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The following is a list of Long Hunters mentioned in an article by Henry Hamilton. (See also Long Hunters Mail List). The orignal of these articles was published in the Bulletin of the Historical Society of Southwest Virginia), #5, March, 1970. pages 29 through 61. Additional Long Hunters have been added to Hamilton's summary, based on Drapers "The Life of Daniel Boone", first published in 1998. This later work was first published (posthumously) in 1998; since it is still under copyright, extensive passages cannot be quoted, and the interested reader is encouraged to examine this monumental, but incomplete work. As other persons are identified as "Long Hunters", or otherwise brought to our attention, we will add them to this list accordingly. Hamilton's definition of a "Long Hunter" refers to a fairly precise set of persons living or intentionally meeting in southwest Virginia while organizing for long hunts. We probably need not be that restrictive, and can include persons such as Benjamin Cutbride who are known to have passed through the area about this time to hunt in Tennessee or Kentucky, but were not recognized by Hamilton as Long Hunters.
| Hamilton's forward to his article reads:
- The Long Hunter was peculiar to Southwest Virginia only, and nowhere else on any frontier did such hunts ever originate. True, there were hunters and groups of hunters on all frontiers in pioneer days, but they were never organized and publicized as the long hunts which originated on the Virginia frontier. Most, if not all of the long hunts originated on the Holston in the vicinity of present day Chilhowie, but were made up of hunters who lived on both the Clinch and Holston rivers.
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List
| First | Last | Alternative Name | Long Hunt of 1769 | Mini Biography
| | James | Aldridge | | Y | born Culpepper Co, Va; May lived on the New River, or perhaps near William Crabtree on Holston. Described as “being…a dark haired, heavily built man, stoop shouldered, but with a spritely mind.”
| | William | Allen | | |
| | John | Baker | | Y | See Draper, 1998
| | Joseph | Baker | | X |
| | Abraham | Bledsoe | | Y | The Bledsoe brothers, Anthony, Abraham and Isaac were tall men of fair complexion and of English origin. Their parents had come from England to Culpepper County, Virginia. Their mother died and they left home because of an unkind stepmother. They came about 1767 to the New River country. Abraham Bledsoe became a professional hunter,
| | Anthony | Bledsoe | | Y | The Bledsoe brothers, Anthony, Abraham and Isaac were tall men of fair complexion and of English origin. Their parents had come from England to Culpepper County, Virginia. Their mother died and they left home because of an unkind stepmother. They came about 1767 to the New River country. Anthony, the eldest, married Mary, the daughter of Thomas Ramsey. In 1784 he settled with his brother Isaac on Bledsoe Creek, where they were both KBI’d.
| | Isaac | Bledsoe | | X | "The Bledsoe brothers, Anthony, Abraham and Isaac were tall men of fair complexion and of English origin. Their parents had come from England to Culpepper County, Virginia. Their mother died and they left home because of an unkind stepmother. They came about 1767 to the New River country. Isaac made his first home between Bristol and Gate City, about five miles outside Bristol, on what is now Highway 58. In 1776 he is shown as a Captain in the 1776 Cherokee Campaign. In 1784 he settled with his brother Anthony on Bledsoe Creek, where they were both KBI’d.
| | Jack | Blevins | | |
| | William | Blevins | | |
| | Daniel | Boone | | |
| | Joseph | Bowen | | Y |
| | Castleton | Brooks | | Y | Castleton Brooks lived on the Holston and served as a Juror in Fincastle in 1773 and in 1777 was appointed by the Washington County Court as "Constable from Patterson's Mill as far down the river as there was settlers."
| | Joseph | Brown | | |
| | William | Butler | | | See Draper, 1998
| | William | Carr | | Y | Born about 1735 n Albemarle County, Virginia, and at a very early age removed to the frontier. He lived on the frontier for twenty years or more and had spent the whole time hunting. Carr hunted over in Kentucky, beyond the Cumberland Mountains to the right of Cumberland Gap in a place called "The Brush." Described as a “Negro man of color… about the ordinary height, little inclined to be corpulent, slightly round shouldered and weighed about 160 or 170 pounds and very strong for one of his age… Few men possessed a more high sense of honor and true bravery than he did. He was possessed of a very strong natural mind and always cheerful and the very life of any company he was in.”
| | Ned | Cowan | | X | Person:Edward Cowan (X)
| | Charles | Cox | | |
| | William | Crabtree | | Y | Probably born in Baltimore County, Maryland, circa 1748, and the son of William Crabtree and Hannah Whittaker, who later lived on the Big Lick near Saltville. His father died in 1777. His first wife was Hannah Lyon, sister to the long hunter Humberson Lyon. After her death he was married in 1777 to Katherine Starnes and she died in Tazewell County in 1818. In 1777 he was living on Watauga, not far above its junction with the Holston.
| | Robert | Crockett | | X |
| | Jacques Timothe Boucher | de Montbrun | Timothe Demunbreu | | He and his family for some time lived in a cave on the banks of the Cumberland between the mouth of Mill Creek and Stone's River. A marker at this cave has been erected by the Daughters of the American Revolution. Demuenbreun had a lineage and a career more remarkable than our historians conceived. His name in full and correctly was Jacques Timothe Boucher de Montbrun, descendant of Pierre Boucher who was the first French Canadian to be raised (1661) to the rank of nobility in recognition of his work in bringing colonists into Canada."
| | Benjamin | Curbirth | Person:Benjamin Cutbirth (2) | Z | Went with Boone to KY late 1772-73
| | Ephraim | Drake | | |
| | Joseph | Drake | | X | Brother of Ephraim Drake. In Daniel Boone's party to Kentucky in 1773. KBI at Boonesboro in 1778. Wife: Margaret Buchanan dau of Colonel John Buchanan; after his death, she married William Jones. Came from his father's home near Max Meadows by 1772, and probably before. Registered a tract of 326 acres on Carlock's Creek between Chilhowie to Saltville. Moved to a tract from Colonel John Buchanan, known as Hall's Bottom, South of the Bristol, in 1775. During the Cherokee War of 1776 . Moved to Kentucky in 1777. KBI’d near Boonesboro in August, 1778.
| | James | Dysart | | Y | "
Scot Irish from Northern Ireland, an orphan, came to America as a teenage boy. Landed at Philadelphia and worked his way south to the Holston River. Married Agnes, a daughter of John and Eleanor Beatty. Lived at Abingdon on Highway U. S. 11. Wounded at Kings Mountain, serving as Captain in Gen. William Campbell’s unit. Held office of Justice in Washington Couty, first sheriff of Washington Co. in 1776. later moved to Rockcastle County, Kentucky, dying there in in 1831 at age 74.
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| | John | Findley | John Finley | | led Daniel Boone through Cumberland Gap on his first trip to Kentucky, after Boone had previously missed finding the gap, was also a resident of Southwest Virginia, and was on early trips to the Cumberland country. Settled in Washington County by 1773.In Edmondson's Company at the Battle of Long Island Flats where he was wounded; probably in the same company at King's Mountain. At one time he was probably a resident of the Watauga Valley.
| | Thomas | Gordon | | X |
| | Jacob | Harmon | | Y | The Harmans were descendants of Heinrich Adam Herman, a German immigrant who settled on the New River in the late 1740s or early 1750s, and had a large family of boys.
| | Valentine | Harmon | | | See Draper, 1998
| | James | Harrod | | |
| | Humphrey | Hogan | | Y | Of Humphrey Hogan, little is known. The only record found of him is in the Washington County, Virginia, court where on November 17, 1778, he was on bail for Alexander Hamilton. He moved to Tennessee where he became one of the first school teachers. It is not known just what he taught for he signed his name with an "X
| | John | Knox | | | James Knox was instrumental in organizing the Long Hunts that went out in 1769 and in 1771. A Scotsman, he had emigrated from northern Ireland at age 14. Rose to the rank of Major in the militia, settled in Kentucky, where he married the widow of Benjamin Logan. In 1774 he was one of the surveyors that Daniel Boone and Michael Stoner were sent to warn of the increased dangers from Indians. Knox was in a small party of surveyors that fell back to the Clinch settlements, arriving at Castlewood on July 9, 1774. In 1784 he took command of a caravan from Augusta County numberbing over 300 persons.
| | Humberton | Lyon | | | early hunted on the Cumberland, married Hannah Crabtree sister of William Crabtree. Living in Fincastle co in 1773. Captain in the Washington County, Virginia militia, 1780. Died about 1784, left his estate to his wife and sons, William, James, Stephen and Jacob, and daughter Susanna.
| | David | Lynch | | Y |
| | William | Lynch | | Y |
| | Gasper | Mansker | | X | Gasper Mansker, born aboard ship, of emigrating parents, and spoke with a heavy German accent, but sometimes described as a "Dutchman." Had brother George Mansker. Reared on the Virginia borders in the region of the South Potomac. Married Elizabeth White of Virginia, had no children. Lived on Moccasin Creek in present day Scott County, Virginia, prior to his going to Tennessee. He had a Station near Goodlettsville, in Davidson County, Tennessee. Built a Station Camp near Gasper's Lick in 1779, twelve miles above what is now Nashville. He lived at Mansker's Lick in 1792, and never had any children. Died in 1822.
| | William | Miller | | X | See Draper, 1998 "the last of the Long Hunters"
| | John | Montgomery | | | Scot Irish, emigrated as a youth fromNorthern Ireland. Married a daughter of Josiah Ramsey, a niece of the wife of Anthony Bledsoe. Lived in what is now Montgomery County, Virginia. Commissioned Lieutenant Colonel when “very young”, served in George Rogers Clark’s Illinois Campaign in 1779. Founded Clarksville in TN, where he died in 1794.
| | William | Newman | | |
| | William | Pitman | | | See Draper, 1998
| | John | Rains | | X | John Rains became one of the first settlers on the Cumberland, going there from the New River settlements in Virginia, where he had first settled after emigrating from Culpepper County, Virginia. He was noted for his woodcraft and Indian fighting, became an officer of militia, survived close to twenty-five years of Indian warfare, fifteen of those on the Cumberland, and lived to be 91
| | Charles (?) | Scaggs | | | Brpther of Henry
| | Henry | Scaggs | | | ‘He was six feet tall, dark skinned, bony, bold, enterprising and fearless. He and his brother (perhaps Charles) were noted hunters, and nothing but hunters.” Lived on the New River in 1776, living on the Clinch in 1779, moved to Pittman’s Creek in Taylor Co KY, dying about 1808/09 at age 80.
| | Charles | Sinclair | | | Lived on the New river at Sinclair's bottom
| | James | Smith | | |
| | Henry | Smith | | X |
| | Uriah | Stone | | X | Long hunting in middle Tennessee as early as 1767, making an improvement at “Stoner’s Lick” on the east side of Stone's River Uriah Stone made land improvements in many places where he unted. On the head of the Clinch about 1772 In Tazewell Co in 1772. Had a cabin in Wright’s Valley, Tazewell Co, in 1774. Appears in court records for frincastle County in 1773 nd 1774.
| | Michael | Stoner | George Michael Holsteiner | | born about 1748, from Fort Pitt by way of the Illinois. He married a daughter of Andrew Tribble. on the Cumberland in 1767, on Stones’ River; said to have had a station camp in 1768 on what is now Station Camp Creek, north of Cumberland in middle Tennessee. He was a close associate of Boone for several years.; possibly with Boone's party in the unsuccessful attempt to go to Kentucky in 1773, Went with Boone to Kentucky in 1774 to warn the surveying parties of Indian dangers, described “two of the best hands I could think of” for the task. Went with Boone to when he made his settlement at Boonesboro, Member Boone's road-cutting party through Cumberland Gap in 1775. He was wounded at the siege of Boonesboro, After losing his land grants he settled with his father-in-law near Price's Station Livingin 1801, in Wayne County, Kentucky.
| | Christopher | Stoph | ("Stoph" is often short for Christophel, so this last name may be in error. | |
| | Obediah | Terrell | | X | “a chunky, small-sized man with a club foot.” Lived first on Obey’s Creek in Scott Co VA, until about 1778. Then moved to what became Cumberland and Pulaski Counties, KY. Then established a permanent home on Obey’s River, in TN
| | Elisha | Wallen | | |
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Notes:
X: Williams list of hunters in the 1769 Long Hunt, fide Hamilton
Y: Hamilton's additions to Williams list of hunters in the 1769 Long Hunt
Z: Other additions
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