In 1775, 20 million acres of land west of Virginia were purchased by Richard Henderson. The Transylvania Land Company was formed, and Daniel Boone was hired to etch a road through the wilderness into Kentucky. In his Boone’s Wilderness Road, Archer Butler Hulbert provides an account of that effort. Following is part of that account,…
Category: My Family History
My Dunscomb Family Line from Missouri to England
I. Laura Mae Dunscomb [Laura Mae’s Senior Picture – about 1944] Born December 6, 1926 Married Henry Albert [Hank, H.A. Baker] Born April 5, 1921 Died February 2, 2013 II. William Elmer Dunscomb Born August 8, 1898 Died October 7, 1972 Married August 11, 1920 Married Henrietta James Born June 2, 1900 Died December 13,…
Dr. Thomas Walker’s Expedition from Virginia to Kentucky in 1749
Although he was, by profession, a medical doctor, Dr. Thomas Walder was probably more of a land developer, and he explored the passage from Virginia to Kentucky for the Loyal Land Co. of London. By 1755, the boundary of Virginia had been extended to include all of the land west of the Ohio River and…
Boone’s Wilderness Road – Published in 1903
HISTORIC HIGHWAYS OF AMERICA VOLUME 6 [Pg 4] Cumberland Gap and Boone’s Wilderness Road [Pg 5] HISTORIC HIGHWAYS OF AMERICA VOLUME 6 Boone’s Wilderness Road y Archer Butler Hulbert With Maps and Illustrations THE ARTHUR H. CLARK COMPANY CLEVELAND, OHIO 1903 [Pg 6] COPYRIGHT, 1903 BY The Arthur H. Clark Company ALL…
My Family Line Is Filled with Preachers — Even Circuit Preachers Who Carried Their Messages on Horseback
In previous posts, I have said that along several lines, my family is among the people who left Europe to seek religious freedom. The Duval side of my family were Huguenots who left France to protest Catholic persecution, and the Whitaker side of my family were Quakers who left England for the same reason. It…
Religious Persecution Drove Much of the European Migration to America
Persecution of the Protestant French Huguenots The Bartholomew’s Day Massacre “The St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre (French: Massacre de la Saint-Barthélemy) in 1572 was a targeted group of assassinations and a wave of Catholic mob violence, directed against the Huguenots (French Calvinist Protestants) during the French Wars of Religion. Traditionally believed to have been instigated by…
What My Great Aunt Said about My Family’s Pioneer Days, Migrating to the Midwest from the East Coast
One branch of my ancestors, the Duvalls, were among the earliest people to settle in Virginia, and I have traced the route showing how another branch of my family, the Whitakers, were among the pioneers who moved westward from England down the East Coast to the midwest. My history is that of the people who…
Daniel Boone and the Wilderness Road & the Cumberland Gap that Carried Pioneers from the East Coast to Middle America
“The Wilderness Road was one of two principal routes used by colonial and early national era settlers 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. It was later lengthened, following Indian trails, to reach the Falls of the Ohio at Louisville. The Wilderness Road was steep, rough and narrow, and could be traversed…
