Brethren Life: Migrations

    Have you ever wished that you could go back in time and experience life in a typical Brethren farming community? When life was at a much slower pace, without the vibration of noisy over crowded highways, and the word filth referred to something in a barnyard. Here is at least one opportunity to discover what simple family life was like during the 1840-1850's, in and around the small farming community of Boston, Indiana. For some this will be a chance to discover former ways of more simple living and for others it will be a refreshing trip down memory lane, because of stories that grandparents used to tell. Brethren church historian Merle C. Rummel has graciously permitted several chapters of his book, "Four Mile Community" to be place online, so that people in the modern world may discover what life was like in a more simple time, when people knew almost everyone in town. It was truly a time of sheltered existence for many, a time for cultivating a rich heritage of family experiences when the outside world - was still the outside world.

Brethren Migrations

Written by Merle C. Rummel ~ Published April, 1998 ~ Last Updated, February, 2009 ©
This document may be reproduced, only if remaining intact, with full acknowledgement to the author.
[Boone Family] [Braddock Road] [Bullskin Road] [Canada Road] [Carolina Road] [Delaware Road]
[Forbes Road] [Fort Kaskaskia Road] [Great Warrior's Path] [Ioway Road] [Kanawha Trace] [Louisville Vincennes]
[Mahoning Trace] [Michigan Road] [Monocacy Road] [National Road] [Originally the Rivers] [Peoria-Galena Road]
[Valley Road] [Wayne Road] [Wetzel Trace] [Westward Migration] [Wilderness Road] [Zane Trace]

Roads used by Brethren during Migration

consider three things to have the greatest effect on people and events of history. There is the struggle for power: which results in wars or various types of struggle and conflicts; there are economics: depressions or hard times, good times and peaceful living, and the attendant results; there is movement and transportation: ease or difficulty of movement, including travel and commerce. There are other things that effect people and history (famines, severe weather or climatic changes, natural disasters of various kinds, and epidemics), but even most of these end with some result in the above three. Early America used the rivers and waterways for much of its travel and transportation. Roads were worse than poor. Even Benjamin Franklin in his "Poor Richards Almanac" complained about the pot holes and hog wallows in Philadelphia. No road beyond the cities, was more than a pair of worn tracks through open land, usually with grass growing up in the center. The traveler was lucky if it was smooth, bad weather from storms or the thawing of spring would leave deep ruts, which dried into shaking and jaring of the steel-rimmed wagon. The roads of necessity wound around the huge forest trees, and the roots of such would lay huge bumps across the road. Trees were cut, to open the road, and the stumps left standing in the road. Ravines, gulleys, streams and rivers meant a descent to the bottom, and a climb out on the far bank, if not worse. But America still moved west.

Land travel was slow, seldom over 10 miles a day, often half that. It was considered that the children would easily keep up, walking nearby, and in the process find much to keep themselves entertained. (Nowhere like todays problems taking children in a long automobile trip.) The team of horses might travel a little faster, but long distance was with the ox team, which traveled even slower than a walk, but could keep going, with less food, long after the horses would quit. The normal trip took days and often months.

There was considerable travel and communication among kin in distant communities. People who had to "go back home" for any reason, hand carried messages from all the neighbors, to their different families and friends. A "letter" from home was normal - at least once or twice a year, even though home was in eastern Pennsylvania, and the family might live in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois or even Iowa. A "letter" normally consisted of a single sheet of paper, written on both sides, except for that part which, after folding, would carry the address, like an envelope. Paper was not cheap or readily available, and the "letter" still existant is oftimes very interesting.

These roads I have personally traveled, some of them in one solid stretch, and on occasion, missing some sections.

Boone Family and the Brethren

e have very little that directly connects the Brethren with Daniel Boone and the Boone Family, but we have a number of circumstantial facts that do make a direct connection. I am not going to include much of the Quaker origins of Squire Boone Sr, although that does include influencing considerations. I am well aware that the Baptists claim the family –but that is one of the problems, that I will address.

    In 1731, Squire Boone Sr (wife Sarah Morgan –welsh background) moved to the Schuylkill River, the Oley Valley on Owatin Run. This became the Exeter Quaker Meeting, about 10 miles upstream from Manatawny or Pottstown (Coventry Church). Thiis was near the Oley Church. In 1842, the daughter, Sarah, married a “worldling”, the german John Wilcoxin, then in 1747 the eldest son, Israel, also married outside the Quaker Meeting –and the family was expelled. They no longer would connect with the Quakers.

    About 1749 Sqsuire and family began their move to the frontier. Records say that he stopped in Maryland on his way south (at Boonesboro), in Middletown Valley (a major Brethren community) and waited for his sons, George and Squire Jr, to return from Brother’s Valley (a very early Brethren community in Bedford Co -now Somerset Co PA). Austin Cooper partially confirms this: he found in the Stoney Creek Clerk’s Records Book –that George Boone was advanced to the ministry there in 1770. He moved to Linnville Creek in Virginia for a couple years, near kin.

    By late 1751, Squire Boone Sr moved to the Yadkin River in North Carolina. He lived at the Dutchman’s Creek Settlement, at the “Forks of the Yadkin”, about 20 miles north of Salisbury. Here he obtained several square miles of land, which were portioned out to his children as they married. The Forks of the Yadkin was one of the main Brethren communities in the colonial Carolinas.

    The famous Daniel Boone, son of Squire Boone Sr, returned from being a waggoner in the army at Braddock’s Defeat near Pittsburg in 1755. He killed his first Indian on this return. “The first of only 3 Indians that he ever killed” he has said. The next year he married 17 year old Rebecca Bryan. They lived most of the next 10 years in the Bryan Settlement on Sugartree Creek about 2 miles east of Farmington NC.

    In 1767 Daniel and his brother, Squire Boone, first penetrated into Kentucky on a fur trapping expedition. They spent the winter there, trapped by a snowstorm, and did much exploration that would be central to their emigration to Kentucky a few years later.

    In 1775, Daniel and Squire Boone founded the town of Boonesborough. This was under the leadership of James Henderson of the Transilvania Company. They cut the famous Wilderness Road –leading to this new settlement on the Kentucky River, named Boonesborough. Both George Boone and Squire Boone Jr were nearby, they established the fort at Boone Station downstream on the Kentucky River, now at the east edge of Lexington KY. Austin Cooper claims that Squire Boone Jr was put in the ministry by Elder John Hendricks one of the Brethren Elders at Dutchman’s Creek, who was central in the Pietist Eternal Restoration [Universalist] movement [possibly even the “John H” of the 1796 Annual Meeting Minutes ban that lost the Brethren churches of the Carolinas] and moved to the Drake’s Creek congregation south of Bowling Green KY). The Baptists claim Squire Boone Jr as the first Baptist minister in Kentucky and Indiana. George Boone is listed as an early minister of the Tate’s Creek Baptist Church, southeast of Lexington, just below the site of Boone Station. In his last days, George Boone is reported to have moved to the Indiana hills along the Ohio River, just west of Louisville, and lived as a Pietist Solitary (in the tradition of the Ephrata Cloisters PA).

    The Annual Meeting Elders placed these Frontier Brethren in “Avoidance” in 1826. As a result, these Brethren went several directions. While the “Brethren Association”, including Beech Creek, primarily went with the Great Revival under the leadership of Alexander Campbell, and became a major part of the formation of the Disciples of Christ, Christian Church; many of them were Baptist (this was before we became the “German Baptists”) and they then took associated with Regular Baptists, who were nearby. This is an explanation for the connection made by the Baptists to the ministry of Squire Boone Jr. While the Regular Baptists came into Kentucky (and Carolina) early, they were at least a decade later than the Baptist Brethren or Dunkers, but early records do not make the distinction, especially since so many of the Baptist Brethren made association with the Regular Baptists after the ban by the Annual Meeting Elders.

    In 1779 Squire Boone Jr led a migration west to Shelby Co KY, near Shelbyville, northeast of Louisville. While the Indians drove them out temporarily, after they returned this is the area of the Beech Creek Brethren Church. Squire moved again, to Louisville. In his day, this was called “The Falls”. The Ohio River drops here at total of 24 feet in 4 miles. (Squire Jr’s fortified cabin, called “Fort Boone”, was on Main Street, between 8th and 9th streets, facing the river. It is intended to become the site of a memorial park.) In typical Brethren fashion, services were held in his home and this is recorded as one of the first churches in the Louisville area. Most of those who migrated by flatboat down the Ohio River did not try to “run the falls”. Some of them stopped above Louisville, at Limestone (Maysville KY), or across from Cincinnati in Campbell Co, or went up the Kentucky River. Many of those who came on to The Falls, stopped above Louisville. The Beech Creek Church was one of these Brethren settlements northeast of Louisville.

    In 1802, Squire Boone Jr led another migration. This time he went from “The Falls” to Harrison Co IN, just west of Louisville, across the River. (Its county seat, Corydon, was the first Capitol of the State of Indiana.) He had a grist mill in Grassy Valley, 6 miles from the Ohio River and south of Corydon. Squire Boone Cave is there, where Squire is buried (originally inside the cave). The Old Goshen Baptist Church building was built by the Boone family in 1813. (Could this be the first Brethren Church in Indiana?) This is the same area where George Boone stayed as a Pietist Solitary before he died. There was a named Dunker church, Bethel, north of Corydon, near Bradford, on the Indian Trail from Louisville (New Albany) to Ft Vincennes.

    What about Daniel? His wife was Sarah Morgan. Tradition says that her father was a Quaker who became a Brethren deacon. Two of his sons became ministers in the Baptist Church (this was at the time the ban of Avoidance was placed on the Frontier Brethren churches in Kentucky). His name is on the membership list of a small Baptist Church at Boone NC (at the pass through the Blue Ridge Mountains on US421 –between Wilkes and Ashe Cos). This was an area to which Daniel and his family moved in 1766. The only problem (as stated previously) was that the Baptist Brethren lived in that area, and in Daniel’s day, the Regular (English) Baptists had not arrived in the upland areas of North Carolina (except as they point to his name on their church roll). This could be one of the Brethren congregations lost in the 1796 ban against the Carolina churches, we don’t have enough information. After the Revolution Daniel worked as a surveyor, and laid claim to considerable tracts of land in eastern Kentucky. Kentucky belonged to Virginia, and in its attempts to allocate the lands there, the original settlers lost to the baron families of Virginia. Daniel lost all these lands in Kentucky, and moved to Kanawha Co Virginia –now West Virginia –on the Kanawha Trace (a Brethren migration route). About 1796, Daniel returned to Kaintuck, to the area where the Brethren had one of their largest churches, the Hinkston Creek Church. This was north of Boonesboro, just north of Mt Sterling Ky, on the settler road from Boonesboro to Limestone (Maysville) on the Ohio River.

    In 1799, Daniel moved to St Charles Co west of St Louis Missouri, on the Missouri River, to join his son Daniel Morgan Boone. This is only a few miles from a Brethren settlement at Perrique, in St Charles Co above St Louis, on the Mississippi River. These were Brethren from Drakes Creek, in western Kentucky near Bowling Green.

    No, we have very little that directly connects the Brethren with Daniel Boone and the Boone Family, but we have these circumstantial facts that do make a direct connection. I have listed these, and there seems to be enough connection that they could easily have been members of the Brethren Church – including Daniel Boone.

Braddock Road

ajor General Edward Braddock, of the Coldstream Guards, was Supreme Commander of the British Forces in the American Colonies during the French and Indian War, 1754-1763, the colonial phase of the Seven Years War between England and France, fought world wide. In an attempt to deter the Indian raids and massacres into the frontier settlements in the middle colonies, he determined to take the French Fort Duquesne (Pittsburgh), at the forks of the Ohio River. In 1755, with an army of 1400 British Regulars and a militia of 700 provinicals under Lieutenant Colonel George Washington, he moved up the Annapolis Road to Frederick, Maryland. There he took the settlers road through Middletown Valley to Hagerstown, and on to the frontier Fort Frederick, on the Potomac River. Under the guidance of the Colonial Scouts, following the path used by Colonel George Washington only the year before, he started for Fort Duquesne. The army had to cut their own road for the wagon's and cannon. They went west, through Cumberland, Maryland, (old Fort Cumberland). They passed the tiny Fort Necessity, where Colonel Washington had escaped with his troops after surrendering to the French, just the year before. From the Redstone Creek (Uniontown), the army headed due north until it crossed the Youghiogheny River. It then followed the Monongahela River toward the fort. At the town of Braddock, some 7 miles from the Point (the site of Old Fort Duquesne), there in a ravine, the British Army was ambushed by a combined French and Indian force, a slaughter ensued. The remnants of the army fled back along the route of its approach. General Braddock, having been mortally injured in the fight, died and was buried in the road, at Great Meadows, east of now Uniontown, Pennsylvania, about a mile from little Fort Necessity. His grave was covered and run over by the remaining wagons, to hide it from discovery by the enemy.

    Braddocks Road is essentially followed by U.S. 40 from Frederick, Maryland, through Hagarstown, Maryland, Cumberland, Maryland, to Grantsville, Maryland, and into Pennsylvania, past Fort Necessity National Battlefield, to Uniontown, Pennsylvania. There Braddock's Road went north toward Pittsburgh, the route now followed by U.S. 51.

    The early Brethren used Braddock's Road to move into western Pennsylvania. Settlements were already off the trace at the Antietam and Conococheague (East and West of Hagarstown). Brethren settlers moved north from the Road into Morrison's Cove and the Valleys of the Juniata, into Brother's Valley and Somerset County, and west from Uniontown to Fort Redstone on the Monongehela (now Brownsville, Pennsylvania) and on west to Washington County, Pennsylvania. Elder George Wolfe and sons were only one of several at Fort Redstone, who built flatboats for migration down the Ohio to the Western Frontier. This route was followed by the builders of the Cumberland Road, taking it through Old Fort Redstone to the Ohio River at Fort Henry (Wheeling) by 1818. This route is followed by U.S. 40.

Bullskin Road

he first State Road in Ohio, 1807, the Xenia State Road was the official recognition by the new State of Ohio of the old Shawnee Indian Road from British Fort Detroit to Bullskin Landing on the Ohio River, through the major Shawnee center, Old Chillicothe (Oldtown, at Xenia). It was long called the Old Xenia Road. It was down this road in 1778, that Daniel Boone ran the gauntlet at Old Chillicothe, and didn't stop running - clear to the Ohio River, outrunning the pursuing Shawnees. Down this road had come raiding armies of British Regulars and Indian allies as they attempted to destroy the Kentucky settlements. Up this road had gone the Kentucky militia when they attacked the Indians at Springfield in retaliation. In these new lands on the Northwest frontier, the Bullskin Road was a major thoroughfare.

    Bullskin Creek is flooded by the Ohio River for half a mile back from the River, a wide valley opening. It was the first major landing for Ohio River flatboats above Fort Washington (Cincinnati). Here the flatboat was protected, off the river, with easy unloading facilities. This settlement in Clermont County is called Utopia. The Brethren settled on the Bullskin about 1800. (Miller, Moyer, Metzgar, Rohrer, Hoover, Houser; the old Olive Branch Church. It converted en-mass to Church of Christ in the New Light Revival of 1830's.) Being farmers, they lived mostly on the level lands above the high riverbank hills, at the head of Bullskin Creek.

    The Road went north through Felicity and Bethel, now Ohio 133, and crossed the East Fork of the Little Miami at Williamsburg. It crossed Stonelick Creek at Edenton (just 2 miles from the Stonelick Church). A stone marker at the east edge of Edenton is on the old Road as it goes cross-country to Clarksburg. A line of old trees shows part of the route. From Clarksburg it followed old Ohio 380 to Xenia, going through New Burlington, now submerged below the lake at Caesar's Creek State Park. It was called the Bullskin Road.

    From Xenia north to Detroit, it is U.S. 68, the Detroit Road. It goes to Yellow Spring, where it leaves the Little Miami. Then to Springfield, where it follows the Mad River of the Great Miami to Urbana. Other cities on the Road are Bellefontaine, Kenton, Findlay, Bowling Green, Toledo. From Cygnet, north of Findlay, it becomes Ohio 25 and from Toledo to Detroit it is U.S. 24.

    Earliest records show another old Indian path, that connected to the Bullskin Road (Ohio 133), just north of Williamsburg (on Ohio 276). Just before Owensville it turned north to the Ford on the Great Miami River, Franklin Ohio, then headed north along the Great Miami and Stillwater rivers, where many of the early Brethren settled on the west side of Dayton.

    The earliest Brethren settlement in Ohio was in Clermont County, the Obannon Church, near Goshen (1795). The Olive Branch Church near Bullskin Landing soon followed (1800). But this was heavy clay soil, and many decided to move north to the good farmland on the Great Miami River.

    Frederick Weaver (in whose home the Obannon Church first met), Gabriel Kerns, and David and Daniel Miller lived in the western part of the Obannon Church area, near Manila Road, which goes southeast from Goshen. Just above Gabriel Kerns' farm is Linton Road, which was the OLD route before Manila road was built, going through Goshen past the Cemetery, meeting the Murdoch/Lebanon Road above town. It now stops at the Cemetery.

    The Road went north from Goshen to those families of the Obannon Church (the Millers at Murdock and Bowmans unknown) who lived in Warren County. At Murdock it went on north to Lebanon (Ohio 48). Then an angling Indian path was followed (Ohio 123) to the ford over the Great Miami at Franklin. This put them on the west side of the River, where Elder Jacob Miller lived on Bear Creek (1800).

    The exact route north, on the west side of the Great Miami, is not known. There are a couple of early references (1830's) to an old River Road on the banks of the Great Miami. Probabilities are that it followed the Soldier's Home Road along the River and then went nearly strait north on the Gettysburg Road to the Wolf Creek Road, the Salem Road and the Covington Road (Stillwater River).

    The John Aukerman family likely used this road to the Great Miami River Ford, then followed what became the extension of the Kanawha Trace, along the Twin Creek, into Preble County, Ohio. The John Bowman family likely used this route for their migration from the Obannon to Montgomery County, about 1800. David Miller left about 1802, and already others of the Obannon Brethren had moved north. These families seem to have been displaced from their Hamilton County homesteads (now Clermont and Warren) when the government gave these lands to the Virginia Military District and Ohio land grants were given as bounties to Revolutionary Veterans in lieu of their pay. Local settlers, like the Aukermans and Bowmans, could not purchase their homesteads and had to move.

    Most of the earliest Brethren settlers to Ohio seem to have stopped among the Brethren already at Obannon / Stonelick, before they found lands north (the Land Office was in Cincinnati, a days walk away), then followed one or the other of the Indian Roads north. Many Brethren moved up the Bullskin Trace to the east side of Dayton, to Green and Clark Counties, Ohio, to the old Beaver Creek and Donnels Creek Church areas. Other Brethren crossed the ford on the Great Miami, and settled in the fertile lands west of the River, the Lower Miami Church, the Bear Creek Church, the Stillwater Church.

Canada Road

he early Brethren moved north on the Susquehanna River into Northumberland County, Pennsylvania near or soon after the time of the Revolutionary War. There was a trace along the River, there were also a couple traces from the Tulpehocken and from Reading across the ridge into the Shamokin Valley. In 1800, the King opened up settlement in Upper Canada (now Ontario). The land was available cheap, in "Lots" of 200 acres, by Concessions of 35 lots, in each of a number of townships and counties. There was considerable Mennonite, Brethren and River Brethren migration to Lincoln County (between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario -next to the Niagara Falls); Vaughan township, York County (north-west of Toronto); and near Kitchener. Many Brethren from Brother's Valley (Somerset County), Northumberland County (Shamokin, West Branch and Lycoming Valleys) and Southern Pennsylvania areas went up. In the east, there are two known mainly parallel roads, used to go to Canada.
    [Mennonite Quarterly Review, January 1929] a notebook by Joseph Bowman of Waterloo Ontario ------------------------------- Description of the road from Reading to Waterloo Township, Halton County, Upper Canada. Joseph Bowman, started September the 4th, 1817, and arrived in Waterloo, October the 2nd 1817. From Reading to: miles (located) Kergerstown .................... 10 (?near Hamburg PA) Orwigsburg .................... 11 (east of Pottsville) Sunbury ....................... 47 Northumberland ................ 2 Milltown ...................... 12 (Milton PA) Bensborough ................... 14 (?Muncy PA) Muncy Creek ................... 2 Williamsport .................. 12 Heur's tavern ................. 17 (?Roaring Branch PA) Blockhouse .................... 14 (?Covington PA) Peters Camp ................... 12 (?Tioga PA) Widow Berry ................... 18 (?Presho NY) Addam Hart .................... 6 (?Gang Mills NY) Thomas Mayberry ............... 20 (Bath NY) Robert Patterson .............. 6 (?Avoca NY) Mulhollans tavern ............. 20 (Danville NY) Dreisbachs tavern ............. 3 (Sparta NY) Bigtree ....................... 15 (Geneseo NY) Genasee River ................. 7 (Avon NY) Calladony Town ................ 7 (Caladonia NY) Davis' tavern ................. 4 Leroyl ........................ 3 (Le Roy NY) Battavia ...................... 11 (Batavia NY Richardson's tavern ........... 11 (?Pembroke NY) Hersy's tavern ................ 15 (Harris Hill NY) Buffalo ....................... 14 Blackrock ferry ............... 2 John Boyer .................... 10 (?Black Creek ONT) Falls ......................... 8 Jacob Myer .................... 20 (Jordan ONT) Carpenter's tavern ............ 13 (?Stoney Creek ONT) Dundass ....................... 18 (edge of Hamilton) John Erb's Mill (Preston) ...... 23 (Preston ONT) --------- Miles ................ 429

    The western road went from Reading to Sunbury (Pennsylvania 61), followed the West Branch of the Susquehanna (Pennsylvania 405/I took I-180), then up the Lycoming Creek from Williamsport to Roaring Branch (U.S. 15/PA 14), and across the mountains to Blossburg (mountain road to Ogdensburg, good), to Tioga, to Corning, New York (U.S. 15). This road was used as early as 1798.

    In New York, the west route followed the wide valley of the Chemung River, going northwest (New York 17/I-390) to Danville where they turned north (New York 63) to "Big Tree" or Geneseo, New York (Big Tree -Ken de wa- was chief of the Indian Village there, hence the original name).

    From Geneseo, New York it followed the Gennesee River (New York 39) to Avon, where it crossed on the Iroquois Trail, going to Caladonia (New York 5), to Batavia, to Buffalo, New York. There they ferried the Niagara River above the Falls. Black Rock was very close to the present Peace Bridge from Buffalo, New York to Fort Erie, Ontario. "Hersy's tavern" is Harris Tavern, the oldest building in Erie County, at Harris Hill on, New York 5, just at the edge of modern Buffalo.

    West of there, above the Escarpment (the cause of the Falls) was a settlement of the Brethren and River Brethren. For those going on, the road went along the River to the Niagara Falls.

    Just above the Falls, at the Chippawa River (Battle, 1812), the British Portage, Portage Road, turned inland (now Main Street, Niagara Falls, Ontario) going to Queenston, on the Niagara River below the Escarpment. At Ferry Street, a road, Lundy's Lane, turned west (Bloody Battle in the War of 1812). Later a branch of the road, called Beaver Dam Road, goes to the old Settlers Road, joining it somewhere near Jordan, Ontario, (well, it doesn't go clear through any more -the Welland Canal stops it near Thorold, just south of St. Catherines).

    The Settler's Road went west along the base of the Escarpment. It is Highway 81 from St. Catherines through Jordan ("20 Mile"), Vineland, Beamsville, to Grimsby ("40 Mile"). From there it becomes Highway 8 to Stoney Creek and is Queenston Street through Hamilton. Elder Jacob Moyer (Mennonite) lived on the 20 Mile Creek, between Jordan and Vineland. There may have been a Brethren settlement at Grimsby, but I didn't find their museum open, to research.

    Those going to Kitchener followed Highway 8 directly from Hamilton, through Dundas, Cambridge, Preston, Kitchner to Waterloo. For those going to Vaughan, they followed the lake shore to beyond Mississauga and headed north on the Royal York Road and Jane Street. Vaughan township was mentioned as 20 miles from the docks at Toronto, which is a considerable distance by horse.
------------------ Joseph Bowman started from Waterloo, February the 9th, 1819, and arrived in Reading, February the 27th 1819. From John Erb's Mill to Jacob Myer .................... 60 (Jordan ONT) Cadareenstown (St Cathrines) ... 8 (St Catherines ONT) Queenstown .................... 12 (Queenston ONT) Morehous's tavern ............. 25 (Hartland NY) Olarged Creek ................. 13 (Oak Orchard Creek) `Tillanson's tavern ............ 28 (?Parma's Corners NY) Rochester ..................... 11 Pitsford ...................... 8 Cannandaigua .................. 21 Benyang (Penn Yang) ........... 22 (Penn Yan NY) Head of Sennaka Lake .......... 30 (Watkins Glen NY) Coryell's tavern .............. 7 (?Montour Falls NY) New Town ...................... 15 (Elmira NY) Lowman's tavern ............... 7 (Lowman NY) Tioga point ................... 14 (Greens Landing PA) Shaw's tavern ................. 6 (?Ulster PA) Brown's tavern ................ 27 (Browntown -Wyalusing) Smith's Ferry ................. 30 (?Eatonville PA) Wilksberry .................... 20 (Wilkes-Barre PA) Rack's tavern ................. 17 Mirwein's tavern .............. 16 Dreisbach's Mill .............. 6 Lehigh Water Gap .............. 12 (?Palmerton PA) Richard's Tavern .............. 8 Kutstown ...................... 6 (Kutztown PA) Reading ....................... 17 --------- Miles ............... 458 Spending Money ........... $22.53 -------------------------------------------

    Lets go south from Waterloo/Kitchner Ontario ---Highway 8

    Joseph Bowman went clear through on the old Settlers road (Highway 8/ Highway 81) to Elder Jacob Moyer at Jordan, and continued on to St. Catherines, Ontario. Here Highway 81 continues on the Queenston, Ontario, as Queenston Street, then York Road on to Queenston. At Queenston it come to the bluff at the Niagara River, just at the foot of the Escarpment where the U.S. Army was defeated by British General Brock, in the War of 1812. Just south on Front Street (at Dunfries Street) was a twisting lane down to the "Sand Beach" landing on the River. Here was the ferry to Lewistown in New York. The South Landing Inn on Front Street was built near that time.

    From Lewistown, New York, the Settlers Road followed the Ridge Road to Rochester, New York. This was a sandy ridge several miles back from Lake Ontario, said to be the Archaic Beach of the Prehistoric "Lake Iroquois". The ferry landing was at Center Street, which is the end of the Ridge Road at the Niagara River. The old Ridge Road is, New York 104 from Lewistown going east. Samuel Morehouse built a "hotel" at Hartland Corners in 1813. This is now the west part of the town of Hartland, in Niagara County, New York.

    Local Historians seemed to think that German speaking Joseph Bowman misunderstood the English name of "Oak Orchard Creek", because it was named for an Orchard of Oak trees at its mouth (Point Breeze) on the bay on Lake Ontario. The Ridge Road crosses Oak Orchard Creek at "Oak Orchard on the Ridge", just northeast of Medina, New York. I was unable to locate any records to "Tillianson's Tavern" but distances on, New York 104 placed it just about, New York 259, or Parma's Crossing.

    From Rochester, New York, the route would likely have followed, Pennsylvania 64 to Pittsford and angled down to the Iroqouis Castle of Canandaigua on the mouth of Lake Canandaigua (Finger Lakes area). From there, New York 147 goes south and east to Penn Yan (for early settlers from Pennsylvania and Yankee Connecticut) (mouth of Keuka Lake), then 14A and 14 to Watkins Glen at the head of Seneca Lake. Coryell's tavern was likely at the "Montour Falls" on the river feeding into the Lake. They then followed over the Indian Trail to the headwaters of the Susquehanna River at Horseheads (where General Sullivan had to kill his horse pack team, as he lead the army in its raid against the Iroqouis Indians in 1762).

    Elmira, New York, was originally named Newtown, the name being changed in 1828. The Indian Trail followed down the Susquehanna River as far as Wilkes Barre. Tioga Point is a historical site at Greens Landing, just south of Athens, Pennsylvania. From Wilkes Barre, Joseph crossed over to the Lehigh River, passing through the Narrows the gap in the Mountain there (Lehigh Gorge), and on toward Allentown, Pennsylvania. Instead, he turned west to Kutztown and on to Reading.

    This is a main Iroquois Indian Trail that followed this route, from Canada all the way down to the Susquehanna River Valley (noted by an earliest settler, Jemima Wilkinson).

    (I followed the western route, plotting the locations: 1998. I traced the upper, New York and Canada route last week, 1999, and hope to drive the eastern route this summer!)

Delaware Road

ust above the bridge over the Whitewater River at Yankeetown, south in Richmond, Indiana, is a hard packed ford some 6 ft. wide. The river bottom is soft and mucky on either side, but here the bottom is packed hard from its first use by buffalo, or the American Bison, that used to roam this woodlands, then to its use by the Indians and the "Indian Road" that is traced across the county. Early deeds identify this as "the Indian Road from Muncytown to Ft. Hamilton". The route across Union County, Indiana, has been plotted from surveyor records on early deeds and collected by former county surveyor and Four Mile Church deacon, Albert Brown. Some of the physical route has been identified by farmers, due to the improvement of the Indian trail by early settlers, who widened it to a wagon road and filled the low spots with stones and gravel. Local farmers, when plowing, suddenly find stones in their clayloam fields. The traced route started at Rossville, at Hamilton Ohio, directly acrossed the Great Miami River from old Fort Hamilton or the bridge over the river there. It is picked up west of Darrtown where it passed Chaw Raw Hill along the Four Mile Creek banks. [Chaw Raw Hill - it's named that because one early migrant father and sons decided to camp on top of the hill, along the Indian Path. They had killed a turkey for their meal, but just as they were getting ready to cook it -they discovered a group of Indian warriors coming down the trail. They dare not start a fire -they "chawed the Turkey -Raw!"]

    The old road there has been washed away as the creek has shifted its banks. Somewhere north the old road crossed the creek and went past what became the town of Oxford, Ohio. Brown Road going north out of Oxford to the Hueston Woods State Park seems to be the old Indian Road. In the Park, the Indian Road would have started down the drive to the Sugar Camp, but where the drive turns right, the access road going ahead to the beach area follows an old road shown on early maps. The Indian Road is identified as about 1/2 mile from the juncture of the Middle and Little Four Mile Creeks, about where the circle drive crosses the Little Four Mile, where the College Corner Road enters at Park Headquarters. The boat storage there could be the site of the old trading post and the Indian village was possibly in the open grounds by the office buildings. A long winding gully at the south-east corner of the campgrounds is probably the Road climbing out of the Four Mile creekbed where the settlers could pull their wagons. The Indian Road passed around the Indian Mound, at the far west end of the campgrounds on the ridge above the Little Four Mile.

    On the Eaton Pike, out of College Corner, just south of the Buck Paxton Road, there used to be a residence building sitting back of the current house. It faced southwest on an angle, just above the decline into the ravine there. This would be where the Indian Road crossed the ravine.

    On the State Line Road, where the Union County Indiana, survey shows the Indian Road, an old pair of foundation sites were remembered, again on an angle to the world, in back of the present barnlot. Just west of this, on the back of the Hartman farm, is an old crossing over Little Four Mile Creek, still used to get to the fields east of the creek. This was originally the Christian Witter Farm and the Witter cemetary is on the bank of the Four Mile. Mrs. Hartman is a Witter. The Indian Road continued north-west and crossed first the Nine Mile Road then Indiana 44 south and west of the corner. It continued more northward till it crossed Hannas Creek a little south of the Hanna's Creek Church. Then turned nearly due west across Union County. South-west of Clifton it angled northward to the Buffalo Ford. The road then seems to have angled north -west, to the old Universalist town of Philomet, and on through Dublin toward Hagarstown, Indiana.

    Just north of the Nettle Creek Church at Hagerstown, is the old Stout Farm. In the early years of this century, Indians walked between the house and barn of that farm, on what they claimed was their old pathway. The scout-camp at Muncie, Indiana (old Muncytown) tells Indian lore about the old Indian Path to Richmond. The road actually passed south and west of Richmond. From Hagerstown, the Indian Road would have followed on or close to the Buck Creek Road, to Mt. Pleasant onto U.S. 35, south of Muncie. This would account for the Dunker settlement along it called the Buck Creek Church. The winding and twisting of this old country road could be the original winding and twisting of the Indian path as it wove along the higher ground around the giant forest trees, swamps and steep gullys.

    The early migrants used an extension of this road from Muncie, Indiana, going northwest to Kokomo. One route went westward, to the Wildcat Creek which flowed into the Wabash River at Lafayette, Indiana. Most of the Brethren settlers stopped along it, few going farther than Flora, Indiana. The other went north, through Kokomo to Peru, Indiana. This triangle along the Wabash River was a major settlement area in western Indiana during the early 1830s for the Four Mile families and their kin and neighbors in Preble and Montgomery Counties, Ohio.

    From the settlements here, some of the Brethren went north to Michigan Territory, the LaPorte/South Bend Indiana area [although the earliest settlers there used the Wayne Trace (General Mad Anthony Wayne's Army Road of 1794) to the town of Ft Wayne, then followed an Indian Trail, now U.S. 33, to Goshen, Elkhart, and South Bend, Indiana]. Others from here moved west into Illinois territory, settling along the Illinois River. Then in 1855, two major groups moved to Iowa.

Fort Kaskaskia Road

he Early Brethren moved up into Southern Illinois soon after 1800. Among the first were George Wolfe Jr with kin and neighbors, who settled in Union Co IL. They were visited by a Methodist Circuit preacher, and formed a Bible Study group. Finding inconsistancies in the Methodist Teachings, with what they read in the scriptures, they invited Elder John Hendricks to come, and were baptized. The triggering event was the tremendous New Madrid Earthquake of 1812 (which had its epi- center less than 100 miles from them).

    The settlement in Union Co IL was a direct result of the old Fort Kaskaskia Road. This was a French and Indian trail going to Shawneetown on the Ohio River, just below the mouth of the Wabash. The original route swung south along the Mississippi to near the Big Muddy River and further south below the Lakes area, before going north and nearly due east to Shawneetown. This southern loop lead George Wolfe Jr and his companions, as they came west from the Greene River of Kentucky and across the Ohio River, to the fertile lands they settled south of the Lakes area, in Union County.

    A later trace and that followed today by IL 13, goes through the Lakes area to Carbondale and Murpheysboro before going north to old Fort Kaskaskia on IL 3. Fort Kaskaskia, at the mouth of the Kaskaskia River, was the capitol of the French Empire in the Mississippi Valley in central America. The Kaskaskia Road continued up the shore of the Mississippi through old Fort Chartres to Cahokia, across the river from Saint Louis.

    Elder John Hendricks died on this road in 1813, going to Fort Kaskaskia.

Forbes Road

he French and Indian war (1754-1763), the colonial aspects of the Seven Years War between Britain and France was continuing. With the defeat and death of General Braddock, the frontier flamed with Indian atrocities. His objective, the capture of Fort Duquesne, at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was still important. In 1758, a second expedition was formed under Brigadier John Forbes, again with Colonel George Washington in assistance. The Army left Philadelphia on the Old Wagon Road going west. The Road went through Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and York, Pennsylvania, to the frontier settlements of Gettysburg and Waynesboro. From Gettysburg, Forbes Road went outhward along Pennsylvania 116 to near Fountain Dale where it is taken up by Pennsylvania 16 to Waynesboro, Greencastle, Mercersburg to Cove Gap and McConnelsburg. The next destination was Coves Gap south of now Fort Loudon, where they crossed through the ridge into the great valleys and ridges of central Pennsylvania. From McConnelsburg they had to widen the settler traces and Indian trails across Sideling Hill to Fort Bedford, in order to bring their wagons and cannon. For its full length, Forbes Road follows the route of U.S. 30.

    From Fort Bedford the army had to cut their own road. In true military method, they refused to allow any higher grounds above them, going always to the highest ground around. They followed the south heights of the stream going out of Bedford to the southwest, then turn sharply northward, passing directly through the now Shawnee State Park and crossing U.S. 30. Staying on the heights to the north of U.S. 30, they crossed the Allegheny Front, taking one full day to climb the mountain. Coming down into Somerset County, they trod the road now in front of the Brethren Camp Harmony, passed the south edge of Quemahoning Reservoir, and at the town of Boswell turned north to Laural Mountain. They came down on the ridge just south of Waterford Pennsylvania and hit Pennsylvania 711 just north of Ligonier Pennsylvania, marching into the town area along that roadway. Here they built a major fort (rebuilt partially on the site). The outer works included the diamond downtown, about 4 blocks away (about 2 blocks wide) from the inner works on the banks above Loyalhanna Creek. The fort was log walled, with an abattis of pointed logs angling outward at the base. (This forced the engineering corps to attempt to chop an opening through the abattis, while being fired down upon by the soldiers on the wall above.) The French and Indian Army met British Army, coming from the Cemetery Hill and across the meadow to Loyalhanna Creek at the fort, the British this time won the victory. Forbes used forced marches to get to Fort Duquesne, but no road was cleared, and historians do not know the exact route. Likely it was near the Loyalhanna, going through the water gap and Latrobe, passing near the later Bushy Run Battlefield (of Pontiac's War - where he hit a supply train). They entered the present city area through Turtle Creek, and from the ridge at Oakland, they saw the burning ruins of old Fort Duquesne. On its foundations, they built Fort Pitt.

    Settlers and later travelers rerouted the Forbes road to more accessible approaches, and at different times the various "Forbes" roads covered areas some 30 miles across. The Road is essentially followed by U.S. 30, being normally only a few miles away, usually north.

    Forbes Road was used by the Brethren as a better alternate route into several areas of Brethren settlement: Morrison's Cove, Brother's Valley. Its main use by the Frontier Settler was to reach Fort Pitt and the Ohio River, where they could build flatboats for migration down the Ohio to the Western Frontier.

Great Warrior's Path

herokees - through Kentucky/Ohio

Flat Lick -US25E c7 miles NW of Pineville --Path goes north
Manchester -KY11 -Goose Creek -below Mudlick Station/Flat Creek
Proctor -KY11 (near Beattyville) on South Fork, Kentucky River
West Liberty -US460/KY7 -Morgan Co --Licking River headwaters
Grayson -KY7 -Carter Co -Little Sandy River
Greenup -KY1/2 -Little Sandy River/Ohio River -above Portsmouth
path seems to go north up the Scioto River/Little Scioto
to Sandusky River north of Columbus --to Lake Erie

One branch coming in from Virgina
Big Stone Gap VA -US23
Hazard KY -Kentucky River -Perry Co -KY15
Proctor -KY52

One branch north
Proctor -KY11 north -Lee Co
Mt Sterling -KY11 -Montgomery Co
Sherburne -KY11 -Fleming Co -Licking River//Upper Blue Lick
Maysville -KY11 -Ohio River//Limestone Landing
path continues to Chillicothe OH -Scioto River -north
seems to follow Zane Trace -OH

Ioway Road

rom the book, "Proud Mahaska", written by Semira Ann Philips in 1900, about her family's move to Iowa in 1843, are references to the route they traveled. They took the National Road (US 40) west to Terra Haute IN. They crossed the Wabash River there and turned north along it, going to Paris IL. Going west out of Paris (IL 133), was a 10 mile prairie. Scott's Tavern was on the far edge of the prairie. [It must be noted that while prairie land was easier to farm than clearing the stumps out of timberland, the timber was necessary for the building of houses and barns -hence the best considered homestead was the edge of the prairie, with both prairie farmland and timber for building and firewood.]

    This Ioway Road continued angling northwest (IL 133) to near Decatur, where it headed due west to Springfield (US 36). Leaving Springfield they came to Virginia (IL 125), a few miles east of there was "Dutches Tavern" which later became Ashland IL. They crossed the Illinois River at Beardstown, going to Rushville and north (IL 67) to McComb. There it followed IL 9 to Dallas City and Niota, where it crossed the Mississippi to Fort Madison Iowa. Semira comments that they didn't see a comfortable looking house between Beardstown and Fort Madison.

    There are several Brethren settlements along this road: south of Springfield, on the headwaters of the Sagamon River is a present Brethren settlement in Macoupin Co; along the Illinois River north of Beardstown are several main Brethren settlements from Astoria to Peoria. The Mormon settlement a Nauvoo IL (before their treck to Salt Lake) has tradition of the presence Brethren (Joseph BeHymer/Bechtelsheimer of 10 Mile Creek, Clermont Co OH -became a Mormon in Illinois and went to Utah).

    This may be the route used by the BeHymers in the move to near Peoria IL. The family sent packed goods and the women by steamship down the Ohio and up the Mississippi and Illinois, while the men with livestock and wagons went an unidentified cross-country route. Family records say that the men were approaching the Illinois River, with concerns about how to make contact with their families, when they heard a steamboat whistle. On arrival they found that it was the very boat the women were on.

    This may be the route used by Edmund Toney of the Four Mile, on his move to Fulton Co IL. He left the Four Mile, with two wagons, the dog trotting under the back wagon. His claim to fame was splitting rails with a young Abe Lincoln.

Kanawha Trace

r. Argus Ogborn was a Quaker historian in Richmond, Indiana. He gave me a copy of his copy of the Bill of the Road, which he had found in a collection (unspecified) some years ago. He saw it for what it was, the mile by mile progress a Quaker settler would walk with team and wagon to travel to Richmond, but I recognized many of the named places in the Way Bill from travel, residency and research in these regions. From this I drew up and gave him a map tracing the path of the Trace. In researching families on this trace for my book on the Four Mile Church, I recognized that the Brethren used this as a major path from Virginia to Ohio. I had frequently asked myself a question about the route of the Dunkers in Virginia to Ohio and the West, since I had early found that most of them did not use Daniel Boone's Wilderness Road. (The Flat Creek Mission, Church of the Brethren, is right on the Old Warriors Path - Goose Creek, mouth of Mudlick, near Manchester, Kentucky, my parents lived there at the mission, Mudlick Station, head of Mudlick. I occasionally visited there, and I followed the path and story of Daniel Boone and the early Dunkers in the Kaintuck lands.) Only a few of the Carolina Brethren who followed the Wilderness Road into Kentucky, came up into Ohio. I've followed Forbes' Road and Braddock's Road in Pennsylvania, when I pastored at Beaver Dam (Maryland) and with my brother, who still pastors in Western Pennsylvania. Maryland and Pennsylvania Brethren, including some in the upper part of the Valley, would have used those routes and come down the Ohio on flatboats. But many early Dunkers lived much farther south in the Valley, and there was a major early settlement of the Brethren below Roanoke, on the front of the Blue Ridge in Franklin and Floyd Counties, the old Carolina Road, (Elder Jacob Miller families and neighbors) who came from there to western Ohio. The Kanawha Trace was their route. Virginia Dunker Family names are found along it.

    The Kanawha Trace Bill of the Road, or Waybill, begins in the north central part of North Carolina where the Moravian Brethren, Friends (or Quakers) and German Baptist Brethren (Dunkers, Church of the Brethren) had major settlements. Early Dunker Churches were along the Yadkin River starting in Wilkes County, going east to Winston Salem, then south through Salisbury, this was the area from which Daniel Boone came.

    The Waybill that we have, begins at New Garden Friends Church on the Northwest side of Greensboro, near Guilliford Battlefield. Clemmons was likely at Guilford, a small town on North Carolina 66. By distance, Beesons would be the town of Colfax; and Kernersville, east of Winston Salem, is Kerners. Continuing on North Carolina 66 to U.S. 52, Bittings would likely be at Stanleyville or Rural Hall, Gordings would be at Pilot Mountain, and Unthanks at Mount Airy. The old road goes directly north from Mt Airy. Wards Gap in the Blue Ridge Mountains is about 5 miles east of Fancy Gap (used by modern US 52). From Wards Gap, Road's Fork may be near modern Hillsville on top of the ridge, where US52 and Virginia 100 each continue their own route down into the New River Valley. The Trace followed Virginia 100 down Little Reed Island Creek through Popular Camp Mountain. It crosses Reed Island River at Patterson and then the New River (Fugat's Ferry, now a bridge). Virginia 100 does not cross Draper's Mountain to Pulaski, and John Feeley's would be at McAdam or possibly Draper. Crossing Walker Mountain, Virginia 100 comes to Poplar Hill, which would be Shannon's and comes back to the New River, which has taken a big loop, at Pearisburg, old Giles Court House, and U.S. 460. Peter's Ferry could be located at Narrows, where they could recross the New River. (It must be remembered that in these early days, the lack of bridges in the frontier areas meant that obstacles that we now ignor drastically effected travel patterns. A Traveler sometimes went longer, or worse, routes, because there was no way they could cross a River. This is true of the routes here, and across West Virginia.)

    Remember, also, that in those days Virginia went clear to the Ohio River. Across West Virginia, the Kanawha Trace, by tradition, followed the Shawnee Indian War Path close to the New or Kanawha River. Peterstown is just in West Virginia at U.S. 219 and West Virginia 12. Christian Peter's home would have been out of Peterstown on West Virginia 12. There Bozoo Road goes left and down into the old river bottom, a shorter route than West Virginia 12. Bluestone Lake floods this area, but the Indian River enters the New below Indian Mills, coming down the valley from the Northeast. The Blue Stone River comes up the valley from the Southwest about 15 miles down stream and Pack's ferry would have been out in the lake, between them (before Wolf Creek Mountain). Unless there was a bottom land route (now flooded), the mountains push in close to the New River and the Trace would have followed a trail up to Pipe Stem, and followed the Pipestem Creek down to the Blue Stone River crossing. Following up another trail out of the Blue Stone, Pack's could possibly be at Nimitz and Jumping Branch, where another old road (West Virginia 3) goes to Shady Spring. There modern U.S. 19 shows sections of an old road near it. U.S. 19 goes to Beckley, Mount Hope and Glen Jean (with Harvey just beyond) and on to Fayetteville on the downriver side of the New River Gorge. This is possibly "Road's Fork", where the Trace did not try to recross the New River, but took West Virginia 16, to Beckwith where it took the very rugged Falls Creek Road over Cotton Hill. The creek and trail come out at the Falls of the New River, now Kanawha Falls (where the Kanawha River Dam now is). The Gauley River enters the New River at Gauley Bridge above the Dam, and the River changed, it is larger, and has a more constant flow. The valley widens. It is now called the Kanawha. Here below the falls, early settlers built flat boats and floated down the River to Point Pleasant, then down the Ohio to Kaintuck or Cincinnati.

    The Trace followed a country road along the south bank of the Kanawha River. It is pressed closely by high rugged mountains, the only level areas are where mountain streams enter the river. A couple of these have become towns, Deep Water, Eagle. Benjamin Morris probably lived where Montgomery is, where West Virginia 61 comes down off the mountain. There is a better roadway, and towns of Crown Hill and Cabin Creek. At Chelyan the West Virginia Turnpike and U.S. 119 come down to the River. Leonard Morris had a fortified log house ("fort") at Marmet, on the south side of the River just above Charleston, where the Toney's and others fled during the Indian raids of 1794. Venables would have been in the eastern area of South Charleston called Kanawha City, where there used to be a second branch of the Kanawha River by that name. Cobb's would also be in South Charleston near Vandalia. The Coal River enters the Kanawha at St. Albans, where U.S. 35 comes in from downstream and Ohio. There is quite a ridge, actually a mountain, between the two nearly parallel rivers for many miles. Hanley's, M'Collister's and Grice's would have been stops on the lower river before crossing to Gallipolis Ohio. The Trace followed the bank of the Kanawha River clear to the Ohio, then down the bank of the Ohio to across from Gallipolis, because of high ridges along both rivers. At Gallipolis, they would have rafted over the Ohio, landing at the old town dock area, today's City Park.

    An alternate route, known to be used by the Indians and some settlers, followed Moss Creek out of Beckley, one of the headwaters of the Coal River. It then followed the north bank of the Coal River through Blooming Rose to St. Albans, where Coal River empties into the Kanawha; part of this is now West Virginia 3.

    At Gallipolis, the Kanawha Trace followed Gen. Lewis' Army Road to Chillicothe (after the Battle of Point Pleasant, 1774, he pushed the Indians back to their main city, building a road for his cannon, now U.S. 35: remnants of Old 35, and likely the Trace, are seen in various places through the valleys either side of the new road). The Army Road, and the Trace, started in downtown Gallipolis. Old 35 goes out of Gallipolis north of the old city and goes along Chicamauga Creek inland almost to Mills before it crosses the creek. This probably was the original route. (The creek enters the Ohio River south of Gallipolis, but swings north behind most of the city before it turns inland. It is quite swampy. Chillicothe Road, a street in the south part of Gallipolis crosses the swamps with a bridge and goes west till it junctions with Ohio 588 going on to Rodney. Ohio 588 starts in Gallipolis at the city park and bridges the top end of the swamp.) At Rodney, the Jackson Road is Old 35. Crossing Raccoon Creek at Adamsville, Woods was certainly Wood's Mill. The Trace then went on to Rio Grande, where the Adamsville Road is north of U.S. 35, actually the back drive on Bob Evans farm. Judge Poor's (or Squire Poor) was at Winchester, south of 35 at Ohio 327. This is the original Old 35, or Gallipolis Pike, now called Dixon Run Road. Jackson is still a major Ohio town, the town and trace are both south of modern U.S. 35. Richmond is now called Richmond Dale, and is on a stretch of the old road north of modern U.S. 35. Kilgore's Ferry over the Scioto River is at the bridge on U.S. 35/50, north of the mouth of Paint Creek. The Trace angled into Chillicothe on Eastern Ave (Jackson or Gallipolis Road). It then turned up Hickory Street to Main Street, and went west past the State Capitol. Chillicothe was the first Capitol of the State of Ohio. It had been a major Shawnee Indian center and is still noted for its Hopewell Indian mounds (Mound City). There were early settlers with Dunker family names along this stretch of the Trace, but we have no record of churches.

    Leaving Chillicothe, the Kanawha Trace followed the Zane Trace out of town on the Limestone Road (now Western Ave; Limestone was the original name for Maysville Kentucky, the destination of the Zane Trace). They went west along Paint Creek (U.S. 50). Elijah Johnson's would be north of Bourneville, and the Trace followed an old Indian trail that went west up a wide valley. The road is called Lower Twin, and goes to South Salem. From the Covered Bridge on Lower Twin, just west of So Salem, the Trace went north off the present road and kept to the highlands (going directly in front of Robt Smalley's house, which now sits far back a lane from the road) to Greenfield, where it forded Paint Creek on the rocky bottoms, just south of town (the old Fall Creek Church was farther south, west of Paint Creek on Fall Creek). From there, the Trace turned westward and crossed Rattlesnake Creek at Monroetown (East Monroe, on Ohio 28), to Leesburg (U.S. 62 and Ohio 28), and on west to Joel Willis', now Highland, where the old Lexington Church was just south of town. In Highland, the Trace turned north on Wilmington or Antioch Road. This is the same old winding Trace until it gets to Wilmington, where the Antioch Road met old 73, which turned west on the trace into town. Old 73 now deadends at the Airport, heading directly toward the control tower.

    The Trace went westward from Wilmington to Waynesville, along Ohio 73. It crossed Todd Fork Creek and at Caesar's Creek State Park went north at the "Y," going through Harveysburg, where it wound down to Caesar's Creek (now under the reservoir). The Trace went to Corwin where it forded the Little Miami into Waynesville. Corwin is north of 73, the Trace separated at the Cemetary. It went up into the north part of Waynesville, and came back out on Ohio 73 on the west side of town. The Trace (and Ohio 73) continue on west to Springboro and Franklin along the present route (the Old Upper Springboro Pike to Waynesville coming into Franklin on 2nd Street). In the 1870's the ferry was replaced by a suspension bridge on 4th Street, later by the present Lion Bridge on 2nd Street.

    At Franklin, the Trace forded the Great Miami River below the 6th Street RailRoad Bridge, then William Barkalow started a ferry at his house in 1804 (at the Tressel). The Trace went back north along the river and turned west, Ohio 123, past Rev Tapscott's house (in front of his Primitive Baptist Church), just east of the town of Carlisle. The Trace continues on from Carlisle, until it crossed Twin Creek, there it turns on Sugar Street to Sunsbury and stayed south of Germantown and Big Twin Creek. At the five points, it went ahead (to the right) on the Mudlick and Sigel Road to where Henry Moyer lived, and where it met the road going west out of Germantown (Ohio 725). The Trace continues along 725 to Gratis. Keep right at the Y into Gratis, and Ohio 122 is the old winding Trace angling northwest to Eaton, where St Clair's Fort still stood from the Indian Wars. From Eaton, U.S. 35 follows the Trace to Richmond, Indiana. Whitewater Meeting was founded 1809, in a log church at a cemetary that stood almost directly under the U.S. 27 overpass, just beyond the railroad tracks (200 feet west of the old brick church at North G street).

    Danuel DuBois traced his route from Monmouth County new Jersey to Carlisle in his diary in 1804. From Chillicothe to Franklin his route matches those of the Waybill. He averaged 40 miles per day. This is the first known use of the Trace across the state.

    Dunker settlement here was very early. Some of the children of Elder Jacob Miller from Franklin County Virginia, in the 1790's came up the Great Miami to Dayton, then by 1803, moved west to the state line. Philip and Anna (Miller) Lybrook followed the Trace in 1806, when he returned to Virginia and brought his wife and families of married children back to Indiana (Upper Four Mile Church). They came by wagon. From Eaton he came west on the Old Dayton Road (Dayton through Eaton and Boston, Indiana, to Conners Trading Post, 1803).

    The Trace leaving Chillicothe was not in existance when the first Quaker into Ohio, Nathaniel Pope, settled Leesburg in 1802. He left Chillicothe on the old Indian Path to Old Chillicothe (now U.S. 35 to Xenia) along the North Fork of Paint Creek. At Col. Massie's settlement, Frankfort, Pope went southwest to Leesburg. The path of the Trace from Chillicothe to Leesburg was a shortend route from his settlement. The Trace was not in existance in 1802, it was used clear across the state by 1806. The Waybill was after 1809.

    The Kanawha Trace is very important to the settlement of Southern Ohio. The Quakers and Dunkers, and many others from Southern Virginia and North Carolina, followed it as they came to Ohio Country. It was probably the most used land route for migration into Ohio in the years before the Old National Road (c1827).

    Assistance on this study was given by several people living in communities along the route of the Trace. Especial thanks is to be given to Rev. Robert Roller, pastor of the Fraternity Church of the Brethen, Winston Salem, North Carolina; Stan Bumgardner, Historian, West Virginia Division of Culture and History, Charleston, West Virginia; and Harriet Foley, Franklin, Ohio. Parts of the route through Virginia and West Virginia were determined from known locations, using U.S. Topographical Maps.
The Kanawha Trace Way Bill New Garden, Guilford County, North Carolina Bill of the Road to Richmond, Indiana, Crossing the Blue Ridge at Ward's Gap, and traveling the Kanhaway Route ------------------------------------------------------------- (facing page) To: Clemmons - - - - - 4 4 Peters' - - - - - - - 3 142 Beesons - - - - - 5 9 Mouth of Indian River- 7 149 Kerners - - - - - 3 12 Pack's ferry - - - - 10 159 Bitting's - - - - 17 26 Blue Stone River - - 5 164 Gording's - - - - 14 43 Pack's - - - - - - - 6 170 Unthank's - - - - 14 57 Hervey's - - - - - - 17 187 Perkin's - - - - - 4 61 Blake's - - - - - - - 6 193 Mankins' - - - - - 8 69 Road's fork - - - - - 16 209 (At Wards Gap) Cotton hill - - - - - 6 215 Cornelius' - - - - 5 74 (4 m. over) Road's fork - - - 6 80 Falls of New River - 5 220 Reedisland River - 14 94 Benjamin Morris's - - 8 228 Fugat's Ford Leonard Morris's - - 17 245 of New River- - 1 95 Venables' - - - - - - 5 250 John Feely's - - - 5 100 Cobb's - - - - - - - 7 257 Walker's Mountain- 15 115 Coal River and Coal Shannon's - - - - 3 118 Mountain in the way to Thos. Kirk's - - - 9 127 Hanley's - - - - - 18 265 Giles Court House- 2 129 M'Collister's - - - - 12 277 Peters ferry - - - 3 132 Grice's - - - - - - - 16 293 Peters town - - - 7 139 ------------------------------------------- (reverse page) Ohio River - - - - 9 302 Leisburg, in Highland 700 yds wide -Galliopolis County, Ohio - - - 3 396 Woods Joel Willis's - - - - 4 400 on Rackoon Ck- 11 313 Morgantown - - - - - 4 404 Judge Poor's - - - 15 328 Wilmington - - - - - 10 414 Town of Jackson - 8 336 Todd's fork Creek - - 3 417 Scioto Salt works. Ceasar's creek - - - 10 427 Coonts's - - - - - 11 347 Little Miami at Richmond - - - - - 5 352 Waynesville - - - 3 430 Highbank-Prairies- 5 357 Springborough - - - - 8 438 Kilgore's ferry - 5 362 Franklin on the (Scioto) Great Miami - - - 4 442 Chilicotho - - - - 4 366 Tapscott's - - - - - 2 444 Elijah Johnsons on Big twin Creek - - - 4 448 Paint Creek - 9 375 Eaton - - - - - - - 17 465 Greenfield - - - - 12 387 White Water Meet House Rattlesnake creek RICHMOND --------- 16 481 at Monroetown- 6 393 - "This Bill may not be precisely correct in every instance" - ------------------------------------------------------------- (foolscap paper - before 1820) obtained from Argus Ogborn Quaker Historian, Richmond, Indiana. New Garden was in Greensboro, North Carolina - Whitewater Meeting was begun 1809)

Louisville Vincennes Road

here were some Brethren who had come north of the Ohio River soon after 1800. These were mostly in the George Rogers Clark grant, which is now primarily Clark Co IN, to the north and east of the Falls (Louisville). Squire Boone had crossed the river to the west, settling in Grassy Valley (1802), south of Corydon IN, at the Squire Boone Cave.

    Primarily, the Brethren of Kentucky moved up into Indiana as it was opened for settlement following the War of 1812. These followed the route of Clark's solders, as they returned from the Vincennes Campaign of the Revolutionary War. This route is now primarily that of US150 to Shoals IN, then US50 on west, to Vincennes, on the Wabash River. This is close to the original path, but it is somewhat north. The original path is identified as the "Buffalo Trace".

    The Buffalo Trace is started at the Ohio River, near Clarksville. It goes northwest to Floyds Knob. At Floyds Knob, the Louisville Vincennes Road came in from the south. The early settlers crossed the Ohio River at Oatman's Ferry. Oatman's Ferry left the city of Louisville well below the falls, near the end of West Market Street, and landed at Ferry Street, in New Albany. From there, a road went west to Corydon (first Capitol of the State of Indiana), the Vincennes Road went north, and is identified now at State Street, in New Albany, as Paoli Pike or Old Vincennes Road. This goes north to Floyds Knob.

    The Buffalo Trace went slightly north of west to Galena and Greenville, then turned sharply south, before turning back west, past the Reeps Cemetery (Brethren Church -named Indian Creek Church), and into Bradford, as its main east/west street. From Bradford it continues on west to Central Barren and Hancock Chapel. The Trace continued on slightly north and west to Cuzco, Crystal and Haysville, and just north of Otwell, to Algiers, Alford and Petersburg, then heading northwest to Vincennes. Modern roads are back country till arriving at Cuzco, where IN56 is followed to Haysville, there 56 turns south to Jasper, but the Buffalo Trace route continues west to Portersville going to Otwell. At Otwell, IN356 goes to Algiers, Alford and Petersburg. IN61 goes north from Petersburg, crossing the White River, to Monroe City, Verne and into Vincennes from the southwest.

    A variant on this occurred early. From Bradford or Central Barren, the settlers turned north to Palmyra (IN135) where US150 is primarily the route followed on to Paoli and West Baden Springs (French Lick, originally called "Lick Creek" - a Quaker destination). An early Brethren Church was north of Paoli, near Orleans - the Lost River Church, now the Liberty Christian Church. Just off US150, southeast of Shoals, at Lacy was the Sampson Hill Church of the Brethren (now closed), Old IN550 was the original route continuing west to the early settlement of Hindostan Falls, then north to Loogootee (where US50 comes in from Shoals). There US50 continues due west to Vincennes, the Wabash River, and to Illinois and eventually, St Louis, Missouri.

Mahoning Trace

migration route in Northeastern Ohio led from the Ohio River at East Liverpool Ohio, at the bend of the river, and went northwest to the mouth of the Cuyohoga River, Cleveland OH. Leaving the Ohio at East Liverpool, it is followed today by US 30, then at Lisbon OH continues as OH 14 to downtown Cleveland. An alternate access from the Beaver Valley in western Pennsylvania came in from the east as OH 14 at Salem OH. There seem to be Brethren who came from both directions. While many of these settled in Northeastern Ohio, others took the Shore Road, going to Northern Indiana and Illinois.

Michigan Road

he Indians had a main route north from the Falls of the White River (Indianapolis), going to Lake Michigan. This route became the "Michigan Road". Michigan Territory was considered to be a line from the south tip of Lake Michigan to the tip of Lake Erie, at Toledo. Since the State of Ohio had already projected a line due west from north of Toledo, the line of Michigan Territory from Indiana Territory was solely across northern Indiana. Michigan City, South Bend, Mishawaka, Elkhart and Bristol were all in the old Michigan Territory. The first Brethren settled near Goshen and Elkhart, with early settlements west of South Bend at Portage Prairie and north along the Saint Joseph River.

    Originally the Michigan Road seems to have gone north out of Indianapolis along Eagle Creek (US 421) to near Michigantown (IN 29) and crossed the Wabash River at Logansport. From there it went north to Rochester (IN 25) and to Plymouth and South Bend (US 31). It went past the old French Fort at Niles MI, to Lake Michigan at the mouth of the St Joseph River at Benton Harbor. We have note that the Michigan Road stayed east of the Kankakee River Swamps (these were not drained until about 1850 -when rapid settlement took over the now very fertile lands).

    The large towns of Peru (on the Wabash) and Kokomo (on Wildcat Creek -and the Delaware Indian Road) caused a later redirection of the Road -in a more direct north-south line, and US 31 follows it closely from Indianapolis north.

    OK -I've been collecting information about the Great Warriors Path the Western Branch to Lake Erie -and just put several of them together.

Monocacy Road

ne of the earliest migration routes used by the Brethren of Pennsylvania was the Monocacy Road. It was plotted by Colony decree, by the Dunker, Michael Danner, one of the earliest settlers west of the Susquehanna River in York County, Pennsylvania (then Lancaster County) and prominent in the border dispute between the colonies of Maryland and Pennsylvania. (He was taken to Baltimore and thrown in jail by Thomas Cresaps, a Maryland under sheriff, alledgedly because he was living illegally in Maryland territory. It took action by the Governor of Pennsylvania to obtain his release.) The Monocacy Road was used extensively by the Brethren as they moved out of Pennsylvania into Maryland, but often into the Carolinas and Tennesse, and finally as they settled the Valley of Virginia. The Monocacy Road is closely followed by U.S. 30 from Lancaster through York Pennsylvania. There it headed more south, going first to Hanover (Pennsylvania 116) and Littlestown (Pennsylvania 194). Going on into Maryland to Taneytown (Maryland 194), it crossed the Big and Little Pipe Creeks, (Pipe Creek and Beaver Dam Churches) just above their juncture (sources to the Monocacy River), near the property of the pioneer, John VanMeter. Then it went to Woodsboro and on to the Monocacy River, at the mouth of Isreal Creek, where now Maryland 26, the Libertytown Road, crosses the Monocacy, going into Frederick, where Jacob Danner lived. Did Michael Danner make a road to the home of his son, Jacob, in Maryland? or did Jacob Danner follow his father's road down to find a new home in Maryland?

    From Frederick, Maryland, the Brethren crossed the Blue Ridge Mountains through Noland's Gap into Middletown Valley, where a Brethren settlement was under the leadership of Elder Daniel Leatherman. They crossed South Mountain through Turner's Gap into the Antietam Creek Valley, where the Brethren settled under William Stover. They crossed the Potomac just above Shepherdstown at Packhorse Ford, and came to the Great Warrior's Path. General Braddock went this way with the British Army, to Hagarstown and Cumberland on his way to Pittsburgh, and death. This was the route of the Union Army to the battlefield at the Dunker Church there on Antietam Creek.

Originally the Rivers

ost of the original migration of the Brethren settlers moving west was on the Ohio River. The Brethren from Eastern Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Northern Virginia started on the old Braddock's Army Road from Cumberland Maryland, or Forbe's Road from Bedford County, Pennsylvania, going to the Forks of the Ohio at Pittsburgh. Many went to Elder George Wolfe at Redstone, on the Monongahela River, where he built flatboats, good flatboats, that would take them safely down the river. The Redstone Settlement was just up the road from old Fort Necessity where our first President, George Washington, had saved soldiers and Brethren teamsters when General Braddock was killed.

    From Southern Virginia and the Yadkin in North Carolina, most of the Brethren followed the Kanawha Trace, the old Shawnee Indian War Path, down the New River to below the Falls of the Kanawha River where the Gauley River entered and the New / Kanawha became a safe river to travel. There they built their flatboats and floated down the Kanawha, down the Ohio to the new lands west.

    What is a flatboat? It is whatever they could put together. Some were big and strong and might even carry several families. Some barely held together, or were small. Even if it was his best it might prove not adequate for the trip ahead. It was a flat bottom boat, mostly rectangular in shape, with high sides and possibly a flat roofed cabin toward the back. A sweep formed the rudder to the rear and one of the men travelled on the roof and used the sweep to guide the flatboat as it traveled down the rivers. The flatboat carried the horses and wagons, all the family's goods, as it traveled to the new lands to the west.

    Maybe it was easier to travel down the river than to go on land, but it was not safe. There were dead-heads: fallen trees, tops gone, hung up in the river totally underwater, but the end pointing upstream would sometimes be raised by the current, till it would breach the surface and punch a hole in the coming flatboat. In low water there were rocks and even rapids in the river which had to be navigated correctly. There were the falls at Louisville, where the river drops 24 feet in 4 miles, most settlers stopped there. Many stopped at Maysville on the Kentucky shore, some stopped at Cincinnati in Ohio Territory. Some hardy travelers ran the Falls in their flatboats, and continued downstream to the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers, some went on to Illinois and Missouri. And always there were the Indians.

    The migration of the white man was invasion of Indian country. White man drove off the game animals. He destroyed the forest. He destroyed the Indian customs and life. He claimed a small section of the land, of the forest, for himself. He killed the trees and opened it to bare land. The Indian knew that the land belonged to all people and was shared. No man had the right to destroy it. So from the start, each struggled to protect his own way of life. The flatboat had to tie up to the shore at night, it was too dangerous to travel in the dark, and the family liked to stretch its legs after the tiring day. A cooked meal tasted good, and fresh meat added to family provisions. The Indian was watching the passing flatboat, they could attack it where it stopped. A captive might be used to lure the boat close for attack and capture. An arrow might fall from the forest cover to stick in the wood or even injure or kill man or animal. Sometimes there would be a sneak attack with warriors suddenly coming over the sides of the boat, especially if it were too near the shore. There was Three Islands (Manchester, Ohio), where the river narrowed as it passed between the islands, the Indians often caught the men working the sweeps too hard, intent on the passage between the islands, to watch for attacking Indians. These were hazards of the trip, known, faced and normally avoided or overcome. Some died, many arrived at Limestone, and Bullskin Landing, at Cincinnati and the Falls.

    Brethren settlements were made where good lands were found. There were no good farmlands above the hills on the Ohio, not till you came to the Great Sandy River in Kentucky. Just below that was Limestone (now Maysville, Kentucky), where the trace went south to Blue Lick Springs and the Brethren Settlements on the Kentucky River, and Zane's Trace came down from up at Fort Henry (Wheeling). The lands were rough, not suitable for farming on the Ohio side, even across from Limestone, good land could only be found far up Zane's Trace, up near John Countryman's settlement. At Bullskin Landing, Bullskin Creek made a deep sheltered cove up into the hills along the River. The Indians used it, to store their canoes, for crossing to the Kaintuck shore. It was used so frequenty, that a major Indian Road went from the Bullskin to Old Chillicothe (near Xenia, Ohio) and on from there clear to the British Fort Detroit. This became a common goal for the Brethren migrant, since here, for the first time, was found good farmland within reasonable distance from the river, and Brethren congregations were soon found here.

    Cincinnati was between the Little Miami River and the Great Miami River, both coming from far inland in Ohio Territory. Early settlements grew up on both rivers, and the Brethren quickly came. Across the river was the mouth of the Licking River which went down into settled areas of Kaintuck. Brethren were found there, but no churches are known. Downstream from Cincinnati, the Kentucky River comes in from the south near Madison, Indiana. The Brethren had settled upstream on it, where there was good farmland. Soon, Brethren were across the river, the first Brethren Church in Indiana Territory.

    At the Falls, the Brethren found good farmland back from the river, Elk Creek and the branches of the Salt River. So many migrants stopped because of the Falls on the Ohio, a healthy church grew up here, and some moved across the river westward into Indiana Territory, to the Blue and Patoka River valleys.

    Some later Brethren moved up the Wabash River to a Brethren settlement in the Ladoga congregation of western Indiana, but early migration went south up the Green River to the Rhodes Settlement in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky and on up the Barren River to the Dutch Settlement near Bowling Green, Kentucky. Famous here is Elder George Wolfe, son of the Flatboat Builder at Redstone Pennsylvania, and Elder John Hendricks of the Yadkin in North Carolina. These two early led settlement of the Brethren into Illinois and Missouri, the Far Western Brethren.

    Most of the Brethren migration by flatboat ended with the opening of the Old National Road across Ohio, then across Indiana and Illinois to St. Louis, Missouri, by 1837. It had lasted about 50 years.

Peoria-Galena Road

In far northwest Illinois was the important "Fever River Lead Mines" near Galena. While this was on the Mississippi, and most shipping was via it, there was an important stage, mail and shipping road going from the Illinois River at Peoria to Galena. The route went due north (IL 88), crossing the Rock River at Rock Falls and Sterling IL. Near Brookville, in Ogle Co, it turned north-west and headed for Galena. The early Brethren who settled in Ogle County (Mount Morris - c1830s), came originally by wagon via Chicago. Their route was down the Des Plaines River, through Napierville and Aurora to near Yorkville, then they followed now country roads west and northward, likely through Rollo, PawPaw and Amboy, ending at the Rock River crossing at Rock Falls. This route is described in an 1820 shipment of lead by a wagon train from Galena to Chicago, as "terribly rough, hardly a road".

Western Migration

here were probably as many reasons for moving to the new frontier as there were people who came. A very common reason was financial. Land cost in the settled East - Pennsylvania, Virginia, the Carolinas. There was only so much land, and families were large. One son could inherit the home place, it might be the eldest, and frequently it was the youngest, who then had the responsibility of the parents. Sometimes enough land would be divided between a couple sons. Elder Carey Toney gave each of his children a Quarter Section when they got married. A smart daughter might marry a young man who would come into land, or a son to a young woman who was heir to her father. These families remained locally. There was always the man who didn't make it and left. His land could be obtained for a reasonable price for some local son. But what could the rest do? Some would die in childhood, God forbid. An occasional son would run off, to sea, or go west, and never be heard from again, whatever the reason: Indians, murdered, the far mountain trappers, lost at sea in storms, or settled down in some distant community and never send word home. Some daughters would never marry. But what about the rest? To these the open frontier was a blessing, no matter what the work and suffering. In many instances one son would be left the home place and all the rest of the family "went west", including the parents. Land was cheap in cost, it just took hard work. A person could get a good start with his own labor. They were farmers, good farmers and those lands on the frontier were fertile, so very, very fertile: topsoil two feet deep. The kind of land that gladdens the heart of any good farmer.

    For some, it was depression. The government didn't issue the money, usually it was some big Bank and banks will fail. When it couldn't back its money, the money was no good. And suddenly, there was nothing to pay off a loan, or a debt. President Andrew Jackson even went so far as to sign the Credit Mobilizer - making only silver coins be money, not the paper dollars everyone had, stuffed away in a sock, or buried in a box. Then all your life's savings, were not worth the space they took. The Brethren were hard working people. But what do you do, when even that isn't enough?

    For the Brethren in Virginia and Carolinas there was another reason. They had fled Pennsylvania to escape the pressures of the War against England. Now, even more distressing, was the conflict rising over the ownership of their fellow man. The South had the institution of slavery. True, the poorer people seldom afforded such, but the acceptance was there, even back at the edge of the mountains and in the Valley. The Brethren could not accept the idea of slavery. They looked for a place to go where they could live like they felt life should be lived, and the North West Frontier beckoned. Tobias Miller inherited a group of slaves when his father-in-law died, he freed them, bankrupting himself, and came west to this new good farmland, his brother was here.

    So they came: to Kentucky, to Ohio, to Indiana, to Illinois. They came alone and with others. A man found a tract of wonderful land and made it his own. Then he went back, for family, friends, neighbors and kin, till many came, for many hands make light work and there was much work to do. They came by pack-horse train up an Indian Trail. They came down the Ohio River, the whole family in a Flatboat, with team and wagon aboard. They came by several trails in Conestoga wagons, pulled by yokes of oxen or teams of horses, four horse teams. They brought an ax, a plow and a scythe, at bare minimum, but many brought more and enough. The Lybrooks brought cherry bedsteads and cherry cupboard cabinets that are still in the family. They weren't rich, but they had what they needed and it was good. Some might come with very little, but the Brethren helped each other to make do. And those that came, wrote back to others -about this wonderful land, and next year, they came too. The Brethren came West!

Valley or Great Wagon Road

s the Brethren and other German settlers moved out from Germantown, Pennsylvania, some regular paths of migration developed. One went west through Lancaster to Gettysburg and swung southward to Nichol's Gap in the South Mountain ridge, to Waynesboro, Franklin County, Pennsylvania, on Antietam Creek. The Brethren early settled on the Antietam and Conococheague Creeks, as early as 1742, only a couple decades after they first arrive in the New World. They came from Berks County, the Oley Church. On the Conococheague they formed a church under Nicholas Martin. From the distant hills, the ridge of mountains look bluish, and for a long way, they are called that: the Blue Ridge. They are the first range of mountains going west from the coast, past the rolling hills and streams of the piedmont. They stretch from northeast to southwest. The mountains are far from the coast down in the Carolinas, they are close in upper Pennsylvania and New York. Behind this first ridge are several higher ridges, essentially parallel, with large valleys in between. In Virginia, this first valley is called the Shenandoah, after the main river that runs in it. Various rivers break through the front rampart, into the valley: The Susquehanna and Juniata, in Pennsylvania; the Potomac, the border between Maryland and Virginia; the James, the Roanoke.

    The Valley, called Shenandoah in Virginia, reaches up through Maryland and into Pennsylvania. It is the valley of Antietam Creek and Conococheague Creek coming south to the Potomac, just as it is the Shenandoah River going north to the Potomac in northern Virginia. After it breaks through the ridge the James River forks in two branches -one going northeast, up the valley, and one southwest, down the valley. Similarly, the Roanoke River after it breaks through the Blue Ridge, forks into a branch going toward the James, and a branch going southwest toward the New River. The Valley itself mostly stops south of the Roanoke. The New River, coming up out of the mountains of North Carolina, has cut its own valleys, as it breaks through the Allegheny Front can goes west to the Ohio River. South of it are the several parallel valleys with the Holston and Clinch Rivers going south west into Tennessee, where they form the Tennessee River. The Great Warrior's Path went down this valley, from New York.

    It's into this Great Valley, that there was movement southward. The Great Warrior's Path came down the Conococheague Creek to the Potomac. Its start was among the Iroquois Indians of the Finger Lakes and Mohawk River of New York Colony. It went to the Cherokee lands in the south - to Tennesee Country. Some early Brethren came west to the Great Warrior's Path and moved on south. Alexander Mack Jr., with the Eckerlin brothers, went to a settlement on the New River, south of Fincastle, south of Big Lick on the Roanoke River. It was called "Dunkard Bottoms", they called it "Mahanaim", today it is under the Reservoir at Blacksburg, Virginia.

    Brethren families moved south. A settlement, the Shenandoah Church was formed, at the Fink Settlement near Strassburg Virginia. But a problem developed in Virginia - it was a Royal Colony. It had a State Church, the Church of England (Anglican Church or Episcopal Church today). You could only be married or buried through the church (by fee), and you were supposed to be a member of it (infant baptism). At least they demanded that you pay your tithes to it each year. The Brethren did not stay in Virginia until the time of the Revolution, when the Church of England lost its hold on the people of the colony.

    The Great Wagon Road followed the Great Warrior's Path down the Valley of Virginia. From Waynesboro it came down the Path, through Hagarstown, Maryland, to the Potomac. It crossed the Potomac River at Watkins Ferry, south of Hagarstown, and followed Opequon Creek past Fort Louden and old Frederick Town (now Winchester Virginia). It crossed over to Strassburg on the North Fork of the Shenandoah River. It stayed in the main Valley, west of the Massanutten Moutain Ridge (which divided the North Fork and South Forks of the Shenandoah), west of the River, the Shenandoah. Towns grew up along it: Woodstock, New Market and Harrisonburg, Virginia. It went on, Stanton and Lexington, on to the North River of the James. It went to the rare Natural Bridge, and James River City. It left the James going to Fincastle and on to the Big Lick on the Stanton or Roanoke River (now Roanoke Virginia). Here a branch went through the Roanoke River Gap and south to the Carolinas: the Carolina Road. The wagon road continued on down the Valley to the New River. It crossed at Ingles Ferry, to go to Dunkers Bottom, Blacksburg and Christiansburg. It went on to Stephen Holston's (Wytheville), and Stalnackers (Marion) on the Holston River, to Abingdon. It went on to Bristol on the Virginia Line, to Long Island of the Holston (Kingsport) in Tennessee, where the North Branch joins, making the headwaters of the Tennessee River, and continuing down the front of Clinch Mountain, Bean Station and Knoxville. This route is old U.S. 11 (I-81 is closely parallel).

    There was an large settlement of the Brethren on the Holston and Clinch Rivers, west of the Mountains. This is the main center of Tennessee District of the Church of the Brethren.

    A branch of the Great Warriors Path turned west, just south of Abingdon. It crossed Moccasin Gap through Clinch Mountain, crossed the Clinch River Valley, and Powell Mountain, into the Powell River Valley, till it came to a gap in the Alleghany Front, named the Cumberland Gap, after the Duke of Cumberland. Thomas Walker and Daniel Boone pioneered this road - for the thousands that went into Kaintuck.

Carolina Road

rom Big Lick, on the Roanoke River (now Roanoke Virginia), in the Valley of Virginia, the early Brethren settlers moved south into the Carolinas. They went out through the Roanoke River Gap and down the face of the Blue Ridge Mountains. U.S. 220 is approximately the route used - through Boone's Mills and Rocky Mount to Martinsville and into the Carolina Colony (later divided into North and South). The original roadbed is known in Franklin County, Virginia, to have been west of U.S. 220, on the slopes of Cahas Mountain, and farther up Maggody Creek and the Blackwater River than the present road. This is the area Elder Jacob Miller lived - but his arrival there is in 1773 (not the traditional date of 1765). His cabin site is on the west side of the Blue Ridge Parkway, on nearly the top of the ridge, at Adney Gap (land which he sold to Adney in 1800), some 10 miles south of Roanoke. He came to where Brethren already were.

    In 1748, the year Alexander Mack Jr. left Dunkard's Bottom and returned to Germantown, David Martin, son of Elder George Adam Martin, formed the Beaver Creek Church, on the Broad River, Newberry County, South Carolina. The Brethren had already moved down the Yadkin River and were living on the Broad River.

    From Franklin and Floyd Counties South Carolina, the Carolina Road came almost directly south to the Moravian Center at Salem (now Winston- Salem, North Carolina). It then followed down the Yadkin River to Lexington and Salisbury (North Carolina 8 and U.S. 29). Brethren Settlements were along the Yadkin River, some being west into the Blue Ridge Mountains and others being south. The Carolina Road left the Yadkin at Salisbury and swung west to the Broad River at Charlotte, North Carolina.

    In York County, South Carolina, the Road seems to have split, one branch going westward to Chester and south to Columbia, South Carolina (U.S. 321), the other branch staying nearer the river to Columbia (U.S. 21). The road ended at the Savannah River across from Augusta Georgia.

    Most of the Brethren in South Carolina stayed nearer the mountains and the Broad and Catawba Rivers, although one settlement was on the Saluda River, south of Greenville, and there is even record of one somewhere on the Edisto River - possibly towards Augusta. A settlement of 7th Day Brethren (Sabbatarians) from Ephrata was even farther south in Georgia, but it died out, blame is given to swamp fever (Malaria?)

Wilderness Road

n 1769 Daniel Boone left his family on the Yadkin, to try to gain some of the fur profits of storied Kaintuck. One source says that he crossed to the Holston Valley of Lee County, Virginia, and followed the Great Warrior's Path west to Powell Valley and the Cumberland Gap. Another gives a pass through the Blue Ridge along the headwaters of the Wautagua River of Tennessee, into the Holston River Valley. He found the land as wonderful as his dreams and decided to move. He also found that others were already there before him. Just across the gap, leaving behind the high ridge, into the multitudinous broken streams, he could hardly stand the stink. Thomas Walker had trapped the area recently, the decaying skinned bodies left lying scattered along the Great Warrior's Path were so nauseating it was almost impossible to travel. The Great Warrior's Path stayed in the edge of the hills, going down Goose Creek to Manchester, Kentucky, (past the Flat Creek Mission) and headed north to the Ohio at the mouth of the Scioto River. It continued on north as the Scioto Trail, back to the Lake Erie, near Sandusky, the land of the Tuscaroras Indians.

    Daniel Boone brought his family and neighbors to Kentucky the next year. They built the little Fort on the Kentucky River - called Boonesboro, then he began to break a new route through the rough ridges to the Blue Grass plains of the Kentucky River, a road that would not go up Stinking Creek. Later, the road was widened for wagon traffic - it was the Wilderness Road.

    U.S. 25E follows closely the route of the Wilderness road, from the Cumberland Gap, across Pine Mountain (and the famous "Chained Rock" on its slope) to Pineville, Kentucky, to Corbin and London, to Richmond and Boonesboro, on the Kentucky River. From Renfro Valley and Berea on, the road is leaving the Mountainous Hills and Valleys, and entering the bluegrass of Kentucky. The edge of the Hills into the Bluegrass is very abrupt and obvious.

    Near Berea, Kentucky is Big Hill - standing along, out away from the hills, there legend says that Daniel Boone, chased by the Indians, climbed the high limestone cliffs that completely circle the mountain - and using the butt of his rifle, smashed the fingers of the Indians who tried to also gain the top against him.

    Logan's Path
     Near Mount Vernon, just below Renfro Valley, was Crab Orchard. Here Logan's Path broke from the Wilderness Road and headed northwest to Logan's Fort or St. Asaph, to Danville, Fort Harrod (Harrodsburg) and the Falls (Louisville). It cut through the heart of the Blue Grass of Kentucky. It is followed primarily today by U.S. 150. From Danville, U.S. 127 goes to north to Frankfort, which became the capitol of the State of Kentucky. Fort Harrod was about 10 miles north, from there Logan's Path headed northwest on a buffalo trace between the Cox and the Salt Rivers. This is followed somewhat by KY 390 to close to the Blue Grass Parkway. From there it cut across country to US 62 somewhere near Chaplin. At Bloomfield it followed KY 48, and then 480 to Shepherdsville. A destination was Bullitt Lick, on KY 44 a couple miles west of Shepherdsville. From Bullitt Lick the trace headed northward, tending east to KY 1020 near Hubers and on to Brooks and on to The Falls (Louisville) from the south. As they approached today's city, the Buffalo Trace divided several ways, which were variously followed by settlers.

    For many migrants one destination was Oatman's Ferry, across the Ohio River, below the Falls. It seems to have run from West Market Street in Louisville to the beginning of Corydon Pike in New Albany. In Indiana, a road also went from the Ferry north till it came to the Buffalo Trace, that went across to Vincennes on the Wabash.

JOURNEY FROM N. CAROLINA TO INDIANA IN 34 DAYS IN THE YEAR 1815

The Brethren followed this route from the Carolinas and Virginia to Kentucky, and some on to Indiana. Logan's Path was later called the "Wilderness Road" going to "The Falls" (Louisville KY). Source: "Journey from North Carolina to Indiana in 34 Days in the Year 1815." Illiana Genealogist, Vol. 12 No. 4, (Fall 1976). pp. 121-124 (Quaker List - Permission to use).

Letter to Nathan Dixon, Chatham County, Tick Creek, North Carolina by George Rubottom: Sept. 8 Got off from home about 12 oclock, traveled to Scottens and took up. 14 miles. Nothing remarkable passed today. Sept. 9 Left camp at 7. went on well, reached Nathan Lamb's at 3 and made preparations for doctoring the wounded horse. Traveled 15 miles. Sept. 10 Rested with our friend Nathan Lamb. Horse is considerably better. Sept. 11 Left our benefactors, went to Zeno Worth's, the waggon that was to join us here did not come according to promise, waited until 12 oclock then went on about 4 miles and fed. The waggons joined us this evening and we camped at Armfields. 9 miles. The horse continues to mend. Sept. 12 We continued our journey before sunrise, passed Clemens at 10 oclock. Fed at Deep River, after dinner went on, camped at John Smiths. 21 miles.

(Deep River starts near Greensboro NC, and swings south around Chatham Co - going into the haw River south of Raleigh, which later becomes the Cape Fear River - travel is west)

(Clemens is probably the town of Colfax, on US421, between Greensboro and Winston Salem. John Smiths would be very close to Winston Salem. He may have taken NC66, bypassing Winston Salem which is not mentioned. He would have gone east and north, to now US52, headed north to Mt Airy. Deep River starts west of Greensboro NC, and swings south around Chatham Co - going into the Haw River south of Raleigh, which later becomes the Cape Fear River.)

Sept. 13 Started about 6 oclock, went on very well, took dinner at 12 then went on, crossed Little Yadkin at twilight, traveled 2 miles further and took up lodging for the night. 24 miles.

(on US52, the Little Yadkin would be crossed a couple miles south of Pilot Knob.)

Sept. 14 Left camp after sunrise, went on as usual, crossed Tom's Creek about 10 oclock, fed at Flatshore Creek then went on, crossed the Ararat at 6, took up at Thomas Parkins. We had a very considerable shower of rain this evening. Made 18 miles.

(Ararat Creek is the east and south edge of Mount Airy NC, US52 crosses it in town. The Virginia State Line is about 2 miles north of town.)

Sept. 15 Left camp about sunrise, went on well, fed at the foot of the Blue Ridges. Began the ascent at Ward's Gap at half past 2 oclock. Our teams had tolerable hard drawing. They went up without doubling. When about half way up we had to assist Thomas White, his team wa ? exactly true, but were overloaded. We gained the top after 6, went half a mile and took up lodging. 14 miles.

(Ward's Gap is through the Blue Ridge on an old route going directly north out of Mt Airy NC. It is some 5 miles east of Fancy Gap [US52]. The present route following the old road goes through Orchard Gap, a mile or so more east. A half mile north would be very near Gladesboro VA.)

Sept. 16 Started at half past 6, the road is very, hilly and in bad order. Took up at 12 for dinner. Moved on at 2, went till sunset and took up. 15 miles. Sept. 17 A cloudy morning, several showers of rain fell last night. Started before sunrise, went on very well, reached Pearces Furnice by 10 oclock, viewed it half an hour then went on. At 12 it began to rain, crossed New River at Porter's Ford at about 3 oclock. It continued to rain till night and was very cool. Took up this evening at one Painters who favored us with a room to lodge In. Made 14 miles. (Name may be Pointers).

(He is going north to cross the NEw River. The New River flows north, starting in Ashe Co NC, crossing to Giles Co VA and Peterstown WVa, going through West Virginia to the Ohio River at Gallipolis OH. 1834 map shows an old road (not on current maps) going north/northwest and crossing right at the mouth of Cripple Creek. Porters Crossroads is on VA619 on Cripple Creek up from the New River. It seems reasonable that the road ford was called by the same name. This may be the location of his lodgin. "Painters", in original handwriting, may have actually been "Porters". PIerce Mill, just south of there, may be the "Pearces Furnice".)

Sept. 18 Left Painter's, crossed Cripple Creek, went on till 12 and took dinner, then went on. Took up for the night at the head of Cripple Creek. It became clear this evening. Made 19 miles.

(Cripple Creek comes from the west, to the New River, in Wythe Co VA. Head of cripple Creek is just above Blue Spring. On the 1834 map, a road from Evansham goes to Cripple Creek, and follows it upstream to Blue Spring, crosses the pass to the South Fork of the Holston, and goes on to Abingdon.)

Sept. 19 Is frosty morning, set off a quarter before 7, went on as usual. Stopped at the head of the South Fork of Holston for dinner and viewed the curiosities of the place, went into a cave. It has a spacious entrance as large as a common room. In viewing it we found another, the mouth was small. We got a torch and went into it, sometimes we could walk upright, at others, half bent. Viewed its various winding till satisfied and went out. There are several large springs which offered water enough to turn a mill in a short distance. After dinner, went on. Joseph is very unwell, supposed to be cold. Took up at 4 on account of his illness. Made 15 miles.

(head of South Fork of Holston is in Smyth County, in Rye Valley. Several springs are around there, but I could locate no cave information.)

Sept. 20 A foggy morning. Moved off at 7, went on well. Took dinner at the Seven Mile Ford on Holston, then went on, some showers of rain fell this evening. Took up at 6 at William Levis who favored us with a room to lodge in. Traveled 20 miles. Joseph is considerable better.

(Seven Mile Ford was a crossing of the Great Wagon Road [originally the Great Warrior's Path], going south to Tennessee. This means that George Rubottom went north from Wards Gap to the Great Wagon Road, and followed it to the Cumberland Gap.)

Sept. 21 A rainy morning. Continued our journey at 7. Halted at 1 and fed, then went on. Passed thru Abingdon at 3 oclock. Traveled about 3 miles further and took up. 17 miles. It continued to rain at intervals during the whole of this day.

(Abingdon is at US5j8 and I-81, on Middle Fork of the Holston. This route on South Fork parallels the Great Wagon Road [US11] down the Valley, and only a few miles away. Why didn't he take the better road?)

Sept. 22 Another wet morning. Started before sunrise. Went on well. Halted at half past 11 and fed, then went on, took up at 6. A fair evening. Made 21 miles.

(likely at or near Bristol TN - on US11, the Great Warriors Path, the Great Wagon Road)

Sept. 23 A foggy morning. Moved on at half past 6, went on well till half past 9 when the tire on one of White's waggon wheels broke. Stopped and had it mended, went on again at 12 oclock, took up for the night at the boat yard on Holston. 16 miles.

(Boat Yard - probably is at modern Kingsport TN)

Sept. 24 Another foggy morning. Went on at 6, crossed the North of Holston at 7. Took dinner at 12, then went on. This evening is clear, stopped at 6 and made preparations for the night. 22 miles. Sept. 25 This morning is clear, started about 6 oclock, went on well, halted at Rogers Mill half after 8 to have some of our horses' shoes nailed on, then went on, fed at half past 11, then went on, took up at 6. Made 22 miles.

(Rogers Mill is modern Rogersville TN, on US11)

Sept. 26 A finer morning. Set off at 6, passed Bean Station about 10 oclock, went 2 miles and fed, then went on, began to ascend Clinch mountain at the Freestone Gap at 1 oclock. The road for about half way up this mountain is in extreme bad order where we found hands at work, from there to the top it was very good. Gained the top at half past 3 then descended the western declivity. Took lodging at Clinch River. Made 16 miles.

(Bean Station is at US11 and US25E. It is at the foot of Clinch Mountain. Old US25E, crossing Clinch Mountain, twists so much that you can almost see your own tail-light.)

Sept. 27 Rested our teams today. We spent the day in killing squirrels and so forth. Sept. 28 Packed up our lumber ? and started, crossed Clinch on a bridge which was 150 yards long. Paid 2 dollars for crossing. Went on till 12 and fed, then went on, passed thru Tazwell, seat of justice for Clabourn county. Went till 6 and made preparations, for the night. 15 miles.

(Tazwell is in the valley between the Clinch River and Powell River, on US25E at KY33.)

Sept. 29 Set off at 6, crossed Powell's River this morning, began to ascend Cumberland mountain at 11 oclock, gained the top in half an hour, went on to Yellow Creek and fed, then went on till 6 and took up. 18 miles.

(This is the Cumberland Gap. The Pass is a hundred feet below the peak. If a person fell out of the park on the peak at the Cumberland Gap, he would fall out of Kentucky, bounce once in Virginia and land in Tennessee.)

Sept. 30 A foggy morning, moved on at 6, went about 5 miles when we came to the Cumberland Turnpike, paid $2.87 1/5 to have the gate opened, then went on till half past 11 oclock and fed, after dinner went on till sun set and took up, made 20 miles. We had a hard shower of rain today, also a slight one yesterday.

(The Cumberland Turnpike superceded the Wilderness Road, and essentially is US25E to Corbin KY, going on to London. The Wilderness Road cut across on now KY229 from Bailey's Switch to London.)

Oct. 1 Sabbath... Another foggy morning. Set off at 6, went till 12 and fed. Went on at 1. Took up on Laurel Creek. 191 miles.

(Laurel Creek is on the headwaters of the Cumberland River, It is one of the TVA Lakes at Corbin KY. The creek comes down from the east. It is possible he is speaking of the South Branch of the Cumberland River, at Barbourville KY.)

Oct. 2 This morning foggy, set off at 6. Nothing remarkable passed. Fed at 12 oclock, then went on, crossed Little Rock Castle, went over some rough nobs. Crossed Big Rock Castle when it was nearly dark. Drove half a mile and took up. 22 1/2 miles. (US25 crosses the Rockcastle River at Livingston KY. The river goes south to the Cumberland. The name comes from an isolated mountain cone with a large ledge of rock near the peak. Daniel Boone, by legend, is supposed to have taken refuge from Indians, and run around the peak, pounding the fingers of the climbing Indians to knock them off the peak.)

(US25 crosses the Rockcastle River at Livingston KY. The river goes south to the Cumberland Rivre. The name comes from an isolated mountain cone, with a large rock cliff circling just below the peak. Daniel Boone, by doubful legend, is supposed to have taken refuge from Indians, and run around the peak, pounding the fingers of the climbing Indians to knock them off the cliff.)

Oct. 3 Scarcely a morning passed without fog, continued our journey at 7, went on well, took dinner at 1 at Mt. Vernon , halted at 6 and made preparations for the night. 18 miles.

(Mt Vernon is at the junction of US25 and US150. Here is where the Wilderness Road to Boonesborough and the Logan's Path, also called "Wilderness Road", going to "the Falls" [Louisville] separated.)

Oct. 4 A clear morning, proceeded at 6, passed thru the Crab Orchard at 9, halted at 1 for dinner, then went on a mile to Stanford, waited 2 hours to have White's waggon wheels clamped, then drove 5 miles and took up. 19 1/2 miles.

(This is US150 - from Mt Vernon, to Crab Orchard, to Stanford.)

Oct. 5 Set off before sunrise, passed thru Danville at 9, halted at half past 11 for dinner. Went on again at 1. Passed thru Harodsburg at 3. went on till sunset and took up. 23 miles. (Danville is where the State Charter was formed. Harrodsburg was a major frontier fort.)

(The Kentuckky State Charter wasf formed at Danville. Harrodsburg, Fort Harrod, was a major frontier fort.)

Oct .6 Started about sunrise, went on well, halted at 12 for dinner then went on. It began to rain about 2 and continued to rain thru the night, sometimes very hard. We found a cabin to lodge us. 20 miles.

(probably lodged close to Salvisa KY)

Oct. 7 A cloudy morning. Several showers fell last night. Moved on about 7, went on tolerable well tho the road was very slippery. Stopped at half past 12 for dinner then went on, passed thru Shelbyville about 5, went 1 mile and took up, made 20 miles.

(probably followed US127 to near Lawrenceburg, then KY151 and US60 to Shelbyville.)

Oct. 8 Another cloudy morning. Took up the line of march before sunrise, went on till half after 11 and fed, then went on, passed thru Middletown at 3, took up for the night about 6. Some light showers fell today. Made 21 miles.

(continued, on now US60. Middletown is now an eastern suburb of Louisville.)

Oct. 9 A clear morning. Made an early start, traveled 7 1/2 miles to Lewisville, staid in town till 11 oclock, then went to the river, it took from 1 to 3 oclock to take the waggons over, paid 2 dollars for each waggon ferriage. Then went on about 21 miles and took up. 14 miles.

(Louisville - "Lewis-ville" - was the old "the Falls". Oatman's Ferry was below the falls, from the west end of Market Street, crossing to New Albany, at the docks at Corydon Pike. Corydon was the first state capitol of Indiana.)

Oct. 10 Set off early went on tolerable well. Fed at 12, then went on, took up on Blue River, 22 miles. We have had a long fatigueing journey, but have stood it well, nothing more than a cold to complain of, we are in fine spirits and expect to reach Lick Creek tomorrow.

(Blue River makes the western edge of Harrison County IN. The new road from Louisville to Vincennes, went, in 1815, through Bradford and Hancock Chapel.before getting to the Blue River. The Brethren had the Indian Creek Church on the road, just east of Bradford, and another church north on the Blue River near Salem in Washington County.)

Oct. 11 Crossed Blue River, went on well, took dinner at 11, then went on. Reached the place of destination before sunset and found the neighbors very unhealthy. Apply to Joel Dixon for particulars concerning the complaint. The expense of the journey from North Carolina to Lick Creek, Indiana is $81.00 including ferriage, bridge tolls, turn pike fees etc.

(Quaker destination was French Lick and West Baden Springs in Orange Co IN. The Brethren went north of here, to the Lost River, the Lost River Church being just east of Orleans.)
    Hunter's Trace
    Another trace used by early Brethren settlers was the Hunter's Trace, which went westward from London KY along the headwaters of the Cumberland River, to the Green River, through Somerset and Glasgow to Bowling Green, Kentucky (Kentucky 80), then southward to the Cumberland at old Fort Nashville (Nashville, Tennessee). There was an early Brethren settlement south of Bowling Green in Warren and Simpson Counties Kentucky, and a smaller one in Davidson County, Tennessee (Nashville). These seem to be original settlers coming from the Carolinas through the Cumberland Gap. Later settlers came up the Green River from the Ohio to Muhlenberg County.

National Road

riginally called the Cumberland Road, since it was going to the West from Cumberland Maryland. It started at the end of an early road from Baltimore, Maryland, that went to Cumberland, Maryland, and followed the Pennsylvania path of General Braddock's Army road to Pittsburgh. In Fayette County, Pennsylvania, passing the historic Fort Necessity, of young George Washington, it headed down the Redstone River to the Monongehela. At Old Fort Redstone, now Brownsville, Pennsylvania, many built flatboats for travel down the Ohio River. It crossed the Monongehela and went on to Washington County, Pennsylvania going to the Ohio River. It arrived at the Ohio, at Old Fort Henry, now Wheeling, West Virginia, in 1818. The Old National Road became U.S. 40, and now is paralleled by I-70. The Old National Road left the west bank of the Ohio River in 1825. It continued on across the state of Ohio, with its destination being the new Capitol of Indiana: Indianapolis. It arrived at Richmond, Indiana, in 1827, but was stopped by, and did not cross the Gorge until 1835. But by then there was Vandalia, the capitol of the new state of Illinois, and the destination for the Road was set at St. Louis, Missouri, which it reached in 1837. Local construction was by sections, connecting them across the state.

    The Old National Road followed the Old Zane Trace (1784) from Fort Henry to Zanesville. At Zanesville the Zane Trace turning southwest to Chillicothe, the Old National Road going west, this was memorialized by the "Y" Bridge. In the very center of the River where the Licking joins the Muskingum, the Covered Bridge (and the modern highway bridge) divided. Go left and you follow the Zane Trace (U.S. 22) past the White Cottage Church of the Brethen, toward Chillicothe. Go right and you follow the Old National Road to Columbus and Dayton. The Brethren settled heavily around Dayton using the Old National Road.

    The Road in the east had been poorly built, and had to be rebuilt due to the heavy wagon usage. When the decision was made to push the Road on across the nation, the Road east was rebuilt from this experience and the new Road, on west, was built better from the start. It was built on a right-of-way that was 80 feet wide. It was a "Macadam", fifteen feet wide, built of 3 layers of crushed stone, 15 inches deep in the center, but sloping off to the edges for drainage. The Road was "metal-surfaced", graded with a metal blade, at least occasionally.

    A feature of the Old National Road that can still be seen is its S bridges. The builders of the Road crossed the streams at right angles. Streams do not always flow perpendicular to the Road, so many of approaches curve up onto the bridges. Most of the bridges also are highly arched. The Old National Road had another feature in its day that one considers to be very modern. About 2 miles east of Richmond, Indiana, in Preble County, Ohio, on U.S. 40, on the south side of the Road, is standing a trunkated Pine Tree. It only has a few living branches. This is the only one remaining of originally a triangle of 3 Pine Trees: the Old National Road designation of a Rest Stop.

    The Road had heavy usage. From the very first, Richmond, Indiana, recorded traffic of 100 wagons a day. Many were Conestoga Wagons pulled by 4 to 6 horses or oxen. Shipping charges were $10 per ton. Lighter traffic was with "shake-guts", unsprung carts with 2 huge wheels. In 1832, Zanesville counted:
2357 wagons with 3 or more horses 11613 2-horse carriages or wagons 14907 1-horse carriages 35310 horseback riders 16750 horses and mules 24410 sheep - driven 52845 hogs - driven 96323 cattle -driven

    That is 100 vehicles a day, and herds of animals, going 18-20 miles a day, west!

    Many of the Brethren came west in 1828 or 1830 on the Old National Road, and the Brethren used the Road for settlement into Indiana and Illinois. In Indiana, there were already several Brethren communities near the Road: the Four Mile, south of Richmond; the Nettle Creek, west of Richmond; and the Ladoga Churches, over near the Wabash in western Indiana; but for most of Indiana and Illinois, the churches were considerably north and migration came west on the Road, then turned north. At St. Louis, the end of the Old Nation Road was the springboard for migration on the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers to the West, settlements in: Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska. The Old National Road is probably one of the most important factors of westward migration in the United States.

Wayne Road

n 1793, General "Mad" Anthony Wayne, of Revolutionary War fame, replaced Governor St. Clair, who had been so devastatingly defeated at Fort Recovery ,Ohio. He came to Fort Washington (now Cincinnati, Ohio) and brought with him something that Governor St. Clair did not have - a contingent of the Continental Line, 1500 soldiers strong. He supplemented these with Kentucky militia, having a total well over 2500. These were station on the Great Miami River, just north of Cincinnatus, at Fort Hamilton. He crossed the River with his army, and moved northward, upstream. He first crossed a river at four miles from Fort Hamilton, which he named the: "Four Mile" (stream followed by the Delaware Indian Road, and stream on which the Four Mile Church was formed in Indiana). He continued upstream and at 7 miles forded another river, which again he logically named, the: "Seven Mile" (this stream goes north to Eaton Ohio, the site of old Fort St. Clair, of the previous Governor). He marched up the east side of the Seven Mile, above the banks on the hills alongside. His trace is about one mile east and parallel to U.S. 127. He passed the old Fort St. Clair and went on toward St. Clair's fort at Fort Jefferson. He passed through the town of Castine and his men camped about 2 miles south of Fort Jefferson, at Wayne Lakes on Ohio 121. He moved on north of Fort Jefferson to a heights along the Greenville Creek and built a large fort for overwinter, Fort Greenville. The fort stood about 2 blocks wide and about 4 blocks long, angling NE-SW along Greenville Creek. This places the nearest corner of the fort about 6 blocks from the Greenville Brethren's Home. During the winter, he had his soldiers built a fortification at the site of St. Clairs defeat, naming it Fort Recovery, 25 miles north of Greenville.

    In 1794, he began his push north. The Indians met him at the old battlefield where the new fort was. This time they were defeated. With the stability of the professional Continental Line, General Wayne then began a very defensive forward advance - the Indians probed his lines and formation repeatedly, but could gain no advantage and could not stop him. He pushed them beyond their own villages and fields and destroyed all their supplies and substance.

    Finally, on the Maumee River in northern Ohio, as he approached the established outpost British Fortifications, the Indians set up a major defense in the debris of a Tornado, the Battle of Fallen Timbers. Facing a bayonet charge by the Continenals, with the militia finding a way to their rear, the Indians fled. The Indian opposition to settlement in Ohio was ended at the Treaty of Greenville, 1795. A line was drawn across the state from Fort Recovery, and another line drawn from there, angling southwest to the Ohio, to the mouth of the Kentucky River (when the Ohio State LIne was laid in 1803, this additional area west of the Ohio Line was called "the Gore"). General Wayne named all the lands north and west of the Great Miami River (to Lake St. Mary's at Celina, Ohio) as Indian Territory - called "Indiana".

    The area south and east of these lines was shared land, the Indians were free to use it, and the settlers could freely establish homes. (In a second treaty at Greenville, in 1814, the Brethren Minister, Philip Younce and his family played a major supporting role. Margaret Byrket Younce baked bread and offered food to the some 4000 Indians gathered there.)

    The Wayne Trace from Greenville north is followed by Ohio 49 to Fort Recovery and north along the state line. At Willshire it jogs east across the St. Mary's River and continues north. At U.S. 224, the old trace continued north through Payne to the Maumee River, but Ohio 49 goes east and north to Convoy before coming back to Payne.

    The early Brethren followed this route north from the settlements on the Great Miami (Montgomery, Miami, Darke, Preble Counties, Ohio) and the Four Mile. Earliest settlers were Jacob Witter and Squire Thompson who moved to the St Joseph River in Michigan Territory about 1824. They followed the Wayne Trace to the crossing of the St. Mary's River, then followed an Indian Trail going to the north-west. The Indian Trail went to the old French Fort at the juncture of the St. Mary's and St. Joseph Rivers which form the Maumee (Fort Wayne, Indiana) The Indian Trail continues northwest into the Lake area of Northern Indiana and follows the Elkhart River through Lagrange and Goshen, Indiana, to the St Joseph River (another one - named by the French Priest Champaign) at Elkhart, Indiana. It then follows the St. Joseph River west to its "South Bend" (Indiana) where it heads north past the French fort at Niles, Minnesota, to Lake Michigan at St. Joe-Benton Harbor, Minnesota. Goshen, Indiana, was named by the early Brethren for their early home on the Obannon, at Goshen in Clermont County, Ohio, (Obannon Church). The Indian Trail, starting near Columbus, Ohio, is followed by U.S. 33.

    The Brethren settlements in northern Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois received other Brethren coming directly west from the Beaver River, off the Ohio just outside Pittsburgh. Other northern Pennsylvania Brethren used the old Shamokin Trail, which followed the West Branch of the Susquehanna River (to St. Marys / Dubois), possibly going through Warren to Erie Pennsylvania. These routes of migration have not been ascertained by me yet -- but in Ohio, those farther south basically are followed by U.S. 30 in the middle of the state. Farther north the migration route from the Beaver is along Ohio 14 to the Lakeshore and follows U.S. 6 and U.S. 20 west.

    Some Canada Brethren used the lake shore roads, coming down from Niagara through Cleveland. Others crossed Ontario to Detroit, then followed the old Indian Trail that ran from Fort Detroit to Fort Dearborn (Chicago), now U.S. 12. Still others went to Georgian Bay, and came by water, down Lake Michigan to the Wisconsin and Illinois shores.

Wetzel Trace

ollowing the Indian Treaties, some early Brethren had come up the wide Wabash River to "Wabash Country". These earliest settlers came only as far as Parke and Putnam Counties. They were met there by settlers from the Four Mile and from Preble Co IN. These had come overland, using a new trace. Wetzel's Trace was a route from the White Water River in Franklin Co IN (Laural) to the Falls of the White River (Indianapolis -where John Conner had a trading post). It is said to follow Indian trails, and today is followed closely by US 52 from Brookville IN. The Brethren went on due west from Indianapolis to the Wabash Country, the Ladoga Churches. There they met others, who came up the Wabash River from the Ohio. Several of the children of Potter John Miller went as early as 1818, with Potter John leaving the Four Mile and going there by 1822. The route west of Indianapolis is today followed by US 36.

Zane Trace

benezer Zane lived at Fort Henry (now Wheeling, West Virginia). It was on the Virginia side of the Ohio River several days below Pittsburgh. He and his brothers were frontiersmen and fairly well known Indian Scouts. The government asked him to run a road to Limestone, in Kentucky, where there was a River landing and a trace going south to Blue Lick and Lexington. They had given him property rights at his choice in several of the best locations as payment. He had been all through those lands in Ohio Territory, and already had his route chosen. It would go almost due west until it came to the Muskingum River. He had even chosen a name for that location - Zanesville. Then the Trace would angle southwest until it crossed the Hocking River. That would be later named Lancaster. It would continue on more to the south till it came to the old Shawnee Indian village at Chillicothe on the Scioto River. The trace would go west from Chillicothe, along the Paint Creek, until a wide valley cut south to Ohio Brush Creek. There it would follow close to the Brush Creek due south, until finally it would head southwest through the valleys toward the Ohio River across from Limestone, or Maysville, as some people were beginning to call this river landing.

    The route had its scenic spots, between Lancaster and Chillicothe was one of those Indian Mounds that had an unusual shape; it wasn't so high off the ground, but it looked like a large cross. Then there at Chillicothe, there must be a few hundred of different sizes of mounds of dirt, all grassed over in the trees, a city of them that someone called Mound City. They said people were buried in them, that it was an ancient Indian Village. Then all along the south side of Paint Creek, on top of the high ridges along it, were what looked like dirt forts, they had dug a ditch all around the top of the different hills, and piled the bank of dirt outside the ditch, just like a fort. And just before you got to the valley going down from Paint Creek to Ohio Brush Creek, right beside the creek, there was this huge mound of dirt, maybe twenty feet high, and not that much larger at the base - Seips Mound. Just as you got to Ohio Brush Creek, where you went through the pass, there was this largest of all of the dirt forts up on the high hill west of the pass, Fort Hill; and after you got through the pass, on the almost level open field below the hill, there was one of those huge circle mounds with the opening facing east toward the sun. Farther along Brush Creek, on a high bank on the east side, where the creek circled around it, there was this long wiggly snakelike mound, with a mouth and a ball like thing in its mouth, all of it made of dirt. It looked like a real Serpent Mound. Someone said that ancient Indians had lived here and built towns, more like white men, but that it was so long ago that even the native Indians didn't have any legends about it.

    This was the Zane Trace. It was the first trace or white man's path in Ohio. It went west along what is now U.S. 40. Ebenezer Zane did start the town of Zanesville as a trading post. And the famous "Y" bridge in Zanesville is where the Zane Trace separated from the later Old National Road, right there in the middle of the bridge in the middle of where the Licking and Muskingum Rivers come together. The Trace leaves Zanesville on U.S. 22. A few miles out of Zanesville is the little town of White Cottage and the White Cottage Church of the Brethren, located right on the old trace. At Lancaster the trace headed more southernly on Ohio 159 to Chillicothe. Just outside Chillicothe, to the Northeast, there seems to have been an early Brethren settlement, and west of Chillicothe are a couple more Brethren communities. The trace went west along Paint Creek on U.S. 50 to Bainbridge, where Ohio 41 follows the Trace down past Fort Hill State Park, past Strait Creek Church of the Brethren and Woodland Altars Camp. (About 3 miles west at Locust Grove on Ohio 73 is the Serpent Mound State Park, nationally famous.) The Trace follows Ohio 41 on through Peebles (Marble Furnace Church of the Brethren is just west of town), to West Union and on to Aberdeen, across the Ohio River from Maysville. On top of the Hills on the River at Maysville, is the old town of Limestone.

    Not many of the Brethren used the Zane Trace, except where it and the Kanawha Trace ran together going west from Chillicothe, and the Countryman family settlers coming up from Massie's Station on the Ohio River at Three Islands.