The Winning of the West, Volume Three | Page 5

no great obstacles to be overcome in
moving in to this valley of the upper Tennessee. On the other hand, by
this time it held no very great prizes in the shape of vast tracts of rich
and unclaimed land. In consequence there was less temptation to
speculation among those who went to this part of the western country.
It grew rapidly, the population being composed chiefly of actual
settlers who had taken holdings with the purpose of cultivating them,
and of building homes thereon. The entire frontier of this region was
continually harassed by Indians; and it was steadily extended by the
home-planting of the rifle-bearing backwoodsmen.
The Cumberland Country.
The danger from Indian invasion and outrage was, however, far greater
in the distant communities which were growing up in the great bend of
the Cumberland, cut off, as they were, by immense reaches of forest
from the seaboard States. The settlers who went to this region for the
most part followed two routes, either descending the Tennessee and
ascending the Cumberland in flotillas of flat-boats and canoes, or else
striking out in large bodies through the wilderness, following the trails
that led westward from the settlements on the Holston. The population
on the Cumberland did not increase very fast for some years after the
close of the Revolutionary War; and the settlers were, as a rule, harsh,
sturdy backwoodsmen, who lived lives of toil and poverty.
Nevertheless, there was a good deal of speculation in Cumberland lands;
great tracts of tens of thousands of acres were purchased by men of
means in the old districts of North Carolina, who sometimes came out

to live on their estates. The looseness of the system of surveying in
vogue is shown by the fact that where possible these lands were entered
and paid for under a law which allowed a warrant to be shifted to new
soil if it was discovered that the first entry was made on what was
already claimed by some one else. [Footnote: Clay MSS., Jesse Benton
to Thos. Hart, April 3, 1786.]
Hamlets and homesteads were springing up on the left bank of the
upper Ohio, in what is now West Virginia; and along the streams
flowing into it from the east. A few reckless adventurers were building
cabins on the right bank of this great river. Others, almost as
adventurous, were pushing into the neighborhood of the French villages
on the Wabash and in the Illinois. At Louisville men were already
planning to colonize the country just opposite on the Ohio, under the
law of the State of Virginia, which rewarded the victorious soldiers of
Clark's famous campaign with grants in the region they had conquered.
Movement of Settlers to Kentucky.
The great growth of the west took place in Kentucky. The Kentucky
country was by far the most widely renowned for its fertility; it was
much more accessible and more firmly held, and its government was on
a more permanent footing than was the case in the Wabash, Illinois,
and Cumberland regions. In consequence the majority of the men 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