The first step was easy. Head north to US 40. This was on I-71 and, even though I missed the heart of Columbus by using the outer belt, I still had to travel east a few miles before the sense of multi-lane expressways and big city congestion started to ease. I can't say if this is the first of the old National Road mile markers east of Columbus but it is the first I spotted. It's in the town of Kirkersville. In Hebron, I left 40 for a short run up Ohio 79 to my first stop.

The museum building sits squarely between the last incarnation of the "Old Pike", US-40, and the current champion, I-70. The not particularly polished panorama starts with US-40 in the north, moves through the east, with parking lot, trees, and museum, and ends with I-70 visible in the distance.

The Moravians and their converts established a total of five missions in the region and tried to remain neutral while British, rebelling colonists, and various native tribes clashed around them. Paranoia is among those things bred by war and paranoia was rampant throughout the American frontier in the late 1700s. In the fall of 1781, the British forcibly moved the residents of Gnadenhutten to what amounted to an eighteenth century concentration camp on the Upper Sandusky. After a winter of near starvation, some of the captives were given permission to return to their homes in hopes of retrieving something of the crops they had been forced to abandon. Of course, the British had no monopoly on paranoia and, when American militia discovered the scavengers, the Indians were immediately captured. A few natives had been killed, without provocation, as the soldiers closed in but most, plus members of the group found at the nearby Salem settlement, became prisoners. On the morning of March 8, 1782 29 men, 27 women, and 34 children were methodically put to death and the entire village burned. Two young boys escaped.

In 1798, missionary John Heckewelder returned to the location and started the current settlement. All human bones that could be found were placed in a single mound that has remained undisturbed since that time. The large monument was erected in 1872. Today, many cabins, including the two "slaughter houses", have been reconstructed on their original locations. The floor of the Cooper Shop has a screened opening to the cellar where one of the survivors hid. At the museum, an informative video can be seen along with various artifacts and an extensive arrow head display. The Gnadenhutten massacre is depicted in the outdoor drama Trumpet in the Land just a few miles away.

The last picture is of a bridge over the Ohio-Erie Canal. Not far beyond the far end of the bridge is where the southwest corner of Fort Laurens once stood. Interstate 77 passes just behind where I stood to take the picture. When the fort was occupied, the Tuscarawas river flowed by its eastern wall and a pathway connected fort and river bank. Construction of the highway actually moved a section of the river eastward so that the four lane interstate now separates the fort and the river. Just another case of mid twentieth century blind progress destroying history? Not exactly. Long before I-77 was even dreamed of, the location of the path and the gate it lead to had been sliced through to form the canal. Besides, the fort of 1778 wasn't even the first military construction at the site. McIntosh's site selection was partly influenced by the fact that the area was already cleared of trees and this was because they had been cut by Colonel Henry Bouquet's troops in 1764 in order to construct a blockhouse. Occupied for only a month, the blockhouse probably stood about 80 feet southwest of the Fort Laurens stockade. It was in a rather decrepit state by the time Fort Laurens was built. Bouquet had several such blockhouses built and one can still be seen in Pittsburgh. There is also quite a bit of evidence of prehistoric Native American activity in the area. A spot just south of the blockhouse site seems to have been rather popular. So it seems prehistoric people stopped here because it was high and dry and Bouquet probably picked it for many of the same reasons. McIntosh then chose to build a fort here with the fact that it was somewhat clear added to those natural reasons. The canal followed the river through here and the cleared banks may or may not have made a difference. Moving the river to lay down I-77 just left the layers of human history intact.

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