It was in April, 1775, that Boone erected a station or palisade on the Kentucky River near a salt lick. We are told that the stockade was built "sixty yards from the south bank of the stream." This was close to the present site of the town of Frankfort, Kentucky. Another writer says the date of the foundation of Boonesborough--as the station was called--was June fourteenth, 1775. Dates are unimportant. The fact is that Boone during that spring attained his immediate and most cherished ambition. He established his home in the heart of this beautiful land of Kentucky.
Thither he moved his family, his wife and daughter being the first white women willingly and of intent to set foot on the soil of Kentucky. Boone was now in the heyday of life, strong, fearless, tireless, a keen hunter, a cool-headed warrior. The ways of the wilderness were known to him. The imprint on the moss, the discolored water at the fountain, the broken bough, the abraded bark on the tree-trunk--all these things were an open book. No Indian could imitate the chatter of the squirrel, the calling of the crow, the gobbling of the wild turkey in his signals to his fellow savage, so closely that the acute ear of this master hunter did not detect the deceit. If savages crossed the country within a score of miles of his station, Boone knew of them, knew how they were armed, knew what was their purpose in that land. None could have been better equipped than he as "an instrument for the settlement of the wilderness."
Life went on in Kentucky much as on the Yadkin, on the Clinch or on the Holston. White men began to gather in at the station of Boonesborough, or at one of the two or three other posts that now were established in the land. These white men, shoulder to shoulder, fought the savages cheerfully, continuously, never for a moment thinking of surrendering their hold. The leader of this wild warfare was Daniel Boone, the man of "unwavering fortitude."
The war of the rebellion against the Old World was now going on apace. Great Britain had given the red savages below the Great Lakes better arms and had deliberately incited a more insatiate enmity against the white man. Whereas the Indians had at first adopted prisoners into their tribe, they now became more savage and implacable, in many more instances killing such prisoners as fell into their hands.