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 him with our family, Col Boone and with his wife and family and Col Hugh Mcgary, Thomas Denton and Richard Hogan were on the road before us and when we arrived at Boonesborough the latter part of September There was only fur [four] or six cabbins built along on the Bank of the Kentucky river but not picketted in being open on two sides."

This was the great pathway of early pioneers to Kentucky, and the course of the marvelous floodtide of immigration which swept over the mountains in the last three decades of the eighteenth century.

The itineraries of early travelers describe the Wilderness Road in definite terms. One of the earliest is that given by John Filson, whose history of Kentucky was published as early as 1784. It described the route from Philadelphia to Louisville (eight hundred and twenty-six miles), as follows: