Natchez Trace hike honors, remembers pioneers
Boy Scouts in Tupelo’s Troop 85 are the very first to complete a newly-minted quest intended to make the origins of the Natchez Trace a permanent part of their memories. The Natchez Trace Historic Trek involves 60 miles of hiking, a number of service projects and more. Meeting that challenge sparked the Scouts’ interest, and an impressive medal to be earned offered a great keepsake to help make sure the memories never go away.
“I wish you could have seen the looks on the faces the first time I brought this information in and introduced the idea,” said Vance Perkins, Scoutmaster with Troop 85. The group is based at All Saints Episcopal Church in Tupelo. “I told them about the hiking requirement of walking 20 miles along the Trace in Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee. They said, ‘Twenty miles! That’s a lot.’ Then I clarified that it’s 20 miles in Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee, each. Sixty miles in all.”
The boys were skeptical at first, but a strong contingent of the group eventually warmed enough to the idea to give it a try.
“The boys were troopers,” Perkins said. “It just about killed this old man, but the boys made it fine.”
After they’d accomplished the first of the three 20-mile sections, they were hooked for good. A group of 14 intrepid souls, plus six adult volunteers including Perkins, recently completed the quest and received their medals this past Monday night.
“We hiked 20 miles in Mississippi and 20 in Alabama, mainly alongside the Trace, but we did side-trails and walked along the Old Trace where we could,” said Cy Flaherty, one of the 14 scouts in Troop 85 who completed the quest. “In Tennessee we hiked the Meriwether Lewis Campground trails. Some of that was painful. The trails were very steep and winding, but the views were amazing.”
Flaherty is currently Senior Patrol Leader for Troop 85 and holds the rank of Star, about midway through the upper half of rank progression on the way to Eagle.
“I enjoy hiking, but I really enjoy hanging out with people and meeting people,” he said. “Scouting is a really good way to connect with the outdoors and with people at the same time.”
The troop did each of their 20-mile segments in single-day undertakings. They also completed two separate service projects, volunteer work for the benefit of the Trace and its travelers. Each Scout also wrote two 400-word essays: one on Meriwether Lewis and one on the Natchez Trace.
“I’m so proud of these guys’ dedication in finishing this,” Perkins said. “I’m very impressed with every one of them. So many times as adults, we limit what young people can accomplished. Once I shared the information and got a couple of them onboard, the Scouts fed it through the whole group and we never told them they couldn’t do it. We stayed out of their way and they accomplished it. Adults in general often get int the way of guys accomplishing hard or difficult things. That’s why what I’m most proud of out of this is the way they did it for themselves.”
Larry Faulkner, a Scouting leader from Alabama, came up with the idea for the trek and its corresponding medal. He and others have been working with the National Park Service and with Natchez Trace Parkway officials for more than three years to get it established.
The medal, like the quest itself, is designed to be earned in segments and stages. It’s possible to earn a portion of the medal, but Faulkner said Troop 85 wasn’t interested in half measures.
“When Vance approached me about it, they didn’t want to go into it half way,” Faulkner said. “They wanted to do it all. Other people have done bits and pieces of the trek, but the members of Troop 82 are the first participants to earn all five segments of the honors making up the complete trek. It’s been fun following their progress. I had really begun to wonder if anyone had the intestinal fortitude to grab the trek and go with it all, but Vance, his fellow leaders and these Scouts certainly did that.”
Faulkner said his intent in creating the trek was simply making sure people, but young folks in particular, know what the Trace is, what it’s meant to the nation, and what resources are part of it now for everyone to enjoy.
“The history of the Natchez Trace reaches back into the pioneering history of our nation,” Faulkner said. “It goes back before all history, in fact.”
The route itself has been in use, first by bison, then by prehistoric people, since time immemorial. The path connects the lower reaches of the Mississippi River to the Cumberland Plateau in what is now Tennessee. The nature of the path kept and generally still keeps to the tops of ridges and the dividing lines of natural watersheds in a way that affords good visibility and the least-laborious route for travel. It helped facilitate trade between a number of native settlements along the length of its route and beyond.
After the American Revolutionary War, the Natchez Trace became the return trade route for those who’d used the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to drift wares downstream to New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico. They’d float down, then return on foot or horseback.
Development of stern-wheeled river boats, stagecoach lines and railroads made the Natchez Trace route obsolete as a return path, so its common use fell largely from favor just at the time European settlement was picking up speed. The route’s revival, preservation and continuing existence today owes much to Mississippi Congressman Jeff Busby, who served from 1923 to 1935, and to the Daughters of the American Revolution.
It could well owe a debt to Faulkner and fellow enthusiasts as well. The 444-mile journey from the mouth of the Mississippi River to the Cumberland Plateau is one people have been making for thousands of years. By creating the Natchez Trace Historic Trek, he’s inspiring new generations to experience it for themselves, and earn a deep appreciation along the way for why.
