America's First Interstate

The National Road, 1806–1853

Roger Pickenpaugh

• Publisher: The Kent State University Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781631014055
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

The story of America's first government-sponsored highway

The National Road was the first major improved highway in the United States built by the federal government. Built between 1811 and 1837, this 620-mile road connected the Potomac and Ohio Rivers and was the main avenue to the West. Roger Pickenpaugh's comprehensive account is based on detailed archival research into documents that few scholars have examined, including sources from the National Archives, and details the promotion, construction, and use of this crucially important thoroughfare.

America's First Interstate looks at the road from the perspective of westward expansion, stagecoach travel, freight hauling, livestock herding, and politics of construction as the project goes through changing presidential administrations. Pickenpaugh also describes how states assumed control of the road once the US government chose to abandon it, including the charging of tolls. His data-mining approach—revealing technical details, contracting procedures, lawsuits, charges and countercharges, local accounts of travel, and services along the road—provides a wealth of information for scholars to more critically consider the cultural and historical context of the Road's construction and use.

While most of America's First Interstate covers the early days during the era of stagecoach and wagon traffic, the story continues to the decline of the road as railroads became prominent, its rebirth as US Route 40 during the automobile age, and its status in the present day.

CHAPTER ONE

“The touch of a feather”

The Highway Came with the Sun

TO A GREAT EXTENT America’s history has been the story of westward movement. From the Northwest Ordinance and the Louisiana Purchase to the Mexican “Cession,” the California Gold Rush, and the Oregon Trail to “Seward’s Folly” and Greeley’s advice, this country’s North Star has generally been the setting sun. For America’s founding generation it was a continuation of the dreams that drew their ancestors across the Atlantic. For generations of immigrants who followed them it was a story of opportunity, if not for themselves then for their progeny. And for the native nations already here, long before either group arrived, it was almost always a tragic story of repression, relocation, and extermination.

To America’s colonists, including the generation that led it to independence, the West meant the area beyond the Appalachians. For the generation that followed, the Louisiana Purchase redefined the parameters and heightened the mystique. Although the transmontaine West was not far distant in miles from America’s original thirteen states, the barrier of the mountains made it, in practical terms, a world away.

Nobody was more aware of this geographical reality—or more concerned by it—than George Washington. The future father of his country was only sixteen years old when, in 1748, he made his first western venture. Crossing the Blue Ridge with his friend George William Fairfax, Washington helped survey the vast landholdings of Fairfax’s father, Col. William Fairfax. At first put off by the lack of creature comforts, he came to embrace the rugged life of a frontier surveyor.¹

In 1753 Washington made the first of six expeditions to the trans-Allegheny region. It marked his debut as an actor on the international stage and his introduction to the challenges of travel beyond the mountains.

He went at the behest of Robert Dinwiddie, the Virginia colony’s lieutenant governor, whose motives in dispatching the youthful surveyor were both patriotic and pecuniary. As British colonists began to push west of the Appalachians, the French were entering the Ohio Valley from their colonies along the St. Lawrence River. In retrospect, a clash seemed inevitable. Dinwiddie’s instructions to his emissary, approved by King George II, were to demand that the French leave the Ohio Valley country and to scout out locations for fortifications in the likely event that they refused. Much was at stake for the lieutenant governor. In addition to protecting the interests of the crown, Dinwiddie was also interested in protecting the interests of the Ohio Land Company. He was a major investor in the company, which had acquired title to half a million acres of land beyond the mountains.²

Washington left Williamsburg on October 31, late in the season for a mission across the mountains. Six men accompanied him. Most notable among them was Christopher Gist, a noted frontiersman and surveyor, who was well acquainted with the native people of the western country. Two years earlier Gist had scouted a trail from Cumberland, Maryland, to the Monongahela River, and on Washington’s expedition he rode at the head of the column. Despite his expert guidance, the journey was not easy. Winter came early to the Appalachians; heavy rain turned to snow, and ice soon clogged waterways. It was, the normally stoic Washington complained, “as fatiguing a journey as it is possible to conceive.” The route carried the party over the Alleghenies, across the Youghiogheny River, over Negro Mountain and Laurel Hill, before delivering them to the Monongahela, which they reached on November 22.³

After examining a site for a potential British fort, Washington spent the next few days parleying with Indian leaders, attempting to discern their intentions and win the wary over to his side. Then, traveling through still more rain and snow, he headed for Fort Le Boeuf. He reached the crude fortification on December 11 and presented Dinwiddie’s ultimatum to the commander, Capt. Jacques Legardeur de St. Pierre. The Frenchman’s reply was blunt, if quaintly elegant: “As to the summons you send me to retire, I do not think myself obliged to obey it.” The response was not what Washington desired, but it was likely what he expected. He had fulfilled his instructions, and he headed for home, firmly convinced that British hopes for military success in the Ohio Valley would largely depend upon a serviceable road to deliver men and matériel to the likely scene of conflict.⁴

The following April Washington and a force of 160 started out for what would soon become an actual scene of conflict. Dinwiddie had received word that the French were dispatching a raiding party to the forks of the Ohio. He ordered Washington, then headquartered in Alexandria, to proceed in that direction. Hacking out a road as they advanced, it took the small army three weeks to reach Cumberland. From there the going was just as slow as the axmen did battle with the mountainous wilderness of Maryland and Pennsylvania.

They labored under the watchful eyes of Indians loyal to the French. On May 24, Washington learned that a French force commanded by one Joseph Coulon de Villiers, Sieur de Jumonville, had crossed the Youghiogheny and was fewer than eighteen miles away. The colonial officer decided to make his stand at Great Meadows, near present-day Uniontown, Pennsylvania, carving out what he termed “a charming field for an encounter.” Despite that assessment, Washington went on the hunt of his enemy. On the twenty-eighth he found them, a detachment of thirty-five men. The colonial force surprised them, and in a fifteen-minute skirmish killed ten and captured twenty-one. Jumonville was among the dead, his comrades insisting his mission was diplomatic, the delivery of a warning message to the British similar to the one Washington had transmitted one year earlier.⁵

Washington’s impetuous attack would win him praise from Dinwiddie and condemnation from officials in London, who saw it as confirmation of their view that American officers were recklessly impulsive. In the moment, the Virginia colonel did not have time to worry about the reviews. Instead he prepared for the retaliatory French attack he knew would be coming. He erected a crude fortification on the Great Meadows, which he aptly named Fort Necessity, had trenches dug and breastworks put up, and awaited the inevitable onslaught. It came on July 3. Attacking in overwhelming numbers, the French and their Indian allies killed or wounded a third of Washington’s force before the Americans surrendered. French chicanery and a translator’s laxness made things even worse. The young commander signed a paper “confessing” that the French attack came in response to the “assassination” of Jumonville, not his death in honorable combat. Harshly criticized in London, Washington managed largely to hold on to his good reputation in Virginia. Right or wrong, Washington’s actions had brought on the French and Indian War, although it would have started with or without him.⁶

Washington’s role in the conflict was not yet over. On February 20, 1755, Maj. Gen. Edward Braddock, along with two regiments of British regulars, arrived at Hampton Roads. Sixty years old, Braddock had spent forty-three years in the army. Charged with ridding the Ohio Valley of the French “invaders,” he arrived with a sterling reputation and a dearth of knowledge or experience regarding frontier warfare.

Braddock apparently sensed his weaknesses. Learning that Washington had more knowledge of the area into which he would be venturing than anyone else, the British veteran asked the young officer to serve as an aide-de-camp. Despite any misgivings he may have harbored because of the debacle at Fort Necessity, Braddock treated Washington with kindness and respect. Still, the self-assured veteran did not always follow his youthful subordinate’s counsel. This proved unfortunate when he dismissed Washington’s suggestion to leave behind his wagons and heavy siege guns, instead taking only what could be carried on packhorses. It was a curious bit of obstinacy because Braddock had already become painfully familiar with the challenges of transportation in the colonies. It had taken his procession twenty-seven days to cover the 180 miles from Alexandria to Fort Cumberland, which the general attributed in part to “the Badness of the Roads.”⁷

On May 30 Braddock dispatched a force of six hundred men to begin opening a road from Fort Cumberland to Little Meadows, a distance of twenty miles. The result of the first day’s effort was two miles cleared and three wagons destroyed. Part of the problem was that the general’s engineers and axmen had never encountered a mountainous wilderness such as this. Both men and horses fell dead from exertion as they challenged the rugged terrain. Washington chafed as his commanding officer insisted on “halting to level every Mold Hill” along the route. As a result, the column continued to creep along at a rate of two miles a day. It was enough finally to convince Braddock of the wisdom of his subordinate’s advice. The general ordered his officers to send back to Fort Cumberland wagons, artillery, and all unnecessary baggage. He also accepted Washington’s proposal that a lightly armed detachment of eight hundred be sent ahead, with supplies and artillery to follow.⁸

On July 9 this advance force, now nearly fourteen hundred strong, crossed the Monongahela. The French were waiting on the other side, along with their Native American allies. Their attack seemed to come from out of nowhere, punctuated by piercing war whoops that totally unnerved the trained and disciplined British regulars. Braddock, combining courage with foolishness, rushed forward to the sounds of gunfire, forming his men into compact ranks that made them an easy target for their foes. His bravery cost him his life, an ignoble end to an honorable career as a soldier. Braddock’s campaign, however, led to an unexpected legacy. The road that his men had hewn out of the wilderness would parallel, but not trace exactly, the route of the National Road. It seems unlikely that the British general, fiercely loyal to his homeland, would appreciate his unintended contribution to the soon-to-be rebellious Americans. Still, that contribution was real and lasting, and for those who to this day traverse US 40 across western Maryland and Pennsylvania, it is an ongoing legacy.⁹

Washington’s next major western foray was a nine-week expedition begun in October 1770. Its purpose was to scout lands to be allotted to him and his officers for their wartime service. Accompanied by Dr. James Craik and three servants, he followed familiar terrain to Pittsburgh before thoroughly exploring the Ohio to the mouth of the Great Kanawha. There was a certain sense of urgency to the effort. Settlers were venturing over the mountains, and Washington wanted to ensure that the best lands ended up with the right purchasers, himself included. He had also learned of a British investment plan to secure 2.5 million acres of prime western land. As he sought out the best real estate, Washington also tried to discern the best routes for overland roads and to determine which waterways might be navigable. The effort would become a passion, one born of difficult wartime experience.¹⁰

Washington would soon return to war, leading recalcitrant colonists against his recent allies. During that time his Mount Vernon estate was largely neglected, and he returned home financially strapped. At the same time, his frontier tenants fell behind on their rent, and squatters occupied other sections of his western holdings. In September 1784, Washington made his last expedition over the mountains. One of his goals for the trip was to collect delinquent rents, an attempt that produced mixed results.¹¹

More significant was Washington’s thorough exploration of the western territory and his detailed observations on the potential for transportation both by roads and waterways. Once again traveling from Fort Cumberland, Washington made no nostalgic comment on scenes of past conflict but limited his remarks to the practical. Writing in his diary at Great Meadows, he did not mention Fort Necessity, instead noting that the spot seemed a good location for raising hay and grain and was “a very good stand for a tavern.” Along the way he had found the road to be “upon the whole indifferent.” The Little Youghiogheny, he believed, could “be improved into a valuable navigation.”¹²

Continuing west, Washington interrogated virtually everyone he encountered about potential navigation of rivers and creeks and of “the Nature of the Country.” Near Uniontown, Pennsylvania, Washington met in a one-room log cabin with a group of local landowners. He asked for their assistance in discerning the best location for a road over the Alleghenies. As Washington questioned those in attendance, an impetuous young surveyor and budding politician named Albert Gallatin reportedly inserted himself into the discussion. Gesturing at a map, Gallatin pointed out what he considered the obvious best route. His impertinence earned the young man a piercing stare from the general. Then, after studying Gallatin’s path, Washington concluded, “You are right, sir.” Washington did not mention the incident in his diary, but it has become a staple of Gallatin biographies. It received some corroboration from Sir Augustus Foster, who worked at the British embassy when Gallatin was secretary of the treasury. Foster recorded the following conversation: “Mr. Gallatin told me he once met him [Washington] when he (Gallatin) was quite a young man, in the back country, and that he thought him heavy and rather stupid. He was in a small room questioning some hunters about roads and distances.” Foster added that Gallatin had since changed his opinion of the first president.¹³

Washington had planned to revisit the Kanawha Valley, but “reports of the discontented temper of the Indians and the Mischiefs done by some parties of them” changed his mind. Instead he headed south to explore the Cheat River, returning to Mount Vernon on October 4.¹⁴

Six days later Washington put his thoughts to paper in a lengthy letter to Virginia Governor Benjamin Harrison. He began by stating the problem as he saw it:

I need not remark to you Sir, that the flanks and rear of the United States are possessed by other powers, and formidable ones too; nor how necessary it is to apply the cement of interest, to bind all parts of the Union together by indissoluble bonds, especially that part of it, which lies immediately west of us, with the middle States. For, what ties, let me ask, shou’d we have upon these people? How entirely unconnected with them shall we be, and what troubles may we not apprehend, if the Spaniards on their right, and Gt. Britain on their left, instead of throwing stumbling blocks in their way as they now do, should hold out lures for their trade and alliance?

The western settlers, Washington believed, “stand as it were upon a pivot; the touch of a feather, would turn them any way.” It might have already happened, he continued, had Spain not made the impolitic mistake of closing the Mississippi to American trade, the “stumbling block” to which he had referred. At the same time, all that attracted trade eastward was “a long Land transportation and unimproved roads.”¹⁵

Blending altruism with parochialism, Washington observed, “A combination of circumstances makes the present conjecture more favorable for Virginia, than for any other State in the Union to fix these matters.” He called for the appointment of commissioners to survey the James and the Potomac, as well as “the streams capable of improvement which run into the Ohio.” He concluded, “Upon the whole, the object, in my estimation is of vast commercial and political importance: in these lights I think posterity will consider it, and regret (if our conduct should give them cause) that the present favourable moment to secure so great a blessing for them, was neglected.”¹⁶

When Washington wrote his letter, the Constitutional Convention was three years away. With the government laboring under the Articles of Confederation, the United States were united more in theory than in fact. Therefore his call to state action was less selfish and more pragmatic than it may appear today. It was also written at a time when the American Revolution—which was fought to restrain ce...