Note: It must be remembered that very few native Americans (Indians) lived in Southwest Va. during the time of the Indian Wars, just a few small pockets. East Tennessee (NC at the time) and Southwest Va/Ky was used by both the Cherokee and Northern Indians as hunting grounds.. Each time the British government made a new treaty with the Indians, the lines moved further west and settlers moved in.. Some brave settlers went beyond the treaty lines and staked out land claims hoping their claims would be recognized when the larger land surveys were made. Sometimes they lost their cleared land and cabins when the surveyors arrived... Some literature paints pictures of the settlers on the Holston and other western waters as horse theives and scoundrels but if you will read the court records of southwest Va., you will find that the large majority of these people were fine upstanding men who became honored statesmen in Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky.. It was from these early settlers that the men of Kings Mountain came and won a decisive battle of the Rev. War.. GLH You are absolutely correct, Lee. The vast majority of the pioneers were decent people. The first thing they built, after their homesteads, was a meeting house for a Church. There were scoundrels and outlaws, like any other place in the world, then and now, but frontier justice was swift and severe. James Patton was granted many thousands of acres by the Crown, some near Blacksburg, (Draper's Meadows) and other lands across the mountains. After the various wars, treaties were signed with the Indians and migration and settlement was forbidden. We all know how that worked out. We more or less reneged on all of them. Poor families would not be denied. They went anyway, in search of cheap lands. Some of them paid a terrible price. Many of the original patents, granted by Patton and others, were litigated in courts for a hundred years. The fledgling Republic had been so intertwined with British law and practices for so long, it took generations to settle all of the disputes. The pioneers dragged the "government" along behind them. And eventually dragged "civilization" all the way to the Pacific. The Capt. William Campbell of the 1st Virginia soon became a General and was famous at the battle of King's Mountain. He was a brother in law of Patrick Henry. Later Campbell county was named after him, posthumously, at the suggestion of Patrick Henry. I have access to many old publications and would be more than happy to look someone up. I try to stay focused on the old Brunswick/Lunenburg area. Just don't expect an immediate response. I work all the time. Edwin