3>mS%J v*» 1 JL/JLw te. F^ JTij BookJS ^-^ d Copyright ]^^ COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT TRUE STORIES OF GREAT AMERICANS DANIEL BOONE •The THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Limited LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO Daniel Boone From the painting by Chester Harding, owned by Colonel Reuben T. Durrett, of Louisville, Kentucky. (See page 240.) DANIEL BOONE BY LUCILE GULLIVER " Still do the generations press for room, And surely they shall have it. Tell them this : Say, * Boone, the old State-Builder, hath gone forth Again, close on the sunset; and that there He gives due challenge to that Indian race Whose lease to this majestic land, misused, It hath pleased God to cancel.' " — William Ross Wallace. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1916 Ail rights reserved Copyright, 1916, By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published April, 1916. Nori0ooti H^xtvi J. 8. Gushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. C' '{ \ ^ ■ i." APR-^2Q 1915 ©CU427788 CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGR A Backward Glance i CHAPTER II Pennsylvania Pioneers 6 CHAPTER III A Plucky Border Boy 15 CHAPTER IV The Journey to the Yadkin 26 CHAPTER V Campaigning with Braddock 33 CHAPTER VI A Pioneer Wedding 43 V vi CONTENTS CHAPTER VII FAGB Fighting the Cherokees 55 CHAPTER VIII Exploring New Country 65 CHAPTER IX Among Hostile Indians 76 CHAPTER X Alone in the Wilderness 91 CHAPTER XI The Hero of the Southwest 99 CHAPTER XII Making the Wilderness Road . . . • "S CHAPTER XIII Boone's Settlement 130 CONTENTS vii CHAPTER XIV PACK "A Land Hard to Hold" 148 CHAPTER XV Boone becomes an Indian 159 CHAPTER XVI The Siege of the Shawnees 170 CHAPTER XVII Public Servant and Indian Fighter . . .189 CHAPTER XVIII The Flight from Civilization .... 208 CHAPTER XIX Traveling toward the Sunset .... 229 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Daniel Boone Boone's First Glimpse of Kentucky The Sycamore Shoals Treaty Cumberland Gap .... Boone's Cabin in Missouri The Boone Monument at Cumberland Gap Frontispiece a' FACING PAGE 78 ^' 118 IX DANIEL BOONE CHAPTER I A Backward Glance In a sheer Southern mountain pass, known as Cumberland Gap, there stands a monument in honor of a man who cut a road. Many countries have had important highways. Some have been wide and firm to please ambitious kings. Others, rough and winding up and down the land, have been worn by beasts of burden, by soldiers, or similar messengers of government or trade. Our American roadway was a mere trail, blazed through thicket and timber, and the road- maker was a backwoodsman. He was born in the early days of America, when our great land was largely wilderness, with white men living only in the lowlands east of the Alle- ghany Mountains, where they themselves or their fathers had settled after the long crossing from the Old World. Beyond the mountains, as far as the Pacific Ocean, lay forests, plains, and wastes, un- known and uninhabited save by wild creatures and 2 DANIEL BOONE hostile Indians. As the young country grew in power and population, the English colonists needed this virgin land, and it became some one's duty to blaze a trail through this trackless region westward over which settlers might make their way. As it happened, a gaunt, blue-eyed, determined man, then living in North Carolina, Daniel Boone by name, had spent many years hunting, fighting, and learning the ways of Indians and woodland beasts, and when the time came to cleave a way through this western wilderness, he was able and ready to do it. He laid his plans, gathered to- gether his volunteers, and in the spring of the year disappeared in the forest ; and, after chopping and burning his way for two hundred miles through land now lying in North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and Kentucky, he emerged in the present Blue Grass region, the paradise of game and the fertile land for which the settlers longed. The fame of his achievement spread far and near, and in his footsteps followed thousands of men, women, and children, seeking homes in this wonderful new country. Along his trail a young nation took its way. In 1775, Daniel Boone left behind him in the wilderness this narrow track winding from east to west. For twenty years emigrants traversed A BACKWARD GLANCE 3 it on foot or on horseback and it remained little more than a bridle-path. Then, by order of the legislature, Kentucky's part was widened for wagon travel, although its ledges, sloughs, and forest dangers were hardly lessened. Later, when more favorable courses to the west were opened, portions of the trail fell into disuse, and brush and trees overgrew them and once more claimed them for the forest. Yet neither wilderness nor time could obliterate the memory of Daniel Boone's Road. When Boone and his handful of road-makers came down from the mountains and passed through Cumberland Gap, it was a wild notch five hundred feet deep, well timbered with hard woods and abounding in game. To-day it is still an impressive cleft through the hills, but no longer untamed coun- try. On a certain June day, in 191 5, a thousand people of the vicinity and from a greater distance gathered there to dedicate a monument to the picturesque pioneer who, quite unconscious that he was cutting one of the historic roadways of the world, had rested in that Gap almost a century and a half before. In a way the celebration was a double one. For some years the Daughters of the American Revolu- tion, with the help of descendants of pioneers, of 4 DANIEL BOONE old inhabitants, of historians and government maps, had been ferreting out the lost course of the trail, and had succeeded in tracing it and in marking its entire length from Boone's home on the Yadkin River in the Old North State to Boonesborough in Kentucky, where the road ended and the building of the West began. The monument in Cumberland Gap was the last marker of the long series of markers that were placed, and celebrated the com- pletion of the patriotic task as well as the heroism of the great backwoodsman and his associates. The memorial stands upon a slight eminence. It is a simple structure built of stone and has four faces, each bearing a bronze tablet and each sym- bolizing one of the four states through which the trail wound. There at Cumberland Gap three of these states meet — Kentucky, Tennessee, and Vir- ginia — and from the pinnacle, towering above the Gap, the other, North Carolina, may be seen beyond the range. With fitting ceremony the monument was unveiled and presented to the Commonwealth of Kentucky, received in the name of the governor, and dedicated with many glowing tributes to bravery, sacrifice, and hardy manhood. Thus in stone and tablet have Americans remembered Daniel Boone and his Wilderness Road. After the applause had died away and the guests A BACKWARD GLANCE 5 had enjoyed lavish Southern hospitality, the cele- bration came to an end, and merrily on foot and horseback, by carriage and by automobile, the people took their way home. The monument was left alone in the stillness of the Gap to be caressed by sun and wind. Like an embodied spirit it stands there, telling briefly its own noble story. Yet the whole story of the red-blood life of a man like Daniel Boone is a long one because he served his country in thrilling days and because he was very human and lovable. CHAPTER II Pennsylvania Pioneers Daniel Boone may have inherited his spirit of adventure. His grandfather, George Boone, was a weaver, in a humble way, of Bradnich, near Exeter, England, where he was a member of the Society of Friends. The Quakers, or Friends, suffered many persecutions on account of their religion, and William Penn, one of their number, dreamed of a refuge for them in the New World. In 1682, on an October day bright with autumn color, he sailed up the Delaware River in the little English bark Welcome, and took possession of a grant of land made him by King Charles II, where he intended "to lay the foundation of a free colony for all mankind" and for the Quakers in particular. In honor of Penn's father, an admiral, this new province was christened Pennsylvania by Charles, but Penn, being a modest man, appealed to the king and offered twenty guineas to the secretary to change it. "Had he appealed to the secretary and bribed the king," wrote one of his biographers facetiously, "he might have had his wish." 6 PENNSYLVANIA PIONEERS 7 As time wore on, glowing reports of this *'Holy Experiment," as Penn's colony was sometimes called, reached the hamlet near Exeter, and George, his wife, and their seven sons and two daughters weighed these reports seriously. The thought of a Hfe free from persecution and rich in the spoils of a land said to be blossoming like the rose appealed to them. The young son named Squire, especially curious, longed for definite information, and went about picturing this far paradise as best he could. News came all too slowly in those days to suit the impetuosity of youth, and after many family con- sultations, Squire, then about sixteen years of age, accompanied by his older brother George and his sister Sarah, sailed from England in a small, uncom- fortable, emigrant ship to see for himself the pos- sibilities in Pennsylvania. As Squire set forth upon this great adventure, wondering and planning in boyish fashion, he Httle dreamed that his voyage would be recorded in history because of a son, Daniel, to be born to him in America. We can well imagine the feverish interest of the Boones as they approached Philadelphia and looked upon the crowd wont to gather on the shore when- ever white sails were seen. Ships beating up the Delaware River in those days were all-important, as practically everything came to the province by 8 DANIEL BOONE sea. English and Dutch vessels brought news and goods from the Old World and from farther ports, and packets plied regularly between the North and South. There were no railroads, and the four- horse coaches, rocking along between towns on the eastern coast, were slow and uncertain carriers. So Squire's ship was welcomed with the usual interest, and he himself came on shore, finding there a touch of home in the familiar high-crowned Quaker hat and Quaker dress of gray. In many ways, as reports had said, times were prosperous, especially for those who lived in towns. The young capital itself, laid out in checker-board regularity according to Penn's own plans, was a substantial little community of comfortable homes where Squire found not only English Quakers but also Welsh, Scotch-Irish, Swedish, Dutch, French, and German colonists living free from Old World oppression. Now and then he saw gayly clad Indians stealing silently along the streets, and from the wharves he watched ships from far parts of the world, parts even as distant as Surinam and the French division of Hispaniola. Trade kept laborers and merchants alert and busy, and made it possible for well-to-do housewives to procure furnishings and table deli- cacies so fine that even worthies mentioned them in their diaries. PENNSYLVANIA PIONEERS 9 "A most sinful feast!" one of these some years later said of a Philadelphia dinner. '' Everything which could dehght the eye or allure the taste; curds and creams, jellies, sweetmeats of various kinds, twenty sorts of tarts, fools, trifles, floating islands, whipped sillabubs, almonds, pears and peaches." A visiting French prince remembered a certain tea party with equal pleasure. ''The house is small, but well ordered and neat," he wrote ; ''the doors and tables of superb, well-poHshed mahogany ; the locks and andirons of poHshed brass. ... I took some of the excellent tea and would have taken more I think, if the Ambassador had not kindly warned me at the twelfth cup that I must put my spoon across my cup when I wished to bring this warm water question to an end." In spite of its busy and prosperous air, however, Philadelphia was Httle more than a village, with the frontier of the great western wilderness distant only a few miles from its outlying fields and orchards. There, in the border settlements, life was far different. Houses were rude, unhewn log cabins, erected in clearings and bounded by dense woodland full of sharp, wild eyes spying upon human intruders. House furnishings and clothing were equally crude, creature comforts few, and, lO DANIEL BOONE had it not been for the great fireplace built in one end of each cabin, and for the iron pot, hanging from the crane and puffing forth savory odors, these cabins would have seemed little like homes. Even tea and coffee were practically unknown on the frontier or were regarded as ''slops which did not stick by the ribs." One pioneer, born on the border, recorded his earliest recollections of a tea- cup and saucer and of coffee. While traveling as a boy, he spent a night at an inn. ''When supper came on," he says, "a little cup stood in a bigger one with some brownish-looking stuff in it, which was neither milk, hominy nor broth. What to do with these little cups and the spoon belonging to them I could not tell, and I was afraid to ask. ... I therefore watched attentively to see what the big folks would do with their little cups and spoons. I imitated them, and found the taste of the coffee disagreeable beyond anything I ever had tasted in my life. I continued to drink as the rest of the company did, with the tears streaming from my eyes, but when it was to end I was at a loss to know, as the little cups were filled immediately after being emptied. This circum- stance distressed me very much, as I durst not say I had had enough. Looking attentively at the grown persons, I saw one man turn his little cup PENNSYLVANIA PIONEERS ii bottom upwards and put his little spoon across it. I observed that after this his cup was not filled again. I followed his example, and to my great satisfaction, the result as to my cup was the same." Squire had never known luxuries, and boylike preferred the wilds about Philadelphia, where he roamed at will, while Sarah Boone met and married a German. Squire's brother George, confident in the future, returned to England to report to his parents, and, when all could be made ready, to pilot them and the other children across the sea. The elder Boones bravely dismantled their home, bade farewell to old associations, and in October, 1 7 17, after a journey of two months, a courageous journey and perhaps a sad one, they all landed in Philadelphia. The Boones lingered there only a short time. As they preferred the country, they became a frontier family at once, welcoming the hardships of border life. After brief stays in Abingdon and North Wales, they settled on the edge of the wood in Qley Township, in the beautiful valley of the Schuylkill River, where the elder George Boone lived out his days. Squire, meanwhile, after his explorations, had chosen to become a backwoodsman in North Wales, a hamlet of Welsh Quakers. The young men wel- 12 DANIEL BOONE corned this ''man of rather small stature, fair com- plexion, and gray eyes," introduced him to their families, and made him feel at home ; and in time he fell in love with a certain Sarah Morgan, "a woman something over the common size, strong and active, with black hair and eyes, and raised in the Quaker order." According to Quaker usage, they probably announced that "with Divine permission and Friends' approbation they intended to marry each other," and after it was decided that the young people were "at liberty to accomplish their marriage," they were made man and wife on July 23, 1720, in the little Quaker meetinghouse of Gwynedd Township. Friends and relatives feted them after the fashion of Quaker merrymaking — custom permitting the marriage day to "be charac- terized by cheerful enjoyment provided that those concerned do not pass the boundary line of Chris- tian simplicity and prudence" — and then they settled down as poor but thrifty "borderers" in a mere cabin, small and rough and bare, and built probably on rented land. Fortunately, "doors and windows of superb mahogany" and "twenty sorts of tarts " were not necessary to contentment. Early in the morning the border people rose. No eight-hour day was theirs ; their work lasted from sunrise to sunset, day in and day out, alike in good PENNSYLVANIA PIONEERS 13 times and bad. After the cows had been milked and sent to pasture, and after breakfast had been eaten and the daily chores done, the men farmed, hunted, or pursued a trade in a small way. The women cooked and minded the dairy ; mended, spun and wove; made clothes and moccasins; weeded and hoed in the vegetable patch, and all the day had an eye to the children who were quite as lively and mischievous in those times as now. As we look back upon this border life, so wild and fresh, it appears rather pleasant. We forget the days of rain and snow, of tired bodies and aching backs, of illness, of poverty and discouragement. A hard and weary life it was in reality, a life to develop heroes. Twelve years or so passed in the Boone cabin in North Wales. With much labor the adjacent land had been cleared, a garden-patch had been made to flourish within the inclosure, a loom had been installed in the cabin as Squire had learned his father's trade, and with much thrift and forbearance a tiny sum of money had been laid away for a farm which they hoped some day to purchase. No longer were Squire and Sarah alone, for four children brightened the little cabin and kept their mother busy supplying clothing for small, active bodies and food for good appetites. 14 DANIEL BOONE About this time they decided to move from North Wales to Oley Township, in the Berks County of to-day, where, with their savings, they were able to buy two hundred and fifty acres of land, situated on a creek and lying about eight miles from the present city of Reading. Grandfather Boone, as well as other members of the family, lived not far away, and there is little doubt but that Friends helped Squire Boone to clear his land and build his log cabin, the kindest welcome to newcomers in a country region. At last Squire Boone was an independent man, owning his land and his house, which was bare and simple, however, as the Boones were still poor, and life in Oley, as in North Wales, was filled with sever- ity and hardship. Perhaps, as the family sat about the new hearth and heard the wind blowing in their own strange woodland, this second home may have seemed happier than the old one, because of the hard work and self-denial which had made it possible. Here, in the Pennsylvania wilderness of the Schuylkill Valley, Daniel Boone was born on November 2, 1734. To-day the date of his birth is memorable, yet no one at the time, least of all his parents, dreamed that this boy would make a stir in the world. CHAPTER HI A Plucky Border Boy Being a frontier baby and the sixth in the family, little fuss was made over Daniel. He was given border fare and brought up in border ways, and probably left largely to amuse himself and to follow the example of his older brothers and sisters. Unfortunately, records of the first ten years of his life are all too meager, but we know well that a pioneer's cabin was an absorbing place in which to be a boy. Without doubt Daniel sat on a three-legged stool, and slept in a wooden bunk, and ate at a split-slab table, set with wooden bowls, trenchers, and noggins, with gourds and hard-shelled squashes for extra dishes. China was too expensive and impractical for pioneers. In some households, food was served in a large trencher, or platter, in the center of the table, from which all the family ate; in others, the head of the house served each member. And how good the food tasted seasoned with woodland appetites ! At breakfast there was johnny-cake and perhaps pone; at dinner, "hog IS i6 DANIEL BOONE and hominy'' or wild meat and vegetables ; at sup- per, milk and mush. The cooking was done in the j&replace. The great fire there, furnishing heat and ventilation, was never expected to go out. If it did, some one had to go to a neighbor to *' borrow fire," a shovel of coals or a burning brand, or had to strike a spark with flint and steel and catch it on a bit of rag or tow, as matches were unknown. The fire kept up a merry blaze, which at night flickered on Squire Boone's hunting arms and garments and on the clothes of the family hanging from wooden pegs around the walls. An early historian says that such open wardrobes ''announced to the stranger as well as to the neighbor the wealth or poverty of a family in their articles of clothing." Mrs. Boone stepped briskly about the cabin, busy at her many tasks. In summer she probably went barefooted, but in cold weather moccasins were worn. The usual dress of border women con- sisted of a petticoat and bed gown, a kind of dressing sack, made of linsey, a warm, substantial cloth of flax and wool ; a kerchief neatly crossed about the neck, and a sunbonnet of linen. The men's attire was patterned somewhat after Indian fashion — a long hunting-shirt of Hnsey, coarse linen, or of dressed deerskins; trousers A PLUCKY BORDER BOY 17 and leggings of cloth or skin, and deerskin moc- casins. The latter were Httle protection in cold or wet weather, when ''wearing them," it was said, "was only a decent way of going barefooted." The belt, which was always tied behind, answered several purposes besides that of holding clothing together. In winter the mittens and sometimes the bullet-pouch occupied the front part of it. At the right side was hung the tomahawk and to the left the scalping knife in a leather sheath. In the bosom of his shirt a hunter stowed his luncheon of bread, cake, and jerk,^ as well as tow for wiping the rifle barrel. Without doubt Daniel longed for the day to come when he, too, might be a hunter and go forth clad like his father. But Squire Boone hunted only from necessity. He attended to his small farm, kept several looms busy weaving "homespun," and now and then made the welkin ring with the clink of anvil and ham- mer, for he had become a blacksmith also. In odd moments he mended and tinkered about the place, filled his pov/derhorn, and cleaned and poHshed his rifle, tasks which Daniel must have longed to do himself, if the saying is true that "childhood shows the man as morning shows the day." 1 Smoked meat dried in the sun and cut into long slices or strips. 1 8 DANIEL BOONE In pioneer times each family was obliged to do everything for themselves as well as they could. They were their own carpenters, tailors, tanners, cobblers, weavers, servants, butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers. So Daniel at an early age began to do his small share of a backwoodsman's work. He was taught to build a fire on the hearth with a huge ''back log" and a "fore stick," and to save the ashes for soft soap which every housewife made. He helped in the "truck patch" to raise corn, pumpkins, squashes, beans, and potatoes, which in the late summer and autumn were cooked with pork, venison, and bear meat. He learned the knack of grinding Indian corn for johnny-cake and mush, and of pounding grain into meal. He learned that firewood was generally cut in the early part of the winter and that by the first of April it should be hauled, chopped, and piled. Yet best of all were the lessons taught in the woods where he became familiar with trees, birds, and animals, and was shown how to set traps, to follow trails, and, above all, to conceal his own. Surely this more or less serious work was tempered with much mischief. Very likely Daniel often wandered too far into the woods and came home late to supper, or slipped away to go fishing and fell into the creek, much to his own shame and A PLUCKY BORDER BOY 19 his mother's dismay. With the other children he may have made the httle cabin ring with merriment as the family sat at evening in the candle-light, Mrs. Boone making and mending garments, while Squire Boone deftly patched their moccasins with deerskin thongs. Whatever may have happened in his earliest years, we know that Daniel was a bright, healthy boy, and that it was his good fortune to have been born in poverty with the great out- of-doors as his playground. The surroundings and the playthings of his infancy and youth were the ones to fit him for his life work. When Daniel was ten years old, it was the custom, as it is to-day in certain country regions, to turn out the cows to pasture when spring was in the air and to let them remain until the late autumn. Accordingly, when the season came, Squire Boone's cows were driven from the homestead to a pasture some five miles distant, and with them went Daniel and his mother. All eagerly the barefooted, freckled urchin drove the cows down the lane and out into the road. None too soon could he get to the pasture and begin the long summer quite alone, save for his mother, with the herd and the wild creatures of the fields and woods. Mrs. Boone may have found less pleasure than Daniel in the annual departure, leaving behind her, as she did, 20 DANIEL BOONE her husband and her other children. We know, however, that she was very devoted to Daniel, one historian referring to him as her ''favorite son," and probably her days in the pasture with him were a joy. They lived together in a tiny cabin, near which were a spring and dairy-house where Mrs. Boone busied herself making butter and cheese. It was Daniel's work to tend the cows. During those summer days he was out of bed at sunrise and ready to drive the cattle to pasture after their morning milking. He was expected to follow them hour on hour as they roamed about grazing, keeping with them, or at least within sound of the tinkling bells of their leaders. When late afternoon came, he drove them back again through the woods and clearing, and, after the evening milking, locked them securely in the pens. Such a life out-of-doors, with no work to keep mind and hands occupied, gave him opportunity to see for himself all the wa3^s of nature. He had ample time in which to watch and think and listen — to learn to walk through underbrush and thicket as silently as an Indian, to imitate the notes and calls of birds and animals, to tell the time of day by the sun's position in the sky, to find the points of compass by moss and bark, always thicker on the north side of tree trunks. A PLUCKY BORDER BOY 21 to distinguish storm clouds, and predict weather from the wind. In the wide stillness, broken only by the crunch and nibbling of the cattle, the chim- ing of their bells, and the sounds of nature itself, Daniel became wise in the very knowledge which was to be so necessary to him as a pioneer. Even when Daniel was so young, his love of hunt- ing was evident. For long hours he lay in hiding, spying upon squirrels, birds, and chipmunks as they went about their secret business. His chief weapon was the root end of a young tree — gnarled, tough, and smoothly poHshed — which he trained himself to throw with exquisite skill. The days of this crude missile were numbered. When Daniel was twelve years old. Squire Boone gave his son a Hght rifle, and with such a possession Daniel, boylike, considered himself a full-fledged hunter. Quite forgetful of his duty as herdboy, he would wander far from the cows, intent only on his gun and the game which it would win for him ; and the cows sometimes strayed too far and were found only after much searching and calHng in the night. Daniel's parents were wise, and instead of punish- ing their boy for his neglect, they put his abihty to use and commissioned him to supply the meat for their table. Nothing could have made Daniel happier. As each summer passed and the cows 22 DANIEL BOONE were driven back to the homestead, Daniel began a long winter of hunting. Over mountains, along valleys, across streams, he roved as pleased him best in ail kinds of wind and weather, learning secrets in the snow which nature could not teach him in summer. The game which he killed he cured for the family, and the skins he carried to Philadelphia, some fifty miles east of Oley, where he saw a bit of the world — as his father had when a boy — and there sold them for hunting supplies. When he was not busy either as herdboy or hunter, he turned blacksmith. Yet in iron work, as in all else, his in- stinct for hunting revealed itself. His chief skill lay in the making and mending of guns and traps. In those frontier days, boys and girls received little training from school-teachers. When they did attend school they sat upon wooden benches in a little log hut, and had lessons in the spelling- book and Psalter, and in writing and arithmetic. As far as we know, Daniel received no regular schooling, although some historians say that he attended a 'Afield" school taught by an Irishman for whom he had little respect and upon whom he played various unusual pranks. He gained his first knowledge of nature from his father, as he followed him about the farm or went with him into the woods, increasing this knowledge later on by his A PLUCKY BORDER BOY 23 wanderings alone. In the dusk of summer evenings in the pasture, as Daniel and his mother sat to- gether, doubtless he reported his adventures and discoveries of the day, and Mrs. Boone, being an intelligent woman, discussed them with him. Very likely from these simple stories of nature she taught Daniel the great principles of human life as only a mother can. When Daniel was fourteen years old, his brother Samuel married Sarah Day, a Quakeress of more than ordinary attainments, and, being interested in her young brother-in-law, she taught him to read, write, and cipher. To her and to his mother Daniel owed his early education. With their training, *'he could read understandingly, do rough sur- veying, keep notes of his work, and write a sensible though badly-spelled letter." Nowadays girls and boys of fourteen are usually ready to graduate from the grammar school. How different it was with Daniel ! Of book knowledge he had had only the first lessons. Yet he could trap the bear and beaver ; he could bring down the wild cat and the panther. The secrets of green things and of all creatures living in the countryside through which he roamed were plain to him, and he knew also the best use of the loom, the anvil, and the hammer. 24 DANIEL BOONE Frequently during these years of growing up, Daniel saw Indians. The red men of Pennsylvania often came to the border settlements and even went into the towns, and their errands were always friendly. William Penn had pledged them his faith when he came to their country, and they in turn had promised to "live in love with him and his children as long as the moon and the sun shall endure." Those simple words, uttered under a wide-spreading elm near Philadelphia, remained words of unbroken faith as long as the Quakers held control in the province. Daniel used to catch glimpses of them now and then, as they stole out of the woods and along the roads to trade or purchase supplies. He watched their quick manner, their sharp eyes, their impassive faces. When their business was over, he saw them return and disap- pear among the trees as silently as they had come, and it is no wonder that to him they were strange and fascinating men. Certain of them became converted to Christianity by a Moravian mission- ary, and held a meeting in Squire Boone's barn. A wonderful gathering it must have seemed to Daniel — the savages in their picturesque costumes, the missionary from far-away, and the Quaker neigh- bors, all joining in the simple service. These frequent glimpses of Indians and his knowl- A PLUCKY BORDER BOY 25 edge of their characteristics served him well in later years, but at that time they filled him with curiosity. The Indians came from far parts of the forest, parts which he did not know, and he longed to make his way thither and to see for himself the real wilderness beyond civilization. He determined that some day he would satisfy this desire — and he did. CHAPTER IV The Journey to the Yadkin Daniel's life in Oley passed happily and unevent- fully until he was sixteen years old. Then, for some good reason which history has failed to record, Squire Boone decided to sell his lands and certain of his stock, and move southward into the valley of the Yadkin River in North Carolina. By this time there were eleven children in the Boone household — Sarah, Israel, Samuel, Jon- athan, Elizabeth, Daniel, Mary, George, Edward, Squire, and Hannah — and their father may have feared that the younger of them would fail to find good homesteads in the province, since much of the choice land of eastern Pennsylvania had already been settled. Perhaps the appearance in the region of many unusual immigrants of strange faiths, such as the Mennonites, Dunkards, and Schwenkfelders, made Squire Boone long for more freedom and the isolation so dear to backwoodsmen. Perhaps his relation with the Quakers, by no means a happy one, made a move seem desirable. It is recorded that various members of the Boone family were 26 THE JOURNEY TO THE YADKIN 27 *' sometimes rather too belligerent and self-willed" and had "occasionally to be dealt with by the meet- ing." His daughter Sarah and his son Israel mar- ried "worldlings," or those outside the faith, and were "disowned" by the Society of Friends. Later Squire himself was "disowned" because he looked approvingly upon these acts of his children. What- ever finally persuaded him to leave Oley really matters little. The importance of the event lies in the change it wrought in Daniel's life and in the opportunities for development which it gave him. Squire Boone could but choose to travel south- ward, if he desired good farm land and hunting- ground. To the west of the border settlements in Pennsylvania lay the Alleghany Mountains, extend- ing north and south across the province and as far south as Georgia, a barrier to westward emigration. To the south, however, were many deep and fertile valleys between the Blue Ridge and the Alleghanies, and these were easily accessible to those who had the hardihood to endure long journeys and the usual privations of pioneering. Land was to be had for " taking up," as the old saying went, or for building and planting. Sometimes early settlers claimed land by "tomahawk right," an inferior kind of land-title secured by deadening a few trees near a spring or by cutting on them the initials of the 28 DANIEL BOONE claimant. Such vague registry of property rights, even if assured by a warrant, naturally provoked many quarrels, as *' tomahawk rights" were often coveted and could be transferred, one lad, it is said, selling two hundred choice acres for "a cow and calf and a wool hat." Long years before, in 1666, to be exact, an emigra- tion agent of London issued a brief description of the province of Carolina, setting forth therein ^'the Healthfulness of the Air, the Fertility of the Earth and Water, and the great Pleasure and Profit to accrue to those that shall go thither to enjoy the same." The many Irish, German, and Quaker settlers of Pennsylvania, who began about 1732 to push their way through Maryland and Virginia to the upper waters of the Yadkin River in the northwest section of North Carolina, described this southern country with equal enthusiasm. The climate there proved mild and the country beautiful. The soil yielded quickly to cultivation and bore fruitfully, and game was abundant. Indian depredations at that time were infrequent, as the Catawbas and Cherokees came to the settlements seeking trade, and the hostile Shawnees seldom raided the valley. The reports which drifted back to Oley proved irresistible to a man like Squire Boone, who still retained the spirit THE JOURNEY TO THE YADKIN 29 of adventure which had brought him as a boy across the sea, and eventually the decision to move south was made. In the spring of 1750, probably in the month of April, the Boones were ready for the exodus. The women and children were stowed in canvas-covered wagons stocked with necessities for a journey of five hundred miles, and the men and boys kept guard on horseback and drove the cattle. Slowly the little caravan wound its way along the familiar fields and woods and out of Oley Township, a sad and yet a happy train, and the new life was begun. Their course lay southward through Pennsyl- vania to the Potomac River and Harper's Ferry, and thence up the picturesque valley of the Shenandoah. At night they pitched camp, rounded up the animals, hobbled the horses, built a great fire, and sat about it for supper and the evening's rest ; and, when bedtime came, they placed a watch against Indians and wild beasts. By day they journeyed slowly on, and all the time Daniel was the party's scout and hunter. It was his duty to supply fresh meat, and, after he had selected the easiest course for the wagons, to pilot the party through the unknown regions before them. Such responsibility was excellent discipline as well as genuine pleasure for a lad like Daniel. 30 DANIEL BOONE He thoroughly explored the woods, searched them for firm and level ground, and chose good halting- places, if possible near water and pasturage. Many hills he climbed for a distant view, and many deep, dark gorges he penetrated, always curious and always learning. On the way he fished for trout in the cool streams, saw and brought down game in plenty, and in their season picked medlars, mulber- ries, and wild cherries for his mother, who probably superintended the cooking for the hungry caravan. Unfortunately, few details of the journey have been preserved ; yet we do know that the family lingered long on the way from sheer enjoyment of the country. At length, in the autumn of 175 1, the Boone fam- ily passed along the valley of Virginia into Davie County, North Carolina, where the plain between the Yadkin and the Catawba rivers seemed to promise all that pioneers could ask. Squire Boone considered the region carefully, and, relying on the experience of many years of farming, selected a claim at Buffalo Lick, where Dutchman's Creek flows into the North Yadkin, a few miles from the present site of Wilkesboro. Even to-day in various parts of North Carolina there is excellent hunting, but in those times the valley of the Yadkin was wholly untamed, and large THE JOURNEY TO THE YADKIN 31 numbers of animals came from the plain and from the mountain range to the westward to lick the salt deposited at its salt-springs. The work of clearing the land and of building cabins for Squire Boone and for his married children and relatives who had left Oley, began at once, Daniel doing his share of work of all kinds. Soon the pungent odor of hearth fires was wafted down the valley, and the usual pursuits of Oley were renewed. By this time Daniel was a lad of eighteen, grown to be five feet and ten inches tall, a slender, sinewy youth, always bound for the woods when he was not needed on the farm. All things seemed to help him in the roving life which he loved best. The Yadkin region proved to be all that reports had pictured it. Bears, buffaloes, deer, and elk ; wild- cats, foxes, panthers, wolves ; otters, muskrats, and beavers; even wild turkeys and, in the "little winter" as the late fall was called, wild geese, ducks, teals, and widgeons, were abundant. Was it not indeed a hunter's paradise ? Daniel soon learned that he could earn more money as a hunter than as a farmer or blacksmith, there being a constant demand for skins in Salis- bury, a market-place some twenty miles away, which carried on a brisk trade with towns on the coast. The buying and selling of fur was so lucra- 32 DANIEL BOONE tive a business that many engaged in it. The family appreciated Daniel's ability, and little by little re- leased him from farm duties so that he was free to hunt. But Daniel was not always in the forest. A few years before the Boones had settled in North Carolina, a Scotch-Irish family named Bryan had journeyed from Pennsylvania in search of a less crowded district and had settled at the forks of the Yadkin River. They estabHshed themselves according to border fashion and were well able to welcome the Boones when they settled in the val- ley. Among the children there was a daughter Rebecca, a black-eyed, rosy-cheeked girl, with whom Daniel fell in love almost at first sight. Happy times they had together, as border young folks were by no means slow or stupid. There were weddings, housewarmings, excursions for nuts and berries, picnics, and gatherings on long winter evenings, when stories were told and songs were sung around the fire. For the boys there were sports in plenty — shooting, running, wrestling, jumping, throwing the tomahawk, and feats of strength and skill — and for all there was dancing to a fiddle. When Rebecca was but fifteen, she gave her promise to Daniel, and their troth was plighted. CHAPTER V Campaigning with Braddock For three years Daniel lived a hunter's carefree life, and all was well. Then suddenly this joyful, irresponsible existence came to an end, youth was over, and the duties and problems of manhood confronted him. A war was imminent — one phase of the long war between the French and Eng- lish for the supremacy of the continent ; and Daniel, hearing of the impending conflict, was anxious to be up and fighting. After the English had founded the thirteen colonies between the sea and the Alleghany and Appalachian mountains, they explored but little of the land west of the mountain barrier. The French, from their stronghold in Canada, made their way through the interior of the country and down the Mississippi Valley, establishing forts at the most important points of their explorations and claiming all the land from the Alleghanies to the Rockies. The English finally realized that unless they took immediate action the heart of the country would be lost to them forever. D 33 34 DANIEL BOONE Accordingly, a band of merchants and land speculators, known as the Ohio Land Company, planned a colony on the east bank of the upper Ohio River, and obtained a large grant from the king, together with the right to trafhc with the Indians in the vicinity. The French became aroused, claiming this land by right of discovery, and at once began to extend their line of forts south- ward. Certain Indian tribes, meanwhile, had accepted the friendship of the British, but other western Indians declared that neither French nor English had any rights west of the Alleghany Moun- tains. The friendship of the Indian nations was of the utmost importance, particularly to the French, as the subjects of Great Britain in America exceeded in number and power those of France. Governor Dinwiddle of Virginia decided to send a messenger to Venango, a new French fort in the disputed region, to order the French settlers there to disperse, and to v/arn the Indians to cease attack- ing the western frontier. The journey thither would be a perilous one, through at least three hundred miles of unbroken country and among hostile savages. A fearless surveyor of twenty-one, named George Washington, offered his services, but with misgiving lest his lack of a beard should go against him. The governor, however, did not ask his age, CAMPAIGNING WITH BRADDOCK 35 thanked him for "a noble youth," and commis- sioned him with the trust. With the aid of an interpreter and two servants, Washington coura- geously made his way to the French commander whose answer to the English was nothing more nor less than a challenge. The French seized and completed a fort on the Ohio, which the Ohio Com- pany had begun, and named it Fort Duquesne, and hostilities increased. In 1755, England sent over General Edward Braddock and two regiments to aid the colonists in driving out their enemy in the west, and a call for volunteers spread through the settlements. Daniel Boone enlisted early. Bidding Rebecca and his family a brave good-by, he joined the one hundred backwoodsmen of North Carolina, under command of Captain Edward B. Dobbs, son of the governor of the province, and proceeded by forced marches to join Braddock's army for service against Fort Duquesne at the forks of the Ohio, where Pittsburgh stands to-day. Daniel was just turned twenty-one and was probably the youngest man from North Carolina. The whole force for the expedition was gathered at Will's Creek, in western Maryland, at an old trading-station, situated on a slight eminence overlooking the Potomac River and re-named Fort Cumberland. All about this small 36 DANIEL BOONE clearing lay the woods, boundless and unbroken save for the tiny trail to the Ohio which Washington had blazed two years before. The army here en- camped must have been a thrilling sight for Daniel whose life for the most part had been spent with relatives or in solitude. The two English regiments had been recruited till they numbered seven hundred men each. There were also a detachment of marines ; four hundred and fifty picked marksmen from Virginia, George Washington in command; volunteers from New York, Maryland, and the Carolinas, who. General Braddock rather contemptuously said, must be drilled to make them ''as much like soldiers as possible," and a band of fifty Indians, who served as scouts and who seemed astonishing objects to the royal troops. ''In the day," wrote one English officer, "the Indians are in our camp, and in the night they go into their own, where they dance and make a most horrible noise." Altogether the forces numbered about twenty-two hundred. Imagine the scene as it looked to Daniel — the little fort set in the wilderness, its garrison of motley men, the red coats of the British soldiers, the blue uniforms of the Virginians, the Indians gay with war-paint and feathered scalp-lock, the woods resounding with drum and fife, and in the air the CAMPAIGNING WITH BRADDOCK 37 excitement of a campaign. Yet when he took his place in this strange company, it proved a very- humble one. He was separated from his North CaroHna comrades and saw them precede him in the line of march. Because he had some knowledge of blacksmithing, he was ordered to come up in the rear with the pack horses, wagons, and cannon, as a mechanic. Probably Daniel was greatly disap- pointed with so dull and menial a place, and viewed the long procession of genuine fighting men with an aching heart. Yet, as is often the way in Hfe, the undesired post proved the best and happiest all told. On June 10, 1755, three hundred axmen led the way from Fort Cumberland northward into Pennsyl- vania, felling trees and clearing a road, while the troops marched on each side through the woods, certain squads doing flanking and scout duty. The progress was slow, unnecessarily slow, according to George Washington, who served on the general's staff. The entire distance between Fort Cumber- land and Fort Duquesne was but eighty miles, yet not until July 9 did they come within range of the French fort. This month on the way proved a busy one for Daniel. When encamped at night, the line of wagons compactly drawn together was half a mile long, and the horses numbered about six hundred 38 DANIEL BOONE besides those of the artillery. The old Indian path, which the road-makers followed wherever possible, was exceedingly bad both for animals and wagons. On high ground it was often so rugged that wagons were wrecked or rendered temporarily useless; in the ravines they sunk to the axles in mire. The horses, for the most part weak and crippled animals foisted on Braddock by dishonest contractors, became weakened with only leaves as fodder, there being no grass for them, arid they were often unable to haul the wagons. For Daniel, in such a state of affairs at the end of the line of march, there was constant work and continual demand for all his knowledge as a blacksmith. The hours which he spent in mending, riveting, and shoeing for the train, and in trudging along the uneven way of the wilderness, gave him many opportunities to become acquainted with his asso- ciates and to hear their experiences in strange parts of the country. The tales of hunters and traders were by far the most interesting to him, and of all story-tellers a certain John Finley won his greatest admiration. This young Scotch-Irishman had emigrated to Pennsylvania, and as early as 1752 had become a fur-trader, pushing westward to barter with the Indians in the Ohio Valley. He had penetrated CAMPAIGNING WITH BRADDOCK 39 even farther west — into that paradise which the Indians called Kentucky and which he said they considered so precious a hunting-ground that the different tribes fought for it jealously. Beyond the Alleghanies, according to Finley, lay a land far richer in soil and game than the Yadkin region which Daniel knew and loved. Moreover, Finley was sHghtly familiar with the ways thither, one from North Carolina over an Indian trail to Cumberland Gap, and another down the Ohio by canoe to a stream named Kentucky. To the tales of such a paradise Daniel listened with wonder and delight. The old desire to pene- trate beyond civiHzation became stronger than ever as he listened to Finley, and he determined that as soon as possible he, too, would know Ken- tucky. The comrades — for Daniel Boone and John Finley became fast friends at once — even planned to go together to that delectable land, perhaps down the Ohio by canoe, after Fort Du- quesne had fallen. Thus they talked and marched, all unconscious that Daniel's desire to reach Ken- tucky, which Finley's chance words had fired, would play an important part in the nation's history. On the July morning when the army expected to reach Fort Duquesne, Washington explained 40 DANIEL BOONE the Indian mode of warfare to General Braddock, and begged to be allowed to fight the red men in their own manner. But Braddock, arrogant and ignorant of savage ways, exclaimed, *'High times! High times, in- deed, when a young buckskin can teach a British general how to fight ! " So Washington withdrew, and the troops marched on to fife and drum, in full uniform, bayonets fixed, flags flying. No scouts ranged the woods, no obstacle was feared, and the army proceeded ''as if in review in St. James's Park." Consternation fell upon the little French garrison and the Indians encamped at Fort Duquesne, when the approach of Braddock's spirited forces was announced. But the young French commandant, attired like a savage, an Indian neckplate about his neck for luck, rushed to the savages, crying, ''Come! Up and follow me!" and disappeared down the trail toward the British. Indians, Canadians, and French regulars, about eight hundred in all, sped after him, and between two and three o'clock that afternoon they hid themselves in the underbrush near the trail, as Braddock's men were seen approaching in the distance. CAMPAIGNING WITH BRADDOCK 41 All unsuspectingly the gay troops came on. Suddenly a yell arose in the woods, followed by a deadly volley of bullets from all sides, and for a time Daniel Boone's dreams of exploration vanished. The royal troops knew nothing about fighting an enemy they could not see, and huddled together in little groups, not knowing what to do. The Vir- ginians, however, accustomed to Indian warfare, at once sought cover, and might have saved the day, if General Braddock, in his ignorance, had not ordered his troops to form for a charge. Their scarlet coats were thus made an open mark for the unseen savages, and the horror of the ensuing murder and pillage was indescribable. Yet in spite of this and Washington's warning to fight in open order. General Braddock continued for three hours to command his men to arrange themselves according to approved European tactics. The hiddei\ enemy meanwhile gleefully continued to pick off his men, and General Braddock himself was mortally wounded early in the action. Just before he died in the strange wilderness, he said pathetically, ''Who would have thought it ? We shall know better how to deal with them another time." Washington buried him in the new-made road, and to save his body from discovery and scalping, 42 DANIEL BOONE he ordered the retreating wagons to drive over the grave. Late in the afternoon a retreat was ordered, and the survivors, panic-stricken, fled back toward the protection of Fort Cumberland, leaving Fort Duquesne still in the possession of the French. Among those fleeing for their lives was Daniel Boone, riding one of the wagon horses whose traces he had cut. Thus Daniel's dreams of prowess and of victory in his first campaign came to a sorry end, and, as suddenly, in the melee he lost sight of John Finley. Probably he made his way back to the Yadkin Valley with much chagrin in his heart. Such a homecoming to a devoted family and a sweetheart cast little glory upon a young man famed as a fearless scout and hunter. Yet the campaign, in spite of defeat, had not been vain for Daniel. The vision of Kentucky, as he had seen it through the eyes of John Finley, lingered — a vision to be an inspiration for years to come. CHAPTER VI A Pioneer Wedding It is never an easy matter to leave home and go out into a strange world to seek one's fortune. Such an exile as Daniel contemplated,, in a wilder- ness inhabited only by savages and wild animals and reached by uncertain routes, could not be undertaken Hghtly, and it is Httle wonder that twelve years passed after the embarrassing defeat at Fort Duquesne before Daniel turned his face toward Kentucky. It must also be confessed that his first enthusiasm for exploration had been somewhat checked by his mortifying experiences with Brad- dock's army, and that in consequence he worked with unusual interest upon his father's farm. De- spite the Indian raids to which Southern borderers were exposed after the repulse of the colonial force, the settlers in the Yadkin Valley continued to pursue their pastoral Kfe with customary dih- gence. Besides these influences, inclining Daniel to remain at home, there was his love for Rebecca Bryan, a power which bound him fast and joyfully to the Yadkin Valley. 43 44 DANIEL BOONE In the spring of 1756, following DanieFs return from the army, they were married. Squire Boone, as justice of the peace for Rowan County, per- formed the ceremony. Tradition pictures the bride and groom in glowing colors. ''Behold that young man,'^ a border historian says, "exhibiting such unusual firmness and energy of character, five feet eight inches in height, with broad chest and shoulders, his form gradually tapering downward to his extremities; his hair moderately black; blue eyes arched with yellow- ish eyebrows; his lips thin, with a mouth pecu- liarly wide ; a countenance fair and ruddy, with a nose a little bordering on the Roman order. Such was Daniel Boone, now past twenty-one, presenting altogether a noble, manly appearance. "Rebecca Bryan," quaintly continues the writer, "whose brow had now been fanned by the breezes of seventeen summers, was, like the Rebecca of old, ^very fair to look upon,' with jet-black hair and eyes, complexion rather dark, and something over the common size of her sex ; her whole demeanor expressive of her childlike artlessness, pleasing in her address, and unaffectedly kind in her deport- ment. Never was there a more gentle, affectionate, forbearing creature than this same youthful bride of the Yadkin." A PIONEER WEDDING 45 Frontier weddings were prolonged and boisterous. On the nuptial morning the bridegroom's attendants gathered early at his house in order that they might reach the bride by noon, the usual time for cele- brating the ceremony, which, according to custom, took place before dinner. The men, dressed in linsey hunting-shirts, leather breeches, leggings, and moccasins, all homemade, accompanied the young women of the wedding party. They also wore homemade clothes, linsey petticoats and linsey or linen bed-gowns, and coarse shoes and stockings. All rode on horseback, generally in double file, although the narrowness of the trails often made this difficult. Sometimes disgruntled neighbors, vexed perhaps because they were not invited to the marriage, increased the difficulties of the march by draping grapevines or felling trees across the way or by startling the horses and riders with shots from ambush. Border young people were accus- tomed to obstacles ; from infancy they were trained to expect them and to surmount them. The wedding party, having quieted the horses and calmed any of the girls who chanced to become excited, usually cleared the path and proceeded merrily. At the close of the ceremony, solemnity vanished ; the young couple was congratulated and feted; 46 DANIEL BOONE and the frolic, long anticipated in the neighborhood, was joined in by all except the bride's relatives who were busy with the cooking. No wedding without a dinner in those days ! The feast followed the ceremony as soon as it could be placed upon the table, which often was merely a large slab of rough timber set for the occasion with pewter plates and spoons, wooden trenchers and bowls, and knives and forks of bone. It was a substantial meal — beef, pork, fowl, and sometimes bear meat and venison, roasted and boiled, with potatoes, cabbage, and other vegetables. Appetites were keen and spirits merry, and all ate heartily — -all, perhaps, save the bride and groom who probably felt the serious- ness of the occasion more deeply than their hilarious guests. Soon after the substantial dinner, a musician struck up, couples laughingly took their places on the floor, the elders applauded, and dancing began. It was not the stately dancing of the colonial period as often pictured, but a far more rollicking amuse- ment. The figures were three- and four-handed reels or square sets, and jigs. Generally the dance began with a ''square four" which was followed by a jig or "jigging it off." Two of the four dancers of the square set ''singled out" for a jig, and the remaining pair followed them. When either couple A PIONEER WEDDING 47 became tired, their places were taken by others, the dance thus sweeping on and on without interrup- tion, until the fiddler longed to rest. After this vigorous fashion the dancing continued until the following day. Daniel and Rebecca began their married life in a rough log cabin on Squire Boone's farm, but soon they acquired level land of their own lying on Sugar Tree, a tributary of Dutchman's Creek, in the Bryan settlement and only a few miles north of the elder Boone's. There they built a cabin which friends and relatives probably helped to "raise," according to the usual manner of settling a young couple among pioneers. Soon after the wedding day, a party of choppers felled trees and cut them into logs of proper lengths for the sides and ends of the building. Other woodsmen searched for straight-grained trees from three to four feet in diameter which could be split for clapboards for the roof. Smaller trees were hewn and their faces smoothed for puncheons for the floor. As a rule this lumber was prepared on the first day, and sometimes by that evening the foundation was laid . On the next day the " raising ' ' took place. The neighbors gathered early in the morning and at once chose four ''corner men" whose business it was to notch and place the logs. 48 DANIEL BOONE The others handed them the timbers. Boards and puncheons were put in place for floor and roof, and generally by sunset a cabin stood in the clear- ing. A third day made it habitable. Masons daubed the chimney cracks with mortar, and car- penters made a door and a window, a table and stools, shelves for the dishes, wooden beds and wooden pegs. Then, before the young couple was allowed to move in, a housewarming was held in the new home ; this closed with an all-night dance at- tended by the relatives of the bride and groom and their neighbors. Daniel and Rebecca Boone began their married life in this wild and isolated region with only the barest necessities. Yet there was comfort in having their own cabin, however primitive it might appear, with its unhewn timbers chinked closely with moss and clay to keep out the frost, and suggesting the woodland even within the little house. There was pleasure in kindling their own fire on their own hearth, and in arranging their few possessions — the plain furniture, the dishes, the drinking mugs of gourds and hard-shelled squashes, the candle-sticks, the skins, Daniel's hunting trophies, his fowling- pieces and scalping-knives, the clothing and bedding, the scant sewing materials, the farming implements, the flitches of bacon, venison, and bear's meat. A PIONEER WEDDING 49 Rebecca entered upon her housekeeping duties with diligence and thrift, and Daniel sowed and reaped, raised cattle and swine, hunted, served as smith and weaver, and occasionally drove to the market towns of the coast as master driver of one of the caravans which frequently journeyed thither to exchange furs for such indispensable articles as salt, iron, steel, castings, cloth, and manufactured goods. In these simple, industrious ways, and with few wants, Daniel and Rebecca made a meager living during their early married years. Save for the birth of two sons, whom they named James and Israel, life passed without especial events, until the spring of 1759, when the Cherokee Indians raided the Yadkin and Catawba valleys, and made the borderers tremble for their lives. The long- continued, friendly spirit of these savages for the colonists had come to an end. General James Oglethorpe had won the good will of the Cherokees in 1733 by purchasing from them a tract of land in Georgia to which he already had a royal title, but which formed part of the Cherokee territory, then extending through the western Carolinas, Georgia, and northern Alabama. The Indians believed that their forefathers had sprung from this ground or descended from the clouds upon the hills, and held sacred the places where £ 50 DANIEL B(X)NE their venerable bones were buried. To show their appreciation, they gave General Oglethorpe a buffalo skin upon the inner side of which was painted the head and feathers of an eagle. "The feathers are soft," they said, "signifying love ; the skin is warm and is the emblem of protection; therefore love and protect our little families." They continued more or less loyal to the British for twenty years, considering the French "light as a feather, fickle as the wind, and deceitful as serpents." In 1755, the year of Daniel Boone's first cam- paign. Governor Glen of South Carolina asked per- mission to build two small forts in the Cherokee country for the purpose of counteracting French influence in the region and of holding fast to Cherokee good will and trade. The governor assured the Indians that the forts would be a retreat for them from their enemies, and in answer their chief said, "We freely surrender a part of our lands to the great king." A large tract was deeded to the English, and two forts erected, one on the Savannah River and another on the Tennessee River, and named Fort Prince George and Fort Loudon. Later a third fort was built a short distance from the South Fork of the Yadkin and called Fort Dobbs. These three places of refuge guarded the approach from A PIONEER WEDDING 51 the southwest where the French and their Indian allies were especially active. These wooden forts differed greatly from the forts of to-day. They consisted of cabins, block- houses, and stockades, the cabins commonly forming one side of the fort, and all the buildings arranged in the form of a square or oblong. Sometimes bastions were built at the angles of the forts instead of blockhouses. The timbers were sharpened at the top, the walls were furnished with loopholes at proper heights and distances, and the outside made bullet-proof. The whole inclosure was built with- out nails or iron as these were not to be had. In the side nearest a spring was a strong gate, made of thick slabs, which could be heavily barred. Such forts could not have withstood artillery fire, but they served their purpose well in Indian warfare, the savages having no heavy guns. With the erection of the three forts the Cherokees were driven still farther westward. For some years they had been feeling the pressure of the growing colonies. They resented the presence of traders and hunters in their territory, but they had become so dependent upon the supplies of civiliza- tion — paint, ammunition, guns, knives, tools, and gewgaws — that they allowed the white men to come and go unmolested. 52 DANIEL BOONE Farmers also annoyed them. Many raised live stock — cattle and sheep, hogs and horses — and turned them loose to roam and graze on the foot- hills of the Alleghanies. As the herds and crops increased with the development of the valleys, new pastures and land were needed, and little by little the settlers encroached upon the Indian hunting- grounds, driving cattle sometimes sixty or more miles from the settlement to fresher fields. The Cherokees and Catawbas were aware of this intru- sion, but they made no open protests until the year of Daniel's wedding. After the defeat of Fort Duquesne, in which they took part, mutual injuries brought about a state of hostility between the North Carolina settlers and their Cherokee neighbors. As the Cherokee warriors were passing through the extreme frontier settlements of Virginia on their return march from Braddock's campaign, they found the settlers' horses running wild in the woods, and these they appropriated to replace those they had lost on the expedition, not supposing them to belong to any individual in the province. It was customary among Indians and white men to claim wild horses. When the Cherokees appropriated the horses of the settlers, some Virginians, without waiting for legal redress, attacked and killed twelve or more of the warriors and took others prisoners. A PIONEER WEDDING 53 As soon as the Cherokees reached their villages they told of this ungrateful return for their support, and the young braves vowed vengeance, which the French emissaries were glad to foster. With bodies and faces grotesquely painted, and with feathers quivering in their scalp locks, they descended upon the settlements in the Carolinas which had hitherto been prospering, and forced their way ruthlessly along the river valleys, creating havoc and terror, and attacking so suddenly that the settlers were unable to organize to withstand the assault. The border people knew all too well the horrors of Indian warfare, and the tortures of Indian captivity. Messengers were ever ready to warn settlers of the approach of enemies on the warpath and to order them into the forts. The dwellers in the Yadkin and Catawba valleys abandoned their farms and fled precipitately either to Fort Dobbs, to a smaller neighborhood inclosure, or to some settlement on the coast. Several of the Boone and Bryan families took refuge in Virginia and Maryland, Squire Boone and his wife hasten- ing to Georgetown, now in the District of Columbia. Daniel Boone with his family and a few possessions drove in a two-horse wagon to Culpeper County, eastern Virginia, and there settled. Womanlike, Rebecca probably thought sadly of the deserted 54 DANIEL BOONE home on the bank of Sugar Tree, the home which she and Daniel had built and where her children had been born, but, although she was only twenty, she bore the flight and the new life in a manner worthy of her border heritage. Daniel again found em- ployment as a wagoner. The settlers in eastern Virginia raised tobacco, and this bulky commodity Daniel was hired to haul to Fredericksburg, the nearest market town. Hauling tobacco, however, was monotonous work for a pioneer hunter, and as he guided the creaking wagon along uneven roads, his thoughts were with his friends imprisoned in Fort Dobbs. Was it not his duty to fight with them the battles they were waging against a common foe ? This thought grew day by day, and finally he made up his mind. As soon as he could provide for the comfort of his young wife and infant sons, Daniel Boone hurried back to North Carolina and manfully took up his burden in the war. CHAPTER VII Fighting the Cherokees Boone found that during his absence Fort Dobbs had been besieged desperately by the Cherokees, but that its little garrison under Colonel Hugh Waddell, in which several Boones and Bryans had served, had successfully repulsed them. In fact, commissioners, appointed to consider the matter of fortifications and to report to the legislature of South Carolina, found "officers and soldiers appear- ing well and in good spirits" at Fort Dobbs at Christmas in 1756. Evidently Daniel's support was not needed there. Farther south matters were more serious. The Cherokees were arming anew, determined to avenge to the death the blood of their kindred. Even Atta-Kulla-Kulla, half-king of the nation, who had advocated peace to the last, appeared in war gear and with one side of his face painted red, the other black, and great white circles sketched around his eyes. In the vicinity of Fort Prince George on the Savannah River the Indians were particularly incensed, and Colonel Montgomery of the British 55 56 DANIEL BOONE army was instructed to organize an expedition to proceed against them and to the reHef of the garrison, suffering more for want of fuel, which they were unable to leave the fort to procure, than for want of provisions. In addition to Montgomery's twelve hundred regular troops — among whom were six hundred picturesque Highlanders in kilted uniform — he secured several hundred backwoodsmen of Carolina with some Indian allies, under the command of Colonel Waddell. Daniel enlisted at once with Waddell to whom his natural sagacity and knowl- edge of savages proved valuable. They marched with all haste to Fort Prince George, relieving it at once. Many Cherokee villages near the Ten- nessee and Keowee rivers were laid waste, and those Indians whom they did not kill or capture were reduced to starvation, as the white men wrought complete havoc, destroying not only the settlements but the crops and corn as well. Dead and dying Indians and blazing wigwams marked the lower country. Oconostota, known as ''Great Warrior," said that Montgomery's ''feet were winged with fire and destruction." Colonel Washington felt uncertain of the British commander's ultimate success. "What may be Montgomery's fate in the Chero- FIGHTING THE CHEROKEES 57 kee country," he wrote Richard Washington, "I cannot readily determine. It seems he has made a prosperous beginning, having penetrated into the heart of the country, and he is now advancing his troops in high spirits to the relief of Fort Loudon. But let him be wary. He has a crafty, subtle enemy to deal with, that may give him the most trouble when he least expects it." Colonel Montgomery, however, elated with his progress, and unfamiliar with Indian valor, like most British officers, expected to be able to wipe out as easily the Cherokee villages on the Little Tennessee. Across the mountains he hastened his two thousand soldiers and train of cattle and other provisions necessary for so wild a journey, aiming to complete his mission with dispatch. But the Cherokees lay in hiding, longing to wreak their vengeance at an advantageous moment. Their spies kept a stealthy watch, and when Mont- gomery's forces came, one June morning, to a rough road — on one side the land dropping precipitately to a stream below, and on the other a sheer cliff rising — the signal was given, and six hundred warriors, bloodthirsty and exultant, opened fire upon the unsuspecting troops. For a while the colonial forces were too dazed to act. The trees $8 DANIEL BOONE and underbrush seemed aflame, and the hills re- sounded awfully to the savage war cries. Then the colonel, suffering from the experiences in which Braddock had lost his life, rallied his men and fought his way valiantly to level ground. For- tunately, the Cherokees were poor marksmen, and Waddell's rearguard of backwoodsmen, of whom Daniel was doubtless one, were trained Indian fighters. On this account the disaster was less terrible than Braddock's. Montgomery was forced to beat a retreat at great sacrifice. Throwing away many stores and bags of flour in order that the horses might carry back his wounded, he saved as many men as he could. The dead he weighted heavily and sunk in the streams that their bodies might not be recovered and scalped. Under nettling fire but with regularity, he made his way to Fort Prince George and thence, disgusted with Indian warfare and deaf to all entreaties, he and some of his regu- lars retired by sea to New York. Thus Daniel Boone experienced defeat a second time. Now that the British commander had been driven from their country, the Cherokees determined that they would take possession of Fort Loudon, claim- ing that they had paid for it with their blood shed in the English service. This outpost stood in the FIGHTING THE CHEROKEES 59 very heart of their territory, one hundred and fifty miles from the nearest white settlement. The memory of their sacked villages, and their kindred who had perished in the flames, urged them on. They cut off the httle fort from communication and would have reduced the garrison to starva- tion if certain kindly squaws had not smuggled the soldiers lean stores. At length. Captain Stuart left the fort in full uniform, bearing a white flag in his hand, and treated with Chief Oconostota in Chote, ''the beloved town, city of refuge," of the Cherokee nation. There the Indians agreed that the garrison of Fort Loudon should march out unmolested to Virginia or Fort Prince George with their arms and drums, each soldier having as much powder and ball as necessary for the march and all the baggage they might choose to carry. Captain Smith prom- ised that the fort, the great guns, the powder, the bullets, and spare arms should be delivered to the Indians, without fraud or delay, on the day ap- pointed for the exodus. Great was the rejoicing when news of the terms reached the fort. The soldiers marched away, flags flying and uniforms making a gay showing in spite of defeat, the women, children, and sick soldiers riding behind on Indian ponies. Through the canebrakes and along the 6o DANIEL BOONE trail in the dark woods the little garrison took its way, singing, and to the beat of drums. But, alas ! as the next dawn was tingeing the sky, the hideous din of war whoops broke the morning stillness, and seven hundred Cherokees, painted horribly, fell upon the band and without mercy killed or tortured them. Like many calamities, this treacherous massacre bore good fruit. It moved the colonial author- ities to understand that unless they took immedi- ate steps to subdue the Indians, the Indians would wipe out the outlying settlements of the colonies. Accordingly, during the winter of 1 761 , the governors of Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina agreed to unite their forces for a decisive invasion of the Cherokee country. The assembly of South Carolina voted a thousand men and £25 for every Indian scalp; North Carolina voted a similar provision and authorized the holding of Indian captives as slaves. By June two armies were marching away toward the west. One, composed chiefly of Scottish High- landers in plaids and kilts under a Highland colonel, James Grant, overcame the Indians near the place where Montgomery had been attacked the year before ; later they ravaged villages and crops, and drove several thousand Indian men and women to FIGHTING THE CHEROKEES 6i starve in the hills. The work of devastation was successful ; the Indians themselves could not have been more thorough. With the second army, composed of backwoods- men from Virginia and North Carolina, went Daniel Boone as fearless as ever and with the experience of two campaigns, two rather ill-fated campaigns to be sure, to his credit. But Daniel saw little fighting. The five hundred backwoodsmen of his North Carolina regiment, serving again under Waddell, were delayed along the way by their commander. Colonel William Byrd, in road-making. Later, Colonel Stephen succeeded Byrd, and the force pushed on quickly to Long Island in the Hol- ston River, where they overcame four hundred Cherokees, a defeat which gave the final blow to Cherokee supremacy. The savages, at last humbled, begged for peace. The North Carolina troops went home to enjoy the praise which they had justly won, and, although few details of Boone's campaigns remain, we are glad to believe that he participated in this victory and shared in all its honors. Atta-Kulla-Kulla and other chieftains met the lieutenant governor of South Carolina in council at Ashley Ferry in 1761, where the pipe of peace was lighted and smoked in great silence and solem- 62 DANIEL BOONE nity. Then Atta-Kulla-Kulla rose and addressed the council, presenting strings of wampum from the different towns. "As to what has happened," he said, "I believe it has been ordered by our Father above. We are of a different color from the white people. They are superior to us. But one God is Father of all, and we hope what is past will be forgotten. God Almighty made all people. There is not a day but some are coming into, and others going out of, the world. The great king told me the path should never be crooked, but open for every one to pass and repass. As we all live in one land, I hope we shall all live as one people." Peace was soon officially declared, and the friend- ship, which the Cherokees had formerly promised, was renewed, all hoping that it would endure as long as "the rivers shall run, the mountains last, or the sun shine." With the submission of the Cherokees, the dreaded power of France in the New World also waned, and the end of the long French and Indian wars, of which these Southern conflicts had been a part, soon followed, leaving the country to the English. The struggle between red men and settlers had been long and inevitable. The Indians beheved FIGHTING THE CHEROKEES 63 that the Great Spirit had given them their ancestral lands and that they had every right to hold them against all invaders. To them these lands repre- sented all that was dear — their homes, their hunting-grounds, the graves of their fathers. *'It was we," said the Delawares, Mohicans, and their kindred tribes, *'who so kindly received the Europeans on their first arrival into our own country. We took them by the hand and bade them welcome to sit down by our side, and live with us as brothers ; but how did they requite our kindness? They at first asked only for a little land, on which to raise bread for their families ; and pasture for their cattle, which we freely gave them. They saw the grass in the woods, which the Great Spirit had given us for our subsistence, and they wanted it, too. They penetrated into the woods in quest of game ; they discovered spots of land they also wanted, and because we were loath to part with it, as we saw they had already more than they had need of, they took it from us by force, and drove us to a great distance from our homes." To Daniel Boone and to all borderers, the Indians seemed mere savages, treacherous, bloodthirsty, barbaric in customs, and without ambition to develop either their lands or their lives. It went without saying that the white men were superior. 64 DANIEL BOONE They felled forests, removed rocks and tree-trunks, tilled fields, bridged rivers, and made roadways. They believed in schools and churches, in law and order. The very territory, which the Indians had held for centuries without cultivation, meant opportunity and prosperity to Boone and his pioneer comrades. They coveted these lands — and they took them. Believing that the Indians must be fought with their own weapons, they battled with the red men, often according to the savages' own wild standards. Neither Indians nor settlers can be blamed ; each was fighting for a cause. The whole history of the frontier is a blood-stained story. CHAPTER VIII Exploring New Country Peace again in the valleys and among the foot- hills of Virginia and the Carohnas ! What a sigh of relief must have passed over the country when the Indians had smoked their pipe of friendship at Ashley Ferry in 1761 ! Now were the settlers free to return to their deserted cabins — if perchance they were still standing after the ravages of war — and to gather up again the threads of life which had snapped so suddenly two years before. By vehicle, and on foot and horseback, families made their way along familiar roads. Neighbors, who had lost sight of one another in the eastward flight, fell upon each other with rejoicing, and told sorry tales of want and suffering. Homes were again established, some sad for want of members whose spirits the Indians had "sent away over the great mountain pass." Fires were once more lighted on abandoned hearths ; springs and wells, overgrown with brush from long disuse, were cleared, and land turned to ripen in the sun. As soon as peace was assured, Daniel returned F 65 66 DANIEL BOONE to Virginia, stowed his little family comfortably again in the two-horse wagon, and jogged back to the Yadkin Valley. Once more Rebecca was established in the region she loved, and Daniel went about his farm work and his hunting. Squire and Sarah Boone, then well along in years, rode on horseback from Maryland, doubtless over much the same route by which they had first journeyed from Pennsylvania. Many experiences were re- counted in which Daniel was the center of interest. This happy reunion was to be saddened three years later by the death of Squire Boone, a brave man greatly respected in the border country. Yet however pleasant home may have appeared to the Boones, the spirit of the old pioneer life was changed. Those who had known, the stirring dangers and uncertainties of war were restless in the settlements. With his love for the wilderness, Boone in particular found the humdrum life of a farmer little to his liking. Idleness of life within the forts had driven certain settlers to lawlessness. Such would creep out of the great, barred gate in secret to steal household possessions or live stock left on the abandoned farms when the owners fled before the Indians. When these evil-doers returned to the open country, they continued the bad habits formed during the wars, and horse-stealing became EXPLORING NEW COUNTRY 67 prevalent. Unfortunately, all frontier people were not of strong moral character. Several bands of thieves established themselves in the hills over- hanging the Yadkin Valley, and, safe for a time within a log fort which they built, they boldly pil- laged the settlements, stealing whatever pleased them, even carrying away a young girl. This last act so aroused the borderers that, banding together under Daniel Boone, they attacked and captured the little fortress and carried off the culprits to Salisbury jail. Fighting the Cherokees in the western campaigns had shown the backwoodsmen of the South that the rich land, lying beyond their settlements, was far more accessible than they thought, and this stimu- lated their natural desire to hunt and explore. Boone, ever eager to be on the trail, and now doubly awakened to the charm of adventure, gladly as- sumed the leadership of exploring and hunting parties, whenever he did not prefer to hunt in soli- tude. As population increased, the game sought new haunts, and Daniel followed after, tramping the hills and valleys for miles around until he knew every nook and cranny, and even had become familiar with the view from peaks five and six thousand feet high. Many a time on an autumn morning, after the 68 DANIEL BOONE leaves were well bedded, and rain or light snow had fallen, Boone stepped out early to look at the weather and to sniff the wind. Should he and his neighbors set off that day for the woods? Deer were hunted during the fall and early winter, but the season for bears and fur-skinned animals lasted through the winter and well into the spring. There is an old saying that fur is good during every month having the letter R in its name. In addition to their arms, hunters took with them if possible flour, salt, Indian meal, and blankets. In a spot sheltered from the north and west winds, they built a ''half -faced" cabin. This was a rude shelter having the back made of logs, the roofing of skins, blankets, strips of wood or bark, and the front open. Before this opening the men built their camp fire, cooked their meals, and told their evening stories. When bedtime came, they crept into the shelter to beds of dry leaves or evergreen boughs, and lay down with their feet toward the fire. With this warmth they hoped to prevent or cure rheumatism to which wet moccasins made them subject. Boone's skill and calculation in hunting rarely failed. A glance at the weather, and he reckoned where he should find his game during that day. He knew that deer seek sheltered places under the lee EXPLORING NEW COUNTRY 69 of the hills in stormy weather, but that during rainy days with slight wind they keep in the open woods on the highest ground. To be sure that his game might not scent him, he ascertained the direction of the wind — perhaps by holding a moistened finger above his head — and then kept to the leeward of the animal he was trying to outwit. He seldom fired at random, but took his aim with deliberation and accuracy, as powder and lead were scarce and costly in the secluded settlements. When his little son James was seven or eight years old, Boone began to teach the lad to be a hunter. He took him on long tramps and told him hunter's secrets. Often they were absent several days at a time, hitting the trail together like old "pals." At night, however, when they were stretched in their blankets on the ground in "open" camp, with their feet toward the fire, the little boy lay in his father's arms, warm and well protected from the snow which sometimes overtook them. When a deer had been killed, James watched his father skin it and hang it high up on some tree out of the reach of wolves and bears. When the day's chase was over, he helped him shoulder the kill and carry it to camp, where they had supper and perhaps one of Boone's best stories. Then the lad placed their moccasins to dry at the fire — if Indians were 70 DANIEL BOONE feared, they were hung on the rifles, ready at any instant — and he and his father fell asleep. As the child grew older, their hunting expeditions lasted longer — for two or three months sometimes — and their companionship deepened as they suf- fered together the dangers and privations of the woods and enjoyed its spoils. When Boone was twenty-six years old, he began in earnest the business of exploring for which he was to be famed. He threaded his way westward along the Watauga River, a wild but tempting region in Tennessee, where soon after an associa- tion of settlers from North Carolina and Virginia founded a community and adopted the first con- stitution west of the Alleghany Mountains. There also Daniel proved himself a successful hunter. Upon a beech tree, standing until a few years ago on the banks of a small stream emptying into the Watauga, now known as Boone's Creek, later explorers found this inscription, cut sharply in the bark with a hunting knife : D. Boone cilled A BAR on this tree year lydo. It is fortunate that in boyish fashion he cut his name and hunting exploits upon trees and rocks, as many such legends have helped to trace his EXPLORING NEW COUNTRY 71 wanderings. From them it is evident that he was more familiar with rifles than with spelling books. A year later there crossed the mountains another hunting party in which ''came Daniel Boone from the Yadkin, in North Carolina, and traveled with them as low as the place where Abingdon now stands and there left them." Three years later, in 1764, he returned to the Tennessee country with another company of hunters in the employ of a party of land speculators. He was sent thither to reconnoiter and to report concerning the region about the Cumberland River. Big game was abundant there, and Daniel's love of the chase was fully satisfied. While looking down from a Cumberland moun- tain peak upon a herd of buffaloes grazing below, it is said that Boone exclaimed : ''I am richer than the man mentioned in Scripture, who owned the cattle on a thousand hills — I own the wild beasts of more than a thousand valleys!" In 1765, he abandoned western trails, and in September mounted his horse and rode away with seven companions through South Carolina and Georgia to Florida, then belonging to Spain. He had a notion of settHng there, and explored the country from St. Augustine to Pensacola. The journey was a dangerous one. Trails were miry, 72 DANIEL BOONE everglades and almost impenetrable swamps blocked their way, and the cabins of pioneers, where they had planned to spend their nights, were far apart. In fact, they might have starved at one time, if certain roving Seminoles had not taken pity on them. In spite of his wretched expe- riences, however, Daniel was charmed with Pensa- cola, and purchased a house and lot there for himself. But when four months later he was once again at home, telling of the trials of the trip and of the beauties of the southern country, Rebecca would not listen to Boone's plan to move. Should she allow her husband, of all men a hunter by nature, to settle in a country almost gameless save for weeping alligators? Consequently the Florida scheme was abandoned, and fortunate it seems, for Boone would never have played so important a part in American history if he had settled in the far south where land to the west was bounded by the Gulf of Mexico instead of by a wilderness to be conquered. Wherever his explorations led him, Daniel noticed that game trails always retreated from the settle- ments and always led to the west. As he pursued them, visions recurred to him — the visions which John Finley had awakened, as he mended and hammered for the ill-fated Braddock. To the EXPLORING NEW COUNTRY 73 west, according to Finley, lay Kentucky, a paradise for game. Perhaps the big game of North Carolina was wending its way there, now that its old haunts had been molested. Perhaps it was drawn, as if by magic, to that region said to be the wildest and richest in all the continent. The Indians valued it; it was the common hunting-ground of the Creeks, Cherokees, and Choctaws of the South, and the Shawnees, Delawares, and Wyandots of the North. Was not the time come at last for Boone to see Kentucky for himself ? Life in those days in North Carolina was not entirely happy, and if Kentucky soil should prove richer than his own valley, it would be well to move thither. With the increase in the number of hunters and in the area of cleared land, Boone was obliged to make long excursions in order to find game large enough to please him. Customs in North Carolina were also changing and becoming extravagant. Scotch adventurers had come to the province to make money through trade, and the well-to-do people soon appeared in clothes made of imported goods. Homemade articles found little favor, and manual labor, which pre- viously had been deemed worthy, was relegated to slaves. Consequently, those who wished to live frugally and save for "a, rainy day" were scorned. 74 DANIEL BOONE Boone hated pretension and luxury. To him they seemed effeminate, and it is no wonder that he looked forward with eagerness to that uncivilized region called Kentucky. The rascality of the land agent of whom the Boones had bought their lands, proved another thorn in the flesh. The previous owner, Earl Granville, demanded new deeds for which large fees were charged, claiming flaws in the land titles. In protest Boone had already moved three times since his return to Sugar Tree, each time going farther from the settlements, until he finally built in the foothills of the Alleghanies, where there was game in plenty and excellent ranges for his live stock. He chose his home on the Upper Yadkin near Holman's Ford, in a little horseshoe-shaped swamp and canebrake surround- ing a ridge. At length, in the autumn of 1767, his mind was made up, and he set out for Kentucky with a special friend, William Hill, and probably with Squire Boone, his brother, also. They crossed the mountains and came down into the valleys of the Hols ton and Clinch rivers, made their way to the West Fork of the Big Sandy, and thence followed the river down for a hundred miles, trying to find the Ohio River, until they came to a buffalo path which led them to a salt lick near the present site EXPLORING NEW COUNTRY 75 of Prestonburg in eastern Kentucky. There they were snow-bound and forced to camp for the winter. Little did the travelers dream that they were already in the paradise for which they searched, although game of all kinds was so abundant and came in such great numbers to the hck, that their winter's hunting proved most profitable. When spring came and the snow had melted, they attempted to travel farther westward, but briers made exploring so difficult that Daniel decided it would be impossible to reach Kentucky as they had planned, by way of the Ohio River to the Falls. So the expedition was abandoned, and the little party re-crossed the mountains and de- scended into their own valleys, happy with the success of their winter's hunt. As Boone wound his way home, was he laying plans for a future trip to Kentucky? We do not know. Perhaps he would have been satisfied with this attempt, if a peddler's wagon had not jogged into the Upper Yadkin Valley about that time, and the owner appeared at Daniel's own door to tempt Rebecca with his wares. That peddler proved to be John Finley, the light- hearted, venturesome comrade of Braddock's road, the lover of Kentucky ! CHAPTER IX Among Hostile Indians Exciting days followed in the Boone cabin on the river bluff. Finley again inspired Daniel with his old enthusiasm, and once more they pledged themselves to explore Kentucky together. Absorb- ing plans were made by the winter fireside, for Finley remained as Daniel's guest until spring, having come to the valley too late in the year for them to begin at once their march across the mountains. Boone's friends were as discontented with the changed conditions in the settlements as Daniel himself, and it was easy for him and for the jovial Finley to persuade four of them to join an expedi- tion to Kentucky, which Finley would lead, by way of Cumberland Gap, into the delectable land of forests and canebrakes, of elk, deer, and buffaloes. Finally the spring crops had been planted and the necessary outfit for the journey was ready — the deerskin garb, the arms, rifle, hunting-knife, toma- hawk, bullet-pouch, and powderhorn; the two horses, one for Boone to ride and the other to bear 76 AMONG HOSTILE INDIANS 77 the pack saddle, with its little store of provisions, a bearskin blanket, and camp-kettle strapped on behind. Boone, together with Finley and the Yad- kin settlers, who were to serve as hunters and camp keepers, bade good-by to those they loved, and turned their horses toward the great wilderness which they hoped to conquer. It was a sad day. Although Daniel loved the free life of the open, he was devotedly fond of his family and home, and this exile meant long separation and perhaps death. Life has many uncertainties, and the westward trail was perilous indeed. As he rode away, he at least found comfort in the thought that during his absence his wife and children would not want. As Rebecca was an excellent manager, he could rely on her ability to direct the small farm, which James and Israel would help to carry on. His wife would also have the aid of Daniel's brother Squire, who remained at home to harvest his own and Daniel's crops. He was to follow the trail to Kentucky later, with fresh horses and ammunition, A picturesque little cavalcade they made on that bright spring morning so long ago — six strong and fearless hunters, dressed in their quaint deerskins and riding reso- lutely away to a doubtful land. Rebecca stood with the children and waved them out of sight, in 78 DANIEL BOONE spite of tears. Like all great undertakings, this western journey demanded sacrifices of every one concerned. Many years later, Boone told the story of his conquest of the wilderness to John Filson, the first historian of Kentucky, who unfortunately wrote it down in his own formal style instead of in Daniel's simple language. *'It was on the first of May, in the year 1769," the record begins, 'Hhat I resigned my domestic happiness for a time, and left my family and peaceable habitation on the Yadkin River, in North Carolina, to wander through the wilderness of America, in quest of the country of Kentucky in company with John Finley, John Stewart, Joseph Holden, James Mooney, and William Cooley. We proceeded successfully, and after a long and fatiguing journey, through a mountainous wilder- ness, in a westward direction, on the seventh day of June following we found ourselves on Red River, where John Finley had formerly been trading with the Indians, and, from the top of an eminence, saw with pleasure the beautiful level of Kentucky. Here let me observe, that for some time we had experienced the most uncomfortable weather as a prelibation [foretaste] of our future suffering." Save for the brief reference to the weather, AMONG HOSTILE INDIANS 79 Boone said nothing of any trials which they may have experienced as they scaled the Blue Ridge and Stone and Iron mountains, nor of hardships as they came down into the valleys of the Holston and CHnch rivers in Tennessee. Perhaps they were forgotten in the more severe affiictions to follow. As they left the Clinch region, they crossed various smaller streams and lesser hills, and at length they came into Powell's Valley, lying at the foot of the Cumberland Mountains, where nestled the last white settlement of the frontier. There they found an old hunter's trail which Finley knew, and this led them through Cumberland Gap to the "Warriors' Path," a well-trodden way over which the Northern Indian war-parties came and went in eastern Kentucky. They followed it until they reached a tributary of the Kentucky River, in Estill County, now called Station Camp Creek, because there Boone built a station camp, to serve as a habitation during their exploration and hunt- ing. Daniel Boone had at last reached Kentucky ! *' At this place," he said to his quaint biographer, "we camped, and made a shelter from the in- clement season, and began to hunt and reconnoiter the country. We found everywhere abundance of wild beasts of all sorts through this vast forest. 8o DANIEL BOONE The buffaloes were more frequent than I have seen cattle in the settlements, browsing on the leaves of the cane, or cropping the herbage on those extensive plains, fearless because ignorant of the violence of man. Sometimes we saw hundreds in a drove, and the numbers about the salt springs were amazing. In this forest, the habitation of beasts of every kind natural to America, we prac- ticed hunting with great success, until the twenty- second day of December following." Even in his old age Boone did not forget the profound impression which the wonders of Kentucky had made upon him as a man of thirty-five. No government or institution fitted out these explorers, as is customary nowadays. Expenses as well as hardships they bore themselves. So it was necessary for them to begin their hunting at once, in order that they might have fresh meat for food and store up furs and skins to be sold later on. Deerskins usually brought a dollar apiece; beaver furs were worth about two dollars and a half, while otter pelts fetched from three to five dollars. The more bulky skins of bears, elks, and buffaloes were rarely carried to distant markets, but were utilized at home — elk hides for harnesses, and bear and buffalo skins for bedding. Even some AMONG HOSTILE INDIANS 8i of us to-day have been tucked under buffalo robes, when we have been sleighing. Boone and his comrades hunted in pairs, for the sake of protection as well as companionship, while two remained to guard the camp. They wandered far and near, Daniel in particular learning every hill and dale in the region, and their stores grew rapidly. They skinned their animals on the spot, and in the evenings smoked the meat, which later would be jerked, and dried or cured the skins. The bear's oil and buffalo tallow were saved to be used as cooking-fat. One December day Daniel and his brother-in-law, John Stewart, who was usually his hunting-comrade and a lively talker, set out to explore the land along the banks of the Kentucky River. The day passed pleasantly. Their rambling took them through a great forest where some trees were in blossom while others bore delicious fruit. Much game was to be seen, and altogether the country was, as Filson says, "a series of wonders and a fund of delight." Toward sunset, however, as they were climbing a slight hill, a number of Indians rushed from a thick canebrake, surrounded the two hunters, threw them on the ground, and bound their arms to their bodies. Boone and Stewart knew that Indian paths crossed Kentucky in various direc- 82 DANIEL BOONE tions, and that, if they ventured into this hunting- ground, they would be exposed to dangers. Finley had told them so, but for six months at least there had been no signs of red men. Now appeared a band of Shawnee horsemen who were on their way back to the Ohio after a hunt on Green River, and, according to the old story-teller, "the time of our sorrow was now arrived." In some ways, the Shawnees may have been superior to other Indian tribes. They at least thought themselves so. "The Master of Life, who was himself an Indian," said one of their chiefs at a convention held at Fort Wayne in 1803, "made the Shawnees before any of the human race ; and they sprang from his brain. He gave them all the knowledge he himself possessed, and placed them upon the great island, and all the other red people are descended from the Shawnees. After he had made the Shawnees, he made the French out of his breast, the Dutch out of his feet, and the 'Long Knives' ^ out of his hands. All these inferior races of men he made white and placed them be- yond the ill-smelKng lake [the Atlantic Ocean]. The Shawnees for many ages continued to be masters ^The term "Long Knives" was an Indian epithet for the English, either because they used swords, or because they used knives rather than the stone instruments of the savages. AMONG HOSTILE INDIANS 83 of the continent, using the knowledge they had received from the Great Spirit in such a manner as to be pleasing to him, and to secure their own happiness. "In a great length of time, however, they became corrupt, and the Master of Life told them that he would take away from them the knowledge which they possessed and give it to the white people, to be restored when they would deserve it. Many ages after that, they saw something white approach- ing their shores. At first they took it for a great bird, but they soon found it to be a monstrous canoe filled with the very people who had got the knowledge which belonged to the Shawnees. After these white people landed, they were not content with having the knowledge which belonged to the Shawnees, but they usurped their lands also. They pretended, indeed, to have purchased these lands, but the very goods they gave for them were more the property of the Indians than the white people, because the knowledge which enabled them to manufacture these goods actually belonged to the Shawnees. ''But these things will soon have an end. The Master of Life is about to restore to the Shawnees both their knowledge and their rights, and trample the Long Knives under his feet." 84 DANIEL BOONE Whether or not they were more able than other Indian nations, the Shawnees were a restless, fero- cious people, and, like all other tribes, held a grudge against the colonists. One of the Shawnee band spoke English, and he told the hunters that, according to their treaty ¥/ith the white men — a treaty of which Boone probably knew nothing — Kentucky was the Indians' own hunting-ground. He said that the white men had promised to keep out of it, and that, if Boone and Stewart dared to return again, *'the wasps and yellow- jackets will sting you severely." Then the savages ordered Boone and Stewart to lead them to their camp. Being unable to resist, the borderers did as they were told. As they came to the station, the Shawnees suddenly rushed for- ward and seized the others of the party. With great glee they stole all the precious store of pelts, jerked meat, and arms, except just enough for the settlers' return journey to North Carolina, and made off with them cunningly. Great was Boone's anger and distress. Finley advised them all to flee at once, but Daniel declared that he would not go home a poorer man than he had set out. Stewart alone agreed with him. They two decided to pursue the Shawnees, although the Indian band was a large one, and attempt to AMONG HOSTILE INDIANS 85 regain their stolen possessions. With great caution they hurried forward, and, after two days, overtook the Indians. They secreted themselves in the bushes until dark, and then, in spite of the crackling of twigs and the thud of hoofs, they managed to make off with four or five horses. Boone acted cleverly, but the Shawnees were not to be outwitted by any white man. They turned in pursuit, and, after a two-days' chase, caught Daniel and Stewart, made them pris- oners for the second time, and took them to the Shawnee villages on the Scioto River in the Ohio region. Daniel's knowledge of Indian characteristics, which he had been acquiring from boyhood, stood him in good stead. He did as the savages them- selves would have done — pretended indifference — and so got the best of the red men after all. "The Indians plundered us of what we had," his story goes, "and kept us in confinement seven days, treating us with common savage usage. Dur- ing this time we showed no uneasiness, which made them less suspicious of us. But in the dead of night, as we lay in a thick canebrake by a large fire, when sleep had locked up their senses, ... I touched my companion, and gently woke him. We improved this favorable opportunity, and departed, 86 DANIEL BOONE leaving them to take their rest, and speedily directed our course towards our old camp." They crept away from the firelight into the blackness of the forest night, and felt their way along through trees and canebrakes as best they could. Doubtless Boone's active mind had been planning this strategy ever since their capture, and with his calculations and wood lore they kept their bearings in the dark. All the next day they hur- ried on, not daring to stop for rest, and in safety reached their station. Had the Indians been on the warpath instead of hunting, Boone and Stewart would have found themselves more closely watched, and they probably would have been pursued and captured. If a prisoner to whom the Indians had been lenient tried to run away, he committed a mortal offense, according to savage etiquette, and had to pay the penalty. The camp still stood in its dense thicket, but it was empty. Finley, Cooley, Mooney, and Holden had disappeared. Beheving that Daniel and Stew- art had given their lives for their foolhardiness, they had turned back home. As it chanced. Squire Boone — the crops having been gathered — was coming westward at that time over the Warriors' Path with horses and ammunition, and with him came a hunter, named Alexander Neeley, whom he AMONG HOSTILE INDIANS 87 had met in the mountains. There, in the famous red men's trail, Squire heard all the news of Daniel which the little party had to offer, and, supposing with Finley and the others that his brother had perished, he turned back sorrowfully, and the six journeyed homeward together. After their successful escape from the Shawnee band on the Scioto, Boone and Stewart kept on eastward in search of their companions, and early in January overtook the sad party, well but exceed- ingly wan and ragged. It is said that Finley and the others noticed two men coming through the forest, and, unable to see whether they were white men or Indians, they seized their rifles and took to the trees for shelter and observation. The strangers gave the signs of white men, but that did not satisfy Finley, as Indians knew and often used these signs to deceive the settlers. Finally Boone cried, ''Hello, strangers! Who are you?" The others answered, ''White men, and friends." Then Daniel and Squire recognized each other, and great was the rejoicing. Soon after, as they sat about the fire, eating, — for probably Boone and Stewart v/ere desperately hungry, — Squire made Daniel happy with good news from his family. In spite of his disheartening experiences, Boone 88 DANIEL BOONE was as determined as ever not to go home empty- handed. He discussed the situation at length, and decided to return west for another season of hunt- ing. Squire Boone, Stewart, and Neeley were ready to venture with him, but the others had lost courage. They preferred civilization to the en- raged Indians of Kentucky. The good friends, Finley and Boone, said good-by with much regret, and took their separate ways through the forest. As far as is known, they never saw each other after this parting in the wilderness. The two brothers, with Stewart and Neeley, chose a new site for their camp farther from the Warriors' Path, on the northern bank of the Ken- tucky River near the mouth of the Red. Here they built a canoe, and paddled many hours along the river-bank, set traps for otters and beavers, and hunted, ate, and slept, as tired and successful hunters should. One night late in January or early February, Stewart failed to return to the camp. His disap- pearance was alarming. Search was made, but nothing more was ever known of him until Boone happened in the region five years later, and found, in the hollow trunk of a sycamore tree on Rock Castle River, the bones of a human being and a powderhorn bearing Stewart's name. Neeley was AMONG HOSTILE INDIANS 89 terrified at the vanishing of their genial friend, and, gathering together his winter's stock of furs, hastily set off for home. Daniel and Squire were left alone, the only white men in that wild and dangerous country. "Thus situated, many hundred miles from our families, in the howhng wilderness," writes Filson, **I believe few would have equally enjoyed the happiness we experienced. I often observed to my brother, ^ You see now how little nature requires to be satisfied. Felicity, the companion of content, is rather found in our own breasts than in the en- joyment of external things. I firmly believe it requires but a little philosophy to make a man happy in whatsoever state he is ! ' " They built a little house for winter, and con- tinued to hunt every day. Not an Indian was seen. When spring came, their ammunition was almost exhausted. Hunters must have powder and lead, and it appeared necessary for one of the brothers to return to the settlement for supplies. They also wanted to sell their stores in order to pay the large debts which they had contracted for the expenses of their undertaking. It was agreed that time and money would be saved, and experience gained, if one remained to keep the camp, arms, and traps in order, while the other returned to transact go DANIEL BOONE the business at home. Daniel decided to be the one to stay in Kentucky. He wanted to explore still farther, for by this time he had determined to move his family thither, foreseeing that, before many years, Kentucky would be settled, and that, if he desired to be a leader, he must build his home there soon. On May first, 1770, just one year after Daniel had left the Yadkin Valley, Squire Boone loaded his horses with many furs and much jerked meat, bade Daniel a resolute good-by, and turned down the Warriors' Path. A strange May Day for the brothers — one setting out alone to travel four hundred miles through the wilderness, the other left alone in the wilderness to wait! CHAPTER X Alone in the Wilderness The young leaves rustled in the spring air, and here and there a dead twig cracked and fell to the ground. Save for these sounds of nature and an occasional wild call, the woods were still. Squire was gone, and only fresh hoof-tracks marked his de- parture along the trail. Daniel stood and listened. He was alone, "without bread, salt, or sugar, with- out company of my fellow-creatures, or even a horse or dog." And wilderness in every direction. Many years later, as he recalled this lonely mo- ment and the lonely days which followed, he admitted that for a time he was very melancholy. Thoughts of his home and his wife's anxiety at his plight made him uneasy, and he was obliged to exercise much philosophy in order to keep up his courage. This unhappiness, however, soon passed, and he found constant delight in his explorations. As he said, "No populous city, with all the varieties of commerce and stately structures, could afford so much pleasure to my mind, as the beauties of nature which I found here." 91 92 DANIEL BOONE He tramped day after day, hunting only now and then, when food was necessary, in order to make his ammunition last until Squire's return. He was ever on the lookout for a species of nettle which filled the woods at that time. When it was once crushed by a foot, it retained the footprint almost like snow. Even a turkey's track could be traced in it. Boone could thus tell the movements of the Indians, who, having no one to fear, paid little heed to the telltale plant. But Daniel himself stepped carefully. One tour through the country pleased him greatly. He made his way almost across the land now in- cluded in the state, and from the summit of a high ridge discovered the Ohio River, a beautiful, flowing boundary to the west. Below him lay ample plains, and in the distance rose cloud- capped mountains. He kindled a fire near a spring of sweet water, and roasted the loin of a buck which he had killed a few hours earlier, and, when night came down, he fashioned a bed and fell asleep. Such uninterrupted excursions made him per- fectly familiar with Kentucky. He found the climate temperate and healthful, the well-timbered surface broken with hills and pretty plains, the soil dark and rich. The trees were large and of many kinds — the honey locust, bearing its fruit in long ALONE IN THE WILDERNESS 93 pods; the coffee tree, somewhat resembling the black oak ; the papaw tree, the cucumber tree, the buckeye, the mulberry, as well as the more common trees which grew elsewhere. Cane was plenty, and grew from three to twelve feet high. When there was no cane, wild rye, buffalo-grass, and clover abounded, with pepper-grass and wild lettuce here and there. Many flowers brightened the plains and valleys, among them the brilliant cardinal flower. In the various rivers watering Kentucky there were buffalo-fish and catfish, trout, mullet, perch, lively eels, sunfish, and suckers. Frequently Boone came upon turkeys, quail, and grouse; and now and then he saw the white feathers of an ivory-billed woodcock flash through the woods, or heard the strange call of a great owl, sounding like a human being in distress. We know that he found animals enough to please even his extravagant desires — buffaloes by hundreds at the salt licks or in the grass or canebrakes; panthers and wild cats; wolves, prowling at night ; bears, deer, and elk ; the water creatures, beavers, otters, minks, and muskrats; the common foxes, rabbits, squirrels, raccoons, ground-hogs, polecats, and opossums ; and on rare occasions a frog or reptile, for Kentucky had few swamps. 94 DANIEL BOONE At intervals he returned to his old camp which remained undisturbed, although Daniel felt that Indians often visited it. To escape any chance onslaught from them at night, he usually slept in the canebrakes. There he appears to have had no more fear than in the camp, although his rest was sometimes broken by the howling of wolves. Most of his time he spent near the Licking and Kentucky rivers and along the Ohio, going as far down as the Falls and the present site of Louisville, where he found an old fur-trading station of which Finley had told him. Many strange and curious things interested him as well as the beautiful scen- ery — the salt springs and the licks in particular, Big Lick, Blue Licks, and Big Bone Lick. Buffaloes came to these places in such numbers to lick the salty soil that they had worn roads through the woods in various directions, and had trampled and eaten bare the land near the springs. At Knob Licks, it is said that hunters once saw ^'over a thousand buffaloes, elk, bears, and deer, with many wild turkeys scattered among them, all quite restless, some playing, and others busily employed in licking the earth. At length they took flight and bounded away, all in one direction,so that in the brief space of a couple of minutes not an animal was to be seen." ALONE IN THE WILDERNESS 95 There were no permanent Indian settlements in Kentucky. Various tribes claimed it and fought with each other for it, but it was left open as a common hunting-ground. Daniel caught glimpses of many red men, usually Chickasaws, Cherokees, and Shawnees, as he lurked in hiding. His joy in outwitting them was great. Once, when he was creeping along the banks of the Kentucky River, he espied an Indian fishing from a fallen tree- trunk. Fearing that the savage might report his presence, Boone shot him, or so we suppose, for, as Daniel significantly told his family later, ''While I was looking at the fellow, he tumbled into the river, and I saw him no more !" When Boone was once wandering along Dick's River, he was quite unexpectedly surrounded by Indians. The river offered him the only means of escape, yet the bank descended abruptly sixty feet to the water below. Rather than surrender, he leaped the sixty feet, landed in the top of a maple tree, sped along the overhanging bank, plunged into the river, and swam in safety to the other side. A band of forty expert hunters from the New River and Holston valleys, known as the ''Long Hunters" (because of their long absence from home) were among those who fared westward about this time, and they told an amusing story of Daniel. 96 DANIEL BOONE When going into camp one night, they said, they heard a strange noise in the forest. The leader ordered all to be silent, and he himself crept along as stealthily as possible, under cover of the trees, toward the sound. He was much astonished to come upon *'a man, bare-headed, stretched flat upon his back on a deerskin spread on the ground, singing merrily at the top of his voice." It was Daniel Boone ! Thus, in spite of dangers, did he amuse himself now and then during Squire's absence. On the 27th of July, Squire returned, riding one horse and leading another heavily laden with the necessary supplies. According to agreement, they met at their old camp, where Squire was indeed thankful to find Daniel alive and well. He brought him good news and affectionate messages from the family, which must have seemed very precious to the lone hunter, and told him of the neat sum which their furs had brought at market. Altogether, life seemed auspicious on that July day. They began their hunting at once, and, un- molested, their stores grew apace. In October, Squire again returned to the Yadkin Valley on business, and Daniel spent two solitary months in the wilderness. By the New Year, Squire was back again, and together they joined the ''Long ALONE IN THE WILDERNESS 97 Hunters" for a season. They moved their camp from the Kentucky River to the Cumberland, and explored the region between the Cumberland and Green rivers. Here the band amused themselves by naming rivers and hills for members of the party, as any one will readily infer if he examines the present map of Kentucky. The uneventful winter was pleasant and profitable. When March came, they decided to go home. Daniel's happiness was great. He had been away from the settlements two years, "during which time he had tasted neither bread nor salt, nor had he seen any other human being than his traveling companions and Indians." They had a store of fine furs, which would settle their debts, and with clear consciences they could bring their families later to Kentucky. The "air castles" they built were exceedingly primitive, but to these backwoods- men they represented happiness and a life more free and prosperous. The "Long Hunters" were sorry to part with their comrades, especially with Daniel, who, although silent by nature, was always a wise and sympathetic friend. The brothers swung into their saddles, turned down the Warriors' Path, and wound their way again through Cumber- land Gap into Powell's Valley. There, alas, their dreams vanished ! Certain 98 DANIEL BOONE northern Indians on the warpath, who had been raiding Cherokee and Catawba villages as well as white settlements, fell upon them and robbed them of everything, leaving them absolutely destitute. Daniel's experience and precious knowledge of Kentucky, however, could not be stolen. After this harsh and unexpected treatment, they went on empty-handed toward home. There was nothing else to do. Forlorn and poor, and hating Indians more bit- terly than ever, Daniel came rather dejectedly into the Yadkin Valley, but he was a hero nevertheless — a hero to his wife and small sons and daughters, as weU as to his many friends whose future in a large measure depended on his knowledge of the land beyond the mountains. ^'I returned," as he himself said later, "with a determination to bring them as soon as possible, even at the risk of my life and fortune, to live in Kentucky, which I esteemed a second paradise." CHAPTER XI The Hero of the Southwest News of Boone's return and misfortune spread from cabin to cabin like a flame in the grass. As soon as they could spare a moment, friends came to hear the sorry details and to sympathize. But Daniel's interest in his new-found paradise was so much greater than his depression, that they spent long hours listening to his wonderful stories. It was a beautiful land of promise, he told them, and he knew, for he had seen it in all winds and weathers — when the sun was warm and high, when the rivers rushed and roared after the spring and autumn rains, when the occasional snowstorm came and dropped a thin, white mantle over the wilderness. To the delight of the farmers, he described Kentucky's soil as being so fertile that almost anywhere they might have a good garden or meadow without dressing and without water, as showers were frequent. He was sure that in some places the land would be too rich for wheat until after it had been cultivated for a few years, but he believed that turnips and potatoes would 99 lOO DANIEL BOONE grow in abundance, and small grain flourish in the poorer land. The hunters delighted in his tales of game — of deer and elk and great herds of buf- faloes, each one weighing from five hundred to a thousand pounds. They meant good beef, and their hides, good leather. Was there any wonder that he determined to return as soon as possible to such a favored country ? He inspired great enthusiasm in his hearers, and many wished to go with him. Both Daniel and his neighbors probably knew of the proclamation which the king had sent out in 1763, after the defeat of the French, forbidding his ''loving subjects" to settle west of the mountains. Very likely the king was selfish, wanting to keep the wilderness fur- trade for London merchants, or fearing that he might lose control of the settlers if they moved farther from the coast. Perhaps he desired to assure peace to the borderers by promising the Indians all rights for a time to western lands. The colonists, however, paid little heed to him; they needed the West and they intended to have it. Various explorers, beginning with early French- men and fur-traders, had casually revealed the riches of this uncultivated country, so that Daniel Boone was not the first to make western settlement appear desirable. Even he had been piloted into THE HERO OF THE SOUTHWEST loi Kentucky by his genial friend John Finley, but Boone was the first to have an extensive knowledge of the land beyond the frontiers. He alone was an authority. Daniel told his friends that he planned to return to Kentucky as soon as he could arrange his affairs. Yet again he was delayed, and two years and a half slipped by before he could leave the Yadkin Valley. Being a poor man, it was necessary for him to sell his farm and surplus possessions in order that he might have the money they would bring for the equipment for his journey. At that time it was particularly difiicult to dispose of property. The population along the Atlantic coast had been increasing so rapidly that settlements, even on former borders, were becoming crowded, and game was fast disappearing. Real estate was undesirable and consequently cheap. The settlers were also discontented with the illegal and excessive demands of tax-collectors. When the power of France in the West was broken, and the wilderness was no longer feared, borderers were glad to leave their old homes in this region for a freer life along the western streams — Watauga, Clinch, Powell, French, Broad, Holston, and NoHchucky, all flowing into the Tennessee ; the Monongahela, and other tributaries of the Ohio. So Daniel had I02 DANIEL BOONE difficulty in finding some one who wanted to buy his property in North Carolina. But eventually he sold it, and, as it had been cultivated for a num- ber of years, it should have brought a good sum for those times. During the two years and a half of waiting, he farmed and hunted, moved his family to live for a time in the Watauga Valley, and traveled at least twice to Kentucky. On the second trip he probably selected the site for his new home. The spring and summer of 1773 were spent in preparation, and at length in September everything for the all-important move was ready. Various relatives from the Bryan settlement and neighbors of the Yadkin Valley had decided to cast in their lot with Boone. The Yadkin settlers had sold their farms, and, like Daniel, were homeless, their shelter for weeks to be the open air by day, and skins, cloth, or bedding hung between upright poles, by night. The Bryan band numbered forty men who planned to precede their families and so have cabins ready for them in the wilderness. Rebecca Boone and the children, and the other Yadkin families, how- ever, were to go at once. Border women were as courageous as their pioneer husbands, and honor should be paid them equally. They feared nothing, and were ready for the hardships of such a journey. They would have to travel on foot or horseback over THE HERO OF THE SOUTHWEST 103 narrow, precipitous trails, and sleep in the open in all weathers, perhaps sometimes hungry, if game was scarce. Yet without doubt hope shone in Rebecca Boone's black eyes as she mounted her horse and took in her arms the Boone baby, John, born that year and probably the youngest pioneer to set off for the wilderness. If the other Yadkin families were as large as Daniel's, the caravan must have made an imposing appearance, even before the Bryans joined them in Powell's Valley. James Boone was then a fine, sturdy youth of sixteen ;^ Israel was fourteen. The six other children were younger — Susannah, thir- teen; Jemima, eleven; Lavinia, seven; Rebecca, ^vq; Daniel Morgan, four ; and baby John. Pack- horses carried their provisions, clothing, and other necessities, while a few young cattle and swine, and a number of cows to give milk for the children, were to be driven along as a nucleus for Boone's herd in the wilderness. Mingled feelings moved the friends left behind on September 25, as the band of pilgrims passed out of the valley toward their uncertain future. Good neighbors were gone forever, and the region would be poorer for want of Daniel and Rebecca Boone. Yet who w^ould desire to keep them from a life more ^ Authority, Draper manuscript and R. G. Thwaites. 104 DANIEL BOONE prosperous ? Young and old wished them well and watched the train disappear, even to the whisk of the last horse's tail, at a bend in the road. Probably little work was done that day in the valley. Daniel planned to follow his old trail from North Carolina to Kentucky, crossing three ranges of mountains and passing out into the promised land by way of Cumberland Gap. This route lay through Powell's Valley, where they went into camp to await five more families and the forty men from the Bryan settlement who were to join them. As they all were to be well armed, this reinforcement gave Boone added confidence. The days passed quietly with hunting and the necessary camp- keeping, and every night the cattle were made secure in a meadow, the horses hobbled and belled, and the family slept comfortably in their woodland beds. While Boone was waiting in camp for the other settlers, he asked his son James to ride across the country with two men and pack-horses to announce their arrival to a settler, William Russell, on Clinch River, and to purchase there flour and farming tools. As Russell's place was not far distant, Daniel believed that the business could be accom- plished in a single day. James set off, and bought the supplies as his father had directed. As he was THE HERO OF THE SOUTHWEST 105 returning with Russell's son Henry, a lad of seven- teen, two of Russell's negro slaves, and two or three white workers, he lost the trail when only three miles from Boone's camp, and remained there for the night. The camp fire attracted a band of Shawnees who were homeward bound after an attack upon their enemies, the Cherokees, on the Little Tennessee River, and, in spite of promises and treaties, they stealthily surrounded the sleepers to await the dawn. When daylight broke, they fell upon them with tomahawk and rifle, and bore away their scalps. The attack was so sudden that resist- ance was impossible. Only two of the seven, a Clinch River settler and a negro slave, escaped. The others — James Boone among them — were left dead. The two fleeing survivors staggered into Boone's camp, and there told Daniel and Rebecca of the murder of their firstborn. The sorrow and despair of that chill October morning can hardly be ex- pressed in words. The great-hearted border women tried to console the grieving mother, and a handful of men went forward quietly to the scene of the massacre with Boone, who himself was stern and silent as never before. In his last camp lay the youthful James, and Daniel with all tenderness stooped and lifted the io6 DANIEL BOONE form of his boy, once so attractive and now so mangled. The ground was opened, and after a few words of prayer, the bodies of James and his comrades were intrusted to the forest. Boone would surely have been touched if he could have known, as he turned away from those rude graves, that one hundred and fifty years later loyal Amer- icans would place a tablet there,^ reading : Near this spot James Boone aged 1 8 yrs.^ Eldest son of Daniel Boone was killed by Indians October lo, 1773 Erected by the Virginia D. A. R. In silence the little train turned back toward the camp, brooding on the calamity and crime. Boone, for one, was in a merciless mood and vowed that these savages, forever menacing white men, should be taught their lesson. Meanwhile, the forty settlers from Powell's Valley and the Valley of Virginia had arrived in * Between Ewing and Wheeler's Station in Lee County, Virginia. 2 Authority, John Filson. THE HERO OF THE SOUTHWEST 107 good spirits, only to have their ardor at once dampened by the terrible news. The situation was discussed at length. Boone, always invincible, was ready to go forward at once, but the others believed that this onslaught was merely the begin- ning of a general Indian uprising. To proceed thus into the very jaws of death would be foolhardy. They advised waiting until spring, when, if there were no more Indian "signs," the journey might be again undertaken. Boone argued and urged, for, having spent his all for this one venture, he longed to proceed. But the others were not to be moved, and, as time proved, their opinion was wiser than Boone's. They packed up and retraced their way forty miles to the settlement on Clinch River. Boone and his family, no longer having a home on the Yadkin, would not return to the old valley, but went to live in a deserted cabin on the farm belonging to Cap- tain David Gass, situated seven or eight miles from Russell's on the Clinch. News of their misfortune spread through the region until, as a letter of the time reads, "the murder of Russell's, Boone's and Drake's sons is in every one's mouth." The following winter was sad and hard. Daniel could rely only on his cattle and chance game for his family's support, and by June he was thankful io8 DANIEL BOONE enough to be able to accept a sudden commission with promise of good pay from Governor Dunmore of Virginia. Intelligence and prosperity had been growing among England's colonists living between the Atlantic coast and the Alleghanies, and also a de- termination to have either the rights, which the king had promised them by charter, or their inde- pendence. Hostilities, which culminated in the Revolution and made them free, had already begun. While this warfare was developing, their savage enemies to the west felt their growing power and their desire for the rich Mississippi Valley, and once more Indian hatred flamed along their fron- tiers. When thirteen relatives of the Mingo chief- tain, Logan, long a friend to white men, were wantonly murdered by a band of lawless borderers, the ire of the Indians broke into open war. The Mingos hastened runners to bear the war-pipe in every direction ; defiant messages were sent to the frontiersmen ; and in a few days the war, known as Lord Dunmore's War, was raging on the borders — the last American war in which American soldiers fought under the flag of England. Some months later Logan, with thirteen scalps in his hand, said, *'Now I am satisfied for the loss of my relations and will sit still." THE HERO OF THE SOUTHWEST 109 Troops were mustered at once, and Lord 'Dun- more, remembering a party of surveyors under Captain John Floyd, at work somewhere near the Falls of the Ohio, who would now be in great danger, ordered messengers to go to the wilderness and bring them back. Colonel William Preston, comman- dant of the Southwest militia, asked Captain Wil- liam Russell, then the principal man in the Clinch Valley, to employ "two faithful woodsmen" for the purpose. The task would be by no means easy. It would require unusual courage and endurance and a knowledge of the country, as the whereabouts of the surveyors was unknown. He chose Daniel Boone and Michael Stoner. Boone alone of all the colonists knew Kentucky. Late in June, 1774, Boone and Stoner left the Clinch Valley and made all haste toward Cumber- land Gap. Within ten days they were in the very heart of Kentucky where Harrodsburg stands to-day. There, to his great disappointment, Boone found James Harrod and thirty-four pioneers laying off a town. With a sudden tugging at his heart, he realized that now the settlement which he planned could not be the first in Kentucky. The Shawnee attack of the year before had not only cost him his son but this cherished plan as well. Boone accepted his disappointment, and even registered no DANIEL BOONE as a settler, hastily putting up a small cabin for the future. Harrod was grateful for the timely warn- ing, and he and his party made their way home safely. They later returned to make their settle- ment permanent, just a month before Boone founded his own historic colony. Boone and S toner continued their mission to the Falls of the Ohio, the present site of Louisville, and there they searched out Captain Floyd's band of surveyors and other parties, and told them of the peril. A brief rest and a little hunting, and then the messengers hurried back to the Clinch. Just two months from the time of their departure Boone was again with his family, having traveled eight hundred miles through the unbroken forest, en- countered numberless difficulties and dangers, and accomplished his work. All but two of the sur- veyors had been saved. During his absence, Lord Dunmore had ordered out nearly three thousand backwoodsmen against the Shawnees from beyond the Ohio. In those days, almost every man was obliged to be a soldier. Even farming was often carried on under arms, a sentinel keeping guard over the stacked rifles of the workers in the field. At a word from the watch- man, they all could rush to their guns and be ready for combat at a moment's notice. Many of Boone's THE HERO OF THE SOUTHWEST iii friends of the Clinch region had left for the cam- paign, Captain Russell among them, and Boone at once set off with a few recruits, whom he had been asked to raise, to overtake them and to help to bring an end to Indian outrages. Captain John Floyd wrote Colonel Preston, on August 28 of that year, as follows : "You will hear of Mr. Boone's return, & desire of going out. ... 1 may let Boone join me and try. Captain Bledsoe says Boone has more interest [influence] than any man now disengaged ; & you know what Boone has done for me by your kind instructions, for which reason 1 love the man." The departure of so many borderers, however, had left the frontiers of the Southwest with little protection, and Boone was ordered to return, as his service was needed in the valley of the CKnch. The settlers were huddled together in their little forts, garrisoned by men not serving in the militia and by boys, who in those days were taught to be fort soldiers, with a porthole assigned to each in time of attack. The region appeared deserted save for fields of grain and the live stock running loose on the ranges. Whenever there came a lull in hostilities, the settlers stole from their strongholds to give what care they could to their abandoned farms. But during their absence, wolves and bears 112 DANIEL BOONE often devoured their sheep and hogs, and squirrels and raccoons ate their corn. Thus many famiHes, who had worked hard during spring and summer to make their farms successful, suddenly found their labor all for naught. Boone was made lieutenant, and assigned Moore's Fort with twenty men, which command he assumed immediately. He kept his little garrison constantly on the move, hastening at once to the relief of any neighborhood stronghold which was attacked and in distress. Records say that he was by far the most active commander in the valley. He and his men traced marauding Indians and shot them, made frequent sallies among the savages, and did their best to hold the Southwest frontier. At one time he secured a war-club which he believed the Cherokees had left, and sent it to Major Campbell. A war-club found beside a murdered person was one of the Indian ^* signs" of hostility. The red men also used the war-club in voting for the life or death of a captive. Those who wished to kill him, struck the club on the council-house floor, while those who desired to let the man live, passed on the club in silence. Late in September, Major Campbell wrote Colonel Preston, *'Mr. Boone is very diligent at Castle- Woods and keeps up good Orders." All this activity made him a familiar figure in the THE HERO OF THE SOUTHWEST 113 valley "as he went about fulfilling his military duties, *' dressed in deerskin colored black, and his hair plaited and clubbed up." His devotion and tireless efforts endeared him to the settlers, and Major Campbell said, ^'I am well informed he is a very popular Officer where he is known." Gladly and simply he gave his service, and thought little of material rewards; but the borderers felt that he should have the recompense which he so well deserved. At the wish of his many friends, Boone was appointed captain of the three lower forts, and accepted the honor modestly, no doubt greatly pleased by the confidence of his fellow-settlers. Already his exploits were the talk of the towns on the coast as well as on the borders, and this compli- ment and his continued successes increased his fame until no frontiersman was as well known throughout the country as Daniel Boone. While he was holding the Indians at bay in the Southwest, his compatriots of the border and the Army of Virginia were fighting the Ohio Indians led by Logan, the Mingo chief, and the famous Shawnee giant, Cornstalk. Their fighting cul- minated in the battle of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, on the loth of October. Cornstalk, with a thousand picked warriors, fell upon the eleven 114 DANIEL BOONE hundred men of the Southwest, and, after one of the bloodiest battles in our history, suffered over- whelming defeat. With this victory for the colo- nists, the Shawnees and the Cherokees were humbled, and, save for a few alarms which Boone dispelled, Lord Dunmore's War was ended. On November 20, 1774, the hero of Clinch Valley received an honorable discharge after three months of warfare with the Indians by day and night. He had suffered privations and hardship in forts and forests, and many a time his life had hung in the balance. To those who may have hailed him with words of praise as he rode home, he probably nodded humbly, glad of any worthy achievement, yet feeling that risk and sacrifice were merely part of his duty. The Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons were celebrated with a truly grateful spirit in the cabin on the Clinch. And then Captain Daniel Boone went hunting ! CHAPTER XII Making the Wilderness Road A PHILOSOPHER once said, "If a man can write a better book or make a better mousetrap than his neighbor, although he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten track to his door." This was true of Daniel Boone. However much he might prefer solitude and the woods to society, his ability and knowledge of Kentucky were bound to be needed and sought. Colonel Richard Henderson was the most important man to search out Boone. He was an enterprising North Carolina lawyer of thirty-nine, who for some time had been turning over in his mind Boone's reports of the forest land beyond the mountains. He had been deprived of his judgeship by the political dissensions of the day, and had suffered money losses ; to him the West seemed to offer a fortune to any one bold enough to seize upon it. Relying entirely on Boone's information, he de- cided to establish a colony in Kentucky of which he should be the proprietor, as Penn had been in ii6 DANIEL BOONE Pennsylvania, and the sole one to sell titles to settlers. Nine citizens of North Carolina were found willing to risk money in the venture, and associated themselves with Henderson. Great secrecy was maintained, as they laid their plans, and, although the settlers surmised that Daniel Boone had something ''up his sleeve," nothing definite was known for weeks. He was seen to go freely back and forth between ''Snoddy's on the Clinch," the stockaded house of his friend John Snoddy, where he was staying, and the game lands of the Cherokees ; and at times two strangers were noticed with him. It was rumored that they were holding powwows with the red men. Then a train of ten wagons, filled with clothing, gay cloth, gaudy ornaments, arms, and the utensils of civilization, wound its way into the Watauga Valley, and six Indian chiefs came out of the forest and looked over the things. What did it all mean? On Christmas Day, 1774, the secret was pub- lished. "Richard Henderson for himself and Com- pany" advertised for ''settlers for Kentucky lands about to be purchased." The Transylvania Com- pany had been formed, it appeared, and they purposed founding a western commonwealth as soon as they could buy territory from the Cherokees, MAKING THE WILDERNESS ROAD 117 the tribe holding the way between Virginia and the Carohnas and Kentucky. Their adviser and guide in these matters was Daniel Boone. He had been asked to negotiate with the Indians, to define the boundaries of the purchase, and to assemble the red men at a gathering in the Watauga Valley in the spring, where the transaction should be made and treaties signed. Indian runners were already hastening with the news among their settlements, at the command of their chief, Oconostota. These matters, however, were insignificant pre- liminaries for Boone. His great work was yet to be done. He was the one chosen to cut a road for this company through the wilderness. He was the one asked to select a site for the new community in Kentucky. The news was received with intense interest. Some settlers, however, condemned the project, asking if "Dick Henderson had lost his head." They all beHeved that the victory of Point Pleasant and the ensuing treaties had quieted the Indians for a time, and that the moment might be auspicious for Boone to carry out his long-cherished plan. The Royal Governors of Virginia and North Carolina knew that such a settlement in the West would be contrary to the wishes of the Crown, proclaimed in 1763. Governor Dunmore called ii8 DANIEL BOONE Henderson's association an ''infamous Company of Land Pyrates" ; and Governor Martin of North Carolina denounced the scheme as ''a lawless undertaking," and threatened the Transylvania Company "with the pain of His Majesty's dis- pleasure and the most rigorous penalties of the law." Boone and his associates, nevertheless, continued their plans. Once in the West, they knew that they would be too far away for England's officials to trouble them. Boone chose his road-makers, ''thirty guns" in all, each an enterprising backwoodsman and trained Indian fighter. They gladly accepted the work, as the terms for settlement in Kentucky, offered by the Transylvania Company, were generous. Squire Boone, Michael Stoner, and Boone's friends, Richard Calloway and David Gass, were among the pioneers. While they were gathering at Long Island, a picturesque spot in the Holston River, preparations were being made at Sycamore Shoals on the Watauga River for the reception of the Indians. There in the fertile valley, between the river and the foothills, twelve hundred Cherokees, who had been assembled by Boone, pitched their tents and wigwams, and made ready for the great council at which they expected to sell the territory which they claimed as ancestral hunting-ground. MAKING THE WILDERNESS ROAD 119 Early in March the conference was opened with elaborate ceremony . Colonel Henderson and D aniel Boone, Nathaniel Hart, and John Luttrell repre- sented the Transylvania Company ; the spokesmen for the Indians were the lean and withered chiefs, Oconostota and Atta-Kulla-Kulla, and the warriors, Savanooko and Dragging Canoe. After days of discussion and oration, "the Great Grant" was signed. An immense tract, comprising more than half the present state of Kentucky and including a path thither from the east through Powell's Valley, was deeded to Henderson and his associates, for which they gave the Cherokees a small amount of British money and $50,000 worth of merchandise. The goods filled a large cabin and made a pleasing appearance. When they were divided, there was some grumbling. One red man, who received only a shirt as his share, said that it was foolishness to sell a hunting-ground which would bring him more money in a single day than the value of such a garment. On the whole, though, the transaction appears to have been carried on in good faith, and certainly the great feast, to which the Company treated the Indians at its close, was a gala affair, bound to put all the savages present in a good humor. I20 DANIEL BOONE The chiefs could not promise Boone a safe journey for his pioneers. They said: ^'A black cloud hangs over this land [meaning the enmity of the Northern tribes for white men who desired to own Ken- tucky]. Warpaths cross it from north to south, and settlers will surely get killed. For such results, the Cherokees must not be held responsible." One chieftain said, '' It is a fine land we sell to you, but I fear you will find it hard to hold." Nevertheless, Boone left Sycamore Shoals as soon as Henderson could spare his spokesman, and went directly to Long Island, where the roadmen were waiting. On March lo, 1775, the band was ready. The men, all mounted, were equipped with hatchets and axes, and armed for hunting rather than for fighting, as little trouble with Indians was antici- pated. Boone's daughter Susannah (Mrs. William Hays) accompanied her husband, the only woman of the party, save one colored woman. Pack horses and hunting-dogs made up the train. Felix Walker, a youth of the number, recorded the experiences of this historic band in a brief auto- biography. Of their departure, he wrote : "We then, by general consent, put ourselves under the management and control of Colonel Boone, who was to be our pilot and conductor MAKING THE WILDERNESS ROAD 121 through the wilderness, to the promised land. Per- haps no adventurers since the days of Don Quixote, or before, ever felt so cheerful and elated in pros- pect. Every heart abounded with joy and excite- ment in anticipating the new things we could see, and the romantic scenes through which we must pass. . . . Under the influence of these impres- sions we went on our way rejoicing, with transport- ing views of our success, taking our leave of the civilized world for a season," Boone's own emotions, as he swung into his saddle and took his place at the head of the band, must have run high. At last he was bound for the land of his heart's desire. The outlook for success was bright and the compensation for his services was good. The work, for which he had been uncon- sciously training all the forty years of his active life, was now at hand. Opportunity and power had come. Grateful and confident he led away — and the Wilderness Road was begun ! Yet even Boone, in his brightest dreams and visions of the West, could not picture the importance of his undertaking. Boone planned to chop his way through the forests and canebrakes, to cut out the underbrush as he went along so that it might not overgrow the trail during the summer, and to blaze the distances 122 DANIEL BOONE on mile- trees. Thus he would make the first regular and continuous road through the wilder- ness to the Kentucky River. He and his men pro- ceeded northward at once for Cumberland Gap, marking their track with hatchets. Having crossed the Clinch and Powell's rivers, they came down from the hills into that wild and beautiful defile of the Cumberland Mountains now so famous. By this time the Gap was famihar ground to Boone. When they had rested and enjoyed the scene, they passed on to Rockcastle River where they en- camped, the journey thus far having been unevent- ful save for the appearance of a fine bear which made them an excellent supper. Boone had laid his course along the hollov^^s of the hills, avoiding hard climbs whenever possible, and the trip up to this point had been an easy one for men accustomed to severe toil. The next twenty miles lay through a country covered with dead brush, and then followed thirty miles of thick canebrakes and reed. With the greatest difficulty they penetrated this region, as no progress could be made until the brush and cane had been chopped or burned away and a path opened. It was slow and weary work, but as they emerged from this tract they came into the restful, open lands of the Kentucky paradise. MAKING THE WILDERNESS ROAD 123 ''As the cane ceased," said Felix Walker, remem- bering his own youthful enthusiasm of the moment, ''we began to discover the pleasing and rapturous appearance of the plains. A new sky and earth seemed to be presented to our view. So rich a soil we had never seen before, covered with clover in full bloom. The woods were abounding with wild game — turkeys so numerous that it might be said they appeared but one flock, universally scattered in the woods. It appeared that nature, in the profusion of her bounty, had spread a feast for all that lives, both for the animal and rational world. A sight so delightful to our view and grateful to our feelings, almost inclined us, in imitation of Colum- bus, in transport to kiss the soil of Kentucky, even as Columbus hailed and saluted the sand on his first setting his foot on the shores of America." On the night of March 25, they encamped by a stream known as Silver Creek, in the present Madi- son County, and only fifteen miles from the site which Boone had previously decided with Hen- derson to choose for the colony. They retired in good spirits and without fears ; the hardest of their road-making was passed, and their goal was near. Unfortunately, Boone posted no sentinels that night. A guard against savages seemed unneces- sary. The Indians of the Six Nations — Cayugas, 124 DANIEL BOONE Onondagas, Oneidas, Senecas, Mohawks, and Tuscaroras — had already transferred their land east of the Ohio River to the king of England by the treaty of Fort Stanwix, New York, 1768. The Shawnees and other northwestern tribes had aban- doned their old grounds after the defeat at Point Pleasant, and rights to Cherokee territory had been bought at Sycamore Shoals. Yet Indian nature had not been changed by promises, defeats, or treaties. As the pioneers slept peacefully that night in the wilderness, which they now considered theirs, a band of red men closed in about them, and just before sunrise they were startled from their sleep by unearthly war-cries and shots. One man was killed instantly. Captain Twetty was mortally wounded, and Felix Walker so severely injured that for days his condition was critical. Several mem- bers of the band fled in fright, but the rest rallied about Boone, who ''appeared to possess firmness and fortitude,'^ — and the Indians vanished. The surprise might mean a general attack. To be on the safe side, Boone ordered his men to build a small stockade, and by nightfall they were secure behind its logs. Nothing happened for two days. Then the negro woman, while gathering wood out- side the fort, discovered a man behind a tree. She rushed to the stronghold, crying, "Indians!" MAKING THE WILDERNESS ROAD 125 Colonel Boone instantly seized his rifle, ordered his men to conceal themselves, give battle, and not to run until they saw the savage fall. As they were ready to open fire, the lurking man stepped before them and proved to be one of the band who had fled on the night of the attack. This amusing episode was soon forgotten in the general melancholy occasioned by the death of Cap- tain Twetty that same day. In consequence, a number of the road-makers lost their courage, and, believing that sooner or later they all would suffer a similar fate, begged Boone to go home. Did any one, though, suppose that Daniel Boone would accept defeat in Kentucky a second time? He replied grimly that he would not return to the settle- ments. Felix Walker says that he appeared to have no fear and no thought of consequences, some- times even lacking sufficient caution for the enter- prise. But Boone had a purpose in life, and this purpose he was bound to fulfill. Fearing that his disheartened companions might desert him, on April i he dispatched a letter to Henderson, telling him of the reverses they had suffered and asking for help. ^'My advice to you, Sir," he wrote, ''is, to come or send as soon as possible. Your company is desired greatly, for the people are very uneasy, 126 DANIEL BOONE but are willing to stay and venture their lives with you." That day they packed up their baggage and began the last stage of their journey to Big Lick on the Kentucky River, just below the mouth of Otter Creek. Three or four men remained behind to care for Felix Walker, who, five days later, was placed in a Ktter and borne by two horses over the newly-marked course. The youth's wounds and suffering had touched the paternal heart of Boone, and he had ministered to the boy's needs as best he could. Walker says that Boone paid him "unremitting kindness, sympathy, and attention. . . . He was my father, my physician, and friend. He attended me as his child, cured my wounds by the use of medicines from the woods, and nursed me with affection until I recovered, without the expectation of reward. Gratitude is the only tribute I can pay his memory." From Silver Creek to Big Lick on the Kentucky River the buffaloes had worn a track, and along this well-marked ''street," as hunters sometimes called game-trails, Boone directed the remainder of his course. Road-building was now an easy matter, and the men made merry as they went along, enjoying the present and anticipating the future. As they were climbing a slight hill, just MAKING THE WILDERNESS ROAD 127 before their journey's end, they heard with surprise and wonder a distant rumbling. Boone urged them to hasten to the summit, and there, looking down upon the rolling plains, they saw a sight astonishing to them. Just at that moment, between two and three hundred buffaloes of all sizes were turning away from Big Lick and crossing the Kentucky River — "some running, some walking, others loping slowly and carelessly, with young calves playing, skipping, and bounding through the plain." A lovely scene spread before them as they rested there on the brow of the hill. Beautiful bottom lands lay beneath them, watered by the clear stream which winked and sparkled on its course, and all the wild and fertile region seemed full of promise for those who were willing to plan and work. Boone surely had served them well. His Wilder- ness Road, winding behind them for two hundred miles, over mountain and through wastes, had indeed brought them to a paradise. Here, in the hollow at their feet, it was to end, and the new life of the West was to begin. Later, they went down into the plain. In a place finely suited for a camp, a level stretch shel- tered on one side by thick woods and bounded on the other by the open river, Boone ordered his men to halt. There the soil was firm and rich, and, 128 DANIEL BOONE although very early spring, it was covered in places with fine white clover and the beautiful grass which was to be so widely known as Kentucky ^'blue grass," and to prove such excellent fodder for Kentucky's famous horses. Nature began to blossom earlier in those days, before the forest had been cut away. Two springs welled up near the camp site; one a clear spring of fresh water, the other a sulphur spring which had saturated the ground with the salt of its waters. Four great trees, three sycamores and one huge elm, grew not far away. The white trunks of the sycamores, it is said, were worn smooth with the frequent rubbing of buffaloes on their way to and from the lick. The elm was especially admired by Henderson on his arrival. He said that one who saw it in all its glory, and who had a soul to appreciate it, must call it divine. Beyond the river, rolling slowly on its way beneath steep banks, lay woods and mountains. And in all directions reigned the wonderful stillness of the far-stretching wilderness. Daniel Boone looked about him. Step by step his thoughts traveled back over his hard-won road to the settlements. And in the settlements the thoughts of many men and women were traveling out into the wilderness after him and his men. Could Boone succeed against the odds of nature, MAKING THE WILDERNESS ROAD 129 of savages and beasts, and build a road westward for them and their children? Would he persevere until the Transylvania colony rose in its fresh hope far beyond their mountains? Their faith in him was strong, but the task was a great one. Colonel Henderson afterwards admitted that *4t was owing to Boone's confidence in us and the people's in him that a stand was ever attempted." To Boone, standing on the bank of Kentucky River near Big Lick, and thinking of his severe trials and achievement and of the future's happy prospect, the wilderness seemed already won. CHAPTER XIII Boone's Settlement A GOOD hunter's meal and a long rest, wrapped in their skin blankets in the wilderness, and the road- makers were refreshed and ready for work. On April I, 1775, they began to chop and dig and to lay the foundation of the new West, while their brother colonists in New England were preparing for the fast approaching day when they would give the Red Coats ''ball for ball, from behind each fence and farm-yard wall," and drive England from the land forever. The pioneer band was build- ing the West ; the Eastern patriots were fighting for a free country to which they would annex the West when the power was theirs. Trees were cut and logs prepared for cabins "to be strung along the river bank" and for a small fort which they named Fort Boone. But when shelter, sufficient to protect them from the elements and to serve as a sKght defense against the Indians, had been built, the men gave little more heed to the fort. Like overgrown boys, they ranged the woods and plains, fascinated with the hunting and with 130 BOONE'S SETTLEMENT 131 the choosing of lands for their new homes. Visions of wealth came to them with each fresh skin and hide and each new land-claim. The rough sur- veying of these pioneers, and of those who came later, made many compHcations, for, having no accurate maps, they could not tell where one claim began and another ended. Fortunately, no general Indian attack was made, although a small band of savages killed one of the pioneers on April 4. The responsibility of the undertaking rested with Boone, and naturally he was anxious that the fort should be completed. Yet he was glad that, for the time at least, his men appeared to have forgotten the recent tragedies and to be happy in the wilderness. While the others explored, he, being a surveyor as most settlers were, laid off the town-site into lots of two acres each. Meanwhile his messenger, sent from the camp on Silver Creek, was hurrying eastward to beg Hender- son to come at once. The young proprietor was already riding away from the settlements along Boone's trail, at the head of a spirited caravan. When wigwams and Indians had disappeared from the Watauga Valley, on the third day after the signing of the treaty of Sycamore Shoals, Hender- son's arrangements were completed, and forty mounted riflemen waited, ready for Transylvania. 132 DANIEL BOONE The train that accompanied them was imposing — forty pack horses, a drove of cattle, a number of negro slaves, and several wagons, groaning under stores and provisions, garden seed, corn seed, ammunition, material for making gunpowder, and other necessities. In places, Boone's path was so narrow that the men needed to widen the way still more, and when the party had crossed Powell's Valley, they were forced to abandon their wagons entirely. As they were re-loading the pack horses and hid- ing surplus stores in the woods, Boone's messenger rode into their camp, with news of the Indian out- rage and of the fear of further attack. Consterna- tion prevailed, certain faint-hearted settlers turning back eastward at once. Henderson instantly realized that the fate of his colony hung in the bal- ance. At any moment Boone's companions might return home, refusing to risk their lives longer, and so bring an end to his dreams for Transylvania. As soon as possible word must reach Boone that he was on the way. He dispatched Captain Cocke, a fearless messenger, ''fixed off with a good Queen Anne's musket, plenty of ammunition, a tomahawk, a large knife, a Dutch blanket, and no small quan- tity of jerked beef and letters from home," to reassure the road-makers and their leader. BOONE'S SETTLEMENT 133 Henderson followed as quickly as his large train would permit, and on April 20, according to his diary, after traveling for more than a month over Boone's road, which he found ''either hilly, stony, slippery, miry, or bushy," he and his riflemen arrived at Fort Boone, where they ''were saluted by a running fire of about twenty-five Guns, all that was then at the Fort." The men appeared in high spirits and much re- joiced at his arrival. An hour later, we are told, the entire company sat down to a feast of lean buffalo meat and cold water. No Thanksgiving dinner could have been eaten in a more grateful spirit. The hardships of the journey and anxiety for the colony were past for Henderson and his companions, and Boone and his pioneers now had the support they needed. With characteristic energy, Henderson at once discussed the situation with Boone, and together they wandered over part of the new property by the river. Boone showed the claims which his men had chosen — the choicest sites, of course, about the hollow. Henderson had planned to locate his little capital in the picturesque and sheltered level; but, finding the best land already taken by the road-makers, whom he could not deprive of it without losing their good will, and realizing also 134 DANIEL BOONE that Boone's quarters would be too small for the colony's growing needs, he decided to build upon a slight elevation, about three hundred yards from the hollow and overlooking the Kentucky River. There, upon the little hill, about the time in April when Paul Revere was taking his famous ride, Boone laid out a fortified village which the pioneers appropriately named Boonesborough. The land was cleared, choppers ranged the woods for trees and transformed them into logs, timbers, clapboards, and puncheons, and the wilderness, so long quiet save for the sounds of nature, re- sounded with human activity, the bantering of men at work, and the plaintive songs of negroes, crooned for the first time in the West. Thirty cabins or more were ranged about a hollow square and protected by a log stockade in which there were two openings, one gate on the river side and the other toward the lick. A two-story block- house was built at each corner, the upper floor projecting in typical fashion, and in one of these Henderson made his headquarters. Portholes were placed in all the buildings. Boone appears to have planned also a small log magazine, which he built half underground and tried to make partially fireproof by a roof of clay. Henderson opened a store in a one-story cabin, the first shop in Ken- BOONE'S SETTLEMENT 135 tucky, and the road-makers gathered there to re- ceive their pay in supplies, lead, powder, coarse linen, and other goods. Yet this station, although well-planned and well-begun, was not finished for months. When Indians were not seen, the men gave no thought to possible dangers and aban- doned their fort-building for more exciting pursuits in the woods. With a few exceptions, Boone's laborers, and many adventurers who followed, were crude, unlettered pioneers who felt little moral responsibility for the success of the West. Hen- derson, who had had social and educational op- portunities, spoke of them rather slightingly. The road-makers, however, had borne the hardships of chopping a way through the wilderness; now they wanted to reap their reward. May had already come, and spring beauty reigned in Kentucky. The Transylvania grant seemed prospering. By this time four settlements had been planted in the region — Boonesborough, Harrodsburg, Boiling Spring, and St. Asaph — and Henderson felt that the time had come to prepare for a convention at which a plan for the govern- ment of the colony by popular representation should be adopted and officers elected. In the name of the proprietors, he asked each little com- munity to elect members to a ^' House of Delegates 136 DANIEL BOONE of the Colony of Transylvania," and send them to meet in the ''Capital" on the 23d of the month. Daniel and Squire Boone were two of the six chosen to represent Boonesborough. The other settle- ments selected four members each. On the Tues- day appointed, these twelve rode over to Boones- borough on their novel and important business. The small assembly was called to order under the great elm in the hollow. Henderson said : "The diameter of its branches from the extreme ends is one hundred feet, and every fair day it describes a semicircle on the heavenly green around it, of upward of four hundred feet, and any time between the hours of ten and two, one hundred persons may commodiously seat themselves under its branches. This divine tree is to be our church, state house, and council chamber." The delegates seated themselves, in a spirit of solemnity, on the white clover before a low plat- form erected at the foot of the elm, and the proceed- ings were opened by a minister from Harrodsburg who offered prayer. A presiding officer and clerk were elected, and then the proprietors — Hender- son, Hart, and Luttrell — having been waited upon by a committee, appeared before the assembly. Henderson addressed them dramatically and at length. He flattered them by declaring that BOONE'S SETTLEMENT 137 ''all power is originally with the people," and that, *4f prudence, firmness, and wisdom are suffered to influence your counsels and direct your conduct, the peace and harmony of thousands may be ex- pected to result from your deliberations." He warned them of dangers from Indians, suggested essential laws, and assured them that they had the right to make laws '' without giving offense to Great Britain or any of the American colonies, and without disturbing the repose of any society or community." A contract between the pro- prietors and the colonists was drawn up and signed, and the next day Henderson received full posses- sion of the land from the Cherokees, according to a pretty, ancient custom. The lawyer represent- ing the Indians handed Henderson a piece of Kentucky turf, and together they held it while the lawyer declared the transaction completed. The sessions continued for three days, and nine bills were passed. In this law-making, Daniel Boone was particularly active. He proposed a law for the protection and preservation of game, and served as chairman of the committee chosen to frame the law. The condition of the food supply, even so soon after the settlement of the wilderness, may be judged from Henderson's journal for May 9, 1775: 138 DANIEL BOONE "We find it very difficult to stop great waste in killing meat. Some would kill three, four, five, or half a dozen buffaloes and not take half a horse- load from them all. For want of a little obligatory- law, our game, as soon as we got here, if not before, was driven off very far. Fifteen or twenty miles was as short a distance as good hunters thought of getting meat, nay, sometimes they were obliged to go thirty, though by chance once or twice a week buffaloes were killed within five or six miles." On May 17, he wrote: *' Hunters not returned. No meat but fat bear- meat. Almost starved. Drank a little coffee and trust to luck for dinner. Am just going to our little plant-patches in hopes the greens will bear cropping ; if so, a sumptuous dinner indeed. Mr. Calloway's men got a little spoiled buffalo and elk, which we made out with pretty well, depending on amendment to-morrow." Boone gladly served on the game committee, as he was distressed to find animals, even in Ken- tucky, seeking western trails. Boone also proposed a law to improve the breed of horses. The early pioneers were horse-lovers, and, although they took with them comparatively few horses, the stock was good. They found that their animals flourished on the native blue grass, BOONE'S SETTLEMENT 139 growing plentifully in the woods. Indeed, in later years, it has been maintained that the very bones of horses that have grazed upon Kentucky grass from infancy are harder than those of animals raised elsewhere. On account of the virtue of this grass, nurtured in Hmestone soil, and of the general in- terest of Kentuckians in horses, we now look to that state to furnish the finest horses our country can produce. Boone's short bill, introduced into the House of Delegates, proved to be an historic measure. On Sunday, following the close of the assembly, divine service was held in the shade of the great elm. The majority of the pioneers, however rough and uncultivated, were strong in the simple faith of their mothers. One of the bills which they had passed was ''an act to prevent profane swearing and Sabbath breaking." The British king and royal family were remembered in their prayers that Sunday morning, as was customary ; yet it proved to be the first and only service in Kentucky during which the ''most gracious Sovereign Lord, King George," was mentioned in the litany. The battles of Lexington and Concord had been fought five weeks before, and the struggle for independence was well begun. Within a week after this unique, open-air service in the wilderness, the belated I40 DANIEL BOONE eastern news reached Transylvania, and great was the enthusiasm among the far-away settlers. When the delegates had gone home and the unusual excitement of the House had subsided, the men of Boonesborough gave their attention to everyday life. The more restless, who had gone west for adventure rather than to build homes, began to sell their lots and go away. Others, like Boone, finished their houses for the families which they hoped to settle there; cultivated their gar- dens, where corn, peas, snap-beans, and cucumbers were thriving; and went hunting. Boone's chief desire was to complete the little log shelter in the hollow, and install Rebecca and the children there in safety. Finally, with the help of his men, it stood finished, and on Tuesday, June 13, 1775, according to Henderson's journal, ''Colonel Boone set off for his family and the young men went with him for salt.'' The detail of men were to ride as far as Martin's cabin in Powell's Valley, and to fetch the salt left there by Henderson when the narrowness of the trail forced him to leave his wagons behind. Salt was most important in the border settlements, as is seen by Henderson's entry of July 12 : "Our salt quite out except about a quart which I brought from Harrodsburg. The men, sent for BOONE'S SETTLEMENT 141 salt, not yet returned, nor any news from the East. Times a little melancholy, provisions very scarce, no salt to enable us to save meat at any distance from home. . . . Weather very dry, and we not able to raise above fourteen or fifteen fighting men at any one time, unless they were all summoned, which could not easily be done without long notice, they being much dispersed, hunting, &c." Boone and his old neighbor, Richard Callo- way, went east together. Boone's family was at ''Snoddy's on Clinch," the site of the present town of Castlewood, Russell County, Virginia, and the Calloways were also in a Virginia fort. For a second time, Rebecca Boone made the family ready for the journey to Kentucky. It must have been a proud and happy moment for her when she entered the road which her husband had planned and blazed. Besides the men who had gone east for salt, were a number of settlers bound for Harrodsburg, who returned with Boone. His own party consisted of thirty persons — ''twenty-one guns," it is said. Pack horses carried their household goods and pro- visions ; their cattle ambled along with them, and their dogs ran on ahead, scouring the strange forest eagerly. Boonesborough was watching for the party on September 8, as they emerged from the 142 DANIEL BOONE tangled woods, and ^'all hands'* turned out towel- come them — and the salt ! Mrs. Boone and Jemima were, as Filson says, the first white women ^ "that ever stood on the banks of Kentucky river"; and they remained the only women in Boonesborough for three weeks. Then Colonel Calloway and his family and party arrived, adding three matrons and several young women to the settlement. At first the Boones made their home in a cabin in the hollow, but soon after they moved into the log fort on the little hill. Boonesborough's his- torian, George W. Ranck, says : "The influence of sunbonnets, though there were but a solitary couple of them, was soon seen. The men, especially the younger ones, immediately improved in appearance, for there was a sudden craze for shaving and hair-cutting. An ash- hopper, soap-kettle and clothes-lines were set up. Hickory brooms and homemade washboards multi- pHed. The sound of the spinning-wheel was heard in the land, and an occasional sight could be had of a little looking-glass, a patch-work quilt, knitting needles and a turkey-tail fan." The settlement ^Mrs. Hays (Susannah Boone) had set out for the wilderness, when her father cut the road, but no further reference to her appears. BOONE'S SETTLEMENT 143 was blessed with peace and good crops, and all seemed well. The spirit of liberty and equality, thrilling the Eastern colonists in their battles of the Revolution, was already stirring the wilderness settlers in Tran- sylvania. They were beginning to wish themselves free of their proprietors — a revolutionary idea which animated many discussions by cabin hearths. As the summer and autumn passed, various griev- ances arose to intensify this feeling. Between two and three hundred new settlers came to Transyl- vania during that time, expecting to pay reasonable sums for their lands, but the proprietors raised the previous selling prices exorbitantly. It was also discovered that Henderson and his associates had reserved for themselves and friends almost seventy thousand acres of the choicest land near the Falls of the Ohio. Goods and supplies at the Company's store at Boonesborough were high, and labor, hired by the Company, was poorly paid. An unexpected Indian attack, although slight, empha- sized their possible need of help and protection from Eastern settlers. Unhappiness spread until the Transylvanians decided to overthrow their proprietors and beg Virginia to admit the former Cherokee terricory as a county. While this opposition was brewing in their 144 DANIEL BOONE colony, Henderson and Luttrell were on their way to North CaroHna to discuss Transylvania's situa- tion with their partners, as the colony's future looked somewhat dark. If they could influence the Continental Congress to admit Transylvania as the fourteenth state in the original Union, their right to sell the land would be established for all time, and their fortunes assured. They decided to appeal to the delegates ; but they appealed in vain. The Congress would not receive Transyl- vania under those terms. When the Declaration of Independence was proclaimed, there was no further hope for ''proprietors" in a country an- nouncing to the world that ''these United Colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent States." Meanwhile, the discontent of the Transylvania settlers had moved them to definite action. They drew up a resolution and sent it to the Virginia Convention, setting forth their desires. In De- cember, 1776, the State Legislature of Virginia granted this petition of the "inhabitants of Ken- tuckie." An act was also passed, defining the territory as Kentucky County, Virginia, and includ- ing within its boundaries the grant which Hender- son had bought from the Cherokees. A county government was organized, and Daniel Boone was BOONE'S SETTLEMENT 145 appointed one of four captains for the region. Thus Transylvania passed into history, and the one-time proprietors of the seventeen million acres were proprietors no more. But the West, which had come into being over Boone's hard-won road, remained. The Virginians acted considerately. They realized and appreciated the efforts of the nine associates of the Transylvania Company. On November 4, 1778, the House of Delegates resolved that ^' as the said Richard Henderson and Company have been at very great expense in making the said purchase and settling the said lands — by which this Commonwealth is likely to receive great advantages, by increasing its inhabitants and establishing a barrier against the Indians — it is just and reasonable to allow the said Richard Henderson and Company a compensation for their trouble and expense." The Virginia General Assembly voted the proprietors a grant of two hundred thousand acres of land in Kentucky, and a similar grant later was made to them by North Carolina, which state embraced a portion of the former Indian hunting-ground. Boonesborough and the other communities of Kentucky County had little sympathy for their former proprietors in their loss. Perhaps Daniel 146 DANIEL BOONE Boone alone, of all the settlers, held a warm place for them in his heart. Through Henderson, Boone's long-cherished dream of a home beyond the Alleghany Mountains had been realized, and he himself had become the proud possessor of a large tract of land in the wilderness, as the asso- ciates had recognized his part in their undertaking and rewarded it at their meeting in North Carolina in September. *' Resolved," their resolution read, ''That a present of two thousand acres of land be made to Colonel Daniel Boone, with the thanks of the Pro- prietors, for the signal services he has rendered to the Company." As Boone looked back over the year, he must have felt satisfied with the blossoming of the wilder- ness, and his share in its development. Many colonists of influence had made their way along his path, and had built and sowed in Kentucky. Over nine hundred entries of land, embracing five hun- dred and sixty thousand acres, had been made in the land office of Boonesborough. Orchards had been planted, two hundred and thirty acres of corn had been raised, and live stock, hens, and horses were increasing in number. Officials had been chosen to guard the people's welfare, and a militia had been organized to withstand Indian BOONE'S SETTLEMENT 147 attack. Besides — and perhaps best of all — twelve mothers had come to Kentucky, and were exerting a precious influence in the wilderness. The beginning of the West was firmly established. Daniel Boone had made possible a wonderful enterprise. CHAPTER XIV "A Land Hard to Hold" On a Sunday afternoon in July, 1776, at the close of the usual Bible reading, Jemima Boone and Betsey and Fanny Calloway went canoeing on the Kentucky River. The day was warm and lazy, and the girls let their rough craft drift with the stream. The current bore them along pleasantly, and the girls chattered, as girls of fourteen and sixteen will, until their canoe swerved toward the opposite bank and floated along close to the bushes on the shore. They had a happy time with no fear, as Indians had not been seen about Boones- borough since winter. As it happened, however, Indians were at that moment watching them. Five young warriors — four from Shawnee towns and one Cherokee — had bedecked themselves with feathers and paint according to hideous, savage custom, and had come to Boonesborough to wreak their vengeance upon the settlers for the treaty which their chiefs had signed at the close of Dunmore's War. To steal the girls would make a good beginning. 148 " A LAND HARD TO HOLD » 149 Suddenly a hand reached from the thicket and roughly seized the frail skiff — and the girls found themselves face to face with red men. The story goes that Betsey Calloway belabored one of the savages about the head with her paddle, while the other girls sat paralyzed with fear. The Indians pulled them to the shore and hurried them into the lonely woods, threatening them with the fatal tomahawk if they showed alarm or resistance. The savages set their customary swift pace, and the girls kept step with them, realizing that, if they lagged behind, their captors would not hesitate to kill them, even though they were girls. For- tunately for their fathers, they bethought them- selves of leaving a trail behind them, as if they were playing ''Hare and Hounds." They stepped heavily in the soft earth, broke away twigs, and tore off little pieces of their dresses and caught them on the bushes. Thus they were hurried farther and farther from home and ever nearer to the strange Shawnee towns on the Ohio. The afternoon passed in Boonesborough and milking time came. The daughters did not ap- pear. Instead, a hunter rushed into the inclosure with news of an empty canoe in the river and of tracks on the bank. Daniel Boone at once made up a rescue party of men on foot, while Colonel Callo- I50 DANIEL BOONE way gathered a company of horsemen, and the two bands set out in opposite directions. Calloway hoped to head off the Indians on their way home at Licking River, while Boone followed the slender trail through fields, woods, and canebrakes. Boone's party was particularly eager in this chase, as three of the members were in love with the three girls who had been so suddenly spirited out of sight. About thirty-five miles from Boonesborough, on the second day after the kidnapping, fragrant whiffs of burning wood and roasting meat were wafted to them, and through the tangle of foliage they caught the welcome sight of three young girls sitting on the ground not far from five Indian braves. They dashed upon the Indians, killing two Shawnees at once. The other savages fled, and the girls sped into the arms of their rescuers, safe and sound, but thoroughly frightened. This outrage proved to be only the beginning of fresh Indian hostilities. Fortunately, though, merry times came even to pioneers, and before fugitives from outlying settlements appeared in late July with news that the savages had again taken up the hatchet, Boonesborough had re- covered its composure and had celebrated the wedding of Betsey Calloway and the lover who had rescued her from the Indians. Daniel Boone, "A LAND HARD TO HOLD" 151 like his father, had become a justice of the peace, and he performed the ceremony for them in a frontier cabin, made gay with the flickering Kght of buffalo- tallow candles and the strains of a wilderness fiddle. History records no wedding cake at this first marriage in Kentucky, but it does tell of water- melons for refreshment, the first grown in Boone's settlement. Following close on the heels of this gala time, came the news of the Declaration of Independence, and although belated, this first Fourth was cele- brated by the pioneers with jubilation. Logs and branches were dragged from the woods and piled high, and that night a huge bonfire flamed in the wilderness, like the ardent spirit of the em- pire-builders themselves, who were standing in its glow. From that patriotic celebration in 1776, until the close of 1777, Boonesborough and the other Kentucky communities were harassed by Indians and in almost constant anxiety and distress. The chieftain's warning to Boone at Sycamore Shoals became a reality. "Brother," he had said, "it is a fine land we sell to you, but I fear you will find it hard to hold." Plundering, burning, killing, and scalping, small bands of Shawnees swept through the ancient 152 DANIEL BOONE hunting-ground, regardless of promises and treaties, and in July settlers from various parts of the region fled with a few belongings to the fort at Boones- borough and begged refuge. The fortifications were partially completed in haste and the heavy gates closed, to the great relief of the anxious settlers. Messengers were dispatched to Virginia, the Carolinas, and Pennsylvania, to beg help of those states which had sent many prominent settlers to Kentucky. Virginia sent a supply of powder to Boone, who was generally recognized as commander-in-chief, and also a pack-horse load of lead. Later a boat-load of powder came by way of the Ohio. But little more could be done for the forlorn Kentuckians, as Washington's army was demanding all supplies and reinforcements for the Revolution. Affairs continued to grow worse. The British, fully aroused to the imminent danger of losing their colonies, incited the Mingos and Cherokees as well as the Shawnees to make war upon the settlers, and the West became a battleground even as the East. Traveling in and out of the wilderness was extremely hazardous, and those pioneers who had not fled at the opening of hostilities were shut up in their little forts. Bloodthirsty savages en- dangered their stockades or hid in ambush to fall "A LAND HARD TO HOLD" 153 upon and scalp any one who dared to leave the fort for water or fresh meat. The colonists, huddled within the inclosures, discouraged and often hungry, were shut off from any communica- tion with the home settlements, and frequently sieges were so well planned by the Indians that different forts were attacked simultaneously and their garrisons rendered unable to assist one another. The savages intended to reduce the men and women to starvation, wipe out their hated settlements, and let the wilderness become itself again. Boone was constantly on the alert, encouraging flagging spirits and exerting himself to the utmost to keep food on hand in the forts. It became his custom to set out on his hunting expeditions after dark and to return before morning. Indians were usually secreted in the trees and bushes about Boonesborough and every precaution was neces- sary. Late in April, a band of fifty or a hundred Shawnees skulked through the woods, planning to entrap Boone and his men this time without doubt. The majority hid themselves in the long grass, while a mere handful sallied toward the fort, hoping to induce the settlers to come out and pursue them. For some strange reason, Boone did exactly as they wished. He rushed out of the 154 DANIEL BOONE gate, his garrison after him, and ran headlong into the band, lying silently and gleefully in am- bush. A terrible struggle ensued. Several settlers were seriously wounded, among them Boone him- self, whose leg was broken by a bullet. He fell, and an exultant warrior, hooting madly with joy, rushed to him, intending to bear off his scalp. Had it not been for Simon Kenton, a young man of Boonesborough, whose brilliant deeds of prowess have made his name memorable, Boone's service to his country surely would have ceased on that April day, and the history of the Western settle- ments would have been very different. In an instant Kenton shot the Indian through the heart, seized Boone, and, fighting his way through the maddened savages, bore him in safety to the fort. Intrusting his honored chief to Mrs. Boone and others, Kenton rushed back to continue his deadly work until the Indians were driven into the forest. When Boone was resting as comfortably as could be expected with so painful a wound, he sent for Kenton, and in his simple, quiet way said, ''Well, Simon, you have behaved like a man — you are a fine fellow." Kenton's fame spread, as a word of praise from such a man as Boone, who held the fate and welfare of the colonies in his keeping, was very precious. "A LAND HARD TO HOLD" I55 Boone's wound confined him to his cabin for several months, and the Httle house became a veritable "Army Headquarters." From his bed- side Boone gave directions for the details of sieges, even for the aiming and firing of rifles, as his knowl- edge of wily Indian ways was supreme. His patience and unselfishness during this period of suffering made his fellow-settlers appreciate still more the natural greatness of their leader. The Indians did not again attack the fort in large numbers until the Fourth of July, 1777, al- though they kept it in continual peril and on the point of starvation. Then, two hundred sav- ages hid in ambush as before and tried to fool the garrison a second time. But the twenty settlers wisely kept within their stockade and for two days fired incessantly, in a brave attempt to beat off the greater enemy and to save their fort from burning. The women stood their ground as bravely as the men, loading rifles, melting pewter plates into bullets, and serving as marksmen when they were not cooking economically the Httle food on hand or nursing the wounded. On the sixth of the month, the Indians withdrew with their dead, considerably worsted and dis- couraged with their ill luck — and a Httle good cheer came again to the settlers. How deHcious 156 DANIEL BOONE to them was the cool water from the spring outside the gate, which now stood open, and how welcome the fresh meat brought in by hunters from the forest! A horseman immediately left for the East to beg sorely-needed aid, while the settlers waited in great want. Ammunition became so scarce that little hunting was allowed, and turnips, corn, potatoes, nuts, and wild grapes were their only food. The Indians haunted the region, although they made no general attack again that year, watching and planning for the future. The last of July, Shawnees, resting on a hill near the hollow, were terrified at the sight of forty-eight horsemen ad- vancing from the woods toward Boonesborough. They fled, reporting to their tribe that two hundred *' Long-knives" had come West. The men proved to be a band of Yadkin settlers, under Colonel Bowman, come to aid Boone. In the autumn one hundred more Virginians arrived, and later still, twelve sharpshooters appeared, guarding pow- der and lead securely fastened on the backs of four pack horses. Life became easier for a time, yet ammunition and salt again ran low before the Old Year ended. Conveniences and comforts in their wilderness homes had increased. ''Most of the cabins," "A LAND HARD TO HOLD" 157 Mr. Ranck says, ''were provided with a slab- table; a feather bed or a buffalo one; hickory chairs with deerskin seats; iron pots, ovens and skillets ; big and little gourds, which served many purposes from dippers to egg-baskets, and were used to hold everything from cornmeal and soft soap to maple sugar. Bucks' antlers and wooden pegs held rifles, powderhorns and fishing-poles, sunbonnets and saddlebags, bundles of dried herbs, strings of red pepper, and ' hands ' of tobacco. A shelf over the fireplace was reserved for medicine, tinder box, ink bottle, quill pens, the Bible, an almanac and a few other books, which in some cabins included 'Pilgrim's Progress' and the plays of Shakespeare." Every now and then news of the progress of the fight for independence reached them, news as cheering to Western settlers as to Eastern patriots. In November they heard of the victories of Saratoga and Bennington and of the capture of one third of the entire British force in the colonies. They pictured the prisoners marched off by American officers bearing the Stars and Stripes, which had just been adopted as the national flag. Again a bonfire roared and flamed in celebration, and each cabin within the barred stockade glowed with candles and hearth fires. 158 DANIEL BOONE Some critics have belittled Daniel Boone's achievements because he played no part in the American Revolution. It is true that he fought in no battle in the East, but all the War for In- dependence was not waged on the seacoast. Boone fought the Indians — and the Indians were the allies of the British. If Boone had not kept them busy, fighting and fleeing, they would have been able to swoop down upon the Eastern settlements and aid their English instigators who supplied them with arms and ammunition. The years 1776 and 1777 were hard for Daniel Boone, but his toil and suffering were not in vain in the service of his country. CHAPTER XV Boone becomes an Indian Gunpowder and salt ! Without the one, the pioneers of Kentucky County could not hunt; without the other, they could not preserve the game they killed. With the Indians warring all about them, they were unable to procure these two neces- sities from the East, and consequent starvation, as Eugene Field says, forever threatened to ''wipe them slowly out of sight." During the year of darkness, 1777, Uttle corn had been raised, and in December of that year only two months' supply of bread was on hand for two hundred women and children besides the men. The settlers decided that they could make their own salt at the salt springs of the various buffalo licks in the region, if they had suitable kettles in which to boil and evaporate the salty water. Vir- ginia sent out several great iron receptacles, and, as the Indians seldom raided in the winter, prepara- tions were begun in the New Year, 1778, for the making of the much-needed salt at once. Two bands of salt-makers were chosen ; Captain 1S9 i6o DANIEL BOONE Watkins and his few visiting militiamen, at that time helping in the defense of the wilderness, formed one company ; and Daniel Boone and thirty resi- dents from the three forts, the other. These two divisions were to take turns. On New Year's Day Boone and his men fastened the kettles on the horses, together with fodder, meal, and axes, and set out in severely cold weather for Lower Blue Lick. Special work was assigned each man. Some built and tended the fires; some drew water from the salt springs; others watched the boiling process and the salt crystals appearing in the bottoms of the kettles, and still others scoured the woods for game. Boone served not only as leader of his party, but also as a scout and hunter, keeping on the watch for Indians and bringing in meat for his hungry men. The making of salt, with their crude arrangements and in cold weather, was a long task. From five hundred to eight hundred gallons of the salt water had to be evaporated to make a bushel of salt. When the water had boiled away, the salt crystals were emptied into sacks and stored in a dry place. Some of it was sent at once to the settlement on pack horses and under the guard of several men, but the greater part of it was hoarded in the camp. More than a month passed peacefully in this activity. BOONE BECOMES AN INDIAN i6i As Boone and his horse were making their way back to the shelter through a great, swirling, bHnding snowstorm in the evening dusk of February 7, bearing a load of buffalo meat and beaver skins from the forest, four painted Shawnee braves rose out of the buried thicket and confronted him. In- stantly he dropped the horse's halter and sped through the snow, dodging behind trees and circHng in his course, hoping to outwit and outrun the sav- ages. But in spite of his swiftness, the Indians over- took him and led him away, a bound captive, to their camp, where their chief, Black Fish, and one hundred and twenty warriors welcomed him loudly. ^' Brother," they called him in mock friendship, and he returned their salutations with feigned good humor. Their joy at having at last caught this renowned Indian-fighter was unbounded, and those Shawnees from whom he and Stewart had escaped on a dark night eight years before slapped him on the back with satisfaction. They told him that they intended to attack and burn Boonesborough, but that they wished him first to lead them to his salt-makers and their camp. Knowing Indian nature as well as he did, Boone felt sure that when the savages once had these men in their power, they would be so elated that they would want to postpone the assault upon the settle- M 1 62 DANIEL BOONE ment and return in triumph to parade their captives in their villages beyond the Ohio. Boone believed that the surrender of his comrades would save Boonesborough, for a time at least. The wily Shawnees promised to treat the settlers kindly, and Boone agreed that he and his men would be docile. He suggested that, after they had spent the winter together, they might return to the settle- ments and bear off the women, girls, and boys, and either become adopted children of the Indians or sur- render themselves to the British governor, Hamilton, at Detroit, who was offering £20 for each American prisoner deUvered to him ahve and well. The colo- nists called Hamilton ''the hair-buying general." These suggestions, of course, were pure strategy on Boone's part to put off the fatal day for the families at Boonesborough as long as possible. Perhaps, while the winter was passing, help from Virginia would come. The next day Boone led the Indians through the snow-draped forest to his salt-makers, who were persuaded that the sacrifice, which their leader asked of them, was necessary. For two hours the Indians haggled in council concerning the prisoners, as some of the braves, in spite of promises of kind- ness, wanted to torture them to death or burn them at the stake. Boone's assuring address to them, BOONE BECOMES AN INDIAN 163 which a negro named Pompey interpreted, and the advice of Chief Black Fish, persuaded the savages to save the white men for the British governor's money. Accordingly, the camp equipment was packed on horses, the salt destroyed, and the settlers^ marched away northward to the Ohio, through heavy snow and biting cold. With despair they thought of their wasted salt, so greatly needed, and each bushel worth in itself a cow and calf and considerable Colonial money. What a terrible journey they experienced ! Ex- tremely cold weather prevailed, and game was so scarce that the Indians were obliged to kill some of their dogs and horses or subsist on slippery elm bark. They kept their prisoners as well fed as possible, as they wished to present healthy speci- mens of manhood to Governor Hamilton, and so be assured of their reward. For ten days they struggled through the drifted trails. They crossed the Ohio in a raft made of buffalo hides, and came at last to the "trace" leading to the Little Miami River, where Shawnee huts and wigwams nestled in the snow. Great excitement prevailed when Chief Black Fish and his captives entered the town of Little iThe captives numbered twenty-seven; the others were ab- sent from the camp, hunting. 1 64 DANIEL BOONE Chillicothe. All the Indians and their squaws and dogs came running out to view the prisoners, and Boone proved a gracious visitor, realizing that the fate of his comrades depended in large measure on the good humor in which he kept the savages. The pioneers were assigned to different wigwams, all more or less smoky and ill-smelling, and were fed with the Indians' usual winter food — beans, hominy, pumpkins, corn, and game, generally cooked together in the same kettle. Boone's comment on his food and lodging was simply that it was ^'not so good as I could desire but necessity made everything acceptable." The Shawnees dressed in usual Indian costume — shirts, coats made of match-cloth, leggings, and moccasins. They wore heavy silver plates about their arms, above and below their elbows, and often jewels in their noses. The squaws did not cut the rims of their ears, as did the men, but they hung great silver rings in them. The women wore many silver brooches pinned to their undergar- ments, blankets, and leggings. Painted decora- tions, of course, were common, the squaws using only spots on their cheeks. The Shawnees entertained their guests with their usual winter pastimes. By day there was hunting. Sometimes in the evening they played cards, which BOONE BECOMES AN INDIAN 165 Indian missionaries said the French had taught them, but they preferred to dance and sing. Al- most every night they danced to weird sounds until twelve o'clock. Their chief musical instru- ment consisted of a skin stretched over a keg. This was beaten with a stick by one musician, while an- other shook a gourd filled with grains of corn. Soon after their arrival Boone and sixteen of his companions, who were strong and well-built, were adopted into the tribe, and by a rather severe cere- mony were supposed to be changed at once into full- fledged Shawnees, enjoying the racket and slovenly life of a wigwam. The hair of the white man's head was pulled out, except a tuft on the crown, which was left long and tied with ribbons. He was then washed and rubbed in the river ''to take all his white blood out," and after an address of wel- come in the council, he was painted and feasted in elaborate, savage fashion. Just how many of these initiation details Boone was forced to undergo, we do not know. History only records that he was deemed so precious and popular a captive that he was adopted by Chief Black Fish himself and christened Sheltowee, which meant ''Big Turtle." He entered into the life of his new "father" and "mother" with apparent pleasure — for Boone could conceal his real feelings 1 66 DANIEL BOONE as well as a genuine Indian — and gave them meat and skins with mock affection. He watched his "father" and the other warriors, endeavoring to learn all their arts and ways, for he knew that some day he must try to escape and make his way back alone to save the settlement which was as dear to him as a child. When contests were held, he concealed his own skill. He did not want the savages to gauge his ability nor to become jealous of him. Some of his comrades, however, were less tactful in their rela- tions with their captors and suffered many punish- ments in consequence. The most severe were whipping and running the gantlet. For the latter performance, the Indians formed two lines five or six feet apart, and ordered their prisoner to run between them, while they belabored him with clubs, tomahawks, and switches. Early in Boone's captivity he had been subjected to this ordeal, but as a test of his prowess rather than as a punishment, and by artfully dodging and butting with his head, he had escaped with Httle harm. For some, this proved a disastrous or even fatal experience. Toward the last of March the salt-makers of Boonesborough were marched off by Black Fish and by many braves and squaws to Governor Hamilton at Detroit for the promised ransom. The arrival BOONE BECOMES AN INDIAN 167 of so famous a Colonial fighter as Daniel Boone was welcomed by the English official, who sent for him at once. Now Boone could be as crafty as any one — and he did not hesitate to try his cun- ning with this representative of the Enghsh king. He always wore about his neck a little leather bag containing his commission as captain in the British forces in Lord Dunmore's War. Boone handed this to the governor, at the same time repeating his former promise to the Indians to surrender Boones- borough in the spring. Governor Hamilton was deceived by Boone's simplicity into beheving that this quiet backwoodsman was still in sympathy with King George across the sea. He was so pleased with Boone that he offered £100 to Black Fish in ransom, but the ''foster father," counting upon Boone's services as guide to the Kentucky settle- ments, cunningly said that he loved his ''son" too much to sell him. So the governor sent them away, giving Boone a pony, saddle, bridle, and blanket, and a string of silver trinkets to be used as money among his Indian "brothers." Meanwhile, five hundred warriors — Mingos, Delawares, and Shawnees — had gathered in Chilli- cothe, decked out in war gear and full of plans for the raid into Kentucky soon to be made. Boone listened to their chatter at the fires. From the few 1 68 DANIEL BOONE Shawnee words which he had learned, he gathered their purpose in full. They intended to sweep through Kentucky County and destroy Boones- borough. With a sinking of his heart, he heard the terrible news. Now must he rise to the noblest in him; now, if ever, was the time for him to save his people. Could he do it? One lone settler against five hundred savages and a wilderness ? On the 1 6th of June he escaped. Just how he got away no one knows. One story says that, having made ready his arms, the powder and bullets he had been saving for four months, his scalping- knife and moccasins, he asked permission to go hunting, and so sped away. Another story says that, while he was boihng salt for his ^^ father,'' Black Fish, a flock of wild turkeys absorbed the attention of his keepers, and he chose that moment to shp into the forest. However he escaped, he began to run at once with all possible speed and strength southward. At any moment the Indians might miss him and follow. Every trick known to the forest hunter he used to conceal or confuse his course. He circled in his path, set blind and false trails, waded in water, swam streams, although he was a poor swimmer. Hope and fear impelled him ever onward by day and night. He was hungry ; he was tired and sore BOONE BECOMES AN INDIAN 169 and bleeding with many bruises. But what was his own comfort or distress at such a time? He, Daniel Boone, was out to race with death — death, which, if it overtook him, would also claim his people. For two days he ate nothing. He dared not stop ; he dared not kill game, for fear of his pursuers or of chance Indians camping in the forest. At Blue Licks, on the third day, he ate a bit of buffalo meat — and then he was up and off again, hasten- ing, tattered and exhausted, to his settlement. On the evening of the fourth day, or the morning of the fifth, after he had run one hundred and sixty miles through the wilderness, he staggered into Boonesborough, and shouted to the settlers his precious warning — "Indians! Finish your stockade!" and sank down. "Big Turtle" was no more — but Daniel Boone, noble and self-sacrificing, was safe and sound. And so was Boonesborough. CHAPTER XVI The Siege of the Shawnees With cries of joy and intense relief, the despairing settlers rushed across the inclosure toward the gate in which their exhausted leader appeared, like one arisen from the dead. They helped him to a cabin and there fed him and dressed his wounds, and showered him with questions. Where had he been these four long months? How did he make his way back? Did the Indians chase him? When would they attack the settlement? What had happened to the other salt-makers? Were they all alive and well ? They told him of their great distress when the empty salt-camp had been found, and of their grief as days slipped by and not one of the salt-makers came home. Twenty-seven was a large number to vanish in a moment from the little fort. Day after day they had waited in vain for news, and many^ completely discouraged in their bereavement and reduced to abject poverty, had packed up in the spring and sadly left Boonesborough to return to relatives in the East. 170 THE SIEGE OF THE SHAWNEES 171 And Mrs. Boone and the children? Perhaps Boone sensed his loss as he neared Boonesborough and so in a way was prepared for the news that his wife and his girls and boys — except Jemima, who had married Richard Calloway, her rescuer from the Indians — had gone to the Bryan homestead in the Yadkin Valley. In spite of her great faith in her husband's ability, his long absence convinced Rebecca that at last the savages had outwitted him, and that he had suffered death in the forest, as had her boy. Bravely, but bowed with a widow's grief, she had made ready to go to her old home, over the forest road which her husband had blazed and which he and she had traveled together with high hopes. Boone longed to follow her, to comfort her and to be comforted, but he knew that for the present he must stay in the wilderness and fight for Boonesborough. Let us hope that Jemima Boone Calloway took her lonely father into her new home and made him happy. Busy times followed Boone's arrival. He ordered the men at once to repair and complete the fortress which, in spite of danger, had been neglected, and in ten days all was secure and ready for the onslaught of the foe. Boone sent to the Hols ton settlements in Virginia for help, and kept spies scouting the country to warn the settlement 172 DANIEL BOONE of the savages' approach. But no Indians were discovered; they appeared to have postponed their attack. In the summer came news that Black Fish and his warriors were again hstening to the entreaties of Governor Hamilton to attack ''the rebels of Ken- tuck." Boone concluded that it might be well to alarm the Indians by appearing suddenly in their country as if he and his intrepid men were part of a great force in readiness to attack the Indian towns, instead of the mere handful of seventy-five ''guns" there, including men, boys, and certain women fighters. In the middle of August, Boone, Simon Kenton, and nineteen sharpshooters pene- trated to Paint Creek, not far from Chillicothe, where they came upon thirty Shawnees, traveling to join the great war party under Black Fish. The settlers charged them with success. The Indians fled, leaving behind as booty their horses and bag- gage. Boone wheeled at once and made off for the fort, and luckily, too, for had he continued his progress he would have met the warriors under Black Fish, on their southward advance. The heavy gates of Boonesborough closed upon the gallant little band only a few hours before four hundred Shawnee warriors, the largest army ever gathered to make war upon the tiny settlement, THE SIEGE OF THE SHAWNEES 173 encamped among the trees and bushes along the river bank near the fort. They came m the evening and the uneasy pioneers passed another sleepless night. Betimes the next morning, every porthole was filled with settlers eager for a glimpse of the savage enemies. If torture and slow death had not faced them, they might have found pleasure in the pic- turesque sight. Through the little openings they could see feathered scalp-locks and half-naked bodies, fantastically painted. Governor Hamilton kept the Indians supplied with the paint they so dearly prized. In his report for this very Sep- tember, he said that among the goods received by him for the Indian department were ^'eighty pounds of rose-pink and five hundred pounds of vermilion." These gorgeous warriors were commanded by Black Fish, assisted by the veteran fighters, Black Bird, Black Hoof, and Moluntha, and also a French- Canadian of the Detroit militia. Under the latter were forty French-Canadians who had brought with them their British and French colors and were flying them derisively before the fort. When the garrison discovered the militia, trained in war tactics such as no Indian knew, their fear was redoubled. Now indeed might their stockade fall before the well-planned attack of genuine fighting- men. 174 DANIEL BOONE The settlers looked and waited in suspense. They expected the savages to assail them at once, but no hostile demonstration occurred. Instead, an armed messenger of the Indians, who spoke English, stepped from the thick covert and ad- vanced toward the fort, bearing a white flag of truce which fluttered in the breeze. Mounting a stump before one of the blockhouses, he cried, '^Holloa!" The prolonged call echoed and then died away among the trees. No answer came from the fort. Why should the little garrison betray by haste any undue concern in the movements of its tawny foes ? *' Holloa!" cried the messenger again, and then some one in the blockhouse answered. The truce-bearer said that he had letters to Captain Boone from Governor Hamilton and that the Indian chiefs desired to talk over the con- tents with him. Boone gladly welcomed any pro- ceedings which would delay hostilities, as the help from Virginia might arrive at any time. He con- sented, but only on condition that the Indian- representatives should come unarmed and that the letters should be discussed under the guns of the fort. Black Fish agreed, and came with Lieutenant De Quindre and Moluntha, bringing the letters and seven roasted buffalo tongues as a token of THE SIEGE OF THE SHAWNEES 175 good faith. The starving settlers mightily en- joyed the meat. Daniel Boone, Richard Calloway, Senior, and William Bailey Smith, carrying only a pipe and a white handkerchief, met the chiefs and the French-Canadian ofhcer — an embarrassing meeting for Boone and his Indian '^ father." In the letters Governor Hamilton ordered Boone "to surrender the fort in the name of his Britannic Majesty," at the same time offering terms so liberal that he felt assured they would move the settlers to welcome release from their hardships. Black Fish himself said that "he had come to take the people away easily, that he had brought along forty horses for the old folks, women, and children to ride." Boone replied that he could not answer these propositions without consulting his men, and formally begged for a two days' truce. Thus Boone arranged for another precious delay. Of course, the plucky pioneers flatly refused to yield to the overtures of "the hair-buying general." In spite of the gloomy outlook, they were en- couraged by the preparations of the Indians for transporting a large band of prisoners to Detroit. Evidently the savages had no knowledge of their small numbers and real weakness. They voted to a man to decline the offer and to continue to pray 176 DANIEL BOONE that Virginia's aid would come in time to save them. They at once set to work to make the most of the two days' truce. They molded bullets, cleaned rifles, apportioned powder, gathered vegetables, drew water from the spring outside the fort under cover of darkness, cooked extra food, brought in their cattle, inspected the stockade, and rehearsed their plans and orders for carrying on a protracted siege. The Indians meanwhile spent two lazy days before the fort, confident of success. At the proper hour the white flag was again brought out, and Black Fish and his supporters advanced through the evening dusk to the fort. Captain Boone had taken his position in one of the bastions and, when the chief was standing below him in motionless Indian fashion, he announced the decision of the little garrison. *'We are determined," he said, "to defend the fort while a man is living." Black Fish was astonished ! It is said that he wept copiously over such a thankless answer from one whom he had made his "son," but without doubt the tears were shed for dramatic effect. Neither Black Fish nor the other commanders had supposed for a moment that the settlers would offer further resistance. They were firm, however; another stratagem must be tried. THE SIEGE OF THE SHAWNEES 177 • Lieutenant De Quindre then took the floor. He said that the British governor had ordered them to avoid bloodshed, and if the settlers would sign a treaty swearing allegiance to Great Britain, he and all his Indians would leave them quietly and in full possession of their fort. Would not nine representatives meet with him for the purpose of drawing up such a treaty? If the garrison would consent to so simple a matter, the whole affair might be quickly settled and peace return. Although Boone's intuition warned him that the Indians meant treachery, he acquiesced, as the proceedings would postpone open warfare yet again. Early the next morning, he and eight others from the fort joined De Quindre, Black Fish, Black Bird, Black Hoof, and Moluntha, under the great elm in the hollow. They were seated on panther skins and deerskins and invited to smoke, drink, and eat, while the warriors sat about them on the ground. Every man, woman, and child of the garrison was doing picket duty and peering through all available openings, anxiously and per- haps enviously, since their leaders were enjoying a good meal at the expense of the British government. They were ready to open fire upon the Indians at a given signal, the waving of a hat, should trouble arise. This powwow lasted throughout the day. N 1 78 DANIEL BOONE By evening the pioneers had agreed to sign a treaty the following day, promising to fly a British flag above their fort as a symbol of their loyalty to the British Crown. Stealthily through the woods that night, quite unsuspected by the settlers, crept a detail of the Indians who secreted themselves behind trees and in the undergrowth about the hollow. In the morn- ing Boone and his companions accompanied Black Fish to a table under the historic elm, unconscious of the savage eyes intent upon them, although the garrison on the hill was ready for any emergency. The treaty was signed in mock sincerity, and then Black Fish casually remarked, ''Now a hand shake all around to confirm this treaty, two braves to each white brother.'' But the Indians betrayed themselves. They grasped the hands offered them so tightly that the shrewd settlers knew their purpose in an instant. They intended to drag the white men toward the bushes where the concealed warriors would seize them. Quickly freeing himself, Boone waved his hat, and as the nine commissioners sprang from their captors, the riflemen in the fort fired down upon the treacherous enemies in the hollow. The settlers rushed up the hill with all speed, shielding themselves from the red men's bullets by trees and THE SIEGE OF THE SHAWNEES 179 stumps. Squire Boone and one other were slightly- wounded, but all eventually reached the fort, and once again Boone heard with a thankful heart the creaking of the lumbering gate as it closed upon his foes. The pioneers now wondered what would happen next. They knew ere long. During the afternoon and the next morning, sounds of breaking camp, of bugle calls, and of horses splashing in the river, were borne up to them; and, as time wore on, these sounds grew ever fainter and more distant until they ceased. Apparently, the Indians had given up the controversy and were going home. It was a trick, however, to entice the settlers into the open. Somehow they detected it and kept securely within their stockade. Instead of marching northward toward the Shawnee region, the Indians were circling far about Boonesborough to re-cross the Kentucky River later, and conceal themselves in a different part of the woods, this time near the path to the stockade. They accomplished their detour quickly, only to find Boonesborough serene and quiet and with no one stirring outside its walls. Thoroughly indignant that their ruse had failed, they swarmed about in the bushes near the fort, and from under cover of the trees rained bullets thick and fast upon the walls. That night the i8o DANIEL BOONE settlers could see many camp fires glowing in the forest darkness and they realized that at last the siege was begun. Spurred on by the French-Canadian officers, the Indians fought from September 8 to September 17, battering at the palisades with a persistence unusual to savages. They shot from trees and logs, from stumps and hillocks, from under cover of the river bank, and from the hills above the fort. Bullets poured into the inclosure from all sides and the ensuing hubbub was almost maddening. Dogs howled; cattle bellowed and plunged in fright; girls and sometimes women, overwrought with long anxiety and hunger, cried and screamed; burning faggots, thrown by the Indians, hissed and crackled; the leaders gave orders sharply above the din ; Indians yelled and whooped ; and all the while muskets rattled and the river gorge echoed and reechoed with the firing and clamor. The siege was one of the most remarkable ever waged by savages, and would have been even more unusual if Lieutenant De Quindre had been able to force his Indian army to carry out all of his plans. If he could have induced them to form and make a charge, according to European tactics, the little fortress would have fallen almost immediately. Failing in this device, the white officer set a detail THE SIEGE OF THE SHAWNEES i8i of Indians to dig a liiine through which they might penetrate to the fort, either for the purpose of blowing it up or for capturing it through an under- ground passage. The other savages continued to fire incessantly in order to conceal the new work. Some keen-eyed settler, however, noticed that the water of the river appeared muddy, as if earth were being thrown into it, and Boone, at once sur- mising the cause, ordered some of his men to begin a trench which would cut into the enemy's mine. He ordered others to build a watch-tower from which they might overlook the hostile army's proceedings. The tower was erected on the cabin which had been Henderson's kitchen, and under- neath this house the pioneers began to dig their tunnel, about three feet wide and fairly deep; it passed beneath various other cabins along the river. While men above them watched, the diggers worked with might and main in excessive September heat. A prolonged rain soon came, to the relief of the garrison as well as to those underground. On Sunday night, after the settlers had been harassed for a week by the besiegers, they suddenly discovered that their enemies were throwing lighted arrows and flaring torches upon the roofs of their cabins in an attempt to fire the stockade. The men examined the missiles which failed to burn, and i82 DANIEL BOONE discovered that they were wound with the oily fiber of hickory nuts, and with flax, stolen from some cabin. Had it not been for the rain, Boones- borough would soon have been a blazing pile, as the water within the fort was too low for fire-fighting. Happily, the timbers were so wet that the blazing brands burned themselves out with little effect. Meanwhile, the pioneers continued to dig and the Indians continued to dig — and ever nearer one another white men and savages made their slow way underground. Boone wanted the enemies to know that the settlers also were planning a mine, and ordered the earth from the tunnel to be thrown over the side of the fort in full sight of the army. As the unseen savages approached the walls, they and the pioneers sometimes ridiculed one another good- naturedly. Mr. Ranck says that an old hunter would yell from the battery in the Shawnee tongue to the Indians on the river bank below, ^'What are you red rascals doing down there?" ^'Digging!" would be the answer. *'Blow you all to smash soon! What you do?" ' ' We ? ' ' the settlers would reply. ^ ' We are digging to meet you and intend to bury five hundred of you." So work went on until the 1 5 th of September, when THE SIEGE OF THE SHAWNEES 183 the Indians had come so near the fort that their voices and the click of their tools beneath the grass could be heard by the settlers. In terror, men and women alike awaited the end which seemed at hand. They waited, wan with little sleep and scanty food, and upon them and their doomed cabins a heavy rain fell. The stormy night which followed was so dark and windy that they could neither see nor hear any movements outside their walls. Now and then a flash of lightning startled them, but otherwise this tiny band was encom- passed with pitchy darkness in the midst of the wilderness, beset by savages, and cut off from all the world. Yet even on so terrible a night no one was willing to surrender. Dawn came at last, followed by a clear, blue morning, and the road about the little fort lay quiet in the sunshine. The settlers bestirred them- selves and looked at one another. To their aston- ishment they all were alive and well, and their cabins were still standing in the stockade. After all, nothing had happened during those long and awful hours of the previous night, and now no sound of the foe came to them from underground. In the direction of the trail, they heard the Indians and their horses moving about, but even those distant noises soon ceased. What did it mean? 1 84 DANIEL BOONE Scouts ventured out, and by noon sped back with the news that the savages were in full retreat — news which seemed almost too good to be true. The rain had proved providential. It had caused the red men's tunnel, upon which they had worked with constancy uncommon to Indians, to cave in, and without doubt the savages had determined then and there to go home, rebelling against their white leader's orders to begin anew. With profound gratitude the pioneers faced life once more. The heavy gates swung in upon their hinges and stood open. The few remaining cattle — nearly all had been slaughtered for food — were driven outside the walls to taste green grass again. Men and women hurried at once to the spring and, standing in the noontide brightness, drank long and gratefully. Was anything sweeter or more refreshing than a draught of cold water? Boone and his men examined the exterior of the walls and searched the battlefield about the fort, rehearsing the plans and movements of the enemy. They found that about one hundred pounds of bullets had been fired into the timbers of a single blockhouse — how much had been lodged in the fortress as a whole could not be judged — and one hundred and twenty-five pounds of bullets were picked up from the surrounding ground. The THE SIEGE OF THE SHAWNEES 185 pioneers were amazed that they had been able to withstand such an onslaught with so little loss. Only two of their number had been killed and four wounded. The Indian casualties, they reckoned, must have reached thirty-seven killed and many wounded. "A dreadful siege" it had been, as Boone said, "which threatened death in every form." Its end had come and never again was Boonesborough assailed. Within a few days eighty men arrived from the Holston settlements, and with this reenforcement the pioneers bravely sallied forth into the Indians' own towns, endeavoring to avenge raids and mur- ders which occurred from time to time in the county. Boone said in his old age that the Shaw- nees had been foolish to show him and his twenty- seven salt-makers the way to their country. As Boone was recovering from the strain of the siege and laying pleasant plans to join his family, he suffered a cruel and unnecessary experience. During his captivity at Chillicothe, disputes con- cerning the leadership of Boonesborough had arisen among the ofhcers. Colonel Calloway was the highest officer in rank, but Major W. B. Smith claimed that he had been appointed commander of the fort in Boone^s capacity. Colonel Calloway i86 DANIEL BOONE resented this and, when Boone had again assumed command, was ready to criticise his methods of dealing with the Indians. When peace was assured, he turned against his former friend and charged him with treason. He claimed that Boone had favored the British rather than the settlers in his actions with the Shawnees and during the siege, and in consequence should forfeit his commission in the militia of Kentucky County. The simple- hearted backwoodsman, who had all but given his Ufe for his people, was hurt and bewildered. He was summoned before a court-martial at Logan's Fort, where the four charges following were brought against him by the colonel : "i. That Boone had taken out twenty-six men (referring only to the twenty-seven captives) to make salt at the Blue Licks, and the Indians had caught him trapping for beaver ten miles below on Licking, and he voluntarily surrendered his men at the Licks to the enemy. "2. That while a prisoner, he engaged mth Gov- ernor Hamilton to surrender the people of Boones- borough to be removed to Detroit, and live under British protection and jurisdiction. ''3. That returning from captivity, he encour- aged a party of men to accompany him to the Paint Lick Town, weakening the garrison at a time when THE SIEGE OF THE SHAWNEES 187 the arrival of an Indian army was daily expected to attack the fort. ^'4. That preceding the attack on Boones- borough, he was wilHng to take the officers of the fort, on pretense of making peace, to the Indian camp, beyond the protection of the guns of the garrison." In the wilderness in general there was little doubt of Boone's unswerving loyalty and devotion to the borderers, and innumerable friends at once rallied to him to offer encouragement during the stress of the trial. Defense in his own behalf and under the circumstances must have been difficult for a man like Boone, yet he answered each accusation at length, proving without the sHghtest doubt that he had intended to serve only the interests of his country. He said that he had surrendered his salt-makers and given promises to the British governor in order to save the settlement, and that in consequence he himself had been able to warn the fort in time. His trip to Paint Lick Town, he said, had been for scouting purposes and had resulted in no evil ; and as for the powwow, which the commissioners had held with Black Fish in the hollow, every one must realize that that had been pure strategy to gain time. The faith of the com- munities in him and his word was proved by his 1 88 DANIEL BOONE complete vindication and by the new honor which was at once conferred on him. He was advanced to the rank of major, and with the good wishes and gratitude of all but a few enemies, he passed from the court-martial, more honored and appreciated than ever before. Soon after, he swung into his saddle and turned his horse into the road eastward — his road to the Yadkin Valley. And behind him nestled Boonesborough in peace, its gates ajar. CHAPTER XVII Public Servant and Indian Fighter "I WENT into the settlement," Boone said to Filson, ''and nothing worthy of notice passed for some time." If his biographer recorded the story correctly, Boone referred Hghtly to an interesting and im- portant period of his life. Perhaps his return to the settlements and his reunion with Rebecca and the children were such dear memories that he pre- ferred to keep silent about them. Until he rode into the Yadkin Valley and appeared at father Bryan's door, Mrs. Boone supposed him sleep- ing in some far, forest grave. No news of him had reached her since that cold and fatal January when he had encamped at Lower Blue Lick. Al- most a year had elapsed — and once again she beheld him, like a spirit from another world. What he did during the twelvemonth he re- mained in the East, we do not know, but without doubt he shouldered his gun many times and wandered off to hunt in his favorite old Yadkin haunts. 189 I90 DANIEL BOONE Meanwhile, the West, which Boone had helped to found, was growing fast, but not without opposi- tion from raiding Indian war bands which hovered in the outskirts of the forest. The resources be- yond the mountains in Kentucky County lured many backwoodsmen, who were not serving in the Colonial army on the coast, westward, where by continual warfare they kept the savages from pene- trating to Eastern settlements. Like Boone, they played a definite and helpful part in the American Revolution. So many traders, hunters, explorers, land speculators, and surveyors made their way thither that new forts and stations sprang up about Boonesborough, and the emigrants began to realize that they needed a form of government whereby they might make laws and improvements for the settlement. They petitioned the Assembly of Virginia to incorporate the place and give them a ferry across the Kentucky River. Fording the stream was uncertain and often dangerous. When Boone re- turned in October, he brought with him the news that the Assembly had passed "An Act for estab- lishing the town of Boonesborough in the County of Kentucky." Thus Boone's former tiny colony in the wilderness became a genuine town, the first place in the region to be recognized by law and PUBLIC SERVANT AND INDIAN FIGHTER 191 granted special rights to manage its own affairs. The town site was designated and laid out, streets with names were suggested, and six hundred and forty acres adjoining the town were set off by the Virginia Assembly as a common. Daniel Boone was appointed a trustee but declined to serve. The town's future seemed assured. For a time it grew, but some strange trick of circumstances prevented it from becoming important, and in time it wholly disappeared. To-day there is no vestige of its houses or its fort. Time and storms and floods have changed the region. The hills and hollows have been leveled. Their famous old trees have vanished, and only the river remains to say, ^'Men may come and men may go, but I go on forever." During the year of 1779, Virginia appropriated a small amount of money for the improvement of the Wilderness Road. The hardships of the journey westward were lessened but little, how- ever, and the many families which now emigrated by way of Boone's trail suffered privations similar to those of the earlier pioneers. They made just as picturesque caravans as they wound through the woods — pack horses loaded, women riding with small children in their laps, babies nestled in baskets swung between the head of one horse 192 DANIEL BOONE and the tail of another in the line, children trudging beside their fathers who drove the cattle and kept their rifles in readiness. And they all ate with the same relish the fresh meat of wilderness buffalo and roasted corn at the journey's end. Daniel Boone and his family went west in October and once again passed through Cumber- land Gap. He led a large band of Rowan County settlers and carried the first artillery sent by Vir- ginia to Kentucky — two small cannon. They arrived in time for the exceptionally cold winter of 1779-80 which seems to have prevailed through- out the East also, as the troops in the American camp at Morristown suffered as severely as they had on the frozen hillsides of Valley Forge in that terrible winter of two years before. Boone learned that the Indians had destroyed the corn crop in Kentucky during the preceding summer, and he and Harrod devoted themselves to bringing in meat for the new colonists until spring. When Transylvania had passed into history and the ancient Cherokee hunting-ground had become Virginia's most western county, land-titles which Henderson had given were void, and claimants were obliged to purchase new warrants from Vir- ginia. Up to this time neither Boone nor many of his friends had registered their claims. So in o U c PUBLIC SERVANT AND INDIAN FIGHTER 193 the spring it was agreed that Boone should go to Richmond and act as agent in the matter for Thomas and Nathaniel Hart and a few others, as well as for himself. They gave him money for the transactions which, added to his own hard-won savings, amounted to $20,000 in paper money and about $10,000 in silver — a large sum for one man to have in his possession in those days. How Boone carried his treasure, or whether or not he went East alone with it through the forest, we do not know. History only says that somehow, somewhere, on the way to Richmond, he was robbed of all this money. Of course, certain ones at once accused him of dishonesty, but his friends, the Harts, who had suffered the greatest loss by the theft, announced pubHcly that they believed him to be above suspicion. Thomas Hart wrote to his brother Nathaniel in August, following the misfortune, that, while he felt sorry for the poor people who might have lost not only their money but their rights to their lands by this ill luck, he sympathized more with Boone, ''whose character suffered in consequence." "Much degenerated must the people of this age be," Hart wrote, "when amongst them are to be found men to censure and blast the reputation of a person so just and upright, and in whose heart 194 DANIEL BOONE is a seat of virtue too pure to admit of a thought so base and dishonorable." The news of Boone's trouble spread, and kind messages came to him from many quarters. Late in June the Virginia Assembly granted him a thousand acres in the present Bourbon County, Kentucky, in token of the general sympathy and respect. His return to Boonesborough under the circumstances must have been a trying experience. Little good news he had to carry home with him. If, as the story goes, he had really visited the British Governor, Hamilton, who was a prisoner of war in Virginia at that time, he was at least able to tell his fellow-pioneers that that English offi- cial was very unhappy in his confinement. Save for his leniency to Boone, the acts of that ''hair- buying general" had been most cruel, and in the eyes of the settlers he surely seemed to deserve all his punishments. When Boone was again in Boonesborough in July, to serve on the jury, he found that, during his absence, many families had come over his road and by boat-load down the Ohio. Kentucky's popularity appeared to continue. Late in the year the Virginia legislature divided the region into three counties — Jefferson, Lincoln, and Fay- ette. The latter included the land between the PUBLIC SERVANT AND INDIAN FIGHTER 195 Kentucky and Ohio rivers, the least populated and therefore the wildest district, and toward this free land Boone looked with longing eyes. His own and the other older settlements were too crowded now to please him. After his younger brother, Edward, had been shot by Indians, while he and Boone were boiling salt at Grassy Lick in the present Bourbon County, Boone decided to move his family, his pack horses, dogs, and belong- ings, to the banks of a small stream now known as Boone's Creek, in Fayette County, five miles northwest of Boonesborough. In a spot where game trails crossed one another, he built a cabin and surrounded it with a high fence of pales. Yet in this tiny cabin-fort, called Boone's Station, in the free and lonely woods, he did not escape the duties of public service in a growing region beset by Indians. Militia service was required in those frontier days, and a regiment was raised in each new county. John Todd was made colonel of Fayette County, with Daniel Boone as lieutenant colonel. The three regiments formed a brigade, and George Rogers Clark, one of the earliest Kentucky settlers and a famous border leader, became brigadier general. Surveyors for each county were also appointed, for, as land claims increased in number, 196 DANIEL BOONE complications among the settlers increased also. Boone served as deputy to Colonel Thomas Mar- shall, who was surveyor. As representative from Fayette County to the Virginia Legislature, whither he was sent in April, 1 78 1, Boone became entangled in the Revolution. At the time, the British general, Cornwallis, was pursuing ^' the boy," as he called General Lafayette, through Virginia, and when he approached Rich- mond, the Frenchman abandoned the defense of the city. The Virginia Assembly was obliged to adjourn to Charlottesville, where they were soon warned that one of Cornwallis's officers. Colonel Tarleton, was galloping toward them and would capture them if they did not make a hasty escape. In spite of the notice, Boone and two or three other legislators were taken prisoners and sent to Cornwallis. They were detained in the British camp only a few days, but, although the Assembly was continuing its interrupted session at Staunton, Boone did not take his seat again until the fall. Perhaps he had given his word not to return until the next sitting of the legislature, when he had been discharged on parole. He probably spent the summer in Kentucky and returned to Rich- mond in September by the roundabout way of the PUBLIC SERVANT AND INDIAN FIGHTER 197 Ohio River and Pennsylvania, where he visited his boyhood home. This varied development in the land and life of Kentucky dispelled the "good old days" of forest freedom and of game in plenty, although to us of to-day the region would still have appeared a wilderness. To Boone all seemed changed — all save the Indians who still murdered and marauded. Boone's craft and cunning hand were constantly in demand. It is said that once he even shot two Indians with a single bullet. He was wandering alone through the woods toward Upper Blue Lick, when he heard a rifle ball sing through the air near his ear and saw it graze the bark of a tree against which he had been leaning. He rushed away through the undergrowth, waded a near-by creek, and hid himself in canebrakes on the other bank. As he peered out, he saw two Indians appear on the opposite shore. Strangely enough, as he aimed at one, the other stepped into the range also. He fired; the bullet passed through the head of one, who fell dead at once, into the shoulder of the second, who fled howling. The tragedies caused by savages during 1782 seem to have been the bloodiest of all the bloody experiences of the Kentucky frontier. As usual, they were plotted by the British in the Northwest. 1 98 DANIEL BOONE The Red Coats on the seaboard were suffering such terrible defeats in *Hhe rebellion" that even Cornwallis had been obliged to surrender and had marched his troops out of Yorktown to the tune of ''The World's Upside Down." This submission to fate in the East seemed to stir the British spirit of revenge in the West, and in consequence the settlers were driven into their forts by the reign of terror and torture which swept through the three Kentucky counties. Old settlers were robbed of their horses and live stock and their cabins fired ; and often men were found murdered in the fields of corn. New settlers, riding cheerily over the Wilderness Road, or sailing down the Ohio on flat boats, found themselves suddenly assailed and *'no quarter" given, according to British orders to the savages. At this time Boone was, as always, a tower of strength in Indian warfare and, had his advice been followed, Kentucky's misfortunes would have been less severe, and he himself might have been spared a great sorrow. In August, a thousand Indians, mustered under two British generals, descended upon Bryan's Station, a settlement of forty cabins in Fayette County, a fev/ miles north of Boone's own tiny fort. Scouts had given warning of the danger to the little garrison of fifty riflemen, but what could so PUBLIC SERVANT AND INDIAN FIGHTER 199 small a band do against such odds ! The savages hid in the underbrush, and for a time only gun- barrels and painted faces proved that Indians were about. But soon war whoops and shooting began, and the savages, banded under Chief Mo- luntha, closed in upon the stockade, brandishing flaming torches as well as fire-arrows. The settlers fired with such rapidity and precision that the Indians soon fell back in amazement, and, when the smoke of the battle had floated away, not a red man was in sight, save the dead ones lying about the fort. For the remainder of the day the savages were in hiding, aiming from cover and keeping the station in anxiety. By night, how- ever, the warfare ceased and the Indians retreated toward the Ohio. Savages were indeed strange fighters. No settler knew exactly what they would do. They were not persistent by nature, and, when some reverse occurred, they immediately lost interest and abandoned their project. A small party of horsemen, who arrived in the after- noon to aid the Station, may have made the Indians feel that soon all the settlements would be armed against them. The call for rehef, which messengers bore through the counties, met with quick response, and three companies went through the forest the 200 DANIEL BOONE next day. Of course, Daniel Boone was among them at the head of one division, and with him went Israel, his oldest living son, a young man of twenty- three. When Boone heard of the danger, he hastened to Boonesborough, and, finding the women, children, and old men as courageous and willing as ever to defend the fort alone, had en- listed all the younger men and ridden away with them, the last time that he led forth a band of fighting men from his own settlement. The three companies, numbering about one hundred and eighty horsemen, held a council of war at Bryan's Station and decided that they would chase the retreating Indians. The men marched in three divisions, with Daniel Boone, Stephen Trigg, and Levi Todd as com- manders. Todd, being the senior officer of the three, served as commander-in-chief. They fol- lowed the trail with all speed and soon came upon the Indians' camping-ground of the night before, from which the route led toward the Lower Blue Lick. On the morning of August 19, they reached the Licking River where Boone, who had been using his eyes and wits on the way, declared that he believed the Indians were luring them on to catch them in some trap, and that further pursuit, before the expected reenforcements under Colonel PUBLIC SERVANT AND INDIAN FIGHTER 201 Benjamin Logan had come, would be foolhardy. The majority of the older- Indian fighters agreed with him, although it is reported that 'Xolonel Todd was heard to say that Boone was a coward, and if they waited till Colonel Logan came up, he would gain all the laurels, but if they pressed for- ward, they would gain all the glory." Fiery Major Hugh McGary at once scorned caution. Spurring his horse into the river, he cried, *' Delay is dastardly ! Let all who are not cowards follow me!" The men, seized with sudden excitement, broke ranks and raced after him through the stream and up the steep bank opposite. The experienced officers, like Boone, were obliged to follow. There, as Boone had suspected, the Indians lay in ambush. About three hundred — the others had already escaped — were concealed among the brush and trees. The Wyandots charged furiously upon the settlers with tomahawks, while the Shawnees fired shot after shot. For a few minutes the white men fought their foes gallantly face to face, but they soon realized that victory for them would be impossible. They turned and fled precipitately down the bank and swam out into the stream, leaving behind them seventy dead comrades whose 202 DANIEL BOONE scalps were later borne away triumphantly by the savages. Before Boone and his son had thought of flight for themselves, Israel fell at his father's feet, mortally wounded. Boone quickly lifted his boy from the ground and, holding him fast, leaped down the shore into the water. By the time he had reached the other side, Israel was dead, and Boone, in order to save himself, was forced in his despair to leave the body in the forest. Boone never fully recovered from the shock and suffering of this sorrow. Tears always filled his eyes in later years when he told the story of this terrible and unnecessary disaster. As the settlers made their confused escape, they met Colonel Logan coming to overtake them, with five hundred men, who, added to their ovm former force, would have been more than a match for the Indians. With what regret and bitterness they viewed the folly of their actions, as they went home defeated ! Kentucky was now fully alarmed. The red men had returned to their own country, exulting in spoils and scalps. Who could tell what they would not do next? The spirit of fear spread so rapidly that Boone felt that help from the East was needed immediately. Accordingly he sat down in his little cabin-fort in Fayette County and PUBLIC SERVANT AND INDIAN FIGHTER 203 wrote the governor of Virginia one of his spirited but badly- spelled letters/ begging for aid. ^'Present circumstances of affairs," he said, "cause me to write to your Excellency." The details of the fatal conflict at Licking River fol- lowed. "I know that your circumstances are critical," he continued ; "but are we to be wholly forgotten? I hope not. I trust about five hun- dred men may be sent to our assistance, im- mediately. If these shall be stationed as our county lieutenants shall deem necessary, it may be the means of saving our part of the country. , . . I have encouraged the people in this country all that I could ; but I can no longer justify them or myself to risk our lives here under extraordinary hazard. The inhabitants of this country are very much alarmed at the thought of the Indians bring- ing another campaign into our country this fall. If this should be the case, it will break up these settlements. I hope, therefore, your Excellency will take the matter into your consideration, and send us some relief as quickly as possible." Times must have been indeed serious when the invincible Boone was forced to admit that another Indian campaign "would break up the settlements." The report of this appealing letter, and of pro- 1 The original, unedited letter appears to have been lost. 204 DANIEL BOONE tests from other Kentucky settlers, aroused General George Rogers Clark, and he assembled one thousand mounted riflemen at the mouth of the Licking River where Cincinnati stands to-day. Among them was Daniel Boone, ready to set out in the last expedition in which he fought for the defense of the settlements. They proceeded through the forests of Ohio to the region of the Little Miami, where they burned Indian villages and laid waste Indian plantations, destroyed stores of corn, grain, and dried meat, and caused great suffering among the Shawnees. The savages were so awed and terrified that they fled without a fight, and, as the British ceased to support them at the end of the Revolution, they were too greatly weak- ened to regain their usual strength and to besiege the Kentucky settlements with their old-time power. They only harassed now and then and committed small outrages during the next ten years, once even attempting to capture their former ** brother." The spirit of revenge was strong in the savage nature, and Boone's many successes could not be forgiven. Boone, it appears, was working in his log tobacco barn when the Indians caught him unawares. He himself never used tobacco, but he had planted a small patch of the plant to sell to his neighbors, PUBLIC SERVANT AND INDIAN FIGHTER 205 perhaps one hundred and fifty hills. When he was ready to cure this, he cut it and laid it in three tiers on poles in a little temporary shelter covered over with grass and cane. At the time of the Indian visit, the lower tier of tobacco had become dry, and Boone was transferring it to the second tier, so that he might gather and store a fresh crop in the lower tier. While he was thus busy, and standing on poles that supported the upper tiers, four red men appeared in the doorway. ^'Now, Boone," they said, looking up at him, "we got you. You no get away more. We carry you off to Chillicothe this time. You no cheat us again." Boone recognized these Shawnees as four of the Indians who had captured him at the Blue Licks boiling camp. "Ha! old friends!" he answered. "Glad to see you!" They begged him to be off at once with them, but he said that, just as soon as he had stacked his tobacco, he would gladly go. He told them to watch him closely, working and chatting the while with composure, crafty backwoodsman that he was! Suddenly he dropped an armful of the dry and dusty sticks upon the upturned faces of the savages, 2o6 DANIEL BOONE blinding and smothering them, and at the same moment he jumped from his high place and rushed toward his cabin. There he made himself safe ,. behind the pales. Boone is said to have told this incident with great glee, at the wedding of a grand- daughter, shortly before his death. It took more than a wily Indian to outwit Daniel Boone. While Boone and the Kentucky settlers had been struggling to hold the West and free it from In- dians and their British masters, the colonists on the coast had been fighting to free the lands from British control and had won independence for themselves and for their Western countrymen. Already King George had announced his failure to Parliament, "in a voice choked with emotion," and the preliminary articles of peace had been signed, declaring that the United States was an independent nation, extending from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River and from the Great Lakes to Florida. The news of the treaty was coming slowly over the sea, and meanwhile the pioneers in Kentucky, unconscious of the momen- tous tidings lying in a sealed packet in some ship's hold, were hunting, farming, and staking claims in comparative quiet. In the spring of 1783, an Eastern messenger rode into Boonesborough, and the eager settlers, PUBLIC SERVANT AND INDIAN FIGHTER 207 flocking to him, read the welcome word Peace dis- played on his cap of coonskin. Shouts and hurrahs echoed and reechoed in the forest ; rifles and pistols, aimed at the blue sky, sent loud reports cracking through the distance; and, when night came, a huge bonfire was lighted and roared triumphantly. The celebration was long and enthusiastic, and not until late that spring night did Boonesborough fall asleep after its prayers of gratitude had been said. A fresh era seemed to have dawned for the new nation and the new West, and never again were Boonesborough's great gates closed. CHAPTER XVIII The Flight from Civilization Daniel Boone was middle-aged when the mem- bers of the Continental Congress marched to church in a body and gave thanks to God for the success of the patriot cause. He was hale and hearty, as a man in the prime of life should be, when he re- turned from his last expedition against the Indians, the excursion under Clark which brought an end to general Indian outrages. Now that he had built the Wilderness Road, opened the West, and helped to make Kentucky's welfare more or less secure, we might expect that the remainder of his days passed in happiness and comfort and further achievement. But, although Boone's public serv- ice continued almost to the end of his life, his greatest work was done. As a pioneer and Indian fighter he had been Ken- tucky's leader, sharing renown as a soldier of the West only with George Rogers Clark. In the days of the early settlements and of the Indian conflicts he had won for himself a fadeless memory; his courage, understanding, forethought, and unselfish- 208 THE FLIGHT FROM CIVILIZATION 209 ness had established him for all time in the hearts of his countrymen. Yet when Kentucky's stock- ade gates were opened, and its days of war became less and less frequent, his leadership waned and he was forced to step aside for men better adapted to the ofhces of government. He was neither a statesman nor a business man, but a quiet, un- sophisticated backwoodsman, with a keen dislike for all the problems of society. As Kentucky's settlements grew into towns, he found himself little fitted for the complex life of their civiliza- tion for which he himself had blazed the way. How strange it was that the very development and prosperity in the West which he had made possible should have caused him great unhappiness ! His shortcomings, however, did not detract from his achievements nor from his fame. Stories of his exploits as hunter and explorer were told and retold throughout the country and traveled even to Europe where they were repeated in England and on the Continent with wonder and delight. The life of the picturesque pioneer dressed in skins, living in a log cabin, fighting Indians and wild beasts, and spending as much time as possible in solitude, became familiar to busy and prosperous men and women in distant cities in which Boone himself would have felt ill at ease indeed. They 2IO DANIEL BOONE admired his heroism and were fascinated by his ad- venturous career. In 1784, John Filson's record of Boone's Hfe was published, and, in spite of its stilted and formal style, it was widely circulated. Men at home and abroad discussed its thrilling story, and in conse- quence Boone's reputation was increased. He became a famous man. To foreigners he typified the true American pioneer in all his hardihood, simplicity, and dauntless spirit. Public journals contained accounts of his exploits ; travelers to the West begged interviews with him; books of the time contained references to him and his prowess, and even Lord Byron's muse was moved by tales of the backwoodsman and the poem to " General Boone of Kentucky" followed. To-day, in the Congressional Library at Washington, there are deposited various biographies of Daniel Boone written in foreign languages and published in foreign countries — Norway, Sweden, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. After the Revolution, Boone busied himself with his favorite occupations. With the receipts from military services, and by constant thrift and in- dustry, he was able to pay for various sites and purchase some comforts to relieve the rough living of frontier life. But he was constantly interrupted THE FLIGHT FROM CIVILIZATION 211 in his hunting and farming by the many conflicts in land claims which arose in consequence of the loose surveying methods. He was not only deputy surveyor but both sheriff and county lieutenant for Fayette, and, as these three officials, he was obliged to respond to many demands. The follow- ing is one of his official military orders for a body- guard to escort the chief surveyor, Colonel Marshall, to Kentucky's land office, situated at the Falls of the Ohio. This order proves that Boone's reputa- tion did not depend upon his abiHty to spell. "Orders to Capt. Hazelrigg — your are amedetly to order on Duty 3 of your Company as goude [guard] to scorte Col Marshall to the falls of ohigho you will call on those who was Exicused from the Shone [Shawnee] Expedistion and those who Come into the Country after the army Marched they are to meet at Lexinton on Sunday next with out fale given under my hand this 6 Day of Janury 1783. "Dnl Boone." Boone's Kentucky was changing rapidly. Several thousand newcomers — land speculators, mer- chants, lawyers, other professional men, and genuine settlers who wanted to found homes — made their way thither following the Revolution. Germans, Scotch, Irish, as well as Americans, were among the throng. Real estate companies, formed 212 DANIEL BOONE in Eastern cities, told the people in glowing colors of Western life and hired agents to procure sites for their customers. The wilderness became a busy region, the Louisville settlement alone growing to have three hundred inhabitants. Within two years after the Wyandots and Shawnees had so cleverly lured the settlers to death at the Blue Licks, a "dry-goods store" was opened in Lexing- ton. Within another year an inn appeared there, and twelve months later Kentucky's first news- paper, the Kentucky Gazette, was founded, and issued its first sheet printed on a press which had been hauled by pack horses over the mountains. The settlers began to plan for their children's education — the first school in Kentucky had been opened in 1779 in Boonesborough — and to make sacrifices to meet the expense. Crops — Indian corn, grain, pumpkins, melons, fruits, and tobacco — yielded more than the Kentucky colonists could use for themselves. The wide ranges were dotted with great droves of cattle and with horses, hogs, and sheep ; and, at a distance, deer, bears, and buff aloes were still hunted, and the yield of venison, bacon, and beef gave the settlers ample wild meat. Furs and bittersweet roots of ginseng were shipped eastward, either by way of the Wilderness Road or the Ohio, and beef, THE FLIGHT FROM CIVILIZATION 213 bacon, tobacco, and salt from the salt springs at the licks were loaded on flatboats and borne down the Ohio and Mississippi. Merchandise, such as the early settlers had never dreamed of possessing, was brought back to change the primi- tive mode of living in the wilderness. Because money was more abundant and trade brisk, com- forts and even extravagance began to appear. The three counties into which the wilderness had been divided were united into one district in 1783, and the region once more called by its Indian name, Kentucky. A court was estabhshed for certain criminal and land cases. At first Harrodsburg was the seat of justice, but, for want of accommoda- tions, the court sat in a meetinghouse six miles distant. Before long, a log courthouse was built near the church. This tiny settlement was soon known as Danville and became the capital of the county. There, in 1784, representatives of the various militia companies assembled to con- sider the desirability of the separation of Kentucky from Virginia and the formation of an independent state. Later, a formal convention was held and resolutions were adopted and sent to the Virginia legislature, begging that the county be allowed to separate and, with the sanction of Congress, to be- come a state in the Union. The petition was not 214 DANIEL BOONE granted until 1792, and in consequence the inter- vening years brought much pohtical discontent to the thirty thousand settlers of the county, in spite of their general prosperity and newly-won ease. Some even wanted to set up an independent government in Kentucky, amd all desired to have some official arrangements made whereby certain dehnite and immediate steps might be taken for the wehare of the West which neither Virginia nor the eastern members of Congress considered necessan,*. It was e\'ident that Boone's Kentucky was no longer a mere cabin settlement ; it had become a commonwealth, at least in spirit. Two old enemies and a new one disturbed the peace and made action seem necessary.*. Although the Revolution was passed, the British posts lo- cated in the great Northwest refused to surrender and continued to incite the savage aUies of the Crown. Indian depredations went on. Houses and stores of pro\"isions were burned, men and women murdered, and scalps stretched upon hoops for dr\ing by the savages, with their customary coolness and delight. The Kentuckians felt that Virginia, despite any complications at home, should send the aid for which they had long pleaded, in order to terminate, once and for all, this loss and bloodshed. THE FUGHT FROM CRILIZATION 215 The third disturbing element was Spain, whose territor>', called Louisiana, lay beyond Kentucky to the west. When the settlers had acquired the region which once had been the West to them, they longed for the land yet farther on. and for a free outlet to the sea down the Mississippi River in particular . Louisiani 1^ 1 : ttz. discovered, settled, and held, by the Pre-:.! -1:1:- i;::. "^"-t-. by a secret trear\-. it had been ceded to the Spanish Crown. In consequence. Spain owned Xew Or- leans and all the land ab^;■-:: :hr n: -:h :: i^e Mis- sissippi. As long as the Kt'.-ii^-rs — rr.rz to ship only furs to the Atlantic : ; :.5:. is.ty l^:;^^l i^:^i the long journey over the m : -r.: i— s by pack hoises answered their purpose "^ell ezi-izji. When they came to have bulky produce i^zlch. they wished to sell, such as com mecl. =-:ur, pork and l-inber, they were obliged to transport it on flatboats or rafts down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to Xew Orleans. There the cargo and boat were sold, or the cargo sold and transferred to ocean vessels. Thus the -'Father of Waters," as the Indian name '' Mississippi* may be translated, bdng the only outlet for this hea\y produce, was ver\- necessar}- to the prosperity- of the West. Spanish o5.cers at Xew Orleans made more or less trouble for the merchants and threatened to prevent them from 2i6 DANIEL BOONE sending their produce to the port. The Eastern men in Congress failed to realize the importance of free navigation on the Mississippi, and the Ken- tuckians, being unable either to form a state or to become independent of Virginia, were greatly handicapped and exasperated. While these changes were coming to pass in his former wilderness, Daniel Boone was growing more and more restless and unhappy. Probably in the spring of 1786, he abandoned his cabin-fort at Boone's Station and moved north to Maysville, on the south bank of the Ohio, where he con- ducted a small tavern and store. Mrs. Boone, doubtless, served as hostess, as Boone himself was surely too much occupied away from the inn to attend to the travelers who came by water to Kentucky. He hunted, trapped, surveyed, piloted immigrant parties, and served as merchant and trader. The goods, which he sold in his small store, he and his sons bought in Maryland in exchange for furs, skins, and ginseng which they carried thither over old roads or new paths on their pack horses. He frequently ran the gauntlet on the Ohio between Maysville and Point Pleasant, which lay up the river at the mouth of the Ka- nawha, alternately trading at the hamlets and fighting the Indians who hid along the banks. Such experiences were the spice of life to Boone. THE FLIGHT FROM CIVILIZATION 217 But worries and troubles lay heavily on his heart. As more and more land claims were registered by the newcomers, the old settlers, like Boone, who had paid little heed to legal requirements, found their lands entered in the land office in strange names. Boone, who had given his life for Kentucky, and to whom its hills, streams, and valleys were most dear, never dreamed that any one could or would wish to, rob him of his just rights to the wilderness. He considered that any entry, recording his claim, even one so vague as the following, proved without a doubt his right to the property. ^'Aperel the 22 1785" is the date of a claim "on the Bank of Cantuckey." *' Survayd for Dal Boone 5000 acres begin at Robert Camels N E Corner at at 2 White ashes and Buckeyes S 1200 p[oles] to 3 Shuger trees Ealm and walnut E 666 yr to 6 Shuger trees and ash N 1200 yr to a poplar and beech W 666 yr to the begining." With his unbusinesslike viewpoint, he could not realize that a regular registration of land claims according to legal form was absolutely necessary. He himself was scrupulously honest; he expected individuals and the state to be equally just to him. Yet ere long, because of his impractical ways and his antipathy to technical forms of law, he found himself absolutely landless. The many acres which 2i8 DANIEL BOONE he had been granted, or had preempted, during the twenty years since he blazed the Wilderness Road, were shorn from him. The two thousand acres, given him by the Transylvania Company, had lapsed, of course, but Virginia had substi- tuted a thousand acres in the present Bourbon County, and Boone himself had chosen many choice sites during his constant wandering. He employed counsel and attended the courts, but without avail. His claims were imperfectly entered and he was ejected from the land which he had explored and valiantly defended. Even his beautiful farm near Boonesborough passed into other hands. However much the courts may have sympathized with the hero of Kentucky, they were forced to abide by the letter rather than by the spirit of the law. Accordingly, in 1788, Boone packed up his goods and, turning his back upon the Kentucky which he had helped to found and had loved so long, he sought a new home in the wilderness of the Ka- nawha Valley, then in Virginia. In a memorial to the legislature of Kentucky in 181 2, he wrote briefly and with natural simplicity (some kindly hand corrected his crude spelling) of this sad time in his life : ** Unacquainted with the niceties of the law, the few lands I was enabled to locate were, through my ignorance, generally swallowed up by better claims." THE FLIGHT FROM CIVILIZATION 219 Boone at first settled on the river not far from Point Pleasant. Later he moved to the site of Charleston. Many of the valley people knew him personally; others by reputation only; and all welcomed him with such warmth that he must have been heartened and have found the new life offering unexpected interest. He cultivated his farm, raised stock, hunted in the proper seasons, although the region was not as rich in game as he had hoped, and kept a small store in Point Pleasant. He was then as always a picturesque and compelling figure. One who knew him in those days de- scribed him as follows:^ ''His large head, full chest, square shoulders, and stout form are still impressed upon my mind. He was (I think) about five feet ten inches in height, and his weight say one hundred and seventy-five pounds. He was solid in mind as well as in body, never frivolous, thoughtless, or agitated ; but was always quiet, meditative, and impressive, unpretentious, kind, and friendly in his manner. He came very much up to the idea we have of the old Grecian philos- ophers — particularly Diogenes." During his residence at Maysville, Boone served as town trustee and as representative in the Vir- ginia legislature, where he revived the sore question * Quoted from " Daniel Boone " by Reuben Gold Thwaites. 220 DANIEL BOONE of military aid for the Kentuckians. He com- plained that the arms sent west by the state were of little use, that the rifles came without flints or cartridge-boxes, and that the swords had no scab- bards. The men of Kanawha Valley treated him with equal distinction. They petitioned for his ap- pointment as heutenant colonel of their county, which ofhce he received, and later they elected him to represent them at Richmond. As during his terms of service from Boonesborough and Maysville, he indulged in little oratory in the as- sembly, but lent himself with quiet dignity and sympathy to the many interests before the body. He was a member of two committees which in those days were important — the committee on religion, and the committee on propositions and licenses. By the summer of 1790, the Indians had become so incensed by the crowds of settlers coming to the West that they were making life almost unbearable. The Government was at last forced to take the field against them, after seven years of fruitless parleying and treaties. The Federal forces quelled various uprisings during the following twelve months. Boone and his militia, however, do not appear to have figured in any of the encounters ; probably THE FLIGHT FROM CIVILIZATION 221 they were needed for defense on the frontier at home. In October, 1791, while Boone was in the legislature, Governor Arthur St. Clair, of the Northwest Territory, suffered overwhelming defeat in an expedition against the Indian towns on the Miami River. When word of St. Clair's disaster reached the Virginia assembly, the members immediately voted to send a large quantity of ammunition to the militia on the Monongahela and Kanawha rivers, which was soon to be called out, following the Federal reverses. Boone applied to the governor for the contract to transport these supplies. ''Sir," wrote Boone, ''as sum person Must Carry out the Armantstion [ammunition] to Red Stone if your Excelency should have thought me a proper person I would undertake it on conditions I have the apintment to vitel the company at Kanhowway so that I Could take Down the flower as I paste that place I am your Excelencey's most obedient omble servant Dal Boone." This original document met with favor. Five days later, December 18, 1791, Boone received the commission and set out with the supplies for Red Stone, now known as Brownsville, Pennsyl- vania. Some misunderstanding seems to have arisen, for, although Boone delivered certain 222 DANIEL BOONE orders, others failed to reach their destination, and complaints were forwarded to the governor. Very Hkely Boone's unbusinesslike methods in- volved him once more in complications. No official inquiry into the affair seems to have been made. There evidently was no question of Boone's honor- able intentions. The frontiers were alarmed by the defeat of St. Clair, and indignation spread throughout the country. General Wayne — ' ' Mad Anthony " they called him, on account of his bravery and dash, though he was an experienced and skillful soldier — was appointed St. Clair's successor and expected to reduce the savages to abject submission. He marched west in the autumn of 1793, and in August, 1794, with cavalry and infantry charges, defeated the enemy at Fallen Timbers, not far from the present Maumee City, Ohio. The following sum- mer eleven hundred sachems and warriors, repre- senting twelve cantons, met the United States Commissioners at Grenville, north of Cincinnati, and made another treaty of peace — a peace which the Indians this time observed for fifteen years. 1 Joy flashed along the frontiers, and men and women breathed easily, for now it seemed that, after twenty years of almost constant dread of Indians, they were free to go and come in peace, THE FLIGHT FROM CIVILIZATION 223 to open up the forests, to hunt wherever wild beasts led them, to cultivate their farms, to develop their own lives and their own communities as pleased them best. Naturally, Boone also rejoiced in this great change, grateful for the new freedom for himself and for the hundreds of strangers settled in the region over which he felt an ownership almost paternal. Three years before the assurance of peace, the county had been made a state, and the year following the treaty of Grenville the Kentucky legislature had appropriated money for the im- provement of the Wilderness Road. For the first time, it was made fit for wagon travel. Up to that time all settlers had come over its difficult and un- even way on foot or on horseback, and pack horses had carried all belongings. It was estimated that at least seventy-five thousand persons had gone to the West over Daniel Boone's road in the years between 1775 and 1796, before it was opened to wagons. Surely Kentucky had developed. When news of the Legislature's vote regarding the Wilderness Road reached Boone, he made one more pathetic appeal to bring himself again into his old life. "Sir,'' he wrote to Governor Shelby of Ken- tucky, "after my best Respts to your Ex- celancy and famyly I wish to inform you that I 2 24 DANIEL BOONE have sum intention of undertaking this New Rode that is to be cut through the Wilderness and I think my Self intitled to the ofer of the Bisness as I first Marked out that Rode in March 1775 and Never rec'd anything for my trubel and Sepose I am no Statesman I am a Woodsman and think My Self as Capable of Marking and Cutting that Rode, as any other man Sir if you think with Me I would thank you to wright me a Line by the post the first oportuneaty and he Will Lodge it at Mr. John Milers on hinkston fork as I wish to know Where and when it is to be Laat [let] So that I may attend at the time I am Deer Sir your very omble sarvent Daniel Boone." But alas ! Boone was no longer a leader, and the contract, which should have in all fairness been awarded him, was given some one else — some one else to whom the state owed little, while to Boone it owed much. Boone was far from happy. Memories flooded his thoughts. He longed for the old Kentucky, for the old trails and licks, for the old friends with whom he had lived and fought side by side. He longed, too, for the unbroken forest and the old- time wilderness undisturbed by settlers. The hunting did not satisfy him as formerly, although he had unusual success in beaver-trapping and THE FLIGHT FROM CIVILIZATION 225 managed to bring home much meat to share with his neighbors, and many skins and furs to send to Eastern markets. As he trudged the valley of the Gauley River, flowing along not far from Charles- ton, his favorite haunt for beavers, his mind reverted sadly to days that were gone. How hope- fully and heartily he had worked in the past and how bitterly life had served him ! To complete his unhappiness, in 1798 came the news that the few claims in Kentucky which he had still possessed when he departed for the Kanawha Valley, had been sold at auction by the sheriff for the taxes which he was unable to pay. His last piece of land in Kentucky was gone ! The wilderness, to which he had blazed the way, now held only memories for him. And so once again Boone set his face toward the West. For the fourth time he decided to flee from civilization. As a youth he had guided his father's family from the growing settlements of Oley Township to the beautiful and untrammeled Yadkin Valley. As a man of forty, he had led his wife and children over the mountains and through Cumberland Gap to that alluring Indian hunting- ground which he "esteemed a second paradise." Baffled and worsted by the strange customs of society, which had followed in his footsteps over the Q 226 DANIEL BOONE wilderness trail and by way of the Ohio, he had wrenched himself from dear associations about Boonesborough, and, as a man of fifty-four, he had resolutely set off for the banks of the Kanawha where he hoped to find a life more like the old life of the frontier. There the crowds — or what seemed like crowds to him — overtook him and further disappointments came to increase his dis- like for civilization. Again, at sixty-five, he felt that he must seek the wilderness. Plains and forests lay in Spain's great territory beyond the Mississippi River, which bounded the United States on the west. Buffaloes, grizzly bears, deer, and beavers were plentiful, and the people there, Boone heard, were open-hearted Frenchmen for the most part, living simple, un- ambitious lives as small farmers and hunters. Spain held them by few laws and ruled them lightly. Moreover, the Spanish Crown was offering generous grants to American pioneers who would settle in Louisiana. Canada's power was feared, and the strength of colonists from the East would help to forestall any attack which the northern country might be planning upon the fertile Mississippi Valley. Daniel Morgan Boone, Daniel Boone's oldest living son, had already settled in the present St. Charles County of Missouri, near the junction THE FLIGHT FROM CIVILIZATION 227 of the Missouri River and the ^'Father of Waters." Boone followed him in 1799. The story goes that the people of the Kanawha Valley came from far and near, on foot, on horse- back, and by boat, to say good-by to the great backwoodsman. For them it was a sad occasion. "They bade him a farewell as solemnly affec- tionate," says Dr. Thwaites, "as though he were departing for another world." Indeed, he was bound for a region strange to them, belonging to a foreign country and ruled by a king, an ofhcial for whom Americans had little use in general. Flatboats were made ready, and the Boones, together with such chattels as could be transported easily and with some cattle, embarked on the Kanawha and sailed down the Ohio. The journey was taken leisurely. They stopped at' various towns along the banks to visit friends and to buy provisions. Everywhere Boone's arrival was an- nounced, as he was well known by reputation, and men flocked to him to ask questions and advice. It is said that at Cincinnati some one asked him why, at sixty-five, he was leaving a good home and friends for the uncertain life of a frontier. "Too crowded here!" he answered with charac- teristic briefness. "I want more elbow-room!" So Daniel Boone crossed the current of the broad 228 DANIEL BOONE Mississippi to the Louisiana shore and settled in the Middle West, where to-day Missouri lies. Courageously, and hoping for peace and content- ment, he made his way westward — for the last time. CHAPTER XIX Traveling toward the Sunset It was indeed a feather in Louisiana's cap to win so renowned an American as Daniel Boone. The inhabitants soon came to reaHze the kind of man who had come to live among them. They might have said of him, as did Thomas Hart, who knew Boone ''when poverty and distress held him fast by the hand," that they "ever found him a noble and generous soul, despising everything mean." The Spanish authorities, according to their ''assurance that ample portions of land should be given to him and his family," granted him, free of charge, ten thousand choice Spanish arpents, which amounted to about eight hundred and fifty English acres, bordering upon his son's estate on Femme Osage Creek, north of the Missouri River and about forty-five miles west of St. Louis. There Boone built a log cabin, and he and his wife settled them- selves to enjoy life among the picturesque little villages which the French had strung along the river and creek banks. The leisurely and care-free existence of his new 229 230 DANIEL BOONE neighbors proved a great relief to Boone after the zealous, bustling, warring ways of his own young and growing country just across the river. A kindly spirit seems to have prevailed. The French were on friendly terms with the Indians, with whom they bartered, and, it is said, theft and dishonesty being rare, only two locks were necessary in St. Louis, the capital of Upper Louisiana — one on the prison, the other on the Government House. Boone's fame had traveled before him and his welcome was exceedingly hearty. The reception, which ofi&cials as well as genial individuals gave him, together with free and easy customs, made Boone feel at home and happy. Indeed, he often said that, except his first long hunt in Kentucky, this was the pleasantest time of his life. The year following, Boone was appointed syndic, or magistrate, of Femme Osage District. The honor came to him because he was able and worthy, and because he could read and write! Most of the French inhabitants were illiterate, and the little education which Boone had acquired was appre- ciated by the authorities. Quarrels between neigh- bors and disputes of many kinds were referred to him, as the chief official of the district, and naturally he settled them in a manner entirely informal and original. He knew little, if any, law and despised TRAVELING TOWARD THE SUNSET 231 those who did, beheving to the end of his Hfe that he had been tricked out of his Kentucky lands through the chicanery of lawyers. Boone heard all cases unassisted, himself acting as counsel, judge, and jury. He cared nothing for evidence, or the facts of a case from which he might have reasoned the truth, because he ex- pected the parties to a suit and their witnesses to tell him only that which was true. Upon their testimony his decision was based. He imposed whatever penalties he considered reasonable — sometimes many lashes on the bare flesh, ''well laid on." With a fine sense of justice and a large fund of common sense, Boone was well fitted for his oflS-cial task, in spite of his ignorance of legal pro- cedure. The inhabitants accepted his judgments as fair and final, and as syndic he was altogether respected. In reporting upon him later, the lieu- tenant governor of Louisiana wrote: ''Mr. Boone, a respectable old man, just and impartial ; he has already, since I appointed him, offered his resignation owing to his infirmities; believing I know his probity, I have induced him to remain, in view of my confidence in him, for the public good," The Emperor Napoleon, then the most powerful monarch across the sea, was planning to reconstruct 232 DANIEL BOONE Europe according to his own ideas. He promised the Duke of Parma that he should be king of Tuscany, and the duke's sister, who was queen of Spain and the power behind the Spanish throne, induced her husband to cede Louisiana back to France as a token of gratitude to Napoleon. This transfer in 1800 would have ended Spain's authority throughout Louisiana, if France at the moment had been ready to take possession. Before the exchange was formally completed. Napoleon was on the verge of war with Great Britain, and feared that England would send over a fleet to America and rob him of Louisiana. The people of the United States were greatly disturbed by the news of the session. They were suspicious of the daring and restless spirits in con- trol of affairs in France. President Jefferson said, "This little event of France's possessing herself of Louisiana is the embryo of a tornado." So the young republic decided to buy Louisiana and thus obtain the Mississippi Valley and the West beyond, as far as the Rocky Mountains; and Napoleon determined to sell it, in order to rid himself of a problem and procure funds for his war with England. In 1803, he sold the rich land for two cents an acre, and the United States acquired a territory which more than doubled its area. TRAVELING TOWARD THE SUNSET 233 The step was a momentous one for the American people, but to Daniel Boone it meant further disaster. The Stars and Stripes were raised at St. Louis in March, 1804, and Boone's authority as syndic then ceased, for the ''Yankees," and not Spain, were in power. He, as well as his French neighbors, lamented the new regime because it would mean an influx of noisy settlers, greedy of land and game, and an end to Louisiana's peaceful life. Unfortunately, Boone learned no lesson by his sad experiences in Kentucky. When the United States Commissioners investigated the land- titles of the Louisiana settlers, they found that Boone's grant had never been registered. According to Spanish law, every settler was obliged to occupy and cultivate his claim within a certain time, and to obtain the approval of the governor at New Orleans as well as the signature of the lieutenant governor at St. Louis. Again Boone failed to take the necessary precautions, having Hved near, but not on, his farm, — and perhaps, in this instance, he was not entirely to blame. He understood the lieutenant governor, Delassus, to say that a syndic could hold his land by right of office only. The American commissioners were bound by ex- plicit directions ; no exception could lawfully be 234 DANIEL BOONE made even in Boone's case. His grant was not con- firmed. The old backwoodsman, as Mr. H. Addington Bruce says/ *^was left, at the age of seventy-five, and after a career of exploration and pioneering unsurpassed by any man of his genera- tion, without a foot of land that he could call his own." The prairies, the forests, the herds of buffaloes, the bears, and the deer of Louisiana pleased Boone greatly, and during his term as syndic and for a time longer he hunted frequently. Although his sight was less keen, and his hand less steady than in his younger years, he still hunted with marked success. The great naturalist, John James Audu- bon, described him after one of these wanderings, as follows : "Daniel Boone, or, as he was usually called in the Western country. Colonel Boone, happened to spend a night with me under the same roof, more than twenty years ago. We had returned from a shooting excursion, in the course of which his ex- traordinary skill in the management of the rifle had been fully displayed. On retiring to the room ap- propriated to that remarkable individual and my- self for the night, I felt anxious to know more of his exploits and adventures than I did, and accord- ^ Quoted from " Daniel Boone and the Wilderness Road." TRAVELING TOWARD THE SUNSET 235 ingly took the liberty of proposing numerous ques- tions to him. The stature and general appearance of this wanderer of the western forests approached the gigantic. His chest was broad and prominent ; his muscular powers displayed themselves in every limb; his countenance gave indication of his great courage, enterprise, and perseverance; and when he spoke, the very motion of his lips brought the impression that whatever he uttered could not be otherwise than strictly true. I undressed whilst he merely took off his hunting shirt, and arranged a few folds of blankets on the floor, choos- ing rather to lie there, as he observed, than on the softest bed.'' Boone hunted every winter. Sometimes he went alone, but usually one or the other of his sons or an old Indian servant accompanied him. He had a horror of burial far from home, and made his servant swear to bring his body back to Femme Osage, in case of death in the forest. In spite of advanced years, he made long excursions through the great game fields that lay for hundreds of miles north, south, and west of St. Charles County. He traveled as far as Kansas and, when he was eighty, he made his way as far West as the Yellowstone. When emigrants from the East pressed into Mis- souri and disturbed his peace of mind, he wanted 236 DANIEL BOONE to move still farther west, but the wisdom of his family prevailed and he remained with them. He paddled for weeks at a time in his canoe on the Missouri and its tributaries, taking his servant with him. He appeared ^'in the dress of the roughest, poorest hunter." When he was eighty-four, he wrote his son, Daniel Morgan Boone, that he hoped the next autumn to pilot a party of settlers and Osage Indians to visit the salt mountains, lakes, and ponds, five or six hundred miles westward, which were probably situated in the present Indian Territory. Tales of the far West fas- cinated him, as had Finley's stories of Kentucky in his early manhood, and any information regarding the Rocky Mountains or California, the beautiful land beyond them, he listened to eagerly. During the hunting expeditions of his old age, Boone was obliged to be constantly on the alert, as the Indians of the Northwest were often un- friendly and hostile. Twice in these later years he seems to have been in imminent danger. Once he was attacked by a few members of the Osage tribe who wished to rob him, but, with his own strength and cunning and the help of his servant, he was able to scatter them. During a winter excursion up the Grand River, — a stream rising in Iowa, whither he paddled alone, it is said, for TRAVELING TOWARD THE SUNSET 237 trapping beavers, — he discovered an encampment of Indians near his own shelter. He feared that the savages would find his traps and so detect the presence of a white man, but, as good luck would have it, a snowstorm buried the traps. He had laid in a supply of venison, turkeys, and bear meat, and by keeping in hiding, and by cooking his food only in the dead of night when the smoke from his fire could not be seen, his presence was unsuspected. Twenty days later, when the snow had melted, the Indians broke camp and Boone's anxiety ended. Boone desired to obtain beaver skins in partic- ular, then worth nine dollars each in the market at St. Louis, as he wanted to settle his old debts in Kentucky. In 18 10, the season having been most successful, he set off for the East. Boone had kept no book account, it is said, and did not know how much he owed nor to whom he was indebted. ''In the honest simplicity of his nature," writes Dr. John M. Peck, in his volume on Daniel Boone, ''he went to all with whom he had had dealings, and paid whatever was demanded." The story goes that he returned to Missouri, happy and care-free, with only fifty cents left in his pocket. "Now," said he, "I am ready and willing to die. I have paid all my debts. No one will say when I am gone, 'Boone was a dishonest man.'" 238 DANIEL BOONE In the East his old friends welcomed him warmly and, sympathizing with him in his loss of lands in Missouri, suggested that he make an attempt to regain them. They assured him of their support in any effort which he might make. They also told him that appreciation of his great work for the West was growing, and that he was fast becoming an heroic figure to Kentuckians. With this en- couragement, he framed a memorial to the Ken- tucky Legislature in 181 2, begging the members to help him in securing from Congress a new judgment regarding his grant in Missouri. He told at length the story of his work for Kentucky and of his misfortunes, and stated that he had appealed to Congress for relief. "Your memorialist," Boone said, "cannot but feel, so long as feeling remains, that he has a just claim upon his country for land to live on, and to transmit to his children after him. He cannot help, on an occasion like this, to look towards Kentucky. From a small acorn she has become a mighty oak, furnishing shelter to upwards of four hundred thousand souls. Very different is her appearance now from the time when your memorial- ist, with his little band, began to fell the forest and construct the rude fortification at Boones- borough." TRAVELING TOWARD THE SUNSET 239 The petition was referred to the Senate of Ken- tucky and a resolution was adopted unanimously by both Houses, instructing their representatives at Washington to do all that was possible in Boone's behalf, it being "As unjust as it was impolitic that useful enterprise and eminent services should go unrewarded." Boone's appeal and this resolution were con- sidered by the Congressional Committee on public lands, and on December 24, 18 13, a favorable re- port was made. A few weeks later, by con- gressional enactment, possession of his Spanish grant was restored to the venerable pioneer. This appropriate recognition would have brought to Daniel Boone the complete satisfaction and happiness which he so richly merited, if he could have shared the honor with his wife. Before final legislative action was taken, Rebecca Boone passed away, deeply mourned by the hardy backwoods- man for whom her gentleness, generosity, and heroism had made her a fitting wife. With him she had braved and suffered the perils of the wilder- ness, always courageous, cheery, and confident in his ability and ultimate success. For more than half a century she had been his companion. Serene and sunny as ever at eighty-three, Boone left his own lonely home and went to Hve with his 240 DANIEL BOONE daughter Jemima, who, it will be remembered, had married Flanders Calloway. He spent much of his time with his sons, Daniel Morgan and Nathan, but, with the coming of autumn, he grew restless. He longed to get away from the settle- ments and into the wilderness, to wander and hunt and be free. With a servant or a companion, he would put off in his canoe and paddle for weeks along, the Missouri and the many streams flowing into it. In summer he helped to farm, and during the winters he repaired rifles and traps and made powderhorns, tastefully carved, for his grand- children and friends. Many visitors from the East came to see him, some being greatly surprised to find so famous an Indian fighter so gentle and kindly. Their many questions called forth thrilling stories from their white-haired host, which he told gladly but with no ostentation. He looked upon his experiences and achievements only as the fulfillment of his duty. In 1819, the American artist, Chester Harding, called upon Boone for the purpose of painting his portrait.^ The artist found him alone in a cabin, a part of an old blockhouse, where he was staying during a hunt. He found him *' engaged in cooking his dinner. He was lying in his bunk, near the 1 See frontispiece of this volume. O Q < w ffl U H < H Z W o TRAVELING TOWARD THE SUNSET 241 fire," said Mr. Harding, ''and had a long strip of venison wound around his ramrod, and was busy turning it before a brisk blaze, and using salt and pepper to season his meat. I at once told him the object of my visit. I found that he hardly knew what I meant. I explained the matter to him, and he agreed to sit. He was (nearly) ninety years old, and rather infirm ; his memory of passing events was much impaired, yet he would amuse me every day by his anecdotes of his earlier life. I asked him one day, just after his description of one of his long hunts, if he never got lost, having no compass. 'No,' he said, 'I can't say as ever I was lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.' " Thus, among his affectionate children, grand- children, and friends, he lived for three years after Rebecca Boone's death. Then, with little warning and no suffering, he fell into his last sleep in his son Nathan's house, on September 26, 1820, in the eighty-sixth year of his age. He was buried beside his wife on the quiet bank of Teugue Creek, about a mile from the Missouri River. When he died, the convention for drafting the constitution of the new state of Missouri was in session at St. Louis. Upon hearing the news, the delegates adjourned for the day and wore crepe on their left arms for twenty days, in respect to Boone's R 242 DANIEL BOONE memory. He passed away as quietly as he had lived, and at a time when the West, which he had helped to found, was taking another step of prog- ress. He died with a simple faith in God and in a life hereafter, as the following quaint and touching letter to his brother Samuel's wife shows. October the 19th 1816. Deer Sister With pleasuer I Rad a Later from your sun Samuel Boone who informs me that you are yett Liveing and in good health Considing your age I wright to you to Latt you know I have Not forgot you and to inform you of my own Situation sence the Death of your Sister Rabacah I Leve with flanders Calaway But am at present at my sun Nathans and in tolarabel halth you Can gass at my feilings by your own as we are So Near one age I Need Not write you of our satuation as Samuel Bradley or James grimes Can inform you of Every Surcomstance Relating to our famaly and how we Leve in this World and what Chance we shall have in the next we know Not for my part I am as ignerant as a Child all the Relegan I have to Love and fear god beleve in Jeses Christ Don all the good to my Nighbour and my self that I Can and Do as Little harm as I Can help and trust on gods marcy for the Rest and I Beleve god neve made a man of my prisepel [principle] to be Lost and I flater my self Deer sister that you are well on your way in Cristeanaty gave my Love to all your Childran and all my frends fearweU my Deer sister Daniel Boone. TRAVELING TOWARD THE SUNSET 243 Twenty-five years later, when Kentucky had become an important state, when the forests along the Missouri River had been cut away, and the Mississippi Valley had begun to hum with life and business, the people of Kentucky realized that Daniel and Rebecca Boone were sleeping far from their real home. Daniel Boone had blazed the westward trail. Daniel and Rebecca Boone had conquered and loved the wilderness and had there built cabins. That wilderness had become the thriving state of Kentucky, and by legal proceed- ings, which Boone's simple nature could not fathom, it had bereft him of lands which belonged more rightfully to him than to any one else. Ought not the remains of Daniel and Rebecca Boone to rest in Kentucky soil? In 1845, the legislature of Kentucky sent com- missioners to Missouri to appeal to the people to allow them to carry out their wish. Reluctantly, the Missourians yielded. The remains were re- moved and re-interred in Frankfort Cemetery, Kentucky, September 13, 1845, with appropriate ceremonies and in the presence of a great gathering. According to the procession order, it was requested that all business be suspended during the services, and that all persons unite in the *' procession for the re-interment of the great pioneers of the West." 244 DANIEL BOOXE Almost every section of Kentucky was represented and many came from the West and Southwest to attend the final honors to those who in Hfe had been so greatly respected and beloved. Thus Daniel and Rebecca Boone at last came home. Picturesque, unworldly, lovable, and heroic, Daniel Boone will always stand high among Ameri- can heroes. Biographers admit his faults and failings, and we know that he was neither the first explorer of Kentucky nor the first settler in the wilderness. Even his Wilderness Road has, in great measure, disappeared — yet Kentucky and the states beyond remain. Daniel Boone believed that he was especially ordained to open up the West for his country. There he Uved and toiled manfully for many long years, facing grave dangers, fighting Indians, and guiding pioneers to homes of plenty, and ultimate prosperity and peace. Much of what we now call the ^Middle W^est is so intimately associated with Daniel Boone that his own simple words are memorable — ''The history of the western country has been my history." Printed in the United States of America. ^X^HE following pages contain advertisements of a few of the MacmiHan books on kindred subjects. TRUE STORIES OF GREAT AMERICANS " Should be read by every boy and girl." This important new series of brief and vivid biographies will give to the young mind an intimate picture of the greatest Americans who have helped to make American history. 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He was an able executive and a man of energy and capacity. William Penn By Rupert S. Holland The life of William Penn is of especial interest and value be- cause the events of his career are closely related to American and English history at a time when America was separating herself from her parent country and shaping her destiny as an independent Republic. Benjamin Franklin By E. Lawrence Dudley As a statesman, diplomat, scientist, philosopher, and man of letters, Benjamin Franklin was the foremost American of his time. The story of his life is an inspiring and stimulating narrative, with all the fascination and interest of Colonial and Revolutionary America. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York TRUE STORIES OF GREAT AMERICANS New Illustrated Biographies for Young People EACH VOLUME ILLUSTRATED, $.50 Thomas A. Edison By Francis Rolt-Wheeler Thomas Alva Edison is the typical American. From boy- hood to ripest manhood he has been keen to see an opportu- nity, and quick to turn that opportunity to a practical use. His genius is peculiar because it is so American. Robert Fulton By AUce C. Sutcliffe The life of Robert Fulton makes good reading. The story of his belief in and work upon a submarine and his journeys to France and England to lay his plans before the British Government — his steamboat, and the years of study and labor which went toward perfecting it — his paintings — his travels in foreign lands in days when American travellers were few — combine to make one of the most interesting and inspiring books of the series. Robert E. Lee By Bradley Oilman Robert E. Lee ranks with the greatest of all English-speak- ing military leaders. Bradley Oilman has told the story of his life so as to reveal the greatness and true personality of a man "who has left an enduring memory of the highest idealism." Davy Crockett By WiUlam C. Sprague No fictitious tale of perils and adventures could surpass the true story of Davy Crockett, pioneer. His life and adventures are closely bound up with the greatest events of American history. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York TRUE STORIES OF GREAT AMERICANS New Illustrated Biographies for Young People EACH VOLUME ILLUSTRATED, $.50 Nathan Hale By jean Chnstie Root There is hardly another story in the whole range of Ameri- can history which contains so much of inspiration and splendid heroism as that of Nathan Hale. " There is more than the work of a gifted biographer here. There is a message." — A/'ew York World. U. S. Grant By F. E. Lovell Coombs There is but little fiction which can compare in interest with the true story of Ulysses S. Grant. Mr. Coombs has told it admirably. Abraham Lincoln By Danlel E. Wheeler Another view of the greatest product of American democ- racy. The inspiring story of the great war President told with spirit in a new way. NEW VOLUMES Daniel Boone By Luclle Gulllver La oalle By Louise S. Hasbrouck Lafayette By Martha F. Crow THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 014 572 687 6