path Yates had trod. Yates,
+alarmed by the report of the gun, came running back. As they met, the
+two Indians were seen not far from them in hot pursuit. They soon could
+easily see that the enemy was gaining upon them. In their rapid flight
+they came to a deep gulley which Yates cleared at a bound, but young
+Downing failed in the attempt. His breast struck the opposite almost
+precipitous bank, and he rolled to the bottom of the ditch. Some
+obstruction in the way prevented the Indians from witnessing the fall of
+Downing. They continued the pursuit of Yates, crossing the gulley a few
+yards below where Downing had met his mishap. Thus in less time than we
+have occupied in the narration, the Indians disappeared in their chase
+after Yates.
+
+Downing was in great perplexity. He did not dare to creep out of the
+gulley, lest he should be seen, and as soon as the Indians should
+perceive that he was not with Yates, as they inevitably would ere long
+do, they would know that he was left behind, and would turn back for his
+capture. Unfortunately young Downing had so far lost his presence of
+mind, that he had failed to reload his gun. Just then he saw one of the
+savages returning, evidently in search of him. There was no possible
+resource left but flight. Throwing away his now useless gun, he rushed
+into the forest with all the speed which terror could inspire. He was
+but a boy, the full-grown Indian gained rapidly upon him, he could
+almost strike him with his tomahawk, when they came to an immense tree,
+blown up by the roots. The boy ran on one side of the trunk and the
+Indian on the other, towards the immense pile of earth which adhered to
+the upturned roots.
+
+The boy now gave up all hope in utter despair. It seemed certain that
+the brawny Indian would get ahead of him and intercept his further
+flight. But it so happened--was it an accident or was it a
+Providence--that a she-bear had made her bed directly in the path which
+the Indian with almost blind eagerness was pursuing. Here the ferocious
+beast was suckling her cubs. The bear sprang from her lair, and
+instantly with a terrific hug grasped the savage in her paws. The Indian
+gave a terrific yell and plunged his knife again and again into the body
+of the bear. The boy had but one brief glance, as in this bloody embrace
+they rolled over and over on the ground. The boy, praying that the bear
+might tear the Indian in pieces, added new speed to his flight and
+reached the fort in safety.
+
+There he found Yates who had arrived but a few moments before him, and
+who had outrun the other Indian. The next morning a well armed party
+returned to the tree. Both the bear and the Indian had disappeared.
+Probably both had suffered very severely in the conflict, and both had
+escaped with their lives.
+
+Another incident illustrative of these perilous adventures in the now
+peaceful State of Kentucky. Mr. Rowan, with his own and five other
+families, left the little hamlet at Louisville to float down the Ohio to
+Green River, and to ascend that stream, intending to rear their new
+homes on its fertile and delightful banks. The families were quite
+comfortably accommodated in a large flat-bottomed boat. Another boat of
+similar construction conveyed their cattle and sundry articles of
+household furniture. On the route which they were pursuing, there were
+then no settlements. The Ohio river and the Green river flowed through
+unbroken solitudes.
+
+The flat boats had floated down the beautiful Ohio, through scenes of
+surpassing loveliness, about one hundred miles, when one night about ten
+o'clock a prodigious shouting and yelling of Indians was heard some
+distance farther down the river on the northern shore. Very soon they
+came in sight of their camp-fires, which were burning very brightly. It
+was evident that the Indians were having a great carousal rejoicing
+over some victory. Mr. Rowan immediately ordered the two boats to be
+lashed firmly together. There were but seven men on board who were
+capable of making efficient use of the rifle. Plying the oars as
+vigorously and noiselessly as they could, they endeavored to keep close
+to the Kentucky shore. And yet they were careful not to approach too
+near, lest there might be Indians there also. It was evident that there
+was a large gathering of the Indians on the northern bank, for their
+camp-fires extended for a distance of nearly half a mile along the
+river.
+
+As the boats floated noiselessly along in the gloom of the night, under
+shadow of the cliffs, they were not detected until they were opposite
+the central fire, whose brilliancy threw a flood of light nearly across
+the stream. A simultaneous shout greeted this discovery, and with
+terrific yells the savages rushed to their canoes and commenced a
+pursuit. The two flat boats rapidly floated beyond the illumination of
+the fires into the region of midnight darkness. The timid Indians, well
+acquainted with the white man's unerring aim, pursued cautiously, though
+their hideous yells resounded along the shores.
+
+Mr. Rowan ordered all on board to keep perfect silence, to conceal
+themselves as much as possible, and ordered not a gun to be fired till
+the Indians were so near that the powder of the gun would burn them,
+thus rendering every shot absolutely certain. The Indians, with their
+hideous yells, pursued in their canoes until within a hundred yards of
+the boats. They then seemed simultaneously to have adopted the
+conviction that the better part of valor was discretion. In the
+darkness, they could not see the boatmen, who they had no doubt were
+concealed behind bullet-proof bulwarks. Their birch canoes presented not
+the slightest obstruction to the passage of a rifle ball. Knowing that
+the flash of a gun from the boat would be certain death to some one of
+their number, and that thus the boatmen, with the rapidity with which
+they could load and fire, would destroy a large part of their company
+before they could hope to capture the flat boats, they hesitated to
+approach any nearer, but followed in the pursuit for nearly three miles
+down the river, assailing the white men only with harmless yells.
+
+The heroic Mrs. Rowan, as she saw the canoes approaching, supposing that
+the savages would attempt to board the boats, crept quietly around in
+the darkness, collected all the axes, and placed one by the side of each
+man, leaning the handle against his knee. While performing this
+significant act she uttered not a word, but returned to her own seat in
+silence, retaining a sharp hatchet for herself.
+
+With such determined spirits to assail, it was well for the savages
+that they did not approach within arms-length of those whom they were
+pursuing. They would certainly have met with a bloody reception.
+
+The savages at length, despairing of success, relinquished the pursuit
+and returned to their demoniac orgies around their camp-fires. It was
+supposed that they had captured a boat which was descending the river
+the day before, and that their extraordinary revelry was accompanied by
+the roasting of their captives. A son of Mr. Rowan, but ten years of
+age, who subsequently became one of the most distinguished men in
+Kentucky, was present on this occasion. He frequently, in after-years,
+alluded to the indescribable sensations of sublimity and terror which
+the scene inspired. The gloom of the night; the solemn flow of the
+majestic river; the dim view of the forests on either side; the gleam of
+the camp-fires of the Indians, around which the half-clad savages were
+dancing in hideous contortions; the unearthly yells in which every
+demoniac passion seemed contending for the mastery; the shout which was
+given when they discovered the boats beneath the shadows of the opposite
+cliffs; the pursuit of the canoes with redoubled vehemence of hooting;
+the rapidity with which, with brawny arms, they paddled their boats to
+and fro; the breathless silence which pervaded the flat boat while for
+more than an hour the occupants awaited, momentarily expecting the
+terrible onset; and above all, the fortitude and heroism displayed by
+his mother,--all these combined to leave an impression upon the mind of
+the boy which could never be obliterated. Few will be able to read the
+record of this adventure without emotion. What then must it have been to
+have experienced it in bodily presence, and to have shared in all its
+terrible dangers?
+
+As we have before said, there was no distinctly proclaimed war, at this
+time, between the pioneers and the Indians. While lawless men on both
+sides were committing the most atrocious outrages, the chiefs and the
+legitimate authorities were nominally at peace. The red men, whether
+engaged in what they deemed lawful warfare, or moving in plundering
+bands, were in the habit of inflicting upon their captives the most
+dreadful tortures which their ingenuity could devise. The white men
+could not retaliate by the perpetration of such revolting cruelty.
+
+It probably was a suggestion of Colonel Boone that a council might be
+held with the Indian chiefs, and a treaty formed by which prisoners
+should be exempted from torture and exchanged, as in civilized warfare.
+The Indians were by no means reckless of the lives of their warriors,
+and would probably be very ready to give up a white captive if by so
+doing they could receive one of their own braves in return. A council
+was held at a station where Maysville now stands. Colonel Boone was at
+once selected as the man of all others most fit to take part in these
+deliberations. He was not only thoroughly acquainted with the Indians,
+their habits, their modes of thought, and the motives most likely to
+influence their minds; but his own peculiar character seemed just the
+one calculated to inspire them with admiration.
+
+The principle was here adopted of an exchange of prisoners, which
+notwithstanding the continued violence of the lawless, saved the lives
+of many captives. It is an interesting fact, illustrative of the
+sagacity and extraordinary power of Colonel Boone over the Indian mind,
+that the chiefs with one consent agreed in grateful commemoration of
+this treaty, that if any captive should hereafter be taken by them from
+Maysville, that captive should be treated with every possible degree of
+lenity. And it is worthy of record that such a captive was subsequently
+taken, and that the Indians with the most scrupulous fidelity fulfilled
+their pledge. Indeed, it is difficult for an impartial historian to
+deny, that these poor savages, ignorant and cruel as they were, often
+displayed a sense of honor which we do not so often find in their
+opponents. It is to be feared that were Indian historians to write the
+record of these wars, we should not find that they were always in the
+wrong.
+
+Colonel Boone, ejected from his lands and thus left penniless, felt
+keenly the wrongs which were inflicted upon him. He knew full well that
+he had done a thousand times more for Kentucky than any other man living
+or dead. He had conferred upon the State services which no money could
+purchase. Though to his intimate friends he confided his sufferings, he
+was too proud to utter loud complaints. In silence he endured. But
+Kentucky had ceased to be a happy home for him. Over all its broad and
+beautiful expanse which he had opened to the world, there was not a
+single acre which he could call his own. And he had no money with which
+to purchase a farm of those speculators, into whose hands most of the
+lands had fallen. Could the good old man now rise from his grave, a
+Kentucky Legislature would not long leave him landless. There is
+scarcely a cabin or a mansion in the whole State, where Daniel Boone
+would not meet with as hospitable a reception as grateful hearts could
+give.
+
+As a grief-stricken child rushes to its mother's arms for solace, so it
+is natural for man, when world-weary and struggling with adversity, to
+look back with longing eyes to the home of his childhood. The
+remembrance of its sunny days animates him, and its trivial sadnesses
+are forgotten. Thus with Daniel Boone; houseless and stung by
+ingratitude, he turned his eyes to the far distant home of his
+childhood, on the banks of the Schuykill. More than forty years of a
+wonderfully adventurous life had passed, since he a boy of fourteen had
+accompanied his father in his removal from Reading, in Berk's County, to
+North Carolina. Still the remarkable boy had left traces behind him
+which were not yet obliterated.
+
+He visited Reading, probably influenced by a faint hope of finding there
+a home. A few of his former acquaintances were living, and many family
+friends remained. By all he was received with the greatest kindness. But
+the frontier settlement of log huts, and the majestic surrounding
+forests filled with game, had entirely disappeared. Highly cultivated
+farms, from which even the stumps of the forest had perished, extended
+in all directions. Ambitious mansions adorned the hillsides, and all the
+appliances of advancing civilization met the eye. There could be no home
+here for Daniel Boone. Amid these strange scenes he felt as a stranger,
+and his heart yearned again for the solitudes of the forest. He longed
+to get beyond the reach of lawyers' offices, and court-houses, and land
+speculators.
+
+After a short visit he bade adieu forever to his friends upon the
+Schuykill, and turned his steps again towards the setting sun. His
+feelings had been too deeply wounded to allow him to think of remaining
+a man without a home in Kentucky. Still the idea of leaving a region
+endeared to him by so many memories must have been very painful. He
+remembered vividly his long and painful journeys over the mountains,
+through the wilderness untrodden by the foot of the white man; his
+solitary exploration of the new Eden which he seemed to have found
+there; the glowing accounts he had carried back to his friends of the
+sunny skies, the salubrious clime, the fertile soil, and the majesty and
+loveliness of the landscape; of mountain, valley, lake and river which
+Providence had lavished with a prodigal hand in this "Garden of the
+Lord."
+
+One by one he had influenced his friends to emigrate, had led them to
+their new homes, had protected them against the savages, and now when
+Kentucky had become a prosperous State in the Union, containing thirty
+thousand inhabitants, he was cast aside, and under the forms of law was
+robbed of the few acres which he had cultivated as his own. His life
+embittered by these reflections, and seeing nothing to attract him in
+the wild and unknown regions beyond the Mississippi, Colonel Boone
+turned sadly back to Virginia.
+
+It was an easy task for him to remove. In such an hour, one can
+sometimes well say, "Blessed be Nothing." A few pack-horses were
+sufficient to convey all his household goods. It is probable that his
+wife and children, indignant at the treatment which the husband and
+father had received, were glad to leave.
+
+This was doubtless one of the saddest journeys that Colonel Boone ever
+undertook. Traversing an almost pathless wilderness in a direction a
+little north of east from Boonesborough, he crossed the various speers
+of the Alleghany range, supporting his family with his rifle on the way,
+until after passing over three hundred miles of the wilderness, he
+reached the mouth of the Kanawha river, as that stream flows from
+Virginia due north, and empties into the Ohio river. Here there was a
+point of land washed by the Ohio on the north, and the Great Kanawha on
+the west, to which the appropriate name of Point Pleasant had been
+given. It does not appear that civilization had as yet penetrated this
+region. The emigration to Kentucky had floated by it down the river,
+descending from Pittsburg, or had crossed the mountain passes from North
+Carolina, several hundred miles to the south.
+
+Colonel Boone was now fifty-five years of age. If there were any
+settlement at the time at Point Pleasant, it must have consisted merely
+of a few log huts. Here at all events, Colonel Boone found the solitude
+and the communion with nature alone, for which his heart yearned. The
+world might call him poor, and still he was rich in the abundant supply
+of all his earthly wants. He reared his log hut where no one appeared to
+dispute his claim. The fertile soil around, a virgin soil, rich with
+undeveloped treasures, under the simplest culture produced abundantly,
+and the forest around supplied him daily with animal food more than a
+European peasant sees in a year.
+
+Here Colonel Boone and his family remained for several years, to use a
+popular phrase, buried from the world. His life was mainly that of a
+hunter. Mr. Peck, speaking of the habits of those pioneers who depended
+mainly upon the rifle for support, writes:
+
+"I have often seen him get up early in the morning, walk hastily out,
+and look anxiously to the woods and snuff the autumnal winds with the
+highest rapture; then return into the house and cast a quick and
+attentive look at the rifle, which was always suspended to a joist by a
+couple of buck-horns or little forks. The hunting dog understanding the
+intentions of his master, would wag his tail, and by every blandishment
+in his power, express his readiness to accompany him to the woods."
+
+It probably did not diminish Colonel Boone's interest in his new home,
+that it was exposed to all the perils of border life; that his rifle
+should be ever loaded; that his faithful watch-dog should be stationed
+at the door, to give warning of any approaching footsteps; and that he
+and his family should always be ready for a siege or battle. With these
+precautions, Boone had no more fear of assault from half a dozen
+vagabond Indians, than he had from so many howling wolves.
+
+The casualties of life had greatly reduced his family. Of his three
+sons, the eldest had fallen beneath the arrow and the tomahawk of the
+savages amidst the gloomy defiles of the Alleghany mountains. His second
+son was killed at the dreadful battle of the Blue Licks, as his agonised
+father had been compelled to abandon him to the merciless foe. His third
+son, probably chagrined by the treatment which his father had received
+from the authorities of Kentucky, had bidden adieu to all the haunts of
+civilized life, and traversing the wilderness towards the setting sun
+for many hundred miles, had crossed the Mississippi and sought a home in
+the wilds of the upper Louisiana, then under the dominion of Spain.
+
+As Boone was quietly engaged in his solitary vocation of farmer and
+hunter, where there were no books, no newspapers, nothing whatever to
+inform him of what was transpiring in the busy world of civilization, or
+in the haunts of savage life, two or three hunters came one day to his
+cabin, where of course they met with a very hospitable reception. It was
+not difficult to entertain guests in those days. The floor of the cabin
+supplied all the needed accommodations for lodging. Each guest with his
+rifle could easily furnish more food than was desired for the whole
+family.
+
+A little corn-meal, very coarsely ground in what was called a tub-mill,
+gave quite a variety of palatable food. Boiled in water it formed a dish
+called mush, which when eaten with milk, honey or butter, presented
+truly a delicious repast for hungry mouths. Mixed with cold water, it
+was ready to be baked. When covered with hot ashes, it emerged smoking
+from the glowing embers in the form of Ash Cake. When baked upon a
+shingle and placed before the coals, it was termed Journey Cake, so
+called because it could be so speedily prepared. This name has been
+corrupted in modern times into _Johnny_ Cake. When baked upon a
+helveless hoe, it formed the Hoe Cake. When baked in a kettle covered
+with a heated lid, if in one large cake, it was called a Pone or loaf.
+If in quite a number of small cakes they were called Dodgers.
+
+Corn flour seems to have been peculiarly prepared by Providence for the
+pioneers. For them it possesses some very great advantages over all
+other flour. It requires but few and the most simple cooking utensils.
+It can be rendered very palatable without either yeast, eggs, sugar or
+spices of any kind. It can easily be raised in the greatest abundance,
+and affords the most wholesome and nutritious food.
+
+"Let paeans," writes Mr. Hartly, "be sung all over the mighty West, to
+Indian Corn. Without it, the West would still have been a wilderness.
+Was the frontier suddenly invaded, without commissary, or quartermaster,
+or other sources of supply, each soldier parched a peck of corn. A
+portion of it was put into his pockets, the remainder in his wallet, and
+throwing it upon his saddle with his rifle on his shoulder, he was ready
+in half an hour for the campaign. Did a flood of emigration inundate the
+frontier, with an amount of consumers disproportioned to the supply of
+grain, the facility of raising the Indian corn, and its early maturity,
+gave promise and guarantee that the scarcity would be temporary and
+tolerable. Did the safety of the frontier demand the services of every
+adult militiaman, the boys and women could themselves raise corn, and
+furnish ample supplies of bread. Did an autumnal intermittent confine
+the whole family, or the entire population to the sick bed, this certain
+concomitant of the clearing and cultivating the new soil, mercifully
+withholds its paroxysms till the crop of corn is made. It requires no
+further labor or care afterwards. Paeans, say we, and a temple of
+worshipping to the creator of Indian Corn!"
+
+The hunters to whom we referred were indeed congenial companions to
+Daniel Boone. As day after day they accompanied him in the chase, and
+night after night sat by the blaze of his cabine-fire, related to him
+the adventures they had encountered far away beyond the Mississippi, the
+spirit of his youth revived within him. An irrepressible desire sprang
+up in his heart again to become a pioneer in the pathless forest which
+he loved so well. It is not improbable also that his parental feelings
+might have been aroused by the consideration that his son had gone
+before him to that distant land; and that he might have been animated by
+the hope of being reunited with him in his declining years.
+
+The hunters represented to him that another Kentucky could be found
+beyond the Father of Waters; that the game was abundant and would be
+inexhaustible, until long after his earthly pilgrimage should end; that
+the Spanish Government, desirous of promoting emigration, were ready to
+make the most liberal grants of land to any man who would rear a cabin
+and commence the cultivation of the soil; that over an expanse of
+hundreds of miles of a sunny clime, and as luxurious soil as heart could
+desire, he could select his broad acres with no fear of ever again being
+ejected from his home.
+
+These representations were resistless. Colonel Boone decided again to
+become a wanderer to the far West, though it involved the relinquishment
+of American citizenship and becoming a subject of the crown of Spain.
+
+The year 1795 had now come, as Colonel Boone gathered up his few
+household goods for the fourth great remove of his life. He was born on
+the banks of the Delaware; his childhood was passed amidst the solitudes
+of the Upper Skuylkill; his early manhood, where he reared his cabin and
+took to it his worthy bride, was in North Carolina. Thence penetrating
+the wilderness through adventures surpassing the dreams of romance, he
+had passed many years amidst the most wonderful vicissitudes of quietude
+and of agitation, of peace and of war, on the settlement of which he was
+the father, at Boonesborough, in the valley of the Kentucky river.
+Robbed of the possessions which he had earned a hundred times over, he
+had sought a temporary residence at Point Pleasant, in Virginia. And
+now, as he was approaching the termination of his three score years, he
+was prepared to traverse the whole extent of Kentucky, from the
+Alleghany border on the east, to the mighty flood of the Mississippi,
+which then upon the west rushed with its turbid flood through an almost
+unbroken solitude. It was a long, long journey.
+
+We can only surmise the reasons why he did not float down the Ohio in a
+flat boat. It may be said that he was entirely unaccustomed to boating.
+And as it does not appear that any other families joined him in the
+enterprise, his solitary boat would be almost certain to be attacked
+and captured by some of the marauding bands which frequented the
+northern banks of the Ohio.
+
+Colonel Boone was perfectly at home in the wilderness. He could always
+find a path for himself, where there was no trail to follow. And but few
+Indians now ventured into the interior of the State. We have no record
+of the journey. He reached the Mississippi safely, crossed the river
+into what is now the State of Missouri, and found a warm greeting in the
+cabin of his son Daniel M. Boone, who had established himself upon the
+western banks of the river, near where the city of St. Louis now stands.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+_A New Home._
+
+Colonel Boone welcomed by the Spanish Authorities.--Boone's Narrative to
+Audubon.--The Midnight Attack.--Pursuit of the Savages.--Sickness in the
+Wilderness.--Honesty of Colonel Boone.--Payment of his Debts.--Loss of all
+his Property.
+
+
+At the time when Colonel Boone crossed the Mississippi and entered
+Missouri, the Spanish Government, then in possession of that territory,
+being anxious to promote the settlement of the country, gave a very
+cordial welcome to all emigrants. The fame of Colonel Boone, as one of
+the most bold and valuable of pioneers, had preceded him. The Lieutenant
+Governor under the Spanish crown, who resided at St. Louis, received him
+with marked attention, and gave him the assurance that ample portions of
+land should be given to him and his family.
+
+Colonel Boone took up his residence, with his son, in what is called the
+Femme Osage district. The Spanish authorities appointed him Commandant
+of the district, which was an office of both civil and military power.
+His commission was dated July 11th, 1800. Remote as was this region from
+the Atlantic States, bold adventurers, lured by the prospect of
+obtaining large tracts of land, were rapidly pouring in. Instead of
+collecting together, they scattered wildly over the vast domain. Don
+Charles, the Spanish governor, gave Colonel Boone eight thousand acres
+of land on the north side of the Missouri river. By the law of the
+province he was bound to build upon some part of this land a house
+within the year, and also to obtain a confirmation of the grant from the
+representative of the Spanish crown, then residing in New Orleans. Both
+of these precautions the simple-minded man neglected to adopt. To visit
+New Orleans required a journey through the wilderness of more than a
+thousand miles. Though he might float down the stream in his boat he
+would be exposed continually to attacks from the Indians on its banks,
+and when ready to return he could not surmount the rapid current of the
+river in his boat, but would be compelled to traverse the winding banks,
+often through almost impenetrable forests and morasses. His duties as
+_syndic_ or justice of the peace also occupied much of his time, and the
+Lieutenant Governor at St. Louis agreed to dispense with his residence
+upon his lands. In addition to this, Colonel Boone had no doubt that the
+country would soon come under the power of the United States, and he
+could not believe the United States Government would disturb his title.
+
+Soon after Boone's emigration to Missouri, the Emperor Napoleon, by
+treaty with Spain, obtained possession of the whole of the vast region
+west of the Mississippi and Missouri, then known as Louisiana, and the
+region was transferred to France. It is a curious fact in the history of
+Boone passing through such wonderful adventures, that he had been a
+subject of George II., George III., a citizen of the United States, of
+the temporary nationality of Transylvania, an adopted son and citizen of
+the Shawanese tribe of Indians, a subject of Charles IV. of Spain, and
+now he found himself a subject of the first Napoleon, whose empire was
+then filling the world with its renown.
+
+Not long after this, the Emperor sold the country, as we have recorded,
+to the United States, saying with that prophetic wisdom which
+characterised this extraordinary man, "I have now given England a rival
+upon the seas." The fulfilment of this prophecy has since then been
+every hour in process of development.
+
+Colonel Boone seems to have been very happy in his new home. He still
+enjoyed his favorite pursuit of hunting, for the forests around him were
+filled with game and with animals whose rich furs were every year
+becoming more valuable. The distinguished naturalist, J. J. Audubon,
+visited him in his solitary retreat, and spent a night with him. In his
+Ornithological Biography he gives the following narrative which he
+received from Boone, that evening as they sat at the cabin fire. We give
+the story in the words of the narrator:
+
+"Daniel Boone, or as he was usually called in the Western country,
+Colonel Boone, happened to spend a night with me under the same roof,
+more than twenty years ago. We had returned from a shooting excursion,
+in the course of which his extraordinary skill in the management of the
+rifle had been fully displayed. On retiring to the room appropriated to
+that remarkable individual and myself for the night, I felt anxious to
+know more of his exploits and adventures than I did, and accordingly
+took the liberty of proposing numerous questions to him.
+
+"The stature and general appearance of this wanderer of the western
+forests approached the gigantic. His chest was broad and prominent, his
+muscular powers displayed themselves in every limb; his countenance gave
+indication of his great courage, enterprise and perseverance; and when
+he spoke the very motion of his lips brought the impression that
+whatever he uttered could not be otherwise than strictly true. I
+undressed while he merely took off his hunting shirt and arranged a few
+folds of blankets on the floor, choosing rather to lie there, as he
+observed, than on the softest bed. When we had both disposed of
+ourselves each after his own fashion, he related to me the following
+account of his powers of memory, which I lay before your kind reader in
+his own words, hoping that the simplicity of his style may prove
+interesting to you:
+
+"'I was once,' said he, 'on a hunting expedition on the banks of the
+Green River, when the lower parts of Kentucky were still in the hands of
+nature, and none but the sons of the soil were looked upon as its lawful
+proprietors. We Virginians had for some time been waging a war of
+intrusion upon them, and I among the rest rambled through the woods in
+pursuit of their race, as I now would follow the tracks of any ravenous
+animal. The Indians outwitted me one dark night, and I was as
+unexpectedly as suddenly made a prisoner by them.
+
+"'The trick had been managed with great skill; for no sooner had I
+extinguished the fire of my camp, and laid me down to rest in full
+security, as I thought, than I felt seized by an undistinguishable
+number of hands, and was immediately pinioned as if about to be led to
+the scaffold for execution. To have attempted to be refractory would
+have proved useless and dangerous to my life, and I suffered myself to
+be removed from my camp to theirs, a few miles distant, without uttering
+a word of complaint. You are aware, I daresay, that to act in this
+manner was the best policy, as you understand that by so doing, I proved
+to the Indians at once that I was born and bred as fearless of death as
+any of themselves.
+
+"'When we reached the camp great rejoicings were exhibited. Two squaws
+and a few papooses appeared particularly delighted at the sight of me,
+and I was assured by every unequivocal gesture and word that on the
+morrow the mortal enemy of the red skins would cease to live. I never
+opened my lips, but was busy contriving some scheme which might enable
+me to give the rascals a slip before dawn. The women immediately fell a
+searching about my hunting shirt for whatever they might think valuable,
+and fortunately for me soon found my flask filled with strong whiskey.
+
+"'A terrific grin was exhibited on their murderous countenances, while
+my heart throbbed with joy at the anticipation of their intoxication.
+The crew began immediately to beat their bellies and sing, as they
+passed the bottle from mouth to mouth. How often did I wish the flask
+ten times its size and filled with _aquafortis_! I observed that the
+squaws drank more freely than the warriors, and again my spirits were
+about to be depressed when the report of a gun was heard at a distance.
+The Indians all jumped on their feet. The singing and drinking were both
+brought to a stand, and I saw with inexpressible joy the men walk off
+to some distance and talk to the squaws. I knew that they were
+consulting about me, and I foresaw that in a few moments the warriors
+would go to discover the cause of the gun having been fired so near
+their camp. I expected that the squaws would be left to guard me. Well,
+sir, it was just so. They returned, the men took up their guns and
+walked away. The squaws sat down again and in less than five minutes had
+my bottle up to their dirty mouths, gurgling down their throats the
+remains of the whiskey.
+
+"'With pleasure did I see them becoming more and more drunk, until the
+liquor took such hold of them that it was quite impossible for these
+women to be of any service. They tumbled down, rolled about and began to
+snore, when I, having no other chance of freeing myself from the cords
+that fastened me, rolled over and over towards the fire, and after a
+short time burned them asunder. I rose on my feet, snatched up my rifle,
+and for once in my life spared that of Indians. I now recollected how
+desirous I once or twice felt to lay open the skulls of the wretches
+with my tomahawk. But when I again thought upon killing beings
+unprepared and unable to defend themselves, it looked like murder
+without need, and I gave up the idea.
+
+"'But, sir, I felt determined to mark the spot, and walking to a
+thrifty ash sapling, I cut out of it three large chips and ran off. I
+soon reached the river, soon crossed it, and threw myself into the
+cane-brakes, imitating the tracks of an Indian with my feet, so that no
+chance might be left for those from whom I had escaped to overtake me.
+
+"'It is now nearly twenty years since this happened, and more than five
+since I left the whites' settlement, which I might never probably have
+visited again, had I not been called upon as a witness in a law suit
+which was pending in Kentucky, and which I really believe would never
+have been settled had I not come forward and established the beginning
+of a certain boundary line. The story is this, sir:
+
+"'Mr. ---- moved from Old Virginia into Kentucky, and having a large
+tract granted to him in the new State, laid claim to a certain parcel of
+land adjoining Green River, and, as chance would have it, took for one
+of his corners the very ash tree on which I had made my mark, beginning,
+as it is expressed in the deed, 'At an ash marked by three distinct
+notches of the tomahawk of a white man.'
+
+"'The tree had grown much, and the bark had covered the marks. But
+somehow or other Mr. ---- had heard from some one all that I have already
+said to you, and thinking that I might remember the spot alluded to in
+the deed, but which was no longer discoverable, wrote for me to come
+and try at least to find the place or the tree. His letter mentioned
+that all my expenses should be paid; and not caring much about once more
+going back to Kentucky, I started and met Mr. ----. After some
+conversation, the affair with the Indians came to my recollection. I
+considered for a while, and began to think that, after all, I could find
+the very spot, as well as the tree, if it were yet standing.
+
+"Mr. ---- and I mounted our horses and off we went to the Green River
+bottoms. After some difficulty--for you must be aware, sir, that great
+changes have taken place in those woods--I found at last the spot where
+I had crossed the river, and waiting for the moon to rise, made for the
+course in which I thought the ash trees grew. On approaching the place I
+felt as if the Indians were there still, and as if I were still a
+prisoner among them. Mr. ---- and I camped near what I conceived the
+spot, and waited until the return of day.
+
+"'At the rising of the sun I was on foot, and after a good deal of
+musing thought that an ash tree, then in sight, must be the very one on
+which I had made my mark. I felt as if there could be no doubt about it,
+and mentioned my thought to Mr. ----.
+
+"'Well, Colonel Boone,' said he, 'if you think so I hope that it may
+prove true, but we must have some witnesses. Do you stay hereabouts and
+I will go and bring some of the settlers whom I know.'
+
+"'I agreed. Mr. ---- trotted off, and I, to pass the time, rambled about
+to see if a deer was still living in the land. But ah! sir, what a
+wonderful difference thirty years makes in a country! Why, at the time
+when I was caught by the Indians, you would not have walked out in any
+direction more than a mile without shooting a buck or a bear. There were
+then thousands of buffaloes on the hills in Kentucky. The land looked as
+if it never would become poor; and to hunt in those days was a pleasure
+indeed. But when I was left to myself on the banks of Green River, I
+daresay for the last time in my life, a few _signs_ only of the deer
+were seen, and as to a deer itself I saw none.
+
+"'Mr. ---- returned, accompanied by three gentlemen. They looked upon me
+as if I had been Washington himself, and walked to the ash tree, which I
+now called my own, as if in quest of a long lost treasure. I took an axe
+from one of them and cut a few chips off the bark. Still no signs were
+to be seen. So I cut again until I thought it time to be cautious, and I
+scraped and worked away with my butcher knife until I _did_ come to
+where my tomahawk had left an impression on the wood. We now went
+regularly to work and scraped at the tree with care until three hacks,
+as plain as any three notches ever were, could be seen. Mr. ---- and the
+other gentlemen were astonished, and I must allow that I was as much
+surprised as pleased myself. I made affidavit of this remarkable
+occurrence in presence of these gentlemen. Mr. ---- gained his cause. I
+left Green River for ever, and came to where we are now; and, sir, I
+wish you a good night."
+
+The life of this wonderful man was filled with similar adventures, many
+of which can now never be recalled. The following narrative will give
+the reader an idea of the scenes which were continually occurring in
+those bloody conflicts between the white settlers and the Indians:
+
+"A widow was residing in a lonely log cabin, remote from any settlers,
+in what is now Bourbon County, Kentucky. Her lonely hut consisted of but
+two rooms. One, the aged widow occupied herself, with two sons and a
+widowed daughter with an infant child; the other was tenanted by her
+three unmarried daughters, the oldest of whom was twenty years of age.
+
+"It was eleven o'clock at night, and the members of the industrious
+family in their lonely habitation had retired, with the exception of one
+of the daughters and one of the sons who was keeping her company. Some
+indications of danger had alarmed the young man, though he kept his
+fears to himself.
+
+"The cry apparently of owls in an adjoining forest was heard, answering
+each other in rather an unusual way. The horses in the enclosure by the
+side of the house, who seemed to have an instinct informing them of the
+approach of the Indians, seemed much excited and galloped around
+snorting with terror. Soon steps were heard in the yard, and immediately
+several loud knocks were made at the door, with some one enquiring, in
+good English, 'Who keeps this house?' The young man very imprudently was
+just unbarring the door when the mother sprang from the bed, exclaiming
+that they were Indians.
+
+"The whole family was immediately aroused, and the young men seized
+their guns. The Indians now threw off all disguise, and began to thunder
+at the door, endeavoring to break it down. Through a loop hole prepared
+for such an emergency, a rifle shot, discharged at the savages,
+compelled a precipitate retreat. Soon, however, they cautiously
+returned, and attacking the other end of the cabin, where they found a
+point not exposed to the fire from within, they succeeded at length in
+breaking through, and entered the room occupied by the three girls. One
+of them they seized and bound. Her sister made desperate resistance, and
+stabbed one of the Indians to the heart with a large knife which she was
+using at the loom. They immediately tomahawked her and she fell dead
+upon the floor. The little girl in the gloom of midnight they had
+overlooked. The poor little thing ran out of the door, and might have
+escaped had she not, in her terror, lost all self-control, and ran round
+the house wringing her hands and crying bitterly.
+
+"The brothers, agonized by the cries of their little sister, were just
+about opening the door to rush out to her rescue, when their more
+prudent mother declared that the child must be abandoned to its fate,
+that any attempt to save her would not only be unavailing, but would
+ensure the certain destruction of them all. Just then the child uttered
+a most frantic scream. They heard the dull sound as of a tomahawk
+falling upon the brain. There were a few convulsive moans, and all again
+was silent. It was but too evident to all what these sounds signified.
+
+"Presently the crackling of flames was heard, and through the port holes
+could be seen the glare of the rising conflagration, while the shouts of
+the savages grew more exultant. They had set fire to the end of the
+building occupied by the daughters. The logs were dry as tinder, and the
+devouring element was soon enveloping the whole building in its fatal
+embrace. To remain in the cabin was certain death, in its most appalling
+form. In rushing out there was a bare possibility that some might
+escape. There was no time for reflection. The hot stifling flames and
+smothering smoke were rolling in upon them, when they opened the door
+and rushed out into the outer air, endeavoring as soon as possible to
+reach the gloom of the forest.
+
+"The old lady, aided by her eldest son, ran in one direction towards a
+fence, while the other daughter, with her infant in her arms,
+accompanied by the younger of the brothers, ran in another direction.
+The fire was blazing so fiercely as to shed all around the light of day.
+The old lady had just reached the fence when several rifle balls pierced
+her body and she fell dead. Her son almost miraculously escaped, and
+leaping the fence plunged into the forest and disappeared. The other
+party was pursued by the Indians, with loud yells. Throwing down their
+guns which they had discharged, the savages rushed upon the young man
+and his sister with their gleaming tomahawks. Gallantly the brother
+defended his sister; firing upon the savages as they came rushing on,
+and then assailing them with the butt of his musket which he wielded
+with the fury of despair. He fought with such herculean strength as to
+draw the attention of all the savages upon himself, and thus gave his
+sister an opportunity of escaping. He soon however fell beneath their
+tomahawks, and was in the morning found scalped and mangled in the most
+shocking manner."
+
+Of this family of eight persons two only escaped from this awful scene
+of midnight massacre. The neighborhood was immediately aroused. The
+second daughter was carried off a captive by the savages. The fate of
+the poor girl awakened the deepest sympathy, and by daylight thirty men
+were assembled on horseback, under the command of Col. Edwards, to
+pursue the Indians. Fortunately a light snow had fallen during the
+night. Thus it was impossible for the savages to conceal their trail,
+and they were followed on the full gallop. The wretches knew full well
+that they would not be allowed to retire unmolested. They fled with the
+utmost precipitation, seeking to gain the mountainous region which
+bordered upon the Licking River.
+
+A hound accompanied the pursuing party. The sagacious animal was very
+eager in the chase. As the trail became fresh, and the scent indicated
+that the foe was nearly overtaken, the hound rushing forward, began to
+bay very loudly. This gave the Indians the alarm. Finding the strength
+of their captive failing, so that she could no longer continue the rapid
+flight, they struck their tomahawks into her brain, and left her
+bleeding and dying upon the snow. Her friends soon came up and found her
+in the convulsions of death. Her brother sprang from his horse and tried
+in vain to stop the effusion of blood. She seemed to recognize him,
+gave him her hand, uttered a few inarticulate words, and died.
+
+The pursuit was then continued with new ardor, and in about twenty
+minutes the avenging white men came within sight of the savages. With
+considerable military sagacity, the Indians had taken position upon a
+steep and narrow ridge, and seemed desirous of magnifying their numbers
+in the eyes of their pursuers by running from tree to tree and making
+the forest resound with their hideous yells. The pursuers were, however,
+too well acquainted with Indian warfare to be deceived by this childish
+artifice. They dismounted, tied their horses, and endeavored to surround
+the enemy, so as to cut off his retreat. But the cunning Indians,
+leaving two of their number behind to delay the pursuit by deceiving the
+white men into the conviction that they all were there, fled to the
+mountains. One of this heroic rear-guard--for remaining under the
+circumstances was the almost certain surrender of themselves to
+death--was instantly shot. The other, badly wounded, was tracked for a
+long distance by his blood upon the snow. At length his trail was lost
+in a running stream. Night came, a dismal night of rain, long and dark.
+In the morning the snow had melted, every trace of the retreat of the
+enemy was obliterated, and the further pursuit of the foe was
+relinquished.
+
+Colonel Boone, deprived of his property by the unrelenting processes of
+pitiless law, had left Kentucky impoverished and in debt. His rifle was
+almost the only property he took with him beyond the Mississippi. The
+rich acres which had been assigned to him there were then of but little
+more value than so many acres of the sky. Though he was so far away from
+his creditors that it was almost impossible that they should ever annoy
+him, still the honest-hearted man was oppressed by the consciousness of
+his debts, and was very anxious to pay them. The forests were full of
+game, many of the animals furnishing very valuable furs. He took his
+rifle, some pack-horses, and, accompanied by a single black servant boy,
+repaired to the banks of the Osage River to spend the winter in hunting.
+Here he was taken dangerously sick, and was apprehensive that he should
+die. We know not what were his religious thoughts upon this occasion,
+but his calmness in view of death, taken in connection with his
+blameless, conscientious, and reflective life, and with the fact that
+subsequently he became an openly avowed disciple of Jesus, indicate that
+then he found peace in view of pardoned sin through faith in the
+atonement of Jesus Christ. He pointed out to the black boy the place
+where, should he die, he wished to be buried. He gave very minute
+directions in reference to his burial and the disposal of his rifle,
+blankets, and peltry. Mr. Peck in the following language describes this
+interesting incident in the life of the pioneer:
+
+"On another occasion he took pack-horses and went to the country on the
+Osage river, taking for a camp-keeper a negro boy about twelve or
+fourteen years of age. Soon after preparing his camp and laying in his
+supplies for the winter, he was taken sick and lay a long time in camp.
+The horses were hobbled out on the range. After a period of stormy
+weather, there came a pleasant and delightful day, and Boone felt able
+to walk out. With his staff--for he was quite feeble--he took the boy to
+the summit of a small eminence and marked out the ground in shape and
+size of a grave, and then gave the following directions.
+
+"He instructed the boy, in case of his death, to wash and lay his body
+straight, wrapped up in one of the cleanest blankets. He was then to
+construct a kind of shovel, and with that instrument and the hatchet to
+dig a grave exactly as he had marked it out. He was then to drag the
+body to the place and put it in the grave, which he was directed to
+cover up, putting posts at the head and foot. Poles were to be placed
+around and above the surface, the trees to be marked so that the place
+could be easily found by his friends; the horses were to be caught, the
+blankets and skins gathered up, with some special instructions about
+the old rifle, and various messages to his family. All these directions
+were given, as the boy afterwards declared, with entire calmness, and as
+if he were giving instructions about ordinary business. He soon
+recovered, broke up his camp, and returned homeward without the usual
+signs of a winter's hunt."
+
+One writer says Colonel Boone went on a trapping excursion up the Grand
+River. This stream rises in the southern part of Iowa, and flows in a
+southerly course into the Missouri. He was entirely alone. Paddling his
+canoe up the lonely banks of the Missouri, he entered the Grand River,
+and established his camp in a silent sheltered cove, where an
+experienced hunter would with difficulty find it.
+
+Here he first laid in his supply of venison, turkeys, and bear's meat,
+and then commenced his trapping operation, where no sound of his rifle
+would disturb the beavers and no smell of gunpowder would excite their
+alarm. Every morning he took the circuit of his traps, visiting them all
+in turn. Much to his alarm, he one morning encountered a large
+encampment of Indians in his vicinity, engaged in hunting. He
+immediately retreated to his camp and secreted himself. Fortunately for
+him, quite a deep snow fell that night, which covered his traps. But
+this same snow prevented him from leaving his camp, lest his footprints
+should be discovered. For twenty days he continued thus secreted,
+occasionally, at midnight, venturing to cook a little food, when there
+was no danger that the smoke of his fire would reveal his retreat. At
+length the enemy departed, and he was released from his long
+imprisonment. He subsequently stated that never in his life had he felt
+so much anxiety for so long a period, lest the Indians should discover
+his traps and search out his camp.
+
+It seems that the object of Colonel Boone in these long hunting
+excursions was to obtain furs that he might pay the debts which he still
+owed in Kentucky. A man of less tender conscience would no longer have
+troubled himself about them. He was far removed from any importunity on
+the part of his creditors, or from any annoyance through the law. Still
+his debts caused him much solicitude, and he could not rest in peace
+until they were fully paid.
+
+After two or three seasons of this energetic hunting, Colonel Boone
+succeeded in obtaining a sufficient quantity of furs to enable him, by
+their sale, to pay all his debts. With this object in view, he set out
+on his long journey of several hundred miles, through an almost
+trackless wilderness, to Kentucky. He saw every creditor and paid every
+dollar. Upon his return, Colonel Boone had just one half dollar in his
+pocket. But he said triumphantly to his friends who eagerly gathered
+around him:
+
+"Now I am ready and willing to die. I am relieved from a burden which
+has long oppressed me. I have paid all my debts, and no one will say
+when I am gone, 'Boone was a dishonest man.' I am perfectly willing to
+die."
+
+In the year 1803, the territory west of the Mississippi came into the
+possession of the United States. The whole region, embracing what is now
+Missouri, was then called the territory of Louisiana. Soon after this a
+commission was appointed, consisting of three able and impartial men, to
+investigate the validity of the claims to land granted by the action of
+the Spanish Government. Again poor Boone was caught in the meshes of the
+law. It was found that he had not occupied the land which had been
+granted him, that he had not gone to New Orleans to perfect his title,
+and that his claim was utterly worthless.
+
+"Poor Boone! Seventy-four years old, and the second grasp you have made
+upon the West has been powerless. You have risked life, and lost the
+life next dearest your own for the West. In all its fearful forms, death
+has looked you in the face, and you have moved on to conquer the soil
+which you did but conquer, that it might be denied to you. You have been
+the architect of the prosperity of others, but your own crumbles each
+time as you are about to occupy it. When he lost his farm in
+Boonesborough, he did not linger around in complainings, but went
+quietly away, returning only to fulfil the obligations he had incurred.
+And now this last decision came, even at old age, to leave Daniel Boone,
+the Pioneer of the West, unable to give a title deed to a solitary
+acre."[G]
+
+ [Footnote G: Life of Boone, by W. H. Bogart, p. 369.]
+
+The fur trade was at this time very lucrative. Many who were engaged in
+it accumulated large fortunes. It was in this traffic that John Jacob
+Astor laid the foundations of his immense wealth. A guide of Major Long
+stated that he purchased of an Indian one hundred and twenty beaver
+skins for two blankets, two gallons of rum, and a pocket mirror. The
+skins he took to Montreal, where he sold them for over four hundred
+dollars.
+
+In the employment of the fur companies the trappers are of two kinds,
+called the "hired hand," and the "free trapper." The former is employed
+by the month, receiving regular wages, and bringing in all the furs
+which he can obtain. Be they more or less, he receives his stipulated
+monthly wages. The free trapper is supplied by the company with traps
+and certain other conveniences with which he plunges into the forest on
+his own hook, engaging however to sell to the company, at a stipulated
+price, whatever furs he may secure.
+
+The outfit of the trapper as he penetrated the vast and trackless region
+of gloomy forests, treeless prairies, and solitary rivers, spreading
+everywhere around him, generally consisted of two or three horses, one
+for the saddle and the others for packs containing his equipment of
+traps, ammunition, blankets, cooking utensils, etc., in preparation for
+passing lonely months in the far away solitudes. He would endeavor to
+find, if possible, a region which neither the white man nor the Indian
+had ever visited.
+
+The dress of the hunter consisted of a strong shirt of well-dressed and
+pliant buckskin, ornamented with long fringes. The vanity of dress, if
+it may be so called, followed him into regions where no eye but his own
+could see its beauties. His pantaloons were also made of buckskin
+decorated with variously-colored porcupine quills and with long fringes
+down the outside of the leg. Moccasins, often quite gorgeously
+embroidered, fitted closely to his feet. A very flexible hat or cap
+covered his head, generally of felt, obtained from some Indian trader.
+There was suspended over his left shoulder, so as to hang beneath his
+right arm, a powder horn and bullet pouch. In the latter he carried
+balls, flints, steel, and various odds and ends. A long heavy rifle he
+bore upon his shoulder.
+
+A belt of buckskin buckled tightly around the waist, held a large
+butcher knife in a sheath of stout buffalo hide, and also a buckskin
+case containing a whet-stone. A small hatchet or tomahawk was also
+attached to this belt. Thus rigged and in a new dress the hunter of good
+proportions presented a very picturesque aspect. With no little pride he
+exhibited himself at the trading posts, where not only the squaws and
+the children, but veteran hunters and Indian braves contemplated his
+person with admiration.
+
+Thus provided the hunter, more frequently alone but sometimes
+accompanied by two or three others, set out for the mountain streams, as
+early in the spring as the melting ice would enable him to commence
+operations against the beaver.
+
+Arrived on his hunting ground he carefully ascends some creek or stream,
+examining the banks with practiced eye to discern any sign of the
+presence of beaver or of any other animal whose fur would prove
+valuable. If a cotton-wood tree lies prostrate he examines it to see if
+it has been cut down by the sharp tooth of the beaver; and if so whether
+it has been cut down for food or to furnish material for damming a
+stream. If the track of a beaver is seen in the mud, he follows the
+track until he finds a good place to set his steel trap in the run of
+the animal, hiding it under water and carefully attaching it by a chain
+to a bush or tree, or to some picket driven into the bank. A float strip
+is also made fast to the trap, so that should the beaver chance to break
+away with the trap, this float upon the surface, at the end of a cord a
+few feet long, would point out the position of the trap.
+
+"When a 'lodge' is discovered the trap is set at the edge of the dam, at
+the point where the animal passes from deep to shoal water. Early in the
+morning the hunter always mounts his mule and examines the traps. The
+captured animals are skinned, and the tails, which are a great dainty,
+carefully packed into camp. The skin is then stretched over a hoop or
+frame-work of osier twigs and is allowed to dry, the flesh and fatty
+substance being carefully scraped off. When dry it is folded into a
+square sheet, the fur turned inward, and the bundle, containing from
+about ten to twenty skins, lightly pressed and corded, is ready for
+transportation.
+
+"During the hunt, regardless of Indian vicinity, the fearless trapper
+wanders far and near in search of 'sign.' His nerves must ever be in a
+state of tension and his mind ever present at his call. His eagle eye
+sweeps around the country, and in an instant detects any foreign
+appearance. A turned leaf, a blade of grass pressed down, the uneasiness
+of wild animals, the flight of birds, are all paragraphs to him written
+in nature's legible hand and plainest language. All the wits of the
+subtle savage are called into play to gain an advantage over the wily
+woodsman; but with the instinct of the primitive man, the white hunter
+has the advantage of a civilised mind, and thus provided seldom fails to
+outwit, under equal advantages, the cunning savage.
+
+"Sometimes the Indian following on his trail, watches him set his traps
+on a shrub-belted stream, and passing up the bed, like Bruce of old, so
+that he may leave no track, he lies in wait in the bushes until the
+hunter comes to examine. Then waiting until he approaches his ambush
+within a few feet, whiz flies the home-drawn arrow, never failing at
+such close quarters to bring the victim to the ground. For one white
+scalp, however, that dangles in the smoke of an Indian lodge, a dozen
+black ones at the end of the hunt ornament the camp-fire of the
+rendezvous.
+
+"At a certain time when the hunt is over, or they have loaded their pack
+animals, the trappers proceed to their rendezvous, the locality of which
+has been previously agreed upon; and here the traders and agents of the
+fur companies await them, with such assortments of goods as their hardy
+customers may require, including generally a fair supply of alcohol. The
+trappers drop in singly and in small bands, bringing their packs of
+beaver to this mountain market, not unfrequently to the value of a
+thousand dollars each, the produce of one hunt. The dissipation of the
+rendezvous, however, soon turns the trapper's pocket inside out. The
+goods brought by the traders, although of the most inferior quality, are
+sold at enormous prices. Coffee twenty and thirty shillings a pint cup,
+which is the usual measure; tobacco fetches ten and fifteen shillings a
+plug; alcohol from twenty to fifty shillings a pint; gunpowder sixteen
+shillings a pint cup, and all other articles at proportionately
+exhorbitant prices.
+
+"The rendezvous is one continued scene of drunkenness, gambling,
+brawling and fighting, so long as the money and credit of the trappers
+last. Seated Indian fashion around the fires, with a blanket spread
+before them, groups are seen with their 'decks' of cards playing at
+'euchre,' 'poker,' and 'seven-up,' the regular mountain games. The
+stakes are beaver, which is here current coin; and when the fur is gone,
+their horses, mules, rifles and shirts, hunting packs and breeches are
+staked. Daring gamblers make the rounds of the camp, challenging each
+other to play for the highest stake--his horse, his squaw if he have
+one, and as once happened his scalp. A trapper often squanders the
+produce of his hunt, amounting to hundreds of dollars, in a couple of
+hours; and supplied on credit with another equipment, leaves the
+rendezvous for another expedition which has the same result, time after
+time, although one tolerably successful hunt would enable him to return
+to the settlements and civilised life with an ample sum to purchase and
+stock a farm, and enjoy himself in ease and comfort for the remainder of
+his days.
+
+"These annual gatherings are often the scene of bloody duels, for over
+their cups and cards no men are more quarrelsome than your mountaineers.
+Rifles at twenty paces settle all differences, and as may be imagined,
+the fall of one or other of the combatants is certain, or, as sometimes
+happens, both fall at the same fire."[H]
+
+ [Footnote H: Ruxton's Travels.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+_Conclusion._
+
+Colonel Boone Appeals to Congress--Complimentary Resolutions of the
+Legislature of Kentucky.--Death of Mrs. Boone.--Catholic
+Liberality.--Itinerant Preachers.--Grant by Congress to Colonel
+Boone.--The Evening of his Days.--Personal Appearance.--Death and
+Burial.--Transference of the Remains of Mr. and Mrs. Boone to Frankfort,
+Kentucky.
+
+
+Colonel Boone having lost all his property, sent in a memorial, by the
+advice of his friends, to the Legislature of Kentucky, and also another
+to Congress. Kentucky was now a wealthy and populous State, and was not
+at all indisposed to recognise the invaluable services she had received
+from Colonel Boone. In allusion to these services Governor Moorehead
+said:
+
+"It is not assuming too much to declare, that without Colonel Boone, in
+all probability the settlements could not have been upheld; and the
+conquest of Kentucky might have been reserved for the emigrants of the
+nineteenth century."
+
+What obstacle stood in the way of a liberal grant of land by the
+Kentucky Legislature we do not know. We simply know that by a unanimous
+vote of that body, the following preamble and resolution were passed:
+
+"The Legislature of Kentucky, taking into view the many eminent services
+rendered by Colonel Boone, in exploring and settling the western
+country, from which great advantages have resulted, not only to this
+State, but to this country in general, and that from circumstances over
+which he had no control, he is now reduced to poverty; not having, so
+far as appears, an acre of land out of the vast territory he has been a
+great instrument in peopling; believing also that it is as unjust as it
+is impolitic, that useful enterprise and eminent services should go
+unrewarded by a Government where merit confers the only distinction; and
+having sufficient reason to believe that a grant of ten thousand acres
+of land, which he claims in Upper Louisiana, would have been confirmed
+by the Spanish Government, had not said territory passed by cession into
+the hands of the General Government; therefore
+
+"Resolved by the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky: That
+our Senators in Congress be requested to make use of their exertions to
+procure a grant of land in said territory to said Boone, either the ten
+thousand acres to which he appears to have an equitable claim, from the
+grounds set forth to this Legislature, by way of confirmation, or to
+such quantity in such place as shall be deemed most advisable by way of
+donation."
+
+While this question was pending before Congress, Colonel Boone met with
+the heaviest grief he had thus far encountered on his stormy pilgrimage.
+In the month of March, 1813, his wife, whom he tenderly loved, died at
+the age of seventy-six. She had been one of the best of wives and
+mothers, seeking in all things to conform to the wishes of her husband,
+and aid him in his plans. She was a devoted wife and a loving mother.
+Colonel Boone selected upon the summit of a ridge the place for her
+burial, and marked out the spot for his own grave by her side.
+
+We have no means of knowing what were the religious views which
+sustained Mrs. Boone in her dying hour. Her life was passed in the
+discharge of the humble duties of a home in the wilderness, and she had
+no biographer. But we do know that the religion of Jesus had penetrated
+many of these remote cabins, and had ennobled the lives of many of these
+hardy pioneers.
+
+Under the Spanish Government, the Roman Catholic Religion was the
+established religion of the province, and none other was openly
+tolerated. Still, the authorities were so anxious to encourage
+emigration from the United States, that they avoided any rigorous
+enforcement of the law. Each emigrant was required to be "a good
+Catholic," _un bon Catholique_. But by connivance of the authorities,
+only a few general questions were asked, such as:
+
+"Do you believe in Almighty God? in the Holy Trinity? in the true
+Apostolic Church? in Jesus Christ our Saviour? in the Holy Evangelists?"
+
+The ceremony was closed by the declaration that the applicant was _un
+bon Catholique_. Thus many Protestant families entered the Spanish
+territory, and remained undisturbed in their religious principles.
+Protestant clergymen crossed over the Mississippi river and, unmolested,
+preached the gospel in the log cabins of the settlers. The Catholic
+priests received their salaries from the Spanish crown, and no taxes for
+religion were imposed.
+
+The Reverend John Clark, a very zealous Christian minister, made monthly
+excursions to the Spanish territory. The commandant at St. Louis, Mr.
+Trudeau, would take no notice of his presence till the time when he knew
+that Mr. Clark was about to leave. Then he would send a threatening
+message ordering him to leave within three days. One of the emigrants,
+Mr. Murich, of the Baptist persuasion, who knew the commandant very
+well, petitioned for permission to hold religious meetings at his house
+and to have Mr. Clark preach. Mr. Trudeau replied:
+
+"You must not put a bill upon your house, or call it a church. But if
+any of your friends choose to meet at your house, sing, pray, and talk
+about religion, you will not be molested provided you continue, as I
+suppose you are, _un bon Catholique_."
+
+Thus, in reality, there was scarcely any restraint in those remote
+regions, even under the Spanish regime, imposed upon religious freedom.
+Christian songs, the penitential and the triumphant, often ascended,
+blended with prayers and praises from these lonely and lowly homes in
+the wilderness. Thus characters were formed for heaven, and life was
+ennobled, and often far more of true nobility of soul and more real and
+satisfying enjoyment were found in those log huts, illumined only by the
+blaze of the pitch pine knot, than Louis XIV. and his courtiers ever
+experienced amidst the splendors and the luxuries of Versailles and of
+Marly.
+
+We do not know that Colonel Boone ever made a public profession of his
+faith in Christ, though somewhere we have seen it stated that he died an
+honored member of the Methodist Church. It is certain that the religious
+element predominated in his nature. He was a thoughtful, serious,
+devout, good man. He walked faithfully in accordance with the light and
+the privileges which were conferred upon him in his singularly
+adventurous life.
+
+Colonel Boone was seventy-nine years of age when Congress conferred upon
+him a grant of eight hundred and fifty acres of land. He had never
+repined at his lot, had never wasted his breath in unavailing murmurs.
+He contentedly took life as it came, and was ever serene and cheerful.
+But this grant of land, though it came so late, greatly cheered him. He
+was no longer dependent upon others. He had property rapidly increasing
+in value to leave to the children and the grand-children he so tenderly
+loved. His aged limbs would no longer allow him to expose himself to the
+vicissitudes of hunting, and he took up his abode with one of his sons,
+enjoying, perhaps, as serene and happy an old age as ever fell to the
+lot of mortals. His conversation often gathered charmed listeners around
+him, for he had a very retentive memory, and his mind was crowded with
+the incidents of his romantic career. It is said that at this period of
+his life an irritable expression never escaped his lips. His
+grand-children vied with each other in affectionate attentions to one
+whom they ardently loved, and of whose celebrity they were justly proud.
+
+Colonel Galloway, the gentleman whose two daughters were captured, with
+one of the daughters of Colonel Boone, in a boat by the Indians, which
+event our readers will recall to mind, visited Colonel Boone in Missouri
+about this time. He gives a very pleasing description of the gentle and
+genial old man, as he then found him.
+
+His personal appearance was venerable and attractive, very neatly clad
+in garments spun, woven, and made in the cabin. His own room consisted
+of a cabin by itself, and was in perfect order. "His countenance was
+pleasant, calm, and fair, his forehead high and bold, and the soft
+silver of his hair in unison with his length of days. He spoke feelingly
+and with solemnity of being a creature of Providence, ordained by heaven
+as a pioneer in the wilderness to advance the civilization and the
+extension of his country. He professed the belief that the Almighty had
+assigned to him a work to perform, and that he had only followed the
+pathway of duty in the work he had pursued; that he had discharged his
+duty to God and his country by following the direction of Providence."
+His stormy day of life had passed away into an evening of unusual beauty
+and serenity.
+
+Still he was continually busy, engaged in innumerable acts of kindness
+for his neighbors and his friends. He could repair rifles, make and
+carve powder horns of great beauty, and could fashion moccasins and
+snowshoes of the most approved patterns. His love for the solitude of
+the wilderness, and for the excitement of the hunter's life, continued
+unabated to the last. He loved to cut tender slices of venison, and to
+toast them upon the end of his ramrod over the glaring coals of his
+cabin fire, finding in that repast a treat more delicious than any
+gourmand ever yet experienced in the viands of the most costly
+restaurants of the Palais Royal, or the Boulevard.
+
+Upon one occasion he could not resist the impulse of again going
+hunting, though in the eighty-second year of his age. Exacting from his
+friends the promise that should he die, his remains should be brought
+back and buried by the side of those of his wife, he took a boy with him
+and went to the mouth of the Kansas River, where he remained two weeks.
+
+Returning from this, his last expedition, he visited his youngest son,
+Major Nathan Boone, who had reared a comfortable stone house in that
+remote region, to which emigrants were now rapidly moving. Here he died
+after an illness of but three days, on the 26th day of September, 1820.
+He was then eighty-six years of age.
+
+Soon after the death of his wife, Colonel Boone made his own coffin,
+which he kept under his bed awaiting the day of his burial. In this
+coffin he was buried by the side of his wife. Missouri, though very
+different from the Missouri of the present day, was no longer an
+unpeopled wilderness. The Indians had retired; thousands of emigrants
+had flocked to its fertile plains, and many thriving settlements had
+sprung up along the banks of its magnificent streams. The great respect
+with which Colonel Boone was regarded by his fellow-citizens, was
+manifest in the large numbers who were assembled at his burial. The
+Legislature of Missouri, which chanced then to be in session, adjourned
+for one day, in respect for his memory, and passed a resolve that all
+the members should wear a badge of mourning for twenty days. This was
+the first Legislature of the new State.
+
+Colonel Boone was the father of nine children, five sons and four
+daughters. His two eldest sons were killed by the Indians. His third
+son, Daniel Morgan Boone, had preceded his father in his emigration to
+the Upper Louisiana, as it was then called, and had taken up his
+residence in the Femme Osage settlement. He became a man of influence
+and comparative wealth, and attained the advanced age of fourscore.
+Jesse, the fourth son, also emigrated to Upper Louisiana about the year
+1806, where he died a few years after. The youngest son, Nathan, whose
+privilege it was to close his father's eyes in death, had found a home
+beyond the Mississippi; he became a man of considerable note, and
+received the commission of Captain in the United States Dragoons. The
+daughters, three of whom married, lived and died in Kentucky.
+
+In the meantime Kentucky, which Boone had found a pathless wilderness,
+the hunting ground of Indians who were scarcely less wild and savage
+than the beasts they pursued in the chase, was rapidly becoming one of
+the most populous, wealthy and prosperous States in the Union. Upon the
+eastern bank of the Kentucky River, the beautiful city of Frankfort had
+risen surrounded by remarkably romantic and splendid scenery. It had
+become the capital of the State, and was situated about sixty miles from
+the entrance of the Kentucky into the Ohio River. Many of the houses
+were tastefully built of brick or of marble, and the place was noted for
+its polished, intelligent, and hospitable society.
+
+It was but a few miles above Frankfort upon this same river that Colonel
+Boone had reared the log fort of Boonesborough, when scarcely a white
+man could be found west of the Alleghanies. In the year 1845, the
+citizens of Frankfort, having, in accordance with the refinements of
+modern tastes, prepared a beautiful rural cemetery in the suburbs of
+their town, resolved to consecrate it by the interment of the remains of
+Daniel Boone and his wife. The Legislature, appreciating the immense
+obligations of the State to the illustrious pioneer, co-operated with
+the citizens of Frankfort in this movement. For twenty-five years the
+remains of Col. Boone and his wife had been mouldering in the grave upon
+the banks of the Missouri.
+
+"There seemed," said one of the writers of that day, "to be a peculiar
+propriety in this testimonial of the veneration borne by the
+Commonwealth for the memory of its illustrious dead. And it was fitting
+that the soil of Kentucky should afford the final resting place for his
+remains, whose blood in life had been so often shed to protect it from
+the fury of savage hostility. It was the beautiful and touching
+manifestation of filial affection shown by children to the memory of a
+beloved parent; and it was right that the generation which was reaping
+the fruits of his toils and dangers should desire to have in their midst
+and decorate with the tokens of their love, the sepulchre of this
+Primeval Patriarch whose stout heart watched by the cradle of this now
+powerful Commonwealth."
+
+The honored remains of Daniel Boone and his wife were brought from
+Missouri to Frankfort, and the re-interment took place on the 13th of
+September, 1845. The funeral ceremonies were very imposing. Colonel
+Richard M. Johnson, who had been Vice-President of the United States,
+and others of the most distinguished citizens of Kentucky, officiated as
+pall-bearers. The two coffins were garlanded with flowers, and an
+immense procession followed them to their final resting place. The Hon.
+John J. Crittenden, who was regarded as the most eloquent man in the
+State, pronounced the funeral oration. And there beneath an appropriate
+monument, the body of Daniel Boone now lies, awaiting the summons of
+the resurrection trumpet.
+
+          "Life's labor done, securely laid
+            In this his last retreat,
+          Unheeded o'er his silent dust,
+            The storms of earth shall beat."
+
+
+
+                               _THE END._
+
+
+
+
+TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
+
+Minor corrections have been made to ensure uniform usage of hyphenation
+and abbreviations, and to standardize spelling in the text.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Daniel Boone, by John S. C. Abbott
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