FIRST SETTLEMENT OF THE WEST
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A century ago no white man had crossed
the Alleghanies to sec what lay on the
other side, In l7l0, lunatic, wandering,
as was his won't during his paroxysms,
crossed the dividing ridge beyond the great
valley of Virginia, and on his return assert
cd that he bad been upon, streams whose
waters ran to the West. No great public
notice seems to have been taken of his
discovery-yot it is upon record that re-
connoi'c.lng party, crossing the mountain
in the same direction in the year 1851, and
falling upon the waters of what is now cal
led Green Brier River, a tributary of the
Kenawha, found two solitary white men,
natives Of New England, living on lis
banks, though some hundred yards, distant
from each o;her Even in that wilderness,
human passions and pertinacity of opinion,
had wrought disharmony, and there they
lived apart from the world, and apart frem
each other, nothing passing between them,
but the morning salutaion, as the one came
out from the hollow tree which served him
for shelter, and the other from his log hut.
The Virginians subsequently made a set
tlcment there, which was utterly cut off by
an incursion Of Indians.


It, was in 1867 when the first advonturer
from the banks Of the Yadkin, in North
Carolina, man by the name of Finlay,
came back to his family after long ab.
sence, with accounts of the marvellous
beauty and riches of the country beyond
the mountains. He subsequently returned
thither tho same year, with a party, oil
which the celebrated Daniel Boon was one
and from that time forward adventurers
from among tho restless inhabitants OF the
outskirts Of civilization, were occasionally
seen to quit the vicinity of 'clarings," witt
their rifles, blankets, aid dogs, and entering
the forests, disappear for while in tht
direction Of the mountains.


This is Lahrobe's account of the frs
settlement of she West. 1t is since tht
commencement Of the present century,
and within tie memory of every middle
aged man, that the small and silent stream
OF emigration has become mighty torren
sweeping onward in its current myriad
of human beings to the enjoyment of thu
fuirest of earth's hermitages. Before tn,
enterprize, and stirring, life-like energy 0
this multitude, towns and cities are arisin.
the bowling wilderness and wild-wavin,
prairie are merging in the cultivated field
of the white sotter. While Witnessing th
teeming population of the West at the pres
ent day, il is difficult to realize tina
scarcely two-thirds of a century have elaps
ed since the first settlers behold from III
ridges Of the Alleghhnes, this fair domain
in all its native wilderness--with the Indi
ans and boasts Of the chase for its only in
habitants.- Greenfield Gazette.