A longhunter (or long hunter) was an 18th-century explorer and hunter who made expeditions into the

American frontier The American frontier, also known as the Old West, and popularly known as the Wild West, encompasses the Geography of the United States, geography, History of the United States, history, Folklore of the United States, folklore, and Cultur ...

for as much as six months at a time. While historian Emory Hamilton says that "The Long Hunter was peculiar to Southwest

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

only...", many also hailed from North Carolina's western piedmont. Emory L. Hamilton. ''Historical Sketches of Southwest Virginia 5: The Long Hunters'' (Wise, VA: Historical Society of Southwest Virginia, March 1970) The term has also been used loosely to describe any unofficial

European American European Americans are Americans of European ancestry. This term includes both people who descend from the first European settlers in the area of the present-day United States and people who descend from more recent European arrivals. Since th ...

explorer of the period. Many long hunts started in the Holston River Valley near Chilhowie, Virginia. Parties of men usually started their hunts in October and ended toward the end of March or early in April, going west into the territory of present-day Kentucky and Tennessee. These were the hunting grounds of the

Cherokee The Cherokee (; , or ) people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in their homelands, in towns along river valleys of what is now southwestern ...

and

Shawnee The Shawnee ( ) are a Native American people of the Northeastern Woodlands. Their language, Shawnee, is an Algonquian language. Their precontact homeland was likely centered in southern Ohio. In the 17th century, they dispersed through Ohi ...

people. The longhunters gathered information about the western lands in the 1760s and early 1770s that would prove critical to early European American settlement in

Tennessee Tennessee (, ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina t ...

and

Kentucky Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the ...

. Many longhunters were employed by land surveyors seeking to claim new lands ceded to the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

by the French in the Ohio River Valley following France's defeat in the

Seven Years' War The Seven Years' War, 1756 to 1763, was a Great Power conflict fought primarily in Europe, with significant subsidiary campaigns in North America and South Asia. The protagonists were Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and Kingdom of Prus ...

. Some later helped guide settlers to what became

Middle Tennessee Middle Tennessee is one of the three Grand Divisions of Tennessee that composes roughly the central portion of the state. It is delineated according to state law as 41 of the state's 95 counties. Middle Tennessee contains the state's capital an ...

and southeastern Kentucky.

History

Tennessee

As colonial settlement approached the eastern base of the

Appalachian Mountains The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, are a mountain range in eastern to northeastern North America. The term "Appalachian" refers to several different regions associated with the mountain range, and its surrounding terrain ...

in the early 18th century, game in the

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region became more scarce. Merchants returning from trade missions to Overhill Cherokee villages in the

Tennessee Valley The Tennessee Valley is the drainage basin of the Tennessee River and is largely within the U.S. state of Tennessee. It stretches from southwest Kentucky to north Alabama and from northeast Mississippi to the mountains of Virginia and North C ...

brought back news of the abundance of game west of the range and began taking hunters along on their trade expeditions. In 1748 and 1750, Thomas Walker crossed the mountains and explored the

Holston River The Holston River is a river that flows from Kingsport, Tennessee, to Knoxville, Tennessee. Along with its three major forks (North Fork, Middle Fork and South Fork), it comprises a major river system that drains much of northeastern Tennessee ...

valley, recording and widely publicizing the location of

Cumberland Gap The Cumberland Gap is a Mountain pass, pass in the Eastern United States, eastern United States through the long ridge of the Cumberland Mountains, within the Appalachian Mountains and near the tripoint of Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee. At&n ...

—a pass near the modern border of Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. This allowed relatively easy access to the headwaters of the

and

Cumberland Cumberland ( ) is an area of North West England which was historically a county. The county was bordered by Northumberland to the north-east, County Durham to the east, Westmorland to the south-east, Lancashire to the south, and the Scottish ...

rivers, by which travelers could enter the territories downriver. In 1761, Elisha Wallen (spelled variously "Walden", "Wallin", and "Walling") led the first major recorded long hunt into what is now Tennessee. Wallen set up a station camp in Lee County, Virginia, and trekked into the Clinch and Powell valleys in what is now Hawkins County, Tennessee. That same year, Colonel

Adam Stephen Adam Stephen ( – 16 July 1791) was a Scottish-born American doctor and military officer who helped found what became Martinsburg, West Virginia. He emigrated to North America, where he served in the Province of Virginia's militia under Geor ...

led regiments of Virginia and North Carolina soldiers to Long Island of the Holston, in what is now Sullivan County, Tennessee. The expedition was to act in conjunction with a combined British and South Carolina force commanded by Lieutenant Colonel James Grant. Grant's force destroyed 18 Cherokee towns, ending the Anglo-Cherokee War before Stephen's campaign could get underway. With the end of the

in 1763, the French ceded their claims to lands east of the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the main stem, primary river of the largest drainage basin in the United States. It is the second-longest river in the United States, behind only the Missouri River, Missouri. From its traditional source of Lake Ita ...

to Great Britain. After the Anglo-Cherokee War, longhunters (some of whom may have been veterans of Stephen's expedition) began crossing the Appalachians into Tennessee and Kentucky in greater numbers. In 1764,

Daniel Boone Daniel Boone (, 1734September 26, 1820) was an American pioneer and frontiersman whose exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. He became famous for his exploration and settlement of Kentucky, which was then beyo ...

, Richard Callaway and Benjamin Cutbirth explored the upper Holston Valley as agents for Richard Henderson, a land speculator who later played an important role in the early settlement of Tennessee. One of their camps later was used by Boone's friend William Bean, Tennessee's first known permanent Euro-American settler. He built a cabin at the site around 1769. King

George III George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and King of Ireland, Ireland from 25 October 1760 until his death in 1820. The Acts of Union 1800 unified Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and ...

issued the

Royal Proclamation of 1763 The Royal Proclamation of 1763 was issued by British King George III on 7 October 1763. It followed the Treaty of Paris (1763), which formally ended the Seven Years' War and transferred French territory in North America to Great Britain. The ...

prohibiting colonists from encroaching on Native lands. This effectively barred hunting west of the Appalachian range. Both the Cherokee and the British, however, had considerable difficulty enforcing this ban. In 1769, Cherokee Chief Oconastota complained to the British Superintendent of Indian Affairs that the entire Cherokee Nation was "filling with Hunters, and the guns rattling every way on the path." While some longhunters had their pelts confiscated by the Cherokee, and a rare few were even killed, most managed to avoid detection. In 1766 James Smith (frontiersman) led an ambitious long hunt into Middle, West Tennessee, and Kentucky, following the

Cumberland River The Cumberland River is a major waterway of the Southern United States. The U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed June 8, 2011 river drains almost of southern Kentucky and ...

all the way to its mouth on the

Ohio River The Ohio River () is a river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing in a southwesterly direction from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to its river mouth, mouth on the Mississippi Riv ...

(in present-day, Kentucky). While a member of this expedition, Uriah Stone, was hunting along a tributary of the Cumberland a colonial French hunting companion stole all his furs. The tributary was subsequently named Stones River. Stone returned to the Cumberland valley in 1769, along with fellow hunters Kasper Mansker, Isaac and Abraham Bledsoe, Joseph Drake, and Robert Crockett. Although Crockett was killed that year, the 1766 and 1769 expeditions identified various trails, salt licks, and camping areas that later helped guide the first Anglo-American settlers to the Middle Tennessee area.

Legacy

Various geographical entities in Tennessee are named for longhunters.

Walden Ridge Walden Ridge (or Walden's Ridge) is a mountain ridge and escarpment located in Tennessee in the United States. It marks the eastern edge of the Cumberland Plateau and is generally considered part of it. Walden Ridge is about long, running genera ...

, the eastern escarpment of the

Cumberland Plateau The Cumberland Plateau is the southern part of the Appalachian Plateau in the Appalachian Mountains of the United States. It includes much of eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, and portions of northern Alabama and northwest Georgia. The terms " Al ...

in Tennessee, is named for Elisha Wallen, one of the first Anglo-Americans to observe it. A

high school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., ...

and dozens of geographical features in Tennessee have been named for Boone, whose exploits came to symbolize frontier life in Tennessee and Kentucky. Isaac Bledsoe was the namesake of Bledsoe Creek in Sumner County, Tennessee, now the site of Bledsoe Creek State Park. Isaac's brother, Anthony, later became the namesake for Bledsoe County. In 1780, Mansker built a frontier station in what is now Goodlettsville, just north of

Nashville Nashville, often known as Music City, is the capital and List of municipalities in Tennessee, most populous city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County in Middle Tennessee, locat ...

. In 1986, the city of Goodlettsville built a replica of Mansker's Station (it is based on historic examples, as the fort's original layout is unknown). It is now open to the public. In the 1970s, Tennessee established Long Hunter State Park along the J. Percy Priest Lake impoundment of Stones River, in the area where Uriah Stone had his furs stolen more than 200 years earlier.

Kentucky

The end of

King George's War King George's War (1744–1748) is the name given to the military operations in North America that formed part of the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748). It was the third of the four French and Indian Wars. It took place primarily in ...

in 1748 left control of the territory between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River in dispute. The French wanted the region to connect their holdings in Canada with

Illinois Country The Illinois Country ( ; ; ), also referred to as Upper Louisiana ( ; ), was a vast region of New France claimed in the 1600s that later fell under Spanish and British control before becoming what is now part of the Midwestern United States. Whi ...

and

New Orleans New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...

, and the British sought to establish a foothold in the Ohio Valley. French commander Pierre-Joseph Celoron de Blainville conducted maneuvers in 1749 that discouraged British trade west of the Appalachians, although American colonial land speculators remained interested in the region. Walker's 1750 expedition briefly explored what is now southeastern Kentucky, and explorer Christopher Gist managed to reach the mouth of the Kentucky River in 1751. In the opening years of the French and Indian War, the French gained control of the Ohio Valley with the defeat of

George Washington George Washington (, 1799) was a Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the first president of the United States, serving from 1789 to 1797. As commander of the Continental Army, Washington led Patriot (American Revoluti ...

at Fort Necessity in 1754. With the fall of

Fort Duquesne Fort Duquesne ( , ; originally called ''Fort Du Quesne'') was a fort established by the French in 1754, at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers. It was later taken over by the British, and later the Americans, and developed ...

and the construction of Fort Pitt in 1758, however, the French were forced to evacuate the region. The French departure and a relative state of peace with the Cherokee during the same period opened up the region to explorers and hunters from the

Thirteen Colonies The Thirteen Colonies were the British colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America which broke away from the British Crown in the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), and joined to form the United States of America. The Thirteen C ...

. John and Samuel Pringle, two deserters from Fort Pitt, spent much of the early 1760s hunting in the Tygart Valley and likely ranged into what is now Kentucky. Part of Elisha Walden's 1761 party hunted along the

Rockcastle River The Rockcastle River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed June 8, 2011 river primarily in Rockcastle County, Kentucky, United States. It is a tributary of the Cumberland ...

from their station camp in southwestern Virginia. In 1767, an expedition led by James Harrod and Michael Holsteiner (Michael Stoner) crossed Kentucky from north to south, reaching the Nashville area several weeks after departing from the Illinois Country. Around the same time, an expedition led by Benjamin Cutbirth crossed Cumberland Gap and pushed all the way to the Mississippi River, where they shipped the pelts they had collected down to New Orleans. In 1768, John Finley passed through the Yadkin Valley and visited Daniel Boone, with whom he had served in the French and Indian War. Finley told Boone of the natural splendor of Kentucky's

Bluegrass region The Bluegrass region is a geographic region in the U.S. state of Kentucky. It makes up the central and northern part of the state, roughly bounded by the cities of Frankfort, Kentucky, Frankfort, Paris, Kentucky, Paris, Richmond, Kentucky, Ric ...

, which he had visited as a merchant before the French and Indian War. The following year, the two led an expedition into Kentucky, traveling up the Rockcastle River and establishing a station camp at Red Lick Fork. While Boone and his companion John Stuart were hunting along the Kentucky River, they were captured by the

, and their pelts were confiscated. They returned to their station camp to find it plundered and learned that Finley and the rest of the expedition had returned to North Carolina. Undeterred, Boone and Stuart continued hunting in the region. Boone was later joined by his brother, Squire, and the Boone brothers remained in the Kentucky wilderness until 1771. Although they again had their pelts confiscated when they were intercepted by the Cherokee at Cumberland Gap, the Boones were nevertheless eager to return to settle in the region. Daniel Boone's vivid accounts of his hunting exploits helped draw a flood of settlers to Kentucky in subsequent years.

Legacy

Numerous natural and political entities in Kentucky bear the names of longhunters, including Boone County and Boonesborough, named for Daniel Boone, and Harrodsburg, named for James Harrod. Kenton County is named for Simon Kenton, who, believing he was a fugitive, spent the mid-1770s hunting in eastern Kentucky. Longhunter James Knox named the

Dix River The Dix River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed June 13, 2011 tributary of the Kentucky River in central Kentucky in the United States. It begins in western Rockcastl ...

after Cherokee leader Captain Dick, who gave Knox permission to hunt along the river in 1770. The U.S. government established Daniel Boone National Forest in 1937 in the eastern part of the state.

Notable people

* Isaac Bledsoe *

* Squire Boone * Richard Callaway * Samuel Dale *

John Duff John Francis Duff (January 17, 1895 – January 8, 1958) was a Canadian racing driver. He is best known for winning the 1924 24 Hours of Le Mans. Early life Duff was born in Jiujiang, China, to Canadian parents from Hamilton, Ontario, who ...

* James Harrod * Simon Kenton * Kasper Mansker * Henry SkaggsCollins' Historical Sketches of Kentucky, Collins & Co. 1874 * James Smith * Elisha Wallen (Walden) * Edward Worthington

References

External links

Remember The Longhunters

Museum of the Fur Trade

Longhunter Society - National Muzzle Loading Rifle Association
Pre-statehood history of Virginia Pre-statehood history of Tennessee Pre-statehood history of Kentucky American hunters

History

Tennessee

Legacy

Kentucky

Legacy

Notable people

References

Further reading

External links