looking at findagrave and tracing the genealogy of people - I've noticed that some areas of the south were settled by people from outside the south. Like I see a lot of people who were born in Pennsylvania and then died in VA and NC. Is there some story behind that? I think the area now called US-11 may have actually been the route they took to settle.
Great Appalachian Valley
It's hard to pull a an ox-drawn wagon over mountains on unprepared roads. Coming down is even more treacherous. A runaway wagon ends up with all your possessions and a pile of firewood. If you are lucky, you still have a horse.
As the wikipedia article notes, there is a gap on the east side in Pennsylvania that allows entry, and then exits via the Cumberland Gap into Tennessee and Kentucky, and also into the Piedmont area of North Carolina.
The rivers were a similar story, they impeded traffic across them, but served as highways inland and through these mountain valleys.
