John S. C. Abbott

“ Poor Boone! Seventy-four years old, and the second grasp you have made upon the West has been powerless. You have risked life, and lost the life next dearest your own for the West. In all its fearful forms, death has looked you in the face, and you have moved on to conquer the soil which you did but conquer, that it might be denied to you. You have been the architect of the prosperity of others, but your own crumbles each time as you are about to occupy it. ”

“ So long as the white men, with their rifles, could keep upon the open prairie, they could defend themselves from almost any number of Indians, who could only assail them with bows and arrows. But the moment they entered the forest, or any ravine among the hills, the little band was liable to hear the war-whoop of a thousand Indian braves in the ambush around, and to be assailed by a storm of arrows and javelins from unseen hands. ”

“ They had made no attempt to climb the summits of this great barrier, or to penetrate its gloomy defiles. A dense forest covered alike the mountain cliff and the rocky gorge. Indeed there were but few points at which even the foot of the hunter could pass this chain.
While Daniel Boone was residing in the congenial solitude of his hut, on the banks of the Yadkin; with the grandeur of the wilderness around him in which his soul delighted; with his table luxuriously spread according to his tastes—with venison, bear's meat, fat turkeys, chickens from the prairie, and vegetables from his garden ”

“ Over all its broad and beautiful expanse which he had opened to the world, there was not a single acre which he could call his own. And he had no money with which to purchase a farm of those speculators, into whose hands most of the lands had fallen. Could the good old man now rise from his grave, a Kentucky Legislature would not long leave him landless. There is scarcely a cabin or a mansion in the whole State, where Daniel Boone would not meet with as hospitable a reception as grateful hearts could give. ”

“ An arrow can be thrown a few hundred feet, a musket ball more than as many yards. The Indians were consequently helpless. The English shot down both sexes, young and old, as mercilessly as if they had been wolves. They seized their houses, their lands, their pleasant villages. The Indians were either slain or driven far away from the houses of their fathers, into the remote wilderness.
The colony now increased rapidly, and the cabins of the emigrants spread farther and farther over the unoccupied lands. These hardy adventurers seemed providentially imbued with the spirit of enterprise. ”

“ His feelings had been too deeply wounded to allow him to think of remaining [Pg 283] a man without a home in Kentucky. Still the idea of leaving a region endeared to him by so many memories must have been very painful. He remembered vividly his long and painful journeys over the mountains, through the wilderness untrodden by the foot of the white man; his solitary exploration of the new Eden which he seemed to have found there; the glowing accounts he had carried back to his friends of the sunny skies, the salubrious clime, the fertile soil, and the majesty and loveliness of the landscape ”

“ Sometimes the Indian following on his trail, watches him set his traps on a shrub-belted stream, and passing up the bed, like Bruce of old, so that he may leave no track, he lies in wait in the bushes until the hunter comes to examine. Then waiting until he approaches his ambush within a few feet, whiz flies the home-drawn arrow, never failing at such close quarters to bring the victim to the ground. For one white scalp, however, that dangles in the smoke of an Indian lodge, a dozen black ones at the end of the hunt ornament the camp-fire of the rendezvous. ”

“ The expedition returned to England with such glowing accounts of the realm they had discovered, that seven ships were fitted out, conveying one hundred and eight men, to colonise the island. It is quite remarkable that no women accompanied the expedition. Many of these men were reckless adventurers. Bitter hostility soon sprang up between them and the Indians, who at first had received them with the greatest kindness.
Most of these colonists were men unaccustomed to work, and who insanely expected that in the New World, in some unknown way, wealth was to flow in upon them like a flood. ”

“ In this campaign the Indians, while with much sagacity they combined their main force to encounter the army under Lord Dunmore, detached separate bands of picked warriors to assail the settlements on the frontier at every exposed point. These bands of painted savages, emerging from the solitudes of the forests at midnight, would fall with hideous yells upon the lone cabin of the settler, or upon a little cluster of log huts, and in a few hours nothing would be left but smouldering ruins and gory corpses. ”

“ Life in the cabin of the frontiersman, where the wants are few, and the supplies abundant, is comparatively a leisure life. These men knew but little of the hurry and the bustle with which those in the crowded city engage daily in the almost deadly struggle for bread. There was no want in the cabin of Daniel Boone. As these two hardy adventurers, John Finley and Daniel Boone, sat together hour after hour by the fire, talking of the new country which Finley had explored, the hearts of both burned within them again to penetrate those remote realms. ”

“ In its rivers, its plains, its forests, its gentle eminences, its bright skies and salubrious clime, it presented then, as now, as attractive a residence for man as this globe can furnish. Finley and his companions spent several months roving through this, to them, new Eden. Game of every variety abounded. Through some inexplicable reason, no Indians held possession of the country. But wandering tribes, whose homes and acknowledged territory were far away in the north, the west, and the south, were ever traversing these regions in hunting bands. They often met in bloody encounters. ”

“ The name of Daniel Boone is a conspicuous one in the annals of our country. And yet there are but few who are familiar with the events of his wonderful career, or who have formed a correct estimate of the character of the man. Many suppose that he was a rough, coarse backwoodsman, almost as savage as the bears he pursued in the chase, or the Indians whose terrors he so perseveringly braved. Instead of this, he was one of the most mild and unboastful of men; feminine as a woman in his tastes and his deportment, never uttering a coarse word, never allowing himself in a rude action. ”

“ Being far removed from the usual route of the Indian hunters, they were very tame, manifesting no fear at the approach of man.
On the seventh of June, our adventurers, at the close of a day of arduous travel, reached an eminence of the Cumberland Mountains, which gave them a commanding and an almost entrancing view of the region beyond, now known as the State of Kentucky. At the height upon which they stood, the expanse spreading out to the West, until lost in the distant horizon, presented an aspect of nature's loveliness such as few eyes have ever beheld. ”

“ At the close of the weary pilgrimage of a day, through such narrow trails as that which the Indian or the buffalo had made through the forest, or over the prairies, they were compelled to build a cabin at night, with logs and the bark of trees to shelter them from the wind and rain, and at the camp-fire to cook the game which they had shot during the day. ”

“ These mountains in the wilderness, as we pass from the old settlements in Virginia to Kentucky, are ranged in a south-west and north-east direction and are of great length and breadth and not far distant from each other. Over them nature hath formed passes that are less difficult than might be expected from a view of such huge piles. The aspect of these cliffs is so wild and horrid that it is impossible to behold them without terror. The spectator is apt to imagine that nature has formerly suffered some violent convulsion, and that these are the dismembered remains of the dreadful shock. ”

“ The settlers were deeply interested and often much excited by the glowing descriptions thus given them of a terrestrial Eden, where life would seem to be but one uninterrupted holiday. Occasionally an adventurous French or Spanish trader would cross the towering mountains and penetrate the vales beyond. They vied with the Indians in their account of the salubrity of the climate, the brilliance of the skies, the grandeur of the forests, the magnificence of the rivers, the marvelous fertility of the soil and the abundance of game. ”

“ Dwellers in the forest could not afford to take so long a journey merely to listen to one half-hour's discourse. These men and women were earnest and thoughtful. In the solitude of their homes, they had reflected deeply upon life and its issues. When death occasionally visited their cabins, it was a far more awful event than when death occurs in the crowded city, where the hearse is every hour of every day passing through the streets. ”

“ The dawn of day presented to the eyes of Columbus and his companions a spectacle [Pg 11] of beauty which the garden of Eden could hardly have rivalled. It was a morning of the tropics, calm, serene and lovely. But two miles before them there emerged from the sea an island of mountains and valleys, luxuriant with every variety of tropical vegetation. The voyagers, weary of gazing for many weeks on the wide waste of waters, were so enchanted with the fairy scene which then met the eye, that they seemed really to believe that they had reached the realms of the blest. ”

“ I feel for the poor people who perhaps are to lose their pre-emptions. But I must say I feel more for Boone, whose character I am told suffers by it. Much degenerated must the people of this age be, when amongst them are to be found men to censure and blast the reputation of a person so just and upright, and in whose breast is a seat of virtue too pure to admit of a thought so base and dishonorable. ”

“ Even in the dark and tempestuous night, with the storm surging through the tree tops, and the rain descending in floods, in their sheltered camp, illumined by the flames of their night fire, souls capable of appreciating the sublimity of such scenes must have experienced exquisite delight. It is pleasant to reflect, that the poor man in his humble cabin may often be the recipient of much more happiness than the lord finds in his castle, or the king in his palace. ”

“ Opening the door to ascertain the cause, he was instantly fired upon by seven or eight Indians who had crept near the house secreting themselves behind stumps and trees. Two bullets struck him, fracturing the bones both of his leg and of his arm. The savages, with hideous yells, then rushed for the door.
Mrs. Merrill had but just time to close and bolt it when the savages plunged against it and hewed it with their tomahawks. Every dwelling was at that time a fortress whose log walls were bullet proof. ”

“ If they wandered any distance from the fort while hunting, or were hoeing in the field, or ventured to rear a cabin on a fertile meadow at a distance from the stations, they were liable to be startled at any hour of the day or of the night by the terrible war-whoop, and to feel the weight of savage vengeance. ”

“ The pursuit was then continued with new ardor, and in about twenty minutes the avenging white men came within sight of the savages. With considerable military sagacity, the Indians had taken position upon a steep and narrow ridge, and seemed desirous of magnifying their numbers in the eyes of their pursuers by running from tree to tree and making the forest resound with their hideous yells. The pursuers were, however, too well acquainted with Indian warfare to be deceived by this childish artifice. ”

“ As dangers thickened and appearances grew more alarming, as scouts came in with rumors of Indians seen here and there, and as the hardy and bold woodsmen sat around their camp-fires with the loaded rifle at hand, rehearsing for the twentieth time the tales of noble daring, or the hair-breadth escapes, Boone would sit silent, apparently not heeding the conversation, employed in repairing the rents in his hunting shirt and leggins, moulding bullets or cleaning his rifle. ”

“ Here an eternal verdure reigns, and the brilliant sun of latitude 39 degrees, piercing through the azure heavens, produces in this prolific soil an early maturity which is truly astonishing. Flowers full and perfect, as if they had been cultivated by the hand of a florist, with all their captivating odors, and with all the variegated charms which color and nature can produce, here in the lap of elegance and beauty, decorate the smiling groves. Soft zephyrs gently breathe on sweets, and the inhaled air gives a glow of health and vigor that seems to ravish the intoxicated senses. ”

“ They began to cut down the glorious old forest, to break up the green sward of the prairies, to rear more ambitious houses than the humble home of the pioneer; they assumed airs of superiority, introduced more artificial styles of living, and brought in the hitherto unknown vexation of taxes. ”

“ The combined cunning of the Indian, and the intelligence of their white leaders, was now fatally enlisted for the destruction of the settlers. A hundred and eighty men were to be caught in a trap, with five hundred demons prepared to shoot them down.
As soon as Colonel Todd's party passed the neck of this bend, the Indians closed in behind them, rose from their concealment, and with terrific yells opened upon them a still more terrific fire. The pioneers fought with the courage of desperation. At the first discharge, nearly one third of Colonel Todd's little party fell dead or wounded. ”

“ Squire Boone had been one of the prominent actors in the establishment of this little colony. Alarmed by the menaces of the savages, these few settlers decided to remove to a more secure station on Bear's Creek. On their way they were startled by the war-whoop of they knew not how many Indians concealed in ambush, and a storm of bullets fell upon them, killing and wounding many of their number. The miscreants, scarcely waiting for the return fire, fled with yells which resounded through the forest, leaving their victims to the sad task of burying the dead and nursing the wounded. ”