The year 1766 was noteworthy for the arrival of two groups of young people who walked all the way from Pennsylvania to North Carolina. On October 11, a company of eight boys, all about 12-13 years old, arrived with five adult men. The church diary records that "they arrived about five o'clock, and were greeted with trumpets." On November 1 of a party of 16 single women and older girls arrived with a married couple, Richard and Sarah Utley, and Anna Maria Schropp, wife of Mattheaus Schropp who had come in July of that year. Their journey took 29 and a half days. In 1981 a Salem college professor, Dudley Shearburn, repeated this trek, taking as nearly as possible the same route down the valley of Virginia. Her account of her trip is published in Three Forks of Muddy Creek, vol. 8.

The company of single women and their escorts: