[4] Preston started receiving applications for land claims to be located and surveyed from veterans of the French and Indian War.

[4] In mid-May, they arrived in Kentucky Country and had an experience with Native Americans who came down the river and had passes from the commandant at Fort Pitt warning off white men as a part of Lord Dunmore's War.

William Russell sent frontiersmen Daniel Boone and Michael Stoner on a mission to warn settlers and surveyors to come back to Botetourt County.

[1][clarification needed] On May 23, 1775, Floyd was sent as a delegate from the settlement of St. Asaph to Boonesborough to meet to agree on laws and regulations for requirements to establish a colony called Transylvania.

Floyd traveled to Williamsburg and signed on to a privateering syndicate[5] and agreed to serve on board the Massachusetts schooner Phoenix.

[6] The syndicate members included Robert Morris, Carter Braxton, Michael Gratz, Dr. Thomas Walker, Edmund Pendleton, and others.

Carter Braxton's instructions to Phoenix captain Joseph Cunningham of Boston indicated the schooner was to sail from Yorktown, Virginia to the West Indies for a three-month voyage.

The Phoenix successfully arrived back in Boston in early April 1777 but without Floyd, who had been captured and transported to Forton Prison[9] near Portsmouth, England.

[7] On October 30, 1777, Floyd received assistance in Paris from Arthur Lee who, along with Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane, agreed to advance him funds to return to Virginia.

[10] While in Paris, Floyd "obtained his wedding Clothes, a rich and beautiful pair of brilliant shoe buckles for his intended bride, a Scarlet Coat for himself.

[11] They built a cabin near 3rd and Main Street in present-day Louisville for a temporary shelter for the women and children[4] while they established a settlement near Beargrass Creek.

[11] There, he would be the leader of the area that took in part a small local war with the Native Americans and was led by George Rogers Clark.

[1] Floyd participated in the Battle of Blue Licks which then led George Rogers Clark to raid several Native American villages along the Great Miami River.

On November 4, 1782, it was reported during the raids by Clark that Col. Floyd took 300 men to approach a village of Native Americans but was discovered too early causing the group to flee and most of them escaped.

[2][12] Later in the year in March he would write Preston informing him of his brother in law Billy Buchanan being killed by Native Americans .

This proved true as a month later Floyd was wounded on April 8, 1783, by Native Americans while on his way to Bullitt's Lick while wearing the scarlet coat he had brought from Paris.