FROM THE SETTL Daniel Boone-Jame early emigrants-K -James Haw, Ber to Kentucky-Will and Joseph Craig organized-The Pre -Welch-McNama tery formed-Bisho soldier-Francis Cla -Gabriel and Dani -Methodism plant preacher-John Du son-The character THE early hist of savage cruelt heroic endurance first white settler VOL. I. and almost impenetrable forests, and whose dust now slumbers beneath its soil, will always be held in kind remembrance. The first discovery of Kentucky, however, was made by James McBride, who as early as 1754 "passed down the Ohio River, with some others, in canoes, landed at the mouth of the Kentucky River, and marked the initials of his name and date upon a tree.' Four years later, Dr. Walker, led by curiosity, or by the spirit of adventure, made a brief trip to the north-eastern portion of the District.† Nine years afterward, and only two years previous to the date of Boone's first entrance into Kentucky, John Finley, with some other Indian-traders from North Carolina, made a considerable tour through it. The stay, however, of McBride, Walker, and Finley, was short, and to Daniel Boone belongs the honor of being the first pioneer. The first emigrants to the District of Kentucky were chiefly composed of men who were "rough, independent, and simple in their habits, careless and improvident in their dealings, frank of speech, and unguarded in their intercourse with each other and with strangers, friendly, hospitable, and generous." Deprived of educational advantages, they were generally their own school-masters, and their book the volume of nature. It was not the dull, the unaspiring, the idle, but the bold, the resolute, * Methodist Magazine, Vol. III., p. 386. Methodist Magazine, Vol. III., p. 386. the ambitious, who came to carve out their homes from the kingly forests of the fresh and untouched wilderness. The settlement of Kentucky by the AngloAmerican pioneer was no easy task. The fierce and merciless savage stubbornly disputed the right to the soil. The attempt to locate upon these rich and fertile lands was a proclamation of war-of war whose conflict should be more cruel than had been known in all the bloody pages of the past. On his captive the Indian inflicted the most relentless torture. Neither the innocence of infancy, the tears of beauty, nor the decrepitude of age, could awaken his sympathy or touch his heart. The tomahawk and the stake were the instruments of his cruelty. But notwithstanding the dangers that constantly imperiled the settlers, attracted by the glowing accounts of the beauty of the country and the fertility of the soil, brave hearts were found that were willing to leave their patrimonial homes in Carolina and Virginia, and hazard their lives amid the frowning forests of the West. Thus valuable accessions were continually received by the first emigrants. In the winter of 1776, Kentucky was formed into a county. Although this act invested the people with the right to a separate county court, to justices of the peace, a sheriff, constable, coroner, and militia officers, but few instances occurred in which it was necessary for the law to assert its supremacy. Banded together by the ties of a common interest, and alike exposed to suffering and to peril, it was but seldom that any disposition |