Officers lost: Colonels—John Todd and Stephen Trigg; Majors—Edward Bulger and Silas Harlan; Captains—W. McBride, John Gordon, Jos. Kincaid, and Clough Overton; Lieutenants—W. Givens, and John Kennedy; Ensign—John McMurtry.
In this action brother James fell. On Saturday 24th inst., Colonel Logan, with four hundred and seventy men, went on the battle-ground and buried the slain; found on the field, slain, forty-three men, missing, twenty-two, in all sixty-five.
I traveled but little about the country. From English’s to Harrodsburg was the farthest west, and from Logan’s Fort to the Blue Lick the farthest north. Thus far the land was generally good—except near and about the Lick it was very poor and badly timbered—generally badly watered, but pretty well timbered. At Richmond Ford, on the Kentucky River, the bank a little below the ford appears to be largely upward of a hundred feet perpendicular of rock.
On my return to Hanover I set off from John Craigs’ Monday, 23d September, 1782; left English’s Tuesday, 1 o’clock, arrived at the Block-house the Monday evening following, and kept on the same route downward chiefly that I traveled out. Nothing material occurred to me. Got to Hanover sometime about the last of October the same year.”
Thomas Speed’s grandfather gives the following itinerary from “Charlotte Court-House to Kentucky” under date of 1790:
The foregoing itineraries afford us some conception of the settlements and “improvements” that sprang up along the winding thoroughfare from Virginia to Kentucky. The writer has sought with some care to know more of these—of the modes of travel, the entertainment which was afforded along the road to men and beasts, and the social relation of the greater settlements in Virginia and Kentucky to this thin line of human lives across the continent. Very little information has been secured. It is plain that the great immigration to Kentucky would have been out of the question had there been no means of succor and assistance along the road. There were many who gained their livelihood as pioneer innkeepers and provisioned along Boone’s Road. Among the very few of these of whom any record is left, Captain Joseph Martin is perhaps the most prominent and most worthy of remembrance. Martin’s “cabin” or “station,” as it is variously termed, occupied a strategic point in far-famed Powell’s Valley, one hundred and eighty miles west of Inglis Ferry, twenty miles east of Cumberland Gap and about one hundred and thirty miles southeast of Crab Orchard and Boonesborough. Captain Martin was Virginia Agent for Indian affairs, and was the most prominent man in the scattered settlements in Powell’s Valley, where he was living at the time of the founding of Boonesborough. Later he made his headquarters at Long Island in North Carolina. It is plain from Colonel Henderson’s journal that wagons could proceed along Boone’s Road in 1775 no further than Martin’s cabin. Here everything was transferred to the packhorses. Several letters from Colonel Henderson to Captain Martin, preserved by the Wisconsin Historical Society, give us a glimpse of silent Powell’s Valley. One of them reads:
“Boonesborough
12th June 1775
Dear Sir:
Mr Ralph Williams, David Burnay, and William Mellar will apply to you for salt and other things which we left with you and was sent for us since we came away—Please to deliver to them, or those they may employ what they ask for, and take a receipt—Also write me a few lines informing me, what you have sent &c. by hem & by whom—I long much to hear from you, pray write me at Large, how the matter goes with you in the valey, as well as what passes in Virginia—If the pack-horsemen should want any thing towards securing my books from Damage pack-saddles, provisions, or any thing which you see is necessary; please to let them have it on our acct.—All things goes well hitherto with us, I hope the[y] do with you would have sent your Mares but am afraid they are not done horsing They will be safely brought by my brother in a few weeks