Daniel Boone

Such, however, was the stubbornness of the defense, in which the women were, in their way, quite as efficient as the men, that the forces under Black Fish could make but small impression upon the valiant little garrison. Every artifice known to savages, or that could be suggested by the French, was without avail. Almost nightly rains and the energy of the riflemen frustrated the numerous attempts to set fire to the cabins by throwing torches and lighted fagots upon their roofs; a tunnel, intended to be used for blowing up the walls, was well under way from the river bank when rain caused it to cave in; attempts at scaling were invariably repelled, and in sharpshooting the whites as usual proved the superiors.

But the result often hung in the balance. Sometimes the attack lasted throughout the night, the scene being constantly lighted by the flash of the rifles and the glare of hurling fagots. Besiegers and garrison frequently exchanged fierce cries of threat and defiance, mingled with many a keen shaft of wit and epithet; at times the yells and whoops of the savages, the answering shouts and huzzahs of the defenders, the screams of women and girls, the howling of dogs, the snorting and bellowing of the plunging live stock, together with the sharp rattle of firearms, created a deafening hubbub well calculated to test the nerves of the strongest.

At last, on the morning of Friday, the eighteenth, the Indians, now thoroughly disheartened, suddenly disappeared into the forest as silently as they had come. Again Boonesborough was free, having passed through the longest and severest ordeal of attack ever known in Kentucky; indeed, it proved to be the last effort against this station. Within the walls sixty persons had been capable of bearing arms, but only forty were effective, some of these being negroes; Logan's Fort had sent a reenforcement of fifteen men, and Harrodsburg a few others. Of the garrison but two were killed and four wounded, while Boone estimated that the enemy lost thirty-seven killed and a large number wounded. The casualties within the fort were astonishingly small, when the large amount of ammunition expended by the besiegers is taken into account. After they had retired, Boone's men picked up a hundred and twenty-five pounds of flattened bullets that had been fired at the log stronghold, handfuls being scooped up beneath the port-holes of the bastions; this salvage made no account of the balls thickly studding the walls, it being estimated that a hundred pounds of lead were buried in the logs of one of the bastions.

A week later a small company of militiamen arrived from Virginia, and several minor expeditions were now made against the Shawnese upon their own soil. These raids were chiefly piloted by Boone's salt-makers, many of whom had now returned from captivity. Boone is credited with saying in his later years, although no doubt in ruder language than this: "Never did the Indians pursue so disastrous a policy as when they captured me and my salt-boilers, and taught us, what we did not know before, the way to their towns and the geography of their country; for though at first our captivity was considered a great calamity to Kentucky, it resulted in the most signal benefits to the country."

Captain Boone was not without his critics. Soon after the siege he was arraigned before a court-martial at Logan's Fort upon the following charges preferred by Colonel Calloway, who thought that the great hunter was in favor of the British Government and had sought opportunity to play into its hands, therefore should be deprived of his commission in the Kentucky County militia:

"1. That Boone had taken out twenty-six men[15] to make salt at the Blue Licks, and the Indians had caught him trapping for beaver ten miles below on Licking, and he voluntarily surrendered his men at the Licks to the enemy.

"2. That when a prisoner, he engaged with Gov. Hamilton to surrender the people of Boonesborough to be removed to Detroit, and live under British protection and jurisdiction.

"3. That returning from captivity, he encouraged a party of men to accompany him to the Paint Lick Town, weakening the garrison at a time when the arrival of an Indian army was daily expected to attack the fort.

"4. That preceding the attack on Boonesborough, he was willing to take the officers of the fort, on pretense of making peace, to the Indian camp, beyond the protection of the guns of the garrison."

Boone defended himself at length, maintaining that he aimed only at the interests of the country; that while hunting at the licks he was engaged in the necessary service of the camp; that he had used duplicity to win the confidence of the enemy, and it resulted favorably, as he was thereby enabled to escape in time to warn his people and put them in a state of defense; that his Scioto expedition was a legitimate scouting trip, and turned out well; and that in the negotiations before the fort he was simply "playing" the Indians in order to gain time for expected reenforcements. He was not only honorably acquitted, but at once advanced to the rank of major, and received evidences of the unhesitating loyalty of all classes of his fellow borderers, the majority of whom appear to have always confided in his sagacity and patriotism.

Personally vindicated, the enemy departed, and several companies of militia now arriving to garrison the stations for the winter, Major Boone once more turned his face to the Yadkin and sought his family. He found them at the Bryan settlement, living comfortably in a small log cabin, but until then unconscious of his return from the wilderness in which they had supposed he found his grave.

CHAPTER XII
SOLDIER AND STATESMAN

In Daniel Boone's "autobiography," he dismisses his year of absence from Kentucky with few words: "I went into the settlement, and nothing worthy of notice passed for some time." No doubt he hunted in some of his old haunts upon the Yadkin; and there is reason for believing that he made a trip upon business of some character to Charleston, S.C.

Meanwhile, his fellow settlers of Kentucky had not been inactive. In February (1779) Clark repossessed himself of Vincennes after one of the most brilliant forced marches of the Revolution; and having there captured Governor Hamilton—the "hair-buying general," as the frontiersmen called him, because they thought he paid bounties on American scalps—had sent him a prisoner to Virginia. The long siege of Boonesborough and the other attacks of the preceding year, together with more recent assaults upon flatboats descending the Ohio, had strongly disposed the Kentuckians to retaliate on the Shawnese. Two hundred and thirty riflemen under Colonel Bowman rendezvoused in July at the mouth of the Licking, where is now the city of Covington. Nearly a third of the force were left to guard the boats in which they crossed the Ohio, the rest marching against Old Chillicothe, the chief Shawnese town on the Little Miami. They surprised the Indians, and a hotly contested battle ensued, lasting from dawn until ten o'clock in the morning; but the overpowering numbers of the savages caused Bowman to return crestfallen to Kentucky with a loss of nearly a dozen men. This was the forerunner of many defeats of Americans, both bordermen and regulars, at the hands of the fierce tribesmen of Ohio.

Readers of Revolutionary history as related from the Eastern standpoint are led to suppose that the prolonged struggle with the mother country everywhere strained the resources of the young nation, and was the chief thought of the people. This high tension was, however, principally in the tidewater region. In the "back country," as the Western frontiers were called, there was no lack of patriotism, and bordermen were numerous in the colonial armies; yet the development of the trans-Alleghany region was to them of more immediate concern, and went forward vigorously, especially during the last half of the war. This did not mean that the backwoodsmen of the foot-hills were escaping from the conflict by crossing westward beyond the mountains; they were instead planting themselves upon the left flank, for French and Indian scalping parties were continually harrying the Western settlements, and the Eastern forces were too busily engaged to give succor. Kentuckians were left practically alone to defend the backdoor of the young Republic.

In this year (1779) the Virginia legislature adopted laws for the preemption of land in Kentucky, which promised a more secure tenure than had hitherto prevailed, and thus gave great impetus to over-mountain emigration. Hitherto those going out to Kentucky were largely hunters, explorers, surveyors, and land speculators; comparatively few families were established in the wilderness stations. But henceforth the emigration was chiefly by households, some by boats down the Ohio River, and others overland by the Wilderness Road—for the first official improvement of which Virginia made a small appropriation at this time. Says Chief Justice Robinson,[16] whose parents settled in Kentucky in December:

"This beneficent enactment brought to the country during the fall and winter of that year an unexampled tide of emigrants, who, exchanging all the comforts of their native society and homes for settlements for themselves and their children here, came like pilgrims to a wilderness to be made secure by their arms and habitable by the toil of their lives. Through privations incredible and perils thick, thousands of men, women, and children came in successive caravans, forming continuous streams of human beings, horses, cattle, and other domestic animals, all moving onward along a lonely and houseless path to a wild and cheerless land. Cast your eyes back on that long procession of missionaries in the cause of civilization; behold the men on foot with their trusty guns on their shoulders, driving stock and leading packhorses; and the women, some walking with pails on their heads, others riding, with children in their laps, and other children swung in baskets on horses, fastened to the tails of others going before; see them encamped at night expecting to be massacred by Indians; behold them in the month of December, in that ever-memorable season of unprecedented cold called the 'hard winter,' traveling two or three miles a day, frequently in danger of being frozen, or killed by the falling of horses on the icy and almost impassable trace, and subsisting on stinted allowances of stale bread and meat; but now, lastly, look at them at the destined fort, perhaps on the eve of merry Christmas, when met by the hearty welcome of friends who had come before, and cheered by fresh buffalo-meat and parched corn, they rejoice at their deliverance, and resolve to be contented with their lot."

In October, as a part of this great throng, Daniel Boone and his family returned to Kentucky by his old route through Cumberland Gap, being two weeks upon the journey. The great hunter was at the head of a company of Rowan County folk, and carried with him two small cannon, the first artillery sent by Virginia to protect the Western forts. Either as one of his party, or later in the season, there came to Kentucky Abraham Lincoln, of Rockingham County, Va., grandfather of the martyred president. The Lincolns and the Boones had been neighbors and warm friends in Pennsylvania, and ever since had maintained pleasant relations—indeed, had frequently intermarried. It was by Boone's advice and encouragement that Lincoln migrated with his family to the "dark and bloody ground" and took up a forest claim in the heart of Jefferson County. Daniel's younger brother Edward, killed by Indians a year later, was of the same company.

Boone also brought news that the legislature had incorporated "the town of Boonesborough in the County of Kentuckey," of which he was named a trustee, which office he eventually declined. The town, although now laid out into building lots, and anticipating a prosperous growth, never rose to importance and at last passed away. Nothing now remains upon the deserted site, which Boone could have known, save a decrepit sycamore-tree and a tumble-down ferry established in the year of the incorporation.

As indicated in Robinson's address, quoted above, the winter of 1779-80 was a season of unwonted severity. After an exceptionally mild autumn, cold weather set in by the middle of November and lasted without thaw for two months, with deep snow and zero temperature. The rivers were frozen as far south as Nashville; emigrant wagons were stalled in the drifts while crossing the mountains, and everywhere was reported unexampled hardship. It will be remembered that the Revolutionary Army in the East suffered intensely from the same cause. The Indians had, the preceding summer, destroyed most of the corn throughout Kentucky; the game was rapidly decreasing, deer and buffaloes having receded before the advance of settlement, and a temporary famine ensued. Hunters were employed to obtain meat for the newcomers; and in this occupation Boone and Harrod, in particular, were actively engaged throughout the winter, making long trips into the forest, both north and south of Kentucky River.

The land titles granted by the Transylvania Company having been declared void, it became necessary for Boone and the other settlers under that grant to purchase from the State government of Virginia new warrants. For this purpose Boone set out for Richmond in the spring. Nathaniel and Thomas Hart and others of his friends commissioned him to act as their agent in this matter. With his own small means and that which was entrusted to him for the purpose, he carried $20,000 in depreciated paper money—probably worth but half that amount in silver. It appears that of this entire sum he was robbed upon his way—where, or under what circumstances, we are unable to discover. His petition to the Kentucky legislature, in his old age, simply states the fact of the robbery, adding that he "was left destitute." A large part of the money was the property of his old friends, the Harts, but many others also suffered greatly. There was some disposition on the part of a few to attribute dishonorable action to Boone; but the Harts, although the chief losers, came promptly to the rescue and sharply censured his critics, declaring him to be a "just and upright" man, beyond suspicion—a verdict which soon became unanimous. Sympathy for the honest but unbusinesslike pioneer was so general, that late in June, soon after the robbery, Virginia granted him a preemption of a thousand acres of land in what is now Bourbon County.

A tradition exists that while in Virginia that summer Boone called upon his former host at Detroit, then a prisoner of war, and expressed sympathy for the sad plight into which the English governor had fallen; also some indignation at the harsh treatment accorded him, and of which Hamilton bitterly complained.

The founder of Boonesborough was soon back at his station, for he served as a juryman there on the first of July. During his absence immigration into Kentucky had been greater than ever; three hundred well-laden family boats had arrived in the spring from the Pennsylvania and New York frontiers, while many caravans had come from Virginia and the Carolinas over the Wilderness Road. Attacks by Indian scalping parties had been numerous along both routes, but particularly upon the Ohio. As a reprisal for Bowman's expedition of the previous year, and intending to interrupt settlement, Colonel Byrd, of the British Army, descended in June upon Ruddle's and Martin's Stations, at the forks of the Licking, with six hundred Indians and French-Canadians, and bringing six small cannon with which to batter the Kentucky palisades. Both garrisons were compelled to surrender, and the victors returned to Detroit with a train of three hundred prisoners—men, women, and children—upon whom the savages practised cruelties of a particularly atrocious character.

This inhuman treatment of prisoners of war created wide-spread indignation upon the American border. In retaliation, George Rogers Clark at once organized an expedition to destroy Pickaway, one of the principal Shawnese towns on the Great Miami. The place was reduced to ashes and a large number of Indians killed, the Americans losing seventeen men. Clark had previously built Fort Jefferson, upon the first bluff on the eastern side of the Mississippi below the mouth of the Ohio, in order to accentuate the claim of the United States that it extended to the Mississippi on the west; but as this was upon the territory of friendly Chickasaws, the invasion aroused their ire, and it was deemed prudent temporarily to abandon the post.

Another important event of the year (November, 1780) was the division of Kentucky by the Virginia legislature into three counties—Jefferson, with its seat at Louisville, now the chief town in the Western country; Lincoln, governed from Harrodsburg; and Fayette, with Lexington as its seat. Of these, Fayette, embracing the country between the Kentucky and the Ohio, was the least populated; and, being the most northern and traversed by the Licking River, now the chief war-path of the Shawnese, was most exposed to attack. After his return Boone soon tired of Boonesborough, for in his absence the population had greatly changed by the removal or death of many of his old friends; and, moreover, game had quite deserted the neighborhood. With his family, his laden packhorses, and his dogs, he therefore moved to a new location across Kentucky River, about five miles northwest of his first settlement. Here, at the crossing of several buffalo-trails, and on the banks of Boone's Creek, he built a palisaded log house called Boone's Station. Upon the division of Kentucky this new stronghold fell within the borders of Fayette County.

In the primitive stage of frontier settlement, when the common weal demanded from every man or boy able to carry a rifle active militia service whenever called upon, the military organization was quite equal in importance to the civil. The new wilderness counties were therefore equipped with a full roll of officers, Fayette County's colonel being John Todd, while Daniel Boone was lieutenant-colonel; Floyd, Pope, Logan, and Trigg served the sister counties in like manner. The three county regiments were formed into a brigade, with Clark as brigadier-general, his headquarters being at Louisville (Fort Nelson). Each county had also a court to try civil and criminal cases, but capital offenses could only be tried at Richmond. There was likewise a surveyor for each county, Colonel Thomas Marshall serving for Fayette; Boone was his deputy for several years (1782-85).

In October, 1780, Edward Boone, then but thirty-six years of age, accompanied Daniel to Grassy Lick, in the northeast part of the present Bourbon County, to boil salt. Being attacked by a large band of Indians, Edward was killed in the first volley, and fell at the feet of his brother, who at once shot the savage whom he thought to be the slayer. Daniel then fled, stopping once to load and kill another foe. Closely pursued, he had recourse to all the arts of evasion at his command—wading streams to break the trail, swinging from tree to tree by aid of wild grape-vines, and frequently zigzagging. A hound used in the chase kept closely to him, however, and revealed his whereabouts by baying, until the hunter killed the wily beast, and finally reached his station in safety. Heading an avenging party of sixty men, Boone at once went in pursuit of the enemy, and followed them into Ohio, but the expedition returned without result.

The following April Boone went to Richmond as one of the first representatives of Fayette County in the State legislature. With the approach of Cornwallis, La Fayette, whose corps was then protecting Virginia, abandoned Richmond, and the Assembly adjourned to Charlottesville. Colonel Tarleton, at the head of a body of light horse, made a dash upon the town, hoping to capture the law-makers, and particularly Governor Jefferson, whose term was just then expiring. Jefferson and the entire Assembly had been warned, but had a narrow escape (June 4th), for while they were riding out of one end of town Tarleton was galloping in at the other. The raider succeeded in capturing three or four of the legislators, Boone among them, and after destroying a quantity of military stores took his prisoners to Cornwallis's camp. The members were paroled after a few days' detention. The Assembly fled to Staunton, thirty-five miles distant, where it resumed the session. The released members are reported to have again taken their seats, although, after his capture, Boone's name does not appear in the printed journals. Possibly the conditions of the parole did not permit him again to serve at the current session, which closed the twenty-third of June. He seems to have spent the summer in Kentucky, and late in September went up the Ohio to Pittsburg, thence journeying to the home of his boyhood in eastern Pennsylvania, where he visited friends and relatives for a month, and then returned to Richmond to resume his legislative duties.

Of all the dark years which Kentucky experienced, 1782 was the bloodiest. The British authorities at Detroit exerted their utmost endeavors to stem the rising tide of settlement and to crush the aggressive military operations of Clark and his fellow-borderers. With presents and smooth words they enlisted the cooperation of the most distant tribes, the hope being held out that success would surely follow persistent attack and a policy of "no quarter." It would be wearisome to cite all the forays made by savages during this fateful year, upon flatboats descending the Ohio, upon parties of immigrants following the Wilderness Road, upon outlying forest settlers, and in the neighborhood of fortified stations. The border annals of the time abound in details of robbery, burning, murder, captivities, and of heart-rending tortures worse than death. A few only which have won prominence in history must here suffice.

In March, some Wyandots had been operating in the neighborhood of Boonesborough and then departed for Estill's Station, fifteen miles away, near the present town of Richmond. Captain Estill and his garrison of twenty-five men were at the time absent on a scout, and thus unable to prevent the killing and scalping of a young woman and the capture of a negro slave. According to custom, the Indians retreated rapidly after this adventure, but were pursued by Estill. A stubborn fight ensued, there being now eighteen whites and twenty-five savages. Each man stood behind a tree, and through nearly two hours fought with uncommon tenacity. The Indians lost seventeen killed and two wounded, while the whites were reduced to three survivors, Estill himself being among the slain. The survivors then withdrew by mutual consent.

In May, his station having been attacked with some loss, Captain Ashton followed the retreating party of besiegers, much larger than his own squad, and had a fierce engagement with them lasting two hours. He and eleven of his comrades lost their lives, and the remainder fled in dismay. A similar tragedy occurred in August, when Captain Holden, chasing a band of scalpers, was defeated with a loss of four killed and one wounded.

The month of August marked the height of the onslaught. Horses were carried off, cattle killed, men at work in the fields mercilessly slaughtered, and several of the more recent and feeble stations were abandoned. Bryan's Station, consisting of forty cabins enclosed by a stout palisade, was the largest and northernmost of a group of Fayette County settlements in the rich country of which Lexington is the center. An army of nearly a thousand Indians—the largest of either race that had thus far been mustered in the West—was gathered under Captains Caldwell and McKee, of the British Army, who were accompanied by the renegade Simon Girty and a small party of rangers. Scouts had given a brief warning to the little garrison of fifty riflemen, but when the invaders appeared during the night of August 15th the defenders were still lacking a supply of water.

The Indians at first sought to conceal their presence by hiding in the weeds and bushes which, as at Boonesborough, had carelessly been left standing. Although aware of the extent of the attacking force, the garrison affected to be without suspicion. In the morning the women and girls, confident that if no fear were exhibited they would not be shot by the hiding savages, volunteered to go to the spring outside the walls, and by means of buckets bring in enough water to fill the reservoir. This daring feat was successfully accomplished. Although painted faces and gleaming rifles could readily be seen in the underbrush all about the pool, this bucket-line of brave frontiers-women laughed and talked as gaily as if unconscious of danger, and were unmolested.

Immediately after their return within the gates, some young men went to the spring to draw the enemy's fire, and met a fusillade from which they barely escaped with their lives. The assault now began in earnest. Runners were soon spreading the news of the invasion among the neighboring garrisons. A relief party of forty-six hurrying in from Lexington fell into an ambush and lost a few of their number in killed and wounded, but the majority reached the fort through a storm of bullets. The besiegers adopted the usual methods of savage attack—quick rushes, shooting from cover, fire-arrows, and the customary uproar of whoops and yells—but without serious effect. The following morning, fearful of a general outpouring of settlers, the enemy withdrew hurriedly and in sullen mood.

Colonel Boone was soon marching through the forest toward Bryan's, as were similar companies from Lexington, McConnell's, and McGee's, the other members of the Fayette County group; and men from the counties of Jefferson and Lincoln were also upon the way, under their military leaders. The neighboring contingents promptly arrived at Bryan's in the course of the afternoon.

The next morning a hundred and eighty-two of the best riflemen in Kentucky, under Colonel Todd as ranking officer, started in pursuit of the foe, who had followed a buffalo-trail to Blue Licks, and were crossing the Licking when the pursuers arrived on the scene. A council of war was held, at which Boone, the most experienced man in the party, advised delay until the expected reenforcements could arrive. The bulk of the Indians had by this time escaped, leaving only about three hundred behind, who were plainly luring the whites to an attack. Todd, Trigg, and most of the other leaders sided with Boone; but Major Hugh McGary, an ardent, hot-headed man, with slight military training, dared the younger men to follow him, and spurred his horse into the river, whither, in the rash enthusiasm of the moment, the hot-bloods followed him, leaving the chief officers no choice but to accompany them.

Rushing up a rocky slope on the other side, where a few Indians could be seen, the column soon fell into an ambush. A mad panic resulted, in which the Kentuckians for the most part acted bravely and caused many of the enemy to fall; but they were overpowered and forced to flee in hot haste, leaving seventy of their number dead on the field and seven captured. Among the killed were Todd and Trigg, fighting gallantly to the last. Boone lost his son Israel, battling by his side, and himself escaped only by swimming the river amid a shower of lead. A day or two later Logan arrived with four hundred men, among whom was Simon Kenton, to reenforce Todd; to him was left only the melancholy duty of burying the dead, now sadly disfigured by Indians, vultures, and wolves.

The greater part of the savage victors, laden with scalps and spoils, returned exultantly to their northern homes, although small bands still remained south of the Ohio, carrying wide-spread devastation through the settlements, especially in the neighborhood of Salt River, where, at one station, thirty-seven prisoners were taken.

While all these tragedies were being enacted, General Clark, at the Falls of the Ohio, had offered only slight aid. But indignant protests sent in to the Virginia authorities by the Kentucky settlers, who were now in a state of great alarm, roused the hero of Kaskaskia and Vincennes to a sense of his duty. A vigorous call to arms was now issued throughout the three counties. Early in November over a thousand mounted riflemen met their brigadier at the mouth of the Licking, and from the site of Cincinnati marched through the Ohio forests to the Indian towns on the Little Miami. The savages fled in consternation, leaving the Kentuckians to burn their cabins and the warehouses of several British traders, besides large stores of grain and dried meats, thus entailing great suffering among the Shawnese during the winter now close at hand.

The triumphant return of this expedition gave fresh heart to the people of Kentucky; and the sequel proved that, although the tribesmen of the north frequently raided the over-mountain settlers throughout the decade to come, no such important invasions as those of 1782 were again undertaken.

CHAPTER XIII
KENTUCKY'S PATH OF THORNS

The preliminary articles of peace between the United States and Great Britain had been signed on the thirtieth of November, 1782; but it was not until the following spring that the news reached Kentucky. The northern tribes had information of the peace quite as early; and discouraged at apparently losing their British allies, who had fed, clothed, armed, and paid them from headquarters in Detroit, for a time suspended their organized raids into Kentucky. This welcome respite caused immigration to increase rapidly.

We have seen how the old system of making preemptions and surveys led to the overlapping of claims, the commission of many acts of injustice, and wide-spread confusion in titles. Late in 1782, Colonel Thomas Marshall, the surveyor of Fayette County, arrived from Virginia, and began to attempt a straightening of the land conflict. Boone was now not only the surveyor's deputy, but both sheriff and county lieutenant of Fayette, a combination of offices which he held until his departure from Kentucky. It was his duty as commandant to provide an escort for Marshall through the woods to the Falls of the Ohio, where was now the land-office. The following order which he issued for this guard has been preserved; it is a characteristic sample of the many scores of letters and other documents which have come down to us from the old hero, who fought better than he spelled:

"Orders to Capt. Hazelrigg—your are amedetly to order on Duty 3 of your Company as goude [guard] to scorte Col Marshshall to the falls of ohigho you will call on those who was Exicused from the Shone [Shawnese] Expedistion and those who Come into the County after the army Marched they are to meet at Lexinton on Sunday next with out fale given under my hand this 6 Day of Janury 1783.

"Dnl Boone"

Another specimen document of the time has reference to the scouting which it was necessary to maintain throughout much of the year; for small straggling bands of the enemy were still lurking about, eager to capture occasional scalps, the proudest trophies which a warrior could obtain. It also is apparently addressed to Hazelrigg:

"orders the 15th feberry 1783

"Sir you are amedetly to Call on Duty one thurd of our melitia as will mounted on horse as poseble and Eight Days purvistion to take a touere as follows Commanded by Leut Col patison and Rendevues at Strod [Strode's Station] on thusday the 20th from there to March to Colkes [Calk's] Cabin thence an Este Corse till the gat 10 miles above the uper Blew Licks then Down to Lickes thence to Limestown and if no Sine [is] found a stright Corse to Eagel Crick 10 miles from the head from then home if Sine be found the Commander to act as he thinks most prudent as you will be the Best Judge when on the Spot. You will first Call on all who [were] Excused from the Expedistion Except those that went to the falls with Col. Marshall and then Call them off as they Stand on the List here in faile not. given und my hand

"Daniel Boone C Lt."

In March the Virginia legislature united the three counties into the District of Kentucky, with complete legal and military machinery; in the latter, Benjamin Logan ranked as senior colonel and district lieutenant. It will be remembered that when the over-mountain country was detached from Fincastle, it was styled the County of Kentucky; then the name of Kentucky was obliterated by its division into three counties; and now the name was revived by the creation of the district, which in due time was to become a State. The log-built town of Danville was named as the capital.

It is estimated that during the few years immediately following the close of the Revolutionary War several thousand persons came each year to Kentucky from the seaboard States, although many of these returned to their homes either disillusioned or because of Indian scares. In addition to the actual settlers, who cared for no more land than they could use, there were merchants who saw great profits in taking boat-loads of goods down the Ohio or by pack-trains over the mountains; lawyers and other young professional men who wished to make a start in new communities; and speculators who hoped to make fortunes in obtaining for a song extensive tracts of fertile wild land, which they vainly imagined would soon be salable at large prices for farms and town sites. Many of the towns, although ill-kept and far from prosperous in appearance, were fast extending beyond their lines of palisade and boasting of stores, law-offices, market-places, and regular streets; Louisville had now grown to a village of three hundred inhabitants, of whom over a third were fighting-men. Besides Americans, there were among the newcomers many Germans, Scotch, and Irish, thrifty in the order named.

At last Kentucky was raising produce more than sufficient to feed her own people, and an export trade had sprung up. Crops were being diversified: Indian corn still remained the staple, but there were also melons, pumpkins, tobacco, and orchards; besides, great droves of horses, cattle, sheep, and hogs, branded or otherwise marked, ranged at large over the country, as in old days on the Virginia and Carolina foot-hills. Away from the settlements buffaloes still yielded much beef, bacon was made from bears, and venison was a staple commodity.

The fur trade was chiefly carried on by French trappers; but American hunters, like the Boones and Kenton, still gathered peltries from the streams and forests, and took or sent them to the East, either up the Ohio in bateaux or on packhorses over the mountains—paths still continually beset by savage assailants. Large quantities of ginseng were also shipped to the towns on the seaboard. Of late there had likewise developed a considerable trade with New Orleans and other Spanish towns down the Mississippi River. Traders with flatboats laden with Kentucky produce—bacon, beef, salt, and tobacco—would descend the great waterway, both of whose banks were audaciously claimed by Spain as far up as the mouth of the Ohio, and take great risks from Indian attack or from corrupt Spanish custom-house officials, whom it was necessary to bribe freely that they might not confiscate boat and cargo. This commerce was always uncertain, often ending in disaster, but immensely profitable to the unprincipled men who managed to ingratiate themselves with the Spanish authorities.

Boone was now in frequent demand as a pilot and surveyor by capitalists who relied upon his unrivaled knowledge of the country to help them find desirable tracts of land; often he was engaged to meet incoming parties of immigrants over the Wilderness Road, with a band of riflemen to guard them against Indians, to furnish them with wild meat—for the newcomers at first were inexpert in killing buffaloes—and to show them the way to their claims. He was prominent as a pioneer; as county lieutenant he summoned his faithful men-at-arms to repel or avenge savage attacks; and his fame as hunter and explorer had by this time not only become general throughout the United States but had even reached Europe.

His reputation was largely increased by the appearance in 1784 of the so-called "autobiography." We have seen that, although capable of roughly expressing himself on paper, and of making records of his rude surveys, he was in no sense a scholar. Yet this autobiography, although signed by himself, is pedantic in form, and deals in words as large and sonorous as though uttered by the great Doctor Samuel Johnson. As a matter of fact, it is the production of John Filson, the first historian of Kentucky and one of the pioneers of Cincinnati. Filson was a schoolmaster, quite devoid of humor, and with a strong penchant for learned phrases. In setting down the story of Boone's life, as related to him by the great hunter, he made the latter talk in the first person, in a stilted manner quite foreign to the hardy but unlettered folk of whom Boone was a type. Wherever Boone's memory failed, Filson appears to have filled in the gaps from tradition and his own imagination; thus the autobiography is often wrong as to facts, and possesses but minor value as historical material. The little book was, however, widely circulated both at home and abroad, and gave Boone a notoriety excelled by few men of his day. Some years later Byron wrote some indifferent lines upon "General Boone of Kentucky;" the public journals of the time had accounts of his prowess, often grossly exaggerated; and English travelers into the interior of America eagerly sought the hero and told of him in their books.

Yet it must be confessed that he had now ceased to be a real leader in the affairs of Kentucky. A kindly, simple-hearted, modest, silent man, he had lived so long by himself alone in the woods that he was ill fitted to cope with the horde of speculators and other self-seekers who were now despoiling the old hunting-grounds to which Finley had piloted him only fifteen years before. Of great use to the frontier settlements as explorer, hunter, pilot, land-seeker, surveyor, Indian fighter, and sheriff—and, indeed, as magistrate and legislator so long as Kentucky was a community of riflemen—he had small capacity for the economic and political sides of commonwealth-building. For this reason we find him hereafter, although still in middle life, taking but slight part in the making of Kentucky; none the less did his career continue to be adventurous, picturesque, and in a measure typical of the rapidly expanding West.

Probably in the early spring of 1786 Boone left the neighborhood of the Kentucky River, and for some three years dwelt at Maysville (Limestone), still the chief gateway to Kentucky for the crowds of immigrants who came by water. He was there a tavern-keeper—probably Mrs. Boone was the actual hostess—and small river merchant. He still frequently worked at surveying, of course hunted and trapped as of old, and traded up and down the Ohio River between Maysville and Point Pleasant—the last-named occupation a far from peaceful one, for in those troublous times navigation of the Ohio was akin to running the gauntlet; savages haunted the banks, and by dint of both strategy and open attack wrought a heavy mortality among luckless travelers and tradesmen. The goods which he bartered to the Kentuckians for furs, skins, and ginseng were obtained in Maryland, whither he and his sons went with laden pack-animals, often driving before them loose horses for sale in the Eastern markets. Sometimes they followed some familiar mountain road, at others struck out over new paths, for no longer was the Wilderness Road the only overland highway to the West.

Kentucky was now pursuing a path strewn with thorns. Northward, the British still held the military posts on the upper lakes, owing to the non-fulfilment of certain stipulations in the treaty of peace. Between these and the settlements south of the Ohio lay a wide area populated by powerful and hostile tribes of Indians, late allies of the British, deadly enemies of Kentucky, and still aided and abetted by military agents of the king. To the South, Spain controlled the Mississippi, the commercial highway of the West; jealous of American growth, she harshly denied to Kentuckians the freedom of the river, and was accused of turning against them and their neighbors of Tennessee the fierce warriors of the Creek and Cherokee tribes. On their part, the Kentuckians looked with hungry eyes upon the rich lands held by Spain.

Not least of Kentucky's trials was the political discontent among her own people, which for many years lay like a blight upon her happiness and prosperity. Virginia's home necessities had prevented that commonwealth from giving much aid to the West during the Revolution, and at its conclusion her policy toward the Indians lacked the aggressive vigor for which Kentuckians pleaded. This was sufficient cause for dissatisfaction; but to this was added another of still greater importance. To gain the free navigation of the Mississippi, and thus to have an outlet to the sea, long appeared to be essential to Western progress. At first the Eastern men in Congress failed to realize this need, thereby greatly exasperating the over-mountain men. All manner of schemes were in the air, varying with men's temperaments and ambitions. Some, like Clark—who, by this time had, under the influence of intemperance, greatly fallen in popular esteem, although not without followers—favored a filibustering expedition against the Spanish; and later (1788), when this did not appear practicable, were willing to join hands with Spain herself in the development of the continental interior; and later still (1793-94), to help France oust Spain from Louisiana. Others wished Kentucky to be an independent State, free to conduct her own affairs and make such foreign alliances as were needful; but Virginia and Congress did not release her.

Interwoven with this more or less secret agitation for separating the West from the East were the corrupt intrigues of Spain, which might have been more successful had she pursued a persistent policy. Her agents—among whom were some Western pioneers who later found difficulty in explaining their conduct—craftily fanned the embers of discontent, spread reports that Congress intended to sacrifice to Spain the navigation rights of the West, distributed bribes, and were even accused of advising Spain to arm the Southern Indians in order to increase popular uneasiness over existing conditions. Spain also offered large land grants to prominent American borderers who should lead colonies to settle beyond the Mississippi and become her subjects—a proposition which Clark once offered to accept, but did not; but of which we shall see that Daniel Boone, in his days of discontent, took advantage, as did also a few other Kentucky pioneers. Ultimately Congress resolved never to abandon its claim to the Mississippi (1787); and when the United States became strong, and the advantages of union were more clearly seen in the West, Kentucky became a member of the sisterhood of States (1792).

It is estimated that, between 1783 and 1790, fully fifteen hundred Kentuckians were massacred by Indians or taken captive to the savage towns; and the frontiers of Virginia and Pennsylvania furnished their full quota to the long roll of victims. It is impossible in so small a volume as this to mention all of even the principal incidents in the catalogue of assaults, heroic defenses, murders, burnings, torturings, escapes, reprisals, and ambushes which constitute the lurid annals of this protracted border warfare. The reader who has followed thus far this story of a strenuous life, will understand what these meant; to what deeds of daring they gave rise on the part of the men and women of the border; what privation and anguish they entailed. But let us not forget that neither race could claim, in this titanic struggle for the mastery of the hunting-grounds, a monopoly of courage or of cowardice, of brutality or of mercy. The Indians suffered quite as keenly as the whites in the burning of their villages, crops, and supplies, and by the loss of life either in battle, by stealthy attack, or by treachery. The frontiersmen learned from the red men the lessons of forest warfare, and often outdid their tutors in ferocity. The contest between civilization and savagery is, in the nature of things, unavoidable; the result also is foreordained. It is well for our peace of mind that, in the dark story of the Juggernaut car, we do not inquire too closely into details.

In 1785, goaded by numerous attacks on settlers and immigrants, Clark led a thousand men against the tribes on the Wabash; but by this time he had lost control of the situation, and cowardice on the part of his troops, combined with lack of provisions, led to the practical failure of the expedition, although the Indians were much frightened.

At the same time, Logan was more successful in an attack on the Shawnese of the Scioto Valley, who lost heavily in killed and prisoners. In neither of these expeditions does Boone appear to have taken part.

The year 1787 was chiefly notable, in the history of the West, for the adoption by Congress of the Ordinance for the government of the Territory Northwest of the River Ohio, wherein there dwelt perhaps seven thousand whites, mostly unprogressive French-Canadians, in small settlements flanking the Mississippi and the Great Lakes, and in the Wabash Valley. Along the Ohio were scattered a few American hamlets, chiefly in Kentucky. In the same year the Indian war reached a height of fury which produced a panic throughout the border, and frantic appeals to Virginia, which brought insufficient aid. Boone, now a town trustee of Maysville, was sent to the legislature that autumn, and occupied his seat at Richmond from October until January. While there, we find him strongly complaining that the arms sent out to Kentucky by the State during the year were unfit for use, the swords being without scabbards, and the rifles without cartridge-boxes or flints.

A child of the wilderness, Boone was law-abiding and loved peace, but he chafed at legal forms. He had, in various parts of Kentucky, preempted much land in the crude fashion of his day, both under the Transylvania Company and the later statutes of Virginia—how much, it would now be difficult to ascertain. In his old survey-books, still preserved in the Wisconsin State Historical Library, one finds numerous claim entries for himself, ranging from four hundred to ten thousand acres each—a tract which he called "Stockfield," near Boonesborough; on Cartwright's Creek, a branch of Beech Fork of Salt River; on the Licking, Elkhorn, Boone's Creek, and elsewhere. The following is a specimen entry, dated "Aperel the 22 1785," recording a claim made "on the Bank of Cantuckey"; it illustrates the loose surveying methods of the time: "Survayd for Dal Boone 5000 acres begin at Robert Camels N E Corner at a 2 White ashes and Buckeyes S 1200 p[oles] to 3 Shuger trees Ealm and walnut E 666 p to 6 Shuger trees and ash N 1200 p to a poplar and beech W 666 p to the begining."

It did not occur to our easy-going hero that any one would question his right to as much land as he cared to hold in a wilderness which he had done so much to bring to the attention of the world. But claim-jumpers were no respecters of persons. It was discovered that Boone had carelessly failed to make any of his preemptions according to the letter of the law, leaving it open for any adventurer to reenter the choice claims which he had selected with the care of an expert, and to treat him as an interloper. Suits of ejectment followed one by one (1785-98), until in the end his acres were taken from him by the courts, and the good-hearted, simple fellow was sent adrift in the world absolutely landless.

At first, when his broad acres began to melt away, the great hunter, careless of his possessions, appeared to exhibit no concern; but the accumulation of his disasters, together with the rapid growth of settlement upon the hunting-grounds, and doubtless some domestic nagging, developed within him an intensity of depression which led him to abandon his long-beloved Kentucky and vow never again to dwell within her limits. In the autumn of 1788, before his disasters were quite complete, this resolution was carried into effect; with wife and family, and what few worldly goods he possessed, he removed to Point Pleasant, at the junction of the Great Kanawha and the Ohio—in our day a quaint little court-house town in West Virginia.

CHAPTER XIV
IN THE KANAWHA VALLEY

During his early years on the Kanawha, Boone kept a small store at Point Pleasant. Later, he moved to the neighborhood of Charleston, where he was engaged in the usual variety of occupations—piloting immigrants; as deputy surveyor of Kanawha County, surveying lands for settlers and speculators; taking small contracts for victualing the militia, who were frequently called out to protect the country from Indian forays; and in hunting. Some of his expeditions took him to the north of the Ohio, where he had several narrow escapes from capture and death at the hands of the enemy, and even into his old haunts on the Big Sandy, the Licking, and the Kentucky.

He traveled much, for a frontiersman. In 1788 he went with his wife and their son Nathan by horseback to the old Pennsylvania home in Berks County, where they spent a month with kinsfolk and friends. We find him in Maysville, on a business trip, during the year; indeed, there are evidences of numerous subsequent visits to that port. In May of the following year he was on the Monongahela River with a drove of horses for sale, Brownsville then being an important market for ginseng, horses, and cattle; and in the succeeding July he writes to a client, for whom he had done some surveying, that he would be in Philadelphia during the coming winter.

In October, 1789, there came to him, as the result of a popular petition, the appointment of lieutenant-colonel of Kanawha County—the first military organization in the valley; and in other ways he was treated with marked distinction by the primitive border folk of the valley, both because of his brilliant career in Kentucky and the fact that he was a surveyor and could write letters. One who knew him intimately at this time has left a pleasing description of the man, which will assist us in picturing him as he appeared to his new neighbors: "His large head, full chest, square shoulders, and stout form are still impressed upon my mind. He was (I think) about five feet ten inches in height, and his weight say 175. He was solid in mind as well as in body, never frivolous, thoughtless, or agitated; but was always quiet, meditative, and impressive, unpretentious, kind, and friendly in his manner. He came very much up to the idea we have of the old Grecian philosophers—particularly Diogenes."

By the summer of 1790, Indian raids again became almost unbearable. Fresh robberies and murders were daily reported in Kentucky, and along the Ohio and the Wabash. The expedition of Major J. F. Hamtramck, of the Federal Army, against the tribesmen on the Wabash, resulted in the burning of a few villages and the destruction of much corn; but Colonel Josiah Harmar's expedition in October against the towns on the Scioto and the St. Joseph, at the head of nearly 1,500 men, ended in failure and a crushing defeat, although the Indian losses were so great that the army was allowed to return to Cincinnati unmolested. Boone does not appear to have taken part in these operations, his militiamen probably being needed for home protection.

The following year the General Government for the first time took the field against the Indians in earnest. For seven years it had attempted to bring the tribesmen to terms by means of treaties, but without avail. Roused to fury by the steady increase of settlement north as well as south of the Ohio, the savages were making life a torment to the borderers. War seemed alone the remedy. In June, General Charles Scott, of Kentucky, raided the Miami and Wabash Indians. Two months later General James Wilkinson, with five hundred Kentuckians, laid waste a Miami village and captured many prisoners. These were intended but to open the road for an expedition of far greater proportions. In October, Governor Arthur St. Clair, of the Northwest Territory, a broken-down man unequal to such a task, was despatched against the Miami towns with an ill-organized army of two thousand raw troops. Upon the fourth of November they were surprised near the principal Miami village; hundreds of the men fled at the first alarm, and of those who remained over six hundred fell during the engagement, while nearly three hundred were wounded. This disastrous termination of the campaign demoralized the West and left the entire border again open to attack—an advantage which the scalping parties did not neglect.

While this disaster was occurring, Boone was again sitting in the legislature at Richmond, where he represented Kanawha County from October 17th to December 20th. The journals of the Assembly show him to have been a silent member, giving voice only in yea and nay; but he was placed upon two then important committees—religion, and propositions and licenses. It was voted to send ammunition for the militia on the Monongahela and the Kanawha, who were to be called out for the defense of the frontier. Before leaving Richmond, Boone wrote as follows to the governor:

"Monday 13th Dec 1791

"Sir as sum purson Must Carry out the armantstion [ammunition] to Red Stone [Brownsville, Pa.,] if your Exclency should have thought me a proper purson I would undertake it on conditions I have the apintment to vitel the company at Kanhowway [Kanawha] so that I Could take Down the flowre as I paste that place I am your Excelenceys most obedent omble servant

"Da^l Boone."

Five days later the contract was awarded to him; and we find among his papers receipts, obtained at several places on his way home, for the lead and flints which he was to deliver to the various military centers. But the following May, Colonel George Clendennin sharply complains to the governor that the ammunition and rations which Boone was to have supplied to Captain Caperton's rangers had not yet been delivered, and that Clendennin was forced to purchase these supplies from others. It does not appear from the records how this matter was settled; but as there seems to have been no official inquiry, the non-delivery was probably the result of a misunderstanding.

At last, after a quarter of a century of bloodshed, the United States Government was prepared to act in an effective manner. General Anthony Wayne—"Mad Anthony," of Stony Point—after spending a year and a half in reorganizing the Western army, established himself, in the winter of 1793-94, in a log fort at Greenville, eighty miles north of Cincinnati, and built a strong outpost at Fort Recovery, on the scene of St. Clair's defeat. After resisting an attack on Fort Recovery made on the last day of June by over two thousand painted warriors from the Upper Lakes, he advanced with his legion of about three thousand well-disciplined troops to the Maumee Valley and built Fort Defiance. Final battle was given to the tribesmen on the twentieth of August at Fallen Timbers. As the result of superb charges by infantry and cavalry, in forty minutes the Indian army was defeated and scattered. The backbone of savage opposition to Northwestern settlement was broken, and at the treaty of Greenville in the following summer (1795) a peace was secured which remained unbroken for fifteen years.

Wayne's great victory over the men of the wilderness gave new heart to Kentucky and the Northwest. The pioneers were exuberant in the expression of their joy. The long war, which had lasted practically since the mountains were first crossed by Boone and Finley, had been an almost constant strain upon the resources of the country. Now no longer pent up within palisades, and expecting nightly to be awakened by the whoops of savages to meet either slaughter or still more dreaded captivity, men could go forth without fear to open up forests, to cultivate fields, and peaceably to pursue the chase.

To hunters like Boone, in particular, this great change in their lives was a matter for rejoicing. The Kanawha Valley was not as rich in game as he had hoped; but in Kentucky and Ohio were still large herds of buffaloes and deer feeding on the cane-brake and the rank vegetation of the woods, and resorting to the numerous salt-licks which had as yet been uncontaminated by settlement.

After the peace, Boone for several seasons devoted himself almost exclusively to hunting; in beaver-trapping he was especially successful, his favorite haunt for these animals being the neighboring Valley of the Gauley. His game he shared freely with neighbors, now fast increasing in numbers, and the skins and furs were shipped to market, overland or by river, as of old.

Upon removing to the Kanawha, he still had a few claims left in Kentucky, but suits for ejectment were pending over most of these. They were all decided against him, and the remaining lands were sold by the sheriff for taxes, the last of them going in 1798. His failure to secure anything for his children to inherit, was to the last a source of sorrow to Boone.

The Kanawha in time came to be distasteful to him. Settlements above and below were driving away the game, and sometimes his bag was slight; the crowding of population disturbed the serenity which he sought in deep forests; the nervous energy of these newcomers, and the avarice of some of them, annoyed his quiet, hospitable soul; and he fretted to be again free, thinking that civilization cost too much in wear and tear of spirit.

Boone had long looked kindly toward the broad, practically unoccupied lands of forest and plain west of the Mississippi. Adventurous hunters brought him glowing tales of buffaloes, grizzly bears, and beavers to be found there without number. Spain, fearing an assault upon her possessions from Canada, was just now making flattering offers to those American pioneers who should colonize her territory, and by casting their fortunes with her people strengthen them. This opportunity attracted the disappointed man; he thought the time ripe for making a move which should leave the crowd far behind, and comfortably establish him in a country wherein a hunter might, for many years to come, breathe fresh air and follow the chase untrammeled.

In 1796, Daniel Morgan Boone, his oldest son, traveled with other adventurers in boats to St. Charles County, in eastern Missouri, where they took lands under certificates of cession from Charles Dehault Delassus, the Spanish lieutenant-governor of Upper Louisiana, resident at St. Louis. There were four families, all settling upon Femme Osage Creek, six miles above its junction with the Missouri, some twenty-five miles above the town of St. Charles, and forty-five by water from St. Louis.

Thither they were followed, apparently in the spring of 1799, by Daniel Boone and wife and their younger children. The departure of the great hunter, now in his sixty-fifth year, was the occasion for a general gathering of Kanawha pioneers at the home near Charleston. They came on foot, by horseback, and in canoe, from far and near, and bade him a farewell as solemnly affectionate as though he were departing for another world; indeed, Missouri then seemed almost as far away to the West Virginians as the Klondike is to dwellers in the Mississippi basin to-day—a long journey by packhorse or by flatboat into foreign wilds, beyond the great waterway concerning which the imaginations of untraveled men often ran riot.

The hegira of the Boones, from the junction of the Elk and the Kanawha, was accomplished by boats, into which were crowded such of their scant herd of live stock as could be accommodated. Upon the way they stopped at Kentucky towns along the Ohio, either to visit friends or to obtain provisions, and attracted marked attention, for throughout the West Boone was, of course, one of the best-known men of his day. In Cincinnati he was asked why, at his time of life, he left the comforts of an established home again to subject himself to the privations of the frontier. "Too crowded!" he replied with feeling. "I want more elbow-room!"

Arriving at the little Kentucky colony on Femme Osage Creek, where the Spanish authorities had granted him a thousand arpents[17] of land abutting his son's estate upon the north, he settled down in a little log cabin erected largely by his own hands, for the fourth and last time as a pioneer. He was never again in the Kanawha Valley, and but twice in Kentucky—once to testify as to some old survey-marks made by him, and again to pay the debts which he had left when removing to Point Pleasant.

CHAPTER XV
A SERENE OLD AGE

Missouri's sparse population at that time consisted largely of Frenchmen, who had taken easily to the yoke of Spain. For a people of easy-going disposition, theirs was an ideal existence. They led a patriarchal life, with their flocks and herds grazing upon a common pasture, and practised a crude agriculture whose returns were eked out by hunting in the limitless forests hard by. For companionship, the crude log cabins in the little settlements were assembled by the banks of the waterways, and there was small disposition to increase tillage beyond domestic necessities. There were practically no taxes to pay; military burdens sat lightly; the local syndic (or magistrate), the only government servant to be met outside of St. Louis, was sheriff, judge, jury, and commandant combined; there were no elections, for representative government was unknown; the fur and lead trade with St. Louis was the sole commerce, and their vocabulary did not contain the words enterprise and speculation.

Here was a paradise for a man of Boone's temperament, and through several years to come he was wont to declare that, next to his first long hunt in Kentucky, this was the happiest period of his life. On the eleventh of July, 1800, Delassus—a well-educated French gentleman, and a good judge of character—appointed him syndic for the Femme Osage district, a position which the old man held until the cession of Louisiana to the United States. This selection was not only because of his prominence among the settlers and his recognized honesty and fearlessness, but for the reason that he was one of the few among these unsophisticated folk who could make records. In a primitive community like the Femme Osage, Boone may well have ranked as a man of some education; and certainly he wrote a bold, free hand, showing much practise with the pen, although we have seen that his spelling and grammar might have been improved. When the government was turned over to President Jefferson's commissioner, Delassus delivered to that officer, by request, a detailed report upon the personality of his subordinates, and this is one of the entries in the list of syndics: "Mr. Boone, a respectable old man, just and impartial, he has already, since I appointed him, offered his resignation owing to his infirmities—believing I know his probity, I have induced him to remain, in view of my confidence in him, for the public good."