This road, fortified at Carlisle, Shippensburg, Chambersburg, Loudon, Littleton, Bedford, Ligonier, and Pittsburg became the great military route from the Atlantic seaboard to the trans-Allegheny empire. By it Fort Pitt was relieved during Pontiac’s rebellion and the Ohio Indians were brought to terms. Throughout the Revolutionary War this road was the main thoroughfare over which the western forts received ammunition and supplies. In the dark days of the last decade of the eighteenth century, when the Kentucky and Ohio pioneers were fighting for the foothold they had obtained in the West, this road played a vital part.
When the need for it passed, Forbes’s Road, too, passed away. Two great railways, on either side, run westward following waterways which the old road assiduously avoided—keeping to the high ground between them. Between these new and fast courses of human traffic the old Glade Road lies along the hills, and, in the dust or in the snow, marks the course of armies which won a way through the mountains and made possible our westward expansion.
The “Old Glade Road,” the old-time name of the Youghiogheny division (Burd’s or the “Turkey Foot” Road) of this thoroughfare, has been selected as the title of this volume, as more distinctive than the “Pennsylvania Road,” which would apply to numerous highways.
A. B. H.
Marietta, Ohio, December 30, 1902.