Daniel Boone: The Pioneer of Kentucky
the line of the mountains, and the sweep of the open prairies. The Ohio
was then called the Wabash. This magnificent and beautiful stream is
formed by the confluence of the Alleghany and the Monongahela rivers. It
was a long voyage, a voyage of several hundred miles, following the
windings of the Monongahela river from its rise among the mountains of
Western Virginia till, far away in the north, it met the flood of the
Alleghany, at the present site of the city of Pittsburg. The voyage, in
a birch canoe, required, in the figurative language of the Indians, "two
paddles, two warriors and three moons."
The Indians very correctly described the Ohio, or the Wabash, as but the
tributary of a much more majestic stream, far away in the west, which,
pouring its flood through the impenetrable forest, emptied itself they
knew not where. Of the magnitude of this distant river, the Mississippi,
its source, rise and termination, they could give no intelligible
account. They endeavored to give some idea of the amount of game to be
found in those remote realms, by pointing to the leaves of the forest
and the stars in the sky.
The settlers were deeply interested and often much excited by the
glowing descriptions thus given them of a terrestrial Eden, where life
would seem to be but one uninterrupted holiday. Occasionally an
adventurous French or Spanish trader would cross the towering mountains
and penetrate the vales beyond. They vied with the Indians in their
account of the salubrity of the climate, the brilliance of the skies,
the grandeur of the forests, the magnificence of the rivers, the
marvelous fertility of the soil and the abundance of game.
As early as the year 1690 a trader from Virginia, by the name of
Doherty, crossed the mountains, visited the friendly Cherokee nation,
within the present bounds of Georgia, and resided with the natives
several years. In the year 1730 an enterprising and intelligent man from
South Carolina, by the name of Adair, took quite an extensive tour
through most of the villages of the Cherokees, and also visited several
tribes south and west of them. He wrote an exceedingly valuable and
interesting account of his travels which was published in London.
Influenced by these examples several traders, in the year 1740, went
from Virginia to the country of the Cherokees. They carried on pack
horses goods which the Indians valued, and which they exchanged for
furs, which were sold in Europe at an enormous profit.
A hatchet, a knife, a trap, a string of beads, which could be bought for
a very small sum in the Atlantic towns, when exhibited beyond the
mountains to admiring groups in the wigwam of the Indian, could be
exchanged for furs which were of almost priceless value in the
metropolitan cities of the Old World. This traffic was mutually
advantageous, and so long as peaceful relations existed between the
white man and the Indian, was prosecuted with great and ever increasing
vigor. The Indians thus obtained the steel trap, the keenly cutting ax,
and the rifle, which he soon learned to use with unerring aim. He was
thus able in a day to obtain more game than with his arrows and his
clumsy snares he could secure in a month.
This friendly intercourse was in all respects very desirable; and but
for the depravity of the white man it might have continued uninterrupted
for generations. But profligate and vagabond adventurers from the
settlements defrauded the Indians, insulted their women, and often
committed wanton murder. But it would seem that the majority of the
traders were honest men. Ramsay, in his Annals of Tennessee, writes, in
reference to this traffic:
"Other advantages resulted from it to the whites. They became thus
acquainted with the great avenues leading through the hunting ground,
and to the occupied country of the neighboring tribes--an important
circumstance in the condition of either peace or war. Further the
traders were an exact thermometer of the pacific or hostile intention
and feelings of the Indians with whom they traded. Generally they were
foreigners, most frequently Scotchmen, who had not been long in the
country, or upon the frontier; who, having experienced none of the
cruelties, depredations or aggressions of the Indians, cherished none of
the resentment and spirit of retaliation born with and everywhere
manifested by the American settler.
"Thus free from animosity against the aborigines, the trader was allowed
to remain in the village, where he traded, unmolested, even where its
warriors were singing the war song or brandishing the war club,
preparatory to an invasion or massacre of the whites. Timely warning was
thus often given by a returning packman to a feeble and unsuspecting
settlement, of the perfidy and cruelty meditated against it."
Game on the eastern side of the Alleghanies, hunted down alike by white
men and Indians, soon became scarce. Adventurers combining the
characters of traders and hunters rapidly multiplied. Many of the
hunters among the white men far outstripped the Indians in skill and
energy. Thus some degree of jealousy was excited on the part of the
savages. They saw how rapidly the game was disappearing, and these
thoughtful men began to be anxious for the future. With no love for
agriculture the destruction of the game was their ruin.
As early as the year 1748 quite a party of gentlemen explorers, under
the leadership of Doctor Thomas Walker of Virginia, crossed a range of
the Alleghany mountains, which the Indians called Warioto, but to which
Doctor Walker gave the name of Cumberland, in honor of the Duke of
Cumberland who was then prime minister of England. Following along this
chain in a south-westerly direction, in search of some pass or defile by
which they could cross the cliffs, they came to the remarkable
depression in the mountains to which they gave the name of Cumberland
Gap. On the western side of the range they found a beautiful mountain
stream, rushing far away, with ever increasing volume, into the unknown
wilderness, which the Indians called Shawnee, but which Doctor Walker's
party baptised with the name of Cumberland River. These names have
adhered to the localities upon which they were thus placed.
In 1756 a feeble attempt was made to establish a colony upon the
Tennessee river, at a spot which was called London. This was one
hundred and fifty miles in advance of any white settlement. Eight years
passed, and by the ravages of war the little settlement went up in flame
and smoke. As the years rapidly came and went there were occasional
bursts of the tempests of war; again there would be a short lull and
blessed peace would come with its prosperity and joy.
"In the year 1760, Doctor Walker again passed over Clinch and Powell's
rivers on a tour of exploration, into what is now Kentucky. The
Cherokees were then at peace with the whites, and hunters from the back
settlements began, with safety, to penetrate deeper and further into the
wilderness of Tennessee. Several of them, chiefly from Virginia, hearing
of the abundance of game with which the woods were stocked, and allured
by the prospect of gain which might be drawn from this source, formed
themselves into a company composed of Wallen, Seagys, Blevins, Cox and
fifteen others, and came into the valley, since known as Carter's
Valley, in Hawkin's county, Tennessee. They hunted eighteen months upon
Clinch and Powell rivers. Wallen's Creek and Wallen's Ridge received
their name from the leader of the company; as also did Wallen's Station
which they erected in the Lee county, Virginia.
"They penetrated as far north as Laurel Mountain, in Kentucky, where
they terminated their journey, having met with a body of Indians whom
they supposed to be Shawnees. At the head of one of the companies that
visited the West, this year, came Daniel Boone from the Yadkin, in North
Carolina, and travelled with them as low as the place where Abingdon now
stands, and there left them."
This is the first time the advent of Daniel Boone to the western wilds
has been mentioned by historians or by the several biographers of that
distinguished pioneer and hunter. There is reason however to believe
that he hunted upon Watauga some time earlier than this.
CHAPTER II.
_Daniel Boone, his Parentage, and early Adventures._
Trials of the Colonists.--George Boone and his home.--Squire Boone.--Birth
and character of Daniel Boone.--His limited education.--A pioneer's
camp.--A log house and furnishings.--Annoyance of Boone on the arrival of
Scotch emigrants.--His longings for adventure.--Camp meetings.--Frontier
life.--Sports.--Squirrel hunting.--Snuffing the candle.
It was but a narrow fringe upon the sea coast of North America, which
was thus far occupied by the European emigrants. Even this edge of the
continent was so vast in its extent, from the southern capes of Florida
to the gulf of St. Lawrence, that these colonial settlements were far
separated from each other. They constituted but little dots in the
interminable forest: the surges of the Atlantic beating upon their
eastern shores, and the majestic wilderness sweeping in its sublime
solitude behind them on the west. Here the painted Indians pursued their
game, while watching anxiously the encroachments of the pale faces. The
cry of the panther, the growling of the bear, and the howling of the
wolf, were music to the settlers compared with the war-hoop of the
savage, which often startled the inmates of the lonely cabins, and
consigned them to that sleep from which there is no earthly waking. The
Indians were generally hostile, and being untutored savages, they were
as merciless as demons in their revenge. The mind recoils from the
contemplation of the tortures to which they often exposed their
captives. And one cannot but wonder that the Almighty Father could have
allowed such agony to be inflicted upon any of His creatures.
Notwithstanding the general desire of the colonial authorities to treat
the Indians with justice and kindness, there were unprincipled
adventurers crowding all the colonies, whose wickedness no laws could
restrain. They robbed the Indians, insulted their families, and
inflicted upon them outrages which goaded the poor savages to
desperation. In their unintelligent vengeance they could make no
distinction between the innocent and the guilty.
On the 10th of October, 1717, a vessel containing a number of emigrants
arrived at Philadelphia, a small but flourishing settlement upon the
banks of the Delaware. Among the passengers there was a man named George
Boone, with his wife and eleven children, nine sons and two daughters.
He had come from Exeter, England, and was lured to the New World by the
cheapness of land. He had sufficient property to enable him to furnish
all his sons with ample farms in America. The Delaware, above
Philadelphia, was at that time a silent stream, flowing sublimely
through the almost unbroken forest. Here and there, a bold settler had
felled the trees, and in the clearing had reared his log hut, upon the
river banks. Occasionally the birch canoe of an Indian hunter was seen
passing rapidly from cove to cove, and occasionally a little cluster of
Indian wigwams graced some picturesque and sunny exposure, for the
Indians manifested much taste in the location of their villages.
George Boone ascended this solitary river about twenty miles above
Philadelphia, where he purchased upon its banks an extensive territory,
consisting of several hundred acres. It was near the present city of
Bristol, in what is now called Buck's County. To this tract,
sufficiently large for a township, he gave the name of Exeter, in memory
of the home he had left in England. Here, aided by the strong arms of
his boys, he reared a commodious log cabin. It must have been an