DANIEL BOONE, THE PIONEER OF KENTUCKY.
The region of Kentucky, that "dark and bloody ground" of Indian warfare, lay long unknown to the whites. No Indians even dwelt there, though it was a land of marvellous beauty and wonderful fertility. For its forests and plains so abounded with game that it was used by various tribes as a hunting-ground, and here the savage warriors so often met in hostile array, and waged such deadly war, that not the most daring of them ventured to make it their home. And the name which they gave it was destined to retain its sombre significance for the whites, when they should invade the perilous Kentuckian wilds, and build their habitations in this land of dread.
In 1767 John Finley, a courageous Indian trader, pushed far into its depths, and returned with thrilling stories of his adventures and tempting descriptions of the beauty and fertility of the land. These he told to Daniel Boone, an adventure-loving Pennsylvanian, who had made his way to North Carolina, and built himself a home in the virgin forest at the head-waters of the Yadkin. Here, with his wife, his rifle, and his growing family, he enjoyed his frontier life with the greatest zest, until the increasing numbers of new settlers and the alluring narrative of Finley induced him to leave his home and seek again the untrodden wilds.
On the 1st of May, 1769, Finley, Boone, and three others struck boldly into the broad backbone of mountain-land which lay between their old home and the new land of promise. They set out on their dangerous journey amid the tears of their families, who deemed that destruction awaited them, and vainly besought them to abandon the enterprise. Forward, for days and weeks, pushed the hardy pioneers, their rifles providing them with game, their eyes on the alert against savages, until, after what seemed months of toil, the mountains were passed and the fertile plains and extended forests of Kentucky lay before them.
"We found everywhere" says Boone, "abundance of wild beasts of all sorts, through this vast forest. The buffalo were more frequent than I have seen cattle in the settlements, browsing on the leaves of the cane, or cropping the herbage of these extensive plains, fearless, because ignorant of the violence of man. In this forest, the habitation of beasts of every kind natural to America, we practised hunting with great success until the 22d day of December following."
On that day Boone and another were taken prisoner by a party of Indians. Seven days they were held, uncertain as to their fate, but at length, by a skilful artifice, they escaped and made their way back to their camp, only to find it deserted, those whom they had left there having returned to North Carolina. Other adventurers soon joined them, however, Boone's brother among them, and the remainder of the winter was passed in safety.
As regards the immediately succeeding events, it will suffice to say that Squire Boone, as Daniel's brother was called, returned to the settlements in the spring for supplies, the others having gone before, so that the daring hunter was left alone in that vast wilderness. Even his dog had deserted him, and the absolute solitude of nature surrounded him.
The movements we have described had not passed unknown to the Indians, and only the most extraordinary caution saved the solitary hunter from his dusky foes. He changed his camp every night, never sleeping twice in the same place. Often he found that it had been visited by Indians in his absence. Once a party of savages pursued him for many miles, until, by speed and skill, he threw them from his trail. Many and perilous were his adventures during his three months of lonely life in the woods and canebrakes of that fear-haunted land. Prowling wolves troubled him by night, prowling savages by day, yet fear never entered his bold heart, and cheerfulness never fled from his mind. He was the true pioneer, despising peril and proof against loneliness. At length his brother joined him, with horses and supplies, and the two adventurers passed another winter in the wilderness.
Several efforts were made in the ensuing years to people the country, but numbers of the settlers were slain by the Indians, whose hostility made the task so perilous that a permanent settlement was not made till 1775. The place then settled—a fine location on the Kentucky River—was called, in honor of its founder, Boonesborough. Here a small fort was built, to which the adventurer now brought his family, being determined to make it his place of abode, despite his dusky foes. "My wife and daughter," he says, "were the first white women that ever stood on the banks of Kentucky River."