Throughout the year the outlook continued to grow more and more threatening. Parties of young men kept making inroads on the settlements, especially in Kentucky; not only did the Shawnees, Wyandots, Mingos, and Iroquois[38] act thus, but they were even joined by bands of Ottawas, Pottawatomies, and Chippewas from the lakes, who thus attacked the white settlers long ere the latter had either the will or the chance to hurt them.
Until the spring of 1777[39] the outbreak was not general, and it was supposed that only some three or four hundred warriors had taken up the tomahawk.[40] Yet the outlying settlers were all the time obliged to keep as sharp a look-out as if engaged in open war. Throughout the summer of 1776 the Kentucky settlers were continually harassed. Small parties of Indians were constantly lurking round the forts, to shoot down the men as they hunted or worked in the fields, and to carry off the women. There was a constant and monotonous succession of unimportant forays and skirmishes.
One band of painted marauders carried off Boon's daughter. She was in a canoe with two other girls on the river near Boonsborough when they were pounced on by five Indians.[41] As soon as he heard the news Boon went in pursuit with a party of seven men from the fort, including the three lovers of the captured girls. After following the trail all of one day and the greater part of two nights, the pursuers came up with the savages, and, rushing in, scattered or slew them before they could either make resistance or kill their captives. The rescuing party then returned in triumph to the fort.
Thus for two years the pioneers worked in the wilderness, harassed by unending individual warfare, but not threatened by any formidable attempt to oust them from the lands that they had won. During this breathing spell they established civil government, explored the country, planted crops, and built strongholds. Then came the inevitable struggle. When in 1777 the snows began to melt before the lengthening spring days, the riflemen who guarded the log forts were called on to make head against a series of resolute efforts to drive them from Kentucky.
1. Imlay, p. 55, estimated that from natural increase the population of Kentucky doubled every fifteen years,—probably an exaggeration.
2. Hale's "Trans-Alleghany Pioneers," p. 251.
3. "Pioneer Life in Kentucky," Daniel Drake, Cincinnati, 1870, p. 196 (an invaluable work).
4. MS. autobiography of Rev. William Hickman. He was born in Virginia, February 4, 1747. A copy in Col. Durrett's library at Louisville, Ky.
5. There were at least three such "Crab-Orchard" stations in Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. The settlers used the word "crab" precisely as Shakespeare does.
6. A Mr. Finley. Hickman MS.