The War in the Northwest n 



with all the other recorded wanderings and explora 

 tions of these backwoods adventurers, it must be 

 remembered that while this trip was remarkable in 

 itself, it is especially noteworthy because, out of 

 many such, it is the only one of which we have a full 

 account. The adventures that befell Donelson's com 

 pany differed in degree, but not in kind, from those 

 that befell the many similar flotillas that followed 

 or preceded him. From the time that settlers first 

 came to the upper Tennessee valley occasional hardy 

 hunters had floated down the stream in pirogues, or 

 hollowed out tree-trunks. Before the Revolution a 

 few restless emigrants had adopted this method of 

 reaching Natchez ; some of them made the long and 

 perilous trip in safety, others were killed by the 

 Chickamaugas or else foundered in the whirlpools, 

 or on the shoals. The spring before Donelson 

 started, a party of men, women and children, in 

 forty canoes or pirogues, went down the Tennessee 

 to settle in the newly conquered Illinois country, 

 and skirmished with the Cherokees on their way. 10 



mission in the good boat Adventure from Fort Patrick Henry 

 of Holston River to the French Salt Springs on Cumberland 

 River, kept by John Donelson." An abstract, with some tra 

 ditional statements interwoven, is given by Hay wood; the 

 journal itself, with some inaccuracies, and the name of the 

 writer misspelt by Ramsey; and in much better and fuller 

 shape by A. N. Putnam in his "History of Middle Tennes 

 see." I follow the original, in the Nash. Hist. Soc. 

 10 State Department MSS., No. 51, Vol. II, p. 45: 

 "JAMES COLBERT TO CHAS. STUART 



"CHICKASAW NATION, May 25, 1779. 



"SiR", I was this day informed that there is forty large 

 Cannoes loaded with men women and children passed by here 



