DANIEL BOONE.
THIS famous explorer, a native of Pennsylvania, removed at an early age
to North Carolina, and remained there till his fortieth year. In the
year 1769 he left his home on the sequestered Yadkin, to wander through
the wilderness in quest of the country of Kentucky, and to become the
archetype of the race of pioneers. In this exploration of the unknown
regions of Western Virginia, he was accompanied by five companions.
Reaching Red River early in June, they beheld from an eminence the
beautiful region of Kentucky. A pioneer named Finley is supposed by some
to have been the first explorer of the interior of Kentucky, and it is
said that he visited it alone; it is difficult to determine a matter of
this kind, and the first exploration has been attributed to others.
According to McClung,[595:A] it was Finley's glowing picture of the
country, on his return home, in 1767, that allured Boone to venture into
the wilderness. Kentucky, it appears, was not inhabited by the Indians,
they having not a wigwam there; but the Southern and Northwestern
Indians resorted there, as on a neutral ground, to hunt, and often came
into collision and engaged in conflicts, which, according to some, gave
it the name of Kentucky, or "the dark and bloody ground;" but the true
signification of the word is a matter of doubt. Boone and his companions
encamping, began to hunt and to reconnoitre the country. Innumerable
buffaloes browned on the leaves of the cane, or pastured on the herbage
of the plains, or lingered on the border of the salt-lick. In December,
Boone and a comrade, John Stuart, rambling in the magnificence of
forests yet unscarred by the axe, were surprised by a party of Indians
and captured. Boone met the catastrophe with a mien of stoical
indifference. A week after the capture the party encamped in the
evening in a thick cane-brake, and having built a large fire, lay down
to rest. About midnight, Boone gently awaking his companion, they
effected their escape, traversing the forest by the uncertain light of
the stars, and by observing the mossy side of the trees. Returning to
their camp they found it plundered and deserted; and the fate of its
occupants could not be doubted. A brother of Boone, with another hardy
adventurer, shortly after overtook the two forlorn survivors. It was not
long before Stuart was slain by the savages and scalped, and the
companion of Boone's brother devoured by wolves. The two brothers
remained in a wilderness untrod by the white man, surrounded by perils,
and far from the reach of succor. With unshaken fortitude they continued
to hunt, and erected a rude cabin to shelter them from the storms of
winter. When threatened by the approach of savages, they lay during the
night concealed in swamps. In May, 1770, Boone's brother returned home
for horses and ammunition, leaving him alone, without bread, salt, or
sugar, or even a horse or a dog. Daniel Boone, in one of his solitary
excursions made at this time, wandered during the whole day through a
region whose native charms dispelled every gloomy thought. Just at the
close of day, when the gales were lulled, not a breath of air stirring
the leaves, he gained the summit of a commanding ridge, and, looking
around, with delight beheld the ample regions mapped out beneath. On one
hand he saw the beautiful Ohio delineating the western boundary of
Kentucky; while at a distance the mountains lifted their peaks to the
clouds. All nature was still. He kindled a fire near a fountain of sweet
water, and feasted on the loin of a buck killed a few hours before. As
night folded her mysterious wings he heard the distant yells of savages;
but, worn out with fatigue, he fell asleep, and did not awake until the
morning beams were glancing through the forest glades, and the birds
warbling their matin songs. No populous city, with all its excitements
and attractions, could have pleased him half so much as the charms of
nature in Kentucky. Rejoined by his brother, in the summer of 1770, he
explored the valley of the Cumberland River. In 1771 Daniel Boone, after
an absence of three years, returned to his home on the Yadkin; sold such
of his possessions as he could not carry with him, and started with his
family to return and settle in Kentucky. Some cows, horses, and
household utensils formed his baggage. His wife and children were
mounted on horseback, their neighbors regarding them as doomed to
certain destruction. On the route he was re-enforced by five families,
and forty armed men at Powell's Valley. In October the young men who had
charge of the pack-horses and cattle in the rear, were surprised by
Indians, and of seven only one escaped; six were slain, and among them
Boone's oldest son. This occurred near the gap of the Cumberland
Mountains, whose dark gorges, rocky cliffs, and hoary summits strike the
mind of the beholder with awe. The Indians were repulsed with heavy
loss; but the whites retired forty miles to the settlement on the Clinch
River, where Boone with his family remained for some time. Virginia in
vain demanded of the Cherokees the surrender of the offenders. One of
Boone's party, in retaliation, afterwards slew an Indian at a horse-race
on the frontier, in spite of the interposition of the by-standers. In
1774, at the request of Governor Dunmore, Boone, leaving his family on
the banks of the Clinch, went to assist in conveying a party of
surveyors to the falls of the Ohio. He was next employed in the command
of three garrisons during the campaign against the Shawnees. In March of
the ensuing year, at the solicitation of some gentlemen of North
Carolina, Boone, at the treaty of Watauga, purchased from the Cherokees
of North Carolina the lands claimed by them, lying between the Kentucky
River and the Tennessee. But Kentucky being within the chartered limits
of Virginia, she[597:A] declared this treaty null and void, and
proclaimed her own title. The North Carolina grantees, however, received
in compensation a liberal grant of lands on Green River. Boone also
undertook to mark out a road from the settlements to the wilderness of
Kentucky; during this work several of his men were killed by the
savages. In 1775 he erected a fort at Boonsborough, near the Kentucky
River, and he removed his family there, and his wife and daughter were
supposed to be the first white women that ever stood upon the banks of
the Kentucky River; and Boonsborough was long an outpost of
civilization.
The remainder of Boone's career, full of stirring adventure, belongs
rather to the early history of Kentucky. When the settlements around him
began to grow too thick for his taste, he removed farther westward. This
extraordinary man, who could neither read nor write, in 1792 dictated a
brief account of his life to some youthful writer, whose attempt to
enhance the interest of the narrative by rhetorical embellishments
afforded no little satisfaction to the unsophisticated old voyager of
the woods, and nothing pleased him better than to sit and listen to the
reading of it. He would listen attentively, rub his hands together,
smile complacently and ejaculate, "All true, every word true! not a lie
in it." Solitary hunting, as it had been the charm of his earlier years,
afforded him the solace of his old age; and when too old to walk through
the woods, he would ride to the edge of the salt-licks and lie there in
ambush for the sake of getting a shot at the deer. He was in person
rough and robust; his countenance homely but kind; his manner cold,
grave, taciturn; his conversation simple and unobtrusive; he never
speaking of himself but when questioned. He was withal brave, humane,
prudent, and modest.[598:A] He died in 1820, aged nearly ninety years.
FOOTNOTES:
[595:A] Sketches of Western Adventure.
[597:A] See Journal of Convention of '76.
[598:A] McClung's Sketches of Western Adventure, 92.