During the year about five hundred persons from the frontiers of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina had visited and explored Kentucky; but now, at the close of December, the population of all the settlements did not aggregate over two hundred. The recent outbreak had much to do with this situation of affairs; but there were other causes conspiring to disturb the minds of the people and postpone the growth of settlement--the clashing of interests between the Transylvania Company and the governors of Virginia and North Carolina, uncertainty as to the possibilities of a general Indian war, the threatened rupture between the colonies and the English crown, and the alarming scarcity of provisions and ammunition throughout Kentucky. Nevertheless, over nine hundred entries had been made in the Transylvania land-office at Boonesborough, embracing 560,000 acres, and most of these tracts were waiting to be surveyed; two hundred and thirty acres of corn had been successfully raised; horses, hogs, and poultry had been introduced, and apple- and peach-trees had been started at several settlements. The germ of a colony was firmly planted, laws had been made, the militia had been organized, civil and military officers had been commissioned, and in the face of several slight Indian attacks the savages had been repelled and the country maintained. Most promising of all, there were now twelve women in the country, all of them heads of families. The principal pioneers were nearly all of sturdy Scotch-Irish blood, men of sterling merit, intensely devoted to the cause of American liberty, and destined to contribute powerfully to its aid in the great war which had now begun, and concerning which messengers from over the mountains had during the year brought them scanty information. FOOTNOTES: [11] The names of this party of Kentucky pioneers, as preserved by tradition, are worth presenting in our record, for many of them afterward became prominent in the annals of the West: Squire Boone, Edward Bradley, James Bridges, William Bush, Samuel Coburn, Colonel Richard Calloway, Captain Crabtree, Benjamin Cutbirth, David Gass, John Hart, William Hays (son-in-law of Daniel Boone), William Hicks, Edmund Jennings, Thomas Johnson, John Kennedy, John King, William Miller, William Moore, James Nall, James Peeke, Bartlet Searcy, Reuben Searcy, Michael Stoner, Samuel Tate, Oswell Towns, Captain William Twitty (wounded at Rockcastle), John Vardeman, and Felix Walker (also wounded at Rockcastle). Mrs. Hays, Boone's daughter, traveled with her husband; a negro woman accompanied Calloway, and a negro man (killed at Rockcastle) was with Twitty. [12] It was then within the far-stretching boundaries of Fincastle County. Kentucky was set apart as a county, December 31, 1776. CHAPTER X TWO YEARS OF DARKNESS