BIBLIOGRAPHY. _History of Kentucky_, by R. H. Collins (Covington, 1882); Appletons' _Cyclopaedia of American Biography_ (New York, 1887, v. i).
[From _A History of the Commonwealth of Kentucky_ (Louisville, Kentucky, 1834)]
During this same year [1769], a party of about forty stout hunters, "from New River, Holstein and Clinch" united in a hunting expedition west of the Cumberland Mountains.
Nine of this party, led on by Col. James Knox, reached Kentucky; and, from the time they were absent from home, they "obtained the name of the _Long Hunters_." This expedition reached "the country south of the Kentucky river," and became acquainted with Green river, and the lower part of the Cumberland.
In addition to these parties, so naturally stimulated by the ardent curiosity incident to early and comparatively, idle society, the claimants of military bounty lands which had been obtained from the British crown, for services against the French, furnished a new and keen band of western explorers. Their land warrants were surveyed on the Kenhawa and the Ohio; though most positively against the very letter of the royal proclamation of '63. But at this distance from the royal court, it was nothing new in the history of government that edicts emanating, even from the king in council, should be but imperfectly regarded. However, this may be, land warrants were actually surveyed on the Kenhawa as early as 1772, and in 1773, several surveyors were deputied to lay out bounty lands on the Ohio river.
Amongst others Thomas Bullitt, uncle to the late Alexander Scott Bullitt, first lieutenant governor of Kentucky; and Hancock Taylor, engaged in this adventurous work. These gentlemen with their company were overtaken on the 28th of May, 1773, by the McAfees, whose exertions will hereafter occupy a conspicuous station in this narrative.
On the 29th, the party in one boat and four canoes, reached the Ohio river, and elected Bullitt their captain.