f iron" from Fort Watauga and Fort Chiswell, which Daniel Boone
widened for the settlers of Kentucky. To the southwest lay the Blue
Grass region of Tennessee with its various trails converging on
Nashville from almost every direction. Today the Southern Railway enters
the "Sapphire Country," in which Asheville lies, by practically the same
route as the old Rutherfordton Trail which was used for generations by
red man and pioneer from the Carolina coast. In our entire region of
the Appalachians, from the Berkshire Hills southward, practically every
old-time pathway from the seaboard to the trans-Alleghany country is
now occupied by an important railway system, with the exception of the
Warrior's Trail through Cumberland Gap to central Ohio and the
Highland Trail across southern Pennsylvania. And even Cumberland Gap is
accessible by rail today, and a line across southern Pennsylvania was
once planned and partially constructed only to be killed by jealous
rivals.

These numerous keys to the Alleghanies were a challenge to the men of
the seaboard to seize upon the rich trade of the West which had been
early monopolized by the French in Canada. But the challenge brought its
difficult problems. What land canoes could compete with the flotillas
that brought their priceless cargoes of furs each year to Montreal and
Quebec? What race of landlubbers could vie with the picturesque bands
of fearless voyageurs who sang their songs on the Great Lakes, the Ohio,
the Illinois, and the Mississippi?

In the solution of this problem of diverting trade probably the factor
of greatest importance, next to open pathways through the mountain
barriers, was the rich stock-breeding ground lying between the Delaware
and the Susquehanna rivers, a region occupied by the settlers familiarly
known as the Pennsylvania Dutch. In this famous belt, running from
Pennsylvania into Virginia, originated the historic pack-horse trade
with the "far Indians" of the Ohio Valley. Here, in the first granary
of America, Germans, Scotch-Irish, and English bred horses worthy of
the name. "Brave fat Horses" an amazed officer under Braddock called
the mounts of five Quakers who unexpectedly rode into camp as though
straight "from the land of Goshen." These animals, crossed with the
Indian "pony" from New Spain, produced the wise, wiry, and sturdy
pack-horse, fit to transport nearly two hundred pounds of merchandise
across the rough and narrow Alleghany trails. This ani