purpose of locating lands and attending to business for the government, with the Indians. In his journal of 1770, he says:

October 15th-"Went to view some land, which Captain Crawford had taken up for me near the Youghiogany, distant about twelve miles. This tract, which contains about one thousand six hundred acres, includes some as fine land as ever I saw, and a great deal of rich meadow. It is well watered, and has a valuable mill-seat, except that the stream is rather too slight, and, it is said, not constant more than seven or eight months in the year; but on account of the fall, and other conveniences, no place can exceed it. In going to this land, I passed through two other tracts, which Captain Crawford had taken up for my brothers, Samuel and John. I intented to have visited the land, which Crawford had procured for Lund Washington, this day also, but time falling short, I was obliged to postpone it. Night came on before I got back to Crawford's, where I found Colonel Stephen. The lands which I passed over to-day, were generally hilly, and the growth chiefly white-oak, but very good notwithstanding; and what is extraordinary, and contrary to the property of all other lands I ever saw before, the hills are the richest land; the soil upon the sides and summits of them being as black as a coal, and the growth walnut and cherry. The flats are not so rich, and a good deal more mixed with stone."

About the time Colonel Crawford settled, as above, Henry Beeson, from the same county in Virginia, laid out Uniontown, the shiretown of Fayette county.

This marks an era of a spirit of enterprise and emigration:

1767-Kentucky was visited by John Finley, and a few wandering white men from North Carolina.

1769-Daniel Boone, and some of the first adventurers that had accompanied Finley, visited Kentucky; they traversed it more generally. 1770-Colonel James Knox, and nine of a party, reached Kentucky; and from their long absence from home, were called "THE LONG HUNTERS."

1773-Several surveyors were deputed to lay out bounty lands on of Ohio river; they came down from Fort Pitt, to the rapids or falls of the Ohio; thence explored the adjacent lands on the Kentucky side of the river.

About the same time Gen. Thompson, of Pa., also descended the Ohio, to the mouth of Cabin creek, thence made extensive surveys in the North Fork of Licking creek.

1774-Other surveyors were sent to Ohio on like business; landed at

the rapids; exploring and surveying on both sides of the Kentucky river. A considerable number of emigrants from Maryland, soon after 1767, settled on the Youghiogany, Monongahela and its several tributaries; and in the year (1770-'71,) many of the Scotch Irish from Bedford and York counties, from the Kittanning valley, from Virginia, and some directly from Ireland, commenced settlements in Washington county; these settlements soon extended from the Monongahela to the Ohio river. The settlements in Western Pennsylvania and Virginia, began now to attract notice. "The forts at Redstone, now Brownsville, and at Wheeling, were amongst the first and most conspicuous; the route the settlers pursued, was the scarce practicable path called "Braddock's Trail," which they traveled, with no better means of conveyance for their furniture and provisions, than that afforded for pack horses."

"The great object of most of these persons, was to obtain possession of the lands; the title to which, cost little more than the payment of office fees. The Indian title was not then considered, by individuals, as presenting any obstacle; and Virginia (whose charter it was supposed then embraced this region of country,) confined the titles of settlers, with no other restrictions, than such as were necessary to prevent the confusion of interfering claims.

"At an early period, that state appointed three commissioners to give certificates of settlement rights, which were sent with the Surveyor's plot to the land office, where they remained six months, to await the interposition of caveats, by other claimants, to the same land. If none were offered within that period, the patents were issued.

"There was an inferior kind of title invented by those rude borderers, called a "tomahawk-right," which was made by deadening a few trees near a spring, and marking others, by cutting in the bark by the person who thus took possession. This ceremony confered no legal property, but was respected by the settlers, as establishing a priority of claim, with which it was discreditable to interfere. These rights were, therefore, often bought and sold, because, those who wished to secure favorite tracts of land, chose to buy the tomahawk improvements, rather than quarrel with those who had made them." (1)

"The proprietory of Pennsylvania having, in the year 1768, purchased the country from the Indians, as far west as the Allegheny and Ohio rivers, opened an office for the sale of those lands. When the office was opened, he made proclamation, and restricted his surveyors to respect the lands of actual settlers, who had improved to the value of five

pounds, and not to survey them on warrants (or locations) of a date posterior to the settlements, except to those by whom the settlements were made.

"Favored by this indulgence, which, however, was usual in both provinces, few of those who lived adjacent to the Monongahela, and had already occupied the lands, applied to the office for locations or warrants. They were not certain to which province the soil belonged, and probably, had a secret wish that it should belong to Virginia; because, in that case, it would cost them but about one-fourteenth part of the price for which lands was sold in Pennsylvania, and were easily believed, according to their wishes.

"In or about the year 1774, Governor Lord Dunmore opened several offices for the sale of lands within the bounds of what are now called the four western counties of Pennsylvania, (Fayette, Washington, Allegheny and Greene.) The warrants were granted, on paying two shillings and six pence fees. The purchase money was trifling, being only ten shillings per hundred acres, and even that was not demanded. This was an effectual inducement to apply to Dunmore's agents, in preference to the Pennsylvania land office; the land being the property of the King, was at the disposal of the Governor, who also procured a court of Virginia to be extended to the Ohio, and in a short time, two country courts were held south of the Monongahela, and one north of it at Red Stone, old fort, (Brownsville,) all of them within the territory since ascertained to belong to Pennsylvania. (1)

This course was afterwards changed-"the State of Virginia recognized by a municipal regulation of May 3d, 1779, actual settlers," who had made a crop of corn, or resided on lands for one year before January 1st, 1778, as freeholders of that commonwealth, and entitled to farms, not exceeding 400 acres. (2)

Here

While these settlements were being made, one was commenced on a missionary station formed by the Moravians, in 1769, at a place called LAWUNAKHANNEK, a considerable distance north of Fort Pitt. they met with many hardships, says Loskiel, "As to their maintenance, the inhabitants of Lawunkhannek met with great difficulties in the beginning. The harvest in their new plantations was not yet gathered; their old stock of Indian corn was spoiled and half rotten, which however they ate with thanks. When that was consumed, they could buy no more throughout the whole country. The brethren Zeisberger and (1) Findlay's Hist. of the Insurrection. p. 19.

Senseman, therefore, with some Indian brethren, travelled to Pittsburg in July, and were fortunate enough to procure a further supply."

The following year they abandoned this station, and settled in what is now Beaver county. "Being ready on the 17th April, 1770, they set out in sixteen canoes, passed down the Allegheny river to Pittsburg, thence down the Ohio to Big Beaver, thence up the said river for about twenty miles from the mouth, where they halted and commenced making a settlement, calling the place LANGUNDOWI-OTEEY, (or as written by Crantz, Languntennenk,) i. e. Peace village. They had met with no difficulty on the voyage, except a delay of two days at the falls of Beaver, where they had to drag their canoes, and carry their baggage a mile over land, but were met by GLIKHICAN, (a distinguished Indian,) with persons to help them."

Here they remained till 1773. The neighboring Indians having become very troublesome to the christian Indians, or Big Beavers, and when drunk, having come on purpose to murder the missionary Rothe, it became the wish of the inhabitants of the place to leave this settlement entirely, and join their congregations on the Muskingum; accordingly, on the 13th of April, 1773, this handsome village was evacuated.

In the year 1774, the peace of the province, and especially that of the western settlements, was disturbed by alarms of Indian hostility, and a vexatious contest with the Governor of Virginia, in relation to the western boundary. Both of these are said to have originated in the malicious and heartless policy of Lord Dunmore, who, in order to distract the attention of the large and wealthy provinces of Pennsylvania and Virginia, and turn them from the designs of the present State, resolved to involve them in war with the savages, and create doubts and disunion, which should disable the whites from resisting the inroads of their cruel enemy.

In 1788 settlements were made on the Ohio, at Muskingum and Marietta. In 1789 a settlement was commenced at Belpre twenty-five miles below Marietta, and Judge Symms and others settled near the present site of Cincinnati. After 1795, the emigration to Ohio became immense. After the treaty of Paris, in 1763, by which England acquired the Canadas and the valley of the Mississippi-excepting Louisiana-a few adventurers began to pass beyond the mountains, and this emigration westward continued during the war of the revolution. But on the conclusion of peace, in 1783, there may have been twenty-five thousand Anglo-Americans in western Pennsylvania, western Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee; there was still little security for American settlers in

the west, from the close of the revolution till 1794. Those who ventured beyond the Ohio prior to 1795, suffered greatly from the Indians. Two armies, of which a detailed account is given in the sequel, sent out against them, in the western part of Ohio, under Gen. Harmar and Gen. St. Clair-the former in 1790, the latter in 1791-were both defeated, and shockingly cut to pieces; and not until Gen. Anthony Wayne gave them a dreadful overthrow, on the river Miami-of-the-Lake, which flows into Lake Erie, was there any thing like security or permanent peace established.

In 1794 the western insurrection was the cause of many settling at Pittsburg and westward.

In 1796 Greene county was settled. It was originally peopled by emigrants from Maryland, whilst yet possessed by the tawny sons of the forest; but the efforts of the intruders to establish permanent homes were wavering, and were repeatedly defeated by the natives, previous to the arrival of the Crawfords, the Minors, the Swans, the Corbleys, and other "unawed spirits," and dauntless pioneers. During the first seven years, the first settlers were often assailed in person and property by the Indians.

From 1796 to 1800, Armstrong, Beaver and Butler counties were settled. The first settlers here were principally emigrants from Westmoreland, Washington, Fayette and Allegheny, generally of Irish and German descent; and by a few native Scotch, Germans and Irish.

In 1796-7 a number of Scotch families from the Isle of Lewis, in the northern part of Scotland, settled in Conequenessing township.About the year 1800, Delman Basse Mueller, a native of Germany, purchased an extensive tract in Nicholson's district of depreciation land, partly in Butler and in Beaver. In 1803, he sold a portion of this land to George Rapp, who, attended by a large number of Germans, settled here and founded the town of Harmony.

In Butler county, it is said, the first settlers had many difficulties and privations to encounter, before they could render the riches of their lands available, among which the scarcity of food and the means to produce it, were not the least. The provisions of the act of 1792, gave occasion for much misunderstanding between the land speculators and the actual settlers, and induced a course of litigation which was ruinous to the latter, compelling many to abandon the cherished labor of their lives, and the homes of their hearts, and to seek new and safer asylums, in which a comfortable subsistence could be obtained only by a repetition of their early labors. Those who remained, compounded with the land