For the past few days I have been meandering down the Natchez Trace from TN into MS to, eventually, Natchez. Down here trace refers to an old road. They seem to have started as game trails, were used by Indians and then followed by white men first on foot, then on horseback and finally by wagon. The white men who used the Trace started at the southern end and moved north to eventually end near Nashville, Tennessee.
I have been intrigued by the Trace for years. The name sounded strange and the idea of it going from here to there puzzled me. Long ago I did find out why the road was used however it continued its hold on me. Now that I’m actually following it, I wanted to try to find its original feel.
History has always appealed to me and American History from Revolution to Civil War is my particularly favorite time period.
Men from the Tennessee Valley, farmers probably though there must have been merchants too, made flatboats out of hewn and sawed timber. They loaded those boats with wares and floated their boats down the Tennessee River, into the Mississippi and down to New Orleans where they sold both goods and lumber from their boats. Hand-sawing lumber is a two-man job and at times controlling the boat would take more than one man too so I’m guessing they traveled in groups of 2 or 3 men.
It must have been easy to travel from New Orleans to Natchez since the Trace starts there. From there its roughly 450 miles back to Nashville. At first the trace was a simple footpath wide enough for a man or horse. Later it was widened enough to allow carts or wagons. Eventually inns, called stands, were built every 20-30 miles along the route. Some streams are too wide to ford or the bottom isn’t suitable for fording so there were ferries too along the way. Often there was a stand at the ferry on the north side of the stream.
I have driven on some pieces of the Trace where it is allowed. The road is hilly and twisty as it tends to follow the tops of ridges. Since I have stood beside streams and seen flood debris stuck over my head, I can understand staying on high ground. And I’ve walked on bits of the old road too, where the opportunity exists. Still those chances missed something. Though the current roads may have followed the old ones, they are well maintained and drained. I’ve walked enough trails to know the road must have been rutted and rocky.
There is a piece of the old trace in my campground. Meriwether Lewis, of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, was murdered here outside the local stand so of course there would have to be some remnant of the road. There is also a trail from the campground that more or less encircles the park. It crosses the Trace in a couple of places so it seemed like an interesting afternoon walk. It would all be uphill because all the trails are, uphill, repeatedly uphill and twice as much uphill for any down hill.
Down hill I went, down to the Little Swan River and a ford where the old Trace crossed the river on its shale bottom and crawled up the hill on the other side through a wash that was so eroded it was difficult to guess a road had once used the same route. OK! The footpath continued. It was not your ordinary park-service groomed trail, this one was truly a footpath, at times as slanted as the hillside. This path, I could imagine, may have been a game trail at first. A deer print or two added to the illusion. There were several small streams to ford and I could see where other hikers and moved up or down the stream, depending on its flow to find the driest and easiest place to cross. A real Trace would have that, I think.
Further on, I came to the actual Trace, not a mowed, ‘look, here’s the Trace’ site but the real rutted, eroded track leading me uphill from the stream. In places it was gullied where water had cut into it running downhill. In places sections of fallen trees were cut out just as it would have been when it was used to return home. As I neared the top of the hill, I could see where two and three tracks had been cut as each became too watermarked to use. The last track, the one I was using lay mostly on rock so the erosion didn’t effect it as much. However there are still has mud holes, a bane of the original road, since the park service occasionally uses it. This hike is what I was looking for, a feel of the trace in its original form.
I think those farmers who floated there crops south would have done it in late September or early October. The trip would have been around 600 miles. Mostly, they would have let the current take them, maybe moving 2-3 miles an hour, and they probably tied up at night unless there was a good moon. That trip could have taken them around two months. The trip back, along the Trace would have taken 2-3 weeks.
I’m here in March and there are no leaves on the trees. Nights are around freezing and days are 40-60, it often rains and there is less than 12 hours of daylight. These conditions aren’t exactly the same as late fall or early winter however they are close. I’ve been through some nasty rainstorms and have felt thankful for a sound roof or dry clothing. The men who used this Trace may have had neither.
Even in my current vigorous state, I walk a sedate 1 mile an hour. In my farming days I could walk 3 miles an hour while carrying a pack. However, I never walked 20-30 miles a day, day after day, for two or three weeks. And the Tennessee part is all up hill.
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