Shared by Joan Short, Volunteer, as Guest Blogger.

It’s springtime in the mountains again, and the members of the Daniel Boone Wilderness Trail Association are turning their attention from shoveling snow to preparing for our annual Frontier Muster and Trade Faire

Walk in the footsteps of history

The Frontier Muster and Trade Faire will be held on April 18-19, 2015, at the Blockhouse located at Natural Tunnel State Park: 

Saturday, April 18, the event is 10 a.m. - 8:30 p.m. 

Sunday, April 19, 11 a.m. - 3 p.m.

Hide tanning, fireside cooking, salt making, soap making, flax processing, spinning, weaving, fire starting, blacksmithing, and other frontier skills will be demonstrated by living history interpreters.

In addition, you will be able to attend Cherokee Language workshops and hear slave narratives and songs.

On Sunday morning, you are invited to attend a church service featuring voices and reflections from the point of view of the settlers, Native Peoples, and slaves on this historically significant Trail, followed by fellowship and a frontier trial such as one over which Capt. Anderson might have presided.

Life on the frontier impacted everyone

The westward migration was an exciting and dangerous time, and involved not only European Settlers in search of a better life, but it also includes the story of the African slaves and indentured servants who went along with them. There was an unforgettable impact upon the land and Native Peoples in the area as the settler’s brought with them long rifles, for hunting and survival in these mountains.

At our Frontier Muster and Trade Faire, we try to make sure that all of these stories are well represented.

Adults were not the only ones on the frontier

What is a blockhouse?

You might be asking yourself what a blockhouse is, anyway. Well, if you’ve ever visited a military fort or seen pictures of one, the buildings placed in the corners to which the walls of the fort are connected are usually called blockhouses.

The second floor of these blockhouses extended beyond the bottom floor by about a foot to a foot-and-a-half, allowing for gun ports to be placed facing downward so the occupants could see who might be right against the walls, threatening danger. Shots could be fired through these ports to keep the attackers at bay.

But out on the frontier, there were often many dangerous miles that had to be traveled between military forts, so sometimes just a blockhouse was built as a fortified building that could offer protection to a family or extended family or close community in times of attack by hostile forces.

The Anderson Blockhouse

Is also known as the Wilderness Road Blockhouse, was one of these. It was built a few miles out of the Holston Settlement, now the site of Kingsport, Tennessee, by Capt. John Anderson, a military leader and judge. People traveling into the area known as Kentucky stopped there to camp, to barter for supplies, to gain information about the trip that lay ahead, and to wait for other individuals and families to gather so that larger groups could travel together for safety from Indian attack. The original structure burned down in the late 1900s, but a close replica has been built in the living history area of Natural Tunnel State Park, only a few miles away from the original site.

This blockhouse serves as the headquarters for living history events presented by the Daniel Boone Wilderness Trail Association.

Natural Tunnel State Park has 10 cabins and 2 campgrounds for overnight stays. For more information about lodging at the park click here or call 800-933-PARK. Reservations can be also be made online.

There will be good food, good fellowship, and excellent opportunities for hands-on learning at the Wilderness Road Blockhouse Frontier Muster and Trade Faire, come out and join us for some adventure at Natural Tunnel State Park