f the Cumberland, named Stone's
River by the former party, for one of their number. Here they
encountered two men, who were among the greatest of the western
pioneers, and were destined to leave their names in historic
association with the early settlement of Kentucky, James Harrod
and Michael Stoner, a German, both of whom had descended the Ohio
from Fort Pitt. With the year 1769 began those longer and more
extended excursions into the interior which were to result in
conveying at last to the outside world graphic and detailed
information concerning "the wonderful new country of Cantucky."
In the late spring of this year Hancock and Richard Taylor (the
latter the father of President Zachary Taylor), Abraham
Hempinstall, and one Barbour, all true-blue frontiersmen, left
their homes in Orange County, Virginia, and hunted extensively in
Kentucky and Arkansas. Two of the party traveled through Georgia
and East and West Florida; while the other two hunted on the
Washita during the winter of 1770-1. Explorations of this type
became increasingly hazardous as the animosity of the Indians
increased; and from this time onward for a number of years almost
all the parties of roving hunters suffered capture or attack by
the crafty red men. In this same year Major John McCulloch,
living on the south branch of the Potomac, set out accompanied by
a white man-servant and a negro, to explore the western country.
While passing down the Ohio from Pittsburgh McCulloch was
captured by the Indians near the mouth of the Wabash and carried
to the present site of Terre Haute, Indiana. Set free after four
or five months, he journeyed in company with some French
voyageurs first to Natchez and then to New Orleans, whence he
made the sea voyage to Philadelphia. Somewhat later, Benjamin
Cleveland (afterward famous in the Revolution), attended by four
companions, set out from his home on the upper Yadkin to explore
the Kentucky wilderness. After passing through Cumberland Gap,
they encountered a band of Cherokees who plundered them of
everything they had, even to their hats and shoes, and ordered
them to leave the Indian hunting-grounds. On their return journey
they almost starved, and Cleveland, who was reluctantly forced to
kill his faithful little hunting-dog, was wont to declare in
after years that it was the sweetest meat he ever ate.

Fired to adventure by the glowing accounts brought back by Uriah
Stone, a much more formidable band than any