restlessness and stir among the people, which was soon to result in the
formation of new States and the settlement of the far West.

[Footnote 6: John H. Wheeler. "Historical Sketches of North Carolina."]

[Footnote 7: The children by this marriage were nine in number. _Sons:_
James, born in 1756, Israel, Jesse, Daniel, and Nathan. _Daughters_:
Susan, Jemima, Lavinia, and Rebecca. The eldest, James, was killed, as
will appear in our subsequent narrative, by the Indians, in 1773; and
Israel fell in the battle of Blue Licks, May 17th, 1782. In 1846,
Nathan, a captain in the United States service, was the only surviving
son.]




CHAPTER III.

The Seven Years' War--Cherokee war--Period of Boone's first long
excursions to the West--Extract from Wheeler's History of
Tennessee--Indian accounts of the western country--Indian
traders--Their reports--Western
travelers--Doherty--Adair--Proceedings of the
traders--Hunters--Scotch traders--Hunters accompany the traders to
the West--Their reports concerning the country--Other
adventurers--Dr. Walker's expedition--Settlements in South-western
Virginia--Indian hostilities--Pendleton purchase--Dr. Walker's
second expedition--Hunting company of Walker and others--Boone
travels with them--Curious monument left by him.


The reader will recollect that the period referred to in the last
chapter, comprehended the latter years of the celebrated Seven Years'
War. During the chief portion of this period, the neighboring Colony
of Virginia suffered all the horrors of Indian war on its western
frontier--horrors from which even the ability, courage, and patriotism
of Washington were for a long time unable to protect them. The war was
virtually terminated by the campaign of 1759, when Quebec was taken.
The next year Canada was ceded to England; and a Cherokee war, which had
disturbed the border setters of North Carolina, was terminated. Daniel
Boone's biographers all agree that it was about this time when he first
began to make long excursions toward the West; but it is difficult to
fix exactly the date of his first long journey through the woods in
this direction. It is generally dated in 1771 or 1772, We now make a
quotation from Ramsay's Annals of Tennessee, which shows, beyond the
possibility of a doubt, that he hunted on the Wataga River in 1760, and
renders it probable that he was in the West at an earlier date. Our
readers will excuse the length of this quotation, as the first part of
it gives so graphic a picture of the hunter and pioneer life of the
times of Daniel Boone, and also shows what had been done by others in
western explorations before Boone's expeditions commenced.

"The Colonists of the Carolinas and of Virginia had been steadily
advancing to the West, and we have traced their approaches in the
direction of our eastern boundary,[8] to the base of the great
Appalachian range."

Of the country beyond it, little was positively known or accurately
understood. A wandering Indian would imperfectly delineate upon the
sand, a feeble outline of its more prominent physical features--its
magnificent rivers, with their numerous tributaries--its lofty
mountains, its dark forests, its extended plains and its vast extent.
A voyage in a canoe, from the source of the Hogohegee[9] to the
Wabash,[10] required for its performance, in their figurative language,
'two paddles, two warriors, three moons.' The Ohio itself was but a
tributary of a still larger river, of whose source, size and direction,
no intelligible account could be communicated or understood. The Muscle
Shoals and the obstructions in the river above them, were represented
as mighty cataracts and fearful whirlpools, and the Suck, as an awful
vortex. The wild beasts with which the illimitable forests abounded,
were numbered by pointing to the leaves upon the trees, or the stars
in a cloudless sky.

"These glowing descriptions of the West seemed rather to stimulate
than to satisfy the intense curiosity of the approaching settlers.
Information more reliable, and more minute, was, from time to time,
furnished from other sources. In the Atlantic cities, accounts had been
received from French and Spanish traders, of the unparalleled beauty and
fertility of the western interior. These reports, highly colored and
amplified, were soon received and known upon the frontier. Besides,
persons engaged in the interior traffic with the south-western Indian
tribes had, in times of peace, penetrated their territories--traded
with and resided amongst the natives--and upon their return to the white
settlements, confirmed what had been previously reported in favor of the
distant countries they had seen. As early as 1690, Doherty, a trader
from Virginia, had visited the Cherokees and afterward lived among them
a number of years. In 1730, Adair, from South Carolina, had traveled,
not only through the towns of this tribe, but had extended his tour
to most of the nations south and west of them. He was not only an
enterprising trader but an intelligent tourist. To his observations upon
the several tribes which he visited, we are indebted for most that is
known of their earlier history. They were published in London in 1775.

"In 1740 other traders went among the Cherokees from Virginia. They
employed Mr Vaughan as a packman, to transport their goods. West of
Amelia County, the country was then thinly inhabited; the last hunter's
cabin that he saw was on Otter River, a branch of the Staunton, now in
Bedford County, Va. The route pursued was along the Great Path to the
centre of the Cherokee nation. The traders and pack-men generally
confined themselves to this path till it crossed the Little Tennessee
River, then spreading themselves out among the several Cherokee villages
west of the mountain, continued their traffic as low down the Great
Tennessee as the Indian settlements upon Occochappo or Bear Creek, below
the Muscle Shoals, and there encountered the competition of other
traders, who were supplied from New Orleans and Mobile. They returned
heavily laden with peltries, to Charleston, or the more northern
markets, where they were sold at highly remunerating prices. A hatchet,
a pocket looking-glass, a piece of scarlet cloth, a trinket, and other
articles of little value, which at Williamsburg could be bought for a
few shillings, would command from an Indian hunter on the Hiwasse or
Tennessee peltries amounting in value to double the number of pounds
sterling. Exchanges were necessarily slow, but the profits realized from
the operation were immensely large. In times of peace this traffic
attracted the attention of many adventurous traders. It became mutually
advantageous to the Indian not less than to the white man. The trap and
the rifle, thus bartered for, procured, in one day, more game to the
Cherokee hunter than his bow and arrow and his dead-fall would have
secured during a month of toilsome hunting. Other advantages resulted
from it to the whites. They became thus acquainted with the great
avenues leading through the hunting grounds and to the occupied country
of the neighboring tribes--an important circumstance in the condition of
either war or peace. Further, the traders were an exact thermometer of
the pacific or hostile intention and feelings of the Indians with whom
they traded. Generally, they were foreigners, most frequently Scotchmen,
who had not been long in the country, or upon the frontier, who, having
experienced none of the cruelties, depredation or aggressions of the
Indians, cherished none of the resentment and spirit of retaliation born
with, and everywhere manifested, by the American settler. Thus, free
from animosity against the aborigines, the trader was allowed to remain
in the village where he traded unmolested, even when its warriors were
singing the war song or brandishing the war club, preparatory to an
invasion or massacre of the whites. Timely warning was thus often given
by a returning packman to a feeble and unsuspecting settlement, of the
perfidy and cruelty meditated against it.

"This gainful commerce was, for a time, engrossed by the traders; but
the monopoly was not allowed to continue long. Their rapid accumulations
soon excited the cupidity of another class of adventurers; and the
hunter, in his turn, became a co-pioneer with the trader, in the march
of civilization to the wilds of the West. As the agricultural population
approached the eastern base of the Alleghanies, the game became scarce,
and was to be found by severe toil in almost inaccessible recesses
and coves of the mountain. Packmen, returning from their trading
expeditions, carried with them evidences, not only of the abundance
of game across the mountains, but of the facility with which it was
procured. Hunters began to accompany the traders to the Indian towns;
but, unable to brook the tedious delay of procuring peltries by traffic,
and impatient of restraint, they struck boldly into the wilderness,
and western-like, to use a western phrase, set up for themselves. The
reports of their return, and of their successful enterprise, stimulated
other adventurers to a similar undertaking. 'As early as 1748 Doctor
Thomas Walker, of Virginia, in company with Colonels Wood, Patton and
Buchanan, and Captain Charles Campbell, and a number of hunters, made an
exploring tour upon the western waters. Passing Powel's valley, he gave
the name of 'Cumberland' to the lofty range of mountains on the west.
Tracing this range in a south-western direction, he came to a remarkable
depression in the chain: through this he passed, calling it 'Cumberland
Gap.' On the western side of the range he found a beautiful mountain
stream, which he named 'Cumberland River,' all in honor of the Duke of
Cumberland, then prime minister of England.[11] These names have ever
since been retained, and, with Loudon, are believed to be the only names
in Tennessee of English origin."

"Although Fort Loudon was erected as early as 1756, upon the Tennessee,
yet it was in advance of any white settlements nearly one hundred and
fifty miles, and was destroyed in 1760. The fort, too, at Long Island,
within the boundaries of the present State of Tennessee, were erected
in 1758, but no permanent settlements had yet been formed near it.
Still occasional settlers had begun to fix their habitations in the
south-western section of Virginia, and as early as 1754, six families
were residing west of New River. 'On the breaking out of the French war,
the Indians, in alliance with the French, made an irruption into these
settlements, and massacred Burke and his family. The other families,
finding their situation too perilous to be maintained, returned to the
eastern side of New River; and the renewal of the attempt to carry the
white settlements further west, was not made until after the close of
that war.'"[12]

[Sidenote: 1756]

"Under a mistaken impression that the Virginia line, when extended west,
would embrace it, a grant of land was this year made, by the authorities
of Virginia, to Edmund Pendleton, for three thousand acres of land,
lying in Augusta County, on a branch of the middle fork of the Indian
river called West Creek,[13] now Sullivan County, Tennessee."

[Sidenote: 1760]

In this year, Doctor Walker again passed over Clinch and Powell's
River, on a tour of exploration into what is now Kentucky.

[Sidenote: 1761]

'The Cherokees were now at peace with the whites, and hunters from the
back settlements began with safety to penetrate deeper and further into
the wilderness of Tennessee. Several of them, chiefly from Virginia,
hearing of the abundance of game with which the woods were stocked, and
allured by the prospects of gain, which might be drawn from this source,
formed themselves into a company, composed of Wallen, Scaggs, Blevins,
Cox, and fifteen others, and came into the valley since known as
Carter's Valley, in Hawkins County, Tennessee. They hunted eighteen
mouths upon Clinch and Powell's Rivers. Wallen's Creek and Wallen's
Ridge received their name from the leader of the company; as also did
the station which they erected in the present Lee County, Virginia,
the name of Wallen's station. They penetrated as far north as Laurel
Mountain, in Kentucky, where they terminated their journey, having met
with a body of Indians, whom they supposed to be Shawnees. At the head
of one of the companies that visited the West this year 'came Daniel
Boon, from the Yadkin, in North Carolina, and traveled with them as low
as the place where Abingdon now stands, and there left them.'

"This is the first time the advent of Daniel Boon to the western wilds
has been mentioned by historians, or by the several biographers of that
distinguished pioneer and hunter. There is reason, however, to believe
that he had hunted upon Watauga earlier. The writer is indebted to N.
Gammon, Esq., formerly of Jonesboro, now a citizen of Knoxville, for
the following inscription, still to be seen upon a beech tree, standing
in sight and east of the present stage-road, leading from Jonesboro to
Blountsville, and in the valley of Boon's Creek, a tributary of Watauga:"

D. Boon
CillED A. BAR On
Tree
in ThE
yEAR
1760

"Boon was eighty-six years old when he died, which was September, 1820.
He was thus twenty-six years old when the inscription was made. When he
left the company of hunters in 1761, as mentioned above by Haywood, it
is probable that he did so to revisit the theatre of a former hunt upon
the creek that still bears his name, and where his camp is still pointed
out near its banks. It is not improbable, indeed, that he belonged to,
or accompanied, the party of Doctor Walker, on his first, or certainly
on his second, tour of exploration in 1760. The inscription is
sufficient authority, as this writer conceives, to date the arrival of
Boon in Tennessee as early as its date, 1760, thus preceding the
permanent settlement of the country nearly ten years."

It will be observed that the historian in this extract, spells Boon
without the final _e_, following the orthography of the hunter, in his
inscription on the tree. This orthography Boone used at a later period,
as we shall show. But the present received mode of spelling the name is
the one which we have adopted in this work.

On a subsequent page of Wheeler's history, we find the following
memorandum:

"Daniel Boone, who still lived on the Yadkin, though he had previously
hunted on the Western waters, came again this year to explore the
country, being employed for this purpose by Henderson & Company.
With him came Samuel Callaway, his kinsman, and the ancestor of the
respectable family of that name, pioneers of Tennessee, Kentucky, and
Missouri. Callaway was at the side of Boon when, approaching the spurs
of the Cumberland Mountain, and in view of the vast herds of buffalo
grazing in the valleys between them, he 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.'"

After Boone and Callaway, came another hunter, Henry Scaggins, who was
also employed by Henderson. He extended his explorations to the Lower
Cumberland, and fixed his station at Mansco's Lick.

We shall have occasion to speak more particularly of Henderson's company
and Boone's connection with it; but we will first call the reader's
attention to the state of affairs in North Carolina at this period, and
their probable influence on the course pursued by Daniel Boone.

[Footnote 8: That is, the eastern boundary of Tennessee, which was then
a part of North Carolina.]

[Footnote 9: Holston.]

[Footnote 10: The Ohio was known many years by this name.]

[Footnote 11: Monette. The Indian name of this range was Wasioto, and of
the river, Shawnee.]

[Footnote 12: Howe.]

[Footnote 13: The original patent, signed by Governor Dinwiddie, and now
in the possession of the writer, was presented to him by T.A.R. Nelson,
Esq., of Jonesboro, Tennessee. It is probably the oldest grant in the
State.]




CHAPTER IV.

Political and social condition of North
Carolina--Taxes--Lawsuits--Ostentation and extravagance of
foreigners and government officers--Oppression of the
people--Murmurs--Open resistance--The Regulators--Willingness of
Daniel Boone and others to migrate, and their reasons--John
Finley's expedition to the West--His report to Boone--He determines
to join Finley in his next hunting tour--New company formed, with
Boone for leader--Preparations for starting--The party sets
out--Travels for a month through the wilderness--First sight of
Kentucky--Forming a camp--Hunting buffaloes and other game--Capture
of Boone and Stuart by the Indians--Prudent dissimulation--Escape
from the Indians--Return to the old camp--Their companions
lost--Boone and Stuart renew their hunting.


There were many circumstances in the social and political condition
of the State of North Carolina, during the period of Daniel Boone's
residence on the banks of the Yadkin, which were calculated to render
him restless and quite willing to seek a home in the Western wilderness.
Customs and fashions were changing. The Scotch traders, to whom we
have referred in the last chapter, and others of the same class were
introducing an ostentatious and expensive style of living, quite
inappropriate to the rural population of the colony. In dress and
equipage, they far surpassed the farmers and planters; and they were not
backward in taking upon themselves airs of superiority on this account.
In this they were imitated by the officers and agents of the Royal
government of the colony, who were not less fond of luxury and show.
To support their extravagant style of living, these minions of power,
magistrates, lawyers, clerks of court, and tax-gatherers, demanded
exorbitant fees for their services. The Episcopal clergy, supported by a
legalized tax on the people, were not content with their salaries, but
charged enormous fees for their occasional services. A fee of fifteen
dollars was exacted from the poor farmer for performing the marriage
service. The collection of taxes was enforced by suits at law, with
enormous expense; and executions, levies, and distresses were of
every-day occurrence. All sums exceeding forty shillings were sued for
and executions obtained in the courts, the original debt being saddled
with extortionate bills of cost. Sheriffs demanded more than was due,
under threats of sheriff's sales; and they applied the gains thus made
to their own use. Money, as is always the case in a new country, was
exceedingly scarce, and the sufferings of the people were intolerable.

Petitions to the Legislature for a redress of grievances were treated
with contempt. The people assembled and formed themselves into an
association for _regulating_ public grievances and abuse of power.
Hence the name given to them of Regulators. They resolved "to pay only
such taxes as were agreeable to law and applied to the purpose therein
named, to pay no officer more than his legal fees." The subsequent
proceedings of the Regulators, such as forcible resistance to officers
and acts of personal violence toward them, at length brought on an
actual collision between them and an armed force led by the Royal
Governor, Tryon (May 16 1771,) at Alamanance, in which the Regulators
were defeated; and the grievances continued with scarcely abated force
till the Revolution brought relief.

Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that Daniel Boone and
others were quite willing to migrate to the West, if it were only to
enjoy a quiet life; the dangers of Indian aggression being less dreaded
than the visits of the tax-gather and the sheriff; and the solitude
of the forest and prairie being preferred to the society of insolent
foreigners; flaunting in the luxury and ostentation purchased by the
spoils of fraud and oppression.

Among the hunters and traders who pursued their avocations in the
Western wilds was John Finley, or Findley, who led a party of hunters
in 1767 to the neighborhood of the Louisa River, as the Kentucky River
was then called, and spent the season in hunting and trapping. On his
return, he visited Daniel Boone, and gave him a most glowing description
of the country which he had visited--a country abounding in the richest
and most fertile land, intersected by noble rivers, and teeming with
herds of deer and buffaloes and numerous flocks of wild turkeys, to say
nothing of the smaller game. To these descriptions Boone lent a willing
ear. He resolved to accompany Finley in his next hunting expedition, and
to see this terrestrial paradise with his own eyes, doubtless with the
intention of ultimately seeking a home in that delightful region.

Accordingly, a company of six persons was formed for a new expedition to
the West, and Boone was chosen as leader. The names of the other members
of this party were John Finley, John Stuart, Joseph Holden, James
Moncey, and William Cool.

Much preparation seems to have been required. Boone's wife, who was one
of the best of housekeepers and managers, had to fit out his clothes,
and to make arrangements for house-keeping during his expected long
absence. His sons were now old enough to assist their mother in the
management of the farm, but, doubtless, they had to be supplied with
money and other necessaries before the father could venture to leave
home; so that it was not till the 1st of May, 1769, that the party were
able to set out, as Boone, in his autobiography, expresses it, "in quest
of the country of Kentucky."

It was more than a month before these adventurers came in sight of the
promised land. We quote from Mr. Peck's excellent work the description
which undoubtedly formed the authority on which the artist has relied
in painting the accompanying engraving of "Daniel Boone's first view of
Kentucky." It is as follows:

"It was on the 7th of June, 1769, that six men, weary and wayworn, were
seen winding their way up the steep side of a rugged mountain in the
wilderness of Kentucky. Their dress was of the description usually worn
at that period by all forest rangers. The outside garment was a hunting
shirt, or loose open frock, made of dressed deer skins. Leggings or
drawers, of the same material, covered the lower extremities, to which
was appended a pair of moccasins for the feet. The cape or collar of
the hunting shirt, and the seams of the leggings, were adorned with
fringes. The under garments were of coarse cotton. A leather belt
encircled the body; on the right side was suspended the tomahawk, to be
used as a hatchet: on the left side was the hunting-knife, powder-horn,
bullet-pouch, and other appendages indispensable for a hunter. Each
person bore his trusty rifle; and, as the party slowly made their
toilsome way amid the shrubs, and over the logs and loose rocks that
accident had thrown into the obscure trail which they were following,
each man kept a sharp look-out, as though danger or a lurking enemy was
near. Their garments were soiled and rent, the unavoidable result of
long traveling and exposure to the heavy rains that had fallen; for the
weather had been stormy and most uncomfortable, and they had traversed
a mountainous wilderness for several hundred miles. The leader of the
party was of full size, with a hardy, robust, sinewy frame, and keen,
piercing, hazel eyes, that glanced with quickness at every object as
they passed on, now cast forward in the direction they were traveling
for signs of an old trail, and in the next moment directed askance
into the dense thicket, or into the deep ravine, as if watching some
concealed enemy. The reader will recognize in this man the pioneer
Boone, at the head of his companions."

[Illustration: BOONE'S FIRST VIEW OF KENTUCKY.]

"Toward the time of the setting sun, the party had reached the summit
of the mountain range, up which they had toiled for some three or four
hours, and which had bounded their prospect to the west during the day.
Here new and indescribable scenery opened to their view. Before them,
for an immense distance, as if spread out on a map, lay the rich and
beautiful vales watered by the Kentucky River; for they had now reached
one of its northern branches. The country immediately before them, to
use a Western phrase, was 'rolling,' and, in places, abruptly hilly; but
far in the vista was seen a beautiful expanse of level country, over
which the buffalo, deer, and other forest animals, roamed unmolested
while they fed on the luxuriant herbage of the forest. The countenances
of the party lighted up with pleasure, congratulations were exchanged,
the romantic tales of Finley were confirmed by ocular demonstration, and
orders were given to encamp for the night in a neighboring ravine. In a
deep gorge of the mountain a large tree had fallen, surrounded with a
dense thicket, and hidden from observation by the abrupt and precipitous
hills. This tree lay in a convenient position for the back of their
camp. Logs were placed on the right and left, leaving the front open,
where fire might be kindled against another log; and for shelter from
the rains and heavy dews, bark was peeled from the linden tree."

This rude structure appears to have been the head-quarters of the
hunters through the whole summer and autumn, till late in December.
During this time, they hunted the deer, the bear, and especially the
buffalo. The buffaloes were found in great numbers, feeding on the
leaves of the cane, and the rich and spontaneous fields of clover.

During this long period, they saw no Indians. That part of the country
was not inhabited by any tribe at that time, although it was used
occasionally as a hunting ground by the Shawanese, the Cherokees and the
Chickesaws. The land at that time belonged to the colony of Virginia,
which then included what is now called Kentucky. The title to the ground
was acquired by a treaty with the Indians, Oct. 5th, 1770. The Iroquois,
at the treaty of Fort Stanwix, in 1768, had already ceded their doubtful
claim to the land south of the Ohio River, to Great Britain; so that
Boone's company of hunters were not trespassing upon Indian territory
at this time.[14] But they were destined nevertheless to be treated as
intruders.

On the 22d of December, Boone and John Stuart, one of his companions,
left their encampment, and following one of the numerous paths which the
buffalo had made through the cane, they plunged boldly into the interior
of the forest. They had as yet, as we have already stated, seen no
Indians, and the country had been reported as totally uninhabited. This
was true in a strict sense, for although, as we have seen, the southern
and northwestern tribes were in the habit of hunting here as upon
neutral ground, yet not a single wigwam had been erected, nor did the
land bear the slightest mark of having ever been cultivated.

The different tribes would fall in with each other and from the fierce
conflicts which generally followed these casual rencounters, the country
had been known among them by the name of '_the dark and bloody ground!_'

The two adventurers soon learned the additional danger to which they
were exposed. While roving carelessly from canebrake to canebrake, and
admiring the rank growth of vegetation, and the variety of timber which
marked the fertility of the soil, they were suddenly alarmed by the
appearance of a party of Indians, who, springing from their place of
concealment, rushed upon them with a rapidity which rendered escape
impossible.

They were almost instantly seized, disarmed, and made prisoners. Their
feelings may be readily imagined. They were in the hands of an enemy who
knew no alternative between adoption and torture; and the numbers and
fleetness of their captors, rendered escape by open means impossible,
while their jealous vigilance seemed equally fatal to any secret
attempt.

Boone, however, was possessed of a temper admirably adapted to the
circumstances in which he was placed. Of a cold and saturnine, rather
than an arden disposition, he was never either so much elevated by
good fortune or depressed by bad, as to lose for an instant the full
possession of all his faculties. He saw that immediate escape was
impossible, but he encouraged his companion, and constrained himself
to accompany the Indians in all their excursions, with so calm and
contented an air, that their vigilance insensibly began to relax.

[Illustration: CAPTURE OF BOONE AND STUART.]

On the seventh evening of their captivity, they encamped in a thick
canebrake, and having built a large fire, lay down to rest. The party
whose duty it was to watch, were weary and negligent, and about
midnight, Boone, who had not closed an eye, ascertained from the deep
breathing all around him, that the whole party, including Stuart, was
in a deep sleep.

Gently and gradually extricating himself from the Indians who lay around
him, he walked cautiously to the spot where Stuart lay, and having
succeeded in awakening him, without alarming the rest, he briefly
informed him of his determination, and exhorted him to arise, make no
noise, and follow him. Stuart, although ignorant of the design, and
suddenly roused from sleep, fortunately obeyed with equal silence and
celerity, and within a few minutes they were beyond hearing.

Rapidly traversing the forest, by the light of the stars and the bark
of the trees, they ascertained the direction in which the camp lay, but
upon reaching it on the next day, to their great grief, they found it
plundered and deserted, with nothing remaining to show the fate of their
companions: and even to the day of his death, Boone knew not whether
they had been killed or taken, or had voluntarily abandoned their cabin
and returned.[15]

Indeed it has never been ascertained what became of Finley and the rest
of Boone's party of hunters. If Finley himself had returned to Carolina,
so remarkable a person would undoubtedly have left some trace of himself
in the history of his time; but no trace exists of any of the party who
were left at the old camp by Boone and Stuart. Boone and Stuart resumed
their hunting, although their ammunition was running low, and they were
compelled, by the now well-known danger of Indian hostilities, to seek
for more secret and secure hiding-places at night than their old
encampment in the ravine.

The only kind of firearms used by the backwoods hunter is the rifle.
In the use of this weapon Boone was exceedingly skillful. The following
anecdote, related by the celebrated naturalist, Audubon,[16] shows that
he retained his wonderful precision of aim till a late period of his
life.

"Barking off squirrels is delightful sport, and, in my opinion,
requires a greater degree of accuracy than any other. I first witnessed
this manner of procuring squirrels whilst near the town of Frankfort.
The performer was the celebrated Daniel Boone. We walked out together,
and followed the rocky margins of the Kentucky River, until we reached
a piece of flat land thickly covered with black walnuts, oaks, and
hickories. As the general mast was a good one that year, squirrels were
seen gamboling on every tree around us. My companion, a stout, hale,
and athletic man, dressed in a homespun hunting-shirt, bare-legged and
moccasined, carried a long and heavy rifle, which, as he was loading it,
he said had proved efficient in all his former undertakings, and which
he hoped would not fail on this occasion, as he felt proud to show me
his skill. The gun was wiped, the powder measured, the ball patched with
six-hundred-thread linen, and the charge sent home with a hickory rod.
We moved not a step from the place, for the squirrels were so numerous
that it was unnecessary to go after them. Boone pointed to one of these
animals which had observed us, and was crouched on a branch about fifty
paces distant, and bade me mark well the spot where the ball should hit.
He raised his piece gradually, until the _bead_ (that being the name
given by the Kentuckians to the _sight_) of the barrel was brought to
a line with the spot which he intended to hit. The whip-like report
resounded through the woods and along the hills in repeated echoes.
Judge of my surprise, when I perceived that the ball had hit the piece
of the bark immediately beneath the squirrel, and shivered it into
splinters, the concussion produced by which had killed the animal, and
sent it whirling through the air, as if it had been blown up by the
explosion of a powder magazine. Boone kept up his firing, and before
many hours had elapsed, we had procured as many squirrels as we wished;
for you must know that to load a rifle requires only a moment, and that
if it is wiped once after each shot, it will do duty for hours. Since
that first interview with our veteran Boone, I have seen many other
individuals perform the same feat."

[Footnote 14: Peck. Life of Boone.]

[Footnote 15: McClung. "Western Adventures."]

[Footnote 16: Ornithological Biography, pp. 293-4.]




CHAPTER V

Arrival of Squire Boone and a companion at the camp of Daniel
Boone--Joyful meeting--News from home, and hunting resumed--Daniel
Boone and Stuart surprised by the Indians, Stuart killed--Escape
of Boone, and his return to camp--Squire Boone's companion lost
in the woods--Residence of Daniel Boone and Squire Boone in the
wilderness--Squire returns to North Carolina, obtains a fresh
supply of ammunition, and again rejoins his brother at the old
camp--Daniel Boone's own account of this remarkable period of his
life--His return to North Carolina--His determination to settle in
Kentucky--Other Western adventurers--The Long hunters--Washington
in Kentucky--Bullitt's party--Floyd's party--Thompson's
survey--First settlement of Tennessee.


In the early part of the month of January, 1770, Boone and Stuart were
agreeably surprised by the arrival of Squire Boone, the younger brother
of Daniel, accompanied by another man, whose name has not been handed
down. The meeting took place as they were hunting in the woods. The
new-comers were hailed at a distance with the usual greeting, "'Holloa!
strangers, who are you?" to which they answered, "White men and
friends." And friends indeed they were--friends in need; for they
brought a supply of ammunition, and news from Daniel Boone's home
and family on the Yadkin. They had had a weary journey through the
wilderness, and although they had met with no Indians on their way, they
had frequently come upon their traces in passing through the woods.
Their purpose in undertaking this formidable journey had been to learn
the fate of Boone and his party, whose safety was nearly despaired of by
his friends in North Carolina, to hunt for themselves, and to convey a
supply of ammunition to Boone. It is difficult to conceive the joy with
which their opportune arrival was welcomed. They informed Boone that
they had just seen the last night's encampment of Stuart and himself,
so that the joyful meeting was not wholly unanticipated by them.

Thus reinforced, the party, now consisting of four skillful hunters,
might reasonably hope for increased security, and a fortunate issue to
their protracted hunting tour. But they hunted in separate parties; and
in one of these Daniel Boone and Stuart fell in with a party of Indians,
who fired upon them. Stuart was shot dead and scalped by the Indians,
but Boone escaped in the forest, and rejoined his brother and the
remaining hunter of the party.

A few days afterward this hunter was lost in the woods, and did not
return as usual to the camp. Daniel and Squire made a long and anxious
search for him; but it was all in vain. Years afterward a skeleton was
discovered in the woods, which was supposed to be that of the lost
hunter.

The two brothers were thus left in the wilderness alone, separated
by several hundred miles from home, surrounded by hostile Indians,
and destitute of every thing but their rifles. After having had such
melancholy experience of the dangers to which they were exposed, we
would naturally suppose that their fortitude would have given way, and
that they would instantly have returned to the settlements. But the most
remarkable feature in Boone's character was a calm and cold equanimity
which rarely rose to enthusiasm and never sunk to despondence.

His courage undervalued the danger to which he was exposed, and his
presence of mind, which never forsook him, enabled him, on all occasions
to take the best means of avoiding it. The wilderness, with all its
dangers and privations, had a charm for him, which is scarcely
conceivable by one brought up in a city; and he determined to remain
alone while his brother returned to Carolina for an additional supply of
ammunition, as their original supply was nearly exhausted. His situation
we should now suppose in the highest degree gloomy and dispiriting. The
dangers which attended his brother on his return were nearly equal to
his own; and each had left a wife and children, which Boone acknowledged
cost him many an anxious thought.

But the wild and solitary grandeur of the country around him, where not
a tree had been cut, nor a house erected, was to him an inexhaustible
source of admiration and delight; and he says to himself, that some
of the most rapturous moments of his life were spent in those lonely
rambles. The utmost caution was necessary to avoid the savages, and
scarcely less to escape the ravenous hunger of the wolves that prowled
nightly around him in immense numbers. He was compelled frequently to
shift his lodging, and by undoubted signs, saw that the Indians had
repeatedly visited his hut during his absence. He some times lay in
canebrakes without fire, and heard the yells of the Indians around him.
Fortunately, however, he never encountered them.[17]

Mr. Perkins, in his Annals of the West, speaking of this sojourn
of the brothers in the wilderness, says: And now commenced that most
extraordinary life on the part of these two men which has, in a great
measure, served to give celebrity to their names; we refer to their
residence, entirely alone, for more than a year, in a land filled with
the most subtle and unsparing enemies, and under the influence of no
other motive, apparently, than a love of adventure, of Nature, and of
solitude. Nor were they, during this time, always together. For three
months, Daniel remained amid the forest utterly by himself, while his
brother, with courage and capacity equal to his own, returned to North
Carolina for a supply of powder and lead; with which he succeeded in
rejoining the roamer of the wilderness in safety in July, 1770.

It is almost impossible to conceive of the skill, coolness, and sagacity
which enabled Daniel Boone to spend so many weeks in the midst of the
Indians, and yet undiscovered by them. He appears to have changed his
position continually--to have explored the whole centre of what forms
now the State of Kentucky, and in so doing must have exposed himself to
many different parties of the natives. A reader of Mr. Cooper's Last of
the Mohicans may comprehend, in some measure, the arts by which he was
preserved; but, after all, a natural gift seems to lie at the basis of
such consummate woodcraft; an instinct, rather than any exercise of
intellect, appears to have guided Boone in such matters, and made him
pre-eminent among those who were most accomplished in the knowledge
of forest life. Then we are to remember the week's captivity of the
previous year; it was the first practical acquaintance that the pioneer
had with the Western Indians, and we may be assured he spent that week
in noting carefully the whole method of his captors. Indeed, we think
it probable he remained in captivity so long that he might learn their
arts, stratagems, and modes of concealment. We are, moreover, to keep in
mind this fact: the woods of Kentucky were at that period filled with
a species of nettle of such a character that, being once bent down,
it did not recover itself, but remained prostrate, thus retaining the
impression of a foot almost like snow--even a turkey might be tracked
in it with perfect ease. This weed Boone would carefully avoid, but the
natives, numerous and fearless, would commonly pay no regard to it, so
that the white hunter was sure to have palpable signs of the presence
of his enemies, and the direction they had taken. Considering these
circumstances, it is even more remarkable that his brother should have
returned in safety, with his loaded horses, than that he remained alone
unharmed; though in the escape of both from captivity or death from
January, 1770, until their return to the Atlantic rivers in March, 1771,
there is something so wonderful that the old pioneer's phrase, that he
was "an instrument ordained to settle the wilderness," seems entirely
proper.

Daniel Boone's own account of this period of his life, contained in his
autobiography, is highly characteristic. It is as follows:

"Thus situated, many hundred miles from our families in the howling
wilderness, I believe few would have equally enjoyed the happiness we
experienced. I often observed to my brother, 'You see now how little
nature requires to be satisfied. Felicity, the companion of content,
is rather found in our own breasts than in the enjoyment of external
things; and I firmly believe it requires but a little philosophy to
make a man happy in whatsoever state he is. This consists in a full
resignation to Providence, and a resigned soul finds pleasure in a