The central trail, passing through Carlisle, Shippensburg, and Bedford, over Laurel Mountain, through Fort Ligonier, over Chestnut Ridge, to Shannopin’s Town at the Forks of the Ohio, was the most direct, and became the basis of General Forbes’s road, and later of the Pennsylvania wagon road to the Ohio. Gist took this trail in 1750.—See Hulbert, Old Glade Road (Cleveland, 1903).
The northern, or Kittanning trail, was the oldest, and that most used by Indian traders. It is this route that Weiser followed. From Croghan’s, he passed over into the valley of Sherman’s Creek (in Perry County), crossed the Tuscarora Mountains at what was later known as Sterritt’s Gap, and reached the Black Log sleeping place near Shade Valley in the southeastern part of Huntingdon County. This was a digression to the south, for in an extract from his journal in Pennsylvania Archives, ii, p. 13, Weiser says: “The Black Log is 8 or 10 miles South East of the Three Springs and Frank’s Town lies to yᵉ North, so that there must be a deduction of at least twenty miles.” From here, following the valley of Aughwick Creek, he crossed the Juniata River, and approached the “Standing Stone.” This was a prominent landmark of the region, and stood on the right bank of a creek of the same name, near the present town of Huntingdon. It was about 14 feet high, and six inches square, and served as a kind of Indian guidepost for that region. From this point, the trail followed the Juniata Valley, coinciding for a short distance with the line of the Pennsylvania Central Railway, but turning off on the Frankstown branch of the Juniata at the present town of Petersburg.
There was also a fourth trail, still farther north, by way of Sunbury and the west branch of the Susquehanna to Venango. This was Post’s route in 1758.—Ed.
[11] Frankstown was an important Indian village in the county of Blair, near Hollidaysburg. The present town of this name lies on the north side of the river, whereas the Indian town appears to have been on the south bank. Remains of the native village were in existence in the early part of the nineteenth century. The Indian name was “Assunepachla,” the title “Frankstown” being given in honor of Stephen Franks, a German trader who lived at this place.—See Jones, History of Juniata Valley (Harrisburg, 1889, 2nd ed.), pp. 298-303. The cause of its desertion when Weiser passed, is not known. The other edition of the journal says, “Here we overtook one half the goods,” which seems more correct in view of the succeeding account.—Ed.
[12] Of the place where the Kittanning trail crosses the Allegheny Range, Jones writes (op. cit.), that the path is still visible, although filled with weeds in the summer. “In some places where the ground was marshy, close to the run, the path is at least twelve inches deep, and the very stones along the road bear the marks of the iron-shod horses of the Indian traders. Two years ago we picked up, at the edge of the run, a mile up the gorge, two gun-flints,—now rated as relics of a past age.” Clear fields was at the head waters of Clearfield Creek, a branch of the Susquehanna River, in Clearfield Township, Cambria County. This is not to be confused with Clearfield (Chinklacamoos), an important Indian town farther north. See [Post’s Journal, post].—Ed.
[13] The Shawnees (Fr., Chaouanons), when first known, appear to have been living in Western Kentucky; they were greatly harassed by the Iroquois, and made frequent migrations which are difficult to trace. In 1692, they made peace with the Iroquois and the English, and portions of the tribe settled in the Ohio country and Western Pennsylvania. Intriguing with both English and French, they were treacherous toward both nations. The location of the cabins mentioned here by Weiser is not positively known—it was in the northern part of Indiana County; somewhere on the Kittanning trail.—Ed.
[14] Weiser turned aside from the regular trail that ended at the Delaware Indians’ town of Kittanning, and followed a branch of the path that turned southwest; crossed the Kiskiminitas Creek at the ford where the town of Saltzburg, Indiana County, now stands; and reached the Allegheny River (then called the Ohio) at Chartier’s Old Town, now Chartier’s Station, Westmoreland County. It was at this point that in 1749, the French explorer, Céloron de Blainville, met six traders with fifty horses laden with peltries, by these sending his famous message to the governor of Pennsylvania to keep his traders from that country, which was owned by the French. Weiser calculated the distance of his journey by land as one hundred and seventy miles, and by deducting twenty miles for the detour at Black Log, made the distance from the settlements one hundred and fifty miles.—Ed.
[15] This was the Delaware village known as Shannopin’s Town, from a chief of that name, who died in 1749. It was situated on the Allegheny River in the present city of Pittsburg, and contained about twenty wigwams, and fifty or sixty natives. See Darlington, Gist’s Journals (Pittsburg, 1893), pp. 92, 93.—Ed.
[16] The reference is to Queen Aliquippa, whose town, directly at the Forks of the Ohio, was called by Céloron “the written rock village.” The writings proved on examination to be but names of English traders scrawled in charcoal on the rocks. See Father Bonnécamps’s Relation, Jesuit Relations (Thwaites’s ed., Cleveland, 1896-1902), lxix, p. 175. Céloron says of the Seneca queen: “She regards herself as a sovereign, and is entirely devoted to the English.” Upon the advent of the French, she removed her village to the forks of the Monongahela and Youghiogheny, where she told Gist in 1753 she would never go back to the Allegheny to live, unless the English built a fort. Céloron says of the site of her first village: “This place is one of the most beautiful I have seen on the Beautiful River [la Belle Rivière, the French name for the Ohio].”—Ed.
[17] Logstown (French, Chinnigné, Shenango) was the most important Indian trading village in that part of the country. It was a mixed village composed of Indians of several tribes—chiefly Iroquois, Mohican, and Shawnee. When Céloron visited it a year after Weiser’s sojourn, he spoke of it as “a very bad village, seduced by the desire for the cheap goods of the English.” He was near being attacked here, being saved by discovering the plot, and displaying the strength of his forces. Like Weiser, he was received with a salute of guns, but feared it was more a sign of enmity than amity. Later, the Indians of this village returned to the French alliance, and after the founding of Fort Duquesne, houses were built by the French for its inhabitants. With the restoration of English interest, the importance of the place diminished, and by 1784 it is spoken of as a “former settlement.” The site of Logstown is about eighteen miles down the river from Pittsburg, just below the present town of Economy, Pennsylvania. It was on a high bluff on the north shore. For the history of this place, see Darlington’s Gist, pp. 95-100.—Ed.