USA > Kentucky > The history of Kentucky, from its earliest discovery and settlement, to the present date, V. 1 > Part 15
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It seemed a misfortune that any of this advance guard should have fallen by the fire from the concealed foe, but on examination there was found on the person of one of the slain soldiers copies of proclamations, which had been prepared in Canada and sent in by the British governor of that province, offering protection to such of the inhabitants as would abjure the republic and return to allegiance to the crown, and closing with denunciations of vengeance against such as refused. The man who found the papers very con- siderately gave them to Colonel Logan. He thought it most prudent to conceal their contents, lest their invocations and their threats, operating on the minds of a people worn down by perils, privations, and distress, the end of which could not be foreseen, might have the effect of diminishing their fortitude or of shaking their fidelity.
The conclusion was wise, for although the arrival of Colonel Bowman's troops had given a new inspiration of hope to the settlers for a time, yet it soon became known that they were engaged for but a short time in service, and that their return home would very shortly follow their discharge. The country would probably soon be again left a prey to the savages instigated by British agents on the frontier and in Canada. Indeed, the time of enlist- ment had expired with several, who were about to return to Virginia.
A more recent investigation of authorities gives a version of this incident differing from the one accepted in past histories. On the body of one of the white soldiers slain near the fort, an Indian placed a parcel of papers. On going out to look after the corpse, these were found, addressed to the commander and officers of the garrison. They were privately opened, and found to contain proclamations of the purport and character mentioned, but directed to the officers exclusively. This version more plausibly explains why Colonel Logan should have held under the seal of secrecy the suspicious documents. They could have done little harm where there was a common hate of England, but the pride of Logan was touched, that any one would insult his honor by offering a temptation to treason.
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LOGAN FIRED UPON AND WOUNDED.
Colonel Logan led his scouts often through the country, in the vicinity of St. Asaph's, to avoid assassinations from ambush or surprise attacks. On one of these excursions the next year, following Indian signs, he discovered a camp of red men at Big Flat Lick, about two miles from the fort. Return- ing. he led an armed party out, and attacked the savages with so much vigor that they fled through the woods, without making much resistance. This lick was a noted resort for game, and often frequented by hunters, both white and red.
Not long after the above incident, Logan, again in its vicinity, was fired upon by a lurking band of Indians. His right arm was broken and a light breast wound inflicted by this fire. The savages rushed on him, to finish the Hoody work by taking his life and scalp, and so narrow was the escape that one of them in the lead managed to seize his horse by the tail, which, sniff- ing the danger, leaped forward and bore his rider gallantly back to the fort. The chieftain was for a time disabled, but his vigorous manhood and simple pioneer habits soon healed his wounds, and permitted him to go to the front again, in all the adventures and perils of the life around him.
Physically and mentally, Logan was great. No emergency ever overtasked the man's varied powers. Indeed, no occasion ever occurred in his eventful life to measure the possibilities of the reserve force within. With the au- thority and mien of a patriarch, his characteristics were those of unassumed simplicity and sincerity, and all confided in him for wise counsel and help- ful trust. He was an order of man who would have, anywhere and in any sphere, been recognized as a leader among his fellows.
On April 19th, John Todd and Richard Callaway were elected burgesses, or members of the Legislature of Virginia, for Kentucky county, the first clection held in the country, and on May 23d they set off for Richmond.
In April, Ben Linn and Samuel Moore were selected and sent off as pies to Illinois, doubtless in furtherance of deep designs which the fertile and sagacious mind of Colonel Clark had already conceived, and which were matured for development the next year, as we shall hereafter see.
They embarked in a canoe, or pirogue, down the Cumberland river to it's mouth, from whence they penetrated the country in question, and contin- ued their adventures for information until their return, on the 22d of June.
The first court ever held under the new government was convened at Harrodstown, on the 2d day of September, and at this time a census of the population of this town was taken by Captain John Cowan, and preserved in his book of memoranda for that date, with result as follows: men, 85; w. men, 24; children, 70; slaves, 19-total, 198.
In spite of Indian harassments, the settlers managed to gather some harvest fruits of their toils, especially under protection of their rifles in the vicinity of the fort walls. About the middle of July, four acres of wheat were reaped, with an antiquated sickle, from a patch of ground just west Harrodstown, the first known to be harvested in Kentucky.
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
In the latter days of July, a party of forty-five men reached Boonesbor- ough from North Carolina, a few days in advance of the arrival of Colonel Bowman's troops at Logan's fort. These re-enforcers disheartened the sav- age bands that swayed the country since the first days of spring, and their early retreat across the Ohio gave great relief to the pent-up and beleagured foresters, which they were not slow to enjoy. They had by this time thor- oughly learned the tactics and cunning methods of the red men, and in the active school of experience the ready pupils had already learned to equal, if not to excel, their foes in all the strategies and arts of the woodsman, the hunter, and the warrior. Hitherto, the Indians were accustomed to call the Virginians Long Knife-from the frequent use of the sword in more regular warfare. Now, the whites felt themselves the better marksmen, as able to track and see an Indian as to be tracked and seen by him, and just as likely to get the first shot, which was usually the end of contest. The Indians knew the whites to be close shooters in the woods or from the forts, and their severe losses in their siege attempts made them more than ever shy of exposing themselves within rifle range.
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A PARTY SETS OUT TO MAKE SALT.
CHAPTER XII.
(1778.)
Boone, with thirty men, goes to Blue Licks to make salt for the garrisons.
Boone captured by the Indians while hunting.
Negotiations for the surrender of his men, and their safety as prisoners.
Carried to Chillicothe.
Thence to Detroit and back.
Boone adopted into an Indian family.
A great favorite with the savages.
Boone startled to find an army of war- riors prepared to march on Boonesbor- ough.
Escapes to give the garrison warning.
His perilous trip of five days on one meal.
Puts the fort in order for defense.
With a scout of nineteen men, crosses the Ohio in search of Indians.
Returns, and finds the fort besieged by Duquesne, of Canada.
Intrigues for a surrender fail.
Attack and repulse. Failure.
Retreat of Indians.
McAfee's account.
Court-martial acquits Boone.
Clark's spies report from Illinois. He visits Virginia.
Commissioned by Governor Patrick Hen- ry for an expedition to Kaskaskia.
Recruits over two hundred and fifty men.
Descends the Ohio and camps on and fortifies Corn island, at the falls.
Thence to Fort Massacre, fifty miles from the Mississippi, with one hundred? and fifty men.
Marches across the country to attack Kaskaskia.
Captures it and the British garrison.
The French population warmly greet the Americans.
Diplomacy and strategy.
Captures Cahokia.
Clark's dangerous dilemma.
Organizes civil government.
Must capture Vincennes, or be captured.
Gibault, the priest, offers to take it for him, without fighting.
The French citizens readily agree to pull down the British and run up the American flag in the absence of the gar- rison.
Appoints a commandant at each of the three captured forts.
Sends British commandant a prisoner to Virginia.
The Virginia Legislature creates Illinois county.
Colonel John Todd appointed civil com- mandant. Captain Helm appointed for Vincennes.
What seemed a most calamitous blow to the settlers, and especially to Boonesborough, at the opening of the year 1778 may, behind the first out- ward appearances, have been one of those favors in disguise which we can only attribute to an ever-guarding Providence, and which was but a method of saving the community from a greater calamity. On the ist day of Jan- uary, Boone set out with a party of thirty men to make salt for the year's supply for the three stations, at Blue Licks-an article then greatly needed. On the 7th of February, while hunting some miles away, to supply the salt-
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
makers with meat, he was intercepted by a body of one hundred Indians. I Boone attempted escape. It proved that the enemy, then on a march to attack Boonesborough, were needing a captive white to give them informa- tion. Instead of shooting at him as he ran, the swift-footed warriors gave chase, and captured the veteran. The experience and cunning wit of Boone were now put to the severest test. How to baffle and divert the Indians from their intended march upon Boonesborough, and at the same time save from massacre the party at the salt springs, was the aim of his endeavor. They were doubtless apprised of the visiting party at Blue Licks, who had been in camp there a month. We regret that Boone kept no journal of these interesting episodes of his charmed life. He was held eight days by his captors before they made a move on the whites. The narrative will show throughout that along with his immovable fortitude and self-command, Boone also possessed the gift or dissembled art of winning address, with a magnetic sympathy that seemed at a glance to unnerve the hand of violence and to win the confiding trust of even those who had ever been his implacable foes. With all, he was a common favorite. We can only infer that Boone was parleying with his captors with a double object-to save his party from being attacked from ambush and slaughtered, and to prevent an after attack on Boonesborough, now almost emptied of its garrison. It was winter, and Indians were not yet expected in force. It was easy to surprise in both attacks.
Boone won the Indians over to a pledge that if the salt-makers would surrender without resistance, they should be well treated and cared for as prisoners, and their lives spared. By capitulation, the terms were carried out, and Boone and twenty-seven men were led away, disarmed, and at the mercy of the savages, across the Ohio to the Indian town of Chillicothe, on the Miami.
Before the capitulation and surrender were consummated, three of the party adroitly managed to escape to the brush and safely get out of reach of the Indians. After the latter left with the prisoners, they returned to the salt springs, concealed the kettles, and brought home the salt made. One of these, William Craddlebaugh, lived long in the family of Boone, at the fort, and subsequently became a noted pioneer of Madison county.
By what art the wily backwoodsman dissuaded them from the march on Boonesborough we are left mainly to conjecture. Marshall comments on this incident: " Had the Indians, after making Boone and his men prisoners. instead of returning home with their captives, marched on to Boonesborough, they might either have taken the place by surprise, or. using the influence their prisoners conferred on them, compelled a surrender of the garrison, and progressively acting on the same plan, it is probable that the two other forts would have fallen in the same way and from the same advantage. It is hardly presumable that even if they had escaped surprise, they would have
1 Hartley's Boone, pp. 128-133; Boone's Narrative; Collins, Vol. II., p. 59; Marshall, pp. 55-58.
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THE INDIANS REFUSE A RANSOM FOR BOONE.
resisted a summons to surrender, which might have been enforced by the massacre of the prisoners under their eyes."
Of the twenty-seven prisoners with Boone, Stephen Hancock made his escape and returned to Boonesborough with the intelligence of the capture and the condition of the prisoners. He was afterward the founder of Han- cock's station, in Madison county, about six miles north of Richmond, and became one among the best known of the pioneers and Indian fighters of the country.
In March following, Captain Boone and ten of his men were conducted by a guard of forty Indians to Detroit, then garrisoned by the British. Gov- ernor Hamilton was commandant, and to him the men were presented, and by him treated with much civility and humanity. The governor, whether from motives of conciliation toward Kentuckians, or from a partiality con- ceived for the veteran pioneer, offered the savages one hundred pounds to ransom him from captivity, assuring Boone that his purpose was to liberate him on parole. But such was the affection of the Indians for Boone, for whom they had conceived the most unbounded admiration, on account of his wonderful skill as woodsman and hunter, that they would consider no terms of ransom with even a degree of patience. Boone was both vexed and embarrassed. He had found it a necessary part of his policy to express pleasure in the companionship of these rude men of the forest, and with their wild forest ways, and this had led them to believe that the old pioneer was entirely contented to remain among them. He dared not now excite their jealousy or suspicion. Several English gentlemen, sensibly affected by his situation, generously offered to supply him with money, or any other thing necessary to his comfort, but, with thanks for their friendly offers, he declined to receive where it would never be in his power to repay.
Intelligence was broken to Boone at length that he must prepare to return to Chillicothe with his adhesive companions, and to separate from the ten comrade captives, who would be left prisoners at Detroit. In fifteen days after, he arrived at Chillicothe, and was soon after adopted into one of the principal families as a son, thus increasing the confidence and affection of his new relatives. To all this, Boone was wise enough to accommodate himself, and accept what he could not help, with good grace.
1The forms of this ceremony of adoption were in keeping with the nat- ures and peculiarities of the savages, and as severe as they were ludicrous. The hairs of the head and the beard were plucked out by a painful and tedi- ous operation, one by one, excepting a tuft some three or four inches in diameter on the crown, for the scalp-lock, which was tied and dressed up with trinkets and feathers. The candidate was then taken into the river in a state of nudity, and there thoroughly washed and rubbed, as averred, "to take all his white blood out." This ablution, as well as the previous proc- esses of the Indian toilet, was usually performed by females. Then the
1 Peck's Life of Boone ; Hartley's Boone, p 131.
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
subject for initiation was taken to the council-house, where the chief, in a stately harangue, expatiated upon the distinguished honors conferred. His head and face were then painted in the most frightful and fanciful style, and the ceremony completed with a grand feast and smoking.
They soon challenged him to a shooting-match, in which he found it more difficult to avoid their jealousy and envy at his superior skill, than to beat them at an exercise in which they prided themselves as invincible. They invited him to join them on hunting parties, and applauded him greatly for his dexterity in hunting and killing game. He became quite a favorite with the leading chief of the Shawanee tribe, while Boone conciliated and increased the royal confidence and favor toward himself by frequently bestowing on him the spoils of the hunt, and otherwise manifesting his respect and loyalty.
It may seem incredulous that such tokens of friendship and confidence could pass between those whom we, but a little while ago, saw engaged in implacable strife. But instances were not rare of white persons falling in with the Indian tribes as prisoners, traders, or adventurers, and being adopted and identified with them for years or for life. Indeed, the life of the back- woodsman derived its charm from that freedom from restraint which charac- terized the Indian traits, and the love of restless and varying adventure that goes with both. Once accustomed to it, with no strong ties to bind to civil- ized and conventional society, many preferred to continue it rather than give it up. The Indians had good reasons to hope that one like Boone, whose predilections were all for the life of the forest, would soon be weaned from his white associations, and by preference cast his lot with the red men as one of them. As for the old hunter, the ties at Boonesborough and among his own kind were never stronger; only, with silent stoicism, he wreathed his honest, rugged features in the smiles of apparent content, and allowed his new kindred and companions to nurse their illusions. There was method in this acting, and Boone but patiently bided his time, which was coming. It was most common to provide one, adopted into a family and tribe, with a squaw to kindle his fires, to do his cooking and other odds and ends of domestic life, and to while away the oppressive hours of leisure; but that Boone was ever won so far to Indian customs by the unwashed and uncombed blandishments of Indian beauty, history has been, and will ever be, obscurely silent. He was then over fifty years of age.
The relaxed vigilance now allowed gave the captive opportunities of escape, yet with some risk. It was never absent from his purpose. Early in June, a party of the Indians set out for the Scioto Salt Lick, and Boone was their companion. After the salt making was over, they returned. On reaching Chillicothe, Boone was startled to find over four hundred warriors painted and armed, with all the frightful demonstrations of warlike intent, ready to march against Boonesborough. For once his captivity seemed to serve a purpose, and he determined to convey the information which had come to him, in time to warn his natural kindred and friends. It was the
-
99
A PARTY MARCHES ON PAINTCREEKTOWN.
16th of June, nearly six months since he had parted from wife and home, that he rose at the usual hour of the morning and went out, apparently to hunt, but really to set out for Boonesborough. Marshall says:
"So great was his anxiety that he made no attempt to kill anything to eat. The journey of one hundred and sixty miles was performed in five days, upon a single meal of victuals which he had concealed in his blanket." Arriving at Boonesborough on the 20th, he found the fortress in a bad state of defense; but the intelligence which he brought, and the activity which he inspired, soon produced the necessary repairs. No sooner did the garrison feel itself secure, than it began to wait with impatience the recep- tion of intelligence from the enemy. After the lapse of a few days, one of the other prisoners, escaping from them, arrived with information that the Indians had, on account of Boone's elopement, postponed their march for three weeks.
In the meantime, however, it was discovered that they had their spies in the country, watching the movements of the different garrisons; and what- ever might be their reports, it was consoling to reflect that the forts had been strengthened and the garrisons increased in numbers since the last attack. This was particularly the case at Boonesborough. The enemy still delaying their meditated attack on this place, Captain Boone, with a com- pany of nineteen men, one of whom was the brave Kenton, left the fort on the Ist of August, with a view to surprise Paintcreektown, on the Scioto.
In the party on this adventure were also Captain John Holder, the founder of Holder's station, shortly distant from Boonesborough, and the noted leader of the Boonesborough company of militia, which played such an important part in the earlier history of this settlement; and Captain John Kennedy, Colonel John Logan, John Callaway, and others afterward distin- guished as among the leading men of Madison county.
Within a few miles of the objective town, Kenton, being in the advance, was startled by hearing loud peals of laughter from a cane-brake just before him. He scarcely had time to tree, before two Indians mounted on a pony, one facing the animal's tail and the other his head, totally unsuspicious of danger, and very hilarious, came in view. He fired, and both Indians fell, one killed and the other severely wounded. He hastened to scalp him, and was suddenly surrounded by about thirty Indians. Dodging from tree to tree, he was in danger momentarily of losing his life, when Boone and his party, opportunely appearing, briskly attacked and put to flight the savages.
The captain then dispatched two spies for intelligence, who. returning from the town, reported that it was evacuated. Upon the receipt of this information, Boone marched for Boonesborough with all practicable dis- patch, in order that he might gain the van of the enemy's army, place his booty in a state of security, give timely warning to the garrison, and pre- pare for the approaching storm. On the sixth day he passed the Indian main force, and on the seventh arrived in safety at Boonesborough. The
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
eighth, the Indians, commanded by Captain Duquesne, eleven other Cana- dian Frenchmen, and some of their own chiefs, invested the place, over four hundred strong, with British colors flying at their headquarters. This was the most formidable force ever arrayed against Boonesborough, and such as, upon comparison, was calculated to fill the garrison with alarm. But the equanimity of Boone's temper was little affected by it, when he received a summons in the name of his Britannic majesty to " surrender the fort." Two days' consideration was requested and granted. This was an awful moment. The little garrison was summoned to council. Not fifty men appeared. To those who were assembled, the case was briefly stated. On the one side, a manly defense, with the chances of success, or if vanquished, of being devoted to destruction with savage barbarity; on the other side, a surrender upon articles was offered, of becoming prisoners and stripped of their effects. The deliberation was short, the answer prompt and unanimous: "We are determined to defend our fort as long as a man of us lives." It was also resolved for the time to keep the result secret. The meeting then dispersed, and each man went to collect his cattle and horses as he could, that they. might be secured within the walls. Being prepared for the conflict as well as they expected, and the two days having expired, Captain Boone, from one of the bastions of the fort, announced to the listening commander of the adverse host the determination of the garrison, to which he subjoined his own personal thanks for the notice of their intended attack and the time allowed him for preparing his defense. Evident disappointment was seen depicted on the countenance of Duquesne. He did not, however, immedi- ately abandon the idea of capitulation, but determined to play it off as a decoy for Boone. Accordingly, he declared that it was his order from Gov- ernor Hamilton to take the garrison captives, to treat them as prisoners of war, and not to rob, much less destroy, them. If nine of the principal per- sons in the garrison would come out and treat with them, he would do no- violence, but return home with the prisoners, or liberate them if they would swear allegiance to and accept the protection of his Britannic majesty.
"This," said Boone, "sounded grateful in our ears, at least as a further respite, and we agreed to treat." Yet, as it will soon appear, with very different intentions, and not without cause to suspect Indian honor. The commandants, with opposite views, communicated them to their respective followers-the one fair, the other fraudulent. The parties now prepared for treaty, the conferences were opened within sixty yards of the fort gate. The articles, being few, were soon digested and signed in the presence of many Indians, who, though silent, stood restlessly around, with the appearance of solicitude. This was the moment for crowning the stratagem with success. Boone and his companions were told by the leaders of the adverse side that among Indians it was customary, on such occasions. to evince the sincerity of their intentions by two Indians shaking each white man by the hand. This was also assented to, and immediately two Indians approached each of
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