The Longhunter

A Longhunter (or long hunter) was an eighteenth century explorer and hunter who made expeditions into the American frontier wilderness for as much as... more

by Joe Beasley

Title

The Longhunter

Artist

Joe Beasley

Medium

Photograph - Photography

Description

A Longhunter (or long hunter) was an eighteenth century explorer and hunter who made expeditions into the American frontier wilderness for as much as six months at a time. Historian Emory Hamilton asserts that "The Long Hunter was peculiar to Southwest Virginia only, and nowhere else on any frontier did such hunts ever originate"[1] although the term has been used loosely to describe any unofficial American explorer of the period. Most long hunts started in the Holston River Valley near Chilhowie, Virginia. The hunters came from there and the adjacent valley of the Clinch River where they were land owners or residents. The parties of two or three men (and rarely more) usually started in October and ended towards the end of March, or early in April.[1]

The information gathered by longhunters in the 1760s and 1770s would prove critical to the early settlement of Tennessee and Kentucky. Many longhunters were employed by land surveyors seeking to take advantage of the departure of the French from the Ohio Valley at the end of the Seven Years War, and some would later help guide settlers to Middle Tennessee and southeastern Kentucky.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longhunter

This reenactor was photographed at Old Stone Fort State Park in Manchester, Tennessee

Uploaded

March 17th, 2013