ISASTHIilLi 5B®®SS'21a BOONE'S FIRST VIEW OF KENTUCKY. »• Fair was the scene that lay Flowers of the fairest dyes, Before the little band, Trees clothed in richest green; Which paused upon its toilsome way, And brightly smiled the deep-blue ski* To view this new found land. ' O'er this enchanting scene. Field, stream and valley spread, Such was Kentucky then, Far as the eye could f^aze. With wild luxuriance blest; With summer's beauty o'er them shed, Where no invading hand had been, And sunlight's brightest rays. The garden of the West." THE FIRST WHITE MAN OF THE WEST, OR THE LIFE AND EXPLOITS OF COL. DkWL, BOONE, THE FIRST SETTLER OF KENTUCKY ; INTERSPERSED WITH INCIDENTS IN THE EARLY ANNALS OF THE COUNTRY, BY TIMOTHY FLINT. H. M. RULISON, QUEEN CITT PUBLISHING HOUSE, 115K MAIN STREET, CINCINNAII: 32 SOUTH THIRD STREET, PHHiADELPHIA. 1856. ib Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1847, bj GEORGE CONCLIN »nthftClerk's Office of the District Court of the District cf Ohio. CONTENTS CHAPTER I. Birth of Daniel Boone — His early propensities — His pranks at schao\ — His first liuntin^ expedition — And his encounter with a panther. Removal of the family to North Carolina — Boone becomes a hunter — Description of fire hunting, in which he was near committing a sad mistake — Its fortunate result — and his marriage. CHAPTER 11. Boone removes to the head waters of the Yadkin river — He insets with Finley, who had crossed the mountains into Tennessee — They agree to explore the wilderness w-ist of the AUeghanies together. CHAPTER III. Boone, with Finley and others, start on their exploring expedition — Boone kills a panther in the night — Their progress over the moun- tains — They descend into the great valley — Description of the new country — Herds of buffaloes — Their wanderings in the wilderness. CPIAPTER IV. The exploring party divide into different routes — Boone and Stewart taken prisoners by the Indians, and their escape — Boone meets with his elder brother and another white man in the woods — Stewart kil- 'ed by the Indians, and the companion of the elder Boone destroyed by wolves — The elder brother returns to North Carolina, leaving Boone alone in the wilderness. CHAPTER V. Boone is pursued by the Indians, and eludes their pursuit — He encoun- ters and kills a bear — The return of his brother with ammunition — They explore the country — Boone kills a panther on *he back of a buffalo — ^They return to North Carolina. CHAPTER VI. Boone starts with his family to Kentucky — Their return to Clinch river — He conducts a party of surveyors to the Falls of Ohio — He helps build Boonesborough, and removes his family to the fort — His daugh- ter and two of Col. Calloway's daughte'rs taken prisoners by the Indians — They pursue the Indians and rescue the captives. CHAPTER VII. Settlement of Harrodsburgh — Indian mode of besieging and warfare- Fortitude and privation of the Pioneers — The Indians attack Hjir rodsburgh and Boonesborough — Description of a Station — Attack of Bryant's Station. CONTEIiTS. CHAPTER VIII. Boone being attacked by two Indians near the Blue Licks, kills them both — ^Is afterwards taken prisoner and marched to Old Chillicothe —Is adopted by the Indians — Indian ceremonies. CHAPTER IX. Boone becomes a favorite among the Indians — Anecdotes relating to hu captivity — Their mode of tormenting and burning prisoners — Theii fortitude under the infliction of torture — Concerted attack on Boones- borough — Boone escapes. CHAPTER X. Six hundred Indians attack Boonesborough — Boone and Captain Smitii go out 10 treat with the enemy under a flag of truce, and are extricated from a treacherous attempt to detain them as pri- soners — Defence of the fort — The Indians defeated — Boone goe^ to North Carolina to bring back his family. CHAPTER XL A sketch of the character and adventures of several other pioneers— Harrod, Kent 3n, Logan, Ray, McAffee, and others. CHAPTER XII. Boone's brother killed, and Boone himself narrowly escapes from th« Indians — Assault upon Ashton's station — and upon the stxtion neaj Shelbyville — Attack upon McAfee's station. CHAPTER XIII. Disastrous battle near the Blue Licks — General Clarke's expedition against the Miami towns — Massacre of McClure's family — The horrors of Indian assaults throughout the settlements — General Harmar's expedition — Defeat of General St. Clair — Gen. Wayne's victory, and a final peace with the Indians. CHAPTER XIV. Rejoicings on account of the peace — Boone indulges his propensity foi hunting — Kentucky increases in population — Some account of theii conflicth.g land titles — Progress of civil improvement destroying the range of the hunter — Litigation of land tides — Boone ?oses his lands—* Removes from Kentucky to the Kanawha — Leaves the Kanawha and goes to Missouri, where he is appointed Commandant. CHAPTER XV. Anecdotes of Colonel Boone, related by Mr. AiK^ubon — A remarkable instance of memory. CHAPTER XVI. Progress of improvement in Missouri — Old age of Boone — Death of hit wife — ^He goes to reside with his son — His death — His personal ajjh p«arance and character. PREFACE Our eastern brethren have entered heartily into the pious duty of bringing to remembrance the character and deeds of their forefathers. Shall we of the west allow the names of those great men, who won for us, from the forest, the savages, and wild beasts, our fair domain of fertile fields and beautiful rivers, to fade into oblivion? They who have hearts to admire nobility imparted by na- ture's great seal — fearlessness, strength, energy, saga- city, generous forgetfulness of self, the delineation of scenes of terror, and the relation of deeds of daring, will not fail to be interested in a sketch of the life of the pio- neer and hunter of Kentucky, Daniel Boone. Contem- plated in any light, we shall find him in his way and walk, a man as truly great as Penn, Marion, and Franklin, in theirs. True, he was not learned in the lore of bocks, or trained in the etiquette of cities. But he possesst^d a knowledge far more important in the sphere which Provi- dence called him to fill. He felt, too, the conscious digni- ty of self-respect, and would have been seen as erect, firm, and unembarrassed amid the pomp and splendor of the proudest court in Christendom, as in the shade of his own wilderness. Where nature in her own ineffaceable characters has marked superiority, she looks down upon the tiny and elaborate acquirements of art, and in all po- sitions and in all time entitles her favorites to the involun- tary homage of their fellow-men. They are the selected pilots in storms, the leaders in battles, and the pionecra in the colonization of new countries. PREFACE. Such a man was Daniel Boone, and wonderfully was he endowed by Providence for the part which he was called to act. Far be it from us to undervalue the advantages of education: It can do every thing but assume the pre- rogative of Providence. God has reserved for himself the attribute of creating. Distinguished excellence has never been attained, unless where nature and education, native endowment and circumstances, have concurred. Thia wonderful man received his commission for his achieve ments and his peculiar walk from the sign manual of na ture. He was formed to be a woodsman, and the adven turous precursor in the first settlement of Kentucky. His home was in the woods, where others were bewildered and lost. It is a mysterious spectacle to see a man pos- sessed of such an astonishing power of being perfectly fa- miliar with his route and his resources in the depths of the untrodden wilderness, where others could as little divine their way, and what was to be done, as mariners on raid- ocean, without chart or compass, sun, moon, or stars. But that nature has bestowed these endowments upon some men and denied them to others, is as certain as that she has given to some animals instincts of one kind, fitting them for peculiar modes of life, which are denied to others, perhaps as strangely endowed in another way. The following pages aim to present a faithful picture of this singular man, in his wanderings, captivities, and escapes. If the effort be successful, we have no fear that the attention of the reader will wander. There is a charm in such recitals, which lays its spell upon all. The grave and gay, the simple and the learned, the young and gray- haired alike yield to its influence. We wish to present him in his strong incipient manifes- tations of the development of his peculiar character in boyhcod. We then see him on foot and alone, with no PKEFACE. companion but his dog, and no friend but his rifle, making his way over trackless and unnamed mountains, and im measurable forests, until he explores the flowering wil- derness of Kentucky. Already familiar, by his own pe- culiar intuition, with the Indian character, we see him casting his keen and searching glance around, as the an- cient woods rung with the first strokes of his axe, and pausing from time to time to see if the echoes have star- tled the red men, or the wild beasts from theii lair. We trace him through all the succeeding explorations of the Bloody Ground, and of Tennessee, until so many immi- grants have followed in his steps, that he finds his privacy too strongly pressed upon; until he finds the huts and bounds of legal tenures restraining his free thoughts, and impelling him to the distant and unsettled shores of the Missouri, to seek range and solitude anew. We see him there, his eyes l>€ginning to grow dim with the influence of seventy winters — as he can no longer take the unerring aim of his rifle — casting wistful looks in the direction of the Rocky Mountains and the western sea ; and sadly re- minded that man has but one short life, in which to wander. No book can be imagined more interesting than would have been the personal narrative of such a man, written by himself. What a new pattern of the heart he might have presented! But, unfortunately, he does not seem to have dreamed of the chance that his adventures would go down to posterity in the form of recorded biography. We suspect that he rather eschewed books, parchment deeds, and clerkly contrivances, as forms of evil ; and held the dead letter of little consequence. His associates were as little likely to preserve any records, but those of memory, of the daily incidents and exploits, which indicate charac- ter and assume high interest, when they relate to a person like the subject of this narrative. These hunters, unerring PREFAUE. in their aim to prostrate the buffalo on his plain, or to bring down the geese and swans from the clouds, thought little of any other use of the gray goose quill, than its market value. Had it been otherwise, and had these men themselves furnished the materials of this narrative, we have no fear that it would go down to futurity, a more enduring monu- ment to these pioneers and hunters, than the granite col- umns reared by our eastern brethren, amidst assembled thousands, with magnificent array, and oratory, and songs, to the memory of tlieir forefathers. Ours would be the record of human nature speaking to human nature in sim- plicity and truth, in a language always impressive, and always understood. Their pictures of their own felt suffi- ciency to themselves, under the pressure of exposure and want; of danger, wounds, and captivity ; of reciprocal kind- ness, warm from the heart; of noble forgetfulness of self, unshrinking firmness, calm endurance, and reckless bra- very, would be sure to move in the hearts of their readers strings which never fail to vibrate to the touch. But these inestimable data are wanting. Our materi- als are comparatively few ; and we have been often obliged to balance between doubtful authorities, notwithstanding the most rigorous scrutiny of newspapers and pamphlets, whose yellow and dingy pages gave out a cloud of dust at every movement, and the equally rigid examination of clean modern books and periodicals. LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. CHAPTER L B'rth of Daniel Boone — His early propensities — His pranks at school —His first hunting expedition — And his encour ter with a panther. Removal of tlie family to North Carolina — Boone becomes a hunter — Description of fire hunting, in which he was near committing a sad mistake — Its fortunate result — and his marriage. Different authorities assign a different birth place to Daniel Boone. One affirms that he was born in Maryland, another in North CaroUna, ano- ther in Virginia, and still another during the transit of his parents' across the Atlantic. But they are all equally in error. He was born in the year 1746, in Bucks county, Pennsylvania, near Bristol, on the right bank of the Delaware, about twenty miles from Philadelphia. His father removed, v/hen he was three years old, to the vicinity of Reading, on the head waters of the Schuylkill. From thence, when his son was thirteen years old, he migrated to North Carolina, and settled in one of the valleys of South Yadkin. The remotest of his ancestors, of whom there is aty recorded notice, is Joshua Boone, an English 12 LIFE OF DANIEi^ BOONB Catholic. He crossed the Atlantic t ne shores i tuckj river. In our zeal to blazon our subject, it is not affirmed, that Boone was absolutely the first discoverer and explorer of Kentucky, for he was not. But the high meed of being the first actual settler and cultivator of the soil, cannot be denied him. It was the pleasant season of the close of biimmer and commencement of autumn, when the immigrants would see their new residence in the best light. Many of its actual inconveniences were withheld from observation, as the mildness of the air precluded the necessity of tight dwellings. Arrangements were made for cultivating a field in the coming spring. The Indians, although far from friendly, did not attempt any immediate assault up- cn their new neighbors, and the first events of the settlement were decidedly fortunate. The game in the woods was an unfailing resource for food. The supplies brought from their former homes by the immigrants were not yet exhausted, and things went on in their usual train, with the added advan- tage, that over all, in their new home, was spread the charm of novelty. Winter came and passed with as little discomfort to the inmates of the garrison as could be expected from the circumstances of their position. The cabins were thoroughly daubed, and fuel was of course abundant. It is true, those who felled the trees were compelled to be constantly on their guard, lest a red man should take aim at them from the shelter of some one of the forest hiding places. But they were fitted for this way of getting alon^ LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 85 by their training, natures, and predilections. Theie was no want of excitement during the day, or even night — nothing of the wearying monotony to which a life of safe and regular occupation is subject. Spring opened. The trees were girdled, and the brush cut down and burned, preparatory to plough- ing the field. A garden spot was marked otf, the virgin earth thrown up and softened, and then given in charge to the wives and daughters of the estab- lishment. They brought out their stock of seeds, gathered in the old settlements, and every bright day saw them engaged in the light and healthful occupation of planting them. They were protect- ed by the vicinity of their husbands and fathers, and in turn cheered them in their severer labors. The Indians had forborne any attacks upon the settlers so long, that, as is naturally the case, they had ceas- ed in a degree to dwell upon the danger always to be apprehended from them. The men did not fail to take their rifles and knives with them whenever they went abroad; but the women ventured occa- sionally a short distance without the palisades during the day, never, however, losing sight of the fort. This temerity was destined to cost them dear. Colonel Calloway, the intimate friend of Boone, had joined him in the course of the spring, at the fort, which had received, by the consent of all, the name of Boonesborough. He had two daughters. Captain Boone had a daughter also, and the three were companions; and, if we may take the portraits of the rustic time, patterns of youthful bloom and loveliness. It cannot be doubted that they were 8 86 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. inexpressibly denr to their parents. These girls, at the close of a beautiful summer day, the 14th of July, were tempted imprudently to wander into the woods at no great distance from their habitations, to gather flowers with which to adorn their rustic fire-places. They were suddenly surrounded by half a dozen Indians. Their shrieks and efforts to flee were alike unavailing. They were dragged rapidly beyond the power of making themselves heard. As soon as they Avere deemed to be beyond the danger of rescue, they were treated with the ut- most indulgence and decorum. This forbearance, of a race that we are accustom- ed to call savages, was by no means accidental, or pecuHar to this case. While in battle, they are un- sparing and unrelenting as tigers — while, after the fury of its excitement is past, they will exult with frantic and demoniac joy in the cries of their vic- tims expiring at a slow fire — while they dash the tomahawk with merciless indifference into the clo- ven skulls of mothers and infants, they are univer- sally seen to treat captive women with a decorous forbearance. This strange trait, so little in keeping with other parts of their character, has been attrib- uted by some to their want of the sensibilities and passions of our race. The true solution is, the force of their habits. Honor, as they estimate it, is, with them, the most sacred and inviolable of all laws. The decorum of forbearance towards women in their power has been incorporated with their code as the peculiar honor of a warrior. It is usually kept sa- cred and inviolate. Instances are not wanting LIFE OF DAMJKL BOONJE. St where they have shown themselves the most aTclent lovers of their captives, and, we may add, most suc- cessful in gaining their voluntary tiffection in return. Enough such examples are recorded, were other proofs wanting, to redeem their forbearance from the negative character resulting from the want of passions. The captors of these young ladies, having reach- ed the main body of their people, about a dozen in number, made all the provision in their power for the comfort of their fair captives. They served them with their best provisions, and by signs and looks that could not be mistaken, attempted to soothe their agonies, and quiet their apprehensions and fears. The parents at the garrison, having wait- ed in vain for the return of their gay and beloved daughters to prepare their supper, and in torments of suspense that may easily be imagined, until the evening, became aware that they were either lost or made captives. They sallied forth in search of them, and scoured the woods in every direction, without discovering a trace of them. They were then but too well convinced that they had been ta- ken by the Indians. Captam Boone and Colonel Calloway, the agonizing parents of the lost ones, appealed to the company to obtain volunteers to pursue the Indians, under an oath, if they found the captors, either to retake their daughters, or die in the attempt. The oath of Boone on this occasion is recorded: "By the Eternal Power that made me a father, if my daughter lives, and is found, I will either bring her back, or spill my life blood." The 88 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. oath was no sooner uttered than every individual of the males crowded round Boone to repeat it. But he reminded them that a part of their number must remain to defend the station. Seven select persons only were admitted in the oath, along with the fath- ers of the captives. The only difficulty was in ma- king the selection. Supplying themselves with knapsacks, rifles, ammunition, and provisions, the party set forth on the pursuit. Hitherto they had been unable to find the trail of the captors. Happily they fell upon it by accident. But the Indians, according to their custom, had ta- ken so much precaution to hide their trail, that they found themselves exceedingly perplexed to keep it, and they were obHged to put forth all the acquirement and instinct of woodsmen not to find themselves every moment at fault in regard to their course. The rear Indians of the file had covered their foot prints with leaves. They often turned off at right angles; and whenever they came to a branch, walked in the water for some distance. At a place of this sort, the pursuers were for some time wholly unable to find at what point the Indians had left the branch, and began to despair of regaining their trail. In this extreme perplexity, one of the company was attracted by an indication of their course, which proved that the daughters shared the sylvan sagacity of their parents. "God bless my dear child," exclaimed Colonel Calloway; "she has proved that she had strength of mind in her deplo- rable condition to retain self-possession." At the same instant he picked up a little piece of ribbon, LIFE OF DANIEi. BO >N£. fW which he instantly recognized as his daughter's. She had evidently committed it unobserved to the air, to indicate the course of her captors. The trail was soon regained, and the company resumed their march with renewed alacrity. They were afterwards often at a loss to keep the trail, from the extreme care of the Indians to cover and destroy it. But still, in their perplexity, the sa- gacious expedient of the fair young captives put them right. A shred of their handkerchief, or of some part of their dress, wliich they had intrusted to the wind unobserved, indicated their course, and that the captives were thus far not only alive, but that their reasoning powers, unsubdued by fatigue, were active and buoyant. Next day, in passing places covered with mud, deposited by the dry branches on the way, the foot prints of the captives were distinctly traced, until the pursuers had learned to discriminate not only the number, but the peculiar form of each foot print. Late in the evening of the fifteenth day's pursuit, from a little eminence, they discovered in the dis- tance before them, through the woods, a smoke and the Hght of a fire. The palpitation of their paren- tal hearts may be easily imagined. They could not doubt that it was the camp of the captors al their children. The plan of recapture was intrus- ted entirely to Boone. He led his company as near the enemy as he deemed might be done with safety, and selecting a position under the shelter of a hill, ordered them to halt, with a view to passing the flight in that place. They then silently took food 8* 90 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. as the agitation of their minds would allow. All but Calloway, another selected person of their num- ber, and himself, were permitted to he down, and get that sleep of which they had been so long de- prived. The three impatiently waited for midnight, when the sleep of the Indians would be most likely to be profound. They stationed the third person selected, on the top of the eminence, behind which they were encamped, as a sentinel to await a given signal from the fathers, which should be his indica- tion to fly to the camp and arouse the sleepers, and Dring them to their aid. Then faUing prostrate, they crept cautiously, and as it were by inches, towards the Indian camp. Having reached a covert of bushes, close by the Indian camp, and examined as well as they could by the distant light of the camp-fires, the order of their rifles, they began to push aside the bushes, and sur- vey the camp through the opening. Seventeen In- dians were stretched, apparently in sound sleep, on the ground. But they looked in vain among them for the dear objects of their pursuit. They were not long in discovering another camp a little remote from that of the Indians. They crawled cautiously round to take a survey of it. Here, to their inex- pressible joy, were their daughters in each others arms. Directly in front of their camp were two Indians, with their tomahawks and other weapons within their grasp. The one appeared to be in a sound sleep, and the other keeping the most circum- Bpe<.;tive vigils. The grand object now was to get possession of the LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 91 prisoners without arousing their captors, the conse- quence of which it was obvious, would be the imme- diate destruction of the captives. Boone made a signal to Calloway to take a sure aim at the sleeping Indian, so as to be able to despatch him in a moment, if the emergency rendered that expedient necessary. Boone, the while, crawled round, so as to reach the waking Indian from behind; intending to spring upon him and strangle him, so as to prevent his mak- ing a noise to awaken the sleeper. But, unfortu- nately, this Indian instead of being asleep was wide awake, and on a careful look out. The shadow of Boone coming on them from behind, aroused him. He sprang erect, and uttered a yell that made the ancient woods ring, leaving no doubt that the other camp would be instantly alarmed. The captives, terrified by the war yell of their sentinels, added their screams of apprehension, and every thing was in a moment in confusion. The first movement of Boone was to fire. But the forbearance of Callo- way, and his own more prudent second thought, restrained him. It was hard to forego such a chance for vengeance, but their own lives and their chil- dren's would probably pay the forfeit, and they fired not. On the contrary, they surrendered themselves to the Indians, w ho rushed furiously in a mass around ihem. By significant gestures, and a few Indian words, which they had learned, they implored the lives of their captive children, and opportunity for a parley. Seeing them in their power, and compre- hending the language of defenceless suppliants, thcii fury was at length with some difficulty restrained 93 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. and appeased. They seemed evidently under the influence of a feehng of compassion towards the daughters, to which unquestionably the adventurous fathers were indebted, that their lives were not in- stantly sacrificed. Binding them firmly with cords, and surrounding them with sentinels, the Indians re- tired to their camp, not to resume their sleep, but to hold a council to settle the fate of their new pris- oners. What were the thoughts of the captive children, or of the disinterested and brave parents, as they found themselves bound, and once more in the power of their enemies — what was the bitter disappoint- ment of the one, and the agonizing filial apprehen- sion of the other — may be much more readily ima- gined than described. But the light of the dawn enabled the daughters to see, in the countenances of their fathers, as they lay bound and surrounded by fierce savages, unextinguishable firmness, and un- daunted resolution, and a consciousness of noble mo- tives; and they imbibed from the view something of the magnanimity of their parents, and assumed that demeanor of composure and resolute endurance which is always the readiest expedient to gain all the respect and forbearance that an Indian can grant. It would be difl&cult to fancy a state of more tortu- ring suspense than that endured by the companions of Boone and Calloway, who had been left behind the hill. Though they had slept httle since the commencement of the expedition, and had been en- couraged by the two fathers, their leaders to sleep LIFE OF D. MEL BOONE. 93 that night, the emergency was too exciting to admit of sleep. Often, during the night, had thv°y aroused them- selves, in expectation of the return of the fathers, or of a signal for action. But the night wore away, and the morning dawned, without bringing either the one or the other. But notwithstanding this distressing state of suspense, they had a confidence too un- doubting in the firmness and prudence of their leader, to think of approaching the Indian camp until they should receive the appointed signal. It would naturally be supposed that the delibera- tion of the Indian council, which had been held to settle the fate of Boone and Calloway, would end in sentencing them to run the gauntlet, and then amidst the brutal laughter and derision of their captors, to be burnt to death at a slow fire. Had the pnsoners betrayed the least signs of fear, the least indications of a subdued mind, such would in all probability have been the issue of the Indian con- sultation. Such, however, was not the result of the council. It was decreed that they should be killed with as little noise as possible ; their scalps taken as trophies, and that their daughters should remain captives as before. The lenity of this sentence may be traced to two causes. The daring hardihood, the fearless intrepidity of the adventure, inspired them with unquaHfied admiration for their captives. Innumerable instances have since been recorded, where the most inveterate enemies have boldly ven- tured into the camp of their enemy, have put them- elves in their power, defied them to their face and 94 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. have created an admiration of their fearless darings which has caused that they have been spared and dismissed unmolested. This sort of feeling had its influence on the present occasion in favor of the prisoners. Another extenuating influence was, that hostilities between the white and red men in the west had as yet been uncommon ; and the mutual fury had not been exasperated by murder and re- taliation. As soon as it was clear morning Hght, the In- dian camp was in motion. As a business pre- liminary to their march, Boone and Calloway were led out and bound to a tree, and the warriors were selected who were to despatch them with their tomahawks. The place of their execution was se- lected at such a distance from their camp, as that the daughters might not be able to witness it. The two prisoners were al "tady at the spot, awaiting the fatal blow, when a di.^harge of rifles, cutting down two of the savages at the first shot, arrested their proceedings. Another and another discharge fol- lowed. The Indians were as yet partially supplied with fire arms, and had not lost any of their original dread of the effects of this artificial thunder, and the invisible death of the balls. They were igno rant, moreover, of the number of their assailants, and naturally apprehended it to be greater than it was. They raised a yell of confusion, and disper- sed in every direction, leaving their dead behind, and the captives to their deliverers. The next mo- ment the children were in the arms of their parents; and the whole party, in the unutterable joy of con- 96 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONfi. quest and deliverance, were on their way home- wards. It need hardly be added that the brave associates of the expedition who had been left in camp, hav- ing waited the signal for the return of Boone and Calloway, until their patience and forbearance waa exhausted, aware that something serious must have prevented their return, reconnoitered the movement of the Indians as they moved from their camp to despatch their two prisoners, and fired upon them at the moment they were about to put their sen- tence into execution. About this time a new element began to exaspe- rate and extend the ravages of Indian warfare, along the whole line of the frontier settlements. The war of Independence had already begun to rage. The influence and resources of Great Britain extended along the immense chain of our frontier, from the north-eastern part of Vermont and New York, all the way to the Mississippi. Nor did this nation, to her everlasting infamy, hesitate to en- gage these infuriate allies of the wilderness, whose known rule of warfare was indiscriminate vengeance, without reference to the age or sex of the foe, as auxiliaries in the war. As this biographical sketch of the life of Boone is inseparably interwoven with this border scene of massacres, plunderings, burnings, and captivities,^ which swept the incipient northern and western set- tlements with desolation, it may not be amiss to take a brief retrospect of the state of these settle* ments at this conjuncture in the Hfe of Boone. LIFE OF DANIEL BOONB. CHAPTER VII, Settlement of Hanodsburgh — Indian mode of besieging and warfare^. Fortitude and privation of the Pioneers — The Indians attack Har* rodsburgh and Boonesborough — Description of a Station — Attack of Bryant's Station. A ROAD sufficient for the passage of pack hoises in single file, had been opened from the settlements al- ready commenced on Holston river to Boonesbo- rough in Kentucky. It was an avenue which soon brought other adventurers, with their families to the settlement. On the northern frontier of the country, the broad and unbroken bosom of the Ohio opened an easy liquid highway of access to the country. The first spots selected as landing places and points of ingress into the country, were Limestone — now Maysville — at the mouth of Limestone creek, and Beargrass creek, where Louisville now stands. Boonesborough and Harrodsburgh were the cnly stations in Kentucky sufiiciently strong to be safe from the incursions of the Indians; and even these places afforded no security a foot beyond the palis ades. These two places were the central points to- wards which emigrants directed their course from Limestone and Louisville. The routes from these two places were often ambushed by the Indians, But notwithstanding the danger of approach to the new country, and the incessant exposure during the residence there, immigrants continued to arrive at the stations. 98 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. The first female white setters of Harrodsburgh, were Mrs. Denton, McGary, and Hogan, who came with their husbandly 'aiid famiUes. A number of other famihes soon followed, among whom, in 1776, came Benjamin Logan, with his wife and family. These were ail families of respectability and stand ing, and noted in the subsequent history of the country. Hordes of savages were soon afterwards ascer- tained to have crossed the Ohio, with the purpose to extirpate these germs of social establishments in Kentucky. According to their usual mode of war- fare, they separated into numerous detachments, and dispersed in all directions through the forests. This gave them the aspect of numbers and strength beyond reality. It tended to increase the appre- hensions of the recent immigrants, inspiring the na* tural impressions, that the woods in all directions were full of Indians. It enabled them to fight in detail, — to assail different settlements at the same time, and to fill the whole country with consterna- tion. Their mode of besieging these places, though not at all conformable to the notions of a siege derived from the tactics of a civilized people, was dictated by the most profound practical observation, opera- ting upon existing circumstances. Without cannon or scaling ladders, their hope of carrying a station, or fortified place, was founded upon starving the in- mates, cutting off their supplies of water, killing them, as they exposed themselves, in detail, or get- ting possession of the station by some of the arts of LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 99 dissimulation. Caution in their tactics is still more strongly inculcated than bravery. Their first object is to secure themselves; their next, to kill their en- emy. This is the universal Indian maxim from No- va Zembla to Cape Horn. In besieging a place, they are seldom seen in force upon any particular quarter. Acting in small parties, they disperse themselves, and lie concealed among bushes or weeds, behind trees or stumps. They ambush the paths to the barn, spring, or field. They discharge their rifle or let fly their arrow, and glide away with- out being seen, content that their revenge should issue from an invisible source. They kill the cattle, watch the watering places, and cut off' all supplies. During the night, they creep, with the inaudible and stealthy step dictated by the animal instinct, to a concealed position near one of the gates, and pa- tiently pass many sleepless nights, so that they may finally cut off'some ill-fated person, who incautious^ comes forth in the morning. During the day, if there be near the station grass, weeds, bushes, or any distinct elevation of the soil, however small, they crawl, as prone as reptiles, to the place of con- cealment, and whoever exposes the smallest part of his body through any part or chasm, receives their shot, behind the smoke of which they instantly cower back to their retreat. When they find their foe abroad, they boldly rush upon him, and make him prisoner, or take his scalp. At times they ap- proach the walls or palisades with the most auda- cious daring, and attempt to fire them, or beat down the gate. They practice, with the utmost adroit- 100 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. ness, the stratagem of a false alarm on one side when the real assault is intended for the other. With untiring perseverance, when their stock of provisions is exhausted, they set forth to hunt, as on common occasions, resuming their station near the bcseiged place as soon as they are supplied. It must be confessed, that they had many motives to this persevering and deadly hostility, apart from their natural propensity to war. They saw this new and hated race of pale faces gradually getting possession of their hunting grounds, and cutting down their forests. They reasoned forcibly and justly, that the time, when to oppose these new in- truders with success, was to do it before they had become numerous and strong in diffused population and resources. Had they possessed the skill of cor* porate union, combining individual effort witii a general concert of attack, and directed their united force against each settlement in succession, there is little doubt, that at this time they might have extir- pated the new inhabitants from Kentucky, and have restored it to the empire of the wild beasts and the red men. But in the order of events it was other- wise arranged. They massacred, they burnt, and plundered, and destroyed. They killed cattle, and carried off the horses; — inflicting terror, poverty, and every species of dif tress; but were not able to make themselves absolute masters of a single station. It has been found by experiment, that the settlers in such predicaments of danger and apprehension, act under a most spirit-stirring excitement, which, uotwithstanding its alarms^ is not without its plea^ LIFE OP DANIEL BOONE. 101 sures. They acquired foiiitJide, dexterity, and that kind of courage which results from hecoming fa- miliar with exposure. The settlements becoming extended, the Indians, in their turn, were obliged to put themselves on the defensive. They cowered in the distant woods for concealment, or resorted to them for hunting. In these intervals, the settlers, who had acquired a kind of instinctive intuition to know when their foe was near them, or had retired to remoter forests, went forth to plough their corn, gather in their harvests, collect their cattle, and pursue their agri- cultural operations. These were their holyday sea- sons for hunting, during which they often exchanged shots with their foe. The night, as being most se- cure from Indian attack, was the common season selected for journeying from garrison to ga/rison. We, who live in the midst of scenes of abundance and tranquillity can hardly imagine how a country could fill with inhabitants, under so many circum- stances of terror, in addition to all the hardships incident to the commencement of new estabhsh- ments in the wilderness; such as want of society, want of all the regular modes of supply, in regard to the articles most indispensable in every stage of the civilized condition. There were no mills, no stores, no regular supplies of clothing, salt, sugar, and the luxuries of tea and coffee. But all these dangers and difficulties notwithstanding, under the influence of an inexplicable propensity, families in the old settlements used to comfort ?.nd abundance, were constantly arriving to encounter all these dan- 102 LIFE OP DANIEL IJOONE. gers and privations. Thej began to spread ovei the extensive and fertile country in every direction — presenting such numerous and dispersed marks to Indian hostihty, red men became perplexed, amidsl so many conflicting temptations to vengeance, vt^hich to select. The year 1776 was memorable in the annals oi Kentucky, as that in which General George Rogers Clark iirst visited it, unconscious, it may be, of the imperishable honors which the western country would one day reserve for him. This same year Captain Wagin arrived in the country, and^a:e<:/ in a solitary cabin on Hinkston's Fork of the Licking. In the autumn of this year, most of the recent immigrants to Kentucky returned to the old settle- ments, principally in Virginia. They carried with them strong representations, touching the fertility and advantages of their new residence; and com- municated the impulse of their hopes and fears ex tensively among their fellow-citizens by sympathy The importance of the new settlement was already deemed to be such, that on the meeting of the legis- lature of Virginia, the governor recommended that the south-western part of the county of Fincastle — so this vast tract of country west of the Alleghanies bad hitherto been considered — should be erected into a separate county by the name of Kentucky. This must be considered an important era in the history of the country. The new county became entitled to two representatives in the legislature of Virginia, to a court and judge; in a word, to all the customary civil, military, and judicial officers of a LIFE OP DANIEL BOONE. 103 new county. In the year 1777, the county was du- ly organized, according to the act of the A^irginia legislature. Among the names of the first officers in the new county, we recognize those of Floyd, Bowman, Logan, and Todd. Harrodsburgh, the strongest and most populous station in the country, had not. hitherto been assail- ed by the Indians. Early in the spring of 1777. they attacked a small body of improvers marching to Harrodsburgh, about four miles from that place. Mr. Kay, afterwards General Kay, and his brother were of the party. The latter was killed, and an- other man made prisoner. The fortunate escape of James Kay, then fifteen years old, was the proba- ble cause of the saving of Harrodsburgh from des- truction. Flying from the scene of attack and the death of his brother, he reached the station and gave the inhabitants information, that £i large body of Indians was marching to attack the place. The Indians themselves, aware that the inhabitants had been premonished of their approach, seem to have been disheartened; for they did not reach the sta- tion till the next day. Of course, it had been put in the best possible state of defence, and prepared for their reception. The town was now invested by the savage force, and something like a regular siege commenced. A Dnsk firing ensued. In the course of the day the In- dians left one of their dead to fall into the hands of the besieged — a rare occurrence, as it is one of tiieir most invariable customs to remove their wounded and dend fiom iJio possession of the oTu»rry. The 104 LITE OP DANIEL BOONE. besieged had four men wounded and one of them mortally. The Indians, unacquainted with the mode of conducting a siege, and little accustomed to open and fair fight, and dispirited by the vigor ous reception given them by the station, soon de- camped, and dispersed in the forests, to supply themselves with provisions by hunting. On the 15th of April, 1777, a body of one hundred savages invested Boonesborough, the residence of Daniel Boone. The greater number of the Indians had fire arms, though some of them were still armed with bows and arrows. This station, having its de- fence conducted by such a gallant leader, gave them such a warm reception that they were glad to draw off; though not till they had killed one and wounded four of the inhabitants. Their loss could not be ascertained, .as they carefully removed their dead and wounded. In July following, the residence of Boone was again besieged by a body of Indians, whose number was increased to two hundred. With their num- bers, their hardihood and audacity were increased in proportion. To prevent the neighboring stations from sending assistance, detachments from their bo- dy assailed most of the adjacent settlements at the same time. The gallant inmates of the station made them repent their temerity, though, as formerly, with some loss; one of their number having been killed and two wounded. Seven of the Indians were distinctly counted from the fort among the slain; though, according to custom, the bodies were remo- ved. After a close siege, and almost constant firing LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 105 d^ ing two days, the Indians raised a yell of disap- pomtment, and disappeared in the forests. In order to present distinct views of the sort of enemy, with whom Boone had to do, and to present pictures of the aspect of Indian warfare in those times, we might give sketches of the repeated sieges of Harrodsburgh and Booneshorough, against which —as deemed the strong holds of the Long-knife^ as they called the Americans — their most formidable and repeated eiforts were directed. There is such a sad and dreary uniformity in these narratives, that the history of one may almost stand for that of all. They always present more or less killed and woun- ded on the part of the stations, and a still greater number on that of the Indians. Their attacks of stations having been uniformly unsuccessful, th returned to their original modes of warfare, dispe sing themselves in small bodies over all the country, and attacking individual settlers in insulated cabins, and destroying women and children. But as most of these annals belong to the general history of Ken- tucky, and do not particularly tend to develop the character of the subject of this biography, we shall pretermit them, with a single exception. At the expense of an anachronism, and as a fair sample of the rest, we shall present that, as one of the most prominent Indian sieges recorded in these early an- nals. It will not be considered an episode, if it tend to convey distinct ideas of the structure and form of a station, and the modes of attack and defence in those times. It was in such scenes that the fearless daring, united with the cool, prudent, and yet cffi- 106 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. cient counsels of Daniel Boone, were peculiairljf conspicuous. With this view we oiler a somewhat detailed account of the attack of Bryant's station. As we know of no place, nearer than the sources of the Mississippi, or the Rocky Mountains, where the refuge of a station is now requisite for security from the Indians; as the remains of those that were formerly built are fast mouldering to decay; and as in a few years history will be the only depository of what the term station imports, we deem it right, in this place, to present as graphic a view as we may, of a station, as we have seen them in their ruins in various points of the west. The first immigrants to Tennessee and Kentucky, as we have seen, came in pairs and small bodies. These pioneers on their return to the old settle- ments, brought back companies and societies. — Friends and connections, old and young, mothers and daughters, flocks, herds, domestic animals, and the family dogs, all set forth on the patriarchal em- igration for the land of promise together. No dis- ruption of the tender natal and moral ties; no an- nihilation of the reciprocity of domestic kindness, friendship, and love, took place. The cement and and panoply of affection, and good will bound them together at once in the social tie, and the union for defence. Like the gregarious tenants of the air in their annual migrations, they brought their true home, that is to say their charities with them. In their state of extreme isolation from the world they had left, the kindly social propensities were found to grow more strong in the wilderness. The cur- LEPB OF DANIEL BOONE. 107 rent of human affections in fact naturally flows in a deeper and more vigorous tide, in proportion as it is diverted into fewer channels. These immigrants to the Bloody Ground, coming to survey new aspects of nature, new forests and climates, and to encounter new privations, difl[icul- ties and dangers, were bound together by a new sa- crament of friendship, new and unsworn oaths, to stand by each other for life and for death. How often have we heard the remains of this primitive race of Kentucky deplore the measured distance and jealousy, the heathen rivalry and selfishness of the present generation, in comparison with the uni- ty of heart, dangers and fortunes of these primeval times — reminding one of the simple kindness, the community of property, and the union of heart among the first Christians ! Another circumstance of this picture ought to be redeemed from oblivion. We suspect that the gen- eral impressions of the readers of this day is, that the first hunters and settlers of Kentucky and Ten- nessee were a sort of demi-savages. Imagination lepiCvS them with long beard, and a costume of rikins, rude, fierce, and repulsive. Nothing can be wider from the fact. These progenitors of the west were generally men of noble, square, erect forms, broad chests, clear, bright, ti-uth-telling eyes, and of vigorous intellects. All this is not only matter of historical record, but in the natural order of things. The first settlers of America were originally a noble stock. These, tbeir descendants, had been reared under circum- 108 UTE OF DANIEL BOONE. «ances every way calculated to give them manly fceauty and noble forms. They had breathed a free and a salubrious air. The field and forest exercise yielded them salutary viands, and appetite and di- gestion corresponding. Life brought them the sen- sations of high health, herculean vigor, and redun- dant joy. When a social band of this description had plan- ted their feet on the virgin soil, the first object was to fix on a spot, central to the most fertile tract of land that could be found, combining the advantages usually sought by the first settlers. Among these was, that the station should be on the summit of a gentle swell, where pawpaw, cane, and wild clover, marked exuberant fertility; and where the trees were so sparse, and the soil beneath them so free from underbrush, that the hunter could ride at half speed. The virgin soil, as yet friable, untrodden, and not cursed with the blight of politics, party, and feud, yielded, with little other cultivation than plant- ing, from eighty to a hundred bushels of maize to the acre, and all other edibles suited to the soil and climate, in proportion. The next thing, after finding this central nucleus of a settlement, was to convert it into a station^ an erection which now remains to be described. It was a desirable requisite, that a stcition should in close or command a flush limestone spring, for wa- ter for the settlement. The contiguity of a salt lick and a sugar orchard, though not indispensable, was a very desirable circumstance. The next pre- liminary step was to clear a considerable area, so as LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 109 CO leave nothing within a considerable distance of the station that could shelter an enemy from obser- vation and a shot. If a spring were not inclosed, oi a well dug within, as an Indian siege seldom lasted beyond a few days, it was customary, in periods of alarm to have a reservoir of some sort within the station, that should be tilled with water enough to supply the garrison, during the probable continu- ance of a siege. It was deemed a most important consideration, that the station should overlook and command as much of the surrounding country as possible. The form was a perfect parallelogram, including from a half to a whole acre. A trench was then dug four or hve feet deep, and large and contiguous pickets planted in this trench, so as to form a com- pact wall from ten to twelve feet high above the soil. The pickets were of hard and durable timber, about a foot in diameter. The soil about them wag rammed hard. They formed a rampart beyond the power of man to leap, climb, or by unaided physical strength to overthrow. At the angles were small projecting squares, of still stronger material and planting, technically called flankers^ with oblique port-holes, so as that the sentinel within could rake the external front of the station, without being ex- posed to shot from without. Two folding gates in the front and rear, swinging on prodigious wooden hinges, gave egress and ingress to men and teams in times of security. In periods of alarm a trusty sentinel on the roof of the building was So stationed, as to be able to 10 110 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. descrj every suspicious object while yet in the dis- tance. The gates were always firmly barred by night; and sentinels took their alternate watch, and relieved each other until morning. Nothing in the line of fortification can be imagined more easy of construction, or a more effectual protection against a savage enemy, than this simple erection. Though the balls of the smallest dimensions of cannon would have swept them away with ease, they were proof against the Indian rifle, patience, and skill. The only expedient of the red men was to dig under them and undermine them, or destroy them by fire; and even this could not be done without exposing them to the rifles of the flankers. Of course, there are few recorded instances of their having been ta- ken, when defended by a garrison, guided by such men as Daniel Boone. Their regular form, and their show of security, rendered these walled cities in the central wilder- ness delightful spectacles in the eye of immigrants who had come two hundred leagues without seeing a human habitation. Around the interior of these walls the habitations of the immigrants arose, and the remainder of the surface was a clean-tuifed area for wrestling and dancing, and the vigorous and athletic amusements of the olden time, it is ques- tionable if heartier dinners and profounder sleep and more exhilarating balls and parties fall to the lo of their descendants, who ride in coaches and dwell in mansions. Venison and wild turkeys, sweet po- tatoes and pies, smoked on their table ; and persim- LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 1 L Ji men and maple beer, stood them well instead of the poisonous whisky of their children. The community, of course, passed their social eve- nings together; and while the fire blazed bright within the secure square, the far howl of wolves, or even the distant war-whoop of the savages, sounded in the ear of the tranquil in-dwellers like the driving storm pouring on the sheltering roof above the head of the traveller safely reposing in his bed; that is, brought the contrast of comfort and security with more home-felt influence to their bosom. Such a station was Bryant's, no longer ago than 1782. It was the nucleus of the settlements of that rich and delightful country, of which at present Lexington is the centre. There were but two oth- ers of any importance, at this time north of Ken- tucky river. It was more open to attack than any other in the country. The Miami on the north, and the Licking on the south of the Ohio, were long canals, which floated the Indian canoes from the northern hive of the savages, between the lakes and the Ohio, directly to its vicinity. In the summer of this year a grand Indian assem- blage took place at Chillicothe, a famous central In- dian town on the Little Miami. The Cherokees, Wyandots, Tawas, Pottawattomies, and most of the tribes bordering on the lakes, were represented in it. Besides their chiefs and some Canadians, they were aided by the counsels of the two Girtys, and McKee, renegade whites. We have made diligent enquiry touching the biography of these men, particularly Simon Girty, a wretch of most infamous notoriety in 112 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE, those times, as a more successful instigator of Indian assault and massacre, than any name on record. Scarcely a tortured captive escaped from the north- ern Indians, who could not tell the share which this villain had in his sufferings — no burning or murder of prisoners, at which he had not assisted by hi? presence or his counsels. These refugees from oui white settlements, added the calculation and powei of combining of the whites to the instinctive cunning and ferocity of the savages. They possessed their thirst for blood without their active or passive cour- age — blending the bad points of character in the whites and Indians, without the good of either. The cruelty of the Indians had some show of palliating circumstances, in the steady encroachments of the whites upon them. Theirs was gratuitous, cold- blooded, and without visible motive, except that they appeared to hate the race more inveterately for hav- ing fled from it. Yet Simon Girty, hke the Indians among whom he lived, sometimes took the freak of kindness, nobody could divine why, and he once or twice saved an unhappy captive from being roasted alive. This vile renegade, consulted by the Indians as an oracle, lived in plenty, smoked his pipe, and drank off his whisky in his log palace. He was seen abroad clad in a ruffled shirt, a red and blue uniform, with pantaloons and gaiters to match. He was belted with dirks and pistols, and wore a watch with enormous length of chain, and most glaring ornaments, all probably the spoils of murdei. So habited, he strutted, in the enormity of his cruelty LIFE OF DVNir.Ii IJOONE. 113 in view of the ill-Aited captives of the Indians, like the peacock spreading his morning plunaage. There is little doubt that his capricious acts of saving the few that were spared through his intercession, were modified results of vanity; and that they were spared to make a display of his power, and the extent of his influence among the Indians. The assemblage of Indians bound to the assaul' of Bryant's station, gathered round the shrine of Simon Girty, to hear the response of this oracle touching the intended expedition. He is said to have painted to them, in a set speech, tiie abundance and dehght of the fair valleys of Kan-tuck-ee, for which so mucli blood of red men had been shed— the land of clover, deer, and buffaloes. He descri- bed the gradual encroaciiment of the whites, and the certainty that they would soon occupy the whole land. He proved the necessity of a vigorous, united, and persevering eifor!; against them, now wliile they were feeble, and had scarcely gained foot-hold on the soil, if they ever intended to regain possession of their ancient, rich, and rightful domain; assuring them, that as th'ngs now went on, they would soon have no hunting grounds worth retaining, no blan- kets with which to clothe their naked backs, or whis- ky to warm and cheer their desolate hearts. They were advised to descend the Miami, cross the Ohio, ascent the Licking, paddling their canoes to the im- mediate vicinity of Bryant's station, which he coun- selled them to attack. Forthwith, the mass of biped wolves raised their murderous yell, as thev started for their canoes oa ' 10* 4 lilFE OF DANIEL BOOHE. the Miami. Girty, in his ruffled shirt and soldier coat, stalked at their head, silently feeding upon his prowess and grandeur. The station against which they were destined, in- closed forty cabins. They arrived before it on the fifteenth of August, in the night. The inhabitants were advertised of their arrival in the morning, by being fired upon as they opened the gates. The time of their arrival was apparently providential. In two hours most of the efficient male inmates of the station were to have marched to the aid of two other stations, w^hich were reported to have been at- tacked. This place would thus have been left com- pletely defenceless. As soon as the garrison saw themselves besieged, they found means to despatch one of their number to Lexington, to announce the assault and crave aid. Sixteen mounted men, and thirty-one on foot, were immediately despatched to their assistance. The number of the assailants amounted to at least six hundred. In conformity with the common modes of their warfare, they attempted to gain the place by stratagem. The great body concealed themselves among high weeds, on the opposite side of the station, within pistol shot of the spring which supplied it with water. A detachment of ci hundred commen- ced a false attack on the south-east angle, with a view to draw the whole attention of the garrison to that point. They hoped that while the chief force of the station crowded there, the opposite point would be kft defenceless. In this instance they reckoned without their host. The people penetrated LIFE OF DANIEL BOONK, 115 their deception, and instead of returning their fire, commenced wliat ho-d been imprudently neglected, the repairing their palisades, and putting the station in a better condition of defence. The tall and lux- uriant strammony weeds instructed these wary back- woodsmen to suspect that a host of their tawny foe lay hid beneath their sheltering fohage, lurking for a chance to fire upon them, as they should come forth for water. Let modern wives, who refuse to follow their hus- bands abroad, alleging the danger of the voyage or journey, or the unhealthiness of the proposed resi dence, or because the removal will separate them from the pleasures of fashion and society, contem- plate the example of the wives of the defenders of this station. These noble mothers, wives, and daugh- ters, assuring the men that there was no probability that the Indians would fire upon them, offered to gr> out and draw water for the supply of the garrison, and that even if they did shoot dov/n a few of them, it would not reduce the resources of the garrison as would the kiUing of the men. The illustrious hero- ines took up their bucksts, and marched out to the spring, espying here and there a painted face, or an Indian body crouched under the covert of the weeds. Whether their courage or their beauty fascinated Jhe Indians to suspend their fire, does not appear. But it was so, that these generous women came and went until the reservoir was amply supplied with Water. Who will doubt that the husbands of such vives must have been alike gallant and affectionate^ After this example, it wa« not diflicult to procure 116 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. some young volunteers to tempt the Indians in the same way. As was expected, they liad scarcely ad- vanced beyond their station, before a hundred Indi- ans fired a shower of balls upon them, happily too remote to do more than inflict slight wounds with spent balls. They retreated within the pa,lisades, and the whole Indian force, seeing no results from stratagem, rose from their covert and rushed towards the palisade. The exasperation of their rage may be imagined, when they found every thing prepared for their reception. A well aimed fire drove them to a more cautious distance. Some of the more audacious of their number, however, ventured so near a less exposed point, as to be able to discharge burning arrows upon the roofs of the houses. Some of them were fired and burnt. But an easterly wind providentially arose at the moment, and secured the mass of the habitations from the further spread of the flames. These they could no longer reach with their burning arrows. The enemy cowered back, and crouched to their covert in the weeds ; where, panther-like, they waited for less dangerous game. They had divided, on being informed, that aid was expected from Lexing- ton; and they arranged an ambuscade to intercept it, on its approach to the garrison. When the rein- forcement, consisting of forty-six persons, came in sight, the firing had wholly ceased, and the invisible enemy were profoundly still. The auxiliaries hur- ried on in reckless confidence, under the impression that they had come on a false alarm. A lane opened an avenue to the station, through a thick cornfield. LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. in This lane was waj-iaid on either side, by Indians, for six hundred yards, Foriiuiately, it was mid-sum- mer, and dry; and the horsemen raised so tiiick a cloud of dust, that the Indians could fire only at ran- dom amidst the palpable cloud, and happily killed not a single man. The footmen were less fortunate. Being behind the horse, as soon as they heard the firing, they dispersed into the thick corn, in hopes to reach the garrison unobserved. They were inter- cepted by masses of the savages, who threw them- selves between them and the station. Hard lighting ensued, in which two of the footmen were killed and four wounded. Soon after the detachment had joined their friends, and the Indians were again crouching close in their covert, the numerous flocks and herds of the station came in from the woods as usual, quietly ruminating, as they made their way towards their night-pens. Upon these harmless ani- mals the Indians wreaked unmolested revenge, and completely destroyed them. A little after sunset the famous Simon, in all his official splendor, covertly approached the garrison, mounted a stump, whence he could be heard by the people of the station, and holding a flag of truce, demanded a parley and the surrender of the place. He managed his proposals with no small degree of art, assigning, in imitation of the commanders of what are called civilized armies, that his proposals were dictated by humanity and a wish to spare the effusion of blood. He affirmed, that in case of a prompt sur- render, he could answer for the safety of the priso- ners; but that in the event of taking the garrison by 118 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. storm, he could not; that cannon and a rfiinforcement were approaching, in which case they must be aware that their paHsades could no longer interpose any re- sistance to their attack, or secure them from the ven- geance of an exasperated foe. He calculated that his imposing language would have the more effect in producing belief and consternation, inasmuch as the garrison must know, that the same foe had used can- non in the attack of Ruddle's and Martin's stations. Two of their number had been already slain, and there were four wounded in the garrison ; and some faces were seen to blanch as Girty continued his har angue of menace, and insidious play upon their fears. Some of the more considerate of the garrison, appri- sed by the result, of the folly of allowing such a ne- gotiation to intimidate the garrison in that way, called out to shoot the rascal, adding the customary Ken- tucky epithet. Girty insisted upon the universal protection every where accorded to a flag of truce, while this parley lasted ; and demanded with great assumed dignity, if they did not know who it was that thus addressed them? A spirited young man, named Reynolds, of whom the most honorable mention is made in the subsequent annals of the contests with the Indians, was selected by the garrison to reply to the renegado Indian nego- tiator. His object seems to have been to remove the depression occasioned by Girty's speech, by treating it with derision; and perhaps to establish a reputation for successful waggery, as he had already for hard 6ghting. "You ask," answered he, "if we do not know youf LIFB OP DANIEI. BOONE. 119 Know you! Yes. We know you too well. Know Simon Girty! Yes. He is the renegado, cowardly villain, who loves to murder women and children, especially those of his own people. Know Simon Girty! Yes. His father was a panther and his dam a wolf. I have a worthless dog, that kills lambs. Instead of shooting him, I have named him Simon Girty. You expect reinforcements and canr.on, do you? Cowardly wretches, like you, that make war upon women and children, would not dare to touch them off, if you had them. We expect reinforce- ments, too, and in numbers to give a short account of the murdering cowards that follow you. Even if you could batter down our pickets, I, for one, hold your people in too much contempt to discharge rifles at them. Should you see cause to enter our fort, I have been roasting a great number of hickory switches, with which we mean to whip your naked cut-throats out of the country." Simon, apparently little edified or flattered by this speech, wished him some of his hardest curses; and affecting to deplore the obstinacy and infatuation of the garrison, the ambassador of ruffled shirt and sol- dier coat withdrew. The besieged gave a good ac- count of every one, who came near enough to take a fair shot. But before morning they decamped, marching direct to the Blue Licks, where they ob- tained very different success, and a most signal and bloody triumph. We shall there again meet Daniel Boone, in his accustomed traits of heroism and mag- nanimity. liIF£ OF DANIEL UOONE. 121 CHAPTER VIII. Boone being attacked by two Indians near the Blue Licks, kills them both — Is afterwards taken prisoner and marched to Old Chillicotbe •—Is adopted by the Indians — Indian ceremonies. We return to the subject of our memoir, from which the reader may imagine we have wandered too long. He had ah'eady conducted the defence of Boonesborough, during two Indian sieges. The general estimate of his activity, vigilance, courage, and enterprise, w^as constantly rising. By the Indi- ans he was regarded as the most formidable and in- telhgent captain of the Long-knife; and by the settlers and immigrants as a disinterested and heroic patriarch of the infant settlements. He often sup- plied destitute families gratuitously with game. He performed the duties of surveyor and spy, gen- erally as a volunteer, and without compensation. When immigrant families were approaching the country, he often went out to meet them and con- duct them to the settlements. Such, in general, were the paternal feeHngs of the pioneers of this young colony. The country was easily and amply supplied with meat from the chase, and with vegetables from the fertility of the soil. The hardy settlers could train themselves without difficulty to dispense with many things which habit and long use in the old settle- ments had led them to consider as necessaries. But 10 every form of civilized communities salt is an 11 i22 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE indispensable article. The settlement of Boones. borough had been fixed near a lick, with a view to the supply of that article. But the amount was found to be very inadequate to the growing de- mand. The settlement deemed it necessary to send out a company to select a place where the whole country could be supplied with that article at a reasonable rate. Captain Boone was deputed by the settlers to this service. He selected thirty associates, and set out on the first of January, 1779, for the Blue Licks, on Licking river, a well known stream emp- tying into the Ohio, opposite where Cincinnati now stands. They arrived at the place, and successfully commenced their operations. Boone, instead of taking a part in the diurnal and uninterrupted la bor of evaporating the water, performed the more congenial duty of hunting to keep the company in provisions, while they labored. In this pursuit he had one day wandered some distance from the bank of the river. Two Indians, armed with muskets, — for they had now generally added these efficient weapons to their tomahawks — came upon him. His first thought was to retreat. But he discovered from their nimbleness, that this v. as impossible. His second thought was resistance, and he slipped behind a tree to await their coming within rifle shot. He then exposed himself so as to attract their aim. The foremost levelled his musket. Boone, who could dodge the flash, at the puUing of the tng- ger, dropped behind his tree unhurt. His next ob- ject was to cause the fire of the second musket to be LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 123 thrown away in the sanrie manner. He again expo- sed a part of his person. The eager Indian in- stantly fired, and Boone evaded the shot as before. Both the Indians, having thrown away their fire, were eagerly striving, but with trembling hands, to reload. Trepidation and too much haste retarded their object. Boone drew his rifle and one of them fell dead. The two antagonists, now on equal grounds, the one unsheathing his knife, and the other poising his tomahawk, rushed toward the dead body of the fallen Indian. Boone, placing his foot on the dead body, dexterously received the well aimed tomahawk of his powerful enemy on the barrel of his rifle, thus preventing his skull from being cloven by it. In the very attitude of firing the Indian had exposed his body to the knife of Boone, who plunged it in his body to the hilt. This is the achievement commemorated in sculpture over the southern door of the Rotunda in the Capi- tol at Washington. This adventure did not deter him from exposing himself in a similar way again. He was once more hunting for the salt makers, when, on the seventh day of February following, he came in view of a body of one hundred and two Indians, evidently on their march to the assault of Boonesborough — that being a particular mark for Indian revenge. They were in want of a prisoner, from whom to obtain intelligence, and Boone was the person of all oth- ers, whom they desired. He fled; but among so many warriors, it proved, that some were swifter of 124 LIFE OP DANIEL BOONE. foot than himself, and these overtook him and made him prisoner. By a tedious and circuitous march they hrought him back to the Blue Licks, and took their meas- ures with so much caution, as to make twenty-seven of the thirty salt makers prisoners. Boone obtain- ed for them a capitulation, which stipulated, that their lives should be spared, and that they should be kindly treated. The fortunate three, that esca- ped, had just been sent home with the salt that had been made during their ill-fated expedition. The Indians were faithful to the stipulations of the capitulation; and treated their prisoners with as much kindness both on their way, and after their arrival at Chillicothe, as their habits and means would admit. The march was rapid and fa tiguing, occupying three days of weather unusually cold and inclement. The captivity of twenty-eight of the select and bravest of the Kentucky settlers, without the hope of liberation or exchange, was a severe blow to the infant settlement. Had the Indians, after this achievement, immediately marched against Boones- borough, so materially diminished in its means oi defence, they might either have taken the place by surprise, or, availing themselves of the influence which the possession of these prisoners gave them over the fears and affections of the inmates, might have procured a capitulation of the fort. Follow- ing up this plan in progression, the weaker station would have followed the example of Boonesbo- rough; since it is hardly supposable, that the uni- LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 1^ ted influence of fear, example, and the menace of the massacre of so many prisoners would not have procured the surrender of all the rest. But, though on various occasions they manifested the keenest observation, and the acutest quickness of instirx- tive cunning — though their plans were generally predicated on the soundest reason, they showed in this, and in all cases, a want of the combination of thought, and the abstract and extended views of the whites on such occasions. For a single effort, nothing could be imagined wiser than their views. For a combination made up of a number of ele- ments of calculation, they had no reasoning powers at all. Owing to this want of capacity for combined op- erations of thought, and their habitual intoxication of excitement, on the issue of carrying some impor- tant enterprise without loss, they hurried home with their prisoners, leaving the voice of lamentation and the sentiment of extreme dejection among the be- reaved inmates of Boonesborough. Throwing all the recorded incidents and circum- stances of the life of Boone, during his captivity among them, together, we shall reserve them for an- other place, and proceed here to record what befell him among the whites. He resided as a captive among the Indiars until the following March. At that time, he, and ten of the persons who were taken with him at the Blue Licks, were conducted by forty Indians to Detroit, where the party arrived on the thirteenth of the month. The ten men were put into the hands of 11* 136 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. Governor Hamilton, who, to his infinite credit, treated them with kindness. For each of these thej received a moderate ransom. Such was their respect, and even affection for the hunter of Ken tucky, and such, perhaps, their estimate of his ca- pability of annoying them, that although Governor Hamilton offered them the large sum of a hundred pounds sterling for his ransom, they utterly refused to part with him. It may easily be imagined, in what a vexatious predicament this circumstance placed him; a circumstance so much the more em- barrassing, as he could not express his. solicitude for deliverance, without alarming the jealousy and ill feeling of the Indians. Struck with his appear- ance and development of character, several Eng- lish gentlemen, generously impressed with a sense of his painful position, offered him a sum of money adequate to the supply of his necessities. Unwil- ling to accept such favors from the enemies of his country, he refused their kindness, alleging a motive at once conciliating and magnanimous, that it would probably never be in his power to repay them. It will be necessary to contemplate his desolate and forlorn condition, haggard, and without any adequate clothing in that inclement climate, destitute of money or means, and at the same time to realize that these men, who so generously offered him money, were m league with those that were waging war against the United States, fully to appreciate the patriotism and magnanimity of this refusal. It is very probable, too, that these men acted from the interested motive of wishing to bind the hands of this stern border LITE OP DANIEL BOONE. 127 warrior from any further annoyance to them and their red alUes, by motives of gratitude and a sense of obligation. It must have been mortifying to his spirit to leave his captive associates in comfortable habitations and among a civilized people at Detroit, while he, the single white man of the company, was obliged to accompany his red masters through the forest in a long and painful journey of fifteen days, at the close of which he found himself again at Old Chillicothe, as the town was called. This town was inhabited by the Shawnese, and Boone was placed in a most severe school, in which to learn Indian modes and ceremonies, by being him- self the subject of them. On the return of the party that led him to their home, he learned that some superstitious scruple induced them to halt at mid-day when near their village, in order to solemnize their return by entering their town in the evening. A runner was despatched from their halting place to mstruct the chief and the village touching the mate- rial incidents of their expedition. Before the expedition made the triumphal entry into their village, they clad their white prisoner in a new dress, of material and fashion like theirs. They proceeded to shave his head and skewer his hair after their own fashion, and then rouged him w^ith a plen- tiful smearing of vermilion and put into his hand a white staff, gorgeously tasselated with the tails of deer. The war-captain or leader of the expedition gave as many yells as they had taken prisoners ar.d scalps. This operated as effectually as ringing a 128 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. tocsin, to assemble the whole village round the camp. As soon as the warriors from the village appeared, four young warriors from the camp, the two first car- rying each a calumet, approached the prisoner, chan- ting a song as they went, and taking him by the arm, led him in triumph to the cabin, where he was to remain until the announcement of his doom. The resident in this cabin, by their immemorial usage, had the power of determining his fate, whether to be tortured and burnt at the stake, ofadopted into the tribe. The present occupant of the cabin happened to be a woman, who had lost a son during the war. It is very probable that she was favorably impressed to- wards him by noting his fine person, and his firm and cheerful visage — circumstances which impress the women of the red people still more strongly than the men. She contemplated him stedfastly for some time, and sympathy and humanity triumphed, and she declared that she adopted him in place of the son she had lost. The two young meg, who bore the calu- met, instantly unpinioned his hands, treating him with kindness and respect. Food was brought him, and he was informed that he was considered as a son, ^nd she, who had adopted him, as his mother. He was soon made aware, by demonstrations that could not be dissembled or mistaken,'*that he was actually loved, and trusted, as if he really were, what his adoption purported to make him. In a few days he suffered no other penalty of captivity than inability to return to his family. He was sufficiently instruc- ted in Indian customs to know well, that any discov- LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. W9 ered purpose or attempt to escape would be punished with instant death. Strange caprice of inscrutable instincts and re- sults of habit! A circumstance, apparently fortui- tous and accidental, placed him in the midst of an Indian family, the female owner of which loved him with the most disinterested tenderness, and lav- ished upon him all the affectionate sentiments of a mother towards a son. Had the die of his lot been cast otherwise, all the inhabitants of the village would have raised the death song, and each indi- vidual would have been as fiercely unfeeling to tor- ment him, as they were now covetous to show him kindness. It is astonishing to see, in their habits of this sort, no interval between friendship and kind- ness, and the most ingenious and unrelenting bar- barity. Placed between two posts, and his arms and feet extended between them, nearly in the form of a person sirring crucifixion, he would have been burnt to death at a slow fire, while men, women, and children would have danced about him, occa- sionally applying torches and burning splinters to the most exquisitely sensible parts of the frame, pro- longing his torture, and exulting in it with the de- moniac exhilaration of gratified revenge. This was the most common fate of prisoners of war at that time. Sometimes they fastened the victim to a single stake, built a fire of green wood about him, and then raising their yell of exultation, marched off into the desert, leaving him to expire unheeded and alone. At other times .they killed their prisoners by amputating their limbs joint by 130 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. joint. Others they destroyed by pouring on them» from time to time, streams of scalding water. Al other times they have been seen to hang their vic- tim to a sapUng tree by the hands, bending it down until the wretched sufferer has seen himself swinging up and down at the play of the breeze, his feet often within a foot of the ground. In a word, they seem to have exhausted the invention and ingenuity of all time and all countries in the horrid art of inflicting torture. The mention of a circumstance equally extraor- dinary in the Indian character, may be recorded here. If the sufferer in these afflictions be an In- dian, during the whole of his agony a strange rivalry passes between them which shall outdo each other, they inflicting, and he in enduring these tci- tures. Not a groan, not a sigh, not a distortion of countenance is allowed to escape him. He smokes, and looks even cheerful. He occasionally chants a strain of his war song. He vaunts his exploits performed in afflicting death and desolation in their villages. He enumerates the names of their rela tives and friends that he has slain. He menaces them with the terrible revenge that his friends will inflict by way of retaliation. He even derides their ignorance in the art of tormenting; assures them that he had afflicted much more ingenious torture upon their people; and indicates more excruciating modes of inflicting pain, and more sensitive parts of the frame to which to apply them. They are exceedingly dexterous in the horrid sur gical operation of taking off the scalp — that is, a LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 131 considerable surface of the hairy integument of the crown of the cranium. Terrible as the operation is, there are not wanting great numbers of cases of persons who have survived, and recovered from it. The scalps of enemies thus taken, even when not paid for, as has been too often the infamous custom of their white auxiliaries, claiming to be civilized, are valued as badges of family honor, and trophies of the bravery of the warrior. On certain days and occasions, young warriors take a new name, consti- tuting a new claim to honor, according to the num- ber of scalps they have taken, or the bravery and exploits of those from whom they were taken. This name they deem a sufficient compensation for every fatigue and danger. Another ludicrous superstition tends to inspire them with the most heroic senti- ments. They believe that all the fame, intelligence, and bravery that appertained to the enemy they have slain is transferred to them, and thencefor- ward becomes their intellectual property. Hence, they are excited with the most earnest appetite to kill warriors of distinguished fame. This article of Indian faith affords an apt illustration of the ordina- ry influence of envy, which seems to inspire the person whom it torments with the persuasion, that all the merit it can contract from the envied becomes its own, and that the laurels shorn from another's brow will sprout on its own. He witnessed also their modes of hardening their children to that prodigious power of unshrinking endurance, of which such astonishing effects have just been recorded. This may be fitly termed ihe 132 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. Indian system of gynnnastics. The bodies of the children of both sexes are inured to hardships bj compeUing them to endure prolonged fastings, and to bathe in the coldest water. A child of eight years, fasts half a day; and one of twelve, a whole day without food or drink. The face is blacked during the fast, and is washed immediately before eating. The male face is entirely blacked; that of the female only on the cheeks. The course is discontinued in the case of the male at eighteen, and of the female at fourteen. At eighteen, the boy is instructed by his parents that his education is completed, and that he is old enough to be a man. His face is then black- ed for the last time, and he is removed at the dis- tance of some miles from the village, and placed in a temporary cabin. He is there addressed by his parent or guardian to this purport: "My son, it has pleased the Great Spirit that you should live to see this day. We all have noted your conduct since I first blacked your face. They well under- stand whether you have strictly followed the advice I have given you, and they will conduct themselves towards you according to their knowledge. YoxS must remain here until I, or some of your friends, come for you." The party then returns, resumes his gun, and seeming to forget the sufferer, goes to his hunting as usual, and the son or ward is left to endure hunger as long as it can be endured, and the party survive. The hunter, meanwhile, has procured the materials for a feast, of which the liiends are invited to par- take They accompany the father or guardian to LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 188 the unfortunate starving subject. He then accom- panies them home, and is bathed in cold water, and his head shaved after tlie Indian fashion — all but a small space on the centre of the crown. He is then allowed to take food, which, however, as a conse- crated thing, is presented him in a vessel distinct from that used by the rest. After he has eaten, he is presented with a looking-glass, and a bag of ver- milion. He is then complimented for the firmness with which he has sustained his fasting, and is told that he is henceforward a man^ and to be considered as such. The instance is not known of a boy eat- ing or drinking while under this interdict of the blacked face. They are deterred, not only by the strong sentiments of Indian honor, but by a persua- sion that the Great Spirit would severely punish such disobedience of parental authority. The most honorable mode of marriage, and that generally pursued by the more distinguished war- riors, is to assemble the friends and relatives, and consult with them in regard to the person whom it is expedient to marry. The choice being made, the relations of the young man collect such presents as they deem proper for the occasion, go to the parents of the woman selected, make known the wishes of their friend, deposit their presents, and return with- out waiting for an answer. The relations of the girl assemble and consult on the subject. If they confirm the choice, they also collect presents, dress her in her best clothes, and take her to the friends of the bridegroom who made the appUcation for the match, when it is understood that the marriage is 12 134 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. cccnpleted. She herself has still a negative; and if she disapprove the match, the presents from the friends of the young man are returned, and this is considered as a refusal. Many of the more north- ern nations, as the Dacotas, for example, have a cus- tom, that, when the husband deceases, his widow immediately manifests the deepest mourning, by putting off all her finery, and dresses herself in the coarsest Indian attire, the sackcloth of Indian lamentation. Meanwhile she makes ap a respecta- ble sized bundle of her clothes into the form of a kind of doll-man, which represents her husband. With this she sleeps. To this she converses and relates the sorrows of her desolate heart. It would be indecorous for any warrior, while she is in this predicament, to show her any attentions of gallan- try. She never puts on any habihments but those of sadness and disfigurement. The only comfort she is permitted in this desolate state is, that her budget- ted husband is permitted, when drams are passing, to be considered as a living one, and she is allowed to cheer her depressed spirits with a double dram, that of her budget-husband and iier own. After a full year of this penance with the budget-husbandji she is allowed to exchange it (cv a living one, if she can find him. "When an Indian party forms for private revenge the object is accomplished in the followiiig manner The Indian who seeks revenge, proposes his project to obtain it to some of his more intimate assoc^ates^ and requests them to accompany him. When the . equisite number is obtained, and the plan arranged LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 135 (t is kept a profound secret from all others, and the proposer of the plan is considered the leader. The party leaves the village secrctlj, and in the night. When they halt for the night, the eldest encamp in front, and the younger in the rear. The foremen hun^ for the party, and perform the duty of spies. The latter cook, make the tires, mend the moccasins, and perform the other drudgery of the expedition. Every war party has a small budget, called the war budget, which contains something belonging to each one of the party, generally representing some animal; for example, the skin of a snake, the tail of a buffalo, the skin of a martin, or the feathers of some extraordinary bird. This budget is considered a sa- cred deposit, and is carried by some person selected for the purpose, who marches in front, and leads the party against the enemy. When the party halts, the budget is deposited in front,and no person passes it without authority. No one, while such an exhibi- tion is pending, is allowed to lay his pack on a log, converse about women or his home. When they encamp, the heart of whatever beast they have killed on the preceding day is cut into small pieces and burnt. No person is allowed, while it is burning, to step across the fire, but must go round it, and always in the direction of the sun. When an attack is to be made, the w ar budget is opened, and each man takes out his budget, or totem, and attaches it to that part of his body which has been indicated by tradition from his ancestors. When the attack is commenced, the body of the fighter is painted, generally black, and is almost na- 136 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. ked. After the action, each party returns his totem to the comnnander of the party, who carefully wraps them all up, and delivers them to the man \rho has taken the lirst prisoner or scalp ; and he is entitled to the honor of leading the party home in triumph. The war budget is then hung in front of the door of the person who carried it on the march against the enemy, where it remains suspended thirty or forty days, and some one of the party often sings and dan- ces round it. ''One mode of Indian burial seems to have pre- vailed, not only among the Indians of the lakes and of the Ohio valley, but over all the western country. Some lay the dead body on the surface of the ground, make a crib or pen over it, and cover it with bark. Others lay the body in a grave, covering it first with bark, and then with earth. Others make a coffin out of the cloven section of trees, in the form of plank, and suspend it from the top of a tree. Noth ing can be more affecting than to see a young mother hanging the coffin that contains the remains of her beloved child to the pendent branches of the flower- ing maple, and singing her lament over her love and hope, £is it waves in the breeze. LIFE OF DANIFL BOONE. CHAPTER IX 137 Boone becomes a favorite among the Indians — Anecdotes relating to his captivity — Their mode of tormenting and burning prisoners — TheL fortitude under the infliction of torture— Concerted attack oa Boones- borough — Boone escapes. BooA'E, being now a son in a principal Shawnee family, presents himself in a new hght to our obser- vation. We would be glad to be able give a diur- nal record of his modes of deportment, and getting along. Unhappily, the records are few and meagre. It will be obvious, that the necessity for a more pro- found dissimulation of contentment, cheerfulness, and a feeling of loving his home, was stronger than ever. It was a semblance that must be daily and hourly sustained. He would never have acquitted himself successfully, but for a wonderful versatility, which enabled him to enter into the spirit of what- ever parts he was called upon to sustain; and a real love for the hunting and pursuits of the Indians, which rendered what was at first assumed, with a little practice, and the influence of habit, easy and natural. He soon became in semblance so thor- oughly one of them, and was able in all those points of practice wliich give them reputation, to con- duct himself ^ith so much sidll and adroitness, that he gained the entire confidence of the family into which he was adopted, and become £ls dear to his mcther of adoption as her own son. Trials of Indian strength and skill are among 12* 138 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. their most common amusements. Boone was soon challenged to competition in these trials. In these rencounters of loud laughter and boisterous merri- ment, where all that was done seemed to pass into oblivion as fast as it transpired, Boone had too much tact and keen observation not to perceive that jeal- ousy, envy, and the origin of hatred often lay hid under the apparent recklessness of indifference. He was not sorry that some of the Indians could really beat him in the race, though extremely light of foot; and that in the game of ball, at which they had been practised all their lives, lie was decidedly inferior. But there was another sport — that of shooting at a mark — a new custom to the Indians but recently habituated to the use of fire arms; a practice which they had learned from the whites, and they were excessively jealous of reputation of great skill in this exercise, so important in hunting and war. Boone was challenged to shoot with them at a mark. It placed him in a most perplexing dilemma. If he shot his best, he could easily and far excel their most practised marksmen. But he was aware, that to display his superiority would never be forgiven him. On the other hand, to fall far short of them in an exercise which had been hitherto peculiar to the whites, would forfeit theif respect. In this predicament, he judiciously allowed himself sometimes to be beaten; and when it became prudent to put forth all his skill, a well dissembled humility and carelessness subdued the mortification and envy of the defeated competitor. LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 139 He was often permitted to accompany them in their hunting parties; and here their habits and his circumstances ahke invoked him to do his best. They applauded his skill and success as a hunter, with no mixture of envy or ill will. He was par- ticularly fortunate in conciliating the good will of the Shawnee chief. To attain this result, Boone not only often presented him with a share of his game, but adopted the more winning deportment of always affecting to treat his opinions and counsels with deference. The chief, on his part, often took occasion to speak of Boone as a most consummate proficient in hunting, and a warrior of great brave- ry. Not long after kis residence among them, he had occasion to witness their manner of celebrating their victories, by being an eye witness to one which commemorated the successful return of a war party with some scalps. Witliin a day's march of the village, the party dispatched a runner \vith the joyful intelligence of their success, achieved without loss. Every cabin in the village was immediately ordered to be swept perfectly clean, with the religious intention to ban- ish every source of pollution that might mar the ceremony. The women, exceedingly fearful of con- tributing in any way to this pollution, commenced an inveterate sweeping, gathering up the collected dirt, and carefully placing it in a heap behind the door. There it remained until the medicine man, or priest, who presides over the powow, ordered them to remove it, and at the same time every sav- gfi implement and utensil upon whiih the women 140 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. had laid their hands during the absence of the expedition. Next day the party came in sight of the village, painted in alternate compartments of red and black, their heads enveloped in swan's down, and the cen- tre of their crown, surmounted with long white feathers. They advanced, singing their war song, and bearing the scalps on a verdant branch of evergreen. Arrived at the village, the chief who had led the party advanced before his warriors to his winter cabin, encircling it in an order of march contrary to the course of the sun, singing the war song after a particular mode, sometimes on the ten or and sometimes on the bass key, sometimes in high and shrill, and sometimes in deep and guttural notes. The waiter^ or servant of the leader, called Etissu, placed a couple of blocks of wood near the war-pole, opposite the door of a circular cabin, called the hot-house,, in the centre of which was the council fire. On these blocks he rested a kind of ark, deemed among their most sacred things. While this was transacting the party were pro- foundly silent. The chief bade all set down, and then inquired whether his cabin was prepared and every thing unpolluted, according to the custom of their fathers? After the answer, they rose up in concert and began the war-whoop, walking slowly round the war-pole as they sung. All the conse- crated things were then carried, with no small show of solemnity, into the hot-house. Here they remain- ed three whole days and nights, in separation from LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 141 the rest of the people, applying warm ablations to their bodies, and sprinkling themselves with a de- coction of snake root. During a part of the time, the female relations of each of the consecrated company, after having bathed, anointed, and drest themselves in their fnicst apparel, stood, in two lines opposite the door, and facing each other. This observance they kept up through the night, uttering a peculiar, monotonous song, in a shrill voice for a minute; then intermitting it about ten minutes, and resuming it again. When not singing their silence was profound. The chief, meanwhile, at intervals of about three hours, came out at the head of his company, raised the war-whoop, and marched round the red war-pole, holding in his right hand the pine or cedar boughs, on which the scalps were attached, waving them backward and forward, and then returned again. To these ceremonies they conformed without the slight- est interruption, during tiie whole three days' puri- fication. To proceed with the whole details of the ceremony to its close, would be tedious. We close it, only adding, that a small twig of the evergreen was fixed upon the roof of each one of their cabins, with a fragment of the scalps attached to it, and this, as it appeared, to appease the ghosts of their dead. When Boone asked them the meaning of all these long and tedious ceremonies, they answered him by a word which literally imports "holy." The leader and his waiter kept apart and continued the purification three days longer, and the ceremony closed. 142 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. He observed, that when their war-parties retun>ed from an expedition, and had arrived near their vil- lage, they followed their file leader, in what is called Indian jile^ one by one, each a few yards behind the other, to give the procession an appearance of great- er length and dignity. If the expedition had been unsuccessful, and they had lost any of their warriors, they returned without ceremony and in noiseless sadness. But if they had been successful, they fired their guns in platoons, yelling, whooping, and insul- ting their j^risoners, if they had made any. Near their town was a large square area, with a war-pole in the ceiitre, expressly prepared for such purposes. To this they fasten tlieir prisoners. They then ad- vance to the house of their leader, remaining with- out, and standing round his red war-pole, until they determine concerning the fate of their prisoner. If any prisoner should be fortunate enough to break from his pinions, and escape into the house of the chief medicine man, or conductor of the powow, it is an inviolable asylum, and by immemorial usage, the refugee is saved from the fire. Captives far advanced in life, or such as had been known to have shed the blood of their tribe, were sure to atone for their decrepitude, or past activity in shedding blood, by being burnt to death. They readily know those Indians who have killed many, by the blue marks on their breasts and arms, which indicate the number they have slain. These hiero- glyphics are to them as significant as our alphabetical characters. The ink with which these characters are impressed, is a sort of lampblack, prepared from LIFE or DANIEL BOONE. 143 the soot of burning pine, which they catch by caus- ing it to pass through a sort of greased funnel. Hav- ing prepared this lampblack, they tattoo it into the skin, by punctures made with thorns or the teeth of fish. The young prisoners, if they seen capable of activity and service, and if they preserve an intrepid and unmoved countenance, are generally spared, unless condemned to death by the party, while un- dergoing the purification specified above. As soon as their case is^so decided, they are tied to the stake, one at a time. A pair of bear-skin moccasins, with the hair outwards, are put on their feet. They are stripped naked to the loins, and are pinioned firmly to the stake. Their subsequent punishment, in addition to the Buffering of slow fire, is left to the women. Such are the influences of their training, that although the female nature, in all races of men, is generally found to be more susceptible of pity than the male, in this case they appear to surpass the men in the fury of their merciless rage, and the industrious ingenuity of their torments. Each is prepared with a bundle of long, dry, reed cane, or other poles, to which are attached spUnters of burning pine. As the victim is led to the stake, the women and children begin their sufferings by beating them with switches and clubs; and as they reel and recoil from the blows, these fiendish imps show their gratification by unre- mitting peals of laughter; too happy, if their tortures ended here, or if the merciful tomahawk brought them to an immediate close. The signal for a more terrible infliction being giv J41 LIFE ©F DANIEL BOONE. en — the arms of the victim are pinioned, and he is disengaged from the pole, and a grapevine passed round his neck, allowing him a circle of ahout fifteen yards in circumference, in which he can be made to march round his pole. They knead tough clay on his head to secure the cranium from the effects of the blaze, that it may not inflict immediate death. Un- der the excitement of ineifable and horrid joy, thev whip him round the circle, that he may expose each part of his body to the flame, while the other part is fanned by the cool air, that he may thus undergo the literal operation of slow roasting. During this ab horrent process, the children fill the circle in convul- sions of laughter; and the women begin to thrust their burning torches into his body, lacerating the quick of the fiesh, that the flame miiy inflict more exquisite anguish. The warrior, in these cases, goaded to fury, sweeps round the extent of his circle, kicking, biting, and stamping with inconceivable fu- ry. The throng of women and children laugh, and fly from the circle, and fresh tormentors fill it again. At other times the humor takes him to show them, that he can bear all this, without a grimace, a spasm, or indication ofsutFering. In this case, as we have seen, he smokes, derides, menaces, sings, and shows his contempt, by calling them by the most reproach- ful of all epithets — old women. When he falls in- sensible, they scalp and dismember him, and the re- mainder of his body is consumed. We have omitted many of these revolting details, many of the atrocious features of this spectacle, as witnessed by Boone. While we read with indigna^ LIFE OP DANIEL BOONE. 145 tion and horror, let us not forget that savages have not alone inflicted these detestable cruelties. Let us not forget that the professed followers of Jesus Christ have given examples of a barbarity equally unrelenting and horrible, in the form of leligious persecution, and avowedly to glorify God. During Boone's captivity among the Shawnese, they took prisoner a noted warrior of a western tribe, with which they were then at war. He was condemned to the stake with the usual solemnities. Having endured the preliminary tortures with the most fearless unconcern, he told them, when prepa- ring to commence a new series, with a counte- nance of scorn, he could teach them how to make an enemy eat fire to some purpose; and begged that they would give him an opportunity, together with a pipe and tobacco. In respectful astonishment, at an unwonted demonstration of invincible endu- rance, they granted his request. He lighted his pipe, began to smoke, and sat down, all naked as he was, upon the burning torches, which were bla- zing within his circle. Every muscle of his coun- tenance retained its composure. On viewing this, a noted warrior sprang up, exclaiming, that this was a true warrior; that though his nation was treacherous, and he had caused them many deaths, yet such was their respect for true courage, that if the fire had not already spoiled him, he should be spared. That being now impossible, he promised him the merciful release of the tomahawk. He then held the terrible instrument suspended some moments over his head, during all which time he 13 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 147 was seen neither to change his posture, mo\e a muscle, or his countenance to blench. The toma- hawk fell, and the impassable warrior ceased to suffer. We shall close these details of the Shawnese cus- toms, at the time when Boone was prisoner among them, by giving his account of their ceremonies at making peace. The chief warriors, who arrange the conditions of the peace and subsequent friend- ship, first mutually eat and smoke together. They then pledge each other in the sacred drink called Cussena, The Shawnese then wave large fans of eagles' tails, and conclude with a dance. The stranger warriors, who have come to receive the peace, select half a dozen of their most active young men, surmounting their crowns with swan's feathers, and painting their bodies with white clay. They then place their file leader on the consecrated seat of what imports in their language, the "beloved cabin." Afterwards they commence singing the peace song, with an air of great solemnity. They begin to dance, first in a prone or bowing posture. They then raise themselves erect, look upwards, and wave their eagles' tails towards the sky, first with a slow, and then with a quick and jerky motion. At the same time, they strike their breast with a cala- bash fastened to a stick about a foot in length, which they hold in their left hand, while they wave the eagles' feathers with the right, and keep time by rattling pebbles in a gourd. These ceiemo- nies of peace-making they consider among their •nost solemn duties; and to be perfectly accom- 148 LIFE OF DA.NIEL BOONE. plished in all the notes and gestures is an indispen- sable acquirement to a thorough trained warrior. Boone has related, at different times, many oral details of his private and domestic life, and his modes of getting along in the family, of which he was considered a member. He was perfectly trained to their ways, could prepare their food, and perform any of their common domestic opera- tions with the best of them. He often accompa- nied them in their hunting excursions, wandering with them over the extent of forest between Chilli- cothe and lake Erie. These conversations present- ed curious and most vivid pictures of their interior modes; their tasks of diurnal labor and supply; their long and severe fasts; their gluttonous indul- gence, when they had food; and their reckless gen- erosity and hospitality, when they had any thing to bestow to travelling visitants. To become, during this tedious captivity, per- fectly acquainted with their most interior domestic and diurnal manners, was not without interest for a mind constituted like his. To make himself master of their language, and to become familiarly ac- quainted with their customs, he considered acquisi- tions of the highest utility in the future operations, in which, notwithstanding his present duress, he hoped yet to be beneficial to his beloved settlement of Kentucky. Although the indulgence with which he was treated in the family, in which he was adopted, and these acquisitions, uniting interest with utility, tended to beguile the time of his captivity, it cannot LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 14^ be doubted, that his sleeping and waking thoughts were incessantly occupied with the chances of ma- king his escape. An expedition was in contempla- tion, by the tribe, to the salt licks on the Scioto, to make salt. Boone dissembled indifference whe- ther they took him with them, or left him behind, with so much success, that, to his extreme joy, they determined that he should accompany them. The expedition started on the first day of June, 1778, and was occupied ten days in making salt. During this expedition, he was frequently sent out to hunt, to furnish provisions for the party; but always under such circumstances, that, much as he had hoped to escape on this expedition, no opportu- nity occurred, which he thought it prudent to em- brace. He returned with the party to Chillicothe, having derived only one advantage from the jour ney, that of furnishing, by his making no attempt to escape, and by his apparently cheerful return, new motives to convince the Indians, that he was thoroughly domesticated among them, and had voluntarily renounced his own race; a persuasion, which, by taking as much apparent interest as any of them, in all their diurnal movements and plans, he constantly labored to establish. Soon after his return he attended a warrior-coun eil, at which, in virtue of being a member of one of the principal families, he had a right of usage and prescription, to be present. It was composed of a hundred and fifty of their bravest men, all painted and armed for an expedition, which he found 'vas intended against Boonesborough. It instantly te- la* 150 lilFE OF DANIEL BOONE. curred to him, as a most fortunate circumstance, that he had not escaped on the expedition to Scio- to. Higher and more imperious motives, than merely personal considerations, now determined him at every risk to make the effort to escape, and prepare, if he might reach it, the station for a vigor- ous defence, by forewarning it of what was in prepa ration among the Indians. The religious ceremonies of the council and pre- paration for the expedition were as follow. One of the principal war chiefs announced the intention of a party to commence an expedition against Boones- borough. This he did by beating their drum, and marching with their war standard three times round the council-house. On this the council dissolved, and a sufficient number of warriors supplied them- selves with arms, and a quantity of parched corn flour, as a supply of food for the expedition. All who had volunteered to join in it, then adjourned to their "winter house," and drank the war-drink, a decoction of bitter herbs and roots, for three days — preserving in other respects an almost unbroken fast. This is considered to be an act tending to pro- pitiate the Great Spirit to prosper their expedition. During this period of purifying themselves, they were not allowed to sit down, or even lean upon a tree, however fatigued, until after sun-set. If a bear or deer even passed in sight, custom forbade them from killing it for refreshment. The more rigidly punctual they are in the observance of these rights, the more confidently they expect success. While the young warriors were under this proba- LIFE OF 1>ANIEL BOONE. 15| tion, the aged ones, experienced in the usages of their ancestors, watched them most narrowly to see that, from irrehgion, or hunger, or recklessness, they did not violate any of the transmitted religious rites, and thus bring the wrath of the Great Spirit upon the expedition. Boone himself, as a person natu- rally under suspicion of having a swerving of incli- nation towards the station to be assailed, was obliged to observe the fast with the most rigorous exactness. During the three days' process of purification, he was not once allowed to go out of the medicine oi sanctified ground, without a trusty guard, lest hun- ger or indifference to their laws should tempt him to violate them. When the fast and purification was complete, they were compelled to set forth, prepared or unpre- pared, be the weather fair or foul. Accordingly, when the time arrived, they fired their guns, whoop- ed, and danced, and sung — and continued firing their guns before them on the commencement of their route. The leading war-chief marched first, carry- ing their medicine bag, or budget of holy things. The rest followed in Indian file, at intervals of three or four paces behind each other, now and then chiming the war-whoop in concert. They advanced in this order until they were out of sight and hearing of the village. As soon as thej reached the deep woods, all became as silent as death. This silence they inculcate, that their ears may be quick to catch the least portent of danger. Every one acquainted with the race, has remarked their intense keenness of vision. Their eyes, foj i52 LITE OF DANIEL BOONE. acuteness, and capability of discerning distant ob- jects, resemble those of the eagle or the lynx; and their cat-like tread among the grass and leaves, seems so light as scarcely to shake off the dew drops. Thus they advance on their expedition rapidly and in profound silence, unless some one of the party should relate that he has had an unpropitious dream When this happens, an immediate arrest is put upon the expedition, and the whole party face about, and return without any sense of shame or mortification. A whole party is thus often arrested by a single per- son; and their return is applauded by the tribe, as a respectful docility to the divine impulse, as they deem it, from the Great Spirit. These dreams are univer- sally reverenced, as the warnings of the guardian spirits of the tribe. There is in that country a sparrow, of an uncommon species, and not often seen. This bird is called in the Shawnese dialect by a name importing "kind messenger," which they deem always a true omen, whenever it appears, of bad news. They are exceedingly intimidated whenever this bird sings near them; and were it to perch and sing over their war-camp, the whole par- ty would instantly disperse in consternation and dismay. Every chief has his warrior, Etissu, or waiter, to attend on him and his party. This confidential per- sonage has charge of every thing that is eaten or drank during the expedition. He parcels it out by rules of rigid abstemiousness. Though each war rior carries on his back all his travelling conveniences, and his food among the rest, yet, however keen tlw LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. i5S appetite sharpened by hunger, however burning the thirst, no one dares reheve his hunger or thirst, until his rations are dispensed to him by the Etissu. Boone had occasion to have all these lites most painfully impressed on his memory; for he was obli- ged to conform to them with the rest. One single thought occupied his mind — to seize the right occa- sion to escape. It was sometime before it offered. At length a deer came in sight. He had a portion of his unfin- ished breakfast in his hand. He expressed a desire to pursue the deer. The party consented. As soon as he was out of sight, he instantly turned his course towards Boonesborough. Aware that he should be pursued by enemies as keen on the scent as blood- hounds, he put forth his whole amount of backwoods skill, in doubling in his track, walking in the water, and availing himself of every imaginable expedient to throw them off his trail. His unfinished fragment of his breakfast was his only food, except roots and berries, during this escape for his Hfe, through un- known forests and pathless swamps, and across nu- merous rivers, spreading in an extent of more than two hundred miles. Every forest sound must have struck his ear, as a harbinger of the approaching Indians. No spirit but such an one as his, could have sus- tained the apprehension and fatigue. No mind but one guided by the intuition of instinctive sagacity, could have so enabled him to conceal his trail, and find his way. But he evaded their pursuit. He discovered his way. He found in roots, in barks, J 54 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. and berries, together with v/hat a single shot of his rifle afforded, wherewith to sustain the cravings of nature. TravelHng night and day, in an incredible short space of time he was in the arms of his friends at Boonesborough, experiencing a reception, after such a long and hopeless absence, as words would in vain attempt to portray. LIFE OF DANIEL BOO^E. 155 CHAPTER X. Six hundred Indians attack Boonesboioiigli — Boone and Captain Smith go out to treat witli the enemy under a flag of truce, and are extricated from a treacherous attempt to detain them as pri- soners — Defence of the foit — The Indvans defeated — Boone goes to North Carolina to bring biirk his family. It will naturally be supposed that foes less warj and intelligent, than thor-e from whonn Boone had escaped, after they had abandoned the hope of recapturing him, would calculate to find Boonesbo- rough in readiness for their reception. Boones])orough, though the most populous and important station in Kentucky, had been left by the abstraction of so many of the select inhabitants in the captivity of the Blue Licks, by the absence of Colonel Clarke in Illinois, and by the actual decay of the pickets, almost defenceless. Not long before the return of Boone, this important post had been put under the care of Major Smith, an active and intelligent officer. He repaired thither, and put the station, with great labor and fatigue, in a com- petent fetate of defence. liCarning from the re turn of some of the prisoners, captured at the Blue Licks, the great blow which the Shawnese meditated against this station, he deemed it advisa- ble to anticipate their movements, and to fit out an expedition to meet them on their own ground. — Leaving twenty young men to defend the place, he 156 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. marched with thirty chosen men towards the Shaw nese towns. At the Blue Licks, a place of evil omen to Kei. tucky, eleven of the men, anxious for the safety of the families they had left behind, and deeming theii force too small for the object contemplated, aban doned the enterprise and retreated to the fort. The remaining iiineteen, not discouraged by the deser tion of their companions, heroically persevered They crossed the Ohio to the present site of Cincin- nati, on rafts. They then painted their faces, and in other respects assumed the guise and garb of savages, and marched upon the Indian towns. Wlien arrived within twenty miles of these towns they met the force with which Boone had set out. Discouraged by his escape, the original party had returned, had been rejoined by a considerable rein- forcement, the whole amounting to two hundred and fifty men on horse-back, and were again on their march against Boonesborough. Fortunately, Majoi Smith and his small party discovered this formidable body before they were themselves observed. Bui instead of endeavoring to make good their retreat from an enemy so superior in numbers, and mounted upon horses, they fired upon them and killed two of their number. An assault so unexpected alarmed the Indians; and without any effort to ascertain the number of their assailants, they commenced a precipitate retreat. If these rash adventurers had stopped here, they might have escaped unmo lested. But, flushed with this partial success, they rushed upon the retreating foe, and repeated theii LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 157 fire. The savages, restored to self-possession, halted in their turn, deliberated a moment, and turned upon the assailants. Major Smith, perceiving the impru- dence of having thus put the enemy at bay, and the certainty of the destruction c^ his little force, if the Indians should perceive its weakness, ordered a retreat in time; and being considerably in ad- vance of the foe, succeeded in effecting it without loss. By a rapid march during the night, in the course of the next morning they reached Boones- borough in safety. Scarcely an hour after the last of their number had entered the fort, a body of six hundred Indians, in three divisions of two hundred each, appeared with standards and much show of warlike array, and took their station opposite the fort. The whole was commanded by a Frenchman named Duquesne. They immediately sent a flag requesting the sur- render of the place, in the name of the king of Great Britain. A council was held, and contrary to the opinion of Major Smith, it was decided to pay no attention to the proposal. They repeated their flag of truce, stating that they had letters from the commander at Detroit to Colonel Boone. On this, it was resolved that Colonel Boone and Major Smith should venture out, and hear what they had to propose. Fifty yards from the fort three chiefs met them with great parade, and conducted them to the spot designated for their reception, and spread a panther's skin for their seat, while two other Indians held branches over their heads to protect them from the 14 158 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. fervor of the sun. The chiefs then connmenced an address five minutes in length, abounding in friendly assurances, and the avowal of kind sentiments. A part of the advanced warriors grounded their arms, and came forward to shake hands with them. The letter from Governor Hamilton of Detroit was then produced, and read. It proposed the most fa- vorable terms of surrender, provided the garrison would repair to Detroit. Major Smith assured them that the proposition seemed a kind one; but that it was impossible, in their circumstances, to remove their women and children to Detroit. The reply was that this difficulty should be removed, for that they had brought forty horses with them, expressly prepared for such a contingency. In a long and apparently amicable interview, du- ring which the Indians smoked with them, and vaunted their abstinence in not having killed the swine and cattle of the settlement, Boone and Smith arose to return to the fort, and make known these proposals, and to dehberate upon their decision. Twenty Indians accompanied their return as far as the limits stipulated between the parties allowed. The negotiators having returned, and satisfied the garrison that the Indians had no cannon, advised to listen to no terms, but to defend the fort to the last extremity. The inmates of the station resolved to follow this counsel. In a short time the Indians sent in another flag, with a view, as they stated, to ascertain the result of the deliberations of the fort. Word was sent them, that if they wished to settle a treaty, a place LIFE OP DANIEL BOONE. 159 of conference must be assigned intermediate be- tween their camp and the fort. The Indians con- sented to this stipulation, and deputed thirty chiefs to arrange the articles, though such appeared to be their distrust, that they could not be induced to come nearer than eighty yards from the fort. Smith and Boone with four others were deputed to confer with them. After a close conference of two days, an arrangement was agreed upon, which contained a stipulation, that neither party should cross the Ohio, until after the terms had been decided upon by the respective authorities on either side. The wary heads of this negotiation considered these terms of the Indians as mere lures to beguile con- fidence. When the treaty was at kist ready for signature, an aged chief, who had seemed to regulate all the proceedings, remarked that he must first go to his people, and that he would immediately return, and sign the instrument. He was observed to step aside in conference v/ith some young warriors. On his return the negotiators from the garrison asked the chief why he had brought young men in place of those who had just been assisting at the council? His answer was prompt and ingenious. It was, that he wished to gratify his young warriors, who desired to become acquainted with the ways of the whites. It was then proposed, according to the custom of both races, that the parties should shake hands. As the two chief negotiators. Smith and Boone, arose to depart, they were both seized from behind. Suspicious of treachery, they had posted twenty- 160 LITE OP DANIEL BOONE. five men in a bastion, with orders to tire upon the council, as soon as they should see any marks of treachery or violence. The instant the negotiators were seized, the whole besieging force tired upon them, and the fire was as promptly returned by the men in the bastion. The powerful savages who had grasped Boone and Smith, attempted to drag them ofi' as prisoners. The one who held Smith was compelled to release his grasp by being shot dead. Colonel Boone was slightly wounded. A second tomahawk, by which his skull would have been cleft asunder, he evaded, and it partially fell on Major Smith; but being in a measure spent, it did not inflict a dangerous wound. The negotiators escaped to the fort without receiving any other in- jury. The almost providential escape of Boone and Smith can only be accounted for by the confusion into which the Indians were thrown, as soon as these men were seized, and by the prompt fire of the men concealed in the bastion. Added to this, the two Indians who seized them were both shot dead, by marksmen who knew how to kill the Indians, and at the same time spare the whites, in whose grasp they were held. The firing on both sides now commenced in ear- nest, and was kept up without intermission from morning dawn until dark. The garrison, at once exasperated and cheered by the meditated treachery of the negotiation and its result, derided the furious Indians, and thanked them for the stratagem of the negotiation, which had given them time to prepare the fort for their reception. Goaded to desperation LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 161 by these taunts, and by Duquesne, who harangued them to the onset, thej often rushed up to the fort, as if they purposed to storm it. Dropping dead un- der the cool and dehberate aim of the besieged, the remainder of the forlorn hope, raising a yell of fury and despair, fell back. Other infuriated bands took their place; and these scenes were often repeated, invariably with the same success, until both pa,rtie8 were incapable of taking aim on account of the dark- ness. They then procured a quantity of combustible matter, set fire to it, and approached under covert of the darkness, so near the palisades as to throw the burning materials into the fort. But the inmates had availed themselves of the two doys' consulta- tion, granted them by the treacherous foe, to procure an ample supply of water; and they had the means of extinguishing the burning faggots as they fell. Finding their efforts to fire the fort ineffectual, they returned again to their arms, and continued to fire upon the station for some days. Taught a les- son of prudence, however, by what had already be- fallen them, they kept at such a cautious distance, as that their fire took little effect. A project to gain the place, more wisely conceived, and promising better success, was happily discovered by Colonel Boone. The walls of the fort were distant sixty yards from the Kentucky river. The bosom of the current was easily discernible by the people within. Boone discovered in the morning that the stream near the shore was extremely turbid. He immedi ately divined the cause. 14* 1 62 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. The Indians had commenced a trench at the wa- ter level of the river bank, mining upwards towards the station, and intending to reach the interior bj a passage under the wall. He took measures to ren- der their project ineffectual, by ordering a trench to be cut inside the fort, across the line of their subter- raneous passage. They were probably apprised of the countermine that was digging within, by the quantity of earth thrown over the wall. But, stim- ulated by the encouragement of their French engi- neer, they continued to advance their mine towa,rds the wall, until, from the friability of the soil through which it passed, it fell in, and all their labor was lost. With a perseverance that in a good cause would have done them honor, in no wise discouraged by this failure to intermit their exertions, they returned again to their fire arms, and kept up a furious and in- cessant firing for some days, but producing no more impression upon the station than before. During the siege, which lasted eight days, they proposed frequent parleys, requesting the surrender of the place, and professing to treat the garrison with the utmost kindness. They were answered, that they must deem the garrison to be still more brutally fools than themselves, to expect that they would place any confidence in the proposals of wretches who had already manifested such base and stupid treachery. They were bidden to fire on, for that their waste of powder and lead gave the garrisoii little uneasiness, and were assured that they could not hope the surrender of the place, while there was a man left within it. On the morning of the niiith LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 165 day from the commenccmcTit of the siege, after hav ing, as usual, wreaked their disappointed furj upon the cattle and swine, they decamped, and commen ced a retreat. No Indian expedition against the whites had been known to have had such a disastrous issue for them. During the siege, their loss was estimated by the gar- rison at two hundred killed, beside a great number wounded. The garrison, on the contrary, protected by the palisades, behind which they could lire in safety, and deliberately prostrate every foe that ex- posed himself near enough to become a mark, lost but two killed, and had six wounded. After the siege, the people of the fort, to whom lead was a great object, began to collect the balls that the Indians had tired upon them. They gath- ered in the logs of the fort, beside those that had fal- len to the ground, a hundred and twenty-five pounda. The failure of this desperate attempt, with such a powerful force, seems to have discouraged the Indi- ans and their Canadian alhes from making any fur- ther elibrt against Boonesborough. In the autumn of this season, Colonel Boone returned to North Carolina to visit his wife and family. When he was taken at the Blue Licks, with his associates, who had returned, while he was left be- hind in a long captivity, during which no more news of him transpired than as if he were actually among the dead, the people of the garrison naturally con- cluded that he had been killed. His wife and family numbered him as among the dead; and often had they shuddered on the barf* recurrence of some one 164 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. to the probability of the tortures he had under- gone. Deeply attached to him, and inconsolable, they could no longer endure a residence which so painfully reminded them of their loss. As soon as they had settled their minds to the conviction that their head would return to them no more, they re- solved to leave these forests that had been so fatal to them, and return to the banks of the Yadkin, where were all their surviving connections. A fam- ily so respectable and dear to the settlement would not be likely to leave without having to overcome many tender and pressing solicitations to remain, and many promises that if they would, their temporal wants should be provided for. To all this Mrs. Boone could only object, that Kentucky had indeed been to her, as its name im- ported, a dark and Bloody Ground, She had lost her eldest son by the savage fire before they had reached the country. Her daughter had been made a captive, and had experienced a forbearance from the Indians to her inexplicable. She wooJd have been carried away to the savage towns, and there would have been forcibly married to some warrior, but for the perilous attempt, ann improba- ble success of her father in recapturing her. Now the father himself, her affectionate husband, and the heroic defender of the family, had fallen a sac- rifice, probably in the endurance of tortures on which the imagination dared not to dwell. Under the influence of griefs like these, next to the un- failing resource of religion, the heart naturally turns to the sympathy and society of those bound to it by LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 1(55 the tie^ of nature and affinity. Thej returned to their friends in North Carohna. It was nearly five years since this now desolate family had started in company with the first emi- grating party of families, in high hopes and spirits, for Kentucky. We have narrated their disastrous rencounter with the Indians in PowelPs valley, and their desponding return to Clinch river. We have seen their subsequent return to Boonesborough, on Kentucky river. Tidings of the party thus far had reached the relatives of Mrs. Boone's family in North Carolina; but no news from the country west of the Alleghanies had subsequently reached them. All was uncertain conjecture, whether they still lived, or had perished by famine, wild beasts, or the Indians. At the close of the summer of 1778, the settle- ment on the Yadkin saw a company on pack horses approaching in the direction from the western wil- derness. They had often seen parties of emigrants departing in that direction, but it was a novel spec- tacle to see one return from that quarter. At the nead of that company was a blooming youth, scarce- y yet arrived at the age of manhood. It was the Idest surviving son of Daniel Boone. Next behind oim was a matronly woman, in weeds, and with a countenance of deep dejection. It was Mrs. Boone. Still behind was the daughter who had been a cap- tive with the Indians. The remaining children were too young to feel deeply. The whole group was respectable in appearance, though clad in skins, and the primitive habiliments of the wilderness. It 168 LIFE CF DANIEL BOONE. might almost have been mistaken for a funeral pro- cession. It stopped at the house of Mr. Bryan, the father of Mrs. Boone. The people of the settlement were not long in coileclina: to hear news from the west, and learn the fate of their former favorite, Boone, and his family. As Mrs. Boone, in simple and backwood's phrase, related the thrilling story of their adventures, which needed no trick of venal eloquence to convey it to the heart, an abundant tribute of tears from the hearers convinced the bereaved narrator that true sympathy is natural to the human heart. As they shuddered at the dark character of man}' of the in- cidents related, it was an hour of triumph, notwith- standing their pity, for those wiser ones, who took care, in an under tone, to whisper that it might be remembered that they had predicted all that had happened. LIFE OP DANIEL BOONE. 107 CHAPTER XT A sketch of the character and adventures of several othei picnecrs — Harrod, Kenton, Logan, Ray, McAffee, and others. Colonel Boone having seen the foimidable in- vasion of Boonesborough successfully repelled, and WT^h such a loss as would not be likely to tennpt tb^ Indians to repeat such assaults — and having thus disengaged his mind from public duties, resigned it to the influence of domestic sympathies. The afiec- tionate husband and father, concealing the tender- est heart under a sun-burnt and care-worn visage, was soon seen crossing the Alleghanies in pursuit of his wife and children. The bright star of his morn- ing promise had been long under echpse; for thi§ journey was one of continued difficulties, vexations, and dangers — so like many of his sufferings already recounted, that we pass them by, fearing the effect of incidents of so much monotony upon the reader's patience. The frame and spirit of the western ad- venturer were of iron. He surmounted all, and was once more in the bosom of his family on the Yadkin, who, in the language of the Bible, hailed him as one who had been dead and was alive again; who had been lost and zvas found. Many incidents of moment and interest in the early annals of Kentucky occurred during this re- union of Boone with his family. As his name is forever identified with these annals, we hope it will not be deemed altogether an episode if we introduce 168 LIFE OP DANIEL BOONE. here a brief chronicle of those incidents — thougn not directly associated with the subject of our me- moir. In presenting those incidents, we shall be naturally led to speak of some of the other patii- archs of Kentucky — all Boones in their way — all strangely endowed with that peculiar character which fitted them for the time, place, and achieve- ments. We thus discover the foresight of Provi- dence in the arrangement of means to ends. This is no where seen more conspicuously than in the characters of the founders of states and institutions. During the absence of Colonel Boone, there was a general disposition in Kentucky to retaliate upon the Shawnese some of the injuries and losses which they had so often inflicted upon the infant settle- ment. Colonel Bowman, with a force of a hundred and sixty men, was selected to command the expedi- tion; and it was destined against Old Chillicothe — the den where the red northern savages had so long concentrated their expeditions against the settle- ments south of the Ohio. The force marched in the month of July, 1779, and reached its destination undiscovered by the Indi- ans. A contest commenced with the Indians at ear- ly dawn, which lasted until ten in the morning. But, although Colonel Bowman's force sustained itself with great gallantry, the numbers and conceal- ment of the enemy precluded the chance of a victo- ry. He retreated, with an inconsiderable loss, a distance of thirty miles. The Indians, collecting all their forces, pursued and overtook him. Another engagement of two hours ensued, more to the dis- LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 169 advantage of the Kentuckians than the former. Colonel Harrod proposed to mount a number of horse, and make a cliarge upon the Indians, who continued the fight with great fury. This apparently desperate measure was followed by the happiest re- sults. The Indian front was broken, and their force thrown into irreparable confusion. Colonel Bow- man, having sustained a loss of nine killed and one wounded, afterwards continued an unmolested retreat. In June of the next year, 1780, six hundred Indi- ans and Canadians, commanded by Colonel Bird, a British officer, attacked Riddle's and Martin's sta- tions, at the forks of the Licking, with six pieces of cannon. They conducted this expedition with so much secrecy, that the first intimation of it which the unsuspecting inhabitants had, was being fired upon. Unprepared to resist so formidable a force, provided moreover with cannon, against which their palisade walls would not stand, they were obliged to surrender at discretion. The savages immediately prostrated one man and two women with the toma- hawk. All the other prisoners, many of whom were sick, were loaded with baggage and forced to accom- pany their return march to the Indian towns. Who» ever, whether male or female, infant or aged, became unable, from sickness or exhaustion, to proceed, was immediately dispatched with the tomahawk. The inhabitants, exasperated by the recital of cru- elties to the children and women, too horrible to be named, put themselves under the standard of the intrepid and successful General Clarke, who com- 15 170 LIFE or DANIEL BOONE. manded a regiment of United States' troops at the falls of Ohio. He was joined bj a number of vol- unteers from the country, and they marched against Pickaway, one of the principal towns of the Shaw- nese, on the Great Miami. He conducted this ex- pedition with his accustomed good fortune. He burnt their town to ashes. Beside the dead, which, according to their custom, the Indians carried oflj seventeen bodies were left behind. The loss of General Clarke was seventeen killed. We here present brief outlines of some of the other more prominent western pioneers, the kindred spirits, the Boones of Kentucky. High spirited intelligent, intrepid as they were, they can never supplant the reckless hero of Kentucky and Mis- souri in our thoughts. It is true, these men deserve to have their memories perpetuated in monumental brass, and the more enduring page of history. But there is a sad interest attached to the memory of Daniel Boone, which can never belong, in an equal degree, to theirs. They foresaw what this beautiful country would become in the hands of its new pos- sessors. Extending their thoughts beyond the ken of a hunter's calculations, they anticipated the con- sequences of huts and bounds j officers of registry ac^ record, and courts of justice. In due time, they se- cured a fair and adequate reversion in the soil which they had planted and so nobly defended. Hence, their posterity, with the inheritance of their name and renown, enter into the heritage of their posses- sions, and find an honorable and an abundant resi- dence in the country which their fathers settled. LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 171 Boone, on the contrary, was too simple-nnnded, too little given to prospective calculations, and his heart in too much what was passing under his eye, to make this thrifty forecast. In age, in penury, landless, and without a home, he is seen leaving Kentucky, then an opulent and flourishing country, for a new wilderness and new scenes of adventure. Among the names of the conspicuous backwoods- men who settled the west, we cannot fail to recog- nize that of James Harrod. He was from the banks of the Monongahela, and among the earliest immi- grants to the '^Bloody Ground." He descended the Great Kenhawa, and returned to Pennsylvania in 1774. He made himself conspicuous with a party of his friends at the famous contest v*'ith the Indiana at the "Point." Next year he returned to Kentucky with a party of immigrants, fixing himself at one of the earhest settlements in the country, which, in honor of him, was called Harrodsburgh. Nature had moulded him of a form and tempera- ment to look the formidable red man in the face. He was six feet, muscular, broad chested, of a firm and animated countenance, keen and piercing eyes, and sparing of speech. He gained himself an imperish- able name in the annals of Kentucky, under the ex- ti'eme disadvantage of not knowing how to read or write! Obliging and benevolent to his neighbors, he was brave and active in their defence. A suc- cessful, because a persevering and intelligent hunter, he was liberal to profuseness in the distribution of the spoils. Vigilant and unerring with his rifle, it WdS at one time directed against the abundant game for 172 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. the sake of his friends rather than himself; and at others, against the enemies of his country. Guided hy the inexphcahle instinct of forest skill, he could conduct the wanderer in the woods from point to point through the wilderness, as the needle guides the mariner upon the ocean. So endowed, others equally illiterate, and less gifted, naturally, and from instinct, arranged themselves under his banner, and fearlessly followed such a leader. If it was reported, that a family, recently arrived in the country, and not yet acquainted with the backwood's modes of supply, was in want of food, Ilarrod was seen at the cabin door, offering the body of a deer or buffalo, which he had just killed. The commencing farmer, who had lost his oxen, or plough horse, in the range, and unused to the vocation of hunting them, or fearful of the Indian rifle, felt no hesitancy, from his known character, in applying to Harrod. He would disappear in the woods, and in the exercise of his own wonderful tact, the lost beast was soon seen driving to the door. But the precincts of a station, or the field of a farm, were too uncongenial a range for such a spirit as his. To breathe the fresh forest air — to range deserts where man was not to be seen — to pursue the wild deer and buffalo — to trap the bear and the wolf, or beside the still pond, or the unexplored stream, to catch otters and beavers — to bring down the wild turkey from the summit of the highest trees; i^uch were the congenial pursuits in which he de- lighted. But, in a higher sphere, and in the service of his LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 173 country, he united the instinctive tact and dexterity of a huntsman with the bravery of a soldier. No labor was too severe for his hardihood; no enterprise too daring and forlorn for his adventure; no course too intricate and complicated for his judgment, so far as native talent could guide it. As a Colonel of the militia, he conducted expeditions against the Indians with uncommon success. After the country had become populous, and he a husband and a father, in the midst of an affectionate family, possessed of every comfort — such was the effect of temperament, oper- ating upon habit, that he became often silent and thoughtful in the midst of the social cjrcle, and was seen in that frame to wander away into remote for ests, and to bury himself amidst the unpeopled knobs, w here, in a few" weeks, he would reacquire his cheer fulness. In one of these excursions he disappeared, and was seen no more, leaving no trace to determine whether he died a natural death, was skiin by wild bcr.sts, or the tomahawk of the savage. Among the names of many of the first settlers of Harrodsburgh, are those that are found most promi- nent in the early annals of Kentucky. In the first list of these we find the names of McGary, IIarlan(l, McBride, and Chaplain. Among the young settlers, none were more conspicuous for active, daring, and meritorious service, than James Ray. Prompt at his post at the first moment of alarm, brave in the field, fearless and persevering in the pursuit of the enemy, scarcely a battle, skirmish, or expedition took place in which he had not a distinguished part. Equally expert as a woodsman, and skilful and successful as 15* 174 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. a hunter, he was often employed as a spy. It is re- corded of him that he left his garrison, when short of provisions, by night marched to a forest at the dis- tance of six miles, killed a buffalo, and, loaded with the choice parts of the flesh, returned to regale the hungry inhabitants in the morning. He achieved this enterprise, too, when it was well known that the vicinity v,»as thronged with Indians, lurking for an opportunity to kill. These are the positions which try the daring and skill, the usefulness and value of men, furnishing a criterion which cannot be coun- terfeited between reality and resemblance. We may perhaps in this place most properly in- troduce another of the famous partisans in savage warfare, Simon Kenton, alias Butler, who, from hum- ble beginnings, made himself conspicuous by distin- guished services and achievements in the first settle- ments of this country, and ought to be recorded as one of the patriarchs of Kentucky. He was born in Virginia, in 1753. He grew to maturity without being able to read or write; but from his early ex- ploits he seems to have been endowed with feelings which the educated and those born in the uppei walks of life, appear to suppose a monopoly reserved for themselves. It is recorded of him, that at the age of nineteen, he had a violent contest with another competitor for the favor of the lady of his love. She refused to make an election between them, and the subject of this notice indignantly ex- iled himself from his native place. After various peregrinations on the long rivers of the west, he fixed himself in Kentucky, and soon became a dis- LIFE OF DANIKL BOONK. 175 tinguished partisan against the savages. In 1774, he joined himself to Lord Diinmorc, and was ap- pointed one of his spies. He made various excur- sions, and performed important services in this em- ploy. He finally selected a place for improvement on the site where Washington now is. Returning >ne day from hunting, he found one of his compan- ons slain by the Indians, and his body thrown into he fire. He left Washington in consequence, and loined himself to Colonel Clarke in his fortunate tnd gallant expedition against Yincennes and Kas- vaskia. He was sent by that commander with despatches for Kentucky. He passed through the btreets of Yincennes, then in possession of the Bri- tish and Indians, without discovery. Arriving at iYhite river, he and his party made a raft on which to cross with their guns and baggage, driving their horses into the river and compelling them to swim it. A party of Indians was concealed on the op- posite bank, who took possession of the horses as they mounted the bank from crossing the river. Butler and his party seeing this, continued to float down the river on their raft without coming to land. They concealed themselves in the bushes until night, when they crossed the river, pursued their journey, and delivered their despatches. After this, Butler made a journey of discovery to the northern regions of the Ohio country, and wa3 made prisoner by the Indians. They painted him black, as is their custom when a victim is destined for their torture, and informed him tliat he was to be burned at Chillicothe. Meanwhile, for their 176 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. own amusement, and as a prelude of liis torture, thej manacled him hand and foot, and placed him on an un])ridled a.nd unbroken horse, and turned the animal loose, driving it olf at its utmost speed, with shouts, delighted vd witnessing its mode of mana- ging with its living burden. The horse unable to shake off this new and strange encumbrance, made for the thickest covert of the woods and brambles, with the speed of the winds. It is easy to conjec- ture the position and suffering of the victim. The terrified animal exhausted itself in fruitless efforts to shake off its burden, and worn down and subdued, brought Butler back amidst the jells of the exulting savages to the camp. Arrived within a mile of Chillicothe, they halted, took Butler from his horse and tied him to a stake, where he rem^Mued twenty-four hours in one posi- tion. He vv'as taken from the stake to "run the gauntlet." The Indian mode of managing this kind of torture was as follows: The inhabitants of the tribe, old and young, were placed in parallel lines, armed with clubs and switches. The victim was to make his way to the council house through these files, every member of which struggled to beat him as he passed as severely as possible. If he reached the council house alive, he was to be spared. In the lines were nearly six hundred In- dians, and Butler had to make his way almost a mile in the endurance of this infernal sport. He was started by a blow; but soon broke through the files, and had almost reached the council house, when a stout warrior knocked him down with a club. He LIFE OF DAl^IEL BOONE. 1T7 was severely beaten in this position, and taken back again into custody. It seems incredible that they sometimes adopted their prisoners, and treated them with the utmost lenity and even kindness. At other times, ingenuity was exhausted to invent tortures, and every renewed endurance of the victim seemed to stimulate their vengeance to new discoveries of cruelty. Butler was one of these ill-fated subjects. No way satis- fied with what they had done, they marched him from village to village to give all a spectacle of his sufferings. He run the gauntlet thirteen times. He made various attempts to escape; and in one instance would have effected it, had he not been arrested by some savages who were accidentally returning to the village from which he was escaping. It was finally determined to burn him at the Lower Sandusky, but an apparent accident changed his destiny. In passing to the stake, the procession went by the cabin of Girty, of whom we have already spo- ken. This renegado white man lived among these Indians, and had just returned from an unsuccessful expedition against the whites on the frontiers of Pennsylvania. The wretch burned with disap- pointment and revenge, and hearing that there was a white man going to the torture, determined to wreak his vengeance on him. He found the un- fortunate Butler, threw him to the ground, and be- gan to beat him. Butler, who instantly recognized in Girty the quondam companion and playmate of youth, at once made himself known to him. This 178 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. sacramental tie of friendship, on recognition, caused the savage heart of Girty to relent. lie raised him up, and promised to save him. He procured the assemblage of a council, and persuaded the savages to relinquish Butler to him. He took the unfortu- nate man home, fed, and clothed him, and Butler began to recruit from his wounds and torture. But the relenting of the savages was only transient and momentary. After five daj^s they repented of their relaxation in his favor, reclaimed him, and marched him to Lower Sandusky to be burned there, accor- ding to their original purpose. By a fortunate coin- cidence, he there met the Indian agent from De- troit, who, from motives of humanity, exerted his influence with the savages for his release, and took him with him to Detroit. Here he was paroled by the Governor. He escaped; and being endowed, like Daniel Boone, to be at home in the woods, by a march of thirty days through the wilderness, he reached Kentucky. In 1784, Simon Kenton reoccupied the settle- ment, near Washington, which he had commenced in 1775. Associated with a number of people, he erected a block-house, and made a station here. This became an important point of covering and defence for the interior country. Immigrants felt more confidence in landing at Limestone. To ren- der this confidence more complete, Kenton and his associates built a block-house at Limestone. Two men, of the name of Tanner, had made a small set' tlement the year preceding at Blue Lick, and were now making salt there. The route from Limestone LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 179 to Lexington became one of the most picneral travel for immigrants, and many stations sprang up upon it. Travellers to the country had hitherto been compelled to sleep under the open canopy, exposed to the rains and dews of the night. But cabins were now so common, that they might generally repose under a roof that sheltered them from the weather, and find a bright fire, plenty of wood, and with the rustic fare, a most cheerful and cordial welcome. The people of these new regions were hospitable from native inclination. They were hos- pitable from circumstances. None but those who dwell in a wilderness, where the savages roam and the wolves howl, can understand all the pleasant associations connected with the sight of a strangei of the same race. The entertainer felt himself stronger from the presence of his guest. His offer- ed food and fare were the spoils of the chase. He heard news from the old settlements and the great world; and he saw in the accession of every stran- ger a new guaranty of the security, wealth, and im- provement of the infant country where he had cho sen his resting place. Among other worthy associates of Boone, we may I mJntion the family of McAfee. Two brothers, James and Robert, emigrated from the county of Botetourt, Virginia, and settled on Salt river, six miles from Harrodsburgh. Having revisited their parent country, on their return they brought with them Wilham and George McAfee. In 1777, the Indians destroyed the whole of their valuable stock of cattle, while they were absent from Kentucky. 180 LIFE OI DANIEL BOONE. In 1779 they returned, and settled McAfee's sta* tion, which was suhseqnently compelled to take it3 full share in the sufferings and dangers of Indian hostilities. Benjamin Logan immigrated to the country in 1775, as a private citizen. But he was a man of too much character to remain unnoted. As his character developed, he was successively appointed a magistrate, elected a member of the legislature and rose, as a military character, to the rank ot general. His parents were natives of Ireland, who emigrated, while young, to Pennsylvania, where they married, and soon afterwards removed to Au- gusta county, Virginia. Benjamin, their oldest son, was born there; and at the age of fourteen, lost his father. Charged, at this early age, with the care of a widowed mother, and children still younger than himself, neither the circumstances of his family, of the country, or his peculiar condition, allowed him the chances of ed- ucation. Almost as unlettered as James Harrod, he was a memorable extimple of a self-formed man. Great natural acuteness, and strong intellectual powers, were, however, adorned by a disposition of uncommon benevolence. Under the eye of an ex- 1 cellent father, he commenced with the rudiments of common instruction, the soundest lessons of Chiis tian piety and morality, which were continued by the guidance and example of an admirable mother^ with whom he resided until he was turned of twen- ty-one. His father had deceased intestate, and, in virtue of LIFE OF DANIEL HOOJVE. 181 the laws then in force, the whole extensive in- heritance of his father's lands descended to him, to the exclusion of his brothers and sisters. His example ought to be recorded for the benefit of those grasping children in these days, who, dead to all natural affection, and every sentiment but avarice, seize all that the law will grant, whether equity will sanction it or not. Disregarding this claim of primogeniture, he insisted that the whole inheritance should be parceled into equal shares, of which he accepted only his own. But the gen- erous impulses of his noble nature, were not limited to the domestic circle. His hea.rt was warm with the more enlarged sentiments of patriotism. At the age of twenty-one, he accompanied Colonel Beauquette, as a serjeant, in a hostile expedition against the Indians of the north. Having provided for the comfortable settlement of his mother and family on James River, Virginia, he moved to the Holston, where he settled and married. Having been in the expedition of Lord Dunmore against the Indians, and having thus acquired a taste for forest marches and incident, he determined, in 1775, to try his fortunes in Kentucky, which country had then just become a theme of discus- sion. He set forth from his mother's family with three slaves, leaving the rest to her. In Powell's valley he met with Boone, Henderson, and other kindred spirits, and pursued his journey towards Kentucky in company with them. He parted from them, before they reached Boonesborough, and se- 16 182 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. lected a spot for himself, afterwards called Logan's fort, or station. In the winter of 1776, he removed his family from Holston, and in March, arrived with it in Kentucky. It was the same year in which the daughter of Col. Boone, and those of Col. Callo- way were made captives. The whole country be- ing in a state of alarm, he endeavored to assemble some of the settlers that were dispersed in the country called the Crab Orchard, to join him at his cabins, and there form a station of sufficient strength to defend itself against Indian assault. But finding them timid and unresolved, he was him- seif oMiged to desert his incipient settlement, and move for safety to Harrodsbargh. Yet, such was his determination not to abandon his selected spot, that he raised a crop of corn there, defenceless and surrounded on all sides by Indian incursion. In the winter of 1777, and previous to the at- tack of Harrodsburgh, he found six families ready to share with him the dangers of the selected spot; and he removed his family with them to his cabins, where the settlement immediately united in the im- portant duty of palisading a station. Before these arrangements were fully completed as the females of the establishment, on the twen- tieth of May, were milking their cows, sustained by a gu-^rd of their husbands and fathers, the whole party was suddenly assailed by a large body of In- dians, concealed in a cane-brake. One man was killed, and two wounded, one mortally, the other severely. The remainder reached the interior of LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 183 se palisades in safety. The number in all was Jiirty, half of whoni were women and children. A circumstance was now discovered, exceedingly tiying to such a benevolent spirit as that of Logan. While the Indians were still firing, and the inmates part exulting in their safety, and the others mourn- ing over their dead and wounded, it was perceived, that one of the wounded, by the name of Harrison, was still alive, and exposed every moment to be scalped by the Indians. All this his wife and fam- ily could discern from within. It is not difficult to imagine their agonizing condition, and piercing lamentations for the fate of one so dear to them. Logan discovered, on this occasion, the same keen sensibility to tenderness, and insensibility to dan- ger, that characterized his friend Boone in similar predicaments. He endeavored to rally a few of the small number of the male inmates of the place to join him, and rush out, and assist in attempting to bring the wounded man within the paHsades. But so obvious was the danger, so forlorn appeared the enterprise, that no one could be found disposed to volunteer his aid, except a single individual by the name of John Martin. When they had reached the gate, the wounded man raised himself partly erect, and made a movement, as if disposed to try to reach the fort himself. On this, Martin desisted from the enterprise, and leil Logan to attempt it alone. He rushed forward to the wounded man. He made some efforts to crawl onwards by the aid of Logan; but weakened by the loss of blood, and the agony of his wounds, he fainted, and Logan 184 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. taking him up in his arms, bore him towards the fort. A shower of bullets was discharged upon them, many of which struck the palisades close to his head, as he brought the wounded man safe within the gate, and deposited him in the care of his family. The station, at this juncture, was destitute of both p Js^der and ball; and there was no chance of sup- ply nearer than Holston. All intercourse between station and station w^as cut oif. Without ammuni- tion the station could not be defended against the Indians. The question w^as, how to obviate this pressing emergency, and obtain a supply? Cap- tain Logan selected tw^o trusty companions, left the fort by night, evaded the besieging Indians, reach- ed the w^oods, and w ith his companions made his way in safety to Ilolston, procured the necessary supply of ammunition, packed it under their care on horseback, giving them directions how to pro- ceed. He then left them, and traversing the forests by a shorter route on foot, he reached the fort in safety, in ten days from his departure. The In- dians still kept up the siege with unabated perseve- rance. The hopes of the diminished garrison had given way to despair. The return of Logan inspi- red them with renewed confidence. Uniting the best attributes of a woodsman and a soldier to uncommo.i local acquaintance with the country, his instinctive sagacity prescribed to him, on this journey, the necessity of deserting the beat- en path, where, he was aware, he should be inter- cepted by the savages. Avoiding, from the same LIFE OF DANIEL BOONF,. 185 calculation, the passage of the Cumberland Gap, he explored a track in which man, or at least the white man, had never trodden before. We may add, it has never been trodden since. Through cane- brakes and tangled thickets, over cliifs and precipi- ces, and pathless mountains, he made his solitary way. Following his directions implicitly, his com- panions, who carried the ammunition, also reached the fort, and it wa? saved. His rencounters with the Indians, and his hair- breadth escapes make no inconsiderable figure in the subsequent annals of Kentucky. The year after the siege of his fort, on a hunting excursion, he discovered an Indian camp, at Big Flat Spring, two miles from his station. Returning immedi- ately he raised a party, with which he attacked the camp, from which the Indians fled with precip- itation, without much loss on their part, and none on his. A short time after he was attacked at the same place, by another party of Indians. His arm was broken by their fire, and he was otherwise sUghtly wounded in the breast. They even seized the mane of his horse, and he escaped them from their extreme eagerness to take him alive. No sooner were his wounds healed, than we find him in the fore front of the expedition against the Indians. In 1779, he served as a captain in Bow- man's campaign. He signalized his bravery in the unfortunate battle that ensued, and was with diffi- culty compelled to retire, when retreat became necessary. The next year a party travelling from Harrodsburgh towards Logan's fort, were fired upon 16* 186 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. by the Indians, and two of them mortally wounded One, however, survived to reach the fort, and give an account of the fate of his wounded companion. Logan immediately raised a small party of young men, and repaired to the aid of the wounded man, who had crawled out of sight of the Indians behind a clump of bushes. He was still alive. Logan took him on his shoulders, occasionally reheved in sustaining the burden by his younger associates, and in this way conveyed him to the fort. On their return from Harrodsburgh, Logan's party were fired upon, and one of the party wounded. The assailants were repelled with loss; and it was Logan's fortune again to be the bearer of the wounded man upon his shoulders for a long distance, exposed, the while, to the fire of the Indians. His reputation for bravery and hospitahty, and the influence of a long train of connections, caused him to be the instrument of bringing out many im- migrants to Kentucky. They were of a character to prove an acquisition to the country. Like his friends, Daniel Boone, and James Harrod, his house was open to all the recent immigrants. In the early stages of the settlement of the country, his station, like Boone's and Harrod's, was one of the main pillars of the colony. Feeling the importance of this station, as a point of support to the infant settlements, he took effectual measures to keep up an intercourse with the other stations, partic- ularly those of Boone and Harrod. Dangerous as this intercourse was, Logan generally travelled alone, often by night, and universally with such LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 187 swiftness of foot, that few could he found ahle to keep speed with him. In the year 1780, he received his commission as Colonel, and was soon after a member of the Vir- ginia legislature at Richmond. In tlie year 1781, the Indians attacked Montgomery's station, consist- ing of six families, connected by blood with Colo- nel Logan. The father and brother of Mrs. Lo- gan were killed, and her sister-in-law, with four children, taken prisoners. This disaster occurred about ten miles from Logan's fort. His first object was to rescue the prisoners, and his next to chas- tise the barbarity of the Indians. He immediately collected a party of his fiiends, and repaired to the scene of action. He was here joined by the be- reaved relatives of ^Montgomery's family. He com- manded a rapid pursuit of the enemy, who were soon overtaken, and briskly attacked. They faced upon their assailants, but were beaten after a se- vere conflict. William Montgomery killed three Indians, and wounded a fourth. Two women and three children were rescued. The savages murder- ed the other child to prevent its being re-taken. The other prisoners would have experienced the same fate, had they not fled for their lives into the thickets. It would be very easy to extend this brief sketch of some of the more conspicuous pioneers of Ken- tucky. Their heroic and disinterested services, their lavish prodigality of their blood and property, gave them that popularity which is universally felt 188 LIFE OF DANIEI BOONE. to be a high and priceless acquisition. Loved, and trusted, and honored as fathers of their country, while they lived, they had the persuasion of such generous minds as theirs, that their names would descend with blessings to their grateful posterity LITE OF DANIEL BOONE. 189 CHAPTER XII. Boone's brother killed, and Boone himself narrowly escapes from th» Indians — Assault upon Ashton's station — and upon the station near Shelbyville — Attack upon McAffee's station. We have already spoken of the elder brother of Col. Boone and his second return to the Yadkin, A fondness for the ^vestern valleys seems to have been as deeply engraven in his ciffections, as in the heart of his brother. He subsequently returned once more with his family to Kentucky. In 1780 we find a younger brother of Daniel Boone resi- dent with him. The two brothers set out on the sixth of October of that year, to revisit the blue Licks. It may well strike us as a singular fact, that Colonel Boone should have felt any disposition to revisit a place that was connected with so many former disasters. But, as a place convenient for the manufacture of salt, it was a point of impor- tance to the rapidly growing settlement. They had manufactured as much salt as they could pack, and were returning to Boonesborough, when they were overtaken by a party of Indians. By the first fire Colonel Boone's brother fell dead by his side. Daniel Boone faced the enemy, and aimed at the foremost Indian, who appeared to have been the slayer of his brother. That Indian fell. By this time he discovered a host advancing upon him. Taking the still loaded rifle of his fallen brother, he prostrated another foe, and while flying from hia 190 LIFE OP PANIEL BOONE. enemy found time to reload his rifle. The bullets of a dozen muskets whistled about his head; but the distance of the foe rendered them harmless. No scalp would have been of so much value to his pursuers as that of the well known Daniel Boone; and they pursued him with the utmost eagerness. His object was so far to outstrip them, as to be able to conceal his trail, and put them to fault in regard to his course. He made for a little hill, behind which was a stream of water. He sprang into the water and waded up its current for some distance, and then emerged and struck off at right angles to his former course. Darting onward at the height of his speed, he hoped that he had distanced them, and thrown them off his trail. To his infinite mor- tification, he discovered that his foe, either acci- dentallj, or from their natural sagacity, had render- ed all his caution fruitless, and were fiercely pursu- ing him still. His next expedient was that of a swing by the aid of a grape-vine, which had so well served him on a like occasion before. He soon found one convenient for the experiment, and availed himself of it, as before. This hope was also disappointed. His foe still hung with staunch peseverance on his trail. He now perceived hy their movements, that they were conducted by a dog, that easily ran in zig-zag directions, when at fault, until it had re-scented his course. The expe- dient of Boone was the only one that seemed ade- quate to save him. His gun was reloaded. The dog was in advance of the Indians, still scenting his track. A rifle shot delivered him from his oflicioua LIFE OF DANfEL BOONE. 191 pursuer. He soon reached a point convenient for concealing his trail, and while the Indians were hunting for it, gained so much upon them as to he enabled to reach Boonesborough in safety. At the close of the autumn of 1780, Kentucky, from being one county, was divided into three, named Jefferson, Fayette, and Lincoln. William Pope, Daniel Boone, and Benjamin Logan, were appointed to the important offices of comm.anding the militia of their respective counties. During this year Col. Clarke descended the Ohio, with a part of his Virginia regiment, and after en- tering the Mississippi, at the first bluff on the eas- tern bank, he landed and built Fort Jefferson. The occupation of this fort, for the time, added the Chickasaws to the number of hostile Indians that the western people had to encounter. It was soon dis- covered, that it would be advisable to evacuate it, as a mean of restoring peace. It was on their ac- knowleged territory. It had been erected without their consent. They boasted it, as a proof of their fiiendship, that they had never invaded Kentucky; and they indignantly resented this violation of their territory. The evacuation of the fort was the terms of a peace which the Chickasaws faithfully observed. The winter of 1781, was one of unusual length and distress for the young settlement of Kentucky. Many of the immigrants arrived after the close of the hunting season; and beside, were unskilful in the difficult pursuit of supplying themselves with game. The Indians had destroyed most of the corn of the preceding summer, and the number of per- 193 LIFE OP DANIEL BOONE. sons to be supplied had rapidly increased. These circumstances created a temporary famine, which, added to the severity of the season, inflicted much severe suffering upon the settlement. Boone and Harrod were abroad, breasting the keen forest air, and seeking the retreat of the deer and buffalo, now becoming scarce, as the inhabitants multiplied. These indefatigable and intrepid men supplied the hungry immigrants with the flesh of buffaloes and deers; and the hardy settlers, accustomed to priva- tions, and not to over delicacy in their food, content- ed themselves to live entirely on meat, until, in the ensuing autumn, they once more derived abundance from the fresh and fertile soil. In May, 1782, a body of savages assaulted Ash- ton's station, killed one man, and took another pris- oner. Captain Ashton, with twenty-five men, pur- sued and overtook them. An engagement, which lasted two hours, ensued. But the great superiority of the Indians in number, obliged Captain Ashton to retreat. The loss of this intrepid party was se- vere. Eight were killed, and four mortally woun- ded — their brave commander being among the nuni- berof the slain. Four children were taken captive from Major Hoy's station, in August following. Unwarned by the fate of Captain Ashton's party, Captain Holden, with the inadequate force of seven- teen men, pursued the captors, came up with them, and were defeated with the loss of four men killed, and one wounded. This was one of the most disastrous periods since the settlement o^ the country. A number of the OF DA.NIEL BOONE. 193 more recent and feeble stations, were so annoyed by savage hostility as to be broken up. The horses were carried off, and the cattle killed in every di- rection. Near Lexington, a man at work in his field, was shot dead by a single Indian, who ran upon bis foe to scalp him, and wcis himself shot dead frorr the fort, and fell on the body of his foe. During the severity of winter, the fury of Indian incursion was awhile suspended, and the stern and scarred hunters had a respite of a few weeks about their cabin fires. But in March, the hostihties were renewed, and several marauding parties of Indians enteied the country from north of the Ohio. Col. William Lyn, and Captains Tipton and Chapman, were killed by small detachments that waylaid them upon the Beargrass. In pursuit of one of these par- ties. Captain Aquila White, with seventeen men trailed the Indians to the Falls of the Ohio. Sup- posing that they had crossed, he embarked his men in canoes to follow them on the other shore. They had just committed themselves to the stream, when they were fired upon from the shore they had left. Nine of the party were killed or wounded. Yet, enfeebled as the remainder were, they relanded, faced the foe, and compelled them to retreat. In April following, a station settled by Econe's elder brother, near the present site where Shelby- ville now stands, became alarmed by the appearance of parties of Indians in its vicinity. The people, in consternation, unadvisedly resolved to remove to Beargrass. The men accordingly set out encumber- ed with women, children, and baggage. In this de- 17 194 LITE OF DANIEL BOONE. fenceless predicament, they were attacked by the Indians near Long Run. They experienced some loss, and a general dispersion from each other in the woods. Colonel Floyd, in great haste, raised twen- ty-five men, and repaired to the scene of action, intent alike upon administering relief to the suffer- ers, and chastisement to the enemy. He divided his party, and advanced upon them with caution. But their superior knowledge of the country, ena- bled the Indians to ambuscade both divisions, and to defeat them with the loss of half his men; a loss poorly compensated by the circumstance, that a still greater number of the savages fell in the engage- ment. The number of the latter were supposed to be three times that of Colonel Floyd's party. The Colonel narrowly escaped with his life, by the aid of Captain Samuel Wells, who, seeing him on foot, pursued by the enemy, dismounted and gave him his own horse, and as he fled, ran by his side to support him on the saddle, fi^om which he might have fallen through weakness from his wounds. — This act of Captain Wells was the more magnanimous, as Floyd and himself were not friends at the time. Such no- ble generosity was not thrown away upon Floyd. It produced its natural effect, and these two persons lived and died friends. It is pleasant to record such a mode of quelling animosity. Early in May, two men, one of whom was Sam- uel McAfee, left James McAfee's station, to go to a clearing at a short distance. They had advanced about a fourth of a mile, when they were fired upon. The companion of McAfee fell. The latter turned LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 195 and fled towards the station. He had not gained more than fifteen steps when he met an Indian. Both paused a moment to raise their guns, in order to discharge them. The muzzles almost touched. Both fired at the same moment. The Indian's gun flashed in the pan, and he fell. McAfee continued his retreat; but before he reached the station, its in- mates had heard the report of the guns; and James and Robert, brothers of McAfee, had come out to the aid of those attacked. The three brothers met. Robert, notwithstanding the caution he received from his brother, ran along the path to see the dead Indian. The party of Indians to which he had be- longed, were upon the watch among the trees, and several of them placed themselves between Robert and the station, to intercept his return. Soon made aware of the danger to which his thoughtlessness had exposed him, he found all his dexterity and knowledge of Indian warfare requisite to ensure his safety. He sprang from behind one tree to another, in the direction of the station, pursued by an Indian until he reached a fence within a hundred yards of it, which he cleared by a leap. The Indian had posted himself behind a tree to take safe aim. — McAfee was now prepared for him. As the Indian put his head out from the cover of his tree, to look for his object, he caught McAfee's ball in his mouth, and fell. McAfee reached the station in safety. James, though he did not expose himself as his brother had done, was fired upon by five Indians who lay in ambush. He fled to a tree for protec- tion. Immediately after he had gained one, three or 196 LIFE OF DANIEL BOOAE. four aimed at him from the other side. The holh scattered earth upon him, as they struck around his feet, but he remained unharmed. He had no sooner entered the inclosure of the station in safety, than Indians were seen approaching in all directions. Their accustomed horrid yells preceded a general attack upon the station. Their fire was returned with spirit, the women running balls as fast as they were required. The attack continued two hours, when the Indians withdrew. The firing had aroused the neighborhood; and soon after the retreat of the Indians, Major McGary appeared with forty men. It was determined to pursue the Indians, as they could not have advanced far. This purpose was immediately carried into execution. The Indians were overtaken and com- pletely routed. The station suffered inconvenience from the loss of their domestic animals, which were all killed by the Indians, previous to their retreat. One white man was killed and another died of his wounds in a few days. This was the last attack upon this station by the Indians, although it remain- ed for some years a frontier post. We might easily swell these annals to volumes, by entering into details of the attack of Kincheloe's station, and its defence by Colonel Floyd; the ex- ploits of Thomas Randolph; the captivity of Mrs. Bland and Peake; and the long catalogue of recor- ded narratives of murders, burnings, assaults, heroic defences, escapes, and the various incidents of In- dian warfare upon the incipient settlements. While their barbarity and horror chill the blood, they show LIFE OF DANIEL UOONE. 197 us what sort of men the first settlers of the country were, and what scenes they had to witness, and what events to meet, before they prepared for us our present peace and abundance. The danger and apprehension of their condition must have been such, that we cannot well imagine how they could proceed to the operations of building and fencing, with sufficient composure and quietness of spirit, to complete the slow and laborious preUminaries of founding such estabhshments, as they have transmit- ted to their children. Men they must have been, who could go firmly and cheerfully to the common occupations of aguculture, with their lives in their hands, and under the constant expectation of being greeted from the thickets and cane-brakes with the rifle bullet and the Indian yell. Even the vvomen were heroes, and their are instances in abundance on record, where, in defence of their children and cabins, they conducted with an undaunted energy of attack or defence, which would throw into shade the vaunted bravery in the bulletins of regular battles. These magnanimous pioneers seem to have had a presentiment that they had a great work to ac- complish—laying the foundations of a state in the wilderness— a work from which they were to be de- terred, neither by hunger, nor toil, nor danger, nor death. For tenderness and affection, they had hearts of flesh. For the difiiculties and dangers of their positions, tlieir bosoms were of iron. They FEATI.ED God, and had no other fear. 17* 198 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. CHAPTER XIII. Disastrous battle near the Blue Licks — General Clarke's expedition against the M;anii towns — Massacre of McClure's family — Th« horrors of Indian assaults throughout the settlements — General Harmar's expedition — Defeat of General St. Clair — Gen. Wayne-a victory, and a final peace with the Indians. Here, in the order of the annals of the country, would be the place to present the famous attack of Bryant's station, which we have anticipated by an anachronism, and given already, in order to present the reader with a clear view of a station, and the peculiar mode of attack and defence in these border wars. The attack upon Bryant's station was made by the largest body of Indians that had been seen m Kentucky, the whole force amounting at least to six hundred men. We have seen that they did not decamp until they had suffered a severe loss of their warriors. They departed with so much precipita- tion as to have left their tents standing, their fires burning, and their meat roasting. They took the road to the lower Blue Licks. Colonel Todd, of Lexington, despatched imme- diate intelligence of this attack to Colonel Trigg, near Harrodsburgh, and Colonel Boone, who had now returned with his family from North Carolina to Boonesborough. These men were prompt in collecting volunteers in their vicinity. Scarcely had the Indians disappeared from Bryant's station, before a hundred and sixty-six men were assembled LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 199 to march in pursuit of nearly triple their number of Indians. Besides Colonels Trigg, Todd, and Boone, Majors McGary and Ilarland, from the vicinity of Harrodsburgh, had a part in this command : A coun- cil was held, in which, after considering the dispar- ty of numbers, it was still determined to pursue the Indians. Such was their impetuosity, that they could not be persuaded to wait for the arrival of Colonel Logan, who was known to be collecting a strong party to join them. The march was immediately commenced upon their trail. They had not proceeded far before Co- lonel Boone, experienced in the habits of Indians and the indications of their purposes, announced that he discovered marks that their foe was making demonstrations of willingness to meet them. He observed that they took no pains to conceal their route, but carefully took measures to mislead their pursuers in regard to their number. Their first purpose was indicated hy cutting trees on (heir path — the most palpable of all directions as to their course. The other was equally concealed by a cau- tious concentration of their camp, and by the files taking particular care to step in the foot prints of their file leaders, so that twenty warriors might be numbered from the foot-marks only as one. Still no Indians were actually seen, until the par- ty arrived on the southern bank of the Licking, at the point of the Blue Licks. A body of Indians was here discovered, mounting the summit of an op- posite hill, moving leisurely, and apparently without 200 LIPE OF DANIEL BOONE. hurry or alarm — retiring slowly from sight, as on a common march. The party halted. The officers assembled, and a general consultation took place, respecting what was to be done. The alternatives were, whether it was best to cross the Licking at the hazard of an engagement with the Indians; or to wait where they were, reconnoiter the country, act on the defensive, and abide the coming up of Colonel Logan with his force. Colonels Todd and Trigg, little acquainted w^ith the Indians, w^ere desirous to be guided by the judg- ment of Colonel Boone. His opinion being called for, he gave it with his usual clearness and circum- spection. As regarded the number of the enemy, his judgment was, that it should be counted from three to five hundred. From the careless and lei- surely manner of the march of the body, they had seen, he was aware, that the main body was near, and that the show of this small party was probably, with a view to draw on the attack, founded upon an entire ignorance of their numbers. With the localities of the country about thp Licks, from his former residence there, he was perfectly acquaint- ed. The river forms, by its curves, an irregular ellipsis, embracing the great ridge and buffalo road leading from the Licks. Its longest line of bisec- tion leads towards Limestone, and is terminated by two ravines heading together in a point, and diver- ging thence in opposite directions to the river. In his view, it was probable that the Indians had formed an ambuscade behind these ravines, in a LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 201 position as advantageous for them as it would be dangerous to the party, if they continued their march. He advised that the party should divide; the one half march up the Licking on the opposite side, and crossing at the mouth of a small brarxh, called Elk creek, fall over upon the eastern curve of the ravine; while the other half should take a position favorable for yielding them prompt co-ope- ration in case of an attack. He demon-strated, that in this way the advantage of position might be taken from the enemy, and turned in their favor. He was decided and pressing, that if it was deter- mined to attack a force superior, before the arrival of Colonel Logan, they ought at least to send out spies and explore the country before they marched the main body over the river. This wise counsel of Colonel Boone was perfectly accordant with the views of Colonels Todd and Trigg, and of most of the persons consulted on the occasion. But while they were deliberating. Ma- jor McGary, patriotic, no doubt, in his intentions, but ardent, rash, hot-headed, and indocile to milita- ry rule, guided his horse into the edge of the river, raised the war-whoop in Kentucky style, and exclaimed, in a voice of gay confidence, "All those that are not cowards will follow me; I will show them where the Indians are!" Saying this, he spurred his horse into the water. One and another, under the impulse of such an appeal to their cour- age, dashed in after him. The council was thus broken up by force. A part caught the rash spirit by sympathy. The rest, who were disposed to 20fi LIFE OP DANIEL BOONE. listen to better counseis, were borne along, and tbeir suggestions drowned in the general clamor. All counsel and command were at an end. And it is thus that manj of the most important events of history have been determined. The wdiole party crossed the river, keeping straight forward in the beaten buffalo road. Ad- vanced a little, parties flanked out from the main body, as the irregularity and unevenness of the ground would allow. The whole body moved on in reckless precipitation and disorder, over a sur- face covered with rocks, laid bare by the trampling of buffaloes, and the washing of the rain of ages. Their course led them in front of the high ridge which extends for some distance to the left of the road. They were decoyed on in the direction of one of the ravines of which we have spoken, by the reappearance of the party of Indians they had first seen. The termination of this ridge sloped off in a de clivity covered with a thick forest of oaks. The ravines were thick set on their banks with small timber, or encumbered with burnt wood, and the whole area before them had been stripped bare of all herbage by the buffaloes that had resorted to the Licks. Clumps of soil here and there on the bare rock supported a [ew trees, which gave the whole of this spot of evil omen a most singular appearance. The advance of the party was headed by McGary, Harland, and McBride. A party of Indians, as Boone had predicted, that had been ambushed in the woods here met them. A warm and bloodv LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 203 action immediately commenced, and the rifles on eitlier side did fatal execution. It was discovered in a moment that the whole line of" the ravine con- cealed Indians, who, to the number of thrice that of their foes, rushed upon them. Colonels Todd and Trigg, whose position had been on the right, by the movement in crossing, were thrown in the rear. They fell in their places, and the rear was turned. Between twenty and thirty of these brave men had already paid the forfeit of their rashness, when a retreat commenced under the edge of the tomahawk, and the whizzing of Indian bullets. When the party first crossed the river all were mounted. Many had dismounted at the commence ment of the action. Others engaged on horseback. On the retreat, some were fortunate enough to re- cover their horses, and fled on horseback. Others retreated on foot. From the point where the en- gagement commenced to the Licking river was about a mile's distance. A high and rugged cliff environed either shore of the river, which sloped off to a plain near the Licks. The ford was narrow, and the water above and below it deep. Some were overtaken on the way, and fell under the tom- ahawk. But the greatest slaughter was at the river. Some were slain in crossing, and some on either shore. A singular spectacle was here presented in the case of a m^n by the name of Netherland, w^ho had beCii derided for his timidity. Ke was mounted on a fleet and powerful horse, the back of which he had never left for a moment. He was one of 304 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. the first to recross the Licking. Finding himself safe upon the opposite shore, a sentiment of sympa- thy came upon him as he looked hack and took a survey of the scene of murder going on in the river and on its shore. Many had reached the river in a state of famtness and exhaustion, and the Indians were still cutting them down. Inspired with the feeling of a commander, he cried out in a loud and authoritative voice, "Halt! Fire on the Indians. Protect the men in the river." The call was obey- ed. Ten or twelve men instantly turned, fired on the enemy, and checked their pursuit for a moment, thus enabling some of the exhausted and wounded fugiliives to evade the tomahawk, already uplifted to destroy them. The brave and benevolent Rey- nolds, whose reply to Girtj^ has been reported, re- linquished his own horse to Colonel Robert Patter- son, who was infirm from former wounds, and was retreating on foot. He thus enabled that veieran to escape. While thus signalizing his disinterested intrepidity, he fell himself into the hands of the In- dians. The party that took him consisted of three. Two whites passed him on their retreat. Two of the Indians pursued, leaving him under the guard of the third. His captor stooped to tie his moccasin, and he sprang away from him and escaped. It is supposed that one-fourth of the men engaged in this action were commissioned officers. The w^hole number engaged was one hundred and seventy-six. Of these, sixty v/ere slain, and eight made prson- ers. Among the most distinguished names of those ^ho fell, were those of Colonels Todd and Trigg, LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 205 Majors Harland and Bulger, Captains Gordon and McBridc, and a son of Colonel Boone. The loss of the savages has never been ascertained. It could not have equalled that of the assailants, though some supposed it greater. This sanguinary ixfXAr took place August 19, 1782. Colonel Logan, on ariving at Bryant's «?tation, with a force of three hundred men, found the troop? had already marched. lie made a rapid advance in hopes to join them before they should have mei with the Indians. He came up with the survivors, on their retreat from their ill-fated contest, not far from Bryant's station. He determined to pursue his march to the battle ground to bury the dead, i[ he could not avenge their fall. He was joined bj many friends of the killed and missing, from Lexington and Bryant's station. They reached the battle ground on the 25th. It presented a heart- rending spectacle. Where so lately had arisen the shouts of the robust and intrepid woodsmen, and the sharp yell of the savages, as they closed in the mur- derous contest, the silence of the wide forest was now unbroken, except by birds of prey, as they screamed and sailed ovo-r the carnage. The heat was so excessive, and the bodies were so changed by it and the hideous gashes and mangling of the Indian tomahawk and knife, that friends could no longer recognize their dearest relatives. They per- formed the sad rights of sepulture as they might, upon the rocky ground. The Indian forces that had fought at the Blue Licks, in the exultation of victory and revenge, re- 18 206 LIFE OP DANIEL BOONE. turned homeward with their scalps. Those from the north — and they constituted the greater num- bers — returned quietly. The western bands took their route through Jeffercon county, in hopes to add more scalps to the number of their trophies. Colonel Floyd led out a force to protect the coun- try. They marched through the region on Salt river, and saw no traces of Indians. They disper sed on their return. The greater number of them reached their station, and laid down, fatigued and exhausted, without any precaution against a foe. The Indians came upon them in this predicament in the night, and killed several women and children. A few escaped under the cover of the darkness. A woman, taken prisoner that night, escaped from her savage captors by throwing herself into the bushes, while they passed on. She wandered about the woods eighteen days, subsisting only on wild fruits, and was then found and carried to Lynn's station. She survived the extreme state of exhaustion in which she was discovered. Another woman, taken with four children, at the same time, was carried to Detroit. The terrible blow which the savages had struck At the Blue Licks, excited a general and immediate purpose of retaliation through Kentucky. General Clarke was appointed commander-in-chief, and Col- onel Logan next under him in command of the ex- pedition, to be raised for that purpose. The forces were to rendezvous at Licking. The last of Sep- tember, 1782, General Clarke, with one thousand men, marched from the present site of Cincinnati, LIFE OF DANIEL BOONC. 207 for the Indian towns on the Miami. They fell in on their route with the camp of Simon Girty, who would have been completely surprised with his In- dians, had not a straggling savage espied the ad- vance, and reported it to them just in season to en- able them to scatter in every direction. They soon spread the intelligence that an army from Kentucky was marching upon their town's. As the army approached the towns on their route, they found that the inhabitants had evacuated them, and fled into the woods. All the cabins at Chilli cothe, Piqua, and Willis were burned. Some skirmishing took place, however, in which five In- dians were killed, and seven made prisoners, with- out any loss to the Kentuckians, save the wounding of one man, which afterwards proved mortal. One distinguished Indian surrendered himself, and was aftenvards inhumanly murdered by one of the troops, to the deep regret and mortification of Genera]^ Clarke. In October, 1785, Mr. McClurc and family, in company with a number of other families, were assailed on Skegg's creek. Six of the family were killed, and Mrs. McClure, a child, and a number of other persons made prisoners. The attack took place in the niglit. The circumstances of the cap- ture of Mrs. McClure, furnish an affecting incident illustrating the invincible force of natural tender- nesss. She had concealed herself, with her foui- children, in the brush of a thicket, which, together with the darkness, screened her from observation. Had she chosen to have left her infant behind, she 208 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. might have escaped. But she grasped it, and held it to her bosom, although aware that its shrieks would betray their covert. The Indians, guided to the spot by its cries, killed the three larger children, and took her and her infant captives. The unfor- tunate and bereaved mother was obliged to accom- pany their march on an untamed and unbroken horse. Intelhgence of these massacres and cruelties cir- culated rapidly. Captain Whitley immediately collected twenty-one men from the adjoining sta tions, overtook, and killed two of these savages, re- took the desolate mother, her babe, and a negro servant, and the scalps of the six persons whom they had killed. Ten days afterwards, another party of immigrants, led by Mr. Moore, were at tacked, and nine of their number killed. Captain Whitley pursued the perpetrators of this bloody act, with thirty men. On the sixth day of pursuit through the wilderness, he came up with twenty In dians, clad in the dresses of those whom they had slain. They dismounted and dispersed in the woods though not until three of them were killed. The pursuers recovered eight scalps, and all the plunde: which the Indians had collected at the late massacre An expedition of General Clarke, with a thou, sand men, against the Wabash Indians, failed in consequence of the impatience and discouragement of his men from want of pros^isions. Colonel Logan was more successful in an expedition against the Shawnese Indians on the Scioto. He surprised one lilFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 209 of the towns, and killed a number of the warriors, and took some prisoners. In October, 1785, the General Government con- voked a meeting of all the Lake and Ohio tribes to meet at the mouth of the Great Miami. The In- dians met the summons with a moodj indifference and neglect, alleging the continued aggressions of the Kentuckians as a reason for refusing to comply with the summons. The horrors of Indian assault were occasionally felt in every settlement. We select one narrative in detail, to convey an idea of Indian hostiUty on the one hand, and the manner in which it was met on the other. A family lived on Coope's run, in Bourbon county, consisting of a mother, two sons of a mature age, a widowed daughter, with an infant in her arms, two grown daughters, and a daughter of ten years. The house was a double cabin. The two grown daughters and the smaller girl were in one division, and the remainder of the family in the other. 'At evening twiUght, a knocking was heard at the door of the latter division, asking in good English, and the customary western phrase, "Who keeps house?" As the sons went to open the door, the mother forbade them, affirming that the persons claiming admittance were Indians. The young men sprang to their guns. The Indians, finding themselves refused admittance at that door, made an effort at the opposite one. That door they soon beat open with a rail, and endeavored to take the three girls prisoners. The little girl sprang away, and miffht have escaped from them in the darkness 18* 210 LIFE OF DANIEl, HOOTS E. and the woods. But the forlorn child, under the natu-al impulse of instinct, ran for th^ other doer and cried for help. The brothers withir., it may be supposed, would wish to go forth and* protect the feeble and terrified waller. The mother, taking a broader view of expedience and duty, forbade them. They soon hushed the cries of the distracted child by the merciless tomahawk. While a part of the Indians were engaged in murdering this child, and another in confining one of the grown girls that they had made captive, the third heroically defend- ed herself with a knife, which she was using at a loom at the moment of attack. The intrepidity she put forth was unavailing. She killed one Indian, and was herself killed by another. The Indians, meanwhile, having obtained possession of one half the house, fired it. The persons shut up in the other half had now no other alternative^ than to be consumed in the flames rapidly spreading towards them, or to go forth and expose themselves to the murderous tomahawks, that had already laid three of the family in their blood. The Indians stationed themselves in the dark angles of the fence, where, by the bright glare of the flames, they could see every thing, and yet remain themselves unseen. Here they could make a sure mark of all that should escape from within. One of the sons took charge of his aged and infirm mother, and the other of his widowed sister and her infant. The brothers emer- ged from the burning ruins, separated, and endeav- ored to spring over the fence. The mother was shot dead as her son was piously aiding her over the LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 211 fence. The other brother was killed as he was gallantly defending his sister. The widowed sister, her infant, and one of the brothers escaped the massacre, and alarmed the settlement. Thirty men, commanded by Colonel Edwards, arrived next day to witness the appalling spectacle presented around the smoking ruins of this cabin. Conside- rable snow had fallen, and the Indians were obliged to leave a trail, which easily indicated their path. In the evening of that day, they came upon the ex- piring body of the young woman, apparently mur- dered but a few moments before their arrival. The Indians had been premonished of their pursuit by the barking of a dog that followed them. They overtook and killed two of the Indians that had staid behind, apparently as voluntary victims to se- cure the retreat of the rest. To prevent immigrants from reaching the coun- try, the Indians infested the Ohio river, and con- cealed themselves in small parties at different points from Pittsburgh to Louisville, where they laid in ambush and fired upon the beats as they passed. They frequently attempted by false signals to decoy the boats ashore, and in several instances succeeded by these artifices in capturing and murdering whole families, and plundering them of their effects. They even armed and manned some of the boats and scows they had taken, and used them as a kind of floating battery, by means of which they killed and captured many persons approaching the settltr- rnenis. The last boac wJiich brought immis^rants to the 212 MFE OF DANIEL BOONE. country down the Ohio, that was known to have been attacked by the Indians, was assaulted in the spring of 1791. This circumstance gives it a claim to be mentioned in this place. It was commanded by Captain Hubhel, and brouglit immigrants from Vermont. The whole number of men, women, and children amounted to twenty persons. These per- sons had been forewarned by various circumstances that they noted, that hostile Indians were along the shore waiting to attack them. They came up with other boats descending the river, and bound in the same direction with themselves. They endeavored ineffectually to persuade the passengers to join them, that they might descend in the strength of numbers and union. They continued to move down the river alone. The first attempt upon them was a custom- ary Indian stratagem. A person, affecting to be a white man, hailed them, and requested them to lie by, that he might come on board. Finding that the boat's crew were not to be allured to the shore by this artifice, the Indians put off from the shore in three canoes, and attacked the boat. Never was a contest of this sort maintained with more despe- rate bravery. The Indians attempted to board the boat, and the inmates made use of all arms of an- noyance and defence. Captain Ilubbel, although he had been severely wounded in two places, and had the cock of his gun shot off by an Indian fire, still continued to discharge his mutilated g an by a fire-brand. After a long and desperate conflict, in which all the passengers capable of defence but four, had been wounded, the Indians paddled off LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 213 their canoes to attack the boats left behind. They were successful against the first boat they assailed. The boat yielded to them without opposition. They killed the Captain and a boy, and took the women on board prisoners. Making a screen of these un- fortunate women, by exposing them to the tire of Captain Hubbel's boat, they returned to the assault. It imposed upon him the painful alternative, either to yield to the Indians, or to fire into their canoes at the hazard of kilHng the women of their own people. But the intrepid Captain remarked, that if these women escaped their fire, it would probably be to suffer a more terrible death from the savages. Fie determined to keep up his fire, even on these Imrd conditions; and the savages were beaten off a pccond time. In the course of the engagement, the boat, left to itself, had floated with the current near the north shore, where four or five hundred Indians were collected, who poured a shower of balls upon the boat. All the inmates could do, was to avoid exposure as much as possible, and exercise their pa- tience until the boat should float past the Indian fire. One of the inmates of the boat, seeing, as it slowly drifted on, a fine chance for a shot at an In- dian, althougjh warned against it, could not resist the temptation of taking his chance. He raised his head to take aim, and was instantly shot dead. When the boat had drifted beyond the reach of the Indian fire, but two of the nine fighting men on board were found unhurt. Two were killed, and two mortally wounded. The noble courage of a boy on board deserves to be recorded. When the boat was now 214 LIFE OP DANIEL BOONE. in a place of safety, he requested his friends to ex- tract a ball that had Iodised in the skin of his fore- head. When this bal! had been extracted, he re- quested them to take out a piece of bone that had been fractured in hi elbow by another shot. When asked by his mother why he had not complained or made known his suffering during the engagement, he coolly replied, intimating that there was noise enough without his, that the Captain had ordered the people to make no noise. All attempts of the General Government to pa- cify the Indians, having proved ineffectual, an expe- dition was planned against the hostile tribes north- west of the Ohio. The object was to bring the Indians to a general engagement; or, if that might not be, to destroy their establishments on the wa- ters of the Scioto and the Wabash. General Har- mar was appointed to the command of this expe- dition. Major Hamtranck, with a detachment, was to make a diversion in his favor up the Wabash, On the 13th of September, 1791, General Har- mar marched from Fort Washington, the present site of Cincinnati, with three hundred and twenty regulars, and effected a junction with the militia of Pennsylvania and Kentucky, which hs^d advanced twenty-five miles in front. The whole force amount- ed to one thousand four hundred and fifty-three men. Col. Hardin, who commanded the Kentucky militia, was detached with six bundled men, chiefly militia, to reconnoiter. On his approach to the Indian set- tlements, the Indians set fire to their villages and fled, In order, if possible, to overtake them, be was de LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. triched with a smaller force, that could be moved more rapidly. It consisted of two hundred and ten men. A small party of Indians met and attacked them; and the greater part of the militia behaved badly, — leaving a few brave men, who would not fly, to their fate. Twenty-three of the party fell, an.l se- ven only made their escape and rejoined the army. Notwithstanding this check, the army succeeded so far as to reduce the remaining towns to ashes, and destroy their provisions. On their return to Fort Washington, Gen. Har- mar was desirous of wiping off, in another action, tha disgrace which public opinion had impressed upon his arms. He halted eight miles from Chillicothe, and late at night detached Col. Hardin, with orders to find the enemy, and bring them to an engage- ment. Early in the morning this detachment reached the enemy, and a severe engagement ensued. The savages fought with desperation. Some of the Ameri- can troops shrunk; but the officers conducted with great gallantry. Most of them fell, bravely discharg- ing their duty. More than fifty regulars and one hundred militia, including the brave officers, Fon- taine, Willys, and Frothingham, were slain. Harmar, in his official account of this affair, claim- ed the victory, although the ilmericans seem clearly to have had the worst of it. At his request, he was tried by a court martial, and honorably acquitted. The enemy had suffered so severely, that they allowed him to return unmolested to Fort Wash- ington. The terrors and the annoyance of Indian hostili- 216 irPK OF DANIEL BOONE. ties still hung over the western settlements. The call was loud and general from the frontiers, toi ample and efticient protection. Congress placed the means in the hands of the executive. Major General Arthur St. Clair was appointed comman- der- in- chief of the forces to be employed in the meditated expedition. The objects of it were, to destroy the Indian settlements between the Miam- ies; to expel them from the country; and establish a chain of posts which should prevent their return during the war. This army was late in assembUng in the vicinity of Fort Washington. They marched directly towards the chief establishments of the en emy, building and garrisoning in their way the two intermediate forts, Hamilton and Jefferson. After thf; detachments had been made for these garri- sons, the effective force that remained amounted to something less than two thousand men. To open a road for their march, was a slow and tedious busi- ness. Small parties of Indians were often seen hov- ering about their march; and some unimporta,nt skirmishes took place. As the army approached the enemy's country, sixty of the militia deserted in a laody. To prevent the influence of such an ex ample. Major Hamtranck was detached with a regiment in pursuit of the deserters. The armj now consisting of one thousand four hundred men continued its march. On the third of November 1792, it encamped fift'^.en miles south of the Miami villages. Having been rejoined by Major Ham tranck. General St. Clair proposed to march imme diately against them. LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE, 217 Half an hour before sunrise, the mihtia was at- tacked by the savages, and fled in the utmost confu- sion. They burst through the formed hue of the regulars into the camp. Great efforts were made by the officers to restore order; but not with the desired success. The Indians pressed upon the heels of the flying militia, and engaged General Butler with great intrepidity. The action became warm and general; and the fire of the assailants, passing round both flanks of the first hne, in a few minutes was poured with equal fury upon the rear. The artillerists in the centre were mowed down, and the fire was the more galling, as it was directed by an invisible enemy, crouching on the ground, or concealed behind trees. In this manner they ad- vanced towards the very mouths of the cannon; and fought with the infuriated fierceness with which success always animates savages. Some of the sol- diers exhibited mihtary fearlessness, and fought with great bravery. Others were timid and dispo- sed to fly. With a self-devotion which the occa- sion required, the officers generally exposed them- selves to the hottest of the contest, and fell in great numbers, in desperate efforts to restore the battle. The commanding general, though he had been for some time enfeebled with severe disease, acted with personal bravery, and delivered his order? with judgment and self-possession. A charge was made upon the savages with the bayonet: and they were driven from their covert with some loss, a distance of four hundred yards. But as soon aa the 19 218 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. charge was suspended, they returned to the attack. General Butler was mortally wounded; the left of the right wing broken, and the artillerists killed almost to a man. The guns were seized and the camp penetrated by the enemy. A desperate charge was headed by Colonel Butler, although he was severely wounded, and the Indians were again driven from the camp, and the artillerj^ recovered. Several charges were repeated with partial success. The enemy only retreated, to return to the charge, flushed with new ardor. The ranks of the troops were broken, and the men pressed together in crowds, and were shot down without resistance. A retreat was all that remained, to save the remnant of the army. Colonel Darke was ordered to charge a body of savages that intercepted their retreat. Major Clark, with his battalion, was directed to cover the rear. These orders were carried intc effect, and a most disorderly retreat commenced. A pursuit was kept up four miles, when, fortunately for the surviving Americans, the natural greediness of the savage appetite for plunder, called back the victorious Indians to the camp, to divide the spoils. The routed troops continued their flight to fort Jef- ferson, throwing away their arms on the road. The wounded were left here, and the army retired upon fort Washington. In this fatal battle, fell thirty-eight commissioned officers, and five hundred and ninety-three non-com- missioned officers and privates. Twenty-one com- missioned officers, many of whom afterwards died of LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 219 their wounds, and two hundred and forty-two non- commissioned officers and privates were wounded. The savage force, in this fatal engagement, was led by a Mississago chief, who had been trained to war under the British, during the revolution. So superior was his knowledge of tactics, that the In- dian chiefs, though extremely jealous of him, yielded the entire command to him; and he arranged and fought the battle with great combination of military skill. Their force amounted to four thousand; and they stated the Americans killed, at six hundred and twenty, and their own at sixty-five; but it was un- doubtedly much greater. They took seven pieces of cannon and two hundred oxen, and many horses. The chief, at the close of the battle, bade the In- dians forbear the pursuit of the Americans, as he gaid they had killed enough. General Scott, with one thousand mounted volun- teers from Kentucky, soon after marched against a party of the victors, at St. Clair's fatal field. He found the Indians rioting in their plunder, riding the oxen in the glee of triumph, and acting as if the whole body was intoxicated. General Scott imme- diately attacked them. The contest was short but decisive. The Indians had two hundred killed on the spot. The cannon and military stores remain- ing, were retaken, and the savages completely rout- ed. The loss of the Kentuckians was inconsiderable. The reputation of the government was now com- mitted in the fortunes of the war. Three additional regiments were directed to be raised. On the mo- tion in congress for raising these regiments, there 220 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. was an animated, and even a bitter debate. It was urged on one hand, that the expense of such a force would involve the necessity of severe taxation; that too much power was thrown into the hands of the president; that the war had been badly managed, and ought to have been entrusted to the militia of the west, under their own officers; and with more force they urged that no success could be of any avail, so long as the British held those posts within our acknowledged limits, from which the savages were supplied with protection, shelter, arms, advice, and instigation to the war. On the other hand, the justice of the cause, as a war of defence, and not of conquest, was unques- tionable. It was proved, that between 1783 and 1790, no less than one thousand five hundred peo- ple of Kentucky had been massacred by the sava- ges, or dragged into a horrid captivity; and that the frontiers of Pennsylvania and Virginia had sutFered a loss not much less. It was proved that every ef- fort had been made to pacify the savages without effect. They showed that in 1790, when a treaty was proposed to the savages at the Miami, they first refused to treat, and then asked thirty days for deli- beration. It was granted. In the interim, they stated that not less than one hundred and twenty persons had been killed and captured, and several prisoners roasted alive; at the term of which hor rors, they refused any answer at all to the proposi tion to treat. Various other remarks were m.ade in defence of the bill. It tried the strength of parties in coiigress, and was finally carried. LIFE OF DANIEL BOONK. 221 General St. Clair resigned, and Major General Anthony Wayne was appointed to succeed hirri. This officer commanded the confidence of the wes- tern people, who confided in that reckless bravery, which had long before procured him the appellation of "Mad x\nthony.*' There was a powerful party who still affected to consider this war unnecessary , and every impediment was placed in the way of its success, which that party could devise. To prove to them that the government was still disposed to peace, two excellent officers and valuable men, Col. liar- din, and Major Truman, were severally despatched with propositions of peace. They were both mur- dered by the savages. These unsuccessful attempts at negotiation, and the difficulties and delays natu- rally incident to the preparation of such a force, to- gether with the attempts that had been made in con- gress, to render the war unpopular, had worn away 60 much time that the season for operations for the year had almost elapsed. But as soon as the nego- tiations had wholly failed, the campaign was opened with as much vigor as the nature of the case would admit. The general was able, however, to do no more this autumn, than to advance into the forest towards the country of the savages, six miles in ad- vance of fort Jefferson. He took possession of the ground on which the fatal defeat of St. Clair had taken place, in 1792. He here erected a fortifica tion, with the appropriate name of Fort Recovery. His principal camp was called Greenville. In Kentucky, meanwhile, many of the people clamored against these measures, and loudly insist- 19* LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. ed that the war ought to be carried on by militia, to be commanded by an officer taken from their state. It was beheved, too, by the executive, that the British government, by retaining their posts within our Hmits, and by various other measures, at least countenanced the Indians in their hostilities. That government took a more decisive measure early in the spring. A British detachment from Detroit, advanced near fifty miles south of that place, and fortified themselves on the Miami of the lakes. In one of the numerous skirmishes which took place between the savages and the advance of General Wayne, it was affirmed, that the British were mingled with the Indians. On the 8th of August, 1794, General Wayne reached the confluence of the Au Glaize, and the Miami of the lakes. The richest and most exten* sive settlements of the western Indians were at this place. It was distant only about thirty miles from the post on the Miami, which the British had re- cently occupied. The whole strength of the ene- my, amounting to nearly two thousand warriors, was collected in the vicinity of that post. The regulars of General Wayne were not much inferior in numbers. A reinforcement of one thousand one hundred mounted Kentucky militia, commanded by General Scott, gave a decided superiority to the American force. The general was well aware that the enemy were ready to give him battle, and he ardently desired it. But in pursuance of the set- tled policy of the United States, another effi^rt was made for the attainment of peace, without the shed- LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 223 ding of blood. The savages were exhorted by those who were sent to them, no longer to follow the counsels of the bad men at the foot of the Ra- pids, who urged them on to the war, but had nei- ther the power nor the inclination to protect them; that to listen to the propositions of the government of the United States, would restore them to their homes, and rescue them from famine. To these propositions they returned only an evasive answer. On the 20th of August, the army of General Wayne marched in columns, A select battalion, under Major Price, moved as a reconnoitering force m front. After marching five miles, he received so heavy a fire from the savages, concealed as usual, that he was compelled to retreat. The savages had chosen their ground with great judgment They had moved into a thick wood, in advance of the British works, and had taken a position behind fallen timber, prostrated by a tornado. This ren- dered their position almost inaccessible to horse. They were formed in three regular lines, according to Indian custom, very much extended in front. Their first effort was to turn the left flank of the American army. The American legion was ordered to advance with trailed arms, and rouse the enemy from his covert at the point of the bayonet, and then deliv- er its fire. The cavalry, led by Captain Campbell, was ordered to advance between the Indians and ihe river, where the wood permitted them to pene- trate, and charge their left flank. General Scott, at the head of the mounted volunteers, was com- 224 LIFE OP DANIEL BOOPTE. mandcd to make a considerable circuit and turn their right. These, and all the complicated orders of General Wajne, were promptly executed. But such was the impetuosity of the charge made by the first line of infantry, so entirely was the enemy broken by it, and so rapid was the pursuit, that only a small part of the second line, and of the mounted volunteers could take any part in the ac- tion. In the course of an hour, the savages were driven more than two miles, and within gun-shot of the British fort. General Wayne remained three days on the field of battle, reducing the houses and corn-fields, above and below the fort, and some of them within pistol shot of it,, to ashes. The houses and stores of Col, M'Kee, an English trader, whose great influence among the savages had been uniformly exerted for the continuance of the war, was burned among the rest. Correspondence upon these points took place between General Wayne and Major Campbell, who commanded the British fort. That of General Wayne was sufficiently firm; and it manifested that the latter only avoided hostilities with him, by ac- quiescing in the destruction of British property within the range of his guns. On the 28th the army returned to Au Glaize, de- stroying all the villages and corn within fifty miles of the river. In this decisive battle, the American loss, in killed and wounded, amounted to one hun- dred and seven, including officers. Among those that fell, were Captain Campbell and Lieutenant Towles. The general bestowed great and merited LIFE OP DANIEL BOONE. 2^ praise, for their bravery and promptitude in this affair, to all his troops. The hostility of the Indians still continuing, the whole country was laid waste; and forts were erect- ed in the heart of their settlements, to prevent their return. This seasonable victory, and this deter- mined conduct on the part of the United States, rescued them from a general war with all the na- tions north-west of the Ohio. The Six Nations had manifested resentments, which were only ap- peased for the moment, by the suspension of a settlement, which Pennsylvania was making at Presqu' Isle, within their alleged limits. The issue of this battle dissipated the clouds at once which had been thickening in that quarter. Its influence was undoubtedly felt far to the south. The Indian inhabitants of Georgia, and still farther to the south had been apparently on the verge of a war, and had been hardly restrained from hostility by the feeble authority of that state. No incidents of great importance occurred in this quarter, until August 3d, of the next year when a definitive treaty was concluded by General Wayne, with the hostile Indians north-west of the Ohio. By this treaty, the destructive war which had so long desolated that frontier, was ended in a manner acceptable to the United States. An ac- commodation was also brought about with the south- ern Indians, notwithstanding the intrigues of their Spanish neighbors. The regions of t!ie Mississippi valley were opened on all sides to immigration, and rescued fjom the dread of Indian hostilities. 226 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. CHAPTER XIV. Rejoicings on account of tiie peace — Boone indulges his propensity foi hunting — Kentucky increases in population — Some account of thett conflicting land titles — Progress of civil improvement destroying the range of the hunter — Litigation of land titles — Boone loses his lands- Removes from Kentucky to the Kanawha — Leaves the Kanawha and goes to Missouri, where he is appointed Commandant. The peace which followed the defeat of the north- ern tribes of Indians by General Wayne, was most grateful to the harassed settlers of the west. The news of it was received every where with the most lively joy. Every one had cause of gratulation. The hardy warriors, whose exploits we have recount- ed, felt that they were relieved from the immense responsibilities which rested upon them as the guar- dians and protectors of the infant settlements. The new settlers could now clear their wild lands, and cultivate their rich fields in peace — without fearing the ambush and the rifles of a secret foe; and the ten- ants of the scattered cabins could now sleep in safety, and without the dread of being wakened by the midnight war-whoop of the savage. Those who had been pent up in forts and stations joyfully sal- lied forth, and settled wherever the soil and local advantages appeared the most inviting. Colonel Boone, in particular, felt that a firm and resolute perseverance had finally triumphed over ev- ery obstacle. That the rich and boundless valleys of the great west — the garden of the earth — and LIFE OP DANIEL BOONE. 227 the paradise of hunters, had been won from the do- minion of the savage tribes, and opened as an asy- lum for the oppressed, the enterprising, and the free of every land. He had travelled in every direction through this great valley. He had descended from the Alleghanies into the fertile regions of TenneSi- sec, and traced the courses of the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers. He had wandered with delight through the blooming forests of Kentucky. He had been carried prisoner by the Indians through the wilderness which is now the state of Ohio to the great lakes of the north; he had traced the head waters of the Kentucky, the Wabash, the Miamies, the Scio- to, and other great rivers of the west, and had fol- lowed their meanderings to their entrance into the Ohio; he had stood upon the shores of this beautiful river, and gazed with admiration, as he pursued its winding and placid course through endless forests to mingle with the Mississippi; he had caught some glimmerings of the future, and saw with the prophe- tic eye of a patriot, that this great valley must soon become the abode of millions of freemen; and his heart swelled with joy, and warmed with a trans- port which was natural to a mind so unsophisticated and disinterested as his. Boone rejoiced in a peace which put an end to his perils and anxieties, and which now gave him full leisure and scope to follow his darling pursuit of hunting. He had first been led to the country by that spirit of the hunter, which in him amounted almost to a passion. This propensity may be said to be natural tr man. Even in cities and populous 228 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. places we find men so fond of this pastime that thej ransack the cultivated fields and enclosures of the farmer, for the purpose of killing the little birds and squirrels, which, from their insignificance, have ven- tured to take up their abode with civilized man. What, then, must have been the feelings of Boone, to find himself in the grand theatre of the hunter — filled with bufiaioes, deer, bears, wild turkeys, and other noble game? The free exercise of this darling passion had been checked and restrained, ever since the first settle- ment of the country, by the continued wars and hos- tile incursions of the Indians. The path of the hun- ter had been ambushed by the wily savage, e nd he seldom ventured beyond the purlieus of his cabin, or the station where he resided. He was now free to roam in safety through the pathless wilderness — to camp out in security whenever he was overtaken by night; and to pursue the game wherever it vras to be found in the greatest abundance. Civilization had not yet driven the primitive ten- ants of the forest from their favorite retreats. Most of the country was still in a state of nature — unset- tled and unappropriated. Few fences or inclosurea impeded the free range of the hunter, and very few buts and bDunds warned him of his being about to trespass upon the private property of some neighbor. Herds of buffaloes and deer still fed upon the rich cane-brake and rank vegetation of the boundless woods, and resorted to the numerous Licks for salt and drink. Boone now improved this golden opportunity of LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 229 indulging in his favorite pursuit. He loved tc wan- der alone, with his unerring rifle upon his shoulder, through the labyrinths of the tangled forests, and to rouse the wild beast from his secret lair. There was to him a charm in these primeval solitudes which suited his peculiar temperament, and he fre- quently absented himself on these lonely expedi- tions for days together. He never was known to re- turn without being loaded with the spoils of the chase. The choicest viands and titbits of all the forest- fed animals were constantly to be found upon his table. Not that Boone was an epicure; far from it. He would have been satisfied with a soldier's fare. In common with other pioneers of his time, he knew what it was to live upon roots and herbs for days together. He had suffered hunger and want in all its forms without a murmur or complaint. But when peace allowed him to follow his profession of a hun- ter, and to exercise that tact and superiority which so much distinguished him, he selected from the abundance and profusion of the game which fell victims to his skill, such parts as were most es- teemed. His friends and neighbors were also, at all times, made welcome to a share of whatever he killed. And he continued to live in this primitive simplicity — enjoying the luxury of hunting, and of roving in the woods, and indulging his generous and disinterested disposition towards his neighbors, for several years after the peace. In the meantime, while Boone had been thus courting solitude, and absorbed by the engrossing excitement of hunting, the restless spirit of immi- 2b 230 IjTFB of DANIEL BOONE. gration, and of civil and physical improvement, had not been idle. After the peace the tide of popula- tion poured into the country in a continual stream^ and the busy spirit of civilization was every where making inroads into the ancient forests, and en- croaching upon the dominions of the hunter. In order, however, that the reader may more readily comprehend the causes which operated as grievances to Boone, and finally led him to aban- don Kentucky, and seek a home in regions more congenial, it will be necessary to allude to the pro- gress made in population, and the civil pohty, and incidents attending the settlement of the country. The state of Kentucky was not surveyed by the government and laid off into sections and townships as has been the case with all the lands north of thfe Ohio. But the government of Virginia had issued land warrants, or certificates, entitHng the holder to locate wherever he might choose, the number of acres named in the warrant. They also gave to actual settlers certain pre-emption rights to such lands as they might occupy and improve by building a cabin, raising a crop, &c. The holders of these warrants, after selecting the land which they inten- ded to cover with their titles, were required to enter a survey and description of the tracts selected, in the Land office, which had been opened for the purpose, to be recorded there, for the information of others, and to prevent subsequent holders of warro.nts from locating the same lands. Yet notwithstanding these precautions, such was the careless manner in which these surveys were made, that many illiterate per- LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 23t ons, ignorant of the forms of law, and the necessity of precision in the specification and descriptions of the tracts on which they had laid their warrants, nmade such loose and \'ague entries in the land oftice, as to afford no accurate information to subsequent locators, who frequently laid their warrants on the same tracts. It thus happened that the whole or a part of almost every tract was covered with differ- ent and conflicting titles — forming what have been aptly called 'shingle titles' — overlaying and lapping upon each other, as shingles do upon the roof of a building. In this way twice the existing acres of land were sold, and the door opened for endless con- troversy about boundaries and titles. The following copy of an entry may serve as a specimen of the vagueness of the lines, huts, and bounds of their claims, and as accounting for the flood of litigation that ensued, "George Smith enters nine hundred acres of land on a treasury warrant, lying on the north side of Kentucky river, a mile below a creek; beginning about twenty poles below a lick; and running down the river westwardly, and northwestwardly for quantity." It will easily be seen that a description, so gene- ral and indefinite in its terms, could serve as no guide to others who might wish to avoid entering the same lands. This defect in providing fcr the certainty and safety of land titles, proved a sore evil to the state of Kentucky. As these lands increased in value and importance, controversies arose as to the ownership of almost every tract: and innumerar 232 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. ble suits, great strife and excitement, prevailed in every neighborhood, and continued until within a late period, to agitate the whole body of society. The legislature of the state, by acts of limitation and judicious legislation upon the subject, have finally quieted the titles of the actual occupants. Among others who made these loose and unfortu nate entries, was Daniel Boone. Unaccustomed t