Forbes Road

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The Forbes Road, a historic military roadway in what was then British America, was initially completed in 1758 from Carlisle, Pennsylvania, to the French Fort Duquesne at the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers in what is now downtown Pittsburgh, via Fort Loudon, Fort Lyttleton, Fort Bedford and Fort Ligonier. The road, initially about 220 miles long, was named for Brigadier General John Forbes, the commander of the 1758 British-led expedition that built the road during the French and Indian War (also known as the Seven Years' War). The Forbes Road and Braddock's Road were the two main land routes that the British cut west through the wilderness during the war. The task was complicated by the Appalachian Mountains' steep northeast-to-southwest ridges, a generally broken terrain between the ridges, heavy forestation, and numerous swamps and rivers.

Though the physical barriers of Braddock's and Forbes Roads seem mundane compared to later roads through the mountainous American west, they were nevertheless significant obstacles. Reginald Briggs observes of Forbes' Road, "Totaling only the more significant ascents and descents along the road, it was the equivalent of overcoming a single irregular obstacle more than 8,000 feet high, with the net result of only about 170 feet of elevation rise for the 217 miles from Carlisle to Fort Pitt."^[1]

In many respects, Forbes' Road is a misnomer. Col. James Burd did most of the initial work from Fort Loudon to Raystown (Bedford), Pennsylvania, in preparation for a major supply route southwest to connect with Braddock's Road in 1755. Col. Henry Bouquet improved upon Burd's road in 1758 and extended it to Ligonier, Pennsylvania, where he constructed the last major fortification on the road before the forks of the Ohio. From Ligonier, a rough trail was blazed through the Pennsylvania wilderness to the smoldering remnants of Fort Duquesne, with a more substantial, slightly southern route to follow later. Forbes, who suffered severe intestinal illness, directed most of the proceedings from a position well in the rear, though he was on hand to take possession of Fort Duquesne in 1758.