that he had hunted upon Watauga earlier. The writer is indebted to N.
Gammon, Esq., formerly of Jonesboro, now a citizen of Knoxville, for
the following inscription, still to be seen upon a beech tree, standing
in sight and east of the present stage-road, leading from Jonesboro to
Blountsville, and in the valley of Boon's Creek, a tributary of Watauga:"

D. Boon
CillED A. BAR On
Tree
in ThE
yEAR
1760

"Boon was eighty-six years old when he died, which was September, 1820.
He was thus twenty-six years old when the inscription was made. When he
left the company of hunters in 1761, as mentioned above by Haywood, it
is probable that he did so to revisit the theatre of a former hunt upon
the creek that still bears his name, and where his camp is still pointed
out near its banks. It is not improbable, indeed, that he belonged to,
or accompanied, the party of Doctor Walker, on his first, or certainly
on his second, tour of exploration in 1760. The inscription is
sufficient authority, as this writer conceives, to date the arrival of
Boon in Tennessee as early as its date, 1760, thus preceding the
permanent settlement of the country nearly ten years."

It will be observed that the historian in this extract, spells Boon
without the final _e_, following the orthography of the hunter, in his
inscription on the tree. This orthography Boone used at a later period,
as we shall show. But the present received mode of spelling the name is
the one which we have adopted in this work.