Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 6).djvu/94

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94
BOONE'S WILDERNESS ROAD

it joined the great Warrior's Path which came down through Kentucky from the Scioto Valley in Ohio. For about fifty miles Boone's Road followed this path northward, whereupon, leaving the Indian trail, Boone bore to the west, marking his course on a buffalo trace toward "Hazel Patch" to the Rockcastle. The buffalo path was followed onward up Roundstone Creek, through "Boone's Gap" in Big Hill; through the present county of Madison, Kentucky; and down little Otter Creek to the Kentucky River. Here Boonesborough was built for the Transylvania Colony, which became the temporary center of Kentucky.

Felix Walker, one of Boone's road-making party, made an autobiographical statement about 1824 of this brave attempt to cut a white man's path into Kentucky. From this statement these quotations from De Bow's Review (1854) are pertinent:

"The treaty (at Watauga) being concluded and the purchase made, we proceeded on our journey to meet Col. Daniel Boon, with other adventurers, bound to the same country; accordingly we met and rendez-