Great Trail
The Great Trail, also known as the Great Path, was a network of footpaths created by Algonquian and Iroquoian-speaking peoples prior to the arrival of European colonists in North America. This Native American Trail connected the Great Lakes region of Canada to New England and the mid-Atlantic. Many major highways in the Northeastern United States follow the routes set down centuries ago by Native Americans moving along these trails.
Sections of the Great Trail have been called "warpaths” but the primary purpose for these roads was peaceful trade, hunting, and gathering of natural resources along their routes.
Our section of the Great Trail followed a more southern route from Delaware across Pennsylvania to Oldtown, Maryland, and then to the Ohio River below Pittsburgh. It crossed Columbiana County to Bolivar and Sandusky and then continued west.
The Great Trail corridor summons the wild spirit of the First American West. Along this route, the Ohio River Trail Council (ORTC) is supporting the building a recreation and heritage area, to celebrate the tenacious frontiersmen and natives who fought this land. The installation of roadside interpretive historical markers is to be placed where the proposed Ohio River Trail travels along the Great Path.
Great Trail - What Happened in our region?
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1753 |
George Washington travels the trail from Pittsburgh to Logstown, and meets the Half King (Tanach-arison), leader of the Six Nations. |
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1754 |
French capture English fort at Pittsburgh point. The French will control Ohio from Ft. Duquesne for the next six years. |
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1763 |
18 year old James Smith captured by Indians, forced to run the gauntlet, and abducted over the trail. |
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Chief Pontiac leads several Native tribes to capture nearly all English outposts, including Forts Sandusky, Miami, Presque Isle, and Venango. Traders and trappers flee over the Trail to the protection of Ft. Pitt. |
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An Indian war party ambushes one such group led by trader Thomas Calhoun. Eight men are killed. |
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1764 |
1500 English soldiers and militiamen march along the trail against the Indians. They build a blockade house at Bolivar; then leave the trail to march south to Coshocton. |
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1775 |
Simon Girty and six others desert the American cause, leave Ft. Pitt, and flee over the trail to Ft. Detroit. |
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1778 |
1200 American Militiamen march against English & natives. They build Ft. Laurens at Bolivar. |
 1755 Map of Braddock's Road | [ ] | 247 Kb |
| Brighton Township_Great Path | [ ] | 357 Kb |
| Families Migrating West_The Great Trail from Fort Pitt to Detroit | [ ] | 64 Kb |
| Great Path Map Beaver County PA | [ ] | 238 Kb |
| Great Path Pittsburgh to Detroit | [ ] | 554 Kb |
| Great Trail Corridor Brochure | [ ] | 226 Kb |
| Great Trail Diagram Pittsburgh Pa to Ohio | [ ] | 29 Kb |
| Great Trail Marker Toledo Ohio | [ ] | 257 Kb |
| Great Trail_Fort Pitt to Fort Laurens | [ ] | 61 Kb |
| Gteat Trail Stop #10_An Army Camps for the Night | [ ] | 651 Kb |
| Historic American Indian Tribes of Ohio 1654_1843 | [ ] | 4479 Kb |
| History of Great Trail_Gary Winterburn | [ ] | 411 Kb |
| History of Roads in Michigan | [ ] | 107 Kb |
| Indian Trails and Towns in Ohio | [ ] | 79 Kb |
| Indian Tribes, Trails, & Towns of Ohio | [ ] | 366 Kb |
| Ohio Indian Trails Map | [ ] | 307 Kb |
| On The Great Trail by Robert Griffing | [ ] | 111 Kb |
| Great Trail in the American Revolution | [ ] | 89 Kb |
| Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio Great Trail Map | [ ] | 409 Kb |