280 The Winning of the West 



now and then taking a scalp or two himself. His 

 skill and daring, together with his unfailing court- 

 esy, ready tact, and hospitality, gained him un- 

 bounded influence with the frontiersmen, among 

 whom he was universally known as "Nolichucky 

 Jack." 8 



The Virginian settlements on the Holston, ad- 

 joining those of North Carolina, were in 1777 like- 

 wise made into a county of Washington. The peo- 

 ple were exactly the same in character as those 

 across the line; and for some years the fates of all 

 these districts were bound up together. Their in- 

 habitants were still of the usual backwoods type, 

 living by tilling their clearings and hunting; the elk 

 and buffalo had become very scarce, but there were 

 plenty of deer and bear, and in winter countless wild 

 swans settled down on the small lakes and ponds. 

 The boys followed these eagerly; one of them, 

 when an old man, used to relate how his mother 

 gave him a pint of cream for every swan he shot, 

 with the result that he got the pint almost every 

 day. 9 



The leading family among these Holston Vir- 

 ginians was that of the Campbells, who lived near 

 Abingdon. They were frontier farmers, who chopped 

 down the forest and tilled the soil with their own 

 hands. They used the axe and guided the plow 



8 MSS. "Notes of Conversations with Old Pioneers," by 

 Ramsey, in Tenn. Hist. Soc. Campbell MSS. 



9 "Sketch of Mrs. Elizabeth Russell," by her grandson, 

 Thomas L. Preston, Nashville, 1888, p. 29. An interesting 

 pamphlet. 



