Historic Highways of America Volume IV Part 6

Just at that crisis we received the letter from Mr. Sparks, which precedes these remarks, thus settling most conclusively the verity of many of the traditions current in the country as to the erratic course of Braddock's army from Stewart's Crossings to the Monongahela river.

We are, deeply indeed, indebted to Mr. Atkinson, and also to his a.s.sistant, Mr. Middleton, for their very valuable contribution in ill.u.s.tration of the early history of this country.

The Pittsburgh and Connelsville Rail Road project cannot be regarded as an entirely fruitless effort; it has, at least, produced this most valuable historical essay.

All additional information in relation to those early scenes must possess interest to every intelligent American; and we rejoice in the opportunity of placing Mr. Atkinson's valuable communication and the accompanying map before the readers of the _Olden Time_:

"The interest with which the routes of celebrated expeditions are regarded, and the confusion which attends them after the lapse of years, is well exemplified in the case of Hannibal, whose march toward Rome, in order to divert their army from the siege of Capua, was totally lost in the course of a few centuries. The constant blunders of Livy in copying first from one writer, and then from another who made him take a different path, justify a recent English historian who went to Italy to see the ground for himself, in saying that the Punic War was almost as hard in the writing as the fighting.

"As the time is coming when the road by which the unfortunate Braddock marched to his disastrous field will be invested with antiquarian interest akin to that attending Hannibal's route, or rather the _via scelerata_, by which the Fabian family marched out of Rome, I have thought it time not idly spent to attempt to pursue its scattered traces as far as it is in my power, among more pressing occupations. In this sketch I do not design to pursue it to its extent, but only to identify it in those parts where it has been convenient for me to visit it and in others to shadow out its general direction. Where it is obscure I hope to have opportunities to examine it at a future day.

"Of the well conducted expedition of Colonel Bouquet and its precise path, the publications of Mr. Hutchins, the geographer, who was one of the engineers, leaves us very well informed. It is presumable that similar details would be found of the march of 1755 if it had had a successful termination. The three engineers who were in the field were wounded; and it is probable their papers fell into the hands of the enemy or were lost in the flight.

"General Braddock landed at Alexandria on the 20th of February, 1755.

The selection of this port for the debarcation of the troops, was censured at the time, though it is probable it had the approval of Was.h.i.+ngton. The two regiments he brought with him were very defective in numbers, having but about five hundred men each, and it was expected their ranks would be recruited in America. It is shown by the repeated requests on this point made by the General at c.u.mberland that this expectation was vain. After numerous delays, and a conference with the Royal Governors, we find General Braddock _en route_ on the 24th of April when he had reached Fredricktown in Maryland. Pa.s.sing thence through Winchester, Va., he reached Fort c.u.mberland about the 9th of May. Sir John Sinclair, Deputy Quarter Master General, had preceded him to this point about two weeks.[49]

"The army struck the Little Cacapehon (though p.r.o.nounced Cacapon, I have used for the occasion the spelling of Was.h.i.+ngton and various old doc.u.ments), about six miles above its mouth, and following the stream encamped on the Virginia side of the Potomac preparatory to crossing into Maryland. The water is supposed to have been high at the time, as the spot is known as the Ferry-fields, from the army having been ferried over. This was about the 4th or 5th of May.

"The army thence pursued the banks of the river, with a slight deviation of route at the mouth of the South Branch, to the village of Old Town, known at that time as the Shawnee Old Town, modern use having dropped the most characteristic part of the name. This place, distant about eight miles from the Ferry-fields, was known at that early day as the residence of Col. Thomas Cresap, an English settler, and the father of the hero of Logan's speech. The road proceeded thence parallel with the river and at the foot of the hills, till it pa.s.ses the narrows of Will's Mountain, when it struck out a shorter line coincident with the present county road, and lying between the railroad and the mountain, to Fort c.u.mberland.

"From the Little Cacapehon to this point the ground was comparatively easy, and the road had been generally judiciously chosen. Thenceforward the character of the ground was altered, not so much in the general aspect of the country as that the march was about to abandon the valleys, and now the real difficulties of the expedition may be said to commence.

"The fort had been commenced the previous year, after the surrender at the Great Meadows, by Col. Innes, who had with him the two independent companies of New York and South Carolina. It mounted ten four pounders, besides swivels, and was favorably situated to keep the hostile Indians in check.[50]

"The army now consisted of 1000 regulars, 30 sailors, and 1200 provincials, besides a train of artillery. The provincials were from New York and Virginia; one company from the former colony was commanded by Captain Gates, afterwards the hero of Saratoga. On the 8th of June, Braddock having, through the interest and exertions of Dr. Franklin, princ.i.p.ally, got 150 wagons and 2000 horses from Pennsylvania, was ready to march.

"_Scaroodaya_, successor to the Half-King of the Senecas, and _Monacatootha_, whose acquaintance Was.h.i.+ngton has made on the Ohio, on his mission to Le Boeuf, with about 150 Indians, Senecas, and Delawares, accompanied him....

"The first brigade under Sir Peter Halket, led the way on the 8th, and on the 9th the main body followed. Some idea of the difficulties they encountered, may be had when we perceive they spent the third night only five miles from the first. The place of encampment which is about one third of a mile from the toll-gate on the National Road, is marked by a copious spring bearing Braddock's name.

"For reasons not easy to divine, the route across Will's Mountain first adopted for the national road was selected instead of the more favorable one through the narrows of Will's Creek, to which the road has been changed within a few years for the purpose of avoiding that formidable ascent. The traces are very distinct on the east and west slopes, the modern road crossing it frequently. From the western foot, the route continued up Braddock's Run to the forks of the stream, where Clary's tavern now stands, nine miles from c.u.mberland, when it turned to the left, in order to reach a point on the ridge favorable to an easy descent into the valley of George's Creek. It is surprising that having reached this high ground, the favorable spur by which the National Road accomplishes the ascent of the Great Savage Mountain, did not strike the attention of the engineers, as the labor requisite to surmount the barrier from the deep valley of George's Creek, must have contributed greatly to those bitter complaints which Braddock made against the Colonial Governments for their failure to a.s.sist him more effectively in the transportation department.

"Pa.s.sing then a mile to the south of Frostburg, the road approaches the east foot of Savage Mountain, which it crosses about one mile south of the National Road, and thence by very favorable ground through the dense forests of white pine peculiar to this region, it got to the north of the National Road, near the gloomy tract called the _Shades of Death_.

This was the 15th of June, when the dense gloom of the summer woods and the favorable shelter which those enormous pines would give an Indian enemy, must have made a most sensible impression on all minds, of the insecurity of their mode of advance.

"This doubtless had a share in causing the council of war held at the Little Meadows[51] the next day. To this place, distant only about twenty miles from c.u.mberland, Sir John Sinclair and Major Chapman had been dispatched on the 27th of May, to build a fort; the army having been seven days in reaching it, it follows as the line of march was upwards of three miles long, the rear was just getting under way when the advance were lighting their evening fires.

"Here it may be well enough to clear up an obscurity which enters into many narratives of these early events, from confusing the names of the _Little Meadows_ and _Great Meadows_, _Little Crossings_ and _Great Crossings_, which are all distinct localities.

"The _Little Meadows_ have been described as at the foot of Meadow Mountain; it is well to note that the _Great Meadows_ are about thirty-one miles further west, and near the east foot of Laurel Hill.

"By the _Little Crossings_ is meant the Ford of Ca.s.selman's River, a tributary of the Youghiogheny; and by the _Great Crossings_, the pa.s.sage of the Youghiogheny itself. The Little Crossing is two miles west of the Little Meadows, and the Great Crossing seventeen miles further west.

"The conclusion of the council was to push on with a picked force of 1200 men and 12 pieces of cannon; and the line of march, now more compact was resumed on the 19th. Pa.s.sing over ground to the south of the Little Crossings, and of the village of Grantsville, which it skirted, the army spent the night of the 21st at the Bear Camp, a locality I have not been able to identify, but suppose it to be about midway to the Great Crossings, which it reached on the 23d. The route thence to the Great Meadows or Fort Necessity was well chosen, though over a mountainous tract, conforming very nearly to the ground now occupied by the National Road, and keeping on the dividing ridge between the waters flowing into the Youghiogheny on the one hand and the Cheat River on the other. Having crossed the Youghiogheny, we are now on the cla.s.sic ground of Was.h.i.+ngton's early career, where the skirmish with Jumonville, and Fort Necessity, indicate the country laid open for them in the previous year. About one mile west of the Great Meadows and near the spot now marked as Braddock's Grave, the road struck off more to the north-west, in order to reach a pa.s.s through Laurel Hill that would enable them to strike the Youghiogheny, at a point afterwards known as Stewart's Crossing and about half a mile below the present town of Connellsville.

This part of the route is marked by the farm known as Mount Braddock.

This second crossing of the Youghiogheny was effected on the 30th of June. The high grounds intervening between the river and its next tributary, Jacob's Creek, though trivial in comparison with what they had already pa.s.sed, it may be supposed, presented serious obstacles to the troops, worn out with previous exertions. On the 3d of July a council of war was held at Jacob's Creek, to consider the propriety of bringing forward Col. Dunbar with the reserve, and although urged by Sir John Sinclair with, as one may suppose, his characteristic vehemence, the measure was rejected on sufficient grounds. From the crossing of Jacob's Creek, which was at the point where Welchhanse's Mill now stands, about 1-1/2 miles below Mount Pleasant, the route stretched off to the north, crossing the Mount Pleasant turnpike near the village of the same name, and thence by a more westerly course, pa.s.sing the Great Sewickley near Painter's Salt Works, thence south and west of the Post Office of Madison and Jacksonville, it reached the Brush Fork of Turtle Creek. It must strike those who examine the map that the route, for some distance, in the rear and ahead of Mount Pleasant, is out of the proper direction for Fort Duquesne, and accordingly we find on the 7th of July, Gen. Braddock in doubt as to his proper way of proceeding. The crossing of Brush Creek, which he had now reached, appeared to be attended with so much hazard that parties were sent to reconnoitre, some of whom advanced so far as to kill a French officer within half a mile of Fort Duquesne.

"Their examinations induced a great divergence to the left, and availing himself of the valley of Long Run, which he turned into, as is supposed, at Stewartsville, pa.s.sing by the place now known as Samson's Mill, the army made one of the best marches of the campaign and halted for the night at a favorable depression between that stream and Crooked Run and about two miles from the Monongahela. At this spot, about four miles from the battle ground, which is yet well known as Braddock's Spring, he was rejoined by Was.h.i.+ngton on the morning of the 9th of July.

"The approach to the river was now down the valley of Crooked Run to its mouth, where the point of fording is still manifest, from a deep notch in the west bank, though rendered somewhat obscure by the improved navigation of the river. The advance, under Col. Gage, crossed about 8 o'clock, and continued by the foot of the hill bordering the broad river bottom to the second fording, which he had effected nearly as soon as the rear had got through the first.

"The second and last fording at the mouth of Turtle Creek was in full view of the enemy's position, and about one mile distant. By 1 o'clock the whole army had gained the right bank, and was drawn up on the bottom land, near Frazier's house (spoken of by Was.h.i.+ngton as his stopping place on his mission to Le Boeuf), and about 3/4 of a mile distant from the ambuscade."

CHAPTER VIII

BRADDOCK'S ROAD IN HISTORY

The narrow swath of a road cut through the darkling Alleghenies by General Braddock has been worth all it cost in time and treasure.

Throughout the latter half of the eighteenth century it was one of the main thoroughfares into the Ohio valley, and when, at the dawning of the nineteenth, the United States built our first and greatest public highway, the general alignment of Braddock's Road between c.u.mberland and the last range of the Alleghenies--Laurel Hill--was the course pursued.

In certain localities this famed national boulevard, the c.u.mberland Road, was built upon the very bed of Braddock's road, as Braddock's road had been built partly upon the early Was.h.i.+ngton's Road which followed the path of Indian, buffalo, and mound-building aborigines. Nowhere in America can the evolution of road-building be studied to such advantage as between c.u.mberland, Maryland and Uniontown, Pennsylvania.

For some years after Braddock's defeat his route to and fro between the Monongahela and Potomac was used only by scouting parties of whites and marauding Indians, and many were the swift encounters that took place upon its overgrown narrow track. In 1758 General Forbes built a new road westward from Carlisle, Pennsylvania rather than follow Braddock's ill-starred track, for reasons described in another volume of the present series.[52] Forbes frightened the French forever from the "Forks of the Ohio" and erected Fort Pitt on the ruins of the old Fort Duquesne. In 1763 Colonel Bouquet led a second army across the Alleghenies, on Forbes's Road, relieved Fort Pitt and put an end to Pontiac's Rebellion. By the time of Forbes's expedition Braddock's Road was somewhat filled with undergrowth, and was not cut at all through the last and most important eight miles of the course to Fort Duquesne.

Forbes had some plans of using this route, "if only as a blind," but finally his whole force proceeded over a new road. However, certain portions of Braddock's Road had been cleared early in the campaign when Forbes thought it would be as well to have "two Strings to one Bow." It was not in bad condition.[53]

This new northern route, through Lancaster, Carlisle, Bedford (Reastown), and Ligonier, Pennsylvania, became as important, if not more so, than Braddock's course from c.u.mberland to Braddock, Pennsylvania. As the years pa.s.sed Braddock's Road seems to have regained something of its early prestige, and throughout the Revolutionary period it was perhaps of equal consequence with any route toward the Ohio, especially because of Virginia's interest in and jealousy of the territory about Pittsburg.

When, shortly after the close of the Revolution, the great flood of immigration swept westward, the current was divided into three streams near the Potomac; one went southward over the Virginian route through c.u.mberland Gap to Kentucky; the other two burst over Forbes's and Braddock's Roads. Some pictures of the latter are vividly presented in early records of pilgrims who chose its rough path to gain the El Dorado beyond the Appalachian mountain barriers.

William Brown, an emigrant to Kentucky from Hanover, Virginia, over Braddock's Road in 1790 has left a valuable itinerary of his journey, together with interesting notes, ent.i.tled _Observances and Occurrences_.

The itinerary is as follows:

MILES To Hanover Court House, 16 To Edmund Taylor's, 16 To Parson Todd's, Louisa, 20 To Widow Nelson's, 20 To Brock's Bridge, Orange Co., 9 To Garnet's Mill, 5 To Bost. Ord'y, near Hind's House, 7 To Racc.o.o.n Ford, on Rapidan or Porters, 6 To Culpepper Co.-House, 10 To Pendleton's Ford, on Rappahannock, 10 To Dougla.s.s's Tavern, or Wickliffe's House, 13 To Chester's Gap, Blue Ridge, 8 To Lehu Town, 3 To Ford of Shenandore River, Frederick, 2 To Stevensburg, 10 To Brown's Mill, 2 To Winchester, 6 To Gasper Rinker's, 11 To Widow Lewis's, Hamps.h.i.+re, 11 To Crock's Tav., 9 To Reynold's, on the So. Branch Potowmack, 13 To Frankford Town, 8 To Haldeman's Mills, 4 To North Branch, Potomack, 3 To Gwyn's Tav., at the Fork of Braddock's old road, Alleghany Co., Maryland, 3 To Clark's Store, 6 To Little Shades of Death, 12 To Tumblestone Tav., or the Little Meadows, 3 To Big Shades of Death, 2 To Mountain Tav., or White Oak Springs, 2 To Simpson's Tav., Fayette Co., Pennsylvania, 6 To Big Crossing of Yoh, 9 To Carrol's Tavern, 12 To Laurel Hill, 6 To Beason Town, 6 To Redstone, Old Fort, 12 To Was.h.i.+ngton Town, Was.h.i.+ngton Co., Penn., 23 To Wheeling, Old Fort, Ohio Co., Vir., 35 --- 359[54]

Mr. Brown's notes of the journey over the mountains are:

"Set out from Hanover Friday 6th August 1790 arrived at Redstone Old Fort about the 25th Inst. The road is pretty good until you get to the Widow Nelson's, then it begins to be hilly and continues generally so till you get to the Blue Ridge--pretty well watered. Rac.o.o.n ford on Rapidan is rather bad. The little mountains are frequently in view After you pa.s.s Widow Nelson's. Pendleton's ford on Rappahanock is pretty good.

In going over Chester gap you ride about 5 miles among the mountains before you get clear, a good many fine springs in the Mo. between the Blue Ridge and the Alleghany Mo. appears to be a fine country, altho the land is pretty much broken. At Shenandore ford there is two branches of the river to cross and it is bad fording. But there is a ferry a little below the ford. There is a very cool stream of water about 14 miles below Winchester. This is a well watered country but springs are rather scarce on the road, at Winchester there are several fine springs. The South branch of Potowmack has a good ford, also the North branch. Soon after you pa.s.s Gwyns Tavern in Maryland you enter upon the Alleghany Mo.

and then you have a great deal of bad road, many ridges of Mo.--the Winding Ridge--Savage, Negro, etc. and Laurel Hill which is the last, but before you get to the Mount, there is some stony bad road between the Widow Lewis' and the Mo. after you pa.s.s Clark's store in the Mo. you get into a valley of very pretty oak land. In many places while you are in the Mo. there is very good road between the ridges. Just before you get to the Little Shades of Death there is a tract of the tallest pines I ever saw. The Shades of Death are dreary looking valleys, growing up with tall cypress and other trees and has a dark gloomy appearance.

Tumblestones, or the Little Meadows is a fine plantation with beautiful meadow ground. Crossing of Yoh, is a pretty good ford. There is some very bad road about here. It is said Gen Braddock was buried about 8 miles forward from this, near a little brook that crosses the road.

Laurel hill is the highest ridge of the Mo. When you get to the top of it to look forward toward Redstone there is a beautiful prospect of the country below the Mo. You see at one view a number of plantations and Beason Town which is six miles off."[55]

With the growth of c.u.mberland and the improvement of navigation of the upper Potomac, and especially the building of the ca.n.a.l beside it, the importance of the Braddock route across the mountains was realized by the state of Maryland and the legislature pa.s.sed laws with reference to straightening and improving it as early as 1795; acts of a similar nature were also pa.s.sed in 1798 and 1802.[56]

A pilgrim who pa.s.sed westward with his family over Braddock's Road in 1796 leaves us some interesting details concerning the journey in a letter written from Western Virginia after his arrival in the "Monongahela Country" in the fall of that year. Arriving at Alexandria by boat from Connecticut the party found that it was less expensive and safer to begin land carriage there than to ascend the Potomac further.

They then pursued one of the routes of Braddock's army to c.u.mberland and the Braddock Road from that point to Laurel Hill. The price paid for hauling their goods from Alexandria to Morgantown (now West Virginia) was thirty-two s.h.i.+llings and six-pence per hundred-weight "of women and goods (freight)"--the men "all walked the whole of the way." Crossing "the blue Mountain the Monongehaly & the Lorral Mountains we found the roads to be verry bad."

It is difficult to say when Braddock's Road, as a route, ceased to be used since portions of it have never been deserted. There are interesting references to it in the records of Allegheny County, Maryland, which bear the dates 1807[57] and 1813[58]. A little later it is plain that "Jesse Tomlinson's" is described "on _National Road_"

rather than on "_Braddock's Road_," as in 1807.[59] From this it would seem that by 1817 the term "Braddock's Road" was ignored, at least at points where the c.u.mberland Road had been built upon the old-time track.

Elsewhere Braddock's route kept its ancient name and, perhaps, will never exchange it for another.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BRADDOCK'S ROAD IN THE WOODS NEAR FARMINGTON, PENNSYLVANIA]

The rough track of this first highway westward may be followed today almost at any point in all its course between the Potomac and the Monongahela, and the great caverns and gullies which mark so plainly its tortuous course speak as no words can of the sufferings and dangers of those who travelled it during the dark half century when it offered one of the few pa.s.sage-ways to the West. It was a clear, sweet October day when I first came into Great Meadows to make there my home until those historic hills and plains became thoroughly familiar to me. From the c.u.mberland Road, as one looks southward from Mount Was.h.i.+ngton across Great Meadows and the site of Fort Necessity, the hillside beyond is well-timbered on the right and on the left; but between the forests lies a large tract of cultivated ground across which runs, in a straight line, the dark outline of a heavy unhealed wound. A hundred and fifty years of rain and snow and frost have been unable to remove, even from a sloping surface, this heavy finger mark. Many years of cultivation have not destroyed it, and for many years yet the plow will jolt and swing heavily when it crosses the track of Braddock's Road. I was astonished to find that at many points in Fayette and neighboring counties the old course of the road can be distinctly traced in fields which have for half a century and more been under constant cultivation. If, at certain points, cultivation and the elements have pounded the old track level with the surrounding ground, a few steps in either direction will bring the explorer instantly to plain evidence of its course--except where the road-bed is, today, a travelled lane or road. On the open hillsides the track takes often the appearance of a terrace, where, in the old days the road tore a great hole along the slope, and formed a catchwater which rendered it a veritable bog in many places. Now and then on level ground the course is marked by a slight rounding hollow which remains damp when the surrounding ground is wet, or is baked very hard when the usual supply of water is exhausted. In some places this strange groove may be seen extending as far as eye can reach, as though it were the pathway of a gigantic serpent across the wold. At times the track, pa.s.sing the level, meets a slight ridge which, if it runs parallel to its course, it mounts; if the rising ground is encountered at right angles, the road ploughs a gulley straight through, in which the water runs after each rain, preserving the depression once made by the road.

And as I journeyed to and fro in that valley visiting the cla.s.sic spots which appear in such tender grace in the glad suns.h.i.+ne of a mountain autumn, I never pa.s.sed a spot of open where this old roadway was to be seen without a thrill; as James Lane Allen has so beautifully said of Boone's old road through c.u.mberland Gap to Kentucky, so may the explorer feelingly exclaim concerning Braddock's old track: "It is impossible to come upon this road without pausing, or to write of it without a tribute."