ullitt led, and in which were the two McAfees,
Hancock, Taylor, Drennon and others, separated, and while part went up
the Kentucky River, explored the banks, and made important surveys,
including the valley in which Frankfort stands, the remainder went on to
the Falls, and laid out, in behalf of John Campbell and John Connolly,
the plan of Louisville. All this took place in the summer of 1773; and
in the autumn of that year, or early in the next, John Floyd, the deputy
of Colonel William Preston, the surveyor of Fincastle County, Virginia,
in which it was claimed that Kentucky was comprehended, also crossed the
mountains; while General Thompson of Pennsylvania, made surveys upon
the north fork of the Licking. When Boone, therefore, in September,
commenced his march for the West, (as we shall presently relate), the
choice regions which he had examined three years before, were known
to numbers, and settlers were preparing to desecrate the silent and
beautiful woods. Nor did the prospects of the English colonists stop
with the settlements of Kentucky. In 1773, General Lyman, with a number
of military adventurers, went to Natchez and laid out several townships
in that vicinity; to which point emigration set so strongly, that we are
told, four hundred families passed down the Ohio on their way thither,
during six weeks of the summer of that year."[19]

[Footnote 17: McClung.]

[Footnote 18: Perkins. "Annals of the West."]

[Footnote 19: Perkins, "Annals of the West."]

CHAPTER VI.

Daniel Boone remains two years in North Carolina after his return
from the West--He prepares to emigrate to Kentucky--Character of
the early settlers to Kentucky--The first class, hunters--The
second class, small farmers--The third class, men of wealth and
government officers.

Daniel Boone had now returned to his home on the banks of the Yadkin,
after an absence of no less than two years, during which time he had
not tasted, as he remarks in his autobiography, either salt, sugar, or
bread. He must have enjoyed, in no ordinary degree, the comforts of
home. Carolina, however, was to be his home but for a short time. He had
fully determined to go with his family to Kentucky, and settle in that
lovely region. He was destined to found a State.

After Boone's return to North Carolina, more than two years passed away
before he could complete the arrangements necessary for removing his
family to Kentucky. He sold