- Great Wagon Road
The Great Wagon Road was a
colonial America n thoroughfare fromPennsylvania toNorth Carolina and from there to Georgia. It was the heavily traveled main route for settlement of the Southern United States, particularly the 'back country'. This was the area that received many German and Scots-Irish immigrants in the 18th century. The Scots-Irish and English from the Northern Border area were the largest group of immigrants from the British Isles before the American Revolution. [David Hackett Fischer, "Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America", New York: Oxford University Press, 1989, pp.605-608]Beginning in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania , the Great Wagon Road passed through the towns of Lancaster and York in southeastern Pennsylvania. Portions of the Great Wagon Road traveled to present-dayMechanicsburg, Pennsylvania (about 30 miles northwest of York). Mechanicsburg derives its name from the many mechanics who set up shop there in order to benefit from the abundance of wagon trains traveling through the town.Turning southwest, the road crossed the
Potomac River and entered theShenandoah Valley atWinchester, Virginia , continuing down the valley via theGreat Warriors' Trail established by centuries of Native American travel. The Shenandoah portion of the road is also known as theValley Pike . South of the Shenandoah Valley, the road reached theRoanoke River at the town of Big Lick (today,Roanoke, Virginia ).From there, the Great Wagon Road passed through the Roanoke River Gap to the east side of the Blue Ridge, and continued south through the Piedmont region and the present-day
North Carolina towns of Winston-Salem, Salisbury, and Charlotte, ultimately reachingAugusta, Georgia on theSavannah River .South of Roanoke, the Great Wagon Road was also called the
Carolina Road .At Roanoke a road forked southwest, leading into the upper
New River Valley and on to theHolston River in the upperTennessee Valley , from which theWilderness Road led into Kentucky.Note that despite its present day name, the southern part of this road was by no means passable by wagons until later Colonial times. The 1751 Fry-Jefferson map mentions the term 'Waggon' only north of Winchester.
ee also
*
Interstate 81
*Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike
*U.S. Route 11 References
*Rouse, Parke, Jr: "The Great Wagon Road" (
2004 ) Richmond: The Diaz Press. ISBN 0-87517-065-X.
*http://www.waywelivednc.com/before-1770/wagon-road.htm
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