First Long Hunters

Skaggs had been hunting west for years before the camp at Mansker's Lick. He joined an expedition into Carter's Valley in 1761, went deeper into Cumberland country in 1763, and in 1764 led his first expedition through the Cumberland Gap. Daniel Boone, working through the land speculator Richard Henderson, recruited him as an agent for Henderson's company. In the fall of 1769 Skaggs returned with Kasper Mansker and Joseph Drake; Mansker went to investigate a strange noise in the woods and found Boone sprawled on a deerskin, singing.

What the plaque says

First Long Hunters 1765 Henry Skaggs, his brothers, Charles and Richard, and Joseph Drake and a group of other long hunters were the first Anglo-Saxons to explore this area. They made their campsite at Mansker's Lick, opening the doorway for the future settlement of Goodlettsville and Middle Tennessee.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Andrew Jackson's Hermitage — 8.6 mi
  Andrew Jackson's cotton plantation east of Nashville, where visitors can walk to the quarters, Alfred's Cabin and the Enslaved Cemetery as well as the mansion.
• Tennessee State Capitol — 12 mi
  William Strickland's Greek Revival capitol on Nashville's Capitol Hill, finished in 1859 and built from the bottom up with the labor of enslaved men.
• Ryman Auditorium — 12 mi
  The 1892 brick tabernacle in downtown Nashville that was the Grand Ole Opry's home from 1943 to 1974, now a National Historic Landmark and working concert hall.
• Civil Rights Room at the Nashville Public Library — 12 mi
  A room in the downtown library with a circular lunch counter, a timeline and oral histories of the 1960 Nashville sit-ins, a few blocks from the stores where they began.

More markers nearby

• Goodlettsville Cumberland Presbyterian Church — 1.3 mi
• Mansker's Station — 1.4 mi
• Robert Cartwright — 1.4 mi
• Alexander Wilson — 2.1 mi