Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 2).djvu/145

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AN EXPLORER'S NOTES
137

the wagons might hide the grave from desecrating hands. This was done so completely that even Washington, at a later but happier day, could not identify it.

On the summit of Laurel Hill a county road now follows for a distance the old-time war route. The spot where the former swings away westward may easily be discovered and your route turns again into the silent forests.

Or return once again to historic Cumberland—and before you a great avenue eighty feet in width has supplanted both the road of the Indian and Braddock's ancient highway; "it is a monument of a past age; but like all other monuments, it is interesting as well as venerable. It carried thousands of population and millions of wealth into the West; and more than any other material structure in the land, served to harmonize and strengthen, if not to save, the Union." It was the nation's highway—this famed old Cumberland road—which meant more to the whole West for half a century than any railway means to any part of it today. Over this great track the "Star of Empire" passed