These gentlemen disagreed in their respective lines, and the question of boundary was not conclusively settled for several years afterward. Colonel Henderson abandoned his survey before it was completed, while Dr. Walker completed his line westward to the Tennessee River, about sixty miles above its mouth. Descending the Tennessee and Ohio to the Mississippi, he there ascertained that the parallel of 36° 30' would intersect the Mississippi, and not the Ohio.* This line is the basis of the present southern limit of Kentucky.

CHAPTER IV.

INDIAN WARS ON THE OHIO. EXTENSION OF THE AMERICAN SETTLEMENTS EAST AND SOUTH OF THE OHIO.-A.D. 1781 TO 1784.

Argument.-Severe Winter of 1780-81.-Scarcity in Kentucky.-Kentucky divided into three Counties.-Indian Hostilities on Bear-grass Creek.-Attack on Boone's and M'Afee's Stations.- Indians contemplate utter Destruction of Kentucky Settle. ments. Chickasâs attack Fort Jefferson in 1780.-Counties of Kentucky organized. -General Clark's gun-boat Defense on the Ohio River.-Abundant Crops of 1781. -Indian Hostilities renewed in the Spring of 1782.-Estill's Defeat.-Last Survivor of his Party.-Indian Hostilities continued.-Laherty's Defeat.-Indian Invasion, under Simon Girty, on Bryant's Station.-Disastrous Battle of Blue Licks.-Colonel Logan buries the Dead. Upper Ohio.-Settlements of West Augusta harassed.— Wheeling Campaign against the Moravian Towns.-Horrible Massacre of peaceable Indians. Former Position of the Moravian Towns.-Previous Admonitions neglected. -Disastrous Campaign against Moravians on Sandusky.-Colonel Crawford and Dr. Knight captured. -Execution and horrid Torture of Colonel Crawford. - British Agency the Source of Indian Hostilities.-Attack on Wheeling Fort, and on Rice's Fort. Lower Ohio.-General Clark invades the Indian Country in 1782.-Effects of this Invasion.-Domestic Prosperity of Kentucky.-Settlements extend North of Licking.-Flood of Emigration sets into Kentucky.-The "District of Kentucky" organized.-Peace with Great Britain announced.-Extent of the Kentucky Settlements in 1783.-Population and Moral Condition of the Settlements.-Settlements extend North of Licking River in 1784-85.-Settlements in Western Virginia.

[A.D. 1781.] THE winter of 1780-81 was unusually protracted and severe; Indian depredations and murders for a time were suspended, and the people enjoyed a temporary respit from harassing alarms; the crops of the previous year had been greatly injured, and, in many cases, entirely destroyed by the Indians; the domestic stock of cattle and hogs had been killed; the supplies of salt, and other indispensable requisites

* Marshall, vol. i., p. 113.

of new settlements, had been exhausted, and the whole population of Kentucky was now on the verge of absolute want. Such was the state of things in the settlements, when opening spring enabled the savages to resume hostilities. The whole line of frontier settlements in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Kentucky was simultaneously assailed by marauding parties of Indians distributed along this extensive frontier. Terror and consternation were only the precursors of havoc and desolation. The whole country was again thrown into a state of preparation to repel the invaders at every point.

Agreeably to the provisions of an act of the Legislature of the preceding year, the county of Kentucky was divided into three counties, designated by the act as the "counties of Jefferson, Fayette, and Lincoln." The county of Jefferson comprised all the country lying on the Ohio River, between the Kentucky and Green Rivers, presenting a frontier of more than two hundred miles along the Ohio. The county of Fayette comprised the country on the northeast side of Kentucky River, and extending to the Big Sandy, presenting a frontier coast of equal extent on the Ohio. The county of Lincoln comprised all the southeastern portion of the present State of Kentucky. These extensive counties were organized with a civil and military government, similar to other counties in Virginia, and, like many of the western counties, they comprised extensive regions of uninhabited country.*

The first Indian incursions into Kentucky took place early in March, and were directed against Jefferson county. Several persons were killed during that month. Among the most conspicuous of those who suffered in the opening campaign were Colonel Lynn, and Captains Tipton and Chapman, of the Beargrass settlements. A party of fifteen men having set out in pursuit of one of the marauding bands of Indians, was surprised near the Ohio, on the waters of Bear-grass Creek, and were severely defeated by the Indians, with the loss of nine men killed, and one wounded.

In April, a station settled by Squire Boone, near the site of the present town of Shelbyville, was alarmed by signs of Indians, and the occupants deserting it, sought safety at the stronger settlements on Bear-grass Creek. While on this route, a party of men, encumbered with the women, children, house

Butler, p. 118.

hold goods, and cattle, were attacked by the Indians, who killed several persons, and dispersed the remainder in the recesses of the forest. To revenge this outrage, Colonel John Floyd, with twenty-five men collected from the vicinity of the falls, went in pursuit of the Indians, but soon fell into an ambuscade, and was defeated with the loss of half his men.*

Early in May, a party of Indians appeared before M'Afee's Station, and, after a brisk skirmish with a few men, who retreated to the fort, a fierce attack was commenced, and continued with vigor for nearly two hours, when persons from other stations in the vicinity, apprised of the attack, came to the relief of their friends, who were thus enabled to defeat the Indians within one mile of the fort. In this affair, one white man was killed and one mortally wounded; the Indians lost six or seven killed, besides their wounded.†

M'Afee's Station, although a frontier post, was not again. molested by them. The hostile incursions of these marauding bands against other points of the settlements also became less frequent during the remainder of this year, and Kentucky again, for a time, enjoyed comparative tranquillity from Indian invasions; but it was only the deceptive calm before the desolating storm; the savages were only preparing for more important operations.

The Indians had perceived that their detached predatory incursions by small parties, however harassing they might be to the whites, did not check the increase of their settlements. They saw that, in spite of all their hostilities, all their marauding incursions, and all their persevering efforts in this way to check the advance of the whites from the east side of the mountains, their numbers daily increased by the arrival of additional emigrants; the number of dwellings and fortified stations likewise increased, and the surveyors were again busily employed measuring the land. This latter circumstance, from the first occupancy by the whites, had always been a hated omen and a sure precursor of the entire loss of their territories. Nor had the whites been satisfied in defending their settlements east and south of the Ohio; they had sent several expeditions into the heart of the Indian country north of the Ohio, and had burned their towns, laid waste their fields, and reduced their women and children to wretchedness and want. Their favorite hunt

ing-grounds south of the Ohio were already in the occupancy of the whites, who were never known to recede from their advances; and so long as their forts remained, the people would hold the country, and the surveyors would measure off the land for fields and residences. It was in vain to invade their settlements by small bands, who could not take and destroy the forts. Hence it was evident to them that they must give up the contest in Kentucky, or they must bring their whole united force, and, by one grand effort, recover the country, with the destruction of the forts and the extermination of the whites. The latter plan was adopted by the leading chiefs of the Shawanese tribe, and during the remainder of the year they were unremitting in their efforts to bring about a general concert of action among all the northwestern tribes for a grand exterminating invasion during the next summer. In this they had the approbation and encouragement of British agents and officers at Detroit and on the Maumee, who assured them of the powerful aid of their great ally "George III., by the grace of God king of Great Britain," &c.*

While the plan of this grand invasion was in contemplation, and the preparations were secretly progressing, it was deemed expedient to keep the frontier settlements in a state of alarm and apprehension, with a renewal of desultory hostilities by detached bands.

In the mean time, Kentucky was threatened with a war from the Southern Indians. Fort Jefferson, as has been before observed, had been built the previous year upon the territory of the Chickasâ Indians, without their consent. So soon as it had been known to them, they had formally remonstrated against this invasion of their territory. This remonstrance being disregarded, they prepared to repel the invaders by force. Accordingly, early in the following autumn, when the garrison was reduced to about thirty men, most of whom were invalids, the fort was invested by a large force of Chickasâ Indians, led on by Colbert, a half-breed chief of Scotch extraction. During six days the siege was pressed with much vigor, and frequent assaults were made by the savages, who were as often driven back by the artillery loaded with grape and musket-balls. At length the garrison was relieved from its perilous condition by the arrival of General Clark, with a re-enforcement from Kas

*Marshall's Kentucky, vol. i., p. 118.

kaskia, and a supply of ammunition and provisions. The Indians were thus compelled to abandon the siege and retire.*

Soon afterward, the Governor of Virginia issued instructions to General Clark to abandon and dismantle the fort, it being unnecessary for defense, and serving only as a source of hostility with the Indians. The order was obeyed, and the hostility of the Chickasâs ceased.†

The ultimate plans of the northwestern savages were unknown to the people of Kentucky until late in the following winter. In the mean time, emigrants continued to arrive in great numbers from the western parts of Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland. Population extended, under the protection of new stations, in the more exposed frontier settlements, while organization of the civil government was gradually extended over them, in the establishment of regular county courts, with a qualified jurisdiction in common-plea cases, reserving to the jurisdiction of the district courts near the capital all important civil cases, together with criminal and capital offenses.

General Clark having been appointed to superintend the general defense of Kentucky, and relieved from his command on the Mississippi, now began to put in operation his plans of frontier defense for the settlements near the Ohio River.

A portion of his plan of defense comprised a large floating battery of gun-boats, mounted with several pieces of artillery, and garrisoned by a strong detachment of light troops and riflemen, who could debark at any point to encounter the savages hovering near the Ohio. This battery was removed from point to point on the Ohio, between the mouth of Licking River and the "falls," which had now become the most exposed frontier of Kentucky. This new species of defense greatly interrupted the operations of the Indians against the Kentucky settlements, and afforded comparative security against their frequent incursions.

The year 1781 had yielded abundant crops of wheat, corn, and vegetables of all kinds, and plenty once more smiled upon the new settlements. The autumn brought with it great numbers of emigrants for permanent residence; and many of them were in good circumstances, and well qualified to be valuable members of the new and rising state, whose intellect and talents contributed greatly toward the building up of the new commonwealth a few years afterward.

* Butler, p. 119.

+ Marshall's Kentucky, vol. i., p. 112.