In the winter of 1789-90 some of these settlers returned to the blockhouse site. They were accompanied by other settlers, a majority of whom were from Lee and Scott counties, Virginia. They erected a second blockhouse where the first one had stood, but it was not so substantially built as was the first one. In the summer of 1791 many new settlers came. The settlement was troubled much by the Indians for several years, but it was never again broken up. It is believed that Matthias Harman did not again settle permanently in the Blockhouse Bottom, though he was there for some years. He died in Tazewell County, Virginia. Daniel Harman became a permanent settler in the vicinity of the first settlement, and his descendants in the Big Sandy Valley are many. They are industrious and are good citizens. Henry Skaggs and James Skaggs both returned to Kentucky. They lived for some years in the vicinity of the Blockhouse Bottom, but when times were settled they went to live on the head waters of Big Blaine Creek. Their descendants live now on Big Blaine Creek, the Little Sandy River and the Licking River. The Leeks came with the second settlement, and their descendants are yet to be found on the Louisa River. The same can be said of the Horns.

CHAPTER XI

TRANSYLVANIA AND THE FIRST SETTLEMENTS

The regions of Virginia beyond the mountains and south of the Ohio River were by no means a terra incognita during the latter part of the Seventeenth and the Eighteenth centuries when the European nations were seeking to explore the innermost parts of the North American continent and lay hold on it. The first European visitors of this territory later to be called Kentucky were French traders, the agile men of the forest who learned early to understand the Indians and who used them well. Arnold Viele probably visited this region as early as 1693 and resided there a while. The Big Bone Lick was found and described as early as 1729, and soon the whole southern shore was familiar to the traders and explorers, who traversed the waters of the Ohio.1 By the middle of the Eighteenth century English traders and explorers were making their way into the country south of the Ohio; some sent to spy out lands for land companies, as Walker and Gist, already noted, others carried there by the spirit of adventure and gain, as John Findlay and Henry Scaggs. The earlier visitors had merely skirted the shores and noted certain landmarks and settlement sites; but from the middle of the eighteenth century on the new-comers began to penetrate the regions in every direction. In 1764 John Ross and a party crossed the country from Mobile to the Ohio, while previously explorers had come in from the East and the North.2 Plentiful game not only attracted the isolated hunters, but led to exploitation by organized companies. The firm of Baynton, Wharton, and Morgan regularly sent boats up the Kentucky River to get furs and buffalo meat. Organized buffalo hunts were also carried out in the Cumberland River regions. Hunting parties of varying sizes entered the Kentucky regions from the eastward following 1769, when Uriah Stone, Gasper Mansker, John Rains, and more than a dozen others passed through Cumberland Gap. The following year the so-called "Long Hunters," about forty in number, carried out their famous hunting expedition into this region and into the lower Cumberland country.

But despite the fact that the Kentucky regions had been visited by numerous people and described by some, still one pioneer has come to embody in the popular imagination the greater part of the romance and daring of the times. This was Daniel Boone. Boone was pre-eminently a man of the forest, delighting in its solitudes and well understanding its denizens, both man and beast. He was a product of the frontier and forever remained such, always moving westward to keep on the edge of the wilderness. While living in the Yadkin River valley in North Carolina, he made many long trips into the western mountains, penetrating further and further into the fastnesses. The lure of the wild led him

1 C. A. Hanna, The Wilderness Trail (New York, 1912), II, 237-256; R. G. Thwaites, Daniel Boone (New York, 1902), 85-96; Collins, History of Kentucky, I, 14, 15, 509, 510.

2 C. W. Alvord and C. E. Carter, The Critical Period 1763-1765 (Springfield, Ill., 1915), xlviii. Also see Hanna, Wilderness Trail, II, 215, 216.

3 C. W. Alvord, The Mississippi Valley in British Politics (Cleveland, 1917), II, 172; C. W. Alvord, The Illinois Country 1673-1818 (Springfield, Ill., 1920), 282.

also far to the south, even into Florida, where he visited St. Augustine and Pensacola about 1766. But the wanderlust that had laid strongest hold on Boone led constantly to the westward, to the land beyond the Alleghanies of which he had heard the most glowing descriptions. In 1767 he decided to cross the mountains and to see for himself the country of cane brakes where wild game abounded. Gathering a few companions he set out across the Blue Ridge and Alleghanies, and finally reached the valley of the Big Sandy. He spent the winter in the mountains of what is now Eastern Kentucky, and being deterred by the rugged nature of the country from going further to the westward returned in the spring to his home in the Yadkin River valley.

But reports of the Kentucky country were too persistent and too irresistible in their attractiveness for Boone to remain contented in his North Carolina home. In 1769, in company with John Findlay and four others, Boone set out once more bent on finding the land of promise. They crossed the successive ridges of the Appalachian system and guided by John Findlay passed through the Cumberland Gap, "and from the top of an eminence saw with pleasure the beautiful level of Kentucky." They found game plentiful, and revelling in the beauty of the land and its abundance they "hunted with great success." Prowling bands of Indians soon disputed their presence and gave them additional excitement. Boone with one of his companions was taken captive and the party broke up. After various experiences they made their escape, but continued to hunt and explore the regions. Aid in the shape of more ammunition was brought to these wanderers in the wilderness by Boone's brother, Squire, and a companion, and Kentucky still held them with its delights. The next spring one of the party, Stewart, was killed by the Indians, and another returned to the settlements, and now the Boone brothers alone continued their hunting and trapping expeditions. Finally Squire Boone returned to North Carolina for more ammunition and Daniel alone remained. He now continued his explorations far to the north and touched the Ohio River. Returning to the old camp, he was joined by Squire, who had arrived with more ammunition, and the two now plunged into the wilderness again. When ammunition ran low again, Squire a second time left for the East to replenish the supply, and on his return the Boones journeyed far to the West, exploring the Green and Cumberland River regions. Here they unexpectedly ran upon a party of Long Hunters and uniting with them continued to trap and hunt. Finally in the spring of 1771 the Boones turned homeward with their horses laden with furs. After suffering the loss of their accumulations through an Indian attack, they finally reached North Carolina. During this period of almost two years in Kentucky, Boone had learned much about the country and was filled with a desire to return and settle

there.

Walker and Gist had written journals on their visits to the Kentucky country two decades earlier, but it remained for Boone to popularize this western paradise. Other factors were also working toward the appropriation and settlement of this region. Not only had isolated hunters and hunting parties been entering it for many years past, but about this time the more substantial agent of acquisition, the surveyor, was making his appearance. Many were at work laying off lands promised to the soldiers of the French and Indian war, while others were taking up lands for speculation or for future settlement apart from service in the war. The military surveys were generally in sizes varying from 50 to 5,000 acres. By 1773 surveying parties were to be found in many parts of the country, locating tracts of land and laying off town sites. The McAfee brothers floated down the Ohio and then ascended the Kentucky to the present site of Frankfort and made surveys; while an

Vol. I-15

/other party under Thomas Bullitt continued down the Ohio to the Falls and surveyed lands for Dr. John Connolly, and laid out a town-site where Louisville now stands. The next year John Floyd and a party arrived in this vicinity and were soon busy surveying lands for Patrick Henry and other prominent Virginians. In this same year surveys were made in the vicinity of the present City of Lexington. One of the most pretentious of these groups entering the land was James Harrod and forty associates, who laid out a town in June, 1774. The leaven was working; this region was fast being laid hold of.4

In 1773 Daniel Boone, without extensive preparations, set out with his family and a few other families who joined him on the way intent upon settling permanently in the Kentucky country; but the party was so fiercely set upon by a band of Shawnees that it was forced to desist further efforts to enter Kentucky at that time. This attack was a stern warning that the Indians were becoming increasingly impatient at the various groups of pioneers threading their way through the Indian country and settling down upon it here and there. War was soon precipitated by a number of atrocities on both sides. Boone and Michael Stoner were dispatched in July, 1774, to the trans-Alleghany region to warn the surveying parties and others to return to the Eastern settlements. A pioneer army was soon on the march and came upon the main Indian forces at Point Pleasant near the mouth of the Great Kanawha River. Here was fought a fierce engagement which for a time, it seemed, would result in favor of the Indians. But largely due to a flanking movement carried out by Isaac Shelby, a young lieutenant, the Shawnees were defeated and forced to make a treaty relinquishing all claim to territory south of the Ohio River. This conflict, known as Dunmore's War, settled the question of the occupation of Kentucky. The gates were now open for an in-pouring of hardy pioneers.

There now appeared prominently a new factor in the appropriation and settlement of the trans-Alleghany region, but which was, in fact. an expression of an old and widespread movement. This was a land company known as the Transylvania Company, reorganized in January, 1775, out of the Louisa Company, which had itself previously grown. out of the original "Richard Henderson and Company." Speculation and money-making was at the bottom of most of the Western land projects. The Ohio and Loyal land companies have been previously mentioned. Shortly after these companies had been organized Samuel Hazard, a Philadelphia merchant, conceived the project of a colony in the West including a vast area of land, and in part embracing most of the Kentucky region. This project soon died, but others were in the making. The Proclamation Line of 1763 seemed for a time to be an impassable barrier against further land appropriation beyond the Alleghanies; but it was soon evident that such an arbitrary line could not withstand the expansive force of the land-hungry pioneer or the cupidity of land companies; and, indeed, there was much reason to believe that it was intended as only a temporary makeshift. At any rate soon after the end of the French and Indian war, the Vandalia project, which included the Kentucky region north of the Kentucky River, was being pushed by men of prominence and with good prospects of success. Other projects such as the Indiana Company, which did not concern the regions

4 For these various early surveys see C. M. Ambler, Life and Diary of John Floyd (Richmond, 1918), 13-15; Collins, History of Kentucky, I, 510, 511; II, 549551; passim; John Mason Brown, An Address Delivered on the Occasion of the Centennial Commemoration of the Town of Frankfort, Kentucky, 6th October, 1886 (pamphlet, 38 pp.); J. D. Monette, History of the Discovery of the Valley of the Mississippi (New York, 1848), I, 360, 361; Yearbook. The Kentucky Society of Colonial Wars 1917; Reuben T. Durrett, The Centenary of Kentucky (Filson Club Publication, Number 7), 30-33.

south of the Ohio, were fermenting. These schemes ranged from ambitious dreams of new colonies simply to great private land companies. Of the latter there were enough. The man who would today be a cap-1 tain of industry was then likely scheming to gain control of great tracts of Western lands. Among these was Patrick Henry, who, in 1767, was interested in forming a company to secure control of much of the transAlleghany region of Virginia. The year following the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, a large number of petitioners sought of Governor Botetourt a tract of land of 60,000 acres laying east of the Ohio "to begin at the Falls of the Cumberland River." The House of Burgesses took up the question of granting Western lands at this time and assumed a favorable attitude toward it.5

The Transylvania Company had its inception directly following the Treaty of 1763, with Richard Henderson as the moving spirit. Known at this time as Richard Henderson & Company, it pursued no definite program, but merely kept a watchful eye for opportunities. It undoubtedly sought the aid of wandering hunters and trappers in spying out good lands, and it is possible that Daniel Boone was engaged at this early time to report on the lands he saw on his numerous trips into the western mountains. There is more probability that he had an understanding with Henderson, when he made his extensive hunting trip into. the Kentucky country in 1769; but there is no absolute proof of his connection with the Henderson projects until 1773. If he did have an agreement with Henderson before this time, it certainly was of a very loose and perfunctory nature, for the character of Boone's trips into the mountains and beyond shows that he was impelled by his own uncontrollable love of the forest and the chase and in nowise directed by any other force. By 1774, with the reorganization of Richard Henderson & Company into the Louisa Company, new life was inspired and a definite program adopted. The change in name was significant: the company, due to reports that Boone had brought back from Kentucky regions, was now definitely bent on acquiring a portion of the trans-Alleghany country. It came prominently before the people when it issued its "Proposals" on December 25, 1774, intimating that a new colony was to be set up and giving the scale of land prices. The name was changed to the Transylvania Company in January, 1775, and efforts were immediately undertaken to secure control of the country by a treaty with the Cherokees, who claimed it. Such a treaty was negotiated at the Sycamore Shoals and signed on March 17th, by which the Transylvania Company was granted all of Kentucky between the Cumberland and Kentucky rivers and much of Tennessee.7

5 James R. Robertson, Petitions of the Early Inhabitants of Kentucky (Filson Club Publication, Number 27), 35, 36; Alvord, Mississippi Valley in British Politics, II, 111; G. H. Alden, New Governments West of the Alleghanies before 1780 (Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin, Historical Series, Vol. 2, No. 1), 7-11; 16-35; 36-48.

See Archibald Henderson, "The Creative Forces in Westward Expansion: Henderson and Boone" in American Historical Review, XX, 86-107; Archibald Henderson, The Conquest of the Old Southwest (New York, 1920), chapters VII-X Although there is no absolute evidence that Boone had any connection with Judge Henderson before 1773, surmises that he did arose in the early part of the Nineteenth Century. In James Hall, Sketches of History, Life, and Manners of the West (Philadelphia, 1835), I, 242, 243, appears this statement: "But there is some reason to believe that even in his first visit to Kentucky, Boone came as the agent of some wealthy individuals in North Carolina, who were desirous to speculate in these lands, and who selected him to make the first reconnoissance of the country, not only because he was an intrepid hunter, but in consideration of his judgment and probity. It is certain that he was employed immediately after his return, and that he continued for many years to be engaged in the transaction of business for others, to the entire neglect of his personal aggrandizement."

7 Archibald Henderson, "Richard Henderson and the Occupation of Kentucky, 1775" in Mississippi Valley Historical Review, I, No. 3 (Dec. 1914), 341-363.