Agent for Indian affairs, and was the most prominent man in the scattered settlements in Powell's Valley, where he was living at the time of the founding of Boonesborough. Later he made his headquarters at Long Island in North Carolina. It is plain from Colonel Henderson's journal that wagons could proceed along Boone's Road in 1775 no further than Martin's cabin. Here everything was transferred to the pack-horses. Several letters from Colonel Henderson to Captain Martin, preserved by the Wisconsin Historical Society, give us a glimpse of silent Powell's Valley. One of them reads:
12th June 1775
Dear Sir:
Mr Ralph Williams, David Burnay, and William Mellar will apply to you for salt and other things which we left with you and was sent for us since we came away—Please to deliver to them, or those they may employ what they ask for, and take a receipt—Also write me a few lines informing me, what you have sent &c by hem & by whom—I long much to hear
