––––
Comment by L. C. D.––It would seem from Col. Smith’s own statement, that his removal to, and settlement in, Bourbon county, Ky., was in 1788.
Footnotes for Chapter 5
Now spelled Buckhannon.––R. G. T.
Sycamores, which attain gigantic proportions, are given to rotting in the lower portions of the trunk, and chambers eight feet in diameter are not uncommon. In the course of a canoe voyage down the Ohio, in the summer of 1894, I frequently saw such cavities, with the openings stopped by pickets or rails, utilized by small bottom farmers as hog-pens, chicken-coops, and calf stalls.
L. V. McWhorter, of Berlin, W. Va., who has kindly sent me several MS. notes on Withers’s Chronicles (all of which will be duly credited where used in this edition), writes: “The aged sycamore now (1894) occupying the site, is the third generation––the grand-child––of that which housed the Pringles. It stands on the farm of Webster Dix, who assures me that it shall not be destroyed. A tradition held by his descendants has it, that when John Pringle went back to the South Branch for ammunition, Charity, the wife of Samuel, who was left behind, started immediately for the wilderness home of her husband, and found him by the path which John had blazed for his own return.”––R. G. T.
This early and meritorious pioneer was born near Winchester, Va., Jan. 1, 1743, figured prominently in the Indian wars of his region, and served on Col. G. R. Clark’s Illinois campaign of 1778; he died at his home on Hacker’s Creek, April 20, 1821, in his 82d year.––L. C. D.