Daniel Boone: The Pioneer of Kentucky
days came and went, while nothing occurred to interrupt the prosperity
of their journey. They were approaching the celebrated Cumberland Gap,
which seems to be a door that nature has thrown open for passing through
this great mountain barrier. The vigilance they ought to have practiced
had been in some degree relaxed by their freedom from all alarm. The
cows had fallen a few miles behind, seven young men were with them, a
son of Daniel Boone being one of the number. The main party was not
aware how far the cattle had fallen in the rear.
It is probable that the savages had been following them for several
days, watching for an opportunity to strike, for suddenly, as they were
passing through a narrow ravine, the fearful war-whoop resounded from
the thickets on both sides, a shower of arrows fell upon them, and six
of the seven young men were instantly struck down by these deadly
missiles. One only escaped. The attack was so sudden, so unexpected,
that the emigrants had scarcely time for one discharge of their
fire-arms, ere they were struck with death. The party in advance heard
with consternation the reports of the muskets, and immediately returned
to the scene of the disaster. But several miles intervened. They met the
fugitive who had escaped, bleeding and almost breathless.
Hurrying on, an awful spectacle met their view. The bodies of six of
the young men lay in the path, mangled and gory, with their scalps torn
from their heads: the cattle were driven into the forest beyond pursuit.
One of these victims was the eldest son of Daniel Boone. James was a
noble lad of but seventeen years. His untimely death was a terrible blow
to his father and mother. This massacre took place on the tenth of
October, only a fortnight after the expedition had commenced its march.
The gloom which it threw over the minds of the emigrants was so great,
that the majority refused to press any farther into a wilderness where
they would encounter such perils.
They had already passed two mountain ridges. Between them there was a
very beautiful valley, through which flows the Clinch River. This many
leagues below, uniting with the Holston River, flowing on the other side
of Powell's Ridge, composes the majestic Tennessee, which, extending far
down into Alabama, turns again north, and traversing the whole breadth
of Tennessee and Kentucky, empties into the Ohio.
Notwithstanding the remonstrances of Daniel Boone and his brother, the
majority of the emigrants resolved to retreat forty miles over the
Walden Ridge, and establish themselves in the valley of the Clinch.
Daniel Boone, finding all his attempts to encourage them to proceed in
vain, decided with his customary good sense to acquiesce in their
wishes, and quietly to await further developments. The whole party
consequently retraced their steps, and reared their cabins on fertile
meadows in the valley of the Clinch River. Here, between parallel ridges
of mountains running north-east and south-west, Boone with his
disheartened emigrants passed seven months. This settlement was within
the limits of the present State of Virginia, in its most extreme
south-western corner.
The value of the vast country beyond the mountains was beginning to
attract the attention of the governors of the several colonies. Governor
Dunmore of Virginia had sent a party of surveyors to explore the valley
of the Ohio River as far as the celebrated Falls of the Ohio, near the
present site of Louisville. Quite a body of these surveyors had built
and fortified a camp near the Falls, and were busy in exploring the
country, in preparation for the granting of lands as rewards for
services to the officers and soldiers in the French war. These pioneers
were far away in the wilderness, four hundred miles beyond any
settlement of the whites. They were surrounded by thousands of Indian
warriors, and still they felt somewhat secure, as a treaty of peace had
been made by the Governor of Virginia with the neighboring chiefs. But,
notwithstanding this treaty, many of the more intelligent of the Indians
foresaw the inevitable destruction of their hunting grounds, should the
white men succeed in establishing themselves on their lands, and cutting
them up into farms.
A friendly Indian had informed Governor Dunmore that a very formidable
conspiracy had been organised by the tribes for the destruction of the
party encamped at the Falls of the Ohio, and for the extermination of
every other party of whites who should penetrate their hunting grounds.
It was in accordance with this conspiracy that Daniel Boone's party was
so fiercely assailed when near the Gap, in the Cumberland mountains; and
it was probably the knowledge of this conspiracy, thus practically
developed, which led the husbands and fathers to abandon their
enterprise of plunging into the wilderness of Kentucky.
There were about forty men all numbered, in the little band of surveyors
at the Falls. They were in terrible peril. Unconscious of danger, and
supposing the Indians to be friendly, they were liable to be attacked on
any day by overwhelming numbers of savages, and utterly exterminated. It
consequently became a matter of great moment that Governor Dunmore
should send them word of their danger, and if possible secure their safe
return to the settlements. But who would undertake such a mission? One
fraught with greater danger could not easily be imagined. The courier
must traverse on foot a distance of four or five hundred miles through a
pathless wilderness, filled with hunting bands of hostile savages. He
must live upon the game he could shoot each day, when every discharge of
his musket was liable to bring upon him scores of foes. He must either
eat his food raw, or cook it at a fire whose gleam at night, or smoke by
day, would be almost sure to attract the attention of death-dealing
enemies. He must conceal his footprints from hunting bands, wandering
far and wide in every direction, so keen in their sagacity that they
could almost follow the track of the lightest-footed animal through the
forest or over the prairie.
The Indians had also well-trained dogs, who being once put upon the
scent, could with unerring instinct follow any object of search, until
it was overtaken.
The name of Daniel Boone was mentioned to Governor Dunmore as precisely
the man to meet this exigency. The Governor made application to the
practiced hunter, and Boone, without the slightest hesitancy, accepted
the perilous office. Indeed he seems to have been entirely unconscious
of the heroism he was developing. Never did knight errant of the middle
ages undertake an achievement of equal daring; for capture not only was
certain death, but death under the most frightful tortures. But Boone,
calm, imperturbable, pensive, with never a shade of boastfulness in
word or action, embarked in the enterprise as if it had been merely one
of the ordinary occurrences of every-day life. In the following modest
words he records the event in his autobiography:
"I remained with my family on the Clinch river until the sixth of June,
1774, when I, and one Michael Stoner, were solicited by Governor Dunmore
of Virginia, to go to the Falls of the Ohio to conduct into the
settlements a number of surveyors that had been sent thither by him some
months before, this country having about this time drawn the attention
of many adventurers. We immediately complied with the Governor's
request, and conducted in the surveyors, completing a tour of eight
hundred miles, through many difficulties, in sixty-two days."
The narrative which follows will give the reader some idea of the
wilderness which Boone was about to penetrate and the perils which he
was to encounter.
An emigrant of these early days who lived to witness the transformation
of the wilderness from a scene of unbroken solitude into the haunts of
busy men, in the following words describes this change and its influence
upon the mind:
"To a person who has witnessed all the changes which have taken place in
the western country since its first settlement, its former appearance is
like a dream or romance. He will find it difficult to realise the
features of that wilderness which was the abode of his infant days. The
little cabin of his father no longer exists. The little field and truck
patch which gave him a scanty supply of coarse bread and vegetables have
been swallowed up in the extended meadows, orchard or grain fields. The
rude fort in which his people had resided so many painful summers has
vanished.
"Everywhere surrounded by the busy hum of men and the splendor, arts,
refinements and comforts of civilised life, his former state and that of
his country have vanished from his memory; or if sometimes he bestows a
reflection on its original aspect, the mind seems to be carried back to
a period of time much more remote than it really is. One advantage at
least results from having lived in a state of society ever on the change
and always for the better, that it doubles the retrospect of life. With
me at any rate it has had that effect. Did not the definite number of my
years teach me to the contrary, I should think myself at least one
hundred years old instead of fifty. The case is said to be widely
different with those who have passed their lives in cities or ancient
settlements where, from year to year, the same unchanging aspect of
things presents itself.
"One prominent feature of the wilderness is its solitude. Those who
plunged into the bosom of this forest left behind them not only the busy
hum of men, but of domesticated animal life generally. The solitude of
the night was interrupted only by the howl of the wolf, the melancholy
moan of the ill-boding owl or the shriek of the frightful panther. Even
the faithful dog, the only steadfast companion of man among the brute
creation, partook of the silence of the desert; the discipline of his
master forbade him to bark or move but in obedience to his command, and
his native sagacity soon taught the propriety of obedience to this
severe government.
"The day was, if possible, more solitary than the night. The noise of
the wild turkey, the croaking of the raven, or the woodpecker tapping
the hollow beech tree, did not much enliven the dreary scene. The
various tribes of singing birds are not inhabitants of the desert. They
are not carnivorous and therefore must be fed from the labors of man. At
any rate they did not exist in this country at its first settlement.
"Let the imagination of the reader pursue the track of the adventurer
into the solitary wilderness, bending his course towards the setting sun
over undulating hills, under the shade of large forest trees, and wading
through the rank weeds and grass which then covered the earth. Now he
views from the top of a hill the winding course of a creek whose streams
he wishes to explore. Doubtful of its course and of his own, he
ascertains the cardinal points of north and south by the thickness of
the moss and bark on the north side of the ancient trees. Now descending
into a valley, he presages his approach to a river by seeing large ash,
basswood and sugar trees beautifully festooned with wild grape vines.
Watchful as Argus, his restless eye catches everything around him.
"In an unknown region and surrounded with dangers, he is the sentinel of
his own safety and relies on himself for protection. The toilsome march
of the day being ended, at the fall of night he seeks for safety some
narrow sequestered hollow, and by the side of a large log builds a fire
and, after eating a coarse and scanty meal, wraps himself up in his
blanket and lays him self down for repose on his bed of leaves, with his
feet to the fire, hoping for favorable dreams, ominous of future good
luck, while his faithful dog and gun rest by his side.