Daniel Boone, Cumberland Gap and Manifest Destiny

 Location: WIlderness Road National Park Campground; Middlesboro, Kentucky/Virginia/Tennessee (in the general location of the Cumberland Gap)

This is a great campground and since it is in a National Park, my senior pass works. The daily charge, with the pass, is $12.00 per night. But beware, choose your campsite carefully because some are very unlevel. I usually don't list my campsite numbers but will here for future reference if I come back. Campsite B-3 is one of the good ones. 

Campsite B-3. The weather has run the gambit too. It was heavy overcast on the first 2 days then heavy storms blew through on the night of the 2nd day that clear everything out. That was the storm that produced the tornados in London, Kentucky that killed several people. London is about 45 minutes north of here. 

A couple of road pics to follow. Somewhere in eastern Kentucky. By the way, Kentucky has some great roads. 

This one is near the campground, so let's call it Middlesboro.

I thought this was kind of ironic, the Cumberland Gap Tunnel. 

The Wilderness Road was the path that was used to cross the Appalachian Mountains back in the late 1700's to the early 1800's. The Cumberland Gap is a mountain pass on that road and had been used for a very long time by the local Indians and wildlife. The Appalachian Mountains were like an impenetrable wall stretching from New York down to Alabama. They were keeping the "white men" from going west. They were trapped between the Atlantic Ocean and the mountains. That is until the Cumberland Gap was discovered (actually re-discovered). There is a long history of events with many great stories in this area that affected American History. Today is my 4th and last day here and I went exploring on all 4 days. I'm a little bit tired and am looking at a long tow tomorrow. This blog post will have lots of pictures with captions, so I'll be brief as to the history.

Dr. Thomas Walker, while working for the Loyal Land Company back in 1750 was the first officially recognized white man to see the Cumberland Gap. He was surveying the property of Western Virginia (later to become the State of Kentucky in 1792). 

Daniel Boone was a hunter and outdoorsman. He would take long hunting trips to get furs and stuff from the wild and bring it back to the cities in the east. On one of his trips in 1769, along with 4 other men, he saw the Cumberland Gap. The Gap allowed him to easily (compared to going over the mountains) cross the mountains to get to the Kentucky area. 

When Boone returned, word spread throughout the east and people gathered up their belonging and headed to Kentucky, by going through the Gap. Boone took his family to Kentucky and established a fort/city, north of the Gap, and called it Boonesboro. Two of his sons died from Indian attacks while going through the Gap.  

Although he wasn't the first to travel the Gap, Boone's name became synonymous with it, freedom, exploring, free land for the taking, plentiful game, etc.  Between 1780 and 1810, about 300,000 people emigrated westward to Kentucky and beyond. That migration was about 6% of the entire American population at that time. Six percent of the current U.S. population would be about 20,000,000 people. Can you imagine that many people getting up and walking a couple hundred miles with everything you owned on your back or if you were lucky a pack animal?

Boone was a hero to many, but controversy followed him. Due to debts and land disputes, Boone again packed up his family in 1799 and headed west. Boone was 67 years of age at the time of the move. His plan was to leave America by crossing the Mississippi River near St. Louis and enter Spanish Territory. The Spanish welcomed Boone with big fanfare and gave him land and prestige. They did this because they knew that where-ever Boone went, people followed. They even appointed his to be a judge. But the joke was on Boone because in 1803, Spain gave control of the land to France who in turn sold it to the U.S. in the Louisiana Purchase. So, America caught up to Boone and it would be interesting to know his thoughts about that. My post about Boone Missouri home and burial site is covered in my old post located here >>>> https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/1092960427378302566/459143345405690160

Boone died in 1820 at the age of 86. He may be buried in a grave along a small two-lane highway near the town of Marthasville, Missouri (about 50 miles west of St. Louis). I say "may be" buried there because the State of Kentucky says they exhumed him and re-buried him in Frankfort, Kentucky. The State of Missouri says they dug up the wrong guy. What is known for sure is that his wife, who preceded him in death, and he was buried next to, was exhumed by her family and returned to Frankfort, Kentucky. According to Kentucky, they are buried together. I like to think Boone would have preferred the burial site in Missouri which would have been nearer the frontier. When I visited his Missouri gravesite, I could picture him there looking to the west and watching the sunset. Some tales say, after he got the family settled down in Missouri, he went wandering and made it all the way to the Yellowstone area before returning. Maybe, maybe not. 

There were two main places I wanted to explore. The first was the local museum. It is now in my top 5, mainly due to the historian/director of the place. Very knowledgeable, informative and talkative. 

The other place to explore is a trip to the Pinnacle Overlook and Fort Lyons. It is a mountain with a nice road to the top with plenty of "kiss you a$$" curves and drop-offs. It's been a tourist attraction for several decades, maybe 10. 

One of the smaller "Kiss your a$$" curves

A view from near the top of Pinnacle. I think that's a natural lake in the distance. 

The north and south militarized the mountain by places cannons in several locations near the top.

This was from my first visit to Pinnacle. I was the only one there, probably because it was early and the weather was overcast. My second trip was more crowded with about 15 vehicles in the parking lot. 

They have very nice paths and the one to the overlook is wheelchair accessible. If you make the climb higher up to Fort Lyons, it is a much steeper climb and in my opinion wasn't worth the effort. 

A cicada on the handrail. They have been "chirping"/"singing" a lot at the campground and area. 

An uncomfortable bench on the trail coming down from Fort Lyons. That paint line is a state line. I think it was TN/VA

Getting close to the overlook. Nice paths, uh?

That's the overlook. This was from the overcast day.

One of the views.

Another view

I liked this one of the mountains in the overcast rather than on the clear day.

Time to jump up on the soapbox for a little bit. Manifest Destiny is something I learned about in school back in the 60's. The way it was taught was, America had no choice but to move our population westward. That we had a divinely ordained right and duty to expand westward across the continent. If anyone questioned it, those two words, "Manifest Destiny", ended all arguments. Of course, the westward expansion meant conquering and displacing the Indians, which we did. I don't have a problem with that since stronger civilizations always conquer weaker ones if they have something the stronger one wants. This was done by the Indian tribes as well. The best example is the Comanche Indians. They started out in Western Wyoming before migrating and taking land in the southwest and Texas. They conquered and displaced the Apache, Navajo and many others. It was and is a way of life among civilizations. But it all depends on how it's done, honorably or dishonorably. A lot of our displacement of the Indians was done dishonorably. But it was overlooked and passed off because it was "Manifest Destiny" and we just couldn't help ourselves (sarcasm). That is right but also wrong. Just like a lot of things in life, it falls into a grey area. One of the arguments that should have been used back then would have been, if it's Manifest Destiny, then what about expanding into Canada and Spanish Mexico. The reason we didn't expand into those area was because England and Spain were militarily powerful enough to stop us. Maybe we learned a little from that experience because after World War 2, we could have taken over several countries as the world's only superpower, but we didn't. Instead, we help rebuild them. In fact, we helped two of our enemies from that war to become economic powerhouses (Japan and Germany). I guess in a way, it all balances out in the long run. I'm sure the Indians don't look at it that way though. 

Making judgements on things that happened in the past must be weighed against the mores of their times. This is not a hard-fast rule either and has a lot of grey area. Oh well, it's something to think about. 

Tomorrow is moving day and I'll be heading east into northern North Carolina to a COE campground. I changed my route and increased my mileage by 80 miles and 45 minutes in order to stay mostly on Interstate and 4-lane highways. It will be about a 4 to 5 hour tow. I figure I'll be nice and tired but with it being easy towing, I should get a lot of good "thinking driving". 

Ya'll take care of each other. Maybe I'll Cya down the road.