Plain Path…Shenandoah Hunting Path…Carolina Road…Rogue’s Road…

Plain Path…Shenandoah Hunting Path…Carolina Road…Rogue’s Road…. . , The trail before you has had many names and descriptions in the hundreds of years it’s been in use. Its history is much longer than its 250 mile in Virginia might suggest. The original northern terminus in Virginia lay at Conroy Island in the Potomac River (actually a part of Maryland), and to the south it ends in Occaneechie State Park near the North Carolina border. What happened along this route is a story that is still being written., The ground on which you stand once felt to footfalls of Susquehannock trading with other American Indians in the Carolinas, and later Iroquois traveling the path south before the winter set in, and north before summer. Recorded history of the trail begins with the Virginia Act of 1662, which notes “plain paths” including this one just east of the foothills of the Catoctin and Bull Run Mountains., In the 1772 Treaty of Albany, the Iroquois agreed never again to migrate east of the Blue Ridge, which kept them from using this old path, and white travelers began to use it. Thomas, 6th Lord Fairfax, sole proprietor of the lands around this plain path, started issuing land grants along here in 1727. Good soil and farmland along this route made the land valuable and desirable., It wasn’t long before our path became known as the Carolina Road, but it earned a nickname fairly quickly as well – Rogues Road. Horse and cattle thieves plied their trade here, causing havoc and making travel risky. Imagine an 18th-century traveler heading south, warily watching the sun sink below the Bull Run Mountains to the west, eager to find shelter for the night before falling prey to highwaymen. As a result, the Virginia Assembly enacted a law in 1742 requiring all travelers on the Carolina Road engaged in driving livestock to show a bill of sale on demand to any justice of the peace., As travel on the Carolina Road increased during the 18th century, common fare taverns, or ordinaries, sprang up every 10-20 miles, a necessity due to poor road conditions and the slow mode of horse, wagon and foot travel. One of the first taverns in Loudoun County along the Carolina Road was West’s Ordinary. Established by William West before 1748, it was located just one mile south of here., By 1779, our road makes its first appearance on a map, and by the turn of the 19th century, “Old” is added to its name. It appears on a statewide map for the first time in 1827, and has prominent labeling on the 1853 Yardley Taylor map of Loudoun County. Large plantations located on the Old Carolina Road would help to ensure its future., Both Union and Confederate armies marched along the Old Carolina Road during the Civil war. During the July 6, 1864 engagement between Mosby’s Rangers and Federal Cavalry at Mt. Zion Church, men of the 2nd Massachusetts and 13th New York cavalries (sic) fled south on this roadbed pursued by rebel-yelling Rangers., In the late 1930s, a New Deal WPA project created the modern U.S. Route 15 just to the west, replacing the Carolina Road. Still, pieces of it remain to be used as rural byways. This section, however, was abandoned to local farm use. It is now maintained by the Mount Zion Cemetery of Aldie, Inc., the Piedmont Environmental Council, and NOVA Parks., Today’s Old Carolina Road is a footpath once more. Walk down this ancient track of road with your senses keen for many memories as you connect with the land, nature, and the past., [Sidebar:] , A highlight in the history of the Old Carolina Road occurred in August of 1825, when the Maquis de Lafayette, the French hero who served alongside George Washington and helped America win its freedom from Great Britain, traveled by carriage procession on this road to nearby Oak Hill, the home of former president Janes Monroe. He and Monroe had served together during the Revolutionary war and Lafayette was in the midst of a grand tour of the United states to celebrate his many contributions to the war effort. The open carriages, guarded by a local cavalry troop, stopped at frequent intervals so that the thousands of people gathered along the road could cheer Lafayette and Monroe, offer refreshments, flowers, and speeches, and sent the war heroes on their way northward along the Old Carolina Road.