en the Baron de Longueuil with four
hundred and fifty-two Frenchmen and Indians, going to join
Bienville in an expedition against "the Cherickees and other
Indians lying at the back of Carolina and Georgia," doubtless
encamped on the Kentucky shore of the Ohio. Kentucky was also
traversed by John Peter Salling with his three adventurous
companions in their journey through the Middle West in 1742. But
all these early visits, including the memorable expeditions of
Walker and Gist, were so little known to the general public that
when John Filson wrote the history of Kentucky in 1784 he
attributed its discovery to James McBride in 1754. More
influential upon the course of westward expansion was an
adventure which occurred in 1752, the very year in which the
Boones settled down in their Vadkin home.

In the autumn of 1752, a Pennsylvania trader, John Findlay, with
three or four companions, descended the Ohio River in a canoe as
far as the falls at the present Louisville, Kentucky, and
accompanied a party of Shawnees to their town of
Es-kip-pa-ki-thi-ki, eleven miles east of what is now Winchester.

This was the site of the "Indian Old Corn Field," the Iroquois
name for which ("the place of many fields," or "prairie") was
Ken-take, whence came the name of the state.

Five miles east of this spot, where still may be seen a mound and
an ellipse showing the outline of the stockade, is the famous
Pilot Knob, from the summit of which the fields surrounding the
town lie visible in their smooth expanse. During Findlay's stay
at the Indian town other traders from Pennsylvania and Virginia,
who reported that they were "on their return from trading with
the Cuttawas (Catawbas), a nation who live in the Territories of
Carolina," assembled in the vicinity in January, 1753. Here, as
the result of disputes arising from their barter, they were set
upon and captured by a large party of straggling Indians
(Coghnawagas from Montreal) on January 26th; but Findlay and
another trader named James Lowry were so fortunate as to escape
and return through the wilderness to the Pennsylvania
settlements." The incident is of important historic significance;
for it was from these traders, who must have followed the Great
Warriors' Path to the country of the Catawbas, that Findlay
learned of the Ouasioto (Cumberland) Gap traversed by the Indian
path. His reminiscences of this gateway to Kentucky, of the site
of the old Indian town on Lulbegrud Creek,