from memory, however, and was probably mistaken; thus he says there were at that time settlers at the Falls, an evident mistake, as there were none there till the following year.  Collins, following Marshall, says there were at the end of the year only one hundred and two men in Kentucky,—­sixty-five at Harrodstown, twenty-two at Boonsborough, fifteen at Logan’s.  This is a mistake based on a hasty reading of Boon’s narrative, which gives this number for July, and particularly adds that after that data they began to strengthen.  In the McAfee MSS. is a census of Harrodstown for the fall of 1777, which sums up:  Men in service, 81; men not in service, 4; women, 24; children above ten, 12; children under ten, 58; slaves above ten, 12; slaves under ten, 7; total, 198.  In October Clark in his diary records meeting fifty men with their families, (therefore permanent settlers), on their way to Boon, and thirty-eight men on their way to Logan’s.  At the end of the year, therefore, Boonsborough and Harrodstown must have held about two hundred souls apiece; Logan’s and McGarry’s were considerably smaller.  The large proportion of young children testifies to the prolific nature of the Kentucky women, and also shows the permanent nature of the settlements.  Two years previously, in 1775, there had been, perhaps, three hundred people in Kentucky, but very many of them were not permanent residents.]

    Boon Captured.

Early in 1778 a severe calamity befell the settlements.  In January Boon went, with twenty-nine other men, to the Blue Licks to make salt for the different garrisons—­for hitherto this necessary of life had been brought in, at great trouble and expense, from the settlements. [Footnote:  See Clark’s Diary, entry for October 25, 1777.] The following month, having sent three men back with loads of salt, he and all the others were surprised and captured by a party of eighty or ninety Miamis, led by two Frenchmen, named Baubin and Lorimer. [Footnote:  Haldimand MSS.  B., 122, p. 35.  Hamilton to Carleton, April 25, 1778.  He says four-score Miamis.] When surrounded, so that there was no hope of escape, Boon agreed that all should surrender on condition of being well treated.  The Indians on this occasion loyally kept faith.  The two Frenchmen were anxious to improve their capture by attacking Boonsborough; but the fickle savages were satisfied with their success, and insisted on returning to their villages.  Boon was taken, first to Old Chillicothe, the chief Shawnee town on the Little Miami, and then to Detroit, where Hamilton and the other Englishmen treated him well, and tried to ransom him for a hundred pounds sterling.  However, the Indians had become very much attached to him, and refused the ransom, taking their prisoner back to Chillicothe.  Here he was adopted into the tribe, and remained for two months, winning the good-will of the Shawnees by his cheerfulness and his skill as a hunter, and being careful not to rouse their jealousy by any too great display of skill at the shooting-matches.