A history of Kentucky and Kentuckians; the leaders and representative men in commerce, industry and modern activities, Volume I, Part 5

Author: Johnson, E. Polk, 1844-; Lewis Publishing Company
Publication date: 1912
Publisher: Chicago, Lewis Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 656

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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY AND KENTUCKIANS

their captivity, their death would have chilled the vigor of enterprise. Without Boone the settlements could not have been held, and the conquest of Kentucky would have been reserved for the immigrants of the nineteenth century."

He might have added that without Boone and the results of his coming to Kentucky, the splendid results following in after years the activity of George Rogers Clark, would have been an impossibility ; and the immense territory which he added to our domain would later have been gained only with great loss of life, and it may be would have been indef- initely left in the hands of those from whose hands the heroic Clark so easily took it. Ken- tucky, though giving Boone a grave in her capital, has never paid to him the debt of honor and gratitude which was his due. It is not to the credit of the state that he sought a resting place first on Virginia, where he was honored, and lastly in Missouri, where the brave old pioneer finally laid down life's bur- den and found in the grave the only peace his restless spirit had ever known.

In May. 1770, their stock of ammunition being again nearly exhausted, Squire Boone. it was determined, should return home "for a new recruit of horses and ammunition." Dan- iel Boone being thus left alone in the wilder- ness was the only white man, so far as he knew, in all Kentucky. Stewart, his gallant and long-time comrade, had been killed by the Indians soon after they were joined by Squire Boone, thus being the first martyr to western exploration so far as is accurately known.

To make the trip to North Carolina and return, required some three months, during which Boone must have grown very lonely. Filson makes him say, and no doubt truth- fully: "I confess I was never before under greater necessity of exercising philosophy and fortitude. A few days I passed uncomfortably." Note that expression of "a few days." Boone was not the man to give way to his feelings.

else he would never have been the successful pioneer that he was. Some one has said of him that he was once asked if he was never lost in the wilderness, to which he replied that he was never lost but "was once bewildered for three days"; which is a fair companion piece to the statement of the Indian who de- clared "Indian not lost ; wigwam lost."

Boone spent the months of waiting in ex- plorations to the southwest which appear to have brought him to Salt river and Green river. Signs of Indians were abundant, but he had now become so expert a woodman that he managed to avoid meeting any of them. He slept without a fire and made his camps in the dense canebrakes and thus avoided his savage foes. July 27, 1770, he returned to his old camp where to his great happiness his brother met him. Indian signs warned them of their danger and turning to the southward they explored the region along the Cumber- land, finding abundant game, but a poorer soil than that which they had left. In March, 1771. they went northward toward the Ken- tucky river, finally selecting a point for the permanent settlement which they had planned and then loading their furs and few other be- longings upon their two horses they turned their faces once more towards North Carolina and civilization; of which Boone had known nothing for two years, "during most of which time," says McElroy, "he had neither tasted bread nor seen the face of man with the ex- ception of his brother, his unfortunate fellow hunters now gone, and a few straggling In- dians, more animal than human; but at its close. he was a real Kentuckian, the first Ken- tuckian, ready at all times to speak in unmeas- ured praise of the land which," he says, "I esteemed a second Paradise."

It may be of interest to some to note here that the fame of Daniel Boone, in after years. did not rest alone with those by whom he was immediately surrounded. but had gone across the seas to England, whose poet. Lord Byron,

HISTORY OF KENTUCKY AND KENTUCKIANS

thus embalmed him in one of the cantos of "Don Juan":

"Of all men saving Sylla, the manslayer,

Who passes for, in life and death, most lucky,

Of the great names which in our faces stare, The General Boone, backwoodsman of Ken- tucky,

Was happiest of mortals anywhere."

While Boone would doubtless have objected to the title of "General" given him by Byron, there is no doubt that the poet caught the dominant note of his character in describing him as "happiest of mortals anywhere," when alone in the midst of the wilderness. This may not be altogether complimentary to Mrs. Boone and the younger Boones, but history was invented to record facts and not compli- ments.

CHAPTER IV.

PROBLEMATIC JOURNEY DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI-KNOX'S "LONG HUNTERS"-BOONE AGAIN STARTS KENTUCKY-WARD SURVEYORS SENT OUT-SITES OF LOUISVILLE AND FRANKFORT-INDIANS RISE AGAINST SETTLERS-BOONE AS A WARNING MESSENGER -- GREAT BATTLE BETWEEN RED AND WHITE MEN-PEACE TREATY WITH LORD DUNMORE.

Boone had supposed himself while awaiting the return of his brother, the only white man in Kentucky, in which he was mistaken; as at the same time, a party of forty Virginia hunt- ers from the mountainous regions about New river, the Holston and Clinch, had come into the country fully equipped for hunting and trapping, and, as a matter of course, for such Indian fighting as they might fall upon. These hunters passed through the Cumberland Gap, which years afterwards was to figure large in a greater warfare than Kentucky ever knew in her pioneer days. These men camped on the Cumberland river in what was later to become Wayne county and established a depot for trade with the Indians-a somewhat singular statement when one considers the relations that had existed between the savages and the few other white men who liad ventured to intrude upon their chosen hunting ground. From this depot, small parties of hunters went out hunt- ing and exploring with the understanding that they were to come into headquarters once in five weeks, report their experiences and deposit the spoils of their skill. This did not wholly suit the woodsmen and one after an- other these bands set up in business for them- selves and declined to report, or else deserted.

Ten of these men are reported to have con- structed transports, loaded them with skins and the flesh of the wild animals they had slain and, floating down the Cumberland into

the Ohio and later into the Mississippi, finally reached Natchez. There they are reputed to have made sale of their cargo at the Spanish fort at that point, afterwards returning over- land to their far-away homes in Virginia. It is difficult to believe that these men in the midst of an absolute wilderness, with but few tools at hand, should have been able to con- struct transports sufficiently seaworthy to con- vey themselves and their cargoes to the port of Natchez on the Mississippi, many hundreds of miles from the starting point. How much of the statement is real history, and how much mere tradition, will never be known. It is a part of the history or tradition, as you will have it, that many of these adventurous men on their return from Natchez were lost in the wilderness, where they doubtless fell a prey to the savages, as they were never again heard of.

Col. James Knox, leader of the party from Virginia, who does not appear to have partici- pated in the apochryphal Natchez expedition, with nine companions, pushed into the wilder- ness to a point near where Greensburg in Green county is now located, establishing there a second trading station, and exploring the region which was later to form the coun- ties of Barren, Hart, Edmonson and others. Knox remained two years in what was then known as the Kentucky district, but which for convenience sake will always be referred to

HISTORY OF KENTUCKY AND KENTUCKIANS

herein as Kentucky. At the end of that time they returned to Virginia with many wonder- ful stories of their experiences. By common consent these men were afterwards known as the "long hunters." In the earlier days in Kentucky than the present, a man who related marvelous stories was referred to as "shoot- ing with a long gun," a politer method of ex- pressing disbelief than the use of a shorter word. One may speculate upon the relation between this practice and the name "long

der of the party finally succeeded in driving off the savages, but made no further attempt to cross the mountain pass into Kentucky but, to the contrary, retraced their steps to their former home, the effort to found homes in the new land thus proving a complete failure.

No further efforts were made during 1773 to plant colonies in Kentucky, but in the latter part of that year Governor Dunmore of Vir- ginia sent out a party of surveyors consisting of Capt. Thomas Bullitt, three brothers,

CUMBERLAND GAP-LOOKING NORTH

hunters" bestowed upon these Virginia hunt- ers.

In 1773, Daniel Boone, having sold his prop- erty in North Carolina, set out for Kentucky accompanied by his own and several other families, having in view a permanent settle- ment in the new land, being joined, en route. by some forty other adventurous souls. Im- peded by the size of the party and the slow- ness of their pack animals and other cattle, the party, after much delay, reached Cumberland Gap when, just as they were about to cross the mountains, an attack was made by the Indians and six of the party were killed. The remain-

James, George and Robert McAfee, James Harrod and James Douglas and perhaps oth- ers, the names above quoted being regarded as the chief or ruling spirits of the party. The object sought in sending out this party was os- tensibly to induce settlements in Kentucky, as a guard against Indian depredations upon Vir- ginia settlements, though recalling the Anglo- Saxon hunger for land, one is not without sus- picion that the shrewd British governor had also in mind the increase of his private real estate holdings.

These surveyors held a council with the In- dians at Chillicothe, Ohio, and soon afterward

HISTORY OF KENTUCKY AND KENTUCKIANS

separated. Capt. Bullitt and those with him proceeded down the Ohio river to the present site of Louisville, which he surveyed. After spending several weeks at the spot on which the future metropolis was to be built, he sur- veyed much of the land now forming Bullitt county, which was later erected and named in his honor.

The McAfee party ascended the Kentucky river as far the site of Frankfort, where they surveyed the land upon which is built the pic- turesque little capital city of Kentucky.

James Douglas and his party made surveys in the vicinity of Big Bone Lick, preparatory to a settlement there. Coming a second time from Virginia in the spring of 1774, Douglas extended his surveys along the Kentucky river, but the home he had planned was never to be his, as he died while on this second expedition. It is not to be understood that any of these surveying parties attempted permanent settle-

ments. They were the forerunners of the actual settlers who were to come soon after them. Adventurers poured into the land in the spring of 1774, hungry for land but not in- tent upon present settlement. Collins relates

The Indian tribes were now fully aroused that many of these men built "improver's . against the encroachments of the white man cabins," which "meant merely nominal build- ings consisting of small squares of logs, built breast high and not even roofed, which were used as a means of technically fulfilling the let- ter of the laws, requiring settlement as a basis of land claims."

The coming of these adventurous spirits alarmed the Indians who speedily took steps to protect themselves in the full possession of their hunting grounds by driving out the new comers.

Governor Dunmore, for the time being over- coming his desire to acquire lands in Ken- tucky, and willing to await a more auspicious opportunity, was desirous of warning the ad- venturers to return to Virginia and for a mes- senger selected Daniel Boone. The fame of Boone as a pioneer must have spread through-

out the territory then occupied by white men in the South. When we last heard of him he had returned to North Carolina from an un- successful effort to plant a colony in Ken- tucky. Now we find him bearing a message from Governor Dunmore, whose station was at Williamsburg, Virginia, to the adventurers in Kentucky. It may be that Boone's restless spirit had prevented his remaining on the Yad- kin river, in North Carolina, where we have already seen that he had disposed of his hold- ings, and that he had journeyed to Virginia in search of further adventures. We next find him, in the execution of Lord Dunmore's wishes, starting on June 6, 1774, accompanied by Michael Stoner for the Falls of the Ohio with his note of warning which he appears to have successfully delivered, as he returned on August 8th, after having traveled eight hundred miles, at the head of a band of Dunmore's surveyors who had obeyed his warning. Some of the surveying parties de- clined to heed the note of warning and, re- maining in Kentucky, soon had cause to regret their action.

and determined to drive him from their hunt- ing ground. The Shawnees led by their chief Cornstalk, followed by the Miamees, the Dela- wares, the Wyandottes and the other northern tribes, all equally desperate and determined, went upon the war-path leaving a trail of blood everywhere they touched toward the frontier settlements of Virginia, whatever white men who fell into their savage hands dying horrible deaths by torture. Winsor, in his "Narrative and Critical History of Amer- ica," is authority for the statement that more white persons were killed during this period of nominal peace than during the campaign that followed.

Dunmore, aroused to action by the savage atrocities, decided to make open war upon them and settle, once for all, the question of

HISTORY OF KENTUCKY AND KENTUCKIANS

the settlement of Kentucky. Two armies, numbering three thousand men, Virginia regu- lars and volunteers, were organized and pre- pared to march against the savages. Lord Dunmore marched with one division of these forces to Fort Pitt, at the same time ordering General Lewis, commanding the other divi- sion, to proceed to the mouth of the Kanawha. These forces were to unite at a given point on the Ohio river, and together attack and de- stroy the Shawnee villages in the Scioto valley. But Cornstalk, though a savage, was himself a master of military strategy, and he determined to attack and destroy the column of General Lewis before it could combine with that of Lord Dunmore; in other words, like a good general, he proposed to fight and destroy his opponents one at a time. Lewis, either hay- ing warning of Cornstalk's purpose, or, as is more likely, divining it, proposed to antici- pate the action of his enemy and attack at once, which he did at what is known as Point Pleasant. In a word, he did, as General For- rest many years afterward declared the secret of military success to be-"Getting there first with the most men." October 10, 1774, Gen- eral Lewis' reconnoitering party, under com- mand of Colonels Fleming and Lewis, the lat- ter the General's brother, met a like party sent out by Cornstalk, the two parties being each more than a thousand strong. The result was for a time unfortunate for the whites, Flem- ing and Lewis, the commanding officers of the two regiments, being each mortally wounded and their troops driven back. The retreat was checked only by the coming on the field of re- enforcements under command of Colonel Field, who was later himself wounded, the re- sult of his coming being merely a temporary checking of the success of the savage forces. Cornstalk and his subordinates, Logan (with a white man's name), Red Eagle and other less known chiefs, pressed forward to make com- plete their seeming victory. General Lewis, in

the face of almost sure defeat, sent three of his captains-Isaac Shelby, George Matthews and John Stuart-upon the almost forlorn hope of a flank movement, with orders to gain the rear of the savage forces and attack them from this vantage ground Those familiar with military movements will understand that while this movement by the flank and to the rear was being executed, General Lewis and the already beaten troops in his command were compelled to hold the enemy in check, no mat- ter at what loss. The movement to the rear was successful, the savages, believing their new assailants to be white reinforcements. fled across the Ohio to their villages on the Scioto. This contest, won at the last by strat- egy, has been described as "the most hotly contested fight which the Indians had ever made against the English; the first consider- able battle which they had fought without the aid of the French."

One cannot refrain from expressing some- what of admiration for the untutored savage, Cornstalk, who, fighting for the land which he claimed for himself and his people, came so near a victory over white men, led by trained soldiers. Disheartened, however, by his defeat, he retired beyond the Ohio, there to learn that Dunmore had devastated with his column the Scioto villages and disheartened his braves who had survived the battles in which they had engaged with the white men.

The result was a treaty arranged with Lord Dunmore at Camp Charlotte, in which treaty the allied tribes surrendered all claims to Ken- tucky as the Six Nations had formerly done at Fort Stanwix, it being guaranteed by the Indians that no white man should hereafter be molested on the Ohio river, nor should any Indian pass to the southern bank. This treaty was very good while it lasted, but unfortu- nately for the white settlers it was not faith- fully observed by the Indians.

CHAPTER V.

BOONE, OF THE "TRANSYLVANIA COMPANY" -- COLONEL RICHARD HENDERSON-CHEROKEES DEED "THEIR" LANDS-BOONE, COLONIZING AGENT-FORT BOONESBOROUGH ERECTED- INDIANS ATTACK, DESPITE TREATY-FELIX WALKER'S NARRATIVE-TURNING BACK THE FAINT-HEARTS-HENDERSON'S ROYAL RECEPTION-LAST AMERICAN "LORD PROTECTOR."

The treaty with Cornstalk and his allies, after the victory of the Virginia forces at Point Pleasant, made safe for the time being, the upper Ohio river and correspondingly re- duced the dangers attendant upon those who ventured into Kentucky. The result was that men who had faith in Indian treaties and per- haps some who had not, took up the line of march for Kentucky where they hoped to get lands, erect homes, raise crops and thereafter live in peace. While this was a vain hope, as was later proven, yet it served a good purpose in that it brought into the unsettled territory men who could in most respects, be depended upon to aid in its defense against future sav- age incursions.

There is a hint in McElroy, the latest of Kentucky historians, that Daniel Boone, of whose character the historian does not seem to have had too high an estimate, came first to Kentucky as the confidential agent of what was afterward known as the Transylvania Company He states that this cannot be ascer- tained with authority, but declares "that not many months after the battle of Point Pleas- ant, Boone was acting as the trusted and se- cret agent of such a corporation." This may be true of Boone, yet the latter day antagon- ism to anything bearing the name of a corpor- ation should not be permitted to dim the rec- ord of what Daniel Boone did towards wrest-

ing Kentucky from savage control and making it a safe home for the white man.

Colonel Richard Henderson now begins to loom large upon the history of the west. He was a Virginian, who had gone to North Caro- lina, where he became a superior court judge. He was a man of talent, possibly of that rest- less Anglo-Saxon spirit which is never content with present surroundings, but impels its pos- sessor to go forward towards better things and wider fields of action. Henderson, with eight associates, formed a corporation the pur- pose of which was the purchase from the Cherokees of a great body of land in Kentucky on which to found a colony. Whatever may be said of his purposes or of his further de- signs, he should not be derided for his effort to open to civilization so fair a land as that which had attracted him. It was a great scheme, that of Colonel Henderson, but in the America of even that early day there seemed to have been the germ of liberty and his great proprietary idea came to naught in the end.

A great council of about twelve hundred of the Cherokee Indians, with their chiefs in con- trol, was held at the Sycamore Shoals on the Watago river, following a propitiatory visit from Colonel Henderson. At this council a deed was drawn and signed with the formality usual in dealing with the Indians, which con- veyed to Colonel Henderson and his asso-

Vol. 1-2.

HISTORY OF KENTUCKY AND KENTUCKIANS

ciates in a corporate capacity, as "Proprietors of the Colony of Transylvania," a district com- posing, according to McElroy, "one-half of the modern state of Kentucky and the adjacent part of Tennessee lying within the southerly bend of the Cumberland river." In considera- tion of the payment of ten thousand pounds sterling in goods, this treaty was signed March 17, 1775. It would be interesting to know the value set upon these goods by the white signa- tories to the treaty There is a possibility that they might put to the blush some of the values put upon every-day commodities of the pres- ent day by the trusts which have taken control of so many of our present necessities. It is not every trust that is of recent birth. Our progenitors liad, also, some business capacity Henderson had made his purchase, but had not calculated far enough into the future ; he had "bought a pig in a poke," but had not se- cured actual possession of the pig. He had not, nor could he, secure a fair title to the lands which he claimed because the charter rights of the colony of Virginia included the lands which he claimed as well as the charter rights of the Royal Proclamation of 1763. Of course, the Indians also set up a claim to these lands, but that claim was not to be considered, as no other claim of theirs to any lands what- soever, was considered in those days. "Let him take who has the power ; let him keep who can" was the ruling idea, and the rights of the Indian were never considered at all.

Henderson had a formal possession of the land granted him by the Cherokees, but ac- tual possession was a matter of more moment. To possess this wide domain, he must settle it ; to settle it, he must bring people from the East, which then meant Virginia and North Carolina. This being true, what more natural than that Colonel Henderson should secure the services of Daniel Boone? He had been to Kentucky ; had spent many months in that country ; he knew more about it than any other man, and, in addition, he was a trained

hunter and pioneer; he knew the Indians to whom he had been a captive and from whom he had escaped; he had lived alone for many months in the new country and there was no other man with knowledge equal to his. It is to the credit of Henderson, whatever one may think of his schemes, that he should have se- lected Boone for the difficult task of marking a road to the principality which he hoped to possess. Nor does it seem that Boone should be blamed for accepting employment from a corporation whose object. however objection- able some may deem it, in other respects was to open a new land to civilization and settle- ment.

Boone accepted employment from Colonel Henderson and, according to John Filson, to whom every historian of early Kentucky is indebted, "collected a number of enterprising men well armed, proceeded with all necessary expedition until they came within fifteen miles of where Boonesborough now stands, and there were fired upon by a party of Indians who killed two and wounded two of the num- ber; yet, although surprised and taken at a disadvantage, they stood their ground. This was March 20, 1775. Three days afterwards we were fired upon again and two men killed and three wounded. Afterward we continued on to Kentucky river without opposition, and on April 5th began to erect the fort of Boones- borough at a salt lick, about sixty yards from the river on the south side."

On the 20th of March, three days after the treaty with the Cherokees had been signed at Wataga, Colonel Henderson proved that his ambitious designs were backed by the brave spirit of the pioneer who dares all and risks all. He set out from Wataga at the head of thirty other adventurous spirits, for what he hoped was his new dominion, his purpose be- ing to set up a land office in the fort at Boonesborough.

Henderson's diary shows that his progress was accompanied by many incidents that are

HISTORY OF KENTUCKY AND KENTUCKIANS

the accompaniment of all pioneer movements. These incidents, some of them trivial enough, are set forth with a particularity which indi- cates that Henderson took himself and his en- terprise very seriously, as well he might.

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A history of Kentucky and Kentuckians; the leaders and representative men in commerce, industry and modern activities, Volume I, Part 5

Author: Johnson, E. Polk, 1844-; Lewis Publishing Company Publication date: 1912 Publisher: Chicago, Lewis Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 656

Author: Johnson, E. Polk, 1844-; Lewis Publishing Company
Publication date: 1912
Publisher: Chicago, Lewis Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 656