HISTORIC HIGHWAYS OF AMERICA
VOLUME 5
HISTORIC HIGHWAYS OF AMERICA
VOLUME 5
The Old Glade (Forbes's) Road
(PENNSYLVANIA STATE ROAD)
BY
ARCHER BUTLER HULBERT
_With Maps and Illustrations_
[Illustration]
THE ARTHUR H. CLARK COMPANY
CLEVELAND, OHIO
1903
COPYRIGHT, 1903
BY
THE ARTHUR H. CLARK COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE 9
I. THE OLD TRADING PATH 15
II. A BLOOD-RED FRONTIER 35
III. THE CAMPAIGNS OF 1758 65
IV. THE OLD OR A NEW ROAD? 81
V. THE NEW ROAD 124
VI. THE MILITARY ROAD TO THE WEST 163
VII. THE PENNSYLVANIA ROAD 190
ILLUSTRATIONS
I. SHIPPEN'S DRAUGHT OF THE MONONGAHELA AND YOUGHIOGHENY
RIVERS, AND BRADDOCK'S ROAD (1759) 29
II. FRONTIER FORTS AND BLOCKHOUSES IN 1756 51
III. FORBES'S ROAD TO RAYSTOWN (1757) 103
IV. THE REMAINS OF BOUQUET'S REDOUBT AT FORT PITT 184
PREFACE
When General Edward Braddock landed in Virginia in 1755, one of his
first acts in his campaign upon the Ohio was to urge Governor Morris to
have a road opened westward through Pennsylvania. His reason for wishing
another road, parallel to the one his own army was to cut, was that
there might be a shorter route than his own to the northern colonies,
over which his expresses might pass speedily, and over which wagons
might come more quickly from Pennsylvania--then the "granary of
America."
It was inevitable that the shortest route from the center of the
colonies to the Ohio would become the most important. The road Braddock
asked Morris to open was completed only three miles beyond the present
town of Bedford, Pennsylvania, when the road choppers hurried home on
receipt of the news of Braddock's defeat.
Braddock made a death-bed prophecy; it was that the British would do
better next time. In 1758 Pitt placed Braddock's unfulfilled task on the
shoulders of Brigadier-general John Forbes, who marched to Bedford on
the new road opened by Morris; thence he opened, along the general
alignment of the prehistoric "Trading Path," a new road to the Ohio. It
was a desperate undertaking; but Forbes completed his campaign in
November, 1758 triumphantly--at the price of his life.
This road, fortified at Carlisle, Shippensburg, Chambersburg, Loudon,
Littleton, Bedford, Ligonier, and Pittsburg became the great military
route from the Atlantic seaboard to the trans-Allegheny empire. By it
Fort Pitt was relieved during Pontiac's rebellion and the Ohio Indians
were brought to terms. Throughout the Revolutionary War this road was
the main thoroughfare over which the western forts received ammunition
and supplies. In the dark days of the last decade of the eighteenth
century, when the Kentucky and Ohio pioneers were fighting for the
foothold they had obtained in the West, this road played a vital part.
When the need for it passed, Forbes's Road, too, passed away. Two great
railways, on either side, run westward following waterways which the old
road assiduously avoided--keeping to the high ground between them.
Between these new and fast courses of human traffic the old Glade Road
lies along the hills, and, in the dust or in the snow, marks the course
of armies which won a way through the mountains and made possible our
westward expansion.
The "Old Glade Road," the old-time name of the Youghiogheny division
(Burd's or the "Turkey Foot" Road) of this thoroughfare, has been
selected as the title of this volume, as more distinctive than the
"Pennsylvania Road," which would apply to numerous highways.
A. B. H.
MARIETTA, OHIO, December 30, 1902.
The Old Glade (Forbes's) Road
CHAPTER I
THE OLD TRADING PATH
When, in the middle of the eighteenth century, intelligent white men
were beginning to cross the Allegheny Mountains and enter the Ohio
basin, one of the most practicable routes was found to be an old trading
path which ran almost directly west from Philadelphia to the present
site of Pittsburg. According to the Indians it was the easiest route
from the Atlantic slope through the dense laurel wildernesses to the
Ohio.[1] The course of this path is best described by the route of the
old state road of Pennsylvania to Pittsburg built in the first
half-decade succeeding the Revolutionary War. This road passed through
Shippensburg, Carlisle, Bedford, Ligonier, and Greensburg; the Old
Trading Path passed, in general, through the same points. Comparing
this path, which became Forbes's Road, with Nemacolin's path which ran
parallel with it, converging on the same point on the Ohio, one might
say that the former was the overland path, and the latter, strictly
speaking, a portage path. The Old Trading Path offered no portage
between streams, as Nemacolin's path did between the Potomac and
Monongahela. It kept on higher, dryer ground and crossed no river of
importance. This made it the easiest and surest course; in the wintry
season, when the Youghiogheny and Monongahela and their tributaries were
out of banks, the Old Trading Path must have been by far the safest
route to the Ohio; it kept to the high ground between the Monongahela
and Allegheny. It was the high ground over which this path ran that the
unfortunate Braddock attempted to reach after crossing the Youghiogheny
at Stewart's Crossing. The deep ravines drove him back. There is little
doubt he would have been successful had he reached this watershed and
proceeded to Fort Duquesne upon the Old Trading Path.
As is true of so many great western routes, so of this path--the bold
Christopher Gist was the first white man of importance to leave reliable
record of it. In 1750 he was employed to go westward for the Ohio
Company. His outward route, only, is of importance here.[2] On
Wednesday, October 31, he departed from Colonel Cresap's near
Cumberland, Maryland and proceeded "along an old old Indian Path N 30 E
about 11 Miles."[3] This led him along the foot of the Great Warrior
Mountain, through the Flintstone district of Allegheny County, Maryland.
The path ran onward into Bedford County, Pennsylvania, and through
Warrior's Gap to the Juniata River. Here, near the old settlement Bloody
Run, now Everett, the path joined the well-worn thoroughfare running
westward familiarly known as the "Old Trading Path." Eight miles
westward of this junction, near the present site of Bedford, a
well-known trail to the Allegheny valley left the Old Trading Path and
passed through the Indian Frank's Town and northwest to the French
Venango--Franklin, Pennsylvania. Leaving this on his right, Gist pushed
on west over the Old Trading Path. "Snow and such bad Weather" made his
progress slow; from the fifth to the ninth he spent between what are now
Everett in Bedford County and Stoyestown in Somerset County.[4] On the
eleventh he crossed the north and east Forks of Quemahoning--often
called "Cowamahony" in early records.[5] On the twelfth he "crossed a
great Laurel Mountain"--Laurel Hill. On the fourteenth he "set out N 45
W 6 M to Loylhannan an old Indian Town on a Creek of Ohio called
Kiscominatis, then N 1 M NW 1 M to an Indian's Camp on the said
Creek."[6] The present town of Ligonier, Westmoreland County, occupies
the site of this Indian settlement. "Laurel-hanne, signifying the middle
stream in the Delaware tongue. The stream here is half way between the
Juniata at Bedford and the Ohio [Pittsburg]."[7] Between here and the
Ohio, Gist mentions no proper names. The path ran northwest from the
present site of Ligonier, through Chestnut Ridge "at the Miller's Run
Gap, and reached the creek again at the Big Bottom below the present
town of Latrobe on the Pennsylvania Central Railway; there the trail
forked ... the main trail [traveled by Gist], led directly westward to
Shannopin's Town, by a course parallel with and a few miles north of the
Pennsylvania Railway."[8]
The following table of distances from Carlisle to Pittsburg was
presented to the Pennsylvania Council March 2, 1754:
MILES
From Carlisle to Major Montour's 10
From Montour's to Jacob Pyatt's 25
From Pyatt's to George Croghan's at Aucquick Old Town[9] 15
From Croghan's to the Three Springs 10
From the Three Springs to Sideling Hill 7
From Sideling Hill to Contz's Harbour 8
From Contz's Harbour to the top of Ray's Hill 1
From Ray's Hill to the 1 crossing of Juniata[10] 10
From 1 crossing of Juniata to Allaquapy's Gap[11] 6
From Allaquapy's Gap to Ray's town[12] 5
From Ray's town to the Shawonese Cabbin[13] 8
From Shawonese Cabbins to the Top of Allegheny Mountain 8
From Allegheny Mountain to Edmund's Swamp[14] 8
From Edmund's Swamp to Cowamahony Creek[15] 6
From Cowamahony to Kackanapaulins 5
From Kackanapaulins To Loyal Hanin[16] foot Ray's Hill 18
From Loyal Hanin to Shanoppin's Town[17] 50
By this early measurement the total distance between Carlisle to
Pittsburg by the Indian path was one hundred and ninety miles;
ninety-seven miles from Carlisle to Raystown and ninety-three miles from
Raystown to Pittsburg.[18] When it is remembered that this was the
original Indian track totally uninfluenced by the white man's attention
it is interesting to note that the great state road of Pennsylvania from
Carlisle to Pittsburg, laid out in 1785, so nearly followed the Indian
route that its length between those points (in 1819) was just one
hundred and ninety-seven miles--seven miles longer[19] than that of the
prehistoric trace of Indian and buffalo. Perhaps there is no more
significant instance of the practicability of Indian routes in the
United States than this. The very fact that the Indian path was not very
much shorter than the first state road shows that it was distinctively a
utilitarian course. One interested in this significant comparison will
be glad to compare the courses of the old path and that of the state
road as given by the compass.[20]
Other references to the Old Trading Path are made by such traders as
George Croghan and John Harris. Croghan wrote to Richard Peters, March
23, 1754: "The road we now travel ... from Laurel Hill to Shanopens
(near the forks of the Ohio), is but 46 miles, as the road now goes,
which I suppose may be 30 odd miles on a straight line."[21] In an
"Account of the Road to Loggs Town on Allegheny River, taken by John
Harris, 1754" this itinerary is given:
"From Ray's Town to the Shawana Cabbins 8 M
To Edmund's Swamp 8 M
To Stoney Creek 6 M
To Kickener Paulin's House, (Indian) 6 M
To the Clear Fields 7 M
To the other side of the Laurel Hill 5 M
To Loyal Haning 6 M
To the Big Bottom 8 M
To the Chestnut Ridge 8 M
To the parting of the Road[22] 4 M
Thence one Road leads to Shannopin's Town the other to
Kisscomenettes, old Town."[23]
So much for the Old Trading Path before the memorable year of 1755. It
is significant that the route had already been "surveyed"; Pennsylvania
herself desired a share of the Indian trade which Virginia hoped to
monopolize through her Ohio Company, which already had storehouses built
at Wills Creek on the Cumberland and at Redstone Old Fort on the
Monongahela. But with the beginning of hostilities with the French,
precipitated by Washington and his Virginians in 1754, the Indian trade
was now completely at a standstill.
General Braddock and his army which was destined to march westward and
capture Fort Duquesne arrived at Alexandria, Virginia, February 20,
1755. Already Braddock's deputy quartermaster-general, Sir John St.
Clair, had passed through Maryland and Virginia and had decided upon the
route of the army to Fort Cumberland, the point of rendezvous. Four days
after Braddock reached Alexandria, Governor Morris of Pennsylvania
received a letter from St. Clair asking him to "open a road toward the
head of Youghheagang or any other way that is nearer the French forts,"
in order that the stores to be supplied by the northern colonies might
take a shorter course than by way of the roads then being opened through
Maryland and Virginia.[24] Morris immediately replied "... there is no
Waggon Road from Carlisle West through the Mountains but only a Horse
Path, by which the Indian Traders used to carry their Goods and Skins to
and from the Ohio while that Trade remained open."[25] Though Morris
usually made requests of the assembly in vain, the request concerning
this road was granted, and Morris was empowered, in the middle of March,
to open a road "through Carlisle and Shippensburg to the Yoijogain, and
to the camp at Will Creek."[26] He immediately appointed George Croghan,
John Armstrong, James Burd, William Buchannan, and Adam Hoops to find a
road to the three forks of the Youghiogheny--or "Turkey Foot" as the
spot was familiarly known on the frontier. On April 29 Burd reported as
follows to Morris: "... We have viewed and layed out the Roads leading
from hence to the Yohiogain and the camp at Will's Creek, and enclosed
You have the Draughts thereof.... We have dispersed our Advertisements
through the Counties of Lancaster, York, and Cumberland, to encourage
Labourers to come to Work, and We intend to set off to begin to clear up
on Monday first."[27] Thus, slowly, the Old Trading Path was widened
into a rough roadway westward from Carlisle. On May 26, John Armstrong
wrote Governor Morris that there were over a hundred choppers at
work.[28] Five days later Burd wrote Richard Peters that there were one
hundred and fifty at work; but he adds, ominously: "The People are all
anxious to have arms, and if You can procure me arms I would not trouble
the General for a cover; but if you can't they will not be willing to go
past Ray's Town without a guard."[29] Little wonder: the van of
Braddock's army had struck westward into the Alleghenies the day before
this was written, and already the woods were full of spies sent out by
the French, and many massacres had been reported. The horses and wagons
which Franklin had secured for Braddock comprised almost his whole
equipment. These had gone to Fort Cumberland by the old "Monocasy Road"
and Watkins Ferry.[30]
On the twelfth of June Allison and Maxwell wrote Richard Peters that
"Sideling Hill," sixty-seven miles west of Carlisle, and thirty miles
east of Raystown, "is cut very artificially, nay more so than We ever
saw any; the first waggon that carried a Load up it took fifteen Hundred
without ever stopping;" there were, however, many discouragements--"for
four Days the Labourers had not one Glass of Liquor!"[31] On June 15
William Buchannan reported that the road was cleared to Raystown.[32]
But some of the wagons were "pretty much damnified." On the seventeenth
Edward Shippen wrote Morris from Lancaster: "I understand Mr. Burd has
cut the Road 5 Miles beyond Ray's Town, which is 90 Miles from
Shippensburg."[33] On the twenty-first General Braddock wrote as follows
to Governor Morris from Bear Camp (seven miles west of Little
Crossings): "As it is perfectly understood here in what Part the Road
making in your Province is to communicate w^{th} that thro' w^{ch} I am
now proceeding to Fort Du Quesne, I must beg that you and Mr Peters will
immediately settle it, and send an express on Purpose after me with the
most exact Description of it, that there may be no Mistake in a Matter
of so much Importance."[34] On July 3 Morris wrote Burd, who was in
command of the working party, concerning this request of Braddock's. He
takes it "for granted ... that the Road must pass the Turkey Foot ...
and that there cou'd be no Road got to the Northward." Under such
circumstances he affirmed that the nearest course to Braddock's Road
would be a straight line from Turkey Foot (Confluence, Pennsylvania) to
the Great Crossings of the Youghiogheny (Smithfield, Pennsylvania). He
asked Burd to settle this point and send his decision immediately to
Braddock.[35]
[Illustration: SHIPPEN'S DRAUGHT OF THE MONONGAHELA AND YOUGHIOGHENY
RIVERS AND BRADDOCK'S ROAD (1759) (_Great Crossings was the intended
junction of Paddock's Road and Burd's_)
(_From the original in possession of Pennsylvania Historical Society_)]
The working party on the Pennsylvania road was attacked early in July
and needed every one of the five score men whom Braddock had been able
to spare for their protection.[36]
Burd replied[37] from the "Top of the Alleghanies" on July 17, while
still in ignorance of Braddock's utter rout: "At present I can't form
any Judgment where I shall cut the General's Road, further than I know
our Course leads us to the Turkey Foot, By the Information of Mr.
Croghan when we run the Road first. Mr. Croghan assured me he wou'd be
on the Road with me in order to pilott from the Place where we left off
blaizeing. Instead of that he has never been here, nor is there one Man
in my Company that ever was out this Way to the Turkey Foot, But the
Party I send will discover the Place where we shall cut the Road and
inform the General, and upon their return I will order 'em to blaize
back to me."
The news of Braddock's defeat came slowly to the cutters of this
historic roadway from central Pennsylvania to the Youghiogheny. On
Tuesday night, July 15, a messenger was sent to them from Fort
Cumberland, who arrived the night of the day the above letter was
written.[38] Dunbar wrote Morris from "near ye great Crossings" on the
sixteenth: "I have sent an Express to Captain Hogg, who is covering the
People cutting Your New Road, as I can't think his advancing that Way
safe, to retire immediately."[39] Burd reported to Morris from
Shippensburg July 25, that his party had retreated to Fort Cumberland
from the top of Allegheny Mountain July 17; "St Clair told Me," he
added, tentatively, "that I had done my Duty." He had left before
Dunbar's messenger had arrived.[40]
Such is the first chapter of the story of the white man's occupation of
the Old Trading Path and the Old Glade Road--the name commonly applied
to the portion which Burd opened from the main path from where it
diverged four miles west of Bedford to the summit of Allegheny Mountain.
This branch was also known as the "Turkey Foot Road."[41] The Old
Trading Path was now a white man's road from Carlisle to Bedford and
four miles beyond. But the tide of war now set over the mountains after
Braddock's defeat, putting an end to any improvement of the new rough
road that was opened. Yet not all the ground gained was to be lost.
Governor Shirley, now in command, wildly ordered Dunbar to move westward
again to retrieve Braddock's mistakes, but sanely added, that, in the
case of defeat "You are to make the most proper Disposition of his
Majesties' Forces to cover the Frontiers of the Provinces, particularly
at the Towns of Shippensburg and Carlisle, and at or near a place called
McDowell's Mill, where the New Road to the Allegheny Mountains begins
in Pennsylvania, from the Incursions of the Enemy until you shall
receive further orders."[42]
Was this a hint that Braddock had been sent by a wrong route and that
his successor would march to Fort Duquesne over the Old Trading Path?