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diff --git a/41143.txt b/41143.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 44afb95..0000000 --- a/41143.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,4003 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Historic Highways of America (Vol. 6), by -Archer Butler Hulbert - -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: Historic Highways of America (Vol. 6) - Boone's Wilderness Road - -Author: Archer Butler Hulbert - -Release Date: October 22, 2012 [EBook #41143] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORIC HIGHWAYS OF AMERICA, VOL 6 *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Bergquist and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) - - - - - - - - - -HISTORIC HIGHWAYS OF AMERICA - -VOLUME 6 - - - - - [Illustration: CUMBERLAND GAP AND BOONE'S WILDERNESS ROAD] - - - - - HISTORIC HIGHWAYS OF AMERICA - VOLUME 6 - - Boone's Wilderness Road - - BY - ARCHER BUTLER HULBERT - - _With Maps and Illustrations_ - - [Illustration] - - THE ARTHUR H. CLARK COMPANY - CLEVELAND, OHIO - 1903 - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1903 - BY - THE ARTHUR H. CLARK COMPANY - - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - PREFACE 11 - I. THE PILGRIMS OF THE WEST 19 - II. THE FIRST EXPLORERS 48 - III. ANNALS OF THE ROAD 78 - IV. KENTUCKY IN THE REVOLUTION 145 - V. AT THE END OF BOONE'S ROAD 175 - - - - -ILLUSTRATIONS - - - I. CUMBERLAND GAP AND BOONE'S WILDERNESS ROAD _Frontispiece_ - II. PLAT OF BOONESBOROUGH 97 - III. FILSON'S MAP OF KENTUCKY 119 - - - - -PREFACE - - -The naming of our highways is an interesting study. Like roads the world -over they are usually known by two names--the destinations to which they -lead. The famous highway through New York state is known as the Genesee -Road in the eastern half of the state and as the Albany Road in the -western portion. In a number of cities through which it passes--Utica, -Syracuse, etc.--it is Genesee Street. This path in the olden time was -the great road to the famed Genesee country. The old Forbes Road across -Pennsylvania soon lost its earliest name; but it is preserved at its -termination, for the Pittsburger of today goes to the Carnegie Library -on the "Forbes Street" car line. The Maysville Pike--as unknown today as -it was of national prominence three quarters of a century ago--leading -across Ohio from Wheeling to Maysville (Limestone) and on to Lexington, -is known in Kentucky as the Zanesville Pike; from that city in Ohio the -road branched off from the old National Road. The "Glade Road" was the -important branch of the Pennsylvania or Pittsburg Road which led through -the Glades of the Alleghenies to the Youghiogheny. One of the most -singular names for a road was that of the "Shun Pike" between Watertown -and Erie, in northwestern Pennsylvania. The large traffic over the old -"French Road"--Marin's Portage Road--between these points on Lake Erie -and French Creek necessitated, early in the nineteenth century, a good -road-bed. Accordingly a road company took hold of the route and improved -it--placing toll gates on it for recompensation. Those who refused to -pay toll broke open a parallel route nearby, which was as free as it was -rough. It became known as the "Shun" Pike because those who traversed it -shunned the toll road. - -Few roads named from their builders, such as Braddock, Forbes, Bouquet, -Wayne, Ebenezer Zane, Marin, and Boone preserved the oldtime name. -Indeed nearly all our roads have lost the ancient name, a fact that -should be sincerely mourned. The Black Swamp has been drained, therefore -there can be now no "Black Swamp Road." There are now no refugees and -the "Refugees Road" is lost not only to sight but to the memory of most. -Perhaps there is but one road in the central West which is commonly -known and called by the old Indian name; this is the "Tuscarawas Path," -a modern highway in Eastern Ohio which was widened and made a white -man's road by the first white army that ever crossed the Ohio River into -what is now the State of Ohio. - -One roadway--the Wilderness Road to Kentucky from Virginia and -Tennessee, the longest, blackest, hardest road of pioneer days in -America--holds the oldtime name with undiminished loyalty and is true -today to every gloomy description and vile epithet that was ever written -or spoken of it. It was broken open for white man's use by Daniel Boone -from the Watauga settlement on the Holston River, Tennessee, to the -mouth of Otter Creek on the Kentucky River in the month preceding the -outbreak of open revolution at Lexington and Concord. It was known as -"Boone's Trail," the "Kentucky Road," the "road to Caintuck," or the -"Virginia Road," but its common name was the "Wilderness Road." A -wilderness of laurel thickets lay between the Kentucky settlements and -Cumberland Gap and was the most desolate country imaginable. The name -was transferred to the road that passed through it. It seems right that -the brave frontiersman who opened this route to white men should be -remembered by this act; and for a title to this volume "Boone's -Wilderness Road" has been selected. - -As in the case of other highways with which this series of monographs is -dealing, so with Boone's Wilderness Road: the road itself is of little -consequence. The following pages treat of phases of the story of the -West suggested by Boone's Road--the first social movement into the lower -Ohio Valley, Henderson's Transylvania Company, the struggle of the -Watauga settlement to prevent the southern Indians from cutting Kentucky -off from the world, the struggle of the Kentucky settlements against -the British and their Indian allies, the burst of population over -Boone's Road into Kentucky, and what the early founding of that -commonwealth meant to the East and to the West. - -Boone and Harrod and their compatriots assured the world of the splendid -lands of Kentucky; Richard Henderson and his associates of the -Transylvania Company proved the questionable fact that a settlement -there could be made and be maintained. Boone's Road, opened for the -Transylvania Company, made a way thither. The result was a marvelous -westward movement that for timeliness, heroism and ultimate success is -without a parallel in our annals. When the armies of the Revolutionary -War are counted, that first army of twenty-five thousand men, women, and -children which hurried over Boone's little path, through dark Powell's -Valley, over the "high-swung gateway" of Cumberland Gap, and down -through the laurel wildernesses to Crab Orchard, Danville, Lexington, -and Louisville must not be forgotten. No army ever meant so much to the -West; some did not mean more to the East. - -The author is greatly indebted for facts and figures to Thomas Speed's -invaluable study _The Wilderness Road_, and to other Filson Club -Publications, and for inspiration and suggestion to Mr. Allen's _The -Blue Grass Region of Kentucky_. - - A. B. H. - -Marietta, Ohio, May 20, 1903. - - - - -Boone's Wilderness Road - - - _It is impossible to come upon this road without pausing, - or to write of it without a tribute._ - - --JAMES LANE ALLEN. - - - - -CHAPTER I - -THE PILGRIMS OF THE WEST - - -No English colony in America looked upon the central West with such -jealous eye as Virginia. The beautiful valley of the _Oyo_--the Indian -exclamation for "Beautiful"--which ran southwesterly through the great -forests of the continent's interior was early claimed as the sole -possession of the Virginians. The other colonies were hemmed in by -prescribed boundary lines, definitely outlined in their royal charters. -New York was bounded by Lake Erie and the Allegheny and thought little -of the West. The Pennsylvanian colony was definitely bounded by the line -which is the western boundary line of that commonwealth today. -Carolina's extremity stopped at thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes. -Virginia's western boundary was not defined; hence the West was hers. - -England herself was not at all sure of the West until after the fall of -Quebec; but the Treaty of Paris was soon signed and, so far as the -French were concerned, the colonies extended to the Mississippi. Then -Pontiac's bloody war broke out and matters were at a standstill until -Bouquet hewed his way into "the heart of the enemies' country" and, on -the Muskingum, brought Pontiac's desperate allies, the Delawares and -Shawanese, to terms. - -But now, when the West was his, the king of England did a wondrous -thing. He issued a proclamation in the year 1763 which forbade anyone -securing "patents for any lands beyond the heads or sources of any of -the rivers which fall into the Atlantic Ocean from the West or -Northwest!" Thus Lord Hillsborough, British Secretary for the Colonies, -thought to checkmate what he called the "roving disposition" of the -colonists, particularly the Virginians. The other colonies were -restrained by definite boundaries; Virginia, too, should be restrained. - -Hillsborough might as well have adopted the plan of the ignoramus who, -when methods for keeping the Indians from crossing the frontier were -being discussed, suggested that a strip of land along the entire western -frontier be cleared of trees and bushes, in the belief that the savages -would not dare to cross the open! Yet the secretary's agent set to work -to mark out a western boundary line which should connect the western -lines of Georgia and New York and so accomplish the limitation of -Virginia. - -But the Virginians also acted. They sent an agent of their own, Thomas -Walker, to Fort Stanwix (Rome, New York) to treat with the Six Nations -for some of this very western land that Hillsborough was contriving to -keep them out of. For the king issued the proclamation in the interest -of the western Indians (and the annuities he received when the fur trade -was prosperous) who desired that the West should be preserved to them. -But what could be said if Virginia purchased the Indian's claim? Could a -king's proclamation keep the Virginians from a territory to which, for -value received, the Indians had given a quit-claim deed? - -This famous Treaty of Fort Stanwix was held in the fall of 1768. Three -thousand Indians were present. Presents were lavished upon the -chieftains. The western boundary line crossed from the west branch of -the Susquehanna to Kittanning on the Allegheny River; it followed the -Allegheny and Ohio Rivers southwest to the mouth of the Great Kanawha. -Here it met Hillsborough's line which came up from Florida and which -made the Great Kanawha the western boundary of Virginia. Had the Fort -Stanwix line stopped here the western boundary line of the colonies -would have been as Lord Hillsborough desired. But Walker did not pause -here. Sir William Johnson, British Indian Agent for the Northern -District, who was "thoroughly versed in the methods of making profit by -his office," allowed Walker to extend the line so as to enclose -Virginia's prospective purchase; and the Tennessee River was made the -western boundary instead of the Great Kanawha. Thus Johnson at once -satisfied the claims of Virginia and the pride of the Six Nations, who -were still anxious to prove their long-boasted possession over the -Cumberland region, as well as their sovereignty over the hated Cherokee, -by thus formally disposing of the land. So everyone was satisfied--but -Hillsborough. And yet the Crown was compelled, finally, to approve the -Treaty of Fort Stanwix. - -This treaty marks an epoch in the history of the central West, since, -thereby, nearly half of it became a portion of one of the Thirteen -Colonies. The other half, north of the Ohio River, remained in the -possession of the Indians who inhabited it. - -It is remarkable how little known that great territory was which now -became a part of Virginia. This was largely because it was an -uninhabited country. The territory north of the Ohio River was filled -with Indian nations, some of whom had reigned there from times -prehistoric. This was likewise true of the country south, where the -great southern confederacies had held sway since white men came to this -continent. But between these inhabited areas lay a pleasant land which -any tribe would have gladly possessed had there not been so many rivals -for it. Consequently it became a "dark and bloody" land where a -thousand unrecorded battles were fought by Indians from both North and -South who had the temerity to come there to hunt, or by armies who were -hurrying through it in search of their foes who lived beyond. No Bouquet -had pierced through to the Cumberland to release prisoners who might -bring back reports of the land. No missionaries had carried their "great -and good" words to this battle ground of the Nations and returned with -tidings of its splendid meadows and their fertility. One or two -adventuresome explorers had looked there and brought back practically -all that the world knew of it. But they had never visited the most -pleasant portions and knew little, if anything, of its real value. And -all the Indians seemed to know was that it was a bloody border-land -where no tribe could hunt in peace; where every shadow contained a -lurking foe; and where every inch of soil was drenched with blood. - -Thus to an unknown and unoccupied border-land between the Indians of the -North and those to the South, Virginia obtained, from one of its alleged -possessors, a nominal hold. Could she maintain it? The world asked the -question and awaited the answer, wonderingly. - -The principal reason why Virginia was successful was because her -inhabitants were an agricultural people like their ancestors before them -in England. Being an agricultural people they had expanded further, -geographically, than the inhabitants of any of the other colonies. As -early as 1740, cabins were being built in Bedford County, Virginia, over -one hundred and fifty miles from the seaboard. There were settlements on -the New River, a branch of the Great Kanawha, before the French and -Indian war. Fort Loudoun, over the border, was erected in 1756, and -Forts Long Island and Chissel in 1758. The Wyoming massacre in New York -State in the Revolutionary War occurred on what was then the frontier, -though Wyoming was less than a hundred miles from New York City. And, -fortunately, this agricultural people was located in the most favorable -place along the Atlantic for expansion, for a reason already mentioned. -Back of New York and Pennsylvania roamed the Iroquois, Delawares, -Shawanese, and other Indian nations. Back of Virginia, whose fine rivers -rose in the mountains, lay a comparatively uninhabited country; for, the -moment the Indians became allied with either of the encroaching European -powers, they ceased contending together in the border-land behind -Virginia. It was not until Virginians began to occupy it that it became -anew a "dark and bloody ground." Virginia knew less of Indian warfare -than some of the neighboring colonies until the era of her expansion -when her sturdy people began occupying the land obtained at the Treaty -of Fort Stanwix. - -The expansion of Virginia was greatly facilitated by the geographical -position of the mountains along her western frontier. While the -mountains of western New York and Pennsylvania obstructed expansion, in -Virginia the mountain ranges facilitated it. Further north they trended -directly north and south and even the rivers could find a passage-way -only by following the most tortuous courses. True, the Hudson and Mohawk -valleys offered a clear course to the great highland across to the -Niagara River, but it was not until very late in the eighteenth century -that the path across this watershed was open to white men. The two -routes through Pennsylvania crossed the mountains horizontally and -almost feared to follow the waterways. Braddock's Road crossed the -waters of one stream three times at right angles in the space of eighty -miles and did not follow it one hundred yards altogether. In Virginia -the mountain ranges trend southwesterly, with the rivers between them, -offering a practicable though roundabout route westward. - -But there was another thing Virginia possessed in addition to an -agricultural people--an uninhabited territory west of her and some plain -courses into it. She had among her citizens some daring, far-sighted, -energetic men who might easily be called the first promoters of America. -They were moneyed men who sought honestly to make money; but they were -also men of chivalry and intense patriotism--Virginians of Virginians. -They thought of their pockets, but they also thought of their colony -and their king; the standing of the Old Dominion was very dear to them: -its growth in commercial as well as geographical dimensions. They -desired to be thought well of at home; they desired that Virginia should -be thought the best of all America. - -Of these men the Washingtons were the most prominent, and George -Washington was a marvelously inspired leader. As early as 1749 -Virginians secured a grant of land south of the Ohio and directly west -of old Virginia. The enterprise amounted to nothing save by -precipitating the contest between England and France for the West. The -example of the younger Washington in fighting for the possession of the -West, in encouraging the disheartened people of the frontier in the dark -days of defeat, in aiding in the final victory, in investing heavily in -western land (for he, it is said, died the richest man in America, and -half his wealth lay west of the Alleghenies), in encouraging the -building of the Potomac Canal, in impressing upon the people the -commercial value of exploiting the entire West from Lake Huron to -Cumberland Gap, affords perhaps the most remarkable instance in our -whole national history of one man inspiring a people to greater things. -A place and a rough way thither was ready for expanding Virginia--and -such sons as Washington gave the inspiration. - -Through the great "trough" between the Allegheny and Blue Ridge ranges -passes the pioneer route to which we of the central West owe as much as -to any thoroughfare in America--that rough, long, roundabout road which, -coming down from Lancaster and Yorktown, crossed the Potomac at Wadkin's -Ferry, and passed up the Shenandoah valley by Martinsburg, Winchester -and Staunton; and on to the headwaters of the New River, where it was -joined by the thoroughfare through central Virginia from Richmond. Here, -near the meeting of these famous old-time Virginia thoroughfares, stood -Fort Chissel, erected in 1758 and situated two hundred miles east of -Cumberland Gap. Beyond Fort Chissel ran the Indian trail toward the Gap -and, within fifty miles of the Gap, stood Fort Watauga on a branch of -the Holston. This was the most westerly fort at the time of the Stanwix -treaty, and about the rude fort was springing up the Watauga settlement. -Other earlier settlements were made at Draper's Meadows and at Inglis -Ferry on New River by families bearing those names. For more than a -century the population of Virginia and North Carolina had been slowly -sifting up the river valleys toward the West and by the time the king's -proclamation was issued many cabins were already erected beyond the -headwaters of streams which fell "into the Atlantic Ocean from the West -or Northwest." Even the faithful Hillsborough seems to have recognized -this since his boundary line passed through Chiswell's Mine on the Great -Kanawha and the mouth of that river--much further west than a strict -interpretation of the proclamation would allow. - -This vanguard which was moving westward was led by explorers and -hunters. Of two of the former, mention will be particularly made. The -parties of hunters who now began to press beyond the furthest -settlements, while they subsisted on game, were also real explorers of -the West and helped to set in motion and give zest to the great -immigration which followed the signing of the Stanwix treaty. It was -only one year after the Stanwix treaty when Daniel Boone came up from -his home on the Yadkin in North Carolina and led a company of men -through the Gap into the land whose hero and idol he was ever to be. -About the same time John Finley and party were trapping on the forbidden -rivers, and Colonel James Knox and company of nine hunted on the New, -Clinch, and Holston Rivers, and reaching even to the lower Cumberland in -1769-70. These parties of men found that a paradise for the husbandman -was to be speedily revealed to the world at the foothills of the -Cumberland and Pine mountains on the great plain falling away westward -to the Mississippi. At first, only the most vague description of the -rich meadows of the West reached the Virginian settlements, but, meager -as they were, they started a tide of immigration quite unparalleled in -American history. One of these descriptions is preserved for us in the -autobiography of Daniel Boone, and, though couched in language with -which he was probably less familiar than his amanuensis, still is not -unlike the stories told in border cabins to eager listening frontiersmen -who were soon on their rough way to this El Dorado beyond the horrid -ranges of the Cumberlands: - -"We found everywhere abundance of wild beasts of all sorts, through this -vast forest. The buffalo were more frequent than I have seen cattle in -the settlements, browsing on the leaves of the cane, or cropping the -herbage on those extensive plains, fearless, because ignorant of the -violence of man.... 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.... Just at the close of 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 plains, the beauteous tracts below: On the -other hand had I surveyed the famous Ohio river, 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 -brows, and penetrate the clouds." - -Inspired by such descriptions as these, there came in the wake of the -hunter-explorers crowds of immigrants. Very many came even bringing -their families, for the novelty of the adventure and because there was -nothing to keep them where they had had but a tomahawk claim on the -border. There were thousands who entered the West and became valuable -citizens (considering the work to be done) who would best be described -as gypsies. For a larger part of the way across the continent this -peculiar class of people moved westward between the advanced explorers -and the swarm of genuine "settlers" whose feet, even at this time, were -making the middle of our continent tremble. For instance, very many of -the first settlers in the territory near the Mississippi hailed from a -portion of the land between their home there and the Allegheny -mountains, just as many of the first settlers between the Ohio and Lake -Erie hailed from Virginia's land between the Ohio and Tennessee. The -phrase "following the immigration" was a common one and covered this -class of pioneers who moved away from a given district of land when it -began to fill with settlers. There has appeared a disposition in some -quarters to attempt to minimize the value of the hosts of so-called -"squatters" and "tomahawk claimers" who first moved into the West. Our -pioneer literature is full of discreditable allusions, made by the -second tide of pioneers who came West, concerning the scattered ranks of -first comers, their moral character, their ways of thought and living. -The later blueblood stock had not a little to say concerning the -pioneers of Western Virginia and Kentucky flavored with the same spice -that Dickens employed when, a little later, he jotted down his "American -Notes." It seems as though it were reasonable to remember what these -first comers did rather than the picture of what they were. But for them -there could never have been a better West. Who composed the armies of -McIntosh, Brodhead, Crawford, Harmar, St. Clair, and Wayne but these -rough, wild-looking men who first entered the West? What is now western -Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Kentucky gave practically all the -troops which conquered the land between the Ohio River and the Great -Lakes. And all of them, save the few who could raise money to buy some -of it, retired again to their slovenly "claims" south of the Ohio--and a -flood-tide of newcomers came after them to bring a new era they could -never have brought, and, incidentally, leave to posterity repulsive -pictures of them. It hath been said: "Instead of the thorn shall come up -the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree; -and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that -shall not be cut off." The West was a land of brier and thorn, and men -as rough as briers and thorns were needed to strike the first swift hard -blows. The squatter in the West played an important part and should not -be remembered solely by the pictures drawn of his filth, lawlessness, -and laziness. The Cleaveland of 1798 was a paradise beside the Cleveland -of 1810. Was it not Caleb Atwater who said that "not one young man, -whose family was rich, and of very high standing in the Eastern States, -has succeeded in Ohio?" A little later in this narrative we shall read -of one "Abraham hanks" who went, an unknown pioneer, with Daniel Boone -through Cumberland Gap at the very van of all the western immigration! -Atwater was not referring to his grandson--the immortal son of Nancy -Hanks. Theodore Roosevelt in the following words has emphasized the debt -our country owes to this class of early citizens: "Nevertheless this -very ferocity was not only inevitable, but it was in a certain sense -proper; or at least, even if many of its manifestations were blamable, -the spirit that lay behind them was right. The backwoodsmen were no -sentimentalists; they were grim, hard, matter-of-fact men, engaged all -their lives long in an unending struggle with hostile forces, both -human and natural; men who in this struggle had acquired many unamiable -qualities, but who had learned likewise to appreciate at their full -value the inestimable virtues of courage and common-sense. The crisis -[Revolution] demanded that they should be both strong and good; but, -above all things, it demanded that they should be strong. Weakness would -have ruined them. It was needful that justice should stand before mercy; -and they could no longer have held their homes, had they not put down -their foes, of every kind with an iron hand." - -With these uncouth border families moved another class of men known as -land speculators. The schemes of these fortune hunters and of the many -great companies of which they were the representatives would fill a -moderate volume and can only be hinted at here. As we have noted, a -company was organized very early to speculate in western lands, called -the Ohio Company. It received from the king of England a grant of land -between the Monongahela and Great Kanawha Rivers, but failed to fulfil -the required conditions and the Charter reverted to the Crown. From that -day to the breaking out of the Revolutionary War numerous land companies -secured by one means or another a claim to certain lands and many sought -such claims but never secured them. It will be necessary to refer to one -of these companies later in the course of our narrative. - -Near the front in this race for the rich meadows between the Ohio and -Tennessee were bounty-land claimants. One of Virginia's most effective -pleas for the great territory which had come into her possession was -that she might reward her soldiers of the French and Indian wars. While -as a people she had known less of Indian warfare than some of the -colonies, Virginia had been liberal in sending troops northward to -defend the frontier. And these Virginians had made a name for themselves -at Braddock's defeat and elsewhere. Washington was always insistent that -the claims of these old veterans of the bloody border war be redeemed in -good lands, and it must be remembered ever with pride that as late as -1770, only six years before he became commander-in-chief of the armies -of the United States at Cambridge, and but two years after the signing -of the Stanwix treaty, he made the difficult journey to the Ohio River -and down that river in a canoe to Virginia's new empire on the Great -Kanawha, where surveys of bounty lands for his heroes of Fort Necessity -were first made. Additional surveys were soon made along the Ohio and -Licking Rivers. - -Explorers, hunters, squatters, speculators, and bounty-land -claimants--this was the heterogeneous population that was surging -westward to the land of which Boone wrote. But not all came down the old -thoroughfare between the Allegheny and Blue Ridge Mountains and through -Cumberland Gap. Many followed northward the rough trails which descended -the New and Monongahela Rivers, while many went northwesterly over -Braddock's overgrown twelve-foot road or along the winding narrow track -of Forbes's Road through the Pennsylvania Glades to the little frontier -fortress, Fort Pitt. From the time Bouquet relieved this beleaguered -garrison until the Stanwix treaty, Pittsburg, as the town was now -known, had been growing. One year after that treaty (1769) the manor of -Pittsburg was surveyed, the survey embracing five thousand seven hundred -and sixty-six acres. Upon the signing of the Stanwix treaty, Pittsburg -became an important point and was claimed by both Pennsylvania and -Virginia. About it sprang up villages and from it down the Ohio and up -the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers settlements spread. What was -loosely known as the "Monongahela Country"--the territory between the -Monongahela and Ohio Rivers--became quite populous. - -Here, high up along the Ohio River, the Virginians learned how to fight -the red man, if they had never known before. The decade succeeding -Pontiac's war, though nominally a peaceful one, was, nevertheless, one -long and bitter duel between the Indians north of the Ohio and the -Virginians who were coming "in shoals" to its southern bank. It has been -estimated that the total loss of life within that decade was as great as -the total loss in the open war--Dunmore's War--which soon broke out and -which momentarily threatened the extinction of Virginia's great -colonial movement into the southern half of this black forest of the -West. - -We have refrained from using the name Kentucky long enough, perhaps, to -accomplish the purpose of impressing upon the reader's mind the part -Virginia and the Virginians played in the creation of the earliest -settlement in the West, first known as the county, then the state, of -Kentucky. As Professor Shaler has said: "She owes to Virginia the most -of the people she received during the half century when her society was -taking shape: her institutions, be they good or evil, her ideals of -life, her place in the nation's history, are all as immediately derived -from her great Mother Virginia as are an individual man's from the -mother who bore him." - -The name Kentucky, Kentuckgin, Kantucky, Kentucke, Caintuck, as it was -variously spelled, may have been derived from an Iroquois word -_Ken-ta-kee_, which means "among the meadows." When, in the olden days, -only the long, painted canoes of the Iroquois could be moored in safety -in the shades of the woodland meadows south of the Oyo, the name -Ken-ta-kee was first heard--a name which has come down to us so pregnant -with pride and power. The Catawba River, which gained its name, perhaps, -from the famous war-path which followed it toward the land of the -Catawbas in the south, was first known as the Louisa River (named by -Walker in honor of the wife of the "Bloody Duke" of Cumberland), and -afterwards as the Kentucky River. - -After the treaty at the close of Dunmore's War, Virginia had two -quit-claim deeds to her western empire: one from the Iroquois, who -boasted their possession of it, and one from the Shawanese, who had -disputed the settlement. There was yet another claimant to deal with, -the Cherokees of the South. In the year following the battle of Point -Pleasant (1774) a land company headed by Colonel Richard Henderson -purchased from the Cherokees the land between the Ohio, Kentucky, and -Cumberland Rivers. This purchase was achieved at Fort Watauga through -the agency of Daniel Boone. This private purchase from the Indians was -afterward annulled by both Virginia and North Carolina, but so far as -the Indian claims to Kentucky were concerned it had passed into the -possession of the white man. Every inch of soil had been fairly obtained -from each and every claimant who had made it a "dark and bloody ground" -through their battles for it, since the earliest period of recorded -history. But at the time of the Cherokee purchase, an old Indian chief -said to Boone: "Brother, we have given you a fine land, but I believe -you will have much trouble in settling it." Perhaps the Cherokees knew -what Shawanese quit-claim deeds were worth! - -After making this purchase for Colonel Henderson, Boone engaged to mark -out a road through Cumberland Gap to the center of the newly acquired -territory. Following the old trail through the Gap, Boone's Road ended -at a new settlement at the mouth of Otter Creek on the Kentucky River -named Boonesborough, in his honor. Fort Boonesborough was completed July -14, 1775. Colonel Logan and party came westward through the Gap at the -same time but diverged from Boone's Road on Rockcastle Creek, and -opened the more important branch of the road toward Louisville by way of -Crab Orchard and Danville, and erected Fort Logan one mile west of -Standford, in what is now Lincoln County, Kentucky. Harrod's, Logan's, -and Boone's forts were the important early "stations" in the West. To -them the thousands wended their tedious way over the "Wilderness Road," -as both branches (Logan's and Boone's) were fitly called, or down the -Ohio from Pittsburg. And along these lines of western movement cabins -and clearings made their rapid appearance despite the era of bloodshed -which began almost simultaneously with the opening of the Revolutionary -War in the East. - - -Such were the pilgrims of the West. It is interesting to note that these -leaders of civilization in the West were true Americans--American born -and American bred. It is remarkable that the discoverers of the American -central West were either French or American. For the work of exploring -this _hinterland_, England scarcely furnished a man; she can write no -names opposite those of Brule, Cartier, Champlain, Du Lhuth, Hennepin, -Joliet, Marquette, and La Salle. Nearly all that England knew of the -interior she learned from the French. Her great explorers were maritime -explorers and her conquest of New France was effected by water. But -while the West could not have for its first colonists the counterpart of -the hardy, irresistible race who first came to the Atlantic seaboard, it -did have the next best thing--the direct descendants of them. It was a -race of Americanized Britons who pressed from Virginia into the West. -Hardly a name among them but was pure Norman or Saxon. Of the -twenty-five members of the Political Club at Danville, Kentucky, which -discussed with ability the Federal Constitution, all but two were -descendants of colonists from Great Britain and Ireland. Of forty-five -members of the convention which framed Kentucky's first constitution, -only three could claim European ancestry. Of the seven hundred members -of the Filson Club, the representative historical society of Kentucky -today, there are not more than twenty who are not either English, -Scotch, Welsh, or Irish. The blood of the mother country flowed in purer -strain in no portion of the continent at the outbreak of the -Revolutionary War than in the Virginian settlement of Kentucky. That the -blood was true to its fighting traditions is proved by the Revolutionary -pension rolls. In 1840 there were nine hundred Revolutionary soldiers -receiving pensions in Kentucky. This race gave to the West its real -heroes--the Gists, Walkers, Boones, Clarks, Todds, Shelbys, Kentons, -Logans, Lewises, Crawfords, Gibsons, and St. Clairs. In frontier cabins -they were bred to a free life in a free land--worthy successors to -Washington and his school, worthy men to subdue and rule the empire of -which they began the conquest before the outbreak of the Revolutionary -War. In the form of these sturdy colonizers the American republic -stretched its arm across the Appalachian mountain system and took in its -grasp the richest river valley in the world at the end of Boone's -Wilderness Road. That arm was never withdrawn, that grasp never -relinquished. The leaven of old Virginia leavened the whole lump. - - -Thus may be outlined briefly the era of expansion in which Boone's Road -played an all-important part. In the succeeding chapters the phases of -this historic movement are reviewed as the meager data now obtainable -can permit. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -THE FIRST EXPLORERS - - -The first real explorations of the great territory secured by Virginia -at the Treaty of Fort Stanwix were made by Dr. Thomas Walker, who later -so skilfully managed Virginia's part of that treaty, and Christopher -Gist, in the early years of the second half of the eighteenth century, -1750 and 1751. - -The brief journals[1] written by these men are the sources of our first -information concerning the vast territory west of the Appalachian -mountain system--the eastern half of the Mississippi basin south of the -Ohio River. They are meager records of hard day's pilgrimages, an -outline of the routes pursued, and a description of the lands which were -traversed. Both were explorers for two newly-formed land companies. -Walker represented the Loyal Land Company of London, and Gist was the -representative of the Ohio Company. The company for which Walker acted -had secured a grant of eight hundred thousand acres in the territory now -embraced in Kentucky north of 36 deg. 30'. The Ohio Company had a grant of -five hundred thousand acres between the Kanawha and Monongahela Rivers. -These men were sent to search out favorable lands and report on the -giants and grapes. They found both. - -Little suggestion of the romance and daring of these historic journeys -can be found in either of the journals of them; they make slight books. -But volumes can be written on what can be read by the most careless -reader between their few lines. The long climbing over the almost -pathless mountains, the nights spent in discomfort, the countless -trials, fears, dangers of which they knew so much and told so -little--all this should make a story if it never has, that could not by -any means find an uninterested reader. No youth's history is of moment -until we know the man and know that he is a man among men. Our nation is -still a boy. Only with the passing of the years will its boyhood be -studied and known as it should be known; when that time comes, the brief -stories of such men as Walker and Gist will appear of priceless value. - -"Having, on the 12th of December last, been employed for a certain -consideration to go to the Westward in order to discover a proper Place -for a Settlement, I left my house on the Sixth day of March, at 10 -o'clock, 1749-50, in Company with Ambrose Powell, William Tomlinson, -Colby Chew, Henry Lawless & John Hughs. Each man had a Horse and we had -two to carry the Baggage. I lodged this night at Col. Joshua Fry's, in -Albemarle, which County includes the Chief of the head Branches of James -River on the East side of the Blue Ridge." Thus begins Dr. Walker's -journal. At this time England and her colonies were dating by the old -calendar, each new year beginning on the twenty-fifth of March. -Accordingly they started nineteen days before the beginning of the year -1750. - -It was a brave little company of adventurous men. Walker had attended -William and Mary College, and then had joined the ranks of that -distinguished army of representative Virginians who, with saddle-bags -and surveying instruments, proved to be the vanguard of the army which -was to achieve the real conquest of the West. His home was Castle Hill, -near Charlottesville, Albemarle County, Virginia, where his companions -had rendezvoused for the present expedition and from which point they -began their historic journey. Powell was of the best Virginian stock, -and has left his name to one of the great valleys through which the -highway to the West ran. His son became a Revolutionary officer and his -great-grandson was General A. P. Hill, the famous Confederate leader. -Chew was from Orange County, Virginia, and belonged to the Maryland -branch of the Chew family. Two Presidents of the United States, Madison -and Taylor, could claim him as a relative. Seven years later he served -in Washington's regiment in Forbes's expedition against Fort Duquesne, -and was killed in Grant's wild attack on that fort. As the journal -states, this company spent the first night out with Colonel Joshua Fry. -Fry too was one of them in spirit, though he did not accompany them -westward. He was a graduate of Oxford University, joint author with -Jefferson of Fry and Jefferson's celebrated Map of Virginia, and a -commissioner for the crown in establishing the boundary line between -North Carolina and Virginia. He was killed by being thrown from his -horse while taking command of Washington's expedition against Fort -Duquesne, four years later. These statistics show plainly that the best -brain and blood of Virginia was foremost in attempting to realize -Virginia's dream of conquest and expansion. - -But it was a time for brave men to show themselves. Ambitious Virginia -had been slow to claim the West, where even at this early date Frenchmen -had gone so far into the wilderness. Celoron, bold emissary of the -humpbacked Canadian Governor Gallissoniere, was now burying leaden -plates at the mouths of the rivers which emptied into the Ohio, as a -sign of French possession of the West. One of these was placed at the -mouth of the Great Kanawha "at the mouth of the river Chinodahihetha, -this 18th day of August," claiming for the Bourbon crown the entire -territory in which the grant of land to the Ohio Company was located. -There was not a moment to lose if the West was to be saved to England. A -settlement must be made quickly, and Walker and his band pushed on -immediately to find a "proper Place for a Settlement." - -But all this, seemingly, is neither here nor there--so far as Walker's -Journal is concerned. There is not one mention of the political crisis -then at hand; instead of French claims, Walker deals with tired horses -or broken-legged dogs, and where one might suppose he would mention -national boundary lines he tells only of cutting names on trees. And at -the end, where the reader might look for a summary statement of the -results of his tour he finds this: "I got home about noon. We killed in -the Journey 13 Buffaloes, 8 Elks, 53 Bears, 20 Deer, 4 Wild Geese, about -150 Turkeys, besides small game. We might have killed three times as -much meat, if we had wanted it." Yet, so far as human interest is -concerned, the record is exceptionally entertaining, and to a student of -the great thoroughfare from Virginia to Kentucky it is full of meaning; -because of its many references to the difficulties of traveling at that -early date, and to the varied experiences of explorers on the earliest -thoroughfares westward. It is this story of experience in traveling west -in 1750 that makes Walker's Journal of interest in the present study. - -On the day after the party left Colonel Fry's, "We set off about 8," -writes Dr. Walker, "but the day proving wet, we only went to Thomas -Joplin's on Rockfish. This is a pretty River, which might at a small -expense be made fit for transporting Tobacco; but it has lately been -stopped by a Mill Dam near the Mouth to the prejudice of the upper -inhabitants who would at their own expense clear and make it navigable, -were they permitted." Virginia's great industry evidently flourished -this far from tidewater even at this early date, though handicapped by -these dams which were erected by the "Averice of Millers," on which Dr. -Walker comments again in his next day's record. The record for Sunday, -the eleventh, is appropriately brief: "11th. The Sabbath." In only one -or two instances did the party travel on Sunday, and then the journey -was occasioned by necessity. On the twelfth the party crossed the Upper -James River above the mouth of the Rivanna, and lodged with one Thomas -Hunt. - -"13th. We went early to William Calloway's and supplied ourselves with -Rum, Thread, and other necessaries & from thence took the main Waggon -Road leading to Wood's or the New River. It is not well clear'd or -beaten yet, but will be a very good one with proper management." Wood's -River--or New River, as we know it today--was discovered in 1671 by -Colonel Abraham Wood, who explored along the line which later became the -boundary line between North Carolina and Virginia. He crossed the -Alleghenies through "Wood's Gap" (now Flower Gap) and, going down Little -River, found New River not far from Inglis Ferry, where Walker's party -crossed three days later. This mention of the road Walker traversed is -his first reference to the great road westward toward Cumberland Gap; he -remarks its roughness, but before he returned to Virginia he learned new -lessons on rough roads. "This night we lodged in Adam Beards low -grounds. Beard is an ignorant, impudent, brutish fellow, and would have -taken us up, had it not been for a reason, easily suggested." When thus -brought in contrast with the hospitality usually tendered Walker's -party, the deportment of this churlish mountaineer is conspicuous. -Travelers on these first highways were ever in need--if for nothing more -than a camping-place. The people who settled beside the frontier roads -were trained by bitter experience to a generous hospitality. This -hospitality was particularly marked, throughout the colonies, among -those who could afford it, especially on the frontiers; and here it was -often bestowed upon travelers when it could be ill-afforded. The modern -hotel has in a large measure relieved the general public from the burden -of continual and promiscuous hospitality, and it has been found that -where hotels are least known this prime requisite of an expanding -civilization may still be found. On the frontier, men were dependent on -those who lived beside the road, not only in time of accident and -sickness, but at all times--for little food and forage could be carried. -At times travelers nearly perished when once beyond the frontier line. -Walker's party, though they killed the large amount of game mentioned, -were once compelled to kill and eat one of their dogs. Captain Estill, -who lost his life in Kentucky in the engagement which bears his name, is -said to have done a great service for emigrants from Virginia by killing -game and leaving the meat beside the road, in order to "pass on and -notify incoming trains where they might find a supply of meat." - -Instances of vile treatment of travelers are not often cited, but the -few that exist are the exceptions that prove the rule of generosity -which was common to the time. - -Leaving Beard's, Walker and his men went, on the fourteenth, to Nicholas -Welch's, "where," the Doctor writes, "we bought corn for our horses, and -had some Victuals dress'd for Breakfast." From here they climbed the -Blue Ridge through Buford's Gap, in Bedford County, through which the -Norfolk and Western Railroad now passes. "The Ascent and Descent is so -easie," writes Walker, "that a Stranger would not know when he crossed -the Ridge." On the day after, they reached "the great Lick" near the -present city of Roanoke, and continued up the trail on the following day -to near the historic Inglis Ferry, not far from the present village of -Blacksburg, Montgomery County, Virginia. - -From this on, Walker's route is not of importance to our study, as he -missed the great trail which would have taken him to the pleasant -meadows of Kentucky--though he struck it again at Cumberland Gap but did -not follow it--and wandered over a circuitous route thus outlined by -Daniel Bryan: "They started from low down in Virginia, traveled -westwardly across Alleghany Mountains to Chissel's Lead Mine, on New -River; thence into the Holston Valley, thence over Walden's Ridge and -Powell's Mountain into Powell's Valley.... They then continued down the -valley, leaving Cumberland Mountain a small distance on their right -hand, until they came to Cumberland Gap.... At the foot of this mountain -they fell into an Indian path leading from the Cherokee towns on -Tennessee River to the Shawnee Indian towns on the Ohio, which path they -followed down Yellow Creek to the old ford of Cumberland River.... -Thence they went on the path down the river to the Flat Lick, eight -miles; here they left the river, continued on the path, turning more -north, crossing some of the head branches of the Kentucky River over a -poor and hilly country, until they concluded there was no good country -in the West. They then took an easterly course over the worst mountains -and laurel thickets in the world.... They crossed the Laurel or -Cumberland Mountain and fell into the Green brier country, almost -starved to death ... and reached home with life only to pay for all -their trouble and suffering." - -Regretting that this opinion of the final value of Walker's journey -cannot be gainsaid, it is yet of interest to follow his footsteps and -learn what were some of the experiences of such early explorers as -these. - -On the twenty-sixth they "left the Inhabitans," as Dr. Walker called the -line of civilization, and were at last within the wild land where no -settlers had yet come. On the night of the twenty-ninth the "Dogs were -very uneasie," and the next day, on Reedy Creek, a branch of the South -Fork of the Holston, the tracks of a party of Indians were discovered, -which explained the restlessness of the dogs. It is probably little -realized in this day how valuable dogs were to explorers and immigrants. -They were not only of service in giving warning of the approach of -strangers, but were well-nigh indispensable in securing game and in -searching for lost horses. Dr. Walker's love for dogs is a tradition in -the family, and his care of them on this journey is typical of the -gentleman and the wise frontiersman. At the junction of Reedy Creek and -the Holston--an historic spot in Tennessee--Walker found a gigantic elm -tree, which measured twenty-five feet in circumference at a distance of -three feet from the ground. Pioneers and explorers considered the study -of trees a fine art. By this means they always judged the quality of the -soil, and knew at a glance by the growth that stood on it the character -of any piece of land. The diaries of all that old school of western -adventurers contain frequent mention of trees which were an almost -infallible criterion of the soil beneath. Washington had keen eyes for -trees--as for everything else--as illustrated in the journal of his trip -down the Ohio River in 1770. On the fourth of November he found a -sycamore on the Great Kanawha, in comparison with which this first elm -of Walker's was insignificant. It measured, three feet from the ground, -forty-five feet in circumference, and near by stood another measuring -thirty-one feet around. Upon hearing about this larger tree, some one -remarked that Washington might have told the truth about the cherry tree -but he told a "whopper" about the sycamore. But it was not guess-work, -for the record states clearly that the girth of the larger tree lacked -two inches of being the complete forty-five feet. Trees along the Ohio -grew to an immense size; an old Ohio River pilot affirms that in his -boyhood a burned trunk of a sycamore stood on his father's farm on the -Little Muskingum, into which he has frequently driven a horse, turned it -about, and come out again. General Harmar found on the Ohio a -button-wood tree forty-two feet in circumference, which held forty men -within its trunk. - -On the seventh of April Dr. Walker writes: "It snowed most of the day. -In the Evening our dogs caught a large He Bear, which before we could -come up to shoot him had wounded a dog of mine, so that he could not -Travel, and we carried him on Horseback, till he recovered." On the -thirteenth the party reached "Cave Gap," which Walker named Cumberland -Gap in honor of the "bloody Duke," the hero of Culloden. "Just at the -foot of the Hill is a Laurel Thicket.... On the South side is a plain -Indian Road. On the top of the Ridge are Laurel Trees marked with -crosses, others Blazed and several Figures on them.... This Gap may be -seen at a considerable distance, and there is no other, that I know of, -except one about two miles to the North of it, which does not appear to -be so low as the other. The Mountain on the North Side of the Gap is -very Steep and Rocky, but on the South side it is not So. We called it -Steep Ridge." - -The party crossed the Cumberland River about four miles below the -present village of Barbourville, Knox County, Kentucky, on the -twenty-third of April. The river was named by Walker at this time. From -this spot Walker, with two companions chosen by lot--Powell and -Chew--went on a tour of exploration alone, leaving the others "to -provide and salt some Bear, build an house, and plant some Peach Stones -and Corn." - -Walker and his two companions floundered about the neighboring region -for five days, not getting out of the mountainous country and not -finding any good land. They crossed the Cumberland again, on the third -day out, about twenty miles below the first crossing-place, and then -returned up the river to the main party and found that the work he had -ordered to be done was completed. "The People I had left had built an -House 12 by 8, clear'd and broke up some ground, & planted Corn, and -Peach Stones." - -Thus was raised, beside the tumbling Cumberland, on the farm now owned -by George M. Faulkner four miles below Barbourville, Kentucky, the first -house now recorded as built by white men in the fine territory between -the Cumberland Mountains and the Ohio River, now the state of Kentucky. -It was not an "improver's cabin"--a log pen without roof--but a roofed -house, and instituted what the English Loyal Land Company could claim to -be a "settlement" in the territory which they had been granted. This was -completed by the planting of corn and peach trees. The formality of this -"settlement" is evinced by the fact that, two days later, the entire -party moved on for further exploration, never again to return to their -house or to reap their crops. It was twenty years before a house was -erected in Kentucky for the permanent dwelling. - -From this on, Dr. Walker's journal is a long story of accidents and -disappointments. One horse became lame, and "another had been bit in the -Nose by a Snake." "I rub'd the wounds with Bear's oil, and gave him a -drench of the same and another of the decoction of Rattle Snake root -some time after." On the same day "Colby Chew and his Horse fell down -the Bank. I Bled and gave him Volatile drops, & he soon recovered." On -the first of May they reached Powell's River. This was named from -Ambrose Powell. During the journey Dr. Walker gave the name of each of -his companions to rivers he discovered; none were given his name, though -a mountain range to the north of Fort Chiswell still bears the name of -Walker's Mountain. On Powell's River the party this day again struck the -Indian path which later became the great highway to Kentucky. Again he -was on the route that would have taken him to the famous meadows below -the foothills of the mountains, and again he left it as he did when he -chose to explore on the south side of Cumberland Mountain, instead of -crossing at Pineville and following the trail northward. He did not -cross Rockcastle River. J. Stoddard Johnson says: "This was the farthest -western point reached by Doctor Walker. He did not cross the main -Rockcastle River, and, therefore, was never on the waters of Salt or -Green rivers, as claimed by some. A day or two's travel to the west or -northwest would have brought him to the fertile lands of Lincoln or -Madison County, his description of which would have left no doubt of his -having passed the watershed between the Rockcastle, the Salt, and the -rivers to the westward."[2] - -Shoes formed an important item in the catalogue of necessaries for the -early traveler's outfit on the first traveled ways in America. Already -Walker's party, though they traveled largely by horse, had worn out the -shoes with which they started, and on the eleventh of May under one of -the great cliffs near Rockcastle River they set to work to make -themselves new shoes out of elkskin. "When our Elk's Skin was prepared," -writes Dr. Walker on the fourteenth, "we had lost every Awl that we -brought out, and I made one with the Shank of an old Fishing hook, the -other People made two of Horse Shoe Nails, and with these we made our -Shoes and Moccosons." - -On the twenty-third the party was on the Kentucky River, where Walker -found a sycamore which measured forty feet in circumference--almost, it -will be seen, the size of the tree Washington found on the Great -Kanawha--upon which he marked his initials, "T. W." On the day after, he -found another sycamore thirty feet in circumference. These trees, it -would naturally be inferred, marked the location of fertile soil. On the -twenty-sixth the "Dogs roused a large Buck Elk, which we followed down -to a Creek. He killed Ambrose Powell's Dog in the Chase, and we named -the Run Tumbler's Creek, the Dog being of that Name." - -"31st. We crossed 2 Mountains and camped just by a Wolf's Den. They were -very impudent and after they had twice been shot at, they kept howling -about the Camp. It rained till Noon this day." - -"June ye 1st. We found the Wolf's Den and caught 4 of the young ones." -It was very common for frontiersmen to invade the dens of wolves without -any opposition on the part of the old wolves. Wolf cubs have often been -pulled away from their mothers, who would only snarl and show their -teeth. Bears, on the other hand, would fight to the death any invader of -their dens. Notions which commonly prevail today, about the dangers in -the primeval forests of America from wild animals, undergo a great -change after a careful reading of pioneer literature. - -On the fourth of June "a very black Cloud appearing, we turn'd out our -Horses, got tent Poles up, and were just stretching a Tent, when it -began to rain and hail, and was succeeded by a violent Wind which Blew -down our Tent & a great many Trees about it, several large ones within -30 yds. of the Tent. We all left the place in confusion and ran -different ways for shelter. After the Storm was over, we met at the -Tent, and found all safe." - -On the fourteenth the party had gone east as far as the dividing ridge -between the two forks of the Big Sandy; but within a few days the horses -were spent, and the whole party floundered onward afoot. On the -twentieth they reached Flat-top Mountain, Raleigh County, West Virginia. -This day Dr. Walker's horse was bitten by a snake; "... having no -Bear's Oil," he wrote, "I rub'd the place with a piece of fat meat, -which had the desired effect." - -Passing the present site of Hinton, West Virginia, the party followed -about the present line of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway. They crossed -the Allegheny divide July 8, and Hot Springs the ninth. They found "Six -Invalides there. The Spring Water is very Clear & warmer than new Milk, -and there is a spring of cold Water within 20 feet of the Warm one. I -left one of my Company this day." They reached Augusta Court House -(Staunton, Virginia) on the eleventh, and Castle Hill on the sixteenth, -having been four months and seven days on the journey. - -Walker's hard tour amounted to very little for the plain reason that he -never got west of the mountains. He found no good land and his report -was depressing. - - -It remained for another brave frontiersman to go further and bring back -the welcome news of large areas of splendid land in the Ohio Valley. In -1748 John Hanbury, London merchant; Thomas Lee, President of the -Council of Virginia; and a number of prominent Virginians formed the -Ohio Company, elsewhere mentioned, and received a large grant of land in -the West. The grant was made March 18, 1749: two hundred thousand acres -between the Monongahela and Great Kanawha Rivers, and later three -hundred thousand acres, to be located on the waters of the lower Ohio. -In 1750 this company employed Christopher Gist, a hardy, well-trained -frontiersman who lived on the Yadkin in North Carolina, to explore the -Ohio Valley and make a report upon the land there found. For his arduous -service he was to receive one hundred and fifty pounds sterling "and -such further handsome allowance as his service should deserve." His -instructions read as follows: - -"You are to go out as soon as possible to the Westward of the great -Mountains, and carry with you such a Number of Men as You think -necessary, in Order to Search out and discover the Lands upon the river -Ohio & other adjoining Branches of the Mississippi down as low as the -great Falls thereof: You are particularly to observe the Ways & Passes -thro all the Mountains you cross, & take an exact Account of the Soil, -Quality & Product of the Land, and the Wideness and Deepness of the -Rivers, & the several Falls belonging to them, together with the Courses -& Bearings of the Rivers & Mountains as near as you conveniently can: -You are also to observe what Nations of Indians inhabit there, their -Strength and Numbers, who they trade with, & in what Comodities they -deal. - -"When you find a large quantity of good, level Land, such as you think -will suit the Company, You are to measure the Breadth of it, in three or -four different Places, & take the Courses of the River & Mountains on -which it binds in Order to judge the Quantity: You are to fix the -Beginning & Bounds in such a Manner that they may be easily found again -by your Description; the nearer in the Land lies the better, provided it -be good & level, but we had rather go quite down the Mississippi than -take mean broken Land. After finding a large Body of good level Land, -you are not to stop but proceed further, as low as the Falls of the -Ohio, that we may be informed of that Navigation; And You are to take an -exact Account of all the large Bodies of good level Land, in the same -Manner as above directed that the Company may the better judge when it -will be most convenient for them to take their Land. - -"You are to note all the Bodies of good Land as you go along, tho there -is not a sufficient Quantity for the Company's Grant, but You need not -be so particular in the Mensuration of that, as in the larger Bodies of -Land. - -"You are to draw as good a plan as you can of the Country You pass thro: -You are to take an exact and particular Journal of all Your Proceedings, -and make a true Report thereof to the Ohio Company." - -Gist was the man for the business in hand. He came from an enterprising -family and was well educated. His father was one of the Commissioners -for laying off the city of Baltimore. "Little is known of his early -life, but the evidences he has left in his journals, his maps, plats of -surveys, and correspondence indicate that he enjoyed the advantages of -an education superior to that of many of his calling in those early -days. His signature and manuscript are characterized by the neatness and -uniformity of a copy plate, while his plats and surveys are models in -their mathematical exactness and precision of drawing. To this evidence -of scholarly order and professional skill he added the hardy qualities -of the pioneer and backwoodsman, capable of enduring the exposure of -long journeys in the most rigorous weather. In him were combined the -varied talents which made him at once an accomplished surveyor, an -energetic farmer who felled the forest and tilled the soil, a skilful -diplomat who understood the Indian character and was influential in -making treaties, a brave soldier, an upright man, trusted by the highest -civil and military authorities with implicit faith."[3] - -The earlier portion of Gist's journey, which he began in October, 1750, -is not of importance in the present monograph. He reached the Ohio River -by way of the Juniata and Kiskiminitas Rivers. Crossing the Ohio he -worked his way westward on the Great Trail to the "Crossing Place of the -Muskingum" (Bolivar, Ohio), and from thence he traversed the Indian -trail to the country of the Shawanese and Miamis. - -It was not until Tuesday, the twelfth of March, that Gist again crossed -the Ohio, and entered what is now the state of Kentucky. His first day's -experience was typical--in a land so well known for great things and -strong; for on the day after crossing at the Shawanese Shannoah Town, he -found two men who had "Two of the Teeth of a large Beast.... The Rib -Bones of the largest of these Beasts were eleven Feet long, and the -Skull Bone six Feet wide, across the Forehead, & the other Bones in -Proportion; and that there were several Teeth there, some of which he -called Horns, and said they were upwards of five Feet long, and as much -as a Man could well carry." - -Gist was now in Kentucky--the land of which thousands were waiting to -hear, the home of the race that was to come and conquer and settle and -hold the West. Of it Gist came to know only a little, but this little -was the beginning of a revelation. - -After crossing the Ohio, Gist journeyed over a hundred miles down the -southern bank of the river, and on March eighteenth crossed "the lower -Salt Lick Creek," the Licking River. Reports of Indians at the "Falls" -and "the footsteps of some Indians plain on the Ground" made him desist -from visiting that spot, but he took down descriptions of it. On the -nineteenth he turned southward into the interior. On the twentieth he -ascended Pilot Knob, near Clay City, Powell County, and writes of the -view from that height from which he saw, as John Finley wrote later, -"with pleasure the beautiful level of Kentucky." - -With but a glimpse of the good lands of Kentucky, Gist, like Walker -before him, journeyed into the mountainous country to the southeast. For -a month he floundered around in the desolate laurel ridges where Walker -had spent so many distressing days the year before. On Red River Gist -crossed Walker's route and came on homeward between Walker's outward and -homeward courses. From Red River he went through Pound Gap and -eastward, down what is known as Gist's or Guesse's Fork of the Clinch in -Wise County, Virginia, and then upon Bluestone, a tributary of New -River. On the thirteenth of May he crossed Walker's route again at -Inglis Ferry, near Draper's Meadows. On the seventeenth he passed into -North Carolina through Flower or Wood's Gap toward his home on the -Yadkin. He reached home on the eighteenth and found that his family had -removed to Roanoke, thirty-five miles eastward, because of depredations -of the Indians during the winter. - -Gist's journey was far more successful than Walker's. He found the fine -fertile valleys of the Muskingum, Scioto, and Miami Rivers north of the -Ohio, and he caught a glimpse of the beautiful meadows of Kentucky. He -singularly made a complete circle about the land between the Monongahela -and Kanawha Rivers, where the Ohio Company's grant of land was made. As -he did not approach it on any side it is probable that he knew that only -rough land lay there. Had it not been for the sudden breaking out of the -old French War, the Ohio Company would undoubtedly have settled on -lands in the Ohio Valley according to Gist's advice. Hostilities on the -frontier soon drove back the farther settlements, and rendered -activities in the land Gist had discovered out of the question, either -on the part of land companies or private individuals. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -ANNALS OF THE ROAD - - -With the close of Pontiac's Rebellion and the passing away of the war -clouds which had hung so long over the West, ten thousand eyes turned -longingly across the Alleghenies and Blue Ridge. War with all its -horrors had yet brought something of good, for never before had the -belief that a splendidly fertile empire lay to the westward taken such a -hold upon the people of Virginia. Nothing more was needed but the -positive assurance of large areas of good land, and a way to reach it. -It was ten years after the close of Pontiac's war before both of these -conditions were fulfilled. - -First came the definite assurance that the meadows of Kentucky were what -Gist and others had reported them to be. The Proclamation of 1763, -forbidding western settlement, did not forbid hunting in the West--and -the great emigration which started as slow as a glacier was finally put -into motion by the proof brought back to North Carolina and Virginia by -the hunters (of whom mention has been made) who went over the mountains -between 1763 and 1773. In 1766 Colonel James Smith, undaunted by his -captivity among the Indians, hunted through the southern portion of -Kentucky. In 1767 John Finley traded with the Indians in northern -Kentucky, and James Harrod and Michael Stoner were in the southern -portion of the country. Finally, in 1769 Daniel Boone came into the land -"a second Adam in another Eden." Boone reached the edge of the beautiful -Blue Grass Region and returned home in 1771 to tell of what he saw, and -to bring his family "as soon as possible to live in Kentucky, which I -esteemed a second paradise, at the risk of my life and fortune." In 1769 -also, the party of stout hunters headed by Colonel James Knox reached -Kentucky, and hunted on the Green and Lower Cumberland Rivers; they were -so long absent from home that they were given the name of "The Long -Hunters." These, too, brought glowing descriptions of the fine meadows -of _Ken-ta-kee_. - -At once the forests were filled with cohorts of surveyors--the vanguard -of the host under whose feet the continent was soon to tremble. These -surveyors represented the various land companies and the bounty land -seekers, who had a claim to the two hundred thousand acres promised the -Virginian soldiers in the old French war. Scores of cabins were raised -in 1774 at Harrodsburg, near Danville, on the east fork of Salt River, -on Dick's River, and on Salt River. Their erection marks the beginning -of the first settlement of the land one year previous to the breaking -out of the war of the Revolution. - -These first comers found their way to Kentucky by two routes--the -Warriors' Path through Cumberland Gap, and the Ohio River, which they -reached either by the Kittanning Path up the Juniata or by Braddock's or -Forbes's Roads. Each route was dangerous and difficult beyond -description. It was a terrible road from Cumberland to Pittsburg, and -the journey down the Ohio was not more inviting. When the river was -high and afforded safe navigation it was as much a highway for red men -as for white--and these were treacherous times. When the river was low, -a thousand natural obstructions tended to daunt even the bravest -boatmen--and the Virginian backwoodsmen were not educated to contend -with such a dangerous stream as the Ohio, with its changing currents, -treacherous eddies, and thousands of sunken trees. One frontiersman who -made the river trip at an early date, cautioned those who essayed the -trip against rowing their boats at night; lest the sound of the oars -should prevent the watchman from hearing the "riffling" of the water -about the rocks and sunken trees, on which many a boat had been wrecked -with all its precious freight. The danger of river travel down such a -stream appealed with tremendous force to the early pioneers, with the -result that the majority chose the land route. - -But what an alternative! A narrow trail in the forests six hundred miles -in length was the only path. It had been traversed by many even as early -as 1775, but each traveler had made it worse, and the story of the -hardships of the journey through "the Wilderness" would make even the -bravest pause. It is a hard journey today, one which cannot be made -without taxing even the strongest; what was it before the route was -dotted with cities and hamlets, before the road had been widened and -bridged, before the mountains had been graded and the swamps drained, -before the fierce lurking enemies had been driven away? - -Neither Walker nor Gist traversed what became the famed Wilderness Road -to Kentucky. When the Shawanese raided Draper's Meadows, near Inglis -Ferry, in 1755, they took their prisoners away on the trail through -Powell's Valley toward Cumberland Gap; and the rescuing party which -followed them were perhaps the first white men who traveled what became -the great pioneer thoroughfare to Kentucky. It was, undoubtedly, the -route followed by the early hunters who passed through Cumberland Gap -and found the fertile meadows of which Dr. Walker was ignorant, and of -which Christopher Gist caught only a faint glimpse. Settlements sprang -up slowly beyond Inglis Ferry, but by the time of Boone's return in 1771 -a few families were on the upper waters of the Holston, and settlements -had been made on the Watauga where Fort Watauga was soon to be built, -and at Wolf Hills, now Abington. These settlements were all one hundred -miles east of Cumberland Gap, and the little path thither was not yet -marked for white man's use. - -But the brave Boone was as good as his word--and he did attempt to bring -his family and five other families to Kentucky in the year 1773, over -what was soon to be known as Boone's Road. This was the beginning of the -great tide of immigration through Cumberland Gap, a social movement -which for timeliness and ultimate success ranks as the most important in -the history of the central West. This initial attempt was not a success, -for the party was driven back by Indians, with loss, entirely -discouraged. But from this time on, despite Dunmore's War which now -broke out, the dream of western immigration could not be forgotten. - -But all the western movement was now put at hazard by the outbreak of -this cruel, bloody war between the "Long Knives"--as the Virginians in -the Monongahela country came to be called, from the sabres that hung at -their loins--and the Shawanese north of the Ohio. As suggested, the -preceding years had been marked by continual bloodshed. It is -undoubtedly true that those Long Knives on the upper Ohio had been doing -some dreadful slashing. Perhaps the provocations were as enormous as the -crimes; surely the Indians to the north were the most bloodthirsty and -cruel of any on the continent. At the same time it is safe to say that -many of their white foes on the Ohio were inhuman marauders, whose -principal occupation was that of shooting game for a living and Indians -for sport. Even in the statement in Boone's autobiography there is a -plain suggestion of a guilty conscience on the part of those of whom he -wrote: "The settlers [in the Monongahela country], now aware that a -general warfare would be commenced by the Indians, immediately sent an -express to Williamsburg, the seat of government in Virginia, -communicating their apprehensions and soliciting protection." How aware? -Because some of the relatives of the Indian chieftain Logan had been -basely murdered, while intoxicated, on Yellow Creek? - -The Virginian House of Burgesses was quick to answer this appeal of the -western colonists, and Governor Dunmore's earnestness in arranging the -campaign resulted in the short wars bearing his name. General Andrew -Lewis, a hero of Braddock's defeat, was commissioned to raise an army of -border settlers and march down the Great Kanawha; while Lord Dunmore -went northward to Pittsburg, where, in the Monogahela country, he would -recruit another army and descend the Ohio to the mouth of the Great -Kanawha. Here the armies would unite to pierce the valley of the Scioto -in which the hell-hound Shawanese dwelt. - -Lewis gathered an army of eleven hundred experienced borderers from the -Watauga settlement and the Greenbriar Valley, and marched swiftly -northward. But the enemy knew of his approach, and instead of joining -Dunmore's army at the mouth of the Great Kanawha he met a barricaded -Indian horde, equal in size to his own army, and the bloody and -momentous battle of Point Pleasant was fought and won. Arriving at the -Ohio, Lewis encamped on the point of land between the two rivers. Soon -two hunters pursuing a deer encountered the Indian vanguard which was -bearing down on the ill-placed army of whites. One hunter fell dead and -the other returned with the alarming news. General Lewis, a pupil in -that school on Braddock's Road, lit his pipe and ordered the assault. -Two regiments advanced on the Indian line, which now ranged from river -to river, completely cutting it off from retreat. Both colonels -commanding were soon killed and their men began to fall back -disconcerted. Reenforcements drove the redskins back to their -entrenchments, and renewed confidence. But at last fighting became -desperate. Among his Virginians, the brave Flemming, twice wounded, kept -repeating his order, "Advance, outflank the enemy and get between them -and the river." Among his desperate followers the calm voice of -Cornstalk was heard all day long: "Be brave, be brave, be brave!" As in -the battle of Bushy Run, where the hope of the West lay with Bouquet as -it did now with Lewis, so at Point Pleasant no way of success was left, -at the close of that October day, save in strategy. The white man did -not learn to conquer the red until he learned to deal with him on his -own terms of cunning and deceit. - -In desperation Lewis sent three companies up the Great Kanawha under -cover of the bank to Crooked Creek. Ascending this stream with great -caution, these heroes of the day rushed from its bed upon the enemy's -flank, and the tide of the battle was turned. The Indians, though having -suffered least, fell back across the Ohio to their villages to the -northward. The proposed junction of the two white armies was achieved, -but Lewis had already sufficiently awed the Shawanese, who came to -Dunmore's Camp Charlotte in their valley, and gave their affirmation to -the Fort Stanwix Treaty, which surrendered to the whites all the -territory south of the Ohio and north of the Tennessee. - -In less than a year Boone went through the Gap alone to the "Falls of -the Ohio" (Louisville), and returned in safety, more possessed than ever -with the ambition to take his family to the El Dorado which he had -discovered, and of which he spoke in the enthusiastic vein which has -already been quoted. He had found the splendid lands of which Gist had -guessed; he had found a straight path thither. All that was lacking was -an impetus to turn a floodtide of Virginians and their neighbors into -the new land. - -This came, too, within a year after the close of Dunmore's War--an -artificial impetus in the shape of a land company, headed by a brave, -enterprising man, Colonel Richard Henderson, with whom were associated -eight other North Carolinians of high social standing. Richard Henderson -was the son of Samuel Henderson (1700) and Elizabeth Williams (1714). He -was born in Hanover County, Virginia, on the twentieth of April, 1735. -His two well-known brothers, Nathaniel and Pleasant, were born in 1736 -and 1756, respectively. The sons were worthy of their good Scotch-Welsh -ancestry. When Richard was about ten years of age his father moved from -their home in Virginia to Granville County in the province of North -Carolina. Here the elder Henderson was afterward appointed sheriff of -his county, and the young Richard was soon able to assist his father by -doing the business "of the sherriffltry."[4] - -After this practical introduction to the science of law young Richard -turned to the theoretical study, and read law for a twelve-month with -his cousin, Judge Williams. In that day a prospective barrister was -compelled to get a certificate from the chief-justice of his colony; -this he presented to the governor, who, being satisfied as to the -candidate's acquirements, gave him a license. Richard Henderson's -self-confidence and genuine talent are exhibited by the story which his -brother records, of his attempting to obtain a license to practice law -after the brief period of study mentioned above. - -Procuring a certificate from the chief-justice he presented himself to -the governor of North Carolina as a candidate for a license. - -"How long have you read law and what books have you studied?" asked the -governor. - -"Twelve months," replied young Henderson, naming the books he had used. - -The governor replied brusquely that it was wholly unnecessary for him to -take the time to give an examination, as no one could in that length of -time and with such books become proficient. - -"Sir," replied Richard Henderson not a whit dismayed, "I am an applicant -for examination; it is your duty to examine me and if found worthy, to -grant me a license; if otherwise, to refuse one." - -It can well be imagined how quickly the governor bristled up and how -mercilessly he would "quiz" a lad who informed him in such a spirited -manner what the duties of his office required of him. But the running -fire of questions did not daunt the candidate more than had the -governor's indifference--and the young Richard received at the close of -the interview, not only a license, but what meant more, many encomiums -from his governor. - -Henderson soon acquired a good practice and became a judge on the bench -of the Superior Court. In 1774 the conflict with the British agent in -North Carolina was precipitated, and the colonial government was -abolished. It was at this time that Judge Henderson became interested in -the desire of the Cherokee Indians to sell land. Henderson's plan was to -purchase from the Cherokees the great territory lying south of the -Kentucky River--one-half the present state of Kentucky. This was quite -against the laws and traditions of the only colony which had any valid -claim to the territory--Virginia, his native state--but this seemed to -matter not to Henderson and his associates; these were John Williams, -under whom Henderson had studied law, Leonard Henley Bullock, James -Hogg, Nathaniel Thomas, David Hart, John Luttrell, and William -Johnstone. At the very beginning of the century Virginia had passed an -act forbidding the private purchase of lands from the Indians. The -founders of Transylvania evidently doubted Virginia's sweeping claims -to the entire interior of the continent--at any rate land companies -seemed to be the only means by which the vast wildernesses beyond the -mountains could be opened up and settled. Though Virginia soon proved -the invalidity of the purchase, she at the same time was frank enough to -admit that Henderson's Company had done a good work in giving an impetus -to westward expansion, by appropriately recompensing the North -Carolinians for their expenditure and labors. - -Henderson's purchase was gigantic in its proportions, embracing nearly -twenty million acres. The consideration was ten thousand pounds -sterling. The purchase was made at the advance settlement at Watauga, -March 17, 1775--only a month before the outbreak at Lexington and -Concord. Henderson employed Boone to assist in the transaction, and -immediately after engaged him to mark out the road through Cumberland -Gap to a settlement in Kentucky, where the Transylvania Company (as -Henderson strangely named his organization) was to begin the occupation -of the empire it had nominally secured. Of this Boone writes modestly -that he was "solicited by a number of North Carolina gentlemen, that -were about purchasing the lands lying on the south side of the Kentucky -River, from the Cherokee Indians, to attend their treaty at Watauga, in -March, 1775, to negotiate with them, and mention the boundaries of the -purchase. This I accepted, and at the request of the same gentlemen -undertook to mark out a road in the best passage from the settlement -through the wilderness to Kentucky, with such assistance as I thought -necessary to employ for such an important undertaking." - -As in the case of Nemacolin's Path across the Alleghenies, so now a -second westward Indian pathway was blazed for white man's use; and if -the Transylvania Colony can in no other respect be said to have been -successful, it certainly conferred an inestimable good upon Virginia and -North Carolina and the nation, when it marked out through the hand of -Boone the Wilderness Road to Kentucky. From Watauga the path led up to -the Gap, where it joined the great Warrior's Path which came down -through Kentucky from the Scioto Valley in Ohio. For about fifty miles -Boone's Road followed this path northward, whereupon, leaving the Indian -trail, Boone bore to the west, marking his course on a buffalo trace -toward "Hazel Patch" to the Rockcastle. The buffalo path was followed -onward up Roundstone Creek, through "Boone's Gap" in Big Hill; through -the present county of Madison, Kentucky; and down little Otter Creek to -the Kentucky River. Here Boonesborough was built for the Transylvania -Colony, which became the temporary center of Kentucky. - -Felix Walker, one of Boone's road-making party, made an autobiographical -statement about 1824 of this brave attempt to cut a white man's path -into Kentucky. From this statement these quotations from De Bow's -_Review_ (1854) are pertinent: - -"The treaty (at Watauga) being concluded and the purchase made, we -proceeded on our journey to meet Col. Daniel Boon, with other -adventurers, bound to the same country; accordingly we met and -rendezvoused at the Long Island on Holsteen river, united our small -force with Colonel Boon and his associates, his brother, Squire Boon, -and Col. Richard Callaway, of Virginia. Our company, when united, -amounted to 30 persons. We then, by general consent, put ourselves under -the management and control of Col. Boon, who was to be our pilot and -conductor through the wilderness, to the promised land.... About the -10th of March we put off from the Long Island, marked out our track with -our hatchets, crossed Clinch and Powell's river, over Cumberland -mountain, and crossed Cumberland river--came to a watercourse called by -Col.--Rockcastle river; killed a fine bear on our way, camped all night -and had an excellent supper. On leaving that river, we had to encounter -and cut our way through a country of about twenty miles, entirely -covered with dead brash, which we found a difficult and laborious task. -At the end of which we arrived at the commencement of a cane country, -traveled about thirty miles through thick cane and reed, and as the cane -ceased, we began to discover the pleasing and rapturous appearance of -the plains of Kentucky. A new sky and strange earth seemed to be -presented to our view.... A sad reverse overtook us two days after, on -our way to Kentucky river. On the 25th of March, 1775, we were fired on -by the Indians, in our camp asleep, about an hour before day. Capt. -Twetty was shot in both knees, and died the third day after. A black -man, his body servant, killed dead; myself badly wounded; our company -dispersed. So fatal and tragical an event cast a deep gloom of -melancholy over all our prospects, and high calculations of long life -and happy days in our newly-discovered country were prostrated; hope -vanished from the most of us, and left us suspended in the tumult of -uncertainty and conjecture. Col. Boon, and a few others, appeared to -possess firmness and fortitude. In our calamitous situation, a -circumstance occurred one morning after our misfortunes that proved the -courage and stability of our few remaining men (for some had gone back). -One of our men, who had run off at the fire of the Indians on our camp, -was discovered peeping from behind a tree, by a black woman belonging -to Colonel Callaway, while gathering some wood. She ran in and gave the -alarm of Indians. Colonel Boon instantly caught his rifle, ordered the -men to form, take trees, and give battle, and not to run till they saw -him fall. They formed agreeably to his directions, and I believe they -would have fought with equal bravery to any Spartan band ever brought to -the field of action, when the man behind the tree announced his name and -came in.... At length I was carried in a litter between two horses, -twelve miles, to Kentucky river, where we made a station, and called it -Boonsborough, situated in a plain on the south side of the river, -wherein was a lick with two sulphur springs strongly impregnated.... In -the sequel and conclusion of my narrative I must not neglect to give -honor to whom honor is due. Colonel Boone conducted the company under -his care through the wilderness, with great propriety, intrepidity and -courage; and was I to enter an exception to any part of his conduct, it -would be on the ground that he appeared void of fear and of -consequence--too little caution for the enterprise. But let me, with -feeling recollection and lasting gratitude, ever remember the -unremitting kindness, sympathy, and attention paid to me by Col. Boone -in my distress. He was my father, my physician, and friend; he attended -me as his child, cured my wounds by the use of medicines from the woods, -nursed me with paternal affection until I recovered, without the -expectation of reward." - -[Illustration: PLAT OF BOONESBOROUGH -[_Based on a copy of the original in possession of John Stevens_]] - -It was altogether fitting that among the very first to follow Boone's -blazed road to Kentucky we should find Judge Henderson and his -fellow-promoters of the Transylvania Company. Nothing shows more plainly -the genuineness of their purposes and the heroism of their spirit. They -were not foisting on their countrymen a hazardous scheme by which they -should profit, while others bore the brunt of the toil and danger. True, -Henderson had, purposely or unwittingly, ignored the technicality of -Virginia's claim to the possession of the West; but, with an honesty -unparalleled at that day in such matters, they met the representatives -of the real owners of the lands they desired, and had purchased them -and paid down the purchase money. There is almost no doubt that they -could have satisfied Virginia's technicalities at a less cost; and then -have gone, as so many have done, to fortify their possessions and "fight -it out" with the genuine owners of the soil, who would eventually get -nothing and lose everything. - -This Judge Henderson did not do; nor did he sit down comfortably at home -and send others to turn his holdings into money. He arose and -started--amid dangers that shall not be mentioned lest they be -minimized--for far-away Kentucky, on the little roadway Boone was -opening. - -Henderson's party left Fort Watauga March 20, 1775, and arrived at the -infant Boonesborough April 20. The leader of the party fortunately kept -a record, though meager, of this notable journey. This precious yellow -diary is preserved by the Wisconsin Historical Society. It reads: - - "Monday March 20th 1775 - -Having finished my Treaty with the Indians, at Wataugah Sett out for -Louisa & arrived at John Shelbeys in the Evening--Tuesday the 21^{st} -went to M^r John Seviers in Company of Col^o Williams & Col^o Hart & -staid that day--Wednesday the 22^d--Mess^{rs} Williams & Hart set off -Home & I staid with M^r Sevier Thursday 23^d Still at M^r Seviers--N. B. -because our Horses were lost tho. not uneasiy as Mess^{rs} Hart and -Letteral made a poor Hand of Traveling-- - -Friday 24^{th} Sett of in pursuit of M^r Hart & Letteral. Overtook them -Both & Lodged at Capt Bledsoe's-- - -Satterday the 25^{th}. came to M^{rs} Callaway's. - -Sunday 26^{th} staid there. - -Monday 27^{th} Emplied in storeing away Goods. - -Tuesday 28^{th}--Sett off for Louisa - -Wednesday Continued Journey. N. B. M^r Luttrel not come up. - -Thursday 30^{th} Arrived at Cap^t Martins in Powels Valey-- - -Fryday 31^{st} Imploy'd in makeing house to secure the Waggons as we -could not possibly clear the road any further. N. B. My Waggon & Sam^l -Hendersons came up in A.M. W. Luttrel in the Evin^g - -Satterday the 1 day of April--Imploy'd in making ready for packing &^c -M^r Hart came up-- - -Sunday 2^d Continued at Capt^t Martins Waiting for the Waggon Monday the -3^d Still continued Waiting for the Waggon-- - -Tuesday the 4^{th}--Still continued Waiting for the Waggon. The same -evening the Waggon arrived--tho so Late we cood Not proceed-- - -Wednesday 5^{th} Started off with our pack Horses ab^t. 3 oClock Traveld -about 5 Miles to a Large Spring. The Same evening M^r Litteral went out -a Hunting & has Not yet returned. [Next. Both Henderson and Sa^l Durning -went in pursuit of him--_erased in diary_.] The same evening Sam^l. -Hendersons & John Farriers Horses took a Scare with there packs Run away -with Sams Saddle & Briddle. Farrars Saddle Baggs other things Damaged. -Next Morning Sam^l Henderson & Farrar went in pursuit of there Horses. -Saddle &c--the same Evening John Farrar returnd to our Camp with News -that they had found all there goods. But two of there horses were -Missing - -Thursday 6 sent John Farrar Back with provission to meet & Assist Sam -Henderson with orders to stay with him, till they overtook Us, as we -promis'd to wait for them at Cumberland Gap - -Fryday the 7^{th}--Sam^l. Henderson & John Farrar Returned to us with -there Horses Packs & every thing safe. - -we having waited at our Camp 10 miles below Martins for them - -[Thursday the 6^{th}--_erased_]. Traveled about Six Miles to the last -Settlement in Powels Valey where we were obliged to stop and kill a Beef -wait for Sam Henderson & [N. B?] this was done whilst waiting for Sam^l -Henderson as afo[re mentioned] - -Fryday the 7^{th}. About Brake of Day begun to snow, About 11 ^oClock -received a letter from M^r Littereals camp that were five persons kill'd -on the road to the Cantuckee by Indians--Cap^t Hart, uppon the receipt -of this News Retreated back with his Company & determin'd to Settle in -the Valley to make Corn for the Cantuckey People - -The same Day Received a Letter from Da^n. Boone. that his Company was -fired uppon by Indians Kill'd Two of his men--tho he kept the ground & -saved the Baggage &c. - -Satterday the 8^{th}. Started ab^t. 10 ^oClock Cross'd Cumberland Gap -about 4 Miles Met about 40 persons Returning from the Cantuckey. on -Acc^t. of the Late Murder by the Indians could prevail one one [_sic_] -only to return. Mem^o Several Virginians who were with us returned. - -Sunday the 9^{th}. Arrived at Cumberland River where we met Rob^t Wills -& his son returning &c - -Monday 10^{th}. Dispach^d Cap^t Cocke to the Cantukey to Inform Cap^t -Boone that we were on the road Continued at Camp that day on Acc^t of -the Badness of the Wether - -Tuesday 11^{th} started from Cumberl^d. made a very good days Travel of -Near 20 Mile Kill'd Beef &c. - -Wednesday the 12 Travel'd about 5 Miles, prevented going any further by -the rains & high water at Richland Creek-- - -Thursday the 13^{th}. Last Night arrived men [of] our Camp Stewart & ten -other men, campt within half mile of us on there Return from Lousia -Campt. that Night at Larrel River--they had well nigh turnd three or -four of our Virg & us back. - -Fryday the 14. Traveld about 12 Miles to a Camp &c - -Satterday the 15^{th}. Traveld about 18 Miles & campt on the North side -of Rock Castle River.--this River's a fork of Cumberland--lost an ax -this morn at Camp. - -Sunday the 16^{th}. About 12 oClock Met Jemes McAfee with 18 other -persons Returning from Cantuckey Traveld about 22 Miles and Campt on the -head of Dicks River where Luna from Mc.Afees camp came to us resolved to -go to the Louisa-- - -Monday 17^{th} Started about 3 oClock prevented by Rain. Traveld 7 Miles - -Tuesday the 18^{th}. Traveld about 16 Miles, met Michael Stoner with -Pack Horses to assist us. Campt that Night in the Edge of the Rich -Land--Stoner brought us Excellent Beef in plenty - -Wednesday 19^{th}. Traveld about 16 Miles Campt on Oter Creek--a good -mill place - -Thursday the 20^{th}. Arrived at Fort Boone. on the Mouth of Oter Creek -Cantukey River--where we were Saluted by a running fire of about 25 -Guns; all that was then at Fort--The men appeared in high Spirits & -much rejoiced on our arrival"[5] - -Colonel Henderson (as the leader of the Transylvania Colony is best -known) arrived at Boonesborough one day after the outbreak of the -Revolutionary struggle at Lexington and Concord, and on his own fortieth -birthday. - -A clearer glimpse of the fortunes of this company of pilgrims who -followed in Boone's wake is preserved for us in the journal kept by -William Calk, who was with Hart's party that Henderson met at Martin's -cabin on the second of April. The original manuscript is in the -possession of the family of the late Mr. Thomas Calk, near Mt. Sterling, -Kentucky. - -It reads: - -"1775 Mond. 13th--I set out from prince wm. to travel to caintuck on -tuesday Night our company all got together at Mr. Prises on rapadan -which was Abraham hanks[6] philip Drake Eaneck Smith Robert Whitledge & -my Self, thear Abrams Dogs leg got Broke By Drake's Dog. - -Wedns. 15th,--We started early from prises made a good Days travel & -lodge this night at Mr. Cars on North fork James River. - -Thurs. 16th,--We started early it raind Chief part of the Day Snowd in -the Eavening very hard & was very Coald we traveld all Day & got to Mr. -Blacks at the foot of the Blue Ridge. - -fryd. 17th--We start early cross the Ridge the wind Blows very hard & -cold and lodge at James loyls. - -Satrd. 18th--We git this Day to William Andersons at Crows ferrey & -there we Stay till monday morning. - -Mond. 20th--We start early cross the fery and lodge this night at Wm. -Adamses on the head of Catauby. - -tuesd. 21st--We start early and git over pepers ferey on new river & -lodge at pepers this night. - -Wedns 22d--We start early and git to foart Chissel whear we git some -good loaf Bread & good whiskey. - -thurs 23d--we start early & travel till a good while in the Night and -git to major Cammels on holston River. - -fryday 24th--we start early & turn out of the wagon Road to go across -the mountains to go by Danil Smiths we loose Driver Come to a turabel -mountain that tired us all almost to death to git over it & we lodge -this night on the Lawrel fork of holston under agrait mountain & Roast a -fine fat turkey for our suppers & Eat it without aney Bread. - -Satrd 25th--We start early travel over Some more very Bad mountains one -that is caled Clinch mountain & we git this night to Danil Smiths on -Clinch and there we staid till thursday morning on tuesday night & -wednesday morning it snowd Very hard and was very Coald & we hunted a -good deal there while we staid in Rough mountains and kild three deer & -one turkey Eanock Abram & I got lost tuesday night & it a snowing & -Should a lain in the mountains had not I a had a pocket compas By which -I got in a littel in the night and fired guns and they heard them and -caim in By the Repoart. - -thursd 30th--We set out again & went down to Elk gardin and there suplid -our Selves With Seed Corn & irish tators then we went on a littel way I -turnd my hors to drive afore me & he got scard ran away threw Down the -Saddel Bags and broke three of our powder goards & Abrams beast Burst -open a walet of corn & lost a good Deal & made a turrabel flustration -amongst the Reast of the Horses Drakes mair run against a sapling & noct -it down we cacht them all agin & went on & lodgd at John Duncans. - -fryd 31st--We Suployd our Selves at Dunkans with a 108 pounds of Bacon & -went on again to Brileys mill & suployd our Selves with meal & lodged -this night on Clinch By a large cainbraike & cuckt our Suppers. - -April Satrd first--this morning there is ice at our camp half inch thick -we start early & travel this Day along a verey Bad hilley way cross one -creek whear the horses almost got mired some fell in & all wet their -loads we cross Clinch River & travell till late in the Night & camp on -Cove creek having two men with us that wair pilates. - -Sund 2d--this morning is a very hard frost we Start early travel over -powels mountain and camp in the head of Powels valey whear there is -verey good food. - -mond 3d We Start early travel down the valey cross powels River go some -throu the woods without aney track cross some Bad hils git into -hendersons Road camp on a creek in powels valey. - -Tuesday 4th Raney, we Start about 10 oclock and git down to Capt. -martins in the valey where we over take Coln henderson & his Companey -Bound for Caintuck & there we camp this Night there they were Broiling & -Eating Beef without Bread. - -Wednesday 5th Breaks away fair & we go on down the valey & camp on -indian Creek we had this creek to cross maney times & very Bad Banks -Abrams saddel turnd & the load all fell in we go out this Eavening & -kill two Deer. - -thurs 6th this morning is ahard frost & we wait at Camp for Coln -henderson & companey to come up they come up about 12 o'clock & we join -with them and camp there Still this night waiting for some part of the -companey that had thier horses ran away with their packs. - -fryday 7th this morning is a very hard snowey morning we still continue -at Camp Being in number about 40 men & Some neagros this Eaven--Comes a -letter from Capt. Boone at caintuck of the indians doing mischief and -some turns back. - -1775 - -Satrd April 8th--We all pact up and started crost Cumberland gap about -one oclock this Day We Met a great maney peopel turned Back for fear of -the indians but our Companey goes on Still with good courage we come to -a very ugly Creek with steep Banks & have it to cross several times on -this Creek we camp this night. - -Sunday 9th--this morning we wait at camp for the cattle to Be drove up -to kill a Beef tis late Before they come & peopel makes out alittel -snack & agree to go on till Night we git to Cumberland River & there we -camp meet 2 more men turn Back. - -Monday 10th--this is alowry morning & very like for Rain & we keep at -Camp this day and some goes out ahunting. I & two more goes up avery -large mountain Near the tops we saw the track of two indians & whear -they had lain unter some Rocks some of the companey went over the River -a bofelo hunting but found None at night Capt. hart comes up with his -packs & there they hide some of thier lead to lighten thier packs that -they may travel faster. - -tuesday 11th--this is a very loury morning & like for Rain But we all -agree to start Early we cross Cumberland River & travel Down it about 10 -miles through Some turrabel cainbrakes as we went down abrams mair ran -into the River with Her load & Swam over he folowd her & got on her & -made her Swim Back agin it is a very raney Eavening we take up Camp near -Richland Creek they kill a beef Mr. Drake Bakes Bread without washing -his hands we Keep Sentry this Night for fear of the indians. - -Wednesday 12th this is a Raney morning But we pack up & go on we come to -Richland Creek it is high we toat our packs over on a tree & swim our -horses over & there we meet another Companey going Back they tell such -News Abram & Drake is afraid to go aney further there we camp this -night. - -thursday 13th this morning the weather Seems to breake & Be fair Abram & -Drake turn Back we go on & git to loral River we come to a creek Before -wheare we are able to unload & toate our packs over on a log this day we -meet about 20 more turning Back we are obligd to toat our packs over -loral river & swim our horses one hors Ran in with his pack & lost it in -the River & they got it agin. - -fryday 14th--this is a clear morning with a smart frost we go on & have -a very mire Road and camp this Night on a creek of loral River and are -surprisd at camp By a wolf. - -Satterday 15th clear with a Small frost we start early we meet Some men -that turns & goes With us we travel this Day through the plais caled the -Bressh & crofs Rockcass River & camp ther this Night & have fine food -for our horses. - -Sunday 16th--cloudy & warm we start early & go on about 2 mile down the -River and then turn up a creek that we crost about 50 times Some very -bad foards with a great Deal of very good land on it in the Eavening we -git over to the waters of Caintuck & go a littel Down the creek & there -we camp keep sentry the forepart of the night it Rains very har all -night. - -monday 17th this is a very rany morning But breaks about a 11 oclock & -we go on and camp this Night in several companeys on Some of the creeks -of Caintuck. - -tuesday 18th fair & cool and we go on about 10 oclock we meet 4 men from -Boons camp that caim to cunduck us on we camp this night just on the -Begining of the good land near the Blue lick they kill 2 bofelos this -Eavening. - -Wednesd 19th Smart frost this morning they kill 3 bofelos about 11 -oclock we come to where the indians fired on Boons company & kild 2 men -& a dog & wounded one man in the thigh we campt this night on oter -creek. - -thursday 20th this morning is clear and cool. We start early and git -Down to caintuck to Boons foart about 12 o'clock wheare we stop they -come out to meet us & welcom us in with a voley of guns. - -fryday 21st warm this Day they Begin laying off lots in the town and -prearing for peopel to go to worck to make corn. - -Satterday 22nd they finish laying out lots this Eavening I went -a-fishing and cactht 3 cats they meet in the night to Draw for choise -of lots but refer it till morning - -1775 - -Sunday April 23d this morning the peopel meets & Draws for chois of -loots this is a very warm day. - -monday 24th We all view our loots & Some Dont like them about 12 oclock -the Combses come to town & Next morning they make them a bark canew and -Set off down the River to meet their Companey. - -tuesday 25th in the eavening we git us a plaise at the mouth of the -creek & begin clearing. - -Wednesday 26th We Begin Building us a house & a plaise of Defense to -Keep the indians off this day we Begin to live without Bread. - -thursday 27th Raney all Day But We Still keep about our house. - -Satterday 29th--We git our house kivered with Bark & move our things -into it at Night and Begin houskeeping Eanock Smith Robert Whitledge & -my Self. - -May, Monday first I go out to look for my mair and saw 4 bufelos the -Being the first that I Saw & I shot one of them but did not git him when -I caim Home Eanock & Robin had found the mair & was gone out a hunting -& did Not come in for--Days and kild only one Deer. - -tuesday 2d I went out in the morning & kild a turkey and come in & got -some on for my breakfast and then went & Sot in to clearing for -Corn."[7] - -The personal statement of Mrs. Elizabeth Thomas is of interest in this -connection. She was one of Col. Calloway's company that followed -Henderson in September 1775. This statement is preserved in the library -of the Wisconsin Historical Society and reads: - -"I was born in Virginia on the 4^{th} day of Sept 1764 In Rockbridge -county near the Natural Bridge my father moved on the North Fork of -Holston within 4 or 5 miles of Abbingdon & remained there two or three -years and in March 1775 we moved down Holstien near the Big Island, -[Long Island] where we remained until Sept 1775 when Col Calloway and -his company came along going to Kentucky, when my father William Pogue -packed up and came with him with our family, Col Boone and with his -wife and family and Col Hugh Mcgary, Thomas Denton and Richard Hogan -were on the road before us and when we arrived at Boonesborough the -latter part of September There was only fur [four] or six cabbins built -along on the Bank of the Kentucky river but not picketted in being open -on two sides."[8] - -This was the great pathway of early pioneers to Kentucky, and the course -of the marvelous floodtide of immigration which swept over the mountains -in the last three decades of the eighteenth century. - -[Illustration: FILSON'S MAP OF KENTUCKY (1784)] - -The itineraries of early travelers describe the Wilderness Road in -definite terms. One of the earliest is that given by John Filson, whose -history of Kentucky was published as early as 1784. It described the -route from Philadelphia to Louisville (eight hundred and twenty-six -miles), as follows: - - Miles - From Philadelphia to Lancaster, 66 - To Wright's on the Susquehanna, 10 - To Yorktown, 12 - To Abbotstown, 15 - To Hunterstown, 10 - To mountain at Black's Gap, 3 - To other side of the mountain, 7 - To Stone-house Tavern, 25 - To Wadkin's Ferry on Potomac 14 - To Martinsburg, 13 - To Winchester, 13 - To Newtown, 8 - To Stoverstown, 10 - To Woodstock, 12 - To Shenandoah River, 15 - To North Branch Shenandoah, 29 - To Staunton, 15 - To North Fork James River, 37 - To Botetourt C. H., 12 - To Woods on Catawba River 21 - To Paterson.s. on Roanoke, 9 - To Alleghany Mountain, 8 - To New River, 12 - To Forks of Road, 16 - To Fort Chissel, 12 - To Stone Mill, 11 - To Boyds, 8 - To Head of Holstein, 5 - To Washington C. H., 45 - To the Block-house, 35 - To Powell Mountain, 33 - To Walden's Ridge, 3 - To Valley Station, 4 - To Martin's Cabin, 25 - To Cumberland Mountain, 20 - To Cumberland River, 13 - To Flat Lick, 9 - To Stinking Creek, 2 - To Richland Creek, 7 - Down Richland Creek, 8 - To Racoon Spring, 6 - To Laurel River, 2 - To Hazel Patch, 15 - To Rockcastle River, 10 - To English Station, 25 - To Col. Edward's Crab Orchard, 3 - To Whitley's Station, 5 - To Logan's Station, 5 - To Clark's Station, 7 - To Crow's Station, 4 - To Harrod's Station, 3 - To Harlands', 4 - To Harbisons, 10 - To Bardstown, 25 - To Salt Works, 25 - To Falls of the Ohio, 20 - --- - 826 - -Mr. Speed preserves for us the itinerary with "observations and -occurrences" of William Brown, the father of Judge Alfred M. Brown, of -Elizabeth town, Kentucky. "It is contained in a small manuscript book," -writes Mr. Speed, "which has been preserved in the family. It is -especially interesting from the fact that immediately upon his arrival -in Kentucky, by the journey of which he made a complete record, the -Battle of Blue Licks occurred. He aided in burying the slain, among whom -was his own brother, James Brown." The itinerary and "observations and -occurrences" follow:[9] - - (1782) - - "Hanover to Richmond, Henrico Co., 18 - To Widow Simpson's, Chesterford, 14 - To Powhatan Co. House, 16 - To Joseph Thompson's at the forks of - the road, 8 - To Long's Ordinary, Buckingham, 9 - To Hoolen's on Willis Creek, 8 - To Mrs. Sanders, Cumberland, 3 - To Widow Thompson's passing Hood's and - Swiney's, 27 - To Captain Hunter's, 5 - To Thompson's on the Long Mo., Campbell, 5 - To Dupriest, 6 - To New London, 10 - To Liberty Town, 16 - To Yearley's, at Goose Creek, Bedford, 12 - To M. Loland, at the Blue Ridge Gap, 6 - To Big Flat Lick, 10 - To Fort Lewis, Botetourt, 12 - To Hans' Meadows, 20 - To English's Ferry, New River, 12 - To Fort Chiswell, 30 - To Atkins' Ordinary, 19 - To Mid Fork Holstein, -- - To Cross White's, Montgomery, 3 - To Col. Arthur Campbell's, 3 - To 7-mile Ford of Holstein, 6 - To Maj. Dysart's Mill, 12 - To Washington Co. House, 10 - To Head of Reedy Creek, Sullivan Co., - North Carolina, 20 - To Block House, 13 - To North Fork Holstein, 2 - To Moccasin Gap, 5 - To Clinch River, 11 - To Ford of Stock Creek, 2 - To Little Flat Lick, 5 - To North Fork of Clinch, 1 - To Powell's Mountain, 1 - To Wallan Ridge, 5 - To Valley Station, 5 - To Powell's River, 2 - To Glade Spring, 4 - To Martin's Station, 19 - To Big Spring, 12 - To Cumberland Mountain Gap, 8 - To Yellow Creek, 2 - To Cumberland River, 13 - To Big Flat Lick, 9 - To Little Richland Creek, 10 - To Big Richland Creek, 1 - To Robinson Creek, 10 - To Raccoon Spring, 1 - To Laurel River, 2 - To Little Laurel River, 5 - To Raccoon Creek, 8 - To Hazel Patch, 4 - To Rockcastle Creek, 6 - To Rockcastle River, 7 - To Scaggs' Creek, 5 - To Head of Dicks River, 15 - To English Station, 8 - To Crab Orchard, 3 - To Logan's Old Fort, 11 - To Doehurty's Station, 8 - To Harrod's Station, 6 - To Harrodsburg, 6 - From Hanover to Harrodsburg is 555 miles. - -_Observations and Occurrences_: Set Out from Hanover Monday, 27th May, -1782; arrived at the Block-house about the first week in July. The road -from Hanover to this place is generally very good; crossing the Blue -Ridge is not bad; there is not more than a small hill with some winding -to go over. Neither is the Alleghany Mountain by any means difficult at -this gap. There are one or two high hills about New River and Fort -Chiswell. The ford of New River is rather bad; therefore we thought it -advisable to cross in the ferry-boat. This is generally a good-watered -road as far as the Block-house. We waited hereabouts near two weeks for -company, and then set out for the wilderness with twelve men and ten -guns, this being Thursday, 18th July. The road from this until you get -over Wallen's Ridge generally is bad, some part very much so, -particularly about Stock Creek and Stock Creek Ridge. It is a very -mountainous country hereabout, but there is some fine land in the -bottoms, near the watercourses, in narrow slips. It will be but a thin -settled country whenever it is settled. The fords of Holstein and Clinch -are both good in dry weather, but in a rainy season you are often -obliged to raft over. From them along down Powell's Valley until you get -to Cumberland Gap is pretty good; this valley is formed by Cumberland -Mountain on the northwest, and Powell Mountain on the southeast, and -appears to bear from northeast southwestwardly, and is, I suppose, about -one hundred miles in length, and from ten to twelve miles in breadth. -The land generally is good, and is an exceeding well-watered country, as -well as the country on Holstein River, abounding with fine springs and -little brooks. For about fifty miles, as you travel along the valley, -Cumberland Mountain appears to be a very high ridge of white rocks, -inaccessible in most places to either man or beast, and affords a wild, -romantic prospect. The way through the gap is not very difficult, but -from its situation travelers may be attacked in some places, crossing -the mountain, by the enemy to a very great disadvantage. From thence -until you pass Rockcastle River there is very little good road; this -tract of country is very mountainous, and badly watered along the trace, -especially for springs. There is some good land on the water-courses, -and just on this side Cumberland River appears to be a good tract, and -within a few years I expect to have a settlement on it. Some parts of -the road are very miry in rainy weather. The fords of Cumberland and -Rockcastle are both good unless the waters be too high; after you cross -Rockcastle there are a few high hills, and the rest of the way tolerable -good; the land appears to be rather weak, chiefly timbered with oak, -etc. The first of the Kentucky waters you touch upon is the head of -Dick's River, just eight miles from English's. Here we arrived Thursday, -25th inst., which is just seven days since we started from the -Block-house. Monday, 29th inst., I got to Harrodsburg, and saw brother -James. The next day we parted, as he was about setting off on a journey -to Cumberland. - -On Monday, August 19th, Colonel John Todd, with a party of one hundred -and eighty-two of our men, attacked a body of Indians, supposed to -number six or seven hundred, at the Blue Lick, and was defeated, with -the loss of sixty-five persons missing and slain. - -_Officers lost_: Colonels--John Todd and Stephen Trigg; Majors--Edward -Bulger and Silas Harlan; Captains--W. McBride, John Gordon, Jos. -Kincaid, and Clough Overton; Lieutenants--W. Givens, and John Kennedy; -Ensign--John McMurtry. - -In this action brother James fell. On Saturday 24th inst., Colonel -Logan, with four hundred and seventy men, went on the battle-ground and -buried the slain; found on the field, slain, forty-three men, missing, -twenty-two, in all sixty-five. - -I traveled but little about the country. From English's to Harrodsburg -was the farthest west, and from Logan's Fort to the Blue Lick the -farthest north. Thus far the land was generally good--except near and -about the Lick it was very poor and badly timbered--generally badly -watered, but pretty well timbered. At Richmond Ford, on the Kentucky -River, the bank a little below the ford appears to be largely upward of -a hundred feet perpendicular of rock. - -On my return to Hanover I set off from John Craigs' Monday, 23d -September, 1782; left English's Tuesday, 1 o'clock, arrived at the -Block-house the Monday evening following, and kept on the same route -downward chiefly that I traveled out. Nothing material occurred to me. -Got to Hanover sometime about the last of October the same year." - -Thomas Speed's grandfather gives the following itinerary from "Charlotte -Court-House to Kentucky" under date of 1790: - - Miles - "From Charlotte Court-House - to Campbell Court-House, 41 - To New London, 13 - To Colonel James Callaway's, 3 - To Liberty, 13 - To Colonel Flemming's, 28 - To Big Lick, 2 - To Mrs. Kent's, 20 - To English's Ferry, 20 - To Carter's, 13 - To Fort Chissel, 12 - To the Stone-mill, 11 - To Adkins', 16 - To Russell Place, 16 - To Greenaway's, 14 - To Washington Court-House, 6 - To the Block-house, 35 - To Farriss's, 5 - To Clinch River, 12 - To Scott's Station, 12 - To Cox's at Powell River, 10 - To Martin's Station, 2 - To--[manuscript defaced] - To Cumberland Mountain 3 - To Cumberland River, 15 - To Flat Lick, 9 - To Stinking Creek, 2 - To Richland Creek, 7 - To Raccoon Spring, 14 - To Laurel River, 2 - To Hazel Patch, 15 - To Rockcastle, 10 - To--[manuscript defaced]." - -The foregoing itineraries afford us some conception of the settlements -and "improvements" that sprang up along the winding thoroughfare from -Virginia to Kentucky. The writer has sought with some care to know more -of these--of the modes of travel, the entertainment which was afforded -along the road to men and beasts, and the social relation of the greater -settlements in Virginia and Kentucky to this thin line of human lives -across the continent. Very little information has been secured. It is -plain that the great immigration to Kentucky would have been out of the -question had there been no means of succor and assistance along the -road. There were many who gained their livelihood as pioneer innkeepers -and provisioned along Boone's Road. Among the very few of these of whom -any record is left, Captain Joseph Martin is perhaps the most prominent -and most worthy of remembrance. Martin's "cabin" or "station," as it is -variously termed, occupied a strategic point in far-famed Powell's -Valley, one hundred and eighty miles west of Inglis Ferry, twenty miles -east of Cumberland Gap and about one hundred and thirty miles southeast -of Crab Orchard and Boonesborough. Captain Martin was Virginia Agent -for Indian affairs, and was the most prominent man in the scattered -settlements in Powell's Valley, where he was living at the time of the -founding of Boonesborough. Later he made his headquarters at Long Island -in North Carolina. It is plain from Colonel Henderson's journal that -wagons could proceed along Boone's Road in 1775 no further than Martin's -cabin. Here everything was transferred to the packhorses. Several -letters from Colonel Henderson to Captain Martin, preserved by the -Wisconsin Historical Society, give us a glimpse of silent Powell's -Valley. One of them reads: - - "Boonesborough - 12^{th} June 1775 - - Dear Sir: - - M^r Ralph Williams, David Burnay, and William Mellar will apply to - you for salt and other things which we left with you and was sent - for us since we came away--Please to deliver to them, or those they - may employ what they ask for, and take a receipt--Also write me a - few lines informing me, what you have sent &c by hem & by whom--I - long much to hear from you, pray write me at Large, how the matter - goes with you in the valey, as well as what passes in Virginia--If - the pack-horsemen should want any thing towards securing my books - from Damage pack-saddles, provisions, or any thing which you see is - necessary; please to let them have it on our acc^t.--All things - goes well hitherto with us, I hope the[y] do with you would have - sent your Mares but am afraid they are not done horsing They will - be safely brought by my brother in a few weeks - - I am D^r Sir your - Hble Serv^t - Rich^d. Henderson - M^r Joseph Martin in the Valley"[10] - -On July 20 he wrote again: - -"Am sorry to hear that the People in the valey are distressed for -provisions and ammunition have given some directions to my brother to -assist you a little with Powder. - -Standly, I suppose has before now delivered your Inglish mare, and the -other you'l receive by my brother--when we meet will render an acc^t. -for my behaviour in Keeping them so long--We did not forget you at the -time of making Laws, your part of the Country is too remote from ours to -attend our Convention you must have Laws made by an Assembly of your -own, I have prepared a plan which I hope you'l approve but more of that -when we meet which I hope will be soon, tho 'til Col. Boone comes cant -say when--Am extreamly sorry for the affair with the Indians on the 23^d -of last month. I wish it may not have a bad effect, but will use my -endeavors to find out who they were & have the matter settled--your -spirited conduct gives me great Pleasure--Keep your men in heart if -possible, now is our time, the Indians must not drive us--depend upon it -that the Chief men and warriors of the Cherokees will not countenance -what there men attempted and will punish them--Pray my Dear Sir dont let -any person settle Lower down the valey I am affraid they are now too -low & must come away I did not want any person to settle yet below -Cumberland gap--My Brother will [tell] you of the news of these -parts--in haste D^r Sir...." - -In December, John Williams wrote Captain Martin from Boonesborough and -his letter gives us a closer insight into affairs along Boone's Road: - -"... With respect to the complaints of the inhabitants of Powells Valley -with regard to cattle being lodged there, I should think it altogether -unjust than [that] non-inhabitants should bring in cattle to destroy and -eat up the range of the inhabitants' stock; Yet, Sir, I cannot conceive -that Col. Hart's stopping his stock there, when on their way here, to -recruit them for their journey, can be the least infringement. Col. Hart -is a proprietor, & [has] as great a right in the country as any one man. -In the Valley are many lands yet unentered; and certainly if there be a -right in letting stock into the range, he has a right equal to any man -alive. I therefore hope you will endeavor to convince the inhabitants -thereof, and that it is no indulgence to Col. Hart, but a right he -claims, and what I think him justly entitled to. - -I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you at Boonesborough the 21^{st} -instant--in the meantime making not the least doubt but that you will -use every justifiable Method in Keeping up peace and harmony in the -Valley"[11] - -As indicated in the former letter, the emigrants from the colonies were -encroaching upon the Cherokee lands beyond the Henderson purchase. -Joseph Martin was under the necessity of protesting to the Assembly of -North Carolina against settlers from that state pressing beyond the -Henderson lands and settling in the Cherokee country.[12] It is seen by -Colonel Henderson's letter that Boone's Road marked the most westerly -limit to which pioneers could go with safety. Irresponsible Cherokees -invaded the Henderson purchase, and equally irresponsible (or ignorant) -whites invaded the Cherokee country. The difficulty probably lay in not -having a definite, plain boundary line that he who ran might recognize. - -The settlement here in Powell's Valley meant everything to the pioneers -of Kentucky. This is made additionally plain by the attempt of -interested parties to have Captain Martin's Indian Agency removed from -Long Island to a point on Boone's Road near Cumberland Gap. In December -1782 William Christian wrote Governor Harrison from "Great [Long] -Island," explaining the dependence of the inhabitants (undoubtedly both -red and white) upon Martin in time of need. "I find," he wrote, "that -the party here, consisting of fifty odd, are living on Col. Martin's -corn. Whenever a family begins to be in a starving condition, it is very -probable they will push for this place & throw themselves upon him for -bread."[13] - -Fourteen days later he wrote from Mahanaim to "Hon. Col. Sampson -Matthews" of Richmond; protesting against Virginia's Indian Agency being -kept at Long Island, North Carolina; and urging that it be removed to -near Cumberland Gap: - -"The Gap is near half way betwixt our settlements on Holston and -Kentucky, and a post there would be a resting place for our poor -citizens going back and forward, and would be a great means of saving -the lives of hundreds of them. For it seldom happens that Indians will -kill people near where they trade; & it is thereabouts the most of the -mischief on the road has been done.... I view the change I propose as of -great importance to the frontier of Washington, [County] to our people -journeying to & from Kentucky, particularly the poor families moving -out...."[14] - -It was, throughout the eighteenth century, exceedingly dangerous to -travel Boone's Road; and those who journeyed either way joined together -and traveled in "companies." Indeed there was risk enough for the most -daring, in any case; but a well-armed "company" of tried pioneers on -Boone's Road was a dangerous game upon which to prey. It was customary -to advertise the departure of a company either from Virginia or -Kentucky, in local papers; in order that any desiring to make the -journey might know of the intended departure. The principal rendezvous -in Kentucky was the frontier settlement of Crab Orchard. Certain of -these advertisements are extremely interesting; the verbal changes are -significant if closely read: - - Notice - - is hereby given, that a company will meet at the Crab Orchard, on - Sunday the 4^{th} day of May, to go through the wilderness, and to - set out on the 5^{th}. at which time most of the Delegates to the - state convention will go[15] - - A large company will meet at the Crab orchard on sunday the - 25^{th} of May, in order to make an early start on Monday the - 26^{th} through the wilderness for the old settlement[16] - - A large company will meet at the Crab Orchard on the 15^{th}. day - of May, in readiness to start on the 16^{th}. through the - Wilderness for Richmond[17] - - Notice - - Is hereby given that several gentlemen propose meeting at the - Crab-orchard on the 4^{th}. of June in perfect readiness to move - early the next morning through the Wilderness[18] - - Notice - - A large company will meet at the Crab-Orchard the 19^{th}. of - November in order to start the next day through the Wilderness. As - it is very dangerous on account of the Indians, it is hoped each - person will go well armed[19] - -It appears that unarmed persons sometimes attached themselves to -companies and relied on others to protect them in times of danger. One -advertisement urged that everyone should go armed and "not to depend on -others to defend them."[20] - -The frequency of the departure of such companies suggests the great -amount of travel on Boone's Road. As early as 1788 parties were -advertised to leave Crab Orchard May 5, May 15, May 26, June 4, and June -16. Nor does it seem that there was much abatement during the more -inclement (safer?) months; in the fall of the same year companies were -advertised to depart November 19, December 9, and December 19. Yet at -this season the Indians were often out waylaying travelers--driven no -doubt by hunger to deeds of desperation. The sufferings of such -redskinned marauders have found little place in history; but they are, -nevertheless, particularly suggestive. One story, which has not perhaps -been told _ad nauseam_, is to the point; and would be amusing if it were -not so fatally conclusive. In the winter of 1787-88 a party on Boone's -Road was attacked by Indians not far from the Kentucky border. Their -horses were plundered of goods, but the travelers escaped. Hurrying "in" -to the settlements a company was raised to make a pursuit. By their -tracks in the snow the Indians were accurately followed. They were -overtaken at a camp, where they were drying their blankets, &c., before -a great fire. At the first charge the savages, completely surprised, -took to their heels--stark naked. Not satisfied with recovering the -stolen goods the Kentuckians pursued the fugitives into the mountains. -Along the course they found trees stripped of pieces of bark, with which -the Indians had attempted to cover their bodies. They were not -overtaken, though some of their well protected pursuers had their own -feet frost-bitten. The awful fate of the savages is unquestionable. - -Before Richard Henderson arrived in Kentucky Daniel Boone wrote him: "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 flustrate -the intentions of the Indians, and keep the country whilst we are in it. -If we give way to them now, it will ever be the case." - -This letter shows plainly how the best informed man in Kentucky regarded -Henderson's settlement at Boonesborough. Henderson's purchase was -repudiated by both Virginia and North Carolina; but the Virginia -Legislature confirmed Henderson's sales of land, in so far as they were -made to actual settlers, and not to speculators, Henderson and his -associates were granted land in lieu of that taken from them. The -Transylvania Company, while looked upon askance by many who preferred to -risk their tomahawk claim rights to those the Company granted, exerted -as great a moral influence in the first settlement of Kentucky as Daniel -Boone affirmed it would--a greater influence than any other company -before the Revolutionary War. - -What it meant to the American colonies to have a brave band of pioneers -in Kentucky at that crucial epoch, is an important chapter in the -history of Boone's Road. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -KENTUCKY IN THE REVOLUTION - - -History was fast being made in Kentucky when the Revolutionary struggle -reached the crisis in 1775 at Concord and Lexington. South of the Ohio -River Virginia's new empire was filling with the conquerors of the West. -The Mississippi Valley counted a population of thirteen thousand, three -thousand being the population of New Orleans. St. Louis, in Spanish -possession, was carrying on a brisk trade with the Indians on the -Missouri. Vincennes, the British port on the Wabash, had a population of -four hundred whites. Detroit, the metropolis of the West, numbered -fifteen hundred inhabitants, more than double the number in the dashing -days of Gladwin only a decade before. The British flag also waved at -Kaskaskia on the Mississippi, and at Sandusky. This fringe of British -forts on the north was separated from the American metropolis of the -West, Pittsburg, and from the first fortresses built in Kentucky, by -leagues of forests, dark as when Bouquet pierced them; and filled with -sullen Indian nations, awed for the time being by Dunmore's invasion, -but silently biding their time to avenge themselves for the loss of the -meadow lands of Ken-ta-kee. - -Such was the condition of affairs when, in April 1775, the open struggle -for independence of the American colonies was roughly precipitated at -Lexington. It might seem to the casual observer that the colonists, who -were now hastening by way of Boone's Wilderness Road into the Virginian -Kentucky, could not feel the intense jealousy for American interests -which was felt by the patriots in the East. On the contrary, there is -evidence that these first pioneers into the West had a profound -knowledge of the situation; and a sympathy for the struggling patriots, -which was enhanced even by the distance which separated them, and the -hardships they had endured. Not a few of them, too, had known personally -of the plundering British officials and the obnoxious taxes. It is the -proud boast of Kentuckians that in the center of their beautiful Blue -Grass country was erected the first monument to the first dead of the -Revolution. A party of pioneers heard the news of the Battle of -Lexington while sitting about their camp fire. Long into the night the -rough men told and retold the news, and before morning named the new -settlement they were to make, Lexington, in honor of New England's dead. - -It was not at all evident at first what the war was going to amount to -in the West. Scarcely more was known in the West of the Revolutionary -War than had been known two decades before of the French and Indian War. -But at the outset it was plain that there was to be a tremendous -struggle on both sides to gain the allegiance, as the British desired, -of the Indian nations which lay between the Ohio River and the Great -Lakes. For two years the struggle in the East went on, engrossing the -entire attention of both parties. During 1776 and 1777 the history of -the West is merely the continuation of the bloody story of the years -which led up to Dunmore's campaign, like the savage attack on Wheeling, -in September, 1777. Slowly the Indians forgot Lewis's crushing victory -at Point Pleasant, and their solemn pledges at Camp Charlotte; and were -raiding the feeble Kentucky posts with undiminished relish, or giving -the Long Knives plenty of provocation for the barbarities of which the -latter are known to have been guilty. - -The opening scene of the Revolutionary War in the West was the most -important phase of the war in the history of Boone's Wilderness Road; -for at the very outset the question was decided once for all whether or -not that thin, long, priceless path to Kentucky through the Watauga -settlement was to be held or lost. If it could not be held, there was no -hope left for the brave men who had gone to found that western empire -beyond the Cumberland Mountains. With their line of retreat cut in two -by the southern Indians, they were left without hope of succor or -success: for the success of their enterprise depended upon the -inspiration their advance gave to those behind them. None would come if -the Wautauga settlement did not survive. - -The British agents among the Southern Indians--the Cherokees, Creeks, -Choctaws and Chickasaws--precipitated a quick and early struggle along -this historic pathway by goading the Indians into a murderous attack -upon the Watauga settlement. The Cherokees who had sold the Transylvania -Company its lands, were the most easily incited to war, and fifty -packhorse loads of ammunition scattered through their towns in those -deep mountain valleys where the two Carolinas and Georgia meet, -determined an outburst in July, 1776. Straight north from them lay the -rude beginnings of civilization on the headwaters of the Tennessee, and -further "in" was the frontier line of Virginia. The headquarters of the -Watauga settlement may be said to have been Fort Watauga, commanded by -the heroes Robertson and Sevier; here Boone had made the treaty with the -Cherokees for Richard Henderson, a trifle over a year ago. Eaton's, Evan -Shelby's, John Shelby's, Campbell's, and the Wommack forts were the -important way stations on this path from Virginia to Kentucky. Two -Indian parties larger than the others made for Fort Watauga and Eaton's -Station, and the defenders of the latter post, learning from their -scouts that a formidable array under the notorious Dragging Canoe was -coming, resolved to give them a hot, unexpected welcome. Accordingly, on -the morning of July twentieth nearly two hundred brown forms could have -been seen stealing away from the fort in two thin lines half lost in the -fog toward the open land known as "the Flats" near the "Long Island" of -the Holston. In the march an advance party of a score of savages was met -and put to flight. No other signs of the enemy could be discovered and -the men started back to their fort at the end of the day. - -Dragging Canoe, not less audacious than his foes, awaited his time, and -when the whites were marching homeward, came down upon them, his savages -forming a wedge-shaped line of battle. Instantly the borderers fell back -to the right and left, and with a desperate quietness awaited the -onslaught. The Indian plan of rushing the whites off their feet by an -overwhelming charge failed; the borderers settled deeper into the -ground and met the rush and dashed the savage line into fragments. One -charge--and all was over. There was no recovering from this form of -attack for untrained soldiery, and the assaulting band instantly broke -and fled. This battle of Long Island Flats was the first of the series -of victories for the Watauga pioneers; its importance can hardly be -measured today. - -Its best fruit was that it brought other victories to the encouraged -Wataugans. On the same day the other Indian horde invested and assailed -Fort Watauga at dawn. Only about two score men were at home to defend a -large number of women and children, but they were fully equal to the -emergency and with a frightful burst of fire drove back the line of -savages which could just be seen advancing at that hour when Indians -invariably made their attacks--the early dawn. Robertson was senior -officer in command, and Sevier his brave assistant. The latter, having -learned of the Indian uprising, characteristically wrote a message to -the people far away on the Virginia border to look well to their -homes--never even asking that assistance be sent to the much more feeble -and vastly more endangered Watauga settlement on the Kentucky road. - -Elsewhere the border warfare was being waged with varying fortune; a -small band of Georgian frontiersmen invaded the Cherokee country[20*] in -the hope of capturing a notorious British agent, Cameron; it suffered -heavily through the faithlessness of the Cherokees. The whole southern -frontier was aroused, and plans for dashes into the Cherokee country -were made but could not be forwarded simultaneously. Yet Cameron and his -Tories and Indians acted in unison and brought sudden desolation into -South Carolina. The force of the blow was broken by the brave Colonel -Andrew Williamson, who, gathering over a thousand volunteers near the -end of July began the first important invasion of the Cherokee country. -Near Eseneka, the Cherokee town, the Carolinians found Cameron and won a -costly victory. After some internal dissensions the little army got on -its mettle and went steadily forward to wipe out the lower Cherokee -towns, which was completely accomplished by the middle of August. -Scarcity of ammunition, only, kept Williamson from attacking the middle -towns. - -This task fell to the lot of the second expedition into the Cherokee -country. This was a joint campaign waged by North and South Carolina, -and Virginia, each to furnish two thousand men. The North Carolinians -under Rutherford were earliest in the field. This officer with -twenty-four hundred men left the head of the Catawba and opened -"Rutherford's Trace" leading to Swananoa Gap in the Blue Ridge and on to -the middle Cherokee towns by way of Warrior's Ford of French Broad and -Mount Cowee. The middle towns were destroyed, and, uniting with -Williamson, the two bodies of men swept over the Cherokee valley towns -until "all the Cherokee settlements west of the Appalachians had been -destroyed from the face of the earth, neither crops nor cattle being -left." - -While the Carolinians had been sweeping into the lower Cherokee country, -the Virginia troops had been assembling at the Long Island of the -Holston under their leader Colonel William Christian. Their campaign -against the Overhill towns was slowly formed here on the little westward -pathway, and it was not until the first of October that all the -contributions of men and arms from the settlements between Fort Watauga -and the Virginia frontier were received. The advance, by way of Big -Island of the Holston, was slow but determined--each encampment being -made absolutely secure against surprise. The Indians, learning of the -strength of Christian's army, knew better than to resist. They retired -without a struggle and the borderers reached the heart of the Overhill -country on the fifth day of November. Here they ravaged, burned, and -razed to their hearts' content, until a deputation imploring peace came -from the broken tribes. In this action old Dragging Canoe would have no -part but stole away with a few followers toward the Chickamauga. -Christian agreed to a treaty which definitely marked out the boundary -line between the Indians and the whites, and then returned home leaving -a garrison near the Kentucky path by the Holston. In the words of -Roosevelt, who of all writers has done this campaign most justice: "The -Watauga people and the westerners generally were the real gainers by the -war. Had the Watauga settlements been destroyed, they would no longer -have covered the Wilderness Road to Kentucky; and so Kentucky must -perforce have been abandoned. But the followers of Robertson and Sevier -stood stoutly for their homes; not one of them fled over the mountains. -The Cherokees had been so roughly handled that for several years they -did not again go to war as a body; and this not only gave the settlers a -breathing time, but also enabled them to make themselves so strong that -when the struggle was renewed they could easily hold their own. The war -was thus another and important link in the chain of events by which the -west was won; and had any link in the chain snapped during these early -years, the peace of 1783 would probably have seen the trans-Alleghany -country in the hands of a non-American power." If the holding of this -pathway was of such moment the value of the pathway is plainly -understood. - -Turning now to the end of Boone's Road, it will be necessary to review -briefly the Revolutionary War in the "far" West; though in many of the -campaigns the road itself played no part, in a large and genuine sense -it was the pilgrims of Boone's Road who fought the most important -battles of the Revolution in the West. - -Early in the struggle in the West, far-sighted ones saw signs of the -growing despicable alliance of the savages to British interests; and -before the bloody year of 1778 opened, it was only a question of how -much England wanted of the savage allies who were crowded about their -forts along the lakes. It is a terrible blot on the history of British -rule in America, that when driven to face the same situation, English -officers in the West used every means of retaliation for the use of -which they so roundly condemned French officials a quarter of a century -before. American officers employed Indians as guides and scouts, and -were guilty of provoking inter-tribal war; but they did not pay Indians -for bringing in British scalps, or praise them for their murderous -successes and equip them for further service. As a brave American -officer said, "Let this reproach remain on them"--and the people of the -West will never forget the reproach, nor forgive! They remember, and -always will remember, the burning words of Washington written more than -ten years after the close of the Revolution: "All the difficulties we -encounter with the Indians, their hostilities, the murder of helpless -women and children along all our frontiers, results from the conduct of -the agents of Great Britain in this country." There are today, in -hundreds of homes of descendants of the pioneers in Kentucky, memories -of the inhuman barbarities of British officers during the Revolution; -these will never be forgotten, and will never fail to prejudice -generations yet unborn. The reproach will remain on them. - -At the outbreak of the war, chiefs of the Indian nations were invited to -Pittsburg, where the nature of the struggle was explained to them in the -following parable: - -"Suppose a father had a little son whom he loved and indulged while -young, but growing up to be a youth, began to think of having some help -from him; and making up a small pack, he bid him carry it for him. The -boy cheerfully takes this pack up, following his father with it. The -father finding the boy willing and obedient, continues in this way; and -as the boy grows stronger, so the father makes the pack in proportion -larger; yet as long as the boy is able to carry the pack, he does so -without grumbling. At length, however, the boy having arrived at -manhood, while the father is making up the pack for him, in comes a -person of an evil disposition, and, learning who was to be the carrier -of the pack, advises the father to make it heavier, for surely the son -is able to carry a larger pack. The father, listening rather to the bad -adviser than consulting his own judgment and the feelings of tenderness, -follows the advice of the hard-hearted adviser, and makes up a heavy -load for his son to carry. The son, now grown up, examining the weight -of the load he is to carry, addresses the father in these words: 'Dear -Father, this pack is too heavy for me to carry, do pray lighten it; I -am willing to do what I can, but am unable to carry this load.' The -father's heart having by this time become hardened, and the bad adviser -calling to him, 'Whip him if he disobeys,' and he refusing to carry the -pack, the father orders his son to take up the pack and carry it off or -he will whip him, and already takes up a stick to beat him. 'So,' says -the son, 'am I to be served thus for not doing what I am unable to do? -Well, if entreaties avail nothing with you, Father, and it is to be -decided by blows, whether or not I am able to carry a pack so heavy, -then I have no other choice left me, but that of resisting your -unreasonable demand by my strength, and thus by striking each other -learn who is the strongest.'" - -The Indians were urged to become neutral in the struggle that was -opening. Impossible as such a course would have been to men who loved -war better than peace, certain tribes promised to maintain neutrality. -In a few months, however, most of the nations were in open or secret -alliance with British officers. Only the better element of the Delaware -nation, led by Captain White Eyes, became attached to the American -cause. England was always handicapped in her use of the American Indian, -because of the want of men who could successfully exert control over -him. Even when the forts of the French in the West passed into British -possession, Frenchmen were retained in control, since no Englishman -could so well rule the savages who made the forts their rendezvous. The -beginning of the successful employment of the Indians against the -growing Virginian empire south of the Ohio, and against the multiplying -cabins and forts of the Long Knives, may loosely be said to have begun -in the spring of 1778 when three northern renegades, Simon Girty, -Matthew Elliott, and Alexander McKee, eluded the continental General -Hand at Pittsburg and took service under Lieutenant-governor Hamilton at -Detroit. Bred to border warfare, and well known among the Indians from -the Susquehanna to the Missouri, these three men were the "most -effective tools for the purposes of border warfare" that the British -could have secured. Hamilton immediately began to plan the invasion of -Pennsylvania and the conquest of Pittsburg. The campaign was condemned -by his superiors in the East, and was forgotten by its originator--when -the news of a bold invasion of his own territory by a Virginian army -suddenly reached his ears. - -The Transylvania Company came silently but suddenly to an end when the -Kentuckians elected George Rogers Clark and Gabriel John Jones members -of the Virginian assembly, for the assembly erected the county of -Kentucky out of the land purchased by Henderson at Fort Watauga in 1775. -Upon bringing this about, Clark, a native of Virginia and a hero of -Dunmore's War, returned to Kentucky nourishing greater plans. With clear -eyes he saw that the increasing affiliation of Indian and British -interests meant that England, even though she might be unsuccessful in -the East, could keep up an interminable and disastrous warfare "along -the rear of the colonies," as long as she held forts on the northern -edge of the Black Forest. Clark sent spies northward, who gained -information confirming his suspicions; and then he hurried eastward, -with his bold plan of conquering the "strongholds of British and Indian -barbarity"--Kaskaskia, Vincennes, and Detroit. - -He came at a fortunate time. The colonies were rejoicing over the first -great victory of the early war, Saratoga. Hope, everywhere, was high. -From Patrick Henry, Governor of Virginia, Clark received two orders, one -of which was to attack the British post Kaskaskia. He at once set out -for Pittsburg to raise, in the West (where both Dunmore and Lewis raised -their armies), troops for the most brilliant military achievement in -western history. Descending the Ohio to Kentucky, where he received -reenforcements, Clark marched silently through the forests--with one -hundred and thirty-five chosen men--to Kaskaskia, which he took in utter -surprise July 4, 1778. "Keep on with your merriment," he said to -revelers whom he surprised at a dance, "but remember you dance under -Virginia, not Great Britain." Clark brought the news of the alliance -recently made between France and the United States into the Illinois -country and used it with telling effect. A French priest at Vincennes -raised a Virginian flag over that fort, telling the inhabitants and the -Indians that their "French Father had come to life." In October Virginia -incorporated the "County of Illinois" within her western empire--the -first portion of the land north of the Ohio River to come under the -administration of one of the states of the Union. - -Contemporaneously with Clark's stirring conquest, an expedition was -raised at Pittsburg to march against the Indians in the neighborhood of -the British fort at Sandusky--possibly to counteract the rumored attempt -to invade Pennsylvania, by Hamilton at Detroit. Troops and supplies were -to be assembled at Fort Pitt, where the famous route of Bouquet was to -be followed toward the lakes. The expedition was put in charge of -General Lachlan McIntosh. Distressing delays made the half-hearted -Indians who were to guide the army, chafe; and McIntosh started before -his stores arrived, fearing that longer delay would alienate his -friendly Indians, among whom was the Delaware, White Eyes, now turned -from a neutral course. At the mouth of the Beaver River McIntosh built -the fort which bears his name--the first fort built by the Americans on -the northern side of the Ohio. Advancing westward over Bouquet's -tri-trail track with twelve hundred men, he reached the Muskingum -(Tuscarawas) River in fourteen days, arriving November 19, 1778, where -he erected Fort Laurens. - -But Lieutenant-governor Hamilton, learning of Clark's seizure of -Kaskaskia and the treachery of the fickle inhabitants of Vincennes, set -about to reconquer Illinois. Departing from Detroit on a beautiful -October day, the expedition descended the Detroit River and entered the -Maumee. The weather changed and it was seventy-one days before the -American Captain Helm at Vincennes surrendered his wretched fort and -became a prisoner of war. Hamilton was unable to push on to Kaskaskia -because of the lack of provisions, and sat down to watch the winter out -where he was. Thus the spectacular year 1778 closed--Clark at -Kaskaskia, watching his antagonist feasting at Vincennes; McIntosh's -little guard at Fort Laurens undergoing continual harassing and siege. -In the East the evacuation of Philadelphia, the battle of Monmouth, and -the terrible Wyoming massacre were the events of the year. - -The year 1779 was to see as brilliant an achievement in the West, as the -East was to see in the capture of Stony Point. This was the recapture of -Vincennes by Clark. Joined by an experienced adventurer, Colonel Francis -Vigo, formerly of the Spanish service, Clark was persuaded that he must -capture Hamilton or Hamilton would capture him. Accordingly, on the -fifth of February, Clark set out for Vincennes with one hundred and -seventy trusty men. In twelve days they reached the Embarras River, -which was crossed on the twenty-first with great bravery, the men wading -in water to their shoulders. On the twenty-fifth, Hamilton, the most -surprised man in the world, was compelled to surrender. Within two weeks -he was on his way to Virginia; where, being found guilty of buying -Virginian scalps from the Indians, he was imprisoned, but was exchanged -the year following. - -In July, while returning from New Orleans with supplies; Colonel Rogers -and his party of Kentuckians were overwhelmed by Indians, under Girty -and Elliott, on the Ohio River. In a terrible running battle sixty -Kentuckians were killed. The sad news spread quickly through Kentucky -and a thousand tongues called loudly for revenge. In response Major -Bowman led three hundred volunteers up the Scioto Valley and attacked -the Shawanese capital. There was bungling somewhere and a retreat was -ordered before victory was achieved. - -During this summer the conqueror of Illinois expected to complete his -triumph by the capture of Detroit. A messenger from Thomas Jefferson, -Governor of Virginia, brought tidings that troops for this expedition -would be forthcoming from Virginia and Kentucky, and rendezvous at -Vincennes in July. When the time came, Clark found only a few soldiers -from Kentucky and none at all from Virginia. The Detroit expedition -fell through because of Virginia's poverty in money and in men; though -artillery, ammunition, and tools had been secured for the campaign from -Fort Pitt, at Washington's command. But with masterly foresight Governor -Jefferson secured the establishment of a fort on the Mississippi River -in the Illinois country. During this summer the little garrison which -General McIntosh left buried in the Black Forest at Fort Laurens fled -back over the trail to Pittsburg. Nowhere north of the Ohio were the -scenes frequently enacted in Kentucky reproduced so vividly as at little -Fort Laurens, on the upper Muskingum. At one time fourteen of the -garrison were decoyed and slaughtered. At another time an army numbering -seven hundred warriors invested the little half-forgotten fortress and -its intrepid defenders. A slight embankment may be seen today near -Bolivar, Ohio, which marks one side of the first fort erected in what is -now Ohio, those near the lake shore excepted. Thus closed the year 1779: -Clark again in possession of Vincennes, as well as Kaskaskia and -Cahokia, but disappointed in the failure of the Detroit expedition; -Hamilton languishing in a Virginia dungeon, twelve hundred miles from -his capital--Fort Detroit; Fort Laurens abandoned, and the Kentucky -country covered with gloom over Rogers's terrible loss and Bowman's -inglorious retreat from the valley of the Scioto. On the other hand, the -East was glorying in Mad Anthony Wayne's capture of Stony Point, -Sullivan's rebuke to the Indians, and Paul Jones's electrifying victory -on the sea. - -In 1780 four expeditions set forth, all of them singular in character, -and noteworthy. The year before, 1779, Spain had declared war upon -England. The new commander at Detroit took immediate occasion to regain -control of the Mississippi by attacking the Spanish town of St. Louis. -This expedition, under Captain Sinclair, descended the Mississippi from -Prairie du Chien. The attack was not successful, but six whites were -killed and eighteen taken prisoner. - -At the time of Bowman's expedition against the Shawanese, in the -preceding year a British officer, Colonel Bird, had assembled a -noteworthy array at Sandusky preparatory to the invasion of Kentucky. -News of the Kentucky raid up the Scioto Valley set Bird's Indians to -"cooking and counselling" again, instead of acting. This year Bird's -invasion materialized, and the fate of the Kentucky settlements trembled -in the balance. The invading army of six hundred Indians and Canadians -was armed with two pieces of artillery. There is little doubt that this -army could have battered down every "station" in Kentucky and swept -victoriously through the new settlements. Ruddles's station on the -Licking was first menaced, and surrendered quickly. Martin's fort also -capitulated. But here Bird paused in his conquest and withdrew -northward, the barbarity of the Indian allies, for once at least, -shocking a British commander. The real secret of the abrupt retreat lay -no doubt in the fact that the increasing immigration had brought such -vast numbers of people into Kentucky that Bird dared not penetrate -further into the land for fear of a surprise. The gross carelessness of -the newly arrived inhabitants, in not taking the precaution to build -proper defenses against the Indians, undoubtedly appeared to the British -commander as a sign of strength and fortitude which he did not have the -courage to put to the test. As a matter of fact, he could probably have -annihilated every settlement between the Ohio River and Cumberland Gap. - -In retaliation Kentucky sent an immense army north of the Ohio, a -thousand men volunteering under Clark, the hero of Vincennes. A large -Indian army was routed near the Shawanese town Pickaway. Many towns with -standing crops were burned. A similar expedition from Pittsburg under -General Brodhead burned crops and villages on the upper Muskingum. - -In return for the attack on St. Louis, the Spanish commander at that -point sent an expedition against the deserted British post of St. -Joseph. Upon declaring war against England in the previous year, Spain -had occupied Natchez, Baton Rouge, and Mobile, which, with St. Louis, -gave her command of the Mississippi. But his Catholic Majesty was -building other Spanish castles in America. He desired the conquest of -the British northwest, to offset the British capture of Gibraltar. This -"capture" of St. Joseph led to an amusing but ominous claim on the part -of Spain at the Treaty of Paris: when, with it for a pretext, the -Spanish Crown claimed all lands west of a line drawn from St. Joseph -southward through what is now Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, -Alabama, and Mississippi. The Mississippi River boundary was, however, -stoutly contended for and obtained by the American commissioners. - -In this year the first "gunboat" to ply western waters was built under -direction of Brigadier-general Clark. It was a galley armed with light -artillery. This queer-looking craft soon fell into disuse, though it -became a terror to the Indians who continually infested the lower Ohio. -It was relished little better by the militia, who disliked service on -water. But it stands as a typical illustration of the enterprise and -devotion of the "Father of Kentucky" to the cause for which he had done -so much. - -The year following, 1781, saw the termination of the Revolution in the -East, when Cornwallis's army marched down the files of French and -American troops at Yorktown to the melancholy tune "The World's Turned -Upside Down." The Treaty of Paris was not signed until 1783, and in the -meantime the bloodiest year of all the war in the West, 1782, was adding -its horrors to all that had gone before. While the East was rejoicing, -the central West saw the terrible massacre of Gnadenhutten--the more -terrible because committed by white men themselves. - -In May, 1782, the atrocities of the savages (encouraged by the British) -along the Pennsylvanian and Virginian border were becoming unbearable, -and an expedition was raised in the Monongahela country to penetrate to -the Indian-infested country on the Sandusky River. Volunteers, four -hundred in number, all mounted, rendezvoused at the Ohio near Mingo -Bottom; they elected as commander Colonel William Crawford, an -experienced officer of the Revolutionary War, following Washington -faithfully through the hard Long Island and Delaware campaigns. Crawford -struck straight through the forests, even avoiding Indian trails, at -first, in the hope of taking his foe utterly by surprise. But his wily -foe completely outwitted him and the Indians and British knew well each -day's progress. The battle was fought in a prairie land near the -Sandusky River in what is now Crawford County, Ohio, and though not a -victory for either side, an American retreat was ordered during the -night following. Colonel Crawford was captured, among others, and -suffered a terrible death at the stake, perhaps the saddest single -atrocity committed by the redman in western history. This gray-haired -veteran of the Revolution gave his life to appease the Indians for a -massacre of Christian Indians perpetrated by savage borderers from the -Monongahela country the year previous. - -Kentucky had witnessed minor activities of the savages during the -spring. In August a grand Indian army assembled on the lower Scioto for -the purpose of invading Kentucky. The assembly was harangued by Simon -Girty, and moved southward and invaded Bryant's Station, one of the -strongest forts in Kentucky. After a terrible day, during which -re-enforcements kept arriving, only to be compelled to fight their way -into the fort or flee, Girty attempted to secure capitulation. -Outwitted, the renegade resorted to a stratagem, as cunningly devised as -it was terribly successful. In the night the entire Indian army vanished -as if panic-stricken. Meat was left upon the spits. Garments lay strewn -about the encampment and along the route of the fugitive army. The more -experienced of the border army, which was soon in full cry on the trail, -scented the deception; but the headstrong hurried onward in hope of -revenge. At the crossing of the Licking, near the lower Blue Licks, the -Indian ambush received the witless pursuers with a frightful burst of -flame, and the battle of Blue Licks became a running fire, a headlong -rout and massacre. - -A thousand men joined Clark for a retaliatory invasion of the north, and -the usual destruction of villages and crops was accomplished. This may -be considered the last military event in the Revolutionary War in the -West. - - - - -CHAPTER V - -AT THE END OF BOONE'S ROAD - - -On the nineteenth of April, 1775, the rumble of the running fire at -Lexington and Concord told that the farmers of New England had at last -precipitated the struggle which had been impending for a full -generation. It was a roar that, truly, was "heard round the world." - -One day later, April 20, 1775, Colonel Henderson and his fellow-pioneers -of the Transylvania Company reached Boonesborough; there they were -joyfully received by a running fire of five and twenty muskets -discharged by Boone's vanguard, which had preceded them to cut the road. -If the musket-shot behind the New England stone walls was heard round -the world, the rattle of that score of muskets in distant Kentucky was -heard around a continent. The former uttered a hoarse defiance to -tyrants--a cry to God for liberty; what was the faint roar which echoed -back a thousand mountain miles from Kentucky but an answer to that cry? -an assurance that "to him that hath shall be given?" There is something -divinely significant to me in the coincidence of the opening shock of -the Revolution, and the arrival in Kentucky of the first considerable -body of determined, reputable men. - -The story of the Revolutionary War in the West has been told in -preceding pages, as the merest record of fact. It is unnecessary to -state that it was the most important conflict ever waged there, and it -is equally trite to observe that the struggle centered around Kentucky. -Boone's Road had made possible the sudden movement of population -westward, and this pioneer host immediately drew upon itself the enemies -that otherwise would have scourged the frontiers of New York, -Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina. The first and principal -portion of the Kentucky pioneers--those who fought the Revolutionary -battles--entered Kentucky by the Cumberland Gap route. James Lane Allen -writes: "That area [Kentucky] has somewhat the shape of an enormous -flat foot, with a disjointed big toe, a roughly hacked-off ankle, and a -missing heel. The sole of this huge foot rests solidly on Tennessee, the -Ohio River trickles across the ankle and over the top, the big toe is -washed entirely off by the Tennessee River, and the long-missing heel is -to be found in Virginia, never having been ceded by that State. Between -the Kentucky foot and the Virginia heel is piled up this immense, bony, -grisly mass of the Cumberland Mountain, extending some three hundred -miles northeast and southwest. It was through this heel that Kentucky -had to be peopled. The thin, half-starved, weary line of pioneer -civilizers had to penetrate it, and climb this obstructing mountain -wall, as a line of traveling ants might climb the wall of a castle. In -this case only the strongest of the ants--the strongest in body, the -strongest in will--succeeded in getting over and establishing their -colony in the country far beyond. Luckily there was an enormous -depression in the wall, or they might never have scaled it. During about -half a century this depression was the difficult, exhausting -entrance-point through which the State received the largest part of its -people, the furniture of their homes, and the implements of their -civilization; so that from the very outset that people represented the -most striking instance of a survival of the fittest that may be observed -in the founding of any American commonwealth. The feeblest of the ants -could not climb the wall; the idlest of them would not."[21] Mr. Speed -agrees wholly in this opinion: "The settlers came in ... increasing -numbers.... A very large proportion came over the Wilderness Road."[22] -In the early days river travel was not practicable. During the -Revolutionary War and for some time thereafter travel down the Ohio -River was dangerous, both because of the hostility of the savages and -because of the condition of the river. In earlier days the journey from -the Ohio into the populated parts of Kentucky was a great hardship. The -story of one who emigrated to Kentucky by way of the Ohio shows plainly -why many preferred the longer land route by way of Cumberland Gap. The -following is from an autobiographical statement made by Spencer Record, -preserved by the Wisconsin Historical Society: - -"About the Twentieth of November (1783) we embarked on the Monongahela -in our boat, in company with Kiser, I having with me four head of horses -and some cattle. We landed at the mouth of Limestone Creek, but there -was then, no settlement there. We made search for a road, but found -none. There was indeed a buffalo road, that crossed Limestone Creek a -few miles above its mouth, and passing May's lick about twelve miles -from Limestone, went on to the Lower Blue Lick on Licking river, and -thence to Bryant's station: but as we knew nothing of it, we went on, -and landed at the mouth of Licking river, on the twenty ninth of the -month. - -"The next day, we loaded periogue, and a canoe, and set off up Licking, -sometimes wading and pulling our periogue and canoe over the ripples. -After working hard for four days, we landed, hid our property (which -was whiskey and our farming utensils) in the woods, and returned to the -Ohio, which by this time had taken a rapid rise and backed up Licking, -so that we took Kiser's boat up, as far as we had taken our property and -unloaded her. We left on the bank of Licking, a new wagon and some -kettles. Leaving our property to help Kiser, we packed up and set off up -Licking, and travelled some days; but making poor progress, and snow -beginning to fall, with no cane in that part of the country, for our -horses and cattle, we left Kiser and set off to hunt for cane. He sent -his stock with us, in care of Henry Fry, who had come down in his boat -with cattle for his father. - -"When we came to the fork of Licking we found a wagon road cut out, that -led up the South fork. This road had been cut by Colonel Bird, a British -officer, who had ascended Licking in keel boats, with six hundred -Canadians and Indians. They were several days in cutting out this road -which led to Riddle's fort, which stood on the east side of Licking, -three miles below the junction of Hinkston's and Stoner's fork, yet our -people knew nothing of it, till they were summoned to surrender.... We -took the road and went on, the snow being about half leg deep. Early in -the morning, about three miles from Riddle's fort, we came to three -families encamped. They had landed at Limestone but finding no road, -they wandered through the woods, crossed Licking, and happening to find -the road, took it.... We went on to the fort, where we found plenty of -cane. The next morning, John Finch and myself set off to try to find -Lexington, and left the horses and cattle ... as there was no road, we -took up Will creek, and towards the head of it we met some hunters, who -lived on the south side of Kentucky river who gave us directions how to -find a hunting trace, that led to Bryant's station.... We went on, found -the trace, and arrived at Bryant's station."[23] - -Adding to the difficulties of land travel the dangers of the river tide, -the difficulty of securing boats, and their great cost, it is little -wonder that emigrants from Virginia preferred the long but better-known -land route, through Powell's Valley and Cumberland Gap to the Braddock -Road and the Ohio River. At a later date, however, the difficulties of -river passage were materially decreased and the Ohio became the great -outward emigrant route. - -But for the return traffic from Kentucky to Virginia, there was no -comparison between the ease of the land route and the water route. Mr. -Speed affirms that the road through Cumberland Gap "was the only -practicable route for all return travel."[24] Of course for a long -period there were no exports from Kentucky, as hardly enough could be -raised to feed the multitude of immigrants; but when at last Kentucky -strode to the front with its great harvests of wheat and tobacco, the -Mississippi and Ohio ports received them. - -The East received comparatively little benefit, in a commercial way, -from Boone's Road; but in the earliest days that slight track furnished -a moral support that can hardly be exaggerated. The vast population that -surged westward over it was a mighty barrier which protected the rear of -the colonies from the savages, until savage warfare was at an end. -Though the frontiers of New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia suffered -greatly during the Revolution, it was Kentucky that was the thorn in the -side of the British; Kentucky drew the fire of both British and Indians -which otherwise would have desolated the rear of the eastern colonies, -and necessitated a greater number of men than could possibly have been -maintained there. It was not at Fort Pitt that the British were -constantly striking, but at the Kentucky "stations;" it was not up the -Allegheny or Monongahela that Colonel Burd pushed his keel boats, but up -the Licking. This fact is splendidly urged by Col. John Floyd, in a -letter to the governor of Virginia written on the sixth of October, -1781, in a plea for assistance in maintaining the Kentucky settlements: - -"... A great deal more might be said concerning the dangerous situation -of these counties, but I have not been informed whether Government think -it absolutely necessary for the advantage of the community at large to -defend this country [Kentucky] at so considerable expense as must be -incurred thereby; and I therefore beg leave to offer your Excellency one -or two reasons why it may be of advantage to defend the Kentucky -country. It is now beyond a doubt, that the attention of at last [least] -6000 savage warriors is fixed on this spot, and who will not disturb any -other part of the Continent as long as we maintain our ground. But, on -the contrary, as soon as this country is laid waste, they will -immediately fall upon the inhabitants of Washington, Montgomery, -Greenbriar, &c--in short, from South Carolina to Pennsylvania. I believe -all the counties on the west side of the Blue Ridge were kept for many -years penned up in forts by the Shawanese, Mingoes, Delawares & a few of -their adherents; if so what will be the consequence when at least -fifteen powerful Nations are united and combined with those above -mentioned against about twelve hundred militia dispersed over three -very extensive counties. Those nations have absolutely been kept off -your back settlements by the inhabitants of Kentucky. Two or three -thousand men in this country would be sufficient to defend it, and -effectually secure the back settlements on New River & its waters, as -well as those high up James River & Roanoake."[25] - -In addition to conferring the inestimable advantage of defending the -frontiers of the colonies, the early settlement and the holding of -Kentucky insured American possession of the Middle West; this meant -everything to the East--for the steady, logical expansion of the nation -was the one hope of the country when independence was secured. Upon the -Americanization of the Mississippi Valley depended the safety of the -eastern colonies, and their commercial and political welfare. It meant -very much to the East that a strong colony was holding its own on the -Ohio and Mississippi during the hours when the Revolutionary struggle -was in progress; and it meant even more to the East that, upon the -conclusion of that struggle, thousands whose future seemed as black as -the forests of the West could immediately emigrate thither and begin -life anew. But for the Virginians and Kentuckians along the Ohio it is -almost certain that Great Britain would have divided the eastern half of -this continent with the triumphant revolutionists. For the few posts -along the lakes that she did hold there was a spirited wrangle for -twenty years, until they were at last handed over to the United States. -Boone did not blaze his road one day too soon, and the hand of divine -Providence is not shown more plainly in our national history than by the -critical timeliness with which these pioneers were ushered into the -meadow lands of Ken-ta-kee. The onslaughts of Shawanese and Wyandot did -not overwhelm them; nor were they daunted by the plotting of desperate -British officers, who spread ruin and desolation along the flank and -rear of the fighting colonies. - -Again, this earliest population in the immediate valley of the -Mississippi had a powerful influence on the attitude of the United -States toward the powers that held the Mississippi. Had it not been for -a Kentucky in embryo in 1775-82, it is unquestionable that the confused -story of the possession of that great river valley would have been worse -confounded. The whirl of politics in Kentucky during the four decades -after the Revolutionary War daunts even the student of modern Kentucky -politics; and of one thing we may rest assured--had the State possessed -a little less of the sober sense that came from Virginia through -Cumberland Gap, it is certain the story of those wild days would not be -as readable to modern Kentuckians as it is. It was more than fortunate -for the young Republic that at the close of the Revolution there was a -goodly population of expatriated Virginians and North Carolinians on the -Mississippi, ready to press its claims there. - -Thus we may briefly suggest the benefits which the older colonies -received from the earliest settlers in Kentucky--and but for Boone's -Road made by the Transylvania Company, it is exceedingly doubtful, as -Boone wrote, whether the settlement of Kentucky would have been -successfully inaugurated as early as 1774. At any rate Boone's Road -brought into Kentucky thousands of pioneers who probably would have -refused to move westward by the Ohio River route. - -As for the benefit Kentucky itself received from Boone's Road, that is -self-evident. Taking everything into consideration, no distinct movement -of population in America, before or since, can compare in magnitude with -the burst of immigration through Cumberland Gap between 1775 and 1790. -Never on this continent was a population of seventy thousand people -located, within fifteen years of the day the first cabins were erected, -at an equal distance from the existing frontier line. It is difficult to -frame the facts of this remarkable phenomenon in language that will -convey the full meaning. If the brave pioneers from Connecticut who -founded the Northwest Territory at Marietta, Ohio, in 1788, had gone on -to Kentucky, they would have found themselves, within twelve years, in -as populous a state as that they left in New England. The Stanwix Treaty -and Boone's Road largely answer the question why Kentucky contained -more than one-half as many inhabitants as Massachusetts, twenty-five -years after its first settlement was made; and why it was admitted into -the Union four years before Tennessee, ten years before Ohio, -twenty-four years before Indiana, twenty-six years before Illinois -(bounded by the Ohio and Mississippi and Lake Michigan), and -twenty-eight years before Maine. Between 1790 and 1800 the population of -Kentucky jumped from 70,000 to 220,000, only one-third less than proud -Maryland, and five times that of Ohio. In the census of 1790 Kentucky -stood fourteenth in a grouping of sixteen states and territories, while -in 1800 it stood ninth. In 1790 it exceeded the population of Rhode -Island, Delaware and Tennessee. In 1800 it exceeded New Jersey, New -Hampshire, Georgia, Vermont, Maine, Tennessee, Rhode Island, and -Delaware. In this year it had one hundred and sixty thousand more -inhabitants than Indiana Territory, Mississippi Territory, and Ohio -Territory combined. In the decade mentioned, New York State increased in -population two hundred and fifty thousand; far-away Kentucky increased -one hundred and forty-seven thousand. - -But the West as a whole was benefited by Boone's Road. The part played -by this earliest population of Kentucky in the development of the -contiguous states--Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri--has never been -emphasized sufficiently. No Ohio historian has given sufficient -attention to the part played by Kentuckians in the conquest of that area -of territory. The struggle between the Kentuckians and the Ohio Indians -has been outlined. The former fought for and saved to the Union the -great territory south of the Ohio; and then left their smoking cabins -and threw themselves ever and anon across the Ohio, upon the Indian -settlements between that river and the Great Lakes. Where is even the -Kentucky historian who has done his state justice in telling the story -of Kentucky's conquest of Ohio and Indiana? Of the brilliant operations -of Clark in Illinois we know very much, and the part played by the -Kentuckians on the Mississippi and Illinois has frequently been made -plain. But a singular misconception of the nature of Indian warfare has -robbed the heroes of old Kentucky of much honor due them. Judged by -ordinary military standards, the numerous invasions of Ohio and Indiana -by Kentuckians amounted to little. Such was not the real case, many -times. The Indians could ever retreat helter-skelter into the forests, -avoiding more than a mere skirmish with the advancing pioneers. But they -could not take their crops--and the destruction of one slight maize crop -meant more to the invading army than the killing of many savages. The -killing of the Indians did nothing but aggravate hostilities and long -delay the end of the conflict. On the other hand, slaying redskins -became the passion of the whites, and it is probable that many of their -expeditions seemed failures if blood was not spilt. But their very -presence in the Indian land and the destruction of the grain fields was -more to their purpose, could they only have realized it. The Indians -were then compelled to live largely on game, and as this grew more -scarce each year the simple problem of obtaining subsistence became -serious. The hunters were compelled to go further and further into the -forest, and the tribes followed them. By doing nothing more than burning -the harvest fields and ruining the important springs, the whites were -slowly but surely conquering the trans-Ohio country.[26] By such a -process one river valley after another was deserted, until, when the -first legalized settlement was made in Ohio--at Marietta, in 1788--the -Muskingum, Scioto and Miami valleys were practically deserted by -redskins. Little as the Indians relished the new settlement at Marietta, -they paid practically no attention to it but kept their eyes on the -populated valleys of Kentucky, where their enemies of so many years' -standing had settled, held their own, and then carried fire and sword -northward. In October 1788 Governor Arthur St. Clair wrote the Hon. Mr. -Brown of Danville, Kentucky, to give warning of the Indian war that -seemed imminent; "The stroke, if it falls at all, will probably fall -upon your country," he wrote.[27] And the Indian War of 1790 was -precipitated because of Indian marauds along the Kentucky border--not -because of attacks upon the settlements along the upper Ohio. The -Kentuckians had played a preeminent part in driving the Indians back to -the head of the Wabash and the mouth of the Maumee, in the two decades -preceding the Indian War which opened in 1790, and during that war they -were to the American armies what the English were to the allies at -Waterloo. Local histories and local historians have created the -impression that Ohio was conquered largely by Ohioans. Nothing could be -more misleading. - -Far-reaching as the influence of the little roadway through Cumberland -Gap has been, its actual history is of little interest or importance. -Perhaps none of our ancient roads has done so much for society in -proportion to the attention paid to it. Any adjective ever applied to a -roadway, if it were of a derogatory character, might have been fitly -applied to portions of this old track which played an important part in -giving birth to the first and most important settlement in the West. -During the few important years of its existence Boone's Road was only -what Boone made it--a blazed foot-path westward. It was but the merest -foot-path from 1774 to 1792, while thousands floundered over its -uncertain track to lay the rude foundations of civilization in the land -to which it led. "There are roads that make a man lose faith," writes -Mr. Allen; "It is known that the more pious companies [of pioneers] as -they traveled along, would now and then give up in despair, sit down, -raise a hymn, and have prayers said before they could go farther." There -was probably not a more desperate pioneer road in America than this. The -mountains to be crossed, the rivers and swamps the traveler encountered, -were as difficult to overcome as any on Braddock's Road; and Boone's -Road was very much longer, even if measured from its technical -starting-point--the Watauga settlement. - -As early as 1779 the Virginia Assembly took up the subject of a western -highway, and commissioners were appointed to explore the region on both -sides of the mountains, to choose a course for a roadway, clear and -open the route, and render a report upon the advisability of making a -wagon road. Yet no improvement followed. The narrow path--rough, -treacherous, almost impassable--remained the only course. A vivid -description of what a journey over it meant in this year, 1779, has been -left us by Chief-justice Robertson in an address given at Camp Madison, -Franklin County, Kentucky, half a century ago: - -"This beneficent enactment [the land law] brought to the country during -the fall and winter of that year an unexampled tide of emigrants, who, -exchanging all the comforts of their native society and homes for -settlements for themselves and their children here, came like pilgrims -to a wilderness to be made secure by their arms and habitable by the -toil of their lives. Through privations incredible and perils thick, -thousands of men, women, and children came in successive caravans, -forming continuous streams of human beings, horses, cattle, and other -domestic animals, all moving onward along a lonely and houseless path to -a wild and cheerless land. Cast your eyes back on that long procession -of missionaries in the cause of civilization; behold the men on foot -with their trusty guns on their shoulders, driving stock and leading -packhorses; and the women, some walking with pails on their heads, -others riding with children in their laps, and other children swung in -baskets on horses, fastened to the tails of others going before; see -them encamped at night expecting to be massacred by Indians; behold them -in the month of December, in that ever memorable season of unprecedented -cold called the 'hard winter,' traveling two or three miles a day, -frequently in danger of being frozen or killed by the falling of horses -on the icy and almost impassable trace, and subsisting on stinted -allowances of stale bread and meat; but now lastly look at them at the -destined fort, perhaps on the eve of merry Christmas, when met by the -hearty welcome of friends who had come before, and cheered by fresh -buffalo meat and parched corn, they rejoice at their deliverance, and -resolve to be contented with their lot. - -"This is no vision of the imagination, it is but an imperfect -description of the pilgrimage of my own father and mother, and of many -others who settled in Kentucky in December, 1779." - -Not until 1792 was the mountain route improved. "In that year," writes -Mr. Speed, "according to an account-book recently found among the Henry -Innis Papers, by Colonel John Mason Brown ... a scheme was projected for -the clearing and improvement of the Wilderness Road, under the direction -of Colonel John Logan and James Knox. It was a private enterprise -altogether; the subscribers to it are set down in the book as follows: - - Isaac Shelby, L3 0s - Robert Breckinridge, 2 8 - George Nicholas, 2 8 - Henry Pawling, 1 10 - John Brown, 2 8 - James Brown, 1 16 - Alexander S. Bullitt, 2 8 - Wm. McDowell, 1 10 - Edward S. Thomas, 1 10 - Joseph Crockett, 1 18 - Wm. King, 10 - Wm. Montgomery, jr., 1 10 - John Hawkins, 1 10 - Samuel Woods, 1 4 - Hubbard Taylor, 2 8 - Thomas Todd, 1 10 - Wm. Steele, 1 10 - James Trotter, 1 18 - Joseph Gray, 2 2 - Joshua Hobbs, 1 4 - Robert Todd, 1 10 - Jesse Cravens, 1 10 - David Knox, 1 12 - Thomas Lewis, 1 10 - Samuel Taylor, 1 4 - John McKinney, 1 18 - Nicholas Lewis, 1 4 - Jacob Froman, 3 0 - Richard Young, 1 4 - James Davies, 1 10 - Robert Patterson, 1 10 - Robert Mosby, 1 10 - John Watkins, 1 4 - Matthew Walton, 1 16 - John Jouett, 1 10 - Robert Abel, 12 - John Wilson, 12 - Richard Taylor, 1 10 - Arthur Fox, 1 0 - John Caldwell, 12 - George Thompson, 1 4 - Baker Ewing, - Abe Buford, 1 8 - Willis Green, 1 10 - Wm. Montgomery, sr., 1 10 - Morgan Forbes, 18 - Daniel Hudgins, 6 - Samuel Grundy, 1 10 - James Hays, 1 10 - James Edwards, 9 - Wm. Campbell, 12 - David Stevenson, 9 - Hugh Logan, 6 - Peter Troutman, 12 - Thomas Montgomery, 6 - John Vauhn, 6 - Elijah Cravens, 6 - Richard Chapman, 6 - James Sutton, 3 - Joseph Lewis, 6 - Wm. Baker, 6 - Richard Jackman, 6 - Jonathan Forbes, 12 - Isaac Hite, 12 - John Blane, 12 - Abraham Hite, 12 - John Caldwell, 1 4 - Peyton Short, 1 10 - George M. Bedinger, 18 - Alex. D. Orr, 1 10 - Philip Caldwell, 1 4 - Cornelius Beatty, 1 16 - Nathaniel Hart, 1 4 - John Grant, 1 10 - Andrew Holmes, 1 16 - Alex. Parker, 1 16 - Robert Barr, 2 8 - James Parker, 1 16 - Thomas Kennedy, 3 0 - Wm. Live, 1 18 - George Teagarden, 18 - George Muter, 1 10 - James Hughes, 1 10 - Buckner Thruston, 1 10 - John Moylan, 1 10 - Samuel McDowell, 1 4 - James Parberry, 3 0 - Joseph Reed, 2 0 - Wm. Perrett, 5 - John Robinson, 2 0 - John Wilkins, 4 - Wm. Whilley, Bacon acct. - Henry Clark, 6 - Hardy Rawles, 2 0 - James Young, 12 - John Warren, 6 - Peter Sidebottom, 6 - John Willey, 6 - Moses Collier, 12 - Abraham Himberlin, 1 0 - Alex Blane, 12 - John Jones, 18 - Levi Todd, 1 0 - Thomas Ball, 12 - -"Besides these, it appears from a note in the memorandum book there were -other subscribers. Among the Innis papers I have found the following -paper: - -'Colonel John Logan and Colonel James Knox, having consented to act as -commissioners to direct and supervise the making and opening a road from -the Crab Orchard to Powell's Valley, provided funds to defray the -necessary expenses shall be procured, we, the subscribers, do therefore -severally engage to pay the sum annexed to our names to the Hon. Harry -Innis and Colonel Levi Todd, or to their order, in trust, to be by them -applied to the payment of the reasonable expenses which the said -commissioners may incur in carrying the above design into effect, also -to the payment of such compensation to the said commissioners for their -services as the said Innis and Todd may deem adequate.' - - June 20, 1792. - - Thos. Barber, $10 - Wm. Crow, 5 - Green Dorsey, 18 - John Cochran, 4 - David Gillis, 10 - Wm. Petty, 1 - John Warren, 10 - Wm. Kenton, 1 - Philip Bush, jr., 10 - David Rice, 1 - John Rochester, 10 - John Rogers, 1 - Samuel G. Keen, 5 - Padtrick Curran, 1 - John Reedyun, 1 - Daniel Barber, 1 - Philip Yeiser, 3 - -"The money subscribed was disbursed by Harry Innis. Men were employed as -'road cutters,' as 'surveyors,' to 'carry provisions,' to 'grind corn,' -and 'collect bacon.' The pay was two shillings sixpence per day, and -the work extended over twenty-two days in the summer of 1792."[28] - -The Kentucky legislature passed an act in 1793, which provided a guard -for pilgrims on the Wilderness Road; in 1794 an act was passed for the -clearing of the Boonesborough fork of the road, from Rockcastle Creek to -the Kentucky River. In 1795 the legislature passed an act to make the -Wilderness Road a "wagon road" thirty feet wide from near Crab Orchard -to Cumberland Gap. Proposals being advertised for, the aged Daniel Boone -addressed Governor Isaac Shelby the following letter: - - "Sir feburey the 11th 1796 - - after my Best Respts to your Excelancy and famyly I wish to inform - you that I have sum intention of undertaking this New Rode that is - to be Cut through the Wilderness and I think My Self intiteled to - the ofer of the Bisness as I first Marked out that Rode in March - 1775 and Never Re'd anything for my trubel and Sepose I am No - Statesman I am a Woodsman and think My Self as Capable of Marking - and Cutting that Rode as any other man Sir if you think with Me I - would thank you to wright mee a Line by the post the first - oportuneaty and he Will Lodge it at Mr. John Miler son hinkston - fork as I wish to know Where and When it is to be Laat [let] So - that I may atend at the time - - I am Deer Sir your very omble sarvent"[29] - -Boone probably did not get the contract.[30] - -In 1797 five hundred pounds were appropriated for the repair of the road -and erection of toll-gates. The result of this and all subsequent -legislation, to preserve a thoroughfare after its day and reason for -existence had passed, is thus summed up by Mr. Allen: "But despite all -this--despite all that has been done to civilize it since Boone traced -its course in 1790 [1775?], this honored historic thoroughfare remains -today as it was in the beginning, with all its sloughs and sands, its -mud and holes, and jutting ledges of rock and loose bowlders, and twists -and turns, and general total depravity." And yet "it is impossible," -Mr. Allen continues, "to come upon this road without pausing, or to -write of it without a tribute." - -The mountainous portions of Boone's old road are the picturesque as well -as the historic portions. And come what may, this zig-zag pathway -through Powell's Valley and Cumberland Gap can never be effaced--never -forgotten. The footsteps of the tens of thousands who have passed over -it, exhausted though each pilgrim may have been, have left a trace that -a thousand years cannot eradicate. And so long as the print of those -weary feet can be seen in dark Powell's Valley, on Cumberland Gap, and -beside Yellow and Rockcastle Creeks, so long will there be a memorial -left to perpetuate the heroism of the first Kentuckians--and the memory -of what the Middle West owes to Virginia and her neighbors. For when all -is said this track from tide water through Cumberland Gap must remain a -monument to the courage and patriotism of the people of old Virginia and -North Carolina. - -Cumberland Gap, "that high-swung gateway through the mountain" stands -as "a landmark of what Nature can do when she wishes to give an -opportunity to the human race in its migrations and discoveries, without -surrendering control of its liberty and its fate." Here passed the -mound-building Indian and the buffalo, marking the first routes from -North to South across the continent. Here later passed the first -flood-tide of white men's immigration. There are few spots on the -continent, it is said, where the traveler of today is brought more -quickly to a pause, overcome equally by the stupendous panorama before -him, and by the memory of the historical associations which will assail -even the most indifferent. Ere you reach the Gap "the idea of it," -writes Mr. Allen, "dominates the mind. While yet some miles away, it -looms up, 1675 feet in elevation, some half a mile across from crest to -crest, the pinnacle on the left towering to the height of 2500 feet. It -was late in the afternoon when our tired horses began the long, winding, -rocky climb from the valley to the brow of the pass. As we stood in the -passway, amid the deepening shadows of the twilight and the solemn -repose of the mighty landscape, the Gap seemed to be crowded with -two invisible and countless pageants of human life, the one passing -in, the other passing out; and the air grew thick with unheard -utterances--primeval sounds undistinguishable and strange, of creatures -nameless and never seen by man; the wild rush and whoop of retreating -and pursuing tribes; the slow steps of watchful pioneers; the wail of -dying children and the songs of homeless women; the muffled tread of -routed and broken armies--all the sounds of surprise and delight, -victory and defeat, hunger and pain, and weariness and despair, that the -human heart can utter. Here passed the first of the white race who led -the way into the valley of the Cumberland; here passed that small band -of fearless men who gave the Gap its name; here passed the 'Long -Hunters'; here rushed armies of the Civil War; here has passed the wave -of westerly immigration, whose force has spent itself only on the -Pacific slopes; and here in the long future must flow backward and -forward the wealth of the North and the South." - - - - -FOOTNOTES: - - -[1] Johnson's _First Explorations of Kentucky_ (Filson Club -Publications, No. 13), contains the journals of Walker and Gist used in -connection with this chapter. - -[2] Johnson's _First Explorations of Kentucky_ (Filson Club Publications -No. 13), p. 59. - -[3] _First Explorations of Kentucky_ (Filson Club Publications No. 13), -pp. 85-86. - -[4] MSS. of Major Pleasant Henderson in the _Draper Collection_, -Madison, Wisconsin; _Kentucky MSS._, vol. 2, fol. 23. - -[5] Draper Collection: _Kentucky MSS._ vol. 1. - -[6] The maternal grandfather of Abraham Lincoln. - -[7] This copy of the journal was made from the original by Mary -Catharine Calk, granddaughter of Thomas Calk, Jr. - -[8] Draper Collection: _Kentucky MSS._, vol. 4, cc. p. 85. - -[9] _The Wilderness Road_: pp. 18-20. - -[10] Draper Collection: _Kentucky MSS._, vol. 1, fol. 215. - -[11] _Id._ - -[12] Draper Notes, Wisconsin Historical Society, vol. 2; _id._, _Martin -to Gov. Harrison_, Trip of 1860, vol. 3, p. 27. - -[13] _Draper Notes_, vol. 2, p. 56. - -[14] _Id._, pp. 126-127. - -[15] _Kentucky Gazette_: no. 33, April 12, 1788. - -[16] _Id._, no. 36, May 3, 1788. - -[17] _Id._ - -[18] _Id._, no. 38, May 17, 1788. - -[19] _Id._, vol. ii, no. 10, November 1, 1788. - -[20] _Id._, vol. ii, no. 14, November 29, 1788. - -[20*] See _Historic Highways of America_, vol. ii, note 32. - -[21] Allen: _The Blue Grass Region of Kentucky_, pp. 251-252. - -[22] Speed: _The Wilderness Road_, p. 30; cf. pp. 42, 43; cf. Roosevelt: -_The Winning of the West_ (1899), vol. i, p. 316. - -[23] Draper Collection: _Kentucky MSS._, vol. 23, cc. pp. 19-24. - -[24] Speed: _The Wilderness Road_, p. 30. Cf. _American Pioneer_, vol. -ii, pp. 219-220; _St. Clair Papers_, vol. ii, p. 246; _Life of Nathaniel -Massie_, p. 121; Collins's _History of Kentucky_, vol. ii, p. 327. - -[25] _Draper's Notes_, vol. II, Trip 1860, iii, p. 56. - -[26] Cf. _Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents_, vol. 1, p. 145. - -[27] _Kentucky Gazette_: vol. ii, no. 9, October 25, 1788. - -[28] _The Wilderness Road_, pp. 48-50. - -[29] Collins: _History of Kentucky_, vol. ii, p. 242. - -[30] _Id._, p. 213. - - - * * * * * - - -Transcriber's Notes: - -1. Passages in italics are surrounded by _underscores_. - -2. Obvious errors in spelling and punctuation have been corrected except -for narratives and letters included in this text. - -3. Footnotes have been moved to the end of the main text body. - -4. Images have been moved from the middle of a paragraph to the closest -paragraph break. - -5. Carat character (^) followed by a single letter or a set of letters -in curly brackets is indicative of subscript in the original book. - -6. For longtitude and latitude, the minutes and seconds are placed as -single quotes within brackets. 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