Perhaps a war was never precipitated under stranger circumstances. Contrecœur, commanding at Fort Duquesne, was made aware by his Indian scouts of Washington’s progress all the way from the Potomac. The day before Washington arrived at Great Meadows, Contrecœur ordered M. de Jumonville to leave Fort Duquesne with a detachment of thirty-four men, commanded by La Force, and go toward the advancing English. To the English (when he met them) he was to explain he had come to order them to retire. To the Indians he was to pretend he was “traveling about to see what is transacting in the King’s Territories, and to take noticeof the different roads.” In the eyes of the English the party was to be an embassy. In the eyes of the Indians, a party of scouts reconnoitering. This is clear from the orders given by Contrecœur to Jumonville.
Three days later, on the 26th, this “embassy” was at Gist’s plantation, where, according to Gist’s report to Washington, they “would have killed a cow and broken everything in the house, if twoIndians, whom he [Gist] had left in charge of the home, had not prevented them.”
From Gist’s, La Force had advanced within five miles of Great Meadows, as Gist ascertained by their tracks on the Indian trail. Then—although the English commander was within an hour’s march—the French retraced their steps to the summit of Laurel Hill, and, descending deep into the obscure valley on the east, built a hut under the lee of the precipice and rested from their labors! Here they remained throughout the 27th, while Washington’s scouts were running their legs off in the attempt to locate them, and the young lieutenant-colonel was in a fever of anxietyat their sudden, ominous disappearance. Now they were found.
What a march was that! The darkness was intense. The path, Washington wrote, was “scarce broad enough for one man.” Now and then it was lost completely and a quarter of an hour was wasted in finding it. Stones and roots impeded the way, and were made trebly treacherous by the torrents of rain which fell. The men struck the trees. They fell over each other. They slipped from the narrow track and slid downward through the soaking, leafy carpet of the forest.
Enthusiastic tourists make the journey today from Great Meadows to the summit of Laurel Hill on the track over which Washington and his hundred men floundered and stumbled that wet May night a century and a half ago. It is a hard walk but exceedingly fruitful to one of imaginative vision. From Great Meadows the trail holds fast to the height of ground until Braddock’s Run is crossed near “Braddock’s Grave.” Picture that little group of men floundering down into this mountain stream, swollen by the heavyrain, in the utter darkness of that night! From Braddock’s Run the trail begins its long climb on the sides of the foothills, by picturesque Peddler’s Rocks, to the top of Laurel Hill, two thousand feet above.
Washington left Great Meadows about eight o’clock. It was not until sunrise that Half King’s sentries at “Washington’s Spring” saw the vanguard file out on the narrow ridge, which, dividing headwaters of Great Meadow Run and Cheat river, makes an easy ascent to the summit of the mountain. The march of five miles had been accomplished, with great difficulty, in a little less than ten hours—at the rate ofone mile in two hours!
Forgetting all else for the moment, consider the young leader of the floundering, stumbling army. There is not another episode in all Washington’s long, eventful life that shows more clearly his strength of personal determination and daring. Beside this all-night march from Great Meadows to Washington’s Spring, Wolfe’s ascent to the Plains of Abraham at Quebec was a pastime. A man in full daylight today can walk over Washington’s five-mile courseto Laurel Hill in one-fifth of the time that little army needed on that black night. If a more difficult ten-hour night march has been made in the history of warfare in America, who led it and where was it made? No feature of the campaign shows more clearly the unmatched, irresistible energy of this twenty-two-year-old boy. For those to whom Washington, the man, is “unknown,” there are lessons in this little path today, of value far beyond their cost.
Whether Washington intended to attack the French before he reached Half King, is not known; at the spring a conference was held and it was immediately decided to attack. Washington did not know and could not have known that Jumonville was an ambassador. The action of the French in approaching Great Meadows and then withdrawing and hiding was not the behavior of an embassy. Half King and his Indians were of opinion that the French party entertained evil designs, and, as Washington afterwards wrote, “if we had been such fools as to let them [the French] go, they would never have helped us to take any other Frenchmen.”
Two scouts were sent out in advance; then, in Indian file, Washington and his men with Half King and a few Indians followed and “prepared to surround them.”
Laurel Hill, the most westerly range of the Alleghanies, trends north and south through western Pennsylvania. In Fayette county, about one mile on the summit northward from the Cumberland Road, lies Washington’s Spring where Half King encamped. The Indian trail coursed along the summit northward fifteen miles to Gist’s. On the eastern side, Laurel Hill descends into a valley varying from a hundred to five hundred feet deep. Nearly two miles from the spring, in the bottom of a valley four hundred feet deep, lay Jumonville’s “embassy.” The attacking party, guided by Indians, who had previously wriggled down the hillside on their bellies and found the French, advanced along the Indian trail and then turned off and began stealthily creeping down the mountainside.
Ledge from which Washington opened Fire upon Jumonville’s PartyLedge from which Washington opened Fire upon Jumonville’s Party
Washington’s plan was, clearly, to surround and capture the French. It is plain he did not understand the ground. Theywere encamped in the bottom of a valley two hundred yards wide and more than a mile long. Moreover, the hillside on which the English were descending abruptly ended on a narrow ledge of perpendicular rocks thirty feet high and a hundred yards long.
Coming suddenly out on the rocks, Washington leading the right division of the party and Half King the left, it was plain in the twinkling of an eye that it would be impossible to achieve a bloodless victory. Washington therefore gave and received first fire. It was fifteen minutes before the astonished but doughty French, probably now surrounded by Half King’s Indians, were compelled to surrender. Ten of their number, including the “ambassador” Jumonville, were killed outright and one wounded. Twenty-one were taken prisoners. One Frenchman escaped, running half clothed through the forests to Fort Duquesne with the evil tidings.
“We killed,” writes Washington, “Mr. de Jumonville, the Commander of that party, as also nine others; we wounded one and made twenty-one prisoners, amongwhom wereM. La Force, M. Drouillonand two cadets. The Indians scalped the dead and took away the greater part of their arms, after which we marched on with the prisoners under guard to theIndiancamp.... I marched on with the prisoners.They informed me that they had been sent with a summons to order me to retire.A plausible pretence to discover our camp and to obtain knowledge of our forces and our situation! It was so clear that they were come to reconnoiter what we were, that I admired their assurance, when they told me they were come as an Embassy; their instructions were to get what knowledge they could of the roads, rivers, and all the country as far as the Potomac; and instead of coming as an Embassador, publicly and in an open manner, they came secretly, and sought the most hidden retreats more suitable for deserters than for Embassadors; they encamped there and remained hidden for whole days together, at a distance of not more than five miles from us; they sent spies to reconnoiter our camp; the whole body turned back 2 miles; they sent the two messengersmentioned in the instruction, to inform M. de Contrecoeur of the place where we were, and of our disposition, that he might send his detachments to enforce the summons as soon as it should be given. Besides, an Embassador has princely attendants, whereas this was only a simple pettyFrenchofficer, an Embassador has no need of spies, his person being always sacred: and seeing their intention was so good, why did they tarry two days at five miles’ distance from us without acquainting me with the summons, or at least, with something that related to the Embassy? That alone would be sufficient to excite the strongest suspicions, and we must do them the justice to say, that, as they wanted to hide themselves, they could not have picked out better places than they had done. The summons was so insolent, and savored of so much Gasconade, that if it had been brought openly by two men it would have been an excessive Indulgence to have suffered them to return.... They say they called to us as soon as they had discovered us; which is an absolute falsehood, for I was then marching at the head of the companygoing towards them, and can positively affirm, that, when they first saw us, they ran to their arms, without calling, as I must have heard them had they so done.”[9]
In a letter to his brother, Washington wrote: “I fortunately escaped without any wound; for the right wing where I stood, was exposed to, and received all the enemy’s fire; and it was the part where the man was killed and the rest wounded. I heard the bullets whistle; and, believe me, there is something charming in the sound.” The letter was published in theLondon Magazine. It is said George II. read it and commented dryly: “He would not say so if he had been used to hear many.” In later years Washington heard too much of the fatal music, and once, when asked if he had written such rodomontade is said to have answered gravely, “If I said so, it was when I was young.” Aye, but it is memorials of that daring young Virginian, to whom whistling bullets were charming, that we seek in the Alleghanies today. We catch a similar glimpse of his ardent,boyish spirit in a letter written from Fort Necessity later. Speaking of strengthening the fortifications, Washington writes: “We have, with nature’s assistance, made a good intrenchment, and by clearing the bushes out of these meadows, prepared a charming field for an encounter.” Over and above the anxieties with which he was ever beset, there shines out clearly the exuberance of boyish zest and valor—soon to be hardened and quenched by innumerable cares and heavy responsibilities.
Thus the first blow in the long bloody seven years’ war was struck by the red-uniformed Virginians under Washington at the bottom of that Alleghany valley. He immediately returned to Great Meadows, sent eastward to the belated Fry for reinforcements, and westward a scouting party to keep watch of the enemy. On the 30th, the French prisoners were sent eastward to Virginia and the construction of a fort was begun at Great Meadows, by erecting “small palisades.” This was completed by the following day, June 1st. Washington, in hisJournalunder the date of June 25th, speaks of this fort as “Fort-Necessity.”[10]The name suggests the exigencies which led to its erection: lack of troops and provisions. On June 2nd, Washington wrote in hisJournal: “We had prayers in the Fort;”[11]the name Necessity may not have been used at first.
On the 6th, Gist arrived from Wills Creek, bringing the news of Colonel Fry’s death by injuries sustained from being thrown from his horse. Thus the command now devolved upon Washington who had been in actual command from the beginning. On the 9th, the remainder of the Virginian regiment arrived from Wills Creek, with the swivels, under Colonel Muse. On the day following, Captain Mackaye arrived with the Independent Company of South Carolinians.
The reinforcements put a new face on affairs and it is clear that the new colonel commanding secretly hoped to capture Fort Duquesne forthwith. Washington’s road was finished to Great Meadows. For two weeks, now, the work went on, completing itas far as Gist’s, on Mount Braddock. In the mountains a sharp lookout for the French was maintained, and spies were continually sent to Fort Duquesne to report all that was happening there. Among all else that taxed the energies of the young colonel was the management of the Indian question. At one time he received and answered a deputation of Delawares and Shawanese which he knew was sent by the French as spies. Yet the answer of this youth to the “treacherous devils,” as he calls them in his private record of the day, was as bland and diplomatic as that of Indian chieftain bred to hypocrisy and deceit. He put little faith in the redskins but made good use of those he had as spies, did all in his power to restrain the nations from joining the French, and offered to all who came or would come to him a hospitality he could ill afford.
On the 28th, his road was completed to Gist’s and eight of the sixteen miles from Gist’s to the mouth of Redstone creek. On this day the scouts brought word of reinforcements at Fort Duquesne and of preparations for sending out an army.Immediately Washington summoned Mackaye’s company from Fort Necessity and the building of a fort was begun by throwing up entrenchments on Mount Braddock. All outlying squads were called in. But on the 30th, fresher information being at hand, it was decided at a council of war to retreat to Virginia rather than oppose the strong force which was advancing up the Monongahela.
The consternation at Fort Duquesne upon the arrival of the single, barefoot fugitive from Jumonville’s company can be imagined. Relying on the pompous pretenses of the embassadorship and desiring to avoid an indefensible violation of the Treaty of Utrecht—though the spirit and letter were “already infringed by his very presence on the ground”—Contrecœur, one of the best representatives of his proud king that ever came to America, assembled a council of war and ordered each opinion to be put in writing. Mercier gave moderate advice; Coulon-Villiers, half-brother of Jumonville, burning with rage, urged violent recrimination. Mercier prevailed, and an army of five hundred French and asmany, or more, Indians, among whom were many Delawares, formerly friendly to the English, was raised to march and meet Washington. At his request the command was given to Coulon-Villiers—Le Grand Villiers, so-called from his prowess among the Indians. Mercier was second in command. This was the army before which Washington was now slowly, painfully, retreating from Mount Braddock toward Virginia.
It was a sad hour—that in which the Virginian retreat was ordered by the daring colonel, eager for a fight. But, even if he secretly wished to stay and defend the splendid site on Mount Braddock where he had entrenched his army, the counsel of older heads prevailed. It would have been better had the army stuck to those breastworks—but the suffering and humiliation to come was not foreseen.
Backward over the rough, new road the little army plodded, the Virginians hauling their swivels by hand. Two teams and a few packhorses were all that remained of horse-flesh equal to the occasion. Even Washington and his officers walked. Fora week there had been no bread. In two days Fort Necessity was reached, where, quite exhausted, the little army went into camp. There were only a few bags of flour here. It was plain, now, that the retreat was ill-advised. Human strength could not endure it. So there was nothing to do but send post-haste to Wills Creek for help. But, if strength were lacking—there was courage, and to spare! For after a “full and free” conference of the officers it was determined to enlarge the stockade, strengthen the fortifications, and await the enemy whatever his number and power.
Site of Fort NecessitySite of Fort Necessity
The day following was spent in this work and famed Fort Necessity was completed. It was the shape of an irregular square situated upon a small height of land near the center of the swampy meadow. “The natural entrenchments” of which Washington speaks in hisJournalmay have been merely this height of ground, or old courses of the two brooks which flow by it on the north and on the east. At any rate the fort was built on an “island,” so to speak, in the wet lowland. A narrow neck of solid land connected it with the southernhillside, along which the road ran. A shallow ditch surrounded the earthen palisaded sides of the fort. Parallel with the southeastern and southwestern palisades rifle-pits were dug. Bastion gateways offered entrance and exit. The works embraced less than a third of an acre of land. All day long skirmishers and double picket lines were kept out and the steady advance of the French force, three times the size of the army fearlessly awaiting it, was reported by hurrying scouts.
No army ever lay on its arms of a night surer of a battle on the morrow than did this first English army that ever came into the West.Le Grand Villiers, thirsting for revenge, lay not five miles off, with a thousand followers who had caught his spirit. And yet time was to show that this fiery temper was held in admirable control!
By earliest morning light on Wednesday, July 3, an English sentry was brought in wounded. The French were then descending Laurel Hill four miles distant. They had attacked the entrenchments on Mount Braddock the morning before, only to find their bird had flown, and now were pressingafter the retreating redcoats and their “buckskin colonel.” Little is known of the story of this day within the earthen triangle, save as it is told in the meager details of the general battle. There was great lack of food, but, to compensate for this, as the soldiers no doubt thought, there was much to drink. By eleven o’clock the French and Indians, spreading throughout the forests on the northwest, began firing at six hundred yards’ distance. Finally they circled to the southeast where the forests approached nearer to the English trenches. Washington at once drew his little army out of the fort and boldly challenged assault on the narrow neck of solid land on the south which formed the only approach to the fort.
But the crafty Villiers, not to be tempted, kept well within the forest shadows to the south and east—cutting off all retreat to Virginia. Realizing at last that the French would not give battle, Washington withdrew again behind his entrenchments, Mackaye’s South Carolinians occupying the rifle-pits which paralleled two sides of the fortification.
Here the all-day’s battle was fought between the Virginians behind their breastworks and in their trenches, and the French and Indians on the ascending wooded hillsides. The rain which began to fall soon flooded Mackaye’s men out of their trenches. But no other change of position was made all day. And, so far as the battle went, the English doggedly held their own. In the contest with hunger and rain, however, they were fighting a losing battle. The horses and cattle escaped and were slaughtered by the enemy. The provisions were nearly exhausted and the ammunition was far spent. As the afternoon waned, though there was some cessation in musketry fire, many guns being rendered useless by the rain, the smoking little swivels were made to do double duty. They bellowed their fierce defiance with unwonted zest as night came on, giving to the English an appearance of strength which they were far from possessing. The hungry soldiers made up for the lack of food from the abundance of liquor, which, in their exhausted state had more than its usual effect. By nightfall half the littledoomed army, surrounded by the French and Indians, fifty miles from any succor, was in a pitiable condition! No doubt, had Villiers dared to rush the entrenchments, the English could have been annihilated. Their hopeless condition could not have been realized by the foe on the hills.
But it all was realized by the sober young colonel commanding. And as he looked about him in the wet twilight of that July day, what a dismal ending of his first campaign it must have seemed. Fifty-four of his three hundred and four men were killed or wounded. The loss among the ninety Carolinians is not known. At the same rate there were, in all, perhaps seventy-five killed or wounded in that little palisaded enclosure. Provisions and ammunition were about gone. Horses and cattle were lost. Many of the small arms were useless. The army was surrounded byLe Grand Villiers, watchfully abiding his time. And half the tired men were intoxicated by the only stimulant that could be spared. What mercy could be hoped for from the brother of the deadJumonville? For these four hundred Spartans, a fight to the death, or at least a captivity at Duquesne or Quebec was all that could be expected—Jumonville’s party having already been sent into Virginia as captives.
But at eight in the evening the French requested a parley. Washington refused to consider the suggestion. Why should a parley be desired with an enemy in such a hopeless strait as they? It was clear that Villiers had resorted to this strategy to gain better information of their condition. But the request was soon repeated, and this time for a parley between the lines. To this Washington readily acceded, and Captain van Braam went to meet Le Mercier, who brought a verbal proposition from Villiers for the capitulation of Fort Necessity. To this proposition Washington and his officers listened. Twice the commissioners were sent to Villiers to submit modifications demanded by Washington. They returned a third time with the articles reduced to writing—but in French. Washington depended upon Van Braam’s poor knowledge of French and mongrel Englishfor a verbal translation. Jumonville’s death was referred to as an assassination though Van Braam Englished the word “death”—perhaps thinking there was no other translation for the Frenchl’assassinat. And by the light of a flickering candle, which the mountain wind frequently extinguished, the rain falling upon the company, George Washington signed this, hisfirstand hislast, capitulation. It read as follows:
“Article1st. We permit the English Commander to withdraw with all the garrison, in order that he may return peaceably to his country, and to shield him from all insult at the hands of our French, and to restrain the savages who are with us as much as may be in our power.
“Art.2nd. He shall be permitted to withdraw and to take with him whatever belongs to his troops,except the artillery, which we reserve for ourselves.
“Art.3rd. We grant them the honors of war; they shall withdraw with beating drums, and with a small piece of cannon, wishing by this means to show that we consider them friends.
“Art.4th. As soon as these articles shall be signed by both parties, they shall take down the English flag.
“Art.5th. Tomorrow at daybreak a detachment of French shall lead forth the garrison and take possession of the aforesaid fort.
“Art.6th. Since the English have scarcely any horses or oxen left, they shall be allowed to hide their property, in order that they may return to seek for it after they shall have recovered their horses; for this purpose they shall be permitted to leave such number of troops as guards as they may think proper,under this condition, that they give their word of honor that they will work on no establishment either in the surrounding country or beyond the Highlands during one year beginning from this day.
“Art.7th. Since the English have in their power an officer and two cadets, and, in general, all the prisoners whom they tookwhen they murdered Lord Jumonville, they now promise to send them, with an escort to Fort Duquesne, situated on Belle River, and to secure the safe performance of this treaty article,as well as of the treaty,Messrs. Jacob van Braam and Robert Stobo, both Captains, shall be delivered to us as hostages until the arrival of our French and Canadians herein before mentioned.
“We on our part declare that we shall give an escort to send back in safety the two officers who promise us our French in two months and a half at the latest.
“Copied on one of the posts of our block-house the same day and year as before.
(Signed.)Messrs.James Mackaye, Gc.Go. Washington,Coulon Villier.”[12]
The parts in italics were those misrepresented by Van Braam. The wordspendant une année à compter de ce jourare not found in the articles printed by the French government, as though it repudiated Villier’s intimation that the English should ever return. But within sixty-three hours of a year, an English army, eight times as great as the party now capitulating, marched across this battle-field. The nice courtesy shown by the young colonel, in allowingCaptain Mackaye’s name to take precedence over his own, is significant, as Mackaye, a king’s officer, had never considered himself amenable to Washington’s orders, and his troops had steadily refused to bear the brunt of the campaign—working on the road or transporting guns and baggage. In the trenches, however, the Carolinians did their duty.
And so, on the morning of July 4th, 1753, the red-uniformed Virginians and king’s troops marched out from Fort Necessity between the files of French, with all the honors of war andtambour battant. Much baggage had to be destroyed to save it from the Indians whom the French could not restrain. Such was the condition of the men—the wounded being carried on stretchers—that only three miles could be made on the homeward march the first day. However glorious later July Fourths may have seemed to Washington, memories of the distress and gloom and humiliation of this day ever served to temper his joys. The report of the officers of the Virginia regiment made at Wills Creek, where they arrived July 9th, shows thirteenkilled, fifty-three wounded, thirteen left lame on the road, twenty-seven absent, twenty-one sick, and one hundred and sixty-five fit for duty.
On August 30th, the Virginian House of Burgesses passed a vote of thanks to “Colonel George Washington, Captain Mackaye of his Majesty’s Independent Company, and the officers under his command,” for their “gallant and brave Behaviour in Defense of their Country.” The sting of defeat was softened by the public realization of the odds of the contest and the failure of Dinwiddie to forward reinforcements and provisions. A characteristic scene was enacted in the House when, Colonel Washington having entered the gallery, the burgesses rose to express their respect for the young officer who had led the first English army across the Alleghanies. The colonel attempted to return thanks for the conspicuous recognition, but, though he had faced unflinchingly the French and the Indians, he was overcome with embarrassment at this involuntary, warm tribute of his friends. But the young hero was deeply chagrined at hisbeing duped to recognize Jumonville’s death as an assassination. Captain van Braam, being held in disrepute for what was probably nothing more culpable than carelessness, was not named in the vote of thanks tendered Washington’s officers.
But this chagrin was no more cutting than the obstinacy of Dinwiddie in refusing to fulfill the article of the treaty concerning the return of the French prisoners. For this there was little or no valid excuse, and Dinwiddie’s action in thus playing fast and loose with Washington’s reputation was as galling to the young colonel as it was heedless of his country’s honor and the laws of war.
Washington’s first visit to the Ohio had proven French occupation of that great valley. This, his second mission, had proven their power. With this campaign began his military career. “Although as yet a youth,” writes Sparks, “with small experience, unskilled in war, and relying on his own resources, he had behaved with the prudence, address, courage, and firmness of a veteran commander. Rigid in discipline, but sharing the hardships andsolicitous for the welfare of his soldiers, he had secured their obedience and won their esteem amidst privations, sufferings and perils that have seldom been surpassed.”
The few memorials of this little campaign are of great interest and value since it marked the beginning of the struggle of our national independence, and because of Washington’s prominence in it. Of the beginning of Washington’s fort on Mount Braddock nothing whatever remains save the record of it, which should be enough—though it is not—to silence all who, with gross ignorance of the facts, have imputed to the young commander a lack of military skill in choosing the site in Great Meadows for Fort Necessity. Criticisms of Washington on this score are ridiculous misrepresentations. The fact that Washington chose Mount Braddock for his fort and battle-ground has, unfortunately, never been emphasized by historians.
The Great Meadows, sunny and fair, lie quietly between their hills dreaming even yet of the young hero whose name is indissolubly linked with their own. The gently sloping hills are now quite cleared of forests—save on the southeast, where, as in the old days, the forests still approach nearest the bottom land. For half a century after Washington capitulated, his roadway from the Potomac was the great highway across the mountains, and thousands of weary pilgrims to the great West camped near the spot where the Father of the West fought his first battle for it. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Cumberland Road, the historic highway of America, was built through Great Meadows, and the northern hill—on which the French opened the first battle of the French and Indian War on that July morning—over which the great road was built is named Mount Washington.
On a plateau surrounded by low ground at the western extremity of classic Great Meadows, Fort Necessity was built, and there may be seen today the remains of its palisades.
The site was not chosen because of its strategic location, but because, late in that May day, a century and a half ago, a little army hurrying forward to find any spot where it could defend itself, selected itbecause of the supply of water afforded by the brooks.
From the hill to the east the young commander no doubt looked with anxious eyes upon this well-watered meadow, and perhaps he decided quickly to make his resistance here. As he neared the spot his hopes rose, for he found that the plateau was surrounded by wet ground and accessible only from the southern side. Moreover the plateau contained “natural fortifications,” as Washington termed them, possibly gullies torn through it, sometime when the brooks were out of banks.
Here Washington quickly ensconced his men. From their trenches, as they looked westward for the French, lay the western extremity of Great Meadows covered with bushes and rank grasses. To their right—the north—the meadow marsh stretched more than a hundred yards to the gently ascending wooded hillside. Behind them lay the eastern sweep of meadows, and to their left, seventy yards distant, the wooded hillside to the south. The high ground on which they lay contained about forty square rods, and was bounded on the north byGreat Meadows brook and on the east by a brooklet which descended from the valley between the southern hills.
When, in the days following, Fort Necessity was raised, the palisades, it is said, were made by erecting logs on one end, side by side, and throwing dirt against them from both sides. As there were no trees in the meadow, the logs were brought from the southern hillside over the narrow neck of solid ground to their place. On the north the palisade was made to touch the waters of the brook. Without its embankments on the south and west sides, two trenches were dug parallel with the embankments, to serve as rifle-pits. Bastion gateways, three in number, were made in the western palisade.
The first recorded survey of Fort Necessity was made by Mr. Freeman Lewis, senior author, with Mr. James Veech, ofThe Monongahela of Old, in 1816. This survey was first reproduced in Lowdermilk’sHistory of Cumberland;[13]it is described by Mr. Veech inThe Monongahela of Old,[14]andhas been reproduced as authoritative, by the authors ofFrontier Forts of Pennsylvania, published in 1895 by the state of Pennsylvania.[15]The embankments are described thus by Mr. Veech on the basis of his collaborator’s survey: “It [Fort Necessity] was in the form of an obtuse-angled triangle of 105 degrees, having its base or hypothenuse upon the run. The line of the base was about midway, sected or broken, and about two perches of it thrown across the run, connecting with the base by lines of the triangle. One line of the angle was six, the other seven perches; the base line eleven perches long, including the section thrown across the run. The lines embraced in all about fifty square perches of land on [or?] nearly one third of an acre.”
Two Plans of Fort NecessityTwo Plans of Fort Necessity[A, Plan of Lewis’s Survey; B, Sparks’s Plan]
[A, Plan of Lewis’s Survey; B, Sparks’s Plan]
This amusing statement has been seriously quoted by the authorities mentioned, and a map is made according to it and published in theFrontier Forts of Pennsylvaniawithout a word as to its inconsistencies. How could a triangle, the sides of which measure six, seven, and eleven rods, contain fifty square rods or one-third of anacre? It could not contain half that amount.
The present writer went to Fort Necessity armed with this two-page map of Fort Necessity in theFrontier Forts of Pennsylvaniawhich he trusted as authoritative. The present owner of the land, Mr. Lewis Fazenbaker, objected to the map, and it was only in trying to prove its correctness that its inconsistencies were discovered.
The mounds now standing on the ground are drawn on the appended chartDiagrams of Fort Necessityas lines C A B E. By a careful survey of them by Mr. Robert McCracken C.E., sides C A and A B are found to be the identical mounds surveyed by Mr. Lewis, the variation in direction being exceedingly slight and easily accounted for by erosion. The direction of Mr. Lewis’s sides were N. 25 W. and S. 80 W.: their direction by Mr. McCracken’s survey are N. 22 W. and S. 80.30 W. This proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the embankments surveyed in 1816 and 1901 are identical.
But the third mound B E runs utterly at variance with Mr. Lewis’s figure. By him its direction was S. 59¼ E.; its presentdirection is S. 76 E. The question then arises: Is this mound the one that Mr. Lewis surveyed? Nothing could be better evidence that it is than the very egregious error Mr. Lewis made concerning the area contained within his triangular embankment. He affirms that the area of Fort Necessity was fifty square rods. Now take the line of B E for the third side of the triangle and extend it to F where it would meet the continuation of side A C.That triangle contains almost exactly 50 square rods or one-third of an acre!The natural supposition must be that some one had surveyed the triangle A F B and computed its area correctly as about fifty square rods. The mere recording of this area is sufficient evidence that the triangle A F B had been surveyed in 1816, and this is sufficient proof that mound B E stood just as it stands today and was considered in Mr. Lewis’s day as one of the embankments of Fort Necessity.
Diagrams of Fort NecessityDiagrams of Fort Necessity[Scale 80 feet to the inch.]
[Scale 80 feet to the inch.]
Now, why did Mr. Lewis ignore the embankment B E and the triangle A F B which contained these fifty square rods he gave as the area of Fort Necessity? Forthe very obvious reason that that triangle crossed the brook and ran far into the marsh beyond. By every account the palisades of Fort Necessity were made to extend on the north to touch the brook, therefore it would be quite ridiculous to suppose the palisades crossed the brook again on the east. Mr. Lewis, prepossessed with the idea that the embankments must have been triangular in shape, drew the line B C as the base of his triangle, bisecting it at M and N, and making the loop M S N touch the brook. This design (triangle A B C) of Fort Necessity is improbable for the following reasons:
1. It has not one-half the area Mr. Lewis gives it.
2. It would not include much more than one-half of the high ground of the plateau, which was none too large for a fort.
3. There is no semblance of a mound B C nor any shred of testimony nor any legend of its existence.
4. The mound B E is entirely ignored though there is the best of evidence that it stood in Mr. Lewis’s day where it stands today and was considered an embankmentof Fort Necessity. Mr. Lewis gives exactly the area of a triangle with it as a part of the base line.
5. Loop M S N would not come near the course of the brook without extending it far beyond Mr. Lewis’s estimate of the length of its sides.
6. Its area is only about 5200 square feet which would make Fort Necessity unconscionably small in face of the fact that more high ground was available.
In 1759 Colonel Burd visited the site of Fort Necessity. This was only five years after it was built. He described its remains as circular in shape. If it was originally a triangle it is improbable that it could have appeared round five years later. If, however, it was originally an irregular square, it is not improbable that the rains and frosts of five winters, combined with the demolition of the fort by the French, would have given the mounds a circular appearance. Was Fort Necessity, then, built in the form of an irregular square? There is the best of evidence that it was.
In 1830—fourteen years after Mr. Lewis’s “survey”—Mr. Jared Sparks, acareful historian and author of the standard work on Washington, visited Fort Necessity. According to him its remains occupied “an irregular square, the dimensions of which were about one hundred feet on each side.”[16]Mr. Sparks drew a map of the embankments which is incorporated in hisWritings of Washington(see plate on page 175). This drawing has not been reproduced in any later work, the authors of bothHistory of CumberlandandFrontier Forts of Pennsylvaniapreferring to reproduce Mr. Lewis’s inconsistent survey and speculation rather than Mr. Sparks’s more accurate drawing.
It is plain that Mr. Sparks found the embankment B E running in the direction it does today and not at all in the direction of the line B C, as Mr. Lewis drew it. By giving the approximate length of the sides as one hundred feet, Mr. Sparks gives about the exact length of the line B E in whatever direction it is extended to the brook. The fact that such an exact scholar as Mr. Sparks does not mention a sign or tradition of an embankment at B C, only fourteen years after Mr. Lewis “surveyed” it, is evidence that it never existed, which cannot come far from convicting the latter of a positive intention to speculate. However, it is well known how loosely early surveying was done.
Mr. Sparks gives us four sides for Fort Necessity. Three of these have been described as C A, A B and the broken line B E D. Is there any evidence of the fourth side such as indicated by the line C D?
There is!
When Mr. Fazenbaker first questioned the accuracy of the map of Fort Necessity inFrontier Forts of Pennsylvania, he believed the fort was a four-sided construction and pointed to a small mound, indicated at O, as the remains of the fourth embankment. The mound would not be noticed in a hasty view of the field, but, on examination proves to be an artificial, not a natural, mound. It is in lower ground and nearer the old course of the brook than the remains of Fort Necessity. A mound here would suffer most when the brook was out of banks, which would account for its disappearance.
Excavations in the other mounds had been unsuccessful; nothing had been discovered of the palisades, though every mound gave certain proof of having been artificially made. But excavations at mound O gave a different result. At about four and one-half feet below the surface of the ground, at the water line, a considerable amount of bark was found, fresh and red as new bark. It was water-soaked and the strings lay parallel with the mound above and were not found at a greater distance than two feet from its center. It was the rough bark of a tree’s trunk—not the skin bark such as grows on roots. Large flakes, the size of a man’s hand, could be removed from it. At a distance of ten feet away a second trench was sunk, in line with the mound but quite beyond its northwestern extremity. Bark was found here entirely similar in color, position, and condition. There is little doubt that the bark came from the logs of the palisades of Fort Necessity, though nothing is to be gained by exaggerating the possibility. Bark, here in the low ground, would last indefinitely, and water was reached under this mound sooner than at any other point. No wood was found. Itis probable that the French threw down the palisades, but bark would naturally have been left in the ground. If wood had been left, it would not withstand decay so long as bark. Competent judges declare the bark to be that of oak. An authority of great reputation expresses the opinion that the bark found was probably from the logs of the palisades erected in 1754.
If anything is needed to prove that this slight mound O was an embankment of Fort Necessity, it is to be found in the result of Mr. McCracken’s survey. The mound lies inexact linewith the eastern extremity of embankment C A, the point C being located seven rods from the obtuse angle A, in line with the mound C A, which is broken by Mr. Fazenbaker’s lane. Also, the distance from C to D (in line with the mound O) measures ninety-nine feet and four inches—almost exactly Mr. Sparks’s estimate of one hundred feet. Thus Fort Necessity was in the shape of the figure represented by lines K C, C A, A B, and B E, and the projection of the palisades to the brook is represented by E D K, E H K, or L W K (line B E beingprolonged to L). Mr. Sparks’s drawing of the fort is thus proven approximately correct, although Mr. Veech boldly asserts that it is “inaccurate”[17](the quotation being copied in theFrontier Forts of Pennsylvania),[18]and despite the fact that two volumes treating of the fort,History of Cumberland, andFrontier Forts of Pennsylvania, refuse to give Mr. Sparks’s map a place in their pages. It is of little practical moment what the form of the fort may have been, but it is all out of order that a palpably false description should be given by those who should be authorities, in preference to Mr. Sparks’s description which is easily proven to be approximately correct.
Relics from Fort Necessity are rare and valuable, for the reason that no other action save the one battle of Fort Necessity ever took place here. The barrel of an old flint-lock musket, a few grape shot, a bullet mould and ladle, leaden and iron musket balls, comprise the few silent memorials of the first battle in which Saxon blood was shed west of the Alleghany Mountains.The swivels, it is said, were taken to Kentucky to do brave duty there in redeeming the “dark and bloody ground” to civilization.
On the one hundredth anniversary of the battle of Fort Necessity a corner-stone for a monument was laid, but that has been displaced and rifled by vandals. Will the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary pass without suitable action? Is not the site of the first battle of the American Revolution worthy of a monument?
It is probable that, as early as 1753, after his return from his mission to the French forts, George Washington first introduced the subject of uniting the East and West by means of public highways. If England was to hold the West she must have a passageway to it.
The project involved very great expense and Governor Dinwiddie paid little heed to it. Had Virginia acted on the young Washington’s suggestion, how much life and treasure would have been saved! Braddock could not but have been successful, and that would have made Forbes’s expedition needless, and perhaps Bouquet’s also.
As it was, Braddock’s twelve-foot road was almost her only communication with the West. But Washington held to his boyhood dream of a highway over the mountains. As the years passed, his plansmatured gradually with the unparalleled growth of the West. Being a broad-minded Virginian of Virginians, he early conceived a picture of commercial grandeur, for the Old Dominion, the colony holding a golden West in fee. This was to be attained by building a highway over the mountains and connecting its eastern and western termini with navigable water-ways, natural or, if necessary, artificial. The building of the canals upon which the commerce from and to both east and west was to be brought to the great portage highway across the Alleghanies was the importantcoupof his plan, and to this he gave the best of his time and strength for many years.
When he first became a member of the House of Burgesses, in 1759, the subject of a highway connection between the East and the West was not formally introduced. But to the members Washington recommended the project as worthy of their consideration; he determined, before it should be formally brought before the legislature of the colony for definite action, to supply himself with all facts concerning the practicability of the undertaking, theexpense of the construction and the advantages to accrue. His plan contemplated the improvement of the navigation of the Potomac from tide-water to Fort Cumberland at the mouth of Wills Creek, or, to the highest practical point of the Potomac, and the building of a highway across the mountains to the nearest navigable western rivers, Cheat, Youghiogheny, Monongahela, or Ohio.
The selection of the best route was of primary importance, and Washington during his tours in the West studied carefully this question. Maps plotted by surveying parties were examined and materially aided in selecting the most advantageous communication. The colonies on the Potomac, Virginia and Maryland, would especially profit by the navigation of this river and the extension of the communication with the West. Certain of Washington’s letters to friends residing in Virginia and Maryland with extracts of his journal, including descriptions of the West, were published in the colonialGazettes. The project was received with curiosity and interest. When Washington made his western tour in 1774,he was surprised to find the change that had taken place in the valley of the Ohio. People, he affirmed, were immigrating “in shoals!”.
Believing now the time had come, Washington brought his plan of a grand system of communication before the House of Burgesses at its session in 1774. It met with much opposition on the grounds of impracticability and expense. Accordingly, Washington was forced to depart from his original intention. He introduced and moved the adoption of a bill which empowered individuals to subscribe toward such an enterprise and construct a communication at their own expense. Even this met with opposition, and, to appease the delegates from central Virginia, it was found necessary to introduce an amendment to include the improvement of the navigation of the James river.
In its amended form, the bill would probably have passed the House of Burgesses. A similar bill was brought before the Assembly of Maryland, though with discouraging prospects. Jealousies regarding western trade already existed between themerchants of Baltimore and Georgetown, and efforts made in favor of the bill by one party were opposed by the other.
With matters in this doubtful condition, the Revolutionary War broke out and as commander-in-chief of the army, Washington was called to Cambridge. But he never forgot the dream of his youth and early manhood and at the close of the war, again took up the enterprise. The dream of the youth became the firm conviction of the man, and, next to his desire for the independence of his country, the chief ambition of his life. For, now, the project was of national importance—to bind the East and the West with the iron bands of commercial intercourse and sympathy. A new nation had been born, but it was divided by mountains, which, to European eyes, seemed imperative boundaries of empire.
On the first day of September, 1784, Washington left his home for another western tour. His purpose in making a western tour at this time was, chiefly, to look after his land, but a secondary consideration was to make a critical study of thesummit range which intervened between the headwaters of the Ohio and Potomac rivers.
Upon his return to Mt. Vernon he prepared an account of his investigations, setting forth his arguments in behalf of this momentous project. This report, together with a transcript of his journal, he forwarded to the governor of Virginia. These words were added to the report: “If you concur with me in the proposition I have suggested, and it is adopted by the legislature, it will signalize your administration as an important era in the history of this country.”
A new, yet old, consideration made the building of a highway to the West of utmost moment at this time. Now, as England found, in 1763, the trade of the Central West was slipping away down the Mississippi into the hands of Spaniards, and Washington was anticipating already a matter which was to prove a perplexing problem to the nation before it was solved. It is best treated in one of his letters to David Humphreys, written July 25th, 1785: “I may be singular in my ideas, but they are these: that, to open a door to, and makeeasy the way for, those settlers to the westward (who ought to advance regularly and compactly) before we make any stir about the navigation of the Mississippi, and before our settlements are far advanced towards that river, would be our true line of policy. It can, I think, be demonstrated that the produce of the western territory (if the navigations which are in hand succeed, of which I have no doubt), as low down the Ohio as the Great Kanawha, and I believe to the Falls, and between the ports above the lakes, may be brought either to the highest shipping port on the Potomac or James rivers at a less expense, with more ease, including the return, and in a much shorter time, than it can be carried to New Orleans, if the Spaniards, instead of restrictions, were to throw open their ports and invite our trade. But if the commerce of that country should embrace this channel, and connections be formed, experience has taught us, and there is a very recent proof with Great Britain, how next to impracticable it is to divert it; and, if that should be the case, the Atlantic States, especially as those to the westward,will in a great degree be filled with foreigners, will be no more to the present Union, except to excite perhaps very justly our fears, than the country of California is, which is still more to the westward, and belonging to another power.”
To Henry Lee he wrote: “Openallthe communications which nature has afforded, between the Atlantic States and the western territory, and encourage the use of them to the utmost. In my judgment, it is a matter of very serious concern to the well-being of the former, to make it the interest of the latter to trade with them; without which the ties of consanguinity, which are weakening every day, will soon be no bond, and we shall be no more a few years hence, to the inhabitants of that country, than the British and Spaniards are at this day; not so much, indeed, because commercial connections, it is well known, lead to others, and united are difficult to be broken.” This view of the dependence of the seaboard states on those of the Central West, held by Washington, is as interesting as it was novel.
The bill authorizing the formation of acompany to open the navigation of the Potomac and James rivers passed the legislatures of Virginia and Maryland. It is difficult for us to realize how canals were viewed a century ago; how commercial prosperity seemed to depend upon their building. Already Washington, in fancy, had covered the West with a network of canals. As early as 1784, he wrote to Governor Harrison urging a survey of the Ohio; he added: “Let the courses and distances be taken to the mouth of the Muskingum and up that river to the carrying place of the Cuyahoga; down the Cuyahoga to Lake Erie, and thence to Detroit. Let them do the same with Big Beaver Creek and with the Scioto. In a word, let the waters east and west of the Ohio which invite our notice by their proximity, and by the ease with which land transportation may be had between them and the lakes on the one side, and the rivers Potomac and James on the other, be explored, accurately delineated, and a correct and connected map of the whole be presented to the public.... The object in my estimation is of vast commercial and political importance.”
Washington’s laborious method of securing necessary information concerning the West, and his earnestness in not omitting any phase of the project are exemplified in a letter to Richard Butler, newly appointed superintendent of Indian affairs, written in 1786: “As I am anxious to learn the nature of the navigation of Beaver Creek, the distance, and what kind of a portage there is between it and Cayahoga, or any other nearer navigable water of Lake Erie, and the nature of the navigation of the latter; and also the navigation of the Muskingum, the distance and sort of portage across to the navigable waters of Cayahoga or Sandusky, and the kind of navigation therein; you would do me an acceptable favor to convey them to me, with the computed distances from the River Ohio by each of these routes to the lake itself.”
In a letter to Henry Lee Washington, again, he writes: “Till you get low down the Ohio, I conceive, that, considering the length of the voyage to New Orleans, the difficulty of the current, and the time necessary to perform it in, it would be the interest of the inhabitants to bring theirproduce to our ports; and sure I am there is no other tie by which they will long form a link in the chain of federal union.”
Washington’s eagerness to gain every possible item of information concerning methods of internal improvement is displayed in a letter to Thomas Jefferson: “I was very much gratified ... by the receipt of your letter ... for the satisfactory account of the canal of Languedoc. It gives me great pleasure to be made acquainted with the particulars of that stupendous work, though I do not expect to derive any but speculative advantages from it.” To the Marquis of Chastellux he wrote: “I have lately made a tour through the Lakes George and Champlain as far as Crown Point, then returning to Schenectady, I proceeded up the Mohawk River to Fort Schuyler, crossed over the Wood Creek, which empties into the Oneida Lake, and affords the water communication with Ontario. I then traversed the country to the head of the eastern branch of the Susquehannah, and viewed the lake Otsego, and the portage between that lake and the Mohawk River at Canajoharie. Prompted by these actual observations, I could not help taking a more contemplative and extensive view of the vast inland navigation of the United States.... Would to God we may have wisdom enough to improve them! I shall not rest contented until I have explored the western country, and traversed those lines (or a great part of them) which have given bounds to a new empire.”
To William Irvine, Washington wrote in 1788: “The letter with which you favored me ... inclosing a sketch of the waters near the line which separates your State from that of New York, came duly to hand.... The extensive inland navigation with which this country abounds and the easy communications which many of the rivers afford with the amazing territory to the west of us, will certainly be productive of infinite advantage to the Atlantic States.... For my part, I wish sincerely that every door to that country may be set wide open, that the commercial intercourse may be rendered as free and as easy as possible. This, in my judgment, is the best, if not the onlycement that can bind those people to us for any length of time; and we shall, I think, be deficient in forethought and wisdom if we neglect the means to effect it.... If the Chautauqua Lake, at the head of Conewango River, approximates Lake Erie as nearly as is laid down in the draft you sent me, it presents a very short portage indeed between the two, and an access to all those above the latter.”
“I need not remark to you, sir,” Washington writes to Harrison, in perhaps the most powerful appeal he ever made, “that the flanks and rear of the United States are possessed by other powers, and formidable ones too; nor how necessary it is to apply the cement of interest to bind all parts of the Union together by indissoluble bonds, especially that part of it which lies immediately west of us, with the Middle States. For what ties, let me ask, should we have upon those people? How entirely unconnected with them shall we be, and what troubles may we not apprehend, if the Spaniards on their right, and Great Britain on their left, instead of throwing stumbling blocks in their way, as they now do, shouldhold out lures for their trade and alliance? What, when they get strength, which will be sooner than most people conceive (from the immigration of foreigners, who will have no particular predilection towards us, as well as from the removal of our own citizens), will be the consequence of their having formed close connections with both or either of those powers in a commercial way, it needs not, in my opinion, the gift of prophesy to foretell. The Western States (I speak now from my own observation) stand as it were upon a pivot. The touch of a feather would turn them any way. They have looked down the Mississippi until the Spaniards, very impolitically, I think, for themselves, throw difficulties in their way; and they looked that way for no other reason than because they could glide gently down the stream, without considering, perhaps, the difficulties of the voyage back again, and the time necessary to perform it in; and because they have no other means of coming to us but by long land transportations, and unimproved roads. These causes have hitherto checked the industry of the present settlers; forexcept the demand for provisions, occasioned by the increase of population, and a little flour, which the necessities of the Spaniards compel them to buy, they have no incitements to labor. But smooth the road and make easy the way for them, and then see what an influx of articles will be poured upon us; how amazingly our exports will be increased by them, and how amply we shall be compensated for any trouble and expense we may encounter to effect it.... It wants only a beginning. The western inhabitants would do their part toward the execution. Weak as they are, they would meet us at least half way, rather than be driven into the arms of foreigners, or be dependent upon them.”
The navigation of the Potomac was not easily secured and the Potomac Company relinquished its charter in 1823 when the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company was formed. Yet in only one generation after Washington’s death the important features of his great plan of internal communications were realized. The Chesapeake and Ohio, Erie and Ohio canals made the exact connections desired by Washington half acentury before, and with the very results he prophesied. To crown all, within two years of Washington’s death, the great highway across the mountains for which he had pleaded for many years was assured, and for the next half-century the first National Road in the United States fulfilled to the letter Washington’s fondest dream of welding more firmly “the chain of federal union.”
True to his declared conviction, that “the western inhabitants would do their part,” the creation of the first state beyond the Ohio, was responsible for the building of this great road; and, also, true to Washington’s conviction, the commissioners appointed by President Jefferson to determine the best course for the road, decided in favor of Washington’s old roadway from Fort Cumberland through Great Meadows to the Monongahela and the Ohio, the course Washington always held to be the one practical route to the West and which he had had surveyed at his own expense.
For three score years Washington’s and Braddock’s roads answered all the imperative needs of modern travel, though the journey over it, at most seasons, was a rough experience. During the winter the road was practically impassable. Colonel Brodhead, commanding at Fort Pitt during the Revolutionary War, wrote Richard Peters: “The great Depth of Snow upon the Alleghany and Laurel Hills have prevented our getting every kind of Stores, nor do I expect to get any now until the latter End of April.”
But with the growing importance of Pittsburg, the subject of roads received more and more attention. As early as 1769, a warrant was issued for the survey of the Manor of Pittsburg, which embraced 5,766 acres. In this warrant an allowance of six per cent was made for roads.[19]Six years later, or the first year of the Revolutionary War, court met at Pittsburg, and viewers were appointed to report on a large number of roads, in the construction of which all males between the ages of sixteen and forty-five, living within three miles of the road, were required to work under the supervision of the commissioners. One ofthese roads became, nearly half a century later, incorporated in the Cumberland Road.
The licensing of taverns by Youghiogheny county in 1778, and of ferries about the same time, indicate the opening and use of roads. Within ten years, the post from New York to Pittsburg was established over the treacherous mountain road. In 1794, the Pittsburg post-office was established, with mails from Philadelphia once in two weeks.[20]
Through all these years a stream of pioneers had been flowing westward, the current dividing at Fort Cumberland. Hundreds had wended their tedious way over Braddock’s Road to the Youghiogheny and passed down by water to Kentucky, but thousands had journeyed south over Boone’s Wilderness Road, which had been blazed through Cumberland Gap in 1775. All that was needed to turn the whole current toward the Ohio was a good thoroughfare.
The thousands of people who had gone, by one way or another, into the trans-Ohiocountry, soon demanded statehood. The creation of the state of Ohio is directly responsible for the building of the Cumberland Road. In an act passed by Congress April 30, 1802, to enable the people of Ohio to form a state government and for admission into the Union, section 7 contained this provision:
“That one-twentieth of the net proceeds of the lands lying within said State sold by Congress shall be applied to the laying out and making public roads leading from the navigable waters emptying into the Atlantic, to the Ohio, to the said state, and through the same, such roads to be laid out under the authority of Congress, with the consent of the several states through which the roads shall pass.”[21]
Another law, passed March 3rd of the following year, appropriated three per cent of the five to laying out roads within the state of Ohio, and the remaining two per cent for laying out and making roads from the navigable waters, emptying into the Atlantic, to the river Ohio to the said state.[22]
A committee, appointed to review the question, reported to the Senate December 19, 1805. At that time, the sale of land from July, 1802, to September 30, 1805, had amounted to $632,604.27, of which two per cent, $12,652, was available for a road to Ohio. This sum was rapidly increasing. Of the routes across the mountains, the committee studied none of those north of Philadelphia, or south of Richmond. Between these points five courses were considered: