CHAPTER X. Daniel Boone in

Kentucky

He felt very much as Columbus did, gazing from his caravel on San Salvador; as Cortes, looking down, from the crest of Ahualco, on the Valley of Mexico; or Vasco Nunez, standing alone on the peak of Darien, and stretching his eyes over the hitherto undiscovered waters of the Pacific.---William Gilmore Simms: Views and Reviews.

A chance acquaintance formed by Daniel Boone, during the French and Indian War, with the Irish lover of adventure, John Findlay, was the origin of Boone's cherished longing to reach the El Dorado of the West. In this slight incident we may discern the initial inspiration for the epochal movement of westward expansion. Findlay was a trader and horse peddler, who had early migrated to Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He had been licensed a trader with the Indians in 1747. During the same year he was married to Elizabeth Harris, daughter of John Harris, the Indian-trader at Harris's Ferry on the Susquehanna River, after whom Harrisburg was named. During the next eight years Findlay carried on his business of trading in the interior. Upon the opening of the French and Indian War he was probably among "the young men about Paxtang who enlisted immediately," and served as a waggoner in Braddock's expedition. Over the campfires, during the ensuing campaign in 1765, young Boone was an eager listener to Findlay's stirring narrative of his adventures in the Ohio Valley and on the wonderfully beautiful levels of Kentucky in 1752. The fancies aroused in his brooding mind by Findlay's moving recital and his description of an ancient passage through the Ouasioto or Cumberland Gap and along the course of the Warrior's Path, inspired him with an irrepressible longing to reach that alluring promised land which was the perfect realization of the hunter's paradise.

Thirteen years later, while engaged in selling pins, needles, thread, and Irish linens in the Yadkin country, Findlay learned from the Pennsylvania settlers at Salisbury or at the Forks of the Yadkin of Boone's removal to the waters of the upper Yadkin. At Boone's rustic home, in the winter of

1768-9, Findlay visited his old comrade-in-arms of Braddock's campaign. On learning of Boone's failure during the preceding year to reach the Kentucky levels by way of the inhospitable Sandy region, Findlay again described to him the route through the Ouasioto Gap traversed sixteen years before by Pennsylvania traders in their traffic with the Catawbas. Boone, as we have seen, knew that Christopher Gist, who had formerly lived near him on the upper Yadkin, had found some passage through the lofty mountain defiles; but he had never been able to discover the passage. Findlay's renewed descriptions of the immense herds of buffaloes he had seen in Kentucky, the great salt-licks where they congregated, the abundance of bears, deer, and elk with which the country teemed, the innumerable flocks of wild turkeys, geese, and ducks, aroused in Boone the hunter's passion for the chase; while the beauty of the lands, as mirrored in the vivid fancy of the Irishman, inspired him with a new longing to explore the famous country which had, as John Filson records, "greatly engaged Mr. Findlay's attention."

In the comprehensive designs of Henderson, now a judge, for securing a "graphic report of the trans-Alleghany region in behalf of his land company", Boone divined the means of securing the financial backing for an expedition of considerable size and ample equipment. In numerous suits for debt, aggregating hundreds of dollars, which had been instituted against Boone by some of the leading citizens of Rowan, Williams and Henderson had acted as Boone's attorneys. In order to collect their legal fees, they likewise brought suit against Boone; but not wishing to press the action against the kindly scout who had hitherto acted as their agent in western exploration, they continued the litigation from court to court, in lieu of certain "conditions performed" on behalf of Boone, during his unbroken absence, by his attorney in this suit, Alexander Martin. Summoned to appear in 1769 at the March term of court at Salisbury, Boone seized upon the occasion to lay before Judge Henderson the designs for a renewed and extended exploration of Kentucky suggested by the golden opportunity of securing the services of Findlay as guide. Shortly after March 6th, when Judge Henderson reached Salisbury, the conference, doubtless attended by John Stewart, Boone's brother-in-law,

John Findlay, and Boone, who were all present at this term of court, must have been held, for the purpose of devising ways and means for the expedition. Peck, the only reliable contemporary biographer of the pioneer, who derived many facts from Boone himself and his intimate acquaintances, draws the conclusion (1847): "Daniel Boone was engaged as the master spirit of this exploration, because in his judgment and fidelity entire confidence could be reposed . . . . He was known to Henderson and encouraged by him to make the exploration, and to examine particularly the whole country south of the Kentucky--or as then called the Louisa River." As confidential agent of the land company, Boone carried with him letters and instructions for his guidance upon this extended tour of exploration."

On May 1, 1769, with Findlay as guide, and accompanied by four of his neighbors, John Stewart, a skilled woodsman, Joseph Holden, James Mooney, and William Cooley, Boone left his "peaceable habitation" on the upper Yadkin and began his historic journey "in quest of the country of Kentucky." Already heavily burdened with debts, Boone must have incurred considerable further financial obligations to Judge Henderson and Colonel Williams, acting for the land company, in order to obtain the large amount of supplies requisite for so prolonged an expedition. Each of the adventurers rode a good horse of strength and endurance; and behind him were securely strapped the blanket, ammunition, salt, and cooking-utensils so indispensable for a long sojourn in the wilderness. In Powell's Valley they doubtless encountered the party led thither by Joseph Martin (see Chapter VII), and there fell into the "Hunter's Trail" commented on in a letter written by Martin only a fortnight before the passing of Boone's cavalcade. Crossing the mountain at the Ouasioto Gap, they made their first "station camp" in Kentucky on the creek, still named after that circumstance, on the Red Lick Fork. After a preliminary journey for the purpose of locating the spot, Findlay led the party to his old trading-camp at Es-kip-pa-ki-thi-ki, where then (June 7, 1769) remained but charred embers of the Indian huts, with some of the stockading and the gate-posts still standing. In Boone's own words, he and Findlay at once "proceeded to take a more thorough survey of the country;" and during the autumn and

early winter, encountering on every hand apparently inexhaustible stocks of wild game and noting the ever-changing beauties of the country, the various members of the party made many hunting and exploring journeys from their "station camp" as base. On December 22, 1769, while engaged in a hunt, Boone and Stewart were surprised and captured by a large party of Shawanoes, led by Captain Will, who were returning from the autumn hunt on Green River to their villages north of the Ohio. Boone and Stewart were forced to pilot the Indians to their main camp, where the savages, after robbing them of all their peltries and supplies and leaving them inferior guns and little ammunition, set off to the northward. They left, on parting, this menacing admonition to the white intruders: "Now, brothers, go home and stay there. Don't come here any more, for this is the Indians' hunting-ground, and all the animals, skins, and furs are ours. If you are so foolish as to venture here again, you may be sure the wasps and yellow jackets will sting you severely."

Chagrined particularly by the loss of the horses, Boone and Stewart for two days pursued the Indians in hot haste. Finally approaching the Indians' camp by stealth in the dead of night, they secured two of the horses, upon which they fled at top speed. In turn they were immediately pursued by a detachment of the Indians, mounted upon their fleetest horses; and suffered the humiliation of recapture two days later. Indulging in wild hilarity over the capture of the crestfallen whites, the Indians took a bell from one of the horses and, fastening it about Boone's neck, compelled him under the threat of brandished tomahawks to caper about and jingle the bell, jeering at him the while with the derisive query, uttered in broken English: "Steal horse, eh?" With as good grace as they could summon-- wry smiles at best--Boone and Stewart patiently endured these humiliations, following the Indians as captives. Some days later (about January 4, 1770), while the vigilance of the Indians was momentarily relaxed, the captives suddenly plunged into a dense canebrake and in the subsequent confusion succeeded in effecting their escape. Finding their camp deserted upon their return, Boone and Stewart hastened on and finally overtook their companions. Here Boone was both surprised and delighted to encounter his brother Squire, loaded down with supplies.

Having heard nothing from Boone, the partners of the land company had surmised that he and his party must have run short of ammunition, flour, salt, and other things sorely needed in the wilderness; and because of their desire that the party should remain, in order to make an exhaustive exploration of the country, Squire Boone had been sent to him with supplies. Findlay, Holden, Mooney, and Cooley returned to the settlements; but Stewart, Squire Boone, and Alexander Neely, who had accompanied Squire, threw in their lot with the intrepid Daniel, and fared forth once more to the stirring and bracing adventures of the Kentucky wilderness. In Daniel Boone's own words, he expected "from the furs and peltries they had an opportunity of taking . . . to recruit his shattered circumstances; discharge the debts he had contracted by the adventure; and shortly return under better auspices, to settle the newly discovered country."

Boone and his party now stationed themselves near the mouth of the Red River, and soon provided themselves, against the hard. ships of the long winter, with jerk, bear's oil, buffalo tallow, dried buffalo tongues, fresh meat, and marrow-bones as food, and buffalo robes and bearskins as shelter from the inclement weather. Neely had brought with him, to while away dull hours, a copy of "Gulliver's Travels"; and in describing Neely's successful hunt for buffalo one day, Boone in after years amusingly deposed: "In the year 1770 I encamped on Red River with five other men, and we had with us for our amusement the History of Samuel Gulliver's Travels, wherein he gave an account of his young master, Glumdelick, careing him on market day for a show to a town called Lulbegrud. A young man of our company called Alexander Neely came to camp and told us he had been that day to Lulbegrud, and had killed two Brobdignags in their capital." Far from unlettered were pioneers who indulged together in such literary chat and gave to the near-by creek the name (after Dean Swift's Lorbrugrud) of Lulbegrud which name, first seen on Filson's map of Kentucky (1784), it bears to this day. From one of his long, solitary hunts Stewart never returned; and it was not until five years later, while cutting out the Transylvania Trail, that Boone and his companions discovered, near the old crossing at Rockcastle, Stewart's remains in a standing hollow sycamore. The wilderness never gave up its tragic secret.

The close of the winter and most of the spring were passed by the Boones, after Neely's return to the settlements, in exploration, hunting, and trapping beaver and otter, in which sport Daniel particularly excelled. Owing to the drain upon their ammunition, Squire was at length compelled to return to the settlements for supplies; and Daniel, who remained alone in the wilderness to complete his explorations for the land company, must often have shared the feelings of Balboa as, from lofty knob or towering ridge, he gazed over the waste of forest which spread from the dim out lines of the Alleghanies to the distant waters of the Mississippi. He now proceeded to make those remarkable solitary explorations of Kentucky which have given him immortality-- through the valley of the Kentucky and the Licking, and along the "Belle Riviere" (Ohio) as low as the falls. He visited the Big Bone Lick and examined the wonderful fossil remains of the mammoth found there. Along the great buffalo roads, worn several feet below the surface of the ground, which led to the Blue Licks, he saw with amazement and delight thousands of huge shaggy buffalo gamboling, bellowing, and making the earth rumble beneath the trampling of their hooves. One day, while upon a cliff near the junction of the Kentucky and Dick's Rivers, he suddenly found himself hemmed in by a party of Indians. Seizing his only chance of escape, he leaped into the top of a maple tree growing beneath the cliffs and, sliding to safety full sixty feet below, made his escape, pursued by the sound of a chorus of guttural "Ughs" from the dumbfounded savages.

Finally making his way back to the old camp, Daniel was rejoined there by Squire on July 27, 1770. During the succeeding months, much of their time was spent in hunting and prospecting in Jessamine County, where two caves are still known as Boone's caves. Eventually, when ammunition and supplies had once more run low, Squire was compelled a second time to return to the settlements. Perturbed after a time by Squire's failure to rejoin him at the appointed time, Daniel started toward the settlements, in search of him; and by a stroke of good fortune encountered him along the trail. Overjoyed at this meeting (December, 1770) the indomitable Boones once more plunged into the wilderness, determined to conclude their explorations by examining the regions watered by the

Green and Cumberland rivers and their tributaries. In after years, Gasper Mansker, the old German scout, was accustomed to describe with comic effect the consternation created among the Long Hunters, while hunting one day on Green River, by a singular noise which they could not explain. Stealthily slipping from tree to tree, Mansker finally beheld with mingled surprise and amusement a hunter, bareheaded, stretched flat upon his back on a deerskin spread on the ground, singing merrily at the top of his voice! It was Daniel Boone, joyously whiling away the solitary hours in singing one of his favorite songs of the border. In March, 1771, after spending some time in company with the Long Hunters, the Boones, their horses laden with furs, set their faces homeward. On their return journey, near Cumberland Gap, they had the misfortune to be surrounded by a party of Indians who robbed them of their guns and all their peltries. With this humiliating conclusion to his memorable tour of exploration, Daniel Boone, as he himself says, "once more reached home after experiencing hardships which would defy credulity in the recital."

Despite the hardships and the losses, Boone had achieved the ambition of years: he had seen Kentucky, which he "esteemed a second paradise." The reports of his extended explorations, which he made to Judge Henderson, were soon communicated to the other partners of the land company; and their letters of this period, to one another, bristle with glowing and minute descriptions of the country, as detailed by their agent. Boone was immediately engaged to act in the company's behalf to sound the Cherokees confidentially with respect to their willingness to lease or sell the beautiful hunting-grounds of the trans-Alleghany. The high hopes of Henderson and his associates at last gave promise of brilliant realization. Daniel Boone's glowing descriptions of Kentucky excited in their minds, says a gifted early chronicler, the "spirit of an enterprise which in point of magnitude and peril, as well as constancy and heroism displayed in its execution, has never been paralleled in the history of America."