entrance-point through which the State received the largest part of its people, the furniture of their homes, and the implements of their civilization; so that from the very outset that people represented the most striking instance of a survival of the fittest that may be observed in the founding of any American commonwealth. The feeblest of the ants could not climb the wall; the idlest of them would not."[1] Mr. Speed agrees wholly in this opinion: "The settlers came in . . increasing numbers. . . A very large proportion came over the Wilderness Road."[2] In the early days river travel was not practicable. During the Revolutionary War and for some time thereafter travel down the Ohio River was dangerous, both because of the hostility of the savages and because of the condition of the river. In earlier days the journey from the Ohio into the populated parts of Kentucky was a great hardship. The story of one who emigrated
