CHAPTER V 



THE BACKWOODSMEN OF THE ALLEGHANIES 

 1769-1774 



ALONG the western frontier of the colonies that 

 were so soon to be the United States, among 

 the foothills of the Alleghanies, on the slopes of the 

 wooded mountains, and in the long trough-like val- 

 leys that lay between the ranges, dwelt a peculiar 

 and characteristically American people. 



These frontier folk, the people of the up-country, 

 or back-country, who lived near and among the for- 

 est-clad mountains, far away from the long-settled 

 districts of flat coast plain and sluggish tidal river, 

 were known to themselves and to others as back- 

 woodsmen. They all bore a strong likeness to one 

 another in their habits of thought and ways of liv- 

 ing, and differed markedly from the people of the 

 older and more civilized communities to the east- 

 ward. The Western border of our country was 

 then formed by the great barrier-chains of the Al- 

 leghanies, which ran north and south from Penn- 

 sylvania through Maryland, Virgina, and the Caro- 

 linas, 1 the trend of the valleys being parallel to the 



1 Georgia was then too weak and small to contribute much 

 to the backwoods stock; her frontier was still in the low 

 country. 

 (122) 



