(Ed's Note:  I've borrowed writings from multiple sources describing the road west from Baltimore to Zanesville, especially the Church of the Brethren Network, my thanks.  I've chosen to address three roads describing the route the Resch family took on their way to Zanesville highlighting the historical flavoring of their journey in 1833.  Keep in mind that chronologically, Braddock's Road, then Zane's Trace and finally The National Road is the correct order for construction, I elected to list them geographically, east to west.)

Road From Baltimore to Zanesville  -  1833

Western Migration Routes

    After the Revolutionary War, immigrants discovered the Ohio River as a convenient highway to the newly opened public lands in the west. Pittsburgh became the gateway to the west, where migrants would stop and built a flatboat to float down the Ohio River to their new lands. One of two main overland routes to access the Ohio River was built during the French and Indian War. Braddock’s Road, constructed in 1755, followed the path from Cumberland, Maryland to Uniontown, Pennsylvania, then northwards into Pittsburgh. This road later was called the Cumberland Road.

A By-Pass Route

    By 1796, Wheeling, Virginia, entered the picture as a new gateway to the west. This was a result of a new route that by-passed Pittsburgh as the main route to the Ohio River. Called Gist’s Trace, it was a wagon road that left Braddock’s Road at Uniontown, Pennsylvania. Migrating families leaving Baltimore, Maryland or Alexandria, Virginia could take their horse-drawn Conestoga wagon along the Cumberland Road into Western Maryland, Southwestern Pennsylvania, and land at the Ohio River at Wheeling.

The Wheeling Ferry and Zane’s Trace

    Ebenezer Zane is considered the founder of Wheeling, Virginia, now West Virginia (1863 statehood).  He ended up with control of both sides of the most advantageous ferry crossing site on the Ohio River for emigrants moving into the new Northwest Territory. As a result of his strategic location, and with a monopoly on ferry crossings at that point, Zane became a very prosperous man.
    Zane also was in charge of the construction of the first wagon road into the Ohio Country, which became known as Zane’s Trace. In 1796, Zane contracted with the U.S. Federal Government to construct a wagon road, beginning at his ferry landing across from Wheeling, and heading west to Zanesville. The line of Zane’s Trace is westerly to Zanesville, around 80 miles. From Zanesville, the route followed a southwestern direction to Lancaster, and then into Chillicothe. From Chillicothe, the roadway continued southwest to present-day Bainbridge, and then onto the Ohio River at present-day Aberdeen, just across the river from Limestone (now Maysville, Kentucky).

The National Road

    Congress authorized the National Road, today called U.S. Route 40, in 1806 during the Jefferson Administration. Construction began in Cumberland, Maryland in 1811. The route closely paralleled the military road opened by George Washington and General Braddock in 1754-55, the Cumberland Road, Gist's Trace and Zane's Trace. By 1818 the road had been completed to the Ohio River at Wheeling. Eventually the road was pushed through central Ohio and Indiana reaching Vandalia, Illinois in the 1830's where construction ceased due to a lack of funds.

Braddock Road  1755       

    Major General Edward Braddock, of the Coldstream Guards, was Supreme Commander of the British Forces in the American Colonies during the French and Indian War, 1754-1763, the colonial phase of the Seven Years War between England and France, fought world wide. In an attempt to deter the Indian raids and massacres into the frontier settlements in the middle colonies, he determined to take the French Fort Duquesne (Pittsburgh), at the forks of the Ohio River.
    In 1755, with an army of 1400 British Regulars and a militia of 700 provincials under Lieutenant Colonel George Washington, he moved up the Annapolis Road to Frederick, Maryland. There he took the settlers road through Middletown Valley to Hagerstown, and on to the frontier Fort Frederick, on the Potomac River. Under the guidance of the Colonial Scouts, following the path used by Colonel George Washington only the year before, he started for Fort Duquesne. The army had to cut their own road for the wagon's and cannon. They went west, through Cumberland, Maryland, (old Fort Cumberland). They passed the tiny Fort Necessity, where Colonel Washington had escaped with his troops after surrendering to the French, just the year before.

    From the Redstone Creek (Uniontown), the army headed due north until it crossed the Youghiogheny River. It then followed the Monongahela River toward the fort. At the location of present day town of Braddock, some 7 miles from the Point (the site of Old Fort Duquesne), there in a ravine, a combined French and Indian force ambushed the British Army, a slaughter ensued. The remnants of the army fled back along the route of its approach. General Braddock, having been mortally injured in the fight, died and was buried in the road, at Great Meadows, east of now Uniontown, Pennsylvania, about a mile from little Fort Necessity. His grave was covered and run over by the remaining wagons, to hide it from discovery by the enemy.

    Braddock's Road is essentially followed by U.S. 40 from Frederick, Maryland, through Hagerstown, Maryland, Cumberland, Maryland, to Grantsville, Maryland, and into Pennsylvania, past Fort Necessity National Battlefield, to Uniontown, Pennsylvania. There Braddock's Road went north toward Pittsburgh. 
    The early settlers used Braddock's Road to move into western Pennsylvania. Settlements were already off the trace at the Antietam and Conococheague (East and West of Hagerstown). Settlers moved west from Uniontown to Fort Redstone on the Monongahela (now Brownsville, Pennsylvania) and on west to Washington County, Pennsylvania.  This route was followed by the builders of the Cumberland (later, National) Road, taking it through Old Fort Redstone to the Ohio River at Fort Henry (Wheeling) by 1818.

Zane's Trace  1796

    Ebenezer Zane lived at Fort Henry (Wheeling, West Virginia), located on the Virginia side of the Ohio River several days below Pittsburgh. He and his brothers were frontiersmen and fairly well known Indian Scouts. The government asked him to run a road to Limestone, in Kentucky, where there was a River landing and a trace going south to Blue Lick and Lexington.
    The government gave him property rights at his choice in several of the best locations as payment. He had been all through those lands in Ohio Territory, and already had his route chosen. It would go almost due west until it came to the Muskingum River. He had even chosen a name for that location - Zanesville. Then the Trace would angle southwest until it crossed the Hocking River. That would be later named Lancaster. It would continue on more to the south till it came to the old Shawnee Indian village at Chillicothe on the Scioto River. The trace would go west from Chillicothe, along the Paint Creek, until a wide valley cut south to Ohio Brush Creek. There it would follow close to the Brush Creek due south, until finally it would head southwest through the valleys toward the Ohio River across from Limestone, or Maysville, as some people were beginning to call this river landing.
    This was the Zane Trace. It was the first trace or white man's path in Ohio. Zane’s Trace was created as a crude wagon road, and first amounted to a path cut through the giant trees of the wilderness, following an existing Indian path. His woodsmen cut down trees to make a trace of a road. But there was not a lot of care in the tree felling, and stumps of the fallen trees still remained along the entire route. Horse drawn wagons could negotiate the trace, but often the tree stumps were so high or close together that a wagon would become high centered, or stuck between stumps. Travelers on Zane’s Trace began calling the experience of getting stuck on Zane’s left-over tree stumps as "getting stumped," a term which continues today — when we are stuck on something.
    Zane’s Trace was the primary access to the U.S. Military District and the Virginia Military District, two reserves of public land set aside for bounty land given to soldiers of the Revolutionary War. Although many of the soldiers sold their bounty land grants, many of the people who used them to acquire land in the Northwest Territory followed Zane’s Trace to get there. The very first public land sales in America took place near Zane’s Trace — it is how our ancestors gained access to their new lands in the Ohio Country.

National Road  1806  Stone mile marker on road

    Prior to the National Road, settlers and freight wagons crept westward over the mountains with their belongings and goods jolted over deep ruts and splashed through lakes of mud. Wagon drivers had to shout and lash their horses to urge them up steep slopes. When crossing small streams the wagons sank into water hub deep, and larger streams were bridged with shaky log structures a few feet above the water level. 
    The National Road, today called U.S. Route 40, was the first highway built entirely with federal funds. Congress authorized the road in 1806 during the Jefferson Administration. Construction began in Cumberland, Maryland in 1811. The route closely paralleled the military road opened by George Washington and General Braddock in 1754-55.
    To build the new road, workmen wearing metal goggles with narrow slits for vision crouched beside piles of limestone and with an iron hammer cracked off pieces that would pass through a three-inch ring. The limestone, spread thirty feet wide, made a solid track for wagons and stagecoaches. The earth dug in the grating of hills was dumped into low places to make a level highway that had no slope steeper than four and one-half degrees with the horizon. Farmers hauled rock from hill quarries to the stream crossings. The stone masons chiseled our great sandstone blocks and built them into bridges that are still solid a century later.
    By 1818 the road had been completed to the Ohio River at Wheeling, which was then in Virginia. Eventually the road was pushed through central Ohio and Indiana reaching Vandalia, Illinois in the 1830's where construction ceased due to a lack of funds. The National Road opened the Ohio River Valley and the Midwest for settlement and commerce.
    The opening of the road saw thousands of travelers heading west over the Allegheny Mountains to settle the rich land of the Ohio River Valley. Small towns along the National Road's path began to grow and prosper with the increase in population. Towns such as Cumberland, Uniontown, Brownsville, Washington and Wheeling evolved into commercial centers of business and industry. Uniontown was the headquarters for three major stagecoach lines which carried passengers over the National Road. Brownsville, on the Monongahela River, was a center for steamboat building and river freight hauling. Many small towns and villages along the road contained taverns, blacksmith shops, and livery stables.

This historical site is located about 5 miles east of Zanesville on the National Road.  It probably served as a tavern and inn for travelers.

    Taverns were probably the most important and numerous business found on the National Road.  It is estimated there was about one tavern every mile on the National Road. There were two different classes of taverns on the road. The stagecoach tavern was one type. It was the more expensive accommodation, designed for the affluent traveler. Mount Washington Tavern was a stagecoach tavern. The other class of tavern was the wagon stand, which would have been more affordable for most travelers. A wagon stand would have been similar to a modern "truck stop." All taverns regardless of class offered three basic things; food, drink, and lodging.

Fairview Inn outside Baltimore was typical of taverns and roadhouses along the National Road.  There were plenty of these roadside stops to provide settlers moving west with conveniences as needed.

    During the heyday of the National Road, traffic was heavy throughout the day and into the early evening. Almost every kind of vehicle could be seen on the road. The two most common vehicles were the stagecoach and the Conestoga wagon. Stagecoach travel was designed with speed in mind. Stages would average 60 to 70 miles in one day.
    The Conestoga wagon was the "tractor-trailer" of the 19th Century. Conestogas were designed to carry heavy freight both east and west over the Allegheny Mountains. These wagons were brightly painted with red running gears, Prussian blue bodies and white canvas coverings. A Conestoga wagon, pulled by a team of six draft horses, averaged 15 miles a day.  Germans are credited with inventing the Conestogas wagon, presumably because they covered their market wagons with lines cloth and hitched them behind a breed of horses called the Conestogas which were common in the Lancaster-Reading region of Pennsylvania.
     Crossing the Ohio River, the Blaine Bridge, which was constructed in 1826 as part of the National Road.  "Gateway to the West" was the nickname acquired by Bridgeport when the National Road was being built. It was coined because of the great number of travelers and of goods transported through Bridgeport  The Zanes also were constructed a covered bridge between Bridgeport and Wheeling Island, and it was completed in 1838.  Prior to that time, a ferry commuted people and cargo across the first half of the river.

Wheeling & Bridgeport, 1870.  Though depicted with bridges across both braches of the Ohio, only the westernmost bridge (Blaine Bridge) was in place in 1833.  A ferry was used to cross from Wheeling, on the eat shore to Wheeling Island in the center.	Blaine Bridge crosses the western branch from Wheeling Island to Bridgeport.  Built in 1826.

    Originally, the National Road was called the Cumberland Road, since it was going to the West from Cumberland Maryland. It started at the end of an early road from Baltimore, Maryland, that went to Cumberland, Maryland, and followed the Pennsylvania path of General Braddock's Army road to Pittsburgh. In Fayette County, Pennsylvania, passing the historic Fort Necessity, of young George Washington, it headed down the Redstone River to the Monongahela. At Old Fort Redstone, now Brownsville, Pennsylvania, many built flatboats for travel down the Ohio River. It crossed the Monongahela and went on to Washington County, Pennsylvania going to the Ohio River. It arrived at the Ohio, at Old Fort Henry, now Wheeling, West Virginia, in 1818. .  From there, it followed Zane's Trace.  The Old National Road became U.S. 40, and now is paralleled by I-70. The Old National Road left the west bank of the Ohio River in 1825. It continued on across the state of Ohio, with its destination being Indianapolis. It arrived at Richmond, Indiana, in 1827, but was stopped by, and did not cross the Gorge until 1835. But by then there was Vandalia, the capitol of the new state of Illinois, and the destination for the Road was set at St. Louis, Missouri, which it reached in 1837. Local construction was by sections, connecting them across the state.

Madonna of the Trail Monument  This is one of twelve monuments to pioneer women erected along the path of the National Road.  A "Memorial to the Pioneer Mothers of the Covered Wagon Days," the motto ascribed to the Madonna of the Trail could also salute all who made their way westward along the National Road: "the autograph of a nation written across the face of a continent."

    Land travel for immigrants was slow, seldom over 10 - 15  miles a day, sometimes half that. But, with the solid limestone and leveled roadbed, travelers enjoyed the luxury of a modern thoroughfare.  It was considered that the children would easily keep up, walking nearby, and in the process find much to keep themselves entertained. (Nowhere like today's problems taking children in a long automobile trip.) The team of horses might travel a little faster, but long distance was with the ox team, which traveled even slower than a walk, but could keep going, with less food, long after the horses would quit. The trip took days and often months.  For Joseph Resch and his family, the trip from Baltimore to Zanesville, about 304 miles, took about a month.  They arrived some time in September, 1833.