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Great Wagon Road Points and Parts

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Contents

Overview

Simply put, the four parts of the Great Wagon Road are the Great Philadelphia Wagon Road -> Valley Turnpike -> Carolina Road -> Georgia Road.

An article by R. Jackson Marshall, posted by NCpedia, describes the Great Wagon Road's path succinctly:

Sometimes called the "Great Philadelphia Wagon Road," it began in Philadelphia, crossed westward to Gettysburg, turned south to Hagerstown, Md., continued south to Winchester, Va., through the Shenandoah Valley to Roanoke, and on to the North Carolina border. There it entered present-day northeastern Stokes County and passed through Walnut Cove, Germanton, Winston-Salem, Salisbury, and Charlotte before continuing into South Carolina and Georgia.[1]

The Great Wagon Road

Predated by "The Great Indian Warpath",[2] The Great Wagon Road is described as "an improved trail through the Great Appalachian Valley".[3]

1751 Map of the Great Wagon Road (1720-1763)
1720-1763
1751 Fry-Jefferson map of the Great Wagon Road
1751
This page was created to serve as a reference for the Great Wagon Road's "points and parts" (although for flow, "Points" are listed after "Parts" are discussed).

As of 18 August 2023, WikiTree had three space pages devoted to the Great Wagon Road, which go into greater detail than this page.[4][5][6]

In 1751, the Great Wagon Road ran 455 miles, from Philadelphia to North Carolina's Yadkin River.[7] The extension of the trail to Augusta, Georgia on the Savannah River put it at "a distance of more than 800 miles (1,300 km) from Philadelphia." See Wikipedia's article on the Great Wagon Road for details.[3] See also the selection of maps of the Great Wagon Road below.

Many parts and offshoots of the Great Wagon Road are following earlier trails established by Native American Tribes. See the maps posted by "Virginia Places" on its page for "Paths, Trails, and Post Roads"[8] and Wikipedia's article about the "Great Indian Warpath".[2]

Parts

Generally, the Great Philadelphia Wagon Road is synonymous with the Great Wagon Road, or just the Great Road, running from Philadelphia to Georgia, but "Philadelphia" is often dropped at the Virginia border. Although the entire route, from Philadelphia to Augusta, includes "Wagon", Wikipedia's article notes the misnomer: "Despite its current name, the southern part of this road was by no means passable by wagons until later Colonial times. The 1751 Fry-Jefferson map on this page notes the term 'Waggon' only north of Winchester [Virginia]...."[3]

The Valley Turnpike - also called the Valley Pike or Valley Road - runs from Winchester to Roanoke through Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. "Winchester was considered the gateway to the Shenandoah Valley, leading to the Carolina Piedmont, Tennessee, and Kentucky."[3]

The Carolina Road goes south from Roanoke, crosses the Blue Ridge Mountains at Maggoty Gap in Franklin County,[9] and passes through Martinsville in Henry County, Virginia before reaching the North Carolina border[10] at present-day northeastern Stokes County, North Carolina.[1]

After the Great Wagon Road crosses the Yadkin River at Shallow Ford, North Carolina, the Georgia Road turns south from Sherrill Path to Charlotte, North Carolina[11] on its way to the southern end of the Great Wagon Road: Augusta, Georgia on the Savannah River. "The river was navigable from here to Savannah, Georgia."[3]

Salisbury - A 1780 map of Rowan County, North Carolina (here) shows "Shallowford" as 3.5 miles north of its border, with the Great Wagon Road running south through Mocksville and Salisbury, continuing on into Mecklenburg County, North Carolina.[12] "Salisbury became a major east-west and north-south crossroad. (The Great Trading Path came through here.)... Eventually, by 1775, the Great Wagon Road continued south from here to Charlotte, North Carolina, and Augusta, Georgia."[3]
South Carolina - After passing through Charlotte, in Mecklenburg County,[11] the Great Wagon Road, or Georgia Road, forked through South Carolina, although details differ. According to Wikipedia's tables for The Great Wagon Road (as of 22 August 2023): "The road on the left led to Augusta, Georgia, via Lancaster and Camden, South Carolina.... The road on the right led to Augusta, Georgia, via Union and Columbia, South Carolina".[3] A map posted by Piedmont Trails shows the road on the left running through Rock Hill, Chester, and Newberry,[13] which agrees with the 1720-1763 map of the Great Wagon Road,[14] and the road on the right runs through Camden.[3]

The "Points" section (below) lists cities along those parts. The Summary tables in Wikipedia's article on the Great Wagon Road (here) are helpful in breaking down the various parts and offshoots,[3] but it can still get confusing, with different terms used by different states and by different sources.

"In our state [North Carolina] it is known as the Great Philadelphia Wagon Road, the Great Wagon Road, or simply the Wagon Road. In Virginia, it is called the Carolina Road, because it led to Carolina."[15]
One map of the road through Virginia names the parts "The Great Road" and "Crossroads", with Crossroads splitting into three branches after Roanoke - "Carolina Road" (into North Carolina), "Frontier Trail" (to Bristol, Virginia, the start of the "Daniel Boone Wilderness Trail"), and "Fincastle Turnpike" (connecting with the Wilderness Trail west of Bristol).[10][16] (See "Through Virginia" under Maps, below.)

The major offshoots of the Great Wagon Road are the Monocacy Road and the Wilderness Road:

The Monocacy Road turns south at York, Pennsylvania, runs through Frederick, Maryland, and enters Virginia to the east of the Great Wagon Road. It rejoins the Great Wagon Road at Winchester. An offshoot of the Monocacy Road went from Frederick, Maryland to Clarksville, Virginia and into North Carolina before turning west. It was (confusingly) also called the "Carolina Road" or occasionally the "High Road" through Virginia.[3]
The Wilderness Road runs west along the Virginia/North Carolina border from Sapling Grove (now Bristol), Virginia through the Cumberland Gap on to the Ohio River in Kentucky.[3][17]
  • Cumberland Gap: "The Appalachian Mountains form a natural barrier to east–west travel. From New York to Georgia there [were] only three natural interior breaks allowing animal powered travel without great engineering works", one of which was the Cumberland Gap.[18] Dr. Thomas Walker discovered this gap in 1750, "at what is now the junction of the State boundaries of Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia."[19] In 1796, "having seen as many as 200,000 travelers, [Cumberland] Gap was then widened to allow Conestoga Wagons through to lands west."[20]

Points

Points along the Great Wagon Road listed on the 1720-1763 map are included among the following points. Although the Harris Ferry is included in this list, most ferries are included in the next section, Rivers & River Crossings.

Pennsylvania
  • Philadelphia, Pennsylvania[14]
  • Downing Mill, Pennsylvania[14]
  • Lancaster, Pennsylvania[14][21]
    • "The Treaty of Lancaster in 1744 had established colonists' rights to settle along the Indian Road. Although traffic on the road increased dramatically after 1744, it was reduced to a trickle during the French and Indian War (Seven Years' War) from 1756 to 1763. But after the war ended, it became the most heavily traveled road in America."[3]
  • York, Pennsylvania[14]
  • Gettysburg, Pennsylvania[14]
  • Chambersburg, Pennsylvania[14]
  • Greencastle, Pennsylvania[14]
Pennsylvania notes:
  • Harris Ferry: "Travellers headed west from Philadelphia to Lancaster, where they bought a wagon for the difficult journey ahead - a "Conestoga wagon," named for the Conestoga River that runs through Lancaster.... From there the road headed northwest to Harris Ferry - present-day Harrisburg - where travellers crossed the Susquehanna River."[7][22]
  • "As early as 1763 [the Pennsylvania Government] required that only one [inn] should be in such a defined distance, or in proportion to so many inhabitants...."[23]
  • Inns:[24]
    • Fahnestocks' Admiral Warren Inn (run by Casper Fahnestock)[23]
    • The General Paoli Tavern (run by Joshua Evans), in the "township of Tredyffrin, on Lancaster road"[23]
    • King of Prussia,[23] run by the Rees family (1769-1774); known as "Berry's Tavern" after the Rees' hired James "Jimmy" Berry to run the inn in 1774.[25]
  • One European visitor wrote: "I set out from Philadelphia on horseback, and arrived at Lancaster at the end of the second day's journey. The road between Philadelphia and Lancaster has lately undergone a thorough repair, and tolls are levied upon it to keep it in order. This is the first attempt to have a turnpike road in Pennsylvania, and it is by no means relished by the people at large, particularly the wagoners who go in great numbers by this route to Philadelphia from the back parts of the State. On the whole road from Philadelphia to Lancaster, there are not any two dwellings standing together excepting at a small place called Downing's Town, which lies about midway. The taverns along this turnpike are kept by farmers, and were all very indifferent...."[23]
Maryland
  • Hagerstown, Maryland[14]
Virginia
  • Martinsburg, Virginia (now West Virginia)[14]
  • Winchester, Virginia[14]
  • New Market, Virginia[14]
  • Harrisonburg, Virginia[14]
  • Staunton, Virginia[14]
  • Lexington, Virginia[14]
  • Fincastle, Virginia[14]
  • Big Lick, Virginia (now Roanoke)[14]
  • Roanoke River Gap[19][7]
  • Maggoty Gap[26]
North Carolina
  • Salem, North Carolina[14]
  • Charlotte, North Carolina[14]
South Carolina
  • Rock Hill, South Carolina[14]
  • Chester, South Carolina[14]
  • Newberry, South Carolina[14]
  • Augusta, Georgia[14]

Rivers & River Crossings

The following rivers have a connection with the Great Wagon Road and the various crossings for these rivers gave rise to some of the Great Road's offshoots (see the tables in the Wikipedia article about the Great Wagon Road for details about offshoots).[3]
  • Conestoga River, which runs through Lancaster, Pennsylvania, gave its name to the Conestoga wagons used on the Great Wagon Road.[22]
  • Susquehanna River, crossed by Harris Ferry in Harrisburg.[7]
  • Potomac River has so many crossings it is difficult to say which one was "the" crossing for the Great Wagon Road. The text of Wikipedia's article about the Great Wagon Road says only "... the road crossed the Potomac River" and leaves the details to the tables accompanying the article. At least two crossings are known for the Monocacy Road: the Catoctin Creek ford, which was bypassed in favor of Harper's Ferry in 1761.[3] An offshoot of the Monocacy Road crossed at Noland's Ferry.[27] The more western path taken by the Great Wagon Road included a "Nichol's Gap" route and a "Black's Gap" route. Several ferries are mentioned in association with those routes:
    • Williams Ferry, at Berkeley County: "... a settler named John Williams operated a... Potomac River ferry (1731) at Falling Waters near the mouth of Opequon Creek, 5 miles (8 km) downstream from here [Williamsport].[50] (The frequently mentioned "Opequon Settlement" area, in contrast, extended as far south as the headwaters of the creek, at Bartonsville, about 6 miles (10 km) south of Winchester, Virginia.)[51]" - see the Wikipedia article for the footnoted information.[3] The 1747 Jefferson-Brooke map shows two points on the Potomac, at "Opeekon cr.", labeled Williams (probably Williamsport) and Ferry.[28]
    • Samuel Taylor's ferry originally operated here [Berkeley County] (1734) and later Thomas Swearingen's ferry (1755). "Packhorse Ford" is nearby. A 1736 Benjamin Winslow map and the 1751 Fry-Jefferson map show the ferry crossing at the Spurgent property.[3] The 1747 Jefferson-Brooke map shows the Wagon Road crossing the Potomac between Shepherd and Spurgeant (with Spurgeant written on both sides).[28]
    • Watkin's Ferry, at Williamsport: "Evan Watkins' ferry was established by law in 1744.... After 1795, Watkins Ferry became Peter Light's ferry; in 1854 it became Robert Lemen's ferry...."[3]
    • David Shepherd & Hugh Stephenson "had gone into partnership, before the Revolution,... in establishing a rival ferry at Shepherdstown, where Swearingen's Ferry had prior possession"[29]
  • Roanoke River, in Virginia (at Big Lick/Roanoke)[3]
  • Yadkin River, in North Carolina, is where the Great Wagon Road ended in the 1751 Fry-Jefferson map.[7][30]
  • Savannah River: "Augusta, Georgia on the Savannah River" was the southern end of the Great Wagon Road. "The river was navigable from here to Savannah, Georgia."[3]
Rivers connected with the Wilderness Road include the following
  • Holston River in the upper Tennessee Valley (Wilderness Road)[3]
  • Ohio River: The end of the Wilderness Road[3] at Louisville, Kentucky,[18] "where flatboats were available for further travel into the Midwest and even to New Orleans."[3]
Richard George Remer's 1974 thesis about the Great Wagon Road[31] covers more (and different) river crossings in the following paragraph:
"One of the most prominent features on the 1755 edition of the [Fry-Jefferson] map is ’'The Great Wagon Road from the Yadkin River through Virginia to Philadelphia distant 435 miles." From its northern terminus at the Schuylkill River Ferry in Philadelphia, the road originally took a rolling path west to Lancaster, proceeded to Harrisburg (Harris' Ferry) on the Susquehanna River, then continued down to Williamsport (William's Ferry) on the Potomac River, at the entrance to the Valley of Virginia. Going up (that is, to the south west) the Valley by way of Winchester, Strasburg, Harrisonburg, Staunton, and Lexington, it crossed the James River at Buchanan (Looney's Ferry), and changing its course from southwest to south, it came to Roanoke (Big Lick), where it again swerved, this time to the east and the Staunton River Gap, where it passed through the Blue Ridge Mountains. Once past this barrier, the Road turned south, crossing the Blackwater, Pigg, and Irvine Rivers in Southside Virginia, the Dan River in North Carolina, and ended at "Unitas" or Wachovia, the Moravian community on Gargals Creek, a branch of the great Yadkin River.[31]

Maps

By date:
By state:
  • PA (to GA via MD, VA, NC, & SC): Google Map, Philadelphia to Augusta (edited from the Philadelphia to Winston-Salem map posted originally by Learn NC)[7]
  • PA, MD, VA: The Monocacy Road - this Google Map runs from York, Pennsylvania through Harper's Ferry (1761) to Winchester, Virginia[3]
  • VA: Through Virginia[10]
    • VA to TN: Great Valley Road - a Wikipedia map that shows the Great Wagon Road from Philadelphia to Roanoke, Virginia and from there to "Bristol (Sapling Grove)" in Virginia and then Jonesboro and Knoxville, Tennessee[3] also a WikiTree image
  • NC: The Great Wagon Road in North Carolina (1750-1780) - a LearnNC map by Mark Anderson Moore,[11] with the area around Salem highlighted. The map shows the section to Charlotte as the Georgia Road & two sections to the Yadkin River - Island Ford Road and Sherrill's Path.[7]
  • NC (from PA): Google Map, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Winston-Salem, North Carolina (also from Learn NC)[7]
  • SC: This map (a WikiTree image), shows two branches of the Carolina Road into South Carolina - one to the west of South Carolina's capital, Columbia, ending at Augusta, Georgia & the other ending to the northeast of Columbia, at [Hingdon?]. Another map shows both branches ending at Augusta (one west of Columbia, through Newberry, and one east, through Camden).[13]
  • GA: The Great Wagon Road ends at Augusta (see the 1720-1763 map of the Great Wagon Road).

People

This section is for links to WikiTree profiles of people associated with the Great Wagon Road and its offshoots (categorized under Category: Great Wagon Road and/or Category: Wilderness Road).

Pennsylvania Tavern Keepers
Ferry Operators

Mapmakers and Surveyors

Explorers & Namesakes

Note: Most of those who traveled the Great Wagon Road will not be listed here but should be listed under subcategories of Category: Great Wagon Road as appropriate.

Footnotes

  1. 1.0 1.1 NCpedia: R. Jackson Marshall III, "Great Wagon Road" (2006), accessed 20 August 2023).
  2. 2.0 2.1 Wikipedia: Great Indian Warpath (accessed 19 August 2023).
  3. 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 3.15 3.16 3.17 3.18 3.19 3.20 3.21 3.22 3.23 3.24 Wikipedia: Great Wagon Road (accessed 18 August 2023).
  4. WikiTree: Great Wagon Road, created by Patricia (Prickett) Hickin in October 2015.
  5. WikiTree: The Great Wagon Road, a project page managed by the project, created December 2015.
  6. WikiTree: US Southern Colonies, Southern Migration, a project page not managed by the project, created December 2015.
  7. 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 7.8 NCpedia: David Walbert, "Mapping the Great Wagon Road" (accessed 20 August 2023).
  8. Virginia Places: Paths, Trails, and Post Roads (accessed 18 August 2023).
  9. Historic Marker for the Carolina Road posted in Franklin County [VA] in 1987 in recognition of the county's bicentennial (1786-1986).
  10. 10.0 10.1 10.2 Map Through Virginia, Wilderness Road - Virginia (accessed 19 August 2023). Note: Although titled "Wilderness Road" the site covers the Great Wagon Road through Virginia and showing the Wilderness Road offshoot as the "Daniel Boone Wilderness Trail".
  11. 11.0 11.1 11.2 Map of The Great Wagon Road and its offshoots in North Carolina, 1750-1780. By Mark Anderson Moore, courtesy North Carolina Office of Archives and History, Raleigh.
  12. 12.0 12.1 12.2 Rowan County 1780 Map (accessed 22 August 2023). This map illustrates Carol's 6 January 2019 article, "The Great Wagon Road Enters Into South Carolina" (part one), posted on her blog, Piedmont Trails: Genealogy and History in North Carolina and Beyond, accessed 22 August 2023.
  13. 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 Map of The Great Philadelphia Wagon Road, illustrating Carol's 27 January 2019 article, "The Great Wagon Road Enters Into South Carolina" (part two), posted on her blog, Piedmont Trails: Genealogy and History in North Carolina and Beyond, accessed 22 August 2023.
  14. 14.00 14.01 14.02 14.03 14.04 14.05 14.06 14.07 14.08 14.09 14.10 14.11 14.12 14.13 14.14 14.15 14.16 14.17 14.18 14.19 14.20 14.21 14.22 Locations listed on the 1720-1763 map.
  15. NCpedia: Michael O. Hartley and Martha B. Hartley, "Great Philadelphia Wagon Road". Reprinted by NCpedia with permission from the Tar Heel Junior Historian. Spring 2006. Tar Heel Junior Historian Association, NC Museum of History Edited, 2010.
  16. See also American History Central's "[https://www.americanhistorycentral.com/entries/wilderness-road/ The Wilderness Road—Daniel Boone's Path Into Kentucky" by Randal Rust (published 26 September 2023; accessed 28 August 2024).
  17. See also WikiTree's Category: Wilderness Road & Wikipedia's Wilderness Road.
  18. 18.0 18.1 Wikipedia: Wilderness Road (accessed 18 August 2023).
  19. 19.0 19.1 19.2 FamilySearch, "American Roads and Trails": Great Wagon Road (accessed 18 August 2023).
  20. Rickie Longfellow, "The Cumberland Gap", posted by the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration (accessed 22 August 2023).
  21. Note that while most maps show Phildaelphia to Lancaster to York to Gettysburg, one map (image 11 of 145 of Remer's 1974 thesis, cited below) shows the road through Lancaster to be to the North of the road through York, connecting back at Gettysburg. This road is called the Lancaster Turnpike - see for example The Pennsylvania-German Society, Volume 22.
  22. 22.0 22.1 For more about Conestoga Wagons, see the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission's "Conestoga Wagons", by Norman B. Wilkinson and George R. Beyer (cited as a source for David Walbert's article, accessed 22 August 2023).
  23. 23.0 23.1 23.2 23.3 23.4 23.5 Parke Rouse, Jr., The Great Wagon Road (Paperback edition Richmond: The Dietz Press, c 1992). First published by McGraw-Hill in 1973 as part (vol.11) of the American Trail Series, edited by A.B. Guthrie, Jr.
  24. See A guide book of art, architecture, and historic interests in Pennsylvania, edited by A. Margaretta Archambault (1924), and The Wayside Inns on the Lancaster Roadside between Philadelphia and Lancaster by Julius F. Sachse (1912), accessed 23 August 2023.
  25. Wikipedia: King of Prussia Inn (accessed 23 August 2023).
  26. Maggoty Gap, Wilderness Road - Virginia (accessed 19 August 2023):
    • "The Cahas Mountain Rural Historic District comprises the bottomland along Maggodee Creek, the south side of Maggodee Gap, and the slopes of Cahas Mountain. The district includes the well-preserved trace of the Carolina Road where it crosses the Blue Ridge at Maggodee Gap. The volume of travel along the road spurred the construction of the district’s two impressive 1820s brick residences, the John and Susan Boon House and the Taylor-Price House, the former and probably also the latter provided accommodations to travelers on a commercial basis. The road trace passes in front of the Washington and Rinda Boon House." ~ Posted on January 12, 2015 by admin
  27. C&O Canal Trust: Nolands Ferry (accessed 18 August 2023).
  28. 28.0 28.1 28.2 28.3 28.4 28.5 28.6 I thought that this map might be the one referred to as the "1736 Benjamin Winslow map", as it was based on "an Actual Survey" begun in 1736, and Benjamin Winslow was one of the surveyors. (The map was drawn by Peter Jefferson and Robert Brooke. Benjamin Winslow was one of the surveyors, listed with Thomas Lewis.) However, the following paragraph from Robert Brooke's profile calls it the 1747 Jefferson-Brooke map:

    In 1746, Robert, along with Peter Jefferson, Thomas Lewis, and Benjamin Winslow, surveyed the Fairfax Line, a line between the head springs of the Rappahannock and Potomac Rivers, which established the remaining unknown and long disputed bounds of the Northern Neck Proprietary inherited by Thomas, 6th Lord Fairfax, which included all the land between the Rappahannock and Potomac Rivers. The map produced by these surveyors, known as the Jefferson-Brooke map of 1747.
    • Thomas Lewis' Journal of 1746, republished in McClinton, Arthur et al. The Fairfax Line, A Historic Landmark, Shenandoah County Historical Society, Edinburg, VA, 1996.
    • The original map repository is in the British Archives, London, England, catalog item "CO700/Virginia 11."

  29. 29.0 29.1 29.2 29.3 Jefferson County, WV Shepherdstown in the Revolution: Appendix A, an "Alphabetical List Of Officers And Privates Connected With Shepherdstown, Or Recruited In Its Neighborhood, During The Revolution". Source: "Historic Shepherdstown" by Danske Dandridge (1910). Transcribed by K. Torp (accessed 24 August 2023).
  30. See also Wikipedia: Yadkin River.
  31. 31.0 31.1 Richard George Remer, "The Great Wagon Road of the Carolinas" (1974), Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects. William & Mary. Paper 1539624870: https://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21220/s2-w0y7-0655 (accessed 22 August 2023). The quoted paragraph, from pages 2-3 of the pdf, included footnote 3:
    • Carl Bridenbaugh, Myths and Realities: Societies of the Colonial South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press : 1952)", 129.
  32. Blog post, "Hannah Richardson (1712-Aft Aug 1765), d/o George or John?, m. William Hall, Miller, 1731, in PA, of Chester, Delaware, PA and Halltown (now in Jefferson County, West Virginia)," February 6, 2007.

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