The lofty barrier of the Alleghany Mountains was of itself sufficient to prevent the pioneers of Pennsylvania from wandering far westward. Moreover, the Indians beyond these hills were fiercer than those with whom the Quakers were familiar; their occasional raids to the eastward, through the mountain passes, won for them a reputation which did not incline the border farmers to cultivate their further acquaintance. To the southwest, however, there were few obstacles to the spread of settlement. For several hundred miles the Appalachians run in parallel ranges from northeast to southwest--from Pennsylvania, through Virginia, West Virginia, the Carolinas, and east Tennessee, until at last they degenerate into scattered foot-hills upon the Georgia plain. Through the long, deep troughs between these ranges--notably in the famous Valley of Virginia between the Blue Ridge and the Alleghanies--Pennsylvanians freely wandered into the south and southwest, whenever possessed by thirst for new and broader lands. Hostile Indians sometimes penetrated these great valleys and brought misery in their train; but the work of pioneering along this path was less arduous than had the western mountains been scaled at a time when the colonists were still few and weak. Between the years 1732 and 1750, numerous groups of Pennsylvanians--Germans and Irish largely, with many Quakers among them--had been wending their way through the mountain troughs, and gradually pushing forward the line of settlement, until now it had reached the upper waters of the Yadkin River, in the northwest corner of North Carolina. Trials abundant fell to their lot; but the soil of the valleys was unusually fertile, game was abundant, the climate mild, the country beautiful, and life in general upon the new frontier, although rough, such as to appeal to the borderers as a thing desirable. The glowing reports of each new group attracted others. Thus was the wilderness tamed by a steady stream of immigration from the older lands of the northern colonies, while not a few penetrated to this Arcadia through the passes of the Blue Ridge, from eastern Virginia and the Carolinas. Squire and Sarah Boone, of Oley, now possessed eleven children, some of whom were married and settled within this neighborhood which consisted so largely of the Boones and their relatives. The choicest lands of eastern Pennsylvania had at last been located. The outlook for the younger Boones, who soon would need new homesteads, did not appear encouraging. The fame of the Yadkin Valley, five hundred miles southwestward, had reached Oley, and thither, in the spring of 1750, the majority of the Boones, after selling their lands and surplus stock, bravely took up the line of march.[4]