Stories of Old Kentucky Part 3

Two others, George Yeager and John Strader, came with him that autumn on his first visit to Kentucky, lured on by the glowing accounts of the "cane land" that Yeager had heard of from the Indians. They came down the Ohio to the mouth of the Kentucky, but soon returned to the Big Kanawha, where they camped, hunted, and trapped until March, 1773.

Yeager was killed by the Indians, and Kenton and Strader fled to the woods barefooted and almost naked, with no food and no weapons. For six days they wandered weary, footsore, and hungry, until finally in despair they lay down to die. Gathering hope anew, they pressed on and near the Ohio met some hunters who gladly gave them food and clothing.

Going with them, Kenton worked for another rifle and in the summer of the same year went down the Ohio with a party in search of Captain Bullitt. They failed to find him and the party returned through the wilds of Kentucky to Virginia with Kenton as guide.

During the winter of 1773-1774, Kenton hunted on the Big Sandy, but volunteered and soon saw active service as a scout and spy in the armies of Lord Dunmore and General Lewis in the Miami Indian War. He received an honorable discharge in the autumn, and the next spring, yielding to the longing for the "cane land," he came down the Ohio and one night reached Cabin Creek a few miles above Maysville. The next day, when he beheld the far-famed land, he was entranced, and soon encamped near the present site of Washington, in Mason County, where he and his companion cleared an acre of ground and planted it with corn which they had bought from a French trader.

They found this place a veritable "hunter's paradise" where the hills were covered with herds of deer, elk, and buffalo.

One day meeting two men, Hendricks and Fitzpatrick, who were without food or guns, Kenton invited them to join his station. Hendricks accepted, but his companion, desiring to return to Virginia, was accompanied by Kenton and Williams to the Ohio. They left Hendricks alone at the camp. On returning they found the camp in disorder and Hendricks gone; the next day his charred remains told the story of his sufferings at the hands of the savages.

Though Kenton left this place the following autumn, he returned nine years later and, building a blockhouse here, established Kenton's Station.

Simon Kenton was ever alert, ever ready to respond to the call for help, ever ready to encounter danger, and ever ready to give his services to the settlers whether at Harrodstown or Hinkson's, whether in aid of Boone or Clark.

At one time Kenton was one of six spies who, two at a time, each week ranged up and down the Ohio and around the deserted stations, watching for Indian signs; for the red savage had become infuriated because the "long knife"[1] had taken possession of his beloved "Kaintuckee," and the Indian invasions were frequent and b.l.o.o.d.y.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Boone was borne on Kenton's shoulders into the fort."]

One morning as Kenton with two companions was standing in the gate at Boonesborough ready for a hunt, the Indians fired on some men in the field, who fled to the fort. One man, however, was overtaken, tomahawked, and scalped within seventy yards of the gate. Kenton shot the savage dead and in the battle which ensued killed two other Indians, one of whom was about to tomahawk Colonel Boone, who had been crippled.

The unerring rifle of Kenton stayed his savage hand, and Boone was borne on Kenton's shoulders into the fort. When the gate was barred and all was secure, the usually reserved Boone said, "Well, Simon, you have behaved yourself like a man to-day; indeed you are a fine fellow."

Kenton accompanied General George Rogers Clark in his expedition against Kaskaskia in 1778, then proceeded to Vincennes, where, by a three days'

secret observation, he secured an accurate description of the place which he sent to General Clark.

Kenton returned to Harrodstown, aided Boone in defending the stations, and in September, 1778, was taken a prisoner, a few miles below Maysville, by the Indians, who beat him until their arms were too tired to indulge in this amusing pastime any longer. They then placed him upon the ground on his back, drew his feet apart, lashed each to a strong sapling, laid a pole across his breast, tied his hands to each end, and lashed his arms to it with thongs which were tied around his body; then they tied another thong around his neck and fastened it to a stake driven in the ground. Thus he was forced to pa.s.s the night. The next morning he was painted black and carried toward Chillicothe, where they said they would burn him at the stake.

As a diversion they one day tied him securely on an unbroken horse, which they turned loose to run through the woods at will. Through undergrowth, among trees and patches of briers, the horse capered, pranced, plunged, and ran, trying in vain to discharge his load until finally he stopped from sheer exhaustion. Kenton was dest.i.tute of clothing, bruised, bleeding, and almost lifeless. Arriving at the village, they tied their distinguished prisoner to the stake, where he was left for twenty-four hours, expecting every moment that the torch would be applied. After enduring this agony he was forced to run the gantlet, where six hundred Indians were ranged on either side with switches, clubs, and sticks, and each gave him a blow as he pa.s.sed.

Kenton had been told if he reached the council house he would be set free. When he had almost reached the door of deliverance he was knocked insensible. Again he was made a prisoner, was taken from town to town, eight times was compelled to run the gantlet, three times tied to the stake, and once almost killed by a powerful blow with an ax.

Once Simon Girty, the notorious renegade, remembering their former friendship, saved him from the flames; again Logan, the Mingo chief, interposed, stayed the fury of the savages, and persuaded a Canadian trader named Drury to buy him from his captors. Drury took him to Detroit, and delivered him to the British commander, where he received humane treatment until 1779. Then a Mrs. Harvey, the wife of an Indian trader, while a crowd of Indians were drunk, took three of their guns and hid them in a patch of peas in her garden. At midnight Kenton, following her directions, secured them, and with two other Kentucky prisoners hastened to a hollow tree some distance from the town, where ammunition, food, and clothing had been placed by the same benefactress. The three fugitives after thirty-three days of incredible suffering reached Louisville.

Later, with General George Rogers Clark in command, Kenton, the great scout and spy, piloted the Kentuckians, when in 1780 they carried the war into the Indian's own country.

During all these dangers there had ever been the horrible feeling that he was a fugitive and a murderer; but meeting by chance some one from his boyhood home, Simon Kenton learned that his former rival, William Veach, was still alive. He resumed his rightful name, hastened home, made friends with Veach, and started with his father and family again to this great paradise of the West.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Simon Kenton]

Kenton, so great in all the qualifications of the pioneer, was not schooled in the arts of civilization. His ignorance, coupled with his great confidence in men, which amounted almost to credulity, caused him to lose most of his valuable lands; but at last the legislature of Kentucky made some reparation to the old, heroic soldier whose deeds and daring will ever furnish enn.o.bling themes for song and story.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] The name given the white men by the Indians on account of the long knives they carried in their belts.

BOONE'S TRACE

Though Kentucky was not the home, but merely the hunting grounds, of most of the Indians, yet there were varied and conflicting claims.

While the Six Nations sold their t.i.tle to this vast area to the British, and the Shawnees at last relinquished their rights, still the Cherokees pressed their claim until Henderson's company, composed of nine men of education and ability from North Carolina, purchased from them, in 1775, at the Watauga River, about seventeen million acres of land for ten thousand pounds ($50,000). This company hoped to found a colony and sell land to immigrants. They named this region Transylvania--"beyond the woods."

Later, this purchase was declared by both Virginia and North Carolina to be null and void, and the plan was abandoned. Before this, however, Daniel Boone had been sent to open up a trace or road from the Holston River to the mouth of Otter Creek on the Kentucky River, where later Boonesborough was built and the first legislature in Kentucky was held.

This road was to be for the travel of men and pack horses, the pioneer's train. Hastening forward with his brother, Squire Boone, Colonel Richard Calloway, and several others--thirty in all--Daniel Boone began to "blaze the way" in the wilderness for the countless thousands who were to come after them.

Beginning at Watauga, the trace led to the c.u.mberland Gap, where it joined the "Warrior's Path," which it followed for about fifty miles northward; from this place it followed a buffalo trace to the northwest until it reached the Kentucky River.

Blazing the trees with their hatchets, cutting their way through dead brush, removing undergrowth, chopping through cane and reed, the party proceeded on their perilous journey. Within about fifteen miles of their destination, while asleep in camp, they were attacked by the Indians.

Later they were again fired upon by the savages, when two of the white men were killed and three wounded. Here, five miles south of Richmond, from necessity was erected the first fort in Kentucky. This stockade fort was called Fort Twetty, as here Captain Twetty died and was buried.

Pushing on, Boone and his companions reached the site selected, and soon constructed a stockade fort of two cabins, connected by palisades. This formed the nucleus of the fort, which was completed in about two months and which was named Boonesborough.

The trace or road opened by Boone has had various names; it has been called "Boone's Trace" or "Boone's Trail," "the Virginia Road," "the Road to Caintuck," "the Kentucky Road," and "the Wilderness Road." This last name was given from the great wilderness of laurel thickets between the c.u.mberland Gap and the settlements in Kentucky, a length of two hundred miles without a single habitation.

Along this difficult highway a narrow and often zigzag path in the forest, six hundred miles in length, came the countless men, women, and children from Virginia who were to found this great commonwealth of Kentucky, a worthy daughter of a most worthy mother.

When the legislature of Kentucky in 1795 pa.s.sed an act for enlarging to the width of thirty feet that part of Boone's Trace between Crab Orchard and c.u.mberland Gap, and advertised for bids on it, the old pioneer, who had been the "Pathfinder" of the West in this new Eldorado, sent to Governor Isaac Shelby the following characteristic letter:

_feburey the 11th 1796,_

_Sir_

_after my Best Respts to your Excelancy and famyly I wish to inform you that I have sum intention of undertaking this New Rode that is to be cut through the Wilderness and I think My self int.i.teled to the ofer of the Bisness as I first Marked out that Rode in March 1775 and Never Re'd anything for my trubel and Sepose I am No statesman I am a Woodsman and think My self as capable of Marking and Cutting that Rode as any other man Sir if you think with Me I would thank you to Wright Mee a Line By the Post the first opportuneaty and he Will Lodge it at Mr. John Miler son hinkston fork as I wish to know where and when it is to be laat (let) So that I may atend at the time_

_I am Deer Sir your very omble sarvent_ _Daniel Boone_

_To his Excelancy governor Shelby._

The grim old veteran did not secure the contract, but his name is inseparably linked with this thoroughfare, the opening of which was of inestimable value to the infant empire beyond the mountains.

BOONE IN CAPTIVITY

On New Year's Day, 1778, Daniel Boone with thirty companions left Boonesborough for the Blue Licks, to make a year's supply of salt for the garrisons.

A few weeks later, while hunting several miles from the camp, he was overtaken by a party of one hundred Indians and attempted to escape. The fleet warriors, needing a white captive to give them information about Boonesborough, instead of shooting Boone as he ran, gave chase and captured the hardy backwoodsman.

Now all the cunning of Boone was sorely needed. He wished to prevent if possible the capture of the salt makers and to postpone the march of the savages on the garrison. How the wily old hunter managed we do not know.

But he finally secured the promise of the Indians that if the party at Blue Licks would surrender, they would be well treated as prisoners and their lives spared. Arriving at Blue Licks, Boone made signs to the white men to surrender without resistance; this they did, and the promise made by the Indians to Boone was sacredly kept.

Three of the white men managed to escape; when the Indians had gone, they returned, hid the kettles, and carried home the salt, as well as the news of the captivity of Boone and his companions.

The prisoners were marched through severe weather to the princ.i.p.al Shawnee town, old Chillicothe, on the Little Miami River in Ohio. In March, Boone and ten others were carried to Detroit, where the British commander, Governor Hamilton, offered the Indians 100 sterling for Boone, intending to send him home on parole. But Boone had so won the hearts of his dusky captors that they would not patiently listen to any plan that would take him from among them. The great hunter had to feign contentment and not wound the feelings or excite the suspicion of his captors.