1750 was a watershed year in our history, in both a figurative and a literal sense, for it was in that year that Dr. Thomas Walker set out from North Carolina to explore the lands west of the mountains, known as Kentucky, for purposes of future settlement, and, a little later that same year, on October 31st, Christopher Gist left Thomas Cresap's house at Old Town along the Potomac on a similar journey whose sole purpose, also, was to seek out and explore lands west of the mountains, in the watersheds of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, for purposes of future settlement.