View source for Braddock Road (Braddock expedition)

{{Short description|Road in Maryland and Pennsylvania built in 1755}}
{{Refimprove|date=April 2021}}
{{About|the historical road in Maryland and Pennsylvania|Braddock's expedition|Braddock Expedition}}
[[File:Braddock Road Fort Necessity PA.jpg|thumb|Braddock Road trace near Fort Necessity, Pennsylvania.]]
The '''Braddock Road''' was a [[military]] road built in 1755 in what was then [[British America]] and is now the [[United States]].  It was the first improved road to cross the barrier of the [[Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians|successive ridgelines]] of the [[Appalachian Mountains]]. It was constructed by troops of [[Virginia militia]] and British regulars commanded by [[Edward Braddock|General Edward Braddock]] of the [[Coldstream Guards]], part of an [[Braddock expedition|expedition]] to conquer the [[Ohio Country]] from the French at the beginning of the [[French and Indian War]], the North American portion of the [[Seven Years' War]]. [[George Washington]] was an aide-de-camp to General Braddock (one of his favorites) who accompanied the expedition. The expedition gave him his first field military experience along with other American military officers. A number of these men would profit from this experience during the [[American Revolutionary War|Revolutionary War]].
==Construction==
In 1755, Braddock was sent to remove the French from [[Fort Duquesne]] (Pittsburgh).<ref name="WDL">{{cite web |url = http://www.wdl.org/en/item/9580/ |title = The Battle of the Monongahela |website = [[World Digital Library]] |date = 1755 |accessdate = 2013-08-03 }}</ref> Starting from [[Fort Cumberland (Maryland)|Fort Cumberland]], General Braddock ordered 600 men, commanded by Major Chapman and John St. Clair to cut a military road over Haystack Mountain. The road followed an Indian path known as [[Nemacolin's path]]<ref name="Laycock">{{cite web |last1=Laycock |first1=John Kennedy |title=Braddock Road |url=http://npshistory.com/publications/fone/braddock-road.pdf |website=National Park Service History |publisher=US Government Printing Office |access-date=30 October 2023}}</ref> which had been improved by George Washington and Christopher Gist for the Ohio Company. Chapman’s task was to build the road to Little Meadows, about 20 miles away.
After a day of road-building, Maj. Chapman's men had only built two miles of road and had destroyed three wagons trying to get over the treacherous terrain encountered on the mountain. Braddock was about to dispatch 300 more men to the road crew when he was informed, by Lt. Spendlow of the Navy detachment, of an easier route through the Narrows.
Braddock took approximately 1400 men, with accompanying wagons, along Spendlow's route and joined Chapman's road at Spendlow's Camp, in today's [[LaVale, Maryland]].
[[image:Cumberland md braddock road.jpg|thumb|upright=1.6|Lacock's map of the road]]
Braddock met defeat east of [[Fort Duquesne]] and was fatally wounded.<ref name="WDL"/> He was buried in the middle of the road he built, and his soldiers marched over the grave, with the hope of concealing the grave's location from the Indians. The grave was found years later by road workers and the grave was moved. The site is now marked by a marble monument erected in 1913.
The [[Forbes Expedition]], a more successful British expedition mounted against Fort Duquesne in 1758, used a different route through the mountains west of [[Carlisle, Pennsylvania]] along what became known as [[Forbes' Road]].
The [[Cumberland Road]], which subsequently became part of the [[National Road]] and later [[U.S. Route 40]], roughly parallel Braddock's Road between [[Cumberland, Maryland]], and [[Chestnut Ridge, Pennsylvania|Chestnut Ridge]] near [[Uniontown, Pennsylvania|Uniontown]].
In August 1908 and again during June and July 1909, [[John Kennedy Lacock]], a Harvard professor originally from [[Amity, Washington County, Pennsylvania|Amity]], in [[Washington County, Pennsylvania]], was able to identify the path of Braddock's march.  He hired Ernest K. Weller to photograph the road. Lacock's commissioned photographs survive in the form of postcards, which he published in 1910, and his written account was published in the ''Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography'' in 1914. The road Lacock discovered was a road made by over 30 years of colonial settlers following Braddock's trail.
==See also==
{{Portal|Pennsylvania|France|North America|History}}
* [[Great Britain in the Seven Years War]]
* [[Forbes Road]]
== References ==
===Footnotes===
{{reflist}}
===Sources===
* John Kennedy Lacock, "[http://www.route40.net/page.asp?n=10592 Braddock's Road]," ''Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography'', XXXVIII, 1 (1914), pp.&nbsp;1–38.
* Will H. Lowdermilk, ''History of Cumberland'', Clearfield Co., October 1997, Paperback, {{ISBN|0-8063-7983-9}}. [https://books.google.com/books?id=rU7QCQTpvroC Full Text Online]
*Steve Colby, ''General Braddock's Road Over Haystack Mountain, West of Fort Cumberland", (https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10151673387202667&id=226549977666)
* Cassandra Vivian, ''The National Road in Pennsylvania'', Arcadia Publishing, 2004, {{ISBN|0-7385-1166-8}}
* Norman L. Baker, ''Braddock's Road: Mapping the British Expedition from Alexandria to the Monongahela'', The History Press, 2013, {{ISBN|162619114X}}.
==External links==
{{Wikivoyage|Braddock Expedition}}
*[http://www.route40.net/page.asp?n=10590 John Kennedy Lacock Postcards and Photographs]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Braddock Road (Braddock Expedition)}}
[[Category:Historic trails and roads in Maryland]]
[[Category:Historic trails and roads in Pennsylvania]]
[[Category:Historic trails and roads in the United States]]
[[Category:History of Cumberland, MD-WV MSA]]
[[Category:Pre-statehood history of Maryland]]
[[Category:Pre-statehood history of Pennsylvania]]
[[Category:Roads in Pennsylvania]]
[[Category:Streets in Pittsburgh]]
[[Category:U.S. Route 40]]