# Historic Highways of America/Volume 2/Chapter 4

CHAPTER IV
INDIAN THOROUGHFARES OF THE CENTRAL WEST
HISTORY tells of two Ohios—the old and the new. The old Ohio was all the territory of the Central West drained by the Ohio and Allegheny, which, together, formed the La Belle Rivière of New France. It included the territory between the Alleghanies, the Blue Ridge, the Mississippi, and the Great Lakes, unless we except the "Illinois" country which, early in history, became a territory distinct by itself, as the meadow lands of Ken-ta-kee became distinct later. As late, however, as the Revolutionary War a standard English map printed "Ohio" south, as well as north, of the Ohio river.
Of this Central West—the old Ohio—only that part which lay north of the Ohio ​river contained a resident Indian population. The portion south of the Ohio was the Korea of the Central West—the "dark and bloody" battle ground of surrounding nations half a century before white men came, in their turn, to fight for it.
North of the Ohio river, in the valleys of the Allegheny, Beaver, Muskingum, Cuyahoga, Scioto, Sandusky, Miami, Maumee, Wabash, and Illinois rivers, white men came to know the red man more intimately than anywhere else on this continent in the eighteenth century. This knowledge of the Indian in his home-land resulted in giving to the world a mass of material concerning his country, customs, and character. Much was supplied by missionaries; a great deal by traders and explorers. The armies of conquest and the first of the host of pioneers told the rest.
Among other things this knowledge of the Central West before the Indian left it ​made possible the making of many maps which pictured the country very much as it was, and a study of these maps proves that many of them are essentially accurate.
Advancing civilization has made the valley and hillside blossom as the rose; the rivers are drained and dredged till they look little as they did a century ago; great chasms have been torn through hill and mountain by the railways—but the summits of some of the hills are left very much as they were. And here on the highlands, which were to the trade and travel of the olden time what our trunk railway lines are to us today, one may follow the serpentine tracks of the pilgrims and armies of the long ago with almost as great accuracy as the tow-path or railway bed in the valley below. For, in addition to having been mapped by many geographers, this region is in part a hilly country with many long watersheds. When a great watershed trail is once located by topographical maps, and ​all the testimony to be derived from the records of the earliest days has been considered, it is often possible to follow it for many miles. The explorer will be surprised at nothing more than at the fund of information which can yet be secured from aged residents along the old-time course.
Thus for field work, copies of the old maps and of good topographical maps are needed, together with a large acquaintance with the earliest pioneer literature, stout legs, and a knack for asking questions.
The main trails of the Central West may be charted as follows:
Indian Thoroughfares of Eastern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania, Based on Hutchins
* ↑ Map with Pownall's Middle British Colonies in North America, 1776.
* ↑ "The map of Ohio, and its Branches, as well as the Passes through the Mountains Westward, is laid down by the Information of Traders and others who have resided there, and travelled them for many years together."—Darlington's Journals of Christopher Gist, p. 271.
* ↑ For list of early maps see Baldwin's Early Maps of Ohio and the West in Western Reserve and Northern Ohio Historical Society publications, Tract No. 25; also appended list of maps in possession of the Society.
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