roceeded far,
they were attacked in the rear by a party of Indians, who had been
observing their movements; and who in the first fire killed six of the
emigrants and dispersed their cattle. Nothwithstanding that, in the
engagement which ensued upon this attack, the assailants were
repulsed, yet the adventurers were so afflicted at the loss of their
friends, and dispirited by such serious and early opposition, that
they abandoned their purpose for a time, and returned to the inhabited
parts of Tennessee.[7]

The Indians elated with their success in defeating this first attempt
at the settlement of Kentucky, and supposing that the route pursued by
the party which they had driven back, would be the pass for future
adventurers, determined on guarding it closely, and checking, if
possible, every similar enterprise. But while their attention was
directed to this point, others found their way into the country by a
different route and from a different direction.

The Virginia troops, who had served in the Canadian war, had been
promised a bounty in Western lands. Many of them being anxious to
ascertain their value, and deeming this a favorable period for the
making of surveys, collected at Fort Pitt in the fall of 1773; and
descending the Ohio river to its falls, at Louisville, proceeded from
thence to explore the country preparatory to a perfection of their
grants.[8]

About the same time too, General Thompson of Pennsylvania, commenced
an extensive course of surveys, of the rich land on the North Fork of
Licking; and other individuals following his example, in the ensuing
winter the country swarmed with land adventurers and surveyors. So
sensible were they all, that these attempts to appropriate those lands
to their own use, would produce acts of hostility, that they went
prepared to resist those acts; and the first party who took up their
abode in Kentucky, no sooner selected a situation for their residence,
than they proceeded to erect a fort for their security.[9] The conduct
of the Indians soon convinced them that their apprehensions were not
ill founded; and many of them, in consequence of the hostile movements
which were being made, and the robberies which were committed,
ascended the Ohio river to Wheeling.

It is not known that any murders were done previously to this, and
subsequently to the attack and repulse of the emigrants who were led
on by Boone in 1773. This event happened on the tenth day of October;
an