John Finley; and Kentucky before Boone 239

has been preserved, has already been given. It was the first white war party to travel on the Ohio, and its full history, if we could recover it, would have more romantic interest than that of any other flotilla that has passed down the Ohio from that day to this. Among the officers who accompanied this party were Major de Lignery, Lieutenants, de Vas-san, Aubert de Gaspe, Du Vivier, de Verrier, Le Gardeur de St. Pierre, Chevalier de Villiers, de Portneuf, de Sabrevois; Father Vernet, chaplain; Cadets, Joncaire de Closonne, Le Gai de Joncaire, Drouet de Richarville the younger, Chaussegros de Lery the younger, de Gannes, Chev. Benoist, de Morville, de Selles, and seventeen others. The rank and file consisted of three sergeants, six corporals, six lance corporals, twenty-four soldiers, forty-five habitants, one hundred and eighty-six Iroquois from the Saut, fifty-one from the Lake of the Two Mountains, thirty-two Algonquins and Nipissings, fifty Abenaquis from St. Francois and Becancour; Father La Bretonnier, Jesuit, Queret, missionary.

Besides these Frenchmen, we may be sure that the Kentucky soil was trod by James LeTort, who traded near the mouth of the Kanawha many years before 1740; as well as by numerous others of the Allegheny Traders whose names appear in these pages. Unfortunately for our purpose, these Traders have left no written records behind them. The first record of an Englishman's visit to the shores of Kentucky is that of John Peter Salley, a Pennsylvania German. In company with John Howard, Josiah Howard, Charles Sinclair, and two others, Salley claimed to have started March 16, 1742, from his house in Augusta County, five miles from Cedar Creek, near the Natural Bridge, proceeding thence to the Kanawha, where they built a boat frame and covered it with the hides of five buffaloes. They used this boat for a voyage of two hundred and fifty-two miles down the river, until they were obliged to abandon it on account of the falls. Taking a southwest course by land, Salley says they travelled eighty-five miles, and then came to another small river, where they built a boat large enough to carry two men and their provisions. The balance of the party travelled by land for two days, until they came to a large river, a tributary of the Kanawha, where they enlarged their boat sufficiently to carry their entire party. They then travelled down to the Kanawha River and ninety-two miles below the mouth of this branch, where they entered the Ohio, four hundred and forty-four miles above the "Great Falls." Proceeding down the Ohio, they reached the Mississippi, and were eventually captured by a party of French and Indians, who carried them to New Orleans. Here they were thrown into prison, and kept for eighteen months. They escaped in October, 1744, and after many vicissitudes, marvellous adventures, and a perilous journey through the wilderness, they finally reached the house