Daniel Boone: The Pioneer of Kentucky
Kentucky Legislature would not long leave him landless. There is
scarcely a cabin or a mansion in the whole State, where Daniel Boone
would not meet with as hospitable a reception as grateful hearts could
give.
As a grief-stricken child rushes to its mother's arms for solace, so it
is natural for man, when world-weary and struggling with adversity, to
look back with longing eyes to the home of his childhood. The
remembrance of its sunny days animates him, and its trivial sadnesses
are forgotten. Thus with Daniel Boone; houseless and stung by
ingratitude, he turned his eyes to the far distant home of his
childhood, on the banks of the Schuykill. More than forty years of a
wonderfully adventurous life had passed, since he a boy of fourteen had
accompanied his father in his removal from Reading, in Berk's County, to
North Carolina. Still the remarkable boy had left traces behind him
which were not yet obliterated.
He visited Reading, probably influenced by a faint hope of finding there
a home. A few of his former acquaintances were living, and many family
friends remained. By all he was received with the greatest kindness. But
the frontier settlement of log huts, and the majestic surrounding
forests filled with game, had entirely disappeared. Highly cultivated
farms, from which even the stumps of the forest had perished, extended
in all directions. Ambitious mansions adorned the hillsides, and all the
appliances of advancing civilization met the eye. There could be no home
here for Daniel Boone. Amid these strange scenes he felt as a stranger,
and his heart yearned again for the solitudes of the forest. He longed
to get beyond the reach of lawyers' offices, and court-houses, and land
speculators.
After a short visit he bade adieu forever to his friends upon the
Schuykill, and turned his steps again towards the setting sun. His
feelings had been too deeply wounded to allow him to think of remaining
a man without a home in Kentucky. Still the idea of leaving a region
endeared to him by so many memories must have been very painful. He
remembered vividly his long and painful journeys over the mountains,
through the wilderness untrodden by the foot of the white man; his
solitary exploration of the new Eden which he seemed to have found
there; the glowing accounts he had carried back to his friends of the
sunny skies, the salubrious clime, the fertile soil, and the majesty and
loveliness of the landscape; of mountain, valley, lake and river which
Providence had lavished with a prodigal hand in this "Garden of the
Lord."
One by one he had influenced his friends to emigrate, had led them to
their new homes, had protected them against the savages, and now when
Kentucky had become a prosperous State in the Union, containing thirty
thousand inhabitants, he was cast aside, and under the forms of law was
robbed of the few acres which he had cultivated as his own. His life
embittered by these reflections, and seeing nothing to attract him in
the wild and unknown regions beyond the Mississippi, Colonel Boone
turned sadly back to Virginia.
It was an easy task for him to remove. In such an hour, one can
sometimes well say, "Blessed be Nothing." A few pack-horses were
sufficient to convey all his household goods. It is probable that his
wife and children, indignant at the treatment which the husband and
father had received, were glad to leave.
This was doubtless one of the saddest journeys that Colonel Boone ever
undertook. Traversing an almost pathless wilderness in a direction a
little north of east from Boonesborough, he crossed the various speers
of the Alleghany range, supporting his family with his rifle on the way,
until after passing over three hundred miles of the wilderness, he
reached the mouth of the Kanawha river, as that stream flows from
Virginia due north, and empties into the Ohio river. Here there was a
point of land washed by the Ohio on the north, and the Great Kanawha on
the west, to which the appropriate name of Point Pleasant had been
given. It does not appear that civilization had as yet penetrated this
region. The emigration to Kentucky had floated by it down the river,
descending from Pittsburg, or had crossed the mountain passes from North
Carolina, several hundred miles to the south.
Colonel Boone was now fifty-five years of age. If there were any
settlement at the time at Point Pleasant, it must have consisted merely
of a few log huts. Here at all events, Colonel Boone found the solitude
and the communion with nature alone, for which his heart yearned. The
world might call him poor, and still he was rich in the abundant supply
of all his earthly wants. He reared his log hut where no one appeared to
dispute his claim. The fertile soil around, a virgin soil, rich with
undeveloped treasures, under the simplest culture produced abundantly,
and the forest around supplied him daily with animal food more than a
European peasant sees in a year.
Here Colonel Boone and his family remained for several years, to use a
popular phrase, buried from the world. His life was mainly that of a
hunter. Mr. Peck, speaking of the habits of those pioneers who depended
mainly upon the rifle for support, writes:
"I have often seen him get up early in the morning, walk hastily out,
and look anxiously to the woods and snuff the autumnal winds with the
highest rapture; then return into the house and cast a quick and
attentive look at the rifle, which was always suspended to a joist by a
couple of buck-horns or little forks. The hunting dog understanding the
intentions of his master, would wag his tail, and by every blandishment
in his power, express his readiness to accompany him to the woods."
It probably did not diminish Colonel Boone's interest in his new home,
that it was exposed to all the perils of border life; that his rifle
should be ever loaded; that his faithful watch-dog should be stationed
at the door, to give warning of any approaching footsteps; and that he
and his family should always be ready for a siege or battle. With these
precautions, Boone had no more fear of assault from half a dozen
vagabond Indians, than he had from so many howling wolves.
The casualties of life had greatly reduced his family. Of his three
sons, the eldest had fallen beneath the arrow and the tomahawk of the
savages amidst the gloomy defiles of the Alleghany mountains. His second
son was killed at the dreadful battle of the Blue Licks, as his agonised
father had been compelled to abandon him to the merciless foe. His third
son, probably chagrined by the treatment which his father had received
from the authorities of Kentucky, had bidden adieu to all the haunts of
civilized life, and traversing the wilderness towards the setting sun
for many hundred miles, had crossed the Mississippi and sought a home in
the wilds of the upper Louisiana, then under the dominion of Spain.
As Boone was quietly engaged in his solitary vocation of farmer and
hunter, where there were no books, no newspapers, nothing whatever to
inform him of what was transpiring in the busy world of civilization, or
in the haunts of savage life, two or three hunters came one day to his
cabin, where of course they met with a very hospitable reception. It was
not difficult to entertain guests in those days. The floor of the cabin
supplied all the needed accommodations for lodging. Each guest with his
rifle could easily furnish more food than was desired for the whole
family.
A little corn-meal, very coarsely ground in what was called a tub-mill,
gave quite a variety of palatable food. Boiled in water it formed a dish
called mush, which when eaten with milk, honey or butter, presented
truly a delicious repast for hungry mouths. Mixed with cold water, it
was ready to be baked. When covered with hot ashes, it emerged smoking
from the glowing embers in the form of Ash Cake. When baked upon a
shingle and placed before the coals, it was termed Journey Cake, so
called because it could be so speedily prepared. This name has been
corrupted in modern times into _Johnny_ Cake. When baked upon a
helveless hoe, it formed the Hoe Cake. When baked in a kettle covered
with a heated lid, if in one large cake, it was called a Pone or loaf.
If in quite a number of small cakes they were called Dodgers.
Corn flour seems to have been peculiarly prepared by Providence for the
pioneers. For them it possesses some very great advantages over all
other flour. It requires but few and the most simple cooking utensils.
It can be rendered very palatable without either yeast, eggs, sugar or
spices of any kind. It can easily be raised in the greatest abundance,
and affords the most wholesome and nutritious food.
"Let paeans," writes Mr. Hartly, "be sung all over the mighty West, to
Indian Corn. Without it, the West would still have been a wilderness.
Was the frontier suddenly invaded, without commissary, or quartermaster,
or other sources of supply, each soldier parched a peck of corn. A
portion of it was put into his pockets, the remainder in his wallet, and
throwing it upon his saddle with his rifle on his shoulder, he was ready
in half an hour for the campaign. Did a flood of emigration inundate the
frontier, with an amount of consumers disproportioned to the supply of
grain, the facility of raising the Indian corn, and its early maturity,
gave promise and guarantee that the scarcity would be temporary and
tolerable. Did the safety of the frontier demand the services of every
adult militiaman, the boys and women could themselves raise corn, and
furnish ample supplies of bread. Did an autumnal intermittent confine
the whole family, or the entire population to the sick bed, this certain
concomitant of the clearing and cultivating the new soil, mercifully
withholds its paroxysms till the crop of corn is made. It requires no
further labor or care afterwards. Paeans, say we, and a temple of
worshipping to the creator of Indian Corn!"
The hunters to whom we referred were indeed congenial companions to
Daniel Boone. As day after day they accompanied him in the chase, and
night after night sat by the blaze of his cabine-fire, related to him
the adventures they had encountered far away beyond the Mississippi, the
spirit of his youth revived within him. An irrepressible desire sprang
up in his heart again to become a pioneer in the pathless forest which
he loved so well. It is not improbable also that his parental feelings
might have been aroused by the consideration that his son had gone
before him to that distant land; and that he might have been animated by
the hope of being reunited with him in his declining years.
The hunters represented to him that another Kentucky could be found
beyond the Father of Waters; that the game was abundant and would be
inexhaustible, until long after his earthly pilgrimage should end; that
the Spanish Government, desirous of promoting emigration, were ready to
make the most liberal grants of land to any man who would rear a cabin
and commence the cultivation of the soil; that over an expanse of
hundreds of miles of a sunny clime, and as luxurious soil as heart could
desire, he could select his broad acres with no fear of ever again being
ejected from his home.
These representations were resistless. Colonel Boone decided again to
become a wanderer to the far West, though it involved the relinquishment
of American citizenship and becoming a subject of the crown of Spain.
The year 1795 had now come, as Colonel Boone gathered up his few
household goods for the fourth great remove of his life. He was born on
the banks of the Delaware; his childhood was passed amidst the solitudes
of the Upper Skuylkill; his early manhood, where he reared his cabin and
took to it his worthy bride, was in North Carolina. Thence penetrating