The first settlements in the present state of Tennessee were made by emigrants from North Carolina, who established themselves on the Wataga, one of the head streams of the Tennessee, in the land of the Cherokees. Like the early settlers of New England, these emigrants organised themselves into a body politic, and drew up a code of laws to which every individual assented by signature. About the same time that settlers extended themselves to the Tennessee, an Indian trader, returning to North Carolina from one of his far journeys west, induced Daniel Boone and four other settlers on the Yadkin, in Maryland, by his glowing accounts of the wonderfully beautiful regions which he had discovered, to return with him for their exploration. They set out, reached the head waters of the Kentucky, and as hunters traversed the fertile plains and magnificent forests in pursuit of the buffalo and other game. They had encounters with Indians, and Boone was taken prisoner, but managed to escape, and was soon after joined by his brother, who had come out in search of him. Boone was a second Nimrod, a mighty hunter; and as such, explored the beautiful region between the Upper Kentucky and the Tennessee. The country pleased him greatly, and hastening back to the Yadkin, he sold his farm, and with his wife and children and five other families, returned to this “New Western Paradise,” being joined by volunteer settlers to the number of forty as he journeyed along. All, however, did not go smoothly with them; they were met by hostile Indians and some of their number killed; and war having broken out between the backwoodsmen of Virginia and the Indians on the Ohio, they were detained a year and a half by the way. While the west was thus opened to the colonists, Georgia also acquired a large increase of territory by the purchase of land from the Creeks and Cherokees. About this time Whitfield died in America, and Wesley sent over disciples to establish the Wesleyan Church in that country; soon after which, Mother Ann Lee also arrived, the foundress of the Shakers, whose singular communities exist to this day, here and there, throughout the country. About the same time, also, the sect of the Universalists began to attract attention, under the preaching of John Murray; and though at first few dared to avow this so-called heresy, it gained great acceptation, and tended considerably to soften the stern, rugged heart of puritan New England. We now return to the great contest which cast all minor subjects into the shade.