Henderson was a native Virginian, who had been a judge in the Superior Court of the Colonial Government of North Carolina; but the halls of justice were shut up by the anarchy occasioned by the Regulators, and he engaged a number of the most influential of North Carolinians in the Utopian scheme of founding the Republic of Transylvania. It was with this grandiloquent project in their mind, that Kentucky was taken possession of on the date named, and everything considered necessary was done for laying the foundation stones of the model republic in the heart of American territory.
The death-blow of the grand scheme was received before it was fairly born. Governor Martin of North Carolina issued a proclamation, declaring the purchase of the lands by Colonel Henderson and his association from the Cherokees illegal; but, as a matter of equity, the State subsequently granted 200,000 acres to the company.
Virginia did the same thing, granting them an equal number of acres bounded by the Ohio and Green Rivers. Tennessee claimed this tract, but gave in compensation therefor the same number of acres in Powell's Valley. Thus ended the attempt to found the Transylvania Republic, but the original projectors of the movement acquired individual fortunes, and Colonel Henderson himself, when he died, ten years later, was the possessor of immense wealth, and was loved and respected throughout the entire territory.
The old fort at Boonesborough, being the first real foothold gained by the pioneers, was sure to become most prominently identified with the Indian troubles that were inevitable. It was to be a haven of safety to many a settler and his family, when the whoop of the vengeful Shawanoe or Miami rang through the forest arches, and the sharp crack of the warrior's rifle sent the whizzing bullet to the heart of the white man who had ventured and trusted his all in the wilderness.
It was to be the lighthouse on the coast of danger, warning of the peril that lay around and beyond, but offering protection to those who fled to its rude shelter, as the cities of the olden times received and spread their arms over the panting fugitive escaping from his pursuers.
The old fort was a most notable figure in the history of the West, a hundred years ago. There have been gathered in the structure of logs and slabs, the bravest men who ever trailed the red Indian through the wilderness. There those mighty giants of the border, Boone, Kenton, Wells, M'Clelland, the Wetzel and McAfee Brothers, M'Arthur, and scores of others converged from their long journeyings in the service of the Government; and, closing about the fire, as they smoked their pipes, they told of the hand-to-hand encounter in the silent depths of the woods, of the maneuvering on the banks of the lonely mountain stream, of the panther-like creeping through the canebrake on the trail of the Indian, of the camps at night, when the Shawanoes were so plentiful that they did not dare close their eyes through fear that their breathing would betray them, of the smoking cabin with the mutilated forms of husband, wife, and babe showing that the aboriginal tigers had been there, of the death-shots, the races for life, and the days of perils which followed the daring scout up to the very stockades of Boonesborough.
Sometimes one of the rangers of the wilderness would fail to come into the fort when expected. There would be mutual inquiries on the part of those who had been accustomed to meet him. Perhaps some one would say he was scouting for the Government, but nothing would be known with certainty, and a suspicion would begin to shape itself that he had "lain down," never to rise again.
Perhaps some ranger in threading his way through the long leagues of trackless forests would stop to camp from the snow which was whirling and eddying about him, while the wintry wind moaned and soughed through the swaying branches overhead; and mayhap, as he cautiously struck flint and steel in the hidden gorge, he saw dimly outlined in the gathering gloom the form of a man, shrunk to that of a skeleton, in which the spark of life had been extinguished long before.
The bullet-hole in the chest, or the cleft made in the skull by the fiercely-driven tomahawk, showed why it was the scout had been missing so long, and why his cheery voice and ringing laugh would never be heard again.
Boonesborough, as we have stated, stood about 200 feet from the Kentucky River, one of its angles resting on its banks near the water, and extending from it in the form of a parallelogram. The length of the fort, allowing twenty feet for each cabin and opening, was 260 with a breadth of 150 feet. The houses were built of rough logs, and were bulletproof. They were square in form, one of the cabins projecting from each corner, the remaining spaces along the sides being filled with cabins, constructed more with an eye to strength than beauty.