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Archiver > WADE > 1999-06 > 0929118994
From: Edward Smith <>
Subject: [WADE-L] Saltmakers Ordeal
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 1999 12:36:34 -0400
To Wade List:
After checking with the most gracious hostess of the Wade page, I will
be posting a short book over the next several days. The book mainly
concerns Richard Wade, but it has other folks in it as well. The book is
not copyrighted. Where I have excerpted information from other material,
such as published books and The Draper files, I have given them credit
in the body of the text. If you use this material, I ask that you do the
same. I will furnish source and page information for any statement, name
or date in the book, but I cant give the exact quotes due to the length
of the sources. Ill tell you where to look, and you can look it up! If
youre not interested in this, just use your delete button 8-). This is
the last message of the day. I will begin with Chapter Eight tomorrow.
CHAPTER SEVEN
After Boones escape, knowing that Boonesborough would now be
forewarned of their plans, the Indians sent British Lt. Governor
Hamilton a message requesting additional support. The governor sent
Antoine Dagneaux de Quindre, a French Canadian with a troop of militia
and arms and ammunition sufficient to supply a party of 400 men. William
Hancock had heard a rumor that the British had supplied the Indians with
four swivel guns, small artillery pieces, "to batter down our fort."
Williams Indian father, Captain Will, told him that Blackfish would
still give the settlers a chance to surrender and join the British. If
the offer was rejected the Shawnees "intend to lie around our fort, and
live on our stock, till they starve us out," then "kill all the men and
take the women prisoners." Hancock became agitated when Captain Will
told him of these plans and challenged the Shawnees right to plunder the
American settlements. Pointing to Captain Will's mare in exasperation,
he exclaimed, "Why, you stole her from Boonesborough." But my son,
Captain Will responded with determination, "all the men and all the
horses at Boonesborough belong to me." His answer echoed the comment he
had directed to Boone in 1769; that all the animals in Kentucky belonged
to the Shawnee. So William resolved to escape to warn Boonesborough,
but, forewarned by his belligerence, Captain Will began to guard him
more closely.
At night he demanded Williams clothes and laid his own sleeping mat
close against the cabin door to prevent William from sneaking out. On
July 7, 1778, not long after this conversation took place, Captain Will
returned late from a war council, having drunk a little too much rum.
"Wil-lum, Wil-lum," he called to his adopted son in a loud whisper.
Hancock was awake but played possum. "Wil-lum ne-pan," Will mumbled
aloud--William' sleeping--and lying down next to the doorway, he too was
soon sound asleep. William silently left his mat and, taking three pints
of corn he had hidden away, succeeded in squeezing by his Indian father
and fled stark naked into the summer night.
He ran south down the Little Miami Trail and on the second day entered
the swiftly flowing Ohio, clinging to a piece of driftwood. The Ohio was
in flood and the driftwood carried him downstream about twenty miles
before he was washed ashore in unfamiliar territory. He wandered for
seven days more in Kentucky, with only the parched corn to sustain him,
and finally collapsed of hunger and fatigue, "never to arise," he
thought.
Awakening some hours later, he looked up and, miraculously, saw a tree
with the name HANCOCK carved in it. Realizing that he had been in this
very spot hunting with his brother the previous fall, he regained his
sense of direction. It was not more than four miles to Boonesborough!
With a great deal of difficulty and pain, William continued on to
Boonesborough. He was so weak when he arrived at the fort, that he could
not find the strength to cross the river under his own power, but lay on
the side opposite the fort and feebly called for help until some of the
settlers heard him.
It was July 17, 1778 and he had been alone in the wilderness, lost,
naked and without food for 10 days. He was incapacitated for some time,
but he gave his report of the coming Indian attack immediately. It was
Colonel Callaway, Daniel Boone and Stephen, his brother, who nursed him
back to health.
John Bakeless in his book on Daniel Boone comments that William was
not much of woodsman but all things are relative. He may not have been
a woodsman of the same caliber as Daniel Boone but travelling over 100
miles alone in a hostile environment with no clothes, no protection from
the elements or no means to procure food, and then crossing a major
river in flood is certainly no small accomplishment.
With Williams return to the fort the suspicions were revived
concerning Boones loyalty. William himself said, Boone promised to
give up the fort to the Indians and ----promised everything.
By the third week of August, things were in such a state that Boone
decided to make a pre-emptive attack across the Ohio River. In
hindsight, this was not a smart thing to do, since the Fort would be
left undefended, but Boone got eighteen men to dress up like savages and
accompany him across the river to the Indian shore and attack an
Indian town on the Scioto river with moderate success. This "Paint Creek
Expedition included Simon Kenton, John Holder, Colonel John Logan, John
Callaway and Stephen Hancock. The error of the decision was brought
forcefully home when upon returning to the Ohio River they suddenly came
upon a group of thirty Indians within four miles of the town who were
enroute to join the large force of Indians already on the march to
Boonesborough. In the vigorous attack that followed, one Indian was
killed and two were wounded without loss to Boone's party. They
discovered that Blackfish, and the Indian army of about 400 supported by
de Quindre and his company of Detroit militia had already crossed the
river and were on the march to Boonesborough! The Indians had been
unable to get the cannons that they requested, but they were well
supplied with other types of guns and munitions!
Boone and his men hastily took a more direct route back to the fort,
bypassing the Indian Army, with the sad news that the long impending
attack would take place the next day.
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