770, he
explored the valley of the Cumberland River. In 1771 Daniel Boone, after
an absence of three years, returned to his home on the Yadkin; sold such
of his possessions as he could not carry with him, and started with his
family to return and settle in Kentucky. Some cows, horses, and
household utensils formed his baggage. His wife and children were
mounted on horseback, their neighbors regarding them as doomed to
certain destruction. On the route he was re-enforced by five families,
and forty armed men at Powell's Valley. In October the young men who had
charge of the pack-horses and cattle in the rear, were surprised by
Indians, and of seven only one escaped; six were slain, and among them
Boone's oldest son. This occurred near the gap of the Cumberland
Mountains, whose dark gorges, rocky cliffs, and hoary summits strike the
mind of the beholder with awe. The Indians were repulsed with heavy
loss; but the whites retired forty miles to the settlement on the Clinch
River, where Boone with his family remained for some time. Virginia in
vain demanded of the Cherokees the surrender of the offenders. One of
Boone's party, in retaliation, afterwards slew an Indian at a horse-race
on the frontier, in spite of the interposition of the by-standers. In
1774, at the request of Governor Dunmore, Boone, leaving his family on
the banks of the Clinch, went to assist in conveying a party of
surveyors to the falls of the Ohio. He was next employed in the command
of three garrisons during the campaign against the Shawnees. In March of
the ensuing year, at the solicitation of some gentlemen of North
Carolina, Boone, at the treaty of Watauga, purchased from the Cherokees
of North Carolina the lands claimed by them, lying between the Kentucky
River and the Tennessee. But Kentucky being within the chartered limits
of Virginia, she[597:A] declared this treaty null and void, and
proclaimed her own title. The North Carolina grantees, however, received
in compensation a liberal grant of lands on Green River. Boone also
undertook to mark out a road from the settlements to the wilderness of
Kentucky; during this work several of his men were killed by the
savages. In 1775 he erected a fort at Boonsborough, near the Kentucky
River, and he removed his family there, and his wife and daughter were
supposed to be the first white women that ever stood upon the banks of
the Kentucky River; and Boonsborough was long an outpost of
civilization.

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