It was John Finley of North Carolina who saw the huntsman’s paradise in Kentucky and in 1767, moved into the Blue Ridge region of Kentucky. He was the first white man who ever penetrated the wilderness and forests sufficiently to view the central portion of the state. Two years later, after having returned to his home in North Carolina, he returned with Daniel Boone. And later, while wandering along the Yadkin River in North Carolina, Finley met a kindred spirit and built a cabin. There were sparse settlements along the Holston River (200 miles away) and a fort on the Ohio River. His closest neighbors were in Kentucky.
Source: A History of Jessamine County, Kentucky, From its Earliest Settlement to 1898 by Bennett H. Young. (1890).