University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.

There are probably some old persons still living upon the upper
dividing line between North and South Carolina, who still remember
the form and features of the venerable Daniel Nelson.
The old man was still living so late as 1817. At that period he
removed to Mississippi, where, we believe, he died in less than
three months after his change of residence. An old tree does not
bear transplanting easily, and does not long survive it. Daniel
Nelson came from Virginia when a youth. He was one of the
first who settled on the southern borders of North Carolina, or,
at least in that neighbourhood where he afterwards passed the
greatest portion of his days.

At that time the country was not only a forest, but one thickly
settled with Indians. It constituted the favourite hunting-grounds
for several of their tribes. But this circumstance did not discourage
young Nelson. He was then a stalwart youth, broad-chested,
tall, with a fiery eye, and an almost equally fiery soul—certainly
with a very fearless one. His companions, who were few in
number, were like himself. The spirit of old Daniel Boone was
a more common one than is supposed. Adventure gladdened and
excited their hearts,—danger only seemed to provoke their determination,—and
mere hardship was something which their frames
appeared to covet. It was as refreshing to them as drink. Having
seen the country, and struck down some of its game,—tasted
of its bear-meat and buffalo, its deer and turkey,—all, at that
time, in the greatest abundance,—they returned for the one thing
most needful to a brave forester in a new country,—a good, brisk,
fearless wife, who, like the damsel in Scripture, would go whither-soever
went the husband to whom her affections were surrendered.
They had no fear, these bold young hunters, to make a home and
rear an infant family in regions so remote from the secure walks
of civilization. They had met and made an acquaintance and a
sort of friendship with the Indians, and, in the superior vigour of

their own frames, their greater courage, and better weapons, they
perhaps had come to form a too contemptuous estimate of the savage.
But they were not beguiled by him into too much confidence.
Their log houses were so constructed as to be fortresses
upon occasion, and they lived not so far removed from one another,
but that the leaguer of one would be sure, in twenty-four
hours, to bring the others to his assistance. Besides, with a stock
of bear-meat and venison always on hand, sufficient for a winter,
either of these fortresses might, upon common calculations, be
maintained for several weeks against any single band of the Indians,
in the small numbers in which they were wont to range together
in those neighbourhoods. In this way these bold pioneers
took possession of the soil, and paved the way for still mightier
generations. Though wandering, and somewhat averse to the tedious
labours of the farm, they were still not wholly unmindful
of its duties; and their open lands grew larger every season, and
increasing comforts annually spoke for the increasing civilization
of the settlers. Corn was in plenty in proportion to the bearmeat,
and the squatters almost grew indifferent to those first apprehensions,
which had made them watch the approaches of the
most friendly Indian as if he had been an enemy. At the end of
five years, in which they had suffered no hurt and but little annoyance
of any sort from their wild neighbours, it would seem as
if this confidence in the security of their situation was not without
sufficient justification.

But, just then, circumstances seemed to threaten an interruption
of this goodly state of things. The Indians were becoming
discontented. Other tribes, more frequently in contact with the
larger settlements of the whites,—wronged by them in trade, or
demoralized by drink,—complained of their sufferings and injuries,
or, as is more probable, were greedy to obtain their treasures,
in bulk, which they were permitted to see, but denied to enjoy, or
only in limited quantity. Their appetites and complaints were
transmitted, by inevitable sympathies, to their brethren of the interior,
and our worthy settlers upon the Haw, were rendered anxious
at signs which warned them of a change in the peaceful relations
which had hitherto existed in all the intercourse between
the differing races. We need not dwell upon or describe these

signs, with which, from frequent narratives of like character, our
people are already sufficiently familiar. They were easily understood
by our little colony, and by none more quickly than
Daniel Nelson. They rendered him anxious, it is true, but not
apprehensive; and, like a good husband, while he strove not to
frighten his wife by what he said, he deemed it necessary to prepare
her mind for the worst that might occur. This task over,
he felt somewhat relieved, though, when he took his little girl,
now five years old, upon his knee that evening, and looked upon
his infant boy in the lap of his mother, he felt his anxieties very
much increase; and that very night he resumed a practice which
he had latterly abandoned, but which had been adopted as a
measure of strict precaution, from the very first establishment of
their little settlement. As soon as supper was over, he resumed
his rifle, thrust his couteau de chasse into his belt, and, taking his
horn about his neck, and calling up his trusty dog, Clinch, he
proceeded to scour the woods immediately around his habitation.
This task, performed with the stealthy caution of the hunter, occupied
some time, and, as the night was clear, a bright starlight,
the weather moderate, and his own mood restless, he determined
to strike through the forest to the settlement of Jacob Ransom,
about four miles off, in order to prompt him, and, through him,
others of the neighbourhood, to the continued exercise of a caution
which he now thought necessary. The rest of this night's adventure
we propose to let him tell in his own words, as he has been
heard to relate it a thousand times in his old age, at a period of
life when, with one foot in his grave, to suppose him guilty of
falsehood, or of telling that which he did not himself fervently believe,
would be, among all those who knew him, to suppose the
most impossible and extravagant thing in the world.