Page:Historic towns of the southern states (1900).djvu/526

 Evan Shelby would have been men of mark in any community.

From this parent hive, already grown into a strong and prosperous settlement, a new colony of two hundred and more hardy riflemen and pioneers, in the fall of 1779, set out upon a far journey to the west, under the leadership of James Robertson.

Allured by the wonderful stories of the beauty and fertility of the Cumberland Valley, they determined to seek there new homes. It was an heroic venture, unsurpassed in the history of the march of western civilization. No military force blazed a way for them. High mountain ranges, deep and unknown rivers, hundreds of miles of dense forest, lay before them. The dread of the crafty savage, upon whose hunting-grounds they were encroaching, did not deter them.

Bidding farewell to their friends at Watauga they struck out upon the wilderness trail of Daniel Boone for the Far West. They passed through the gap in the Cumberland Mountains, across the headwaters of the Cumberland River, and still westward across the rivers and valleys of Central and Southern Kentucky, until, after weary weeks of marching, through