Transylvania was a short-lived colony primarily in what is now the U.S. state of Kentucky. The colony was founded in 1775 by Richard Henderson of North Carolina, who purchased the land from the Cherokees. The most famous resident of Transylvania was the American pioneer Daniel Boone, who was hired by Henderson to blaze the Wilderness Trail through the Cumberland Gap into central Kentucky, where he founded Boonesborough, the capital of the colony.