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HISTORIC HIGHWAYS OF AMERICA

VOLUME 3




  [Illustration: MODERN ROAD ON LAUREL HILL

  [_Follows track of Washington's Road; near by, on the right,
  Washington found Jumonville's "embassy" hidden in the Ravine_]]




  HISTORIC HIGHWAYS OF AMERICA
  VOLUME 3

  Washington's Road (NEMACOLIN'S PATH)
  The First Chapter of the Old French War

  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                                             11
    I. WASHINGTON AND THE WEST                        15
   II. THE HUNTING-GROUND OF THE IROQUOIS             40
  III. THE ARMS OF THE KING OF FRANCE                 63
   IV. THE VIRGINIAN GOVERNOR'S ENVOY                 85
    V. THE VIRGINIA REGIMENT                         120
   VI. THE CHAIN OF FEDERAL UNION                    189




ILLUSTRATIONS


    I. MODERN ROAD ON LAUREL HILL, (Follows Track
        of Washington's Road)                         _Frontispiece_

   II. WASHINGTON'S ROAD                                          93

  III. A MAP OF THE COUNTRY BETWEEN WILLS CREEK AND
        LAKE ERIE (showing designs of the French
        for erecting forts southward of the lakes;
        from the original in the British Museum)                 109

   IV. LEDGE FROM WHICH WASHINGTON OPENED FIRE UPON
        JUMONVILLE'S PARTY                                       145

    V. SITE OF FORT NECESSITY                                    157

   VI. TWO PLANS OF FORT NECESSITY
        (_A_, Plan of Lewis's survey; _B_, Sparks's plan)        175

  VII. DIAGRAMS OF FORT NECESSITY                                179




PREFACE


The following pages are largely devoted to Washington and his times as
seen from the standpoint of the road he opened across the Alleghanies in
1754. Portions of this volume have appeared in the _Interior_, the _Ohio
State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly_, and in a monograph,
_Colonel Washington_, issued by Western Reserve University. The author's
debt to Mr. Robert McCracken, Mr. Louis Fazenbaker, and Mr. James
Hadden, all of Pennsylvania, is gratefully acknowledged.

                                                              A. B. H.

MARIETTA, OHIO, November 17, 1902.




Washington's Road

(NEMACOLIN'S PATH)


The First Chapter of the Old French War




CHAPTER I

WASHINGTON AND THE WEST


If you journey today from Cumberland, Maryland, on the Potomac, across
the Alleghanies to Pittsburg on the Ohio, you will follow the most
historic highway of America, through scenes as memorable as any on our
continent.

You may make this journey on any of the three thoroughfares: by the
Cumberland Road, with all its memorials of the gay coaching days "when
life was interwoven with white and purple," by Braddock's Road, which
was used until the Cumberland Road was opened in 1818, or by
Washington's Road, built over the famous Indian trail known during the
first half of the eighteenth century as Nemacolin's Path. In certain
parts all three courses are identical, the two latter being generally
so; and between these three "streams of human history" you may read the
record of the two old centuries now passed away.

Come and walk for a distance on the old Indian trail. We leave the
turnpike, where it swings around the mountain, and mount the ascending
ridge. The course is hard,