of some of the rivers being well within that State; and though the province was really part of North Carolina, it was separated therefrom by high mountain chains, while from Virginia it was easy to follow the watercourses down the valley.  Thus, as elsewhere among the mountains forming the western frontier, the first movements of population went parallel with, rather than across, the ranges.  As in western Virginia the first settlers came, for the most part, from Pennsylvania, so, in turn, in what was then western North Carolina, and is now eastern Tennessee, the first settlers came mainly from Virginia, and, indeed, in great part, from this same Pennsylvanian stock.[3] Of course, in each case there was also a very considerable movement directly westward.[4] They were a sturdy race, enterprising and intelligent, fond of the strong excitement inherent in the adventurous frontier life.  Their untamed and turbulent passions, and the lawless freedom of their lives, made them a population very productive of wild, headstrong characters; yet, as a whole, they were a God-fearing race, as was but natural in those who sprang from the loins of the Irish Calvinists.  Their preachers, all Presbyterians, followed close behind the first settlers, and shared their toil and dangers; they tilled their fields rifle in hand, and fought the Indians valorously.  They felt that they were dispossessing the Canaanites, and were thus working the Lord’s will in preparing the land for a race which they believed was more truly His chosen people than was that nation which Joshua led across the Jordan.  They exhorted no less earnestly in the bare meeting-houses on Sunday, because their hands were roughened with guiding the plow and wielding the axe on week-days; for they did not believe that being called to preach the word of God absolved them from earning their living by the sweat of their brows.  The women, the wives of the settlers, were of the same iron temper.  They fearlessly fronted every danger the men did, and they worked quite as hard.  They prized the knowledge and learning they themselves had been forced to do without; and many a backwoods woman by thrift and industry, by the sale of her butter and cheese, and the calves from her cows, enabled her husband to give his sons good schooling, and perhaps to provide for some favored member of the family the opportunity to secure a really first-class education.[5]

The valley in which these splendid pioneers of our people settled, lay directly in the track of the Indian marauding parties, for the great war trail used by the Cherokees and by their northern foes ran along its whole length.  This war trail, or war trace as it was then called, was in places very distinct, although apparently never as well marked as were some of the buffalo trails.  It sent off a branch to Cumberland Gap, whence it ran directly north through Kentucky to the Ohio, being there known as the warriors’ path.  Along these trails the northern and southern Indians passed and re-passed when they went to war against each other; and of course they were ready and eager to attack any white man who might settle down along their course.