It is due to the Pennsylvania Road, however, to correct the history of these lofty strains. Putnam and his pioneers did not travel one step on Braddock's Road, nor did they launch their boats on wild Monongahela's stream. They came over the worn track of Forbes's Road through Carlisle and Bedford, proceeding southwest through the "Glades" to the Youghiogheny River at West Newton, Pennsylvania.[1]
Braddock's Road would have been exceedingly roundabout for New England travelers, as Forbes long before clearly established. Pennsylvania's new road, begun in 1785, was not a tempting route of travel for these New Englanders in this year, 1788. "The roads, at that day," wrote Dr. Hildreth, "across the mountains were the worst we can imagine—cut into deep gullies on one side by mountain rains, while the other was filled with blocks of sand stone. . . As few of the emigrant wagons were provided with lock-chains for the wheels, the downward impetus was
- ↑ Darlington's note in Edes's Journal and Letters of Col. John May, of Boston, p. 31; Dr. S. P. Hildreth: Early Immigration, p. 124.
