ld hill regions. Let the traveler
of today, as he follows the track that once was Braddock's Road, picture
the scene of that earlier time when, in the face of every natural
obstacle, the army toiled across the mountain chains. Where the earth
in yonder ravine is whipped to a black froth, the engineers have
thrown down the timber cut in widening the trail and have constructed a
corduroy bridge, or rather a loose raft on a sea of muck. The wreck of
the last wagon which tried to pass gives some additional safety to the
next. Already the stench from the horse killed in the accident deadens
the heavy, heated air of the forest. The sailors, stripped to the waist,
are ready with ropes and tackle to let the next wagon down the
incline; the pulleys creak, the ropes groan. The horses, weak and
terror-stricken, plunge and rear; in the final crash to the level the
leg of the wheel horse is caught and broken; one of the soldiers shoots
the animal; the traces are unbuckled; another beast is substituted.
Beyond, the seamen are waiting with tackle attached to trees on the
ridge above to assist the horses on the cruel upgrade--and Braddock, the
deceived, maligned, misrepresented, and misjudged, creeps onward in his
brave conquest of the Alleghanies in a campaign that, in spite of its
military failure, deserves honorable mention among the achievements of
British arms.

Everywhere, north and south, the early American road was a veritable
Slough of Despond. Watery pits were to be encountered wherein horses
were drowned and loads sank from sight. Frequently traffic was stopped
for hours by wagons which had broken down and blocked the way. Thirteen
wagons at one time were stalled on Logan's Hill on the York Road.
Frightful accidents occurred in attempting to draw out loads. Jonathan
Tyson, for instance, in 1792, near Philadelphia saw a horse's lower jaw
torn off by the slipping of a chain.

Save in the winter, when in the northern colonies snow filled the ruts
and frost built solid bridges over the streams, travel on these early
roads was never safe, rapid, nor comfortable. The comparative ease of
winter travel for the carriage of heavy freight and for purposes of
trade and social intercourse gave the colder regions an advantage over
the southern that was an important factor in the development of the
country.

No genuine improvement of roads and highways seems to have been
attempted until the era heralded by Washington's letter to Harriso