ates partly, it was said, for the purpose of making
enquiry relative to western lands, the title of which was derived from
his grandfather. Young Murray visited some of the old seats on the
James, and makes mention of them in his entertaining "Travels in the
United States."

The assembly, upon the return of Dunmore to Williamsburg, gave him a
vote of thanks for his good conduct of the war--a compliment which it
was afterwards doubted whether he had merited. His motives in that
campaign were, to say the least, somewhat mysterious. There is a curious
coincidence in several points between the administration of Dunmore and
that of Berkley, one hundred years before.

FOOTNOTES:

[591:A] Tah-gah-jute, or Logan, and Captain Michael Cresap: a Discourse
by Brantz Mayer. (Balt., 1851.)

[592:A] Kercheval's Hist. of Valley of Va.

[593:A] McClung's Sketches of Western Adventure, 92.

CHAPTER LXXVIII.

DANIEL BOONE.

THIS famous explorer, a native of Pennsylvania, removed at an early age
to North Carolina, and remained there till his fortieth year. In the
year 1769 he left his home on the sequestered Yadkin, to wander through
the wilderness in quest of the country of Kentucky, and to become the
archetype of the race of pioneers. In this exploration of the unknown
regions of Western Virginia, he was accompanied by five companions.
Reaching Red River early in June, they beheld from an eminence the
beautiful region of Kentucky. A pioneer named Finley is supposed by some
to have been the first explorer of the interior of Kentucky, and it is
said that he visited it alone; it is difficult to determine a matter of
this kind, and the first exploration has been attributed to others.
According to McClung,[595:A] it was Finley's glowing picture of the
country, on his return home, in 1767, that allured Boone to venture into
the wilderness. Kentucky, it appears, was not inhabited by the Indians,
they having not a wigwam there; but the Southern and Northwestern
Indians resorted there, as on a neutral ground, to hunt, and often came
into collision and engaged in conflicts, which, according to some, gave
it the name of Kentucky, or "the dark and bloody ground;" but the true
signification of the word is a matter of doubt. Boone and his companions
encamping, began to hunt and to reconnoitre the country. Innumerable
buffaloes browned on the leaves of the cane, or pastured on the herbage
of the plains, or lingered on the border of