260 The Winning of the West 



operations carried on by order of the Executive for 

 the past eighteen months had been* a detriment 

 rather than a help. The utmost confusion and dis- 

 couragement prevailed everywhere. 24 



24 Va. State Papers, III, pp. 301, 331. Letter of William 

 Christian, September 28th. Petition of Boone, Todd, Nether- 

 land, etc., September nth. In Morehead's "address" is a 

 letter from Nathaniel Hart. He was himself, as a boy, wit- 

 ness of what he describes. His father, who had been Hen- 

 derson's partner and bgre the same name as himself, was 

 from North Carolina. He founded in Kentucky a station 

 known as White Oak Springs; and was slain by the savages 

 during this year. The letter runs: "It is impossible at this 

 day to make a just impression of the sufferings of the pio- 

 neers about the period spoken of. The White Oak Springs 

 fort in 1782, with perhaps one hundred souls in it was re- 

 duced in August to three fighting white men and I can say 

 with truth that for two or three weeks my mother's family 

 never unclothed themselves to sleep, nor were all of them 

 within that time at their meals together, nor was any house- 

 hold business attempted. Food was prepared and placed 

 where those who chose could eat. It was the period when 

 Bryan's station was besieged, and for many days before and 

 after that gloomy event we were in constant expectation of 

 being made prisoners. We made application to Col. Logan 

 for a guard and obtained one, but not until the danger was 

 measureably over. It then consisted of two men only. Col. 

 Logan did everything in his power, as County Lieutenant, 

 to sustain the different forts but it was not a very easy mat- 

 ter to order a married man from a fort where his family was 

 to defend some other when his own was in imminent danger. 



"I went with my mother in January, 1783, to Logan's sta- 

 tion to prove my father's will. He had fallen in the preced- 

 ing July. Twenty armed men were of the party. Twenty- 

 three widows were in attendance upon the court to obtain 

 letters of administration on the estates of their husbands 

 who had been killed during the past year." 



The letter also mentions that most of the original settlers 

 of the fort were from Pennsylvania, "orderly respectable 



