Daniel Boone: The Pioneer of Kentucky

by John S. C. Abbott

This friendly intercourse was in all respects very desirable; and but for the depravity of the white man it might have continued uninterrupted for generations. But profligate and vagabond adventurers from the settlements defrauded the Indians, insulted their women, and often committed wanton murder. But it would seem that the majority of the traders were honest men. Ramsay, in his Annals of Tennessee, writes, in reference to this traffic:

"Other advantages resulted from it to the whites. They became thus acquainted with the great avenues leading through the hunting ground, and to the occupied country of the neighboring tribes—an important circumstance in the condition of either peace or war. Further the traders were an exact thermometer of the pacific or hostile intention and feelings of the Indians with whom they traded. Generally they were foreigners, most frequently Scotchmen, who had not been long in the country, or upon the frontier; who, having experienced none of the cruelties, depredations or aggressions of the Indians, cherished none of the resentment and spirit of retaliation born with and everywhere manifested by the American settler.

"Thus free from animosity against the aborigines, the trader was allowed to remain in the village, where he traded, unmolested, even where its warriors were singing the war song or brandishing the war club, preparatory to an invasion or massacre of the whites. Timely warning was thus often given by a returning packman to a feeble and unsuspecting settlement, of the perfidy and cruelty meditated against it."

Game on the eastern side of the Alleghanies, hunted down alike by white men and Indians, soon became scarce. Adventurers combining the characters of traders and hunters rapidly multiplied. Many of the hunters among the white men far outstripped the Indians in skill and energy. Thus some degree of jealousy was excited on the part of the savages. They saw how rapidly the game was disappearing, and these thoughtful men began to be anxious for the future. With no love for agriculture the destruction of the game was their ruin.

As early as the year 1748 quite a party of gentlemen explorers, under the leadership of Doctor Thomas Walker of Virginia, crossed a range of the Alleghany mountains, which the Indians called Warioto, but to which Doctor Walker gave the name of Cumberland, in honor of the Duke of Cumberland who was then prime minister of England. Following along this chain in a south-westerly direction, in search of some pass or defile by which they could cross the cliffs, they came to the remarkable depression in the mountains to which they gave the name of Cumberland Gap. On the western side of the range they found a beautiful mountain stream, rushing far away, with ever increasing volume, into the unknown wilderness, which the Indians called Shawnee, but which Doctor Walker's party baptised with the name of Cumberland River. These names have adhered to the localities upon which they were thus placed.

In 1756 a feeble attempt was made to establish a colony upon the Tennessee river, at a spot which was called London. This was one hundred and fifty miles in advance of any white settlement. Eight years passed, and by the ravages of war the little settlement went up in flame and smoke. As the years rapidly came and went there were occasional bursts of the tempests of war; again there would be a short lull and blessed peace would come with its prosperity and joy.

"In the year 1760, Doctor Walker again passed over Clinch and Powell's rivers on a tour of exploration, into what is now Kentucky. The Cherokees were then at peace with the whites, and hunters from the back settlements began, with safety, to penetrate deeper and further into the wilderness of Tennessee. Several of them, chiefly from Virginia, hearing of the abundance of game with which the woods were stocked, and allured by the prospect of gain which might be drawn from this source, formed themselves into a company composed of Wallen, Seagys, Blevins, Cox and fifteen others, and came into the valley, since known as Carter's Valley, in Hawkin's county, Tennessee. They hunted eighteen months upon Clinch and Powell rivers. Wallen's Creek and Wallen's Ridge received their name from the leader of the company; as also did Wallen's Station which they erected in the Lee county, Virginia.

"They penetrated as far north as Laurel Mountain, in Kentucky, where they terminated their journey, having met with a body of Indians whom they supposed to be Shawnees. At the head of one of the companies that visited the West, this year, came Daniel Boone from the Yadkin, in North Carolina, and travelled with them as low as the place where Abingdon now stands, and there left them."

This is the first time the advent of Daniel Boone to the western wilds has been mentioned by historians or by the several biographers of that distinguished pioneer and hunter. There is reason however to believe that he hunted upon Watauga some time earlier than this.