In the harsh winter of 1779, as the leader of a flotilla of settlers, John Donelson loaded his family and thirty slaves into a forty-foot flatboat at the present site of Kingsport, Tennessee.
Their journey into the wilderness led to the founding of a settlement now known as Nashville--over one thousand river miles away.
In the fall of 2016, photographer John Guider retraced the Donelson party's journey in his hand-built fourteen-and-a-half-foot motorless rowing sailboat (named .
Vanderbilt University Press Voyage of the adventure: retracing the donelson party's journey to the founding of nashville, hardcover/john guider
