Though clad in homespun, and too much absorbed in things of greater moment to be over-careful of his personal appearance, he was a man of so marked a character that he would have attracted attention in almost any assemblage.  Cautious, careful of consequences, and watchful of danger, he was at the same time bold, fearless, and ever ready to undertake enterprises which would stagger men of fewer mental resources.  So exactly was he fitted to the time and the circumstances in which he was placed, that the conclusion is irresistible that he was a providential man, especially appointed to his work by a Higher Power.

This was his own conviction, but he came to it at a later time, when experience had shown that he bore a charmed life, and he had realized what his single arm and brain might accomplish.  But now, in his own eyes, as in those of others, he was a simple countryman, able to “read, write, and cipher” and to do small jobs of surveying, but with little knowledge of any book except the Bible, though in that so deeply versed that it moulded his speech and regulated his every action.  His nature was deeply religious, but he had, as yet, no higher aim in life than to make a home for himself, his wife and child in some new region, where he might acquire a competence, and rise, perhaps, to a station of some little influence and consideration.

And now, merely stating that he was born in Brunswick County, Virginia, of Scotch-Irish parentage, on the 28th of June, 1742, and that at the age of twenty-five he had married Charlotte B. Reeves, a woman nine years younger than himself, but everyway worthy to be his wife, I will go on with him and Boone in his first journey over the Alleghanies.

His equipment was a horse, a blanket, a hatchet, and a hunting-knife.  Over his shoulder were slung a long Deckard rifle, a powder-horn, and a bag of bullets; and on the horse behind him were balanced a sack well filled with parched corn, a package of salt, and a tin cup for drinking purposes.  This was his entire outfit.  On the parched corn and the game to be procured by his rifle he was to subsist on his journey.

There were half a dozen in the party, and they followed the trail hitherto taken by Boone, for there was no road, nor even a bridle-path.  After leaving the settlements their way lay through an almost unbroken forest; but there was no difficulty in keeping the trail, for it had been carefully blazed by Boone on his previous journeys.  At night they encamped under some spreading tree, and, tethering their horses among the timbers, lighted a fire with the extra flint which each one carried in his bullet-pouch.  Their mode of lighting a fire is peculiar to the backwoodsman.  A handful of dry grass or leaves is gathered, then twisted into a nest, in which is placed a piece of ignited punk; then the grass is closed over the punk, and the ball is waved, in the air till it breaks into a blaze, when it readily ignites the bundle of dry