The Great Wagon Road
Krysta Abesamis Krysta Abesamis

The Great Wagon Road

“The old wilderness had not yet disappeared beneath towns, courthouses, and organized roads. Much of the land stretching beyond Pennsylvania and Virginia still belonged more to rivers, mountains, weather, and Native paths than to the Crown itself. It was into this raw and changing frontier that the Carruthers family turned southward, leaving Pennsylvania behind and entering the long migration route that would later become known as the Great Wagon Road.”

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The Cumberland Plateau, 1800
Krysta Abesamis Krysta Abesamis

The Cumberland Plateau, 1800

“His father James Carruthers had crossed the Atlantic from Ulster into Pennsylvania. Robert himself came of age in the Carolina backcountry during the years surrounding the American Revolution. Now, by 1800, the family once again stood at the edge of a new frontier — this time among the ridges, forests, and isolated mountain valleys of Tennessee.”

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