Pioneer Roads and Experiences of Travelers (Volume 2)

We have treated of three historic highways in this series of monographs which found a way through the Appalachian uplift into the Mississippi Basin--Braddock's, Forbes's, and Boone's roads and their successors. There were other means of access into that region. One, of which particular mention is to be made in this volume, dodged the mountains and ran around to the lakes by way of the Mohawk River and the Genesee country. Various minor routes passed westward from the heads of the Susquehanna--one of them becoming famous as a railway route, but none becoming celebrated as roadways. From central and southern Virginia, routes, likewise to be followed by trunk railway lines, led onward toward the Mississippi Basin, but none, save only Boone's track, became of prime importance.

But while scanning carefully this mountain barrier, which for so long a period held back civilization on the Atlantic seaboard, there is found another route that was historic and deserves mention as influencing the westward movement of America. It was that roadway so well known three-fourths of a century ago as the Old Northwestern Turnpike, leading from Winchester, Virginia, to the Ohio River at Parkersburg, Virginia, now West Virginia, at the mouth of the Little Kanawha.

The earliest history of this route is of far more interest than importance, for the subject takes us back once more to Washington's early exploits and we feel again the fever of his wide dreams of internal communications which should make the Virginia waterways the inlet and outlet of all the trade of the rising West. It has been elsewhere outlined how the Cumberland Road was the actual resultant of Washington's hopes and plans. But it is in place in a sketch of the Old Northwestern Turnpike to state that Washington's actual plan of making the Potomac River all that the Erie Canal and the Cumberland Road became was never even faintly realized. His great object was attained--but not by means of his partisan plans.

It is very difficult to catch the exact old-time spirit of rivalry which existed among the American colonies and which always meant jealousy and sometimes bloodshed. In the fight between Virginia officers in Forbes's army in 1758 over the building of a new road through Pennsylvania to Fort Duquesne, instead of following Braddock's old road, is an historic example of this intense rivalry. A noted example, more easily explained, was the conflict and perennial quarrel between the Connecticut and Pennsylvania pioneers within the western extremity of the former colony's technical boundaries. That Washington was a Virginian is made very plain in a thousand instances in his life; and many times it is emphasized in such a way as must seem odd to all modern Americans. At a stroke of a pen he shows himself to be the broadest of Americans in his classic Letter to Benjamin Harrison, 1784; in the next sentence he is urging Virginia to look well to her laurels lest New York, through the Hudson and Mohawk, and Pennsylvania, through the Susquehanna and Juniata, do what Virginia ought to do through her Potomac.

The powerful appeal made in this letter was the result of a journey of Washington's in the West which has not received all the attention from historians it perhaps deserves. This was a tour made in 1784 in the tangled mountainous region between the heads of the branches of the Potomac and those of the Monongahela.[1] Starting on his journey September 1, Washington intended visiting his western lands and returning home by way of the Great Kanawha and New Rivers, in order to view the connection which could be made there between the James and Great Kanawha Valleys. Indian hostilities, however, made it unwise for him to proceed even to the Great Kanawha, and the month was spent in northwestern Virginia.

On the second, Washington reached Leesburg, and on the third, Berkeley; here, at his brother's (Colonel Charles Washington's) he met a number of persons including General Morgan. "... one object of my journey being," his Journal reads, "to obtain information of the nearest and best communication between the Eastern & Western Waters; & to facilitate as much as in me lay the Inland Navigation of the Potomack; I conversed a good deal with Gen^l. Morgan on this subject, who said, a plan was in contemplation to extend a Road from Winchester to the Western Waters, to avoid if possible an interference with any other State." It is to be observed that this was a polite way of saying that the road in contemplation must be wholly in Virginia, which was the only state to be "interfered" with or be benefited. "But I could not discover," Washington adds, "that Either himself, or others, were able to point it out with precision. He [Morgan] seemed to have no doubt but that the Counties of Freder^k., Berkeley & Hampshire would contribute freely towards the extension of the Navigation of Potomack; as well as towards opening a Road from East to West."

It should be observed that the only route across the mountains from northwestern Virginia to the Ohio River was Braddock's Road; for this road Washington was a champion in 1758, as against the central route Forbes built straight west from Bedford to Fort Duquesne.[2] Then, however, Braddock's Road, and even Fort Duquesne, was supposed to lie in Virginia. But when the Pennsylvania boundaries were fully outlined it was found that Braddock's Road lay in Pennsylvania. Washington now was seeking a new route to the West which would lie wholly in Virginia. The problem, historically, presents several interesting points which cannot be expanded here. Suffice it to say that Washington was the valiant champion of Braddock's Road until he found it lay wholly in Maryland and Pennsylvania.

Gaining no satisfaction from his friends at Berkeley, Washington pushed on to one Captain Stroad's, out fourteen odd miles on the road to Bath. "I held much conversation with him," the traveler records of his visit at Stroad's, "the result ... was,--that there are two Glades which go under the denomination of the Great glades--one, on the Waters of Yohiogany, the other on those of Cheat River; & distinguished by the name of the Sandy Creek Glades.--that the Road to the first goes by the head of Patterson's Creek[3]--that from the acc^{ts}. he has had of it, it is rough; the distance he knows not.--that there is a way to the Sandy Creek Glades from the great crossing of Yohiogany (or Braddocks Road) [Smithfield, Pennsylvania] & a very good one; ..." At the town of Bath Washington met one Colonel Bruce who had traversed the country between the North Branch (as that tributary of the Potomac was widely known) and the Monongahela. "From Col^o. Bruce ... I was informed that he had travelled from the North Branch of Potomack to the Waters of Yaughiogany, and Monongahela--that the Potom^k. where it may be made Navigable--for instance where McCulloughs path crosses it, 40 Miles above the old fort [Cumberland], is but about 6 Miles to a pretty large branch of the Yohiogany ...--that the Waters of Sandy Creek which is a branch of cheat River, which is a branch of Monongahela, interlocks with these; and the Country between, flat--that he thinks (in order to ev^d. [evade] passing through the State of Pennsylvania) this would be an eligible Road using the ten Miles C^k. with a portage to the Navigable Waters of the little Kanhawa; ..."

This was the basis of Washington's plan of internal communication from Potomac; he now pressed forward to find if it were possible to connect the Youghiogheny and North Branch of the Potomac, the Youghiogheny and Monongahela, and the Monongahela and Little Kanawha. Of course the plan was impossible, but the patient man floundered on through the foothills and mountains over what was approximately the course mentioned, the "McCullough's Path" and Sandy Creek route from the Potomac to the Monongahela. In his explorations he found and traversed one of the earliest routes westward through this broken country immediately south of the well known resorts, Oakland and Deer Park, on the Baltimore and Ohio Railway. This was the "McCullough's" Path already mentioned. Having ascended the Monongahela River from near Brownsville, Pennsylvania, Washington, on September 24, arrived at a surveyor's office (the home of one Pierpoint) eight miles southward along the dividing ridge between the Monongahela and Cheat Rivers.[4] On the twenty-fifth--after a meeting with various inhabitants of the vicinity--he went plunging eastward toward the North Branch of the Potomac "along the New Road [which intersected Braddock's Road east of Winding Ridge] to Sandy Creek; & thence by McCullochs path to Logstons [on the North Branch of the Potomac] and accordingly set of [off] before Sunrise. Within 3 Miles I came to the river Cheat ab^t. 7 Miles from its Mouth--.... The Road from Morgan Town or Monongahela C^t. House, is said to be good to this ferry [Ice's]--distance ab^{t}. 6 Miles[5] ... from the ferry the Laurel Hill[6] is assended ... along the top of it the Road continues.... After crossing this hill the road is very good to the ford of Sandy Creek at one James Spurgeons,[7] ... ab^t. 15 Miles from Ice's ferry. At the crossing of this Creek McCullocks path, which owes its origen to Buffaloes, being no other than their tracks from one lick to another & consequently crooked & not well chosen, strikes off from the New Road.... From Spurgeon's to one Lemons, which is a little to the right of McCullochs path, is reckoned 9 Miles, and the way not bad; but from Lemons to the entrance of the Yohiogany glades[8] which is estimated 9 Miles more thro' a deep rich Soil ... and what is called the briery Mountain.[9] ... At the entrance of the above glades I lodged this night, with no other shelter or cover than my cloak. & was unlucky enough to have a heavy shower of Rain.... 26^{th}.... passing along a small path ... loaded with Water ... we had an uncomfortable travel to one Charles friends[10] about 10 Miles.... A Mile before I came to Friends, I crossed the great Branch of Yohiogany.... Friend ... is a great Hunter.... From Friends I passed by a spring (distant 3 Miles) called Archy's from a Man of that name--crossed the backbone[11] & descended into Ryans glade.[12]--Thence by Tho^s. Logston's ... to the foot of the backbone, about 5 Miles ... across the Ridge to Ryans glade one mile and half ...--to Joseph Logstons 1-1/2 Miles ...--to the N^o. Branch at McCullochs path 2 Miles[13]--infamous road--and to Tho^s. Logstons 4 more.... 27th. I left M^r. Logston's ...--at ten Miles I had ... gained the summit of the Alligany Mountain[14] and began to desend it where it is very steep and bad to the Waters of Pattersons Creek ... along the heads of these [tributaries], & crossing the Main [Patterson's] Creek & Mountain bearing the same name[15] (on the top of which at one Snails I dined) I came to Col^o. Abrah^m. Hites at Fort pleasant on the South Branch[16] about 35 Miles from Logstons a little before the Suns setting. My intention, when I set out from Logstons, was to take the Road to Rumney [Romney] by one Parkers but learning from my guide (Joseph Logston) when I came to the parting paths at the foot of the Alligany[17] (ab^t. 12 Miles) that it was very little further to go by Fort pleasant, I resolved to take that Rout ... to get information...."