Places: From Nemacolin's Trail to the Cumberland Pike

The Great Warriors Path wasn't just a single road but, like today's network of interconnecting interstates, state roads and local routes, it was a network of paths used by different tribes for everything from travel and trade, to war.  What is now known as the Historical National Road followed just one branch of the Path, from Cumberland, Maryland to Vandalia, Illinois. 

As we've seen before in previous posts, Settlers often co-opted Native trails for their own use, since these were the most efficient way to get from Point A to Point B on the frontier.  What became known as Nemacolin's Trail, from Cumberland, Maryland to Brownsville, Pennsylvania was originally a Native path that had existed for centuries, allowing Natives along the coast to travel efficiently further inland.  Between 1749-1750, Delaware leader Nemacolin assisted frontiersman Thomas Cresap in enlarging and improving the road for Christopher Gist, a friend and business partner of George Washington.  Despite their hard work, the route was still a rough one and, in 1755, General Edward Braddock sent crews to repair the road for his men to reach Fort Duquesne, where Pittsburgh now stands.  Another crew, meanwhile, had found a much easier route paralleling Nemacolin's road.  Braddock's men used it instead.  The two roads reconnected at what is now LaVale, Maryland. 

For many years, Settlers followed Braddock's Road as far as Pittsburgh, then turned off to other trails to wherever they intended to go.  However, for many, that meant a rough passage over the Cumberland Gap, a pass in the Appalachian Mountains near where Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia now meet.  During the Jefferson Administration, in 1806, construction for a new road was authorized.  It followed the Braddock Road and Nemacolin's Path from Cumberland, Maryland to Uniontown, Pennsylvania, then diverged to what is now Wheeling, West Virginia.  Congress authorized additional extensions of the road which would carry it through to Vandalia, the territorial capital of Indiana and on to St. Louis.  The Panic of 1837 dried up funding for infrastructure such as the National Road and it stopped at Vandalia, but at least it connected access between the Potomac and Ohio Rivers and over the roughest parts of the Appalachian mountains. 

Today, much old trail that started as a Native path, then a British military road and later a turnpike for settlers is followed by U.S. Route 40.  The fullest extension of the road, from Baltimore, Maryland to, St. Louis, Missouri, has been designated the Historic National Road or All-American Road.