Gail, Thank you for your thorough response. I will save it and share it. It provides an excellent overview of why roads may have been located where they were relative to settlements. Sharon Pearce GailRVW@aol.com wrote: In American Colonial times most trails used for movement followed the pre-existing Native American paths and for the most part those were along the mountain tops and ridges above the valley floors [think Appalachian Trail]. While much of the underbrush had been burned periodically, the reality is that valley floors are usually riparian and water means lots of underbrush, bushes, thickets, stream fording and poison ivy - in plain words hard work and slow going. [Unless you had a canoe and went by water, which brings its own set of obstacles] There were a few clearings near NA settlements but for the most part the woods/trees & thickets came up to the river banks. Walking in the relatively dry woods on long established 1 &1/2 to 3 foot wide paths on the ridge tops with few streams to ford, [and having periodic views out over the valleys] was a much faster, easier and safer way to travel. Until a significant part of the valleys were cleared and under cultivation the European colonists continued to use the ridge top paths [which they were prone to widen, due to animals in use, horses & oxen] for most movement if not traveling on water. Once the flood plains and valley floors & piedmont were cleared and cultivated and there was a critical mass of settlers to work the road crews to cut the roads [ mostly removing trees and stumps and big boulders], then initial roads were usually built from the settlement in one valley up the hill/MT to get to the established path up there for distance travel along the ridge until above the settlement[s] in the next valley, where a road is built down/or came up built by the folks there; only then and later were practical and possible roads built at the bottom of mountains and hills. But for the most part roads of any kind were not common or evident until after the French and Indian War and then it took much of a generation to create a real network of roads in the valleys. ************************************** AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at http://www.aol.com. ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to NJSUSSEX-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message --------------------------------- Food fight? Enjoy some healthy debate in the Yahoo! Answers Food & Drink Q&A.