Wilderness Road, 1937

Excellent Condition Antique Book

New York Times, July 4, 1937:

The New Books for Boys and Girls; WILDERNESS ROAD. (Virginia). By Katharine Clugston from Richard Stevenson's Radio Story of the Same Name. Illustrated by Paul Laune. 309 pp. New York: Blue Ribbon Books. Original Cost $1.

As may be expected of a story adapted from a radio serial into novel form, "Wilderness Road" is sustained chiefly by action and conversation. There is plenty of suspense in this story of a Virginia family which follows Daniel Boone down the Wilderness Road into Kentucky, and the conversation is lively and natural, though occasionally tinged by anachronism. The narration, surprisingly well integrated, if undistinguished, is adequate and sketches in passing a realistic picture of pioneer life and background.

First and foremost in the story is Daniel Boone, who appears providentially just as the Weston boys were trying frantically if ineptly to save their black boy, Bunch, from the attack of a bear. Boone, already a hero of all the Virginia frontier, is regarded as little less than a god by the Westons and it is he who talks the family into taking the Wilderness Road, who trained the boys in woodcraft and shooting and gave sound advice on the essentials of the new life.

Nearly half the story is taken up by the preparations for the march, which give not only a clear idea of life on the Virginia frontier at that time, but also of that even rougher life ahead. There was plenty of excitement around the old homestead in those days, a narrow escape from a rattlesnake, young Peter's target practice which bagged him his first wild turkey, and a battle in the sky which brought to the boys a hawk subsequently to be trained in falconry.

Once on the trail nearly every day held its adventure, in a time and place when adventure was a question of life and death. The Westons dodge death from a charging buffalo only to face it again in a pack of wolves and an enraged mother bear. They were beset by a particularly vengeful renegade, Thad Girty, presumably one of the famous Girty brothers, and certainly an enemy of Boone, while occasional encounters with discouraged east-bound travelers only warned them of the perils and hardships waiting in Kentucky. All these experiences were but the forerunners of the final test which met them at the Cumberland Gap when they fought a hair-raising battle with the Indians and by courage and wits won the right of passage into the promised land.