By Richard C. Brown
Contributing Writer
Many residents of this region know that the Wilderness Road played an important role in the early history of our state. But how many know where it was and why it was important?
Origins of the Wilderness Road lay in buffalo hooves and natives' feet. For hundreds of years they had trod paths on both sides of and across the mountain ranges of western Virginia.
In 1775 Daniel Boone and a company of 30 men with axes connected some of these ancient paths to make a continuous route through Cumberland Gap, already known as a door to the lands west of the Appalachian Mountains. Turning southwest, Boone and his axe men blazed a trail called Boone's Trace, leading to Boonesboro.
John Filson's historic map of ``Kentucke,'' published in 1784, showed this route as ``The Road >From the Old Settlements Thru the Great Wilderness.'' The revolutionary government of Virginia did what it could to maintain and improve this road. However, with the War for Independence going on, that government could do little to help the increasing numbers traveling to and through Cumberland Gap.
After Kentucky separated from Virginia in 1792 the road west from Cumberland Gap became the responsibility of the new state. Fortunately, the first governor of Kentucky, Isaac Shelby, knew the importance of good roads. He persuaded the General Assembly to provide money and he had learned from Virginia's experience what needed to be done.
The governor set the standards for an improved road: 10 feet in width; passable for wagons and carriages; and surfaced to permit travel in all kinds of weather. To direct these improvements, Gov. Shelby appointed two highway commissioners, James Knox and Joseph Crockett, the first in the state.
In October 1796, the commissioners announced that the improved road was open and that ``wagons loaded with a ton weight may pass with ease, with four good horses.'' The Kentucky Gazette, the state's only newspaper at that time, repeated the news and for the first time the name Wilderness Road appeared in print.
As Gov. Shelby knew it, the original Wilderness Road followed nearly the same path as today's U.S. 25E from Cumberland Gap to what is today Baughman, Ky. Then it passed north of the present Barbourville, on its way to present day London, following closely what is now Ky. 229.
From London it wound its way to Mount Vernon, where construction of modern I-75 destroyed part of the old road. Nevertheless, west of Mount Vernon evidence of the Wilderness Road can still be seen as it ran close to what is now U.S. 150 to the old road's terminus at Crab Orchard.
None of the old Wilderness Road was ever paved. However, workers turned parts of it into what later were called corduroy roads. Men with axes and saws first felled some of the abundant trees growing nearby and laid their timbers across the dirt road. After a thin cover of soil was spread on top, the bumpy road resembled the crude, ribbed brown cloth Americans came to know as corduroy.
The true Wilderness Road carried on practices first used in Virginia during colonial times. One was ``road duty,'' requiring adult males to devote a number of days each year to road work in their vicinity. Another was levying tolls for the use of the road. In 1797 a toll-gate was built at Cumberland Ford to raise funds to maintain and improve the Wilderness Road. A third was the willingness of Kentucky state government to accept responsibility, as Virginia had, for supporting a road vital to the common good.
Still, the significance of the Wilderness Road was less in the precedents it carried on in Kentucky. More important was its place in populating the state. Between 1790 and 1800 Kentucky's population jumped from 73,000 to 220,000 and it nearly doubled by 1810.
Some of this was natural increase by an excess of births over deaths, but the larger portion was due to incoming migration. There were two major routes from the east for settlers in Kentucky. One was the Ohio River route, but it was expensive. Moreover, it was dangerous until ``Mad Anthony'' Wayne's victory at Fallen Timbers and the subsequent treaty signed at Greenville, Ohio removed the Indian menace by 1800.
An unknown number but doubtless majority of Kentucky's pioneer settlers came by way of the Wilderness Road, particularly between 1790 and 1800. Even though the Ohio River route was safer after 1800, it was still more expensive.
Although the state-supported Wilderness Road ended at Crab Orchard, county roads carried settlers on to growing centers of population such as Danville, Harrodsburg and Louisville. Often these county roads took the name of ``Wilderness Road'' but their origins and support were different. In Kentucky there were many roads through the wilderness but there was only one true Wilderness Road.
Richard C. Brown, a retired history professor, lives in Danville.