The First White Man of the West / Life and Exploits of Col. Dan'l. Boone, the First Settler of Kentucky; / Interspersed with Incidents in the Early Annals of the Country.

by Timothy Flint

CHAPTER VI.

Boone starts with his family to Kentucky—Their return to Clinch river—He conducts a party of surveyors to the Falls of Ohio—He helps build Boonesborough, and removes his family to the fort—His daughter and two of Col. Calloway's daughters taken prisoners by the Indians—They pursue the Indians and rescue the captives.

The next step was to collect a sufficient number of emigrants who would be willing to remove to the new country with the families of the Boones, to give the settlements security and strength to resist the attacks of the Indians. This was not an easy task. It may be readily imagined that the Boones saw only the bright side of the contemplated expedition. They painted the fertility and amenity of the flowering wilderness in the most glowing colors. They described the cane-brakes, the clover and grass, the transparent limestone springs and brooks, the open forests, the sugar maple orchards, the buffaloes, deer, turkeys and wild fowls, in all the fervid colors of their own imaginations. To them it was the paradise of the first pair, whose inhabitants had only to put forth their hands, and eat and enjoy. The depredations, captivities, and scalpings, of the Indians; the howling of the wolves; the diseases, and peculiar trials and difficulties of a new country, without houses, mills, and the most indispensable necessaries of civilized life, were all overlooked. But in such a case, in a compact settlement like that of the Yadkin, there are never wanting gainsayers, opposers, gossips, who envied the Boones. These caused those disposed to the enterprise to hear the other part, and to contemplate the other side of the picture. They put stories in circulation as eloquent as those of the Boones, which told of all the scalpings, captivities, and murders of the Indians, magnified in a tenfold proportion. With them, the savages were like the ogres and bloody giants of nursery stories. They had pleasant tales of horn-snakes, of such deadly malignity, that the thorn in their tails, struck into the largest tree in full verdure, instantly blasted it. They scented in the air of the country, deadly diseases, and to them, Boone's paradise was a Hinnom, the valley of the shadow of death.

The minds of the half resolved, half doubting persons, that meditated emigration, vibrated alternately backwards and forwards, inclined or disinclined to it, according to the last view of the case presented to them. But the natural love of adventure, curiosity, fondness for the hunting life, dissatisfaction with the incessant labor necessary for subsistence on their present comparatively sterile soil, joined to the confident eloquence of the Boones, prevailed on four or five families to join them in the expedition.

All the necessary arrangements of preparing for this distant expedition, of making sales and purchases, had occupied nearly two years. The expedition commenced its march on the 26th of September, 1773. They all set forth with confident spirits for the western wilderness, and were joined by forty persons in Powell's Valley, a settlement in advance of that on the Yadkin, towards the western country. The whole made a cavalcade of nearly eighty persons.

The three principal ranges of the Alleghany, over which they must pass, were designated as Powell's, Walden's, and Cumberland. These mountains forming the barrier between the old settlements and the new country, stretch from the north-east to the south-west. They are of great length and breadth, and not far distant from each other. There are nature-formed passes over them, which render the ascent comparatively easy. The aspect of these huge piles was so wild and rugged, as to make it natural for those of the party who were unaccustomed to mountains, to express fears of being able to reach the opposite side. The course traced by the brothers on their return to Carolina, was found and followed. The advantage of this forethought was strongly perceived by all. Their progress was uninterrupted by any adverse circumstance, and every one was in high spirits, until the west side of Walden's ridge, the most elevated of the three, had been gained. They were now destined to experience a most appalling reverse of fortune.

On the tenth of October, as the party were advancing along a narrow defile, unapprehensive of danger, they were suddenly terrified by fearful yells. Instantly aware that Indians surrounded them, the men sprang to the defence of the helpless women and children. But the attack had been so sudden, and the Indians were so much superior in point of numbers, that six men fell at the first onset of the savages. A seventh was wounded, and the party would have been overpowered, but for a general and effective discharge of the rifles of the remainder. The Indians, terror-struck, took to flight, and disappeared.

Had the numbers of the travellers allowed it, they felt no inclination to pursue the retreating Indians. Their loss had been too serious to permit the immediate gratification of revenge. The eldest son of Daniel Boone was found among the slain. The domestic animals accompanying the expedition were so scattered by the noise of the affray, that it was impossible again to collect and recover them. The distress and discouragement of the party were so great, as to produce an immediate determination to drop the projected attempt of a settlement in Kentucky, and return to Clinch river, which lay forty miles in their rear, where a number of families had already fixed themselves.

They then proceeded to perform the last melancholy duties to the bodies of their unfortunate companions with all decent observances which circumstances would allow. Their return was then commenced. Boone and his brother, with some others, did not wish to forsake the undertaking upon which they had set out; but the majority against them was so great, and the feeling on the subject so strong, that they were compelled to acquiesce. The party retraced, in deep sadness, the steps they had so lately taken in cheerfulness, and even joy.

Daniel Boone remained with his family on Clinch river, until June, 1774; when he was requested by the governor of Virginia to go to the falls of Ohio, to act as a guide to a party of surveyors. The manifestations of hostility, on the part of the Indians, were such, that their longer stay was deemed unsafe. Boone undertook to perform this service, and set out upon this journey, with no other companion than a man by the name of Stoner. They reached the point of destination, now Louisville, in a surprisingly short period, without any accident. Under his guidance the surveyors arrived at the settlements in safety. From the time that Boone left his home, upon this enterprise, until he returned to it, was but sixty-two days. During this period he travelled eight hundred miles on foot, through a country entirely destitute of human habitations, save the camps of the Indians.

In the latter part of this year, the disturbances between the Indians north-west of the Ohio, and the frontier settlers, grew to open hostilities. Daniel Boone being in Virginia, the governor appointed him to the command of three contiguous garrisons on the frontier, with the commission of captain. The campaign of the year terminated in a battle, after which the militia were disbanded. Boone was consequently relieved from duty.

Col. Henderson, of North Carolina, had been for some time engaged in forming a company in that state, for the purpose of purchasing the lands on the south side of the Kentucky, from the southern Indians. The plan was now matured, and Boone was solicited by the company to attend the treaty to be made between them and the Indians, at Wataga, in March, 1775, to settle the terms of the negociation. The requisite information, in respect to the proposed purchase, was given him, and he acceded to the request. At the appointed time, he attended and successfully performed the service intrusted to him. Soon afterwards the same company applied to him to lay out a road between the settlements on Holston river and Kentucky river. No little knowledge of the country, and judgment were requisite for the proper fulfilment of this service. A great many different routes must be examined, before the most practicable one could be fixed upon. The duty was, however, executed by Boone, promptly and faithfully. The labor was great, owing to the rugged and mountainous country, through which the route led. The laborers, too, suffered from the repeated attacks of Indians. Four of them were killed, and five wounded. The remainder completed this work, by reaching Kentucky river, in April, of the same year. They immediately proceeded to erect a fort near a salt spring, where Boonesborough now stands. The party, enfeebled by its losses, did not complete the erection of the fort until June. The Indians troubled them exceedingly, and killed one man. The fort consisted of a block-house, and several cabins, surrounded by palisades.

The fort being finished, Boone returned to his family, and soon after removed them to this first garrison of Kentucky. The purpose on which his heart had so long been set, was now accomplished. His wife and daughters were the first white women that ever stood on the banks of Kentucky river. In our zeal to blazon our subject, it is not affirmed, that Boone was absolutely the first discoverer and explorer of Kentucky, for he was not. But the high meed of being the first actual settler and cultivator of the soil, cannot be denied him. It was the pleasant season of the close of summer and commencement of autumn, when the immigrants would see their new residence in the best light. Many of its actual inconveniences were withheld from observation, as the mildness of the air precluded the necessity of tight dwellings. Arrangements were made for cultivating a field in the coming spring. The Indians, although far from friendly, did not attempt any immediate assault upon their new neighbors, and the first events of the settlement were decidedly fortunate. The game in the woods was an unfailing resource for food. The supplies brought from their former homes by the immigrants were not yet exhausted, and things went on in their usual train, with the added advantage, that over all, in their new home, was spread the charm of novelty.

Winter came and passed with as little discomfort to the inmates of the garrison as could be expected from the circumstances of their position. The cabins were thoroughly daubed, and fuel was of course abundant. It is true, those who felled the trees were compelled to be constantly on their guard, lest a red man should take aim at them from the shelter of some one of the forest hiding places. But they were fitted for this way of getting along by their training, natures, and predilections. There was no want of excitement during the day, or even night—nothing of the wearying monotony to which a life of safe and regular occupation is subject. Spring opened. The trees were girdled, and the brush cut down and burned, preparatory to ploughing the field. A garden spot was marked off, the virgin earth thrown up and softened, and then given in charge to the wives and daughters of the establishment. They brought out their stock of seeds, gathered in the old settlements, and every bright day saw them engaged in the light and healthful occupation of planting them. They were protected by the vicinity of their husbands and fathers, and in turn cheered them in their severer labors. The Indians had forborne any attacks upon the settlers so long, that, as is naturally the case, they had ceased in a degree to dwell upon the danger always to be apprehended from them. The men did not fail to take their rifles and knives with them whenever they went abroad; but the women ventured occasionally a short distance without the palisades during the day, never, however, losing sight of the fort. This temerity was destined to cost them dear.

Colonel Calloway, the intimate friend of Boone, had joined him in the course of the spring, at the fort, which had received, by the consent of all, the name of Boonesborough. He had two daughters. Captain Boone had a daughter also, and the three were companions; and, if we may take the portraits of the rustic time, patterns of youthful bloom and loveliness. It cannot be doubted that they were inexpressibly dear to their parents. These girls, at the close of a beautiful summer day, the 14th of July, were tempted imprudently to wander into the woods at no great distance from their habitations, to gather flowers with which to adorn their rustic fire-places. They were suddenly surrounded by half a dozen Indians. Their shrieks and efforts to flee were alike unavailing. They were dragged rapidly beyond the power of making themselves heard. As soon as they were deemed to be beyond the danger of rescue, they were treated with the utmost indulgence and decorum.

This forbearance, of a race that we are accustomed to call savages, was by no means accidental, or peculiar to this case. While in battle, they are unsparing and unrelenting as tigers—while, after the fury of its excitement is past, they will exult with frantic and demoniac joy in the cries of their victims expiring at a slow fire—while they dash the tomahawk with merciless indifference into the cloven skulls of mothers and infants, they are universally seen to treat captive women with a decorous forbearance. This strange trait, so little in keeping with other parts of their character, has been attributed by some to their want of the sensibilities and passions of our race. The true solution is, the force of their habits. Honor, as they estimate it, is, with them, the most sacred and inviolable of all laws. The decorum of forbearance towards women in their power has been incorporated with their code as the peculiar honor of a warrior. It is usually kept sacred and inviolate. Instances are not wanting where they have shown themselves the most ardent lovers of their captives, and, we may add, most successful in gaining their voluntary affection in return. Enough such examples are recorded, were other proofs wanting, to redeem their forbearance from the negative character resulting from the want of passions.

The captors of these young ladies, having reached the main body of their people, about a dozen in number, made all the provision in their power for the comfort of their fair captives. They served them with their best provisions, and by signs and looks that could not be mistaken, attempted to soothe their agonies, and quiet their apprehensions and fears. The parents at the garrison, having waited in vain for the return of their gay and beloved daughters to prepare their supper, and in torments of suspense that may easily be imagined, until the evening, became aware that they were either lost or made captives. They sallied forth in search of them, and scoured the woods in every direction, without discovering a trace of them. They were then but too well convinced that they had been taken by the Indians. Captain Boone and Colonel Calloway, the agonizing parents of the lost ones, appealed to the company to obtain volunteers to pursue the Indians, under an oath, if they found the captors, either to retake their daughters, or die in the attempt. The oath of Boone on this occasion is recorded: "By the Eternal Power that made me a father, if my daughter lives, and is found, I will either bring her back, or spill my life blood." The oath was no sooner uttered than every individual of the males crowded round Boone to repeat it. But he reminded them that a part of their number must remain to defend the station. Seven select persons only were admitted to the oath, along with the fathers of the captives. The only difficulty was in making the selection. Supplying themselves with knapsacks, rifles, ammunition, and provisions, the party set forth on the pursuit.

Hitherto they had been unable to find the trail of the captors. Happily they fell upon it by accident. But the Indians, according to their custom, had taken so much precaution to hide their trail, that they found themselves exceedingly perplexed to keep it, and they were obliged to put forth all the acquirement and instinct of woodsmen not to find themselves every moment at fault in regard to their course. The rear Indians of the file had covered their foot prints with leaves. They often turned off at right angles; and whenever they came to a branch, walked in the water for some distance. At a place of this sort, the pursuers were for some time wholly unable to find at what point the Indians had left the branch, and began to despair of regaining their trail. In this extreme perplexity, one of the company was attracted by an indication of their course, which proved that the daughters shared the sylvan sagacity of their parents. "God bless my dear child," exclaimed Colonel Calloway; "she has proved that she had strength of mind in her deplorable condition to retain self possession." At the same instant he picked up a little piece of ribbon, which he instantly recognized as his daughter's. She had evidently committed it unobserved to the air, to indicate the course of her captors. The trail was soon regained, and the company resumed their march with renewed alacrity.

They were afterwards often at a loss to keep the trail, from the extreme care of the Indians to cover and destroy it. But still, in their perplexity, the sagacious expedient of the fair young captives put them right. A shred of their handkerchief, or of some part of their dress, which they had intrusted to the wind unobserved, indicated their course, and that the captives were thus far not only alive, but that their reasoning powers, unsubdued by fatigue, were active and buoyant. Next day, in passing places covered with mud, deposited by the dry branches on the way, the foot prints of the captives were distinctly traced, until the pursuers had learned to discriminate not only the number, but the peculiar form of each foot print.

Late in the evening of the fifteenth day's pursuit, from a little eminence, they discovered in the distance before them, through the woods, a smoke and the light of a fire. The palpitation of their parental hearts may be easily imagined. They could not doubt that it was the camp of the captors of their children. The plan of recapture was intrusted entirely to Boone. He led his company as near the enemy as he deemed might be done with safety, and selecting a position under the shelter of a hill, ordered them to halt, with a view to passing the night in that place. They then silently took food as the agitation of their minds would allow. All but Calloway, another selected person of their number, and himself, were permitted to lie down, and get that sleep of which they had been so long deprived. The three impatiently waited for midnight, when the sleep of the Indians would be most likely to be profound. They stationed the third person selected, on the top of the eminence, behind which they were encamped, as a sentinel to await a given signal from the fathers, which should be his indication to fly to the camp and arouse the sleepers, and bring them to their aid. Then falling prostrate, they crept cautiously, and as it were by inches, towards the Indian camp.

Having reached a covert of bushes, close by the Indian camp, and examined as well as they could by the distant light of the camp-fires, the order of their rifles, they began to push aside the bushes, and survey the camp through the opening. Seventeen Indians were stretched, apparently in sound sleep, on the ground. But they looked in vain among them for the dear objects of their pursuit. They were not long in discovering another camp a little remote from that of the Indians. They crawled cautiously round to take a survey of it. Here, to their inexpressible joy, were their daughters in each others arms. Directly in front of their camp were two Indians, with their tomahawks and other weapons within their grasp. The one appeared to be in a sound sleep, and the other keeping the most circumspective vigils.

The grand object now was to get possession of the prisoners without arousing their captors, the consequence of which it was obvious, would be the immediate destruction of the captives. Boone made a signal to Calloway to take a sure aim at the sleeping Indian, so as to be able to despatch him in a moment, if the emergency rendered that expedient necessary. Boone, the while, crawled round, so as to reach the waking Indian from behind; intending to spring upon him and strangle him, so as to prevent his making a noise to awaken the sleeper. But, unfortunately, this Indian instead of being asleep was wide awake, and on a careful look out. The shadow of Boone coming on them from behind, aroused him. He sprang erect, and uttered a yell that made the ancient woods ring, leaving no doubt that the other camp would be instantly alarmed. The captives, terrified by the war yell of their sentinels, added their screams of apprehension, and every thing was in a moment in confusion. The first movement of Boone was to fire. But the forbearance of Calloway, and his own more prudent second thought, restrained him. It was hard to forego such a chance for vengeance, but their own lives and their children's would probably pay the forfeit, and they fired not. On the contrary, they surrendered themselves to the Indians, who rushed furiously in a mass around them. By significant gestures, and a few Indian words, which they had learned, they implored the lives of their captive children, and opportunity for a parley. Seeing them in their power, and comprehending the language of defenceless suppliants, their fury was at length with some difficulty restrained and appeased. They seemed evidently under the influence of a feeling of compassion towards the daughters, to which unquestionably the adventurous fathers were indebted, that their lives were not instantly sacrificed. Binding them firmly with cords, and surrounding them with sentinels, the Indians retired to their camp, not to resume their sleep, but to hold a council to settle the fate of their new prisoners.

What were the thoughts of the captive children, or of the disinterested and brave parents, as they found themselves bound, and once more in the power of their enemies—what was the bitter disappointment of the one, and the agonizing filial apprehension of the other—may be much more readily imagined than described. But the light of the dawn enabled the daughters to see, in the countenances of their fathers, as they lay bound and surrounded by fierce savages, unextinguishable firmness, and undaunted resolution, and a consciousness of noble motives; and they imbibed from the view something of the magnanimity of their parents, and assumed that demeanor of composure and resolute endurance which is always the readiest expedient to gain all the respect and forbearance that an Indian can grant.

It would be difficult to fancy a state of more torturing suspense than that endured by the companions of Boone and Calloway, who had been left behind the hill. Though they had slept little since the commencement of the expedition, and had been encouraged by the two fathers, their leaders to sleep that night, the emergency was too exciting to admit of sleep.

Often, during the night, had they aroused themselves, in expectation of the return of the fathers, or of a signal for action. But the night wore away, and the morning dawned, without bringing either the one or the other. But notwithstanding this distressing state of suspense, they had a confidence too undoubting in the firmness and prudence of their leader, to think of approaching the Indian camp until they should receive the appointed signal.

It would naturally be supposed that the deliberation of the Indian council, which had been held to settle the fate of Boone and Calloway, would end in sentencing them to run the gauntlet, and then amidst the brutal laughter and derision of their captors, to be burnt to death at a slow fire. Had the prisoners betrayed the least signs of fear, the least indications of a subdued mind, such would in all probability have been the issue of the Indian consultation. Such, however, was not the result of the council. It was decreed that they should be killed with as little noise as possible; their scalps taken as trophies, and that their daughters should remain captives as before. The lenity of this sentence may be traced to two causes. The daring hardihood, the fearless intrepidity of the adventure, inspired them with unqualified admiration for their captives. Innumerable instances have since been recorded, where the most inveterate enemies have boldly ventured into the camp of their enemy, have put themselves in their power, defied them to their face and have created an admiration of their fearless daring, which has caused that they have been spared and dismissed unmolested. This sort of feeling had its influence on the present occasion in favor of the prisoners. Another extenuating influence was, that hostilities between the white and red men in the west had as yet been uncommon; and the mutual fury had not been exasperated by murder and retaliation.

As soon as it was clear morning light, the Indian camp was in motion. As a business preliminary to their march, Boone and Calloway were led out and bound to a tree, and the warriors were selected who were to despatch them with their tomahawks. The place of their execution was selected at such a distance from their camp, as that the daughters might not be able to witness it. The two prisoners were already at the spot, awaiting the fatal blow, when a discharge of rifles, cutting down two of the savages at the first shot, arrested their proceedings. Another and another discharge followed. The Indians were as yet partially supplied with fire arms, and had not lost any of their original dread of the effects of this artificial thunder, and the invisible death of the balls. They were ignorant, moreover, of the number of their assailants, and naturally apprehended it to be greater than it was. They raised a yell of confusion, and dispersed in every direction, leaving their dead behind, and the captives to their deliverers. The next moment the children were in the arms of their parents; and the whole party, in the unutterable joy of conquest and deliverance, were on their way homewards.

[Illustration]

It need hardly be added that the brave associates of the expedition who had been left in camp, having waited the signal for the return of Boone and Calloway, until their patience and forbearance was exhausted, aware that something serious must have prevented their return, reconnoitered the movement of the Indians as they moved from their camp to despatch their two prisoners, and fired upon them at the moment they were about to put their sentence into execution.

About this time a new element began to exasperate and extend the ravages of Indian warfare, along the whole line of the frontier settlements. The war of Independence had already begun to rage. The influence and resources of Great Britain extended along the immense chain of our frontier, from the north-eastern part of Vermont and New York, all the way to the Mississippi. Nor did this nation, to her everlasting infamy, hesitate to engage these infuriate allies of the wilderness, whose known rule of warfare was indiscriminate vengeance; without reference to the age or sex of the foe, as auxiliaries in the war.

As this biographical sketch of the life of Boone is inseparably interwoven with this border scene of massacres, plunderings, burnings, and captivities, which swept the incipient northern and western settlements with desolation, it may not be amiss to take a brief retrospect of the state of these settlements at this conjuncture in the life of Boone.