The people who travelled this wilderness road went in the usual
backwoods manner, on horseback, with laden packtrains, and often with
their herds and flocks. Young men went out alone or in parties; and
groups of families from the same neighborhood often journeyed together.
They struggled over the narrow, ill-made roads which led from the
different back settlements, until they came to the last outposts of
civilization east of the Cumberland Mountains; scattered block-houses,
whose owners were by turns farmers, tavern-keepers, hunters, and Indian
fighters. Here they usually waited until a sufficient number had
gathered together to furnish a band of riflemen large enough to beat off
any prowling party of red marauders; and then set off to traverse by
slow stages the mountains and vast forests which lay between them and
the nearest Kentucky station. The time of the journey depended, of
course, upon the composition of the travelling party, and upon the
mishaps encountered; a party of young men on good horses might do it in
three days, while a large band of immigrants, who were hampered by
women, children, and cattle, and dogged by ill-luck, might take three
weeks.
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