Chapter 9

[Footnote 4: See map in this paragraph.]

151. Boone's daughter is stolen by the Indians; how he found her.--One day Boone's young daughter was out, with two other girls, in a canoe on the river. Suddenly some Indians pounced on them and carried them off.

One of the girls, as she went along, broke off twigs from the bushes, so that her friends might be able to follow her track through the woods. An Indian caught her doing it, and told her that he would kill her if she did not instantly stop. Then she slyly tore off small bits of her dress, and dropped a piece from time to time.

Boone and his men followed the Indians like bloodhounds. They picked up the bits of dress, and so easily found which way the savages had gone. They came up with the Indians just as they were sitting down round a fire to eat their supper. Creeping toward them behind the trees as softly as a cat creeps up behind a mouse, Boone and his men aimed their rifles and fired. Two of the Indians fell dead, the rest ran for their lives, and the girls were carried back in safety to the fort.

152. Boone is captured by Indians; they adopt him as a son.--Later, Boone himself was caught and carried off by the Indians. They respected his courage so much that they would not kill him, but decided to adopt him; that is, take him into the tribe as one of their own people, or make an Indian of him.

They pulled out all his hair except one long lock, called the "scalp-lock," which they left to grow in Indian fashion. The squaws[5] and girls braided bright feathers in this lock, so that Boone looked quite gay. Then the Indians took him down to a river. There they stripped him, and scrubbed him with all their might, to get his white blood out, as they said. Next, they painted his face in stripes with red and yellow clay, so that he looked, as they thought, handsomer than he ever had before in his life. When all had been done, and they were satisfied with the appearance of their new Indian, they sat down to a great feast, and made merry.

[Footnote 5: Squaws: Indian women.]

153. Boone escapes, but the Indians find him again; what a handful of tobacco dust did.--After a time Boone managed to escape, but the Indians were so fond of him that they could not rest till they found him again. One day he was at work in a kind of shed drying some tobacco leaves. He heard a slight noise, and turning round saw four Indians with their guns pointed at him. "Now, Boone," said they, "we got you. You no get away this time." "How are you?" said Boone, pleasantly; "glad to see you; just wait a minute till I get you some of my tobacco." He gathered two large handfuls of the leaves: they were as dry as powder and crumbled to dust in his hands. Coming forward, as if to give the welcome present to the Indians, he suddenly sprang on them and filled their eyes, mouths, and noses with the stinging tobacco dust. The savages were half choked and nearly blinded. While they were dancing about, coughing, sneezing, and rubbing their eyes, Boone slipped out of the shed and got to a place of safety. The Indians were mad as they could be, yet they could hardly help laughing at Boone's trick; for cunning as the red men were, he was more cunning still.

154. Boone's old age; he moves to Missouri; he begs for a piece of land; his grave.--Boone lived to be a very old man. He had owned a good deal of land in the west, but he had lost possession of it. When Kentucky began to fill up with people and the game was killed off, Boone moved across the Mississippi into Missouri. He said that he went because he wanted "more elbow room" and a chance to hunt buffalo again.

He now begged the state of Kentucky to give him a small piece of land, where, as he said, he could "lay his bones." The people of that state generously helped him to get nearly a thousand acres; but he appears to have soon lost possession of it. If he actually did lose it, then this brave old hunter, who had opened up the way for such a multitude of emigrants to get farms at the west, died without owning a piece of ground big enough for a grave. He is buried in Frankfort, Kentucky, within sight of the river on which he built his fort at Boonesboro'.

155. Summary.--Daniel Boone, a famous hunter from North Carolina, opened up a road through the forest, from the mountains of Eastern Tennessee to the Kentucky River. It was called the "Wilderness Road," and over it thousands of emigrants went into Kentucky to settle. Boone, with others, built the fort at Boonesboro', Kentucky, and went there to live. That fort protected the settlers against the Indians, and so helped that part of the country to grow until it became the state of Kentucky.

Tell about Daniel Boone. How did he help his father? Where did he go when he became a man? What did he cut on a beech tree? Where did he go after that? What is said of the Indians in Kentucky? Tell about Indian tricks. Tell about the two owls. Tell about the Wilderness Road. What is said of the fort at Boonesboro'? Tell how Boone's daughter and the other girls were stolen by the Indians. What happened next? Tell how Boone was captured by the Indians and how they adopted him. Tell the story of the tobacco dust. What did Boone do when he became old? What did Kentucky get for him? Where is he buried?

GENERAL JAMES ROBERTSON AND GOVERNOR JOHN SEVIER[1] (1742-1814; 1745-1815).

156. Who James Robertson was; Governor Tryon; the battle of Alamance.[2]--When Daniel Boone first went to Kentucky (1769) he had a friend named James Robertson, in North Carolina[3] who was, like himself, a mighty hunter. The British governor of North Carolina at that time was William Tryon. He lived in a palace built with money which he had forced the people to give him. They hated him so for his greed and cruelty that they nicknamed him the "Great Wolf of North Carolina."

At last many of the settlers vowed that they would not give the governor another penny. When he sent tax-collectors to get money, they drove them back, and they flogged one of the governor's friends with a rawhide till he had to run for his life.

The governor then collected some soldiers and marched against the people in the west. A battle was fought near the Alamance River. The governor had the most men and had cannon besides, so he gained the day. He took seven of the people prisoners and hanged them. They all died bravely, as men do who die for liberty.

[Footnote 1: Sevier (Se-veer'): he was born in Rockingham County, Virginia.]

[Footnote 2: Alamance River (Al'a-mance): see map in paragraph 150.]

[Footnote 3: Robertson was born in Brunswick County, Virginia; he emigrated to North Carolina and settled in the neighborhood of Raleigh. See map in paragraph 150.]

157. James Robertson leaves North Carolina and goes west.--After the battle of Alamance James Robertson and his family made up their minds that they would not live any longer where Governor Tryon ruled. They resolved to go across the mountains into the western wilderness. Sixteen other families joined Robertson's and went with them. It was a long, hard journey; for they had to climb rocks and find their way through deep, tangled woods. The men went ahead with their axes and their guns; then the older children followed, driving the cows; last of all came the women with the little children, with beds, pots, and kettles packed on the backs of horses.

158. The emigrants settle on the Watauga River[4] in Tennessee.--When the little party had crossed the mountains into what is now the state of Tennessee, they found a delightful valley. Through this valley there ran a stream of clear sparkling water called the Watauga River; the air of the valley was sweet with the smell of wild crab-apples.

On the banks of that stream the emigrants built their new homes. Their houses were simply rough log huts, but they were clean and comfortable. When the settlers put up these cabins, they chopped down every tree near them which was big enough for an Indian to hide behind. They knew that they might have to fight the savages; but they had rather do that than be robbed by tax-collectors. In the wilderness Governor Tryon could not reach them--they were free; free as the deer and the squirrels were: that one thought made them contented and happy.

[Footnote 4: Watauga River (Wa-taw'ga): see map in paragraph 150.]

159. John Sevier goes to settle at Watauga; what he and Robertson did.--The year after this little settlement was made John Sevier went from Virginia to Watauga, as it was called. He and Robertson soon became fast friends--for one brave man can always see something to respect and like in another brave man. Robertson and Sevier hunted together and worked together.

After a while they called a meeting of the settlers and agreed on some excellent laws, so that everything in the log village might be done decently and in order; for although these people lived in the woods, they had no notion of living like savages or wild beasts. In course of time President Washington made James Robertson General Robertson, in honor of what he had done for his country.

Out of this settlement on the Watauga River grew the state of Tennessee. A monument in honor of John Sevier stands in Nashville, a city founded by his friend Robertson. Sevier became the first governor of the new state.

160. Summary.--James Robertson, of North Carolina, and John Sevier, of Virginia, emigrated across the mountains to the western wilderness. They settled on the Watauga River, and that settlement, with others made later, grew into the state of Tennessee, of which John Sevier became the first governor.

What friend did Boone have in North Carolina? Tell about Governor Tryon. What happened on the Alamance River? Where did Robertson and others go? Where did they settle? Why did they like to be there? Tell about John Sevier. What did he and Robertson do? What did Washington do for Robertson? What state grew out of the Watauga settlement? What did Sevier become? Where is his monument?

GENERAL GEORGE ROGERS CLARK (1752-1818).

161. The British in the west; their forts; hiring Indians to fight the settlers.--While Washington was fighting the battles of the Revolution in the east, the British in the west were not sitting still. They had a number of forts in the Wilderness,[1] as that part of the country was then called. One of these forts was at Detroit,[2] in what is now Michigan; another was at Vincennes,[3] in what is now Indiana; a third fort was at Kaskaskia,[4] in what is now Illinois.

Colonel Hamilton, the British commander at Detroit, was determined to drive the American settlers out of the west. In the beginning of the Revolution the Americans resolved to hire the Indians to fight for them, but the British found that they could hire them better than we could, and so they got their help. The savages did their work in a terribly cruel way. Generally they did not come out and do battle openly, but they crept up secretly, by night, and attacked the farmers' homes. They killed and scalped the settlers in the west, burned their log cabins, and carried off the women and children prisoners. The greater part of the people in England hated this sort of war. They begged the king not to hire the Indians to do these horrible deeds of murder and destruction. George the Third was not a bad-hearted man; but he was very set in his way, and he had fully made up his mind to conquer the "American rebels," as he called them, even if he had to get the savages to help him do it.

[Footnote 1: See map in paragraph 187.]

[Footnote 2: Detroit (De-troit'): for these forts see map in this paragraph.]

[Footnote 3: Vincennes (Vin-senz').]

[Footnote 4: Kaskaskia (Kas-kas'ki-a).]

162. George Rogers Clark gets help from Virginia and starts to attack Fort Kaskaskia.--Daniel Boone had a friend in Virginia named George Rogers Clark,[5] who believed that he could take the British forts in the west and drive out the British from all that part of the country. Virginia then owned most of the Wilderness. For this reason Clark went to Patrick Henry, governor of Virginia, and asked for help. The governor liked the plan, and let Clark have money to hire men to go with him and try to take Fort Kaskaskia to begin with.

Clark started in the spring of 1778 with about a hundred and fifty men. They built boats just above Pittsburg[6] and floated down the Ohio River, a distance of over nine hundred miles. Then they landed in what is now Illinois, and set out for Fort Kaskaskia.[7]

[Footnote 5: George Rogers Clark was born near Monticello, Virginia. See map in paragraph 140.]

[Footnote 6: Pittsburg: see map in paragraph 140.]

[Footnote 7: Fort Kaskaskia: see map in paragraph 161.]

163. The march to Fort Kaskaskia; how a dance ended.--It was a hundred miles to the fort, and half of the way the men had to find their way through thick woods, full of underbrush, briers, and vines. The British, thinking the fort perfectly safe from attack, had left it in the care of a French officer. Clark and his band reached Kaskaskia at night. They found no one to stop them. The soldiers in the fort were having a dance, and the Americans could hear the merry music of a violin and the laughing voices of girls.

Clark left his men just outside the fort, and, finding a door open, he walked in. He reached the room where the fun was going on, and stopping there, he stood leaning against the door-post, looking on. The room was lighted with torches; the light of one of the torches happened to fall full on Clark's face; an Indian sitting on the floor caught sight of him; he sprang to his feet and gave a terrific war-whoop. The dancers stopped as though they had been shot; the women screamed; the men ran to the door to get their guns. Clark did not move, but said quietly, "Go on; only remember you are dancing now under Virginia, and not under Great Britain." The next moment the Americans rushed in, and Clark and his "Long Knives," as the Indians called his men, had full possession of the fort.

164. How Fort Vincennes was taken; how the British got it back again; what Francis Vigo[8] did.--Clark wanted next to march against Fort Vincennes, but he had not men enough. There was a French Catholic priest[9] at Kaskaskia, and Clark's kindness to him had made him our friend. He said, I will go to Vincennes for you, and I will tell the French, who hold the fort for the British, that the Americans are their real friends, and that in this war they are in the right. He went; the French listened to him, then hauled down the British flag and ran up the American flag in its place.

The next year the British, led by Colonel Hamilton of Detroit, got the fort back again. When Clark heard of it he said, "Either I must take Hamilton, or Hamilton will take me." Just then Francis Vigo, a trader at St. Louis, came to see Clark at Kaskaskia. Hamilton had held Vigo as a prisoner, so he knew all about Fort Vincennes. Vigo said to Clark, "Hamilton has only about eighty soldiers; you can take the fort, and I will lend you all the money you need to pay your men what you owe them."

[Footnote 8: Vigo (Vee-go).]

[Footnote 9: The priest was Father Gibault (Zhe-bo').]

165. Clark's march to Fort Vincennes; the "Drowned Lands."--Clark, with about two hundred men, started for Vincennes. The distance was nearly a hundred and fifty miles. The first week everything went on pretty well. It was in the month of February, the weather was cold, and it rained a good deal, but the men did not mind that. They would get wet through during the day; but at night they built roaring log fires, gathered round them, roasted their buffalo meat or venison, smoked their pipes, told jolly stories, and sang jolly songs.

But the next week they got to a branch of the Wabash River.[10] Then they found that the constant rains had raised the streams so that they had overflowed their banks; the whole country was under water three or four feet deep. This flooded country was called the "Drowned Lands": before Clark and his men had crossed them they were nearly drowned themselves.

[Footnote 10: See map in paragraph 161.]

166. Wading on to victory.--For about a week the Americans had to wade in ice-cold water, sometimes waist deep, sometimes nearly up to their chins. While wading, the men were obliged to hold their guns and powder-horns above their heads to keep them dry. Now and then a man would stub his toe against a root or a stone and would go sprawling headfirst into the water. When he came up, puffing and blowing from such a dive, he was lucky if he still had his gun. For two days no one could get anything to eat; but hungry, wet, and cold, they kept moving slowly on.

The last part of the march was the worst of all. They were now near the fort, but they still had to wade through a sheet of water four miles across. Clark took the lead and plunged in. The rest, shivering, followed. A few looked as though their strength and courage had given out. Clark saw this, and calling to Captain Bowman,--one of the bravest of his officers,--he ordered him to kill the first man who refused to go forward.

At last, with numbed hands and chattering teeth, all got across, but some of them were so weak and blue with cold that they could not take another step, but fell flat on their faces in the mud. These men were so nearly dead that no fire seemed to warm them. Clark ordered two strong men to lift each of these poor fellows up, hold him between them by the arms, and run him up and down until he began to get warm. By doing this he saved every one.

167. Clark takes the fort; what we got by his victory; his grave.--After a long and desperate fight Clark took Fort Vincennes and hoisted the Stars and Stripes over it in triumph. The British never got it back again. Most of the Indians were now glad to make peace, and to promise to behave themselves.

By Clark's victory the Americans got possession of the whole western wilderness up to Detroit. When the Revolutionary War came to an end, the British did not want to give us any part of America beyond the thirteen states on the Atlantic coast. But we said, The whole west, clear to the Mississippi, is ours; we fought for it; we took it; we hoisted our flag over its forts, and _we mean to keep it_. We did keep it.

There is a grass-grown grave in a burial-ground in Louisville, Kentucky, which has a small headstone marked with the letters G. R. C., and nothing more; that is the grave of General George Rogers Clark, the man who did more than any one else to get the west for us--or what was called the west a hundred years ago.

168. Summary.--During the Revolutionary War George Rogers Clark of Virginia, with a small number of men, captured Fort Kaskaskia in Illinois, and Fort Vincennes in Indiana. Clark drove out the British from that part of the country, and when peace was made, we kept the west--that is, the country as far as the Mississippi River--as part of the United States. Had it not been for him and his brave men, we might not have got it.

What did the British have in the west? Where were three of those forts? Who hired the Indians to fight? How did they fight? What did most of the people in England think about this? What is said of George the Third? What friend did Daniel Boone have in Virginia? What did Clark undertake to do? Tell how he went down the Ohio. Tell how he marched on Fort Kaskaskia. What happened when he got there? What did Clark say to the people in the fort? How was Fort Vincennes taken? What did the British do the next year? Tell about Francis Vigo. What did Clark and his men start to do? How far off was Fort Vincennes? Tell about the first part of the march. What lands did they come to? Tell how the men waded. How did Clark save the lives of some of the men? Did Clark take the fort? What did the Americans get possession of by this victory? What happened at the end of the Revolutionary War? What did we say? What is said of the grave at Louisville, Kentucky? What did Clark get for us?

GENERAL RUFUS PUTNAM (1738-1824).

169. What General Putnam did for Washington, and what the British said of Putnam's work.--When the British had possession of Boston in the time of the Revolution, Washington asked Rufus Putnam,[1] who was a great builder of forts, to help him drive them out. Putnam set to work, one dark, stormy night, and built a fort on some high land[2] overlooking Boston Harbor.

When the British commander woke up the next morning, he saw the American cannon pointed at his ships. He was so astonished that he could scarcely believe his eyes. "Why," said he, "the rebels have done more in one night than my whole army could have done in a week." Another officer, who had command of the British vessels, said, "If the Americans hold that fort, I cannot keep a ship in the harbor."

Well, we know what happened. Our men did hold that fort, and the British had to leave Boston. Next to General Washington, General Rufus Putnam was the man who made them go; for not many officers in the American army could build such a fort as he could.

[Footnote 1: Rufus Putnam was born in Sutton, Massachusetts.]

[Footnote 2: Dorchester Heights: now South Boston.]

170. General Putnam builds the _Mayflower_; goes down the Ohio River and makes the first settlement in Ohio.--After the war was over, General Putnam started with a company of people from New England, to make a settlement on the Ohio River. In the spring of 1788 he and his emigrants built a boat at a place just above Pittsburg.[3] They named this boat the _Mayflower_,[4] because they were Pilgrims going west to make their home there.

At that time there was not a white settler in what is now the state of Ohio. Most of that country was covered with thick woods. There were no roads through those woods, and there was not a steamboat or a railroad either in America or in the world. If you look on the map[5] and follow down the Ohio River from Pittsburg, you will come to a place where the Muskingum joins the Ohio. At that place the _Mayflower_ stopped, and the emigrants landed and began to build their settlement.

[Footnote 3: Pittsburg: see map in paragraph 140.]

[Footnote 4: _Mayflower_: see paragraph 64.]

[Footnote 5: See map in paragraph 140.]

171. What the settlers named their town; the first Fourth of July celebration; what Washington said of the settlers.--During the Revolutionary War the beautiful Queen Mary of France was our firm friend, and she was very kind and helpful to Dr. Franklin when he went to France for us. A number of the emigrants had fought in the Revolution, and so it was decided to name the town Marietta,[6] in honor of the queen.

When the Marietta settlers celebrated the Fourth of July, Major Denny, who commanded a fort just across the river, came to visit them. He said, "These people appear to be the happiest folks in the world." President Washington said that he knew many of them and that he believed they were just the kind of men to succeed. He was right; for these people, with those who came later to build the city of Cincinnati, were the ones who laid the foundation of the great and rich state of Ohio.

[Footnote 6: The queen's full name in French was Marie Antoinette; the name Marietta is made up from the first and the last parts of her name.]