The Life and Times of Robert B. McAfee. Autobiography. 1773.

Big Bone Lick, 1773

The Life and Times of Robert B. McAfee
and His Family and Connections

Written by Himself

including excerpts from the
Journal of his father Robert McAfee

"If we had only known that the Ohio River would one day be the great Main Street of some five or six great States what fortunes we could have made!"

     On the 2d and 3d July the company proceeded down the Ohio and passed Big Bone Lick about ten miles without knowing it, and on the next day having discovered their error they returned and arrived at the Big Bone lick on the 4th of July, 1773, where they camped, making use of the short joints of the back bones for stools and seats & their ribs for tent poles to streach (sic) their blankets on. My father in his Journal says of this place, "It was a wonder to see the large bones that lies there which has been of several large big creatures. The lick is about 200 yards long and as wide." Here they met with a Delaware Indian, apparently about seventy years old who was asked if he knew anything about them. He answered that when he was a boy they were just so as you now see them. The company remained here during the 5th and 6th of July and on the 7th started down the Ohio to find the mouth of Kentucky at daylight on the morning of the 8th July 1773.




Big Bone History