The Great Trail (also called the Great Path) was a network of footpaths created by Algonquian and Iroquoian-speaking peoples prior to the arrival of European colonists in North America. It connected the Great Lakes region of Canada to New England and the mid-Atlantic. Many major highways in the Northeastern United States follow the routes set down centuries ago by Native Americans moving along these trails.
Although some sections of the trail have been called "warpaths", such as the so-called "Great Indian Warpath" through Chillicothe, Ohio, the primary purposes for these roads was peaceful trade, hunting, and gathering of natural resources along their routes.[1]
Some sources describe the Great Trail as beginning at one point or another. However, as there was a gradation between local trails used by few people and more major routes used by many, identifying a point at which the Great Trail begins or ends is an arbitrary matter. The Great Trail system connected with the Overland Trail, which led west, as well as other trails to other parts of the continent.
One part of the Great Trail system stretched from Passamaquoddy territory in northernmost New England through the Lakes Region of New Hampshire and down to the Shawmut Peninsula in Massachusetts. From there it stretched down to the region of the Wampanoag of Cape Cod, and over to the territory of the Nipmuck and other tribes around Lake Chaubunagungamaug before connecting to Connecticut and points farther south.[2]
Another part of the Great Trail system in New England corresponds to Massachusetts Route 2 and leads from Boston to upstate New York. The section now known as the Mohawk Trail (used by tribes such as the Mohawk and Pocomtuc) leads from the Connecticut River through the Berkshires and Mohawk Trail State Forest into the area of the present day state-capitol of Albany, New York. From here, the Great Trail system connected all parts of the territories in which members of the Iroquois Confederacy dwelled.[3][4]
In northern New Jersey, the portion of the Great Trail much-used by the Lenape included choice places to cross the Passaic River and to pass through the valleys among the Watchung Mountainsm notably at Hobart Gap. As the New Netherlanders advanced beyond the proximity of the Hudson River, the new settlers found these paths crucial to their movement. New Jersey Route 24 corresponds to a branch of the trail in this area.
A more southern part of the Great Trail system went from Delaware across Pennsylvania to Oldtown, Maryland, and then to the Ohio River below Pittsburgh. It crossed Columbiana County to Bolivar and Sandusky and then continued west. The part of the Great Trail used by Colonial American troops during Pontiac's Rebellion now corresponds to U.S. Route 23.[1]
As with deer fields created by Native Americans, the Great Trail demonstrated that parts of North America, rather than being the "untouched wilderness" described by early colonists, were regions land managed by the indigenous inhabitants to serve the needs of their society.[5]