The commanding approach to this territory was by the town and fortress of Pittsburgh, the "Gateway of the West," from which, through the Ohio river and its tributary streams, an army might penetrate with comparative ease to any part of the vast Mississippi valley. The possession of this gateway had for some years been a subject of dispute between Pennsylvania and Virginia. Though the question was ultimately settled in favour of Pennsylvania, yet for the present Virginia, which had the longest arm, kept her hold upon the commanding citadel. To Virginia its possession was then a matter of peculiar importance, for her population had already begun to overflow its mountain barriers, and, pressing down the Ohio valley, had made the beginnings of the state of Kentucky. Virginia and North Carolina, lying farther westward than any of the other old states, were naturally the first to send colonies across the Alleghanies. It was not long before the beginning of the war that Daniel Boone had explored the Kentucky river, and that Virginia surveyors had gone down the Ohio as far as the present site of Louisville. Conflicts ensued with the Indians, so fierce and deadly that this region was long known as the "Dark and Bloody Ground." During this troubled period, the hostile feeling between Pennsylvania and Virginia was nourished by the conflicting interests of the people of those two colonies in respect to the western country and its wild inhabitants. The Virginians entered the country as settlers, with intent to take possession of the soil and keep the Indians at a distance; but there were many people in Pennsylvania who reaped large profits from trade with the barbarians, and therefore did not wish to see them dispossessed of their border forests and driven westward. The Virginia frontiersmen were angry with the Pennsylvania traders for selling rifles and powder to the redskins, and buying from them horses stolen from white men. This, they alleged, was practically inciting the Indians to deeds of plunder and outrage. In the spring of 1774, there seemed to be serious danger of an outbreak of hostilities at Fort Pitt, when the attention of Virginia was all at once absorbed in a brief but hard-fought war, which had a most important bearing upon the issue of the American struggle for independence. [Portrait: Daniel Boone] [Illustration: In Memory of Michael Cresap First Cap Of the Rifle Batalions And Son to Col. Thomas Cresap Who Departed this Life October the 18 1775. ] [Sidenote: Lord Dunmore's War, 1774] [Sidenote: Logan and Cresap]