Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 3).djvu/209

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THE CHAIN OF FEDERAL UNION
205

tive needs of modern travel, though the journey over it, at most seasons, was a rough experience. During the winter the road was practically impassable. Colonel Brodhead, commanding at Fort Pitt during the Revolutionary War, wrote Richard Peters: "The great Depth of Snow upon the Alleghany and Laurel Hills have prevented our getting every kind of Stores, nor do I expect to get any now until the latter End of April."

But with the growing importance of Pittsburg, the subject of roads received more and more attention. As early as 1769, a warrant was issued for the survey of the Manor of Pittsburg, which embraced 5,766 acres. In this warrant an allowance of six per cent was made for roads.[1] Six years later, or the first year of the Revolutionary War, court met at Pittsburg, and viewers were appointed to report on a large number of roads, in the construction of which all males between the ages of sixteen and forty-five, living within three miles of the road, were required to work under the supervision of the commissioners. One of

  1. Craig's History of Pittsburg, p. 104.