From Washington Springs the line follows the course of the present road
for about a mile, with distinct marks at intervals along the sides; it
then continues in a northerly direction eastward of the present road to
a point east of Jumonville and of Jumonville's grave.[58] From here it
keeps its northerly course along a very narrow crest of the mountain,
past the Honey Comb Rock, and thereafter in the main follows the
dividing line between North Union and Dunbar townships to a point about
one mile south of the old Meason house on the Gist Plantation, when by a
slight deflection northwestward it crosses Cove Run and the Pennsylvania
Railroad to Gist's Plantation, the place of the eleventh encampment.[59]
Between the tenth and eleventh encampments the traces of the road are so
plain that one does not have to rely on inference.
The last mountain barrier had now been passed. Along this narrow road,
cut but twelve feet wide and with the line of march often extending four
miles at a time, the army had toiled on day after day, crossing ridge
after ridge of the Alleghany Mountains, now plunging down into a deep
and often narrow ravine, now climbing a difficult and rocky ascent, but
always in the deep shadow of the forest. On such a thoroughfare, running
between heavily-wooded forests on either side of the road and made still
narrower and often several feet deep by usage, it was of course
impossible for a vehicle coming in the opposite direction to pass; but
on nearly all the mountain ranges, and especially in the low grounds,
there were wider places where by some kind of signals or by some
preconcerted understanding the packtrains and wagons, which frequently
moved in caravans, could meet and pass one another. Thenceforward,
however, the character and general aspect of the country were noticeably
different. The land of active coal developments, including coke ovens,
had been reached. For many miles to the northward the traveller passes
over a vast extent of country from under which the coal has been taken,
and from which the props have given way in many places, leaving deep and
treacherous holes. Such crevices are especially frequent from Prittstown
to a point east of Mount Pleasant, a circumstance which in some places
materially interferes with the relocation of Braddock Road.
Leaving Gist's Plantation the line runs abruptly to the northward,
evidently keeping the higher ground to a point about a quarter of a mile
east of Leisenring, where it turns into the valley of Opossum Run and
follows the stream to its mouth in the Youghiogheny. On the west side of
the Youghiogheny, near Robinson's Falls, was the place of the twelfth
encampment.[60] Although no trustworthy scars of the road from Gist's
Plantation to this point are discernible, there can be little doubt that
this was the line of march.[61]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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