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112 



THE AMERICAN BISONS. 



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stantiated, as the subjoined extracts from reliable authorities sufficiently 



attest. 



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M'Clung, in his sketch of Simon Kenton, " taken from a manuscript ac- 

 count, dictated by the venerable pioneer himself/' relates the following: 

 ^^ Kenton, with tw^o companions, set out from Cabin Creek, a few^ miles 

 above Maysville, apparently about 1773 and 1774, to explore the neigh- 

 boring country. In a short time they reached the vicinity of May's Lick, 

 where they fell in with the great buffiilo trace, wdiich in a few hours brought 

 them to the Lower Blue Lick. The flats upon each side of the river were 

 crowded with immense herds of buffalo, that had come down from the in- 

 terior for the sake of salt; and a number of elk were seen upon the bare 



ridges which surround the springs After remaining a few days at 



the lick, and killing an immense number of deer and buffalo, they crossed 

 the Licking, and passed through the present counties of Scott, Fayette, Wood- 

 ford, Clarke, Montgomery, and Bath, where, falling in with another buffalo 

 trace, it conducted them to the Upper Blue Lick, where they again beheld 

 elk and buflfalo in fmmense numbers," * 



In an account of the adventures of Colonel Daniel Boone, published by 

 Filson, Boone states that he left his "family and peaceable habitation on 

 the Yadkin River, in North Carolina, the 1st of May, 1769, to wander 

 through the wilderness of America, in quest of the country of Kentucke." 

 Crossing the ^^ mountain wilderness," he and his five companions found 

 themselves on Eed River, on the seventh of June following. Here they 



Boone writes: "We 



encamped and began to reconnoitre the country, 

 found every where abundance of wild beasts of all sorts, through this 

 vast forest. The buffaloes were more frequent. than I have, seen cattle in 

 the settlements, browzing on the leaves of the cane, or croping the herb- 



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ge on those extensive plains, fearless, because ignorant, of the violence 

 of man. Sometimes we saw^ hundreds in a drove, and the numbers about 

 the salt springs were amazing." f During the severe winter of 1780 and 

 1781, Boone says that the inhabitants of Kentucky "lived chiefly on the 



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flesh of the buffalo. 



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Filson says (writing in 1784) : "I have heard a hunter assert, he saw above 

 one thousand buffaloes at the Blue Licks at once ; so numerous were they 

 before the first settlers had wantonly sported away their lives. There still 



* Western Adventures, p. 86. 



f Filson (John), Discovery, Settlement, and Present State of Kentucky, 1784, pp. 50, 51. 



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