George Washington was on the Ohio River in 1770 and 1767; John Finley in 1752; Christopher Gist in 1750; Doctor Thomas Walker in 1748; John Peter Salling and John Howard, in 1742, we have noted. Before all these was the French expedition of 1735. Indeed, just one hundred years before Boone’s journey into Kentucky, John Lederer, a Virginian, crossed the Alleghanies and fared westward for some distance; and ninety-nine years previous to Boone’s first glimpse of the delectable land, Thomas Batts and party had “taken possession” of the headwaters of the Great Kanawha in the name of Charles II.

We therefore see, with what will be a certain surprise to the average reader of American history, that Kentucky and the trans-Appalachian land was not wholly unknown but indeed fairly well understood and accurately forecast in possibilities, more than a generation before Daniel Boone ever saw it. Where, then, is Boone’s fame as an explorer? Upon what does his reputation as an adventurer rest? What claim had he to hold himself as an “instrument for the settlement of the wilderness”?

The answer to all these doubts is read in the record of the holding of Kentucky. It is found in the inefficacy of a “taking possession” by means of the temporary planting of a flag and the empty claiming of a territory extending from sea to sea. The flag of Boonesborough was planted never to come down. The stockade of the homebuilders was defended by an “unwavering fortitude.” Kentucky discovered Daniel Boone, not Daniel Boone discovered Kentucky. Read it in this way and all shall be plain.

The birth of a new man in the world, the American, had now taken place. The Old World explorers took possession with a flag, furled it and carried it away again. The new man, the American, flung out a flag that has never yet come down in all the world, and which, please God! never shall so long as we remain like to the first Americans. John Finley guided Daniel Boone across the Cumberland Gap; but he guided him into a land now ready for a Daniel Boone—into a West now ready for the American man.

It was, then, in the month of May, 1769, that Boone left the Yadkin settlements and started westward. He had as companions John Finley, Joseph Holden, James Monay or Mooney, William Coole or Cooley, and John Stewart or Stuart. Of all the different expeditions into the region west of the Appalachians this was the most important. Following its doings, you shall see the long spur of the Anglo-Saxon civilization thrusting out and out into the West—to the Mississippi, the Missouri, the Rockies, the Pacific—and never setting backward foot.

The journey over the mountains was not rapid and not continuous, it being necessary for the party to hunt as well as to explore. The rifle, the ax, the horse, the boat, were their aids and agents, their argument and answer to the wilderness. Evolution had gone on. The American was born.

Boone and his friends seem to have camped on the east side of the Cumberland Mountains, where they remained for “some days.” It was from this camp that they made expeditions, and at length climbed to a certain ridge whence they could see the glorious realm of Kentucky. On this day they saw their first herd of buffalo, the first trail-makers over the Appalachians, of which they killed some numbers. They saw, also, elk, deer and other animals. Boone was delighted. There thrilled in his heart all the joy of the hunter and explorer. Now the little party moved over to the Red River, where Finley had formerly been located. “Here,” said Boone, “both man and beast may grow to their full size.” That was good American prophecy.

For six months this adventurous little party lived and hunted in their new empire. Then, swiftly and without warning, there came a taste of some of the disadvantages of this wild residence. Stewart and Boone were taken captive by the Indians and were carried to the north, a march of seven days. On the seventh night they made their escape and came back to their bivouac on the Red River, only to find that their friends had left them and returned to the settlements. As offset to this unpleasant news came their present discovery by Squire Boone and one companion, Alexander Neeley, who had followed the adventurers all the way into Kentucky. Daniel’s older brother had brought with him some needful supplies, chief of these powder and lead, worth far more than gold and silver.

“Soon after this period,” goes on the simple and businesslike chronicle, “John Stewart was killed by the Indians.” Hence the two Boone brothers were left alone, Squire Boone’s companion having met his fate in some mysterious manner, perhaps at the hands of the Indians, though others state that he was devoured by wolves,—a very unlikely story. The two brothers built themselves a rude cabin of poles and bark, and there they spent the fall and summer of 1769. In May of the following year Squire Boone returned to North Carolina.[[9]]

It is now that for the first time we may accord justice to the picture that shows us the pioneer, Daniel Boone, alone in the wilderness of Kentucky. He was at this time, so far as he knew, the only white man in that entire section of country. Fearless, adventurous and self-reliant, he extended his wanderings farther to the west, and visited the site of what is now the city of Louisville. His life depended entirely upon his own vigilance. He was without bread or salt, without even a dog to keep him company or serve as guard. Naturally he met the savages. Once when pursued by the Indians, he escaped by the clever artifice of swinging himself far to one side of his trail by means of a depending grape-vine—a stratagem not recorded of any other Western adventurer.