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310 acres devoted to life of pioneers on frontier and Wilderness Road
By Bob Downing
Beacon Journal staff writer
Published on Sunday, Jul 12, 2009
EWING, Va.: The American frontier of Daniel Boone comes alive in the Powell Valley in southwestern Virginia.
That's where you will find Wilderness Road State Park, a 310-acre shrine to the westward trail carved by Boone in 1775.
The state park is also home to historic Martin's Station, a re-created living-history site that portrays life on the Virginia frontier in 1775, and the empty Karlan Mansion, an historic home from 1877.
The park — it is largely a day facility — is five miles west of Ewing off U.S. 58, and seven miles east of Cumberland Gap National Historic Park at Middlesboro, Ky.
Martin's Station played a short but significant role in the settlement of southwestern Virginia in what some call America's first frontier.
Boone and 30 men, hired by the Transylvania Land Co., created a 208-mile trail from Long Island on the Holston River at Kingsport, Tenn., west through Moccasin Gap and Walker Ridge and into Powell Valley to Cumberland Gap in three weeks.
The Wilderness Road, also known as Boone's Trace, became a major route by which 200,000 to 300,000 Americans reached the West between 1775 and 1810. It was a path once used by buffalo and Native Americans.
Joseph Martin was among the first settlers in the Powell Valley in southwestern Virginia in 1769. Martin had been promised 21,000 acres if he and others could settle and claim the land before a rival land company could.
Martin was a big man, 6 feet tall and 200 pounds. He fathered 20 children with three wives.
Martin's group built a fort near the current Rose Hill, Va., but that station came under Indian attacks and was abandoned. Martin returned to the same site in early 1775 with 20 men and built a small fort, six cabins and outbuildings.
Martin's Station became a well-known stop on the Wilderness Road to settlers heading west to the Cumberland
Gap and Kentucky. It was the last fortified and safe stop along the trail through the mountains.
The fort on Martin's Creek stood eight miles from where it is now, in the state park at the base of Cumberland Mountain. It survived heavy Cherokee attacks in 1776.
Today the reconstructed stockade is the park's big attraction, along with grazing buffalo behind the split-rail fences next to the highway. Visitors will learn about blacksmithing, surveying, farming and frontier militia at the hand-hewn fort.
Every May, the park hosts a three-day Raid at Martin's Station with costumed frontier militia and Cherokee warriors. That's the park's biggest attraction.
The park also hosts the Wilderness Road Festival, a colonial trade fair and frontier-living festival, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Oct. 9, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m. Oct. 10 and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Oct. 11. Admission for either event is $3 for adults and $1 for children.
There will be militia musters Aug. 8-9, Sept. 12-13, Oct. 9-11 and Nov. 14-15.
The park features special two-day programs throughout the summer on frontier fears in 1776, a celebration of the Declaration of Independence, frontier skills, a festive look at frontier life, the Long Hunters, women on the frontier and 18th-century surveying.
There is also an Aug. 8 celebration of Daniel Boone's 275th birthday and a Sept. 12 campfire assembly in the fort. Registration is required for those programs.
You can get a good understanding of the Wilderness Road and Martin's Station at the park's visitor center. An 18-minute film outlines the key history. A gallery is filled with paintings and historical objects.
At the park, you can get on the eight-mile Wilderness Road Trail, which is open for hiking, bicycling and horse-back riding. The trail connects with the Cumberland Gap campground to the west. Bike rentals are available at the state park.
The park also offers picnic sites, a playground and the self-guided Indian Ridge Trail, a one-mile loop.
The property, originally part of a farm owned by Robert Ely, was purchased in 1993 by the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation.
The park is open from 8 a.m. to dusk daily and the visitor center is open from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily. The fort is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays from May 8 through Oct. 25.
From April 1 through Oct. 31, the parking fee is $3 on weekends. The fee is $2 per car on weekdays and weekends the rest of the year.
For information, contact Wilderness Road State Park, Route 2, Box 115, Ewing, VA 24248, 276-445-3065. The Web site is http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/parks/wildroad.htm.
Or contact the Friends of Wilderness Road State Park, P.O. Box 447, Ewing, VA 24248. The Internet site is http://www.martinsstation.com.
For information about other tourist attractions and facilities, contact the Claiborne County Tourism Committee, 3222 Highway 25E, Suite 1, Tazewell, TN 37879, 423-626-4149 or 800-332-8164, http://www.claibornecounty.com/tourism-pages/index.htm.
Or contact Virginia's Lee County Chamber of Commerce, P.O. Box 417, Pennington Gap, VA 24277, 276-546-2233, http://leecountyvachamber.org.
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Cumberland Gap
Seven miles to the west is the Cumberland Gap National Historic Park.
Most visitors stop at the park's 2,440-foot Pinnacle Overlook, which provides an up-high view of the gap, with vistas of rugged tree-topped mountains in Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia.
Vehicular traffic went through Cumberland Gap until 1996, when a new highway tunnel was built. The National Park Service is working to restore the trail's 1790 look and feel.
The Cumberland Gap park — the country's largest historical park at 20,271 acres — was authorized in 1940. It is a surprisingly wild park; 80 percent of its land is far from paved roads.
In addition to the gap, there are old settlements, abandoned iron furnaces, Civil War forts, caves, waterfalls and some very rugged country. The park features 50 miles of trails, ranging from a quarter-mile loop to the 21-mile-long Ridge Trail.
One of my favorite attractions at Cumberland Gap is the Hensley Settlement atop Brush Mountain on the Kentucky-Virginia line.
It is a restored mountain community with three old farmsteads, in which the Hensley and Gibbon families lived from 1903 to 1951.
Thirty buildings have been restored and 60 acres returned to farmland and pasture where 100 people lived Appalachian-style.
You can hike to the Hensley Settlement or take a guided shuttle tour through the National Park Service. Tours depart from the park's visitor center at 9 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. from May 16 through Oct. 31. Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for senior citizens and children under 12. Reservations are highly recommended at 606-248-2817.
The four-hour trip includes a one-mile walk through the settlement.
For information, contact Cumberland Gap National Historic Park, Box 1848, Middlesboro, KY 40965; 606-248-2817; or http://www.nps.gov/cuga.
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Bob Downing can be reached at 330-996-3745 or bdowning@thebeaconjournal.com.
EWING, Va.: The American frontier of Daniel Boone comes alive in the Powell Valley in southwestern Virginia.
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