Wilderness Road

Wilderness Road

The Wilderness Road was the principal route used by settlers for more than fifty years to reach Kentucky from the East. In 1775, Daniel Boone blazed a trail for the Transylvania Company from Fort Chiswell in Virginia through the Cumberland Gap into central Kentucky. It was later lengthened, following Native American trails, to reach the Falls of the Ohio at Louisville. The Wilderness Road was steep and rough, and it could only be traversed on foot or horseback. Despite the adverse conditions, tens of thousands of people used it.

In 1792, the new Kentucky legislature provided money to upgrade the road. In 1796, an improved all-weather road was opened for wagon and carriage travel. The road was abandoned around 1840, although modern highways follow much of its route.

Early exploration

Course of the Wilderness Road by 1785.

The first European explorers of the southern Appalachian Mountains were Spanish. Hernando de Soto and his troops traversed the region in 1540 and 1541 searching for gold. He was followed by several other Spanish expeditions.

The first recorded English explorations of the mountains were those of Abraham Wood, which began around 1650. Later, Wood sent exploring parties into the mountains. The Batts-Fallam expedition reached the New River Valley in 1671. In 1673, Wood sent Gabriel Arthur and James Needham to the Overhill Cherokee of modern Tennessee. The purpose was to try to make direct contact with the Cherokee for trade, so as to bypass the Ocaneechee "middlemen" traders. The expedition did reach the Overhill Cherokee area, but Needham was killed on the return. Gabriel Arthur was almost killed, but was rescued by being adopted by a Cherokee chief. For his own safety, Arthur was then sent with one of the chief's raiding parties. For about a year, he traveled with the Cherokee, throughout the Appalachians. He was probably the first European to visit modern West Virginia and cross the Cumberland Gap.

In 1750, Dr. Thomas Walker, an investor in the Loyal Land Company, with five companions, made a famous exploration through the Cumberland Gap and into eastern Kentucky. The Loyal Land Company settled people in southwest Virginia, but not Kentucky.

In 1769, Virginia longhunter and explorer Joseph Martin made the first of several forays into the region. Acting as an agent for Dr. Thomas Walker, to whom Martin was connected through family relationships, Martin began an expedition to Powell's Valley in early 1769 in return for a promised 21,000-acre (8,500 ha) land grant from Walker and the Loyal Land Company. Martin and his men built the earliest westernmost frontier fort at present-day Rose Hill, Virginia, a fort dubbed Martin's Station. Later that year Indians chased off Martin and his men, who returned to Albemarle County. Martin returned six years later to rebuild the fort, and a few months later became an agent for Richard Henderson's Transylvania Company.

In 1774, Richard Henderson, a judge from North Carolina, organized a land speculation company with a number of other prominent North Carolinians called the Transylvania Company. The men hoped to purchase land from the Cherokees on the Kentucky side of the Appalachian Mountains and establish a British proprietary colony. Henderson hired Daniel Boone, an experienced hunter who had explored Kentucky, to blaze a trail through the Cumberland Gap into central Kentucky.

Boone, the trailblazer

The Appalachian Mountains form a natural barrier to east–west travel, from Pennsylvania to Georgia. Settlers from Pennsylvania tended to migrate south along the Great Wagon Road through the Great Appalachian Valley and Shenandoah Valley. Daniel Boone was from Pennsylvania and migrated south with his family along this road. From an early age, Boone was one of the longhunters who hunted and trapped among the Native American nations along the western frontiers of Virginia, so-called because of the long time they spent away from home on hunts in the wilderness. Boone would sometimes be gone for months and even years before returning home from his hunting expeditions.

Daniel Boone escorts settlers through Cumberland Gap.

Boone recommended three essentials for a pioneer: “A good gun, a good horse, and a good wife.” He also would need a strong body, a sharp ax and good luck. Another essential was salt. Before 1776, it had to be shipped into the Thirteen Colonies from the West Indies at great expense. It was the only meat preservative available for men on the move and Kentucky had an extra lure with its large salt brine lakes near what is today the community of Boonesborough, Kentucky. The many "salt licks" of Kentucky are today reflected in the many place names in the state that use the words "lick" or "licking".

Starting on March 10, 1775 Boone, along with 35 axmen, cut a trail from Long Island in Kingsport, Tennessee through the forests and mountains to Kentucky. It was a rough mud trail, hardly more than a path. Although the Transylvania Company had obtained title to Kentucky from the Cherokee and Iroquois, the area was a contested region for Indian tribes who claimed it for hunting privileges. Unknowing to the Americans, they had negotiated title to land which the Cherokee believed the Americans would be unable to claim. Indeed, the Cherokee were enemies of the Shawnee Indian nation who were successfully fighting off Cherokee hunting expeditions in the area. Thus, the Shawnee viewed Boone and other settlers as allies of the Cherokee and thus enemies. On March 24, 1775 Boone and his party were only 15 miles (24 km) from their final destination of the Kentucky River when they camped for the night. Just before daybreak a group of Shawnee, slinging tomahawks, attacked the sleeping men. Some of Boone's party were killed and a few were wounded but most were able to escape into the woods. Boone regrouped his men and managed to drive off the hostile Shawnee. The party did, however, lose some of their horses. Here Boone built a temporary open barricade with 6 to 7-foot (2.1 m) high logs.

Route

The route of the Wilderness Road made a long loop from Virginia southward to Tennessee and then northward to Kentucky, a distance of 200 miles (320 km).

From The Long Island of the Holston River (modern Kingsport, Tennessee), the road went north through Moccasin Gap of Clinch Mountain, then crossed the Clinch River and crossed rough land (called the Devils Raceway) to the North Fork Clinch River. Then it crossed Powell Mountain at Kanes Gap. From there it ran southwest through the valley of the Powell River to the Cumberland Gap.

After passing over the Cumberland Gap the Wilderness Road forked. The southern fork passed over the Cumberland Plateau to Nashville, Tennessee via the Cumberland River. The northern fork split into two parts. The eastern spur went into the Bluegrass region of Kentucky to Boonesborough on the Kentucky River (near Lexington). The western spur ran to the Falls of the Ohio (Louisville). As settlements grew southward, the road stretched all the way to Knoxville, Tennessee, by 1792.

Dangers

Because of the threat of Indian attacks, the road was so dangerous that most pioneers traveled well armed. Robbers and criminals also could be found on the road, ready to pounce on weaker pioneers. Although the Transylvania Company had purchased the region from the Cherokee, and the Iroquois had ceded it at the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, other tribes, such as the Shawnee, still claimed it and established their own warrior long-houses to stake their claims. Consequently, it was common for entire communities and church congregations to move together over the road to new settlements. However, the movement was extremely dangerious and thousands of pioneers were killed and thousands more captured by Indian attacks. The various murderous raids and kidnapping by the Indians, particularly the Shawnee and the subsequent rescue expeditions and counter-raids became epic in American myth leaving many names of frontier rangers and their deeds etched in history.

No one knew exactly when the next attack would happen. The Shawnee came from the north, while the Chickamauaga (Cherokees who rejected the land sale treaty) came from the south. These tribes were committed to a war of Genocide against the American settlers who they viewed as the main competitor to their hunting lands. To defend the road and aid the settlers, defensive log blockhouses were built alongside the road. They had portholes in the walls for firing at Indian attackers and over time became larger stockade works often called "stations". Some grew further into sizable forts. As the homesteads spread, and Indian attacks became more widespread and savage, these blockhouses, stockades, and forts became the last line of defense. Over the course of time, particularly during the French and Indian War and the War of Independence, even the forts fell, which then instead of being a last refuge became large cemetaries as hundreds of men, women, and children were massacred in them.

Ultimately, under first Spain and later particularly France, European colonial powers opposed to the British used diplomatic intrigue, espionage and covert warfare to unite, arm, and train the Indians. These programs reached their fruition during the great French and Indian War which almost succeeded in utterly destroying most of the settlements along the road. The wars continued into the American War of Independence, when the British took up the role previously played by Spain and France. Not until the early 1800's was the Wilderness Road finally secured, leaving tens of thousands of graves of Americans, bitter memories, and an endelible mark on the national consciousness.

Reasons

Despite these almost impossible odds, the American settlers kept coming. For reasons economic, religious and political, the Colonial settlers, mostly of English, Scots-Irish, Anglo-Irish, and Anglo-Scots and their American children were driven to the region. The enclosure of lands in Northern England and Scotland as well as the growth of population was impoverishing the population thereby encouraging the English, Scottish, and Anglo-Scots to migrate and settle the region. In Ireland, constant low grade warfare by Irish Catholics, and discriminatory measures in politics and economics by the rich Ascendancy as well as the abundance of cheap land, encouraged the Anglo-Irish, and Scots-Irish to migrate and settle the region.

But ultimately, these communities were proven fighters. Most were border families or traced their lineage to border families along Northern England and Southern Scotland were for centuries they had lived a frontier, austere, and violent existence. Over time, the British crown decided to use them as frontier fighters in Ireland, were the Irish Catholics had proven particularly stubborn in resisting Royal authority. In Ireland, these clans, supplemented by large numbers of religiously driven Protestant English, Germans, and Huguenots, who were themselves survivors of Catholic persecution, joined in molding a Scots-Irish community in Ireland. Religiously motivated, economically driven, and willing to use violence in defending themselves and obtaining their goals they proved decisive in securing the Kingdom of Ireland. Although spread all over Ireland, they were particularly strong in Ulster, were as a result of their Protestant Dissenter beliefs, the were eventually viewed as both a benefit and bane to Royal authorities and became known as the Scots-Irish.

With Ireland and the Borders more or less secure, these communities viewes on Liberty and self-government and their willingness to use violence to protect it became increasingly viewed as an obstacle to centralization of power in the realm. Consequently, fearful of the ever growing Indian violence and involvement of the French and Spanish, the Royal authorities endeavored to solve two problems at once: Reduce the dissenting Protestant population and its martial community in Ireland and the Borders, and use them to fortify the American frontier. Fearful and brave fighters, they soon made their mark on securing the frontier and creating a new mythos in Americana.

Although coming in a few waves of 10,000 or so prior to 1740, the largest group began arriving in that year. Starting in 1740 a surge of over 400,000 Scots-Irish and Border arrived in the colonies to escape the poor harvest, high rents and religious intolerance of the Catholics on the streets and farms and the political discrimination of the authorities in government. Since the better lands had already been taken, they constantly pressed onward to the western frontier of the foothills of the Carolinas.. Although the crest of the wave hit in 1745, the flood of English, Scots-Irish, German, and others continued to arrive until 1770. Over 200,000 of these pioneers came over the Wilderness Road alone, to enduring severe hardships, Indian and European colonial attacks, clearing of the forest, hunting, and creation of new villages.

For these frontier settlers, used to the strict regimentation of semi-feudal life in the Borders and Ireland, the American frontier offered an abundance of resources and freedom. There was a great variety of animal life in the wilderness. At night, the pioneers could hear the hoots and screeches of owls, the howls of wolves, and the cries of panthers and wild cats. Sometimes the Indians imitated these sounds, and over time, these frontiersmen began to discern when such sounds might signal attack. Poisonous snakes such as copperheads and rattlesnakes blended into the leaves and undergrowth which were a danger to the pioneers, their horses and cattle. Meanwhile, Beaver, Deer, and Fowl were everywhere, and the land itself, although difficult to clear, was easy to farm. Thus, the region offered tremendous opportunity, and birth records reveal this as these frontier clans, used to having only a few surviving children, were upon securing their homesteads having dozens of children.

Settlement

The region along the road had already seen large numbers of small communities of these frontier clans established prior to the full opening of the road. However, the French and Indian Wars had almost succeeded in genociding the entire community. Additionally, despite promises of land in the region in return for their service, the British had secretly negotiated with the Indians removing the pioneer families from the frontier and ending any further expansion. This was publicly announced in the Proclamation of 1763, which hit the proven loyalty of the frontier communities hard. Aside from the bitter betrayal of promises, the Proclamation advanced Indian territory deeper into the frontier, and opening up critical roads deep into the Colonies. Consequently, this marked a significant break in relations between this large ethnicity inside the British Empire and their Royal authorities. Soon, many were ignoring the proclamation and returning to the frontier regions especially at geographically important choke points which allowed entrance into the colonies such as the Wilderness Road. Others were spreading sedition within the colonies as they rallied their kinsmen against the proclamation and the perfidy of their own government.

In turn, Judge Richard Henderson, without any authority, had made a treaty with the Cherokee at Sycamore Shoals in 1775, purchasing over 20,000,000 acres (8,100,000 ha) of land they had claimed between the Cumberland and Kentucky Rivers but which was also contested by other tribes. On March 28, 1775, he left Long Island (Kingsport, Tennessee) with about 30 horsemen on the grueling trip down the Wilderness Road to Kentucky. At Martin's Station, 40 to 50 additional pioneers joined the venture. On their way, they met nearly a hundred refugees fleeing Indian attacks further down the road. Despite the danger, the party kept going toward Kentucky. Since some of the streams were flooded, the pioneers had to swim with their horses. On April 20, they arrived at Boonesborough, a fortified town, named by Judge Henderson in honor of Boone.

During the War of Independence, the entire frontier from North to South erupted as almost all of the Indian nations united to Genocide the Americans straight into the Ocean. Backed by British arms and officers, the Indians along the Wilderness Road, quickly overcame most of the homesteads before the settlers could respond. Entire families, men, women, and children were brutally murdered. Those who succeeded in surviving raised the alarm thereby allowing several thousand families to escape to the "Stations" and forts. However, the Indian armies were so large, that even the Forts were unable to withstand as several stockades and forts were destroyed and all these seeking refuge savagely murdered. Before a counter-offensive by survivors and reinforcements from deeper into the colonies pushed back the tide, over seven thousand men, women, and children had been murdered along the Wilderness Road in the first seven months of 1777. The crisis became seared into the memory of those regions as the Bloody Sevens.

Quick upon the back of these devastation came a deep and long winter. In the winters of 1778–79, the weather was so cold that the Kentucky River froze to a depth of two feet. The frontier settlements, now mostly reduced to a few stockades and forts alongside the road struggled to survive. Many of the cattle and hogs froze to death. The settlers had to eat frozen cattle and horses to survive. These frontier families played a decisive role in saving the new nation as they single-handedly held back the large Indian armies from breaking into the heartlands of the colonies as the British had planned. Eventually, the frontiersmen having secured the frontier provided critical support in the American Revolutionary war when the Americans drove the British from the South.

With final decisive victory won in the Battle of Yorktown, the frontier remained a conflict zone. Although the Treaty of Paris 1783 had overturned the Proclamation of 1763 and restored the lands of the frontiersmen, the British and Spanish remained active in stirring up Indian resistance. None proved more a hated enemy than the Chickamauga, who continued their genocidal attacks starting from 1775 until 1794. Often the Chickamauga, under the leadership of Dragging Canoe, would hide in ambush for weeks between Cumberland Gap and Crab Orchard, a distance of 100 miles (160 km). They would not attack large groups but wait for weaker ones, especially those filled with women and children, and which were not able to easily defend themselves. Despite having held on to the Wilderness Road, it remained vulnerable to this type of attack. More than 100 men, women and children were savagely^{[citation needed]} murdered in the fall of 1784 along the Wilderness Road.

Those that survived included many families, who even in ice and snow, crossed the creeks and rivers without shoes or stockings and often without money and few clothes secured their meager homesteads, living off the land by hunting in the woods and by fishing in the streams. Since they had hardly any money, entire families sometimes walked hundreds of miles after landing in America. They even used cattle as pack animals to carry their heavy loads. Cabins were built and land was cleared of trees and undergrowth so crops could be planted.

Arriving at their homestead, the pioneers would begin staking their claim, scouting the area, and building their new home. Chestnut was the most popular wood since its logs could be used to build cabins and rail fences to protect crops from wild animals. It could easily be split into shingles for roofs to cover cabins and barns. Its bark was used to make medicine and tannic acid for tanning and dyeing. In the fall, its rich nuts were used to fatten razorback hogs for the market and the home. Hemlock was also highly valued for its many uses.

Having built their homes and surveyed their land, the families in association with others, usually fellow kinsmen, would begin the hard-work of building new communities. Those with specialized skills would begin crafting the implements necessary for home-living, hunting, farming, and war. Mothers and children would clear the areas surrounding the home, collect the wild herbs, vegetables and fruits for food, while the fathers and adolescents would begin foraging, hunting, and trapping. Over time, small plots of land were farmed for additional food while the growth in population required an expansion of the arts and crafts necessary to upkeep the community. The surrounding community would soon locate the stores, liveries, and smiths necessary for their support. Usually, these were located near the old blockhouses and stockades which soon became small villages filled with the artisans, craftsmen, and shopkeepers of frontier life. Meanwhile, the forts, already centers for such supplies slowly grew into towns and cities. For instance, Fort Nashboro, subsequently became Nashville, Tennessee.

The last of the great Indian Wars occurred in the years following the War of 1812. The murderous Chickamauga and their leader Dragging Canoe were finally destroyed. The Shawnee were driven from the state and moved East along with most others doing the Indian removals. The last conflict with the Indians occurred doing the 1830s, with the removal of the final so-called Five Civilized tribes, which had proved such a hated enemy of the Americans.^{[citation needed]} Henceforth, the population turned to building up their hard-won lands which had been merely a vision foreseen when the first colonists from Great Britain and Ireland left their ancient homes in the islands and boarded ships to the colonies and the Wilderness Road. Many frontier families continued on the road west. Boone's descendants were so many that several generations later, some could be found living the same life, but now in Texas, Colorado, and into California. Others, such as Davey Crockett, spurred on by Manifest Destiny, moved down the Mississippi and into Texas. Many were the defenders at the Battle of the Alamo who were the children and grandchildren of those who had opened up the Wilderness Road, if they in fact had not been the very ones.

Ultimately, the Wilderness Road opened up the Appalachian Mountains, which had blocked American expansion westward. Blocked to the South by the Spanish and Indians and swamps, and into the North by the Great Lakes, rivers, and French and Indians, the Wilderness Road was considered a strategically important pathway westwards. Although it was only one of several which served similar purposes from North to South, its importance in opening up the Kentucky and Tennessee territories with their strategic rivers, vast forests, game, fish, and farmland, as well as the deadly and bloody history with its heroic and dastardly deeds, and the many descendants of Americans whose ancestors traveled the route, made the road the most important one in America's consciousness.^{[citation needed]}

Commerce and mail

The Wilderness Road served as a great path of commerce for the early settlers in Kentucky. Horses, cattle, sheep and hogs found a waiting market in the Carolinas, Maryland and Virginia. Hogs in groups of 500 or more were driven down the Road to market. Beef in Eastern markets had become a main source of income for farmers in Kentucky.

A postal road was opened in 1792 from Bean Station, Tennessee through Cumberland Gap to Danville, Kentucky. This was due largely to the efforts of Governor Isaac Shelby of Kentucky. This connection of Kentucky to the East was a great advantage. Frontier settlers considered the postal riders heroes and waited eagerly for their arrival for news from settlements along the trails as well as getting their mail and newspapers.

Civil War and decline

Use of the Wilderness Road fell when the National Road was opened in 1818, allowing travel to the Ohio River on level ground from the East. At the same time, the steamboat first appeared on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, allowing travel both up and down the rivers. (Hitchcock, 85)

During the American Civil War, both the Union Army and the Confederate States Army used the Road. An early battle (Camp Wildcat), stymied the first attempt by the Confederates to seize control of neutral Kentucky. The Cumberland Gap changed hands four times throughout the war. The southern armies used the road for marches into Virginia. General Ulysses S. Grant came down the road for the Union campaign in Tennessee in 1864. Grant was so taken by the Road that he said, "With two brigades of the Army of the Cumberland I could hold that pass against the army which Napoleon led to Moscow."

The road today

A segment of the Wilderness Road was among the first roads in the United States to be paved. The old road from the town of Cumberland Gap, Tennessee to Middlesboro, Kentucky through the mountain pass was paved and completed on October 3, 1908. This was an "object-lesson" road (a new kind of paved macadam construction funded by local communities but with federal governmental supervision) initiated by the U.S. Office of Public Roads. At that time, only about 680 miles (1,090 km) of paved highway roads existed in the United States. Later, it was linked to the famous Dixie Highway that connected Detroit, Michigan to Miami, Florida by a paved road. Its name was later changed to U.S. Highway 25. This new road brought a new industry, tourism, to the rural areas filling hotels and restaurants with travelers.

Today, Cumberland Gap is a National Park, and portions of the Wilderness Road can be visited at Wilderness Road State Park in Virginia. Additionally, a reconstructed fort at Martin’s Station in Virginia on the Wilderness Road can be visited about 5 miles (8 km) east of the Cumberland Gap. Since the completion of the Cumberland Gap Tunnel in 1996, a project has been underway to restore the original appearance of the Wilderness Road as it crosses the historic Cumberland Gap. Since 2001 Hwy. 25E has been obliterated over several miles of its length and the original grade restored, including the addition of 32 feet (9.8 m) of elevation to restore the Gap to its original contour, with virtually all modern artifacts, buildings and roads removed. The replanting of thousands of seedlings from original forest stocks in the area is intended, over a period of decades, to recreate a forest that will allow visitors to view the crossing of the Gap on the Wilderness Road as travelers would have experienced it circa 1790. This section of the Wilderness Road is now a hiking trail, including an interpretive center about the road's history located on the Tennessee side.

References

• Axelrod, Alan: What Every American Should Know About American History (1992) Holbrook, MA. Adams Media Corp. ISBN 1-55850-309-9.
• Bodett, Tom: America’s Historic Trails (1992) San Francisco James Connoly (Small World Productions). ISBN 0-912333-00-6
• Calloway, Brenda: America's First Western Frontier: East Tennessee (1989) Kingsport, Tenn. The Overmountain Press . ISBN 0-932807-34-8
• Cooke, Alistair: Alistair Cooke’s America (1973) New York Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
• Eslinger, Ellen: Running Mad for Kentucky: Frontier Travel Accounts. University Press of Kentucky, (2004).
• Drake, Richard B. A History of Appalachia. University Press of Kentucky (2001).
• Kincaid, Robert: The Wilderness Road (1992) Kingsport, Tenn. Arcata Graphics. ISBN Unknown ASIN B0006BNK0U
• Leyburn, James G: The Scotch Irish A Social History (1962) Chapel Hill .University of North Carolina Press . ISBN 0-8078-4259-1.
• Newby, Eric: The Rand McNally World Atlas of Exploration (1975) London: Mitchell Beazley. ISBN 0-528-83015-5.
• Riley, Darnell: The Tennessee Blue Book (2004) Nashville: State of Tennessee. ASIN B000B9LQIK
• Rouse, Parke, Jr: 'The Great Wagon Road (2004) Richmond: The Diaz Press . ISBN 0-87517-065-X.
• Webb, James: Born Fighting How the Scots-Irish Shaped America (2004) New York : Broadway Books. ISBN 0-7679-1688-3.
• Williams, John Alexander: Appalachia: A History (2002) Chapel Hill, N.C. : University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0-8078-5368-2.

See also

• Wilderness Road State Park

External links

• Detailed map of the Wilderness Road
• Map of the Kentucky part of the Wilderness Road