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At length this odd conduct of the presiding officer drew all eyes upon the card, and then everybody shared the interest of Mr. Boon. In shape and size the card was not extraordinary, but it was composed of metal. What metal? That question had immediately arisen in Mr. Boon's mind when the card came into his hand, and now it exercised the wits of all the others.
The incident, taken in connection with the plundering of a store kept by two whites in Holston Valley at the same time, and the unprovoked assault on Boon's party in Powell's Valley a year later, shows the extreme difficulty of preventing the worst men of each color from wantonly attacking the innocent.
Boon's claim to distinction rests not so much on his wide wanderings in unknown lands, for in this respect he did little more than was done by a hundred other backwoods hunters of his generation, but on the fact that he was able to turn his daring woodcraft to the advantage of his fellows. As he himself said, he was an instrument "ordained of God to settle the wilderness."
See Collins, II., 336; also Ramsey. For Boon's early connection with Henderson, in 1764, see Haywood, 35. Even among his foes; he is almost the only American praised by Lt.-Gov. John Finley.
Of the Kentucky historians, Marshall is by far the most brilliant, and Mann Butler the most trustworthy and impartial. Both are much better than Collins. Benjamin Logan; there were many of the family in Kentucky. It was a common name along the border; the Indian chief Logan had been named after one of the Pennsylvania branch. McAfee MSS. Boon's letter. April 5th.
Meanwhile other pioneers, as hardy and enterprising as Boon's companions, had likewise made up their minds that they would come in to possess the land; and in bands or small parties they had crossed the mountains or floated down the Ohio, under the leadership of such men as Harrod, Logan, and the McAfees.
One day, in going along a creek, they had to cross it no less than fifty times, by "very bad foards." On the seventh of April they were met by Boon's runner, bearing tidings of the loss occasioned by the Indians; and from that time on they met parties of would-be settlers, who, panic-struck by the sudden forays, were fleeing from the country.
All four agree that the fort was attacked on one day, the siege abandoned on the next, pursuit made on the third, and the battle fought on the fourth. Boon and Todd make the siege begin on August 16th, and the battle take place on the 19th; Caldwell makes the dates the 15th and 18th; McKee makes them the 18th and 21st. I therefore take Boon's and Todd's dates.
Six of the men, including Boon's eldest son, were slain, and the cattle scattered; and though the backwoodsmen rallied and repulsed their assailants, yet they had suffered such loss and damage that they retreated and took up their abode temporarily on the Clinch River.
But, as it was, the attack would be very dangerous; while the delay of waiting for Logan would be a small matter, for the Indians could still be overtaken after he had arrived. State Papers, III., 337. Col. Campbell's letter of Oct. 3, 1782. The letter is interesting as showing by contemporary authority that Boon's advice and McGarry's misbehavior are not mere matters of tradition.
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