Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: J Dam Wiston, though even now unknown to fame, was cue of the boldest and bravest of that hardy band of daring spirits who led the van of civilization into the great wilderness of the West. Born on the soil of Pennsylvania, nurtured among her wild and romantic hills, he early imbibed a love for bold and daring exploits, and even as a boy became the hero of some remarkable adventures. In those days of peril, the frontier afforded no facilities for the training of youth in the knowledge of books; and staunch, robust, intellectual men entered upon the active duties of life without other education than that which fitted them for a victorious march into the very depths of the savage wilds, which still stretched before them for hundreds and thousands of miles The learning gained from letters is a species of mental luxury, seldom indulged in by those who find it necessary to be constantly on the alert to provide the daily wants of physical life and guard themselves from a thousand surrounding perils. Adam Wiston was, therefore, no scholar; but no of his day had a more practical and thorough knowledge of the forest, in which he wished to live and hoped to die, than he had at the time he bade his friends adieu, shouldered his rifle, and, afoot and alone, set off on a bold exploration toward the wilds of Kentucky. What he saw, what he enjoyed, what he encountered, and what he suffered, from that eventful period till the day of his death, will probably never be known to the world; but there are some traces of his daring and checkered career, which show that his was not a life to be envied by the man —.,/ who considers personal ease and personal safety the pi mount objects of his existence. Tradition, the moth Jj written history, the preserver of unrecorded deeds facts, has ha... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.