Note 10 — I Conrad Weiser’s Journal of a Tour to the Ohio August 11-October 2, 1748

There were three great Indian paths from east to west through Western Pennsylvania. The southern led from Fort Cumberland on the Potomac, westward through the valleys of Youghiogheny and Monongahela, to the Forks of the Ohio, and was the route taken by Washington in 1753, later by Braddock’s expedition, and was substantially the line of the great Cumberland National Road of the early nineteenth century.

The central trail, passing through Carlisle, Shippensburg, and Bedford, over Laurel Mountain, through Fort Ligonier, over Chestnut Ridge, to Shannopin’s Town at the Forks of the Ohio, was the most direct, and became the basis of General Forbes’s road, and later of the Pennsylvania wagon road to the Ohio. Gist took this trail in 1750.—See Hulbert, Old Glade Road (Cleveland, 1903).

The northern, or Kittanning trail, was the oldest, and that most used by Indian traders. It is this route that Weiser followed. From Croghan’s, he passed over into the valley of Sherman’s Creek (in Perry County), crossed the Tuscarora Mountains at what was later known as Sterritt’s Gap, and reached the Black Log sleeping place near Shade Valley in the southeastern part of Huntingdon County. This was a digression to the south, for in an extract from his journal in Pennsylvania Archives, ii, p. 13, Weiser says: “The Black Log is 8 or 10 miles South East of the Three Springs and Frank’s Town lies to yᵉ North, so that there must be a deduction of at least twenty miles.” From here, following the valley of Aughwick Creek, he crossed the Juniata River, and approached the “Standing Stone.” This was a prominent landmark of the region, and stood on the right bank of a creek of the same name, near the present town of Huntingdon. It was about 14 feet high, and six inches square, and served as a kind of Indian guidepost for that region. From this point, the trail followed the Juniata Valley, coinciding for a short distance with the line of the Pennsylvania Central Railway, but turning off on the Frankstown branch of the Juniata at the present town of Petersburg.

There was also a fourth trail, still farther north, by way of Sunbury and the west branch of the Susquehanna to Venango. This was Post’s route in 1758.—Ed.