Previous to this date, the well known abundance of game in Tennessee led many hunters to make incursions into the territory. They sometimes formed large companies, uniting for the prospect of gain and greater protection against the ever-present danger from Indians. It is mentioned by good authority, that among the parties thus venturing over the Carolina border into the wilderness, was one at the head of which was "Daniel Boone from the Yadkin, in North Carolina, who traveled with them as low as the place where Abingdon now stands, and there left them." Some years ago the following description could be deciphered upon an old beech-tree standing between Jonesboro and Blountsville: D. BOON CILLED A. BAR ON IN THE TREE YEAR 1760. This inscription is generally considered as proof that Boone made hunting excursions to that region at that early date, though the evidence can hardly be accepted as positive on the point. It was scarcely a year after the date named, however, that Boone, who was still living on the Yadkin, entered the same section of the country, having been sent thither by Henderson & Company for the purposes of exploration. He was accompanied by Samuel Callaway, a relative, and the ancestor of many of the Callaways of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missouri. The latter was at the side of Boone when, approaching a spur of the Cumberland mountains, upon whose slopes they saw multitudes of bisons grazing, the great pioneer paused, and surveying the scene for a moment, exclaimed, with kindling eyes: "I am richer than He who owned the cattle on a thousand hills, for I own the wild beasts of a thousand valleys." The sight was indeed one which might have stirred the heart of a hunter who could grasp the possibilities of the future of those favored regions. Daniel Boone may be considered as having undergone a preliminary training from his earliest boyhood for the work which has identified his name indissolubly with the history of Kentucky. He was what may be called a born pioneer, but there were causes at work in North Carolina which led to his departure for the Kentucky wilderness, of which the general reader is apt to lose sight in studying his character. The approach of the American Revolution in the former State, as in many others, was marked by social disturbances frequently amounting to anarchy. There were many Scotch traders, who had accumulated considerable wealth without having gone through the labor and perils which the natives underwent in providing for their families. These foreigners adopted an expensive and showy style of living, altogether out of keeping with the severe simplicity that marked that of the colonists. Nothing was more natural than that this assumption of superiority in the way of social position should roil and excite resentment among those less favored by fortune.