Conquest of the Old Southwest - Chapters XII-XIV



CHAPTER XII.
WATAUGA--HAVEN OF LIBERTY

The Regulators despaired of seeing better times and therefore 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 Regulation, constitute a 
period not only of extraordinary significance in North Carolina but also 
of fruitful consequences in the larger movements of westward expansion. 
With the resolute intention of having their rulers "give account 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 popular gatherings, a 
rough form of initiative and referendum. At length, discouraged in its 
efforts, and particularly in the attempt to bring county officials to book 
for charging illegal fees, this association ceased actively to function. 
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
Regulation," from the bands of men already described 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 channels, the Regulators finally made such a 
powerful demonstration in support of their refusal to pay taxes that 
Governor William Tryon of North Carolina, in 1768, called out the 
provincial militia, and by marching with great show of force through the 
disaffected regions, succeeded temporarily in overawing the people and 
thus inducing them to pay their assessments.

The suits which had been brought by the Regulators against Edmund Fanning, 
register, and Francis Nash, clerk, of Orange County, resulted in both 
being "found guilty of taking too high fees." Fanning immediately 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 Froliocks in Rowan County in 1769 met with failure, however; and 
this outcome aroused the bitter resentment of the Regulators, as recorded 
by Herman Husband in his "Impartial Relation." During this whole period 
the insurrectionary 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.

At the session of the Superior Court at Hillsborough, September 22, 1770, 
an elaborate petition prepared by the Regulators, demanding 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 Henderson, 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 respects the whole body 
of the people it would be loss of time to enter into arguments on 
particular 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." On the following Monday (September 
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, 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 preserve the little remaining dignity of the court."

During an interim, in which the Regulators retired for consultation, they 
fell without warning 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 to the court, and that the Regulators' cases 
should be tried with new jurors chosen by the Regulators. With the entire 
little village terrorized by this campaign of "frightfulness," and the 
court wholly unprotected, Judge Henderson reluctantly acknowledged to 
himself that "the power of the judiciary was exhausted." Nevertheless, he 
says, "I made every effort in my power consistent with my office and the 
duty the public is entitled to claim to preserve peace and good order." 
Agreeing under duress to resume the session the following day, the judge 
ordered an adjournment. But being unwilling, on mature reflection, 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 conditions they were 
powerless to remedy, made profane entries which may still be seen on the 
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." 

The uprising of these bold and resolute, simple and imperfectly educated 
people, which had begun as a constitutional struggle to secure justice and 
to prevent their own exploitation by dishonest lawyers of the county 
courts, now gave place to open anarchy and secret incendiarism. In the 
dead of night, November 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 William Hooper, afterward signer of the Declaration of 
Independence, Alexander Martin, afterward governor and United States 
Senator,,and Richard Henderson, popular representative of the back country 
and a firm champion of due process of law. It is perhaps not surprising in 
view of these events that Governor Tryon and the ruling class, lacking a 
sympathy broad enough to ensure justice to the oppressed people, seemed to 
be chiefly impressed with the fact that a widespread insurrection was in 
progress, threatening not only life and property, but also civil 
government itself. The governor called out the militia of the province and 
led an army of well nigh one thousand men and officers against the 
Regulators, who had assembled at Alamance 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 display 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 fight lasting 
about two hours (May 16, 1771), the power of the Regulators was completely 
broken."

Among these insurgents there was a remarkable 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 sentiments furnished the inspiration to 
action. As early as 1766, the Sandy Creek leaders, referred 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 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 
having "withstood the lords in Parliament in behalf of true liberty." 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 "American Cause" well-nigh a year 
before the declaration of independence at Philadelphia: "At the monthly 
meeting it was agreed upon concerning the American Cause, if any of the 
brethren see cause to join it they have the liberty 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.

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 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 pointing 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 province 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." It was these poor people, "thereby deprived of His 
Majesties liberality and Bounty," who soon turned their gaze to the 
westward and crossed the mountains in search of the rich, free lands of 
the trans-Alleghany region.

This feverish popular longing for freedom, stimulated by the economic 
pressure of thousands of pioneers who were annually entering North 
Carolina, set in motion a wave of migration across the mountains in 1769. 
Long before Alamance, many of the true Americans, distraught by apparently 
irremediable injustices, 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."' The glad news of the rich valleys beyond the mountains early 
lured such adventurous pioneers as Andrew Greer and Julius Caesar Dugger 
to the Watauga 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 country viewed seven years before when they were 
serving under Colonel William Byrd against the Cherokees, found that this 
region, a wilderness on their outward passage in 1768, was dotted with 
cabins on every spot where the grazing was good, upon their return the 
following year. Writing to Hillsborough on October 18, 1770, concerning 
the "many hundred 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." 

In the spring of 1770, with the express intention 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. Robertson, who was born in Brunswick County, Virginia, June 
28, 1742, of excellent Scotch-Irish ancestry, was a noteworthy figure of a 
certain type--quiet, reflective, conservative, wise, a 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, Robertson 
probably escaped death from starvation 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 
allegiance to the British Crown after the Battle of Alamance, preferring 
to carve out for themselves 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 country, accompanied him to Watauga 
shortly after the battle.

This vanguard of the army of westward advance, independent Americans in 
spirit with a negligible sprinkling of Loyalists, now swept in a great 
tide into the northeastern section of Tennessee. The men of Sandy Creek, 
actuated by independent principles but out of sympathy with the anarchic 
side of the Regulation, 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 proportion of 
these were of the Baptist population. Sandy Creek Church which some time 
previous to 1771, numbered 606, was afterward reduced to fourteen 
members!" 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 Henderson received powerful cooperation 
in the opening up of Kentucky and Tennessee.

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 Northern 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 direct to the 
mouth of the Great Kanawha River. By the treaty at Fort Stanwix (November 
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, including in 
particular all the land between the Ohio and the Tennessee Rivers. The 
news of the cession resulted in a strong southwestward thrust of 
population, from the neighborhood of Abingdon, in the direction of the 
Holston Valley. Recognizing that hundreds of these settlers were beyond 
the line negotiated by Stuart, but on lands not yet surveyed, Governor 
Botetourt instructed the Virginia commissioners to press for further 
negotiations, through Stuart, with the Cherokees. Accordingly, 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. A strong influx of population into the immense new triangle 
thus released for settlement brought powerful pressure to bear upon 
northern Tennessee, the point of least resistance 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 Carpenter, who with other Indian chiefs accompanied 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 boundary line; and accordingly promised to send the Cherokees, in the 
following spring, a sum alleged by them to have been fixed at five hundred 
pounds, in compensation for the additional area. This informal agreement, 
it is believed, was never ratified by Virginia; nor was the promised 
compensation ever paid the Cherokees.

Under the belief that the land belonged to Virginia, Jacob Brown with one 
or two families 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 settlers 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, Alexander 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. Cameron's order did not apply, however, to the settlement, to the 
settlement north of the Holston River, south and east of Long Island; and 
the settlement in Carter's Valley, although lying without the Virginia 
boundary, strangely enough remained unmolested. The order was directed at 
the Watauga settlers, who were seated south of the Holston River in the 
Watauga Valley.

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 Southwest. It exhibits 
the indomitable will and fertile resource of the American character at the 
margin of desperation. The momentous influence of the Watauga settlers, 
inadequately reckoned hitherto by historians, was soon to make itself 
powerfully felt in the first epochal movement of westward expansion.



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 deliberation and counsel, and deputed James Robertson and 
John Been, as stated by Tennessee's first historian, "to treat with their 
landlords, and agree upon articles of accommodation and friendship. The 
attempt succeeded. For though the Indians refused to give up the land 
gratuitously, they consented, for a stipulated amount of merchandise, 
muskets, and other articles of convenience, to lease all the country on 
the waters of the Watauga." In addition 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 
settlement. Through his familiarity with the North Carolina type of 
"association," in which the settlers had organized for the purpose of 
"regulating" 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 governmental assemblage of free-born American 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 organized upon the American continent. In 
describing this mimic republic, the royal Governor of Virginia says: "They 
appointed magistrates, and framed laws for their present occasion, and to 
all intents and purposes, erected themselves into, though an 
inconsiderable, yet a separate State." 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 Millerstown in Shenandoah County where he 
was living the uneventful life of a small farmer, that he emigrated 
(December, 1773) to the Watauga region. With his arrival there begins one 
of the most fascinating and romantic careers recorded in the varied arid 
stirring annals of the Old Southwest. In this daring and impetuous young 
fellow, fair-haired, blue-eyed, magnetic, debonair--of powerful build, 
splendid proportions, and athletic skill--we hold the gallant exemplar of 
the truly heroic life of the border. The story of his life, thrilling 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 commonwealth are hinted at by 
Dunmore, who serves, in the letter above quoted, that Watauga "sets a 
dangerous example to the people America, of forming governments distinct 
from and independent of his Majesty's authority."

It is true that the experiment was somewhat limited. The organization of 
the Watauga association, which constituted a temporary expedient to meet a 
crisis in the affairs of a frontier community cut off by forest wilderness 
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 
pendence in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, during the same month. 
Nevertheless the Watauga settlers defied both North Carolina and the 
Crown, by adopting the laws of Virginia and by ignoring Governor Josiah 
Martin's proclamation (March 26, 1774) "requiring the said settlers 
immediately to retire from the Indian Territories." Moreover, Watauga 
really was the parent of a series of mimic republics in the Old Southwest, 
gradually tending toward higher forms of organization, with a larger 
measure of individual liberty. Watauga, Transylvania, Cumberland, Franklin 
represent the evolving political genius of a free people under the 
creative leadership of three constructive minds--James Robertson, John 
Sevier, and Richard Henderson. Indeed, Watauga furnished to Judge 
Henderson precisely the "dangerous example" of which Dunmore prophetically 
speaks. 

Immediately upon his return in 1771 from the extended exploration of 
Kentucky, Daniel Boone as already noted was engaged as secret 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 Regulation 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 proclamation of 1763 and Locke's Fundamental 
Constitutions for the Carolinas, which forbade private parties to purchase 
lands from the Indians, Judge Henderson applied to the highest judicial 
authorities in England to know if there was any law in existence 
forbidding purchase of lands from the Indian tribes. Lord Mansfield gave 
Judge Henderson the "sanction of his great authority in favor of the 
purchase." 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 grant from the Great Mogul, or any of the Indian princes or 
governments, your Majesty's letters patent are NOT NECESSARY; the property 
of the soil vesting in the company by the Indian grant subject only to 
your Majesties right of sovereignty over the settlements, as English 
settlements, and over the inhabitants, as English subjects, who carry with 
them your Majesties laws wherever they form colonies, and receive your 
Majesties protection by virtue of your royal charters." This opinion, 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; and a 
true copy, made in London, April 1, 1772, was transmitted to Judge 
Henderson. Armed with the legal opinions received from England, Judge 
Henderson was fully persuaded that there was no legal bar whatsoever to 
his seeking to acquire by purchase from the Cherokees the vast domain of 
the trans-Alleghany. A golden dream of empire, with its promise of an 
independent republic in the form of a proprietary colony, casts him under 
the spell of its alluring glamour.

In the meantime, the restless Boone, impatient over the delay in the 
consummation of Judge Henderson's plans, resolved to establish himself in 
Kentucky upon his own responsibility. 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 Captain William 
Russell, a daring pioneer of the Clinch Valley. A small detachment of 
Boone's party was fiercely attacked by Shawanoes in Powell's Valley on 
October 10, 1773, and almost all were killed, including sons of Boone and 
Russell, and young John and Richard 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 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 coming 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-Alleghany 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 l0th and 
September 1, 1773, safely accomplished a journey through Kentucky and 
carefully marked well-chosen sites for future location." An ominous 
incident of the time was the veiled warning which Cornstalk, 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 Chillicothe, June 7, 1773, warned Bullitt concerning the encroachments 
of the whites, "designed to deprive us," he said, "of the hunting of the 
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 Monongahela, 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 account, was now in progress under the manipulation of 
Virginia's royal governor. As early as 1770 Dr. John Connolly proposed the 
establishment of an extensive colony south of the Ohio; and the design of 
securing such territory from the Indians found lodgment in the mind 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 immense territory, including all of the present West Virginia 
and the land alienated to Virginia by Donelson's agreement with the 
Cherokees (1772), to a company including Thomas Walpole, Samuel Wharton, 
Benjamin Franklin, and others. This new colony, to be named "Vandalia," 
seemed assured. A clash between Dunmore and the royal authorities was 
imminent; 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 interested in great land speculations on 
his own account; and while overtly vindicating Virginia's claim to the 
trans-Alleghany by despatching parties of surveyors to the western 
wilderness to locate and survey lands covered by military grants, he with 
the collusion of certain members of the "Honourable Board," his council, 
as charged by Washington, was more than "lukewarm," secretly restricting 
as rigorously as he dared the extent and number of the soldiers' 
allotments. According 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." In shaping his plans Dunmore had 
the shrewd legal counsel of Patrick Henry, who was equally intent upon 
making for himself a private purchase from the Cherokees. It was Henry's 
legal opinion that the Indiana purchase from the Six Nations by the 
Pennsylvania traders at Fort Stanwix (November 5, 1768) was valid; and 
that purchase by private individuals from the Indians gave full and ample 
title. In consequence of these facts, William Murray, in behalf of himself 
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 
to win the support of Dunmore, who was ambitious to make a fortune in land 
speculation, organized a second company, the Wabash (Ouabache) Land 
Company, with the governor as the chief share-holder. In response to 
Murray's petition on behalf of the Illinois Land Company, Dunmore (May, 
1774) recommended 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 eastern men, in 
1774 located lands covered by military grants on the Ohio and in the 
Kentucky area for prominent Virginians, including Washington, Patrick 
Henry, William Byrd, William Preston, Arthur Campbell, William Fleming, 
and Andrew Lewis, among others, and also a large tract for Dr. Connolly. 
Certain of these grants fell within the Vandalia area; and in his reply 
(September 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 unwarrantable aggressions, the war then raging 
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." Dunmore's agent, Dr. Connolly, 
heading a party posing as Virginia militia, fired without provocation upon 
a delegation of Shawanoe chiefs assembled 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 circular (April 21, 1774), declaring a 
state of war to exist. Just two weeks before the Battle of the Great 
Kanawha, Patrick Henry categorically stated, in conversation with Thomas 
Wharton:

"that he was at Williamsburg with Ld. D. when Dr. Conolly first came 
there, that Conolly is a chatty, sensible man, and informed Ld. Dunmore of 
the extreme richness of the lands which lay on both sides of the Ohio; 
that the prohibitory 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 obtain 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 opinion 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."

At this very time, Patrick Henry, in conjunction with William Byrd 3d and 
others, was negotiating for a private purchase of lands from the 
Cherokees; and when Wharton, after 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 Logan, the Indian chieftain, by one 
Greathouse and his drunken companions (April 30th), Logan, who contrary to 
romantic views was a blackhearted and vengeful savage, harried the 
Tennessee and Virginia borders, burning and slaughtering. Unable to arouse 
the Cherokees, 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, Daniel Boone and 
the German scout Michael Stoner, having been despatched on July 27th by 
Colonel William Preston to warn the surveyors of the trans-Alleghany, made 
a remarkable journey on foot of eight hundred miles in sixty-one days. 
Harrod's company at Harrodsburg, a company of surveyors at Fontainebleau, 
Floyd's party on the Kentucky, and the surveyors at Mann's Lick, this 
warned, hurried in to the settlements and were saved. Meanwhile, Dunmore, 
in command of the Virginia forces, invaded territory guaranteed to the 
Indians by the royal proclamation of 1763 and recently (1774) added to the 
province 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 destined to bear the real brunt and burden of the campaign. His 
division, recruited from the very flower of the pioneers of the Old 
Southwest, was the most representative body of borderers of this region 
that up to this time had assembled 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, between Lewis's force, eleven hundred strong, and the Indians, 
under Cornstalk, somewhat inferior in numbers. It was a desultory action, 
over a greatly extended front and in very brushy country between Crooked 
Creek and the Ohio. Throughout the long day, the Indians fought with rare 
craft and stubborn bravery--loudly cursing the white men, cleverly picking 
off their leaders, and derisively inquiring, in regard to the absence of 
the fifes: "Where are your whistles now?" Slowly retreating, 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 alarmed the Indians, who mistook this party for the 
expected reinforcement under Christian, 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 Cornstalk, "Be 
strong! Be strong!", had quit the battlefield and left the victory with 
the whites.

The peace negotiated by Dunmore was durable. The governor had accomplished 
his purpose, defied the authority of the crown, and vindicated the claim 
of Virginia, to the enthusiastic satisfaction of the backwoodsmen. While 
tendering their thanks to him and avowing 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 manner, but when regularly called forth by the unanimous 
voice of our countrymen." Dunmore's War is epochal, in that it procured 
for 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 
ultimate acquisition by the American Confederation of the imperial domain 
of the trans-Alleghany.



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 extraordinary 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 disastrous failure the preceding 
autumn, Boone advised Judge Henderson that the time was auspicious for 
opening negotiations with the Cherokees for purchasing the trans-Alleghany 
region." 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 Henderson and Company, were Colonel John Luttrell, destined to win 
laurels in the Revolution, and William Johnston, a native of Scotland, the 
leading merchant of Hillsborough.

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 obligated himself to "furnish his Quota of Expenses necessary 
towards procuring the grant." In full anticipation of the grave dangers to 
be encountered, they solemnly bound themselves, as "equal sharers in the 
property," to "support each other with our lives and fortunes." 
Negotiations with the Indians were begun at once. Accompanied by Colonel 
Nathaniel Hart and guided by the experienced Indian-trader, Thomas Price, 
Judge Henderson visited the Cherokee chieftains at the Otari towns. After 
elaborate consultations, the latter deputed the old chieftain, Atta-kulla-
kulla, 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 Consideration of the purchase." The goods 
purchased at Cross Creek (now Fayetteville, North Carolina), in which the 
Louisa Company "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. 

On January 6, 1775, the company was again enlarged, and given the name of 
the Transylvania Company-the three new partners being David Hart, brother 
to Thomas and Nathaniel, 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 explicitly made to the contingency of "settling and voting 
as a proprietor and giving Rules and Regulations for the Inhabitants etc." 
Hillsborough was the actual starting-point for 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." Meanwhile, 
the "Proposals for the encouragement of settling the lands etc.," issued 
on Christmas Day, 1774, were quickly spread broadcast through the colony 
and along the border." 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 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 "Proposals" there was no indication that the low terms at 
which the lands were offered would be maintained after September 1, 1775. 
In a letter to Governor Dunmore (January, 1775), Colonel William Preston, 
county surveyor of Fincastle County, Virginia, says "The low price he 
[Henderson] proposes to sell at, together with some further encouragement 
he offers, will I am apprehensive induce a great many families to remove 
from this County (Fincastle) & Carolina and settle there." Joseph Martin, 
states his son, "was appointed entry-Taker and agent for the Powell Valley 
portion" of the Transylvania Purchase 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 very spot where he had made corn several years before. 
In speaking of the startling design, unmasked by Henderson, of 
establishing an independent government, Colonel Preston writes to George 
Washington of the contemplated "large Purchase by one Col. Henderson of 
North Carolina from the Cherokees . . . . I hear that Henderson talks with 
great Freedom & Indecency of the Governor of Virginia, sets the Government 
at Defiance & says if he once had five hundred good Fellows settled in 
that Country he would not Value Virginia."

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 negotiations preliminary to the actual 
treaty. The dominating figure in the remarkable assemblage at the treaty 
ground, consisting of twelve hundred Indians and several hundred whites, 
was Richard Henderson, "comely in person, of a benign and social 
disposition," with countenance betokening the man of strenuous 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 appearance, were many of the buckskin-clad leaders 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,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 bargained 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, Henderson flatly 
refused to entertain the idea of purchasing territory to which Virginia 
had the prior claim. Angered by Henderson's refusal, 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 eloquence 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 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 toward the west, 
declared that a DARK Cloud hung over that land, which was known as the 
BLOODY GROUND.

On the last day, March 17th, the negotiations 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 valleys of the Holston, 
Watauga, and New Rivers; and eight days later Jacob Brown purchased two 
large areas, including the Nolichucky Valley. This historic treaty, which 
heralds the opening of the West, was conducted with absolute justice and 
fairness by Judge Henderson and his associates. 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 imperial domain was ten thousand 
pounds sterling, in money and in goods. 

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. Indeed, he was not then present; for a 
fortnight before the conclusion of the treaty he was commissioned by Judge 
Henderson to form a party of competent woodmen to blaze a passage through 
the wilderness. On March l0th this party of thirty ax-men, under the 
leadership of Boone, started from the rendezvous, the Long Island of 
Holston, to engage in the arduous labor of cutting out the Transylvania 
Trail.

Henderson, the empire-builder, now faced with courage and resolution the 
hazardous task of occupying the purchased territory and establishing an 
independent government. No mere financial promoter of a vast speculative 
enterprise, he was one of the heroic figures of the Old Southwest; and it 
was his dauntless courage, 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." In Henderson's party 
were some forty men and boys, with forty packhorses and a small amount of 
powder, lead, 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 
O'Clock received a letter from Mr. Luttrells camp that were five persons 
killd on the road to the Cantuckie by Indians. Capt. [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 Dan. Boone, that his Company was fired 
uppon by Indians, Kill'd Two of his men--tho he kept the ground & saved 
the Baggage &c." 

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 eloquent in its simplicity

"Dear Colonel: After my compliments to you, I shall acquaint you of our 
misfortunes. 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 McFeters. 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 
flusterate their [the Indians'] intentions, and keep the country, 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.

"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."

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 spirits," 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 abt. 10 oClock Crossed Cumberland Gap about 4 miles met about 40 
persons Returning from the Cantucky, on Acct. of the Late Murders by the 
Indians could prevail on one only to return. Memo 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 picturesque 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 indeed 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 resolution, 
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, cavalier like, treated every insinuation 
of danger 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 realized 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 sincere 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 l0th rode off "to the 
Cantuckey to Inform Capt 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 forming Henderson of his arrival and 
of his having been joined on the way by Page Portwood 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 "Excellent Beef in plenty," Stoner brought the 
story of Boone's determined stand and an account of the erection of a rude 
little fortification which they had hurriedly thrown up to resist attack. 
With laconic significance Henderson 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 face of the 
surpassing beauties of the country. The Cumberlands were covered with rich 
undergrowth of the red and white rhododendron, the delicate laurel, the 
mountain ivy, the flameazalea, 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 Country," 
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 Adventurer Since the days of donquicksotte or before ever felt 
So Cheerful & Ilated in prospect, every heart abounded with Joy & 
excitement . . . & exclusive of the Novelties of the Journey the 
advantages & 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 appeared 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 & Rational 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."

On the journey Henderson was joined in Powell's Valley by Benjamin Logan, 
afterward 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 Logan 
subsequently built a fort. On Sunday, April 16th, on Scaggs's Creek, 
Henderson records: "About 12 oClock Met James McAfee 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 
opposed 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 
Abraham Hanks from Virginia, the maternal grandfather 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.

At last the founder of Kentucky with his 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 historic 
interest that just one day after the embattled farmers at Lexington and 
Concord "fired the shots heard round the world," the echoing shots of 
Boone and his sturdy backwoodsmen rang out to announce the arrival of the 
proprietor of Transylvania and the birth of the American West.