burnings,
and captivities, which swept the incipient northern and western
settlements with desolation, it may not be amiss to take a brief
retrospect of the state of these settlements at this conjuncture in the
life of Boone.

CHAPTER VII.

Settlement of Harrodsburgh--Indian mode of besieging and
warfare--Fortitude and privation of the Pioneers--The Indians attack
Harrodsburgh and Boonesborough--Description of a Station--Attack of
Bryant's Station.

A road sufficient for the passage of pack horses in single file, had
been opened from the settlements already commenced on Holston river to
Boonesborough in Kentucky. It was an avenue which soon brought other
adventurers, with their families to the settlement. On the northern
frontier of the country, the broad and unbroken bosom of the Ohio opened
an easy liquid highway of access to the country. The first spots
selected as landing places and points of ingress into the country, were
Limestone--now Maysville--at the mouth of Limestone creek, and Beargrass
creek, where Louisville now stands. Boonesborough and Harrodsburgh were
the only stations in Kentucky sufficiently strong to be safe from the
incursions of the Indians; and even these places afforded no security a
foot beyond the palisades. These two places were the central points
towards which emigrants directed their course from Limestone and
Louisville. The routes from these two places were often ambushed by the
Indians. But notwithstanding the danger of approach to the new country,
and the incessant exposure during the residence there, immigrants
continued to arrive at the stations.

The first female white settlers of Harrodsburgh, were Mrs. Denton,
McGary, and Hogan, who came with their husbands and families. A number
of other families soon followed, among whom, in 1776, came Benjamin
Logan, with his wife and family. These were all families of
respectability and standing, and noted in the subsequent history of the
country.

Hordes of savages were soon afterwards ascertained to have crossed the
Ohio, with the purpose to extirpate these germs of social establishments
in Kentucky. According to their usual mode of warfare, they separated
into numerous detachments, and dispersed in all directions through the
forests. This gave them the aspect of numbers and strength beyond
reality. It tended to increase the apprehensions of the recent
immigrants, inspiring the natural impressions, that the woods in all
direct