path strewed with briers and thorns.'
"We continued not in a state of indolence, but hunted every day,
and prepared a little cottage to defend us from the winter storms. We
remained there undisturbed during the winter; and on the first of May,
1770, my brother returned home to the settlement by himself for a new
recruit of horses and ammunition, leaving me by myself, without bread,
salt, or sugar, without company of my fellow-creatures, or even a
horse or dog. I confess I never before was under greater necessity of
exercising philosophy and fortitude. A few days I passed uncomfortably.
The idea of a beloved wife and family, and their anxiety on account of
my absence and exposed situation, made sensible impressions on my heart.
A thousand dreadful apprehensions presented themselves to my view, and
had undoubtedly disposed me to melancholy if further indulged.

"One day I undertook a tour through the country, and the diversity and
beauties of Nature I met with in this charming season expelled every
gloomy and vexatious thought. Just at the close of day the gentle gales
retired, and left the place to the disposal of a profound calm. Not
a breeze shook the most tremulous leaf. I had gained the summit of a
commanding ridge, and, looking round with astonishing delight, beheld
the ample plains, the beauteous tracts below. On the other hand, I
surveyed the famous river Ohio, that rolled in silent dignity, marking
the western boundary of Kentucky with inconceivable grandeur. At a
vast distance I beheld the mountains lift their venerable brows, and
penetrate the clouds. All things were still. I kindled a fire near a
fountain of sweet water, and feasted on the loin of a buck, which a few
hours before I had killed. The fallen shades of night soon overspread
the whole hemisphere, and the earth seemed to gape after the hovering
moisture. My roving excursion this day had fatigued my body, and
diverted my imagination. I laid me down to sleep, and I awoke not until
the sun had chased away the night. I continued this tour, and in a few
days explored a considerable part of the country, each day equally
pleased as the first. I returned to my old camp, which was not disturbed
in my absence. I did not confine my lodging to it, but often reposed in
thick canebrakes to avoid the savages, who, I believe, often visited
my camp, but fortunately for me in my absence. In this situation I was
constantly exposed to danger and death. How unhappy such a situation for
a man tormented with fear, which is vain if no danger comes, and, if it
does, only augments the pain. It was my happiness to be destitute of
this afflicting passion, with which I had the greatest reason to be
affected. The prowling wolves diverted my nocturnal hours with perpetual
howlings; and the various species of animals in this vast forest in the
daytime were continually in my view.

"Thus I was surrounded with plenty in the midst of want. I was happy
in the midst of dangers and inconveniences. In such a diversity it was
impossible I should be disposed to melancholy. 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 I found here.

"Thus, through an uninterrupted scene of sylvan pleasures, I spent the
time until the 27th day of July following, when my brother, to my great
felicity, met me according to appointment, at our old camp. Shortly
after we left this place, not thinking it safe to stay there any longer,
and proceeded to Cumberland River, reconnoitering that part of the
country until March, 1771, and giving names to the different waters.

"Soon after, I returned home to my family, with a determination to bring
them as soon as possible to live in Kentucky, which I esteemed a second
paradise, at the risk of my life and fortune.

"I returned safe to my old habitation, and found my family in happy
circumstances."

This extract is taken from the autobiography of Daniel Boone, written
from his own dictation by John Filson, and published in 1784. Some
writers have censured this production as inflated and bombastic. To us
it seems simple and natural; and we have no doubt that the very words of
Boone are given for the most part. The use of glowing imagery and strong
figures is by no means confined to highly-educated persons. Those who
are illiterate, as Boone certainly was, often indulge in this style.
Even the Indians are remarkably fond of bold metaphors and other
rhetorical figures, as is abundantly proved by their speeches and
legends.

While Boone had been engaged in his late hunting tour, other adventurers
were examining the rich lands south of the Ohio.[18] Even in 1770, while
Boone was wandering solitary in those Kentucky forests, a band of forty
hunters, led by Colonel James Knox, had gathered from the valleys of
New River, Clinch, and Holston, to chase the buffaloes of the West; nine
of the forty had crossed the mountains, penetrated the desert and almost
impassable country about the heads of the Cumberland, and explored the
region on the borders of Kentucky and Tennessee. This hunting party,
from the length of time it was absent, is known in the traditions of
the West as the party of the Long Hunters. While these bold men were
penetrating the valley of the Ohio, in the region of the Cumberland Gap,
others came from Virginia and Pennsylvania, by the river; among them,
and in the same year, that the Long Hunters were abroad, (1770), came no
less noted a person than George Washington. His attention, as we have
before said, had been turned to the lands along the Ohio, at a very
early period; he had himself large claims, as well as far-reaching plans
of settlement, and he wished with his own eyes to examine the Western
lands, especially those about the mouth of the Kanawha. From the journal
of his expedition, published by Mr. Sparks, in the Appendix to the
second volume of his Washington Papers, we learn some valuable facts in
reference to the position of affairs in the Ohio valley at that time.
We learn, for instance, that the Virginians were rapidly surveying and
settling the lands south of the river as far down as the Kanawhas; and
that the Indians, notwithstanding the treaty of Fort Stanwix, were
jealous and angry at this constant invasion of their hunting-grounds.

"This jealousy and anger were not supposed to cool during the years
next succeeding, and when Thomas Bullitt and his party descended the
Ohio in the summer of 1773, he found that no settlements would be
tolerated south of the river, unless the Indian hunting-grounds were
left undisturbed. To leave them undisturbed was, however, no part of
the plan of these white men.

"This very party, which Bullitt led, and in which were the two McAfees,
Hancock, Taylor, Drennon and others, separated, and while part went up
the Kentucky River, explored the banks, and made important surveys,
including the valley in which Frankfort stands, the remainder went on to
the Falls, and laid out, in behalf of John Campbell and John Connolly,
the plan of Louisville. All this took place in the summer of 1773; and
in the autumn of that year, or early in the next, John Floyd, the deputy
of Colonel William Preston, the surveyor of Fincastle County, Virginia,
in which it was claimed that Kentucky was comprehended, also crossed the
mountains; while General Thompson of Pennsylvania, made surveys upon
the north fork of the Licking. When Boone, therefore, in September,
commenced his march for the West, (as we shall presently relate), the
choice regions which he had examined three years before, were known
to numbers, and settlers were preparing to desecrate the silent and
beautiful woods. Nor did the prospects of the English colonists stop
with the settlements of Kentucky. In 1773, General Lyman, with a number
of military adventurers, went to Natchez and laid out several townships
in that vicinity; to which point emigration set so strongly, that we are
told, four hundred families passed down the Ohio on their way thither,
during six weeks of the summer of that year."[19]

[Footnote 17: McClung.]

[Footnote 18: Perkins. "Annals of the West."]

[Footnote 19: Perkins, "Annals of the West."]




CHAPTER VI.

Daniel Boone remains two years in North Carolina after his return
from the West--He prepares to emigrate to Kentucky--Character of
the early settlers to Kentucky--The first class, hunters--The
second class, small farmers--The third class, men of wealth and
government officers.


Daniel Boone had now returned to his home on the banks of the Yadkin,
after an absence of no less than two years, during which time he had
not tasted, as he remarks in his autobiography, either salt, sugar, or
bread. He must have enjoyed, in no ordinary degree, the comforts of
home. Carolina, however, was to be his home but for a short time. He had
fully determined to go with his family to Kentucky, and settle in that
lovely region. He was destined to found a State.

After Boone's return to North Carolina, more than two years passed away
before he could complete the arrangements necessary for removing his
family to Kentucky. He sold his farm on the Yadkin, which had been for
many years under cultivation, and no doubt brought him a sum amply
sufficient for the expenses of his journey and the furnishing of a new
home in the promised land. He had, of course, to overcome the natural
repugnance of his wife and children to leave the home which had become
dear to them; and he had also to enlist other adventurers to accompany
him. And here we deem it proper, before entering upon the account of his
departure, to quote from a contemporary,[20] some general remarks on
the character of the early settlers of Kentucky.

"Throughout the United States, generally, the most erroneous notions
prevail with respect to the character of the first settlers of Kentucky;
and by several of the American novelists, the most ridiculous uses have
been made of the fine materials for fiction which lie scattered over
nearly the whole extent of that region of daring adventure and romantic
incident. The common idea seems to be, that the first wanderers to
Kentucky were a simple, ignorant, low-bred, good-for-nothing set of
fellows, who left the frontiers and sterile places of the old States,
where a considerable amount of labor was necessary to secure a
livelihood, and sought the new and fertile country southeast of the Ohio
River and northwest of the Cumberland Mountains, where corn would
produce bread for them with simply the labor of planting, and where the
achievements of their guns would supply them with meat and clothing; a
set of men who, with that instinct which belongs to the beaver, built a
number of log cabins on the banks of some secluded stream, which they
surrounded with palisades for the better protection of their wives and
children, and then went wandering about, with guns on their shoulders,
or traps under their arms, leading a solitary, listless, _ruminating_
life, till aroused by the appearance of danger, or a sudden attack from
unseen enemies, when instantly they approved themselves the bravest of
warriors, and the most expert of strategists. The romancers who have
attempted to describe their habits of life and delineate their
characters, catching this last idea, and imagining things probable of
the country they were in, have drawn the one in lines the most grotesque
and absurd, and colored the other with a pencil dipped in all hues but
the right. To them the early pioneers appear to have been people of a
character demi-devil, demi-savage, not only with out the remains of
former civilization, but without even the recollection that they had
been born and bred where people were, at the least, measurably sane,
somewhat religiously inclined, and, for the most, civilly behaved.

"Both of these conceptions of the character of the Pioneer Fathers are,
to a certain extent, correct as regards _individuals_ among them; but
the pictures which have often been given us, even when held up beside
such _individuals_, will prove to be exaggerations in more respects than
one. Daniel Boone is an individual instance of a man plunging into the
depths of an unknown wilderness, shunning rather than seeking contact
with his kind, his gun and trap the only companions of his solitude,
and wandering about thus for months,"

"'No mark upon the tree, nor print, nor track,
To lead him forward, or to guide him back.'"

"contented and happy; yet, for all this, if those who knew him well had
any true conception of his character, Boone was a man of ambition, and
shrewdness, and energy, and fine social qualities, and extreme sagacity.
And individual instances there _may_ have been--though even this
possibility is not sustained by the primitive histories of those
times--of men who were so far _outre_ to the usual course of their
kind, as to have afforded originals for the _Sam Huggs_ the _Nimrod
Wildfires_, the _Ralph Stackpoles_, the _Tom Bruces_, and the
_Earthquakes_, which so abound in most of those fictions whose _locale_
is the Western country. But that naturalist who should attempt, by ever
so minute a description of a pied blackbird, to give his readers a
correct idea of the _Gracula Ferruginea_ of ornithologists, would not
more utterly fail of accomplishing his object, than have the authors
whose creations we have named, by delineating such individual
instances--by holding up, as it were, such _outre_ specimens of an
original class--failed to convey any thing like an accurate impression
of the habits, customs, and general character of the western pioneers.

"Daniel Boone, and those who accompanied him into the wildernesses of
Kentucky, had been little more than hunters in their original homes,
on the frontiers of North Carolina; and, with the exception of their
leader, but little more than hunters did they continue after their
emigration. The most glowing accounts of the beauty and fertility of
the country northwest of the Laurel Ridge, had reached their ears from
Finley and his companions; and they shouldered their guns, strapped
their wallets upon their backs and wandered through the Cumberland Gap
into the dense forests, and thick brakes, and beautiful plains which
soon opened upon their visions, more to indulge a habit of roving, and
gratify an excited curiosity, than from any other motive; and, arrived
upon the head-waters of the Kentucky, they built themselves rude log
cabins, and spent most of their lives in hunting and eating, and
fighting marauding bands of Indians. Of a similar character were the
earliest Virginians, who penetrated these wildernesses. The very first,
indeed, who wandered from the parent State over the Laurel Ridge, down
into the unknown regions on its northwest, came avowedly as hunters and
trappers; and such of them as escaped the tomahawk of the Indian, with
very few exceptions, remained hunters and trappers till their deaths.

"But this first class of pioneers was not either numerous enough,
or influential enough, to stamp its character upon the after-coming
hundreds; and the second class of immigrants into Kentucky was composed
of very different materials. Small farmers from North Carolina,
Virginia, and Pennsylvania, for the most part, constituted this; and
these daring adventurers brought with them intelligent and aspiring
minds, industrious and persevering habits, a few of the comforts of
civilized life, and some of the implements of husbandry. A number of
them were men who had received the rudiments of an English education,
and not a few of them had been reared up in the spirit, and a sincere
observance of the forms, of religious worship. Many, perhaps most of
them, were from the frontier settlements of the States named; and these
combined the habits of the hunter and agriculturist, and possessed, with
no inconsiderable knowledge of partially refined life, all that boldness
and energy, which subsequently became so distinctive a trait of the
character of the early settlers.

"This second class of the pioneers, or at least the mass of those who
constituted it, sought the plains and forests, and streams of Kentucky,
not to indulge any inclination for listless ramblings; nor as hunters or
trappers; nor yet for the purpose of gratifying an awakened curiosity:
they came deliberately, soberly, thoughtfully, _in search of a home_,
determined, from the outset, to win one, or perish in the attempt; they
came to cast their lot in a land that was new, to better their worldly
condition by the acquisition of demesnes, to build up a new commonwealth
in an un-peopled region; they came with their wives, and their children,
and their kindred, from places where the toil of the hand, and the sweat
of the brow, could hardly supply them with bread, to a land in which
ordinary industry would, almost at once, furnish all the necessaries of
life, and when it was plain well-directed effort would ultimately secure
its ease, its dignity, and its refinements. Poor in the past, and with
scarce a hope, without a change of place, of a better condition of
earthly existence, either for themselves or their offspring, they saw
themselves, _with_ that change, rich in the future, and looked forward
with certainty to a time when their children, if not themselves, would
be in a condition improved beyond compare.

"There was also a third class of pioneers, who in several respects
differed as much from either the first or the second class, as these
differed from each other. This class was composed, in great part, of men
who came to Kentucky after the way had been in some measure prepared for
immigrants, and yet before the setting in of that tide of population
which, a year or two after the close of the American Revolution, poured
so rapidly into these fertile regions from several of the Atlantic
States. In this class of immigrants, there were many gentlemen of
education, refinement, and no inconsiderable wealth; some of whom came
to Kentucky as surveyors, others as commissioners from the parent State,
and others again as land speculators; but most of them as _bona fide_
immigrants, determined to pitch their tents in the Great West, at once
to become _units_ of a new people, and to grow into affluence, and
consideration, and renown, with the growth of a young and vigorous
commonwealth.

"Such were the founders of Kentucky; and in them we behold the elements
of a society inferior, in all the essentials of goodness and greatness,
to none in the world. First came the hunter and trapper, to trace the
river courses, and spy out the choice spots of the land; then came the
small farmer and the hardy adventurer, to cultivate the rich plains
discovered, and lay the nucleuses of the towns and cities, which were
so soon, and so rapidly, to spring up; and then came the surveyor, to
mark the boundaries of individual possessions and give civil shape and
strength to the unformed mass, the speculator to impart a new activity
and keenness to the minds of men, and the chivalrous and educated
gentleman, to infuse into the crude materials here collected together,
the feelings and sentiments of refined existence, and to mold them into
forms of conventional beauty and social excellence. Kentucky now began
to have a _society_, in which were the sinews of war, the power of
production, and the genius of improvement; and from this time, though
still harassed, as she had been from the beginning, by the inroads of
a brave and determined enemy on her north, her advancement was regular
and rapid."

[Footnote 20: W.D. Gallagher, "Hesperian," Vol. II., p 89.]




CHAPTER VII.

Daniel Boone sets out for Kentucky with his family and his brother
Squire Boone--Is joined by five families and forty men at Powell's
Valley--The party is attacked by Indians and Daniel Boone's oldest
son is killed--The party return to the settlements on Clinch
River--Boone, at the request of Governor Dunmore, goes to the West
and conducts a party of surveyors to Virginia--Boone receives the
command of three garrisons and the commission of Captain--He takes
a part in the Dunmore war--Battle of Point Pleasant and termination
of the war.


Having completed all his arrangements for the journey, on the 25th of
September, 1774, Daniel Boone, with his wife and children, set out on
his journey to the West. He was accompanied by his brother, Squire
Boone; and the party took with them cattle and swine, with a view to
the stocking of their farms, when they should arrive in Kentucky.
Their bedding and other baggage was carried by pack-horses.

At a place called Powel's Valley, the party was reinforced by another
body of emigrants to the West consisting of five families and no less
than forty able-bodied men; well armed and provided with provisions and
ammunition.

They now went on in high spirits, "camping out" every night in woods,
under the shelter of rude tents constructed with poles covered with
bed-clothes. They thus advanced on their journey without accident or
alarm, until the 6th of October, when they were approaching a pass in
the mountains, called Cumberland Gap. The young men who were engaged
in driving the cattle had fallen in rear of the main body a distance
of five or six miles, when they were suddenly assailed by a party of
Indians, who killed six of their number and dispersed the cattle in the
woods. A seventh man escaped with a wound. The reports of the musketry
brought the remainder of the party to the rescue, who drove off the
Indians and buried the dead. Among the slain was the oldest son of
Daniel Boone.

A council was now held to determine on their future proceedings.
Notwithstanding the dreadful domestic misfortune which he had
experienced in the loss of his son, Daniel Boone was for proceeding to
Kentucky; in this opinion he was sustained by his brother and some of
the other emigrants; but most of them were so much disheartened by the
misfortune they had met with, that they insisted on returning; and Boone
and his brother yielding to their wishes, returned to the settlement on
the Clinch River, in the south-western part of Virginia, a distance of
forty miles from the place where they had been surprised by the Indians.

Here Boone was obliged to remain with his family for the present; but he
had by no means relinquished his design of settling in Kentucky. This
delay, however, was undoubtedly a providential one; for in consequence
of the murder of the family of the Indian chief Logan, a terrible Indian
war, called in history the Dunmore War, was impending, which broke out
in the succeeding year, and extended to that part of the West to which
Boone and his party were proceeding, when they were turned back by the
attack of the Indians.

In this war Daniel Boone was destined to take an active part. In his
autobiography, already quoted, he says:

"I remained with my family on Clinch until the 6th of June, 1774, when I
and one Michael Stoner were solicited by Governor Dunmore, of Virginia,
to go to the Falls of the Ohio, to conduct into the settlement a number
of surveyors that had been sent thither by him some months before; this
country having about this time drawn the attention of many adventurers.
We immediately complied with the governor's request, and conducted in
the surveyors, completing a tour of eight hundred miles, through many
difficulties, in sixty-two day.

"Soon after I returned home, I was ordered to take command of three
garrisons, during the campaign which Governor Dunmore carried on against
the Shawanese Indians."

These three garrisons were on the frontier contiguous to each other;
and with the command of them Boone received a commission as captain.

We quote from a contemporary an account of the leading events of this
campaign, and of the battle of Point Pleasant, which may be said to
have terminated the war. Whether Boone was present at this battle is
uncertain; but his well-known character for ability and courage, renders
it probable that he took a part in the action.

The settlers, now aware that a general warfare would be commenced by
the Indians, immediately sent an express to Williamsburg, the seat of
government in Virginia, communicating their apprehensions, and
soliciting protection.

The Legislature was in session at the time, and it was immediately
resolved upon to raise an army of about three thousand men, and march
into the heart of the Indian country.

One half of the requisite number of troops was ordered to be raised in
Virginia, and marched under General Andrew Lewis across the country to
the mouth of the Kenhawa; and the remainder to be rendezvoused at Fort
Pitt, and be commanded by Dunmore in person, who proposed to descend the
Ohio and join Lewis at the place mentioned, from where the combined
army was to march as circumstances might dictate at the time.

By the 11th of September the troops under General Lewis, numbering about
eleven hundred men, were in readiness to leave. The distance across to
the mouth of the Kenhawa, was near one hundred and sixty miles through
an unbroken wilderness. A competent guide was secured, the baggage
mounted on pack horses, and in nineteen days they arrived at the place
of destination.

The next morning after the arrival of the army at Point Pleasant, as the
point of land at the junction of the Kenhawa and the Ohio was called,
two men were out some distance from the camp, in pursuit of a deer, and
were suddenly fired upon by a large body of Indians; one was killed,
and the other with difficulty retreated back to the army; who hastily
reported "that he had seen a body of the enemy covering four acres of
ground, as closely as they could stand by the side of each other."

General Lewis was a remarkably cool and considerate man; and upon being
informed of this, "after deliberately lighting his pipe," gave orders
that the regiment under his brother, Colonel Charles Lewis, and another
under Colonel Fleming, should march and reconnoiter the enemy, while he
would place the remainder of the troops in order for battle. The two
regiments marched without delay, and had not proceeded more than four
hundred yards when they were met by the Indians, approaching for the
same purpose. A skirmish immediately ensued, and before the contest had
continued long, the colonels of the two regiments fell mortally wounded,
when a disorder in the ranks followed, and the troops began a
precipitate retreat; but almost at this moment another regiment under
Colonel Field arriving to their aid and coming up with great firmness to
the attack effectually checked the savages in the pursuit, and obliged
them in turn to give way till they had retired behind a breastwork of
logs and brush which they had partially constructed.

Lewis, on his arrival at the place, had encamped quite on the point of
land between the Ohio and Kenhawa, and having moved but a short distance
out to the attack, the distance across from river to river was still but
short. The Indians soon extending their ranks entirely across, had the
Virginians completely hemmed in, and in the event of getting the better
of them, had them at their disposal, as there could have been no chance
for escape.

Never was ground maintained with more obstinacy; for it was slowly, and
with no precipitancy, that the Indians retired to their breastwork. The
division under Lewis was first broken, although that under Fleming was
nearly at the same moment attacked. This heroic officer first received
two balls through his left wrist, but continued to exercise his command
with the greatest coolness and presence of mind. His voice was
continually heard, "Don't lose an inch of ground. Advance, outflank the
enemy, and get between them and the river." But his men were about to
be outflanked by the body that had just defeated Lewis; meanwhile the
arrival of Colonel Field turned the fortune of the day, but not without
a severe loss; Colonel Fleming was again wounded, by a shot through the
lungs; yet he would not retire, and Colonel Field was killed as he was
leading on his men. The whole line of the breastwork now became as a
blaze of fire, which lasted nearly till the close of the day. Here the
Indians under Logan, Cornstock, Elenipsico, Red-Eagle, and other mighty
chiefs of the tribes of the Shawneese, Delawares, Mingos, Wyandots,
and Cayugas, amounting, as was supposed, to fifteen hundred warriors,
fought, as men will ever do for their country's wrongs, with a bravery
which could only be equaled. The voice of the great Cornstock was often
heard during the day, above the din of strife, calling on his men in
these words: "Be strong! Be strong!" And when by the repeated charges
of the whites, some of his warriors began to waver, he is said to have
sunk his tomahawk into the head of one who was basely endeavoring to
desert. General Lewis, finding at length that every charge upon the
lines of the Indians lessened the number of his forces to an alarming
degree, and rightly judging that if the Indians were not routed before
it was dark, a day of more doubt might follow, he resolved to throw
a body, if possible, into their rear. As the good fortune of the
Virginians turned, the bank of the river favored this project, and
forthwith three companies were detached upon the enterprise, under the
three captains, Isaac Shelby (after renowned in the revolution, and
since in the war with Canada,) George Matthews, and John Stewart. These
companies got unobserved to their place of destination upon Crooked
Creek, which runs into the Kenhawa. From the high weeds upon the bank of
this little stream, they rushed upon the backs of the Indians with such
fury, as to drive them from their works with precipitation. The day was
now decided. The Indians, thus beset from a quarter they did not expect,
were ready to conclude that a reinforcement had arrived. It was about,
sunset when they fled across the Ohio, and immediately took up their
march for their towns on the Scioto.

Of the loss of both Indians and whites in this engagement, various
statements have been given. A number amounting to seventy-five killed,
and one hundred and forty wounded of the whites, has been rendered; with
a loss on part of the Indians not so great, but not correctly known.[21]
This was the severest battle ever fought with the Indians in Virginia.
Shortly after this battle the Indians sent messengers to Governor
Dunmore, suing for peace, and a treaty was accordingly concluded.
In this treaty the Indians surrendered all claim to Kentucky. The Six
Nations had already done the same thing at the Treaty of Fort Stanwix
in 1768. The Cherokees had sold their claims to Henderson's company; so
that when Boone settled in Kentucky it was effectually cleared of all
Indian titles.

[Footnote 21: "History of the Backwoods."]




CHAPTER VIII.

The militia discharged--Captain Boone returns to his
family--Henderson's company--Various companies of emigrants to
Kentucky--Bounty lands--Harrod's party builds the first log-cabin
erected in Kentucky, and founds Harrodsburg--Proceedings of
Henderson's company--Agency of Captain Boone--He leads a company to
open a road to Kentucky River--Conflicts with the Indians--Captain
Boone founds Boonesborough--His own account of this expedition--His
letter to Henderson--Account of Colonel Henderson and the
Transylvania Company--Failure of the scheme--Probability of Boone
having been several years in the service of Henderson.


On the conclusion of Dunmore's war, the militia were discharged from
service, the garrisons which had been under Captain Daniel Boone's
command were broken up, and he once more returned to his family, who
were still residing on Clinch River. But he was not long permitted to
remain comparatively idle. Captain Boone's character as an able officer
and a bold pioneer, was now well known and appreciated by the public.
The marks of confidence bestowed on him by Governor Dunmore rendered
him one of the most conspicuous men in the Southern colonies, and his
services were soon to be put in requisition by the most considerable and
remarkable of all the parties of adventurers who ever sought a home in
the West. This was Henderson's company, called the Transylvania Company,
to whose proceedings we shall presently refer.

Between 1769 and 1773, various associations of men were formed, in
Virginia and North Carolina, for visiting the newly-discovered regions
and locating lands; and several daring adventurers, at different times
during this period, penetrated to the head-waters of the Licking River,
and did some surveying; but it was not till the year 1774 that the
whites obtained any permanent foothold in Kentucky. From this year,
therefore, properly dates the commencement of the early settlements of
the State.[22]

The first great impetus given to adventure in Kentucky was by the bounty
in Western land given by Virginia to the officers and soldiers of her
own troops who had served in the British army in the old war in Canada
between the English and French. These lands were to be surveyed on the
Ohio River, and its tributaries, by the claimants thus created, who
had the privilege of selecting them wherever they pleased within the
prescribed regions. The first locations were made upon the Great Kenawha
in the year 1772, and the next on the south side of the Ohio itself the
following year. During this year, likewise, extensive tracts of land
were located on the north fork of the Licking, and surveys made of
several salt-licks, and other choice spots. But 1774 was more signalized
than had been any preceding year by the arrival, in the new "land of
promise," of the claimants to portions of its territory, and the
execution of surveys. Among the hardy adventurers who descended the Ohio
this year and penetrated to the interior of Kentucky by the river of
that name, was James Harrod, who led a party of Virginians from the
shores of the Monongahela. He disembarked at a point still known as
"Harrod's Landing," and, crossing the country in a direction nearly
west, paused in the midst of a beautiful and fertile region, and _built
the first log-cabin_ ever erected in Kentucky, on or near the site of
the present town of Harrodsburg. This was in the spring, or early part
of the summer, of 1774.[23]

The high-wrought descriptions of the country north west of the Laurel
Ridge, which were given by Daniel Boone upon his return to North
Carolina after his first long visit to Kentucky, circulated with
great rapidity throughout the entire State, exciting the avarice of
speculators and inflaming the imaginations of nearly all classes of
people. The organization of several companies, for the purpose of
pushing adventure in the new regions and acquiring rights to land, was
immediately attempted; but that which commenced under the auspices of
Colonel Richard Henderson, a gentleman of education and means, soon
engaged public attention by the extent and boldness of its scheme, and
the energy of its movements; and either frightened from their purpose,
or attracted to its own ranks, the principal of those individuals who
had at first been active in endeavoring to form other associations.

The whole of that vast extent of country lying within the natural
boundaries constituted by the Ohio, Kentucky, and Cumberland rivers, was
at this time claimed by a portion of the Cherokee Indians, who resided
within the limits of North Carolina; and the scheme of Henderson's
Company was nothing less than to take possession of this immense
territory, under color of a purchase from those Indians, which they
intended to make, and the preliminary negotiations for which were opened
with the Cherokees, through the agency of Daniel Boone, as soon as the
company was fully organized. Boone's mission to the Indians having been
attended with complete success, and the result thereof being conveyed
to the company, Colonel Henderson at once started for Fort Wataga, on
a branch of the Holston River, fully authorized to effect the purchase;
and here, on the 17th of March, 1775, he met the Indians in solemn
council, delivered them a satisfactory consideration in merchandise,
and received a deed signed by their head chiefs.

The purchase made, the next important step was to take possession of the
territory thus acquired. The proprietors were not slow to do this, but
immediately collected a small company of brave and hardy men, which
they sent into Kentucky, under the direction of Daniel Boone, to open a
road from the Holston to the Kentucky River, and erect a Station at the
mouth of Otter Creek upon this latter.

After a laborious and hazardous march through the wilderness, during
which four men were killed, and five others wounded, by trailing and
skulking parties of hostile Indians, Boone and his company reached the
banks of the Kentucky on the first of April, and descending this some
fifteen miles, encamped upon the spot where Boonesborough now stands.
Here the bushes were at once cut down, the ground leveled, the nearest
trees felled, the foundations laid for a fort, and the first settlement
of Kentucky commenced.

Perhaps the reader would like to see Boone's own account of these
proceedings. Here is the passage where he mentions it in his
autobiography. He has just been speaking of Governor Dunmore's war
against the Shawanese Indians: "After the conclusion of which, he says,
the militia was discharged from each garrison, and I being relieved from
my post, was solicited by a number of North Carolina gentlemen, that
were about purchasing the lands lying on the South side of Kentucky
River from the Cherokee Indians, to attend their treaty at Wataga, in
March, 1775, to negotiate with them, and mention the boundaries of the
purchase. This I accepted; and at the request of the same gentlemen,
undertook to mark out a road in the best passage through the wilderness
to Kentucky, with such assistance as I thought necessary to employ for
such an important undertaking?

"I soon began this work, having collected a number of enterprising men,
well armed. We proceeded with all possible expedition until we came
within fifteen miles of where Boonesborough now stands, and where we
were fired upon by a party of Indians, that killed two, and wounded two
of our number; yet, although surprised and taken at a disadvantage,
we stood our ground. This was on the twentieth of March, 1775. Three
days after we were fired upon again, and had two men killed and three
wounded. Afterward we proceeded on to Kentucky River without opposition,
and on the fifth day of April began to erect the fort of Boonesborough
at a salt-lick, about sixty yards from the river, on the south side."

"On the fourth day, the Indians killed one of our men. We were busily
engaged in building the fort, until the fourteenth day of June
following, without any further opposition from the Indians."

In addition to this account by Captain Boone, we have another in a sort
of official report made by him to Colonel Richard Henderson, the head
of the company in whose service Boone was then employed. It is cited by
Peck in his Life of Boone, as follows:


"April 15th, 1775.

"Dear Colonel: After my compliments to you, I shall acquaint you with
our misfortune. On March the 25th a party of Indians fired on my company
about half an hour before day, and killed Mr. Twitty and his negro, and
wounded Mr. Walker very deeply but I hope he will recover.

"On March the 28th, as we were hunting for provisions, we found Samuel
Tate's son, who gave us an account that the Indians fired on their camp
on the 27th day. My brother and I went down and found two men killed and
scalped, Thomas McDowell and Jeremiah McPeters. I have sent a man down
to all the lower companies in order to gather them all to the mouth
of Otter Creek. My advice to you, sir, is to come or send as soon as
possible. Your company is desired greatly, for the people are very
uneasy, but are willing to stay and venture their lives with you; and
now is the time to flusterate their (the Indians) intentions, and keep
the country whilst we are in it. If we give way to them now, it will
ever be the case This day we start from the battle-ground for the mouth
of Otter Creek, where we shall immediately erect a fort, which will be
done before you can come or send; then we can send ten men to meet you
if you send for them.

"I am, sir, your most obedient,

"DANIEL BOONE.

"N.B.--We stood on the ground and guarded our baggage till day, and lost
nothing. We have about fifteen miles to Cantuck, at Otter Creek."

Colonel Henderson was one of the most remarkable men of his time.
He was born in Hanover County, Virginia, April 20th, 1735, the same year
with Boone. He studied law, and was appointed judge of the Superior
Court of North Carolina under the Colonial government. The troubled
times of the Regulators shut up the courts of justice. In 1774 he
engaged in his grand scheme of founding the republic of Transylvania,
and united with him John Williams, Leonard Hendly Bullock, of Granville;
William Johnston, James Hogg, Thomas Hart, John Lutterell, Nathaniel
Hart, and David Hart, of Orange County, in the company which made the
purchase of the immense tract of lands above referred to.

The company took possession of the lands on the 20th of April, 1775; the
Indians appointing an agent to deliver them according to law.

The Governor of North Carolina, Martin, issued his proclamation in 1775,
declaring this purchase illegal. The State subsequently granted 200,000
acres to the company in lieu of this.

The State of Virginia declared the same, but granted the company a
remuneration of 200,000 acres, bounded by the Ohio and Green rivers. The
State of Tennessee claimed the lands, but made a similar grant to the
company in Powell's Valley. Thus, though the original scheme of founding
an independent republic failed, the company made their fortunes by the
speculation. Henderson died at his seat in Granville, January 30, 1785,
universally beloved and respected.