early settlement which can readily be gleaned from numerous works
already familiar to the reading public. It may not be amiss, however, to
remark here, what almost every reader knows, that first and foremost in
the dangerous struggles of pioneer life, was the celebrated Daniel
Boone; whose name, in the west, and particularly in Kentucky, is a
household word; and whose fame, as a fearless hunter, has extended not
only throughout this continent, but over Europe. The birth place of this
renowned individual has been accredited to several states, by as many
writers; but one, more than the rest, is positive in asserting it to
have been Bucks county, Pennsylvania; and the year of his birth 1732;
which is sufficient for our purpose, whether strictly correct or not. At
an early period of his life, all agree that he removed with his father
to a very thinly settled section of North Carolina, where he spent his
time in hunting--thereby supplying the family with meat and destroying
the wild beasts, while his brothers assisted the father in tilling the
farm--and where he afterwards, in a romantic manner, became acquainted
with a settler's daughter, whom he married; and whence, in the spring
of 1769, in company with five others, he set out on an expedition of
danger across the mountains, to explore the western wilds; and after
undergoing hardships innumerable, and losing all his companions in
various ways, he at last succeeded in erecting the first log cabin, and
being the first white settler within the borders of Kentucky. To follow
up, even from this time, a detail of his trials, adventures, captures by
the Indians, and hair-breadth escapes, to the close of his eventful
career, would be sufficient to fill a volume; therefore we shall drop
him for the time--merely remarking, by the way, that he will be found to
figure occasionally in the following pages.

From the first appearance of Boone in the wilds of Kentucky, we shall
pass over a space of some ten or twelve years, and open our story in the