USA > Kentucky > Madison County > Boonesborough > Boonesborough; its founding, pioneer struggles, Indian experiences, Transylvania days, and revolutionary annals; > Part 3
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I Henderson's Manuscript Journal, Appendix.
2 In one item of the Company's ledger Michael Stoner is charged with " £7 3s 6d for powder, lead, and osnaburgs," and credited with "£10 10S for work making roads to Cantucke." (Nat. Hart, junior, in Frankfort Commonwealth. )
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This was the first store ever opened in Kentucky. Judge Henderson took up his quarters in a block-house erected at this time. It formed an angle of the defense -the angle nearest the river. A number of other cabins had also been built, when it was discovered that Indian signs had ceased, and forthwith the workmen relaxed their exer- tions, and, much to the disgust of the leading spirits, the completion of the fort was postponed. The error has been carelessly perpetuated that Boonesborough Station was entirely finished at this time, and it is even pictured with the stars and stripes flying over the front gate in 1775, in spite of the fact that the flag was not adopted by Congress until 1777. It is gratifying to know that the shape and general outline of this famous wooden stronghold are not matters of mere conjecture. A plan of the fort, designed at this very time and in the hand- writing of Judge Henderson himself, was long preserved,' and a copy of it is herewith given. The building of the station, as far as it was prosecuted in the spring of 1775, was done in accordance with this plan, which was fully carried out later on. Fortunately the clearing was exten- sive and ultimately cut no small figure as a defensive feature of the place. A few trees were left standing inside
1 It was in the possession of James Hall, the historical author, as late as 1835, and was copied by him.
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the stockade, and the tops of several others that grew down on the rugged slope to the river projected above the bank back of the fort, but, though stumps were plen- tiful, the long rifles of the pioneers had a pretty clear sweep of the ground in the rear of the defense, along the descent to the springs in "the hollow," and for a con- siderable stretch toward a long ridge that extended at quite a distance off in front of the fort. This continuous hill soon received the name of "Hackberry Ridge."
On the 26th of this month, while the woodsmen on the banks of the Kentucky were busy at their clearing, the representatives of the Company in distant North Caro- lina sought, through a skillful letter' that reflects the uncer- tain condition of the times, to secure for their enterprise the influence and support of two already conspicuous lights of the opening Revolution - Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson. Shortly after this Judge Henderson formulated "a plan of government by popular representation" for the Company's wilderness domain, and on the. 8th of May, in behalf of the proprietors, ordered an election of mem- bers of a "House of Delegates of the Colony of Transyl- vania" to meet on the 23d of that month at Boones- borough.2 In this call of the 8th of May the Colony and its "capital" are formally and for the first time given the
1 For letter, see Appendix M.
2 See Journal of the House, Appendix N.
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names respectively of "Transylvania" and " Boonesbor- ough," which they bore from that date. Elections were duly held at the four little settlements1 south of the Ken- tucky River, and on Tuesday, the 23d of May, 1775, the chosen representatives of the Colony, rifles in hand, rode up to the log quarters of the Chief Proprietor, Judge Hen- derson. But while a few absolutely necessary cabins had been built, the fort was so incomplete and encumbered that the "divine elm" in the hollow was selected as the tem- porary forum of the capital. Here the delegates did their preliminary work, and the next day, the 24th, under the spreading dome that the Immortal Architect himself had fashioned, and which overshadowed what an eye-witness called "a heavenly green" of fine white native clover, was attempted for the first time in the vast region west of the Alleghanies the founding of an independent State which proclaimed that sublime axiom that "all power is orig- inally in the people " ?- a proprietary government built largely on the lines of a republic. A House of Delegates for the Colony was there and then organized, and was formally opened by Judge Henderson in behalf of the Proprietors with a carefully written and statesmanlike speech,2 in which the independence of "the newborn
I Boonesborough, Harrodsburg, Boiling Spring, six miles southeast of Harrodsburg, and St. Asaph's, a mile west of the present Stanford.
2 House Journal, Appendix.
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country" is asserted in the declaration, "We have the right to make laws for the regulation of our conduct with- out giving offense to Great Britain or any of the Ameri- can Colonies." The House was in session three days, during which nine bills were passed, and its business, con- ducted though it was in the open air, was transacted with all the dignity, regularity, and ability that marked the Colonial legislatures of the time. The laborers employed by Boone to cut the first regular road to Kentucky were of the usual woodchopping type, but the men who par- ticipated in the effort to establish the Transylvania gov- ernment distinguished it with a moral and intellectual force that utterly refuted the published assertions of Martin and Dunmore. A striking incident of Saturday, the last day of the session, was the formal and public observance before the House of the ancient feudal ceremony, "Livery of Seisin,"' the final act in the transfer of the immense portion of the territory sold by the Cherokees to Hender- son and Company. Standing under the great elm, the attorney employed by the Indians, John Farrar, handed to Judge Henderson a piece of the luxuriant turf cut from the soil that extended beneath them, and, while they both held it, Farrar declared his delivery of seisin and possession of the land, according to the terms of the title deed which
' House Journal, Appendix ; Butler in Western Journal.
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Henderson displayed, and the immediate reading of which completed a legal requirement now long since obsolete and almost forgotten. The session closed with the execu- tion of its most important feature, the signing of a com- pact between the Proprietors and the People,' which, crude as it is, takes historical precedence as the constitution of the first representative government ever attempted west of the Alleghany Mountains.
The House adjourned, but the delegates met once more before they dispersed, for, the next day being Sunday, the entire settlement assembled under the grand old elm, where "divine service for the first time" in Kentucky was performed by Reverend John Lythe,2 of the Church of England, a minister from Virginia and a member of the delegation from Harrodsburg. It was a religious event absolutely unique. Most of the usual accessories of the service were wanting, from echoing church bell and "long drawn aisle" to pealing organ. No woman was there to join in litany or hymn, no child to lisp "amen." Only men were present- Dissenters as well as Episcopalians- for common dangers had drawn them together, and this one chance for public worship was eagerly seized by
' House Journal, Appendix.
2 Henderson, who spelt proper names to suit himself, gives this one in his journal as "Lyth," but in the proceedings of the Convention it is spelt as above.
B. F . COX
MEETING OF THE TRANSYLVANIA HOUSE OF DELEGATES At Boonesborough, May, 1775. Design from Historical Data by the Author.)
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pioneers who were as strong in simple faith as stout in heart, for there were others in the Colony of Transylvania besides the reckless few among the woodmen from Pow- ell's Valley. And so, cut off from the whole civilized world, the forerunners of a mighty West of many States knelt together in the sweet white clover, under that magnificent tree, the sole cathedral in a wilderness as vast and as solitary as the illimitable ocean. This was the first and last time that prayers were ever publicly recited on Kentucky soil for the King and royal family of England.1 In less than a week the news, so long on the road, of the battle of Lexington2 threw the settlements into a fever of excitement, and minister and people not only sided at once with "the rebels," but the pastor, like some he had preached to under the elm, ultimately sealed his devotion to liberty with his blood.3 The Transylvanians would have been even more excited if they had known that Governor Martin, who had proclaimed them outlaws, had fled from
" The very next spring the Virginia Convention expunged from the liturgy the words relating to the royal family.
2 The news was a little more than six weeks getting to Boonesborough, and did not reach the site of Lexington (Kentucky) until the 5th of June. (See page 19, History of Lexington, Kentucky.)
3 John Lythe was with the Virginia Militia, presumably as Chaplain, in the campaign of the next year against the Cherokees, and certainly served in that capacity with the Virginia troops in 1777. (See Payments of Militia in Virginia Records.) According to Morehead, Lythe was killed by the Indians.
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his "palace "' while their legislature was in session, and that, while they were responding to the slogan of the Revolution, Lord Dunmore also was preparing to fly to a British vessel. 2
On the 8th of June, a few days after the arrival of the great news, the notorious Dr. John F. D. Smythe rode into Boonesborough. He said he was touring the Colonies for material for a book of travels, which he did publish after the Revolution,3 but the wily Scotchman kept religiously to himself the rather dangerous fact that he was also a spying emissary of Lord Dunmore to aid in uniting the Indians and frontier Tories in a scheme to sweep Virginia and her Kentucky territory clean of "rebels." It was skimpy times at the executive cabin just then, for bread was not to be had, and the salt was expected every day to give out. Even " big" meat was none too easy to get, but Judge Henderson's black Dan managed to keep a supply, and with some vegetables from the fort garden, "cats" from the river, and milk punches-for "the capital" was not without cows-the plotting guest was entertained. Smythe had his own reasons for enduring pioneer fare for several weeks, for
I Volume X, Colonial Records of North Carolina.
2 He escaped to the Fowey June 8, 1775.
3 In London in 1784.
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during this time he openly and very innocently visited the Shawanese and other Ohio Indians, all then at peace with the whites. He doubtless made a diagram of "the works" at Boonesborough. In his notes, which the unsus- pecting settlers did not get a chance to see, he mentions Henderson as "a man of vast and enterprising genius, but void of military talents," and says, in the disgust of his loyal soul at the outrageous independence of the Transylvanians, "such is the insolence, folly, and ridiculous pride of these ignorant backwoodsmen that they would conceive it an indelible disgrace and infamy to be styled servants even of His Majesty." The doctor was still more disgusted before he left the country, for shortly after this he barely escaped being tarred and feathered in a Virginia town, and later on was arrested, imprisoned, and the plan nipped in the bud.
Early in this same month of June, while the American troops were girding themselves for the approaching con- test at Bunker Hill, every thing was quiet enough in the Kentucky wilderness, and Boone, who wanted to bring out his wife and children to Boonesborough, was con- cerned to have them safely lodged, and again urged his men, as he had often done before, to complete their little log shelter in the hollow. This time he was successful, and the cabins which, though they required no great
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attention, had been so long neglected, were easily finished.' They seem never to have been used except for residence and domestic purposes.
It was about this time, too, that reports of Dunmore's efforts to inflame the Indians began to reach and arouse Boonesborough, and it is probable that Henderson and Boone seized the chance to impel the self-confident woodsmen to further defensive exertions, for the "big fort" on the rise overlooking the Lick was then almost but not entirely completed, much to the satisfaction of the resident proprietors, who had been exceedingly uneasy over their unprotected condition.2 This was the
' It is the usual thing for writers of Western history to confuse these little defensive cabins commenced in "the hollow" on the Ist of April with the fort begun by Henderson on the the 22d of the same month, though they were so different in location and importance. Even so late a writer as Roosevelt makes the two defenses identical, as Marshall did. The mistake dates from 1784, when Filson wrote his valuable but high- flown account of Boone, in which he fails to distinguish between the two, and makes the plain old hunter speak of the cabins begun April Ist as " works," and has him "busily employed " on them until the 14th of June. Filson wrote nine years after the event. Henderson, in his journal and in his letters written on the ground, says the log affair in the hollow was " a small fort," and that it was persistently neglected in spite of repeated efforts of both himself and Boone to get the men to finish it. The large fort completed later on was the only one that could aspire to such a title as "works," or that men would be "busily employed " on for weeks. Writers followed Filson without investigation, and hence the perpetuation of the error. (See Boone's Narrative, Henderson's letter of June 12, 1775, William Cocke, etc.)
2 Henderson's letter of June 12, 1775, Appendix X, and letter of July 18, 1775, to the Company. (See Frankfort Commonwealth, May 26, 1840.)
Ky. RIVER
REAR
1
2
3
9
2
14
Rich. Henderson,
1
2
2
14 2
2 2
4.
9
FRONT
PLAN OF FORT BOONESBOROUGH.
From the Original in the Handwriting of Richard Henderson. Copied by James Hall. Henderson's Autograph from Original in possession of Wisconsin Historical Library.
1 -Henderson's Cabin. 2-Stockades. 3-Henderson's Kitchen. 4-Luttrell's Cabin. 5-His Kitchen. 9-Gates 14-Cabins for Hart and Williams, Unnumbered Spaces-Cabins.
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only real fortification Boonesborough ever had, and the only one that figured in the Revolution. Fortunately, a plan of this celebrated station, drawn by Judge Henderson himself, was preserved,' and other information about it from some of its actual defenders is still extant. In the summer of 1775 it consisted of twenty-six one-story log cabins and four block-houses, arranged after the usual pioneer style, in a hollow square estimated as two hundred and sixty feet long and one hundred and eighty feet broad.2 The block-houses, with their projecting second stories, formed the angles or bastions of the fort, and the roofs of the cabins, which were shed-shaped, sloped inwardly. Spaces between the block-houses and the cabins nearest them were intended to be stockaded, but as pickets were the least needed features of the fort in time of peace, it is probable that these were the parts neglected at this time, which afterward had to be supplied to "finish the fort."3 Both cabins and stockades were provided with little portholes for the rifles. The back of the station, so to speak, or back row of cabins comprising one of its longest sides, was substantially parallel with the river,4 though one of the angles on the river was nearer the bank than the other,
1 Copied by James Hall in 1835.
2 Estimated by Hall from original documents.
3 John Floyd's letter of July 21, 1776.
4 Henderson and Draper manuscripts.
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while the front commanded the open space in the hollow below the fort, in which were the lick and the two springs. There were two gates - generally forgotten except in time of danger -one in the front and the other in the back wall facing the river. At Boonesborough, as at nearly all the pioneer stations in Kentucky, no provision whatever was made to insure a supply of drinking-water inside the stockade, plain as was the danger of the garrison being cut off from the springs in case of siege. All the cabins of the fort were not continuously occupied, for some of the settlers lived on their variously-located lands nearby, and some even had farms across the river ; but the cabins were often filled by newly - arrived immigrants, and all were crowded to overflowing whenever an Indian alarm was given. Then all the settlers in the neighborhood rushed in. It is certain, however, that in 1775 Judge Hen- derson lived in the block-house in the angle nearest the river ; that he used for his kitchen the nearest cabin to him in the back row, and that old Dan, his negro cook, presided over it.1 Colonel Nat. Hart's quar- ters were nominally in the other angle near the river, but really with Colonel Callaway, it is believed, in one of the cabins in the hollow,? when not at his White Oak clear-
" Diagram of the fort and Draper manuscripts.
2 Diagram of the fort and Nat. Hart, junior's, notes.
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ing, which he had already made about a mile above the fort. Luttrell's house was in the corner to the right of the front gate, and the angle that overlooked the lick was subsequently inhabited by John Williams, the Com- pany's Agent. The cabins of Floyd and others have not been located, but "the store " is supposed to have formed part of the end of the station adjoining "the block-house," as Judge Henderson's rough residence was curiously called, considering that there were three other block-houses.
Toward the middle of June Captain Cocke left Boones- borough for Black's Fort ( Abingdon ), to which his wife had returned, under the impression from his long absence that he was dead. On the way -- following a gentle habit that had been observed in most of the colonies - he scalped an Indian' who had been killed and overlooked by some immigrants after the savage and his party had attacked them in Powell's Valley. It was not long after this that he commenced a career that became distin- guished.2
On the 13th of June, after superintending the work on the fort, Boone set out for his family, which was still
1 Henderson and Luttrell. (See Frankfort Commonwealth, May 26, 1840.)
2 He figured gallantly the very next summer as an officer in the victory over the Cherokees at Long Island of the Holston, and ultimately became one of the first United States Senators from Tennessee. He died August 22, 1828, at Columbus, Mississippi, and was there buried.
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at Snoddy's Station,' the stockaded home of his comrade, John Snoddy, located on the margin of the Clinch River, on the site of the present town of Castlewood, Russell County, Virginia. His old neighbor, Richard Callaway, went along with him for a like purpose, his family, too, being in a frontier fort of Virginia at this time.2 They had the company, as far as Powell's Valley, of Thomas Hart, who was en route to North Carolina. With Boone was a detail of men engaged to bring back the salt 3 which had been left behind at Martin's cabin by Hender- son when the wagons were abandoned there. When the party set out Boonesborough was on the eve of a salt famine, which was in full force by the middle of the succeeding month, increasing the scarcity of provisions through the extreme difficulty of preserving wild meat, and especially big game, which now had to be brought
' The exact location of Boone's family "on Clinch" at this period is now given for the first time, thanks to Judge W. B. Wood, of Bristol, Virginia, who obtained the information from T. W. Carter, of Scott County, Virginia, a descendant of Samuel Porter, who was with Boone in 1773 when driven back by the Indians from Wallen's Gap. (See Appendix.) Castlewood has a population of about five hundred, and the Clinch Valley Division of the Norfolk & Western Railroad runs through the place.
2 Callaway evidently moved from Virginia to the Yadkin region of North Carolina after the French and Indian War, but returned to Virginia just before the Revolution.
3 The salt had, doubtless, been originally secured from the primitive works then existing on the North Fork of the Holston, at the place now known as Saltville, Smyth County, Virginia.
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in from quite a distance through the heat. The men, after securing the salt, evidently waited in Powell's Valley for Boone to arrive there on his return from Snoddy's, for Henderson dolefully says, in his letter of July 18th : "Our salt is exhausted, and the men who went with Colonel Boone for that article have not returned, and until he comes the devil could not drive the others this way." Tradition says that before the party got back the distressed settlers exerted themselves to the utmost to make salt from the sulphur water in the hollow, but the results were too small to encourage any repetition of the experiment. Henderson and Luttrell were both anxious to make a visit to North Carolina, where pressing bus- iness demanded their presence, but delayed their start until assured that Boone was well advanced on his return trip and would soon be back. They seem to have left about the latter part of August. Henderson hardly dreamed when he set out from the proprietary capital that fateful circumstances would make his absence from it one of years, nor did Luttrell imagine that he would see it no more forever.' When Boone started back to
+ He was ultimately swept into the Revolution, was active against the Tories, and met death at their hands. He was shot through the body at Cane Creek, North Carolina, September 14, 1781. in an engagement with the notorious David Fanning, the Tory partisan leader, and died the fol- lowing day. (Draper.) Colonel Luttrell was a native of Westmoreland County, Virginia. He left a widow, but no children.
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Kentucky he was joined, not only by the salt men, but by quite a number of immigrants, including several fam- ilies from North Carolina, that of the reckless Hugh McGary being one, who were bound for Harrod's Sta- tion. When these families left the company at "the hazel patch,"1 in the present Laurel County, Kentucky, for their new home, about thirty persons were still left in Boone's party, which, with its cattle and dogs, its pack- horses loaded with the precious salt, provisions, and house- hold "traps," arrived on the 8th of September at delighted and excited Boonesborough, which turned out en masse to welcome it. Boone's was the only family 2 in the party, and his wife and grown daughter, Jemima, were not only the first white women to set foot upon the mar- gin of the picturesque Kentucky, 3 but they remained for nearly three weeks the only women there. The Boones immediately occupied a cabin in the hollow, but soon exchanged it for better quarters in "the big fort," and the influence of sunbonnets, though there was but a solitary couple of them, was soon seen. The men, and
1 Hazel Patch is eight miles north of London, Kentucky.
2 This party is said to have consisted of Boone, his wife and children, and twenty-one men, and as-according to Peck - Boone had eight chil- dren, not including the son killed two years before at Wallen's Gap, the above estimate is substantially correct.
3 Boone to Filson. The other families mentioned reached their desti- nation the same day the Boones arrived at theirs, but Harrodsburg is on Salt River, which runs within a mile of the town.
SITE OF FORT BOONESBOROUGH.
(Marked by Corn Stacks.) As seen from the opposite side of the River in 1900
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especially the younger ones, immediately improved in appearance, for there was a sudden craze for shaving and hair-cutting. An ash-hopper, soap kettle, and clothes line were set up. Hickory brooms and home-made wash-
boards multiplied. The sound of the spinning-wheel was heard in the land, and an occasional sight could be had of a little looking-glass, a patch-work quilt, knitting- needles, and a turkey-tail fan. Cut off entirely from the companionship of females of their own race, great was the relief of Mrs. Boone and Miss Jemima when on the 26th of the month ( September ) Colonel Callaway returned with his family and a party which included William Pogue and Barney Stagner and their families, adding three matrons and several young women to the social life of the station. Pogue, being "an ingenius contriver," blessed the settle- ment by making piggins and noggins, washtubs and churns, and provisions were more plentiful now that there was salt to preserve the game, and the fields for the first time brought forth their increase. Times were better at Boonesborough.
The Transylvania Legislature did not convene at Boonesborough this September according to adjournment. The spread of revolutionary sentiments was not confined to the seaboard, and before the summer of 1775 had ended the idea of a proprietary government had become
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