AT THE END OF BOONE'S ROAD
On the nineteenth of April, 1775, the rumble of the running fire at
Lexington and Concord told that the farmers of New England had at last
precipitated the struggle which had been impending for a full
generation. It was a roar that, truly, was "heard round the world."
One day later, April 20, 1775, Colonel Henderson and his fellow-pioneers
of the Transylvania Company reached Boonesborough; there they were
joyfully received by a running fire of five and twenty muskets
discharged by Boone's vanguard, which had preceded them to cut the road.
If the musket-shot behind the New England stone walls was heard round
the world, the rattle of that score of muskets in distant Kentucky was
heard around a continent. The former uttered a hoarse defiance to
tyrants--a cry to God for liberty; what was the faint roar which echoed
back a thousand mountain miles from Kentucky but an answer to that cry?
an assurance that "to him that hath shall be given?" There is something
divinely significant to me in the coincidence of the opening shock of
the Revolution, and the arrival in Kentucky of the first considerable
body of determined, reputable men.
The story of the Revolutionary War in the West has been told in
preceding pages, as the merest record of fact. It is unnecessary to
state that it was the most important conflict ever waged there, and it
is equally trite to observe that the struggle centered around Kentucky.
Boone's Road had made possible the sudden movement of population
westward, and this pioneer host immediately drew upon itself the enemies
that otherwise would have scourged the frontiers of New York,
Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina. The first and principal
portion of the Kentucky pioneers--those who fought the Revolutionary
battles--entered Kentucky by the Cumberland Gap route. James Lane Allen
writes: "That area [Kentucky] has somewhat the shape of an enormous
flat foot, with a disjointed big toe, a roughly hacked-off ankle, and a
missing heel. The sole of this huge foot rests solidly on Tennessee, the
Ohio River trickles across the ankle and over the top, the big toe is
washed entirely off by the Tennessee River, and the long-missing heel is
to be found in Virginia, never having been ceded by that State. Between
the Kentucky foot and the Virginia heel is piled up this immense, bony,
grisly mass of the Cumberland Mountain, extending some three hundred
miles northeast and southwest. It was through this heel that Kentucky
had to be peopled. The thin, half-starved, weary line of pioneer
civilizers had to penetrate it, and climb this obstructing mountain
wall, as a line of traveling ants might climb the wall of a castle. In
this case only the strongest of the ants--the strongest in body, the
strongest in will--succeeded in getting over and establishing their
colony in the country far beyond. Luckily there was an enormous
depression in the wall, or they might never have scaled it. During about
half a century this depression was the difficult, exhausting
entrance-point through which the State received the largest part of its
people, the furniture of their homes, and the implements of their
civilization; so that from the very outset that people represented the
most striking instance of a survival of the fittest that may be observed
in the founding of any American commonwealth. The feeblest of the ants
could not climb the wall; the idlest of them would not."[21] Mr. Speed
agrees wholly in this opinion: "The settlers came in ... increasing
numbers.... A very large proportion came over the Wilderness Road."[22]
In the early days river travel was not practicable. During the
Revolutionary War and for some time thereafter travel down the Ohio
River was dangerous, both because of the hostility of the savages and
because of the condition of the river. In earlier days the journey from
the Ohio into the populated parts of Kentucky was a great hardship. The
story of one who emigrated to Kentucky by way of the Ohio shows plainly
why many preferred the longer land route by way of Cumberland Gap. The
following is from an autobiographical statement made by Spencer Record,
preserved by the Wisconsin Historical Society:
"About the Twentieth of November (1783) we embarked on the Monongahela
in our boat, in company with Kiser, I having with me four head of horses
and some cattle. We landed at the mouth of Limestone Creek, but there
was then, no settlement there. We made search for a road, but found
none. There was indeed a buffalo road, that crossed Limestone Creek a
few miles above its mouth, and passing May's lick about twelve miles
from Limestone, went on to the Lower Blue Lick on Licking river, and
thence to Bryant's station: but as we knew nothing of it, we went on,
and landed at the mouth of Licking river, on the twenty ninth of the
month.
"The next day, we loaded periogue, and a canoe, and set off up Licking,
sometimes wading and pulling our periogue and canoe over the ripples.
After working hard for four days, we landed, hid our property (which
was whiskey and our farming utensils) in the woods, and returned to the
Ohio, which by this time had taken a rapid rise and backed up Licking,
so that we took Kiser's boat up, as far as we had taken our property and
unloaded her. We left on the bank of Licking, a new wagon and some
kettles. Leaving our property to help Kiser, we packed up and set off up
Licking, and travelled some days; but making poor progress, and snow
beginning to fall, with no cane in that part of the country, for our
horses and cattle, we left Kiser and set off to hunt for cane. He sent
his stock with us, in care of Henry Fry, who had come down in his boat
with cattle for his father.
"When we came to the fork of Licking we found a wagon road cut out, that
led up the South fork. This road had been cut by Colonel Bird, a British
officer, who had ascended Licking in keel boats, with six hundred
Canadians and Indians. They were several days in cutting out this road
which led to Riddle's fort, which stood on the east side of Licking,
three miles below the junction of Hinkston's and Stoner's fork, yet our
people knew nothing of it, till they were summoned to surrender.... We
took the road and went on, the snow being about half leg deep. Early in
the morning, about three miles from Riddle's fort, we came to three
families encamped. They had landed at Limestone but finding no road,
they wandered through the woods, crossed Licking, and happening to find
the road, took it.... We went on to the fort, where we found plenty of
cane. The next morning, John Finch and myself set off to try to find
Lexington, and left the horses and cattle ... as there was no road, we
took up Will creek, and towards the head of it we met some hunters, who
lived on the south side of Kentucky river who gave us directions how to
find a hunting trace, that led to Bryant's station.... We went on, found
the trace, and arrived at Bryant's station."[23]
Adding to the difficulties of land travel the dangers of the river tide,
the difficulty of securing boats, and their great cost, it is little
wonder that emigrants from Virginia preferred the long but better-known
land route, through Powell's Valley and Cumberland Gap to the Braddock
Road and the Ohio River. At a later date, however, the difficulties of
river passage were materially decreased and the Ohio became the great
outward emigrant route.
But for the return traffic from Kentucky to Virginia, there was no
comparison between the ease of the land route and the water route. Mr.
Speed affirms that the road through Cumberland Gap "was the only
practicable route for all return travel."[24] Of course for a long
period there were no exports from Kentucky, as hardly enough could be
raised to feed the multitude of immigrants; but when at last Kentucky
strode to the front with its great harvests of wheat and tobacco, the
Mississippi and Ohio ports received them.
The East received comparatively little benefit, in a commercial way,
from Boone's Road; but in the earliest days that slight track furnished
a moral support that can hardly be exaggerated. The vast population that
surged westward over it was a mighty barrier which protected the rear of
the colonies from the savages, until savage warfare was at an end.
Though the frontiers of New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia suffered
greatly during the Revolution, it was Kentucky that was the thorn in the
side of the British; Kentucky drew the fire of both British and Indians
which otherwise would have desolated the rear of the eastern colonies,
and necessitated a greater number of men than could possibly have been
maintained there. It was not at Fort Pitt that the British were
constantly striking, but at the Kentucky "stations;" it was not up the
Allegheny or Monongahela that Colonel Burd pushed his keel boats, but up
the Licking. This fact is splendidly urged by Col. John Floyd, in a
letter to the governor of Virginia written on the sixth of October,
1781, in a plea for assistance in maintaining the Kentucky settlements:
"... A great deal more might be said concerning the dangerous situation
of these counties, but I have not been informed whether Government think
it absolutely necessary for the advantage of the community at large to
defend this country [Kentucky] at so considerable expense as must be
incurred thereby; and I therefore beg leave to offer your Excellency one
or two reasons why it may be of advantage to defend the Kentucky
country. It is now beyond a doubt, that the attention of at last [least]
6000 savage warriors is fixed on this spot, and who will not disturb any
other part of the Continent as long as we maintain our ground. But, on
the contrary, as soon as this country is laid waste, they will
immediately fall upon the inhabitants of Washington, Montgomery,
Greenbriar, &c--in short, from South Carolina to Pennsylvania. I believe
all the counties on the west side of the Blue Ridge were kept for many
years penned up in forts by the Shawanese, Mingoes, Delawares & a few of
their adherents; if so what will be the consequence when at least
fifteen powerful Nations are united and combined with those above
mentioned against about twelve hundred militia dispersed over three
very extensive counties. Those nations have absolutely been kept off
your back settlements by the inhabitants of Kentucky. Two or three
thousand men in this country would be sufficient to defend it, and
effectually secure the back settlements on New River & its waters, as
well as those high up James River & Roanoake."[25]
In addition to conferring the inestimable advantage of defending the
frontiers of the colonies, the early settlement and the holding of
Kentucky insured American possession of the Middle West; this meant
everything to the East--for the steady, logical expansion of the nation
was the one hope of the country when independence was secured. Upon the
Americanization of the Mississippi Valley depended the safety of the
eastern colonies, and their commercial and political welfare. It meant
very much to the East that a strong colony was holding its own on the
Ohio and Mississippi during the hours when the Revolutionary struggle
was in progress; and it meant even more to the East that, upon the
conclusion of that struggle, thousands whose future seemed as black as
the forests of the West could immediately emigrate thither and begin
life anew. But for the Virginians and Kentuckians along the Ohio it is
almost certain that Great Britain would have divided the eastern half of
this continent with the triumphant revolutionists. For the few posts
along the lakes that she did hold there was a spirited wrangle for
twenty years, until they were at last handed over to the United States.
Boone did not blaze his road one day too soon, and the hand of divine
Providence is not shown more plainly in our national history than by the
critical timeliness with which these pioneers were ushered into the
meadow lands of Ken-ta-kee. The onslaughts of Shawanese and Wyandot did
not overwhelm them; nor were they daunted by the plotting of desperate
British officers, who spread ruin and desolation along the flank and
rear of the fighting colonies.
Again, this earliest population in the immediate valley of the
Mississippi had a powerful influence on the attitude of the United
States toward the powers that held the Mississippi. Had it not been for
a Kentucky in embryo in 1775-82, it is unquestionable that the confused
story of the possession of that great river valley would have been worse
confounded. The whirl of politics in Kentucky during the four decades
after the Revolutionary War daunts even the student of modern Kentucky
politics; and of one thing we may rest assured--had the State possessed
a little less of the sober sense that came from Virginia through
Cumberland Gap, it is certain the story of those wild days would not be
as readable to modern Kentuckians as it is. It was more than fortunate
for the young Republic that at the close of the Revolution there was a
goodly population of expatriated Virginians and North Carolinians on the
Mississippi, ready to press its claims there.
Thus we may briefly suggest the benefits which the older colonies
received from the earliest settlers in Kentucky--and but for Boone's
Road made by the Transylvania Company, it is exceedingly doubtful, as
Boone wrote, whether the settlement of Kentucky would have been
successfully inaugurated as early as 1774. At any rate Boone's Road
brought into Kentucky thousands of pioneers who probably would have
refused to move westward by the Ohio River route.
As for the benefit Kentucky itself received from Boone's Road, that is
self-evident. Taking everything into consideration, no distinct movement
of population in America, before or since, can compare in magnitude with
the burst of immigration through Cumberland Gap between 1775 and 1790.
Never on this continent was a population of seventy thousand people
located, within fifteen years of the day the first cabins were erected,
at an equal distance from the existing frontier line. It is difficult to
frame the facts of this remarkable phenomenon in language that will
convey the full meaning. If the brave pioneers from Connecticut who
founded the Northwest Territory at Marietta, Ohio, in 1788, had gone on
to Kentucky, they would have found themselves, within twelve years, in
as populous a state as that they left in New England. The Stanwix Treaty
and Boone's Road largely answer the question why Kentucky contained
more than one-half as many inhabitants as Massachusetts, twenty-five
years after its first settlement was made; and why it was admitted into
the Union four years before Tennessee, ten years before Ohio,
twenty-four years before Indiana, twenty-six years before Illinois
(bounded by the Ohio and Mississippi and Lake Michigan), and
twenty-eight years before Maine. Between 1790 and 1800 the population of
Kentucky jumped from 70,000 to 220,000, only one-third less than proud
Maryland, and five times that of Ohio. In the census of 1790 Kentucky
stood fourteenth in a grouping of sixteen states and territories, while
in 1800 it stood ninth. In 1790 it exceeded the population of Rhode
Island, Delaware and Tennessee. In 1800 it exceeded New Jersey, New
Hampshire, Georgia, Vermont, Maine, Tennessee, Rhode Island, and
Delaware. In this year it had one hundred and sixty thousand more
inhabitants than Indiana Territory, Mississippi Territory, and Ohio
Territory combined. In the decade mentioned, New York State increased in
population two hundred and fifty thousand; far-away Kentucky increased
one hundred and forty-seven thousand.
But the West as a whole was benefited by Boone's Road. The part played
by this earliest population of Kentucky in the development of the
contiguous states--Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri--has never been
emphasized sufficiently. No Ohio historian has given sufficient
attention to the part played by Kentuckians in the conquest of that area
of territory. The struggle between the Kentuckians and the Ohio Indians
has been outlined. The former fought for and saved to the Union the
great territory south of the Ohio; and then left their smoking cabins
and threw themselves ever and anon across the Ohio, upon the Indian
settlements between that river and the Great Lakes. Where is even the
Kentucky historian who has done his state justice in telling the story
of Kentucky's conquest of Ohio and Indiana? Of the brilliant operations
of Clark in Illinois we know very much, and the part played by the
Kentuckians on the Mississippi and Illinois has frequently been made
plain. But a singular misconception of the nature of Indian warfare has
robbed the heroes of old Kentucky of much honor due them. Judged by
ordinary military standards, the numerous invasions of Ohio and Indiana
by Kentuckians amounted to little. Such was not the real case, many
times. The Indians could ever retreat helter-skelter into the forests,
avoiding more than a mere skirmish with the advancing pioneers. But they
could not take their crops--and the destruction of one slight maize crop
meant more to the invading army than the killing of many savages. The
killing of the Indians did nothing but aggravate hostilities and long
delay the end of the conflict. On the other hand, slaying redskins
became the passion of the whites, and it is probable that many of their
expeditions seemed failures if blood was not spilt. But their very
presence in the Indian land and the destruction of the grain fields was
more to their purpose, could they only have realized it. The Indians
were then compelled to live largely on game, and as this grew more
scarce each year the simple problem of obtaining subsistence became
serious. The hunters were compelled to go further and further into the
forest, and the tribes followed them. By doing nothing more than burning
the harvest fields and ruining the important springs, the whites were
slowly but surely conquering the trans-Ohio country.[26] By such a
process one river valley after another was deserted, until, when the
first legalized settlement was made in Ohio--at Marietta, in 1788--the
Muskingum, Scioto and Miami valleys were practically deserted by
redskins. Little as the Indians relished the new settlement at Marietta,
they paid practically no attention to it but kept their eyes on the
populated valleys of Kentucky, where their enemies of so many years'
standing had settled, held their own, and then carried fire and sword
northward. In October 1788 Governor Arthur St. Clair wrote the Hon. Mr.
Brown of Danville, Kentucky, to give warning of the Indian war that
seemed imminent; "The stroke, if it falls at all, will probably fall
upon your country," he wrote.[27] And the Indian War of 1790 was
precipitated because of Indian marauds along the Kentucky border--not
because of attacks upon the settlements along the upper Ohio. The
Kentuckians had played a preëminent part in driving the Indians back to
the head of the Wabash and the mouth of the Maumee, in the two decades
preceding the Indian War which opened in 1790, and during that war they
were to the American armies what the English were to the allies at
Waterloo. Local histories and local historians have created the
impression that Ohio was conquered largely by Ohioans. Nothing could be
more misleading.
Far-reaching as the influence of the little roadway through Cumberland
Gap has been, its actual history is of little interest or importance.
Perhaps none of our ancient roads has done so much for society in
proportion to the attention paid to it. Any adjective ever applied to a
roadway, if it were of a derogatory character, might have been fitly
applied to portions of this old track which played an important part in
giving birth to the first and most important settlement in the West.
During the few important years of its existence Boone's Road was only
what Boone made it--a blazed foot-path westward. It was but the merest
foot-path from 1774 to 1792, while thousands floundered over its
uncertain track to lay the rude foundations of civilization in the land
to which it led. "There are roads that make a man lose faith," writes
Mr. Allen; "It is known that the more pious companies [of pioneers] as
they traveled along, would now and then give up in despair, sit down,
raise a hymn, and have prayers said before they could go farther." There
was probably not a more desperate pioneer road in America than this. The
mountains to be crossed, the rivers and swamps the traveler encountered,
were as difficult to overcome as any on Braddock's Road; and Boone's
Road was very much longer, even if measured from its technical
starting-point--the Watauga settlement.
As early as 1779 the Virginia Assembly took up the subject of a western
highway, and commissioners were appointed to explore the region on both
sides of the mountains, to choose a course for a roadway, clear and
open the route, and render a report upon the advisability of making a
wagon road. Yet no improvement followed. The narrow path--rough,
treacherous, almost impassable--remained the only course. A vivid
description of what a journey over it meant in this year, 1779, has been
left us by Chief-justice Robertson in an address given at Camp Madison,
Franklin County, Kentucky, half a century ago:
"This beneficent enactment [the land law] brought to the country during
the fall and winter of that year an unexampled tide of emigrants, who,
exchanging all the comforts of their native society and homes for
settlements for themselves and their children here, came like pilgrims
to a wilderness to be made secure by their arms and habitable by the
toil of their lives. Through privations incredible and perils thick,
thousands of men, women, and children came in successive caravans,
forming continuous streams of human beings, horses, cattle, and other
domestic animals, all moving onward along a lonely and houseless path to
a wild and cheerless land. Cast your eyes back on that long procession
of missionaries in the cause of civilization; behold the men on foot
with their trusty guns on their shoulders, driving stock and leading
packhorses; and the women, some walking with pails on their heads,
others riding with children in their laps, and other children swung in
baskets on horses, fastened to the tails of others going before; see
them encamped at night expecting to be massacred by Indians; behold them
in the month of December, in that ever memorable season of unprecedented
cold called the 'hard winter,' traveling two or three miles a day,
frequently in danger of being frozen or killed by the falling of horses
on the icy and almost impassable trace, and subsisting on stinted
allowances of stale bread and meat; but now lastly look at them at the
destined fort, perhaps on the eve of merry Christmas, when met by the
hearty welcome of friends who had come before, and cheered by fresh
buffalo meat and parched corn, they rejoice at their deliverance, and
resolve to be contented with their lot.
"This is no vision of the imagination, it is but an imperfect
description of the pilgrimage of my own father and mother, and of many
others who settled in Kentucky in December, 1779."
Not until 1792 was the mountain route improved. "In that year," writes
Mr. Speed, "according to an account-book recently found among the Henry
Innis Papers, by Colonel John Mason Brown ... a scheme was projected for
the clearing and improvement of the Wilderness Road, under the direction
of Colonel John Logan and James Knox. It was a private enterprise
altogether; the subscribers to it are set down in the book as follows:
Isaac Shelby, £3 0s
Robert Breckinridge, 2 8
George Nicholas, 2 8
Henry Pawling, 1 10
John Brown, 2 8
James Brown, 1 16
Alexander S. Bullitt, 2 8
Wm. McDowell, 1 10
Edward S. Thomas, 1 10
Joseph Crockett, 1 18
Wm. King, 10
Wm. Montgomery, jr., 1 10
John Hawkins, 1 10
Samuel Woods, 1 4
Hubbard Taylor, 2 8
Thomas Todd, 1 10
Wm. Steele, 1 10
James Trotter, 1 18
Joseph Gray, 2 2
Joshua Hobbs, 1 4
Robert Todd, 1 10
Jesse Cravens, 1 10
David Knox, 1 12
Thomas Lewis, 1 10
Samuel Taylor, 1 4
John McKinney, 1 18
Nicholas Lewis, 1 4
Jacob Froman, 3 0
Richard Young, 1 4
James Davies, 1 10
Robert Patterson, 1 10
Robert Mosby, 1 10
John Watkins, 1 4
Matthew Walton, 1 16
John Jouett, 1 10
Robert Abel, 12
John Wilson, 12
Richard Taylor, 1 10
Arthur Fox, 1 0
John Caldwell, 12
George Thompson, 1 4
Baker Ewing,
Abe Buford, 1 8
Willis Green, 1 10
Wm. Montgomery, sr., 1 10
Morgan Forbes, 18
Daniel Hudgins, 6
Samuel Grundy, 1 10
James Hays, 1 10
James Edwards, 9
Wm. Campbell, 12
David Stevenson, 9
Hugh Logan, 6
Peter Troutman, 12
Thomas Montgomery, 6
John Vauhn, 6
Elijah Cravens, 6
Richard Chapman, 6
James Sutton, 3
Joseph Lewis, 6
Wm. Baker, 6
Richard Jackman, 6
Jonathan Forbes, 12
Isaac Hite, 12
John Blane, 12
Abraham Hite, 12
John Caldwell, 1 4
Peyton Short, 1 10
George M. Bedinger, 18
Alex. D. Orr, 1 10
Philip Caldwell, 1 4
Cornelius Beatty, 1 16
Nathaniel Hart, 1 4
John Grant, 1 10
Andrew Holmes, 1 16
Alex. Parker, 1 16
Robert Barr, 2 8
James Parker, 1 16
Thomas Kennedy, 3 0
Wm. Live, 1 18
George Teagarden, 18
George Muter, 1 10
James Hughes, 1 10
Buckner Thruston, 1 10
John Moylan, 1 10
Samuel McDowell, 1 4
James Parberry, 3 0
Joseph Reed, 2 0
Wm. Perrett, 5
John Robinson, 2 0
John Wilkins, 4
Wm. Whilley, Bacon acct.
Henry Clark, 6
Hardy Rawles, 2 0
James Young, 12
John Warren, 6
Peter Sidebottom, 6
John Willey, 6
Moses Collier, 12
Abraham Himberlin, 1 0
Alex Blane, 12
John Jones, 18
Levi Todd, 1 0
Thomas Ball, 12
"Besides these, it appears from a note in the memorandum book there were
other subscribers. Among the Innis papers I have found the following
paper:
'Colonel John Logan and Colonel James Knox, having consented to act as
commissioners to direct and supervise the making and opening a road from
the Crab Orchard to Powell's Valley, provided funds to defray the
necessary expenses shall be procured, we, the subscribers, do therefore
severally engage to pay the sum annexed to our names to the Hon. Harry
Innis and Colonel Levi Todd, or to their order, in trust, to be by them
applied to the payment of the reasonable expenses which the said
commissioners may incur in carrying the above design into effect, also
to the payment of such compensation to the said commissioners for their
services as the said Innis and Todd may deem adequate.'
June 20, 1792.
Thos. Barber, $10
Wm. Crow, 5
Green Dorsey, 18
John Cochran, 4
David Gillis, 10
Wm. Petty, 1
John Warren, 10
Wm. Kenton, 1
Philip Bush, jr., 10
David Rice, 1
John Rochester, 10
John Rogers, 1
Samuel G. Keen, 5
Padtrick Curran, 1
John Reedyun, 1
Daniel Barber, 1
Philip Yeiser, 3
"The money subscribed was disbursed by Harry Innis. Men were employed as
'road cutters,' as 'surveyors,' to 'carry provisions,' to 'grind corn,'
and 'collect bacon.' The pay was two shillings sixpence per day, and
the work extended over twenty-two days in the summer of 1792."[28]
The Kentucky legislature passed an act in 1793, which provided a guard
for pilgrims on the Wilderness Road; in 1794 an act was passed for the
clearing of the Boonesborough fork of the road, from Rockcastle Creek to
the Kentucky River. In 1795 the legislature passed an act to make the
Wilderness Road a "wagon road" thirty feet wide from near Crab Orchard
to Cumberland Gap. Proposals being advertised for, the aged Daniel Boone
addressed Governor Isaac Shelby the following letter:
"Sir feburey the 11th 1796
after my Best Respts to your Excelancy and famyly I wish to inform
you that I have sum intention of undertaking this New Rode that is
to be Cut through the Wilderness and I think My Self intiteled to
the ofer of the Bisness as I first Marked out that Rode in March
1775 and Never Re'd anything for my trubel and Sepose I am No
Statesman I am a Woodsman and think My Self as Capable of Marking
and Cutting that Rode as any other man Sir if you think with Me I
would thank you to wright mee a Line by the post the first
oportuneaty and he Will Lodge it at Mr. John Miler son hinkston
fork as I wish to know Where and When it is to be Laat [let] So
that I may atend at the time
I am Deer Sir your very omble sarvent"[29]
Boone probably did not get the contract.[30]
In 1797 five hundred pounds were appropriated for the repair of the road
and erection of toll-gates. The result of this and all subsequent
legislation, to preserve a thoroughfare after its day and reason for
existence had passed, is thus summed up by Mr. Allen: "But despite all
this--despite all that has been done to civilize it since Boone traced
its course in 1790 [1775?], this honored historic thoroughfare remains
today as it was in the beginning, with all its sloughs and sands, its
mud and holes, and jutting ledges of rock and loose bowlders, and twists
and turns, and general total depravity." And yet "it is impossible,"
Mr. Allen continues, "to come upon this road without pausing, or to
write of it without a tribute."
The mountainous portions of Boone's old road are the picturesque as well
as the historic portions. And come what may, this zig-zag pathway
through Powell's Valley and Cumberland Gap can never be effaced--never
forgotten. The footsteps of the tens of thousands who have passed over
it, exhausted though each pilgrim may have been, have left a trace that
a thousand years cannot eradicate. And so long as the print of those
weary feet can be seen in dark Powell's Valley, on Cumberland Gap, and
beside Yellow and Rockcastle Creeks, so long will there be a memorial
left to perpetuate the heroism of the first Kentuckians--and the memory
of what the Middle West owes to Virginia and her neighbors. For when all
is said this track from tide water through Cumberland Gap must remain a
monument to the courage and patriotism of the people of old Virginia and
North Carolina.
Cumberland Gap, "that high-swung gateway through the mountain" stands
as "a landmark of what Nature can do when she wishes to give an
opportunity to the human race in its migrations and discoveries, without
surrendering control of its liberty and its fate." Here passed the
mound-building Indian and the buffalo, marking the first routes from
North to South across the continent. Here later passed the first
flood-tide of white men's immigration. There are few spots on the
continent, it is said, where the traveler of today is brought more
quickly to a pause, overcome equally by the stupendous panorama before
him, and by the memory of the historical associations which will assail
even the most indifferent. Ere you reach the Gap "the idea of it,"
writes Mr. Allen, "dominates the mind. While yet some miles away, it
looms up, 1675 feet in elevation, some half a mile across from crest to
crest, the pinnacle on the left towering to the height of 2500 feet. It
was late in the afternoon when our tired horses began the long, winding,
rocky climb from the valley to the brow of the pass. As we stood in the
passway, amid the deepening shadows of the twilight and the solemn
repose of the mighty landscape, the Gap seemed to be crowded with
two invisible and countless pageants of human life, the one passing
in, the other passing out; and the air grew thick with unheard
utterances--primeval sounds undistinguishable and strange, of creatures
nameless and never seen by man; the wild rush and whoop of retreating
and pursuing tribes; the slow steps of watchful pioneers; the wail of
dying children and the songs of homeless women; the muffled tread of
routed and broken armies--all the sounds of surprise and delight,
victory and defeat, hunger and pain, and weariness and despair, that the
human heart can utter. Here passed the first of the white race who led
the way into the valley of the Cumberland; here passed that small band
of fearless men who gave the Gap its name; here passed the 'Long
Hunters'; here rushed armies of the Civil War; here has passed the wave
of westerly immigration, whose force has spent itself only on the
Pacific slopes; and here in the long future must flow backward and
forward the wealth of the North and the South."
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Johnson's _First Explorations of Kentucky_ (Filson Club
Publications, No. 13), contains the journals of Walker and Gist used in
connection with this chapter.
[2] Johnson's _First Explorations of Kentucky_ (Filson Club Publications
No. 13), p. 59.
[3] _First Explorations of Kentucky_ (Filson Club Publications No. 13),
pp. 85-86.
[4] MSS. of Major Pleasant Henderson in the _Draper Collection_,
Madison, Wisconsin; _Kentucky MSS._, vol. 2, fol. 23.
[5] Draper Collection: _Kentucky MSS._ vol. 1.
[6] The maternal grandfather of Abraham Lincoln.
[7] This copy of the journal was made from the original by Mary
Catharine Calk, granddaughter of Thomas Calk, Jr.
[8] Draper Collection: _Kentucky MSS._, vol. 4, cc. p. 85.
[9] _The Wilderness Road_: pp. 18-20.
[10] Draper Collection: _Kentucky MSS._, vol. 1, fol. 215.
[11] _Id._
[12] Draper Notes, Wisconsin Historical Society, vol. 2; _id._, _Martin
to Gov. Harrison_, Trip of 1860, vol. 3, p. 27.
[13] _Draper Notes_, vol. 2, p. 56.
[14] _Id._, pp. 126-127.
[15] _Kentucky Gazette_: no. 33, April 12, 1788.
[16] _Id._, no. 36, May 3, 1788.
[17] _Id._
[18] _Id._, no. 38, May 17, 1788.
[19] _Id._, vol. ii, no. 10, November 1, 1788.
[20] _Id._, vol. ii, no. 14, November 29, 1788.
[20*] See _Historic Highways of America_, vol. ii, note 32.
[21] Allen: _The Blue Grass Region of Kentucky_, pp. 251-252.
[22] Speed: _The Wilderness Road_, p. 30; cf. pp. 42, 43; cf. Roosevelt:
_The Winning of the West_ (1899), vol. i, p. 316.
[23] Draper Collection: _Kentucky MSS._, vol. 23, cc. pp. 19-24.
[24] Speed: _The Wilderness Road_, p. 30. Cf. _American Pioneer_, vol.
ii, pp. 219-220; _St. Clair Papers_, vol. ii, p. 246; _Life of Nathaniel
Massie_, p. 121; Collins's _History of Kentucky_, vol. ii, p. 327.
[25] _Draper's Notes_, vol. II, Trip 1860, iii, p. 56.
[26] Cf. _Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents_, vol. 1, p. 145.
[27] _Kentucky Gazette_: vol. ii, no. 9, October 25, 1788.
[28] _The Wilderness Road_, pp. 48-50.
[29] Collins: _History of Kentucky_, vol. ii, p. 242.
[30] _Id._, p. 213.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes:
1. Passages in italics are surrounded by _underscores_.
2. Obvious errors in spelling and punctuation have been corrected except
for narratives and letters included in this text.
3. Footnotes have been moved to the end of the main text body.
4. Images have been moved from the middle of a paragraph to the closest
paragraph break.
5. Carat character (^) followed by a single letter or a set of letters
in curly brackets is indicative of subscript in the original book.
6. For longtitude and latitude, the minutes and seconds are placed as
single quotes within brackets. For example: 38° 47['] 20[''].