same, should be a temporary southern boundary of
Virginia until the line should be ascertained by actual survey. A
strong influx of population into the immense new triangle thus
released for settlement brought powerful pressure to bear upon
northern Tennessee, the point of least resistance along the
western barrier. Singularly enough, this advance was not opposed
by the Cherokees, whose towns were strung across the extreme
southeast corner of Tennessee.

When Colonel John Donelson ran the line in the latter part of
1771, The Little Carpenter, who with other Indian chiefs
accompanied the surveying party, urged that the line agreed upon
at Lochaber should break off at the head of the Louisa River, and
should run thence to the mouth thereof, and thence up the Ohio to
the mouth of the Great Kanawha. For this increase in the
territory of Virginia they of course expected additional payment.
As a representative of Virginia, Donelson agreed to the proposed
alteration in the boundary line; and accordingly promised to send
the Cherokees, in the following spring, a sum alleged by them to
have been fixed at five hundred pounds, in compensation for the
additional area. This informal agreement, it is believed, was
never ratified by Virginia; nor was the promised compensation
ever paid the Cherokees.

Under the belief that the land belonged to Virginia, Jacob Brown
with one or two families from North Carolina settled in 1771 upon
a tract of land on the northern bank of the Nonachunheh
(corruption, Nolichucky) River. During the same year, an
experimental line run westward from Steep Rock and Beaver Creek
by Anthony Bledsoe showed that upon the extension of the boundary
line, these settlers would fall within the bounds of North
Carolina. Although thus informally warned of the situation, the
settlers made no move to vacate the lands. But in the following
year, after the running of Donelson's line, Alexander Cameron,
Stuart's deputy, required "all persons who had made settlements
beyond the said line to relinquish them." Thus officially warned,
Brown and his companions removed to Watauga. Cameron's order did
not apply, however, to the settlement, to the settlement north of
the Holston River, south and east of Long Island; and the
settlement in Carter's Valley, although lying without the
Virginia boundary, strangely enough remained unmolested. The
order was directed at the Watauga settlers, who were seated south
of the Holston River