The spirit of the pioneer knight-errant inspires Henderson's words: "In this situation, some few, of genuine courage and undaunted resolution, served to inspire the rest; by the help of whose example, assisted by a little pride and some ostentation, we made a shift to march on with all the appearance of gallantry, and, cavalier like, treated every insinuation of danger with the utmost contempt."

Fearing that Boone, who did not even know that Henderson's cavalcade was on the road, would be unable to hold out, Henderson realized the imperative necessity for sending him a message of encouragement. The bold young Virginian, William Cocke, volunteered to brave alone the dangers of the murder-haunted trail—to undertake a ride more truly memorable and hazardous than that of Revere. "This offer, extraordinary as it was, we could by no means refuse," remarks Henderson, who shed tears of gratitude as he proffered his sincere thanks and wrung the brave messenger's hand. Equipped with "a good Queen Anne's musket, plenty of ammunition, a tomahawk, a large cuttoe knife [French, couteau], a Dutch blanket, and no small quantity of jerked beef," Cocke on April 10th rode off "to the Cantuckey to Inform Capt Boone that we were on the road." The fearful apprehensions felt for Cocke's safety were later relieved, when along the road were discovered his letters informing Henderson of his arrival and of his having been joined on the way by Page Portwood of Rowan. On his arrival at Otter Creek, Cocke found Boone and his men, and on relating his adventures, "came in for his share of applause." Boone at once despatched the master woodman, Michael Stoner, with pack-horses to assist Henderson's party, which he met on April 18th at their encampment "in the Eye of the Rich Land." Along with "Excellent Beef in plenty," Stoner brought the story of Boone's determined stand and an account of the erection of a rude little fortification which they had hurriedly thrown up to resist attack. With laconic significance Henderson pays the following tribute to Boone which deserves to be perpetuated in national annals: "It was owing to Boone's confidence in us, and the people's in him, that a stand was ever attempted in order to wait for our coming."

In the course of their journey over the mountains and through the wilderness, the pioneers forgot the trials of the trail in the face of the surpassing beauties of the country. The Cumberlands were covered with rich undergrowth of the red and white rhododendron, the delicate laurel, the mountain ivy, the flame-azalea, the spicewood, and the cane; while the white stars of the dogwood and the carmine blossoms of the red-bud, strewn across the verdant background of the forest, gleamed in the eager air of spring. "To enter uppon a detail of the Beuty & Goodness of our Country," writes Nathaniel Henderson, "would be a task too arduous.… Let it suffice to tell you it far exceeds any country I ever saw or herd off. I am conscious its out of the power of any man to make you clearly sensible of the great Beuty and Richness of Kentucky." Young Felix Walker, endowed with more vivid powers of description, says with a touch of native eloquence:

Perhaps no Adventureor Since the days of donquicksotte or before ever felt So Cheerful & Ilated in prospect, every heart abounded with Joy & excitement … & exclusive of the Novelties of the Journey the advantages & accumalations arising on the Settlement of a new Country was a dazzling object with many of our Company.… As the Cain ceased, we began to discover the pleasing & Rapturous appearance of the plains of Kentucky, a New Sky & Strange Earth to be presented to our view.… So Rich a Soil we had never Saw before, Covered with Clover in full Bloom. the Woods alive abounding in wild Game, turkeys so numerous that it might be said there appeared but one flock Universally Scattered in the woods … it appeared that Nature in the profusion of her Bounties, had Spread a feast for all that lives, both for the Animal & Rational World, a Sight so delightful to our View and grateful to our feelings almost Induced us, in Immitation of Columbus in Transport to Kiss the Soil of Kentucky, as he haild & Saluted the sand on his first setting his foot on the Shores of America. [162]

On the journey Henderson was joined in Powell's Valley by Benjamin Logan, afterward so famous in Kentucky annals, and a companion, William Galaspy. At the Crab Orchard they left Henderson's party; and turning their course westward finally pitched camp in the present Lincoln County, where Logan subsequently built a fort. On Sunday, April 16th, on Scaggs's Creek, Henderson records: "About 12 oClock Met James McAfee with 18 other persons Returning from Cantucky." They advised Henderson of the "troublesomeness and danger" of the Indians, says Robert McAfee junior: "but Henderson assured them that he had purchased the whole country from the Indians, that it belonged to him, and he had named it Transylvania.… Robt, Samuel, and William McAfee and 3 others were inclined to return, but James opposed it, alleging that Henderson had no right to the land, and that Virginia had previously bought it. The former (6) returned with Henderson to Boonesborough." Among those who had joined Henderson's party was Abraham Hanks from Virginia, the maternal grandfather of Abraham Lincoln; but alarmed by the stories brought by Stewart and his party of fugitives, Hanks and Drake, as recorded by William Calk on that day (April 13th), turned back. [163]

At last the founder of Kentucky with his little band reached the destined goal of their arduous journeyings. Henderson's record on his birthday runs: "Thursday the 20th [April] Arrived at Fort Boone on the Mouth of Oter Creek Cantuckey River where we were Saluted by a running fire of about 25 Guns; all that was then at Fort.… The men appeared in high spirits & much rejoiced in our arrival." It is a coincidence of historic interest that just one day after the embattled farmers at Lexington and Concord "fired the shots heard round the world," the echoing shots of Boone and his sturdy backwoodsmen rang out to announce the arrival of the proprietor of Transylvania and the birth of the American West.

CHAPTER XV.

Transylvania—A Wilderness Commonwealth

You are about a work of the utmost importance to the well-being of this country in general, in which the interest and security of each and every individual are inseparably connected.… Our peculiar circumstances in this remote country, surrounded on all sides with difficulties, and equally subject to one common danger, which threatens our common overthrow, must, I think, in their effects, secure to us an union of interests, and, consequently, that harmony in opinion, so essential to the forming good, wise and wholesome laws.

—Judge Richard Henderson: Address to the Legislature of Transylvania, May 23, 1775.

The independent spirit displayed by the Transylvania Company, and Henderson's procedure in open defiance of the royal governors of both North Carolina and Virginia, naturally aroused grave alarm throughout these colonies and South Carolina. "This in my Opinion," says Preston in a letter to George Washington (January 31, 1775), "will soon become a serious Affair, & highly deserves the Attention of the Government. For it is certain that a vast Number of People are preparing to go out and settle on this Purchase; and if once they get fixed there, it will be next to impossible to remove them or reduce them to Obedience; as they are so far from the Seat of Government. Indeed it may be the Cherokees will support them." [164] Governor Martin of North Carolina, already deeply disturbed in anticipation of the coming revolutionary cataclysm, thundered in what was generally regarded as a forcible-feeble proclamation (February 19, 1775) against "Richard Henderson and his Confederates" in their "daring, unjust and unwarrantable proceedings." [165] In a letter to Dartmouth he denounces "Henderson the famous invader" and dubs the Transylvania Company "an infamous Company of land Pyrates."

Officials who were themselves eager for land naturally opposed Henderson's plans. Lord Dunmore, who in 1774, as we have seen, was heavily interested in the Wabash Land Company engineered by William Murray, took the ground that the Wabash purchase was valid under the Camden-Yorke decision. This is so stated in the records of the Illinois Company, likewise under Murray's control. But although the "Ouabache Company," of which Dunmore was a leading member, was initiated as early as May 16, 1774, the purchase of the territory was not formally effected until October 18, 1775—too late to benefit Dunmore, then deeply embroiled in the preliminaries to the Revolution. Under the cover of his agent's name, it is believed, Dunmore, with his "passion for land and fees," illegally entered tracts aggregating thousands of acres of land surveyed by the royal surveyors in the summer of 1774 for Dr. John Connolly. [166] Early in this same year, Patrick Henry, who, as already pointed out, had entered large tracts in Kentucky in violation of Virginia's treaty obligations with the Cherokees, united with William Byrd 3d, John Page, Ralph Wormley, Samuel Overton, and William Christian, in the effort to purchase from the Cherokees a tract of land west of Donelson's line, being firmly persuaded of the validity of the Camden-Yorke opinion. Their agent, William Kenedy, considerably later in the year, went on a mission to the Cherokee towns, and upon his return reported that the Indians might be induced to sell. When it became known that Judge Henderson had organized the Transylvania Company and anticipated Patrick Henry and his associates, Colonel Arthur Campbell, as he himself states, applied to several of the partners of the Transylvania Company on behalf of Patrick Henry, requesting that Henry be taken in as a partner. [167] It was afterward stated, as commonly understood among the Transylvania proprietors, that both Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson desired to become members of the company; but that Colonel Richard Henderson was instrumental in preventing their admission "lest they should supplant the Colonel [Henderson] as the guiding spirit of the company." [168]

Fully informed by Preston's elaborate communication on the gravity of the situation, Dunmore acted energetically, though tardily, to prevent the execution of Henderson's designs. On March 21st Dunmore sent flying through the back country a proclamation, demanding the immediate relinquishment of the territory by "one Richard Henderson and other disorderly persons, his associates," and "in case of refusal, and of violently detaining such possession, that he or they be immediately fined and imprisoned." [169] This proclamation, says a peppery old chronicler, may well rank with the one excepting those arch traitors and rebels, Samuel Adams and John Hancock, from the mercy of the British monarch. In view of Dunmore's confidence in the validity of the Camden-Yorke decision, it is noteworthy that no mention of the royal proclamation of 1763 occurs in his broadside; and that he bases his objection to the Transylvania purchase upon the king's instructions that all vacant lands "within this colony" be laid off in tracts, from one hundred to one thousand acres in extent, and sold at public auction. This proclamation which was enclosed, oddly enough, in a letter of official instructions to Preston warning him not to survey any lands "beyond the line run by Colonel Donaldson," proved utterly ineffective. At the same time, Dunmore despatched a pointed letter to Oconostota, Atta-kulla-kulla, Judge's Friend, and other Cherokee chieftains, notifying them that the sale of the great tract of land below the Kentucky was illegal and threatening them with the king's displeasure if they did not repudiate the sale. [170]

News of the plans which Henderson had already matured for establishing an independent colony in the trans-Alleghany wilderness, now ran like wild-fire through Virginia. In a letter to George Washington (April 9, 1775), Preston ruefully says: "Henderson I hear has made the Purchase & got a Conveyance of the great and Valluable Country below the Kentucky from the Cherokees. He and about 300 adventurers are gone out to take Possession, who it is said intends to set up an independent Government & form a Code of Laws for themselves. How this may be I cant say, but I am affraid the steps taken by the Government have been too late. Before the Purchase was made had the Governor interfered it is believed the Indians would not have sold." [171]

Meanwhile Judge Henderson, with strenuous energy, had begun to erect a large stockaded fort according to plans of his own. Captain James Harrod with forty-two men was stationed at the settlement he had made the preceding year, having arrived there before the McAfees started back to Virginia; and there were small groups of settlers at Boiling Spring, six miles southeast of Harrod's settlement, and at St. Asaph's, a mile west of the present Stanford. A representative government for Transylvania was then planned. When the frank and gallant Floyd arrived at the Transylvania Fort on May 3d, he "expressed great satisfaction," says Judge Henderson, "on being informed of the plan we proposed for Legislation & sayd he must most heartily concur in that & every other measure we should adopt for the well Governg or good of the Community in Genl." In reference to a conversation with Captain James Harrod and Colonel Thomas Slaughter of Virginia, Henderson notes in his diary (May 8th): "Our plan of Legislation, the evils pointed out—the remedies to be applyed &c &c &c were Acceeded to without Hesitation. The plann was plain & Simple—'twas nothing novel in its essence a thousand years ago it was in use, and found by every year's experience since to be unexceptionable. We were in four distinct settlemts. Members or delegates from every place by free choice of Individuals they first having entered into writings solemnly binding themselves to obey and carry into Execution Such Laws as representatives should from time to time make, Concurred with, by A Majority of the Proprietors present in the Country."

In reply to inquiries of the settlers, Judge Henderson gave as his reason for this assembling of a Transylvania Legislature that "all power was derived from the people." Six days before the prophetic arrival of the news of the Battle of Lexington and eight days before the revolutionary committee of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, promulgated their memorable Resolves establishing laws for an independent government, the pioneers assembled on the green beneath the mighty plane-tree at the Transylvania Fort. In his wise and statesmanlike address to this picturesque convention of free Americans (May 23, 1775), an address which Felix Walker described as being "considered equal to any of like kind ever delivered to any deliberate body in that day and time," Judge Henderson used these memorable words:

You, perhaps, are fixing the palladium, or placing the first corner stone of an edifice, the height and magnificence of whose superstructure … can only become great in proportion to the excellence of its foundation.… If any doubt remain amongst you with respect to the force or efficiency of whatever laws you now, or hereafter make, be pleased to consider that all power is originally in the people; make it their interest, therefore, by impartial and beneficent laws, and you may be sure of their inclination to see them enforced.

An early writer, in speaking of the full-blooded democracy of these "advanced" sentiments, quaintly comments: "If Jeremy Bentham had been in existence of manhood, he would have sent his compliments to the President of Transylvania." This, the first representative body of American freemen which ever convened west of the Alleghanies, is surely the most unique colonial government ever set up on this continent. The proceedings of this backwoods legislature—the democratic leadership of the principal proprietor; the prudence exhibited in the laws for protecting game, breeding horses, etc.; the tolerance shown in the granting of full religious liberty—all display the acumen and practical wisdom of these pioneer law-givers. As the result of Henderson's tactfulness, the proprietary form of government, thoroughly democratized in tone, was complacently accepted by the backwoodsmen. From one who, though still under royal rule, vehemently asserted that the source of all political power was the people, and that "laws derive force and efficiency from our mutual consent," Western democracy thus born in the wilderness was "taking its first political lesson." In their answer to Henderson's assertion of freedom from alien authority the pioneers unhesitatingly declared: "That we have an absolute right, as a political body, without giving umbrage to Great Britain, or any of the colonies, to form rules for the government of our little society, cannot be doubted by any sensible mind and being without the jurisdiction of, and not answerable to any of his Majesty's courts, the constituting tribunals of justice shall be a matter of our first contemplation.…" In the establishment of a constitution for the new colony, Henderson with paternalistic wisdom induced the people to adopt a legal code based on the laws of England. Out of a sense of self-protection he reserved for the proprietors only one prerogative not granted them by the people, the right of veto. He clearly realized that if this power were given up, the delegates to any convention that might be held after the first would be able to assume the claims and rights of the proprietors.

A land-office was formally opened, deeds were issued, and a store was established which supplied the colonists with powder, lead, salt, osnaburgs, blankets, and other chief necessities of pioneer existence. Writing to his brother Jonathan from Leestown, the bold young George Rogers Clark, soon to plot the downfall of Transylvania, enthusiastically says (July 6, 1775): "A richer and more Beautifull Cuntry than this I believe has never been seen in America yet. Col. Henderson is hear and Claims all ye Country below Kentucke. If his Claim Should be good, land may be got Reasonable Enough and as good as any in ye World." [172] Those who settled on the south side of Kentucky River acknowledged the validity of the Transylvania purchase; and Clark in his Memoir says: "the Proprietors at first took great pains to Ingratiate themselves in the favr. of the people."

In regard to the designs of Lord Dunmore, who, as noted above, had illegally entered the Connolly grant on the Ohio and sought to outlaw Henderson, and of Colonel William Byrd 3d, who, after being balked in Patrick Henry's plan to anticipate the Transylvania Company in effecting a purchase from the Cherokees, was supposed to have tried to persuade the Cherokees to repudiate the "Great Treaty," Henderson defiantly says: "Whether Lord Dunmore and Colonel Byrd have interfered with the Indians or not, Richard Henderson is equally ignorant and indifferent. The utmost result of their efforts can only serve to convince them of the futility of their schemes and possibly frighten some few faint-hearted persons, naturally prone to reverence great names and fancy everything must shrink at the magic of a splendid title." [173]

Prompted by Henderson's desire to petition the Continental Congress then in session for recognition as the fourteenth colony, the Transylvania legislature met again on the first Thursday in September and elected Richard Henderson and John Williams, among others, as delegates to the gathering at Philadelphia. [174] Shortly afterward the Proprietors of Transylvania held a meeting at Oxford, North Carolina (September 25, 1775), elected Williams as the agent of the colony, and directed him to proceed to Boonesborough there to reside until April, 1776. James Hogg, of Hillsborough, chosen as Delegate to represent the Colony in the Continental Congress, was despatched to Philadelphia, bearing with him an elaborate memorial prepared by the President, Judge Henderson, petitioning the Congress "to take the infant Colony of Transylvania into their protection." [175]

Almost immediately upon his arrival in Philadelphia, James Hogg was presented to "the famous Samuel and John Adams." The latter warned Hogg, in view of the efforts then making toward reconciliation between the colonies and the king, that "the taking under our protection a body of people who have acted in defiance of the King's proclamation, will be looked on as a confirmation of that independent spirit with which we are daily reproached." Jefferson said that if his advice were followed, all the use the Virginians should make of their charter would be "to prevent any arbitrary or oppressive government to be established within the boundaries of it"; and that it was his wish "to see a free government established at the back of theirs [Virginia's] properly united with them." He would not consent, however, that Congress should acknowledge the colony of Transylvania, until it had the approbation of the Virginia Convention. The quit-rents imposed by the company were denounced in Congress as a mark of vassalage; and many advised a law against the employment of negroes in the colony. "They even threatened us with their opposition," says Hogg, with precise veracity, "if we do not act upon liberal principles when we have it so much in our power to render ourselves immortal." [176]

CHAPTER XVI.

The Repulse of the Red Men

To this short war may be properly attributed all the kind feelings and fidelity to treaty stipulations manifested by the Cherokees ever afterwards. General Rutherford instilled into the Indians so great a fear of the whites, that never afterwards were they disposed to engage in any cruelty, or destroy any of the property of our frontier men.

—David L. Swain:
The Indian War of 1776.

During the summer of 1775 the proprietors of Transylvania were confronted with two stupendous tasks—that of winning the favor and support of the frontiersmen and that of rallying the rapidly dwindling forces in Kentucky in defense of the settlements. Recognizing the difficulty of including Martin's Station, because of its remoteness, with the government provided for Transylvania, Judge Henderson prepared a plan of government for the group of settlers located in Powell's Valley. In a letter to Martin (July 30th), in regard to the recent energetic defense of the settlers at that point against the Indians, Henderson says: "Your spirited conduct gives me much pleasure.… Keep your men in heart if possible, now is our time, the Indians must not drive us." The gloom which had been occasioned by the almost complete desertion of the stations at Harrodsburg, the Boiling Spring, and the Transylvania Fort or Boonesborough was dispelled with the return of Boone, accompanied by some thirty persons, on September 8th, and of Richard Callaway with a considerable party on September 26th. The crisis was now passed; and the colony began for the first time really to flourish. The people on the south side of the Kentucky River universally accepted proprietary rule for the time being. But the seeds of dissension were soon to be sown among those who settled north of the river, as well as among men of the stamp of James Harrod, who, having preceded Henderson in the establishment of a settlement in Kentucky, naturally resented holding lands under the Transylvania Company.

The great liberality of this organization toward incoming settlers had resulted in immense quantities of land being taken up through their land-office. [177] The ranging, hunting, and road-building were paid for by the company; and the entire settlement was furnished with powder, lead, and supplies, wholly on credit, for this and the succeeding year. "Five hundred and sixty thousand acres of land are now entered," reports Floyd on December 1st, "and most of the people waiting to have it run out." [178] After Dunmore, having lost his hold upon the situation, escaped to the protection of a British vessel, the Fowey, Colonel Preston continued to prevent surveys for officers' grants within the Transylvania territory; and his original hostility to Judge Henderson gave place to friendship and support.

On December 1st, Colonel John Williams, resident agent of the Transylvania Company, announced at Boonesborough the long-contemplated and widely advertised advance in price of the lands, from twenty to fifty shillings per hundred acres, with surveying fees of four dollars for tracts not exceeding six hundred and forty acres. [179] At a meeting of the Transylvania legislature, convened on December 21st, John Floyd was chosen surveyor general of the colony, Nathaniel Henderson was placed in charge of the Entering Office, and Richard Harrison given the post of secretary. At this meeting of the legislature, the first open expression of discontent was voiced in the "Harrodsburg Remonstrance," questioning the validity of the proprietors' title, and protesting against any increase in the price of lands, as well as the taking up by the proprietors and a few other gentlemen of the best lands at the Falls of the Ohio. Every effort was made to accommodate the remonstrants, who were led by Abraham Hite. Office fees were abolished, and the payment of quit-rents was deferred until January 1, 1780. Despite these efforts at accommodation, grave doubts were implanted by this Harrodsburg Remonstrance in the minds of the people; and much discussion and discontent ensued.

By midsummer, 1775, George Rogers Clark, a remarkably enterprising and independent young pioneer, was "engrossing all the land he could" in Kentucky. Upon his return to Virginia, as he relates, he "found there was various oppinions Respecting Henderson claim. many thought it go[o]d, others douted whether or not Virginia coud with propriety have any pretentions to the cuntrey." [180] Jefferson displayed a liberal attitude toward the claims of the Transylvania proprietors; and Patrick Henry openly stated that, in his opinion, "their claim would stand good." But many others, of the stamp of George Mason and George Washington, vigorously asserted Virginia's charter rights over the Western territory. [181] This sharp difference of opinion excited in Clark's mind the bold conception of seizing the leadership of the country and making terms with Virginia under threat of secession.

With the design of effecting some final disposition in regard to the title of the Transylvania proprietors, Judge Henderson and Colonel Williams set off from Boonesborough about May 1st, intending first to appeal to the Virginia Convention and ultimately to lay their claims before the Continental Congress. "Since they have gone," reports Floyd to Preston, "I am told most of the men about Harrodsburg have re-assumed their former resolution of not complying with any of the office rules whatever. Jack Jones, it is said, is at the head of the party & flourishes away prodigiously." [182] John Gabriel Jones was the mere figurehead in the revolt. The real leader, the brains of the conspiracy, was the unscrupulous George Rogers Clark. At Clark's instance, an eight-day election was held at Harrodsburg (June 7-15), at which time a petition to the Virginia Convention was drawn up; [183] and Clark and Jones were elected delegates. Clark's plan, the scheme of a bold revolutionist, was to treat with Virginia for terms; and if they were not satisfactory, to revolt and, as he says, "Establish an Independent Government" … "giving away great part of the Lands and disposing of the Remainder." In a second petition, prepared by the self-styled "Committee of West Fincastle" (June 20th), it was alleged that "if these pretended Proprietors have leave to continue to act in their arbitrary manner out the controul of this colony [Virginia] the end must be evident to every well wisher to American Liberty." [184]

The contest which now ensued between Richard Henderson and George Rogers Clark, waged upon the floor of the convention and behind the scenes, resulted in a conclusion that was inevitable at a moment in American history marked by the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Virginia, under the leadership of her new governor, Patrick Henry, put an end to the proprietary rule of the Transylvania Company. On December 7th such part of Transylvania as lay within the chartered limits of Virginia was erected by the legislature of that colony into the County of Kentucky. The proprietary form of government with its "marks of vassalage," although liberalized with the spirit of democracy, was unendurable to the independent and lawless pioneers, already intoxicated with the spirit of freedom swept in on the first fresh breezes of the Revolution. Yet it is not to be doubted that the Transylvania Company, through the courage and moral influence of its leaders, made a permanent contribution to the colonization of the West, which, in providential timeliness and effective execution, is without parallel in our early annals. [185]

While events were thus shaping themselves in Kentucky—events which made possible Clark's spectacular and meteoric campaign in the Northwest and ultimately resulted in the establishment of the Mississippi instead of the Alleghanies as the western boundary of the Confederation—the pioneers of Watauga were sagaciously laying strong the foundations of permanent occupation. In September, 1775, North Carolina, through her Provincial Congress, provided for the appointment in each district of a Committee of Safety, to consist of a president and twelve other members. Following the lead thus set, the Watauga settlers assumed for their country the name of "Washington District"; and proceeded by unanimous vote of the people to choose a committee of thirteen, which included James Robertson and John Sevier. This district was organized "shortly after October, 1775," according to Felix Walker; and the first step taken after the election of the committee was the organization of a court, consisting of five members. Felix Walker was elected clerk of the court thus organized, and held the position for about four years. James Robertson and John Sevier, it is believed, were also members of this court. To James Robertson who, with the assistance of his colleagues, devised this primitive type of frontier rule—a true commission form of government, on the "Watauga Plan"—is justly due distinctive recognition for this notable inauguration of the independent democracy of the Old Southwest. The Watauga settlement was animated by a spirit of deepest loyalty to the American cause. In a memorable petition these hardy settlers requested the Provincial Council of North Carolina not to regard them as a "lawless mob," but to "annex" them to North Carolina without delay. "This committee (willing to become a party in the present unhappy contest)", states the petition, which must have been drafted about July 15, 1776, "resolved (which is now on our records), to adhere strictly to the rules and orders of the Continental Congress, and in open committee acknowledged themselves indebted to the united colonies their full proportion of the Continental expense." [186]

While these disputes as to the government of the new communities were in progress an additional danger threatened the pioneers. For a whole year the British had been plying the various Indian tribes from the lakes to the gulf with presents, supplies, and ammunition. In the Northwest bounties had actually been offered for American scalps. During the spring of 1776 plans were concerted, chiefly through Stuart and Cameron, British agents among the Southern Indians, for uniting the Loyalists and the Indians in a crushing attack upon the Tennessee settlements and the back country of North Carolina. Already the frontier of South Carolina had passed through the horrors of Indian uprising; and warning of the approaching invasion had been mercifully sent the Holston settlers by Atta-kulla-kulla's niece, Nancy Ward, the "Pocahontas of the West"—doubtless through the influence of her daughter, who loved Joseph Martin. The settlers, flocking for refuge into their small stockaded forts, waited in readiness for the dreaded Indian attacks, which were made by two forces totaling some seven hundred warriors.

On July 20th, warned in advance of the approach of the Indians, the borderers, one hundred and seventy in all, marched in two columns from the rude breastwork, hastily thrown up at Eaton's Station, to meet the Indians, double their own number, led by The Dragging Canoe. The scouts surprised one party of Indians, hastily poured in a deadly fire, and rushed upon them with such impetuous fury that they fled precipitately. Withdrawing now toward their breastwork, in anticipation of encountering there a larger force, the backwoodsmen suddenly found themselves attacked in their rear and in grave danger of being surrounded. Extending their own line under the direction of Captain James Shelby, the frontiersmen steadily met the bold attack of the Indians, who, mistaking the rapid extension of the line for a movement to retreat, incautiously made a headlong onslaught upon the whites, giving the war-whoop and shouting: "The Unakas are running!" In the ensuing hot conflict at close quarters, in some places hand to hand, the Indians were utterly routed—The Dragging Canoe being shot down, many warriors wounded, and thirteen left dead upon the field.

On the day after Thompson, Cocke, Shelby, Campbell, Madison, and their men were thus winning the battle of the Long Island "flats," Robertson, Sevier, and their little band of forty-two men were engaged in repelling an attack, begun at sunrise, upon the Watauga fort near the Sycamore Shoals. This attack, which was led by Old Abraham, proved abortive; but as the result of the loose investment of the log fortress, maintained by the Indians for several weeks, a few rash venturers from the fort were killed or captured, notably a young boy who was carried to one of the Indian towns and burned at the stake, and the wife of the pioneer settler, William Been, who was rescued from a like fate by the intercession of the humane and noble Nancy Ward. It was during this siege, according to constant tradition, that a frontier lass, active and graceful as a young doe, was pursued to the very stockade by the fleet-footed savages. Seeing her plight, an athletic young officer mounted the stockade at a single leap, shot down the foremost of the pursuers, and leaning over, seized the maiden by the hands and lifted her over the stockade. The maiden who sank breathless into the arms of the young officer, John Sevier, was "Bonnie Kate Sherrill"—who, after the fashion of true romance, afterward became the wife of her gallant rescuer.

While the Tennessee settlements were undergoing the trials of siege and attack, the settlers on the frontiers of Rowan were falling beneath the tomahawk of the merciless savage. In the first and second weeks of July large forces of Indians penetrated to the outlying settlements; and in two days thirty-seven persons were killed along the Catawba River. On July 13th, the bluff old soldier of Rowan, General Griffith Rutherford, reported to the council of North Carolina that "three of our Captains are killed and one wounded"; and that he was setting out that day with what men he could muster to relieve Colonel McDowell, ten men, and one hundred and twenty women and children, who were "besieged in some kind of a fort." Aroused to extraordinary exertions by these daring and deadly blows, the governments of North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and Georgia instituted a joint campaign against the Cherokees. It was believed that, by delivering a series of crushing blows to the Indians and so conclusively demonstrating the overwhelming superiority of the whites, the state governments in the Old Southwest would convince the savages of the futility of any attempt ever again to oppose them seriously.

Within less than a week after sending his despatches to the council Rutherford set forth at the head of twenty-five hundred men to protect the frontiers of North Carolina and to overwhelm the foe. Leading the South Carolina army of more than eighteen hundred men, Colonel Andrew Williamson directed his attack against the lower Cherokee towns; while Colonel Samuel Jack led two hundred Georgians against the Indian towns at the heads of the Chattahoochee and Tugaloo Rivers. Assembling a force of some sixteen hundred Virginians, Colonel William Christian rendezvoused in August at the Long Island of Holston, where his force was strengthened by between three and four hundred North Carolinians under Colonels Joseph Williams and Love, and Major Winston. The various expeditions met with little effective opposition on the whole, succeeding everywhere in their design of utterly laying waste the towns of the Cherokees. One serious engagement occurred when the Indians resolutely challenged Rutherford's advance at the gap of the Nantahala Mountains. Indian women—heroic Amazons disguised in war-paint and armed with the weapons of warriors and the courage of despair—fought side by side with the Indian braves in the effort to arrest Rutherford's progress and compass his defeat. More than forty frontiersmen fell beneath the deadly shots of this truly Spartan band before the final repulse of the savages.

The most picturesque figures in this overwhelmingly successful campaign were the bluff old Indian-fighter, Griffith Rutherford, wearing "a tow hunting shirt, dyed black, and trimmed with white fringe" as a uniform; Captain Benjamin Cleveland, a rude paladin of gigantic size, strength, and courage; Lieutenant William Lenoir (Le Noir), the gallant and recklessly brave French Huguenot, later to win a general's rank in the Revolution; and that militant man of God, the Reverend James Hall, graduate of Nassau Hall, stalwart and manly, who carried a rifle on his shoulder and, in the intervals between the slaughter of the savages, preached the gospel to the vindictive and bloodthirsty backwoodsmen. Such preaching was sorely needed on that campaign—when the whites, maddened beyond the bounds of self-control by the recent ghastly murders, gladly availed themselves of the South Carolina bounty offered for fresh Indian scalps. At times they exultantly displayed the reeking patches of hair above the gates of their stockades; at others, with many a bloody oath, they compelled their commanders either to sell the Indian captives into slavery or else see them scalped on the spot. Twenty years afterward Benjamin Hawkins relates that among Indian refugees in extreme western Georgia the children had been so terrorized by their parents' recitals of the atrocities of the enraged borderers in the campaign of 1776, that they ran screaming from the face of a white man.

CHAPTER XVII.

The Colonization of the Cumberland

March 31, 1780. Set out this day, and after running some distance, met with Col. Richard Henderson, who was running the line between Virginia and North Carolina. At this meeting we were much rejoiced. He gave us every information we wished, and further informed us that he had purchased a quantity of corn in Kentucky, to be shipped at the Falls of Ohio, for the use of the Cumberland settlement. We are now without bread, and are compelled to hunt the buffalo to preserve life.

—John Donelson: Journal of a Voyage, intended by God's permission, in the good boat Adventure, from Fort Patrick Henry, on Holston River, to the French Salt Springs on Cumberland River.

To the settlements in Tennessee and Kentucky, which they had seized and occupied, the pioneers held on with a tenacious grip which never relaxed. From these strongholds, won through sullen and desperate strokes, they pushed deeper into the wilderness, once again to meet with undimmed courage the bitter onslaughts of their resentful foes. The crushing of the Cherokees in 1776 relieved the pressure upon the Tennessee settlers, enabling them to strengthen their hold and prepare effectively for future eventualities; the possession of the gateway to Kentucky kept free the passage for Western settlement; Watauga and its defenders continued to offer a formidable barrier to British invasion of the East from Kentucky and the Northwest during the Revolution; while these Tennessee frontiersmen were destined soon to set forth again to invade a new wilderness and at frightful cost to colonize the Cumberland.

The little chain of stockades along the far-flung frontier of Kentucky was tenaciously held by the bravest of the race, grimly resolved that this chain must not break. The Revolution precipitated against this chain wave after wave of formidable Indian foes from the Northwest under British leadership. At the very time when Griffith Rutherford set out for the relief of McDowell's Fort, a marauding Indian band captured by stealth near the Transylvania Fort, known as Boone's Fort (Boonesborough), Elizabeth and Frances Callaway, and Jemima Boone, the daughters of Richard Callaway and Daniel Boone, and rapidly marched them away toward the Shawanoe towns on the Ohio. A relief party, in two divisions, headed respectively by the young girls' fathers, and composed among others of the lovers of the three girls, Samuel Henderson, John Holder, and Flanders Callaway, pursued them with almost incredible swiftness. Guided by broken twigs and bits of cloth surreptitiously dropped by Elizabeth Callaway, they finally overtook the unsuspecting savages, killed two of them, and rescued the three maidens unharmed. This romantic episode—which gave Fenimore Cooper the theme for the most memorable scene in one of his Leatherstocking Tales—had an even more romantic sequel in the subsequent marriage of the three pairs of lovers.

This bold foray, so shrewdly executed and even more sagaciously foiled, was a true precursor of the dread happenings of the coming years. Soon the red men were lurking in the neighborhood of the stations; and relief was felt when the Transylvania Fort, the great stockade planned by Judge Henderson, was completed by the pioneers (July, 1776). Glad tidings arrived only a few days later when the Declaration of Independence, read aloud from the Virginia Gazette, was greeted with wild huzzas by the patriotic backwoodsmen. During the ensuing months occasional invasions were made by savage bands; but it was not until April 24, 1777, that Henderson's "big fort" received its first attack, being invested by a company of some seventy-five savages. The twenty-two riflemen in the fort drove off the painted warriors, but not before Michael Stoner, Daniel Boone, and several others were severely wounded. As he lay helpless upon the ground, his ankle shattered by a bullet, Boone was lifted by Simon Kenton and borne away upon his shoulders to the haven of the stockade amid a veritable shower of balls. The stoical and taciturn Boone clasped Kenton's hand and gave him the accolade of the wilderness in the brief but heartfelt utterance; "You are a fine fellow." On July 4th of this same year the fort was again subjected to siege, when two hundred gaudily painted savages surrounded it for two days. But owing to the vigilance and superb markmanship of the defenders, as well as to the lack of cannon by the besieging force, the Indians reluctantly abandoned the siege, after leaving a number dead upon the field. Soon afterward the arrival of two strong bodies of prime riflemen, who had been hastily summoned from the frontiers of North Carolina and Virginia, once again made firm the bulwark of white supremacy in the West.

Kentucky's terrible year, 1778, opened with a severe disaster to the white settlers—when Boone with thirty men, while engaged in making salt at the "Lower Salt Spring," was captured in February by more than a hundred Indians, sent by Governor Hamilton of Detroit to drive the white settlers from "Kentucke." Boone remained in captivity until early summer, when, learning that his Indian captors were planning an attack in force upon the Transylvania Fort, he succeeded in effecting his escape. After a break-neck journey of one hundred and sixty miles, during which he ate but one meal, Boone finally arrived at the big fort on June 20th. The settlers were thus given ample time for preparation, as the long siege did not begin until September 7th. The fort was invested by a powerful force flying the English flag—four hundred and forty-four savages gaudy in the vermilion and ochre of their war-paint, and eleven Frenchmen, the whole being commanded by the French-Canadian, Captain Dagniaux de Quindre, and the great Indian Chief, Black-fish, who had adopted Boone as a son. [187] In the effort to gain his end de Quindre resorted to a dishonorable stratagem, by which he hoped to outwit the settlers and capture the fort with but slight loss. "They formed a scheme to deceive us," says Boone, "declaring it was their orders, from Governor Hamilton, to take us captives, and not to destroy us; but if nine of us would come out and treat with them, they would immediately withdraw their forces from our walls, and return home peacably." Transparent as the stratagem was, Boone incautiously agreed to a conference with the enemy; Callaway alone took the precaution to guard against Indian duplicity. After a long talk, the Indians proposed to Boone, Callaway, and the seven or eight pioneers who accompanied them that they shake hands in token of peace and friendship. As picturesquely described by Daniel Trabue:

The Indians sayed two Indians must shake hands with one white man to make a Double or sure peace at this time the Indians had hold of the white men's hands and held them. Col. Calloway objected to this but the other Indians laid hold or tryed to lay hold of the other hand but Colonel Calloway was the first that jerked away from them but the Indians seized the men two Indians holt of one man or it was mostly the case and did their best to hold them but while the man and Indians was a scuffling the men from the Fort agreeable to Col. Calloway's order fired on them they had a dreadful skuffel but our men all got in the fort safe and the fire continued on both sides. [188]

During the siege Callaway, the leader of the pioneers, made a wooden cannon wrapped with wagon tires, which on being fired at a group of Indians "made them scamper perdidiously." The secret effort of the Indians to tunnel a way underground into the fort, being discovered by the defenders, was frustrated by a countermine. Unable to outwit, outfight, or outmaneuver the resourceful Callaway, de Quindre finally withdrew on September 16th, closing the longest and severest attack that any of the fortified stations of Kentucky had ever been called upon to withstand.

The successful defense of the Transylvania Fort, made by these indomitable backwoodsmen who were lost sight of by the Continental Congress and left to fight alone their battles in the forests, was of national significance in its results. Had the Transylvania Fort fallen, the northern Indians in overwhelming numbers, directed by Hamilton and led by British officers, might well have swept Kentucky free of defenders and fallen with devastating force upon the exposed settlements along the western frontiers of North Carolina, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. This defense of Boonesborough, therefore, is deserving of commemoration in the annals of the Revolution, along with Lexington and Bunker's Hill. Coupled with Clark's meteoric campaign in the Northwest and the subsequent struggles in the defense of Kentucky, it may be regarded as an event basically responsible for the retention of the trans-Alleghany region by the United States. The bitter struggles, desperate sieges, and bloody reprisals of these dark years came to a close with the expeditions of Clark and Logan in November, 1782, which appropriately concluded the Revolution in the West by putting a definite end to all prospect of formidable invasion of Kentucky.

In November, 1777, "Washington District," the delegates of which had been received in the preceding year by the Provincial Congress of North Carolina, was formed by the North Carolina General Assembly into Washington County; and to it were assigned the boundaries of the whole of the present state of Tennessee. While this immense territory was thus being definitely included within the bounds of North Carolina, Judge Henderson on behalf of the Transylvania Company was making a vigorous effort to secure the reëstablishment of its rights from the Virginia Assembly. By order of the Virginia legislature, an exhaustive investigation of the claims of the Transylvania Company was therefore made, hearings being held at various points in the back country. On July 18, 1777, Judge Henderson presented to the peace commissioners for North Carolina and Virginia at the Long Island treaty ground an elaborate memorial in behalf of the Transylvania Company, which the commissioners unanimously refused to consider, as not coming under their jurisdiction. [189] Finally, after a full and impartial discussion before the Virginia House of Delegates, that body declared the Transylvania purchase void. [190] But in consideration of "the very great expense [incurred by the company] in making the said purchase, and in settling the said lands, by which the commonwealth is likely to receive great advantage, by increasing its inhabitants, and establishing a barrier against the Indians," the House of Delegates granted Richard Henderson and Company two hundred thousand acres of land situated between the Ohio and Green rivers, where the town of Henderson, Kentucky, now stands. [191] With this bursting of the Transylvania bubble and the vanishing of the golden dreams of Henderson and his associates for establishing the fourteenth American colony in the heart of the trans-Alleghany, a first romantic chapter in the history of Westward expansion comes to a close.

But another and more feasible project immediately succeeded. Undiscouraged by Virginia's confiscation of Transylvania, and disregarding North Carolina's action in extending her boundaries over the trans-Alleghany region lying within her chartered limits, Henderson, in whom the genius of the colonizer and the ambition of the speculative capitalist were found in striking conjunction, was now inspired to repeat, along broader and more solidly practical lines, the revolutionary experiment of Transylvania. It was not his purpose, however, to found an independent colony; for he believed that millions of acres in the Transylvania purchase lay within the bounds of North Carolina, and he wished to open for colonization, settlement, and the sale of lands, the vast wilderness of the valley of the Cumberland supposed to lie within those confines. But so universal was the prevailing uncertainty in regard to boundaries that it was necessary to prolong the North Carolina-Virginia line in order to determine whether or not the Great French Lick, the ideal location for settlement, lay within the chartered limits of North Carolina. [192]

Judge Henderson's comprehensive plans for the promotion of an extensive colonization of the Cumberland region soon began to take form in vigorous action. Just as in his Transylvania project Henderson had chosen Daniel Boone, the ablest of the North Carolina pioneers, to spy out the land and select sites for future location, so now he chose as leader of the new colonizing party the ablest of the Tennessee pioneers, James Robertson. Although he was the acknowledged leader of the Watauga settlement and held the responsible position of Indian agent for North Carolina, Robertson was induced by Henderson's liberal offers to leave his comparatively peaceful home and to venture his life in this desperate hazard of new fortunes. The advance party of eight white men and one negro, under Robertson's leadership, set forth from the Holston settlement on February 6, 1779, to make a preliminary exploration and to plant corn "that bread might be prepared for the main body of emigrants in the fall." After erecting a few cabins for dwellings and posts of defense, Robertson plunged alone into the wilderness and made the long journey to Post St. Vincent in the Illinois, in order to consult with George Rogers Clark, who had entered for himself in the Virginia Land Office several thousand acres of land at the French Lick. After perfecting arrangements with Clark for securing "cabin rights" should the land prove to lie in Virginia, Robertson returned to Watauga to take command of the migration.

Toward the end of the year two parties set out, one by land, the other by water, for the wonderful new country on the Cumberland of which Boone and Scaggs and Mansker had brought back such glowing descriptions. During the autumn Judge Henderson and other commissioners from North Carolina, in conjunction with commissioners from Virginia, had been running out the boundary line between the two states. On the very day—Christmas, 1779—that Judge Henderson reached the site of the Transylvania Fort, now called Boonesborough, the swarm of colonists from the parent hive at Watauga, under Robertson's leadership, reached the French Lick; and on New Year's Day, 1780, crossed the river on the ice to the present site of Nashville.

The journal of the other party, which, as has been aptly said, reads like a chapter from one of Captain Mayne Reid's fascinating novels of adventure, was written by Colonel John Donelson, the father-in-law of Andrew Jackson. Setting out from Fort Patrick Henry on Holston River, December 22, 1779, with a flotilla consisting of about thirty flatboats, dugouts, and canoes, they encountered few difficulties until they began to run the gauntlet of the Chickamauga towns on the Tennessee. Here they were furiously attacked by the Indians, terrible in their red and black war-paint; and a well-filled boat lagging in the rear, with smallpox on board, was driven to shore by the Indians. The occupants were massacred; but the Indians at once contracted the disease and died by the hundreds. This luckless sacrifice of "poor Stuart, his family and friends," while a ghastly price to pay, undoubtedly procured for the Cumberland settlements comparative immunity from Indian forays until the new-comers had firmly established themselves in their wilderness stronghold. Eloquent of the granite endurance and courageous spirit of the typical American pioneer in its thankfulness for sanctuary, for reunion of families and friends, and for the humble shelter of a log cabin, is the last entry in Donelson's diary (April 24, 1780):

This day we arrived at our journey's end at the Big Salt Lick, where we have the pleasure of finding Capt. Robertson and his company. It is a source of satisfaction to us to be enabled to restore to him and others their families and friends, who were intrusted to our care, and who, some time since, perhaps, despaired of ever meeting again. Though our prospects at present are dreary, we have found a few log cabins which have been built on a cedar bluff above the Lick by Capt. Robertson and his company. [193]

In the midst of the famine during this terrible period of the "hard winter," Judge Henderson was sorely concerned for the fate of the new colony which he had projected, and immediately proceeded to purchase at huge cost a large stock of corn. On March 5, 1780, this corn, which had been raised by Captain Nathaniel Hart, was "sent from Boonesborough in perogues [pettiaugers or flatboats] under the command of William Bailey Smith.… This corn was taken down the Kentucky River, and over the Falls of Ohio, to the mouth of the Cumberland, and thence up that river to the fort at the French Lick. It is believed have been the only bread which the settlers had until it was raised there in 1781." [194] There is genuine impressiveness in this heroic triumphing over the obstacles of obdurate nature and this paternalistic provision for the exposed Cumberland settlement—the purchase by Judge Henderson, the shipment by Captain Hart, and the transportation by Colonel Smith, in an awful winter of bitter cold and obstructed navigation, of this indispensable quantity of corn purchased for sixty thousand dollars in depreciated currency.

Upon his arrival at the French Lick, shortly after the middle of April, Judge Henderson at once proceeded to organize a government for the little community. On May 1st articles of association were drawn up; and important additions thereto were made on May 13th, when the settlers signed the complete series. The original document, still preserved, was drafted by Judge Henderson, being written throughout in his own handwriting; and his name heads the list of two hundred and fifty and more signatures. [195] The "Cumberland Compact," as this paper is called, is fundamentally a mutual contract between the copartners of the Transylvania Company and the settlers upon the lands claimed by the company. It represents the collective will of the community; and on account of the careful provisions safeguarding the rights of each party to the contract it may be called a bill of rights. The organization of this pure democracy was sound and admirable—another notable early example of the commission form of government. The most remarkable feature of this backwoods constitution marks Judge Henderson as a pioneer in the use of the political device so prominent to-day, one hundred and forty years later—the "recall of judges." In the following striking clause this innovation in government was recognized thus early in American history as the most effective means of securing and safeguarding justice in a democracy:

As often as the people in general are dissatisfied with the doings of the Judges or Triers so to be chosen, they may call a new election in any of the said stations, and elect others in their stead, having due respect to the number now agreed to be elected at each station, which persons so to be chosen shall have the same power with those in whose room or place they shall or may be chosen to act.

A land-office was now opened, the entry-taker being appointed by Judge Henderson, in accordance with the compact; and the lands, for costs of entry, etc., were registered for the nominal fee of ten dollars per thousand acres. But as the Transylvania Company was never able to secure a "satisfactory and indisputable title," the clause resulted in perpetual nonpayment. In 1783, following the lead of Virginia in the case of Transylvania, North Carolina declared the Transylvania Company's purchase void, but granted the company in compensation a tract of one hundred and ninety thousand acres in Powell's Valley. [196] As compensation, the grants of North Carolina and Virginia were quite inadequate, considering the value of the service in behalf of permanent western colonization rendered by the Transylvania company. [197]

James Robertson was chosen as presiding officer of the court of twelve commissioners, and was also elected commander-in-chief of the military forces of the eight little associated settlements on the Cumberland. Here for the next two years the self-reliant settlers under Robertson's wise and able leadership successfully repelled the Indians in their guerrilla warfare, firmly entrenched themselves in their forest-girt stronghold, and vindicated their claim to the territory by right of occupation and conquest. Here sprang up in later times a great and populous city—named, strangely enough, neither for Henderson, the founder, nor for Robertson and Donelson, the leaders of the two colonizing parties, but for one having no association with its history or origins, the gallant North Carolinian, General Francis Nash, who was killed at the Battle of Germantown.