"Of all men, saving Sylla, the man-slayer,
Was happiest among mortals any where;
Who passes for in life and death most lucky,
For, killing nothing but a bear or buck, he
Of the great names, which in our faces stare,
Enjoyed the lonely, vigorous, harmless days,
The General Boone, backwoodsman of Kentucky,
Of his old age in wilds of deepest maze.
—Byron's Don Juan, VIII., lxi.
* They settled upon the Little Osage in 1799, and the following year explored the head waters of the Arkansas. At the age of eighty years, accompanied by only two men (one white and the other black), he made a hunting excursion to the great Osage, where they trapped many beavers and other game. At about that time (1812), Boone addressed a memorial to the Legislature of Kentucky, setting forth that he owned not an acre of ground on the face of the earth, and, at the age of fourscore, had nowhere to lay his bones. He asked for a confirmation of his title to land in Louisiana, given him by the Spanish government in 1794, before that territory was ceded to the United States. The Legislature instructed their delegates in Congress to solicit a confirmation of this grant, and two thousand acres were secured to him. He died on the twenty-sixth of September, 1820, at the age of almost ninety years. On that occasion, the Legislature of Missouri, then in session, agreed to wear the usual badge of mourning for thirty days, as a token of respect. The grave of Boone is by the side of that of his wife, in the Cemetery at Frankfort, Kentucky, but no stone identifies it to the eye of a stranger.
Boone's Family on the Kain-tuck-ee. Boone's Fort assailed by Indians. Capture of Boone's Daughter and Companions.
and daughters, the first white women who ever stood upon the banks of the Kain-tuck-ee, were with him and engaged his solicitude. Kenton, Henderson, Logan, the M'Afees, Hardin, Harrod, Hart, Kay, the Irvines, Bryants, Rogers, and others, soon followed; and in the course of seven or eight years the "western precincts of Finley county," as Kentucky was called, contained scores of adventurers planting small settlements along the water-courses.
A record of the adventures of the settlers with the Indians would fill volumes. I have space to notice only a few of the prominent events of that period which have a direct relation with the history of our war for Independence. *
In the spring of 1775, Daniel Boone erected a fort on the western bank of the Kentucky River, the site of the present village of Boonsborough. It was the first fortification built in that region; and the British, who had forts of the Indians respecting it. In December of that year,Dec 23, 1775 a party of Indians assailed it, but were repulsed; the little garrison lost but one man. On the seventh of July following, one of Boone's daughters, and two other girls who were amusing themselves near the fort, were caught and carried away by the Indians, but were speedily rescued. ***
In 1774, Harrodsburg, in Mercer county, Kentucky, was founded, and several log-cabins were
* The reader, desirous of possessing minute information respecting this exciting portion of our early history, will be amply rewarded by a perusal of "Kentucky, its History, Antiquities, and Biography,'" an excellent work of nearly six hundred large octavo pages, with forty engravings, by Lewis Collins of Louisville, Kentucky.
** This sketch is from a drawing by Colonel Henderson, and published in Collin's Historical Collections of Kentucky, page 417. It was composed of a number of log-houses disposed in the form of an oblong square. Those at each corner, intended particularly for block-houses, were larger and stronger than the others. The length of the fort was about two hundred and fifty feet, and the width about one hundred and fifty feet.
*** Betsey and Frances Calloway, the youngest about thirteen years of age, were the companions of Miss Boone on that occasion. Their screams alarmed the people in the fort. It was just at sunset when the Indians carried off their victims. Boone and seven others started in pursuit. The next day they came up with the savages, forty-five miles distant from Boonsborough, furiously attacked them, and rescued the girls, who had received no farther injury than that produced by the effect of excessive fright.