Wilderness Road

Common card · No. 280805

The Wilderness Road was one of two principal routes used by colonial and early national era settlers to reach Kentucky from the East. Although this road goes through the Cumberland Gap into southern Kentucky and northern Tennessee, the other (more northern route) is sometimes called the "Cumberland Road" because it started in Fort Cumberland in Maryland. Despite Kentucky Senator Henry Clay's advocacy of this route early in the 19th century, the northern route was selected for the National Road, connecting near Washington, Pennsylvania into the Ohio Valley of northern Kentucky and Ohio. In March 1775, land speculator Judge Richard Henderson established the Transylvania Company and hired frontiersman Daniel Boone to blaze the trail from Fort Chiswell in Virginia through the Cumberland Gap, creating a pathway for westward migration. It was later lengthened, following Indian trails, to reach the Falls of the Ohio at Louisville. The Wilderness Road was steep, rough and narrow. It could be traversed...

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