Harrodsburg had endured sporadic attack since early March, but much smaller Boonesborough remained unbothered until April 24th. As luck would have it that morning , the scouts who normally would have been out in the forest , Stoner and Simon Kenton included, were all in the fort, so there was no forewarning . The first sign of trouble was when the cows refused to go out to pasture; they would go no further than the gate of the fort. Boone, acting as militia captain, sent two men out to investigate. They saw nothing unusual. As they were coming back to the fort, a small group of Shawnees ran out of a sycamore tree grove in a nearby hollow and fired at them. This sycamore hollow was to be a major weak point in the defense of Boonesborough. The two men ran for the open gate about seventy yards away. One was brought down and a small group of Indians quickly overwhelmed him and set to work lifting his scalp. Simon Kenton was standing at the gate with his gun loaded. As one warrior rose from the crowd screaming his war cry and waving aloft his bloody trophy, Kenton impulsively charged from the fort, stopped short, aimed, and shot the warrior dead. The other Shawnees scattered into the forest. Very quickly Kenton was joined on the plain in front of the fort by Boone, Michael Stoner, William Bush and ten or twelve others. They immediately spread out in pursuit of the disappearing Shawnees. Stoner was a few yards ahead of the rest when he saw a warrior moving and hiding along a rail fence to the west. He fired and hit his mark but, before he could reload, he himself was hit twice by return fire. One ball went through his wrist, another lodged in his hip. The Kentuckians, as they came to Stoner's defense, heard a sound of many footsteps closing behind them. Looking back, they saw the lane leading back to the fort filling with several dozen Shawnees who had been hiding in that same sycamore hollow. They were cut off. "Boys, we have to fight!" Boone shouted. "Sell your lives as dear as possible!" With that they charged. Individuals stopped to fire when opportunities offered themselves; then they would dash forward raising each his own horrific war cry. A witness reported that the Kentuckians "made right at them...near enough to see the white of many an eye...the Indians would always give way." Some records hint that the Indians did so because they were in hopes of capturing them all for their own purposes, probably to use them to pursuade the fort to surrender. Others report that this was simply an example of the Indians' fighting style--being cautious about going into hand-to-hand combat and favoring more a wait for a favorable opportunity, then attack approach. Anyhow, the Kentuckians broke through, but not without sustaining several more injuries, Boone being among the first. He was shot through the ankle, went down, and was saved from being scalped by Simon Kenton, who clubbed the warrior attacking Boone to death. Kenton hoisted Boone up over his shoulders and ran to the fort, Indian bullets humming all around the two of them all the way. Stoner and Bush were the last to come in. Bush had fired twice already and "had put the powder in the gun, and was holding the bullet in his mouth" preparing for a third shot when he saw Stoner faltering from loss of blood. Throwing his arm around his nephew, he began to pull him along, but Stoner shook him off . "Tem gottam yellow rascals vill schoot us. Ve are too pig a mark, Pilly Push," he shouted. Stoner hobbled ahead and Bush held the Indians back, levelling his empty gun at them as if about to fire. Looking around, he saw that all his comrades had made the safety of the fort, so he spun around and began to run. He saw the Indians aim their guns, heard the discharges and saw balls crashing down all around him. He was not hit, but by the time he passed through the gate, his legs had been extensively cut by gravel and stone kicked up by the Indian shots. The Indians had wanted to take Bush prisoner and held their fire until it was obvious that they were not going to be able to capture him; thus he escaped. The Shawnees kept up intermittent fire for a while, but they soon left, taking their dead and wounded along with them. Later in Harrodsburg, Kenton reported to George Rogers Clark, colonel of Virginia militia charged with the defense of Kentucky, that "40 or 50 Indians attacked Boonesborough, killed and scalped Danl. Goodman, wounded Capt. Boone, Capt. Todd, Mr. Hite, and M. Stoner. Indians 'tis thought sustained much damage." Stoner recovered from his wounds and stayed on through the following year in and around Boonesborough, acting as a scout and hunter for the settlement. He was with George Rogers Clark at the final taking of Vincennes in February, 1779, and he may have been with him during his entire campaign in the West. -- Larry DeFrance, Helena Montana USA Caretaker: The DeFrance Family Home Page - http://www.helenet.com/~larry/fam_home.html The DeFrance Mailing List - [email protected], The Susquehanna River Mailing List - [email protected] Co-Caretaker: The Boone Mailing list - [email protected]