Boone: A Biography (24 page)

The largest surveying party was led by John Floyd, a young man only twenty-four years old working for Col. William Preston, surveyor
for Fincastle County, Virginia. Educated, intelligent, mature beyond his years, Floyd, a native of Amherst County, Virginia, had true leadership ability. His dark good looks revealed his heritage—one of his grandmothers had been half Catawba. A former schoolmaster, John Floyd had been chosen by his close friend William Preston to survey the finest land in Kentucky on military warrants for veteran officers of the French and Indian War. Floating his party down the Ohio that spring, he had stopped to survey prime land in western Virginia for Col. George Washington, among others. Reaching the Bluegrass region in late spring, Floyd and his men had surveyed almost all the land around Elkhorn Creek and future Lexington by the time Boone and Stoner left for Kentucky on June 26.

One member of Floyd’s crew, Thomas Hanson, kept a diary that spring and summer, and because he made detailed entries almost every day we know a good deal about Floyd’s activities during those momentous weeks, when much of the finest land of Kentucky was divided up for important people back in Virginia. On Sunday, May 2, 1774, Hanson wrote, “
We made a survey of this
Bottom for Patrick Henry. It contains 4 or 500 acres, of very good land, including the Fort & Town. There is a Sycamore tree 33 feet in Circumference on this bottom.” At no point in this journal does Hanson mention Boone and Stoner. Since Floyd split his group into three smaller parties of surveyors, it is possible Floyd encountered Boone and Stoner while Hanson was not around, but not likely. Because Floyd expressed deep gratitude to Boone later for his mission, this apparent lack of contact between Boone and Floyd remains part of the mystery hanging over the accounts of this hurried trip as the threat of war loomed ever closer.

Adding to the mystery of that summer is the later report of Robert McAfee, along with James Harrod, one of the earliest settlers in Kentucky, that Boone, “
on his way to the falls
to warn the surveyors of their danger from the Indians, had one lot laid off for himself” in Harrodsburg. Many historians have assumed McAfee’s testimony to
be true and pictured Boone claiming a lot and building a cabin on it at the Harrodsburg site, while on his way with Stoner to the Falls of the Ohio. But it is pretty clear that Harrod and his men had already left the region by the time Boone and Stoner could have arrived there. McAfee apparently was confused by a lot Squire Boone staked out and claimed with his friend Evan Hinton at Harrodsburg in late 1775 or early 1776.

On July 8 Indians attacked some of Harrod’s men, and two, James Cowen and James Hamilton, were killed. Harrod and the rest packed up and headed back to the settlements, leaving more than thirty cabins deserted. They would not return until late the following winter. It took them until July 29 to reach the Clinch River.

On the Elkhorn, Floyd had split his surveying party into three groups, one led by himself, one by Hancock Taylor, and the third by James Douglas and Isaac Hite. They agreed that they would all meet on July 24 at Harrod’s cabins south of the Kentucky River. But when he reached the rendezvous point on that date, Floyd found only a note that said, “
Alarmed by finding some people killed
, we are gone down.” It was then that Floyd decided they had done enough surveying, and he and his party headed toward the Clinch River settlements also. They did not go north toward the Ohio River because that was the direction the Indians would be coming from. And poling or paddling up the Ohio to Fort Pitt was very difficult. But having reached Kentucky by the Ohio River, Floyd did not know how to find Cumberland Gap to the south. Fearing for their lives, he and his men wandered for days in the mountains of eastern Kentucky and finally found their way to Pound Gap and crossed out of the Cumberland Mountains.

It is not clear from the records where Hancock Taylor and his company were surveying between July 8 and July 27, 1774, but on July 27 Taylor, Abraham Hempinstall, and James Strother were traveling on the Kentucky River in a dugout canoe when they were attacked by Indians. Strother was killed and Taylor seriously wounded. Struggling to the bank, Taylor and Hempinstall found their companions Willis
Lee, John Willis, and John Green upstream, and the group began the long trek out of the wilderness.

For two days Taylor walked on his own, in spite of his wounds. As he weakened with fever and infection, he was carried on the third and fourth days. Late on August 1, 1774, Taylor recognized that he was dying and, helped by John Green, completed and signed his surveys to make them official. After he was dead the four other men buried him where Taylor’s Fork joins Silver Creek in future Madison County; then they wrestled through thickets and mountain passes to find their way back to the settlements. It is almost certain that on the way they were found by Boone and Stoner and led back to William Russell’s home, Castle Wood, on the Clinch River. James Douglas, Isaac Hite, and their small party, when they found the two men of Harrod’s group killed, left the note for Floyd and located their canoes hidden on the Kentucky River. They paddled down that stream to the Ohio and descended to the Mississippi, then proceeded all the way to New Orleans, where they took a ship to the East Coast.

After leaving the region around future Frankfort, Boone and Stoner made their way down to the mouth of the Kentucky River and followed the Ohio to the Falls. Boone later reported seeing petrified buffalo dung attached to the rocks at the Falls. Floyd’s party had already surveyed thirty tracts, about 40,000 choice acres, or sixty-four square miles, in that area, before they headed east to the Elkhorn, and the Bluegrass region. In all Floyd had surveyed 206,250 acres of prime land that summer, leaving more marginal land for those, like Boone, who would make later claims.

At Mann’s Lick, a few miles from the Falls, Boone and Stoner happened upon another surveying party and warned them of the Indian threat. It is likely they led that group back across Kentucky by Skaggs’s Trace and then on to Cumberland Gap, encountering the survivors of Hancock Taylor’s company on the way.

Some historians have suggested that Boone and Stoner’s expedition was mostly useless, that the surveyors had already left Kentucky before
the two messengers arrived. But Boone and Stoner returned to Castle Wood the same day as the rest of Hancock Taylor’s crew. “
Their simultaneous arrival lends credence
to Boone’s claim that he ‘conducted in the surveyors,’ but it seems likely that when he and Stoner encountered them, they were already on their way home.”
Others have argued
that Boone and Stoner were instrumental in leading the surveyors back to the Clinch River.

B
OONE AND
S
TONER
returned to Russell’s Fort on the Clinch on August 26, 1774, having traveled eight hundred miles through the wilderness in exactly two months. Boone’s willingness to undertake this dangerous mission, and his successful completion of it, gave him an enhanced status among leaders such as William Russell, William Preston, and John Floyd. From this point on there seemed less doubt that he was an officer and a leader, not just a hired hand and hunter.

Meanwhile a militia had been organized under the command of Captain Russell to join the fight against the Indians to the north. Floyd recommended that Boone be added to the company. Floyd was extremely grateful to Boone for his warning mission into Kentucky and on August 28, 1774, wrote to Colonel Preston, “
Captain Bledsoe says Boone has
more interest [influence] than any man now disengaged; & you know what Boone has done for me by your kind directions, for which I love the man.” While Boone had served in various capacities in the French and Indian War, his commission as a lieutenant in the Virginia militia in the late summer of 1774 was his first official appointment. Though he had often been looked upon as a leader and “captain” of scouting parties and hunting expeditions, his leadership had never before been formalized. The son of Quakers had become a military man. He carried the document of the commission signed by Governor Dunmore with him for most of the rest of his life.

As a new lieutenant, Boone began the march north toward the defense of the Ohio Valley. But when he had gone about a hundred miles, he was recalled by a messenger to return to the Clinch region, where
he was needed to organize the defenses there. He was put in charge of Moore’s Fort on the Clinch River. A Mingo chief named Logan was attacking the mountain river settlements. Logan, whose Mingo name was Tahgahjute, or Talgayeeta, is supposed to have said “
the Indians is not Angry
, only myself.” His family had been lured into a trap and killed at Yellow Creek on the Ohio in May.
Daniel Greathouse had invited
some Indians to the settlement and after getting them all drunk shot every one. Included in the group were Logan’s brother and his pregnant sister or sister-in-law. The baby was cut out of the woman’s womb “and inpaled on a stake.” Out for revenge, Logan, apparently wrongly, blamed Michael Cresap for the massacre.

Bands of Shawnees were roving through the region also, making random attacks. Most settlers abandoned their cabins and farms and gathered in forts along the river valleys. Rebecca Boone and her children sought the safety of Moore’s Fort, south of Castle Wood on the Clinch. The fort was Boone’s headquarters, but he and his scouts spent much of the time roving the woods on the lookout for Indians. The forts were primitive constructions with limited supplies and poor sanitation. With many settlers crowded into a small space, the conditions quickly deteriorated.

As in most wars, the greatest problem seemed to be boredom, the waiting, day after day. Appalling conditions, poor facilities for sleeping, and tedium aggravated the fear of attack. One woman at Moore’s Fort reported that “
the men would all go out and play at ball
, and those not playing would lie down, without their guns.” We assume such lax security occurred while Boone was away on patrol or organizing defense at other forts. The story is told that the men became so careless while Boone was away that one day Rebecca and her daughters Susannah and Jemima and several other women decided to scare them. Loading a half-dozen guns, they slipped out the back of the fort and fired the rifles, then ran back into the fort and locked the gates. The men dashed to the stockade but found themselves locked out and ran hither and thither in panic. “
Some were in so great haste
, they run right through
the pond. They were all exceeding mad.” While the women laughed at them, the men threatened to whip the wives and daughters who had made fools of them. In the midst of such chaos, Boone had his work cut out for him.

While most of the men in the area had joined the militia and headed north to fight the Shawnees, Boone was assigned fourteen rangers with which to patrol the Clinch. He and his men were the best defense the settlers had. “
Mr. Boon is very diligent at Castle-Woods
and keeps up good Orders,” Col. Arthur Campbell wrote to Colonel Preston on September 29, 1774.

Chief Logan with his Mingoes and Shawnees attacked Fort Black-more on September 23, capturing two slaves who had been sent out to feed the cattle. Logan had vowed to avenge the murder of his kinfolks on the Ohio earlier that year. He was conducting a blood feud, which is what many Indian wars amounted to, often precipitated by whites murdering Indians. Logan dared the whites to come out of the fort to recover their blacks, whom he called their “
bearskins
.” But there was little the Indians could do against a fort. Without artillery to blow apart the gates and pickets, their only hope was starving those inside. That was not the kind of fighting that appealed to the angry Indians. Logan’s party killed a number of cattle and moved on.

They appeared a week later at Moore’s Fort, a few miles away, on September 29. Three men had left the fort to check a pigeon trap several hundred yards beyond the walls. Shots were fired from the timber and one of the men fell. Boone charged with others out of the stockade to the rescue and saw an Indian in war paint rip the scalp from John Duncan’s head. Before they could fire a shot, the Indians faded back into the woods.

The next day a child found an Indian war club left like a calling card beside the spring. Boone thought it might be that of a southern Indian, though the Cherokees had stayed out of the trouble for the most part. Apparently he warned Col. Arthur Campbell that the neighboring Indians might now be involved, for Campbell wrote to Col. William
Preston on October 1, 1774, “
Mr. Boone has sent me the War Club
that was left it is different from that left at Blackmores; Mr. Boone thinks it is the Cherokees that is now annoying us.”
It is possible the Shawnees
and Mingoes were trying to implicate their southern cousins in the conflict by planting Cherokee weapons.

In early October a guard outside Blackmore’s Fort saw an Indian lurking along the bank of the river. “
Murder! Murder!” he shouted
, and those inside quickly closed the door of the stockade. Trapped outside, the guard was shot by the Indians. When a message reached Moore’s Fort, several miles away, Capt. Daniel Smith, Boone, and about thirty others rode to the aid of Blackmore’s. They arrived late in the day and camped outside the walls of the stockade. During the night several of their horses were stolen, and Boone tracked them for a distance into the hills but gave it up. It was the last incident in the region of the conflict known by the grand title Lord Dunmore’s War. The war ended on October 10, 1774, at the battle of Point Pleasant far to the north, at the mouth of the Kanawha River, where Isaac Shelby, George Rogers Clark, and others, commanded by Col. Andrew Lewis, fought the Shawnees in a long, drawn-out battle.
Though Point Pleasant is usually
described as a victory for Lewis and the white militia, the Indians suffered only half the casualties their opponents did. Cornstalk was known as a lover of peace, and it seems he and his Native forces, though they had outperformed the whites, just got tired of fighting and agreed to a treaty. He also knew that Governor Dunmore, with another army in Ohio, was ready to march south to join the attack with Lewis’s men. A surrender seemed preferable to a prolonged fight.