Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 8).djvu/78

74 which surprisingly little can be definitely stated. Considering how numerous are the old-time maps which show the roads of the red-men in eastern and central Ohio and in Kentucky, it is remarkable that almost none give the routes in western Ohio and eastern Indiana. By comparison of contemporaneous authorities it is certain there were three important landward thoroughfares leading northward from the Ohio River into the region here under view. In general terms, the most easterly of these ascended the valley of the Little Miami; another passed northward on the watershed between the two Miamis; the third ran north from the present site of Cincinnati on the watershed to the west of the Great Miami, with branches running into and up the river valley itself. All of these routes led to the strategic portages which connected the two Miamis and the Scioto with the St. Mary and Auglaize tributaries of the Maumee.

The unfortunate Bowman expedition of