Pioneer Roads and Experiences of Travelers (Volume 1)

by Archer Butler Hulbert

The founding of Kentucky in the lower Ohio Valley offers a specific instance to illustrate these generalizations, and brings us to the subject of a thoroughfare which was of commanding importance in the old West. We have elsewhere dealt at length with the first settlement of Kentucky, making clear the fact that the great road blazed by Boone through Cumberland Gap was the most important route in Kentucky’s early history. The growth of the importance of the Ohio River as a thoroughfare and its final tremendous importance to Kentucky and the entire West has also been reviewed. But, despite this importance, the droughts of summer and the ice-torrents of winter made a landward route from Kentucky to Pennsylvania and the East an absolute necessity. Even when the river was navigable, the larger part of the craft which sailed it before 1820 were not capable of going up-stream. Heavy freight could be “poled” and “cordelled” up in the keel-boat and barge, but for all other return traffic, both freight and passenger, the land routes from Kentucky north and east were preferable. For many years the most available messenger and mail route from Cincinnati, Vincennes, and Louisville was over Boone’s Wilderness Road through Cumberland Gap. But, as the eighteenth century neared its close, the large population of western Pennsylvania and northwestern Virginia made necessary better routes from the upper Ohio Valley across the Alleghenies; in turn, the new conditions demanded a route up the Ohio Valley from Kentucky to Pennsylvania.

In our survey of Indian Thoroughfares, a slight path known as the Mingo Trail is mentioned as leading across eastern Ohio from Mingo Bottom near the present Steubenville, on the Ohio River, to the neighborhood of Zanesville on the Muskingum River.[32] Mingo Bottom was a well-known Indian camping-place; the name is preserved in the railway junction thereabouts, Mingo Junction. A distinct watershed offers thoroughfare southwesterly across to the Muskingum, and on this lay the old trail. The termini of this earliest known route were near two early settlements of whites; Mingo Bottom lies eight or nine miles north of Wheeling, one of the important stations in the days of border warfare. The Mingo Trail, swinging southward a little, became the route of white hunters and travelers who wished to cross what is now eastern Ohio. The Muskingum River terminus of the trail was Wills Town, as far down the Muskingum from Zanesville as Mingo Bottom was above Wheeling on the Ohio. It is altogether probable that a slight trace left the Wills Town trail and crossed the Muskingum at the mouth of Licking River—the present site of Zanesville. If a trail led thence westwardly toward the famed Pickaway Plains, it is recorded on none of our maps. We know, therefore, of only the Mingo Trail, running, let us say loosely, from Wheeling, West Virginia, to Zanesville, Ohio, which could have played any part in forming what soon became known as the first post road in all the Territory Northwest of the River Ohio.

With the close of the Indian War and the signing of the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, the American possession of the Northwest was placed beyond question. A flood of emigrants at once left the eastern states for the Central West, and the return traffic, especially in the form of travelers and private mail packets, from Kentucky and Cincinnati, began at once to assume significant proportions, and Congress was compelled to facilitate travel by opening a post route two hundred and twenty-six miles in length from the upper to the lower Ohio. Accordingly, the following act: “An Act to authorize Ebenezer Zane[33] to locate certain lands in the territory of the United States northwest of the river Ohio” was passed by Congress and approved May 17, 1796:

“Be it enacted, &c., That, upon the conditions hereinafter mentioned, there shall be granted to Ebenezer Zane three tracts of land, not exceeding one mile square each, one on the Muskingum river, one on Hockhocking river, and one other on the north bank of Scioto river, and in such situations as shall best promote the utility of a road to be opened by him on the most eligible route between Wheeling and Limestone,[34] to be approved by the President of the United States, or such person as he shall appoint for that purpose; Provided, Such tracts shall not interfere with any existing claim, location, or survey; nor include any salt spring, nor the lands on either side of the river Hockhocking at the falls thereof.

“Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That upon the said Zane’s procuring, at his own expense, the said tracts to be surveyed, in such a way and manner as the President of the United States shall approve, and returning into the treasury of the United States plats thereof, together with warrents granted by the United States for military land bounties, to the amount of the number of acres contained in the said three tracts; and also, producing satisfactory proof, by the first day of January next, that the aforesaid road is opened, and ferries established upon the rivers aforesaid, for the accommodation of travellers, and giving security that such ferries shall be maintained during the pleasure of Congress; the President of the United States shall be, and he hereby is, authorized and empowered to issue letters patent, in the name and under the seal of the United States, thereby granting and conveying to the said Zane, and his heirs, the said tracts of land located and surveyed as aforesaid; which patents shall be countersigned by the secretary of state, and recorded in his office: Provided always, That the rates of ferriage, at such ferries, shall, from time to time, be ascertained [inspected] by any two of the judges of the territory northwest of the river Ohio, or such other authority as shall be appointed for that purpose.

“Approved May 17, 1796.”[35]

Zane evidently went at once to work opening the road to Kentucky, his brother Jonathan, and son-in-law John McIntire, assisting largely in the work. The path was only made fit for horsemen, particularly mail-carriers. It is probable that the task was not more difficult than to cut away small trees on an Indian trace. It is sure that for a greater part of the distance from the Ohio to the Muskingum the Mingo Trail was followed, passing near the center of Belmont, Guernsey and Muskingum Counties. The route to the southwest from that point through Perry, Fairfield, Pickaway, Ross, Richland, Adams, and Brown Counties may or may not have followed the path of an Indian trace. No proof to the contrary being in existence, it is most reasonable to suppose that this, like most other pioneer routes, did follow a more or less plainly outlined Indian path. The new road crossed the Muskingum at the present site of the town well named Zanesville, the Hocking at Lancaster, the Scioto at Chillicothe, and the Ohio at Aberdeen, Ohio, opposite the old-time Limestone, Kentucky.

One George Sample was an early traveler on this National Road; paying a visit from the East to the Ohio country in 1797, he returned homeward by way of Zane’s Trace or the Maysville Road, as the route was variously known. After purchasing a farm on Brush Creek, Adams County, Ohio, and locating a homeless emigrant on it, Mr. Sample “started back to Pennsylvania on horseback” according to his recorded recollections written in 1842;[36] “as there was no getting up the river at that day.[37] In our homeward trip we had very rough fare when we had any at all; but having calculated on hardships, we were not disappointed. There was one house (Treiber’s) on Lick branch, five miles from where West Union[38] now is.” Trebar—according to modern spelling—opened a tavern on his clearing in 1798 or 1799, but at the time of Sample’s trip his house was not more public than the usual pioneer’s home where the latch-string was always out.[39] “The next house,” continues Mr. Sample, “was where Sinking spring or Middle-town is now.[40] The next was at Chillicothe, which was just then commenced. We encamped one night at Massie’s run, say two or three miles from the falls of Paint creek, where the trace then crossed that stream. From Chillicothe to Lancaster the trace then went through the Pickaway plains. There was a cabin some three or four miles below the plains, and another at their eastern edge, and one or two more between that and Lancaster. Here we staid the third night. From Lancaster we went next day to Zanesville, passing several small beginnings. I recollect no improvement between Zanesville and Wheeling, except a small one at the mouth of Indian Wheeling creek, opposite to Wheeling. In this space we camped another night. From Wheeling we went home pretty well.”