USA > Kentucky > The history of Kentucky, from its earliest discovery and settlement, to the present date, V. 1 > Part 5
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The two brothers, like fabled heroes, tarried alone to brave the perils of the boundless and inhospitable forests, to explore further their mysteries, and
7
SQUIRE BOONE'S RETURN.
to follow the hunt through all that winter and until May Ist; at which time Squire Boone bade Daniel a temporary farewell and returned home across the mountains, mainly for needed ammunition and supplies. For two months following this separation, Daniel Boone traversed the wilderness alone, save the presence of adventurous savages and wild beasts, with only his trusty rifle and hunting-knife, and matchless skill in using them, as the guarantee for his life. In the interval of solitude, Boone says in his autobiography: "One day I undertook a tour through the country, and the diversity and beauties of nature I met with in this charming season expelled every gloomy and vexatious thought. Just at the close of day the gentle gales retired, and left the place to the disposal of a profound calm. Not a breeze shook the most tremulous leaf. I had gained the summit of a commanding ridge, and, looking around with astonished delight, beheld the ample plains below. On the other hand, I surveyed the famous river Ohio, that rolled in silent dignity, marking the western boundary of Kentucky with inconceivable grandeur. At a vast distance I beheld the mountains lift their venerable brows, and penetrate the clouds."
On the 27th of July he was glad to welcome back to his vast solitudes the companionship of Squire Boone again. The latter came with horses ladened with the supplies; and the two met, as agreed, at their second camp, more recently formed on Station Camp Creek, in Estill county, by concert of understanding, and together resumed their hunter's life. Squire Boone had carved upon a rock, yet standing near Little Blue Lick, in Madison county, and still known as "Boone Rock," the inscription, "Squire Boone, 1770," to inform his brother while on this favorite hunting spot that he had returned, and to be on the alert. Exploring the country from the head. waters of Cumberland river to the Ohio, they discovered its main streams, and its variety of soil and surface. By following its trodden roads, or "traces," as the pioneers called them, which the buffaloes made from their grazing fields and brakes, they found a number of the great "licks" to which wild animals in countless multitudes commonly resorted in hunt of salt. These buffalo traces are plainly marked out to the present day. Boone and companions observed with wonder that there were no human habitations, or even evidences of Indian villages, to be found anywhere in Kentucky, but that this region was known as the common park, or hunting range, and frequent battlefields of the tribes of the North and West and South.
Early in the year 1769. prompted by the growing interest in the attrac- tions of the wilderness of the West, a party of forty adventurous hunters gathered from the valleys of New river, Holston, and Clinch, and crossed the mountains from Virginia, for the purpose of trapping and shooting game. Passing the south fork of the Cumberland, they selected for a place of ren- dezvous a spot known as Price's Meadow, near a dowing spring, about six miles from Monticello, in Wayne county, and made a camp and depot for their supplies and skins, which they agreed to deposit every five weeks. They
8
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
hunted far out to the south and west over the country, much of which was covered with prairie grass, and with great success. They found no traces of human settlements, but many human bones under mounds and stones erected. and in caves. Gordon, Baker, Mansco, and seven others, loaded two boats and two canoes with skins and wild meat, and embarked down the Cumber- land and Mississippi to the Spanish fort Natchez, and thence home. Others were lost in the wilderness, or reached home after great perils and privations. But in the fall, Colonel James Knox separated with a party of nine, and ventured northward deeper into the forest. Meeting a band of Cherokee Indians, the chief, Captain Dick, known to several of the whites, directed them to the region of his river further on, where they would find plenty of game, and "to kill it and go home." They found game abundant at what has ever since been known as Dick's river. In 1771, Knox, Skaggs, and comrades, joined by Mansco, Bledsoe. and others from the settlements, hunt- ing and trapping yet farther west, built a house for the deposit of their skins, about nine miles eastward from Greensburg, near the site of Mount Gilead church, in the direction of Columbia. From this center they penetrated the prairie country as far as Barren, Hart, and adjacent counties. Some of these bold backwoodsmen returned to the settlements in 1772, while the others remained. So long were they absent that they were known in after history as the " Long Hunters."1
By coincidence, the Boones and their comrades did not fall in with Colo- nel Knox and party, during the two years they were jointly exploring the vast labyrinths of forests and plains. Neither knew of the presence of the other party, occupying different sections. The former invaded the hunting- grounds of the revengeful and murderous Indian tribes of the North. The latter traversed those that were mostly frequented by the Cherokees and other of the Mobilian tribes of the South, who, while they plundered and murdered at times, were more tractable than the Miamis. Some of Colonel Knox's men were slain by them, and more than once they plundered their camps of kettles, skins, and supplies.
These backwoodsmen were a class peculiar to themselves in their charac- ters, their habits, and their preferments. Their dress was adapted to the life of the forest ranger. The hunting-shirt was a loose frock with cape, made of deer skins dressed. Leggings of the same material covered the lower limbs, with moccasins for the feet. The cape, the coat, and the leggings were usually adorned with fringes. The under garments were of coarse cotton. A leather belt encircled the body; on the right side hung the hatchet or tomahawk, on the left was the hunting-knife. the powder-horn, and bullet-pouch-all indispensable. With garments less substantial they could not have made their way through brush and thorns, or over rocks and pebbles. The hunter was his own tailor, and fashioned his garments at the camp-fire. Each man bore his trusty rifle, ever on the alert for deadly foes
I Haywood's Tennessee, pp. 75-76; Collins, Vol II., p. 417.
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9
INTEREST AND CURIOSITY EXCITED.
or welcome game. It was flint-lock, but fine-sighted; and rarely did it fail the practiced marksman, unless the sparks from flint and steel missed the powder, or there was a " flash in the pan." The contingency of final resort to tomahawk or knife implied death to one or both of the combatants as well.
The voluntary exile of Daniel Boone from home and civilization had now extended nearly two years. In March, 1771, he at last was induced to turn his steps toward North Carolina, with hope of soon again embracing his wife and children, yet very dear to him. In his narrative, written from his own dictation by John Filson, in 1784, he says : " I returned home to my family with a determination to bring them as soon as possible to live in Kentucky, which I esteemed a second paradise, at the risk of my life and fortune."
The Boone party and the "Long Hunters," welcomed back, were as famed at home and abroad among the colonists of the Atlantic slopes, as were Jason and his comrades returned to the shores of their native Thessaly, bearing the prize of the Golden Fleece. From far and near the people came to hear, while these modern Argonauts of the forest rehearsed to wondering auditors most glowing descriptions of the land of promise they had explored. They wearied not in picturing to the curious and willing neighbors what they had seen of the marvelous fertility of soil, the prodigal growth of giant for- est and luxuriant pasture, the health and delight of climate, and the count- less supply and variety of great and small game with which the wilderness abounded, all animated with the enchanting novelty, and adorned with the majestic grace and boldness of nature's creative energy. Nor did they for- get to relate the marvelous and weird stories of viewing around the salt licks, where vast herds of buffalo, and elk, and deer were wont to congregate, the skeleton bones of monstrous mammoths, the bodies of which must have been many times larger than those of any animal known to history; of the dis- covery of the remains of human beings of past generations in caves and cliffs; and of mounds for fortifications, for religious rites, and for burial-places of a people more civilized than the Indians, but of whom they found no other traces of existence. The restless spirit of adventure was excited, and many a stalwart heart kindled and beat earnestly as the wistful eye turned toward the sunset land, and vowed, that though the pioneer must anticipate the savage foe from behind every tree, within every brake, and from every ambush, yet fortune and life should be ventured there. The resolve of these heroic men, of Anglo-Saxon origin and American mold, made for the future of Kentucky a manifest destiny.
IO
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
CHAPTER IV.
No Indian tribes found dwelling in Kentucky.
This the common hunting-ground.
Why Kentucky was called " The Dark and Bloody Ground."
Remains of prehistoric races.
Indian legends of the same.
Destroyed in a great battle at the falls of Ohio.
Indian superstitions in regard to their burial-places.
Tribal origin and succession of the In- dians.
When the Shawanees occupied Ken- tucky.
Cox's map shows that they were here in 1654; the map in Marquette's Journal, in 1681; and that in Charlevoix's History, in 1744.
Evan's map shows them to have removed
in 1755; but marks a war-path through Northern Kentucky.
All traces of Shawanee lodges removed from Kentucky, in Filson's map, in 1784.
Chief Black Hoof visits Kentucky in 1816; states that he was born at Indian Old Fields, Clark county, Ky., about 1730. Ficklin's letter on the question.
Legend of the " Lover's Cave."
Subdued by the Mohawks of the North- east.
Harassed by the Southern tribes, they abandon Kentucky and establish their villages in Ohio.
Transfers of title by the Mohawks, the Shawanees, and the Cherokees, succes- sively, to the whites.
After all these treaties and transfers, Kentucky was won by the valor of her pioneer children.
It was phenomenal that no Indian villages were found in Kentucky, and no evidences are of record of any tribal habitations being located within this territory, since 1750, except a few temporary lodges on the Ohio bank, opposite the mouth of the Scioto. From that date, as tradition held, it was by tacit concession the common hunting-ground for all the tribes on the North, the South, and the West. 1 The lodges nearest Kentucky were those of the Chickasaws, Cherokees, and Catawbas on the Hogotege, now the Ten- nessee, river, southward, and the Shawanees, Wyandots, and Delawares on the Scioto and Miami rivers, northward. From these abodes would issue forth, repeatedly, bands of savages, often professedly for the hunt, but always painted, equipped, and armed to assume the role of warrior when oppor- tunity tempted. The great unoccupied forest and prairie country that lay west of the mountains, bordered on the north by the Ohio, and on the south by the Shawance, now Cumberland, river, was the favorite resort of these roving and predatory Indian parties. Often the warriors of different tribes met on these excursions in deadly conflict, and re-enacted the bloody trage- dies for which Indian warfare has ever been noted. It was traditional that this had long been, not only the famed hunting range of neighboring tribes, but the fated field of frequent and sanguinary combat between partisan
I Rafinesque, p. 38, in Marshall's History.
II
EVIDENCES OF A PREHISTORIC RACE.
lunds or organizeu armies of hostile tribes. From this association with strife and blood, and from the awe-inspiring solitude that reigned over the vast uninhabited forest, the Indians left to this land the expressive title, " Dark and Bloody Ground."
The Indian tribes only are known to history as the aborigines, or original wcupants, of the valleys of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. But ancient mounds, earthworks, and antiquarian relics found distributed over these valleys give indisputable evidence that a prehistoric race, of a civilization superior to that of the Indian, were previous occupants. Their utensils, their use of copper, and their knowledge of geometry displayed in the con- struction of mound-works, show that they were more advanced in the arts of peace and the science of war, than were the rude denizens who disputed with the white man the supremacy of the new world of America. Of the origin, characteristics, and destiny of this mysterious and extinct people we know nothing, except by fabled story, hieroglyphic records, and antique remains. The Indians repeated to the pioneer whites a legendary tradition, which they said their fathers had handed down, that ages before there dwelt in the valleys on either side of the Ohio a numerous and powerful people, with whom their tribes engaged in destructive war. After much fighting, these primitive people were finally defeated in a great battle near the falls of the Ohio river. The remnant of their armies retreated for refuge on an island just below the falls, where they were pursued and exterminated by their fierce foes. The location of Sand Island, and the appearances of a vast burying ground on the north bank of the Ohio opposite, seem to lend an interest of probability to the story.
Conclusive testimonies to the existence of such a prehistoric nation are in the many tumuli, or mound works, distributed over the savannas of the Gulf States, the plains of the Mississippi and tributaries, and as far north as the Genesee and Susquehanna valleys. Their form, position, structure, and contents not only show their artificial origin, but distinguish them as intended for sepultures, temples, or fortresses. . In Collins' History of Kentucky may be found ample descriptions of these in Allen, Bourbon, Butler, Greenup, Mason, Trigg, and other counties. They are uniformly found in valleys, or in fertile lands capable of supporting dense populations, after the habit of ancient nations on the Eastern continent. The aged trees grown on the mounds. and other evidences, show these tumuli were constructed six or seven centuries ago, or more. The Indian traditions were of divers, but concurring, sources, agreeing in the story that the confederate armies of the tribes of the North drove this ancient people back on the Ohio, where the remnant were finally destroyed at the falls. Traces of extensive military defenses are found in the mound-fortifications of Fayette, Pendleton, Boone, und other counties, which some antiquarian writers assume to be part of a „rent line of similar works, which is traced from the lakes, south east, through Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, to the South Atlantic
12
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
coast. The mysterious and deep impressions, which these legends made on the superstitious minds of the savages, lent an additional coloring to the spirit of awe with which Kentucky was regarded. The Indians believed that the spirits of the dead lingered about the places of their sepulture. The slain of these vaguely-remembered wars, by myriads, were believed to lie buried in the valleys of the Licking, the Cumberland, the Kentucky, and the Ohio rivers; and this gave more intensity to their weird conceptions. It was a land of legends. Among the contents of these mound-works ex- cavated, have been found proofs that the indigenous. maize, or Indian corn, was the chief product of agriculture, on which the prehistoric people relied for breadstuffs; as it was with the savages, until the coming of the whites to America varied the products of the soil with seeds from the granaries of Europe. Of course, we must consider most that has been written in regard to this traceless people of many centuries ago, as con- jectural, and leave investigation to the scientist who may be fond of anti- quarian research. We know little beyond the fact that such a people as described, inhabited this region before the advent and occupancy of the Indian. Were they exterminated by the latter in relentless wars, or were they induced to move southward to escape their cruel foes or the rigors of an inhospitable climate, finally to be merged into the great Aztec family of Mexico ? The curious may inquire, but history is as voiceless and myste- rious as the burial-mounds, which tell us but little else than such a people lived and died.
We must not burden the historic page, or confuse the reader, with an account of tribal successions, with all their ramifications. The restless and improvident habits of the Indians forbade that they should numerously and densely populate any locality ; while their cruel, treacherous, and destructive spirit led to the frequent extermination or dispersion of opposing tribes, and hence they often changed locality and condition. The powerful and warlike Shawanees held their home in Kentucky during the seventeenth, and late in first half of the eighteenth, centuries; but were often at war with tribes north and south of them. About 1660, the Mohawks, or Iroquois, of the north-east, having procured firearms, came down the Ohio in large war parties, laid waste the country, and defeated the Shawanees and many other tribes on both sides of the river. In 1700, this was repeated, and the latter were further reduced and humbled; after which peace ensued between the two.1 Being also harassed by the Cherokees, Catawbas, Muscogees, and Chickasaws, from the Tennessee valley, they retired from Kentucky and built their lodges on the Miami, Scioto, and Muskingum rivers, in Ohio. They then allied themselves with their old enemies, the Iroquois, against the southern hostiles just named. After this, no villages were known to exist between the Ohio and Cumberland; and Kentucky was henceforth the common hunting-ground, as well as the battlefield, of the tribes north and
I Rafinesque ; Ancient Annals of Kentucky, in Marshall's History, Vol. 1., pp. 37 and 38.
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13
CHIEF BLACK HOOF VISITS KENTUCKY.
south ; until the whites enforced, by conquest, the claim and possession, which before they had purchased.
From the notes of Colonel Wood, of his journey through this country in 1654, and from other sources, Daniel Cox published his ".Description of Carolana, as called by the English, or La Louisiane by the French; and of the great and famous Meschachebe river." On the map accompanying this work, the "Chaouanons," from whence came the word Shawanese. are located west of the Alleghanies, and between the Ohio and Cumberland rivers. This is repeated on the map of " Marquette's Journal," published in Paris, in 1681; and finally confirmed by the map with " Charlevoix's History of New France," put forth in 1744.
In Evans' map of 1755, Pownell's edition, the "Shawanese " are located on both sides of the Ohio river. but mainly on the north side, from the Miami to the Hockhocking. One or two traces of villages only, on the south side, and below the Big Sandy, are pointed out, and these of vague uncertainty. A warpath of the nation is laid down. beginning near the mouth of Kanawha. Then crossing Big Sandy, by way of Blue Licks, Elkhorn valley, and Eagle Hills, it passes over into Ohio, above the mouth of the Kentucky. On Filson's " Map of Kentucke," issued in Philadelphia, in 1784, the lodges of the Shawanees are all located north of the Ohio, of course ; nor does he, in his history, the materials of which he gathered from the earliest pioneers, as well as from his own explorations of the country, give to the reader any definite knowledge as to when the last villages of the Indians were removed from the territory of Kentucky.
Black Hoof (Catahecassa), who preceded Tecumseh as a commanding chief of the Shawanees, and who was prominent in nearly all the great battles of that nation, from Braddock's defeat to Wayne's victory, was an implacable foe of the English, and afterward of the Americans. Disheart- ened by Wayne's victory, he made peace with the whites, which he kept in good faith. In 1816. when over one hundred years of age, he made a tour through Central Kentucky, and stated to white residents that he was born at Indian Old Fields, in the eastern part of what is now Clark county. This spot has long been known as the site of an Indian town ; and perhaps about the last occupied in Kentucky by the Shawanees. Black Hoof famil- iarly pointed out and described other objects and peculiarities in that section, familiar to his boyhood days. He died in 1831, aged nearly one hundred and twenty years. We quote from Ficklin's letter from Lexington, dated August 31, 1847, to H. R. Schoolcraft, in answer to inquiries in regard to the last Indian villages :
" There is one fact favorable to this State, which belongs to few, if any, of the sister States. We have not to answer to any tribunal for the crime of driving off the Indian tribes and possessing their lands. There were no Indians located within our hmits on our taking possession of this country. A discontented portion of the Shawa- nee tribe, from Virginia, broke off from the nation, which had removed to the Scioto
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14
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
country, in Ohio, about the year 1730, and formed a town, known to the whites by the name of Lulbegrud, in what is now Clark county, about thirty miles east of this place. The tribe left this country about 1750 and went to East Tennessee, to the Cherokee Nation. Soon after they returned to Ohio and joined the rest of the nation, after spend- ing a few years on the Ohio river, giving name to Shawneetown, in the State of Illinois, a place of some note at this time. This information is founded on the account of the Indians at the first settlement of this State, and since confirmed by Black Hoof. a native of Lulbegrud," who visited this country in 1816, and went on the spot, describing the water-streams and hills in a manner to satisfy everybody that he was acquainted with the place."
Thus the inquiry, as to the exact time the Shawanees made their final removal northward, bears us from the clearer light of historic research, to the fading twilight of tradition and legend. There are many stories of romance in the domain of the latter, which might lend a picturesque charm to our pages, if it were not intrusion to introduce them into the narrative of history.
At the time of the visits of the early pioneers, after 1750, the title to this country, on the part of the Indians, was held on various pleas by different nations. The Mohawks, now known as the Six Nations, by their policy of incorporating the tribes as they conquered them, asserted title to it on the ground that they had subdued the Shawanees, and occupied it as their own for a time. So much faith was reposed in this title by the English Govern- ment, that at the great council, held in October, 1768, at Fort Stanwix, in the State of New York, the Six Nations included all of Kentucky east of the Tennessee river in the treaty cession made there, and in consideration of which cession they received of the English a little over £10,000, as stipu- lated by the agents, Sir William Johnson and Dr. Franklin. 1
A second claim to this country, on the part of Virginia, was founded on the treaty made by Lord Dunmore, governor, with the Shawanees and their Miami confederates, in 1774. In that year, these tribes allied their forces, to avenge the murders of the family and kindred of Chief Logan, as asserted, and invaded Virginia, near the Kanawha river. with an estimated army of fifteen hundred warriors. The colonial Legislature, at Williamsburg, then the capital of Virginia, had ordered the raising of an armed force to repel them. Governor Dunmore led fourteen hundred of these, who had rendez- voused at Fort Pitt, and marched down the Ohio. General Andrew Lewis, at the head of eleven hundred veteran frontiersmen, forming the left wing
* Lulbegrud is not of Indian origin. In Book No. 1, page 156, of the Clark County Court. is the following, furnished by Judge W'm. M. Beckner, and published with the oration of Colonel John Mason Brown, at the centennial of the battle of Blue Licks :
" The deposition of Daniel Boone, being of law ful age, taken before us, the subscribing commis. sioners, this 15th day of September, 1796, being first duly sworn, deposeth and sayeth that in the year 1775 I encamped on Red river with five other men, and we had with us for our amusement the History of Samuel Gulliver's Travels, wherein he gave an account of his young master, Glumdelick, careing him on a market day for a show to a town called Iulbegrud.
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