1734-1820

American explorer and frontiersman who helped open the lands beyond the Appalachian Mountains to settlement. A hunter, trapper, and surveyor, he is the best-known pioneer of this era of American westward expansion. He laid out the Wilderness Road through Cumberland Gap, which became the principal route to the West, and settled Boonesborough, the first permanent white settlement in Kentucky. He was an effective Indian fighter and also served as a militiaman, legislator, and sheriff.