Location: US 178 at French Broad River bridge in Rosman
County: Transylvania
Original Date Cast: 1956
Transylvania County’s earliest inhabitants were Native Americans. For years before the white settlers arrived, the North Carolina mountains served as home to the Cherokee people. The Cherokee established a trading route between their mountain settlements leading to the village of Estatoe and into South Carolina. Named Estatoe Path, the route was one of the first to navigate and open up the rugged and densely forested terrain of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The path was also a primary trail for annual hunting trips. Hunters and traders followed the route that crossed the mountains and waterways at Davidson River, continued on through Brevard and Cherryfield, crossed the French Broad River near present-day Rosman, and continued into South Carolina with Charleston as the final destination for the traders.
The village for which the path was named was located in what is now South Carolina before it was destroyed by militia in 1776 during the Rutherford Expedition. By 1790 there were very few Cherokees utilizing the Estatoe Path.
References:
Mary Jane McCrary, Transylvania Beginnings: A History (1984)
Thomas Hatley, The Dividing Path: Cherokees and South Carolinians through the Era of Revolution (1993)