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JUDGE RICHARD HENDERSON 
 
 From a drawing by T. Gilbert White 
 Detail of painting, The Great Treaty, in Kentucky State Capitol 
 
THE CONQUEST OF 
 THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 THE ROMANTIC STORY OF THE EARLY 
 
 PIONEERS INTO VIRGINIA, THE 
 
 CAROLINAS, TENNESSEE, AND KENTUCKY 
 
 1740-1790 
 
 BY 
 ARCHIBALD HENDERSON, Ph.D., D.C.L. 
 
 Some to endure and many to fail. 
 Some to conquer and many to quail 
 Toiling over the Wilderness Trail. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE CENTURY CO. 
 
 1920 
 
*" / Co 
 
 Copyright, 1920, by 
 The Century Co. 
 
 m ■-? » ffl 
 
 CI.A565830 
 
 
V 
 
 ^' 
 
 TO 
 
 THE HISTORIAN OF 
 OLD WEST AND NEW WEST 
 
 FREDERICK JACKSON TURNER 
 WITH ADMIRATION AND REGARD 
 
The country might invite a prince from his palace, merely 
 for the pleasure of contemplating its beauty and excellence; 
 but only add the rapturous idea of property, and what allure- 
 ments can the world offer for the loss of so glorious a prospect? 
 
 — Richakd Henderson. 
 
The established Authority of any government in 
 America, and the policy of Government at home, are 
 both insufficient to restrain the Americans. . . . 
 They acquire no attachment to Place : But wander- 
 ing about Seems engrafted in their Nature ; and it is 
 a weakness incident to it, that they Should for ever 
 immagine the Lands further off, are Still better than 
 those upon which they are already settled. 
 
 — Lord Dunmore, to the Earl of Dartmouth. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 The romantic and thrilling story of the 
 southward and westward migration of succes- 
 sive waves of transplanted European peoples 
 throughout the entire course of the eighteenth 
 century is the history of the growth and evo- 
 lution of American democracy. Upon the 
 American continent was wrought out, through 
 almost superhuman daring, incredible hard- 
 ship, and surpassing endurance, the formation 
 of a new society. The European rudely con- 
 fronted with the pitiless conditions of the wil- 
 derness soon discovered that his maintenance, 
 indeed his existence, was conditioned upon his 
 individual efficiency and his resourcefulness in 
 adapting himself to his environment. The 
 very history of the human race, from the age 
 of primitive man to the modern era of en- 
 lightened civilization, is traversed in the Old 
 
 ix 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 Southwest throughout the course of half a 
 century. 
 
 A series of dissolving views thrown upon 
 the screen, picturing the successive episodes in 
 the history of a single family as it wended its 
 way southward along the eastern valleys, reso- 
 lutely repulsed the sudden attack of the In- 
 dians, toiled painfully up the granite slopes 
 of the Appalachians, and pitched down into 
 the transmontane wilderness upon the western 
 waters, would give to the spectator a vivid con- 
 ception, in miniature, of the westward move- 
 ment. But certain basic elements in the grand 
 procession, revealed to the sociologist and the 
 economist, would perhaps escape his scrutiny. 
 Back of the individual, back of the family, 
 even, lurk the creative and formative impulses 
 of colonization, expansion, and government. 
 In the recognition of these social and economic 
 tendencies the individual merges into the 
 group; the group into the community; the 
 community into a new society. In this clear 
 perspective of historic development the spec- 
 tacular hero at first sight seems to diminish; 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 but the mass, the movement, the social force 
 which he epitomizes and interprets, gain in im- 
 pressiveness and dignity. 1 
 
 As the irresistible tide of migratory peoples 
 swept ever southward and westward, seeking 
 room for expansion and economic independ- 
 ence, a series of frontiers was gradually thrust 
 out toward the wilderness in successive waves 
 of irregular indentation. The true leader in 
 this westward advance, to whom less than his 
 deserts has been accorded by the historian, is 
 the drab and mercenary trader with the In- 
 dians. The story of his enterprise and of his 
 adventures begins with the planting of Euro- 
 pean civilization upon American soil. In the 
 mind of the aborigines he created the passion 
 for the fruits, both good and evil, of the white 
 man's civilization, and he was welcomed by the 
 Indian because he also brought the means for 
 repelling the further advance of that civiliza- 
 tion. The trader was of incalculable service 
 to the pioneer in first spying out the land and 
 charting the trackless wilderness. The trail 
 rudely marked by the buffalo became in time 
 
 xi 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 the Indian path and the trader's "trace"; and 
 the pioneers upon the westward march, follow- 
 ing the line of least resistance, cut out their 
 roads along these very routes. It is not too 
 much to say that had it not been for the trader 
 — brave, hardy, and adventurous however 
 often crafty, unscrupulous, and immoral — the 
 expansionist movement upon the American 
 continent would have been greatly retarded. 
 
 So scattered and ramified were the enter- 
 prises and expeditions of the traders with the 
 Indians that the frontier which they established 
 was at best both shifting and unstable. Fol- 
 lowing far in the wake of these advance agents 
 of the civilization which they so often dis- 
 graced, came the cattle-herder or rancher, who 
 took advantage of the extensive pastures and 
 ranges along the uplands and foot-hills to raise 
 immense herds of cattle. Thus was formed 
 what might be called a rancher's frontier, 
 thrust out in advance of the ordinary farming 
 settlements and serving as the first serious bar- 
 rier against the Indian invasion. The west- 
 ward movement of population is in this respect 
 
 xii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 a direct advance from the coast. Years before 
 the influx into the Old Southwest of the tides 
 of settlement from the northeast, the more ad- 
 venturous struck straight westward in the 
 wake of the fur-trader, and here and there 
 erected the cattle-ranges beyond the farming 
 frontier of the piedmont region. The wild 
 horses and cattle which roamed at will through 
 the upland barrens and pea-vine pastures were 
 herded in and driven for sale to the city mar- 
 kets of the East. 
 
 The farming frontier of the piedmont pla- 
 teau constituted the real backbone of western 
 settlement. The pioneering farmers, with the 
 adventurous instincts of the hunter and the 
 explorer, plunged deeper and ever deeper into 
 the wilderness, lured on by the prospect of 
 free and still richer lands in the dim interior. 
 Settlements quickly sprang up in the neighbor- 
 hood of military posts or rude forts established 
 to serve as safeguards against hostile attack; 
 and trade soon flourished between these settle- 
 ments and the eastern centers, following the 
 trails of the trader and the more beaten paths 
 
 xiii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 of emigration. The bolder settlers who ven- 
 tured farthest to the westward were held in 
 communication with the East through their 
 dependence upon salt and other necessities of 
 life; and the search for salt-springs in the 
 virgin wilderness was an inevitable conse- 
 quence of the desire of the pioneer to shake 
 off his dependence upon the coast. 
 
 The prime determinative principle of the 
 progressive American civilization of the eight- 
 eenth century was the passion for the acquisi- 
 tion of land. The struggle for economic in- 
 dependence developed the germ of American 
 liberty and became the differentiating principle 
 of American character. Here was a vast un- 
 appropriated region in the interior of the con- 
 tinent to be had for the seeking, which served 
 as lure and inspiration to the man daring 
 enough to risk his all in its acquisition. It 
 was in accordance with human nature and the 
 principles of political economy that this un- 
 known extent of uninhabited transmontane 
 land, widely renowned for beauty, richness, 
 and fertility, should excite grandiose dreams 
 
 xiv 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 in the minds of English and Colonials alike. 
 England was said to be "New Land mad and 
 everybody there has his eye fixed on this coun- 
 try." 2 Groups of wealthy or well-to-do in- 
 dividuals organized themselves into land com- 
 panies for the colonization and exploitation of 
 the West. The pioneer promoter was a pow- 
 erful creative force in westward expansion; 
 and the activities of the early land companies 
 were decisive factors in the colonization of the 
 wilderness. Whether acting under the au- 
 thority of a crown grant or proceeding on their 
 own authority, the land companies tended to 
 give stability and permanence to settlements 
 otherwise hazardous and insecure. 
 
 The second determinative impulse of the 
 pioneer civilization was wanderlust — the pas- 
 sionately inquisitive instinct of the hunter, the 
 traveler, and the explorer. This restless class 
 of nomadic wanderers was responsible in part 
 for the royal proclamation of 1763, a second- 
 ary object of which, according to Edmund 
 Burke, was the limitation of the colonies on 
 the West, as "the charters of many of our old 
 
 XV 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 colonies give them, with few exceptions, no 
 bounds to the westward but the South Sea." 
 The Long Hunters, taking their lives in their 
 hands, fared boldly forth to a fabled hunter's 
 paradise in the far-away wilderness, because 
 they were driven by the irresistible desire of a 
 Ponce de Leon or a De Soto to find out the 
 truth about the unknown lands beyond. 
 
 But the hunter was not only thrilled with 
 the passion of the chase and of discovery; he 
 was intent also upon collecting the furs and 
 skins of wild animals for lucrative barter and 
 sale in the centers of trade. He was quick 
 to make "tomahawk claims" and to assert 
 "corn rights" as he spied out the rich virgin 
 land for future location and cultivation. Free 
 land and no taxes appealed to the backwoods- 
 man, tired of paying quit-rents to the agents 
 of wealthy lords across the sea. Thus the 
 settler speedily followed in the hunter's wake. 
 In his wake also went many rude and lawless 
 characters of the border, horse thieves and 
 criminals of different sorts, who sought to hide 
 their delinquencies in the merciful liberality 
 
 xvi 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 of the wilderness. For the most part, how- 
 ever, it was the salutary instinct of the home- 
 builder — the man with the ax, who made a 
 little clearing in the forest and built there a 
 rude cabin that he bravely defended at all risks 
 against continued assaults — which, in defiance 
 of every restraint, irresistibly thrust westward 
 the thin and jagged line of the frontier. The 
 ax and the surveyor's chain, along with the 
 rifle and the hunting-knife, constituted the 
 armorial bearings of the pioneer. With in- 
 dividual as with corporation, with explorer as 
 with landlord, land-hunger was the master 
 impulse of the era. 
 
 The various desires which stimulated and 
 promoted westward expansion were, to be sure, 
 often found in complete conjunction. The 
 trader sought to exploit the Indian for his own 
 advantage, selling him whisky, trinkets, and 
 firearms in return for rich furs and costly pel- 
 tries; yet he was often a hunter himse'f and 
 collected great stores of peltries as the result 
 of his solitary and protracted hunting-expedi- 
 tions. The rancher and the herder sought to 
 
 xvii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 exploit the natural vegetation of marsh and 
 upland, the cane-brakes and pea-vines; yet 
 the constantly recurring need for fresh pas- 
 turage made him a pioneer also, drove him 
 ever nearer to the mountains, and furnished 
 the economic motive for his westward advance. 
 The small farmer needed the virgin soil of the 
 new region, the alluvial river-bottoms, and the 
 open prairies, for the cultivation of his crops 
 and the grazing of his cattle; yet in the inter- 
 vals between the tasks of farm life he scoured 
 the wilderness in search of game and spied 
 out new lands for future settlement. 
 
 This restless and nomadic race, says the 
 keenly observant Francis Baily, "delight much 
 to live on the frontiers, where they can enjoy 
 undisturbed, and free from the control of any 
 laws, the blessings which nature has bestowed 
 upon them." 3 Independence of spirit, impa- 
 tience of restraint, the inquisitive nature, 
 and the nomadic temperament — these are the 
 strains in the American character of the 
 eighteenth century which ultimately blended 
 to create a typical democracy. The rolling 
 
 xviii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 of wave after wave of settlement westward 
 across the American continent, with a rever- 
 sion to primitive conditions along the line of 
 the farthest frontier, and a marked rise in 
 the scale of civilization at each successive 
 stage of settlement, from the western limit 
 to the eastern coast, exemplifies from one 
 aspect the history of the American people 
 during two centuries. 4 This era, constitut- 
 ing the first stage in our national existence, 
 and productive of a buoyant national char- 
 acter shaped in democracy upon a free soil, 
 closed only yesterday with the exhaustion 
 of cultivable free land, the disappearance of 
 the last frontier, and the recent death of 
 "Buffalo Bill." The splendid inauguration of 
 the period, in the region of the Carolinas, Vir- 
 ginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky, during the 
 second half of the eighteenth century, is the 
 theme of this story of the pioneers of the Old 
 Southwest. 
 
 XIX 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 Introduction ix 
 
 I The Migration of the Peoples . . 3 
 
 II The Cradle of Westward Expansion 19 
 
 III The Back Country and the Border 32 
 
 IV The Indian War 49 
 
 V In Defense of Civilization ... 64 
 
 VI Crushing the Cherokees .... 78 
 
 VII The Land Companies 96 
 
 VIII The Long Hunters in the Twilight 
 
 Zone 116 
 
 IX Daniel Boone and Wilderness Ex- 
 ploration 130 
 
 X Daniel Boone in Kentucky . . . 144> 
 
 XI The Regulators 160 
 
 XII Watauga — Haven of Liberty . . 175 
 
 XIII Opening the Gateway — Dunmore's 
 
 War 196 
 
 xxi 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 XIV Richard Henderson and the Tran- 
 sylvania Company 216 
 
 XV Transylvania — A Wilderness Com- 
 monwealth 237 
 
 XVI The Repulse of the Red Men . . 252 
 
 XVII The Colonization of the Cumber- 
 land 269 
 
 XVIII King's Mountain 289 
 
 XIX The State of Franklin .... 306 
 
 XX The Lure of Spain — The Haven of 
 
 Statehood 327 
 
 List of Notes 351 
 
 Bibliographical Notes .... 363 
 
 Index 371 
 
 XXII 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Richard Henderson Frontispiece 
 
 FACING 
 PAGE 
 
 Col. Daniel Boone 36 
 
 Fort Dobbs 36 
 
 The Transylvania Fort at Boonesborough . . 56 
 
 The Right Honorable Archibald, Earl of Eglin- 
 town, Lord Montgomery Kilvinning (1726- 
 1796) 88 
 
 Colonel James Grant (1720-1806) .... 92 
 
 Arthur Dobbs, Governor of North Carolina . 132 
 
 General Hugh Waddell 132 
 
 Title-Page of Herman Husband's Impartial Re- 
 lation, etc 178 
 
 Alexander Martin, Governor of North Carolina 182 
 
 General William Lenoir 182 
 
 Jameg Robertson 188 
 
 The Old Southwest, 1740-1790 . . . .192 
 
 Daniel Boone Leading Colonists for Kentucky 
 
 —1773 202 
 
 xxiii 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 FACING 
 PAGE 
 
 John Murray, Earl of Dunmore .... 210 
 
 Advertisement of the Transylvania Company . 220 
 
 First Page of Richard Henderson's Diary . . 226 
 
 Lord Dunmore's Proclamation Against the 
 Transylvania Company 240 
 
 The Capture of Jemima Boone and the Calla- 
 away Girls by the Indians 270 
 
 Isaac Shelby ' 302 
 
 Title Page of Proposed Constitution of the 
 State of Frankland . 320 
 
 John Sevier (1745-1815) 328 
 
 XXIV 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD 
 SOUTHWEST 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD 
 SOUTHWEST 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE MIGRATION OF THE PEOPLES 
 
 Inhabitants flock in here daily, mostly from Pensilvania and 
 other parts of America, who are over-stocked with people and 
 some directly from Europe, they commonly seat themselves 
 towards the West, and have got near the mountains. 
 
 — Gabriel Johnston, Governor of North Carolina, 
 to the Secretary of the Board of Trade, 
 February 15, 1751. 
 
 AT the opening of the eighteenth century 
 the tide of population had swept inland 
 to the "fall line," the westward boundary of 
 the established settlements. The actual fron- 
 tier had been advanced by the more aggres- 
 sive pioneers to within fifty miles of the Blue 
 Ridge. So rapid was the settlement in North 
 Carolina that in the interval 1717-32 the popu- 
 lation quadrupled in numbers. A map of the 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 colonial settlements in 1725 reveals a narrow 
 strip of populated land along the Atlantic 
 coast, of irregular indentation, with occasional 
 isolated nuclei of settlements further in the in- 
 terior. The civilization thus established con- 
 tinued to maintain a close and unbroken com- 
 munication with England and the Continent. 
 As long as the settlers, for economic reasons, 
 clung to the coast, they reacted but slowly to 
 the transforming influences of the frontier.. 
 Within a triangle of continental altitude with 
 its apex in New England, bounded on the 
 east by the Atlantic, and on the west by the 
 Appalachian range, lay the settlements, di- 
 vided into two zones — tidewater and piedmont. 
 As no break occurred in the great mountain 
 system south of the Hudson and Mohawk val- 
 leys, the difficulties of cutting a passage 
 through the towering wall of living green long 
 proved an effective obstacle to the crossing 
 of the grim mountain barrier. 
 
 In the beginning the settlements gradually 
 extended westward from the coast in irregular 
 outline, the indentations taking form around 
 
THE MIGRATION OF THE PEOPLES 
 
 such natural centers of attraction as areas of 
 fertile soil, frontier posts, mines, salt-springs, 
 and stretches of upland favorable for grazing. 
 After a time a second advance of settlement 
 was begun in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and 
 Maryland, running in a southwesterly direc- 
 tion along the broad terraces to the east of 
 the Appalachian Range, which in North Caro- 
 lina lies as far as two hundred and fifty miles 
 from the sea. The Blue Ridge in Virginia 
 and a belt of pine barrens in North Carolina 
 were hindrances to this advance, but did not 
 entirely check it. This second streaming of 
 the population thrust into the long, narrow 
 wedge of the piedmont zone a class of people 
 differing in spirit and in tendency from their 
 more aristocratic and complacent neighbors to 
 the east. 
 
 These settlers of the Valley of Virginia 
 and the North Carolina piedmont region 
 — English, Scotch-Irish, Germans, Scotch, 
 Irish, Welsh, and a few French — were the first 
 pioneers of the Old Southwest. From the 
 joint efforts of two strata of population, geo- 
 
 5 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 graphically, socially, and economically distinct 
 — tidewater and piedmont, Old South and New 
 South — originated and flowered the third and 
 greatest movement of westward expansion, 
 opening with the surmounting of the mountain 
 barrier and ending in the occupation and as- 
 sumption of the vast medial valley of the con- 
 tinent. 
 
 Synchronous with the founding of James- 
 town in Virginia, significantly enough, was 
 the first planting of Ulster with the English 
 and Scotch. Emigrants from the Scotch 
 Lowlands, sometimes as many as four thou- 
 sand a year (1625), continued throughout the 
 century to pour into Ulster. "Those of the 
 North of Ireland . . .," as pungently de- 
 scribed in 1679 by the Secretary of State, Leo- 
 line Jenkins, to the Duke of Ormond, "are 
 most Scotch and Scotch breed and are the 
 Northern Presbyterians and phanatiques, 
 lusty, able-bodied, hardy and stout men, where 
 one may see three or four hundred at every 
 meeting-house on Sunday, and all the North 
 of Ireland is inhabited by these, which is the 
 
 6 
 
THE MIGRATION OF THE PEOPLES 
 
 popular place of all Ireland by far. They are 
 very numerous and greedy after land." Dur- 
 ing the quarter of a century after the English 
 Revolution of 1688 and the Jacobite uprising 
 in Ireland, which ended in 1691 with the com- 
 plete submission of Ireland to William and 
 Mary, not less than fifty thousand Scotch, 
 according to Archbishop Synge, settled in 
 Ulster. Until the beginning of the eighteenth 
 century there was no considerable emigra- 
 tion to America; and it was first set up as 
 a consequence of English interference with 
 trade and religion. Repressive measures 
 passed by the English parliament (1665- 
 1699), prohibiting the exportation from Ire- 
 land to England and Scotland of cattle, beef, 
 pork, dairy products, etc., and to any country 
 whatever of manufactured wool, had aroused 
 deep resentment among the Scotch-Irish, who 
 had built up a great commerce. This discon- 
 tent was greatly aggravated by the imposition 
 of religious disabilities upon the Presbyterians, 
 who, in addition to having to pay tithes for 
 the support of the established church, were 
 
 7 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 excluded from all civil and military office 
 (1704), while their ministers were made liable 
 to penalties for celebrating marriages. 
 
 This pressure upon a high-spirited people 
 resulted inevitably in an exodus to the New 
 World. The principal ports by which the 
 Ulsterites entered America were Lewes and 
 Newcastle (Delaware), Philadelphia and Bos- 
 ton. The streams of immigration steadily 
 flowed up the Delaware Valley; and by 1720 
 the Scotch-Irish began to arrive in Bucks 
 County. So rapid was the rate of increase in 
 immigration that the number of arrivals soon 
 mounted from a few hundred to upward of 
 six thousand, in a single year (1729) ; and 
 within a few years this number was doubled. 
 According to the meticulous Franklin, the 
 proportion increased from a very small ele- 
 ment of the population of Pennsylvania in 
 1700 to one fourth of the whole in 1749, and 
 to one third of the whole (350,000) in 1774. 
 Writing to the Penns in 1724, James Logan, 
 Secretary of the Province, caustically refers 
 to the Ulster settlers on the disputed Mary- 
 
 8 
 
THE MIGRATION OF THE PEOPLES 
 
 land line as "these bold and indigent strangers, 
 saying as their excuse when challenged for 
 titles, that we had solicited for colonists and 
 they had come accordingly." The spirit of 
 these defiant squatters is succinctly expressed 
 in their statement to Logan that it "was 
 against the laws of God and nature that so 
 much land should be idle while so many Chris- 
 tians wanted it to work on and to raise their 
 bread." 
 
 The rising scale of prices for Pennsylvania 
 lands, changing from ten pounds and two shill- 
 ings quit-rents per hundred acres in 1719 to 
 fifteen pounds ten shillings per hundred acres 
 with a quit-rent of a halfpenny per acre in 
 1732, soon turned the eyes of the thrifty 
 Scotch-Irish settlers southward and south- 
 westward. In Maryland in 1738 lands were 
 offered at five pounds sterling per hundred 
 acres. Simultaneously, in the Valley of Vir- 
 ginia free grants of a thousand acres per fam- 
 ily were being made. In the North Carolina 
 piedmont region the proprietary, Lord Gran- 
 ville, through his agents was disposing of the 
 
 9 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 most desirable lands to settlers at the rate of 
 three shillings proclamation money for six hun- 
 dred and forty acres, the unit of land-division ; 
 and was also making large free grants on the 
 condition of seating a certain proportion of set- 
 tlers. "Lord Carteret's land in Carolina," 
 says North Carolina's first American histo- 
 rian, "where the soil was cheap, presented a 
 tempting residence to people of every denom- 
 ination. Emigrants from the north of Ire- 
 land, by the way of Pennsylvania, flocked 
 to that country; and a considerable part of 
 North Carolina ... is inhabited by those 
 people or their descendants." 5 From 1740 
 onward, attracted by the rich lure of cheap 
 and even free lands in Virginia and North 
 Carolina, a tide of immigration swept cease- 
 lessly into the valleys of the Shenandoah, 
 the Yadkin, and the Catawba. The immen- 
 sity of this mobile, drifting mass, which some- 
 times brought "more than 400 families with 
 horse waggons and cattle" into North Carolina 
 in a single year (1752-3), is attested by the 
 fact that from 1732 to 1754, mainly as the 
 
 10 
 
THE MIGRATION OF THE PEOPLES 
 
 result of the Scotch-Irish inundation, the pop- 
 ulation of North Carolina more than doubled. 
 
 The second important racial stream of popu- 
 lation in the settlement of the same region was 
 composed of Germans, attracted to this coun- 
 try from the Palatinate. Lured on by the 
 highly colored stories of the commercial agents 
 for promoting immigration — the "newland- 
 ers," who were thoroughly unscrupulous in 
 their methods and extravagant in their repre- 
 sentations — a migration from Germany began 
 in the second decade of the eighteenth century 
 and quickly assumed alarming proportions. 
 Although certain of the emigrants were well- 
 to-do, a very great number were "redemp- 
 tioners" (indentured servants), who in order 
 to pay for their transportation were compelled 
 to pledge themselves to several years of servi- 
 tude. This economic condition caused the 
 German immigrant, wherever he went, to be- 
 come a settler of the back country, necessity 
 compelling him to pass by the more expensive 
 lands near the coast. 
 
 For well-nigh sixty years the influx of Ger- 
 11 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 man immigrants of various sects was very 
 great, averaging something like fifteen hun- 
 dred a year into Pennsylvania alcne from 1727 
 to 1775. Indeed, Pennsylvania, one third of 
 whose population at the beginning of the Revo- 
 lution was German, early became the great 
 distributing center for the Germans as well 
 as for the Scotch-Irish. Certainly by 1727 
 Adam Miiller and his fellow Germans had 
 established the first permanent white settle- 
 ment in the Valley of Virginia. 6 By 1732 Jost 
 Heydt, accompanied by sixteen families, came 
 from York, Pennsylvania, and settled on the 
 Opeckon River, in the neighborhood of the 
 present Winchester. 7 There is no longer any 
 doubt that "the portion of the Shenandoah 
 Valley sloping to the north was almost en- 
 tirely settled by Germans." 
 
 It was about the middle of the century that 
 these pioneers of the Old Southwest, the 
 shrewd, industrious, and thrifty Pennsylvania 
 Germans (who came to be generally called 
 "Pennsylvania Dutch" from the incorrect 
 translation of Pennsylvanische Deutsche), be- 
 
 12 
 
THE MIGRATION OF THE PEOPLES 
 
 gan to pour into the piedmont region of North 
 Carolina. In the autumn, after the harvest 
 was in, these ambitious Pennsylvania pioneers 
 would pack up their belongings in wagons and 
 on beasts of burden and head for the south- 
 west, trekking down in the manner of the 
 Boers of South Africa. This movement into 
 the fertile valley lands of the Yadkin and the 
 Catawba continued unabated throughout the 
 entire third quarter of the century. Owing to 
 their unfamiliarity with the English language 
 and the solidarity of their instincts, the Ger- 
 man settlers at first had little share in govern- 
 ment. But they devotedly played their part 
 in the defense of the exposed settlements and 
 often bore the brunt of Indian attack. 8 
 
 The bravery and hardihood displayed by the 
 itinerant missionaries sent out by the Pennsyl- 
 vania Synod under the direction of Count 
 Zinzendorf (1742-8), and by the Moravian 
 Church (1748-53) , are mirrored in the numer- 
 ous diaries, written in German, happily pre- 
 served to posterity in religious archives of 
 Pennsylvania and North Carolina. These 
 
 13 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 simple, earnest crusaders, animated by pure 
 and unselfish motives, would visit on a single 
 tour of a thousand miles the principal German 
 settlements in Maryland and Virginia (includ- 
 ing the present West Virginia) . Sometimes 
 they would make an extended circuit through 
 North Carolina, South Carolina, and even 
 Georgia, everywhere bearing witness to the 
 truth of the gospel and seeking to carry the 
 most elemental forms of the Christian religion, 
 preaching and prayer, to the primitive fron- 
 tiersmen marooned along the outer fringe of 
 white settlements. These arduous journeys in 
 the cause of piety place this type of pioneer 
 of the Old Southwest in alleviating contrast 
 to the often relentless and bloodthirsty figure 
 of the rude borderer. 
 
 Noteworthy among these pious pilgrimages 
 is the Virginia journey of Brothers Leonhard 
 Schnell and John Brandmuller (October 12 
 to December 12, 1749) . 9 At the last outpost 
 of civilization, the scattered settlements in Bath 
 and Alleghany counties, these courageous mis- 
 sionaries — feasting the while solely on bear 
 
 14 
 
THE MIGRATION OF THE PEOPLES 
 
 meat, for there was no bread — encountered 
 conditions of almost primitive savagery, of 
 which they give this graphic picture: "Then 
 we came to a house, where we had to lie on 
 bear skins around the fire like the rest. . . . 
 The clothes of the people consist of deer skins, 
 their food of Johnny cakes, deer and bear 
 meat. A kind of white people are found here, 
 who live like savages. Hunting is their chief 
 occupation." Into the valley of the Yadkin 
 in December, 1752, came Bishop Spangenberg 
 and a party of Moravians, accompanied by a 
 surveyor and two guides, for the purpose of 
 locating the one hundred thousand acres of 
 land which had been offered them on easy terms 
 the preceding year by Lord Granville. This 
 journey was remarkable as an illustration of 
 sacrifices willingly made and extreme hard- 
 ships uncomplainingly endured for the sake of 
 the Moravian brotherhood. In the back coun- 
 try of North Carolina near the Mulberry 
 Fields they found the whole woods full of 
 Cherokee Indians engaged in hunting. A 
 beautiful site for the projected settlement met 
 
 15 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 their delighted gaze at this place ; but they soon 
 learned to their regret that it had already been 
 "taken up" by Daniel Boone's future father- 
 in-law, Morgan Bryan. 
 
 On October 8, 1753, a party of twelve single 
 men headed by the Rev. Bernhard Adam 
 Grube, set out from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 
 to trek down to the new-found haven in the 
 Carolina hinterland — -"a corner which the 
 Lord has reserved for the Brethren" — in An- 
 son County. 10 Following for the most part 
 the great highway extending from Philadel- 
 phia to the Yadkin, over which passed the 
 great throng sweeping into the back country 
 of North Carolina — through the Valley of 
 Virginia and past Robert Luhny's mill on the 
 James River — they encountered many hard- 
 ships along the way. Because of their "long 
 wagon," they had much difficulty in crossing 
 one steep mountain; and of this experience 
 Brother Grube, with a touch of modest pride, 
 observes: "People had told us that this hill 
 was most dangerous, and that we would 
 scarcely be able to cross it, for Morgan Bryan, 
 
 16 
 
THE MIGRATION OF THE PEOPLES 
 
 the first to travel this way, had to take the 
 wheels off his wagon and carry it piecemeal 
 to the top, and had been three months on the 
 journey from the Shanidore [Shenandoah] to 
 the Etkin [Yadkin]." 
 
 These men were the highest type of the pio- 
 neers of the Old Southwest, inspired with the 
 instinct of home-makers in a land where, if idle 
 rumor were to be credited, "the people lived 
 like wild men, never hearing of God or His 
 Word." In one hand they bore the implement 
 of agriculture, in the other the book of the gos- 
 pel of Jesus Christ. True faith shines forth in 
 the simply eloquent words : "We thanked our 
 Saviour that he had so graciously led us hither, 
 and had helped us through all the hard places, 
 for no matter how dangerous it looked, nor 
 how little we saw how we could win through, 
 everything always went better than seemed 
 possible." The promise of a new day — the 
 dawn of the heroic age — rings out in the pious 
 carol of camaraderie at their journey's end: 
 
 We hold arrival Lovefeast here, 
 In Carolina land, 
 17 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 A company of Brethren true, 
 
 A little Pilgrim-Band, 
 Called by the Lord to be of those 
 
 Who through the whole world go, 
 To bear Him witness everywhere, 
 
 And nought but Jesus know. 
 
 18 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 . THE CRADLE OF WESTWARD EXPANSION 
 
 In the. year 1746 I was up in the country that is now Anson, 
 Orange and Rowan Counties, there was not then above one 
 hundred fighting men there is now at least three thousand for 
 the most part Irish Protestants and Germans and dailey 
 increasing. 
 
 — Matthew Rowan, President of the North Caro- 
 lina Council, to the Board of Trade, June 28, 
 1753. 
 
 THE conquest of the West is usually at- 
 tributed to the ready initiative, the stern 
 self-reliance, and the libertarian instinct of the 
 expert backwoodsmen. These bold, nomadic 
 spirits were animated by an unquenchable de- 
 sire to plunge into the wilderness in search of 
 an El Dorado at the outer verge of civilization, 
 free of taxation, quit-rents, and the law's re- 
 straint. They longed to build homes for them- 
 selves and their descendants in a limitless, free 
 domain; or else to fare deeper and deeper into 
 the trackless forests in search of adventure. 
 
 19 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 Yet one must not overlook the fact that behind 
 Boone and pioneers of his stamp were men of 
 conspicuous civil and military genius, construc- 
 tive in purpose and creative in imagination, 
 who devoted their best gifts to actual conquest 
 and colonization. These men of large intel- 
 lectual mold — themselves surveyors, hunters, 
 and pioneers — were inspired with the larger 
 vision of the expansionist. Whether colo- 
 nizers, soldiers, or speculators on the grand 
 scale, they sought to open at one great stroke 
 the vast trans -Alleghany regions as a peaceful 
 abode for mankind. 
 
 Two distinct classes of society were grad- 
 ually drawing apart from each other in North 
 Carolina and later in Virginia — the pioneer 
 democracy of the back country and the upland, 
 and the planter aristocracy of the lowland and 
 the tide- water region. From the frontier came 
 the pioneer explorers whose individual enter- 
 prise and initiative were such potent factors in 
 the exploitation of the wilderness. From the 
 border counties still in contact with the East 
 came a number of leaders. Thus in the heart 
 
THE CRADLE OF WESTWARD EXPANSION 
 
 of the Old Southwest the two determinative 
 principles already referred to, the inquisitive 
 and the acquisitive instincts, found a fortunate 
 conjunction. The exploratory passion of the 
 pioneer, directed in the interest of commercial 
 enterprise, prepared the way for the great 
 westward migration. The warlike disposition 
 of the hardy backwoodsman, controlled by the 
 exercise of military strategy, accomplished the 
 conquest of the trans-Alleghany country. 
 
 Fleeing from the traditional bonds of caste 
 and aristocracy in England and Europe, from 
 economic boycott and civil oppression, from re- 
 ligious persecution and favoritism, many 
 worthy members of society in the first quarter 
 of the eighteenth century sought a haven of 
 refuge in the "Quackerthal" of William Penn, 
 with its trustworthy guarantees of free toler- 
 ance in religious faith and the benefits of repre- 
 sentative self-government. From East Dev- 
 onshire in England came George Boone, the 
 grandfather of the great pioneer, and from 
 Wales came Edward Morgan, whose daughter 
 Sarah became the wife of Squire Boone, 
 
 21 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 Daniel's father. These were conspicuous rep- 
 resentatives of the Society of Friends, drawn 
 thither by the roseate representations of the 
 great Quaker, William Penn, and by his ad- 
 vanced views on popular government and re- 
 ligious toleration. 11 Hither, too, from Ireland, 
 whither he had gone from Denmark, came 
 Morgan Bryan, settling in Chester County, 
 prior to 1719; and his children, William, Jo- 
 seph, James, and Morgan, who more than half 
 a century later gave the name to Bryan's Sta- 
 tion in Kentucky, were destined to play im- 
 portant roles in the drama of westward migra- 
 tion. 12 In September, 1734, Michael Finley 
 from County Armagh, Ireland, presumably 
 accompanied by his brother Archibald Finley, 
 settled in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Ac- 
 cording to the best authorities, Archibald Fin- 
 ley was the father of John Finley, or Findlay as 
 he signed himself, Boone's guide and compan- 
 ion in his exploration of Kentucky in 1769- 
 71. 13 To Pennsylvania also came Mordecai 
 Lincoln, great-grandson of Samuel Lincoln, 
 who had emigrated from England to Hingham, 
 
 22 
 
THE CRADLE OF WESTWARD EXPANSION 
 
 Massachusetts, as early as 1637. This Mor- 
 decai Lincoln, who in 1720 settled in Chester 
 County, Pennsylvania, the great-great-grand- 
 father of President Lincoln, was the father 
 of Sarah Lincoln, who was wedded to William 
 Boone, and of Abraham Lincoln, who married 
 Anne Boone, William's first cousin. Early 
 settlers in Pennsylvania were members of the 
 Hanks family, one of whom was the maternal 
 grandfather of President Lincoln. 14 
 
 No one race or breed of men can lay claim 
 to exclusive credit for leadership in the hinter- 
 land movement and the conquest of the West. 
 Yet one particular stock of people, the Ulster 
 Scots, exhibited with most completeness and 
 picturesqueness a group of conspicuous quali- 
 ties and attitudes which we now recognize to 
 be typical of the American character as molded 
 by the conditions of frontier life. Cautious, 
 wary, and reserved, these Scots concealed be- 
 neath a cool and calculating manner a relent- 
 lessness in reasoning power and an intensity 
 of conviction which glowed and burned with 
 almost fanatical ardor. Strict in religious ob- 
 
 23 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 servance and deep in spiritual fervor, they 
 never lost sight of the main chance, combining 
 a shrewd practicality with a wealth of devo- 
 tion. It has been happily said of them that 
 they kept the Sabbath and everything else they 
 could lay their hands on. In the polity of 
 these men religion and education went hand 
 in hand; and they habitually settled together 
 in communities in order that they might have 
 teachers and preachers of their own choice and 
 persuasion. 
 
 In little-known letters and diaries of trav- 
 elers and itinerant ministers may be found 
 many quaint descriptions and faithful char- 
 acterizations of the frontier settlers in their 
 habits of life and of the scenes amidst which 
 they labored. In a letter to Edmund Fan- 
 ning, the cultured Robin Jones, agent of Lord 
 Granville and Attorney-General of North 
 Carolina, summons to view a piquant image 
 of the western border and borderers: "The 
 inhabitants are hospitable in their way, live in 
 plenty and dirt, are stout, of great prowess in 
 manly athletics; and, in private conversation, 
 
 24 
 
THE CRADLE OF WESTWARD EXPANSION 
 
 bold, impertinent, and vain. In the art of 
 war (after the Indian manner) they are well- 
 skilled, are enterprising and fruitful of strate- 
 gies; and, when in action, are as bold and in- 
 trepid as the ancient Romans. The Shawnese 
 acknowledge them their superiors even in their 
 own way of fighting. . . . [The land] may 
 be truly called the land of the mountains, for 
 they are so numerous that when you have 
 reached the summit of one of them, you may 
 see thousands of every shape that the imagi- 
 nation can suggest, seeming to vie with each 
 other which should raise his lofty head to touch 
 the clouds. ... It seems to me that nature 
 has been wanton in bestowing her blessings on 
 that country." 15 
 
 An excellent pen-picture of educational and 
 cultural conditions in the backwoods of North 
 Carolina, by one of the early settlers in the 
 middle of the century, exhibits in all their bar- 
 ren cheerlessness the hardships and limitations 
 of life in the wilderness. The father of Wil- 
 liam Few, the narrator, had trekked down from 
 Maryland and settled in Orange County, some 
 
 25 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 miles east of the little hamlet of Hillsborough. 
 "In that country at that time there were no 
 schools, no churches or parsons, or doctors or 
 lawyers; no stores, groceries or taverns, nor 
 do I recollect during the first two years any 
 officer, ecclesiastical, civil or military, except a 
 justice of the peace, a constable and two or 
 three itinerant preachers. . . . These people 
 had few wants, and fewer temptations to vice 
 than those who lived in more refined society, 
 though ignorant. They were more virtuous 
 and more happy. ... A schoolmaster ap- 
 peared and offered his services to teach the 
 children of the neighborhood for twenty shill- 
 ings each per year. ... In that simple state 
 of society money was but little known; the 
 schoolmaster was the welcome guest of his 
 pupil, fed at the bountiful table and clothed 
 from the domestic loom. ... In that country 
 at that time there was great scarcity of 
 books." 16 
 
 The journals of itinerant ministers through 
 the Valley of Virginia and the Carolina pied- 
 mont zone yield precious mementoes of the 
 
 26 
 
THE CRADLE OF WESTWARD EXPANSION 
 
 people, their longing after the things of the 
 spirit, and their pitiful isolation from the regu- 
 lar preaching of the gospel. These mission- 
 aries were true pioneers in this Old Southwest, 
 ardent, dauntless, and heroic — carrying the 
 word into remote places and preaching the gos- 
 pel beneath the trees of the forest. In his 
 journal (1755-6), the Rev. Hugh McAden, 
 born in Pennsylvania of Scotch-Irish paren- 
 tage, a graduate of Nassau Hall (1753), 
 makes the unconsciously humorous observation 
 that wherever he found Presbyterians he found 
 people who "seemed highly pleased, and very 
 desirous to hear the word" ; whilst elsewhere he 
 found either dissension and defection to Bap- 
 tist principles, or "no appearance of the life 
 of religion." In the Scotch-Irish Presbyte- 
 rian settlements in what is now Mecklenburg 
 County, the cradle of American liberty, he 
 found "pretty serious, judicious people" of the 
 stamp of Moses, William, and James Alex- 
 ander. While traveling in the upper country 
 of South Carolina, he relates with gusto the 
 story of "an old gentleman who said to the 
 
 27 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 Governor of South Carolina, when he was in 
 those parts, in treaty with the Cherokee In- 
 dians that 'he had never seen a shirt, been in 
 a fair, heard a sermon, or seen a minister in all 
 his life.' Upon which the governor promised 
 to send him up a minister, that he might hear 
 one sermon before he died." The minister 
 came and preached; and this was all the 
 preaching that had been heard in the upper 
 part of South Carolina before Mr. McAden's 
 visit. 17 
 
 Such, then, were the rude and simple people 
 in the back country of the Old Southwest — 
 the deliberate and self -controlled English, the 
 aggressive, land-mongering Scotch-Irish, the 
 buoyant Welsh, the thrifty Germans, the debo- 
 nair French, the impetuous Irish, and the cal- 
 culating Scotch. The lives they led were 
 marked by independence of spirit, democratic 
 instincts, and a forthright simplicity. In de- 
 scribing the condition of the English settlers in 
 the backwoods of Virginia, one of their num- 
 ber, Doddridge, says: "Most of the articles 
 were of domestic manufacture. There might 
 
 28 
 
THE CRADLE OF WESTWARD EXPANSION 
 
 have been incidentally a few things brought 
 to the country for sale in a primitive way, but 
 there was no store for general supply. The 
 table furniture usually consisted of wooden 
 vessels, either turned or coopered. Iron forks, 
 tin cups, etc., were articles of rare and deli- 
 cate luxury. The food was of the most whole- 
 some and primitive kind. The richest meat, 
 the finest butter, and best meal that ever de- 
 lighted man's palate were here eaten with a 
 relish which health and labor only know. The 
 hospitality of the people was profuse and pro- 
 verbial." 
 
 The circumstances of their lives compelled 
 the pioneers to become self-sustaining. Every 
 immigrant was an adept at many trades. He 
 built his own house, forged his own tools, and 
 made his own clothes. At a very early date 
 rifles were manufactured at the High Shoals 
 of the Yadkin; Squire Boone, Daniel's brother, 
 was an expert gunsmith. The difficulty of 
 securing food for the settlements forced every 
 man to become a hunter and to scour the for- 
 est for wild game. Thus the pioneer, through 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 force of sheer necessity, became a dead shot — 
 which stood him in good stead in the days of In- 
 dian incursions and bloody retaliatory raids. 
 Primitive in their games, recreations, and 
 amusements, which not infrequently degener- 
 ated into contests of savage brutality, the pio- 
 neers always set the highest premium upon 
 personal bravery, physical prowess, and skill 
 in manly sports. At all public gatherings, 
 general musters, "vendues" or auctions, and 
 even funerals, whisky flowed with extraor- 
 dinary freedom. It is worthy of record that 
 among the effects of the Rev. Alexander 
 Craighead, the famous teacher and organizer 
 of Presbyterianism in Mecklenburg and the 
 adjoining region prior to the Revolution, were 
 found a punch bowl and glasses. 
 
 The frontier life, with its purifying and 
 hardening influence, bred in these pioneers in- 
 tellectual traits which constitute the basis of 
 the American character. The single-handed 
 and successful struggle with nature in the tense 
 solitude of the forest developed a spirit of in- 
 dividualism, restive under control. On the 
 
 30 
 
THE CRADLE OF WESTWARD EXPANSION 
 
 other hand, the sense of sharing with others 
 the arduous tasks and dangers of conquering 
 the wilderness gave birth to a strong sense of 
 solidarity and of human sympathy. With the 
 lure of free lands ever before them, the pio- 
 neers developed a restlessness and a nervous 
 energy, blended with a buoyancy of spirit, 
 which are fundamentally American. Yet this 
 same untrammeled freedom occasioned a dis- 
 regard for law and a defiance of established 
 government which have exhibited themselves 
 throughout the entire course of our history. 
 Initiative, self-reliance, boldness in conception, 
 fertility in resource, readiness in execution, 
 acquisitiveness, inventive genius, appreciation 
 of material advantages — these, shot through 
 with a certain fine idealism, genial human sym- 
 pathy, and a high romantic strain — are the 
 traits of the American national type as it 
 emerged from the Old Southwest. 
 
 31 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE BACK COUNTRY AND THE BORDER 
 
 Far from the bustle of the world, they live in the most de- 
 lightful climate, and richest soil imaginable; they are every- 
 where surrounded with beautiful prospects and sylvan scenes; 
 lofty mountains, transparent streams, falls of water, rich 
 valleys, and majestic woods; the whole interspersed with an 
 infinite variety of flowering shrubs, constitute the landscape 
 surrounding them; they are subject to few diseases; are gen- 
 erally robust; and live in perfect liberty; they are ignorant 
 of want and acquainted with but few vices. Their inex- 
 perience of the elegancies of life precludes any regret that they 
 possess not the means of enjoying them, but they possess what 
 many princes would give half their dominion for, health, con- 
 tent, and tranquillity of mind. 
 
 — Andrew Buhnaby: Travels Through North 
 America. 
 
 THE two streams of Ulstermen, the 
 greater through Philadelphia, the lesser 
 through Charleston, which poured into the 
 Carolinas toward the middle of the century, 
 quickly flooded the back country. The former 
 occupied the Yadkin Valley and the region to 
 the westward, the latter the Waxhaws and the 
 Anson County region to the northwest. The 
 
 3% 
 
THE BACK COUNTRY AND THE BORDER 
 
 first settlers were known as the "Pennsylvania 
 Irish," because they had first settled in Penn- 
 sylvania after migrating from the north of Ire- 
 land ; while those who came by way of Charles- 
 ton were known as the "Scotch-Irish." The 
 former, who had resided in Pennsylvania long 
 enough to be good judges of land, shrewdly 
 made their settlements along the rivers and 
 creeks. The latter, new arrivals and less ex- 
 perienced, settled on thinner land toward the 
 heads of creeks and water courses. 18 
 
 Shortly prior to 1735, Morgan Bryan, his 
 wife Martha, and eight children, together with 
 other families of Quakers from Pennsylvania, 
 settled upon a large tract of land on the north- 
 west side of the Opeckon River near Win- 
 chester. 19 A few years later they removed up 
 the Virginia Valley to the Big Lick in the 
 present Roanoke County, intent upon pushing 
 westward to the very outskirts of civilization. 
 In the autumn of 1748, leaving behind his 
 brother William, who had followed him to 
 Roanoke County, Morgan Bryan removed 
 with his family to the Forks of the Yadkin 
 
 33 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 River. 20 The Morgans, with the exception of 
 Richard, who emigrated to Virginia, remained 
 in Pennsylvania, spreading over Philadelphia 
 and Bucks counties; while the Hanks and Lin- 
 coln families found homes in Virginia — Mor- 
 decai Lincoln's son, John, the great-grand- 
 father of President Lincoln, removing from 
 Berks to the Shenandoah Valley in 1765. On 
 May 1, 1750, Squire Boone, his wife Sarah 
 (Morgan) , and their eleven children — a verita- 
 ble caravan, traveling like the patriarchs of 
 old — started south; and tarried for a space, 
 according to reliable tradition, on Linville 
 Creek in the Virginia Valley. In 1752 they 
 removed to the Forks of the Yadkin, and the 
 following year received from Lord Granville 
 three tracts of land, all situated in Rowan 
 County. 21 About the hamlet of Salisbury, 
 which in 1755 consisted of seven or eight log 
 houses and the court house, there now rapidly 
 gathered a settlement of people marked by 
 strong individuality, sturdy independence, and 
 virile self-reliance. The Boones and the Bry- 
 ans quickly accommodated themselves to fron- 
 
 34? 
 
THE BACK COUNTRY AND THE BORDER 
 
 tier conditions and immediately began to 
 take an active part in the local affairs of the 
 county. Upon the organization of the county 
 court Squire Boone was chosen justice of the 
 peace; and Morgan Bryan was soon appear- 
 ing as foreman of juries and director in road 
 improvements. 
 
 The Great Trading Path, leading from Vir- 
 ginia to the towns of the Catawbas and other 
 Southern Indians, crossed the Yadkin at the 
 Trading Ford and passed a mile southeast of 
 Salisbury. Above Sapona Town near the 
 Trading Ford was Swearing Creek, which, ac- 
 cording to constant and picturesque tradition, 
 was the spot where the traders stopped to take 
 a solemn oath never to reveal any unlawful 
 proceedings that might occur during their so- 
 journ among the Indians. 22 In his divertingly 
 satirical "History of the Dividing Line" Wil- 
 liam Byrd in 1728 thus speaks of this locality: 
 "The Soil is exceedingly rich on both sides 
 the Yadkin, abounding in rank Grass and 
 prodigiously large Trees; and for plenty of 
 Fish, Fowl and Venison, is inferior to No Part 
 
 35 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 of the Northern Continent. There the 
 Traders commonly lie Still for some days, to 
 recruit their Horses' Flesh as well as to recover 
 their own spirits." In this beautiful country 
 happily chosen for settlement by Squire Boone 
 — who erected his cabin on the east 'side of the 
 Yadkin about a mile and a quarter from 
 Alleman's, now Boone's, Ford — wild game 
 abounded. Buffaloes were encountered in 
 eastern North Carolina by Byrd while running 
 the dividing line ; and in the upper country of 
 South Carolina three or four men with their 
 dogs could kill fourteen to twenty buffaloes in 
 a single day. 23 Deer and bears fell an easy 
 prey to the hunter; wild turkeys filled every 
 thicket; the watercourses teemed with beaver, 
 otter, and muskrat, as well as with shad and 
 other delicious fish. Panthers, wildcats, and 
 wolves overran the country; and the veracious 
 Brother Joseph, while near the present 
 Wilkesboro, amusingly records: "The wolves 
 wh. are not like those in Germany, Poland, 
 and L if land (because they fear men and don't 
 easily come near) give us such music of six 
 
 36 
 
COLONEL DANIEL BOONE 
 
 From lithograph after Chester Harding in Jefferson Memorial 
 Courtesy Missouri Historical Society 
 
THE BACK COUNTRY AND THE BORDER 
 
 different cornets the like of wh. I have never 
 heard in my life." 24 So plentiful was the 
 game that the wild deer mingled with the cattle 
 grazing over the wide stretches of luxuriant 
 grass. 
 
 In the midst of this sylvan paradise grew 
 up Squire Boone's son, Daniel Boone, a Penn- 
 sylvania youth of English stock, Quaker 
 persuasion, and Baptist proclivities. 25 Seen 
 through a glorifying halo after the lapse of 
 a century and three quarters, he rises before 
 us a romantic figure, poised and resolute, sim- 
 ple, benign — as naive and shy as some wild 
 thing of the primeval forest — five feet eight 
 inches in height, with broad chest and shoul- 
 ders, dark locks, genial blue eyes arched with 
 fair eyebrows, thin lips and wide mouth, nose 
 of slightly Roman cast, and fair, ruddy coun- 
 tenance. Farming was irksome to this rest- 
 less, nomadic spirit, who on the slightest excuse 
 would exchange the plow and the grubbing- 
 hoe for the long rifle and keen-edged hunting- 
 knife. In a single day during the autumn 
 season he would kill four or five deer; or as 
 
 37 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 many bears as would make from two to three 
 thousand pounds weight of bear-bacon. Fas- 
 cinated with the forest, he soon found profit 
 as well -as pleasure in the pursuit of game; 
 and at excellent fixed prices he sold his peltries, 
 most often at Salisbury, some thirteen miles 
 away, sometimes at the store of the old "Dutch- 
 man," George Hartman, on the Yadkin, and 
 occasionally at Bethabara, the Moravian town 
 sixty-odd miles distant. Skins were in such 
 demand that they soon came to replace hard 
 money, which was incredibly scarce in the back 
 country, as a medium of exchange. Upon 
 one occasion a caravan from Bethabara hauled 
 three thousand pounds, upon another four 
 thousand pounds, of dressed deerskins to 
 Charleston. 20 So immense was this trade that 
 the year after Boone's arrival at the Forks of 
 Yadkin thirty thousand deerskins were ex- 
 ported from the province of North Carolina. 
 We like to think that the young Daniel Boone 
 was one of that band of whom Brother Joseph, 
 while in camp on the Catawba River (Novem- 
 ber 12, 1752) wrote: "There are many 
 
THE BACK COUNTRY AND THE BORDER 
 
 hunters about here, who live like Indians, they 
 kill many deer selling their hides, and thus live 
 without much work." 27 
 
 In this very class of professional hunters, 
 living like Indians, was thus bred the spirit 
 of individual initiative and strenuous leader- 
 ship in the great westward expansionist move- 
 ment of the coming decade. An English 
 traveler gives the following minute picture of 
 the dress and accoutrement of the Carolina 
 backwoodsman : 
 
 Their whole dress is very singular, and not 
 very materially different from that of the In- 
 dians ; being a hunting shirt, somewhat resem- 
 bling a waggoner's frock, ornamented with a 
 great many fringes, tied round the middle with 
 a broad belt, much decorated also, in which 
 is fastened a tomahawk, an instrument that 
 serves every purpose of defence and conven- 
 ience ; being a hammer at one side and a sharp 
 hatchet at the other; the shot bag and powder- 
 horn, carved with a variety of whimsical fig- 
 ures and devices, hang from their necks over 
 one shoulder; and on their heads a flapped 
 hat, of a reddish hue, proceeding from the in- 
 tensely hot beams of the sun. 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 Sometimes they wear leather breeches, made 
 of Indian dressed elk, or deer skins, but more 
 frequently thin trowsers. 
 
 On their legs they have Indian boots, or 
 leggings, made of coarse woollen cloth, that 
 either are wrapped round loosely and tied with 
 garters, or laced upon the outside, and always 
 come better than half-way up the thigh. 
 
 On their feet they sometimes wear pumps of 
 their own manufacture, but generally Indian 
 moccossons, of their own construction also, 
 which are made of strong elk's, or buck's skin, 
 dressed soft as for gloves or breeches, drawn 
 together in regular plaits over the toe, and 
 lacing from thence round to the fore part of 
 the middle of the ancle, without a seam in them, 
 yet fitting close to the feet, and are indeed 
 perfectly easy and pliant. 
 
 Their hunting, or rifle shirts, they have also 
 died in a variety of colours, some yellow, others 
 red, some brown, and many wear them quite 
 white. 28 
 
 No less unique and bizarre, though less pic- 
 turesque, was the dress of the women of the 
 region — in particular of Surry County, North 
 Carolina, as described by General William 
 Lenoir : 
 
 40 
 
THE BACK COUNTRY AND THE BORDER 
 
 The women wore .linsey [flax] petticoats 
 and 'bed-gowns' [like a dressing-sack], and 
 often went without shoes in the summer. 
 Some had bonnets and bed-gowns made of 
 calico, but generally of linsey; and some of 
 them wore men's hats. Their hair was com- 
 monly clubbed. Once, at a large meeting, I 
 noticed there but two women that had on long 
 gowns. One of these was laced genteelly, and 
 the body of the other was open, and the tail 
 thereof drawn up and tucked in her apron or 
 coat-string. 29 
 
 While Daniel Boone was quietly engaged 
 in the pleasant pursuits of the chase, a vast 
 world-struggle of which he little dreamed was 
 rapidly approaching a crisis. For three quar- 
 ters of a century this titanic contest between 
 France and England for the interior of the 
 continent had been waged with slowly accumu- 
 lating force. The irrepressible conflict had 
 been formally inaugurated at Sault Ste. Marie 
 in 1671, when Daumont de Saint Lusson, 
 swinging aloft his sword, proclaimed the sover- 
 eignty of France over "all countries, rivers, 
 lakes, and streams . . . both those which have 
 
 41 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 been discovered and those which may be dis- 
 covered hereafter, in all their length and 
 breadth, bounded on the one side by the seas 
 of the North and of the West, and on the other 
 by the South Sea." Just three months later, 
 three hardy pioneers of Virginia, despatched 
 upon their arduous mission by Colonel Abra- 
 ham Wood in behalf of the English crown, 
 had crossed the Appalachian divide ; and upon 
 the banks of a stream whose waters slipped 
 into the Ohio to join the Mississippi and the 
 Gulf of Mexico, had carved the royal insignia 
 upon the blazed trunk of a giant of the forest, 
 the while crying: "Long live Charles the 
 Second, by the grace of God, King of Eng- 
 land, Scotland, France, Ireland and Virginia 
 and of the territories thereunto belonging." 
 
 La Salle's dream of a New France in the 
 heart of America was blotted out in his tragic 
 death upon the banks of the River Trinity 
 (1687). Yet his mantle was to fall in turn 
 upon the square shoulders of Le Moyne d'lber- 
 ville and of his brother — the good, the constant 
 Bienville, who after countless and arduous 
 
 42 
 
THE BACK COUNTRY AND THE BORDER 
 
 struggles laid firm the foundations of New 
 Orleans. In the precious treasury of Margry 
 we learn that on reaching Rochelle after his 
 first voyage in 1699 Iberville in these prophetic 
 words voices his faith: "If France does not 
 immediately seize this part of America which 
 is the most beautiful, and establish a colony 
 which is strong enough to resist any which 
 England may have, the English colonies (al- 
 ready considerable in Carolina) will so thrive 
 that in less than a hundred years they will be 
 strong enough to seize all America." 30 But 
 the world-weary Louis Quatorze, nearing his 
 end, quickly tired of that remote and unpro- 
 ductive colony upon the shores of the gulf, so 
 industriously described in Paris as a "terres- 
 trial paradise"; and the "paternal providence 
 of Versailles" willingly yielded place to the 
 monumental speculation of the great financier 
 Antoine Crozat. In this Paris of prolific pro- 
 motion and amazed credulity, ripe for the 
 colossal scheme of Law, soon to blow to burst- 
 ing-point the bubble of the Mississippi, the 
 very songs in the street echoed flamboyant, 
 
 43 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 half-satiric panegyrics upon the new Utopia, 
 this Mississippi Land of Cockayne: 
 
 It 's to-day no contribution 
 To discuss the Constitution 
 And the Spanish war 's forgot 
 For a new Utopian spot; 
 And the very latest phase 
 Is the Mississippi craze. 31 
 
 Interest in the new colony led to a great 
 development of southwesterly trade from New 
 France. Already the French coureurs de bois 
 were following the water route from the Illi- 
 nois to South Carolina. Jean Couture, a de- 
 serter from the service in New France, jour- 
 neyed over the Ohio and Tennessee rivers to 
 that colony, and was known as "the greatest 
 Trader and Traveller amongst the Indians for 
 more than Twenty years." In 1714 young 
 Charles Charleville accompanied an old trader 
 from Crozat's colony on the gulf to the great 
 salt-springs on the Cumberland, where a post 
 for trading with the Shawanoes had already 
 been established by the French. 32 But the 
 British were preparing to capture this trade 
 
 44 
 
THE BACK COUNTRY AND THE BORDER 
 
 as early as 1694, when Tonti warned Viller- 
 mont that Carolinians were already established 
 on a branch of the Ohio. Four years later, 
 Nicholson, Governor of Maryland, was urging 
 trade with the Indians of the interior in the 
 effort to displace the French. At an early 
 date the coast colonies began to trade with the 
 Indian tribes of the back country: the Ca- 
 tawbas of the Yadkin Valley; the Cherokees, 
 whose towns were scattered through Tennes- 
 see; the Chickasaws, to the westward in north- 
 ern Mississippi; and the Choctaws farther to 
 the southward. Even before the beginning of 
 the eighteenth century, when the South Caro- 
 lina settlements extended scarcely twenty miles 
 from the coast, English traders had established 
 posts among the Indian tribes four hundred 
 miles to the west of Charleston. Following 
 the sporadic trading of individuals from Vir- 
 ginia with the inland Indians, the heavily laden 
 caravans of William Byrd were soon regularly 
 passing along the Great Trading Path from 
 Virginia to the towns of the Catawbas and 
 other interior tribes of the Carolinas, delight - 
 
 45 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 ing the easily captivated fancy and provoking 
 the cupidity of the red men with "Guns, 
 Powder, Shot, Hatchets (which the Indians 
 call Tomahawks), Kettles, red and blue 
 Planes, Duffields, Stroudwater blankets, and 
 some Cutlary Wares, Brass Rings and other 
 Trinkets." 33 In Pennsylvania, George Crog- 
 han, the guileful diplomat, who was emissary 
 from the Council to the Ohio Indians (1748), 
 had induced "all-most all the Ingans in the 
 Woods" to declare against the French; and 
 was described by Christopher Gist as a "meer 
 idol among his countrymen, the Irish traders." 
 Against these advances of British trade and 
 civilization, the French for four decades had 
 artfully struggled, projecting tours of explor- 
 ation into the vast medial valley of the conti- 
 nent and constructing a chain of forts and 
 trading-posts designed to establish their claims 
 to the country and to hold in check the threat- 
 ened English thrust from the east. Soon the 
 wilderness ambassador of empire, Celoron de 
 Bienville, was despatched by the far-visioned 
 
 46 
 
THE BACK COTOTRY AND THE BORDER 
 
 Galissoniere at Quebec to sow broadcast with 
 ceremonial pomp in the heart of America the 
 seeds of empire, grandiosely graven plates of 
 lasting lead, in defiant yet futile symbol of 
 the asserted sovereignty of France. Thus 
 threatened in the vindication of the rights of 
 their colonial sea-to-sea charters, the English 
 threw off the lethargy with which they had 
 failed to protect their traders, and in grants 
 to the Ohio and Loyal land companies began 
 resolutely to form plans looking to the occu- 
 pation of the interior. But the French seized 
 the English trading-house at Venango which 
 they converted into a fort ; and Virginia's pro- 
 test, conveyed by a calm and judicious young 
 man, a surveyor, George Washington, availed 
 not to prevent the French from seizing Cap- 
 tain Trent's hastily erected military post at 
 the forks of the Ohio and constructing there 
 a formidable work, named Fort Duquesne. 
 Washington, with his expeditionary force sent 
 to garrison Captain Trent's fort, defeated 
 Jumonville and his small force near Great 
 
 47 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 Meadows (May, 1754) ; but soon after he was 
 forced to surrender Fort Necessity to Coulon 
 de Villiers. 
 
 The titanic struggle, fittingly precipitated 
 in the backwoods of the Old Southwest, was 
 now on — a struggle in which the resolute pio- 
 neers of these backwoods first seriously meas- 
 ured their strength with the French and their 
 copper-hued allies, and learned to surpass the 
 latter in their own mode of warfare. The por- 
 tentous conflict, destined to assure the eastern 
 half of the continent to Great Britain, is a 
 grim, prophetic harbinger of the mighty move- 
 ment of the next quarter of a century into the 
 twilight zone of the trans- Alleghany territory 
 
 48 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE INDIAN WAR 
 
 All met in companies with their wives and children, and 
 set about building little fortifications, to defend themselves 
 from such barbarian and inhuman enemies, whom they con- 
 cluded would be let loose upon them at pleasure. 
 
 — The Reverend Hugh McAden: Diary, July, 
 1755. 
 
 LONG before the actual outbreak of hos- 
 tilities powerful forces were gradually 
 converging to produce a clash between the ag- 
 gressive colonials and the crafty Indians. As 
 the settlers pressed farther westward into the 
 domain of the red men, arrogantly grazing 
 their stock over the cherished hunting-grounds 
 of the Cherokees, the savages, who were already 
 well disposed toward the French, began to 
 manifest a deep indignation against the British 
 colonists because of this callous encroachment 
 upon their territory. During the sporadic 
 forays by scattered bands of Northern Indians 
 
 49 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 upon the Catawbas and other tribes friendly 
 to the pioneers the isolated settlements at the 
 back part of the Carolinas suffered rude and 
 sanguinary onslaughts. In the summer of 
 1753 a party of northern Indians warring in 
 the French interest made their appearance in 
 Rowan County, which had just been organized, 
 and committed various depredations upon the 
 scattered settlements. To repel these attacks 
 a band of the Catawbas sallied forth, encoun- 
 tered a detached party of the enemy, and slew 
 five of their number. Among the spoils, sig- 
 nificantly enough, were silver crucifixes, beads, 
 looking-glasses, tomahawks and other imple- 
 ments of war, all of French manufacture. 34 
 
 Intense rivalry for the good will of the 
 near-by southern tribes existed between Vir- 
 ginia and South Carolina. In strong remon- 
 strance against the alleged attempt of Gover- 
 nor Dinwiddie of Virginia to alienate the 
 Cherokees, Catawbas, Muscogees, and Chicka- 
 saws from South Carolina and to attach them 
 to Virginia, Governor Glen of South Carolina 
 made pungent observations to Dinwiddie: 
 
 50 
 
THE INDIAN WAR 
 
 "South Carolina is a weak frontier colony, and 
 in case of invasion by the French would be 
 their first object of attack. We have not 
 much to fear, however, while we retain the 
 affection of the Indians around us ; but should 
 we forfeit that by any mismanagement on our 
 part, or by the superior address of the French, 
 we are in a miserable situation. The Chero- 
 kees alone have several thousand gunmen well 
 acquainted with every inch of the province 
 . . . their country is the key to Carolina." 
 By a treaty concluded at Saluda (November 
 24, 1753), Glen promised to build the Chero- 
 kees a fort near the lower towns, for the pro- 
 tection of themselves and their allies ; and the 
 Cherokees on their part agreed to become the 
 subjects of the King of Great Britain and hold 
 their lands under him. 35 This fort, erected 
 this same year on the headwaters of the Sa- 
 vannah, within gunshot distance of the impor- 
 tant Indian town of Keowee, was named Fort 
 Prince George. "It is a square," says the 
 founder of the fort (Governor Glen to the 
 Board of Trade, August 26, 1754), "with 
 
 51 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 regular Bastions and four Ravelins it is near 
 Two hundred foot from Salient Angle to Sali- 
 ent Angle and is made of Earth taken out 
 of the Ditch, secured with fachines and well 
 rammed with a banquet on the Inside for the 
 men to stand upon when they fire over, the 
 Ravelins are made of Posts of Lightwood 
 which is very durable, they are ten foot in 
 length sharp pointed three foot and a half in 
 the ground." 36 The dire need for such a fort 
 in the back country was tragically illustrated 
 by the sudden onslaught upon the "House 
 of John Gutry & James Anshers" in York 
 County by a party of sixty French Indians 
 (December 16, 1754), who brutally murdered 
 sixteen of the twenty-one persons present, and 
 carried off as captives the remaining five. 37 
 
 At the outbreak of the French and Indian 
 War in 1754 North Carolina voted twelve 
 thousand pounds for the raising of troops and 
 several thousand pounds additional for the 
 construction of forts — a sum considerably 
 larger than that voted by Virginia. A regi- 
 ment of two hundred and fifty men was placed 
 
 52 
 
THE INDIAN WAR 
 
 under the command of Colonel James Innes of 
 the Cape Fear section; and the ablest officer 
 under him was the young Irishman from the 
 same section, Lieutenant Hugh Waddell. On 
 June 3, 1754, Dinwiddie appointed Innes, his 
 close friend, commander-in-chief of all the 
 forces against the French; and immediately 
 after the disaster at Great Meadows (July, 
 1754), Innes took command. Within two 
 months the supplies for the North Carolina 
 troops were exhausted; and as Virginia then 
 failed to furnish additional supplies, Colonel 
 Innes had no recourse but to disband his troops 
 and permit them to return home. Appointed 
 governor of Fort Cumberland by General 
 Braddock, he was in command there while 
 Braddock advanced on his disastrous march. 
 
 The lesson of Braddock's defeat (July 9, 
 1755) was memorable in the history of the Old 
 Southwest. Well might Braddock exclaim 
 with his last breath: "Who would have 
 thought it? . . . We shall know better how to 
 deal with them another time." Led on by the 
 reckless and fiery Beaujeu, wearing an Indian 
 
 53 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 gorget about his neck, the savages from the 
 protection of trees and rough defenses, a pre- 
 pared ambuscade, poured a galling fire into 
 the compact divisions of the English, whose 
 scarlet coats furnished ideal targets. The ob- 
 stinacy of the British commanders in refusing 
 to permit their troops to fight Indian fashion 
 was suicidal; for as Herman Alrichs wrote 
 Governor Morris of Pennsylvania (July 22, 
 1755) : "... the French and Indians had 
 cast an Intrenchment across the road before 
 our Army which they Discovered not Untill 
 the [y] came Close up to it, from thence and 
 both sides of the road the enemy kept a con- 
 stant fireing on them, our Army being so con- 
 fused, they could not fight, and they would 
 not be admitted by the Gen 1 or Sir John St. 
 Clair, to break thro' their Ranks and Take 
 behind trees." 38 Daniel Boone, who went 
 from North Carolina as a wagoner in the com- 
 pany commanded by Edward Brice Dobbs, 
 was on the battle-field; but Dobbs's company 
 at the time was scouting in the woods. When 
 the fierce attack fell upon the baggage train, 
 
 54 
 
THE INDIAN WAR 
 
 Boone succeeded in effecting his escape only 
 by cutting the traces of his team and fleeing 
 on one of the horses. To his dying day Boone 
 continued to censure Braddock's conduct, and 
 reprehended especially his fatal neglect to em- 
 ploy strong flank-guards and a sufficient num- 
 ber of Provincial scouts thoroughly acquainted 
 with the wilderness and all the wiles and strate- 
 gies of savage warfare. 
 
 For a number of months following Brad- 
 dock's defeat there was a great rush of the 
 frightened people southward. In a letter to 
 Dinwiddie, Washington expresses the appre- 
 hension that Augusta, Frederick, and Hamp- 
 shire County will soon be depopulated, as the 
 whole back country is in motion toward the 
 southern colonies. During this same summer 
 Governor Arthur Dobbs of North Carolina 
 made a tour of exploration through the west- 
 ern part of the colony, seeking a site for a 
 fort to guard the frontier. 39 The frontier com- 
 pany of fifty men which was to garrison the 
 projected fort was placed under the command 
 of Hugh Waddell, now promoted to the rank 
 
 55 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 of captain, though only twenty-one years old. 
 In addition to Waddell's company, armed 
 patrols were required for the protection of the 
 Rowan County frontier; and during the sum- 
 mer Indian alarms were frequent at the Mora- 
 vian village of Bethabara, whose inhabitants 
 had heard with distress on March 31st of the 
 slaughter of eleven Moravians on the Mahoni 
 and of the ruin of Gnadenhutten. Many of 
 the settlers in the outlying districts of Rowan 
 fled for safety to the refuge of the little village ; 
 and frequently every available house, every 
 place of temporary abode was filled with panic- 
 stricken refugees. So persistent were the dep- 
 redations of the Indians and so alarmed were 
 the scattered Rowan settlers by the news of 
 the murders and the destruction of Vaux's 
 Fort in Virginia (June 25, 1756) that at a 
 conference on July 5th the Moravians "de- 
 cided to protect our houses with palisades, and 
 make them safe before the enemy should in- 
 vade our tract or attack us, for if the people 
 were all going to retreat we would be the last 
 left on the frontier and the first point of at- 
 
 56 
 

 •Fort Dobbs 
 
 FORT.DOBBS 
 
 Sketch made from official description of fort 
 
 
 
 THE TRANSYLVANIA FORT 
 AT BOONESBOROUGH 
 
 Built by Daniel Boone and the pioneers from plans by Richard 
 Henderson 
 
THE INDIAN WAR 
 
 tack." By July 23d, they had constructed a 
 strong defense for their settlement, afterward 
 called the "Dutch Fort" by the Indians. The 
 principal structure was a stockade, triangular 
 in plan, some three hundred feet on a side, 
 enclosing the principal buildings of the settle- 
 ment; and the gateway was guarded by an 
 observation tower. The other defense was a 
 stockade embracing eight houses at the mill 
 some distance away, around which a small 
 settlement had sprung up. 40 
 
 During the same year the fort planned by 
 Dobbs was erected upon the site he had chosen 
 — between Third and Fourth creeks; and the 
 commissioners Richard Caswell and Francis 
 Brown, sent out to inspect the fort, made the 
 following picturesque report to the Assembly 
 (December 21, 1756) : 
 
 That they had likewise viewed the State of 
 Fort Dobbs, and found it to be a good and Sub- 
 stantial Building of the Dimentions following 
 (that is to say) The Oblong Square fifty three 
 feet by forty, the opposite Angles Twenty 
 four feet and Twenty-Two In Height 
 Twenty four and a half feet as by the Plan 
 
 57 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 annexed Appears, The Thickness of the Walls 
 which are made of Oak Logs regularly Dimin- 
 ished from sixteen Inches to Six, it contains 
 three floors and there may be discharged from 
 each floor at one and the same time about one 
 hundred Musketts the same is beautifully scit- 
 uated in the fork of Fourth Creek a Branch 
 of the Yadkin River. And that they also found 
 under Command of Cap e Hugh Waddel Forty 
 six Effective men Officers and Soldiers . . . 
 the said Officers and Soldiers Appearing well 
 and in good Spirits. 41 
 
 As to the erection of a fort on the Tennessee, 
 promised the Cherokees by South Carolina, 
 difficulties between the governor of that prov- 
 ince and of Virginia in regard to matters of 
 policy and the proportionate share of expenses 
 made effective cooperation between the two 
 colonies well-nigh impossible. Glen, as we 
 have seen, had resented Dinwiddie's efforts to 
 win the South Carolina Indians over to Vir- 
 ginia's interest. And Dinwiddie had been 
 very indignant when the force promised him 
 by the Indians to aid General Braddock did 
 not arrive, attributing this defection in part 
 
 58 
 
THE INDIAN WAR 
 
 to Glen's negotiations for a meeting with the 
 chieftains and in part to the influence of the 
 South Carolina traders, who kept the Indians 
 away by hiring them to go on long hunts for 
 furs and skins. But there was no such con- 
 tention between Virginia and North Caro- 
 lina. Dinwiddie and Dobbs arranged (No- 
 vember 6, 1755) to send a commission from 
 these colonies to treat with the Cherokees and 
 the Catawbas. Virginia sent two commis- 
 sioners, Colonel William Byrd, third of that 
 name, and Colonel Peter Randolph; while 
 North Carolina sent one, Captain Hugh Wad- 
 dell. Salisbury, North Carolina, was the 
 place of rendezvous. The treaty with the Ca- 
 tawbas was made at the Catawba Town, pre- 
 sumably the village opposite the mouth of 
 Sugaw Creek, in York County, South Caro- 
 lina, on February 20-21, 1756; that with the 
 Cherokees on Broad River, North Carolina, 
 March 13-17. As a result of the negotiations 
 and after the receipt of a present of goods, 
 the Catawbas agreed to send forty warriors 
 to aid Virginia within forty days; and the 
 
 59 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 Cherokees, in return for presents and Vir- 
 ginia's promise to contribute her proportion 
 toward the erection of a strong fort, undertook 
 to send four hundred warriors within forty- 
 days, "as soon as the said fort shall be built." 
 Virginia and North Carolina thus wisely- 
 cooperated to "straighten the path" and 
 "brighten the chain" between the white and 
 the red men, in important treaties which have 
 largely escaped the attention of historians. 42 
 
 On May 25, 1756, a conference was held 
 at Salisbury between King Heygler and war- 
 riors of the Catawba nation on the one side 
 and Chief Justice Henley, doubtless attended 
 by Captain Waddell and his frontier company, 
 on the other. King Heygler, following the 
 lead set by the Cherokees, petitioned the Gov- 
 ernor of North Carolina to send the Catawbas 
 some ammunition and to "build us a fort for 
 securing our old men, women and children 
 when we turn out to fight the Enemy on their 
 coming." The chief justice assured the King 
 that the Catawbas would receive a necessary 
 supply of ammunition (one hundred pounds of 
 
 60 
 
THE INDIAN WAR 
 
 gunpower and four hundred pounds of lead 
 were later sent them) and promised to urge 
 with the governor their request to have a fort 
 built as soon as possible. Pathos not unmixed 
 with dry humor tinges the eloquent appeal of 
 good old King Heygler, ever the loyal friend 
 of the whites, at this conference: 
 
 I desire a stop may be put to the selling of 
 strong Liquors by the White people to my 
 people especially near the Indian nation. If 
 the White people make strong drink, let them 
 sell it to one another, or drink it in their own 
 families. This will avoid a great deal of mis- 
 chief which otherwise will happen from my 
 people getting drunk and quarrelling with the 
 White people. I have no strong prisons like 
 you to confine them for it. Our only way is 
 to put them under ground and all these ( point- 
 ing proudly to his Warriors) will be ready to 
 do that to those who shall deserve it. 43 
 
 In response to this request, the sum of four 
 thousand pounds was appropriated by the 
 North Carolina Assembly for the erection of "a 
 Fort on our western frontier to protect and se- 
 cure the Catawbas" and for the support of two 
 
 61 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 companies of fifty men each to garrison this 
 and another fort building on the sea coast. 
 The commissioners appointed for the purpose 
 recommended (December 21, 1756) a site for 
 the fort "near the Catawba nation"; and on 
 January 20, 1757, Governor Dobbs reported: 
 "We are now building a Fort in the midst of 
 their towns at their own Request." The fort 
 thereupon begun must have stood near the 
 mouth of the South Fork of the Catawba 
 River, as Dobbs says it was in the "midst" 
 (r of their towns, which are situated a "few miles 
 north and south of 38°" and might properly 
 be included within a circle of thirty miles 
 radius. 44 
 
 During the succeeding months many dep- 
 redations were committed by the Indians upon 
 the exposed and scattered settlements. Had 
 it not been for the protection afforded by all 
 these forts, by the militia companies under 
 Alexander Osborne of Rowan and Nathaniel 
 Alexander of Anson, and by a special company 
 of patrollers under Green and Moore, the back 
 
 62 
 
 
THE INDIAN WAR 
 
 settlers who had been so outrageously "pil- 
 fered" by the Indians would have "retired 
 from the Frontier into the inner settle- 
 ments." 45 
 
 63 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 IN DEFENSE OF CIVILIZATION 
 
 We give thanks and praise for the safety and peace vouch- 
 safed us by our Heavenly Father in these times of war. 
 Many of our neighbors, driven hither and yon like deer 
 before wild beasts, came to us for shelter, yet the accustomed 
 order of our congregation life was not disturbed, no, not 
 even by the more than 150 Indians who at sundry times passed 
 by, stopping for a day at a time and being fed by us. 
 
 — Wachovia Community Diary, 1757. 
 
 WITH commendable energy and expedi- 
 tion Dinwiddie and Dobbs, acting in 
 concert, initiated steps for keeping the engage- 
 ments conjointly made by the two colonies 
 with the Cherokees and the Catawbas in the 
 spring and summer of 1756. Enlisting sixty 
 men, "most of them Artificers, with Tools and 
 Provisions," Major Andrew Lewis proceeded 
 in the late spring to Echota in the Cherokee 
 country. Here during the hot summer 
 months they erected the Virginia Fort on the 
 path from Virginia, upon the northern bank 
 
 64 
 
IN DEFENSE OF CIVILIZATION 
 
 of the Little Tennessee, nearly opposite the 
 Indian town of Echota and about twenty-five 
 miles southwest of Knoxville. 46 While the 
 fort was in process of construction, the Chero- 
 kees were incessantly tampered with by emis- 
 saries from the Nuntewees and the Savannahs 
 in the French interest, and from the French 
 themselves at the Alibamu Fort. So effective 
 were these machinations, supported by extrav- 
 agant promises and doubtless rich bribes, that 
 the Cherokees soon were outspokenly express- 
 ing their desire for a French fort at Great 
 Tellico. 
 
 Dinwiddie welcomed the departure from 
 America of Governor Glen of South Caro- 
 lina, who in his opinion had always acted con- 
 trary to the king's interest. From the new 
 governor, William Henry Lyttelton, who ar- 
 rived in Charleston on June 1, 1756, he hoped 
 to secure effective cooperation in dealing with 
 the Cherokees and the Catawbas. This hope 
 was based upon Lyttelton's recognition, as 
 stated in Dinwiddie's words, of the "Necessity 
 of strict Union between the whole Colonies, 
 
 65 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 with't any of them considering their particular 
 Interest separate from the general Good of 
 the whole." After constructing the fort 
 "with't the least assistance from South Caro- 
 lina," Major Lewis happened by accident 
 upon a grand council being held in Echota in 
 September. At that time he discovered to his 
 great alarm that the machinations of the 
 French had already produced the greatest 
 imaginable change in the sentiment of the 
 Cherokees. Captain Raymond Demere of the 
 Provincials, with two hundred English troops, 
 had arrived to garrison the fort; but the head 
 men of all the Upper Towns were secretly in- 
 fluenced to agree to write a letter to Captain 
 Demere, ordering him to return immediately 
 to Charleston with all the troops under his 
 command. At the grand council, Atta-kulla- 
 kulla, the great Cherokee chieftain, passion- 
 ately declared to the head men, who listened 
 approvingly, that "as to the few soldiers of 
 Captain Demere that was there, he would take 
 their Guns, and give them to his young men 
 to hunt with and as to their clothes they would 
 
 66 
 
IN DEFENSE OF CIVILIZATION 
 
 soon be worn out and their skins would be 
 tanned, and be of the same colour as theirs, 
 and that they should live among them as 
 slaves." With impressive dignity Major 
 Lewis rose and earnestly pleaded for the ob- 
 servance of the terms of the treaty solemnly 
 negotiated the preceding March. In re- 
 sponse, the crafty and treacherous chieftains 
 desired Lewis to tell the Governor of Virginia 
 that "they had taken up the Hatchet against 
 all Nations that were Enemies to the English" ; 
 but Lewis, an astute student of Indian psy- 
 chology, rightly surmised that all their glib 
 professions of friendship and assistance were 
 "only to put a gloss on their knavery." 47 So 
 it proved; for instead of the four hundred 
 warriors promised under the treaty for service 
 in Virginia, the Cherokees sent only seven war- 
 riors, accompanied by three women. Al- 
 though the Cherokees petitioned Virginia for 
 a number of men to garrison the Virginia fort, 
 Dinwiddie postponed sending the fifty men 
 provided for by the Virginia Assembly until 
 he could reassure himself in regard to the 
 
 67 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 "Behaviour and Intention" of the treacherous 
 Indian allies. This proved to be a prudent 
 decision; for not long after its erection the 
 Virginia fort was destroyed by the Indians. 
 
 Whether on account of the dissatisfaction 
 expressed by the Cherokees over the erection 
 of the Virginia fort or because of a recognition 
 of the mistaken policy of garrisoning a work 
 erected by Virginia with troops sent from 
 Charleston, South Carolina immediately pro- 
 ceeded to build another stronghold on the 
 southern bank of the Tennessee at the mouth 
 of Tellico River, some seven miles from the 
 site of the Virginia fort ; and here were posted 
 twelve great guns, brought thither at immense 
 labor through the wilderness. 48 To this fort, 
 named Fort Loudoun in honor of Lord Lou- 
 doun, then commander-in-chief of all the Eng- 
 lish forces in America, the Indians allured arti- 
 sans by donations of land ; and during the next 
 three or four years a little settlement sprang 
 up there. 
 
 The frontiers of Virginia suffered most from 
 the incursions of hostile Indians during the 
 
 68 
 
IN DEFENSE OF CIVILIZATION 
 
 fourteen months following May 1, 1755. In 
 July, the Rev. Hugh McAden records that he 
 preached in Virginia on a day set apart for 
 fasting and prayer "on account of the wars 
 and many murders, committed by the savage 
 Indians on the back inhabitants." On July 
 30th a large party of Shawano Indians fell 
 upon the New River settlement and wiped it 
 out of existence. William Ingles was absent 
 at the time of the raid; and Mrs. Ingles, who 
 was captured, afterward effected her escape. 41 ' 
 The following summer (June 25, 1756), Fort 
 Vaux on the headwaters of the Roanoke, under 
 the command of Captain John Smith, was cap- 
 tured by about one hundred French and In- 
 dians, who burnt the fort, killed John Smith 
 junior, John Robinson, John Tracey and John 
 Ingles, wounded four men, and captured twen- 
 ty-two men, women, and children. Among 
 the captured was the famous Mrs. Mary 
 Ingles, whose husband, John Ingles, was 
 killed; but after being "carried away into 
 Captivity, amongst whom she was barbarously 
 treated," according to her own statement, she 
 
 69 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 finally escaped and returned to Virginia. 50 
 The frontier continued to be infested by- 
 marauding bands of French and Indians; and 
 Dinwiddie gloomily confessed to Dobbs (July 
 22d) : "I apprehend that we shall always be 
 harrass'd with fly'g Parties of these Banditti 
 unless we form an Expedit'n ag'st them, to 
 attack 'em in y'r Towns." 51 Such an expedi- 
 tion, known as the Sandy River Expedition, 
 had been sent out in February to avenge the 
 massacre of the New River settlers; but the 
 enterprise engaged in by about four hundred 
 Virginians and Cherokees under Major An- 
 drew Lewis and Captain Richard Pearis, 
 proved a disastrous failure. Not a single In- 
 dian was seen ; and the party suffered extraor- 
 dinary hardships and narrowly escaped star- 
 vation. 52 
 
 In conformity with his treaty obligations 
 with the Catawbas, Governor Dobbs commis- 
 sioned Captain Hugh Waddell to erect the 
 fort promised the Catawbas at the spot chosen 
 by the commissioners near the mouth of the 
 South Fork of the Catawba River. This fort, 
 
 70 
 
IN DEFENSE OF CIVILIZATION 
 
 for which four thousand pounds had been ap- 
 propriated, was for the most part completed 
 by midsummer, 1757. But owing, it appears, 
 both to the machinations of the French and to 
 the intermeddling of the South Carolina 
 traders, who desired to retain the trade of the 
 Catawbas for that province, Oroloswa, the Ca- 
 tawba King Heygler, sent a "talk" to Gov- 
 ernor Lyttelton, requesting that North Caro- 
 lina desist from the work of construction and 
 that no fort be built except by South Carolina. 
 Accordingly, Governor Dobbs ordered Cap- 
 tain Waddell to discharge the workmen (Au- 
 gust 11, 1757) 53 ; and every effort was made for 
 many months thereafter to conciliate the Ca- 
 tawbas, erstwhile friends of North Carolina. 
 The Catawba fort erected by North Carolina 
 was never fully completed; and several years 
 later South Carolina, having succeeded in 
 alienating the Catawbas from North Carolina, 
 which colony had given them the best possible 
 treatment, built for them a fort 54 at the mouth 
 of Line Creek on the east bank of the Catawba 
 River. 
 
 71 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 In the spring and summer of 1757 the long- 
 expected Indian allies arrived in Virginia, as 
 many as four hundred by May — Cherokees, 
 Catawbas, Tuscaroras, and Nottaways. But 
 Dinwiddie was wholly unable to use them ef- 
 fectively; and in order to provide amusement 
 for them, he directed that they should go "a 
 scalping" with the whites — "a barbarous 
 method of war," frankly acknowledged the 
 governor, "introduced by the French, which we 
 are oblidged to follow in our own defense." 
 Most of the Indian allies discontentedly re- 
 turned home before the end of the year, but 
 the remainder waited until the next year, to 
 take part in the campaign against Fort Du- 
 quesne. Three North Carolina companies, 
 composed of trained soldiers and hardy fron- 
 tiersmen, went through this campaign under 
 the command of Major Hugh Waddell, the 
 "Washington of North Carolina." Long of 
 limb and broad of chest, powerful, lithe, and 
 active, Waddell was an ideal leader for this 
 arduous service, being fertile in expedient and 
 skilful in the employment of Indian tactics. 
 
 72 
 
IN DEFENSE OF CIVILIZATION 
 
 With true provincial pride Governor Dobbs 
 records that Waddell "had great honor done 
 him, being employed in all reconnoitring par- 
 ties, and dressed and acted as an Indian; and 
 his sergeant, Rogers, took the only Indian pris- 
 oner, who gave Mr. Forbes certain intelligence 
 of the forces in Fort Duquesne, upon which 
 they resolved to proceed." This apparently 
 trivial incident is remarkable, in that it proved 
 to be the decisive factor in a campaign that 
 was about to be abandoned. The information 
 in regard to the state of the garrison at Fort 
 Duquesne, secured from the Indian, for the 
 capture of whom two leading officers had of- 
 fered a reward of two hundred and fifty 
 pounds, emboldened Forbes to advance rather 
 than to retire. Upon reaching the fort (No- 
 vember 25th) , he found it abandoned by the 
 enemy. Sergeant Rogers never received the 
 reward promised by General Forbes and the 
 other English officer ; but some time afterward 
 he was compensated by a modest sum from 
 the colony of North Carolina. 55 
 
 A series of unfortunate occurrences, chiefly 
 73 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 the fault of the whites, soon resulted in the 
 precipitation of a terrible Indian outbreak. A 
 party of Cherokees, returning home in May, 
 1758, seized some stray horses on the frontier 
 of Virginia — never dreaming of any wrong, 
 says an old historian, as they saw it frequently 
 done by the whites. The owners of the horses, 
 hastily forming a party, went in pursuit of 
 the Indians and killed twelve or fourteen of 
 the number. The relatives of the slain In- 
 dians, greatly incensed, vowed vengeance upon 
 the whites. 56 Nor was the tactless conduct of 
 Forbes calculated to quiet this resentment; for 
 when Atta-kulla-kulla and nine other chieftains 
 deserted in disgust at the treatment accorded 
 them, they were pursued by Forbes's orders, 
 apprehended and disarmed. 57 This rude treat- 
 ment, coupled with the brutal and wanton mur- 
 der of some Cherokee hunters a little earlier, 
 by an irresponsible band of Virginians under 
 Captain Robert Wade, still further aggra- 
 vated the Indians. 58 
 
 Incited by the French, who had fled to the 
 southward after the fall of Fort Duquesne, 
 
 74 
 
IN DEFENSE OF CIVILIZATION 
 
 parties of bloodthirsty young Indians rushed 
 down upon the settlements and left in their 
 path death and desolation along the frontiers 
 of the Carolinas. 59 On the upper branch of 
 the Yadkin and below the South Yadkin near 
 Fort Dobbs twenty-two whites fell in swift 
 succession before the secret onslaughts of the 
 savages from the lower Cherokee towns. 00 
 Many of the settlers along the Yadkin fled to 
 the Carolina Fort at Bethabara and the stock- 
 ade at the mill; and the sheriff of Rowan 
 County suffered siege by the Cherokees, in his 
 home, until rescued by a detachment under 
 Brother Loesch from Bethabara. While 
 many families took refuge in Fort Dobbs, 
 frontiersmen under Captain Morgan Bryan 
 ranged through the mountains to the west of 
 Salisbury and guarded the settlements from 
 the hostile incursions of the savages. So 
 gravely alarmed were the Rowan settlers, com- 
 pelled by the Indians to desert their planting 
 and crops, that Colonel Harris was despatched 
 post-haste for aid to Cape Fear, arriving 
 there on July 1st. With strenuous energy 
 
 75 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 Captain Waddell, then stationed in the east, 
 rushed two companies of thirty men each to 
 the rescue, sending by water-carriage six 
 swivel guns and ammunition on before him; 
 and these reinforcements brought relief at last 
 to the harassed Rowan frontiers. 61 During 
 the remainder of the year, the borders were 
 kept clear by bold and tireless rangers — under 
 the leadership of expert Indian fighters of the 
 stamp of Griffith Rutherford and Morgan 
 Bryan. 
 
 When the Cherokee warriors who had 
 wrought havoc along the North Carolina bor- 
 der in April arrived at their town of Settiquo, 
 they proudly displayed the twenty -two scalps 
 of the slain Rowan settlers. Upon the de- 
 mand for these scalps by Captain Demere at 
 Fort Loudon and under direction of Atta- 
 kulla-kulla, the Settiquo warriors surrendered 
 eleven of the scalps to Captain Demere who, 
 according to custom in time of peace, buried 
 them. New murders on Pacolet and along 
 the Virginia Path, which occurred shortly 
 afterward, caused gloomy forebodings; and it 
 
 76 
 
IN DEFENSE OF CIVILIZATION 
 
 was plain, says a contemporary gazette, that 
 "the lower Cherokees were not satisfied with 
 the murder of the Rowan settlers, but intended 
 further mischief." 62 On October 1st and 
 again on October 31st, Governor Dobbs re- 
 ceived urgent requests from Governor Lyttel- 
 ton, asking that the North Carolina provin- 
 cials and militia cooperate to bring him assist- 
 ance. Although there was no law requiring 
 the troops to march out of the province and 
 the exposed frontiers of North Carolina sorely 
 needed protection, Waddell, now commis- 
 sioned colonel, assembled a force of five small 
 companies and marched to the aid of Governor 
 Lyttelton. But early in January, 1760, while 
 on the march, Waddell received a letter from 
 Lyttelton, informing him that the assistance 
 was not needed and that a treaty of peace had 
 been negotiated with the Cherokees. 03 
 
 77 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 CRUSHING THE CHEROKEES 
 
 Thus ended the Cherokee war, which was among the last 
 humbling strokes given to the expiring power of France in 
 North America. 
 
 — Hewatt: An Historical Account of the Rise and 
 Progress of the Colonies of South Carolina 
 and Georgia. 1779. 
 
 GOVERNOR LYTTELTON'S treaty 
 of "peace," negotiated with the Chero- 
 kees at the close of 1759, was worse than a 
 crime: it was a crass and hideous blunder. 
 His domineering attitude and tyrannical treat- 
 ment of these Indians had aroused the bitterest 
 animosity. Yet he did not realize that it was 
 no longer safe to trust their word. No sooner 
 did the governor withdraw his army from the 
 borders than the cunning Cherokees, whose pas- 
 sions had been inflamed by what may fairly be 
 called the treacherous conduct of Lyttelton, 
 rushed down with merciless ferocity upon the 
 
 78 
 
CRUSHING THE CHEROKEES 
 
 innocent and defenseless families on the fron- 
 tier. On February 1, 1760, while a large party 
 (including the family of Patrick Calhoun), 
 numbering in all about one hundred and fifty 
 persons, were removing from the Long Cane 
 settlement to Augusta, they were suddenly 
 attacked by a hundred mounted Cherokees, 
 who slaughtered about fifty of them. After 
 the massacre, many of the children were found 
 helplessly wandering in the woods. One man 
 alone carried to Augusta no less than nine of 
 the pitiful innocents, some horribly mutilated 
 with the tomahawk, others scalped, and all yet 
 alive. 
 
 Atrocities defying description continued to 
 be committed, and many people were slain. 
 The Cherokees, under the leadership of Si- 
 lou-ee, or the Young Warrior of Estatoe, the 
 Round O, Tiftoe, and others, were baffled in 
 their persistent efforts to capture Fort Prince 
 George. On February 16th the crafty Oconos- 
 tota appeared before the fort and under the 
 pretext of desiring some white man to accom- 
 pany him on a visit to the governor on urgent 
 
 79 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 business, lured the commander, Lieutenant 
 Coytomore, and two attendants to a confer- 
 ence outside the gates. At a preconceived sig- 
 nal a volley of shots rang out ; the two attend- 
 ants were wounded, and Lieutenant Coyto- 
 more, riddled with bullets, fell dead. En- 
 raged by this act of treachery, the garrison put 
 to death the Indian hostages within. During 
 the abortive attack upon the fort, Oconostota, 
 unaware of the murder of the hostages, 
 was heard shouting above the din of 
 battle: "Fight strong, and you shall be re- 
 lieved." 64 
 
 Now began the dark days along the Rowan 
 border, which were so sorely to test human en- 
 durance. Many refugees fortified themselves 
 in the different stockades; and Colonel Hugh 
 Waddell with his redoubtable frontier com- 
 pany of Indian-fighters awaited the onslaught 
 of the savages, who were reported to have 
 passed through the mountain defiles and to be 
 approaching along the foot-hills. The story of 
 the investment of Fort Dobbs and the splen- 
 didly daring sortie of Waddell and Bailey is 
 
 80 
 
CRUSHING THE CHEROKEES 
 
 best told in Waddell's report to Governor 
 Dobbs (February 29, 1760) : 
 
 For several Days I observed a small party 
 of Indians were constantly about the fort, I 
 sent out several parties after them to no pur- 
 pose, the Evening before last between 8 & 9 
 o'clock I found by the Dogs making an un- 
 common Noise there must be a party nigh a 
 Spring which we sometimes use. As my Gar- 
 rison is but small, and I was apprehensive it 
 might be a scheme to draw out the Garrison, 
 I took our Capt. Bailie who with myself and 
 party made up ten: We had not marched 
 300 yds. from the fort when we were attacked 
 by at least 60 or 70 Indians. I had given 
 my party Orders not to fire until I gave the 
 word, which they punctually observed: We 
 reed the Indians' fire : When I perceived they 
 had almost all fired, I ordered my party to 
 fire which We did not further than 12 steps 
 each loaded with a Bullet and 7 Buck Shot, 
 they had nothing to cover them as they were 
 advancing either to tomahawk us or make us 
 Prisoners : They found the fire very hot from 
 so small a Number which a good deal confused 
 them: I then ordered my party to retreat, as 
 I found the Instant our skirmish began an- 
 other party had attacked the fort, upon our 
 reinforcing the garrison the Indians were soon 
 
 81 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 repulsed with I am sure a considerable Loss, 
 from what I myself saw as well as those I can 
 confide in they cou'd not have less than 10 or 
 12 killed and wounded; The next Morning we 
 found a great deal of Blood and one dead 
 whom I suppose they cou'd not find in the 
 night. On my side I had 2 Men wounded one 
 of whom I am afraid will die as he is scalped, 
 the other is in way of Recovery, and one boy 
 killed near the fort whom they durst not ad- 
 vance to scalp. I expected they would have 
 paid me another visit last night, as they attack 
 all Fortifications by Night, but find they did 
 not like their Reception. 65 
 
 Alarmed by Waddell's "offensive-defen- 
 sive," the Indians abandoned the siege. Rob- 
 ert Campbell, Waddell's ranger, who was 
 scalped in this engagement, subsequently re- 
 covered from his wounds and was recompensed 
 by the colony with the sum of twenty pounds. 66 
 
 In addition to the frontier militia, four in- 
 dependent companies were now placed under 
 Waddell's command. Companies of volun- 
 teers scoured the woods in search of the lurking 
 Indian foe. These rangers, who were clad in 
 hunting-shirts and buckskin leggings, and who 
 
CRUSHING THE CHEROKEES 
 
 employed Indian tactics in fighting, were cap- 
 tained by such hardy leaders as the veteran 
 Morgan Bryan, the intrepid Griffith Ruther- 
 ford, the German partisan, Martin Phifer 
 (Pfeiffer), and Anthony Hampton, the father 
 of General Wade Hampton. They visited 
 periodically a chain of "forest castles" erected 
 by the settlers — extending all the way from 
 Fort Dobbs and the Moravian fortifications in 
 the Wachau to Samuel Stalnaker's stockade 
 on the Middle Fork of the Holston in Vir- 
 ginia. About the middle of March, thirty 
 volunteer Rowan County rangers encountered 
 a band of forty Cherokees, who fortified them- 
 selves in a deserted house near the Catawba 
 River. The famous scout and hunter, John 
 Perkins, assisted by one of his bolder com- 
 panions, crept up to the house and flung 
 lighted torches upon the roof. One of the In- 
 dians, as the smoke became suffocating and 
 the flames burned hotter, exclaimed: "Better 
 for one to die bravely than for all to perish 
 miserably in the flames," and darting forth, 
 dashed rapidly hither and thither, in order to 
 
 83 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 draw as many shots as possible. This act of 
 superb self-sacrifice was successful; and while 
 the rifles of the whites, who riddled the brave 
 Indian with balls, were empty, the other sav- 
 ages made a wild dash for liberty. Seven fell 
 thus under the deadly rain of bullets ; but many 
 escaped. Ten of the Indians, all told, lost 
 their scalps, for which the volunteer rangers 
 were subsequently paid one hundred pounds 
 by the colony of North Carolina. 67 
 
 Beaten back from Fort Dobbs, sorely de- 
 feated along the Catawba, hotly pursued by 
 the. rangers, the Cherokees continued to lurk 
 in the shadows of the dense forests, and at 
 every opportunity to fall suddenly upon way- 
 faring settlers and isolated cabins remote from 
 any stronghold. On March 8th William Fish, 
 his son, and Thompson, a companion, were 
 riding along the "trace," in search of provi- 
 sions for a group of families fortified on the 
 Yadkin, when a flight of arrows hurtled from 
 the cane-brake, and Fish and his son fell dead. 
 Although pierced with two arrows, one in the 
 hip and one clean through his body, Thomp- 
 
 84. 
 
CRUSHING THE CHEROKEES 
 
 son escaped upon his fleet horse; and after a 
 night of ghastly suffering finally reached the 
 Carolina Fort at Bethabara. The good Dr. 
 Bonn, by skilfully extracting the barbed 
 shafts from his body, saved Thompson's life. 
 The pious Moravians rejoiced over the recov- 
 ery of the brave messenger, whose sensational 
 arrival gave them timely warning of the close 
 proximity of the Indians. While feeding 
 their cattle, settlers were shot from ambush 
 by the lurking foe; and on March 11th, a fam- 
 ily barricaded within a burning house, which 
 they were defending with desperate courage, 
 were rescued in the nick of time by the militia. 
 No episode from Fenimore Cooper's Leather- 
 stocking Tales surpasses in melancholy inter- 
 est Harry Hicks's heroic defense of his little 
 fort on Bean Island Creek. Surrounded by 
 the Indians, Hicks and his family took refuge 
 within the small outer palisade around his 
 humble home. Fighting desperately against 
 terrific odds, he was finally driven from his 
 yard into his log cabin, which he continued 
 to defend with dauntless courage. With 
 
 85 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 every shot he tried to send a redskin to the 
 happy hunting-grounds; and it was only after 
 his powder was exhausted that he fell, fighting 
 to the last, beneath the deadly tomahawk. So 
 impressed were the Indians by his bravery that 
 they spared the life of his wife and his little 
 son; and these were afterward rescued by 
 Waddell when he marched to the Cherokee 
 towns in 1761. 68 
 
 The kindly Moravians had always enter- 
 tained with generous hospitality the roving 
 bands of Cherokees, who accordingly held 
 them in much esteem and spoke of Bethabara 
 as "the Dutch Fort, where there are good peo- 
 ple and much bread." But now, in these 
 dread days, the truth of their daily text was 
 brought forcibly home to the Moravians: 
 "Neither Nehemiah nor his brethren put off 
 their clothes, but prayed as they watched." 
 With Bible in one hand and rifle in the other, 
 the inhabitant of Wachovia sternly marched 
 to religious worship. No Puritan of bleak 
 New England ever showed more resolute cour- 
 age or greater will to defend the hard-won 
 
CRUSHING THE CHEROKEES 
 
 outpost of civilization than did the pious Mo- 
 ravian of the Wachau. At the new settlement 
 of Bethania on Easter Day, more than four 
 hundred souls, including sixty rangers, listened 
 devoutly to the eloquent sermon of Bishop 
 Spangenberg concerning the way of salvation 
 — the while their arms, stacked without the 
 Gemein Haus, were guarded by the watchful 
 sentinel. On March 14th the watchmen at 
 Bethania with well-aimed shots repelled the 
 Indians, whose hideous yells of baffled rage 
 sounded down the wind like "the howling of 
 a hundred wolves." Religion was no protec- 
 tion against the savages; for three ministers 
 journeying to the present site of Salem were 
 set upon by the red men — one escaping, an- 
 other suffering capture, and the third, a Bap- 
 tist, losing his life. A little later word came 
 to Fort Dobbs that John Long and Robert 
 Gillespie of Salisbury had been shot from am- 
 bush and scalped — Long having been pierced 
 with eight bullets and Gillespie with seven. 69 
 
 There is one beautiful incident recorded by 
 the Moravians, which has a truly symbolic sig- 
 
 87 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 nificance. While the war was at its height, 
 a strong party of Cherokees, who had lost their 
 chief, planned in retaliation to attack Bethab- 
 ara. "When they went home," sets forth 
 the Moravian Diary, "they said they had been 
 to a great town, where there were a great many 
 people, where the bells rang often, and during 
 the night, time after time, a horn was blown, 
 so that they feared to attack the town and 
 had taken no prisoners." The trumpet of the 
 watchman, announcing the passing of the hour, 
 had convinced the Indians that their plans for 
 attack were discovered; and the regular eve- 
 ning bell, summoning the pious to prayer, rang 
 in the stricken ears of the red men like the 
 clamant call to arms. 
 
 Following the retirement from office of Gov- 
 ernor Lyttelton, Lieutenant-Governor Bull 
 proceeded to prosecute the war with vigor. 
 On April 1, 1760, twelve hundred men under 
 Colonel Archibald Montgomerie arrived at 
 Charleston, with instructions to strike an im- 
 mediate blow and to relieve Fort Loudon, then 
 invested by the Cherokees. With his own 
 
 88 
 
COLONEL ARCHIBALD MONTGOMERIE (1726-1796) 
 
 Mezzotint by S. W. Reynolds after the original painting by 
 C. F. v. Breda 
 
CRUSHING THE CHEROKEES 
 
 force, two hundred and ninety-five South 
 Carolina Rangers, forty picked men of the 
 new "levies," and "a good number of guides," 
 Montgomerie moved from Fort Ninety- Six on 
 May 28th. On the first of June, crossing 
 Twelve-Mile River, Montgomerie began the 
 campaign in earnest, devastating and burning 
 every Indian village in the Valley of Keowee, 
 killing and capturing more than a hundred of 
 the Cherokees, and destroying immense stores 
 of corn. Receiving no reply to his summons 
 to the Cherokees of the Middle and Upper 
 Towns to make peace or suffer like treatment, 
 Montgomerie took up his march from Fort 
 Prince George on June 24th, resolved to carry 
 out his threat. On the morning of the 27th, 
 he was drawn into an ambuscade within six 
 miles of Et-chow-ee, eight miles south of the 
 present Franklin, North Carolina, a mile and 
 a half below Smith's Bridge, and was vigor- 
 ously attacked from dense cover by some six 
 hundred and thirty warriors led by Si-lou-ee. 
 Fighting with" Indian tactics, the Provincial 
 Rangers under Patrick Calhoun particularly 
 
 89 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 distinguished themselves; and the blood-curd- 
 ling yells of the painted savages were re- 
 sponded to by the wild huzzas of the kilted 
 Highlanders who, waving their Scotch bon- 
 nets, impetuously charged the redskins and 
 drove them again and again from their lurk- 
 ing-places. Nevertheless Montgomerie lost 
 from eighty to one hundred in killed and 
 wounded, while the loss of the Indians was 
 supposed to be about half the loss of the whites. 
 Unable to care for his wounded and lacking 
 the means of removing his baggage, Montgom- 
 erie silently withdrew his forces. In so doing, 
 he acknowledged defeat, since he was com- 
 pelled to abandon his original intention of re- 
 lieving the beleaguered garrison of Fort Lou- 
 don. 
 
 Captain Demere and his devoted little band, 
 who had been resolutely holding out, were now 
 left to their tragic fate. After the bread was 
 exhausted, the garrison was reduced to the 
 necessity of eating dogs and horses; and the 
 loyal aid of the Indian wives of some of the 
 garrison, who secretly brought them supplies 
 
 90 
 
CRUSHING THE CHEROKEES 
 
 of food daily, enabled them to hold out still 
 longer. Realizing at last the futility of pro- 
 longing the hopeless contest, Captain Demere 
 surrendered the fort on August 8, 1760. At 
 daylight the next morning, while on the march 
 to Fort Prince George, the soldiers were set 
 upon by the treacherous Cherokees, who at 
 the first onset killed Captain Demere and 
 twenty-nine others. A humane chieftain, 
 Outassitus, says one of the gazettes of the day, 
 "went around the field calling upon the In- 
 dians to desist, and making such representa- 
 tions to them as stopped the further progress 
 and effects of their barbarous and brutal rage," 
 which expressed itself in scalping and hacking 
 off the arms and legs of the defenseless whites. 
 Atta-kulla-kulla, who was friendly to the 
 whites, claimed Captain Stuart, the second 
 officer, as his captive, and bore him away by 
 stealth. After nine days' journey through 
 the wilderness they encountered an advance 
 party under Major Andrew Lewis, sent out 
 by Colonel Byrd, head of a relieving army, 
 to rescue and succor any of the garrison who 
 
 91 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 might effect their escape. Thus Stuart was 
 restored to his friends. This abortive and 
 tragic campaign, in which the victory lay con- 
 clusively with the Indians, ended when Byrd 
 disbanded his new levies and Montgomerie 
 sailed from Charleston for the north (August, 
 1760). 
 
 During the remainder of the year, the prov- 
 ince of North Carolina remained free of fur- 
 ther alarms from the Indians. But the view 
 was generally entertained that one more joint 
 effort of North Carolina, South Carolina, and 
 Virginia would have to be made in order to 
 humble the Cherokees. At the sessions of the 
 North Carolina Assembly in November and 
 again in December, matters in dispute between 
 Governor Dobbs and the representatives of the 
 people made impossible the passage of a pro- 
 posed aid bill, providing for five hundred men 
 to cooperate with Virginia and South Caro- 
 lina. Nevertheless volunteers in large num- 
 bers patriotically marched from North Caro- 
 lina to Charleston and the Congaree (Decem- 
 ber, 1760, to April, 1761), to enlist in the fa- 
 
 92 
 
COLONEL JAMES GRANT (1720-1806), 
 
 From I. Kay's Original Portraits (1798) 
 
, 
 
CRUSHING THE CHEROKEES 
 
 mous regiment being organized by Colonel 
 Thomas Middleton. 70 On March 31, 1761, 
 Governor Dobbs called together the Assembly 
 to act upon a letter received from General 
 Amherst, outlining a more vigorous plan of 
 campaign appropriate to the succession of a 
 young and vigorous sovereign, George III. 
 An aid bill was passed, providing twenty thou- 
 sand pounds for men and supplies; and one 
 regiment of five companies of one hundred men 
 each, under the command of Colonel Hugh 
 Waddell, was mustered into service for seven 
 months' duty, beginning May 1, 1761. 71 
 
 On July 7, 1761, Colonel James Grant, de- 
 tached from the main army in command of a 
 force of twenty-six hundred men, took up his 
 march from Fort Prince George. Attacked 
 on June 10th two miles south of the spot where 
 Mon!:gomerie was engaged the preceding year, 
 Grant's army, after a vigorous engagement 
 lasting several hours, drove off the Indians. 
 The army then proceeded at leisure to lay 
 waste the fifteen towns of the Middle Settle- 
 ments; and, after this work of systematic de- 
 
 93 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 vastation was over, returned to Fort Prince 
 George. Peace was concluded in September 
 as the result of this campaign; and in conse- 
 quence the frontier was pushed seventy miles 
 farther to the west. 
 
 Meantime, Colonel Waddell with his force 
 of five hundred North Carolinians had acted 
 in concert with Colonel William Byrd, com- 
 manding the Virginia detachment. The com- 
 bined forces went into camp at Captain Sam- 
 uel Stalnaker's old place on the Middle Fork 
 of Holston. Because of his deliberately dila- 
 tory policy, Byrd was superseded in the com- 
 mand by Colonel Adam Stephen. Marching 
 their forces to the Long Island of Holston, Ste- 
 phen and Waddell erected there Fort Robin- 
 son, in compliance with the instructions of 
 Governor Fauquier, of Virginia. The Chero- 
 kees, heartily tired of the war, now sued for 
 peace, which was concluded, independent of 
 the treaty at Charleston, on November 19, 
 1761. 
 
 The successful termination of this campaign 
 had an effect of signal importance in the de- 
 
 94 
 
CRUSHING THE CHEROKEES 
 
 velopment of the expansionist spirit. The rich 
 and beautiful lands which fell under the eye 
 of the North Carolina and Virginia pioneers 
 under Waddell, Byrd, and Stephen, lured 
 them irresistibly on to wider casts for fortune 
 and bolder explorations into the unknown, 
 beckoning West. 
 
 95 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE LAND COMPANIES 
 
 It was thought good policy to settle those lands as fast as 
 possible, and that the granting them to men of the first con- 
 sequence who were likeliest and best able to procure large 
 bodies of people to settle on them was the most probable 
 means of effecting the end proposed. 
 
 — Acting-Governor Nelson of Virginia to the 
 Earl of Hillsborough: 1770. 
 
 ALTHOUGH for several decades the Vir- 
 ginia traders had been passing over the 
 Great Trading Path to the towns of the Chero- 
 kees and the Catawbas, it was not until the 
 early years of the eighteenth century that Vir- 
 ginians of imaginative vision directed their 
 eyes to the westward, intent upon crossing the 
 mountains and locating settlements as a firm 
 barrier against the imperialistic designs of 
 France. Acting upon his oft-expressed con- 
 viction that once the English settlers had estab- 
 lished themselves at the source of the James 
 
 96 
 
THE LAND COMPANIES 
 
 River "it would not be in the power of the 
 French to dislodge them," Governor Alexan- 
 der Spotswood in 1716, animated with the 
 spirit of the pioneer, led an expedition of fifty 
 men and a train of pack-horses to the moun- 
 tains, arduously ascended to the summit of 
 the Blue Ridge, and claimed the country by 
 right of discovery in behalf of his sovereign. 
 In the journal of John Fontaine this vivacious 
 account is given of the historic episode: "I 
 graved my name on a tree by the river side; 
 and the Governor buried a bottle with a paper 
 enclosed on which he writ that he took posses- 
 sion of this place in the name and for King 
 George the First of England. We had a good 
 dinner, and after it we got the men together 
 and loaded all their arms and we drank the 
 King's health in Burgundy and fired a volley, 
 and all the rest of the Royal Family in claret 
 and a volley. We drank the Governor's 
 health and fired another volley." 
 
 By this jovial picnic, which the governor 
 afterward commemorated by presenting to 
 each of the gentlemen who accompanied him 
 
 97 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 a golden horseshoe, inscribed with the legend, 
 Sic juvat transcendere montes, Alexander 
 Spotswood anticipated by a third of a century 
 the more ambitious expedition on behalf of 
 France by Celoron de Bienville (see Chapter 
 III), and gave a memorable object-lesson in 
 the true spirit of westward expansion. Dur- 
 ing the ensuing years it began to dawn upon 
 the minds of men of the stamp of William 
 Byrd and Joshua Gee that there was impera- 
 tive need for the establishment of a chain of 
 settlements in the trans-Alleghany, a great hu- 
 man wall to withstand the advancing wave of 
 French influence and occupation. By the 
 fifth decade of the century, as we have seen, 
 the Virginia settlers, with their squatter's 
 claims and tomahawk rights, had pushed on 
 to the mountains; and great pressure was 
 brought to bear upon the council to issue 
 grants for vast tracts of land in the uncharted 
 wilderness of the interior. 
 
 At this period the English ministry adopted 
 the aggressive policy already mentioned in 
 connection with the French and Indian war, 
 
 98 
 
THE LAND COMPANIES 
 
 indicative of a determination to contest with 
 France the right to occupy the interior of the 
 continent. This policy had been inaugurated 
 by Virginia with the express purpose of stimu- 
 lating the adoption of a similar policy by North 
 Carolina and Pennsylvania. Two land com- 
 panies, organized almost simultaneously, ac- 
 tively promoted the preliminaries necessary to 
 settlement, despatching parties under expert 
 leadership to discover the passes through the 
 mountains and to locate the best land in the 
 trans- Alleghany. 
 
 In June, 1749, a great corporation, the 
 Loyal Land Company of Virginia, received 
 a grant of eight hundred thousand acres above 
 the North Carolina line and west of the moun- 
 tains. Dr. Thomas Walker, an expert sur- 
 veyor, who in company with several other gen- 
 tlemen had made a tour of exploration through 
 eastern Tennessee and the Holston region in 
 1748, was chosen as the agent of this company. 
 Starting from his home in Albemarle County, 
 Virginia, March 6, 1750, accompanied by five 
 stalwart pioneers, Walker made a tour of ex- 
 
 99 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 ploration to the westward, being absent four 
 months and one week. On this journey, which 
 carried the party as far west as the Rockcastle 
 River (May 11th) and as far north as the 
 present Paintsville, Kentucky, they named 
 many natural objects, such as mountains and 
 rivers, after members of the party. Their two 
 principal achievements were the erection of the 
 first house built by white" men between the 
 Cumberland Mountains and the Ohio River — 
 a feat, however,' which led to no important de- 
 velopments ; and the discovery of the wonder- 
 ful gap in the Alleghanies to which Walker 
 gave the name Cumberland, in honor of the 
 ruthless conqueror at Culloden, the "bloody 
 duke." 
 
 , In 1748 the Ohio Company was organized 
 by Colonel Thomas Lee, president of the Vir- 
 ginia council, and twelve other gentlemen, of 
 Virginia and Maryland. In their petition for 
 five hundred thousand acres, one of the de- 
 clared objects of the company was "to antici- 
 pate the French by taking possession of that 
 country southward of the Lakes to which the 
 
 100 
 
THE LAND COMPANIES 
 
 French had no right. . . ." By the royal 
 order of May 19, 1749, the company was 
 awarded two hundred thousand acres, free of 
 quit-rent for ten years; and the promise was 
 made of an additional award of the remainder 
 petitioned for, on condition of seating a hun- 
 dred families upon the original grant and the 
 building and maintaining of a fort. Christo- 
 pher Gist, summoned from his remote home 
 on the Yadkin in North Carolina, was in- 
 structed "to search out and discover the Lands 
 upon the river Ohio & other adjoining branches 
 of the Mississippi down as low as the great 
 Falls thereof." In this journey, which began 
 at Colonel Thomas Cresap's, in Maryland, in 
 October, 1750, and ended at Gist's home on 
 May 18, 1751, Gist visited the Lower Shawnee 
 Town and the Lower Blue Licks, ascended 
 Pilot Knob almost two decades before Find- 
 lay and Boone, from the same eminence, "saw 
 with pleasure the beautiful level of Kentucky,'* 
 intersected Walker's route at two points, and 
 crossed Cumberland Mountain at Pound Gap 
 on the return journey. This was a far more 
 
 101 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 extended journey than Walker's, enabling 
 Gist to explore the fertile valleys of the Musk- 
 ingum, Scioto, and Miami rivers and to gain 
 a view of the beautiful meadows of Kentucky. 72 
 It is eminently significant of the spirit of 
 the age, which was inaugurating an era of land- 
 hunger unparalleled in American history, that 
 the first authentic records of the trans-Alle- 
 ghany were made by surveyors who visited the 
 country as the agents of great land companies. 
 The outbreak of the French and Indian War 
 so soon afterward delayed for a decade and 
 more any important colonization of the West. 
 Indeed, the explorations and findings of 
 Walker and Gist were almost unknown, even 
 to the companies they represented. But the 
 conclusion of peace in 1763, which gave all the 
 region between the mountains and the Missis- 
 sippi to the British, heralded the true begin- 
 ning of the westward expansionist movement 
 in the Old Southwest, and inaugurated the 
 constructive leadership of North Carolina in 
 the occupation and colonization of the imperial 
 domain of Kentucky and the Ohio Valley. 
 
 102 
 
THE LAND COMPANIES 
 
 In the middle years of the century many 
 families of Virginia gentry removed to the 
 back countiy of North Carolina in the fertile 
 region ranging from Williamsborough on the 
 east to Hillsborough on the west. 73 There 
 soon arose in this section of the colony a so- 
 ciety marked by intellectual distinction, social 
 graces, and the leisured dignity of the land- 
 lord and the large planter. So conspicuous 
 for means, intellect, culture, and refinement 
 were the people of this group, having "abun- 
 dance of wealth and leisure for enjoyment," 
 that Governor Josiah Martin, in passing 
 through this region some years later, signifi- 
 cantly observes: "They have great pre-emi- 
 nence, as well with respect to soil and cultiva- 
 tion, as to the manners and condition of the 
 inhabitants, in which last respect the difference 
 is so great that one would be led to think 
 them people of another region." 74 This new 
 wealthy class which was now turning its gaze 
 toward the unoccupied lands along the frontier 
 was "dominated by the democratic ideals of 
 pioneers rather than by the aristocratic tend- 
 
 103 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 encies of slave-holding planters." 75 From the 
 cross-fertilization of the ideas of two social 
 groups — this back-country gentry, of innate 
 qualities of leadership, democratic instincts, 
 economic independence, and expansive tenden- 
 cies, and the primitive pioneer society of the 
 frontier, frugal in taste, responsive to leader- 
 ship, bold, ready, and thorough in execution 
 — there evolved the- militant American expan- 
 sion in the Old Southwest. 
 
 A conspicuous figure in this society of Vir- 
 ginia emigrants was a young man named Rich- 
 ard Henderson, whose father had removed 
 with his family from Hanover County, Vir- 
 ginia, to Bute, afterward Granville County, 
 North Carolina, in 1742. 70 Educated at home 
 by a private tutor, he began his career as as- 
 sistant of his father, Samuel Henderson, the 
 High Sheriff of Granville County; and after 
 receiving a law-license, quickly acquired an 
 extensive practice. "Even in the superior 
 courts where oratory and eloquence are as 
 brilliant and powerful as in Westminster- 
 hall," records an English acquaintance, "he 
 
 104 
 
THE LAND COMPANIES 
 
 soon became distinguished and eminent, and 
 his superior genius shone forth with great 
 splendour, and universal applause." This 
 young attorney, wedded to the daughter of 
 an Irish lord, often visited Salisbury on his 
 legal circuit; and here he became well ac- 
 quainted with Squire Boone, one of the 
 "Worshipfull Justices," and often appeared 
 in suits before him. By his son, the nomadic 
 Daniel Boone, conspicuous already for his 
 solitary wanderings across the dark green 
 mountains to the sun-lit valleys and bound- 
 less hunting-grounds beyond, Henderson was 
 from time to time regaled with bizarre and 
 fascinating tales of western exploration; 
 and Boone, in his dark hour of poverty and 
 distress, when he was heavily involved finan- 
 cially, turned for aid to this friend and his 
 partner, who composed the law-firm of Wil- 
 liams and Henderson. 77 
 
 Boone's vivid descriptions of the paradise 
 of the West stimulated Henderson's imagina- 
 tive mind and attracted his attention to the 
 rich possibilities of unoccupied lands there. 
 
 105 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 While the Board of Trade in drafting the 
 royal proclamation of October 7, 1763, forbade 
 the granting of lands in the vast interior, which 
 was specifically reserved to the Indians, it was 
 clearly not their intention to set permanent 
 western limits to the colonies. 78 The prevail- 
 ing opinion among the shrewdest men of the 
 period was well expressed by George Wash- 
 ington, who wrote his agent for preempting 
 western lands: "I can never look upon that 
 proclamation in any other light (but I say this 
 between ourselves) than as a temporary ex- 
 pedient to quiet the minds of the Indians." 
 And again in 1767: "It [the proclamation 
 of 1763] must fall, of course, in a few years, 
 especially when those Indians consent to our 
 occupying the lands. Any person, therefore, 
 who neglects the present opportunity of hunt- 
 ing out good lands, and in some measure mark- 
 ing out and distinguishing them for his own, in 
 order to keep others from settling them, will 
 never regain it." Washington had added 
 greatly to his holdings of bounty lands in the 
 West by purchasing at trivial prices the claims 
 
 106 
 
THE LAND COMPANIES 
 
 of many of the officers and soldiers. Three 
 years later we find him surveying extensive 
 tracts along the Ohio and the Great Kanawha, 
 and, with the vision of the expansionist, mak- 
 ing large plans for the establishment of a 
 colony to be seated upon his own lands. Hen- 
 derson, too, recognized the importance of the 
 great country west of the Appalachians. He 
 agreed with the opinion of Benjamin Frank- 
 lin, who in 1756 called it "one of the finest in 
 North America for the extreme richness and 
 fertility of the land, the healthy temperature 
 of the air and the mildness of the climate, the 
 plenty of hunting, fishing and fowling, the 
 facility of trade with the Indians and the vast 
 convenience of inland navigation or water car- 
 riage." 70 Henderson therefore proceeded to 
 organize a land company for the purpose of 
 acquiring and colonizing a large domain in the 
 West. This partnership, which was entitled 
 Richard Henderson and Company, was com- 
 posed of a few associates, including Richard 
 Henderson, his uncle and law-partner, John 
 Williams, and, in all probability, their close 
 
 107 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 friends Thomas and Nathaniel Hart of 
 Orange County, North Carolina, immigrants 
 from Hanover County, Virginia. 
 
 Seizing the opportunity presented just after 
 the conclusion of peace, the company engaged 
 Daniel Boone as scout and surveyor. He was 
 instructed, while hunting and trapping on his 
 own account, to examine, with respect to their 
 location and fertility, the lands which he vis- 
 ited, and to report his findings upon his re- 
 turn. The secret expedition must have been 
 transacted with commendable circumspection; 
 for although in after years it became common 
 knowledge among his friends that he had acted 
 as the company's agent, Boone himself con- 
 sistently refrained from betraying the confi- 
 dence of his employers. 80 Upon a similar mis- 
 sion, Gist had carefully concealed from the 
 suspicious Indians the fact that he carried a 
 compass, which they wittily termed "land 
 stealer"; and Washington likewise imposed 
 secrecy upon his land agent Crawford, insist- 
 ing that the operation be carried on under the 
 guise of hunting game. 81 The discreet Boone, 
 
 108 
 
THE LAND COMPANIES 
 
 taciturn and given to keeping his own counsel, 
 in one instance at least deemed it advantageous 
 to communicate the purpose of his mission to 
 some hunters, well known to him, in order to 
 secure the results of their information in re- 
 gard to the best lands they had encountered 
 in the course of their hunting expedition. 
 Boone came among the hunters, known as the 
 "Blevens connection," at one of their Tennes- 
 see station camps on their return from a long 
 hunt in Kentucky, in order, as expressed in 
 the quaint phraseology of the period, to be 
 "informed of the geography and tocography 
 of these woods, saying that he was employed 
 to explore them by Henderson & Company." 
 The acquaintance which Boone on this occa- 
 sion formed with a member of the party, 
 Henry Scaggs, the skilled hunter and ex- 
 plorer, was soon to bear fruit ; for shortly after- 
 ward Scaggs was employed as prospector by 
 the same land company. In 1764 Scaggs had 
 passed through Cumberland Gap and hunted 
 for the season on the Cumberland; and ac- 
 cordingly the following year, as the agent of 
 
 109 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 Richard Henderson and Company, he was des- 
 patched on an extended exploration to the 
 lower Cumberland, fixing his station at the salt 
 lick afterward known as Mansker's Lick. 83 
 
 Richard Henderson thus, it appears, "en- 
 listed the Harts and others in an enterprise 
 which his own genius planned," says Peck, the 
 personal acquaintance and biographer of 
 Boone, "and then encouraged several hunters 
 to explore the country and learn where the best 
 lands lay." Just why Henderson and his asso- 
 ciates did not act sooner upon the reports 
 brought back by the hunters — Boone and 
 Scaggs and Callaway, who accompanied Boone 
 in 1764 in the interest of the land company 84 — 
 is not known; but in all probability the frag- 
 mentary nature of these reports, however glow- 
 ing and enthusiastic, was sufficient cause for the 
 delay of five years before the land company, 
 through the agency of Boone and Findlay, suc- 
 ceeded in having a thorough exploration made 
 of the Kentucky region. Delay was also 
 caused by rival claims to the territory. In the 
 Virginia Gazette of December 1, 1768, Hen- 
 
 110 
 
THE LAND COMPANIES 
 
 derson must have read with astonishment not 
 unmixed with dismay that "the Six Nations 
 and all their tributaries have granted a vast 
 extent of country to his majesty, and the 
 Proprietaries of Pennsylvania, and settled an 
 advantageous boundary line between their 
 hunting country and this, and the other colo- 
 nies to the Southward as far as the Cherokee 
 River, for which they received the most valu- 
 able present in goods and dollars that was ever 
 given at any conference since the settlement 
 of America." The news was now bruited 
 about through the colony of North Carolina 
 that the Cherokees were hot in their resentment 
 because the Northern Indians, the inveterate 
 foes of the Cherokees and the perpetual dis- 
 putants for the vast Middle Ground of Ken- 
 tucky, had received at the Treaty of Fort 
 Stanwix, November 5, 1768, an immense com- 
 pensation from the crown for the territory 
 which they, the Cherokees, claimed from time 
 immemorial. 85 Only three weeks before, John 
 Stuart, Superintendent for Indian Affairs in 
 the Southern Department, had negotiated with 
 
 111 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 the Cherokees the Treaty of Hard Labor, 
 South Carolina (October 14th), by which Gov- 
 ernor Tryon's line of 1767, from Reedy River 
 to Tryon Mountain, was continued direct to 
 Colonel Chiswell's mine, the present Wythe- 
 ville, Virginia, and thence in a straight line to 
 the mouth of the Great Kanawha. 86 Thus at 
 the close of the year 1768 the crown through 
 both royal governor and superintendent of In- 
 dian affairs acknowledged in fair and open 
 treaty the right of the Cherokees, whose 
 Tennessee villages guarded the gateway, to the 
 valley lands east of the mountain barrier as 
 well as to the dim mid-region of Kentucky. 
 In the very act of negotiating the Treaty of 
 Fort Stanwix, Sir William Johnson privately 
 acknowledged that possession of the trans- 
 Alleghany could be legally obtained only by 
 extinguishing the title of the Cherokees. 87 
 
 These conflicting claims soon led to colli- 
 sions between the Indians and the company's 
 settlers. In the spring of 1769 occurred one 
 of those incidents in the westward advance 
 which, though slight in itself, was to have a 
 
 112 
 
THE LAND COMPANIES 
 
 definite bearing upon the course of events in 
 later years. In pursuance of his policy, as 
 agent of the Loyal Land Company, of pro- 
 moting settlement upon the company's lands, 
 Dr. Thomas Walker, who had visited Powell's 
 Valley the preceding year and come into pos- 
 session of a very large tract there, simultane- 
 ously made proposals to one party of men in- 
 cluding the Hartleys, Captain Rucker, and 
 others, and to another party led by Joseph 
 Martin, trader of Orange County, Virginia, 
 afterward a striking figure in the Old South- 
 west. The fevered race by these bands of 
 eighteenth-century "sooners" for possession of 
 an early " Cherokee Strip" was won by the 
 latter band, who at once took possession and 
 began to clear; so that when the Kirtleys ar- 
 rived, Martin coolly handed them "a letter 
 from Dr. Walker that informed them that if 
 we got to the valley first, we were to have 
 21,000 acres of land, and they were not to 
 interfere with us." Martin and his compan- 
 ions were delighted with the beautiful valley 
 at the base of the Cumberland, quickly "eat 
 
 113 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 and destroyed 23 deer — 15 bears — 2 buffaloes 
 and a great quantity of turkeys," and enter- 
 tained gentlemen from Virginia and Maryland 
 who desired to settle more than a hundred fam- 
 ilies there. The company reckoned, however, 
 without their hosts, the Cherokees, who, forti- 
 fied by the treaty of Hard Labor (1768) which 
 left this country within the Indian reservation, 
 were determined to drive Martin and his com- 
 pany out. While hunting on the Cumberland 
 River, northwest of Cumberland Gap, Martin 
 and his company were surrounded and dis- 
 armed by a party of Cherokees who said they 
 had orders from Cameron, the royal agent, to 
 rob all white men hunting on their lands. 
 When Martin and his party arrived at their sta- 
 tion in Powell's Valley, they found it broken 
 up and their goods stolen by the Indians, which 
 left them no recourse but to return to the 
 settlements in Virginia. It was not until six 
 years later that Martin, under the stable in- 
 fluence of the Transylvania Company, was en- 
 abled to return to this spot and erect there 
 
 114 
 
THE LAND COMPANIES 
 
 the station which was to play an integral part 
 in the progress of westward expansion. 88 
 
 Before going on to relate Boone's explora- 
 tions of Kentucky under the auspices of the 
 land company, it will be convenient to turn 
 back for a moment and give some account of 
 other hunters and explorers who visited that 
 territory between the time of its discovery by 
 Walker and Gist and the advent of Boone. 
 
 115 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE LONG HUNTERS IN THE TWILIGHT ZONE 
 
 The long Hunters principally resided in the upper coun- 
 tries of Virginia & North Carolina on New River & Holston 
 River, and when they intended to make a long Hunt (as 
 they calld it) they Collected near the head of Holston near 
 whare Abingdon now stands. . . . 
 
 — General William Hall. 
 
 BEFORE the coming of Walker and Gist 
 in 1750 and 1751 respectively, the region 
 now called Kentucky had, as far as we know, 
 been twice visited by the French, once in 1729 
 when Chaussegros de Lery and his party vis- 
 ited the Big Bone* Lick, and again in the sum- 
 mer of 1749 when the Baron de Longueuil 
 with four hundred and fifty-two Frenchmen 
 and Indians, going to join Bienville in an ex- 
 pedition against "the Cherickees and other In- 
 dians lying at the back of Carolina and 
 Georgia," doubtless encamped on the Ken- 
 tucky shore of the Ohio. Kentucky was also 
 
 116 
 
LONG HUNTERS IN THE TWILIGHT ZONE 
 
 traversed by John Peter Sailing with his three 
 adventurous companions in their journey 
 through the Middle West in 1742. But all 
 these early visits, including the memorable ex- 
 peditions of Walker and Gist, were so little 
 known to the general public that when John 
 Filson wrote the history of Kentucky in 1784 
 he attributed its discovery to James McBride 
 in 1754. More influential upon the course of 
 westward expansion was an adventure which 
 occurred in 1752, the very year in which the 
 Boones settled down in their Yadkin home. 
 
 In the autumn of 1752, a Pennsylvania 
 trader, John Findlay, with three or four com- 
 panions, descended the Ohio River in a canoe 
 as far as the falls at the present Louisville, 
 Kentucky, and accompanied a party of Shawa- 
 noes to their town of Es-kip-pa-ki-thi-ki, 
 eleven miles east of what is now Winchester. 
 This was the site of the "Indian Old Corn 
 Field," the Iroquois name for which ("the 
 place of many fields," or "prairie") was Ken- 
 ta-ke, whence came the name of the state. 
 Five miles east of this spot, where still may 
 
 117 
 

 THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 be seen a mound and an ellipse showing the 
 outline of the stockade, is the famous Pilot 
 Knob, from the summit of which the fields 
 surrounding the town lie visible in their smooth 
 expanse. During Findlay's stay at the In- 
 dian town other traders from Pennsylvania 
 and Virginia, who reported that they were "on 
 their return from trading with the Cuttawas 
 (Catawbas), a nation who live in the Territo- 
 ries of Carolina," assembled in the vicinity in 
 January, 1753. Here, as the result of dis- 
 putes arising from their barter, they were set 
 upon and captured by a large party of strag- 
 gling Indians (Coghnawagas from Montreal) 
 on January 26th; but Findlay and another 
 trader named James Lowry were so fortunate 
 as to escape and return through the wilder- 
 ness to the Pennsylvania settlements. 89 The 
 incident is of important historic significance; 
 for it was from these traders, who must have 
 followed the Great Warriors' Path to the coun- 
 try of the Catawbas, that Findlay learned of 
 the Ouasioto (Cumberland) Gap traversed by 
 the Indian path. His reminiscences — of this 
 
 118 
 
LONG HUNTERS IN THE TWILIGHT ZONE 
 
 gateway to Kentucky, of the site of the old 
 Indian town on Lulbegrud Creek, a tributary 
 of the Red River, and of the Pilot Knob — 
 were sixteen years later to fire Boone to his 
 great tour of exploration in behalf of the 
 Transylvania Company. 
 
 During the next two decades, largely be- 
 cause of the hostility of the savage tribes, only 
 a few traders and hunters from the east ranged 
 through the trans-Alleghany. But in 1761, a 
 party of hunters led by a rough frontiersman, 
 Elisha Walden, penetrated into Powell's Val- 
 ley, followed the Indian trail through Cumber- 
 land Gap, explored the Cumberland River, 
 and finally reached the Laurel Mountain 
 where, encountering a party of Indians, they 
 deemed it expedient to return. With Walden 
 went Henry Scaggs, afterward explorer for 
 the Henderson Land Company, William 
 Blevens and Charles Cox, the famous Virginia 
 hunters, one Newman, and some fifteen other 
 stout pioneers. Their itinerary may be traced 
 from the names given to natural objects in 
 honor of members of the party — Walden's 
 
 119 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 Mountain and Walden's Creek, Scaggs' Ridge 
 and Newman's Ridge. Following the peace 
 of 1763, which made travel in this region mod- 
 erately safe once more, the English proceeded 
 to occupy the territory which they had won. 
 In 1765 George Croghan with a small party, on 
 the way to prepare the inhabitants of the Illi- 
 nois country for transfer to English sover- 
 eignty, visited the Great Bone Licks of Ken- 
 tucky (May 30th, 31st) ; and a year later Cap- 
 tain Harry Gordon, chief engineer in the 
 Western Department in North America, vis- 
 ited and minutely described the same licks and 
 the falls. But these, and numerous other 
 water- journeys and expeditions of which no 
 records were kept, though interesting enough 
 in themselves, had little bearing upon the larger 
 phases of westward expansion and coloniza- 
 tion. 
 
 The decade opening with the year 1765 is 
 the epoch of bold and ever bolder exploration 
 — the more adventurous frontiersmen of the 
 border pushing deep into the wilderness in 
 search of game, lured on by the excitements of 
 
 120 
 
LONG HUNTERS IN THE TWILIGHT ZONE 
 
 the chase and the profit to be derived from the 
 sale of peltries. In midsummer, 1766, Cap- 
 tain James Smith, Joshua Horton, Uriah 
 Stone, William Baker, and a young mu- 
 latto slave passed through Cumberland Gap, 
 hunted through the country south of the 
 Cherokee and along the Cumberland and 
 Tennessee rivers, and as Smith reports "found 
 no vestige of any white man." During the 
 same year a party of five hunters from 
 South Carolina, led by Isaac Lindsey, pene- 
 trated the Kentucky wilderness to the tribu- 
 tary of the Cumberland, named Stone's 
 River by the former party, for one of their 
 number. Here they encountered two men, 
 who were among the greatest of the western 
 pioneers, and were destined to leave their 
 names in historic association with the early 
 settlement of Kentucky — James Harrod and 
 Michael Stoner, a German, both of whom had 
 descended the Ohio from Fort Pitt. With the 
 year 1769 began those longer and more ex- 
 tended excursions into the interior which were 
 to result in conveying at last to the outside 
 
 121 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 world graphic and detailed information con- 
 cerning "the wonderful new country of Can- 
 tucky." In the late spring of this year Han- 
 cock and Richard Taylor (the latter the father 
 of President Zachary Taylor), Abraham 
 Hempinstall, and one Barbour, all true-blue 
 frontiersmen, left their homes in Orange 
 County, Virginia, and hunted extensively in 
 Kentucky and Arkansas. Two of the party 
 traveled through Georgia and East and West 
 Florida; while the other two hunted on the 
 Washita during the winter of 1770-1. Ex- 
 plorations of this type became increasingly 
 hazardous as the animosity of the Indians in- 
 creased; and from this time onward for a num- 
 ber of years almost all the parties of roving 
 hunters suffered capture or attack by the 
 crafty red men. In this same year Major 
 John McCulloch, living on the south branch 
 of the Potomac, set out accompanied by a 
 white man-servant and a negro, to explore the 
 western country. While passing down the 
 Ohio from Pittsburgh McCulloch was cap- 
 tured by the Indians near the mouth of the 
 
 122 
 
LONG HUNTERS IN THE TWILIGHT ZONE 
 
 Wabash and carried to the present site of 
 Terre Haute, Indiana. Set free after four 
 or five months, he journeyed in company with 
 some French voyageurs first to Natchez and 
 then to New Orleans, whence he made the sea 
 voyage to Philadelphia. Somewhat later, 
 Benjamin Cleveland (afterward famous in the 
 Revolution), attended by four companions, set 
 out from his home on the upper Yadkin to 
 explore the Kentucky wilderness. After pass- 
 ing through Cumberland Gap, they encoun- 
 tered a band of Cherokees who plundered them 
 of everything they had, even to their hats and 
 shoes, and ordered them to leave the Indian 
 hunting-grounds. On their return journey 
 they almost starved, and Cleveland, who was 
 reluctantly forced to kill his faithful little 
 hunting-dog, was wont to declare in after years 
 that it was the sweetest meat he ever ate. 
 
 Fired to adventure by the glowing accounts 
 brought back by Uriah Stone, a much more 
 formidable band than any that had hitherto 
 ventured westward — including Uriah Stone as 
 pilot, Gasper Mansker, John Rains, the Bled- 
 
 123 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 soes, and a dozen others — assembled in June, 
 1769, in the New River region. "Each Man 
 carried two horses," says an early pioneer in 
 describing one of these parties, "traps, a large 
 supply of powder and led, and a small hand 
 vise and bellows, files and screw plate for the 
 purpose of fixing the guns if any of them 
 should get out of fix." Passing through Cum- 
 berland Gap, they continued their long jour- 
 ney until they reached Price's Meadow, in the 
 present Wayne County, Kentucky, where they 
 established their encampment. In the course 
 of their explorations, during which they gave 
 various names to prominent natural features, 
 they established their "station camp" on a creek 
 in Sumner County, Tennessee, whence origi- 
 nated the name of Station Camp Creek. 
 Isaac Bledsoe and Gasper Mansker, agreeing 
 to travel from here in opposite directions along 
 a buffalo trace passing near the camp, each 
 succeeded in discovering the famous salt-lick 
 which bears his name — namely Bledsoe's Lick 
 and Mansker's Lick. The flat surrounding 
 the lick, about one hundred acres in extent, 
 
LONG HUNTERS IN THE TWILIGHT ZONE 
 
 discovered by Bledsoe, according to his own 
 statement "was principally Covered with buf- 
 felows in every direction — not hundreds but 
 thousands." As he sat on his horse, he shot 
 down two deer in the lick; but the buffaloes 
 blindly trod them in the mud. They did not 
 mind him and his horse except when the wind 
 blew the scent in their nostrils, when they 
 would break and run in droves. Indians often 
 lurked in the neighbourhood of these hunters 
 — plundering their camp, robbing them, and 
 even shooting down one of their number, Rob- 
 ert Crockett, from ambush. After many 
 trials and vicissitudes, which included a jour- 
 ney to the Spanish Natchez and the loss of a 
 great mass of peltries when they were plun- 
 dered by Piomingo and a war party of Chicka- 
 saws, they finally reached home in the late 
 spring of 1770. 90 
 
 The most notable expedition of this period, 
 projected under the auspices of two bold lead- 
 ers extraordinarily skilled in woodcraft, Joseph 
 Drake and Henry Scaggs, was organized in 
 the early autumn of 1770. This imposing 
 
 125 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 band of stalwart hunters from the New River 
 and Holston country, some forty in number, 
 garbed in hunting shirts, leggings, and mocca- 
 sins, with three pack-horses to each man, rifles, 
 ammunition, traps, dogs, blankets, and salt, 
 pushed boldly through Cumberland Gap into 
 the heart of what was later justly named the 
 "Dark and Bloody Ground" (see Chapter 
 XIV) — "not doubting," says an old border 
 chronicler, "that they were to be encountered 
 by Indians, and to subsist on game." From 
 the duration of their absence from home, they 
 received the name of the Long Hunters — the 
 romantic appellation by which they are known 
 in the pioneer history of the Old Southwest. 
 Many natural objects were named by this 
 party — in particular Dick's River, after the 
 noted Cherokee hunter, Captain Dick, who, 
 pleased to be recognized by Charles Scaggs, 
 told the Long Hunters that on his river, point- 
 ing it out, they would find meat plenty — add- 
 ing with laconic significance: "Kill it and go 
 home." From the Knob Lick, in Lincoln 
 County, as reported by a member of the party, 
 
 126 
 
LONG HUNTERS IN THE TWILIGHT ZONE 
 
 "they beheld largely over a thousand animals, 
 including buffaloe, elk, bear, and deer, with 
 many wild turkies scattered among them; all 
 quite restless, some playing, and others busily 
 employed in licking the earth. . . . The buffa- 
 loe and other animals had so eaten away the 
 soil, that they could, in places, go entirely un- 
 derground." Upon the return of a detach- 
 ment to Virginia, fourteen fearless hunters 
 chose to remain; and one day, during the ab- 
 sence of some of the band upon a long explor- 
 ing trip, the camp was attacked by a straggling 
 party of Indians under Will Emery, a half- 
 breed Cherokee. Two of the hunters were car- 
 ried into captivity and never heard of again; 
 a third managed to escape. In embittered 
 commemoration of the plunder of the camp and 
 the destruction of the peltries, they inscribed 
 upon a poplar, which had lost its bark, thi : 
 emphatic record, followed by their names : 
 
 2300 Deer Skins lost Ruination by God 
 
 91 
 
 Undismayed by this depressing stroke of 
 fortune, they continued their hunt in the di- 
 
 127 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 rection of the lick which Bledsoe had discov- 
 ered the preceding year. Shortly after this 
 discovery, a French voyageur from the Illinois 
 who had hunted and traded in this region for 
 a decade, Timothe de Monbreun, subsequently 
 famous in the history of Tennessee, had visited 
 the lick and killed an enormous number of 
 buffaloes for their tallow and tongues with 
 which he and his companion loaded a keel boat 
 and descended the Cumberland. An early 
 pioneer, William Hall, learned from Isaac 
 Bledsoe that when "the long hunters Crossed 
 the ridge and came down on Bledsoe's Creek 
 in four or five miles of the Lick the Cane had 
 grown up so thick in the woods that they 
 thought they had mistaken the place until they 
 Came to the Lick and saw what had been done. 
 . . . One could walk for several hundred yards 
 a round the Lick and in the lick on buffellows 
 Skuls, & bones and the whole flat round the 
 Lick was bleached with buffellows bones, and 
 they found out the Cause of the Canes grow- 
 ing up so suddenly a few miles around the 
 
 128 
 
LONG HUNTERS IN THE TWILIGHT ZONE 
 
 Lick which was in Consequence of so many 
 buffellows being killed." 
 
 This expedition was of genuine importance, 
 opening the eyes of the frontiersmen to the 
 charms of the country and influencing many 
 to settle subsequently in the West — some in 
 Tennessee, some in Kentucky. The elaborate 
 and detailed information brought back by 
 Henry Scaggs exerted an appreciable influ- 
 ence, no doubt, in accelerating the plans of 
 Richard Henderson and Company for the 
 acquisition and colonization of the trans-Alle- 
 ghany. But while the "Long Hunters" were 
 in Tennessee and Kentucky the same region 
 was being more extensively and systematically 
 explored by Daniel Boone. To his life, char- 
 acter, and attainments, as the typical "long 
 hunter" and the most influential pioneer we 
 may now turn our particular attention. 
 
 129 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 DANIEL BOONE AND WILDERNESS EXPLORATION 
 
 Here, where the hand of violence shed the blood of the 
 innocent; where the horrid yells of the savages, and the groans 
 of the distressed, sounded in our ears, we now hear the praises 
 and adorations of our Creator; where wretched wigwams 
 stood, the miserable abodes of savages, we behold the foun- 
 dations of cities laid, that, in all probability, will equal the 
 glory of the greatest upon earth. 
 
 — Daniel Boone, 1784. 
 
 THE wandering life of a border Nimrod 
 in a surpassingly beautiful country teem- 
 ing with game was the ideal of the frontiers- 
 man of the eighteenth century. As early as 
 1728, while running the dividing line between 
 North Carolina and Virginia, William Byrd 
 encountered along the North Carolina frontier 
 the typical figure of the professional hunter: 
 "a famous Woodsman, call'd Epaphroditus 
 Bainton. This Forester Spends all his time 
 in ranging the Woods, and is said to make 
 great Havock among the Deer, and other In- 
 
 130 
 
DANIEL BOONE AND EXPLORATION 
 
 habitants of the Forest, not much wilder than 
 himself." By the middle of the century, as he 
 was threading his way through the Carolina 
 piedmont zone, the hunter's paradise of the 
 Yadkin and Catawba country, Bishop Spang- 
 enberg found ranging there many hunters, liv- 
 ing like Indians, who killed thousands of deer 
 each year and sold the skins in the local mar- 
 kets or to the fur-traders from Virginia 
 whose heavy pack-trains with their tinkling 
 bells constantly traversed the course of the 
 Great Trading Path. 
 
 The superlative skill of one of these hunters, 
 both as woodsman and marksman, was pro- 
 verbial along the border. The name of Daniel 
 Boone became synonymous with expert hunts- 
 manship and almost uncanny wisdom in forest 
 lore. The bottoms of the creek near the 
 Boone home, three miles west of present 
 Mocksville, contained a heavy growth of beech, 
 which dropped large quantities of its rich nuts 
 or mast, greatly relished by bears; and this 
 creek received its name, Bear Creek, because 
 Daniel and his father killed in its rich bottoms 
 
 131 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 ninety-nine bears in a single hunting-season. 
 After living for a time with his young wife, 
 Rebecca Bryan, in a cabin in his father's yard, 
 Daniel built a home of his own upon a tract 
 of land, purchased from his father on Octo- 
 ber 12, 1759, and lying on Sugar Tree, a trib- 
 utary of Dutchman's Creek. Here he dwelt 
 for the next five years, with the exception of 
 the period of his temporary removal to Vir- 
 ginia during the terrible era of the Indian war. 
 Most of his time during the autumn and win- 
 ter, when he was not engaged in wagoning or 
 farming, he spent in long hunting- journeys 
 into the mountains to the west and northwest. 
 During the hunting-season of 1760 he struck 
 deeper than ever before into the western moun- 
 tain region and encamped in a natural rocky 
 shelter amidst fine hunting-grounds, in what 
 is now Washington County in east Tennessee. 
 Of the scores of inscriptions commemorative 
 of his hunting-feats, which Boone with pardon- 
 able pride was accustomed throughout his life- 
 time to engrave with his hunting-knife upon 
 trees and rocks, the earliest known is found 
 
 132 
 
D. Boon 
 
 
 A. BAR 
 
 On 
 
 
 Tree 
 
 The 
 
 
 yEAR 
 
 
 1760 
 
 
 DANIEL BOONE AND EXPLORATION 
 
 upon a leaning beech tree, only recently fallen, 
 near his camp and the creek which since that 
 day has borne his name. This is a character- 
 istic and enduring record in the history of 
 American exploration : 
 
 CillED 
 
 in 
 
 Late in the summer of the following year 
 Boone marched under the command of the 
 noted Indian-fighter of the border, Colonel 
 Hugh Waddell, in his campaign against the 
 Cherokees. From the lips of Waddell, who 
 was outspoken in his condemnation of Byrd's 
 futile .delays in road-cutting and fort-building, 
 Boone learned the true secret of success in 
 Indian warfare, which was lost upon Brad- 
 dock, Forbes, and later St. Clair: that the art 
 of defeating red men was to deal them a sud- 
 den and unexpected blow, before they had time 
 either to learn the strength of 'the .force em- 
 
 133 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 ployed against them or to lay with subtle craft 
 their artful ambuscade. 
 
 In the late autumn of 1761, Daniel Boone 
 and Nathaniel Gist, the son of Washington's 
 famous guide, who were both serving under 
 Waddell, temporarily detached themselves 
 from his command and led a small party on a 
 "long hunt" in the Valley of the Holston. 
 While encamping near the site of Black's Fort, 
 subsequently built, they were violently assailed 
 by a pack of fierce wolves which they had con- 
 siderable difficulty in beating off; and from this 
 incident the locality became known as Wolf 
 Hills (now Abingdon, Virginia) , 92 
 
 From this time forward Boone's roving in- 
 stincts had full sway. For many months each 
 year he threaded his way through that mar- 
 velously beautiful country of western North 
 Carolina felicitously described as the Switzer- 
 land of America. Boone's love of solitude 
 and the murmuring forest was surely inspired 
 by the phenomenal beauties of the country 
 through which he roamed at will. Blowing 
 Rock on one arm of a great horseshoe of moun- 
 
 134 
 
DANIEL BOONE AND EXPLORATION 
 
 tains and Tryon Mountain upon the other 
 arm, overlooked an enormous, primeval bowl, 
 studded by a thousand emerald-clad eminences. 
 There was the Pilot Mountain, the towering 
 and isolated pile which from time immemorial 
 had served the aborigines as a guide in their 
 forest wanderings; there was the dizzy height 
 of the Roan on the border ; there was Mt. 
 Mitchell, portentous in its grandeur, the tallest 
 peak on the continent east of the Rockies ; and 
 there was the Grandfather, the oldest moun- 
 tain on earth according to geologists, of which 
 it has been written: 
 
 Oldest of all terrestrial things — still holding 
 
 Thy wrinkled forehead high ; 
 Whose every seam, earth's history enfolding, 
 
 Grim science doth defy ! 
 
 Thou caught'st the far faint ray from Sirius rising, 
 When through space first was hurled 
 
 The primal gloom of ancient voids surprising, 
 This atom, called the World ! 
 
 What more gratifying to the eye of the wan- 
 derer than the luxuriant vegetation and lavish 
 
 135 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 profusion of the gorgeous flowers upon the 
 mountain slopes, radiant rhododendron, rose- 
 bay, and laurel, and the azalea rising like 
 flame; or the rare beauties of the water — the 
 cataract of Linville, taking its shimmering leap 
 into the gorge, and that romantic river poeti- 
 cally celebrated in the lines: 
 
 Swannanoa, nymph of beauty, 
 I would woo thee in my rhyme, 
 Wildest, brightest, loveliest river 
 Of our sunny Southern clime. 
 *. * * 
 
 Gone forever from the borders 
 But immortal in thy name, 
 Are the Red Men of the forest 
 Be thou keeper of their fame ! 
 Paler races dwell beside thee, 
 Celt and Saxon till thy lands 
 Wedding use unto thy beauty — 
 Linking over thee their hands. 
 
 The long rambling excursions which Boone 
 made through western North Carolina and 
 eastern Tennessee enabled him to explore 
 every nook and corner of the rugged and beau- 
 tiful mountain region. Among the compan- 
 
 136 
 
DANIEL BOONE AND EXPLORATION 
 
 ions and contemporaries with whom he hunted 
 and explored the country were his little son 
 James and his brother Jesse; the Linville who 
 gave the name to the beautiful falls; Julius 
 Caesar Dugger, whose rock house stood near 
 the head of Elk Creek; and Nathaniel Gist, 
 who described for him the lofty gateway to 
 Kentucky, through which Christopher Gist 
 had passed in 1751. Boone had already heard 
 of this gateway, from Findlay, and it was one 
 of the secret and cherished ambitions of his 
 life to scale the mountain wall of the Appala- 
 chians and to reach that high portal of the 
 Cumberland which beckoned to the mysterious 
 new Eden beyond. Although hunting was an 
 endless delight to Boone he was haunted in the 
 midst of this pleasure, as was Kipling's Ex- 
 plorer, by the lure of the undiscovered : 
 
 Till a voice as bad as conscience, rang interminable 
 
 changes 
 On one everlasting whisper day and night repeated 
 
 — so: 
 'Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look 
 
 behind the ranges — 
 
 137 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 'Something lost behind the ranges. Lost and wait- 
 ing for you. Go.' 
 
 Of Boone's preliminary explorations for the 
 land company known as Richard Henderson 
 and Company, an account has already been 
 given; and the delay in following them up 
 has been touched on and in part explained. 
 Meanwhile Boone transferred his efforts for 
 a time to another field. Toward the close 
 of the summer of 1765 a party consisting 
 of Major John Field, William Hill, one 
 Slaughter, and two others, all from Culpeper 
 County, Virginia, visited Boone and induced 
 him to accompany them on the "long Journey" 
 to Florida, whither they were attracted by the 
 liberal offer of Colonel James Grant, governor 
 of the eastern section, the Florida of to-day. 
 On this long and arduous expedition they suf- 
 fered many hardships and endured many pri- 
 vations, found little game, and on one occa- 
 sion narrowly escaped starvation. They ex- 
 plored Florida from St. Augustine to Pensa- 
 cola ; and Boone, who relished fresh scenes and 
 a new environment, purchased a house and lot 
 
 138 
 
DANIEL BOONE AND EXPLORATION 
 
 in Pensacola in anticipation of removal thither. 
 But upon his return home, finding his wife un- 
 willing to go, Boone once more turned his 
 eager eye toward the West, that mysterious 
 and alluring region beyond the great range, 
 the fabled paradise of Kentucky. 
 
 The following year four young men from 
 the Yadkin, Benjamin Cutbird, John Stewart 
 (Boone's brother-in-law who afterwards ac- 
 companied him to Kentucky), John Baker, 
 and James Ward made a remarkable journey 
 to the westward, crossing the Appalachian 
 mountain chain over some unknown route, and 
 finally reaching the Mississippi. The signifi- 
 cance of the journey, in its bearing upon west- 
 ward expansion, inheres in the fact that while 
 for more than half a century the English trad- 
 ers from South Carolina had been winning 
 their way to the Mississippi along the lower 
 routes and Indian trails, this was the first party 
 from either of the Carolinas, as far as is known, 
 that ever reached the Mississippi by crossing 
 the great mountain barrier. When Cutbird, 
 a superb woodsman and veritable Leather- 
 
 139 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 stocking, narrated to Boone the story of his 
 adventures, it only confirmed Boone in his 
 determination to find the passage through the 
 mountain chain leading to the Mesopotamia of 
 Kentucky. 
 
 Such an enterprise was attended by terrible 
 dangers. During 1766 and 1767 the steady 
 encroachments of the white settlers upon the 
 ancestral domain which the Indians reserved 
 for their imperial hunting-preserve aroused bit- 
 ter feelings of resentment among the red men. 
 Bloody reprisal was often the sequel to such 
 encroachment. The vast region of Tennessee 
 and the trans-Alleghany was a twilight zone, 
 through which the savages roamed at will. 
 From time to time war parties of northern In- 
 dians, the inveterate foes of the Cherokees, 
 scouted through this no-man's land and even 
 penetrated into the western region of North 
 Carolina, committing murders and depreda- 
 tions upon the Cherokees and the whites indis- 
 criminately. During the summer of 1766, 
 while Boone's friend and close connection, 
 Captain William Linville, his son John, and 
 
 140 
 
DANIEL BOONE AND EXPLORATION 
 
 another young man, named John Williams, 
 were in camp some ten miles below Linville 
 Falls, they were unexpectedly fired upon by 
 a hostile band of Northern Indians, and 
 before they had time to fire a shot, a second 
 volley killed both the Linvilles and severely 
 wounded Williams, who after extraordinary 
 sufferings finally reached the settlements. 93 
 In May, 1767, four traders and a half-breed 
 child of one of them were killed in the Cherokee 
 country. In the summer of this year Gover- 
 nor William Tryon of North Carolina laid 
 out the boundary line of the Cherokees, and 
 upon his return issued a proclamation forbid- 
 ding any purchase of land from the Indians 
 and any issuance of grants for land within 
 one mile of the boundary line. Despite this 
 wise precaution, seven North Carolina hunters 
 who during the following September had law- 
 lessly ventured into the mountain region some 
 sixty miles beyond the boundary were fired 
 upon, and several of them killed, by the resent- 
 ful Cherokees. 94 
 
 Undismayed by these signs of impending 
 141 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 danger, undeterred even by the tragic fate of 
 the Linvilles, Daniel Boone, with the deter- 
 mination of the indomitable pioneer, never 
 dreamed of relinquishing his long-cherished de- 
 sign. Discouraged by the steady disappear- 
 ance of game under the ruthless attack of in- 
 numerable hunters, Boone continued to direct 
 his thoughts toward the project of exploring 
 the fair region of Kentucky. The adventur- 
 ous William Hill, to whom Boone communi- 
 cated his purpose, readily consented to go with 
 him; and in the autumn of 1767 Boone and 
 Hill, accompanied, it is believed, by Squire 
 Boone, Daniel's brother, set forth upon their 
 almost inconceivably hazardous expedition. 
 They crossed the Blue Ridge and the Alle- 
 ghanies, the Holston and Clinch rivers near 
 their sources, and finally reached the head 
 waters of the West Fork of the Big Sandy. 
 Surmising from its course that this stream 
 must flow into the Ohio, they pushed on a 
 hundred miles to the westward and finally, by 
 following a buffalo path, reached a salt-spring 
 in what is now Floyd County, in the extreme 
 
 142 
 
DANIEL BOONE AND EXPLORATION 
 
 eastern section of Kentucky. Here Boone be- 
 held great droves of buffalo that visited the 
 salt-spring to drink the water or lick the brack- 
 ish soil. After spending the winter in hunting 
 and trapping, the Boones and Hill, discouraged 
 by the forbidding aspect of the hilly country 
 which with its dense growth of laurel was ex- 
 ceedingly difficult to penetrate, abandoned all 
 hope of finding Kentucky by this route and 
 wended their arduous way back to the Yadkin. 
 The account of Boone's subsequent accom- 
 plishment of his purpose must be postponed 
 to the next chapter. 
 
 143 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 DANIEL BOONE IN KENTUCKY 
 
 He felt very much as Columbus did, gazing from his caravel 
 on San Salvador; as Cortes, looking down from the crest of 
 Ahualco, on the Valley of Mexico; or Vasco Nufiez, standing 
 alone on the peak of Darien, and stretching his eyes over the 
 hitherto undiscovered waters of the Pacific. 
 
 — William Gilmore Simms: Views and Reviews. 
 
 A CHANCE acquaintance formed by- 
 Daniel Boone, during the French and 
 Indian War, with the Irish lover of adventure, 
 John Findlay, 95 was the origin of Boone's cher- 
 ished longing to reach the El Dorado of the 
 West. In this slight incident we may discern 
 the initial inspiration for the epochal move- 
 ment of westward expansion. Findlay was a 
 trader and horse peddler, who had early mi- 
 grated to Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He had 
 been licensed a trader with the Indians in 1747. 
 During the same year he was married to Eliza- 
 beth Harris, daughter of John Harris, the In- 
 
 144 
 
DANIEL BOONE IN KENTUCKY 
 
 dian-trader at Harris's Ferry on the Susque- 
 hanna River, after whom Harrisburg was 
 named. During the next eight years Find- 
 lay carried on his business of trading in the 
 interior. Upon the opening of the French 
 and Indian War he was probably among 
 "the young men about Paxtang who enlisted 
 immediately," and served as a waggoner in 
 Braddock's expedition. Over the camp-fires, 
 during the ensuing campaign in 1765, young 
 Boone was an eager listener to Findlay's stir- 
 ring narrative of his adventures in the Ohio 
 Valley and on the wonderfully beautiful 
 levels of Kentucky in 1752. The fancies 
 aroused in his brooding mind by Findlay's 
 moving recital and his description of an an- 
 cient passage through the Ouasioto or Cum- 
 berland Gap and along the course of the War- 
 rior's Path, inspired him with an irrepressible 
 longing to reach that alluring promised land 
 which was the perfect realization of the hunt- 
 er's paradise. 
 
 Thirteen years later, while engaged in sell- 
 ing pins, needles, thread, and Irish linens in 
 
 145 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 the Yadkin country, Findlay learned from the 
 Pennsylvania settlers at Salisbury or at the 
 Forks of the Yadkin of Boone's removal to the 
 waters of the upper Yadkin. At Boone's 
 rustic home, in the winter of 1768-9, Findlay 
 visited his old comrade-in-arms of Braddock's 
 campaign. On learning of Boone's failure 
 during the preceding year to reach the Ken- 
 tucky levels by way of the inhospitable Sandy 
 region, Findlay again described to him the 
 route through the Ouasioto Gap traversed 
 sixteen years before by Pennsylvania trad- 
 ers in their traffic with the Catawbas. Boone, 
 as we have seen, knew that Christopher Gist, 
 who had formerly lived near him on the 
 upper Yadkin, had found some passage 
 through the lofty mountain denies; but he 
 had never been able to discover the passage. 
 Findlay's renewed descriptions of the immense 
 herds of buffaloes he had seen in Kentucky, 
 the great salt-licks where they congregated, the 
 abundance of bears, deer, and elk with which 
 the country teemed, the innumerable flocks of 
 wild turkeys, geese, and ducks, aroused in 
 
 146 
 
DANIEL BOONE IN KENTUCKY 
 
 Boone the hunter's passion for the chase ; while 
 the beauty of the lands, as mirrored in the 
 vivid fancy of the Irishman, inspired him with 
 a new longing to explore the famous country 
 which had, as John Filson records, "greatly 
 engaged Mr. Findlay's attention." Y^ 
 
 In the comprehensive designs of Henderson, 
 now a judge, for securing a -graphic report of 
 the trans-Alleghany region in behalf of his 
 land company, Boone divined the means of 
 securing the financial backing for an expedition 
 of considerable size and ample equipment. 96 
 In numerous suits for debt, aggregating hun- 
 dreds of dollars, which had been instituted 
 against Boone by some of the leading citizens 
 of Rowan, Williams and Henderson had acted 
 as Boone's attorneys. In order to collect their 
 legal fees, they likewise brought suit against 
 Boone; but not wishing to press the action 
 against the kindly scout who had hitherto acted 
 as their agent in western exploration, they con- 
 tinued the litigation from court to court, in 
 lieu of certain "conditions performed" on be- 
 half of Boone, during his unbroken absence, 
 
 147 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 by his attorney in this suit, Alexander Martin. 97 
 Summoned to appear in 1769 at the March 
 term of court at Salisbury, Boone seized upon 
 the occasion to lay before Judge Henderson 
 the designs for a renewed and extended ex- 
 ploration of Kentucky suggested by the golden 
 opportunity of securing the services of Find- 
 lay as guide. Shortly after March 6th, when 
 Judge Henderson reached Salisbury, the con- 
 ference, doubtless attended by John Stewart, 
 Boone's brother-in-law, John Findlay, and 
 Boone, who were all present at this term of 
 court, must have been held, for the purpose of 
 devising ways and means for the expedition. 
 Peck, the only reliable contemporary bio- 
 grapher of the pioneer, who derived many facts 
 from Boone himself and his intimate acquaint- 
 ances, draws the conclusion (1847) : "Daniel 
 Boone was engaged as the master spirit of this 
 exploration, because in his judgment and fidel- 
 ity entire confidence could be reposed. . . . 
 He was known to Henderson and encouraged 
 by him to make the exploration, and to examine 
 particularly the whole country south of the 
 
 148 
 
DANIEL BOONE IN KENTUCKY 
 
 Kentucky — or as then called the Louisa 
 River." 08 As confidential agent of the land 
 company, Boone carried with him letters and 
 instructions for his guidance upon this ex- 
 tended tour of exploration." 
 
 On May 1, 1769, with Findlay as guide, and 
 accompanied by four of his neighbors, John 
 Stewart, a skilled woodsman, Joseph Holden, 
 James Mooney, and William Cooley, Boone 
 left his "peaceable habitation" on the upper 
 Yadkin and began his historic journey "in 
 quest of the country of Kentucky." Already 
 heavily burdened with debts, Boone must have 
 incurred considerable further financial obliga- 
 tions to Judge Henderson and Colonel Wil- 
 liams, acting for the land company, in order 
 to obtain the large amount of supplies requisite 
 for so prolonged an expedition. Each of the 
 adventurers rode a good horse of strength and 
 endurance; and behind him were securely 
 strapped the blanket, ammunition, salt, and 
 cooking-utensils so indispensable for a long so- 
 journ in the wilderness. In Powell's Valley 
 they doubtless encountered the party led 
 
 149 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 thither by Joseph Martin (see Chapter 
 VII), and there fell into the "Hunter's 
 Trail" commented on in a letter written by 
 Martin only a fortnight before the passing of 
 Boone's cavalcade. Crossing the mountain at 
 the Ouasioto Gap, they made their first "sta- 
 tion camp" in Kentucky on the creek, still 
 named after that circumstance, on the Red 
 Lick Fork. After a preliminary journey for 
 the purpose of locating the spot, Findlay 
 led the party to his old trading-camp at Es- 
 kip-pa-ki-thi-ki, where then (June 7, 1769) 
 remained but charred embers of the Indian 
 huts, with some of the stockading and the 
 gate-posts still standing. In Boone's own 
 words, he and Findlay at once "proceeded to 
 take a more thorough survey of the country"; 
 and during the autumn and early winter, en- 
 countering on every hand apparently inex- 
 haustible stocks of wild game and noting the 
 ever-changing beauties of the country, the va- 
 rious members of the party made many hunt- 
 ing and exploring journeys from their "station 
 camp" as base. On December 22, 1769, while 
 
 150 
 
DANIEL BOONE IN KENTUCKY 
 
 engaged in a hunt, Boone and Stewart were 
 surprised and captured by a large party of 
 Shawanoes, led by Captain Will, who were 
 returning from the autumn hunt on Green 
 River to their villages north of the Ohio. 
 Boone and Stewart were forced to pilot the 
 Indians to their main camp, where the savages, 
 after robbing them of all their peltries and 
 supplies and leaving them inferior guns and 
 little ammunition, set off to the northward. 
 They left, on parting, this menacing admoni- 
 tion to the white intruders: "Now, brothers, 
 go home and stay there. Don't come here any 
 more, for this is the Indians' hunting-ground, 
 and all the animals, skins, and furs are ours. 
 If you are so foolish as to venture here again, 
 you may be sure the wasps and yellow jackets 
 will sting you severely." 
 
 Chagrined particularly by the -loss of the 
 horses, Boone and Stewart for two days pur- 
 sued the Indians in hot haste. Finally ap- 
 proaching the Indians' camp by stealth in the 
 dead of night, they secured two of the horses, 
 upon which they fled at top speed. In turn 
 
 151 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 they were immediately pursued by a detach- 
 ment of the Indians, mounted upon their fleet- 
 est horses; and suffered the humiliation of re- 
 capture two days later. Indulging in wild 
 hilarity over the capture of the crestfallen 
 whites, the Indians took a bell from one of 
 the horses and, fastening it about Boone's 
 neck, compelled him under the threat of bran- 
 dished tomahawks to caper about and jingle the 
 bell, jeering at him the while with the derisive 
 query, uttered in broken English: "Steal 
 horse, eh?" With as good grace as they could 
 summon — wry smiles at best — Boone and 
 Stewart patiently endured these humiliations, 
 following the Indians as captives. Some days 
 later (about January 4, 1770), while the vigi- 
 lance of the Indians was momentarily relaxed, 
 the captives suddenly plunged into a dense 
 cane-brake and in the subsequent confusion 
 succeeded in effecting their escape. Finding 
 their camp deserted upon their return, Boone 
 and Stewart hastened on and finally overtook 
 their companions. Here Boone was both sur- 
 prised and delighted to encounter his brother 
 
 152 
 
DANIEL BOONE IN KENTUCKY 
 
 Squire, loaded down with supplies. Having 
 heard nothing from Boone, the partners of the 
 land company had surmised that he and his 
 party must have run short of ammunition, 
 flour, salt, and other things sorely needed in the 
 wilderness ; and because of their desire that the 
 party should remain, in order to make an ex- 
 haustive exploration of the country, Squire 
 Boone had been sent to him with supplies. 100 
 Findlay, Holden, Mooney, and Cooley re- 
 turned to the settlements; but Stewart, Squire 
 Boone, and Alexander Neely, who had accom- 
 panied Squire, threw in their lot with the in- 
 trepid Daniel, and fared forth once more to the 
 stirring and bracing adventures of the Ken- 
 tucky wilderness. In Daniel Boone's own 
 words, he expected "from the furs and peltries 
 they had an opportunity of taking . . . to re- 
 cruit his shattered circumstances ; discharge the 
 debts he had contracted by the adventure ; and 
 shortly return under better auspices, to settle 
 the newly discovered country." 101 
 
 Boone and his party now stationed them- 
 selves near the mouth of the Red River, and 
 
 153 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 soon provided themselves, against the hard- 
 ships of the long winter, with jerk, bear's oil, 
 buffalo tallow, dried buffalo tongues, fresh 
 meat, and marrow-bones as food, and buffalo 
 robes and bearskins as shelter from the in- 
 clement weather. Neely had brought with 
 him, to while away dull hours, a copy of "Gulli- 
 ver's Travels"; and in describing Neely's suc- 
 cessful hunt for buffalo one day, Boone in 
 after years amusingly deposed: "In the year 
 1770 I encamped on Red River with five other 
 men, and we had with us for our amusement 
 the History of Samuel Gulliver's Travels, 
 wherein he gave an account of his young mas- 
 ter, Glumdelick, careing him on market day 
 for a show to a town called Lulbegrud. A 
 young man of our company called Alexander 
 Neely came to camp and told us he had been 
 that day to Lulbegrud, and had killed two 
 Brobdignags in their capital." 102 Far from 
 unlettered were pioneers who indulged together 
 in such literary chat and gave to the near-by 
 creek the name (after Dean Swift's Lorbrul- 
 grud) of Lulbegrud which name, first seen 
 
 154 
 
DANIEL BOONE IN KENTUCKY 
 
 on Filson's map of Kentucky (1784), it bears 
 to this day. From one of his long, solitary 
 hunts Stewart never returned; and it was not 
 until five years later, while cutting out the 
 Transylvania Trail, that Boone and his com- 
 panions discovered, near the old crossing at 
 Rockcastle, Stewart's remains in a standing 
 hollow sycamore. The wilderness never gave 
 up its tragic secret. 
 
 The close of the winter and most of the 
 spring were passed by the Boones, after 
 Neely's return to the settlements, in explora- 
 tion, hunting, and trapping beaver and otter, 
 in which sport Daniel particularly excelled. 
 Owing to the drain upon their ammunition, 
 Squire was at length compelled to return to the 
 settlements for supplies; and Daniel, who re- 
 mained alone in the wilderness to complete his 
 explorations for the land company, must often 
 have shared the feelings of Balboa as, from 
 lofty knob or towering ridge, he gazed over the 
 waste of forest which spread from the dim out- 
 lines of the Alleghanies to the distant waters 
 of the Mississippi. He now proceeded to 
 
 155 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 make those remarkable solitary explorations of 
 Kentucky which have given him immortality 
 — through the valley of the Kentucky and the 
 Licking, and along the "Belle Riviere" (Ohio) 
 as low as the falls. He visited the Big Bone 
 Lick and examined the wonderful fossil re- 
 mains of the mammoth found there. Along 
 the great buffalo roads, worn several feet be- 
 low the surface of the ground, which led to the 
 Blue Licks, he saw with amazement and de- 
 light thousands of huge shaggy buffalo gam- 
 boling, bellowing, and making the earth rum- 
 ble beneath the trampling of their hooves. 
 One day, while upon a cliff near the junction 
 of the Kentucky and Dick's Rivers, he sud- 
 denly found himself hemmed in by a party of 
 Indians. Seizing his only chance of escape, 
 he leaped into the top of a maple tree growing 1 
 beneath the cliffs and, sliding to safety full 
 sixty feet below, made his escape, pursued by 
 the sound of a chorus of guttural "Ughs" from 
 the dumbfounded savages. 
 
 Finally making his way back to the old 
 camp, Daniel was rejoined there by Squire 
 
 156 
 
DANIEL BOONE IN KENTUCKY 
 
 on July 27, 1770. During the succeeding 
 months, much of their time was spent in hunt- 
 ing and prospecting in Jessamine County, 
 where two caves are still known as Boone's 
 caves. Eventually, when ammunition and 
 supplies had once more run low, Squire was 
 compelled a second time to return to the settle- 
 ments. Perturbed after a time by Squire's 
 failure to rejoin him at the appointed time, 
 Daniel started toward the settlements, in search 
 of him; and by a stroke of good fortune en- 
 countered him along the trail. Overjoyed at 
 this meeting (December, 1770) the indomita- 
 ble Boones once more plunged into the wil- 
 derness, determined to conclude their explora- 
 tions by examining the regions watered by the 
 Green and Cumberland rivers and their tribu- 
 taries. In after years, Gasper Mansker, the 
 old German scout, was accustomed to describe 
 with comic effect the consternation created 
 among the Long Hunters, while hunting one 
 day on Green River, by a singular noise which 
 they could not explain. Steathily slipping 
 from tree to tree, Mansker finally beheld with 
 
 157 
 
 \ 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 mingled surprise and amusement a hunter, 
 bare-headed, stretched flat upon his back on 
 a deerskin spread on the ground, singing mer- 
 rily at the top of his voice! It was Daniel 
 Boone, joyously whiling away the solitary 
 hours in singing one of his favorite songs of 
 the border. In March, 1771, after spending 
 some time in company with the Long Hunters, 
 the Boones, their horses laden with furs, set 
 their faces homeward. On their return jour- 
 ney, near Cumberland Gap, they had the 
 misfortune to be surrounded by a party of 
 Indians who robbed them of their guns and all 
 their peltries. With this humiliating conclu- 
 sion to his memorable tour of exploration, 
 Daniel Boone, as he himself says, "once more 
 reached home after experiencing hardships 
 which would defy credulity in the recital." 103 
 
 Despite the hardships and the losses, Boone 
 had achieved the ambition of years : he had seen 
 Kentucky, which he "esteemed a second para- 
 dise." The reports of his extended explora- 
 tions, which he made to Judge Henderson, 
 were soon communicated to the other partners 
 
 158 
 
DANIEL UOONE IN KENTUCKY 
 
 of the land company; and their letters of this 
 period, to one another, bristle with glowing and 
 minute descriptions of the country, as detailed 
 by their agent. Boone was immediately en- 
 gaged to act in the company's behalf to sound 
 the Cherokees confidentially with respect to 
 their willingness to lease or sell the beautiful 
 hunting-grounds of the trans-Alleghany. 104 
 The high hopes of Henderson and his asso- 
 ciates at last gave promise of brilliant real- 
 ization. Daniel Boone's glowing descriptions 
 of Kentucky excited in their minds, says a 
 gifted early chronicler, the "spirit of an enter- 
 prise which in point of magnitude and peril, 
 as well as constancy and heroism displayed in 
 its execution, has never been paralleled in the 
 history of America." 
 
 159 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE REGULATORS 
 
 It is not a persons labour, nor yet his effects that will do, 
 but if he has but one horse to plow with, one bed to lie on, 
 or one cow to give a little milk for his children, they must all 
 go to raise money which is not to be had. And lastly if his 
 personal estate (sold at one tenth of its value) will not do, 
 then his lands (which perhaps has cost him many years of 
 toil and labour) must go the same way to satisfy these cursed 
 hungry caterpillars, that are eating and will eat out the 
 bowels of our Commonwealth, if they be not pulled down 
 from their nests in a very short time. 
 
 — George Sims: A Serious Address to the In- 
 habitants of Granville County, containing an 
 Account of our deplorable Situation we suffer 
 . . . and some necessary Hints with Respect 
 to a Reformation. June 6, 1765. 
 
 IT is highly probable that even at the time 
 of his earlier explorations in behalf of 
 Richard Henderson and Company, Daniel 
 Boone anticipated speedy removal to the West. 
 Indeed, in the very year of his first tour in 
 their interest, Daniel and his wife Rebeckah 
 sold all their property in North Carolina, con- 
 sisting of their home and six hundred and forty 
 
 160 
 
THE REGULATORS 
 
 acres of land, and after several removals estab- 
 lished themselves upon the upper Yadkin. 
 This removal and the later western explora- 
 tions just outlined were due not merely to the 
 spirit of adventure and discovery. Three 
 other causes also were at work. In the first 
 place there was the scarcity of game. For 
 fifteen years the shipments of deerskins from 
 Bethabara to Charleston steadily increased; 
 and the number of skins bought by Gammern, 
 the Moravian storekeeper, ran so high that in 
 spite of the large purchases made at the store 
 by the hunters he would sometimes run entirely 
 out of money. Tireless in the chase, the far- 
 roaming Boone was among "the hunters, who 
 brought in their skins from as far away as the 
 Indian lands"; and the beautiful upland pas- 
 tures and mountain forests, still teeming with 
 deer and bear, doubtless lured him to the upper 
 Yadkin, where for a time in the immediate 
 neighborhood of his home abundance of game 
 fell before his unerring rifle. Certainly the 
 deer and other game, which were being killed 
 in enormous numbers to satisfy the insatiable 
 
 161 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 demand of the traders at Salisbury, the Forks, 
 and Bethabara, became scarcer and scarcer; 
 and the wild game that was left gradually fled 
 to the westward. Terrible indeed was the 
 havoc wrought among the elk; and it was re- 
 ported that the last elk was killed in western 
 North Carolina as early as 1781. 
 
 Another grave evil of the time with which 
 Boone had to cope in the back country of 
 North Carolina was the growth of undisguised 
 outlawry, similar to that found on the western 
 plains of a later era. This ruthless brigand- 
 age arose as the result of the unsettled state 
 of the country and the exposed condition of 
 the settlements due to the Indian alarms. 
 When rude borderers, demoralized by the en- 
 forced idleness attendant upon fort life during 
 the dark days of Indian invasion, sallied forth 
 upon forays against the Indians, they found 
 much valuable property — horses, cattle, and 
 stock — left by their owners when hurriedly 
 fleeing to the protection of the frontier stock- 
 ades. The temptations thus afforded were too 
 great to resist; and the wilder spirits of the 
 
 162 
 
THE REGULATORS 
 
 backwoods, with hazy notions of private rights, 
 seized the property which they found, slaugh- 
 tered the cattle, sold the horses, and appro- 
 priated to their own use the temporarily aban- 
 doned household goods and plantation tools. 
 The stealing of horses, which were needed for 
 the cultivation of the soil and useful for quickly 
 carrying unknown thieves beyond the reach of 
 the owner and the law, became a common prac- 
 tice; and was carried on by bands of outlaws 
 living remote from one another and acting in 
 collusive concert. 
 
 Toward the end of July, 1755, when the 
 Indian outrages upon the New River settle- 
 ments in Virginia had frightened away all the 
 families at the Town Fork in the Yadkin coun- 
 try, William Owen, a man of Welsh stock, who 
 had settled in the spring of 1752 in the upper 
 Yadkin near the Mulberry Fields, was sus- 
 pected of having robbed the storekeeper on the 
 Meho. Not long afterward a band of outlaws 
 who plundered the exposed cabins in their 
 owners' absence, erected a rude fort in the 
 mountain region in the rear of the Yadkin 
 
 163 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 settlements, where they stored their ill-gotten 
 plunder and made themselves secure from at- 
 tack. Other members of the band dwelt in 
 the settlements, where they concealed their 
 robber friends by day and aided them by night 
 in their nefarious projects of theft and rapine. 
 The entire community was finally aroused 
 by the bold depredations of the outlaws; and 
 the most worthy settlers of the Yadkin coun- 
 try organized under the name of Regulators 
 to break up the outlaw band. When it was 
 discovered that Owen, who was well known 
 at Bethabara, had allied himself with the high- 
 waymen, one of the justices summoned one 
 hundred men; and seventy, who answered the 
 call, set forth on December 26, 1755, to seek 
 out the outlaws and to destroy their fortress. 
 Emboldened by their success, the latter upon 
 one occasion had carried off a young girl of the 
 settlements. Daniel Boone placed himself at 
 the head of one of the parties, which included 
 the young girl's father, to go to her rescue; 
 and they fortunately succeeded in effecting 
 the release of the frightened maiden. One of 
 
 164 
 
THE REGULATORS 
 
 the robbers was apprehended and brought to 
 Salisbury, where he was thrown into prison for 
 his crimes. Meanwhile a large amount of 
 plunder had been discovered at the house of 
 one Cornelius Howard; and the evidences of 
 his guilt so multiplied against him that he fi- 
 nally confessed his connection with the outlaw 
 band and agreed to point out their fort in the 
 mountains 
 
 Daniel Boone and George Boone joined the 
 party of seventy men, sent out by the colonial 
 authorities, under the guidance of Howard, to 
 attack the stronghold of the bandits. Boone 
 afterward related that the robbers' fort was 
 situated in the most fitly chosen place for such 
 a purpose that he could imagine — beneath an 
 overhanging cliff of rock, with a large natural 
 chimney, and a considerable area in front well 
 stockaded. The frontiersmen surrounded the 
 fort, captured five women and eleven children, 
 and then burned the fort to the ground. Owen 
 and his wife, Cumberland, and several others 
 were ultimately made prisoners; but Harman 
 and the remainder of the band escaped by 
 
 165 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 flight. Owen and his fellow captives were 
 then borne to Salisbury, incarcerated in the 
 prison there, and finally (May, 1756) con- 
 demned to the gallows. Owen sent word to 
 the Moravians, petitioning them to adopt his 
 two boys and to apprentice one to a tailor, the 
 other to a carpenter. But so infuriated was 
 Owen's wife by Howard's treachery that she 
 branded him as a second Judas; and this at 
 once fixed upon him the sobriquet "Judas" 
 Howard — a sobriquet he did not live long to 
 bear, for about a year later he was ambushed 
 and shot from his horse at the crossing of a 
 stream. He thus paid the penalty of his be- 
 trayal of the outlaw band. For a number of 
 years, the Regulators continued to wage war 
 against the remaining outlaws, who from time 
 to time committed murders as well as thefts. 
 As late as January, 1768, the Regulators 
 caught a horse thief in the Hollows of Surry 
 County and brought him to Bethabara, whence 
 Richter and Spach took him to the jail at 
 Salisbury. After this year, the outlaws were 
 
 166 
 
THE REGULATORS 
 
 heard of no more; and peace reigned in the 
 settlements. 
 
 Colonel Edmund Fanning — of whom more 
 anon — declared that the Regulation began in 
 Anson County which bordered upon South 
 Carolina. 105 Certain it is that the upper coun- 
 try of that province was kept in an uproar 
 by civil disturbances during this early period. 
 Owing to the absence of courts in this section, 
 so remote from Charleston, the inhabitants 
 found it necessary, for the protection of prop- 
 erty and the punishment of outlaws, to form 
 an association called, like the North Carolina 
 society, the Regulation. Against this associa- 
 tion the horse thieves and other criminals made 
 common cause, and received tacit support from 
 certain more reputable persons who condemned 
 "the irregularity of the Regulators." The 
 Regulation which had been thus organized in 
 upper South Carolina as early as 1764 led to 
 tumultuous risings of the settlers; and finally 
 in the effort to suppress these disorders, the 
 governor, Lord Charles Montagu, appointed 
 
 167 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 one Scovil, an utterly unworthy representa- 
 tive, to carry out his commands. After vari- 
 ous disorders, which became ever more unen- 
 durable to the law-abiding, matters came to a 
 crisis (1769) as the result of the high-handed 
 proceedings of Scovil, who promiscuously 
 seized and flung into prison all the Regulators 
 he could lay hands on. In the month of 
 March the back country rose in revolt against 
 Scovil and a strong body of the settlers was on 
 the point of attacking the force under his com- 
 mand when an eleventh-hour letter arrived 
 from Montagu, dismissing Scovil from office. 
 Thus was happily averted, by the narrowest 
 of margins, a threatened precursor of the fight 
 at Alamance in 1771 (see Chapter XII). 
 As the result of the petition of the Calhouns 
 and others, courts were established in 1760, 
 though not opened until four years later. 
 Many horse thieves were apprehended, tried, 
 and punished. Justice once more held full 
 sway. 
 
 Another important cause for Boone's re- 
 moval from the neighborhood of Salisbury into 
 
 168 
 
THE REGULATORS 
 
 the mountain fastnesses was the oppressive ad- 
 ministration of the law by corrupt sheriffs, 
 clerks, and tax-gatherers, and the dissatisfac- 
 tion of the frontier squatters with the owners 
 of the soil. At the close of the year 1764 
 reports reached the town of Wilmington, after 
 the adjournment of the assembly in Novem- 
 ber, of serious disturbances in Orange County, 
 due, it was alleged, to the exorbitant exactions 
 of the clerks, registers, and some of the attor- 
 neys. 106 As a result of this disturbing news, 
 Governor Dobbs issued a proclamation for- 
 bidding any officer to take illegal fees. Trou- 
 bles had been brewing in the adjacent county 
 of Granville ever since the outbreak of the 
 citizens against Francis Corbin, Lord Gran- 
 ville's agent (January 24, 1759), and the is- 
 suance of the petition of Reuben Searcy and 
 others (March 23d) protesting against the 
 alleged excessive fees taken and injustices prac- 
 tised by Robert (Robin) Jones, the famous 
 lawyer. These disturbances were cumulative 
 in their effect; and the people at last (1765) 
 found in George Sims, of Granville, a fit 
 
 169 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 spokesman of their cause and a doughty cham- 
 pion of popular rights. In his "Serious Ad- 
 dress to the Inhabitants of Granville County, 
 containing an Account of our deplorable Sit- 
 uation we suffer . . . and some necessary 
 Hints with Respect to a Reformation," re- 
 cently brought to light, he presents a crushing 
 indictment of the clerk of the county court, 
 Samuel Benton, the grandfather of Thomas 
 Hart Benton. After describing in detail the 
 system of semi-peonage created by the merci- 
 less exactions of lawyers and petty court offi- 
 cials, and the insatiable greed of "these cursed 
 hungry caterpillars," Sims with rude eloquence 
 calls upon the people to pull them down from 
 their nests for the salvation of the Common- 
 wealth. 107 
 
 Other abuses were also recorded. So ex- 
 orbitant was the charge for a marriage-license, 
 for instance, that an early chronicler records: 
 "The consequence was that some of the inhabi- 
 tants on the head-waters of the Yadkin took 
 a short cut. They took each other for better 
 or for worse; and considered themselves as 
 
 170 
 
THE REGULATORS 
 
 married without further ceremony." The ex- 
 traordinary scarcity of currency throughout 
 the colony, especially in the back country, was 
 another great hardship and a perpetual source 
 of vexation. All these conditions gradually 
 became intolerable to the uncultured but free- 
 spirited men of the back country. Events 
 were slowly converging toward a crisis in gov- 
 ernment and society. Independent in spirit, 
 turbulent in action, the backwoodsmen revolted 
 not only against excessive taxes, dishonest 
 sheriffs, and extortionate fees, but also against 
 the rapacious practices of the agents of Lord 
 Granville. These agents industriously picked 
 flaws in the titles to the lands in Granville's 
 proprietary upon which the poorer settlers were 
 seated ; and compelled them to pay for the land 
 if they had not already done so, or else to pay 
 the fees twice over and take out a new patent 
 as the only remedy of the alleged defect in 
 their titles. In Mecklenburg Comity the 
 spirit of backwoods revolt flamed out in pro- 
 test against the proprietary agents. Acting 
 under instructions to survey and close bargains 
 
 171 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 for the lands or else to eject those who held 
 them, Henry Eustace McCulloh, in February, 
 1765, went into the county to call a reckoning. 
 The settlers, many of whom had located with- 
 out deeds, indignantly retorted by offering to 
 buy only at their own prices, and forbade the 
 surveyors to lay out the holdings when this 
 smaller price was declined. They not only 
 terrorized into acquiescence those among them 
 who were willing to pay the amount charged 
 for the lands, but also openly declared that 
 they would resist by force any sheriff in eject- 
 ment proceedings. On May 7th an outbreak 
 occurred ; and a mob, led by Thomas Polk, set 
 upon John Frohock, Abraham Alexander, and 
 others, as they were about to survey a parcel 
 of land, and gave them a severe thrashing, even 
 threatening the young McCulloh with death. 108 
 The choleric backwoodsmen, instinctively in 
 agreement with Francis Bacon, considered re- 
 venge as a sort of wild justice. Especial ob- 
 jects of their animosity were the brothers Fro- 
 hock, John and Thomas, the latter clerk of 
 the court at Salisbury, and Edmund Fanning, 
 
 172 
 
THE REGULATORS 
 
 a cultured gentleman-adventurer, associate 
 justice of the superior court. So rapacious 
 and extortionate were these vultures of the 
 courts who preyed upon the vitals of the 
 common people, that they were savagely lam- 
 pooned by Rednap Howell, the backwoods 
 poet-laureate of the Regulation. The temper 
 of the back country is well caught in Howell's 
 lines anent this early American "grafter," the 
 favorite of the royal governor : 
 
 When Fanning first to Orange came, 
 
 He looked both pale and wan ; 
 An old patched coat was on his back, 
 
 An old mare he rode on. 
 
 Both man and mare wan't worth five pounds, 
 
 As I 've been often told ; 
 But by his civil robberies, 
 
 He 's laced his coat with gold. 109 
 
 The germs of the great westward migration 
 in the coming decade were thus working among 
 the people of the back country. If the tense 
 nervous energy of the American people is the 
 transmitted characteristic of the border set- 
 tlers, who often slept with loaded rifle in hand 
 
 173 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 in grim expectation of being awakened by the 
 hideous yells, the deadly tomahawk, and the 
 lurid firebrand of the savage, the very buoy- 
 ancy of the national character is in equal meas- 
 ure "traceable to the free democracy founded 
 on a freehold inheritance of land." The de- 
 sire for free land was the fundamental factor 
 in the development of the American democ- 
 racy. No colony exhibited this tendency more 
 signally than did North Carolina in the turbu- 
 lent days of the Regulation. The North 
 Carolina frontiersmen resented the obligation 
 to pay quit-rents and firmly believed that the 
 first occupant of the soil had an indefeasible 
 right to the land which he had won with his 
 rifle and rendered productive by the imple- 
 ments of toil. Preferring the dangers of the 
 free wilderness to the paying of tribute to ab- 
 sentee landlords and officials of an intolerant 
 colonial government, the frontiersman found 
 title in his trusty rifle rather than in a piece of 
 parchment, and was prone to pay his obliga- 
 tions to the owner of the soil in lead rather 
 than in gold. 
 
 174 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 WATAUGA — HAVEN OF LIBERTY 
 
 The Regulators despaired of seeing better times and there- 
 fore quitted the Province. It is said 1,500 departed since 
 the Battle of Alamance and to my knowledge a great many 
 more are only waiting to dispose of their plantations in order 
 to follow them. 
 
 — Reverend Morgan Edwards, 1772. 
 
 THE five years (1766-1771) which saw the 
 rise, development, and ultimate defeat of 
 the popular movement known as the Regula- 
 tion, constitute a period not only of extraordi- 
 nary significance in North Carolina but also 
 of fruitful consequences in the larger move- 
 ments of westward expansion. With the reso- 
 lute intention of having their rulers "give ac- 
 count of their stewardship," to employ their 
 own words, the Sandy Creek Association of 
 Baptists (organized in 1758), in a series of 
 papers known as Regulators' Advertisements 
 (1766-8) proceeded to mature, through popu- 
 
 175 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 lar gatherings, a rough form of initiative and 
 referendum. At length, discouraged in its ef- 
 forts, and particularly in the attempt to bring 
 county officials to book for charging illegal 
 fees, this association ceased actively to func- 
 tion. It was the precursor of a movement 
 of much more drastic character and formidable 
 proportions, chiefly directed against Colonel 
 Edmund Fanning and his associates. This 
 movement doubtless took its name, "the Regu- 
 lation," from the bands of men already de- 
 scribed who were organized first in North 
 Carolina and later in South Carolina, to put 
 down highwaymen and to correct many abuses 
 in the back country, such as the tyrannies of 
 Scovil and his henchmen. Failing to secure 
 redress of their grievances through legal chan- 
 nels, the Regulators finally made such a pow- 
 erful demonstration in support of their refusal 
 to pay taxes that Governor William Tryon 
 of North Carolina, in 1768, called out the pro- 
 vincial militia, and by marching with great 
 show of force through the disaffected regions, 
 succeeded temporarily in overawing the people 
 
 176 
 
WATAUGA— HAVEN OF LIBERTY 
 
 and thus inducing them to pay their assess- 
 ments. 11 " 
 
 The suits which had been brought by the 
 Regulators against Edmund Fanning, regis- 
 ter, and Francis Nash, clerk, of Orange 
 County, resulted in both being "found guilty 
 of taking too high fees." ni Fanning imme- 
 diately resigned his commission as register; 
 while Nash, who in conjunction with Fanning 
 had fairly offered in 1766 to refund to any 
 one aggrieved any fee charged by him which 
 the Superior Court might hold excessive, gave 
 bond for his appearance at the next court. 
 Similar suits for extortion against the three 
 Frohocks in Rowan County in 1769 met with 
 failure, however ; and this outcome aroused the 
 bitter resentment of the Regulators, as re- 
 corded by Herman Husband in his "Impartial 
 Relation." During this whole period the in- 
 surrectionary spirit of the people, who felt 
 themselves deeply aggrieved but recognized 
 their inability to secure redress, took the form 
 of driving local justices from the bench and 
 threatening court officials with violence. 
 
 177 
 
An Impaitial 
 
 RELATION 
 
 O F T H E 
 
 Firft Rife and Caufe 
 
 O F T H E 
 
 Recent DIFFERENCES, 
 
 1 N 
 
 PUBLICK AFFAIRS, 
 
 In the Province of North-Ca- 
 rolina ; and of the paft Tu~ 
 muhs and Riots that lately 
 happened in that- Province. 
 
 Containing moft of the true and genuine 
 
 Copies of Letters, Meffages and Rfimonftrances, 
 between the Parties contending r— — By which? 
 any impartial Man may eafily gatherand fee the 
 true Ground and Reaibns of the <t&aeWfac"tioit 
 that univcrfally reigns all over {aid Province ia 
 a wore or lefs Degree. 
 
 Printed for the Cpmpiler. 1770, 
 178 
 
WATAUGA— HAVEN OF LIBERTY 
 
 At the session of the Superior Court at 
 Hillsborough, September 22, 1770, an elabo- 
 rate petition prepared by the Regulators, de- 
 manding unprejudiced juries and the public 
 accounting for taxes by the sheriffs, was 
 handed to the presiding justice by James 
 Hunter, a leading Regulator. This justice 
 was our acquaintance, Judge Richard Hender- 
 son, of Granville County, the sole high officer 
 in the provincial government from the entire 
 western section of the colony. In this petition 
 occur these trenchant words: "As we are 
 serious and in good earnest and the cause re- 
 spects the whole body of the people it would 
 be loss of time to enter into arguments on par- 
 ticular points for though there are a few men 
 who have the gift and art of reasoning, yet 
 every man has a feeling and knows when he 
 has justice done him as well as the most 
 learned." 112 On the following Monday (Sep- 
 tember 24th), upon convening of court, some 
 one hundred and fifty Regulators, led by 
 James Hunter, Herman Husband, Rednap 
 Howell, and others, armed with clubs, whips, 
 
 179 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 and cudgels, surged into the court-room and 
 through their spokesman, Jeremiah Fields, 
 presented a statement of their grievances. "I 
 found myself," says Judge Henderson, "under 
 a necessity of attempting to soften and turn 
 away the fury of these mad people, in the best 
 manner in my power, and as such could well 
 be, pacify their rage and at the same time pre- 
 serve the little remaining dignity of the 
 court." 113 
 
 During an interim, in which the Regulators 
 retired for consultation, they fell without warn- 
 ing upon Fanning and gave him such rough 
 treatment that he narrowly escaped with his 
 life. The mob, now past control, horsewhipped 
 a number of leading lawyers and citizens 
 gathered there at court, and treated others, 
 notably the courtly Mr. Hooper of Boston, 
 "with every mark of contempt and insult." 
 Judge Henderson was assured by Fields that 
 no harm should come to him provided he would 
 conduct the court in accordance with the behest 
 of the Regulators: namely, that no lawyer, 
 save the King's Attorney, should be admitted 
 
 180 
 
WATAUGA— HAVEN OF LIBERTY 
 
 to the court, and that the Regulators' cases 
 should be tried with new jurors chosen by the 
 Regulators. With the entire little village ter- 
 rorized by this campaign of "frightfulness," 
 and the court wholly unprotected, Judge Hen- 
 derson reluctantly acknowledged to himself 
 that "the power of the judiciary was ex- 
 hausted." Nevertheless, he says, "I made 
 eveiy effort in my power consistent with my 
 office and the duty the public is entitled to claim 
 to preserve peace and good order." 114 Agree- 
 ing under duress to resume the session the fol- 
 lowing day, the judge ordered an adjourn- 
 ment. But being unwilling, on mature reflec- 
 tion, to permit a mockery of the court and a 
 travesty of justice to be staged under threat 
 and intimidation, he returned that night to his 
 home in Granville and left the court adjourned 
 in course. Enraged by the judge's escape, 
 the Regulators took possession of the court- 
 room the following morning, called over the 
 cases, and in futile protest against the condi- 
 tions they were powerless to remedy, made 
 profane entries which may still be seen on the 
 
 181 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 record: "Damned rogues," "Fanning pays 
 cost but loses nothing," "Negroes not worth a 
 damn, Cost exceeds the whole," "Hogan pays 
 and be damned," and, in a case of slander, 
 "Nonsense, let them argue for Ferrell has gone 
 hellward." 115 
 
 The uprising of these bold and resolute, sim- 
 ple and imperfectly educated people, which 
 had begun as a constitutional struggle to se- 
 cure justice and to prevent their own exploita- 
 tion by dishonest lawyers of the county courts, 
 now gave place to open anarchy and secret 
 incendiarism. 116 In the dead of night, Novem- 
 ber 12th and 14th, Judge Henderson's barn, 
 stables, and dwelling house were fired by the 
 Regulators and went up in flames. Glowing 
 with a sense of wrong, these misguided people, 
 led on by fanatical agitators, thus vented their 
 indiscriminate rage, not only upon their op- 
 pressors, but also upon men wholly innocent 
 of injuring them — men of the stamp of Wil- 
 liam Hooper, afterward signer of the Declara- 
 tion of Independence, Alexander Martin, 
 afterward governor and United States Sena- 
 
 182 
 
It 
 
 f H 
 
 - s 
 
 ii 
 
WATAUGA— HAVEN OF LIBERTY 
 
 tor, and Richard Henderson, popular repre- 
 sentative of the back country and a firm cham- 
 pion of due process of law. It is perhaps not 
 surprising in view of these events that Gov- 
 ernor Tryon and the ruling class, lacking a 
 sympathy broad enough to ensure justice to 
 the oppressed people, seemed to be chiefly im- 
 pressed with the fact that a widespread in- 
 surrection was in progress, threatening not 
 only life and property, but also civil govern- 
 ment itself. The governor called out the mili- 
 tia of the province and led an army of well- 
 nigh one thousand men and officers against 
 the Regulators, who had assembled at Ala- 
 mance to the number of two thousand. Tryon 
 stood firm upon the demands that the people 
 should submit to government and disperse at 
 a designated hour. The Regulators, on their 
 side, hoped to secure the reforms they desired 
 by intimidating the governor with a great dis- 
 play of force. The battle was a tragic fiasco 
 for the Regulators, who fought bravely, but 
 without adequate arms or real leadership. 
 With the conclusion of this desultory action, a 
 
 183 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 fight lasting about two hours (May 16, 1771) , 
 the power of the Regulators was completely 
 broken. 117 
 
 Among these insurgents there was a remark- 
 able element — an element whose influence 
 upon the course of American history has been 
 but imperfectly understood — which now looms 
 into prominence as the vanguard of the army 
 of westward expansion. There were some of 
 the Regulators who, though law-abiding and 
 conservative, were deeply imbued with ideas 
 of liberty, personal independence, and the 
 freedom of the soil. Through the influence of 
 Benjamin Franklin, with whom one of the 
 leaders of the group, Herman Husband, was 
 in constant correspondence, the patriotic ideas 
 then rapidly maturing into revolutionary sen- 
 timents furnished the inspiration to action. 
 As early as 1766, the Sandy Creek leaders, re- 
 ferred to earlier in this chapter, issued a call 
 to each neighborhood to send delegates to a 
 gathering for the purpose of investigating the 
 question "whether the free men of this country 
 labor under any abuses of power or not." The 
 
 184 
 
WATAUGA— HAVEN OF LIBERTY 
 
 close connection between the Sandy Creek men 
 and the Sons of Liberty is amply demonstrated 
 in this paper wherein the Sons of Liberty in 
 connection with the "stamp law" are praised 
 for "redeeming us from Tyranny" and for hav- 
 ing "withstood the lords in Parliament in be- 
 half of true liberty." 11S Upon the records of 
 the Dutchman's Creek Church, of "regular" 
 Baptists, at the Forks of the Yadkin, to which 
 Daniel Boone's family belonged, may be found 
 this memorable entry, recognizing the "Amer- 
 ican Cause" well-nigh a year before the declar- 
 ation of independence at Philadelphia: "At 
 the monthly meeting it was agreed upon con- 
 cerning the American Cause, if any of the 
 brethren see cause to join it they have the lib- 
 erty to do it without being called to an account 
 by the church. But whether they join or do 
 not join they should be used with brotherly 
 love." 119 
 
 The fundamental reasons underlying the 
 approaching westward hegira are found in the 
 remarkable petition of the Regulators of An- 
 son County (October 9, 1769), who request 
 
 185 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 that "Benjamin Franklin or some other known 
 patriot" be appointed agent of the province 
 in London to seek redress at the source. They 
 exposed the basic evil in the situation by point- 
 ing out that, in violation of the law restricting 
 the amount of land that might be granted to 
 each person to six hundred and forty acres, 
 much of the most fertile territory in the prov- 
 ince had been distributed in large tracts to 
 wealthy landlords. In consequence "great 
 numbers of poor people are necessitated to toil 
 in the cultivation of the bad Lands whereon 
 they hardly can subsist." 120 It was these poor 
 people, "thereby deprived of His Majesties 
 liberality and Bounty," who soon turned their 
 gaze to the westward and crossed the moun- 
 tains in search of the rich, free lands of the 
 trans-Alleghany region. 
 
 This feverish popular longing for freedom, 
 stimulated by the economic pressure of thou- 
 sands of pioneers who were annually entering 
 North Carolina, set in motion a wave of migra- 
 tion across the mountains in 1769. Long be- 
 fore Alamance, many of the true Americans, 
 
 186 
 
WATAUGA— HAVEN OF LIBERTY 
 
 distraught by apparently irremediable injus- 
 tices, plunged fearlessly into the wilderness, 
 seeking beyond the mountains a new birth of 
 liberty, lands of their own selection free of 
 cost or quit-rents, and a government of their 
 own choosing and control. 121 The glad news 
 of the rich valleys beyond the mountains early 
 lured such adventurous pioneers as Andrew 
 Greer and Julius Csesar Dugger to the Wa- 
 tauga country. The glowing stories, told by 
 Boone, and disseminated in the back country 
 by Henderson, Williams, and the Harts, 
 seemed to give promise to men of this stamp 
 that the West afforded relief from oppressions 
 suffered in North Carolina. During the 
 winter of 1768-9 there was also a great rush 
 of settlers from Virginia into the valley of the 
 Holston. A party from Augusta County, led 
 by men who had been delighted with the coun- 
 try viewed seven years before when they were 
 serving under Colonel William Byrd against 
 the Cherokees, found that this region, a wil- 
 derness on their outward passage in 1768, was 
 dotted with cabins on every spot where the 
 
 187 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 grazing was good, upon their return the fol- 
 lowing year. Writing to Hillsborough on 
 October 18, 1770, concerning the "many hun- 
 dred families" in the region from Green River 
 to the branches of the Holston, who refused 
 to comply with the royal proclamation of 
 1763, Acting- Governor Nelson of Virginia 
 reports that "very little if any Quit Rents 
 have been received for His Majesty's use from 
 that Quarter for some time past" — the people 
 claiming that "His Majesty hath been pleased 
 to withdraw his protection from them since 
 1763." 122 
 
 In the spring of 1770, with the express in- 
 tention of discovering suitable locations for 
 homes for himself and a number of others, who 
 wished to escape the accumulating evils of the 
 times, James Robertson of Orange County, 
 North Carolina, made an arduous journey to 
 the pleasing valley of the Watauga. Robert- 
 son, who was born in Brunswick County, Vir- 
 ginia, June 28, 1742, of excellent Scotch-Irish 
 ancestry, was a noteworthy figure of a certain 
 type — quiet, reflective, conservative, wise, a 
 
 188 
 
JAMES ROBERTSON 
 
 From the composite portrait by Washington B. Cooper. 
 Courtesy Tennessee Historical Society 
 
WATAUGA— HAVEN OF LIBERTY 
 
 firm believer in the basic principles of civil 
 liberty and the right of local self-government. 
 Robertson spent some time with a man named 
 Honeycut in the Watauga region, raised a 
 crop of corn, and chose for himself and his 
 friends suitable locations for settlement. Lost 
 upon his return in seeking the mountain defiles 
 traversed by him on the outward journey, Rob- 
 ertson probably escaped death from starva- 
 tion only through the chance passing of two 
 hunters who succored him and set him upon 
 the right path. On arriving in Orange he 
 found political and social conditions there 
 much worse than before, many of the colonists 
 declining to take the obligatory oath of alle- 
 giance to the British Crown after the Battle 
 of Alamance, preferring to carve out for them- 
 selves new homes along the western waters. 
 Some sixteen families of this stamp, indignant 
 at the injustices and oppressions of British 
 rule, and stirred by Robertson's description 
 of the richness and beauty of the western coun- 
 try, accompanied him to Watauga shortly 
 after the battle. 
 
 189 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 This vanguard of the army of westward ad- 
 vance, independent Americans in spirit with 
 a negligible sprinkling of Loyalists, now 
 swept in a great tide into the northeastern sec- 
 tion of Tennessee. The men of Sandy Creek, 
 actuated by independent principles but out of 
 sympathy with the anarchic side of the Regu- 
 lation, left the colony almost to a man. 
 "After the defeat of the Regulators," says the 
 historian of the Sandy Creek Association, 
 "thousands of the oppressed, seeing no hope 
 of redress for their grievances, moved into 
 and settled east Tennessee. A large pro- 
 portion of these were of the Baptist popula- 
 tion. Sandy Creek Church which some time 
 previous to 1771, numbered 606, was after- 
 ward reduced to fourteen members!" 123 This 
 movement exerted powerful influence in 
 stimulating westward expansion. Indeed, 
 it was from men of Regulating principles 
 — Boone, Robertson, and the Searcys — who 
 vehemently condemned the anarchy and 
 incendiarism of 1770, that Judge Hen- 
 derson received powerful cooperation in 
 
 190 
 
WATAUGA— HAVEN OF LIBERTY 
 
 the opening up of Kentucky and Ten- 
 nessee. 124 
 
 The several treaties concerning the western 
 boundary of white settlement, concluded in 
 close succession by North Carolina, Virginia, 
 and the Crown with the Southern and North- 
 ern Indians, had an important bearing upon 
 the settlement of Watauga. The Cherokee 
 boundary line, as fixed by Governor Tryon 
 (1767) and by John Stuart (1768), ran from 
 Reedy River to Tryon Mountain, thence 
 straight to Chiswell's Mine, and thence di- 
 rect to the mouth of the Great Kanawha 
 River. By the treaty at Fort Stanwix (No- 
 vember 5, 1768), in the negotiation of which 
 Virginia was represented by Dr. Thomas 
 Walker and Major Andrew Lewis, the Six 
 Nations sold to the Crown their shadowy 
 claim to a vast tract of western country, in- 
 cluding in particular all the land between 
 the Ohio and the Tennessee Rivers. The news 
 of the cession resulted in a strong southwest- 
 ward thrust of population, from the neighbor- 
 hood of Abingdon, in the direction of the Hol- 
 
 191 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 ston Valley. 125 Recognizing that hundreds of 
 these settlers were beyond the line negotiated 
 by Stuart, but on lands not yet surveyed, Gov- 
 ernor Botetourt instructed the Virginia com- 
 missioners to press for further negotiations, 
 through Stuart, with the Cherokees. Accord- 
 ingly, on October 18, 1770, a new treaty was 
 made at Lochaber, South Carolina, by which 
 a new line back of Virginia was established, 
 beginning at the intersection of the North 
 Carolina-Cherokee line ( a point some seventy- 
 odd miles east of Long Island), running 
 thence in a west course to a point six miles 
 east of Long Island, and thence in a direct 
 course to the confluence of the Great Kanawha 
 and Ohio Rivers. At the time of the treaty, 
 it was agreed that the Holston River, from its 
 intersection with the North Carolina- Virginia 
 line, and down the course of the same, should 
 be a temporary southern boundary of Virginia 
 until the line should be ascertained by actual 
 survey. 126 A strong influx of population into 
 the immense new triangle thus released for set- 
 
 192 
 
WATAUGA— HAVEN OF LIBERTY 
 
 tlement brought powerful pressure to bear 
 upon northern Tennessee, the point of least re- 
 sistance along the western barrier. Singularly 
 enough, this advance was not opposed by the 
 Cherokees, whose towns were strung across the 
 extreme southeast corner of Tennessee. 
 
 When Colonel John Donelson ran the line 
 in the latter part of 1771, The Little Car- 
 penter, who with other Indian chiefs accom- 
 panied the surveying party, urged that the line 
 agreed upon at Lochaber should break off at 
 the head of the Louisa River, and should run 
 thence to the mouth thereof, and thence up 
 the Ohio to the mouth of the Great Kanawha. 
 For this increase in the territory of Virginia 
 they of course expected additional payment. 
 As a representative of Virginia, Donelson 
 agreed to the proposed alteration in the bound- 
 ary line ; and accordingly promised to send the 
 Cherokees, in the following spring, a sum al- 
 leged by them to have been fixed at five hun- 
 dred pounds, in compensation for the addi- 
 tional area. This informal agreement, it is 
 
 193 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 ston River, south and east of Long Island; 
 believed, was never ratified by Virginia; nor 
 was the promised compensation ever paid the 
 Cherokees. 127 
 
 Under the belief that the land belonged to 
 Virginia, Jacob Brown with one or two fam- 
 ilies from North Carolina settled in 1771 upon 
 a tract of land on the northern bank of the 
 Nonachunheh (corruption, Nolichucky) River. 
 During the same year, an experimental line 
 run westward from Steep Rock and Beaver 
 Creek by Anthony Bledsoe showed that upon 
 the extension of the boundary line, these set- 
 tlers would fall within the bounds of North 
 Carolina. Although thus informally warned 
 of the situation, the settlers made no move to 
 vacate the lands. But in the following year, 
 after the running of Donelson's line, Alexan- 
 der Cameron, Stuart's deputy, required "all 
 persons who had made settlements beyond the 
 said line to relinquish them." Thus officially 
 warned, Brown and his companions removed to 
 Watauga. 128 Cameron's order did not apply, 
 however, to the settlement north of the Hol- 
 
 194 
 
WATAUGA— HAVEN OF LIBERTY 
 
 and the settlement in Carter's Valley, north 
 of the Holston and west of the Long Island, 
 although lying without the Virginia bound- 
 ary, strangely enough remained unmolested. 
 The order was directed at the Watauga set- 
 tlers, who were seated south of the Holston 
 River in the Watauga Valley. ( See map for 
 settlements and treaty lines.) 
 
 The plight in which the Watauga settlers 
 now found themselves was truly desperate; 
 and the way in which they surmounted this 
 apparently insuperable difficulty is one of the 
 most striking and characteristic events in the 
 pre-Revolutionary history of the Old South- 
 west. It exhibits the indomitable will and fer- 
 tile resource of the American character at the 
 margin of desperation. The momentous in- 
 fluence of the Watauga settlers, inadequately 
 reckoned hitherto by historians, was soon to 
 make itself powerfully felt in the first epochal 
 movement of westward expansion. 
 
 195 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 OPENING THE GATEWAY — DUNMORE's WAR 
 
 Virginia, we conceive, can claim this Country [Kentucky] 
 with the greatest justice and propriety, its within the Limits 
 of their Charter. They Fought and bled for it. And had 
 it not been for the memorable Battle, at the Great Kanaway 
 those vast regions had yet continued inaccessable. 
 
 — The Harrodsburg Petition. June 7-15, 1776. 
 
 IT was fortunate for the Watauga settlers 
 that the Indians and the whites were on 
 the most peaceful terms with each other at the 
 time the Watauga Valley was shown, by the 
 running of the boundary line, to lie within the 
 Indian reservation. With true American self- 
 reliance, the settlers met together for delibera- 
 tion and counsel, and deputed James Robert- 
 son and John Been, as stated by Tennessee's 
 first historian, "to treat with their landlords, 
 and agree upon articles of accomodation and 
 friendship. The attempt succeeded. For 
 though the Indians refused to give up the land 
 
 196 
 
OPENING THE GATEWAY 
 
 gratuitously, they consented, for a stipulated 
 amount of merchandise, muskets, and other 
 articles of convenience, to lease all the coun- 
 try on the waters of the Watauga." 129 In ad- 
 dition to the land thus leased for ten years, 
 several other tracts were purchased from the 
 Indians by Jacob Brown, who reoccupied his 
 former location on the Nolichucky. 
 
 In taking this daring step, the Watauga 
 settlers moved into the spotlight of national 
 history. For the inevitable consequence of 
 leasing the territory was the organization of 
 a form of government for the infant settle- 
 ment. Through his familiarity with the North 
 Carolina type of "association," in which the 
 settlers had organized for the purpose of "reg- 
 ulating" abuses, and his acquaintance with the 
 contents of the "Impartial Relation," in which 
 Husband fully expounded the principles and 
 practices of this association, Robertson was 
 peculiarly fitted for leadership in organizing 
 this new government. The convention at 
 which Articles of Association, unfortunately 
 lost, were drawn up, is noteworthy as the first 
 
 197 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 governmental assemblage of free-born Ameri- 
 can citizens ever held west of the Alleghanies. 
 The government then established was the first 
 free and independent government, democratic 
 in spirit, representative in form, ever organ- 
 ized upon the American continent. In de- 
 scribing this mimic republic, the royal Gover- 
 nor of Virginia says: "They appointed mag- 
 istrates, and framed laws for their present oc- 
 casion, and to all intents and purposes, erected 
 themselves into, though an inconsiderable, yet 
 a separate State." ls0 The most daring spirit 
 in this little state was the young John Sevier, of 
 French Huguenot family (originally spelled 
 Xavier), born in Augusta County, Virginia, 
 on September 23, 1745. It was from Millers- 
 town in Shenandoah County where he was liv- 
 ing the uneventful life of a small farmer, that 
 he emigrated (December, 1773) to the Wa- 
 tauga region. With his arrival there begins 
 one of the most fascinating and romantic ca- 
 reers recorded in the varied and stirring annals 
 of the Old Southwest. In this daring and 
 impetuous young fellow, fair-haired, blue- 
 
 198 
 
OPENING THE GATEWAY 
 
 eyed, magnetic, debonair — of powerful build, 
 splendid proportions, and athletic skill — we 
 behold the gallant exemplar of the truly heroic 
 life of the border. The story of his life, thrill- 
 ing in the extreme, is rich in all the multi- 
 colored elements which impart romance to the 
 arduous struggle of American civilization in 
 the opening years of the republic. 
 
 The creative impulses in the Watauga com- 
 monwealth are hinted at by Dunmore, who 
 observes, in the letter above quoted, that Wa- 
 tauga "sets a dangerous example to the people 
 of America, of forming governments distinct 
 from and independent of his Majesty's au- 
 thority." It is true that the experiment was 
 somewhat limited. The organization of the 
 Watauga association, which constituted a tem- 
 porary expedient to meet a crisis in the affairs 
 of a frontier community cut off by forest wil- 
 derness and mountain barriers from the reach 
 of the arm of royal or provincial government, 
 is not to be compared with the revolutionary 
 assemblage at Boonesborough, May 23, 1775, 
 or with the extraordinary demands for inde- 
 
 199 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 pendence in Mecklenburg County, North Car- 
 olina, during the same month. Nevertheless 
 the Watauga settlers defied both North Caro- 
 lina and the Crown, by adopting the laws of 
 Virginia and by ignoring Governor Josiah 
 Martin's proclamation (March 26, 1774) "re- 
 quiring the said settlers immediately to retire 
 from the Indian Territories." 131 Moreover, 
 Watauga really was the parent of a series of 
 mimic republics in the Old Southwest, grad- 
 ually tending toward higher forms of organi- 
 zation, with a larger measure of individual lib- 
 erty. Watauga, Transylvania, Cumberland, 
 Franklin represent the evolving political gen- 
 ius of a free people under the creative leader- 
 ship of three constructive minds — James Rob- 
 ertson, John Sevier, and Richard Henderson. 
 Indeed, Watauga furnished to Judge Hender- 
 son precisely the "dangerous example" of 
 which Dunmore prophetically speaks. 132 
 
 Immediately upon his return in 1771 from 
 the extended exploration of Kentucky, Daniel 
 Boone as already noted was engaged as secret 
 
 200 
 
OPENING THE GATEWAY 
 
 agent, to treat with the Cherokees for the lease 
 or purchase of the trans- Alleghany region, on 
 behalf of Judge Henderson and his associates. 
 Embroiled in the exciting issues of the Regu- 
 lation and absorbed by his confining duties as 
 colonial judge, Henderson was unable to put 
 his bold design into execution until after the 
 expiration of the court itself which ceased to 
 exist in 1773. Disregarding the royal procla- 
 mation of 1763 and Locke's Fundamental 
 Constitutions for the Carolinas, which forbade 
 private parties to purchase lands from the In- 
 dians, Judge Henderson applied to the high- 
 est judicial authorities in England to know if 
 there was any law in existence forbidding pur- 
 chase of lands from the Indian tribes. Lord 
 Mansfield gave Judge Henderson the "sanc- 
 tion of his great authority in favor of the pur- 
 chase." 133 Lord Chancellor Camden and Mr. 
 Yorke had officially advised the King in 1757, 
 in regard to the petition of the East Indian 
 Company, "that in respect to such territories 
 as have been, or shall be acquired by treaty or 
 
 201 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 grant from the Great Mogul, or any of the 
 Indian princes or governments, your Maj- 
 esty's letters patent are not necessary; the 
 property of the soil vesting in the company by 
 the Indian grant subject only to your Maj- 
 esties right of sovereignty over the settlements, 
 as English settlements, and over the inhabit- 
 ants, as English subjects, who carry with them 
 your Majesties laws wherever they form colo- 
 nies, and receive your Majesties protection by 
 virtue of your royal charters." 134 This opin- 
 ion, with virtually no change, was rendered in 
 regard to the Indian tribes of North America 
 by the same two authorities, certainly as early 
 as 1769; 135 and a true copy, made in London, 
 April 1, 1772, was transmitted to Judge Hen- 
 derson. 136 Armed with the legal opinions re- 
 ceived from England, Judge Henderson was 
 fully persuaded that there was no legal bar 
 whatsoever to his seeking to acquire by pur- 
 chase from the Cherokees the vast domain of 
 the trans-Alleghany. 137 A golden dream of 
 empire, with its promise of an independent re- 
 public in the form of a proprietary colony, 
 
 202 
 
OPENING THE GATEWAY 
 
 casts him under the spell of its alluring glam- 
 our. 
 
 In the meantime, the restless Boone, impa- 
 tient over the delay in the consummation of 
 Judge Henderson's plans, resolved to establish 
 himself in Kentucky upon his own responsi- 
 bility. Heedless of the question of title and 
 the certain hazards incident to invading the 
 territory of hostile savages, Boone designated 
 a rendezvous in Powell's Valley where he and 
 his party of five families were to be met by 
 a band under the leadership of his connections, 
 the Bryans, and another company led by Cap- 
 tain William Russell, a daring pioneer of the 
 Clinch Valley. A small detachment of 
 Boone's party was fiercely attacked by Shawa- 
 noes in Powell's Valley on October 10, 1773, 
 and almost all were killed, including sons of 
 Boone and Russell, and young John and Rich- 
 ard Mendenhall of Guilford County, North 
 Carolina. As the result of this bloody repulse, 
 Boone's attempt to settle in Kentucky at this 
 time was definitely abandoned. His failure to 
 effect a settlement in Kentucky was due to that 
 
 203 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 characteristic disregard of the territorial rights 
 of the Indians which was all too common 
 among the borderers of that period. 
 
 This failure was portentous of the com- 
 ing storm. The reign of the Long Hunters 
 was over. Dawning upon the horizon was the 
 day of stern adventurers, fixed in the desperate 
 and lawless resolve to invade the trans-Alle- 
 ghany country and to battle savagely with the 
 red man for its possession. More successful 
 than Boone was the McAfee party, five in 
 number, from Botetourt County, Virginia, 
 who between May 10th and September 1, 1773, 
 safely accomplished a journey through Ken- 
 tucky and carefully marked well-chosen sites 
 for future location. 138 An ominous incident of 
 the time was the veiled warning which Corn- 
 stalk, the great Shawanoe chieftain, gave to 
 Captain Thomas Bullitt, head of a party of 
 royal surveyors, sent out by Lord Dunmore, 
 Governor of Virginia. Cornstalk at Chilli- 
 cothe, June 7, 1773, warned Bullitt concern- 
 ing the encroachments of the whites, "designed 
 to deprive us," he said, "of the hunting of the 
 
 204 
 
OPENING THE GATEWAY 
 
 country, as usual . . . the hunting we stand in 
 need of to buy our clothing." During the 
 preceding summer, George Rogers Clark, an 
 aggressive young Virginian, with a small party, 
 had descended the Ohio as low as Fish Creek, 
 where he built a cabin; and in this region for 
 many months various parties of surveyors were 
 busily engaged in locating and surveying lands 
 covered by military grants. Most significant 
 of the ruthless determination of the pioneers 
 to occupy by force the Kentucky area was 
 the action of the large party from Monon- 
 gahela, some forty in number, led by Captain 
 James Harrod, who penetrated to the present 
 Miller County, where in June, 1774, they made 
 improvements and actually laid out a town. 
 
 A significant, secretly conducted movement, 
 of which historians have taken but little ac- 
 count, was now in progress under the manipu- 
 lation of Virginia's royal governor. As early 
 as 1770 Dr. John Connolly proposed the estab- 
 lishment of an extensive colony south of the 
 Ohio ; and the design of securing such territory 
 from the Indians found lodgment in the mind 
 
 205 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 of Lord Dunmore. But this design was for 
 the moment thwarted when on October 28, 
 1773, an order was issued from the Privy- 
 Council chamber in Whitehall granting an im- 
 mense territory, including all of the present 
 West Virginia and the land alienated to Vir- 
 ginia by Donelson's agreement with the Chero- 
 kees (1772), to a company including Thomas 
 Walpole, Samuel Wharton, Benjamin Frank- 
 lin, and others. This new colony, to be named 
 "Vandalia," seemed assured. A clash between 
 Dunmore and the royal authorities was immi- 
 nent ; for Virginia under her sea-to-sea charter 
 claimed the vast middle region of the continent, 
 extending without known limit to west and 
 northwest. Moreover, Dunmore was inter- 
 ested in great land speculations on his own ac- 
 count; and while overtly vindicating Virginia's 
 claim to the trans- Alleghany by despatching 
 parties of surveyors to the western wilder- 
 ness to locate and survey lands covered by 
 military grants, he with the collusion of cer- 
 tain members of the "Honourable Board," 
 his council, as charged by Washington, was 
 
 206 
 
OPENING THE GATEWAY 
 
 more than "lukewarm," secretly restricting 
 as rigorously as he dared the extent and 
 number of the soldiers' allotments. Accord- 
 ing to the famous Virginia Remonstrance, he 
 was in league with "men of great influence 
 in some of the neighboring states" to secure, 
 under cover of purchases from the Indians, 
 large tracts of country between the Ohio and 
 the Mississippi. 139 In shaping his plans Dun- 
 more had the shrewd legal counsel of Patrick 
 Henry, who was equally intent upon making 
 for himself a private purchase from the Chero- 
 kees. It was Henry's legal opinion that the 
 Indiana purchase from the Six Nations by the 
 Pennsylvania traders at Fort Stanwix (No- 
 vember 5, 1768) was valid; and that purchase 
 by private individuals from the Indians gave 
 full and ample title. 140 In consequence of 
 these facts, William Murray, in behalf of him- 
 self and his associates of the Illinois Land 
 Company, and on the strength of the Camden- 
 Yorke decision, purchased two large tracts, on 
 the Illinois and Ohio respectively, from the 
 Illinois Indians (July 5, 1773) ; and in order 
 
 207 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 to win the support of Dunmore, who was am- 
 bitious to make a fortune in land speculation, 
 organized a second company, the Wabash 
 (Ouabache) Land Company, with the gover- 
 nor as the chief share-holder. In response to 
 Murray's petition on behalf of the Illinois 
 Land Company, Dunmore (May, 1774) rec- 
 ommended it to Lord Dartmouth, Secretary 
 of State for the Colonies, and urged that it be 
 granted ; and in a later letter he disingenuously 
 disclaimed any personal interest in the Illinois 
 speculation. 
 
 The party of surveyors sent out under the 
 direction of Colonel William Preston, on the 
 request of Washington and other leading east- 
 ern men, in 1774 located lands covered by 
 military grants on the Ohio and in the Ken- 
 tucky area for prominent Virginians, includ- 
 ing Washington, Patrick Henry, William 
 Byrd, William Preston, Arthur Campbell, 
 William Fleming, and Andrew Lewis, among 
 others, and also a large tract for Dr. Con- 
 nolly. Certain of these grants fell within 
 the Vandalia area; and in his reply (Sep- 
 
 208 
 
OPENING THE GATEWAY 
 
 tember 10, 1774) to Dunmore's letter, Lord 
 Dartmouth sternly censured Dunmore for 
 allowing these grants, and accused the white 
 settlers of having brought on, by such un- 
 warrantable aggressions, the war then rag- 
 ing with the Indians. This charge lay at the 
 door of Dunmore himself; and there is strong 
 evidence that Dunmore personally fomented 
 the war, ostensibly in support of Virginia's 
 charter rights, but actually in order to further 
 his own speculative designs. 141 Dunmore's 
 agent, Dr. Connolly, heading a party posing 
 as Virginia militia, fired without provocation 
 upon a delegation of Shawanoe chiefs assem- 
 bled at Fort Pitt (January, 1774). Taking 
 advantage of the alarming situation created 
 by the conflict of the claims of Virginia and 
 Pennsylvania, Connolly, inspired by Dunmore 
 without doubt, then issued an incendiary circu- 
 lar (April 21, 1774), declaring a state of war 
 to exist. Just two weeks before the Battle 
 of the Great Kanawha, Patrick Henry cate- 
 gorically stated, in conversation with Thomas 
 Wharton: 
 
 209 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 that he was at Williamsburg with Ld. D. when 
 Dr. Conolly first came there, that Conolly is 
 a chatty, sensible man, and informed Ld. Dun- 
 more of the extreme richness of the lands which 
 lay on both sides of the Ohio; that the prohi- 
 bitory orders which had been sent him relative 
 to the land on the hither side (or Vandalia) 
 had caused him to turn his thoughts to the 
 opposite shore, and that as his Lordship was 
 determined to settle his family in America he 
 was really pursueing this war, in order to ob- 
 tain by purchase or treaty from the natives a 
 tract of territory on that side ; he then told me 
 that he was convinced from every authority 
 that the law knew, that a purchase from the 
 natives was as full and ample a title as could 
 be obtained, that they had Lord Camden and 
 Mr. York's opinion on that head, which opin- 
 ion with some others that Ld. Dunmore had 
 consulted, and with the knowledge Conolly had 
 given him of the quality of the country and 
 his determined resolution to settle his family 
 on this continent, were the real motives or 
 springs of the present expedition. 142 
 
 At this very time, Patrick Henry, in conjunc- 
 tion with William Byrd 3d and others, was 
 negotiating for a private purchase of lands 
 from the Cherokees ; and when Wharton, after 
 
 210 
 
LORD DUNMORE 
 
 From the portrait copied by W. L. Sheppard from an original in 
 England, in the Virginia State Library 
 
OPENING THE GATEWAY 
 
 answering Henry's inquiry as to where he 
 might buy Indian goods , remarked : "It's 
 not possible you mean to enter the Indian trade 
 at this period," Henry laughingly replied: 
 "The wish-world is my hobby horse." "From 
 whence I conclude," adds Wharton, "he has 
 some prospect of making a purchase of the 
 natives, but where I know not." 
 
 The war, thus promulgated, we believe, at 
 Dunmore's secret instigation and heralded by 
 a series of ghastly atrocities, came on apace. 
 After the inhuman murder of the family of Lo- 
 gan, the Indian chieftain, by one Greathouse 
 and his drunken companions (April 30th), 
 Logan, who contrary to romantic views was a 
 black-hearted and vengeful savage, harried the 
 Tennessee and Virginia borders, burning and 
 slaughtering. Unable to arouse the Chero- 
 kees, owing to the opposition of Atta-kulla- 
 kulla, Logan as late as July 21st said in a letter 
 to the whites: "The Indians are not angry, 
 only myself," and not until then did Dunmore 
 begin to give full execution to his warlike 
 plans. The best woodsmen of the border, 
 
 211 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 Daniel Boone and the German scout Michael 
 Stoner, having been despatched on July 27th 
 by Colonel William Preston to warn the sur- 
 veyors of the trans-Alleghany, made a remark- 
 able journey on foot of eight hundred miles 
 in sixty-one days. Harrod's company at 
 Harrodsburg, a company of surveyors at Fon- 
 tainebleau, Floyd's party on the Kentucky, 
 and the surveyors at Mann's Lick, thus 
 warned, hurried in to the settlements and were 
 saved. Meanwhile, Dunmore, in command of 
 the Virginia forces, invaded territory guaran- 
 teed to the Indians by the royal proclamation of 
 1763 and recently (1774) added to the prov- 
 ince of Quebec, a fact of which he was .not 
 aware, conducted a vigorous campaign, and 
 fortified Camp Charlotte, near Old Chillicothe. 
 Andrew Lewis, however, in charge of the other 
 division of Dunmore's army, was the one des- 
 tined to bear the real brunt and burden of the 
 campaign. His division, recruited from the 
 very flower of the pioneers of the Old South- 
 west, was the most representative body of bor- 
 derers of this region that up to this time had as- 
 
 212 
 
OPENING THE GATEWAY 
 
 sembled to measure strength with the red men. 
 It was an army of the true stalwarts of the 
 frontier, with fringed leggings and hunting- 
 capes, rifles and powder-horns, hunting-knives 
 and tomahawks. 
 
 The .Battle of the Great Kanawha, at Point 
 Pleasant, was fought on October 10, 1774, be- 
 tween Lewis's force, eleven hundred strong, 
 and the Indians, under Cornstalk, somewhat 
 inferior in numbers. It was a desultory ac- 
 tion, over a greatly extended front and in very 
 brushy country between Crooked Creek and 
 the Ohio. Throughout the long day, the In- 
 dians fought with rare craft and stubborn brav- 
 ery — loudly cursing the white men, cleverly 
 picking off their leaders, and derisively inquir- 
 ing, in regard to the absence of the fifes: 
 "Where are your whistles now?" Slowly re- 
 treating, they sought to draw the whites into 
 an ambuscade and at a favorable moment to 
 "drive the Long Knives like bullocks into the 
 river." No marked success was achieved on 
 either side until near sunset, when a flank 
 movement directed by young Isaac Shelby 
 
 213 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 alarmed the Indians, who mistook this party 
 for the expected reinforcement under Chris- 
 tian, and retired across the Ohio. In the 
 morning the whites were amazed to discover 
 that the Indians, who the preceding day so 
 splendidly heeded the echoing call of Corn- 
 stalk, "Be strong! Be strong!", had quit the 
 battle-field and left the victory with the 
 whites. 143 
 
 The peace negotiated by Dunmore was dur- 
 able. The governor had accomplished his pur- 
 pose, defied the authority of the crown, and 
 vindicated the claim of Virginia, to the en- 
 thusiastic satisfaction of the backwoodsmen. 
 While tendering their thanks to him and avow- 
 ing their allegiance to George III, at the close 
 of the campaign, the borderers proclaimed 
 their resolution to exert all their powers "for 
 the defense of American liberty, and for the 
 support of her just rights and privileges, not 
 in any precipitous, riotous or tumultuous man- 
 ner, but when regularly called forth by the 
 unanimous voice of our countrymen." Dun- 
 more's War is epochal, in that it procured for 
 
 214 
 
OPENING THE GATEWAY 
 
 the nonce a state of peace with the Indians, 
 which made possible the advance of Judge 
 Henderson over the Transylvania Trail in 
 1775, and, through his establishment of the 
 Transylvania Fort at Boonesborough, the ulti- 
 mate acquisition by the American Confedera- 
 tion of the imperial domain of the trans-Alle- 
 ghany. 144 
 
 215 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 RICHARD HENDERSON AND THE 
 TRANSYLVANIA COMPANY 
 
 I happened to fall in company, and have a great deal 
 of conversation with one of the most singular and extraordi- 
 nary persons and excentric geniuses in America, and perhaps 
 in the world. His name is Richard Henderson. 
 
 — J. F. D. Smyth: A Tour in the United States 
 of America. 
 
 EARLY in 1774, chastened by his own dis- 
 astrous failure the preceding autumn, 
 Boone advised Judge Henderson that the time 
 was auspicious for opening negotiations with 
 the Cherokees for purchasing the trans-Alle- 
 ghany region. 145 In organizing a company for 
 this purpose, Henderson chose men of action 
 and resource, leaders in the colony, ready for 
 any hazard of life and fortune in this gigantic 
 scheme of colonization and promotion. The 
 new men included, in addition to the partners 
 in the organization known as Richard Hender- 
 
 216 
 
RICHARD HENDERSON 
 
 son and Company, were Colonel John Lut- 
 trell, destined to win laurels in the Revolution, 
 and William Johnston, a native of Scotland, 
 the leading merchant of Hillsborough. 146 
 
 Meeting in Hillsborough on August 27, 
 1774, these men organized the new company 
 under the name of the Louisa Company. In 
 the articles then drawn up they agreed to "rent 
 or purchase" a tract of land from the Indian 
 owners of the soil for the express purpose of 
 "settling the country." Each partner obli- 
 gated himself to "furnish his Quota of Ex- 
 penses necessary towards procuring the grant." 
 In full anticipation of the grave dangers to 
 be encountered, they solemnly bound them- 
 selves, as "equal sharers in the property," to 
 "support each other with our lives and for- 
 tunes." 14T Negotiations with the Indians were 
 begun at once. Accompanied by Colonel Na- 
 thaniel Hart and guided by the experienced 
 Indian-trader, Thomas Price, Judge Hender- 
 son visited the Cherokee chieftains at the Otari 
 towns. After elaborate consultations, the lat- 
 ter deputed the old chieftain, Atta-kulla-kulla, 
 
 217 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 a young buck, and a squaw, "to attend the 
 said Henderson and Hart to North Carolina, 
 and there examine the Goods and Merchandize 
 which had been by them offered as the Con- 
 sideration of the purchase." The goods pur- 
 chased at Cross Creek (now Fayetteville, 
 North Carolina), in which the Louisa Com- 
 pany "had embarked a large amount," met the 
 entire approval of the Indians— the squaw in 
 particular shrewdly examining the goods in 
 the interest of the women of the tribe. 148 
 
 On January 6, 1775, the company was again 
 enlarged, and given the name of the Transyl- 
 vania Company — the three new partners being 
 David Hart, brother to Thomas and Nathan- 
 iel, Leonard Henley Bullock, a prominent 
 citizen of Granville, and James Hogg, of 
 Hillsborough, a native Scotchman and one of 
 the most influential men in the colony. In the 
 elaborate agreement drawn up reference is ex- 
 plicitly made to the contingency of "settling 
 and voting as a proprietor and giving Rules 
 and Regulations for the Inhabitants etc." 149 
 Hillsborough was the actual starting-point for 
 
 218 
 
RICHARD HENDERSON 
 
 the westward movement, the first emigrants 
 traveling thence to the Sycamore Shoals of the 
 Watauga. In speaking of the departure of 
 the settlers, the first movement of extended and 
 permanent westward migration, an eye-witness 
 quaintly says : "At this place [Hillsborough] 
 I saw the first party of emigrant families that 
 moved to Kentucky under the auspices of 
 Judge Henderson. They marched out of the 
 town with considerable solemnity, and to many 
 their destination seemed as remote as if it had 
 been to the South Sea Islands." 150 
 
 Meanwhile, the "Proposals for the encour- 
 agement of settling the lands etc.," issued on 
 Christmas Day, 1774, were quickly spread 
 broadcast through the colony and along the 
 border. 151 It was the greatest sensation North 
 Carolina had known since Alamance; and 
 Archibald Neilson, deputy-auditor and naval 
 officer of the colony, inquired with quizzical 
 anxiety: "Pray, is Dick Henderson out of 
 his head?" The most liberal terms, proffered 
 by one quite in possession of his head, were 
 embodied in these proposals. Land at twenty 
 
 219 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 shillings per hundred acres was offered to 
 each emigrant settling within the territory 
 and raising a crop of corn before September 
 1, 1775, the emigrant being permitted to take 
 up as much as five hundred acres for him- 
 self and two hundred and fifty acres for each 
 tithable person under him. In these "Pro- 
 posals" there was no indication that the low 
 terms at which the lands were offered would 
 be maintained after September 1, 1775. 152 In 
 a letter to Governor Dunmore (January, 
 1775), Colonel William Preston, county sur- 
 veyor of Fincastle County, Virginia, says: 
 "The low price he [Henderson] proposes to 
 sell at, together with some further encourage- 
 ment he offers, will I am apprehensive induce 
 a great many families to remove from this 
 County (Fincastle) & Carolina and settle 
 there." 153 Joseph Martin, states his son, "was 
 appointed entry-Taker and agent for the Pow- 
 ell Valley portion" of the Transylvania Pur- 
 chase on January 20, 1775; and "he (Joseph 
 Martin) and others went on in the early part 
 of the year 1775 and made their stand at the 
 
 £20 
 
fi R . Hairy Skelton, of Albemarle County, 
 
 ■a- » -"- h :-. 3 Bon ; . 
 t'vTBty, 5oi »ix ■, I ■ 
 
 lilt; If It fl'< 
 
 forewarn all Perfoi 
 a; 1 do not appi 
 Shilling, but that 1 
 
 /-- 
 
 h Mr, David Andcrfi >/i t Jttn. Sc- 
 the 1 6 1 1 ■. Day of Itbruayij-y, 
 v of Fflntttity laft i 'J his is ta 
 ^Ifighment of laid Bond, 
 dcbtcd Co the laid Sbeltcn a fingle 
 .inyDeljt. , * . 
 
 ANDERSON, Junior,- 
 
 /A COMPANY 6| Gentlemen of North 
 
 J- -*- Carolina bavin", Tor a large and valuable Confide.- 
 purcbafcd from the Chief: of the Cherokee Indians, bybndwilh . 
 Confcnt of the whole Nation, a confiderabie Tract of tlitii i 
 now call ti.TranJylvataet, lying on theKiveisOWo, Oumberltnti 
 Louifa; and junderftanding that many People are cU-firous 'tr' be- 
 
 Adventiin i.- in that :pMt of the World, and wi/h to'-.. . 
 the Term* "ii which Lands in that Country may be had, the,- ,. 
 fore hereby inform the PabJicj that anyPerfon who will fetdc on 
 and- inhabit the t me befoi ' the firft Day of 'June \n<i* (hall h 
 the Privilege of taking up ar.d furveying for himfelf 500 Acus and 
 for each tithnble Perfon he may carry with him and fettle thei 
 Acres, on the Paymenlof 50s. Sterling per Hundred, ttib]< 
 an yearly Quitrent of is. like Money, to'commence ih th< i 
 1780. Such Pei Ions as are willing to become Purchaicrs m .. 1 
 reJJiond and treat with Wr. WWimr. Joknfon in Hi'dftorough, and 
 Col. Jehn Williams of Greuewlte, Nertt Catdllna, or Col. Richard , 
 
 Henderfm it Bccnjlwrcitgh; in Tranjylvatita, ThisCountry lies .' 
 
 en the tenth Side c!' the Rivers Olio and Louifa, in a temperate and 
 healthy Climate. It is in general well watered with Springs and ' 
 Rivulets, and has kveral Rivets, up which Vefl'els of conhdcrable 
 Bui then may come with Eafe. In different Places of it are a Num~. 
 her of Salt Springs' where the making of Salt has been tried with 
 pi eat Sue e< t's, and where, with Certainty; any Quantity needed 
 ma> beeafdy and conveniently made. Large Trails of the land 
 lie t>l\ Lime-Hone, and iii fijveral Places there is Abundance of 
 Iron Oie. The Fertility of the Soil, and Goodnefs of the Range, 
 almott fut pals Belief ; and it is at preient well ftored with Rt'ffalo, 
 Elk, Deer, Bear, H aver, &c. and the Rivers abound ytajti Fiih 
 of" various Kinds. Vaft Crowds of people ore daily flocKing to 
 it, and m?r.v Gentlemen of the flirt Rank and Character gave bar- 
 gained foi Lands in it ; fothat there is a great Appearance of a rapid 
 Settlement, and that it will toon become a conliderable Colony, 
 and one of" tiie moft a greeable Countries in America. (6) 
 
 Huntingtoup, Sejt. 14, 1775. 
 
 TH E Lands I have for fome Time paft 
 advertife'd for Sale are not as yet fold. I will fell them at 
 a very low Price, and allow a realisable Time of'Payjnhent for 
 Part of the Money. The Reafcn why I have not fold them wu, 
 tliat I would ; ;ive no Credit. 
 
 a ANTHONY WINSTON. 
 
 L 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT OF THE TRANSYLVANIA COMPANY 
 
 From The Virginia Gazette, September 30, 1775 
 
RICHARD HENDERSON 
 
 very spot where he had made corn several years 
 before." m In speaking of the startling de- 
 sign, unmasked by Henderson, of establishing 
 an independent government, Colonel Preston 
 writes to George Washington of the contem- 
 plated "large Purchase by one Col.° Hender- 
 son of North Carolina from the Cherokees. 
 ... I hear that Henderson talks with great 
 Freedom & Indecency of the Governor of Vir- 
 ginia, sets the Government at Defiance & says 
 if he once had five hundred good Fellows set- 
 tled in that Country he would not Value Vir- 
 ginia." 155 
 
 Early in 1775 runners were sent off to the 
 Cherokee towns to summon the Indians to the 
 treaty ground at the Sycamore Shoals of the 
 Watauga; and Boone, after his return from a 
 hunt in Kentucky in January, was summoned 
 by Judge Henderson to aid in the negotia- 
 tions preliminary to the actual treaty. The 
 dominating figure in the remarkable assem- 
 blage at the treaty ground, consisting of 
 twelve hundred Indians and several hundred 
 whites, was Richard Henderson, "comely in 
 
 221 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 person, of a benign and social disposition," 
 with countenance betokening the man of strenu- 
 ous action — "noble forehead, prominent nose, 
 projecting chin, firm-set jaw, with kindness 
 and openness of expression." Gathered about 
 him, picturesque in garb and striking in ap- 
 pearance, were many of the buckskin-clad lead- 
 ers of the border — James Robertson, John 
 Sevier, Isaac Shelby, William Bailey Smith, 
 and their compeers — as well as his Carolina 
 friends John Williams, Thomas and Nathaniel 
 Hart, Nathaniel Henderson, Jesse Benton, 156 
 and Valentine Searcy. 
 
 Little was accomplished on the first day of 
 the treaty (March 14th) ; but on the next day, 
 the Cherokees offered to sell the section bar- 
 gained for by Donelson acting as agent 
 for Virginia in 1771. Although the Indians 
 pointed out that Virginia had never paid the 
 promised compensation of five hundred pounds 
 and had therefore forfeited her rights, Hen- 
 derson flatly refused to entertain the idea of 
 purchasing territory to which Virginia had the 
 prior claim. Angered by Henderson's refusal, 
 
 222 
 
RICHARD HENDERSON 
 
 The Dragging Canoe, leaping into the circle of 
 the seated savages, made an impassioned speech 
 touched with the romantic imagination peculiar 
 to the American Indian. With pathetic elo- 
 quence he dwelt upon the insatiable land-greed 
 of the white men, and predicted the extinction 
 of his race if they committed the insensate 
 folly of selling their beloved hunting-grounds. 
 Roused to a high pitch of oratorical fervor, 
 the savage with uplifted arm fiercely exhorted 
 his people to resist further encroachments at 
 all hazards — and left the treaty ground. This 
 incident brought the conference to a startling 
 and abrupt conclusion. On the following day, 
 however, the savages proved more tractable, 
 agreeing to sell the land as far south as the 
 Cumberland River. In order to secure the 
 additional territory watered by the tributaries 
 of the Cumberland, Henderson agreed to pay 
 an additional sum of two thousand pounds. 
 Upon this day there originated the ominous 
 phrase descriptive of Kentucky when The 
 Dragging Canoe, dramatically pointing to- 
 ward the west, declared that a Dark Cloud 
 
 223 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 hung over that land, which was known as the 
 Bloody Ground. 
 
 On the last day, March 17th, the negotia- 
 tions were opened with the signing of the 
 "Great Grant." The area purchased, some 
 twenty millions of acres, included almost all the 
 present state of Kentucky, and an immense 
 tract in Tennessee, comprising all the territory 
 watered by* the Cumberland River and all its 
 tributaries. For "two thousand weight of 
 leather in goods" Henderson purchased "the 
 lands lying down Holston and between the 
 Watauga lease, Colonel Donelson's line and 
 Powell's Mountain" as a pathway to Kentucky 
 — the deed for which was known as the "Path 
 Deed." By special arrangement, Carter's 
 Valley in this tract went to Carter and Lucas ; 
 two days later, for two thousand pounds, 
 Charles Robertson on behalf of the Watauga 
 Association purchased a large tract in the val- 
 leys of the Holston, Watauga, and New Riv- 
 ers; and eight days later Jacob Brown pur- 
 chased two large areas, including the Noli- 
 chucky Valley. (Compare map.) This his- 
 
 2M 
 
RICHARD HENDERSON 
 
 toric treaty, which heralds the opening of the 
 West, was conducted with absolute justice and 
 fairness by Judge Henderson and his associ- 
 ates. No liquor was permitted at the treaty 
 ground; and Thomas Price, the ablest of the 
 Cherokee traders, deposed that "he at that time 
 understood the Cherokee language, so as to 
 comprehend everything which was said and to 
 know that what was observed on either side was 
 fairly and truly translated ; that the Cherokees 
 perfectly understood, what Lands were the 
 subject of the Treaty. . . ." The amount 
 paid by the Transylvania Company for the im- 
 perial domain was ten thousand pounds ster- 
 ling, in money and in goods. 157 
 
 Although Daniel Boone doubtless assisted 
 in the proceedings prior to the negotiation of 
 the treaty, his name nowhere appears in the 
 voluminous records of the conference. In- 
 deed, he was not then present; for a fortnight 
 before the conclusion of the treaty he was com- 
 missioned by Judge Henderson to form a 
 party of competent woodmen to blaze a pas- 
 sage through the wilderness. On March 10th 
 
 225 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 this party of thirty ax-men, under the leader- 
 ship of Boone, started from the rendezvous, 
 the Long Island of Holston, to engage in the 
 arduous labor of cutting out the Transylvania 
 Trail. 158 
 
 Henderson, the empire-builder, now faced 
 with courage and resolution the hazardous task 
 of occupying the purchased territory and estab- 
 lishing an independent government. No mere 
 financial promoter of a vast speculative enter- 
 prise, he was one of the heroic figures of the 
 Old Southwest ; and it was his dauntless cour- 
 age, his unwavering resolve to go forward in 
 the face of all dangers, which carried through 
 the armed "trek" to a successful conclusion. 
 At Martin's Station, where Henderson and 
 his party tarried to build a house in which to 
 store their wagons, as the road could be cleared 
 no further, they were joined by another party, 
 of five adventurers from Prince William 
 County, Virginia. 159 In Henderson's party 
 were some forty men and boys, with forty pack- 
 horses and a small amount of powder, lead, 
 
 226 
 
™ 
 
 /Us, 9^ ^ >,/?<? 'vzf~z 
 
 / 
 
 A 
 
 '^.- /<' ■' ■ •'. s/ft; «- 
 
 ' ( -^<t/sx;,, /c , „/ 
 
 rs*. 
 
 --r<: I 
 
 
 
 -/ 
 
 'S 
 
 a «*. ^ 
 
 / // // ■ - - - - r- *-~Jf S/T^ * ^ * 
 
 A- : % i * 
 
 
 / /r>i > , / 
 
 
 .» 
 
 FIRST PAGE OF RICHARD HENDERSON'S DIARY 
 
 From the original owned by the Wisconsin State Historical Society 
 
RICHARD HENDERSON 
 
 salt, and garden-seeds. The warning freely 
 given by Joseph Martin of the perils of the 
 path was soon confirmed, as appears from the 
 following entry in Henderson's diary: 
 
 Friday the 7th. [April] About Brake of 
 Day began to snow. About 11 oClock re- 
 ceived a letter from Mr. Luttrells camp that 
 were five persons kill d . on the road to the Can- 
 tuckie by Indians. Cap*. [Nathaniel] Hart, 
 uppon the receipt of this News Retreated back 
 with his Company, & determined to Settle in 
 the Valley to make Corn for the Cantucky 
 people. The same Day Received a Letter 
 from Da 11 . Boone, that his Company was fired 
 uppon by Indians, Kill'd Two of his men — tho 
 he kept the ground & saved the Baggage &V 6U 
 
 The following historic letter, which reveals 
 alike the dogged resolution of Boone and his 
 reliance upon Henderson and his company in 
 this black hour of disaster, addressed "Colonel 
 Richard Henderson — these with care," is elo- 
 quent in its simplicity: 
 
 Dear Colonel: After my compliments to 
 you, I shall acquaint you of our misfortunes. 
 
 227 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 On March the 25 a party of Indians fired on 
 my Company about half an hour before day, 
 and killed Mr. Twitty and his negro, and 
 wounded Mr. Walker very deeply, but I hope 
 he will recover. 
 
 On March the 28 as we were hunting for 
 provisions, we found Samuel Tate's son, who 
 gave us an account that the Indians fired on 
 their camp on the 27th day. My brother and 
 I went down and found two men killed and 
 sculped, Thomas McDowell and Jeremiah Mc- 
 Feters. I have sent a man down to all the 
 lower companies in order to gather them all 
 at the mouth of Otter Creek. 
 
 My advice to you, Sir, is to come or send as 
 soon as possible. Your company is desired 
 greatly, for the people are very uneasy, but 
 are willing to stay and venture their lives with 
 you. and now is the time to fluster ate their 
 [the Indians'] intentions, and keep the coun- 
 try, whilst we are in it. If we give way to 
 them now, it will ever be the case. This day 
 we start from the battle ground, for the mouth 
 of Otter Creek, where we shall immediately 
 erect a Fort, which will be done before you 
 can come or send, then we can send ten men 
 to meet you, if you send for them. 
 
 I am, Sir, your most obedient 
 Omble Sarvent 
 
 Daniel Boone. 
 228 
 
RICHARD HENDERSON 
 
 N.B. We stood on the ground and guarded 
 our baggage till day, and lost nothing. We 
 have about fifteen miles to Cantuck [Kentucky 
 River] at Otter Creek. 161 
 
 This dread intelligence caused the hearts of 
 strong men to quail and induced some to turn 
 back, but Henderson, the jurist-pioneer, was 
 made of sterner stuff. At once (April 8th) he 
 despatched an urgent letter in hot haste to the 
 proprietors of Transylvania, enclosing Boone's 
 letter, informing them of Boone's plight and 
 urging them to send him immediately a large 
 quantity of powder and lead, as he had been 
 compelled to abandon his supply of saltpeter 
 at Martin's Station. "We are all in high spir- 
 its," he assures the proprietors, "and on thorns 
 to fly to Boone's assistance, and join him in 
 defense of so fine and valuable a country." 
 Laconically eloquent is this simple entry in 
 his diary: "Saturday the 8th. Started ab\ 10 
 °Clock Crossed Cumberland Gap about 4 
 miles met about 40 persons Returning from 
 the Cantucky, on Ace*, of the Late Murders 
 by the Indians could prevail on one only to 
 
 229 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 return. Mem Several Virginians who were 
 with us return'd." 
 
 There is no more crucial moment in early 
 Western history than this, in which we see the 
 towering form of Henderson, clad in the pic- 
 turesque garb of the pioneer, with outstretched 
 arm resolutely pointing forward to the "dark 
 and bloody ground," and in impassioned but 
 futile eloquence pleading with the pale and 
 panic-stricken fugitives to turn about, to join 
 his company, and to face once more the mortal 
 dangers of pioneer conquest. Significant in- 
 deed are the lines : 
 
 Some to endure, and many to fail, 
 Some to conquer, and many to quail, 
 Toiling over the Wilderness Trail. 
 
 The spirit of the pioneer knight-errant inspires 
 Henderson's words: "In this situation, some 
 few, of genuine courage and undaunted reso- 
 lution, served to inspire the rest; by the help 
 of whose example, assisted by a little pride and 
 some ostentation, we made a shift to march 
 on with all the appearance of gallantry, and, 
 
 230 
 
RICHARD HENDERSON 
 
 cavalier like, treated every insinuation of dan- 
 ger with the utmost contempt." 
 
 Fearing that Boone, who did not even know 
 that Henderson's cavalcade was on the road, 
 would be unable to hold out, Henderson real- 
 ized the imperative necessity for sending him 
 a message of encouragement. The bold 
 young Virginian, William Cocke, volunteered 
 to brave alone the dangers of the murder- 
 haunted trail — to undertake a ride more truly 
 memorable and hazardous than that of Revere. 
 "This offer, extraordinary as it was, we could 
 by no means refuse," remarks Henderson, who 
 shed tears of gratitude as he proffered his sin- 
 cere thanks and wrung the brave messenger's 
 hand. Equipped with "a good Queen Anne's 
 musket, plenty of ammunition, a tomahawk, 
 a large cuttoe knife [French, couteau], a 
 Dutch blanket, and no small quantity of jerked 
 beef," Cocke on April 10th rode off "to the 
 Cantuckey to Inform Cap* Boone that we were 
 on the road." The fearful apprehensions felt 
 for Cocke's safety were later relieved, when 
 along the road were discovered his letters in- 
 
 231 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 forming Henderson of his arrival and of his 
 having been joined on the way by Page Port- 
 wood of Rowan. On his arrival at Otter 
 Creek, Cocke found Boone and his men, and 
 on relating his adventures, "came in for his 
 share of applause." Boone at once despatched 
 the master woodman, Michael Stoner, with 
 pack-horses to assist Henderson's party, which 
 he met on April 18th at their encampment "in 
 the Eye of the Rich Land." Along with "Ex- 
 cellent Beef in plenty," Stoner brought the 
 story of Boone's determined stand and an ac- 
 count of the erection of a rude little fortifica- 
 tion which they had hurriedly thrown up to 
 resist attack. With laconic significance Hen- 
 derson pays the following tribute to Boone 
 which deserves to be perpetuated in national 
 annals: "It was owing to Boone's confidence 
 in us, and the people's in him, that a stand 
 was ever attempted in order to wait for our 
 coming." 
 
 In the course of their journey over the 
 mountains and through the wilderness, the 
 pioneers forgot the trials of the trail in the 
 
 232 
 
RICHARD HENDERSON 
 
 face of the surpassing beauties of the country. 
 The Cumberlands were covered with rich un- 
 dergrowth of the red and white rhododendron, 
 the delicate laurel, the mountain ivy, the flame- 
 azalea, the spicewood, and the cane; while the 
 white stars of the dogwood and the carmine 
 blossoms of the red-bud, strewn across the 
 verdant background of the forest, gleamed in 
 the eager air of spring. "To enter uppon a 
 detail of the Beuty & Goodness of our Coun- 
 try," writes Nathaniel Henderson, "would be 
 a task too arduous. . . . Let it suffice to tell 
 you it far exceeds any country I ever saw or 
 herd off. I am conscious its out of the power 
 of any man to make you clearly sensible of 
 the great Beuty and Richness of Kentucky." 
 Young Felix Walker, endowed with more 
 vivid powers of description, says with a touch 
 of native eloquence : 
 
 Perhaps no Adventureor Since the days of 
 donquicksotte or before ever felt So Cheerful & 
 Hated in prospect, every heart abounded with 
 Joy & excitement ... & exclusive of the 
 Novelties of the Journey the advantages & 
 
 233 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 accumalations arising on the Settlement of a 
 new Country was a dazzling object with many 
 of our Company. . . . As the Cain ceased, we 
 began to discover the pleasing & Rapturous 
 appearance of the plains of Kentucky, a New 
 Sky & Strange Earth to be presented to our 
 view. ... So Rich a Soil we had never Saw 
 before, Covered with Clover in full Bloom, the 
 Woods alive abounding in wild Game, turkeys 
 so numerous that it might be said there ap- 
 peared but one flock Universally Scattered in 
 the woods ... it appeared that Nature in the 
 profusion of her Bounties, had Spread a feast 
 for all that lives, both for the Animal & Ra- 
 tional World, a Sight so delightful to our View 
 and grateful to our feelings almost Induced us> 
 in Immitation of Columbus in Transport to 
 Kiss the Soil of Kentucky, as he haild & 
 Saluted the sand on his first setting his foot 
 on the Shores of America. 162 
 
 On the journey Henderson was joined in 
 Powell's Valley by. Benjamin Logan, after- 
 ward so famous in Kentucky annals, and a 
 companion, William Galaspy. At the Crab 
 Orchard they left Henderson's party; and 
 turning their course westward finally pitched 
 camp in the present Lincoln County, where 
 
 234 
 
RICHARD HENDERSON 
 
 Logan subsequently built a fort. On Sunday, 
 April 16th, on Scaggs's Creek, Henderson 
 records: "About 12 oClock Met James Mc- 
 Afee with 18 other persons Returning from 
 Cantucky." They advised Henderson of the 
 "troublesomeness and danger" of the Indians, 
 says Robert McAfee junior: "but Henderson 
 assured them that he had purchased the whole 
 country from the Indians, that it belonged to 
 him, and he had named it Transylvania. . . . 
 Robt, Samuel, and William McAfee and 3 
 others were inclined to return, but James op- 
 posed it, alleging that Henderson had no right 
 to the land, and that Virginia had previously 
 bought it. The former (6) returned with 
 Henderson to Boonesborough." Among those 
 who had joined Henderson's party was Abra- 
 ham Hanks from Virginia, the maternal grand- 
 father of Abraham Lincoln; but alarmed by 
 the stories brought by Stewart and his party 
 of fugitives, Hanks and Drake, as recorded 
 by William Calk on that day (April 13th), 
 turned back. 163 
 
 At last the founder of Kentucky with his 
 235 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 little band reached the destined goal of their 
 arduous journeyings. Henderson's record on 
 his birthday runs: "Thursday the 20th 
 [April] Arrived at Fort Boone on the 
 Mouth of Oter Creek Cantuckey River where 
 we were Saluted by a running fire of about 
 25 Guns; all that was then at Fort. . . . The 
 men appeared in high spirits & much rejoiced 
 in our arrival." It is a coincidence of his- 
 toric interest that just one day after the em- 
 battled farmers at Lexington and Concord 
 "fired the shots heard round the world," the 
 echoing shots of Boone and his sturdy back- 
 woodsmen rang out to announce the arrival of 
 the proprietor of Transylvania and the birth 
 of the American West. 
 
 236 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 TKANSYLVANIA — A WILDERNESS 
 COMMONWEALTH 
 
 You are about a work of the utmost importance to the 
 well-being of this country in general, in which the interest 
 and security of each and every individual are inseparably 
 connected. . . . Our peculiar circumstances in this remote coun- 
 try, surrounded on all sides with difficulties, and equally sub- 
 ject to one common danger, which threatens our common 
 overthrow, must, I think, in their effects, secure to us an 
 union of interests, and, consequently, that harmony in opinion, 
 so essential to the forming good, wise and wholesome laws. 
 
 — Judge Richard Henderson: Address to the 
 Legislature of Transylvania, May 23, 1775. 
 
 THE independent spirit displayed by the 
 Transylvania Company, and Hender- 
 son's procedure in open defiance of the royal 
 governors of both North Carolina and Vir- 
 ginia, naturally aroused grave alarm through- 
 out these colonies and South Carolina. "This 
 in my Opinion," says Preston in a letter to 
 George Washington (January 31, 1775), 
 "will soon become a serious Affair, & highly 
 
 237 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 deserves the Attention of the Government. 
 For it is certain that a vast Number of People 
 are preparing to go out and settle on this Pur- 
 chase ; and if once they get fixed there, it will 
 be next to impossible to remove them or reduce 
 them to Obedience ; as they are so far from the 
 Seat of Government. Indeed it may be the 
 Cherokees will support them." 164 Governor 
 Martin of North Carolina, already deeply dis- 
 turbed in anticipation of the coming revolu- 
 tionary cataclysm, thundered in what was gen- 
 erally regarded as a forcible-feeble proclama- 
 tion (February 19, 1775) against "Richard 
 Henderson and his Confederates" in their 
 "daring, unjust and unwarrantable proceed- 
 ings." 165 In a letter to Dartmouth he de- 
 nounces "Henderson the famous invader" and 
 dubs the Transylvania Company "an infamous 
 Company of land Pyrates." 
 
 Officials who were themselves eager for land 
 naturally opposed Henderson's plans. Lord 
 Dunmore, who in 1774, as we have seen, was 
 heavily interested in the Wabash Land Com- 
 pany engineered by William Murray, took the 
 
TRANSYLVANIA 
 
 ground that the Wabash purchase was valid 
 under the Camden-Yorke decision. This is so 
 stated in the records of the Illinois Company, 
 likewise under Murray's control. But al- 
 though the "Ouabache Company," of which 
 Dunmore was a leading member, was initiated 
 as early as May 16, 1774, the purchase of the 
 territory was not formally effected until Oc- 
 tober 18, 1775 — too late to benefit Dunmore, 
 then deeply embroiled in the preliminaries to 
 the Revolution. Under the cover of his 
 agent's name, it is believed, Dunmore, with his 
 "passion for land and fees," illegally entered 
 tracts aggregating thousands of acres of land 
 surveyed by the royal surveyors in the summer 
 of 1774 for Dr. John Connolly. 166 Early in 
 this same year, Patrick Henry, who, as already 
 pointed out, had entered large tracts in Ken- 
 tucky in violation of Virginia's treaty obliga- 
 tions with the Cherokees, united with William 
 Byrd 3d, John Page, Ralph Wormley, Samuel 
 Overton, and William Christian, in the effort 
 to purchase from the Cherokees a tract of land 
 west of Donelson's line, being firmly persuaded 
 
 239 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 of the validity of the Camden- Yorke opinion. 
 Their agent, William Kenedy, considerably 
 later in the year, went on a mission to the 
 Cherokee towns, and upon his return reported 
 that the Indians might be induced to sell. 
 When it became known that Judge Henderson 
 had organized the Transylvania Company and 
 anticipated Patrick Henry and his associates, 
 Colonel Arthur Campbell, as he himself states, 
 applied to several of the partners of the 
 Transylvania Company on behalf of Patrick 
 Henry, requesting that Henry be taken in as 
 a partner. 167 It was afterward stated, as com- 
 monly understood among the Transylvania 
 proprietors, that both Patrick Henry and 
 Thomas Jefferson desired to become members 
 of the company; but that Colonel Richard 
 Henderson was instrumental in preventing 
 their admission "lest they should supplant the 
 Colonel [Henderson] as the guiding spirit of 
 the company." 168 
 
 Fully informed by Preston's elaborate com- 
 munication on the gravity of the situation, 
 Dunmore acted energetically, though tardily, 
 
 240 
 
By his Excellency the Right Honourable JOHN Earl of DUN MO RE, his Majclrys 
 Lieutenant and Governor General of the Colony and Dominion of Virginia, and Vice 
 Admiral of the fame. ♦ 
 
 A PROCLAMATION. 
 
 Virginia, to wit. 
 
 WH E R E A S his Majesty did, at the Rcqnett of the Affcmbly of this Colony, permit the Weflem Boundary thereof w be ctten.Iel . 
 the fame has been ran and ascertained by Colonel Dcnel/in, and other Surveyors, deputed for the Purpofe ; and whereas hit Majerty 
 bath, for the greater Convenience of, and the preventing of Litigation and Difputes among, futh Perfons as shall be inclined to fettle upon any 
 of his vacant Lands, ordered that all that Tract of Land included withiu the aforesaid Boundary, and all other vacant Lands within this Colony, 
 be furveyed in Diltricts, and laid out in Lota of from one Hundred to one Thou-and Acres, and as (aft as the faid Survey} mail be compleaeed by 
 the Surveyors, duly authorized, an.! the Surveys thereof returned, that the Lands, {v furveyed and allotcd, be put up Co pobhc Sale, at futh 
 Time and Place as (nail be appointed by public Notice t and that tuchiheft Bidder for fnch Lots and Parcels of Land, ttfuch Sales, be the Pur- 
 chafer thereof, and be entitled to aCrant in Fee Simple of the Land fo purchalcd as aforeliid, by Letters Patent under the ^eae Seal of the Colony. 
 fubjaS to no Conditions or Refervalions whatever, other than the Payment of the anuual Quit-Rent of one half Penny Sterling per Acre, and alio 
 of all Mines of Gold, Stiver, and precious Stonesi And whereas Advice his been received, that one KrcWo' Hndtifm, and other disorderly Perfon., 
 Lis Aflbciatos, under Pretence of a Pus-chafe made from the /avri.nu, contrary to the aforefaid Orders and Regulations of his Majctly, do fee up a 
 Claim to the Lands of the Crown within the Limits of this Colony; I have thought St. therefore, to iITue this my Proclsanacion, (Inclly ch.r/.ng 
 Vail Justices of the Peace, Sheriffs, and other Officers, civil and military, to life their utmoft Endeavours to prevent the ttsrwarrarstable and Begad 
 Designs of Che Hid Ri*J,,fn and his Abettors : and if the laid flns*r/m, or others concerned with him, Hull take PcdBstaon of, or occupy any 
 'Lands within the Limits of his Majesty's Government of lVr„mi, merely under any Purchafe, or pretended Purchafe, made from As/,a«. withou. 
 jany omer Title, that he or chey be required, in h,s MajetV, Name, forthwith to derassv, and rel.no.uiHi the HotTellion fo sjnjsjllly obt.ined. snd 
 'in Cafe of Refusal and of violent dctainiug fuch PoQciEon, chat he or chey be immediately hard and impr.foned in aha- Manner ch: Law. In i.-l. 
 Cafes direct. 
 
 I r £ N mJ <r m, /fcaJ, W lie Sear ./ tbt Cfc*,. fiir :,f Dr, •/ March, at ih, ijri Tear ./ oil JttfafrV****. 
 
 DUNMOKE. 
 GOD fave the KIN G. 
 
 LORD DUNMORE'S PROCLAMATION AGAINST THE 
 TRANSYLVANIA COMPANY 
 
 From an unique original in the Public Record Office, London 
 
TRANSYLVANIA 
 
 to prevent the execution of Henderson's de- 
 signs. On March 21st Dunmore sent flying 
 through the back country a proclamation, de- 
 manding the immediate relinquishment of the 
 territory by "one Richard Henderson and 
 other disorderly persons, his associates," and 
 "in case of refusal, and of violently detaining 
 such possession, that he or they be immediately 
 fined and imprisoned." 169 This proclamation, 
 says a peppery old chronicler, may well rank 
 with the one excepting those arch traitors 
 and rebels, Samuel Adams and John Han- 
 cock, from the mercy of the British mon- 
 arch. In view of Dunmore's confidence in the 
 validity of the Camden- Yorke decision, it is 
 noteworthy that no mention of the royal proc- 
 lamation of 1763 occurs in his broadside; and 
 that he bases his objection to the Transyl- 
 vania purchase upon the king's instructions 
 that all vacant lands "within this colony" 
 be laid off in tracts, from one hundred to one 
 thousand acres in extent, and sold at public 
 auction. This proclamation which was en- 
 closed, oddly enough, in a letter of official in- 
 
 241 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 structions to Preston warning him not to sur- 
 vey any lands "beyond the line run by Colonel 
 Donaldson," proved utterly ineffective. At 
 the same time, Dunmore despatched a pointed 
 letter to Oconostota, Atta-kulla-kulla, Judge's 
 Friend, and other Cherokee chieftains, noti- 
 fying them that the sale of the great tract of 
 land below the Kentucky was illegal and 
 threatening them with the king's displeasure 
 if they did not repudiate the sale. 170 
 
 News of the plans which Henderson had 
 already matured for establishing an independ- 
 ent colony in the trans-Alleghany wilderness, 
 now ran like wild-fire through Virginia. In 
 a letter to George Washington (April 9, 
 1775), Preston ruefully says: "Henderson I 
 hear has made the Purchase & got a Convey- 
 ance of the great and Valluable Country below 
 the Kentucky from the Cherokees. He and 
 about 300 adventurers are gone out to take 
 Possession, who it is said intends to set up an 
 independent Government & form a Code of 
 Laws for themselves. How this may be I 
 cant say, but I am affraid the steps taken by 
 
 242 
 
TRANSYLVANIA 
 
 the Government have been too late. Before 
 the Purchase was made had the Governor in- 
 terfered it is believed the Indians would not 
 have sold." m 
 
 Meanwhile Judge Henderson, with strenu- 
 ous energy, had begun to erect a large stock- 
 aded fort according to plans of his own. Cap- 
 tain James Harrod with forty-two men was 
 stationed at the settlement he had made the 
 preceding year, having. arrived there before the 
 McAfees started back to Virginia; and there 
 were small groups of settlers at Boiling 
 Spring, six miles southeast of Harrod's settle- 
 ment, and at St. Asaph's, a mile west of the 
 present Stanford. A representative govern- 
 ment for Transylvania was then planned. 
 When the frank and gallant Floyd arrived at 
 the Transylvania Fort on May 3d, he "ex- 
 pressed great satisfaction," says Judge Hen- 
 derson, "on being informed of the plan we pro- 
 posed for Legislation & sayd he must most 
 heartily concur in that & every other measure 
 we should adopt for the well Govern 8 or good of 
 the Community in Gen 1 ." In reference to a 
 
 243 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 conversation with Captain James Harrod and 
 Colonel Thomas Slaughter of Virginia, Hen- 
 derson notes in his diary (May 8th) : ."Our 
 plan of Legislation, the evils pointed out — the 
 remedies to be applyed &c &c &c were Ac- 
 ceeded to without Hesitation. The plann was 
 plain & Simple — 'twas nothing novel in its es- 
 sence a thousand years ago it was in use, and 
 found by every year's experience since to be un- 
 exceptionable. We were in four distinct set- 
 tlem ts . Members or delegates from every 
 place by free choice of Individuals they first 
 having entered into writings solemnly bind- 
 ing themselves to obey and carry into Execu- 
 tion Such Laws as representatives should from 
 time to time make, Concurred with, by A Ma- 
 jority of the Proprietors present in the Coun- 
 try." 
 
 In reply to inquiries of the settlers, Judge 
 Henderson gave as his reason for this assem- 
 bling of a Transylvania Legislature that "all 
 power was derived from the people." Six 
 days before the prophetic arrival of the news 
 of the Battle of Lexington and eight days be- 
 
 244 
 
TRANSYLVANIA 
 
 fore the revolutionary committee of Mecklen- 
 burg County, North Carolina, promulgated 
 their memorable Resolves establishing laws for 
 an independent government, the pioneers as- 
 sembled on the green beneath the mighty plane- 
 tree at the Transylvania Fort. In his wise 
 and statesmanlike address to this picturesque 
 convention of free Americans (May 23, 1775) , 
 an address which Felix Walker described as 
 being "considered equal to any of like kind 
 ever delivered to any deliberate body in that 
 day and time," Judge Henderson used these 
 memorable words : 
 
 You, perhaps, are fixing the palladium, or 
 placing the first corner stone of an edifice, the 
 height and magnificence of whose superstruc- 
 ture . . . can only become great in propor- 
 tion to the excellence of its foundation. . . . 
 If any doubt remain amongst you with respect 
 to the force or efficiency of whatever laws you 
 now, or hereafter make, be pleased to consider 
 that all power is originally in the people; make 
 it their interest, therefore, by impartial and 
 beneficent laws, and you may be sure of their 
 inclination to see them enforced. 
 
 245 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 An early writer, in speaking of the full- 
 blooded democracy of these "advanced" senti- 
 ments, quaintly comments : "If Jeremy Ben- 
 tham had been in existence of manhood, he 
 would have sent his compliments to the Presi- 
 dent of Transylvania." This, the first repre- 
 sentative body of American freemen which ever 
 convened west of the Alleghanies, is surely 
 the most unique colonial government ever set 
 up on this continent. The proceedings of this 
 backwoods legislature — the democratic leader- 
 ship of the principal proprietor; the prudence 
 exhibited in the laws for protecting game, 
 breeding horses, etc.; the tolerance shown in 
 the granting of full religious liberty — all dis- 
 play the acumen and practical wisdom of these 
 pioneer law-givers. As the result of Hender- 
 son's tactfulness, the proprietary form of gov- 
 ernment, thoroughly democratized in tone, 
 was complacently accepted by the backwoods- 
 men. From one who, though still under royal 
 rule, vehemently asserted that the source of all 
 political power was the people, and that "laws 
 
 246 
 
TRANSYLVANIA 
 
 derive force and efficiency from our mutual 
 consent," Western democracy thus born in the 
 wilderness was "taking its first political lesson." 
 In their answer to Henderson's assertion of 
 freedom from alien authority the pioneers un- 
 hesitatingly declared: "That we have an ab- 
 solute right, as a political body, without giving 
 umbrage to Great Britain, or any of the colo- 
 nies, to form rules for the government of our 
 little society, cannot be doubted by any sensi- 
 ble mind and being without the jurisdiction 
 of, and not answerable to any of his Majesty's 
 courts, the constituting tribunals of justice 
 shall be a matter of our first contempla- 
 tion. . . ." In the establishment of a consti- 
 tution for the new colony, Henderson with 
 paternalistic wisdom induced the people to 
 adopt a legal code based on the laws of Eng- 
 land. Out of a sense of self -protection he re- 
 served for the proprietors only one preroga- 
 tive not granted them by the people, the right 
 of veto. He clearly realized that if this power 
 were given up, the delegates to any convention 
 
 247 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 that might be held after the first would be able 
 to assume the claims and rights of the proprie- 
 tors. 
 
 A land-office was formally opened, deeds 
 were issued, and a store was established which 
 supplied the colonists with powder, lead, salt, 
 osnaburgs, blankets, and other chief necessities 
 of pioneer existence. Writing to his brother 
 Jonathan from Leestown, the bold young 
 George Rogers Clark, soon to plot the down- 
 fall of Transylvania, enthusiastically says 
 (July 6, 1775) : "A richer and more Beauti- 
 full Cuntry than this I believe has never been 
 seen in America yet. Co 1 . Henderson is hear 
 and Claims all y e Country below Kentucke. 
 If his Claim Should be good, land may be got 
 Reasonable Enough and as good as any in y e 
 World." 172 Those who settled on the south 
 side of Kentucky River acknowledged the 
 validity of the Transylvania purchase; and 
 Clark in his Memoir says : "the Proprietors at 
 first took great pains to Ingratiate themselves 
 in the fav r . of the people." , 
 
 In regard to the designs of Lord Dunmore, 
 248 
 
TRANSYLVANIA 
 
 who, as noted above, had illegally entered the 
 Connolly grant on the Ohio and sought to out- 
 law Henderson, and of Colonel William Byrd 
 3d, who, after being balked in Patrick Henry's 
 plan to anticipate the Transylvania Company 
 in effecting a purchase from the Cherokees, 
 was supposed to have tried to persuade the 
 Cherokees to repudiate the "Great Treaty," 
 Henderson defiantly says: "Whether Lord 
 Dunmore and Colonel Byrd have interfered 
 with the Indians or not, Richard Henderson is 
 equally ignorant and indifferent. The utmost 
 result of their efforts can only serve to convince 
 them of the futility of their schemes and possi- 
 bly frighten some few faint-hearted persons, 
 naturally prone to reverence great names and 
 fancy everything must shrink at the magic of 
 a splendid title." 173 
 
 Prompted by Henderson's desire to petition 
 the Continental Congress then in session for 
 recognition as the fourteenth colony, the 
 Transylvania legislature met again on the first 
 Thursday in September and elected Richard 
 Henderson and John Williams, among others, 
 
 249 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 as delegates to the gathering at Philadelphia. 174 
 Shortly afterward the Proprietors of Transyl- 
 vania held a meeting at Oxford, North Caro- 
 lina ( September 25, 1775) , elected Williams as 
 the agent of the colony, and directed him to 
 proceed to Boonesborough there to reside until 
 April, 1776. James Hogg, of Hillsborough, 
 chosen as Delegate to represent the Colony in 
 the Continental Congress, was despatched to 
 Philadelphia, bearing with him an elaborate 
 memorial prepared by the President, Judge 
 Henderson, petitioning the Congress "to take 
 the infant Colony of Transylvania into their 
 protection." 175 
 
 Almost immediately upon his arrival in 
 Philadelphia, James Hogg was presented to 
 "the famous Samuel and John Adams." The 
 latter warned Hogg, in view of the efforts then 
 making toward reconciliation between the colo- 
 nies and the king, that "the taking under our 
 protection a body of people who have acted in 
 defiance of the King's proclamation, will be 
 looked on as a confirmation of that independent 
 spirit with which we are daily reproached." 
 
 250 
 
TRANSYLVANIA 
 
 Jefferson said that if his advice were followed, 
 all the use the Virginians should make of their 
 charter would be "to prevent any arbitrary 
 or oppressive government to be established 
 within the boundaries of it" ; and that it was his 
 wish "to see a free government established at 
 the back of theirs [Virginia's] properly united 
 with them." He would not consent, however, 
 that Congress should acknowledge the colony 
 of Transylvania, until it had the approbation 
 of the Virginia Convention. The quit-rents 
 imposed by the company were denounced in 
 Congress as a mark of vassalage; and many 
 advised a* law against the employment of ne- 
 groes in the colony. "They even threatened 
 us with their opposition," says Hogg, with 
 precise veracity, "if we do not act upon liberal 
 principles when we have it so much in our 
 power to render ourselves immortal.' 
 
 " 176 
 
 251 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE REPULSE OF THE RED MEN 
 
 To this short war may be properly attributed all the kind 
 feelings and fidelity to treaty stipulations manifested by the 
 Cherdkees ever afterwards. General Rutherford instilled into 
 the Indians so great a fear of the whites, that never afterwards 
 were they disposed to engage in any cruelty, or destroy any 
 of the property of our frontier men. 
 
 — David L. Swain: The Indian War of 1776. 
 
 DURING the summer of 1775 the pro- 
 prietors of Transylvania were con- 
 fronted with two stupendous tasks — that of 
 winning the favor and support of the frontiers- 
 men and that of rallying the rapidly dwindling 
 forces in Kentucky in defense of the settle- 
 ments. Recognizing the difficulty of includ- 
 ing Martin's Station, because of its remote- 
 ness, with the government provided for r Tran- 
 sylvania, Judge Henderson prepared a plan 
 of government for the group of settlers located 
 in Powell's Valley. In a letter to Martin 
 (July 30th), in regard to the recent energetic 
 
 252 
 
THE REPULSE OF THE RED MEN 
 
 defense of the settlers at that point against 
 the Indians, Henderson says : "Your spirited 
 conduct gives me much pleasure. ., . . Keep 
 your men in heart if possible, now is our time, 
 the Indians must not drive us." The gloom 
 which had been occasioned by the almost com- 
 plete desertion of the stations at Harrodsburg, 
 the Boiling Spring, and the Transylvania 
 Fort or Boonesborough was dispelled with the 
 return of Boone, accompanied by some thirty 
 persons, on September 8th, and of Richard 
 Callaway with a considerable party on Sep- 
 tember 26th. The crisis was now passed; and 
 the colony began for the first time really to 
 flourish. The people on the south side of the 
 Kentucky River universally accepted proprie- 
 tary rule for the time being. But the seeds 
 of dissension were soon to be sown among 
 those who settled north of the river, as well 
 as among men of the stamp of James Harrod, 
 who, having preceded Henderson in the estab- 
 lishment of a settlement in Kentucky, natu- 
 rally resented holding lands under the Tran- 
 sylvania Company. 
 
 253 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 The great liberality of this organization to- 
 ward incoming settlers had resulted in immense 
 quantities of land being taken up through their 
 land-office. 177 The ranging, hunting, and 
 road-building were paid for by the company; 
 and the entire settlement was furnished with 
 powder, lead, and supplies, wholly on credit, 
 for this and the succeeding year. "Five hun- 
 dred and sixty thousand acres of land are now 
 entered," reports Floyd on December 1st, "and 
 most of the people waiting to have it run 
 out." 178 After Dunmore, having lost his hold 
 upon the situation, escaped to the protection of 
 a British vessel, the Fowey, Colonel Preston 
 continued to prevent surveys for officers' 
 grants within the Transylvania territory; and 
 his original hostility to Judge Henderson gave 
 place to friendship and support. 
 
 On December 1st, Colonel John Williams, 
 resident agent of the Transylvania Company, 
 announced at Boonesborough the long-contem- 
 plated and widely advertised advance in price 
 of the lands, from twenty to fifty shillings per 
 hundred acres, with surveying fees of four dol- 
 
 254 
 
THE REPULSE OF THE RED MEN 
 
 lars for tracts not exceeding six hundred and 
 forty acres. 179 At a meeting of the Transyl- 
 vania legislature, convened on December 21st, 
 John Floyd was chosen surveyor general of 
 the colony, Nathaniel Henderson was placed 
 in charge of the Entering Office, and Rich- 
 ard Harrison given the post of secretary. At 
 this meeting of the legislature, the first open 
 expression of discontent was voiced in the 
 "Harrodsburg Remonstrance," questioning 
 the validity of the proprietors' title, and pro- 
 testing against any increase in the price of 
 lands, as well as the taking up by the proprie- 
 tors and a few other gentlemen of the best 
 lands at the Falls of the Ohio. Every effort 
 was made to accommodate the remonstrants, 
 who were led by Abraham Hite. Office fees 
 were abolished, and the payment of quit -rents 
 was deferred until January 1, 1780. Despite 
 these efforts at accommodation, grave doubts 
 were implanted by this Harrodsburg Remon- 
 strance in the minds of the people; and much 
 discussion and discontent ensued. 
 
 By midsummer, 1775, George Rogers Clark, 
 255 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 a remarkably enterprising and independent 
 young pioneer, was "engrossing all the land 
 he could" in Kentucky. Upon his return to 
 Virginia, as he relates, he "found there was 
 various oppinions Respecting Hender'son 
 claim, many thought it go[o]d, others douted 
 whether or not Virginia coud with propriety 
 have any pretentions to the cuntrey." 180 
 Jefferson displayed a liberal attitude toward 
 the claims of the Transylvania proprietors ; and 
 Patrick Henry openly stated that, in his opin- 
 ion, "their claim would stand good." But 
 many others, of the stamp of George Mason 
 and George Washington, vigorously asserted 
 Virginia's charter rights over the Western ter- 
 ritory. 181 This sharp difference of opinion ex- 
 cited in Clark's mind the bold conception of 
 seizing the leadership of the country and mak- 
 ing terms with Virginia under threat of seces- 
 sion. 
 
 With the design of effecting some final dis- 
 position in regard to the title of the Transyl- 
 vania proprietors, Judge Henderson and 
 Colonel Williams set off from Boonesborough 
 
 256 
 
THE REPULSE OF THE RED MEN 
 
 about May 1st, intending first to appeal to 
 the Virginia Convention and ultimately to lay 
 their claims before the Continental Congress. 
 "Since they have gone," reports Floyd to Pres- 
 ton, "I am told most of the men about Har- 
 rodsburg have re-assumed their former reso- 
 lution of not complying with any of the office 
 rules whatever. Jack Jones, it is said, is at 
 the head of the party & flourishes away prodi- 
 giously." 182 John Gabriel Jones was the mere 
 figurehead in the revolt. The real leader, the 
 brains of the conspiracy, was the unscrupu- 
 lous George Rogers Clark. At Clark's in- 
 stance, an eight-day election was held at Har- 
 rodsburg (June 7-15), at which time a peti- 
 tion to the Virginia Convention was drawn 
 up ; 183 and Clark and Jones were elected dele- 
 gates. Clark's plan, the scheme of a bold 
 revolutionist, was to treat with Virginia for 
 terms; and if they were not satisfactory, to 
 revolt and, as he says, "Establish an Inde- 
 pendent Government" . . . "giving away 
 great part of the Lands and disposing of the 
 Remainder." In a second petition, prepared 
 
 257 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 by the self-styled "Committee of West Fin- 
 castle" (June 20th), it was alleged that "if 
 these pretended Proprietors have leave to con- 
 tinue to act in their arbitrary manner out the 
 controul of this colony [Virginia] the end must 
 be evident to every well wisher to American 
 Liberty." 184 
 
 The contest which now ensued between 
 Richard Henderson and George Rogers Clark, 
 waged upon the floor of the convention and 
 behind the scenes, resulted in a conclusion that 
 was inevitable at a moment in American his- 
 tory marked by the signing of the Declaration 
 of Independence. Virginia, under the leader- 
 ship of her new governor, Patrick Henry, put 
 an end to the proprietary rule of the Tran- 
 sylvania Company. On December 7th such 
 part of Transylvania as lay within the char- 
 tered limits of Virginia was erected by the 
 legislature of that colony into the County of 
 Kentucky. The proprietary form of govern- 
 ment with its "marks of vassalage," although 
 liberalized with the spirit of democracy, was 
 unendurable to the independent and lawless 
 
 258 
 
THE REPULSE OF THE RED MEN 
 
 pioneers, already intoxicated with the spirit 
 of freedom swept in on the first fresh breezes 
 of the Revolution. Yet it is not to be doubted 
 that the Transylvania Company, through the 
 courage and moral influence of its leaders, 
 made a permanent contribution to the colo- 
 nization of the West, which, in providential 
 timeliness and effective execution, is without 
 parallel in our early annals. 185 
 
 While events were thus shaping themselves 
 in Kentucky — events which made possible 
 Clark's spectacular and meteoric campaign in 
 the Northwest and ultimately resulted in the 
 establishment of the Mississippi instead of the 
 Alleghanies as the western boundary of the 
 Confederation — the pioneers of Watauga were 
 sagaciously laying strong the foundations of 
 permanent occupation. In September, 1775, 
 North Carolina, through her Provincial Con- 
 gress, provided for the appointment in each 
 district of a Committee of Safety, to consist 
 of a president and twelve other members. 
 Following the lead thus set, the Watauga set- 
 tlers assumed for their country the name of 
 
 259 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 "Washington District" ; and proceeded by un- 
 animous vote of the people to choose a com- 
 mittee of thirteen, which included James Rob- 
 ertson and John Sevier. This district was or- 
 ganized "shortly after October, 1775," accord- 
 ing to Felix Walker; and the first step taken 
 after the election of the committee was the 
 organization of a court, consisting of five mem- 
 bers. Felix Walker was elected clerk of the 
 court thus organized, and held the position for 
 about four years. James Robertson and John 
 Sevier, it is believed, were also members of this 
 court. To James Robertson who, with the 
 assistance of his colleagues, devised this primi- 
 tive type of frontier rule — a true commission 
 form of government, oh the "Watauga Plan" 
 — is justly due distinctive recognition for this 
 notable inauguration of the independent de- 
 mocracy of the Old Southwest. The Wa- 
 tauga settlement was animated by a spirit 
 of deepest loyalty to the American cause. In 
 a memorable petition these hardy settlers re- 
 quested the Provincial Council of North Caro- 
 lina not to regard them as a "lawless mob," 
 
 260 
 
THE REPULSE OF THE RED MEN 
 
 but to "annex" them to North Carolina with- 
 out delay. "This committee (willing to be- 
 come a party in the present unhappy contest) ", 
 states the petition, which must have been 
 drafted about July 15, 1776, "resolved (which 
 is now on our records) , to adhere strictly to the 
 rules and orders of the Continental Congress, 
 and in open committee acknowledged them- 
 selves indebted to the united colonies their full 
 proportion of the Continental expense." 18C 
 
 While these disputes as to the government 
 of the new communities were in progress an 
 additional danger threatened the pioneers. 
 For a whole year the British had been plying 
 the various Indian tribes from the lakes to 
 the gulf with presents, supplies, and ammuni- 
 tion. In the Northwest bounties had actually 
 been offered for American scalps. During 
 the spring of 1776 plans were concerted, chiefly 
 through Stuart and Cameron, British agents 
 among the Southern Indians, for uniting the 
 Loyalists and the Indians in a crushing attack 
 upon the Tennessee settlements and the back 
 country of North Carolina. Already the 
 
 261 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 frontier of South Carolina had passed through 
 the horrors of Indian uprising; and warning 
 of the approaching invasion had been merci- 
 fully sent the Holston settlers by Atta-kulla- 
 kulla's niece, Nancy Ward, the "Pocahontas of 
 the West" — doubtless through the influence of 
 her daughter, who loved Joseph Martin. The 
 settlers, flocking for refuge into their small 
 stockaded forts, waited in readiness for the 
 dreaded Indian attacks, which were made by 
 two forces totaling some seven hundred war- 
 riors. 
 
 On July 20th, warned in advance of the ap- 
 proach of the Indians, the borderers, one hun- 
 dred and seventy in all, marched in two col- 
 umns from the rude breastwork, hastily thrown 
 up at Eaton's Station, to meet the Indians, 
 double their own number, led by The Drag- 
 ging Canoe. The scouts surprised one party 
 of Indians, hastily poured in a deadly fire, 
 and rushed upon them with such impetuous 
 fury that they fled precipitately. Withdraw- 
 ing now toward their breastwork, in anticipa- 
 tion of encountering there a larger force, the 
 
 262 
 
THE REPULSE OF THE RED MEN 
 
 backwoodsmen suddenly found themselves at- 
 tacked in their rear and in grave danger of 
 being surrounded. Extending their own line 
 under the direction of Captain James Shelby, 
 the frontiersmen steadily met the bold attack 
 of the Indians, who, mistaking the rapid ex- 
 tension of the line for a movement to retreat, 
 incautiously made a headlong onslaught upon 
 the whites, giving the war-whoop and shout- 
 ing: "The Unakas are running!" In the en- 
 suing hot conflict at close quarters, in some 
 places hand to hand, the Indians were utterly 
 routed — The Dragging Canoe being shot 
 down, many warriors wounded, and thirteen 
 left dead upon the field. 
 
 On the day after Thompson, Cocke, Shelby, 
 Campbell, Madison, and their men were thus 
 winning the battle of the Long Island "flats," 
 Robertson, Sevier, and their little band of 
 forty-two men were engaged in repelling an 
 attack, begun at sunrise, upon the Watauga 
 fort near the Sycamore Shoals. This attack, 
 which was led by Old Abraham, proved abor- 
 tive; but as the result of the loose investment 
 
 263 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 of the log fortress, maintained by the Indians 
 for several weeks, a few rash venturers from 
 the fort were killed or captured, notably a 
 young boy who was earned to one of the Indian 
 towns and burned at the stake, and the wife 
 of the pioneer settler, William Been, who 
 was rescued from a like fate by the interces- 
 sion of the humane and noble Nancy Ward. 
 It was during this siege, according to con- 
 stant tradition, that a frontier lass, active and 
 graceful as a young doe, was pursued to the 
 very stockade by the fleet-footed savages. 
 Seeing her plight, an athletic young officer 
 mounted the stockade at a single leap, shot 
 down the foremost of the pursuers, and lean- 
 ing over, seized the maiden by the hands and 
 lifted her over the stockade. The maiden who 
 sank breathless into the arms of the young 
 officer, John Sevier, was "Bonnie Kate Sher- 
 rill" — who, after the fashion of true romance, 
 afterward became the wife of her gallant res- 
 cuer. 
 
 While the Tennessee settlements were un- 
 dergoing the trials of siege and attack, the 
 
 264 
 
THE REPULSE OF THE RED MEN 
 
 settlers on the frontiers of Rowan were fall- 
 ing beneath the tomahawk of the merciless 
 savage. In the first and second weeks of July 
 large forces of Indians penetrated to the out- 
 lying settlements ; and in two days thirty-seven 
 persons were killed along the Catawba River. 
 On July 13th, the bluff old soldier of Rowan, 
 General Griffith Rutherford, reported to the 
 council of North Carolina that "three of our 
 Captains are killed and one wounded"; and 
 that he was setting out that day with what 
 men he could muster to relieve Colonel Mc- 
 Dowell, ten men, and one hundred and twenty 
 women and children, who were "besieged in 
 some kind of a fort." Aroused to extraordi- 
 nary exertions by these daring and deadly 
 blows, the governments of North Carolina, 
 South Carolina, Virginia, and Georgia insti- 
 tuted a joint campaign against the Cherokees. 
 It was believed that, by delivering a series of 
 crushing blows to the Indians and so conclu- 
 sively demonstrating the overwhelming supe- 
 riority of the whites, the state governments 
 in the Old Southwest would convince the sav- 
 
 265 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 ages of the futility of any attempt ever again 
 to oppose them seriously. 
 
 Within less than a week after sending his 
 despatches to the council Rutherford set forth 
 at the head of twenty-five hundred men to 
 protect the frontiers of North Carolina and to 
 overwhelm the foe. Leading the South Caro- 
 lina army of more than eighteen hundred men, 
 Colonel Andrew Williamson directed his at- 
 tack against the lower Cherokee towns; while 
 Colonel Samuel Jack led two hundred Georg- 
 ians against the Indian towns at the heads of 
 the Chattahoochee and Tugaloo Rivers. As- 
 sembling a force of some sixteen hundred Vir- 
 ginians, Colonel William Christian rendez- 
 voused in August at the Long Island of 
 Holston, where his force was strengthened by 
 between three and four hundred North Caro- 
 linians under Colonels Joseph Williams and 
 Love, and Major Winston. The various ex- 
 peditions met with little effective opposition 
 on the whole, succeeding everywhere in their 
 design of utterly laying waste the towns of 
 the Cherokees. One serious engagement oc- 
 
 26'6 
 
THE REPULSE OF THE RED MEN 
 
 curred when the Indians resolutely challenged 
 Rutherford's advance at the gap of the Nan- 
 tahala Mountains. Indian women — heroic 
 Amazons disguised in war-paint and armed 
 with the weapons of warriors and the cour- 
 age of despair — fought side by side with the 
 Indian braves in the effort to arrest Ruther- 
 ford's progress and compass his defeat. More 
 than forty frontiersmen fell beneath the deadly 
 shots of this truly Spartan band before the 
 final repulse of the savages. 
 
 The most picturesque figures in this over- 
 whelmingly successful campaign were the bluff 
 old Indian-fighter, Griffith Rutherford, wear- 
 ing "a tow hunting shirt, dyed black, and 
 trimmed with white fringe" as a uniform ; Cap- 
 tain Benjamin Cleveland, a rude paladin of 
 gigantic size, strength, and courage; Lieuten- 
 ant William Lenoir (Le Noir), the gallant 
 and recklessly brave French Huguenot, later 
 to win a general's rank in the Revolution; 
 and that militant man of God, the Reverend 
 James Hall, graduate of Nassau Hall, stal- 
 wart and manly, who carried a rifle on his 
 
 267 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 shoulder and, in the intervals between the 
 slaughter of the savages, preached the gospel 
 to the vindictive and bloodthirsty backwoods- 
 men. Such preaching was sorely needed on 
 that campaign — when the whites, maddened 
 beyond the bounds of self-control by the re- 
 cent ghastly murders, gladly availed them- 
 selves of the South Carolina bounty offered 
 for fresh Indian scalps. At times they ex- 
 ultantly displayed the reeking patches of hair 
 above the gates of their stockades; at others, 
 with many a bloody oath, they compelled their 
 commanders either to sell the Indian captives 
 into slavery or else see them scalped on the 
 spot. Twenty years afterward Benjamin 
 Hawkins relates that among Indian refugees 
 in extreme western Georgia the children had 
 been so terrorized by their parents' recitals of 
 the atrocities of the enraged borderers in the 
 campaign of 1776, that they ran screaming 
 from the face of a white man. 
 
 268 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE COLONIZATION OF THE CUMBERLAND 
 
 March 31, 1780. Set out this day, and after running some 
 distance, met with Col. Richard Henderson, who was running 
 the line between Virginia and North Carolina. At this meet- 
 ing we were much rejoiced. He gave us every information 
 we wished, and further informed us that he had purchased 
 a quantity of corn in Kentucky, to be shipped at the Falls 
 of Ohio, for the use of the Cumberland settlement. We are 
 now without bread, and are compelled to hunt the buffalo 
 to preserve life. 
 
 — Johk Donelson: Journal of a Voyage, in- 
 tended by God's permission, in the good boat 
 Adventure, from Fort Patrick Henry, on Hol- 
 ston River, to the French Salt Springs on 
 Cumberland River. 
 
 TO the settlements in Tennessee and Ken- 
 tucky, which they had seized and occu- 
 pied, the pioneers held on with a tenacious 
 grip which never relaxed. From these strong- 
 holds, won through sullen and desperate 
 strokes, they pushed deeper into the wilder- 
 ness, once again to meet with undimmed cour- 
 age the bitter onslaughts of their resentful foes. 
 
 269 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 The crushing of the Cherokees in 1776 relieved 
 the pressure upon the Tennessee settlers, en- 
 abling them to strengthen their hold and pre- 
 pare effectively for future eventualities; the 
 possession of the gateway to Kentucky kept 
 free the passage for Western settlement; 
 Watauga and its defenders continued to offer 
 a formidable barrier to British invasion of the 
 East from Kentucky and the Northwest dur- 
 ing the Revolution; while these Tennessee 
 frontiersmen were destined soon to set forth 
 again to invade a new wilderness and at fright- 
 ful cost to colonize the Cumberland. 
 
 The little chain of stockades along the far- 
 flung frontier of Kentucky was tenaciously 
 held by the bravest of the race, grimly re- 
 solved that this chain must not break. The 
 Revolution precipitated against this chain 
 wave after wave of formidable Indian foes 
 from the Northwest under British leadership. 
 At the very time when Griffith Rutherford set 
 out for the relief of McDowell's Fort, a 
 marauding Indian band captured by stealth 
 near the Transylvania Fort, known as Boone's 
 
 270 
 
THE COLONIZATION OF CUMBERLAND 
 
 Fort (Boonesborough), Elizabeth and Fran- 
 ces Callaway, and Jemima Boone, the daugh- 
 ters of Richard Callaway and Daniel Boone, 
 and rapidly marched them away toward the 
 Shawanoe towns on the Ohio. A relief party, 
 in two divisions, headed respectively by the 
 young girls' fathers, and composed among 
 others of the lovers of the three girls, Sam- 
 uel Henderson, John Holder, and Flanders 
 Callaway, pursued them with almost incredi- 
 ble swiftness. Guided by broken twigs and 
 bits of cloth surreptitiously dropped by Eliza- 
 beth Callaway, they finally overtook the un- 
 suspecting savages, killed two of them, and 
 rescued the three maidens unharmed. This 
 romantic episode — which gave Fenimore 
 Cooper the theme for the most memorable 
 scene in one of his Leatherstocking Tales — 
 had an even more romantic sequel in the sub- 
 sequent marriage of the three pairs of lovers. 
 
 This bold foray, so shrewdly executed and 
 even more sagaciously foiled, was a true pre- 
 cursor of the dread happenings of the coming 
 years. Soon the red men were lurking in the 
 
 271 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 neighborhood of the stations; and relief was 
 felt when the Transylvania Fort, the great 
 stockade planned by Judge Henderson, was 
 completed by the pioneers (July, 1776). 
 Glad tidings arrived only a few days later 
 when the Declaration of Independence, read 
 aloud from the Virginia Gazette, was greeted 
 with wild huzzas by the patriotic backwoods- 
 men. During the ensuing months occasional 
 invasions were made by savage bands; but it 
 was not until April 24, 1777, that Hender- 
 son's "big fort" received its first attack, being 
 invested by a company of some seventy-five 
 savages. The twenty-two riflemen in the fort 
 drove off the painted warriors, but not before 
 Michael Stoner, Daniel Boone, and several 
 others were severely wounded. As he lay 
 helpless upon the ground, his ankle shattered 
 by a bullet, Boone was lifted by Simon Ken- 
 ton and borne away upon his shoulders to the 
 haven of the stockade amid a veritable shower 
 of balls. The stoical and taciturn Boone 
 clasped Kenton's hand and gave him the ac- 
 colade of the wilderness in the brief but heart- 
 
 272 
 
THE COLONIZATION OF CUMBERLAND 
 
 felt utterance; "You are a fine fellow." On 
 July 4th of this same year the fort was again 
 subjected to siege, when two hundred gaudily 
 painted savages surrounded it for two days. 
 But owing to the vigilance and superb mark- 
 manship of the defenders, as well as to the lack 
 of cannon by the besieging force, the Indians 
 reluctantly abandoned the siege, after leaving 
 a number dead upon the field. Soon after- 
 ward the arrival of two strong bodies of prime 
 riflemen, who had been hastily summoned from 
 the frontiers of North Carolina and Virginia, 
 once again made firm the bulwark of white 
 supremacy in the West. 
 
 Kentucky's terrible year, 1778, opened with 
 a severe disaster to the white settlers — when 
 Boone with thirty men, while engaged in mak- 
 ing salt at the "Lower Salt Spring," was cap- 
 tured in February by more than a hundred 
 Indians, sent by Governor Hamilton of De- 
 troit to drive the white settlers from "Ken- 
 tucke." Boone remained in captivity until 
 early summer, when, learning that his Indian 
 captors were planning an attack in force upon 
 
 273 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 the Transylvania Fort, he succeeded in effect- 
 ing his escape. After a break-neck journey 
 of one hundred and sixty miles, during which 
 he ate but one meal, Boone finally arrived at 
 the big fort on June 20th. The settlers were 
 thus given ample time for preparation, as the 
 long siege did not begin until September 7th. 
 The fort was invested by a powerful force 
 flying the English flag — four hundred and 
 forty-four savages gaudy in the vermilion and 
 ochre of their war-paint, and eleven French- 
 men, the whole being commanded by the 
 French-Canadian, Captain Dagniaux de Quin- 
 dre, and the great Indian Chief, Black-fish, 
 who had adopted Boone as a son. 187 In the 
 effort to gain his end de Quindre resorted to 
 a dishonorable stratagem, by which he hoped 
 to outwit the settlers and capture the fort with 
 but slight loss. "They formed a scheme to 
 deceive us," says Boone, "declaring it was their 
 orders, from Governor Hamilton, to take us 
 captives, and not to destroy us; but if nine 
 of us would come out and treat with them, they 
 would immediately withdraw their forces from 
 
 274 
 
THE COLONIZATION OF CUMBERLAND 
 
 our walls, and return home peacably." Trans- 
 parent as the stratagem was, Boone incau- 
 tiously agreed to a conference with the enemy ; 
 Callaway alone took the precaution to guard 
 against Indian duplicity. After a long talk, 
 the Indians proposed to Boone, Callaway, and 
 the seven or eight pioneers who accompanied 
 them that they shake hands in token of peace 
 and friendship. As picturesquely described 
 by Daniel Trabue : 
 
 The Indians sayed two Indians must shake 
 hands with one white man to make a Double 
 or sure peace at this time the Indians had 
 hold of the white men's hands and held them. 
 Col. Calloway objected to this but the other 
 Indians laid hold or tryed to lay hold of the 
 other hand but Colonel Calloway was the first 
 that jerked away from them but the Indians 
 seized the men two Indians holt of one man or 
 it was mostly the case and did their best to 
 hold them but while the man and Indians was 
 a scuffling the men from the Fort agreeable 
 to Col. Calloway's order fired on them they 
 had a dreadful skuffel but our men all got in 
 the fort safe and the fire continued on both 
 sides. 188 
 
 275 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 During the siege Callaway, the leader of the 
 pioneers, made a wooden cannon wrapped with 
 wagon tires, which on being fired at a group 
 of Indians "made them scamper perdidiously." 
 The secret effort of the Indians to tunnel a 
 way underground into the fort, being discov- 
 ered by the defenders, was frustrated by a 
 countermine. Unable to outwit, outfight, or 
 outmaneuver the resourceful Callaway, de 
 Quindre finally withdrew on September 16th, 
 closing the longest and severest attack that any 
 of the fortified stations of Kentucky had ever 
 been called upon to withstand. 
 
 The successful defense of the Transylvania 
 Fort, made by these indomitable backwoods- 
 men who were lost sight of by the Continental 
 Congress and left to fight alone their battles 
 in the forests, was of national significance in 
 its results. Had the Transylvania Fort fallen, 
 the northern Indians in overwhelming num- 
 bers, directed by Hamilton and led by British 
 officers, might well have swept Kentucky free 
 of defenders and fallen with devastating force 
 upon the exposed settlements along the west- 
 
 276 
 
THE COLONIZATION OF CUMBERLAND 
 
 ern frontiers of North Carolina, Virginia, and 
 Pennsylvania. This defense of Boonesbor- 
 ough, therefore, is deserving of commemora- 
 tion in the annals of the Revolution, along with 
 Lexington and Bunker's Hill. Coupled with 
 Clark's meteoric campaign in the Northwest 
 and the subsequent struggles in the defense 
 of Kentucky, it may be regarded as an 
 event basically responsible for the retention of 
 the trans-Alleghany region by the United 
 States. The bitter struggles, desperate sieges, 
 and bloody reprisals of these dark years came 
 to a close with the expeditions of Clark and 
 Logan in November, 1782, which appro- 
 priately concluded the Revolution in the West 
 by putting a definite end to all prospect of 
 formidable invasion of Kentucky. 
 
 In November, 1777, "Washington District," 
 the delegates of which had been received in the 
 preceding year by the Provincial Congress of 
 North Carolina, was formed by the North 
 Carolina General Assembly into Washington 
 County ; and to it were assigned the boundaries 
 of the whole of the present state of Tennessee. 
 
 277 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 While this immense territory was thus being 
 definitely included within the bounds of North 
 Carolina, Judge Henderson on behalf of the 
 Transylvania Company was making a vigorous 
 effort to secure the reestablishment of its rights 
 from the Virginia Assembly. By order of the 
 Virginia legislature, an exhaustive investiga- 
 tion of the claims of the Transylvania Com- 
 pany was therefore made, hearings being held 
 at various points in the back country. On 
 July 18, 1777, Judge Henderson presented 
 to the peace commissioners for North Carolina 
 and Virginia at the Long Island treaty ground 
 an elaborate memorial in behalf of the Tran- 
 sylvania Company, which the commissioners 
 unanimously refused to consider, as not com- 
 ing under their jurisdiction. 189 Finally, after 
 a full and impartial discussion before the Vir- 
 ginia House of Delegates, that body declared 
 the Transylvania purchase void. 190 But in 
 consideration of "the very great expense [in- 
 curred by the company] in making the said 
 purchase, and in settling the said lands, by 
 which the commonwealth is likely to receive 
 
 278 
 
THE COLONIZATION OF CUMBERLAND 
 
 great advantage, by increasing its inhabitants, 
 and establishing a barrier against the Indians," 
 the House of Delegates granted Richard Hen- 
 derson and Company two hundred thousand 
 acres of land situated between the Ohio and 
 Green rivers, where the town of Henderson, 
 Kentucky, now stands. 191 With this bursting 
 of the Transylvania bubble and the vanishing 
 of the golden dreams of Henderson and his as- 
 sociates for establishing the fourteenth Ameri- 
 can colony in the heart of the trans-Alleghany, 
 a first romantic chapter in the history of West- 
 ward expansion comes to a close. 
 
 But another and more feasible project im- 
 mediately succeeded. Undiscouraged by Vir- 
 ginia's confiscation of Transylvania, and dis- 
 regarding North Carolina's action in extend- 
 ing her boundaries over the trans-Alleghany 
 region lying within her chartered limits, Hen- 
 derson, in whom the genius of the colonizer 
 and the ambition of the speculative capitalist 
 were found in striking conjunction, was now 
 inspired to repeat, along broader and more 
 solidly practical lines, the revolutionary ex- 
 
 279 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 periment of Transylvania. It was not his 
 purpose, however, to found an independent 
 colony; for he believed that millions of acres 
 in the Transylvania purchase lay within the 
 bounds of North Carolina, and he wished to 
 open for colonization, settlement, and the sale 
 of lands, the vast wilderness of the valley of 
 the Cumberland supposed to lie within those 
 confines. But so universal was the prevailing 
 uncertainty in regard to boundaries that it was 
 necessary to prolong the North Carolina-Vir- 
 ginia line in order to determine whether or not 
 the Great French Lick, the ideal location for 
 settlement, lay within the chartered limits of 
 North Carolina. 192 
 
 Judge Henderson's comprehensive plans 
 for the promotion of an extensive colonization 
 of the Cumberland region soon began to take 
 form in vigorous action. Just as in his Tran- 
 sylvania project Henderson had chosen Dan- 
 iel Boone, the ablest of the North Carolina 
 pioneers, to spy out the land and select sites 
 for future location, so now he chose as leader 
 of the new colonizing party the ablest of the 
 
 280 
 
THE COLONIZATION OF CUMBERLAND 
 
 Tennessee pioneers, James Robertson. Al- 
 though he was the acknowledged leader of the 
 Watauga settlement and held the responsible 
 position of Indian agent for North Carolina, 
 Robertson was induced by Henderson's liberal 
 offers to leave his comparatively peaceful home 
 and to venture his life in this desperate hazard 
 of new fortunes. The advance party of eight 
 white men and one negro, under Robertson's 
 leadership, set forth from the Holston settle- 
 ment on February 6, 1779, to make a prelim- 
 inary exploration and to plant corn "that 
 bread might be prepared for the main body 
 of emigrants in the fall." After erecting a 
 few cabins for dwellings and posts of defense, 
 Robertson plunged alone into the wilderness 
 and made the long journey to Post St. Vin- 
 cent in the Illinois, in order to consult with 
 George Rogers Clark, who had entered for 
 himself in the Virginia Land Office several 
 thousand acres of land at the French Lick. 
 After perfecting arrangements with Clark for 
 securing "cabin rights" should the land prove 
 to lie in Virginia, Robertson returned to Wa- 
 
 281 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 tauga to take command of the migration. 
 
 Toward the end of the year two parties set 
 out, one by land, the other by water, for the 
 wonderful new country on the Cumberland 
 of which Boone and Scaggs and Mansker had 
 brought back such glowing descriptions. Dur- 
 ing the autumn Judge Henderson and other 
 commissioners from North Carolina, in con- 
 junction with commissioners from Virginia, 
 had been running out the boundary line be- 
 tween the two states. On the very day — 
 Christmas, 1779 — that Judge Henderson 
 reached the site of the Transylvania Fort, now 
 called Boonesborough, the swarm of colonists 
 from the parent hive at Watauga, under Rob- 
 ertson's leadership, reached the French Lick; 
 and on New Year's Day, 1780, crossed the 
 river on the ice to the present site of Nashville. 
 
 The journal of the other party, which, as 
 has been aptly said, reads like a chapter from 
 one of Captain Mayne Reid's fascinating 
 novels of adventure, was written by Colonel 
 John Donelson, the father-in-law of Andrew 
 Jackson. Setting out from Fort Patrick 
 
 282 
 
THE COLONIZATION OF CUMBERLAND 
 
 Henry on Holston River, December 22, 1779, 
 with a flotilla consisting of about thirty flat- 
 boats, dugouts, and canoes, they encountered 
 few difficulties until they began to run the 
 gauntlet of the Chickamauga towns on the 
 Tennessee. Here they were furiously at- 
 tacked by the Indians, terrible in their red and 
 black war-paint ; and a well-filled boat lagging 
 in the rear, with smallpox on board, was driven 
 to shore by the Indians. The occupants were 
 massacred; but the Indians at once contracted 
 the disease and died by the hundreds. This 
 luckless sacrifice of "poor Stuart, his family 
 and friends," while a ghastly price to pay, un- 
 doubtedly procured for the Cumberland settle- 
 ments comparative immunity from Indian 
 forays until the new-comers had firmly estab- 
 lished themselves in their wilderness strong- 
 hold. Eloquent of the granite endurance and 
 courageous spirit of the typical American pio- 
 neer in its thankfulness for sanctuary, for re- 
 union of families and friends, and for the hum- 
 ble shelter of a log cabin, is the last entry in 
 Donelson's diary (April 24, 1780) : 
 
 283 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 This day we arrived at our journey's end 
 at the Big Salt Lick, where we have the pleas- 
 ure of finding Capt. Robertson and his com- 
 pany. It is a source of satisfaction to us to 
 be enabled to restore to him and others their 
 families and friends, who were intrusted to 
 our care, and who, some time since, perhaps, 
 despaired of ever meeting again. Though 
 our prospects at present are dreary, we have 
 found a few log cabins which have been built 
 on a cedar bluff above the Lick by Capt. Rob- 
 ertson and his company. 193 
 
 In the midst of the famine during this terri- 
 ble period of the "hard winter," Judge Hen- 
 derson was sorely concerned for the fate of the 
 new colony which he had projected, and imme- 
 diately proceeded to purchase at huge cost a 
 large stock of corn. On March 5, 1780, this 
 corn, which had been raised by Captain Na- 
 thaniel Hart, was "sent from Boonesborough 
 in perogues [pettiaugers or flatboats] under 
 the command of William Bailey Smith. . . . 
 This corn was taken down the Kentucky River, 
 and over the Falls of Ohio, to the mouth of 
 the Cumberland, and thence up that river to 
 
 284 
 
THE COLONIZATION OF CUMBERLAND 
 
 the fort at the French Lick. It is believed 
 to have been the only bread which the settlers 
 had until it was raised there in 1781." 194 
 There is genuine impressiveness in this heroic 
 triumphing over the obstacles of obdurate na- 
 ture and this paternalistic provision for the 
 exposed Cumberland settlement — the pur- 
 chase by Judge Henderson, the shipment by 
 Captain Hart, and the transportation by 
 Colonel Smith, in an awful winter of bitter 
 cold and obstructed navigation, of this indis- 
 pensable quantity of corn purchased for sixty 
 thousand dollars in depreciated currency. 
 
 Upon his arrival at the French Lick, shortly 
 after the middle of April, Judge Henderson 
 at once proceeded to organize a government 
 for the little community. On May 1st arti- 
 cles of association were drawn up; and im- 
 portant additions thereto were made on May 
 13th, when the settlers signed the complete 
 series. The original document, still preserved, 
 was drafted by Judge Henderson, being writ- 
 ten throughout in his own handwriting; and 
 his name heads the list of two hundred and 
 
 285 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 fifty and more signatures. 195 The "Cumber- 
 land Compact," as this paper is called, is fun- 
 damentally a mutual contract between the co- 
 partners of the Transylvania Company and 
 the settlers upon the lands claimed by the com- 
 pany. It represents the collective will of the 
 community ; and on account of the careful pro- 
 visions safeguarding the rights of each party 
 to the contract it may be called a bill of rights. 
 The organization of this pure democracy was 
 sound and admirable — another notable early 
 example of the commission form of govern- 
 ment. The most remarkable feature of this 
 backwoods constitution marks Judge Hender- 
 son as a pioneer in the use of the political de- 
 vice so prominent to-day, one hundred and 
 forty years later — the "recall of judges." In 
 the following striking clause this innovation 
 in government was recognized thus early in 
 American history as the most effective means 
 of securing and safeguarding justice in a 
 democracy : 
 
 As often as the people in general are dis- 
 satisfied with the doings of the Judges or 
 
 286 
 
THE COLONIZATION OF CUMBERLAND 
 
 Triers so to be chosen, they may call a new 
 election in any of the said stations, and elect 
 others in their stead, having due respect to 
 the number now agreed to be elected at each 
 station, which persons so to be chosen shall 
 have the same power with those in whose room 
 or place they shall or may be chosen to act. 
 
 A land-office was now opened, the entry- 
 taker being appointed by Judge Henderson, 
 in accordance with the compact ; and the lands, 
 for costs of entry, etc., were registered for the 
 nominal fee of ten dollars per thousand acres. 
 But as the Transylvania Company was never 
 able to secure a "satisfactory and indisputable 
 title," the clause resulted in perpetual non- 
 payment. In 1783, following the lead of Vir- 
 ginia in the case of Transylvania, North Caro- 
 lina declared the Transylvania Company's 
 purchase void, but granted the company in 
 compensation a tract of one hundred and 
 ninety thousand acres in Powell's Valley. 196 
 As compensation, the grants of North Caro- 
 lina and Virginia were quite inadequate, con- 
 sidering the value of the service in behalf of 
 
 287 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 permanent western colonization rendered by 
 the Transylvania company. 197 
 
 James Robertson was chosen as presiding 
 officer of the court of twelve commissioners, 
 and was also elected commander-in-chief of 
 the military forces of the eight little associated 
 settlements on the Cumberland. Here for the 
 next two years the self-reliant settlers under 
 Robertson's wise and able leadership success- 
 fully repelled the Indians in their guerrilla 
 warfare, firmly entrenched themselves in their 
 forest-girt stronghold, and vindicated their 
 claim to the territory by right of occupation 
 and conquest. Here sprang up in later times 
 a great and populous city — named, strangely 
 enough, neither for Henderson, the founder, 
 nor for Robertson and Donelson, the leaders 
 of the two colonizing parties, but for one hav- 
 ing no association with its history or origins, 
 the gallant North Carolinian, General Francis 
 Nash, who was killed at the Battle of German- 
 town. 
 
 288 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 king's mountain 
 
 With the utmost satisfaction I can acquaint you with the 
 sudden and favorable turn of our public affairs. A few days 
 ago destruction hung over our heads. Cornwallis with at 
 least 1500 British and Tories waited at Charlotte for the 
 reinforcement of 1000 from Broad River, which reinforcement 
 has been entirely cut off, 130 killed and the remainder cap- 
 tured. Cornwallis immediately retreated, and is now on his 
 way toward Charleston, with part of our army in his rear. . . . 
 — Elizabeth Maxwell Steel: Salisbury, October 
 25, 1780. 
 
 SO thoroughly had the Cherokees been sub- 
 dued by the devastations of the campaign 
 of 1776 that for several years thereafter they 
 were unable to organize for a new campaign 
 against the backwoodsmen along the frontiers 
 of North Carolina and Tennessee. During 
 these years the Holston settlers principally 
 busied themselves in making their position se- 
 cure, as well as in setting their house in order 
 by severely punishing the lawless Tory element 
 among them. In 1779 the Chickamaugas, 
 
 289 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 with whom The Dragging Canoe and his ir- 
 reconcilable followers among the Cherokees 
 had joined hands after the campaign of 1776, 
 grew so bold in their bloody forays upon small 
 exposed settlements that North Carolina and 
 Virginia in conjunction despatched a strong 
 expedition against them. Embarking on 
 April 10th at the mouth of Big Creek near 
 the present Rogersville, Tennessee, three hun- 
 dred and fifty men led by Colonel Evan Shelby 
 descended the Tennessee to the fastnesses of 
 the Chickamaugas. Meeting with no resist- 
 ance from the astonished Indians, who fled to 
 the shelter of the densely wooded hills, they 
 laid waste the Indian towns and destroyed the 
 immense stores of goods collected by the Brit- 
 ish agents for distribution among the red men. 
 The Chickamaugas were completely quelled; 
 and during the period of great stress through 
 which the Tennessee frontiersmen were soon 
 to pass, the Cherokees were restrained through 
 the wise diplomacy of Joseph Martin, Super- 
 intendent of Indian affairs for Virginia. 
 
 The great British offensive against the 
 290 
 
KING'S MOUNTAIN 
 
 Southern colonies, which were regarded as the 
 vulnerable point in the American Confederacy, 
 was fully launched upon the fall of Charleston 
 in May, 1780. Cornwallis established his 
 headquarters at Camden; and one of his lieu- 
 tenants, the persuasive and brilliant Fergu- 
 son, soon rallied thousands of Loyalists in 
 South Carolina to the British standard. 
 When Cornwallis inaugurated his campaign 
 for cutting Washington wholly off from the 
 Southern colonies by invading North Carolina, 
 the men upon the western waters realized that 
 the time had come to rise, in defense of their 
 state and in protection of their homes. Two 
 hundred Tennessee riflemen from Sullivan 
 County, under Colonel Isaac Shelby, were en- 
 gaged in minor operations in South Carolina 
 conducted by Colonel Charles McDowell; and 
 conspicuous among these engagements was the 
 affair at Musgrove's Mill on August 18th 
 when three hundred horsemen led by Colonel 
 James Williams, a native of Granville County, 
 North Carolina, Colonel Isaac Shelby, and 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Clark of Georgia repulsed 
 
 291 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 with heavy loss a British force of between 
 four and five hundred. 
 
 These minor successes availed nothing in 
 face of the disastrous defeat of Gates by Corn- 
 wallis at Camden on August 16th and the 
 humiliating blow to Sumter at Rocky Mount 
 on the following day. Ferguson hotly pur- 
 sued the frontiersmen, who then retreated over 
 the mountains; and from his camp at Gilbert 
 Town he despatched a threatening message to 
 the Western leaders, declaring that if they did 
 not desist from their opposition to the British 
 arms and take protection under his standard, 
 he would march his army over the mountains 
 and lay their country waste with fire and 
 sword. Stung to action, Shelby hastily rode 
 off to consult with Sevier at his log castle near 
 Jonesboro; and together they matured a plan 
 to arouse the mountain men and attack Fergu- 
 son by surprise. In the event of failure, these 
 wilderness free-lances planned to leave the 
 country and find a home with the Spaniards 
 in Louisiana. 198 
 
 At the original place of rendezvous, the 
 292 
 
KING'S MOUNTAIN 
 
 Sycamore Shoals of the Watauga, the over- 
 mountain men gathered on September 25th. 
 There an eloquent sermon was preached to 
 them by that fiery man of God, the Reverend 
 Samuel Doak, who concluded his discourse 
 with a stirring invocation to the sword of the 
 Lord and of Gideon — a sentiment greeted with 
 the loud applause of the militant frontiers- 
 men. Here and at various places along the 
 march they were joined by detachments of bor- 
 der fighters summoned to join the expedition 
 — Colonel William Campbell, who with some 
 reluctance had abandoned his own plans in re- 
 sponse to Shelby's urgent and repeated mes- 
 sage, in command of four hundred hardy fron- 
 tiersmen from Washington County, Virginia; 
 Colonel Benjamin Cleveland, with the wild 
 fighters of Wilkes known as "Cleveland's 
 Bulldogs"; Colonel Andrew Hampton, with 
 the stalwart riflemen of Rutherford; Major 
 Joseph Winston, the cousin of Patrick Henry, 
 with the flower of the citizenry of Surry; the 
 McDowells, Charles and Joseph, with the bold 
 borderers of Burke; Colonels Lacy and Hill, 
 
 293 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 with well-trained soldiers of South Carolina; 
 and Brigadier- General James Williams, lead- 
 ing the intrepid Rowan volunteers. 
 
 Before breaking camp at Quaker Meadows, 
 the leading officers in conference chose Colonel 
 William Campbell as temporary officer of the 
 day, until they could secure a general officer 
 from headquarters as commander-in-chief. 
 The object of the mountaineers and big-game 
 hunters was, in their own terms, to pursue Fer- 
 guson, to run him down, and to capture him. 
 In pursuance of this plan, the leaders on ar- 
 riving at the ford of Green River chose out 
 a force of six hundred men, with the best 
 mounts and equipment; and at daybreak on 
 October 6th this force of picked mounted rifle- 
 men, followed by some fifty "foot-cavalry" 
 eager to join in the pursuit, pushed rapidly on 
 to the Cowpens. Here a second selection took 
 place ; and Colonel Campbell was again elected 
 commander of the detachment, now number- 
 ing some nine hundred and ten horsemen and 
 eighty odd footmen, which dashed rapidly on 
 in pursuit of Ferguson. 
 
 294 
 
KING'S MOUNTAIN 
 
 The British commander had been apprised 
 of the coming of the over-mountain men. 
 Scorning to make a forced march and attempt 
 to effect a junction with Cornwallis at Char- 
 lotte, Ferguson chose to make a stand and dis- 
 pose once for all of the barbarian horde whom 
 he denounced as mongrels and the dregs of 
 mankind. After despatching to Cornwallis a 
 message asking for aid, Ferguson took up his 
 camp on King's Mountain, just south of the 
 North Carolina border line, in the present 
 York County, South Carolina. Here, after 
 his pickets had been captured in silence, he 
 was surprised by his opponents. At three 
 o'clock in the afternoon of October 7th the 
 mountain hunters treed their game upon the 
 heights. 
 
 The battle which ensued presents an extraor- 
 dinary contrast in the character of the combat- 
 ants and the nature of the strategy and 
 tactics. 199 Each party ran true to form — Fer- 
 guson repeating Braddock's suicidal policy of 
 opposing bayonet charges to the deadly fusil- 
 lade of riflemen, who in Indian fashion were 
 
 295 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 carefully posted behind trees and every shelter 
 afforded by the natural inequalities of the 
 ground. In the army of the Carolina and 
 Virginia frontiersmen, composed of independ- 
 ent detachments recruited from many sources 
 and solicitous for their own individual credit, 
 each command was directed in the battle by 
 its own leader. Campbell — like Cleveland, 
 Winston, Williams, Lacey, Shelby, McDow- 
 ell, Sevier, and Hambright — personally led 
 his own division; but the nature of the fight- 
 ing and the peculiarity of the terrain made it 
 impossible for him, though the chosen com- 
 mander of the expedition, actually to play that 
 role in the battle. The plan agreed upon in 
 advance by the frontier leaders was simple 
 enough — to surround and capture Ferguson's 
 camp on the high plateau. The more experi- 
 enced Indian fighters, Sevier and Shelby, un- 
 questionably suggested the general scheme 
 which in any case would doubtless have been 
 employed by the frontiersmen; it was to give 
 the British "Indian play" — namely to take 
 cover everywhere and to fire from natural shel- 
 
 296 
 
KING'S MOUNTAIN 
 
 ter. Cleveland, a Hercules in strength and 
 courage who had fought the Indians and recog- 
 nized the wisdom of Indian tactics, ordered 
 his men, as did some of the other leaders, to 
 give way before a bayonet charge, but to re- 
 turn to the attack after the charge had spent 
 its force. 
 
 "My brave fellows," said Cleveland, "every 
 man must consider himself an officer, and act 
 from his own judgment. Fire as quick as you 
 can, and stand your ground as long as you can. 
 When you can do no better, get behind trees, 
 or retreat ; but I beg you not to run quite off. 
 If we are repulsed, let us make a point of re- 
 turning and renewing the fight; perhaps we 
 may have better luck in the second attempt 
 than in the first." 
 
 The plateau upon which Ferguson was en- 
 camped was the top of an eminence some six 
 hundred yards long and about two hundred 
 and fifty yards from one base across to the 
 other; and its shape was that of an Indian 
 paddle, varying from one hundred and twenty 
 yards at the blade to sixty yards at the handle 
 in width. Outcropping boulders upon the 
 
 297 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 outer edge of the plateau afforded some slight 
 shelter for Ferguson's force ; but, unsuspicious 
 of attack, Ferguson had made no abatis to 
 protect his camp from the assault to which it 
 was so vulnerable because of the protection 
 of the timber surrounding it on all sides. As 
 to the disposition of the attacking force, the 
 center to the northeast was occupied by Cleve- 
 land with his "Bulldogs," Hambright with his 
 South Fork Boys from the Catawba (now 
 Lincoln County, North Carolina), and Win- 
 ston with his Surry riflemen ; to the south were 
 the divisions of Joseph McDowell, Sevier, and 
 Campbell; while Lacey's South Carolinians, 
 the Rowan levies under Williams, and the 
 Watauga borderers under Shelby were sta- 
 tioned upon the north side. Ferguson's forces 
 consisted of Provincial Rangers, one hundred 
 and fifty strong, and other well-drilled Loyal- 
 ists, between eight and nine hundred in num- 
 ber; but his strength was seriously weakened 
 by the absence of a foraging party of between 
 one and two hundred who had gone off on the 
 morning the battle occurred. Shelby's men, 
 
 298 
 
KING'S MOUNTAIN 
 
 before getting into position, received a hot fire, 
 the opening shots of the engagement. This 
 inspired Campbell, who now threw off his coat, 
 to shout encouraging orders to his men posted 
 on the side of the mountain opposite to Shel- 
 by's force. When Campbell's Virginians ut- 
 tered a series of piercing shouts, the British 
 officer, De Peyster, second in command, re- 
 marked to his chief: "These things are omi- 
 nous — these are the damned yelling boys." 
 
 The battle, which lasted some minutes short 
 of an hour, was waged with terrific ferocity. 
 The Loyalist militia, whenever possible, fired 
 from the shelter of the rocks; while the Pro- 
 vincial Corps, with fixed bayonets, steadily 
 charged the frontiersmen, who fired at close 
 range and then rapidly withdrew to the very 
 base of the mountain. After each bayonet 
 charge the Provincials coolly withdrew to the 
 summit, under the accumulating fire of the re- 
 turning mountaineers, who quickly gathered in 
 their rear. Owing to their elevated location, 
 the British, although using the rapid-fire 
 breech-loading rifle invented by Ferguson 
 
 299 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 himself, found their vision deflected, and con- 
 tinually fired high, thus suffering from na- 
 ture's handicap, refraction. 200 The militia, us- 
 ing sharpened butcher-knives which Ferguson 
 had taught them to utilize as bayonets, charged 
 against the mountaineers ; but their fire, in an- 
 swer to the deadly fusillade of the expert 
 squirrel-shooters, was belated, owing to the 
 fact that they could not fire while the crudely 
 improvised bayonets remained inserted in their 
 pieces. The Americans, continually firing up- 
 ward, found ready marks for their aim in the 
 clearly delineated outlines of their adversaries, 
 and felt the fierce exultation which animates 
 the hunter who has tracked to its lair and sur- 
 rounded wild game at bay. 
 
 The leaders of the various divisions of the 
 mountaineers bore themselves with impetuous 
 bravery, recklessly rushing between the lines 
 of fire and with native eloquence, interspersed 
 with profanity, rallying their individual com- 
 mands again and again to the attack. The 
 valiant Campbell scaled the rugged heights, 
 loudly encouraging his men to the ascent. 
 
 300 
 
KING'S MOUNTAIN 
 
 Cleveland, resolutely facing the foe, urged on 
 his Bulldogs with the inspiriting words: 
 "Come, boys; let 's try 'em again. We '11 have 
 better luck next time." No sooner did Shel- 
 by's men reach the bottom of the hill, in re- 
 treating before a charge, than their com- 
 mander, fiery and strenuous, ardently shouted : 
 "Now boys, quickly reload your rifles, and 
 let 's advance upon them, and give them an- 
 other hell of a fire." The most deadly charge, 
 led by De Peyster himself, fell upon Ham- 
 bright's South Fork boys; and one of their 
 gallant officers, Major Chronicle, waving his 
 military hat, was mortally wounded, the com- 
 mand, "Face to the hill!", dying on his lips. 
 These veteran soldiers, unlike the mountain- 
 eers, firmly met the shock of the charge, and a 
 number of their men were shot down or trans- 
 fixed; but the remainder, reserving their fire 
 until the charging column was only a few feet 
 away, poured in a deadly volley before retir- 
 ing. The gallant William Lenoir, whose 
 reckless bravery made him a conspicuous tar- 
 get for the enemy, received several wounds 
 
 301 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 and emerged from the battle with his hair and 
 clothes torn by balls. The ranking American 
 officer, Brigadier-General James Williams, 
 was mortally wounded while "on the very top 
 of the mountain, in the thickest of the fight"; 
 and as he momentarily revived, his first words 
 were: "For God's sake, boys, don't give up 
 the hill." 201 Hambright, sorely wounded, his 
 boot overflowing with blood and his hat riddled 
 with three bullet holes, declined to dismount, 
 but pressed gallantly forward, exclaiming in 
 his "Pennsylvania Dutch": "Huzza, my 
 prave poys, fight on a few minutes more, and 
 the pattle will be over!" On the British side, 
 Ferguson was supremely valorous, rapidly 
 dashing from one point to another, rallying his 
 men, oblivious to all danger. Wherever the 
 shrill note of his silver whistle sounded, there 
 the fighting was hottest and the British resist- 
 ance the most stubborn. His officers fought 
 with the characteristic steadiness of the British 
 soldier; and again and again his men charged 
 headlong against the wavering and fiery circle 
 of the frontiersmen. 202 
 
 302 
 
ISAAC SHELBY 
 
 From a painting by Matthew Harris Jouett in the possession of William 
 R. Shelby, Esq., Grand Rapids, Mich. 
 
KING'S MOUNTAIN 
 
 Ferguson's boast that "he was on King's 
 Mountain, that he was king of the Mountain, 
 and God Almighty could not drive him from 
 it" was doubtless prompted, less by a belief 
 in the impregnability of his position, than by 
 a desperate desire to inspire confidence in his 
 men. His location was admirably chosen for 
 defense against attack by troops employing 
 regulation tactics; but, never dreaming of the 
 possibility of sudden investment, Ferguson 
 had erected no fortifications for his encamp- 
 ment. His frenzied efforts on the battle-field 
 seem like a mad rush against fate ; for the place 
 was indefensible against the peculiar tactics 
 of the frontiersmen. While the mountain 
 flamed like a volcano and resounded with the 
 thunder of the guns, a steady stricture was in 
 progress. The lines were drawn tighter and 
 tighter around the trapped and frantically 
 struggling army; and at last the fall of their 
 commander, riddled with bullets, proved the 
 tragic futility of further resistance. The 
 game was caught and bagged to a man. 
 When Winston, with his fox-hunters of Surry, 
 
 303 
 
KING'S MOUNTAIN 
 
 dashed recklessly through the woods, says a 
 chronicler of the battle, and the last to come 
 into position, 
 
 Flow'd in, and settling, circled all the lists, 
 
 then 
 
 From all the circle of the hills 
 death sleeted in upon the doomed. 
 
 The battle was decisive in its effect- — shatter- 
 ing the plans of Cornwallis, which till then 
 appeared certain of success. The victoiy put 
 a full stop to the invasion of North Carolina, 
 which was then well under way. Cornwallis 
 abandoned his carefully prepared campaign 
 and immediately left the state. After ruth- 
 lessly hanging nine prisoners, an action which 
 had an effectively deterrent effect upon fu- 
 ture Tory murders and depredations, the pa- 
 triot force quietly disbanded. The brilliant 
 initiative of the buckskin-clad borderers, the 
 strenuous energy of their pursuit, the perfec- 
 tion of their surprise — all reinforced by the 
 employment of ideal tactics for meeting the 
 given situation — were the controlling factors 
 
 304 
 
KING'S MOUNTAIN 
 
 in this overwhelming victory of the Revolu- 
 tion. The pioneers of the Old Southwest — 
 the independent and aggressive yeomanry of 
 North Carolina, Virginia, and South Carolina 
 — had risen in their might. Without the aid 
 or authority of blundering state governments, 
 they had created an army of frontiersmen, In- 
 dian-fighters, and big-game hunters which had 
 found no parallel or equal on the continent 
 since the Battle of the Great Kanawha. 
 
 305 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE STATE OF FRANKLIN 
 
 Designs of a more dangerous nature and deeper die seem to 
 glare in the western revolt. ... I have thought proper to 
 issue this manifesto, hereby warning all persons concerned 
 in the said revolt . . . that the honour of this State has been 
 particularly wounded, by seizing that by violence which, in 
 time, no doubt, would have been obtained by consent, when 
 the terms of separation would have been explained or stipu- 
 lated, to the mutual satisfaction of the mother and new 
 State. . . . Let your proposals be consistent with the honour 
 of the State to accede to, which, by your allegiance as good 
 citizens, you cannot violate and I make no doubt but her 
 generosity, in time, will meet your wishes. 
 
 — Governor Alexander Martin: Manifesto against 
 the State of Franklin, April 25, 1785. 
 
 TO the shrewd diplomacy of Joseph Mar- 
 tin, who held the Cherokees in check dur- 
 ing the period of the King's Mountain cam- 
 paign, the settlers in the valleys of the Wa- 
 tauga and the Holston owed their temporary 
 immunity from Indian attack. But no sooner 
 did Sevier and his over -mountain men return 
 from the battle-field of King's Mountain than 
 they were called upon to join in an expedition 
 
 306 
 
THE STATE OF FRANKLIN 
 
 against the Cherokees, who had again gone 
 on the war-path at the instigation of the Brit- 
 ish. After Sevier with his command had de- 
 feated a small party of Indians at Boyd's 
 Creek in December, the entire force of seven 
 hundred riflemen, under the command of 
 Colonel Arthur Campbell, with Major Joseph 
 Martin as subordinate, penetrated to the heart 
 of the Indian country, burned Echota, Chil- 
 howee, Settiquo, Hiawassee, and seven other 
 principal villages, and destroyed an immense 
 amount of property and supplies. In March, 
 suspecting that the arch-conspirators against 
 the white settlers were the Cherokees at the 
 head waters of the Little Tennessee, Sevier 
 led one hundred and fifty horsemen through 
 the devious mountain defiles and struck the In- 
 dians a swift and unexpected blow at Tuck- 
 asegee, near the present Webster, North Caro- 
 lina. In this extraordinarily daring raid, one 
 of his most brilliant feats of arms, Sevier lost 
 only one man killed and one wounded; while 
 upon the enemy he inflicted the loss of thirty 
 killed, took many more prisoners, burned six 
 
 307 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 Indian towns, and captured many horses and 
 supplies. Once his deadly work was done, 
 Sevier with his bold cavaliers silently plunged 
 again into the forest whence he had so suddenly 
 emerged, and returned in triumph to the set- 
 tlements. 
 
 Disheartened though the Indians were to see 
 the smoke of their burning towns, they sullenly 
 remained averse to peace; and they did not 
 keep the treaty made at Long Island in July, 
 1781. The Indians suffered from very real 
 grievances at the hands of the lawless white 
 settlers who persisted in encroaching upon the 
 Indian lands. When the Indian ravages were 
 resumed, Sevier and Anderson, the latter from 
 Sullivan County, led a punitive expedition of 
 two hundred riflemen against the Creeks and 
 the Chickamaugas ; and employing the cus- 
 tomary tactics of laying waste the Indian 
 towns, administered stern and salutary chas- 
 tisement to the copper-colored marauders. 
 
 During this same period the settlers on the 
 Cumberland were displaying a grim fortitude 
 and stoical endurance in the face of Indian 
 
 308 
 
THE STATE OF FRANKLIN 
 
 attack forever memorable in the history of the 
 Old Southwest. On the night of January 15, 
 1781, the settlers at Freeland's Station, after 
 a desperate resistance, succeeded in beating 
 off the savages who attacked in force. At 
 Nashborough on April 2d, twenty of the set- 
 tlers were lured from the stockade by the art- 
 ful wiles of the savages ; and it was only after 
 serious loss that they finally won their way 
 back to the protection of the fort. Indeed, 
 their return was due to the fierce dogs of the 
 settlers, which were released at the most critical 
 moment, and attacked the astounded Indians 
 with such ferocity that the diversion thus 
 created enabled the settlers to escape from the 
 deadly trap. During the next two years the 
 history of the Cumberland settlements is but 
 the gruesome recital of murder after murder 
 of the whites, a few at a time, by the lurking 
 Indian foe. Robertson's dominant influence 
 alone prevented the abandonment of the sorely 
 harassed little stations. The arrival of the 
 North Carolina commissioners for the purpose 
 of laying off bounty lands and settlers' pre- 
 
 309 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 emptions, and the treaty of peace concluded 
 at the French Lick on November 5 and 6, 
 1783, gave permanence and stability to the 
 Cumberland settlements. The lasting friend- 
 ship of the Chickasaws was won; but the 
 Creeks for some time continued to harass the 
 Tennessee pioneers. The frontiersmen's most 
 formidable foe, the Cherokees, stoically, hero- 
 ically fighting the whites in the field, and 
 smallpox, syphilis, and drunkenness at home, 
 at last abandoned the unequal battle. The 
 treaty at Hopewell on November 28, 1785, 
 marks the end of an era — the Spartan yet 
 hopeless resistance of the intrepid red men to 
 the relentless and frequently unwarranted ex- 
 propriation by the whites of the ancient and 
 immemorial domain of the savage. 
 
 The skill in self-government of the isolated 
 people beyond the mountains, and the ability 
 they had already demonstrated in the organi- 
 zation of "associations," received a strong 
 stimulus on June 2, 1784, when the legislature 
 of North Carolina ceded to the Congress of 
 the United States the title which that state 
 
 310 
 
THE STATE OF FRANKLIN 
 
 possessed to the land west of the Alleghanies. 
 Among the terms of the Cession Act were 
 these conditions: that the ceded territory 
 should be formed into a separate state or 
 states; and that if Congress should not accept 
 the lands thus ceded and give due notice within 
 two years, the act should be of no force and 
 the lands should revert to North Carolina. 203 
 No sooner did this news reach the Western 
 settlers than they began to mature plans for 
 the organization of a government during the 
 intervening twelve months. Their exposed 
 condition on the frontiers, still harassed by 
 the Indians, and North Carolina's delay in 
 sending goods promised the Indians by a for- 
 mer treaty, both promoted Indian hostility; 
 and these facts, combined with their remote 
 location beyond the mountains, rendering them 
 almost inaccessible to communication with 
 North Carolina — all rendered the decision of 
 the settlers almost inevitable. Moreover, the 
 allurements of high office and the dazzling 
 dreams of ambition were additional motives 
 sufficiently human in themselves to give driv- 
 
 311 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 ing power to the movement toward independ- 
 ence. 
 
 At a convention assembled at Jonesborough 
 on August 23, 1784, delegates from the coun- 
 ties of Washington, Sullivan, and Greene 
 characteristically decided to organize an "As- 
 sociation." They solemnly declared by reso- 
 lution : "We have a just and undeniable right 
 to petition to Congress to accept the session 
 made by North Carolina, and for that body to 
 countenance us for forming ourselves into a 
 separate government, and to frame either a 
 permanent or temporary constitution, agree- 
 ably to a resolve of Congress. . . ." Mean- 
 while, Governor Martin, largely as the result 
 of the prudent advice of North Carolina's 
 representative in Congress, Dr. Hugh Wil- 
 liamson, was brought to the conclusion that 
 North Carolina, in the passage of the cession 
 act, had acted precipitately. This important 
 step had been taken without the full considera- 
 tion of the people of the state. Among the 
 various arguments advanced by Williamson 
 was the impressive contention that, in accord- 
 
 312 
 
THE STATE OF FRANKLIN 
 
 ance with the procedure in the case of other 
 states, the whole expense of the huge Indian 
 expeditions in 1776 and the heavy militia aids 
 to South Carolina and Georgia should be cred- 
 ited to North Carolina as partial fulfilment 
 of her continental obligations before the ces- 
 sion should be irrevocably made to the Federal 
 government. Williamson's arguments proved 
 convincing; and it was thus primarily for 
 economic reasons of far-reaching national im- 
 portance that the assembly of North Caro- 
 lina (October 22 to November 25, 1784) re- 
 pealed the cession act made the preceding 
 spring."" 
 
 Before the news of the repeal of the cession 
 act could reach the western waters, a second 
 convention met at Jonesborough on December 
 17th. Sentiment at this time was much di- 
 vided, for a number of the people, expecting 
 the repeal of the cession act, genuinely de- 
 sired a continued allegiance to North Caro- 
 lina. Of these may well have been John 
 Sevier, who afterward declared to Joseph Mar- 
 tin that he had been "Draged into the Frank- 
 
 313 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 lin measures by a large number of the people 
 of this country." 205 The principal act of this 
 convention was the adoption of a temporary 
 constitution for six months and the provision 
 for a convention to be held within one year, at 
 the expiration of which time this constitution 
 should be altered, or adopted as the permanent 
 constitution of the new state. 206 The scholars 
 on the western waters, desiring to commemo- 
 rate their aspirations for freedom, chose as 
 the name of the projected new state: "Frank- 
 land" — the Land of the Free. The name 
 finally chosen, however, perhaps for reasons of 
 policy, was "Franklin," in honor of Benjamin 
 Franklin. Meanwhile, in order to meet the 
 pressing needs for a stable government along 
 the Tennessee frontier, the North Carolina 
 assembly, which repealed the cession act, cre- 
 ated out of the four western counties the 
 District of Washington, with John Hay- 
 wood as presiding judge and David Camp- 
 bell as associate, and conferred upon John 
 Sevier the rank of brigadier-general of the 
 new district. The first week in December 
 
 314 
 
THE STATE OF FRANKLIN 
 
 Governor Martin sent to Sevier his military 
 commission; and replying to Joseph Martin's 
 query (December 31, 1784, prompted by Gov- 
 ernor Martin) as to whether, in view of the 
 repeal of the cession act, he intended to persist 
 in revolt or await developments, Sevier gave 
 it out broadcast that "we shall pursue no fur- 
 their measures as to a new State." 
 
 Owing to the remoteness of the Tennessee 
 settlements and the difficulty of appreciating 
 through correspondence the atmosphere of 
 sentiment in Franklin, Governor Martin real- 
 ized the necessity of sending a personal repre- 
 sentative to discover the true state of affairs 
 in the disaffected region beyond the moun- 
 tains. For the post of ambassador to the new 
 government, Governor Martin selected a man 
 distinguished for mentality and diplomatic 
 skill, a pioneer of Tennessee and Kentucky, 
 Judge Richard Henderson's brother, Colonel 
 Samuel Henderson. Despite Sevier's dis- 
 avowal of any further intention to establish 
 a new state, the governor gave Colonel Hen- 
 derson elaborate written instructions, the pur- 
 
 315 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 port of which was to learn all that he could 
 about the political complexion of the Tennes- 
 see frontiersmen, the sense of the people, and 
 the agitation for a separate commonwealth. 
 Moreover, in the hope of placating the leading 
 chieftains of the Cherokees, who had bitterly- 
 protested against the continued aggressions 
 and encroachments upon their lands by the 
 lawless borderers, he instructed Colonel Hen- 
 derson also to learn the temper and disposi- 
 tions of the Indians, and to investigate the 
 case of Colonel James Hubbardt who was 
 charged with the murder of Untoola of Set- 
 tiquo, a chief of the Cherokees. 
 
 When Colonel Henderson arrived at Jones- 
 borough, he found the third Franklin legis- 
 lature in session, and to this body he presented 
 Governor Martin's letter of February 27, 
 1785. In response to the governor's request 
 for an "account of the late proceedings of the 
 people in the western country," an extended 
 reply was drafted by the new legislature ; and 
 this letter, conveyed to Governor Martin by 
 Colonel Henderson, in setting forth in detail 
 
 316 
 
THE STATE OF FRANKLIN 
 
 the reasons for the secession, made the follow- 
 ing significant statement: "We humbly 
 thank North Carolina for every sentiment of 
 regard she has for us, but are sorry to observe, 
 that as it is founded upon principles of in- 
 terest, as is aparent from the tenor of your 
 letter, we are doubtful, when the cause ceases 
 which is the basis of that affection, we shall 
 lose your esteem." At the same time (March 
 22d), Sevier, who had just been chosen Gov- 
 ernor of the State of Franklin, transmitted 
 to Governor Martin by Colonel Henderson a 
 long letter, not hitherto published in any his- 
 tory of the period, in which he outspokenly 
 says: 
 
 It gives me great pain to think there should 
 arise any Disputes between us and North 
 Carolina, & I flatter myself when North Caro- 
 lina states the matter in a fair light she will 
 be fully convinced that necessity and self- 
 preservation have Compelled Us to the meas- 
 ures we Have taken, and could the people have 
 discovered that No. Carolina would Have pro- 
 tected and Govern'd them, They would have 
 remained where they were ; but they perceived 
 
 317 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 a neglect and Coolness, and the Language of 
 Many of your most leading members Con- 
 vinced them they were Altogether Disre- 
 garded. 207 
 
 Following the issuance of vigorous manifestos 
 by Martin (April 25th) and Sevier (May 
 15th), 208 the burden of the problem fell upon 
 Richard Caswell, who in June succeeded Mar- 
 tin as Governor of North Carolina. 
 
 Meantime the legislature of the over-moun- 
 tain men had given the name of Franklin to 
 the new state, although for some time it con- 
 tinued to be called by many Frankland, and 
 its' adherents Franks. The legislature had 
 also established an academy named after Gov- 
 ernor Martin, and had appointed (March 
 12th) William Cocke as a delegate to the Con- 
 tinental Congress, urging its acceptance of the 
 cession. In the Memorial from the Franklin 
 legislature to the Continental Congress, deal- 
 ing in some detail with North Carolina's fail- 
 ure to send the Cherokees some goods prom- 
 ised them for lands acquired by treaty, it is 
 alleged : 
 
 318 
 
THE STATE OF FRANKLIN 
 
 She [North Carolina] immediately stoped 
 the goods she had promised to give the Indians 
 for the said land which so exasperated them 
 that they begun to commit hostalities on our 
 frontiers in this situation we were induced to 
 a declaration of Independence not doubting 
 we should be excused by Congress ... as 
 North Carolina seemed quite regardless of our 
 interest and the Indians daily murdering our 
 friends and relations without distinction of age 
 or sex. 209 
 
 Sympathizing with the precarious situation 
 of the settlers, as well as desiring the cession, 
 Congress urged North Carolina to amend the 
 repealing act and execute a conveyance of the 
 western territory to the Union. 
 
 Among the noteworthy features of the 
 Franklin movement was the constitution pre- 
 pared by a committee, headed by the Rever- 
 end Samuel Houston of Washington County, 
 and presented at the meeting of the Franklin 
 legislature, Greeneville, November 14, 1785. 
 This eccentric constitution was based in con- 
 siderable part upon the North Carolina model ; 
 but it was "rejected in the lump" and the 
 
 319 
 
A 
 
 DECLARATION op RIGHTS 
 
 ALSO, T H B 
 
 CONSTITUTION 
 
 FORM of GOVERNMENT 
 
 Agreed to, and rcfolved apon, by the Repress^ 
 TATivftt of the Freemen of the 
 
 STATE op FRANKLAND, 
 
 Elefted and chofen for tfet pa:tia?icr purpofe, in 
 Convention aflemblc-6^ <at Greensviilc, thft 
 «4th X)f$mmb*s, ^85. 
 
 ■. i. ii 1 i— m *i— ^■■jjt M li l 1 1 1 1 ;. * > - 
 
 "'- ■-, » " : -" - '"' ^ ." 
 
 - V : - ... v v- 
 
 ? HI L jtajtr&P:, S'^A: 
 Printed by Francis Bailey, at f^fflV ffW. 
 
 M.DCC.CXXXVt* 
 
 320 
 
THE STATE OF FRANKLIN 
 
 constitution of North Carolina, almost un- 
 changed, was adopted. Under this Hous- 
 ton constitution, the name "Frankland" was 
 chosen for the new state. The legislature 
 was to consist of but a single house. In a 
 section excluding from the legislature "min- 
 isters of the gospel, attorneys at law, and 
 doctors of physics," those were declared in- 
 eligible for office who were of immoral char- 
 acter or guilty of "such flagrant enormities 
 as drunkenness, gaming, profane swearing, 
 lewdness, Sabbath-breaking and such like," 
 or who should deny the existence of God, 
 of heaven, and of hell, the inspiration of 
 the Scriptures, or the existence of the Trin- 
 ity. Full religious liberty and the rights of 
 conscience were assured — but strict orthodoxy 
 was a condition for eligibility to office. No 
 one should be chosen to office who was "not 
 a scholar to do the business." This remark- 
 able document, which provided for many 
 other curious innovations in government, was 
 the work of pioneer doctrinaires — Houston, 
 Campbell, Cocke, and Tipton — and deserves 
 
 321 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 study as a bizarre reflection of the spirit and 
 genius of the western frontiersmen. 210 
 
 The liberal policy of Martin, followed by 
 the no less conciliatory attitude of his successor, 
 Caswell, for the time proved wholly abortive. 
 However, Martin's appointment of Evan 
 Shelby in Sevier's place as brigadier, and of 
 Jonathan Tipton as colonel of his county, pro- 
 duced disaffection among the Franks ; and the 
 influence of Joseph Martin against the new 
 government was a powerful obstacle to its 
 success. At first the two sets of military, civil, 
 and judicial officers were able to work amica- 
 bly together ; and a working-basis drawn up by 
 Shelby and Sevier, although afterward repu- 
 diated by the Franklin legislature, smoothed 
 over some of the rapidly accumulating diffi- 
 culties. The persistent and quiet assertion of 
 authority by North Carolina, without any 
 overt act of violence against the officers of 
 Franklin state, revealed great diplomatic skill 
 in Governors Martin and Caswell. It was 
 doubtless the considerate policy of the latter, 
 coupled with the defection from Sevier's cause 
 
 322 
 
THE STATE OF FRANKLIN 
 
 of men of the stamp of Houston and Tipton, 
 after the blundering and cavalier rejection of 
 their singular constitution, which undermined 
 the foundations of Franklin. Sevier himself 
 later wrote with considerable bitterness: "I 
 have been faithfull, and my own breast acquits 
 myself that I have acted no part but what has 
 been Consistent with honor and justice, tem- 
 pered with Clemency and mercy. How far 
 our pretended patriots have supported me as 
 their pretended chiefe magistrate, I leave the 
 world at large to Judge." Arthur Camp- 
 bell's plans for the formation of a greater 
 Franklin, through the union of the people on 
 the western waters of Virginia with those of 
 North Carolina, came to nought when Vir- 
 ginia in the autumn of 1785 with stern deci- 
 siveness passed an act making it high treason 
 to erect an independent government within her 
 limits unless authorized by the assembly. 
 Sevier, however, became more fixed in his de- 
 termination to establish a free state, writing 
 to Governor Caswell: "We shall continue to 
 act independent and would rather suffer death, 
 
 323 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 in all its various and frightful shapes, than 
 conform to anything that is disgraceful." 
 North Carolina, now proceeding with vigor 
 (November, 1786), fully reassumed its sover- 
 eignty and jurisdiction over the mountain 
 counties, but passed an act of pardon and ob- 
 livion, and in many ways adopted moderate 
 and conciliatory measures. 
 
 Driven to extremities, Cocke and Sevier in 
 turn appealed for aid and advice to Benjamin 
 Franklin, in whose honor the new state had 
 been named. In response to Cocke, Frank- 
 lin wrote (August 12, 1786) : "I think you 
 are perfectly right in resolving to submit them 
 [the Points in Dispute] to the Decision of 
 Congress and to abide by their Determina- 
 tion." 211 Franklin's views change in the in- 
 terim; for when, almost a year later, Sevier 
 asks him for counsel, Franklin has come to 
 the conclusion that the wisest move for Sevier 
 was not to appeal to Congress, but to endeavor 
 to effect some satisfactory compromise with 
 North Carolina (June 30, 1787) : 
 
THE STATE OF FRANKLIN 
 
 There are only two Things that Humanity 
 induces me to wish you may succeed in : The 
 Accomodating your Misunderstanding with 
 the Government of North Carolina, by amica- 
 ble Means; and the Avoiding an Indian war, 
 by preventing Encroaching on their Lands. 
 . . . The Inconvenience to your People at- 
 tending so remote a Seat of Government, and 
 the difficulty to that Government in ruling well 
 so remote a People, would I think be powerful 
 Inducements with it, to accede to any fair & 
 reasonable Proposition it may receive from you 
 towards an Accomodation. 212 
 
 Despite Sevier's frenzied efforts to achieve 
 independence — his treaty with the Indians, his 
 sensational plan to incorporate the Cherokees 
 into the new state, his constancy to an ideal of 
 revolt against others in face of the reality of 
 revolt against himself, his struggle, equivocal 
 and half-hearted, with the North Carolina au- 
 thorities under Tipton — despite all these heroic 
 efforts, the star of Franklin swiftly declined. 
 The vigorous measures pursued by General 
 Joseph Martin, and his effective influence fo- 
 cussed upon a movement already honey- 
 
 325 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 combed with disaffection, finally turned the 
 scale. To the Franklin leaders he sent the 
 urgent message: "Nothing will do but a sub- 
 mission to the laws of North Carolina." 
 Early in April, 1788, Martin wrote to Gov- 
 ernor Randolph of Virginia: "I returned last 
 evening from Green Co. Washington destrict, 
 North Carolina, after a tower through that 
 Co'ntry, and am happy to inform your Ex- 
 cellency that the late unhappy dispute between 
 the State of North Carolina, and the pretended 
 State of Franklin is subsided." Ever brave, 
 constant, and loyal to the interest of the pio- 
 neers, Sevier had originally been drawn into 
 the movement against his best judgment. 
 Caught in the unique trap, created by the pas- 
 sage of the cession act and the sudden volte- 
 face of its repeal, he struggled desperately to 
 extricate himself. Alone of all the leaders, 
 the governor of ill-starred Franklin remained 
 recalcitrant. 
 
 S9X 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE LURE OF SPAIN 213 — THE HAVEN OF 
 STATEHOOD 
 
 The people of this region have come to realize truly upon 
 what part of the world and upon which nation their future 
 happiness and security depend, and they immediately infer 
 that their interest and prosperity depend entirely upon the 
 protection and liberality of your government. 
 
 — John Sevier to Don Diego de Gardoqui, Sep- 
 tember 12, 1788. 
 
 From the early settlements in the eastern parts of this 
 Continent to the late & more recent settlements on the Ken- 
 tucky in the West the same difficulties have constantly oc- 
 curred which now oppress you, but by a series of patient 
 sufferings, manly and spirited exertions and unconquerable 
 perseverance, they have been altogether or in great measure 
 subdued. 
 
 — Governor Samuet, Johnston to James Robert- 
 son and Anthony Bledsoe, January 29, 1788. 
 
 A STRANGE sham-battle, staged like 
 some scene from opera bouffe, in the 
 bleak snow-storm of February, 1788, is really 
 the prelude to a remarkable drama of revolt 
 in which Sevier, Robertson, Bledsoe, and the 
 
 327 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 Cumberland stalwarts play the leading roles. 
 On February 27th, incensed beyond measure 
 by the action of Colonel John Tipton in har- 
 boring some of his slaves seized by the sheriff 
 under an execution issued by one of the North 
 Carolina courts, Sevier with one hundred and 
 fifty adherents besieged Tipton with a few of 
 his friends in his home on Sinking Creek. The 
 siege was raised at daybreak on February 29th 
 by the arrival of reinforcements under Colonel 
 Maxwell from Sullivan County; and Sevier, 
 who was unwilling to precipitate a conflict, 
 withdrew his forces after some desultory fir- 
 ing, in which two men were killed and several 
 wounded. Soon afterward Sevier sent word 
 to Tipton that on condition his life be spared 
 he would submit to North Carolina. On this 
 note of tragi-comedy the State of Franklin 
 appeared quietly to expire. The usually 
 sanguine Sevier, now thoroughly chastened, 
 sought shelter in the distant settlements — 
 deeply despondent over the humiliating fail- 
 ure of his plans and the even more depressing 
 defection of his erstwhile friends and sup- 
 
 328 
 
JOHN SEVIER (1745-1815) 
 
 From a miniature attributed to C. W. Peale, in the possession of 
 Mr. Daniel V. Sevier 
 
THE LURE OF SPAIN 
 
 porters. The revolutionary designs and sepa- 
 ratist tendencies which he still harbored were 
 soon to involve him in a secret conspiracy to 
 give over the State of Franklin into the pro- 
 tection of a foreign power. 
 
 The fame of Sevier's martial exploits and 
 of his bold stroke for independence had long 
 since gone abroad, astounding even so famous 
 an advocate of liberty as Patrick Henry and 
 winning the sympathy of the Continental Con- 
 gress. One of the most interested observers 
 of the progress of affairs in the State of Frank- 
 lin was Don Diego de Gardoqui, who had come 
 to America in the spring of 1785, bearing a com- 
 mission to the American Congress as Spanish 
 charge d'affaires (Encargados de Negocios) 
 to the United States. In the course of his 
 negotiations with Jay concerning the right of 
 navigation of the Mississippi River, which 
 Spain denied to the Americans, Gardoqui was 
 not long in discovering the violent resentment 
 of the Western frontiersmen, provoked by 
 Jay's crass blunder in proposing that the 
 American republic, in return for reciprocal 
 
 329 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 foreign advantages offered by Spain, should 
 waive for twenty-five years her right to navi- 
 gate the Mississippi. The Cumberland trad- 
 ers had already felt the heavy hand of Spain 
 in the confiscation of their goods at Natchez; 
 but thus far the leaders of the Tennessee fron- 
 tiersmen had prudently restrained the more 
 turbulent agitators against the Spanish policy, 
 fearing lest the spirit of retaliation, once 
 aroused, might know no bounds. Throughout 
 the entire region of the trans-Alleghany, a 
 feeling of discontent and unrest prevailed — 
 quite as much the result of dissatisfaction with 
 the central government which permitted the 
 wholesale restraint of trade, as of resentment 
 against the domination of Spain. 
 
 No sooner had the shrewd and watchful 
 Gardoqui, who was eager to utilize the sepa- 
 ratist sentiment of the western settlements in 
 the interest of his country, learned of Sevier's 
 armed insurrection against the authority of 
 North Carolina than he despatched an emis- 
 sary to sound the leading men of Franklin and 
 the Cumberland settlements in regard to an 
 
 330 
 
THE LURE OF SPAIN 
 
 alliance. This secret emissary was Dr. James 
 White, who had been appointed by the United 
 States Government as Superintendent of In- 
 dian Affairs for the Southern Department on 
 November 29, 1786. Reporting as instructed 
 to Don Estevan Miro, governor of Louisiana, 
 White, the corrupt tool of Spain, stated con- 
 cerning his confidential mission that the lead- 
 ers of "Frankland" and "Cumberland district" 
 had "eagerly accepted the conditions" laid 
 down by Gardoqui: to take the oath of alle- 
 giance to Spain, and to renounce all submis- 
 sion or allegiance whatever to any other sover- 
 eign or power. Satisfied by the secret advices 
 received, the Spanish minister reported to the 
 home authorities his confident belief that the 
 Tennessee backwoodsmen, if diplomatically 
 handled, would readily throw in their lot with 
 Spain. 214 
 
 After the fiasco of his siege of Tipton's 
 home, Sevier had seized upon the renewal of 
 hostilities by the Cherokees as a means of re- 
 gaining his popularity. This he counted upon 
 doing by rallying his old comrades-in-arms 
 
 331 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 under his standard and making one of his me- 
 teoric, whirlwind onslaughts upon their ancient 
 Indian foe. The victory of this erstwhile pop- 
 ular hero, the beloved "Nolichucky Jack of 
 the Border," over the Indians at a town on the 
 Hiwassee "so raised him in the esteem of the 
 people on the frontier," reports Colonel Max- 
 well, "that the people began [once more] to 
 flock to his standard." Inspirited by this good 
 turn in his fortunes, Sevier readily responded 
 to Dr. White's overtures. 
 
 Alarmed early in the year over the unpro- 
 voked depredations and murders by the In- 
 dians in several Tennessee counties and on the 
 Kentucky road, Sevier, Robertson, and An- 
 thony Bledsoe had persuaded Governor Sam- 
 uel Johnston of North Carolina to address 
 Gardoqui and request him to exert his influ- 
 ence to prevent further acts of savage bar- 
 barity. In letters to Governor Johnston, to 
 Robertson, and to Sevier, all of date April 
 18th, Gardoqui expressed himself in general 
 as being "extremely surprised to know that 
 there is a suspicion that the good government 
 
 332 
 
THE LURE OF SPAIN 
 
 of Spain is encouraging these acts of bar- 
 barity." The letters to Robertson and Sevier, 
 read between the lines as suggestive reinforce- 
 ments of Spain's secret proposals, possess real 
 significance. The letter to Sevier contains 
 this dexterously expressed sentiment: "His 
 Majesty is very favorably inclined to give the 
 inhabitants of that region all the protection 
 that they ask for and, on my part, I shall take 
 very great pleasure in contributing to it on 
 this occasion and other occasions." 
 
 This letter, coupled with the confidential 
 proposals of Dr. White, furnished a conven- 
 ient opening for correspondence with the 
 Spaniards ; and in July Sevier wrote to Gardo- 
 qui indicating his readiness to accede to their 
 proposals. After secret conferences with men 
 who had supported him throughout the vicis- 
 situdes of his ill-starred state, Sevier carefully 
 matured his plans. The remarkable letter of 
 great length which he wrote to Gardoqui on 
 September 12, 1788, reveals the conspiracy in 
 all its details and presents in vivid colors the 
 strong separatist sentiment of the day. Sevier 
 
 333 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 urgently petitions Gardoqui for the loan of a 
 few thousand pounds, to enable him to "make 
 the most expedient and necessary preparations 
 for defense"; and offers to repay the loan 
 within a short time "by sending the products 
 of this region to the lower ports." Upon the 
 vital matter of "delivering" the State of 
 Franklin to Spain, he forthrightly says: 
 
 Since my last of the 18th of July, upon con- 
 sulting with the principal men of this coun- 
 try, I have been particularly happy to find 
 that they are equally disposed and ready as I 
 am to accept your propositions and guaran- 
 tees. You may be sure that the pleasing hopes 
 and ideas which the people of this country hold 
 with regard to the probabability of an alliance 
 with, and commercial concessions from, you 
 are very ardent, and that we are unanimously 
 determined on that score. The people of this 
 region have come to realize truly upon what 
 part of the world and upon which nation their 
 future happiness and security depend, and 
 they immediately infer that their interest and 
 prosperity depend entirely upon the protec- 
 tion and liberality of your government. . . . 
 Being the first from this side of the Appala- 
 chian Mountains to resort in this way to your 
 
 334 
 
THE LURE OF SPAIN 
 
 protection and liberality, we feel encouraged 
 to entertain the greatest hope that we shall 
 be granted all reasonable aid by him who is 
 so amply able to do it, and to give the pro- 
 tection and help that is asked of him in this 
 petition. You know our delicate situation and 
 the difficulties in which we are in respect to 
 our mother State which is making use of every 
 strategem to impede the development and 
 prosperity of this country. . . . Before I con- 
 clude, it may be necessary to remind you that 
 there will be no more favorable occasion than 
 the present one to put this plan into execution. 
 North Carolina has rejected the Constitution 
 and moreover it seems to me that a consider- 
 able time will elapse before she becomes a 
 member of the Union, if that event ever hap- 
 pens. 
 
 Through Miro, Gardoqui was simultane- 
 ously conducting a similar correspondence with 
 General James Wilkinson. The object of the 
 Spanish conspiracy, matured as the result of 
 this correspondence, was to seduce Kentucky 
 from her allegiance to the United States. De- 
 spite the superficial similarity between the sit- 
 uation of Franklin and Kentucky, it would 
 be doing Sevier and his adherents a capital 
 
 335 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 injustice to place them in the category of the 
 corrupt Wilkinson and the malodorous Se- 
 bastian. Moreover, the secessionists of Frank- 
 lin, as indicated in the above letter, had 
 the excuse of being left virtually without 
 a country. On the preceding August 1st, 
 North Carolina had rejected the Constitu- 
 tion of the United States; and the leaders 
 of Franklin, who were sorely aggrieved by 
 what they regarded as her indifference and 
 neglect, now felt themselves more than ever 
 out of the Union and wholly repudiated by 
 the mother state. Again, Sevier had the em- 
 bittered feeling resultant from outlawry. Be- 
 cause of his course in opposing the laws and 
 government of North Carolina and in the kill- 
 ing of several good citizens, including the 
 sheriff of Washington County, by his forces at 
 Sinking Creek, Sevier, through the action of 
 Governor Johnston of North Carolina, had 
 been attainted of high treason. Under the 
 heavy burden of this grave charge, he felt his 
 hold upon Franklin relax. Further, an atrocity 
 committed in the recent campaign under 
 
 336 
 
THE LURE OF SPAIN 
 
 Sevier's leadership — Kirk's brutal murder of 
 Corn Tassel, a noble old Indian, and other 
 chieftains, while under the protection of a flag 
 of truce — had placed a bar sinister across the 
 fair fame of this stalwart of the border. Utter 
 desperation thus prompted Sevier's acceptance 
 of Gardoqui's offer of the protection of Spain. 
 John Sevier's son, James, bore the letter 
 of September 12th to Gardoqui. By a 
 strangely ironic coincidence, on the very day 
 (October 10, 1788) that Gardoqui wrote to 
 Miro, recommending to the attention of Spain 
 Dr. White and James Sevier, the emissaries 
 of Franklin, with their plans and proposals, 
 John Sevier was arrested by Colonel Tipton 
 at the Widow Brown's in Washington County, 
 on the charge of high treason. He was hand- 
 cuffed and borne off, first to Jonesborough 
 and later to Morganton. But his old friends 
 and former comrades-in-arms, Charles and 
 Joseph McDowell, gave bond for his appear- 
 ance at court; and Morrison, the sheriff, who 
 also had fought at King's Mountain, knocked 
 the irons from his wrists and released him on 
 
 337 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 parole. Soon afterward a number of Sevier's 
 devoted friends, indignant over his arrest, rode 
 across the mountains to Morganton and si- 
 lently bore him away, never to be arrested 
 again. In November an act of pardon and 
 oblivion with respect to Franklin was passed 
 by the North Carolina Assembly. Although 
 Sevier was forbidden to hold office under the 
 state, the passage of this act automatically op- 
 erated to clear him of the alleged offense of 
 high treason. With affairs in Franklin tak- 
 ing this turn, it is little wonder that Gardoqui 
 and Miro paid no further heed to Sevier's pro- 
 posal to accept the protection of Spain. 
 Sevier's continued agitation in behalf of the 
 independence of Franklin inspired Governor 
 Johnston with the fear that he would have to 
 be "proceeded against to the last extremity." 
 But Sevier's opposition finally subsiding, he 
 was pardoned, given a seat in the North Caro- 
 lina assembly, and with extraordinary consid- 
 eration honored with his former rank of briga- 
 dier-general. 
 
 When Dr. White reported to Miro that the 
 338 
 
THE LURE OF SPAIN 
 
 leaders of "Frankland" had eagerly accepted 
 Gardoqui's conditions for an alliance with 
 Spain, he categorically added: "With regard 
 to Cumberland district, what I have said of 
 Frankland applies to it with equal force and 
 truth." James Robertson and Anthony Bled- 
 soe had but recently availed themselves of the 
 good offices of Governor Johnston of North 
 Carolina in the effort to influence Gardoqui to 
 quiet the Creek Indians. The sagacious and 
 unscrupulous half breed Alexander McGilli- 
 vray had placed the Creeks under the protec- 
 tion of Spain in 1784; and shortly afterward 
 they began to be regularly supplied with am- 
 munition by the Spanish authorities. At first 
 Spain pursued the policy of secretly encour- 
 aging these Indians to resist the encroach- 
 ments of the Americans, while she remained 
 on outwardly friendly terms with the United 
 States. During the period of the Spanish 
 conspiracy, however, there is reason to believe 
 that Miro endeavored to keep the Indians at 
 peace with the borderers, as a friendly service, 
 intended to pave the way for the establishment 
 
 339 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 of intimate relations between Spain and the 
 dwellers in the trans- Alleghany. Yet his ef- 
 forts cannot have been very effective; for the 
 Cumberland settlements continued to suffer 
 from the ravages and depredations of the 
 Creeks, who remained "totally averse to peace, 
 notwithstanding they have had no cause of 
 offence"; and Robertson and Bledsoe reported 
 to Governor Caswell (June 12, 1787) : "It 
 is certain, the Chickasaws inform us, that 
 Spanish traders offer a reward for scalps of 
 the Americans." The Indian atrocities be- 
 came so frequent that Robertson later in the 
 summer headed a party on the famous Cold- 
 water Expedition, in which he severely chas- 
 tised the marauding Indians. Aroused by the 
 loss of a number of chiefs and warriors at the 
 hands of Robertson's men, and instigated, as 
 was generally believed, by the Spaniards, the 
 Creeks then prosecuted their attacks with re- 
 newed violence against the Cumberland settle- 
 ments. 
 
 Unprotected either by the mother state or 
 by the national government, unable to secure 
 
 340 
 
THE LURE OF SPAIN 
 
 free passage to the Gulf for their products, 
 and sorely pressed to defend their homes, now 
 seriously endangered by the incessant attacks 
 of the Creeks, the Cumberland leaders decided 
 to make secret overtures to McGillivray, as 
 well as to communicate to Miro, through Dr. 
 White, their favorable inclination toward the 
 proposals of the one country which promised 
 them protection. In a letter which McGilli- 
 vray wrote to Miro (transmitted to Madrid, 
 June 15, 1788) in regard to the visit of Messrs. 
 Hackett and Ewing, two trusty messengers 
 sent by Robertson and Bledsoe, he reports that 
 the two delegates from the district of Cum- 
 berland had not only submitted to him pro- 
 posals of peace but "had added that they would 
 throw themselves into the arms of His Maj- 
 esty as subjects, and that Kentucky and Cum- 
 berland are determined to free themselves from 
 their dependence on Congress, because that 
 body can not protect either their property, or 
 favor their commerce, and they therefore be- 
 lieve that they no longer owe obedience to a 
 power which is incapable of protecting them." 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 Commenting upon McGillivray's communica- 
 tion, Miro said in his report to Madrid (June 
 15, 1788) : "I consider as extremely interest- 
 ing the intelligence conveyed to McGillivray 
 by the deputies on the fermentation existing 
 in Kentucky, with regard to a separation from 
 the Union. Concerning the proposition made 
 to McGillivray by the inhabitants of Cumber- 
 land to become the vassals of His Majesty, I 
 have refrained from returning any precise an- 
 swer." 
 
 In his long letter of reply to Robertson and 
 Bledsoe, McGillivray agreed to make peace 
 between his nation, the Creeks, and the Cum- 
 berland settlers. This letter was most favor- 
 ably received and given wide circulation 
 throughout the West. In a most ingratiating 
 reply, offering McGillivray a fine gun and a 
 lot in Nashville, Robertson throws out the fol- 
 lowing broad suggestion, which he obviously 
 wishes McGillivray to convey to Miro: "In 
 all probability we cannot long remain in our 
 present state, and if the British or any com- 
 mercial nation who may be in possession of the 
 
 342 
 
THE LURE OF SPAIN 
 
 mouth of the Mississippi would furnish us with 
 trade, and receive our produce there cannot 
 be a doubt but the people on the west side of 
 the Appalachian mountains will open their 
 eyes to their real interest." Robertson actu- 
 ally had the district erected out of the coun- 
 ties of Davidson, Sumner, and Tennessee 
 given the name of "Miro" by the Assembly 
 of North Carolina in November, 1788 — a sig- 
 nificant symbol of the desires of the Cumber- 
 land leaders. In a letter (April 23, 1789), 
 Miro, who had just received letters from Rob- 
 ertson (January 29th) and Daniel Smith 
 (March 4th) postmarked "District of Miro," 
 observes: "The bearer, Fagot, a confidential 
 agent of Gen. Smith, informed me that the 
 inhabitants of Cumberland, or Miro, would ask 
 North Carolina for an act of separation the 
 following fall, and that as soon as this should 
 be obtained other delegates would be sent from 
 Cumberland to New Orleans, with the object 
 of placing that territory under the domina- 
 tion of His Majesty. I replied to both in 
 general terms." 215 
 
 343 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 Robertson, Bledsoe, and Smith were success- 
 ful in keeping secret their correspondence with 
 McGillivray and Miro; and few were in the 
 secret of Sevier's effort to deliver the State 
 of Franklin to Spain. Joseph Martin was 
 less successful in his negotiations ; and a great 
 sensation was created throughout the Southern 
 colonies when a private letter from Joseph 
 Martin to McGillivray (November 8, 1788) 
 was intercepted. In this letter Martin said: 
 "I must beg that you write me by the first 
 opportunity in answer to what I am now go- 
 ing to say to you. ... I hope to do honor to 
 any part of the world I settle in, and am de- 
 termined to leave the United States, for rea- 
 sons that I can assign to you when we meet, 
 but durst not trust it to paper." The general 
 assembly of Georgia referred the question of 
 the intercepted letter to the governor of North 
 Carolina (January 24, 1789) ; and the result 
 was a legislative investigation into Martin's 
 conduct. Eleven months later, the North 
 Carolina assembly exonerated him. From the 
 correspondence of Joseph Martin and Patrick 
 
 344 
 
THE LURE OF SPAIN 
 
 Henry, it would appear that Martin, on 
 Henry's advice, had acted as a spy upon the 
 Spaniards, in order to discover the views of 
 McGillivray, to protect the exposed white 
 settlements from the Indians, and to fathom 
 the designs of the Spaniards against the United 
 States. 216 
 
 The sensational disclosures of Martin's in- 
 tercepted letter had no deterrent effect upon 
 James Robertson in the attempted execution 
 of his plan for detaching the Cumberland 
 settlements from North Carolina. History 
 has taken no account of the fact that Robert- 
 son and the inhabitants now deliberately en- 
 deavored to secure an act of separation from 
 North Carolina. In the event of success, the 
 next move planned by the Cumberland leaders, 
 as we have already seen, was to send delegates 
 to New Orleans for the purpose of placing the 
 Cumberland region under the domination of 
 Spain. 
 
 A hitherto unknown letter, from Robert- 
 son to (Miro), dated Nashville, September 2, 
 1789, proves that a convention of the people 
 
 345 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 was actually held — the first overt step looking 
 to an alliance with Spain. In this letter Rob- 
 ertson says: 
 
 I must beg your Excellency's permission 
 to take this early opportunity of thanking you 
 for the honor you did me in writing by Mr. 
 White. 
 
 I still hope that your Government, and these 
 Settlements, are destined to be mutually 
 friendly and usefull, the people here are im- 
 pressed with the necessity of it. 
 
 We have just held a Convention; which has 
 agreed that our members shall insist on being 
 Seperated from North Carolina. 
 
 Unprotected, we are to be obedient to the 
 new Congress of the United States; but we 
 cannot but wish for a more interesting Con- 
 nection. 
 
 The United States afford us no protection. 
 The district of Miro is daily plundered and 
 the inhabitants murdered by the Creeks, and 
 Cherokees, unprovoked. 
 
 For my own part, I conceive highly of the 
 advantages of your Government. 217 
 
 A serious obstacle to the execution of the 
 plans of Robertson and the other leaders of 
 the Cumberland settlements was the prompt 
 
 346 
 
THE LURE OF SPAIN 
 
 action of North Carolina. In actual conform- 
 ity with the wishes of the Western people, as 
 set forth in the petition of Robertson and 
 Hayes, their representatives, made two years 
 earlier, 218 the legislature of North Carolina in 
 December passed the second act of cession, by 
 which the Western territory of North Carolina 
 was ceded to the United States. Instead of 
 securing an act of separation from North 
 Carolina as the preparatory step to forming 
 what Robertson calls "a more interesting con- 
 nection" with Spain, Robertson and his asso- 
 ciates now found themselves and the transmon- 
 tane region which they represented flung 
 bodily into the arms of the United States. 
 Despite the unequivocal offer of the calculat- 
 ing and desperate Sevier to "deliver" Frank- 
 lin to Spain, and the ingenious efforts of Rob- 
 ertson and his associates to place the Cumber- 
 land region under the domination of Spain, 
 the Spanish court by its temporizing policy of 
 evasion and indecision definitely relinquished 
 the ready opportunities thereby afforded, of 
 utilizing the powerful separatist tendencies of 
 
 S47 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST 
 
 Tennessee for the purpose of adding the em- 
 pire upon the Western waters to the Spanish 
 domain in America. 
 
 The year 1790 marks the end of an era — 
 the heroic age of the pioneers of the Old South- 
 west. Following the acceptance of North 
 Carolina's deed of cession of her Western lands 
 to the Union (April 2, 1790) the Southwest 
 Territory was erected on May 26th; and Wil- 
 liam Blount, a North Carolina gentleman of 
 eminence and distinction, was appointed on 
 June 8th to the post of governor of the terri- 
 tory. Two years later (June 1, 1792) Ken- 
 tucky was admitted into the Union. 
 
 It is a remarkable and inspiring circum- 
 stance, in testimony of the martial instincts 
 and unwavering loyalty of the transmontane 
 people, that the two men to whom the Western 
 country in great measure owed its preservation, 
 the inciting and flaming spirits of the King's 
 Mountain campaign, were the unopposed first 
 choice of the people as leaders in the trying ex- 
 periment of Statehood — John Sevier of Ten- 
 nessee and Isaac Shelby of Kentucky. Had 
 
 348 
 
THE LURE OF SPAIN 
 
 Franklin possessed the patient will of Ken- 
 tucky, she might well have preceded that region 
 into the Union. It was not, however, until 
 June 1, 1796, that Tennessee, after a romantic 
 and arduous struggle, finally passed through 
 the wide-flung portals into the domain of 
 national statehood. 
 
 349 
 
LIST OF NOTES 
 
 i Roosevelt's The Winning of the West, a stirring recital 
 with chief stress thrown upon the militant characteristics of 
 the frontiersmen, is open to grave criticism because of failure 
 to give adequate account of social and economic tendencies, 
 the development of democracy, and the evolution of govern- 
 ment under the pressure of frontier conditions. 
 
 2 Johnson MSS., xii, No. 127. 
 
 3 Journal of a Tour in Unsettled Parts of North America 
 in 1796 and 1797, 217. 
 
 4 Turner: "Significance of the Frontier in American His- 
 tory," American Historical Association Report, 1893. 
 
 s Hugh Williamson: History of North Carolina (1812), ii, 
 71-2. 
 
 « Virginia Historical Magazine, xiii, 133; William and Mary 
 Quarterly, ix, 132. 
 
 7 Virginia Historical Magazine, op. cit. Cf. also West Vir- 
 ginia Historical Magazine, April, 1903. 
 
 sBernheim: The German Element and the Lutheran Church 
 in the Carolinas. 
 
 o For this and other Moravian diaries, see Virginia Historical 
 Magazine, vols, xi and xii. 
 
 io Original diary in German in Archives of the Moravian 
 Church, Winston-Salem, N. C. Cf. Mereness, Travels in the 
 American Colonies 1690-17 S3, 327-356. 
 
 « Cf. original minutes of Abington and Gwynedd Monthly 
 Meetings, Pa. 
 
 12 MS. History of Bryan family, compiled by Col. W. L. 
 Bryan, Boone, N. C. 
 
 is Ely: The Fin-leys of Bucks (Publications, Bucks County 
 Historical Society) ; also "Historic Associations of Neshaminy 
 Valley," Daily Intelligencer (Reading, Pa.), July 29, 1913. 
 See also Wisconsin State Historical Society, Draper MSS., 
 2 B 161. 
 
 351 
 
LIST OF NOTES 
 
 i* "The Creative Forces in Westward Expansion," American 
 Historical Review, xx, 1. 
 
 is North Carolina Colonial Records, vii, 100-101. 
 
 is Magazine of American History, November, 1881. 
 
 17 Foote: Sketches of North Carolina, xiij. 
 
 is Howe: History of the Presbyterian Church in South 
 Carolina. 
 
 19 Virginia Historical Magazine, xiii, 127-8-9. 
 
 20 Draper: MS. Life of Boone; Draper Collection, Wisconsin 
 State Historical Society. 
 
 21 Rowan County Records, Salisbury, N. C. 
 
 22 Rumple: History of Rowan County. 
 
 23 Logan: History of Upper South Carolina. 
 
 24 "Diary of Bishop Spangenberg" (1752), North Carolina 
 Colonial Records, v. 
 
 25 Sheets: History of Liberty Baptist Association. 
 
 26 Moravian Community Diary, preserved at Winston-Salem, 
 N. C. 
 
 27 North Carolina Colonial Records, v, 6. 
 
 28 J. F. D. Smyth: A Tour in the United States of America 
 (London: 1784), vol. 1. Chapter xxiii. 
 
 29 Unpublished MS.: "In the Olden Time." 
 soMargry: Navigation of the Mississippi, iv, 322. 
 
 3i Raunie: Chansonnier historique du xviii e Steele, iii, 132-3. 
 This translation is by Barbara Henderson. 
 
 32 J. Haywood: Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennes- 
 see (1823), 223. 
 
 33 Byrd : History of the Dividing Line. 
 3i North Carolina Colonial Records, v, 25. 
 
 ss D. D. Wallace : The Life of Henry Laurens, Appen- 
 dix iv. 
 
 36 See also Hewit in Carroll's Collections, i, 435. Fort Prince 
 George was located in the fork of the Six Mile Creek and 
 Keowee River, in the southwestern part of Pickens County, 
 and was completed probably by the end of 1753 (South 
 Carolina Gazette, December 17, 1753). 
 
 37 North Carolina Colonial Records, v, 140. 
 
 38 Cited in Channing, History of the United States, ii, 5^-73 n. 
 
 39 North Carolina Colonial Records, v, 333, 357. 
 
 352 
 
LIST OF NOTES 
 
 40 Moravian Community Diary. 
 
 4i North Carolina Colonial Records, v, 849. 
 
 42 Virginia Historical Magazine, xiii, 225-264. North Caro- 
 lina Colonial Records, v, 560, 617. 
 
 43 North Carolina Colonial Records, v, 579. 
 
 44 North Carolina Colonial Records, v, 641, 742, 849. Cf. also 
 Hunter: Sketches of Western North Carolina, 325. 
 
 45 North Carolina Colonial Records, v, 604, 639. 
 
 4c Virginia Historical Magazine, xiii, 263; North Carolina 
 Colonial Records, v, 606, 609, 613. 
 
 47 North Carolina Colonial Records, v, 585, 612-4, 635, 637. 
 
 48 North Carolina Colonial Records, v, 610; Cf. Timberlake's 
 "A Draught of the Cherokee Country" in Avery's History of 
 the United States, iv, facing p. 347; Ramsey, History of Ten- 
 nessee, 57. 
 
 49 Summers: Southwest Virginia, 57-60. 
 
 so Virginia Historical Magazine, xv, 254-7; Waddell, Augusta 
 County (second edition), 115-6, 150-1. 
 
 5i North Carolina Colonial Records, v, 606-8. 
 
 52 Summers: Southwest Virginia, 60-1. 
 
 53 Williamson: History of North Carolina, ii, 37, footnote. 
 
 54 North Carolina Colonial Records, viii, 563 ; xi, map facing 
 p. 80, and p. 227. 
 
 55 North Carolina Colonial Records, v, Introduction, pp. xxx- 
 xxxi. 
 
 so Carroll's Collections, i, 433; ii, 519-20; Draper's MS. Life 
 of Boone, iii, 65-6. 
 
 57 Sparks : Washington, ii, 322. 
 
 58 Journal: "Concerning a March that Capt. Robt. Wade 
 took to the New River," in Summers, Southwest Virginia. 
 62-66. 
 
 59 Carroll's Collections, i, 443-4. 
 
 oo South Carolina Gazette, May 12, 1759. 
 
 si South Carolina Gazette, July 14, 1759. 
 
 62 South Carolina Gazette, Aug. 4, Sept. 22, 1759. 
 
 C3 North Carolina Colonial Records, vi, 221. 
 
 64 Draper: MS. Life of Boone, iii, 75. 
 
 65 North Carolina Colonial Records, vi, 229-230. 
 
 ee For a full account of the part which Fort Dobbs played 
 
 353 
 
LIST OF NOTES 
 
 in this Indian warfare see the monograph, Fort Dobbs, by 
 Mrs. M. H. Eliason. 
 
 67 Maryland Gazette, May 8, 1760; Haywood: Natural and 
 Aboriginal History of Tennessee, 239-40; North Carolina Co- 
 lonial Records, xxii, 822. 
 
 68 "Notes on the Indians and the Early Settlers of Western 
 North Carolina," Collections of the North Carolina Historical 
 Commission. Printed in Papers of A. D. Murphy, ii, 380 
 et seq. 
 
 69 Maryland Gazette, May 8, 1760. 
 
 70 South Carolina Gazette, Dec. 23, 1760; Feb. 28, April 11, 
 1761. 
 
 7i North Carolina Colonial Records, vi, 622. 
 
 72 J. S. Johnston: The First Explorations of Kentucky. 
 Filson Club Publications, No. 13. 
 
 73 William and Mary College Quarterly, xii, 129-134* Young: 
 Genealogical Narrative of the Hart Family (1882); Nash: 
 "History of Orange County," North Carolina Booklet; Hender- 
 son: "A Federalist of the Old School," North Carolina Booklet. 
 
 74 North Carolina Colonial Records, ix, 349. 
 
 75 Turner: "The Old West," Wisconsin Historical Society 
 Proceedings, 1908. 
 
 76 Cf. "Memoir of Pleasant Henderson," Draper MSS. 2CC21- 
 23; W. H. Battle: "A Memoir of Leonard Henderson," North 
 Carolina University Magazine, Nov., 1859; T. B. Kingsbury: 
 "Chief Justice Leonard Henderson," Wake Forest Student, 
 November, 1898. 
 
 77 "The Life and Times of Richard Henderson," in the 
 Charlotte Observer, March 9 to June 1, 1913; Draper's MS. 
 Life of Boone; Morehead's Address at Boonesborough, 105 n. 
 
 78 C. W. Alvord: "The Genesis of the Proclamation of 
 1763," Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections, xxxvi. 
 
 79 Sparks: Works of Franklin (1844), iii, 69-77. 
 so J. M. Peck to L. C. Draper, May 15, 1854. 
 
 si Washington to Crawford, September 21, 1767, in Sparks: 
 Life and Writings of Washington, ii, 346-50. 
 
 82 Haywood: Civil and Political History of Tennessee 
 (1823), 35. 
 
 83 Ramsey: Annals of Tennessee (1853), 69-70. 
 
 354 
 
LIST OF NOTES 
 
 84 Ramsey: Annals of Tennessee, 69. 
 
 ss Cf. C. W. Alvord: "The British Ministry and the Treaty 
 of Fort Stanwix," Wisconsin Historical Society Proceedings, 
 1908. 
 
 ss North Carolina Colonial Records, vii, 851-855. For Try- 
 on's line, ibid., 245, 460, 470, 508. 
 
 87 Johnson to Gage, December 16, 1768. 
 
 ss Jefferson MSS. Department of state. Cf. also Weeks: 
 General Joseph Martin. 
 
 soHanna: The Wilderness Trail, ii, 216, 230, 255; Darling- 
 ton: Journals of Gist, 131. 
 
 so "Narrative of General William Hall," Draper MSS., Wis- 
 consin State Historical Society. 
 
 oi Draper: MS. Life of Boone, viii, 238. 
 
 92 Summers: Southwest Virginia, 76. 
 
 93 Papers of A. D. Murphy, ii, 386. 
 
 94 Pennsylvania Journal, October 29, 1769. 
 
 95 Compare "John Finley ; and Kentucky before Boone," 
 being chapter seven in volume two of C. A. Hanna's The Wil- 
 derness Trail (1911). 
 
 96 J. W. Monette: History of the Discovery and Settle- 
 ment of the Valley of the Mississippi (1846), ii, 53. 
 
 97 Court Records of Rowan County. 
 
 98 Cf. "The Pioneers of the West" in Missouri Republican 
 (1847). Cf. also Putnam: Middle Tennessee, 20. 
 
 99 J. M. Peck to L. C. Draper, May 15, 1854. 
 ioo Missouri Republican (1847). 
 
 ioi^4 Memorial to the Legislature of Kentucky (1812). 
 
 102 Deposition Book No. 1, p. 156, Clark County Court, Ken- 
 tucky. 
 
 103 Cf. "Daniel Boone and the Wilderness Trail," Bristol . 
 (Tennessee-Virginia) Herald Courier, Boone Trail Edition, 
 April, 1917. 
 
 104 Hall: The Romance of Western History (1857), 150-1, 
 158-9. 
 
 105 North Carolina Colonial Records, vii, 713. 
 ioo Martin: History of North Carolina, ii, 191. 
 
 107 "The Origin of the Regulation in North Carolina," Amer- 
 ican Historical Review, xxi, No. 2. 
 
 108 North Carolina Colonial Records, vii, 14-31, 32-4, 37. 
 
 355 
 
LIST OF NOTES 
 
 109 Raleigh (N. C.) Register, June 2, 1825. 
 
 no Cf. Tryon's Journal, North Carolina Colonial Records, vii, 
 819-838. 
 
 in Tryon to Hillsborough, December 24, 1768. 
 
 112 North Carolina Colonial Records, viii, 231-4. 
 
 us North Carolina Colonial Records, viii, 241-244. 
 
 n4 North Carolina Colonial Records, viii, 241-244. 
 
 us North Carolina Colonial Records, viii, 236-240. 
 
 "6 Cf. J. S. Bassett.: "The Regulators of North Carolina 
 (1765-1771)", American Historical Association Report for 
 1894. 
 
 ii7 North Carolina Colonial Records, x, 1019-1022; Caruth- 
 ers: Life of Caldwell, 145-158. 
 
 us North Carolina Colonial Records, vi, 250. 
 
 no Alderman: "The Baptists at the Forks of the Yadkin," 
 in Baptist Historical Papers. 
 
 120 North Carolina Colonial Records, viii, 70-80. 
 
 121 The discovery of an immense quantity of contemporary 
 documents, since Roosevelt's The Winning of the West was 
 written, betrays the numerous inaccuracies of that fascinating 
 work, as well as the imperfect perspective in the picture of 
 the westward expansionist movement. Mr. Roosevelt's virile 
 apotheosis of the strenuous pioneer seems today almost as 
 old-fashioned in its method and outlook as is Draper's work 
 on King's Mountain. 
 
 122 Bancroft Transcripts, Library of Congress. 
 
 123 Purefoy: History of Sandy Creek Baptist Association 
 (1859). 
 
 124 Cf. "Pioneer Contributions of North Carolina to Ken- 
 tucky," Charlotte (N. C.) Observer, November 10, 1913. 
 
 125 Summers: Southwest Virginia, 616-8. 
 
 126 North Carolina Colonial Records, xiv, 314. Cf. Farrand: 
 "The Indian Boundary Line," American Historical Review, x. 
 
 i2T Dunmore to Hillsborough, March, 1772. Cf. also Draper, 
 MSr"Life of Boone, Draper MSS, 3 B 87, 88. 
 
 128 North Carolina Colonial Records, x, 885-6. 
 
 129 Moses Fisk: "A Summary Notice of the First Settle- 
 ments made by White People within the Limits which Bound the 
 
 356 
 
LIST OF NOTES 
 
 State of Tennessee," in Massachusetts Historical Collections, 
 1st series (1816). 
 
 130 Dunmore to Dartmouth, May 16, 1774. 
 
 isi North Carolina Colonial Records, ix, 825-6, 982. MS- 
 Copy in Minutes of Council, Public Record Office, Colonial Of- 
 fice, 5:355. 
 
 132 Haywood: Civil and Political History of Tennessee 
 (1823), 40. 
 
 133 Butler: History of Kentucky (1836), p. lxvii, note. Also 
 Draper MSS., 2 CC 34. 
 
 134 Wharton: Plain Facts (1781), 9. 
 
 135 Alvord: The Illinois-W abash Land Company Manuscript. 
 i3G A copy of the opinion, bearing this date, is in the Hen- 
 derson papers, Draper collection, Wisconsin Historical Society. 
 
 i3T Extended investigation establishes beyond question that 
 Judge Henderson was proceeding in strict accordance with 
 law in seeking to acquire title by purchase from the Cherokees 
 instead of applying to the royal government for a grant. 
 When Virginia's sea-to-sea charter was abrogated in 1624, 
 Virginia became a royal province and the settlement of bound- 
 aries a royal prerogative. Of the three presumed Indian 
 claimants to the trans- Alleghany region, viz., the Iroquois, 
 Shawanoes, and Cherokees, the Iroquois by defeating the 
 Shawanoes and their confederates in the Ohio Valley at the 
 battle of Sandy Island in 1672 acquired title, as understood 
 by the Indians, to this region. By the treaties of Lancaster 
 (1744), Loggstown (1752), and Fort Stanwix (1768), the 
 claims of the Shawanoes and the Iroquois to the trans- 
 Alleghany territory were ceded to the crown. While the 
 Shawanoes and the Cherokees acquiesced in the Treaty of 
 Fort Stanwix, the crown fully acknowledged the claim of 
 the Cherokees to the trans- Alleghany region; and by the 
 treaties of Hard Labor (1768) and Lochaber (1770) con- 
 firmed them in possession of this region to the west of the 
 boundary line (See Chapter XII). The sovereignty of Eng- 
 land extended over this territory, the right of eminent domain 
 being vested in the crown. Henderson was legally justified 
 in disregarding the royal proclamation of 1763 which was 
 
 357 
 
LIST OF NOTES 
 
 largely in the nature of a temporary expedient, and in pur- 
 chasing the title to the trans-Alleghany region from the 
 Cherokees in 1775. The right of eminent domain over the 
 trans-Alleghany region still vested in the crown after the treaty 
 of Sycamore Shoals. 
 
 138 MS. Journals of James and Robert McAfee. Durrett 
 Collection, University of Chicago. These journals are printed 
 in Woods-McAfee Memorial. 
 
 139 Hening: Virginia Statutes at Large, x, 558. 
 
 140 Wharton: Plain Facts, 96 et seq. See also text ff. 
 i*iAlvord: The Mississippi Valley in British Politics, ii, 
 
 ch. 7; Cotterill: History of Pioneer Kentucky, 65-66. 
 
 142 T. Wharton to Walpole, September 23, 1774, in "Letter 
 Book of Thomas Wharton," Pennsylvania Magazine of History 
 and Biography, xxxiii (October, 1909). 
 
 143 For ample materials, cf. Thwaites and Kellogg: Docu- 
 mentary History of Dunmore's War — 1774» 
 
 144 Cf. "The Inauguration of Westward Expansion," News 
 and Observer (Raleigh, N. C.) July 5, 1914. 
 
 145 Letter of Major Pleasant Henderson, in The Harbinger 
 (Chapel Hill, N. C), 1834. 
 
 146 Cf. "The Beginnings of Westward Expansion," North 
 Carolina Review, September and October, 1910. 
 
 147 Draper MSS. 1 CC 2-9, Wisconsin State Historical So- 
 ciety. 
 
 148 Jefferson MSS. 5th Series, v. 8. In MSS. Division, Li- 
 brary of Congress. 
 
 149 Draper MSS. 1 CC 2-9. 
 
 iso Diary of Morgan Brown in Tennessee Historical Maga- 
 zine. 
 
 i5i Enclosure 6 in Dunmore to Dartmouth, No. 25, March 
 14, 1775, Public Record Office, Colonial Office, 5:1353. 
 
 152 North Carolina Colonial Records, ix, 1117, 1129-1131. 
 
 153 Draper MSS. 4 QQ 1. 
 
 154 Virginia Historical Magazine, viii, 355. Cf. also Draper 
 MSS. 2 CC 5. 
 
 155 Letters to Washington, MSS. Division, Library of Con- 
 gress. 
 
 ise I am indebted to Miss Lucretia Hart Clay for the privi- 
 
 358 
 
LIST OF NOTES 
 
 lege of examining the extensive collection of Hart and Benton 
 MSS. in her possession. 
 
 157 The voluminous records of the treaty are found in the 
 Jefferson MSS., vol. 5. MSS. Division, Library of Congress. 
 
 158 "Narrative of Felix Walker," Original MS. owned by 
 C. L. Walker. 
 
 159 Hulbert: Boone's Road. 
 
 160 Original of Henderson's Journal is in Draper MSS., 1 
 CC 21-130 A.D. 
 
 i6i Hall: Sketches of the West, i, 254-5. 
 
 162 This quotation is taken from the original manuscript. 
 The version in De Bow's Review, 1854, is imperfect. For 
 better printed versions of Walker's two accounts, see Memoirs 
 of Felix Walker, New Orleans (1877), and Journal of Ameri- 
 can History, i, No. 1 (1907). 
 
 163 Original journal of William Calk, owned by Mrs. Price 
 Calk. 
 
 164 Letters to Washington, MSS. Division, Library of Con- 
 gress. 
 
 165 North Carolina Gazette. 
 
 166 Draper MSS., 1 CC 160-194, deposition of Arthur Camp- 
 bell. 
 
 167 Draper MSS., 1 CC 160-194, deposition of Arthur Camp- 
 bell. 
 
 168 Draper Collection, Kentucky MSS., ii. For a contrary 
 view, cf. P. Henry's deposition, Kentucky MSS., i. 
 
 169 Published in Virginia Gazette, March 23, 1775. Cf. 
 "Forerunners of the Republic", Neale's Monthly, January- 
 June, 1913. 
 
 170 Draper MSS., 4 QQ 17. 
 
 171 Letters to George Washington, MSS. Division, Library 
 of Congress. 
 
 172 Draper MSS., 1 L 20. 
 
 173 Henderson and Luttrell to the Proprietors, July 18, 1775; 
 printed in Louisville News-Letter, May 9, 1840. 
 
 174 Nathaniel Henderson to John Williams, October 5, 1775. 
 Copy supplied by heirs of B. J. Lossing. 
 
 175 "The Struggle for the Fourteenth American Colony," 
 News and Observer (Raleigh, N. C), May 19, 1918. 
 
 359 
 
LIST OF NOTES 
 
 176 in connection with Transylvania, consult G. W. Ranck: 
 Boonesborough: Filson Club Publications, No. 16; F. J. Turner: 
 "State Making in the Revolutionary Era", American His- 
 torical Review, i; G. H. Alden: "New Governments West 
 of the Alleghanies before 1780." 
 
 177 in a "Proposal for the Sale of its Lands" ( Virginia 
 Gazette, Sept. 30, 1775), the Transylvania Company offered 
 to any settlers before June 1, 1776, land, limited in amount, 
 at the rate of fifty shillings sterling per hundred acres, subject 
 to an annual quit-rent of two shillings. Cf. facsimile. 
 
 178 Draper MSS., 2 CC 25. 
 
 179 These increased rates were voted at a meeting of the 
 Proprietors of Transylvania at Oxford, N. C, September 25, 
 1775. American Archives, iv. 
 
 iso Draper MSS., 47 J 1. This memoir has often been 
 printed. 
 
 i8i Cf. for example, Mason to Washington, March 9, 1775, 
 in Letters to Washington, MSS. Division, Library of Congress. 
 
 182 Letter of date May 19, 1776. Draper MSS., 33 S 292-295. 
 
 183 Original in Virginia State Archives. 
 
 184 Original in Virginia State Archives. This and the afore- 
 mentioned petition are printed in the Virginia Historical 
 Magazine, xvi, 157-163. See also J. R. Robertson: Petitions 
 of the Early Inhabitants of Kentucky, Filson Club Publi- 
 cations, No. 27. 
 
 185 Cf . "Richard Henderson and the Occupation of Ken- 
 tucky, 1775," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, December, 
 1914. Also A. B. Hulbert: Pilots of the Republic. 
 
 iso Original in North Carolina State Archives. Printed in 
 Ramsey: Annals of Tennessee (1853), 134-138. 
 
 187 Haldimand MSS. 
 
 188 Original in Draper MSS. Collections. It has recently been 
 printed in Colonial Men and Times (1915), by Lillie Du P. 
 Van C. Harper. 
 
 189 Haywood: Civil and Political History of Tennessee, 
 (1823), Appendix, 5001-503. 
 
 iso Journal Virginia House of Delegates, Nov. 4-17, 1778. 
 i9iHening: Statutes at Large, ix, 571. Cf. also Starling: 
 History of Henderson County, Kentucky. 
 
 360 
 
LIST OF NOTES 
 
 192 Cf. Sioussat: "The Journal of Daniel Smith," Tennessee 
 Historical Magazine, March, 1915. 
 
 if3 The original journal is in the archives of the Tennessee 
 State Historical Society. 
 
 is* N. Hart, Jr., to Wilkins Tannehill, April 27, 1839, in 
 Louisville News-Letter, May 23, 1840. 
 
 195 The original document is preserved in the archives of 
 the Tennessee Historical Society. It is printed, with a number 
 of minor inaccuracies, in Putnam: Middle Tennessee, 94-102. 
 
 196 Acts of North Carolina, 1783, ch. xxxviii, North Carolina 
 State Records, xxiv, 530-531. 
 
 197 For a more extended treatment of the subjects dealt with 
 in the present chapter, see "Richard Henderson, the Author- 
 ship of the Cumberland Compact, and the Founding of 
 Nashville," Tennessee Historical Magazine, September, 1916. 
 
 198 "Isaac Shelby, Revolutionary Patriot and Border Hero," 
 in North Carolina Booklet, xvi, No. 3, 109-144. 
 
 199 While Draper's King's Mountain and its Heroes is most 
 valuable as a source book, it is very faulty in style and arrange- 
 ment. The account of the battle, in particular, is deficient in 
 perspective; and in general no clear line is drawn between tra- 
 ditionary and authentic testimony. 
 
 200 F. B. McDowell: The Battle of King's Mountain (Ral- 
 eigh, 1907). This account was prepared chiefly from unpub- 
 lished letters from Isaac Shelby to Franklin Brevard. 
 
 201 A Sketch of the Life and Career of Colonel James D. 
 Williams, by Rev. J. D. Bailey (Cowpens, S. C, 1898). 
 
 202 A valuable source is the King's Mountain Expedition, by 
 David Vance and Robert Henry, edited by D. L. Schenck 
 (Greensboro, 1891). 
 
 203 Cf. Acts of North Carolina, 1784, April Session, Chapters 
 XI and XII. 
 
 204 Sioussat: "The North Carolina Cession of 1784 in its 
 Federal Aspects," Mississippi Valley Historical Association 
 Proceedings, ii. 
 
 205 Quoted in Alden: "The State of Franklin," American 
 Historical Review, viii. 
 
 206 See Charlotte (N. C.) Observer, September 25, 1904. Also 
 consult North Carolina State Records, xxii, 664 ff. 
 
 361 
 
LIST OF NOTES 
 
 207 State Archives of North Carolina. 
 
 208 Pennsylvania Packet, August 9, 1785. 
 
 209 State Department MSS., Library of Congress. 
 
 210 A single complete draft, in pamphlet form, printed In 
 1786, is preserved in the archives of the Tennessee Historical 
 Society. Cf. "The Provisional Constitution of Frankland," 
 American Historical Magazine, i. 
 
 2ii Franklin Papers, vii, folio 1651. MSS. Division, Library 
 of Congress. 
 
 212 Franklin Papers, viii, folio 1803. MSS. Division, Library 
 of Congress. 
 
 213 For a more extended treatment of matters dealt with in 
 this chapter, compare "The Spanish Conspiracy in Tennessee," 
 Tennessee Historical Magazine, December, 1917. 
 
 214 Gardoqui to Floridablanca, April 18, 1788. 
 
 215 On April 30th Mir6 wrote to Valdez, in Spain, informing 
 him of the proposals received through McGillivray and stat- 
 ing that he had returned conciliatory replies but had refrained 
 from committing the Spanish Government until the pleasure 
 of the king should be known. 
 
 216 w. W. Henry: Life, Correspondence and Speeches of 
 Patrick Henry, iii, 409, 412-5. 
 
 217 Archives of the Indies, Seville, Spain. 
 
 218 Ramsey: Annals of Tennessee (1853), 502-3. 
 
 362 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 For the entire period (1740-1790) covered by 
 this volume, an exceptionally rich store of mate- 
 rials is to be found in the Colonial Records of North 
 Carolina, 1662-1775 (published 1886-1890), and 
 its continuation, the State Records of North Caro- 
 lina, 1776-1790 (published 1895-1905), thirty 
 volumes in all, including the four volumes of index. 
 The introductions and supplementary matter in 
 these volumes constitute a survey of the period. 
 Theodore Roosevelt's The Winning of the West 
 (1889-1896; various editions), a vigorous and 
 stirring narrative, over-accentuates the strenuous 
 life, largely underemphasises economic and govern- 
 mental phases, and is by no means free from error. 
 
 For the Scotch-Irish migrations one should read 
 C. A. Hanna, The Scotch-Irish (2 vols., 1902), a 
 large collection of original materials, imperfectly 
 coordinated; and the excellent historical sketch by 
 H. J. Ford, The Scotch-Irish in America (1905). 
 For the German migrations, adequate and readable 
 accounts are A. B. Faust, The German Element in 
 the United States (2 vols., 1909) ; J. H. Clewell, 
 History of Wachovia in North Carolina (1902); 
 J. W. Wayland, The German Element of the 
 
 363 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 Shenandoah Valley of Virginia (1907) ; and G. D. 
 Bernheim, History of the German Settlements and 
 of the Lutheran Church in North and South 
 Carolina (1872). 
 
 The best original sources for the life of the people 
 in this period are: the State Archives of North 
 Carolina at Raleigh, scientifically ordered and 
 accessible to collectors ; the Lyman C. Draper Col- 
 lection at Madison, Wisconsin; the Reuben T. 
 Durrett Collection at the University of Chicago ; 
 the State Archives of South Carolina, especially 
 rich in collections of contemporary newspapers; the 
 collections of the North Carolina Historical Society 
 at Chapel Hill; and the Archives of the Moravian 
 Church, in Pennsylvania and at Winston-Salem, 
 North Carolina. The State Archives of Virginia, 
 an unexplored mine of great riches, are as yet in- 
 accessible, properly speaking, to investigators. The 
 state of Tennessee has not yet made any provision 
 for the conservation of historical materials; but 
 the Tennessee Historical Society has preserved 
 much valuable documentary material. 
 
 Books shedding light, from various quarters, upon 
 the life of the people in this period are: W. H. 
 Foote, Sketches of North Carolina, Historical and 
 Biographical (1846 ; reprinted 1913), dealing almost 
 exclusively with the Presbyterian Church and the 
 Scotch-Irish ; J. F. D. Smyth, A Tour in the United 
 States of America (2 vols., 1784), untrustworthy 
 as to historical events and partisan as to politics, 
 
 364 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 but graphic in description of the people and the 
 country; William Bartram, Travels through North 
 and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida 
 (1791), delightful in its simplicity and genial tone; 
 William Byrd, History of the Dividing Line and 
 other writings (J. S. Bassett's edition, 1901), of 
 sprightly style and instinct with literary charm, 
 pungently satirical, untrustworthy as to North 
 Carolina; Joseph Doddridge, Notes on the Settle- 
 ment and Indian Wars Sfc. (1824; reprinted 1912), 
 photographic in its realistic delineation of back- 
 woods conditions ; J. H. Logan, History of Upper 
 South Carolina (1859) ; J. Rumple, Rowan County 
 (1881; reprinted 1916); Biographical History of 
 North Carolina (8 volumes printed, 1905-) ; S. 
 Dunbar, A History of Travel in America (4 vols., 
 1915), first volume; Travels in the American Colo- 
 nies, 1690-1783 (Edited by N. D. Mereness, 1916) ; 
 and O. Taylor, Historic Sullivan (1909). 
 
 Many valuable articles, of both local and national 
 interest, are found in the excellent periodical pub- 
 lications : J'ames Sprunt Historical Monographs 
 and Publications (16 vols., 1900-), published by 
 the University of North Carolina ; North Carolina 
 Booklet (18 vols., 1901-), published by the N. C. 
 Society, D. A. R. ; Virginia Magazine of History 
 and Biography (27 vols., 1893-) ; American His- 
 torical Magazine (8 vols., 1896-1903) ; Tennessee 
 Historical Magazine (4 vols., 1915- ) ; Register of 
 the Kentucky State Historical Society (17 vols., 
 
 365 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 1902- ) ; Mississippi Valley Historical Review (6 
 vols., 1914-). A notable study is F. J. Turner, 
 The Old West (Wisconsin Historical Society Pro- 
 ceedings, 1908). 
 
 There is no adequate account in print of the 
 French and Indian War, in the Old Southwest. 
 Useful sources are E. McCrady, South Carolina 
 under the Royal Government, 1719-1776 (1899); 
 S. A. Ashe, History of North Carolina, 1584,-1783 
 (1 vol., 1908) ; L. P. Summers, History of South- 
 West Virginia, 17^6-1786 (1903); J. P. Hale, 
 Trans- Alleghany Pioneers (1886) ; J. A. Waddell, 
 Annals of Augusta County, Virginia (1886) ; S. 
 Kercheval, A History of the Valley of Virginia 
 (third edition, 1902) ; A. S. Withers, Chronicles 
 of Border Warfare (R. G. Thwaites' edition, 1908) ; 
 B. R. Carroll, Historical Collections of South 
 Carolina (2 vols., 1886) ; E. M. Avery, History of 
 the United States (7 vols., 1908), fourth volume; 
 J. G. M. Ramsey, Annals of Tennessee (1853) ; 
 Calendar Virginia State Papers (11 vols., 1875— 
 1893). An interesting biography is A. M. Waddell, 
 A Colonial Officer and his Times (1890). 
 
 The early explorations of the West, and the career 
 of Boone, are treated with reasonable fullness in 
 the admirable publications of the Filson Club of 
 Kentucky (27 vols., 1884-) ; C. A. Hanna, The 
 Wilderness Trail (2 vols., 1911); John Haywood, 
 Civil and Political History of Tennessee (1823; 
 reprinted 1891), written in delightfully quaint style ; 
 
 366 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 L. and R. H. Collins, History of Kentucky (2 vols., 
 1882), a mine of conglomerate material; N. M. 
 Woods, The Woods-McAfee Memorial (1905) ; A. B. 
 Hulbert, Pilots of the Republic (1905) and Boone's 
 Wilderness Road (1903), attractively written; R. G. 
 Thwaites, Daniel Boone (1911), a lifeless condensa- 
 tion of Draper's sprawling projected (MS.) biog- 
 raphy; and John Filson, Kentucke (1784). 
 
 Of the voluminous mass of literature dealing with 
 the Regulation in North Carolina, one should read: 
 J. S. Bassett, The Regulators of North Carolina, 
 1765-1771 (American Historical Association Re- 
 port, 1894) ; M. DeL. Haywood, Governor Tryon of 
 North Carolina (1903) ; H. Husband, An Impartial 
 Relation of the First Rise and Cause of the Present 
 Differences in Publick Affairs, in the Province of 
 North Carolina (1770) ; and Archibald Henderson, 
 The Origin of the Regulation in North Carolina 
 (American Historical Review, 1916) . 
 
 In addition to titles already mentioned, the follow- 
 ing books and monographs give the best accounts 
 of the Watauga and Cumberland settlements and 
 of the State of Franklin: A. W. Putnam, History 
 of Middle Tennessee (1859), a remarkably inter- 
 esting book by a real "character" ; J. W. Caldwell, 
 Constitutional History of Tennessee (second edi- 
 tion, 1907) ; F. M. Turner, Life of General John 
 Sevier (1910), in pedestrian style, reasonably ac- 
 curate for the romantic period only ; G. H. Alden, 
 The State of Franklin (American Historical Review, 
 
 367 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 1903) ; S. B. Weeks, Joseph Martin (American His- 
 torical Association Report, 1894) ; Archibald Hen- 
 derson, Isaac Shelby (North Carolina Booklet, 
 1917—1918). The source book for the Indian war 
 of 1774 is Documentary History of Dunmore's War 
 (Edited by R. G. Thwaites and L. P. Kellogg, 
 1905). For exhaustive data concerning the King's 
 Mountain campaign and its preliminaries, read L. C. 
 Draper, King's Mountain and its Heroes (1881), 
 though the book is lacking in discrimination and 
 deficient in perspective. For a briefer treatment, 
 read D. L. Schenck, North Carolina, 1780-1781 
 (1889). 
 
 Other books and monographs dealing with the 
 period, the westward movement, the settlement of 
 the trans-Alleghany, and the little governments, to 
 be consulted are: James Hall, Sketches of the West 
 (2 vols., 1835) and The Romance of Western His- 
 tory (1857) ; Journals of the House of Burgesses 
 of Virginia for 1766-1769 and 1770-1772 (pub- 
 lished 1906) ; G. H. Alden, New Governments 
 West of the Alleghanies before 1780 (published 
 1897); C. W. Alvord, The Mississippi Valley 
 in British Politics (2 vols., 1917), a notable 
 work, ably written and embodying an immense 
 amount of information; J. T. Morehead, Address at 
 Boonesborough, May 25, 184-0 (published 1840) ; 
 F. J. Turner, The Significance of the Frontier in 
 American History (Wisconsin Historical Society 
 Proceedings, 1894) and Western State-Making in 
 
 368 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 the Revolutionary Era (American Historical Re- 
 view, 1895-1896), papers characterised by both 
 brilliance and depth ; and Archibald Henderson, The 
 Creative Forces in Westward Expansion (American 
 Historical Review, 1914), The Occupation of Ken- 
 tucky in 1775 (Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 
 1914), The Founding of Nashville (Tennessee His- 
 torical Magazine, 1916), and The Spanish Con- 
 spiracy in Tennessee (Tennessee Historical Maga- 
 zine, 1917). 
 
 On the subject of Indian tribes and Indian 
 treaties, the Annual Reports of the Bureau of 
 Ethnology, in especial numbers 5, 18, and 19, al- 
 though compiled from secondary historical sources 
 and occasionally erroneous in important matters, 
 are useful — as is also Bulletin 22 : J. Mooney, Siouan 
 Tribes of the East (1895). Rare and interesting 
 works dealing with the Eastern Indian tribes are 
 H. Timberlake, Memoirs (1765); J. Haywood, 
 Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee 
 (1823) ; and J. Adair, American Indians (1775). 
 
 For both wider and more intensive reading in 
 the history of this period, consult: F. J. Turner, 
 List of References on the History of the West 
 (Edition of 1915) ; A Critical Bibliography of 
 Kentucky History, in R. M. McElroy, Kentucky in 
 the Nation's History (1909); S. B. Weeks, A 
 Bibliography of the Historical Literature of North 
 Carolina (1895) ; E. G. Swem, A Bibliography of 
 Virginia (Part I, 1916) ; and the bibliographies in 
 
 369 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 J. Phelan, History of Tennessee (1888) ; E. Mc- 
 Crady, South Carolina under the Royal Government, 
 1719-1776 (published 1899) and South Carolina 
 in the Revolution, 1775-1780 (published 1901) ; and 
 E. M. Avery, A History of the United States 
 (1908), volumes 4, 5, and 6. 
 
 Note. For the use of a complete set of tran- 
 scripts of the Richard Henderson Papers in the 
 Draper Collection, I am indebted to the North 
 Carolina Historical Commission through the cour- 
 tesy of the Secretary, Mr. R. D. W. Connor. 
 
 370 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abingdon: 134, 191 
 
 Adams, John: 250 
 
 Adams, Samuel: 241, 250 
 
 Ahualco: 144 
 
 Alamance: see Battles 
 
 Alexander, Abraham: 172 
 
 Alexander, James: 27 
 
 Alexander, Moses: 27 
 
 Alexander, Capt. Nathaniel : 
 62 
 
 Alexander, William: 27 
 
 Alibamu Fort: 65 
 
 Alleghany Mountains: 100, 
 142, 155, 246, 259, 311 
 
 Alleman's Ford: 36 
 
 Alrichs, Herman: describes 
 ambuscade of Braddock's 
 army, 54 
 
 Amazons: 267 
 
 America: 111, 134, 159, 234, 
 248, 329; continent of, 198; 
 history of, 286; emigration 
 to, 7; people of, 173, 186, 
 198, 199; democracy in, 
 XIV-XV, 174; colonies 
 of, necessity for union, 65- 
 66 
 
 American: cause, 185; con- 
 gress, 329, 341; confedera- 
 tion, 215, 259, 201; repub- 
 lic, 329 
 
 American Revolution: 12, 123, 
 239, 259, 267, 270, 277, 305 
 
 American Union: 319, 335, 
 336, 342, 348, 349 ; see Union 
 
 Americans: 190, 300, 329, 339, 
 340; pioneers, 283; civiliza- 
 tion of, X, 199; character 
 of, X, 30-31, 195 
 
 Amherst, Gen. Jeffrey: 93 
 
 Anderson, Colonel: 308 
 
 Anshers, James: 52 
 
 Appalachian Mountains: 4, 5, 
 42, 107, 137, 139, 334, 343 
 
 Arkansas: 122 
 
 Atlantic Ocean: 4 
 
 Atta-kulla-kulla, Cherokee 
 chief: 66, 74, 76, 217, 242, 
 262 
 
 Augusta: 79 
 
 B 
 
 Bacon, Francis: 172 
 
 Bailey, Capt. Andrew: leads 
 sortie from Fort Dobbs, 80- 
 82 
 
 Baily, Francis: on frontiers- 
 men, XIV 
 
 Baker, John: 139 
 
 Baker, William: 121 
 
 Bainton, Epaphroditus: 130 
 
 Balboa: 155 
 
 Baptists: 175, 185, 190 
 
 371 
 
INDEX 
 
 Barbour, txplorer: 122 
 
 Battles: Alamance, 168, 175, 
 182-183, 186, 189, 219; Great 
 Kanawha, of the, 203-204, 
 209, 305; King's Mountain, 
 at, ch. XVIII, 289, 337; 
 Lexington, 244, 277; Long 
 Island Flats, of, 262-263; 
 Musgrove's Mill, at, 291 
 
 Beaujeu, Captain: 53 
 
 Been, John: 196 
 
 Been, Mrs. William: 264 
 
 "Belle Riviere": 156; see Ohio 
 River 
 
 Bentham, Jeremy: 246 
 
 Benton, Jesse: 222 
 
 Benton, Samuel: 170 
 
 Benton, Thomas Hart: 170 
 
 Bethabara: 38, 56, 75, 85, 161, 
 162, 166; invested by In- 
 dians, 88 
 
 Bethania: 87 
 
 Bienville (Blainville) Celoron 
 de: 46-47, 98, 116 
 
 Bieville, Jean Baptiste le 
 Moyne, Sieur de: 42 
 
 Big Bone Lick: 116, 156; see 
 Great Bone Lick 
 
 Big Lick: 33 
 
 Big Salt Lick: 284; see 
 French Lick, French Salt 
 Springs, Great French Lick, 
 Great Salt Springs 
 
 Black Fish, Schawano chief: 
 adopts Daniel Boone, 274 
 
 Bledsoe, Anthony: 194, 327, 
 332, 339, 340, 341, 342, 344 
 
 Bledsoe family: 123 
 
 Bledsoe, Isaac: 126; discovers 
 lick, 124 
 
 Bledsoe's Lick: discovery of, 
 described, 124-125 
 
 Blevens : hunters named, 
 109 
 
 Blevens, William: 119 
 
 Blount, William: 348 
 
 Blowing Rock: 134 
 
 Blue Licks: 156 
 
 Blue Ridge: 3, 5, 97, 142 
 
 Board of Trade: Johnston to, 
 3; Glen to, 51; draft royal 
 proclamation, 106 
 
 Boiling Spring: 243, 253 
 
 Bonn, Dr. Jacob: 85 
 
 Boone, Anne: 23 
 
 Boone, Daniel: 16, 20, 22, 29, 
 38, 41, 101, 108, 110, 115, 
 119, 129, 130, Ch. IX, 131, 
 132, 133, 134, 142, 144, 148, 
 153, 155, 156, 158, 159, 160, 
 164, 165, 166, 185, 190, 200, 
 212, 221, 225, 226, 227, 231, 
 332, 235, 236, 280, 282; per- 
 sonal appearance, 37; at 
 Braddock's Defeat, 54-44; 
 meets Richard Henderson, 
 105; explores Tennessee for 
 Henderson & Company, 109; 
 serves under Waddell, 133; 
 explores Kentucky for 
 Richard Henderson, ch. X; 
 clears Transylvania Trail, 
 226; asks aid of Judge 
 Henderson, 227-228; returns 
 to Boonesborough, 253; res- 
 cues daughter, 271; rescued 
 by Kenton, 272; captured, 
 272; adopted by Black Fish, 
 274; deceived by Indians, 
 274 
 
 m% 
 
INDEX 
 
 Boone family: settles in North 
 Carolina, 34, 36, 117 
 
 Boone, George: 21, 165 
 
 Boone, James: 137 
 
 Boone, Jemima: captured by 
 Indians, 271 
 
 Boone, Jesse: 137 
 
 Boone, Squire: 21, 34, 35, 36, 
 37, 105 
 
 Boone, Squire, Jr.: 29, 142, 
 156-157; sent by Transyl- 
 vania Company to aid Dan- 
 iel Boone, 153 
 
 Boone, William: 23 
 
 Boonesborough : 199, 215, 254, 
 277; Henderson arrives at, 
 235 ; Transylvania conven- 
 tion at, 244-248; Boone re- 
 turns to, 253; capture of 
 girls at, 270-271; besieged 
 by Indians, 272, 273, 274- 
 276; Henderson returns to, 
 282; corn sent from to 
 French Lick, 284, 285 
 
 Boone's Caves: 157 
 
 Boone's Ford: 36 
 
 Boston: 8, 180 
 
 Botetourt; Governor, of Vir- 
 ginia: 192 
 
 Boyd's Creek: 307 
 
 Braddock, Gen. Edward: 53, 
 58, 135, 295; defeat of, de- 
 scribed, 53-55 
 
 Brandmiiller, John: pilgrim- 
 age of, 14-15 
 
 British: 49, 102, 189, 261, 270, 
 276, 289, 290, 292, 294, 296, 
 299, 302, 342; Crown, 191, 
 200 
 
 Brobdignags: 154 
 
 Brown, Francis: 57 
 Brown, Jacob: 194, 224 
 Brown, the widow: 337 
 Bryan family: 203 
 Bryan, James: 22 
 Bryan, Joseph: 22 
 Bryan, Martha: 33 
 Bryan, Morgan: 22, settled in 
 Pennsylvania, 22, in Vir- 
 ginia, 23; in North Carolina, 
 16, 34, leads frontier rang- 
 ers, 75-76, 83; in Rowan, 
 35 
 Bryan, Morgan, Jr.: 22 
 Bryan, Rebeckah: 132, 160 
 Bryan, William: 22, 33 
 Bryan's Station: 22 
 "Buffalo Bill" (W. F. Cody): 
 
 XV 
 Bull, Lieut. Gov. William: 88 
 Bullitt, Capt. Thomas: 204 
 Bullock, Leonard Henley: 
 Member Transylvania Com- 
 pany, 218 
 Bunker's Hill: battle of, 277 
 Burke, Edmund: on charters, 
 
 XI 
 Burnaby, Andrew: describes 
 
 life in backwoods, 32 
 Byrd, Col. William, 3rd.: 59, 
 91, 92, 94, 133, 187, 208, 
 210, 249 
 Byrd, William: 36, 45, 98, 
 130; describes Yadkin re- 
 gion, 35 
 
 Calhoun, Patrick: family at- 
 tacked, 79; commands Pro- 
 
 373 
 
INDEX 
 
 vincial Rangers, 89; rela- 
 tives of, 168 
 
 Calk, William: 235; with ex- 
 ploring party from Vir- 
 ginia, 226 
 
 Callaway, Elizabeth: captured 
 by Indians, 271; rescued, 
 271 
 
 Callaway, Flanders: 271 
 
 Callaway, Frances: capture 
 by Indians, 271; rescued, 
 271 
 
 Callaway, Col. Richard: 253; 
 commands in defence of 
 Transylvania Fort, 275-276 
 
 Callaway, Samuel: 110 
 
 Camden: 292 
 
 Camden, Lord Chancellor: 201 
 
 Camden- Yorke opinion: 207, 
 239, 240, 241 
 
 Cameron, Alexander: 194, 261 
 
 Camp Charlotte: 212 
 
 Campbell, Col. Arthur: inter- 
 ested in Kentucky lands, 
 208; seeks partnership in 
 Transylvania Company for 
 Patrick Henry, 240; leads 
 force against Cherokees, 
 307; plans Greater Frank- 
 lin, 323 
 
 Campbell, Colonel William: 
 leads Virginians, 293; 
 elected commander King's 
 Mountain expedition, 294; 
 at King's Mountain, 296, 
 299, 300 
 
 Campbell, David: 314, 321 
 
 Campbell, John: 263 
 
 Campbell, Robert: scalped, 
 
 Cape Fear: 53, 75 
 Captain Will: 151 
 Carlisle: 144 
 Carolina: 116, 118 
 Carolinas, the two: 75, 139, 
 
 201 
 Carter, John: 224 
 Carter's Valley: 195, 224i 
 Carteret, Lord: lands of, 9 
 Caswell, Gov. Richard: 57, 
 
 318, 322, 340 
 Catawba Town: 59 
 Catawba Valley: 10, 13 
 Catawbas: 35, 45, 59-62, 64, 
 65, 70, 71, 72, 96, 118, 146; 
 towns of, 96; country, 131 
 Cession Act: 310-311, 326 
 Charles the Second: 42 
 Charleston: 32, 33, 38, 66, 68, 
 
 88, 94, 161, 167, 289 
 Charleville ; Charles : at 
 
 French Lick, 44 
 Charlotte: 289, 294 
 Cherokees: 15, 28, 49, 59-60, 
 65, 67, 68, 70, 72, 73, 77, 78, 
 86, 88, 89, 91, 96, 111, 112, 
 114, 116, 123, 127, 133, 140, 
 141, 159, 187, 192, 193, 202, 
 206, 216, 221, 222, 225, 239, 
 242, 249, 252, 265, 266, 270, 
 290, 307, 310, 316, 331, 346; 
 fort promised to, by South 
 Carolina, 58; treaty with, 
 59; hunters, 74; attack on 
 Long Cane settlement, 79; 
 warriors, 76; defeated, 83, 
 265; boundary line, 191; 
 chiefs, 217, 242, 316; coun- 
 try of, 64 
 Chickamaugas : 308; towns of, 
 
 374* 
 
INDEX 
 
 283; bloody forage of, 289- 
 290; quelled, 290 
 
 Chickasaws: 125, 310, 340 
 
 Chilhowee: 307 
 
 Chillicothe: 204. 
 
 Chiswell's Mine: 112, 191 
 
 Choctaws: 45 
 
 Christian, Col. William: mem- 
 ber of company to purchase 
 Cherokee lands, 239; leads 
 Virginia forces against 
 Cherokees, 266 
 
 Chronicle, Major William: 
 killed at King's Mountain, 
 301 
 
 Clark, George Rogers: 255, 
 259, 277; prospecting in 
 Kentucky, 205; opinion of 
 Transylvania title, 248 ; 
 Memoir of, cited as to Hen- 
 derson Claim, 255-256 ; 
 threatens Virginia with re- 
 volt in Kentucky, 257; vis- 
 ited by James Robertson, 
 281 
 
 Clark, Jonathan: 248 
 
 Cleveland, Col. Benjamin: 
 296; explores West, 123; 
 leads pioneers against In- 
 dians, 267; leads Wilkes 
 volunteers at King's Moun- 
 tain, 293; addresses troops 
 at King's Mountain, 297, 
 301 
 
 "Cleveland's Bulldogs": 293, 
 301 
 
 Clinch Valley: 203 
 
 Cocke, William: 231, 263, 321; 
 delegate from Franklin to 
 Continental Congress, 318 ; 
 
 appeals to Benjamin Frank- 
 lin, 324 
 
 Coldwater Expedition: 340 
 
 Columbus, Christopher: 144, 
 234 
 
 Committee of Safety: 259 
 
 Concord: 236 
 
 Conewagoes: 118 
 
 Connolly, Dr. John: 205, 208, 
 209, 210, 239 
 
 Constitution: rejected by 
 North Carolina, 335, 336 
 
 Continent, European: 4 
 
 Continental Congress: 249, 
 250, 257, 261, 276, 318, 319, 
 324, 329 
 
 Cooley, William: explores 
 Kentucky, 149, 153 
 
 Cooper, James Fenimore: 85, 
 271 
 
 Corbin, Francis: 169 
 
 Cornstalk, Shawanoe chief: 
 204; leads Indians at the 
 Great Kanawha, 213-214 
 
 Corn Tassel, Indian Chief: 
 337 
 
 Cornwallis, Lord Charles: 289, 
 291, 292, 294, 295, 304 
 
 Cortez, Hernando: 144 
 
 Counties: Albemarle, 99; An- 
 son, 16, 19, 32, 162, 167, 185; 
 Armagh, 22; Augusta, 55, 
 198; Berks, 34; Botetourt, 
 204; Brunswick, 188; Bucks, 
 8, 22, 34; Burke, 293; Ches- 
 ter, 22-23; Culpeper, 138; 
 Davidson, 343; Fincastle, 
 220; Floyd, 142; Frederick, 
 55; Granville, 160, 169, 170, 
 179, 181, 218, 291; Greene, 
 
 375 
 
INDEX 
 
 312, 326; Guilford, 203; 
 Hampshire, 55 ; Hanover, 
 108; Jessamine, 157; Ken- 
 tucky, 258; Lincoln, 126, 
 234, 298; Mecklenburg, 2T, 
 30, 171, 200, 245; Miller, 
 205; Orange, North Caro- 
 lina, 19, 25-26, 169, 177, 189; 
 Orange, Virginia, 113, 122; 
 Philadelphia, 34 ; Prince 
 William, 226; Roanoke, 33; 
 Rowan, 19, 34, 56, 147, 177, 
 232, 294, 298; Rutherford, 
 293; Shenandoah, 198; Sulli- 
 van, 291, 308, 312, 328; 
 Sumner, 124, 343; Surry, 40, 
 166, 293, 298, 303; Tennes- 
 see, 343; Washington, 132, 
 277, 293, 312, 319, 336, 337; 
 Wayne, 124; Wilkes, 293; 
 York, Pennsylvania, 52, 
 59; York, South Carolina, 
 295 
 
 Couture, Jean: 44 
 
 Cowpens: 294 
 
 Cox, Charles: 119 
 
 Coytomore, Lieut.: murdered 
 by Indians, 80 
 
 Craighead, Rev. Alexander: 
 30 
 
 Crawford, William: Washing- 
 ton to, on Western lands, 
 106, 108 
 
 Creeks: 308, 310, 339, 340, 341, 
 342, 346 
 
 Creeks: Bean Island, 85; 
 Bear, 131; Beaver, 194; 
 Bledsoe's, 128 ; Crooked, 
 213; Cross, 218; Dutch- 
 man's, 132; Elk, 137; Fish, 
 
 205; Fourth, 57, 58; Line, 
 71; Linville, 34; Lulbegrud, 
 119, 154; Otter, 228, 229, 
 236; Sinking, 328, 336; 
 Sugar Tree, 132; Sugaw, 
 59; Swearing, 135; Station 
 Camp, 124, 150; Third, 57; 
 Walden's, 120 
 
 Cresap, Col. Thomas: 101 
 
 Crockett, Robert: 125 
 
 Croghan, George: 46, 120 
 
 Cross Creek (Fayetteville) : 
 218 
 
 Crozat, Antoine: 43, 44 
 
 Cullodan: 100 
 
 Cumberland: Colony, 200, 341, 
 342, 343; leaders, 341; de- 
 sire alliance with Spain, 348, 
 345; traders, 330; settle- 
 ments, 283, 288, 309, 310, 
 330, 340, 345, 346; settlers, 
 328, 342; desire separation 
 from North Carolina, 343; 
 valley, 280; region, ch. 
 XVII, 280, 345, 347 
 
 Cumberland: outlaw, 165 
 
 "Cumberland Compact" : 
 
 drafted by Richard Hen- 
 derson, 285-286 
 
 Cumberland District: 331, 339, 
 341 
 
 Cumberland, Duke of: 100 
 
 Cumberland Gap: names, 100, 
 115; traversed by traders, 
 118, 119, 121, 123, 124, 126, 
 145, 158, 229; see Onasioto 
 Ga<Q 
 
 Cumberland Mountains: 100, 
 113, 138, 233 
 
 Cutbird, Benjamin: 139 
 
 376 
 
INDEX 
 
 D 
 
 Darien: 144 
 
 Dark and Bloody Ground: 
 126; origin of name, 223- 
 224 
 
 Dartmouth, Earl of: 208, 209, 
 238 
 
 Dean Swift: 154 
 
 Declaration of Independence: 
 258; read at Boonesborough, 
 272 
 
 Delaware: 8; valley, 8 
 
 Demere, Capt. Raymond: 76; 
 takes command of Virginia 
 Fort, 66; surrenders Fort 
 Laudown, 90-91 
 
 De Peyster: 298, 299, 301 
 
 De Soto, Fernando: XII 
 
 Detroit: 273 
 
 Devonshire, East: 21 
 
 Dick, Captain : Cherokee 
 hunter, 126 
 
 Dinwiddie, Gov. Robert: 50, 
 53, 55, 58, 65, 67, 70, 72 
 
 Dividing Line: running of the 
 North Carolina- Virginia, 
 269; William Byrd's His- 
 tory of the, 35 
 
 Doak, Rev. Samuel: 293 
 
 Dobbs, Gov. Arthur: 55, 73, 
 77, 92, 93, 169; sends com- 
 missioner to treat with In- 
 dians, 59; begins erection of 
 Catawba Fort, 62, 70; or- 
 ders building discontinued, 
 71 
 
 Dobbs, Edwards Brice: 54 
 
 Doddridge, Joseph: on condi- 
 tions of pioneer life, 125 
 
 377 
 
 Donelson, Col. John: 194, 206, 
 222, 288; runs boundary 
 line, 193; meets Richard 
 Henderson, 269; leads party 
 by water route to French 
 Lick, 282; diary of, quoted, 
 269, 283-284 
 
 Donelson's line: 194, 224, 239, 
 242 
 
 Dragging Canoe, the Cherokee 
 chief: 223, 290; leads In- 
 dians in battle, 262-263 
 
 Drake, Enoch: 235 
 
 Drake, Joseph: 125 
 
 Dunmore, John Murray, Earl 
 of: 196, 198, 199, 200, 204, 
 206, 210, 211, 220, 238, 239, 
 240, 241, 242, 248, 249, 
 254 
 
 Dunmore's War: ch. XIII, 
 196, 214 
 
 Dugger, Julius Caesar: Ten- 
 nessee pioneer, 137, 187 
 
 Dutch, Pennsylvania: 12, 302 
 
 Dutchman's Creek Church : 
 185 
 
 E 
 
 East India Company: 201 
 Eaton's Station: defence of, 
 
 262 
 Echota: 64, 66, 307 
 Edwards, Rev. Morgan: on 
 
 exodus of Regulators for 
 
 North Carolina, 175 
 Emery, Will: 127 
 England: land-mad, XI; 4, 21, 
 
 43, 201, 247 
 English: 67, 120, 274; settlers, 
 
INDEX 
 
 5, 96; Revolution, 6; parlia- 
 ment, 7; colonies, 13; troops, 
 66; settlements, 46 
 
 Es-Kippa-Ki-Thi-Ki: 117, 150 
 
 Etchowee: 89 
 
 F 
 
 Fagot: 343 
 
 Falls of the Ohio River 
 (Louisville) : 255, 284 
 
 Fanning, Col. Edmund: 22, 
 172, 173, 176, 177, 180, 182 
 
 Fauquier, Gov. Francis: 94 
 
 Fayetteville: 218 
 
 Ferguson, Col. Patrick: 291, 
 292, 295, 296, 297, 298, 299, 
 300; conduct at King's 
 Mountain, 302; killed, 303 
 
 Few, William: describes life 
 in backwoods, 25 
 
 Fields, Jeremiah: 180, 181 
 
 Filson, John: 117, 147 
 
 Fincastle, Committee of West: 
 drafts protest against Tran- 
 sylvania Company, 257, 258 
 
 Findlay, Findley, Finley: 
 Archibald, 22; Michael, 22 
 
 Findlay, John: visits Ken- 
 tucky, 117-118; meets 
 Boone, 144; visits Boone on 
 the Yadkin, 22, 101, 138, 
 148, 149, 150, 153 
 
 Fish, William: murdered by 
 Indians, 84 
 
 Fleming, Col. William: 208 
 
 Florida: 138; East, 122, 138; 
 West, 122 
 
 Floyd, John: 212, 243, 254; 
 appointed Surveyor General 
 of Transylvania, 255 
 
 Fontaine, John: journal of, 97 
 
 Fontainebleau : 212 
 
 Forbes, Gen. John: 73, 74, 133 
 
 Forks of Ohio River: 47 
 
 Forts: Bethabara, at, 75; 
 Boone's, 236, 270; chain of, 
 83; Carolina, 75, 84-85; Ca- 
 tawba, 62, 70, 71; Cumber- 
 land, 53; Dobbs, 55, 57-58, 
 75, 80-82, 84, 87; Duquesne, 
 47, 72-73, 74; Dutch, 57, 83, 
 86; — at mouth of Line 
 Creek, 71; Loudoun, 68, 76, 
 88-90; McDowell's, 265, 270; 
 Necessity, 48; Ninety-Six, 
 89; Patrick Henry, 269, 
 282-283; Pitt, 121, 209; 
 Prince George, 51-52, 79-80, 
 91, 93, 94; Robinson, 94; 
 Stalnaker's, 83, 94; Stanwix, 
 treaty of, 111, 112, 191, 
 207;— on Tellico River, 68; 
 Transylvania, 215, 243, 244, 
 245, 253, 270, 272, 274, 276, 
 282; Vaux's, 56, 69; Vir- 
 ginia, 64, 67, 68, 69; Wa- 
 tauga, 263 
 
 Fowey: 254 
 
 France: 43, 78, 96, 99 
 
 Frankland: 318, 331, 339; ori- 
 gin of name, 314, 321 
 
 Franklin: 89 
 
 Franklin, Benjamin: 8, 107, 
 184, 185; new state named 
 for, 314, 324; to Cocke, 324; 
 to Sevier, 324-325 
 
 Franklin, State of: 200, ch. 
 XIX, 315, 317, 318, 323, 325, 
 326, 328, 329, 334, 335, 336, 
 337, 338, 344, 347, 348;— 
 
 378 
 
INDEX 
 
 leaders of, 326, 330;— legis- 
 lature of, 312, 313-314, 316, 
 318;— Greater, 323; origin 
 of name, 314, 324 
 
 Freeland's Station: 309 
 
 French: 45, 47, 48, 49, 65, 66, 
 70, 97, 116, 274; coureurs 
 de bois, 44; Huguenot, 198; 
 voyageurs, 123, 128; — Cana- 
 dian, 274; immigration of, 
 5; settlers, 28; traders, 44; 
 explorations, 46 
 
 French Lick: 281; treaty of 
 peace at, 269. See French 
 Salt Springs, Great French 
 Lick, Great Salt Springs 
 
 French and Indian War: 52, 
 102, 144, 145 
 
 Frohock, John: 172, 177 
 
 Frohock, Thomas: 172, 177 
 
 Frontier: VII 
 
 G 
 
 Galaspy, William: 234 
 Galissoniere, Roland Michel 
 
 Barrin, Marquis de la: 47 
 Gammern: storekeeper on 
 
 Yadkin, 161 
 Gardoqui, Diego de: 327, 329, 
 
 330, 331, 332, 333, 334, 335, 
 
 338, 339 
 Gee, Joshua: 98 
 George I: 97 
 George III: 93, 214 
 Georgia: 116, 122, 265, 268, 
 
 291, 313;— Assembly of, 
 
 344; tours into, 14 
 German: pioneers, 11-18, 28; 
 
 — Palatinate, 11; immigra- 
 tion, 5, 11-12, 19 
 
 Gilbert Town: 292 
 
 Gillespie, Robert: slain from 
 ambush by Indians, 87 
 
 Gist, Christopher: 46, 108, 114, 
 116, 117, 137, 146; makes 
 exploration for Ohio Com- 
 pany, 101-102 
 
 Gist, Nathaniel: 134, 137 
 
 Glen, Governor James: 58-59, 
 65; describes South Caro- 
 lina's condition, 50-51; 
 promises Cherokees a fort, 
 51; concludes treaty at Sa- 
 luda, 51 
 
 Glumdelick : 154 
 
 Gnadenhutten: 56 
 
 Gordon, Capt. Harry: 120 
 
 Grandfather Mountain: 135 
 
 Grant, Col. James: 138; leads 
 expedition against Indians, 
 93 
 
 Granville, Edward, Earl of 
 Clarendon, Lord: 15; lands 
 of, 9-10, 34, 171 
 
 Great Bone Licks: 120 
 
 Great Britain: 48, 247 
 
 Great French Lick: 280. See 
 Great Salt Springs, French 
 Lick, French Salt Springs 
 
 Great Grant: 224 
 
 Greathouse, Darmel: 211 
 
 Great Meadows: 48, 53 
 
 Great Mogul: 201 
 
 Great Tellico: 65 
 
 Great Trading Path: 35, 45, 
 96, 131 
 
 Great Treaty: 249 
 
 Great Salt Springs: 44, 269. 
 
 379 
 
INDEX 
 
 See French Lick, French 
 
 Salt Springs, Great French 
 
 Lick 
 Great Warrior's Path: 118, 
 
 119 
 Green: 62 
 Greeneville: 319 
 Greer, Andrew: 187 
 Grube, Rev. Bernhard Adam: 
 
 heads settlers into North 
 
 Carolina, 16 
 Gulf of Mexico: 42, 44, 341 
 "Gulliver's Travels": 154 
 Gutry, John: 52 
 
 H 
 
 Hackett: 341 
 
 Hall, Gen. William: 116, 128 
 
 Hall, Rev. James: 267 
 
 Hambright, Lt. Col. Freder- 
 ick: at King's Mountain, 
 296, 302 
 
 Hamilton, Gov. Henry: 273, 
 274, 276 
 
 Hampton, Anthony : leads 
 Rowan rangers, 83 
 
 Hampton, Col. Andrew: leads 
 Rutherford riflemen, 293 
 
 Hampton, Gen. Wade: 83 
 
 Hancock, John: 241 
 
 Hanks: family, 23, 34;— Abra- 
 ham, 23, 235 
 
 Hard Labor: treaty at, 112, 
 114 
 
 Harman, outlaw: 165 
 
 Harris, Col.: 75 
 
 Harris: Elizabeth, 144; John, 
 145 
 
 Harris's Ferry: 145 
 
 Harrisburg: 145 
 Harrison, Richard: 255 
 Harrod, James: 121, 205, 212, 
 
 243, 244, 253. 
 Harrodsburg : 253 ; election 
 
 held at; 257 
 Harrodsburg Remonstrance: 
 
 255 
 Hart: David, 187, 218;— Na- 
 thaniel, 108, 187, 217, 218, 
 222, 227, 284;— Thomas, 108, 
 187, 218, 222 
 Hartman, George: 38 
 Hawkins, Benjamin: 268 
 Hayes: 347 
 Haywood, John: 314 
 Hempinstall, Abraham: 122 
 Henderson, Kentucky: 279 
 Henderson, Col. Samuel : 
 chosen special envoy to 
 Franklin, 315-316; negoti- 
 ates with John Sevier, 316- 
 318 
 Henderson, Nathaniel: 222, 
 
 233, 255 
 Henderson, Richard: born in 
 Virginia, 104; removes to 
 North Carolina, 104; ac- 
 quainted with Boones, 105; 
 promotes Western explora- 
 tion, 110; in law suits in- 
 volving Boone, 147; pro- 
 motes Western exploration 
 under Boone's leadership, 
 148-149; sends supplies to 
 Boone, 153; court broken 
 up by Regulators, 179-181; 
 burned out by Regulators, 
 182; secures from English 
 authorities sanction for pur- 
 
 380 
 
INDEX 
 
 chase of Indian lands, 201- 
 202; reorganizes Richard 
 Henderson & Co. into 
 Louisa Company, 217; visits 
 Otari towns, 217-218; or- 
 ganizes Transylvania Com- 
 pany, 218-219 ; negotiates 
 Great Treaty with Chero- 
 kees, 221-225 ; despatches 
 Boone to clean Transylva- 
 nia Trail, 225-226; receives 
 urgent appeal from Boone, 
 227-229; hastens to Boone's 
 rescue, 229-232 ; reaches 
 Fort Boone, 236; draws up 
 plan of government for 
 Transylvania, 243-244; ad- 
 dresses Legislature of Tran- 
 sylvania, 237, 245; elected 
 delegate from Transylvania 
 to Continental Congress, 
 249; prepares plan of gov- 
 ernment for Powell's Valley 
 settlement, 252 ; attends 
 Virginia Convention, 256- 
 257; purchases corn for 
 Cumberland settlement, 269 
 runs North Carolina- Vir 
 ginia dividing line, 269, 282 
 presents memorial on Tran 
 sylvania purchase, 278 
 plans colonization of Cum 
 berland region, 279-280 
 despatches Robertson on 
 prospecting tour, 280-281 
 sends corn to French Lick 
 284-285 ; organizes govern- 
 ment on Cumberland, 285 
 author of "Cumberland 
 Compact," 286-287; intro- 
 
 duces recall of judges, 286- 
 287; founder of Nashville/ 
 personal appearance, 221- 
 222; diary of, quoted, 227, 
 229; mentioned, 158, 159, 
 183, 187, 190, 200, 203, 215, 
 ch. XIV passim, 216, 220, 
 234, 235, 238, 240, 241, 242, 
 246, 247, 248, 253, 258, 272, 
 282, 315 
 
 Henderson, Richard & Com- 
 pany: organized, 107; des- 
 patch Boone on Western 
 exploration, 109, 160, 216- 
 217; granted 200,000 acres 
 by Virginia; see Land 
 Companies 
 
 Henderson, Samuel: 104 
 
 Henderson & Company; 109; 
 see Richard Henderson Q 
 Company 
 
 Henley, Chief Justice Peter: 
 60 
 
 Henry, Patrick: 209, 211, 249, 
 293, 329; pronounces Cam- 
 den- Yorke decision valid, 
 210; endeavors to purchase 
 lands from Cherokees, 239- 
 240; desires to become part- 
 ner in Transylvania Com- 
 pany, 240; considers Tran- 
 sylvania title good, 256; 
 confiscates Transylvania, 
 258; correspondence of, 
 with Joseph Martin, 344- 
 345 
 
 Hewatt, Rev. Alexander: 78 
 
 Heydt, Jost: settles in Vir- 
 ginia, 12 
 
 Heygler, King, Catawba chief: 
 
 381 
 
INDEX 
 
 petitions for fort, 60; pre- 
 vents completion of fort, 
 71; see Oroloswa 
 
 Hiawassee: 307 
 
 Hicks, Harry: heroic defence 
 of home against Indian at- 
 tack, 85-86 
 
 High Shoals: 29 
 
 Highlanders: 90 
 
 Hill, William: 138, 142, 143 
 
 Hillsborough: 26, 103, 179, 
 188, 217, 218, 219 
 
 Hillsborough, Earl of: 96 
 
 Hingham: 2.2 
 
 Hogg, James: 251; partner 
 in Transylvania Company, 
 218 ; appointed delegate 
 from Transylvania to Con- 
 tinental Congress, 250 
 
 Holder, John: rescues sweet- 
 heart, 271 
 
 Holden, Joseph: 149, 153 
 
 Hollows, the: 166 
 
 Holston: region, 99, 126; set- 
 tlement, 281 ;— settlers, 262; 
 valley of, 134, 187, 191-192, 
 306 
 
 Honeycut: 189 
 
 Hooper, William: 180, 182 
 
 Hopewell: 310 
 
 Horton, Joshua: 121 
 
 Houston, Rev. Samuel: 321, 
 323; drafts constitution for 
 Frankland, 319; features of 
 constitution t drafted by, 
 321-322 
 
 Howard, Cornelius: 165, 166 
 
 Howell, Rednup: poet-laure- 
 ate of the Regulation, 173, 
 179 
 
 Hubbardt, Col. James: 316 
 
 Hudson Valley: 4 
 
 Hunter, James: 179 
 
 Hunter's Trail: 150 
 
 Husband, Herman: author of 
 "Impartial Relation," 177, 
 178, 197; leader in insur- 
 rection at Hillsborough, 
 179; in correspondence with 
 Benjamin Franklin, 184 
 
 Iberville, Le Moyne d': 42-43 
 Illinois Company: see Land 
 
 Companies 
 Illinois country: 120, 128, 281 
 "Impartial Relation": 177, 197 
 Indian: agent, 281; — Allies, 
 72; chiefs, 211, 217, 274, 
 337; — depredations, 56, 163, 
 308, 340;— expeditions, 313; 
 governments, 201 ; Grant, 
 202; hostages, 80; — lands, 
 161, 308;— outbreak, 74, 
 262 ; — princes, 201 ; — terri- 
 tories, 200;— towns, 76, 89, 
 93, 117, 290, 307, 308;— 
 trade, 44-46, 145 ;— traders, 
 144, 145, 217, 225;— trails, 
 119, 139;— tribes, 45, 201, 
 261 ;— war, 325 ; — warfare, 
 133, 295-296, 297 ;— affairs, 
 superintendent of, 111 
 Indians: 44, 46, 49, 57, 58-63, 
 68, 69, 74, 75, 85, 86, 87, 88, 
 112, 119, 122, 125, 127, 1.40, 
 151, 152, 156, 162, 196, 197, 
 200, 204, 205, 207, 209, 211, 
 213, 214, 215, 217, 218, 221, 
 
 382 
 
INDEX 
 
 222, 223, 227, 228, 229, 240, 
 242, 249, 252, 253, 261, 262, 
 263, 265, 267, 268, 270, 273, 
 275, 276, 283, 288, 290, 297, 
 306, 307, 308, 311, 332, 339, 
 340, 345;— Northern, 49, 
 111, 141, 191 ;— Southern, 
 35, 191, 261 
 
 Indiana: 123 
 
 Ingles: John, 69; — Mrs. Mary, 
 69; — William, 69; — Mrs. 
 William, 69 
 
 Innes, Col. James: 53 
 
 Ireland, 7, 22, 33; character 
 of inhabitants of North of, 
 6-7 
 
 Irish: immigration of, 5; — 
 Pennsylvania, 33 ; settlers, 
 28 
 
 Iroquois: 117 
 
 Jack, Col. Samuel: 265 
 
 Jackson, Andrew: 282 
 
 Jacobite uprising: 7 
 
 Jamestown: 6 
 
 Jay, John: 329-330 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas: desires to 
 join Transylvania Company, 
 240; favors free government 
 back of Virginia, 250-251; 
 attitude of, toward Transyl- 
 vania claim, 256 
 
 Jenkins, Leoline: on charac- 
 ter of Scotch-Irish, 6 
 
 Johnson, Sir William: 112 
 
 Johnston, Gov. Gabriel: on im- 
 migration into North Caro- 
 lina, 3 
 
 Johnston, Gov. Samuel: 332, 
 336, 338, 339; to Robertson 
 and Bledsoe, 327 
 
 Johnston, William: 217 
 
 Jones, John Gabriel: 257 
 
 Jones, Robert (Robin): 169; 
 characterization of Scotch- 
 Irish by, 24-25 
 
 Jonesborough: 292, 312, 313, 
 316, 337 
 
 Joseph, Miller: describes con- 
 ditions of North Carolina 
 backwoods, 36, 38 
 
 Judge's Friend, Cherokee 
 chief: 242 
 
 K 
 
 Kenedy, William: agent for 
 Virginia gentlemen to pur- 
 chase Cherokee lands, 240 
 
 Kenton, Simon: rescues Dan- 
 iel Roone, 272 
 
 Kentucky (Cantucky, Can- 
 tuckey, Cantuckie, Can- 
 tuck): XV, 22, 100, 101, 
 102, 107, 111, 112, 116, 119, 
 120, 121, 122, 123, 121, 129, 
 137, 139, 140, 142, 113, 145, 
 146, 148, 149, 150, 153, 155, 
 156, 191, 196, 200, 203, 204, 
 205, 221, 223, 224, 227, 229, 
 231, 233, 234, 235, 256, 259, 
 269, 270, 273, 276, 277, 279, 
 315, 327, 335, 341, 342, 348, 
 349; origin of name, 117; — 
 road, 332 
 
 Keowee: 51; — valley of, 89 
 
 King's Mountain: 295, 303 
 
 383 
 
INDEX 
 
 King's Mountain campaign: 
 
 306, 348 
 Kipling, Rudyard: 137 
 Kirk: 337 
 
 Kirtleys, the: pioneers, 113 
 Knob Lick: 126 
 
 Lacey, Col. William: 293, 296 
 
 Land: policy of selling large 
 tracts of, 113 
 
 Land Companies: Illinois, 
 207-208, 239; Louisa, 217, 
 218; Loyal, 47, 99-100, 113; 
 Ohio, 47; organized, 100; 
 sends out exploring expe- 
 dition, 101-103; Richard 
 Henderson & Company, or- 
 ganized, 107 ; Transylvania 
 Company, 114, 218; Wabash 
 (Onabache), 209, 238-239 
 
 Land of Cockayne: 44 
 
 La Salle, Robert Cavelier de: 
 42 
 
 Laurel Mountain: 119 
 
 "Leatherstocking Tales": 85, 
 271 
 
 Leestown: 248 
 
 Lewes: 8 
 
 Lenoir (Le Noir), Gen. Wil- 
 liam: describes costume of 
 pioneer women, 40-41 ; 
 marches against Indians; at 
 King's Mountain, 301-302 
 
 Lery, Chaussegros de: 116 
 
 Lewis, Major Andrew: 66-67, 
 81, 191, 208; erects Virginia 
 Fort, 64-65; leads Sandy 
 River expedition, 70; com- 
 
 mands at Battle of Great 
 
 Kanawha, 212, 214-215 
 Lexington: 236 
 
 Lincoln : family, 34 ; — Abra- 
 ham, 23, 34, 235; John, 34; 
 
 — Mordecai, 22-23, 34; Sam- 
 uel, 22;— Sarah, 23 
 Lindsay, Isaac, 121 
 Linville: John, 140, 142; Capt. 
 
 William, 137, 140, 142 
 Linville Falls: 136, 141 
 Lockaber: 192, 193 
 Locke, John: "Fundamental 
 
 Constitutions" of, 202 
 Loesch, Brother: 75 
 Logan, Cayuga Mingo chief: 
 
 211 
 Logan, Col. Benjamin: 234, 
 
 277 
 Logan, James: on character 
 
 of squatters, 8-9 
 London: 202 
 Loudoun, Lord: 68 
 Long Cane Settlement: 79 
 Long Hunters: XII, ch. VIII, 
 
 126, 128, 129, 157, 158, 204 
 Long Island of Holston 
 
 River: 94, 194, 195, 226, 266, 
 
 278, 308 
 Long, John: slain by Indians, 
 
 87 
 Long Knives: 213 
 Longueuil, Charles de Moyne, 
 
 Baron de: 116 
 Lorbulgrud: 154 
 Louis Quatorze: 43 
 Louisa Company: see Land 
 
 Companies 
 Louisiana: 292, 331 
 Love, Col.: 266 
 
 384 
 
INDEX 
 
 Lower Blue Licks: 101 
 Lower Salt Spring: 273 
 Lower Shawnee Town: 101 
 Lowry, James: 118 
 Loyal Company: see Land 
 
 Companies 
 Loyalists: 190, 261, 291, 298, 
 
 299 
 Lucas, Robert: 224 
 Luhny, Robert, mill of, on 
 
 James River, 16 
 Luttrell, Col. John: 227; joins 
 
 Transylvania Company, 217 
 Lyttelton, Gov. William 
 
 Henry: 65-66, 71, 77, 78, 88 
 
 M 
 
 Madison, Thomas: 263 
 
 Madrid: 341, 342 
 
 Mansfield, Low: 201 
 
 Mansker, Gasper, pioneer: 
 123, 282; discovers lick, 124; 
 encounters Boone, 157-158 
 
 Mansker's Lick: 110, 124 
 
 Margry, Pierre: 43 
 
 Martin, Gov. Alexander: 182, 
 312, 315, 316, 322; attorney 
 for Daniel Boone, 148; ap- 
 points Samuel Henderson 
 ambassador to Franklin, 
 315; issues manifesto 
 against State of Franklin, 
 306, 318; Sevier to, on 
 Franklin, 317-318; academy 
 named for, 318 
 
 Martin, Col. Joseph: 150, 227, 
 262, 290, 306, 307, 313, 322, 
 325; settles in Powell's Val- 
 
 ley, 113; driven out, 114: 
 appointed agent for Tran- 
 sylvania Company, 202 ; 
 Richard Henderson to, 252- 
 253; letter of, to Governor 
 Randolph, 326 ; exonerated 
 of treason by North Caro- 
 lina Assembly, 344; acts as 
 spy on Spaniards, 344-345 
 
 Martin, Gov. Josiah: 103, 200; 
 issues proclamation against 
 Transylvania Company, 238 
 
 Martin's Station: 226, 229; 
 founded, 220-221; Hender- 
 son draws up plan of gov- 
 ernment for, 252; brave de- 
 fence of, against Indians, 
 253 
 
 Maryland: 5, 14, 24, 101, 114; 
 price of lands in, 9 
 
 Mason, George: opposed tp 
 Transylvania claim, 256 
 
 Maxwell, Col. George: 328, 332 
 
 McAden, Rev. Hugh: diary 
 of, 27-28, 49, 69 
 
 McAfees: 243; exploring 
 party, 204; return home, 
 235; — James, 235;— Robert, 
 235; Robert, Jr., 235; Sam- 
 uel, 235; William, 235 
 
 McBride, James: 117 
 
 McCulloch, Major John: 122 
 
 McCulloh, Henry Eustace : 
 172 
 
 McDowell, Col.: 265 
 
 McDowell, Col. Charles: 291, 
 293, 337 
 
 McDowell, Col. Joseph: 293, 
 296, 298, 337 
 
 McDowell, Thomas: 228 
 
 385 
 
INDEX 
 
 McFeters, Jeremiah: 228 
 
 McGillivray, Alexander: 339, 
 342, 344, 345; receives over- 
 tures from Cumberland 
 leaders, 341 
 
 Mendenhall: John, 203;— 
 Richard, 203 
 
 Middle Ground: 111 
 
 Middle Settlements: 93 
 
 Middleton, Col. Thomas: 93 
 
 Middle Towns: 89 
 
 Middle West: 117 
 
 Millerstpwn: 198 
 
 Miro, District of: 343, 346 
 
 Miro, Gov. Estevan: 331, 335, 
 338, 339, 341, 342, 343, 344, 
 345; reports on separatist 
 movement in West, 342 
 
 Mississippi Bubble: 43 
 
 Mohawk Valley: 4 
 
 Monbrenn, Timothe de: hunts 
 on Cumberland, 128 
 
 Monongahela: 205 
 
 Montagu, Lord Charles: 168- 
 169 
 
 Montgomerie, Col. Archibald: 
 abortive campaign of, 
 against Indians, 88-89 ; 
 sails, 92 
 
 Montreal: 118 
 
 Mooney, James : explores 
 Kentucky, 149, 153 
 
 Moore: 62 
 
 Moravian: church, 1, 3, 88- 
 89, 166; — community diary, 
 88; — brotherhood, 15-16; — 
 town, 56; Gemein Haus, 
 87; — store-keeper, 161 
 
 Moravians: 166; eleven killed, 
 56; warned against Indians, 
 
 85; hospitable to Indians, 
 86 
 Morgan family: 34; — Edward, 
 21; Sarah, 21, 34;— Richard, 
 34 
 Morganton: 337, 338 
 Morris, Gov. Samuel: 54 
 Morrison: 337 
 Mount Mitchell: 135 
 Mulberry Fields: 15, 163 
 Miiller, Adam: settles in Vir- 
 ginia, 12 
 Murray, William: 207, 208, 
 238, 239 
 
 N 
 
 Nantahala Mountains: 267 
 Nash, Gen. Francis: 177, 288 
 Nashborough: 309 
 Nashville: 282, 342, 345 
 Nassau Hall: 27, 267 
 Natchez: 123, 125, 330 
 Neely, Alexander: 153, 154 
 Neilson, Archibald: 219 
 Nelson, Acting Governor Wil- 
 liam: 96, 188 
 Newcastle: 8 
 New England: 4, 86 
 New Jersey: 5 
 "Newlanders": 11 
 Newman, hunter: 119 
 Newman's Ridge: 119 
 New Orleans: 123, 343, 345 
 New River: region, 123, 126; 
 — settlement, 69 ; — settlers, 
 70 
 "Nolichucky Jack of the Bor- 
 der": 332 
 Nolichucky: Valley, 224 
 
 386 
 
INDEX 
 
 North America: 120, 202 
 
 North Carolina: XV, 5, 10, 
 13, 14, 15, 43, 52, 55, 59, 71, 
 73, 84, 99, 101, 107, 116, 130, 
 134, 136, 140, 160, 162, 163, 
 167, 174, 175, 176, 186, 187, 
 188, 191, 192, 193, 194, 197, 
 200, 203, 218, 219, 220, 221, 
 222, 237, 238, 245, 259, 260, 
 261, 265, 269, 277, 278, 279, 
 280, 281, 282, 288, 289, 290, 
 291, 295, 304, 305, 307, 310, 
 311, 312, 313, 317, 319, 322, 
 323, 324, 325, 326, 328, 330, 
 332, 335, 339, 343, 344, 345, 
 3-16, 347; frontier conditions 
 in, 25-28;— border, 76;— 
 back country, 261 ; grants 
 lands in Tennessee to Tran- 
 sylvania Company, 287; im- 
 migration into, 10, 13; in- 
 crease in population of, 3, 
 11; — piedmont, 9, 26; — ■ 
 hunters, 141; pioneers, 95; 
 governor of, 60; commis- 
 sioners of, 310; troops, 53, 
 72, 77, 89, 93, 94, 266, 273; 
 cedes Western territory to 
 United States, 347; legisla- 
 ture of, passes second ces- 
 sion act, 347; — lands ac- 
 cepted by Congress, 348 
 
 North Carolina Assembly: 57- 
 58, 61, 92, 93, 277, 313, 314, 
 338, 343 
 
 North Carolina : Provincial 
 Congress of, 259, 277; Pro- 
 vincial Council of, 260, 265, 
 266 
 
 Northwest: 259, 261, 270, 277 
 
 Nottaway Indians: 72 
 Nuntewees: 65 
 
 O 
 
 Oconostota, Cherokee chief: 
 242; treacherously murders 
 Lieut. Coytomore, 79-80 
 
 Ohio Company: see Land 
 Companies 
 
 Ohio Indians: 46 
 
 Ohio Valley: 102, 145 
 
 Old Abraham: 263 
 
 Old Chillicothe: 212 
 
 Old Southwest: 104, 126, 195, 
 198, 212, 226, 260, 265, 305, 
 309, 348; pioneers of, XV, 
 5, 12, 14, 17, 28-31 ; pioneer 
 democracy of, 20-21, 103- 
 104; — planter aristocracy 
 of, 20; — Mimic republics of, 
 200; — colonizers of, 20 
 
 Ormond, Duke of: to Leoline 
 Jenkins, 6 
 
 Oroloswa, Catawba Chief: 71, 
 see King Heygler 
 
 Osborne, Captain Alexander: 
 leads Rowan militia, 62 
 
 Otari towns: 217 
 
 Ouasioto Gap: 118, 145, 146, 
 150; see Cumberland Gap 
 
 Outassitus, Cherokee chief: 91 
 
 Overton, Samuel: 239 
 
 Owen, William: 163, 164, 165 
 
 Oxford: 249 
 
 Pacific Ocean: 144 
 Page, John: 239 
 
 387 
 
INDEX 
 
 Paintsville: 100 
 
 Paris: 43 
 
 Path Deed: 224 
 
 Paxtong: 145 
 
 Pearis, Capt. Richard: 70 
 
 Peck, John M.: 148 
 
 Penn, William: 8, 21, 22 
 
 Pennsylvania: 5, 10, 13, 27, 
 33, 45, 54, 99, 118, 144, 209, 
 277; population of, 8; lands, 
 9; immigrants into, 12; 
 Synod, 13 ;— settlers, 146; 
 Proprietaries of, 111: 
 traders, 146, 207 
 
 Pensacola: 138, 139 
 
 Perkins, John: defeats In- 
 dians by strategy, 83-84 
 
 Phifer, Martin: leads frontier 
 rangers, 83 
 
 Philadelphia: 8, 32, 123, 185, 
 249, 250 
 
 Pilot Knob: 102, 118, 119 
 
 Pilot Mountain: 135 
 
 Piomingo, Chickasaw chief: 
 125 
 
 Pioneer: farmer, IX; pro- 
 moter, XI 
 
 Pittsburgh: 122 
 
 "Pocahontas of the West": 
 262; see Nancy Ward 
 
 Point Pleasant: 213 
 
 Polk, Thomas: 172 
 
 Ponce de Leon: XII 
 
 Portwood, age: 232 
 
 Post St. Vincent: 281 
 
 Pound Gap: 102 
 
 Powell's Mountain: 224 
 
 Powell's Valley: 113, 114, 149, 
 203, 224, 252; lands in, 
 granted to Transylvania 
 
 Company, 287-288 
 
 Presbyterians: in Ireland, 7; 
 —Scotch-Irish, 27 
 
 Preston, Col. William: 208, 
 212, 240; to Lord Dunmore 
 on Henderson's offers of 
 land, 220; to George Wash- 
 ington on Transylvania, 
 237-238, 242-243;— supports 
 Judge Henderson, 254 
 
 Price, Thomas, Indian trader: 
 guides Henderson at Hart 
 to Otari towns, 217; testi- 
 fies regarding Great Treaty, 
 225 
 
 Price's Meadow: 124 
 
 Privy Council: 206 
 
 "Proposals for the encourage- 
 ment of settling the lands, 
 etc.": issued by Transylva- 
 nia Company, 219, 220 
 
 Puritan: 86 
 
 Q 
 
 294 
 
 Quaker Meadows: 
 
 Quakers: 20-21 
 
 Quebec: 212 
 
 Quindre, Dagniaux de: com- 
 mands at siege of Transyl- 
 vania Fort, 274-276 
 
 R 
 
 Rains, John: 123 
 
 Randolph, Col. Peter: treaty 
 commissioner, 59 
 
 Recall of Judges: early ex- 
 ample, 286-287 
 
 Red Lick Fork: 150 
 
 388 
 
INDEX 
 
 Regulation: 167, 173, 174, 175, 
 176, 182, 192 
 
 Regulators: ch. XI, 166, 167, 
 168, 175, 176, 177, 179, 180, 
 181, 183, 185, 190 
 
 Reid, Capt. Mayne: 282 
 
 Revere, Paul: 231 
 
 Richard Henderson & Com- 
 pany: 119, 129, 138; organ- 
 ized, 107; despatch Boone 
 on exploring expedition, 
 109; granted land by Vir- 
 ginia, 279. See Land Com- 
 panies 
 
 Richter: 166 
 
 Rivers: Big Sandy, west fork 
 of, 142; Broad, 59, 289; Ca- 
 tawba, 62, 70, 83, 84;— 
 South fork of, 298; Chatta- 
 hoochee, 266; Cherokee, 111, 
 121; Clinch, 142; Cumber- 
 land, 44, 109, 114, 119, 121, 
 128, 157, 223, 224, 269, 284, 
 288, 308; Dick's, 126, 156; 
 Great Kanawha, 107, 112, 
 191, 192, 193; Guen, 151, 157, 
 188, 279, 294; Hiwassee, 332; 
 Holston, 142, 192, 194, 195, 
 224, 283; Illinois, 207; 
 James, 16, 96-97; Kentucky, 
 156, 159, 212, 236, 242, 248, 
 253, 284; Licking, 156; Lit- 
 tle Tennessee, 65, 307; 
 Louisa, 149, 193; Meho, 163; 
 Miami, 102; Mississippi, 42, 
 102, 139, 155, 259, 329, 330, 
 343; Muskingum, 102; New, 
 224 ; Nonachunbreh, Noli- 
 chuetry, 194, 197; Ohio, 42, 
 44, 45, 100, 107, 116, 117, 
 
 121, 122, 142, 151, 156, 191, 
 192, 193, 207, 213, 279;— 
 falls of the, 255, 284;— forks 
 of the, 47; Opeckon, 12; 
 Pacolet, 76; Potomac, 122; 
 Red, 119, 153, 154; Reedy, 
 112, 191; Roanoke, 69; 
 Rockcastle, 100, 155; Scioto, 
 102; Shenandoah, 17; 
 Stone's, 121 ; Swannanoa, 
 136; Tellico, 68; Tennessee, 
 44, 58, 121, 191, 283, 290; 
 Trinity, 42; Tugaloo, 266; 
 Twelve Mile, 89; Wabash, 
 123; Washita, 122; Wa- 
 tauga, 197, 219, 221, 224, 293 
 
 Robertson, Charles: 224 
 
 Robertson, James: 188, 189, 
 190, 196, 197, 200, 222, 260, 
 263, 287, 309, 327, 332, 339, 
 340, 341, 342, 344, 347; leads 
 scouting party for Transyl- 
 vania Company, 280-281 ; 
 guides party to French 
 Lick, 282; joined by Donel- 
 son and party, 284; names 
 Mir6 District, 343; desires 
 union with Spain, 343; seeks 
 separation of Cumberland 
 from North Carolina, 345; 
 to Miro on separatist move- 
 ment, 346 
 
 Robinson, John: 69 
 
 Rochelle: 43 
 
 Rocky Mountains: 135 
 
 Rogers, Sergt.: 73 
 
 Rogersville: 290 
 
 Roan Mountain: 135 
 
 Round-O, Cherokee chief: 79 — 
 
 Rowan, Matthew: 19, 76 
 
 389 
 
INDEX 
 
 Rowan rangers: 83; described, 
 82-83 
 
 Rowan: settlers murdered, 77, 
 265 
 
 Rucker, Capt.: 113 
 
 Rutherford, Gen. Griffith: 
 leads Rowan rangers, 76, 
 83; leads rescuing force, 
 265, 270; leads army against 
 Cherokees, 267 
 
 Russell, Capt. William: 203 
 
 Saint Augustine: 138 
 
 Saint Lusson, Daumont de: 
 41-42 
 
 Salem: 87 
 
 Salisbury: 34, 38, 59, 146, 148, 
 162, 165, 166, 168, 172, 289 
 
 Sailing, John Peter: 117 
 
 San Salvador: 144 
 
 Sandy Creek Association: 175, 
 184, 185, 190 
 
 Sandy River expedition: 70 
 
 Sapona Town: 35 
 
 Sault Ste. Marie: 41 
 
 Savannah: 51 
 
 Savannah Indians: 65 
 
 Scaggs, Charles: 126 
 
 Scaggs, Henry: 282; meets 
 Daniel Boone, 109; agent 
 for Richard Henderson & 
 Co., 109-110; explores Cum- 
 berland region, 119; leads 
 Long Hunters into Ken- 
 tucky, 125-126 
 
 Scaggs' Ridge: 120 
 
 Schnell, Leonard: pilgrimage 
 of, 14-15 
 
 Scotch Lowlands: 6 
 
 Scotch-Irish: 7, 11, 27, 33, 188; 
 in Pennsylvania, 8; — immi- 
 gration of, 5, 19 ; settlers, 28 
 
 Scotchman: 218 
 
 Scotland: 217 
 
 Scovil: 168 
 
 Searcy: connection, 190; Reu- 
 ben, 169; Valentine, 222 
 
 Settiquo: 76, 307, 316 
 
 Sevier, James: emissary of 
 Franklin to Miro, 337-338 
 
 Sevier, John: 200, 222, 260, 
 298, 313-314, 322, 325, 326, 
 327, 330, 337, 344, 347; early 
 life, 198; defends Watauga 
 Fort, 263; rescues Bonny 
 Kate Sherrill, 264; with 
 Shelly plans King's Moun- 
 tain campaign, 292, 296; de- 
 feats Indians, 307-308; dis- 
 avows revolutionary intent, 
 315; elected Governor of 
 Franklin, 317; writes de- 
 fiant letter to Caswell, 323- 
 324; appeals to Benjamin 
 Franklin, 324; besieges Tip- 
 ton, 330; attacks Indians, 
 331-332; writes Gardoqui, 
 offering to "deliver" Frank- 
 lin to Spain, 333-335; ar- 
 rested for high treason, im- 
 prisoned, 337; rescued, 338; 
 restored to office by North 
 Carolina, 338; elected first 
 governor of Tennessee, 348 
 
 Shawanoes, Shawnese: 25, 44, 
 69, 117, 151, 203, 205, 209, 
 271;— chief of, 204 
 
 Shelby, Col. Evan: leads force 
 
 390 
 
INDEX 
 
 against Chickamaugas, 290; 
 appointed brigadier-gen- 
 eral, 322 
 
 Shelby, Isaac: 222, 291, 298; 
 at Battle of Great Ka- 
 nawha, 213-214; initiates 
 King's Mountain campaign, 
 292; at King's Mountain, 
 301 ; elected first governor 
 of Kentucky, 348 
 
 Shelby, Capt. James: 263 
 
 Shenandoah Valley: 10, 34 
 
 Sherrill, Katherine: rescued 
 by John Sevier, 264 
 
 Silonee, Cherokee chief: 79; 
 checks Montgomerie, 89; see 
 Young Warrior of Estatoe 
 
 Sims, George: writes A Seri- 
 ous Address, etc., 160, 169, 
 170 
 
 Simms, William Gilmore: 144 
 
 Six Nations: 111, 191 
 
 Slaughter: 138 
 
 Slaughter, Col. Thomas: 244 
 
 Smith, Capt. John: 69 
 
 Smith, Gen. Daniel: 343, 344 
 
 Smith, James: 121 
 
 Smith, John, Jr.: 69 
 
 Smith, William Bailey: 222; 
 carries corn to French Lick, 
 284 
 
 Smith's Bridge: 89 
 
 Smyth, J. F. D.: describes 
 North Carolina backwoods- 
 men, 39-40 
 
 South Carolina: XV, 14, 27- 
 28, 43, 45, 58, 66, 68, 71, 112, 
 121, 139, 167, 192, 237, 262, 
 265, 268, 291, 294, 295, 305, 
 313; rangers, 89; traders, 71 
 
 South Fork of Catawba River, 
 
 62, 70;— Boys, 298, 301 
 South Sea: XI, 42 
 South Sea Islands: 219 
 Southwest: see Old Southwest 
 Southwest Territory: 348 
 Southern Department: 111, 
 
 331 
 Spach: 166 
 
 Spain: ch. XX, 330, 331, 332, 
 337, 338, 339, 340, 344, 345, 
 347 
 Spangenberg, Bishop Augus- 
 tus Gottlieb: makes explor- 
 ing tour, 13, 14, 131; 
 preaches at Bathama, 87 
 Spaniards: 292, 332, 340, 345 
 Spanish: authorities, 339; 
 charged affairs, 329 ; — con- 
 spiracy in Kentucky, 335, 
 339; — conspiracy in Tennes- 
 see, ch. XX, 339; — court, 
 347 ;— domain, 348 ;— govern- 
 ment, 346 ; — minister, 331 ; — 
 traders, 340 
 Spotswood, Gov. Alexander: 
 
 97, 98 
 St. Asaph's: 243 
 St. Clair, Sir John: 54 
 St. Clair, Gen. Arthur: 133 
 Stalnaker, Samuel: 83, 94 
 Stanford: 243 
 Steep Rock: 194 
 Stephen, Col. Adam: 94, 95 
 Stewart, John: 139, 148, 149, 
 
 150, 151, 152, 153 
 Stone, Uriah: 121, 123 
 Stoner, Michael: 121, 212, 232, 
 
 272 
 Stuart, Capt. John: 91-92 
 
 391 
 
INDEX 
 
 Stuart, John: 111, 191, 192, 
 194, 261 
 
 Stuart, pioneer: 283 
 
 Superintendent of Indian Af- 
 fairs: 112, 331 
 
 Swan, David L.: 252 
 
 Switzerland: 134 
 
 Sycamore Shoals of Watauga 
 River: 219, 221, 263, 293 
 
 Synge, Archbishop: 7 
 
 Tascarora Indians: 72 
 
 Tate, Samuel: 228 
 
 Taylor: Hancock, 122;— Rich- 
 ard, 122; Zachary, 122 
 
 Tennessee: XV, 9, 112, 124, 
 128, 129, 132, 140, 190, 191, 
 192, 196, 211, 224, 269, 289, 
 290, 315, 348, 349 ; countries, 
 332 ;— riflemen, 291 ;— settle- 
 ments, 261, 264, 314, 315;— 
 settlers, 270, 281, 330, 331 
 
 Terre Haute: 123 
 
 Thompson: 84 
 
 Thompson, James: 263 
 
 Tiftoe, Cherokee Chief: 79 
 
 Tipton, Col. John: 321, 322, 
 328, 331 
 
 Tipton, Jonathan: 322 
 
 Tonti, Henry de: 45 
 
 Tories: 289, 305 
 
 Town Fork: 163 
 
 Trabum, Damie: diary of, 275 
 
 Tracey, John: 69 
 
 Trade: British, 46 
 
 Traders: with Indians, VII- 
 
 392 
 
 IX, 44, 46, 59, 113, 117, 118, 
 136 
 
 Trading Ford: 35 
 
 Trading House: British, 47 
 
 Trans-Alleghany: 21, 48, 99, 
 102, 119, 129, 140, 147, 159, 
 185, 201, 202, 204, 206, 212, 
 215, 216, 242, 277, 279, 330, 
 340 
 
 Transylvania: 200, 235, ch. 
 XV, 243, 248, 252, 258, 279, 
 280, 287; colony of, 25; 
 president of, 246; proprie- 
 tors of, 229, 236, 244, 248, 
 256 
 
 Transylvania Company: 114, 
 119, ch. XII, 237, 238, 240, 
 249, 253, 254, 258, 278, 287, 
 288; compact of, with Cum- 
 berland settlers, 285-286; 
 organized, 218; permanent 
 contribution of, to coloniza- 
 tion of West, 259 
 
 Transylvania Legislature : 244, 
 249, 255 
 
 Transylvania Purchase: 220, 
 248, 278 
 
 Transylvania Trail: 215, 226 
 
 Treaty: with Indians, 59; at 
 Charleston, 94; at Fort 
 Stanwix, 111; at Hard La- 
 bor, 112, 114; at Lochaber, 
 192; at Sycamore Shoals, 
 221-225 
 
 Trent, Capt. William: 47 
 
 Tryon, Gov. William: 112, 141, 
 176, 183, 191 
 
 Tryon Mountain: 112, 135, 191 
 
 Tryon's Line: 112 
 
 Tuckasegee: 307 
 
INDEX 
 
 u 
 
 187, 188, 191, 192, 193, 195, 
 
 
 198, 200, 204, 205, 206, 209, 
 
 Ulster: 6-7 
 
 211, 214, 220, 221, 222, 226, 
 
 Ulster Scots: characterization 
 
 235, 237, 239, 242, 243, 244, 
 
 of, 23, 32 
 
 251, 256, 258, 265, 269, 277, 
 
 Unakas: 263 
 
 278, 279, 281, 282, 287, 290, 
 
 Union: 319, 335, 336, 34-2, 348, 
 
 305, 323, 326 
 
 349; see American Union 
 
 Virginians: 96, 205, 208, 230, 
 
 United States: 277, 335, 339, 
 
 231, 251, 299 
 
 344, 345, 346, 347 
 
 
 United States Congress: 310, 
 
 W 
 
 311, 312, 346 
 
 
 Untoola: 316 
 
 Wabash (Ouabache) Land 
 
 Upper Towns: 66, 89 
 
 Company: see Land Compa- 
 
 Utopia: 44 
 
 begins erection of Catawba 
 
 V 
 
 Valley of Mexico: 144 
 
 Vandalia: 206, 208 
 
 Vasco Nunez: 144 
 
 Venango: 47 
 
 Versailles: 43 
 
 Villiers, Coulon de: 48 
 
 Virginia: pioneers of, 95, 296; 
 — traders, 96; — troops, 212, 
 266, 273;— frontier, 74; Ga- 
 zette, 110, 272; — backwoods, 
 28-29 ;— Valley of, 9, 16, 26, 
 33, 34; — Convention, 251, 
 257;— Land Office, 281;— 
 Assembly, 67, 278;— Militia, 
 209 ; — House of Delegates, 
 278, 279 ;— Governor of, 67, 
 198;— Path, 64, 76;— Re- 
 monstrance, 207, XV, 10, 14, 
 42, 45, 47, 52, 53, 58, 59, 64, 
 68, 69, 70, 72, 83, 96, 99, 
 112, 113, 114, 116, 118, 127, 
 130, 131, 132, 134, 138, 163, 
 
 ntes 
 
 Wachan: 83, 87 
 
 Wachonia: 86; — community 
 diary, 64 
 
 Wade, Capt. Robert: 74 
 
 Waddell, Gen. Hugh: 53, 55- 
 56, 95, 133, 134; appointed 
 Indian commissioner, 59 ; 
 Fort, 70; discontinues work 
 on fort, 71; in Fort Du- 
 quesne campaign, 72; has- 
 tens to Rowan's defence, 76; 
 marches to aid South Caro- 
 lina, 77; report of, on de- 
 feat of Indians at Fort 
 Dobbs, 81-82; rescues cap- 
 tives, 86; leads North Caro- 
 lina troops, 93, 94 
 
 Walden, Elisha: 119 
 
 Walden's Mountain: 119-120 
 
 Walker, Dr. Thomas: 99, 102, 
 115, 116, 117, 191; makes ex- 
 ploration for Loyal Land 
 Company, 99-100; sells land 
 to Joseph Martin, 113 
 

 INDEX 
 
 Walker, Felix: 228, 245, 260; 
 describes Kentucky, 233-234 
 Walpole, Thomas, 206 
 Ward, James: 139 
 Ward, Nancy: 262, 264 
 Washington District: 260, 277, 
 
 314, 326 
 Washington, George: 47, 55, 
 72, 134, 256, 291; opinion of 
 royal proclamation, 106; 
 purchases Western lands, 
 106-107; makes charges 
 against Dunmore, 206-207; 
 secures military grants for 
 Western lands, 208; Preston 
 to, on Henderson purchase 
 and Transylvania Company, 
 221, 237-238, 242-243 
 
 Watauga: ch. XII, 191, 194, 
 200, 270, 281-282;— com- 
 monwealth, 199; valley of, 
 188, 195, 196, 306;— coun- 
 try, 187, 189; settlers, 195, 
 196, 197, 200, 259;— Articles 
 of Association, 197; — Asso- 
 ciation, 224; settlement, 260, 
 281 
 
 "Watauga Plan": commission 
 form of government, 260 
 
 Waxhaws: 32 
 
 Webster: 307 
 
 Welsh: immigration of, 5; — 
 settlers, 28; stock, 163 
 
 West: 160,- 187, 259, 273, 277, 
 327, 342, 348 
 
 West Virginia: 14, 206 
 
 Western: leaders, 292; — peo- 
 ple, 347;— settlers, 311, 329; 
 territory, 347, 348;— waters, 
 314, 348 
 
 Wharton: Samuel, 206;— 
 
 Thomas, 209-211 
 White, Dr. James: 331, 332, 
 
 338, 346; emissary of 
 
 Franklin, 337 
 Whitehall: 206 
 Wilderness Trail: 230 
 Wilkinson, General James : 
 
 335, 336 
 Williams, Brigadier-General 
 
 James: 291, 294; killed at 
 
 King's Mountain, 302 
 Williams, Col. John: 105, 107, 
 
 149, 187, 222, 254; elected 
 
 delegate from Transylvania 
 
 to Continental Congress, 249 
 Williams, John: 141 
 Williams and Henderson, law 
 
 firm: 105, 147 
 Williamsborough: 103 
 Williamsburg: 210 
 Williamson, Col. Andrew: 266 
 Williamson, Dr. Hugh: 10, 
 
 312-313 
 Wilmington: 169 
 Winchester, Kentucky: 117 
 Winchester, Virginia: 12 
 Winston, Major Joseph: leads 
 
 North Carolina troops 
 
 against Cherokees, 266 ; 
 
 leads Surry riflemen at 
 
 King's Mountain, 293, 298, 
 
 303-304 
 Wolf Hills (Abingdon): 134 
 Wood, Col. Abraham: 42 
 Wormley, Ralph: 239 
 Wytheville: 112 
 
 394 
 
 Yadkin: country, 117, 131, 
 
INDEX 
 
 139, 143, 145, 163, 164;— Young Warrior of Estaloe, 
 
 Forks of the, 33, 34, 162, Cherokee chief: 79; see 
 
 185;— valley, 10, 13, 15, 32 Silonee. 
 
 York, Pennsylvania: 12 Z 
 Yorke, Charles: renders legal 
 
 opinion, 201 Zinzendorf, Count: 13 
 
 395 
 
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