Daniel Boone by John Stevens Cabot Abbott: Chapter 12

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter twelve of Daniel Boone by John S. C Abbott.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recorded by
Alison Hester, Chapter twelve Adventures Romantic and Perilous. The Indians
still continued hostile. The following incident gives one an idea
of the nature of the conflict which continued and of

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the perils which were encountered. There was a striving station
where a few settlers were collected at a spot now
called State Creek iron Works. One or two farm houses
were scattered around, but at such a short distance from
the fort that their inmates could at once take refuge
behind its log walls in case of alarm. In the

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month of August seventeen eighty six, a young man residing
in the fort by the name of Yates called at
one of these farm houses and requested a lad Francis Downing,
to accompany him in search of a horse which had
strayed away. The two friends set out together, and, after
searching the forest in vain, found themselves the latter part

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of the afternoon in a lonely uninhabited valley nearly seven
miles from the fort. Here, young Downing became quite alarmed
by some indications that Indians were dogging their steps. He
communicated his fears to his companion, but Yates, who was
several years older than Downing, was an experienced hunter and

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inured to life in the woods, had become to a
certain degree indifferent to danger. He made himself quite merry
over his young companion's fears, asking him at what price
he was willing to sell his scalp, and offering to
insure it for sixpence. Still, Downing was not satisfied, and
his alarm increased as he insisted that he occasionally heard

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the crack of dry twigs behind them, as if broken
by some one pursuing. But Yates, deriding his fears, pressed
on making the woods resound with a song, to which
he gave utterance from unusually full and strong lungs. Downing
gradually slackened his pace, and, when Yates was some thirty
yards in advance of him, sprang into a dense cluster

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of tall wardleberry bushes, where he was effectually concealed. Scarcely
had he done this, when, to his great terror, he
saw two Indians peeping cautiously out of a thick cane brake,
deceived by the song of Yates, who with stentorian lungs,
was still giving forth his Woodland ditty. They supposed both

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had passed. Young Downing thought it impossible, but the savages
must have seen him as he concealed himself Greatly alarmed,
he raised his gun, intending to shoot one and to
trust his heels for escape from the other. But his
hand was so unsteady that the gun went off before
he had taken aim. Terror stricken, he rushed along the

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path Yates had trod. Yates, alarmed by the report of
the gun, came run back. As they met the two
Indians were seen not far from them in hot pursuit.
They soon could easily see that the enemy was gaining
upon them. In their rapid flight, they came to a
deep gully, which Yates cleared at a bound, but Young

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Downing failed in the attempt. His breast struck the opposite
almost precipitous bank, and he rolled to the bottom of
the ditch. Some obstruction in the way prevented the Indians
from witnessing the fall of Downing. They continued the pursuit
of Yates, crossing the gully a few yards below where
Downing had met his mishap. Thus, in less time than

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we had occupied in the narration, the Indians disappeared in
their chase after Yates. Downing was in great perplexity. He
did not dare to creep out of the gully lest
he should be seen. And as soon as the Indians
should perceive that he was not with Yates, as they
inevitably would ere long do, they would know that he

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was left behind, and would turn back for his capture. Unfortunately,
young Downing had so far lost his presence of mind
that he had failed to reload his gun. Just then
he saw one of the savages returning evidently in search
of him. There was no possible resource left but flight.

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Throwing away his now useless gun, he rushed into the
forest with all the speed which terror could inspire. He
was but a boy. The full grown Indian gained rapidly
upon him, and he could almost strike him with his tomahawk.
When they came to an immense tree blown up by
the roots. The boy ran on one side of the trunk,

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and the Indian on the other, towards the immense pile
of earth which adhered to the upturned roots. The boy
now gave up all hope in utter despair. It seemed
certain that the brawny Indian would get ahead of him
and intercept his further flight. But it so happened. Was
it an accident or was it a providence? That a

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she bear had made her bed directly in the path
which the Indian, with almost blind eagerness, was pursuing. Here
the ferocious beast was suckling her cubs. The bear sprang
from her lair, and instantly, with a terrific hug, grasped
the savage in her palls. The Indian gave a terrific

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yell and plunged his knife again and again into the
body of the bear. The boy had but one brief glance,
as in this bloody embrace they rolled over and over
on the ground. The boy, praying that the bear might
tear the Indian in pieces, added new speed to his
flight and reached the fort in safety. There he found Yates,

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who had arrived but a few moments before him, and
who had outrun the other Indian. The next morning, a
well armed party returned to the tree. Both the bear
and the Indian had disappeared. Probably both had suffered very
severely in the conflict, and both had escaped with their lives.

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Another incident illustrative of these perilous adventures in the now
peaceful state of Kentucky, mister Rowan, with his own and
five other families, left the little hamlet at Louisville to
float down the Ohio to Green River and to ascend
that stream, intending to rear their new homes on its
fertile and delightful banks. The families were quite comfortably accommodated

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in a large, flat bottomed boat. Another boat of similar
construction conveyed their cattle and sundry articles of household furniture.
On the route which they were pursuing. There were then
no settlements. The Ohio River and the Green River flowed
through unbroken solitudes. The flat boats had floated down the

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beautiful Ohio through the scenes of surpassing loveliness about one
hundred miles when one night, about ten o'clock, a prodigious
shouting and yelling of Indians was heard some distance farther
down the river on the northern shore. Very soon they
came in sight of their campfires, which were burning very brightly.

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It was evident that the Indians were having a great
carousel rejoicing over some victory. Mister Rowan immediately ordered the
two boats to be lashed firmly together. There were but
seven men on board who were capable of making efficient
use of the rifle, plying the oars as vigorously and

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noiselessly as they could. They endeavored to keep close to
the Kentucky shore, and yet they were careful not to
approach too near lest there might be Indians there. Also,
it was evident that there was a large gathering of
the Indians on the northern bank, for their camp fires
extended for a distance of nearly half a mile along
the river. As the boats floated noiselessly along in the

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gloom of the night, under shh shadow of the cliffs,
they were not detected until they were opposite the central fire,
whose brilliancy threw a flood of light nearly across the stream.
A simultaneous shout greeted this discovery, and with terrific yells,
the savages rushed to their canoes and commenced a pursuit.

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The two flat boats rapidly floated beyond the illumination of
the fires into the region of midnight darkness. The timid Indians,
well acquainted with the white men's unerring aim pursued cautiously,
though their hideous yells resounded along the shores. Mister Rowan
ordered all on board to keep perfect silence, to conceal

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themselves as much as possible, and ordered not a gun
to be fired till the Indians were so near that
the powder of the gun would burn them, thus rendering
every shot absolutely certain. The Indians, with their hideous yells,
pursued in their canoes until within one hundred yards of
the They then seemed simultaneously to have adopted the conviction

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that the better part of valor was discretion. In the darkness,
they could not see the boatmen, who they had no doubt,
were concealed behind bulletproof bulwarks. Their birch canoes presented not
the slightest obstruction to the passage of a rifle ball.
Knowing that the flash of a gun from the boat
would be certain death to some one of their number,

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and that thus the boatmen, with the rapidity with which
they could load and fire, would destroy a large part
of their company before they could hope to capture the
flat boats, they hesitated to approach any nearer, but followed
in the pursuit for nearly three miles down the river,
assailing the white men only with harmless yells. The heroic

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missus Rowan, as she saw the canoes approaching, supposing that
the savages would attempt to board the boats, crept quietly
around in the darkness, collected all the axes, and placed
one by the side of each man, leaning the handle
against his knee. While performing this significant act, she uttered
not a word, but returned to her own seat in silence,

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retaining a sharp hatchet for herself. With such determined spirits
to a sail, it was well for the savages that
they did not approach within arm's length of those whom
they were pursuing. They would certainly have met with a
bloody reception. These savages, hearing of success, relinquished the pursuit

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and returned to their demoniac orgies around the campfires. It
was supposed that they had captured a boat which was
descending the river the day before, and that their extraordinary
revelry was accompanied by the roasting of their captives. A
son of mister Rowan, but ten years of age, who
subsequently became one of the most distinguished men in Kentucky,

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was present. On this occasion, he frequently in after years,
alluded to the indescribable sensations of sublimity and terror which
the scene inspired. The gloom of the night, the solemn
flow of the majestic river, the dim view of the
forests on either side, the gleam of the camp fires
of the Indians, around which the half clad savages were

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dancing in hideous contortions. The unearthly yells in which every
demoniac passion seemed contending for the mastery. The shout which
was given when they discovered the boats beneath the shadows
of the opposite cliffs. The pursuit of the canoes with
redoubled vehemence of hooting, the rapidity with which, with brawny

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arms they paddled their boats to and fro the breathless
silence which pervaded the flat boat, while for more than
an hour the occupants awaited, momentarily expecting the terrible onset.
And above all, the fortitude and heroism displayed by his mother.
All these combined to leave an impression upon the mind

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of the boy which could never be obliterated. Few will
be able to read the record of this adventure without emotion.
What then, must it have been to have experienced it
in bodily presence, and to have shared in all its
terrible dangers. As we have said before, there was no
distinctly proclaimed war at this time between the pioneers and

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the Indians. While lawless men on both sides were committing
the most atrocious outrages, the chiefs and the legitimate authorities
were nominally at peace. The red men, whether engaged in
what they deemed lawful warfare or moving and plundering bands,
were in the habit of inflicting upon their captives the
most dreadful tortures which their ingenuity could devise. The white

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men could not retaliate by the perpetration of such revolting cruelty.
It was probably a suggestion of Colonel Boone that a
council might be held with the Indian chiefs and a
treaty formed by which prisoners should be exempted from torture
and exchanged as in civilized warfare. The Indians were by
no means reckless of the lives of their warriors, and

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would probably be very ready to give up a white
captive if by so doing they could receive one of
their own braves in return. A council was held at
a station where Maysville now stands. Colonel Boone was at
once selected as the man of all others most fit
to take part in these deliberations. He was not only

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thoroughly acquainted with the Indians, their habits, their modes of thought,
and the motives most likely to influence their minds, but
his own peculiar characters seemed just the one calculated to
inspire them with admiration. The principle was here adopted of
an exchange of prisoners, which, notwithstanding the continued violence of

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the lawless, saved the lives of many captives. It is
an interesting fact illustrative of the sagacity and extraordinary power
of Colonel Boone over the Indian mind, that the chiefs,
with one consent, agreed, in grateful commemoration of this treaty,
that if any captive should hereafter be taken by them

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from Maysville, that captives should be treated with every possible
degree of lenity. And it is worthy of record that
such a captive was subsequently taken, and that the Indians,
with the most scrupulous fidelity, fulfilled their pledge. Indeed, it
is difficult for an impartial historian to deny that these

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poor savages, ignorant and cruel as they were, often displayed
a sense of honor which we do not so often
find in their opponents. It is to be feared that
were Indian historians to write the record of these wars,
we should not find that they were always in the wrong.
Colonel Boone, ejected from his lands and thus left penniless,

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felt keenly the wrongs which were inflicted upon him. He
knew full well that he had done a thousand times
more for Kentucky than any other man, living or dead.
He had conferred upon the state services which no money
could purchase. Though to his intimate friends he confided his sufferings,
he was too proud to utter loud complaints. In silence,

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he endured. But Kentucky had ceased to be a happy
home for him. Over All its broad and beautiful expanse
which he had opened to the world, there was not
a single acre which he could call his own, and
he had no money with which to purchase a farm.
Of those speculators into whose hands most of the lands

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had fallen. Could the good old man now rise from
his grave? A Kentucky legislature would not long leave him landless.
There is scarcely a cabin or 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 safe So

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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

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eyes to the far distant home of his childhood on
the banks of the School Kill. 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 Burke's County to North Carolina. Still, the
remarkable boy had left traces behind him which were not

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yet obliterated. He visited Reading, probably influenced by a faint
hope of finding a home there. 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

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with game had entirely disappeared. 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

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longed to get beyond the reach of the lawyer's offices
and court houses and land speculators. After a short visit,
he bade adieu forever to his friends upon the school kill,
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,

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the idea of leaving a region endeared to him by
so many memories must have been very painful. 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

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to his friends of the sunny skies, the salubrious climb,
the fertile soil, and the majesty and loveliness of the
landscape of mountain, valley, lake, and river, which Providence had
lavished a prodigal hand in this garden of the Lord.
One by one he had influenced his friends to emigrate,

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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

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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

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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

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from Brunsboro, he crossed the various spears of the Allegheny 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 Canawa River, as that stream
flows from Virginia due north and empties into the Ohio River.

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Here there was a point of land washed by the
Ohio on the north and the Great Kanawah 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 Pittsburgh, or had crossed the

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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

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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

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with undeveloped treasures under the simplest culture produced abundantly, and
the forest around supplied him daily with animal food more
than a European peasant season 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

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that of a hunter. Mister 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

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at the rifle, which was always suspended to a joist
by a couple of buckhorns or little forks. The hunting
dog understanding the intentions of his master, would wag his tail, and,
by every blade endishment 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

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was exposed to all the perils of border life, that
his rifle should ever be loaded, that his faithful watchdog
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,
Moone had no more fear of assault from half a

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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 Allegheny Mountains. His second son was killed at

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the dreadful Battle of the Blue Licks, as his agonized
father had been compelled to abandon him to the merciless foe.
His third, 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

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crossed the Mississippi and sought a home in the wilds
of 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.

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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,

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very coarsely ground in what was called a tub meal,
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.

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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 jawnny cake. When baked upon a heaveless hoe, it

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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 the provid for
the pioneers. For them, it possesses some very great advantages

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over all the 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 foods. Let Pagans writes

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mister Hartley be sung all over the mighty West to
the 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, and the remainder in his wallet, and

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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 desperate portioned 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

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temporary and tolerable. Did the safety of the frontier demand
the services of every adult militia man 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 concoctment of

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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, Pagans say we and
a temple of worshiping to the creator of Indian corn.
The hunters to whom we referred were indeed congenial companions

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to Daniel Boone, As day after day the accompanied him
in the chase, and night after night sat by the
blaze of his cabin 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

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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

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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 commenced the cultivation of the soil

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that over an expanse of hundreds of miles, of a
sunny climb, 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

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far West, though it involved the relinquishment of American citizenship
and becoming a subject of the Crown of Spain. The
year seventeen ninety five had now come, as Colonel Boone
gathered up a few of his household goods for the
fourth great remove of his life. He was born on
the banks of the Delaware. His childhood was passed amidst

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the solitudes of the Upper Schoolkill. His early manhood, where
he reared his cabin and took to it. His worthy
bride was in North Carolina, thence penetrating the wilderness through
adventures surpassing the dreams of romance. He had passed many
years amidst the most wonderful vicissitudes of quietude and of agitation,

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of peace and of war on the settlement of which
he was the father At Boonsborough in the valley of
the Kentucky River. Robbed of the possessions which he had
earned a hundred times over, he had sought a temporary
residence at Point Pleasant in Virginia, And now, as he
was approaching the termination of his threescore years, he was

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prepared to traverse the whole extent of Kentucky, from the
Allegheny border on the east to the mighty flood of
the Mississippi, which then upon the west, rushed with its
turbid flood through an almost unbroken solitude. It was a long,
long journey. We can only surmise the reasons why he

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did not float down the Ohio in a flat boat.
It may be said that he was entirely unaccustomed to boating,
and as it does not appear that any other families
joined him in the u enterprise, his solitary boat would
be almost certain to be attacked and captured by some
of the maraudering bands which frequented the northern banks of
the Ohio. Colonel Boone was perfectly at home in the wilderness.

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He could always find a path for himself where there
was no trail to follow, And but few Indians now
ventured into the interior of the state, we have no
record of the journey. He reached the Mississippi, safely crossed
the river into what is now the state of Missouri,
and found a warm greeting in the cabin of his son,

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Daniel M. Boone, who had established himself upon the western
banks of the river, near where the city of Saint
Louis now stands. End of Chapter twelve.