Esther Whitley: over the Cumberlands in 1775

In November 1775 she started west along the Wilderness Road with her husband and their family, and she is remembered as the third woman of European descent to cross the Cumberland Mountains. The Whitleys made their home near Crab Orchard, in what is now Lincoln County, on an estate called Sportsman’s Hill.

Its brick house is described as the first in Kentucky, and beside it ran an oval track where horses raced counterclockwise, the opposite of British racing. Esther died at the home of her daughter Ann Harper in Woodford County on November 20, 1833.

The house survives as the William Whitley House State Historic Site, which has its own story here; the map pin is that house.