By 1810, most travelers along the Natchez Trace were Kaintucks heading home. Kaintucks, farmers and boatmen from the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys, floated crops and other goods to market in New Orleans or Natchez, then sold their flatboats as lumber because the boats were useless for traveling upstream against the swift current of the Mississippi. Traveling on horseback or foot, they faced a 500-mile journey through insects and snakes, rain and mud, and swamps, creeks, and rivers that tested the bodies and minds of already weary, homesick travelers. In 1812, Rev. John Johnson wrote of swimming his horse five times, bridging one creek, fording several others, wading through a swamp, enduring a nighttime rain shower, and sleeping on the ground in company with several Indians.
