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The Wilderness Road was the principal route used by settlers for more than fifty years to reach Kentucky from the East. In 1775, Daniel Boone blazed a trail for the Transylvania Company from Fort Chiswell in Virginia through the Cumberland Gap into central Kentucky. It was later lengthened, following Native American trails, to reach the Falls of the Ohio at Louisville. The Wilderness Road was steep, rough, narrow, and it could only be traversed on foot or horseback. Despite the adverse conditions, thousands of people used it. In 1792, the new Kentucky legislature provided money to upgrade the road. In 1796, an improved all-weather road was opened for wagon and carriage travel. The road was abandoned around 1840, although modern highways follow much of its route. ==Early exploration== The first European explorers of the southern Appalachian Mountains were Spanish. Hernando de Soto and his troops traversed the region in 1540 and 1541 searching for gold. He was followed by several other Spanish expeditions. The first recorded English explorations of the mountains were those of Abraham Wood, which began around 1650. Later, Wood sent exploring parties into the mountains. The Batts-Fallam expedition reached the New River Valley in 1671. In 1673, Wood sent Gabriel Arthur and James Needham to the Overhill Cherokee of modern Tennessee. The purpose was to try to make direct contact with the Cherokee for trade, so as to bypass the Ocaneechee "middlemen" traders. The expedition did reach the Overhill Cherokee area, but Needham was killed on the return. Gabriel Arthur was almost killed, but was rescued by being adopted by a Cherokee chief. For his own safety, Arthur was then sent with one of the chief's raiding parties. For about a year, he traveled with the Cherokee, throughout the Appalachians. He was probably the first European to visit modern West Virginia and cross the Cumberland Gap. In 1750, Dr. Thomas Walker, an investor in the Loyal Land Company, with five companions, made a famous exploration through the Cumberland Gap and into eastern Kentucky. The Loyal Land Company settled people in southwest Virginia, but not Kentucky. In 1769, Virginia longhunter and explorer Joseph Martin made the first of several forays into the region. Acting as an agent for Dr. Thomas Walker, to whom Martin was connected through family relationships, Martin began an expedition to Powell's Valley in early 1769 in return for a promised land grant from Walker and the Loyal Land Company. Martin and his men built the earliest westernmost frontier fort at present-day Rose Hill, Virginia, a fort dubbed Martin's Station. Later that year Indians chased off Martin and his men, who returned to Albemarle County. Martin returned six years later to rebuild the fort, and a few months later became an agent for Richard Henderson's Transylvania Company.〔(A Short History of Martin's Station, historicmartinsstation.com )〕 In 1774, Richard Henderson, a judge from North Carolina, organized a land speculation company with a number of other prominent North Carolinians called the ''Transylvania Company''. The men hoped to purchase land from the Cherokees on the Kentucky side of the Appalachian Mountains and establish a British proprietary colony. Henderson hired Daniel Boone, an experienced hunter who had explored Kentucky, to blaze a trail through the Cumberland Gap into central Kentucky. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Wilderness Road」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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