task was not more difficult than to cut away small trees on an Indian trace. It is sure that for a greater part of the distance from the Ohio to the Muskingum the Mingo Trail was followed, passing near the center of Belmont, Guernsey and Muskingum Counties. The route to the southwest from that point through Perry, Fairfield, Pickaway, Ross, Richland, Adams, and Brown Counties may or may not have followed the path of an Indian trace. No proof to the contrary being in existence, it is most reasonable to suppose that this, like most other pioneer routes, did follow a more or less plainly outlined Indian path. The new road crossed the Muskingum at the present site of the town well named Zanesville, the Hocking at Lancaster, the Scioto at Chillicothe, and the Ohio at Aberdeen, Ohio, opposite the old-time Limestone, Kentucky.
One George Sample was an early traveler on this National Road; paying a visit from the East to the Ohio country in 1797, he returned homeward by way of Zane's Trace or the Maysville Road, as the route was variously known. After purchasing a
