Daddy’s second task required him to hire and lead men to hack and mark a trail into Caintuck. This newly marked trail over the mountains of western Virginia, through the Cumberland Gap, would break through canebrakes, across meadows, and ford streams and rivers to allow settlers, hunters, and traders alike easier movement into that promised land.
It was 1775; Lord Dunmore’s War had ended. Jemima told once again of her father’s desire to move westward into Caintuck. That year, Daniel Boone took on the task of blazing a trail through the Cumberland Gap, the only easily traversed gap in the Appalachian Mountains. The trail, known as the Great Warrior’s Path followed old bison traces and was widely used by the Cherokee, Shawnee, and other tribes.
Daniel hired about thirty men, including his brother Squire, his best friend Mike Stoner, and his new son-in-law Will Hays. The work required the party to clear and mark a trail all the way to the Louisa, now called the Kentucky, River.
Daddy instructed the men to chop trees, saplings, brush, briers, and vines along the route he marked each day. They hauled large rocks from the path and searched for shallow places to ford streams and rivers. The men struggled day by day, carrying out backbreaking work. Daddy rode in front, marked the trail to be cleared, and shot game for the company to eat. Their favorite was sweet, tender bear meat, but deer and smaller game furnished most of their meals. Late snows and ice came with freezing temperatures. The men kept brush fires burning all day to warm their hands and feet. They crossed the Cumberland Gap and turned north into the Pine Valley Gap, then turned northeast toward the Louisa. Finally, they reached the Rockcastle River and, after hacking their way through miles of thickets, reached that view they all desired, Caintuck’s Great Meadow.
It was mid-Spring when the party moved on to the site on the Louisa that would become Boonesborough. Some called the road the Wilderness Trail, others called it Boone’s Trace, some the Cumberland Road. No matter which one you use today, Kentucky natives know who built it and why. There will always be arguments about where the trace ended, most say near Dick’s River (now called Dix River). Yet, none of that is important for over the next 35 years, more than 300,000 settlers would use the trail to move west to new lands. Boone himself brought his family west along the trace later in 1775.
(Italicized excerpts from Caintuck Lies Within My Soul. Read more about early westward expansion in my new novel featuring the story of Jemima Boone.)