Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 2.djvu/371

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VIRGIXIA BIOGRAPHY

continued active in ministerial work. In 1800 he was placed in charge of the churches at Salem and Sugar Ridge,. Clark county, remaining several years, and established a school. In ^lay. 1807, he established an academy in Paris. Kentucky, which he con- ducted, at the same time preaching at Cane Ridge and Concord. About 1810 he with- drew from the academy and from the two churches, but soon afterward resumed preaching near Cynthia, Harrison county. Not long afterward he retired from pastoral work and devoted himself entirely to mis- sionarj* labor. During the religious excite- ment that began in the southwest in 1800, accompanied by violent physical manifesta- tions, he did all in his power to restrain the extravagances of the revival. He died in Paris, Kentucky, July 22, 1825.

Knox, James, lived in western Virginia, and in 1769, led a party ot forty-two men from southwest Virginia and Xorth Caro- lina to Reedy creek, and crossed through Cumberland gap westward to hunt and trap. Fach man had one or more horses, with s^rms and camp equipage. Fording the south fork of the Cumberland river, they came to what is now known as Price's meadow, six miles from Monticello, W ayne county, Kentucky, and there made a camp. They hunted during the year over the Upper Green and Barren rivers country, and found much open prairie covered with high grass. In October, 1769. with nine men, he sought fresher hunting grounds northward, and met a band of friendly Cherokee Indians, whose leader. Captain Dick, directed them to the blue grass region, south of the Ken- tucky river. Following this direction, they came to a stream in a region abundant with

game, and gave it the name of Dicks river, which it bears to this day. They were on the borders of the country that was ranged over by Daniel Boone and his com- panions during the same two years, neither party, knowing of the other's proximity. In 1774 Knox led his men one hundred miles farther west, and built a camp and fur sta- tion nine miles east of Greensburg, on Green river, where they killed many thousands of bears, panthers, otters, beavers, deer, and other game. After over three years' ab- sence, most of the party returned home, and v.ere known for long afterwards as the "long hunters," from their prolonged absence. Drake's pond and lick, Bledsoe's lick, and Manseo's lick, were discovered and marked on this expedition, each being named after its finder. Knox returned to Kentucky in 1775, and for years afterward figured promi- nently in the civil and military events of the state. From 1795 ^^ 1800 he was state sen- ator for Lincoln county.

Kemper, Reuben, born in Fauquier coun- ty. Virginia, in 1770, emigrated to Ohio in 1800 with his father, who was a Baptist preacher. He and his two brothers went later to the Mississippi territory, engaged in land surveying, and were leaders in the movement to rid western Florida of Spanish rule. In 1808 they organized an expedition to Baton Rouge, from the adjacent counties o^ Mississippi, and were captured by the Spaniards. They were rescued by the United States troops at Pointe Coupe, and afterwards severely punished the Spaniards v.ho had been engaged in their capture. Kemper was engaged in an unsuccessful at- tempt to capture Mobile: was one of the organizers of the expedition of Gutierrez

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