CHAPTER VIII.

The militia discharged—­Captain Boone returns to his family—­Henderson’s company—­Various companies of emigrants to Kentucky—­Bounty lands—­Harrod’s party builds the first log-cabin erected in Kentucky, and founds Harrodsburg—­Proceedings of Henderson’s company—­Agency of Captain Boone—­He leads a company to open a road to Kentucky River—­Conflicts with the Indians—­Captain Boone founds Boonesborough—­His own account of this expedition—­His letter to Henderson—­Account of Colonel Henderson and the Transylvania Company—­Failure of the scheme—­Probability of Boone having been several years in the service of Henderson.

On the conclusion of Dunmore’s war, the militia were discharged from service, the garrisons which had been under Captain Daniel Boone’s command were broken up, and he once more returned to his family, who were still residing on Clinch River.  But he was not long permitted to remain comparatively idle.  Captain Boone’s character as an able officer and a bold pioneer, was now well known and appreciated by the public.  The marks of confidence bestowed on him by Governor Dunmore rendered him one of the most conspicuous men in the Southern colonies, and his services were soon to be put in requisition by the most considerable and remarkable of all the parties of adventurers who ever sought a home in the West.  This was Henderson’s company, called the Transylvania Company, to whose proceedings we shall presently refer.

Between 1769 and 1773, various associations of men were formed, in Virginia and North Carolina, for visiting the newly-discovered regions and locating lands; and several daring adventurers, at different times during this period, penetrated to the head-waters of the Licking River, and did some surveying; but it was not till the year 1774 that the whites obtained any permanent foothold in Kentucky.  From this year, therefore, properly dates the commencement of the early settlements of the State.[22]

The first great impetus given to adventure in Kentucky was by the bounty in Western land given by Virginia to the officers and soldiers of her own troops who had served in the British army in the old war in Canada between the English and French.  These lands were to be surveyed on the Ohio River, and its tributaries, by the claimants thus created, who had the privilege of selecting them wherever they pleased within the prescribed regions.  The first locations were made upon the Great Kenawha in the year 1772, and the next on the south side of the Ohio itself the following year.  During this year, likewise, extensive tracts of land were located on the north fork of the Licking, and surveys made of several salt-licks, and other choice spots.  But 1774 was more signalized than had been any preceding year by the arrival, in the new “land of promise,” of the claimants to portions of its territory, and the execution of