During the mid-1700s, as England and France competed fiercely for the colonization of western lands, the Virginia Council promoted western settlement through large land grants in England’s name. The Loyal Land Company of Virginia received about 800,000 acres in the western territory now known as Kentucky, but to secure its claim it had to establish corn rights by building a shelter and planting a corn crop. Dr. Thomas Walker was appointed the company’s agent, and in March 1750 he and five companions left Castle Hill near Charlottesville, Virginia, to explore the wilderness and find a place for settlement. After more than a month traveling through the charted parts of Virginia and into the uncharted Cumberland Mountains, the party reached what is now called Cumberland Gap on April 13. Four days later they came to a large river that Walker named the Cumberland in honor of the Duke of Cumberland. When one of the party’s horses became lame, Walker suggested that three men stay behind while he and two others continued exploring. After they drew lots, the three who remained built a house and planted corn and peach stones to establish the claim at that site. Walker’s group then struggled through dense laurel thickets, covering only five miles in one day, before he concluded that the land remained much the same, the laurel was worsening, and food was growing scarcer, so he returned to the rest of the company. Reunited, the party left the cabin, traveled north near what are now Salyersville and Paintsville, then went through Staunton, Virginia, and returned to Castle Hill. Although the Loyal Land Company never took up the lands granted to it west of the Cumberland Mountains, Walker and his small party found the path many settlers would later follow into Kentucky.