new county after a popular governor, Lord Botetourt. In 1770, its county town was laid off, and named Fincastle, after the ancestral seat of Lord Botetourt in England.1

In 1772, because of its size, and the increasing population in the remote western part, the new county was likewise divided, and the segregated portion formed into the county of Fincastle, the governor designating the "Lead Mines" now in Wythe county, as its county seat.

December 31, 1776, Fincastle county ceased to exist, its territory being divided into Montgomery, Washington and Kentucky counties. The Revolutionary War was progressing, and the newly established General Assembly of Virginia, thus commemorated the hero who had recently fallen before Quebec, and their illustrious fellow citizen who led the patriot army and signalized their enmity for the last royal governor, then piratically devastating their seacoast, by expunging his name from the roll of counties, the Earl of Dunmore bearing the title of Viscount Fincastle, as the second of his hereditary honors.2

In 1774, the town of Castles Woods, now called Castlewood, on the Clinch river, was in Fincastle county, and by subsequent division, is now in Russell county. It was a frontier settlement, exposed to Indian depredations, and during the succeeding twenty years was the scene of many of their murderous attacks. It was the extreme western point of civilization, where adventurous pioneers began their hardy advance through forest and mountain. pass into a savage land.

Five years before, Boone first penetrated the wilderness from that vicinity. He followed the Indian trail known as the "Warriors' Path," beyond Cumberland Gap, and in 1775 blazed a road from Watauga, now in Tennessee, to Rockcastle river, thence through Boone's Gap in the Big Hill, over to Otter creek, and a mile below its mouth, on the bank of the Kentucky river, erected the fort of Boonesborough. The trail became known as the "Wilderness Road."

The sparse population of southwest Virginia, included many hardy men, who with their equally courageous wives, resolved to

1Summers, Southwest Virginia, 811.

2Thwaites and Kellogg, Dunmore's War.

face the privations and dangers confronting them in the "Dark and Bloody Ground." Kentucky! The bounties of nature rendered it, in their eyes, but little short of the fabled habitation of the Grecian deities, and it was amply capable of supplying their indispensable wants.

Note-Elder Richard M. Newport was a "Hardshell" Baptist preacher, born in Kentucky, eloquent, earnest and successful, possessing a vivid imagination and abounding in glowing illustration. He migrated to eastern Illinois, and there labored amidst fellow colonists of like faith. Once, in a fervor of religious ecstacy, he depicted to his flock, heaven as it appeared to him: "Not very spacious, but a meadow-like area, fringed with the fragrant locust, and studded with majestic poplars; blossoming with the rarest flowers which diffuse their sweet perfumes and inspiring odors, entrancing the eye with its beauty, and filling the soul with its glory; in short, brethren, a very Kentucky of a place.'

In no age or land, have any savages, however fierce, successfully resisted invasion, where once the covetous gaze of the AngloSaxon has rested upon an alluring spot. And in all history, no savages have been more cruel or bold, than the red men who contested supremacy with the advancing front of civilization, in the dark, bloody and beautiful land of Kentucky.

Be it remembered that Kentucky Iwas not inhabited, or claimed for a home by any tribe. It was a hunting ground, where hostile bands from North and South, disputed a fierce rivalry, but none dwelt there. It was too dangerous for their permanent abode.

In early days in Virginia, the name of Boyle was sometimes written Boyls, Bowles or Boles. Edward Boyls was a soldier with Captain John Buchanan, Augusta county, in 1742. At the May term, 1746, of the County Court, he was sentenced to the stocks for two hours, and fined twelve shillings, for damning the Court!1

1756.

Mrs. Boyls was killed by the Indians, on Jackson's river, in

Five children of Charles Boyle were captured by the savages,

1Waddell, History of Augusta County.

Virginia Historical Magazine, Vol. 2, page 402, Augusta

county.

on that river, the same year.-Indian Wars in Augusta county. Data collected by the late Lyman C. Draper.

William Beverly, son of Robert Beverly, the Virginia historian, and grandson of Robert Beverly, who commanded the royal forces during Bacon's Rebellion, in a letter of April 30, 1732, claimed certain land west of the Blue Ridge, on the James river, by right of discovery and survey. Benjamin Borden, a native of New Jersey, who lived in Virginia, and became secretary to Governor Gooch, obtained a grant for land intended to amount to 100,000 acres, but measured out 90,100 acres, in what became Orange and Augusta counties, for which he was to receive a patent when he should locate thereon one hundred families. It seems that Beverly and Borden united their interests, and the tract is sometimes called the Beverly Grant. They introduced many families from Europe, and from the other Colonies. One hundred acres was given to anyone who should build a cabin upon it, with the privilege of purchasing more at fifty shillings per hundred acres. Many who became well known in subsequent frontier history, both of Virginia and Kentucky, thus obtained homes. Among them was Ephraim McDowell, then quite old, who came from Pennsylvania, but as a lad of sixteen he had been one of the heroic defenders of Londonderry, where, as Macauley says, "the imperial race stood at bay." Many families described in Miller's History and Genealogies, 704 et seq., then came to Virginia, and it is probable that the greater number of the settlers upon the Beverly Grant, came from the north of Ireland, or from New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Among these settlers were several named Boyle. Borden obtained his patent November 8, 1739. To the earlier settlers, he gave obligations, that deeds should be executed to them. Dying in 1743, he gave, by will, authority to his son to adjust the unsettled accounts. The latter was an upright man, and won the general confidence. The saying "as good as Ben Borden's bill," became a proverb. He died in 1753. Afterwards, in 1767, the executor of his will, executed a deed to Mary Boyle, for two hundred acres, as shown by the record thereof, in deed book 14, page 162, in Augusta county. Also, in deed book 16, page 17, there is recorded a deed executed in 1769, conveying to Charles Boyle one hundred and eighty acres. The recitals in these deeds declare they were executed pursuant to bonds given by the elder Borden.

During the Revolution, John Boils was a soldier in the Virginia State line, while Charles Boils, and George Boyle, were soldiers of the Virginia line, Continental Establishment, all being from Orange county, as appears from the archives preserved there. And later, in 1796 and 1798, deeds appear of record, conveying to

William Boyle lands lying near Newcastle, in what is now Craig county.

Perhaps it may never be definitely traced, that our ancestor was of kin to any of those thus named, but he came from the same country in which they lived. Like most of his line, he must have been careless of his personal history. His early life was passed on the frontier, subject to all its privations and hardships, with few facilities for intercourse between remote branches of his family, enduring several removals, and in prolonged struggles with the savages, all of which may sufficiently account for the total want of autobiographic information.

We know that he had at least one brother, and one sister.

His warfare with the Indians may have found a natural provocation, if he had suffered from the captivity to which some of the name were subjected. His sturdy character may indicate a strain of kinship to one manly enough to denounce an irritating court, even at the cost of fine and imprisonment.

We know that he was born not earlier than 1749, that his wife, Jane Black, was born in 1751, that they lived in Castle's Woods, where on April 5, 1774, he filed a surveyor's certificate for two hundred and sixty-two acres of land, there situated, the certificate being made out in the name of John Boles.-Summers Southwest Virginia, 811.

In Thwaites and Kellogg's "Dunmore's War," page 2, a letter dated March 22, 1774, is published, beginning: "Dear Sir: Yours by Mr. Boles came to hand," etc.

In that work, on page 400, also appears a "Fragment of Muster Roll of Capt. Wm. Campbell's Co., July, 1774." "There were with me upon Clinch, and there engaged to go along," etc., and among the names is John Boles.

That company participated in the Point Pleasant campaign, which culminated in the severest defeat sustained by the Indians during our Colonial wars. The battle of Point Pleasant was fought at the mouth of the Great Kanawha, October 10, 1774.

In the same volume, on page 406, also appears "a list of John Murray's Company of the Volunteers from Botetourt, Sept. 10, 1774." In the list appears "Sergt. Barney Boyls."

Barney Boyle and John Boyle were brothers.

In a sketch of the life of Judge Boyle, published by his successor, Chief Justice Robertson in his "Scrap Book," it is said that the family came to Kentucky in 1779. This view is adopted by Honorable George DuRelle, late a distinguished associate Justice of the Court of Appeals of Kentucky, in his Life of John Boyle, published in volume 2 of "Great American Lawyers."

Yet they are mistaken.

"The first peach stones were planted in the fall of 1775, about three miles south of Richmond, by John Boyle (father of the late Chief Justice John Boyle.) "1

The eldest son of Chief Justice Boyle, who survived to maturity, was my father, Dr. James M. Boyle. He told me that he had frequently heard both his father and grandfather say they were at Boonesborough, when it was besieged, August 8, 1778, by four hundred Indians, led by Blackfish and their dreaded allies, the Canadians, all under Captain Dagniaux Du Quendre.2

They told him an incident of the siege, which I have not read in any printed narrative. The defense was directed by Boone and others skilled in savage cunning. Fully appreciating their wily foes, the garrison was warned against exposure above the pickets. One bright morning, when no hostile gun had been heard for hours, a negro incautiously raised up, to glance around. Instantly he fell back, an Indian bullet having pierced his brain. He was the only person killed within the fort during the siege, which continued for thirteen days. Yet the bombardment was so keen that after the siege was raised, the heroic defenders picked up more than one hundred and twenty-five pounds of lead-the balls had flattened, innocuously, against the pickets and cabin walls, and furnished a welcome supply to the garrison, whose stock of ammunition was nearly exhausted, in its spirited defense.

At that date, the son who became Judge Boyle, was but four years old.

11 Collins, History of Kentucky, 513.

2The name of the Canadian leader was formerly given as Duchesne or Duquesne, but the eminent archeologist, Colonel R. T. Durritt, and the Filson Club, of Louisville, after investigation, give it as above. DuQuendre was born in Montreal, in 1743, and died in Detroit, April 16, 1784.