ood 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 Francois." 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 hundred thous