amsburg
after landing in Virginia. There he met a weaver, Salling, who told him
some of the wildest stories he had ever heard.

The weaver had known a peddler, named Marlin, who took his pack far into
the land beyond the mountains and traded his pewter ware, beads,
compasses and other small articles to the Indians for furs. He told
Salling such marvelous stories of the Indians and country that the
weaver asked to let him go on one of his trips with him. This he did,
and the weaver had plenty of adventures before he finally got back to
Williamsburg.

The two men reached the Valley and were far beyond the Blue Ridge
Mountains when the Cherokee Indians, thinking they were spies, took them
prisoners. Marlin had the good fortune to get away, but Salling was
carried farther across another mountain range into what is now Kentucky,
where the Indians went to hunt buffalo. Here the Cherokees were attacked
by their enemies from Illinois. Salling was again captured and carried
off to the southwest. He was adopted by an old Indian squaw as her son
and for some time he lived with her. At last a Spaniard bought him and
took him as an interpreter to Canada. There he met the French Governor
who sent him to New York and after six years, he at last reached
Williamsburg.

You would think Salling after this would have settled down and become a
weaver again. But life was too tame. When Lewis asked him about the
lands in the Valley, Salling decided to take him and the Englishman,
John Mackay, who also wanted to go. Lewis found the country all that
Salling had promised him and he decided to settle on a creek which bears
his name today.

He obtained authority to 100,000 acres of land in and near the ground on
which he built his fort-like house. Before very long, many of his
friends and neighbors from Ireland were on their way to Virginia to join
him. Many of them settled in Western Augusta near Fort Lewis. One can
imagine how happy it made John Lewis to be told that the authorities,
upon investigation, had granted him a pardon and absolved him from all
blame in the killing of his landlord before he left Ireland. These
Scotch-Irish, like their German neighbors, did not have very much
trouble from the Indians for several years.

Thomas, a son of John Lewis, studied and went to represent his county in
the House of Burgesses. He was a man of sound judgment and voted for
Patrick Henry's celebrated resolutions.

Andrew, another son, was a sol