All about them was rough, hilly country, almost wholly covered with brushwood and tall forest.

There were three deep creeks, given significant names by the pioneers.

Lick Creek flowed to the south of them into the Tennessee, and Owl Creek to the north sought the same destination.

A third, Snake Creek, was lined with deep and impassable swamps to its very junction with the river.
Some roads of the usual frontier type ran through this region, and at a point within the Northern lines stood a little primitive log church that they called Shiloh.

It was of the kind that the pioneers built everywhere as they moved from the Atlantic to the Pacific.