"The gun was wiped, the powder measured, the ball patched with six hundred thread linen, and a charge sent home with a hickory rod. We moved not a step from the place, for the squirrels were so thick, that it was unnecessary to go after them. Boone pointed to one of these animals, which had observed us and was crouched on a tree, about fifty paces distant, and bade me mark well where the ball should hit. He raised his piece gradually, until the head, or sight of the barrel, was brought to a line with the spot he intended to strike. The whip-like report resounded through the woods, and along the hills, in repeated echoes. Judge of my surprise, when I perceived that the ball had hit the piece of bark immediately underneath the squirrel, and shivered it into splinters; the concussion produced by which had killed the animal, and sent it whirling through the air, as if it had been blown up by the explosion of a powder magazine, Boone kept up his firing, and before many hours had elapsed, we had procured as many squirrels as we wished. Since that first interview with the veteran Boone, I have seen many other individuals perform the same feat.

"The Snuffing of a Candle with a ball, I first had an opportunity of seeing near the banks of Green River, not far from a large pigeon roost, to which I had previously made a visit. I had heard many reports of guns during the early part of a dark night, and knowing them to be rifles, I went towards the spot to ascertain the cause. On reaching the place, I was welcomed by a dozen tall, stout men, who told me they were exercising for the purpose of enabling them to shoot in the night at the reflected light from the eyes of a deer, or wolf, by torch-light.

"A fire was blazing near, the smoke of which rose curling among the thick foliage of the trees. At a distance which rendered it scarcely distinguishable, stood a burning candle, which in reality was only fifty yards from the spot on which we all stood. One man was within a few yards of it to watch the effect of the shots, as well as to light the candle, should it chance to go out, or to replace it should the shot cut it across. Each marksman shot in his turn. Some never hit neither the snuff or the candle, and were congratulated with a loud laugh; while others actually snuffed the candle without putting it out, and were recompensed for their dexterity with numerous hurrahs. One of them, who was particularly expert, was very fortunate and snuffed the candle three times out of seven; while all the other shots either put out the candle or cut it immediately under the light."



CHAPTER III.

Louisiana, its Discovery and Vicissitudes.

Louisiana, and its eventful history.—The Expedition of De Soto.—The Missionary Marquette.—His voyage on the Upper Mississippi.—The Expedition of La Salle.—Michilimackinac.—Its History.—Fate of the "Griffin."—Grief of La Salle.—His voyage of Discovery.—Sale of Louisiana to the United States.—Remarks of Napoleon.

The transfer of Louisiana to the United States is one of the most interesting events in the history of our country. In the year 1800, Spain, then in possession of the vast region west of the Mississippi, ceded it to France. The whole country west of the majestic river appropriately called the Father of Waters, was then called Louisiana, and its boundaries were very obscurely defined. Indeed neither the missionary nor the hunter had penetrated but a very short distance into those unknown wilds. It was in the year 1541 that De Soto, marching from Florida across the country, came to the banks of this magnificent river, near the present site of Memphis. He knew not where it took its rise, or where it emptied its swollen flood. But he found a stream more than a mile in width, of almost fathomless depth, rolling its rapid, turbid stream, on which were floated innumerable logs and trees, through an almost uninhabited country of wonderful luxuriance. He was in search of gold, and crossing the river, advanced in a north-westerly direction about two hundred miles, till he came within sight of the Highlands of the White River. He then turned in a southerly direction, and continued his explorations, till death soon terminated his melancholy career.

More than one hundred and thirty years passed over these solitudes, when James Marquette, a French missionary among the Indians at Saint Marys, the outlet of Lake Superior, resolved to explore the Mississippi, of whose magnificence he had heard much from the lips of the Indians, who had occasionally extended their hunting tours to its banks. He was inured to all the hardships of the wilderness, seemed to despise worldly comforts, and had a soul of bravery which could apparently set all perils at defiance. And still he was indued with a poetic nature, which reveled in the charms of these wild and romantic realms, as he climbed its mountains and floated in his canoe over its silent and placid streams. Even then it was not known whether the Mississippi emptied its majestic flood into the Pacific Ocean or into the Gulf of Mexico. The foot of the white man upon the shores of Lake Superior, had never penetrated beyond the Indian village, where the Fox River enters into Green Bay. From this point Marquette started for the exploration of the Mississippi. The party consisted of Mr. Marquette, a French gentleman by the name of Joliete, five French voyageurs and two Indian guides. They transported their two birch canoes on their shoulders across the portage from the Fox River to the Wisconsin river. Paddling rapidly down this stream through realms of silence and solitude, they soon entered the majestic Mississippi, more than fifteen hundred miles above its mouth.

Marquette seems to have experienced in the highest degree the romance of his wonderful voyage, for he says that he commenced the descent of the mighty river with "a joy that could not be expressed." It was the beautiful month of June, 1673, the most genial season of the year. The skies were bright above them. The placid stream was fringed with banks of wonderful luxuriance and beauty, the rocky cliffs at times assuming the aspect of majestic castles of every variety of architecture; again the gently swelling hills were robed in sublime forests, and again the smooth meadows, in their verdure, spread far away to the horizon. Rapidly the canoes, gently guided by the paddles, floated down the stream.

Having descended the river about one hundred and eighty miles, they came to a very well trod Indian trail leading back from the river into the interior. Marquette and Joliete had the curiosity and the courage to follow this trail for six miles, until they came to an Indian village. It would seem that some of the Indians there, in their hunting excursions, had wandered to some of the French settlements; for four of their leading men, dressed in the most gorgeous display of barbaric pomp, "brilliant with many colored plumes," came out to meet them and conducted them to the cabin of their chief. He addressed them in the following words:

"How beautiful is the sun, Frenchman, when thou comest to visit us. Our whole village welcomes thee. In peace thou shalt enter all our dwellings."

After a very pleasant visit they returned to their boats and resumed their voyage. They floated by the mouth of the turbid Missouri, little dreaming of the grandeur of the realms watered by that imperial stream and its tributaries. They passed the mouth of the Ohio, which they recognized as the Belle Riviere, which the Indians then called the Wabash. As they floated rapidly away towards the south they visited many Indian villages on the banks of the stream, where the devoted missionary, Marquette, endeavored to proclaim the gospel of Christ.

"I did not," says Marquette, "fear death. I should have esteemed it the greatest happiness to have died for the glory of God."

Thus they continued their exploration as far south as the mouth of the Arkansas river, where they were hospitably received in a very flourishing Indian village. Being now satisfied that the Mississippi river entered the Gulf of Mexico, somewhere between Florida and California, they returned to Green Bay by the route of the Illinois river. By taking advantage of the eddies, on either side of the stream, it was not difficult for them, in their light canoes, to make the ascent.

Marquette landed on the western banks of Lake Michigan to preach the gospel to a tribe of Indians called the Miames, residing near the present site of Chicago. Joliete returned to Quebec to announce the result of their discoveries. He was received with great rejoicing. The whole population flocked to the cathedral, where the Te Deum was sung.

Five years passed away, during which the great river flowed almost unthought of, through its vast and sombre wilderness. At length in the year 1678, La Salle received a commission from Louis the XIV. of France to explore the Mississippi to its mouth. Having received from the king the command of Fort Frontenac, at the northern extremity of Lake Ontario, and a monopoly of the fur trade in all the countries he should discover, he sailed from Larochelle in a ship well armed and abundantly supplied, in June, 1678. Ascending the St. Lawrence to Quebec, he repaired to Fort Frontenac. With a large number of men he paddled, in birch canoes, to the southern extremity of Lake Ontario, and, by a portage around the falls of Niagara, entered Lake Erie. Here he built a substantial vessel, called the Griffin, which was the first vessel ever launched upon the waters of that lake. Embarking in this vessel with forty men, in the month of September, a genial and gorgeous month in those latitudes, he traversed with favoring breezes the whole length of the lake, a voyage of two hundred and sixty-five miles, ascended the straits and passed through the Lake of St. Clair, and ran along the coast of Lake Huron three hundred and sixty miles to Michilimackinac, where the three majestic lakes, Superior, Michigan and Huron, form a junction.

Here a trading post was established, which subsequently attained world-wide renown, and to which the Indians flocked with their furs from almost boundless realms. Mr. Schoolcraft, who some years after visited this romantic spot, gives the following interesting account of the scenery and strange life witnessed there. As these phases of human life have now passed away, never to be renewed, it seems important that the memory of them should be perpetuated:

"Nothing can present a more picturesque and refreshing spectacle to the traveler, wearied with the lifeless monotony of a voyage through Lake Huron, than the first sight of the island of Michilimackinac, which rises from the watery horizon in lofty bluffs imprinting a rugged outline along the sky and capped with a fortress on which the American flag is seen waving against the blue heavens. The name is a compound of the word Misril, signifying great, and Mackinac the Indian word for turtle, from a fancied resemblance of the island to a great turtle lying upon the water.

"It is a spot of much interest, aside from its romantic beauty, in consequence of its historical associations and natural curiosities. It is nine miles in circumference, and its extreme elevation above the lake is over three hundred feet. The town is pleasantly situated around a small bay at the southern extremity of the island, and contains a few hundred souls, which are sometimes swelled to one or two thousand by the influx of voyageurs, traders and Indians. On these occasions its beautiful harbor is seen checkered with American vessels at anchor, and Indian canoes rapidly shooting across the water in every direction.

"It was formerly the seat of an extensive fur trade; at present it is noted for the great amount of trout and white fish annually exported. Fort Mackinac stood on a rocky bluff overlooking the town. The ruins of Fort Holmes are on the apex of the island. It was built by the British in the war of 1812, under the name of Fort George, and was changed to its present appellation after the surrender to the Americans, in compliment to the memory of Major Holmes, who fell in the attack upon the island.

"The old town of Michilimackinac stood at the extreme point of the peninsula of Michigan, nine miles south of the island. Eight years before La Salle's expedition, Father Marquette, the French missionary, visited this spot with a party of Hurons, upon whom he prevailed to locate themselves. A fort was soon constructed, and became an important post. It continued to be the seat of the fur trade, and the undisturbed rendezvous of the Indian tribes during the whole period that the French exercised dominion over the Canadas."

Here at Michilimackinac, La Salle purchased a rich cargo of furs, exchanging for them his goods at an immense profit. The Griffin, laden with wealth, set out on her return and was wrecked by the way with total loss. La Salle with his companions had embarked in birch canoes, and descending Lake Michigan to near its southern extremity, they landed and erected a fort which they called Miamis. They then carried their canoes across to the Illinois river and paddled down that stream until they came near to the present site of Peoria, where they established another fort, which La Salle, grief-stricken in view of his loss, named Creve-Coeur, or Heartsore. Here the energetic and courageous adventurer left his men in winter quarters, while, with but three companions, he traversed the wilderness on foot, amidst the snows of winter, to Fort Frontenac, a distance of fifteen hundred miles. After an absence of several weeks, he returned with additional men and the means of building a large and substantial flat-bottomed boat, with which to descend the Illinois river to the Mississippi, and the latter stream to its mouth.

The romantic achievement was successfully accomplished. The banners of France were unfurled along the banks of the majestic river and upon the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. This whole region which France claimed by the right of discovery, was named in honor of the king of France, Louisiana. Its limits were necessarily quite undefined. In 1684, a French colony of two hundred and eighty persons was sent out to effect a settlement on the Lower Mississippi. Passing by the mouth of the river without discovering it, they landed in Texas, and took possession of the country in the name of the king of France. Disaster followed disaster. La Salle died, and the colonists were exterminated by the Indians. Not long after this, all the country west of the Mississippi was ceded by France to Spain, and again, some years after, was surrendered back again by Spain to France. We have not space here to allude to the details of these varied transactions. But this comprehensive record seems to be essential to the full understanding of the narrative upon which we have entered.

It was in the year 1763 that Louisiana was ceded, by France, to Spain. In the year 1800, it was yielded back to France, under Napoleon, by a secret article in the treaty of Sn. Ildefonso. It had now become a matter of infinite moment to the United States that the great Republic should have undisputed command of the Mississippi, from its source to its mouth. President Jefferson instructed our Minister at Paris, Robert Livingston, to negotiate with the French Government for the purchase of Louisiana. France was then at war with England. The British fleet swept triumphantly all the seas. Napoleon, conscious that he could not protect Louisiana from British arms, consented to the sale. We are informed that on the 10th of April, 1803, he summoned two of his ministers in council, and said to them:

"I am fully sensible of the value of Louisiana; and it was my wish to repair the error of the French diplomatists who abandoned it in 1763. I have scarcely recovered it before I run the risk of losing it. But if I am obliged to give it up it shall cost more to those who force me to part with it, than to those to whom I yield it. The English have despoiled France of all her Northern possessions in America, and now they covet those of the South. I am determined that they shall not have the Mississippi. Although Louisiana is but a trifle compared with their vast possessions in other parts of the globe, yet, judging from the vexation they have manifested on seeing it return to the power of France, I am certain that their first object will be to obtain possession of it.

"They will probably commence the war in that quarter. They have twenty vessels in the Gulf of Mexico, and our affairs in St. Domingo are daily getting worse, since the death of Le Clere. The conquest of Louisiana might be easily made, and I have not a moment to lose in putting it out of their reach. I am not sure but that they have already began an attack upon it. Such a measure would be in accordance with their habits; and in their place I should not wait. I am inclined, in order to deprive them of all prospect of ever possessing it, to cede it to the United States. Indeed I can hardly say I cede it, for I do not yet possess it. And if I wait but a short time, my enemies may leave me nothing but an empty title to grant to the Republic I wish to conciliate. They only ask for one city of Louisiana; but I consider the whole colony as lost. And I believe that in the hands of this rising power, it will be more useful to the political and even the commercial interests of France, than if I should attempt to retain it. Let me have both of your opinions upon this subject."

One of the ministers, Barbe Marbois, cordially approved of the plan of "cession." The other opposed it. After long deliberation, the conference was closed, without Napoleon making known his decision. The next day he sent for Barbe Marbois, and said to him:

"The season for deliberation is over. I have determined to part with Louisiana. I shall give up not only New Orleans, but the whole colony without reservation. That I do not undervalue Louisiana I have sufficiently proved, as the object of my first treaty with Spain was to recover it. But though I regret parting with it, I am convinced that it would be folly to persist in trying to keep it. I commission you, therefore, to negotiate this affair with the envoys of the United States. Do not wait the arrival of Mr. Munroe, but go this very day and confer with Mr. Livingston.

"Remember, however, that I need ample funds for carrying on the war; and I do not wish to commence it by levying new taxes. During the last century, France and Spain have incurred great expense in the improvement of Louisiana, for which her trade has never indemnified them. Large sums have been advanced to different companies, which have never returned to the treasury. It is fair that I should require payment for these. Were I to regulate my demands by the importance of this territory to the United States, they would be unbounded. But being obliged to part with it, I shall be moderate in my terms. Still, remember I must have fifty millions of francs ($10,000,000), and I will not consent to take less. I would rather make some desperate effort to preserve this fine country."

Negotiations commenced that day. Soon Mr. Munroe arrived. On the 30th of April, 1803, the treaty was signed, the United States paying fifteen million dollars for the entire territory. It was stipulated by Napoleon that Louisiana should be, as soon as possible, incorporated into the Union; and that its inhabitants should enjoy the same rights, privileges, and immunities as other citizens of the United States. The third article of the treaty, securing to them these benefits, was drawn up by Napoleon himself. He presented it to the plenipotentiaries with these words:

"Make it known to the people of Louisiana, that we regret to part with them; that we have stipulated for all the advantages they could desire; and that France, in giving them up, has insured to them the greatest of all. They could never have prospered under any European government, as they will when they become independent. But while they enjoy the privileges of liberty, let them ever remember that they are French, and preserve for their mother country that affection, which a common origin inspires."

This purchase was an immense acquisition to the United States. "I consider," said Mr. Livingston, "that from this day, the United States take rank with the first powers of Europe, and now she has entirely escaped from the power of England."

Napoleon was also well pleased with the transaction, "By this cession," he said, "I have secured the power of the United States, and given to England a maritime rival, who, at some future time, will humble her pride."

The boundaries of this unexampled purchase could not be clearly defined. There was not any known landmarks to which reference could be made. The United States thus had the sole claim to the vast territory west of the Mississippi, extending on the north through Oregon to the Pacific Ocean, and on the south to the Mexican dominions. From the day of the transfer, the natural resources of the great valley of the Mississippi began to be rapidly developed.

The accompanying map will enable the reader more fully to understand the geography of the above narrative.



CHAPTER IV.

Camp Life Beyond the Alleghanies.

John Finley and his Adventures.—Aspect of the Country.—Boone's Private Character.—His Love for the Wilderness.—First view of Kentucky.—Emigrants' Dress.—Hunter's Home.—Capture of Boone and Stewart by the Indians.—Their Escape.—Singular Incident.

In the year 1767, a bold hunter by the name of John Finley with two or three companions crossed the mountain range of the Alleghanies into the region beyond, now known as Kentucky. The mountains where he crossed, consisting of a series of parallel ridges, some of which were quite impassable save at particular points, presented a rugged expanse nearly fifty miles in breadth. It took many weary days for these moccassined feet to traverse the wild solitudes. The Indian avoids the mountains. He chooses the smooth prairie where the buffalo and the elk graze, and where the wild turkey, the grouse and the prairie chicken, wing their flight, or the banks of some placid stream over which he can glide in his birch canoe, and where fish of every variety can be taken. Indeed the Indians, with an eye for picturesque beauty, seldom reared their villages in the forest, whose glooms repelled them. Generally where the forest approached the stream, they clustered their wigwams in its edge, with the tranquil river and the open country spread out before them.

John Finley and his companions traversed the broad expanse of the Alleghanies, without meeting any signs of human life. The extreme western ridge of these parallel eminences or spurs, has received the name of the Cumberland mountains. Passing through a gorge, which has since then become renowned in peace and war as Cumberland Gap, they entered upon a vast undulating expanse, of wonderful fertility and beauty. In its rivers, its plains, its forests, its gentle eminences, its bright skies and salubrious clime, it presented then, as now, as attractive a residence for man as this globe can furnish. Finley and his companions spent several months roving through this, to them, new Eden. Game of every variety abounded. Through some inexplicable reason, no Indians held possession of the country. But wandering tribes, whose homes and acknowledged territory were far away in the north, the west, and the south, were ever traversing these regions in hunting bands. They often met in bloody encounters. These conflicts were so frequent and so sanguinary, that this realm so highly favored of God for the promotion of all happiness, subsequently received the appropriate name of "The dark and bloody ground."

After an absence of many months, Finley and his companions returned to North Carolina, with the most glowing accounts of the new country which they had found. Their story of the beauty of those realms was so extravagant, that many regarded them as gross exaggerations. It subsequently appeared, however, that they were essentially true. A more lovely and attractive region cannot be found on earth. It is man's inhumanity to man, mainly, which has ever caused such countless millions to mourn.

Daniel Boone listened eagerly to the recital of John Finley and his associates. The story they told added fuel to the flame of emigration, which was already consuming him. He talked more and more earnestly of his desire to cross the mountains. We know not what were the emotions with which his wife was agitated, in view of her husband's increasing desire for another plunge into the wilderness. We simply know that through her whole career, she manifested the most tender solicitude to accommodate herself to the wishes of her beloved husband. Indeed he was a man peculiarly calculated to win a noble woman's love. Gentle in his demeanor, and in all his utterances, mild and affectionate in his intercourse with his family, he seemed quite unconscious of the heroism he manifested in those achievements, which gave him ever increasing renown.

Life in the cabin of the frontiersman, where the wants are few, and the supplies abundant, is comparatively a leisure life. These men knew but little of the hurry and the bustle with which those in the crowded city engage daily in the almost deadly struggle for bread. There was no want in the cabin of Daniel Boone. As these two hardy adventurers, John Finley and Daniel Boone, sat together hour after hour by the fire, talking of the new country which Finley had explored, the hearts of both burned within them again to penetrate those remote realms. To them there were no hardships in the journey. At the close of each day's march, which but slightly wearied their toughened sinews, they could in a few moments throw up a shelter, beneath which they would enjoy more luxurious sleep than the traveler, after being rocked in the rail-cars, can now find on the softest couches of our metropolitan hotels. And the dainty morsel cut with artistic skill from the fat buffalo, and toasted on the end of a ramrod before the camp-fire, possessed a relish which few epicures have ever experienced at the most sumptuous tables in Paris or New York. And as these men seem to have been constitutionally devoid of any emotions of fear from wild beasts, or still wilder Indians, the idea of a journey of a few hundred miles in the wilderness was not one to be regarded by them with any special solicitude.

Gradually they formed a plan for organizing a small party to traverse these beautiful realms in search of a new home. A company of six picked men was formed, and Daniel Boone was chosen their leader. The names of this party were John Finley, John Stewart, Joseph Holden, James Moncey, and William Cool. A journey of many hundred miles was before them. Through the vast mountain barrier, which could only be traversed by circuitous wanderings some hundreds of miles in extent, their route was utterly pathless, and there were many broad and rapid streams to be crossed, which flowed through the valleys between the mountain ridges. Though provision in abundance was scattered along the way, strong clothing must be provided, powder and bullets they must take with them, and all these necessaries were to be carried upon their backs, for no pack horses could thread the defiles of the mountains or climb their rugged cliffs. It was also necessary to make provision for the support of the families of these adventurers during their absence of many months. It does not appear that Mrs. Boone presented any obstacle in the way of her husband's embarking in this adventure. Her sons were old enough to assist her in the management of the farm, and game was still to be found in profusion in the silent prairies and sublime forests which surrounded them.

In the sunny clime of North Carolina May comes with all the balminess and soft zephyrs of a more northern summer. It was a beautiful morning on the first day of May, 1769, when Boone and his companions commenced their adventurous journey. In the brief narrative which Boone has given of this excursion, we perceive that it was with some considerable regret that he separated himself from his much loved wife and children on the peaceful banks of the Yadkin.

We must infer that the first part of their journey was fatiguing, for it took them a full month to accomplish the passage of the mountains. Though it was less than a hundred miles across these ridges in a direct line, the circuitous route which it was necessary to take greatly lengthened the distance. And as they were never in a hurry, they would be very likely, when coming to one of the many lovely valleys on the banks of the Holstein, or the Clinch river, to be enticed to some days of delay. Where now there are thriving villages filled with the hum of the industries of a high civilization, there was then but the solitary landscape dotted with herds of buffalo and of deer.

Boone says that in many of these regions he found buffalo roving in companies of several hundreds feeding upon the tender leaves of the canebrake, or browsing upon the smooth and extended meadows. Being far removed from the usual route of the Indian hunters, they were very tame, manifesting no fear at the approach of man.

On the seventh of June, our adventurers, at the close of a day of arduous travel, reached an eminence of the Cumberland Mountains, which gave them a commanding and an almost entrancing view of the region beyond, now known as the State of Kentucky. At the height upon which they stood, the expanse spreading out to the West, until lost in the distant horizon, presented an aspect of nature's loveliness such as few eyes have ever beheld. The sun was brilliantly sinking, accompanied by a gorgeous retinue of clouds. Majestic forests, wide-spread prairies, and lakes and rivers, gilded by the setting sun, confirmed the truth of the most glowing reports which had been heard from the lips of Finley. An artist has seized upon this incident, which he has transferred to canvass, in a picture which he has entitled, "Daniel Boone's first view of Kentucky." Engravings have been so multiplied of this painting, that it has become familiar to most eyes.

The appearance of our adventurers is thus graphically described by Mr. Peck, in his excellent Life of Daniel Boone.

"Their dress was of the description usually worn at that period by all forest-rangers. The outside garment was a hunting shirt, or loose open frock, made of dressed deer-skins. Leggins, or drawers, of the same material, covered the lower extremities, to which was appended a pair of moccasins for the feet. The cape or collar of the hunting shirt, and the seams of the leggins were adorned with fringes. The undergarments were of coarse cotton. A leather belt encircled the body. On the right side was suspended the tomahawk, to be used as a hatchet. On the left was the hunting-knife, powder-horn, bullet-pouch, and other appendages indispensable for a hunter. Each person bore his trusty rifle, and as the party made its toilsome way amid the shrubs, and over the logs and loose shrubs, that accident had thrown upon the obscure trail they were following, each man gave a sharp lookout, as though danger, or a lurking enemy were near. Their garments were soiled and rent; the unavoidable result of long travel and exposure to the heavy rains which had fallen, the weather having been stormy and uncomfortable, and they had traversed a mountainous wilderness for several hundred miles. The leader of the party was of full size, with a hardy, robust, sinewy frame, and keen piercing hazel eyes, that glanced with quickness at every object as they passed on, now cast forward in the direction they were travelling, for signs of an old trail, and in the next moment directed askance into the dense forest or the deep ravine, as if watching some concealed enemy. The reader will recognise in this man, the pioneer Boone at the head of his companions."

The peculiar character of these men is developed in the fact, that, rapidly descending the western declivity of the mountains, they came to a beautiful meadow upon the banks of a little stream now called Red River. Here they reared their hut, and here they remained in apparently luxurious idleness all the summer; and here Daniel Boone remained all of the ensuing winter. Their object could scarcely have been to obtain furs, for they could not transport them across the mountains. There were in the vicinity quite a number of salt springs which the animals of the forest frequented in immense numbers. In the brief account which Boone gives of these long months, he simply says:

"In this forest, the habitation of beasts of every kind natural to America, we practised hunting with great success until the twenty-second day of December following."

Bears, buffalo and deer were mainly the large game which fell before their rifles. Water-fowl, and also land birds of almost every variety, were found in great profusion. It must have been a strange life which these six men experienced during these seven months in the camp on the silent waters of the Red River. No Indians were seen, and no traces of them were discovered through this period. The hunters made several long excursions in various directions, apparently examining the country in reference to their own final settlement in it, and to the introduction of emigrants from the Atlantic border. Indeed it has been said that Daniel Boone was the secret agent of a company on the other side of the mountains, who wished to obtain possession of a large extent of territory for the formation of a colony there. But of this nothing with certainty is known. Yet there must have been some strong controlling motive to have induced these men to remain so long in their camp, which consisted simply of a shed of logs, on the banks of this solitary stream.

Three sides of the hut were enclosed. The interstices between the logs were filled with moss or clay. The roof was also carefully covered with bark, so as to be impervious to rain. The floor was spread over with dry leaves and with the fragrant twigs of the hemlock, presenting a very inviting couch for the repose of weary men. The skins of buffaloes and of bears presented ample covering for their night's repose. The front of the hut, facing the south, was entirely open, before which blazed their camp-fire. Here the men seem to have been very happy. The climate was mild; they were friendly to each other; they had good health and abundance of food was found in their camp.

On the twenty-second of December, Boone, with one of his companions, John Stewart, set out on one of their exploring tours. There were parts of the country called cane-brakes, covered with cane growing so thickly together as to be quite impenetrable to the hunter. Through portions of these the buffaloes had trampled their way in large companies, one following another, opening paths called streets. These streets had apparently been trodden for ages. Following these paths, Boone and his companion had advanced several miles from their camp, when suddenly a large party of Indians sprang from their concealment and seized them both as captives. The action was so sudden that there was no possibility of resistance. In the following words Boone describes this event:

"This day John Stewart and I had a pleasing ramble, but fortune changed the scene in the close of it. We had passed through a great forest, on which stood myriads of trees, some gay with blossoms, others rich with fruits. Nature was here a series of wonders and a fund of delight. Here she displayed her ingenuity and industry in a variety of flowers and fruits, beautifully colored, elegantly shaped, and charmingly flavored; and we were diverted with innumerable animals presenting themselves perpetually to our view.

"In the decline of the day, near Kentucky river, as we ascended the brow of a small hill, a number of Indians rushed out upon us from a thick canebrake and made us prisoners. The time of our sorrow was now arrived. They plundered us of what we had, and kept us in confinement seven days, treating us with common savage usage."

The peculiar character of Boone was here remarkably developed. His whole course of life had made him familiar with the manners and customs of the Indians. They were armed only with bows and arrows. He had the death-dealing rifle which they knew not how to use. His placid temper was never ruffled by elation in prosperity or despair in adversity. He assumed perfect contentment with his lot, cultivated friendly relations with them, taught them many things they did not know, and aided them in all the ways in his power. His rifle ball would instantly strike down the buffalo, when the arrow of the Indian would only goad him to frantic flight.

The Indians admired the courage of their captive, appreciated his skill, and began to regard him as a friend and a helper. They relaxed their vigilance, while every day they were leading their prisoners far away from their camp into the boundless West. Boone was so well acquainted with the Indian character as to be well aware that any attempt to escape, if unsuccessful, would cause his immediate death. The Indians, exasperated by what they would deem such an insult to their hospitality, would immediately bury the tomahawk in his brain. Thus seven days and nights passed away.

At the close of each day's travel the Indians selected some attractive spot for the night's encampment or bivouac, according to the state of the weather, near some spring or stream. Here they built a rousing fire, roasted choice cuts from the game they had taken, and feasted abundantly with jokes and laughter, and many boastful stories of their achievements. They then threw themselves upon the ground for sleep, though some one was appointed to keep a watch over their captives. But deceived by the entire contentment and friendliness, feigned by Boone, and by Stewart who implicitly followed the counsel of his leader's superior mind, all thoughts of any attempt of their captives to escape soon ceased to influence the savages.

On the seventh night after the capture, the Indians, gorged with an abundant feast, were all soundly asleep. It was midnight. The flickering fire burned feebly. The night was dark. They were in the midst of an apparently boundless forest. The favorable hour for an attempt to escape had come. But it was full of peril. Failure was certain death, for the Indians deemed it one of the greatest of all crimes for a captive who had been treated with kindness to attempt to escape. A group of fierce savages were sleeping around, each one of whom accustomed to midnight alarms, was supposed to sleep, to use an expressive phrase, "with one eye open." Boone, who had feigned sound slumber, cautiously awoke his companion who was asleep and motioned him to follow. The rustling of a leaf, the crackling of a twig, would instantly cause every savage to grasp his bow and arrow and spring from the ground. Fortunately the Indians had allowed their captives to retain their guns, which had proved so valuable in obtaining game.

With step as light as the fall of a feather these men with moccasined feet crept from the encampment. After a few moments of intense solicitude, they found themselves in the impenetrable gloom of the forest, and their captors still undisturbed. With vastly superior native powers to the Indian, and equally accustomed to forest life, Boone was in all respects their superior. With the instinct of the bee, he made a straight line towards the encampment they had left, with the locality of which the Indians were not acquainted. The peril which menaced them added wings to their flight. It was mid-winter, and though not very cold in that climate, fortunately for them, the December nights were long.

Six precious hours would pass before the dawn of the morning would struggle through the tree-tops. Till then the bewildered Indians could obtain no clue whatever to the direction of their flight. Carefully guarding against leaving any traces of their footsteps behind them, and watching with an eagle eye lest they should encounter any other band of savages, they pressed forward hour after hour with sinews apparently as tireless as if they had been wrought of iron. When the fugitives reached their camp they found it plundered and deserted. Whether the red men had discovered it and carried off their companions as prisoners, or whether the white men in a panic had destroyed what they could not remove and had attempted a retreat to the settlements, was never known. It is probable that in some way they perished in the wilderness, and that their fate is to be added to the thousands of tragedies occurring in this world which no pen has recorded.

The intrepid Boone and his companion Stewart seemed, however, to have no idea of abandoning their encampment. But apprehensive that the Indians might have discovered their retreat, they reared a small hut in another spot, still more secret and secure. It is difficult to imagine what motive could have led these two men to remain any longer in these solitudes, five hundred miles from home, exposed to so many privations and to such fearful peril. Notwithstanding the utmost care in husbanding their resources, their powder and lead were rapidly disappearing, and there was no more to be obtained in the wilderness. But here they remained a month, doing apparently nothing, but living luxuriously, according to their ideas of good cheer. The explanation is probably to be found in the fascination of this life of a hunter, which once enjoyed, seems almost irresistible, even to those accustomed to all the appliances of a high civilization.

A gentleman from New York, who spent a winter among the wild scenes of the Rocky Mountains, describes in the following graphic language, the effect of these scenes upon his own mind:

"When I turned my horse's head from Pikes Peak, I quite regretted the abandonment of my mountain life, solitary as it was, and more than once thought of again taking the trail to the Salado Valley, where I enjoyed such good sport. Apart from the feeling of loneliness, which anyone in my situation must naturally have experienced, surrounded by the stupendous works of nature, which in all their solitary grandeur frowned upon me, there was something inexpressibly exhilarating in the sensation of positive freedom from all worldly care, and a consequent expansion of the sinews, as it were, of mind and body, which made me feel elastic as a ball of india-rubber, and in such a state of perfect ease, that no more dread of scalping Indians entered my mind, than if I had been sitting in Broadway, in one of the windows of the Astor House.

"A citizen of the world, I never found any difficulty in investing my resting place wherever it might be, with the attributes of a home. Although liable to the accusation of barbarism, I must confess that the very happiest moments of my life have been spent in the wilderness of the Far West. I never recall but with pleasure the remembrance of my solitary camp in the Bayou Salado, with no friend near me more faithful than my rifle. With a plentiful supply of dry pine logs on the fire, and its cheerful blaze streaming far up into the sky, illuminating the valley far and near, I would sit enjoying the genial warmth, and watch the blue smoke as it curled upward, building castles in its vapory wreaths. Scarcely did I ever wish to change such hours of freedom for all the luxuries of civilized life; and, unnatural and extraordinary as it may appear, yet such are the fascinations of the life of the mountain hunter, that I believe that not one instance could be adduced of even the most polished and civilized of men, who had once tasted the sweets of its attendant liberty, and freedom from every worldly care, not regretting to exchange them for the monotonous life of the settlements, and not sighing and sighing again for its pleasures and allurements.

"A hunter's camp in the Rocky Mountains, is quite a picture. It is invariably made in a picturesque locality, for, like the Indian, the white hunter has an eye to the beautiful. Nothing can be more social and cheering than the welcome blaze of the camp-fire on a cold winter's night, and nothing more amusing or entertaining, if not instructive, than the rough conversation of the simple-minded mountaineers, whose nearly daily task is all of exciting adventure, since their whole existence is spent in scenes of peril and privation. Consequently the narration is a tale of thrilling accidents, and hair-breadth escapes, which, though simple matter-of-fact to them, appears a startling romance to those unacquainted with the lives led by those men, who, with the sky for a roof, and their rifles to supply them with food and clothing, call no man lord or master, and are as free as the game they follow."

There are many events which occurred in the lives of Boone and his companions, which would seem absolutely incredible were they not sustained by evidence beyond dispute. Boone and Stewart were in a boundless, pathless, wilderness of forests, mountains, rivers and lakes. Their camp could not be reached from the settlements, but by a journey of many weeks, apparently without the smallest clue to its location. And yet the younger brother of Boone, upon whom had been conferred his father's singular baptismal name of Squire, set out with a companion to cross the mountains, in search of Daniel. One day in the latter part of January, Boone and Stewart were quite alarmed in seeing two men approach their camp. They supposed of course that they were Indians, and that they were probably followed by a numerous band. Escape was impossible. Captivity and death seemed certain. But to their surprise and delight, the two strangers proved to be white men; one the brother of Daniel Boone, and the other a North Carolinian who had accompanied him. They brought with them quite a supply of powder and lead; inestimable treasures in the remote wilderness. Daniel, in his Autobiography, in the following simple strain, alludes to this extraordinary occurrence:

"About this time my brother Squire Boone, with another adventurer, who came to explore the country shortly after us, was wandering through the forest, determined to find me if possible, and accidentally found our camp. Notwithstanding the unfortunate circumstances of our company, and our dangerous situation as surrounded by hostile savages, our meeting so fortunately in the wilderness made us reciprocally sensible of the utmost satisfaction. So much does friendship triumph over misfortune, that sorrows and sufferings vanish at the meeting, not only of real friends, but of the most distant acquaintances, and substitute happiness in their room."

Our hardy pioneer, far more familiar with his rifle than his pen, comments as follows on their condition:

"We were in a helpless, dangerous situation; exposed daily to perils and death, among savages and wild beasts. Not a white man in the country but ourselves. Thus situated, many hundred miles from our families, in the howling wilderness, I believe few would have equally enjoyed the happiness we experienced. I often observed to my brother, 'You see how little nature requires to be satisfied. Felicity, the companion of content, is rather found in our own breasts, than in the enjoyment of external things; and I firmly believe it requires but a little philosophy to make a man happy in whatsoever state he is. This consists in a full resignation to the will of Providence; and a resigned soul finds pleasure in a path strewed with briers and thorns.'"



CHAPTER V.

Indian Warfare.

Alleghany Ridges.—Voyage in a canoe.—Speech of Logan.—Battle at the Kanawha.—Narrative of Francis Marion.—Important commission of Boone.—Council at Circleville.—Treaty of Peace.—Imlay's description of Kentucky.—Settlement right.—Richard Henderson.—Boone's letter.—Fort at Boonesborough.

The valley of the Clinch river is but one of the many magnificent ravines amid the gigantic ranges of the Alleghany mountains. Boone, speaking of these ridges which he so often had occasion to cross, says:

"These mountains in the wilderness, as we pass from the old settlements in Virginia to Kentucky, are ranged in a south-west and north-east direction and are of great length and breadth and not far distant from each other. Over them nature hath formed passes that are less difficult than might be expected from a view of such huge piles. The aspect of these cliffs is so wild and horrid that it is impossible to behold them without terror. The spectator is apt to imagine that nature has formerly suffered some violent convulsion, and that these are the dismembered remains of the dreadful shock."

One cannot but regret that no memorials are left of a wonderful journey, full of romantic interest and exciting adventure, which Boone at one time took to the Falls of the Ohio, to warn some surveyors of their danger. He reached them in safety, rescued them from certain death, and conducted them triumphantly back to the settlements. So long as the white men, with their rifles, could keep upon the open prairie, they could defend themselves from almost any number of Indians, who could only assail them with bows and arrows. But the moment they entered the forest, or any ravine among the hills, the little band was liable to hear the war-whoop of a thousand Indian braves in the ambush around, and to be assailed by a storm of arrows and javelins from unseen hands.

A few days after Boone's arrival at the encampment near the Falls of the Ohio, and as the surveyors were breaking camp in preparation for their precipitate retreat, several of their number who had gone to a spring at a short distance from the camp, were suddenly attacked on the twentieth of July by a large party of Indians. One was instantly killed. The rest being nearly surrounded, fled as best they could in all directions. One man hotly pursued, rushed along an Indian trail till he reached the Ohio river. Here he chanced to find a bark canoe. He jumped into it and pushed out into the rapid stream till beyond the reach of the Indian arrows. The swift current bore him down the river, by curves and head-lands, till he was far beyond the encampment.



To return against the strong flood, with the savages watching for him, seemed perilous, if not impossible. It is said that he floated down the whole length of the Ohio and of the Mississippi, a distance not less probably, counting the curvatures of the stream, than two thousand miles, and finally found his way by sea to Philadelphia, probably in some vessel which he encountered near the coast. This is certainly one of the most extraordinary voyages which ever occurred. It was mid-summer, so that he could not suffer from cold. Grapes often hung in rich clusters in the forests, which lined the river banks, and various kinds of nutritious berries were easily gathered to satisfy hunger.

As these men never went into the forest without the rifle and a supply of ammunition, and as they never lost a bullet by an inaccurate shot, it is not probable that our adventurer suffered from hunger. But the incidents of such a voyage must have been so wonderful, that it is greatly to be regretted that we have no record of them.

The apprehensions of Lord Dunmore, respecting the conspiracy of the Indians, proved to have been well founded. Though Boone, with his great sagacity, led his little band by safe paths back to the settlements, a very fierce warfare immediately blazed forth all along the Virginia frontier. This conflict with the Indians, very brief and very bloody, is usually called Lord Dunmore's war. The white men have told the story, and they admit that the war "arose in consequence of cold-blooded murders committed upon inoffensive Indians in the region of the upper Ohio."

One of the provocatives to this war was the assassination by fiendlike white men of the whole family of the renowned Indian chief, Logan, in the vicinity of the city of Wheeling. Logan had been the friend of the white man. But exasperated by these outrages, he seized his tomahawk breathing only vengeance. General Gibson was sent to one of the Shawanese towns to confer with Logan and to detach him from the conspiracy against the whites. It was on this occasion that Logan made that celebrated speech whose pathetic eloquence will ever move the human heart:

"I appeal to any white man to say if ever he entered Logan's cabin hungry, and I gave him not meat; if ever he came cold or naked and I gave him not clothing. During the course of the last long and bloody war, Logan remained in his tent, an advocate of peace. Nay, such was my love for the whites, that those of my own country pointed at me and said, 'Logan is the friend of white men.' I had even thought to live with you, but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Cresap, the last spring, in cool blood and unprovoked, cut off all the relatives of Logan, not sparing even my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any human creature. This called on me for revenge. I have killed many. I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my country, I rejoice at the beams of peace. Yet do not harbor the thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan?"

This war, though it lasted but a few months, was very sanguinary. Every exposed point on the extensive Virginia frontier was assailed. Cabins were burned, harvests were trampled down, cattle driven off, and men, women, and children either butchered or carried into captivity more dreadful than death. The peril was so dreadful that the most extraordinary efforts on the part of the Virginian Government were requisite to meet it. An army of three thousand men was raised in the utmost haste. This force was in two divisions. One of eleven hundred men rendezvoused in what is now Green Briar county, and marched down the valley of the Great Kanawha, to its entrance into the Ohio, at a place now named Point Pleasant.

Lord Dunmore with the remaining nineteen hundred crossed the Cumberland mountains to Wheeling, and thence descended the Ohio in boats, to form a junction with the other party at the mouth of the Great Kanawha. Thence united, they were to march across the country about forty miles due west, to the valley of the Scioto. The banks of this lovely stream were lined with Indian villages, in a high state of prosperity. Corn-fields waved luxuriantly around their humble dwellings. They were living at peace with each other, and relied far more upon the produce of the soil, than upon the chase, for their support.

It was the plan of Lord Dunmore to sweep this whole region with utter desolation, and entirely to exterminate the Indians. But the savages did not await his arrival in their own homes. Many of them had obtained guns and ammunition from the French in Canada, with whom they seem to have lived on the most friendly terms.

In a well-ordered army for Indian warfare, whose numbers cannot now with certainty be known, they crossed the Ohio, below the mouth of the Great Kanawha, and marching through the forest, in the rear of the hills, fell by surprise very impetuously upon the rear of the encampment at Point Pleasant. The Indians seemed to be fully aware that their only safety was in the energies of desperation. One of the most bloody battles was then fought, which ever occurred in Indian warfare. Though the Virginians with far more potent weapons repelled their assailants, they paid dearly for their victory. Two hundred and fifteen of the Virginians fell dead or severely wounded beneath the bullets or arrows of their foes. The loss which the savages incurred could never be ascertained with accuracy. It was generally believed that several hundred of their warriors were struck down on that bloody field.

The whites, accustomed to Indian warfare and skilled in the use of the rifle, scarcely fired a shot which did not reach its mark. In the cautious warfare between the tribes, fighting with arrows from behind trees, the loss of fifteen or twenty warriors was deemed a great calamity. Now, to find hundreds of their braves weltering in blood, was awful beyond precedent, and gave them new ideas of the prowess of the white man. In this conflict the Indians manifested a very considerable degree of military ability. Having constructed a breastwork of logs, behind which they could retreat in case of a repulse, they formed in a long line extending across the point from the Kanawha to the Ohio. Then they advanced in the impetuous attack through the forest, protected by logs, and stumps, and trees. Had they succeeded in their assault, there would have been no possible escape for the Virginian troops. They must have been annihilated.

The Indians had assembled on that field nearly all the warriors of four powerful tribes; the Shawnee, Delaware, Mingo and Wyandotts. After the repulse, panic-stricken, they fled through the wilderness, unable to make any other stand against their foes. Lord Dunmore, with his triumphant army flushed with victory and maddened by its serious loss, marched rapidly down the left bank of the Ohio, and then crossed into the valley of the Scioto to sweep it with flame. We have no account of the details of this cruel expedition, but the following graphic description of a similar excursion into the land belonging to the Cherokees, will give one a vivid idea of the nature of these conflicts.

The celebrated Francis Marion, who was an officer in the campaign, and an eye-witness of the scenes which he describes, gives the following narrative of the events which ensued:

"Now commenced a scene of devastation scarcely paralleled in the annals of this continent. For thirty days the army employed themselves in burning and ravaging the settlements of the broken-spirited Indians. No less than fourteen of their towns were laid in ashes; their granaries were yielded to the flames, their corn-fields ravaged, while the miserable fugitives, flying from the sword, took refuge with their starving families among the mountains. As the lands were rich and the season had been favorable, the corn was bending under the double weight of lusty roasting ears and pods and clustering beans. The furrows seemed to rejoice under their precious loads. The fields stood thick with bread. We encamped the first night in the woods near the fields where the whole army feasted on the young corn, which, with fat venison, made a most delicious treat. The next morning, by order of Col. Grant, we proceeded to burn down the Indian cabins.

"Some of our men seemed to enjoy this cruel work, laughing very heartily at the curling flames as they mounted loud crackling over the tops of the huts. But to me it appeared a shocking sight. 'Poor creatures!' thought I, 'we surely need not grudge you such miserable habitations.' But when we came according to orders to cut down the fields of corn, I could scarcely refrain from tears; for who could see the stalks that stood so stately, with broad green leaves and gaily tasseled shocks, filled with the sweet milky flour, the staff of life,—who, I say, could see without grief these sacred plants sinking under our swords with all their precious load, to wither and rot untasted in the fields.

"I saw everywhere around the footsteps of little Indian children, where they had lately played under shelter of the rustling corn. No doubt they had often looked up with joy to the swelling shocks, and were gladdened when they thought of the abundant cakes for the coming winter. 'When we are gone,' thought I, 'they will return, and peeping through the weeds, with tearful eyes, will mark the ghastly ruin poured over their homes and the happy fields where they had so often played.'"

Such was life among the comparatively intelligent tribes in the beautiful and fertile valley of the Scioto. Such was the scene of devastation, or of "punishing the Indians," as it was called, upon which Lord Dunmore's army entered, intending to sweep the valley with fire and sword from its opening at the Ohio to its head waters leagues away in the North.

In this campaign the Indians, while with much sagacity they combined their main force to encounter the army under Lord Dunmore, detached separate bands of picked warriors to assail the settlements on the frontier at every exposed point. These bands of painted savages, emerging from the solitudes of the forests at midnight, would fall with hideous yells upon the lone cabin of the settler, or upon a little cluster of log huts, and in a few hours nothing would be left but smouldering ruins and gory corpses.

To Daniel Boone, who had manifested wonderful skill in baffling all the stratagems of Indian warfare, was assigned the difficult and infinitely important task of protecting these frontiers. Three garrisons were placed under his command, over which he exercised supreme control. He located them at the most available points; noiselessly passed from one to the other to see that they were fortified according to the most approved principles of military engineering then known in the forest. His scouts were everywhere, to give prompt notice of any approach of hostile bands. Thus this quiet, silent man, with great efficiency, fulfilled his mission to universal satisfaction. Without seeking fame, without thinking even of such a reward for his services, his sagacity and his virtues were rapidly giving him a very enviable reputation throughout all those regions.

The discomfited Indians had become thoroughly disheartened, and sent couriers to Lord Dunmore imploring peace. Comstock, their chief, seems to have been a man not only of strong native powers of mind, but of unusual intelligence. With quite a brilliant retinue of his warriors, he met Lord Dunmore in council at a point in the valley of the Scioto, about four miles south of the present city of Circleville. Comstock himself opened the deliberations with a speech of great dignity and argumentative power. In a loud voice, which was heard, as he intended, by all in the camp, he portrayed the former prosperous condition of the Indian tribes, powerful in numbers and abounding in wealth, in the enjoyment of their rich corn-fields, and their forests filled with game. With this he contrasted very forcibly their present wretched condition, with diminished numbers, and with the loss of their hunting grounds. He reproached the whites with the violation of their treaty obligations, and declared that the Indians had been forbearing in the extreme under the wrongs which had been inflicted upon them.

"We know," said he, "perfectly well, our weakness when compared with the English. The Indians desire only justice. The war was not sought by us, but was forced upon us. It was commenced by the whites. We should have merited the contempt of every white man could we have tamely submitted to the murders which have been inflicted upon our unoffending people at the hands of the white men."

The power was with Lord Dunmore. In the treaty of peace he exacted terms which, though very hard for the Indians, were perhaps not more than he had a right to require. The Indians surrendered four of their principal warriors as hostages for the faithful observance of the treaty. They relinquished all claims whatever to the vast hunting grounds which their bands from time immemorial had ranged south of the Ohio river. This was an immense concession. Lord Dunmore returned across the mountains well satisfied with his campaign, though his soldiers were excited almost to mutiny in not being permitted to wreak their vengeance upon the unhappy savages.

And here let it be remarked, that deeply wronged as these Indians unquestionably were, there was not a little excuse for the exasperation of the whites. Fiends incarnate could not have invented more terrible tortures than they often inflicted upon their captives. We have no heart to describe these scenes. They are too awful to be contemplated. In view of the horrid barbarity thus practised, it is not strange that the English should have wished to shoot down the whole race, men, women, and children, as they would exterminate wolves or bears.

This campaign being thus successfully terminated, Daniel Boone returned to his humble cabin on the Clinch River. Here he had a small and fertile farm, which his energetic family had successfully cultivated during the summer, and he spent the winter months in his favorite occupation of hunting in the forests around. His thoughtful mind, during these long and solitary rambles, was undoubtedly occupied with plans for the future. Emigration to his beautiful Kentucky was still his engrossing thought.

It is not wonderful that a man of such fearless temperament, and a natural turn of mind so poetic and imaginative, should have been charmed beyond expression by a realm whose attractions he had so fully experienced. That the glowing descriptions of Boone and Finley were not exaggerated, is manifest from the equally rapturous account of others who now began to explore this favored land. Imlay writes of that region:

"Everything here assumes a dignity and splendor I have never seen in any other part of the world. You ascend a considerable distance from the shores of the Ohio, and when you would suppose you had arrived at the summit of a mountain, you find yourself upon an extensive level. Here an eternal verdure reigns, and the brilliant sun of latitude 39 degrees, piercing through the azure heavens, produces in this prolific soil an early maturity which is truly astonishing. Flowers full and perfect, as if they had been cultivated by the hand of a florist, with all their captivating odors, and with all the variegated charms which color and nature can produce, here in the lap of elegance and beauty, decorate the smiling groves. Soft zephyrs gently breathe on sweets, and the inhaled air gives a glow of health and vigor that seems to ravish the intoxicated senses."

The Virginian government now resolved to pour a tide of emigration into these as yet unexplored realms, south of the Ohio. Four hundred acres of land were offered to every individual who would build a cabin, clear a lot of land, and raise a crop of corn. This was called a settlement right. It was not stated how large the clearing should be, or how extensive the corn-field. Several settlements were thus begun in Kentucky, when there was a new and extraordinary movement which attracted universal attention.

A very remarkable man, named Richard Henderson, appeared in North Carolina. Emerging from the humblest walks of life, and unable even to read until he had obtained maturity, he developed powers of conversational eloquence and administrative ability of the highest order.

The Cherokee Indians claimed the whole country bounded by the Kentucky, the Ohio, and the Cumberland rivers, and we know not how much more territory extending indefinitely to the South and West. Colonel Henderson formed an association of gentlemen, which he called the Transylvania Company. Making a secret journey to the Cherokee country, he met twelve hundred chiefs in council, and purchased of them the whole territory, equal to some European kingdoms, bounded by the above mentioned rivers. For this realm, above a hundred miles square, he paid the insignificant sum of ten wagon loads of cheap goods, with a few fire-arms and some spirituous liquors.

Mr. Henderson, to whom the rest of the company seemed to have delegated all their powers, now assumed the position of proprietor, governor, and legislator of his magnificent domain, which he called Transylvania. It seems that Boone accompanied Colonel Henderson to the council of the Cherokee chieftains which was held at Wataga, the southern branch of the Holston River. Boone had explored nearly the whole of this region, and it was upon his testimony that the company relied in endeavoring to purchase these rich and fertile lands. Indeed, as we have before intimated, it has been said that Boone in his wonderful and perilous explorations was the agent of this secret company.

No treaties with the Indians were sure of general acquiescence. There were always discontented chieftains; there were almost always conflicting claims of hostile tribes; there were always wandering tribes of hunters and of warriors, who, exasperated by the treatment which they had received from vagabond white men, were ever ready to wreak their vengeance upon any band of emigrants they might encounter.

Colonel Henderson's treaty was made in the month of March, 1775. With characteristic vigor, he immediately made preparations for the settlement of the kingdom of which he was the proud monarch. The first thing to be done was to mark out a feasible path through which emigrants might pass, without losing their way, over the mountains and through the wilderness, to the heart of this new Eden. Of all the men in the world, Daniel Boone was the one to map out this route of five hundred miles. He took with him a company of road-makers, and in a few months opened a path which could be traversed by pack-horses, and even by wagons to a place called Boonesville on the Kentucky river, within about thirty miles of the present site of Lexington.

The Indian hunters and warriors, notwithstanding the treaties into which the chieftains of the North and the South had entered, watched the construction of this road with great solicitude. They knew full well that it would ere long secure their expulsion from their ancient hunting grounds. Though no general warfare was organized by the tribes, it was necessary to be constantly on the watch against lawless bands, who were determined to harass the pioneers in every possible way. In the following letter Boone communicated to Colonel Henderson the hostility which they had, perhaps unexpectedly, encountered. It was dated the first of April, and was sent back by a courier through the woods:

"Dear Colonel,—

"After my compliments to you, I shall acquaint you with my misfortunes. On March the Twenty-fifth, a party of Indians fired on my company about half an hour before day, and killed Mr. Twitty and his negro, and wounded Mr. Walker very deeply; but I hope he will recover. On March the Twenty-eighth, as we were hunting for provisions, we found Samuel Tale's son who gave us an account that the Indians fired on their camp on the twenty-seventh day. My brother and I went down and found two men killed and scalped, Thomas McDowell and Jeremiah McPeters. I have sent a man down to all the lower companies, in order to gather them all to the mouth of the Otter Creek. My advice to you, sir, is to come or send as soon as possible. Your company is desired greatly, for the people are very uneasy, but are willing to stay and venture their lives with you. And now is the time to frustrate their (the Indians) intentions, and keep the country while we are in it. If we give way to them now, it will ever be the case. This day we start from the battle ground to the mouth of Otter Creek, where we shall immediately erect a fort, which will be done before you can come or send. Then we can send ten men to meet you, if you send for them.

"I am, Sir, your most obedient servant,

"DANIEL BOONE."

Boone immediately commenced upon the left bank of the Kentucky river, which here ran in a westerly direction, the erection of a fort. Their position was full of peril, for the road-makers were but few in number, and Indian warriors to the number of many hundreds might at any time encircle them. Many of these Indians had also obtained muskets from the French in Canada, and had become practiced marksmen. Nearly three months were busily occupied in the construction of this important fort. Fortunately we have a minute description of its structure, and a sketch of its appearance, either from the pencil of Colonel Henderson, or of some one in his employ.

The fort or fortress consisted of a series of strong log huts, enclosing a large interior or square. The parallelogram was about two hundred and sixty feet in length and one hundred and fifty in breadth. These cabins, built of logs, were bullet-proof. The intervals between them were filled with stout pieces of timber, about twelve feet high, planted firmly in the ground, in close contact with each other, and sharpened at the top. The fort was built close to the river, with one of its angles almost overhanging the water, so that an abundant supply could be obtained without peril. Each of the corner houses projected a little, so that from the port-holes any Indian could be shot who should approach the walls with ladder or hatchet. This really artistic structure was not completed until the fourteenth day of June. The Indians from a distance watched its progress with dismay. They made one attack, but were easily repelled, though they succeeded in shooting one of the emigrants.

Daniel Boone contemplated the fortress on its completion with much satisfaction. He was fully assured that behind its walls and palisades bold hearts, with an ample supply of ammunition, could repel any assaults which the Indians were capable of making. He now resolved immediately to return to Clinch river, and bring his family out to share with him his new and attractive home.



CHAPTER VI.

Sufferings of the Pioneers.

Emigration to Boonesborough.—New Perils.—Transylvania Company.—Beneficence of its Laws.—Interesting Incident.—Infamous conduct of Great Britain.—Attack on the Fort.—Reinforcements.—Simon Kenton and his Sufferings.—Mrs. Harvey.

The fortress at Boonesborough consisted of ten strong log huts arranged in a quadrangular form, enclosing an area of about one-third of an acre. The intervals, as before stated, between the huts, were filled with strong palisades of timber, which, like the huts themselves, were bullet-proof. The outer sides of the cabins, together with the palisades, formed the sides of the fort exposed to the foe. Each of these cabins was about twenty feet in length and twelve or fifteen in breadth. There were two entrance gates opposite each other, made of thick slabs of timber, and hung on wooden hinges. The forest, which was quite dense, had been cut away to such a distance as to expose an assailing party to the bullets of the garrison. As at that time the Indians were armed mainly with bows and arrows, a few men fully supplied with ammunition within the fort could bid defiance to almost any number of savages. And subsequently, as the Indians obtained fire-arms, they could not hope to capture the fort without a long siege, or by assailing it with a vastly overwhelming superiority of numbers. The accompanying illustration will give the reader a very correct idea of this renowned fortress of logs, which was regarded as the Gibraltar of Indian warfare.

Having finished this fort Daniel Boone, leaving a sufficient garrison for its security, set out for his home on the Clinch river to bring his wife and family to the beautiful land he so long had coveted for their residence. It seems that his wife and daughters were eager to follow their father to the banks of the Kentucky, whose charms he had so glowingly described to them. Several other families were also induced to join the party of emigration. They could dwell together in a very social community and in perfect safety in the spacious cabins within the fortress. The river would furnish them with an unfailing supply of water. The hunters, with their rifles, could supply them with game, and with those rifles could protect themselves while laboring in the fields, which with the axe they had laid open to the sun around the fort. The hunters and the farmers at night returning within the enclosure, felt perfectly safe from all assaults.

Daniel Boone commenced his journey with his wife and children, and others who joined them, back to Boonesborough in high spirits. It was a long journey of several hundred miles, and to many persons it would seem a journey fraught with great peril, for they were in danger almost every mile of the way, of encountering hostile Indians. But Boone, accustomed to traversing the wilderness, and accompanied by well armed men, felt no more apprehensions of danger than the father of a family would at the present day in traveling by cars from Massachusetts to Pennsylvania.

It was beautiful autumnal weather when the party of pioneers commenced its adventurous tour through the wilderness, to find a new home five hundred miles beyond even the remotest frontiers of civilization. There were three families besides that of Boone, and numbered in all twenty-six men, four women, and four or five boys and girls of various ages. Daniel Boone was the happy leader of this heroic little band.

In due time they all arrived safely at Boonesborough "without having encountered," as Boone writes, "any other difficulties than such as are common to this passage." As they approached the fort, Boone and his family, for some unexplained reason, pressed forward, and entered the fortress a few days in advance of the rest of the party. Perhaps Boone himself had a little pride to have it said, that Mrs. Boone and her daughter were the first of her color and sex that ever stood upon the banks of the wild and beautiful Kentucky.

A few days after their arrival, the emigrants had a very solemn admonition of the peril which surrounded them, and of the necessity of constant vigilance to guard against a treacherous and sleepless foe. One of their number who had sauntered but a short distance from the fort, lured by the combined beauty of the field, the forest and the river, was shot by a prowling Indian, who, raising the war-whoop of exultation and defiance, immediately disappeared in the depths of the wilderness.

Colonel Henderson and his partners, anxious to promote the settlement of the country, by organising parties of emigration, were busy in making known through the settlements the absolute security of the fort at Boonesborough, and the wonderful attractions of the region, in soil, climate, and abounding game. Henderson himself soon started with a large party, forty of whom were well armed. A number of pack-horses conveyed the luggage of the emigrants. Following the very imperfect road that Boone with much skill had engineered, which was quite tolerable for pack-horses in single file, they reached Boonesborough early in the following spring.

The Transylvania Company was in the full flush of successful experiment. Small parties of emigrants were constantly arriving. Boonesborough was the capital of the colony. Various small settlements were settled in its vicinity. Colonel Henderson opened a land office there, and in the course of a few months, over half a million of acres were entered, by settlers or speculators. These men did not purchase the lands outright, but bound themselves to pay a small but perpetual rent. The titles, which they supposed to be perfectly good, were given in the name of the "proprietors of the Colony of Transylvania, in America."

Soon four settlements were organised called Boonesborough, Harrodsburg, Boiling Spring, and St. Asaph. Colonel Henderson, on the twenty-third of May, 1775, as president or rather sovereign of this extraordinary realm, summoned a legislature consisting of delegates from this handful of pioneers, to meet at his capital, Boonesborough. Henderson presided. Daniel and his brother Squire were delegates from Boonesborough. A clergyman, the Reverend John Leythe, opened the session with prayer. Colonel Henderson made a remarkable and admirable speech. This extraordinary legislature represented only a constituency of one hundred and fifty souls. But the Colonel presented to them very clearly the true republican principle of government. He declared that the only legitimate source of political power is to be found in the will of the people, and added:

"If any doubts remain among you with respect to the force and 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."

Rumors of these extraordinary proceedings reached the ears of Lord Dunmore. He considered the whole region of Kentucky as included in the original grant of Virginia, and that the Government of Virginia alone had the right to extinguish the Indian title to any of those lands. He therefore issued a proclamation, denouncing in the severest terms the "unlawful proceedings of one Richard Henderson and other disorderly persons, his associates." The legislature continued in session but three days, and honored itself greatly by its energetic action, and by the character of the laws which it inaugurated. One bill was introduced for preserving game; another for improving the breed of their horses; and it is worthy of especial record that a law was passed prohibiting profane swearing and Sabbath breaking.

The moral sense of these bold pioneers was shocked at the desecration of the Creator's name among their sublime solitudes.

The controversy between the Transylvania Company and the Government of Virginia was short but very sharp. Virginia could then very easily send an army of several thousand men to exterminate the Kentucky colony. A compromise was the result. The title of Henderson was declared "null and void." But he received in compensation a grant of land on the Ohio, about twelve miles square, below the mouth of Green River. Virginia assumed that the Indian title was entirely extinguished, and the region called Transylvania now belonged without encumbrance to the Old Dominion.

Still the tide of emigration continued to flow into this beautiful region. Among others came the family of Colonel Calloway, consisting of his wife and two daughters. For a long time no Indians had been seen in the vicinity of Boonesborough. No one seemed to apprehend the least danger from them, and the people in the fort wandered about as freely as if no foe had ever excited their fears. An accident occurred which sent a tremor of dismay through the whole colony, and which we will describe as related to the intelligent historian, Peck, from the lips of one of the parties, who experienced all the terrors of the scene:

"On the fourteenth of July, 1776, Betsey Calloway, her sister Frances, and Jemima Boone, a daughter of Daniel Boone, the two last about fourteen years of age, carelessly crossed the river opposite Boonesborough in a canoe, at a late hour in the afternoon. The trees and shrubs on the opposite bank were thick, and came down to the water's edge. The girls, unconscious of danger, were playing and splashing the water with their paddles, until the canoe floating with the current, drifted near the shore. Five stout Indians lay there concealed, one of whom, noiseless and stealthy as the serpent, crawled down the bank until he reached the rope that hung from the bow, turned its course up the stream, and in a direction to be hidden from the view of the fort. The loud shrieks of the captured girls were heard, but too late for their rescue.

"The canoe, their only means of crossing, was on the opposite shore, and none dared to risk the chance of swimming the river, under the impression that a large body of savages was concealed in the woods. Boone and Calloway were both absent, and night came on before arrangements could be made for their pursuit. Next morning by daylight we were on the track, and found they had prevented our following them by walking some distance apart through the thickest canes they could find. We observed their course, and on which side they had left their sign and traveled upwards of thirty miles. We then imagined they would be less cautious in traveling, and made a turn in order to cross their trace, and had gone but a few miles when we found their tracks in a buffalo path. We pursued and overtook them on going about ten miles, as they were kindling a fire to cook.



"Our study had been more to get the prisoners without giving the Indians time to murder them, after they discovered us, than to kill them. We discovered each other nearly at the same time. Four of us fired, and all of us rushed on them, which prevented them from carrying away anything, except one shot-gun without ammunition. Mr. Boone and myself had a pretty fair shoot, just as they began to move off. I am well convinced I shot one through, and the one he shot dropped his gun. Mine had none. The place was very thick with canes, and being so much elated on recovering the three broken-hearted girls, prevented our making further search. We sent them off without their mocassins, and not one of them with so much as a knife or a tomahawk."

The Indians seemed to awake increasingly to the consciousness that the empire of the white man in their country could only exist upon the ruins of their own. They divided themselves into several parties, making incessant attacks upon the forts, and prowling around to shoot every white man who could be found within reach of their bullets. They avoided all open warfare, and fought only when they could spring from an ambush, or when protected by a stump, a rock, or a tree. An Indian would conceal himself in the night behind a stump, shoot the first one who emerged from the fort in the morning, and then with a yell disappear in the recesses of the forest. The cattle could scarcely appear for an hour to graze beyond the protection of the fort, without danger of being struck down by the bullet of an unseen foe.

The war of the American Revolution was just commencing. Dreadfully it added to the perils of these distant emigrants. The British Government, with infamy which can never be effaced from her records, called in to her aid the tomahawk and the scalping knife of the savage. The Indian alone in his wild and merciless barbarity, was terrible enough. But when he appeared as the ally of a powerful nation, guided in his operations by the wisdom of her officers, and well provided with guns, powder, and bullets from inexhaustible resources, the settler had indeed reason to tremble. The winter of 1776 and 1777 was gloomy beyond expression. The Indians were hourly becoming more bold. Their predatory bands were wandering in all directions, and almost every day came fraught with tidings of outrage or massacre.

The whole military force of the colony was but about one hundred men. Three hundred of the pioneers, dismayed by the cloud of menace, every hour growing blacker, had returned across the moutains. There were but twenty-two armed men left in the fort at Boonesborough. The dismal winter passed slowly away, and the spring opened replete with nature's bloom and beauty, but darkened by the depravity of man. On the fifteenth of April, a band of a hundred howling Indians appeared in the forest before Boonesborough. With far more than their ordinary audacity, they rushed from their covert upon the fort. Had they been acquainted with the use of scaling ladders, by attacking at different points, they might easily, by their superior numbers, have carried the place by storm.

But fortunately the savages had but little military science, and when once repulsed, would usually retreat in dismay. The garrison, behind their impenetrable logs, took deliberate aim, and every bullet killed or wounded some Indian warrior. The savages fought with great bravery, and succeeded in killing one man in the garrison. Dismayed by the slaughter which they were encountering, they fled, taking their dead and wounded with them. But so fully were they conscious, that would they retain their own supremacy in the wilderness, they must exterminate the white man, that their retreat was only in preparation for a return with accumulated numbers.

An intelligent historian writes:

"Daniel Boone appears before us in these exciting times the central figure towering like a colossus amid that hardy band of pioneers who opposed their breasts to the shock of the struggle which gave a terrible significance and a crimson hue to the history of the old dark and bloody ground."

The Indians were scattered everywhere in desperate bands. Forty men were sent from North Carolina and a hundred from Virginia, under Colonel Bowman, to strengthen the feeble settlements. The latter party arrived on the twentieth of August, 1776. There were at that time skirmishes with the Indians almost every day at some point. The pioneers within their log-houses, or behind their palisades, generally repelled these assaults with but little loss to themselves and not often inflicting severe injury to the wary savages. In the midst of these constant conflicts and dangers, the winter months passed drearily away. Boonesborough was constantly menaced and frequently attacked. In a diary kept within the fort we find the following entries:

"May 23.—A large party of Indians attacked Boonesborough fort. Kept a warm fire till eleven o'clock at night. Began it next morning, and kept a warm fire till midnight. Attempting several times to burn the fort. Three of our men were wounded, but not mortally.

"May 26th.—A party went out to hunt Indians. One wounded Squire Boone, and escaped."

Very cruel warfare was now being waged by the majestic power of Great Britain to bring the revolted colonies back to subjection to their laws. As we have mentioned they called into requisition on their side the merciless energies of the savage, openly declaring to the world that they were justified in making use of whatever weapons God and nature might place in their hands. From the strong British garrisons at Detroit, Vincennes and Kaskaskia, the Indians were abundantly supplied with rifles, powder and bullets, and were offered liberal rewards for such prisoners, and even scalps, as they might bring in.

The danger which threatened these settlements in Kentucky was now such as might cause the stoutest heart to quail. The savage had been adopted as an ally by the most wealthy and powerful nation upon the globe. His marauding bands were often guided by the intelligence of British officers. Boone organized what might be called a corps of explorers to go out two and two, penetrating the wilderness with extreme caution, in all directions, to detect any indication of the approach of the Indians. One of these explorers, Simon Kenton, acting under the sagacious counsel of Colonel Boone, had obtained great and deserved celebrity as among the most heroic of the remarkable men who laid the foundation of the State of Kentucky. It would be difficult to find in any pages of romance incidents of more wonderful adventure, or of more dreadful suffering, or stories of more miraculous escape, than were experienced by this man. Several times he was taken captive by the Indians, and though treated with great inhumanity, succeeded in making his escape. The following incident in his life, occurring about this time, gives one a very vivid picture of the nature of this warfare with the Indians:

"Colonel Bowman sent Simon Kenton with two other men, Montgomery and Clark, on an exploring tour. Approaching an Indian town very cautiously in the night, on the north side of the Ohio river, they found a number of Indian horses in an enclosure. A horse in the wilderness was one of the most valuable of prizes. They accordingly each mounted an animal, and not daring to leave any behind, which would aid the Indians to pursue them, by hastily constructed halters they led the rest. The noise which the horses made awoke the Indians, and the whole village was at once in a state of uproar. The mounted adventurers dashed through the woods and were soon beyond the reach of the shouts and the yells which they left behind them. They knew, however, full well that the swift-footed Indian warriors would be immediately on their trail. Without a moment's rest they rode all night, the next day and the next night, and on the morning of the second day reached the banks of the Ohio river. The flood of that majestic stream flowed broad and deep before them, and its surface was lashed into waves by a very boisterous wind. The horses could not swim across in such a gale, but their desire to retain the invaluable animals was so great that they resolved to wait upon the banks until sunset, when they expected the wind to abate. Having been so well mounted and having such a start of the Indians, they did not suppose it possible that their pursuers could overtake them before that time.