The Alabama in the Civil War Message Board

Re: Old Federal Road
In Response To: Re: Old Federal Road ()

In 1808, the road was not known as The Federal Road. It was an indian trail referred to as the horse path and did not become known as the Federal road until 1811. On November 14, 1805, the path was authorized as a horse path through the Creek Nation by Article 2 of a Convention held at Washington between Henry Dearborn, Sec. of War, and William McIntosh, head of the delegation of Creek Chiefs.

By 1811, it was called the Federal road but only in the counties of SW Alabama was the Federal road an official name. From 1811 to 1821, the road in middle Alabama from Uchee Bridge to Line Creek was simply a road through the Creek Nation. On December 17, 1821, Speaker of the House James Dellett and President of the Senate John D. Lanell introduced a resolution in relation to the road from Uchee Bridge to Line Creek. It was approved by Gov. Israel Pickens, (Original Acts of Alabama 1821, pg. 90)

On May 9, 1825, Gov. Israel Pickens wrote to Sam Dale, a resident of Monroe County serving as Tax Collector for the county, informing Dale that Gen. Barnard and Mr. Shriver of the U.S. Engineers were engaged in viewing the route of the National road from Washington to New Orleans. Gov. Pickens solicited Dale's aid as a woodsman to accompany the engineers from Claiborne to New Orleans. Presumably, the men would take the cut off at Pine Orchard to Claiborne where steamboat traffic was accessible to Mobile. The letter states that the lower route to New Orleans would be taken by the engineers.

When Baldwin County was founded by the dividing of Washington County on December 21, 1809, the road was referred to as "the trading path" in the description. (See Toulmin's Digest of Alabama Laws, 1823, pgs. 81-82)

There has been a flurry of posts on this subject. It should be noted that the map links are not for the Federal Road in Alabama. They are for the road that connected Nashville with ports along the Georgia Atlantic coast. They, too, are known as the Federal road, however, the first Federal road built in the southeastern US with US dollars is the horsepath through the Creek Nation, later a part of the Washington to New Orleans National Road.

In Alabama, it played a relatively minor role in the War Between the States and that was at the end.

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