WAGON ROADS
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to hear Happy Trails by Roy Rogers and Dale Evans.
Thought it might be interesting to share with you the hazards and mode and
direction of travel taken by families from New York to Ohio. I am researching
the HULL family and found this in a Genealogy Bulletin (#23) of the American
Genealogical Lending Library which describes in excellent detail modes and
direction of travel from several areas to Ohio.
From: "Glenys J. Rasmussen"
Organization: Living Trees Research Wagon Roads to Ohio 1787-1820
The Ohio Company
The role of the Ohio Company, a private fur trading company which had its
roots in Virginia, was in maintaining British control of the Forks of the Ohio
River. These goals were accomplished in 1763 when France relinquished its claims
to the great Mississippi and Ohio Valleys. After the French-Indian War these
areas belonged solely to the British and the Mississippi River became the
undisputed boundary between British and Spanish Territory. Britain surprised its
American colonies with the Proclamation Line of 1763 which took away from the
colonies the right to grant lands in the western areas; in fact, the King's
proclamation prohibited colonials from crossing the line at all. A revolution
took care of that antagonism, and soon after the creation of an American
government, the expansion into the western regions became a matter of national
policy. By their act of ratifying the Constitution of the United States, some of
the thirteen states were not only agreeing to the creation of a new Federal
Government, they were giving up their claims to their western lands. The
states of Virginia, Massachusetts and Connecticut ceded their western lands to
the US government and in 1787 a new "Territory Northwest of the Ohio River" was
stablished by the Continental Congress. Why were the thirteen states ready to
give up these lands so easily? They gave them up for a very simple reason, as a
landowner, the Federal Government would have a source of revenue by selling off
land and the states could stop subsidizing this new federal monster they had
created. "An an orderly plan for the sale of land emerged, a plan for the
creation of new territories and states was developed by Congress. Since the
primary source of revenue would be from the sale of land, migrations West of the
Appalachian Mountains became a matter of national policy. "Any new territories
created were to have a Governor appointed, and provisions were made for a
militia to maintain order and protect immigrants moving into the new lands.
Congress determined that a territory could petition to become a state if there
were at least 20,000 people living there. As the first territory established in
1787, the Territory Northwest of the Ohio River became a proving ground for
various methods of dividing land, meanwhile some private land speculators got
into the act. Back
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Rufas Putnam's Great Idea
In 1785, a Boston businessman named Rufas Putnam had a great idea for making
lots of money. As a former Rev. War General, he knew that the new US was filled
with thousands of former Rev. soldiers, all of whom had been paid a suit of
clothes and a promise of land "out west somewhere" in the form of a certificate
called a Bounty Land Warrant. These certificates had a set value of $1.25 per
acre of land, but a soldier would have to travel to the great western wilderness
and claim his parcel of land. The certificates could be legally "assigned" and
the buyer of the certificate would then gain the claim to wilderness
land. Rufas devised a plan to buy certificates from former Rev. soldiers and
for a fraction of their face value. He then figured out a way to combine these
certs for obtaining large tracts of land in the west. Rufas was to become a land
speculator and he formed a company called the "New Ohio Company". By early 1787
the company was able to obtain warrants representing thousands of acres of land.
The New Ohio Company did not have trouble buying these certs. Going west was
dangerous. It was estimated that 90% of all Rev. War Land Warrants were sold in
this way. The New Ohio Company set up shop in New York City, on Wall Street (and
it is how the NY Stock Exchange got started). Based on his assignments of
bounty-land warrants, plus purchases on credit, the company's land grant was
drawn on a map (north of the Ohio River, including all of present-day Washington
County, Ohio), and exempted from the lands to be sold by the Federal Govt. Rufas
also managed to gain much more land by agreeing to honor any soldier's bounty
land warrants in the area granted to the company. All in all, Rufas' company
managed to purchase seven million acres of land in the NorthWest Territory for
an average price of eight cents per acre. Rufas said he was willing to manage
his company's large tract of land, sell to private buyers, and act as an agent
for the Fed. Govt. Congress voted for it, mainly because they had no method for
selling the land themselves. The New Ohio Company was selling land in the new
Northwest Territory well before the Federal Government began selling land there.
Putnam told Congress he would pay for the land as soon as he sold it. The
amazing part of the story is that he pulled it off! He moved to the Ohio River
and founded the town of Marietta, Ohio where he began fulfilling his promise to
Americans wanting to buy cheap farm land in the Ohio country. As a result, the
earliest wagon roads into the Ohio were developed to get people to Rufas
Putnam's land. Back
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Gateway to the West
The first census of 1790 revealed that the US had a population of 3,900,000
people. There was no enumeration for the Northwest Territory, but the entire
white population was estimated to be about 4,300 people. Along with the
settlements at Cincinnati and a few other Ohio River sites, there were already
over a thousand families living near Rufas Putnam's Marietta land office on the
Ohio River in 1790. Many of the earliest settlers came to the ohio River
settlements by way of Forbes' Road or Braddock's Road, both leading to
Pittsburgh, which was becoming known as "the gateway to the west". Pittsburgh in
1790 had nearly 400 houses, mostly brick, and was already an industrial center,
where sawmills provided finished lumber, and where a small iron works was in
operation. Pittsburgh had the basic necessities and the manufacturing capability
for wagon wheels, barrels, horseshoes, and virtually any accessor a migrating
family would need to continue a journey west. Upon reaching Pittsburgh, the
migrating families would buy or build their own flatboats for floating down the
Ohio River to the new settlements. A flatboat was essentially a large
rectangular wooden box and was built to hold all of the family's possessions as
well as livestock. A flatboat was built for a one-way trip down river. The boat
itself would be disassembled at the end of the journey to provide some of the
materials and nails needed for building a shelter. Someone reminded me of
the movie "How the West was Won" - there is a flatboat scene shown that gives a
very good idea of what river travel would have been like, including the hazards
and tragedies. Back
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The Boatmen
Commercial flatboats carried goods from Pittsburgh to the fledgling
settlements as well. Produce and grains were loaded at various river ports to be
floated down to Natchez or New Orleans. These boats were often elaborate rafts
with small cabins on them, including a stove for heat and cooking. But even the
commercial flatboats were built to make a one-way trip, which might take two
months from Pittsburgh to New Orleans. The specialized occupation of a
boatman was filled by rough-and-ready characters. These men worked and lived on
the flatboats during an era that lasted only about 30 years and is nearly
forgotten in American history. They were mostly illiterate, and there are few
written records of their trips or exploits, except by a few visiting European
travelers. The boatmen were seen as absolutely essential to the navigation of
boats down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. They had to be ready to fight off
attacks, as well as expertly navigate their boats through the obstacles of the
river. Migrating families might hire a boatman, recruited from Pittsburgh or
Wheeling. The boatman would help design and build the flatboat the family would
use and would be the navigator during the trip. Upon reaching the destination,
the boatman would walk back up river to the nearest settlement. Back
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Wheeling Rivals Pittsburgh
During parts of the year, the lower water levels and obstructions of the loop
of the Ohio River from Pittsburgh to Wheeling made navigation difficult for the
flatboats. Once Wheeling had been reached, it was relatively free floating all
the way to New Orleans. In the early 1790s, a cut-off trail below Pittsburgh
leading to Wheeling was developed. A family could leave Braddock's Road at
Union-town, Pennsylvania, then head Northwest to Brownsville. After crossing the
Monongahela River, the trail led to the present-day town of Washington, and
finally to Wheeling. (Today this is route US Highway 40). At first, this cut-off
was no more than a path, suitable for pack teams only but an important overland
route to the Ohio River. But by 1796, the pack trail was improved to allow wagon
traffic to pass. As a result of its location on the Ohio River and with this
overland road access, Wheeling began to rival Pittsburgh as the "Gateway to the
West". From Wheeling, the journey down river to Marietta and Rufas Putnam's land
office was only a three to four day boat ride. Back
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Zane's Trace
One of the first land grants on the Ohio River went to a man named Ebenezer
Zane, considered the founder of Wheeling, Virginia (now WV). Zane had control of
the land on both sides of the river and operated a ferry. With a virtual
monopoly on ferry traffic at that point, he became a very prosperous man.
Crossing the Ohio River from Wheeling gave access to an Indian trail into the
interior of the Ohio country. Rufas Putnam's land holdings were nearby and
the creation of the new US Military District, the Fed. Govt. saw the need for
upgrading the trail to provide access to these newly opened lands. In 1796
Ebenezer Zane contracted with the Fed. Govt. to construct the first wagon road
into the Ohio country. The road began at the Ohio River opposite wheeling, then
moved West on the same route today as US Highway 40 (and Interstate 70) to the
settlement at Zanesville, then southwest to Chillicothe, and south to the Ohio
River again. A ferry ride across the Ohio River landed at Limestone, Kentucky
(now Maysville), where a road connnection from Lexington to the Ohio River was
already well-traveled in the 1790's. When Zanes Trace was first blazed, the
dense forests of Ohio meant that road construction consisted of cutting the
trees, leaving the stumps, and clearing out any underbrush to creat a "trace" of
a road. The passing wagons tended to form two rows of ruts, which were often the
only visible evidence of a road surface. Grading or leveling improvements were
made only at places where is was impossible to pass by wagon. On Zane's
Trace, travelers referred to a "stumped" wagon as one that had been highcentered
on a stump or stuck between stumps and the word is still used today (when we are
"Stumped" over something) (maybe like lost families ??:)))- my note, sorry
Southern routes to the Ohio River, ca 1800: Head your wagon towards
Lexington, Kentucky. From Virginia, Maryland, or Pennsylvania, take the Great
Valley Road to the Cumberland Gap and the Wilderness Road to Lexington. From the
Mississippi River, take the Natchez Trace to Nashville. From Knoxville, take the
Nashville Road, then north to Lexington. From Lexington, go north to the Ohio
River at Maysville and connect with Zane's Trace into the Ohio Country, or build
a flatboar and float down the Ohio River. From NJ or PA begin at
Philadelphia, head west to Lancaster thence to Hagerstown in MD keep pointed
west to Cumberland thence to Wheeling and on to the Zanes Trail. Get to
Zanesville and decide where to go from there. (Looks pretty much to me like your
choice was Chillicothe, OH then Limestone, KY where you could divert to
Cincinnati or continue southwest to Lexington then Nashville). Back
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Appeal of the Ohio Country
For twenty-five years after the Revolutionary War, the Ohio River was the
primary destination of virtually all western migrations in the U.S. This is
where the first public land sales were opened, unlike the South. Georgia did not
cede its western lands until 1802, and these new public lands were encompassed
into a new Mississippi Territory. Extensive Indian control of western Georgia
delayed settlements there and migrations from the Atlantic regions into the
Southwest did not happen until well after the Northwest Territory had opened for
settlement. For example, the first land sales in Mississippi Territory did
not begin until 1810. before that, the only real settlements in the South were
located near the gulf seaports and the Mississippi River towns. As the first
area opened for settlement, the appeal of the Ohio Country was for fresh farm
land. The Ohio River was the main highway leading to settlements on the
principal tributaries, such as the Muskingum, Scioto, Miami or Wabash Rivers. By
floating downstream on a flatboat, the Ohio River provided access to fresh lands
to be cleared for crop farming and where corn would grow so fast you could
almost watch it rise. In addition, the soils between the Great Lakes and the
Ohio River were well suited for wheat and other grains besides corn. Except
for some open areas within the interior parts of the Northwest Territory, the
river areas were densely covered with huge trees, some over a hundred feet in
height. Due to the wide branches and closeness of the trees, little sunlight
penetrated to the ground below. Visibility was limited to a couple of hundred
feet in any direction, and there was an aura of darkness everywhere. However,
with sparse underbrush below the towering trees, the trails were not nearly as
difficult to follow as one would imagine. the improvement of older roads was to
have an impact on migrations to the Ohio Country. Travel on the Great Valley
Road through the interior of Virginia continued the migration pattern
established before the Rev. War. As an extension of the Great Valley Road, at
Sapling Grove, VA (now Bristol) a wagon could head west through the Cumberland
Gap into Kentucky, or continue south to Knoxville, Tennessee. Back in 1788 the
Nashville Road had been built by the Militia, linking Knoxville to Nashville, a
distance of some 180 miles west. (Tenn was not a state yet, and still part of
North Carolina). The Nashville Road quickly became the primary route for
East-West traffic through the interior of Tenn. Earlier travelers had found the
Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers as their main highways. With this link from
Virginia to Knoxville, then on to Nashville, an important circle was completed.
Nashville was the northern end of the Natchez Trace, an old Indian trail. By
1796, a road leading from Nashville connected settlements further north, all the
way to Lexington, Kentucky. From there, a wagon road to the Ohio River linked
overland travelers to Zane's Trace. It became possible to take a wagon from
Natchez to Philadelphia - a trip that had prveiously been almost exclusively the
opposite direction and mostly with the help of rivers. The Natchez Trace was
first used as a return route for boatmen who had floated down the Ohio and
Mississippi Rivers on flatboats to the ports of Natchez or New Orleans. (New
Orleans was controlled by the French until 1803 - making Natchez the southern
most U.S. river port). The children of the first settlers of Kentucky and Tenn.
became attracted to the lands of the Ohio River as well. Settled well before the
Rev. War, the green valleys of KY and TN were very rewarding for farmers. For
the first few years, a farmer could watch his corn stalks jump out of the ground
in great abundance. But the soil began to lose its fertility within seven or
eight seasons. The crops would begin to decrease in size and consistency. Crop
rotation and contour plowing for soil retention were techniques not used yet,
and the application of fertilizer to the soil was only practiced by a few
enlightened German farmers in Eastern Pennsylvania before 1790. Those with
large tracts of land learned they had to constantly clear and plant new fields
and leave older ones fallow for a number of years before .. a good crop again.
But many farmers gave up on their depleting soil - it was easier for some of the
next generation to relocate, and find virgin land to start anew. A young man
with only a small farm and a growing family to support believed he had
everything to gain by moving to the Ohio Country. The opening of roads to the
Ohio River from several different starting points was also an incentive. The
lure of the Ohio River settlements was for cheap land and once the land was
cleared, farming could be easy again. There were only a couple of 'minor'
problems: a few Indians resented the invasion into their hunting grounds, and it
was not necessarily easy traveling to the Ohio River from anywhere. Back
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Enter the Turnpike
The wagon roads to the Ohio River from Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia
all converged on the Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky,
then up to the Ohio River. Using state money, the new state of KY upgraded the
road through the Cumberland Gap to twelve feet wide in 1796. Other states were
taking a different interest in their roads as well, particularly those roads
which were being used for interstate travel. the concept of a state-owned
"turnpike" came during this period, because the building and maintenance of a
heavily traveled roadway was an expensive undertaking. And to pay for the roads,
the states decided that "user fees" were in order. In the 1790's, the direct
route across PA via Forbes' Road saw many Easterners moving west to Pittsburgh
or Wheeling to reach the Ohio River. As the start of the main route to the west
over Forbes' Road, beginning at Philadelphia, the Lancaster Pike was the name
given to the first road built using some road building techniques borrowed from
England. the route was virtually the same as the old "Lancaster Road" dating
back to the 1720's; but the Lancaster Pike was significant not for the route,
but for the quality of construction. Completed in 1796, the new road was
financed under a right-of-way franchise granted by the State of PA to a private
company. For a distance of some 70 miles, a three foot deep trench was dug,
then filled with several layers of progressively smaller sizes of crushed rock,
each layer tamped and packed solid. The inventor of this road was a Scotsman
named Macadam, and the result was a "macadamized road". The Lancaster Pike was
the first such road in America. The process is still being used. It has a final
application of melted tar mixed with gravel to provide a paved surface. ...
Water actually ran off the roadway, an unheard of event on any American road to
that date. The Lancaster Pike was a huge success and became a profitable
enterprise for the operators. Comfortable wayside inns soon catered to
travelers all along the Pike, and regularly scheduled stagecoach service ran
from Philadelphia to points West. Of course, travelers resented having to pay
tolls for passage across the roadway, which was collected 'per head', including
animals. But the speed and comfort one could travel on the Lancaster Pike by
stagecoach or wagon was amazing and the all-weather surface was the showplace of
highways. Stagecoaches pulled by six draft horses could maintain a consistent
speed of 10-12 mph. This was a giant step forward in transportation, because the
best travel time possible before this road was about 20 miles per day (walking
speed). To trace the line of the old Lancaster Pike today, start as Philadelphia
on US Hwy 30 and then take PA Hwy 340 into Lancaster. Further north the
route of the old Gesee Trail was to become the Mohawk Turnpike, the most
important road for migrations across the state of New York. Following the valley
formed by the Mohawk River, this road was continually improved due to the heavy
demand of western migrations. By 1796, toll were collected at several points
along the way from Albany to Utica and later all the way to Buffalo. This is the
same path which in 1825 became the route of the famous Erie Canal and by 1850,
the route of the New York Central Railroad. today it is the same general route
as the NY Thruway (I-90). Back
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