Filson’s Map of Kentucky (1784)Click here for larger image sizeFilson’s Map of Kentucky (1784)
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The itineraries of early travelers describe the Wilderness Road in definite terms. One of the earliest is that given by John Filson, whose history of Kentucky was published as early as 1784. It described the route from Philadelphia to Louisville (eight hundred and twenty-six miles), as follows:
MilesFrom Philadelphia to Lancaster,66To Wright’s on the Susquehanna,10To Yorktown,12To Abbotstown,15To Hunterstown,10To mountain at Black’s Gap,3To other side of the mountain,7To Stone-house Tavern,25To Wadkin’s Ferry on Potomac14To Martinsburg,13To Winchester,13To Newtown,8To Stoverstown,10To Woodstock,12To Shenandoah River,15To North Branch Shenandoah,29To Staunton,15To North Fork James River,37To Botetourt C. H.,12To Woods on Catawba River21To Paterson.s. on Roanoke,9To Alleghany Mountain,8To New River,12To Forks of Road,16To Fort Chissel,12To Stone Mill,11To Boyds,8To Head of Holstein,5To Washington C. H.,45To the Block-house,35To Powell Mountain,33To Walden’s Ridge,3To Valley Station,4To Martin’s Cabin,25To Cumberland Mountain,20To Cumberland River,13To Flat Lick,9To Stinking Creek,2To Richland Creek,7Down Richland Creek,8To Racoon Spring,6To Laurel River,2To Hazel Patch,15To Rockcastle River,10To English Station,25To Col. Edward’s Crab Orchard,3To Whitley’s Station,5To Logan’s Station,5To Clark’s Station,7To Crow’s Station,4To Harrod’s Station,3To Harlands’,4To Harbisons,10To Bardstown,25To Salt Works,25To Falls of the Ohio,20——826
Mr. Speed preserves for us the itinerary with “observations and occurrences” of William Brown, the father of Judge Alfred M. Brown, of Elizabeth town, Kentucky. “It is contained in a small manuscript book,” writes Mr. Speed, “which has been preserved in the family. It is especially interesting from the fact that immediately upon his arrival in Kentucky, by the journey of which he made a complete record, the Battle of Blue Licks occurred. He aided in burying the slain, among whom was his own brother, James Brown.” The itinerary and “observations and occurrences” follow:[9]
(1782)
“Hanover to Richmond, Henrico Co.,18To Widow Simpson’s, Chesterford,14To Powhatan Co. House,16To Joseph Thompson’s at the forks of the road,8To Long’s Ordinary, Buckingham,9To Hoolen’s on Willis Creek,8To Mrs. Sanders, Cumberland,3To Widow Thompson’s passing Hood’s and Swiney’s,27To Captain Hunter’s,5To Thompson’s on the Long Mo., Campbell,5To Dupriest,6To New London,10To Liberty Town,16To Yearley’s, at Goose Creek, Bedford,12To M. Loland, at the Blue Ridge Gap,6To Big Flat Lick,10To Fort Lewis, Botetourt,12To Hans’ Meadows,20To English’s Ferry, New River,12To Fort Chiswell,30To Atkins’ Ordinary,19To Mid Fork Holstein,—To Cross White’s, Montgomery,3To Col. Arthur Campbell’s,3To 7-mile Ford of Holstein,6To Maj. Dysart’s Mill,12To Washington Co. House,10To Head of Reedy Creek, Sullivan Co., North Carolina,20To Block House,13To North Fork Holstein,2To Moccasin Gap,5To Clinch River,11To Ford of Stock Creek,2To Little Flat Lick,5To North Fork of Clinch,1To Powell’s Mountain,1To Wallan Ridge,5To Valley Station,5To Powell’s River,2To Glade Spring,4To Martin’s Station,19To Big Spring,12To Cumberland Mountain Gap,8To Yellow Creek,2To Cumberland River,13To Big Flat Lick,9To Little Richland Creek,10To Big Richland Creek,1To Robinson Creek,10To Raccoon Spring,1To Laurel River,2To Little Laurel River,5To Raccoon Creek,8To Hazel Patch,4To Rockcastle Creek,6To Rockcastle River,7To Scaggs’ Creek,5To Head of Dicks River,15To English Station,8To Crab Orchard,3To Logan’s Old Fort,11To Doehurty’s Station,8To Harrod’s Station,6To Harrodsburg,6From Hanover to Harrodsburg is 555 miles.
Observations and Occurrences: Set Out from Hanover Monday, 27th May, 1782; arrived at the Block-house about the first week in July. The road from Hanover to this place is generally very good; crossing the Blue Ridge is not bad; there is not more than a small hill with some winding to go over. Neither is the Alleghany Mountain by any means difficult at this gap. There are one or two high hills about New River and Fort Chiswell. The ford of New River is rather bad; therefore we thought it advisable to cross in the ferry-boat. This is generally a good-watered road as far as the Block-house. We waited hereabouts near two weeks for company, and then set out for the wilderness with twelve men and ten guns, this being Thursday, 18th July. The road from this until you get over Wallen’s Ridge generally is bad, some part very much so, particularly about Stock Creek and Stock CreekRidge. It is a very mountainous country hereabout, but there is some fine land in the bottoms, near the watercourses, in narrow slips. It will be but a thin settled country whenever it is settled. The fords of Holstein and Clinch are both good in dry weather, but in a rainy season you are often obliged to raft over. From them along down Powell’s Valley until you get to Cumberland Gap is pretty good; this valley is formed by Cumberland Mountain on the northwest, and Powell Mountain on the southeast, and appears to bear from northeast southwestwardly, and is, I suppose, about one hundred miles in length, and from ten to twelve miles in breadth. The land generally is good, and is an exceeding well-watered country, as well as the country on Holstein River, abounding with fine springs and little brooks. For about fifty miles, as you travel along the valley, Cumberland Mountain appears to be a very high ridge of white rocks, inaccessible in most places to either man or beast, and affords a wild, romantic prospect. The way through the gap is not very difficult, but from its situation travelers may be attacked in some places, crossing the mountain, by the enemy to a very great disadvantage. From thence until you pass Rockcastle River there is very little good road; this tract of country is very mountainous, and badly watered along the trace, especially for springs. There is some good land on the water-courses, and just on this side Cumberland River appears to be a good tract, and within a few years I expect to have a settlement on it. Some parts of the road are very miry in rainy weather. The fords of Cumberland and Rockcastle are both good unless the waters be too high; after you cross Rockcastle there are a few high hills, and the rest of the way tolerable good; the land appears to be rather weak, chiefly timbered with oak, etc. The first of the Kentucky waters you touch upon is the head of Dick’s River, just eight miles from English’s. Here we arrived Thursday, 25th inst., which is just seven days since we started from the Block-house. Monday, 29th inst., I got to Harrodsburg, and saw brother James. The next day we parted, as he was about setting off on a journey to Cumberland.
On Monday, August 19th, Colonel John Todd, with a party of one hundred and eighty-two of our men, attacked a body of Indians, supposed to number six or seven hundred, at the Blue Lick, and was defeated, with the loss of sixty-five persons missing and slain.
Officers lost: Colonels—John Todd and Stephen Trigg; Majors—Edward Bulger and Silas Harlan; Captains—W. McBride, John Gordon, Jos. Kincaid, and Clough Overton; Lieutenants—W. Givens, and John Kennedy; Ensign—John McMurtry.
In this action brother James fell. On Saturday 24th inst., Colonel Logan, with four hundred and seventy men, went on the battle-ground and buried the slain; found on the field, slain, forty-three men, missing, twenty-two, in all sixty-five.
I traveled but little about the country. From English’s to Harrodsburg was the farthest west, and from Logan’s Fort to the Blue Lick the farthest north. Thus far the land was generally good—except near and about the Lick it was very poor and badly timbered—generally badly watered, but pretty well timbered. At RichmondFord, on the Kentucky River, the bank a little below the ford appears to be largely upward of a hundred feet perpendicular of rock.
On my return to Hanover I set off from John Craigs’ Monday, 23d September, 1782; left English’s Tuesday, 1 o’clock, arrived at the Block-house the Monday evening following, and kept on the same route downward chiefly that I traveled out. Nothing material occurred to me. Got to Hanover sometime about the last of October the same year.”
Thomas Speed’s grandfather gives the following itinerary from “Charlotte Court-House to Kentucky” under date of 1790:
Miles“From Charlotte Court-House to Campbell Court-House,41To New London,13To Colonel James Callaway’s,3To Liberty,13To Colonel Flemming’s,28To Big Lick,2To Mrs. Kent’s,20To English’s Ferry,20To Carter’s,13To Fort Chissel,12To the Stone-mill,11To Adkins’,16To Russell Place,16To Greenaway’s,14To Washington Court-House,6To the Block-house,35To Farriss’s,5To Clinch River,12To Scott’s Station,12To Cox’s at Powell River,10To Martin’s Station,2To—[manuscript defaced]To Cumberland Mountain3To Cumberland River,15To Flat Lick,9To Stinking Creek,2To Richland Creek,7To Raccoon Spring,14To Laurel River,2To Hazel Patch,15To Rockcastle,10To—[manuscript defaced].”
The foregoing itineraries afford us some conception of the settlements and “improvements” that sprang up along thewinding thoroughfare from Virginia to Kentucky. The writer has sought with some care to know more of these—of the modes of travel, the entertainment which was afforded along the road to men and beasts, and the social relation of the greater settlements in Virginia and Kentucky to this thin line of human lives across the continent. Very little information has been secured. It is plain that the great immigration to Kentucky would have been out of the question had there been no means of succor and assistance along the road. There were many who gained their livelihood as pioneer innkeepers and provisioned along Boone’s Road. Among the very few of these of whom any record is left, Captain Joseph Martin is perhaps the most prominent and most worthy of remembrance. Martin’s “cabin” or “station,” as it is variously termed, occupied a strategic point in far-famed Powell’s Valley, one hundred and eighty miles west of Inglis Ferry, twenty miles east of Cumberland Gap and about one hundred and thirty miles southeast of Crab Orchard and Boonesborough. Captain Martin was VirginiaAgent for Indian affairs, and was the most prominent man in the scattered settlements in Powell’s Valley, where he was living at the time of the founding of Boonesborough. Later he made his headquarters at Long Island in North Carolina. It is plain from Colonel Henderson’s journal that wagons could proceed along Boone’s Road in 1775 no further than Martin’s cabin. Here everything was transferred to the packhorses. Several letters from Colonel Henderson to Captain Martin, preserved by the Wisconsin Historical Society, give us a glimpse of silent Powell’s Valley. One of them reads:
“Boonesborough12thJune 1775
Dear Sir:
MrRalph Williams, David Burnay, and William Mellar will apply to you for salt and other things which we left with you and was sent for us since we came away—Please to deliver to them, or those they may employ what they ask for, and take a receipt—Also write me a few lines informing me, what you have sent &c. by hem & by whom—I long much to hearfrom you, pray write me at Large, how the matter goes with you in the valey, as well as what passes in Virginia—If the pack-horsemen should want any thing towards securing my books from Damage pack-saddles, provisions, or any thing which you see is necessary; please to let them have it on our acct.—All things goes well hitherto with us, I hope the[y] do with you would have sent your Mares but am afraid they are not done horsing They will be safely brought by my brother in a few weeks
I am DrSir yourHble ServtRichd. Henderson
MrJoseph Martin in the Valley”[10]
On July 20 he wrote again:
“Am sorry to hear that the People in the valey are distressed for provisions and ammunition have given some directions to my brother to assist you a little with Powder.
Standly, I suppose has before now delivered your Inglish mare, and the other you’l receive by my brother—when we meet will render an acct. for my behaviourin Keeping them so long—We did not forget you at the time of making Laws, your part of the Country is too remote from ours to attend our Convention you must have Laws made by an Assembly of your own, I have prepared a plan which I hope you’l approve but more of that when we meet which I hope will be soon, tho ’til Col. Boone comes cant say when—Am extreamly sorry for the affair with the Indians on the 23dof last month. I wish it may not have a bad effect, but will use my endeavors to find out who they were & have the matter settled—your spirited conduct gives me great Pleasure—Keep your men in heart if possible, now is our time, the Indians must not drive us—depend upon it that the Chief men and warriors of the Cherokees will not countenance what there men attempted and will punish them—Pray my Dear Sir dont let any person settle Lower down the valey I am affraid they are now too low & must come away I did not want any person to settle yet below Cumberland gap—My Brother will [tell] you of the news of these parts—in haste DrSir....”
In December, John Williams wrote Captain Martin from Boonesborough and his letter gives us a closer insight into affairs along Boone’s Road:
“... With respect to the complaints of the inhabitants of Powells Valley with regard to cattle being lodged there, I should think it altogether unjust than [that] non-inhabitants should bring in cattle to destroy and eat up the range of the inhabitants’ stock; Yet, Sir, I cannot conceive that Col. Hart’s stopping his stock there, when on their way here, to recruit them for their journey, can be the least infringement. Col. Hart is a proprietor, & [has] as great a right in the country as any one man. In the Valley are many lands yet unentered; and certainly if there be a right in letting stock into the range, he has a right equal to any man alive. I therefore hope you will endeavor to convince the inhabitants thereof, and that it is no indulgence to Col. Hart, but a right he claims, and what I think him justly entitled to.
I hope to have the pleasure of seeingyou at Boonesborough the 21stinstant—in the meantime making not the least doubt but that you will use every justifiable Method in Keeping up peace and harmony in the Valley”[11]
As indicated in the former letter, the emigrants from the colonies were encroaching upon the Cherokee lands beyond the Henderson purchase. Joseph Martin was under the necessity of protesting to the Assembly of North Carolina against settlers from that state pressing beyond the Henderson lands and settling in the Cherokee country.[12]It is seen by Colonel Henderson’s letter that Boone’s Road marked the most westerly limit to which pioneers could go with safety. Irresponsible Cherokees invaded the Henderson purchase, and equally irresponsible (or ignorant) whites invaded the Cherokee country. The difficulty probably lay in not having a definite, plain boundary line that he who ran might recognize.
The settlement here in Powell’s Valleymeant everything to the pioneers of Kentucky. This is made additionally plain by the attempt of interested parties to have Captain Martin’s Indian Agency removed from Long Island to a point on Boone’s Road near Cumberland Gap. In December 1782 William Christian wrote Governor Harrison from “Great [Long] Island,” explaining the dependence of the inhabitants (undoubtedly both red and white) upon Martin in time of need. “I find,” he wrote, “that the party here, consisting of fifty odd, are living on Col. Martin’s corn. Whenever a family begins to be in a starving condition, it is very probable they will push for this place & throw themselves upon him for bread.”[13]
Fourteen days later he wrote from Mahanaim to “Hon. Col. Sampson Matthews” of Richmond; protesting against Virginia’s Indian Agency being kept at Long Island, North Carolina; and urging that it be removed to near Cumberland Gap:
“The Gap is near half way betwixt our settlements on Holston and Kentucky, and a post there would be a resting place forour poor citizens going back and forward, and would be a great means of saving the lives of hundreds of them. For it seldom happens that Indians will kill people near where they trade; & it is thereabouts the most of the mischief on the road has been done.... I view the change I propose as of great importance to the frontier of Washington, [County] to our people journeying to & from Kentucky, particularly the poor families moving out....”[14]
It was, throughout the eighteenth century, exceedingly dangerous to travel Boone’s Road; and those who journeyed either way joined together and traveled in “companies.” Indeed there was risk enough for the most daring, in any case; but a well-armed “company” of tried pioneers on Boone’s Road was a dangerous game upon which to prey. It was customary to advertise the departure of a company either from Virginia or Kentucky, in local papers; in order that any desiring to make the journey might know of the intended departure. The principal rendezvous in Kentucky was the frontier settlement ofCrab Orchard. Certain of these advertisements are extremely interesting; the verbal changes are significant if closely read:
Noticeis hereby given, that a company will meet at the Crab Orchard, on Sunday the 4thday of May, to go through the wilderness, and to set out on the 5th. at which time most of the Delegates to the state convention will go[15]A large company will meet at the Crab orchard on sunday the 25thof May, in order to make an early start on Monday the 26ththrough the wilderness for the old settlement[16]A large company will meet at the Crab Orchard on the 15th. day of May, in readiness to start on the 16th. through the Wilderness for Richmond[17]NoticeIs hereby given that several gentlemen propose meeting at the Crab-orchard on the 4th. of June in perfect readiness to move early the next morning through the Wilderness[18]NoticeA large company will meet at the Crab-Orchard the 19th. of November in order to start the next day through the Wilderness. As it is very dangerous on account of the Indians, it is hoped each person will go well armed[19]
Notice
is hereby given, that a company will meet at the Crab Orchard, on Sunday the 4thday of May, to go through the wilderness, and to set out on the 5th. at which time most of the Delegates to the state convention will go[15]
A large company will meet at the Crab orchard on sunday the 25thof May, in order to make an early start on Monday the 26ththrough the wilderness for the old settlement[16]
A large company will meet at the Crab Orchard on the 15th. day of May, in readiness to start on the 16th. through the Wilderness for Richmond[17]
Notice
Is hereby given that several gentlemen propose meeting at the Crab-orchard on the 4th. of June in perfect readiness to move early the next morning through the Wilderness[18]
Notice
A large company will meet at the Crab-Orchard the 19th. of November in order to start the next day through the Wilderness. As it is very dangerous on account of the Indians, it is hoped each person will go well armed[19]
It appears that unarmed persons sometimes attached themselves to companies and relied on others to protect them in times of danger. One advertisement urged that everyone should go armed and “not to depend on others to defend them.”[20]
The frequency of the departure of such companies suggests the great amount of travel on Boone’s Road. As early as 1788parties were advertised to leave Crab Orchard May 5, May 15, May 26, June 4, and June 16. Nor does it seem that there was much abatement during the more inclement (safer?) months; in the fall of the same year companies were advertised to depart November 19, December 9, and December 19. Yet at this season the Indians were often out waylaying travelers—driven no doubt by hunger to deeds of desperation. The sufferings of such redskinned marauders have found little place in history; but they are, nevertheless, particularly suggestive. One story, which has not perhaps been toldad nauseam, is to the point; and would be amusing if it were not so fatally conclusive. In the winter of 1787-88 a party on Boone’s Road was attacked by Indians not far from the Kentucky border. Their horses were plundered of goods, but the travelers escaped. Hurrying “in” to the settlements a company was raised to make a pursuit. By their tracks in the snow the Indians were accurately followed. They were overtaken at a camp, where they were drying their blankets, &c., before a greatfire. At the first charge the savages, completely surprised, took to their heels—stark naked. Not satisfied with recovering the stolen goods the Kentuckians pursued the fugitives into the mountains. Along the course they found trees stripped of pieces of bark, with which the Indians had attempted to cover their bodies. They were not overtaken, though some of their well protected pursuers had their own feet frost-bitten. The awful fate of the savages is unquestionable.
Before Richard Henderson arrived in Kentucky Daniel Boone wrote him: “My advice to you, sir, is to come or send as soon as possible. Your company is desired greatly, for the people are very uneasy, but are willing to stay and venture their lives with you, and now is the time to flustrate the intentions of the Indians, and keep the country whilst we are in it. If we give way to them now, it will ever be the case.”
This letter shows plainly how the best informed man in Kentucky regarded Henderson’s settlement at Boonesborough. Henderson’s purchase was repudiated byboth Virginia and North Carolina; but the Virginia Legislature confirmed Henderson’s sales of land, in so far as they were made to actual settlers, and not to speculators, Henderson and his associates were granted land in lieu of that taken from them. The Transylvania Company, while looked upon askance by many who preferred to risk their tomahawk claim rights to those the Company granted, exerted as great a moral influence in the first settlement of Kentucky as Daniel Boone affirmed it would—a greater influence than any other company before the Revolutionary War.
What it meant to the American colonies to have a brave band of pioneers in Kentucky at that crucial epoch, is an important chapter in the history of Boone’s Road.
History was fast being made in Kentucky when the Revolutionary struggle reached the crisis in 1775 at Concord and Lexington. South of the Ohio River Virginia’s new empire was filling with the conquerors of the West. The Mississippi Valley counted a population of thirteen thousand, three thousand being the population of New Orleans. St. Louis, in Spanish possession, was carrying on a brisk trade with the Indians on the Missouri. Vincennes, the British port on the Wabash, had a population of four hundred whites. Detroit, the metropolis of the West, numbered fifteen hundred inhabitants, more than double the number in the dashing days of Gladwin only a decade before. The British flag also waved at Kaskaskia on the Mississippi, and at Sandusky. This fringe of British forts on thenorth was separated from the American metropolis of the West, Pittsburg, and from the first fortresses built in Kentucky, by leagues of forests, dark as when Bouquet pierced them; and filled with sullen Indian nations, awed for the time being by Dunmore’s invasion, but silently biding their time to avenge themselves for the loss of the meadow lands of Ken-ta-kee.
Such was the condition of affairs when, in April 1775, the open struggle for independence of the American colonies was roughly precipitated at Lexington. It might seem to the casual observer that the colonists, who were now hastening by way of Boone’s Wilderness Road into the Virginian Kentucky, could not feel the intense jealousy for American interests which was felt by the patriots in the East. On the contrary, there is evidence that these first pioneers into the West had a profound knowledge of the situation; and a sympathy for the struggling patriots, which was enhanced even by the distance which separated them, and the hardships they had endured. Not a few of them, too, had known personally of the plundering Britishofficials and the obnoxious taxes. It is the proud boast of Kentuckians that in the center of their beautiful Blue Grass country was erected the first monument to the first dead of the Revolution. A party of pioneers heard the news of the Battle of Lexington while sitting about their camp fire. Long into the night the rough men told and retold the news, and before morning named the new settlement they were to make, Lexington, in honor of New England’s dead.
It was not at all evident at first what the war was going to amount to in the West. Scarcely more was known in the West of the Revolutionary War than had been known two decades before of the French and Indian War. But at the outset it was plain that there was to be a tremendous struggle on both sides to gain the allegiance, as the British desired, of the Indian nations which lay between the Ohio River and the Great Lakes. For two years the struggle in the East went on, engrossing the entire attention of both parties. During 1776 and 1777 the history of the West is merely the continuation of the bloody story of theyears which led up to Dunmore’s campaign, like the savage attack on Wheeling, in September, 1777. Slowly the Indians forgot Lewis’s crushing victory at Point Pleasant, and their solemn pledges at Camp Charlotte; and were raiding the feeble Kentucky posts with undiminished relish, or giving the Long Knives plenty of provocation for the barbarities of which the latter are known to have been guilty.
The opening scene of the Revolutionary War in the West was the most important phase of the war in the history of Boone’s Wilderness Road; for at the very outset the question was decided once for all whether or not that thin, long, priceless path to Kentucky through the Watauga settlement was to be held or lost. If it could not be held, there was no hope left for the brave men who had gone to found that western empire beyond the Cumberland Mountains. With their line of retreat cut in two by the southern Indians, they were left without hope of succor or success: for the success of their enterprise depended upon the inspiration their advance gave to those behind them. None would come ifthe Wautauga settlement did not survive.
The British agents among the Southern Indians—the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws and Chickasaws—precipitated a quick and early struggle along this historic pathway by goading the Indians into a murderous attack upon the Watauga settlement. The Cherokees who had sold the Transylvania Company its lands, were the most easily incited to war, and fifty packhorse loads of ammunition scattered through their towns in those deep mountain valleys where the two Carolinas and Georgia meet, determined an outburst in July, 1776. Straight north from them lay the rude beginnings of civilization on the headwaters of the Tennessee, and further “in” was the frontier line of Virginia. The headquarters of the Watauga settlement may be said to have been Fort Watauga, commanded by the heroes Robertson and Sevier; here Boone had made the treaty with the Cherokees for Richard Henderson, a trifle over a year ago. Eaton’s, Evan Shelby’s, John Shelby’s, Campbell’s, and the Wommack forts were the important way stations on this path from Virginia toKentucky. Two Indian parties larger than the others made for Fort Watauga and Eaton’s Station, and the defenders of the latter post, learning from their scouts that a formidable array under the notorious Dragging Canoe was coming, resolved to give them a hot, unexpected welcome. Accordingly, on the morning of July twentieth nearly two hundred brown forms could have been seen stealing away from the fort in two thin lines half lost in the fog toward the open land known as “the Flats” near the “Long Island” of the Holston. In the march an advance party of a score of savages was met and put to flight. No other signs of the enemy could be discovered and the men started back to their fort at the end of the day.
Dragging Canoe, not less audacious than his foes, awaited his time, and when the whites were marching homeward, came down upon them, his savages forming a wedge-shaped line of battle. Instantly the borderers fell back to the right and left, and with a desperate quietness awaited the onslaught. The Indian plan of rushing the whites off their feet by an overwhelming charge failed; the borderers settled deeper into the ground and met the rush and dashed the savage line into fragments. One charge—and all was over. There was no recovering from this form of attack for untrained soldiery, and the assaulting band instantly broke and fled. This battle of Long Island Flats was the first of the series of victories for the Watauga pioneers; its importance can hardly be measured today.
Its best fruit was that it brought other victories to the encouraged Wataugans. On the same day the other Indian horde invested and assailed Fort Watauga at dawn. Only about two score men were at home to defend a large number of women and children, but they were fully equal to the emergency and with a frightful burst of fire drove back the line of savages which could just be seen advancing at that hour when Indians invariably made their attacks—the early dawn. Robertson was senior officer in command, and Sevier his brave assistant. The latter, having learned of the Indian uprising, characteristically wrote a message to the people far away onthe Virginia border to look well to their homes—never even asking that assistance be sent to the much more feeble and vastly more endangered Watauga settlement on the Kentucky road.
Elsewhere the border warfare was being waged with varying fortune; a small band of Georgian frontiersmen invaded the Cherokee country[20*]in the hope of capturing a notorious British agent, Cameron; it suffered heavily through the faithlessness of the Cherokees. The whole southern frontier was aroused, and plans for dashes into the Cherokee country were made but could not be forwarded simultaneously. Yet Cameron and his Tories and Indians acted in unison and brought sudden desolation into South Carolina. The force of the blow was broken by the brave Colonel Andrew Williamson, who, gathering over a thousand volunteers near the end of July began the first important invasion of the Cherokee country. Near Eseneka, the Cherokee town, the Carolinians found Cameron and won a costly victory. After some internal dissensions the little armygot on its mettle and went steadily forward to wipe out the lower Cherokee towns, which was completely accomplished by the middle of August. Scarcity of ammunition, only, kept Williamson from attacking the middle towns.
This task fell to the lot of the second expedition into the Cherokee country. This was a joint campaign waged by North and South Carolina, and Virginia, each to furnish two thousand men. The North Carolinians under Rutherford were earliest in the field. This officer with twenty-four hundred men left the head of the Catawba and opened “Rutherford’s Trace” leading to Swananoa Gap in the Blue Ridge and on to the middle Cherokee towns by way of Warrior’s Ford of French Broad and Mount Cowee. The middle towns were destroyed, and, uniting with Williamson, the two bodies of men swept over the Cherokee valley towns until “all the Cherokee settlements west of the Appalachians had been destroyed from the face of the earth, neither crops nor cattle being left.”
While the Carolinians had been sweeping into the lower Cherokee country, theVirginia troops had been assembling at the Long Island of the Holston under their leader Colonel William Christian. Their campaign against the Overhill towns was slowly formed here on the little westward pathway, and it was not until the first of October that all the contributions of men and arms from the settlements between Fort Watauga and the Virginia frontier were received. The advance, by way of Big Island of the Holston, was slow but determined—each encampment being made absolutely secure against surprise. The Indians, learning of the strength of Christian’s army, knew better than to resist. They retired without a struggle and the borderers reached the heart of the Overhill country on the fifth day of November. Here they ravaged, burned, and razed to their hearts’ content, until a deputation imploring peace came from the broken tribes. In this action old Dragging Canoe would have no part but stole away with a few followers toward the Chickamauga. Christian agreed to a treaty which definitely marked out the boundary line between the Indians and the whites, andthen returned home leaving a garrison near the Kentucky path by the Holston. In the words of Roosevelt, who of all writers has done this campaign most justice: “The Watauga people and the westerners generally were the real gainers by the war. Had the Watauga settlements been destroyed, they would no longer have covered the Wilderness Road to Kentucky; and so Kentucky must perforce have been abandoned. But the followers of Robertson and Sevier stood stoutly for their homes; not one of them fled over the mountains. The Cherokees had been so roughly handled that for several years they did not again go to war as a body; and this not only gave the settlers a breathing time, but also enabled them to make themselves so strong that when the struggle was renewed they could easily hold their own. The war was thus another and important link in the chain of events by which the west was won; and had any link in the chain snapped during these early years, the peace of 1783 would probably have seen the trans-Alleghany country in the hands of a non-American power.” If the holding of this pathwaywas of such moment the value of the pathway is plainly understood.
Turning now to the end of Boone’s Road, it will be necessary to review briefly the Revolutionary War in the “far” West; though in many of the campaigns the road itself played no part, in a large and genuine sense it was the pilgrims of Boone’s Road who fought the most important battles of the Revolution in the West.
Early in the struggle in the West, far-sighted ones saw signs of the growing despicable alliance of the savages to British interests; and before the bloody year of 1778 opened, it was only a question of how much England wanted of the savage allies who were crowded about their forts along the lakes. It is a terrible blot on the history of British rule in America, that when driven to face the same situation, English officers in the West used every means of retaliation for the use of which they so roundly condemned French officials a quarter of a century before. American officers employed Indians as guides and scouts, and were guilty of provoking inter-tribal war; but they didnot pay Indians for bringing in British scalps, or praise them for their murderous successes and equip them for further service. As a brave American officer said, “Let this reproach remain on them”—and the people of the West will never forget the reproach, nor forgive! They remember, and always will remember, the burning words of Washington written more than ten years after the close of the Revolution: “All the difficulties we encounter with the Indians, their hostilities, the murder of helpless women and children along all our frontiers, results from the conduct of the agents of Great Britain in this country.” There are today, in hundreds of homes of descendants of the pioneers in Kentucky, memories of the inhuman barbarities of British officers during the Revolution; these will never be forgotten, and will never fail to prejudice generations yet unborn. The reproach will remain on them.
At the outbreak of the war, chiefs of the Indian nations were invited to Pittsburg, where the nature of the struggle was explained to them in the following parable:
“Suppose a father had a little son whomhe loved and indulged while young, but growing up to be a youth, began to think of having some help from him; and making up a small pack, he bid him carry it for him. The boy cheerfully takes this pack up, following his father with it. The father finding the boy willing and obedient, continues in this way; and as the boy grows stronger, so the father makes the pack in proportion larger; yet as long as the boy is able to carry the pack, he does so without grumbling. At length, however, the boy having arrived at manhood, while the father is making up the pack for him, in comes a person of an evil disposition, and, learning who was to be the carrier of the pack, advises the father to make it heavier, for surely the son is able to carry a larger pack. The father, listening rather to the bad adviser than consulting his own judgment and the feelings of tenderness, follows the advice of the hard-hearted adviser, and makes up a heavy load for his son to carry. The son, now grown up, examining the weight of the load he is to carry, addresses the father in these words: ‘Dear Father, this pack is tooheavy for me to carry, do pray lighten it; I am willing to do what I can, but am unable to carry this load.’ The father’s heart having by this time become hardened, and the bad adviser calling to him, ‘Whip him if he disobeys,’ and he refusing to carry the pack, the father orders his son to take up the pack and carry it off or he will whip him, and already takes up a stick to beat him. ‘So,’ says the son, ‘am I to be served thus for not doing what I am unable to do? Well, if entreaties avail nothing with you, Father, and it is to be decided by blows, whether or not I am able to carry a pack so heavy, then I have no other choice left me, but that of resisting your unreasonable demand by my strength, and thus by striking each other learn who is the strongest.’”
The Indians were urged to become neutral in the struggle that was opening. Impossible as such a course would have been to men who loved war better than peace, certain tribes promised to maintain neutrality. In a few months, however, most of the nations were in open or secret alliance with British officers. Only thebetter element of the Delaware nation, led by Captain White Eyes, became attached to the American cause. England was always handicapped in her use of the American Indian, because of the want of men who could successfully exert control over him. Even when the forts of the French in the West passed into British possession, Frenchmen were retained in control, since no Englishman could so well rule the savages who made the forts their rendezvous. The beginning of the successful employment of the Indians against the growing Virginian empire south of the Ohio, and against the multiplying cabins and forts of the Long Knives, may loosely be said to have begun in the spring of 1778 when three northern renegades, Simon Girty, Matthew Elliott, and Alexander McKee, eluded the continental General Hand at Pittsburg and took service under Lieutenant-governor Hamilton at Detroit. Bred to border warfare, and well known among the Indians from the Susquehanna to the Missouri, these three men were the “most effective tools for the purposes of border warfare” that the British could havesecured. Hamilton immediately began to plan the invasion of Pennsylvania and the conquest of Pittsburg. The campaign was condemned by his superiors in the East, and was forgotten by its originator—when the news of a bold invasion of his own territory by a Virginian army suddenly reached his ears.
The Transylvania Company came silently but suddenly to an end when the Kentuckians elected George Rogers Clark and Gabriel John Jones members of the Virginian assembly, for the assembly erected the county of Kentucky out of the land purchased by Henderson at Fort Watauga in 1775. Upon bringing this about, Clark, a native of Virginia and a hero of Dunmore’s War, returned to Kentucky nourishing greater plans. With clear eyes he saw that the increasing affiliation of Indian and British interests meant that England, even though she might be unsuccessful in the East, could keep up an interminable and disastrous warfare “along the rear of the colonies,” as long as she held forts on the northern edge of the Black Forest. Clark sent spies northward, who gained information confirming his suspicions; and then he hurried eastward, with his bold plan of conquering the “strongholds of British and Indian barbarity”—Kaskaskia, Vincennes, and Detroit.
He came at a fortunate time. The colonies were rejoicing over the first great victory of the early war, Saratoga. Hope, everywhere, was high. From Patrick Henry, Governor of Virginia, Clark received two orders, one of which was to attack the British post Kaskaskia. He at once set out for Pittsburg to raise, in the West (where both Dunmore and Lewis raised their armies), troops for the most brilliant military achievement in western history. Descending the Ohio to Kentucky, where he received reënforcements, Clark marched silently through the forests—with one hundred and thirty-five chosen men—to Kaskaskia, which he took in utter surprise July 4, 1778. “Keep on with your merriment,” he said to revelers whom he surprised at a dance, “but remember you dance under Virginia, not Great Britain.” Clark brought the news of the alliance recently made betweenFrance and the United States into the Illinois country and used it with telling effect. A French priest at Vincennes raised a Virginian flag over that fort, telling the inhabitants and the Indians that their “French Father had come to life.” In October Virginia incorporated the “County of Illinois” within her western empire—the first portion of the land north of the Ohio River to come under the administration of one of the states of the Union.
Contemporaneously with Clark’s stirring conquest, an expedition was raised at Pittsburg to march against the Indians in the neighborhood of the British fort at Sandusky—possibly to counteract the rumored attempt to invade Pennsylvania, by Hamilton at Detroit. Troops and supplies were to be assembled at Fort Pitt, where the famous route of Bouquet was to be followed toward the lakes. The expedition was put in charge of General Lachlan McIntosh. Distressing delays made the half-hearted Indians who were to guide the army, chafe; and McIntosh started before his stores arrived, fearing that longer delaywould alienate his friendly Indians, among whom was the Delaware, White Eyes, now turned from a neutral course. At the mouth of the Beaver River McIntosh built the fort which bears his name—the first fort built by the Americans on the northern side of the Ohio. Advancing westward over Bouquet’s tri-trail track with twelve hundred men, he reached the Muskingum (Tuscarawas) River in fourteen days, arriving November 19, 1778, where he erected Fort Laurens.
But Lieutenant-governor Hamilton, learning of Clark’s seizure of Kaskaskia and the treachery of the fickle inhabitants of Vincennes, set about to reconquer Illinois. Departing from Detroit on a beautiful October day, the expedition descended the Detroit River and entered the Maumee. The weather changed and it was seventy-one days before the American Captain Helm at Vincennes surrendered his wretched fort and became a prisoner of war. Hamilton was unable to push on to Kaskaskia because of the lack of provisions, and sat down to watch the winter out where he was. Thus the spectacular year1778 closed—Clark at Kaskaskia, watching his antagonist feasting at Vincennes; McIntosh’s little guard at Fort Laurens undergoing continual harassing and siege. In the East the evacuation of Philadelphia, the battle of Monmouth, and the terrible Wyoming massacre were the events of the year.
The year 1779 was to see as brilliant an achievement in the West, as the East was to see in the capture of Stony Point. This was the recapture of Vincennes by Clark. Joined by an experienced adventurer, Colonel Francis Vigo, formerly of the Spanish service, Clark was persuaded that he must capture Hamilton or Hamilton would capture him. Accordingly, on the fifth of February, Clark set out for Vincennes with one hundred and seventy trusty men. In twelve days they reached the Embarras River, which was crossed on the twenty-first with great bravery, the men wading in water to their shoulders. On the twenty-fifth, Hamilton, the most surprised man in the world, was compelled to surrender. Within two weeks he was on his way to Virginia; where, being found guilty ofbuying Virginian scalps from the Indians, he was imprisoned, but was exchanged the year following.
In July, while returning from New Orleans with supplies; Colonel Rogers and his party of Kentuckians were overwhelmed by Indians, under Girty and Elliott, on the Ohio River. In a terrible running battle sixty Kentuckians were killed. The sad news spread quickly through Kentucky and a thousand tongues called loudly for revenge. In response Major Bowman led three hundred volunteers up the Scioto Valley and attacked the Shawanese capital. There was bungling somewhere and a retreat was ordered before victory was achieved.
During this summer the conqueror of Illinois expected to complete his triumph by the capture of Detroit. A messenger from Thomas Jefferson, Governor of Virginia, brought tidings that troops for this expedition would be forthcoming from Virginia and Kentucky, and rendezvous at Vincennes in July. When the time came, Clark found only a few soldiers from Kentucky and none at all from Virginia. TheDetroit expedition fell through because of Virginia’s poverty in money and in men; though artillery, ammunition, and tools had been secured for the campaign from Fort Pitt, at Washington’s command. But with masterly foresight Governor Jefferson secured the establishment of a fort on the Mississippi River in the Illinois country. During this summer the little garrison which General McIntosh left buried in the Black Forest at Fort Laurens fled back over the trail to Pittsburg. Nowhere north of the Ohio were the scenes frequently enacted in Kentucky reproduced so vividly as at little Fort Laurens, on the upper Muskingum. At one time fourteen of the garrison were decoyed and slaughtered. At another time an army numbering seven hundred warriors invested the little half-forgotten fortress and its intrepid defenders. A slight embankment may be seen today near Bolivar, Ohio, which marks one side of the first fort erected in what is now Ohio, those near the lake shore excepted. Thus closed the year 1779: Clark again in possession of Vincennes, as well as Kaskaskia and Cahokia, but disappointed in the failure of the Detroit expedition; Hamilton languishing in a Virginia dungeon, twelve hundred miles from his capital—Fort Detroit; Fort Laurens abandoned, and the Kentucky country covered with gloom over Rogers’s terrible loss and Bowman’s inglorious retreat from the valley of the Scioto. On the other hand, the East was glorying in Mad Anthony Wayne’s capture of Stony Point, Sullivan’s rebuke to the Indians, and Paul Jones’s electrifying victory on the sea.
In 1780 four expeditions set forth, all of them singular in character, and noteworthy. The year before, 1779, Spain had declared war upon England. The new commander at Detroit took immediate occasion to regain control of the Mississippi by attacking the Spanish town of St. Louis. This expedition, under Captain Sinclair, descended the Mississippi from Prairie du Chien. The attack was not successful, but six whites were killed and eighteen taken prisoner.
At the time of Bowman’s expedition against the Shawanese, in the preceding year a British officer, Colonel Bird, hadassembled a noteworthy array at Sandusky preparatory to the invasion of Kentucky. News of the Kentucky raid up the Scioto Valley set Bird’s Indians to “cooking and counselling” again, instead of acting. This year Bird’s invasion materialized, and the fate of the Kentucky settlements trembled in the balance. The invading army of six hundred Indians and Canadians was armed with two pieces of artillery. There is little doubt that this army could have battered down every “station” in Kentucky and swept victoriously through the new settlements. Ruddles’s station on the Licking was first menaced, and surrendered quickly. Martin’s fort also capitulated. But here Bird paused in his conquest and withdrew northward, the barbarity of the Indian allies, for once at least, shocking a British commander. The real secret of the abrupt retreat lay no doubt in the fact that the increasing immigration had brought such vast numbers of people into Kentucky that Bird dared not penetrate further into the land for fear of a surprise. The gross carelessness of the newly arrived inhabitants, in not taking the precaution to buildproper defenses against the Indians, undoubtedly appeared to the British commander as a sign of strength and fortitude which he did not have the courage to put to the test. As a matter of fact, he could probably have annihilated every settlement between the Ohio River and Cumberland Gap.
In retaliation Kentucky sent an immense army north of the Ohio, a thousand men volunteering under Clark, the hero of Vincennes. A large Indian army was routed near the Shawanese town Pickaway. Many towns with standing crops were burned. A similar expedition from Pittsburg under General Brodhead burned crops and villages on the upper Muskingum.
In return for the attack on St. Louis, the Spanish commander at that point sent an expedition against the deserted British post of St. Joseph. Upon declaring war against England in the previous year, Spain had occupied Natchez, Baton Rouge, and Mobile, which, with St. Louis, gave her command of the Mississippi. But his Catholic Majesty was building other Spanish castles in America. He desired theconquest of the British northwest, to offset the British capture of Gibraltar. This “capture” of St. Joseph led to an amusing but ominous claim on the part of Spain at the Treaty of Paris: when, with it for a pretext, the Spanish Crown claimed all lands west of a line drawn from St. Joseph southward through what is now Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. The Mississippi River boundary was, however, stoutly contended for and obtained by the American commissioners.
In this year the first “gunboat” to ply western waters was built under direction of Brigadier-general Clark. It was a galley armed with light artillery. This queer-looking craft soon fell into disuse, though it became a terror to the Indians who continually infested the lower Ohio. It was relished little better by the militia, who disliked service on water. But it stands as a typical illustration of the enterprise and devotion of the “Father of Kentucky” to the cause for which he had done so much.
The year following, 1781, saw the termination of the Revolution in the East,when Cornwallis’s army marched down the files of French and American troops at Yorktown to the melancholy tune “The World’s Turned Upside Down.” The Treaty of Paris was not signed until 1783, and in the meantime the bloodiest year of all the war in the West, 1782, was adding its horrors to all that had gone before. While the East was rejoicing, the central West saw the terrible massacre of Gnadenhutten—the more terrible because committed by white men themselves.
In May, 1782, the atrocities of the savages (encouraged by the British) along the Pennsylvanian and Virginian border were becoming unbearable, and an expedition was raised in the Monongahela country to penetrate to the Indian-infested country on the Sandusky River. Volunteers, four hundred in number, all mounted, rendezvoused at the Ohio near Mingo Bottom; they elected as commander Colonel William Crawford, an experienced officer of the Revolutionary War, following Washington faithfully through the hard Long Island and Delaware campaigns. Crawford struck straight through the forests, even avoidingIndian trails, at first, in the hope of taking his foe utterly by surprise. But his wily foe completely outwitted him and the Indians and British knew well each day’s progress. The battle was fought in a prairie land near the Sandusky River in what is now Crawford County, Ohio, and though not a victory for either side, an American retreat was ordered during the night following. Colonel Crawford was captured, among others, and suffered a terrible death at the stake, perhaps the saddest single atrocity committed by the redman in western history. This gray-haired veteran of the Revolution gave his life to appease the Indians for a massacre of Christian Indians perpetrated by savage borderers from the Monongahela country the year previous.
Kentucky had witnessed minor activities of the savages during the spring. In August a grand Indian army assembled on the lower Scioto for the purpose of invading Kentucky. The assembly was harangued by Simon Girty, and moved southward and invaded Bryant’s Station, one of the strongest forts in Kentucky.After a terrible day, during which re-enforcements kept arriving, only to be compelled to fight their way into the fort or flee, Girty attempted to secure capitulation. Outwitted, the renegade resorted to a stratagem, as cunningly devised as it was terribly successful. In the night the entire Indian army vanished as if panic-stricken. Meat was left upon the spits. Garments lay strewn about the encampment and along the route of the fugitive army. The more experienced of the border army, which was soon in full cry on the trail, scented the deception; but the headstrong hurried onward in hope of revenge. At the crossing of the Licking, near the lower Blue Licks, the Indian ambush received the witless pursuers with a frightful burst of flame, and the battle of Blue Licks became a running fire, a headlong rout and massacre.
A thousand men joined Clark for a retaliatory invasion of the north, and the usual destruction of villages and crops was accomplished. This may be considered the last military event in the Revolutionary War in the West.