Hunting parties crossed the
mountains from time to time after that, and made great inroads on the
vast herds of game, but the Indians were in arms everywhere, and not
until they had been defeated at the battle of Point Pleasant, the
bloodiest in the history of Virginia with its Indian foe, did they sue
for peace.
The coming of peace marked a new era in the development of the western
country. Some years before, a company of men headed by Richard
Henderson, had conceived the grandiose project of founding in the west a
great colony, and had purchased from the Cherokee Indians a vast tract
of land, which they named Transylvania. It included all the land between
the Cumberland and Kentucky rivers, and Daniel Boone was selected to
blaze a way into the wilderness, to mark out a road, and start the first
settlement. He got a party together, crossed the mountains, and on April
1, 1775, began to build a fort on the left bank of the Kentucky river,
calling it Fort Boone, afterwards Boonesborough. Some settlers moved in,
but the outbreak of the Revolution and the consequent renewal of Indian
hostilities under encouragement from the British put a stop to
immigration.
The fort, alone and unprotected in the wilderness, was soon attacked by
a great war-party, but managed to beat off the assailants. Shortly
afterwards, while leading an expedition to the Blue Licks, on the
Licking river, to secure a supply of salt, Boone became separated from
his men, and was surprised and captured by an Indian war-party.
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