In the Current of the Revolution 21 



obliged to keep as sharp a lookout as if engaged in 

 open war. Throughout the summer of 1776 the 

 Kentucky settlers were continually harassed. Small 

 parties of Indians were constantly lurking round the 

 forts, to shoot down the men as they hunted or 

 worked in the fields, and to carry off the women. 

 There was a constant and monotonous succession of 

 unimportant forays and skirmishes. 



One band of painted marauders carried off 

 Boone's daughter. She was in a canoe with two 

 other girls on the river near Boonesborough when 

 they were pounced on by five Indians. 41 As soon 



Detroit to act along the Ohio and Wabash ; as we learn from 

 De Peyster's letter to Haldimand of May 17, 1780 (in the 

 Haldimand MSS.}. 



41 On July 14, 1776. The names of the three girls were 

 Betsy and Fanny Callaway and Jemima Boone ; See Boone's 

 Narrative, and Butler, who gives the letter of July 21, 1776, 

 written by Col. John Floyd, one of the pursuing party. 



The names of the lovers, in their order, were Samuel Hen- 

 derson (a brother of Richard), John Holder, and Flanders 

 Callaway. Three weeks after the return to the fort Squire 

 Boone united in marriage the eldest pair of lovers, Samuel 

 Henderson and Betsy Callaway. It was the first wedding 

 that ever took place in Kentucky. Both the other couples 

 were likewise married a year or two later. 



The whole story reads like a page out of one of Cooper's 

 novels. The two younger girls gave way to despair when 

 captured ; but Betsy Callaway was sure they would be fol- 

 lowed and rescued. To mark the line of their flight she 

 broke off twigs from the bushes, and when threatened with 

 the tomahawk for doing this, she tore off strips of her dress. 

 The Indians carefully covered their trail, compelling the girls 

 to walk apart, as their captors did, in the thick cane, and to 

 wade up and down the little brooks. 



Boone started in pursuit the same evening. All next day 



