who went west
to build homes fixed their eyes on the vigorous young community which
lay north of the Ohio, and which already aspired to the honors of
statehood.

The Wilderness Road to Kentucky.

The immigrants came into Kentucky in two streams, following two
different routes--the Ohio River, and Boone's old Wilderness Trail.
Those who came overland, along the latter road, were much fewer in
number than those who came by water; and yet they were so numerous that
the trail at times was almost thronged, and much care had to be taken in
order to find camping places where there was enough feed for the horses.
The people who travelled this wilderness road went in the usual
backwoods manner, on horseback, with laden packtrains, and often with
their herds and flocks. Young men went out alone or in parties; and
groups of families from the same neighborhood often journeyed together.
They struggled over the narrow, ill-made roads which led from the
different back settlements, until they came to the last outposts of
civilization east of the Cumberland Mountains; scattered block-houses,
whose owners were by turns farmers, tavern-keepers, hunters, and Indian
fighters. Here they usually waited until a sufficient number had
gathered together to furnish a band of riflemen large enough to beat off
any prowling party of red marauders; and then set off to traverse by
slow stages the mountains and vast forests which lay between them and
the nearest Kentucky station. The time of the journey depended, of
course, upon the composition of the travelling party, and upon the
mishaps encountered; a party of young men on good horses might do it in
three days, while a large band of immigrants, who were hampered by
women, children, and cattle, and dogged by ill-luck, might take three
weeks. Ordinarily six or eight days were sufficient. Before starting
each man laid in a store of provisions for himself and his horse;
perhaps thirty pounds of flour, half a bushel of corn meal, and three
bushels of oats. There was no meat unless game was shot. Occasionally
several travellers clubbed together and carried a tent; otherwise they
slept in the open. The trail was very bad, especially at first, where it
climbed between the gloomy and forbidding cliffs that walled in
Cumberland Gap. Even when undisturbed by Indians, the trip was
accompanied by much fatigue and exposure; and, as always in frontier
travelling, one of the perpetual annoyances was the neces