THE PENNSYLVANIA ROAD
Such had become the importance of the Pennsylvania Road that, soon after
the Revolutionary struggle, Pennsylvania took active steps to improve
it. On the twenty-first day of September an act of the Assembly of
Pennsylvania gave birth to the great thoroughfare at first called "The
Western Road to Pittsburg," and familiarly known since as the Pittsburg
or the Chambersburg-Pittsburg Pike.[82] This state road was, as
heretofore recorded, one hundred and ninety-seven miles in length from
Carlisle to Pittsburg. The road built in 1785-87 follows practically the
course of the present highway between the same points. Here and there
the traveler may see the olden track a few rods distant on his right or
left; at points it lies several miles to the south. The present
Pittsburg Pike passes through Greensburg, while old Hannastown on
Forbes's Road lies three miles to the northwest. The old route was a
little less careful as to hills than the new, and made a straighter line
across the country; the telephone companies have taken advantage of this
and send their wires along the easily discerned track of the old road at
many points. There is no point perhaps where the old road of 1785 is so
plainly to be remarked as on the side of the upper end of Long Hollow
Run, Napier township, Bedford County, a few miles west of historic
little Bedford.[83]
The Pennsylvania Road and its important branch, the "Turkey Foot" Road
to the Youghiogheny, became one of the important highways to the Ohio
basin in the pioneer era. With the digging of the Pennsylvania canal up
the valley of the Juniata, the Pennsylvania Road became less important
until it became what it is today, a merely local thoroughfare. For the
last two decades in the eighteenth century, the Pennsylvania Road held a
preeminent position--days when a good road westward meant everything to
the West. But the road could never be again what it was in the savage
days of '58, '63 and '75-'82, when it was the one fortified route to the
Ohio. The need for Forbes's Road passed when Forts Loudoun, Bedford,
Ligonier, and Pitt were demolished. While they were standing, the open
pathway between them meant everything to their defenders and to the
farmers and woodsmen about them. But it meant almost as much to the
fortresses far beyond in the wilderness of the Ohio Valley--Forts
McIntosh, Patrick Henry, Harmar, Finney, and Washington. The vast
proportion of stores and ammunition for the defenders of the Black
Forest of the West passed over Forbes's Road, and its story is linked
more closely than we can now realize with the occupation and the winning
of the West.
Mr. McMaster has an interesting paragraph on Forbes's Road in pioneer
days:
"From Philadelphia ran out a road to what was then the far West. Its
course after leaving the city lay through the counties of Chester and
Lancaster, then sparsely settled, now thick with towns and cities and
penetrated with innumerable railways, and went over the Blue Ridge
mountains to Shippensburg and the little town of Bedford. Thence it
wound through the beautiful hills of western Pennsylvania, and crossed
the Alleghany mountains to the head-waters of the Ohio. It was known to
travelers as the northern route, and was declared to be execrable. In
reality it was merely a passable road, broad and level in the lowlands,
narrow and dangerous in the passes of the mountains, and beset with
steep declivities. Yet it was the chief highway between the Mississippi
valley and the East, and was constantly travelled in the summer months
by thousands of emigrants to the western country, and by long trains of
wagons bringing the produce of the little farms on the banks of the Ohio
to the markets of Philadelphia and Baltimore. In any other section of
the country a road so frequented would have been considered as
eminently pleasant and safe. But some years later the traveler who was
forced to make the journey from Philadelphia to Pittsburg in his
carriage and four, beheld with dread the cloud of dust which marked the
slow approach of a train of wagons. For nothing excited the anger of the
sturdy teamsters more than the sight of a carriage. To them it was the
unmistakable mark of aristocracy, and they were indeed in a particularly
good humor when they suffered the despised vehicle to draw up by the
road-side without breaking the shaft, or taking off the wheels, or
tumbling it over into the ditch. His troubles over, the traveler found
himself at a small hamlet, then known as Pittsburg."[84]
Forbes's Road, strictly speaking, began at Bedford, as Braddock's Road
began at Cumberland. In these pages the main route from
Philadelphia--the Pennsylvania Road--has been considered under the head
of Forbes's Road. The eastern extremity of this thoroughfare, or the
portion, sixty-six miles in length, between Philadelphia and Lancaster,
became the first macadamized road in the United States and demands
particular attention in another volume of this series[85].
Nothing could have been more surprising to the writer than to find how
remarkably this road held its own in competition with the Braddock or
the Cumberland Road south of it. Explain it as you will, nine-tenths of
the published accounts left by travelers of the old journey from
Philadelphia, Baltimore, or Washington into the Ohio Valley describe
this Pennsylvania route. The Cumberland Road was built from Cumberland,
Maryland to Wheeling, West Virginia, on the Ohio (1806-1818) at a cost
of nearly two million dollars, yet during the entire first half of that
century you will find that almost every important writer who passed over
the mountains went over the Pennsylvania Road. It is exceedingly
difficult to find a graphic picture of a journey over Braddock's Road
before 1800; contemporaneous descriptions of a journey over the
Cumberland or National Road are not numerous. On the other hand a
volume could be filled with descriptions of the old Pennsylvania Road
through Bedford and Ligonier. I believe the fame of the Cumberland Road
was due rather to the fact of its being a national enterprise--and the
first of its kind on the continent--than to any superiority it achieved
over competing routes. The idea of the road was grand and it played a
mighty part in the advancement of the West; but, such was the nature of
its course, that it does not seem to have been the "popular route" from
Washington to Pittsburg, the principal port on the Ohio River.
The Pennsylvania Road was the most important link between New England
and the Ohio Valley in the days when New England was sending the bravest
of its sons to become the pioneers of the rising empire in the West.
True, Venable has written:
"The footsteps of a hundred years
Have echoed, since o'er Braddock's Road,
Bold Putnam and the Pioneers
Led History the way they strode.
"On wild Monongahela's stream
They launched the Mayflower of the West,
A perfect state their civic dream,
A new New World their pilgrim quest."
It is due to the Pennsylvania Road, however, to correct the history of
these lofty strains. Putnam and his pioneers did not travel one step on
Braddock's Road, nor did they launch their boats on wild Monongahela's
stream. They came over the worn track of Forbes's Road through Carlisle
and Bedford, proceeding southwest through the "Glades" to the
Youghiogheny River at West Newton, Pennsylvania.[86]
Braddock's Road would have been exceedingly roundabout for New England
travelers, as Forbes long before clearly established. Pennsylvania's new
road, begun in 1785, was not a tempting route of travel for these New
Englanders in this year, 1788. "The roads, at that day," wrote Dr.
Hildreth, "across the mountains were the worst we can imagine--cut into
deep gullies on one side by mountain rains, while the other was filled
with blocks of sand stone.... As few of the emigrant wagons were
provided with lock-chains for the wheels, the downward impetus was
checked by a large log, or broken tree top, tied with a rope to the back
of the wagon and dragged along on the ground. In other places, the road
was so sideling that all the men who could be spared were required to
pull at the side stays, or short ropes attached to the upper side of the
wagons, to prevent their upsetting.... All this part of the country, and
as far east as Carlisle, had been, about twenty-five years before,
depopulated by the depredations of the Indians. Many of the present
inhabitants well remembered those days of trial, and could not see these
helpless women and children moving so far away into the wilderness as
Ohio, without expressing their fears.... Three days after ... they
reached the little village of Bedford. During this period they had
crossed "Sideling Hill," forded some of the main branches of the
Juniata, and threaded the narrow valleys along its borders. Every few
miles long strings of pack-horses met them on the road, bearing heavy
burthens of peltry and ginseng, the two main articles of export from the
regions west of the mountains. Others overtook them loaded with kegs of
spirits, salt, and bales of dry goods, on their way to the traders in
Pittsburg.... Four miles beyond Bedford, the road to the right was
called the "Pittsburg Road," while that to the left was called the
"Glade Road," and led to Simrel's ferry, on the Yohiogany river. This
was the route of the emigrants...."
This imperfect glimpse of these "founders of Ohio" toiling over the
Pennsylvania Road in 1788 on their way to Marietta--the vanguard of that
Ohio Company which made possible the "sublime" Ordinance of 1787--is
striking proof that this pathway was the link between the old and the
new New England.
The Pennsylvania Road was also a common route from Baltimore and
Washington; it was Arthur Lee's route to Pittsburg in 1784,[87] and Col.
John May's route from Baltimore to Pittsburg in 1788.[88] Francis Baily,
F.R.S., President of the Royal Astronomical Society of England, was
one of the well-known Englishmen who left a record of experiences on
this pioneer highway. In 1796 this gentleman started upon a tour from
Washington to Pittsburg. He mentions no other route than the one he
traversed, and it is altogether probable that he pursued the most
popular. On October 7 he left Washington, and, passing through
Fredericktown, Hagerstown, and Chambersburg, met the Pennsylvania Road
at McConnellstown, and traveled westward on it to Pittsburg.[89] That
Mr. Baily pursued the main route westward there can be no doubt. An
entry in his _Journal_ for October 11 reads: "Chambersburg is ... a
large and flourishing place, not inferior to Frederick's-town or
Hagar's-town; being, like them, on the high road to the western country,
it enjoys all the advantages which arise from such a continual body of
people as are perpetually emigrating thither."
The celebrated Morris Birkbeck, founder of the English settlement in
Illinois, journeyed from Washington, D.C., to Pittsburg, in 1817, by way
of Frederickstown and Hagerstown and the Pennsylvania Road. At
"McConnell's Town," under the date of May 23, he wrote in his journal:
"The road we have been travelling [from Washington, D. C.] terminates at
this place, where it strikes the great turnpike from Philadelphia to
Pittsburg."[90] Of the scenes about him Mr. Birkbeck writes:[91] "Old
America seems to be breaking up, and moving westward. We are seldom out
of sight, as we travel on this grand track, towards the Ohio, of family
groups.... To give an idea of the internal movements of this vast hive,
about 12,000 wagons passed between Baltimore and Philadelphia, in the
last year, with from four to six, carrying from thirty-five to forty
cwt. The cost of carriage is about seven dollars per cwt., from
Philadelphia to Pittsburg, and the money paid for the conveyance of
goods on this road, exceeds L300,000 sterling. Add to these the numerous
stages loaded to the utmost, and the innumerable travellers, on
horseback, on foot, and in light waggons, and you have before you a
scene of bustle and business, extending over a space of three hundred
miles, which is truly wonderful." Birkbeck does not mention the
Cumberland Road, though it is drawn on the map accompanying his book.
His advice to prospective immigrants is, in every instance, to come
westward by the Pennsylvania Road.[92]
W. Faux, the English farmer who came to America to examine Birkbeck's
scheme went westward by Braddock's (Cumberland) Road.[93] He returned to
the East, however, by the Pennsylvania Road. In examining the works of a
score of English travelers this was the only one I happened to find who
had gone westward over the Cumberland Road. Later travelers, as Charles
Augustus Murray, Martineau, and Dickens passed westward over the
Pennsylvania Canal and incline railway.
No sooner did this northern canal route and railway rob the Pennsylvania
and Cumberland roads of much business, than the Baltimore and Ohio
Railway, in turn, took it away from the canal. The building of the
railway was one of the epoch-making events in our national history; "I
consider this among the most important acts of my life," affirmed the
venerable Charles Carroll, the Maryland commissioner for the railway,
"second only to my signing the Declaration of Independence, if even it
be second to that."[94]
For a number of years the Baltimore and Ohio Railway--the heir and
assign of Braddock's Road and the famed Cumberland Road--was the great
avenue of western movement and progress. But brain and muscle, even
genius, cannot make two miles one mile. The shortest route across the
continent was, inevitably, to become the important highway. It must be
remembered that in the early days Philadelphia was the metropolis of
America, and Baltimore its chief rival. As long as these cities held the
balance of power and trade, a southerly route to Pittsburg, such as that
of Braddock's Road, then the Cumberland Road and, finally, the Baltimore
and Ohio Railway would be successful. But with the vast strides made by
New York, the center of power stole northward until no route to the Ohio
could compete with the most direct westward line from New York and
Philadelphia.
The question then became the same old-time problem which Forbes met and
decided. The straightest possible line of communication between
Philadelphia and Pittsburg was equally necessary in 1860 and in 1760.
The only difference was that made necessary by the doing away with the
heavy grades of pioneer roads and following the water courses.
The result was the Pennsylvania Railroad--and its motto is full of
significance, "Look at the Map." There is to be found the secret of its
splendid success. The distance from Philadelphia to Pittsburg on the
Baltimore and Ohio Railway (Connellsville route) is four hundred and
thirty-eight miles. The distance between Philadelphia and Pittsburg on
the Pennsylvania Railroad is three hundred and fifty-four miles--a
saving of eighty-four miles. These railways do not follow the old
highway routes closely but they mark their general alignment and are
frequently close beside them.
"Look at the map" was practically Forbes's challenge to those who
disputed his judgment a century and a half ago when he determined to
build a straight road from the heart of the colonies to the strategic
key of the Ohio Valley. His wisdom has been triumphantly confirmed in
the present generation.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Affirmation of Shawanese to the Indian trader, John Walker; see Sir
John St. Clair's letter, p. 86 ff.
[2] _Historic Highways of America_, vol. vi, ch. I.
[3] Darlington's _Christopher Gist's Journals_, p. 32.
[4] _Id._, pp. 32, 33.
[5] _Pennsylvania Colonial Records_, vol. v, p. 750.
[6] Darlington's _Christopher Gist's Journals_, p. 33.
[7] _Id._, (notes), p. 91. Cf. Errett in _Magazine of Western History_,
May 1885, p. 53.
[8] _Id._, (notes), pp. 91-92.
[9] Later the site of Fort Shirley, Shirleysburg, Huntington County. See
_Frontier Forts of Pennsylvania_, vol. ii, p. 457.
[10] Menchtown, at the foot of Ray's Hill.
[11] Mt. Dallas.
[12] Bedford.
[13] Mile Hill, one mile east of Schellsburg, Bedford County.
[14] Buckstown, Somerset County.
[15] Quemahoning--"Stoney Creek."
[16] Ligonier, Westmoreland County.
[17] Delaware Indian village of some twenty huts situated in that part
of Pittsburg contained between Penn Avenue, Thirtieth Street and Two
Mile Run in the Twelfth Ward, along the shore of the Allegheny.
[18] Cf. _Forbes-Bouquet_, pp. 102-108.
[19] Proved by comparison with Dana's _Description of the Bounty Lands
in the State of Illinois; also the principal Roads and Routes_, pp. 55,
96.
[20] For course of Indian path by compass see _Colonial Records_, vol.
v, p. 750, 751; for route of state road by compass see _Id._, vol. xvi,
pp. 466-477.
[21] _Pennsylvania Archives_, vol. ii, p. 132.
[22] The branch which left the main trail here led northwest to the
Kiskiminitas River and down that river to Kiskiminitas Old Town at Old
Town Run, seven miles distant from the Allegheny River. In the survey of
the main trail previously referred to (note 20) we read: "N. 64, W. 12
Miles to Loyal Hanin Old Town; N. 20. W. 10 Miles to the Forks of the
Road." The discrepancy is so great as to lead one to think there were
two routes from "Loyal Haning" to "the parting of the Road."
[23] _Pennsylvania Archives_, vol. ii, p, 135.
[24] Pennsylvania _Colonial Records_, vol. vi, p. 300.
[25] _Id._, p. 302.
[26] _Id._, p. 318.
[27] _Id._, p. 377.
[28] _Id._, p. 403.
[29] _Id._, p. 404.
[30] Sioussat's "Highway Legislation in Maryland," _Maryland Geological
Survey_ (special publication), vol. iii, part iii, p. 136.
[31] Pennsylvania _Colonial Records_, pp. 434, 435.
[32] _Id._, p. 435.
[33] _Id._, p. 431.
[34] _Id._, p. 446.
[35] _Id._, p. 452.
[36] _Id._, pp. 431, 460.
[37] _Id._, p. 485.
[38] _Id._, p. 493.
[39] _Id._, p. 499.
[40] For road-cutters' claim of L5000, see Pennsylvania _Colonial
Records_, vol. vi, pp. 523, 620-621.
[41] _Land Records of Allegheny County, Maryland_, Liber D, fol. 225.
[42] _Id._, p. 561.
[43] See Davies's Sermon, _Virginia's Danger and Remedy_, (Glasgow,
1756) 2d ed., p. 6; Cort's _Colonel Henry Bouquet_, p. 74; London
_Public Advertiser_, October 3, 1755; _Bouquet au Forbes_, July 31,
1758, p. 113; "I know of only one remedy for the frightful indolence of
the officers of these provinces, which would be to drum one out in the
presence of the whole army"--_Bouquet au Forbes_, July 1758; _Bouquet
Papers_, 21, 640, fol. 95. Bury: _Exodus of the Western Nations_, vol.
ii, pp. 250-251.
[44] Pennsylvania _Colonial Records_, vol. vi, p. 503.
[45] _Morris to Braddock_, July 3, 1755.
[46] _Frontier Forts of Pennsylvania_, vol. i, pp. 4, 5.
[47] Cabins fortified by their owners and neighbors.
[48] _Frontier Forts of Pennsylvania_, vol. i, p. 558.
[49] Braddock's Road cannot be considered as a wagon road at this time;
long before hostilities had ceased it had become impassable for wagons.
[50] _Frontier Forts of Pennsylvania_, vol. i, p. 536.
[51] _Historic Highways of America_, vol. ii, p. 85.
[52] _Pennsylvania Archives_, vol. iii, p. 119.
[53] Parkman: _Montcalm and Wolfe_, vol. ii, p. 41.
[54] _Montcalm and Wolfe_, vol. ii, p. 132.
[55] See note 60.
[56] This, as with all succeeding quotations from the correspondence of
Bouquet, Forbes, and St. Clair, was copied by the writer from the
originals in the _Bouquet Papers_ in the British Museum.
[57] The main route westward was, the year before, in poor condition
between Philadelphia and Bedford. _Loudon to Denny_, Pennsylvania
Archives, iii, pp. 278-279.
[58] _Forbes to Pitt_, October 20, 1758.
[59] By Hildreth and others.
[60] _Forbes to Governor Denny_ (of Pennsylvania), March 20, 1758:
Pennsylvania Records, N, p. 206.
[61] Note 43, first reference.
[62] Cf. _Historic Highways of America_, vol. iv, p. 192.
[63] Fort Frederick-Fort Cumberland route.
[64] Braddock's Road.
[65] Sparks: _Writings of Washington_, vol. ii, p. 295.
[66] _Id._, p. 298.
[67] Bouquet never exaggerates the difficulties that would attend Forbes
if he chose to march by Fort Cumberland.
[68] Sparks: _Writings of Washington_, (1834) vol. ii, p. 300, note.
[69] Quotations from Washington's correspondence can be identified by
dates in Sparks's _Writings of Washington_.
[70] _Forbes to Bouquet_, August 28, 1756.
[71] Sparks: _Writings of Washington_ (1834), vol. ii, p. 308, note.
[72] Washington's jealousy of Virginia's welfare appeared in 1755 when
the question of Braddock's route from Alexandria to Fort Cumberland
arose. It would seem to us today that conditions in Virginia must have
been pitiable if the marching of an army through the colony could have
been considered in any way a boon. Yet such was Washington's attitude in
1755 toward the Governor of Maryland's new road. In a letter to Lord
Fairfax dated May 5, 1755, Washington objected to Dunbar's regiment
marching to Cumberland by way of Frederick, Maryland; in a letter to
Major Carlisle written from Fort Cumberland May 14, 1755, he ridicules
the route: "Dunbar had to recross [the Potomac] at Connogagee
[Williamsport, Maryland] and come down [into Virginia]--laughable
enough."
[73] As to the correctness of Forbes's statement see _Bougainville au
Cremille_, Pennsylvania Archives (2d series), vol. vi, p. 425; also
_Daine au Marechal de Belleisle_, _id._, pp. 420, 423.
[74] _Armstrong to Richard Peters._ Pennsylvania Archives, vol. iii, p.
552.
[75] Parkman: _Montcalm and Wolfe_, vol. ii, p. 162.
[76] Entick: _History of the Late War_ (1763), vol. iii, p. 263, note.
[77] _Lincoln to Irvine_, July 25, 1782.
[78] _Id._, June 23. 1783.
[79] Egle's _History of Pennsylvania_, pp. 1153, 1154.
[80] _Pennsylvania Archives_, vol. viii, p. 120.
[81] _Brig. Gen. Hazen to Irvine_, September 21, 1782.
[82] _Colonial Records_, vol. xv, pp. 13, 121, 273, 274, 322, 326-327,
330, 331-337, 346, 359, 431, 519, 594, 599, 635; vol. xvi, pp. 466-477.
[83] Several items of interest to students of Forbes's Road will be
found in _History of the County of Westmorland, Pennsylvania_, pp.
28-31.
[84] McMaster's _History of the People of the United States_, vol. i,
pp. 67, 68.
[85] _Historic Highways of America_, vol. xi.
[86] Darlington's note in Edes's _Journal and Letters of Col. John May,
of Boston_, p. 31; Dr. S. P. Hildreth: _Early Immigration_, p. 124.
[87] _The Olden Time_, vol. ii., p. 335.
[88] _Journal and Letters of Col. John May_, p. 30.
[89] _Journal of a Tour in Unsettled Parts of North America_, London
1856, pp. 129-143.
[90] _Notes on a Journey in America_, 3d edition, 1818, p. 30.
[91] _Id._, pp. 31, 36.
[92] _Letters from Illinois_ (London 1818), pp. 52, 77; _Additional
Extracts_, p. 111.
[93] _Memorable Days in America_ (London 1823), p. 164.
[94] _History and Description of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad_, 1853,
p. 20.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes:
1. Passages in italics are surrounded by _underscores_.
2. Obvious errors in spelling and punctuation have been corrected.
3. Footnotes have been moved to the end of the main text body.
4. Images have been moved from the middle of a paragraph to the closest
paragraph break.
5. Certain words use an oe ligature in the original.
6. Carat character (^) followed by a single letter or a set of letters
in curly brackets is indicative of subscript in the original book.