Daniel Boone: The Pioneer of Kentucky

by John S. C. Abbott

A few days after their arrival, the emigrants had a very solemn admonition of the peril which surrounded them, and of the necessity of constant vigilance to guard against a treacherous and sleepless foe. One of their number who had sauntered but a short distance from the fort, lured by the combined beauty of the field, the forest and the river, was shot by a prowling Indian, who, raising the war-whoop of exultation and defiance, immediately disappeared in the depths of the wilderness.

Colonel Henderson and his partners, anxious to promote the settlement of the country, by organising parties of emigration, were busy in making known through the settlements the absolute security of the fort at Boonesborough, and the wonderful attractions of the region, in soil, climate, and abounding game. Henderson himself soon started with a large party, forty of whom were well armed. A number of pack-horses conveyed the luggage of the emigrants. Following the very imperfect road that Boone with much skill had engineered, which was quite tolerable for pack-horses in single file, they reached Boonesborough early in the following spring.

The Transylvania Company was in the full flush of successful experiment. Small parties of emigrants were constantly arriving. Boonesborough was the capital of the colony. Various small settlements were settled in its vicinity. Colonel Henderson opened a land office there, and in the course of a few months, over half a million of acres were entered, by settlers or speculators. These men did not purchase the lands outright, but bound themselves to pay a small but perpetual rent. The titles, which they supposed to be perfectly good, were given in the name of the "proprietors of the Colony of Transylvania, in America."

Soon four settlements were organised called Boonesborough, Harrodsburg, Boiling Spring, and St. Asaph. Colonel Henderson, on the twenty-third of May, 1775, as president or rather sovereign of this extraordinary realm, summoned a legislature consisting of delegates from this handful of pioneers, to meet at his capital, Boonesborough. Henderson presided. Daniel and his brother Squire were delegates from Boonesborough. A clergyman, the Reverend John Leythe, opened the session with prayer. Colonel Henderson made a remarkable and admirable speech. This extraordinary legislature represented only a constituency of one hundred and fifty souls. But the Colonel presented to them very clearly the true republican principle of government. He declared that the only legitimate source of political power is to be found in the will of the people, and added:

"If any doubts remain among you with respect to the force and efficiency of whatever laws you now or hereafter make, be pleased to consider that all power is originally in the people. Make it their interest, therefore, by impartial and beneficent laws, and you may be sure of their inclination to see them enforced."

Rumors of these extraordinary proceedings reached the ears of Lord Dunmore. He considered the whole region of Kentucky as included in the original grant of Virginia, and that the Government of Virginia alone had the right to extinguish the Indian title to any of those lands. He therefore issued a proclamation, denouncing in the severest terms the "unlawful proceedings of one Richard Henderson and other disorderly persons, his associates." The legislature continued in session but three days, and honored itself greatly by its energetic action, and by the character of the laws which it inaugurated. One bill was introduced for preserving game; another for improving the breed of their horses; and it is worthy of especial record that a law was passed prohibiting profane swearing and Sabbath breaking.

The moral sense of these bold pioneers was shocked at the desecration of the Creator's name among their sublime solitudes.

The controversy between the Transylvania Company and the Government of Virginia was short but very sharp. Virginia could then very easily send an army of several thousand men to exterminate the Kentucky colony. A compromise was the result. The title of Henderson was declared "null and void." But he received in compensation a grant of land on the Ohio, about twelve miles square, below the mouth of Green River. Virginia assumed that the Indian title was entirely extinguished, and the region called Transylvania now belonged without encumbrance to the Old Dominion.

Still the tide of emigration continued to flow into this beautiful region. Among others came the family of Colonel Calloway, consisting of his wife and two daughters. For a long time no Indians had been seen in the vicinity of Boonesborough. No one seemed to apprehend the least danger from them, and the people in the fort wandered about as freely as if no foe had ever excited their fears. An accident occurred which sent a tremor of dismay through the whole colony, and which we will describe as related to the intelligent historian, Peck, from the lips of one of the parties, who experienced all the terrors of the scene: