 Around the same time, an expedition led by Benjamin Cutbirth crossed Cumberland Gap and pushed all the way to the Mississippi River, where they shipped the pelts they had collected down to New Orleans.In 1768, an English explorer named John Finley passed through the Yadkin Valley and visited Daniel Boone, with whom he had served in the French and Indian War.Finley told Boone of the natural splendor of Kentucky's Bluegrass region, which he had visited as a merchant before the French and Indian War.