Carolina Road

The Carolina Road or the "Old Carolina Road" are names for various sections of the Great Wagon Road and other routes in colonial America. "The 'Old Carolina Road', extending from Lancaster, Pennsylvania to the Yadkin Valley, was one of the most heavily traveled roads in eighteenth century America." Parts of the 180 mile long Journey Through Hallowed Ground National Heritage Area scenic byway follows the Old Carolina Road through Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia.

An article written during the Bicentennial discusses the colonial routes passing through and around Frederick, Maryland. The Dennis Griffith map of 1794 clearly shows the Monocacy Road crossing the river at Ceresville, Maryland. Thus this important route, described at first as a "plain path" between the villages of the Susquehannock Indians in Pennsylvania and Oceaneechee Island in the south, became a road passing through Fredericktown. It was a link in the old Carolina Road. The main Monocacy Road was recorded as passing near the Quaker Meeting House at Buckeystown, Maryland (near Md. Route 85).

Starting in Pennsylvania, this "Carolina Road" led through southern Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia and into Alabama. This was a major migration route of Swiss-German and Scotch-Irish settlers into frontier America in the 1740s until the American Revolutionary War.

Some consensus indicates this Carolina road started in Frederick, Maryland, with feeder roads and other trails reaching from Pennsylvania. Parts of this Carolina Road, almost 55 miles, follow modern U.S. Route 15 through Loudoun, Fauquier and Prince William Counties in Virginia.

Used as a transportation route, in addition to early settlers, manufactured goods including woolen and linen clothes and leather products, such as harness, saddles, boots and shoes, were sent south, and hides, indigo and money were sent back north. Many drovers herded swine, cattle, sheep and even turkey flocks along the Carolina Road. Because many of these drovers would pick up cows and other livestock to add to their herds in northern Virginia, this was also called the "Rogues' Road" by local farmers. "Indeed, as early as 1747, a Fauquier land grant refers to the Carolina Road as "Rogues Road," a name that appears in Fauquier and Loudoun deeds throughout the early 19OOs. A few miles north of Leesburg, on old Montresor farm, a narrow wooded stream valley still bears the name Rogues' Hollow, for tradition states that this geographic depression was the lair for thieves about to plunder travelers."

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Wikipedia