Historic Highways of America Volume VI Part 2

It remained for another brave frontiersman to go further and bring back the welcome news of large areas of splendid land in the Ohio Valley. In 1748 John Hanbury, London merchant; Thomas Lee, President of the Council of Virginia; and a number of prominent Virginians formed the Ohio Company, elsewhere mentioned, and received a large grant of land in the West. The grant was made March 18, 1749: two hundred thousand acres between the Monongahela and Great Kanawha Rivers, and later three hundred thousand acres, to be located on the waters of the lower Ohio.

In 1750 this company employed Christopher Gist, a hardy, well-trained frontiersman who lived on the Yadkin in North Carolina, to explore the Ohio Valley and make a report upon the land there found. For his arduous service he was to receive one hundred and fifty pounds sterling "and such further handsome allowance as his service should deserve." His instructions read as follows:

"You are to go out as soon as possible to the Westward of the great Mountains, and carry with you such a Number of Men as You think necessary, in Order to Search out and discover the Lands upon the river Ohio & other adjoining Branches of the Mississippi down as low as the great Falls thereof: You are particularly to observe the Ways & Pa.s.ses thro all the Mountains you cross, & take an exact Account of the Soil, Quality & Product of the Land, and the Wideness and Deepness of the Rivers, & the several Falls belonging to them, together with the Courses & Bearings of the Rivers & Mountains as near as you conveniently can: You are also to observe what Nations of Indians inhabit there, their Strength and Numbers, who they trade with, & in what Comodities they deal.

"When you find a large quant.i.ty of good, level Land, such as you think will suit the Company, You are to measure the Breadth of it, in three or four different Places, & take the Courses of the River & Mountains on which it binds in Order to judge the Quant.i.ty: You are to fix the Beginning & Bounds in such a Manner that they may be easily found again by your Description; the nearer in the Land lies the better, provided it be good & level, but we had rather go quite down the Mississippi than take mean broken Land. After finding a large Body of good level Land, you are not to stop but proceed further, as low as the Falls of the Ohio, that we may be informed of that Navigation; And You are to take an exact Account of all the large Bodies of good level Land, in the same Manner as above directed that the Company may the better judge when it will be most convenient for them to take their Land.

"You are to note all the Bodies of good Land as you go along, tho there is not a sufficient Quant.i.ty for the Company's Grant, but You need not be so particular in the Mensuration of that, as in the larger Bodies of Land.

"You are to draw as good a plan as you can of the Country You pa.s.s thro: You are to take an exact and particular Journal of all Your Proceedings, and make a true Report thereof to the Ohio Company."

Gist was the man for the business in hand. He came from an enterprising family and was well educated. His father was one of the Commissioners for laying off the city of Baltimore. "Little is known of his early life, but the evidences he has left in his journals, his maps, plats of surveys, and correspondence indicate that he enjoyed the advantages of an education superior to that of many of his calling in those early days. His signature and ma.n.u.script are characterized by the neatness and uniformity of a copy plate, while his plats and surveys are models in their mathematical exactness and precision of drawing. To this evidence of scholarly order and professional skill he added the hardy qualities of the pioneer and backwoodsman, capable of enduring the exposure of long journeys in the most rigorous weather. In him were combined the varied talents which made him at once an accomplished surveyor, an energetic farmer who felled the forest and tilled the soil, a skilful diplomat who understood the Indian character and was influential in making treaties, a brave soldier, an upright man, trusted by the highest civil and military authorities with implicit faith."[3]

The earlier portion of Gist's journey, which he began in October, 1750, is not of importance in the present monograph. He reached the Ohio River by way of the Juniata and Kiskiminitas Rivers. Crossing the Ohio he worked his way westward on the Great Trail to the "Crossing Place of the Muskingum" (Bolivar, Ohio), and from thence he traversed the Indian trail to the country of the Shawanese and Miamis.

It was not until Tuesday, the twelfth of March, that Gist again crossed the Ohio, and entered what is now the state of Kentucky. His first day's experience was typical--in a land so well known for great things and strong; for on the day after crossing at the Shawanese Shannoah Town, he found two men who had "Two of the Teeth of a large Beast.... The Rib Bones of the largest of these Beasts were eleven Feet long, and the Skull Bone six Feet wide, across the Forehead, & the other Bones in Proportion; and that there were several Teeth there, some of which he called Horns, and said they were upwards of five Feet long, and as much as a Man could well carry."

Gist was now in Kentucky--the land of which thousands were waiting to hear, the home of the race that was to come and conquer and settle and hold the West. Of it Gist came to know only a little, but this little was the beginning of a revelation.

After crossing the Ohio, Gist journeyed over a hundred miles down the southern bank of the river, and on March eighteenth crossed "the lower Salt Lick Creek," the Licking River. Reports of Indians at the "Falls"

and "the footsteps of some Indians plain on the Ground" made him desist from visiting that spot, but he took down descriptions of it. On the nineteenth he turned southward into the interior. On the twentieth he ascended Pilot k.n.o.b, near Clay City, Powell County, and writes of the view from that height from which he saw, as John Finley wrote later, "with pleasure the beautiful level of Kentucky."

With but a glimpse of the good lands of Kentucky, Gist, like Walker before him, journeyed into the mountainous country to the southeast. For a month he floundered around in the desolate laurel ridges where Walker had spent so many distressing days the year before. On Red River Gist crossed Walker's route and came on homeward between Walker's outward and homeward courses. From Red River he went through Pound Gap and eastward, down what is known as Gist's or Guesse's Fork of the Clinch in Wise County, Virginia, and then upon Bluestone, a tributary of New River. On the thirteenth of May he crossed Walker's route again at Inglis Ferry, near Draper's Meadows. On the seventeenth he pa.s.sed into North Carolina through Flower or Wood's Gap toward his home on the Yadkin. He reached home on the eighteenth and found that his family had removed to Roanoke, thirty-five miles eastward, because of depredations of the Indians during the winter.

Gist's journey was far more successful than Walker's. He found the fine fertile valleys of the Muskingum, Scioto, and Miami Rivers north of the Ohio, and he caught a glimpse of the beautiful meadows of Kentucky. He singularly made a complete circle about the land between the Monongahela and Kanawha Rivers, where the Ohio Company's grant of land was made. As he did not approach it on any side it is probable that he knew that only rough land lay there. Had it not been for the sudden breaking out of the old French War, the Ohio Company would undoubtedly have settled on lands in the Ohio Valley according to Gist's advice. Hostilities on the frontier soon drove back the farther settlements, and rendered activities in the land Gist had discovered out of the question, either on the part of land companies or private individuals.

CHAPTER III

ANNALS OF THE ROAD

With the close of Pontiac's Rebellion and the pa.s.sing away of the war clouds which had hung so long over the West, ten thousand eyes turned longingly across the Alleghenies and Blue Ridge. War with all its horrors had yet brought something of good, for never before had the belief that a splendidly fertile empire lay to the westward taken such a hold upon the people of Virginia. Nothing more was needed but the positive a.s.surance of large areas of good land, and a way to reach it.

It was ten years after the close of Pontiac's war before both of these conditions were fulfilled.

First came the definite a.s.surance that the meadows of Kentucky were what Gist and others had reported them to be. The Proclamation of 1763, forbidding western settlement, did not forbid hunting in the West--and the great emigration which started as slow as a glacier was finally put into motion by the proof brought back to North Carolina and Virginia by the hunters (of whom mention has been made) who went over the mountains between 1763 and 1773. In 1766 Colonel James Smith, undaunted by his captivity among the Indians, hunted through the southern portion of Kentucky. In 1767 John Finley traded with the Indians in northern Kentucky, and James Harrod and Michael Stoner were in the southern portion of the country. Finally, in 1769 Daniel Boone came into the land "a second Adam in another Eden." Boone reached the edge of the beautiful Blue Gra.s.s Region and returned home in 1771 to tell of what he saw, and to bring his family "as soon as possible to live in Kentucky, which I esteemed a second paradise, at the risk of my life and fortune." In 1769 also, the party of stout hunters headed by Colonel James Knox reached Kentucky, and hunted on the Green and Lower c.u.mberland Rivers; they were so long absent from home that they were given the name of "The Long Hunters." These, too, brought glowing descriptions of the fine meadows of _Ken-ta-kee_.

At once the forests were filled with cohorts of surveyors--the vanguard of the host under whose feet the continent was soon to tremble. These surveyors represented the various land companies and the bounty land seekers, who had a claim to the two hundred thousand acres promised the Virginian soldiers in the old French war. Scores of cabins were raised in 1774 at Harrodsburg, near Danville, on the east fork of Salt River, on d.i.c.k's River, and on Salt River. Their erection marks the beginning of the first settlement of the land one year previous to the breaking out of the war of the Revolution.

These first comers found their way to Kentucky by two routes--the Warriors' Path through c.u.mberland Gap, and the Ohio River, which they reached either by the Kittanning Path up the Juniata or by Braddock's or Forbes's Roads. Each route was dangerous and difficult beyond description. It was a terrible road from c.u.mberland to Pittsburg, and the journey down the Ohio was not more inviting. When the river was high and afforded safe navigation it was as much a highway for red men as for white--and these were treacherous times. When the river was low, a thousand natural obstructions tended to daunt even the bravest boatmen--and the Virginian backwoodsmen were not educated to contend with such a dangerous stream as the Ohio, with its changing currents, treacherous eddies, and thousands of sunken trees. One frontiersman who made the river trip at an early date, cautioned those who essayed the trip against rowing their boats at night; lest the sound of the oars should prevent the watchman from hearing the "riffling" of the water about the rocks and sunken trees, on which many a boat had been wrecked with all its precious freight. The danger of river travel down such a stream appealed with tremendous force to the early pioneers, with the result that the majority chose the land route.

But what an alternative! A narrow trail in the forests six hundred miles in length was the only path. It had been traversed by many even as early as 1775, but each traveler had made it worse, and the story of the hardships of the journey through "the Wilderness" would make even the bravest pause. It is a hard journey today, one which cannot be made without taxing even the strongest; what was it before the route was dotted with cities and hamlets, before the road had been widened and bridged, before the mountains had been graded and the swamps drained, before the fierce lurking enemies had been driven away?

Neither Walker nor Gist traversed what became the famed Wilderness Road to Kentucky. When the Shawanese raided Draper's Meadows, near Inglis Ferry, in 1755, they took their prisoners away on the trail through Powell's Valley toward c.u.mberland Gap; and the rescuing party which followed them were perhaps the first white men who traveled what became the great pioneer thoroughfare to Kentucky. It was, undoubtedly, the route followed by the early hunters who pa.s.sed through c.u.mberland Gap and found the fertile meadows of which Dr. Walker was ignorant, and of which Christopher Gist caught only a faint glimpse. Settlements sprang up slowly beyond Inglis Ferry, but by the time of Boone's return in 1771 a few families were on the upper waters of the Holston, and settlements had been made on the Watauga where Fort Watauga was soon to be built, and at Wolf Hills, now Abington. These settlements were all one hundred miles east of c.u.mberland Gap, and the little path thither was not yet marked for white man's use.

But the brave Boone was as good as his word--and he did attempt to bring his family and five other families to Kentucky in the year 1773, over what was soon to be known as Boone's Road. This was the beginning of the great tide of immigration through c.u.mberland Gap, a social movement which for timeliness and ultimate success ranks as the most important in the history of the central West. This initial attempt was not a success, for the party was driven back by Indians, with loss, entirely discouraged. But from this time on, despite Dunmore's War which now broke out, the dream of western immigration could not be forgotten.

But all the western movement was now put at hazard by the outbreak of this cruel, b.l.o.o.d.y war between the "Long Knives"--as the Virginians in the Monongahela country came to be called, from the sabres that hung at their loins--and the Shawanese north of the Ohio. As suggested, the preceding years had been marked by continual bloodshed. It is undoubtedly true that those Long Knives on the upper Ohio had been doing some dreadful slashing. Perhaps the provocations were as enormous as the crimes; surely the Indians to the north were the most bloodthirsty and cruel of any on the continent. At the same time it is safe to say that many of their white foes on the Ohio were inhuman marauders, whose princ.i.p.al occupation was that of shooting game for a living and Indians for sport. Even in the statement in Boone's autobiography there is a plain suggestion of a guilty conscience on the part of those of whom he wrote: "The settlers [in the Monongahela country], now aware that a general warfare would be commenced by the Indians, immediately sent an express to Williamsburg, the seat of government in Virginia, communicating their apprehensions and soliciting protection." How aware?

Because some of the relatives of the Indian chieftain Logan had been basely murdered, while intoxicated, on Yellow Creek?

The Virginian House of Burgesses was quick to answer this appeal of the western colonists, and Governor Dunmore's earnestness in arranging the campaign resulted in the short wars bearing his name. General Andrew Lewis, a hero of Braddock's defeat, was commissioned to raise an army of border settlers and march down the Great Kanawha; while Lord Dunmore went northward to Pittsburg, where, in the Monogahela country, he would recruit another army and descend the Ohio to the mouth of the Great Kanawha. Here the armies would unite to pierce the valley of the Scioto in which the h.e.l.l-hound Shawanese dwelt.

Lewis gathered an army of eleven hundred experienced borderers from the Watauga settlement and the Greenbriar Valley, and marched swiftly northward. But the enemy knew of his approach, and instead of joining Dunmore's army at the mouth of the Great Kanawha he met a barricaded Indian horde, equal in size to his own army, and the b.l.o.o.d.y and momentous battle of Point Pleasant was fought and won. Arriving at the Ohio, Lewis encamped on the point of land between the two rivers. Soon two hunters pursuing a deer encountered the Indian vanguard which was bearing down on the ill-placed army of whites. One hunter fell dead and the other returned with the alarming news. General Lewis, a pupil in that school on Braddock's Road, lit his pipe and ordered the a.s.sault.

Two regiments advanced on the Indian line, which now ranged from river to river, completely cutting it off from retreat. Both colonels commanding were soon killed and their men began to fall back disconcerted. Reenforcements drove the redskins back to their entrenchments, and renewed confidence. But at last fighting became desperate. Among his Virginians, the brave Flemming, twice wounded, kept repeating his order, "Advance, outflank the enemy and get between them and the river." Among his desperate followers the calm voice of Cornstalk was heard all day long: "Be brave, be brave, be brave!" As in the battle of Bushy Run, where the hope of the West lay with Bouquet as it did now with Lewis, so at Point Pleasant no way of success was left, at the close of that October day, save in strategy. The white man did not learn to conquer the red until he learned to deal with him on his own terms of cunning and deceit.

In desperation Lewis sent three companies up the Great Kanawha under cover of the bank to Crooked Creek. Ascending this stream with great caution, these heroes of the day rushed from its bed upon the enemy's flank, and the tide of the battle was turned. The Indians, though having suffered least, fell back across the Ohio to their villages to the northward. The proposed junction of the two white armies was achieved, but Lewis had already sufficiently awed the Shawanese, who came to Dunmore's Camp Charlotte in their valley, and gave their affirmation to the Fort Stanwix Treaty, which surrendered to the whites all the territory south of the Ohio and north of the Tennessee.

In less than a year Boone went through the Gap alone to the "Falls of the Ohio" (Louisville), and returned in safety, more possessed than ever with the ambition to take his family to the El Dorado which he had discovered, and of which he spoke in the enthusiastic vein which has already been quoted. He had found the splendid lands of which Gist had guessed; he had found a straight path thither. All that was lacking was an impetus to turn a floodtide of Virginians and their neighbors into the new land.

This came, too, within a year after the close of Dunmore's War--an artificial impetus in the shape of a land company, headed by a brave, enterprising man, Colonel Richard Henderson, with whom were a.s.sociated eight other North Carolinians of high social standing. Richard Henderson was the son of Samuel Henderson (1700) and Elizabeth Williams (1714). He was born in Hanover County, Virginia, on the twentieth of April, 1735.

His two well-known brothers, Nathaniel and Pleasant, were born in 1736 and 1756, respectively. The sons were worthy of their good Scotch-Welsh ancestry. When Richard was about ten years of age his father moved from their home in Virginia to Granville County in the province of North Carolina. Here the elder Henderson was afterward appointed sheriff of his county, and the young Richard was soon able to a.s.sist his father by doing the business "of the sherriffltry."[4]

After this practical introduction to the science of law young Richard turned to the theoretical study, and read law for a twelve-month with his cousin, Judge Williams. In that day a prospective barrister was compelled to get a certificate from the chief-justice of his colony; this he presented to the governor, who, being satisfied as to the candidate's acquirements, gave him a license. Richard Henderson's self-confidence and genuine talent are exhibited by the story which his brother records, of his attempting to obtain a license to practice law after the brief period of study mentioned above.

Procuring a certificate from the chief-justice he presented himself to the governor of North Carolina as a candidate for a license.

"How long have you read law and what books have you studied?" asked the governor.

"Twelve months," replied young Henderson, naming the books he had used.

The governor replied brusquely that it was wholly unnecessary for him to take the time to give an examination, as no one could in that length of time and with such books become proficient.

"Sir," replied Richard Henderson not a whit dismayed, "I am an applicant for examination; it is your duty to examine me and if found worthy, to grant me a license; if otherwise, to refuse one."

It can well be imagined how quickly the governor bristled up and how mercilessly he would "quiz" a lad who informed him in such a spirited manner what the duties of his office required of him. But the running fire of questions did not daunt the candidate more than had the governor's indifference--and the young Richard received at the close of the interview, not only a license, but what meant more, many encomiums from his governor.

Henderson soon acquired a good practice and became a judge on the bench of the Superior Court. In 1774 the conflict with the British agent in North Carolina was precipitated, and the colonial government was abolished. It was at this time that Judge Henderson became interested in the desire of the Cherokee Indians to sell land. Henderson's plan was to purchase from the Cherokees the great territory lying south of the Kentucky River--one-half the present state of Kentucky. This was quite against the laws and traditions of the only colony which had any valid claim to the territory--Virginia, his native state--but this seemed to matter not to Henderson and his a.s.sociates; these were John Williams, under whom Henderson had studied law, Leonard Henley Bullock, James Hogg, Nathaniel Thomas, David Hart, John Luttrell, and William Johnstone. At the very beginning of the century Virginia had pa.s.sed an act forbidding the private purchase of lands from the Indians. The founders of Transylvania evidently doubted Virginia's sweeping claims to the entire interior of the continent--at any rate land companies seemed to be the only means by which the vast wildernesses beyond the mountains could be opened up and settled. Though Virginia soon proved the invalidity of the purchase, she at the same time was frank enough to admit that Henderson's Company had done a good work in giving an impetus to westward expansion, by appropriately recompensing the North Carolinians for their expenditure and labors.

Henderson's purchase was gigantic in its proportions, embracing nearly twenty million acres. The consideration was ten thousand pounds sterling. The purchase was made at the advance settlement at Watauga, March 17, 1775--only a month before the outbreak at Lexington and Concord. Henderson employed Boone to a.s.sist in the transaction, and immediately after engaged him to mark out the road through c.u.mberland Gap to a settlement in Kentucky, where the Transylvania Company (as Henderson strangely named his organization) was to begin the occupation of the empire it had nominally secured. Of this Boone writes modestly that he was "solicited by a number of North Carolina gentlemen, that were about purchasing the lands lying on the south side of the Kentucky River, from the Cherokee Indians, to attend their treaty at Watauga, in March, 1775, to negotiate with them, and mention the boundaries of the purchase. This I accepted, and at the request of the same gentlemen undertook to mark out a road in the best pa.s.sage from the settlement through the wilderness to Kentucky, with such a.s.sistance as I thought necessary to employ for such an important undertaking."

As in the case of Nemacolin's Path across the Alleghenies, so now a second westward Indian pathway was blazed for white man's use; and if the Transylvania Colony can in no other respect be said to have been successful, it certainly conferred an inestimable good upon Virginia and North Carolina and the nation, when it marked out through the hand of Boone the Wilderness Road to Kentucky. From Watauga the path led up to the Gap, where it joined the great Warrior's Path which came down through Kentucky from the Scioto Valley in Ohio. For about fifty miles Boone's Road followed this path northward, whereupon, leaving the Indian trail, Boone bore to the west, marking his course on a buffalo trace toward "Hazel Patch" to the Rockcastle. The buffalo path was followed onward up Roundstone Creek, through "Boone's Gap" in Big Hill; through the present county of Madison, Kentucky; and down little Otter Creek to the Kentucky River. Here Boonesborough was built for the Transylvania Colony, which became the temporary center of Kentucky.

Felix Walker, one of Boone's road-making party, made an autobiographical statement about 1824 of this brave attempt to cut a white man's path into Kentucky. From this statement these quotations from De Bow's _Review_ (1854) are pertinent:

"The treaty (at Watauga) being concluded and the purchase made, we proceeded on our journey to meet Col. Daniel Boon, with other adventurers, bound to the same country; accordingly we met and rendezvoused at the Long Island on Holsteen river, united our small force with Colonel Boon and his a.s.sociates, his brother, Squire Boon, and Col. Richard Callaway, of Virginia. Our company, when united, amounted to 30 persons. We then, by general consent, put ourselves under the management and control of Col. Boon, who was to be our pilot and conductor through the wilderness, to the promised land.... About the 10th of March we put off from the Long Island, marked out our track with our hatchets, crossed Clinch and Powell's river, over c.u.mberland mountain, and crossed c.u.mberland river--came to a watercourse called by Col.--Rockcastle river; killed a fine bear on our way, camped all night and had an excellent supper. On leaving that river, we had to encounter and cut our way through a country of about twenty miles, entirely covered with dead brash, which we found a difficult and laborious task.

At the end of which we arrived at the commencement of a cane country, traveled about thirty miles through thick cane and reed, and as the cane ceased, we began to discover the pleasing and rapturous appearance of the plains of Kentucky. A new sky and strange earth seemed to be presented to our view.... A sad reverse overtook us two days after, on our way to Kentucky river. On the 25th of March, 1775, we were fired on by the Indians, in our camp asleep, about an hour before day. Capt.

Twetty was shot in both knees, and died the third day after. A black man, his body servant, killed dead; myself badly wounded; our company dispersed. So fatal and tragical an event cast a deep gloom of melancholy over all our prospects, and high calculations of long life and happy days in our newly-discovered country were prostrated; hope vanished from the most of us, and left us suspended in the tumult of uncertainty and conjecture. Col. Boon, and a few others, appeared to possess firmness and fort.i.tude. In our calamitous situation, a circ.u.mstance occurred one morning after our misfortunes that proved the courage and stability of our few remaining men (for some had gone back).

One of our men, who had run off at the fire of the Indians on our camp, was discovered peeping from behind a tree, by a black woman belonging to Colonel Callaway, while gathering some wood. She ran in and gave the alarm of Indians. Colonel Boon instantly caught his rifle, ordered the men to form, take trees, and give battle, and not to run till they saw him fall. They formed agreeably to his directions, and I believe they would have fought with equal bravery to any Spartan band ever brought to the field of action, when the man behind the tree announced his name and came in.... At length I was carried in a litter between two horses, twelve miles, to Kentucky river, where we made a station, and called it Boonsborough, situated in a plain on the south side of the river, wherein was a lick with two sulphur springs strongly impregnated.... In the sequel and conclusion of my narrative I must not neglect to give honor to whom honor is due. Colonel Boone conducted the company under his care through the wilderness, with great propriety, intrepidity and courage; and was I to enter an exception to any part of his conduct, it would be on the ground that he appeared void of fear and of consequence--too little caution for the enterprise. But let me, with feeling recollection and lasting grat.i.tude, ever remember the unremitting kindness, sympathy, and attention paid to me by Col. Boone in my distress. He was my father, my physician, and friend; he attended me as his child, cured my wounds by the use of medicines from the woods, nursed me with paternal affection until I recovered, without the expectation of reward."

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLAT OF BOONESBOROUGH [_Based on a copy of the original in possession of John Stevens_]]

It was altogether fitting that among the very first to follow Boone's blazed road to Kentucky we should find Judge Henderson and his fellow-promoters of the Transylvania Company. Nothing shows more plainly the genuineness of their purposes and the heroism of their spirit. They were not foisting on their countrymen a hazardous scheme by which they should profit, while others bore the brunt of the toil and danger. True, Henderson had, purposely or unwittingly, ignored the technicality of Virginia's claim to the possession of the West; but, with an honesty unparalleled at that day in such matters, they met the representatives of the real owners of the lands they desired, and had purchased them and paid down the purchase money. There is almost no doubt that they could have satisfied Virginia's technicalities at a less cost; and then have gone, as so many have done, to fortify their possessions and "fight it out" with the genuine owners of the soil, who would eventually get nothing and lose everything.

This Judge Henderson did not do; nor did he sit down comfortably at home and send others to turn his holdings into money. He arose and started--amid dangers that shall not be mentioned lest they be minimized--for far-away Kentucky, on the little roadway Boone was opening.

Henderson's party left Fort Watauga March 20, 1775, and arrived at the infant Boonesborough April 20. The leader of the party fortunately kept a record, though meager, of this notable journey. This precious yellow diary is preserved by the Wisconsin Historical Society. It reads:

"Monday March 20th 1775