Note 7 — CHRONICLES OF BORDER WARFARE (continued 3)

The Boones and five other families set out from their homes on the Yadkin, Sept. 25, 1773. In Powell’s Valley they were joined by forty people under Boone’s brother-in-law, William Bryan. While the main party were slowly advancing through the valley, a small squad, under Boone’s oldest son, James, went on a side expedition for flour, cattle, and other supplies. With these they had nearly caught up to the advance, when, not knowing they were so near, they camped on the evening of October 9 a few miles in the rear. Early in the morning of the 10th, a small band of Shawnees and Cherokees, who were nominally at peace with the whites, fell upon and, after cruel tortures, slaughtered them. In Dunmore’s speech at Fort Pitt, this tragedy in Powell’s Valley was alluded to as one of the chief causes of the Indian war of 1774. At the Camp Charlotte treaty (October, 1774), some of the plunder from this massacre was delivered up by the savages. After the tragedy, the greater part of the Kentucky caravan returned to their homes, but the Boones spent the winter of 1773-74 at a settlement some forty miles distant, on Clinch River. During the Dunmore War, Boone was active as an Indian fighter.––R. G. T.