American Men of Action

by Burton Egbert Stevenson

The fort, alone and unprotected in the wilderness, was soon attacked by a great war-party, but managed to beat off the assailants. Shortly afterwards, while leading an expedition to the Blue Licks, on the Licking river, to secure a supply of salt, Boone became separated from his men, and was surprised and captured by an Indian war-party. The joy of the savages at this capture may be imagined, for they had in their hands their most intrepid foe. After being exhibited to the British at Detroit, he was brought back to the Indian settlements north of the Ohio, and formally adopted into an Indian family, for the savages desired, if possible, to make this mighty hunter and warrior one of themselves. And Boone might have really adopted Indian life, which appealed to him in many ways, but one day he found that preparations were on foot for another great expedition against Boonesborough. Watching his opportunity, he managed to escape, and reached the fort in time to warn it of the impending attack. He covered the distance, 160 miles, in four days, eating but a single meal upon the road—a turkey which he managed to shoot.

He came to Boonesborough like one risen from the dead. The fort was at once put into a state of defense, and endured the most savage assault ever directed against it, the Indians numbering nearly five hundred, while the garrison mustered but sixty-five. The siege lasted for nine days, when the Indians, despairing of overcoming a resistance so desperate, retired.

The succeeding years were full of adventure and hair-breadth escapes, which cannot even be mentioned here. On one occasion, Boone and his brother, Squire, were surprised by Indians; the latter was killed and scalped and Boone escaped with the greatest difficulty. At the battle of Blue Licks, two years later, two sons fought at his side, one of whom was killed and the other severely wounded. But Boone seemed to bear a charmed life. His years in the wilderness had developed in him an almost supernatural keenness of sight and hearing; and constant peril from the Indians had made him very careful. Whenever he went into the woods after game or Indians, he had perpetually to keep watch to make sure that he was not being hunted in turn. Every turkey-call might mean a lurking savage, every cracking twig might mean an approaching foe.

On one occasion, his daughter and two other girls were carried off by Indians, and Boone, raising a small company, followed the trail of the fugitives without resting for two days and a night; then came to where the Indians had killed a buffalo calf and were camped around it, never dreaming of danger. So Boone and his men crept up on them, shot down the Indians and rescued the girls. On still another occasion, he was pursued by Indians, who used a tracking dog to follow his trail. Boone turned, shot the dog, and then made good his escape. Such incidents might be related by the dozen. No wonder Boone was considered one of the most valuable men on the frontier, and was a very tower of strength in defending it against the Indians.

The end, however, was sad enough. When Kentucky was admitted to the Union, Boone's titles to the land he had laid out for himself were declared to be defective; it was all taken from him, and he moved first to Ohio, and then to Missouri, where he spent his last years. He was hale and hearty almost to the end, leading a hunting-party to the mouth of the Kansas when he was eighty-two years old, and completely tiring out its younger members. Nearly at the end of his life, Congress recognized his services to his country by granting him eight hundred and fifty acres of land in Missouri, and on this grant, the last years of his life were spent. Chester Harding visited him just before the end and painted a portrait of him which remains the best delineation of the redoubtable old pioneer, whose striking face tells of the resolute will, and unshrinking courage which made the settlement of Kentucky possible.

Scarcely less prominent than Boone on the Kentucky frontier, and with a career in many ways even more adventurous, was Simon Kenton. Born in Virginia in 1755, he had grown to young manhood, rough and uncultivated, and with little evidence of having been raised in a civilized community. At the age of sixteen, he had a desperate affray with a neighbor named William Veach, during which he caught Veach around the body, whirled him into the air, and dashed him to the ground with such violence, that he thought he had broken his neck. Not daring to return home or to linger in the neighborhood, for fear his crime would be discovered and he himself arrested and hanged, he plunged into the wilderness and made his way westward over the mountains, changing his name to Simon Butler.

The two or three years following were spent by him in roaming along the Ohio valley, sometimes alone, sometimes with two or three companions, and always surrounded by danger. On one occasion, his camp was surprised by Indians, and he and his companion were forced to flee for their lives without weapons of any kind, and with no clothing but their shirts. For six days and nights, they wandered without fire or food, suffering from the cold, for it was the dead of winter, and so torn and lacerated that on the last two days they covered only six miles, most of it on hands and knees. Staggering and crawling forward, they came out at last upon the Ohio river, and by good fortune fell in with a hunting-party and were saved.

Kenton's life was full of just such incidents. Daniel Boone found in him a most valuable ally, incapable of fear and with a knowledge of woodcraft surpassed only by Boone himself. Kenton was inside Boone's fort whenever it was in danger, and on one occasion saved Boone's life. Let us tell the story, for it is typical of the border warfare in which both Boone and Kenton were so expert.

One morning, having loaded their guns for a hunt, Kenton and two companions were standing in the gate of Fort Boone, when two men, who were driving in some horses from a near-by field, were fired upon by Indians. They fled toward the fort, the Indians after them, and one of them was overtaken and killed and was being scalped, when Kenton and his companions ran up, killed one of the Indians and pursued the others to the edge of the clearing. Boone, meanwhile, had heard the firing, and came hurrying out with reinforcements, only, a moment later, to be cut off from the fort by a strong body of savages. There was nothing to do but to cut their way back through them, and in the charge, Boone received a ball through the leg, breaking the bone. As he fell, the Indian leader raised his tomahawk to kill him, but Kenton, seeing his comrade's peril, shot the Indian through the heart, and succeeded in dragging Boone inside the fort.

During the Dunmore war, Kenton ranged the Indian country as a spy, carrying his life in his hand, and accompanied George Rogers Clark on his famous Illinois campaign. A short time later, with one or two others, he started on an expedition to run off some horses from the Miami villages, and had nearly succeeded, when he was captured. The Indians hated him more bitterly than they hated Boone himself, and they prepared to enjoy themselves at his expense. They bound him to a wild horse and chased the horse through the forest until their captive's face was torn and bleeding from the lashing of the branches; they staked him down at night so that he could not move hand or foot, and when they reached their town, the whole population turned out to make him run the gauntlet. The Indians formed in a double line, about six feet apart, each armed with a heavy club, and Kenton was forced to run between them. He had not gone far when he saw ahead of him an Indian with drawn knife, prepared to plunge it into him as he passed. By a mighty effort, he broke through the line, but was soon recaptured, lashed with whips, pelted with stones, branded with red-hot irons, and condemned to be burnt at the stake.