got me a commission in the navy, but at the last minute mother asked me
not to leave her. She has had hard times bringing us all up, and I felt,
as the eldest, that I ought to stay at home; so I gave up my
commission."
"That was hard," said Lord Fairfax, "and yet I think you did well. There
should be openings for a young man in the colonies. It seems to me I
heard that you were very fond of the surveyor's work."
The boy looked up quickly, and his bright eyes flashed. "So I am, sir. I
have made surveys of all the fields near school, and have got the
figures in my books at home. I should like very much to be a real
surveyor."
"Well, George," said Lord Fairfax, "perhaps I can help you then. I've
bought lands out west, the other side the Appalachians. It's a big tract
I own, but I know little about it, and I'm told that men are settling
out there and taking it up themselves. I should like to have it
surveyed, and I think you're just the one to do it."
"I should like it above all things," said the boy, "if you think you can
trust me to do the work properly."
Lord Fairfax smiled slightly as he looked down at his companion. He was
apt to be somewhat amused at Washington's serious modesty. "I'll show
you the plans after dinner. I almost wish I could go out there with
you."
They were now nearing Belvoir, and the man put spurs to his horse and
dashed across the intervening fields. The boy followed close behind,
sitting his horse to perfection. Just before they reached Belvoir they
came to a high hedge. Lord Fairfax put his horse at it and went flying
over. A second later George had followed him. There was no feat of
horsemanship to which he was not equal.
A little later dinner was served in the big dining-room at Belvoir. Lord
Fairfax had his brother's family living with him, and with one or two
friends who were apt to be staying at the house they made quite a large
party. The long polished mahogany table gleamed with silver and glass.
Candles on it and in sconces about the white paneled walls shed a
pleasant lustre over the dinner party.
It was a time when men and women paid great attention to dress. The
ladies wore light flowered gowns, and the men brilliant coats and
knee-breeches, with lace stocks and white powdered hair. Their manners
were of the courts of Europe, polished in the extreme, and they had all
been trained to make an art of conversation. Negro servants waited on
the table, and the noble lord presided at its head with something of the
majesty of a medieval baron in his castle. There were young people
present, and George sat with them, paying gallant speeches to the girls
and telling stories of sport to the boys. He was a popular youth, having
a singularly gentle manner which made him a great favorite with those of
his own age.
After dinner Lord Fairfax took George to his study, and spread out the
plans of his western estate. He told the boy just where to go and what
to do, and George made notes in a small pocketbook, asking questions now
and then which showed a remarkable knowledge of the surveyor's work.
"When can you start?" Lord Fairfax asked, as he finished with the plans.
"At once," said the boy, "if mother can spare me, and I think she can."
"Good. I'd like another hunt with you before you go, but when there's
work afoot a man shouldn't tarry. The sooner you start the better."
A little later George was sleeping soundly in the guest-room
above-stairs dreaming of the adventures he hoped soon to have.
On a March day in 1748 Washington set out with young George Fairfax, a
nephew of the English lord, to make the surveying expedition. Their road
led by Ashley's Gap, a deep pass through the Blue Ridge, that
picturesque line of mountains which had so far marked the boundary of
civilized Virginia.
When they reached the pass they found at its base a rapidly rising
river. The melting snow which still lingered on the hilltops had swollen
the stream and in places had made the road almost impassable. The two
horsemen, by searching for fords, managed to make their way through the
pass, and came out into the wide, smiling valley of Virginia, bounded by
the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Alleghanies. Here flowed that
picturesque river called by the Indian name of Shenandoah, which means
"the Daughter of the Stars."
The first stop the travelers made was at a rough lodge house where one
of Lord Fairfax's bailiffs lived, and here the actual work of surveying
began. Spring was rapidly coming, and young George Washington was by no
means blind to the beauties of the country in that season. He tried,
however, to look about him with a practical eye. He studied the valley
for building sites. He examined the soil. He made carefully measured
maps and drawings, after using his surveyor's rod and chain. When he had
learned all that he wanted of this locality, he followed the valley down
toward the Potomac, he and Fairfax camping out at nights under the
trees, sleeping beside a watch-fire, and keeping ever on the alert for
attack by Indians or wild animals.
When they had reached the river they found it so swollen with spring
floods that there seemed no way of crossing it. Finally, however, they
met an Indian with a birch-bark canoe and bargained with him to take
them across. In this way, swimming their horses, they reached the
Maryland side, and set out again westward.
Shortly after they had left the river they came to a planter's house
where they stayed over night. The next day they were surprised by the
arrival of a war party of thirty Indians carrying scalps won in battle.
The planter knew how to treat the Indians, and soon made friends with
them by offering them whiskey. George had seen little of the red men and
begged them to hold a war-dance.
The white men and the red went out into a meadow and there built a fire,
round which the braves took their seats. The chief made a speech telling
of the tribe's deeds of valor, and calling on the warriors to win new
triumphs. Gradually one by one the reclining members of the band rose
and circled about the fire in a slow swinging step. Two Indians at a
little distance beat upon a rough drum made of wood covered with
deerskin and half filled with water.
As the chief's voice rose higher and higher and the music grew louder
and louder, more and more men joined the dance, until finally all the
tribe was dancing about the fire, and their pace grew ever faster. Now,
from time to time, one would leap in the air uttering savage cries and
yells, then another, and finally all seemed absolutely lost in a sort of
demon's frenzy. Suddenly, at a sharp command from the chief, the dance
and the music ceased, and the warriors came up to their white friends
smiling and asking for more whiskey.
The scene made a deep impression on George Washington. So far he had
lived only among white people, and knew little of the Indian in his
native haunts, but from the date of this war-dance he began to study
the red man's character, and before long he had become an expert in the
art of dealing with these people.
For a month George and young Fairfax traveled through the land that
belonged to the latter's uncle, and at the end of that time the boy had
made practically a complete survey of the region. By the middle of April
he was back at Belvoir. His plans were examined and approved, and he was
well paid for his services.
So pleased was the Englishman with George's work that he used his
efforts to get him the appointment of Public Surveyor. The position
pleased the boy, who at once started to make maps of the whole region
lying along the Potomac. He divided his time between his mother's simple
house, the big house which his older half-brother, Lawrence, had built
at Mount Vernon, and Lord Fairfax's seat at Belvoir. The strongest
friendship had grown up between the nobleman and the boy, and George
unquestionably profited greatly by his talks with this man, who was very
fond of literature and art, and who had known the most distinguished men
and women of Europe.
Belvoir had a fine library, and George spent much of his spare time
there reading with special eagerness the history of England and
Addison's essays in the _Spectator_. His only schooling had been that
which he had gained at a very primitive log schoolhouse, where an old
man named Hobby, originally a bondsman, taught the children of the
plantations reading, writing, and arithmetic. George, however, was not
the boy to be content with such a simple education, and he had made up
his mind that if he could not go to William and Mary College he would at
least learn all he could from Lord Fairfax's well-stocked library.
Young Washington's work as a surveyor was shortly cut in upon by the
outbreak of trouble with France. In looking over the youths of the
neighborhood who were likely to make good soldiers, attention was almost
at once attracted to him. Everybody knew he had a great sense of
responsibility, and his feats as an athlete were equally well known.
As a small boy he had been unusually big and strong for his age, and had
always delighted in any kind of contest of strength. He could outrun,
outride and outbox any boy of either side the Potomac, and had proved it
in many contests of skill. When he was at Hobby's school he had liked to
form his mates into companies at recess time, with cane stalks for
rifles and dried gourds for drums, and drill them in the manual of arms.
They had fought mimic battles, and Washington always commanded one side.
He had really learned a good deal of the art of war in this way, and so
when men were casting about for likely young officers they naturally
thought of the boy surveyor.
His brother Lawrence had sufficient influence to procure him an
appointment as District Adjutant General, and had him make his
headquarters at Mount Vernon, where he immediately began to drill the
raw recruits of the countryside. But in the midst of these military
operations Lawrence fell ill and had to make a sea voyage to the West
Indies, taking his young brother George with him as company.
In the West Indies George caught smallpox, but he made a quick recovery
and after a short convalescence began to enjoy the tropical life which
was so entirely new to him.
Unfortunately Lawrence Washington did not grow stronger, and finally
came back to Mount Vernon to die under his own roof. He was very young,
very high-spirited and accomplished, and immensely popular with all
Virginians. George had looked up to him as to a second father, and his
loss was a tremendous blow to him. Lawrence for his part must have
realized the very unusual qualities of character in his young
half-brother. He left his great estate of Mount Vernon together with
other property to his wife and daughter, and in case they should die
then to his mother and his brother George. George was asked to take
charge of the estates, and although he was still only a boy in years he
showed such splendid ability and judgment in business matters that the
whole care of the family interests soon fell upon his shoulders.
We have already seen how deeply this boy impressed older men with his
rare judgment, and it is scarcely strange to find that he was soon after
picked out by the governor of Virginia to command an expedition sent
through the wilderness to treat with the Indians and French. This
required physical strength and firm purpose, the courage to deal with
the Indians and shrewdness to treat with the French. Washington was
known to have all these qualities. His youth was the only thing against
him, and that the governor was glad to overlook.
It was a rough and perilous expedition, made partly in frail canoes down
the great rivers, and partly by fighting a way through the unbroken
woods. Washington met the Indians whom the French had tried hard to win
over to their side, and by the most skilful diplomacy induced the chiefs
to send back the wampums which the French had given them as tokens of
alliance. He had studied the Indian character and knew the twists and
turns of their peculiar type of mind. He was frank and outspoken with
them, and as a result won their confidence, so that for a great part of
his journey chiefs of the Delawares, the Shawnees and other tribes
traveled with him.
Besides his success with the red men, George Washington, with his
surveyor's knowledge, made a careful study of the country through which
he passed, the result of which study was of the greatest value in later
years when he commanded an army in that region.
He picked out the place where the Alleghany and Monongahela Rivers meet
as an admirable site for a fort and made a report of its advantages from
a military point of view. Only a year or two later French engineers
proved the correctness of his judgment by settling on the spot as the
site of Fort Du Quesne, which is now Pittsburg.
Successful as he had been with the Indians, Washington was scarcely less
successful with the civilized French commander. This man, like those at
Belvoir, recognized at once the self-command, the extreme intelligence,
and the modesty of the youth who appeared before him. The old officer
and the young pioneer met as equals and fought diplomatically across the
table as to which nation should win the alliance of the red men. The
negotiations were extremely difficult, enough to try the skill of a man
grown old in diplomatic service, but Washington completed his mission
successfully, and at last set out to retrace his steps home.
Now they had much more difficulty with the Indians and with the
elements. Some of their guides turned traitors, and they had to watch
their arms by night and day. Ceaseless vigilance had to be used, and
time and again the little band had to make forced marches and change
their course on the spur of the moment to throw off bands of pursuing
savages. When they reached the banks of the Alleghany River they found
that it was only partly frozen over and that great quantities of broken
ice were driving down the channel in the middle.
Washington knew that a band of hostile Indians was at his heels, and he
had to plan some way of crossing the Alleghany. He decided to build a
raft, but had only one poor hatchet with which to construct it. The men
set to work with this, and labored all day, but night came before the
raft was finished. As soon as they could they launched it and tried to
steer it across with long poles. When they reached the main channel the
raft became jammed between great cakes of ice, and it seemed as if they
would all be swept down-stream with it. Washington planted his pole
against the bottom of the stream and pushed with all his might, in hopes
of holding the raft still until the ice should have gone by. Instead the
current drove the ice against his pole with such force that he was
jerked into the water and only saved himself from being swept down the
roaring channel by seizing one of the logs.
They found it impossible to reach shore. The best they could do was to
get to an island near which the raft had drifted. Here they passed the
night, exposed to extreme cold, in great danger of freezing; but in the
morning the drift ice was found so tightly wedged together that they
were able to cross over on it to the opposite bank of the Alleghany.
This was but one of many adventures that befell the little party on its
homeward way. Through all kinds of dangers Washington led his men, and
finally he had the satisfaction of bringing the expedition safely back
to Williamsburg, where he gave the governor a full report of his
remarkable mission. It was practically the first expedition of its kind
in Virginian history, and the story of it soon spread far and wide
through the Old Dominion.
Everywhere men spoke of the remarkable skill the young man had shown in
dealing with fickle Indians and crafty French. Report was made of the
trained eye with which the young commander had noticed the military
qualities of the country and of the courage he had shown in all sorts of
perils. More than that, the governor of Virginia and other men in power
realized that Washington had prudence, good judgment, and resolution to
a remarkable degree, and told each other that here was a man worthy to
uphold the interests of the colony. From the date of this trip George
Washington became a prominent figure. It was not long before he was to
be the mainstay of Virginia.
Every one knows the story of Washington's life. From being the mainstay
of Virginia and fighting with General Braddock against the French and
Indians, he became the mainstay of the United Colonies and fought
through seven long and trying years against the veterans of England. Who
can overestimate the great patience and courage and determination that
heroic struggle required of him?
We see him taking command of the raw recruits at Cambridge, leading his
men in victory at Trenton, sustaining them in defeat at Monmouth,
cheering them through the desperate winter at Valley Forge. Later we see
him as first President of the United States guiding the new republic
through its first troubled years, and later still as the simple
gentleman of Mount Vernon, glad to escape to the peace of the river and
fields he loved.
There are few figures in history quite so self-reliant as that of this
"Father of his Country." The qualities which made him so remarkable a
boy were the same as those which made him so great a man.
VII
Daniel Boone
The Boy of the Frontier: 1735-1820
Many people were riding to the big red barn that belonged to a
Pennsylvania farmer who lived on the outskirts of the little town of
Oley in Berks County. It was a Sunday morning early in the summer of
1742, and people from all the neighborhood were heading for that barn.
Almost all of them came on horseback, sometimes man and wife riding
separate steeds, sometimes the woman seated behind the man, her hands
grasping his coat. A few families, father, mother and a flock of
children, covered the road on foot, the father with a gun usually
strapped across his back. A very few people drove up in primitive
carriages, something like old-fashioned English chaises. Those who drove
were very proud, because such elegant carriages were rarely seen outside
of Philadelphia, and betokened much social prominence.
The big doors of the red barn stood wide open, and as soon as the horses
were properly tethered the country people streamed inside. Most
primitive benches had been placed in rows facing a broad platform at the
farther end, and men, women and children filed into the seats with all
the solemnity of people entering church. As soon as they had settled
themselves on the benches they all stared at the platform.
Five swarthy, red-skinned Indians stood on the raised place, and a
little in front of them stood a tall, strong-featured white man. The
Indians wore their native buckskin clothes, and had chains of bright
beads about their necks, but their faces were as quiet and peaceful as
that of the white man in front of them. One of them, he who looked the
youngest, wore a single brilliant red feather in his long black hair.
All the men stood there patiently until the barn was filled.
Down in front, close to the platform, sat a small boy, his eyes fixed on
the young Indian who wore the scarlet feather. The boy was about eight
years old. His hair was dark and rather long, his blue eyes looked from
under light yellowish eyebrows, his mouth was very wide but his lips
were thin and straight. He looked alert and interested.
Presently the white man on the platform, who was a widely-known Moravian
missionary named Count Zinzendorf, raised his voice in prayer. The
farmers, their wives, and children knelt on the floor of the barn. When
the prayer was ended the Count stated that at this meeting, or synod, as
he called it, they were to hear from five Delaware Indians, lately
converted to Christianity. One after the other the red men stepped
forward and spoke, slowly, and sometimes hesitating over long English
words, but with a fine earnestness that was accented by their strong,
dignified bearing and their firm, well-cut features.
The boy in front listened attentively, although he could not understand
everything they said. He liked Indians, and, as long as he had to go to
church, he was glad he could look at these Delawares.
The synod came to an end, and the congregation filed slowly out of the
barn. Those who had ridden mounted again, and went their homeward way at
the slow and decorous pace suitable to Sunday. Squire Boone, who had
been sitting on the front bench with his wife Sarah, and nine of his
eleven children, gathered the latter together, and guided them, much
like a flock of sheep, to his log cabin home near Oley. One of them, the
fourth boy, Daniel by name, had lingered behind. He had waited until the
five Delawares were leaving, and then had gone up to the youngest of the
Indians, and touched his hand.
The Indian looked down at the small boy, and smiled. "How?" he said
encouragingly.
"Is the feather in your hair a flamingo feather?" asked the boy.
The Delaware nodded. "Yes, him flamingo."
"How did you win it?"
The young man smiled again. "Once the Delawares must have rescue from
the Hurons. A chief sent me with others to take word. We must go through
Iroquois country to get Hurons. Iroquois bad people, war with us. Other
Delawares killed, I take word in safe. Hurons go back with me, and help
my people. Chief give me flamingo feather."
Admiration shone in the boy's eyes. "I like the Delawares," said he.
"Delawares like you people," replied the Indian. "What you name?"
"Daniel Boone. Some day, when I grow up, I'll come and visit you."
"Good," said the other. He held out his hand as he was used to seeing
white men do. The boy put his palm in the Indian's, and they shook
hands. Then Daniel turned and scampered down the road after his father.
The boys of the Boone family had a very good time. They lived on what
was then the frontier between civilization and the wilderness. They
learned to hunt and fish, and to know the habits of the animals of the
woods and fields. Moreover they were almost as used to seeing Indians as
to seeing white people, and had none of the fear of them which kept so
many of the settlers farther east continually uneasy.
The boys and girls had plenty of work to do. Squire Boone had a big
farm, and kept five or six looms working in his house, making homespun
clothes for his large family and to sell to his neighbors. He owned a
splendid grazing range some little distance north of his home, and sent
his cattle there early each spring.
Shortly after that Sunday of Count Zinzendorf's missionary meeting
Daniel's mother told him that he and she were to take the cattle north
to this range, and watch them during the summer. Squire Boone was needed
at the farm, the older girls were to tend the loom, and the mother had
chosen her favorite son to go north with her.
At the beginning of summer they drove the cows to the range, and stayed
there with them until autumn. Mrs. Boone and Daniel lived in a small
cabin, far from any neighbors. Near the cabin, over a spring, was a
dairy-house. The sturdy woman worked here, making fine butter and
cheese, while Daniel kept guard over the cattle, letting them wander
over the hills and through the woods as they would, but driving them
back to their pen near the cabin at sunset.
This duty of herdsman left Daniel much time to himself. He spent this
time in studying woodcraft. He grew passionately fond of everything
belonging to the wilderness; he knew birds and beasts, the trails
through the forest and the course of streams as well as any Indian. He
set traps of his own making, and brought his captures proudly home at
night to his mother.
At first he had to make his own weapons, and invented a curious
implement, simply a slim, smooth-shaved sapling, with a bunch of twisted
roots at the end. This he learned to throw so skilfully that he could
readily kill birds, rabbits, and small game with it. A little later,
however, his father gave him a rifle, and he became an expert marksman,
able to provide his mother with plenty of game for food.