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 VI

T is probable that, as early as 1753, after his return from his mission to the French forts, George Washington first introduced the subject of uniting the East and West by means of public highways. If England was to hold the West she must have a passageway to it.

The project involved very great expense and Governor Dinwiddie paid little heed to it. Had Virginia acted on the young Washington's suggestion, how much life and treasure would have been saved! Braddock could not but have been successful, and that would have made Forbes's expedition needless, and perhaps Bouquet's also.

As it was, Braddock's twelve-foot road was almost her only communication with the West. But Washington held to his boyhood dream of a highway over the mountains. As the years passed, his plans