CHAPTER III. Squire Boone finds his brother, Daniel, and Stewart alone in the wilderness. Stewart slain and scalped. The two Boones spend the winter hunting in Kentucky. In May, Squire returns home for powder and provisions. Daniel, for months, hunts alone through the forests.. Squire Boone returns in July and finds him. The "Long Hunters" visit upper Green river in 1769. First camp near Monticello. Part of them descend the Cumberland and Mississippi in boats loaded with skins and furs. Colonel Knox advances to Dick's river. Next encamps near Greensburg. 66 The Long Hunters" traverse the prairies of Barren, Warren, and other counties in their hunts until 1772. The Boone and Knox parties each ignorant of the other's presence. The habit, style, and character of the backwoodsman. The Boones without salt or bread, and living on game and wild berries, explore the wilderness for two years. Return home to prepare their families for removal to Kentucky. Great interest and curiosity excited among the people by the stories of the returned hunters. Many persuaded to venture to the wilderness. Late in the autumn of 1769, Squire Boone, a brother of Daniel, set out from his home in North Carolina, with one companion, to intercept the wandering hunters in the far West. During the latter part of December the two parties met, as by favoring Providence, in the solitudes of the great wilderness, and at a time of perilous need to both. The want of the new supply of powder and bullets brought out was beginning to be sorely felt. But the Boones were destined to the early loss of their two comrades. The one who came with Squire Boone returned homeward, and no mention is afterward made of him. Brave John Stewart met a more tragic fate. The frosts of early winter had disrobed the forests, and thus removed the veil of foliage which so often and so securely had sheltered them from the wary eye of the enemy. As the party of three were passing the edge of a canebrake, they were suddenly fired on by Indians, and Stewart fell mortally wounded. The Boones, plunging into the brake, fled for their lives, not able even to prevent one of the savages, as was their immemorial custom, from rushing upon the slain victim, and, winding one hand in the crown of hair, with a large knife in the other, taking off the scalp, and leaving bare the skull. This barbarous practice the white men often saw, and, fired with vengeance, learned to retaliate in kind upon his red foe, until Indian scalps were sometimes taken, as were those of slain whites. The two brothers, like fabled heroes, tarried alone to brave the perils of the boundless and inhospitable forests, to explore further their mysteries, and SQUIRE BOONE'S RETURN. 7 to follow the hunt through all that winter and until May 1st; at which time Squire Boone bade Daniel a temporary farewell and returned home across the mountains, mainly for needed ammunition and supplies. For two months following this separation, Daniel Boone traversed the wilderness alone, save the presence of adventurous savages and wild beasts, with only his trusty rifle and hunting-knife, and matchless skill in using them, as the guarantee for his life. In the interval of solitude, Boone says in his autobiography: "One day I undertook a tour through the country, and the diversity and beauties of nature I met with in this charming season expelled every gloomy and vexatious thought. Just at the close of day the gentle gales retired, and left the place to the disposal of a profound calm. Not a breeze shook the most tremulous leaf. I had gained the summit of a commanding ridge, and, looking around with astonished delight, beheld the ample plains below. On the other hand, I surveyed the famous river Ohio, that rolled in silent dignity, marking the western boundary of Kentucky with inconceivable grandeur. At a vast distance I beheld the mountains lift their venerable brows, and penetrate the clouds." On the 27th of July he was glad to welcome back to his vast solitudes the companionship of Squire Boone again. The latter came with horses ladened with the supplies; and the two met, as agreed, at their second camp, more recently formed on Station Camp Creek, in Estill county, by concert of understanding, and together resumed their hunter's life. Squire Boone had carved upon a rock, yet standing near Little Blue Lick, in Madison county, and still known as "Boone Rock," the inscription, "Squire Boone, 1770," to inform his brother while on this favorite hunting spot that he had returned, and to be on the alert. Exploring the country from the head. waters of Cumberland river to the Ohio, they discovered its main streams, and its variety of soil and surface. By following its trodden roads, or "traces," as the pioneers called them, which the buffaloes made from their grazing fields and brakes, they found a number of the great "licks" to which wild animals in countless multitudes commonly resorted in hunt of salt. These buffalo traces are plainly marked out to the present day. Boone and companions observed with wonder that there were no human habitations, or even evidences of Indian villages, to be found anywhere in Kentucky, but that this region was known as the common park, or hunting range, and frequent battlefields of the tribes of the North and West and South. Early in the year 1769, prompted by the growing interest in the attractions of the wilderness of the West, a party of forty adventurous hunters gathered from the valleys of New river, Holston, and Clinch, and crossed the mountains from Virginia, for the purpose of trapping and shooting game. Passing the south fork of the Cumberland, they selected for a place of rendezvous a spot known as Price's Meadow, near a flowing spring, about six miles from Monticello, in Wayne county, and made a camp and depot for their supplies and skins, which they agreed to deposit every five weeks. They hunted far out to the south and west over the country, much of which was covered with prairie grass, and with great success. They found no traces of human settlements, but many human bones under mounds and stones erected, and in caves. Gordon, Baker, Mansco, and seven others, loaded two boats and two canoes with skins and wild meat, and embarked down the Cumberland and Mississippi to the Spanish fort Natchez, and thence home. Others were lost in the wilderness, or reached home after great perils and privations. But in the fall, Colonel James Knox separated with a party of nine, and ventured northward deeper into the forest. Meeting a band of Cherokee Indians, the chief, Captain Dick, known to several of the whites, directed them to the region of his river further on, where they would find plenty of game, and "to kill it and go home." They found game abundant at what has ever since been known as Dick's river. In 1771, Knox, Skaggs, and comrades, joined by Mansco, Bledsoe, and others from the settlements, hunting and trapping yet farther west, built a house for the deposit of their skins, about nine miles eastward from Greensburg, near the site of Mount Gilead church, in the direction of Columbia. From this center they penetrated the prairie country as far as Barren, Hart, and adjacent counties. Some of these bold backwoodsmen returned to the settlements in 1772, while the others remained. So long were they absent that they were known in after history as the "Long Hunters. "1 By coincidence, the Boones and their comrades did not fall in with Colonel Knox and party, during the two years they were jointly exploring the vast labyrinths of forests and plains. Neither knew of the presence of the other party, occupying different sections. The former invaded the huntinggrounds of the revengeful and murderous Indian tribes of the North. The latter traversed those that were mostly frequented by the Cherokees and other of the Mobilian tribes of the South, who, while they plundered and murdered at times, were more tractable than the Miamis. Some of Colonel Knox's men were slain by them, and more than once they plundered their camps of kettles, skins, and supplies. These backwoodsmen were a class peculiar to themselves in their characters, their habits, and their preferments. Their dress was adapted to the life of the forest ranger. The hunting-shirt was a loose frock with cape, made of deer skins dressed. Leggings of the same material covered the lower limbs, with moccasins for the feet. The cape, the coat, and the leggings were usually adorned with fringes. The under garments were of coarse cotton. A leather belt encircled the body; on the right side hung the hatchet or tomahawk, on the left was the hunting-knife, the powder-horn, and bullet-pouch-all indispensable. With garments less substantial they could not have made their way through brush and thorns, or over rocks and pebbles. The hunter was his own tailor, and fashioned his garments at the camp-fire. Each man bore his trusty rifle, ever on the alert for deadly foes 1 Haywood's Tennessee, pp. 75-76; Collins, Vol. II., p. 417. INTEREST AND CURIOSITY EXCITED. 9 or welcome game. It was flint-lock, but fine-sighted; and rarely did it fail the practiced marksman, unless the sparks from flint and steel missed the powder, or there was a "flash in the pan." The contingency of final resort to tomahawk or knife implied death to one or both of the combatants as well. The voluntary exile of Daniel Boone from home and civilization had now extended nearly two years. In March, 1771, he at last was induced to turn his steps toward North Carolina, with hope of soon again embracing his wife and children, yet very dear to him. In his narrative, written from his own dictation by John Filson, in 1784, he says: "I returned home to my family with a determination to bring them as soon as possible to live in Kentucky, which I esteemed a second paradise, at the risk of my life and fortune. The Boone party and the "Long Hunters," welcomed back, were as famed at home and abroad among the colonists of the Atlantic slopes, as were Jason and his comrades returned to the shores of their native Thessaly, bearing the prize of the Golden Fleece. From far and near the people came to hear, while these modern Argonauts of the forest rehearsed to wondering auditors most glowing descriptions of the land of promise they had explored. They wearied not in picturing to the curious and willing neighbors what they had seen of the marvelous fertility of soil, the prodigal growth of giant forest and luxuriant pasture, the health and delight of climate, and the countless supply and variety of great and small game with which the wilderness abounded, all animated with the enchanting novelty, and adorned with the majestic grace and boldness of nature's creative energy. Nor did they forget to relate the marvelous and weird stories of viewing around the salt licks, where vast herds of buffalo, and elk, and deer were wont to congregate, the skeleton bones of monstrous mammoths, the bodies of which must have been many times larger than those of any animal known to history; of the discovery of the remains of human beings of past generations in caves and cliffs; and of mounds for fortifications, for religious rites, and for burial-places of a people more civilized than the Indians, but of whom they found no other traces of existence. The restless spirit of adventure was excited, and many a stalwart heart kindled and beat earnestly as the wistful eye turned toward the sunset land, and vowed, that though the pioneer ust anticipate the savage foe from behind every tree, within every brake, and from every ambush, yet fortune and life should be ventured there. The resolve of these heroic men, of Anglo-Saxon origin and American mold, made for the future. of Kentucky a manifest destiny. 1 in 1755; but marks a war-path through Northern Kentucky. All traces of Shawanee lodges removed from Kentucky, in Filson's map, in 1784. Chief Black Hoof visits Kentucky in 1816; states that he was born at Indian Old Fields, Clark county, Ky., about 1730. Ficklin's letter on the question. Legend of the Lover's Cave." east. Harassed by the Southern tribes, they abandon Kentucky and establish their villages in Ohio. Transfers of title by the Mohawks, the Shawanees, and the Cherokees, successively, to the whites. After all these treaties and transfers, Kentucky was won by the valor of her pioneer children. It was phenomenal that no Indian villages were found in Kentucky, and no evidences are of record of any tribal habitations being located within this territory, since 1750, except a few temporary lodges on the Ohio bank, opposite the mouth of the Scioto. From that date, as tradition held, it was by tacit concession the common hunting-ground for all the tribes on the North, the South, and the West. The lodges nearest Kentucky were those of the Chickasaws, Cherokees, and Catawbas on the Hogotege, now the Tennessee, river, southward, and the Shawanees, Wyandots, and Delawares on the Scioto and Miami rivers, northward. From these abodes would issue forth, repeatedly, bands of savages, often professedly for the hunt, but always painted, equipped, and armed to assume the role of warrior when opportunity tempted. The great unoccupied forest and prairie country that lay west of the mountains, bordered on the north by the Ohio, and on the south by the Shawanee, now Cumberland, river, was the favorite resort of these roving and predatory Indian parties. Often the warriors of different tribes met on these excursions in deadly conflict, and re-enacted the bloody tragedies for which Indian warfare has ever been noted. It was traditional that this had long been, not only the famed hunting range of neighboring tribes, but the fated field of frequent and sanguinary combat between partisan 1 Rafinesque, p. 38, in Marshall's History. I |