Pioneers of the Old Southwest

And Blo

ts from the homeseekers' path, more than two hundred settlers had entered Kentucky by the northern waterways. Eighty or more of these settled at Harrodsburg, where Harrod was laying out his town on a ge

his organization was Judge Richard Henderson. 1 Judge Henderson dreamed a big dream. His castle in the air had imperial proportions. He resolved, in short, to purchase from the Cherokee Indians the larger part of Kentucky and to establish there a colony after the manner and the economic form of the English Lords Proprietors, whose day in America w

ome into conflict with the violent element among the Regulators, who had driven him from the court and burned his house and barns. For some time prior to his elevation to the bench, he had been engaged in land speculations. One of Boone's biographers suggests that Boone may have

nspired him to formulate his gigantic scheme and had enabled him also to win to his support several men of prominence in the Back Country. To sound the

aim to the territory. As late as 1753, it will be remembered, the Shawanoes had occupied a town at Blue Licks, for John Findlay had been taken there by some of them. But, before Findlay guided Boone through the Gap in 1769, the Shawanoes had been driven out by the Iroquois, who claimed suzerainty over them as well as over the Cherokees. In 1768, the Iroquois had ceded Kentucky to the British Crown by the treaty of Fort Stanwix; whereupon the Cherokees had protested so vociferously that the Crown's Indian agent, to quiet them, had signed a collateral agreement with them. Though claimed b

ostota and Attakullakulla-came to the treaty grounds and were received by Henderson and his associates and several hundred white men who were eager for a chance to settle on new lands. Though Boone was now on his way in

eyes and glowing oratory won the hearts of all who came under their sway. What though the Cherokee title be a flimsy one at best and the price offered for it a bagatelle! The spirit of Forward March! is there in that great canvas framed by forest and sky. The somber note that tones its lustrous color, as by a sweep of the brush, is the figure of the Chickamaugan chief, D

origin of the descriptive phrase applied to Kentucky-"the Dark and

nt State of Kentucky, with the adjacent land watered by the Cumberland River and its tributaries, except certain lands previo

and underbrush hedging the narrow Warriors' Path that made a direct northward line from Cumberland Gap to the Ohio bank, opposite the mouth of the Scioto River

killed, but "we stood on the ground and guarded our baggage till the day and lost nothing." 1 These tidings, indicating that despite treaties and sales, the savages were again on the warpath, might well alarm Henderson's colonists. While they halted, some indecisive, others frankly for retreat, there appeared a company of men making all haste out of Kentucky because of Indian unrest. Six of these Henderson persuaded to turn again and go

one and the Hunters

Whereupon James McAfee, who was leading a group of returning men, stated his opinion that the Transylvania Company's claim would not hold good with Virginia. After the parley, three of McAfee's brothers turned back and went with Henderson's party, but whether with intent to join his colony or to make good their own claims is not apparent. Benjamin Logan c

inally reached Boone's Fort, which Daniel and his "thirty guns"-lacking

nstantly he chose this "divine elm" as the council chamber of Transylvania. Under its leafage he read the constitution of the new colony. It would be too great a stretch of fancy to call it a

rice of land, adding a fee of eight shillings for surveying, and reserving to the Proprietors one-half of all gold, silver, lead, and sulphur found on the land. No land near sulphur springs or showing evidences of metals was to be granted to settlers. Moreover, at the Company's store t

of Virginia, was not in the humor to acknowledge Henderson's claim or to pay him tribute. All were willing to combine with the Transylvania Company for defense, and to enforce law they would unite in bonds of brotherhood in Kentucky, even as they had been one with each other on the earlier fro

g to make war on the frontiers. Practical men like Harrod and George Rogers Clark-who, if not a practical man in his own interests, was a most practical soldier-saw that unification of interests within the territory with the backing of either Virginia or Congress was necessary. Clark personally would have preferred to see the settlers combine a

fense was the primary and essential motive of the Harrodsburg Remonstrance seems plain, for when George Rogers Clark set off on foot with one companion to lay the document before the Virginian authorities, he also went to plead for a load of powder. In his account of that hazardous journey, as a matter of fact, he makes scant reference to Tr

im two hundred thousand acres between the Green and Kentucky

s of the Kentucky River. That pride had not been unmixed with anxiety; his daughter Jemima and two daughters of his friend, Richard Galloway, while boating on the river had been captured by Shawanoes and carried off. Boone, accompanied by the girls' lovers and by John Floyd (eager to

ked. Harrod and Logan, some time in 1777, reached the Watauga fort with three or four pack-horses and filled their packs from Sevier's store; but, as they neared home, they were detected by red scouts and Logan was badly wounded before he and Harrod were able to drive their precious load safely through the gates at Harrodsburg. In the autumn of 1777, Clark, with a boatload of ammunition, reached Maysville on the Ohio, having successfully run the gauntlet between banks in possession of the foe. He had wrested the powder and lead f

imed them. In April, 1777, Boonesborough underwent its first siege. Boone, leading a sortie, was shot and he fell with a shattered ankle. An Indian rushed upon him and was swinging the tomahawk over him when Simon Kenton, giant frontiersman and hero of many da

ing trip through Kentucky and whom he had twice given the slip. Their hilarity was unbounded. Boone quickly learned that this band was on its way to surprise Boonesborough. It was a season when Indian attacks were not expected; nearly threescore of the men were at the salt spring and, to make matters worse, the walls of the new fort where the settlers and their families had gathered were as yet completed on only three sides. Boonesborough was, in short, well-nigh defenseless. To turn the Indians from their purpose, Boone conceived the desperate scheme of offering to lead them to the salt makers' camp with the assurance that he and his companions were willing to join the tribe. He understood Indians well enough to feel sure that

game. He entered into the Indian life with apparent zest, took part in hunts and sports and the races and shooting matches in which the Indians delighted, but he was always careful not to outrun or outshoot his opponents. Black Fish took him to Detroit when some of the tribe escorted the remainder of the prisoners to the British post. There he met Governor Hamilton and, in the hope of obtaining his liberty, he led that dignitary to believe that he and the other people of Boonesborough were eager to

mally accused him of treachery on two counts: that Boone had betrayed the salt makers to the Indians and had planned to betray Boonesborough to the British.

ow the Indians off their guard. He sang and whistled blithely about the camp at the mouth of the Scioto River, whither he had accompanied his Indian father to help in the salt boiling. In short, he seemed so very happy that one day Black Fish took his eye off him for a few moments to watch the passing of a flock of turkeys. Big Turtle passed with the flock, leaving no trace. To hi

ley, saying that his orders from Hamilton were to protect the lives of the Americans as far as possible. Boone's friend, Calloway, urged against acceptance of the apparently benign proposal which was made, so Dequindre averred, for "bienfaisance et humanité." But the words were the words of a white man, and Boone hearkened to them. With eight of the garrison he went out to the parley. After a long talk in which good will was expressed on both sides, it was suggested by Black Fish that they all shake hands and, as

could not have stood. The Indians under the British would have overrun Kentucky; and George Rogers Clark-whose base for his Illinoi

istration of lots. An odd office that was for Daniel, who never learned to attend to the registration of his own; he declined it. His name appears again, however, a little later when Virginia made the whole of Kentucky on

a large fort which became the nucleus of the town of Louisville. Here, while he was eating his heart out with impatience for money and men to enable him to march to the attack of Detroit, as he had planned, he amused himself by drawing up plans for a city. He laid out private sections and public parks and contemplated the bri

Jefferson in what is now Ballard County, and had barely completed the new post and garrisoned it with about thirty men when it was besieged by Colbert and his savages. The Indians, assaulting by night, were lured into a position directly before a cannon which

Road and that speculators were doing a thriving business in Harrodsburg; so, leaving his company to protect Fort Jefferson, he took two men with him and started across the wilds on foot for Harrodsburg. To evade the notice of the Indian bands

int of the power of Clark's personality and of his genius for dominating men from the terse report that he "enrolled" the speculators. He was informed that another party of men, more nervous than these, was now on its way out of Kentucky. In

his second son, Israel, suffered a like fate. The toll of life among the settlers was heavy. Many of the best-known border leaders were slain. Food and powder often ran short. Corn might be planted, but whether it would be harvested or not the planters never knew; and the hunter's rifle shot, necessary though it was, proved onl

Chillicothe and razed them. In 1782, in the second of these enterprises, his cousin, Joseph Rogers, who had been taken prisoner and adopted by th

man who had lived through them, as recorded for us by a traveler. The most beautiful sight she had seen in Kentucky, she said, was a young man dying a natural d

for the Union? What practical recognition was there of these brave and unselfish men who daily risked their lives and faced the stealth and cruelty lurking in the

sure you, Sir, that I am exceedingly distressed for the want of necessary clothing etc and don't know any channel through which I could procure any except of

inia State Papers,

onquest of Illinois and the defense of Kentucky. His only reward from Virginia was a grant of l

e influence of powerful enemies. It is said that both Spain and England, seeing a great soldier without service for his sword, made him offers, which he refused. As long as any acreage remained to him on whi

years before his death, and when he was a helpless paralytic, he was granted a pension of four hundred dollars. There is a ring of bitter irony in the words with wh

et us say, on a practical business basis. Then it was discovered that Daniel Boone had no legal claim to any foot of ground in Kentucky. D

s rifle, once more turned towards the wilds. The country of the Great Kanawha in West Virginia was still a wilderness, and a hunter and trapper m