Historic Highways of America Volume VI Part 7

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 c.u.mberland 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 Ma.s.sachusetts, 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 Hamps.h.i.+re, 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 pa.s.sion 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 preeminent 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 c.u.mberland 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 a.s.sembly 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 impa.s.sable--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 ma.s.sacred 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 impa.s.sable 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 s.h.i.+llings sixpence per day, and the work extended over twenty-two days in the summer of 1792."[28]

The Kentucky legislature pa.s.sed an act in 1793, which provided a guard for pilgrims on the Wilderness Road; in 1794 an act was pa.s.sed for the clearing of the Boonesborough fork of the road, from Rockcastle Creek to the Kentucky River. In 1795 the legislature pa.s.sed an act to make the Wilderness Road a "wagon road" thirty feet wide from near Crab Orchard to c.u.mberland 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 int.i.teled 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 pa.s.sed, 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 c.u.mberland Gap can never be effaced--never forgotten. The footsteps of the tens of thousands who have pa.s.sed 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 c.u.mberland 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 c.u.mberland Gap must remain a monument to the courage and patriotism of the people of old Virginia and North Carolina.

c.u.mberland 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 pa.s.sed the mound-building Indian and the buffalo, marking the first routes from North to South across the continent. Here later pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sociations which will a.s.sail 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 pa.s.s. As we stood in the pa.s.sway, 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 pa.s.sing in, the other pa.s.sing 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 m.u.f.fled 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 pa.s.sed the first of the white race who led the way into the valley of the c.u.mberland; here pa.s.sed that small band of fearless men who gave the Gap its name; here pa.s.sed the 'Long Hunters'; here rushed armies of the Civil War; here has pa.s.sed 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.