[From _A History of the Commonwealth of Kentucky_ (Louisville,
Kentucky, 1834)]
During this same year [1769], a party of about forty stout hunters,
"from New River, Holstein and Clinch" united in a hunting expedition
west of the Cumberland Mountains.
Nine of this party, led on by Col. James Knox, reached Kentucky; and,
from the time they were absent from home, they "obtained the name of
the _Long Hunters_." This expedition reached "the country south of the
Kentucky river," and became acquainted with Green river, and the lower
part of the Cumberland.
In addition to these parties, so naturally stimulated by the ardent
curiosity incident to early and comparatively, idle society, the
claimants of military bounty lands which had been obtained from the
British crown, for services against the French, furnished a new and keen
band of western explorers. Their land warrants were surveyed on the
Kenhawa and the Ohio; though most positively against the very letter of
the royal proclamation of '63. But at this distance from the royal
court, it was nothing new in the history of government that edicts
emanating, even from the king in council, should be but imperfectly
regarded. However, this may be, land warrants were actually surveyed on
the Kenhawa as early as 1772, and in 1773, several surveyors were
deputied to lay out bounty lands on the Ohio river.
Amongst others Thomas Bullitt, uncle to the late Alexander Scott
Bullitt, first lieutenant governor of Kentucky; and Hancock Taylor,
engaged in this adventurous work. These gentlemen with their company
were overtaken on the 28th of May, 1773, by the McAfees, whose exertions
will hereafter occupy a conspicuous station in this narrative.
On the 29th, the party in one boat and four canoes, reached the Ohio
river, and elected Bullitt their captain.
There is a romantic incident connected with this gentleman's descent of
the Ohio, evincing singular intrepidity and presence of mind; it is
taken from his journal, as Mr. [Humphrey] Marshall says, and the author
has found it substantially confirmed by the McAfee papers. While on his
voyage, he left his boat and went alone through the woods to the Indian
town of Old Chillicothe, on the Scioto. He arrived in the midst of the
town undiscovered by the Indians, until he was waving his white flag as
a token of peace. He was immediately asked what news? Was he from the
Long Knife? And why, if he was a peace-messenger, he had not sent a
runner? Bullitt, undauntedly replied, that he had no bad news; was from
the Long Knife, and as the red men and the whites were at peace, he had
come among his brothers to have friendly talk with them, about living on
the other side of the Ohio; that he had no runner swifter than himself;
and, that he was in haste and could not wait the return of a runner.
"Would you," said he, "if you were very hungry, and had killed a deer,
send your squaw to town to tell the news, and wait her return before you
eat?" This simple address to their own feelings, soon put the Indians in
good humor, and at his desire a council was assembled to hear his talk
the next day. Captain Bullitt then made strong assurances of friendship
on the part of the whites and acknowledged that these "Shawanees and
Delawares, our nearest neighbors," "did not get any of the money or
blankets given for the land, which I and my people are going to settle.
But it is agreed by the great men, who own the land, that they will make
a present to both the Delawares and the Shawanees, the next year; and
the year following, that shall be as good." On the ensuing day,
agreeably to the very deliberate manner of the Indians in council,
Captain Bullitt was informed, that "he seemed kind and friendly, and
that it pleased them well." That as "to settling the country on the
other side of the Ohio with your people, we are particularly pleased
that they are not to _disturb_ us in our hunting. For we must hunt, to
kill meat for our women and children, and to get something to buy our
powder and lead with, and to get us blankets and clothing." In these
talks, there seems a strange want of the usual sagacity of the Indians
as to the consequences of white men settling on their hunting grounds;
so contrary to their melancholy experience for a century and a half
previous; yet, the narrative is unimpeachable. On the part of Bullitt,
too, the admission of _no compensation_ to the Delawares and Shawanees,
appears to be irreconcilable with the treaty at Fort Stanwix with the
master tribes of the confederacy, the Six Nations. However, this may be,
the parties separated in perfect harmony, and Captain Bullitt proceeded
to the Falls. Here he pitched his camp above the mouth of Bear-grass
creek, retiring of a night to the upper point of the shoal above _Corn
Island_, opposite to the present city of Louisville. It was this
gentleman, who, according to the testimony of Jacob Sodowsky, a
respectable farmer, late of Jessamine county, in this State, first laid
off the town of Louisville, in August, 1773. He likewise surveyed
Bullitt's Lick in the adjoining county, of the same name.