'Way to honor Native Americans': Local man leading way on Warrior's Path project


Charles Romans, The Daily Independent, Ashland, Ky.
Mon, December 27, 2021

Dec. 27—GRAYSON — When local man Max Hammond spoke before the Grayson City Council earlier this month, the information he presented concerned the Warrior's Path, an ancient trail winding its way through Kentucky.

"The path stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes," Hammond said. "And to our great fortune, the Warrior's Path crosses through the heart of eastern Kentucky."

Hammond said the Paleo Indians, the Adena and the Hopewell were the first people who walked this path, adding that the path was so old Indigenous people followed the mastodon upon it. "But the path for me begins with the War of 1812."

Hammond said that a few years ago a gentleman had reached out to him and said he possessed artifacts that had been handed down to him through the generations of his family.

The man's great-great-great grandfather came into the area in the 1700s and had a son. That son became known as Colonel Plummer. At the onset of the War of 1812 a group of miners had been sent to Carter Caves, into a particular cave known as Saltpeter Cave. And as the miners began to dig, they uncovered some remarkable artifacts, Hammond said. It was Colonel Plummer who instructed the miners to save these artifacts rather than cast them aside.

Colonel Plummer was the long Scout for the miners, scouting out locations where components of gunpowder might be found. As he searched, Hammond said that Colonel Plummer would look under rock outcroppings and natural shelters for those things all through Carter County.

"He found things that have no comparison anywhere in the known world," Hammond said. What he found, Hammond said, were things that the Smithsonian Institute would love to have. Colonel Plummer found sites that had not been looted or undergone any sort of archeological excavation.

"He found objects laying on top of the ground and on top of boulders," Hammond said. "He found them as if the Native Americans had just walked away from them."

The gunpowder they made from the saltpeter and the bat guano was used during the War of 1812, Hammond told the council.

"We don't talk much about the War of 1812, but other than WWI and WWII, it was probably the most important war to the state of Kentucky," Hammond said. "The reason it is important to Kentucky is that it started at Fort Boonesboro in about 1778. It started when a British General and a Shawnee Chief marched down from Chillicothe to Fort Boonesboro and laid siege to it. And from that point onward it was a constant war between the British, Native Americans and Kentuckians."

Hammond said Kentuckians figured prominently in that war and suffered great losses, including war crimes the equivalent of murder perpetrated by the British and their allies. In total, Hammond said 64% of the known casualties suffered in the War of 1812 were suffered by Kentuckians that fought as far north as Detroit and into Canada. Along with the gunpowder made from Kentucky materials, 468 cannonballs made in Kentucky were used in the last battle of that war, the Battle of New Orleans.

"This path will celebrate that," Hammond said. "And it is the first path in Kentucky that also honors and celebrates the Native Americans.

"When Mister Plummer came to me with all of these amazing artifacts," Hammond said, "I thought the best way to get a museum to show off these artifacts was to get a trail that celebrated the Native Americans."

Hammond said, unknown to him at the time, there was a marker in southern Kentucky showing the Warrior's Path. Once he was introduced to the woman who had researched it, Hammond said they applied to the National Parks Service for a trail that would run from the Cumberland Gap to the Ohio River.

"This is a way to honor Native Americans, and tell the whole story of Kentucky," Hammond said.

"It's a story about the pioneers and the Native Americans," he said. "The good, the bad, and the ugly. We aren't going to pull any punches, and we are going to expel the myth that we were all taught in school that no Native Americans ever lived in the state of Kentucky."

Hammond said the Warrior's Path project has been approved by the National Park Service and the Kentucky Native American Heritage Commission. They are working with 20 counties and other agencies on the project, Hammond said.

"The National Parks Service said that they intend to make this a nationally recognized trail, if we meet a few conditions," he said, adding that these conditions were things the group had already planned to do.

"One condition is that this will be a multi-use trail," Hammond said. The group intends for it to be a motorized trail a hiking trail, a mountain bike trail, a kayak trail and a horseback trail. And one day perhaps connect it with its southern and northern roots.

Hammond said the different legs of the Warrior's Path can become important from a tourism standpoint as well, but its most important contributions will be historical and cultural.

"This was a very important area to so many Native American people," Hammond said. "It was a hub of culture and trade which many have forgotten or chosen not to remember. And we need to change that."

Visit warriorspath.org for more information.