Southern Trails-Histories and Stories



Histories and Stories 

Kasper Mansker: Cumberland Frontiersman

The story of the life and history of an early settler in the Cumberland settlements.

http://home.earthlink.net/~dmansker/Durham.html

The George Washington Papers Collection at the Library of Congress American Memories Webpage.

This is a searchable collection of documents from 1741-1799, of a variety of sorts: ledgers, military records, correspondence, journals, etc. If you are researching the revolution, or areas in VA where he was active, this might actually be a useful source.

Here is the address:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gwhtml/gwhome.html
 

Chronicles of the Scotch-Irish Settlement in Virginia Extracted from the Original Court Records of Augusta County 1745-1800  by Lyman Chalkley

https://sites.rootsweb.com/~chalkley/index.htm

From Roanoak to the Cumberland

This is a neat description of a migration in the south in 1807 from Roanoak to the Cumberland.  If you're interested in what people experienced doing this, this is a nice, not-too-long
description:

http://www.panix.com/~hal/jm970304.htm

Indian Captives

It's a place to discover stories and post queries about people who were captured by various Indian
groups...something which did happen on their way south and west.

https://sites.rootsweb.com/~indian/index.htm
 

The Migration of Civic Prominence in Early Colonial America

This is a brief essay that discusses the reason centers of influence on the east coast tended to migrate from the coast to further inland.

http://users.aol.com/MAist/civic.htm

Sumner County Cities, Communities and Stops along the Way

I wish more counties had sites like this:  The compiler describes the page this way:
    Like most Tennessee Counties, Sumner County, has many uniquely named townships and  communities whose names sometime speak of their origins.  Following is a list of them, with a brief   history, etc., known to me.  You might want to use this list to assist you in determining where a
 ancestor lived according to the tax lists listed on this web page.   Compiled by E. James Keen, 1991

Where he has information, he lists surnames known to come from the community.
 
http://members.aol.com/cathelk/sumner/towns.htm
 

A Concise History of Early Itawamba County
 
 An overview of the various movements of people into this area in NE MS from the Spanish to the beginning of the civil war.

http://www.network-one.com/~robfra/history.html
 
Letters from America

This is a site about a woman who with her husband, settled down in the Carolinas during the early 1700s.  The interesting thing about it is that it is based on a series of letters that the woman wrote home to her brother.

One very interesting tidbit on the site is a list of goods that she thought would sell well in the Carolinas...it's worth looking at just to get a feel for what life was like for the early settlers.

http://www.btinternet.com/~chemeng73/Hyrnelet/index.htm
 

The Adventures of Colonel Daniel Boon, Formerly A Hunter;  Containing a Narrative of the Wars of Kentucky
        The publication of Daniel Boone's "Adventures" in 1784 served to immortalize Boone the frontiersman as an American legend and a true folk hero. Published by John Filson on Boone's 50th birthday, the narrative describes in Boone's own words his exploits in the Kentucky wilderness from May, 1769 to October of 1782.

http://earlyamerica.com/lives/boone/index.html