Traveling north recently over Interstate 81 led me to think more about the roads that many of our ancestors used. To further my education, I invested in a book by Parke Rouse, Jr., called "The Great Wagon Road", on the cover of which it also has the phrases, 'From Philadelphia to the South' and 'How Scotch-Irish and Germanics Settled the Uplands.'
The Great Wagon Road left Philadelphia in a westerly direction and ran through the communities with large German populations in Lancaster, York, Montgomery, Berks, Lebanon and, Adams. This is the flattest part of Pennsylvania and the path of least resistance was diverted to the south by the Blue Hills which are an extension of the Appalachian Mountains. Across the necks of today's West Virginia and Maryland on an easy route, the road reached northern Virginia. The road split then into routes on the west and east of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Technically, the Great Wagon Road ran on the west of the Blue Ridge Mountains into the upper Shenandoah Valley and on into hills of southwest Virginia. It was the population pressures of Pennsylvania in the early eighteenth century that started settlers of all nationalities along this road. Later in the century, the Pennsylvanians were joined by the Marylanders and Virginians.
Before the Great Wagon Road was a road, it was a heavily traveled path used by the Indians from New York to the Carolinas. There were several purposes to which the Indians put the trails. One was intertribal trading. Another was hunting. Perhaps as important, it was the means by which the Iroquois confederation of nations exerted their dominance up and down the east coast. But for whatever reason they used the forest trails, the Indians found the best routes.
To keep some perspective on the number of people, it is estimated that the Five Nations of Indians ranged from 5,000 to 15,000. The Five Nations ended their internal struggles and fighting and united against the other tribes. Their forays ranged from their home ground in upper New York to the regions later known as Georgia and Alabama to the south and Ohio in the west. Depending upon the time, one might one remain for an extended period on the Great Road and not see an Indian. Another day though might show a party of hundreds of Indians.
Initially, the routes south from New York spread over many paths. By the early 1700's, the growth of European population east of the Blue Ridge led to a desire for separation of the Indians and Europeans. Gov. Spotswood, in conferences with the Five Nations Indians, sought and obtained their agreement to remain on the west side of the Blue Ridge. This led to a period of peace along the Warriors' Path. But after 1722, the date of the conference, white men began to use the Warriors' Path and thus started the process of converting it into the Great Wagon Road.
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.