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Show 1. I HISTORIC ROADS M AMERICA-' 1 By FREDERIC J. TMSIHV I The spirit of commerce and adventure adven-ture was strong in tho early American j settlers, and the English colonios were ! not half a century old before roads ' were opened between tho settlements. Already Indians had made trails across mountain aud forest. Some of these were for hunting, some for port-, port-, age paths, and some wore war-paths ! over which silent-shod warriors filed in to the omntry of tho enemy. These Indian trails followed still older ones made by buffaloes, and because of Borne instinct of direction with which the Creator had endowed - these red men and their game, the paths were always al-ways the most direct natural routes. ; usually s they followed the higher ; crests ot watersheds, for there was less undergrowth there, and in winter they were swept clear of snow. When the white man penetrated the wilderness the sure-rooted pack ponies trod tho I' Indian trails nnd the first roads were I , made. Later ox carts, whole two j wheels were. cut from solid sections of logs, bent the way wideband when the great western migrations began th. settlers found it practicable to make their journeys jn iron-tired wagons, i liese strips would seem impossible to men and women of today, tho hardships hard-ships beyond endurance, the loneliness intolerable, hut hope and courage were the keynotes of life in those davs and of this pioneer spirit was born the independence in-dependence of tho nation. The short roads threading the various vari-ous states have their historic vnlne, but it is the great cross-counlrv thorouirh- arcs. neglected though thoy now are. mat link the great past with the greater great-er prdsent. The Ohio company, formed in Virginia for tho purpose' of colonizing colo-nizing the unknown lands to the west ' was responsible for I he opening of several sev-eral paths over the Alleghenies. In 1 ' one Cresap, an engineer in the , employ of this company, followed Xe-maeolin Xe-maeolin s Trail so named for a Delaware Dela-ware chief aud mapped out tho conn- try between the Monongnhela and the Great Kanawha. Fivo years later General Braddock, grim, determined, angry because the struggling colonies ; could gn-e him no more men and 'i money to prosecuto tho war with the ? iT.jneh. passed the wimo Way as he J came up from his council in - Alexandria, Alexan-dria, Virginia. He built a militarv j road froni Fort 'Cumberland, Maryland to Fort Duquesnc, now the site of '! J 'ttsburg. Hater a branch from this l followed the "Great Trail." of the In- i dians and linked Detroit with Pitts-burg Pitts-burg and the cast. On tho road ho i built braddock met his great defeat f Here he was killed and his body was $ buried in the roadbed so that the pass- i ing wagons of his train might destroy ?, nil traces ot the grave and so protect Y, it from desecration. ti On the general line of Braddock 's J march was built the Cumberland rond, , 8 said lo be the longest straight road $ over built; by any government, going a almost, due west as it does for about A 00 miles. Ktinnmg from Cumberland. 3 Mary laud, it crossed the Ohio uf 9 AVheulmy. West Virginia, and passed tlirouch Pennsylvania, Ohio. Indian 3 and TUinpia, with St. Louis as its wjst' 3 : ern tennimiH, thus connecting tho Polo- 4 . mac and Mississippi a land route. I )js western portion it. absorbed the old S anesvilJe Trace. The i road had been thought of by Washington, urged by Albert Gallatin and Thomas Jeirorsoi , fought for by Henry Clay, and when I cornplotod became the eventual con- ' I 000,000. Tn ISIS ,t was opened all the I way through and became a great high. ' way over winch went emigrants, tra - g era. teamsters, cattlemen, adventurers & and foreign travelers. .Sometimes there. B would be twenty coaches in one line on g the road, some nights there would be E a hundred horses tethered in one wa- - gon yard, some mornings there would 2 walks of ifp awaiting a democratic m break ast in one of the Jog i,mB ffefc ens, Thackorv and Harriet Martineau I were among those who braved its wear- 5 mess in stage coaches. Mail stacos . t and expresses had Lho right of way ft and one company ran a mail service -S from this road to Cincinnal. f 0l is- J villo and Isew Orleans .by . bjal. To- m - day a few milo pouts and some old stone bridges are about all thai, are loft ; of our first and only national road. i j Braddock 's successor in command of the troops for tho French and Indian Wars was John Forbes, and when ho was sent west 'with his command ho scorned the Braddock road and built one ot his own. This followed tho old Kittnnnuig Trail to Fort Duquesnc, and over this Forbes inarched to victory. vic-tory. Over this Washington passed in command of one wing of I he artnv, and tho Swiss genera, Bouquet., commanding command-ing tho other wing, led tho first English Eng-lish army across the Ohio. Warriors and sohiicrn for Pontine 's war trod lho roadbed more smooth! v. and the soldiers sol-diers who held the frontier in the Revolution Revo-lution pressed forward -on it, courageous courage-ous and determined. It was tho shortest short-est route fronr Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Pennsyl-vania, lo Pittsburg, going bv way of Carlisle and Bedford, and under' tho name of "the Old Glade Itoad-." soon became nnothor thoroughfare for emigrants emi-grants and traders. When peace had come many soldiers of the Revolution wore given land grants in the west and wont out. over this road to their new homes, Putnam and his pioneers bcinf i among tho first. Forbes paid a great, i price for his road, for the exposure and work of its construction cost him his life. yet. by its means ho put New England Eng-land in touch with tho untried west, and whore it ran through Pittsburg Fojlves street remains as a perpetual memorial to him. Down a natural roadwav between i the ranges of the AUeghen'ics lies the greatest of the Indian war traces. It j was called "The War of the Nations " because it. gave thoroughfare, to tho Fivo Nations who camo "from tho Mo- i 1 1. 1 1 ti i I, hawk valley to make war on the Choro-kees. Choro-kees. When Virginia heard that Bienville Bien-ville was industriously burying leaden plates at lho mouth of ovorv river in tho Mississippi valley in order to hold the land for the King of Franco, she determined to hold it herself by colonization. coloni-zation. She sent Daniel Boone to open the way, and ho passed down tho War Trace and cut the only possible, path, yet. ono that, provod tfio roughest and most tryiiiL' of all east of the Mississippi Mississip-pi tho Wilderness road. This road passed from tho Shonandoah vallov, Virginia, Vir-ginia, down the Holston valley iii Tennessee, Ten-nessee, over tho AllogbenieB at Cumberland Cum-berland Gap. into Kentucky and on to Louisville. Over this' 25.000 men, women wom-en and children passed to Crab Orchard. Danville, Lexington and Louisville. By l!)0 Micro were 70,000 people at tho western oud of the trail. The settlors 'of the Mississippi valley val-ley found New Orleans tho most convenient con-venient market. Produce loaded on Hat I boats was raftod down the river to the I'lencli-Spanisli port. Coming back-was a dangerous proposition, for pirates invested in-vested tho river, so largo parties wero lormed to come bv foot or on horsobnek lip tho Natchez Trace. This road. too. had its origin in Indian times, and rnn from Natchez, Mississippi, to Nashville, Tennessee, by way of Colbert's Shoals in the Tcniiessoe river on tho north Alabama line. Within tho century of its greatest ubo a widely variod assortment assort-ment of people passed over it. Among theso wore Spauish and French governors, gover-nors, soldiers and highwaymen, ladies in grand earringes and beggars, priests ! and traders. Andrew Jackson passed tnnt way to victory in Now Orleans; j Lorenzo Dow, lo locturo aud preach; ( Iniborne, to assumo the Governorship ot Louisiana; and Aaron Burr, on busi- I iicbs that cast suspicion on him. By the.sido of the Trace in Lewis county, Tonnessco, lies buriod Meriwether -Lewis, who, with Clark, followed the indan maiden Sncaj.awea and broke anotlioi trail into tho Far West whon tho Louis-iann Louis-iann Purchase had boon consummated. Possibly the greatest western migra-iton migra-iton in tlio history of tho Aryan race is that which resulted in the settlement, of Orogon in tho middle of tho past century. Over tho old Oregon Trail, a continuous .iournoy of 2000 miles, through hostile Indian nations, ovor hills whose only verdure was sage and cactus, over plains hung with alkali dust, the first emigrants went. In Amor-I Amor-I ica the pioneer Wood boats strong in i tho veins of the young. When traders passed out to St.' Louis over tho : Cumberland Cum-berland road, and heard fro'm Hudson bay trappers of the country in tho far North wost whoro thero w&3 much arable ara-ble land, and whoro a man named Astor from Now York was alrendy getting rich trading in furs, tboy camo Lnst and fired others with tho news. Missionaries Mis-sionaries wero tho first to go out, responding re-sponding to a pica for tho "Whito Man's Book of Heaven" brought by four Nez Peroo Indians, and soon through the gateways of Independence, Wcstport, Council 'Bluffs and St. Jo-soph Jo-soph the lido of emigration swept outward. out-ward. Tho path, of necessity, followed the waterways. Up tho valleys of the Platte and the Sweetwater, through South Pass where Fremont had already gone, along the course of Snake river to the Columbia, tho way led. Pnwnces, Cheyennes and Sioux barred tho way. Thirst, hunger and cholera assailed them. Cactus tore away their shoes and alkali dust bit their throats and eyes. Old men and children wept by the way and tho strongest men loBfc heart. Says one old chronicler: "Only tho women continued-to show firmness Of '3 women was tho Wost made. Last fa 1 an old man in an ox wagon retraced the path, he ha como ovcr hai a century ago, in order to mark and presorvo tho Oregon trail. TiC-aving this trail at Council Bluffs, and ninifing southwest for 800 mibs is tho old Santa Fe trail, opened in J8L to connect tho now East with a West as old as Cortoz's time. Gay cloth and machinery wero oxchangod tor furs and silver. This trail, too. kept to the waterways following tho Missouri and Arkansas to Jlaton Pass and then turning turn-ing southwest through New Mexico. It was the most level and passable ot all the old trailM. Sometimes it had its dangers when Whito Wolf, Santonta, Kicking Bird or Big Tree thirsted for white man's blood. Over this route wont Genoral Stephen Kearney with his "Army of tha West." Sterling Price tp California, and Zcbullon Piko into Mexican Mexi-can captivity. The women and children chil-dren of Kansas aro raising money lo set markers along the trail. - Another almost forgotten highway is tho Yuma trail that diagonals across the southwestern part of this country from Mexico to Yuma, Arizona, tho path of the Padro Kino two centuries ago. It crosses tho Tule and Yuma deserts, passes the "salt, pan" where tho Rio : Sonopta ends, and by Las Tcnajas Altna, tho water-pockets m tho rocks whore, for many generations, Indians praying to the ram gods, have caught their ! scant snpply of water. Thero aro bones and broken" wagons on this route of little lit-tle water and rorage that tell talcs oi rlisastor known only to the coyote, "tho wise ono" of the Indians. |