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About the same time that Boonesborough was being established, Captain James Harrod with a party of forty men descended the Ohio River, stopped for a time at the mouth of Licking River, and felled some trees on the present site of Cincinnati.
One day, some months after Boone's family had come to Boonesborough, Boone's daughter, with two girl friends, was on the river floating in a boat near the bank. Suddenly five Indians darted out of the woods, seized the three girls, and hurried away with them. In their flight the Indians observed the eldest of the girls breaking twigs and dropping them in their trail.
I was not much surprised at reading in the able letter of the Times correspondent, how the Southerners were disappointed by meeting all along their brief line of march gloomy faces and sullen dislike, instead of a hearty welcome; for I knew that in the neighborhood of Hagerstown, Boonesborough, and all round South Mountain, the majority of the inhabitants were to use my Irishman's expression as "black as thunder."
In 1777, the entire army of Kentucky amounted to one hundred and two men; there were twenty-two at Boonesborough, sixty-five at Harrodsburgh, and fifteen at St. Asaphs, or Logan's fort. Around these frontier stations skulked the Shawnees, hiding behind stumps of trees and in the weeds and cornfields.
The words of the scout concerning the further attacks by the Indians were confirmed during the year that followed. The little settlement at Boonesborough steadily increased in numbers and prosperity. For a time, free from the attacks of the Indians, the families toiled in their fields. More extensive clearings were made and in the marvellously fertile soil the crops were bountiful.
Shortly after the troubles at Boonesborough, I went to them, and lived peaceably there until this time. The history of my going home, and returning with my family, forms a series of difficulties, an account of which would swell a volume; and, being foreign to my purpose, I shall purposely omit them.
We have seen their subsequent return to Boonesborough, on Kentucky river. Tidings of the party thus far had reached the relatives of Mrs. Boone's family in North Carolina; but no news from the country west of the Alleghanies had subsequently reached them. All was uncertain conjecture, whether they still lived, or had perished by famine, wild beasts, or the Indians.
Determination of General Clarke. Discouragement of the Savages. Amusing Anecdote of Daniel Boone. It was in the autumn of the year 1780 that Daniel Boone, with his family, returned to Boonesborough. A year before, the Legislature of Virginia had recognized essentially what is now Kentucky as one of the counties of Virginia, and had established the town of Boonesborough as its capital.
Week passed after week, but no enemy appeared. The state of anxiety and watchfulness in which the garrison at Boonesborough had, for so long a time, been kept, was becoming irksome, and the men were beginning to relax in their vigilance. This Boone observed, and it determined him to undertake an expedition, which he had been probably meditating for some time.
Prowling Indians had been seen frequently in the vicinity of Boonesborough after the arrival of Peleg, and the scout now decided that it would be a good plan for him to turn the tables and with a party invade the country of the Shawnees themselves. Choosing nineteen men from the little garrison, he led them swiftly and silently as far as Paint Creek on the Sciota.
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