The Old Braddock Road

This tablet marks a well preserved scar of the Old Braddock Trail, one of the most historic pioneer highways in all America.

Here, Nemacolin and his associates blazed the trail that became a National Highway.

Here, passed the laden pack horse train that carried the Gist settlers to the first Anglo-Saxon settlement west of the Allegheny Mountains.

Here, George Washington, the youthful ambassador, with his escort passed on his way to the French forts.

Over this route marched Captain William Trent with his Virginia soldiers equipped to build the fort at the "Forks of the Ohio," now Pittsburgh.

After being driven off by the French, the same soldiers, under Ensign Ward, retreated by this road.

Over this ground, on that dark and rainy night, marched Colonel George Washington with his Virginia troops to attack Jumonville in his hidden camp four miles north of here.

That march ended in the first clash of arms which opened the French and Indian War that ended in driving France from America.

Over this route came the French and Indians to attack Washington at Fort Necessity, one mile east of here.

Here, passed in proud array the ill fated Braddock Army and by this route returned its bleeding remnant after the disastrous defeat.

By this frontier road, under General Daniel Morgan, came the southern wing of the U.S. Army that quelled the Whiskey Insurrection.

Here, for more than seventy years through this converging point flowed the frontier travel that prepared a western haven for civilization. This wheel worn chasm is a venerable monument to a past age, the last span through a mountain fastness that linked the East with the West.

Marker can be reached from National Pike (U.S. 40) 1.2 miles east of Fayette Springs Road.

Courtesy hmdb.org

Credits and Sources:

HMDB