Toward the middle of the 1700's, the road system in the colonies was predominantly a north-south system. People moved in those directions, not east-west directions. At first, the English Crown was not interested in the interior of America. France, though, was interested in the interior. That country saw an opportunity for trade with the Indians, though they did not establish colonies of French speaking people, except along the St. Lawrence River.
It began to dawn on the English that they should have more of a presence in the interior. The seaboard was filling up with people. There was a profit to be made in trading with the Indians. To exploit this trade, the Ohio Company was founded by a group of Virginians. In theory, several of the Colonies had claim to the lands to the west, all the way to the Pacific Ocean, but in practice no control was exerted over the western regions. The private efforts of individuals soon changed that. The traders of the Ohio Company went west from Alexandria, Virginia, to the forks of the Ohio River, where Pittsburgh now stands. This was the start of a road to the western regions. The French had constructed no roads, as they used the waterways to move around. Occasionally, they built short roads to make portaging easier.
At first, the Ohio Company offered better prices for the furs that the Indians brought in. The French retaliated by armed skirmishes against the Ohio Company's agents. Then the French started building a new series of forts, including one at the forks of the Ohio (present-day Pittsburg). The political influence of the Ohio Company, and of the Virginia officials, led to a war between England and France, the French-Indian War of 1754 to 1763. One consequence of the economic rivalry, and subsequent war, was a major change to the road system, and in the control of the West.
In 1753, the 21-year-old George Washington was instructed by the Virginia government to find the best overland route to Fort Duquesne (the French fort), at the forks of the Ohio (i.e., Pittsburgh), then considered to be a part of Virginia. The route followed, in part, the trails that had been used by the traders, but Washington stayed on the alert for a route that could be used by wagons. Essentially, Washington was working for a private company with official government support, a very common tactic in colonial Virginia, where private and public endeavors were often mixed. A road was viewed as one way of supplying and supporting a British outpost at the Fork. The route that was planned went from Alexandria to Frederick, to Hagerstown, and to Fort Cumberland, in Maryland, and then continued in a westerly and northerly direction to Fort Duquesne.
Within a couple of years, a major effort was launched to construct a road along this route, especially west of Cumberland, where none existed. The British General, Edward Braddock, began supervising the construction of the road. At times, up to three thousand men were employed. The road became known as Braddock's Road and it was the first to cross the entire Appalachian Mountain range. It extended the range of horse-drawn wagons over a road which Braddock insisted must be twelve feet wide. The road was a success, but the military campaign was a failure. Braddock even lost his life when the British were overrun by the Indians.
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.