The Wilderness Trail and the Role of Wilkes County Frontiersmen

Not only is Daniel Boone a national hero, but he was also a Wilkes Countian.  Boone’s parents, Squire and Sarah Boone, migrated from peaceful Oley, Pennsylvania, to the lesser civilized area of the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.  When they left Pennsylvania about 1750, they likely took the Great Wagon Road to where they settled in Linnville Creek, Virginia.  In the fall of 1751, the Boone family moved to a 640 acre claim on Grants Creek near the Yadkin River.  At that time in history, the Yadkin River Valley in Wilkes County was one of the least civilized areas on the western frontier and has been dubbed “the wild west!”

In 1755 Daniel Boone assembled a group of hardy men, predominately from North Carolina, to help him blaze a trail through the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky.  Some of these men were friends and neighbors of the Boone family living in the Yadkin River Valley of Wilkes County, North Carolina.  Among this group of axmen, as they are called, were Squire Boone (Daniel’s brother), Benjamin Cutbirth who was the husband of Daniel’s niece, Elizabeth Wilcoxson (my husband’s 4^th great grandparents), Michael Stoner, David Gass, Colonel Richard Callaway and his female Negro servant, William Bush, Edmund Jennings, John Kennedy, John Vardemen, James Hall, William Hayes and his wife Susannah Boone (Daniel’s daughter), and several others from Rutherford County, North Carolina.

Much controversy surrounds the route of the Wilderness Trail cut by Boone and his axmen.  Many confuse the Great Wagon Road with the Wilderness Trail.  The Great Wagon Road, known by various names such as the Great Road and the Great Philadelphia Wagon Road, began in Philadelphia and followed the Great Appalachian Valley between the Blue Ridge range and the Allegheny and Cumberland ranges of the Appalachian Mountains.  The road eventually extended into South Carolina.  Today Interstate 81 approximates the route of this great road as it meanders from Philadelphia through the Virginia countryside.

Various authors disagree on where the Wilderness Trail began.  However, most sources agree that the rendezvous point for Daniel Boone and his axmen was at Fort Robinson, which later became the site of Fort Patrick Henry.  For protection from Indian attacks, Fort Robinson was constructed near the famous Indian ceremonial land, known as the Long Island of the Holston.  Long Island of the Holston is located in present-day Kingsport, Tennessee.  From this site Daniel and his axmen traveled to Moccasin Gap in present-day Scott County, Virginia, and began their trail.  The trail, covering a distance of 120 miles, was completed on what is now the Kentucky side of Cumberland Gap.

View from Cumberland Gap's Pinnacle Point

The trail was no more than 2 or 3 feet wide, wide enough to permit only riders and packhorses to pass through the dense woods and rough countryside.  More than twenty years passed before wagons could be brought through the Cumberland Gap.  Originally, the trail was called Boone’s Trace, Boone’s Road, or Road to the Old Settlements.  The name, Wilderness Road, was first used about 1796.  Today, US25 approximates the route of the trail.

Why was this road important?  The answer lies simply in the fact that it became a door to the land west of the Appalachian Mountains—a door to the new frontier, that of Kentucky and the lands beyond—which had previously been extremely inaccessible to settlers seeking better land and greater opportunities.

 

Sources:

·         Kegley, Mary B. Finding Their Way from the Great Road to the Wilderness Road, 1745-1796. Ann Arbor, Michigan: Sheridan Books, Inc. for Kegley Books, 2009.

·         Morgan, Robert. Boone, A Biography. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: Algonquin Books, 2008.

·         Rouse, Parke, Jr. The Great Wagon Road: from Philadelphia to the South. Richmond, Virginia: The Dietz Press, 2001.

The W. Scott Kerr Dam, Other Wilkes Cemeteries, and the Thomas Clingman West Home Site

In this post I would like to describe more of the places we saw on our trip to Stony Fork and the Mt. Zion Community on Sept. 9, 2011.  In addition, to my husband, Doug, I was with two 4^th cousins, JJL and JP, and BL, the husband of JJL.
  

While we were cruising around the mountain roads in BL’s white pickup truck, our attention was captured by several interesting sites.  First, BL took us to the W. Scott Kerr Dam and Reservoir on the Yadkin River.  The dam is located in the area of Lewis Fork.  Its construction had been opposed by many residents because they feared the loss of land and the changes that would occur in the environment.  However, over the past years the dam has provided important advantages for the area.  It has, first of all, prevented many homes and farms from being flooded.  Furthermore, the lake and the area surrounding the dam are quite beautiful and provide opportunities for recreation for the residents and tourists. The Yadkin River begins from a source in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, and winds its way east for about 100 miles.  It then turns south at East Bend with its name changing to the Pee Dee and continues for about 225 miles where it empties into the Atlantic Ocean.  Stony Fork Creek empties into the Yadkin River and makes it journey to the Atlantic, also. The following multimedia website superbly presents the Yadkin River Story:  http://yadkinriverstory.org/yadkin.html 

The Yadkin River and Lewis Fork areas are significant to those of us who are descendants of Alexander West I and Alexander Balus West.   Alexander West I lived on the “lower end of bottoms on north side of the Yadkin River” in 1778.  Alexander Balus West and Nancy Land apparently lived in the Lewis Fork area in 1860 since Lewis Fork is given in census documents as their post office.



JJL at Her Parents' Tombstone
Arvil Robert Johnson and Hazel Walker
Walker Family Cemetery



Driving back across the spill-way of the W. Kerr Scott Dam, observing the reservoir on one side with the river valley on the other, we continued our road trip.   Next we stopped at the Walker Family Cemetery at Beaver Creek.  The cemetery is owned and maintained by my 4^th cousin, JJL and her husband, BL.  The setting of this cemetery in a private wooded area provides a quiet place for one to reflect as he sits on the concrete bench near the woods.  JJL’s parents, Arvil Robert Johnson and Hazel Walker, and her grandparents, George Hayes Walker and Dicia Albertha “Bertha” West, are buried in the cemetery.  George and Bertha West Walker were also the grandparents of 4^th cousin, JP.  Bertha West Walker was the daughter of Thomas Clingman West and Bethania Triplett, and the granddaughter of Franklin W. West and Cynthia Adeline Holder.  Bertha lived to be over 91 years old.  According to her granddaughters, JJL and JP, she remained



JP at the Tombstone of the Grandparents of JP and JJL
George Hayes Walker and Dicia Albertha West
Walker Family Cemetery



active with a good mind until her death.  Many other Walkers are buried in this cemetery.  While I was walking among the tombstones, I recognized other familiar names such as Barlow, Triplett, and McNeil.  Certainly, I must research these individuals to determine if any relationship exists with anyone in my West family.





Tombstone of Thomas Clingman West and
Bethania Triplett
Beaver Creek Baptist Church Cemetery



From this stop, we continued to Beaver Creek Baptist Church where Thomas Clingman West and his wife Bethania Triplett, the great grandparents of JJL and JP, are buried.  JP showed me a photograph of their great grandfather, Thomas Clingman West.  I was astonished to see how much he resembled photographs I have of his 1^st cousin, my great grandfather, Thomas Harvey West.  Eventually, in a future blog, I hope to post photographs of both Thomas Clingman West and my great grandfather, Thomas Harvey West. 

From the Beaver Creek Baptist Cemetery, we went to the Triplett-Mt. Zion Cemetery where we found the one and only grave and tombstone of Franklin W. West along with that of his wife Cynthia Adeline Holder.  If you missed the resolution to this mystery of the two tombstones, please see my blog of Sept. 10, “Eating Humble Pie.” 

At some point in this route, we visited the home site of Thomas Clingman West and Bethania Triplett.  The house burned some years ago, and the property appears to be used by its current owners for storing equipment and other items.  I can envision a visitor passing between those two boxwoods and climbing a few steps to the front porch to sit "for a spell" and enjoy a glass of lemonade with the Wests!  In its time, the home and setting must have been beautiful and peaceful with trees and shrubbery adorning the lawn.  In fact, many very large boxwoods and trees remain on the property today as a testimony to those by-gone days.



Site of the Home of Thomas Clingman and Bethania Triplett West



Traversing the Shenandoah Valley

I have been in Williamsburg, Virginia, the past six days visiting my sister, Sandy, and bonding with my sweet, little 16 month-old great niece.  Of course, in making this trip, we traveled both north and south on Interstate 81 which closely follows the trail on which those Conestoga wagons brought settlers into the southern regions of our country.  As we drove over this highway with all of its mindless traffic, I couldn’t help being keenly aware of our forefathers as they made their journey through the rough and dangerous terrain in those by-gone days.  As we were traveling south on I81 coming home, I was very much aware of the gigantic Blue Ridge Mountain range in the distant horizon on my left and the smaller ranges on my right.  The beauty of the valley with its rich “bottom land” between the two mountain ranges was quite evident. 

As I made these observations, which, for some reason, I have never done before over the past 20 plus years that we have made this trip, I immediately starting rethinking my description of the Appalachian Mountains that I had written in a previous blog.  I have edited and refined that blog post of July 19, 2011, Migration Routes and Their Effects on Settlements, in the section relating to the Appalachian Mountains.

Researching information for my family tree and for this blog has definitely created a greater appreciation for my ancestors, their hardships and toils, and for our country, its history and beauty.

What Did Alexander West I Find When He Came to Wilkes County?

He found Indians and danger!

Tradition indicates that many hard-fought battles occurred between the white settlers and the Indians among the swamps along the Yadkin River.  The Cherokee Indians were quite numerous and had their capital village at what is known today as North Wilkesboro.  They had numerous wigwams along the banks of the Yadkin and Reddies Rivers.

He found an unpopulated back country!

Supposedly, by 1727, no white men had been in what is now Wilkes County.  In 1746 Governor Rowan wrote that “in the year of 1746, I was in the territory from the Saxaphaw [Haw River] to the mountains, and there was not above one hundred fighting men in all that back country.”   By 1749 according to the tax polls, about 300 taxable men lived west of North Carolina’s Haw River.  By 1750, many settlers, most of whom were English, began coming to western North Carolina.  As mentioned in a previous blog post, “Migration Routes and Their Effects on Settlements,” settlers came for various reasons—religious, political, and economic.  Politically, they came for a desire for greater freedom than they had under British rule in other parts of the colony.  Living in such a remote section as western North Carolina provided them with greater autonomy.

He found a source of plenty!

By 1750, the North Carolina “back county” was becoming more populated.  As they entered this western North Carolina land, settlers found that many bottom lands had already been cleared by the Indians.  In the upper Yadkin River Valley, they found land teaming with bear, deer, and other animals.  Supposedly, a hunter could obtain two or three thousand pounds of bear grease in a season.  Daniel Boone purportedly killed 99 bears along the waters of Bear Creek.  A hunter could kill four or five deer a day.

He found an abundance land available through land grants and purchases!

By 1752 Lord Granville, who did not sell his land back to the King of England as some of the English proprietors had done, provided land grants for 8,773 acres of land lying within the present borders of Wilkes County.

Sources:

Barclay, Carolyn R. “Just Who Were the Scots-Irish,” Genealogical.com, Aug. 14, 2010

Crouch, John. Historical Sketches of Wilkes County, 1902

Migration Routes and Their Effects on Settlements

Most genealogists stress the importance of studying the migration routes of those who settled in specific areas.  Until recently, I haven’t given much thought to doing that.  However, after reviewing a video presentation, Migration Routes and Settlement Patterns, 1607-1890, by Dr. George F. Schweitzer, Ph.D., ScD, copyright 1998, I have become more interested in these migration patterns and how they may have influenced my ancestors who moved into the high country of North Carolina.  Not only do I have West ancestors including the Lands/Carltons, McNeils/Barlows, Swansons, and Witherspoons from those high country counties of Wilkes and Avery, but also the Hugheses/Hoilmans and Honeycutts/Canipes from the high country counties of Yancey and Mitchell, all of whom may have followed those routes as they sought, for one reason or another, new land.  Wow!  What a daunting challenge I have if, and when, I am able to research these families!

Appalachian Mountains

Before continuing with the migration routes and their effects on settlements, a basic explanation of the Appalachian Mountains, is needed.  Using Internet sources, I have researched the Appalachian Mountains, the Allegheny Mountains, the Blue Ridge Mountains, and the Cumberland Mountains and have discovered that different writers provide facts and names that somewhat differ.  Therefore, sorting out, synthesizing, and organizing the information in my mind has been somewhat difficult.  In view of the fact that I am still learning about the geography of the land, the migration routes, and the settlement patterns, I must provide a disclaimer that I may have some inaccuracies or misinterpretations.  Please let me know if you notice any in my analyses.

The Appalachian Mountains, representing a very old and vast system of mountains in the eastern section of North America, are found in this country in 18 of our states.  The Allegheny Mountain range is on the western side, the Blue Ridge Mountain range on the eastern side, and the Great Appalachian Valley, as it is called, in the middle.  A portion of this valley in the middle is known today as the Shenandoah River Valley and is bounded on its eastern side by the Blue Ridge Mountains and on its western side by the eastern front of the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians excluding Massanutten Mountain which runs down the middle.  The Cumberland Mountain, with its famous Cumberland Gap, is part of the southern Blue Ridge range of Appalachians. From the beginning of human existence in the region, the Appalachian Mountains have presented  barriers to east-west travel.  They are made up of ridges and valleys which present opposition to any road running from east to west.

Origin of the West Name

Also, as a preface to the discussion of the routes and settlements, let’s look at the origin of the name “West.”   The name, West, is an English surname with its roots in Western Europe.  Presently, it is predominantly found in Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and New Zealand in that order.  In the United States in ranking order from greatest to least, it is most predominate in Tennessee, Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, and Mississippi (World Names Profiler, 2011: http://www.publicprofiler.org/worldnames). I was quite surprised that the name is not present in significant numbers in Virginia, North Carolina, and some of the New England states.

Therefore, considering the fact that the name is of English origin, we may assume that the West ancestors came from England.  Furthermore, we may assume that they entered the colonies at one of the main entry points at which most English immigrants entered during the colonial era of 1607-1700.

Migration Routes and Settlement Patterns

According to Dr. Schweitzer during the period of history between 1607 and 1890, the English settled in Virginia in 1607, in Massachusetts in 1620, and in Maryland in 1634.  Many moved from Massachusetts to Maine in the 1630s, from Connecticut to Rhode Island in 1636, to New Hampshire in 1638, and to New York, Delaware, and New Jersey in 1664.  They moved from Virginia into northeast North Carolina in the 1670s, into South Carolina in 1670, into Pennsylvania in 1682, and into Georgia in 1733.  Mobley (Joe A. Mobley, ed., The Way We Lived in North Carolina before 1770, copyright 1983) stated that Europeans had explored the coasts and the mountains of North Carolina before the event of the Lost Colony in Virginia.  Prior to 1715, the first permanent settlers in North Carolina were from Virginia.  

Why did so many immigrants move into the areas of western Virginia and North Carolina?  Religious, political, and economic reasons provided this motivation to seek out other land.  At this point, I won’t explore the political and religious reasons, of which apparently several existed, but will focus on the economic. Beginning in 1727, cheap land in the fertile valley that ran along the eastern side of the Appalachian Mountains (the Blue Ridge range) lured settlers into that valley, the Shenandoah River valley (the Shenandoah Valley).  Compton (Brenda E. McPherson Compton, The Scots-Irish from Ulster and the Great Philadelphia Wagon Road, http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nchist-colonial/2038) stated that in 1750, a 50-acre farm in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania cost 7 pounds 10 shillings. Whereas, in the Granville District of North Carolina, which comprised the upper half of the state, a 100-acre farm cost 5 shillings. Therefore, for these economic reasons, one can readily understand the desire of people to move to this cheaper land.

According to historians, the rugged Appalachian Mountain ranges, with the Allegheny Mountain range on the west and the Blue Ridge Mountain range on the east, permitted passage only at four locations.  These passes were a pass in the Mohawk Valley in New York between the Adirondack Mountains and Catskill Mountains, a pass in Pennsylvania at a location near the present-day Gettysburg, a pass through the southern Blue Ridge range (some writers indicate that this was in the Allegheny range) at the Cumberland Gap on the borders of present-day Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia, and the southern route around one or both ranges of the Appalachian Mountains.

According to Dr. Schweitzer, between the years of 1700-1763, the land on the eastern side of the Appalachian Mountains was settled up to the Appalachian Mountains.  The Virginia and North Carolina Piedmont area was settled from the east by the English and Scots-Irish.  The Spanish and the Indians, who were armed by the Spanish, kept settlers from South Carolina at that time.  The route that led the settlers through the Shenandoah Valley from Philadelphia to its southern end at Sapling Grove (present-day Bristol, Virginia) was known as the Great Wagon Road or the Philadelphia Wagon Road with various sections of the route given additional names. The portion of the Great Wagon Road that extended to the west toward Kentucky beyond “Sapling Grove” was named the Wilderness Road.  According to Beverly Whitaker, 2006 (http://home.roadrunner.com), 90% of Kentucky’s population in 1790 had arrived on the Wilderness Road. The settlers filled the valley to Tennessee and then left it through the passes into the uplands of Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, which, I assume, must have been up through the Great Appalachian Valley.  Today’s Interstate 81 follows the general route of the Great Wagon Road/Philadelphia Wagon Road/Great Valley Road from Philadelphia down the Shenandoah Valley to Sapling Grove and on to Georgia.

Prior to 1763, the French and hostile Indians, who were armed by the French, had prevented any settlement across the Appalachian Mountains.  With the defeat of the French in the French and Indian War, England was given Canada and all of the land to the Mississippi River, and the Indians were driven back.  By 1763-83, the settlers began moving from Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina through the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky; from Virginia, North Carolina, and Maryland down the Shenandoah Valley on the Great Wagon Road into northeast Tennessee; and from other areas of the colonies traveling down the Great Wagon Road, going through the passes, or continuing on down and around the Appalachians on the southern route.

Back to Alexander West I

Now back to the Alexander West I, the likely progenitor of this line of the Wests of Wilkes.  He was probably born between 1720 and 1730.  His sons Alexander West II (b 1751) and John West (b 1760) were both born in Orange County, North Carolina.  He appeared on a 1755 tax list in North Carolina in Surry (later Wilkes) County, as living in 1778 at Glady Branch and on the north side of the Yadkin River in Wilkes County, as living in 1779 in Wilkes County, on a tax list in 1782 for Wilkes County, and as living in 1784 on land at Glady Fork, all of which were land at the foot of the Blue Ridge range of the eastern Appalachians.  If, indeed, he had been from Virginia, what migration route did he follow?  Did he come from Virginia with the wave of English who settled North Carolina between 1700 and 1763?  Had his parents moved from Virginia to Maryland or Delaware from which he migrated to North Carolina in the mid-1700s? 

We still don’t have an answer to who Alexander West I was or where he came from. We have only the passed-down, oral family history indicating that he was the father of Alexander West II and John West, thus, the progenitor of this line of Wests of Wilkes County.

Post Script

The spellings of the various locations (Glady Branch, Glady Fork) are spelled as they are written in the legal documents.