Along the Maysville Road: The Early American Republic in the Trans-Appalachian West

Abstract

Many scholars have studied frontier Kentucky in order better to understand the development of the trans-Appalachian West. Richard Ellis and Stephen Aron assessed regional political differences and cultural changes as Kentucky moved into a market economy. Richard Wade discussed struggles between Lexington and Louisville for primacy within Kentucky. Craig Thompson Friend, an associate professor at the University of Central Florida, has now published a rich volume exploring the impact of social and environmental changes on communities that grew along the buffalo trail linking the Ohio River with Kentucky's Bluegrass. Friend finds that this part of Kentucky changed greatly over several decades. Early white settlers from backcountry Virginia, Pennsylvania, and other states were relatively nonreligious people sharing a rough and egalitarian culture. While some celebrated an ideal of frontier subsistence, most pioneers produced export products to pay rents, buy land, and improve their farms and shops. They wanted to prosper as quickly as possible. Living in or near villages, these pioneers rapidly transformed their environment, importing farm animals and crops, killing bison, and altering waterways and changing the landscape in ways that led to erosion. They worked to improve the Maysville Road and gain greater access to the marketplace.