There were no mills, no stores, no regular supplies of clothing, salt,
sugar, and the luxuries of tea and coffee. But all these dangers and
difficulties notwithstanding, under the influence of an inexplicable
propensity, families in the old settlements used to comfort and
abundance, were constantly arriving to encounter all these dangers and
privations. They began to spread over the extensive and fertile country
in every direction--presenting such numerous and dispersed marks to
Indian hostility, red men became perplexed, amidst so many conflicting
temptations to vengeance, which to select.
The year 1776 was memorable in the annals of Kentucky, as that in which
General George Rogers Clark first visited it, unconscious, it may be, of
the imperishable honors which the western country would one day reserve
for him. This same year Captain Wagin arrived in the country, and
_fixed_ in a solitary cabin on Hinkston's Fork of the Licking.
In the autumn of this year, most of the recent immigrants to Kentucky
returned to the old settlements, principally in Virginia. They carried
with them strong representations, touching the fertility and advantages
of their new residence; and communicated the impulse of their hopes and
fears extensively among their fellow-citizens by sympathy.
The importance of the new settlement was already deemed to be such, that
on the meeting of the legislature of Virginia, the governor recommended
that the south-western part of the county of Fincastle--so this vast
tract of country west of the Alleghanies had hitherto been
considered--should be erected into a separate county by the name of
Kentucky.
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