Photograph as originally submitted to this page in the Historical Marker Database www.HMdb.org. Click on photo to resize in browser. Scroll down to see metadata.

Photographer: National Park Service, Thomas Stone National Historic Site
Taken: May 26, 2019
Caption: A Gap into History exhibit in the adjacent Museum of North Carolina Minerals.
Additional Description: Gillespie Gap, the mountain pass visible from this museum, was shaped by geological forces. The gap, in turn, has shaped history—most notably during a single September day in 1780. Over the eons, the noticeable cut or gap through this particular part of the Blue Ridge Mountains has been chiseled and worn away by the relentless action of wind, rain, seasonal freezing and thawing, and gravity. Gillespie Gap, a naturally occuring break in the mountains, has long served as an east-west pass through the Appalachians. Deer, buffalo, and other migrating herds came through the pass. Native Americans ventured along the same well-worn paths in pursuit of game and trade goods. Still later, European-Americans traveled through the gap by wagon and on foot to begin new lives on the western frontier. However, the single most celebrated crossing occured on September 29, 1780, when hundreds of Patriot militiamen—colonists willing to fight for American independence—streamed through the pass. They were on their way to a battle that would, in the words of Thomas Jefferson, cause a distinct "turn of the tide" in the Revolutionary War.
Submitted: August 28, 2019.
Database Locator Identification Number: p489978
File Size: 7.846 Megabytes

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