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 CHAPTER II

HE first real explorations of the great territory secured by Virginia at the Treaty of Fort Stanwix were made by Dr. Thomas Walker, who later so skilfully managed Virginia's part of that treaty, and Christopher Gist, in the early years of the second half of the eighteenth century, 1750 and 1751.

The brief journals written by these men are the sources of our first information concerning the vast territory west of the Appalachian mountain system—the eastern half of the Mississippi basin south of the Ohio River. They are meager records of hard day's pilgrimages, an outline of the routes pursued, and a description of the lands which were traversed. Both were