Great Valley Road

United States   Migration    Trails and Roads    Great Valley Road

The Great Valley Road, also called in various parts the "Great Wagon Road," "Great Warriors' Trail," "Valley Pike," "Carolina Road," or "Trading Path," was the most important Colonial American route for settlers of the mountainous backcountry of the southern British colonies. It went from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania over to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia forking into the Tennessee Valley and Knoxville. The other fork went more south into the Piedmont Region of North Carolina, and then to its terminus on the Savannah River at Augusta, Georgia. From Philadelphia to Augusta was 735 miles (1183 km). Several other important early pathways merged with, or split off from the Great Valley Road.

Historical Background
The American Indians developed a network of eastern trade and warrior trails stretching from the Great Lakes to the Gulf Coast. One of these trails, the Great Warrior Path from New York to the Carolinas, also served as the western boundary of British settlement until 1744. In that year a new treaty gave control of the east side of the trail to European colonists in Virginia. This opened the way for the trail to evolve into one of the most important roads for settlers in Colonial America. By 1765 the road was cleared for use by horse drawn wagons.

After 1744, the Great Valley Road was most heavily used by Ulster-Irish immigrants called Scots-Irish in America to spread through most of Appalachia bringing their Presbyterian religion. Pennsylvania Germans also used the trail to spread into the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. The first settlements in Tennessee were associated with the end of the trail in that region.

In 1746 the Pioneer Road first crossed the Blue Ridge Mountains from Alexandria to Winchester, Virginia, where it fed into the Great Valley Road. The Wilderness Road opened in 1775 into central Kentucky, and branched off the Great Valley Road in southwest Virginia at Bristol (Sapling Grove). Starting in the late 1770s explorers and pioneers at Staunton, Virginia started using the Kanawha Trail which followed the New River/Kanawha River into West Virginia. From the terminus of the Great Valley Road at Knoxville, Avery's Trace to Nashville opened in 1788, and the Georgia Road to Athens opened in 1805.

Route
(Northeast to Southwest)


 * Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (often called the Philadelphia Wagon Road through Pennsylvania)
 * Lancaster, Lancaster, Pennsylvania
 * Gettysburg, Adams, Pennsylvania
 * Hagerstown, Washington, Maryland (crosses Cumberland Road)
 * Winchester, Frederick, Virginia (Pioneer Road from Alexandria joined here)
 * Staunton, Augusta, Virginia (start of Kanawha Trail to West Virginia)
 * Roanoke, Roanoke, Virginia (trail forks toward Knoxville and Augusta)

Western fork


 * Bristol, Washinton, Virginia (start of Wilderness Road to Boonesborough
 * Jonesboro, Washington, Tennessee
 * Knoxville, Knox, Tennessee (connects with Avery's Trace to Nashville, and the Georgia Road to Athens)

Southern fork


 * Martinsville, Henry, Virginia (on south fork of the Great Valley Road)
 * Salem, Forsyth, North Carolina
 * Salisbury, Rowan, North Carolina
 * Charlotte, Mecklenburg, North Carolina
 * Camden, Kershaw, South Carolina (where it merged with the Fall Line Road)
 * Augusta, Richmond, Georgia

Settlers and Records
For partial list of settlers who used the Great Valley Road to settle in Tennessee, see:


 * East Tennessee Historical Society, First families of Tennessee : a register of early settlers and their present-day descendants (Knoxville, Tenn.: East Tennessee Historical Society, c2000) [FHL Book 976.8 H2ff].

Internet Sites

 * Brenda E.McPherson Compton, "The Scots-Irish From Ulster and The Great Philadelphia Wagon Road" in ElectricScotland.com at http://www.electricscotland.com/history/america/wagon_road.htm (accessed 31 July 2010).
 * "The Old Wagon Road" at http://www.delmars.com/family/wagonrd.htm (accessed 31 July 2010).
 * Joe A. Morley, ed., The Way We Lived in North Carolina chapter excerpts "The Great Wagon Road" at http://www.waywelivednc.com/before-1770/wagon-road.htm (accessed 1 August 2010).