CHAPTER X.

Disturbed state of the country in 1775--Breaking out of
the Revolutionary war--Exposed situation of the Kentucky
settlements--Hostility of the Indians excited by the British--First
political convention in the West--Capture of Boone's daughter and
the daughters of Colonel Callaway by the Indians--Their rescue by a
party led by Boone and Callaway--Increased caution of the colonists
at Boonesborough--Alarm and desertion of the Colonies in the West
by land speculators and other adventurers--A reinforcement of
forty-five men from North Carolina arrive at Boonesborough--Indian
attack on Boonesborough in April--Another attack in July--Attack
on Logan's Fort, and siege--Attack on Harrodsburg.


The reader will not fail to remark that the period at which Daniel Boone
commenced the settlement of Kentucky, was the most eventful one in the
history of our country. In the year 1775 hostilities between Great
Britain and her American Colonies commenced at Lexington and Concord,
and the whole country was mustering in arms at the time when Boone and
the other western emigrants were forming settlements four hundred miles
beyond the frontiers of Virginia and the Carolinas. Encouraged by the
treaty of Lord Dunmore with the Indians in 1774, and knowing the Indian
titles to the lands they were occupying to have been extinguished, they
naturally counted on an unmolested possession of the region they were
settling. But in this expectation they were sorely disappointed. The
English officers and agents in the northwest were indefatigable in