Zane Trace

Stories of Guernsey County by Wm. Wolfe Page 192

Zane’s Trace

     The First Road.—For the first thirty years of its history, Guernsey county was entered mainly by way of Zane’s Trace, that being the principal road leading into it.  Then came the National Road which was an important factor in the development of the county during the next thirty ears; and then the advent of the railroad.

     We still have the National Road and the railroad, but Zane’s Trace is gone.  Only here and there can be found evidences, now almost entirely obliterated, of the road that once extended across Guernsey county, and over which the pioneers came into this western country more than a hundred years ago.

     Travelers from the eastern part of the country, when they reached Wheeling, took flat boats down the Ohio River if they wanted to go farther. The fact that the interior of Ohio could be reached only with difficulty prompted Congress in May, 1796, to authorize Ebenezer Zane, the founder of Wheeling, to blaze a trail from Wheeling to Limestone (Maysville), Kentucky.  For his services he was to receive three tracts of land, each one mile square.  These were to be located where the trail crossed the Muskingum, the Hocking and the Scioto rivers.  Zanesville is located on the Muskingum tract, Lancaster on the Hocking, and Chillicothe on the Scioto.

     The group of men who blazed the trail was headed by Ebenezer Zane’s brother, Jonathan Zane.  He was a noted hunter and Indian fighter and was familiar with the vast forest country west of Wheeling.  His advice was accepted in determining the route.  Another member of the party was John McIntire, a son-in-law of Ebenezer Zane.  For their work on this project Ebenezer Zane deeded them the square mile of land at the Muskingum crossing, for the small consideration of one hundred dollars.

     There are no records to show how many men were engaged in blazing the trail.  It is known that four others besides Zane and McIntire were in the party—John Green, William McCulloch, Ebenezer Ryan and Tomepomehala.  There were probably several others, John Green had charge of the pack horses, killed game for food, cooked for the party, and acted as general service man.  Tomepomehala was an Indian who served as guide. Axes, mattocks and shovels comprised the equipment of these pioneer road builders.

     Description of the Trail.—The work was begun in the summer of 1796.  It was not until 1798, it is believed, that the party, working westward, reached the present site of Cambridge.   In many places the trail led along routes of travel previously followed by the Indians who, in turn, had traveled the paths beaten thru the forest by the feet of buffaloes.

     Zane’s Trace at first was little more than a blazed trail or bridle path two or three hundred miles in length.  It crossed what are now Belmont, Guernsey, Muskingum, Perry, Fairfield, Pickaway, Ross, Pike and Adams counties, reaching the Ohio River at the corner of Brown county; on the opposite side of the river was Limestone, Kentucky, now known as Maysville.

     According to the contract Zane was to open the road and provide for establishing ferries where it crossed all the larger streams.  It was intended, of course, that the smaller streams be forded.  Tradition has it that before the course, that the road was accepted by Congress Zane was required to drive a wagon over it, but it is doubtful that this is true.  As travel over the trail increased the trail was widened and some changes were made in its course.  Today these changes are confusing to those trying to trace the original trail.  By a special act of the legislature in 1803, authority was given to make it a good wagon road and change its name to the Wheeling road.  A few years later a stage line was established on it and stagecoaches were run between Wheeling and Maysville.