Cahill's Escape

In 1847, an unnamed correspondent sent a letter to Lewis Collins in which he described the following event. This description is found in the History of Kentucky, Volume II, by Lewis Collins and Richard H. Collins [Covington KY: Collins & Co., 1878, page 101].

We have transcribed the description below.

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Cahill's Escape

"If I could have taken the time, I might have given you many other interesting particulars of the early times about Bullitt's Lick—when the fires of an hundred salt furnaces gleamed through the forest, and the Wyandot sat on Cahill's knob and looked down on five hundred men on the plain below. I have sat in the fork of the chesnut-oak to which Cahill was bound by the Indians, while they procured his funeral pile out of the dead limbs of the pitch-pine that grows on the mountain's side—(they intended to burn him in sight of Bullitt's Lick). Some oxen had been turned out to graze, and were straggling up the hill side. The Indians heard the cracking of the brush, and supposing it to be their enemies (the whites) coming in search of their lost companion, darted into the thicket on the opposite side of the hill. Cahill improved their temporary absence—slipped his bands, and escaped in the darkness, and in a half hour arrived safe at the licks. A company was immediately raised, and made pursuit. They followed the trail of about twenty Indians to the bank of the Ohio river, and saw the Indians crossing on dead timber they had rolled into the river. Some shots were exchanged, but no damage was known to be done on either side."

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This is possibly Adam Cahill who is named as an early settler in the area in this article by Hewitt Taylor, published in The Louisville Herald in 1936.

Here is a map showing the location of Cahill's Knob, known today as Cahill Knob.

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