Nashville, Tennessee

"On our Journey up the Natchez Trace we are getting close to what was the destination for many who traveled along this road so many years ago -- Nashville, Tennessee.

"In 1775, at the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals, Richard Henderson, a North Carolina businessman, purchased from the Cherokee Indians, lands in the great bend of the Cumberland River. He called this land west of the Appalachian Mountains, Transylvania and advertised for settlers to journey to a site where this old Indian trail joined the Cumberland River; the site of a salt lick, where a much older trading post had been, a site that we know today as Nashville, Tennessee.

"James Robertson and John Donelson were chosen to lead two settlement parties from Fort Patrick Henry in what is now northeastern Tennessee. Robertson lead the men and boys of the party overland with livestock. They arrived at the site of the Big Salt Lick on Christmas Day in 1779 and crossed a frozen Cumberland River to begin building Fort Nashborough.

"Donelson lead a flotilla of boats down the Tennessee River, and up the Ohio and Cumberland Rivers to join Robertson's settlement party on April 24, 1780... their journey was a hard one, troubled by bad weather, disease and hostile Indians.

"Join us on our next program when we will look further at the history of Nashville, Tennessee. I'm Frank Thomas, your guide along the Natchez Trace, a road through the wilderness."

For more about Natchez Trace: A Road Through the Wilderness, visit eddieandfrank.com