As it is not our purpose, in the present instance, to enter into a history of the country, further than is necessary to the development of our story, the reader will pardon us for omitting that account of its early settlement which can readily be gleaned from numerous works already familiar to the reading public. It may not be amiss, however, to remark here, what almost every reader knows, that first and foremost in the dangerous struggles of pioneer life, was the celebrated Daniel Boone; whose name, in the west, and particularly in Kentucky, is a household word; and whose fame, as a fearless hunter, has extended not only throughout this continent, but over Europe. The birth place of this renowned individual has been accredited to several states, by as many writers; but one, more than the rest, is positive in asserting it to have been Bucks county, Pennsylvania; and the year of his birth 1732; which is sufficient for our purpose, whether strictly correct or not. At an early period of his life, all agree that he removed with his father to a very thinly settled section of North Carolina, where he spent his time in hunting--thereby supplying the family with meat and destroying the wild beasts, while his brothers assisted the father in tilling the farm--and where he afterwards, in a romantic manner, became acquainted with a settler's daughter, whom he married; and whence, in the spring of 1769, in company with five others, he set out on an expedition of danger across the mountains, to explore the western wilds; and after undergoing hardships innumerable, and losing all his companions in various ways, he at last succeeded in erecting the first log cabin, and being the first white settler within the borders of Kentucky. To follow up, even from this time, a detail of his trials, adventures, captures by the Indians, and hair-breadth escapes, to the close of his eventful career, would be sufficient to fill a volume; therefore we shall drop him for the time--merely remarking, by the way, that he will be found to figure occasionally in the following pages.