Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 10).djvu/46

46 Starting from Cumberland the general alignment of Braddock's Road was pursued, until the point was reached where the old thoroughfare left the old portage trail, on the summit of Laurel Hill. The course was then laid straight toward Brownsville (Redstone Old Fort) probably along the general alignment of the old Indian portage path, and an earlier road. From Brownsville to Washington was an old road, possibly the course of the Indian trail.

As has already been suggested, there was a dispute concerning the point where the road would touch the Ohio River. The rivalry was most intense between Wheeling and Steubenville. Wheeling won through the influence of Henry Clay, to whom a monument was erected at a later date near the town on the old road. The commissioners rendered a second report on the fifteenth of January, 1808 as follows:

"The undersigned, commissioners appointed under the law of the United States, entitled 'An act to regulate the laying out and making a road from Cumberland, in the State of Maryland, to the State of Ohio,' in addition to the communications