the stations in Kentucky contained three parallel rows of cabins, the two outer rows being connected by the line of palisades. As the Indians were without artillery, and had very little desire to take any fortified place by storm, these stockades proved amply sufficient to withstand all the attacks which they could make with their rifles and small arms. Many of these stations during the Indian hostilities were invested by large bodies of warriors, sometimes for several weeks together, yet it was a rare occurrence for one of them to be captured.

In the absence of Indian alarms and "signs," the people left. the station and dispersed upon their respective farms and improvements, and resided in their own individual residences. But so soon as any alarm was given, or any "Indian sign" was found, they again retired into the station for security.

7. The Hunter." Hunting" constituted an important feature in the life of a western emigrant. By this means he supplied his family with a large proportion of their subsistence. Often their chief food was derived from the woods; while the skins and furs taken from the game supplied them with the only convertible medium of currency and exchange for the purchase of rifles, salt, and iron from the settlements east of the mountains. The “fall” and early part of the winter were the seasons for hunting the deer, and the whole winter and part of the spring for bears and animals which yield furs. The fur was said to be good in every month in whose name the letter r is found; besides, the annoyance and danger from Indian hostilities was less apprehended during the winter than in any other season. Every man, who was a farmer and husbandman in summer and autumn, became a hunter in winter. "As soon as the leaves were pretty well down, and the weather became rainy, accompanied with light snows, these men, after acting the part of husbandmen, so far as the state of the war permitted, began to feel that they were hunters. They became uneasy at home. Every thing about them became disagreeable. The house was too warm, the feather bed was too soft, and even the good wife, for the time, was not thought a good companion. The mind of the hunter was wholly occupied with the camp and the chase."

A hunting party being formed, "a day was soon appointed for the march of the little cavalcade to the camp. Two or three horses, furnished with pack-saddles, were loaded with

flour, Indian meal, blankets, and every thing else requisite for the use of the hunter.”*

The hunting camp is at length erected in a suitable situation; in some valley or dell protected by hills from the northern blasts, as well as from discovery by Indians. The hunting camp is a half-faced cabin, made of logs or stakes driven into the ground, inclosed on three sides with slabs, bark, or skins, and covered on top with the same, the roof sloping from the open front backward. In front is the log fire; inside are the slabs, moss, and skins for the bed. Sometimes a hunting camp serves for several years, especially when made with care.

"Hunting was not a mere ramble in pursuit of game," without skill and calculation. The hunter must be skilled in the nature and habits of the animals he expects to take, in the weather, and their predilections; in what situation the game is to be found, whether on hill-sides, bottoms, or on high hills. In stormy weather the deer always seek the most sheltered places, and on the leeward side of hills; in rainy weather, with but little wind, they generally keep in the open woods, and on the highest ground.

It is requisite, also, to know the direction of the lightest winds, the cardinal points, and many other hunting sciences, which none but hunters know, to enable them to traverse the pathless forest in search of game. "The whole business of hunting consists in a succession of intrigues. From morning to night the hunter must be on the alert to gain the windward of his game," in order to avoid discovery. If a deer were killed, it was skinned and hung up out of the reach of wolves, and the chase was resumed and pursued until evening, when he returned toward the camp and prepared to cook the supper The supper being ended, the adventures of the day furnish a theme for the tales of the evening. The spike buck, the two and three pronged buck, the doe, and the barren doe figure through the tales and anecdotes of the day. After hunting some time in the same range, the hunter becomes acquainted with all the "gangs" or herds of deer in that range, and can easily recognize each when he sees them. The maneuvers of these are themes of discourse. Often some old buck, by his superior sagacity and watchfulness, has saved his little gang from the hunter's skill by giving timely notice of his approach. Doddridge's Notes, p. 124.

The cunning of the hunter and that of the old buck are often staked against each other; and not unfrequently, at the close of the hunting season, the old fellow is left the free, uninjured tenant of the forest; but if his rival succeeds in bringing him down, it is a victory followed by no small share of boasting on the part of the conqueror.*

Is the weather unsuited to the chase? the skins and carcasses of the game can be brought in, and a proper disposition. made of them. Some hunters refrain from the chase on the Sabbath from motives of piety; others, from a superstitious belief that it brings "bad luck" to hunt on the Sabbath. Nor do those who revere the day, and abstain from their usual labors, lose their reward; for they are sure of a prosperous hunting

season.

The spoils of the hunting season, the skins and furs taken during the winter, constitute the stock in trade for the purchase of sundry articles which are necessary in a new and wilderness country. Of these the most indispensable were salt, iron utensils, and implements. To purchase these, every family carefully preserved the furs and skins collected during the whole year, for the purpose of sending them over the mountains to be bartered for such necessaries as were not to be had in the wilderness. For this purpose, it was customary. in the western settlements of Pennsylvania and Virginia, from the Kenhawa to the Alleghany River, every fall, for each little neighborhood of a few families to dispatch "a caravan" to the settlements east of the mountains. Unlike their prototypes which traverse the deserts of Africa, they were generally few in number, and their merchandise of but little comparative value.

8. The caravan, when organized, consisted of a master, two or three young men, and one or two boys; a few horses, with pack-saddles on their backs, stuffed bells on their necks, and a pair of hickory-withe hopples attached to each pack-saddle. On each pack-saddle was secured a bag of shelled corn for provender on the way, to be deposited at convenient distances for the return route. A large wallet, well filled with bread, jerked bear's meat, or boiled ham and cheese, contained the provision for the drivers. Thus equipped, the cavalcade set out from the wilderness east of the Ohio for Baltimore, Freder

* Doddridge's Notes, p. 126, 127.

ic, Hagerstown, or Oldtown in early times, and subsequently to Fort Cumberland and Winchester.

As these places successively, in the order of their names, became the marts of the western trade, the whole amount of hides and peltries, ginseng, snakeroot, and bear's grease were exchanged or bartered for salt, nails, and other articles of iron, and occasionally for a few pewter plates and dishes for the table. The bartering for the settlement being finished, the caravan was ready for its retrograde march. Each horse without a rider carried two bushels of salt, weighing eighty-four pounds to the bushel, besides a few light articles superadded.

The caravan route from the Ohio River to Frederic crossed the stupendous ranges of the Alleghany Mountains as they rise, mountain behind mountain, in the distant prospect. The path, scarcely two feet wide, and traveled by horses in single file, wound over hill and dale, through mountain defile, over craggy steeps, beneath impending rocks, and around points of dizzy heights, where one false step might hurl horse and rider into the abyss below. To prevent such accidents, the bulky baggage was removed in passing the dangerous defiles, to secure the horse from being thrown from his scanty foothold. This route, selected by experienced woodsmen, differed but little from that selected for turnpikes and rail-roads by professed engineers at a much later day. Such was the danger in passing the mountain ranges from the old settlements of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, to the settlements then forming on the branches of the Monongahela, the "Yough," and the Upper Ohio.

The order of the march, going and returning, was the same. The horses with their packs were marched along in single file, the foremost led by the leader of the caravan, while each successive horse was tethered to the pack-saddle of the horse before him. A driver followed behind to keep an eye upon the proper adjustment of the packs, and to urge on any horse that was disposed to lag. In this way two men could manage a caravan of ten or fifteen horses, each carrying about two hundred pounds burden. When night came, a temporary camp and a camp fire protected the weary travelers; while the horses, released of their burdens, with hopples on their feet, and their bell-clappers loosed, were turned loose to graze near the camp.

*See M'Donald's Life of Kenton, p. 72.

Salt, in the frontier settlements near the Ohio, was an expensive article for a backwoodsman; for a bushel of alum salt was equivalent to a good cow and calf. The salines of Kenhawa were then unknown, and the cattle multiplied without money.

In those early days, in the dawn of civilization in the West, the manners and customs, as well as the sense of propriety, were regulated by the state of things in the wilderness. A backwoodsman, in his first trip to Baltimore, could not conceive a more awkward predicament than the loss of his horsebell and his hopples when about to enter the city.* Children who had been raised on the frontiers, when they reached the settlements east of the mountains, were surprised to find that all houses were not made of logs and chinked with mud; that all dishes and table-ware were not of pewter and wood. To them the luxuries of tea and coffee were nauseous or unknown; and they "wondered how people could show a fondness for such slops," which neither had gust for the palate nor “stuck to the ribs." The cups and saucers from which it was drank were themselves, but emblems of a depraved taste and unmanly luxury, or, at most, were adapted to the effeminate or the sick.t

9. The state of morals was as might be expected; men were untrammeled by law or gospel; each man did that which was right in his own eyes. The line which separates Western Pennsylvania from Virginia was not defined, and for many years the civil jurisdiction of both states was withheld. Hence natural justice, and the sense of right and wrong, were unsophisticated by lawyers and courts, magistrates, sheriffs, or constables. "Their own consciences were a law unto themselves;" and if they erred, "it was human to err." Public opinion was the aggregate of individual judgment, and ruled with the force. of the purest democracy. In those times, each man who could shoulder his rifle was a citizen-soldier, and as such was valued as a defender of his country, and ranked among her heroes. Conscious of his own importance, each man considered his neighbor his equal, and each was anxious to merit the general esteem. Industry in hunting or work, bravery and fortitude in war, honesty, candor, and hospitality in private life, entitled a man to his full share of public honor and confidence, which See Doddridge's Notes, p. 122. + Idem, p. 110-112.

*