USA > Kentucky > Madison County > Boonesborough > Boonesborough; its founding, pioneer struggles, Indian experiences, Transylvania days, and revolutionary annals; > Part 7
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1 Draper.
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were set to work on a countermine' or trench which would expose and cut off the tunnel of the enemy, and which would require only a few men to balk a whole subterranean force. This countermine, which was about three feet wide and of considerable depth, and which cost days of excessive labor, was commenced inside of Hen- derson's kitchen, and extended up the river through several other cabins that helped to form the back wall of the station. A spell of cloudy, drizzly weather which set in about this time and reduced the fierce September heat was especially grateful to the weary diggers, while the whole garrison rejoiced that it lessened the demands on the fast-diminishing supply of water.
. Every morning at daybreak both sides resumed their efforts to pick off the unwary. In this petty warfare the pioneers took by far the most careful part in the effort to save precious ammunition ; 2 but desultory as the firing was, and at long range, no day went by without one side or the other adding its little quota to the list of either killed or wounded. A notable shot, attributed of course to Daniel Boone, and fired probably from the "battery," killed Pompey,3 the only negro man, as afore-
I Trabue, McAfee, and W. B. Smith.
2 The Indians, according to Boone, wasted one hundred and twenty-five pounds of bullets, which were afterward picked up about the fort.
3 Peck.
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said, known to have been with the savages. He was sheltered by a tree, from which he was trying to pick off imprudent settlers, when he exposed himself for an instant, and that instant was a fatal one to him. Once, indeed, the pioneers ambitiously ventured beyond the use ofgthe rifle, and prompted, it is said, by Colonel Callaway, emulated the artillery of another era by making a wooden cannon,' which was banded with such strap iron as the station afforded, and loaded with musket balls. Its first shot was directed against a knot of Indians who, thinking they were fully protected, both by distance and location, amused themselves by yelling taunts and curses at the garrison. With one quick yell the savages vanished, but whether they sustained any loss is now unknown. The gun was a terror to them while it lasted, but unfortunately the next time it was used it went to pieces, and the Indians, suspecting what had happened, repeatedly dared the disgusted artillerymen, from a safe distance, to "shoot the big gun again."
On the night of Sunday, the thirteenth of the month, the seventh night after the arrival of the enemy, the settlers had the most frightful experience of the siege, for suddenly, when such a movement was entirely unsus- pected, the Indians succeeded in hurling lighted torches
I Trabue.
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Boonesborough
against a side of the stockade, and in lodging blazing arrows on the roofs of the cabins in that quarter,' and then to prevent the extinguishment of the fiery implements, swept the locality with bullets. As both torches and arrows were wrapped with flax stolen from an outside cabin, and with the inner oily fiber of the shell-bark hickory, they burned rapidly and fiercely. The garrison was terrorized, for the water-supply was about exhausted. The arrows could be battled with, but only with inflamma- ble brooms and while exposed to savage rifles, but the torches blazed on. The fort seemed doomed, and for a few terrible moments all was black despair within it, when directly the whole watching, heart-sick settlement saw with unspeakable relief that the arrows and torches were dying out, that the cabins were too damp after the recent drizzles to be ignited by them, and that the danger of a conflagration was over. Little was said, but the thanks- giving was deep and fervent. Boonesborough had escaped by the skin of its teeth.
In the meanwhile the mining and countermining con- tinued, and as the siege dragged on the suffering of the settlers and the live stock from thirst was great and would have been unbearable but for timely showers that enabled the garrison to gather supplies of water from the I McAfee and Bradford.
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cabin roofs.' Strange to say, the well, for some reason, seems never to have been completed. While digging his trench, Boone, to discourage the enemy by plain evidence of a countermine, contrived to have much of the excavated dirt hoisted up and thrown over the stockade, but the Indians, with a persistency in manual labor that was remarkable if not unexampled in their history, continued their underground approach. It was a curious siege, and not less curious from some of the courtesies that each side indulged in. "What are you red rascals doing down there?" an old hunter would yell in Shawanese from the "battery" to the unseen Indians on the river bank below. "Digging !" would be the return yell. "Blow you all to devil soon ; what you do ?" "Oh !" would be the cheerful reply, "we are digging to meet you, and intend to bury five hundred of you."3 The banter was rough, but seems not to have been at all hostile ; at the same time the beleaguered riflemen conscientiously fired at every Indian who exposed himself in going to and from the tunnel and the camp. In fact, it was in this way that the besiegers suffered the most.
By the fifteenth of the month the savages had pushed their mine so close to the fort that the guards in the
1 McAfee.
2 Kenton to James.
3 Trabue's Memoir.
14
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station trench could hear the sound of their implements, 1 and the settlers felt that the crisis was at hand. The outlook was black indeed. It was raining, and the pent-up people could slake their thirst, but they were worn out by labor, the heat, and incessant watching and by privations, for the long-drawn-out provisions were about exhausted, and though some of the miserably reduced live stock remained, the pioneers had already reached the starvation point. There were dissensions among the principal officers of the garrison,' possibly over conflicting claims to the leadership. Colonel Callaway was the ranking officer; Major W. B. Smith, however, according to what is apparently his own statement,ª had been appointed commandant of the fort by Clark after the capture of Boone at the Blue Licks, while the actual leadership during the siege seems, by common consent of the settlers, to have fallen to Captain Daniel Boone from his special gifts and experience in Indian ways and warfare. The methods of Boone at this time were strongly disapproved by the venerable Callaway, but all were united in the face of the enemy, and especially now when the fate of Boonesborough was trembling in the balance. All day long the rain poured down in tor- rents upon ground already deeply soaked, and all day
* Trabue.
2 Hunt's Review, Volume III.
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long the harassed and weary little garrison waited to meet, as best they could, the unknown event which they feared would herald the sudden onrush of the enemy. But the long and gloomy day was uneventful, ending in a night that wrought the apprehensions of all up to the highest pitch, for the darkness was so thick that the keenest watchers had no chance, except the poor one the flashes of lightning gave, to detect an advance of the enemy above the ground, while the tumult of the pouring rain and wind - swept forests drowned all other sounds and favored every movement of the mining force. Would the enemy blow up the postern gate and seek to capture the fort by a rush from the outside, or would they pen- etrate to the countermine and try that way to flood the interior of the station with warriors, or was all the mining a mere trick to cover a deeper and more deadly plan ? Miserably uncertain and terribly anxious, and only hoping now for the Holston militia, with that "hope deferred " which "maketh the heart sick," the men, women, and boys of Boonesborough watched and waited, with many a prayer, through the long, lagging hours for the quick and bloody incident that would signalize the attack. Even in this, the season of their greatest extremity, there was no thought of surrender. Encompassed overwhelmingly by the savage power of England, cut off from the world in
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the depths of a solitude vast and obscure, forgotten by the overburdened Continental Congress, unaided by hard- pressed Virginia, worn out by privations and sorely tempted, the feeble little handful of "rebels" at Boones- borough were true to the last to the principles of the Revolution, and battled as valiantly and suffered as nobly for freedom and for country as did the men of Bunker Hill or the shivering heroes of Valley Forge.
The weary night dragged to an end at last, the rain ceased, and the vigilant settlers were surprised to discover that no sounds whatever came from the mysterious mine, that no dreaded disaster of any kind had happened, and the bright and beautiful Wednesday of September' the 16th, 1778, found all Boonesborough hopeful again and devoutly thankful but immeasurably bewildered. Why was the big tunnel so strangely silent, and why all that commo- tion on the river trace? Directly the blessed truth dawned upon them that the whole savage army was in full but leisurely retreat, but not till high noon, when wary scouts returned with the glad tidings that the enemy was cer- tainly gone and no new trick was being practiced, did they throw open the gates, release the starving, half-mad cattle, give way to rejoicing, and indulge in the luxury of a rest. The wet weather had done more to balk the Indians than rifles or wooden walls. The rain had not
' See note on page 76 and Bowman's letter, which gives length of siege.
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Boonesborough
only strengthened the thirsty garrison and saved the fort from destruction by fire, but, as the settlers soon dis- covered, it had caused such quantities of the saturated earth to cave in and obstruct the mine as to effectually ruin it, and the fickle savages, who never willingly engaged at all at any manual labor, had abandoned the siege in inexpressible disgust. It is probable from the collection of huge torches and other inflammable articles that the Indians had prepared and abandoned, that they intended to emerge from the mine just outside the back wall of the station and burn a passage through it for the entrance of their army.2 It goes without saying that no pursuit of the savages was possible by a garrison so feeble, so much exhausted, and whose necessities were so great. Though closely invested for nine days and nights, such was the protection afforded by the simple but effective defenses of Boonesborough that its garrison had only two killed and four wounded, while the enemy had "thirty- seven killed and a great many wounded."3 The dead
" Boone was under the impression that it was the discovery of the countermine that caused the Indians to raise the siege. That certainly discouraged them, but it is plain from the statement of "Drewyer" (Douiller) to Kenton at Detroit that the caving in of the tunnel was the crushing blow to the Indians.
2 Pioneer statements in Draper manuscript. (See Judge James' Notes. )
3 We give the figures of Boone himself, who was singularly calm and unprejudiced. Another " eye-witness " of the siege says that two hundred Indians were killed, and no telling how many more were wounded. Not a few of the statements of the pioneers are fanciful, conflicting, and
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Boonesborough
settlers were, of necessity, buried inside the stockade. The Indians, as usual, hid away their slain and obliterated every sign that might betray their resting-places. It is said that the only body they did not remove was that of the negro already alluded to." They had no use for negroes except as slaves, and always regarded them with lofty and contemptuous indifference. The most serious damage inflicted outside of the station was in the loss of cattle which the settlers failed to secure during the truce, and which furnished the fresh meat supply of the savages.
And so ended the last investment that Boonesborough was to experience, one which Boone characterized as " a dreadful siege which threatened death in every form," one of the longest that the unstable and impatient Indians ever attempted, and one of the most curious of the military episodes of the American Revolution. If DeQuindre was in earnest, why was no attempt made by such a force to scale the stockade? Why was the work of many days devoted to a mine, when scaling- ladders for a ten-foot wall could have been made of
exaggerated, especially those made in old age, and must be estimated accordingly. The British story that the besiegers, exposed as they fre- quently were, had only two killed and three wounded (see Haldimand manuscript) sounds like some of the above-mentioned inflated statements. I Peck.
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Boonesborough
young saplings and deer or cattle thongs in one after- noon? How much were the French-Canadian colleagues of the Indians influenced in the conduct of this siege by that sympathy for the Americans which was then so strong in Hamilton's department ? The records of the time afford no answer. Neither of the principal leaders of the Indians long survived this famous siege. Black Fish, as we will see, closed his career the following May. DeQuindre barely survived the Revolutionary struggle, dying in the spring of 1784, at the age of forty-one. He was a trusted adherent of the British to the end of the war. 1
The backs of the besieging Indians were hardly turned on Boonesborough before Montgomery and the young dare-devil "Butler" (Kenton) popped into it, their horse- stealing expedition almost forgotten after their long wait- ing spell in the rear of the savage army. But Kenton
I Dagniaux DeQuindre, as he signed himself, was a son of Colonel Louis C. DeQuindre, and was born in Montreal, Canada, in 1743. He was married, and his son Antoine and other descendants lived in Detroit. He was a Lieutenant in the Indian Department at Detroit, and was employed mainly among the Lake tribes. He died April 18, 1784, and was buried in the graveyard of the parish of Saint Anne. See Tanguay, records of Saiut Anne, and Haldimand manuscript. We are indebted to the accomplished investigator, C. M. Burton, Esquire, of Detroit, for data and for the copy of DeQuindre's autograph used in this publication, and which was taken from an original written only a few months before the Boonesborough siege.
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was gone again in a few days-gone to get captured- and did not see the fort again until the next summer. He was fortunate enough to be purchased from the Indians by Peter Douiller, who did not let bad luck at Boonesborough keep him from being kind to the prisoner from "Kentuck."
A few days after the siege the news came to Boones- borough that the Holston company of eighty men, which had been looked for with such intense anxiety, was at last approaching, and a runner met it at Rockcastle River and conducted it to the station.' The cause of its heart-sickening delay is not of record. The men remained in Kentucky several weeks, and doubtless had something to do with hastening the final departure of the Indian force, which did not leave the country until its scattered detachments had ravaged and pillaged about the other stations. 2
A sad echo of the siege shows that poor human nature is about the same in the rough log fort as in the luxurious palace. Captain Boone just had time to get fairly rested from his exhaustive service when he had a
1 Carr's Narrative in " Indian Battles," and Colonel John Bowman.
2 Bowman's letter to Clark. It seems probable that Black Fish's war- riors did not recross the Ohio until about the last of September, 1778, as Hamilton does not mention DeQuindre's return until October 14th of that year. (See Haldimand manuscript.)
PRESENT APPEARANCE OF SYCAMORE HOLLOW, BOONESBOROUGH,
When the Springs, the Lick, and the Famous Trees were located. Here the First Huts were erected, the Transylvania Legislature met, the First Sermon in Kentucky was delivered, and the Treaty made with the Indians and British.
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Boonesborough
summons served on him to attend a court-martial' at Logan's Station, at which Colonel Callaway and, appar- ently, Captain Ben Logan charged him with treasonable attempts to aid the British-in surrendering the salt- makers, in undertaking the Paint Lick expedition, and in favoring the peace negotiations at Boonesborough. Boone showed to the entire satisfaction of the court that all the acts mentioned were patriotic, and that his con- duct at both the salt-camp and the treaty conference were deceptions and stratagems necessitated by the emergencies of war, and practiced solely for the advan- tage of the settlers and in defense of the fort. He was not only completely exonerated by the court, but his conduct was further endorsed, for shortly after he was commissioned a Major. A competent authority," who thoroughly investigated this matter, attributes the charges to "some unfounded prejudice." Boone now seized the opportunity, while no unusual danger threatened the set- tlements and while the weather was fine, to start back to North Carolina for his family. He left Boonesbor-
1 Manuscript Narrative of Daniel Trabue, who was present at the trial, and who is the only authority for the statement. Trabue was a native of Virginia, and a man of intelligence and character. He came to Kentucky in the spring of 1778, and first settled at Logan's Station, but afterward was a well-known resident of Adair County, Kentucky, where he died in 1840 at the age of eighty. His Narrative was written in 1827. 2 The late Lyman C. Draper.
15
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Boonesborough
ough early in October, expecting soon to return, but the train of sorrows and misfortunes that had already begun to sadden his life greatly delayed him. He seems to have made a short business trip to Kentucky the next year, but it is certain that he did not come back to stay until the second summer after the siege.
Late this fall there came to the settlement a reminder of its so-called Colonial days in the shape of news that the General Assembly had again, and this time formally and definitely, declared void the Henderson purchases from the Cherokees,' and also in compensation for its efforts and expense in the settlement of the same had granted to the Company an extensive tract of land on the waters of the Ohio and Green rivers in the County of Kentucky.2 But to the settlers, so tried and troubled, the formal announcement of the dissolution of even so grand a scheme as that of Transylvania, long practically accomplished anyhow, caused no sensation.
After this last siege Boonesborough but slowly recu- perated. Never in any one season yet had the Indians inflicted so much damage on the Kentucky settlements 3 as in 1778. It was the hardest year Boonesborough had experienced.
1 See Resolutions, Appendix Z.
2 See Act, Appendix I.
3 Bowman's letter.
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But the battle-scarred station was now to be a little shielded from the savage storm. Clark's wonderful march, which resulted, on the 24th of February, 1779, in the surrender of the astonished Hamilton and the recapture of Vincennes, inspired immigration anew, and before the spring of that year was over settlers had planted themselves once more on the north side of the Kentucky River, and block-houses and stockaded cabins had arisen between Boonesborough and the Indian coun- try beyond the Ohio. Patterson and his men, who estab- lished Lexington, went from Harrodsburg, but the found- ers of Bryan's Station, the company under John Grant and William Ellis, who settled Grant's Station, and the bands for Strode's, Martin's, and Ruddle's all seem to have gone by way of Boonesborough. It was about this time, too, that Squire Boone, who had recovered from the wound in his shoulder, set out with a little company and established his station on Clear Creek, near the present town of Shelbyville. Urged by their necessities and encouraged by a prospect of at least temporary immu- nity from invasion, the settlers about Boonesborough made unusual efforts to clear and cultivate the land, devoting by far the greatest part of it to corn. The crops, as often before, were in many cases made in com- mon by companies organized for the purpose. A con-
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tract was signed, directors elected, and the members appeared every morning at the sound of a conch or beat of a drum, some to work in the field and others to guard those who did work. A member failing to comply with the contract forfeited his claim to the crop. A list of the members of one of these companies is preserved.1
If Boonesborough had a regular commandant at this time it was probably Captain John Holder, who had been one of its leading spirits since early in 1776, when he came in from Stafford County, Virginia. He certainly commanded the company which constituted Boones- borough's quota this year (1779) to the unfortunate expedition of Colonel John Bowman against the Shawa- nese. Fortunately the roll of his company is still extant.2 Holder's men left Boonesborough about the middle of May3 and camped en route at Lexington, then only a block-house six weeks old.4 They were destined to feel again the quality of their persistent foeman, Black Fish,
* The list includes Benjamin White, Jesse Peake, James Anthony, Nathaniel Hart, John Cartwright, Robert Cartwright, George Maddern, Nicholas Anderson, John Harper, Peter Harper, William Johnson, Whitson George, Edward Hall, William Hall, John Kelley, Edward Williams, and Jesse Oldham. (U. S. Hist. Register.)
2 See Appendix II.
3 That Marshall and other early historians plainly err in giving the month as July is shown by Captain Henry Bird's letter of June 9, 1779, in Haldimand manuscript, and by depositions of members of the expedition. 4 Located on southwest corner of Main and Mill streets. Butler, note, page 101, and statements of its founders to William Leavy.
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who smote the outnumbered Kentuckians hip and thigh. But it was the old chief's last campaign. He was badly wounded, and, though successful, surrendered to get the benefit of a white surgeon, which, owing to the confusion and exigencies of the retreat, he failed to receive, causing the wound to prove fatal. After the manner of his people, he gloried that he was allowed to yield up his soul to the Great Spirit in a time of victory.
Education was not forgotten even in these perilous days, and while the pioneers were fighting the Shawanese, pioneer children were at their lessons in a log cabin of Boonesborough fort, where one of the earliest schools of the troubled wilderness was conducted by Joseph Doni- phan.2 The young teacher had come out only a few months before from Stafford County, Virginia, from whence other Boonesborough settlers had migrated, so that he felt at home. He had an average attendance of seven- teen pupils during this summer. One of the McAfees, who had now returned to Kentucky, seems also to have taught in Boonesborough a while this season before the erection of their permanent station. 3
1 Bradford.
2 This pioneer teacher died in 1813. He was the father of Colonel A. W. Doniphan, who made the famous march to Chihuahua during the Mexican War.
3 McAfee's Station was established in November, 1779.
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Boonesborough
The stream of immigrants that began to pour into the country in the spring of 1779 steadily increased, and Boonesborough became, for a while at least, the busiest post in Virginia's remotest county. It was a stopping- place not only of constantly arriving companies of settlers, traders, and land speculators, who came in with their long trains of loaded pack- horses over the Wilderness Road, but of many such as returned after coming by water, going back from necessity by the land route, as a struggle against the current of the Ohio in the "dug- outs " and other rude floating craft of the day was not to be thought of. The old fort was too small to accommo- date the newcomers, a municipal government was needed, immigrants clamored for a better way of crossing the river than the risky and uncertain one of fording, which often occasioned long and expensive delays, and the inhabitants, strengthened and encouraged, proceeded to enlarge their borders, to lay off additional lots, to name contemplated streets, and to petition the Virginia Assem- bly to duly incorporate the place and grant it a ferry. The petition was complied with in October, when the Assembly passed "An Act for establishing the town of Boonsborough in the County of Kentuckey,"' and one is
Henning's Statutes at Large, Volume X, page 134. See Appendix III. Several of the names in the Act are doubtless improperly spelt - " Boons- borough " certainly is.
(From the Collins Drawing.)
Showing Plan Adopted During the Revolution.
THE TOWN OF BOONESBOROUGH IN 1787.
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5
10
7
CO
03
13
107
17
20
BURYING GHOUND
(09
25
43
8
29
32
114
37
'34
50
51
42
112
BOONES ROAD .
74
49
56
35
59
66
63
88
68
70
73
76
85
KENTUCKYER.
64
45
SNOWNOS SNOWNÃO
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