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18 southwestern Pennsylvania, and it grew worse and worse with each year's travel. Indeed, the more northerly route, marked out in part by General Forbes in 1758, was plainly the preferable road for travelers to Pittsburg until the building of the Cumberland Road, 1811–1818.

The rapid peopling of the state of Ohio, and the promise of an equal development in Indiana and Illinois caused the building of our first and only great national road. Congress passed an act on the thirtieth of April, 1802, enabling the people of Ohio to form a state government and seek admission into the Union. Section seven contained the following provision:

"That one-twentieth of the net proceeds of the lands lying within said State sold by Congress shall be applied to the laying out and making public roads leading from the navigable waters emptying into the Atlantic, to the Ohio, to the said state, and through the same, such roads to be laid out under the authority of Congress, with the consent of the several states through which the roads shall pass."