Kentucky -- History; Roads -- United States; Wilderness Road
On the seventh of April Dr. Walker writes: "It snowed most of the day.
In the Evening our dogs caught a large He Bear, which before we could
come up to shoot him had wounded a dog of mine, so that he could not
Travel, and we carried him on Horseback, till he recovered." On the
thirteenth the party reached "Cave Gap," which Walker named Cumberland
Gap in honor of the "bloody Duke," the hero of Culloden. "Just at the
foot of the Hill is a Laurel Thicket.... On the South side is a plain
Indian Road. On the top of the Ridge are Laurel Trees marked with
crosses, others Blazed and several Figures on them.... This Gap may be
seen at a considerable distance, and there is no other, that I know of,
except one about two miles to the North of it, which does not appear to
be so low as the other. The Mountain on the North Side of the Gap is
very Steep and Rocky, but on the South side it is not So. We called it
Steep Ridge."
The party crossed the Cumberland River about four miles below the
present village of Barbourville, Knox County, Kentucky, on the
twenty-third of April. The river was named by Walker at this time. From
this spot Walker, with two companions chosen by lot--Powell and
Chew--went on a tour of exploration alone, leaving the others "to
provide and salt some Bear, build an house, and plant some Peach Stones
and Corn."
Walker and his two companions floundered about the neighboring region
for five days, not getting out of the mountainous country and not
finding any good land. They crossed the Cumberland again, on the third
day out, about twenty miles below the first crossing-place, and then
returned up the river to the main party and found that the work he had
ordered to be done was completed. "The People I had left had built an
House 12 by 8, clear'd and broke up some ground, & planted Corn, and
Peach Stones."
Thus was raised, beside the tumbling Cumberland, on the farm now owned
by George M. Faulkner four miles below Barbourville, Kentucky, the first
house now recorded as built by white men in the fine territory between
the Cumberland Mountains and the Ohio River, now the state of Kentucky.
It was not an "improver's cabin"--a log pen without roof--but a roofed
house, and instituted what the English Loyal Land Company could claim to
be a "settlement" in the territory which they had been granted. This was
completed by the planting of corn and peach trees. The formality of this
"settlement" is evinced by the fact that, two days later, the entire
party moved on for further exploration, never again to return to their
house or to reap their crops. It was twenty years before a house was
erected in Kentucky for the permanent dwelling.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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