[Illustration: First Stockade and Cabins at the Falls of Ohio, now
Louisville. Built by George Rogers Clark in 1776.]
After the wives of the settlers in the various forts came to Kentucky,
home life took on the appearance of a settled community. Homes were built
outside the stockades, nearly every man of family had a farm of his own,
land was cleared, fruit trees were set out, attention was given to the
raising of hogs, sheep, cattle and horses, and a little Empire of the West
began to appear. The women were busy with spinning, weaving and general
housework. The men cleared and fenced their land. The fortifications were
kept only as a refuge in time of an attack by the Indians—which, however,
was not infrequent, because the French in the North coveted the rich lands
beyond the Alleghenies, and incited the Indians to warfare against the
white people who were settling there. It was the sturdy pioneers of
Kentucky, acting in the name of Virginia, who held the frontier against
the encroachments of the French, as the property of the English crown.
The notorious renegade, Simon Girty, a white man who for certain reasons
forsook civilized society and associated himself with the Indians of
Northern Ohio, was willing at all times to harass the settlers on the
frontier at the suggestion of the French military commanders. This man
cared not for spilling the blood of his own race, and frequently would
lead his hostile bands in attacks against the unprotected settlements. His
favorite time for attack seemed to be in the spring of the year, when the
men were at work in the fields and offered the least resistance by a
speedy rally of forces.
We have noticed that all these forts were built near a spring of unfailing
water. The pioneers seem always to have left the spring outside the
inclosure, however, and since this worked a great hardship in time of
siege, it seems to have been bad judgment. Girty’s Indians attacked
Logan’s Fort. The supply of water inside the fort was exhausted, and the
suffering was intense. After this siege, General Logan decided never again
to be subjected to such an extremity. He could not bring the spring to the
fort, and it was also difficult to transplant the fort. So he summoned the
settlers and proposed a plan to which they agreed. The hours when they
were not working in the fields or building new cabins they spent in
digging, until a tunnel was made from the stockade to the spring. In
succeeding attacks, the General had his granaries and storehouses well
supplied with food and ammunition, and it was an easy matter to send a boy
with a bucket through the tunnel to the spring for water. This precaution
on the part of the General prevented exhaustion during the next attack on
Logan’s Fort. The Indians, unable to understand how the settlers in the
fort could do so long without water, supposed them to be miraculously
defended by the Great Spirit, and never afterward could Girty lead his
band to attack Logan’s Fort.
The settlers at Bryan’s Station, a few miles from Lexington, did not take
a similar precaution. During one of the Indian attacks on them the supply
of water in the fort became exhausted, and surrender seemed unavoidable.
The women of the fort volunteered to go for water, and taking buckets
marched down to the spring. The Indians were surprised, superstitious, and
panic-stricken, and refused to fire on them. The women filled their
buckets and returned in safety to the stockade.
Notwithstanding the bounteous provision made by Nature to supply the needs
of the settler in the way of fruits, wild meats, and skins for clothing,
life in the settlements was plain in the extreme. Furniture and household
utensils were scant and crude, for the most part being of home
construction. Salt was one of the greatest needs of the settlers. At
first, they made it from the water of the numerous salt licks, each family
making its supply by boiling the water in a kettle until the moisture had
evaporated, leaving the salt encrusted in the kettle. These kettles were
crude, and invariably small. Hence it was more difficult to supply a
family with salt than with sugar, which was easily made by boiling down
the sap from the maple trees. After awhile, the Virginia authorities sent
out a number of large kettles and two expert salt makers, who reported to
Captain Boone for service. Boone, with his two experts and thirty other
men, left Boonesborough for the Lower Blue Lick Spring, fifty or more
miles toward the north. Here they made a camp and set to work to
manufacture a stock of salt sufficient to supply the needs of all the
settlements for a period of twelve months. From time to time a small party
was sent back to the different forts with packhorses laden with salt. On
their return, they would bring supplies, parched corn, and perhaps a few
of the simple comforts that seemed almost luxuries to the hardy
backwoodsmen. Meat constituted the chief article of diet for the workers
of the salt factory. It required no small amount to satisfy the appetites
of thirty vigorous men. Boone, as the most expert hunter among them,
undertook to supply the camp with meat. The task was, to him, a thoroughly
congenial one, which we cannot imagine the more civilized task of
manufacturing salt to have been.
It was Boone’s custom to go out some miles from camp every morning,
returning at the close of the day with as much game as he could carry, and
often leaving a quantity at a particular spot to be sent for with a
packhorse. One afternoon Boone was making his way toward the salt works
after a day of successful hunting, when he suddenly found himself
surrounded by a company of Indians. Not having seen a redskin for months,
and believing it unlikely that they could be present in large numbers at
that time of the year, Boone was not as keenly on the alert as usual. The
savages had found Boone’s trail while wandering through the woods. He was
taken captive, adopted into the tribe, his hair picked out in Indian
fashion, and the war paint added. Boone’s failure to return led the men in
the camp to suspect the presence of Indians, and to guess that Boone had
fallen captive. The alarm was quickly sent to the surrounding forts. Maj.
Harlan, Col. Trigg, Col. Todd, and Boone’s brother led a body of men
against the Indians in what proved to be the bloodiest battle recorded in
the annals of the territory, and known as the Battle of Blue Licks. In
this battle, Boone’s eldest son was slain, and it is said the old man
never could refer to the battle without shedding tears. In the midst of
the battle, Boone escaped from his captors and rejoined the settlers.