10



and eventually effected the conquest of the magnificent
regions of the West.
  Although the territory comprehended within the lim-
its of Kentucky was embraced by thepatent of James I,
to the Virginia company, yet for more than a hundred
and fifty years after Virginia was settled, Kentucky,
abounding in every thing calculated to tempt the cupidi-
ty or the enterprise of men, was as little known to the in-
habitants east of the Alleghanies, as the terra incognita
of antiquity. We have the assurance of history, that
prior to the year 1767, no citizen of Virginia had
ventured to cross the great Laurel Ridge, which was
the apparent western boundary of that colony. An explor-
ing party, it is true, unaer the direction of Dr. Walker,
had some years before, crossed the Cumberland Moun-
tain from Powell's Valley and passed hastily along the
northeastern portion of Kentucky; but their discoveries
extended no farther than the country bordering on the
Sandy river which now separates us from Virginia, and
the party returned as ignorant of Kentucky, as if no ex-
ploration had been made. Long anterior to the year
1767, the vast regions of the northwest and south had
been successfully explored from the Lakes to the Gulf of
Mexico, under the auspices of the French and Spanish
governments, and settlements were made at various pla-
ces in the discovered countries at Vincennes, Peoria,
Cahokia, Kaskaskia, and Fort Chartres on the Missis-
sippi. Towards the middle of the sixteenth century,
Ferdinand De Soto, the celebrated discoverer of the low-
er Mississippi, visited the country between Pensacola and
North Carolina, passing through Georgia, Alabama and
Tennessee-and thus became acquainted with the south-
ern parts of the continent. In June 1673 Father Mar-
t De Soto died on the 21 May, 1542. " To conceal his death," says Bancroft, [History
U. S., 1. 57] " his body was wrapped in a mantle, and iL the stillness of midnight, was