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Gateway : Dr. Thomas Walker and the Opening of Kentucky
Gateway Dr Thomas Walker and the Opening of Kentucky Author:Adam Jones Daniel Boone did not discover Cumberland Gap, nor was he the first explorer of Kentucky, then an unknown "Wilderness" on the Western frontier of the Colony of Virginia. In 1750, Dr. Thomas Walker, Agent of the Loyal Company, and 5 others, discovered Cumberland Gap, discovered and named the Cumberland River, discovered Pine Mountain Gap ("Th... more »e Narrows"), Cumberland Ford -- the only place where the river could be easily crossed by people, horses and wagons -- and he built the first cabin in Kentucky. Walker's Jounral, maps, and surveys led to The Wilderness Road, over which 300,000 pioneer settlers entered Kentucky. The book has 90 illustrations -- photographs, maps, holographs pages from Walker's Journal, and through words and images makes the period come alive. Walker was a physician, surveyor, entrepreneur, explorer, high official of Virginia, a negotiator of Indian treaties, and a supremely successful speculator in frontier land. This is the ONLY book-length work on an important (through unfairly obscure) leading member of Virginia's 18th Century "landed gentry." The book provides interesting insights into the French and Indian War, and the Amereican Revolution, including the role of George Rogers Clark. Walker was a close friend of Peter Jefferson, and was for a time, the guardian of his young son Thomas, the future President. He was also connected by marriage, friendship and shared business interests with George Washington, James Madison, Joshua Fry, and with every leading Virginian of his time.« less