The settlement of white men in that part of North Carolina which lay west of the Alleghanies had begun a year or two after Jackson's birth. At first the hardy pioneers found lodgment on the Watauga, Holston, Nolichucky, and other streams to the east of modern Knoxville. But in 1779 a colony was planted by James Robertson and John Donelson on the banks of the Cumberland, two hundred miles farther west, and in a brief time the remoter settlement, known as Nashville, became a Mecca for homeseeking Carolinians and Virginians. The intervening hill and forest country abounded in hostile Indians. The settler or trader who undertook to traverse this region took his life in his hands, and the settlements themselves were subject to perennial attack. In 1788, after the collapse of an attempt of the people of the "Western District" to set up an independent State by the name of Franklin, the North Carolina Assembly erected the three counties included in the Cumberland settlement into a superior court district; and the person selected for judge was a close friend of Jackson, John McNairy, who also had been a law pupil of Spruce Macay in Salisbury. McNairy had been in the Tennessee region two years, but at the time of receiving his judicial appointment he was visiting friends in the Carolinas. His description of the opportunities awaiting ambitious young men in the back country influenced a half-dozen acquaintances, lawyers and others, to make the return trip with him; and among the number was Jackson. Some went to assume posts which were at McNairy's disposal, but Jackson went only to see the country. Assembling at Morganton, on the east side of the mountains, in the fall of 1788, the party proceeded leisurely to Jonesboro, which, although as yet only a village of fifty or sixty log houses, was the metropolis of the eastern Tennessee settlements. There the party was obliged to wait for a sufficient band of immigrants to assemble before they could be led by an armed guard with some degree of safety through the dangerous middle country. As a highway had just been opened between Jonesboro and Nashville, the travelers were able to cover the distance in fifteen days. Jackson rode a fine stallion, while a pack mare carried his worldly effects, consisting of spare clothes, blankets, half a dozen law books, and small quantities of ammunition, tea, tobacco, liquor, and salt. For defense he bore a rifle and three pistols; and in his pocket he carried one hundred and eighty dollars of the much valued hard money. On the second day of November the emigrant train made its appearance in Nashville bringing news of much interest--in particular, that the Federal Constitution had been ratified by the ninth State, and that the various legislatures were preparing to choose electors, who would undoubtedly make George Washington the first President of the Republic.