GATEWAY TO THE WEST
By J. M. Moseley
Attractions of the West
Virginia was from the beginning unbounded toward the
west. The other colonies were more or less definitely bounded and defined in
their charter limits. Not so with Virginia. The west was hers. At Fort Stanwix
in New York, in 1768, a treaty was made between Virginia and the Six Nations of
Indians. This was Thomas Walker’s treaty, securing a quit claim deed to the
western lands to the Mississippi. Nearly half the middle west became part of
Virginia so far as the claims of the Indians were concerned. There were 3,000
Indians present at this treaty.
There was great attraction for settlers in the fine
fertile lands of Kentucky and the Ohio Valley. The Indian word from which Ohio
originated was “Oyo!” an exclamatory expression equivalent in English to “How
beautiful!” The Indian word “Ken-ta-kee” meant “among the meadows”. This is the
origin of the name Kentucky.
Isolated Lee County constituted the main part of the
narrow connecting link, or that part of the great Wilderness Road through which
all movement from the east to the west for a time had to pass. It was the real
strategic Gateway to the West. The Wilderness Road, the longest, blackest and
hardest road of pioneer days, was truly through a wilderness. Most roads lose
their early names, but this is kept in loyal remembrance. The breaking through
the impenetrable barrier of mountains, rivers and jungles and the establishment
of a vital artery from Virginia and North Carolina into Kentucky and the great
west, was a masterpiece of timely heroism and success unparalelled in all our
history. The first settlers in Lee County and beyond, in the beautiful
“Ken-ta-kee” country, were mostly English of Scotch-Irish and Welsh descent.
Daniel Boone
At the time when the Long Hunters were searching out
the country, there was another character appearing on the horizon who was to
play a very important part on the stage for a number of trying years. Daniel
Boone had been a soldier in Braddock’s Army. He was middle-aged, medium slender
build, dark-haired, thin-lipped, wide-mouthed and grey-eyed. His wife was
black-eyed Rebecca Bryan. They lived on the Yadkin River in North Carolina.
Boone had already had experience in Indian warfare. He knew another soldier in
Braddock’s army named John Finley. One day Finley came to the Boone cabin in
North Carolina as a peddler, and told of Kentucky where he had been a trader
among the Indians. The two old friends soon talked up a plan for a trip to
Kentucky. That was in 1769.
Daniel Bryan, Boone’s nephew and namesake, described
Boone’s first trip over the Wilderness Road in a letter to Dr. Lyman C. Draper,
written in 1843. He says Boone had five men with him: John Finley, John
Stewart, Joseph Holden, James Mooney and William Cooley. Boone had been only
part of the way before. He once carved on a beech tree near Jonesboro south of
Kingsport (TN): “D Boone cilled a bar on tree 1760". He had been perhaps
as far as Moccasin Gap. But on this trip, in May, 1769, they started from the
head of the Yadkin River in North Carolina. They came by Moccasin Gap in Clinch
Mountain. They came on across Powells Mountain and Wallens Ridge and down
Powells Valley, on through Cumberland Gap into Kentucky.
A month later the Long Hunters, James Knox and party,
passed over the same route. They had started from Reedy Creek, a branch of New
River, and traveled down the Holston and through Moccasin Gap, and on into
Powells Valley and through Cumberland Gap into Kentucky.
When Long Hunters followed the same route the next
year, 1770, on a hunting trip to Kentucky and return, they found Martins
Station occupied by Martin and 20 men.
Daniel Boone’s brother-in-law, John Stewart was with
him on this first long trip for exploring and hunting in Kentucky. His son
James was then eleven years of age, and could help Rebecca with the crop and
provide game for meat. The trip was to keep Boone away for nearly two years,
though he did not intend to make it so long a stay.
Boone and Stewart were captured by Indians in
Kentucky, but made their escape. They were joined by Squire Boone, Daniel’s
brother, and Alexander Neeley. Stewart was later killed by the Indians while
hunting along. This left the Boone brothers by themselves, and Neeley became
homesick and left them. Not long after, Squire took the furs they had collected
and left for North Carolina to sell them and get supplies and return.
Daniel Boone was persistent in trying to make good on
his trip. He remained alone to explore and hunt and gather pelts. One day he
felt lonely and began to sing as he lay on a deer skin. Kasper Mansker was
near, and thought Boone’s singing was a new trick of the Indians. In his long
beard and fringed shirt he creeped cautiously up, his long flintlock rifle ready
for action. Both men were greatly surprised at the meeting in the deep forest.
Squire Boone returned with supplies, and the brothers
resumed their hunt together. On their way home, they were attacked by six or
eight Cherokees in Powells Valley, who took their horses, skins and supplies,
including their guns, and ordered them to leave the country. Boone had to
return to Rebecca empty handed after being nearly two years. But he took back
with him a great and burning desire to remove to Kentucky with his family some
day and make his home there.
Death of James Boone
In the year 1773, Daniel Boone and Benjamin Cutbirth
went to Kentucky on a hunting trip. As they returned, they met Captain William
Russell in Clinch Valley. Russell lived at Castlewood. They told him of the
rich lands in the Cumberland and Ohio Valley. Russell joined heartily into a
plan with them to make a settlement in Kentucky. They determined to arrange at
once for a trip. Boone could get flour, seed corn and farming tools from
Russell for the proposed settlement. Boone went on home to make immediate
preparations to return for the undertaking.
He was enthusiastic about the plan. He sold his home
on the Yadkin River in North Carolina, and organized a party to go from the
Yadkin, from Castlewood and from the Valley of Virginia. There would be quite a
company coming from different points to join in the undertaking. Arrangements
were made for the different groups to meet in Powells Valley the last of
September, 1773.
When Boone and his family and party reached Abingdon,
then called Wolf Hills, he sent his son James, 16 years of age, and John and
Richard Mendenhall of Guilford, North Carolina, to Captain Russell’s place to
inform him the party had started. They were to obtain the flour, seed corn and
farming tools, and join the party at the appointed place in Powells Valley,
apparently near the head of Station Creek about the foot of Wallens Ridge,
where the whole force would assemble for the trip.
This prearranged meeting place was accessible from all
points, as some were coming from Powells Valley, some by the Lovelady Road, and
some by Kanes Gap and Stickleyville. Most of the travel at that time was by
Kanes Gap on Powells Mountain above Duffield. The Pattonsville route across to
Stickleyville did not come into general use until about 1804. The Kanes Gap
route was evidently the one taken by Boone and his party.
Colonel Robert Spear was a very intelligent man who
lived to be more than a hundred years of age. He was a native of Lee County,
and removed with his father to Speers Ferry, then a part of Lee County, in his
boyhood days, in the year 1800, he made the trip several times over the Boone
Path, and knew the route well. Colonel A. L. Pridemore talked with Spear in his
old days. He was a man of good memory, and served in the Virginia Legislature
after he was ninety. In talking with Pridemore, he definitely placed the route
across Kanes Gap, down by Stickleyville, and across Wallens Ridge to Station
Creek. The road passed a large spring just north of Stickleyville, on the south
side of Wallens Ridge. From this spring it is about three miles to the foot of
the Ridge on the north side.
It was a good day’s journey from Holston settlement to
Powells Valley by Kanes Gap. James Boone and companions were expected to join
his father at the appointed camping place by nightfall. From Captain Russell’s
place James and his party were joined by Henry Russell, 17 year old son of
Captain Russell. Two of Russell’s slaves, Charles and Adam, were along. Besides
John and Richard Mendenhall there was Isaac Crabtree. The party was heavily
loaded. They came through Rye Cove, and across Powells Mountain at Kanes Gap.
They lost their way and were delayed on the way. Night came on, and they were
three miles short of the goal, and had to go into camp at the Fannon Spring. J.
H. Duff’s map (Draper Mss 6 C 89) locates this point on the south side of
Wallens Ridge near Stickleyville. But they had gotten in sight of Cumberland
Mountain from Powells Mountain at Kanes Gap.
That night, when wolves howled dismally around their
camp, the Mendenhalls became afraid. Isaac Crabtree joked them and said that in
Kentucky they would hear “buffaloes and wolves howling in the tree tops.”
At daybreak the next morning the party was attacked by
Shawnee Indians. They were taken by surprise. There were no indications of a
struggle or battle. In fact there is no evidence that they were even armed.
They were heavily loaded with supplies, and as they were preceded by Daniel
Boone’s party, and followed by William Russell and David Gass, and as they
expected to reach Daniel Boone’s camp that night, it was perhaps thought that
rifles would not be needed. At any rate they were powerless before the enemy.
Only two of the party escaped, Isaac Crabtree and Adam
the slave. The two young men, James Boone and Henry Russell, were killed, also
John and Richard Mendenhall. Among the attackers was “Big Jim,” a Shawnee who
had once visited the Boones at their cabin. He was recognized by James. Young
Boone pleaded for his life and that of his companions, but the Indians cruelly
tortured them with knives. When they would strike young Russell with a knife,
he would seize the knife with his hand. This caused his terrible bloody
mutilation. When the torture continued, James begged the Shawnee to end his
work quickly and not torture them any longer.
Charles the Negro was taken captive. It was learned
later from the Indians that two of the warriors quarreled on their way over
which would own the slave. To settle the quarrel, the chief killed the Negro
with his tomahawk. The other Negro Adam, wandered several days and made his way
back home to the settlement. He was set free several years later by the will of
Mrs. Russell.
Soon after the tragedy, Captain William Russell and
Captain David Gass came along and found the mutilated bodies of the victims.
Daniel Boone was reached at his waiting place and apprised of the tragedy. Some
of the party rushed back to Holston settlement for aid, and made the trip and
back the same day. This was good time over a trail like they had to travel at
that time.
Isaac Crabtree witnessed the killing of James Boone
and his companions. He was so enraged that ever after he tried to kill any
Indian that he might reach, friend or enemy. He would not tolerate the presence
of an Indian. Once while attending a horse race on the Watauga, he spied there
Indians watching the race, two men and a squaw. One of the men was “Cherokee
Billy,” a relative of Chief Connastota. Crabtree shot Cherokee Billy and tried
to get the other two, but was prevented by the crowd with much difficulty. It
was greatly feared that this might bring trouble from the Indians. There was a
local reward of fifty pounds sterling, and one hundred pounds more by the
governor, offered for Crabtree, but he was never apprehended. Still he did not
desist in his efforts to contact the Indians. The only way those in authority
could prevent him from doing some overt act to cause grave danger to the
pioneers along the sparcely settled frontier was to keep him busy with
necessary military duties.
On the day of the tragic death of James Boone and his
party, Boone’s expected reinforcements arrived from different routes. There
were forty new comers, quite a good crowd on their way to Kentucky to make the
new settlement. But finding the grave situation, they were all for immediate
return to their home settlements. Only Daniel Boone was for pressing on to
their goal. He had sold his home on the Yadkin and had nothing to go back to.
His one big purpose was to make a settlement in Kentucky, and he could hardly
give up under my circumstances. But the large company prevailed, and insisted
on going back to await a more favorable time.
James Boone and his companions were buried there at
their camping place. Their lonely graves remain unmarked and undiscovered.
Daniel Boone was known to have made a hasty visit to the place in 1775, but it
seems that no effort was ever made to permanently mark the graves.
The grief stricken father and mother of James Boone
sadly returned to Captain Russell’s place at Castlewood, and there lived in a
deserted cabin belonging to Captain David Gass. It was two years before the
trip could be undertaken again because of Indian troubles.
Colonel A. L. Pridemore once expressed the opinion
that the James Boone massacre occurred somewhere near the western end of Lee
County. This was based on no apparent evidence other than the view of
Cumberland Mountain from that point and the idea that Boone’s Trail led down
Wallens Creek instead of across Wallen’s Ridge near Stickleyville and out by
Jonesville. This theory Colonel Pridemore himself came to abandon after looking
further into the situation. He learned later that Cumberland Mountain is
visible from Powells Mountain near Kanes Gap, and being convinced of the
authentic evidence of Colonel Speak and others that the Wilderness Road crossed
from Stickleyville to Station Creek and out by Jonesville, he got a different
view of the locality. He confessed his changed viewpoint in a letter to Dr.
Lyman C. Draper, dated April 6, 1889. This is Draper Mss 6 C 27 and is on filed
with the Wisconsin Historical Society. Conclusive evidence of this is that
Wheeler in the western part of the County is some sixty miles from the Holston
settlements by the Wilderness Road, which would have required two days travel
instead of one. While we must take tradition alone with caution, there has been
kept up a continual line of tradition among the older citizens of the community
that the Fannon Spring, from which is now piped the water to the Stickleyville
High School, was the scene of the murder of James Boone and companions. This is
substantiated by reliable records which we have mentioned.
[NOTE: Daniel
Boone had three sons and two daughters. One son was killed by Indians in a
battle on Kentucky River. The other son lived at Charette, Missouri later, 50
miles west of St. Louis. After the death of his wife, Rebecca, Daniel Boone
lived with his son there until his death, and was buried in Frankfort,
Kentucky, in 1822.]
Brown’s Journal - 1782
Filed in the Library of the University of Chicago. A
section from William Brown’s Journal helps to locate the Gateway definitely:
Flat
Lick
To
North Fork of Clinch (Duffield) - 1 mile
To
Powells Mountain (Kanes Gap) - 1 mile
To
Wallens Ridge (Stickleyville) - 5 miles
To
Valley Station (Station Creek) - 2 miles
To
Glade Springs (Jonesville) - 4 miles
To
Martins Station - 19 miles
To
Big Spring - 12 miles
To
Cumberland Gap - 8 miles
There were several journals that refer to this Road,
all corresponding reasonably close, so as to leave no real doubt as to its
location.
The Wilderness Road
Daniel Boone did not first find the course of the
Wilderness Trail through Lee County, but he first marked it out. In 1775, he
and several others, explorers and hunters, had been over the course before. But
this was the first organized effort to establish it as a definite trail. By
that time he and many others were familiar with the locality down Powells Valley
and through Cumberland Gap. In fact Martin’s Station was already established at
that time. But after the trail was marked out by Boone and his party, it
remained about the same, unchanged. It lies along the present highway No. 58,
and the L & N Railroad in the western part of Lee County.
At the Block House in Scott County (VA), where roads
converged from other points, began the one Wilderness Road that passed through
Lee County. Here the roads from Philadelphia in the north, from Richmond in the
east, and from Yadkin Valley in North Carolina, via Kingsport, all converged
into one. From the Block House to Powells Valley it was about 25 miles. Thence
to Cumberland Gap about 50 miles more.
One is impressed by the great influence upon history
the Gaps or Passes have had. Moccasin Gap in Clinch Mountain, Kanes Gap in
Powells Mountain, Cumberland Gap, in Cumberland Mountain and Pine Mountain Gap
at Pineville have each played parts in history. But for these, how much more
difficult would have been the conquest of the wilderness. Buffaloes were the
first to adopt the passes and make trails through them; then the Indians. These
were natural trails marked out ages before the pioneers came.
The travelers of those early days could have bypassed
Powells Mountain and Wallens Ridge by keeping up Wild Cat Valley from Duffield
to Big Stone Gap, and then down the main Powells Valley. But this would have
required some twenty-five miles more distance. It was the policy of the
pioneer, as well as the habit of the buffalo and the Indian, to take the
shortest distance where possible, even though more difficult. The trails or
roads followed valleys as much as possible, but often deviated from the direct
course at rivers to reach suitable places for fords.
We pause with reverence as we think of the herculean
task of moving 200,000 people over such a Road, through such obstacles and with
such hardships, with women and children and all the supplies, up to the year
1800. And in the records and journals kept, there was scarcely a complaint of
the hardships and suffering that must have been endured. There is in this fact
the inestimable mark of real courage and patience. Greatest of all these
hardships and dangers was the menace of the Indians which continued to be a
threat until after Lee County was organized in 1792.
The Wilderness Road was very important in pioneer
days, though very rough and beset with many dangers. Over this Wilderness Road
through Lee County struggled hundreds of thousands on their way to establish
the first state beyond the mountains. The history of this route through its
remarkable natural gateways is rich with events of achievement, picturesque and
romantic. Yet how soon are such connecting links of history forgotten. Only the
historians and the few remaining very old people with good memories prevent the
noble records from passing into oblivion. It has been easy to forget, though
its picturesque achievements were made at great cost to our ancestors.
In the time of the settlement of Lee County, the
Indians occupied the territory southward as their homes, and northward in the
Ohio Valley; but a strip of land consisting of Southwest Virginia and a part of
Tennessee and Kentucky constituted a kind of no-man’s-land for them. It was
likewise visited by contending tribes in war.
By its strategic location this territory was dangerous
ground for settlement by the whites. Lee County was especially so situated, not
only in time of conflict with the Indians, but also in the Civil War.
Sycamore Shoals Treaty
Richard Henderson was a Virginian by birth and a North
Carolinian by citizenship. He conceived the idea of purchasing the land
extending to Kentucky from the Cherokees. The Indians called him “Carolina
Dick.” He promoted a company to purchase the land to and including the Kentucky
wilderness, as a big money making plan. He organized what he called the
Transylvania Company. His partners were three Hart brothers, Nathaniel, Thomas
and David, and John Luttrel, James Hogg, Leonard Bullock and William Johnson.
Henderson was dignified and strong, an imposing
figure, protruding chin, square jaws, tall, proud and authorative. He was a man
of organizing type, one who would press on fearlessly to gain his purpose.
He and Nathaniel Hart worked up a plan to meet with
the Indians for a treaty by which they would purchase the land. The meeting was
arranged through the old Chief Attakullakulla, who was a friend to the whites,
and himself a strong leader, though advanced in years. He was called the “Little
Carpenter” because of his influence in building up agreements at treaty
councils. The meeting was arranged for at Sycamore Shoals on the Watauga
fifteen miles south east of Kingsport, near where the Elizabethton rayon mills
are located.
In January, 1775, six wagons loaded with goods for the
treaty at Sycamore Shoals passed Royal Oaks, the home of the Militia Commander,
Arthur Campbell. They were loaded with corn, flour, salt, rum, ribbons, guns,
powder, lead, wristbands, blankets, brooches, mirrors and trinkets, all valued
at about ten thousand pound sterling. Henderson was in the lead, giving out his
authorative commands. Near the wagons was the frail old Indian Chief
Attakullakulla who, assisted by an Indian woman, had helped select the cargo at
Cross Creek, North Carolina. Good were stored in cabins on the Watauga until
the Treaty.
At the treaty meeting gathered several Chiefs and
Warriors, squaws and papooses, in all about 1,000. Daniel Boone was there in
the services of Henderson and Hart. He knew Kentucky and desired to make his
home there. He knew the way through the wilderness. He knew most of the Indian
Chiefs.
There were: Attakullakulla, the Little Carpenter;
Oconostota, the War Chief; Savanooka, the Raven, nephew of Oconostota;
Onistosetah, the Corn Tassel; Willanaugwa, the Great Eagle and Dragging Canoe,
the son of Attakullakulla.
Dick Henderson had already made arrangements with
Daniel Boone to start cutting out the Road as soon as the treaty was over. He
had thirty men prepared for the job of blazing the trail, in waiting and camped
at Long Island near Kingsport. (TN)
This great meeting convened in March, 1775. The first
day was taken up with a big barbecue, feasting and formality, with friendly
speeches. On the second day Daniel Boone stated the demands - all the land
between the Kentucky River and the Tennessee River - in consideration of goods
and money valued at 10,000 pounds sterling.
Many condemned Henderson for his plans. The Indian
Chiefs warned that the Shawnees claimed the land, and would not fail to give
trouble. But Henderson replied that Cornstalk, the great Shawnee Chief, had
made a treaty of peace after the battle of Point Pleasant, and had given up all
claims south of the Ohio.
The great chief Attakullakulla, 75 years of age, had
once visited England and was received by the King in 1730-31. He was always
afterwards a friend to the English. He favored the treaty and the sale of the
land to the whites. The other Chiefs were ready to agree, except Dragging Canoe.
He arose and spoke against the treaty. He said, as translated:
Whole nations have melted away like balls of snow
before the sun. The whites have passed the mountains and settled upon Cherokee
lands, and now wish to have their usurpation sanctioned by the confirmation of
a treaty. New sessions will be required, and the small remnant of my people
will be compelled to seek a new retreat in some far distant wilderness. There
they will be permitted to stay only a short while, until they again behold the advancing
banners of the same greedy host. When the whites are unable to point out any
further retreat for the miserable Cherokees, they will proclaim the extinction
of the whole race. Should we not therefore run all risks, and incur all
consequences, rather than submit to further laceration of our country? Such
treaties may be all right for men too old to hunt or fight. As for me, I have
my young warriors about me. We will have our lands.
The Indians were impressed by Dragging Canoe’s speech.
There was much excitement, and Henderson proclaimed a recess, feasting the
people and trying to sooth and ruffled feelings of the Cherokees. At last the
other Chiefs were induced to sign the treaty, which conveyed a territory
estimated at 20,000,000 acres, on March 17, 1775. Dragging Canoe did not sign
the treaty, and was never friendly to the whites. He told Henderson: You
have bought a fair land, but there is a cloud having over it. You will find its
settlement dark and bloody. This was indeed prophetic.
Though the land was thus bought, Henderson then asked
that an extra deed be made to the trail from Watauga to Cumberland Gap, with
hunting grounds on either side. This offended Dragging Canoe still more. He
said, You have made a deed for the whole land; what more do you want? He was a bitter opponent and enemy always
after, and devoted every effort to making the treaty of no avail. He never
would enter a treaty with whites again. The deed to the boundary of land was
recorded at Rogersville, Tennessee, in 1794, but no copy of the Path Deed is
known to exist anywhere, though such a deed was signed at that time.
On March 10, 1775, Daniel Boone and his crew of thirty
men began preparations to mark out the famous Wilderness Road. Familiar names
among his trail blazers were his brother Squire Boone and his son-in-law Will
Hays, also Michael Stoner, Benjamin Cutbirth, William Bush, David Gass, Richard
Callaway, William Twetty, Samuel Coburn, Thomas Johnson, James Bridges, William
Hicks, and James Peeke.
They came through Moccasin Gap, then by Speers Ferry,
Stock Creek, Natural Tunnel, Horton’s Summet, Duffield, Kanes Gap, Wallens
Creek, Stickleyville, Wallens Ridge, Station Creek, Powells River, Jonesville,
Natural Bridge, Martins Station, Cumberland Gap and on into Kentucky, northward
to Boonesborough. Indians attacked them at Richmond, Kentucky, and Negro Sam,
William Twetty’s servant, was killed and two others wounded. Boone rallied his
men and drove the Indians off. They built a barricade and cared for the wounded
there. Captain Twetty died the next day. He and his Negro servant were buried
in the stockade.
Henderson on the Trail
Henderson started to follow on, March 20, 1775. He had
not the consent of Virginia nor of North Carolina. Lord Dunmore issued orders
against his undertaking, March 21, and Governor Martin of North Carolina
opposed it and called Henderson an invader. British agents ordered Henderson’s
arrest. But Henderson went boldly on his mission, with supplies - food,
ammunition, seed corn, garden seeds, farming tools, live stock and household
goods. He arrived at Martin’s Station March 30, 1775, and found Joseph martin
much interested in his plans. Henderson appointed him to take entries for land
with the Transylvania Company, and gave Brice Martin, Joseph’s brother, the
first entry of 500 acres in the neighborhood of Middlesboro. Henderson stayed
at Martin’s five days. They had to leave their wagons there and change to
packhorses. They had bee compelled to take wagons apart in places along the
way, and reassemble them, because of the impassability of the road. Henderson
left Martin’s April 5, 1775, for Cumberland gap. He received a letter from
Boone about the trouble with the Indians as he camped in five miles of the Gap.
On April 8, they started across Cumberland Gap, and
began to meet people turning back, about forty fleeing from the troubled area.
Several Virginians turned back from his company. There was much confusion and
fear, but at last Henderson’s party arrived at Boone’s Camp. Henderson took
command, set up his office, and began to administer government.
George Rogers Clark was a young surveyor. While Daniel
Boone and Dick Henderson were founding Boonesborough, Clark was surveying the
vicinity of Frankfort. He sometimes visited James Harrod’s settlement at
Harrodsburg, and saw the spirit of opposition to Henderson’s claims among the
settlers. Hundreds of settlers were flowing into Kentucky over the Wilderness
Road, independent of Henderson’s authority.
Henderson sold half a million acres in six months.
Boonesborough was his flourishing capital
of Transylvania. There was ever a growing conflict between Henderson’s
capitalistic movement and the free settlements. Clark saw, but did not say
much. He returned to Virginia in 1775, and back to Harrodsburg the next year.
He advised the people to make a protest to the Virginia Assembly against the
North Carolina proprietor Henderson. The people at once sent a petition to the
Virginia Convention at Williamsburg, then the capitol of Virginia. They stated
that the price of land had been raised from 30's to 50's per hundred acres, and
might be raised higher. Eighty-eight names were signed on the petitioners’
list.
In the very early days settlers began to follow into
the wilds of the as yet unexplored west. William Poage and his family went with
Daniel Boone on one of his trips to Kentucky. Poage settled at Boonesborough in
September, 1775. He was a skillful man and made vessels of wood. He is reported
to have made the first wooden plow stock ever used in Kentucky, and the first
loom in the State. His wife is credited with bringing the first spinning wheel
into Kentucky from Augusta County, Virginia, over the Wilderness road. She made
the first linen cloth from the lint of wild stinging nettles. She made linsey
from lint of nettles and wool from the buffalo.
The Stevensons, Gays, Allens, Dunlaps and Trembles and
others went Kentucky from the Valley of Virginia and erected the first church
in Kentucky at Pisgeh near Lexington.
Jones and Clark
George Rogers Clark called a meeting of the
independent settlers at Harrodsburg, June 6, 1776. The people prepared a much
stronger protest against Henderson and also the British, and selected Clark and
a young attorney, John Gabriel Jones, as delegates to carry the petition
directly to Williamsburg.
The two young men started on the Wilderness Road. They
got along very well at first. But on the third day, Jone’s horse gave out and
had to be abandoned. They put their packs on the other horse, and took turns
riding and walking. Heavy rains set in , and they found hard going. They could
not even make a fire to dry their drenched clothes for fear of the Indians.
Their feet became “scalded” and sore. They heard guns in the forest, and were
sure the Indians were near.
They passed through Cumberland Gap and on up Powells
Valley to Martins Station, expecting relief there, but found the place
deserted, and there were Indian tracks around. They were exhausted, and had 60
miles yet to go to reach a settlement. There was corn in a crib near by, and a
hog in a lot. They formed a plan. Clark selected a small cabin standing out
from the rest. He climbed to the roof, working his way inside, and cut the lock
that secured the door. Jones went after the hog with his sword. He got a keg of
water, brought in some corn, and the carcas of the hog. Then they barred the
door and made a fire. They cut out portholes in the wall, and arranged their
rifles, sabers, pistols and ammunition on a table, and planned for defense in
case of attack. They prepared food, and bathed their aching feet with water in
which oak bark had been boiled.
They were very well fixed to stand a siege. When night
came they heard the tinkle of a bell. They awaited an attack from the Indians,
but soon discovered two white men creeping toward the cabin. They opened the
door and called loudly to the men. They were from Fort Blackmore, returning to
take up some things they had left a few days before. They had seen smoke from
the chimney and thought Indians were in the cabin. They were creeping up to
make an attack.
Jones and Clark rested several days to allow their
feet to get well, then they resumed their journey. When they reached Fincastle
they learned that the Virginia Legislature had adjourned. Jones returned to the
Holston settlement and Clark went on to Hanover to the home of Governor Patrick
Henry.
The Governor was ill, but he received Clark and heard
his account of the west, and his wishes. Henry had spoken his famous words
against King George III, and had taken bold stand for liberty. He was ready to
aid the liberty-loving, free settlers in the west. He heard Clark’s request for
500 pounds of powder, and gave him a letter to the executive council at the
capitol.
Clark went to Williamsburg at once, but the Council
did not want to let him have the powder, because a war with Great Britain was
on hand. Those settlements were not officially recognized. To give them the
supplies would indicate a duty to protect them. It was a hard case, but they
would only loan the powder to Clark. But the careful representative would
accept no compromise. He said: If a country is not worth protecting, it is
not worth claiming. They at length yielded, and gave him the powder.
All of the extreme southwestern part of Virginia was
then included in Fincastle County, which was represented by Colonel Arthur
Campbell. Kentucky had not yet been made a County of Virginia. When the
Assembly met, Clark and Jones presented themselves as delegates on the strength
of instructions from the Harrodsburg Convention. Colonel Campbell opposed them.
Colonel Henderson was also there to lobby against them because of his claim on
the land he had bought from the Cherokee Indians. But Clark and Jones won. The
Virginia Legislature passes an act which made Kentucky a County from a part of
Fincastle County. This measure was passed December 6, 1776. When Kentucky thus
became a County of Virginia. George Rogers Clark and John Gabriel Jones were
its first representatives in the Virginia Assembly. Henderson was later partly
compensated by a grant of 200,000 acres of land along the Ohio were Henderson,
Kentucky was founded.
Clark and Jones had trouble getting their grant of 500
pounds of powder to Harrodsburg. It was sent down the Ohio River, and Jones
went up from Harrodsburg with some men to get it. They fell into an Indian
ambush, and Jones and three of his men were killed.
The British stirred up the Indians from Detroit to
attack the settlers in Kentucky. Clark sent spies to Kaskaskia in Illinois, to
learn about the British forces at Vincennes and Detroit. The trouble increased,
and young Clark decided to go to Williamsburg and see if he could get a
commission to take action. In October, 1777, he again made his way over the
Wilderness road through Cumberland Gap and Powells Valley. He was with a large
company of men, women and children, trying to get into the Holston settlement
for protection. They necessarily traveled slowly. They camped at Cumberland Gap
where Indians were lurking in the neighborhood. The next day they reached
Martin’s Station. They thus continued their slow journey.
At Royal Oaks, then in Fincastle County, Clark spent a
night with Colonel Arthur Campbell. From there he left the company and hastened
to the Capitol, where he talked over the wester situation with Governor Patrick
Henry, who was favorably impressed.
Clark’s Expedition
Governor Henry took the matter up privately with
Thomas Jefferson, George Mason and George Wythe. All were agreeable, but the
matter was treated as a secret plan. They got the Virginia Assembly to agree to
send 500 militia to defend the Kentucky frontier. Privately the Governor
authorized Clark to go into the Illinois Country.
But Clark was never able to get 500 men. He got four
companies of volunteers. Some went by the Ohio route down to Louisville, some
volunteered from Kentucky settlements, and some marched over the Wilderness
Road through Lee County. When the time for action came, he had only 175
available men.
He gathered his meager forces on a seven-acre island
in the Ohio River above the falls (Louisville). He built a fortification, and
had part of the island planted in corn. He kept his ultimate plans secret, even
from his men. On June 24, 1778, he and his small force went down the rapids
while the sun was in eclipse, and on to the objective outposts of British
Forces. They captured Kaskaskia and Kahokia. He sent John Montgomery and John
Rogers on the 1,000 mile journey to Williamsburg to report the victory to
Governor Henry.
Clark was in difficult straits, being without
authority to administer civil government of the captured territory, and without
funds and not enough force to go on to Vincennes. He later sent a young man,
William Myers, over the Wilderness Road with letters to Governor Henry at
Williamsburg.
Four long months passed in silence over Myer’s
mission. On February 25, 1779, Clark marched his ragged soldiers through icy
waters and captured Vincennes, and the British Commander Henry Hamilton. Two
days later, young Myers arrived by boat on the Wabash with cheering messages
from Governor Henry. The Virginia Legislature had provided for civil control
and management of the new territory of Illinois, and promised funds for Clark’s
needs.
Clark sent William Myers back with his late report on
March 13, 1779, to Governor Henry. Myers went down the Wabash with three other
men in a canoe, and reached the Island garrison on April 4. He started from
there no horseback over the Wilderness Road, with John Moore. They were immediately
attacked by Huron Indians and Myers was killed and Moore taken prisoner.
Clark’s report on Vincennes was taken from Myer’s pocket.
Colonel Henry Hamilton
The British Commander, Colonel Henry Hamilton, and
several other prisoners were sent over the Wilderness Road to Williamsburg. The
trip was quite severe on the British Commander. He made some entries in his
journal along the way. He was not so much impressed with Cumberland Gap, but he
made a special note of the Natural Bridge near Jonesville.
He wrote: A very copious stream of fine water
breaks out of the ground in a beautiful valley well clothed with clover,
skirted with rising ground ornamented with a variety of timber trees,
evergreens and shrubs. At about 250 yards from its source it passes under a rocky
ledge with serves for a bridge, being about 60 feet wide at the top, and
covered with trees. The road passes over this Natural Bridge, which is hollowed
into several arched cavities, some of a considerable dimension. This pretty
stream and peaceful scene would have engaged me a considerable time, but I had
no allowance and just took two light sketches on cards. I went to see the cave
from which the creek (as ‘tis properly called) issues. It is arched over
naturally and the covering is really very smooth and even. A tall man may stand
upright in it and walk 70 yards, a breach in the top taking in light
sufficient. I thought it singular enough to take a view of it.
The trip occupied three days from Glade Springs
(Jonesville) to Moccasin Gap. They reached the Capitol June 17, 1779, and Lord
Henry Hamilton was put in the Williamsburg jail.
Famous Trail
In colonial times, as the Revolutionary period came
on, the scattered settlements here were in a specially precarious position. The
British outflanked the colonies on the west, and used this advantage, not so
much for direct attack as to insight the Indians to cruel treachery and attack
against the struggling and helpless pioneers. But for their own tenacious
courage and daring efforts the exposed peninsula of settlements of North
Carolina and Virginia in the Holston and in Southwest Virginia and Kentucky
would have been destroyed. The British especially disliked the movement of
pioneers int he settlement of Kentucky as a threat to them there. This led to
every effort being made to stir up the Indians against the settlers who were
ready to start an ever increasing stream westward over the Wilderness road in
1775. The right to Kentucky had been given Virginia by treaty with the Six
Nations at Stanwix (Roan) New York in 1768. This included all the lands between
the Ohio and Tennessee Rivers.
Most of the travel to the west during 20 years, 1775
and 1795, was over the Wilderness Road through Lee County. The small balance of
travel was over the mountain roads to Pittsburgh and down the Ohio. Travel
eastward was almost all by the Wilderness Road, add going east against the flow
of the river was not easy then. We even note that a military order for a trip
from Cincinnati to Washington in 1792, the year Lee County was organized and
Kentucky was made a state, specified the Wilderness Road by Cumberland Gap and
Powells Valley. In fact this condition prevailed for two decades afterward.
More than 100,000 pioneers traveled this famous Trail before it became even a
wagon road. All classes of settlers, home seekers, teachers, lawyers, doctors,
preachers, came over this Road for the founding of a great society and state.
Kentucky was settled over this as a bridal path 200 miles long, from Holston
through Lee County to central Kentucky. Much travel passed this way to the
Cumberland River settlements at Nashville and middle Tennessee. This should
make the Road famous for all time.
To be continued............