Backcountry Notes - Backcountry History

Tuesday

25Mar2008

The Great Wagon Road - America's Original "Interstate Highway"

Tuesday, March 25, 2008 at 02:40PM

The Great Wagon Road, which ran from Pennsylvania to Georgia, was the primary route for settlers moving into the Backcountry in Colonial and Early American times. The road began at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and took a northwesterly course through a favorably-low area of the eastern front of the Appalachian mountain range. In the Great Valley, the road eventually hooked up with the Great Trading Path, forming a natural channel of travel and trade which persists, in modern forms, to this day.

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Jay Henderson |

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Backcountry colonial,

Colonial America,

Colonial North Carolina,

early settlers America

Saturday

05Apr2008

The "Other South"

Saturday, April 5, 2008 at 11:43AM

The Backcountry is the "other South" - - the one you don't see in "Gone With The Wind" and most other depictions of the South. Both the geography of the area and the nature of its European settlers make this region different from the coastal areas.

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Jay Henderson |

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Backcountry colonial,

Colonial America,

Colonial North Carolina,

Colonial Virginia,

German immigrants,

Scotch-Irish,

early settlers America

Sunday

01Jun2008

Backcountry Settlers and the Winning of the American Revolution, Part 1

Sunday, June 1, 2008 at 03:44PM

The history of the colonial Backcountry is often relegated to footnotes or sidebars, if it is mentioned at all, in texts recounting the American Revolution. Yet without the militia formed by the men of the Backcountry, the Patriot cause might have been lost. The situation faced by the Continental Congress and the regular Continental Army in mid-1780 was dire: after four years of war, the British occupied New York City and other ports, the war in the northern colonies was stalemated, and the war in the southern colonies was going badly. Then the Backcountry settlers arose to defend their homes and families, confronted the British at King's Mountain in South Carolina, and in a battle that lasted barely more than an hour turned the tide of the war.

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Jay Henderson |

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American Revolution,

Back Country,

Backcountry colonial,

Colonial America,

Colonial Back Country,

Colonial Virginia,

Scotch-Irish,

colonial land patents

Sunday

01Jun2008

Backcountry Settlers and the Winning of the American Revolution, Part 2

Sunday, June 1, 2008 at 06:16PM

By the summer of 1780, four years after the publication of the Declaration of Independence, the war of American Revolution was going badly for the patriot side and the mood of the Continental Congress in Philadelphia was dark. Most of the conflict had been fought in the northern colonies, with some victories and some defeats and eventually a stalemate. George Washington and the Continental Army had endured, but they had failed to move the British out of the mid-Atlantic and New England colonies. Time did not favor either side; support for the war was flagging both in the colonies and in London. The British had developed a plan to end the war: beginning late in 1779, they made a move the the south, to the Carolinas and Georgia, where there were Tory militias and where the Continental Army was thin. They came so close to winning the war with this strategy that the outcome came down to one place, one day, and a few hundred men.

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Jay Henderson |

Celebrate The Fourth of July

Friday, July 4, 2008 at 09:25AM

trumbull-declaration-of-independence%20rs.jpg

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. . . .

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Jay Henderson |

The Backcountry Defined

Friday, December 5, 2008 at 01:16PM

The Backcountry is an actual place, or region. Although the word is now used generically to indicate wild or sparsely settled lands, particularly as employed by outdoorsmen, it originally described the sparsely-settled western regions of the American colonies from Pennsylvania south to Georgia.

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Jay Henderson |

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Saturday

25Jul2009

Ramsey's Map of Cumberland and Franklin

Saturday, July 25, 2009 at 08:00AM

I have had the good fortune to find a digital version of Ramsey's Map of Cumberland and Franklin, published in 1853. The map is titled in the original: