Daniel Boone by John Stevens Cabot Abbott : Chapter 6

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter six of Daniel Boone by John S. C Abbot.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recorded by
Alison Hester, Chapter six Sufferings of the Pioneers. The fortress
at Boonsborough consisted of ten strong log huts arranged in
a quadrangular form, enclosing an area of about one third

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of an acre. The intervals, as before stated, between the huts,
were filled with strong palisades of timber, which, like the
huts themselves, were bullet proof. The outer sides of the cabins,
together with the palisades, formed the sides of the fort
exposed to the foe. Each of these cabins was about

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twenty feet in length and twelve or fifteen in breadth.
There were two entrance gates opposite each other, made of
thick slabs of timber and hung on wooden hinges. The forest,
which was quite dense, had been cut away to such
a distance as to expose an assailing party to the
bullets of the garrison. As at that time the Indians

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were armed mainly with bows and arrows, a few men
fully supplied with ammunition within the fort could bid defiance
to almost any number of savages, and Subsequently, as the
Indians obtained firearms, they could not hope to capture the
fort without a long siege or by assailing it with
a vastly overwhelming superiority of numbers. The accompanying illustration will

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give the reader a very correct idea of this renowned
fortress of Logs, which was regarded as the Gibraltar of
Indian warfare. Having finished this fort, Daniel Boone, leaving a
sufficient garrison for its security, set out for his home
on the Clinch River to bring his wife and family
to the beautiful land he so long had coveted for

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their residence. It seems that his wife and daughters were
eager to follow their father to the banks of the Kentucky,
whose charms hen he had so glowingly described to them.
Several other families were also induced to join the party
of emigration. They could dwell together in a very social
community and in perfect safety in the spacious cabins within

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the fortress. The river would furnish them with an unfailing
supply of water. The hunters, with their rifles, could supply
them with game, and with those rifles could protect themselves
while laboring in the fields which with the axe they
had laid open to the sun around the fort. The
hunters and the farmers at night, returning within the enclosure,

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felt perfectly safe from all assaults. Daniel Boone commenced his
journey with his wife and children, and others who joined
them back to Boonsboro in high spirits. It was a
long journey of several hundred miles, and to many persons
it would seem a journey fraught with great peril, for
they were in danger almost every mile of the way

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of encountering hostile indians. But Boone, accustomed to traversing the
wilderness and accompanied by well armed men, felt no more
apprehensions of danger than the father of a family would
at the present day. In traveling by cars from Massachusetts
to Pennsylvania. It was beautiful autumnal weather when the party
of pioneers commenced its adventurous tour through the wilderness to

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find a new home, five hundred miles beyond even the
remotest frontiers of civilization. There were three families besides that
of Boone, and numbered in all twenty six men, four women,
and four or five boys and girls of various ages.
Daniel Boone was the happy leader of this heroic little band.

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In due time, they all arrived safely at Boonsborough, without
having encountered, as Boone writes, any other difficulties than such
as are common to this passage. As they approached the fort,
Boone and his family, for some unexplained reason, pressed forward
and entered the fortress a few days in advance of
the rest of the party. Perhaps Boone himself had a

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little pride to have said it that Missus Boone and
her daughter were the first of her color and sex
that ever stood upon the banks of the wild and
beautiful Kentucky. A few days after their arrival, the immigrants
had a very solemn admonition of the peril which surrounded them,
and of the necessity of constant vigilance to guard against

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treacherous and sleepless foe. One of their number, who had
sauntered but a short distance from the fort, lured by
the combined beauty of the field, the forest, and the river,
was shot by a prowling Indian, who, raising the war
whoop of exultation and defiance, immediately disappeared in the depths
of the wilderness. Colonel Henderson and his partners, anxious to

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promote the settlement of the country by organizing parties of immigration.
Were busy in making known through the settlements the absolute
security of the fort at Boonsboro and the wonderful attractions
of the region in soil, climate and abounding game. Henderson
himself soon started with a large party, forty of whom

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were well armed. A number of pack horses conveyed the
luggage of the emigrants. Following the very imperfect road that
Boone with much skill had engineered, which was quite tolerable
for pack horses in single file, they reached Boonsborough early
in the following spring. The Transylvania Company was in the

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full flush of successful experiment. Small parties of emigrants were
constantly arriving. Boonsborough was the capital of the colony. Various
small settlements were settled in its vicinity. Colonel Henderson opened
a land office there, and in the course of a
few months over half a million of acres were entered
by settlers or speculators. These men did not purchase the

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lands outright, but found themselves to pay a small but
perpetual rent. The titles, which they supposed to be perfectly good,
were given in the name of the proprietors of the
Colony of Transylvania in America. Soon four settlements were organized,
called Boonsborough, Harrodsburg, Boiling Spring, and Saint Asseph. Colonel Henderson,

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on the twenty third of May seventeen seventy five, as president,
or rather sovereign of this extraordinary realm, summoned a legislature
consisting of delegates from this handful of pioneers to meet
at his capital, Boonsborough. Henderson presided Daniel and his brother
Squire were delegates from Boonsborough. A clergyman, the Reverend John Lythe,

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opened the session with prayer. Colonel Henderson made a remarkable
and admirable speech. This extraordinary legislature represented by only a
constituency of one hundred and fifty souls, but the Colonel
presented to them very clearly the true Republican principle of government.
He declared that the only legitimate source of political power

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is to be found in the will of the people,
and added, if any doubts remain among you with respect
to the force and efficiency of whatever laws you now
or hereafter, make be pleased to consider that all power
is originally in the people. Make it their interest therefore
by impartial and beneficent laws, that you may be sure

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of their inclination to see them enforced. Rumors of these
extraordinary proceedings reached the ears of Lord Dunmore, he considered
the whole region of Kentucky as included in the original
grant of Virginia, and that the Government of Virginia alone
had the right to extinguish the Indian title to any
of those lands. He therefore issued a proclamation denouncing in

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the severest terms the unlawful proceedings of one Richard Henderson
and other disorderly persons his associates. The legislature continued in
session but three days, and honored itself greatly by its
energetic action and by the character of the laws which
it inaugurated. One bill was introduced for preserving game, another

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for improving the breed of their horses. And it is
worthy of a special record that a law was passed
prohibiting profane swearing and sabbath breaking. The moral sense of
these bold pioneers was shocked at the desecration of the
Creator's name among their sublime solitudes. The controversy between the

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Transylvania Company and the Government of Virginia was short but
very sharp. Virginia could then very easily send an army
of several thousand men to exterminate the Kentucky colony. A
compromise was the result. The title of Henderson was declared
null and void, but he received in compensation a grant

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of land on the Ohio, about twelve miles square below
the mouth of the Green River. Virginia assumed that that
the Indian title was entirely extinguished, and the region called
Transylvania now belonged without encumbrance to the old dominion. Still,
the tide of immigration continued to flow into this beautiful region.

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Among others came the family of Colonel Calloway, consisting of
his wife and two daughters. For a long time, no
Indians had been seen in the vicinity of Boonsborough. No
one seemed to apprehend the least danger from them, and
the people in the fort wandered about as freely as
if no foe had ever excited their fears. An accident

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occurred which sent a tremor of dismay through the whole colony,
in which we will describe as related to the intelligent
historian Peck from the Lips of one of the parties
who experienced all the terrors of the scene. On the
fourteenth of July seventeen seventy six, Betsey Calloway, her sister Francis,

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and Jemima Boone, a daughter of Daniel Boone. The two last,
about fourteen years of age, carelessly crossed the river opposite
Boonsborough in a canoe at a late hour in the afternoon.
The trees and shrubs on the opposite bank were thick
and came down to the water's edge. The girls, unconscious
of danger, were playing and splashing the water with their

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paddles until the canoe, floating with the current, drifted near
the shore. Five stout Indians lay there, concealed, one of
whom noiseless and stealthy, as the serpent crawled down the
bank until he reached the rope that hung from the bow,
turned its course up the stream and in a direction
to be hidden from the view of the fort. The

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loud shrieks of the captured girls were heard, but too
late for their rescue the canoe. Their only means of
crossing was on the opposite shore, and none dared to
risk the chance of swimming the river under the impression
that a large body of savages was concealed in the woods.
Boon and Cal were both absent, and night came on

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before arrangements could be made for their pursuit. Next morning,
by daylight we were on the track and found they
had prevented our following them by walking some distance apart
through the thickest canes they could find. We observed their
course and on which side they had left their sign,
and traveled upwards of thirty miles. We then imagined they

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would be less cautious in traveling, and made a turn
in order to cross their trace, and had gone but
a few miles when we found their tracks in a
buffalo path. We pursued and overtook them on going about
ten miles, as they were kindling a fire to cook.
Our study had been more to get the prisoners without
giving the Indians time to murder them after they discovered us,

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than to kill them. We discovered each other nearly at
the same time. Four of us fired, and all of
us rushed in on them, which prevented them from carrying
away anything except one shot gun without ammunition. Mister Boone
and myself had a pretty fair shoot just as they
began to move off. I am well convinced. I shot

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one through, and the one he shot dropped his gun.
Mine had none. The place was very thick with canes,
and being so much elated on recovering the three broken
hearted girls, prevented our making further search. We sent them
off without their moccasins, and not one of them with
so much as a knife or a tomahawk. The Indians

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seemed to awake increasingly to the consciousness that the empire
of the white men and their country could only exist
upon the ruins of their own. They divided themselves into
several parties, making incessant attacks upon the forts and prowling
around to shoot every white man who could be found
within reach of their bullets. They avoided all open warfare

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and fought only when they could spring up from an ambush,
or when protected by a stump, a rock, or a tree.
An Indian would conceal himself in the night behind a stump,
shoot the first one who emerged from the fort in
the morning, and then with a yell, disappear into the
recesses of the forest. The cattle could scarcely appear for

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an hour to graze beyond the protection of the fort
without danger of being struck down with a bullet of
an unseen foe. The War of the American Revolution was
just commencing. Dreadfully. It added to the perils of these
distant emigrants. The British government, with infamy which can never
be effaced from her records, called in to aid the

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Tomahawk and the scalping knife of the savage. The Indiana alone,
in his wild and merciless barbarity was terrible enough. But
when he appeared as the ally of a powerful nation,
guided in his operations by the wisdom of her officers,
and well provided with guns, powder and bullets from inexhaustible resources,

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the settler had indeed reason to tremble. The winter of
seventeen seventy six and seven eineighteen seventy seven was gloomy
beyond expression. The Indians were hourly becoming more bold. Their
predatory bands were wandering in all directions, and almost every
day came fraught with tidings of outrage or massacre. The

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whole military force of the colony was but about one
hundred men. Three hundred of the pioneers dismayed by the
cloud of menace. Every hour growing blacker had returned across
the mountains. There were but twenty two armed men left
in the fort at Boonsborough. The dismal winter passed slowly away,
and the spring opened, replete with nature's bloom and beauty,

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but darkened by the depravity of man. On the fifteenth
of April, a band of one hundred howling Indians appeared
in the forest before Boonsborough. With far more than their
ordinary audacity, they rushed from their covert upon the fort.
Had they been acquainted with the use of scaling ladders
by attacking at different points, they might easily, by their

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superior numbers, have carried the place by storm. But fortunately
the savages had but little military science, and when once repulsed,
would usually retreat in dismay. The garrison behind their impenetrable
logs took deliberate aim, and every bullet killed or wounded
some Indian warrior. The savages fought with great bravery and

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succeeded in killing one man in the garrison. Dismayed by
the slaughter which they were encountering, they fled, taking their
dead and wounded with them. But so fully were they
conscious that they would retain their own supremacy in the wilderness.
They must exterminate the white Man, that their retreat was
only in preparation for a return with accumulated numbers. An

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intelligent historian, rites Daniel Boone, appears before us in these
exciting times, the central figure towering like a colossus amid
that hardy band of pioneers who opposed their breasts to
the shock of the struggle, which gave a terrible significance
and a crimson hue to the history of the old,

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dark and bloody ground. The Indians were scattered everywhere in
desperate bands. Forty men were sent from North Carolina and
a hundred from Virginia under Colonel Bowman to strengthen the
feeble settlements. The latter party arrived on the twentieth of
August seventeen seventy six. There were at that time skirmishes

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with the Indians almost every day at some point. The pioneers,
within their log houses or behind their palisades, generally repelled
these assaults with but little loss to themselves, and not
often inflicting severe injury to the weary savages. In the
midst of these constant conflicts and dangers, the winter months

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passed drearily away. Boonsborough was constantly menaced and frequently attacked.
In a diary kept within the fort, we find the
following entries. May twenty three, a large party of Indians
attacked Boonsborough Fort, kept a warm fire till eleven o'clock
at night, began it next morning, and kept a warm

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fire till midnight, attempting several times to burn the fort.
Three of our men were wounded, but not mortally. May
twenty sixth a party went out to hunt Indians. One
wounded Squire Boon and escaped. Very cruel warfare was now
being waged by the majestic power of Great Britain to

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bring the revolted colonies back to subjugation to their laws.
As we have mentioned, they called into requisition on their side,
the merciless energies of the Savage, openly declaring to the
world that they were justified in making use of whatever
weapons God and Nature might place in their hands from
the strong British garrisons. At the Troy vin sins at Kaskaskia.

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The Indians were abundantly supplied with rifles, powder and bullets,
and were offered liberal rewards for such prisoners and even scalps,
as they might bring in. The danger which threatened these
settlements in Kentucky was now such as might cause the
stoutest heart to quail. The savage had been adopted as
an ally by the most wealthy and powerful nation upon

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the globe. His moraartering bands were often guided by the
intelligence of British officers. Boone organized what might be called
a corp of explorers to go out two and two,
penetrating the wilderness with extreme caution in all directions, to
detect any indication of the approach of the Indians. One

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of these explorers, Simon Kenton, acting under the sagacious council
of Colonel Boone, had obtained great and deserved celebrity as
among the most heroic of the remarkable men who laid
the foundation of the state of Kentucky. It would be
difficult to find in any pages of romance incidents of
more wonderful adventure, or of more dreadful suffering, or stories

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of more miraculous escape, than were experienced by this man.
Several times he was taken captive by the Indians, and,
though treated with great inhumanity, succeeded in making his escape.
The following incident in his life occurring about this time,
gives one a very vivid picture of the nature of
this warfare with the Indians. Colonel Bowman sent Simon Kenton

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with two other men, Montgomery and Clark, on an exploring tour.
Approaching an Indian town very cautiously in the night on
the north side of the Ohio River, they found a
number of Indian horses in an enclosure. A horse in
the wilderness was one of the most valuable of prizes.
They accordingly each mounted an animal, not daring to leave

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any behind which would aid the Indians to pursue them.
By hastily constructed halters, they led the rest. The noise
which the horses made awoke the Indians, and the whole
village was at once in a state of uproar. The
mounted adventurers dashed through the woods and were soon beyond
the reach of the shouts and the yells which they

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left behind them. They knew, however, full well, that the
swift footed Indian warriors would be immediately on their trail
without a moment's rest. They rode all night, the next
day and the next night, and on the morning of
the second day reached the banks of the Ohio River.
The flood of that majestic stream flowed broad and deep

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before them, and its surface was lashed into waves by
a very boisterous wind. The horses could not swim across
in such a gale, but their desire to retain the
invaluable animals was so great that they resolved to wait
upon the banks until sunset, when they expected the wind
to abate. Having been so well mounted, and having such

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a start of the Indians, they did not suppose it
possible that their pursuers could overtake them before that time.
Night came, but with it an increase of the fury
of the gale, and the stream became utterly impassable. Early
in the morning, Kenton, who was separated from his companions,
observed three Indians and a white man well mounted, rapidly approaching.

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Raising his rifle, he took steady aim at the breast
of the foremost Indian and pulled the trigger. The powder
flashed in the pan. Kenton took to his heels, but
was soon overtaken and captured. The Indians seemed greatly exasperated
at the loss of their horses. One seized him by
the hair and shook his head till his teeth rattled.

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The others scourged him severely with their ramrods over the
head and face, exclaiming at every blow steel Indian hoss hey.
Just then Kenton saw Montgomery coming boldly to his asistance. Instantly,
two Indian rifles were discharged, and Montgomery felt dead. His
bloody scalp was waved in the face of Kenton with

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menaces of a similar fate Clark had sought safety in flight.
Kenton was thrown upon the ground upon his back. His
neck was fastened by a halter to a sapling. His arms,
extended to their full length, were pinioned to the earth
by stakes. His feet were fastened in a similar manner.
A stout stick was passed across his breast and so

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attached to the earth that he could not move his body.
All this was done in the most violent and cruel manner,
accompanied by frequent cuffs and blows, as the maddened Indians
called him in the broken English which they had acquired,
a teeth, a hoss steel, a rascal, which expressions the
Indians had learned to intersperse with English oaths. In this

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condition of suffering, Kenton remained through the day and through
the night. The next morning, the savages, having collected their
scattered horses, put Kenton upon a young colt, tied his
hands behind him and his feet beneath the horse's belly,
and set out on their return. The country was rough,
and Kenton could not at all protect himself from the

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brambles through which they passed. Thus they rode all day.
When night came, their prisoner was bound to the earth
as before. The next day they reached the Indian village,
which was called Chilicothee, on the Miami River, forty or
fifty miles west of the present city of Chilicothee, Ohio.

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A courier was sent forward to inform the village of
their arrival. Every man, woman and child came running out
to view the prisoner. One of their chiefs, Blackfish, approached
Kenton with a strong hickory switch in his hand, and
addressing him, said, you have been stealing our horses, have you? Yes?
Was the defiant reply. Did Colonel Boone inquired the chief

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tell you to steal our horses? No, said Kenton, I
did it of my own accord. Blackfish, then, with brawny arms,
so mercilessly applied the scourge to the bare head and
shoulders of his prisoner, as to cause the blood to
flow freely and to occasion the acutest pain. In the meantime,

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the whole crowd of men, women and children danced and
hooted and clapped their hands, assailing him with the choicest
epithets of Indian vituperation. With loud cries, they demanded that
he should be tied to the stake, that they might
all enjoy the pleasure of tormenting him. A stake was
immediately planted in the ground, and he was firmly fastened

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to it. His entire clothing was torn from him, mainly
by the Indian women. The whole party then danced around
him until midnight, yelling in the most frantic manner, smiting
him with their hands enlacerating his flesh with their switches.
At midnight, they released him from the stake and allowed
him some little repose in preparation for their principal amusement

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in the morning of having their prisoner run the gauntlet.
Three hundred Indians of all ages and both sexes were
assembled for the Savage festival. The Indians were ranged in
two parallel lines about six feet apart, all armed with sticks,
hickory rods, whips, and other means of inflicting torture. Between

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these lines from more than half a mile to the village,
the wretched prisoner was doomed to run for his life,
exposed to such injury as his tormentors could inflict as
he passed. If he succeeded in reaching the council house alive,
it would prove an asylum to him for the present.
At a given signal, Kenton started in the perilous race,

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exerting his utmost strengthen activity. He passed swiftly along the line,
receiving numerous blows, stripes, buffets, and wounds, until he approached
the town, near which he saw an Indian leisurely awaiting
his advance with a knife drawn in his hand. Intent
upon his death to avoid him, he instantly broke through

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the line and made his rapid way towards the council house,
pursued by the promiscuous crowd, whooping and yelling like infernal
furies at his heels, entering the town in advance of
his pursuers, just as he supposed, the council house within
his reach. An Indian was perceived leisurely approaching him with
his blanket wrapped around him, But suddenly he threw off

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the blanket and sprung upon Kenton as he advanced. Exhausted
with fatigue and wounds, he was thrown to the ground,
and in a moment he was beset with crowds eager
to inflict upon him the kick or blow which had
been avoided by breaking through the line. Here beaten, kicked,
and scourged until he was nearly lifeless. He was left

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to die a few hours afterwards. He was supplied with
food and water, and was suffered to recuperate for a
few days until he was enabled to attend at the
council house and receive the announcement of his final doom.
It was here decided that he should be made a
public sacrifice to the vengeance of the nation. The Indian

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town of Wapotomica, upon the present site of Zanesville, Ohio,
was the appointed place of his execution. Being in a
state of utter exhaustion, his escape was deemed impossible, and
he was carelessly guarded. In despair, he attempted it. He
was promptly recaptured and punished by being taken to a

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neighboring creek, where he was dragged through the mud and
water till life was nearly extinct. Still, his constitutional vigor
triumphed and he revived. Wapotamika was a British trading post.
Here Kenton met an old comrade, signed and Gerdy, who
had become a renegade, had joined the Indians and had

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so adopted their dress and manners as hardly to be
distinguished from his savage associates. Gerdy cautiously endeavored to save
the condemned prisoner. He represented to the band that it
would be of great advantage to them to have possession
of one so intimately acquainted with all the white settlements
in their resources. A respite was granted, another council was held.

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The spirit of Indian revenge prevailed. Kenton was again doomed
to death, to be preceded by the terrible ordeal of
running the gauntlet. But a British officer, influenced by the
persuasions of the Indian chief Logan the friend of the
White Man, urged upon the Indian chiefs that the British

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officers at Detroit would regard the possession of Kenton with
the information he had at his command as a great acquisition,
and that they would pay for him a ransom of
at least one hundred dollars. They took him to Detroit.
The ransom was paid, and Kenton became the prisoner of
the British officers instead of savage chieftains. Still, he was

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a prisoner, though treated with ordinary humanity, and was allowed
the liberty of the town. There were two other American
captives there, Captain Nathan Bullet and Jesse Caufer. Escape seemed
impossible as it could only be effected through a wilderness
four hundred miles in extent, crowded with wandering Indian bands,

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where they would be eminently exposed to recapture or to
death by starvation. Simon Kenton was a very handsome man.
He won the sympathies of a very kind english woman,
Missus Harvey, the wife of one of the traders at
the post. She secretly obtained for him and his two companions,
and concealed in a hollow tree powder, lead, moccasins, and

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a quantity of dried beef. One dark night, when the
inn were engaged in a drunken bout, she met Kenton
in the garden and handed him three of the best rifles,
which she had selected from those stacked near the house.
The biographer of these events writes, when a woman engages
to do an action, she will risk limb life or

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character to serve him whom she respects or wishes to befriend.
How differently, the same action would be viewed by different persons.
By Kenton and his friends, her conduct was viewed as
the benevolent conduct of a good angel, while if the
part she played in behalf of Kenton and his companions
had been known to the commander at Detroit, she would

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have been looked upon as a traitress who merited the
scorn and contempt of all honest citizens. This night was
the last that Kenton ever saw or heard of her.
Our fugitives traveled mostly by night, guided by the stars.
After passing through a series of wonderful adventures which we
have not space here to record, on the thirty third

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day of their escape, they reached the settlement at the
Falls of the Ohio now Louisville. During the rest of
the war, Kenton was a very active partisan. He died
in the year eighteen thirty six, over eighty years of age,
having been from more than a quarter of a century,
and honored member of the Methodist Church. End of Chapter six.