breaking out of that war, but were then mostly discontinued, for a time, in consequence of the Indians joining in the war with the French.

After Braddock was defeated in 1755, Governor Dobbs, of North Carolina, deputed Captain Waddle to treat with the Indians. In 1756, he concluded a treaty with the Cherokees, and also with the Catawbas. The Indians required that a fort should be erected in their country as a place of refuge for their women and children, in the event their warriors should be called out against the French. In consequence of this arrangement, Fort Loudon was built and garrisoned in 1757. It stood on the north, or rather eastern side of Little Tennessee river, about one mile above the mouth of the Tellico river.— Col. Byrd, of Virginia, built Fort Chisel in 1758, and also built a fort on the North bank of the Holston, nearly opposite the Long Island, and took up his winter quarters there with his army, in 1758.

The Indians continued to aid the English colonists in their war with the French, until the year 1759; when they were induced by the influence of French emissaries to take up arms against the colonists. In the year 1760, they besieged Fort Loudon, and continued the siege until the want of provisions compelled a surrender upon the terms offered by the Indians.

According to the terms of the surrender, the inmates of the fort, consisting of between two and three hundred men, women and children, were to be allowed a safe retreat to the white settlements, upon their surrendering the fort with the stores and munitions of war, except as many guns and as much ammunition as would be necessary to hunt and kill game for their support during their retreat to the white settlements. The fort was surrendered, but most of the cannon and small arms were

thrown into the river,

and the ammunition thrown into the

well, within the fort. After the party had marched about twenty miles, they were overtaken by the Indians, about day light on the next morning, and all massacred, except the advance guard consisting of six men, who effected their escape, and three others, Jack, Stewart and Thomas, who were saved by the interposition of the Chief, Little Carpenter.

In the vicinity of Fort Loudon there seems to have been a settlement, during the continuance of the fort, but what was its extent or population, I have not been able to ascertain.

In June, 1761, Colonel Grant, with some regular troops, marched into the Indian country, and was joined by the South Carolina provincials, as also by some friendly Indians. The Cherokees met and fought him, but he defeated them, destroyed their towns in the middle settlements, and laid waste their country. They then sued for peace, and a treaty was made with them. Soon after this treaty, a company of hunters, principally from the State of Virginia, came into the country about the head waters of the Holston, Clinch and Cumberland rivers, and continued in the country, hunting, for about eighteen months. A man by the name of Wallen was in company. He and Scaggs, Blevins, Cox and fifteen others, visited the country now called Carter's Valley; and from thence went through the Moccason Gap in the Clinch mountain, and established a camp on a branch of Powell's river, which they called Wallen's creek. They named Powell's mountain from seeing the name of Ambrose Powell inscribed on a tree near the mouth of Wallen's creek. They also gave the same name to the valley and the river. In crossing the river Clinch, which was then without a name, an Irishman, who was of the

company, fell off the raft, and being unable to swim, was much alarmed, and bawled out to his comrades, clinch me! clinch me! which being a phrase they were unaccustomed to hear, at that day, they made themselves merry at the expense of the poor Irishman, and called the river CLINCH, in memory of the poor Irishman's prayers while undergoing this unceremonious immersion in the turbid and rapid stream. They then gave the same name to the adjacent mountain. Wallen's ridge was called for Wallen; and Newman's and Scagg's ridges from men of these names who were of the company. They went through Cumberland Gap, and Wallen called the mountain Cumberland, he having came from the county of Cumberland, in the State of Virginia. They named the river now called Cumberland, North Cumberland. They crossed the river and proceeded fourteen miles further, to the Laurel mountain, where, meeting with a body of Indians, whom they supposed to be Shawnees, they returned. When these hunters made their first excursion into the country we have been describing, in 1761, there were no white inhabitants west. of the Blue Ridge, except a few men who were working at the lead mines. This company continued year after year to visit and hunt in these newly discovered wilds, still penetrating farther into the country every year.The glowing descriptions they gave of the country, allured others into the same pursuits; and in the summer of 1766, the middle section of Tennessee, first called Cumberland, began to be explored.

Col. James Smith, Uriah Stone, Joshua Horton, and William Baker, and a mulatto boy, slave of Mr. Horton, came into the country on the head of the Holston, in the summer of 1766, and travelling westwardly, they explored the country South of Kentucky. Not a single vestige

of a habitation of the white man was then to be seen in the country. They explored the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers from the head of Stone's river, to the mouth of the Tennessee. Stone's river received its name from Uriah Stone, one of the company. At the mouth of the Tennessee, Smith returned, leaving his horse with the company, and taking the mulatto slave of Mr. Horton. The remainder of the company proceeded to Illinois.

In the winter of 1768, Gilbert Christian, William Anderson, and John Sawyer, afterwards Col. Sawyer, of Knox county, Tennessee, came to the head waters of the Holston, in company with four others, all from Augusta county, Virginia. They crossed the Holston and explored the country to the Clinch mountain, and down it some distance. In the vicinity of Big Creek, afterwards included in the boundaries of Hawkins county, they found themselves in the hunting grounds of a large party of Indians, and therefore removed up the country some ten or fifteen miles. Here they remained a short time, and thence returned home. On their return after they had crossed the North Fork of Holston, and proceeded some twenty miles, they found the whole country dotted over with cabins, where only a few weeks previous there was nothing to be seen but the dreary wilderness, peopled alone by the wild beasts of the wood and the fowls of the air.

In the summer of 1769, a company of adventurous hunters, some from Virginia and the remainder from North Carolina, came out upon the head waters of the Holston, and travelled down by the Wolf Hills, where Abingdon is now situated; thence by the North Fork of Holston to Clinch River, at a place called Moccason Gap; they then went through Powell's Valley and Cumberland Gap to Cumberland river, at the place where the

old Kentucky trace afterwards crossed it. They then traveled down the water courses, and finally established their camp at a place since called Price's Meadow, in what is now Wayne county, Kentucky. The company then hunted in different directions, returning to camp once in every four or five weeks. Some of them penetrated within what is now the territory of Tennessee as far as the Caney Fork of Cumberland; and one of them, Robert Crockett, was killed near the head waters of the Roaring river. No traces of any human settlement was then to be seen in the country through which these hunters passed; but they found vast quantities of human bones in caves and rock houses.

In the course of the succeeding year a part of this company built two boats and two canoes, and descended to Natchez to make sale of their furs, hides, bear meat, &c. As they passed where Nashville now stands they discovered the French Lick, as it was afterwards called, and saw an immense number of Buffaloes. Their bellowings fell upon the ear of these hardy woodsmen before they came in view of them, like the roarings of a distant, but tremendous cataract, or like the lumberings of an approaching thunder storm. There was then a stock-fort at the place, and these hunters discovered another on the Caney Fork, and one on Big Harper.

and

In the fall of the year 1771, a part of this same company returned to hunt in the country again, bringing others with them. They established their camp on a creek they called Russell's creek, from the circumstance of an old man of that name, who was dim sighted; in consequence of which, in one of his hunting excursions, got lost and remained out nineteen days in very cold weather. He was helpless when found, but soon recovered, and killed many deer afterwards. He tied a