8 ARTICLE II. Valley of the Ohio. BY MANN BUTLER, ESQ. Continued from page 426, vol. XI. No. 6. ESCORT OF GUNPOWDER FROM FORT PITT TO KENTUCKY.-FIRST CON- Clark and his associate having obtained these important benefits for his fellow-countrymen in the wilderness, were preparing to come again to the interesting colony; when they heard that the supply of gunpowder, obtained with so much difficulty from Virginia, still lay at Fort Pitt. Jones and Clark then determined to return to Kentucky by that place, to obtain an article so precious in the existing condition of the frontier. At this extreme western point, there were many Indians lurking about, apparently for the purpose of making treaties; but who were in reality spies on the movements of our countrymen, intention to descend the Ohio they seemed to suspect; and would, whose in all probability, try to interrupt. Under these circumstances, our party resolved to prosecute their voyage without delay; and with no more than seven boatmen, with indefatigable exertions, pursued the whole way by Indians, they got safe to Limestone Creek, just above the present town of Maysville, in Kentucky. The party went up this creek with their boat, and having buried their precious cargo at considerable distances apart, they then turned their boat adrift, and directed their course to Harrodsburg. Here they expected to procure a sufficient escort for the gunpowder. On their way through the woods, they came to a solitary cabin, one of Hingston's, on the west fork of Licking river. While resting here, some men, who were sent out surveying, happened to come to the same place, and informed our envoys, that the Indians had not recently done much mischief; that Col. John Todd was in the neighborhood with a small body of men, who might escort the gunpowder to its destination. Clark, however, with his usual promptitude, after having waited for this reinforcement for some time in vain, set off for Harrodsburg, accompanied by two of his men, leaving the residue with Jones at Hingston's. Soon after Clark had left, Col. Todd arrived; and upon being informed of the precious deposit on the river bank, thinking his force sufficient to effect its removal, marched with ten men for that purpose. When they reached the country about the Blue Licks, they met, on the 25th of September, 1776, with an Indian party, who were following the trail of Clark and his companions. This hostile body attacked the whites with so much vigor, as to route them entirely, having killed Jones with some others, and taken some prisoners. Among the latter was Col. Campbell.* Fortunately for Kentucky, the prisoners were true to their countrymen, and preserved the secret of the military stores inviolate. A party from Harrodsburg afterwards brought them in safety to their overjoyed friends. On the 29th of December, 1776, a large body of Indians attacked McClellan's fort on Elkhorn Creek,+ and killed McClellan and two others, which drove the residue of the inhabitants to Harrodstown. This necessarily produced great alarm; it was soon much increased by an attack of the Indians upon James Ray, his brother, and another man, who were clearing some land about 4 miles from Harrodstown, at the Shawnee Springs, the late residence of this venerable and distinguished pioneer; the last whom the author had the high gratification of knowing personally. The hostile party consisted of forty-seven warriors, under the command of Blackfish, a chief who will again meet our notice; attracted by the noise of the axes, they rushed upon the party of choppers, killed the younger Ray, and took the third man prisoner. The elder Ray escaped by his uncommon swiftness of foot. So remarkable was this young woodsman for his running, that Blackfish mentioned it to Boone, when he took the latter prisoner the next year at the Blue Licks. The chief remarked that some boy at one of the forts or stations had outrun all his warriors. Fortunate it was for the infant fort at Harrodstown, that Ray possessed such nimbleness of foot: for without his escape to give the alarm, the station might have been surprised, as the party had The co-partner of Conolly on 2,000 acres below Louisville, bordering on the canal. t The site of Georgetown, Scott county, Kentucky, also called Royal Spring, from its copious supply of water. been at the Shawnee Springs. In consequence of Ray's information, everything was done to strengthen the forts, and prepare for the expected storm. On the next morning, the Indians, with the precaution usual to them, not to prosecute an expedition immediately, after any circumstance has happened, calculated to put an enemy on his guard against it, appeared before the fort, on the 7th day of March, 1777. The militia had been organized but two days before. The Indians began by setting fire to an out-cabin, on the east side of the fort; this, the garrison not believing to be the act of the enemy, rushed out to extinguish. The Indians now attempted to intercept their return; but our people retreated, until they got to a piece of woods, which then covered the hill, now [in 1833] occupied by the courthouse in Harrodsburg; here each man took to a tree, or tree-ed, as it was called in the language of the times. In this conflict, on which so much depended in the infancy, the very formative state of the colony, one Indian was killed, and four of the whites were wounded, one of whom died. Our people made good their retreat to the fort; the Indians soon after retired. The early time, at which this first siege of Harrodsburg was laid, and the paucity of settlements in the country, only make this, generally speaking, insignificant affair, worthy of being related. But the capture of Harrodsburg would have incalculably delayed the settlement of the country, if it had not led to further and still more fatal triumphs of the enemy. During this year [1777], the Indians collected in great numbers round this devoted place; so much so, as to prevent any corn from being raised about the fort. During this period of danger and want, Ray, then but about 17 years of age, used to rise before day, and with an old horse, the only one left by the Indians, out of forty brought by his father-in-law, Major McGary, to the country, proceeded as cautiously as possible to Salt river, riding in the water, as well as in the bed of any stream in his way in order to conceal his route. On leaving the river, when sufficiently out of hearing, our young woodsman would kill enough to make a considerable load of meat; he would then take it to the suffering garrison by night-fall. This was accomplished, too, when older hunters, stimulated by these boyish exploits, attempting the same enterprise, were often killed by the Indians. These isolated facts derived from the lips of the gallant actor, with much more, that may not be introduced, in these general views, are illustrative of the difficulties and privations of frontier life. At this time [about 1777], Logan's garrison, of St. Asaphs, near the present town of Stanford, in Kentucky, that is the men capable of bearing arms, consisted of fifteen men only. The two other principal forts were each kept in alarm by the Indians; so that no assistance could be afforded by the one to the other. The distresses of the inhabitants, particularly of the women and children, may faintly be conceived; cooped up at this period of the year, in their confined stations, and surrounded by a merciless foe. "But aided by Logan, and encouraged by his example, the little handful under his command, not exceeding thirty-five, the men less than half this number, would not complain, much more despair." Of this apparently insignificant number "two were killed, and a third wounded.”* "The loss of the enemy, if any, was not known. Harrodsburg and Boonesborough were about equidistant, and the only places from which any assistance could be expected, had they not been in equal peril themselves. On the 25th of July, 1777, a party of forty-five men arrived from North Carolina, and although they went to Boonesborough, the intelligence of it, in some way seems to have reached the beleaguered people of Logan's station. In this attack, the Indians made their approaches with more than their usual secrecy, or the garrison were not on the alert. "The annoyance of the Indians still continued, after these successive sieges, in which they seem to have exerted all their arts of barbarian warfare, in vain; they infested the stations, they intercepted the hunter and the traveller." "Some kept guard, while others labored; but while the women were milking the cows outside of the fort at St. Asaphs or Logan's station, they were suddenly fired upon by a large body of Indians, till then concealed in the thick cane, which stood about the cabins. By this fire, one man was killed, and two others wounded, one mortally; the residue with the women got into the fort. When having reached the protection of its walls, one of the wounded men was discovered to have been left on the ground. Capt. Logan distressed for his situation, and keenly alive to the anguish of his family, who could see him from the fort weltering in his blood, exposed every instant to be scalped by the savages, endeavored • Marshall, I, 49. for some time in vain, to raise a party for his rescue. The garrison was, however, so small, and the danger so appalling, that Logan only met objection and refusal; until one John Martin stimulated by his Captain, proceeded with him to the fort gate. At this instant, Harrison, the wounded man, appeared to raise himself up on his hands and knees, as if able to help himself, and Martin deterred by the obvious danger withdrew. Col. Logan incapable of abandoning a man under his command, was only nerved to newer and more vigorous exertions to relieve the wounded man, who by that time exhausted by his previous efforts, after crawling a few paces, had fallen to the ground; Logan rushed forth and took him in his arms, amidst a shower of bullets from the enemy, many of which struck the pickets about the direction of his head, brought the wounded man in safety into the fort, and restored him to his despairing family. This anecdote well indicates the intimate ties of friendship among the pioneers, who would venture everything for the rescue of a fellow-woodsman from danger. Does such an action tell less honorably to the human heart, than similar devotion on a larger scale? Does it weigh less in moral estimation, because two men were principally concerned, instead of hundreds or thousands? To the mind of the author, the essence of exalted feeling and heroic affection is the same, upon all scales of action; and the numbers upon whom it may have operated, are only one of the extrinsic accidents. Another danger soon assailed the little garrison of Logan's station: "there was but little powder or ball in the fort; nor any prospect of supply from the neighboring stations, could it even have been sent for without the most imminent danger."* The enemy continued before the fort; there was no ammunition nearer than the settlements on Holston, distant about two hundred miles; and if the garrison should be compelled to surrender, it would be to horrors worse than any ordinary death-the torture of the savages. Nor was the task very easy, to pass through so wily an enemy; nor were the dangers and difficulty much lessened even beyond the circle of the besiegers, owing to the mountainous char acter of the way, it was necessary to pass, and among a foe scattered in every direction. Still Captain Logan was not a man to falter where duty called, although encompassed by danger. With two companions he left the fort in the night, and avoiding "the • Marshall. |