Source: Talbert, Charles Gano. Benjamin Logan: Kentucky Frontiersman. University of Kentucky Press, 1962, p. 18, 25-26, 71-72, 105-107.

p. 18:

The total population of Kentucky at this time (1775) was estimated at three hundred. James Harrod had returned with forty-two men to the Salt River tributary on which he had started a settlement the year before. There were four settlements or camps which were looked upon by Richard Henderson as towns, Boonesborough, St. Asaph's, Boiling Spring, which Harrod had just established, and Harrodstown, now beginning to be known as Harrodsburg, where the current leader was a North Carolinian, Thomas Slaughter. Scattered over a wide area other men were planting corn and building cabins. Some of these were associated with one or another of the four settlements, while others were operating alone. Isaac Campbell and Benjamin Pettit were near St. Asaph's, Richard Calloway, his nephew Flanders Calloway, and James Estill were on Otter Creek, John Hinkston and John Martin were on the South Fork of Licking River, William Gillespie was on Boone's Creek, and James Knox was on Beargrass Creek. Squire Boone, Daniel's brother, left Harrodsburg long enough to mark a claim in what is today Shelby County. [Draper MSS. I CC 203. Floyd to Preston, May 30, 1775, Draper MSS. 17 CC 180-81. "Preemption Books of Virginia Land Commission of 1779;" Draper MSS. 60 J 379-89. Deposition of Squire Boone in Shelby County Court Depositions, p. 5. "Certificate Book," 27.]

pp. 25-26:

In the meantime the Kentucky people had more immediate worries. In the afternoon of July 14, 1776, the daughters of Richard Calloway, Betsy and Frances, and Daniel Boone's second daughter, Jemima, took the only canoe at Boonesborough and set out for a short ride on the waters of the Kentucky. In a bend just below the settlement the current carried them close to the opposite shore. There they were seized by six Indians, three Shawnee and three Cherokee. A party was formed to go in pursuit, but the lack of a boat caused some delay in crossing the river. By nightfall the pursuers had covered only five miles. They continued at daybreak, but the trail often was lost in the thick growth of cane. The Indians and their prisoners were overtaken before they reached the Licking River. The three Shawnee were killed, but the Cherokee made their escape. Of greater importance was the fact that the girls were rescued unharmed. [Floyd to Preston, July 21, 1776, Draper MSS. 17 CC 172-73. Draper MSS. 8 J 115-16; 6 S 94-96; 12 CC 75.]

At this time there were three forts in the process of construction. The one at Boonesborough had been started soon after the arrival of Henderson and his settlers. After many months of neglect the work had been resumed and now was nearing completion. A fort at Harrodsburg and one at the Royal Spring on the Elkhorn were well along. The incident at Boonesborough, although it had involved only six Indians, caused consternation in Kentucky. If this could happen at Boonesborough, it could happen at any of the other settlements. Then too, there was the possibility that the Revolution, which already was in progress in the East, would spread. The people in Kentucky, caught between the northern and the southern Indians and separated from the other settled portions of Virginia by two hundred miles of wilderness, were not in an enviable position. In less than a week after the Boonesborough incident the people of John Hinkston's settlement on the South Fork of Licking River were on their way to safer regions. Those Kentuckians who had "settled out" began to gravitate toward one or another of the three forts.

pp. 71-72:

It was also in April that the Bryan brothers, who had established a claim on the North Fork of the Elkhorn River in 1776, returned with a party of North Carolinians and a few Virginians. They began the construction of a fort which in time became one of Kentucky's largest. [Draper MSS. 60 J 382. Bradford's Notes, 111-12.]

Logan's Fort had been a convenient stopping place for people who came to Kentucky by the Wilderness Trail. I Although it bad been enlarged, it was again crowded, Three more groups of settlers moved on before the month of April bad come to an end. One, led by Isaac Ruddle, went by way of Lexington. From that point to the South Fork of the Licking, Ruddle marked a trace which on several occasions was followed by Kentuckians who sought to take the offensive against the Indians. He and his people built a station on the right bank of South Licking about three miles north of the point where that stream is formed by the juncture of Hinkston and Stoner Creeks. It was a site that had been abandoned by John Hinkston in the summer of 1776. About two weeks after their arrival, these people were joined by Ruddle's brothers, James and George, who brought several other persons from Logan's Fort. John Martin, coming from Logan's with a third party of settlers, established a station on the left bank of Stoner Creek in a large horseshoe bend. The site was about two miles upstream from the point where the two creeks came together. [Depositions of Isaac and Jaynes Huddle, Bourbon County Complete Record Book C, 30-31, 34-35. Deposition of Charles Gatliff, Draper MSS. 18 J 102. Draper MSS. 12 CC 66-67. J. Winston Coleman, Jr., The British Invasion of Kentucky (Lexington, 1951), 10-11.]

pp. 104-107:

Kentucky was in more danger from the other prong of the British attack. Colonel George Slaughter had come to the Falls with nearly one hundred Virginia regulars, and there were rumors of additional reinforcements from the Holston. This should have put the region in a position to defend itself, but the severity of the previous winter and the increase in population had created such a serious shortage of provisions that it was doubtful if any more troops could be fed if they did come. Added to the other difficulties, an epidemic of flux had struck the Kentucky settlements. There were several deaths and much of the population was left in a weakened condition.

It was generally believed that the attack on the post at the Falls would materialize in June. Colonel Slaughter either did not take this threat seriously or was expecting to repulse the enemy quickly and launch a counteroffensive of his own. He had demanded that Kentucky County furnish him with 1,400 militiamen for a July campaign. Even if the expected invaders had been turned back and other conditions had improved, it is not certain that Colonel John Bowman could have raised so many men. Every day people were leaving his county for what they considered to be the safer parts of the state. [John Floyd to William Preston, June -, 1780, Draper MSS. 17 CC 182-83. Daniel Brodhead to George Rogers Clark, May 20, 1780, Draper MSS. 50 J 39.]

It soon became clear that Kentucky could expect no immediate aid from the Virginia government. There was talk of sending out one regiment under Colonel Joseph Crockett, but there was little chance that these troops would arrive in time to help in the current crisis. The inability of Virginia to give more attention to her frontiers was due in part to the fact that the war in the East had shifted from the northern to the southern states. Two thousand men were being sent to the relief of Charleston, South Carolina, and Virginia was raisin about five thousand more for the defense of her own southern border. Nevertheless, plans were being made for a campaign against the Indians in the coming year, probably with Clark in command. With men like Patrick Henry, George Mason and Richard Henry Lee in the House of Delegates there was little doubt that these plans would be given careful attention. [ John Todd to Clark, June 4, 1780, Draper MSS. 50 J 41. Todd and Stephen Trigg were representing Kentucky County in the Virginia Assembly. See Draper MSS. 13 S 183-85 and Journal of the House of Delegates of the Commonwealth of Virginia [May Session], 1780 (Richmond, 1827), 36-37.]

By the end of May an army of about 150 white men and 100 Indians was moving from Detroit in the direction of Kentucky, following the Maumee and the Big Miami rivers. The army was led by Captain Henry Bird, and the Indians were under the immediate supervision of the very capable Loyalist, Captain Alexander McKee. Additional Indians who joined on the way brought the total strength of the invaders up to 850. Bird believed that men were being concentrated at the Falls to meet him and heard that Clark was being summoned from Fort Jefferson to take command. He hoped to reach this fort before these efforts could go far enough to make it impregnable. "Col. Clarke's arrival," said Bird in a letter to his superior, Major Arent S. De Peyster, "will add considerably to their numbers, and to their confidence. Therefore, the Rebels should be attacked before his arrival." The British commander believed that if the fort at the Falls were taken first the remainder of Kentucky would give him little trouble. If, on the other hand, he were to attack the forts in central Kentucky first, he would arrive at the Falls short of ammunition, with a tired army, and with his ranks thinned by Indian desertions. "Difficulties," he predicted, "will increase as we advance & Col Clarke will be at the Falls with all his People collected to fight us at the close." Bird left to McKee the task of convincing the Indians that the Falls should be the first objective. "If this plan is not followed," he added prophetically, "it will be owing to the Indians who may adopt theirs." [ Captain Henry Bird to Major Arent De Peyster, June 3, 1780, "Haldimand Papers," in Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections, XIX (Lansing, 1911), 527-29. Milo Quaife, "When Detroit Invaded Kentucky," in Filson Club History Quarterly, 1 (1927), 53-57. J. Winston Coleman, Jr., The British Invasion of Kentucky (Lexington, 1951), 6-21.]

Bird's Indians did not like the idea of facing the artillery which Clark was known to have brought to the Falls from Vincennes. They believed also that opportunities for plundering would be greater in central Kentucky. With this in view, they insisted upon the boats being headed up the Ohio from the mouth of the Miami, where the matter had been discussed, and then up the Licking. This route would lead the British-Indian army into the heart of the Bluegrass region. Aboard Bird's boats were two cannon, a six-pounder and a three-pounder. At the forks of the Licking the boats were left for the return journey, and the party proceeded by land. The general course followed was that of the South Fork.

It was in the valley of this stream that Ruddle's and Martin's stations had been established in the spring of the preceding year. The weather at the time of Bird's approach was extremely wet, and the common pioneer practice of keeping scouts out had been neglected. This enabled McKee with an advance party to arrive undetected and to surround Ruddle's Station. There was firing on both sides from shortly after dawn on June 24 until noon when Bird arrived with the remainder of the force and the two cannon. The three-pounder was fired twice without doing serious damage. The six-pounder then was brought into position, and the situation took on a different aspect. Before firing this weapon, Bird demanded the surrender of the station. Although there was some disagreement among the residents, Captain Isaac Ruddle felt that he had no choice but to capitulate, as the heavier cannon could batter down his stockade. The surrender terms were put into writing by James Trabue, who had come over from Logan's Fort on commissary business and had arrived just in time to be numbered among the prisoners. It was agreed that the people would be protected from the Indians and taken to Detroit as prisoners of war. While Bird and McKee were inside the fort arranging the terms, the savages, who bad been told not to enter until the next day, forced their way in, "tore the poor children from their mother's Breasts, killed a wounded man and every one of the cattle, leaving the whole to stink." Two days later Martin's Station on Stoner Creek was taken with equal ease.

Inability to control his Indians and a shortage of provisions caused Bird to decide against pushing deeper into Kentucky. He started for Detroit with about 350 prisoners. One Of these, John Hinkston, escaped and reached Lexington on June 30 with the news of the twin disasters.

[Bird to De Peyster, June 11, 1780, and July 1, 1780, quoted in Quaife, "When Detroit Invaded Kentucky," 60-62. "Trabue's Narrative," 51-52, 62-63. Draper MSS. 8 J 158(l); 60 J 375; 12 CC 66-67. Bradford's Notes, 81-87. Coleman, The British Invasion of Kentucky, 6-21.

Various figures have been given for the number of prisoners taken. A memorandum book belonging to John Duncan, who was captured at Ruddle's, says 129. (See Draper MSS. 29 J 25.) Duncan evidently was referring to his own station and did not include those taken at Martin's. The figure used here is that given by De Peyster at Detroit. (See Bodley, History of Kentucky, 284, 288-89.)

A few of the prisoners did not survive the trip, but most of them reached Detroit. Many of the children were adopted by the Indians. More than two years later Logan, then county lieutenant of Lincoln County, in a letter to Virginia's governor, Benjamin Harrison, asked the governor to investigate the status of these prisoners and to see if they could be exchanged. Harrison wrote to General Washington and expressed the opinion that these people came under the terms of an agreement which General Nathanael Green had made with the British commander at Charleston. This provided for the release by both belligerents of all prisoners taken in the southern states prior to June 19, 1781. By the end of November, 1782, the governor was able to report that the people from Ruddle's and Martin's were to be delivered to Washington's army. He asked that their friends and relatives be notified. On December 7 the Virginia Assembly made an appropriation to help defray the expenses of their homeward journey. Most of those who were held by the Indian tribes were released after the signing of the Treaty of Greenville in 1795. (See Logan to Harrison, August 31, 1782, in Palmer, McRae, and Flounoy (eds.), Calendar of Virginia State Papers (Richmond, 1875-93), 111, 280-83. Harrison to Washington, October 25, 1782, copies in Virginia Executive Letter Book, Number 6, pp. 82-86 and in Draper MSS. 10 S 81-83. Harrison to Western Commissioners, November 29, 1782, Draper MSS. 10 S 90-91. Draper MSS. 10 S 93.)]