Читать книгу Highways and Highway Transportation - George R. Chatburn - Страница 34

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—This road is said to be the first road built into the wilderness for the purpose of encouraging settlement and development. In the late years of the nineteenth century it was no uncommon thing for a railroad to precede settlement, but at the beginning of the eighteenth century roads were, in America, made largely for military purposes or where demanded by the traffic of earlier settlement.

Daniel Boone, the noted hunter and explorer, had several times left his home in North Carolina to hunt and travel in the wilds of Kentucky. He brought back to the eastern side of the mountains glowing descriptions. These excited the cupidity of a friend, a judge and prominent citizen of North Carolina, James[22] Henderson. Henderson employed Boone to confer with the Cherokee Indians who claimed this territory for the sale of their rights. Boone sought out the Indians and by means now unknown got them to agree to sell. The fact that they were persuaded to dispose of their great hunting grounds shows what influence Boone had among them. It has been intimated that the chiefs realized the futility of further fighting the white settler or that the Cherokees felt they had no real right to this land as it had been rather held as neutral territory among several tribes. However, as soon as they had given their pledge Boone is said to have gone immediately to Henderson, who repaired at once to Fort Watauga on a branch of the Holston in North Carolina, where he met 1200 natives in council and completed the deal in the name of the Transylvania Company. The main opposition came from an eloquent and powerful chief named Dragging Canoe,[23] who was able to disrupt proceedings the first day. After his speech the council broke up in confusion. The next day, however, the Indians again went into council and the treaty was ratified. Estimates of the price paid range from “ten wagon loads of cheap goods and whiskey,” to “the equivalent of ten thousand pounds sterling.”[24]

As soon as the deal was consummated Boone, employed by Henderson, began the marking and cutting out of a road from Watauga, North Carolina, to Boonesborough, Kentucky. The party numbered about forty men, consisting of colored men to care for the camp duties and the necessary pack animals and a body of woodsmen with axes. Boone went ahead and blazed the way by chopping notches in the sides of trees along the way, the axmen following cleared away the underbrush and felled and removed such trees as stood in the way. However, as it was easier to detour than to chop, usually only small trees were cut. It was not intended that this should be a wagon road, as wagons had but just made their appearance in this region. However, it was to be an easily followed way for future settlers. In Boone’s Autobiography, dictated to John Filson, the matter of the road is referred to thus:

After the conclusion of which (a campaign against the Shawanese Indians which Boone commanded by order of Governor Dunmore), the militia was discharged from each garrison, and I, being relieved from my post, was solicited by a number of North Carolina gentlemen, that were about purchasing the lands lying on the north side of Kentucky River, from the Cherokee Indians, to attend their treaty at Wataga, in March, 1755, to negotiate with them, and mention the boundaries of the purchase. This I accepted; and, at the request of the same gentlemen, undertook to mark out a road in the best passage from the settlement through the wilderness to Kentucky, with such assistance as I thought necessary to employ for such an important undertaking.

I soon began this work, having collected a number of enterprising men, well armed. We proceeded with all possible expedition until we came within fifteen miles of where Boonesborough now stands, and where we were fired upon by a party of Indians, that killed two, and wounded two of our number; yet, although surprised and taken at a disadvantage, we stood our ground. This was the 20th of March, 1775. Three days after, we were fired upon again, and had two men killed and three wounded. Afterwards we proceeded on to Kentucky River without opposition; and on the 1st of April began to erect the fort of Boonesborough at a salt lick, about sixty yards from the river on the south side.

A letter from Captain Boone to Colonel Henderson is quoted by Peck in his life of Boone, relating to this same enterprise, which shows the dangerous nature of the work and that even Boone seemed somewhat worried over the matter:

Dear Colonel: After my compliments to you, I shall acquaint you with our misfortune. On March the 25th a party of Indians fired on my company about half an hour before day, and killed Mr. Twitty and his negro, and wounded Mr. Walker very deeply but I hope he will recover.

On March the 28th, as we were hunting for provisions, we found Samuel Tate’s son, who gave us an account that the Indians fired on their camp on the 27th day. My brother and I went down and found two men killed and scalped, Thomas McDowell and Jeremiah McPeters. I have sent a man down to all the lower companies in order to gather them all to the mouth of Otter Creek. My advice to you, sir, is to come or send as soon as possible. Your company is desired greatly, for the people are very uneasy, but are willing to stay and venture their lives with you; and now is the time to flusterate their (the Indians) intentions, and keep the country whilst we are in it. If we give way to them now, it will ever be the case. This day we start from the battle-ground for the mouth of Otter Creek, where we will immediately erect a fort, which will be done before you can come or send; then we can send ten men to meet you if you send for them.

I am sir, your most obedient,

Daniel Boone.

N. B.—We stood on the ground and guarded our baggage till day, and lost nothing. We have about fifteen miles to Cantuck at Otter Creek.

The road began “at the settlements,” which were probably in what are now Sullivan and Hawkins counties. Tennessee, but mostly along the Watauga River, then thought to be a part of Virginia. The road was a continuation of the Cherokee trail through the mountains. This trail served the great migration following the Revolutionary War in Tennessee and Kentucky. From the settlements there is a westerly course to the Holston River at Long Island near the site of old Long Island Fort constructed by Colonel Bird to winter his army during the French and Indian War in 1758. At this place he received some reinforcements and then continued in a generally westward direction through country he was more or less familiar with to the Clinch River, then across the ridge to the Powell River, and finally to Cumberland Gap, through which he entered the land of “Kentucke.” Here he arrived at the Warrior’s Trail leading northward, so called because Kentucky had been a sort of neutral hunting grounds of the Indians from the North, the Miamis, Shawnees, Wyandots, and others and of the Cherokees, Creeks, Catawbas, and others, from the South. Nevertheless the Indians from the South habitually crossed over and fought those from the North and vice versa, hence a large and much frequented trail.

MAP SHOWING MAIN HIGHWAYS AND WATERWAYS IN UNITED STATES ABOUT 1830

When the Railroads Entered the Industrial Arena, the Country Was Being Covered With a Net Work of Highways. (Based on Tanner’s Map of 1825 and Turner in “American Nation,” Vol. XIV.)

Boone appropriated this native route for a distance of about 50 miles to near the present town of Manchester in Clay County. Here he found a “street” made by the buffalo, which were wont to travel through the cane-brakes about five or six abreast, thus with their thousands of hoofs breaking and hardening a way wide enough for a team and wagon. Turning west he followed the bisons’ street to Rock Castle River, then turned northward again to the Kentucky River and the site of Boonesborough. A fort was here erected by placing stout log cabins with heavy stockades between about a rectangular space some 150 x 260 feet. A pair of strong wooden gates furnished ingress and egress. Several times was this fort attacked by Indians, the last time in 1778, by nearly 500 warriors, but always, because of the block houses at the corners with their loop-holes and the heavy barricades, also with loop holes, they were able to withstand the attacks and finally repulse the Indians.

The first legislature of the Transylvania Republic, as Henderson’s scheme came to be known, was held here. Boone was a member, as was Harrod from Harrodstown, and other early settlers of Kentucky.

There is no doubt but that this highway and blockhouse fort were of great assistance in settling and developing the country of Kentucke.