There were few roads of any kind, and these lay through woods.

The mountain passes could be traveled only on foot or horseback.

The only trade with the East was by pack-horses, while communication with the South was cut off by hostile Indian tribes who held the banks of the Ohio.

This isolation from the older, denser, and more civilized settlements bred in the people a spirit of self-reliance and independence.

They were in great part Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, a religious and warlike race to whom the hatred of an exciseman was a tradition of their forefathers.