Talk:Great Wagon Road

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Bryant/ Bryan RE: References to the "Bryant" family and the route south of Maggotty Gap and Shallowford settlement on the Yadkin River: To the best of my knowledge based on extensive readings about the GWR (Great Wagon Rd.), this family was known as the "Bryan" family. This is the same family that the Boone family married into- as in Daniel Boone and his wife, Rebecca

see https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/bryan-morgan https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/boone-daniel https://www.ncpedia.org/history/colonial/philadelphia-wagon-road is this the source of the mistake? GFulton regulatornc@gmail.com 74.218.175.34 (talk) 16:11, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Great Wagon Road? I would like to hear from others about the correction I made in it? Ralph A. Applegate, ygenet3f3u@yahoo.com


 * I think the correction belongs on the talk page, especially when signed by name, so I'm moving it here:

Turning southwest, the road reached the Potomac River at Williamsport, Maryland (William's Ferry)(This can not be correct because Ferry at Williamsport was not Williams, it was Evan Watkins Ferry , it appears to me that a more correct statement would be that Great Philadelphia Wagon Road split at Waynesboro, Pa ., into 2 roads , Waggon Road crossing at Watkins Ferry-1741-Williamsport and Philadelphia Waggon Road crossing at Williams Ferry which appears to have been midway-half- between where Potomac descends from below Hagerstown, and next northern bend of Potomac River , then both roads converge at Winchester becoming Great Philadelphia Wagon Road)(This -half- point may be how the place called "Halfway" originated)(We all should be careful of relying on Parke Rouse, or George , Donald , or Dickie?)(Ralph A. Applegate, ygenet3f3u@yahoo.com)

Since I don't know the correct answer and you seem unsure, I'll edit the main page to be something less precise. Feel free to improve it, or add more comments on this talk page. And yea, I added the reference to the book by Rouse, even though it seemed to contain numerous questionable statements. I had trouble finding a good, detailed source of information on this road's history and route. Do you know of any? Pfly 17:34, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Map request
I have looked forever for a reference and best I could find was by Swank who is either dead or in a nursing home in York,Pa.?

Roads move around over time
I just want to remind everybody that over time the location of roads can move around, so there is no exact route of "the Great Wagon Road." e.g. the inclusion of Mechanicsburg (which seems to have a history related to the road), would make "the" route go way out of line from York to Haegerstown.

I've included a link to the Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike even though it postdates the map (1795 to 1751). There seems to be an earlier road over this part of the route, the Conestoga Pike but I don't have good info. there is a sketchy line in a 1777 Hessian map labeled in French "Chemin de Lancaster". This misc info is not in the article because I don't know enough and the sources are not all up to snuff. This is included here just as a warning that Original Research is a potential mistake here and pinning down the road too precisely is a mistake. Smallbones (talk) 16:18, 17 July 2008 (UTC)



jgo I'm hoping someone else is more familiar with Wiki formatting and editing conventions and can make use of the following info: more links: http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nchist-colonial/2038 nice 1751 map by Joshua Fry & Peter Jefferson

higher-resolution http://www.learnnc.org/lp/media/maps/nc/JeffFry.jpg

http://www.electricscotland.com/history/america/wagon_road.htm

http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~jennings/manuscript/jmfult07.htm

jgo 01:46, 7 July 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.44.18.217 (talk)

Adding References
It seems that this article has been dormant for a while. I'm proposing to tighten up the introduction with Parke Rouse as the primary reference simply because of his wide coverage of the topic and easy reading style. Beyond that, I have quite a lot of other references to maintain accuracy of details, which may be best presented in tabular form. I'll first try to add a table covering Philadelphia to Roanoke (much of which is based on a contemporaneous daily record kept by 15 men with one wagon traveling from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania to Winston-Salem, North Carolina in 1753). If that's OK, I'll add the second part from Roanoke to Salisbury, followed by what I have for Salisbury to Augusta, Georgia. Any comments are welcome. (Postazoic (talk) 15:08, 7 August 2014 (UTC))

Tables and formatting are too bulky
We have to do something about the formatting and the tables here. It just doesn't work and isn't readable. Can we put material in prose form and slim down the tables. The heading for the tables need to be shorter. I realize an awful lot of work has gone into this, but we have to make it readable. Smallbones( smalltalk ) 17:10, 27 September 2017 (UTC)