Pound Gap: Difference between revisions
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==History== |
==History== |
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The Pound Gap played a significant role in the settlement of America's first western frontier. Its historic significance has been overshadowed by that of Cumberland Gap, gateway to the Bluegrass via Daniel Boone's Wilderness Road. However, a route that became known as the Kentucky Trace branched off the Wilderness Road at Castle's Woods (Castlewood, VA) to Indian Creek and thence over the Gap into Kentucky. Most of those settlers who chose the hills of far Eastern Kentucky as their piece of the Promised Land came by way of "the Pound". |
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'''Timeline''' |
'''Timeline''' |
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The Pound Gap of Pine Mountain is in northeast Letcher County, KY above Jenkins on the border with Pound, Wise County Virginia. It is a natural Gap with deep historical and geological significance. It was an important passage into Kentucky for late eighteenth and early nineteenth century settlers. US 23 now passes through the Gap.[1]
History
Timeline
In 1751, the early explorer Christopher Gist was said by many to have discovered the passage through the mountains between Virginia and Kentucky that is now known as Pound Gap.
In 1767, Daniel and Squire Boone and their hunting companions entered Kentucky through Pound Gap, having traveled from the Yadkin River in North Carolina to the Holston and Clinch Rivers.
In 1774, Daniel Boone and Michael Stoner (Steiner) made an urgent journey through the Gap to warn survey crews of a growing Indian uprising on the Virginia frontier.
In 1803, Members of the "Adams Colony", the first group of settlers in what is now Letcher County, first viewed their Kentucky destination from the Gap.
In 1836, The General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky authorized funding for the survey and construction of a turnpike to be known as the Mt. Sterling - Pound Gap Road.
In 1861, A Confederate regiment under the command of Col. John S. Williams took control of the Gap on 23 November.
In 1862, On 16 March Union forces of the 42nd Ohio Infantry, under the command of Brig. General (later President) James A. Garfield, marched out of Piketon (Pikeville) and forced the Confederates to retreat from the Gap.
In 1864, On 1 June, Gen. John Hunt Morgan and his cavalry raiders swept through Union forces in the Gap as he began his lightning strike through the heart of Kentucky.
In 1892, On May 14, Dr. Marshall Benton "Red Fox" Taylor and others ambushed Ira Mullins and five family members and companions from the cover of the "Killing Rocks". The Massacre at Killing Rocks was culminated by the hanging of the Red Fox at Wise, VA on 27 October, 1893. Dr. Taylor was dubbed the "Red Fox" by the author John Fox, Jr., who used him as the model for a character in his novels.
In 1998, The Pound Gap road cut on U.S. Hwy. 23 was designated a "Distinguished Geological Site" by the Kentucky Society of Professional Geologists. The exposed strata attracts the attention of geologists around the world.[2]
Geology
This extraordinary outcrop of Paleozoic sediments extends from its base up through the Devonian Ohio Shale, Bedford Shale, Berea Sandstone and Sunbury Shale; Mississippian Grainger Formation, and Newman Limestone; the transitional Mississippian through Lower Pennsylvanian Pennington Formation; the Lower Pennsylvanian Lee Formation of the Lower and Middle Pennsylvanian Breathitt Group. It is located at Pound Gap at the crest of the Pine Mountain Thrust on US 23 at the state borders of Virginia and Kentucky.[3]