may or may not mean the
massacres by Cresap and Greathouse; see, _post_, chapter on Lord
Dunmore's War).

46. Where the journal says the land "is like a paradise, it is so good
and beautiful."

47. The journal for July 8th says: "The Land is so good that I cannot
give it its due Praise. The undergrowth is Clover, Pea-vine, Cane &
Nettles; intermingled with Rich Weed. It's timber is Honey Locust, Black
Walnut, Sugar Tree, Hickory, Iron-Wood, Hoop Wood, Mulberry, Ash and Elm
and some Oak." And later it dwells on the high limestone cliffs facing
the river on both sides.

48. On July 25th.

49. I have given the account of Floyd's journey at some length as
illustrating the experience of a typical party of surveyors. The journal
has never hitherto been alluded to, and my getting hold of it was almost
accidental.

There were three different kinds of explorers. Boon represents the
hunters; the McAfees represent the would-be settlers; and Floyd's
party the surveyors who mapped out the land for owners of land grants.
In 1774, there were parties of each kind in Kentucky. Floyd's
experience shows that these parties were continually meeting others
and splitting up; he started out with eight men, at one time was in a
body with thirty-seven, and returned home with four.

The journal is written in a singularly clear and legible hand,
evidently by a man of good education.

50. The latter, from his name presumably of Sclavonic ancestry, came
originally from New York, always a centre of mixed nationalities. He
founded a most respectable family, some of whom have changed their name
to Sandusky; but there seems to be no justification for their claim that
they gave Sandusky its name, for this is almost certainly a corruption
of its old Algonquin title. "American Pioneer" (Cincinnati, 1843), II.,
p. 325.

CHAPTER VII.

SEVIER, ROBERTSON, AND THE WATAUGA COMMONWEALTH, 1769-1774.

Soon after the successful ending of the last colonial struggle with
France, and the conquest of Canada, the British king issued a
proclamation forbidding the English colonists from trespassing on Indian
grounds, or moving west of the mountains. But in 1768, at the treaty of
Fort Stanwix, the Six Nations agreed to surrender to the English all the
lands lying between the Ohio and the Tennessee;[1] and this treaty was
at once seized upon by the backwoodsmen as offering an excuse for
settling beyond the mountains. However, the Iroquois had ceded lands