Columbus and Other Heroes of American Discovery

by N. D'Anvers

NEW ORLEANS.

Into the terrible details of Indian massacres and French retaliations we need not enter here; suffice it to say, that when, in 1754, an English grant of lands to the Ohio Company brought on the French war, the soil of the Mississippi valley had already received that baptism of native blood which seems to have been everywhere a preliminary sowing for the harvests of the white man. The struggle which gave to Great Britain the vast hyperborean regions of America, and to which we shall have presently to refer again, also shook the power of France in the South, and resulted, first, in the cession, in 1763, of the lands on the east of the Mississippi to England, while Spain acquired those in the West; and, in 1804, in the purchase by the American Government of the whole region between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains, a transaction doubling the area of the United States, and ushering in a new era of discovery. Before we accompany the heroes deputed to explore scientifically the newly-acquired districts, however, we must complete our story of the colonization of the so-called middle states by joining Daniel Boone, to whom is due the honor of having been the first to settle beyond the Alleghany Mountains, which had long formed the western limit alike of colonization and travel.

Boone, whose early life was passed in North Carolina, was first led to turn his attention to the “Far West,” as Kentucky and Tennessee were called in the early days of which we are writing, by the glowing accounts given of the exuberant soil and vast quantity of game met with on either side of the Kentucky River by a hunter named John Finley. In 1767, Finley penetrated almost into the rich cane-brakes of Kentucky; and two years later, he and five other men of a similar stamp persuaded Boone to be their leader in an exploring expedition to the newly-discovered hunting-grounds.

On the 9th June, 1769, the little band started on their arduous trip from Boone’s house on the Yadkin, and made their way on foot up a rugged mountain of the Alleghany range, the summit of which was reached as the sun was setting. Before them lay the fertile valley of Kentucky, with its rolling plains, tenanted by the buffalo, the deer, and other game, alternating with rugged hills, while beyond stretched vast forests haunted by the wild red men, members of the Chickasaw, Cherokee, and Shawanol tribes, who were as yet untamed by intercourse with the white man.

After a couple of months of successful hunting, the party divided for the more thorough exploration of the country. Boone and a man named Stewart, whose fortunes alone concern us now, reached the Red River north of the Kentucky, where, as they were preparing for the night, they were surprised by a party of Indians, who made them prisoners, and treated them, some say with reckless cruelty, others with rude hospitality. In any case, they were not very securely guarded, for, on the seventh night after their capture, they managed to get away, and while wandering about in the woods, they were met by Boone’s brother, who had followed his track, and another adventurer from North Carolina, who had followed the track of the pioneers through the wilderness.

Cheered by good news from home, and by the companionship of the newcomers, Boone resumed his explorations with fresh courage; but a little later he and Stewart again fell into the hands of Indians. This time Stewart was scalped, though Boone escaped and rejoined his brother, with whom, and the third white man, he decided to spend the winter in the wilderness, and collect furs with which to trade in the spring. The third white man, whose name does not transpire, shortly afterward got separated from his companions, and was never again seen alive. A skeleton and some pieces of clothing, found long years afterward near a swamp, are supposed to have been his, but no details of his fate were ever discovered.

BACKWOODSMEN.

In spite of this second tragedy, the brothers carried out their plan. Building a comfortable log hut to shelter them at night, they spent the days in hunting game, and when the spring of the ensuing year approached, they had collected a vast stock of the skins of wild beasts which had fallen beneath their unerring aim. It was now decided that the elder brother, Squire Boone, should return to North Carolina for supplies, while Daniel remained alone in his primitive habitation to protect the peltry and add to the stock. For three months Daniel wandered about alone, making a tour of observation to the South, and exploring the country on either side of the Silt and Green Rivers. On the 27th July, Squire Boone returned and the brothers together made their way to the important Cumberland River, a tributary of the Ohio, where they found traveling difficult on account of the number of so-called sink-holes, the depressions resulting from the sinking of the earth after heavy rains in a limestone country.