In March 1792, James Harrod walked into the Kentucky forest and vanished from history. The founder of Harrodsburg, the oldest permanent settlement in Kentucky, was never seen again. He had spent his entire adult life mastering the wilderness that surrounded him, surviving encounters that would have killed lesser men, and building a community that would outlast him. Yet in the end, the forest he loved so deeply simply swallowed him whole.
Harrod’s origins remain obscure. History does not record where he was born or when he first came west, though he was likely a Virginian. What is known is that he entered Kentucky even before Daniel Boone. In 1774, when Boone was sent by Governor Dunmore to warn surveyors at the Falls of the Ohio that an Indian war had broken out, he found Harrod and his company already settled at what would become Harrodstown.
Harrod fought under Colonel Lewis at the Battle of Point Pleasant that same year, and by 1775 he had established a settlement on the site of present-day Harrodsburg. He was tall, brave, simple, and modest. He had read no book but that of nature, and knew no art but woodcraft. His rifle was the longest, the heaviest, and the surest on the border.
He never said, “Boys, you do it,” but rather, “Boys, come on. ”
Harrod’s habits were marked by an almost unnatural restlessness. He would disappear for weeks and sometimes months at a time, alone on long hunting expeditions. No one knew where he went or what he did during those absences.
He cured and stored his game Indian fashion, well beyond the reach of wild beasts. His knowledge of the Shawnee and their ways was so complete that he would continue hunting even when he knew they were in the same range. The proud hunter refused to give way and took his chances with his red foes. On one occasion, while kneeling behind a tree near the Kentucky River, preparing to shoot a buck, Harrod noticed the animal suddenly lift its head and emit the shrill whistle that signals danger.
A rifle cracked from the opposite side of the glade, and the buck leaped and fell dead. Harrod’s own shot followed so closely that it seemed a single sound. His ball had found a nobler quarry: a Shawnee chief who had leaned forward from his cover to fire. Harrod had known for days that an Indian hunting party was in the neighborhood.
At another time, the tables were nearly turned on him. Hunting along a buffalo trail leading to the Blue Licks, he had wounded a surly old bull that stood at bay in thick woods. While preparing to fire, he glimpsed a warrior taking aim at him from behind a tree. Both fired, and Harrod dropped to the ground as if killed.
He lay perfectly still while the Indian, following the invariable habit of loading his rifle before leaving cover, approached warily to take his scalp. Seeing the body motionless, the warrior sprang forward with knife in hand. But Harrod’s long arms locked around him in a crushing embrace, and the Shawnee was pinned helpless beneath him. The Shawnees had made several attacks on Boone’s settlements, and on one occasion, while Boone was absent at the Blue Licks with most of the station’s men making salt, prowling parties killed the settlers’ cattle and drove off their hunting parties.
The little garrison was reduced to great straits. At that critical moment, Harrod returned from one of his long treks. He proposed that some of the men accompany him to one of his hidden depots of meat, but the risk was too great, and none dared venture. So Harrod set out alone.
Game was shy, and Indian signs were plentiful. He soon spotted a small herd of deer moving as if startled, and advanced cautiously, noting moccasin prints on their trail. The sudden whistle of a deer, followed by the cracks of two rifles, warned him it was time for business. The Indians had seen him and taken cover.
While he peered cautiously for a shot, a rifle ball from the right grazed his neck, stinging sharply as it passed through his long black hair. He crouched and remained still as death. Two Indians were on his left, a new one on his right. Harrod decided to play the cap game, a stale trick but one that would prove effective.
Placing his famous wolfskin cap on the muzzle of his rifle, he made some preparatory movements among the shrubs, then slowly raised the cap. Three rifles rang out almost simultaneously. Before the echoes died, Harrod’s own shot followed, and the death shriek of a warrior confirmed his success. The cap was raised again, and this time only one Indian fired, revealing his exact position.
Harrod shot him through the heart while he was reloading. The third Indian retreated, though not before carrying away a lump of the frontiersman’s lead. Harrod dressed the two deer his foes had killed and entered the station that night loaded down with meat. His cabin became the nucleus of a growing settlement.
Hunters, surveyors, speculators, and emigrants flocked to Harrodstown for shelter and protection. Harrod’s knowledge and goodwill were at the service of all. He helped newcomers raise cabins, and if they were short of meat, he would disappear into the woods and soon return with a deer, bear, or buffalo haunches. When news came that Indians had attacked a settler’s house five miles away, murdering the family and carrying off two daughters, Harrod’s cry was soon heard: “Come, boys, we must catch those rascals.
We can’t spare our girls. ” The swift pursuit, the night attack, the rescue, and the victorious return followed. The Indians, aware of his extraordinary love for solitary adventure, had christened him the Lone Long Knife and greatly dreaded his mysterious prowess. Once, discovered in the center of an Indian village by a young warrior, he struck the man to the earth with his huge fist and leaped for the forest, pursued by a gang of Indians.
By the time he reached the Miami River, ten miles away, only three pursuers remained. Harrod swam across, fired at as he climbed the opposite bank, then took cover behind a tree. When his pursuers plunged into the water, he waited until they neared shore, then shot the foremost, who sank. He wounded a second desperately, and the third escaped by diving repeatedly like a loon until he was out of range.
Later, while wandering along the bank, Harrod saw what he first took for a large turtle glistening in the sun on a pile of driftwood. Drawing nearer, he was surprised to see a stalwart Indian slowly drag himself from the water and seat himself on the logs. It was the second man he had shot, wounded in the shoulder and trying to stop the bleeding with moss and leaves. The foe was helpless.
Harrod could not shoot him, and he could not leave him to die. His big heart melted. Making a wide circuit, he crept silently behind the warrior, laid down his gun, and stepped into full view with empty hands raised. The astounded warrior grunted and moved as if to plunge back into the water, but Harrod placed his hand on his heart and spoke a few words in the Shawnee tongue.
The young Indian paused, looked earnestly into his former opponent’s face, and bowed his head in submission. Harrod examined the wound, tore his own shirt, and bound it with healing herbs. Finding the Indian unable to walk, he threw him across his shoulders and carried him to a nearby cave he used as a depot for game. The entrance was small, covered with brambles, but inside it opened into a rocky chamber with a smooth floor, stalactites hanging from the roof, and a clear stream pouring into a basin worn into the limestone.
Harrod watched over his wounded foe, bringing him meat and fruit, washing and dressing his wounds, and nursing him back to health. When the young warrior was strong enough to journey, Harrod gave him provisions and pointed north, bidding him return to his people and tell them how the hated Long Knife treated his wounded foe. Nothing was ever heard directly from that warrior again, but Boone, captured by the Shawnees around that time while with the salt makers, always attributed the kind treatment he and his men received to the good offices of that grateful Indian. Harrod’s popularity was now very great.
He was soon elected colonel, married a Kentucky girl, and was universally idolized, though he modestly shrank from all honors. Neither the comforts of a happy home nor the endearments of a growing family could win him from his passion for long solitary hunting rambles. From one of these, he never returned. On his final trip in 1792, he set out with two other men: a fellow hunter named Bridges and Michael Stoner.
Only Harrod failed to come back. Stoner reported that Harrod and Bridges had left camp one morning, that he heard a gunshot in their direction, and that Bridges returned alone, claiming he had seen signs of Indians. Stoner wanted to search for Harrod, but Bridges warned that it was too dangerous, and they returned to Harrodsburg. Afterward, Bridges went to Lexington and sold furs and silver buttons marked with an H.
The buyer sent them to Ann Harrod, who identified them as her husband’s. Harrod’s friends then searched the area near Beattyville, Kentucky, and found bones in a cave. They claimed the bones were wearing Harrod’s shirt, with the buttons missing. When they returned, Bridges had left town, which many took as proof of his guilt.
Harrod’s wife had long feared Bridges, who had been involved in a property dispute with her husband two years earlier. She had even made Harrod write out his will before he left on that final trip. Other theories suggested Harrod was killed by Indians, died of illness in the forest, abandoned his family for a sister in another state, or returned to a wife he had married in Pennsylvania years before coming to Kentucky. None of these explanations was ever confirmed.
All who knew him, knowing his unquailing intrepidity, felt certain that whatever form death took, he faced it bravely. The fate of James Harrod remains a mystery to this day.
