A Frontier Kidnapping

On a hot July day in 1776, Fanny Callaway, Betsey Callaway, and Jemima Boone took the only canoe at Boonesborough onto the river and drifted too close to the eastern bank, where five Indians seized the canoe, dragged it ashore, and carried the girls off. As the captors fled, the girls' fathers rushed from the fort and organized a pursuit. While Daniel Boone gathered his men, eleven-year-old John Gass swam across the river and retrieved the canoe. Colonel Richard Callaway and ten mounted men forded the river and galloped toward Lower Blue Licks in hopes of intercepting the captors, while Boone's party followed the girls' tracks on foot until darkness stopped them. The next day the tracks entered thick river cane, where the captors expected they could not be followed, so Boone detoured around it to find signs on the far side. Two days later he found their trail on a buffalo path, and soon afterward the rescuers smelled smoke and roasting bison, crept within range, fired at the Indians, and swarmed the camp as the captors fled.

Kentucky · United States