Life of Daniel Boone, The Great Western Hunter and Pioneer | Page 7

more intolerable under Governor Tryon's administration, and to
lead to the formation of the famous company of Regulators, whose
resistance of taxation and tyranny was soon to convulse the whole
State.
We are by no means to suppose that Daniel Boone was an unobservant

spectator of what was passing even at the time we are speaking of, nor
that the doings of the tax-gatherers had nothing to do with his
subsequent movements. He not only hated oppression, but he hated also
strife and disturbance; and already began to long for a new migration
into the distant woods and quiet intervals, where politics and the
tax-gatherer should not intrude.
The population in his neighborhood was increasing, and new
settlements were being formed along the Yadkin and its tributary
streams, and explorations were made to the northwest on the banks of
the Holston and Clinch Rivers. The times were already beginning to
exhibit symptoms of restlessness and stir among the people, which was
soon to result in the formation of new States and the settlement of the
far West.
[Footnote 6: John H. Wheeler. "Historical Sketches of North
Carolina."]
[Footnote 7: The children by this marriage were nine in number.
_Sons:_ James, born in 1756, Israel, Jesse, Daniel, and Nathan.
_Daughters_: Susan, Jemima, Lavinia, and Rebecca. The eldest, James,
was killed, as will appear in our subsequent narrative, by the Indians, in
1773; and Israel fell in the battle of Blue Licks, May 17th, 1782. In
1846, Nathan, a captain in the United States service, was the only
surviving son.]

CHAPTER III.
The Seven Years' War--Cherokee war--Period of Boone's first long
excursions to the West--Extract from Wheeler's History of
Tennessee--Indian accounts of the western country--Indian
traders--Their reports--Western travelers--Doherty--Adair--Proceedings
of the traders--Hunters--Scotch traders--Hunters accompany the traders
to the West--Their reports concerning the country--Other
adventurers--Dr. Walker's expedition--Settlements in South-western
Virginia--Indian hostilities--Pendleton purchase--Dr. Walker's second

expedition--Hunting company of Walker and others--Boone travels
with them--Curious monument left by him.
The reader will recollect that the period referred to in the last chapter,
comprehended the latter years of the celebrated Seven Years' War.
During the chief portion of this period, the neighboring Colony of
Virginia suffered all the horrors of Indian war on its western
frontier--horrors from which even the ability, courage, and patriotism
of Washington were for a long time unable to protect them. The war
was virtually terminated by the campaign of 1759, when Quebec was
taken. The next year Canada was ceded to England; and a Cherokee
war, which had disturbed the border setters of North Carolina, was
terminated. Daniel Boone's biographers all agree that it was about this
time when he first began to make long excursions toward the West; but
it is difficult to fix exactly the date of his first long journey through the
woods in this direction. It is generally dated in 1771 or 1772, We now
make a quotation from Ramsay's Annals of Tennessee, which shows,
beyond the possibility of a doubt, that he hunted on the Wataga River
in 1760, and renders it probable that he was in the West at an earlier
date. Our readers will excuse the length of this quotation, as the first
part of it gives so graphic a picture of the hunter and pioneer life of the
times of Daniel Boone, and also shows what had been done by others in
western explorations before Boone's expeditions commenced.
"The Colonists of the Carolinas and of Virginia had been steadily
advancing to the West, and we have traced their approaches in the
direction of our eastern boundary,[8] to the base of the great
Appalachian range."
Of the country beyond it, little was positively known or accurately
understood. A wandering Indian would imperfectly delineate upon the
sand, a feeble outline of its more prominent physical features--its
magnificent rivers, with their numerous tributaries--its lofty mountains,
its dark forests, its extended plains and its vast extent. A voyage in a
canoe, from the source of the Hogohegee[9] to the Wabash,[10]
required for its performance, in their figurative language, 'two paddles,
two warriors, three moons.' The Ohio itself was but a tributary of a still

larger river, of whose source, size and direction, no intelligible account
could be communicated or understood. The Muscle Shoals and the
obstructions in the river above them, were represented as mighty
cataracts and fearful whirlpools, and the Suck, as an awful vortex. The
wild beasts with which the illimitable forests abounded, were numbered
by pointing to the leaves upon the trees, or the stars in a cloudless sky.
"These glowing descriptions of the West seemed rather to stimulate
than to satisfy the intense curiosity of the approaching settlers.
Information more reliable, and more minute, was, from time to time,
furnished from other sources. In the Atlantic cities, accounts had been
received from French and Spanish traders,