river called West Creek,[13] now Sullivan County, Tennessee."

[Sidenote: 1760]

In this year, Doctor Walker again passed over Clinch and Powell's
River, on a tour of exploration into what is now Kentucky.

[Sidenote: 1761]

'The Cherokees were now at peace with the whites, and hunters from the
back settlements began with safety to penetrate deeper and further into
the wilderness of Tennessee. Several of them, chiefly from Virginia,
hearing of the abundance of game with which the woods were stocked, and
allured by the prospects of gain, which might be drawn from this source,
formed themselves into a company, composed of Wallen, Scaggs, Blevins,
Cox, and fifteen others, and came into the valley since known as
Carter's Valley, in Hawkins County, Tennessee. They hunted eighteen
mouths upon Clinch and Powell's Rivers. Wallen's Creek and Wallen's
Ridge received their name from the leader of the company; as also did
the station which they erected in the present Lee County, Virginia,
the name of Wallen's station. They penetrated as far north as Laurel
Mountain, in Kentucky, where they terminated their journey, having met
with a body of Indians, whom they supposed to be Shawnees. At the head
of one of the companies that visited the West this year 'came Daniel
Boon, from the Yadkin, in North Carolina, and traveled with them as low
as the place where Abingdon now stands, and there left them.'

"This is the first time the advent of Daniel Boon to the western wilds
has been mentioned by historians, or by the several biographers of that
distinguished pioneer and hunter. There is reason, however, to believe