From this point the road, after passing through some woods for over a
mile and a half, crosses the Haydentown road near the house of Isaac
Savage. About a quarter of a mile west of this place there is a large
bog or swamp, a hundred or more yards across, which, if one may judge
from present conditions, the expedition probably skirted to the north,
and then went on westward in almost a straight line for about a mile and
a half till it came to the present township road. From the camp of the
Twelve Springs to this place one has very little difficulty in following
the old road; but from this point onward for a little over a mile no
distinct traces can be found. The most probable inferences, however,
support the local tradition that the line coincides with the township
road for a few rods, then crosses it north of an old burying-ground, to
the east of which formerly stood an old hotel, and then, immediately
rejoining it, coincides or closely parallels it for a distance of less
than half a mile. At this point the road enters the farm of W. H.
Hansel, and, proceeding in a northwesterly direction, presently enters a
strip of woods, passes the old Bishop house (unoccupied), and then runs
down Hager Hill south of James Bishop's, a quarter of a mile south of
Fort Necessity.[53] For a mile and a half from the James Bishop house
the road can be very accurately followed to the point at which it
intersects the National turnpike,--a point, it may be noted, about a
stone's throw south of the spot where lie the mortal remains of General
Braddock.[54] At this intersection the road leaves the turnpike never
again to rejoin it, and turns somewhat to the northwest in order to gain
a favorable pass over Chestnut Ridge, the last mountain ridge to be
crossed. About a quarter of a mile northward from Braddock's grave was
"the camp on the west side of the Great Meadows," the Orchard Camp.[55]
[Illustration: SITE OF FORT NECESSITY
FROM PAINTING BY PAUL WEBER, 1854]
A short distance from this camp the road runs south of Nemacolin's
Wigwam,[56] and a few rods northward near a schoolhouse enters the
wooded part of Chestnut Ridge, on the eastern slope of which it passes
the spot called Peddler's Rocks. On the western slope a sort of
transverse road, the traces of which are easily followed except for
about a quarter of a mile, was cut to join a township road near the
house of John Henry Rankin, three miles and a half from Braddock's
grave. A few rods distant on the west side of the township road are the
Half King's Rocks, better known as the Great Rock, where the old camp of
the Half King was located; and close by these rocks and south of the
road is "Washington Springs," the place of Braddock's tenth encampment,
called Rock Fort,[57] two miles south of Dunbar's camp.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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