“The athletic sports of running, jumping, and wrestling, were the pastimes of boys, in common with the men.

“A well-grown boy, at the age of twelve or thirteen years, was furnished with a small rifle and shot-pouch.  He then became a fort-soldier, and had his port hole assigned him.  Hunting squirrels, turkeys, and raccoons, soon made him expert in the use of his gun.

“Dancing was the principal amusement of our young people of both sexes.  Their dances, to be sure, were of the simplest form.  Three and four-handed reels and jigs.  Country dances, cotillions, and minuets, were unknown.  I remember to have seen, once or twice, a dance which was called ‘The Irish Trot,’ but I have long since forgotten its figure.”

“Shooting at marks was a common diversion among the men, when their stock of ammunition would allow it; this, however, was far from being always the case.  The present mode of shooting off-hand was not then in practice.  This mode was not considered as any trial of the value of a gun, nor indeed, as much of a test of the skill of a marksman.  Their shooting was from a rest, and at as great a distance as the length and weight of the barrel of the gun would throw a ball on a horizontal level.  Such was their regard to accuracy, in those sportive trials of their rifles, and of their own skill in the use of them, that they often put moss, or some other soft substance on the log or stump from which they shot, for fear of having the bullet thrown from the mark, by the spring of the barrel.  When the rifle was held to the side of a tree for a rest, it was pressed against it as lightly as possible, for the same reason.

“Rifles of former times were different from those of modern date; few of them carried more than forty five bullets to the pound.  Bullets of a less size were not thought sufficiently heavy for hunting or war.”

Our readers will pardon the length of these extracts from Doddridge, as they convey accurate pictures of many scenes of Western life in the times of Daniel Boone.  We add to them a single extract from “Ramsay’s Annals of Tennessee.”  The early settlement of that State took place about the same time with that of Kentucky, and was made by emigrants from the same region.  The following remarks are therefore perfectly applicable to the pioneers of Kentucky.

“The settlement of Tennessee was unlike that of the present new country of the United States.  Emigrants from the Atlantic cities, and from most points in the Western interior, now embark upon steamboats or other craft, and carrying with them all the conveniences and comforts of civilized life—­indeed, many of its luxuries—­are, in a few days, without toil, danger, or exposure, transported to their new abodes, and in a few months are surrounded with the appendages of home, of civilization, and the blessings of law and of society.  The wilds of Minnesota and Nebraska by the agency of steam, or the stalwart