Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 12).djvu/22

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18
PIONEER ROADS

across the mountains from northwestern Virginia to the Ohio River was Braddock's Road; for this road Washington was a champion in 1758, as against the central route Forbes built straight west from Bedford to Fort Duquesne.[1] Then, however, Braddock's Road, and even Fort Duquesne, was supposed to lie in Virginia. But when the Pennsylvania boundaries were fully outlined it was found that Braddock's Road lay in Pennsylvania. Washington now was seeking a new route to the West which would lie wholly in Virginia. The problem, historically, presents several interesting points which cannot be expanded here. Suffice it to say that Washington was the valiant champion of Braddock's Road until he found it lay wholly in Maryland and Pennsylvania.

Gaining no satisfaction from his friends at Berkeley, Washington pushed on to one Captain Stroad's, out fourteen odd miles on the road to Bath. "I held much conversation with him," the traveler records of his visit at Stroad's, "the result . . was,—that there are two Glades which go

  1. Historic Highways of America, vol. v, ch. 3.