Preston's papers, 1774. The majority pertain to Dunmore's expedition - its preparation, its progress, the battle at Point Pleasant, the march beyond the Ohio, the peace settlement, and the return to Virginia. During this year of significant frontier developments, there are also papers concerning western land surveys, unsettled relations with the Cherokee including fears of war along the Clinch and Holston rivers, and preparations of the Transylvania Company for purchase of Kentucky lands from the Cherokee.

Preston's principal correspondents were Arthur Campbell, writer of three dozen letters, and William Christian, James Robertson, and William Russell, each responsible for nearly a dozen letters. Other writers represented by one to four letters apiece are George Adams, John Blair, Anthony Bledsoe, John Brown, Thomas Bullitt, James Byrn, Joseph Cloyd, William Cocke, William Crow, Alexander Spotswood Dandridge, Robert Doack, William Doack, James Douglas, Lord Dunmore, John (Jack) Floyd, William Hallam, Abraham Hite Jr., William Ingles, Andrew Lewis, Charles Lewis, Thomas Lewis, Philip Love, Hugh Mercer, William Peachey, Edmund Pendleton, Bryce Russell, George Rutledge, Daniel Smith, Henry Skaggs, John Walker, Thomas Walker, Edmund Winston, John Wood, and Michael Woods. Drafts of ten letters written by Preston are also in this volume; his addressees were William Byrd, Arthur Campbell (two), William Christian (two), Patrick Henry, John Litton Jones, David Long, Samuel McDowell, and Edmund Pendleton. Daniel Boone's operations were discussed in several letters by Campbell and Christian. One of Daniel Smith's letters (3 QQ 57) described the circumstances in which he produced a map of the upper waters of the Clinch and Holston rivers; originally enclosed with this letter, the map was later filed in the Tennessee Papers (4 XX 62).

Accompanying the correspondence are military and land records; several lists of Virginia militia, including rolls for Robert Doack's company and for the members of William Campbell's company who agreed to go on an expedition with Joseph Drake; land warrants for military service issued by Dunmore to Joseph Bickley, Alexander Boyd, William Christian, Angus McDonald, Daniel McDonald, Theodosius McDonald, James McDowell, George Moffett, and Zachary Taylor. Most of the papers concerning Dunmore's expedition were printed by Reuben G. Thwaites and Louise Phelps Kellogg in Dunmore's War, 1774 (Madison, 1905).

Appendix C lists by page number names found in 3 QQ (Volume 3).