History of the County of Westmoreland, Pennsylvania, with Biographical Sketches of Many of its Pioneers and Prominent Men, Part 44

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WE know of 1 .. better means of getting a correct notion of the different stages or eras into which the history of our country has been divided from time to time than by having a knowledge of the different roads and highways. In noticing this subject of roads we will be led into the consideration of such other subjects as are connected with it, or are evolved out of it, such as the methods first used in transportation, the facilities for supplying the wants of the carrying trade, the prices of such carrying, and in general the changes which may be attributed to the roads.

In a community which is constantly undergoing change we can, careful as we may be, scarcely avoid conflicting ideas and associating times and places with other times and places. But in the history of our county we observe one thing, which is this, that from the first settlements to 1775, the beginning of the Revolution, is a distinctly marked era; from that time to the destruction of Hannastown is another era; and from that time to the ending of the Whis- key Insurrection in 1794 another ; and so on. And these eras are marked, as it were, by the history of the very roads, and whether we argue that the roads in their changes were but the termination of one stage of improvement or the beginning of another it is but the same. In the early days we have the pack-horse tracks and military roads, coming down to 1784, then the State highways, then the turnpike with its changed travel and traffic, which in turn was followed by the canal and the railroad.

The world has been slow to acknowledge the utility of good, safe, and speedy methods of travel, of the advantages in overcoming distance and time, and in thus adding to the wealth of the people, the advance- ment of civil society and the revenue of the State. When the Highlands of Scotland and Berkshire were a fortnight's journey from Edinburgh and London, a stranger's life was not safe in those regions. Walter

Scott relates that in the reign of George III.' trav- elers were waylaid, robbed, and murdered not a hun- dred miles from the capital of Scotland. True it is in our own country no such acts in a regular and sys- tematic manner were perpetrated. If we have no remains of Gothic and Noric castles overhanging the fastnesses of our mountain parts, so likewise we have no romantic stories of plumed bandits shooting from behind rocks at passers-by, or dancing minuets with fair prisoners on the greensward of the valley. Iso- lated instances of highway robbery and of murder for money are scarce, and it is notorious that the per- petrators seldom for any long time defied the author- ities with impunity, and seldom, indeed, cecaped. The causes of this may be satisfactorily explained with various reasons. There was, it is true, no dia- trict in Pennsylvania in which there was a surplusage of population, a part of which might have been driven to commit crimes for a livelihood, nor was there such alluring booty as would turn a romantic lad into a freebooter, after the manner of Robin Hood. There might possibly be a Dave Lewis, but there could not be a Glaude Duval. But no reason can be advanced with so much force as this, that while the country was increasing in population and in wealth the roads were getting safer, better, and, of need, more con- stantly occupied. As it is a subject which may in- terest us and will interest those who follow, it is our province to consider it.

The red men, following the instinct of nature and traveling with the sun and the rotary motion of the earth, had marked foot-paths and trails which led from hunting- and fishing-grounds to their more per- manent homes, to other tribes, to council-places in the East, to outposts, and to traders" posts. These paths were chosen, when it could be so done, along streams and otherwise along the hillsides or moun- tain slopes, to keep out of the lowlands. Often, when necessary, an undeviating straight line, which took advantage of the unfrequented localities, and which was directed by the unerring sun or by unchanging landmarks, was picked out and followed; for in tra- versing the country they followed each after the other in a row in a way aptly designated " Indian fashion." They had a singular swinging walk ; they did not walk erect as our typical Indian, but with the instinct of the beast predominant, carried their head low, with their shoulders stooped, and their toes turned inward, and when on business, whether in peace or in war, had a peculiar gait, somewhat faster than a walk, but not so rapid as a run, and this gait they tirelessly kept up all day.

"There were three principal trails east and west, which the Indians, in connection with each other and with the whites, had made, and were, even after the first settlements in Western Pennsylvania, much traveled by them. One of these led from the Alle-

1 Introduction to Rob Roy.

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PRIMITIVE ROADS AND METHODS OF TRANSPORTATION.

gheny River by way of the Kiskiminetas along the Juniata to the Susquehanna; the second was the path from the Allegheny across Laurel Hill, or at least to the great north-and-south trail along Ligonier

Valley. This path from here eastward was not 80 much frequented by the traders as the northern trail, but when the army first made a road here it was seen to be a more direct course to the Forks of the Ohio. The third was the one from the Ohio through South- western Pennsylvania, called Nemacolin's path. It got this name from the Indian, Nemacolin, who piloted Washington when, at the instance of the Ohio Company, he first went to the forks of the river. Ne- macolin was a friendly Delaware ; his cabin was at Dunlap's Creek, Fayette. In 1753 this passage-way was a good pack-horse road. Washington made his road over this path previous to Braddock, who im- proved it and continued it to the river crossing, making what was called the "Braddock road." On this road was Gist's plantation and settlement, and the other settlements of the Ohio Company's first emigrants. The first or northern route usually went by the name of the Kittanning path, and it led past the Indian towns of Conemaugh, Kittanning, and Shanopin's to Logstown, the town built on the Ohio for the Mingoes by the French. On this route the whites, either Indian agents, commissioners, or traders, as Crogan and Frazer, first penetrated to the West, and following on it, Col. Armstrong, when he dashed up from Fort Shirley to the destruction of Capt. Jacobs, in 1756, led the vanguard of soldiers across the hills west of the mountains. " All the roads lead to Rome," and all the Indian trails of Southwestern Pennsyl- vania led to the forks of the rivers, whence the west- ern trails diverged in all directions. There were many other east-and-west trails bisecting and intersecting each other or the main trails, some of which were known to the whites, and some were almost obliterated when the whites passed into these parts. On the first of these Post came out on his first mission, and in 1758, passing Forbes, then at Ligonier, he followed partly the track of the second trail.

These Indian trails are noticeable for the peculiarity that they were, as it seemed, the great highways of the Indians, and because over these trails were opened the roads which first became the highways of the whites. The paths which extended north and south were not so well known. Emigration and traffic go east and west. The star of empire, in both the poli- tical and intellectual horizon, rising in the east, makes its way after the constellation which nightly sinks into the great western ocean. There was one chief trail, however, which passed through Westmoreland, and this was one of the most noted and prominent trails the Indians had in this part of the continent. This path was formed in Fayette County, by our bounds now, where two other trails came together ; one of these branches coming from Florida through the Carolinas and Virginia, and the other through

Tennessee and Kentucky, united at the State line, at the mouth of Grassy Run, then northward by a well- defined line past Uniontown, over the Youghiogheny where Braddock crossed at Stewart's Crossing ; thence along the side of Chestnut Ridge, through Ligonier Valley, over the Conemaugh and the head-waters of the Susquehanna to the council-fires of the Six Na- tions in Western New York. This was the Catawba, or Six Nation trail, and it was used by the Indians down to 1792. By such trails intercommunion and a connection were kept up between the stronger tribes and their remote dependent auxiliaries. Along this trail, during the Revolution and later, detached bodies of Indians belonging to many nations traveled at in- tervals, visiting and revisiting each other. The many captures in the valley were endured mostly from the Indians on this route, who, after hushing the cries of a stolen child, struck into the deep forests of North- ern Pennsylvania, into what was called the Indian country, and there evaded all pursuit. The first set- tlers frequently saw squads of them trotting briskly along over the tops of the hills, darting in and out among the bushes, apparently unconscious of any- thing when they were going with some object in view. Afterwards, along this route, the ashes of the log cabin and the mutilated remains of the scalped settler marked the direction of this via principia. You can trace its location, too, in some places by the Indian graves and burying-places, and by the marks of more permanent habitations and camping-grounds, which have been found in greater number along it than in any other part of this region between the mountains and the Ohio. The first names used by the whites to distinguish and localize particular places have been preserved to our own time. We have In- dian Creek, Indian Fort, Indian Camp Run, Scalp Rock, Indian Spring, and numerous old Indian bury- ing-grounds. Curious remains of pottery, and imple- ments of stone used in the first stages of agriculture as practiced by this nomadic people, weapons of war and of hunting, such as club-heads, arrow-heads, darts, and spear-headed flints, all evidently of abo- riginal invention, manufacture, and use, have been picked up, and are now regarded as curious relics in many houses along the hills. This would all tend to the conclusion that there was an intercourse among the various tribes in an age which, although not so remote, may well be regarded as prehistoric.

The Indians inhabiting Westmoreland, including that part north of the Conemaugh and south of the Youghiogheny, were the Delawares and Shawanese. It is supposed that the most of these, especially those of the northern portion, between the Conemaugh and Kittanning, and between the Allegheny River and the Chestnut Ridge, or even to the Susquehanna, settled there after they removed from Standing Stone and from along the Juniata after Forbes' expedition, 1758.

Among the principioints easter the hills whither

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HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

the Indians were attracted either in times of war or in times of peace, were the first settlements of the whites or the traders' posts, such as Standing Stone, Frankstown, and Harris' Ferry.

The Standing Stone stood in the borough of Hunt- ingdon, and was described by John Harris in 1754 as being fourteen feet high and about six inches square. It was erected by the Indians, a branch of the Six Nations, and was covered with their hieroglyphics.1

1 The natives, who seems to have regarded this stone with great veser- ation, after the treaty of 1754, by which their title to the leads of the valley of the Juniata was relinquished, migrated, and, as it is generally mapposed, carried this stone with them. Another stone, soon after erected by the whites, was covered with the names of traders, residents, and colonial officials. It was broken by a carelessly thrown "long ballet."

Distances on the Pathe Westward, According to John Harris.

Joba Harris, who had been westward prior to 1764, notices the follow- ing points, with, the intermediate distances. "From my ferry (weer pres- ont site of Harrisburg, on the Susquehanna) to George Croghad's (Oregen), 5 miles; to Kittatinny Mountain, 9 miles; Thomas Mitchell's sleeping- place, 8 miles; Tuscarora, 14 miles; Cove Spring, 10 miles; Shadow of Death, 8 miles; Black Log, 8 miles; 66 miles to this point, the road forks to Raystown (Bedford): to the Three Springs, 10 miles; Sideling Hill Gap, 8 miles ; Jun.ata h ... , 8 miles; Crossings at Juniata, 8 miles; Snshe's Spring, 8 miles; Raystown, 4 miles; Shawana Cabine, 8 miles; Allegheny Hill, 6 miles; Edmund's Swamp. 8 miles ; Stoney Creek, 6 miles; Kiche- ney Paulin's house (Indian site of Johnstown), 6 miles; Clearfields (The Wheatfielda, now East Wheatfield township and vicinity, Indiana County), 7 miles; to the other side of Laurel Hill, 5 miles; Loyal Haning, 6 miles; Big Bottom, 8 miles; Chestnut Ridge, 8 miles; to the parting of the roada, 4 miles; thence one road leads to Shannopin's Town (near the site of Pittsburgh, on Allegheny River, Thirty-second Street), the other to Kis- comenettas Old Town (not for from the Kiskiminetes at Leschburg), to Big Lick, 8 miles; to Beaver Dams, 6 miles; James Danning's sleeping-place, 3 miles; Cockeye's cabin, 8 miles; Four-Mile Run, 11 miles : Shannopin- town, on Allegheny River, 4 miles; to Logstown, down the river, 18 miles; distance down the old road, 246 miles."

Along the Frankstown Road.

" Now beginning at the Black Log,-Frankstown Road to Aughwick, 6; Jack Armstrong's Narrows (so called from his being murdered there, nowe known as ' Jack's Narrows'), 8; Standing Stone (about 14 feet high and 6 inches square), 10. At each of the last places we crossed Juniata, the next and last crossing of Juniata, 8; Branch of Juniata, 10; Big Lick, 10; Frank's (Stephen's) Town, 5; Beaver Dans, 10; Allegheny Hill, 4; Clearfields, 6; John Hart's Sleeping-Place, 12; Shawanese Cabins (wear Cherrytree, Cause Township, Indiana Co.), 24; Shaver's Sleeping-Place at two large licks (Two Licks, at or near the forks of the Twoo Licks, in Greene Township, Indiana County), 12; Eighteen-Mile Run, 12; Ten-Mile Lick, 6; to Kiscomenettas (Leechburg, Armstrong Co.) town, on the creek which runs into the Allegheny river six miles down, almost as large as Bebnyl- kill, 10; Chartiers landing on the Allegheny, 8," etc .- From " History of Cumberland County," Rupp.

Hart's Sleeping-Plaos.

"The man Hart, whose name is perpetuated, in connection with his log, by the valley we have spoken of, was an old German, who followed the occupation of trading among the Indians. He was probably the first permanent white settler along the Juniata west of the Standing Stone, and long before he settled he crossed and recrossed the Allegheny Moun- tains by the old war-path with his pack-horsee.

. " John Hart's Sleeping-Place is mentioned in 1756, by John Harris, in making an estimate of the distance between the rivers Susquehanna and Allegheny. Hart's Sleeping-Place is about twelve miles from the junc- tion of the Burgoon and Kittanning Runs, and still retains its name. When he took up his residence along the river he hewed down an Im- mense tree and turned it into a trough, out of which he fed his horses and cattle, hence the name Hart's Log."-Jones' " History of the Juniata Valley."

Most of the old maps, especially those made before the Revolution, are not reliable when it comes to details. From point to point these trails were usually located by hearsay and an imperfect topographical knowledge. They answer the purpose, however, by giving, approxi-

Frankstown was on the Juniata River. It was the seat of an Indian town. The common opinion long was that it was named after an old Indian chief called Capt. Frank, but the truth is that it was named after an old German Indian trader named Stephen Franks, whose post was at this town and who lived contem- poraneously with old man Hart, who had a lodging- place now within Indiana County. The Indian name was " Assunepachla." As the Indians could not pro- nounce or articulate the letter "r," no name unless of English origin with that letter in it appears in their vocabulary.

Frankstown took in a large district of country of which it was the centre. Hence the prominence of the point and its importance. John Harrises, or Harris' Ferry, is now Harrisburg.

One of the principal Indian paths was that one which ran from the Kittanning town across the region now of Indiana County to Cherrytree, and thence to the Juniata. Upon this path John Armstrong led his expedition against Kittanning in 1756. This path was crossed at Indiana town by the trail from Cush- cheoting to the East. This Kittanning path, which passed through Indiana town, ran northeastward into the trail which came down from Venango. These two united, now in Greene township, Indiana Co. The continuation of the Venango and Kittanning path then passed a little below Cherrytree. At the forks of this trail Armstrong encamped on the night of Sept. 7, 1756.

The trail from Cushcheoting (Coshocton ?) to Ligo- nier came into Indiana County near the northwest corner, ran through the site of Indiana Town, passed through the township of West Wheatfield, and crossed the Conemaugh between New Florence and Nineveh, and thence up the valley.

There were, besides those of which we have memo- rials, many other trails over the region of our county, but knowledge of these is obscure. Thus one of the chief trails was from Shannopin's Town, on the Alle- gheny River two miles above the Forks of the Ohio, to Ligonier, where, as we have said, many trails met and crossed. This trail from Ligonier in all probability came westward on the north side of the Loyalhanna through Derry township, until it crossed the creek again a short distance above where the Nine-Mile Run flows into it. It then continued down the west side of the creek, at some distance from the stream, probably trending towards the northwest, for a dis- tance of about five miles, where it forked. One of the branches then went to Shannopin's, and the other to the Kiskiminetas.'

mately, routes. In this respect the map of the State Historical Society is in some instances notoriously incorrect and needs revision. Of the old mape, both those designed by the French and the English, as well as by our State authorities, scarcely any two of them agree.

: Extract from Christian Post's Journal, 1758.

Nov. 9, 1785. . . . "We waited till almost noon for the writing of the general [ Forbes, at Ligonier Stockade, whither the army then lay, on their way

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PRIMITIVE ROADS AND METHODS OF TRANSPORTATION.

The Indians had various villages and abiding- places throughout this region west of the mountains, but none of them was of any magnitude, and they were of such a character that the inhabitants could remove on short notice and without inconvenience. The natives never occupied their villages after the treaty of 1768, nor after the whites came near them.

One of these villages or stopping-places was " Kick- enapawling's Old Town," two hundred and seventy- six miles from Philadelphia. It was at the junction of Stony Creek with the Conemaugh, and on its site is to-day the city of Johnstown, which took its name from one Joseph Johns, a very early settler there, of German nativity. So was "Punxsutawney," on the Big Mahoning, in Jefferson County, and so also was " Kiskemeneco" (now Kiskiminetas), a Shawanese town near the site of Leechburg, as above mentioned. According to Post there was a "Keckkeknepolin," a village of the Shawanese, along the Kiskiminetas path, east of "Kiskemeneco."

The Indian villages west of Laurel Hill, such as they are known to the whites, were situated along streams, and most of them along the larger tributa- ries of Allegheny and the Monongahela. Although the archeologist shall discover vestiges of the presence of these natives in places inland, even in Ligonier Val- ley, no memorial of them exists.

These were the principal Indian trails in our early county, but into them, like cow-paths, others ran for the use of tribes less numerous. The route of the east-and-west trails may at this day be fixed, but it would be almost impossible to trace the north-and- south trail by landmarks other than those which nature has left.1

It cannot now but be noticed how the great centres of travel were afterwards, by the whites, fixed nearly over these Indian paths, as the first pack-horse roads of the whites, taking immediate advantage of them, marked them out. The road which was cut over the

to Fort Duquesne]. We were escorted by an hundred men, rank and file commanded by Capt. Haselet ; we passed through a tract of good land, about dix miles on the old trading path, and came to the creek [ Loyal- hauna] again, where there is a large fine bottom, well timbered; from thence we came upon a hill, to an advanced breastwork, about ten miles from the camp, well situated for strength, etc. [Ses Note 2, pag: 28]. Within five miles from the breastwork we departed from Capt. Haselet ; he kept the old trading path to the Ohio. . . . We went the path that leads along the Loyal Hanning Creek. . . . 11th .-- Westarted early, and came to the old Shawanese town, called Keckkeknepolin, grown up thick with weeds, briers, and brushes that we could scarcely get through. Piquetomen (an Indian guide) led us upon a steep hill, that our horses could hardly get up; and Thomas Hickman's horse tumbled, and rolled down the hill like a wheel; on which he (supposed to be Hickman) grew angry, and would go no farther with us, and said he would go by him- self. It happened we found a path on the top of the hill. At three o'clock we came to Kiskemeneco, an old Indian town, a rich bottom, well timbered," etc.

1 The number of such paths was greatly increased after Braddock's defeat. Indeed, it is said that the country about us was almost over- run with Indian trails and devious winding paths. From the time of Braddock to Torbes the French and Indians as well as the Americans in scouting parties made many inroads over the western part of the State, extending cast as far as Conococheague, Huntingdon Co.

path of the friendly Delaware from the Turkey Foot to the Monongahela quite nearly marked the great international turnpike road from Cumberland to Wheeling, and the road opened by the vanguard of Forbes' army, and known as the Forbes' or Hannas- town road, but called by general historians the Penn- sylvania road, to distinguish it from the Virginia or Braddock road, after being long used as the only thoroughfare through the middle of the State, relin- quished its monopoly to the Pennsylvania State road, which utilized part of its road-bed, and which in its turn was in many places but the bed of the western end of the famous Philadelphia and Pittsburgh turn- pike.

What the Appian Way was to the inhabitants of Central Italy, so was the Braddock road to the people of the southern tier of counties, and so was the Forbes road to our county.'

No roads could conveniently be made along the path which touched the Conemaugh and Juniata and hugged the steep, overhanging mountains; but it was the natural route for the canal, and not far from the marks of the feet that now are silent another high- way was laid out for men of another race to pass and repass by methods never dreamed of by those. Can you get a more comprehensive idea of what is com- pressed within a century than from this, that Webster and Dickens followed Weiser and Crogan over the same route that Jacobs and Shingass trotted along with their belts full of bloody scalp-locks?

When the military roads were first opened by the army they were cleared wide enough to allow the pas-

" The Braddock road was first opened by the Ohio Company in their purpose to divert the Indian trade from the West. It was used to travel on as an Indian path in 1748, and before Forbes' time it was preferred by the Pennsylvania traders themselves, who came up the valley to the mouth of the Conococheague, and thence up the river to Wills Creek (Cumberland). The company opened the road in 1758. Troops under Washington in 1754 repaired it to Gist's; in 1755 it was opened and widened by Braddock to within eight or ten miles of Fort Duquesne. A branch of the road went from Gist's to Brownsville. This was opened by Col. James Burd in 1789. Hence you have Fort Burd, another name for Brownsville, otherwise Redstone. From the close of Pontiac's war it became a highway for trade, and nearly all the early settlers in South- ern Westmoreland from 1765 to 1770 came on this road from Maryland and Virginia.

Before the Ohio Company adopted this road it was well known by the name of Nemacolin's path, from the fact that the company employed Col. Thomas Cresap, of Old Town, Md., to mark the road, and the colo- nel hired a well-known Delaware Indian named Nemacolin, who lived at the mouth of Dunlap's Creek, to select the best route. It was known to the Indians many years before that, and was used by the traders as early as 1740. It led from the mouth of Wille Creek to the Forks of the Ohio. The Ohio Company marked it in 1750 by blasing the trees, and clearing away the underbrush, and removing the old dead and fallen timber. In 1753 they improved and enlarged it at a considerable ex- pense. It was improved by Washington, as we said, in 1754, in his cam- paign, and by Braddock in 1755, who left it in good condition as far as the mouth of Turtle Creek.

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History of the County of Westmoreland, Pennsylvania, with Biographical Sketches of Many of its Pioneers and Prominent Men, Part 44

Author: George Dallas Albert, editor Publication date: Publisher: Number of Pages:

Author: George Dallas Albert, editor
Publication date:
Publisher:
Number of Pages: