Searching, a few years ago, the files of a paper published early in the
nineteenth century on the edge of this wilderness, which was already
calling itself the _Western World_--a paper, one of the first of the
myriad white leaves into which the falling forests have been converted and
scattered thick enough to cover every square foot of the valley--I
happened upon this record, surprised as if a bit of the transmontane sea
spray had touched my own face on the Mississippi: "That delightful
country" (Kentucky), it ran, "from time immemorial had been the resort of
wild beasts and of men only less savage, when in the year 1767 it was
visited by John Finley and a few wandering white men from the British
colony of North Carolina, allured by the love of hunting and the desire of
barter with the Indians. The distance of this country from populous parts
of the colonies, almost continuous wars, and the claims of the French had
prevented all attempts at exploration."
I seize upon this partly because, having succeeded to the name of this
hunter and trader, who entered the valley just as St.
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