The large proportion of young children testifies to the prolific nature of the Kentucky women, and also shows the permanent nature of the settlements.

Two years previously, in 1775, there had been, perhaps, three hundred people in Kentucky, but very many of them were not permanent residents.] Boon Captured.
Early in 1778 a severe calamity befell the settlements.

In January Boon went, with twenty-nine other men, to the Blue Licks to make salt for the different garrisons--for hitherto this necessary of life had been brought in, at great trouble and expense, from the settlements.
[Footnote: See Clark's Diary, entry for October 25, 1777.] The following month, having sent three men back with loads of salt, he and all the others were surprised and captured by a party of eighty or ninety Miamis, led by two Frenchmen, named Baubin and Lorimer.

[Footnote: Haldimand MSS.

B., 122, p.35.Hamilton to Carleton, April 25, 1778.