. Historic towns of the Southern States. of 1779, ^^t out upon a farjourney to the west, under the leadership ofJames Robertson. Allured by the wonderful stories of thebeauty and fertility of the Cumberland Val-ley, they determined to seek there new was an heroic venture, unsurpassed inthe history of the march of western civili-zation. No military force blazed a way forthem. High mountain ranges, deep and un-known rivers, hundreds of miles of denseforest, lay before them. The dread of thecrafty savage, upon whose hunting-groundsthey were encroaching, did not deter them. Bidding farewe
. Historic towns of the Southern States. of 1779, ^^t out upon a farjourney to the west, under the leadership ofJames Robertson. Allured by the wonderful stories of thebeauty and fertility of the Cumberland Val-ley, they determined to seek there new was an heroic venture, unsurpassed inthe history of the march of western civili-zation. No military force blazed a way forthem. High mountain ranges, deep and un-known rivers, hundreds of miles of denseforest, lay before them. The dread of thecrafty savage, upon whose hunting-groundsthey were encroaching, did not deter them. Bidding farewell to their friends at Wataucrathey struck out upon the wilderness trail ofDaniel Boone for the Far West. They passedthrough the gap in the Cumberland Moun-tains, across the headwaters of the Cumber-land River, and still westward across the riversand valleys of Central and Southern Kentucky,until, after weary weeks of marching, through Nashville 481 storm and snow and ice, they finally reachedthe old French Lick on Christmas Day, JAMES ROBERTSON. The wives and families of this advance-guard of the frontier, unable to endure thehardships of the march, were sent in boats and 482 Nashville canoes down the Holston and Tennessee riv-ers. Captain John Donelson was in command,a man of rare courage and judgment. Hishandsome young daughter, Rachel, one ofthe voyagers, afterwards became mistress ofthe White House as the wife of PresidentJackson. They left Fort Patrick Henry on the Hol-ston River, December 27, 1779. The distanceby water around the long, winding circuit ofthe Holston, the Tennessee, the Ohio and theCumberland up to the Cumberland Bluffs wasmore than a thousand miles. Captain Donel-sons interesting journal, kept during the four-months journey and still preserved amongthe treasures of the Tennessee Historical Soci-ety, recounts in plain and modest words astory of heroism, of thrilling adventures, ofsingular pathos, scarcely equaled in the annalsof our American frontie
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectcitiesandtowns, booky
