n conduct will eventually be distinguished,
by bloody and vindictive deeds.

Such was really the situation of those who made the first establishments
in North Western Virginia. And when it is considered, that they were,
mostly, men from the humble walks of life; comparatively illiterate and
unrefined; without civil or religious institutions, and with a love of
liberty, bordering on its extreme; their more enlightened descendants can
not but feel surprise, that their dereliction from propriety had not been
greater; their virtue less.

The objects, for the attainment of which they voluntarily placed
themselves in this situation, and tempted the dangers inseparable
from a residence in the contiguity of Indians, jealous of territorial
encroachment, were almost as various as their individual character.
Generally speaking, they were men in indigent circumstances, unable
to purchase land in the neigborhoods from which they came, and
unwilling longer to remain the tenants of others. These were induced
to [100] emigrate, with the laudable ambition of acquiring homes,
from which they would not be liable to expulsion, at the whim and
caprice of some haughty lordling. Upon the attainment of this object,
they were generally content; and made but feeble exertions to
acquire more land, than that to which they obtained title, by virtue
of their settlements. Some few, however, availed themselves of the
right of pre-emption, and becoming possessed of the more desirable
portions of the country, added considerably to their individual
wealth.

Those who settled on the Ohio, were of a more enterprising and
ambitious spirit, and looked more to the advancement of their
condition in a pecuniary point of view. The fertile bottoms of
that river, and the facility with which, by means of it, their
surplus produce might be transported to a ready market,[12] were
considerations which influenced many. Others, again, looking
forward to the time when the Indians would be divested of the
country north west of the Ohio river, and it be open to location
in the same manner its south eastern shores were, selected this as
a situation, from which they might more readily obtain possession
of the fertile land, with which its ample plains were known to
abound. In anticipation of this period, there were some who
embraced every opportunity, afforded by intervals of peace with
the Indians, to explore that country and select in it what they
deemed, its most valu