1775 - Exploration, Colonization

Exploration, Colonization

The Transylvania Company employs Daniel Boone to lead a party of 30 North Carolina woodsmen westward (see 1773). The group sets out March 10 and breaks a Wilderness Road of nearly 300 miles that will be used in the next 15 years by more than 100,000 pioneers en route to the new territories of western Tennessee and Kentucky. Boone founds Boonesborough on the Kentucky River in April (see Harrod, 1774; Filson, 1784).

Explorer James Cook returns from a second voyage to the Pacific, having discovered the South Sandwich Islands and South Georgia Island in the Atlantic (see 1774). He is finally promoted to captain and elected to the Royal Society (see 1776).