Category: Wilderness Road

Categories: US History | Virginia History | Tennessee History | Kentucky History | Great Wagon Road

The Wilderness Road, an offshoot of the Great Wagon Road, "moved through the Allegheny Mountains at Cumberland Gap, at what is now the junction of the State boundaries of Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia."

Wikipedia: The Wilderness Road was the principal route used by settlers for more than fifty years to reach Kentucky from the East. In 1775, Daniel Boone "blazed" a trail for the Transylvania Company from Fort Chiswell in Virginia through the Cumberland Gap into central Kentucky. It was later lengthened, following Native American trails, to reach the Falls of the Ohio at Louisville. The Wilderness Road was steep, rough, narrow, and it could only be traversed on foot or horseback. Despite the adverse conditions, thousands of people used it.

• Wikipedia article on the Wilderness Road
• Wikipedia article on the Cumberland Gap
• FamilySearch, "American Roads and Trails": Great Wagon Road
• Add future resources here

Daniel Boone 22 Oct 1734 Exeter, Berks County, Province of Pennsylvania - 26 Sep 1820

Elizabeth (Bryant) Ledford abt 1752 Rowan, Colony of North Carolina - Apr 1802

Samuel Dinsmore 1798 Ninety-Six District, South Carolina, United States - 20 Jan 1853

Whitesides Hargis 1760 - Sep 1773

James Hogg abt 01 Mar 1730 Innerwick, East Lothian, Scotland - abt 09 Nov 1804

William Johnston 1737 Lochmaben, Dumfriesshire, Scotland - 03 May 1785

John Ledford 08 Feb 1749 Virginia - 20 Feb 1802

Page Portwood abt 1724 Colony of Virginia - 08 May 1799

Andrew Sadowski abt 1714 Freehold, Monmouth, New Jersey - abt 1768

Thomas Walker 15 Jan 1715 King and Queen, Virginia - 09 Nov 1794

James Ware 15 Nov 1714 Gloucester, Virginia, British Colonial America - 1796

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