In Kentucky with Daniel Boone

Daniel Boone’s ancestors were English, his grandfather, George Boone, coming to America in 1717. Squire Boone, son of George, was the father of Daniel.

The Boones purchased a tract of land in what is now Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Squire Boone, Daniel’s father, married Sarah Morgan; they had eleven children, Daniel being the fourth and coming into the world on July 14, 1732. This date is according to the family record kept by his father’s brother James, who was a schoolmaster. Some of the biographies give different dates; but it is likely that James Boone knew the facts as well as any one.

The county of Bucks was then to all intents a frontier settlement; the Boones lived in a log house; all about them were the woods, which were running with game, and in which hostile savages were often seen.

Even in his school days, Daniel was known as a hunter; his eye was of the best and his rifle seldom failed. His passion for the wilderness was shown in those early times when he’d wander away in the silent forest and be missing for days. Then they would hunt for him and find him encamped miles and miles away, perhaps cooking his supper at a fire of sticks and calmly planning the building of a hut which was to shelter him for days to come.

A story is told of him which proves his early skill as a hunter. With some other lads of his own age, he started off for a day’s hunting of small game. The shades of late afternoon were deepening in the woods, and the boys were on their way back to the settlement when suddenly one of them cried out: “Panther! Panther!” Now of all the beasts of the forests, the lurking panther was held to be the deadliest; and knowing him for such, the boys ran for their lives. But not so Boone. Steadily he held his ground, his eye searching for the animal. Yes, there it was; a panther sure enough, and a big one. Calmly his long rifle came to his shoulder and his keen eyes drew the “bead.” And with the ringing crack of the weapon, down fell the panther, shot through and through.

Boone was still a boy when his father concluded he’d get on better if he went to North Carolina. He took up his homestead on the Yadkin River; and in this section Daniel grew to manhood, married Rebecca Bryan, and became the father of nine children.

During the whole of the dreadful Seven Years’ War, the whole frontier swarmed with hostile redskins; but when this ended, comparative quiet settled down, and Daniel Boone made the first of his long excursions into the unknown country beyond the Laurel Ridge or Cumberland Mountains.

The government of the colony of North Carolina had long been oppressive; free spirits like that of Boone could not stand the gall of oppression, and the thought came to him: “What a wonderful place to plant a new settlement this new country would be.”

And so when Colonel Henderson spoke to him, as it is believed he did, Boone was ready, and went upon his long exploration of the country of “Cantuck,” as he called it in one of his letters. Then followed the events related in this story, which runs very close to historical facts.

After the rescue of the Collaway girls and Boone’s daughter from the Indians, the savages came in force and attacked the log fort; but they were driven off. A few months later they returned with two hundred braves in the band. For two days and nights their attack was continued and at the end of that time they retreated once more, defeated.

The impossibility of holding any communication with the large settlements and the stoppage of supplies caused the hardy band at Boonesborough some suffering. They ran entirely out of salt; and as this was a thing which they must have, Boone determined to procure a supply.

Taking thirty men, he proceeded cautiously to Blue Licks with the intention of making salt from the salt water to be found in that section. While hunting and alone, Boone fell in with a band of several hundred Indians who were on their way to make another attack upon Boonesborough. They made him a prisoner, but following their usual policy they did him no immediate harm; holding him, possibly, for future torture.

Craftily Boone began casting about for the best thing to do; the Indians knew of the presence of his men; to have this huge band fall upon the thirty might mean death to them all. Boone concluded that to surrender his command and trust to the future was the best thing to be done. So the band of whites gave up their arms, and the Indians changed their plans as to Boonesborough, proceeding instead to their town of Chillicothe, on the Little Miami.

From here Boone and some of his men were sent to Detroit, where Boone’s men were turned over to the British. But the savages had conceived such a liking for Daniel himself that they refused to surrender him, determining to adopt him into their tribe. So they took him back to Chillicothe and made him a son of the Shawnee tribe.

Here he remained some months, being treated by the Indians as one of themselves; then a huge war party organized to march upon Boonesborough and take it by surprise, and Daniel saw that if the fort was to be saved, he must escape at once. Slipping from the Indian town in the early morning, Boone began a desperate journey toward the fort, one hundred and sixty miles away. It took him five days to make the journey, and when he reached the fort he was hailed as one returned from the dead. Indeed, so sure were they that he was dead that his family had returned to North Carolina.

Boone found the stockade in bad condition, and at once set about strengthening it. However, the great band did not move against Boonesborough; the escape of the great backwoodsman must have told them that the settlers would be awaiting them, and as they had had previous experiences of this sort they set the attack for a future time.

In August, no enemy presenting himself, Boone and a small party left the fort and marched against an Indian village on the Scioto. The braves belonging to this camp were encountered in full war paint, some distance from the town, and evidently on the march to join some larger band. The whites fell upon them and routed them, though outnumbered two to one. Suspecting that a large movement of the savages was taking place, Boone sent out a couple of scouts to get news. They soon returned saying that these suspicions were correct; and the frontiersmen hurried back toward Boonesborough in all haste.

On the day after their arrival at the fort, a great band of Indians, flying the British colors and commanded by a French-Canadian named Duquesne, made their appearance out of the forest.

The fort was summoned to surrender, but its defenders refused. They were sixty and the savages were fully five hundred; but they made up their minds to fight to the last.

The Indians, directed by their most famous chiefs, and now having the advantage of Duquesne’s skilled military direction, began their attack. Never was the marksmanship of the Kentucky riflemen more brilliant than it was in that battle. Duquesne soon saw that he was the greatest sufferer by this, as his Indians were falling all around him; so he set about mining under the river bank, meaning to blow up the fort.

However, Boone discovered this and set his men to countermining, flinging the freshly dug earth over the walls of the fort. The British leader saw by this that his plan had failed, and abandoning it began an attack as before.

This failed because of the unerring aim of the settlers; and then the attackers became besiegers, sitting down before the fort, out of rifle range, meaning to starve it into surrender. But in this he also failed; the defenders had more food than the Indians; and so, there being no way of feeding so large a band in a protracted siege, Duquesne gave up the attempt, and marched away, leaving Boonesborough once more victorious.

This was the last heavy blow aimed at the historic stockade. In spite of the war, emigrants poured into the new territory; Boone brought back his family and set to farming his acres like the others.

However, all during the affair with England, Kentucky continued to merit the name of “the dark and bloody ground.” Fierce battles were frequent, and the farmer tilled his hard won field with his long rifle always ready at hand. And even after peace had been declared, the Indians, under their own chiefs and under the renegade, Simon Girty, ranged the settled places and strove to stem the tide of immigration. But the whites were not to be denied; they pressed on and on until the territory was completely won.

Through a fault in the deeds and grants, the settlements in the new country were later thrown into disorder. Boone lost all his land, and moved into Virginia with his family, taking up his home on the Kanawha near to the place where the great battle was fought in the Dunmore War. Later he journeyed westward toward Missouri, where he reëstablished himself. As old age and ill health came on, Boone applied to Congress to recover his land; a part of it was made over to him. His old age, and he lived to be well on to ninety, was spent roaming the woods with his rifle. He died at the home of his son-in-law, Flanders Collaway, some distance from the city of St. Louis, in September, 1820.

Another Book to this Series is:
IN THE ROCKIES WITH KIT CARSON