Stories of Old Kentucky Part 2

THE DRUID OF KENTUCKY

Daniel Boone was born in the almost unbroken forests of Pennsylvania, on February 11, 1735. Without his energy, caution, and daring, Kentucky would not have been settled so soon. In both his native state and in North Carolina, he received in his boyhood the training that was to fit him for the great work that was to be his.

Truly "coming events cast their shadows before," for when barely large enough to shoulder the old family flintlock he found unbounded delight in roaming the woods and returning laden with his spoils, which at one time was the skin of an immense panther that he shot just as it was about to spring upon him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "They found Boone in camp."]

While yet in his early teens he gave his family great alarm by being absent for two days and nights. A rescuing party was sent out, and they soon saw smoke rising in the distance; proceeding, they found Boone in camp, his floor carpeted with the skins of animals he had slain, while the delicious odor of roasted meat filled the air.

Boone was in every way a typical backwoodsman. His education was limited to an imperfect knowledge of the "three R's," gained in the rude school cabin of round logs, puncheon seats, and dirt floor. Ever the solitude of the sylvan forests was far more enjoyable to him than the refinements of civilization.

In 1755 he was married to Rebecca Bryan, who with him shared much of the danger and hardships of frontier life.

In 1769, yielding to the siren song sung by John Finley of the far-famed cane land with its fertile soil, towering mountains, limpid streams, and rich meadowlands where the spoils of the chase were venison, bear, and buffalo, Boone left his family and friends on the Yadkin in North Carolina and came with Finley and four others to explore this marvelous land of "Kentuckee."

Reaching the Red River, five miles from its junction with the Kentucky, these pioneers pitched their camp and from June until December reveled in the delights of hunting and exploring in this Eden of the wilderness; but one day, near Christmas, Boone and a companion named Stewart, while out hunting, were captured by the Indians and for six days and nights were marched and guarded. At length, believing their captives were contented, the savages relaxed their watchfulness, yielded to sleep, and Boone and Stewart escaped. Upon their return to camp they found it plundered and their companions gone. What became of them Boone never knew.

Soon after, Boone and Stewart were surprised by meeting Squire Boone, a brother of Daniel, and another man from North Carolina. A few days later Stewart was shot and scalped; the man who came with Squire Boone tired of the perils and returned home. The two brothers were left alone in the vast wilderness, hundreds of miles from any settlement and with no weapon but the trusty rifle and tomahawk to protect them from the cunning savage, the ravenous wolf, and the crafty panther. When their ammunition began to run low, Squire Boone retraced his steps to Carolina for a fresh supply, while Daniel remained alone until July, when his brother returned. Together they roamed at will, tracing the streams, hunting game, and enjoying this romantic woodland.

Having been absent from his family for three years, simply for the joys of the frontier, and having lived upon the meat of wild animals, the fruits and roots of the forest without either bread or salt, Boone returned in 1771 to the Yadkin and so thrilled all with his glowing description of this land of promise that, when two years later he started with his family to this forest, five other families and forty men accompanied them. The women riding, the children driving the cattle and hogs, with bedding and baggage strapped on pack horses, the men with trusty rifles forming both advance and rear guards, this little cavalcade started forth to conquer the wilderness. All went well for a while, but, when near the c.u.mberland Mountains, they were attacked by Indians, and six men were killed, among them Boone's oldest son.

Yielding to the others, Boone returned with the party to the Clinch River in southwestern Virginia, where they remained until 1774.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Boone's little cavalcade started forth to conquer the wilderness."]

For twenty years Boone was a notable figure in this untried forest, prudent, calm, honest, courageous, cunning; a stranger to fear, a devotee to duty, an honored leader, he has so left his impress upon our state that the record of this period of his life is Kentucky history.

A PIONEER n.o.bLEMAN

During the eighteenth century, many men, singly or in companies, enjoyed the beauties of the forest scenes of Kentucky. Always they carried back to the centers of civilization the most glowing accounts of hill and dale and stream, of the abundance of game and fish, of the fertility of the soil, and of the glorious monarchs of the forest. These hardy woodsmen had the inherent love of Nature in her wildest, most gorgeous aspects. They were pioneers, hunters, and trappers. To some these terms convey only the thought of rough, unsophisticated men with none of the benevolent qualities of head or heart, with no magnanimity of spirit for a friend and nothing but the most intense hatred for a foe. But the lives of some of these frontiersmen furnish incidents from which we might well take lesson.

One of these, James Harrod, though unable to write his name, has so indelibly impressed it upon the annals of the early times that as long as history is read he will be famous. In May, 1774, Captain Harrod with about thirty men descended the Monongahela and the Ohio in canoes to the mouth of the Kentucky River. Penetrating the forest, they built the first log cabin ever erected in Kentucky, at the place where Harrodsburg now stands. Here a town was laid off and called Harrodstown. After four or five cabins had been built depredations of the Indians caused them to be deserted until the following spring, when Harrod with many of his former comrades and several others returned. This place was subsequently called Oldtown and later Harrodsburg, fittingly commemorating the grand pioneer who built not only the first cabin but the first town in our commonwealth.

James Harrod was by nature endowed with all the qualities of a great leader; he is described as tall and commanding, energetic and fearless, honest and generous, ignorant yet intelligent. Inured to difficulties and dangers, familiar with the forest, skillful with his rifle, he was a success as a hunter, but a terror to his foes. He was a real leader of the pioneers. In the words of Marshall, "He always had a party, not because he wanted a party, but because the party wanted him."

Unremitting in the care of his companions, unrelenting in his attacks on the "red rascals," untiring in services to his neighbors and friends, he was truly a n.o.bleman, with a lofty yet gentle spirit. "If news came of an Indian ma.s.sacre, he s.n.a.t.c.hed his gun and ran at the head of the party; if he knew of a family left dest.i.tute, he shouldered his rifle and ranged the forest till he found the game to supply their needs; if he heard of a horse being lost he stopped not till he drove him to his owner's gate." Thus he was known by his contemporaries. Yet he seemed not to be ambitious. Only as a delegate from Harrodstown and as a colonel of the militia is he found in civil affairs. But the magnanimity of his spirit shone forth at all times.

There is one incident related of him that proves him as chivalrous as any knight of old. He was at one time so closely pursued by some Indians that he plunged into a swollen stream and, holding his rifle above the water with one hand and swimming with the other, reached the farther sh.o.r.e in safety. Two of the redskins, bolder than the others, followed.

When the foremost was about midstream a shot from Harrod's rifle caused him to disappear with a cry of pain beneath the rushing torrent; the other gave up the chase.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "With arms extended, Harrod stepped in view."]

Several hours afterward, when Harrod had reached a point a few miles below where he had crossed the stream, he was astonished to see a warrior slowly and painfully draw himself upon a pile of driftwood and attempt to apply a rude bandage to his shoulder down which the blood was flowing. Harrod at once knew that this was the same Indian who had hotly pursued him and that the wound was from his own rifle shot. Most men at such a time would have relentlessly shot their adversary. Such a thought never entered the mind of James Harrod. He at once resolved to a.s.sist his disabled foe. Cautiously he stole to one of the trees on the bank a few yards from where the Indian sat, and, laying aside rifle, tomahawk, and knife, he stepped suddenly in view, with arms extended to show he was unarmed and meant no harm. The startled Indian was about to plunge again into the water, when a second glance a.s.sured him no immediate harm was meant, for not only was the white man unarmed but his kindly countenance convinced the Indian no wrong was intended. Yet so strange was such a proceeding to the savage, that while he permitted his former enemy to approach, yet he watched him as would a wounded wild animal, ready at any moment to seek refuge in the rushing waters.

Harrod, finding the Indian weak from loss of blood, gently a.s.sisted him to the sh.o.r.e, tore off a bandage from his own clothing, dressed the wound, and taking him upon his back, carried him several miles to a cave, where he nursed him until he was able to rejoin his tribe.

EARLY KENTUCKY CUSTOMS

When the bands of hardy pioneers pushed into the wilderness and prepared a way into Kentucky they brought with them only the trusty rifle, the ax, the tomahawk, and the "long knife" for protecting themselves from the wily savages and securing food from the game that roamed the woods.

When their families came, a few more articles were brought along; but their outfits were necessarily meager. When they stopped to prepare their food, a flat stone was used for cooking the "journey cake," while bark served for dishes.

As soon as the destination was reached, a log cabin of rough unhewn timbers was built, containing a long pen of split logs placed in a row, which, filled with fresh boughs, was a welcome resting place for those who were wearied from traveling. Later the feathers of wild pigeons, ducks, and geese were made into feather beds.

Usually several people settled at the same place and built a fort of cabins, stockades, and blockhouses, arranged in a hollow square. The blockhouses were two stories high, the upper story projecting over the lower one for eighteen or more inches. The places of entrance to the fort were closed by large folding gates of thick slabs, and the entire outer wall made bullet proof, all without a single nail or piece of iron. Some of the cabins had puncheon floors while others had only the bare earth.

There were very few metal utensils; tin cups, iron forks, and spoons were very rare. Nearly all their tools were fashioned of wood, by their own hands.

There were no mills, but each family had a hominy block or wooden bowl with pestle, in which the Indian corn was pounded, or a rough homemade grater on which it was grated. Their brooms were made of hickory saplings split at one end into fine splinters for several inches; these were bound together at the top with a green withe, while the other end of the pole served as a handle.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Making brooms.]

Their lye was all made at home by pouring water several times through a hopper of ashes until it became a reddish-brown; bear's grease was added to this and the mixture boiled until it became a soft ma.s.s called soap.

We of to-day would dislike very much to use it in bathing.

Their salt was precious, for eight hundred gallons of salt water boiled down made only one bushel; if that amount was bought, it cost twenty dollars.

In the spring they bored holes in the maple trees, from which flowed a sap or sweet water that when boiled down made maple sirup and maple sugar.

In those days of danger the men built the cabins, garrisoned the forts, hunted the game, felled the trees, mauled the rails, grubbed the roots and bushes, and tilled the soil.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Pioneers building a log palisade.]

The women did the household duties, brought the water, gathered the wild nettles, and from the silky fibers in the leaves spun and wove the flax from which they made their clothing. They tanned the deerskins by means of hardwood ashes and from them made moccasins and shoepacks, for there was no place to buy shoes; they made for the men the historical hunting shirt of deerskin, linsey-woolsey, or coa.r.s.e, home-woven linen. This garment served various purposes; the bosom was so designed as to form a wallet in which to carry bread, jerk, parched corn, or tow for cleaning guns. This shirt was held together by a belt which was tied behind; in the front of this belt they carried their bullet bags and mittens, while on one side hung the scalping knife in its leather sheath, and on the other, the tomahawk. Breeches, leggins, and moccasins of deerskin and hats or caps of fur, often adorned with the animal's tail, completed the costume of the men. The women wore dresses of linsey-woolsey and coa.r.s.e flax.

So the rude pioneer home, with its lack of conveniences and s.p.a.ce and its few rude, imperfect tools, was the factory where were prepared not only the clothing and food, but also the furniture and the medicine.

BOONE'S ILl.u.s.tRIOUS PEER

Among the hardy backwoodsmen, fearless hunters, and brave fighters, there looms no n.o.bler figure than that of Simon Kenton, born of humble, Scotch-Irish parents in Virginia, April 13, 1755. At sixteen he was a stalwart youth with scarcely any education, with a kind heart but unrestrained emotions. Having fallen very much in love with a beautiful girl of his neighborhood, and having lost her to a successful rival, he went as an uninvited guest to the wedding festivities, where he made himself so disagreeable that the infuriated groom and his brothers gave him a severe beating.

Shortly after this, meeting his former rival, William Veach, Kenton provoked a fight and was so much the physical superior that soon his adversary fell bruised, bleeding, and unconscious; kind-hearted Kenton, feeling that he had been cruel in his treatment, lifted up the head of his insensible victim, spoke to him, but receiving no reply, thought him dead. Much alarmed, he left the seemingly lifeless body and fled to the woods. Feeling himself a murderer and a fugitive from justice, he warily made his way to Cheat River, where he changed his name to Simon Butler, and worked long enough to secure a gun and ammunition.

In order to lose himself and forget his trouble in the western wilderness, he joined a party to Fort Pitt, where he hunted for the garrison and forts, and met Simon Girty, who afterwards saved his life.