Stone bridges on the National Road in Maryland

I was somewhat surprised when I learned about a stone bridge, just west of Grantsville, Maryland - all I knew about in Grantsville was Casslemans River bridge. This other bridge is a bit worse for the wear, with its single arch partially collapsed, but is still quite presentable.



A couple miles down the road, a stone National Road bridge spans Puzzley Run. This bridge is on private property, but can be viewed without trespassing.



These finds led me to make a map of all the stone National Road bridges in Maryland:


View Larger Map

All those maps

I've just added links to all of my National Road maps. Note that the ones for Pennsylvania and westward are based purely on sattelite photographs and maps - I have not yet had the opportunity to field check this data.

Before too long, I'm going to draw a list of maps, with driving directions, on how a reasonable person might drive the National Road.

Replacement milestones

I was going to post about how to identify old alignments today, but I've been having trouble with the maps I've embedded from Google Maps actually working, so instead, I'll deal with the issue of replacement milestones.

Milestones 1-40 are solid, heavy affairs, not the sort of thing that is easily damaged or moved - thus, these stones have mostly remained in their original locations, undamaged - even if through weathering they have become unreadable. West of milestone 40, however, the stones are smaller, cut of softer sandstone, which lead to easier carving, but also lead to being damaged more easily. The stones were placed along the edge of the road, which, in the automobile age, has lead to many suffering damage in automobile accidents.


52 M to B is the most easternly replacement stone.


56 M to B is identical in style to milestone 52.


58 is a bit less stout than the two preceding it.


I just don't know what to say about milestone 75. Someday I'll talk to the inhabitants of the house and ask them if they know anything.


The text on 82 M to B appears to have been sandblasted.


This rather nice replacement is in Hancock, Maryland.


97, along with its twin, 96, appear to be relatively recent replacements.

Illinois and Indiana

I was fortunate enough to stumble across Jim Grey's documentation of his journeys on the National Road in Indiana, from Indianapolis to the Illinois border and Illinois.

He documents the journey with photographs and maps, illustrating historic alignments and interesting things he saw along the way. I hope to take a similar approach to the eastern chunk of the Road.

National Road in Maryland - Milestones 51-75

View Larger Map

The blue line indicates the original alignment of the road.

Blue flags indicate milestones that I've been able to locate and photograph - click on a flag for a photograph of the milestone. Light blue flags indicate replacement milestones. Red flags indicate milestones that I have not been able to locate or photograph.

I'm not sure why all the stones in Hagerstown are missing. I need to look harder in that area. Perhaps some research in the Western Maryland Room of the Hagerstown branch of the Washington County Library will provide an answer.