Many of you are familiar with the tale of Meshack Inman's death in 1767 on what would have been called a "long hunt." The version told in the Missouri Historical Society publication c. 1902/4 (?) first claimed he had died while on a hunt with Daniel Boone near Nick-a-Jack Cave, but the extensive descriptions of Boone's hunts (Draper, et.al.) - and particularly those on which comrades died - has never mentioned an Inman or anyone associated closely with them. You will recall that the Inman holdings in Burke Co. were near Linville R. which drew its name from the family of William Linville, a close relative by marriage of Boone. Dr. Archibald Henderson (a relative of land speculator/developer Richard Henderson of Orange Co. NC) , in his "The Conquest of the Old Southwest," includes a reference to hunters/traders killed in 1767 that might provide some clue as to when/where Meshack died, particularly if you look in the archives of Gov. William Tryon of colonial North Carolina. Henderson writes: "During the summer of 1766, while Boone's friend and close connection, Captain William Linville, his son John, and another young man, named John Williams, were in camp some ten miles below Linville Falls, they were unexpectedly fired upon by a hostile band of Northern Indians, and before they had time to fire a shot, a second volley killed both the Linvilles and severely wounded Williams, who after extraordinary sufferings finally reached the settlements." In May, 1767, four traders and a half-breed child of one of them were killed in the Cherokee country. In the summer of this year Governor William Tryon of North Carolina laid out the boundary line of the Cherokees, and upon his return issued a proclamation forbidding any purchase of land from the Indians and any issuance of grants for land within one mile of the boundary line. Despite this wise precaution, seven North Carolina hunters who during the following September had lawlessly ventured into the mountain region some sixty miles beyond the boundary were fired upon, and several of them killed." This last reference, which I had never seen before, could include Meshack Inman. The timing, however, is problemmatic: I've never seen a reference to the Inmans in early Rowan (later Burke) Co. before 1771 when Ezekiel was constable in the Linville Falls area, or four years after Meshack reportedly was killed. Long hunters, too, originated in Albemarle Co., where the Inmans lived before Burke. Randy McConnell