Daniel Boone Part 12

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"'Now, Boone, we got you. You no get away more. We carry you off to Chilicothe this time. You no cheat us anymore.'

"Boone looked down upon their upturned faces, saw their loaded guns pointed at his breast, and recognising some of his old friends the Shawanese, who had made him prisoner near the Blue Licks in 1778, coolly and pleasantly responded:

"'Ah, old friends, glad to see you.'

"Perceiving that they manifested impatience to have him come down, he told them he was quite willing to go with them, and only begged that they would wait where they were, and watch him closely until he could finish removing the tobacco.

"While thus parleying with them, Boone inquired earnestly respecting his old friends in Chilicothe. He continued for some time to divert the attention of these simple-minded men, by allusions to past events with which they were familiar, and by talking of his tobacco, his mode of curing it, and promising them an abundant supply. With their guns in their hands however, they stood at the door of the shed, grouped closely together so as to render his escape apparently impossible. In the meantime Boone carefully gathered his arms full of the long, dry tobacco leaves, filled with pungent dust, which would be blinding and stifling as the most powerful snuff, and then with a leap from his station twelve feet high, came directly upon their heads, filling their eyes and nostrils, and so bewildering and disabling them for the moment, that they lost all self-possession and all self-control.

"Boone, agile as a deer, darted out at the door, and in a moment was in his bullet-proof log-hut, which to him was an impregnable citadel.

Loop-holes guarded every approach. The Indians could not show themselves without exposure to certain death. They were too well acquainted with the unerring aim of Boone's rifle to venture within its range. Keeping the log cabin between them and their redoubtable foe, the baffled Indians fled into the wilderness.

"Colonel Boone related this adventure with great glee, imitating the gestures of the bewildered Indians. He said that notwithstanding his narrow escape, he could not resist the temptation, as he reached the door of his cabin, to look around to witness the effect of his achievement. The Indians coughing, sneezing, blinded and almost suffocated by the tobacco dust, were throwing out their arms and groping about in all directions, cursing him for a rogue and calling themselves fools."

CHAPTER XI.

_Kentucky organized as a State._

Peace with England.--Order of a Kentucky Court.--Anecdotes.--Speech of Mr.

Dalton.--Reply of Piankashaw.--Renewed Indications of Indian Hostility.--Conventions at Danville.--Kentucky formed into a State.--New Trials for Boone.

The close of the war of the Revolution, bringing peace between the colonies and the mother country, deprived the Indians of that powerful alliance which had made them truly formidable. Being no longer able to obtain a supply of ammunition from the British a.r.s.enals, or to be guided in their murderous raids by British intelligence, they also, through their chiefs, entered into treaties of peace with the rapidly-increasing emigrants.

Though these treaties with the Indians prevented any general organization of the tribes, vagabond Indians, entirely lawless, were wandering in all directions, ever ready to perpetrate any outrage. Civil society has its highway robbers, burglars and murderers. Much more so was this the case among these savages, exasperated by many wrongs; for it cannot be denied that they were more frequently sinned against than sinning. Their untutored natures made but little distinction between the innocent and the guilty. If a vagabond white man wantonly shot an Indian--and many were as ready to do it as to shoot a wolf--the friends of the murdered Indian would take revenge upon the inmates of the first white man's cabin they encountered in the wilderness. Thus it was necessary for the pioneers to be constantly upon their guard. 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.

This exposure to constant peril influenced the settlers, as a general rule, to establish themselves in stations. This gave them companionship, the benefits of co-operative labor, and security against any small prowling bands. These stations were formed upon the model of the one which Daniel Boone had so wisely organized at Boonesborough. They consisted of a cl.u.s.ter of bullet-proof log-cabins, arranged in a quadrangular form, so as to enclose a large internal area. All the doors opened upon this interior s.p.a.ce. Here the cattle were gathered at night.

The intervals between the cottages were filled with palisades, also bullet-proof. Loop-holes through the logs enabled these riflemen to guard every approach to their fortress. Thus they had little to fear from the Indians when sheltered by these strong citadels.

Emigration to Kentucky began very rapidly to increase. Large numbers crossed the mountains to Pittsburgh, where they took flat boats and floated down the beautiful Ohio, _la belle riviere_, until they reached such points on its southern banks as pleased them for a settlement, or from which they could ascend the majestic rivers of that peerless State.

Comfortable homesteads were fast rising in all directions. Horses, cattle, swine, and poultry of all kinds were multiplied. Farming utensils began to make their appearance. The hum of happy industry was heard where wolves had formerly howled and buffalo ranged. Merchandise in considerable quant.i.ties was transported over the mountains on pack horses, and then floated down the Ohio and distributed among the settlements upon its banks. Country stores arose, land speculators appeared, and continental paper money became a circulating medium. This money, however, was not of any very great value, as may be inferred from the following decree, pa.s.sed by one of the County Courts, establishing the schedule of prices for tavern-keeping:

"The Court doth set the following rates to be observed by keepers in this county: Whiskey, fifteen dollars the half-pint; rum, ten dollars the gallon; a meal, twelve dollars; stabling or pasturage, four dollars the night."

Under these changed circ.u.mstances, Colonel Boone, whose intrepidity nothing could daunt, and whose confidence in the protective power of his rifle was unbounded, had reared for himself, on one of the beautiful meadows of the Kentucky, a commodious home. He had selected a spot whose fertility and loveliness pleased his artistic eye.

It is estimated that during the years 1783 and 1784 nearly twelve thousand persons emigrated to Kentucky. Still all these had to move with great caution, with rifles always loaded, and ever on the alert against surprise. The following incident will give the reader an idea of the perils and wild adventures encountered by these parties in their search for new and distant homes.

Colonel Thomas Marshall, a man of much note in those days, had crossed the Alleghanies with his large family. At Pittsburgh he purchased a flat-boat, and was floating down the Ohio. He had pa.s.sed the mouth of the Kanawha River without any incident of note occurring. About ten o'clock one night, as his boat had drifted near the northern sh.o.r.e of the solitary stream, he was hailed by a man upon the bank, who, after inquiring who he was, where he was bound, etc., added:

"I have been posted here by order of my brother, Simon Gerty, to warn all boats of the danger of permitting themselves to be decoyed ash.o.r.e.

My brother regrets very deeply the injury he has inflicted upon the white men, and to convince them of the sincerity of his repentance, and of his earnest desire to be restored to their society, he has stationed me here to warn all boats of the snares which are spread for them by the cunning of the Indians. Renegade white men will be placed upon the banks, who will represent themselves as in the greatest distress. Even children taken captive will be compelled, by threats of torture, to declare that they are all alone upon the sh.o.r.e, and to entreat the boats to come and rescue them.

"But keep in the middle of the river," said Gerty, "and steel your heart against any supplications you may hear."

The Colonel thanked him for his warning, and continued to float down the rapid current of the stream.

Virginia had pa.s.sed a law establishing the town of Louisville, at the Falls of the Ohio. A very thriving settlement soon sprang up there.

The nature of the warfare still continuing between the whites and the Indians may be inferred from the following narrative, which we give in the words of Colonel Boone:

"The Indians continued to practice mischief secretly upon the inhabitants in the exposed part of the country. In October a party made an incursion into a district called Crab Orchard. One of these Indians having advanced some distance before the others, boldly entered the house of a poor defenseless family, in which was only a negro man, a woman and her children, terrified with apprehensions of immediate death.

The savage, perceiving their defenseless condition, without offering violence to the family, attempted to capture the negro, who happily proved an over-match for him, and threw the Indian on the ground.

"In the struggle, the mother of the children drew an axe from the corner of the cottage and cut off the head of the Indian, while her little daughter shut the door. The savages soon appeared, and applied their tomahawks to the door. An old rusty gun-barrel, without a lock, lay in the corner, which the mother put through a small crevice, and the savages perceiving it, fled. In the meantime the alarm spread through the neighborhood; the armed men collected immediately and pursued the savages into the wilderness. Thus Providence, by means of this negro, saved the whole of the poor family from destruction."

The heroism of Mrs. Merrill is worthy of being perpetuated, not only as a wonderful achievement, but as ill.u.s.trative of the nature of this dreadful warfare. Mr. Merrill, with his wife, little son and daughter, occupied a remote cabin in Nelson County, Kentucky. On the 24th of December, 1791, he was alarmed by the barking of his dog. 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. But for the terrible wounds which Mr. Merrill had received, he would with his rifle shooting through loop-holes, soon have put the savages to flight. They, emboldened by the supposition that he was killed, cut away at the door till they had opened a hole sufficiently large to crawl through. One of the savages attempted to enter. He had got nearly in when Mrs. Merrill cleft his skull with an ax, and he fell lifeless upon the floor.

Another, supposing that he had safely effected an entrance, followed him and encountered the same fate. Four more of the savages were in this way despatched, when the others, suspecting that all was not right, climbed upon the roof and two of them endeavored to descend through the chimney. The noise they made directed the attention of the inmates of the cabin to the new danger.

There was a gentle fire burning upon the hearth. Mr. Merrill, with much presence of mind, directed his son, while his wife guarded the opening of the door with her ax, to empty the contents of a feather bed upon the fire. The dense smothering smoke filled the flue of the chimney. The two savages, suffocated with the fumes, after a few convulsive efforts to ascend fell almost insensible down upon the hearth. Mr. Merrill, seizing with his unbroken arm a billet of wood, despatched them both. But one of the Indians now remained. Peering in at the opening in the door he received a blow from the ax of Mrs. Merrill which severely wounded him.

Bleeding and disheartened he fled alone into the wilderness, the only one of the eight who survived the conflict.

A white man who was at that time a prisoner among the Indians and who subsequently effected his escape, reported that when the wounded savage reached his tribe he said to the white captive in broken English:

"I have bad news for the poor Indian. Me lose a son, me lose a broder.

The squaws have taken the breech clout, and fight worse than the long knives."

But the Indians were not always the aggressors. Indeed it is doubtful whether they would ever have raised the war-whoop against the white man, had it not been for the outrages they were so constantly experiencing from unprincipled and vagabond adventurers, who were ever infesting the frontiers. The following incident ill.u.s.trates the character and conduct of these miscreants:

A party of Indian hunters from the South wandering through their ancient hunting grounds of Kentucky, accidentally came upon a settlement where they found several horses grazing in the field. They stole the horses, and commenced a rapid retreat to their own country. Three young men, Davis, Caffre and McClure, pursued them. Not being able to overtake the fugitives, they decided to make reprisals on the first Indians they should encounter. It so happened that they soon met three Indian hunters. The parties saluted each other in a friendly manner, and proceeded on their way in pleasant companionship.

The young men said that they observed the Indians conversing with one another in low tones of voice, and thus they became convinced that the savages meditated treachery. Resolving to antic.i.p.ate the Indians'

attack, they formed the following plan. While walking together in friendly conversation, the Indians being entirely off their guard, Caffre, who was a very powerful man, was to spring upon the lightest of the Indians, crush him to the ground, and thus take him a prisoner. At the same instant, Davis and McClure were each to shoot one of the other Indians, who, being thus taken by surprise, could offer no resistance.

The signal was given. Caffre sprang upon his victim and bore him to the ground. McClure shot his man dead. Davis' gun flashed in the pan. The Indian thus narrowly escaping death immediately aimed his gun at Caffre, who was struggling with the one he had grappled, and instantly killed him. McClure in his turn shot the Indian. There was now one Indian and two white men. But the Indian had the loaded rifle. McClure's was discharged and Davis' missed fire. The Indian, springing from the grasp of his dying antagonist, presented his rifle at Davis, who immediately fled, hotly pursued by the Indian. McClure, stopping only to reload his gun, followed after them. Soon he lost sight of both. Davis was never heard of afterwards. Doubtless he was shot by the avenging Indian, who returned to his wigwam with the white man's scalp.

McClure, after this b.l.o.o.d.y fray, being left alone in the wilderness, commenced a return to his distant home. He had not proceeded far before he met an Indian on horseback accompanied by a boy on foot. The warrior dismounted, and in token of peace offered McClure his pipe. As they were seated together upon a log, conversing, McClure said that the Indian informed him by signs that there were other Indians in the distance who would soon come up, and that then they should take him captive, tie his feet beneath the horse's belly and carry him off to their village.

McClure seized his gun, shot the Indian through the heart, and plunging into the forest, effected his escape.

About this same time Captain James Ward, with a party of half a dozen white men, one of whom was his nephew, and a number of horses, was floating down the Ohio River from Pittsburgh. They were in a flat boat about forty-five feet long and eight feet wide. The gunwale of the boat consisted of but a single pine plank. It was beautiful weather, and for several days they were swept along by the tranquil stream, now borne by the changing current towards the one sh.o.r.e, and now towards the other.

One morning when they had been swept by the stream within about one hundred and fifty feet of the northern sh.o.r.e, suddenly several hundred Indians appeared upon the bank, and uttering savage yells opened upon them a terrible fire.

Captain Ward's nephew, pierced by a ball in the breast, fell dead in the bottom of the boat. Every horse was struck by a bullet. Some were instantly killed; others, severely wounded, struggled so violently as to cause the frail bark to dip water, threatening immediate destruction.

All the crew except Captain Ward were so panic-stricken by this sudden a.s.sault, that they threw themselves flat upon their faces in the bottom of the boat, and attempted no resistance where even the exposure of a hand would be the target for a hundred rifles.

Fortunately Captain Ward was protected from this shower of bullets by a post, which for some purpose had been fastened to the gunwale. He therefore retained his position at the helm, which was an oar, striving to guide the boat to the other side of the river. As the a.s.sailants had no canoes, they could not attempt to board, but for more than an hour they ran along the banks yelling and keeping up an almost constant fire.

At length the boat was swept to the other side of the stream, when the miscreants abandoned the pursuit, and disappeared.

Quite a large party of emigrants were attacked by the Indians near what is now called Scagg's Creek, and six were instantly killed. A Mrs.

McClure, delirious with terror, fled she knew not where, followed by her three little children and carrying a little babe in her arms. The cries of the babe guided the pursuit of the Indians. They cruelly tomahawked the three oldest children, and took the mother and the babe as captives.

Fortunately the tidings of this outrage speedily reached one of the settlements. Captain Whitley immediately started in pursuit of the gang. He overtook them, killed two, wounded two, and rescued the captives. Such were the scenes enacted during a period of nominal peace with the Indians.