HISTORIC HIGHWAYS OF AMERICA VOLUME 6 [Illustration: CUMBERLAND GAP AND BOONE'S WILDERNESS ROAD] HISTORIC HIGHWAYS OF AMERICA VOLUME 6 Boone's Wilderness Road BY ARCHER BUTLER HULBERT _With Maps and Illustrations_ [Illustration] THE ARTHUR H. CLARK COMPANY CLEVELAND, OHIO 1903 COPYRIGHT, 1903 BY THE ARTHUR H. CLARK COMPANY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE 11 I. THE PILGRIMS OF THE WEST 19 II. THE FIRST EXPLORERS 48 III. ANNALS OF THE ROAD 78 IV. KENTUCKY IN THE REVOLUTION 145 V. AT THE END OF BOONE'S ROAD 175 ILLUSTRATIONS I. CUMBERLAND GAP AND BOONE'S WILDERNESS ROAD _Frontispiece_ II. PLAT OF BOONESBOROUGH 97 III. FILSON'S MAP OF KENTUCKY 119 PREFACE The naming of our highways is an interesting study. Like roads the world over they are usually known by two names--the destinations to which they lead. The famous highway through New York state is known as the Genesee Road in the eastern half of the state and as the Albany Road in the western portion. In a number of cities through which it passes--Utica, Syracuse, etc.--it is Genesee Street. This path in the olden time was the great road to the famed Genesee country. The old Forbes Road across Pennsylvania soon lost its earliest name; but it is preserved at its termination, for the Pittsburger of today goes to the Carnegie Library on the "Forbes Street" car line. The Maysville Pike--as unknown today as it was of national prominence three quarters of a century ago--leading across Ohio from Wheeling to Maysville (Limestone) and on to Lexington, is known in Kentucky as the Zanesville Pike; from that city in Ohio the road branched off from the old National Road. The "Glade Road" was the important branch of the Pennsylvania or Pittsburg Road which led through the Glades of the Alleghenies to the Youghiogheny. One of the most singular names for a road was that of the "Shun Pike" between Watertown and Erie, in northwestern Pennsylvania. The large traffic over the old "French Road"--Marin's Portage Road--between these points on Lake Erie and French Creek necessitated, early in the nineteenth century, a good road-bed. Accordingly a road company took hold of the route and improved it--placing toll gates on it for recompensation. Those who refused to pay toll broke open a parallel route nearby, which was as free as it was rough. It became known as the "Shun" Pike because those who traversed it shunned the toll road.