various denominations whose lives they touched among the settlements along the coast.

In that day many men were so eager for freedom and a chance to get a fresh start that before sailing, through the enterprises set up by shipowners and emigration agents, they bound themselves by written indentures to work for a certain period of time. These persons were called Indents. Their labor was sold, so that in reality they were little more than slaves. When finally they had worked out their time they had earned their freedom, and were called Redemptioners. The practice of selling Redemptioners continued until the year 1820, all of forty-four years after “Honest” John Hart had signed his name to the Declaration of Independence. It is said that a lineal descendant of Emperor Maximilian was so bound in Georgia.

Many were imposed upon in another way. Their baggage and possessions were often confiscated and even though friends waited on this side ready to pay their passage, innocent men and women were duped into sale.

Then there were the so-called convicts among the pioneers of the Blue Ridge. It must be remembered that in those days offense constituting crime was often a mere triviality. Men were imprisoned for debt; even so they were labeled convicts. But, as Dr. James Watt Raine assures us in his The Land of Saddle-Bags, the few such convicts who were sent by English judges to America could scarcely have produced the five million or more people who today are known as southern mountain people.

Widely different though they were in blood, speech, and customs, there was an underlying similarity in the nature of these pioneers. It was their love of independence. Independence that impelled them to give up the security of civilization to brave the perils of uncharted seas, the hazards of warfare with hostile Indians, to seek homes in an untamed wilderness.

Sometimes a single explorer went ahead of the rest with a few friendly Indians to accompany him. If not he went alone, tramping into the forest, living in a rough shack, suffering untold hardship through bitter winter months. For weeks when he had neither meal nor flour he lived on meat alone—deer and bear. It was the stories of valuable furs and the vast quantities of them which trickled back to the settlements that lured others to follow. Hunters and trappers came bringing their families. The stories of furs and the promise of greater possessions to be had in the wilderness grew and so did the number of adventurers. They began to form little settlements and their coming crowded before them the earlier hunter or trapper who wanted always the field to himself.

In the meantime settlers in the Valley of Virginia were growing more smug and prosperous. They wanted to invest part of their earnings. They wanted to set up other undertakings. So they began sending out expeditions into the wilderness with the intention of trading with the Indians and possibly of securing lands for settlers.

As early as 1673 young Gabriel Arthur had set out on an expedition for his master Colonel Abraham Wood of Virginia with a small party. Through the Valley of Virginia went the young adventurer, taking the well-defined Warrior’s Path; he followed watercourses and gaps that cut through high mountain walls, down the Holston River through Tennessee, through the “great gap” into the Cuttawa country. Finally separated from his companions, the lad lost all count of time. Even if he had had a calendar tucked away in the pocket of his deerskin coat, however, it would have done him no good for he could neither read nor write. Weeks and months passed. Winter came. Finally after many adventures young Arthur started on the long journey back to Virginia. As he drew near Colonel Wood’s home he heard merriment within and the voice of his master wishing his household a merry Christmas. Not till then did the young adventurer know how long he had been away.

With the master and the household and the friends who had gathered to celebrate and offer thanks at the Yuletide season, with all listening eagerly, young Gabriel Arthur, though unable to bring back any written record, told many a stirring tale. A swig of wine may have spurred the telling of how he had been captured by the Shawnees (in Ohio), of how he had been surrounded by a wild, shouting tribe who tied him to a stake and were about to put a flaming torch to his feet when he thought of a way to save his life. They were charmed with the gun he carried, and the shiny knife at his belt. If they’d set him free he promised to bring them many, many knives and guns. Once young Gabriel made his escape he didn’t intend to be caught napping again. He painted his fair face with wild berry juice, and color from bark and herbs. After much wandering he found himself with friendly Cherokees in the upper Tennessee Valley. They were so friendly, in fact, that a couple of them accompanied him on his return to Virginia. He returned along other watercourses—by way of the Rockcastle and Kentucky Rivers. He crossed the Big Sandy—the Indians called it Chatterawha and Totteroy. He got out of their canoe at a point where the Totteroy flows into the Ohio and stood on the bank and looked about at the far-off hills. So it was young Gabriel Arthur who was the first white man to set foot in Kentucky, and that at the mouth of the Big Sandy.

Young Gabriel’s tales traveled far. Soon others, fired with the spirit of adventure, were turning to the wilderness. Nor was adventure the only spur. Investors as well as hunters and trappers saw promise of profits in Far Appalachia. Cartographers were put to work. A glimpse at their drawings shows interesting and similar observations.

In 1697 Louis Hennepin’s map indicated the territory south of the Great Lakes, including the southern Appalachians and extending as far west as the Mississippi River and a route which passed through a “gap across the Appalachians to the Atlantic seaboard.” Later the map of a Frenchman named Delisle labeled the great continental path leading to the Carolinas “Route que les François.” Successive maps all showed the passing over the Cumberland Mountain at the great wind gap, indicating portages and villages of the Chaouanona (Shawnees) in the river valleys. Lewis Evans’ map in 1755 of “The Middle British Colonies in America” shows the courses of the Totteroy (Big Sandy River) and of the Kentucky River. Thomas Hutchins in 1788, who became a Captain in the 60th Royal American Regiment of Foot, was appointed Geographer General under General Nathanael Greene and had unusual opportunity to observe geographically the vast wilderness beyond the Alleghenies. On his map the Kentucky River (where Boone was to establish a fort) was called the Cuttawa, the Green River was the Buffalo, the Cumberland was indicated as Shawanoe, and the Tennessee was the Cherokee. Though there were numerous trails in the Cumberland plateau, the Geographer General indicated only one, the Warrior’s Path which he called the “Path to the Cuttawa Country.” He too showed the Gap in the “Ouasioto” Mountains leading to the Cuttawa Country.

With the increase of map-making, more projects were launched. There were large colonizing schemes to induce settlement along the frontier, but colonizing was not the only idea in the heads of the wealthy Virginia investors. They were not unmindful of the riches in furs to be garnered in the Blue Ridge. In this connection Dr. Thomas Walker’s expedition for the Loyal Land Company in 1750 was important. Dr. Walker, an Englishman, was sent into what is now Kentucky where the company had a grant of “eight