------------------------------------------------------------------ FORWARDED MESSAGE - Orig: 28-Jan-99 11:14 Subject: Early Roads ------------------------------------------------------------------ Since publication of my Kanawha Trace and some other Migration Routes, several people have made requests about different of the Roads used by the early settlers. I used the Winter Storm time, to work on descriptions about these, for a paper for my page at <www.cob-net.org> I'll be sending it to Ron Gordon, but I'll place these on the List, as a series for you to read while I'm trying to get the full paper finished. (I don't know Northern Ohio, that well!) I was interested in the Great Pennsylvania Wagon Road paper that was passed on the List a month ago, it was very close to what I was putting together for my paper --but then, its the same road. I do have a few differences in what I wrote, and at least one disagreement (my Brethren research has the Carolina Road as a branch off the Great Wagon Road). But Mr Cherry included a number of interesting details that I didn't know. ============================================================ THE ROADS USED BY THE BRETHREN FOR MIGRATION Merle C Rummel [I consider three things to have the greatest effect on people and events of history. There is the Struggle for Power: which results in wars or various types of struggle and conflicts; there are Economics: depressions or hard times, good times and peaceful living, and the attendant results; there is Movement and Transportation: ease or difficulty of movement, including travel and commerce. There are other things that effect people and history (famines, severe weather or climatic changes, natural disasters of various kinds, and epidemics), but even most of these end with some result in the above three.] Early America used the rivers and waterways for much of its travel and transportation. Roads were worse than poor. Even Benj. Franklin, Poor Richards Almanac, complained about the pot holes and hog wallows, in the streets of Philadelphia. No road, outside the cities, was more than a pair of worn tracks through open land, usually with grass growing up in the center. The traveler was lucky if it was smooth, bad weather from storm or the thawing of spring would leave deep ruts, which dried hard, shaking and jaring the iron-rimmed wagon wheels. In the forest, roads wound around the huge forest trees, and the roots of such would lay huge bumps across the road. Trees were cut, to open the road, and the stumps left standing in the road. Ravines, gulleys, streams and rivers meant a descent to the bottom, and a climb out on the far bank, if not worse; but America moved west. One interesting story from the Bechtelsheimer Family, tells how they were moving from Ten Mile Creek, east of Cincinnati to the Illinois River in north central Illinois about 1840. Part of the family took wagons and drove the livestock across Indiana (likely on the same Delaware Indian Road), while the others of the family took steamer down the Ohio to Cairo, up the Mississippi to St Louis, then up the Illinois River to near Peoria. The distance for the cross-country trip was about 350 miles, the distance for the river trip was considerably over 800 miles. The story ends with those in the wagons, knowing they were nearing the Illinois River and hearing the whistle of a steamboat on the River, wondering to themselves how they were going to find the rest of the family. When they reached the landing, they discovered their own kin getting off the steamboat. Land travel was slow, seldom over 10 miles a day, often half that. It was considered that the children would easily keep up, walking nearby, and in the process find much to keep themselves entertained. (Nowhere like todays problems taking children in a long automobile trip.) The team of horses might travel a little faster, but long distance was with the ox team, which traveled even slower than a walk, but could keep going, with less food, long after the horses would quit. The normal trip took days and often months. There was considerable travel and communication among kin in distant communities. People who had to "go back home" for any reason, hand carried messages from all the neighbors, to their different families and friends. A "letter" from home was normal -at least once or twice a year, even though home was in eastern Pennsylvania, and the family might live in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois or even Iowa. The "letter" would consist of a single sheet of paper, written on both sides, except for that part which, after folding, would carry the address, like an envelope. Paper was not cheap or readily available, and the "letter" still existant is offtimes very interesting. These Roads I have traveled, some of them not in one solid stretch, and in occasion, missing some section. ========================================================= MONOCACY ROAD One of the earliest migration routes used by the Brethren of Pennsylvania was the Monocacy Road. It was plotted by Colony decree, by the Dunker, Michael Danner, one of the earliest settlers west of the Susquehanna River in York Co PA (then Lancaster Co) and prominent in the border dispute between the colonies of Maryland and Pennsylvania. (He was taken to Baltimore and thrown in jail, by Thomas Cresaps, a Maryland undersheriff, alledgedly because he was living illegally in Maryland territory. It took action by the Governor of Pennsylvania to obtain his release.) The Monocacy Road was used extensively by the Brethren as they moved out of Pennsylvania into Maryland, but often they followed it going to the Carolinas and Tennesse, and finally as they settled the Valley of Virginia. The Monocacy Road is closely followed by US 30 from Lancaster through York PA. There it headed more south, going first to Hanover (PA 116) and Littlestown (PA 194). Going on into Maryland to Taneytown (MD 194), it crossed the Big and Little Pipe Creeks, (Pipe Creek and Beaver Dam Churches) just above their juncture (sources to the Monocacy River), near the property of the pioneer, John VanMeter. Then it went to Woodsboro and on to the Monocacy River, at the mouth of Isreal Creek, where now MD 26, the Libertytown Road, crosses the Monocacy, going into Frederick, where Jacob Danner lived. Did Michael Danner make a road to the home of his son, Jacob, in Maryland? or did Jacob Danner follow his father's road down to find a new home in Maryland? Time will tell. The huge Brethren migration into the area produced interesting results: East in this area of Maryland is one road named: Germanland Road. In those early days, east of that line (road) was the English settlement (EnglishLand) and west of it was the German settlement: GermanLand. >From Frederick MD the Brethren crossed the Blue Ridge Mountains through Noland's Gap into Middletown Valley, where a Brethren settlement was under the leadership of Elder Daniel Leatherman. They crossed South Mountain through Turner's Gap into the Antietam Creek Valley, where the Brethren settled under William Stover. This was the route of the British army, under General Braddock, going to Hagarstown and Cumberland on his way to Pittsburg, and death. This was the route of the Union Army to the battlefield at the Dunker Church there on Antietam Creek. ============================================================ Merle C Rummel Church Historian <www.cob-net.org/docs/brethrenlife.htm> <www.infinet.com/~dzimmerm/pioneer.html> <www.rootsweb.com/~ohclermo/materials.htm#StonelickChurch> !^NavFont02F18BA0007NGHH_BBACC5 Maggie's World of Courthouse Dust & Genealogy Fever http://www.infinet.com/~dzimmerm/mindex.html *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* God Put Me On Earth to Accomplish a Certain Number of Things. Right Now I am so far behind, I will never die. --- Unknown *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*