Boone Trace

Boone Trace. . Opening the Wilderness , Land speculator Richard Henderson's Transylvania Company had obtained thousands of acres from the Cherokee-all of the land bounded by the Kentucky, Cumberland, and Ohio rivers. In 1775, few non-Indians had ventured west of the Appalachian Mountains. Henderson needed to entice potential settlers to buy land in this vast wilderness. He needed a trail that would accommodate pack horses and make the journey less forbidding., Fort Boonesborough , It took Boone's crew a month to cut the trail from Long Island on the Holston River (present-day Kingsport, Tennessee) to this site. On April 1, 1775, those who had survived arrived here-where Boone and Henderson had decided a fort would be built-Boonesborough, the first "capital” of the west., Boone Trace made it possible for settlers to traverse the mysterious and dangerous unknown and begin new lives. More than 200,000 pioneers followed the trail into Kentucky. It served travelers until the Wilderness Road-which evolved out of Boone Trace-became the main wagon route after 1796., Marking the Trace , Henderson and his backers hired noted explorer Daniel Boone to undertake the project. His crew followed game, Indian, and long hunter trails, marking the route north, cutting trees and cane where necessary. Boone led a party of more than thirty- free white men, enslaved black men, and at least two women- an enslaved black woman and Boone's daughter, Susannah, wife of a crew member. All played a role in opening the first trail for pioneer traffic into what would become Kentucky.