TO MY CHILDREN

EWART, LA VERNE, AND LOIS

WHO HAVE EVER BEEN MY

INSPIRING AUDIENCE

KENTUCKY
FROM ITS SETTLEMENT
TO THE CIVIL WAR

STORIES OF

OLD KENTUCKY

BY

MARTHA GRASSHAM PURCELL

AUTHOR OF "SETTLEMENTS AND CESSIONS OF LOUISIANA"

MEMBER OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION
PADUCAH, KENTUCKY

AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY
NEW YORK CINCINNATI CHICAGO

Copyright, 1915, by

MARTHA GRASSHAM PURCELL.

Copyright, 1915, in Great Britain.

STORIES OF OLD KENTUCKY.
E.P.

PREFACE

To be easily assimilated, our mental food, like our physical food, should be carefully chosen and attractively served.

The history of the "Dark and Bloody Ground" teems with adventure and patriotism. Its pages are filled with the great achievements, the heroic deeds, and the inspiring examples of the explorers, the settlers, and the founders of our state. In the belief that a knowledge of their struggles and conquests is food that is both instructive and inspiring, and with a knowledge that a text on history does not always attract, the author sets before the youth of Kentucky these stories of some of her great men.

This book is intended as both a supplementary reader and a text, for, though in story form, the chapters are arranged chronologically, and every fact recorded has been verified.

Thanks are due to the many friends who have granted access to papers of historical value, to many others who have assisted in making this book a reality, and especially to my husband, Dr. Clyde Edison Purcell, for his valuable suggestions, careful criticisms, and untiring coöperation.

MARTHA GRASSHAM PURCELL.

CONTENTS

A LIST OF BOOKS ABOUT KENTUCKY

Audubon, Lucy: "Life and Journals of John James Audubon." Putnam.

Collins, R.H.: "History of Kentucky." Collins & Co.

Eggleston, E.: "Stories of American Life and Adventure." "Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans." American Book Co.

Hulbert, A.B.: "Boone's Wilderness Road." Arthur H. Clark Co.

Johnson, E.P.: "History of Kentucky and Kentuckians." Lewis Publishing Co.

Kinkead, E.S.: "History of Kentucky." American Book Co.

Marshall, H.: "History of Kentucky." Frankfort.

Otis, James: "Hannah of Kentucky." American Book Co.

Price, S.W.: "Old Masters of the Blue Grass." Morton & Co.

Shaler, N.S.: "Kentucky." Houghton Mifflin Co.

Smith, H.I.: "Prehistoric Ethnology of a Kentucky Site." Amer. Museum of Nat. Hist.

Smith, Z.F.: "History of Kentucky." Courier-Journal Co.

Stockton, F.R.: "Stories of New Jersey." American Book Co.

Thompson, E.P.: "A Young People's History of Kentucky." A.R. Fleming Publishing Co.

Townsend, J.W.: "Kentuckians in History and Literature." Neale Publishing Co. "Kentucky in American Letters." Torch Press.

Young, B.H.: "Prehistoric Men of Kentucky." Filson Club.

STORIES OF OLD KENTUCKY

WHEN THE OCEAN COVERED KENTUCKY

Facts are stranger than fiction; and when we read the great volume of Nature, we find it more intensely interesting, instructive, and exciting than any "tale" told by our master minds.

It is difficult enough for the youth of to-day to realize there was ever a time when Kentucky did not have a place on the map and in the march of events. Still more difficult is it for them to realize that there was a time when the ocean covered our state. Geological annals show that the surface of Kentucky was once the bed of the sea. This primitive ocean is supposed to have covered a large part of North America to the depth of several thousand feet. As we read the record in the soil and as we study the strata, we find evidence of a gradual retreat of the briny waters without proofs of any very violent or sudden disruptions of the ocean. The creation or appearance of sea animals, fishes, polyps, and the formation of limestone, sandstone, slate, grit, and pebble, are parts of the story here recorded.

The retreat of the briny waters continued and continued for ages, until finally the Cumberland or Wasioto Mountains emerged, followed by the Black, Laurel, Pine, Long, and Galico Mountains; other lower elevations then rose until only an inland sea, surrounded by sandy hills, remained. Then the grasses, reeds, and mosses left their impress; land animals, insects, birds, and reptiles appeared; vegetation increased, and trees and shrubs grew.

Still the waters receded; marshes, muddy swamps, licks, small lakes, ponds, clay and marl deposits were left; sinks and caves were formed; and land plants and animals increased.

As the waters still slowly but surely receded, creeks, rivers, and valleys received their present shape, the ocean reached its actual level, and the American continent assumed its shape. The huge animals—the big bears, buffaloes, jaguars, elephants, and mastodons—roamed over what is now Kentucky, and left their impress at Big Bone Lick, Drennon's Lick, and other points where the savage, the settler, and the man of science have successively meditated and marveled over their prehistoric remains.

THE ABORIGINES OF KENTUCKY

When but a little girl one of my greatest delights was to sit at the feet of my maternal grandfather and listen to the tales of the olden times. Grandfathers and grandmothers always love to tell stories, and boys and girls love to hear them. Our grandparents were not the only ones that enjoyed telling stories of the great past; Indians also related many things to their children of what had happened in the long ago. But as the red men had no books in which to record these happenings, some of their stories may be of real incidents and a great deal may be purely imaginary, for we know the Indian was always very superstitious.

The Indians loved to tell stories to their children.

There is a story told by the Lenni-Lenape Indians, who lived in eastern United States, that their ancestors in the very earliest times were mere animals living underground. One of them accidentally found a hole by which he came to the surface of the ground, and soon the whole tribe followed. These Indians believed that they gradually became human beings; so in remembrance of their ancestors, they chose such names as "Black Bear," "Black Hawk," "Red Horse," and "Sitting Bull." Some of the tribes believing in this tradition would not eat any underground animals like the rabbit, ground hog, and ground squirrel, for fear they would be eating their kinsmen.

Another very interesting tradition told by these Lenni-Lenape, or Delawares, is that these ancestors came from west of the Mississippi and that when they tried to cross this stream the right of passage was disputed by a powerful force called the Alligewi, from whose name we get the word Allegheny. Being determined to cross this mighty stream and move eastward, the Lenni-Lenape joined with the Mengwe (Iroquois) in a war upon the Alligewi, overcame them, and almost exterminating them, drove the remnant of their tribe entirely from the country.

General G.R. Clark, Colonel McKee, and Colonel James Moore at different times and places were told by Indians, among them the noted chiefs "Cornstalk" and "Tobacco," that before the red men came to Kentucky—named from Ken-tuck-ee, meaning in Indian language, "the river of Blood"—a white race, superior in many arts and crafts unknown to the red men, the builders of the many forts, and the inhabitants of the vast burying grounds, had been besieged by the early Indians in a great battle near the Falls of the Ohio. The remnant was driven into a small island below these rapids, where the entire race was "cut to pieces."

In confirmation of this, there was found on Sandy Island, a vast burying ground and "a multitude of human bones was discovered." This traditional testimony has been in many instances confirmed by unmistakable traces of a terrible conflict throughout the Ohio Valley. The story of these bloody battles, handed down for generations, very probably caused the Indians to name this place the "Dark and Bloody Ground." Believing it to be filled with ghosts of its primitive people, it is no small wonder that this race, full of imagination and superstition, should use it so little as a permanent home.

But who was this primitive race? Whence did they come and what did they accomplish? The works they built have lived after them, and from these silent memorials the people have been called Mound Builders. Beyond the bounds of memory, into the land of mystery we go when we strive to learn of them. They have left their imprint in the valleys of the Licking, the Kentucky, the Ohio, and the Cumberland. Their many mounds vary in size, shape, structure, location, contents, and use. Some cover only a small area, while others have a diameter of over one hundred feet and one covers fifteen acres. They display a considerable knowledge of geometry, engineering, and military skill.

Relics of the Mound Builders.

Because some have supposed these ancient people to have been sun worshipers, the "high places" for ceremonial worship are called temple mounds. The fact that these are more numerous in Kentucky than elsewhere, may have given rise to the expressions "sacred soil" or "God's country." Within or near these inclosures are mounds containing altars of stone or burned clay, known as altar mounds; the burial places, called mounds of sepulture, are isolated and contain human remains which shed more light on the character and achievements of this prehistoric race than any others. The military mounds, or works of defense, are usually near a waterway, often on a precipitous height, in a commanding position, and with an extension ditch or moat; the skill, the foresight, and the complete system shown by these would prove that there were fierce foes to be resisted and a vast population to be defended.

It is possible that all agricultural work was done with "digging sticks." Fishing and hunting were accomplished by arrows, knives, and spears, chipped from stone or rubbed out of antlers, by fishhooks of bone, and by nets. There were also "animal calls" made from small mammal bones, and the hollow bones of the birds. The knives were probably chipped stone points, clamshells, or bear teeth; there were also awls of bones, strainers of pottery, hammerstones, whetstones, chisels of bone, and needles from bones of small animals. Modeling, impressing, twisting, knitting, painting, and sculpture were carried on; personal ornaments, rattles, whistles, and pipes were made. Moccasins, beads of pottery, bone, shell, teeth, and copper, and pottery of various sizes, shapes, and decoration were and sometimes are still found all along the streams of the state.

We know that they were an agricultural class because in some mounds were found remains of Indian corn and beans, also hickory nuts, butternuts, walnuts, chestnuts, hazelnuts, and pawpaw seeds.

While in some instances the graves were more or less surrounded by limestone slabs, in other places the dead were laid on skins or on the bare ground, and covered with skins and soil heaped above. As this soil had to be carried in baskets or skins, these immense mounds stand as mute memorials of their love for one another.

SOME PREHISTORIC REMAINS

There are many curious natural formations in Kentucky; yet the many artificial mounds also have added interest to the topography, and it is sometimes difficult to distinguish where nature ends and art begins.

The noted scientist, C.S. Rafinesque, claimed to have discovered one hundred and forty-eight ancient sites and over five hundred monuments in this state.

The greater number of the mounds were small cone-like structures from five to ten or sometimes forty feet in height; in several counties those of pyramid shape were found, and other counties contained unusual structures.

In Bourbon were found several sites, forty-six monuments, a circus of fourteen hundred and fifty feet, and a town whose stretch of walls measured four thousand six hundred and seventy-five feet.

Hickman County had a teocalli, or temple, ten feet high, thirty feet wide, and four hundred and fifty feet long.

Livingston with several sites and monuments had also an octagon whose walls measured twenty-eight hundred and fifty-two feet in length.

In McCracken was found a teocalli fourteen feet high and twelve hundred feet long.

Rockcastle had a stone grave three feet high, five feet wide, and two hundred feet long.

Warren claimed a ditched town, octagonal in shape, measuring in perimeter one thousand three hundred and eighty-five feet.

In Trigg was found a walled town with a circumference of seven thousand five hundred feet.

A mound more than twenty feet high with a diameter of over one hundred feet was located in Montgomery.

In Estill was located one fifteen feet high, one hundred and ninety-two feet in diameter, and surrounded by a moat ten feet deep and thirty-five feet wide.

A horseshoe-shaped fort of about ten acres in area was found in Caldwell. Its curve was bordered by a perpendicular bluff of sixty feet, and the two points of the shoe were connected by a stone wall ten feet high and six hundred feet long, with a gateway eight feet wide.

In Hickman, O'Bryan's fort; in Madison, a stone fort containing four or five hundred acres; and in Greenup, an effigy mound representing a bear, "leaning forward, measuring fifty-three feet from the top of the back to the end of the fore leg and one hundred five and one half feet from the tip of the nose to the rear of the hind foot," with those already mentioned, give a faint idea of the variety of mounds in shape, size, and structure. Yet these are only a few of the many ancient remains in Kentucky of the Mound Builders who have left their imprint throughout our great central valley and whose wide range has left in the same mound "the mica of the Alleghenies, the obsidian of Mexico, the copper of the Great Lakes, and shells from the Gulf of the Southland."

Since the location of these remains the plowshare has leveled many mounds, but several can yet be traced.

THE DISCOVERY OF KENTUCKY

Do you ever feel, when reading of the deeds of the early European navigators, who braved the perils of the trackless deep only to find on this shore a tangled "forest primeval," that our own beloved Kentucky is in every way far removed historically from them?

Since it is so interesting and edifying to find ourselves related to some noted personage, let us see if we can connect the "Dark and Bloody Ground" with the discoveries that opened up a new world.

We must go back many, many years, yes, even to the Middle Ages, if we would see how and why we are at least a small link in the great chain of events that gradually gave to the western world one of its proudest commonwealths. Some one has said, "Westward the course of empire takes its way," but for centuries the people of Europe concerned themselves not with what lay to the west of them but with the people and problems of the East. This is easy to understand when we learn that the copper, lead, tin, and manufactures of Europe were carried by traders, partly by sea and partly by land, to Constantinople or to Egypt, where they were exchanged for the luxuries that Asia had sent by vessels or camels. India and the Spice Islands sent cloves, cinnamon, ginger, pepper, mace, nutmeg, camphor, musk, aloes, and sandalwood, also diamonds and pearls. Cathay (China) sent silks, while Cipango, the island of mystery, in the great ocean east of Cathay that no one had seen, was believed to be the richest of all.

A caravan crossing the desert.

In 1453, while this exchange was at its height, the Turks conquered Constantinople, seized the caravan routes, and ruined the trade. Gold and pearls, ivory and diamonds, spices and silks, could no longer be secured unless a waterway could be found to the East.

Prince Henry the Navigator, a Portuguese, though many of his captains thought that in the torrid zone the ocean was boiling and that flames filled the air, succeeded in reaching almost to the equator before his death in 1460. In 1487, Diaz continued the work to the Cape of Good Hope. Christopher Columbus, believing the earth a sphere, thought that by sailing due westward only two thousand five hundred miles he would reach China and India. So in August, 1492, after seeking aid in vain from Portugal, England, and his own country, he braved the "Sea of Darkness" in a Spanish ship. Though some Portuguese sailors had said, "You might as well expect to find land in the sky as in that waste of waters," in October of the same year he made the discovery that gave to the world a new continent.

Then the spirit of adventure and aggrandizement dominated the Spanish race. Ponce de León, Fernando Cortez, Pizarro, and Fernando de Soto continued the work until June, 1543. Luis de Moscoso, the successor of de Soto, with a remnant of his once proud force, now reduced to about three hundred men, in boats descended the Mississippi River to its mouth; from the boats they were the first white men to behold the land that is now Kentucky.

England, so far, had been very quiet and conservative about discovering, exploring, or settling. Finally, English fishermen came to Newfoundland. Sir John Hawkins traded negroes for hides and pearls, and Sir Francis Drake ravaged the Caribbean coast and in 1577-1580 sailed around the world. Soon Sir Humphrey Gilbert attempted colonization, which was taken up by his half brother, Sir Walter Raleigh, who sent two ships under Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe, who discovered the coast of North Carolina. Upon their return, Queen Elizabeth named it Virginia. Kentucky was included in the charter of this first colony, which was settled at Jamestown, 1607.

The first Englishman to view what is now Kentucky was Colonel Wood, who in 1654, for commerce and not conquest, explored the northern boundary of Kentucky as far as the Mississippi River, then called the Meschacebe. Captain Bolt (or Batt) of Virginia in 1670 came from that state into what is now Kentucky. In 1673 Jacques Marquette, a Jesuit missionary, in company with Luis Joliet and five other Frenchmen in two canoes passed down the Mississippi along the western border of Kentucky and spent several days at the mouth of the Ohio, where Cairo, then called Ouabouskigou, now stands. Again in February, 1682, Robert de la Salle and his lieutenant, Henri de Tonti, in company with several other Frenchmen, descended the Illinois River, and passed down the Mississippi, or Colbert, to its mouth, claiming the country on both sides for the French king, Louis the Great, in whose honor they called this vast tract Louisiana.

It was as a prisoner among the Indians in 1730 that the first white native American, John Sailing of Virginia, was taken to Kentucky. In 1750 a party of Virginians, among them Dr. Thomas Walker, came by way of Powell's Valley through a gap in Laurel Mountain, into central Kentucky. He named both the mountain and the river (formerly the Shawnee) for England's "Bloody Duke" of Cumberland who defeated the Scottish forces at Culloden. Some say that near where they entered what is now the state of Kentucky these men built a rude cabin.

But it was left for John Finley and party, 1767, to learn and love this wonderland of fertile soil, towering forests, luxuriant vegetation, and boundless supply of game. When he returned to North Carolina with such glowing accounts of this wilderness beyond the mountains, many were ready to leave the comforts of civilization for the dangers and privations of this land of promise.

INDIAN CLAIMS IN KENTUCKY

Though the Indians at the time of the coming of the white men used Kentucky mainly as a hunting ground instead of a home, various tribes laid claim to it by prior possession.

In 1768, at Fort Stanwix—now Rome, New York—the English government purchased the title to all the lands lying between the Ohio and Tennessee rivers from the tribes of Indians called the Six Nations. This tract included the present state of Kentucky.

Shortly after the battle of Point Pleasant, 1774, the Shawnees entered into a treaty with Governor Dunmore of Virginia whereby they gave up all title to the lands south of the Ohio River.

At the Sycamore Shoals, of the Watauga River, 1775, Colonel Richard Henderson, acting for the Transylvania Company, purchased the title of the Cherokees to this "hunting ground" for ten thousand pounds sterling. This purchase was afterwards declared null and void by the states of Virginia and North Carolina.

Through the commissioners Isaac Shelby and Andrew Jackson, the general government in 1818 purchased from the Chickasaws, for an annuity of twenty thousand dollars to be paid for fifteen years, all their land lying in Tennessee and Kentucky between the Mississippi and Tennessee rivers. The part in Kentucky has since been called "Jackson's Purchase."

Thus we see that Indian claims to Kentucky were relinquished only upon payment of money or blood.

SCOUWA

There lived in Pennsylvania in the early part of the eighteenth century a young man by the name of James Smith. A short while before General Braddock was defeated by the French and Indians, Smith was taken prisoner by a band of Indians, and carried to the French fort where the city of Pittsburgh now stands. Here he was made to run the gantlet; and so well did the Indians, ranged on either side, use their clubs and sticks and stones, that Smith was badly beaten and made ill for a long time.

Scouwa was adorned by the Indians.

The Indians then carried him to their home in Ohio, where an old chief pulled out the prisoner's hairs one by one; only a scalp lock was left which was ornamented with feathers and silver brooches. His ears and nose were pierced and hung with silver rings, his face, head, and body were painted, and he was adorned with a breechcloth, chains of beads, a belt of wampum, and silver armlets.

An old chief then made a speech to the other Indians, while he held Smith by the hand. The prisoner was then accompanied to the river by three young squaws who attempted to "duck" him. Fearful of being drowned, Smith resisted until one of the women in broken English cried, "No hurt you, no hurt you."

After "scrubbing all the white blood out of him," they dressed him in a ruffled shirt, leggins, and moccasins, presented him with a pipe, tobacco, pouch, flint, steel, and tomahawk and told him he had been adopted in place of a brave young chief who had fallen.

The Indians called Smith "Scouwa." They finally gave him a gun to use and trusted him fully, but because he once lost his way in the woods, his gun was taken from him and for a long while he was permitted to use only a bow and arrow.

Smith had some exciting experiences while living the life of an Indian. At one time, during a snowstorm, he took refuge all night in a hollow tree, and when he tried to move the block by which he had closed up the opening in the side of the tree, he found the snow was piled so deep against it he could not move it. He was badly frightened, but by pushing with all his strength he finally succeeded in getting out.

At another time Smith, an old chief, and a little boy were alone in their hut in midwinter and all came near starving, but Smith walked many, many miles, hunting game, and thus saved the lives of all three.

In 1759 the Indians that had adopted Smith journeyed to Canada; and as Canada then belonged to the French, and as the French and Indians were fighting the English, who then owned Pennsylvania, Smith slipped away. Joining the prisoners that were to be sent back to Pennsylvania in exchange for some French the English held, he soon rejoined his family. He was a leader of the "Black Boys," served as lieutenant in General Henry Bouquet's expedition, and witnessed the Indian cruelties to the unfortunate British captives.

In July, 1766, he learned that the king's agent, Sir William Johnson, had purchased from the Indians all the land west of the Appalachian Mountains, and between the Ohio and Cherokee (Tennessee) rivers. Having heard the red men tell of this rich land, Colonel James Smith, accompanied by Joshua Horton, Uriah Stone, William Baker, and a mulatto slave of Horton's named Jamie, passed through Cumberland Gap, explored the country south of the Kentucky River, and, striking the Cumberland, passed down its entire length to its junction with the Ohio. They were the first white men to explore southern and southwestern Kentucky, although not the first to visit it, for in 1730 John Salling of Virginia was brought a prisoner by the Cherokee Indians to the Tennessee. After reaching the mouth of the Cumberland, the others separated from Colonel Smith and the mulatto boy. These two were for a long time alone in the wilderness. When they again reached civilization they wore nothing that had been woven; and when they told of their experiences, people could hardly believe that any one could make that journey and live to return.

A short distance below the mouth of the Cumberland the town of "Old Smithland" was named in honor of this first white man to explore that region, and later the town was built just at the junction of the Cumberland and Ohio and is now the capital of Livingston County.

Smith spent the latter part of his life in Bourbon County, where he was as useful in state councils as he had been in Indian conflicts.

THE GRAVEYARD OF THE MAMMOTHS

There are many places within the present bounds of Kentucky where animals used to go to lick the ground, in order to secure the salt therein, and these places were therefore called "licks." The most noted of these is in Boone County, and is called Big Bone Lick from the many gigantic bones that have been found there.

In 1773, while leading a surveying party, a man by the name of James Douglas, of Virginia, camped for several days at this point. There he found a surface of ten acres entirely without trees or vegetable life of any kind, while scattered around were many bones both of the mastodon and the arctic elephant. The size of these gigantic, prehistoric animals may be conjectured from the descriptions given of the remains.

Tusks were found from seven to eleven feet long, the latter being at the larger end six or seven inches in diameter. Thigh bones, five feet in length; teeth weighing ten pounds with crowns seven by five inches; skulls, thought to be of young animals, measuring two feet between the eyes; ribs from three to four inches broad and so long that James Douglas and his party used them for tent poles, are some of the wonders that have given the name to this historic place. Scientists have decided from these remains that these ponderous animals belonged to the elephant family. Though possessing remarkable strength, they were so unwieldy that prehistoric man encountered little danger in combating them. It is the supposition that the early inhabitants who occupied this continent when these marvelous animals roamed the woods, must have planned to exterminate them on their periodic visits to the lick. By what means this was accomplished we can only conjecture, but that there was a wholesale slaughter is evident, for at no other place have so many mammoth remains been found.

THE DRUID OF KENTUCKY

Daniel Boone was born in the almost unbroken forests of Pennsylvania, on February 11, 1735. Without his energy, caution, and daring, Kentucky would not have been settled so soon. In both his native state and in North Carolina, he received in his boyhood the training that was to fit him for the great work that was to be his.

Truly "coming events cast their shadows before," for when barely large enough to shoulder the old family flintlock he found unbounded delight in roaming the woods and returning laden with his spoils, which at one time was the skin of an immense panther that he shot just as it was about to spring upon him.

"They found Boone in camp."

While yet in his early teens he gave his family great alarm by being absent for two days and nights. A rescuing party was sent out, and they soon saw smoke rising in the distance; proceeding, they found Boone in camp, his floor carpeted with the skins of animals he had slain, while the delicious odor of roasted meat filled the air.

Boone was in every way a typical backwoodsman. His education was limited to an imperfect knowledge of the "three R's," gained in the rude school cabin of round logs, puncheon seats, and dirt floor. Ever the solitude of the sylvan forests was far more enjoyable to him than the refinements of civilization.

In 1755 he was married to Rebecca Bryan, who with him shared much of the danger and hardships of frontier life.

In 1769, yielding to the siren song sung by John Finley of the far-famed cane land with its fertile soil, towering mountains, limpid streams, and rich meadowlands where the spoils of the chase were venison, bear, and buffalo, Boone left his family and friends on the Yadkin in North Carolina and came with Finley and four others to explore this marvelous land of "Kentuckee."

Reaching the Red River, five miles from its junction with the Kentucky, these pioneers pitched their camp and from June until December reveled in the delights of hunting and exploring in this Eden of the wilderness; but one day, near Christmas, Boone and a companion named Stewart, while out hunting, were captured by the Indians and for six days and nights were marched and guarded. At length, believing their captives were contented, the savages relaxed their watchfulness, yielded to sleep, and Boone and Stewart escaped. Upon their return to camp they found it plundered and their companions gone. What became of them Boone never knew.

Soon after, Boone and Stewart were surprised by meeting Squire Boone, a brother of Daniel, and another man from North Carolina. A few days later Stewart was shot and scalped; the man who came with Squire Boone tired of the perils and returned home. The two brothers were left alone in the vast wilderness, hundreds of miles from any settlement and with no weapon but the trusty rifle and tomahawk to protect them from the cunning savage, the ravenous wolf, and the crafty panther. When their ammunition began to run low, Squire Boone retraced his steps to Carolina for a fresh supply, while Daniel remained alone until July, when his brother returned. Together they roamed at will, tracing the streams, hunting game, and enjoying this romantic woodland.

Having been absent from his family for three years, simply for the joys of the frontier, and having lived upon the meat of wild animals, the fruits and roots of the forest without either bread or salt, Boone returned in 1771 to the Yadkin and so thrilled all with his glowing description of this land of promise that, when two years later he started with his family to this forest, five other families and forty men accompanied them. The women riding, the children driving the cattle and hogs, with bedding and baggage strapped on pack horses, the men with trusty rifles forming both advance and rear guards, this little cavalcade started forth to conquer the wilderness. All went well for a while, but, when near the Cumberland Mountains, they were attacked by Indians, and six men were killed, among them Boone's oldest son. Yielding to the others, Boone returned with the party to the Clinch River in southwestern Virginia, where they remained until 1774.

"Boone's little cavalcade started forth to conquer the wilderness."

For twenty years Boone was a notable figure in this untried forest, prudent, calm, honest, courageous, cunning; a stranger to fear, a devotee to duty, an honored leader, he has so left his impress upon our state that the record of this period of his life is Kentucky history.

A PIONEER NOBLEMAN

During the eighteenth century, many men, singly or in companies, enjoyed the beauties of the forest scenes of Kentucky. Always they carried back to the centers of civilization the most glowing accounts of hill and dale and stream, of the abundance of game and fish, of the fertility of the soil, and of the glorious monarchs of the forest. These hardy woodsmen had the inherent love of Nature in her wildest, most gorgeous aspects. They were pioneers, hunters, and trappers. To some these terms convey only the thought of rough, unsophisticated men with none of the benevolent qualities of head or heart, with no magnanimity of spirit for a friend and nothing but the most intense hatred for a foe. But the lives of some of these frontiersmen furnish incidents from which we might well take lesson.

One of these, James Harrod, though unable to write his name, has so indelibly impressed it upon the annals of the early times that as long as history is read he will be famous. In May, 1774, Captain Harrod with about thirty men descended the Monongahela and the Ohio in canoes to the mouth of the Kentucky River. Penetrating the forest, they built the first log cabin ever erected in Kentucky, at the place where Harrodsburg now stands. Here a town was laid off and called Harrodstown. After four or five cabins had been built depredations of the Indians caused them to be deserted until the following spring, when Harrod with many of his former comrades and several others returned. This place was subsequently called Oldtown and later Harrodsburg, fittingly commemorating the grand pioneer who built not only the first cabin but the first town in our commonwealth.

James Harrod was by nature endowed with all the qualities of a great leader; he is described as tall and commanding, energetic and fearless, honest and generous, ignorant yet intelligent. Inured to difficulties and dangers, familiar with the forest, skillful with his rifle, he was a success as a hunter, but a terror to his foes. He was a real leader of the pioneers. In the words of Marshall, "He always had a party, not because he wanted a party, but because the party wanted him." Unremitting in the care of his companions, unrelenting in his attacks on the "red rascals," untiring in services to his neighbors and friends, he was truly a nobleman, with a lofty yet gentle spirit. "If news came of an Indian massacre, he snatched his gun and ran at the head of the party; if he knew of a family left destitute, he shouldered his rifle and ranged the forest till he found the game to supply their needs; if he heard of a horse being lost he stopped not till he drove him to his owner's gate." Thus he was known by his contemporaries. Yet he seemed not to be ambitious. Only as a delegate from Harrodstown and as a colonel of the militia is he found in civil affairs. But the magnanimity of his spirit shone forth at all times.

There is one incident related of him that proves him as chivalrous as any knight of old. He was at one time so closely pursued by some Indians that he plunged into a swollen stream and, holding his rifle above the water with one hand and swimming with the other, reached the farther shore in safety. Two of the redskins, bolder than the others, followed. When the foremost was about midstream a shot from Harrod's rifle caused him to disappear with a cry of pain beneath the rushing torrent; the other gave up the chase.

Several hours afterward, when Harrod had reached a point a few miles below where he had crossed the

"With arms extended, Harrod stepped in view."

stream, he was astonished to see a warrior slowly and painfully draw himself upon a pile of driftwood and attempt to apply a rude bandage to his shoulder down which the blood was flowing. Harrod at once knew that this was the same Indian who had hotly pursued him and that the wound was from his own rifle shot. Most men at such a time would have relentlessly shot their adversary. Such a thought never entered the mind of James Harrod. He at once resolved to assist his disabled foe. Cautiously he stole to one of the trees on the bank a few yards from where the Indian sat, and, laying aside rifle, tomahawk, and knife, he stepped suddenly in view, with arms extended to show he was unarmed and meant no harm. The startled Indian was about to plunge again into the water, when a second glance assured him no immediate harm was meant, for not only was the white man unarmed but his kindly countenance convinced the Indian no wrong was intended. Yet so strange was such a proceeding to the savage, that while he permitted his former enemy to approach, yet he watched him as would a wounded wild animal, ready at any moment to seek refuge in the rushing waters.

Harrod, finding the Indian weak from loss of blood, gently assisted him to the shore, tore off a bandage from his own clothing, dressed the wound, and taking him upon his back, carried him several miles to a cave, where he nursed him until he was able to rejoin his tribe.

EARLY KENTUCKY CUSTOMS

When the bands of hardy pioneers pushed into the wilderness and prepared a way into Kentucky they brought with them only the trusty rifle, the ax, the tomahawk, and the "long knife" for protecting themselves from the wily savages and securing food from the game that roamed the woods.

Making brooms.

When their families came, a few more articles were brought along; but their outfits were necessarily meager. When they stopped to prepare their food, a flat stone was used for cooking the "journey cake," while bark served for dishes.

As soon as the destination was reached, a log cabin of rough unhewn timbers was built, containing a long pen of split logs placed in a row, which, filled with fresh boughs, was a welcome resting place for those who were wearied from traveling. Later the feathers of wild pigeons, ducks, and geese were made into feather beds.

Usually several people settled at the same place and built a fort of cabins, stockades, and blockhouses, arranged in a hollow square. The blockhouses were two stories high, the upper story projecting over the lower one for eighteen or more inches. The places of entrance to the fort were closed by large folding gates of thick slabs, and the entire outer wall made bullet proof, all without a single nail or piece of iron. Some of the cabins had puncheon floors while others had only the bare earth.

There were very few metal utensils; tin cups, iron forks, and spoons were very rare. Nearly all their tools were fashioned of wood, by their own hands.

There were no mills, but each family had a hominy block or wooden bowl with pestle, in which the Indian corn was pounded, or a rough homemade grater on which it was grated. Their brooms were made of hickory saplings split at one end into fine splinters for several inches; these were bound together at the top with a green withe, while the other end of the pole served as a handle.

Their lye was all made at home by pouring water several times through a hopper of ashes until it became a reddish-brown; bear's grease was added to this and the mixture boiled until it became a soft mass called soap. We of to-day would dislike very much to use it in bathing.

Their salt was precious, for eight hundred gallons of salt water boiled down made only one bushel; if that amount was bought, it cost twenty dollars.

In the spring they bored holes in the maple trees, from which flowed a sap or sweet water that when boiled down made maple sirup and maple sugar.

In those days of danger the men built the cabins, garrisoned the forts, hunted the game, felled the trees, mauled the rails, grubbed the roots and bushes, and tilled the soil.

Pioneers building a log palisade.

The women did the household duties, brought the water, gathered the wild nettles, and from the silky fibers in the leaves spun and wove the flax from which they made their clothing. They tanned the deerskins by means of hardwood ashes and from them made moccasins and shoepacks, for there was no place to buy shoes; they made for the men the historical hunting shirt of deerskin, linsey-woolsey, or coarse, home-woven linen. This garment served various purposes; the bosom was so designed as to form a wallet in which to carry bread, jerk, parched corn, or tow for cleaning guns. This shirt was held together by a belt which was tied behind; in the front of this belt they carried their bullet bags and mittens, while on one side hung the scalping knife in its leather sheath, and on the other, the tomahawk. Breeches, leggins, and moccasins of deerskin and hats or caps of fur, often adorned with the animal's tail, completed the costume of the men. The women wore dresses of linsey-woolsey and coarse flax.

So the rude pioneer home, with its lack of conveniences and space and its few rude, imperfect tools, was the factory where were prepared not only the clothing and food, but also the furniture and the medicine.

BOONE'S ILLUSTRIOUS PEER

Among the hardy backwoodsmen, fearless hunters, and brave fighters, there looms no nobler figure than that of Simon Kenton, born of humble, Scotch-Irish parents in Virginia, April 13, 1755. At sixteen he was a stalwart youth with scarcely any education, with a kind heart but unrestrained emotions. Having fallen very much in love with a beautiful girl of his neighborhood, and having lost her to a successful rival, he went as an uninvited guest to the wedding festivities, where he made himself so disagreeable that the infuriated groom and his brothers gave him a severe beating.

Shortly after this, meeting his former rival, William Veach, Kenton provoked a fight and was so much the physical superior that soon his adversary fell bruised, bleeding, and unconscious; kind-hearted Kenton, feeling that he had been cruel in his treatment, lifted up the head of his insensible victim, spoke to him, but receiving no reply, thought him dead. Much alarmed, he left the seemingly lifeless body and fled to the woods. Feeling himself a murderer and a fugitive from justice, he warily made his way to Cheat River, where he changed his name to Simon Butler, and worked long enough to secure a gun and ammunition.

In order to lose himself and forget his trouble in the western wilderness, he joined a party to Fort Pitt, where he hunted for the garrison and forts, and met Simon Girty, who afterwards saved his life. Two others, George Yeager and John Strader, came with him that autumn on his first visit to Kentucky, lured on by the glowing accounts of the "cane land" that Yeager had heard of from the Indians. They came down the Ohio to the mouth of the Kentucky, but soon returned to the Big Kanawha, where they camped, hunted, and trapped until March, 1773. Yeager was killed by the Indians, and Kenton and Strader fled to the woods barefooted and almost naked, with no food and no weapons. For six days they wandered weary, footsore, and hungry, until finally in despair they lay down to die. Gathering hope anew, they pressed on and near the Ohio met some hunters who gladly gave them food and clothing.

Going with them, Kenton worked for another rifle and in the summer of the same year went down the Ohio with a party in search of Captain Bullitt. They failed to find him and the party returned through the wilds of Kentucky to Virginia with Kenton as guide.

During the winter of 1773-1774, Kenton hunted on the Big Sandy, but volunteered and soon saw active service as a scout and spy in the armies of Lord Dunmore and General Lewis in the Miami Indian War. He received an honorable discharge in the autumn, and the next spring, yielding to the longing for the "cane land," he came down the Ohio and one night reached Cabin Creek a few miles above Maysville. The next day, when he beheld the far-famed land, he was entranced, and soon encamped near the present site of Washington, in Mason County, where he and his companion cleared an acre of ground and planted it with corn which they had bought from a French trader.

They found this place a veritable "hunter's paradise" where the hills were covered with herds of deer, elk, and buffalo.

One day meeting two men, Hendricks and Fitzpatrick, who were without food or guns, Kenton invited them to join his station. Hendricks accepted, but his companion, desiring to return to Virginia, was accompanied by Kenton and Williams to the Ohio. They left Hendricks alone at the camp. On returning they found the camp in disorder and Hendricks gone; the next day his charred remains told the story of his sufferings at the hands of the savages.

Though Kenton left this place the following autumn, he returned nine years later and, building a blockhouse here, established Kenton's Station.

Simon Kenton was ever alert, ever ready to respond to the call for help, ever ready to encounter danger, and ever ready to give his services to the settlers whether at Harrodstown or Hinkson's, whether in aid of Boone or Clark.

At one time Kenton was one of six spies who, two at a time, each week ranged up and down the Ohio and around the deserted stations, watching for Indian signs; for the red savage had become infuriated because the "long knife"[1] had taken possession of his beloved "Kaintuckee," and the Indian invasions were frequent and bloody.

"Boone was borne on Kenton's shoulders into the fort."

One morning as Kenton with two companions was standing in the gate at Boonesborough ready for a hunt, the Indians fired on some men in the field, who fled to the fort. One man, however, was overtaken, tomahawked, and scalped within seventy yards of the gate. Kenton shot the savage dead and in the battle which ensued killed two other Indians, one of whom was about to tomahawk Colonel Boone, who had been crippled. The unerring rifle of Kenton stayed his savage hand, and Boone was borne on Kenton's shoulders into the fort. When the gate was barred and all was secure, the usually reserved Boone said, "Well, Simon, you have behaved yourself like a man to-day; indeed you are a fine fellow."

Kenton accompanied General George Rogers Clark in his expedition against Kaskaskia in 1778, then proceeded to Vincennes, where, by a three days' secret observation, he secured an accurate description of the place which he sent to General Clark.

Kenton returned to Harrodstown, aided Boone in defending the stations, and in September, 1778, was taken a prisoner, a few miles below Maysville, by the Indians, who beat him until their arms were too tired to indulge in this amusing pastime any longer. They then placed him upon the ground on his back, drew his feet apart, lashed each to a strong sapling, laid a pole across his breast, tied his hands to each end, and lashed his arms to it with thongs which were tied around his body; then they tied another thong around his neck and fastened it to a stake driven in the ground. Thus he was forced to pass the night. The next morning he was painted black and carried toward Chillicothe, where they said they would burn him at the stake.

As a diversion they one day tied him securely on an unbroken horse, which they turned loose to run through the woods at will. Through undergrowth, among trees and patches of briers, the horse capered, pranced, plunged, and ran, trying in vain to discharge his load until finally he stopped from sheer exhaustion. Kenton was destitute of clothing, bruised, bleeding, and almost lifeless. Arriving at the village, they tied their distinguished prisoner to the stake, where he was left for twenty-four hours, expecting every moment that the torch would be applied. After enduring this agony he was forced to run the gantlet, where six hundred Indians were ranged on either side with switches, clubs, and sticks, and each gave him a blow as he passed. Kenton had been told if he reached the council house he would be set free. When he had almost reached the door of deliverance he was knocked insensible. Again he was made a prisoner, was taken from town to town, eight times was compelled to run the gantlet, three times tied to the stake, and once almost killed by a powerful blow with an ax.

Simon Kenton

Once Simon Girty, the notorious renegade, remembering their former friendship, saved him from the flames; again Logan, the Mingo chief, interposed, stayed the fury of the savages, and persuaded a Canadian trader named Drury to buy him from his captors. Drury took him to Detroit, and delivered him to the British commander, where he received humane treatment until 1779. Then a Mrs. Harvey, the wife of an Indian trader, while a crowd of Indians were drunk, took three of their guns and hid them in a patch of peas in her garden. At midnight Kenton, following her directions, secured them, and with two other Kentucky prisoners hastened to a hollow tree some distance from the town, where ammunition, food, and clothing had been placed by the same benefactress. The three fugitives after thirty-three days of incredible suffering reached Louisville.

Later, with General George Rogers Clark in command, Kenton, the great scout and spy, piloted the Kentuckians, when in 1780 they carried the war into the Indian's own country.

During all these dangers there had ever been the horrible feeling that he was a fugitive and a murderer; but meeting by chance some one from his boyhood home, Simon Kenton learned that his former rival, William Veach, was still alive. He resumed his rightful name, hastened home, made friends with Veach, and started with his father and family again to this great paradise of the West.

Kenton, so great in all the qualifications of the pioneer, was not schooled in the arts of civilization. His ignorance, coupled with his great confidence in men, which amounted almost to credulity, caused him to lose most of his valuable lands; but at last the legislature of Kentucky made some reparation to the old, heroic soldier whose deeds and daring will ever furnish ennobling themes for song and story.

BOONE'S TRACE

Though Kentucky was not the home, but merely the hunting grounds, of most of the Indians, yet there were varied and conflicting claims.

While the Six Nations sold their title to this vast area to the British, and the Shawnees at last relinquished their rights, still the Cherokees pressed their claim until Henderson's company, composed of nine men of education and ability from North Carolina, purchased from them, in 1775, at the Watauga River, about seventeen million acres of land for ten thousand pounds ($50,000). This company hoped to found a colony and sell land to immigrants. They named this region Transylvania—"beyond the woods."

Later, this purchase was declared by both Virginia and North Carolina to be null and void, and the plan was abandoned. Before this, however, Daniel Boone had been sent to open up a trace or road from the Holston River to the mouth of Otter Creek on the Kentucky River, where later Boonesborough was built and the first legislature in Kentucky was held.

This road was to be for the travel of men and pack horses, the pioneer's train. Hastening forward with his brother, Squire Boone, Colonel Richard Calloway, and several others—thirty in all—Daniel Boone began to "blaze the way" in the wilderness for the countless thousands who were to come after them.

Beginning at Watauga, the trace led to the Cumberland Gap, where it joined the "Warrior's Path," which it followed for about fifty miles northward; from this place it followed a buffalo trace to the northwest until it reached the Kentucky River.

Blazing the trees with their hatchets, cutting their way through dead brush, removing undergrowth, chopping through cane and reed, the party proceeded on their perilous journey. Within about fifteen miles of their destination, while asleep in camp, they were attacked by the Indians. Later they were again fired upon by the savages, when two of the white men were killed and three wounded. Here, five miles south of Richmond, from necessity was erected the first fort in Kentucky. This stockade fort was called Fort Twetty, as here Captain Twetty died and was buried.

Pushing on, Boone and his companions reached the site selected, and soon constructed a stockade fort of two cabins, connected by palisades. This formed the nucleus of the fort, which was completed in about two months and which was named Boonesborough.

The trace or road opened by Boone has had various names; it has been called "Boone's Trace" or "Boone's Trail," "the Virginia Road," "the Road to Caintuck," "the Kentucky Road," and "the Wilderness Road." This last name was given from the great wilderness of laurel thickets between the Cumberland Gap and the settlements in Kentucky, a length of two hundred miles without a single habitation.

Along this difficult highway a narrow and often zigzag path in the forest, six hundred miles in length, came the countless men, women, and children from Virginia who were to found this great commonwealth of Kentucky, a worthy daughter of a most worthy mother.

When the legislature of Kentucky in 1795 passed an act for enlarging to the width of thirty feet that part of Boone's Trace between Crab Orchard and Cumberland Gap, and advertised for bids on it, the old pioneer, who had been the "Pathfinder" of the West in this new Eldorado, sent to Governor Isaac Shelby the following characteristic letter:

feburey the 11th 1796,

Sir

after my Best Respts to your Excelancy and famyly I wish to inform you that I have sum intention of undertaking this New Rode that is to be cut through the Wilderness and I think My self intiteled to the ofer of the Bisness as I first Marked out that Rode in March 1775 and Never Re'd anything for my trubel and Sepose I am No statesman I am a Woodsman and think My self as capable of Marking and Cutting that Rode as any other man Sir if you think with Me I would thank you to Wright Mee a Line By the Post the first opportuneaty and he Will Lodge it at Mr. John Miler son hinkston fork as I wish to know where and when it is to be laat (let) So that I may atend at the time

I am Deer Sir your very omble sarvent
Daniel Boone

To his Excelancy governor Shelby.

The grim old veteran did not secure the contract, but his name is inseparably linked with this thoroughfare, the opening of which was of inestimable value to the infant empire beyond the mountains.

BOONE IN CAPTIVITY

On New Year's Day, 1778, Daniel Boone with thirty companions left Boonesborough for the Blue Licks, to make a year's supply of salt for the garrisons.

A few weeks later, while hunting several miles from the camp, he was overtaken by a party of one hundred Indians and attempted to escape. The fleet warriors, needing a white captive to give them information about Boonesborough, instead of shooting Boone as he ran, gave chase and captured the hardy backwoodsman.

Now all the cunning of Boone was sorely needed. He wished to prevent if possible the capture of the salt makers and to postpone the march of the savages on the garrison. How the wily old hunter managed we do not know. But he finally secured the promise of the Indians that if the party at Blue Licks would surrender, they would be well treated as prisoners and their lives spared. Arriving at Blue Licks, Boone made signs to the white men to surrender without resistance; this they did, and the promise made by the Indians to Boone was sacredly kept.

Three of the white men managed to escape; when the Indians had gone, they returned, hid the kettles, and carried home the salt, as well as the news of the captivity of Boone and his companions.

The prisoners were marched through severe weather to the principal Shawnee town, old Chillicothe, on the Little Miami River in Ohio. In March, Boone and ten others were carried to Detroit, where the British commander, Governor Hamilton, offered the Indians £100 sterling for Boone, intending to send him home on parole. But Boone had so won the hearts of his dusky captors that they would not patiently listen to any plan that would take him from among them. The great hunter had to feign contentment and not wound the feelings or excite the suspicion of his captors.

Leaving the other prisoners at Detroit, the savages returned to their capital with Boone, whom they soon adopted into one of the principal families. Although they plucked out his hairs, one by one, except the scalp lock of about three inches on the crown; although he was taken into the river and given a scrubbing, "to take out all his white blood"; although he was harangued by the chief about the great honor shown him; and although he was frightfully painted and bedecked in feathers,—through it all he appeared content and thus still more endeared himself to the Indians.

After this the Indians would challenge him to shooting matches, in which he was cautious not to excel them too often, for fear of arousing their envy or jealousy, but would beat them often enough to excite their admiration.

"Boone was frightfully painted and bedecked in feathers."

Boone was very careful to show respect and loyalty to the leading chief, to favor him often with the spoils of the hunt, and thus lead all to believe that he was happy to have cast his lot among them.

This apparent contentment was only another evidence of what a silent stoic Boone could be, for his every thought was with his family and friends; but to serve them as well as to save himself, he must pretend pleasure in his lot.

Returning one day in June from where a party of the Indians had carried him to make salt for them, the old hunter found a party, of nearly five hundred warriors ready to march on his beloved Boonesborough. Now Boone felt that his captivity served a good purpose, for he determined at all hazards to escape and warn the garrison.

The Indians had so relaxed their vigilance over him that he was able to effect this resolve. Rising at the usual hour on June 16, he went out ostensibly to hunt, but so great was his anxiety that he made no attempt to kill anything to eat, but hastened on over the perilous trip of one hundred and sixty miles and reached home in four days. During this time he ate only one meal, the food he had hidden in his blanket. He was joyfully received like one risen from the dead, though his family, thinking him killed, had returned to North Carolina.

The fort was in a defenseless condition, but the return of their old leader, the news he brought, and the confidence he inspired, soon put all in readiness to receive the enemy.

BOONESBOROUGH'S BRAVE DEFENSE

Finding their captive gone, the Indians delayed their march on Boonesborough, until, impatient to fight the foe, Colonel Boone with nineteen others, among whom was Simon Kenton, started in August to attack the Indians at Paintcreektown, in Ohio. When within about four miles of the place, Kenton, who was in advance, was surprised and startled by hearing loud laughter from a canebrake just before him. He had scarcely secreted himself when two Indians, seated on a pony, one facing the animal's head, the other his tail, dashed by his place of concealment. Kenton fired, both savages fell, one killed, the other severely wounded. As Kenton was taking the latter's scalp he was suddenly surrounded by about thirty Indians, who were at once dispersed by the arrival of Boone and his party.

Boone, dispatching spies, at once learned that the Indian town was deserted; so he lost no time in retracing his steps to Boonesborough, which he reached one day in advance of the Indian army, led by Captain Duquesne, a Canadian Frenchman. The invading army, four hundred strong, appeared flying the British colors. The savage warriors, painted in hideous colors, paraded in two lines, giving the most bloodcurdling yells and brandishing their guns. It was enough to try the stoutest heart.

Soon a large negro stepped in front of the line and in English called for "Captain Boone," but there was no reply. Again he said he wanted to speak to Captain Boone, and if he would come out, he would not be hurt.

The men in the fort objected to their leader's going, but Boone, armed with a pipe and a flag, went out alone, leaving instructions that if he was made prisoner his men should shut the fort and defend it to the last.

In about one hour he returned, telling his companions that the Indians had promised that if he would surrender the fort he and his companions would not be hurt. To pacify the Indians he had seemed to assent to this plan, promising to return the next day, and inform them of the result of his conference with his companions.

When the little band of less than fifty fighting men met in council and learned that they could make a manly defense with small chance of success, and if defeated they would become victims of savage barbarity, or they could surrender at once, become prisoners, and be stripped of their effects, the deliberation was short, the answer prompt, and voiced by each:

"We are determined to defend our fort as long as a man of us lives."

The next day Boone again met the assaulters and asked for another day in which to secure the assent of the remainder in the fort, to surrender.

The time thus gained was improved by making every preparation possible; they collected the cattle and horses, fastened the gate with bars, and in every way made ready for the conflict.

The next morning, from one of the bastions of the fort, Colonel Boone made known to the commander of his adversaries the determination of the garrison, at the same time thanking them for the time in which to prepare his defense.

Disappointment was plainly evident in the countenance of Duquesne; he did not at once give up hope of a capitulation, but decided if possible to entrap Boone. He declared that in his order from Governor Hamilton he was told simply to take the white people as prisoners of war, neither to rob nor destroy them. If nine of the principal men would come out and treat with them, there would be no violence; they would only return with the prisoners or, if they would swear allegiance and accept the protection of the British king, they would be set free.

Boone felt this was one more chance to save his men from slaughter. The conference was called about sixty yards from the gate of the fort; the articles were read, agreed upon, and signed. Then the commander said that among the Indians it was customary on such occasions to show their sincerity by two Indians shaking each white man by the hand. Boone agreed to this. At once two Indians approached each of the nine white men and as they took his hand attempted to seize and make him prisoner. The white men with great strength sprang away, and fled to the fort amid a shower of bullets from Indians in ambush, who came rushing up with the most terrifying yells. All reached the fort in safety with the exception of one wounded man.

"The fight now began in earnest."

The fight now began in earnest, and lasted nine days. The enemy tried various ways to overcome the garrison. At one time they secreted a part of their force under the bank of the Kentucky, attacked the fort on the opposite side, and finally pretended to retreat; this ruse failing, they began to undermine the houses by excavating under the river bank and digging toward the fort. This was discovered by the muddy water caused by the great quantity of the loose earth they were compelled to throw into the river. Boone at once began to dig a trench within the fort, and as the loose dirt was taken up it was thrown over the fort wall. Finding their plan was discovered, the Indians abandoned it, but that night attempted to fire the fort by pitching torches of cane and hickory bark upon it. A rain had fallen a few hours before and the wet logs did not burn easily, and the flames were soon extinguished by the whites. Next day finding that they could not conquer by "force or fraud" and that their stock of provisions was almost exhausted, they paraded and withdrew after thirty-seven had been killed in sight of the fort and many others wounded. In the fort there were only four wounded.

After the savages had gone the white men picked up one hundred and twenty-five pounds of leaden bullets which had fallen near the fort walls, besides the vast number that had lodged in the walls and palisades.

THE LOST BABY

If your baby brother or sister should be lost, even though our country is thickly peopled and we have a perfect network of telephones and telegraphs across it, think how alarmed you would feel! Yet think how much more anxious a mother would be if her baby were lost in a wilderness where wolves, wildcats, and panthers roamed hungry and fierce.

This really happened to a baby boy named Bennie Craig. His father, Benjamin Craig, who presented his commission as a magistrate at the first county court held in Gallatin County, 1799, left Virginia in 1781 with his wife and three children. In those early days people traveled on foot or horseback, carrying with them what household necessities they could by means of pack horses.

The men and larger boys generally walked ahead, to be sure no Indians lurked in ambush; the smaller boys and girls drove the cows and sheep, and watched to keep them from wandering off through the woods; while the women rode horseback, having tied on the backs of the horses all the absolutely necessary household utensils.

In this party the usual plan of travel prevailed. Mrs. Craig and baby Bennie were on one horse, followed by another loaded with meal, bacon, salt, and skillets and tools; another one of these pack horses had, strapped across its back, some hickory withes holding on each side a basket made of the boughs of the same tree. These baskets carried what bedding and clothing were needed for the new homes. In one of these baskets was placed also a little boy of six, in the other a little girl of four. Sometimes the mother permitted baby Bennie to ride in the basket with his little sister. All three children found many things of interest as they rode along in this strange, new land.

One morning Mrs. Craig laid baby Bennie, who was asleep, on a bed of leaves amid the boughs of a fallen tree, while she helped pack the things to start. As Mr. Craig was anxious to overtake some travelers who were ahead of him, because in numbers there was greater safety, he hurried Mrs. Craig on her horse; when she called for the baby, the little sister begged that it be allowed to ride again with her. The mother consented, rode on, and the father began to load the other horse; he safely tucked the little boy and girl away in the baskets, but in the excitement of overtaking the other travelers both father and children forgot baby Bennie.

About an hour later Mrs. Craig, looking back, saw only two children and cried out, "Where is the baby?" All were frantic with fear when they realized that the baby had been left behind.

Mr. Craig hastily stripped the pack from one of the horses, sprang up on its back with gun in hand, and with all possible speed hurried back. For nearly two hours the rest waited and watched, wept and prayed. Finally the sound of the horse's hoofs was heard and Mr. Craig came at full gallop, shouting, "Here he is, safe and sound! The little rascal hadn't waked up."

"Here he is, safe and sound!"

THE FIRST ROMANCE IN KENTUCKY

Difficulties, suffering, and danger beset the early pioneers. Yet none of these prevented love, love-making, and marriage. The earliest romance was that of Samuel Henderson and Betsey Calloway, at Boonesborough, in 1776. There came near being no wedding, for late in the afternoon of Sunday, July 14, when the midsummer sun caused each one to hunt a cooler place, Elizabeth and Frances Calloway and Jemima Boone, the oldest daughter of Daniel Boone, started out for a boat ride on the river. They were drifting along in their canoe, unconsciously near the opposite shore, when they were suddenly surprised and terrified at the appearance of five Indians who waded into the water and dragged their canoe ashore.

The three girls screamed with fright, but Betsey Calloway showed herself a true pioneer by gashing the head of one of her assailants with her paddle. Before dragging them from the boat the Indians forced Frances Calloway and Jemima Boone to put on Indian moccasins, but Elizabeth, or Betsey, again showed her courage by refusing to do so. We can well imagine the horror when the people at the fort realized that the girls were in the hands of the savages. Both Boone and Calloway were absent, but soon returned and lost no time in starting for rescue and revenge. Two parties set out: one on foot with Colonel Boone and the three lovers of the three girls, Samuel Henderson, John Holder, and Flanders Calloway, respectively; another on horseback.

As soon as they reached the north side of the river, Boone drew them up in line, placing the middle man at the trail, and pressed forward in pursuit. His daring was equaled only by his discretion, for should the pursuers be seen by the Indians, it was highly probable the three maidens would suffer death by the tomahawk. Betsey Calloway came near suffering thus when the savages discovered her breaking off twigs by which she could be trailed. Though the upraised tomahawk with a threat to use it caused her to desist from this, she slyly tore off bits of her linsey-woolsey dress, and occasionally pressed the heel of her shoepack into the soft earth, thus leaving a trail.

By these signs, in the reading of which Colonel Boone was almost as wary as the Indians, the rescuing party hardly lost sight of the direction taken, although the captors compelled the girls to walk apart through the thick cane and wade up and down the streams of water, in an effort to hide their trail. On Tuesday morning, when about forty miles from Boonesborough, the whites came upon the captors just as they had kindled a fire to cook some buffalo meat. The two parties saw each other about the same time, but as their weapons were piled at the foot of a tree, and the whites fired at once and rushed upon them, the Indians hastily fled without knife, tomahawk, or even moccasins. The three girls were unharmed.

"The whites fired and rushed upon them."

Betsey Calloway, a brunette much tanned by exposure, was mistaken by one of the rescuing party for an Indian, as she sat with the two wearied maidens asleep with their heads in her lap. Just as he was about to dash out her brains with the butt of his gun his arm was arrested by one who recognized her, and a most horrible tragedy was averted. Amid rejoicing they returned to the fort.

On the seventh of the next month Squire Boone, a Baptist minister, performed the first marriage ceremony in Kentucky, when Betsey Calloway became the wife of Samuel Henderson. The other two couples soon followed their example.

A WEDDING IN THE WILDERNESS

The boys and girls in the early days of Kentucky usually married very young; and a wedding was an event so important that every one in the entire community felt a personal interest in the affair. The ceremony was usually performed just before noon.

On the morning of the appointed day the groom and his attendants met at the home of his father and proceeded to the home of the bride. The gentlemen wore only clothes that were homemade; linsey shirts, leather breeches and leggins, moccasins or shoepacks, and caps of mink or raccoon skin with the tail hanging down the back completed their costume.

The ladies were beautiful in linsey-woolsey, coarse shoes, or moccasins embroidered with beads and quills, and buckskin gloves. Just after the ceremony there was a feast of venison and bear, beef and pork, turkeys and geese, potatoes and cabbage, cornmeal mush with milk and maple sugar, ash cake and dodgers.

"As soon as dinner was over, the dancing began."

As soon as dinner was over the dancing began and lasted not only through the afternoon but through the night until dawn. The square dance, the reel, and the jig were the figures that gave most joy to their flying feet.

Either the next day, or very soon thereafter, the neighbors helped the newly married couple "settle." A party of choppers felled and trimmed the trees, others hauled them to the site, while others made the clapboards for the roof, and puncheons for floor and door. If any windows were made, they were covered with oiled doeskin and had thick shutters. No one had windows filled with glass in those days.[2]

The neighbors helped not only to raise and cover the house, but to make the furniture also. A table was made from a slab of wood with four legs driven into auger holes; some three-legged stools were made of like material. Sticks driven into auger holes in the wall supported clapboard shelves where various articles were kept. A few pegs were likewise driven in the wall where the wearing apparel of both men and women was hung. A pair of buck horns or two small forks fastened to the logs held the ever trusty rifle and shot pouch.

Nor did they stop here. Through a fork placed with its lower end in a hole in the floor and its upper end fastened to a joist, they placed poles with their ends through cracks in the walls. Over these, clapboards were laid. When the whole had been covered with skins of bear and deer, this made a most comfortable bed.

At these house raisings, log rollings, and harvest homes there was much merriment coupled with the hard labor. Any man who failed to perform his part of the work was dubbed "Lazy Lawrence" and was denied similar help when he needed it.

PIONEER CHILDREN

The boys and girls of to-day with all the comforts and luxuries surrounding them often pity the pioneer children and wonder how they spent their time. However, they doubtless were as happy and ambitious as we are. The boys early learned to chop, to grub bushes up by the roots, maul rails, trap turkeys, tree coons, and shoot a rifle. When severe weather kept them in the fort, there were not only the duties of making brooms and brushes but also the wrestling, leaping, and shooting matches where each strove to excel the other. How proud was the youth when he could "bark a squirrel," that is, shoot off the bark so near the squirrel that the force killed it, without inflicting a wound.

The girls also had their work and play. They watched the cattle to keep them from straying too far away, they hunted flat rocks on which to bake "journey cakes," they helped to pound hominy, bring water, gather wild nettles, and assisted in soap making, sugaring, sewing, candle molding, and wool carding. There were likewise near-by excursions for hickory nuts, walnuts, hazelnuts, grapes, pawpaws, honey locusts, hackberries, huckleberries, blackberries, dewberries, and raspberries.

But you say, "All this sounds like fun. Boy Scouts and Camp-Fire Girls do many of these things and count them sport. The boys and girls of the early days in Kentucky must have had one long holiday with no thought of school or school work." There you are mistaken, for scarcely had the first women and children come to Harrodstown when Mrs. William Coomes taught in the fort, in 1776, the first school in Kentucky. In 1777, John May taught at McAfee's Station, and two years later Joseph Doniphan was teaching at Boonesborough.

"There were excursions for nuts and berries."

So these boys and girls of those far-away days, although they had no well-warmed, well-lighted, well-ventilated schoolhouses; although their teachers were not always so scholarly and cultured as one could wish; although often in the earliest days they had no attractive textbooks, and their only means of learning to read, write, and calculate was from copies set by their teachers; although instead of paper they used smooth boards on which to write, with the juice of the oak balls for ink; although when they could read there were no absorbing storybooks,—yet they made progress and perhaps studied as hard as some children of to-day.

HOW THE PIONEERS MADE CHANGE

We of to-day, with half dollars, quarter dollars, dimes, nickels, and pennies, often find it difficult to "make change." Still more difficult was it for the early settlers to do so.

As the Indians used wampum and the early settlers of Virginia, tobacco, so the pioneers of Kentucky used the skins of wild animals as their first currency. While immigrants continued to come to this region, Spanish silver dollars came gradually into circulation. Still there was no small change.

As "Necessity is the mother of invention," our forefathers actually made change by cutting the dollar into four equal parts, each worth twenty-five cents. These were again divided, each part worth twelve and one half cents, called bits. People sometimes became careless in the work of making change and often cut the dollar into five "quarters" or into ten "eighths." On account of the wedge shape of these pieces of cut money, they were called "sharp shins."

If change was needed for a smaller sum than twelve and one half cents, merchants gave pins, needles, writing paper, and such things.

This cut silver gradually found its way back to the mint for recoinage, usually to the loss of the last owner. As late as 1806, a business house in Philadelphia received over one hundred pounds of cut silver, brought on by a Kentucky merchant, which was sent on a dray to the United States Mint for recoinage.

A WOMAN'S WILL

"Where there is a will, there is a way" is an oft-quoted proverb, and the first white woman of whom we have any record of entering Kentucky proved it true. In 1756 Mrs. Mary Draper Inglis, her two small sons, and a sister-in-law, Mrs. Draper, were taken from their homes in Virginia by the Shawnee Indians and carried some distance down the Kanawha, where they halted a few days to make salt, thence to the Indian village at the mouth of the Scioto, which is the site now of Portsmouth, Ohio. Mrs. Inglis won her way into the favor of the savages by making shirts of material that French traders had brought from Detroit. She was soon held in such high esteem by her captors that she was not subjected to the peril of running the gantlet, though a greater grief was put upon her,—that of being separated from her two sons at the division of the prisoners.

After spending a few weeks at the mouth of the Scioto, a number of the savages proceeded to Big Bone Lick, over a hundred miles away. With them they took Mrs. Inglis and an old Dutch lady who had been in captivity for a long while. Not being daunted by fear or distance from home, these pioneer women planned and effected an escape. On the pretext of gathering grapes they started from camp one afternoon with only a blanket, knife, and tomahawk.

With eager feet they reached the Ohio, and followed its windings, until after five days' journeying they found themselves opposite the mouth of the Scioto. Fortune favored them, for a horse was grazing there and also some corn was close at hand. Although near Indian villages, they loaded the horse with corn and pressed on to the mouth of the Big Sandy, but were compelled to go farther up that stream to effect a crossing. After going some distance, the women crossed on driftwood, but the horse, falling among the logs, was finally abandoned, and with only a scanty store of corn they pursued their dangerous journey.

Had it not been for walnuts, grapes, and pawpaws, hunger would have stayed their steps. Even with these the Dutch woman was not long satisfied and, driven to desperation, she threatened and

They crossed the river on driftwood.

attempted the life of Mrs. Inglis. But the latter succeeded in escaping from her frantic companion and, finding a canoe, took a broad splinter for a paddle and reached the Ohio shore. When morning dawned and the Dutch woman saw Mrs. Inglis on the other bank, she pleaded with her to return to her rescue. But fearing a repetition of her late fury, Mrs. Inglis turned a deaf ear to entreaties and hastened, as fast as her exhausted condition permitted, towards home. At last, after more than forty days of dire suffering and destitution, she reached a cabin where careful attention soon restored her to health and from there she was taken to a near-by fort and restored to her husband. A party went in search of the Dutch woman and brought her safely to the settlement. One of the little sons died soon after being separated from his mother, while thirteen years elapsed before the father found and rescued the other.

WHEN THE WOMEN BROUGHT THE WATER

The women of Kentucky have never been known to falter whatever demand duty might make upon them; yet at no period in the history of our commonwealth has there been any more severe test of the courage of her daughters than occurred on the morning of August 15, 1782, at a point about five miles northeast of Lexington on the present road from that city to Maysville.

This post had been settled in 1779 by four brothers from North Carolina, named Bryan, hence the name "Bryan's Station." About forty cabins had been "placed in parallel lines and connected by strong palisades." This fort and the station at Lexington had been selected as special places on which to visit the wrath and retaliation for massacre of some Indians upon the Sandusky; and as the savages and their renegade allies had been successful, they were easily incited to a general attack and inspired with the idea of regaining their hunting grounds and driving the paleface across the Alleghenies.

Simon Girty, the notorious renegade, was at the height of his glory when, in response to requests of runners sent to various tribes, there began at Chillicothe, August 1, 1782, a gathering of Cherokees, Shawnees, Miamis, Wyandots, and Potawatamis.

Ere the march began, the party numbered nearly six hundred warriors. With great secrecy and rapidity they descended the Little Miami, crossed the Ohio, and reached central Kentucky. In the hope of drawing away the fighting forces from the stations warned, Girty sent a party of Wyandots, who harassed Hoy's Station, and captured two boys. Captain Holder, gathering what men he could, pushed forward in pursuit, but was defeated August 12, at Upper Blue Licks. When runners spread the news to the various forts, the call to rally to Holder's assistance was as quickly responded to as if it had been imperative.