Hi List: The following excerpt on the Long Hunters is on line at: <http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Plains/3661/Longhunters.html>. This website is provided by the Friends of Metropolitan Archives of Nashville and Davidson County, TN. I thought some of you might be interested in it since the Long Hunters also visited and hunted in our part of Virginia and Kentucky. More information on the Nashville area and Davidson Co. TN genealogy resources can be found at <http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Plains/3661>. Apologies to those who receive more than one copy of this. Martha "The Long Hunters" 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, Reproduced by Higginson book Company, 1996, p. 15. The following account of the "Long Hunters" with a few slight changes, is quoted from Ramsey's "Annals of Tennessee": "On the 2d of June, 1769, a large company of adventurers was formed for the purpose of hunting and exploring in what is now Middle Tennessee. As the country was discovered and settled by the enterprise and defended by the valor of these first explorers, we choose to give their names, the places from which they came, and such details of their hazardous journeyings as have been preserved. "May the time never come when the self-sacrificing toil and the daring hardihood of the pioneers of Tennessee will be forgotten or undervalued by their posterity. 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. They came by the head of Holston, and crossing the north fork, Clinch and Powell's Rivers, and passing through Cumberland Gap, discovered the southern part of Kentucky, and fixed a station-camp at a place since called Price's Meadow, in Wayne County, where they agreed to deposit their game and skins. The hunters here dispersed in different directions, the whole company still traveling to the southwest. They came to Roaring River and the Cany fork at a point far above the mouth and somewhere near the foot of the mountain. Robert Crockett was killed near the head-waters of Roaring River when returning to the camp, provided for two or three days' traveling; the Indians were there in ambush and fired upon and killed him. The Indians were traveling to the north, seven or eight in company. Crockett's body was found on the war-track leading from the Cherokee Nation towards the Shawnee tribe. All the country through which these hunters passed was covered with high grass; no traces of any human settlement could be seen, and the primeval state of things reigned in unrivaled glory, though under dry caves, on the side of creeks, they found many places where stones were set up that covered large quantities of human bones; these were also found in the caves, with which the country abounds. They continued to hunt eight or nine months, when part of them returned in April 1770. "The return of Findley and Boone to the banks of the Yadkin, and of the explorers whose journal has just been given to their several homes, produced a remarkable sensation. Their friends and neighbors were enraptured with the glowing descriptions of the delightful country they had discovered, and their imaginations were inflamed with the account of the wonderful products which were yielded in such bountiful profusion. The sterile hills and rocky uplands of the Atlantic country began to lose their interest when compared with the fertile valleys beyond the mountains. A spirit of further exploration was thus excited in the settlements on New River, Holston, and Clinch, which originated an association of about forty stout hunters, for the purpose of hunting and trapping west of Cumberland Mountains. Equipped with their rifles, traps, dogs, blankets, and dressed in the hunting shirt, leggins, and moccasins, they commenced their arduous enterprise in the real spirit of hazardous adventure, through the rough forest and rugged hills. The names of these adventurers are not now known. The expedition was led by Col. James Knox. The leader and nine others of the company penetrated to the lower Cumberland, and making there an extensive and irregular circuit, adding much to their knowledge of the country, after a long absence returned home. They are known as the "Long Hunters.' " (Posted with permission)