[329] Fontaine’s journal of the expedition shows that the crossing was not at Rockfish Gap, as formerly supposed. Cf. Peyton’s History of Augusta County, Staunton, 1882, pp. 24, 29.
[330] “Thus it is a pleasure to cross the mountains.”
[331] Jones, Present State of Virginia, London, 1724, p. 14.
[332] Spotswood, Official Letters, ii. 297.
[333] He understood that from Swift Run Gap it was but three days’ march to a tribe of Indians living on a river which emptied into Lake Erie; also that from a distant peak, which was pointed out to him, Lake Erie was distinctly visible; so he estimated the total distance as five days’ march. The river route thus vaguely indicated was probably down the Youghiogheny or the Monongahela to the site of Pittsburgh, then up the Alleghany and so on to the site of Erie, distant in a straight line about 300 miles from Swift Run Gap. Braddock in 1755 was a month in getting over less than one fourth of the actual route. But, in spite of the false estimate, Spotswood’s general idea was sound.
[334] William and Mary College Quarterly, i. 7.
[335] In this respect one of his family in the days of our great Civil War was like him. The noble statue at the entrance of Forest Park in St. Louis stands there to remind us that it was chiefly the iron will of Francis Preston Blair that in 1861 prevented the secessionist government of Missouri from dragging that state over to the Southern Confederacy.
[336] George Washington’s elder brother, Lawrence, served in this expedition, and named his estate Mount Vernon after the admiral.
[337] In 1781 the mansion at Temple Farm was known as the Moore House.
[338] In my next following work, entitled “The Dutch and Quaker Colonies in America,” I hope to give a more detailed and specific account of the Scotch-Irish and their important work in this country.