Ohio History Journal

432        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

FIFTH SESSION.

At the Saturday afternoon session, under the direction of

Professor A. E. Morse, of Marietta College, the following pa-

pers were read and at the conclusion the members of the Asso-

ciation extended a most hearty vote of thanks to the President

and officers of instruction of Marietta College, where the meet-

ings were held, and to the people of the city of Marietta, whose

thoughtful care and attention had resulted in so successful a

gathering and had secured for them the opportunity to enjoy the

many spots of historic interest in this famous communited.

 

 

 

BRADDOCK'S ROAD.

 

HENRY TEMPLE,

Washington, Pennsylvania

The purpose of this paper is to give some account of Braddock's

road before General Braddock's expedition passed over it and to add a

few notes on the traces that still mark the route which he followed.¹

The interest attracted by the highway cross the Alleghenies which long

bore the unfortunate general's name is of various kinds. Like other

pioneer roads it was first an Indian trail and a traders' path. It was

the earliest road laid out and opened west of the mountains by the

English in conscious rivalry with the French for commercial and military

control of the great west. When the country was opened to settlement,

 

1. That portion of the following paper which contains a brief de-

scription of General Braddock's route and of the traces of the road

that remain to the present time is taken from notes made along the

line of the road in August. 1908, when, in company with seven others,

the writer tramped over all but a few miles of it from Cumberland to the

battlefield. The expedition was proposed and managed by Mr. John Ken-

nedy Lacock, formerly of Washington, Pa., now of Harvard. The re-

maining members of the party were: Professor Clarence S. Larzelere of

Mount Pleasant, Michigan; Mr. C. F. Abbott of Somerville, Massachu-

setts; Mr. Em. K. Weller, photographer for the expedition; Messrs.

Edgar B. Murdoch, John H. Murdoch, Jr., John Parr Temple and my-

self. The five last named members of the party are all of Washington,

Pennsylvania.

For a more detailed description of the route than I intend to give

in this paper those interested must be referred to the article which Mr.

Lacock is preparing, and which, he informs me, will be published in an

early number of the "American Historical Review."

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Annual Meeting Ohio Valley Historical Association.      433

 

after the French and Indian war was ended and Pontiac's conspiracy was

crushed, this road was the great immigrant route to the Ohio Valley.

Barges built at Brownsville on the Monongahela, or at points on the

Youghiogheny, received the immigrants after their difficult land journey

over the mountains and floated them down these rivers and the Ohio

to their future homes on either of its banks.

Very interesting, too, it is to note that the existence of this road

between the waters of the Potomac and those of the Ohio had some in-

fluence in determining a matter of importance to the whole country.

Thomas Scott of Washington, Pennsylvania, a member of the First Con-

gress of the United States, introduced in the first session of that Con-

gress (August 27, 1789) the earliest resolution looking toward the choice

of a location for the National Capital. That resolution declared that "a

permanent residence ought to be fixed for the General Government of

the United States at some convenient place as near the center of wealth,

population and extent of territory as may be consistent with convenience

to the navigation of the Atlantic Ocean and having due regard to the

particular situation of the Western Country."² Richard Henry Lee soon

afterward introduced a modification of this resolution which called for a

location as nearly central "as communication with the Atlantic and easy

access to the Western country will permit."3

This demand that the "particular situation of the Western Country"

should have an influence in fixing the site of the National Capital, and

even that the location should be only as nearly central as the navigation

of the Atlantic and easy access to the West would permit astonished

certain members from  New   England. They perceived that a choice

governed by these considerations would fix the capital on one of the

rivers rising in the "Western Country."  Fisher Ames protested that

"west of the Ohio is an almost unmeasurable wilderness; when it will

be settled or how it will be possible to govern it is past calculation.

.    Probably it will be near a century before these people will be

considerable."4

The debate thus precipitated lasted in one House or the other until

July, 1790, and the proposals were of various sorts. Ease of access to

the western country was claimed for the rival sites. The chief struggle

was between the advocates of a location on the Susquehanna and those

who preferred the banks of the Potomac. Mr. Vining, of Delaware said:

"I declare that I look on the Western Territory in an awful and striking

point of view. To that region the unpolished sons of earth are flowing

from all quarters, men to whom the protection of the laws and the con-

trolling force of government are alike necessary. From this great con-

2. Annals of Congress, First Congress, vol. I., 786.

3. Same vol. page 836.

4. Same vol. page 869.

Vol. XVIII- 28.

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434       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

sideration I conclude that the banks of the Potomac are the proper

station."5

Mr. Scott, the mover of the original motion, spoke again. He said:

"The Potomac offers itself under the following coircumstances: From

the falls up the main river to Wills Creek, it is about 200 miles: From

thence is a portage to the Youghioheny, down which you descend to the

Monongahela which meets the Allegheny at Fort Pitt and forms the

great river Ohio. This is a direct communication between the Atlantic

and the Western Country."6

The portage between Wills Creek and the Youghiogheny was made

by way of the Braddock road which passed near Mr. Scott's early home

in Fayette county, Pennsylvania. This congressman at first voted for a

site on the banks of the Susquehanna, though he frankly said that the

interests of his constituents would be better served if the site on the

Potomac were chosen. This being his belief, his vote was one which

Alexander Hamilton had little difficulty in delivering to Jefferson for the

Potomac in return for votes influenced by Jefferson in favor of Hamil-

ton's project for the national assumption of the State debts. The dust of

this almost forgotten man lies in a neglected grave in the Franklin Street

graveyard in Washington, Pennsylvania, his former home.

The Braddock road is of interest therefore as a relic of Indian

days;  because of its association with the military struggle between

France and England for colonial empire; as a reminder of the influence

of the Ohio country on the location of the National Capital, and as the

route afterward followed by the nation's great work of internal improve-

ment, the National Pike.

As "Braddock's Road," however, its chief interest is that of Brad-

dock's expedition and the smaller military movements which preceded

his and determined the route by which he marched.

The Ohio Company of Virginia was organized in 1748. Early in the

following year it presented a petition to the King in Council. setting forth

"the vast advantage it would be to Britain and the Colonies to anticipate

the French by taking possession of that Country Southward of the Lakes,

to which the French had no Right, nor had then taken possession ex-

cept a small Block house Fort among the six Nations below the Falls

of Niagara."⁷ In the Mercer Papers, which belonged to the Ohio Com-

pany, it is declared that the company opened a road from Wills Creek to

Turkey Foot in 1751,⁸ though the minutes of the company for April 28,

1752. show that the members had some doubt whether "the road from

Wills Creek to the Fork of Mohongaly" had yet been properly opened

 

5. Same vol. page 848.

6. Annals of Congress, vol. II, page 860.

7. Quoted in the Ohio Company's second petition Darlington's

Gist's Journals, pages 226-230.

8. Gist's Journals, page 225.

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Annual Meeting Ohio Valley Historical Association. 435

 

according to the instruction previously given to Colonel Cresap.⁹ How-

ever, the company's second petition to the King in Council asserts that

the petitioners had "laid out and opened a wagon road thirty feet wide

from their Store house at Wills Creek to the three branches of the

Ganyangaine, computed to be near eighty miles."10

This assertion is so startling that it is well to inquire into it a

little. The date of the document containing it is not given in the copy

referred to, but it may be fixed approximately from the known dates of

certain things referred to in the paper itself. The petition contains a

statement that "the fort on Chartiers Creek" is "now building."  Now

the building of this fort was authorized at a meeting of the committee

of the Ohio Company held at Stratford, Westmoreland County, Vir-

ginia, July 25, 1753.11 The fort was not built that year, however, for

Washington records in his journal, January 6, 1754, on that day, as he

was returning from his mission to the French forts, he "met seventeen

horses loaded with material and stores for the fort."¹² In February,

Governor Dinwiddie sent a company of troops to aid the men of the

Ohio Company in the erection of the Fort.13 Work had not been begun

on the fort on January 6, 1754, when Washington, having recently stood

on the spot "where the Ohio Company intended to erect a fort," now

met the expedition going out for that purpose. By May 4th, it was

known in the Virginia capital that the French had driven the troops

and the Ohio Company's people away from the unfinished fort,14 which

had been placed not on Chartiers Creek but some distance above at the

point between the Allegheny and the Monongahela. The document which

asserts that the fort is "now building" must therefore have been written

in 1754, between January 6th and May 4th. It is the same document

which declares that a wagon road thirty feet wide had already been

"laid out and opened" between Wills Creek and the Youghiogheny.

That some kind of a road had been opened by the company in 1753 "at

considerable expense" is asserted by Washington"¹⁵ in a letter in which

he also says that in 1754 the troops which he commanded had greatly

repaired it as far as Gist's plantation, but that a wagon road thirty

feet wide had been completed for any considerable portion of that dis-

tance is highly improbable.  Washington reported to Governor Din-

widdie16 in 1754 that the work required to "amend and alter" the first

twenty miles of the road, from the mouth of Wills Creek to Little

 

9. Gist's Journals, page 237.

10. "The Turkey Foot Forks" of the Youghiogheny.

11. Extracts from minutes of Ohio Company, Darlington's Gist, ap-

pendix, page 236.

12. Sparks, "Writings of Washington," II, 446.

13. Dinwiddie Papers. I, 136. Dinwiddie to the Earl of Halifax.

14. Dinwiddie Papers, I, 148.

15. Sparks, Writings of Washington, II, 302. Washington to Bou-

quet.

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436        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

Meadows, had occupied a detachment of sixty men from April 25th to

May 1st, after which date the main body, 160 effective men, continued

the work until May 9th. An analysis of these figures will show that

it took, on an average, eighty-seven men to "amend and alter" one mile

of road in a day. John Armstrong's experience a year later in building

the road through Pennsylvania to intersect Braddock's road near the

Turkey Foot fork showed, according to Armstrong's report to Governor

Morris,17 that sixty men could make one mile of entirely new road in

one day through the mountain wilderness. The suspicion seems to be

justified that the assertion contained in the Ohio Company's second peti-

tion that the company had "laid out and opened a wagon road thirty

feet wide" from their storehouse at Wills Creek eighty miles to the three

forks was an overstatement of the improvements they had made, pos-

sibly intended to influence the King in Council to grant the requests made

in this petition.

In a letter quoted above18 Washington reports to Governor Din-

widdie that his men have spent two days making a bridge at Little

Meadows. This evidently does not mean a bridge over Castleman River,

the only nearby stream that would require two days to bridge, but to

a bridge of corduroy across the swamp--a portion of the road which

Captain Orme, who accompanied Braddock's army a year later, says has

been "very well repaired by Sir John St. Clair's advance party."¹⁹ If the

word "repaired" is to be taken in its ordinary meaning it is probably a

reference to the work formerly done by Washington at this place.

By May 18th, 1754, Washington's little army had reached the Great

Crossings, now Somerfield, Pennsylvania, and from that place he wrote

to Governor Dinwiddie: "The road to this place is made as good as it

can be, having spent much time and great labor upon it. I believe wagons

may now travel with 15 or 1800 w't in them by doubling at one or

two pinches only".²⁰

Not to prolong further this part of the paper, suffice it to say that

Washington opened the road as far as Christopher Gist's plantation,

about twenty-three miles beyond the Great Crossings. He withdrew after-

wards about twelve miles to Fort Necessity, advanced again about six

miles to attack Jumonville, and a few weeks later surrendered to 900

French and Indians who permitted him to march his defeated troops to

Wills Creek.

The following summer Braddock's forces were assembled at Wills

Creek, or Fort Cumberland as the place was now called, and by May

30th the expedition for the recovery of the Ohio country was ready to

start. On that day a detachment of 600 men under Major Chapman set

 

17. Penna. Colonial Records, VI, 401 Armstrong to Gov. Morris.

18. Dinwiddie Papers, I, 151.

19. Captain Orme's journal, entry for June 16, 1755.

20. Dinwiddie Papers, I, 170.

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Annual Meeting Ohio Valley Historical Association.     437

 

out, following Washington's road over Wills Mountain. The road, which

Washington had said a year earlier might be traversed by wagons carry-

ing 15 or 18 hundredweight, proved too steep for the heavy and clumsy

army wagons, or king's wagons, as Captain Orme's journal calls them.

Three of these were destroyed and other were shattered on the mountain-

side. All the heavy wagons were sent back to the fort ten days later

from Little Meadows, country wagons being substituted for them.21

After Major Chapman's experience of the difficulties of the way over

Wills Mountain, Lieutenant Spendelow, of the detachment of seamen

from Commodore Keppel's fleet, found a way to avoid the mountain by

following the old road less than a mile from the fort, then swinging to

the right to Wills Creek and following up that stream to the mouth of

a rivulet still known as Braddock's Run, thence up the run, joining

Major Chapman's route at the western foot of Wills Mountain about

five miles from the fort. In Winsor's "Narrative and Critical History"

there is a reduced copy of a map which shows the road leading from

the fort and separating into two branches, one leading to Wills Creek

and the other towards the mountain. The original has on the back an

endorsement in Washington's handwriting: "Sketch of the situation of

Fort Cumberland".22 This sketch shows the road crossing to the left

bank of Wills Creek.

Major Chapman's advance party had marched on to Little Meadows

while the main body of the army waited at the fort for the opening

of the new road. The army moved in three columns from the fort on

June 7th, 8th and 10th, but was reunited and encamped together on the

night of June 10th at the point where the new route joined the old.23

The National Pike now follows Wills Creek and Braddock's Run,

as did the Spendelow route, but the original line of the pike, like the

pioneer road which was the main highway to the waters of the Ohio

before the pike was built, took the way over Wills Mountain. It is now

impossible to find on the ground any certain trace of the Spendelow

loop. Perhaps an old packtrail still distinguishable on the hillside along

Braddock's Run followed the old line of march. Over the mountain,

however, the old route followed by Major Chapman's advance party,

and afterwards by the pioneer road, is still marked by a well defined

scar to where it joins the old route of the National Pike in Sandy Gap.

It must be remembered, however, here and elsewhere in this paper iden-

tified with the route of General Braddock's army is a mark left by many

years' travel on the pioneer road long called by Braddock's name. That

it followed everywhere exactly upon Braddock's trace cannot be ascer-

tained. Yet it is not a wholly unwarranted assumption that the early

 

21. Captain Ormes Journal entry for June 10, 1755.

22. Winsor's Narrative and Critical History, vol. V, 577.

23. Braddock's Orderly Book, page LIII.

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438       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

travelers would in general follow that trace rather than cut a new way

through the forest.

Descending from Sandy Gap the old road leads to the grove now

occupied by the summer cottages and auditorium of the Alleghany Camp

Ground. Near this place was General Braddock's first camp, which in

his orderly book is called "the camp in the grove," but in Captain Orme's

journal it is called "Spendelow Camp." The old road crosses the run

at a ford and proceeds westerly three and a half miles to Clarysville,

lying most of the way north of the pike and distant from it sometimes

only a few yards. At Clarysville the two roads separate and do not

touch again for nearly ten miles, the Braddock road passing through a

gap at the Hoffman mines, sometimes coinciding with the modern public

road and sometimes showing a plain scar through the fields. It passes

through the southern outskirts of Frostburg, Maryland. It was in this

neighborhood that General Braddock made his second camp, at a place

called in Captain Orme's journal "Martin's Plantations." Martin's place

is shown in Shippen's draft, of 1759, reproduced in Hulbert's "Historic

Highways." 24

Just beyond Frostburg the steep ascent of Big Savage mountain

begins.  Here as elsewhere the road climbs squarely up the grade.

Though there is an ascent of 1,000 feet in about two miles, some por-

tions of which are remarkably steep, there is no movement along the

mountainside to make the slope more gradual. Fronting the ascent

squarely the wagons would be higher, of course, in front than at the

rear, but one side of the wagon would be no higher than the other and

the danger of overturning would be reduced to a minimum. The army

had no time to make a "side hill cut" over every steep mountain it must

cross.

About four miles west of the top of Big Savage mountain the old

road crosses to the north of the present National Pike, and from that

point leads westerly, the old trace following more nearly in a straight

line than the modern road but never distant from it more than from a

half to three-quarters of a mile. Before reaching Little Meadows the

road crosses Red Ridge, Meadow Mountain and Chestnut Ridge. A short

distance west of Little Meadows the trace passes again to the south of

the pike and crosses Castleman River. About two miles west of Grants-

ville, Maryland, it crosses again to the north of the pike on the steep

side of Negro Mountain. Two miles farther west both turn southward,

but as the old trace turns more sharply it crosses once more to the

south of the pike and follows on that side until both roads have left

the soil of Maryland. A few hundred yards north of the Maryland-Penn-

sylvania line, on Winding Ridge, the trace crosses to the north of the

pike. Just south of the boundary line is the site of Braddock's sixth

camp, called in Captain Orme's journal, and in many accounts written

24. Hulbert, Historic Highways, vol. V, 28.

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Annual Meeting Ohio Valley Historical Association.       439

 

by early travelers, "Bear Camp".²⁵ The trace again crosses to the south

of the pike before reaching Somerfield, and fords the Youghiogheny

(Great Crossings) near the mouth of Braddock's Run, about a mile

above Somerfield. Keeping still to the south of the pike, but never more

than one mile from it, the road leads westward over Briery Mountain,

or Woodcock Hill, and at a distance of about twelve miles from Great

Crossings comes to Fort Necessity, where it is within sight of the pike.

Two miles farther west, at Braddock's grave, it crosses once more to

the north and the two roads never touch again. The pike leads north-

west to Uniontown, thence to Brownsville where it crosses the Monon-

gahela, thence through Washington, Pennsylvania, and Wheeling, West

Virginia, to the West. The Braddock trace also leads to the northwest

from the Old Orchard Camp near Braddock's grave to the Rock Fort

where was the Half King's camp when he led Washington's little force

along the mountain path to attack Jumonville in his hiding place. From

the Rock Fort the trace leads almost due north seven miles to Christo-

pher Gist's plantation, then inclining a little to the northeast to Stewart's

Crossing of the Youghiogheny, just below Connellsville. Thence pass-

ing along "the narrows" between Mounts Creek and the Youghiogheny,

the old road passed through Prittstown, across Jacobs Creek to the town

of Mount Pleasant and to Jacobs Cabins, about two and a half miles

farther north. This point is mentioned and called Jacobs Cabins in the

journals of Christopher Gist26 and others before Captain Orme mentions

it as the site of Braddock's fifteenth camp.

From Jacobs Cabins the route of Braddock's army inclined a little

more to the northwest. Crossing Sewickley Creek, five miles, little Se-

wickley, nine miles, the army came to the precipitous bluff on Brush

Creek, a branch of Turtle Creek, fifteen miles from Jacobs Creek and

about one mile west of Larimer. Unable to pass farther in the desired

direction, the army turned almost at a right angle toward the south-

west into the valley of Long Run, and on reaching the stream turned

again to the right. The route followed Long Run to its junction with

Jacks Run, thence passed over White Oak Level to the site within the

present city of McKeesport where the army encamped on the night of

July 8th. On the morning of the 9th the army moved down the steep

hill into the valley of Crooked Run and followed that stream to the

Monongahela. Just below the bridge which now connects McKeesport

with Duquesne the army forded the river and marched down on the

Duquesne flats to avoid the narrow pass on the right bank where the

25. Atkinson says (Olden Time II, 543 that he had not been able

to identify Bear Camp. The map in Sargent's "Braddock's Expedition"

is manifestly wrong in this as in other particulars. It locates Bear Camp

at the Great Crossings, while Orme's Journal says that the army marched

six miles from Bear Camp to reach Great Crossings. See the journal,

entry for June 23, 1755.

26. Gist's Journal, entry for November 19, 1753.

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440        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

bluff crowds close to the river. Shortly after the army had passed over

General Braddock received a messed from Lieutenant-Colonel Gage, the

commander of the advance party, saying he had passed the second ford

and was safe on the right bank of the river once more. While the

choppers, covered by a strong guard, were opening the road beyond the

second ford Braddock's army marched down the left bank, posted strong

guards on both sides of the ford and passed over.

Some knowledge of the last section of the road may be had from

maps or sketches drawn by contemporaries and participants in the battle.

Among these the most valuable are the two furnished by Patrick Mackel-

lar, chief engineer of the expedition, who was with Gage in the advance

column when the fight began.²⁷ They were drawn by Mackellar at the

request of Governor Shirley who sent them to the War Office with a

letter dated November 5th, 1755. Others are Captain Orme's plan of

the battle, accompanying his journal,28 a plan in the Harvard library, re-

produced in Winsor's "Narrative and Critical History,"²⁹ and an unpub-

lished plan in the Library of Congress. Each of the two last mentioned

has a scale of distances. Though the two plans seem to be sketches,

and not maps accurately drawn to scale, and the distances are estimated

and not measured, they are of value in interpreting all the others, since

all agree in the essential topographical features of the ground and in

the position of the marching column when the French and Indians were

first seen coming down the trail from Fort Duquesne. All these sketches

show the vanguard of the advance party of Braddock's army just passing

the head of a small stream which flows into into the Monongahela. This

may doubtless be identified with the stream mentioned by Colonel Burd

in a letter of July 25th to Governor Morris. He says: "On Wednesday

the 9th current there was a small body of French and Indians (about

five hundred, and never was any more on the ground) discovered by

the guides at a small run called Frazer's Run, about seven miles on this

side of the French Fort."30

It is still possible to identify Frazer's Run within the limits of the

town of Braddock. Its location and surroundings correspond with the

distance from the ford and the topographical features indicated in the

sketch-maps mentioned above, and it is now possible to say that the

vanguard of General Braddock's advance party had reached a point

about a mile and a quarter from the ford when it was attacked by the

French and Indians. The advance party was driven back about a quarter

of a mile to a point near the Pennsylvania Railroad station in Braddock,

to which the main body had advanced on hearing the firing in front.

 

27. Parkman. Montcalm and Wolfe, library edition, 1897, vol. I,

page 229, note. See Mackellar's maps in the same volume.

28. See Sargent's "Braddock's Expedition."

29. Winsor. Narrative and Critical History, V. 499.

30. James Burd to Governor Morris, July 25, 1755. Penna. Col.

Rec. vol. VI, page 501.

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Annual Meeting Ohio Valley Historical Association.      441

 

Here they held their ground for about two hours, until the General was

wounded, when they retreated in disorder, pursued by a small number of

Indians as far as the ford. While the main body was engaged near the

site of the present railroad station the guard of several hundred men

left with the baggage was also engaged with Indians who had crept

around both flanks after the advance guard had been driven back and the

flanking groups which General Braddock had thrown out to some dis-

tance on both sides of the army had run in to join the main body.31

This baggage guard action was at a point considerably more than half

a mile from the main fight and a little more than a quarter of a mile

from the ford.

Three of the above mentioned plans of the battle were drawn by

men who were present and participated in the fighting. The advanced

party had been several hours on the ground before the battle began

and had covered the choppers while they opened a mile and a quarter of

road through the precise territory on which the fighting took place.

Patrick Mackellar was with this advanced party.³² Being the chief en-

gineer of the expedition, he may be presumed to have observed the

ground with some care. His sketch maps of the field should be con-

sidered trustworthy in all essential features, and particularly in indicating

the road.  The plan given by Captain Orme agrees with those of

Mackellar. None of them can be reconciled with the map given by

Sparks in his account of the battle.33 The Sparks map shows the road

lying between two ravines, crossing neither but roughly parallel with

both, and shows the French and Indians posted in the ravines. Mac-

kellar's sketches show the road crossing these ravines almost at right

angles, and his explanatory notes say that the Indians "did most of the

execution" not from ravines but from a hill on the right of the army.

Captain Orme also mentions a "rising ground" on the right, to face which

Colonel Burton was forming his command.

The belief sprang up early and has persisted long that Braddock had

fallen into an ambuscade and that the French and Indians had fought

either from intrenchments thrown up beforehand or from ravines which

concealed them. There was no ambuscade. According to the report of

the French officer who commanded during most of the battle, the attack

was made by the French troops when they were not yet in order of

battle, and they fired the first volley when they were not yet within

range.³4

31. "The advanced flank parties which were left for the security

of the baggage, all but one, ran in. The baggage was then warmly

attacked." Captain Orme's Journal, entry for July 9th.

32. Parkman. "Montcalm and Wolfe." I., 229, note.

33. Sparky  "The Writings of Washington." II., 90.

34. "Il attaqua avec beaucoup d'audace mais sans nulle disposition;

notre premiere decharge fut faite hors de portee." Dumas au Ministre,

25 Juillet, 1756. Parkman. "Montcalm and Wolfe."    II., 440.  Ap-

pendix.

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442        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

General Braddock did not live to realize all the evil consequences

which his defeat brought upon the frontiers. The road which he had

opened from the Potomac to within seven miles of Fort Duquesne be-

came again an Indian warpath. In the three years following this battle

it was used by a few small parties of French and many bands of Indians

as an open road to the Potomac, whence they ravaged the English set-

tlements in Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania. General Braddock's

expedition was a failure. The road which he left through the wilder-

ness proved throughout the war a benefit to the enemy and an injury

to his own countrymen; but in later years as a route for immigrants

coming to settle in the Upper Ohio Valley and afterwards as a com-

munication between the Potomac and the Monongahela, it proved to be

this unfortunate man's most useful and most lasting work.

 

 

Professor C. L. Martzolff, of Ohio University, Athens,

Ohio, gave a most interesting account of the History of "Zane's

Trace." As Mr. Martzolff gave his address without manuscript

we are unable to reproduce it here, but for the benefit of our

readers, we refer them to the article on this subject by Professor

Martzolff published in the Ohio State Archaeological and His-

torical Publications Vol. XIII, pgs 287-331^.

 

 

 

THE OLD MAYSVILLE ROAD.

 

SAMUEL M. WILSON.

Lexington, Ky.

In this paper we shall deal exclusively with that part of the ex-

tension of Zane's Trace which is known in history, as it is commonly

known to this day, as the Maysville Road or Maysville Pike.

In its main outlines the story of the old Maysville Road has been

frequently told, and the present writer, with somewhat limited time for

investigation, can hardly hope to do more than embellish with a few mat-

ters of detail the somewhat scanty record.

This Kentucky division of the Maysville and Zanesville turnpike,

leading from Maysville on the Ohio River through Washington, Paris

and Lexington, became famous in that it was made a test case to deter-

mine whether or not the government had the right to assist in the build-

ing of purely state and local roads by taking shares of stock in local turn-

pike companies. Congress, in 1830, passed an Act authorizing a sub-

scription to its capital stock, but President Jackson promptly vetoed the

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