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From: "A History of the Daniel Boone National Forest"

Report of a raid just days before April 1, 1793 raid on Morgan's Station

On March 21, 1793, Thomas Ross, the first mail carrier over the postal route established in the fall of 
1792, was following the route from Holston to Danville, Kentucky, accompanied by two other men. 
They were fired on at the crossing of Little Laurel River but were not hit. After riding hard about a 
quarter of a mile they ran into a large ambush. Ross was killed and the other two wounded. 
Captain John Wilkinson and 13 militia men went to the scene and found Ross's body, cut into strips 
and hung on bushes. They gathered the remains and buried them by the roadside. Five days later, 
on March 26, 1793, Colonel Whitley received word of another massacre on the Boone Trace, 
five miles south of the Hazel Patch. With a company of rangers he hurried to the scene where a 
party consisting of nine men, two women and eight children, led by James McFarland, had been ambushed 
as they were riding along the Trace. The men had dismounted and, in close formation, returned the fire 
of the Indians holding the attackers off for about 15 minutes. After that the attacking Indians had 
moved in and killed or made prisoners of all of the party but four. Colonel Whitley tracked the 
Indians to their camp, scattered them and rescued a little girl and recovered much of the stolen goods.