Daniel Boone

CHAPTER VIII
THE HERO OF CLINCH VALLEY

While Daniel Boone had been hunting and exploring amid the deep forests and waving greenswards of Kentucky, important events had been taking place in the settlements. The colonists along the Atlantic tidewater had become so crowded that there were no longer any free lands in that region; and settlers' cabins in the western uplands of Pennsylvania, Maryland, the Carolinas, and Georgia had so multiplied that now much of the best land there had also been taken up. The far-outlying frontier upon which the Boones and Bryans had reared their rude log huts nearly a quarter of a century before, no longer abounded in game and in free pastures for roving herds; indeed, the frontier was now pushed forward to the west-flowing streams—to the head waters of the Watauga, Clinch, Powell, French Broad, Holston, and Nolichucky, all of them affluents of the Tennessee, and to the Monongahela and other tributaries of the upper Ohio.

The rising tide of population demanded more room to the westward. The forbidding mountain-ranges had long hemmed in the restless borderers; but the dark-skinned wilderness tribes had formed a still more serious barrier, as, with rifles and tomahawks purchased from white traders, they terrorized the slowly advancing outposts of civilization. With the French government no longer in control of Canada and the region east of the Mississippi—although French-Canadian woodsmen were freely employed by the British Indian Department—with the consequent quieting of Indian forays, with increased knowledge of the over-mountain passes, and with the strong push of population from behind, there had arisen a general desire to scale the hills, and beyond them to seek exemption from tax-gatherers, free lands, and the abundant game concerning which the Kentucky hunters had brought glowing reports.

Upon the defeat of the French, the English king had issued a proclamation (1763) forbidding his "loving subjects" to settle to the west of the mountains. The home government was no doubt actuated in this by two motives: first, a desire to preserve the wilderness for the benefit of the growing fur trade, which brought wealth to many London merchants; second, a fear that borderers who pushed beyond the mountains might not only be beyond the reach of English trade, but also beyond English political control. But the frontiersmen were already too far distant to have much regard for royal proclamations. The king's command appears to have had no more effect than had he, like one of his predecessors, bade the ocean tide rise no higher.

In 1768, at Fort Stanwix, N.Y., the Iroquois of that province, whose war parties had raided much of the country between the Hudson and the Mississippi, surrendered what shadowy rights they might be supposed to have over all lands lying between the Ohio and the Tennessee. Meanwhile, at the South, the Cherokees had agreed to a frontier which opened to settlement eastern Kentucky and Tennessee.

But, without waiting for these treaties, numerous schemes had been proposed in England and the Atlantic coast colonies for the settlement of Kentucky and the lands of the upper Ohio. Most of these projects failed, even the more promising of them being checked by the opening of the Revolutionary War; but their existence showed how general was the desire of English colonists to occupy those fertile Western lands which explorers like Gist, Washington, the Boones, and the Long Hunters had now made familiar to the world. The new treaties strengthened this desire, so that when Daniel and Squire Boone reached their homes upon the Yadkin the subject of Western settlement was uppermost in the minds of the people.

The land excitement was, however, less intense in North Carolina than in the Valley of Virginia and other mountain troughs to the north and northeast. At Boone's home there was unrest of a more serious character. The tax-gatherers were arousing great popular discontent because of unlawful and extortionate demands, and in some cases Governor Tryon had come to blows with the regulators who stood for the people's rights.

For two and a half years after his return Boone quietly conducted his little farm, and, as of old, made long hunting trips in autumn and winter, occasionally venturing—sometimes alone, sometimes with one or two companions—far west into Kentucky, once visiting French Lick, on the Cumberland, where he found several French hunters. There is reason to believe that in 1772 he moved to the Watauga Valley, but after living there for a time went back to the Yadkin. Early in the following year he accompanied Benjamin Cutbirth and others as far as the present Jessamine County, Ky., and from this trip returned fired with quickened zeal for making a settlement in the new country.

The spring and summer were spent in active preparations. He enlisted the cooperation of Captain William Russell, the principal pioneer in the Clinch Valley; several of the Bryans, whose settlement was now sixty-five miles distant, also agreed to join him; and five other families in his own neighborhood engaged to join the expedition. The Bryan party, numbering forty men, some of them from the Valley of Virginia and Powell's Valley, were not to be accompanied by their families, as they preferred to go in advance and prepare homes before making a final move. But Boone and the other men of the upper Yadkin took with them their wives and children; most of them sold their farms, as did Boone, thus burning their bridges behind them. Arranging to meet the Bryan contingent in Powell's Valley, Boone's party left for the West upon the twenty-fifth of September, 1773—fifty-six years after old George Boone had departed from England for the Pennsylvania frontier near Philadelphia, and twenty-three after the family had set out for the new southwest frontier on the Yadkin.

Reaching Powell's, Boone went into camp to await the rear party, his riding and packhorses hoppled and belled, after the custom of such caravans, and their small herd of cattle properly guarded in a meadow. His eldest son, James, now a boy of sixteen years, was sent with two men, with pack-animals, across country to notify Russell and to secure some flour and farming tools. They were returning laden, in company with Russell's son Henry, a year older than James, two of Russell's negro slaves, and two or three white workpeople, when, missing their path, they went into camp for the night only three miles from Boone's quarters. At daybreak they were attacked by a Shawnese war party and all killed except a white laborer and a negro. This pathetic tragedy created such consternation among the movers that, despite Boone's entreaties to go forward, all of them returned to Virginia and Carolina. Daniel and his family, no longer having a home on the Yadkin, would not retreat, and took up their quarters in an empty cabin upon the farm of Captain David Gass, seven or eight miles from Russell's, upon Clinch River. Throughout this sorrowful winter the Boones were supported from their stock of cattle and by means of Daniel's unerring rifle.

It was long before the intrepid pioneers could again take up their line of march. Ever since the Bouquet treaty of 1764 there had been more or less disturbance upon the frontiers. During all these years, although there was no open warfare between whites and reds, many scores of lives had been lost. Indians had wantonly plundered and murdered white men, and the latter had been quite as merciless toward the savages. Whenever a member of one race met a man of the other the rifle was apt to be at once brought into play. Meanwhile, armed parties of surveyors and land speculators were swarming into Kentucky, notching the trees for landmarks, and giving evidence to apprehensive tribesmen that the hordes of civilization were upon them. In 1773 George Rogers Clark, afterward the most famous of border leaders, had staked a claim at the mouth of Fishing Creek, on the Ohio; Washington had, this summer, descended the river to the same point; while at the Falls of the Ohio, and upon interior waters of the Kentucky wilderness, other parties were laying ambitious plans for the capitals of new colonies.

In the following spring the Cherokees and Shawnese, now wrought to a high pitch of ill temper, combined for onslaughts on the advancing frontiersmen. The wanton murder by border ruffians of Chief John Logan's family, near Mingo Junction, on the Ohio, was the match which, in early summer, fired the tinder. The Mingos, ablaze with the fire of vengeance, carried the war-pipe through the neighboring villages; runners were sent in every direction to rouse the tribes; tomahawks were unearthed, war-posts were planted; messages of defiance were sent to the "Virginians," as all frontiersmen were generally called by the Western Indians; and in a few days the border war to which history has given the name of Lord Dunmore, then governor of Virginia, was in full swing from Cumberland Gap to Fort Pitt, from the Alleghanies to the Wabash.

Its isolation at first protected the Valley of the Clinch. The commandant of the southwest militia—which comprised every boy or man capable of bearing arms—was Colonel William Preston; under him was Major Arthur Campbell; the principal man in the Clinch Valley was Boone's friend, Russell. When, in June, the border captains were notified by Lord Dunmore that the war was now on, forts were erected in each of the mountain valleys, and scouts sent out along the trails and streams to ascertain the whereabouts of the enemy.

There were in Kentucky, at this time, several surveying parties which could not obtain news by way of the Ohio because of the blockade maintained by the Shawnese. It became necessary to notify them overland, and advise their retreat to the settlements by way of Cumberland Gap. Russell having been ordered by Preston to employ "two faithful woodsmen" for this purpose, chose Daniel Boone and Michael Stoner. "If they are alive," wrote Russell to his colonel, "it is indisputable but Boone must find them." Leaving the Clinch on June twenty-seventh, the two envoys were at Harrodsburg before July eighth. There they found James Harrod and thirty-four other men laying off a large town,[9] in which they proposed to give each inhabitant a half-acre in-lot and a ten-acre out-lot. Boone, who had small capacity for business, but in land was something of a speculator, registered as a settler, and in company with a neighbor put up a cabin for his future occupancy. This done, he and Stoner hurried on down the Kentucky River to its mouth, and thence to the Falls of the Ohio (site of Louisville), notifying several bands of surveyors and town-builders of their danger. After an absence of sixty-one days they were back again upon the Clinch, having traveled eight hundred miles through a practically unbroken forest, experienced many dangers from Indians, and overcome natural difficulties almost without number.

Meanwhile Lord Dunmore, personally unpopular but an energetic and competent military manager, had sent out an army of nearly three thousand backwoodsmen against the Shawnese north of the Ohio. One wing of this army, led by the governor himself, went by way of Fort Pitt and descended the Ohio; among its members was George Rogers Clark. The other wing, commanded by General Andrew Lewis, included the men of the Southwest, eleven hundred strong; they were to descend the Great Kanawha and rendezvous with the northern wing at Point Pleasant, at the junction of the Kanawha and the Ohio.

When Boone arrived upon the Clinch he found that Russell and most of the other militiamen of the district had departed upon the campaign. With a party of recruits, the great hunter started out to overtake the expedition, but was met by orders to return and aid in defending his own valley; for the drawing off of the militia by Dunmore had left the southwest frontiers in weak condition. During September the settlers upon the Clinch suffered much apprehension; the depredations of the tribesmen were not numerous, but several men were either wounded or captured.

In a letter written upon the sixth of October, Major Campbell gives a list of forts upon the Clinch: "Blackmore's, sixteen men, Sergeant Moore commanding; Moore's, twenty miles above, twenty men, Lieutenant Boone commanding; Russell's, four miles above, twenty men, Sergeant W. Poage commanding; Glade Hollow, twelve miles above, fifteen men, Sergeant John Dunkin commanding; Elk Garden, fourteen miles above, eighteen men, Sergeant John Kinkead commanding; Maiden Spring, twenty-three miles above, five men, Sergeant John Crane commanding; Whitton's Big Crab Orchard, twelve miles above, three men, Ensign John Campbell, of Rich Valley, commanding." During this month Boone and his little garrison made frequent sallies against the enemy, and now and then fought brief but desperate skirmishes. He appears to have been by far the most active commander in the valley, and when neighboring forts were attacked his party of well-trained riflemen generally furnished the relief necessary to raise the siege. "Mr. Boone," writes Campbell to Preston, "is very diligent at Castle's-woods, and keeps up good order." His conduct is frequently alluded to in the military correspondence of that summer; Campbell and other leaders exhibited in their references to our hero a respectful and even deferential tone. An eye-witness of some of these stirring scenes has left us a description of Daniel Boone, now forty years of age, in which it is stated that his was then a familiar figure throughout the valley as he hurried to and fro upon his military duties "dressed in deerskin colored black, and his hair plaited and clubbed up."

Upon the tenth of October, Cornstalk, a famous Shawnese chief, taking advantage of Dunmore's failure to join the southern wing, led against Lewis's little army encamped at Point Pleasant a thousand picked warriors gathered from all parts of the Northwest. Here, upon the wooded eminence at the junction of the two rivers, was waged from dawn until dusk one of the most bloody and stubborn hand-to-hand battles ever fought between Indians and whites. It is hard to say who displayed the best generalship, Cornstalk or Lewis. The American savage was a splendid fighter; although weak in discipline he could competently plan a battle. The tactics of surprise were his chief resource, and these are legitimate even in civilized warfare; but he could also make a determined contest in the open, and when, as at Point Pleasant, the opposing numbers were nearly equal, the result was often slow of determination. Desperately courageous, pertinacious, with a natural aptitude for war combined with consummate treachery, cruelty, and cunning, it is small wonder that the Indian long offered a formidable barrier to the advance of civilization. In early Virginia, John Smith noticed that in Indian warfare the whites won at the expense of losses far beyond those suffered by the tribesmen; and here at Point Pleasant, while the "Long Knives"[10] gained the day, the number of their dead and wounded was double that of the casualties sustained by Cornstalk's painted band.

The victory at Point Pleasant practically closed the war upon the border. Boone had been made a captain in response to a popular petition that the hero of Clinch Valley be thus honored, and was given charge of the three lower forts; but there followed only a few alarms, and upon the twentieth of November he and his brother militiamen of the region received their discharge. The war had cost Virginia £10,000 sterling, many valuable lives had been sacrificed, and an incalculable amount of suffering and privation had been occasioned all along the three hundred and fifty miles of American frontier. But the Shawnese had been humbled, the Cherokees had retired behind the new border line, and a lasting peace appeared to be assured.

In the following January Captain Boone, true son of the wilderness, was celebrating his freedom from duties incident to war's alarms by a solitary hunt upon the banks of Kentucky River.

CHAPTER IX
THE SETTLEMENT OF KENTUCKY

Kentucky had so long been spasmodically occupied and battled over by Shawnese, Iroquois, and Cherokees, that it can not be said that any of them had well-defined rights over its soil. Not until white men appeared anxious to settle there did the tribes begin to assert their respective claims, in the hope of gaining presents at the treaties whereat they were asked to make cessions. The whites, on their part, when negotiating for purchases, were well aware of the shadowy character of these claims; but, when armed with a signed deed of cession, they had something tangible upon which thenceforth to base their own claims of proprietorship. There was therefore much insincerity upon both sides. It is well to understand this situation in studying the history of Kentucky settlement.

Colonel Richard Henderson was one of the principal judges in North Carolina, a scholarly, talented man, eminent in the legal profession; although but thirty-nine years of age, he wielded much influence. Knowing and respecting Daniel Boone, Henderson was much impressed by the former's enthusiastic reports concerning the soil, climate, and scenery of Kentucky; and, acting solely upon this information, resolved to establish a colony in that attractive country. He associated with himself three brothers, Nathaniel, David, and Thomas Hart, the last-named of whom in later life wrote that he "had known Boone of old, when poverty and distress held him fast by the hand; and in those wretched circumstances he had ever found him a noble and generous soul, despising everything mean." Their proposed colony was styled Transylvania, and the association of proprietors the Transylvania Company.

It will be remembered that in the treaty of Fort Stanwix (1768) the Iroquois of New York had ceded to the English crown their pretensions to lands lying between the Ohio and the Tennessee. The Transylvania Company, however, applied to the Cherokees, because this was the tribe commanding the path from Virginia and the Carolinas to Kentucky. In March, 1775, a great council was held at Sycamore Shoals, on the Watauga River, between the company and twelve hundred Cherokees who had been brought in for the purpose by Boone. For $50,000 worth of cloths, clothing, utensils, ornaments, and firearms, the Indians ceded to Henderson and his partners an immense grant including all the country lying between the Kentucky and Cumberland Rivers, also a path of approach from the east, through Powell's Valley. At this council were some of the most prominent Cherokee chiefs and southwestern frontiersmen.

When the goods came to be distributed among the Indians it was found that, although they filled a large cabin and looked very tempting in bulk, there was but little for each warrior, and great dissatisfaction arose. One Cherokee, whose portion was a shirt, declared that in one day, upon this land, he could have killed deer enough to buy such a garment; to surrender his hunting-ground for this trifle naturally seemed to him a bad bargain. For the safety of the pioneers the chiefs could give no guarantee; they warned Boone, who appears to have acted as spokesman for the company, that "a black cloud hung over this land," warpaths crossed it from north to south, and settlers would surely get killed; for such results the Cherokees must not be held responsible.

This was not promising. Neither was the news, now received, that Governors Martin of North Carolina, and Dunmore of Virginia had both of them issued proclamations against the great purchase. The former had called Henderson and his partners an "infamous Company of Land Pyrates"; and they were notified that this movement was in violation of the king's proclamation of 1763, forbidding Western settlements.

The company, relying upon popular sympathy and their great distance from tidewater seats of government, proceeded without regard to these proclamations. Boone, at the head of a party of about thirty enlisted men, some of them the best backwoodsmen in the country,[11] was sent ahead to mark a path through the forest to Kentucky River, and there establish a capital for the new colony. They encountered many difficulties, especially when traveling through cane-brakes and brush; and once, while asleep, were attacked by Indians, who killed a negro servant and wounded two of the party. Boone won hearty commendation for his skill and courage throughout the expedition, which finally arrived at its destination on the sixth of April. This was Big Lick, on Kentucky River, just below the mouth of Otter Creek. Here it was decided to build a town to be called Boonesborough, to serve as the capital of Transylvania. The site was "a plain on the south side of the river, wherein was a lick with sulphur springs strongly impregnated."

To Felix Walker, one of the pioneers, we are indebted for the details of this notable colonizing expedition, set forth in a narrative which is still preserved. "On entering the plain," he writes, "we were permitted to view a very interesting and romantic sight. A number of buffaloes, of all sizes, supposed to be between two and three hundred, made off from the lick in every direction: some running, some walking, others loping slowly and carelessly, with young calves playing, skipping, and bounding through the plain. Such a sight some of us never saw before, nor perhaps ever may again." A fort was commenced, and a few cabins "strung along the river-bank;" but it was long before the stronghold was completed, for, now that the journey was at an end, Boone's men had become callous to danger.

Meanwhile Henderson was proceeding slowly from the settlements with thirty men and several wagons loaded with goods and tools. Delayed from many causes, they at last felt obliged to leave the encumbering wagons in Powell's Valley. Pushing forward, they were almost daily met by parties of men and boys returning home from Kentucky bearing vague reports of Indian forays. This resulted in Henderson losing many of his own followers from desertion. Arriving at Boonesborough on the twentieth of April, the relief party was "saluted by a running fire of about twenty-five guns." Some of Boone's men had, in the general uneasiness, also deserted, and others had scattered throughout the woods, hunting, exploring, or surveying on their own account.

The method of surveying then in vogue upon the Western frontier was of the crudest, although it must be acknowledged that any system more formal might, at that stage of our country's growth, have prevented rapid settlement. Each settler or land speculator was practically his own surveyor. With a compass and a chain, a few hours' work would suffice to mark the boundaries of a thousand-acre tract. There were as yet no adequate maps of the country, and claims overlapped each other in the most bewildering manner. A speculator who "ran out" a hundred thousand acres might, without knowing it, include in his domain a half-dozen claims previously surveyed by modest settlers who wanted but a hundred acres each. A man who paid the land-office fees might "patent" any land he pleased and have it recorded, the colony, and later the State, only guaranteeing such entries as covered land not already patented. This overlapping, conscious or unconscious, at last became so perplexing that thousands of vexatious lawsuits followed, some of which are still unsettled; and even to-day in Kentucky there are lands whose ownership is actually unknown, which pay no taxes and support only squatters who can not be turned out—possibly some of it, lying between patented tracts, by chance has never been entered at all. Nobody can now say. Thus it was that we find our friend Daniel Boone quickly transformed from a wilderness hunter into a frontier surveyor. Before Henderson's arrival he had laid off the town site into lots of two acres each. These were now drawn at a public lottery; while those who wished larger tracts within the neighborhood were able to obtain them by promising to plant a crop of corn and pay to the Transylvania Company a quit-rent of two English shillings for each hundred acres.

There were now four settlements in the Transylvania grant: Boonesborough; Harrodsburg, fifty miles west, with about a hundred men; Boiling Spring, some six or seven miles from Harrodsburg; and St. Asaph. The crown lands to the north and east of the Kentucky, obtained by the Fort Stanwix treaty, contained two small settlements; forty miles north of Boonesborough was Hinkson's, later known as Ruddell's Station, where were about nineteen persons; lower down the Kentucky, also on the north side, was Willis Lee's settlement, near the present Frankfort; and ranging at will through the crown lands were several small parties of "land-jobbers," surveyors, and explorers, laying off the claims of militia officers who had fought in the Indian wars, and here and there building cabins to indicate possession.

Henderson had no sooner arrived than he prepared for a convention, at which the people should adopt a form of government for the colony and elect officers. This was held at Boonesborough, in the open air, under a gigantic elm, during the week commencing Tuesday, the twenty-third of May. There were eighteen delegates, representing each of the four settlements south of the Kentucky. Among them were Daniel and Squire Boone, the former of whom proposed laws for the preservation of game and for improving the breed of horses; to the latter fell the presentation of rules for preserving the cattle-ranges. The compact finally agreed upon between the colonists and the proprietors declared "the powers of the one and the liberties of the others," and was "the earliest form of government in the region west of the Alleghanies." It provided for "perfect religious freedom and general toleration," militia and judicial systems, and complete liberty on the part of the settlers to conduct colonial affairs according to their needs. This liberal and well-digested plan appeared to please both Henderson and the settlers. But the opposition of the governors, the objections raised by the Assembly of Virginia, of which Kentucky was then a part,[12] and finally, the outbreak of the Revolution, which put an end to proprietary governments in America, caused the downfall of the Transylvania Company. The Boonesborough legislative convention met but once more—in December, to elect a surveyor-general.

The May meeting had no sooner adjourned than Transylvania began again to lose its population. Few of the pioneers who had come out with Boone and Henderson, or had since wandered into the district, were genuine home-seekers. Many appear to have been mere adventurers, out for the excitement of the expedition and to satisfy their curiosity, who either returned home or wandered farther into the woods to seek fresh experiences of wild life; others had deliberately intended first to stake out claims in the neighborhood of the new settlements and then return home to look after their crops, and perhaps move to Kentucky in the autumn; others there were who, far removed from their families, proved restless; while many became uneasy because of Indian outrages, reports of which soon began to be circulated. Henderson wrote cheerful letters to his partners at home, describing the country as a paradise; but by the end of June, when Boone returned to the East for salt, Harrodsburg and Boiling Spring were almost deserted, while Boonesborough could muster but ten or twelve "guns," as men or boys capable of fighting Indians were called in the militia rolls.

The infant colony of Kentucky had certainly reached a crisis in its career. Game was rapidly becoming more scarce, largely because of careless, inexperienced hunters who wounded more than they killed, and killed more than was needed for food; the frightened buffaloes had now receded so far west that they were several days' journey from Boonesborough. Yet game was still the staff of life. Captain Floyd, the surveyor-general, wrote to Colonel Preston: "I must hunt or starve."

As the summer wore away and crops in the Eastern settlements were gathered, there was a considerable increase in the population. Many men who, in later days, were to exert a powerful influence in Kentucky now arrived—George Rogers Clark, the principal Western hero of the Revolution; Simon Kenton, famous throughout the border as hunter, scout, and Indian fighter; Benjamin Logan, William Whitley, the Lewises, Campbells, Christians, Prestons, MacDowells, McAfees, Hite, Bowman, Randolph, Todd, McClellan, Benton, Patterson—all of them names familiar in Western history.

In the first week of September Boone arrived with his wife and family and twenty young men—"twenty-one guns," the report reads; Squire and his family soon followed; four Bryans, their brothers-in-law, came at the head of thirty men from the Yadkin; and, at the same time, Harrodsburg was reached by several other families who had, like the Boones, come on horseback through Cumberland Gap and Powell's Valley. This powerful reenforcement of pioneers, most of whom proposed to stay, had largely been attracted by Henderson's advertisements in Virginia newspapers offering terms of settlement on Transylvania lands. "Any person," said the announcement, "who will settle on and inhabit the same before the first day of June, 1776, shall have the privilege of taking up and surveying for himself five hundred acres, and for each tithable person he may carry with him and settle there, two hundred and fifty acres, on the payment of fifty shillings sterling per hundred, subject to a yearly quit-rent of two shillings, like money, to commence in the year 1780." Toward the end of November Henderson himself, who had gone on a visit to Carolina, returned with forty men, one of whom was Colonel Arthur Campbell, a prominent settler in the Holston Valley.

This increase of population, which had been noticeable throughout the autumn and early winter, received a sudden check, however, two days before Christmas, when the Indians, who had been friendly for several months past, began again to annoy settlers, several being either killed or carried into captivity. This gave rise to a fresh panic, in the course of which many fled to the east of the mountains.

During the year about five hundred persons from the frontiers of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina had visited and explored Kentucky; but now, at the close of December, the population of all the settlements did not aggregate over two hundred. The recent outbreak had much to do with this situation of affairs; but there were other causes conspiring to disturb the minds of the people and postpone the growth of settlement—the clashing of interests between the Transylvania Company and the governors of Virginia and North Carolina, uncertainty as to the possibilities of a general Indian war, the threatened rupture between the colonies and the English crown, and the alarming scarcity of provisions and ammunition throughout Kentucky.

Nevertheless, over nine hundred entries had been made in the Transylvania land-office at Boonesborough, embracing 560,000 acres, and most of these tracts were waiting to be surveyed; two hundred and thirty acres of corn had been successfully raised; horses, hogs, and poultry had been introduced, and apple- and peach-trees had been started at several settlements. The germ of a colony was firmly planted, laws had been made, the militia had been organized, civil and military officers had been commissioned, and in the face of several slight Indian attacks the savages had been repelled and the country maintained. Most promising of all, there were now twelve women in the country, all of them heads of families.

The principal pioneers were nearly all of sturdy Scotch-Irish blood, men of sterling merit, intensely devoted to the cause of American liberty, and destined to contribute powerfully to its aid in the great war which had now begun, and concerning which messengers from over the mountains had during the year brought them scanty information.

CHAPTER X
TWO YEARS OF DARKNESS

With the opening of the year 1776 Daniel and Squire Boone were employed for several weeks as hunters or assistants to a party of surveyors sent by the Transylvania Company to the Falls of the Ohio, in the vicinity of which Henderson and his friends had taken up seventy thousand acres of land. They met no Indians and saw plenty of game; but returned to find that the settlers were indignant because of this wholesale preemption by the proprietors of the colony in a neighborhood where it was now felt the chief city in Kentucky was sure to be planted. In response to this clamor Henderson promised that hereafter, in that locality, only small tracts should be granted to individuals, and that a town should at once be laid out at the Falls; but the scanty supply of powder and provisions, and the company's growing troubles with the Virginia Assembly, prevented the execution of this project.

In the spring newcomers everywhere appeared. In order to please the people of Harrodsburg, now the largest settlement, who were disposed to be critical, the company's land-office was moved thither, and it at once entered upon a flourishing business. Not only did many Virginians and Carolinians come in on horseback over the "Wilderness Road," as the route through Cumberland Gap was now styled, but hundreds also descended the Ohio in boats from the new settlements on the Monongahela, and from those farther east in Pennsylvania.

While the horsemen of the Wilderness Road generally settled in Transylvania, those journeying by boat were chiefly interested in the crown lands north of the Kentucky; through these they ranged at will, building rude pens, half-faced cabins, and log huts, as convenience dictated, and planting small crops of corn in order to preempt their claims. The majority, however, after making sometimes as many as twenty such claims each, often upon land already surveyed on militia officers' warrants, returned home at the close of the season, seeking to sell their fictitious holdings to actual settlers. Of course the unscrupulous conduct of these "claim-jumping" speculators led to numerous quarrels. John Todd, of Harrodsburg, wrote to a friend: "I am afraid to lose sight of my house lest some invader should take possession."

It was difficult, even for those who came to settle, to get down to hard work during those earliest years. Never was there a more beautiful region than the Kentucky wilderness. Both old and new settlers were fond of roaming through this wonderland of forests and glades and winding rivers, where the nights were cool and refreshing and the days filled with harmonies of sound and sight and smell. Hill and valley, timberland and thicket, meadow and prairie, grasslands and cane-brake—these abounded on every hand, in happy distribution of light and shadow. The soil was extremely fertile; there were many open spots fitted for immediate cultivation; the cattle-ranges were of the best, for nowhere was cane more abundant; game was more plentiful than men's hopes had ever before conceived—of turkeys, bears, deer, and buffaloes it seemed, for a time, as if the supply must always far excelled any possible demand. It is small wonder that the imaginations of the pioneers were fired with dreams of the future, that they saw in fancy great cities springing up in this new world of the West, and wealth pouring into the laps of those who could first obtain a foothold. Thus, in that beautiful spring of 1776, did Kentuckians revel in the pleasures of hope, and cast to the winds all thought of the peril and toil by which alone can man conquer a savage-haunted wilderness.

But the "dark cloud" foretold at the Watauga treaty soon settled upon the land. Incited by British agents—for the Revolution was now on—the Cherokees on the south and the Shawnese and Mingos on the north declared war upon the American borderers. The Kentuckians were promptly warned by messengers from the East. The "cabiners," as claim speculators were called by actual settlers; the wandering fur-traders, most of whom were shabby rascals, whose example corrupted the savages, and whose conduct often led to outbreaks of race hostility; and the irresponsible hunters, who were recklessly killing or frightening off the herds of game—all of these classes began, with the mutterings of conflict, to draw closer to the settlements; while many hurried back to their old homes, carrying exaggerated reports of the situation.

Meanwhile, opposition to the Transylvania proprietors was fast developing. The settlers in the Harrodsburg neighborhood held a convention in June and sent Colonel George Rogers Clark and Captain John Gabriel Jones as delegates to the Virginia Convention with a petition to that body to make Kentucky a county of Virginia. This project was bitterly opposed by Henderson; but upon the adoption by Congress, in July, of the Declaration of Independence, there was small chance left for the recognition of any proprietary government. When the new Virginia legislature met in the autumn, the petition of the "inhabitants of Kentuckie" was granted, and a county government organized.[13] David Robinson was appointed county lieutenant, John Bowman colonel, Anthony Bledsoe and George Rogers Clark majors, and Daniel Boone, James Harrod, John Todd, and Benjamin Logan captains.

It was not until July that the Kentuckians fully realized the existence of an Indian war. During that month several hunters, surveyors, and travelers were killed in various parts of the district. The situation promised so badly that Colonel William Russell, of the Holston Valley, commandant of the southwestern Virginia militia, advised the immediate abandonment of Kentucky. Such advice fell upon unheeding ears in the case of men like Boone and his companions, although many of the less valorous were quick to retire beyond the mountains.

On Sunday, the seventeenth of July, an incident occurred at Boonesborough which created wide-spread consternation. Jemima, the second daughter of Daniel Boone, aged fourteen years, together with two girl friends, Betsey and Fanny Calloway, sixteen and fourteen respectively, were paddling in a canoe upon the Kentucky. Losing control of their craft in the swift current, not over a quarter of a mile from the settlement, they were swept near the north bank, when five Shawnese braves, hiding in the bushes, waded out and captured them. The screams of the girls alarmed the settlers, who sallied forth in hot pursuit of the kidnappers.

The mounted men, under Colonel Calloway, father of two of the captives, pushed forward to Lower Blue Licks, hoping to cut off the Indians as they crossed the Licking River on their way to the Shawnese towns in Ohio, whither it was correctly supposed they were fleeing. Boone headed the footmen, who followed closely on the trail of the fugitives, which had been carefully marked by the girls, who, with the self-possession of true borderers, furtively scattered broken twigs and scraps of clothing as they were hurried along through the forest by their grim captors. After a two days' chase, Boone's party caught up with the unsuspecting savages some thirty-five miles from Boonesborough, and by dint of a skilful dash recaptured the young women, unharmed. Two of the Shawnese were killed and the others fled into the woods. Calloway's horsemen met no foe.

Although few other attacks were reported during the summer or autumn, the people were in a continual state of apprehension, neglected their crops, and either huddled in the neighborhood of the settlements, or "stations" as they were called, or abandoned the country altogether. In the midst of this uneasiness Floyd wrote to his friend Preston, in Virginia, urging that help be sent to the distressed colony: "They all seem deaf to anything we can say to dissuade them.... I think more than three hundred men have left the country since I came out, and not one has arrived, except a few cabiners down the Ohio. I want to return as much as any man can do; but if I leave the country now there is scarcely one single man who will not follow the example. When I think of the deplorable condition a few helpless families are likely to be in, I conclude to sell my life as dearly as I can in their defense rather than make an ignominious escape."

Seven stations had now been abandoned—Huston's, on the present site of Paris; Hinkson's, on the Licking; Bryan's, on the Elkhorn; Lee's, on the Kentucky; Harrod's, or the Boiling Spring settlement; Whitley's, and Logan's. But three remained occupied—McClellan's, Harrodsburg, and Boonesborough. Up to this time none of the Kentucky stations had been fortified; there had been some unfinished work at Boonesborough, but it was soon allowed to fall into decay. Work was now resumed at all three of the occupied settlements; this consisted simply of connecting the cabins, which faced an open square, by lines of palisades. It was only at McClellan's, however, that even this slender protection was promptly completed; at Boonesborough and Harrodsburg the work, although but a task of a few days, dragged slowly, and was not finished for several months. It was next to impossible for Boone and the other militia captains to induce men to labor at the common defenses in time of peace.

Great popular interest was taken by the people of the Carolinas, Virginia, and Pennsylvania in the fate of the Kentucky settlements, whither so many prominent borderers from those States had moved. The frantic appeals for help sent out by Floyd, Logan, and McGary, and expressed in person by George Rogers Clark, awakened keen sympathy; but the demands of Washington's army were now so great, in battles for national liberty upon the Atlantic coast, that little could be spared for the Western settlers. During the summer a small supply of powder was sent out by Virginia to Captain Boone; in the autumn Harrod and Logan rode to the Holston and obtained from the military authorities a packhorse-load of lead; and in the closing days of the year Clark arrived at Limestone (now Maysville), on the Ohio, with a boat-load of powder and other stores, voted to the service of Kentucky by the Virginia Assembly. He had experienced a long and exciting voyage from Pittsburg with this precious consignment, and about thirty of the settlers aided him in the perilous enterprise of transporting it overland to the stations on the Kentucky. While the ammunition was supposed to be used for defense, the greater part of it was necessarily spent in obtaining food. Without the great profusion of game the inhabitants must have starved; although several large crops of corn were raised, and some wheat, these were as yet insufficient for all.

Early in 1777 Indian "signs" began to multiply. McClellan's was now abandoned, leaving Boonesborough and Harrodsburg the only settlements maintained—except, perhaps, Price's, on the Cumberland, although Logan's Station was reoccupied in February. The number of men now in the country fit for duty did not exceed a hundred and fifty. In March the fighting men met at their respective stations and organized under commissioned officers; hitherto all military operations in Kentucky had been voluntary, headed by such temporary leaders as the men chose from their own number.

During the greater part of the year the palisaded stations were frequently attacked by the savages—Shawnese, Cherokees, and Mingos, in turn or in company. Some of these sieges lasted through several days, taxing the skill and bravery of the inhabitants to their utmost. Indian methods of attacking forts were far different from those that would be practised by white men. Being practically without military organization, each warrior acted largely on his own behalf. His object was to secrete himself, to kill his enemy, and if possible to bear away his scalp as a trophy. Every species of cover was taken advantage of—trees, stumps, bushes, hillocks, stones, furnished hiding-places. Feints were made to draw the attention of the garrison to one side, while the main body of the besiegers hurled themselves against the other. Having neither artillery nor scaling-ladders, they frequently succeeded in effecting a breach by setting fire to the walls. Pretending to retreat, they would lull the defenders into carelessness, when they would again appear from ambush, picking off those who came out for water, to attend to crops and cattle, or to hunt for food; often they exhibited a remarkable spirit of daring, especially when making a dash to secure scalps. Destroying crops, cattle, hogs, and poultry, stealing the horses for their own use, burning the outlying cabins, and guarding the trails against possible relief, they sought to reduce the settlers to starvation, and thus make them an easy prey. Every artifice known to besiegers was skilfully practised by these crafty, keen-eyed, quick-witted wilderness fighters, who seldom showed mercy. Only when white men aggressively fought them in their own manner could they be overcome.

In the last week of April, while Boone and Kenton were heading a sortie against a party of Shawnese besieging Boonesborough, the whites stumbled into an ambuscade, and Boone was shot in an ankle, the bone being shattered. Kenton, with that cool bravery for which this tall, vigorous backwoodsman was known throughout the border, rushed up, and killing a warrior whose tomahawk was lifted above the fallen man, picked his comrade up in his arms, and desperately fought his way back into the enclosure. It was several months before the captain recovered from this painful wound; but from his room he directed many a day-and-night defense, and laid plans for the scouting expeditions which were frequently undertaken throughout the region in order to discover signs of the lurking foe.

Being the larger settlement, Harrodsburg was more often attacked than Boonesborough, although simultaneous sieges were sometimes in progress, thus preventing the little garrisons from helping each other. At both stations the women soon became the equal of the men, fearlessly taking turns at the port-holes, from which little puffs of white smoke would follow the sharp rifle-cracks whenever a savage head revealed itself from behind bush or tree. When not on duty as marksmen, women were melting their pewter plates into bullets, loading the rifles and handing them to the men, caring for the wounded, and cooking whatever food might be obtainable. During a siege food was gained only by stealth and at great peril. Some brave volunteer would escape into the woods by night, and after a day spent in hunting, far away from hostile camps, return, if possible under cover of darkness, with what game he could find. It was a time to make heroes or cowards of either men or women—there was no middle course.

Amid this spasmodic hurly-burly there was no lack of marrying and giving in marriage. One day in early August, 1776, Betsey Calloway, the eldest of the captive girls, was married at Boonesborough to Samuel Henderson, one of the rescuing party—the first wedding in Kentucky. Daniel Boone, as justice of the peace, tied the knot. A diarist of the time has this record of a similar Harrodsburg event: "July 9, 1777.—Lieutenant Linn married—great merriment."

At each garrison, whenever not under actual siege, half of the men were acting as guards and scouts while the others cultivated small patches of corn within sight of the walls. But even this precaution sometimes failed of its purpose. For instance, one day in May two hundred Indians suddenly surrounded the corn-field at Boonesborough, and there was a lively skirmish before the planters could reach the fort.

Thus the summer wore away. In August Colonel Bowman arrived with a hundred militiamen from the Virginia frontier. A little later forty-eight horsemen came from the Yadkin country to Boone's relief, making so brave a display as they emerged from the tangled woods and in open order filed through the gates of the palisade, that some Shawnese watching the procession from a neighboring hill fled into Ohio with the startling report that two hundred Long Knife warriors had arrived from Virginia. In October other Virginians came, to the extent of a hundred expert riflemen; and late in the autumn the valiant Logan brought in from the Holston as much powder and lead as four packhorses could carry, guarded by a dozen sharpshooters, thus insuring a better prospect for food.

With these important supplies and reenforcements at hand the settlers were inspired by new hope. Instead of waiting for the savages to attack them, they thenceforth went in search of the savages, killing them wherever seen, thus seeking to outgeneral the enemy. These tactics quite disheartened the astonished tribesmen, and the year closed with a brighter outlook for the weary Kentuckians. It had been a time of constant anxiety and watchfulness. The settlers were a handful in comparison with their vigilant enemies. But little corn had been raised; the cattle were practically gone; few horses were now left; and on the twelfth of December Bowman sent word to Virginia that he had only two months' supply of bread for two hundred women and children, many of whom were widows and orphans. As for clothing, there was little to be had, although from the fiber of nettles a rude cloth was made, and deerskins were commonly worn.

CHAPTER XI
THE SIEGE OF BOONESBOROUGH

We have seen that Kentucky's numerous salt-springs lured wild animals thither in astonishing numbers; but for lack of suitable boiling-kettles the pioneers were at first dependent upon the older settlements for the salt needed in curing their meat. The Indian outbreak now rendered the Wilderness Road an uncertain path, and the Kentuckians were beginning to suffer from lack of salt—a serious deprivation for a people largely dependent upon a diet of game.

Late in the year 1777 the Virginia government sent out several large salt-boiling kettles for the use of the Western settlers. Both residents and visiting militiamen were allotted into companies, which were to relieve each other at salt-making until sufficient was manufactured to last the several stations for a year. It was Boone's duty to head the first party, thirty strong, which, with the kettles packed on horses, went to Lower Blue Licks early in January. A month passed, during which a considerable quantity of salt was made; several horse-loads had been sent to Boonesborough, but most of it was still at the camp awaiting shipment.

The men were daily expecting relief by the second company, when visitors of a different character appeared. While half of the men worked at the boiling, the others engaged in the double service of watching for Indians and obtaining food; of these was Boone. Toward evening of the seventh of February he was returning home from a wide circuit with his packhorse laden with buffalo-meat and some beaver-skins, for he had many traps in the neighborhood. A blinding snow-storm was in progress, which caused him to neglect his usual precautions, when suddenly he was confronted by four burly Shawnese, who sprang from an ambush. Keen of foot, he thought to outrun them, but soon had to surrender, for they shot so accurately that it was evident that they could kill him if they would.

The prisoner was conducted to the Shawnese camp, a few miles distant. There he found a hundred and twenty warriors under Chief Black Fish. Two Frenchmen, in English employ, were of the party; also two American renegades from the Pittsburg region, James and George Girty. These latter, with their brother Simon, had joined the Indians and, dressed and painted like savages, were assisting the tribesmen of the Northwest in raids against their fellow-borderers of Pennsylvania and Virginia. Boone was well known by reputation to all these men of the wilderness, reds and whites alike; indeed, he noticed that among the party were his captors of eight years before, who laughed heartily at again having him in their clutches.

He was loudly welcomed to camp, the Indians shaking his hands, patting him on the back, and calling him "brother"—for they always greatly enjoyed such exhibitions of mock civility and friendship—and the hunter himself pretended to be equally pleased at the meeting. They told him that they were on their way to attack Boonesborough, and wished him to lead them, but insisted that he first induce his fellow salt-makers to surrender. Boone thoroughly understood Indians; he had learned the arts of forest diplomacy, and although generally a silent man of action, appears to have been a plausible talker when dealing with red men. Knowing that only one side of the Boonesborough palisade had been completed, and that the war-party was five times as strong as the population of the hamlet, he thought to delay operations by strategy. He promised to persuade the salt-makers to surrender, in view of the overwhelming force and the promise of good treatment, and to go peacefully with their captors to the Shawnese towns north of the Ohio; and suggested that in the spring, when the weather was warmer, they could all go together to Boonesborough, and by means of horses comfortably remove the women and children. These would, under his persuasion, Boone assured his captors, be content to move to the North, and thenceforth either lived with the Shawnese as their adopted children or place themselves under British protection at Detroit, where Governor Hamilton offered £20 apiece for American prisoners delivered to him alive and well.

The proposition appeared reasonable to the Indians, and they readily agreed to it. What would be the outcome Boone could not foretell. He realized, however, that his station was unprepared, that delay meant everything, in view of possible reenforcements from Virginia, and was willing that he and his comrades should stand, if need be, as a sacrifice—indeed, no other course seemed open. Going with his captors to the salt camp, his convincing words caused the men to stack their arms and accompany the savages, hoping thereby at least to save their families at Boonesborough from immediate attack.

The captives were but twenty-seven in number, some of the hunters not having returned to camp. Not all of the captors were, despite their promise, in favor of lenient treatment of the prisoners. A council was held, at which Black Fish, a chieftain of fine qualities, had much difficulty, through a session of two hours, in securing a favorable verdict. Boone was permitted to address the savage throng in explanation of his plan, his words being interpreted by a negro named Pompey, a fellow of some consequence among the Shawnese. The vote was close—fifty-nine for at once killing the prisoners, except Boone, and sixty-one for mercy; but it was accepted as decisive, and the store of salt being destroyed, and kettles, guns, axes, and other plunder packed on horses, the march northward promptly commenced.

Each night the captives were made fast and closely watched. The weather was unusually severe; there was much suffering from hunger, for the snow was deep, game scarce, and slippery-elm bark sometimes the only food obtainable. Descending the Licking, the band crossed the Ohio in a large boat made of buffalo-hides, which were stretched on a rude frame holding twenty persons; they then entered the trail leading to the Shawnese towns on the Little Miami, where they arrived upon the tenth day.

The prisoners were taken to the chief town of the Shawnese, Little Chillicothe, about three miles north of the present Xenia, Ohio. There was great popular rejoicing, for not since Braddock's defeat had so many prisoners been brought into Ohio. Boone and sixteen of his companions, presumably selected for their good qualities and their apparent capacity as warriors, were now formally adopted into the tribe. Boone himself had the good fortune to be accepted as the son of Black Fish, and received the name Sheltowee (Big Turtle)—perhaps because he was strong and compactly built.

Adoption was a favorite method of recruiting the ranks of American tribes. The most tractable captives were often taken into the families of the captors to supply the place of warriors killed in battle. They were thereafter treated with the utmost affection, apparently no difference being made between them and actual relatives, save that, until it was believed that they were no longer disposed to run away, they were watched with care to prevent escape. Such was now Boone's experience. Black Fish and his squaw appeared to regard their new son with abundant love, and everything was done for his comfort, so far as was possible in an Indian camp, save that he found himself carefully observed by day and night, and flight long seemed impracticable.

Boone was a shrewd philosopher. In his so-called "autobiography" written by Filson, he tells us that the food and lodging were "not so good as I could desire, but necessity made everything acceptable." Such as he obtained was, however, the lot of all. In the crowded, slightly built wigwams it was impossible to avoid drafts; they were filthy to the last degree; when in the home villages, there was generally an abundance of food—corn, hominy, pumpkins, beans, and game, sometimes all boiled together in the same kettle—although it was prepared in so slovenly a manner as to disgust even so hardy a man of the forest as our hero; the lack of privacy, the ever-present insects, the blinding smoke of the lodge-fire, the continual yelping of dogs, and the shrill, querulous tones of old women, as they haggled and bickered through the livelong day—all these and many other discomforts were intensely irritating to most white men. In order to disarm suspicion, Boone appeared to be happy. He whistled cheerfully at his tasks, learning what little there was left for him to learn of the arts of the warrior, sharing his game with his "father," and pretending not to see that he was being watched. At the frequent shooting-matches he performed just well enough to win the applause of his fellow braves, although, for fear of arousing jealousy, careful not to outdo the best of them. His fellow prisoners, less tactful, marveled at the ease with which their old leader adapted himself to the new life, and his apparent enjoyment of it. Yet never did he miss an opportunity to ascertain particulars of the intended attack on Boonesborough, and secretly planned for escape when the proper moment should arrive.

March was a third gone, when Black Fish and a large party of his braves and squaws went to Detroit to secure Governor Hamilton's bounty on those of the salt-makers who, from having acted in an ugly manner, had not been adopted into the tribe. Boone accompanied his "father," and frequently witnessed, unable to interfere, the whipping and "gauntlet-running" to which his unhappy fellow Kentuckians were subjected in punishment for their fractious behavior. He himself, early in his captivity, had been forced to undergo this often deadly ordeal; but by taking a dodging, zigzag course, and freely using his head as a battering-ram to topple over some of the warriors in the lines, had emerged with few bruises.[14]

Upon the arrival of the party at Detroit Governor Hamilton at once sent for the now famous Kentucky hunter and paid him many attentions. With the view of securing his liberty, the wily forest diplomat used the same sort of duplicity with the governor that had proved so effective with Black Fish. It was his habit to carry a leather bag fastened about his neck, containing his old commission as captain in the British colonial forces, signed by Lord Dunmore. This was for the purpose of convincing Indians, into whose hands he might fall, that he was a friend of the king; which accounts in a large measure for the tender manner in which they treated him. Showing the document to Hamilton as proof of his devotion to the British cause, he appears to have repeated his promise that he would surrender the people of Boonesborough and conduct them to Detroit, to live under British jurisdiction and protection. This greatly pleased the governor, who sought to ransom him from Black Fish for £100. But to this his "father" would not agree, stating that he loved him too strongly to let him go—as a matter of fact, he wished his services as guide for the Boonesborough expedition. Upon leaving for home, Hamilton presented Boone with a pony, saddle, bridle, and blanket, and a supply of silver trinkets to be used as currency among the Indians, and bade him remember his duty to the king.

Returning to Chillicothe with Black Fish, the hunter saw that preparations for the spring invasion of Kentucky were at last under way. Delawares, Mingos, and Shawnese were slowly assembling, and runners were carrying the war-pipe from village to village throughout Ohio. But while they had been absent at Detroit an event occurred which gave Black Fish great concern: one of the adopted men, Andrew Johnson—who had pretended among the Indians to be a simpleton, in order to throw off suspicion, but who in reality was one of the most astute of woodsmen—had escaped, carrying warning to Kentucky, and the earliest knowledge that reached the settlers of the location of the Shawnese towns. In May, Johnson and five comrades went upon a raid against one of these villages, capturing several horses and bringing home a bunch of Indian scalps, for scalping was now almost as freely practised by the frontiersmen as the savages; such is the degeneracy wrought by warlike contact with an inferior race. In June there was a similar raid by Boonesborough men, resulting to the tribesmen in large losses of lives and horses.

Upon the sixteenth of June, while Black Fish's party were boiling salt at the saline springs of the Scioto—about a dozen miles south of the present Chillicothe—Boone managed, by exercise of rare sagacity and enterprise, to escape the watchful eyes of his keepers, their attention having been arrested by the appearance of a huge flock of wild turkeys. He reached Boonesborough four days later after a perilous journey of a hundred and sixty miles through the forest, during which he had eaten but one meal—from a buffalo which he shot at Blue Licks. He had been absent for four and a half months, and Mrs. Boone, giving him up for dead, had returned with their family to her childhood home upon the Yadkin. His brother Squire, and his daughter Jemima—now married to Flanders Calloway—were the only kinsfolk to greet the returned captive, who appeared out of the woods as one suddenly delivered from a tomb.

During the absence of Daniel Boone there had been the usual Indian troubles in Kentucky. Colonel Bowman had just written to Colonel George Rogers Clark, "The Indians have pushed us hard this summer." But Clark himself at this time was gaining an important advantage over the enemy in his daring expedition against the British posts of Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and Vincennes, in the Illinois country. Realizing that there would be no end to Kentucky's trouble so long as the British, aided by their French-Canadian agents, were free to organize Indian armies north of the Ohio for the purpose of harrying the southern settlements, Clark "carried the war into Africa." With about a hundred and fifty men gathered from the frontiers of Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky, he descended the Ohio River, built a fort at Louisville, and by an heroic forced march across the country captured Kaskaskia, while Cahokia and Vincennes at once surrendered to the valorous Kentuckian.

Meanwhile there was business at hand for the people of Boonesborough. Amid all these alarms they had still neglected to complete their defenses; but now, under the energetic administration of Boone, the palisades were finished, gates and fortresses strengthened, and all four of the corner blockhouses put in order. In ten days they were ready for the slowly advancing host.

Unless fleeing, Indians are never in a hurry; they spend much time in noisy preparation. Hunters and scouts came into Boonesborough from time to time, and occasionally a retaliatory expedition would return with horses and scalps from the Little Miami and the Scioto, all of them reporting delays on the part of the enemy; nevertheless all agreed that a large force was forming. Toward the close of August Boone, wearied of being cooped up in the fort, went forth at the head of thirty woodsmen to scout in the neighborhood of the Scioto towns. With him were Kenton and Alexander Montgomery, who remained behind in Ohio to capture horses and probably prisoners, while Boone and the others returned after a week's absence. On their way home they discovered that the enemy was now at Lower Blue Licks, but a short distance from Boonesborough.

At about ten o'clock the following morning (September 7th) the Indian army appeared before the fort. It numbered fully four hundred warriors, mostly Shawnese, but with some Wyandots, Cherokees, Delawares, Mingos, and other tribesmen. Accompanying them were some forty French-Canadians, all under the command of Boone's "father," the redoubtable Black Fish. Pompey served as chief interpreter.

Much time was spent in parleys, Boone in this manner delaying operations as long as possible, vainly hoping that promised reenforcements might meanwhile arrive from the Holston. Black Fish wept freely, after the Indian fashion, over the ingratitude of his runaway "son," and his present stubborn attitude; for the latter now told the forest chief that he and his people proposed to fight to the last man. Black Fish presented letters and proclamations from Hamilton, again offering pardon to all who would take the oath of allegiance to the king, and military offices for Boone and the other leaders. When these were rejected, the Indians attempted treachery, seeking to overpower and kill the white commissioners to a treaty being held in front of the fort. From this final council, ending in a wild uproar, in which bullets flew and knives and tomahawks clashed, the whites escaped with difficulty, the two Boones and another commissioner receiving painful wounds.

A siege of ten days now ensued (September 8th to 17th), one of the most remarkable in the history of savage warfare. The site of the fort, a parallelogram embracing three-quarters of an acre, had been unwisely chosen. There was abundant cover for the enemy under the high river bank, also beneath an encircling clay bank rising from the salt-lick branch; from hills upon either side spies could see what was happening within the walls, and occasionally drop a ball into the small herd of cattle and horses sheltered behind the palisades; while to these natural disadvantages were added the failure of the garrison to clear from the neighborhood of the walls the numerous trees, stumps, bushes, and rocks, each of which furnished the best of cover for a lurking foe.