and impatient of restraint, they struck boldly into the wilderness, and western-like, to use a western phrase, set up for themselves.  The reports of their return, and of their successful enterprise, stimulated other adventurers to a similar undertaking.  ’As early as 1748 Doctor Thomas Walker, of Virginia, in company with Colonels Wood, Patton and Buchanan, and Captain Charles Campbell, and a number of hunters, made an exploring tour upon the western waters.  Passing Powel’s valley, he gave the name of ‘Cumberland’ to the lofty range of mountains on the west.  Tracing this range in a south-western direction, he came to a remarkable depression in the chain:  through this he passed, calling it ’Cumberland Gap.’  On the western side of the range he found a beautiful mountain stream, which he named ‘Cumberland River,’ all in honor of the Duke of Cumberland, then prime minister of England.[11] These names have ever since been retained, and, with Loudon, are believed to be the only names in Tennessee of English origin.”

“Although Fort Loudon was erected as early as 1756, upon the Tennessee, yet it was in advance of any white settlements nearly one hundred and fifty miles, and was destroyed in 1760.  The fort, too, at Long Island, within the boundaries of the present State of Tennessee, were erected in 1758, but no permanent settlements had yet been formed near it.  Still occasional settlers had begun to fix their habitations in the south-western section of Virginia, and as early as 1754, six families were residing west of New River.  ’On the breaking out of the French war, the Indians, in alliance with the French, made an irruption into these settlements, and massacred Burke and his family.  The other families, finding their situation too perilous to be maintained, returned to the eastern side of New River; and the renewal of the attempt to carry the white settlements further west, was not made until after the close of that war.’"[12]

[Sidenote:  1756]

“Under a mistaken impression that the Virginia line, when extended west, would embrace it, a grant of land was this year made, by the authorities of Virginia, to Edmund Pendleton, for three thousand acres of land, lying in Augusta County, on a branch of the middle fork of the Indian river called West Creek,[13] now Sullivan County, Tennessee.”

[Sidenote:  1760]

In this year, Doctor Walker again passed over Clinch and Powell’s
River, on a tour of exploration into what is now Kentucky.

[Sidenote:  1761]

’The Cherokees were now at peace with the whites, and hunters from the back settlements began with safety to penetrate deeper and further into the wilderness of Tennessee.  Several of them, chiefly from Virginia, hearing of the abundance of game with which the woods were stocked, and allured by the prospects of gain, which might be drawn from this source, formed themselves into a company, composed of Wallen, Scaggs, Blevins,