a flat-boat not twenty-four feet in length. [Footnote:  MS. Journals of Rev. James Smith.  Tours in western country in 1785-1795 (in Col.  Durrett’s library).] Usually several families came together, being bound by some tie of neighborhood or purpose.  Not infrequently this tie was religious, for in the back settlements the few churches were almost as much social as religious centres.  Thus this spring, a third of the congregation of a Low Dutch Reformed Church came to Kentucky bodily, to the number of fifty heads of families, with their wives and children, their beasts of burden and pasture, and their household goods; like most bands of new immigrants, they suffered greatly from the Indians, much more than did the old settlers. [Footnote:  State Department MSS.  No. 41, Vol.  V., Memorials K, L, 1777-1787, pp. 95-97, Petition of Low Dutch Reformed Church, etc.] The following year a Baptist congregation came out from Virginia, keeping up its organization even while on the road, the preacher holding services at every long halt.

    De Peyster at Detroit.

Soon after the rush of spring immigration was at its height, the old settlers and the new-comers alike were thrown into the utmost alarm by a formidable inroad of Indians, accompanied by French partisans, and led by a British officer.  De Peyster, a New York tory of old Knickerbocker family, had taken command at Detroit.  He gathered the Indians around him from far and near, until the expense of subsidizing these savages became so enormous as to call forth serious complaints from head-quarters. [Footnote:  Haldimand MSS.  Haldimand to Guy Johnson, June 30, 1780.] He constantly endeavored to equip and send out different bands, not only to retake the Illinois and Vincennes, but to dislodge Clark from the Falls [Footnote:  Do. Haldimand to De Peyster, Feb. 12 and July 6, 1780.]; he was continually receiving scalps and prisoners, and by May he had fitted out two thousand warriors to act along the Ohio and the Wabash. [Footnote:  Do. De Peyster to Haldimand, June 1, 1780.] The rapid growth of Kentucky especially excited his apprehension, [Footnote:  Do. March 8, 1780.] and his main stroke was directed against the clusters of wooden forts that were springing up south of the Ohio. [Footnote:  Do. May 17 to July 19, 1780.]

    Bird’s Inroad.

Late in May, some six hundred Indians and a few Canadians, with a couple of pieces of light field artillery, were gathered and put under the command of Captain Henry Bird.  Following the rivers where practicable, that he might the easier carry his guns, he went down the Miami, and on the 22d of June, surprised and captured without resistance Ruddle’s and Martin’s stations, two small stockades on the South Fork of the Licking. [Footnote:  He marched overland from the forks of the Licking.  Marshall says the season was dry and the waters low; but the Bradford MSS. particularly declare that Bird only went up the Licking