Some more nominees. It's so hard to choose one. This is a quote from:
_Gateway Dr. Thomas Walker & the Opening of Kentucky_ by David M. Burns,
2000, Bell Co. (Kentucky) Historical Society, p. 40

" Dr. Thomas Walker and his friends and neighbors, Peter Jefferson and
Joshua Fry, were Members of The Loyal Company. Walker was Jefferson's
physician, executor of his estate, and - for a brief time after the death of
Peter - guardian of his son Thomas, who was later President of the United
States. In setting out to explore The Loyal Company's grant in Kentucky,
Walker's first stop was at the home of Colonel Joshua Fry."

" These 'Albemarle Adventurers' also proposed to explore the Missouri River
and find a route to the Pacific Ocean. Their planning never came to
fruition, but it is likely that the interests of this group in cartography,
exploration, and western expansion were passed down, through family and
personal relationships, to Thomas Jefferson and Meriwether Lewis, on of the
principals in the Lewis and Clark Expedition."

So, I nominate, Dr. Thomas Walker.

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