Henderson himself
went to Virginia to make the fight for his land before the
Assembly.*
* In 1778 Virginia disallowed Henderson's title but granted him
two hundred thousand acres between the Green and Kentucky rivers
for his trouble and expense in opening up the country.
The magnetic center of Boonesborough's life was the lovable and
unassuming Daniel Boone. Soon after the building of the fort
Daniel had brought in his wife and family. He used often to state
with a mild pride that his wife and daughters were the first
white women to stand on the banks of the Kentucky River. That
pride had not been unmixed with anxiety; his daughter Jemima and
two daughters of his friend, Richard Galloway, while boating on
the river had been captured by Shawanoes and carried off. Boone,
accompanied by the girls' lovers and by John Floyd (eager to
repay his debt of life-saving to Boone) had pursued them, tracing
the way the captors had taken by broken twigs and scraps of dress
goods which one of the girls had contrived to leave in their
path, had come on the Indians unawares, killed them, and
recovered the three girls unhurt.
In the summer of 1776, Virginia took official note of "Captain
Boone of Boonesborough," for she sent him a small supply of
powder. The men of the little colony, which had begun so
pretentiously with its constitution and assembly, were now
obliged to put all other plans aside and to concentrate on the
question of food and defense.
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