Washington and the West; Being George Washington's Diary of September, 1784, Kept During His Journey Into the Ohio Basin in the Interest of a Commercial Union Between the Great Lakes and the Potomac River (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: was sure he was looking for oil, while several supposed he was merely hunting " big game." At Bruceton the "New Road" turned northeast toward Braddock's Road, while McCullough's Path85 turned southeast toward the "Great Glades of the Yoh." This path, which owed " its origin to Buffaloes," affords an interesting illustration of the fact that the pioneers of the West were greatly indebted to the buffalo for their first passageways; what adds to the interest is the fact that this was as true in the Alleghanies as in Kentucky and all the Middle West; the range of the buffalo did not extend to the Atlantic seaboard, but Washington's references here and later show that it extended at least to Western Maryland. A study of the records at the law office at Annapolis show that there were two McCullough's paths, an " Old Path " and a " New Path "; they are remembered, though the bold pioneer whose name they bore is quite forgotten. The " Old Path " led from Ice's ferry, which in earliest days was known as "McCullough's Landing/'f to Bruceton and from thence by way of " CastleHill" on Backbone Mountain to the North Branch (of the Potomac) at Bloomington, Maryland. The " New Road" led from Dunkard's Bottom, passing near Oakland, to Fort Pendleton on the North Branch. The names McCulloch and McCullough were common in northwestern Virginia; see Reuben Gold Thwaites, Withers's Chronicles of Border Warfare (Cincinnati, 1895), Index. Washington spells the name both ways, and the present writer knows not the name of the marker of the early routes through the Glades. t Butterfield, Washington-Crawford Letters, 6. Washington left Bruceton on the " Old Path," but left it under the guidance of one Lemon,86 an unknown frontiersman bearing a name very well known in the Shenandoah Valley, a...