USA > Kentucky > Historical sketches of Kentucky : embracing its history, antiquities, and natural curiosities, geographical, statistical, and geological descriptions with anecdotes of pioneer life, and more than one hundred biographical sketches of distinguished pioneers, soldiers, statesmen, jurists, lawyers, divines, etc. > Part 26
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Accordingly. on the 25th of September, 1771, having disposed of all his prop- erty, except that which he intended to carry with him to his new home, Boone and his family took leave of their friends, and commenced their journey west. In Powell's valley, being joined by five more families and forty men, well arnird, they proceeded towards their destination with confidence; but when near wie Cumberland mountains, they were attacked by a large party of Indians. These. after a severe engagement. were beaten off and compelled to retreat ; not, 10+- ever, until the whites had sustained a loss of six men in killed and wousted. Among the killed, was Boone's eldest son. This foretaste of the dangers word awaited them in the wilderness they were about to explore, so discourage il. emigrants, that they immediately retreated to the settlements on Chuch rier. a distance of forty miles from the scene of action. Here they remained mu! !. During this interval. Boone was employed by Governor Dummore, of Virgins, to conduct a party of surveyors through the wilderness, to the falls of the toy, a distance of eight hundred miles. Of the incidents attending this espe den. We have no account whatever. After his return, he was placed by Dunas le He command of three fronter stations, or garrisons, and engaged in severa alors with the Indians. At about the same period, he also, at the solicitatilla vi av- erat gentlemen of North Carolina, attended a treaty with the Cherokees, known as the treaty of Wataga, for the purchase of the lands south of the Kentucky
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river. It was in connection with this land purchase, and under the auspices of Colonel Richard Henderson, that Boone's second expedition to Kentucky was made. His business was to mark out a road for the pack horses and waggons of Henderson's party. Leaving his family on Clinch river, he set out upou this hazardous undertaking at the head of a few men, in the early part of the year 1775, and arrived, without any adventure worthy of note, on the 22nd of March, in the same year, at a point within fifteen miles of the spot where Boonesborough was afterwards built. Here they were attacked by Indians, and it was not until after a severe contest, and loss on the part of the whites of four men in killed and wounded, that they were repulsed. The attack was renewed the next day, and the whites sustained a loss of five more of their companions. On the first of April, they reached the southern bank of the Kentucky river, and began to build a fort, afterwards known as Boonesborough. On the 4th, they were again at- tacked by the Indians, and lost another man ; but, notwithstanding the dangers to which they were continually exposed, the work was prosecuted with indefat- igable diligence, and on the 1 1th of the month finally completed. Boone instantly returned to Clinch river for his family, determined to remove them to this new and remote settlement at all hazards. This was accordingly effected as soon as circumstances would permit. From this time, the little garrison was exposed to incessant assaults from the Indians, who appeared to be perfectly infuriated at the encroachments of the whites, and the formation of settlements in the midst of their old hunting grounds ; and the lives of the emigrants were passed in a con- tinued succession of the most appalling perils, which nothing but unquailing courage and indomitable firmness could have enabled them to encounter. They did, however, breast this awful tempest of war, and bravely, and successfully, and in defiance of all probability, the small colony continued steadily to increase and flourish, until the thunder of barbarian hostilities rolled gradually away to the north, and finally died in low mutterings on the frontiers of Ohio. Indi- ana, and Illinois. The summary nature of this sketch will not admit of more than a bare enumeration of the principal events in which Boone figured, in these exciting times, during which he stood the center figure, towering like a colossus amid that hardy band of pioneers, who opposed their breasts to the shock of that dreadful death struggle, which gave a yet more terrible significance, and a still more crimson hue, to the history of the old dark and bloody ground.
In July, 1776, the people at the Fort were thrown into the greatest agitation and alarm, by an incident characteristic of the times, and which singularly illus- trates the habitual peril which environed the inhabitants. Two young ladies, a Miss Boone and a Miss Calloway, were amusing themselves in the neighborhood of the fort, when a concealed party of Indians suddenly rushed from the sur- rounding coverts and carried them away captives. The screams of the terrified girls instantly aroused the inmates of the garrison: but the men being generally dispersed in their usual avocations, Boune hastily pursued with a small party of only eight men. The little party, after marching hard during the night, came up with the Indians early in the next day, the pursuit having been conducted with such silence and celerity that the savages were taken entirely by surprise. and having no preparations for defence, they were routed ahnost instantly, and without ditheulty. The young girls were restored to their gratified parents without having sustained the slightest injury or any inconvenience beyond the fatigue of the march and a dreadful fright. The Indians lost two men. while Boone's party was uninjured.
From this time until the 15th of April, the garrison was constantly harassed by flying parties of savages. They were kept in continual anxiety and aların ; and the most ordinary duties could only be performed at the risk of their lives. " While plowing their corn, they were way-laid and shot; while hunting, they were pursued and fired upon ; and sometimes a solitary Indian would creep np near the fort during the night, and fire upon the first of the garrison who appeared in the morning." On the 15th of April, a large body of Indians invested the fort, hoping to crush the settlement at a single blow ; but, destitute as they were of sealing ladders, and all the proper means of reduemg fortified places, they could only annoy the garrison, and destroy the property ; and being more exposed than the whites, soon retired precipitately. On the 4th of July following, they again appearal with a force of two hundred warriors, and were repulsed with
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DANIEL BOONE.
loss. A short period of tranquility was now allowed to the harassed and dia- tressed garrison ; but this was soon followed by the most severe calomnie p.it had yet befallen the infant settlement. This was the capture of Best twenty-seven of his men in the month of January 1778, at the Blue Lichs, whatger he had gone to make salt for the garrison. He was carried to the old town . + Chillicothe, in the present state of Ohio, where he remained a prisoner with the Indians until the 16th of the following June, when he contrived to make Inis escape, and returned to Boonsborough.
During this period, Boone kept no journal, and we are therefore uninformed! at to any of the particular incidents which occurred during his captivity. We only know, generally, that, by his equanimity, his patience, his seeming cheerful sub- mission to the fortune which had made him a captive, and his remarkable skill and expertness as a woodsman, he succeeded in powerfully exciting the admiration and conciliating the good will of his captors. In March, 1978, he accompanied the Indians on a visit to Detroit, where Governor Hamilton offered one hundred pounds for his ransom. but so strong was the affection of the Indians for their prisoner, that it was unhesitatingly refused. Several English gentlemen, touched with sympathy for his misfortunes, made pressing offers of money and other articles, but Boone steadily refused to receive benefits which he could neves return.
On his return from Detroit. he observed that large numbers of warriors had as- sembled. painted and equipped for an expedition against Boonsborough, and his anxiety became so great that he determined to effect his escape at every hazard. During the whole of this agitating period. however, he permitted no symptom of anxiety to escape; but continued to hunt and shoot with the Indians as usual, until the morning of the 16th of June, when, making an early start. he left Chil. licothe, and shaped his course for Boonsborough. This journey, exceeding a distance of one hundred and fifty miles, he performed in four days, during which he ate only one meal. He was received at the garrison like one risen from the dead. His family supposing him killed, had returned to North Carolina ; and his men, apprehending no danger, had permitted the defences of the fort to fall to decay. The danger was imminent; the enemy were hourly expected, and the fort was in no condition to receive them. Not a moment was to be lost : the gar- rison worked night and day, and by indefatigable diligence, everything was made ready within ten days after his arrival, for the approach of the enemy. At this time one of his companions arrived from Chillicothe, and reported that his escape had determined the Indians to delay the invasion for three weeks. The attack was delayed so long that Boone, in his turn, resolved to invade the Indian coun- try ; and accordingly, at the head of a select company of nineteen men. he marched against the town of Paint Creek, on the Scioto, within four miles of which point he arrived without discovery. Here he encountered a party of thirty warriors, on their march to join the grand army in its expedition against Boons- borough. This party he attacked and routed without loss or injury to himself: and, ascertaining that the main body of the Indians were on their march to Boonsborongh, he retraced his steps for that place with all possible expedition. He passed the Indians on the 6th day of their march, and on the 7th reached the fort. The next day the Indians appeared in great force, conducted by Canadian officers well skilled in all the arts of modern warfare. The British colors were displayed and the fort summoned to surrender. Boone requested two days 1of consideration, which was granted. At the expiration of this period, haavtiz gathered in their cattle and horses, and made every preparation for a vigorous .- sistance, an answer was returned that the fort would be defended to the list. 1
proposition was then made to treat, and Boone and eight of the girlsen, to : the British and Indian officers, on the plain in front of the fort. Here. after tiny had went through the farce of pretending to treat, an effort was made to delny the Kentuckians as prisoners. This was frustrated by the vigilance and activity of the intended victims, who springing out from the midst of their savage to cuir, ran to the fort under a heavy fire of rifles, which fortunately wounded Ents www man. The attack instantly commenced by a heavy fire against the puhthey. and was returned with fatal accuracy by the garrison. The Indian- then it- tempted to push a mine into the fort, but their object being discovered by the quantity of fresh earth they were compelled to throw into the river, Boong cut a
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BOONE COUNTY.
trench within the fort, in such a manner as to intersect their line of approach, and thus frustrated their design. After exhausting all the ordinary artifices of Indian warfare, and finding their numbers daily thinned by the deliberate and fatal fire from the garrison, they raised the siege on the ninth day after their first appearance, and returned home. The loss on the part of the garrison, was two Inen killed and four wounded. Of the savages, twenty-seven were killed and many wounded, who, as usual, were carried off. This was the last siege sus- tained by Boonsborough.
In the fall of this year, Boone went to North Carolina for his wife and family, who, as already observed, had supposed hin dead, and returned to their kindred. In the summer of 1780, he came back to Kentucky with his family, and settled at Boonsborough. In October of this year, returning in company with his brother from the Blue Licks, where they had been to make salt, they were en- countered by a party of Indians, and his brother, who had been his faithful com- panien through many years of toil and danger, was shot and scalped before his eyes. Boone, after a long and close chase, finally effected his escape.
After this, he was engaged in no affair of particular interest, so far as we are informed, until the month of August, 1782, a time rendered memorable by the celebrated and disastrous battle of the Blue Licks. A full account of this bloody and desperate conflict, will be found under the head of Nicholas county, to which we refer the reader. On this fatal day. he bore himself with distinguished gallantry, until the rout began, when, after having witnessed the death of his son, and many of his dearest friends, he found himself almost surrounded at the very commencement of the retreat. Several hundred Indians were between him and the ford, to which the great mass of the fugitives were bending their way, and to which the attention of the savages was particularly directed. Being inti- mately acquainted with the ground, he together with a few friends, dashed into the ravine which the Indians had occupied, but which most of them had now left to join in the pursuit. After sustaining one or two heavy fires, and baffling one or two small parties who pursued him for a short distance, he crossed the river below the ford by swimming, and returned by a circuitous route by Bryant's station.
Boone accompanied General George Rogers Clark, in his expedition against the Indian towns, undertaken to avenge the disaster at the Blue Licks ; but be- yond the simple fact that he did accompany this expedition, nothing is known of his connection with it : and it does not appear that he was afterwards engaged in any public expedition or solitary adventure.
The definitive treaty of peace between the United States and Great Britain, in 1783, confinned the title of the former to independence, and Boone saw the standard of civilization and freedom securely planted in the wilderness. Upon the establishment of the court of commissioners in 1979, he had laid out the chief of his little property to proenre land warrants, and having raised about twenty thousand dollars in paper money, with which he intended to purchase them, on his way from Kentucky to the city of Richmond, he was robbed of the whole. and left destitute of the means of procuring more. Unacquainted with the nice- ties of the law, the few lands he was enabled afterwards to locate, were, through his ignorance, swallowed up and lost by better claims. Dissatisfied with these impediments to the acquisition of the soil, he left Kentucky, and in 1795, he was a wanderer on the banks of the Missouri, a voluntary subject of the king of Spain. The remainder of his life was devoted to the society of his children, and the employment4 of the chase-to the latter especially. When age had entrebled the energies of his once athletic frame, he would wander twice a year min de remotest wilderness he could reach, employing a companion whom he bound by a written contract to take care of him, and bring him home alive or dead. In 1916, he made such an excursion to Fort Osage, one hundred miles distant from the place of his residence. " Three years thereafter," says Gov. More head. " 3 patriotic solicitnde to preserve his portrait. prompted a distinguished American artist to visit hint at his dwelling near the Missouri river, and from him I have received the following particulars : He found him in a small, rude cabin. indi -- posed, and reclining on his bed. A slice from the loin of a buck, twisted round the rammer of his ride, within reach of him as he lay. was roasting before the fire. Several other cabins, arranged in the form of a parallelogram. marked the spot of a dilapidated station. They were occupied by the descendants of the
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Judge John Sabren
Dur Sir
october the 5 1809
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Iquire Boones Justevate
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to Squire Boone Parting him to Delever it to you him Self these Later Could Not Rech you before you Left home if that. Willnot Dow pleas Wright to me at fat Charles and I will Make out another and
Send it to you before courte adjournes as I have the form you sent me I am well
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Judge Cobren
Daniel Boone
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DANIEL BOONE.
pioneer. Here he lived in the midst of his posterity. His withered energies atd looks of snow, indicated that the sources of existence were nearly exhausted."" He died of fever, at the house of his son-in-law, in Flanders, Calloway connty. M ... in the year 1820, at the advanced age of 89 years. The legislature of Missouri w , in session at St. Louis when the event was announced ; and a resolution was funne- diately passed, that, in respect for his memory, the members would wear the usual badge of mourning for twenty days, and an adjournment was voted for that day,
It has been generally supposed that Boone was illiterate, and could neither read nor write, but this is an error. There is now in the possession of Mr. Jo- seph B. Boyd, of Maysville, an autograph letter of the old woodsman, a fac simile of which is herewith published.
'The following vigorous and eloquent portrait of the character of the old pio- neer, is extracted from Gov. Morehead's address, delivered at Boonsborough, in commemoration of the first settlement of Kentucky :
" The life of Daniel Boone is a forcible example of the powerful influence which a single absorbing passion exerts over the destiny of an individual. Born with no endowments of intellect to distinguish him from the crowd of ordinary men, and possessing no other acquirements than a very common education bestowed, he was enabled, nevertheless, to maintain through a long and useful career, a conspicuous rank among the most distinguished of his cotemporaries ; and the testimonials of the public gratitude and respect with which he was hon- the undeserving. *
ored after his death, were such as are never awarded by an intelligent people to * and subdne it, but to gratify an inordinate passion for adventure and discovery- * He came originally to the wilderness, not to settle to hunt the deer and buffalo-to roam through the woods-to admire the beauties of nature-in a word, to enjoy the lonely pastimes of a hunter's life, remote from the society of his fellow men. He had heard, with admiration and delight, Finley's description of the country of Kentucky, and high as were his expectations, he found it a second paradise. Its lofty forests-its noble rivers-its picturesque scenery- its beautiful valleys-but above all, the plentifulness of " beasts of every Amer- ican kind"-these were the attractions that brought him to it. * * *
. He united, in an eminent degree, the qualities of shrewdness, caution, and cour- age, with uncommon muscular strength. He was seldom taken by surprise -- he never shrunk from danger, nor cowered beneath the pressure of exposure and fatigue. In every emergency, he was a safe guide and a wise counsellor, because his movements were conducted with the utmost circumspection, and his judgment and penetration were proverbially accurate. Powerless to originate plans on a large scale, no individual among the pioneers could execute with more efficiency and success the designs of others. He took the lead in no expedition against the savages-he disclosed no liberal and enlarged views of policy for the protection of the stations : and yet it is not assuming too much to say, that without him, in all probability, the settlements could not have been upheld, and the conquest of Kentucky might have been reserved for the emigrants of the nineteenth century. . * His manners were simple and unobtrusive-exempt from the rudeness characteristic of the backwoodsman. In his person there was nothing remarkably striking. He was five feet ten inches in height, and of robust and powerful proportions. His countenance was mild and contemplative-indicating a frame of mind altogether different from the restlessness and activity that dis- tinguished him. His ordinary habiliments were those of a hunter-a homing short and moccasins uniformly composing a part of them. When he emigrated to Louisiana, he omitted to secure the title to a princely estate. on the Mission. because it would trave cost him the trouble of a trip to New Orleans. He wani have traveled a much greater distance to indulge his cherished propensities as an itdventurer ard a hunter. He died, as he had lived, in a cabin, and perhaps his trusty ritle was the most valuable of his chattels.
Sach was the man to whom has been assigned the principal merit of the dis- envery of Kentucky, and who filled a large space in the eyes of America and Europe. Resting on the solid advantages of his services to his country, his time will survive, when the achievements of men. greatly his superiors in rank and mit. H-et, will be forgotten."
(For an account of the removal of the mortal remains of Boone and his wife from Mu- wuri to Kentucky, and their re-interment at Frankfort, see Franklin county.)
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BOURBON COUNTY.
BOURBON COUNTY.
BOURBON county was formed in the year 1785, and is one of the nine organized by the Virginia legislature before Kentucky be- came an independent State. It was named in compliment to the Bourbon family of France-a prince of that family, then upon the throne, having rendered the American colonies most important aid, in men and money, in the great struggle for independence. The county is bounded north by Harrison, east by Montgomery, south by Clarke, and west by Fayette. It lies in the heart of the gar- den of' Kentucky-the surface gently undulating, the soil remar- kably rich and productive, based on limestone, with red clay foundation. Hemp, corn and wheat are cultivated in the county, and grasses, generally, grow in great luxuriance ; but stock ap- pears to be the staple article of commerce. Horses, mules, cat- tle and hogs, in great numbers, are annually exported. The Bourbon cattle are unsurpassed in beauty, or in the fine quality of their meat, by any in the United States.
The taxable property of Bourbon in 1846 was valued at $9,- 475,752; 175,017 acres of land in the county ; average value per acre, 833,66; number of white males over twenty-one years of age, 1,712 ; number of children between five and sixteen years old, 1,470 ; population in 1830, 18,434-in 1840, 14,478.
PARIS, the principal town and county seat of Bourbon, is situa- ted on the turnpike road from Maysville to Lexington, about forty-three miles from Frankfort. It is a neat and pleasant town, and is a place of considerable business and importance : Containing a handsome court-house, with cupalo and clock, six churches --- Baptist, Reformed, Old School Presbyterian, New School Presbyterian, Episcopal, and Methodist,-an academy and several private schools, a branch of the northern bank of Ken- tucky, three taverns, seven dry goods stores, six grocery stores, fifteen lawyers, eight physicians, three bagging factories, a large flouring, saw and fulling mills, forty or fifty mechanics' shops, and about 1,500 inhabitants. Paris contains one newspaper office-the " Western Citizen"-the oldest newspaper, except the Kentucky Gazette. in the State. The establishment is now owned by Messrs. Lyle & Walker, but was formerly, for a period of more than twenty years, owned by Jost. R. Lves. Esq., s !!! living in the neighborhood of Paris, and who is among the few editors of Kentucky who have been able to retire from the press with a handsome competency.
The town was established by the Virginia legislature in 1789. under the name of Hopewell, by which it was known for several years. It was also called Bourbonton, after the county in which it lies, but finally received its present name from the city of Paris in France, in the plenitude of good feeling which then existed towards that nation.
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VIEW OF MAIN STREET, PARIS, KY.
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MOUNT LEBANON, KY, -EVIDENCE
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BOURBON COUNTY.
Millersburg is situated on Hinkston, on the Maysville and Lexing- ton road, eight miles from Paris and thirty-eight from Maysville: Contains five hundred inhabitants, four churches-Methodist, Re- formed, Baptist and Presbyterian-five stores, four doctors, two taverns, one flouring mill, two saw mills, and a number of me- chanics' shops. Established in 1817, and named after the owner of the land, Mr. Miller. Centreville is a small village situated on the road from Paris to Georgetown, with sixty inhabitants, one tavern, two stores, one wool factory, and several mechanics. Clintonville lies nine miles south of Paris, and contains- two churches, one tavern, two stores, one doctor, and several mechan- ics. Jacksonville lies nine miles north west of Paris, with two stores, two mechanics, and thirty inhabitants. North Middleton is a small town in the east part of Bourbon, ten miles from Pa- ris, containing two churches and an academy, three stores, one tavern, two doctors, a large number of mechanics, and three hun- dred and seventy-five inhabitants. Ruddell's Mills, situated on Hinkston creek, seven miles from Paris, contains two churches, three stores, one tavern, twelve mechanics' shops, and one hun- dred inhabitants.
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