Cornwallis. For his services, he received from the state of North Carolina land warrants which entitled him to locate large quantities of land in the wilderness of the mountains. His neighbors made him sheriff of the county, and he was rapidly rising in the esteem of his people. Notwithstanding the fact that his future seemed opening up to brighter and higher things, he realized that he could do more for his family by tearing himself away from these prospects, and he set out on his journey to explore the valley of the Cumberland, taking with him his two eldest sons, William and John, and a few friends. He secured land on the Cumberland River below Nashville. In the winter of 1787, he had returned to Guilford to bring his family into this country. At that time there were two routes to the Cumberland Valley—one down the Tennessee River, and one, the land route, a long and tedious one through the Cumberland gap across the head waters of the Cumberland, Greene, and Barren Rivers. The one down the river was much better when accompanied by women and children, and permitted the transportation of goods, but along the banks of the Tennessee there were many villages of the Cherokee and Chickasaw Indians, with marauding parties of Creeks and Shawnees. Having built a boat in the style of a common flat boat very much like the model of Noah's Ark except that it was open at the top, he entered upon this fearful voyage about the 1st of May, 1788, having on board a large amount of goods, suitable for traffic among the Indians, and his little family and friends. The party consisted of Brown, two sons, three hired men, a negro man (seven men in all), Mrs. Brown, three small sons, four small daughters, an aged woman, and two or three negro women, the property of Brown. Brown had mounted a small cannon on the prow of this boat, and I dare say this was the first man-of-war that ever floated down the Tennessee River. They encountered no trouble until they reached the present site of Chat-
