October, 1768, with the Six Nations and their confederates, and those of Hard Labor and Lochaber, made with the Cherokees, afforded a pretext under which the settlements were advanced. It was now falsely claimed that the Indian title was extinguished east and south of the Ohio, to an indefinite extent, and the spirit of emigration and speculation in land greatly increased. Among the land companies formed at this time was the "Mississippi Company," of which George Washington was an active member.

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Up to this period very little was known by the English of the country south of the Ohio. In 1754, James M. Bride, with some others, had passed down the Ohio in canoes; and landing at the mouth of the Kentucky River, marked the initials of their names, and the date on the barks of trees. On their return, they were the first to give a particular account of the beauty and richness of the country to the inhabitants of the British settlements. No farther notice seems to have been taken of Kentucky until the year 1767, when John Finlay, an Indian trader, with others, passed through a part of the rich lands of Kentucky-then called by the Indians the Dark and Bloody Ground." Finlay, returning to North Carolina, fired the curiosity of his neighbors by the reports of the discoveries he had made. In consequence of this information, Col. Daniel Boone, in company with Finlay, Stewart, Holden, Monay, and Cool, set out from their residence on the Zadkin, in North Carolina, May 1st, 1769; and after a long and fatiguing march, over a mountainous and pathless wilderness, arrived on the Red River. Here, from the top of an eminence, Boone and his companions first beheld a distant view of the beautiful lands of Kentucky. The plains and forests abounded with wild beasts of every kind; deer and elk were common; the buffalo were seen in herds, and the plains covered with the richest verdure. The glowing descriptions of these adventurers inflamed the imaginations of the borderers, and their own sterile mountains beyond lost their charms, when compared to the fertile plains of this newly-discovered Paradise in the West.

In 1770, Ebenezer Silas and Jonathan Zane settled Wheeling. In 1771, such was the rush of emigration to Western Pennsylvania and Western Virginia, in the region of the Upper Ohio, that every kind of breadstuff became so scarce, that, for several months, a great part of the population were obliged to subsist entirely on meats, roots, vegetables, and milk, to the entire exclusion of all breadstuffs; and hence that period was long after known as "the starving year.' Settlers, enticed by the beauty of the Cherokee country, emigrated to East Tennessee, and hundreds of families also, moved farther south to the mild climate of West Florida, which at this period extended to the Mississippi. In the summer of 1773, Frankfort and Louisville, Kentucky, were laid out. The next year was signalized by "Dunmore's war," which temporarily checked the settlements.

In the summer of 1774, several other parties of surveyors and

HISTORICAL SKETCH

OF THE

Ꮃ Ꭼ Ꮪ Ꭲ .

TWENTY years after the great event occurred, which has immortalized the name of Christopher Columbus, Florida was discovered by Juan Ponce de Leon, ex-governor of Porto Rico. Sailing from that island in March, 1512, he discovered an unknown country, which he named Florida, from the abundance of its flowers, the trees being covered with blossoms, and its first being seen on Easter Sunday, a day called by the Spaniards Pascua Florida; the name imports the country of flowers. Other explorers soon visited the same coast. In May, 1539, Ferdinand de Soto, the Governor of Cuba, landed at Tampa Bay, with six hundred followers. He marched into the interior; and on the 1st of May, 1541, discovered the Mississippi; being the first European who had ever beheld that mighty river.

Spain for many years claimed the whole of the country-bounded by the Atlantic to the Gulf of St. Lawrence on the north, all of which bore the name of Florida. About twenty years after the discovery of the Mississippi, some Catholic missionaries attempted to form settlements at St. Augustine, and its vicinity; and a few years later a colony of French Calvinists had been established on the St. Mary's, near the coast. In 1565, this settlement was annibilated by an expedition from Spain, under Pedro Melendez de Aviles; and about nine hundred French, men, women and children, cruelly massacred. The bodies of many of the slain were hung. from trees, with the inscription, "Not as Frenchmen, but as heretics." Having accomplished his bloody errand, Melendez founded St. Augustine, the oldest town by half a century of any now in the Union. Four years after, Dominic de Gourges, burning to avenge his countrymen, fitted out an expedition at his own expense, and surprised the Spanish colonists on the St. Mary's; destroying the ports, burning the houses, and ravaging the settlements with fire and sword; finishing the work by also suspending some of the corpses of his enemies from trees, with the inscription,

16

"Not as Spaniards, but as murderers." Unable to hold possession of the country, de Gourges retired to his fleet. Florida, excepting for a few years, remained under the Spanish crown, suffering much in its early history, from the vicissitudes of war and piratical incursions, until 1819, when, vastly diminished from its original boundaries, it was ceded to the United States, and in 1845 became a State.

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In 1535, James Cartier, a distinguished French mariner, sailed with an exploring expedition up the St. Lawrence, and taking possession of the country in the name of his king, called it New France." In 1608, the energetic Champlain created a nucleus for the settlement of Canada, by founding Quebec. This was the same year with the settlement of Jamestown, Virginia, and twelve years previous to that on which the Puritans first stepped upon the rocks of Plymouth.

To strengthen the establishment of French dominion, the genius of Champlain saw that it was essential to establish missions among the Indians. Up to this period "the far west" had been untrod by the foot of the white man. In 1616, a French Franciscan, named Le Caron, passed through the Iroquois and Wyandot nations to streans running into Lake Huron; and in 1634, two Jesuits founded the first mission in that region. But just a century elapsed from the discovery of the Mississippi, ere the first Canadian envoys met the savage nations of the northwest at the falls of St. Mary's, below the outlet of Lake Superior. It was not until 1659 that any of the adventurous fur-traders wintered on the shores of this vast lake, nor until 1660 that Rene Mesnard founded the first missionary station upon its rocky and inhospitable coast. Perishing soon after in the forest, it was left to Father Claude Allouez, five years subsequent, to build the first permanent habitation of white men among the Northwestern Indians. In 1668, the mission was founded at the falls of St. Mary's, by Dablon and Marquette; in 1670, Nicholas Perrot, agent for the intendant of Canada, explored Lake Michigan to near its southern termination. Formal possession was taken of the northwest by the French in 1671, and Marquette established a missionary station at Point St. Ignace, on the mainland north of Mackinac, which was the first settlement in Michigan.

Until late in this century, owing to the enmity of the Indians bordering the Lakes Ontario and Erie, the adventurous missionaries, on their route west, on pain of death, were compelled to pass far to the north, through "a region horrible with forests," by the Ottawa and French Rivers of Canada.

As yet no Frenchman had advanced beyond Fox River, of Winnebago Lake, in Wisconsin; but in May, 1673, the missionary Marquette, with a few companions, left Mackinac in canoes; passed up Green Bay, entered Fox River, crossed the country to the Wisconsin, and, following its current, passed into and discovered the Mississippi; down which they sailed several hundred

miles, and returned in the Autumn. The discovery of this great river gave great joy to New France, it being "a pet idea" of that age that some of its western tributaries would afford a direct route to the South Sea, and thence to China. Monsieur La Salle, a man of indefatigable enterprise, having been several years engaged in the preparation, in 1682, explored the Mississippi to the sea, and took formal possession of the country in the name of the King of France, in honor of whom he called it Louisiana. In 1685, he also took formal possession of Texas, and founded a colony on the Colorado; but La Salle was assassinated, and the colony dispersed.

The descriptions of the beauty and magnificence of the Valley of the Mississippi, given by these explorers, led many adventurers from the cold climate of Canada to follow the same route, and commence settlements. About the year 1680, Kaskaskia and Cahokia, the oldest towns in the Mississippi Valley, were founded. Kaskaskia became the capital of the Illinois country, and in 1721, a Jesuit college and monastery were founded there.

A peace with the Iroquois, Hurons and Ottawas, in 1700, gave the French facilities for settling the western part of Canada. In June, 1701, De la Motte Cadillac, with a Jesuit missionary and a hundred men, laid the foundation of Detroit. All of the extensive region south of the lakes was now claimed by the French, under the name of Canada, or New France. This excited the jealousy of the English, and the New York legislature passed a law for hanging every Popish priest that should come voluntarily into the province. The French, chiefly through the mild and conciliating course of their missionaries, had gained so much influence over the western Indians, that, when a war broke out with England, in 1711, the most powerful of the tribes became their allies; and the latter unsuccessfully attempted to restrict their claims to the country south of the lakes. The Fox nation, allies of the English, in 1713, made an attack upon Detroit; but were defeated by the French and their Indian allies. The treaty of Utrecht, this year, ended this war.

By the year 1720, a profitable trade had arisen in furs and agricultural products-between the French of Louisiana and those of Illinois; and settlements had been made on the Mississippi, below the junction of the Illinois. To confine the English to the Atlantic coast, the French adopted the plan of forming a line of military posts, to extend from the great northern lakes to the Mexican Gulf, and as one of the links of the chain, Fort Chartres was built on the Mississippi, near Kaskaskia; and in its vicinity soon flourished the villages of Cahokia and Prairie du Rocher.

The Ohio at this time was but little known to the French, and on their early maps was but an insignificant stream. Early in this century their missionaries had penetrated to the sources of the Alleghany. In 1721, Joncaire, à French agent and trader, established himself among the Senecas at Lewistown, and Fort Niagara was erected, near the falls, five years subsequent. In 1735, accord