Chapter I (5)

In the whole history of America, from the time when it first [108] became apparent that the occupancy of the country was the object of the whites, up to the present period, is there perhaps to be found a solitary instance, in which an attempt, made by the English to effect a settlement in a wilderness claimed by the Natives, was not succeeded by immediate acts of hostility on the part of the latter. Every advance of the kind was regarded by them, as tending to effect their expulsion from a country, which they had long considered as their own, and as leading, most probably, to their entire extinction as a people. This excited in them feelings of the most dire resentment; stimulating to deeds of cruelty and murder, at once to repel the encroachment and to punish its authors. Experience of the utter futility of those means to accomplish these purposes, has never availed to repress their use, or to produce an acquiesence in the wrong. Even attempts to extend jurisdiction over a country, the right of soil in which was never denied them, have ever given rise to the most lively apprehensions of their fatal consequences, and prompted to the employment of means to thwart that aim. An Indian sees no difference between the right of empire and the right of domain; and just as little can he discriminate between the right of property, acquired by the actual cultivation of the earth, and that which arises from its appropriation to other uses.

Among themselves they have lines of demarkation, which distinguish the territory of one nation from that of another; and these are of such binding authority, that a transgression of them by neighboring Indians, leads invariably to war. In treaties of purchase, and other conventional arrangements, made with them by the whites, the validity of their rights to land, have been repeatedly recognized; and an infraction of those rights by the Anglo-Americans, encounters opposition at its threshold. The history of every attempt to settle a wilderness, to which the Indian title was not previously extinguished, has consequently been a history of plunder, conflagration and massacre.

That the extension of white settlements into the Indian country, was the cause of the war of 1774, will be abundantly manifested by a recurrence to the early history of Kentucky; and a brief review of the circumstances connected with the first attempts to explore and make establishments in it. For several reasons, these circumstances merit a passing notice in this place. Redstone and Fort Pitt (now Brownsville and Pittsburgh) were for some time, the principal points of embarkation for emigrants to that country; many of whom were from the establishments which had been then not long made, on the Monongahela. The Indians, regarding the settlements in North Western Virginia as the line from which swarmed the adventurers to Kentucky, directed their operations to prevent the success of these adventurers, as well against the inhabitants of the upper country, as against them. While at the same time, in the efforts which were made to compel the Indians to desist from farther opposition, the North Western Virginians frequently combined [109] their forces, and acted in conjunction, the more certainly to accomplish that object. In truth the war, which was then commenced, and carried on with but little intermission up to the treaty of Fort Greenville in 1795 was a war in which they were equally interested, having for its aim the indiscriminate destruction of the inhabitants of both those sections of country, as the means of preventing the farther extension of settlements by the whites.[5]

When Kentucky was first begun to be explored, it is said not to have been claimed in individual property by any nation of Indians. Its extensive forests, grassy plains and thick cane brakes, abounding with every variety of game common to such latitudes, were used as common hunting grounds, and considered by them, as open for all who chose to resort to them. The Cherokees, the Chickasaws, the Cataubas, and the Chicamaugas, from the south east; and the Illinois, the Peorias, the Delawares, the Mingoes and Shawanees from the west, claimed and exercised equal rights and privileges within its limits. When the tribes of those different nations would however meet there, frequent collisions would arise between them; and so deadly were the conflicts ensuing upon these, that, in conjunction with the gloom of its dense forests, they acquired for it the impressive appellation of "the dark and bloody ground." But frequent and deadly as may have been those conflicts, they sprang from some other cause, than a claim to exclusive property in it.

In the summer of 1769, Daniel Boone, in company with John Finley (who had previously hunted through the country) and a few other men, entered Kentucky, and travelled over much of its surface, without meeting with an Indian, until the December following.[6] At this time Boone and John Steward (one of his companions,) while on a hunting excursion, were discovered by a party of Indians, who succeeded in making them prisoners. After a detention of but few days, these men effected their escape; & returning to their old camp, found that it had been plundered, and their associates, either killed or taken into captivity. They were shortly after joined by a brother of Daniel Boone and another man, from North Carolina, who were so fortunate in wandering through the wilderness, as to discover the only, though temporary residence of civilized man within several hundred miles. But the Indians had become alarmed for the possession of that country; and fearing that if Boone and Steward should be suffered to escape to the settlements, they might induce others to attempt its permanent occupancy, they sought with vigilance to discover and murder them. They succeeded in killing Steward; but Daniel Boone and his brother, then the only persons left (the man who came out with the younger Boone having been killed by a wolf,) escaped from them, and soon after returned to North Carolina.

The Indians were not disappointed in their expectations. The description given of the country by the Boones, soon led others to attempt its settlement; and in 1773, six families and about forty men, all under the guidance of Daniel Boone, commenced their journey [110] to Kentucky with a view of remaining there. Before they proceeded far, they were attacked in the rear by a party of Indians, who had been observing their movements; and who in the first fire killed six of the emigrants and dispersed their cattle. Nothwithstanding that, in the engagement which ensued upon this attack, the assailants were repulsed, yet the adventurers were so afflicted at the loss of their friends, and dispirited by such serious and early opposition, that they abandoned their purpose for a time, and returned to the inhabited parts of Tennessee.[7]

The Indians elated with their success in defeating this first attempt at the settlement of Kentucky, and supposing that the route pursued by the party which they had driven back, would be the pass for future adventurers, determined on guarding it closely, and checking, if possible, every similar enterprise. But while their attention was directed to this point, others found their way into the country by a different route and from a different direction.

The Virginia troops, who had served in the Canadian war, had been promised a bounty in Western lands. Many of them being anxious to ascertain their value, and deeming this a favorable period for the making of surveys, collected at Fort Pitt in the fall of 1773; and descending the Ohio river to its falls, at Louisville, proceeded from thence to explore the country preparatory to a perfection of their grants.[8]

About the same time too, General Thompson of Pennsylvania, commenced an extensive course of surveys, of the rich land on the North Fork of Licking; and other individuals following his example, in the ensuing winter the country swarmed with land adventurers and surveyors. So sensible were they all, that these attempts to appropriate those lands to their own use, would produce acts of hostility, that they went prepared to resist those acts; and the first party who took up their abode in Kentucky, no sooner selected a situation for their residence, than they proceeded to erect a fort for their security.[9] The conduct of the Indians soon convinced them that their apprehensions were not ill founded; and many of them, in consequence of the hostile movements which were being made, and the robberies which were committed, ascended the Ohio river to Wheeling.

It is not known that any murders were done previously to this, and subsequently to the attack and repulse of the emigrants who were led on by Boone in 1773. This event happened on the tenth day of October; and it was in April the ensuing year, that the land adventurers retired to Wheeling. In this interval of time, nothing could, perhaps, be done by the Indians, but make preparation [111] for hostilities in the spring. Indeed it very rarely happens, that the Indians engage in active war during the winter; and there is, moreover, a strong presumption, that they were for some time ignorant of the fact that there were adventurers in the country; and consequently, they knew of no object there, on which their hostile intentions could operate.--Be this as it may, it is certain that, from the movements of the Indians at the close of the winter, the belief was general, that they were assuming a warlike attitude, and meditating a continuance of hostilities. War was certainly begun on their part, when Boone and his associates, were attacked and driven back to the settlement; and if it abated for a season, that abatement was attributable to other causes, than a disposition to remain quiet and peaceable, while the country was being occupied by the whites.

If other evidence were wanting, to prove the fact that the war of 1774 had its origin in a determination of the Indians to repress the extension of white settlements, it could be found in the circumstance, that although it was terminated by the treaty with Lord Dunmore, yet it revived as soon as attempts were again made to occupy Kentucky, and was continued with increased ardour, 'till the victory obtained over them by General Wayne. For, notwithstanding that in the struggle for American liberty, those Indians became the allies of Great Britain, yet when independence was acknowledged, and the English forces withdrawn from the colonies, hostilities were still carried on by them; and, as was then well understood, because of the continued operation of those causes, which produced the war of 1774. That the Canadian traders and British emissaries, prompted the Indians to aggression, and extended to them every aid which they could, to render that aggression more effectually oppressive and overwhelming, is readily admitted. Yet this would not have led to a war, but for the encroachments which have been mentioned. French influence, united to the known jealousy of the Natives, would have been unavailingly exerted to array the Indians against Virginia, at the commencement of Braddock's war, but for the proceedings of the Ohio company, and the fact that the Pennsylvania traders represented the object of that association to be purely territorial. And equally fruitless would have been their endeavor to involve them in a contest [112] with Virginians at a later period, but for a like manifestation of an intention to encroach on their domain.

In the latter end of April 1774, a party of land adventurers, who had fled from the dangers which threatened them below, came in collision with some Indians, near the mouth of Captina, sixteen miles below Wheeling. A slight skirmish ensued, which terminated in the discomfiture of the whites, notwithstanding they had only one man wounded, and one or two of the enemy were killed. About the same time, happened the affair opposite the mouth of Yellow creek; a stream emptying into the Ohio river from the northwest, nearly midway between Pittsburg and Wheeling.[10]

In consequence of advices received of the menacing conduct of the Indians, Joshua Baker (who lived at this place) was preparing, together with his neighbors, to retire for safety, into some of the nearer forts, or to go to the older and more populous settlements, remote from danger. There was at that time a large party of Indians, encamped on both sides of Yellow creek, at its entrance into the river; and although in their intercourse at Baker's, they had not manifested an intention of speedily commencing depredations, yet he deemed his situation in the immediate contiguity of them, as being far from secure, and was on the eve of abandoning it, when a party of whites, who had just collected at his house, fired upon and killed some Indians, who were likewise there.--Among them were the brother and daughter of the celebrated chief, Logan.[11]

In justification of this conduct it has been said, that on the preceding evening a squaw came over from the encampment and informed Mrs. Baker that the Indians meditated the murder of her family on the next day; and that before the firing [113] at Baker's, two canoes, containing Indians painted and armed for war, were seen to leave the opposite shore. Under these circumstances, an apparently slight provocation, and one, which would not perhaps have been, otherwise heeded, produced the fatal result. As the canoes approached the shore, the party from Baker's commenced firing on them, and notwithstanding the opposition made by the Indians, forced them to retire.

An interval of quiet succeeded the happening of these events; but it was as the solemn stillness which precedes the eruption of an earthquake, when a volcanic explosion has given notice of its approach;--rendered more awful by the uncertainty where its desolating influence would be felt. It was however, a stillness of but short duration. The gathering storm soon burst over the devoted heads of those, who had neglected to seek a shelter from its wrath. The traders in the Indian country were the first victims sacrificed on the altar of savage ferocity; and a general massacre of all the whites found among them, quickly followed. A young man, discovered near the falls of Muskingum and within sight of White Eyes town, was murdered, scalped; literally cut to pieces, and the mangled members of his body, hung up on trees. White Eyes, a chief of the friendly Delawares, hearing the scalp halloo, went out with a party of his men; and seeing what had been done, collected the scattered limbs of the young man, and buried them. On the next day, they were torn from the ground, severed into smaller pieces, and thrown dispersedly at greater distances from each other.

[114] Apprized of impending danger, many of the inhabitants on the frontiers of North Western Virginia, retired into the interior, before any depredations were committed, in the upper country; some took refuge in forts which had been previously built; while others, collecting together at particular houses, converted them into temporary fortresses, answering well the purposes of protection, to those who sought shelter in them. Fort Redstone, which had been erected after the successful expedition of General Forbes; and Fort Pitt, at the confluence of the Alleghany and Monongahela rivers, afforded an asylum to many. Several private forts were likewise established in various parts of the country;[12] and every thing which individual exertion could effect, to ensure protection to the border inhabitants, was done.

Nor did the colonial government of Virginia neglect the security of her frontier citizens. When intelligence of the hostile disposition of the Natives, reached Williamsburg, the house of Burgesses was in session; and measures were immediately adopted, to prevent massacres, and to restore tranquillity. That these objects might be the more certainly accomplished, it was proposed by General Andrew Lewis (then a delegate from Bottetourt,) to organize a force, sufficient to overcome all intermediate opposition, and to carry the war into the enemy's country. In accordance to this proposition, orders were issued by Governor Dunmore for raising the requisite number of troops, and for making other necessary preparations for the contemplated campaign; the plan of which was concerted by the Governor, Gen. Lewis and Colonel Charles Lewis (then a delegate from Augusta.) But as some time must necessarily have elapsed before the consummation of the preparations which were being made; and as much individual suffering might result from the delays unavoidably incident to the raising, equipping and [115] organizing a large body of troops, it was deemed advisable to take some previous and immediate step to prevent the invasion of exposed and defenceless portions of the country.--The best plan for the accomplishment of this object was believed to be, the sending of an advance army into the Indian country, of sufficient strength to act offensively, before a confederacy could be formed of the different tribes, and their combined forces be brought into the field. A sense of the exposed situation of their towns in the presence of an hostile army, requiring the entire strength of every village for its defence, would, it was supposed, call home those straggling parties of warriors, by which destruction is so certainly dealt to the helpless and unprotected. In conformity with this part of the plan of operations, four hundred men, to be detailed from the militia west of the mountains, were ordered to assemble at Wheeling as soon as practicable. And in the mean time, lest the surveyors and land adventurers, who were then in Kentucky, might be discovered and fall a prey to the savages, Daniel Boone was sent by the Governor to the falls of Ohio, to conduct them home from thence, through the wilderness; the only practicable road to safety, the Ohio river being so effectually guarded as to preclude the hope of escaping up it.[13]

Early in June, the troops destined to make an incursion into the Indian country, assembled at Wheeling, and being placed under the command of Colonel Angus McDonald, descended the Ohio to the mouth of Captina. Debarking, at this place, from their boats and canoes, they took up their march to Wappatomica, an Indian town on the Muskingum. The country through which the army had to pass, was one unbroken forest, presenting many obstacles to its speedy advance, not the least of which was the difficulty of proceeding directly to the point proposed.[14] To obviate this, however, they were accompanied by three persons in the capacity of guides;[15] whose knowledge of the woods, and familiarity with those natural indices, which so unerringly mark the direction of the principal points, enabled them to pursue the direct course.--When they had approached within six miles of the town, the [116] army encountered an opposition from a party of fifty or sixty Indians lying in ambush; and before these could be dislodged, two whites were killed, and eight or ten wounded;--one Indian was killed, and several wounded. They then proceeded to Wappatomica without further molestation.[16]

When the army arrived at the town, it was found to be entirely deserted. Supposing that it would cross the river, the Indians had retreated to the opposite bank, and concealing themselves behind trees and fallen timber, were awaiting that movement in joyful anticipation of a successful surprise.--Their own anxiety and the prudence of the commanding officer, however, frustrated that expectation. Several were discovered peeping from their covert, watching the motion of the army; and Colonel McDonald, suspecting their object, and apprehensive that they would recross the river and attack him in the rear, stationed videttes above and below, to detect any such purpose, and to apprise him of the first movement towards effecting it. Foiled by these prudent and precautionary measures and seeing their town in possession of the enemy, with no prospect of wresting it from them, 'till destruction would have done its work, the Indians sued for peace; and the commander of the expedition consenting to negotiate with them, if he could be assured of their sincerity, five chiefs were sent over as hostages, and the army then crossed the river, with these in front.

When a negotiation was begun, the Indians asked, that one of the hostages might be permitted to go and convoke the other chiefs, whose presence, it was alleged, would be necessary to the ratification of a peace. One was accordingly released; and not returning at the time specified, another was then sent, who in like manner failed to return. Colonel McDonald, suspecting some treachery, marched forward to the next town, above Wappatomica, where another slight engagement took place, in which one Indian was killed and one white man wounded. It was then ascertained, that the time which should have been spent in collecting the other chiefs, preparatory to negotiation, had been employed in removing their old men, their women and children, together with what property could be readily taken off, and for making preparations for a combined attack on the Virginia troops. To punish this duplicity and to render peace really desirable, Col. McDonald burned their towns and destroyed their crops; [117] and being then in want of provisions, retraced his steps to Wheeling, taking with him the three remaining hostages, who were then sent on to Williamsburg.[17]

The inconvenience of supplying provisions to an army in the wilderness, was a serious obstacle to the success of expeditions undertaken against the Indians. The want of roads, at that early period, which would admit of transportation in wagons, rendered it necessary to resort to pack horses; and such was at times the difficulty of procuring these, that, not unfrequently, each soldier had to be the bearer of his entire stock of subsistence for the whole campaign. When this was exhausted, a degree of suffering ensued, often attended with consequences fatal to individuals, and destructive to the objects of the expedition. In the present case, the army being without provisions before they left the Indian towns, their only sustenance consisted of weeds, an ear of corn each day, and occasionally, a small quantity of venison: it being impracticable to hunt game in small parties, because of the vigilance and success of the Indians, in watching and cutting off detachments of this kind, before they could accomplish their purpose and regain the main army.

No sooner had the troops retired from the Indian country, than the savages, in small parties, invaded the settlements in different directions, seeking opportunities of gratifying their insatiable thirst for blood. And although the precautions which had been taken, lessened the frequency of their success, yet they did not always prevent it. Persons leaving the forts on any occasion, were almost always either murdered or carried into captivity,--a lot sometimes worse than death itself.

Perhaps the first of these incursions into North Western Virginia, after the destruction of the towns on the Muskingum, was that made by a party of eight Indians, at the head of which was the Cayuga chief Logan.[18] This very celebrated [118] Indian is represented as having hitherto, observed towards the whites, a course of conduct by no means in accordance with the malignity and steadfast implacability which influenced his red brethren generally; but was, on the contrary, distinguished by a sense of humanity, and a just abhorrence of those cruelties so frequently inflicted on the innocent and unoffending, as well as upon those who were really obnoxious to savage enmity. Such indeed were the acts of beneficence which characterized him, and so great his partiality for the English, that the finger of his brethren would point to his cabin as the residence of Logan, "the friend of white men." "In the course of the French war, he remained at home, idle and inactive;" opposed to the interference of his nation, "an advocate for peace." When his family fell before the fury of exasperated men, he felt himself impelled to avenge their deaths; and exchanging the pipe of peace, for the tomahawk of war, became active in seeking opportunities to glut his vengeance.[19] With this object in view, at the head of the party which has been mentioned, he traversed the county from the Ohio to the West Fork, before an opportunity was presented him of achieving any mischief. Their distance from what was supposed would be the theatre of war, had rendered the inhabitants of that section of country, comparatively inattentive to their safety. Relying on the expectation that the first blow would be struck on the Ohio, and that they would have sufficient notice of this to prepare for their own security, before danger could reach them, many had continued to perform the ordinary business of their farms.

On the 12th day of July, as William Robinson, Thomas Hellen and Coleman Brown were pulling flax in a field opposite the mouth of Simpson's creek, Logan and his party approached unperceived and fired at them. Brown fell instantly; his body perforated by several balls; and Hellen and Robinson [119] unscathed, sought safety in flight. Hellen being then an old man, was soon overtaken and made captive; but Robinson, with the elasticity of youth, ran a considerable distance before he was taken; and but for an untoward accident might have effected an escape. Believing that he was outstripping his pursuers, and anxious to ascertain the fact, he looked over his shoulder, but before he discovered the Indian giving chase, he ran with such violence against a tree, that he fell, stunned by the shock and lay powerless and insensible. In this situation he was secured with a cord; and when he revived, was taken back to the place where the Indians had Hellen in confinement, and where lay the lifeless body of Brown. They then set off to their towns, taking with them a horse which belonged to Hellen.

When they had approached near enough to be distinctly heard, Logan (as is usual with them after a successful scout,) gave the scalp halloo, and several warriors came out to meet them, and conducted the prisoners into the village. Here they passed through the accustomed ceremony of running the gauntlet; but with far different fortunes. Robinson, having been previously instructed by Logan (who from the time he made him his prisoner, manifested a kindly feeling towards him,) made his way, with but little interruption, to the council house; but poor Hellen, from the decrepitude of age, and his ignorance of the fact that it was a place of refuge, was sadly beaten before he arrived at it; and when he at length came near enough, he was knocked down with a war club, before he could enter. After he had fallen, they continued to beat and strike him with such unmerciful severity, that he would assuredly have fallen a victim to their barbarous usage, but that Robinson (at some peril for the interference) reached forth his hand and drew him within the sanctuary. When he had however, recovered from the effects of the violent beating which he had received, he was relieved from the apprehension of farther suffering, by being adopted into an Indian family.

A council was next convoked to resolve on the fate of Robinson; and then arose in his breast, feelings of the most anxious inquietude. Logan assured him, that he should not be killed; but the council appeared determined that he should die, and he was tied to the stake. Logan then addressed them, and with much vehemence, insisted that Robinson too should be spared; and had the eloquence displayed on that occasion been less than Logan is believed to have possessed, [120] it is by no means wonderful that he appeared to Robinson (as he afterwards said) the most powerful orator he ever heard. But commanding as his eloquence might have been, it seems not to have prevailed with the council; for Logan had to interpose otherwise than by argument or entreaty, to succeed in the attainment of his object. Enraged at the pertinacity with which the life of Robinson was sought to be taken, and reckless of the consequences, he drew the tomahawk from his belt, and severing the cords which bound the devoted victim to the stake, led him in triumph, to the cabin of an old squaw, by whom he was immediately adopted.

After this, so long as Logan remained in the town where Robinson was, he was kind and attentive to him; and when preparing to go again to war, got him to write the letter which was afterwards found on Holstein at the house of a Mr. Robertson, whose family were all murdered by the Indians. Robinson remained with his adopted mother, until he was redeemed under the treaty concluded at the close of the Dunmore campaign.

-----
[1] Mr. Jefferson, in his Notes on Virginia, represents this
as happening at Grave creek, which empties into the Ohio from
the south eastern, or Virginia side of this river, twelve miles
below Wheeling. Those who lived near at the time and are
supposed to have had the best opportunity of ascertaining the
fact, say that it happened near the mouth of Captina, a creek
sixteen miles below Wheeling, and on the Ohio side.

------

_Comment by R. G. T._--What is called the "Captina affair"
happened April 27th, at Pipe Creek, emptying into the Ohio from
the west, fourteen miles below Wheeling, and six above Captina
Creek. Two friendly Shawnees were killed here by a party
commanded by Michael Cresap, of Redstone, who at the time was
in the neighborhood of Wheeling, surveying and clearing farms
for new settlers. Cresap and his men, among whom was George
Rogers Clark, then a young surveyor who had a claim at the
mouth of Fish Creek, thereupon started out to destroy Chief
Logan's camp, at Baker's Bottom, opposite the mouth of Yellow
Creek, fifty-three miles up the Ohio, and forty miles west of
Pittsburg by land; but as Logan was a well-known friend of the
whites, they became ashamed of their project, and marched on
across country to Fort Redstone. Meanwhile, as will be seen in
due course, others were preparing to destroy Logan's band, and
on April 30th occurred that infamous massacre which Logan
wrongly believed to be Cresap's work.

[2] Capt. Bull was a Delaware chief whose original village
of Oghkwaga was on Unadilla Kiver, an eastern branch of the
Susquehanna, in what is now Boone county, N. Y. He had been the
prime mover in an attempt to interest the Delawares in
Pontiac's conspiracy (1763). In March, 1764, a strong party of
whites and friendly Indians were sent out to capture him, by
Sir William Johnson, English Indian superintendent in New York.
After a sharp struggle, Bull and a number of his adherents were
captured and conveyed in irons to New York City, where they
were imprisoned for a time, but finally discharged. The
Delaware towns on the Unadilla having been burned, Bull and
five families of his relatives settled what the whites called
Bulltown, on the Little Kanawha. This was at a salt spring
about a mile and a quarter below the present Bulltown P. O.,
Braxton county, Va. Capt. Bull and his people were inoffensive,
and very friendly to their white neighbors, as our author
says.--R. G. T.

[3] Adam Stroud lived on Elk River, a few miles south of
Indian Bulltown. The massacre of his family--his wife and seven
children--occurred in June, 1772. Shawnees were the murderers,
and not Bull's people.--R. G. T.

[4] Mr. McWhorter writes me that two others were Jesse
Hughes and John Cutright (corruption of Cartwright?), both of
them settlers on Hacker's Creek. Hughes was a noted border
scout, but a man of fierce, unbridled passions, and so
confirmed an Indian hater that no tribesman, however peaceful
his record, was safe in his presence. Some of the most cruel
acts on the frontier are by tradition attributed to this man.
The massacre of the Bulltown Indians was accompanied by
atrocities as repulsive as any reported by captives in Indian
camps; of these there had long been traditions, but details
were not fully known until revealed by Cutright upon his
death-bed in 1852, when he had reached the age of 105 years.
Want of space alone prevents me from giving Mr. McWhorter's
narrative of Hughes's long and bloody career. "Hughes died," he
says, "in Jackson county, W. Va., at a date unknown to me, but
in very old age. While he was a great scout and Indian trader,
he never headed an expedition of note. This no doubt was
because of his fierce temperament, and bad reputation among his
own countrymen." In studying the annals of the border, we must
not fail to note that here and there were many savage-hearted
men among the white settlers, whose deeds were quite as
atrocious as any attributed to the red-skins. Current histories
of Indian warfare seldom recognize this fact.--R. G. T.

[5] Lord Dunmore's War (1774) was a natural outgrowth of the
strained relations which had long existed between the savages
and the white colonists in their midst. As our author has made
clear, minor hostilities had broken out here and there ever
since the Pontiac uprising, but there had been no general
campaign since Bouquet's treaty in 1764. Affairs had come to
that pass by the early spring of 1774, that diplomacy was no
longer possible, and an Indian war was inevitable. It was
merely a question of detail, as to how and when. The immediate
cause of precipitation--not the cause of the war, for that lay
deeper--was the territorial dispute over the Ft. Pitt region,
between Virginia and Pennsylvania. Dunmore, as royal governor
of Virginia, had several reasons for bringing matters to a
head--he was largely interested in land speculations under
Virginia patents that would be vitiated if Pennsylvania, now
becoming aggressive, should succeed in planting her official
machinery at Ft. Pitt, which was garrisoned by Virginia; again,
his colonists were in a revolutionary frame of mind, and he
favored a distraction in the shape of a popular Indian war;
finally, it seemed as though a successful raid by Virginia
militia would clinch Virginia's hold on the country and the
treaty of peace that must follow would widen the area of
provincial lands and encourage Western settlements. April 25,
1774, he issued a proclamation in which, after reference to
Pennsylvania's claims, it was asserted that Ft. Pitt was "in
danger of some annoyance from the Indians," and he called on
his local military commandant, the fire-eating Dr. John
Connolly, "to embody a sufficient number of men to repel any
insult." Connolly, evidently as part of a preconcerted plan, at
once (April 26) issued a circular letter to the excited
borderers, which was well calculated to arouse them, being in
effect a declaration of war against the Indians. The very next
day occurred the Pipe Creek affair, then came the Logan tragedy
at Baker's Bottom, three days later, and at once the war was on
at full-head.--R. G. T.

[6] Of John Findlay (so he signed his name), "the
precursor and pilot of Daniel Boone to Kentucky," but little is
known and less has been published. Apparently he was a native
of the north of Ireland. In early life he emigrated to the
neighborhood of Carlisle, Cumberland county, Pa., a district
almost wholly settled by Scotch-Irish Protestants. In
February, 1752, we find him a trader among the Shawnees; the
following year, he was robbed and driven off. It is probable
that he served in the Pennsylvania frontier militia from the
opening of the French and Indian War (1754). Boone met him on
the Braddock campaign (1755), and they became fast friends.
Findlay had already (1752) been in Kentucky as far as the
Falls of the Ohio, in the course of his ramblings as a
trader, and inspired Boone with an intense desire to seek this
El Dorado of the West. It was in 1767, when settled near the
head of the Yadkin River, that Boone first tried to reach
Kentucky by way of the Sandy, but failed. In the winter of
1768-69, Findlay, now a peddler, with a horse to carry his
traps, appeared at Boone's cabin on the Yadkin, and the two
old comrades had a happy time rehearsing their various
adventures during the thirteen years of separation. An
expedition to Kentucky was agreed upon, and the party set
out from Boone's cabin, May 1, 1769; it was composed of
Findlay, now advanced in years, Daniel Boone, the latter's
brother-in-law, John Stuart, and three Yadkin neighbors,
Joseph Holden, James Mooney, and William Cooley. The story of
their expedition through Cumberland Gap, and their long hunt,
is now familiar to readers of Western history. Their
principal camp was probably on Red Lick Fork of Station Camp
Creek. In December, Stuart and Boone were captured by
Indians, but escaped early in January (1770), and on
rejoining their comrades on Rockcastle River found that
Daniel's brother, Squire, had arrived with fresh horses and
traps from the North Carolina home; and with him was
Alexander Neely, whom Squire had found on New (Great
Kanawha) River. Findlay, Holden, Mooney, and Cooley now
elected to return home, leaving the others to spend a longer
period in Kentucky; Findlay took the left-hand road through the
West Virginia settlements, to Pennsylvania, and the others,
turning to the right, wended their way to North Carolina
through Cumberland Gap. Not long after this, Stuart was
killed by Indians, while alone in the woods, and Neely,
discouraged by his fate, returned home. The story, often
copied from Withers, that Neely was killed by a wolf, is
erroneous. As for Findlay, he appears to have again become an
Indian trader in Western Pennsylvania; for late in 1771 he is
reported to have been robbed of $500 worth of goods, by a
Seneca war party raiding the Youghiogheny district. There is a
tradition that not long after this he "was lost in the wilds
of the West." Holden and Cooley spent the rest of their
days on the Upper Yadkin. Mooney was killed at the battle of
Point Pleasant (1774).--R. G. T.

[7] The Boones and five other families set out from their
homes on the Yadkin, Sept. 25, 1773. In Powell's Valley they
were joined by forty people under Boone's brother-in-law,
William Bryan. While the main party were slowly advancing
through the valley, a small squad, under Boone's oldest son,
James, went on a side expedition for flour, cattle, and other
supplies. With these they had nearly caught up to the advance,
when, not knowing they were so near, they camped on the evening
of October 9 a few miles in the rear. Early in the morning of
the 10th, a small band of Shawnees and Cherokees, who were
nominally at peace with the whites, fell upon and, after cruel
tortures, slaughtered them. In Dunmore's speech at Fort Pitt,
this tragedy in Powell's Valley was alluded to as one of the
chief causes of the Indian war of 1774. At the Camp Charlotte
treaty (October, 1774), some of the plunder from this massacre
was delivered up by the savages. After the tragedy, the greater
part of the Kentucky caravan returned to their homes, but the
Boones spent the winter of 1773-74 at a settlement some forty
miles distant, on Clinch River. During the Dunmore War, Boone
was active as an Indian fighter.--R. G. T.

[8] The leader of this party was Capt. Thomas Bullitt. He
was born in Fauquier county, Va., in 1730; was one of
Washington's captains at the Great Meadows (1754), and fought
gallantly with Braddock (1755) and Forbes (1758); in 1763, was
made adjutant-general of Virginia; during the early part of the
Revolution he held the same office in the Southern Department
of the United States, but resigned in 1776 because not
promoted; he died in Fauquier county, in 1778. The project of
Franklin, Walpole, and others to found the Colony of
Pittsylvania, with its seat at the mouth of the Great Kanawha,
greatly stimulated Western land speculation, and there was a
rush of those holding military land warrants to locate claims.
Lord Dunmore's agent at Fort Pitt, Dr. John Connolly--with whom
his lordship was doubtless in partnership--had large interests
of this character, and Bullitt went to the Falls of the Ohio
(1773) to survey lands for him. Bullitt had a surveyor's
commission from Williams and Mary College, but Col. William
Preston, county surveyor for Fincastle county--in which
Kentucky was then included--declined to recognize any but his
own deputies. Preston carried his point, and the lands were
re-surveyed the following year (1774) by his deputies. Bullitt
had laid off a town on this Connolly survey; but the Revolution
soon broke out, Bullitt was otherwise engaged, Dunmore was
deposed, Connolly was imprisoned, and the scheme fell through.
In 1778, George Rogers Clark camped at the Falls on his way to
the Illinois, and the garrison he established there grew into
the town of Louisville. With Bullitt's surveying party in 1773,
were James Douglas, James Harrod, James Sodousky, Isaac Hite,
Abraham Haptonstall, Ebenezer Severns, John Fitzpatrick, John
Cowan,--prominent names in later Kentucky history,--and
possibly others. George Rogers Clark was probably with the
party during a part of its canoe voyage down the Ohio, but
seems to have gone no farther than Big Bone Creek.--R. G. T.

[9] This was done by a party of men from the Monongahela,
under the guidance of James Harrod; by whom was built the first
cabin for human habitancy ever erected in Kentucky. This was on
the present site of Harrodsburg.

[10] These are the Pipe Creek and Baker's Bottom affairs,
respectively mentioned on pp. 134, 149, _notes_. Yellow Creek,
opposite Baker's Bottom, empties into the Ohio 51 miles below
Pittsburg; Wheeling is 91 miles below Pittsburg, and Pipe Creek
104.--R. G. T.

[11] There is some difficulty in fixing on the precise time
when these occurrences happened. Col. Ebenezer Zane says that
they took place in the latter part of April, and that the
affair at Captina preceded the one at Yellow creek a few days.
John Sappington, who was of the party at Baker's, and is said
to be the one who killed Logan's brother, says, the murders at
that place occurred on the 24th of May, and that the skirmish
at Captina was on the day before (23rd May.) Col. Andrew
Swearingen, a presbyterian gentleman of much respectability,
one of the early settlers near the Ohio above Wheeling, and
afterwards intimate with those engaged at both places, says
that the disturbance opposite Yellow creek preceded the
engagement [113] at Captina, and that the latter, as was then
generally understood, was caused by the conduct of the Indians,
who had been at Yellow creek and were descending the river,
exasperated at the murder of their friends at Baker's. Mr.
Benjamin Tomlinson, who was the brother-in-law of Baker and
living with him at the time, says that this circumstance
happened in May, but is silent as to the one at Captina. These
gentlemen all agree in the fact that Logan's people were
murdered at Baker's. Indeed Logan himself charges it as having
been done there. The statement of Sappington, that the murders
were caused by the abusive epithets of Logan's brother and his
taking the hat and coat of Baker's brother in law is confirmed
by Col. Swearingen and others; who also say that for some days
previous, the neighborhood generally had been engaged in
preparing to leave the country, in consequence of the menacing
conduct of the Indians.

------

_Comment by R. G. T._--The date is now well established--April
30. Withers is altogether too lenient, in his treatment of the
whites engaged in this wretched massacre. Logan, encamped at
the mouth of Yellow River, on the Ohio side, was a peaceful,
inoffensive Indian, against whom no man harbored a suspicion;
he was made a victim of race hatred, in a time of great popular
excitement. Joshua Baker, who was settled opposite him on
Baker's Bottom, in Virginia, kept a low grog-shop tavern, and
had recently been warned not to sell more liquor to Indians.
Daniel Greathouse lived in the vicinity--a cruel, bloodthirsty
fellow, who served Connolly as a local agent in fomenting
hatred of Indians. It will be remembered (p. 131, _note_) that
Cresap's party were intending to strike the camp of Logan, but
that they abandoned the project. In the meantime, probably
without knowledge of Cresap's intent, Greathouse had collected
a party of 32 borderers to accomplish the same end. Logan's
camp seemed too strong for them to attack openly; so they
secreted themselves in Baker's house, and when Logan's family,
men and women, came over to get their daily grog, and were
quite drunk, set upon them and slew and tomahawked nine or ten.
The chief, standing on the Ohio bank, heard the uproar and
witnessed the massacre; he naturally supposed that the
murderers were led by Cresap. From a friend of the whites,
Logan became their implacable enemy, and during the ensuing war
his forays were the bloodiest on the border. We shall hear of
him and his famous speech, later on.

[12] It was then that Westfall's and Casinoe's forts were
erected in Tygart's valley,--Pricket's, on Pricket's
creek,--Jackson's on Ten Mile, and Shepherd's on Wheeling
creek, a few miles above its mouth. There were also others
established in various parts of the country and on the
Monongahela and Ohio rivers. Nutter's fort, near to Clarksburg,
afforded protection to the inhabitants on the West Fork, from
its source, to its confluence with the Valley river; and to
those who lived on Buchannon and on Hacker's creek, as well as
to the residents of its immediate vicinity.

[13] June 20, Col. William Preston, having charge of the
defenses of Fincastle county, authorized Capt. William Russell
to employ two faithful woodsmen to go to Kentucky and inform
the several surveying parties at work there, of their danger.
June 26, Russell replied, "I have engaged to start immediately
on the occasion, two of the best hands I could think of--Daniel
Boone and Michael Stoner; who have engaged to reach the country
as low as the Falls, and to return by way of Gasper's Lick on
Cumberland, and through Cumberland Gap; so that, by the
assiduity of these men, if it is not too late, I hope the
gentlemen will be apprized of the imminent danger they are
daily in."

Boone and Stoner journeyed overland to Harrodsburg, where
Col. James Harrod and thirty men were making improvements
and laying out the town. The thrifty Boone secured a good
lot, hastily built a claim cabin, and proceeded on his
tour. At Fontaine Blue, three miles below Harrodsburg, the
two scouts found another party of surveyors, whom they warned;
and in going down the Kentucky River came across Capt. John
Floyd's surveying party,--eight men, who had left Preston's
house for Kentucky, April 9,--who agreed to meet them farther
down the river. But circumstances prevented a reunion, and
Floyd's band penetrated through the wilderness on their own
account, and had a painful journey of sixteen days' duration
before reaching Russell's Fort on Clinch River. Meanwhile,
Boone and Stoner descended to the mouth of the Kentucky, and
thence to the Falls of the Ohio, and found more surveyors at
Mann's Lick, four miles southeast. Indians were making bloody
forays through the district, and the scouts had frequent
thrilling adventures. Finally, after having been absent
sixty-one days and travelled 800 miles, they reached Russell's
on the Clinch, in safety. Russell was absent on the Point
Pleasant campaign, and Boone set out with a party of recruits
to reinforce him, but was ordered back to defend the Clinch
settlements. He was busy at this task until the close of
the war. He was present at the Watauga treaty, March 17, 1775;
later that year, he led another band to Kentucky, and early
in April built Fort Boone, on Kentucky River, "a little below
Big Lick," the nucleus of the Henderson colony.--R. G. T.

[14] The party numbered about four hundred men. The line of
march was about ninety miles in length, as estimated by the
zig-zag course pursued.--R. G. T.

[15] They were Jonathan Zane, Thomas Nicholson and Tady
Kelly. A better woodsman than the first named of these three,
perhaps never lived.

[16] Doddridge locates Wapatomica "about sixteen miles below
the present Coshocton." Butterfield (_History of the Girtys_)
places it "just below the present Zanesville, in Logan county,
Ohio, not a great distance from Mac-a-cheek." For localities of
Indian towns on the Muskingum, see map in St. John de Creve
Coeur's _Lettres d'un Cultivateur Américain_ (Paris, 1787),
III., p. 413.--R. G. T.

[17] John Hargus, a private in Capt. Cresap's company, while
stationed as a vidette below the main army, observed an Indian
several times raising his head above his blind, and looking
over the river. Charging his rifle with a second ball, he
fired, and both bullets passed through the neck of the Indian,
who was found next day and scalped by Hargus.

[18] Logan was the son of Shikellemus, a celebrated chief of
the Cayuga nation, who dwelt at Shamokin, and always attached
to the [118] English, was of much service to them on many
occasions. After the close of Dunmore's war, Logan became
gloomy and melancholy, drank freely and manifested symptoms of
mental derangement. He remained some time at Detroit, and while
there, his conduct and expressions evinced a weariness of the
world. Life he said had become a burden to him, he knew no more
what pleasure was, and thought it had been better if he had
never existed. In this disponding and disconsolate condition he
left Detroit, and on his way between that place and Miami, is
said to have been murdered.

[19] See p. 149, _note_, for account of the massacre.--R. G. T.

[121] CHAPTER VII.

When information of the hostile deportment of the Indians was carried to Williamsburg, Col. Charles Lewis sent a messenger with the intelligence to Capt. John Stuart, and requesting of him, to apprize the inhabitants on the Greenbrier river that an immediate war was anticipated, and to send out scouts to watch the warrior's paths beyond the settlements. The vigilance and activity of Capt. Stuart, were exerted with some success, to prevent the re-exhibition of those scenes which had been previously witnessed on Muddy creek and in the Big Levels: but they could not avail to repress them altogether.

In the course of the preceding spring, some few individuals had begun to make improvements on the Kenhawa river below the Great Falls; and some land adventurers, to examine and survey portions of the adjoining country. To these men Capt. Stuart despatched an express, to inform them that apprehensions were entertained of immediate irruptions being made upon the frontiers by the Indians, and advising them to remove from the position which they then occupied; as from its exposed situation, without great vigilance and alertness, they must necessarily fall a prey to the savages.

When the express arrived at the cabin of Walter Kelly, twelve miles below the falls, Capt. John Field of Culpepper (who had been in active service during the French war, and was then engaged in making surveys,) was there with a young Scotchman and a negro woman. Kelly with great prudence, directly sent his family to Greenbrier, under the care of a younger brother. But Capt. Field, considering the apprehension as groundless, determined on remaining with Kelly, who from prudential motives did not wish to subject himself to observation by mingling with others.[1] Left with no persons but the Scotchman and negro, they were not long permitted to doubt the reality of those dangers, of which they had been forewarned by Capt Stuart.

[122] Very soon after Kelly's family had left the cabin, and while yet within hearing of it, a party of Indians approached, unperceived, near to Kelly and Field, who were engaged in drawing leather from a tan trough in the yard. The first intimation which Field had of their approach was the discharge of several guns and the fall of Kelly. He then ran briskly towards the house to get possession of a gun, but recollecting that it was unloaded, he changed his course, and sprang into a cornfield which screened him from the observation of the Indians; who, supposing that he had taken shelter in the cabin, rushed immediately into it. Here they found the Scotchman and the negro woman, the latter of whom they killed; and making prisoner of the young man, returned and scalped Kelly.

When Kelly's family reached the Greenbrier settlement, they mentioned their fears for the fate of those whom they had left on the Kenhawa, not doubting but that the guns which they heard soon after leaving the house, had been discharged at them by Indians. Capt. Stuart, with a promptitude which must ever command admiration, exerted himself effectually to raise a volunteer corps, and proceed to the scene of action, with the view of ascertaining whether the Indians had been there; and if they had, and he could meet with them, to endeavor to punish them for the outrage, and thus prevent the repetition of similar deeds of violence.

They had not however gone far, before they were met by Capt. Field, whose appearance of itself fully told the tale of woe. He had ran upwards of eighty miles, naked except his shirt, and without food; his body nearly exhausted by fatigue, anxiety and hunger, and his limbs greviously lacerated with briers and brush. Captain Stuart, fearing lest the success of the Indians might induce them to push immediately for the settlements, thought proper to return and prepare for that event.