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Source: The Civil and Political History of the State of Tennessee, by John Haywood (Nashville, 1891 - reprinted edition; first edition, 1823), p. 40.

Mr. Vaughan who lived as late as the year 1801, in the County of Amelia, in Virginia, was employed about the year 1740, as a packman to go to the Cherokee Nation with some Indian traders. The Country then but thinly inhabited to the west of Amelia; the last hunters cabin he saw was on the Otter River, a branch of Staunton, now in Bedford Co. Virginia. He exactly described the different prospects of the mountains..... (here Haywood described the Trading Path) ... thence down the waters of the Nolichucky to the French Broad, and crossing the same bellow the mouth of Little Pigeon River; thence up the Little Pigeon River to its ford, thence leaving the waters of the Little Pigeon, over some small mountains, to Tuckaleeche Town, on Little River. This an old path when he first saw it, and he continued to travel upon it, trading with the Indians, until the breaking out of the war between the French and English nations about the year 1754.