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HE great early trade route through Pennsylvania in the days of the pack-horse and "Conestoga" wagon has been outlined in previous volumes of this series. By means of Forbes's Road the metropolis of the United States at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Philadelphia, was in close connection with the metropolis of the Ohio Basin, Pittsburg. The rivalry with Baltimore had been keen, and the Philadelphia merchants were eager to overcome their handicap of nearly one hundred miles, by internal improvements of a most advanced pattern. In the matter of roads, liberal as had been Pennsylvania's policy, Maryland was far ahead, so far as the West was concerned. And in 1806, when a national road across