8 The Winning of the West 



very first comers to a wild and dangerous country 

 are apt to be men with fine qualities of heart and 

 head ; it is not until they have partly tamed the land 

 that the scum of the frontier drifts into it. 10 



In 1776, as in after years, there were three routes 

 that were taken by immigrants to Kentucky. One 

 led by backwoods trails to the Greenbriar settle- 

 ments, and thence down the Kanawha to the Ohio 11 ; 

 but the travel over this was insignificant compared 

 to that along the others. The two really important 

 routes were the Wilderness Road, and that by water, 

 from Fort Pitt down the Ohio River. Those who 

 chose the latter way embarked in roughly built little 

 flat-boats at Fort Pitt, if they came from Pennsyl- 

 vania, or else at the old Red-stone Fort on the Mo- 

 nongahela, if from Maryland or Virginia, and 

 drifted down with the current. Though this was 

 the easiest method, yet the danger from Indians was 

 so very great that most immigrants, the Pennsyl- 

 vanians as well as the Marylanders, Virginians, and 

 North Carolinians, 12 usually went overland by the 



of whose descendants it has been my good-fortune personally 

 to know. 



10 This is as true to-day in the Far West as it was formerly 

 in Kentucky and Tennessee; at least to judge by my own 

 experience in the Little Missouri region, and in portions of 

 the Kootenai, Coeur d'Alene, and Bighorn countries. 



11 McAfee MSS. See also " Trans- Alleghany Pioneers," p. 

 in. As Mr. Hale points out, this route, which was traveled 

 by Floyd, Bullitt, the McAfees, and rr any others, has not re- 

 ceived due attention, even in Colonel Speed's invaluable and 

 interesting "Wilderness Road." 



12 Up to 1783 the Kentucky immigrants came from the 

 backwoods of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and North 



