Another road well traveled to Fort Nashboro that have fed migration to Middle Tennessee from 1788-1797, was the Avery Trace. Although it headed directly to Dixon Springs and Carthage, and on to the bluffs of the Cumberland River at what is now Nashville, it would have brought NC people into the area and many "Sumner County" migrants became "Wilson County" settlers. North Carolina gave encouragement to settlement of Middle Tennessee by ordering, in 1787, that a road be "cut" from the south end of Clinch Mountain to Bean's "lick." Peter Avery, a long hunter in the Washington District, guided a small army of men who blazing of the trail through "The Wilderness" by marking trees and chopping out a path. This "trace" crossed Clinch River and entered the Cumberland Mountains. It climbed up Crab Orchard Mountain, passed "Standing Stone" (now Monterey), and followed a winding route by way of Fort Blount to Nashville. A number of immigrants came to the Cumberland Settlements via The Trace in 1788. Many historic figures such as Judge John McNairy and Andrew Jackson also used the route. At first, the "road" was only a trail of marked and bent trees leading to the Cumberland Settlements. For a number of years, only pack horses could follow the route. But about 1795, it began to be called a "wagon road." And as rough and winding as it was, it was the chief passage to the Cumberland territory until 1797. This road is generally known as the North Carolina Road, or Avery's Trace. In 1794, the territorial Legislature ordered a road to be built from Southwest Point (now Kingston) to the "settlements" on the Cumberland River in the Mero District. These settlements later became what is now Nashville. There are a number of sites about The Avery Trace online. And there may still be working association based in Tennessee. There was once a logo and promotion of it with a route map printed up as a brochure highlighting the route. You may still be able to obtain these at www.sumnercountytourism.com/maps.aspx Lorene Cook Lambert