118

Boone returns to North Carolina.

1771.

and fearless, would commonly pay no regard to it, so that the white hunter was sure to have palpable signs of the presence of his enemies, and the direction they had taken. Considering these circumstances it is even more remarkable that his brother should have returned in safety, with his loaded horses, than that he alone remained unharmed; though in the escape of both from captivity or death from January, 1770, until their return to the Atlantic rivers in March, 1771, there is something so wonderful, that the old pioneer's phrase, that he was "an instrument ordained to settle the wilderness," seems entirely proper.*

When at length the brothers returned from the West, in the spring of 1771, it was with the intention, on Daniel's part, of bringing his family to reside in the land of his choice, but circumstances, with which we are unacquainted, detained him in North Carolina until September, 1773. On the 25th of that month, having sold his farm upon the Yadkin, and whatever articles he did not propose to take into the wilderness, he and his household left his eastern home forever, in company with five other families. This little band was farther increased by a party of forty men in Powell's Valley, which lies upon the eastern side of the Cumberland Mountains. Full of hope and spirit they pressed on toward that last great mountain barrier, but just as they approached it, on the 10th of October, were attacked in the rear by a party of Indians, who killed six of the emigrants and wounded a seventh. Among the dead was Boone's eldest son. The woodsmen, unprepared for action, and attacked from behind, met the foe as quickly as they could, and easily repulsed them. But the fear of the women, the loss they had met with, the disorder introduced into their ranks and among their cattle, and above all, the evidence afforded by the attack of the vigilance, activity, and hostile feelings of the Indians, deterred the settlers from going further; and, with heavy hearts, they turned upon their trace, recrossed Powell's Valley, and stopped not till upon the borders of Clinch River, with a double mountain range between them and the western wilds.

Meantime other adventurers were examining the rich lands south of the Ohio. Even in 1770, while Boone was wandering solitary in those Kentucky forests, a band of forty hunters, led by

* Boone's Narrative, as given in Filson's Kentucky. The copy in Cary's Museum is not exact. A correct copy is in the life of Boone, published by Messrs. Appleton, New York, 1844: this "Life," however, is of little value, being taken from Flint's.

1773.

Bullitt descends the Ohio.

119

Colonel James Knox, had gathered from the valleys of New River, Clinch, and Holston to chase the buffaloes of the West; nine of the forty had crossed the mountains, penetrated the desert and almost impassable country about the heads of the Cumberland, and explored the region on the borders of Kentucky and Tennessee. This hunting party, from the length of time it was absent, is known in the traditions of the West, as the party of the Long Hunters. While these bold men were penetrating the valley of the Ohio, in the region of the Cumberland gap, others came, from Virginia and Pennsylvania, by the river; among them, and in the same year, that the Long Hunters were abroad, (1770,) came no less noted a person than George Washington. His attention, as we have before said, had been turned to the lands along the Ohio, at a very early period; he had himself large claims, as well as far-reaching plans of settlement, and he wished with his own eyes to examine the Western lands, especially those about the mouth of the Kenawha. From the journal of his expedition, published by Mr. Sparks, in the Appendix to the second volume of his Washington papers, we learn some valuable facts in reference to the position of affairs in the Ohio valley at that time. We learn, for instance, that the Virginians were rapidly surveying and settling the lands south of the river as far down as the Kenawhas; and that the Indians, notwithstanding the treaty of Fort Stanwix, were jealous and angry at this constant invasion of their huntinggrounds.

This jealousy and anger were not suffered to cool during the years next succeeding, and when Thomas Bullitt and his party descended the Ohio in the summer of 1773, he found as related above, that no settlements would be tolerated south of the river, unless the Indian hunting grounds were left undisturbed. To leave them undisturbed was, however, no part of the plan of these white men. This very party, which Bullitt led, and in which were the two McAfees, Hancock Taylor, Drennon and others, separated, and while part went up the Kentucky River, explored the banks, and made important surveys, including the valley in which Frankfort stands, the remainder went on to the Falls, and laid out, on behalf of John Campbell and John Connolly, the plat of Louisville. All this took place in the summer of 1773; and in the autumn of that year, or early in the next, John Floyd, the deputy of Colonel William Preston, the surveyor of Fincastle county, Virginia, in which it was claimed that Kentucky was comprehended,

120

Lyman goes to Natchez.

1773. also crossed the mountains; while General Thompson, of Pennsylvania, made surveys upon the north fork of the Licking." When Boone, therefore, in September, commenced his march for the West, (that to which we have already referred,) the choice regions which he had examined three years before, were known to numbers, and settlers were preparing to desecrate the silent and beautiful woods. Nor did the projects of the English colonists stop with the settlement of Kentucky. In 1773, General Lyman, with a number of military adventurers, went to Natchez, and laid out several townships in that vicinity; to which point emigration set so strongly, that we are told, four hundred families passed down the Ohio, on their way thither, during six weeks of the summer of that year.*

Marshall, i. 11.-Butler, second edition, 20. American State Papers, xvi. 583.General Thompson was surveying for the Pennsylvania soldiers under the Proclamation of 1763, and a permit from the Council of Virginia in 1774.

* Holmes' Annals, ii. 183;-from Original MSS. For a history of Natchez, see Western Messenger, September and November, 1838: it is by Mann Butler. See also Ellicott's Journal, (Philadelphia, 1803,) p. 129, &c.

1774 AND 1775.

But for a time the settlement of Kentucky and the West was delayed; for though James Harrod, in the spring or early summer of 1774, penetrated the wilderness, and built his cabin, (the first log-hut reared in the valley of the Kentucky,) where the town which bears his name now stands, he could not long stay there; the sounds of coming war reached even his solitude, and forced him to rejoin his companions, and aid in repelling the infuriated savages. Notwithstanding the treaty of Fort Stanwix, the western Indians, as we have seen, were in no degree disposed to yield their lands without a struggle. Wide-spread dissatisfaction prevailed among the Shawanese and Mingoes, which was fostered probably by the French traders who still visited the tribes of the northwest. Evidence of the feeling which prevailed, is given by Washington in his Journal of 1770, and has been already referred to. And from that time forward almost every event was calculated still more to excite and embitter the children of the forest. In 1770, Ebenezer, Silas and Jonathan Zane, settled at Wheeling; during that year the Boones, as we have related, were exploring the interior of Kentucky; and after them came the McAfees, Bullitt, Floyd, Hancock Taylor, and their companions. The savages saw their best grounds gradually occupied or threatened with occupation; but still they remembered the war of 1763, and the terrible power of Britain, and the oldest and wisest of the sufferers were disposed rather to submit to what seemed inevitable than to throw themselves away in a vain effort to withstand the whites. Hopeless hatred toward the invaders filled the breasts of the natives, therefore, at the period immediately preceding the war of 1774; a hatred needing only a few acts of violence to kindle it into rage and thirst for human blood. And such acts were not wanting; in addition to the murder of several single Indians by the frontier men,-in 1772, five families of the natives on the Little Kenawha, were killed, in revenge for the death of a white family on Gauley River, although no evidence existed

122

Connolly seizes Fort Pitt.

1774.

And when

to prove who had committed the last-named outrage. 1774 came, a series of events, of which we can present but a faint outline, led to excessive exasperation on both sides. Pennsylvania and Virginia laid equal claim to Pittsburgh and the adjoining country. In the war of 1754, doubt had existed as to which colony the fork of the Ohio was situated in, and the Old Dominion having been forward in the defence of the contested territory, while her northern neighbor had been very backward in doing anything in its favor, the Virginians felt a certain claim. upon the "Key of the West." This feeling showed itself before 1763, and by 1773 appears to have attained a very decided character. Early in 1774, Lord Dunmore, prompted very probably by Colonel Croghan, and his nephew, Dr. John Connolly, who had lived at Fort Pitt, and was an intriguing and ambitious man, determined, by strong measures, to assert the claims of Virginia upon Pittsburgh and its vicinity, and despatched Connolly, with a captain's commission, and with power to take possession of the country upon the Monongahela, in the name of the king. The Dr. issued his proclamation to the people, in the neighborhood of Redstone and Pittsburgh, calling on them to meet upon the 24th or 25th of January, 1774, in order to be embodied as Virginia militia. Arthur St. Clair, who then represented the Proprietors of Pennsylvania in the West, was at Pittsburgh at the time, and arrested Connolly before the meeting took place. The people who had seen the proclamation, however, came together, and though they were dispersed without attempting any outbreak in favor of the Virginian side of the dispute, which it was very much feared they would do,--they did not break up without drunkenness and riot, and among other things fired their guns at the town occupied by friendly Indians across the river, hurting no one, but exciting the fear and suspicion of the red men.

Connolly, soon after, was for a short time released by the sheriff, upon the promise to return to the law's custody, which promise he broke however, and having collected a band of followers, on the 28th of March, came again to Pittsburgh, still asserting the claim of Virginia to the government. Then commenced a series of contests, outrages and complaints, which were too extensive and complicated to be described within our limited space. The upshot of the matter was this, that Connolly, in Lord Dunmore's name, and by his authority, took and kept possession of Fort Pitt; * Withers' Border Warfare, 106.