Notice
A large company will meet at the Crab-Orchard the 19th. of November in order to start the next day through the Wilderness. As it is very dangerous on account of the Indians, it is hoped each person will go well armed[19]
It appears that unarmed persons sometimes attached themselves to companies and relied on others to protect them in times of danger. One advertisement urged that everyone should go armed and “not to depend on others to defend them.”[20]
The frequency of the departure of such companies suggests the great amount of travel on Boone’s Road. As early as 1788 parties were advertised to leave Crab Orchard May 5, May 15, May 26, June 4, and June 16. Nor does it seem that there was much abatement during the more inclement (safer?) months; in the fall of the same year companies were advertised to depart November 19, December 9, and December 19. Yet at this season the Indians were often out waylaying travelers—driven no doubt by hunger to deeds of desperation. The sufferings of such redskinned marauders have found little place in history; but they are, nevertheless, particularly suggestive. One story, which has not perhaps been told ad nauseam, is to the point; and would be amusing if it were not so fatally conclusive. In the winter of 1787-88 a party on Boone’s Road was attacked by Indians not far from the Kentucky border. Their horses were plundered of goods, but the travelers escaped. Hurrying “in” to the settlements a company was raised to make a pursuit. By their tracks in the snow the Indians were accurately followed. They were overtaken at a camp, where they were drying their blankets, &c., before a great fire. At the first charge the savages, completely surprised, took to their heels—stark naked. Not satisfied with recovering the stolen goods the Kentuckians pursued the fugitives into the mountains. Along the course they found trees stripped of pieces of bark, with which the Indians had attempted to cover their bodies. They were not overtaken, though some of their well protected pursuers had their own feet frost-bitten. The awful fate of the savages is unquestionable.
Before Richard Henderson arrived in Kentucky Daniel Boone wrote him: “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 flustrate the intentions of the Indians, and keep the country whilst we are in it. If we give way to them now, it will ever be the case.”
This letter shows plainly how the best informed man in Kentucky regarded Henderson’s settlement at Boonesborough. Henderson’s purchase was repudiated by both Virginia and North Carolina; but the Virginia Legislature confirmed Henderson’s sales of land, in so far as they were made to actual settlers, and not to speculators, Henderson and his associates were granted land in lieu of that taken from them. The Transylvania Company, while looked upon askance by many who preferred to risk their tomahawk claim rights to those the Company granted, exerted as great a moral influence in the first settlement of Kentucky as Daniel Boone affirmed it would—a greater influence than any other company before the Revolutionary War.
What it meant to the American colonies to have a brave band of pioneers in Kentucky at that crucial epoch, is an important chapter in the history of Boone’s Road.