The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-01-23
BRADDOCK'S FAMOUS ROAD,
WHICH IS STILL SEEN WEAR PITTS
 RURG.
A Bit of National History Retold-- Tramp of Many Feet Wore GOrges That Time Has Spared.

cA AA~AJ NSS" SN"A% N'NA S N'
 That Time Has Spared.
 How long will a road last? Of
 course, that depends on how and where
 it is built. Many roads are in use to-
 day that were built before the first
 Christmas-great solid blocks of stone
 worn deep by centuries of travel.
 Such roads will last indefinitely.
 But take the first roads built in
 America. The word Quilt" can hardly
 be applied to them, for they were only
 great openings heWed into the forests,
 and little was done to strengthen the
 road-bed itself, except by filling the
 wet places with logs. It is surprising
 that even such roads can be plainly
 followed centuriesafter travel over
 them has ceased. Travel on the roads
 across the Alleghanies to Pittsburg and
 on to Cleveland and Detroit turned the
 first roads into great gorges. Some
 times, In wet places such holes were
 made that horses have been drowned
 trying to get through them. Mud up
 to the horses bridle was not an un-
 heard-of thing. In the terrible Black
 swamp road along Lake Erie six
 horses were once able to drag a tWo-
 wheeled vehicle only fifteen miles in
 three days. A newspaper of 1888 says
 the road through the Black swamp
 has been much of the season impassa-
 ble. A couple of horses were lost in a
 mud hole last week. The bottom had fallen out. The driver was unaware of
 the fact. His horses plunged in and ere they could be extricated were drowned"
 Such old roads as these may be fol- lowed to-day by the great gullies they cut. and of all the old roads in Ameri- ca none can be found and followed more easily than the first white mans road across the Alleghanies to Pitts
 burg, made by General Braddock in 1755. It began at Fort Cumberland on the Potomac, now Cumberland, Md, and ended in the present town of Braddock, where the army that built it was annhilated on the very morn- Ing of the day it expected to reach and capture Fort Duquesne at the Point And of all the relics and memorials of those fierce fighting days when Eng land and France were struggling to get possession of the Ohio river, this fa- nous old highway, with its great gull lies and gorges, will forever be the most lasting and the most interesting.
 Six hundred woodchoppers set out in advance of Braddocks army from Fort Cumberland near the end of May to hew a roadway for the army of twenty-two hundred men which fol- lowed. If Virginia and Pennsylvania had had spark of interest at that time, in England's desire to drive the French from the Ohio valley the colo- nial governors would have had road built for Braddock long before.
 The road was cut twelve feet in width, and, though it chung to the tops of the ranges of hills, as the Indian trail did, it often dropped into the low lands, where logs were laid to make ! solid footing So steep were many of the ascents and descents that the long line of wagons and the cannon were let down With blocks and tackling. For this purpose seamen were taken who were handy with ropes and pulleys. On some of the mountains many wag- ons were completely demolished.
 The horses, which were procured for hauling the wagons were utterly unfit for the task. All the wind broken, spavined animals on the frontier seem to have been palmed off on the army by scoundrel contractors who knew Braddock's plight, and saw that he l could not afford to refuse anything | that could stand and walk. Thus the | army crept slowly along. But slow as 1 it went it was often within hearing | distance of the axes in front which | were clearing road.
 On the fatal 9th of July the last | days journey was begun. Much of | Braddoclx was to blame for the terri 1 ble defeat of that bloody day, it is a marvel that he ever built his road and | came as near Fort Duquesne as he did. ! He was a veritable British bulldog. Nothing but a bulldog could have en- countered successfully the odds that he faced when he landed in Virginia The side of his character is shown plainly in his manner of receiv- ing the news of his sisters death. After losing the last of a large for tune at cards, this Respondent girl went to her room, wrote verse of favorite poem with her diamond on the window pane, dressed herself immacu- lately in white and hanged herself to a door. "Poor Fanny" commented the brute of brother q always thought she would play till she would be forced to tuck herself up
 "We are sent like sacrifices to the al- tar" he said to an intimate friend on his last night in London; the prophecy was fulfilled-he was sacrificed on the altar ofhis own bigotry, and that altar stood at the end of this swath of a road moved by British grit all the way from Fort Cumberland to Braddock, Pa.
 To understand Braddock's defeat it Is only necessary to understand the | road he built. It followed the Indian trail which came up from the Monon- yahela at Braddock on winding ridge between the numerous ravines. The defeat has been often described wrong | ". The army did not march into a ra- yine where it was ambushed. It | up the ascending ridge, where 1 t suddenly ran into the Indian horde l ( ed by French officers---tO the surprise | ' if both armies. The Indians scattered { ike cartridges into the ravines on | $ either side, and to a hill on the Eng ] ish right. The red-coats stuck sturdi- V to the open roadway where they |