America’s Historic Roads
Puzzle 12 · Post Roads and the New Republic · Page 26 in print
Forbes Road
Forbes Road crews cut a route from Fort Loudon to Raystown, now Bedford, and built Fort Bedford there.
Jump to a word
The words
Artillery
Guns the road had to carry for an army of 6,000. Load the road was built for.
Axemen
Road-clearing workers under Bouquet.
Burnt Cabins
Destination of the steep western branch Forbes avoided.
Carlisle
Forbes’s main base. Campaign base.
Cowan Gap
Gap where Forbes crossed Tuscarora Mountain.
Fort Bedford
Fort built at Raystown, modern Bedford.
Fort Duquesne
French fort at the Forks of the Ohio, Forbes’s objective.
Fort Ligonier
Fort ordered at Loyalhanna Creek in 1758.
Fort Loudon
Pennsylvania frontier post (1755–56) where road building began in earnest.
Henry Bouquet
Forbes’s second-in-command whose axemen widened the path.
Loyalhanna
Loyalhanna Creek camp fifty miles from the Forks.
Parnells Knob
Peak the southern branch skirted to avoid heavy grades.
Raystown Path
Indigenous and traders’ path that Forbes followed.
Shippensburg
Town where the Raystown Path forked.
Stockades
Fortified camps built at intervals.
Sources
- ExplorePAHistory.com (PHMC marker text)explorepahistory.com
- ExplorePAHistory.com (WITF / Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission marker)explorepahistory.com
- Stories from PA History: the Forbes RoadExplorePAHistory.com