In a message dated 4/26/99 7:44:10 PM Central Daylight Time, Wdd72@aol.com writes: << I'm looking for clues as to my Benjamin Drake and his (I assume as this time) brothers who were part of the earliest groups to Ft. Nashborough area. I dont' know "from whence they came" at this time. >> Was Joseph Drake one of yours? The following quote is from History of Davidson County, Tennessee, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Its Prominent Men and Pioneers, by Prof. W. W. Clayton, J. W. Lewis & Co., Philadelphia, 1880, p. 15. "The company consisted of more than twenty men, some of them from North Carolina, others from the neighborhood of the Natural Bridge, and others from the infant settlement near Inglis' Ferry in Virginia. The names of some of them follow: John Rains, Kasper Mansker, Abraham Bledsoe, John Baker, Joseph Drake, Obadiah Terrill, Uriah Stone, Henry Smith, Ned Cowan, Robert Crockett. The place of rendezvous was eight miles below Fort Chissel on New River." The full text of "The Longhunters" as it appears in Clayton's History can be found on the web site for Metro Archives: http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Plains/3661/ There is a Longhunters mail list on rootsweb. You may find something on the Drake's by searching the archives: http://www.rootsweb.com/~maillist/ Debie Cox Nashville