Daniel Boone attended; Squire Jr., Samuel and Mary Boone Baptized here. Church name changed, 1790, from Howard's Creek to Providence.
William Bush, a member of Boone's second Kentucky expedition, built the present stone structure of native limestone. United Baptists formed here in 1801. Building was passed to Negro Baptiste, 1870. Restored after slight fire damage, 1949.
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In 1778 the Kentucky frontier was saved by two major military victories: The settlers with stood the Great Siege of Boonesborough & George Rogers Clark defeated Bristish & Indians at Kaskaskia & Vincennes. This fort became the first town chartered in Kentucky, October, 1779, by the Virginia Assembly.
Flip side...
Boonesborough, "Capital of the Colony of Transylvania," was setted April, 1775, by Daniel Boone as the first fortified settlement in Kentucky. Near the fort under the "Divine Elm Tree" in May, 1775, Colonel Richard Henderson held the first legislative assembly of frontier settlers of Harrodsburg, St. Asaph, Boonesborough and Boiling Springs settlements.
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The Wilderness Road, Daniel Boone & Fort Boonesborough
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 1775, Daniel Boone blazed a trail for the Transylvania Company from Fort Chiswell in Virginia through the Cumberland Gap. It was later lengthened, following Native American trails, to reach the Falls of the Ohio at Louisville. The Wilderness Road was steep, rough and narrow, and could only be traversed on foot or horseback. By contrast, wagons could travel along the National Road route (originally the Braddock Road blazed by the competing Ohio Company and George Washington circa 1750), particularly after the improvements. Despite the adverse conditions, thousands of people used the Wilderness Road, particularly slaveholders after the states of Ohio, then Indiana and finally Illinois became free states (abolishing slavery) on the northern bank of the Ohio River, where travelers often embarked on boats to travel westward. 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 (construction on the National Road after Vandalia, Illinois also stopping due to the Panic of 1837 and early railroad construction), although modern highways follow much of its route.
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Fort Boonesborough & Daniel Boone (the Longhunter)
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.
The Appalachian Mountains form a natural barrier to east–west travel. From New York to Georgia there are only five ways to travel to the west, with only three natural interior breaks allowing animal powered travel without great engineering works. These were the Gaps of the Allegheny and the several ways such as the Kittanning Paths in Pennsylvania, the Cumberland Narrows in northwestern Maryland host to Nemacolin's Path, and the Cumberland Gap in the four-state region of North Carolina and Virginia on the east side and through the gap, Tennessee and Kentucky. While late 19th and 20th century technologies would later bridge the mountain chain in other places, these all required significant civil engineering works to make a road bed past the barrier range geologist classify as the ridge-and-valley Appalachians. Settlers from Pennsylvania tended to migrate south along the Great Wagon Road through the Great Appalachian Valley and Shenandoah Valley.
Daniel Boone was from Pennsylvania and migrated south with his family along this road. From an early age, Boone was one of the longhunters who hunted and trapped among the Native American nations along the western frontiers of Virginia, so-called because of the long time they spent away from home on hunts in the wilderness. Boone would sometimes be gone for months and even years before returning home from his hunting expeditions.
Boone recommended three essentials for a pioneer: "A good gun, a good horse, and a good wife." He also would need a strong body, a sharp ax and good luck. Another essential was salt. Before 1776, it had to be shipped into the Thirteen Colonies from the West Indies at great expense. It was the only meat preservative available for men on the move and Kentucky had an extra lure with its large salt brine lakes near what is today the community of Boonesborough, Kentucky. The many "salt licks" of Kentucky are today reflected in the many place names in the state that use the words "lick" or "licking".
Starting on March 10, 1775 Boone, along with 35 axmen, cut a trail from Long Island in Kingsport, Tennessee through the forests and mountains to Kentucky. It was a rough mud trail, hardly more than a path. The Transylvania Company had obtained title to Kentucky from the Cherokee and Iroquois, and even the Shawnee chief Cornstalk, defeated in Dunmore's War, had promised at the Treaty of Camp Charlotte on October 19, 1774 that his tribe would no longer hunt or claim land south of the Ohio River in Kentucky. Notwithstanding this promise, the Shawnee viewed Boone and other settlers as invaders. On March 24, 1775 Boone and his party were only 15 miles (24 km) from their final destination of the Kentucky River when they camped for the night. Just before daybreak a group of Shawnee, slinging tomahawks, attacked the sleeping men. Some of Boone's party were killed and a few were wounded but most were able to escape into the woods. Boone regrouped his men and managed to drive off the hostile Shawnee. The party did, however, lose some of their horses. Here Boone built a temporary open barricade with 6 to 7-foot (2.1 m) high logs.
By the next year, the Shawnee had been joined by the Chickamauga Cherokee in the Cherokee–American wars with the settlers, which lasted until 1794.
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Monument rest inside the Walls Fort Boonesborough.
Because of the threat of Native American attacks, the road was so dangerous that most pioneers traveled well armed. Robbers and criminals also could be found on the road, ready to pounce on weaker pioneers. Although the Transylvania Company had purchased the region from the Cherokee, and the Iroquois had ceded it at the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, other tribes, such as the Shawnee, still claimed it and lived there.
Often entire communities and church congregations would move together over the road to new settlements. Hundreds of pioneers were killed by Indian attacks.
Defensive log blockhouses built alongside the road had portholes in the walls for firing at Native American attackers. They were often called "stations". No one knew exactly when the next attack would happen. The Shawnee came from the north, while the Chickamauga (Cherokees who rejected the land sale treaty) came from the south. The tribes were resentful of the settlers taking their ancestral hunting lands, and the French and Indian War had further stirred up their passions against the white man.
There was a great variety of animal life in the wilderness. At night, the pioneers could hear the hoots and screeches of owls, the howls of wolves, and the cries of panthers and wild cats. Sometimes the Native Americans imitated these sounds. Venomous snakes such as copperheads and rattlesnakes blended into the leaves and undergrowth which were a danger to the pioneers, their horses and cattle.
Tags: Fort Boonesborough State Park Fort Boonesborough Daniel Boone & Fort Boonesbourough kentucky river & daniel Boone Kentucky river daniel boone & fort boonesborough Boonesborough Kentucky kentucky's second oldest European-American settlement boonesborough kentucky frontier outpost American Revolutionary War & Fort Boonesborough National Historic Landmark Fort Boonesborough Madison County Kentucky historic markers madison county kentucky historical markers madison county kentucky historic landmarks madison county kentucky historical landmarks madison county kentucky historic sites madison county kentucky historical sites madison county kentucky forts madison county kentucky fort boonesborough madison county kentucky state parks madison county kentucky & daniel boone madison county kentucky & shawnee native american madison county kentucky and the shawnee people Richard Henderson & the Transylvania Company American pioneer/explorer/woodsman/frontiersman/pathfinder & longhunter shawnee Indian/daniel boone & the wilderness road the wilderness road & daniel boone the wilderness road Siege of Boonesborough Squire Boone Jr. Delawares/Shawnees/Cherokees madison County Kentucky madison county kentucky fort boonesborough monument
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