After a long quiet reach of water, which could be seen winding back in the hills, the stream tumbled madly over a rocky ledge, and white with foam, it hurried onward as if impatient of long restraint, and lost its individuality in the broad Ohio.
This solitary hunter was Colonel Ebenezer Zane.

He was one of those daring men, who, as the tide of emigration started westward, had left his friends and family and had struck out alone into the wilderness.

Departing from his home in Eastern Virginia he had plunged into the woods, and after many days of hunting and exploring, he reached the then far Western Ohio valley.
The scene so impressed Colonel Zane that he concluded to found a settlement there.

Taking "tomahawk possession" of the locality (which consisted of blazing a few trees with his tomahawk), he built himself a rude shack and remained that summer on the Ohio.
In the autumn he set out for Berkeley County, Virginia, to tell his people of the magnificent country he had discovered.

The following spring he persuaded a number of settlers, of a like spirit with himself, to accompany him to the wilderness.