Life of Daniel Boone, The Great Western Hunter and Pioneer | Page 9

'As
early as 1748 Doctor Thomas Walker, of Virginia, in company with
Colonels Wood, Patton and Buchanan, and Captain Charles Campbell,
and a number of hunters, made an exploring tour upon the western
waters. Passing Powel's valley, he gave the name of 'Cumberland' to the
lofty range of mountains on the west. Tracing this range in a
south-western direction, he came to a remarkable depression in the
chain: through this he passed, calling it 'Cumberland Gap.' On the
western side of the range he found a beautiful mountain stream, which
he named 'Cumberland River,' all in honor of the Duke of Cumberland,
then prime minister of England.[11] These names have ever since been
retained, and, with Loudon, are believed to be the only names in
Tennessee of English origin."
"Although Fort Loudon was erected as early as 1756, upon the
Tennessee, yet it was in advance of any white settlements nearly one
hundred and fifty miles, and was destroyed in 1760. The fort, too, at
Long Island, within the boundaries of the present State of Tennessee,
were erected in 1758, but no permanent settlements had yet been
formed near it. Still occasional settlers had begun to fix their
habitations in the south-western section of Virginia, and as early as
1754, six families were residing west of New River. 'On the breaking
out of the French war, the Indians, in alliance with the French, made an
irruption into these settlements, and massacred Burke and his family.
The other families, finding their situation too perilous to be maintained,
returned to the eastern side of New River; and the renewal of the

attempt to carry the white settlements further west, was not made until
after the close of that war.'"[12]
[Sidenote: 1756]
"Under a mistaken impression that the Virginia line, when extended
west, would embrace it, a grant of land was this year made, by the
authorities of Virginia, to Edmund Pendleton, for three thousand acres
of land, lying in Augusta County, on a branch of the middle fork of the
Indian river called West Creek,[13] now Sullivan County, Tennessee."
[Sidenote: 1760]
In this year, Doctor Walker again passed over Clinch and Powell's
River, on a tour of exploration into what is now Kentucky.
[Sidenote: 1761]
'The Cherokees were now at peace with the whites, and hunters from
the back settlements began with safety to penetrate deeper and further
into the wilderness of Tennessee. Several of them, chiefly from
Virginia, hearing of the abundance of game with which the woods were
stocked, and allured by the prospects of gain, which might be drawn
from this source, formed themselves into a company, composed of
Wallen, Scaggs, Blevins, Cox, and fifteen others, and came into the
valley since known as Carter's Valley, in Hawkins County, Tennessee.
They hunted eighteen mouths upon Clinch and Powell's Rivers.
Wallen's Creek and Wallen's Ridge received their name from the leader
of the company; as also did the station which they erected in the
present Lee County, Virginia, the name of Wallen's station. They
penetrated as far north as Laurel Mountain, in Kentucky, where they
terminated their journey, having met with a body of Indians, whom
they supposed to be Shawnees. At the head of one of the companies
that visited the West this year 'came Daniel Boon, from the Yadkin, in
North Carolina, and traveled with them as low as the place where
Abingdon now stands, and there left them.'
"This is the first time the advent of Daniel Boon to the western wilds

has been mentioned by historians, or by the several biographers of that
distinguished pioneer and hunter. There is reason, however, to believe
that he had hunted upon Watauga earlier. The writer is indebted to N.
Gammon, Esq., formerly of Jonesboro, now a citizen of Knoxville, for
the following inscription, still to be seen upon a beech tree, standing in
sight and east of the present stage-road, leading from Jonesboro to
Blountsville, and in the valley of Boon's Creek, a tributary of
Watauga:"
D. Boon CillED A. BAR On Tree in ThE yEAR 1760
"Boon was eighty-six years old when he died, which was September,
1820. He was thus twenty-six years old when the inscription was made.
When he left the company of hunters in 1761, as mentioned above by
Haywood, it is probable that he did so to revisit the theatre of a former
hunt upon the creek that still bears his name, and where his camp is still
pointed out near its banks. It is not improbable, indeed, that he
belonged to, or accompanied, the party of Doctor Walker, on his first,
or certainly on his second, tour of exploration in 1760. The inscription
is sufficient authority, as this writer conceives, to date the arrival of
Boon in Tennessee as early as its date, 1760, thus