Volume I Part 11 (1/2)

18. From twenty to forty. Compare Haywood and Marshall, both of whom are speaking of the same bodies of men; Ramsey makes the mistake of supposing they are speaking of different parties; Haywood dwells on the feats of those who descended the c.u.mberland; Marshall of those who went to Kentucky.

19. The so-called mound builders; now generally considered to have been simply the ancestors of the present Indian races.

20. Led by one James Knox.

21. His real name was Kasper Mansker, as his signature shows, but he was always spoken of as Mansco.

22. McAfee MSS. (”Autobiography of Robt. McAfee”). Sometimes the term Long Hunters was used as including Boon, Finley, and their companions, sometimes not; in the McAfee MSS. it is explicitly used in the former sense.

23. See Haywood for Clinch River, Drake's Pond, Mansco's Lick, Greasy Rock, etc., etc.

24. A hunter named Bledsoe; Collins, II., 418.

25. Carr's ”Early Times in Middle Tennessee,” pp. 52, 54, 56, etc.

26. The hunter Bledsoe mentioned in a previous note.

27. As Haywood, 81.

28. This continued to be the case until the buffalo were all destroyed.

When my cattle came to the Little Missouri, in 1882, buffalo were plenty; my men killed nearly a hundred that winter, though tending the cattle; yet an inexperienced hunter not far from us, though a hardy plainsman, killed only three in the whole time. See also Parkman's ”Oregon Trail” for an instance of a party of Missouri backwoodsmen who made a characteristic failure in an attempt on a buffalo band.

29. See Appendix.

30. An English engineer made a rude survey or table of distances of the Ohio in 1766.

31. Collins states that in 1770 and 1772 Was.h.i.+ngton surveyed small tracts in what is now northeastern Kentucky; but this is more than doubtful.

32. All of this is taken from the McAfee MSS., in Colonel Durrett's library.

33. McAfee MSS. A similar adventure befell my brother Elliott and my cousin John Roosevelt while they were hunting buffalo on the staked plains of Texas in 1877.

34. They evidently wore breech-clouts and leggings, not trowsers.

35. McAfee MSS.

36. Filson's ”Boon.”

37. October 10, 1773, Filson's ”Boon.” The McAfee MSS. speak of meeting Boon in Powell's Valley and getting home in September; if so, it must have been the very end of the month.

38. The account of this journey of Floyd and his companions is taken from a very interesting MS. journal, kept by one of the party--Thomas Hanson. It was furnished me, together with other valuable papers, through the courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Trigg, of Abingdon, Va., and of Dr. George Ben. Johnston, of Richmond, to whom I take this opportunity of returning my warm thanks.

39. From the house of Col. William Preston, ”at one o'clock, in high spirits.” They took the canoe at the mouth of Elk River, on the 16th.

Most of the diary is, of course, taken up with notes on the character and fertility of the lands, and memoranda of the surveys made. Especial comment is made on a burning spring by the Kanawha, which is dubbed ”one of the wonders of the world.”

40. They received this news on April 17th, and confirmation thereof on the 19th. The dates should be kept in mind, as they show that the Shawnees had begun hostilities from a fortnight to a month before Cresap's attack and the murder of Logan's family, which will be described hereafter.

41. Which they reached on the 20th.