Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Cottman's History Pamphlets, 1905: The First Thoroughfares of Indiana; The National Road
One of the earliest wagon-ways out of Indianapolis, the old Centerville road, which led to Wayne county before the coming of the National Road, was laid out on the Whitewater trail above referred to, just south of the Pennsylvania tracks, and mention may be found here and there of other roads that were similarly determined. Moreover, the earliest pioneers were benefited directly by these aboriginal trails, for not only did they first follow them from one place to another through the otherwise trackless wilderness in search of desirable regions, but their rude traces for subsequent ingress and egress were frequently but their improvement on the red man's too-narrow footpath. Perhaps it is not venturing [too much to say that they were at times an in?uence in the locating of white settle ments. For instance, the first settlers on the spot where Indi anapolis now stands were, if tradition 1s to be trusted, led hither by the Whitewater trail. When the commissioners appointed by the legislature came to locate the capital, the presence of the squatters at' the mouth of Fall creek was undoubtedly a factor in determining the choice of that spot; and so it might not be considering too curiously to reason out a relation between this obscure path through the forest primeval and the exact locating of the State's capital with all that that implies.
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