Daniel Boone: The Pioneer of Kentucky

Being intimately acquainted with the ground, he plunged into a ravine, baffling several parties who pursued him, swam across the river, and entering the forest succeeded in escaping from his foes, and at length safely by a circuitous route returned to Bryant's Station. In the meantime the scene of tumult and slaughter was awful beyond all description. Victors and vanquished were blended together upon the banks of the stream. In this dreadful conflict there were four Indians to each white man. There was a narrow ford at the spot, but the whole stream seemed clogged, some swimming and some trying to wade, while the exultant Indians shot and tomahawked without mercy. Those who succeeded in crossing the river, leaving the great buffalo track which they had been following, plunged into the thickets, and though vigorously pursued by the Indians, most of them eventually reached the settlements.

In this dreadful disaster, the colonists lost sixty men in killed and seven were taken prisoners. The Indians in counting up their loss, found that sixty-four were missing. In accordance with their barbaric custom, they selected in vengeance four of the prisoners and put them to death by the most terrible tortures which savage ingenuity could devise. Had Colonel Boone's advice been followed, this calamity might have been avoided. Still characteristically, he uttered not a word of complaint. In his comments upon the event he says:

"I cannot reflect upon this dreadful scene but sorrow fills my heart. A zeal for the defence of their country led these heroes to the scene of action, though with a few men to attack a powerful army of experienced warriors. When we gave way, they pursued us with the utmost eagerness, and in every quarter spread destruction. The river was difficult to cross, and many were killed in the flight; some just entering the river, some in the water, others after crossing, in ascending the cliffs. Some escaped on horseback, a few on foot; and being dispersed everywhere in a few hours, brought the melancholy news of this unfortunate conflict to Lexington. The reader may guess what sorrow filled the hearts of the inhabitants; exceeding anything I am able to describe. Being reinforced we returned to bury the dead, and found their bodies strewed everywhere, cut and mangled in a dreadful manner. This mournful scene exhibited a horror almost unparalleled; some torn and eaten by wild beasts; those in the river eaten by fishes; all in such a putrified condition that no one could be distinguished from another."

This battle of the Blue Licks, as it is called, occupies one of the most mournful pages in the history of Kentucky. The escape of Boone adds another to the extraordinary adventures of this chivalric and now sorrow-stricken man. Colonel Boone communicated an official report to the Governor of Virginia, Benjamin Harrison, father of William Henry Harrison, subsequently President of the United States. In this report, it is noticeable that Boone makes no allusion whatever to his own services. This modest document throws such light upon the character of this remarkable man, and upon the peril of the times, that it merits full insertion here. It is as follows:

"Boone's Station, Fayette Co., Aug. 30, 1782.

"Sir,—Present circumstances of affairs cause me to write to Your Excellency, as follows: On the sixteenth instant, a large body of Indians, with some white men, attacked one of our frontier stations, known as Bryant's Station. The siege continued from about sunrise until two o'clock of the next day, when they marched off. Notice being given to the neighboring stations, we immediately raised one hundred and eighty-one horsemen, commanded by Col. John Todd, including some of the Lincoln County militia, and pursued about forty miles."

After a brief account of the battle which we have already given, he continues:

"Afterwards we were reinforced by Colonel Logan, which made our force four hundred and sixty men. We marched again to the battle ground, but finding the enemy had gone, we proceeded to bury the dead. We found forty-three on the ground, and many lay about which we could not stay to find, hungry and weary as we were, and dubious that the enemy might not have gone off quite. By the sign, we thought that the Indians exceeded four hundred, while the whole of the militia of the county does not amount to more than one hundred and thirty.

"From these facts, Your Excellency may form an idea of our situation. I know that your own circumstances are critical; but are we to be wholly forgotten? I hope not. I trust that about five hundred men may be sent to our assistance immediately. If these shall be stationed as our county lieutenant shall deem necessary, it may be the means of saving our part of the country. But if they are placed under the direction of General Clarke, they will be of little or no service to our settlement. The Falls lie one hundred miles west of us, and the Indians north-east; while our men are frequently called to protect them.

"I have encouraged the people in this county all that I could; but I can no longer justify them or myself to risk our lives here, under such extraordinary hazards. The inhabitants of this county are very much alarmed at the thoughts of the Indians bringing another campaign into our country this fall. If this should be the case, it will break up these settlements. I hope therefore that Your Excellency will take the matter into your consideration, and send us some relief as quick as possible. These are my sentiments without consulting any person. Colonel Logan will I expect immediately send you an express, by whom I humbly request Your Excellency's answer. In the meantime, I remain yours, etc., Daniel Boone."

General Clarke, who was the military leader of Kentucky under the Colonial government, was established at the Falls. The British authorities held their head-quarters at Detroit, from which post they were sending out their Indian allies in all directions to ravage the frontiers. General Clarke was a man of great energy of character, and he was anxious to organise an expedition against Detroit. With this object in view, he had by immense exertions assembled a force of nearly two thousand men. Much to his chagrin, he received orders to remain at the Falls for the present, to protect the frontiers then so severely menaced. But when the tidings reached him of the terrible disaster at the Blue Lick, he resolved to pursue the Indians and punish them with the greatest severity.

The exultant savages had returned to Old Chilicothe, and had divided their spoil and their captives. Colonel Boone was immediately sent for to take part in this expedition. Clarke's army crossed the Ohio, and marching very rapidly up the banks of the Little Miami, arrived within two miles of Chilicothe before they were discovered. On perceiving the enemy the Indians scattered in all directions. Men, women and children fled into the remote forest, abandoning their homes and leaving everything behind them. The avenging army swept the valley with fire and ruin. Their corn just ripening, and upon which they mainly relied for their winter supply of food, was utterly destroyed. Every tree which bore any fruit was felled, and five of their towns were laid in ashes. The trail of the army presented a scene of utter desolation.

The savages were alike astonished and dismayed. They had supposed that the white men, disheartened by their dreadful defeat at the Blue Lick, would abandon the country. Instead of that, with amazing recuperative power, they had scarcely reached their homes ere another army, utterly resistless in numbers, is burning their towns and destroying their whole country.

This avenging campaign so depressed the Indians that they made no farther attempt for the organised invasion of Kentucky. The termination of the war with England also deprived them of their military resources, and left them to their own unaided and unintelligent efforts. Still miserable bands continued prowling around, waylaying and murdering the lonely traveler, setting fire to the solitary hut and inflicting such other outrages as were congenial with their cruel natures. It thus became necessary for the pioneers always to live with the rifle in hand.

Colonel Boone had become especially obnoxious to the Indians. Twice he had escaped from them, under circumstances which greatly mortified their vanity. They recognised the potency of his rifle in the slaughter of their own warriors at the Blue Lick; and they were well aware that it was his sagacity which led the army of General Clarke in its avenging march through their country. It thus became with them an object of intense desire to take him prisoner, and had he been taken, he would doubtless have been doomed to the severest torture they could inflict.

Mr. Peck, in his interesting life of Boone, gives the following account of one of the extraordinary adventures of this man, which he received from the lips of Colonel Boone himself. On one occasion, four Indians suddenly appeared before his cabin and took him prisoner. Though the delicacy of Colonel Boone's organization was such, that he could never himself relish tobacco in any form, he still raised some for his friends and neighbors, and for what were then deemed the essential rites of hospitality.

"As a shelter for curing the tobacco, he had built an enclosure of rails a dozen feet in height and covered with canes and grass. Stalks of tobacco are generally split and strung on sticks about four feet in length. The ends of these are laid on poles placed across the tobacco house, and in tiers one above another, to the roof. Boone had fixed his temporary shelter in such a manner as to have three tiers. He had covered the lower tier and the tobacco had become dry; when he entered the shelter for the purpose of removing the sticks to the upper tier, preparatory to gathering the remainder of the crop. He had hoisted up the sticks from the lower to the second tier, and was standing on the poles which supported it, while raising the sticks to the upper tier, when four stout Indians, with guns, entered the low door and called him by name.

"'Now, Boone, we got you. You no get away more. We carry you off to Chilicothe this time. You no cheat us anymore.'

"Boone looked down upon their upturned faces, saw their loaded guns pointed at his breast, and recognising some of his old friends the Shawanese, who had made him prisoner near the Blue Licks in 1778, coolly and pleasantly responded:

"'Ah, old friends, glad to see you.'

"Perceiving that they manifested impatience to have him come down, he told them he was quite willing to go with them, and only begged that they would wait where they were, and watch him closely until he could finish removing the tobacco.

"While thus parleying with them, Boone inquired earnestly respecting his old friends in Chilicothe. He continued for some time to divert the attention of these simple-minded men, by allusions to past events with which they were familiar, and by talking of his tobacco, his mode of curing it, and promising them an abundant supply. With their guns in their hands however, they stood at the door of the shed, grouped closely together so as to render his escape apparently impossible. In the meantime Boone carefully gathered his arms full of the long, dry tobacco leaves, filled with pungent dust, which would be blinding and stifling as the most powerful snuff, and then with a leap from his station twelve feet high, came directly upon their heads, filling their eyes and nostrils, and so bewildering and disabling them for the moment, that they lost all self-possession and all self-control.

"Boone, agile as a deer, darted out at the door, and in a moment was in his bullet-proof log-hut, which to him was an impregnable citadel. Loop-holes guarded every approach. The Indians could not show themselves without exposure to certain death. They were too well acquainted with the unerring aim of Boone's rifle to venture within its range. Keeping the log cabin between them and their redoubtable foe, the baffled Indians fled into the wilderness.

"Colonel Boone related this adventure with great glee, imitating the gestures of the bewildered Indians. He said that notwithstanding his narrow escape, he could not resist the temptation, as he reached the door of his cabin, to look around to witness the effect of his achievement. The Indians coughing, sneezing, blinded and almost suffocated by the tobacco dust, were throwing out their arms and groping about in all directions, cursing him for a rogue and calling themselves fools."

CHAPTER XI.

Kentucky organized as a State

Peace with England.—Order of a Kentucky Court.—Anecdotes.—Speech of Mr. Dalton.—Reply of Piankashaw.—Renewed Indications of Indian Hostility.—Conventions at Danville.—Kentucky formed into a State.—New Trials for Boone.

The close of the war of the Revolution, bringing peace between the colonies and the mother country, deprived the Indians of that powerful alliance which had made them truly formidable. Being no longer able to obtain a supply of ammunition from the British arsenals, or to be guided in their murderous raids by British intelligence, they also, through their chiefs, entered into treaties of peace with the rapidly-increasing emigrants.

Though these treaties with the Indians prevented any general organization of the tribes, vagabond Indians, entirely lawless, were wandering in all directions, ever ready to perpetrate any outrage. Civil society has its highway robbers, burglars and murderers. Much more so was this the case among these savages, exasperated by many wrongs; for it cannot be denied that they were more frequently sinned against than sinning. Their untutored natures made but little distinction between the innocent and the guilty. If a vagabond white man wantonly shot an Indian—and many were as ready to do it as to shoot a wolf—the friends of the murdered Indian would take revenge upon the inmates of the first white man's cabin they encountered in the wilderness. Thus it was necessary for the pioneers to be constantly upon their guard. If they wandered any distance from the fort while hunting, or were hoeing in the field, or ventured to rear a cabin on a fertile meadow at a distance from the stations, they were liable to be startled at any hour of the day or of the night by the terrible war-whoop, and to feel the weight of savage vengeance.

This exposure to constant peril influenced the settlers, as a general rule, to establish themselves in stations. This gave them companionship, the benefits of co-operative labor, and security against any small prowling bands. These stations were formed upon the model of the one which Daniel Boone had so wisely organized at Boonesborough. They consisted of a cluster of bullet-proof log-cabins, arranged in a quadrangular form, so as to enclose a large internal area. All the doors opened upon this interior space. Here the cattle were gathered at night. The intervals between the cottages were filled with palisades, also bullet-proof. Loop-holes through the logs enabled these riflemen to guard every approach to their fortress. Thus they had little to fear from the Indians when sheltered by these strong citadels.

Emigration to Kentucky began very rapidly to increase. Large numbers crossed the mountains to Pittsburgh, where they took flat boats and floated down the beautiful Ohio, la belle rivière, until they reached such points on its southern banks as pleased them for a settlement, or from which they could ascend the majestic rivers of that peerless State. Comfortable homesteads were fast rising in all directions. Horses, cattle, swine, and poultry of all kinds were multiplied. Farming utensils began to make their appearance. The hum of happy industry was heard where wolves had formerly howled and buffalo ranged. Merchandise in considerable quantities was transported over the mountains on pack horses, and then floated down the Ohio and distributed among the settlements upon its banks. Country stores arose, land speculators appeared, and continental paper money became a circulating medium. This money, however, was not of any very great value, as may be inferred from the following decree, passed by one of the County Courts, establishing the schedule of prices for tavern-keeping:

"The Court doth set the following rates to be observed by keepers in this county: Whiskey, fifteen dollars the half-pint; rum, ten dollars the gallon; a meal, twelve dollars; stabling or pasturage, four dollars the night."

Under these changed circumstances, Colonel Boone, whose intrepidity nothing could daunt, and whose confidence in the protective power of his rifle was unbounded, had reared for himself, on one of the beautiful meadows of the Kentucky, a commodious home. He had selected a spot whose fertility and loveliness pleased his artistic eye.

It is estimated that during the years 1783 and 1784 nearly twelve thousand persons emigrated to Kentucky. Still all these had to move with great caution, with rifles always loaded, and ever on the alert against surprise. The following incident will give the reader an idea of the perils and wild adventures encountered by these parties in their search for new and distant homes.

Colonel Thomas Marshall, a man of much note in those days, had crossed the Alleghanies with his large family. At Pittsburgh he purchased a flat-boat, and was floating down the Ohio. He had passed the mouth of the Kanawha River without any incident of note occurring. About ten o'clock one night, as his boat had drifted near the northern shore of the solitary stream, he was hailed by a man upon the bank, who, after inquiring who he was, where he was bound, etc., added:

"I have been posted here by order of my brother, Simon Gerty, to warn all boats of the danger of permitting themselves to be decoyed ashore. My brother regrets very deeply the injury he has inflicted upon the white men, and to convince them of the sincerity of his repentance, and of his earnest desire to be restored to their society, he has stationed me here to warn all boats of the snares which are spread for them by the cunning of the Indians. Renegade white men will be placed upon the banks, who will represent themselves as in the greatest distress. Even children taken captive will be compelled, by threats of torture, to declare that they are all alone upon the shore, and to entreat the boats to come and rescue them.

"But keep in the middle of the river," said Gerty, "and steel your heart against any supplications you may hear."

The Colonel thanked him for his warning, and continued to float down the rapid current of the stream.

Virginia had passed a law establishing the town of Louisville, at the Falls of the Ohio. A very thriving settlement soon sprang up there.

The nature of the warfare still continuing between the whites and the Indians may be inferred from the following narrative, which we give in the words of Colonel Boone:

"The Indians continued to practice mischief secretly upon the inhabitants in the exposed part of the country. In October a party made an incursion into a district called Crab Orchard. One of these Indians having advanced some distance before the others, boldly entered the house of a poor defenseless family, in which was only a negro man, a woman and her children, terrified with apprehensions of immediate death. The savage, perceiving their defenseless condition, without offering violence to the family, attempted to capture the negro, who happily proved an over-match for him, and threw the Indian on the ground.

"In the struggle, the mother of the children drew an axe from the corner of the cottage and cut off the head of the Indian, while her little daughter shut the door. The savages soon appeared, and applied their tomahawks to the door. An old rusty gun-barrel, without a lock, lay in the corner, which the mother put through a small crevice, and the savages perceiving it, fled. In the meantime the alarm spread through the neighborhood; the armed men collected immediately and pursued the savages into the wilderness. Thus Providence, by means of this negro, saved the whole of the poor family from destruction."

The heroism of Mrs. Merrill is worthy of being perpetuated, not only as a wonderful achievement, but as illustrative of the nature of this dreadful warfare. Mr. Merrill, with his wife, little son and daughter, occupied a remote cabin in Nelson County, Kentucky. On the 24th of December, 1791, he was alarmed by the barking of his dog. Opening the door to ascertain the cause, he was instantly fired upon by seven or eight Indians who had crept near the house secreting themselves behind stumps and trees. Two bullets struck him, fracturing the bones both of his leg and of his arm. The savages, with hideous yells, then rushed for the door.

Mrs. Merrill had but just time to close and bolt it when the savages plunged against it and hewed it with their tomahawks. Every dwelling was at that time a fortress whose log walls were bullet proof. But for the terrible wounds which Mr. Merrill had received, he would with his rifle shooting through loop-holes, soon have put the savages to flight. They, emboldened by the supposition that he was killed, cut away at the door till they had opened a hole sufficiently large to crawl through. One of the savages attempted to enter. He had got nearly in when Mrs. Merrill cleft his skull with an ax, and he fell lifeless upon the floor. Another, supposing that he had safely effected an entrance, followed him and encountered the same fate. Four more of the savages were in this way despatched, when the others, suspecting that all was not right, climbed upon the roof and two of them endeavored to descend through the chimney. The noise they made directed the attention of the inmates of the cabin to the new danger.

There was a gentle fire burning upon the hearth. Mr. Merrill, with much presence of mind, directed his son, while his wife guarded the opening of the door with her ax, to empty the contents of a feather bed upon the fire. The dense smothering smoke filled the flue of the chimney. The two savages, suffocated with the fumes, after a few convulsive efforts to ascend fell almost insensible down upon the hearth. Mr. Merrill, seizing with his unbroken arm a billet of wood, despatched them both. But one of the Indians now remained. Peering in at the opening in the door he received a blow from the ax of Mrs. Merrill which severely wounded him. Bleeding and disheartened he fled alone into the wilderness, the only one of the eight who survived the conflict.

A white man who was at that time a prisoner among the Indians and who subsequently effected his escape, reported that when the wounded savage reached his tribe he said to the white captive in broken English:

"I have bad news for the poor Indian. Me lose a son, me lose a broder. The squaws have taken the breech clout, and fight worse than the long knives."

But the Indians were not always the aggressors. Indeed it is doubtful whether they would ever have raised the war-whoop against the white man, had it not been for the outrages they were so constantly experiencing from unprincipled and vagabond adventurers, who were ever infesting the frontiers. The following incident illustrates the character and conduct of these miscreants:

A party of Indian hunters from the South wandering through their ancient hunting grounds of Kentucky, accidentally came upon a settlement where they found several horses grazing in the field. They stole the horses, and commenced a rapid retreat to their own country. Three young men, Davis, Caffre and McClure, pursued them. Not being able to overtake the fugitives, they decided to make reprisals on the first Indians they should encounter. It so happened that they soon met three Indian hunters. The parties saluted each other in a friendly manner, and proceeded on their way in pleasant companionship.

The young men said that they observed the Indians conversing with one another in low tones of voice, and thus they became convinced that the savages meditated treachery. Resolving to anticipate the Indians' attack, they formed the following plan. While walking together in friendly conversation, the Indians being entirely off their guard, Caffre, who was a very powerful man, was to spring upon the lightest of the Indians, crush him to the ground, and thus take him a prisoner. At the same instant, Davis and McClure were each to shoot one of the other Indians, who, being thus taken by surprise, could offer no resistance.