not seem to have despaired of regaining control. He writes Martin in September, 1771, "I have hopes that from the honesty of the Cherokees your improvement will be taken within the line." Martin let his project of settlement lie dormant until the time of Henderson and company.

IV.-MARTIN A FARMER AND REMOVAL TO HENRY COUNTY, VA.

Martin now abandoned his western wanderings. He applied himself to the soil and engaged as overseer to one of his relatives by the name of Minor. Here he remained three years. They seem to have been years of active industry and so far improved his circumstances that he purchased a good tract of land in that part of Pittsylvania County, which became Henry in 1776. He removed to this in the fall of 1773. He established himself on Smith River in the northern part of the county. Toward the close of his career he sold all property here, removed to the southern part of the county, and built a large residence on Leatherwood Creek. He collected slaves around him and from these homes as centers the Martin family of the next generation went out.

V.-MARTIN AND THE SHAWNEE WAR OF 1774.

Up to this time we have seen Martin dealing with the Indians in the capacity of explorer, trader, and adventurer. In 1774 the Shawnee war broke out. August 25, 1774, Lord Dunmore commissioned Martin a captain of the Pittsylvania militia, but it would seem that he served not as a captain, but as a lieutenant under Abraham Penn. Penn's company was stationed in Culbertson's Bottom, on New River, one of the branches of Kenhawa. The scouts were put by Col. Preston under Penn's direction, but he does not seem to have been in the Bottom at all, and in his absence Martin commanded; as these, both officers and privates, were select men, the giving the command to Martin indicates the reputation he had already won as an Indian fighter. Col. Preston writes Martin on October 12, 1774: "I know you have made several long fatiguing scouts with your men, for which I am much obliged to you. The pass is important and I am fully satisfied you will do all you can to guard it." Martin being thus engaged in scouting was not in the great battle at Point Pleasant, at the mouth of the Great Kenhawa, 10th October, 1774.*

Col. Martin gives an account of this battle as derived in conversation from Gen. Robertson, a participant. It differs in many respects from the printed account.

VI.-TRANSYLVANIA AND THE SECOND POWELL'S VALLEY

SETTLEMENT.

After the battle of Point Pleasant and a further invasion of their country the Shawnees relinquished all claim to the lands south of the Ohio. The larger part of this territory had been held by the Cherokees since the beginning of the century. They were now anxious to sell. Daniel Boone had first set out to Kentucky about May 1, 1769, and had been defeated in Powell's Valley in 1773, but still held to his purpose of making a settlement on Kentucky River, and, being desirous of getting the consent of the Cherokees, induced Col. Richard Henderson and others of North Carolina to make a treaty and a purchase of the Cherokees to that effect. A company was organized for this purpose in 1774. It consisted of Richard Henderson and John Williams of Granville, William Johnston, James Hogg, Thomas Hart, John Luttrell, and Nathaniel Hart, of Orange, while Leonidas Henly Bullock, of Granville, and David Hart, of Orange, held half shares, making eight shares in all. The company signed a treaty with the Cherokees March 17, 1775, at Sycamore Shoals on Watauga River. By this treaty for the sum of £10,000, paid in merchandise as was alleged, the Indians gave up all the territory between the Kentucky and Cumberland rivers. The company took possession April 20, 1775. The settlement was named Transylvania; surveyors and agents were appointed; the machinery of government was gotten into shape, and a delegate was sent to the Continental Congress. The authorities expressed their adherence to the American cause, and asked to be received on the same footing as the other American colonies. †

By this purchase the larger part of Kentucky passed into the hands of the company. In Tennessee they secured in the bend of the Cumberland River a section of territory some 90 miles long and 12 wide which fell within Earl Granville's domain. Their line crossed again into Tennessee at Cumberland Gap and ran down to the Holston, thence 6 miles east of the Long Island of Holston, to the line established October 18, 1770, thence north. The purchase included the southwest of Virginia, and the whole of Powell's Valley.

Ramsey: Tennessee, 116, 117.

+ Colonial Records of North Carolina, X., 256, 273, 300, 323, 373, 382. ↑ Ibid., X., 323.

Population had flowed slowly in this direction because of the hostility of the Indians. Fort Chiswell, in Wythe County, Va., one of a cordon of forts established by Washington, was the furthest south, was 30 miles west of the Blue Ridge, and at the southern extremity of the great valley lying between the ridge and the Alleghany Mountains. The interval between it and the ridge was poor, mountainous, and thinly inhabited. The country south of the garrison and west of the ridge is mountainous, and was then uninhabited. The poverty of the section is illustrated by the name "Flour Gap," given to the break in the ridge where the boundary between North Carolina and Virginia crosses it, and through which they packed flour on horses from the other side to Fort Chiswell.*

At the end of the French war the pent-up settlements began to expand. From Fort Chiswell toward the westward there was a pretty open country, bordered on the northeast and southwest by mountains some 50 to 80 miles in width, and comprised largely in the present counties of Wythe, Smyth, and Washington, Va., and in Sullivan, Carter and Washington, Tenn. By the Revolution population had reached the Long Island of Holston River. It was already in the Watauga country, and was extending upon the tributaries of French Broad. These settlers had, in general terms, the Cherokees to the southward, the Shawnese to the northward.

It followed then that when Martin and a company of adventurers made a stand at Martin's Station, in 1775, they were still some 50 miles in advance of the most extreme frontier settlement on Clinch River, and lay on the road to Kentucky, 120 miles distant. From the account given of this enterprise by Maj. John Redd, who was one of the participants, I am

*Howe: Historical Collections of Virginia, 514.

+ There had been no fort built here in 1758, as Haywood states (Ed. 1891, 41), and as Ramsey (53) and Royce (map) state after him. At that time Fort Chiswell was the extreme frontier. Col. William Martin spent the greater part of his life in this section; he was at the Long Island of Holston Fort for two or three years, and never heard of the older one. He warns Draper that Haywood must be used with care. On the first appearance of his book "it was read only to be laughed at." Martin was either directly or indirectly acquainted with a good many of the events that Haywood describes and knew all of the traditions at first hand. Haywood did not leave North Carolina for Tennessee until 1806, and published his books in 1823. We see then that the weight of testimony must be given to Martin.

inclined to think that it was first undertaken by Martin independently of Henderson and company, or, at any rate, in anticipation of them. Redd says the company was raised in Martin's neighborhood, in Henry County, Va., immediately after Martin's return from the Shawnee war; that they set out on Christmas day, 1774, and arrived in the valley early in January. They were sixteen or eighteen in number, and were provided with all necessary utensils for settling. They fixed on the spot he had occupied in 1769, built several strong cabins, and made them part of a stockaded fort. They fenced in with brush and rails a large part of an old field and made a crop of corn. In the fall William Priest, with eight or ten men, built a fort a few miles above Martin's, and William Mumps built one 20 miles off, where Lee Court House now is (1850), and prepared ground for cultivation.*

The Transylvania Company was anxious to secure Martin's services because of his knowledge of the country, and, as a special favor, granted him (January 20, 1775,) all the lands he had already marked off or should give a memorandum of on that day. The preference was to be given also to his party, and we may conclude that the two efforts were soon consolidated. The company made him its attorney for the transaction of its business and entry taker for the Powell's Valley division of the purchase.

His instructions in regard to the sale of lands were very exact: (1) Land was to be sold to such only as should make corn during the year 1775, and who seemed "industriously inclined to become an inhabitant and promote the felicity of the whole community." To such as made corn in 1775 they promised 500 acres each and 250 acres more for each tithable person they should bring with them. (2) Martin was to sell land to no one who came after the spring was over without further orders; (3) and he had power to determine and settle all matters of dispute respecting the lands.

Haywood (Ed. 1891, 515) notes that John Williams, another member of the Transylvania Company, gave Martin instructions in regard to the terms on which lands were to be sold up to June 1, 1776. We may assume that this also referred to the Powell's Valley division. Purchasers were allowed to take up 640 acres for themselves and 320 for every taxable member of their family. They were required to pay for entry and survey,

*Redd's narrative.

$2; for surveying and a plat, $4; for a deed with the plat annexed, $2; and to the proprietors, when the title was completed, at £2 10s. per hundred acres, with annual quit rent of 28. per hundred acres, commencing in 1780. Surveys were to be run to the cardinal points, unless rivers or mountains rendered it inconvenient, and on a navigable river were to be not more than one-third longer than wide; on such water courses they must extend 2 poles back for 1 in front, and surveys approaching within 80 poles of each other were to join.

Great efforts were made to prevent a conflict with the Indians, and it was the desire of the company that no settlements be made lower down than Cumberland Gap. Henderson writes Martin from Kentucky, July 20, 1775: "Am extremely sorry for the affair with the Indians on the 23rd of last month. I wish it may not have a bad effect, but will use my endeavors to find out who they were and have the matter settled. Your spirited conduct gives me great pleasure-Keep your men in heart if possable, now is our time, the Indians must not drive us-depend upon it that the Chief men and Warriors of the Cherokees will not countenance what their men attempted and will punish them-pray my Dear Sir dont let any person settle lower down the valey I am affraid they are now too low & must come away I did not want any person to settle yet below Cumberland Gap

The Valley settlement seems to have been treated with peculiar consideration. In the same letter Henderson says: "We did not forget you at the time of making laws, your part of the country is too remote from ours to attend our Convention you must have Laws made by an Assembly of your own, I have prepared a plan which I hope you'l approve but more of that when we meet which I hope will be soon;" but whether Martin succeeded in putting into operation the form of local government suggested by Henderson, we have, unfortunately, no information. The post was held with much difficulty. In the spring of 1776 the men were in need of provisions and became discouraged. The settlers at Priest's and Mumps' forts had already returned, and so had a part of their own men. Martin had returned to Virginia in May to get reenforcements. In June he sent them an express announcing the beginning of the Indian war and called them in. Thus ended the second attempt to settle Powells Valley. The third was made in 1783.