'Migration Trails' brief description'
-- Under Construction --
BOSTON POST ROAD:
Served as a mail-service trail between Boston and New York in the 17th century.
BRADDOCK ROAD:
Military road that became the first overland route through the Allegheny
Mountains.
CALIFORNIA TRAIL:
Nearly 40,000 people caught gold fever in 1848 and traveled overland to
California to find the precious metal. The trail coincided with the Oregon
Trail until it crossed the Rockies.
CHEROKEE REMOVAL ROUTES: Some of these same routes where probably used by American settlers.
FALL LINE
ROAD:
A popular
road from Pennsylvania and Maryland to the Carolinas before 1750, it broke off
from the King's Highway at Fredericksburg, Va., and followed the fall line
through Virginia, the Carolinas and into Georgia.
FORBES
ROAD:
First a
military road to get General John Forbes' troops from Harrisburg to Fort
Duquesne (Later Fort Pitt and then Pittsburgh) during the French and Indian War;
it provided a westward route for settlers from eastern Pennsylvania and New
England.
GREAT VALLEY
ROAD:
Migrating
families to western Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee made this the most
traveled road in colonial America.
KING'S HIGHWAY:
Formed by old post routes, the continuous highway helped colonists travel from
Main to Georgia.
MOHAWK
TRAIL:
Major
route for hundreds of thousands of pioneers making their way west; precursor of
the Erie Canal, New York Central Railroad and the New York State Thruway.
MORMON TRAIL:
Between 1847 and 1869, about 85,000 Mormon pioneers traveled along this
1,400-mile route from Nauvoo, Ill., to what became Salt Lake City.
NATCHEZ TRACE:
The only way to get to the Old Southwest before 1806, running from Lexington,
Ky., to Natchez, Miss.
NATIONAL ROAD:
Also known as the Cumberland Road or national Pike, this route for
westward-bound settlers never quite met its goals. It ad reached only from
Wheeling, WV. to Vandalia, Ill., when the railroad eliminated the need for it.
OREGON
TRAIL:
Along
what was perhaps the most important migration trail, more than 350,000 pioneers
- mostly from Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri and Illinois - journeyed the 2,000 miles
from Independence, Mo., to the Columbia River region of Oregon from 1841 to
1869.
San Antonio Road: ??
UPPER ROAD:
An important migration route to the Carolinas from Fredericksburg.
WILDERNESS ROAD:
Thousands of pioneers followed this route to settle in Kentucky and the lower
Ohio Valley.
ZANE'S
TRACE:
A way for
migrating settlers to cross the Ohio River.