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CHAPTER VIII.

BRINGING THE POWDER TO KENTUCKY-AT HARRODSBURG DEATH AND DISASTER-INDIANS DEFEATED TRUE PIONEERS REJOICE-CLARK THE MAN OF THE HOUR.

Clark having won his double victory in securing the powder unconditionally and defeating the plans of Henderson, was preparing to start upon his return to Kentucky, when he learned that no one had appeared at Pittsburg to take charge of the powder which had cost him so much in danger and labor. It was not an easy matter to transport this powder over the mountains to Kentucky. Danger was attended upon every step, since through spies, or otherwise, the Indians had learned that it had been granted Clark and was to be transmitted to Kentucky. But danger never caused Clark to hesitate; it rather spurred him to action.

Accompanied by his colleague, Gabriel John Jones, who appears to have been always around but never doing anything in particular, Clark set out for Pittsburg with the determination to get that powder safely to Kentucky at no matter what cost. The safety of the few scattered stations was dependent upon it. Reaching Pittsburg, Clark and Jones secured a small boat into which the powder was placed and began their long journey down the Ohio river to the Kentucky settlements. They succeeded in escaping the Indians by whom they were pursued and who knew what cargo they carried. The savages unable to keep pace with Clark's boat by water, took to the land, but without success, and were far behind when the latter landed at a point near where Maysville now stands, the landing-place being then known as Three Islands. Entering the mouth

of Limestone creek, Clark concealed parts of his precious cargo at each of several points along its heavily wooded shore, allowing his boat after removal of the powder to drift down the stream and into the river to mislead the pursuing Indians.

Clark and his eight companions, the names of none of whom are known, other than that of his colleague, Jones, then set out for the settlement at Harrodsburg. While journeying through the forest they met at the cabin of John Hinkson, a party of surveyors, who stated that, owing to the depredations of the Indians, many of the small stations had been abandoned. These surveyors also informed Clark that Colonel John Todd was somewhere in the neighborhood in command of a body of men sufficiently large, if joined with his own, to safely convey the powder to the settlements. Clark sent Jones and five boatmen to find Colonel Todd and his party while he, with two other men, went forward to McClelland's Fort, where he found the garrison so weakened by desertions, following the renewal of Indian depredations, as to be barely sufficient to retain the fort; none could therefore be spared for the purpose of securing the precious powder. At this post, Clark met with Simon Kenton, who was to play so important. a part in the future of Kentucky, and under his guidance hastened to Harrodsburg, where he secured a guard of adequate strength and retraced his steps towards Hinkson's where disaster had preceded him. After his depar

ture for Harrodsburg, Colonel Todd with some five or six men had arrived at Hinkson's and upon hearing of the hidden powder, had requested Jones to lead him to the places of deposit.

December 25, 1776, as Todd and his party of ten approached the banks of the Limestone to secure the powder, they were fired upon by a body of Indians commanded by Pluggy, a noted Mingo chief, who had discovered the abandoned boat and followed Clark's trail. Jones, poor fellow! who had been. Clark's faithful shadow and had uncomplainingly played second fiddle in the Virginia negotiations, and William Graydon, were killed and two others captured, while Colonel Todd and his remaining men escaped to McClelland's station, where Clark and Kenton soon afterwards found them. This was a welcome reinforcement to the weakened garrison.

One week after the killing of Jones, on New Year's Day, 1777, Pluggy, believing the fort to be but weakly garrisoned, led his warriors to an attack upon it, but suffered a repulse, the savages being driven off after the killing of their chief, Pluggy. Of the garrison, McClelland and one other were killed. After the repulse of the savages, Clark hastily secured the hidden powder which was safely taken to Harrodsburg. McClelland's station was abandoned, some going to the stockades while others, not being true pioneers and having no desire for further conflicts with the Indians, returned across the mountains to the older settlements whence they came.

The rejoicing of the pioneers over the success of Clark in securing the powder and safely conveying it to them, was not so great as their satisfaction caused by his victory over Colonel Henderson and his associates. These brave men had pushed out into the wilderness, in the face of savage opposition, to make homes for themselves, when they had been confronted by Henderson with quit rents and titles which might or not stand the scrutiny of

the courts. They desired indefensible titles to the lands entered by them and feared that the Lords Proprietors could not give them. When Clark returned from Virginia, they not only saw the Henderson idea dissolve into the air, but they saw something tangible behind their titles; they saw Virginia claiming the territory in which their lands were found; and more than that, they saw Virginia ready to assert that claim and to protect it. More than all else, they saw George Rogers Clark, the soldier-pioneer, ever ready, ever willing, to go out in defense of their rights; to face the savage foe; to endure any hardship; to do all, to dare all, that might be necessary to not only defend the territory they occupied but to venture beyond and seize from the enemy that which he claimed as his own.

Before the coming of Clark, the pioneer conducted his own campaigns. He went out to-day and killed any stray Indian whom he might meet and returned to his station. This method of disposing of the opposing forces had its limitations. Of course if every pioneer went out every day and every pioneer killed an Indian every day, it was only a question of mathematics as to when the Indian would be eliminated from the problem. But sometimes the Indian killed the pioneer, which interfered with the problem of arithmetical progression. Clark's return changed these conditions, because the Indians had changed their methods under the guidance of their British teachers. Whereas, they had before gone among the white settlers of Kentucky in small parties, burning, robbing and murdering in outlying stations, they now came in larger and more compact bodies, frequently under the command of British officers, and conducted their campaigns in keeping with the rules of recognized warfare, save in the instances where they were successful in defeating the settlers, on which occasions they gave way to their savage instincts and ruthlessly tortured and slaughtered their helpless cap

tives. It is to the everlasting disgrace of our own kith and kin, our English forefathers, that they permitted the torture of white prisoners by their Indian allies. Clark knew of this

from conferences with the settlers in Kentucky, with whom he conferred, and planned an expedition for their relief.

CHAPTER IX.

HAMILTON, CLARK'S OPPONENT RESCUE OF THREE KENTUCKY DAUGHTERS FIRST MARRIAGE IN KENTUCKY-HARRODSBURG MARKED FOR DESTRUCTION-INDIANS THWARTED FUTILE ATTACK ON BOONESBOROUGH-LOGAN'S BRAVERY AND WISDOM.

Clark correctly believed that the bands of savages who were harrying Kentucky were in British pay and under British control and that they were used in the rear of the colonies to draw off protecting columns from the Continental army, and with this correct view he knew, with the intuitive knowledge of the born soldier, that a counter-move should be made. To this end he proposed a campaign into the enemy's country, and set about its arrangement.

Col. Henry Hamilton, of the British army, had been assigned by Governor General Carleton to the command of the post at Detroit, which included a large territory under savage control. Hamilton seems by nature to have been fitted for savage warfare. He had, according to his own statement, sent out fifteen Indian expeditions against the white settlers and it has been claimed that he offered prizes for white scalps, though this has not been definitely proven, but it is known that he joined in the war songs of returning Indian marauders, during which they gloatingly exhibited the scalps of the white men, women and children whom they had slain, though these victims were, like himself, of English blood in the main.

Clark, not to be taken unaware, sent out spies to range up and down the Ohio river, to report from the outlying stations the movements of the Indians, and these spies were of great benefit to him and to the colonists up to

the time of 1777, during the spring of which Hamilton concluded that the time had arrived for a crushing blow to be delivered to the Kentucky stations of Boonesborough, Harrodsburg and Logan's Fort, thus hoping to drive the colonists back to Virginia and to give back to the Indians their hunting grounds.

The people at Boonesborough had enjoyed a peaceful existence for some time but there was to be a rude awakening. There were but few women who had braved the dangers of the western frontier, but there were some heroic in spirit as their brave husbands and fathers. In July, 1777, there occurred an event which wrought the gallant pioneers to desperation and boded ill for any Indian who fell into their hands. On the 14th of July, two daughters of Col. Richard Calloway, Elizabeth and Frances, and Jemima, the daughter of Daniel Boone, the first two just budding into womanhood and the latter but fourteen years old, ventured out of the fort at Boonesborough for a boat ride on the Kentucky river, all unsuspicious of danger. They were surprised by a band of Indians lurking on the opposite shore and made prisoners, though not before Elizabeth Calloway, possessed of the true courage of the pioneer, had inflicted a serious wound with her paddle upon one of her captors. The cries of the captive girls attracted the attention of those in the fort and immediate steps were taken to rescue them. Boone and Calloway were temporarily absent,

The

but soon returned. Within the fort were three young men, lovers of the captives. Samuel Henderson was the betrothed lover of Elizabeth Calloway and the nuptial day had been fixed; Col. John Holden was the lover of Fannie Calloway, and Flanders Calloway of Jemima Boone, though that young lady was but fourteen years old at that time. Our forefathers and especially our foremothers, did not postpone matrimony unduly in those days when our state was young as they were. A party of eight men, including the three lovers of the girl captives, at once placed themselves under the command of Daniel Boone and started to their rescue, a second party on horseback following after. Nightfall brought the pursuit to a temporary end, as they were unable to follow the trail in the darkness, but at dawn of day they were again in pursuit with Boone at their head, his unrivalled knowledge of the Indian and his methods standing them in good stead. Indians fled northward, evidently intent upon crossing the Ohio to one of their villages, following a route which took them near to the Winchester, North Middletown and Carlisle of to-day. Tuesday morning, the third day after the capture of the young women, they halted near Blue Licks, closely followed by the party under Boone. Elizabeth Calloway, a true frontier girl, with a view to marking the trail, had now and again broken twigs on the trees and bushes along the line of march, which, being observed by the Indians, caused her to be threatened with death. Not dismayed by the uplifted tomahawk, she refrained from further efforts to thus mark their trail and, as opportunity presented, tore off and dropped small portions of her wearing apparel. She had previously refused to exchange her shoes for moccasins, as her fellow captives had done, and as opportunity presented, she had dug deep into the trail the heels of her shoes, hoping thus to attract the attention of those who followed in pursuit.

They were required by the savages to walk apart through the brush and to wade up and down through such water as they crossed, hoping thus to hide their trail and deceive the pursuers as to their number.

By dawn on Tuesday, Boone and his party of pursuers were again on the trail and soon saw smoke arising over the trees, indicating that the Indians were preparing their morning meal. In Smith's "History of Kentucky" is found the following record of the rescue of the prisoners.

"Col. Floyd says in a letter written a few days afterward: 'Our study had been how to get the prisoners without giving the Indians time to murder them after being discovered. We saw each other nearly at the same time. Four of us fired and all rushed on them, by which they were prevented from carrying anything away except one shot-gun without ammunition. Col. Boone and myself had pretty fair shots and they hastily fled. I am convinced I shot one through the body. The one he shot dropped his gun; mine had none. The place was covered with thick cane, and being so much elated recovering the poor, little broken-hearted girls, we were prevented from making any further search. We sent the Indians off almost naked, some without their moccasins and none of them with knife or tomahawk. After the girls came to themselves enough to speak, they told us there were five Indians, four Shawnees and one Cherokee; they could speak pretty good English and said they were going to the Shawnee towns. The war-club we got was like those we have seen of that nation, and several words of their language which the girls retained were of the Shawnee tribe.'"

It was afterwards learned that but one of the Indians in this party ever returned to his tribe, which indicates that the firing of the rescuers was more deadly than was supposed by Col. Floyd.

Less than a month after this capture and

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