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[Illustration: DANIEL BOONE.]

[Illustration: BOONE'S FIRST VIEW OF KENTUCKY.]

    "Fair was the scene that lay
      Before the little band,
    Which paused upon its toilsome way,
      To view this new found land.

    Field, stream and valley spread,
      Far as the eye could gaze,
    With summer's beauty o'er them shed,
      And sunlight's brightest rays.

    Flowers of the fairest dyes,
      Trees clothed in richest green;
    And brightly smiled the deep-blue skies,
      O'er this enchanting scene.

    Such was Kentucky then,
      With wild luxuriance blest;
    Where no invading hand had been,
      The garden of the West."




    THE FIRST WHITE MAN OF THE WEST,

             OR THE

    LIFE AND EXPLOITS OF COL. DAN'L. BOONE,
      THE FIRST SETTLER OF KENTUCKY;

    INTERSPERSED WITH INCIDENTS IN THE
    EARLY ANNALS OF THE COUNTRY.


    BY TIMOTHY FLINT.

    1856.




CONTENTS


CHAPTER I.

Birth of Daniel Boone--His early propensities--His pranks at school--His
first hunting expedition--And his encounter with a panther.--Removal of
the family to North Carolina--Boone becomes a hunter--Description of
fire hunting, in which he was near committing a sad mistake--Its
fortunate result--and his marriage.


CHAPTER II.

Boone removes to the head waters of the Yadkin river--He meets with
Finley, who had crossed the mountains into Tennessee--They agree to
explore the wilderness west of the Alleghanies together.


CHAPTER III.

Boone, with Finley and others, start on their exploring
expedition--Boone kills a panther in the night--Their progress over the
mountains--They descend into the great valley--Description of the new
country--Herds of buffaloes--Their wanderings in the wilderness.


CHAPTER IV.

The exploring party divide into different routes--Boone and Stewart
taken prisoners by the Indians, and their escape--Boone meets with his
elder brother and another white man in the woods--Stewart killed by the
Indians, and the companion of the elder Boone destroyed by wolves--The
elder brother returns to North Carolina, leaving Boone alone in the
wilderness.


CHAPTER V.

Boone is pursued by the Indians, and eludes their pursuit--He encounters
and kills a bear--The return of his brother with ammunition--They
explore the country--Boone kills a panther on the back of a
buffalo--They return to North Carolina.


CHAPTER VI.

Boone starts with his family to Kentucky--Their return to Clinch
river--He conducts a party of surveyors to the Falls of Ohio--He helps
build Boonesborough, and removes his family to the fort--His daughter
and two of Col. Calloway's daughters taken prisoners by the
Indians--They pursue the Indians and rescue the captives.


CHAPTER VII.

Settlement of Harrodsburgh--Indian mode of besieging and
warfare--Fortitude and privation of the Pioneers--The Indians attack
Harrodsburgh and Boonesborough--Description of a Station--Attack of
Bryant's Station.


CHAPTER VIII.

Boone being attacked by two Indians near the Blue Licks, kills them
both--Is afterwards taken prisoner and marched to Old Chillicothe--Is
adopted by the Indians--Indian ceremonies.


CHAPTER IX.

Boone becomes a favorite among the Indians--Anecdotes relating to his
captivity--Their mode of tormenting and burning prisoners--Their
fortitude under the infliction of torture--Concerted attack on
Boonesborough--Boone escapes.


CHAPTER X.

Six hundred Indians attack Boonesborough--Boone and Captain Smith go out
to treat with the enemy under a flag of truce, and are extricated from a
treacherous attempt to detain them as prisoners--Defence of the
fort--The Indians defeated--Boone goes to North Carolina to bring back
his family.


CHAPTER XI.

A sketch of the character and adventures of several other
pioneers--Harrod, Kenton, Logan, Ray, McAffee, and others.


CHAPTER XII.

Boone's brother killed, and Boone himself narrowly escapes from the
Indians--Assault upon Ashton's station--and upon the station near
Shelbyville--Attack upon McAffee's station.


CHAPTER XIII.

Disastrous battle near the Blue Licks--General Clarke's expedition
against the Miami towns--Massacre of McClure's family--The horrors of
Indian assaults throughout the settlements--General Harmar's
expedition--Defeat of General St. Clair--Gen. Wayne's victory, and a
final peace with the Indians.


CHAPTER XIV.

Rejoicings on account of the peace--Boone indulges his propensity for
hunting--Kentucky increases in population--Some account of their
conflicting land titles--Progress of civil improvement destroying the
range of the hunter--Litigation of land titles--Boone loses his
lands--Removes from Kentucky to the Kanawha--Leaves the Kanawha and goes
to Missouri, where he is appointed Commandant.


CHAPTER XV.

Anecdotes of Colonel Boone, related by Mr. Audubon--A remarkable
instance of memory.


CHAPTER XVI.

Progress of improvement in Missouri--Old age of Boone--Death of his
wife--He goes to reside with his son--His death--His personal appearance
and character.




PREFACE.


Our eastern brethren have entered heartily into the pious duty of
bringing to remembrance the character and deeds of their forefathers.
Shall we of the west allow the names of those great men, who won for us,
from the forest, the savages, and wild beasts, our fair domain of
fertile fields and beautiful rivers, to fade into oblivion? They who
have hearts to admire nobility imparted by nature's great
seal--fearlessness, strength, energy, sagacity, generous forgetfulness
of self, the delineation of scenes of terror, and the relation of deeds
of daring, will not fail to be interested in a sketch of the life of the
pioneer and hunter of Kentucky, Daniel Boone. Contemplated in any light,
we shall find him in his way and walk, a man as truly great as Penn,
Marion, and Franklin, in theirs. True, he was not learned in the lore of
books, or trained in the etiquette of cities. But he possessed a
knowledge far more important in the sphere which Providence called him
to fill. He felt, too, the conscious dignity of self-respect, and would
have been seen as erect, firm, and unembarrassed amid the pomp and
splendor of the proudest court in Christendom, as in the shade of his
own wilderness. Where nature in her own ineffaceable characters has
marked superiority, she looks down upon the tiny and elaborate
acquirements of art, and in all positions and in all time entitles her
favorites to the involuntary homage of their fellow-men. They are the
selected pilots in storms, the leaders in battles, and the pioneers in
the colonization of new countries.

Such a man was Daniel Boone, and wonderfully was he endowed by
Providence for the part which he was called to act. Far be it from us to
undervalue the advantages of education: It can do every thing but assume
the prerogative of Providence. God has reserved for himself the
attribute of creating. Distinguished excellence has never been attained,
unless where nature and education, native endowment and circumstances,
have concurred. This wonderful man received his commission for his
achievements and his peculiar walk from the sign manual of nature. He
was formed to be a woodsman, and the adventurous precursor in the first
settlement of Kentucky. His home was in the woods, where others were
bewildered and lost. It is a mysterious spectacle to see a man possessed
of such an astonishing power of being perfectly familiar with his route
and his resources in the depths of the untrodden wilderness, where
others could as little divine their way, and what was to be done, as
mariners on mid-ocean, without chart or compass, sun, moon, or stars.
But that nature has bestowed these endowments upon some men and denied
them to others, is as certain as that she has given to some animals
instincts of one kind, fitting them for peculiar modes of life, which
are denied to others, perhaps as strangely endowed in another way.

The following pages aim to present a faithful picture of this singular
man, in his wanderings, captivities, and escapes. If the effort be
successful, we have no fear that the attention of the reader will
wander. There is a charm in such recitals, which lays its spell upon
all. The grave and gay, the simple and the learned, the young and
gray-haired alike yield to its influence.

We wish to present him in his strong incipient manifestations of the
development of his peculiar character in boyhood. We then see him on
foot and alone, with no companion but his dog, and no friend but his
rifle, making his way over trackless and unnamed mountains, and
immeasurable forests, until he explores the flowering wilderness of
Kentucky. Already familiar, by his own peculiar intuition, with the
Indian character, we see him casting his keen and searching glance
around, as the ancient woods rung with the first strokes of his axe, and
pausing from time to time to see if the echoes have startled the red
men, or the wild beasts from their lair. We trace him through all the
succeeding explorations of the Bloody Ground, and of Tennessee, until so
many immigrants have followed in his steps, that he finds his privacy
too strongly pressed upon; until he finds the buts and bounds of legal
tenures restraining his free thoughts, and impelling him to the distant
and unsettled shores of the Missouri, to seek range and solitude anew.
We see him there, his eyes beginning to grow dim with the influence of
seventy winters--as he can no longer take the unerring aim of his
rifle--casting wistful looks in the direction of the Rocky Mountains and
the western sea; and sadly reminded that man has but one short life, in
which to wander.

No book can be imagined more interesting than would have been the
personal narrative of such a man, written by himself. What a new pattern
of the heart he might have presented! But, unfortunately, he does not
seem to have dreamed of the chance that his adventures would go down to
posterity in the form of recorded biography. We suspect that he rather
eschewed books, parchment deeds, and clerkly contrivances, as forms of
evil; and held the dead letter of little consequence. His associates
were as little likely to preserve any records, but those of memory, of
the daily incidents and exploits, which indicate character and assume
high interest, when they relate to a person like the subject of this
narrative. These hunters, unerring in their aim to prostrate the
buffalo on his plain, or to bring down the geese and swans from the
clouds, thought little of any other use of the gray goose quill, than
its market value.

Had it been otherwise, and had these men themselves furnished the
materials of this narrative, we have no fear that it would go down to
futurity, a more enduring monument to these pioneers and hunters, than
the granite columns reared by our eastern brethren, amidst assembled
thousands, with magnificent array, and oratory, and songs, to the memory
of their forefathers. Ours would be the record of human nature speaking
to human nature in simplicity and truth, in a language always
impressive, and always understood. Their pictures of their own felt
sufficiency to themselves, under the pressure of exposure and want; of
danger, wounds, and captivity; of reciprocal kindness, warm from the
heart; of noble forgetfulness of self, unshrinking firmness, calm
endurance, and reckless bravery, would be sure to move in the hearts of
their readers strings which never fail to vibrate to the touch.

But these inestimable data are wanting. Our materials are comparatively
few; and we have been often obliged to balance between doubtful
authorities, notwithstanding the most rigorous scrutiny of newspapers
and pamphlets, whose yellow and dingy pages gave out a cloud of dust at
every movement, and the equally rigid examination of clean modern books
and periodicals.




CHAPTER I.

Birth of Daniel Boone--His early propensities--His pranks at school--His
first hunting expedition--And his encounter with a panther. Removal of
the family to North Carolina--Boone becomes a hunter--Description of
fire hunting, in which he was near committing a sad mistake--Its
fortunate result--and his marriage.


Different authorities assign a different birth place to DANIEL BOONE.
One affirms that he was born in Maryland, another in North Carolina,
another in Virginia, and still another during the transit of his parents
across the Atlantic. But they are all equally in error. He was born in
the year 1746, in Bucks county, Pennsylvania, near Bristol, on the right
bank of the Delaware, about twenty miles from Philadelphia. His father
removed, when he was three years old, to the vicinity of Reading, on the
head waters of the Schuylkill. From thence, when his son was thirteen
years old, he migrated to North Carolina, and settled in one of the
valleys of South Yadkin.

The remotest of his ancestors, of whom there is any recorded notice, is
Joshua Boone, an English Catholic. He crossed the Atlantic to the
shores of the Chesapeake Bay, with those who planted the first germ of
the colony of Maryland. A leading motive to emigration with most of
these colonists, was to avoid that persecution on account of their
religion, which however pleasant to inflict, they found it uncomfortable
to endure. Whether this gentleman emigrated from this inducement, as has
been asserted, or not, it is neither possible, nor, as we deem,
important to settle; for we cannot find, that religious motives had any
direct influence in shaping the character and fortunes of the hero of
the woods. Those who love to note the formation of character, and
believe in the hereditary transmission of peculiar qualities, naturally
investigate the peculiarities of parents, to see if they can find there
the origin of those of the children. Many--and we are of the
number--consider transmitted endowment as the most important link in the
chain of circumstances, with which character is surrounded. The most
splendid endowments in innumerable instances, have never been brought to
light, in defect of circumstances to call them forth. The ancestors of
Boone were not placed in positions to prove, whether he did or did not
receive his peculiar aptitudes a legacy from his parents, or a direct
gift from nature. He presents himself to us as a new man, the author and
artificer of his own fortunes, and showing from the beginning rudiments
of character, of which history has recorded no trace in his ancestors.
The promise of the future hunter appeared in his earliest boyhood. He
waged a war of extermination, as soon as he could poise a gun, with
squirrels, raccoons, and wild cats, at that time exceedingly annoying to
the fields and barn-yards of the back settlers.

No scholar ever displayed more decided pre-eminence in any branch of
learning, than he did above the boys of his years, in adroitness and
success in this species of hunting. This is the only distinct and
peculiar trait of character recorded of his early years. The only
transmitted fact of his early training is presented in the following
anecdote.

In that section of the frontier settlement to which Boone had removed,
where unhewn log cabins, and hewn log houses, were interspersed among
the burnt stumps, surrounded by a potato patch and cornfield, as the
traveller pursued his cow-path through the deep forest, there was an
intersection, or more properly concentration of wagon tracks, called the
"Cross Roads,"--a name which still designates a hundred frontier
positions of a post office, blacksmith's shop, and tavern. In the
central point of this metropolis stood a large log building, before
which a sign creaked in the wind, conspicuously lettered "Store and
Tavern."

To this point, on the early part of a warm spring morning, a pedestrian
stranger was seen approaching in the path leading from the east. One
hand was armed with a walking stick, and the other carried a small
bundle inclosed in a handkerchief. His aspect was of a man, whose whole
fortunes were in his walking stick and bundle. He was observed to eye
the swinging sign with a keen recognition, inspiring such courage as
the mariner feels on entering the desired haven.

His dialect betrayed the stranger to be a native of Ireland. He sat down
on the _stoup_, and asked in his own peculiar mode of speech, for cold
water. A supply from the spring was readily handed him in a gourd. But
with an arch pause between remonstrance and laughter, he added, that he
thought cold water in a warm climate injurious to the stomach and begged
that the element might be qualified with a little whisky.

The whisky was handed him, and the usual conversation ensued, during
which the stranger inquired if a school-master was wanted in the
settlement--or, as he was pleased to phrase it, a professor in the
higher branches of learning? It is inferred that the father of Boone was
a person of distinction in the settlement, for to him did the master of
the "Store and Tavern" direct the stranger of the staff and bundle for
information.

The direction of the landlord to enable him to find the house of Mr.
Boone, was a true specimen of similar directions in the frontier
settlements of the present; and they have often puzzled clearer heads
than that of the Irish school-master.

"Step this way," said he, "and I will direct you there, so that you
cannot mistake your way. Turn down that right hand road, and keep on it
till you cross the dry branch--then turn to your left, and go up a
hill--then take a lane to your right, which will bring you to an open
field--pass this, and you will come to a path with three forks--take the
middle fork, and it will lead you through the woods in sight of Mr.
Boone's plantation."

The Irishman lost his way, invoked the saints, and cursed his director
for his medley of directions many a time, before he stumbled at length
on Mr. Boone's house. He was invited to sit down and dine, in the simple
backwoods phrase, which is still the passport to the most ample
hospitality.

After dinner, the school-master made known his vocation, and his desire
to find employment. To obtain a qualified school-master in those days,
and in such a place, was no easy business. This scarcity of supply
precluded close investigation of fitness. In a word, the Irishman was
authorized to enter upon the office of school-master of the settlement.
We have been thus particular in this description, because it was the way
in which most teachers were then employed.

It will not be amiss to describe the school-house; for it stood as a
sample of thousands of west country school-houses of the present day. It
was of logs, after the usual fashion of the time and place. In
dimension, it was spacious and convenient. The chimney was peculiarly
ample, occupying one entire side of the whole building, which was an
exact square. Of course, a log could be "snaked" to the fire-place as
long as the building, and a file of boys thirty feet in length, could
all stand in front of the fire on a footing of the most democratic
equality. Sections of logs cut out here and there, admitted light and
air instead of windows. The surrounding forest furnished ample supplies
of fuel. A spring at hand, furnished with various gourds, quenched the
frequent thirst of the pupils. A ponderous puncheon door, swinging on
substantial wooden hinges, and shutting with a wooden latch, completed
the appendages of this primeval seminary.

To this central point might he seen wending from the woods, in every
direction of the compass, flaxen-headed boys and girls, clad in
homespun, brushing away the early dews, as they hied to the place, where
the Hibernian, clothed in his brief authority, sometimes perpetrated
applications of birch without rhyme or reason; but much oftener allowed
his authority to be trampled upon, according as the severe or loving
humor prevailed. This vacillating administration was calculated for any
result, rather than securing the affectionate respect of the children.
Scarcely the first quarter had elapsed, before materials for revolt had
germinated under the very throne of the school-master.

Young Boone, at this time, had reached the second stage of teaching the
young idea how to shoot. His satchel already held paper marked with
those mysterious hieroglyphics, vulgarly called _pot-hooks_, intended to
be gradually transformed to those clerkly characters, which are called
hand-writing.

The master's throne was a block of a huge tree, and could not be said,
in any sense, to be a cushion of down. Of course, by the time he had
heard the first lessons of the morning, the master was accustomed to let
loose his noisy subjects, to wanton and bound on the grass, while he
took a turn abroad to refresh himself from his wearying duties. While he
was thus unbending his mind, the observant urchins had remarked, that
he always directed his walk to a deep grove not far distant. They had,
possibly, divined that the unequal tempers of his mind, and his rapid
transitions from good nature to tyrannical moroseness, and the reverse,
were connected with these promenades. The curiosity of young Boone had
been partially excited. An opportunity soon offered to gratify it.

Having one day received the accustomed permission to retire a few
minutes from school, the darting of a squirrel across a fallen tree, as
he went abroad, awakened his ruling passion. He sprang after the nimble
animal, until he found himself at the very spot, where he had observed
his school-master to pause in his promenades. His attention was arrested
by observing a kind of opening under a little arbor, thickly covered
with a mat of vines. Thinking, perhaps, that it was the retreat of some
animal, he thrust in his hand, and to his surprise drew forth a glass
bottle, partly full of whisky. The enigma of his master's walks and
inequalities of temper stood immediately deciphered. After the
reflection of a moment, he carefully replaced the bottle in its
position, and returned to his place in school. In the evening he
communicated his discovery and the result of his meditations to the
larger boys of the school on their way home. They were ripe for revolt,
and the issue of their caucus follows:

They were sufficiently acquainted with fever and ague, to have
experimented the nature of tartar emetic. They procured a bottle exactly
like the master's, filled with whisky, in which a copious quantity of
emetic had been dissolved. Early in the morning, they removed the
school-master's bottle, and replaced it by theirs, and hurried back to
their places, panting with restrained curiosity, and a desire to see
what results would come from their medical mixture.

The accustomed hour for intermission came. The master took his usual
promenade, and the children hastened back with uncommon eagerness to
resume their seats and their lessons. The countenance of the master
alternately red and pale, gave portent of an approaching storm.

"Recite your grammar lesson," said he, in a growling tone, to one of the
older boys.

"How many parts of speech are there?"

"Seven, sir," timidly answered the boy.

"Seven, you numscull! is that the way you get your lesson?" Forthwith
descended a shower of blows on his devoted head.

"On what continent is Ireland?" said he, turning from him in wrath to
another boy. The boy saw the shower pre-determined to fall, and the
medicine giving evident signs of having taken effect. Before he could
answer, "I reckon on the continent of England," he was gathering an
ample tithe of drubbing.

"Come and recite your lesson in arithmetic?" said he to Boone, in a
voice of thunder. The usually rubicund face of the Irishman was by this
time a deadly pale. Slate in hand, the docile lad presented himself
before his master.

"Take six from nine, and what remain?"

"Three, sir."

"True. That will answer for whole numbers, now for your fractions. Take
three-quarters from an integer, and what remains?"

"The whole."

"You blockhead! you numscull!" exclaimed the master, as the strokes fell
like a hail shower; "let me hear you demonstrate that."

"If I subtract one bottle of whisky, and replace it with one in which I
have mixed an emetic, will not the whole remain, if nobody drinks it?"

By this time the medicine was taking fearful effect. The united
acclamations and shouts of the children, and the discovery of the
compounder of his medicament, in no degree tended to soothe the
infuriated master. Young Boone, having paid for his sport by an ample
drubbing, seized the opportune moment, floored his master, already weak
and dizzy, sprang from the door, and made for the woods. The adventure
was soon blazoned. A consultation of the patrons of the school was held.
Though young Boone was reprimanded, the master was dismissed.

This is all the certain information we possess, touching the training of
young Boone, in the lore of books and schools. Though he never
afterwards could be brought back to the restraint of the walls of a
school, it is well known, that in some way, in after life, he possessed
himself of the rudiments of a common education. His love for hunting and
the woods now became an absorbing passion. He possessed a dog and a
fowling piece, and with these he would range whole days alone through
the woods, often with no other apparent object, than the simple pleasure
of these lonely wanderings.

One morning he was observed as usual, to throw the band, that suspended
his shot bag, over one shoulder, and his gun over the other, and go
forth accompanied by his dog. Night came, but to the astonishment and
alarm of his parents, the boy, as yet scarcely turned of fourteen, came
not. Another day and another night came, and passed, and still he
returned not. The nearest neighbors, sympathizing with the distressed
parents, who considered him lost, turned out, to aid in searching for
him. After a long and weary search, at a distance of a league from any
plantation, a smoke was seen arising from a temporary hovel of sods and
branches, in which the astonished father found his child, apparently
most comfortably established is his new experiment of house-keeping.
Numerous skins of wild animals were stretched upon his cabin, as
trophies of his hunting prowess. Ample fragments of their flesh were
either roasting or preparing for cookery. It may be supposed, that such
a lad would be the theme of wonder and astonishment to the other boys of
his age.

At this early period, he hesitated not to hunt wolves, and even bears
and panthers. His exploits of this kind were the theme of general
interest in the vicinity. Many of them are recorded. But we pass over
most of them, in our desire to hasten to the exploits of his maturer
years. We select a single one of the most unquestionable character, as
a sample for the rest.

In company with some of his young companions, he undertook a hunting
excursion, at a considerable distance from the settlements. Near
night-fall, the group of young Nimrods were alarmed with a sharp cry
from the thick woods. A panther! whispered the affrighted lads, in
accents scarcely above their breath, through fear, that their voice
would betray them. The scream of this animal is harsh, and grating, and
one of the most truly formidable of forest sounds.

The animal, when pressed, does not shrink from encountering a man, and
often kills him, unless he is fearless and adroit in his defence. All
the companions of young Boone fled from the vicinity, as fast as
possible. Not so the subject of our narrative. He coolly surveyed the
animal, that in turn eyed him, as the cat does a mouse, when preparing
to spring upon it. Levelling his rifle, and taking deliberate aim, he
lodged the bullet in the heart of the fearful animal, at the very moment
it was in the act to spring upon him. It was a striking instance of that
peculiar self-possession, which constituted the most striking trait in
his character in after life.

Observing these early propensities for the life of a hunter in his son,
and land having become dear and game scarce in the neighborhood where he
lived, Boone's father formed the design of removing to remote forests,
not yet disturbed by the sound of the axe, or broken by frequent
clearings; and having heard a good account of the country bordering upon
the Yadkin river, in North Carolina, he resolved to remove thither.
This river, which is a stream of considerable size, has its source among
the mountains in the north-east part of North Carolina, and pursues a
beautiful meandering course through that state until it enters South
Carolina. After watering the eastern section of the latter state, it
reaches the ocean a few miles above the mouth of the Santee.

[Illustration]

Having sold his plantation, on a fine April morning he set forth for the
land of promise--wife, children, servants, flocks, and herds, forming
a patriarchal caravan through the wilderness. No procession bound to the
holy cities of Mecca or Jerusalem, was ever more joyful; for to them the
forest was an asylum. Overhung by the bright blue sky, enveloped in
verdant forests full of game, nought cared they for the absence of
houses with their locks and latches. Their nocturnal caravansary was a
clear cool spring; their bed the fresh turf. Deer and turkeys furnished
their viands--hunger the richest sauces of cookery; and fatigue and
untroubled spirits a repose unbroken by dreams. Such were the primitive
migrations of the early settlers of our country. We love to meditate on
them, for we have shared them. We have fed from this table in the
wilderness. We have shared this mirth. We have heard the tinkle of the
bells of the flocks and herds grazing among the trees. We have seen the
moon rise and the stars twinkle upon this forest scene; and the
remembrance has more than once marred the pleasure of journeyings in the
midst of civilization and the refinements of luxury.

The frontier country in which the family settled was as yet an unbroken
forest; and being at no great distance from the eastern slope of the
Alleghanies, in the valleys of which game was abundant, it afforded fine
range both for pasture and hunting. These forests had, moreover, the
charm of novelty, and the game had not yet learned to fear the rifles of
the new settlers. It need hardly be added that the spirits of young
Boone exulted in this new hunter's paradise. The father and the other
sons settled down quietly to the severe labor of making a farm,
assigning to Daniel the occupation of his rifle, as aware that it was
the only one he could be induced to follow; and probably from the
experience, that in this way he could contribute more effectually to the
establishment, than either of them in the pursuits of husbandry.

An extensive farm was soon opened. The table was always amply supplied
with venison, and was the seat of ample and unostentatious hospitality.
The peltries of the young hunter yielded all the money which such an
establishment required, and the interval between this removal and the
coming of age of young Boone, was one of health, plenty, and privacy.

But meanwhile this settlement began to experience the pressure of that
evil which Boone always considered the greatest annoyance of life. The
report of this family's prosperity had gone abroad. The young hunter's
fame in his new position, attracted other immigrants to come and fix
themselves in the vicinity. The smoke of new cabins and clearings went
up to the sky. The baying other dogs, and the crash of distant falling
trees began to be heard; and painful presentiments already filled the
bosom of young Boone, that this abode would shortly be more pressed upon
than that he had left. He was compelled, however, to admit, that if such
an order of things brings disadvantages, it has also its benefits.

A thriving farmer, by the name of Bryan, had settled at no great
distance from Mr. Boone, by whose establishment the young hunter, now at
the period of life when other thoughts than those of the chase of wild
game are sometimes apt to cross the mind, was accustomed to pass.

This farmer had chosen a most beautiful spot for his residence. The farm
occupied a space of some hundred acres on a gentle eminence, crested
with yellow poplars and laurels. Around it rolled a mountain stream. So
beautiful was the position and so many its advantages, that young Boone
used often to pause in admiration, on his way to the deeper woods beyond
the verge of human habitation. Who can say that the same dreamy thoughts
that inspired the pen of the eloquent Rousseau, did not occupy the mind
of the young hunter as he passed this rural abode? We hope we shall not
be suspected of a wish to offer a tale of romance, as we relate, how the
mighty hunter of wild beasts and men was himself subdued, and that by
the most timid and gentle of beings. We put down the facts as we find
them recorded, and our conscience is quieted, by finding them perfectly
natural to the time, place, and circumstances.

Young Boone was one night engaged in a fire hunt, with a young friend.
Their course led them to the deeply timbered bottom that skirted the
stream which wound round this pleasant plantation. That the reader may
have an idea what sort of a pursuit it was that young Boone was engaged
in, during an event so decisive of his future fortunes, we present a
brief sketch of a night _fire_ hunt. Two persons are indispensable to
it. The horseman that precedes, bears on his shoulder what is called a
_fire pan_, full of blazing pine knots, which casts a bright and
flickering glare far through the forest. The second follows at some
distance, with his rifle prepared for action. No spectacle is more
impressive than this of pairs of hunters, thus kindling the forest into
a glare. The deer, reposing quietly in his thicket, is awakened by the
approaching cavalcade, and instead of flying from the portentous
brilliance, remains stupidly gazing upon it, as if charmed to the spot.
The animal is betrayed to its doom the gleaming of its fixed and
innocent eyes. This cruel mode of securing a fatal shot, is called in
hunter's phrase, _shining the eyes_.

The two young men reached a corner of the farmer's field at an early
hour in the evening. Young Boone gave the customary signal to his
mounted companion preceding him, to stop, an indication that he had
_shined the eyes_ of a deer. Boone dismounted, and fastened his horse to
a tree. Ascertaining that his rifle was in order, he advanced
cautiously behind a covert of bushes, to reach the right distance for a
shot. The deer is remarkable for the beauty of its eyes when thus
_shined_. The mild brilliance of the two orbs was distinctly visible.
Whether warned by a presentiment, or arrested by a palpitation, and
strange feelings within, at noting a new expression in the blue and dewy
lights that gleamed to his heart, we say not. But the unerring rifle
fell, and a rustling told him that the game had fled. Something
whispered him it was not a _deer_; and yet the fleet step, as the game
bounded away, might easily be mistaken for that of the light-footed
animal. A second thought impelled him to pursue the rapidly retreating
game; and he sprang away in the direction of the sound, leaving his
companion to occupy himself as he might. The fugitive had the advantage
of a considerable advance of him, and apparently a better knowledge of
the localities of the place. But the hunter was perfect in all his field
exercises, and scarcely less fleet footed than a deer; and he gained
rapidly on the object of his pursuit, which advanced a little distance
parallel with the field-fence, and then, as if endowed with the utmost
accomplishment of gymnastics, cleared the fence at a leap. The hunter,
embarrassed with his rifle and accoutrements, was driven to the slow and
humiliating expedient of climbing it. But an outline of the form of the
fugitive, fleeting through the shades in the direction of the house,
assured him that he had mistaken the species of the game. His heart
throbbed from a hundred sensations; and among them an apprehension of
the consequences that would have resulted from discharging his rifle,
when he had first shined those liquid blue eyes. Seeing that the fleet
game made straight in the direction of the house, he said to himself, "I
will see the pet deer in its lair;" and he directed his steps to the
same place. Half a score of dogs opened their barking upon him, as he
approached the house, and advertised the master that a stranger was
approaching. Having hushed the dogs, and learned the name of his
visitant, he introduced him to his family, as the son of their neighbor,
Boone.

Scarce had the first words of introduction been uttered, before the
opposite door opened, and a boy apparently of seven, and a girl of
sixteen, rushed in, panting for breath and seeming in affright.

"Sister went down to the river, and a _painter_ chased her, and she is
almost scared to death," exclaimed the boy.

The ruddy, flaxen-haired girl stood full in view of her terrible
pursuer, leaning upon his rifle, and surveying her with the most eager
admiration. "Rebecca, this is young Boone, son of our neighbor," was
their laconic introduction. Both were young, beautiful, and at the
period when the affections exercise their most energetic influence. The
circumstances of the introduction were favorable to the result, and the
young hunter felt that the eyes of the _deer_ had _shined_ his bosom as
fatally as his rifle shot had ever the innocent deer of the thickets.
She, too, when she saw the high, open, bold forehead; clear, keen, and
yet gentle and affectionate eye--the firm front, and the visible impress
of decision and fearlessness of the hunter--when she interpreted a
look, which said as distinctly as looks could say it, "how terrible it
would have been to have fired!" can hardly be supposed to have regarded
him with indifference. Nor can it be wondered at that she saw in him her
_beau ideal_ of excellence and beauty. The inhabitants of cities, who
live in mansions, and read novels stored with unreal pictures of life
and the heart, are apt to imagine that love, with all its golden
illusions, is reserved exclusively for them. It is a most egregious
mistake. A model of ideal beauty and perfection is woven in almost every
youthful heart, of the brightest and most brilliant threads that compose
the web of existence. It may not be said that this forest maiden was
deeply and foolishly smitten at first sight. All reasonable time and
space were granted to the claims of maidenly modesty. As for Boone, he
was incurably wounded by her, whose eyes he had _shined_, and as he was
remarkable for the backwoods attribute of _never being beaten out of his
track_, he ceased not to woo, until he gained the heart of Rebecca
Bryan. In a word, he courted her successfully, and they were married.




CHAPTER II.

Boone removes to the head waters of the Yadkin river--He meets with
Finley, who had crossed the mountains into Tennessee--They agree to
explore the wilderness west of the Alleghanies together.


After his marriage, Boone's first step was to consider where he should
find a place, in which he could unite the advantages of fields to
cultivate, and range for hunting. True to the impulse of his nature, he
plunged deeper into the wilderness, to realize this dream of comfort and
happiness. Leaving his wife, he visited the unsettled regions of North
Carolina, and selected a spot near the head waters of the Yadkin, for
his future home.

The same spirit that afterwards operated to take Mrs. Boone to Kentucky,
now led her to leave her friends, and follow her husband to a region
where she was an entire stranger. Men change their place of abode from
ambition or interest; women from affection. In the course of a few
months, Daniel Boone had reared comfortable cabins upon a pleasant
eminence at a little distance from the river bank, inclosed a field, and
gathered around him the means of abundance and enjoyment. His dwelling,
though of rude exterior, offered the weary traveller shelter, a cheerful
fire, and a plentiful board, graced with the most cordial welcome. The
faces that looked on him were free from the cloud of care, the
constraint of ceremony, and the distrust and fear, with which men learn
to regard one another in the midst of the rivalry, competition, and
scramble of populous cities. The spoils of the chase gave variety to his
table, and afforded Boone an excuse for devoting his leisure hours to
his favorite pursuit. The country around spread an ample field for its
exercise, as it was almost untouched by the axe of the woodsman.

The lapse of a few years--passed in the useful and unpretending
occupations of the husbandman--brought no external change to Daniel
Boone, deserving of record. His step was now the firm tread of sober
manhood; and his purpose the result of matured reflection. This
influence of the progress of time, instead of obliterating the original
impress of his character, only sunk it deeper. The dwellings of
immigrants were springing up in all directions around. Inclosures again
began to surround him on every hand, shutting him out from his
accustomed haunts in the depths of the forest shade. He saw cultivated
fields stretching over large extents of country; and in the distance,
villages and towns; and was made sensible of their train of forms, and
laws, and restrictions, and buts, and bounds, gradually approaching his
habitation. Be determined again to leave them far behind. His resolve
was made, but he had not decided to what point he would turn.
Circumstances soon occurred to terminate his indecision.

As early as 1760, the country west of the Cumberland mountains was
considered by the inhabitants of Carolina and Virginia, as involved in
something of the same obscurity which lay over the American continent,
after its first discovery by Columbus. Those who spread their sails to
cross the sea, and find new skies, a new soil, and men in a new world,
were not deemed more daring by their brethren at home, than the few
hardy adventurers, who struck into the pathless forests stretching along
the frontier settlements of the western country, were estimated by their
friends and neighbors. Even the most informed and intelligent, where
information and intelligence were cultivated, knew so little of the
immense extent of country, now designated as the "Mississippi Valley,"
that a book, published near the year 1800, in Philadelphia or New York,
by a writer of talent and standing, speaks of the _many_ mouths of the
Missouri, as entering the Mississippi _far below the Ohio_.

The simple inmates of cabins, in the remote region bordering on the new
country, knew still less about it; as they had not penetrated its
wilderness, and were destitute of that general knowledge which prevents
the exercise of the exaggerations of vague conjecture. There was,
indeed, ample room for the indulgence of speculation upon the features
which the unexplored land was characterized. Its mountains, plains, and
streams, animals, and men, were yet to be discovered and named. It might
be found the richest land under the sun, exhaustless in fertility,
yielding the most valuable productions, and unfailing in its resources.
It was possible it would prove a sterile desert. Imagination could not
but expatiate in this unbounded field and unexplored wilderness; and
there are few persons entirely secure from the influence of
imagination. The real danger attending the first exploration of a
country filled with wild animals and savages; and the difficulty of
carrying a sufficient supply of ammunition to procure food, during a
long journey, necessarily made on foot, had prevented any attempt of the
kind. The Alleghany mountains had hitherto stood an unsurmounted barrier
between the Atlantic country and the shores of the beautiful Ohio.

Not far from this period, Dr. Walker, an intelligent and enterprising
Virginian, collected a small party, and actually crossed the mountains
at the Cumberland Gap, after traversing Powell's valley. One of his
leading inducements to this tour, was the hope of making botanical
discoveries. The party crossed Cumberland river, and pursued a
north-east course over the highlands, which give rise to the sources of
the lesser tributaries of the important streams that water the Ohio
valley. They reached Big Sandy, after enduring the privations and
fatigue incident to such an undertaking. From this point they commenced
their return home. On reaching it, they showed no inclination to resume
their attempt, although the information thus gained respecting the
country, presented it in a very favorable light. These first adventurers
wanted the hardihood, unconquerable fortitude, and unwavering purpose,
which nothing but death could arrest, that marked the pioneers, who
followed in their footsteps. Some time elapsed before a second exploring
expedition was set on foot. The relations of what these men had seen on
the other side of the mountains had assumed the form of romance, rather
than reality. Hunters, alone or in pairs, now ventured to extend their
range into the skirts of the wilderness, thus gradually enlarging the
sphere of definite conceptions, respecting the country beyond it.

In 1767, a backwoodsman of the name of Finley, of North Carolina, in
company with a few kindred spirits resembling him in character, advanced
still farther into the interior of the land of promise. It is probable,
they chose the season of flowers for their enterprise; as on the return
of this little band, a description of the soil they had trodden, and the
sights they had seen, went abroad, that charmed all ears, excited all
imaginations, and dwelt upon every tongue. Well might they so describe.
Their course lay through a portion of Tennessee. There is nothing grand
or imposing in scenery--nothing striking or picturesque in cascades and
precipitous declivities of mountains covered with woods--nothing
romantic and delightful in deep and sheltered valleys, through which
wind clear streams, which is not found in this first region they
traversed. The mountains here stretch along in continuous ridges--and
there shoot up into elevated peaks. On the summits of some, spread
plateaus, which afford the most commanding prospects, and offer all
advantages for cultivation, overhung by the purest atmosphere. No words
can picture the secluded beauty of some of the vales bordering the
creeks and small streams, which dash transparent as air over rocks,
moss-covered and time-worn--walled in by the precipitous sides of
mountains, down which pour numberless waterfalls.

The soil is rich beyond any tracts of the same character in the west.
Beautiful white, gray, and red marbles are found here; and sometimes
fine specimens of rock-crystals. Salt springs abound. It has lead mines;
and iron ore is no where more abundant. Its salt-petre caves are most
astonishing curiosities. One of them has been traced ten miles. Another,
on a high point of Cumberland mountain, has a perpendicular descent, the
bottom of which has never been sounded. They abound in prodigious
vaulted apartments and singular chambers, the roofs springing up into
noble arches, or running along for miles in regular oblong excavations.
The gloomy grandeur, produced by the faint illumination of torches in
these immense subterranean retreats, may be imagined, but not described.
Springs rise, and considerable streams flow through them, on smooth
limestone beds.

This is the very home of subterranean wonders, showing the noblest caves
in the world. In comparison with them, the celebrated one at Antiparos
is but a slight excavation. Spurs of the mountains, called the
"Enchanted Mountains," show traces impressed in the solid limestone, of
the footsteps of men, horses, and other animals, as distinctly as though
they had been made upon clay mortar. In places the tracks are such as
would be made by feet, that had slidden upon soft clay in descending
declivities.

Prodigious remains of animals are found near the salines. Whole trees
are discovered completely petrified; and to crown the list of wonders,
in turning up the soil, graves are opened, which contain the skeletons
of figures, who must have been of mature age. Paintings of the sun,
moon, animals, and serpents, on high and apparently inaccessible cliffs,
out of question the work of former ages, in colors as fresh as if
recently laid on, and in some instances, just and ingenious in
delineation, are a subject of untiring speculation. Even the streams in
this region of wonders have scooped out for themselves immensely deep
channels hemmed in by perpendicular walls of limestone, sometimes
springing up to a height of three or four hundred feet. As the traveller
looks down upon the dark waters rolling so far beneath him, seeming to
flow in a subterranean world, he cannot but feel impressions of the
grandeur of nature stealing over him.

It is not to be supposed, that persons, whose sole object in entering
the country was to explore it, would fail to note these surprising
traces of past races, the beautiful diversity of the aspect of the
country, or these wonders of nature exhibited on every hand. Being
neither incurious nor incompetent observers, their delineations were
graphic and vivid.

    "Their teachers had been woods and rills,
    The silence, that is in the starry sky;
    The sleep, that is among the lonely hills."

They advanced into Kentucky so far, as to their imaginations with the
fresh and luxuriant beauty of its lawns, its rich cane-brakes and
flowering forests. To them it was a terrestrial paradise for it was
full of game. Deer, elk, bears, buffaloes, panthers, wolves, wild-cats,
and foxes, abounded in the thick tangles of the green cane; and in the
open woods, pheasants, partridges, and turkeys, were as plenty as
domestic fowls in the old settlements.

Such were the materials, from which these hunters, on their return
formed descriptions that fixed in the remembrance, and operated upon the
fancy of all who heard. A year after Finley's return, his love of
wandering led him into the vicinity of Daniel Boone. They met, and the
hearts of these kindred spirits at once warmed towards each other.
Finley related his adventures, and painted the delights of
_Kain-tuck-kee_--for such was its Indian name. Boone had but few
hair-breath escapes to recount, in comparison with his new companion.
But it can readily be imagined, that a burning sensation rose in his
breast, like that of the celebrated painter Correggio, when low-born,
untaught, poor and destitute of every advantage, save that of splendid
native endowment, he stood before the work of the immortal Raphael, and
said, "I too am a painter!" Boone's purpose was fixed. In a region, such
as Finley described, far in advance of the wearying monotony of a life
of inglorious toil, he would have space to roam unwitnessed, undisturbed
by those of his own race, whose only thought was to cut down trees, at
least for a period of some years. We wish not to be understood to laud
these views, as wise or just. In the order of things, however, it was
necessary, that men like Finley and Boone, and their companions, should
precede in the wilderness, to prepare the way for the multitudes who
would soon follow. It is probable, that no motives but those ascribed to
them, would have induced these adventurers to face the hardships and
extremes of suffering from exposure and hunger, and the peril of life,
which they literally carried in their hand.

No feeling, but a devotion to their favorite pursuits and modes of life,
stronger than the fear of abandonment, in the interminable and pathless
woods, to all forms of misery and death, could ever have enabled them to
persist in braving the danger and distress that stared them in the face
at every advancing step.

Finley was invited by Boone permanently to share the comfort of his
fire-side,--for it was now winter. It needs no exercise of fancy to
conjecture their subjects of conversation during the long evening. The
bitter wintry wind burst upon their dwelling only to enhance the
cheerfulness of the blazing fire in the huge chimneys, by the contrast
of the inclemency of nature without.

It does not seem natural, at first thought, that a season, in which
nature shows herself stern and unrelenting, should be chosen, as that in
which plans are originated and matured for settling the destiny of life.
But it was during this winter, that Boone and Finley arranged all the
preliminaries of their expedition, and agreed to meet on the first of
May in the coming spring; and with some others, whom they hoped to
induce to join them for greater strength and safety, to set forth
together on an expedition into Kentucky.

Boone's array of arguments, to influence those whom he wished to share
this daring enterprise with him, was tinctured with the coloring of rude
poetry. "They would ascend," he said, "the unnamed mountains, whose
green heads rose not far from their former hunting-grounds, since fences
and inclosures had begun to surround them on all sides, shutting up the
hunter from his free range and support. The deer had fled from the sound
of the axe, which levelled the noble trees under whose shade they could
repose from the fatigues of pursuit. The springs and streams among the
hills were bared to the fierce sun, and would soon dry up and disappear.
Soon 'the horn would no more wake them up in the morn.' The sons of
their love and pride, instead of being trained hunters, with a free,
bold step, frank kindness, true honor, and a courage that knew not fear,
would become men to whom the pleasures and dangers of their fathers
would seem an idle tale." The prospect spreading on the other side of
the mountains, he pictured as filled with all the images of abundance
and freedom that could enter the thoughts of the hunter. The paintings
were drawn from nature, and the words few and simple, that spoke to the
hearts of these sons of the forest. "The broad woods," he pursued,
"would stretch beneath their eyes, when the mountain summits were
gained, one extended tuft of blossoms. The cane was a tangle of
luxuriance, affording the richest pastures. The only paths through it
were those made by buffaloes and bears. In the sheltered glades,
turkeys and large wild birds were so abundant, that a hunter could
supply himself in an hour for the wants of a week. They would not be
found like the lean and tough birds in the old settlements, that
lingered around the clearings and stumps of the trees, in the topmost of
whose branches the fear of man compelled them to rest, but young and
full fed. The trees in this new land were of no stinted or gnarled
growth, but shot up tall, straight, and taper. The yellow poplar here
threw up into the air a column of an hundred feet shaft in a contest
with the sycamore for the pre-eminence of the woods. Their wives and
children would remain safe in their present homes, until the first
dangers and fatigues of the new settlement had been met and overcome.
When their homes were selected, and their cabins built, they would
return and bring them out to their new abodes. The outward journey could
be regulated by the uncontrolled pleasure of their more frail
travellers. What guardians could be more true than their husbands with
their good rifles and the skill and determination to use them? They
would depend, not upon circumstances, but upon themselves. The babes
would exult in the arms of their mothers from the inspiring influence of
the fresh air; and at night a cradle from the hollow tree would rock
them to a healthful repose. The older children, training to the pursuits
and pleasures of a life in the woods, and acquiring vigor of body and
mind with every day, in their season of prime, would feel no shame that
they had hearts softened by the warm current of true feeling. When their
own silver hairs lay thin upon the brow, and their eye was dim, and
sounds came confused on their ear, and their step faltered, and their
form bent, they would find consideration, and care, and tenderness from
children, whose breasts were not steeled by ambition, nor hardened by
avarice; in whom the beautiful influences of the indulgence of none but
natural desires and pure affections would not be deadened by the
selfishness, vanity, and fear of ridicule, that are the harvest of what
is called _civilized and cultivated_ life." Such at least, in after
life, were the contrasts that Boone used to present between social life
and that of the woodsman.

[Illustration]




CHAPTER III.

Boone, with Finley and others, start on their exploring
expedition--Boone kills a panther in the night--Their progress over the
mountains--They descend into the great valley--Description of the new
country--Herds of buffaloes--Their wanderings in the wilderness.


The first of May, 1769, Finley and Boone, with four others, whose names
were Stewart, Holden, Mooney, and Cool, and who had pledged themselves
to the undertaking, were assembled at the house of Boone, in readiness
to commence their journey. It may be imagined that all the neighbors
gathered to witness their departure. A rifle, ammunition, and a light
knapsack were all the baggage with which they dared encumber themselves.
Provisions for a few days were bestowed along with the clothing deemed
absolutely necessary for comfort upon the long route. No shame could
attach to the manhood and courage of Daniel Boone from the fact that
tears were said to have rushed to his eyes, as he kissed his wife and
children before he turned from his door for the last time for months,
and perhaps forever. The nature of the pioneer was as gentle and
affectionate as it was firm and persevering. He had power, however, to
send back the unbidden gush to its source, and forcibly to withdraw his
mind from enervating thoughts.

Beside, the natural elasticity of his temperament and the buoyancy of
his character came to his aid. The anticipation of new and strange
incidents operated to produce in the minds of the travellers, from the
commencement of the enterprise, a kind of wild pleasure.

With alert and vigorous steps they pursued a north-west course, and were
soon beyond the reach of the most distant view of their homes. This day
and night, and the succeeding one, the scenes in view were familiar; but
in the course of the four or five that followed, all vestiges of
civilized habitancy had disappeared. The route lay through a solitary
and trackless wilderness. Before them rose a line of mountains, shooting
up against the blue of the horizon, in peaks and elevations of all
forms. The slender store of food with which they had set out, was soon
exhausted. To obtain a fresh supply was the first and most pressing
want. Accordingly, a convenient place was selected, and a camp
constructed of logs and branches of trees, to keep out the dew and rain.
The whole party joined in this preliminary arrangement. When it was so
far completed, as to enable a part to finish it before night-fall, part
of the company took their rifles and went in different directions in
pursuit of game. They returned in time for supper, with a couple of deer
and some wild turkeys. Those, whose business it was to finish the camp,
had made a generous fire and acquired keen appetites for the coming
feast. The deer were rapidly dressed, so far at least as to furnish a
supper of venison. It had not been long finished, and the arrangements
for the night made, before the clouds, which had been gathering
blackness for some hours, rolled up in immense folds from the point,
whence was heard the sudden burst of a furious wind. The lightning
darted from all quarters of the heavens. At one moment every object
stood forth in a glare of dazzling light. The next the darkness might
almost be felt. The rain fell in torrents, in one apparently unbroken
sheet from the sky to the earth. The peals of thunder rolled almost
unheard amid this deafening rush of waters. The camp of the travellers,
erected with reference to the probability of such an occurrence, was
placed under the shelter of a huge tree, whose branches ran out
laterally, and were of a thickness of foliage to be almost impervious to
the rain. To this happy precaution of the woodsmen, they owed their
escape from the drenching of the shower. They were not, perhaps, aware
of the greater danger from lightning, to which their position had
exposed them.

As was the universal custom in cases like theirs, a watch was kept by
two, while the others slept. The watches were relieved several times
during the night. About midnight, Boone and Holden being upon the watch,
the deep stillness abroad was broken by a shrill scream, resembling the
shriek of a frightened woman or child more nearly than any other sound.
The two companions had been sitting in a contemplative mood, listening
to the deep breathing of the sleepers, when this cry came upon their
ears. Both sprang erect. "What is that?" exclaimed Holden, who was not
an experienced backwoodsman, in comparison with the others. "Hush!"
answered Boone; "do not wake the rest. It is nothing but the cry of a
panther. Take your gun and come with me."

They stole gently from the camp and listened in breathless silence for a
repetition of the cry. It was soon repeated, indicating the place where
the animal was. Groping cautiously through the bushes in its direction,
frequently stopping to look around, and holding their rifles ready for
an instantaneous shot, they drew near the formidable animal. At length
they discovered at a little distance before them, two balls that glared
with an intense brightness, like that of living coals of fire. Boone,
taking deliberate aim, in the best manner that the darkness would
permit, discharged his rifle. The yell of pain from the animal, as it
was heard leaping among the undergrowth in an opposite direction,
satisfied Boone that his shot had taken sufficient effect to prevent a
second disturbance from it, at least for that night, and he returned to
the camp with his companion. The sleepers, aroused by the report of the
gun, were awaiting him. The account of the adventure afforded
speculation, touching the point, whether the animal had been killed or
would return again. Early the next morning, some were dispatched to
bring in more game, while others prepared and dried what had already
been obtained. The whole day was spent in this way and the night
following passed without any disturbance.

With the first light of the sun on the succeeding morning, they threw
their knapsacks over their shoulders, and leaving their temporary
shelter to benefit any who might come after them, resumed their route.
They had not proceeded far before an animal stretched on the ground
attracted attention. It was a dead panther. By comparing the size of the
ball, which had killed it, with those used by Boone, the party were
satisfied that this was the same animal he had shot the night after the
storm.

During the day they began the ascent of the ridge of the Alleghany, that
had for some days bounded their view. The mountainous character of the
country, for some miles, before the highest elevations rose to sight,
rendered the travelling laborious and slow. Several days were spent in
this toilsome progress. Steep summits, impossible to ascend, impeded
their advance, compelling them to turn aside, and attain the point above
by a circuitous route. Again they were obliged to delay their journey
for a day, in order to obtain a fresh supply of provisions. This was
readily procured, as all the varieties of game abounded on every side.

The last crags and cliffs of the middle ridges having been scrambled
over, on the following morning they stood on the summit of Cumberland
mountain, the farthest western spur of this line of heights. From this
point the descent into the great western valley began. What a scene
opened before them! A feeling of the sublime is inspired in every bosom
susceptible of it, by a view from any point of these vast ranges, of the
boundless forest valleys of the Ohio. It is a view more grand, more
heart-stirring than that of the ocean. Illimitable extents of wood, and
winding river courses spread before them like a large map. "Glorious
country!" they exclaimed. Little did Boone dream that in fifty years,
immense portions of it would pass from the domain of the hunter--that it
would contain four millions of freemen, and its waters be navigated by
nearly two hundred steam boats, sweeping down these streams that now
rolled through the unbroken forests before them. To them it stood forth
an unexplored paradise of the hunter's imagination.

After a long pause, in thoughts too deep for words, they began the
descent, which was made in a much shorter time than had been required
for the opposite ascent; and the explorers soon found themselves on the
slopes of the subsiding hills. Here the hunter was in his element. To
all the party but Finley, the buffaloes incidentally seen in small
numbers in the valleys, were a novel and interesting sight. It had as
yet been impossible to obtain a shot at them, from their distance or
position. It may be imagined with what eagerness Boone sought an
opportunity to make his first essay in this exciting and noble species
of hunting.

The first considerable drove came in sight on the afternoon of the day
on which the travellers reached the foot of the mountains. The day had
been one of the most beautiful of spring. The earth was covered with
grass of the freshest green. The rich foliage of the trees, in its
varied shading, furnished its portion of the loveliness of the
surrounding landscape. The light of the declining sun lay full on the
scene of boundless solitude. The party had descended into a deep glen,
which wound through the opening between the highlands, still extending a
little in advance of them. They pursued its course until it terminated
in a beautiful little plain. Upon advancing into this, they found
themselves in an area of considerable extent, almost circular in form,
bounded on one half its circumference by the line of hills, from among
which they had just emerged. The other sections of the circle were
marked by the fringe of wood that bordered a stream winding from the
hills, at a considerable distance above. The buffaloes advanced from the
skirt of wood, and the plain was soon filled by the moving mass of these
huge animals.

The exploring adventurers perceived themselves in danger of what has
more than once happened in similar situations. The prospect seemed to be
that they would be trampled under the feet of the reckless and sweeping
body, in their onward course.

"They will not turn out for us," said Finley; "and If we do not conduct
exactly right, we shall be crushed to death."

The inexperienced adventurers bade him direct them in the emergency.
Just as the front of the phalanx was within short rifle distance, he
discharged his rifle and brought down one of the bulls, that seemed to
be a file leader, by a ball between the horns. The unwieldy animal fell.
The mass raised a deafening sort of bellow, and became arrested, as if
transfixed to the spot. A momentary confusion of the mass behind ensued.
But, borne along by the pressure of the multitudes still in the rear,
there was a gradual parting of the herd direct from the front, where the
fallen buffalo lay. The disruption once made, the chasm broadened, until
when the wings passed the travellers, they were thirty yards from the
divisions on either hand. To prevent the masses yet behind from closing
their lines, Finley took the rifle of one of his companions, and
levelled another. This changed the pace of the animals to a rout. The
last masses soon thundered by, and left them gazing in astonishment, not
unmixed with joy, in realizing their escape, "Job of Uz," exclaimed
Boone, "had not larger droves of cattle than we. In fact, we seem to
have had in this instance an abundance to a fault."

As this was an era in their adventures, and an omen of the abundance of
the vast regions of forests which they had descried from the summits of
the mountains, they halted, made a camp, and skinned the animals,
preserving the skins, fat, tongues, and choice pieces. No epicures ever
feasted higher than these athletic and hungry hunters, as they sat
around their evening fire, and commented upon the ease with which their
wants would be supplied in a country thus abounding with such animals.

After feasting again in the morning on the spoils of the preceding day,
and packing such parts of the animals as their probable necessities
suggested, they commenced their march; and in no great distance reached
Red river, a branch of the Cumberland. They followed the meanders of
this river for some miles, until they reached, on the 7th day of June,
Finley's former station, where his preceding explorations of the western
country had terminated.

Their journey to this point had lasted more than a month; and though the
circumstances in which they had made it, had been generally auspicious,
so long a route through unknown forests, and over precipitous mountains,
hitherto untrodden by white men, could not but have been fatiguing in
the extreme. None but such spirits could have sustained their hardships
without a purpose to turn back, and leave their exploration
unaccomplished.

They resolved in this place to encamp, and remain for a time sufficient
to recruit themselves for other expeditions and discoveries. The weather
had been for some time past, and still remained, rainy and unpleasant;
and it became necessary that their station should be of such a
construction, as to secure them a dry sleeping place from the rain. The
game was so abundant, that they found it a pleasure, rather than a
difficulty, to supply themselves with food. The buffaloes were seen like
herds of cattle, dispersed among the cane-brakes, or feeding on the
grass, or ruminating in the shade. Their skins were of great utility, in
furnishing them with moccasins, and many necessary articles
indispensable to their comfortable subsistence at their station.

What struck them with unfailing pleasure was, to observe the soil, in
general, of a fertility without example on the other side of the
mountains. From an eminence in the vicinity of their station, they could
see, as far as vision could extend, the beautiful country of Kentucky.
They remarked with astonishment the tall, straight trees, shading the
exuberant soil, wholly clear from any other underbrush than the rich
cane-brakes, the image of verdure and luxuriance, or tall grass and
clover. Down the gentle slopes murmured clear limestone brooks. Finley,
who had some touch of scripture knowledge, exclaimed in view of this
wilderness-paradise, so abundant in game and wild fowls, "This
wilderness blossoms as the rose; and these desolate places are as the
garden of God."

"Ay," responded Boone; "and who would remain on the sterile pine hills
of North Carolina, to hear the screaming of the jay, and now and then
bring down a deer too lean to be eaten? This is the land of hunters,
where man and beast will grow to their full size."

They ranged through various forests, and crossed the numerous streams of
the vicinity. By following the paths of the buffaloes, bears, deer, and
other animals, they discovered the Salines or _Licks_, where salt is
made at the present day. The paths, in approaching the salines, were
trodden as hard and smooth, as in the vicinity of the farm-yards of the
old settlements. Boone, from the principle which places the best pilot
at the helm in a storm, was not slow to learn from innumerable
circumstances which would have passed unnoticed by a less sagacious
woodsman, that, although the country was not actually inhabited by
Indians, it was not the less a scene of strife and combat for the
possession of such rich hunting grounds by a great number of tribes. He
discovered that it was a common park to these fierce tribes; and none
the less likely to expose them to the dangers of Indian warfare, because
it was not claimed or inhabited by any particular tribe. On the
contrary, instead of having to encounter a single tribe in possession,
he foresaw that the jealousy of all the tribes would be united against
the new intruders.

These fearless spirits, who were instinctively imbued with an abhorrence
of the Indians, heeded little, however, whether they had to make war on
them, or the wild beasts. They felt in its fullest force that
indomitable elasticity of character, which causes the possessor, every
where, and in all forms of imagined peril, to feel sufficient to
themselves. Hence the lonely adventurers continued fearlessly to explore
the beautiful positions for settlements, to cross and name the rivers,
and to hunt.

By a happy fatality, through all the summer they met with no Indians,
and experienced no impediment in the way of the most successful hunting.
During the season, they had collected large quantities of peltries, and
meeting with nothing to excite apprehension or alarm, they became
constantly more delighted with the country.

So passed their time, until the 22d of December. After this period
adventures of the most disastrous character began to crowd upon them. We
forthwith commence the narrative of incidents which constitute the
general color of Boone's future life.

[Illustration]




CHAPTER IV.

The exploring party divide into different routes--Boone and Stewart
taken prisoners by the Indians, and their escape--Boone meets with his
elder brother and another white man in the woods--Stewart killed by the
Indians, and the companion of the elder Boone destroyed by wolves--The
elder brother returns to North Carolina, leaving Boone alone in the
wilderness.


In order to extend the means of gaining more exact information with
regard to this beautiful country, the party divided, and took different
directions. Boone and Stewart formed one division, and the remaining
three the other. The two former had as yet seen few thick forests. The
country was much of it of that description, now known by the name of
"Barrens," or open woods, which had the appearance of having been
planted out with trees at wide and regular distances from each other,
like those of an orchard, allowing the most luxuriant growth of cane,
grass, or clover beneath them. They now passed a wide and deep forest,
in which the trees were large and thick. Among them were many of the
laurel tribe, in full verdure in mid winter. Others were thick hung with
persimmons, candied by the frost, nutritive, and as luscious as figs.
Others again were covered with winter grapes. Every thing tended to
inspire them with exalted notions of the natural resources of the
country, and to give birth to those extravagant romances, which
afterwards became prevalent, as descriptions of Kentucky. Such were
Finley's accounts of it--views which went abroad, and created even in
Europe an impression of a kind of new El Dorado, or rather rural
paradise. Other and very different scenes, in no great length of time,
disenchanted the new paradise, and presented it in the sober traits of
truth.

They were never out of sight of buffaloes, deer, and turkeys. At
night-fall they came in view of Kentucky river, and admired in unsated
astonishment, the precipices three hundred feet high, at the foot of
which, as in a channel cut out of the solid limestone, rolled the dark
waters of the beautiful stream. A lofty eminence was before them.
Thinking it would afford them a far view of the meanderings of the
river, they ascended it. This expectation was realized. A large extent
of country stretched beneath them. Having surveyed it, they proposed to
commence their return to rejoin their companions. As they were leisurely
descending the hill, little dreaming of danger, the Indian yell burst
upon their ears. A numerous party of Indians sprang from the cane-brake,
surrounded, vanquished, and bound them, before they had time to have
recourse to their arms. The Indians proceeded to plunder them of their
rifles, and every thing in their possession but the most indispensable
articles of dress. They then led them off to their camp, where they
confined them in such a manner as effectually to prevent their escape.

Not knowing a word of the speech of their captors, who knew as little of
theirs, they were wholly ignorant of what fate awaited them. The Indians
next day marched them off rapidly towards the north, compelling them to
travel at a rate which was excessively annoying to captives in their
predicament-manacled, in momentary apprehension of death, and plunging
deeper into the wilderness in advancing towards the permanent abode of
their savage masters. It was well for them that they were more athletic
than the savages, equally capable of endurance, and alike incapable of
betraying groans, fear, or even marks of regret in their countenance.
They knew enough of savage modes to beware that the least indications of
weariness, and inability to proceed, would have brought the tomahawk and
scalping-knife upon their skulls--weapons with which they were thus
early supplied from Detroit. They therefore pushed resolutely on, with
cheerful countenances, watching the while with intense earnestness, to
catch from the signs and gestures of the Indians, what was their purpose
in regard to their fate. By the second day, they comprehended the words
of most frequent recurrence in the discussion, that took place
respecting them. Part, they perceived, were for putting them to death to
prevent their escape. The other portion advocated their being adopted
into the tribe, and domesticated. To give efficacy to the counsels of
these last, the captives not only concealed every trace of chagrin, but
dissembled cheerfulness, and affected to like their new mode of life;
and seemed as happy, and as much amused, as the Indians themselves.

Fortunately, their previous modes of life, and in fact their actual
aptitudes and propensities wonderfully qualified them, along with their
reckless courage and elasticity of character, to enact this difficult
part with a success, which completely deceived the Indians, and gave the
entire ascendency to the advice of those who proposed to spare, and
adopt them into their tribe. Lulled by this semblance, the captors were
less and less strict in their guard. On the seventh night of their
captivity, the savages, having made a great fire, and fed plentifully,
all fell into a sound sleep, leaving their prisoners, who affected to be
as deeply asleep as themselves, wholly unguarded.

It need hardly be said, that the appearance of content they had worn,
was mere outward show; and that they slept not. Boone slowly and
cautiously raised himself to a sitting posture, and thus remained a few
moments to mark, if his change of position had been observed. One of the
sleepers turned in his sleep. Boone instantly dropped back to his
recumbent posture and semblance of sleep. So he remained fifteen
minutes, when he once more raised himself, and continued sitting for
some time, without noting a movement among the slumberers around him. He
then ventured to communicate his purpose to his companion.

The greatest caution was necessary to prevent disturbing the savages, as
the slightest noise would awake them, and probably bring instant death
upon the captives. Stewart succeeded in placing himself upon his feet
without any noise. The companions were not far apart, but did not dare
to whisper to each other the thought that occurred alike to both--that,
should they escape without rifles and ammunition, they must certainly
die of hunger. The place where their rifles stood had been carefully
noted by them, and by groping their way with the utmost care, they
finally reached them. Fortunately, the equipments, containing the usual
supply of powder and ball, were near the rifles. The feelings with which
Boone and Stewart stole forth from the circle of their captors may be
imagined. They made their way into the woods through the darkness,
keeping close together for some time, before they exchanged words.

It was not far from morning when they began their attempt at escape; but
they had made considerable progress from the Indian encampment before
the dawn. They took their course with the first light, and pursued it
the whole day, reaching their camp without meeting with any accident. As
the sun was declining, forms were seen approaching the camp in the
distance. The uncertain light in which they were first visible, rendered
it impossible for Boone and Stewart to determine whether they were
whites or Indians; but they grasped their rifles, and stood ready for
defence. The forms continued to approach cautiously and slowly, until
they were within speaking distance. Boone then hailed them with the
challenge, "Who comes there?" The delight may be imagined with which
Boone and Stewart heard the reply of "White men and friends!" "Come on
then," said Boone. The next moment he found himself in the arms of his
brother, who, accompanied by a single companion, had left North
Carolina, and made his way all the distance from the Yadkin to the
Cumberland. They had been wandering many days in the woods, in pursuit
of Boone and his party, and had thus providentially fallen upon them.

Notwithstanding the damp which it must cast on the spirits of these new
adventurers to hear of the recent captivity of Boone and Stewart, and
the uncertain fate of the rest of the company, this joyous meeting of
brothers and friends in the wilderness, and this intelligence from home,
filled the parties with a joy too sincere and unalloyed to be repressed
by apprehensions for the future.

The four associates commenced the usual occupation of hunting, but were
soon alarmed by signs of the vicinity of Indians, and clear proofs that
they were prowling near them in the woods. These circumstances strongly
admonished them not to venture singly to any great distance from each
other. In the eagerness of pursuing a wounded buffalo, Boone and
Stewart, however, allowed themselves to be separated from their
companions. Aware of their imprudence, and halting to return, a party of
savages rushed from the cane-brake, and discharged a shower of arrows
upon them, one of which laid Stewart dead on the spot. The first purpose
of Boone was to fire upon them, and sell his life as dearly as possible.
But rashness is not bravery; and seeing the numbers of the foe, the
hopelessness of resistance, and the uselessness of bartering his own
life for the revenge of inflicting a single death--reflecting, moreover,
on the retaliation it would probably bring down on the remainder of his
companions, he retreated, and escaped, amidst a flight of arrows, in
safety to the camp.

One would have supposed that this party would have needed no more
monition to keep them together, and always on their guard. But,
forgetful of the fate of Stewart, the partner of the elder Boone, who
had recently arrived, allowed himself to be beguiled away from the two
Boone's, as they were hunting together. The object of his curiosity was
of little importance. In pursuit of it, he wandered into a swamp, and
was lost. The two brothers sought him, long and painfully, to no
purpose. Discouraged, and perhaps exasperated in view of his careless
imprudence, they finally concluded he had chosen that method of
deserting them, and had set out on his return to North Carolina. Under
such impressions, they relinquished the search, and returned to camp.
They had reason afterwards to repent their harsh estimate of his
intentions. Fragments of his clothes, and traces of blood were found on
the opposite side of the swamp. A numerous pack of wolves had been heard
to howl in that direction the evening on which he had been lost.
Circumstances placed it beyond a doubt, that, while wandering about in
search of his companions, these terrible animals had come upon him and
torn him in pieces. He was never heard of afterwards.

The brothers were thus left alone in this wide wilderness, the only
white men west of the mountains; as they concluded the remainder of the
original party had returned to North Carolina. But they were neither
desponding nor indolent. They held pleasant communion together--hunted
by day, cooked their game, sat by their bright fires, and sung the airs
of their country by night, as though in the midst of the gayest society.
They devoted, beside, much of their time and labor to preparing a
comfortable cabin to shelter them during the approaching winter.

They were in want of many things. Clothing and moccasins they might
supply. With bread, sugar, and salt, though articles of the first
necessity, they could dispense. But ammunition, an article absolutely
indispensable, was failing them. They concluded, too, that horses would
be of essential service to them. They finally came to the resolution
that the elder Boone should return to North Carolina, and come out to
the new country with ammunition, horses, and supplies.

The character of Daniel Boone, in consenting to be left alone in that
wilderness, surrounded by perils from the Indians and wild beasts, of
which he had so recently and terribly been made aware, appears in its
true light. We have heard of a Robinson Crusoe made so by the necessity
of shipwreck; but all history can scarcely parallel another such an
instance of a man voluntarily consenting to be left alone among savages
and wild beasts, seven hundred miles from the nearest white inhabitant.
The separation came. The elder brother disappeared in the forest, and
Daniel Boone was left in the cabin, so recently cheered by the presence
of his brother, entirely alone. Their only dog followed the departing
brother, and Boone had nothing but his unconquerable spirit to sustain
him during the long and lonely days and nights, visited by the
remembrance of his distant wife and children.

To prevent the recurrence of dark and lonely thoughts, he set out, soon
after his brother left him, on a distant excursion to the north-west.
The country grew still more charming under his eye at every step of his
advance. He wandered through the delightful country of the Barrens, and
gained the heights of one of the ridges of Salt river, whence he could
look back on the Alleghany ridges, lifting their blue heads in the
direction of the country of his wife and children. Before him rolled the
majestic Ohio, down its dark forests, and seen by him for the first
time. It may be imagined what thoughts came over his mind, as the lonely
hunter stood on the shore of this mighty stream, straining his thoughts
towards its sources, and the unknown country where it discharged itself
into some other river, or the sea. During this journey he explored the
country on the south shore of the Ohio, between the Cumberland and the
present site of Louisville, experiencing in these lonely explorations a
strange pleasure, which, probably, none but those of his temperament can
adequately imagine.

Returning to his cabin, as a kind of head quarters, he found it
undisturbed by the Indians. Caution suggested to him the expedient of
often changing his position, and not continuing permanently to sleep in
the cabin. Sometimes he slept in the cane-brake sometimes under the
covert of a limestone cliff, often made aware on his return to the cabin
that the Indians had discovered it, and visited it during his absence.
Surrounded with danger and death, though insensible to fear, he
neglected none of those prudent precautions of which men of his
temperament are much more able to avail themselves, than those always
forecasting the fashion of uncertain evils. He was, however, never for
an hour in want of the most ample supply of food. Herds of deer and
buffaloes were seldom out of his sight for a day together. His nights
were often disturbed by the howling of wolves, which abounded as much as
the other forest animals. His table thus abundantly spread in the
wilderness, and every excursion affording new views of the beautiful
solitudes, he used to affirm afterwards that this period was among the
happiest in his life; that during it, care and melancholy, and a painful
sense of loneliness, were alike unknown to him.

We must not, however, suppose that the lonely hunter was capable only of
feeling the stern and sullen pleasures of the savage. On the contrary,
he was a man of the kindliest nature, and of the tenderest affections.
We have read of verses, in solid columns, said to have been made by him.
We would be sorry to believe him the author of these verses, for they
would redound little to his honor as a poet. But, though we believe he
did not attempt to make bad verses, the woodsman was essentially a
poet. He loved nature in all her aspects of beauty and grandeur with the
intensest admiration. He never wearied of admiring the charming natural
landscapes spread before him; and, to his latest days, his spirit in old
age seemed to revive in the season of spring, and when he visited the
fires of the sugar camps, blazing in the open maple groves.

[Illustration]




CHAPTER V.

Boone is pursued by the Indians, and eludes their pursuit--He encounters
and kills a bear--The return of his brother with ammunition--They
explore the country--Boone kills a panther on the back of a
buffalo--They return to North Carolina.


Boone's brother had departed on the first of May. During the period of
his absence, which lasted until the twenty-second of July, he considered
himself the only white person west of the mountains. It is true, some
time in this year, (1770,) probably in the latter part of it, an
exploring party led by General James Knox, crossed the Alleghany
mountains. But this exploring expedition confined its discoveries
principally to the country south and west of the river Kentucky. This
exploration was desultory, and without much result. Boone never met with
them, or knew that they were in the country. Consequently, in regard to
his own estimation, he was as completely alone in this unexplored world,
as though they had not been there.

He never allowed himself to neglect his caution in respect to the
numerous savages spread over the country. He knew that he was exposed
every moment to the danger of falling into their hands. The fate of
Stewart had served as a warning to him. It is wonderful that he should
have been able to traverse such an extent of country as he did, and live
in it so many months, and yet evade them. It required no little
ingenuity and self-possession to take such measures as insured this good
fortune.

About mid-day, near the close of the month of June, he paused in one of
his excursions for a short time under the shade of a tree. As he looked
cautiously around him, he perceived four Indians advancing openly
towards him, but at a considerable distance, and apparently without
having yet seen him. He did not delay to recommence his course through
the woods, hoping by short turns, and concealing himself among the
hills, to prevent an encounter with them, as the chance of four to one
was too great an odds against him. He advanced in this way one or two
miles; but as he cast a glance behind, he saw, with pain, that they
sedulously followed in his trail at nearly their first distance, showing
the same perseverance and sagacity of pursuit with which a hound follows
a deer. When he first perceived them, he was in such a position that he
could see them, and yet remain himself unseen. He was convinced that
they had not discovered his person, although so closely pursued by them.
But how to throw them off his trail, he was at a loss to conjecture. He
adopted a number of expedients in succession, but saw the Indians still
on the track behind. Suddenly a method occurred to his imagination,
which finally proved successful. Large grape vines swung from the trees
in all directions around him.

Hastening onward at a more rapid pace, until he passed a hill that would
serve to conceal him for a few moments, he seized a vine sufficiently
strong to support his weight; and disengaging it from the roots,
climbed it a few feet, by bracing against the tree to which it was
attached. When he had attained the necessary height, he gave himself so
strong an impulse from the tree, that he reached the ground some yards
from the spot where he left it. By this expedient he broke his trail.

Resuming his route in a course at right angles from that he had
previously followed, as fast as possible, he finally succeeded in
entirely distancing his pursuers, and leaving them at fault in pursuing
his trail.

Boone soon after this met with a second adventure in which he actually
encountered a foe scarcely less formidable than the savage. Rendered
doubly watchful by his late escape, none of the forest sounds escaped
his notice. Hearing the approach of what he judged to be a large animal
by the noise of its movement through the cane, he held his rifle ready
for instant use, and drew from its sheath a long and sharp knife, which
he always wore in his belt. He determined to try the efficacy of his
rifle first. As the animal came in sight it proved to be a she bear.
They are exceedingly ferocious at all times, and their attack is
dangerous and often fatal; but particularly so, when they are surrounded
by their cubs, as was the case in this instance.

As soon as the animal perceived him it gave indications of an intention
to make battle. Boone levelled his rifle, and remained quiet, until the
bear was sufficiently near to enable him to shoot with effect. In
general his aim was sure; but this time the ball not reach the point at
which he had aimed; and the wound it inflicted only served to render
the animal mad with rage and pain. It was impossible for him to reload
and discharge his gun a second time before it would reach him; and yet
he did not relish the idea of grappling with it in close fight. His
knife was the resource to which he instantly turned. He held it in his
right hand in such a position that the bear could not reach his person
without receiving its point. His rifle, held in his left hand, served as
a kind of shield. Thus prepared, he awaited the onset of the formidable
animal. When within a foot of him, it reared itself erect to grasp him
with its huge paws. In this position it pressed upon the knife until the
whole blade was buried in its body. Boone had pointed it directly to the
heart of the animal. It fell harmless to the ground.

[Illustration]

The time fixed for the return of his brother was drawing near. Extreme
solicitude respecting him now disturbed the hitherto even tenor of his
life. He remained most of his time in his cabin, hunting no more than
was necessary for subsistence, and then in the direction in which his
brother would be likely to approach. It was not doubt of his brother's
compliance with his promise of return, that disturbed the woodsman--such
a feeling never even entered his mind. He was confident he would prove
faithful to the trust reposed in him; but the difficulties and dangers
of the way were so great for a solitary individual upon the route before
him, that Boone feared he might fall a victim to them, notwithstanding
the utmost exertion of self-possession and fortitude.

Day after day passed, after the extreme limit of the period fixed by the
elder Boone for his return, and still he came not. It may be imagined
that Boone had need of all the firmness and philosophy of character,
with which he was so largely endowed by nature, to sustain him under the
pressure of anxiety for the safety of his brother, and to hear through
him from his family. He suffered, too, from the conviction that he must
soon starve in the wilderness himself, as his ammunition was almost
gone. He could not hope to see his family again, unless his brother or
some other person furnished him the means of obtaining food on his way
to rejoin them. His rifle--his dependence for subsistence and
defence--would soon become entirely useless. What to others would have
been real dangers and trials--a solitary life in the wilderness,
exposure to the attacks of the savages and wild beasts--were regarded by
him as nothing; but here he saw himself driven to the last extremity,
and without resource. These meditations, although they made him
thoughtful, did not dispirit him. His spirit was unconquerable. He was
sitting one evening, near sunset, at the door of his cabin, indulging in
reflections naturally arising from his position. His attention was
withdrawn by a sound as of something approaching through the forest.
Looking up, he saw nothing, but he arose, and stood prepared for
defence. He could now distinguish the sound as of horses advancing
directly towards the cabin. A moment afterwards he saw, through the
trees, his brother mounted on one horse, and leading another heavily
laden.

It would be useless to attempt to describe his sensations at this sight.
Every one will feel instantly, how it must have operated upon all the
sources of joy. More unmixed happiness is seldom enjoyed on the earth,
than that, in which the brothers spent this evening. His brother brought
him good news of the health and welfare of his family, and of the
affectionate remembrance in which he was held by them; and an abundant
supply of ammunition, beside many other articles, that in his situation,
might be deemed luxuries. The brothers talked over their supper, and
until late at night, for they had much to relate to each other, and both
had been debarred the pleasure of conversation so long that it now
seemed as though they could never weary of it. The sun was high when
they awoke the following morning. After breakfast, they held a
consultation with respect to what was next to be done. From observation,
Boone was satisfied that numbers of Indians, in small parties, were then
in the neighborhood. He knew it was idle to suppose that two men,
however brave and skilful in the use of their weapons, could survive
long in opposition to them. He felt the impolicy of wasting more time in
roaming over the country for the mere purpose of hunting.

He proposed to his brother that they should immediately set themselves
seriously about selecting the most eligible spot on which permanently to
fix his family. This done, they would return together to North Carolina
to bring them out to the new country. He did not doubt, that he could
induce a sufficient number to accompany him, to render a residence in it
comparatively safe. That they might accomplish this purpose with as
little delay as possible, they proceeded the remainder of the day to
hunt, and prepare food sufficient for some time. The following day they
completed the necessary arrangement, and settled every thing for
departure on the next morning.

They directed their course to Cumberland river. In common with all
explorers of unknown countries, they gave names to the streams which
they crossed. After reaching Cumberland river, they traversed the region
upon its banks in all directions for some days. Thence they took a more
northern route, which led them to Kentucky river. The country around the
latter river delighted them. Its soil and position were such as they
sought; and they determined, that here should be the location of the new
settlement. Having acquainted themselves, as far as they deemed
necessary, with the character of the region to be revisited, their
returning journey was recommenced. No incidents, but such as had marked
all the period of their journeyings in the wilderness, the occasional
encounter of Indians by day and the cries of wild beasts by night had
happened to them, during their last exploration.

Upon the second day of their advance in the direction of their home,
they heard the approach of a drove of buffaloes. The brothers remarked,
that from the noise there must be an immense number, or some uncommon
confusion among them. As the buffaloes came in view, the woodsmen saw
the explanation of the unusual uproar in a moment. The herd were in a
perfect fury, stamping the ground and tearing it up, and rushing back
and forward upon one another in all directions. A panther had seated
himself upon the back of one of the largest buffaloes, and fastened his
claws and teeth into the flesh of the animal, wherever he could reach
it, until the blood ran down on all sides. The movements of a powerful
animal, under such suffering, may be imagined. But plunging, rearing,
and running were to no purpose. The panther retained its seat, and
continued its horrid work. The buffalo, in its agony, sought relief in
the midst of its companions, but instead of obtaining it, communicated
its fury to the drove.

The travellers did not care to approach the buffaloes too closely; but
Boone, picking the flint of his rifle, and looking carefully at the
loading, took aim at the panther, determined to displace the monster
from its seat. It happened, that the buffalo continued a moment in a
position to allow the discharge to take effect. The panther released its
hold, and came to the ground. As generally happens in such cases, this
herd was followed by a band of wolves. They prowl around for the remains
usually found in the train of such numbers of animals. Another rifle was
discharged among them, for the sport of seeing them scatter through the
woods.

[Illustration]

The brothers left such traces--or blazes as they are technically
called--of their course, as they thought would enable them to find it
again, until they reached the foot of the mountains. They tried various
ascents, and finally discovered a route, which, with some labor might be
rendered tolerably easy. They proposed to cross the families here, and
blazed the path in a way that could not be mistaken. This important
point settled, they hastened to the settlement, which they reached
without accident.




CHAPTER VI.

Boone starts with his family to Kentucky--Their return to Clinch
river--He conducts a party of surveyors to the Falls of Ohio--He helps
build Boonesborough, and removes his family to the fort--His daughter
and two of Col. Calloway's daughters taken prisoners by the
Indians--They pursue the Indians and rescue the captives.


The next step was to collect a sufficient number of emigrants who would
be willing to remove to the new country with the families of the Boones,
to give the settlements security and strength to resist the attacks of
the Indians. This was not an easy task. It may be readily imagined that
the Boones saw only the bright side of the contemplated expedition. They
painted the fertility and amenity of the flowering wilderness in the
most glowing colors. They described the cane-brakes, the clover and
grass, the transparent limestone springs and brooks, the open forests,
the sugar maple orchards, the buffaloes, deer, turkeys and wild fowls,
in all the fervid colors of their own imaginations. To them it was the
paradise of the first pair, whose inhabitants had only to put forth
their hands, and eat and enjoy. The depredations, captivities, and
scalpings, of the Indians; the howling of the wolves; the diseases, and
peculiar trials and difficulties of a new country, without houses,
mills, and the most indispensable necessaries of civilized life, were
all overlooked. But in such a case, in a compact settlement like that of
the Yadkin, there are never wanting gainsayers, opposers, gossips, who
envied the Boones. These caused those disposed to the enterprise to
hear the other part, and to contemplate the other side of the picture.
They put stories in circulation as eloquent as those of the Boones,
which told of all the scalpings, captivities, and murders of the
Indians, magnified in a tenfold proportion. With them, the savages were
like the ogres and bloody giants of nursery stories. They had pleasant
tales of horn-snakes, of such deadly malignity, that the thorn in their
tails, struck into the largest tree in full verdure, instantly blasted
it. They scented in the air of the country, deadly diseases, and to
them, Boone's paradise was a _Hinnom, the valley of the shadow of
death_.

The minds of the half resolved, half doubting persons, that meditated
emigration, vibrated alternately backwards and forwards, inclined or
disinclined to it, according to the last view of the case presented to
them. But the natural love of adventure, curiosity, fondness for the
hunting life, dissatisfaction with the incessant labor necessary for
subsistence on their present comparatively sterile soil, joined to the
confident eloquence of the Boones, prevailed on four or five families to
join them in the expedition.

All the necessary arrangements of preparing for this distant expedition,
of making sales and purchases, had occupied nearly two years. The
expedition commenced its march on the 26th of September, 1773. They all
set forth with confident spirits for the western wilderness, and were
joined by forty persons in Powell's Valley, a settlement in advance of
that on the Yadkin, towards the western country. The whole made a
cavalcade of nearly eighty persons.

The three principal ranges of the Alleghany, over which they must pass,
were designated as Powell's, Walden's, and Cumberland. These mountains
forming the barrier between the old settlements and the new country,
stretch from the north-east to the south-west. They are of great length
and breadth, and not far distant from each other. There are
nature-formed passes over them, which render the ascent comparatively
easy. The aspect of these huge piles was so wild and rugged, as to make
it natural for those of the party who were unaccustomed to mountains, to
express fears of being able to reach the opposite side. The course
traced by the brothers on their return to Carolina, was found and
followed. The advantage of this forethought was strongly perceived by
all. Their progress was uninterrupted by any adverse circumstance, and
every one was in high spirits, until the west side of Walden's ridge,
the most elevated of the three, had been gained. They were now destined
to experience a most appalling reverse of fortune.

On the tenth of October, as the party were advancing along a narrow
defile, unapprehensive of danger, they were suddenly terrified by
fearful yells. Instantly aware that Indians surrounded them, the men
sprang to the defence of the helpless women and children. But the attack
had been so sudden, and the Indians were so much superior in point of
numbers, that six men fell at the first onset of the savages. A seventh
was wounded, and the party would have been overpowered, but for a
general and effective discharge of the rifles of the remainder. The
Indians, terror-struck, took to flight, and disappeared.

Had the numbers of the travellers allowed it, they felt no inclination
to pursue the retreating Indians. Their loss had been too serious to
permit the immediate gratification of revenge. The eldest son of Daniel
Boone was found among the slain. The domestic animals accompanying the
expedition were so scattered by the noise of the affray, that it was
impossible again to collect and recover them. The distress and
discouragement of the party were so great, as to produce an immediate
determination to drop the projected attempt of a settlement in Kentucky,
and return to Clinch river, which lay forty miles in their rear, where a
number of families had already fixed themselves.

They then proceeded to perform the last melancholy duties to the bodies
of their unfortunate companions with all decent observances which
circumstances would allow. Their return was then commenced. Boone and
his brother, with some others, did not wish to forsake the undertaking
upon which they had set out; but the majority against them was so great,
and the feeling on the subject so strong, that they were compelled to
acquiesce. The party retraced, in deep sadness, the steps they had so
lately taken in cheerfulness, and even joy.

Daniel Boone remained with his family on Clinch river, until June, 1774;
when he was requested by the governor of Virginia to go to the falls of
Ohio, to act as a guide to a party of surveyors. The manifestations of
hostility, on the part of the Indians, were such, that their longer stay
was deemed unsafe. Boone undertook to perform this service, and set out
upon this journey, with no other companion than a man by the name of
Stoner. They reached the point of destination, now Louisville, in a
surprisingly short period, without any accident. Under his guidance the
surveyors arrived at the settlements in safety. From the time that Boone
left his home, upon this enterprise, until he returned to it, was but
sixty-two days. During this period he travelled eight hundred miles on
foot, through a country entirely destitute of human habitations, save
the camps of the Indians.

In the latter part of this year, the disturbances between the Indians
north-west of the Ohio, and the frontier settlers, grew to open
hostilities. Daniel Boone being in Virginia, the governor appointed him
to the command of three contiguous garrisons on the frontier, with the
commission of captain. The campaign of the year terminated in a battle,
after which the militia were disbanded. Boone was consequently relieved
from duty.

Col. Henderson, of North Carolina, had been for some time engaged in
forming a company in that state, for the purpose of purchasing the lands
on the south side of the Kentucky, from the southern Indians. The plan
was now matured, and Boone was solicited by the company to attend the
treaty to be made between them and the Indians, at Wataga, in March,
1775, to settle the terms of the negociation. The requisite information,
in respect to the proposed purchase, was given him, and he acceded to
the request. At the appointed time, he attended and successfully
performed the service intrusted to him. Soon afterwards the same company
applied to him to lay out a road between the settlements on Holston
river and Kentucky river. No little knowledge of the country, and
judgment were requisite for the proper fulfilment of this service. A
great many different routes must be examined, before the most
practicable one could be fixed upon. The duty was, however, executed by
Boone, promptly and faithfully. The labor was great, owing to the rugged
and mountainous country, through which the route led. The laborers, too,
suffered from the repeated attacks of Indians. Four of them were killed,
and five wounded. The remainder completed this work, by reaching
Kentucky river, in April, of the same year. They immediately proceeded
to erect a fort near a salt spring, where Boonesborough now stands. The
party, enfeebled by its losses, did not complete the erection of the
fort until June. The Indians troubled them exceedingly, and killed one
man. The fort consisted of a block-house, and several cabins, surrounded
by palisades.

The fort being finished, Boone returned to his family, and soon after
removed them to this first garrison of Kentucky. The purpose on which
his heart had so long been set, was now accomplished. His wife and
daughters were the first white women that ever stood on the banks of
Kentucky river. In our zeal to blazon our subject, it is not affirmed,
that Boone was absolutely the first discoverer and explorer of Kentucky,
for he was not. But the high meed of being the first actual settler and
cultivator of the soil, cannot be denied him. It was the pleasant season
of the close of summer and commencement of autumn, when the immigrants
would see their new residence in the best light. Many of its actual
inconveniences were withheld from observation, as the mildness of the
air precluded the necessity of tight dwellings. Arrangements were made
for cultivating a field in the coming spring. The Indians, although far
from friendly, did not attempt any immediate assault upon their new
neighbors, and the first events of the settlement were decidedly
fortunate. The game in the woods was an unfailing resource for food. The
supplies brought from their former homes by the immigrants were not yet
exhausted, and things went on in their usual train, with the added
advantage, that over all, in their new home, was spread the charm of
novelty.

Winter came and passed with as little discomfort to the inmates of the
garrison as could be expected from the circumstances of their position.
The cabins were thoroughly daubed, and fuel was of course abundant. It
is true, those who felled the trees were compelled to be constantly on
their guard, lest a red man should take aim at them from the shelter of
some one of the forest hiding places. But they were fitted for this way
of getting along by their training, natures, and predilections. There
was no want of excitement during the day, or even night--nothing of the
wearying monotony to which a life of safe and regular occupation is
subject. Spring opened. The trees were girdled, and the brush cut down
and burned, preparatory to ploughing the field. A garden spot was marked
off, the virgin earth thrown up and softened, and then given in charge
to the wives and daughters of the establishment. They brought out their
stock of seeds, gathered in the old settlements, and every bright day
saw them engaged in the light and healthful occupation of planting them.
They were protected by the vicinity of their husbands and fathers, and
in turn cheered them in their severer labors. The Indians had forborne
any attacks upon the settlers so long, that, as is naturally the case,
they had ceased in a degree to dwell upon the danger always to be
apprehended from them. The men did not fail to take their rifles and
knives with them whenever they went abroad; but the women ventured
occasionally a short distance without the palisades during the day,
never, however, losing sight of the fort. This temerity was destined to
cost them dear.

Colonel Calloway, the intimate friend of Boone, had joined him in the
course of the spring, at the fort, which had received, by the consent of
all, the name of Boonesborough. He had two daughters. Captain Boone had
a daughter also, and the three were companions; and, if we may take the
portraits of the rustic time, patterns of youthful bloom and loveliness.
It cannot be doubted that they were inexpressibly dear to their
parents. These girls, at the close of a beautiful summer day, the 14th
of July, were tempted imprudently to wander into the woods at no great
distance from their habitations, to gather flowers with which to adorn
their rustic fire-places. They were suddenly surrounded by half a dozen
Indians. Their shrieks and efforts to flee were alike unavailing. They
were dragged rapidly beyond the power of making themselves heard. As
soon as they were deemed to be beyond the danger of rescue, they were
treated with the utmost indulgence and decorum.

This forbearance, of a race that we are accustomed to call savages, was
by no means accidental, or peculiar to this case. While in battle, they
are unsparing and unrelenting as tigers--while, after the fury of its
excitement is past, they will exult with frantic and demoniac joy in the
cries of their victims expiring at a slow fire--while they dash the
tomahawk with merciless indifference into the cloven skulls of mothers
and infants, they are universally seen to treat captive women with a
decorous forbearance. This strange trait, so little in keeping with
other parts of their character, has been attributed by some to their
want of the sensibilities and passions of our race. The true solution
is, the force of their habits. Honor, as they estimate it, is, with
them, the most sacred and inviolable of all laws. The decorum of
forbearance towards women in their power has been incorporated with
their code as the peculiar honor of a warrior. It is usually kept sacred
and inviolate. Instances are not wanting where they have shown
themselves the most ardent lovers of their captives, and, we may add,
most successful in gaining their voluntary affection in return. Enough
such examples are recorded, were other proofs wanting, to redeem their
forbearance from the negative character resulting from the want of
passions.

The captors of these young ladies, having reached the main body of their
people, about a dozen in number, made all the provision in their power
for the comfort of their fair captives. They served them with their best
provisions, and by signs and looks that could not be mistaken, attempted
to soothe their agonies, and quiet their apprehensions and fears. The
parents at the garrison, having waited in vain for the return of their
gay and beloved daughters to prepare their supper, and in torments of
suspense that may easily be imagined, until the evening, became aware
that they were either lost or made captives. They sallied forth in
search of them, and scoured the woods in every direction, without
discovering a trace of them. They were then but too well convinced that
they had been taken by the Indians. Captain Boone and Colonel Calloway,
the agonizing parents of the lost ones, appealed to the company to
obtain volunteers to pursue the Indians, under an oath, if they found
the captors, either to retake their daughters, or die in the attempt.
The oath of Boone on this occasion is recorded: "By the Eternal Power
that made me a father, if my daughter lives, and is found, I will either
bring her back, or spill my life blood." The oath was no sooner uttered
than every individual of the males crowded round Boone to repeat it. But
he reminded them that a part of their number must remain to defend the
station. Seven select persons only were admitted to the oath, along with
the fathers of the captives. The only difficulty was in making the
selection. Supplying themselves with knapsacks, rifles, ammunition, and
provisions, the party set forth on the pursuit.

Hitherto they had been unable to find the trail of the captors. Happily
they fell upon it by accident. But the Indians, according to their
custom, had taken so much precaution to hide their trail, that they
found themselves exceedingly perplexed to keep it, and they were obliged
to put forth all the acquirement and instinct of woodsmen not to find
themselves every moment at fault in regard to their course. The rear
Indians of the file had covered their foot prints with leaves. They
often turned off at right angles; and whenever they came to a branch,
walked in the water for some distance. At a place of this sort, the
pursuers were for some time wholly unable to find at what point the
Indians had left the branch, and began to despair of regaining their
trail. In this extreme perplexity, one of the company was attracted by
an indication of their course, which proved that the daughters shared
the sylvan sagacity of their parents. "God bless my dear child,"
exclaimed Colonel Calloway; "she has proved that she had strength of
mind in her deplorable condition to retain self possession." At the same
instant he picked up a little piece of ribbon, which he instantly
recognized as his daughter's. She had evidently committed it unobserved
to the air, to indicate the course of her captors. The trail was soon
regained, and the company resumed their march with renewed alacrity.

They were afterwards often at a loss to keep the trail, from the extreme
care of the Indians to cover and destroy it. But still, in their
perplexity, the sagacious expedient of the fair young captives put them
right. A shred of their handkerchief, or of some part of their dress,
which they had intrusted to the wind unobserved, indicated their course,
and that the captives were thus far not only alive, but that their
reasoning powers, unsubdued by fatigue, were active and buoyant. Next
day, in passing places covered with mud, deposited by the dry branches
on the way, the foot prints of the captives were distinctly traced,
until the pursuers had learned to discriminate not only the number, but
the peculiar form of each foot print.

Late in the evening of the fifteenth day's pursuit, from a little
eminence, they discovered in the distance before them, through the
woods, a smoke and the light of a fire. The palpitation of their
parental hearts may be easily imagined. They could not doubt that it was
the camp of the captors of their children. The plan of recapture was
intrusted entirely to Boone. He led his company as near the enemy as he
deemed might be done with safety, and selecting a position under the
shelter of a hill, ordered them to halt, with a view to passing the
night in that place. They then silently took food as the agitation of
their minds would allow. All but Calloway, another selected person of
their number, and himself, were permitted to lie down, and get that
sleep of which they had been so long deprived. The three impatiently
waited for midnight, when the sleep of the Indians would be most likely
to be profound. They stationed the third person selected, on the top of
the eminence, behind which they were encamped, as a sentinel to await a
given signal from the fathers, which should be his indication to fly to
the camp and arouse the sleepers, and bring them to their aid. Then
falling prostrate, they crept cautiously, and as it were by inches,
towards the Indian camp.

Having reached a covert of bushes, close by the Indian camp, and
examined as well as they could by the distant light of the camp-fires,
the order of their rifles, they began to push aside the bushes, and
survey the camp through the opening. Seventeen Indians were stretched,
apparently in sound sleep, on the ground. But they looked in vain among
them for the dear objects of their pursuit. They were not long in
discovering another camp a little remote from that of the Indians. They
crawled cautiously round to take a survey of it. Here, to their
inexpressible joy, were their daughters in each others arms. Directly in
front of their camp were two Indians, with their tomahawks and other
weapons within their grasp. The one appeared to be in a sound sleep, and
the other keeping the most circumspective vigils.

The grand object now was to get possession of the prisoners without
arousing their captors, the consequence of which it was obvious, would
be the immediate destruction of the captives. Boone made a signal to
Calloway to take a sure aim at the sleeping Indian, so as to be able to
despatch him in a moment, if the emergency rendered that expedient
necessary. Boone, the while, crawled round, so as to reach the waking
Indian from behind; intending to spring upon him and strangle him, so as
to prevent his making a noise to awaken the sleeper. But, unfortunately,
this Indian instead of being asleep was wide awake, and on a careful
look out. The shadow of Boone coming on them from behind, aroused him.
He sprang erect, and uttered a yell that made the ancient woods ring,
leaving no doubt that the other camp would be instantly alarmed. The
captives, terrified by the war yell of their sentinels, added their
screams of apprehension, and every thing was in a moment in confusion.
The first movement of Boone was to fire. But the forbearance of
Calloway, and his own more prudent second thought, restrained him. It
was hard to forego such a chance for vengeance, but their own lives and
their children's would probably pay the forfeit, and they fired not. On
the contrary, they surrendered themselves to the Indians, who rushed
furiously in a mass around them. By significant gestures, and a few
Indian words, which they had learned, they implored the lives of their
captive children, and opportunity for a parley. Seeing them in their
power, and comprehending the language of defenceless suppliants, their
fury was at length with some difficulty restrained and appeased. They
seemed evidently under the influence of a feeling of compassion towards
the daughters, to which unquestionably the adventurous fathers were
indebted, that their lives were not instantly sacrificed. Binding them
firmly with cords, and surrounding them with sentinels, the Indians
retired to their camp, not to resume their sleep, but to hold a council
to settle the fate of their new prisoners.

What were the thoughts of the captive children, or of the disinterested
and brave parents, as they found themselves bound, and once more in the
power of their enemies--what was the bitter disappointment of the one,
and the agonizing filial apprehension of the other--may be much more
readily imagined than described. But the light of the dawn enabled the
daughters to see, in the countenances of their fathers, as they lay
bound and surrounded by fierce savages, unextinguishable firmness, and
undaunted resolution, and a consciousness of noble motives; and they
imbibed from the view something of the magnanimity of their parents, and
assumed that demeanor of composure and resolute endurance which is
always the readiest expedient to gain all the respect and forbearance
that an Indian can grant.

It would be difficult to fancy a state of more torturing suspense than
that endured by the companions of Boone and Calloway, who had been left
behind the hill. Though they had slept little since the commencement of
the expedition, and had been encouraged by the two fathers, their
leaders to sleep that night, the emergency was too exciting to admit of
sleep.

Often, during the night, had they aroused themselves, in expectation of
the return of the fathers, or of a signal for action. But the night wore
away, and the morning dawned, without bringing either the one or the
other. But notwithstanding this distressing state of suspense, they had
a confidence too undoubting in the firmness and prudence of their
leader, to think of approaching the Indian camp until they should
receive the appointed signal.

It would naturally be supposed that the deliberation of the Indian
council, which had been held to settle the fate of Boone and Calloway,
would end in sentencing them to run the gauntlet, and then amidst the
brutal laughter and derision of their captors, to be burnt to death at a
slow fire. Had the prisoners betrayed the least signs of fear, the least
indications of a subdued mind, such would in all probability have been
the issue of the Indian consultation. Such, however, was not the result
of the council. It was decreed that they should be killed with as little
noise as possible; their scalps taken as trophies, and that their
daughters should remain captives as before. The lenity of this sentence
may be traced to two causes. The daring hardihood, the fearless
intrepidity of the adventure, inspired them with unqualified admiration
for their captives. Innumerable instances have since been recorded,
where the most inveterate enemies have boldly ventured into the camp of
their enemy, have put themselves in their power, defied them to their
face and have created an admiration of their fearless daring, which has
caused that they have been spared and dismissed unmolested. This sort of
feeling had its influence on the present occasion in favor of the
prisoners. Another extenuating influence was, that hostilities between
the white and red men in the west had as yet been uncommon; and the
mutual fury had not been exasperated by murder and retaliation.

As soon as it was clear morning light, the Indian camp was in motion. As
a business preliminary to their march, Boone and Calloway were led out
and bound to a tree, and the warriors were selected who were to despatch
them with their tomahawks. The place of their execution was selected at
such a distance from their camp, as that the daughters might not be able
to witness it. The two prisoners were already at the spot, awaiting the
fatal blow, when a discharge of rifles, cutting down two of the savages
at the first shot, arrested their proceedings. Another and another
discharge followed. The Indians were as yet partially supplied with fire
arms, and had not lost any of their original dread of the effects of
this artificial thunder, and the invisible death of the balls. They were
ignorant, moreover, of the number of their assailants, and naturally
apprehended it to be greater than it was. They raised a yell of
confusion, and dispersed in every direction, leaving their dead behind,
and the captives to their deliverers. The next moment the children were
in the arms of their parents; and the whole party, in the unutterable
joy of conquest and deliverance, were on their way homewards.

[Illustration]

It need hardly be added that the brave associates of the expedition who
had been left in camp, having waited the signal for the return of Boone
and Calloway, until their patience and forbearance was exhausted, aware
that something serious must have prevented their return, reconnoitered
the movement of the Indians as they moved from their camp to despatch
their two prisoners, and fired upon them at the moment they were about
to put their sentence into execution.

About this time a new element began to exasperate and extend the ravages
of Indian warfare, along the whole line of the frontier settlements. The
war of Independence had already begun to rage. The influence and
resources of Great Britain extended along the immense chain of our
frontier, from the north-eastern part of Vermont and New York, all the
way to the Mississippi. Nor did this nation, to her everlasting infamy,
hesitate to engage these infuriate allies of the wilderness, whose known
rule of warfare was indiscriminate vengeance; without reference to the
age or sex of the foe, as auxiliaries in the war.

As this biographical sketch of the life of Boone is inseparably
interwoven with this border scene of massacres, plunderings, burnings,
and captivities, which swept the incipient northern and western
settlements with desolation, it may not be amiss to take a brief
retrospect of the state of these settlements at this conjuncture in the
life of Boone.




CHAPTER VII.

Settlement of Harrodsburgh--Indian mode of besieging and
warfare--Fortitude and privation of the Pioneers--The Indians attack
Harrodsburgh and Boonesborough--Description of a Station--Attack of
Bryant's Station.


A road sufficient for the passage of pack horses in single file, had
been opened from the settlements already commenced on Holston river to
Boonesborough in Kentucky. It was an avenue which soon brought other
adventurers, with their families to the settlement. On the northern
frontier of the country, the broad and unbroken bosom of the Ohio opened
an easy liquid highway of access to the country. The first spots
selected as landing places and points of ingress into the country, were
Limestone--now Maysville--at the mouth of Limestone creek, and Beargrass
creek, where Louisville now stands. Boonesborough and Harrodsburgh were
the only stations in Kentucky sufficiently strong to be safe from the
incursions of the Indians; and even these places afforded no security a
foot beyond the palisades. These two places were the central points
towards which emigrants directed their course from Limestone and
Louisville. The routes from these two places were often ambushed by the
Indians. But notwithstanding the danger of approach to the new country,
and the incessant exposure during the residence there, immigrants
continued to arrive at the stations.

The first female white settlers of Harrodsburgh, were Mrs. Denton,
McGary, and Hogan, who came with their husbands and families. A number
of other families soon followed, among whom, in 1776, came Benjamin
Logan, with his wife and family. These were all families of
respectability and standing, and noted in the subsequent history of the
country.

Hordes of savages were soon afterwards ascertained to have crossed the
Ohio, with the purpose to extirpate these germs of social establishments
in Kentucky. According to their usual mode of warfare, they separated
into numerous detachments, and dispersed in all directions through the
forests. This gave them the aspect of numbers and strength beyond
reality. It tended to increase the apprehensions of the recent
immigrants, inspiring the natural impressions, that the woods in all
directions were full of Indians. It enabled them to fight in detail,--to
assail different settlements at the same time, and to fill the whole
country with consternation.

Their mode of besieging these places, though not at all conformable to
the notions of a siege derived from the tactics of a civilized people,
was dictated by the most profound practical observation, operating upon
existing circumstances. Without cannon or scaling ladders, their hope of
carrying a station, or fortified place, was founded upon starving the
inmates, cutting off their supplies of water, killing them, as they
exposed themselves, in detail, or getting possession of the station by
some of the arts of dissimulation. Caution in their tactics is still
more strongly inculcated than bravery. Their first object is to secure
themselves; their next, to kill their enemy. This is the universal
Indian maxim from Nova Zembla to Cape Horn. In besieging a place, they
are seldom seen in force upon any particular quarter. Acting in small
parties, they disperse themselves, and lie concealed among bushes or
weeds, behind trees or stumps. They ambush the paths to the barn,
spring, or field. They discharge their rifle or let fly their arrow, and
glide away without being seen, content that their revenge should issue
from an invisible source. They kill the cattle, watch the watering
places, and cut off all supplies. During the night, they creep, with the
inaudible and stealthy step dictated by the animal instinct, to a
concealed position near one of the gates, and patiently pass many
sleepless nights, so that they may finally cut off some ill-fated
person, who incautiously comes forth in the morning. During the day, if
there be near the station grass, weeds, bushes, or any distinct
elevation of the soil, however small, they crawl, as prone as reptiles,
to the place of concealment, and whoever exposes the smallest part of
his body through any part or chasm, receives their shot, behind the
smoke of which they instantly cower back to their retreat. When they
find their foe abroad, they boldly rush upon him, and make him prisoner,
or take his scalp. At times they approach the walls or palisades with
the most audacious daring, and attempt to fire them, or beat down the
gate. They practice, with the utmost adroitness, the stratagem of a
false alarm on one side when the real assault is intended for the other.
With untiring perseverance, when their stock of provisions is exhausted,
they set forth to hunt, as on common occasions, resuming their station
near the besieged place as soon as they are supplied.

It must he confessed, that they had many motives to this persevering and
deadly hostility, apart from their natural propensity to war. They saw
this new and hated race of pale faces gradually getting possession of
their hunting grounds, and cutting down their forests. They reasoned
forcibly and justly, that the time, when to oppose these new intruders
with success, was to do it before they had become numerous and strong in
diffused population and resources. Had they possessed the skill of
corporate union, combining individual effort with a general concert of
attack, and directed their united force against each settlement in
succession, there is little doubt, that at this time they might have
extirpated the new inhabitants from Kentucky, and have restored it to
the empire of the wild beasts and the red men. But in the order of
events it was otherwise arranged. They massacred, they burnt, and
plundered, and destroyed. They killed cattle, and carried off the
horses;--inflicting terror, poverty, and every species of distress; but
were not able to make themselves absolute masters of a single station.

It has been found by experiment, that the settlers in such predicaments
of danger and apprehension, act under a most spirit-stirring excitement,
which, notwithstanding its alarms, is not without its pleasures. They
acquired fortitude, dexterity, and that kind of courage which results
from becoming familiar with exposure.

The settlements becoming extended, the Indians, in their turn, were
obliged to put themselves on the defensive. They cowered in the distant
woods for concealment, or resorted to them for hunting. In these
intervals, the settlers, who had acquired a kind of instinctive
intuition to know when their foe was near them, or had retired to
remoter forests, went forth to plough their corn, gather in their
harvests, collect their cattle, and pursue their agricultural
operations. These were their holyday seasons for hunting, during which
they often exchanged shots with their foe. The night, as being most
secure from Indian attack, was the common season selected for journeying
from garrison to garrison.

We, who live in the midst of scenes of abundance and tranquillity can
hardly imagine how a country could fill with inhabitants, under so many
circumstances of terror, in addition to all the hardships incident to
the commencement of new establishments in the wilderness; such as want
of society, want of all the regular modes of supply, in regard to the
articles most indispensable in every stage of the civilized condition.
There were no mills, no stores, no regular supplies of clothing, salt,
sugar, and the luxuries of tea and coffee. But all these dangers and
difficulties notwithstanding, under the influence of an inexplicable
propensity, families in the old settlements used to comfort and
abundance, were constantly arriving to encounter all these dangers and
privations. They began to spread over the extensive and fertile country
in every direction--presenting such numerous and dispersed marks to
Indian hostility, red men became perplexed, amidst so many conflicting
temptations to vengeance, which to select.

The year 1776 was memorable in the annals of Kentucky, as that in which
General George Rogers Clark first visited it, unconscious, it may be, of
the imperishable honors which the western country would one day reserve
for him. This same year Captain Wagin arrived in the country, and
_fixed_ in a solitary cabin on Hinkston's Fork of the Licking.

In the autumn of this year, most of the recent immigrants to Kentucky
returned to the old settlements, principally in Virginia. They carried
with them strong representations, touching the fertility and advantages
of their new residence; and communicated the impulse of their hopes and
fears extensively among their fellow-citizens by sympathy.

The importance of the new settlement was already deemed to be such, that
on the meeting of the legislature of Virginia, the governor recommended
that the south-western part of the county of Fincastle--so this vast
tract of country west of the Alleghanies had hitherto been
considered--should be erected into a separate county by the name of
Kentucky.

This must be considered an important era in the history of the country.
The new county became entitled to two representatives in the legislature
of Virginia, to a court and judge; in a word, to all the customary
civil, military, and judicial officers of a new county. In the year
1777, the county was duly organized, according to the act of the
Virginia legislature. Among the names of the first officers in the new
county, we recognize those of Floyd, Bowman, Logan, and Todd.

Harrodsburgh, the strongest and most populous station in the country,
had not hitherto been assailed by the Indians. Early in the spring of
1777, they attacked a small body of improvers marching to Harrodsburgh,
about four miles from that place. Mr. Kay, afterwards General Kay, and
his brother were of the party. The latter was killed, and another man
made prisoner. The fortunate escape of James Kay, then fifteen years
old, was the probable cause of the saving of Harrodsburgh from
destruction. Flying from the scene of attack and the death of his
brother, he reached the station and gave the inhabitants information,
that a large body of Indians was marching to attack the place. The
Indians themselves, aware that the inhabitants had been premonished of
their approach, seem to have been disheartened; for they did not reach
the station till the next day. Of course, it had been put in the best
possible state of defence, and prepared for their reception.

The town was now invested by the savage force, and something like a
regular siege commenced. A brisk firing ensued. In the course of the day
the Indians left one of their dead to fall into the hands of the
besieged--a rare occurrence, as it is one of their most invariable
customs to remove their wounded and dead from the possession of the
enemy. The besieged had four men wounded and one of them mortally. The
Indians, unacquainted with the mode of conducting a siege, and little
accustomed to open and fair fight, and dispirited by the vigorous
reception given them by the station, soon decamped, and dispersed in the
forests to supply themselves with provisions by hunting.

On the 15th of April, 1777, a body of one hundred savages invested
Boonesborough, the residence of Daniel Boone. The greater number of the
Indians had fire arms, though some of them were still armed with bows
and arrows. This station, having its defence conducted by such a gallant
leader, gave them such a warm reception that they were glad to draw off;
though not till they had killed one and wounded four of the inhabitants.
Their loss could not be ascertained, as they carefully removed their
dead and wounded.

In July following, the residence of Boone was again besieged by a body
of Indians, whose number was increased to two hundred. With their
numbers, their hardihood and audacity were increased in proportion. To
prevent the neighboring stations from sending assistance, detachments
from their body assailed most of the adjacent settlements at the same
time. The gallant inmates of the station made them repent their
temerity, though, as formerly, with some loss; one of their number
having been killed and two wounded. Seven of the Indians were distinctly
counted from the fort among the slain; though, according to custom, the
bodies were removed. After a close siege, and almost constant firing
during two days, the Indians raised a yell of disappointment, and
disappeared in the forests.

In order to present distinct views of the sort of enemy, with whom Boone
had to do, and to present pictures of the aspect of Indian warfare in
those times, we might give sketches of the repeated sieges of
Harrodsburgh and Boonesborough, against which--as deemed the strong
holds of the _Long-knife,_ as they called the Americans--their most
formidable and repeated efforts were directed. There is such a sad and
dreary uniformity in these narratives, that the history of one may
almost stand for that of all. They always present more or less killed
and wounded on the part of the stations, and a still greater number on
that of the Indians. Their attacks of stations having been uniformly
unsuccessful, they returned to their original modes of warfare,
dispersing themselves in small bodies over all the country, and
attacking individual settlers in insulated cabins, and destroying women
and children. But as most of these annals belong to the general history
of Kentucky, and do not particularly tend to develop the character of
the subject of this biography, we shall pretermit them, with a single
exception. At the expense of an anachronism, and as a fair sample of the
rest, we shall present that, as one of the most prominent Indian sieges
recorded in these early annals. It will not be considered an episode, if
it tend to convey distinct ideas of the structure and form of a
_station_, and the modes of attack and defence in those times. It was in
such scenes that the fearless daring, united with the cool, prudent, and
yet efficient counsels of Daniel Boone, were peculiarly conspicuous.
With this view we offer a somewhat detailed account of the attack of
Bryant's station.

As we know of no place, nearer than the sources of the Mississippi, or
the Rocky Mountains, where the refuge of a _station_ is now requisite
for security from the Indians; as the remains of those that were
formerly built are fast mouldering to decay; and as in a few years
history will be the only depository of what the term _station_ imports,
we deem it right, in this place, to present as graphic a view as we may,
of a station, as we have seen them in their ruins in various points of
the west.

The first immigrants to Tennessee and Kentucky, as we have seen, came in
pairs and small bodies. These pioneers on their return to the old
settlements, brought back companies and societies.--Friends and
connections, old and young, mothers and daughters, flocks, herds,
domestic animals, and the family dogs, all set forth on the patriarchal
emigration for the land of promise together. No disruption of the tender
natal and moral ties; no annihilation of the reciprocity of domestic
kindness, friendship, and love, took place. The cement and panoply
of affection, and good will bound them together at once in the social
tie, and the union for defence. Like the gregarious tenants of the air
in their annual migrations, they brought their true home, that is to say
their charities with them. In their state of extreme isolation from the
world they had left, the kindly social propensities were found to grow
more strong in the wilderness. The current of human affections in fact
naturally flows in a deeper and more vigorous tide, in proportion as it
is diverted into fewer channels.

These immigrants to the Bloody Ground, coming to survey new aspects of
nature, new forests and climates, and to encounter new privations,
difficulties and dangers, were bound together by a new sacrament of
friendship, new and unsworn oaths, to stand by each other for life and
for death. How often have we heard the remains of this primitive race of
Kentucky deplore the measured distance and jealousy, the heathen rivalry
and selfishness of the present generation, in comparison with the unity
of heart, dangers and fortunes of these primeval times--reminding one of
the simple kindness, the community of property, and the union of heart
among the first Christians!

Another circumstance of this picture ought to be redeemed from oblivion.
We suspect that the general impressions of the readers of this day is,
that the first hunters and settlers of Kentucky and Tennessee were a
sort of demi-savages. Imagination depicts them with long beard, and a
costume of skins, rude, fierce, and repulsive. Nothing can be wider from
the fact. These progenitors of the west were generally men of noble,
square, erect forms, broad chests, clear, bright, truth-telling eyes,
and of vigorous intellects.

All this is not only matter of historical record, but in the natural
order of things. The first settlers of America were originally a noble
stock. These, their descendants, had been reared under circumstances
every way calculated to give them manly beauty and noble forms. They had
breathed a free and a salubrious air. The field and forest exercise
yielded them salutary viands, and appetite and digestion corresponding.
Life brought them the sensations of high health, herculean vigor, and
redundant joy.

When a social band of this description had planted their feet on the
virgin soil, the first object was to fix on a spot, central to the most
fertile tract of land that could be found, combining the advantages
usually sought by the first settlers. Among these was, that the station
should be on the summit of a gentle swell, where pawpaw, cane, and wild
clover, marked exuberant fertility; and where the trees were so sparse,
and the soil beneath them so free from underbrush, that the hunter could
ride at half speed. The virgin soil, as yet friable, untrodden, and not
cursed with the blight of politics, party, and feud, yielded, with
little other cultivation than planting, from eighty to a hundred bushels
of maize to the acre, and all other edibles suited to the soil and
climate, in proportion.

The next thing, after finding this central nucleus of a settlement, was
to convert it into a _station_, an erection which now remains to be
described. It was a desirable requisite, that a station should in close
or command a flush limestone spring, for water for the settlement. The
contiguity of a salt lick and a sugar orchard, though not indispensable,
was a very desirable circumstance. The next preliminary step was to
clear a considerable area, so as to leave nothing within a considerable
distance of the station that could shelter an enemy from observation and
a shot. If a spring were not inclosed, or a well dug within, as an
Indian siege seldom lasted beyond a few days, it was customary, in
periods of alarm to have a reservoir of some sort within the station,
that should be filled with water enough to supply the garrison, during
the probable continuance of a siege. It was deemed a most important
consideration, that the station should overlook and command as much of
the surrounding country as possible.

The form was a perfect parallelogram, including from a half to a whole
acre. A trench was then dug four or five feet deep, and large and
contiguous pickets planted in this trench, so as to form a compact wall
from ten to twelve feet high above the soil. The pickets were of hard
and durable timber, about a foot in diameter. The soil about them was
rammed hard. They formed a rampart beyond the power of man to leap,
climb, or by unaided physical strength to overthrow. At the angles were
small projecting squares, of still stronger material and planting,
technically called _flankers_, with oblique port-holes, so as that the
sentinel within could rake the external front of the station, without
being exposed to shot from without. Two folding gates in the front and
rear, swinging on prodigious wooden hinges, gave egress and ingress to
men and teams in times of security.

In periods of alarm a trusty sentinel on the roof of the building was so
stationed, as to be able to descry every suspicious object while yet in
the distance. The gates were always firmly barred by night; and
sentinels took their alternate watch, and relieved each other until
morning. Nothing in the line of fortification can be imagined more easy
of construction, or a more effectual protection against a savage enemy,
than this simple erection. Though the balls of the smallest dimensions
of cannon would have swept them away with ease, they were proof against
the Indian rifle, patience, and skill. The only expedient of the red men
was to dig under them and undermine them, or destroy them by fire; and
even this could not be done without exposing them to the rifles of the
flankers. Of course, there are few recorded instances of their having
been taken, when defended by a garrison, guided by such men as Daniel
Boone.

Their regular form, and their show of security, rendered these walled
cities in the central wilderness delightful spectacles in the eye of
immigrants who had come two hundred leagues without seeing a human
habitation. Around the interior of these walls the habitations of the
immigrants arose, and the remainder of the surface was a clean-turfed
area for wrestling and dancing, and the vigorous and athletic amusements
of the olden time. It is questionable if heartier dinners and profounder
sleep and more exhilarating balls and parties fall to the lot of their
descendants, who ride in coaches and dwell in mansions. Venison and wild
turkeys, sweet potatoes and pies, smoked on their table; and persimmon
and maple beer, stood them well instead of the poisonous whisky of their
children.

The community, of course, passed their social evenings together; and
while the fire blazed bright within the secure square, the far howl of
wolves, or even the distant war-whoop of the savages, sounded in the ear
of the tranquil in-dwellers like the driving storm pouring on the
sheltering roof above the head of the traveller safely reposing in his
bed; that is, brought the contrast of comfort and security with more
home-felt influence to their bosom.

Such a station was Bryant's, no longer ago than 1782. It was the nucleus
of the settlements of that rich and delightful country, of which at
present Lexington is the centre. There were but two others of any
importance, at this time north of Kentucky river. It was more open to
attack than any other in the country. The Miami on the north, and the
Licking on the south of the Ohio, were long canals, which floated the
Indian canoes from the northern hive of the savages, between the lakes
and the Ohio, directly to its vicinity.

In the summer of this year a grand Indian assemblage took place at
Chillicothe, a famous central Indian town on the Little Miami. The
Cherokees, Wyandots, Tawas, Pottawattomies, and most of the tribes
bordering on the lakes, were represented in it. Besides their chiefs and
some Canadians, they were aided by the counsels of the two Girtys, and
McKee, renegado whites. We have made diligent enquiry touching the
biography of these men, particularly Simon Girty, a wretch of most
infamous notoriety in those times, as a more successful instigator of
Indian assault and massacre, than any name on record. Scarcely a
tortured captive escaped from the northern Indians, who could not tell
the share which this villain had in his sufferings--no burning or murder
of prisoners, at which he had not assisted by his presence or his
counsels. These refugees from our white settlements, added the
calculation and power of combining of the whites to the instinctive
cunning and ferocity of the savages. They possessed their thirst for
blood without their active or passive courage--blending the bad points
of character in the whites and Indians, without the good of either. The
cruelty of the Indians had some show of palliating circumstances, in the
steady encroachments of the whites upon them. Theirs was gratuitous,
coldblooded, and without visible motive, except that they appeared to
hate the race more inveterately for having fled from it. Yet Simon
Girty, like the Indians among whom he lived, sometimes took the freak of
kindness, nobody could divine why, and he once or twice saved an unhappy
captive from being roasted alive.

This vile renegado, consulted by the Indians as an oracle, lived in
plenty, smoked his pipe, and drank off his whisky in his log palace. He
was seen abroad clad in a ruffled shirt, a red and blue uniform, with
pantaloons and gaiters to match. He was belted with dirks and pistols,
and wore a watch with enormous length of chain, and most glaring
ornaments, all probably the spoils of murder. So habited, he strutted,
in the enormity of his cruelty in view of the ill-fated captives of the
Indians, like the peacock spreading his morning plumage. There is little
doubt that his capricious acts of saving the few that were spared
through his intercession, were modified results of vanity; and that they
were spared to make a display of his power, and the extent of his
influence among the Indians.

The assemblage of Indians bound to the assault of Bryant's station,
gathered round the shrine of Simon Girty, to hear the response of this
oracle touching the intended expedition. He is said to have painted to
them, in a set speech, the abundance and delight of the fair valleys of
Kan-tuck-ee, for which so much blood of red men had been shed--the land
of clover, deer, and buffaloes. He described the gradual encroachment of
the whites, and the certainty that they would soon occupy the whole
land. He proved the necessity of a vigorous, united, and persevering
effort against them, now while they were feeble, and had scarcely gained
foot-hold on the soil, if they ever intended to regain possession of
their ancient, rich, and rightful domain; assuring them, that as things
now went on, they would soon have no hunting grounds worth retaining, no
blankets with which to clothe their naked backs, or whisky to warm and
cheer their desolate hearts. They were advised to descend the Miami,
cross the Ohio, ascend the Licking, paddling their canoes to the
immediate vicinity of Bryant's station, which he counselled them to
attack.

Forthwith, the mass of biped wolves raised their murderous yell, as they
started for their canoes on the Miami. Girty, in his ruffled shirt and
soldier coat, stalked at their head, silently feeding upon his prowess
and grandeur.

The station against which they were destined, inclosed forty cabins.
They arrived before it on the fifteenth of August, in the night. The
inhabitants were advertised of their arrival in the morning, by being
fired upon as they opened the gates. The time of their arrival was
apparently providential. In two hours most of the efficient male inmates
of the station were to have marched to the aid of two other stations,
which were reported to have been attacked. This place would thus have
been left completely defenceless. As soon as the garrison saw themselves
besieged, they found means to despatch one of their number to Lexington,
to announce the assault and crave aid. Sixteen mounted men, and
thirty-one on foot, were immediately despatched to their assistance.

The number of the assailants amounted to at least six hundred. In
conformity with the common modes of their warfare, they attempted to
gain the place by stratagem. The great body concealed themselves among
high weeds, on the opposite side of the station, within pistol shot of
the spring which supplied it with water. A detachment of a hundred
commenced a false attack on the south-east angle, with a view to draw
the whole attention of the garrison to that point. They hoped that while
the chief force of the station crowded there, the opposite point would
be left defenceless. In this instance they reckoned without their host.
The people penetrated their deception, and instead of returning their
fire, commenced what had been imprudently neglected, the repairing their
palisades, and putting the station in a better condition of defence. The
tall and luxuriant strammony weeds instructed these wary backwoodsmen to
suspect that a host of their tawny foe lay hid beneath their sheltering
foliage, lurking for a chance to fire upon them, as they should come
forth for water.

Let modern wives, who refuse to follow their husbands abroad, alleging
the danger of the voyage or journey, or the unhealthiness of the
proposed residence, or because the removal will separate them from the
pleasures of fashion and society, contemplate the example of the wives
of the defenders of this station. These noble mothers, wives, and
daughters, assuring the men that there was no probability that the
Indians would fire upon them, offered to go out and draw water for the
supply of the garrison, and that even if they did shoot down a few of
them, it would not reduce the resources of the garrison as would the
killing of the men. The illustrious heroines took up their buckets, and
marched out to the spring, espying here and there a painted face, or an
Indian body crouched under the covert of the weeds. Whether their
courage or their beauty fascinated the Indians to suspend their fire,
does not appear. But it was so, that these generous women came and went
until the reservoir was amply supplied with crater. Who will doubt that
the husbands of such wives must have been alike gallant and
affectionate.

After this example, it was not difficult to procure some young
volunteers to tempt the Indians in the same way. As was expected, they
had scarcely advanced beyond their station, before a hundred Indians
fired a shower of balls upon them, happily too remote to do more than
inflict slight wounds with spent balls. They retreated within the
palisades, and the whole Indian force, seeing no results from stratagem,
rose from their covert and rushed towards the palisade. The exasperation
of their rage may be imagined, when they found every thing prepared for
their reception. A well aimed fire drove them to a more cautious
distance. Some of the more audacious of their number, however, ventured
so near a less exposed point, as to be able to discharge burning arrows
upon the roofs of the houses. Some of them were fired and burnt. But an
easterly wind providentially arose at the moment, and secured the mass
of the habitations from the further spread of the flames. These they
could no longer reach with their burning arrows.

The enemy cowered back, and crouched to their covert in the weeds;
where, panther-like, they waited for less dangerous game. They had
divided, on being informed, that aid was expected from Lexington; and
they arranged an ambuscade to intercept it, on its approach to the
garrison. When the reinforcement, consisting of forty-six persons, came
in sight, the firing had wholly ceased, and the invisible enemy were
profoundly still. The auxiliaries hurried on in reckless confidence,
under the impression that they had come on a false alarm. A lane opened
an avenue to the station, through a thick cornfield. This lane was
way-laid on either side, by Indians, for six hundred yards. Fortunately,
it was mid-summer, and dry; and the horsemen raised so thick a cloud of
dust, that the Indians could fire only at random amidst the palpable
cloud, and happily killed not a single man. The footmen were less
fortunate. Being behind the horse, as soon as they heard the firing,
they dispersed into the thick corn, in hopes to reach the garrison
unobserved. They were intercepted by masses of the savages, who threw
themselves between them and the station. Hard fighting ensued, in which
two of the footmen were killed and four wounded. Soon after the
detachment had joined their friends, and the Indians were again
crouching close in their covert, the numerous flocks and herds of the
station came in from the woods as usual, quietly ruminating, as they
made their way towards their night-pens. Upon these harmless animals the
Indians wreaked unmolested revenge, and completely destroyed them.

A little after sunset the famous Simon, in all his official splendor,
covertly approached the garrison, mounted a stump, whence he could be
heard by the people of the station, and holding a flag of truce,
demanded a parley and the surrender of the place. He managed his
proposals with no small degree of art, assigning, in imitation of the
commanders of what are called civilized armies, that his proposals were
dictated by humanity and a wish to spare the effusion of blood. He
affirmed, that in case of a prompt surrender, he could answer for the
safety of the prisoners; but that in the event of taking the garrison by
storm, he could not; that cannon and a reinforcement were approaching,
in which case they must be aware that their palisades could no longer
interpose any resistance to their attack, or secure them from the
vengeance of an exasperated foe. He calculated that his imposing
language would have the more effect in producing belief and
consternation, inasmuch as the garrison must know, that the same foe had
used cannon in the attack of Ruddle's and Martin's stations. Two of
their number had been already slain, and there were four wounded in the
garrison; and some faces were seen to blanch as Girty continued his
harangue of menace, and insidious play upon their fears. Some of the
more considerate of the garrison, apprised by the result, of the folly
of allowing such a negotiation to intimidate the garrison in that way,
called out to shoot the rascal, adding the customary Kentucky epithet.
Girty insisted upon the universal protection every where accorded to a
flag of truce, while this parley lasted; and demanded with great assumed
dignity, if they did not know who it was that thus addressed them?

A spirited young man, named Reynolds, of whom the most honorable mention
is made in the subsequent annals of the contests with the Indians, was
selected by the garrison to reply to the renegado Indian negotiator. His
object seems to have been to remove the depression occasioned by Girty's
speech, by treating it with derision; and perhaps to establish a
reputation for successful waggery, as he had already for hard fighting.

"You ask," answered he, "if we do not know you? Know you! Yes. We know
you too well. Know Simon Girty! Yes. He is the renegado, cowardly
villain, who loves to murder women and children, especially those of his
own people. Know Simon Girty! Yes. His father was a panther and his dam
a wolf. I have a worthless dog, that kills lambs. Instead of shooting
him, I have named him Simon Girty. You expect reinforcements and cannon,
do you? Cowardly wretches, like you, that make war upon women and
children, would not dare to touch them off, if you had them. We expect
reinforcements, too, and in numbers to give a short account of the
murdering cowards that follow you. Even if you could batter down our
pickets, I, for one, hold your people in too much contempt to discharge
rifles at them. Should you see cause to enter our fort, I have been
roasting a great number of hickory switches, with which we mean to whip
your naked cut-throats out of the country."

Simon, apparently little edified or flattered by this speech, wished him
some of his hardest curses; and affecting to deplore the obstinacy and
infatuation of the garrison, the ambassador of ruffled shirt and soldier
coat withdrew. The besieged gave a good account of every one, who came
near enough to take a fair shot. But before morning they decamped,
marching direct to the Blue Licks, where they obtained very different
success, and a most signal and bloody triumph. We shall there again meet
Daniel Boone, in his accustomed traits of heroism and magnanimity.

[Illustration]




CHAPTER VIII.

Boone being attacked by two Indians near the Blue Licks, kills them
both--Is afterwards taken prisoner and marched to Old Chillicothe--Is
adopted by the Indians--Indian ceremonies.


We return to the subject of our memoir, from which the reader may
imagine we have wandered too long. He had already conducted the defence
of Boonesborough, during two Indian sieges. The general estimate of his
activity, vigilance, courage, and enterprise, was constantly rising. By
the Indians he was regarded as the most formidable and intelligent
captain of the Long-knife; and by the settlers and immigrants as a
disinterested and heroic patriarch of the infant settlements. He often
supplied destitute families gratuitously with game. He performed the
duties of surveyor and spy, generally as a volunteer, and without
compensation. When immigrant families were approaching the country, he
often went out to meet them and conduct them to the settlements. Such,
in general, were the paternal feelings of the pioneers of this young
colony.

The country was easily and amply supplied with meat from the chase, and
with vegetables from the fertility of the soil. The hardy settlers could
train themselves without difficulty to dispense with many things which
habit and long use in the old settlements had led them to consider as
necessaries. But to every form of civilized communities salt is an
indispensable article. The settlement of Boonesborough had been fixed
near a lick, with a view to the supply of that article. But the amount
was found to be very inadequate to the growing demand. The settlement
deemed it necessary to send out a company to select a place where the
whole country could be supplied with that article at a reasonable rate.

Captain Boone was deputed by the settlers to this service. He selected
thirty associates, and set out on the first of January, 1779, for the
Blue Licks, on Licking river, a well known stream emptying into the
Ohio, opposite where Cincinnati now stands. They arrived at the place,
and successfully commenced their operations. Boone, instead of taking a
part in the diurnal and uninterrupted labor, of evaporating the water,
performed the more congenial duty of hunting to keep the company in
provisions, while they labored. In this pursuit he had one day wandered
some distance from the bank of the river. Two Indians, armed with
muskets,--for they had now generally added these efficient weapons to
their tomahawks--came upon him. His first thought was to retreat. But he
discovered from their nimbleness, that this was impossible. His second
thought was resistance, and he slipped behind a tree to await their
coming within rifle shot. He then exposed himself so as to attract their
aim. The foremost levelled his musket. Boone, who could dodge the flash,
at the pulling of the trigger, dropped behind his tree unhurt. His next
object W&B to cause the fire of the Second musket to be thrown away in
the same manner. He again exposed a part of his person. The eager Indian
instantly fired, and Boone evaded the shot as before. Both the Indians,
having thrown away their fire, were eagerly striving, but with trembling
hands, to reload. Trepidation and too much haste retarded their object.
Boone drew his rifle and one of them fell dead. The two antagonists, now
on equal grounds, the one unsheathing his knife, and the other poising
his tomahawk, rushed toward the dead body of the fallen Indian. Boone,
placing his foot on the dead body, dexterously received the well aimed
tomahawk of his powerful enemy on the barrel of his rifle, thus
preventing his skull from being cloven by it. In the very attitude of
firing the Indian had exposed his body to the knife of Boone, who
plunged it in his body to the hilt. This is the achievement commemorated
in sculpture over the southern door of the Rotunda in the Capitol at
Washington.

This adventure did not deter him from exposing himself in a similar way
again. He was once more hunting for the salt makers, when, on the
seventh day of February following, he came in view of a body of one
hundred and two Indians, evidently on their march to the assault of
Boonesborough--that being a particular mark for Indian revenge. They
were in want of a prisoner, from whom to obtain intelligence, and Boone
was the person of all others whom they desired. He fled; but among so
many warriors, it proved, that some were swifter of foot than himself,
and these overtook him and made him prisoner.

By a tedious and circuitous march they brought him back to the Blue
Licks, and took their measures with so much caution, as to make
twenty-seven of the thirty salt makers prisoners. Boone obtained for
them a capitulation, which stipulated, that their lives should be
spared, and that they should be kindly treated. The fortunate three,
that escaped, had just been sent home with the salt that had been made
during their ill-fated expedition.

The Indians were faithful to the stipulations of the capitulation; and
treated their prisoners with as much kindness both on their way, and
after their arrival at Chillicothe, as their habits and means would
admit. The march was rapid and fatiguing, occupying three days of
weather unusually cold and inclement.

The captivity of twenty-eight of the select and bravest of the Kentucky
settlers, without the hope of liberation or exchange, was a severe blow
to the infant settlement. Had the Indians, after this achievement,
immediately marched against Boonesborough, so materially diminished in
its means of defence, they might either have taken the place by
surprise, or, availing themselves of the influence which the possession
of these prisoners gave them over the fears and affections of the
inmates, might have procured a capitulation of the fort. Following up
this plan in progression, the weaker station would have followed the
example of Boonesborough; since it is hardly supposable, that the
united influence of fear, example, and the menace of the massacre of so
many prisoners would not have procured the surrender of all the rest.
But, though on various occasions they manifested the keenest
observation, and the acutest quickness of instinctive cunning--though
their plans were generally predicated on the soundest reason, they
showed in this, and in all cases, a want of the combination of thought,
and the abstract and extended views of the whites on such occasions. For
a single effort, nothing could be imagined wiser than their views. For a
combination made up of a number of elements of calculation, they had no
reasoning powers at all.

Owing to this want of capacity for combined operations of thought, and
their, habitual intoxication of excitement, on the issue of carrying
some important enterprise without loss, they hurried home with their
prisoners, leaving the voice of lamentation and the sentiment of extreme
dejection among the bereaved inmates of Boonesborough.

Throwing all the recorded incidents and circumstances of the life of
Boone, during his captivity among them, together, we shall reserve them
for another place, and proceed here to record what befell him among the
whites.

He resided as a captive among the Indians until the following March. At
that time, he, and ten of the persons who were taken with him at the
Blue Licks, were conducted by forty Indians to Detroit, where the party
arrived on the thirteenth of the month. The ten men were put into the
hands of Governor Hamilton, who, to his infinite credit, treated them
with kindness. For each of these they received a moderate ransom. Such
was their respect, and even affection for the hunter of Kentucky, and
such, perhaps, their estimate of his capability of annoying them, that
although Governor Hamilton offered them the large sum of a hundred
pounds sterling for his ransom, they utterly refused to part with him.
It may easily be imagined, in what a vexatious predicament this
circumstance placed him; a circumstance so much the more embarrassing,
as he could not express his solicitude for deliverance, without alarming
the jealousy and ill feeling of the Indians. Struck with his appearance
and development of character, several English gentlemen, generously
impressed with a sense of his painful position, offered him a sum of
money adequate to the supply of his necessities. Unwilling to accept
such favors from the enemies of his country, he refused their kindness,
alleging a motive at once conciliating and magnanimous, that it would
probably never be in his power to repay them. It will be necessary to
contemplate his desolate and forlorn condition, haggard, and without any
adequate clothing in that inclement climate, destitute of money or
means, and at the same time to realize that these men, who so generously
offered him money, were in league with those that were waging war
against the United States, fully to appreciate the patriotism and
magnanimity of this refusal. It is very probable, too, that these men
acted from the interested motive of wishing to bind the hands of this
stern border warrior from any further annoyance to them and their red
allies, by motives of gratitude and a sense of obligation.

It must have been mortifying to his spirit to leave his captive
associates in comfortable habitations and among a civilized people at
Detroit, while he, the single white man of the company, was obliged to
accompany his red masters through the forest in a long and painful
journey of fifteen days, at the close of which he found himself again at
Old Chillicothe, as the town was called.

This town was inhabited by the Shawnese, and Boone was placed in a most
severe school, in which to learn Indian modes and ceremonies, by being
himself the subject of them. On the return of the party that led him to
their home, he learned that some superstitious scruple induced them to
halt at mid-day when near their village, in order to solemnize their
return by entering their town in the evening. A runner was despatched
from their halting place to instruct the chief and the village touching
the material incidents of their expedition.

Before the expedition made the triumphal entry into their village, they
clad their white prisoner in a new dress, of material and fashion like
theirs. They proceeded to shave his head and skewer his hair after their
own fashion, and then rouged him with a plentiful smearing of vermilion
and put into his hand a white staff, gorgeously tasselated with the
tails of deer. The war-captain or leader of the expedition gave as many
yells as they had taken prisoners and scalps. This operated as
effectually as ringing a tocsin, to assemble the whole village round
the camp. As soon as the warriors from the village appeared, four young
warriors from the camp, the two first carrying each a calumet,
approached the prisoner, chanting a song as they went, and taking him by
the arm, led him in triumph to the cabin, where he was to remain until
the announcement of his doom. The resident in this cabin, by their
immemorial usage, had the power of determining his fate, whether to be
tortured and burnt at the stake, or adopted into the tribe.

The present occupant of the cabin happened to be a woman, who had lost a
son during the war. It is very probable that she was favorably impressed
towards him by noting his fine person, and his firm and cheerful
visage--circumstances which impress the women of the red people still
more strongly than the men. She contemplated him stedfastly for some
time, and sympathy and humanity triumphed, and she declared that she
adopted him in place of the son she had lost. The two young men, who
bore the calumet, instantly unpinioned his hands, treating him with
kindness and respect. Food was brought him, and he was informed that he
was considered as a son, and she, who had adopted him, as his mother. He
was soon made aware, by demonstrations that could not be dissembled or
mistaken, that he was actually loved, and trusted, as if he really were,
what his adoption purported to make him. In a few days he suffered no
other penalty of captivity than inability to return to his family. He
was sufficiently instructed in Indian customs to know well, that any
discovered purpose or attempt to escape would be punished with instant
death.

Strange caprice of inscrutable instincts and results of habit! A
circumstance, apparently fortuitous and accidental, placed him in the
midst of an Indian family, the female owner of which loved him with the
most disinterested tenderness, and lavished upon him all the
affectionate sentiments of a mother towards a son. Had the die of his
lot been cast otherwise, all the inhabitants of the village would have
raised the death song, and each individual would have been as fiercely
unfeeling to torment him, as they were now covetous to show him
kindness. It is astonishing to see, in their habits of this sort, no
interval between friendship and kindness, and the most ingenious and
unrelenting barbarity. Placed between two posts, and his arms and feet
extended between them, nearly in the form of a person suffering
crucifixion, he would have been burnt to death at a slow fire, while
men, women, and children would have danced about him, occasionally
applying torches and burning splinters to die most exquisitely sensible
parts of the frame, prolonging his torture, and exulting in it with the
demoniac exhilaration of gratified revenge.

This was the most common fate of prisoners of war at that time.
Sometimes they fastened the victim to a single stake, built a fire of
green wood about him, and then raising their yell of exultation, marched
off into the desert, leaving him to expire unheeded and alone. At other
times they killed their prisoners by amputating their limbs joint by
joint. Others they destroyed by pouring on them, from time to time,
streams of scalding water. At other times they have been seen to hang
their victim to a sapling tree by the hands, bending it down until the
wretched sufferer has seen himself swinging up and down at the play of
the breeze, his feet often, within a foot of the ground. In a word, they
seem to have exhausted the invention and ingenuity of all time and all
countries in the horrid art of inflicting torture.

The mention of a circumstance equally extraordinary in the Indian
character, may be recorded here. If the sufferer in these afflictions be
an Indian, during the whole of his agony a strange rivalry passes
between them which shall outdo each other, they inflicting, and he in
enduring these tortures. Not a groan, not a sigh, not a distortion of
countenance is allowed to escape him. He smokes, and looks even
cheerful. He occasionally chants a strain of his war song. He vaunts his
exploits performed in afflicting death and desolation in their villages.
He enumerates the names of their relatives and friends that he has
slain. He menaces them with the terrible revenge that his friends will
inflict by way of retaliation. He even derides their ignorance in the
art of tormenting; assures them that he had afflicted much more
ingenious torture upon their people; and indicates more excruciating
modes of inflicting pain, and more sensitive parts of the frame to which
to apply them.

They are exceedingly dexterous in the horrid surgical operation of
taking off the scalp--that is, a considerable surface of the hairy
integument of the crown of the cranium. Terrible as the operation is,
there are not wanting great numbers of cases of persons who have
survived, and recovered from it. The scalps of enemies thus taken, even
when not paid for, as has been too often the infamous custom of their
white auxiliaries, claiming to be civilized, are valued as badges of
family honor, and trophies of the bravery of the warrior. On certain
days and occasions, young warriors take a new name, constituting a new
claim to honor, according to the number of scalps they have taken, or
the bravery and exploits of those from whom they were taken. This name
they deem a sufficient compensation for every fatigue and danger.
Another ludicrous superstition tends to inspire them with the most
heroic sentiments. They believe that all the fame, intelligence, and
bravery that appertained to the enemy they have slain is transferred to
them, and thenceforward becomes their intellectual property. Hence, they
are excited with the most earnest appetite to kill warriors of
distinguished fame. This article of Indian faith affords an apt
illustration of the ordinary influence of envy, which seems to inspire
the person whom it torments with the persuasion, that all the merit it
can contract from the envied becomes its own, and that the laurels shorn
from another's brow will sprout on its own.

He witnessed also their modes of hardening their children to that
prodigious power of unshrinking endurance, of which such astonishing
effects have just been recorded. This may be fitly termed the Indian
system of gymnastics. The bodies of the children of both sexes are
inured to hardships by compelling them to endure prolonged fastings, and
to bathe in the coldest water. A child of eight years, fasts half a day;
and one of twelve, a whole day without food or drink. The face is
blacked during the fast, and is washed immediately before eating. The
male face is entirely blacked; that of the female only on the cheeks.
The course is discontinued in the case of the male at eighteen, and of
the female at fourteen. At eighteen, the boy is instructed by his
parents that his education is completed, and that he is old enough to be
a man. His face is then blacked for the last time, and he is removed at
the distance of some miles from the village, and placed in a temporary
cabin. He is there addressed by his parent or guardian to this purport:
"My son, it has pleased the Great Spirit that you should live to see
this day. We all have noted your conduct since I first blacked your
face. They well understand whether you have strictly followed the advice
I have given you, and they will conduct themselves towards you according
to their knowledge. You must remain here until I, or some of your
friends, come for you."

The party then returns, resumes his gun, and seeming to forget the
sufferer, goes to his hunting as usual, and the son or ward is left to
endure hunger as long as it can be endured, and the party survive. The
hunter, meanwhile, has procured the materials for a feast, of which the
friends are invited to partake They accompany the father or guardian to
the unfortunate starving subject. He then accompanies them home, and is
bathed in cold water, and his head shaved after the Indian fashion--all
but a small space on the centre of the crown. He is then allowed to take
food, which, however, as a consecrated thing, is presented him in a
vessel distinct from that used by the rest. After he has eaten, he is
presented with a looking-glass, and a bag of vermilion. He is then
complimented for the firmness with which he has sustained his fasting,
and is told that he is henceforward a man, and to be considered as such.
The instance is not known of a boy eating or drinking while under this
interdict of the blacked face. They are deterred, not only by the strong
sentiments of Indian honor, but by a persuasion that the _Great Spirit_
would severely punish such disobedience of parental authority.

The most honorable mode of marriage, and that generally pursued by the
more distinguished warriors, is to assemble the friends and relatives,
and consult with them in regard to the person whom it is expedient to
marry. The choice being made, the relations of the young man collect
such presents as they deem proper for the occasion, go to the parents of
the woman selected, make known the wishes of their friend, deposit their
presents, and return without waiting for an answer. The relations of the
girl assemble and consult on the subject. If they confirm the choice,
they also collect presents, dress her in her best clothes, and take her
to the friends of the bridegroom who made the application for the match,
when it is understood that the marriage is completed. She herself has
still a negative; and if she disapprove the match, the presents from the
friends of the young man are returned, and this is considered as a
refusal. Many of the more northern nations, as the Dacotas, for example,
have a custom, that, when the husband deceases, his widow immediately
manifests the deepest mourning, by putting off all her finery, and
dresses herself in the coarsest Indian attire, the sackcloth of Indian
lamentation. Meanwhile she makes up a respectable sized bundle of her
clothes into the form of a kind of doll-man, which represents her
husband. With this she sleeps. To this she converses and relates the
sorrows of her desolate heart. It would be indecorous for any warrior,
while she is in this predicament, to show her any attentions of
gallantry. She never puts on any habiliments but those of sadness and
disfigurement. The only comfort she is permitted in this desolate state
is, that her budgetted husband is permitted, when drams are passing, to
be considered as a living one, and she is allowed to cheer her depressed
spirits with a double dram, that of her budget-husband and her own.
After a full year of this penance with the budget-husband, she is
allowed to exchange it for a living one, if she can find him.

When an Indian party forms for private revenge the object is
accomplished in the following manner. The Indian who seeks revenge,
proposes his project to obtain it to some of his more intimate
associates, and requests them to accompany him. When the requisite
number is obtained, and the plan arranged it is kept a profound secret
from all others, and the proposer of the plan is considered the leader.
The party leaves the village secretly, and in the night. When they halt
for the night, the eldest encamp in front, and the younger in the rear.
The foremen hunt for the party, and perform the duty of spies. The
latter cook, make the fires, mend the moccasins, and perform the other
drudgery of the expedition.

Every war party has a small budget, called the _war budget_, which
contains something belonging to each one of the party, generally
representing some animal; for example, the skin of a snake, the tail of
a buffalo, the skin of a martin, or the feathers of some extraordinary
bird. This budget is considered a sacred deposit, and is carried by some
person selected for the purpose, who marches in front, and leads the
party against the enemy. When the party halts, the budget is deposited
in front, and no person passes it without authority. No one, while such
an exhibition is pending, is allowed to lay his pack on a log, converse
about women or his home. When they encamp, the heart of whatever beast
they have killed on the preceding day is cut into small pieces and
burnt. No person is allowed, while it is burning, to step across the
fire, but must go round it, and always in the direction of the sun.

When an attack is to be made, the war budget is opened, and each man
takes out his budget, or _totem_, and attaches it to that part of his
body which has been indicated by tradition from his ancestors. When the
attack is commenced, the body of the fighter is painted, generally
black, and is almost naked. After the action, each party returns his
_totem_ to the commander of the party, who carefully wraps them all up,
and delivers them to the man who has taken the first prisoner or scalp;
and he is entitled to the honor of leading the party home in triumph.
The war budget is then hung in front of the door of the person who
carried it on the march against the enemy, where it remains suspended
thirty or forty days, and some one of the party often sings and dances
round it.

One mode of Indian burial seems to have prevailed, not only among the
Indians of the lakes and of the Ohio valley, but over all the western
country. Some lay the dead body on the surface of the ground, make a
crib or pen over it, and cover it with bark. Others lay the body in a
grave, covering it first with bark, and then with earth. Others make a
coffin out of the cloven section of trees, in the form of plank, and
suspend it from the top of a tree. Nothing can be more affecting than to
see a young mother hanging the coffin that contains the remains of her
beloved child to the pendent branches of the flowering maple, and
singing her lament over her love and hope, as it waves in the breeze.




CHAPTER IX.

Boone becomes a favorite among the Indians--Anecdotes relating to his
captivity--Their mode of tormenting and burning prisoners--Their
fortitude under the infliction of torture--Concerted attack on
Boonesborough--Boone escapes.


Boone, being now a son in a principal Shawnee family, presents himself
in a new light to our observation. We would be glad to be able give a
diurnal record of his modes of deportment, and getting along. Unhappily,
the records are few and meagre. It will be obvious, that the necessity
for a more profound dissimulation of contentment, cheerfulness, and a
feeling of loving his home, was stronger than ever. It was a semblance
that must be daily and hourly sustained. He would never have acquitted
himself successfully, but for a wonderful versatility, which enabled him
to enter into the spirit of whatever parts he was called upon to
sustain; and a real love for the hunting and pursuits of the Indians,
which rendered what was at first assumed, with a little practice, and
the influence of habit, easy and natural. He soon became in semblance so
thoroughly one of them, and was able in all those points of practice
which give them reputation, to conduct himself with so much skill and
adroitness, that he gained the entire confidence of the family into
which he was adopted, and become as dear to his mother of adoption as
her own son.

Trials of Indian strength and skill are among their most common
amusements. Boone was soon challenged to competition in these trials. In
these rencounters of loud laughter and boisterous merriment, where all
that was done seemed to pass into oblivion as fast as it transpired,
Boone had too much tact and keen observation not to perceive that
jealousy, envy, and the origin of hatred often lay hid under the
apparent recklessness of indifference. He was not sorry that some of the
Indians could really beat him in the race, though extremely light of
foot; and that in the game of ball, at which they had been practised all
their lives, he was decidedly inferior. But there was another
sport--that of shooting at a mark--a new custom to the Indians but
recently habituated to the use of fire arms; a practice which they had
learned from the whites, and they were excessively jealous of reputation
of great skill in this exercise, so important in hunting and war. Boone
was challenged to shoot with them at a mark. It placed him in a most
perplexing dilemma. If he shot his best, he could easily and far excel
their most practised marksmen. But he was aware, that to display his
superiority would never be forgiven him. On the other hand, to fall far
short of them in an exercise which had been hitherto peculiar to the
whites, would forfeit their respect. In this predicament, he judiciously
allowed himself sometimes to be beaten; and when it became prudent to
put forth all his skill, a well dissembled humility and carelessness
subdued the mortification and envy of the defeated competitor.

He was often permitted to accompany them in their hunting parties; and
here their habits and his circumstances alike invoked him to do his
best. They applauded his skill and success as a hunter, with no mixture
of envy or ill will. He was particularly fortunate in conciliating the
good will of the Shawnee chief. To attain this result, Boone not only
often presented him with a share of his game, but adopted the more
winning deportment of always affecting to treat his opinions and
counsels with deference. The chief, on his part, often took occasion to
speak of Boone as a most consummate proficient in hunting, and a warrior
of great bravery. Not long after his residence among them, he had
occasion to witness their manner of celebrating their victories, by
being an eye witness to one which commemorated the successful return of
a war party with some scalps.

Within a day's march of the village, the party dispatched a runner with
the joyful intelligence of their success, achieved without loss. Every
cabin in the village was immediately ordered to be swept perfectly
clean, with the religious intention to banish every source of pollution
that might mar the ceremony. The women, exceedingly fearful of
contributing in any way to this pollution, commenced an inveterate
sweeping, gathering up the collected dirt, and carefully placing it in a
heap behind the door. There it remained until the medicine man, or
priest, who presides over the powow, ordered them to remove it, and at
the same time every savage implement and utensil upon which the women
had laid their hands during the absence of the expedition.

Next day the party came in sight of the village, painted in alternate
compartments of red and black, their heads enveloped in swan's down, and
the centre of their crown, surmounted with long white feathers. They
advanced, singing their war song, and bearing the scalps on a verdant
branch of evergreen.

Arrived at the village, the chief who had led the party advanced before
his warriors to his winter cabin, encircling it in an order of march
contrary to the course of the sun, singing the war song after a
particular mode, sometimes on the ten or and sometimes on the bass key,
sometimes in high and shrill, and sometimes in deep and guttural notes.
The _waiter_, or servant of the leader, called _Etissu_, placed a couple
of blocks of wood near the war-pole, opposite the door of a circular
cabin, called the _hot-house_, in the centre of which was the council
fire. On these blocks he rested a kind of ark, deemed among their most
sacred things. While this was transacting the party were profoundly
silent. The chief bade all set down, and then inquired whether his cabin
was prepared and every thing unpolluted, according to the custom of
their fathers? After the answer, they rose up in concert and began the
war-whoop, walking slowly round the war-pole as they sung. All the
consecrated things were then carried, with no small show of solemnity,
into the hot-house. Here they remained three whole days and nights, in
separation from the rest of the people, applying warm ablutions to
their bodies, and sprinkling themselves with a decoction of snake root.
During a part of the time, the female relations of each of the
consecrated company, after having bathed, anointed, and drest themselves
in their finest apparel, stood, in two lines opposite the door, and
facing each other. This observance they kept up through the night,
uttering a peculiar, monotonous song, in a shrill voice for a minute;
then intermitting it about ten minutes, and resuming it again. When not
singing their silence was profound.

The chief, meanwhile, at intervals of about three hours, came out at the
head of his company, raised the war-whoop, and marched round the red
war-pole, holding in his right hand the pine or cedar boughs, on which
the scalps were attached, waving them backward and forward, and then
returned again. To these ceremonies they conformed without the slightest
interruption, during the whole three days' purification. To proceed with
the whole details of the ceremony to its close, would be tedious. We
close it, only adding, that a small twig of the evergreen was fixed upon
the roof of each one of their cabins, with a fragment of the scalps
attached to it, and this, as it appeared, to appease the ghosts of their
dead. When Boone asked them the meaning of all these long and tedious
ceremonies, they answered him by a word which literally imports "holy."
The leader and his waiter kept apart and continued the purification
three days longer, and the ceremony closed.

He observed, that when their war-parties returned from an expedition,
and had arrived near their village, they followed their file leader, in
what is called _Indian file_, one by one, each a few yards behind the
other, to give the procession an appearance of greater length and
dignity. If the expedition had been unsuccessful, and they had lost any
of their warriors, they returned without ceremony and in noiseless
sadness. But if they had been successful, they fired their guns in
platoons, yelling, whooping, and insulting their prisoners, if they had
made any. Near their town was a large square area, with a war-pole in
the centre, expressly prepared for such purposes. To this they fasten
their prisoners. They then advance to the house of their leader,
remaining without, and standing round his red war-pole, until they
determine concerning the fate of their prisoner. If any prisoner should
be fortunate enough to break from his pinions, and escape into the house
of the chief medicine man, or conductor of the powow, it is an
inviolable asylum, and by immemorial usage, the refugee is saved from
the fire.

Captives far advanced in life, or such as had been known to have shed
the blood of their tribe, were sure to atone for their decrepitude, or
past activity in shedding blood, by being burnt to death. They readily
know those Indians who have killed many, by the blue marks on their
breasts and arms, which indicate the number they have slain. These
hieroglyphics are to them as significant as our alphabetical characters.
The ink with which these characters are impressed, is a sort of
lampblack, prepared from the soot of burning pine, which they catch by
causing it to pass through a sort of greased funnel. Having prepared
this lampblack, they tattoo it into the skin, by punctures made with
thorns or the teeth of fish. The young prisoners, if they seem capable
of activity and service, and if they preserve an intrepid and unmoved
countenance, are generally spared, unless condemned to death by the
party, while undergoing the purification specified above. As soon as
their case is so decided, they are tied to the stake, one at a time. A
pair of bear-skin moccasins, with the hair outwards, are put on their
feet. They are stripped naked to the loins, and are pinioned firmly to
the stake.

Their subsequent punishment, in addition to the suffering of slow fire,
is left to the women. Such are the influences of their training, that
although the female nature, in all races of men, is generally found to
be more susceptible of pity than the male, in this case they appear to
surpass the men in the fury of their merciless rage, and the industrious
ingenuity of their torments. Each is prepared with a bundle of long,
dry, reed cane, or other poles, to which are attached splinters of
burning pine. As the victim is led to the stake, the women and children
begin their sufferings by beating them with switches and clubs; and as
they reel and recoil from the blows, these fiendish imps show their
gratification by unremitting peals of laughter; too happy, if their
tortures ended here, or if the merciful tomahawk brought them to an
immediate close.

The signal for a more terrible infliction being given--the arms of the
victim are pinioned, and he is disengaged from the pole, and a grapevine
passed round his neck, allowing him a circle of about fifteen yards in
circumference, in which he can he made to march round his pole. They
knead tough clay on his head to secure the cranium from the effects of
the blaze, that it may not inflict immediate death. Under the excitement
of ineffable and horrid joy, they whip him round the circle, that he may
expose each part of his body to the flame, while the other part is
fanned by the cool air, that he may thus undergo the literal operation
of slow roasting. During this abhorrent process, the children fill the
circle in convulsions of laughter; and the women begin to thrust their
burning torches into his body, lacerating the quick of the flesh, that
the flame may inflict more exquisite anguish. The warrior, in these
cases; goaded to fury, sweeps round the extent of his circle, kicking,
biting, and stamping with inconceivable fury. The throng of women and
children laugh, and fly from the circle, and fresh tormentors fill it
again. At other times the humor takes him to show them, that he can bear
all this, without a grimace, a spasm, or indication of suffering. In
this case, as we have seen, he smokes, derides, menaces, sings, and
shows his contempt, by calling them by the most reproachful of all
epithets--_old women_. When he falls insensible, they scalp and
dismember him, and the remainder of his body is consumed.

We have omitted many of these revolting details, many of the atrocious
features of this spectacle, as witnessed by Boone. While we read with
indignation and horror, let us not forget that savages have not alone
inflicted these detestable cruelties. Let us not forget that the
professed followers of Jesus Christ have given examples of a barbarity
equally unrelenting and horrible, in the form of religious persecution,
and avowedly to glorify God.

During Boone's captivity among the Shawnese, they took prisoner a noted
warrior of a western tribe, with which they were then at war. He was
condemned to the stake with the usual solemnities. Having endured the
preliminary tortures with the most fearless unconcern, he told them,
when preparing to commence a new series, with a countenance of scorn, he
could teach them how to make an enemy eat fire to some purpose; and
begged that they would give him an opportunity, together with a pipe and
tobacco. In respectful astonishment, at an unwonted demonstration of
invincible endurance, they granted his request. He lighted his pipe,
began to smoke, and sat down, all naked as he was, upon the burning
torches, which were blazing within his circle. Every muscle of his
countenance retained its composure. On viewing this, a noted warrior
sprang up, exclaiming, that this was a true warrior; that though his
nation was treacherous, and he had caused them many deaths, yet such was
their respect for true courage, that if the fire had not already spoiled
him, he should be spared. That being now impossible, he promised him the
merciful release of the tomahawk. He then held the terrible instrument
suspended some moments over his head, during all which time he was
seen neither to change his posture, move a muscle, or his countenance to
blench. The tomahawk fell, and the impassable warrior ceased to suffer.

[Illustration]

We shall close these details of the Shawnese customs, at the time when
Boone was prisoner among them, by giving his account of their ceremonies
at making peace. The chief warriors, who arrange the conditions of the
peace and subsequent friendship, first mutually eat and smoke together.
They then pledge each other in the sacred drink called _Cussena_. The
Shawnese then wave large fans of eagles' tails, and conclude with a
dance. The stranger warriors, who have come to receive the peace, select
half a dozen of their most active young men, surmounting their crowns
with swan's feathers, and painting their bodies with white clay. They
then place their file leader on the consecrated seat of what imports in
their language, the "beloved cabin." Afterwards they commence singing
the peace song, with an air of great solemnity. They begin to dance,
first in a prone or bowing posture. They then raise themselves erect,
look upwards, and wave their eagles' tails towards the sky, first with a
slow, and then with a quick and jerky motion. At the same time, they
strike their breast with a calabash fastened to a stick about a foot in
length, which they hold in their left hand, while they wave the eagles'
feathers with the right, and keep time by rattling pebbles in a gourd.
These ceremonies of peace-making they consider among their most solemn
duties; and to be perfectly accomplished in all the notes and gestures
is an indispensable acquirement to a thorough trained warrior.

Boone has related, at different times, many oral details of his private
and domestic life, and his modes of getting along in the family, of
which he was considered a member. He was perfectly trained to their
ways, could prepare their food, and perform any of their common domestic
operations with the best of them. He often accompanied them in their
hunting excursions, wandering with them over the extent of forest
between Chillicothe and lake Erie. These conversations presented curious
and most vivid pictures of their interior modes; their tasks of diurnal
labor and supply; their long and severe fasts; their gluttonous
indulgence, when they had food; and their reckless generosity and
hospitality, when they had any thing to bestow to travelling visitants.

To become, during this tedious captivity, perfectly acquainted with
their most interior domestic and diurnal manners, was not without
interest for a mind constituted like his. To make himself master of
their language, and to become familiarly acquainted with their customs,
he considered acquisitions of the highest utility in the future
operations, in which, notwithstanding his present duress, he hoped yet
to be beneficial to his beloved settlement of Kentucky.

Although the indulgence with which he was treated in the family, in
which he was adopted, and these acquisitions, uniting interest with
utility, tended to beguile the time of his captivity, it cannot be
doubted, that his sleeping and waking thoughts were incessantly occupied
with the chances of making his escape. An expedition was in
contemplation, by the tribe, to the salt licks on the Scioto, to make
salt. Boone dissembled indifference whether they took him with them, or
left him behind, with so much success, that, to his extreme joy, they
determined that he should accompany them. The expedition started on the
first day of June, 1778, and was occupied ten days in making salt.

During this expedition, he was frequently sent out to hunt, to furnish
provisions for the party; but always under such circumstances, that,
much as he had hoped to escape on this expedition, no opportunity
occurred, which he thought it prudent to embrace. He returned with the
party to Chillicothe, having derived only one advantage from the
journey, that of furnishing, by his making no attempt to escape, and by
his apparently cheerful return, new motives to convince the Indians,
that he was thoroughly domesticated among them, and had voluntarily
renounced his own race; a persuasion, which, by taking as much apparent
interest as any of them, in all their diurnal movements and plans, he
constantly labored to establish.

Soon after his return he attended a warrior-council, at which, in virtue
of being a member of one of the principal families, he had a right of
usage and prescription, to be present. It was composed of a hundred and
fifty of their bravest men, all painted and armed for an expedition,
which he found was intended against Boonesborough. It instantly
occurred to him, as a most fortunate circumstance, that he had not
escaped on the expedition to Scioto. Higher and more imperious motives,
than merely personal considerations, now determined him at every risk to
make the effort to escape, and prepare, if he might reach it, the
station for a vigorous defence, by forewarning it of what was in
preparation among the Indians.

The religious ceremonies of the council and preparation for the
expedition were as follow. One of the principal war chiefs announced the
intention of a party to commence an expedition against Boonesborough.
This he did by beating their drum, and marching with their war standard
three times round the council-house. On this the council dissolved, and
a sufficient number of warriors supplied themselves with arms, and a
quantity of parched corn flour, as a supply of food for the expedition.
All who had volunteered to join in it, then adjourned to their "winter
house," and drank the war-drink, a decoction of bitter herbs and roots,
for three days--preserving in other respects an almost unbroken fast.
This is considered to be an act tending to propitiate the Great Spirit
to prosper their expedition. During this period of purifying themselves,
they were not allowed to sit down, or even lean upon a tree, however
fatigued, until after sun-set. If a bear or deer even passed in sight,
custom forbade them from killing it for refreshment. The more rigidly
punctual they are in the observance of these rights, the more
confidently they expect success.

While the young warriors were under this probation, the aged ones,
experienced in the usages of their ancestors, watched them most narrowly
to see that, from irreligion, or hunger, or recklessness, they did not
violate any of the transmitted religious rites, and thus bring the wrath
of the Great Spirit upon the expedition. Boone himself, as a person
naturally under suspicion of having a swerving of inclination towards
the station to be assailed, was obliged to observe the fast with the
most rigorous exactness. During the three days' process of purification,
he was not once allowed to go out of the medicine or sanctified ground,
without a trusty guard, lest hunger or indifference to their laws should
tempt him to violate them.

When the fast and purification was complete, they were compelled to set
forth, prepared or unprepared, be the weather fair or foul. Accordingly,
when the time arrived, they fired their guns, whooped, and danced, and
sung--and continued firing their guns before them on the commencement of
their route. The leading war-chief marched first, carrying their
medicine bag, or budget of holy things. The rest followed in Indian
file, at intervals of three or four paces behind each other, now and
then chiming the war-whoop in concert.

They advanced in this order until they were out of sight and hearing of
the village. As soon as they reached the deep woods, all became as
silent as death. This silence they inculcate, that their ears may be
quick to catch the least portent of danger.

Every one acquainted with the race, has remarked their intense keenness
of vision. Their eyes, for acuteness, and capability of discerning
distant objects, resemble those of the eagle or the lynx; and their
cat-like tread among the grass and leaves, seems so light as scarcely to
shake off the dew drops. Thus they advance on their expedition rapidly
and in profound silence, unless some one of the party should relate that
he has had an unpropitious dream When this happens, an immediate arrest
is put upon the expedition, and the whole party face about, and return
without any sense of shame or mortification. A whole party is thus often
arrested by a single person; and their return is applauded by the tribe,
as a respectful docility to the divine impulse, as they deem it, from
the Great Spirit. These dreams are universally reverenced, as the
warnings of the guardian spirits of the tribe. There is in that country
a sparrow, of an uncommon species, and not often seen. This bird is
called in the Shawnese dialect by a name importing "kind messenger,"
which they deem always a true omen, whenever it appears, of bad news.
They are exceedingly intimidated whenever this bird sings near them; and
were it to perch and sing over their war-camp, the whole party would
instantly disperse in consternation and dismay.

Every chief has his warrior, Etissu, or waiter, to attend on him and his
party. This confidential personage has charge of every thing that is
eaten or drank during the expedition. He parcels it out by rules of
rigid abstemiousness. Though each warrior carries on his back all his
travelling conveniences, and his food among the rest, yet, however keen
the appetite sharpened by hunger, however burning the thirst, no one
dares relieve his hunger or thirst, until his rations are dispensed to
him by the Etissu.

Boone had occasion to have all these rites most painfully impressed on
his memory; for he was obliged to conform to them with the rest. One
single thought occupied his mind--to seize the right occasion to escape.

It was sometime before it offered. At length a deer came in sight. He
had a portion of his unfinished breakfast in his hand. He expressed a
desire to pursue the deer. The party consented. As soon as he was out of
sight, he instantly turned his course towards Boonesborough. Aware that
he should be pursued by enemies as keen on the scent as bloodhounds, he
put forth his whole amount of backwoods skill, in doubling in his track,
walking in the water, and availing himself of every imaginable expedient
to throw them off his trail. His unfinished fragment of his breakfast
was his only food, except roots and berries, during this escape for his
life, through unknown forests and pathless swamps, and across numerous
rivers, spreading in an extent of more than two hundred miles. Every
forest sound must have struck his ear, as a harbinger of the approaching
Indians.

No spirit but such an one as his, could have sustained the apprehension
and fatigue. No mind but one guided by the intuition of instinctive
sagacity, could have so enabled him to conceal his trail, and find his
way. But he evaded their pursuit. He discovered his way. He found in
roots, in barks, and berries, together with what a single shot of his
rifle afforded, wherewith to sustain the cravings of nature. Travelling
night and day, in an incredible short space of time he was in the arms
of his friends at Boonesborough, experiencing a reception, after such a
long and hopeless absence, as words would in vain attempt to portray.




CHAPTER X.

Six hundred Indians attack Boonesborough--Boone and Captain Smith go out
to treat with the enemy under a flag of truce, and are extricated from a
treacherous attempt to detain them as prisoners--Defence of the
fort--The Indians defeated--Boone goes to North Carolina to bring bark
his family.


It will naturally be supposed that foes less wary and intelligent, than
those from whom Boone had escaped, after they had abandoned the hope of
recapturing him, would calculate to find Boonesborough in readiness for
their reception.

Boonesborough, though the most populous and important station in
Kentucky, had been left by the abstraction of so many of the select
inhabitants in the captivity of the Blue Licks, by the absence of
Colonel Clarke in Illinois, and by the actual decay of the pickets,
almost defenceless. Not long before the return of Boone, this important
post had been put under the care of Major Smith, an active and
intelligent officer. He repaired thither, and put the station, with
great labor and fatigue, in a competent state of defence. Learning from
the return of some of the prisoners, captured at the Blue Licks, the
great blow which the Shawnese meditated against this station, he deemed
it advisable to anticipate their movements, and to fit out an expedition
to meet them on their own ground.--Leaving twenty young men to defend
the place, he marched with thirty chosen men towards the Shawnese
towns.

At the Blue Licks, a place of evil omen to Kentucky, eleven of the men,
anxious for the safety of the families they had left behind and deeming
their force too small for the object contemplated, abandoned the
enterprise and retreated to the fort. The remaining nineteen, not
discouraged by the desertion of their companions, heroically persevered.
They crossed the Ohio to the present site of Cincinnati, on rafts. They
then painted their faces, and in other respects assumed the guise and
garb of savages, and marched upon the Indian towns.

When arrived within twenty miles of these towns they met the force with
which Boone had set out. Discouraged by his escape, the original party
had returned, had been rejoined by a considerable reinforcement, the
whole amounting to two hundred and fifty men on horse-back, and were
again on their march against Boonesborough. Fortunately, Major Smith and
his small party discovered this formidable body before they were
themselves observed. But instead of endeavoring to make good their
retreat from an enemy so superior in numbers, and mounted upon horses,
they fired upon them and killed two of their number. An assault so
unexpected alarmed the Indians; and without any effort to ascertain the
number of their assailants, they commenced a precipitate retreat. If
these rash adventurers had stopped here, they might have escaped
unmolested. But, flushed with this partial success, they rushed upon the
retreating foe, and repeated their fire. The savages, restored to
self-possession, halted in their turn, deliberated a moment, and turned
upon the assailants. Major Smith, perceiving the imprudence of having
thus put the enemy at bay, and the certainty of the destruction of his
little force, if the Indians should perceive its weakness, ordered a
retreat in time; and being considerably in advance of the foe, succeeded
in effecting it without loss. By a rapid march during the night, in the
course of the next morning they reached Boonesborough in safety.

Scarcely an hour after the last of their number had entered the fort, a
body of six hundred Indians, in three divisions of two hundred each,
appeared with standards and much show of warlike array, and took their
station opposite the fort. The whole was commanded by a Frenchman named
Duquesne. They immediately sent a flag requesting the surrender of the
place, in the name of the king of Great Britain. A council was held, and
contrary to the opinion of Major Smith, it was decided to pay no
attention to the proposal. They repeated their flag of truce, stating
that they had letters from the commander at Detroit to Colonel Boone. On
this, it was resolved that Colonel Boone and Major Smith should venture
out, and hear what they had to propose.

Fifty yards from the fort three chiefs met them with great parade, and
conducted them to the spot designated for their reception, and spread a
panther's skin for their seat, while two other Indians held branches
over their heads to protect them from the fervor of the sun. The chiefs
then commenced an address five minutes in length, abounding in friendly
assurances, and the avowal of kind sentiments. A part of the advanced
warriors grounded their arms, and came forward to shake hands with them.

The letter from Governor Hamilton of Detroit was then produced, and
read. It proposed the most favorable terms of surrender, provided the
garrison would repair to Detroit. Major Smith assured them that the
proposition seemed a kind one; but that it was impossible, in their
circumstances, to remove their women and children to Detroit. The reply
was that this difficulty should be removed, for that they had brought
forty horses with them, expressly prepared for such a contingency.

In a long and apparently amicable interview, during which the Indians
smoked with them, and vaunted their abstinence in not having killed the
swine and cattle of the settlement, Boone and Smith arose to return to
the fort, and make known these proposals, and to deliberate upon their
decision. Twenty Indians accompanied their return as far as the limits
stipulated between the parties allowed. The negotiators having returned,
and satisfied the garrison that the Indians had no cannon, advised to
listen to no terms, but to defend the fort to the last extremity. The
inmates of the station resolved to follow this counsel.

In a short time the Indians sent in another flag, with a view, as they
stated, to ascertain the result of the deliberations of the fort. Word
was sent them, that if they wished to settle a treaty, a place of
conference must be assigned intermediate between their camp and the
fort. The Indians consented to this stipulation, and deputed thirty
chiefs to arrange the articles, though such appeared to be their
distrust, that they could not be induced to come nearer than eighty
yards from the fort. Smith and Boone with four others were deputed to
confer with them. After a close conference of two days, an arrangement
was agreed upon, which contained a stipulation, that neither party
should cross the Ohio, until after the terms had been decided upon by
the respective authorities on either side. The wary heads of this
negotiation considered these terms of the Indians as mere lures to
beguile confidence.

When the treaty was at last ready for signature, an aged chief, who had
seemed to regulate all the proceedings, remarked that he must first go
to his people, and that he would immediately return, and sign the
instrument. He was observed to step aside in conference with some young
warriors. On his return the negotiators from the garrison asked the
chief why he had brought young men in place of those who had just been
assisting at the council? His answer was prompt and ingenious. It was,
that he wished to gratify his young warriors, who desired to become
acquainted with the ways of the whites. It was then proposed, according
to the custom of both races, that the parties should shake hands. As the
two chief negotiators, Smith and Boone, arose to depart, they were both
seized from behind.

Suspicious of treachery, they had posted twenty-five men in a bastion,
with orders to fire upon the council, as soon as they should see any
marks of treachery or violence. The instant the negotiators were seized,
the whole besieging force fired upon them, and the fire was as promptly
returned by the men in the bastion. The powerful savages who had grasped
Boone and Smith, attempted to drag them off as prisoners. The one who
held Smith was compelled to release his grasp by being shot dead.
Colonel Boone was slightly wounded. A second tomahawk, by which his
skull would have been cleft asunder, he evaded, and it partially fell on
Major Smith; but being in a measure spent, it did not inflict a
dangerous wound. The negotiators escaped to the fort without receiving
any other injury. The almost providential escape of Boone and Smith can
only be accounted for by the confusion into which the Indians were
thrown, as soon as these men were seized, and by the prompt fire of the
men concealed in the bastion. Added to this, the two Indians who seized
them were both shot dead, by marksmen who knew how to kill the Indians,
and at the same time spare the whites, in whose grasp they were held.

The firing on both sides now commenced in earnest, and was kept up
without intermission from morning dawn until dark. The garrison, at once
exasperated and cheered by the meditated treachery of the negotiation
and its result, derided the furious Indians, and thanked them for the
stratagem of the negotiation, which had given them time to prepare the
fort for their reception. Goaded to desperation by these taunts, and by
Duquesne, who harangued them to the onset, they often rushed up to the
fort, as if they purposed to storm it. Dropping dead under the cool and
deliberate aim of the besieged, the remainder of the forlorn hope,
raising a yell of fury and despair, fell back. Other infuriated bands
took their place; and these scenes were often repeated, invariably with
the same success, until both parties were incapable of taking aim on
account of the darkness.

They then procured a quantity of combustible matter, set fire to it, and
approached under covert of the darkness, so near the palisades as to
throw the burning materials into the fort. But the inmates had availed
themselves of the two days' consultation, granted them by the
treacherous foe, to procure an ample supply of water; and they had the
means of extinguishing the burning faggots as they fell.

Finding their efforts to fire the fort ineffectual, they returned again
to their arms, and continued to fire upon the station for some days.
Taught a lesson of prudence, however, by what had already befallen them,
they kept at such a cautious distance, as that their fire took little
effect. A project to gain the place, more wisely conceived, and
promising better success, was happily discovered by Colonel Boone. The
walls of the fort were distant sixty yards from the Kentucky river. The
bosom of the current was easily discernible by the people within. Boone
discovered in the morning that the stream near the shore was extremely
turbid. He immediately divined the cause.

The Indians had commenced a trench at the water level of the river
bank, mining upwards towards the station, and intending to reach the
interior by a passage under the wall. He took measures to render their
project ineffectual, by ordering a trench to be cut inside the fort,
across the line of their subterraneous passage. They were probably
apprised of the countermine that was digging within, by the quantity of
earth thrown over the wall. But, stimulated by the encouragement of
their French engineer, they continued to advance their mine towards the
wall, until, from the friability of the soil through which it passed, it
fell in, and all their labor was lost. With a perseverance that in a
good cause would have done them honor, in no wise discouraged by this
failure to intermit their exertions, they returned again to their fire
arms, and kept up a furious and incessant firing for some days, but
producing no more impression upon the station than before.

During the siege, which lasted eight days, they proposed frequent
parleys, requesting the surrender of the place, and professing to treat
the garrison with the utmost kindness. They were answered, that they
must deem the garrison to be still more brutally fools than themselves,
to expect that they would place any confidence in the proposals of
wretches who had already manifested such base and stupid treachery. They
were bidden to fire on, for that their waste of powder and lead gave the
garrison little uneasiness, and were assured that they could not hope
the surrender of the place, while there was a man left within it. On the
morning of the ninth day from the commencement of the siege, after
having, as usual, wreaked their disappointed fury upon the cattle and
swine, they decamped, and commenced a retreat.

No Indian expedition against the whites had been known to have had such
a disastrous issue for them. During the siege, their loss was estimated
by the garrison at two hundred killed, beside a great number wounded.
The garrison, on the contrary, protected by the palisades, behind which
they could fire in safety, and deliberately prostrate every foe that
exposed himself near enough to become a mark, lost but two killed, and
had six wounded.

After the siege, the people of the fort, to whom lead was a great
object, began to collect the balls that the Indians had fired upon them.
They gathered in the logs of the fort, beside those that had fallen to
the ground, a hundred and twenty-five pounds. The failure of this
desperate attempt, with such a powerful force, seems to have discouraged
the Indians and their Canadian allies from making any further effort
against Boonesborough. In the autumn of this season, Colonel Boone
returned to North Carolina to visit his wife and family.

When he was taken at the Blue Licks, with his associates, who had
returned, while he was left behind in a long captivity, during which no
more news of him transpired than as if he were actually among the dead,
the people of the garrison naturally concluded that he had been killed.
His wife and family numbered him as among the dead; and often had they
shuddered on the bare recurrence of some one to the probability of the
tortures he had undergone. Deeply attached to him, and inconsolable,
they could no longer endure a residence which so painfully reminded them
of their loss. As soon as they had settled their minds to the conviction
that their head would return to them no more, they resolved to leave
these forests that had been so fatal to them, and return to the banks of
the Yadkin, where were all their surviving connections. A family so
respectable and dear to the settlement would not be likely to leave
without having to overcome many tender and pressing solicitations to
remain, and many promises that if they would, their temporal wants
should be provided for.

To all this Mrs. Boone could only object, that Kentucky had indeed been
to her, as its name imported, a dark and _Bloody Ground_. She had lost
her eldest son by the savage fire before they had reached the country.
Her daughter had been made a captive, and had experienced a forbearance
from the Indians to her inexplicable. She would have been carried away
to the savage towns, and there would have been forcibly married to some
warrior, but for the perilous attempt, and improbable success of her
father in recapturing her. Now the father himself, her affectionate
husband, and the heroic defender of the family, had fallen a sacrifice,
probably in the endurance of tortures on which the imagination dared not
to dwell. Under the influence of griefs like these, next to the
unfailing resource of religion, the heart naturally turns to the
sympathy and society of those bound to it by the ties of nature and
affinity. They returned to their friends in North Carolina.

It was nearly five years since this now desolate family had started in
company with the first emigrating party of families, in high hopes and
spirits, for Kentucky. We have narrated their disastrous rencounter with
the Indians in Powell's valley, and their desponding return to Clinch
river. We have seen their subsequent return to Boonesborough, on
Kentucky river. Tidings of the party thus far had reached the relatives
of Mrs. Boone's family in North Carolina; but no news from the country
west of the Alleghanies had subsequently reached them. All was uncertain
conjecture, whether they still lived, or had perished by famine, wild
beasts, or the Indians.

At the close of the summer of 1778, the settlement on the Yadkin saw a
company on pack horses approaching in the direction from the western
wilderness. They had often seen parties of emigrants departing in that
direction, but it was a novel spectacle to see one return from that
quarter. At the head of that company was a blooming youth, scarcely yet
arrived at the age of manhood. It was the eldest surviving son of Daniel
Boone. Next behind him was a matronly woman, in weeds, and with a
countenance of deep dejection. It was Mrs. Boone. Still behind was the
daughter who had been a captive with the Indians. The remaining children
were too young to feel deeply. The whole group was respectable in
appearance, though clad in skins, and the primitive habiliments of the
wilderness. It might almost have been mistaken for a funeral
procession. It stopped at the house of Mr. Bryan, the father of Mrs.
Boone.

The people of the settlement were not long in collecting to hear news
from the west, and learn the fate of their former favorite, Boone, and
his family. As Mrs. Boone, in simple and backwood's phrase, related the
thrilling story of their adventures, which needed no trick of venal
eloquence to convey it to the heart, an abundant tribute of tears from
the hearers convinced the bereaved narrator that true sympathy is
natural to the human heart. As they shuddered at the dark character of
many of the incidents related, it was an hour of triumph,
notwithstanding their pity, for those wiser ones, who took care, in an
under tone, to whisper that it might be remembered that they had
predicted all that had happened.




CHAPTER XI.

A sketch of the character and adventures of several other
pioneers--Harrod, Kenton, Logan, Ray, McAffee, and others.


Colonel Boone having seen the formidable invasion of Boonesborough
successfully repelled, and with such a loss as would not be likely to
tempt the Indians to repeat such assaults--and having thus disengaged
his mind from public duties, resigned it to the influence of domestic
sympathies. The affectionate husband and father, concealing the
tenderest heart under a sun-burnt and care-worn visage, was soon seen
crossing the Alleghanies in pursuit of his wife and children. The bright
star of his morning promise had been long under eclipse; for this
journey was one of continued difficulties, vexations, and dangers--so
like many of his sufferings already recounted, that we pass them by,
fearing the effect of incidents of so much monotony upon the reader's
patience. The frame and spirit of the western adventurer were of iron.
He surmounted all, and was once more in the bosom of his family on the
Yadkin, who, in the language of the Bible, hailed him as one _who had
been dead and was alive again; who had been lost and was found_.

Many incidents of moment and interest in the early annals of Kentucky
occurred during this reunion of Boone with his family. As his name is
forever identified with these annals, we hope it will not be deemed
altogether an episode if we introduce here a brief chronicle of those
incidents--though not directly associated with the subject of our
memoir. In presenting those incidents, we shall be naturally led to
speak of some of the other patriarchs of Kentucky--all Boones in their
way--all strangely endowed with that peculiar character which fitted
them for the time, place, and achievements. We thus discover the
foresight of Providence in the arrangement of means to ends. This is no
where seen more conspicuously than in the characters of the founders of
states and institutions.

During the absence of Colonel Boone, there was a general disposition in
Kentucky to retaliate upon the Shawnese some of the injuries and losses
which they had so often inflicted upon the infant settlement. Colonel
Bowman, with a force of a hundred and sixty men, was selected to command
the expedition; and it was destined against Old Chillicothe--the den
where the red northern savages had so long concentrated their
expeditions against the settlements south of the Ohio.

The force marched in the month of July, 1779, and reached its
destination undiscovered by the Indians. A contest commenced with the
Indians at early dawn, which lasted until ten in the morning. But,
although Colonel Bowman's force sustained itself with great gallantry,
the numbers and concealment of the enemy precluded the chance of a
victory. He retreated, with an inconsiderable loss, a distance of thirty
miles. The Indians, collecting all their forces, pursued and overtook
him. Another engagement of two hours ensued, more to the disadvantage
of the Kentuckians than the former. Colonel Harrod proposed to mount a
number of horse, and make a charge upon the Indians, who continued the
fight with great fury. This apparently desperate measure was followed by
the happiest results. The Indian front was broken, and their force
thrown into irreparable confusion. Colonel Bowman, having sustained a
loss of nine killed and one wounded, afterwards continued an unmolested
retreat.

In June of the next year, 1780, six hundred Indians and Canadians,
commanded by Colonel Bird, a British officer, attacked Riddle's and
Martin's stations, at the forks of the Licking, with six pieces of
cannon. They conducted this expedition with so much secrecy, that the
first intimation of it which the unsuspecting inhabitants had, was being
fired upon. Unprepared to resist so formidable a force, provided
moreover with cannon, against which their palisade walls would not
stand, they were obliged to surrender at discretion. The savages
immediately prostrated one man and two women with the tomahawk. All the
other prisoners, many of whom were sick, were loaded with baggage and
forced to accompany their return march to the Indian towns. Whoever,
whether male or female, infant or aged, became unable, from sickness or
exhaustion, to proceed, was immediately dispatched with the tomahawk.

The inhabitants, exasperated by the recital of cruelties to the children
and women, too horrible to be named, put themselves under the standard
of the intrepid and successful General Clarke, who commanded a regiment
of United States' troops at the falls of Ohio. He was joined by a number
of volunteers from the country, and they marched against Pickaway, one
of the principal towns of the Shawnese, on the Great Miami. He conducted
this expedition with his accustomed good fortune. He burnt their town to
ashes. Beside the dead, which, according to their custom, the Indians
carried off, seventeen bodies were left behind. The loss of General
Clarke was seventeen killed.

We here present brief outlines of some of the other more prominent
western pioneers, the kindred spirits, the Boones of Kentucky. High
spirited intelligent, intrepid as they were, they can never supplant the
reckless hero of Kentucky and Missouri in our thoughts. It is true,
these men deserve to have their memories perpetuated in monumental
brass, and the more enduring page of history. But there is a sad
interest attached to the memory of Daniel Boone, which can never belong,
in an equal degree, to theirs. They foresaw what this beautiful country
would become in the hands of its new possessors. Extending their
thoughts beyond the ken of a hunter's calculations, they anticipated the
consequences of buts and bounds, officers of registry and record, and
courts of justice. In due time, they secured a fair and adequate
reversion in the soil which they had planted and so nobly defended.
Hence, their posterity, with the inheritance of their name and renown,
enter into the heritage of their possessions, and find an honorable and
an abundant residence in the country which their fathers settled.
Boone, on the contrary, was too simple-minded, too little given to
prospective calculations, and his heart in too much what was passing
under his eye, to make this thrifty forecast. In age, in penury,
landless, and without a home, he is seen leaving Kentucky, then an
opulent and flourishing country, for a new wilderness and new scenes of
adventure.

Among the names of the conspicuous backwoodsmen who settled the west, we
cannot fail to recognize that of James Harrod. He was from the banks of
the Monongahela, and among the earliest immigrants to the "Bloody
Ground." He descended the Great Kenhawa, and returned to Pennsylvania in
1774. He made himself conspicuous with a party of his friends at the
famous contest with the Indians at the "Point," Next year he returned to
Kentucky with a party of immigrants, fixing himself at one of the
earliest settlements in the country, which, in honor of him, was called
Harrodsburgh.

Nature had moulded him of a form and temperament to look the formidable
red man in the face. He was six feet, muscular, broad chested, of a firm
and animated countenance, keen and piercing eyes, and sparing of speech.
He gained himself an imperishable name in the annals of Kentucky, under
the extreme disadvantage of not knowing how to read or write! Obliging
and benevolent to his neighbors, he was brave and active in their
defence. A successful, because a persevering and intelligent hunter, he
was liberal to profuseness in the distribution of the spoils. Vigilant
and unerring with his rifle, it was at one time directed against the
abundant game for the sake of his friends rather than himself; and at
others, against the enemies of his country. Guided by the inexplicable
instinct of forest skill, he could conduct the wanderer in the woods
from point to point through the wilderness, as the needle guides the
mariner upon the ocean. So endowed, others equally illiterate, and less
gifted, naturally, and from instinct, arranged themselves under his
banner, and fearlessly followed such a leader.

If it was reported, that a family, recently arrived in the country, and
not yet acquainted with the backwood's modes of supply, was in want of
food, Harrod was seen at the cabin door, offering the body of a deer or
buffalo, which he had just killed. The commencing farmer, who had lost
his oxen, or plough horse, in the range, and unused to the vocation of
hunting them, or fearful of the Indian rifle, felt no hesitancy, from
his known character, in applying to Harrod. He would disappear in the
woods, and in the exercise of his own wonderful tact, the lost beast was
soon seen driving to the door.

But the precincts of a station, or the field of a farm, were too
uncongenial a range for such a spirit as his. To breathe the fresh
forest air--to range deserts where man was not to be seen--to pursue the
wild deer and buffalo--to trap the bear and the wolf, or beside the
still pond, or the unexplored stream, to catch otters and beavers--to
bring down the wild turkey from the summit of the highest trees; such
were the congenial pursuits in which he delighted.

But, in a higher sphere, and in the service of his country, he united
the instinctive tact and dexterity of a huntsman with the bravery of a
soldier. No labor was too severe for his hardihood; no enterprise too
daring and forlorn for his adventure; no course too intricate and
complicated for his judgment, so far as native talent could guide it. As
a Colonel of the militia, he conducted expeditions against the Indians
with uncommon success. After the country had become populous, and he a
husband and a father, in the midst of an affectionate family, possessed
of every comfort--such was the effect of temperament, operating upon
habit, that he became often silent and thoughtful in the midst of the
social circle, and was seen in that frame to wander away into remote
forests, and to bury himself amidst the unpeopled knobs, where, in a few
weeks, he would reacquire his cheerfulness. In one of these excursions
he disappeared, and was seen no more, leaving no trace to determine
whether he died a natural death, was slain by wild beasts, or the
tomahawk of the savage.

Among the names of many of the first settlers of Harrodsburgh, are those
that are found most prominent in the early annals of Kentucky. In the
first list of these we find the names of McGary, Harland, McBride, and
Chaplain. Among the young settlers, none were more conspicuous for
active, daring, and meritorious service, than James Ray. Prompt at his
post at the first moment of alarm, brave in the field, fearless and
persevering in the pursuit of the enemy, scarcely a battle, skirmish, or
expedition took place in which he had not a distinguished part. Equally
expert as a woodsman, and skilful and successful as a hunter, he was
often employed as a spy. It is recorded of him that he left his
garrison, when short of provisions, by night marched to a forest at the
distance of six miles, killed a buffalo, and, loaded with the choice
parts of the flesh, returned to regale the hungry inhabitants in the
morning. He achieved this enterprise, too, when it was well known that
the vicinity was thronged with Indians, lurking for an opportunity to
kill. These are the positions which try the daring and skill, the
usefulness and value of men, furnishing a criterion which cannot be
counterfeited between reality and resemblance.

We may perhaps in this place most properly introduce another of the
famous partisans in savage warfare, Simon Kenton, alias Butler, who,
from humble beginnings, made himself conspicuous by distinguished
services and achievements in the first settlements of this country, and
ought to be recorded as one of the patriarchs of Kentucky. He was born
in Virginia, in 1753. He grew to maturity without being able to read or
write; but from his early exploits he seems to have been endowed with
feelings which the educated and those born in the upper walks of life,
appear to suppose a monopoly reserved for themselves. It is recorded of
him, that at the age of nineteen, he had a violent contest with another
competitor for the favor of the lady of his love. She refused to make an
election between them, and the subject of this notice indignantly exiled
himself from his native place. After various peregrinations on the long
rivers of the west, he fixed himself in Kentucky, and soon became a
distinguished partisan against the savages. In 1774, he joined himself
to Lord Dunmore, and was appointed one of his spies. He made various
excursions, and performed important services in this employ. He finally
selected a place for improvement on the site where Washington now is.
Returning one day from hunting, he found one of his companions slain by
the Indians, and his body thrown into the fire. He left Washington in
consequence, and joined himself to Colonel Clarke in his fortunate and
gallant expedition against Vincennes and Kaskaskia. He was sent by that
commander with despatches for Kentucky. He passed through the streets of
Vincennes, then in possession of the British and Indians, without
discovery. Arriving at White river, he and his party made a raft on
which to cross with their guns and baggage, driving their horses into
the river and compelling them to swim it. A party of Indians was
concealed on the opposite bank, who took possession of the horses as
they mounted the bank from crossing the river. Butler and his party
seeing this, continued to float down the river on their raft without
coming to land. They concealed themselves in the bushes until night,
when they crossed the river, pursued their journey, and delivered their
despatches.

After this, Butler made a journey of discovery to the northern regions
of the Ohio country, and was made prisoner by the Indians. They painted
him black, as is their custom when a victim is destined for their
torture, and informed him that he was to be burned at Chillicothe.
Meanwhile, for their own amusement, and as a prelude of his torture,
they manacled him hand and foot, and placed him on an unbridled and
unbroken horse, and turned the animal loose, driving it off at its
utmost speed, with shouts, delighted at witnessing its mode of managing
with its living burden. The horse unable to shake off this new and
strange encumbrance, made for the thickest covert of the woods and
brambles, with the speed of the winds. It is easy to conjecture the
position and suffering of the victim. The terrified animal exhausted
itself in fruitless efforts to shake off its burden, and worn down and
subdued, brought Butler back amidst the yells of the exulting savages to
the camp.

Arrived within a mile of Chillicothe, they halted, took Butler from his
horse and tied him to a stake, where he remained twenty-four hours in
one position. He was taken from the stake to "run the gauntlet." The
Indian mode of managing this kind of torture was as follows: The
inhabitants of the tribe, old and young, were placed in parallel lines,
armed with clubs and switches. The victim was to make his way to the
council house through these files, every member of which struggled to
beat him as he passed as severely as possible. If he reached the council
house alive, he was to be spared. In the lines were nearly six hundred
Indians, and Butler had to make his way almost a mile in the endurance
of this infernal sport. He was started by a blow; but soon broke through
the files, and had almost reached the council house, when a stout
warrior knocked him down with a club. He was severely beaten in this
position, and taken back again into custody.

It seems incredible that they sometimes adopted their prisoners, and
treated them with the utmost lenity and even kindness. At other times,
ingenuity was exhausted to invent tortures, and every renewed endurance
of the victim seemed to stimulate their vengeance to new discoveries of
cruelty. Butler was one of these ill-fated subjects. No way satisfied
with what they had done, they marched him from village to village to
give all a spectacle of his sufferings. He run the gauntlet thirteen
times. He made various attempts to escape; and in one instance would
have effected it, had he not been arrested by some savages who were
accidentally returning to the village from which he was escaping. It was
finally determined to burn him at the Lower Sandusky, but an apparent
accident changed his destiny.

In passing to the stake, the procession went by the cabin of Girty, of
whom we have already spoken. This renegado white man lived among these
Indians, and had just returned from an unsuccessful expedition against
the whites on the frontiers of Pennsylvania. The wretch burned with
disappointment and revenge, and hearing that there was a white man going
to the torture, determined to wreak his vengeance on him. He found the
unfortunate Butler, threw him to the ground, and began to beat him.
Butler, who instantly recognized in Girty the quondam companion and
playmate of youth, at once made himself known to him. This sacramental
tie of friendship, on recognition, caused the savage heart of Girty to
relent. He raised him up, and promised to save him. He procured the
assemblage of a council, and persuaded the savages to relinquish Butler
to him. He took the unfortunate man home, fed, and clothed him, and
Butler began to recruit from his wounds and torture. But the relenting
of the savages was only transient and momentary. After five days they
repented of their relaxation in his favor, reclaimed him, and marched
him to Lower Sandusky to be burned there, according to their original
purpose. By a fortunate coincidence, he there met the Indian agent from
Detroit, who, from motives of humanity, exerted his influence with the
savages for his release, and took him with him to Detroit. Here he was
paroled by the Governor. He escaped; and being endowed, like Daniel
Boone, to be at home in the woods, by a march of thirty days through the
wilderness, he reached Kentucky.

In 1784, Simon Kenton reoccupied the settlement, near Washington, which
he had commenced in 1775. Associated with a number of people, he erected
a block-house, and made a station here. This became an important point
of covering and defence for the interior country. Immigrants felt more
confidence in landing at Limestone. To render this confidence more
complete, Kenton and his associates built a block-house at Limestone.
Two men, of the name of Tanner, had made a small settlement the year
preceding at Blue Lick, and were now making salt there. The route from
Limestone to Lexington became one of the most general travel for
immigrants, and many stations sprang up upon it. Travellers to the
country had hitherto been compelled to sleep under the open canopy,
exposed to the rains and dews of the night. But cabins were now so
common, that they might generally repose under a roof that sheltered
them from the weather, and find a bright fire, plenty of wood, and with
the rustic fare, a most cheerful and cordial welcome. The people of
these new regions were hospitable from native inclination. They were
hospitable from circumstances. None but those who dwell in a wilderness,
where the savages roam and the wolves howl, can understand all the
pleasant associations connected with the sight of a stranger of the same
race. The entertainer felt himself stronger from the presence of his
guest. His offered food and fare were the spoils of the chase. He heard
news from the old settlements and the great World; and he saw in the
accession of every stranger a new guaranty of the security, wealth, and
improvement of the infant country where he had chosen his resting place.

Among other worthy associates of Boone, we may mention the family of
McAffee. Two brothers, James and Robert, emigrated from the county of
Botetourt, Virginia, and settled on Salt river, six miles from
Harrodsburgh. Having revisited their parent country, on their return
they brought with them William and George McAffee. In 1777, the Indians
destroyed the whole of their valuable stock of cattle, while they were
absent from Kentucky. In 1779 they returned, and settled McAffee's
station, which was subsequently compelled to take its full share in the
sufferings and dangers of Indian hostilities.

Benjamin Logan immigrated to the country in 1775, as a private citizen.
But he was a man of too much character to remain unnoted. As his
character developed, he was successively appointed a magistrate, elected
a member of the legislature and rose, as a military character, to the
rank of general. His parents were natives of Ireland, who emigrated,
while young, to Pennsylvania, where they married, and soon afterwards
removed to Augusta county, Virginia.

Benjamin, their oldest son, was born there; and at the age of fourteen,
lost his father. Charged, at this early age, with the care of a widowed
mother, and children still younger than himself, neither the
circumstances of his family, of the country, or his peculiar condition,
allowed him the chances of education. Almost as unlettered as James
Harrod, he was a memorable example of a self-formed man. Great natural
acuteness, and strong intellectual powers, were, however, adorned by a
disposition of uncommon benevolence. Under the eye of an excellent
father, he commenced with the rudiments of common instruction, the
soundest lessons of Christian piety and morality, which were continued
by the guidance and example of an admirable mother, with whom he resided
until he was turned of twenty-one.

His father had deceased intestate, and, in virtue of the laws then in
force, the whole extensive inheritance of his father's lands descended
to him, to the exclusion of his brothers and sisters. His example ought
to be recorded for the benefit of those grasping children in these days,
who, dead to all natural affection, and every sentiment but avarice,
seize all that the law will grant, whether equity will sanction it or
not. Disregarding this claim of primogeniture, he insisted that the
whole inheritance should be parceled into equal shares, of which he
accepted only his own. But the generous impulses of his noble nature,
were not limited to the domestic circle. His heart was warm with the
more enlarged sentiments of patriotism. At the age of twenty-one, he
accompanied Colonel Beauquette, as a serjeant, in a hostile expedition
against the Indians of the north. Having provided for the comfortable
settlement of his mother and family on James River, Virginia, he moved
to the Holston, where he settled and married.

Having been in the expedition of Lord Dunmore against the Indians, and
having thus acquired a taste for forest marches and incident, he
determined, in 1775, to try his fortunes in Kentucky, which country had
then just become a theme of discussion. He set forth from his mother's
family with three slaves, leaving the rest to her. In Powell's valley he
met with Boone, Henderson, and other kindred spirits, and pursued his
journey towards Kentucky in company with them. He parted from them,
before they reached Boonesborough, and selected a spot for himself,
afterwards called Logan's fort, or station.

In the winter of 1776, he removed his family from Holston, and in March,
arrived with it in Kentucky. It was the same year in which the daughter
of Col. Boone, and those of Col. Calloway were made captives. The
whole-country being in a state of alarm, he endeavored to assemble some
of the settlers that were dispersed in the country called the Crab
Orchard, to join him at his cabins, and there form a station of
sufficient strength to defend itself against Indian assault. But finding
them timid and unresolved, he was himself obliged to desert his
incipient settlement, and move for safety to Harrodsburgh. Yet, such was
his determination not to abandon his selected spot, that he raised a
crop of corn there, defenceless and surrounded on all sides by Indian
incursion.

In the winter of 1777, and previous to the attack of Harrodsburgh, he
found six families ready to share with him the dangers of the selected
spot; and he removed his family with them to his cabins, where the
settlement immediately united in the important duty of palisading a
station.

Before these arrangements were fully completed as the females of the
establishment, on the twentieth of May, were milking their cows,
sustained by a guard of their husbands and fathers, the whole party was
suddenly assailed by a large body of Indians, concealed in a cane-brake.
One man was killed, and two wounded, one mortally, the other severely.
The remainder reached the interior of the palisades in safety. The
number in all was thirty, half of whom were women and children. A
circumstance was now discovered, exceedingly trying to such a benevolent
spirit as that of Logan. While the Indians were still firing, and the
inmates part exulting in their safety, and the others mourning over
their dead and wounded, it was perceived, that one of the wounded, by
the name of Harrison, was still alive, and exposed every moment to be
scalped by the Indians. All this his wife and family could discern from
within. It is not difficult to imagine their agonizing condition, and
piercing lamentations for the fate of one so dear to them. Logan
discovered, on this occasion, the same keen sensibility to tenderness,
and insensibility to danger, that characterized his friend Boone in
similar predicaments. He endeavored to rally a few of the small number
of the male inmates of the place to join him, and rush out, and assist
in attempting to bring the wounded man within the palisades. But so
obvious was the danger, so forlorn appeared the enterprise, that no one
could be found disposed to volunteer his aid, except a single individual
by the name of John Martin. When they had reached the gate, the wounded
man raised himself partly erect, and made a movement, as if disposed to
try to reach the fort himself. On this, Martin desisted from the
enterprise, and left Logan to attempt it alone. He rushed forward to the
wounded man. He made some efforts to crawl onwards by the aid of Logan;
but weakened by the loss of blood, and the agony of his wounds, he
fainted, and Logan taking him up in his arms, bore him towards the
fort. A shower of bullets was discharged upon them, many of which struck
the palisades close to his head, as he brought the wounded man safe
within the gate, and deposited him in the care of his family.

The station, at this juncture, was destitute of both powder and ball;
and there was no chance of supply nearer than Holston. All intercourse
between station and station was cut off. Without ammunition the station
could not be defended against the Indians. The question was, how to
obviate this pressing emergency, and obtain a supply? Captain Logan
selected two trusty companions, left the fort by night, evaded the
besieging Indians, reached the woods, and with his companions made his
way in safety to Holston, procured the necessary supply of ammunition,
packed it under their care on horseback, giving them directions how to
proceed. He then left them, and traversing the forests by a shorter
route on foot, he reached the fort in safety, in ten days from his
departure. The Indians still kept up the siege with unabated
perseverance. The hopes of the diminished garrison had given way to
despair. The return of Logan inspired them with renewed confidence.

Uniting the best attributes of a woodsman and a soldier to uncommon
local acquaintance with the country, his instinctive sagacity prescribed
to him, on this journey, the necessity of deserting the beaten path,
where, he was aware, he should be intercepted by the savages. Avoiding,
from the same calculation, the passage of the Cumberland Gap, he
explored a track in which man, or at least the white man, had never
trodden before. We may add, it has never been trodden since. Through
cane-brakes and tangled thickets, over cliffs and precipices, and
pathless mountains, he made his solitary way. Following his directions
implicitly, his companions, who carried the ammunition, also reached the
fort, and it was saved.

His rencounters with the Indians, and his hairbreadth escapes make no
inconsiderable figure in the subsequent annals of Kentucky. The year
after the siege of his fort, on a hunting excursion, he discovered an
Indian camp, at Big Flat Spring, two miles from his station. Returning
immediately he raised a party, with which he attacked the camp, from
which the Indians fled with precipitation, without much loss on their
part, and none on his. A short time after he was attacked at the same
place, by another party of Indians. His arm was broken by their fire,
and he was otherwise slightly wounded in the breast. They even seized
the mane of his horse, and he escaped them from their extreme eagerness
to take him alive.

No sooner were his wounds healed, than we find him in the fore front of
the expedition against the Indians. In 1779, he served as a captain in
Bowman's campaign. He signalized his bravery in the unfortunate battle
that ensued, and was with difficulty compelled to retire, when retreat
became necessary. The next year a party travelling from Harrodsburgh
towards Logan's fort, were fired upon by the Indians, and two of them
mortally wounded One, however, survived to reach the fort, and give an
account of the fate of his wounded companion. Logan immediately raised a
small party of young men, and repaired to the aid of the wounded man,
who had crawled out of sight of the Indians behind a clump of bushes. He
was still alive. Logan took him on his shoulders, occasionally relieved
in sustaining the burden by his younger associates, and in this way
conveyed him to the fort. On their return from Harrodsburgh, Logan's
party were fired upon, and one of the party wounded. The assailants were
repelled with loss; and it was Logan's fortune again to be the bearer of
the wounded man upon his shoulders for a long distance, exposed, the
while, to the fire of the Indians.

His reputation for bravery and hospitality, and the influence of a long
train of connections, caused him to be the instrument of bringing out
many immigrants to Kentucky. They were of a character to prove an
acquisition to the country. Like his friends, Daniel Boone, and James
Harrod, his house was open to all the recent immigrants. In the early
stages of the settlement of the country, his station, like Boone's and
Harrod's, was one of the main pillars of the colony. Feeling the
importance of this station, as a point of support to the infant
settlements, he took effectual measures to keep up an intercourse with
the other stations, particularly those of Boone and Harrod. Dangerous as
this intercourse was, Logan generally travelled alone, often by night,
and universally with such swiftness of foot, that few could be found
able to keep speed with him.

In the year 1780, he received his commission as Colonel, and was soon
after a member of the Virginia legislature at Richmond. In the year
1781, the Indians attacked Montgomery's station, consisting of six
families, connected by blood with Colonel Logan. The father and brother
of Mrs. Logan were killed, and her sister-in-law, with four children,
taken prisoners. This disaster occurred about ten miles from Logan's
fort. His first object was to rescue the prisoners, and his next to
chastise the barbarity of the Indians. He immediately collected a party
of his friends, and repaired to the scene of action. He was here joined
by the bereaved relatives of Montgomery's family. He commanded a rapid
pursuit of the enemy, who were soon overtaken, and briskly attacked.
They faced upon their assailants, but were beaten after a severe
conflict. William Montgomery killed three Indians, and wounded a fourth.
Two women and three children were rescued. The savages murdered the
other child to prevent its being re-taken. The other prisoners would
have experienced the same fate, had they not fled for their lives into
the thickets.

It would be very easy to extend this brief sketch of some of the more
conspicuous pioneers of Kentucky. Their heroic and disinterested
services, their lavish prodigality of their blood and property, gave
them that popularity which is universally felt to be a high and
priceless acquisition. Loved, and trusted, and honored as fathers of
their country; while they lived, they had the persuasion of such
generous minds as theirs, that their names would descend with blessings
to their grateful posterity.




CHAPTER XII.

Boone's brother killed, and Boone himself narrowly escapes from the
Indians--Assault upon Ashton's station--and upon the station near
Shelbyville--Attack upon McAffee's station.


We have already spoken of the elder brother of Col. Boone and his second
return to the Yadkin. A fondness for the western valleys seems to have
been as deeply engraven in his affections, as in the heart of his
brother. He subsequently returned once more with his family to Kentucky.
In 1780 we find a younger brother of Daniel Boone resident with him. The
two brothers set out on the sixth of October of that year, to revisit
the blue Licks. It may well strike us as a singular fact, that Colonel
Boone should have felt any disposition to revisit a place that was
connected with so many former disasters. But, as a place convenient for
the manufacture of salt, it was a point of importance to the rapidly
growing settlement. They had manufactured as much salt as they could
pack, and were returning to Boonesborough, when they were overtaken by a
party of Indians. By the first fire Colonel Boone's brother fell dead by
his side. Daniel Boone faced the enemy, and aimed at the foremost
Indian, who appeared to have been the slayer of his brother. That Indian
fell. By this time he discovered a host advancing upon him. Taking the
still loaded rifle of his fallen brother, he prostrated another foe, and
while flying from his enemy found time to reload his rifle. The bullets
of a dozen muskets whistled about his head; but the distance of the foe
rendered them harmless. No scalp would have been of so much value to his
pursuers as that of the well known Daniel Boone; and they pursued him
with the utmost eagerness. His object was so far to outstrip them, as to
be able to conceal his trail, and put them to fault in regard to his
course. He made for a little hill, behind which was a stream of water.
He sprang into the water and waded up its current for some distance, and
then emerged and struck off at right angles to his former course.
Darting onward at the height of his speed, he hoped that he had
distanced them, and thrown them off his trail. To his infinite
mortification, he discovered that his foe, either accidentally, or from
their natural sagacity, had rendered all his caution fruitless, and were
fiercely pursuing him still. His next expedient was that of a swing by
the aid of a grape-vine, which had so well served him on a like occasion
before. He soon found one convenient for the experiment, and availed
himself of it, as before. This hope was also disappointed. His foe still
hung with staunch perseverance on his trail. He now perceived by their
movements, that they were conducted by a dog, that easily ran in zig-zag
directions, when at fault, until it had re-scented his course. The
expedient of Boone was the only one that seemed adequate to save him.
His gun was reloaded. The dog was in advance of the Indians, still
scenting his track. A rifle shot delivered him from his officious
pursuer. He soon reached a point convenient for concealing his trail,
and while the Indians were hunting for it, gained so much upon them as
to be enabled to reach Boonesborough in safety.

At the close of the autumn of 1780, Kentucky, from being one county, was
divided into three, named Jefferson, Fayette, and Lincoln. William Pope,
Daniel Boone, and Benjamin Logan, were appointed to the important
offices of commanding the militia of their respective counties.

During this year Col. Clarke descended the Ohio, with a part of his
Virginia regiment, and after entering the Mississippi, at the first
bluff on the eastern bank, he landed and built Fort Jefferson. The
occupation of this fort, for the time, added the Chickasaws to the
number of hostile Indians that the western people had to encounter. It
was soon discovered, that it would be advisable to evacuate it, as a
mean of restoring peace. It was on their acknowleged territory. It had
been erected without their consent. They boasted it, as a proof of their
friendship, that they had never invaded Kentucky; and they indignantly
resented this violation of their territory. The evacuation of the fort
was the terms of a peace which the Chickasaws faithfully observed.

The winter of 1781, was one of unusual length and distress for the young
settlement of Kentucky. Many of the immigrants arrived after the close
of the hunting season; and beside, were unskilful in the difficult
pursuit of supplying themselves with game. The Indians had destroyed
most of the corn of the preceding summer, and the number of persons to
be supplied had rapidly increased. These circumstances created a
temporary famine, which, added to the severity of the season, inflicted
much severe suffering upon the settlement. Boone and Harrod were abroad,
breasting the keen forest air, and seeking the retreat of the deer and
buffalo, now becoming scarce, as the inhabitants multiplied. These
indefatigable and intrepid men supplied the hungry immigrants with the
flesh of buffaloes and deers; and the hardy settlers, accustomed to
privations, and not to over delicacy in their food, contented themselves
to live entirely on meat, until, in the ensuing autumn, they once more
derived abundance from the fresh and fertile soil.

In May, 1782, a body of savages assaulted Ashton's station, killed one
man, and took another prisoner. Captain Ashton, with twenty-five men,
pursued and overtook them. An engagement, which lasted two hours,
ensued. But the great superiority of the Indians in number, obliged
Captain Ashton to retreat. The loss of this intrepid party was severe.
Eight were killed, and four mortally wounded--their brave commander
being among the number of the slain. Four children were taken captive
from Major Hoy's station, in August following. Unwarned by the fate of
Captain Ashton's party. Captain Holden, with the inadequate force of
seventeen men, pursued the captors, came up with them, and were defeated
with the loss of four men killed, and one wounded.

This was one of the most disastrous periods since the settlement of the
country. A number of the more recent and feeble stations, were so
annoyed by savage hostility as to be broken up. The horses were carried
off, and the cattle killed in every direction. Near Lexington, a man at
work in his field, was shot dead by a single Indian, who ran upon his
foe to scalp him, and was himself shot dead from the fort, and fell on
the body of his foe.

During the severity of winter, the fury of Indian incursion was awhile
suspended, and the stern and scarred hunters had a respite of a few
weeks about their cabin fires. But in March, the hostilities were
renewed, and several marauding parties of Indians entered the country
from north of the Ohio. Col. William Lyn, and Captains Tipton and
Chapman, were killed by small detachments that waylaid them upon the
Beargrass. In pursuit of one of these parties, Captain Aquila White,
with seventeen men trailed the Indians to the Falls of the Ohio.
Supposing that they had crossed, he embarked his men in canoes to follow
them on the other shore. They had just committed themselves to the
stream, when they were fired upon from the shore they had left. Nine of
the party were killed or wounded. Yet, enfeebled as the remainder were,
they relanded, faced the foe, and compelled them to retreat.

In April following, a station settled by Boone's elder brother, near the
present site where Shelbyville now stands, became alarmed by the
appearance of parties of Indians in its vicinity. The people, in
consternation, unadvisedly resolved to remove to Beargrass. The men
accordingly set out encumbered with women, children, and baggage. In
this defenceless predicament, they were attacked by the Indians near
Long Run. They experienced some loss, and a general dispersion from each
other in the woods. Colonel Floyd, in great haste, raised twenty-five
men, and repaired to the scene of action, intent alike upon
administering relief to the sufferers, and chastisement to the enemy. He
divided his party, and advanced upon them with caution. But their
superior knowledge of the country, enabled the Indians to ambuscade both
divisions, and to defeat them with the loss of half his men; a loss
poorly compensated by the circumstance, that a still greater number of
the savages fell in the engagement. The number of the latter were
supposed to be three times that of Colonel Floyd's party. The Colonel
narrowly escaped with his life, by the aid of Captain Samuel Wells, who,
seeing him on foot, pursued by the enemy, dismounted and gave him his
own horse, and as he fled, ran by his side to support him on the saddle,
from which he might have fallen through weakness from his wounds.--This
act of Captain Wells was the more magnanimous, as Floyd and himself were
not friends at the time. Such noble generosity was not thrown away upon
Floyd. It produced its natural effect, and these two persons lived and
died friends. It is pleasant to record such a mode of quelling
animosity.

Early in May, two men, one of whom was Samuel McAffee, left James
McAffee's station, to go to a clearing at a short distance. They had
advanced about a fourth of a mile, when they were fired upon. The
companion of McAffee fell. The latter turned and fled towards the
station. He had not gained more than fifteen steps when he met an
Indian. Both paused a moment to raise their guns, in order to discharge
them. The muzzles almost touched. Both fired at the same moment. The
Indian's gun flashed in the pan, and he fell. McAffee continued his
retreat; but before he reached the station, its inmates had heard the
report of the guns; and James and Robert, brothers of McAffee, had come
out to the aid of those attacked. The three brothers met, Robert,
notwithstanding the caution he received from his brother, ran along the
path to see the dead Indian. The party of Indians to which he had
belonged, were upon the watch among the trees, and several of them
placed themselves between Robert and the station, to intercept his
return. Soon made aware of the danger to which his thoughtlessness had
exposed him, he found all his dexterity and knowledge of Indian warfare
requisite to ensure his safety. He sprang from behind one tree to
another, in the direction of the station, pursued by an Indian until he
reached a fence within a hundred yards of it, which he cleared by a
leap. The Indian had posted himself behind a tree to take safe
aim.--McAffee was now prepared for him. As the Indian put his head out
from the cover of his tree, to look for his object, he caught McAffee's
ball in his mouth, and fell. McAffee reached the station in safety.

James, though he did not expose himself as his brother had done, was
fired upon by five Indians who lay in ambush. He fled to a tree for
protection. Immediately after he had gained one, three or four aimed at
him from the other side. The balls scattered earth upon him, as they
struck around his feet, but he remained unharmed. He had no sooner
entered the inclosure of the station in safety, than Indians were seen
approaching in all directions. Their accustomed horrid yells preceded a
general attack upon the station. Their fire was returned with spirit,
the women running balls as fast as they were required. The attack
continued two hours, when the Indians withdrew.

The firing had aroused the neighborhood; and soon after the retreat of
the Indians, Major McGary appeared with forty men. It was determined to
pursue the Indians, as they could not have advanced far. This purpose
was immediately carried into execution. The Indians were overtaken and
completely routed. The station suffered inconvenience from the loss of
their domestic animals, which were all killed by the Indians, previous
to their retreat. One white man was killed and another died of his
wounds in a few days. This was the last attack upon this station by the
Indians, although it remained for some years a frontier post.

We might easily swell these annals to volumes, by entering into details
of the attack of Kincheloe's station, and its defence by Colonel Floyd;
the exploits of Thomas Randolph; the captivity of Mrs. Bland and Peake;
and the long catalogue of recorded narratives of murders, burnings,
assaults, heroic defences, escapes, and the various incidents of Indian
warfare upon the incipient settlements. While their barbarity and horror
chill the blood, they show us what sort of men the first settlers of
the country were, and what scenes they had to witness, and what events
to meet, before they prepared for us our present peace and abundance.
The danger and apprehension of their condition must have been such, that
we cannot well imagine how they could proceed to the operations of
building and fencing, with sufficient composure and quietness of spirit,
to complete the slow and laborious preliminaries of founding such
establishments, as they have transmitted to their children. Men they
must have been, who could go firmly and cheerfully to the common
occupations of agriculture, with their lives in their hands, and under
the constant expectation of being greeted from the thickets and
cane-brakes with the rifle bullet and the Indian yell. Even the women
were heroes, and their are instances in abundance on record, where, in
defence of their children and cabins, they conducted with an undaunted
energy of attack or defence, which would throw into shade the vaunted
bravery in the bulletins of regular battles.

These magnanimous pioneers seem to have had a presentiment that they had
a great work to accomplish--laying the foundations of a state in the
wilderness--a work from which they were to be deterred, neither by
hunger, nor toil, nor danger, nor death. For tenderness and affection,
they had hearts of flesh. For the difficulties and dangers of their
positions, their bosoms were of iron. THEY FEARED GOD, AND HAD NO OTHER
FEAR.




CHAPTER XIII.

Disastrous battle near the Blue Licks--General Clarke's expedition
against the Miami towns--Massacre of McClure's family--The horrors of
Indian assaults throughout the settlements--General Harmar's
expedition--Defeat of General St. Clair--Gen. Wayne's victory, and a
final peace with the Indians.


Here, in the order of the annals of the country, would be the place to
present the famous attack of Bryant's station, which we have anticipated
by an anachronism, and given already, in order to present the reader
with a clear view of a _station_, and the peculiar mode of _attack and
defence_ in these border wars. The attack upon Bryant's station was made
by the largest body of Indians that had been seen in Kentucky, the whole
force amounting at least to six hundred men. We have seen that they did
not decamp until they had suffered a severe loss of their warriors. They
departed with so much precipitation as to have left their tents
standing, their fires burning, and their meat roasting. They took the
road to the lower Blue Licks.

Colonel Todd, of Lexington, despatched immediate intelligence of this
attack to Colonel Trigg, near Harrodsburgh, and Colonel Boone, who had
now returned with his family from North Carolina to Boonesborough. These
men were prompt in collecting volunteers in their vicinity. Scarcely had
the Indians disappeared from Bryant's station, before a hundred and
sixty-six men were assembled to march in pursuit of nearly triple their
number of Indians. Besides Colonels Trigg, Todd, and Boone, Majors
McGary and Harland, from the vicinity of Harrodsburgh, had a part in
this command: A council was held, in which, after considering the
disparity of numbers, it was still determined to pursue the Indians.
Such was their impetuosity, that they could not be persuaded to wait for
the arrival of Colonel Logan, who was known to be collecting a strong
party to join them.

The march was immediately commenced upon their trail. They had not
proceeded far before Colonel Boone, experienced in the habits of Indians
and the indications of their purposes, announced that he discovered
marks that their foe was making demonstrations of willingness to meet
them. He observed that they took no pains to conceal their route, but
carefully took measures to mislead their pursuers in regard to their
number. Their first purpose was indicated by cutting trees on their
path--the most palpable of all directions as to their course. The other
was equally concealed by a cautious concentration of their camp, and by
the files taking particular care to step in the foot prints of their
file leaders, so that twenty warriors might be numbered from the
foot-marks only as one.

Still no Indians were actually seen, until the party arrived on the
southern bank of the Licking, at the point of the Blue Licks. A body of
Indians was here discovered, mounting the summit of an opposite hill,
moving leisurely, and apparently without hurry or alarm--retiring
slowly from sight, as on a common march.

The party halted. The officers assembled, and a general consultation
took place, respecting what was to be done. The alternatives were,
whether it was best to cross the Licking at the hazard of an engagement
with the Indians; or to wait where they were, reconnoiter the country,
act on the defensive, and abide the coming up of Colonel Logan with his
force.

Colonels Todd and Trigg, little acquainted with the Indians, were
desirous to be guided by the judgment of Colonel Boone. His opinion
being called for, he gave it with his usual clearness and
circumspection. As regarded the number of the enemy, his judgment was,
that it should be counted from three to five hundred. From the careless
and leisurely manner of the march of the body, they had seen, he was
aware, that the main body was near, and that the show of this small
party was probably, with a view to draw on the attack, founded upon an
entire ignorance of their numbers. With the localities of the country
about the Licks, from his former residence there, he was perfectly
acquainted. The river forms, by its curves, an irregular ellipsis,
embracing the great ridge and buffalo road leading from the Licks. Its
longest line of bisection leads towards Limestone, and is terminated by
two ravines heading together in a point, and diverging thence in
opposite directions to the river. In his view, it was probable that the
Indians had formed an ambuscade behind these ravines, in a position as
advantageous for them as it would be dangerous to the party, if they
continued their march. He advised that the party should divide; the one
half march up the Licking on the opposite side, and crossing at the
mouth of a small branch, called Elk creek, fall over upon the eastern
curve of the ravine; while the other half should take a position
favorable for yielding them prompt co-operation in case of an attack. He
demonstrated, that in this way the advantage of position might be taken
from the enemy, and turned in their favor. He was decided and pressing,
that if it was determined to attack a force superior, before the arrival
of Colonel Logan, they ought at least to send out spies and explore the
country before they marched the main body over the river.

This wise counsel of Colonel Boone was perfectly accordant with the
views of Colonels Todd and Trigg, and of most of the persons consulted
on the occasion. But while they were deliberating, Major McGary,
patriotic, no doubt, in his intentions, but ardent, rash, hot-headed,
and indocile to military rule, guided his horse into the edge of the
river, raised the war-whoop in Kentucky style, and exclaimed, in a voice
of gay confidence, "All those that are not cowards will follow me; I
will show them where the Indians are!" Saying this, he spurred his horse
into the water. One and another, under the impulse of such an appeal to
their courage, dashed in after him. The council was thus broken up by
force. A part caught the rash spirit by sympathy. The rest, who were
disposed to listen to better counsels, were borne along, and their
suggestions drowned in the general clamor. All counsel and command were
at an end. And it is thus that many of the most important events of
history have been determined.

The whole party crossed the river, keeping straight forward in the
beaten buffalo road. Advanced a little, parties flanked out from the
main body, as the irregularity and unevenness of the ground would allow.
The whole body moved on in reckless precipitation and disorder, over a
surface covered with rocks, laid bare by the trampling of buffaloes, and
the washing of the rain of ages. Their course led them in front of the
high ridge which extends for some distance to the left of the road. They
were decoyed on in the direction of one of the ravines of which we have
spoken, by the reappearance of the party of Indians they had first seen.

The termination of this ridge sloped off in a declivity covered with a
thick forest of oaks. The ravines were thick set on their banks with
small timber, or encumbered with burnt wood, and the whole area before
them had been stripped bare of all herbage by the buffaloes that had
resorted to the Licks. Clumps of soil here and there on the bare rock
supported a few trees, which gave the whole of this spot of evil omen a
most singular appearance. The advance of the party was headed by McGary,
Harland, and McBride. A party of Indians, as Boone had predicted, that
had been ambushed in the woods here met them. A warm and bloody action
immediately commenced, and the rifles on either side did fatal
execution. It was discovered in a moment that the whole line of the
ravine concealed Indians, who, to the number of thrice that of their
foes, rushed upon them. Colonels Todd and Trigg, whose position had been
on the right, by the movement in crossing, were thrown in the rear. They
fell in their places, and the rear was turned. Between twenty and thirty
of these brave men had already paid the forfeit of their rashness, when
a retreat commenced under the edge of the tomahawk, and the whizzing of
Indian bullets. When the party first crossed the river all were mounted.
Many had dismounted at the commencement of the action. Others engaged on
horseback. On the retreat, some were fortunate enough to recover their
horses, and fled on horseback. Others retreated on foot. From the point
where the engagement commenced to the Licking river was about a mile's
distance. A high and rugged cliff environed either shore of the river,
which sloped off to a plain near the Licks. The ford was narrow, and the
water above and below it deep. Some were overtaken on the way, and fell
under the tomahawk. But the greatest slaughter was at the river. Some
were slain in crossing, and some on either shore.

A singular spectacle was here presented in the case of a man by the name
of Netherland, who had been derided for his timidity. He was mounted on
a fleet and powerful horse, the back of which he had never left for a
moment. He was one of the first to recross the Licking. Finding himself
safe upon the opposite shore, a sentiment of sympathy came upon him as
he looked back and took a survey of the scene of murder going on in the
river and on its shore. Many had reached the river in a state of
faintness and exhaustion, and the Indians were still cutting them down.
Inspired with the feeling of a commander, he cried out in a loud and
authoritative voice, "Halt! Fire on the Indians. Protect the men in the
river." The call was obeyed. Ten or twelve men instantly turned, fired
on the enemy, and checked their pursuit for a moment, thus enabling some
of the exhausted and wounded fugitives to evade the tomahawk, already
uplifted to destroy them. The brave and benevolent Reynolds, whose reply
to Girty has been reported, relinquished his own horse to Colonel Robert
Patterson, who was infirm from former wounds, and was retreating on
foot. He thus enabled that veteran to escape. While thus signalizing his
disinterested intrepidity, he fell himself into the hands of the
Indians. The party that took him consisted of three. Two whites passed
him on their retreat. Two of the Indians pursued, leaving him under the
guard of the third. His captor stooped to tie his moccasin, and he
sprang away from him and escaped. It is supposed that one-fourth of the
men engaged in this action were commissioned officers. The whole number
engaged was one hundred and seventy-six. Of these, sixty were slain, and
eight made prisoners. Among the most distinguished names of those who
fell, were those of Colonels Todd and Trigg, Majors Harland and Bulger,
Captains Gordon and McBride, and a son of Colonel Boone. The loss of the
savages has never been ascertained. It could not have equalled that of
the assailants, though some supposed it greater. This sanguinary affair
took place August 19, 1782.

Colonel Logan, on arriving at Bryant's station, with a force of three
hundred men, found the troops had already marched. He made a rapid
advance in hopes to join them before they should have met with the
Indians. He came up with the survivors, on their retreat from their
ill-fated contest, not far from Bryant's station. He determined to
pursue his march to the battle ground to bury the dead, if he could not
avenge their fall. He was joined by many friends of the killed and
missing, from Lexington and Bryant's station. They reached the battle
ground on the 25th. It presented a heartrending spectacle. Where so
lately had arisen the shouts of the robust and intrepid woodsmen, and
the sharp yell of the savages, as they closed in the murderous contest,
the silence of the wide forest was now unbroken, except by birds of
prey, as they screamed and sailed over the carnage. The heat was so
excessive, and the bodies were so changed by it and the hideous gashes
and mangling of the Indian tomahawk and knife, that friends could no
longer recognize their dearest relatives. They performed the sad rights
of sepulture as they might, upon the rocky ground.

The Indian forces that had fought at the Blue Licks, in the exultation
of victory and revenge, returned homeward with their scalps. Those from
the north--and they constituted the greater numbers--returned quietly.
The western bands took their route through Jefferson county, in hopes to
add more scalps to the number of their trophies. Colonel Floyd led out a
force to protect the country. They marched through the region on Salt
river, and saw no traces of Indians. They dispersed on their return. The
greater number of them reached their station, and laid down, fatigued
and exhausted, without any precaution against a foe. The Indians came
upon them in this predicament in the night, and killed several women and
children. A few escaped under the cover of the darkness. A woman, taken
prisoner that night, escaped from her savage captors by throwing herself
into the bushes, while they passed on. She wandered about the woods
eighteen days, subsisting only on wild fruits, and was then found and
carried to Lynn's station. She survived the extreme state of exhaustion
in which she was discovered. Another woman, taken with four children, at
the same time, was carried to Detroit.

The terrible blow which the savages had struck at the Blue Licks,
excited a general and immediate purpose of retaliation through Kentucky.
General Clarke was appointed commander-in-chief, and Colonel Logan next
under him in command of the expedition, to be raised for that purpose.
The forces were to rendezvous at Licking. The last of September, 1782,
General Clarke, with one thousand men, marched from the present site of
Cincinnati, for the Indian towns on the Miami. They fell in on their
route with the camp of Simon Girty, who would have been completely
surprised with his Indians, had not a straggling savage espied the
advance, and reported it to them just in season to enable them to
scatter in every direction. They soon spread the intelligence that an
army from Kentucky was marching upon their towns.

As the army approached the towns on their route, they found that the
inhabitants had evacuated them, and fled into the woods. All the cabins
at Chillicothe, Piqua, and Willis were burned. Some skirmishing took
place, however, in which five Indians were killed, and seven made
prisoners, without any loss to the Kentuckians, save the wounding of one
man, which afterwards proved mortal. One distinguished Indian
surrendered himself, and was afterwards inhumanly murdered by one of the
troops, to the deep regret and mortification of General Clarke.

In October, 1785, Mr. McClure and family, in company with a number of
other families, were assailed on Skegg's creek. Six of the family were
killed, and Mrs. McClure, a child, and a number of other persons made
prisoners. The attack took place in the night. The circumstances of the
capture of Mrs. McClure, furnish an affecting incident illustrating the
invincible force of natural tenderness. She had concealed herself, with
her four children, in the brush of a thicket, which, together with the
darkness, screened her from observation. Had she chosen to have left her
infant behind, she might have escaped. But she grasped it, and held it
to her bosom, although aware that its shrieks would betray their covert.
The Indians, guided to the spot by its cries, killed the three larger
children, and took her and her infant captives. The unfortunate and
bereaved mother was obliged to accompany their march on an untamed and
unbroken horse.

Intelligence of these massacres and cruelties circulated rapidly.
Captain Whitley immediately collected twenty-one men from the adjoining
stations, overtook, and killed two of these savages, retook the desolate
mother, her babe, and a negro servant, and the scalps of the six persons
whom they had killed. Ten days afterwards, another party of immigrants,
led by Mr. Moore, were attacked, and nine of their number killed.
Captain Whitley pursued the perpetrators of this bloody act, with thirty
men. On the sixth day of pursuit through the wilderness, he came up with
twenty Indians, clad in the dresses of those whom they had slain. They
dismounted and dispersed in the woods though not until three of them
were killed. The pursuers recovered eight scalps, and all the plunder
which the Indians had collected at the late massacre.

An expedition of General Clarke, with a thousand men, against the Wabash
Indians, failed in consequence of the impatience and discouragement of
his men from want of provisions. Colonel Logan was more successful in an
expedition against the Shawnese Indians on the Scioto. He surprised one
of the towns, and killed a number of the warriors, and took some
prisoners.

In October, 1785, the General Government convoked a meeting of all the
Lake and Ohio tribes to meet at the mouth of the Great Miami. The
Indians met the summons with a moody indifference and neglect, alleging
the continued aggressions of the Kentuckians as a reason for refusing to
comply with the summons.

The horrors of Indian assault were occasionally felt in every
settlement. We select one narrative in detail, to convey an idea of
Indian hostility on the one hand, and the manner in which it was met on
the other. A family lived on Coope's run, in Bourbon county, consisting
of a mother, two sons of a mature age, a widowed daughter, with an
infant in her arms, two grown daughters, and a daughter of ten years.
The house was a double cabin. The two grown daughters and the smaller
girl were in one division, and the remainder of the family in the other.
At evening twilight, a knocking was heard at the door of the latter
division, asking in good English, and the customary western phrase, "Who
keeps house?" As the sons went to open the door, the mother forbade
them, affirming that the persons claiming admittance were Indians. The
young men sprang to their guns. The Indians, finding themselves refused
admittance at that door, made an effort at the opposite one. That door
they soon beat open with a rail, and endeavored to take the three girls
prisoners. The little girl sprang away, and might have escaped from them
in the darkness and the woods. But the forlorn child, under the natural
impulse of instinct, ran for the other door and cried for help. The
brothers within, it may be supposed, would wish to go forth and protect
the feeble and terrified wailer. The mother, taking a broader view of
expedience and duty, forbade them. They soon hushed the cries of the
distracted child by the merciless tomahawk. While a part of the Indians
were engaged in murdering this child, and another in confining one of
the grown girls that they had made captive, the third heroically
defended herself with a knife, which she was using at a loom at the
moment of attack. The intrepidity she put forth was unavailing. She
killed one Indian, and was herself killed by another. The Indians,
meanwhile, having obtained possession of one half the house, fired it.
The persons shut up in the other half had now no other alternative than
to be consumed in the flames rapidly spreading towards them, or to go
forth and expose themselves to the murderous tomahawks, that had already
laid three of the family in their blood. The Indians stationed
themselves in the dark angles of the fence, where, by the bright glare
of the flames, they could see every thing, and yet remain themselves
unseen. Here they could make a sure mark of all that should escape from
within. One of the sons took charge of his aged and infirm mother, and
the other of his widowed sister and her infant. The brothers emerged
from the burning ruins, separated, and endeavored to spring over the
fence. The mother was shot dead as her son was piously aiding her over
the fence. The other brother was killed as he was gallantly defending
his sister. The widowed sister, her infant, and one of the brothers
escaped the massacre, and alarmed the settlement. Thirty men, commanded
by Colonel Edwards, arrived next day to witness the appalling spectacle
presented around the smoking ruins of this cabin. Considerable snow had
fallen, and the Indians were obliged to leave a trail, which easily
indicated their path. In the evening of that day, they came upon the
expiring body of the young woman, apparently murdered but a few moments
before their arrival. The Indians had been premonished of their pursuit
by the barking of a dog that followed them. They overtook and killed two
of the Indians that had staid behind, apparently as voluntary victims to
secure the retreat of the rest.

To prevent immigrants from reaching the country, the Indians infested
the Ohio river, and concealed themselves in small parties at different
points from Pittsburgh to Louisville, where they laid in ambush and
fired upon the boats as they passed. They frequently attempted by false
signals to decoy the boats ashore, and in several instances succeeded by
these artifices in capturing and murdering whole families, and
plundering them of their effects. They even armed and manned some of the
boats and scows they had taken, and used them as a kind of floating
battery, by means of which they killed and captured many persons
approaching the settlements.

The last boat which brought immigrants to the country down the Ohio,
that was known to have been attacked by the Indians, was assaulted in
the spring of 1791. This circumstance gives it a claim to be mentioned
in this place. It was commanded by Captain Hubbel, and brought
immigrants from Vermont. The whole number of men, women, and children
amounted to twenty persons. These persons had been forewarned by various
circumstances that they noted, that hostile Indians were along the shore
waiting to attack them. They came up with other boats descending the
river, and bound in the same direction with themselves. They endeavored
ineffectually to persuade the passengers to join them, that they might
descend in the strength of numbers and union. They continued to move
down the river alone. The first attempt upon them was a customary Indian
stratagem. A person, affecting to be a white man, hailed them, and
requested them to lie by, that he might come on board. Finding that the
boat's crew were not to be allured to the shore by this artifice, the
Indians put off from the shore in three canoes, and attacked the boat.
Never was a contest of this sort maintained with more desperate bravery.
The Indians attempted to board the boat, and the inmates made use of all
arms of annoyance and defence. Captain Hubbel, although he had been
severely wounded in two places, and had the cock of his gun shot off by
an Indian fire, still continued to discharge his mutilated gun by a
fire-brand. After a long and desperate conflict, in which all the
passengers capable of defence but four, had been wounded, the Indians
paddled off their canoes to attack the boats left behind. They were
successful against the first boat they assailed. The boat yielded to
them without opposition. They killed the Captain and a boy, and took the
women on board prisoners. Making a screen of these unfortunate women, by
exposing them to the fire of Captain Hubbel's boat, they returned to the
assault. It imposed upon him the painful alternative, either to yield to
the Indians, or to fire into their canoes at the hazard of killing the
women of their own people. But the intrepid Captain remarked, that if
these women escaped their fire, it would probably be to suffer a more
terrible death from the savages. He determined to keep up his fire, even
on these hard conditions; and the savages were beaten off a second time.
In the course of the engagement, the boat, left to itself, had floated
with the current near the north shore, where four or five hundred
Indians were collected, who poured a shower of balls upon the boat. All
the inmates could do, was to avoid exposure as much as possible, and
exercise their patience until the boat should float past the Indian
fire. One of the inmates of the boat, seeing, as it slowly drifted on, a
fine chance for a shot at an Indian, although warned against it, could
not resist the temptation of taking his chance. He raised his head to
take aim, and was instantly shot dead. When the boat had drifted beyond
the reach of the Indian fire, but two of the nine fighting men on board
were found unhurt. Two were killed, and two mortally wounded. The noble
courage of a boy on board deserves to be recorded. When the boat was now
in a place of safety, he requested his friends to extract a ball that
had lodged in the skin of his forehead. When this ball had been
extracted, he requested them to take out a piece of bone that had been
fractured in his elbow by another shot. When asked by his mother why he
had not complained or made known his suffering during the engagement, he
coolly replied, intimating that there was noise enough without his, that
the Captain had ordered the people to make no noise.

All attempts of the General Government to pacify the Indians, having
proved ineffectual, an expedition was planned against the hostile tribes
north-west of the Ohio. The object was to bring the Indians to a general
engagement; or, if that might not be, to destroy their establishments on
the waters of the Scioto and the Wabash. General Harmar was appointed to
the command of this expedition. Major Hamtranck, with a detachment, was
to make a diversion in his favor up the Wabash.

On the 13th of September, 1791, General Harmar marched from Fort
Washington, the present site of Cincinnati, with three hundred and
twenty regulars, and effected a junction with the militia of
Pennsylvania and Kentucky, which had advanced twenty-five miles in
front. The whole force amounted to one thousand four hundred and
fifty-three men. Col. Hardin, who commanded the Kentucky militia, was
detached with six hundred men, chiefly militia, to reconnoiter. On his
approach to the Indian settlements, the Indians set fire to their
villages and fled. In order, if possible, to overtake them, he was
detached with a smaller force, that could be moved more rapidly. It
consisted of two hundred and ten men. A small party of Indians met and
attacked them; and the greater part of the militia behaved
badly,--leaving a few brave men, who would not fly, to their fate.
Twenty-three of the party fell, and seven only made their escape and
rejoined the army. Notwithstanding this check, the army succeeded so far
as to reduce the remaining towns to ashes, and destroy their provisions.

On their return to Fort Washington, Gen. Harmar was desirous of wiping
off, in another action, the disgrace which public opinion had impressed
upon his arms. He halted eight miles from Chillicothe, and late at night
detached Col. Hardin, with orders to find the enemy, and bring them to
an engagement. Early in the morning this detachment reached the enemy,
and a severe engagement ensued. The savages fought with desperation.
Some of the American troops shrunk; but the officers conducted with
great gallantry. Most of them fell, bravely discharging their duty. More
than fifty regulars and one hundred militia, including the brave
officers, Fontaine, Willys, and Frothingham, were slain.

Harmar, in his official account of this affair, claimed the victory,
although the Americans seem clearly to have had the worst of it. At his
request, he was tried by a court martial, and honorably acquitted. The
enemy had suffered so severely, that they allowed him to return
unmolested to Fort Washington.

The terrors and the annoyance of Indian hostilities still hung over the
western settlements. The call was loud and general from the frontiers,
for ample and efficient protection. Congress placed the means in the
hands of the executive. Major General Arthur St. Clair was appointed
commander-in-chief of the forces to be employed in the meditated
expedition. The objects of it were, to destroy the Indian settlements
between the Miamies; to expel them from the country; and establish a
chain of posts which should prevent their return during the war. This
army was late in assembling in the vicinity of Fort Washington. They
marched directly towards the chief establishments of the enemy, building
and garrisoning in their way the two intermediate forts, Hamilton and
Jefferson. After the detachments had been made for these garrisons, the
effective force that remained amounted to something less than two
thousand men. To open a road for their march, was a slow and tedious
business. Small parties of Indians were often seen hovering about their
march; and some unimportant skirmishes took place. As the army
approached the enemy's country, sixty of the militia deserted in a body.
To prevent the influence of such an example, Major Hamtranck was
detached with a regiment in pursuit of the deserters. The army now
consisting of one thousand four hundred men continued its march. On the
third of November 1792, it encamped fifteen miles south of the Miami
villages. Having been rejoined by Major Hamtranck, General St. Clair
proposed to march immediately against them.

Half an hour before sunrise, the militia was attacked by the savages,
and fled in the utmost confusion. They burst through the formed line of
the regulars into the camp. Great efforts were made by the officers to
restore order; but not with the desired success. The Indians pressed
upon the heels of the flying militia, and engaged General Butler with
great intrepidity. The action became warm and general; and the fire of
the assailants passing round both flanks of the first line, in a few
minutes was poured with equal fury upon the rear. The artillerists in
the centre were mowed down, and the fire was the more galling, as it was
directed by an invisible enemy, crouching on the ground, or concealed
behind trees. In this manner they advanced towards the very mouths of
the cannon; and fought with the infuriated fierceness with which success
always animates savages. Some of the soldiers exhibited military
fearlessness, and fought with great bravery. Others were timid and
disposed to fly. With a self-devotion which the occasion required, the
officers generally exposed themselves to the hottest of the contest, and
fell in great numbers, in desperate efforts to restore the battle.

The commanding general, though he had been for some time enfeebled with
severe disease, acted with personal bravery, and delivered his orders
with judgment and self-possession. A charge was made upon the savages
with the bayonet: and they were driven from their covert with some loss,
a distance of four hundred yards. But as soon as the charge was
suspended, they returned to the attack. General Butler was mortally
wounded; the left of the right wing broken, and the artillerists killed
almost to a man. The guns were seized and the camp penetrated by the
enemy. A desperate charge was headed by Colonel Butler, although he was
severely wounded, and the Indians were again driven from the camp, and
the artillery recovered. Several charges were repeated with partial
success. The enemy only retreated, to return to the charge, flashed with
new ardor. The ranks of the troops were broken, and the men pressed
together in crowds, and were shot down without resistance. A retreat was
all that remained, to save the remnant of the army. Colonel Darke was
ordered to charge a body of savages that intercepted their retreat.
Major Clark, with his battalion, was directed to cover the rear. These
orders were carried into effect, and a most disorderly retreat
commenced. A pursuit was kept up four miles, when, fortunately for the
surviving Americans, the natural greediness of the savage appetite for
plunder, called back the victorious Indians to the camp, to divide the
spoils. The routed troops continued their flight to fort Jefferson,
throwing away their arms on the road. The wounded were left here, and
the army retired upon fort Washington.

In this fatal battle, fell thirty-eight commissioned officers, and five
hundred and ninety-three non-commissioned officers and privates.
Twenty-one commissioned officers, many of whom afterwards died of their
wounds, and two hundred and forty-two non-commissioned officers and
privates were wounded.

The savage force, in this fatal engagement, was led by a Mississago
chief, who had been trained to war under the British, during the
revolution. So superior was his knowledge of tactics, that the Indian
chiefs, though extremely jealous of him, yielded the entire command to
him; and he arranged and fought the battle with great combination of
military skill. Their force amounted to four thousand; and they stated
the Americans killed, at six hundred and twenty, and their own at
sixty-five; but it was undoubtedly much greater. They took seven pieces
of cannon and two hundred oxen, and many horses. The chief, at the close
of the battle, bade the Indians forbear the pursuit of the Americans, as
he said they had killed enough.

General Scott, with one thousand mounted volunteers from Kentucky, soon
after marched against a party of the victors, at St. Clair's fatal
field. He found the Indians rioting in their plunder, riding the oxen in
the glee of triumph, and acting as if the whole body was intoxicated.
General Scott immediately attacked them. The contest was short but
decisive. The Indians had two hundred killed on the spot. The cannon and
military stores remaining, were retaken, and the savages completely
routed. The loss of the Kentuckians was inconsiderable.

The reputation of the government was now committed in the fortunes of
the war. Three additional regiments were directed to be raised. On the
motion in congress for raising these regiments, there was an animated,
and even a bitter debate. It was urged on one hand, that the expense of
such a force would involve the necessity of severe taxation; that too
much power was thrown into the hands of the president; that the war had
been badly managed, and ought to have been entrusted to the militia of
the west, under their own officers; and with more force they urged that
no success could be of any avail, so long as the British held those
posts within our acknowledged limits, from which the savages were
supplied with protection, shelter, arms, advice, and instigation to the
war.

On the other hand, the justice of the cause, as a war of defence, and
not of conquest, was unquestionable. It was proved, that between 1783
and 1790, no less than one thousand five hundred people of Kentucky had
been massacred by the savages, or dragged into a horrid captivity; and
that the frontiers of Pennsylvania and Virginia had suffered a loss not
much less. It was proved that every effort had been made to pacify the
savages without effect. They showed that in 1790, when a treaty was
proposed to the savages at the Miami, they first refused to treat, and
then asked thirty days for deliberation. It was granted. In the interim,
they stated that not less than one hundred and twenty persons had been
killed and captured, and several prisoners roasted alive; at the term of
which horrors, they refused any answer at all to the proposition to
treat. Various other remarks were made in defence of the bill. It tried
the strength of parties in congress, and was finally carried.

General St. Clair resigned, and Major General Anthony Wayne was
appointed to succeed him. This officer commanded the confidence of the
western people, who confided in that reckless bravery, which had long
before procured him the appellation of "Mad Anthony." There was a
powerful party who still affected to consider this war unnecessary, and
every impediment was placed in the way of its success, which that party
could devise. To prove to them that the government was still disposed to
peace, two excellent officers and valuable men, Col. Hardin, and Major
Truman, were severally despatched with propositions of peace. They were
both murdered by the savages. These unsuccessful attempts at
negotiation, and the difficulties and delays naturally incident to the
preparation of such a force, together with the attempts that had been
made in congress, to render the war unpopular, had worn away so much
time that the season for operations for the year had almost elapsed. But
as soon as the negotiations had wholly failed, the campaign was opened
with as much vigor as the nature of the case would admit. The general
was able, however, to do no more this autumn, than to advance into the
forest towards the country of the savages, six miles in advance of fort
Jefferson. He took possession of the ground on which the fatal defeat of
St. Clair had taken place, in 1792. He here erected a fortification,
with the appropriate name of Fort Recovery. His principal camp was
called Greenville.

In Kentucky, meanwhile, many of the people clamored against these
measures, and loudly insisted that the war ought to be carried on by
militia, to be commanded by an officer taken from their state. It was
believed, too, by the executive, that the British government, by
retaining their posts within our limits, and by various other measures,
at least countenanced the Indians in their hostilities. That government
took a more decisive measure early in the spring. A British detachment
from Detroit, advanced near fifty miles south of that place, and
fortified themselves on the Miami of the lakes. In one of the numerous
skirmishes which took place between the savages and the advance of
General Wayne, it was affirmed, that the British were mingled with the
Indians.

On the 8th of August, 1794, General Wayne reached the confluence of the
Au Glaize, and the Miami of the lakes. The richest and most extensive
settlements of the western Indians were at this place. It was distant
only about thirty miles from the post on the Miami, which the British;
had recently occupied. The whole strength of the enemy, amounting to
nearly two thousand warriors, was collected in the vicinity of that
post. The regulars of General Wayne were not much inferior in numbers. A
reinforcement of one thousand one hundred mounted Kentucky militia,
commanded by General Scott, gave a decided superiority to the American
force. The general was well aware that the enemy were ready to give him
battle, and he ardently desired it. But in pursuance of the settled
policy of the United States, another effort was made for the attainment
of peace, without the shedding of blood. The savages were exhorted by
those who were sent to them, no longer to follow the counsels of the bad
men at the foot of the Rapids, who urged them on to the war, but had
neither the power nor the inclination to protect them; that to listen to
the propositions of the government of the United States, would restore
them to their homes, and rescue them from famine. To these propositions
they returned only an evasive answer.

On the 20th of August, the army of General Wayne marched in columns. A
select battalion, under Major Price, moved as a reconnoitering force in
front. After marching five miles, he received so heavy a fire from the
savages, concealed as usual, that he was compelled to retreat. The
savages had chosen their ground with great judgment. They had moved into
a thick wood, in advance of the British works, and had taken a position
behind fallen timber, prostrated by a tornado. This rendered their
position almost inaccessible to horse. They were formed in three regular
lines, according to Indian custom, very much extended in front. Their
first effort was to turn the left flank of the American army.

The American legion was ordered to advance with trailed arms, and rouse
the enemy from his covert at the point of the bayonet, and then deliver
its fire. The cavalry, led by Captain Campbell, was ordered to advance
between the Indians and the river, where the wood permitted them to
penetrate, and charge their left flank. General Scott, at the head of
the mounted volunteers, was commanded to make a considerable circuit
and turn their right. These, and all the complicated orders of General
Wayne, were promptly executed. But such was the impetuosity of the
charge made by the first line of infantry, so entirely was the enemy
broken by it, and so rapid was the pursuit, that only a small part of
the second line, and of the mounted volunteers could take any part in
the action. In the course of an hour, the savages were driven more than
two miles, and within gun-shot of the British fort.

General Wayne remained three days on the field of battle, reducing the
houses and corn-fields, above and below the fort, and some of them
within pistol shot of it, to ashes. The houses and stores of Col. M'Kee,
an English trader, whose great influence among the savages had been
uniformly exerted for the continuance of the war, was burned among the
rest. Correspondence upon these points took place between General Wayne
and Major Campbell, who commanded the British fort. That of General
Wayne was sufficiently firm; and it manifested that the latter only
avoided hostilities with him, by acquiescing in the destruction of
British property within the range of his guns.

On the 28th the army returned to Au Glaize, destroying all the villages
and corn within fifty miles of the river. In this decisive battle, the
American loss, in killed and wounded, amounted to one hundred and seven,
including officers. Among those that fell, were Captain Campbell and
Lieutenant Towles. The general bestowed great and merited praise, for
their bravery and promptitude in this affair, to all his troops.

The hostility of the Indians still continuing, the whole country was
laid waste: and forts were erected in the heart of their settlements, to
prevent their return. This seasonable victory, and this determined
conduct on the part of the United States, rescued them from a general
war with all the nations north-west of the Ohio. The Six Nations had
manifested resentments, which were only appeased for the moment, by the
suspension of a settlement, which Pennsylvania was making at Presqu'
Isle, within their alleged limits. The issue of this battle dissipated
the clouds at once which had been thickening in that quarter. Its
influence was undoubtedly felt far to the south. The Indian inhabitants
of Georgia, and still farther to the south had been apparently on the
verge of a war, and had been hardly restrained from hostility by the
feeble authority of that state.

No incidents of great importance occurred in this quarter, until August
3d, of the next year when a definitive treaty was concluded by General
Wayne, with the hostile Indians north-west of the Ohio. By this treaty,
the destructive war which had so long desolated that frontier, was ended
in a manner acceptable to the United States. An accommodation was also
brought about with the southern Indians, notwithstanding the intrigues
of their Spanish neighbors. The regions of the Mississippi valley were
opened on all sides to immigration, and rescued from the dread of Indian
hostilities.




CHAPTER XIV.

Rejoicings on account of the peace--Boone indulges his propensity for
hunting--Kentucky increases in population--Some account of their
conflicting land titles--Progress of civil improvement destroying the
range of the hunter--Litigation of land titles--Boone loses his
lands--Removes from Kentucky to the Kanawha--Leaves the Kanawha and goes
to Missouri, where he is appointed Commandant.


The peace which followed the defeat of the northern tribes of Indians by
General Wayne, was most grateful to the harassed settlers of the west.
The news of it was received every where with the most lively joy. Every
one had cause of gratulation. The hardy warriors, whose exploits we have
recounted, felt that they were relieved from the immense
responsibilities which rested upon them as the guardians and protectors
of the infant settlements. The new settlers could now clear their wild
lands, and cultivate their rich fields in peace--without fearing the
ambush and the rifles of a secret foe; and the tenants of the scattered
cabins could now sleep in safety, and without the dread of being wakened
by the midnight war-whoop of the savage. Those who had been pent up in
forts and stations joyfully sallied forth, and settled wherever the soil
and local advantages appeared the most inviting.

Colonel Boone, in particular, felt that a firm and resolute perseverance
had finally triumphed over every obstacle. That the rich and boundless
valleys of the great west--the garden of the earth--and the paradise
of hunters, had been won from the dominion of the savage tribes, and
opened as an asylum for the oppressed, the enterprising, and the free of
every land. He had travelled in every direction through this great
valley. He had descended from the Alleghanies into the fertile regions
of Tennessee, and traced the courses of the Cumberland and Tennessee
rivers. He had wandered with delight through the blooming forests of
Kentucky. He had been carried prisoner by the Indians through the
wilderness which is now the state of Ohio to the great lakes of the
north; he had traced the head waters of the Kentucky, the Wabash, the
Miamies, the Scioto, and other great rivers of the west, and had
followed their meanderings to their entrance into the Ohio; he had stood
upon the shores of this beautiful river, and gazed with admiration, as
he pursued its winding and placid course through endless forests to
mingle with the Mississippi; he had caught some glimmerings of the
future, and saw with the prophetic eye of a patriot, that this great
valley must soon become the abode of millions of freemen; and his heart
swelled with joy, and warmed with a transport which was natural to a
mind so unsophisticated and disinterested as his.

Boone rejoiced in a peace which put an end to his perils and anxieties,
and which now gave him full leisure and scope to follow his darling
pursuit of hunting. He had first been led to the country by that spirit
of the hunter, which in him amounted almost to a passion. This
propensity may be said to be natural to man. Even in cities and populous
places we find men so fond of this pastime that they ransack the
cultivated fields and enclosures of the farmer, for the purpose of
killing the little birds and squirrels, which, from their
insignificance, have ventured to take up their abode with civilized man.
What, then, must have been the feelings of Boone, to find himself in the
grand theatre of the hunter--filled with buffaloes, deer, bears, wild
turkeys, and other noble game?

The free exercise of this darling passion had been checked and
restrained, ever since the first settlement of the country, by the
continued wars and hostile incursions of the Indians. The path of the
hunter had been ambushed by the wily savage, and he seldom ventured
beyond the purlieus of his cabin, or the station where he resided. He
was now free to roam in safety through the pathless wilderness--to camp
out in security whenever he was overtaken by night; and to pursue the
game wherever it was to be found in the greatest abundance.

Civilization had not yet driven the primitive tenants of the forest from
their favorite retreats. Most of the country was still in a state of
nature--unsettled and unappropriated. Few fences or inclosures impeded
the free range of the hunter, and very few buts and bounds warned him of
his being about to trespass upon the private property of some neighbor.
Herds of buffaloes and deer still fed upon the rich cane-brake and rank
vegetation of the boundless woods, and resorted to the numerous Licks
for salt and drink.

Boone now improved this golden opportunity of indulging in his favorite
pursuit. He loved to wander alone, with his unerring rifle upon his
shoulder, through the labyrinths of the tangled forests, and to rouse
the wild beast from his secret lair. There was to him a charm in these
primeval solitudes which suited his peculiar temperament, and he
frequently absented himself on these lonely expeditions for days
together. He never was known to return without being loaded with the
spoils of the chase. The choicest viands and titbits of all the
forest-fed animals were constantly to be found upon his table. Not that
Boone was an epicure; far from it. He would have been satisfied with a
soldier's fare. In common with other pioneers of his time, he knew what
it was to live upon roots and herbs for days together. He had suffered
hunger and want in all its forms without a murmur or complaint. But when
peace allowed him to follow his profession of a hunter, and to exercise
that tact and superiority which so much distinguished him, he selected
from the abundance and profusion of the game which fell victims to his
skill, such parts as were most esteemed. His friends and neighbors were
also, at all times, made welcome to a share of whatever he killed. And
he continued to live in this primitive simplicity--enjoying the luxury
of hunting, and of roving in the woods, and indulging his generous and
disinterested disposition towards his neighbors, for several years after
the peace.

In the meantime, while Boone had been thus courting solitude, and
absorbed by the engrossing excitement of hunting, the restless spirit of
immigration, and of civil and physical improvement, had not been idle.
After the peace the tide of population poured into the country in a
continual stream and the busy spirit of civilization was every where
making inroads into the ancient forests, and encroaching upon the
dominions of the hunter.

In order, however, that the reader may more readily comprehend the
causes which operated as grievances to Boone, and finally led him to
abandon Kentucky, and seek a home in regions more congenial, it will be
necessary to allude to the progress made in population, and the civil
polity, and incidents attending the settlement of the country.

The state of Kentucky was not surveyed by the government and laid off
into sections and townships as has been the case with all the lands
north of the Ohio. But the government of Virginia had issued land
warrants, or certificates entitling the holder to locate wherever he
might choose, the number of acres named in the warrant. They also grave
to actual settlers certain pre-emption rights to such lands as they
might occupy and improve by building a cabin, raising a crop, &c. The
holders of these warrants, after selecting the land which they intended
to cover, with their titles, were required to enter a survey and
description of the tracts selected, in the Land office, which had been
opened for the purpose, to be recorded there, for the information of
others, and to prevent subsequent holders of warrants from locating the
same lands. Yet notwithstanding these precautions, such was the careless
manner in which these surveys were made, that many illiterate persons,
ignorant of the forms of law, and the necessity of precision in the
specification and descriptions of the tracts on which they had laid
their warrants, made such loose and vague entries in the land office, as
to afford no accurate information to subsequent locators, who frequently
laid their warrants on the same tracts. It thus happened that the whole
or a part of almost every tract was covered with different and
conflicting titles--forming what have been aptly called 'shingle
titles'--overlaying and lapping upon each other, as shingles do upon the
roof of a building. In this way twice the existing acres of land were
sold and the door opened for endless controversy about boundaries and
titles. The following copy of an entry may serve as a specimen of the
vagueness of the lines, buts, and bounds of their claims, and as
accounting for the flood of litigation that ensued.

"George Smith enters nine hundred acres of land on a treasury warrant,
lying on the north side of Kentucky river, a mile below a creek;
beginning about twenty poles below a lick; and running down the river
westwardly, and northwestwardly for quantity."

It will easily be seen that a description, so general and indefinite in
its terms, could serve as no guide to others who might wish to avoid
entering the same lands. This defect in providing for the certainty and
safety of land titles, proved a sore evil to the state of Kentucky. As
these lands increased in value and importance, controversies arose as to
the ownership of almost every tract: and innumerable suits, great
strife and excitement, prevailed in every neighborhood, and continued
until within a late period, to agitate the whole body of society. The
legislature of the state, by acts of limitation and judicious
legislation upon the subject, have finally quieted the titles of the
actual occupants.

Among others who made these loose and unfortunate entries, was Daniel
Boone. Unaccustomed to the forms of law and technical precision, he was
guided by his own views of what was proper and requisite, and made such
brief and general entries, as were afterwards held not sufficient to
identify the land. He had discovered and explored the country when it
was all one vast wilderness--unoccupied, and unclaimed. He and a few
other hardy pioneers, by almost incredible hardships, dangers, and
sacrifices, had won it from the savage foe; and judging from his own
single and generous mind, he did not suppose that question would ever be
made of his right to occupy such favorite portions as he might select
and pay for. He did not think it possible that any one, knowing these
circumstances, could be found so greedy or so heartless, as to grudge
him the quiet and unmolested enjoyment of what he had so dearly earned.
But in this he was sadly mistaken. A set of speculators and interlopers,
who, following in the train of civilization and wealth, came to enrich
themselves by monopolizing the rich lands which had thus been won for
them, and by the aid of legal advisers, following all the nice
requisitions of the law, pounced, among others, upon the lands of our
old pioneer. He was not at first disturbed by these speculating
harpies; and game being plenty, he gave himself little uneasiness about
the claims and titles to particular spots, so long as he had such vast
hunting grounds to roam in--which, however, he had the sorrow to see
daily encroached upon by the new settlements of the immigrants.

But the inroads made by the frequent settlements in his accustomed
hunting range, were not the only annoyances which disturbed the simple
habits and patriarchal views of Boone. Civilization brought along with
it all the forms of law, and the complicated organization of society and
civil government, the progress of which had kept pace with the
increasing population.

As early as 1783, the territory of Kentucky had been laid off into three
counties, and was that year, by law, formed into one District,
denominated the District of Kentucky. Regular courts of justice were
organized--log court-houses and log jails were erected--judges, lawyers,
sheriffs, and juries were engaged in the administration of
justice--money began to circulate--cattle and flocks multiplied--reading
and writing schools were commenced--more wealthy immigrants began to
flock to the country, bringing with them cabinet furniture, and many of
the luxuries of more civilized life--and merchandize began to be wagoned
from Philadelphia across the mountains to fort Pitt, now Pittsburgh,
from whence it was conveyed in flat boats to Maysville and Louisville.

In 1785 a convention was convoked at Danville, who adopted a memorial,
addressed to the Legislature of Virginia, and another to the people of
Kentucky--suggesting the propriety, and reasons for erecting the new
country into an independent state. In the discussion of this question
parties arose, and that warmth and excitement were elicited, which are
inseparable from the free and unrestrained discussion of public
measures.

In 1786 the legislature of Virginia enacted the preliminary provisions
for the separation of Kentucky, as an independent state, provided that
Congress should admit it into the Union. About this time another source
of party discord was opened in agitating debates touching the claims of
Kentucky and the West to the navigation of the Mississippi. The
inhabitants were informed by malcontents in Western Pennsylvania, that
the American Secretary of State was making propositions to the Spanish
minister, to cede to Spain the exclusive right of navigation of the
Mississippi for twenty-five years. This information as might be
supposed, created a great sensation. It had been felt from the beginning
of the western settlements, that the right to the free navigation of the
Mississippi was of vital importance to the whole western country, and
the least relinquishment of this right--even for the smallest space of
time, would be of dangerous precedent and tendency. Circulars were
addressed by the principal settlers to men of influence in the nation.
But before any decisive measures could be taken, Virginia interfered, by
instructing her representatives in Congress to make strong
representations against the ruinous policy of the measure.

In 1787 commenced the first operations of that mighty engine, the
press, in the western country. Nothing could have been wider from the
anticipations, perhaps from the wishes of Boone, than this progress of
things. But in the order of events, the transition of unlettered
backwoods emigrants to a people with a police, and all the engines of
civilization was uncommonly rapid. There was no other paper within five
hundred miles of the one now established by Mr. Bradford, at Lexington.
The political heart-burnings and slander that had hitherto been
transmitted through oral channels, were now concentrated for circulation
in this gazette.

In April, 1792, Kentucky was admitted into the Union as an independent
state; improvements were steadily and rapidly progressing, and
notwithstanding the hostility of the Indians, the population of the
state was regularly increasing until the peace which followed the
victory of Gen. Wayne. After which, as has been observed, the tide of
emigration poured into the country with unexampled rapidity.

Litigation in regard to land titles now began to increase, and continued
until it was carried to a distressing height. Col. Boone had begun to
turn his attention to the cultivation of the choice tracts he had
entered; and he looked forward with the consoling thought that he had
enough to provide for a large and rising family, by securing to each of
his children, as they became of age, a fine plantation. But in the
vortex of litigation which ensued, he was not permitted to escape. The
speculators who had spread their greedy claims over the lands which had
been previously located and paid for by Boone, relying upon his
imperfect entries, and some legal flaws in his titles, brought their
ejectments against him, and dragged him into a court of law. He employed
counsel, and from term to term, was compelled to dance attendance at
court. Here the old hunter listened to the quibbles--the subtleties, and
to him, inexplicable jargon of the lawyers. His suits were finally
decided against him, and he was cast out of the possession of all, or
nearly all the lands which he had looked upon as being indubitably his
own. The indignation of the old pioneer can well be imagined, as he saw
himself thus stript, by the quibbles and intricacies of the law, of all
the rewards of his exposures, labors, sufferings, and dangers in the
first settlement of Kentucky. He became more than ever disgusted with
the grasping and avaricious spirit--the heartless intercourse and
technical forms of what is called civilized society.

But having expended his indignation in a transient paroxysm, he soon
settled back to his customary mental complacency and self-possession;
and as he had no longer any pledge of consequence remaining to him in
the soil of Kentucky--and as it was, moreover, becoming on all sides
subject to the empire of the cultivator's axe and plough, he resolved to
leave the country. He had witnessed with regret the dispersion of the
band of pioneers, with whom he had hunted and fought, side by side, and
like a band of brothers, shared every hardship and every danger; and he
sighed for new fields of adventure, and the excitement of a hunter's
life.

Influenced by these feelings, he removed from Kentucky to the great
Kanawha; where he settled near Point Pleasant. He had been informed that
buffaloes and deer were still to be found in abundance on the unsettled
bottoms of this river, and that it was a fine country for trapping. Here
he continued to reside several years. But he was disappointed in his
expectations of finding game. The vicinity of the settlements above and
below this unsettled region, had driven the buffaloes from the country;
and though there were plenty of deer, yet he derived but little success
from his trapping. He finally commenced raising stock, and began to turn
his attention to agriculture.

While thus engaged, he met with some persons who had returned from a
tour up the Missouri, who described to him the fine country bordering
upon that river. The vast prairies--the herds of buffaloes--the grizzly
bears--the beavers and otters; and above all, the ancient and unexplored
forests of that unknown region, fired his imagination, and produced at
once a resolve to remove there.

Accordingly, gathering up such useful articles of baggage as were of
light carriage, among which his trusty rifle was not forgotten, he
started with his family, driving his whole stock of cattle along with
him, on a pilgrimage to this new land of promise. He passed through
Cincinnati on his way thither in 1798. Being enquired of as to what had
induced him to leave all the comforts of home, and so rich and
flourishing a country as his dear Kentucky, which he had discovered, and
might almost call his own, for the wilds of Missouri? "Too much
crowded," replied he--"too crowded--I want more elbow room." He
proceeded about forty-five miles above St. Louis, and settled in what is
now St. Charles county. This country being still in the possession of
the French and Spanish, the ancient laws by which these territories were
governed were still in force there. Nothing could be more simple than
their whole system of administration. They had no constitution, no king,
no legislative assemblies, no judges, juries, lawyers, or sheriffs. An
officer, called the Commandant, and the priests, exercised all the
functions of civil magistrates, and decided the few controversies which
arose among these primitive in habitants, who held and occupied many
things in common. They suffered their ponies, their cattle, their swine,
and their flocks, to ramble and graze on the same common prairies and
pastures--having but few fences or inclosures, and possessing but little
of that spirit of speculation, enterprise, and money-making, which has
always characterized the Americans.

These simple laws and neighborly customs suited the peculiar habits and
temper of Boone. And as his character for honesty, courage, and fidelity
followed him there, he was appointed Commandant for the district of St.
Charles by the Spanish Commandant. He retained this command, and
continued to exercise the duties of his office with credit to himself,
and to the satisfaction of all concerned, until the government of the
United States went into effect.




CHAPTER XV.

Anecdotes of Colonel Boone, related by Mr. Audubon--A remarkable
instance of memory.


As an evidence of the development of backwoods skill, and a vivid
picture of Daniel Boone, we give the following from Mr. Audubon:

"Daniel Boone, or as he was usually called in the Western country,
Colonel Boone, happened to spend a night under the same roof with me,
more than twenty years ago. We had returned from a shooting excursion,
in the course of which his extraordinary skill in the management of a
rifle had been fully displayed. On retiring to the room appropriated to
that remarkable individual and myself for the night, I felt anxious to
know more of his exploits and adventures than I did, and accordingly
took the liberty of proposing numerous questions to him. The stature and
general appearance of this wanderer of the western forests, approached
the gigantic. His chest was broad and prominent; his muscular powers
displayed themselves in every limb; his countenance gave indication of
his great courage, enterprise, and perseverance; and when he spoke, the
very motion of his lips brought the impression, that whatever he uttered
could not be otherwise than strictly true. I undressed, whilst he merely
took off his hunting shirt, and arranged a few folds of blankets on the
floor; choosing rather to lie there, as he observed, than on the softest
bed. When we had both disposed of ourselves, each after his own
fashion, he related to me the following account of his powers of memory,
which I lay before you, kind reader, in his own words, hoping that the
simplicity of his style may prove interesting to you.

"I was once," said he, "on a hunting expedition on the banks of the
Green river, when the lower parts of this (Kentucky,) were still in the
hands of nature, and none but the sons of the soil were looked upon as
its lawful proprietors. We Virginians had for some time been waging a
war of intrusion upon them, and I, amongst the rest, rambled through the
woods, in pursuit of their race, as I now would follow the tracks of any
ravenous animal. The Indians outwitted me one dark night, and I was as
unexpectedly as suddenly made a prisoner by them. The trick had been
managed with great skill; for no sooner had I extinguished the fire of
my camp, and laid me down to rest, in full security, as I thought, than
I felt myself seized by an indistinguishable number of hands, and was
immediately pinioned, as if about to be led to the scaffold for
execution. To have attempted to be refractory, would have proved useless
and dangerous to my life; and I suffered myself to be removed from my
camp to theirs, a few miles distant, without uttering even a word of
complaint. You are aware, I dare say, that to act in this manner, was
the best policy, as you understand that by so doing, I proved to the
Indians at once, that I was born and bred as fearless of death as any of
themselves.

"When we reached the camp, great rejoicings were exhibited. Two squaws,
and a few papooses, appeared particularly delighted at the sight of me,
and I was assured, by very unequivocal gestures and words, that, on the
morrow, the mortal enemy of the Red-skins would cease to live. I never
opened my lips, but was busy contriving some scheme which might enable
me to give the rascals the slip before dawn. The women immediately fell
a searching about my hunting shirt for whatever they might think
valuable, and fortunately for me, soon found my flask, filled with
_Monongahela_, (that is, reader, strong whisky.) A terrific grin was
exhibited on their murderous countenances, while my heart throbbed with
joy at the anticipation of their intoxication. The crew immediately
began to beat their bellies and sing, as they passed the bottle from
mouth to mouth. How often did I wish the flask ten times its size, and
filled with aquafortis! I observed that the squaws drank more freely
than the warriors, and again my spirits were about to be depressed, when
the report of a gun was heard at a distance. The Indians all jumped on
their feet. The singing and drinking were both brought to a stand; and I
saw with inexpressible joy, the men walk off to some distance, and talk
to the squaws. I knew that they were consulting about me, and I foresaw,
that in a few moments the warriors would go to discover the cause of the
gun having been fired so near their camp. I expected the squaws would be
left to guard me. Well, sir, it was just so. They returned; the men took
up their guns and walked away. The squaws sat down again, and in less
than five minutes they had my bottle up to their dirty mouths, gurgling
down their throats the remains of the whisky.

"With what pleasure did I see them becoming more and more drunk, until
the liquor took such hold of them that it was quite impossible for these
women to be of any service. They tumbled down, rolled about, and began
to snore; when I, having no other chance of freeing myself from the
cords that fastened me, rolled over and over towards the fire, and after
a short time burned them asunder. I rose on my feet; stretched my
stiffened sinews; snatched up my rifle, and, for once in my life, spared
that of Indians. I now recollect how desirous I once or twice felt to
lay open the skulls of the wretches with my tomahawk; but when I again
thought upon killing beings unprepared and unable to defend themselves,
it looked like murder without need, and I gave up the idea.

"But, sir, I felt determined to mark the spot, and walking to a thrifty
ash sapling, I cut out of it three large chips, and ran off. I soon
reached the river; soon crossed it, and threw myself deep into the
cane-brakes, imitating the tracks of an Indian with my feet, so that no
chance might be left for those from whom I had escaped to overtake me.

"It is now nearly twenty years since this happened, and more than five
since I left the whites' settlements, which I might probably never have
visited again, had I not been called on as a witness in a law-suit that
was pending in Kentucky, and which, I really believe, would never have
been settled, had I not come forward, and established the beginning of
a certain boundary line. This is the story, sir.

"Mr. ---- moved from old Virginia into Kentucky, and having a large tract
granted to him in the new state, laid claim to a certain parcel of land
adjoining Green river, and as chance would have it, he took for one of
his corners the very ash tree on which I had made my mark, and finished
his survey of some thousands of acres, beginning, as it is expressed in
the deed, "at an ash marked by three distinct notches of the tomahawk of
a white man."

"The tree had grown much, and the bark had covered the marks; but, some
how or other, Mr. ---- heard from some one all that I have already said
to you, and thinking that I might remember the spot alluded to in the
deed, but which was no longer discoverable, wrote for me to come and try
at least to find the place on the tree. His letter mentioned, that all
my expenses should be paid; and not caring much about once more going
back to Kentucky, I started and met Mr.----. After some conversation,
the affair with the Indians came to my recollection. I considered for a
while, and began to think that after all, I could find the very spot, as
well as the tree, if it was yet standing.

"Mr. ---- and I mounted our horses, and off we went to the Green river
bottoms. After some difficulties, for you must be aware, sir, that great
changes had taken place in these woods, I found at last the spot where I
had crossed the river, and waiting for the moon to rise, made for the
course in which I thought the ash tree grew. On approaching the place,
I felt as if the Indians were there still, and as if I was still a
prisoner among them, Mr. ---- and I camped near what I conceived the
spot, and waited till the, return of day.

"At the rising of the sun I was on foot, and after a good deal of
musing, thought that an ash tree then in sight must be the very one on
which I had made my mark. I felt as if there could be no doubt of it,
and mentioned my thought to Mr. ----. "Well, Colonel Boone," said he, "if
you think so, I hope it may prove true, but we must have some witnesses;
do you stay hereabout, and I will go and bring some of the settlers whom
I know." I agreed. Mr. ---- trotted off, and I, to pass the time, rambled
about to see if a deer was still living in the land. But ah! sir, what a
wonderful difference thirty years makes in the country! Why, at the time
when I was caught by the Indians, you would not have walked out in any
direction for more than a mile without shooting a buck or a bear. There
were then thousands of buffaloes on the hills in Kentucky; the land
looked as if it would never become poor; and to hunt in those days was a
pleasure indeed. But when I was left to myself on the banks of Green
river, I dare say for the last time in my life, a few _signs_ only of
deer were to be seen, and as to a deer itself, I saw none.

"Mr. ---- returned, accompanied by three gentlemen. They looked upon me
as if I had been Washington himself, and walked to the ash tree which I
now called my own, as if in quest of a long lost treasure. I took an axe
from one of them and cut a few chips off the bark. Still no signs were
to be seen. So I cut again, until I thought it time to be cautious, and
I scraped and worked away with my butcher knife, until I _did_ come to
where my tomahawk had left an impression in the wood. We now went
regularly to work, and scraped at the tree with care, until three hacks,
as plain as any three notches ever were, could be seen. Mr. ---- and the
other gentlemen were astonished, and, I must allow, I was as much
surprised as pleased, myself. I made affidavit of this remarkable
occurrence in the presence of these gentlemen. Mr. ---- gained his cause.
I left Green river, forever, and came to where we now are; and, sir, I
wish you a good night."




CHAPTER XVI.

Progress of improvement in Missouri--Old age of Boone--Death of his
wife--He goes to reside with his son--His death--His personal appearance
and character.


Soon after the purchase of Missouri from the French by our government,
the American system of government began to be introduced there. American
laws, American courts, and the whole American system of politics and
jurisprudence spread over the country, changing, by degrees, the
features of civil society; infusing life and vigor into the body
politic, and introducing that restless spirit of speculation and
improvement which characterise the people of the United States. The tide
of emigration once more swept by the dwelling of Daniel Boone, driving
off the game and monopolizing the rich hunting grounds. His office of
commandant was merged and lost in the new order of things. He saw that
it was in vain to contend with fate; that go where he would, American
enterprize seemed doomed to follow him, and to thwart all his schemes of
backwoods retirement. He found himself once more surrounded by the rapid
march of improvement, and he accommodated himself, as well as he might,
to a state of things which he could not prevent. He had the satisfaction
of seeing his children well settled around him, and he spent his time in
hunting and exploring the new country.

Meantime, old age began to creep upon him by degrees, and he had the
mortification to find himself surpassed in his own favorite pursuit. The
_sharp shooters_, and younger hunters could scour the forests with
fleeter pace, and bring down the bears and buffaloes with surer aim,
than his time-worn frame, and impaired vision would allow. Even the
French, with their fleets of periogues, ascended the Missouri to points
where his stiffened sinews did not permit him to follow. These volatile
and babbling hunters, with their little, and to him despicable shot
guns, could bring down a turkey, where the rifle bullet, now directed by
his dimmed eye, could not reach. It was in vain that the sights were
made more conspicuous by shreds of white paper. No vigor of will can
repair the irresistible influence of age. And however the heart and
juvenile remembrances of Boone might follow these brisk and talkative
hunters to the Rocky mountains and the Western sea, the sad
consciousness that years were stronger than the subduer of bears and
Indians, came over his mind like a cloud.

Other sorrows came also with age. In March, 1813, he had the misfortune
to lose his wife. She had been to him a faithful companion--participating
the same heroic and generous nature with himself. She had followed him
from North Carolina into the far wilderness, without a road or even a
trace to guide their way--surrounded at every step by wild beasts and
savages, and was one of the first white women in the state of Kentucky.
She had united her fate to his, and in all his hardships, perils, and
trials, had stood by him, a meek, yet courageous and affectionate
friend. She was now taken from him in his old age, and he felt for a
time, that he was alone in the world, and that the principal tie to his
own existence was sundered.

About this time, too, the British war with its influence upon the savage
auxiliaries of Britain, extended even to the remote forests of Missouri,
which rendered the wandering life of a hunter extremely dangerous. He
was no longer able to make one of the rangers who pursued the Indians.
But he sent numerous substitutes in his children and neighbors.

After the death of his wife, he went to reside with his son Major Nathan
Boone, and continued to make his home there until his death. After the
peace he occupied himself in hunting, trapping, and exploring the
country--being absent sometimes two or three months at a time--solacing
his aged ear with the music of his young days--the howl of the nocturnal
wolf--and the war song of the prowling savages, heard far away from the
companionship of man.

When the writer lived in St. Charles, in 1816, Colonel Boone, with the
return of peace, had resumed his Kentucky habits. He resided, as has
been observed, with his son on the Missouri--surrounded by the
plantations of his children and connections--occasionally farming, and
still felling the trees for his winter fire into his door yard; and
every autumn, retiring to the remote and moon-illumined cities of the
beavers, for the trapping of which, age had taken away none of his
capabilities. He could still, by the aid of paper on his rifle sights,
bring down an occasional turkey; at the salt licks, he still waylaid the
deer; and he found and cut down bee-trees as readily as in his morning
days. Never was old age more green, or gray hairs more graceful. His
high, calm, bold forehead seemed converted by years, into iron. Decay
came to him without infirmity, palsy, or pain--and surrounded and
cherished by kind friends, he died as he had lived, composed and
tranquil. This event took place in the year 1818, and in the
eighty-fourth year of his age.

Frequent enquiries, and opposite statements have been made, in regard to
the religious tenets of the Kentucky hunter. It is due to truth to
state, that Boone, little addicted to books, knew but little of the
bible, the best of all. He worshipped, as he often said, the Great
Spirit--for the woods were his books and his temple; and the creed of
the red men naturally became his. But such were the truth, simplicity,
and kindness of his character, there can be but little doubt, had the
gospel of the Son of God been proposed to him, in its sublime truth and
reasonableness, that he would have added to all his other virtues, the
higher name of Christian.

He was five feet ten inches in height, of a very erect, clean limbed,
and athletic form--admirably fitted in structure, muscle, temperament,
and habit, for the endurance of the labors, changes, and sufferings he
underwent. He had what phrenologists would have considered a model
head--with a forehead peculiarly high, noble, and bold--thin and
compressed lips--a mild, clear, blue eye--a large and prominent chin,
and a general expression of countenance in which fearlessness and
courage sat enthroned, and which told the beholder at a glance, what he
had been, and was formed to be.

We have only to add, that the bust of Boone, in Washington, the painting
of him ordered by the General Assembly of Missouri, and the engravings
of him in general, have--his family being judges--very little
resemblance. They want the high port and noble daring of his
countenance.

Though ungratefully requited by his country, he has left a name
identified with the history of Kentucky, and with the founders and
benefactors of our great republic. In all future time, and in every
portion of the globe; in history, in sculpture, in song, in
eloquence--the name of Daniel Boone will be recorded as the patriarch of
Backwoods Pioneers.

His name has already been celebrated by more than one poet. He is the
hero of a poem called the "MOUNTAIN MUSE," by our amiable countryman,
Bryan. He is supposed to be the original from which the inimitable
characters of LEATHER STOCKING, HAWKEYE, and the TRAPPER of the
PRAIRIES, in Cooper's novels, were drawn; and we will close these
memoirs, with the splendid tribute to the patriarch of backwoodsmen, by
the prince of modern poets, Lord Byron.

    Of all men, saving Sylla, the man-slayer,
    Who passes for in life and death most lucky,
    Of the great names which in our faces stare,
    The General Boone, backwoodsman of Kentucky,
    Was happiest among mortals any where,
    For killing nothing, but a bear or buck; he
    Enjoy'd the lonely, vigorous, harmless days
    Of his old age, in wilds of deepest maze.

    Crime came not near him; she is not the child
    Of solitude; health shrank not from him, for
    Her home is in the rarely trodden wild,
    Which, if men seek her not, and death be more
    Their choice than life, forgive them, as beguil'd
    By habit to what their own hearts abhor--
    In cities cag'd. The present case in point I
    Cite is, Boone liv'd hunting up to ninety:

    And what is stranger, left behind a name,
    For which men vainly decimate the throng;
    Not only famous, but of that good fame,
    Without which glory's but a tavern song;
    Simple, serene, the antipodes of shame,
    Which hate or envy e'er could tinge with wrong;
    An active hermit; even in age the child
    Of nature, or the Man of Ross run wild.

    'Tis true, he shrank from men even of his nation,
    When they built up unto his darling trees;
    He mov'd some hundred miles off, for a station,
    Where there were fewer houses and more ease.
    The inconvenience of civilization
    Is, that you neither can be pleased, nor please.
    But where he met the individual man,
    He showed himself as kind as mortal can.

    He was not all alone; around him grew
    A sylvan tribe of children of the chase,
    Whose young unwaken'd world was always new;
    Nor sword, nor sorrow, yet had left a trace
    On her unwrinkled brow, nor could you
    A frown on nature's, or on human face.
    The free-born forest found, and kept them free,
    And fresh as is a torrent or a tree.

    And tall, and strong, and swift of foot were they,
    Beyond the dwarfing city's pale abortions;
    Because their thoughts had never been the prey
    Of care or gain; the green woods were their portions
    No sinking spirits told them they grew gray,
    No fashion made them apes of her distortions.
    Simple they were; not savage; and their rifles,
    Though very true, were not yet used for trifles.

    Motion was in their days; rest in their slumbers;
    And cheerfulness, the handmaid of their toil;
    Nor yet too many, nor too few their numbers;
    Corruption could not make their hearts her soil
    The lust, which stings; the splendor which encumbers,
    With the free foresters divide no spoil.
    Serene, not sullen, were the solitudes
    Of this unsighing people of the woods


THE END.





End of Project Gutenberg's The First White Man of the West, by Timothy Flint