October, 1768, with the Six Nations and their confederates, and those of Hard Labor and Lochaber, made with the Cherokees, afforded a pretext under which the settlements were advanced. It was now falsely claimed that the Indian title was extinguished east and south of the Ohio, to an indefinite extent, and the spirit of emigration and speculation in land greatly increased. Among the land companies formed at this time was the "Mississippi Company," of which George Washington was an active member.

Up to this period very little was known by the English of the country south of the Ohio. In 1754, James M. Bride, with some others, had passed down the Ohio in canoes; and landing at the mouth of the Kentucky River, marked the initials of their names, and the date on the barks of trees. On their return, they were the first to give a particular account of the beauty and richness of the country to the inhabitants of the British settlements. No farther notice seems to have been taken of Kentucky until the year 1767, when John Finlay, an Indian trader, with others, passed through a part of the rich lands of Kentucky-then called by the Indians the Dark and Bloody Ground." Finlay, returning to North Carolina, fired the curiosity of his neighbors by the reports of the discoveries he had made. In consequence of this information, Col. Daniel Boone, in company with Finlay, Stewart, Holden, Monay, and Cool, set out from their residence on the Zadkin, in North Carolina, May 1st, 1769; and after a long and fatiguing march, over a mountainous and pathless wilderness, arrived on the Red River. Here, from the top of an eminence, Boone and his companions first beheld a distant view of the beautiful lands of Kentucky. The plains and forests abounded with wild beasts of every kind; deer and elk were common; the buffalo were seen in herds, and the plains covered with the richest verdure. The glowing descriptions of these adventurers inflamed the imaginations of the borderers, and their own sterile mountains beyond lost their charms, when compared to the fertile plains of this newly-discovered Paradise in the West.

In 1770, Ebenezer Silas and Jonathan Zane settled Wheeling. In 1771, such was the rush of emigration to Western Pennsylvania and Western Virginia, in the region of the Upper Ohio, that every kind of breadstuff became so scarce, that, for several months, a great part of the population were obliged to subsist entirely on meats, roots, vegetables, and milk, to the entire exclusion of all breadstuffs; and hence that period was long after known as "the starving year." Settlers, enticed by the beauty of the Cherokee country, emigrated to East Tennessee, and hundreds of families also, moved farther south to the mild climate of West Florida, which at this period extended to the Mississippi. In the summer of 1773, Frankfort and Louisville, Kentucky, were laid out. The next year was signalized by "Dunmore's war," which temporarily checked the settlements.

In the summer of 1774, several other parties of surveyors and

hunters entered Kentucky, and James Harrod erected a dwellingthe first erected by whites in the country-on or near the site of Harrodsburg, around which afterward arose "Harrod_Station." In the year 1775, Col. Richard Henderson, a native of North Carolina, in behalf of himself and his associates, purchased of the Cherokees all the country lying between the Cumberland River and Cumberland Mountains and Kentucky River, and south of the Ohio, which now comprises more than half of the State of Kentucky. The new country he named Transylvania. The first legislature sat at Boonsborough, and formed an independent government, on liberal and rational principles. Henderson was very active in granting lands to new settlers. The legislature of Virginia subsequently crushed his schemes; they claimed the sole right to purchase lands from the Indians, and declared his purchase null and void. But as some compensation for the services rendered in opening the wilderness, the legislature granted to the proprietors a tract of land, twelve miles square, on the Ohio, below the mouth of Green River.

In 1775, Daniel Boone, in the employment of Henderson, laid out the town and fort afterward called Boonsborough. From this time Boonsborough and Harrodsburg became the nucleus and support of emigration and settlement in Kentucky. In May, another fort was also built, which was under the command of Col. Benjamin Logan, and named Logan's Fort. It stood on the site of Stanford, in Lincoln county, and became an important post.

In 1776, the jurisdiction of Virginia was formally extended over the colony of Transylvania, which was organized into a county named Kentucky, and the first court was held at Harrodsburg in the spring of 1787. At this time the war of the Revolution was in full progress, and the early settlers of Kentucky were particularly exposed to the incursions of the Indian allies of Great Britain; a detailed account of which is elsewhere given in this volume. The early French settlements in the Illinois country now being in possession of that power, formed important points around which the British assembled the Indians and instigated them to murderous incursions against the pioneer population.

The year 1779 was marked in Kentucky by the passage of the Virginia Land Laws. At this time there existed claims of various kinds to the western lands. Commissioners were appointed to examine and give judgment upon these various claims, as they might be presented. These having been provided for, the residue of the the rich lands of Kentucky were in the market. As a consequence of the passage of these laws, a vast number of emigrants crossed the mountains into Kentucky to locate land warrants: and in the years 1779-'80 and '81, the great and absorbing topic in Kentucky was to enter, survey and obtain patents for the richest lands, and this, too, in the face of all the horrors and dangers of an Indian war.

Although the main features of the Virginia land laws were just

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and liberal, yet a great defect existed in their not providing for a general survey of the country by the parent State, and its subdivision into sections and parts of sections. Each warrant-holder being required to make his own survey, and having the privilege of locating according to his pleasure, interminable confusion arose from want of precision in the boundaries. In unskillful hands, entries, surveys, and patents were piled upon each other, overlapping and crossing in inextricable confusion; hence, when the country became densely populated, arose vexatious lawsuits and perplexities. Such men as Kenton and Boone, who had done so much for the welfare of Kentucky in its early days of trial, found their indefinite entries declared null and void, and were di possessed, in their old age, of any claim upon that soil for which they had periled their all.

The close of the revolutionary war, for a time only, suspended Indian hostilities, when the Indian war was again carried on with renewed energy. This arose from the failure of both countries in fully executing the terms of the treaty. By it, England was obligated to surrender the northwestern posts within the boundaries The of the Union, and to return slaves taken during the war. United States, on their part had agreed to offer no legal obstacles to the collection of debts due from her citizens to those of Great Britain. Virginia, indignant at the removal of her slaves by the British fleet, by law prohibited the collection of British debts, while England, in consequence, refused to deliver up the posts, so that they were held by her more than ten years, until Jay's treaty was concluded.

Settlements rapidly advanced. Simon Kenton having, in 1784, erected a blockhouse on the site of Maysville-then called Limestone-that became the point from whence the stream of emigration, from down its way on the Ohio, turned into the interior.

In the spring of 1783, the first court in Kentucky was held at Harrodsburg. At this period, the establishment of a government, independent of Virginia, appeared to be of paramount necessity, in consequence of troubles with the Indians. For this object, the first convention in Kentucky was held at Danville, in December, 1784; but it was not consummated until eight separate conventions had been held, running through a term of six years. The last was assembled in July, 1790; on the 4th of February, 1791, Congress passed the act admitting Kentucky into the Union, and in the April following she adopted a State Constitution.

Prior to this, unfavorable impressions prevailed in Kentucky against the Union, in consequence of the inability of Congress to compel a surrender of the northwest posts, and the apparent disposition of the Northern States to yield to Spain, for twenty years, the sole right to navigate the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico, the exclusive right to which was claimed by that power as being within her' dominions Kentucky was suffering under the horrors of Indian warfare, and having no government of her own, she saw

that that beyond the mountains was unable to afford them protection. When, in the year 1786, several States in Congress showed a disposition to yield the right of navigating the Mississippi to Spain for certain commercial advantages, which would inure to their benefit, but not in the least to that of Kentucky, there arose a universal voice of dissatisfaction; and many were in favor of declaring the independence of Kentucky and erecting an independent government west of the mountains.

Spain was then an immense landholder in the West. She claimed all east of the Mississippi lying south or the 31st degree of north latitude, and all west of that river to the ocean.

In May, 1787, a convention was assembled at Danville to remonstrate with Congress against the proposition of ceding the navigation of the Mississippi to Spain; but it having been ascertained that Congress, through the influence of Virginia and the other Southern States, would not permit this, the convention had no occasion to act upon the subject.

In the year 1787, quite a sensation arose in Kentucky in consequence of a profitable trade having been opened with New Orleans by General Wilkinson, who descended thither in June, with a boat load of tobacco and other productions of Kentucky. Previously, all those who ventured down the river within the Spanish settlements, had their property seized. The lure was then held out by the Spanish Minister, that if Kentucky would declare her independence of the United States, the navigation of the Mississippi should be opened to her; but that, never would this privilege be extended while she was a part of the Union, in consequence of existing commercial treaties between Spain and other European powers.

In the winter of 1788-9, the notorions Dr. Connolly, a secret British agent from Canada, arrived in Kentucky. His object appeared to be to sound the temper of her people, and ascertain if they were willing to unite with British troops from Canada, and seize upon and hold New Orleans and the Spanish settlements on the Mississippi. He dwelt upon the advantages which it must be to the people of the West to hold and possess the right of navigating the Mississippi; but his overtures were not accepted.

At this time settlements had been commenced within the present limits of Ohio. Before giving a sketch of these, we glance at the western land claims.

The claim of the English monarch to the Northwestern Territory was ceded to the United States by the treaty of peace signed at Paris, September 3, 1783. During the pendency of this negotiation, Mr. Oswald, the British commissioner, proposed the River Ohio as the western boundary of the United States, and but for the indomitable persevering opposition of John Adams, one of the American commissioners, who insisted upon the Mississippi as the boundary, this proposition would have probably been acceded to.

The States who owned western unappropriated lands under their original charters from British monarchs, with a single exception.

ceded them to the United States. In March, 1784, Virginia ceded the soil and jurisdiction of her lands northwest of the Ohio. In September, 1786, Connecticut ceded her claim to the soil and jurisdiction of her western lands, excepting that part of Ohio known as the "Western Reserve," and to that she ceded her jurisdictional claims in 1800. Massachusetts and New York ceded all their claims. Beside these were the Indian claims asserted by the right of possession. These have been extinguished by various treaties, from time to time, as the inroads of emigration rendered necessary. The Indan title to a large part of the territory of Ohio having become extinguished, Congress, before settlements were menced, found it necessary to pass ordinances for the survey and sale of the lands in the Northwest Territory. In October, 1787, Manasseh Cutler and Winthrop Sargeant, agents of the New England Ohio Company, made a large purchase of land, bounded south by the Ohio, and west by the Scioto river. Its settlement was commenced at Marietta in the spring of 1788, which was the first made by the Americans within Ohio. A settlement had been attempted within the limits of Ohio, on the site of Portsmouth, in April, 1785, by four families from Redstone, Pennsylvania, but difficulties with the Indians compelled its abandonment.

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About the time of the settlement of Marietta, Congress appointed General Arthur St. Clair, Governor; Winthrop Sargeant, Secretary; and Samuel Holden Parsons, James M. Varnum and John Cleves Symmes, Judges in and over the Territory. They organized its government and passed laws, and the governor erected the county of Washington, embracing nearly the whole of the eastern half of the present limits of Ohio.

In November, 1788, the second settlement within the limits of Ohio was commenced at Columbia, on the Ohio, five miles above the site of Cincinnati, and within the purchase and under the auspices of John Cleves Symmes and associates. Shortly after, settlements were commenced at Cincinnati and at North Bend, sixteen miles below, both within Symmes' purchase. In 1790, another settlement was made at Galliopolis by a colony from France-the name signifying City of the French.

On the 9th of January, 1789, a treaty was concluded at Fort Harmer, at the mouth of the Muskingum, opposite Marietta, by Governor St. Clair, in which the treaty which had been made four years previous at Fort M'Intosh, on the site of Beaver, Pennsylvania, was renewed and confirmed. It did not, however, produce the favorable results anticipated. The Indians, the same year, committed numerous murders, which occasioned the alarmed settlers to erect block-houses in each of the new settlements. June, Major Doughty, with one hundred and forty men, commenced the erection of Fort Washington, on the site of Cincinnati. In the course of the summer, Gen. Harmer arrived at the fort with three hundred men.

In

Negotiations with the Indians proving unfavorable, Gen. Harmer

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