Footnotes

[1] With the exception of quoted primary sources, this document uses the contemporary spelling, Harpers Ferry, and not the 19th century spelling, Harper’s Ferry. Harpers Ferry was part of Virginia until June 20, 1863, when the state of West Virginia was created by Presidential Proclamation.

[2] Meriwether Lewis to Thomas Jefferson, July 8, 1803, quoted in Donald Jackson, Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, With Related Documents, 1783-1854 (Champaign, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1979), 106-107. The contemporary place names for the towns Lewis identifies are Charles Town, W.Va.; Fort Ashby, W.Va.; Uniontown, Pa.; and Brownsville, Pa.

[3] Adrian O’Connor, “Braddock’s Road: A Winding Path Into History,” The Winchester Star, August 31, 2002. Contemporary place names are indicated in [bracketed italics].

[4] Upper Potomac from McCoy’s Ferry to Conrad's Ferry and adjacent portions of Maryland and Virginia compiled from CountyMaps and Maps prepared Col. J.N. Macomb, A.D.C. Lt. Col. Eng. With additions and corrections by Lt. Col. D.H. Strother. Engineer Department, 1863 (Library of Congress Geography and Map Division; Call Number: G3840 1864 .U5 CW 245.2).

[5] John Kennedy Lacock, “Braddock Road,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, XXXVIII, 1 (1914), 1-38.

[6] Terry Gruber, “Ashbys’ Fort: Defending the Colonial Frontier,” (1998).

[7] Alaska Community Club, A History of Frankfort Community, Alaska, Mineral County, West Virginia (Morgantown, W.Va., Agricultural Extension Division, 1925).

[8] Robert Wellford, “A Diary Kept by Dr. Robert Wellford, of Fredericksburg, Virginia, during the March of the Virginia Troops to Fort Pitt (Pittsburg) to Suppress the Whiskey Insurrection in 1794.” William and MaryCollege Quarterly Historical Magazine, Volume 11, Issue 1 (July 1902), 1-19.

[9] Richard Dillon, Meriwether Lewis, A Biography (New York: Coward-McCann, Inc., 1965), 19. Stephen Ambrose, Undaunted Courage, Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 41.

[10] Casper Rinker resided along Racoon Run, a drain of Back Creek in Frederick County, Va. Casper was well known in the area as being in charge of a stretch of road from Hunting Ridge to the Hampshire Co. line. He was also a Captain in the Militia and was known to George Washington, as he was mentioned in the 1770 diary of Washington as “dining at Rinkers”.

[11] The Copsey Graveyard today is located along present-day W.Va. Route 127 west of Bloomery. As you approach the bridge that crosses over the LittleCacaponRiver, to the right is an open field, which was Copsey's land and the site of his former tavern.

[12] The road mileage today from Winchester, Va. through Gainesboro (U.S. Route 522), Forks of Cacapon, W.Va. (Route 127), Slanesville (Route 29), Points (Route 3), Springfield, and FortAshby (Route 28) to Cumberland, Md. is exactly 69 miles.

[13] “The Whiskey Insurrection, from The Diaries of George Washington, 30 September-19 October 1794,” The Papers of George Washington (University of Virginia).

[14] This was the site of Gen. Braddock’s encampment of June 15, 1755. At the time the National Road was laid out in 1810, Jesse Tomlinson owned the land and at this point kept a tavern (Lacock, “Braddock Road”).

[15] The Jackson House, erected by Samuel Jackson in 1785, still stands. (Glenn Tunney, “Historic Area Home Has Been in Family for Over Two Centuries”, Uniontown Herald-Standard, May 20, 2001).

[16] An 1859 directory of farms along the Monongahela River lists a 150-acre farm belonging to John Powers near the present town of Webster, Pa., approximately 14 miles north of Brownsville. (“1859 Directory of Monongahela Valley, Farmers along the banks on the Monongahela River, From the Thurstons Directory of the Monongahela and Youghiogheny Valleys - 1859”). “Forks of Yough” referred to the land between the Youghiogheny and Monongahela rivers, extending south from McKeesport, Pa. to Redstone Creek in Fayette County, Pa.

[17] Monongahela, Pa., is approximately 26 miles south of Pittsburgh.

[18] “A Map of the Alleghany, Monongahela and YohioganyRivers,” engraved for the journal of Thaddeus Mason Harris by Thomas Wightman, from the “Journal of a Tour in the Territory Northwest of the Allegheny Mountains Made in the Spring of the Year 1803,” by Thaddeus Mason Harris, published in 1805.

[19] Lewis to Jefferson, July 15, 1803, quoted in Jackson, Letters, 110.

[20] Lewis to Jefferson, July 8, 1803, quoted in Jackson, Letters, 106-107.

[21] Lewis to Jefferson, July 22, 1803, quoted in Jackson, Letters, 111-112.