Makers of American history: Daniel Boone

Chapter I

Birth and Parentage. — Early Education and Training. — Removal to North Carolina. — Marriage. — Hunting Expeditions. — Affairs in North Carolina. — Emigration to the western Wilderness. — Boone, Finley, and others go to Kentucky. — Indian Claims. — Boone and Stewart taken Prisoners, and escape. — Unexpected Arrival of Squire Boone. — Stewart killed. — Excursion to Cumberland River. — Boone returns to North Carolina. — Notice of other hunting Parties in the West.

Daniel Boone, the pioneer of Kentucky, was born in Bucks county, Pennsylvania, in the month of February, 1735. His father, whose name was Squire Boone, was a native of England, his mother's name was Sarah Morgan. He was the father of eleven children. According to information received from the late Daniel Bryan, a grandson of Squire Boone, their births and names were in the following order: Israel, Sarah, Samuel, Jonathan, Elizabeth, Daniel, Mary, (mother of Daniel Bryan,) George, Edward, Squire, and Hannah.

When Daniel was a small boy, his father removed to Berks county, Pennsylvania, not far from Reading, and at that period a frontier settlement, abounding with game, and exposed to Indian assaults. It was here that young Boone, a mere boy, received those impressions of character that were so strikingly displayed in his subsequent life. From childhood, he delighted to range the woods, watch the wild animals, and contemplate the beauties of uncultivated nature.

Rude and unhewn log cabins, and hewn log houses, erected in the " clearings," and surrounded with blackened stumps and cornfields, were the residences of the frontier settlers. The school-house of that day, of which samples may still be seen in all the new settlements of the southwest, was constructed of rough logs, exactly square, with a chimney occupying one side, and wrought with sticks and clay ; the door placed in front. A single log cut out from one side left an aperture, that answered the purpose of a window, under which a slab was placed for a writing desk. The surrounding forest furnished ample supplies of fuel, and a spring of water provided the refreshing and primitive draught for the thirsty. At such a rustic seminary young Boone received the rudiments of " book-learning." These embraced very little more than easy lessons in the spelling book and Psalter, and a brief space of time employed in writing and arithmetic.

In another kind of education, not unfrequent in the wilds of the west, he was an adept. No Indian could poise the rifle, find his way through the pathless forest, or search out the retreats of game, more readily than Daniel Boone. In all that related to Indian sagacity, border life, or the tactics of the skilful hunter, he excelled. The successful training of a hunter, or woodsman, is a kind of education of mental discipline, differing from that of the schoolroom, but not less effective in giving vigor to the mind, quickness of apprehension, and habits of close observation, Boone was regularly trained in all that made him a successful backwoodsman. Indolence and imbecility never produced a Tecumthe, or a Daniel Boone. To gain the skill of an accomplished hunter requires talents, patience, perseverance, sagacity, and habits of thinking. Amongst other qualifications, knowledge of human nature, and especially of Indian character, is indispensable to the pioneer of the wilderness. Add to these, self-possession, self-control, and promptness in execution. Persons who are unaccustomed to a frontier residence know not how much, in the preservation of life, and in obtaining subsistence, depends on such characteristics.

Boone's father had relatives in Maryland, and it is probable that one of his sons lived there for some time, to acquire the trade of a gunsmith. When Daniel was about eighteen years old, his father removed the family to North Carolina, and settled on the waters of the Yadkin, a mountain stream in the northwestern part of that State. Here was a fine range for hunting, where young Daniel could follow his favorite employment. Here he formed an acquaintance with Rebecca Bryan, whom he married. One almost regrets to spoil so beautiful and sentimental a romance, as that which had had such extensive circulation in the various " Lives of Boone,"

and which represents him as mistaking the bright eyes of this young lady, in the dark, for those of a deer; a mistake that nearly proved fatal from the unerring rifle of the young hunter. Yet in truth we are bound to say, that no such event ever happened. Our backwoods swains never make such mistakes.

For several years after marriage, Boone followed the occupation of a farmer ; hunting at such times as would not interfere with raising and securing a crop. In the meantime, the population along the Yadkin and its tributary streams increased, explorations were made to the northwest, and the valleys of the Holston and Clinch Rivers began to resound with the strokes of the woodman's axe, and the neighboring mountains to echo with the sharp crack of the rifle. The Cherokee Indians were troublesome to the frontier settlements for several years, instigated as they were by French emissaries from Louisiana ; but in 1 76 1 they sued for peace. Immediately upon this adjustment of Indian affairs, several companies of hunters, from Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina, hearing of the abundance of game in the valleys along the head waters of the Tennessee River, penetrated the wilderness in their favorite pursuit. At the head of one of these companies was Daniel Boone, from the Yadkin settlements, who ranged through the valleys on the head waters of the Holston, in the southwestern part of Virginia. In 1764, we find him, with another company of hunters, on the Rock Castle, a branch of Cumberland River, within the present boundaries of Kentucky, employed, as he stated, by a party of land speculators, to ascertain and report concerning the country in that quarter.

It is here necessary to give some particulars concerning the state of affairs in North CaroHna, which, together with the pecuharities of Boone's temper, influenced him to leave the settlement on the Yadkin, and become a pioneer in the wilds of Kentucky.

Daniel Boone, far from possessing an ungovernable temper, or exhibiting dissatisfaction with the charms of domestic and social life, was mild, humane, and charitable; his manners were gentle, his address conciliating, and his heart open to friendship and hospitality. The most prominent traits of his character were unshaken fortitude and self-command. Perfectly plain in dress and style of living, contented with frugal fare, accustomed to be much alone in the woods, he acquired the habit of contemplation, and was an enthusiastic admirer of nature in its primeval wildness. Adventures in hunting had become his ruling passion. He had a natural sense of justice and equity between man and man, and felt, throughout his whole life, repugnance to the technical forms of law, and the conventional regulations of society and of government, unless they were in strict accordance with his sense of right. He felt keenly opposed to all those customs and usages in social life that seemed to him at variance with the divine rule : " As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise."

For several years before his first excursion, with Finley and others, to the rich valley of the Louisa River, as Kentucky was then called, the customs and fashions of North Carolina, had been in that process of change which was calculated to drive such men as Boone from the colony. The trade of the country was in the hands of Scotch adventurers, who came to the colony to acquire wealth and consequence. The people of the country, who had the ability to purchase, laid aside the rustic garments of domestic manufacture, and appeared in all circles clad in imported apparel. To dress otherwise was soon regarded as the sign of poverty and barbarism. The poor man felt himself treated with disdain, and those persons whose taste and inclination disposed them to habits of frugality, were disgusted with what they regarded as the progress of luxury and effeminacy.

The rich were led into extravagant modes of living, far beyond their income. Labor, among the opulent, was performed by slaves, and the industrious white man, who kept no servants, but who, with his sons, worked the farm, and whose wife and daughters were practical economists in domestic affairs, was less respected than his more opulent neighbor, who passed much of his time in frivolous amusements. Under these circumstances, men of quiet habits, opposed to luxury and oppression, migrated to the wilderness beyond the mountains, where they could enjoy independence and a share of respectability.

In 1767, a backwoods hunter, by the name of John Finley, with a few others like himself, made an excursion farther west than the previous hunting parties had gone, upon the waters of Kentucky River, where he spent the season in hunting and trading with the roaming bands of Indians. Their course lay through a portion of Tennessee, where everything grand and picturesque in mountain scenery, or romantic and dehghtful in deep and sheltered valleys, existed. They found an exuberant soil, from which sprang giant forests. They saw the rich cane-brakes of Kentucky. To the hunter, here seemed a terrestrial paradise, for it abounded in all kinds of game.

Disgusted as Boone was with the growing fashions, and the oppressions of the rich in North Carolina, he was prepared to listen with eagerness and delight to the glowing descriptions of Finley, and his mind was soon made up to see this delectable land. But it was not till after the lapse of many months that arrangements could be made for the exploration. A party of six was formed, and Boone was chosen the leader. His companions were John Finley, John Stewart, Joseph Holden, James Moncey, and William Cool. In the language of Filson, to whom Boone dictated this part of his life, " It was on the 1st of May, in the year 1769, that I resigned my domestic happiness for a time, and left my family and peaceable habitation on the Yadkin River, in North Carolina, to wander through the wilderness of America, in quest of the country of Kentucky." Boone was not unfeeling or indifferent to the domestic relation. His affectionate wife, who was an excellent household manager, kindly and quietly consented to this separation, and called into requisition her skill as a housewife in assisting to provide the necessary outfit. He had sons large enough to raise lO AMEAICAN BIOGRAPHY

a crop and manage the business of the farm, under the supervision of their industrious mother.

It was on the 7th of June, 1769, that six men, weary and wayworn, were seen winding their way up the steep side of a rugged mountain in the wilderness of Kentucky. Their dress was of the description usually worn at that period by all forest rangers. The outside garment was a hunting shirt, or loose open frock, made of dressed deer skins. Leggings or drawers, of the same material, covered the lower extremities, to which was appended a pair of moccasins for the feet. The cape or collar of the hunting shirt, and the seams of the leggings, were adorned with fringes. The under garments were of coarse cotton. A leathern belt encircled the body; on the right side was suspended the tomahawk, to be used as a hatchet; on the left side was the hunting knife, powder-horn, bullet-pouch, and other appendages indispensable for a hunter. Each person bore his trusty rifle; and, as the party slowly made their toilsome way amid the shrubs, and over the logs and loose rocks, that accident had thrown into the obscure trail which they were following, each man kept a sharp look-out, as though danger or a lurking enemy was near. Their garments were soiled and rent, the unavoidable result of long travelling and exposure to the heavy rains that had fallen ; for the weather had been stormy and most uncomfortable, and they had traversed a mountainous wilderness for several hundred miles. The leader of the party was of full size, with a hardy, robust, sinewy frame, and keen, piercing, hazel eyes, that glanced with quickness at every object as they passed on, now cast forward in the direction they were travelling for signs of an old trail, and in the next moment directed askance into the dense thicket, or into the deep ravine, as if watching some concealed enemy. The reader will recognize in this man the pioneer Boone, at the head of his companions.

Towards the time of the setting sun, the party had reached the summit of the mountain range, up which they had toiled for some three or four hours, and which had bounded their prospect to the west during the day. Here new and indescribable scenery opened to their view. Before them, for an immense distance, as if spread out on a map, lay the rich and beautiful vales watered by the Kentucky River; for they had now reached one of its northern branches. The country immediately before them, to use a western phrase, was " rolling," and, in places, abruptly hilly; but far in the vista was seen a beautiful expanse of level country, over which the buffalo, deer, and other forest animals, roamed unmolested, while they fed on the luxuriant herbage of the forest. The countenances of the party lighted up with pleasure, congratulations were exchanged, the romantic tales of Finley were confirmed by ocular demonstration, and orders were given to encamp for the night in a neighboring ravine. In a deep gorge of the mountain, a large tree had fallen, surrounded by a dense thicket, and hidden from observation by the abrupt and precipitous hills. This tree lay in a convenient position for the back of their camp. Logs were placed on the right and left, leaving the front open, where fire might be kindled against another log ; and for shelter from the rains and heavy dews, bark was peeled from the linden tree.

From this point they reconnoitred the country, and hunted the buffalo, with which the wilderness abounded. This site was on the waters of the Red River, one of the principal branches of the Kentucky, and, so far as can now be ascertained, within the present boundaries of Morgan county. The buffaloes were very numerous, so that hundreds might be seen in one drove, dispersed in the cane-brakes, feeding in the glades, or gathered around the salt licks.

In this region the party hunted with much success till December, without seeing a single red man. Yet, to the experienced eyes of Boone and his companions, there were signs of the visitation of Indians. The Chaonanons, or Shawanoes, had lived and roamed, in their savage way, over that part of Kentucky, which bordered the Kentucky River at the south, near the middle of the seventeenth century, and their scattered settlements and hunting grounds extended to the Cumberland River, and to the present site of Nashville; but history has preserved no authentic memorials of the occupancy of that part of Kentucky * where our pioneers were engaged in hunting. Strolling parties of Indian hunters or warriors passed over it, but not one Indian village existed in all that district, which lay between the Guyandot and Kentucky Rivers.

* Kain-tuck-ee. is a Shawanese word, and signified " at the head of the river." See " Trans. Amer. Antiq. Society," Vol. I. p. 299. The repeated statement, that it meant " dark and bloody ground," is a fiction.

The Chickasaws possessed that part of the State west of the Tennessee River, called the Cherokee, or Hogohege River. The Cherokees set up a sort of claim to the country, between the Kentucky and Cumberland Rivers, as hunting grounds. Whatever might be the equity of this claim, it was extinguished by a treaty held at Lochaber, in South Carolina, by John Stewart, superintendent of Indian affairs, acting under the auspices of the colony of Virginia. This treaty was made on the 5th of October, 1770, and, by a subsequent arrangement between the contracting parties, the boundaries were extended from " the head of Louisa [Kentucky] River to its mouth, and thence up the Ohio River to the mouth of the Great Kenhawa,"

The Shawanoes migrated from the country bordering on the Atlantic Ocean south of James River, where they were found in the early part of the seventeenth century; but they were afterwards subjugated by the Iroquois, or Five Nations, and driven to the north of the Ohio River, in the latter part of the same century. The Iroquois, by a pretended right of conquest, claimed the country, as they did all the lands of the tribes they conquered, and at the treaty of Fort Stanwix, in 1768, they ceded their claim, such as it was, south of the Ohio River to Great Britain. Hence Boone and his associates did not intrude upon the rights of any Indian nation, as these rights were then understood.

For convenience of hunting, and that their observations might be extended over a much larger district, in December the explorers divided themselves into parties. Boone and Stewart formed one party, and, on the 22d day of the month, they were near the banks of the main Kentucky River. Filson, in his attempt to record Boone's story, says, " At the dechne of day, near Kentucky River, as we descended the brow of a small hill, a number of Indians rushed out of a thick cane-brake upon us and made us prisoners. The time of our sorrow was now arrived, and the scene fully opened." The Indians plundered them of what supplies they had, and detained them seven days.

Boone knew too well the character of Indians to manifest fear, uneasiness, or a desire to escape. The savages treated them with rude hospitality, intending, doubtless, after washing all the white blood out by the customary ablution, to adopt them as members of the tribe. At night, the party lodged by a large fire in a thick cane-brake. It is evident from Boone's story, defective as it is, that the Indians had no apprehension of an escape. They took no pains for security, set no watch, but all slept soundly. The seventh night had arrived, and Boone, while pretending to sleep, was forming his plans. The greatest caution was necessary lest the savages should awake. Any attempt to run away, where kindness and lenity have been shown to a captive, is a mortal offence to an Indian. Boone gently awakened Stewart, and, in a low whisper and a sign, gave the intimation necessary. Having secured their guns, and a few trifling articles, the two hunters left their captors in a profound slumber, and successfully made their escape. It is obvious, from the circumstances narrated, that this was a mere hunting party; for, had the savages been on the " war-path," they would have guarded their prisoners with greater vigilance, nor could they have made so safe a retreat.

While wandering in darkness through the woods, the feelings of Boone and Stewart may be better imagined than described. They slept no more, but pursued their course all the next day in as direct a line and with as much rapidity as the dense forest and canes would permit, towards their old hunting camp, where they expected to meet their companions. But to their surprise and distress, they found it plundered; and their friends, Finley and his associates, as they supposed, had left the country. Of this party nothing more remains either in history or tradition. No intimation has been given, whether they returned to North Carolina or were taken prisoners by the Indians. Boone and his companion continued their hunting, but with more caution; their ammunition began to fail, and their adventure with the Indians increased their vigilance by day, and directed them to the most obscure retreats at night.

Early in January, 1770, the forms of two men were discerned in the distant forest. Whether they were hostile Indians, or their former associates, could not be determined at the first view, but they grasped their rifles, and took to the trees for shelter and further observation. It was evident that they had been observed, for the strangers approached cautiously and slowly, exhibiting signs that they were white men and friends. But this did not give the desired relief, for the wily Indian will make such signs of friendship and recognition, to throw his enemy off his guard. Boone gave the customary challenge,

" Holloa, strangers! who are you? " The response was, " White men and friends." Judge of the surprise and delight of Boone upon embracing his brother. Squire Boone, and another adventurer from North Carolina, with tidings of his family and supplies of powder and lead. This party had left the settlement on the Yadkin, for the purposes of exploring these western wilds, engaging in a winter's hunt, and finding, if alive, Daniel and his associates. They had seen repeatedly the *' signs " and encampments of white men, and, only an hour before the meeting, had stumbled on their last night's camp.

Shortly after this happy event, Daniel Boone and Stewart were on a second excursion, at some distance from their camp, when they were again attacked by a party of Indians, and Stewart was shot and scalped, while Boone succeeded in effecting his escape. None of the documents or reminiscences give any further particulars. The man, who came to the wilderness with Squire Boone, went into the woods and was missing, or, as Boone supposed, was lost in the woods ; but, after several days of anxious search, they concluded he had taken this method to desert them, and return to the settlement. Long afterwards, a decayed skeleton and some fragments of clothing were found near a swamp, and, as this man never reached his friends, the supposition was that he perished at that place. But whether he fell a victim to savage cruelty or hunger, was never known.*

* The story, in some of the " Lives of Boone," that this man was killed and devoured by wolves, is a fiction. The wolves of the western forests rarely attack an I kill a man. They are bountifully supplied with game.

The brothers, thus left alone in this vast wilderness, were not oppressed with despondency or fear; nor were they indolent. They hunted by day, prepared the skins of the animals they killed for future use, cooked their game, and sang and talked by their bright camp-fires at night, and built a comfortable cabin as a shelter from the storms and frosts of winter. They were in want of many necessaries. Clothing and moccasins were easily made from dressed deer-skins. With bread and salt they had learned to dispense, but powder and lead were indispensable, and they fancied that horses would be of essential service. During the winter, they saw no Indians, and continued unmolested.

As Spring approached, it was decided that the younger brother, Squire Boone, should return to North Carolina for supplies, while Daniel remained to protect the peltry and increase the stock. On the 1st of May, the brothers gave to each other the parting hand. Squire took up the line of march of more than five hundred miles, to the Yadkin settlement, while Daniel was left in the cabin to his own solitary reflections. He thus remained alone in a vast wilderness, without bread, salt, or sugar, without the society of a fellow-creature, without the company of a horse, or even a dog, often the affectionate companions of the lone hunter. In reviewing this period of his life, he said, " I confess I never before was under greater necessity of exercising philosophy and fortitude. A few days I passed uncomfortably. The idea of a beloved wife and family, and their anxiety on account of my absence and exposed situation, made sensible impressions on my heart."

To relieve himself from the oppressive feelings of loneliness, he made a long tour of observation to the southwest, and explored the country along the waters of Salt and Green Rivers. The Indians were again abroad ; and on liis return he saw, by undoubted signs, that they had visited his cabin during his absence. Frequently at night he would retire to the woods, and lie in the cane-brake, without fire, that he might escape the vigilant observation of the wily savages.

On the 27th of July, his brother returned from North Carolina, and they met at the old camp on Red River. He rode one horse, and led another heavily laden with the necessaries required. The intelligence from his family was cheering. They were in good health and in comfortable circumstances.

Convinced that small parties of Indians were roaming over the country, hunting the buffalo, Boone and his brother well knew that two men, however skilful in the use of their weapons, could hardly escape if attacked ; that their horses would betray them, and be tempting objects of Indian cupidity. Hence they resolved to leave that part of Kentucky and explore the country on Cumberland River. Here they found the hills more abrupt, the soil of an inferior quality, and the game less plentiful. They continued their exploration over a large district, between Cumberland and Greene Rivers, where the timber was scattering and stunted in growth, the surface uneven, and abounding in what are called sink-holes, or depressions produced in a cavernous limestone country by the sinking of the earth, from the action of water after heavy rains. They continued on the waters of the Cumberland region until march, 1771, when they returned in a northeastern direction to the Kentucky River, where the soil appeared more fertile, and more heavily timbered. Here they resolved to fix the site of their projected settlement.

Having packed up as much peltry as their horses could carry, the}^ departed for their families on the Yadkin, resolved to return and make this new country their future home. Daniel had been absent two years, during which time he had tasted neither bread nor salt, nor had he seen any other human being than his travelling companions, and the Indians who had taken him prisoner.

At the same period that Boone and his associates were exploring Kentucky, there were parties, without the knowledge of each other, on the waters of the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers. In June, 1769, a company of about twenty men, from North Carolina and Western Virginia, assembled on Reedy Creek, a branch of New River, with their horses and equipments for an exploring and hunting tour. They departed, on the 2d of June, for the country of Tennessee, passed over the dividing ridge to Holston River, thence to Powell's Valley, and through the Gap of Cumberland Mountain to the river of the same name, into what is now Wayne county, in Kentucky, where they made a camp for a general rendezvous, to which each party was to return and make a deposit every five weeks. They dispersed in small parties, and in different directions, and hunted throughout that district. At a later period, the whole party moved in a southwestern direction down the country, along the head waters of Roaring River and Caney Fork. After hunting for eight or nine months, they returned in April, 1770. The same year, a company of ten hunters built two boats and two trapping canoes, loaded them with furs, venison, and bear's meat, and went down the Cumberland, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers, to Natchez, where they disposed of their venison and peltry. At the French Licks, now Nashville, they saw immense herds of buffaloes and other game, and an old fort, unoccupied, which they supposed had been erected by the Cherokees. Here had been a stockade and trading-post for several years, by a company of Frenchmen from Kaskaskia, at the head of which was Timothy de Monbrun.

In 1 77 1, Casper Mansco, who had twice visited the Valley of the Cumberland, came out again in company with James Knox, John Montgomery, Isaac Bledsoe, and several others. They encamped on Russell's Creek, a branch of Powell's River, where they wintered. The next season, they traversed the country down the waters of the Cumberland, to the region north of Nashville, and into the " barrens " of Kentucky. Here they met with another body of hunters, and soon after returned to New River. This party passed through the same district of country, that, a few weeks after they had left it, was visited by Daniel and Squire Boone. From the period of their absence, they obtained the name of the " long hunters."

Chapter II

Boone attempts a Removal to Kentucky. — Attacked by the Indians. — Returns to Clinch River. — Sent by Governor Dunmore to bring in a Party of Surveyors from Kentucky. — Commands three Garrisons in Dunmore's War. — Commissioned to mark out a Road for the Emigrants. — Erects a Fort at Boonesborough. — Indians hostile. — Removes his Family to Kentucky. — Lexington. — Simon Kenton. — William Whitley. — Political Convention. — Capture of the Daughters of Boone, and their Rescue. — Indian Mode of Fighting. — Attack on Harrod's, Boone's, and Logan's Stations.

Anxious as Boone was to remove his family to the hunting-grounds of Kentucky, more than two years elapsed before the necessary arrangements for the enterprise were effected. He sold his farm on the Yadkin, and made his preparations, having persuaded his wife and children to accompany him. This we might regard as a remarkable instance of indifference and hardihood, did we not know that Daniel Boone was as mild, humane, and affectionate, as he was bold and fearless, and did we not know that the wives of our western pioneers are as courageous, and as ready to enter on the line of march to plant the germ of a new settlement, as their husbands.