Over the Falls
Written by John Curry
Many times (I should imagine), you’ve seen me mention the amazing, history-rich, Falls of the Cumberland in some article or another. At nearly seventy feet high and more than two hundred feet in width – the second largest, single drop waterfalls east of the Mississippi. Bested only by the legendary Niagara herself… Visited, employed, surveyed and explored at a very early point in our great nation’s fascinating colonial era. Prominent authority in the annals of Kentucky, Richard Henry Collins mentions several parties of mid-eighteenth century “Long Hunters” temporarily camped in the area of the falls during their numerous forays into that section of the Cumberland drainage. Dr. Thomas Walker told John Brown; “the extent of his April 1749, Cumberland River, reconnoitering trip was probably the southern bank of Laurel River in Whitley Co. Kentucky”.1 Laurel River of course, lying slightly beyond the Cumberland Falls and further downstream or due north. A journey I have made a number of times via the Sheltowee Trace, from the very same falls to the very same river. Most, unfortunately, there are a few missing pages from Walker’s handwritten journal, which were penned immediately before and during his Laurel River excursion so we have no written mention of the falls itself or anything else he might have seen or done within that specific timeframe. Notwithstanding, as the Hon. Brown’s conversations with Mann Butler very plainly show - Dr. Walker, per his own words, definitely informed Brown that “he went as far as Laurel River.”2 A mere hop, skip and a jump from the falls.
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