Latest / Cultural Wars | America Out Loud News / George Washington and America’s first highway west

Transcript

George Washington and America’s first highway west · Cultural Wars | America Out Loud News

• 0:27
  As we approach America's 250th birthday, did you know before George Washington was president, he was a Western frontier surveyor and land speculator?
• 0:37
  Did you know that he was a champion behind the nation's first highway system?
• 0:41
  Did have you ever heard of Albert Gelaton?
• 0:45
  Gallatin, I guess is his name.
• 0:46
  See, I can't even pronounce it right.
• 0:48
  The former Secretary Treasurer under uh Thomas Jefferson was a mover behind the National Road.
• 0:55
  You ever even heard of the National Road?
• 0:58
  Well, today's guest, Brady Kreitzer, will fill in the details as we discuss his fantastic book, The National Road, George Washington and America's First Highway.
• 1:10
  It is going to be a great interview because I loved this book.
• 1:14
  I can't stop talking about it.
• 1:16
  I sound like a babbling idiot.
• 1:17
  So, anyways, welcome to the Ten Penny Files.
• 1:20
  I'm your host, Dr.
• 1:21
  Sherry Tenpenny.
• 1:22
  If it matters to your body, your freedom, and your future, we'll talk about it here.
• 1:25
  We've we bring you items that will solidify your beliefs, offer solutions and amazing products.
• 1:30
  And some there's something new here every single day.
• 1:33
  We talk about a different topic every day, including politics, history, astronomy, and archaeology, pets, food, fitness, and farming.
• 1:42
  We talk about vaccines, health and health policy.
• 1:45
  And once a week, I have a conversation with a pastor or an author who writes about faith and biblical principles.
• 1:51
  So join me here every day, Monday through Friday at 3 p.m.
• 1:54
  Eastern on the 10penny files as we hear from voices who have been ignored, silenced, or censored.
• 2:00
  Before we begin today's episode, I want to invite everybody to become a 10 penny prime member.
• 2:04
  You get exclusive monthly content and educational presentations.
• 2:08
  To find out more, go to Prime Membership.dr 10penny.com.
• 2:12
  That's prime membership.dr tenpenny.com.
• 2:15
  Hopefully you will join us and support our work.
• 2:18
  And one final thing.
• 2:19
  Welcome to all of our regulars who listen to this show often, hopefully every day, and to all of our new listeners because we're growing on all of our platforms.
• 2:28
  So now let's get started.
• 2:30
  Today's conversation is with a specialist in Frontier History of North America, Brady Kreitzer, to talk about his mesmerizing new book, The National Road, George Washington and America's First Highway West, the story of grit, big ideas, and overcoming hardships.
• 2:48
  Brady, welcome so much to the Tenpenny Files.
• 2:51
  I can't tell you how much I was looking forward to this conversation today.
• 2:54
  It's great to be here.
• 2:56
  Thank you.
• 2:56
  You know, you tell your story I already said was use the word mesmerizing, but that's exactly what your book was.
• 3:03
  When Americans think about George Washington, I think they mostly focus on his military accomplishments and the fact that he was the first president of the United States.
• 3:12
  I don't think anyone knows about the details that you go into in the first chapter of your book, The National Road, about Washington's quest to unify the Potomac River and the Ohio River.
• 3:23
  Uh, and it sort of stuck with him his entire life.
• 3:27
  How did you unravel that from American history?
• 3:32
  Well, you know, this is my eighth book, uh, and most of them center around or feature George Washington.
• 3:38
  So I'm very familiar with his letters and his notes and his journals.
• 3:42
  I feel like uh I know him personally in a way after doing this for 20 years, but George Washington really begins his experience long before the revolution, long before he becomes president in what he would call the West, which is very different than our West.
• 3:59
  He's talking about West of the Appalachian Mountains.
• 4:02
  So he's in Western Pennsylvania, he's in Western Virginia, Southeast Ohio, and he views this as in a very real way the future of America.
• 4:11
  You know, we we think about the Atlantic Ocean and Boston, Philadelphia, New York, you know, they get all the attention, and that's rightfully so.
• 4:18
  But for Washington, he always had his eye on the land, and he had his always always had his eye on the frontier.
• 4:25
  Um, and as someone who likes to study these sort of uh maybe uh different corners of history, uh, someone who's focused on this frontier area where different cultures and empires blend together.
• 4:39
  Um, I thought it was just a great story.
• 4:42
  It really was a great story.
• 4:43
  And you know, later in the book, you talk about that he owned 23,000 acres of land in the you know, western Pennsylvania, Ohio Valley, but that was the West at the time.
• 4:54
  And even Mount Vernon was more than 8,000 acres when it was in its heyday there.
• 4:59
  Um, and I don't think that's a commonly known fact about uh that he really um made was he was the most wealthy president up until Trump ever in the history in the history of America.
• 5:13
  You know, I would I would actually say you mentioned 23,000 acres.
• 5:16
  It was actually closer to 60,000 acres of land in western Pennsylvania, Western Virginia and Ohio.
• 5:22
  So what I like to say about George Washington is he was he was land rich and cash poor.
• 5:30
  Um that's a good way to think of it because he got involved in this kind of speculatory mania in a sense.
• 5:37
  He served in in Western Pennsylvania and Western Virginia during the French and Indian War.
• 5:42
  And he saw just the vast untapped potential of the frontier.
• 5:46
  And that war ended in 1763, and really for the next 20 years or so, buying as much land as he possibly could became his central focus.
• 5:56
  Uh, he was buying land from his home colony of Virginia.
• 6:00
  He was buying land from other soldiers that served with him, men who really didn't have plans for Western lands.
• 6:07
  Even up until the battles of Lexington and Concord in 1775, he's actually signing land deals.
• 6:14
  Um, so that's all uh investment in the future for George Washington, and he plans on collecting on that in the 20 years after the revolution.
• 6:24
  You know, you mentioned that you this is the eighth book that you've written and you've written or read a lot of his letters and journals and things like that.
• 6:32
  How did you learn to read those documents?
• 6:35
  I mean, you quoted some of them in the book that I read, and the in the old English language is not what we talked today.
• 6:42
  How did you learn to decipher that?
• 6:44
  It is not um it's not easy to read anyone's handwriting anymore.
• 6:50
  Um, George Washington had pretty good penmanship, though.
• 6:53
  I mean, there's been some people, if you look at their historical letters, I mean, it might as well be written in hieroglyphics.
• 7:00
  I can't make heads or tails with them.
• 7:00
  I I can't make heads or tails with them.
• 7:02
  But I would say about George is he was a very careful writer.
• 7:02
  But I would say about George is he was a very careful writer.
• 7:05
  Uh, and he was he was very careful with his words as well as his script.
• 7:06
  And he was he was very careful with his words as well as his script.
• 7:10
  So of all the founding fathers whose letters I've read, his is probably among the easier to read.
• 7:10
  So of all the founding fathers whose letters I've read, his is probably among the easier to read.
• 7:16
  Wow.
• 7:16
  Wow.
• 7:18
  I mean, because the spelling is different.
• 7:18
  I mean, because the spelling is different.
• 7:20
  They use capital letters in the middle of the sentence and you know, hyphens here and there.
• 7:20
  They use capital letters in the middle of the sentence and you know, hyphens here and there.
• 7:25
  Um, is it just a matter of reading enough of it till you can kind of learn the flow?
• 7:25
  Um, is it just a matter of reading enough of it till you can kind of learn the flow?
• 7:29
  Is that how how you learn to decipher all of that?
• 7:32
  It is, yeah.
• 7:33
  It is.
• 7:34
  And you also have to learn um their tendencies.
• 7:36
  You know, George Washington wrote letters literally every day, but at the height of the revolution and in his presidency, he had so many letters to respond to.
• 7:47
  He actually had to have people writing for him.
• 7:49
  Oh, because he didn't have the time to do it.
• 7:52
  So names we know, like James Madison and Alexander Hamilton.
• 7:56
  They're much, much younger than George, uh, a generation younger.
• 8:00
  And in the beginning, they're sort of his letter writers.
• 8:03
  Um, and they are were actually very good writers as well.
• 8:06
  So um, you got you kind of learned, okay, this is really George.
• 8:09
  This one's probably more Hamilton, this one's more Madison.
• 8:13
  You get an eye for it.
• 8:15
  You know, one of the things that you write about is the seven-year war in the Ohio River Valley.
• 8:21
  And you know, you mentioned before we started this conversation, you're from Pittsburgh, and I'm from Cleveland, so we're just right up the road from each other.
• 8:28
  So this is all happening kind of in our neighborhood, you know, so to speak, this historical part.
• 8:33
  And you mentioned the Seven Year War in the Ohio River Valley from 1756 to 1763, and it was also called the Great War for the Empire between the French and the British, and was a pivotal point of American history that I don't think people know much about.
• 8:49
  So give us sort of an overview of that of that period of time and that war and why it was so important and how many countries were involved in settling this skirmish.
• 9:01
  Well, the Seven Years War at the time, because they didn't know when it would end, was going to be called the Great War for Empire, as you mentioned.
• 9:07
  And it will be between Great Britain and France in some form from 1753 to about 1763.
• 9:16
  Um, it's a fight for the future of the North American continent.
• 9:22
  You know, in 1753, when it begins, France is really located up in Upper Canada, uh, along and around Quebec and Montreal, and the English are really kind of hemmed into the East Coast by the mountains.
• 9:35
  And it's when they both spill over the Appalachian Mountains into places like Kentucky, Western Pennsylvania, Western Virginia, and Ohio, that you realize they're going to be fighting.
• 9:45
  Um, so it will be um in some way, shape, or form beginning in 1753 with a young major, 21 years old named George Washington of Virginia.
• 9:55
  He's gonna travel into Pennsylvania to politely ask the French to leave.
• 9:59
  They won't.
• 10:00
  And that will lead to a series of small battles in 1754 and 55 that just set the world on fire.
• 10:08
  When when the when the Seven Years' War, or sometimes we call this in America, the French and Indian War.
• 10:14
  Uh, it has different names all over the world, but when that war officially begins in 1756, when there's a document signed to start the war, it'll spread to five continents.
• 10:24
  Everywhere that that Britain and France have colonies, they will be fighting, and they're going to be pulling on allies to do it.
• 10:31
  Uh, and what's really interesting about it is Winston Churchill, he'll call this event the first true world war.
• 10:37
  And that's a guy that that knows about world wars, by the way, Winston Churchill.
• 10:41
  But at the end of the war, here's the the really important part for us.
• 10:44
  Britain wins, and their empire triples in size, and it's celebratory, but wars are very expensive.
• 10:51
  So the British immediately have to start raising taxes and cutting spending.
• 10:56
  And these are the taxes that are so famously the beginning of the American Revolution.
• 11:02
  So, in a sense, they win the grand war against France, but because these new taxes, we get the Boston Tea Party, we get the first Continental Congress, we get Americans now angry at Britain because they won the war.
• 11:15
  Instead of getting a reward, they get their taxes raised.
• 11:17
  So, in a lot of ways, you don't have an American revolution without a French and Indian war or a Seven Years' War, uh, because the British victory led directly to the major problems for Britain in in the years after.
• 11:32
  You know, and you mentioned the taxes.
• 11:33
  I mean, um, one of the things that I've I learned so much from reading this book.
• 11:39
  I'm telling you, that's why I'm so mesmerized by it, because there was just so many things that I had no idea about.
• 11:44
  And one of them was the whiskey revol whiskey rebellion.
• 11:47
  And I know you've written another book about that, and that whiskey was the first thing that was taxed that America after the revolution that they started to raise money from that.
• 11:56
  So taxes has always been a part of war and then tax and war and then tax in our history.
• 12:03
  Is that is that, you know, you're the historian.
• 12:06
  Is that is that a true statement?
• 12:09
  Yeah, after, you know, after the revolution, uh, our young country is on very unsteady legs, very much like a newborn horse, I always say.
• 12:17
  Uh, and they need to pay back their loans too.
• 12:20
  We owed money to France, we owed money to the Netherlands, we owed money to America wealthy Americans who financed our war.
• 12:28
  And the way Alexander Hamilton, the treasury secretary wants to deal with that is by collecting taxes here in the Western frontier over the mountains.
• 12:38
  Um, whiskey is what he taxes.
• 12:40
  There's never been a tax on uh a good made in America before.
• 12:44
  We call that an excise tax.
• 12:46
  And whiskey was the beating heart economically of places like Western Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, uh, Western Virginia.
• 12:57
  Uh at that time, it's mostly Scots-Irish settlers making whiskey, something they brought with them from the old country.
• 13:04
  Um, and it was just their chief produce.
• 13:07
  It was their driver of their economy.
• 13:09
  They didn't love the new government either.
• 13:11
  That was an issue.
• 13:12
  The mountains really kept them separate, east and west.
• 13:15
  You know, we always think about uh civil war in America being between North and South, and it will be, but it was originally East and West.
• 13:23
  Uh and these Western farmers, when this tax came in, wanted nothing to do with it.
• 13:27
  They believed it was unfair.
• 13:28
  They they believed it was unjust.
• 13:30
  They just fought a revolution against unjust taxes, and now they have one of their own to deal with.
• 13:36
  So that event will metastasize into a civil war, essentially.
• 13:41
  Uh, just just you know, 10 years after the revolution, we call the whiskey rebellion.
• 13:46
  Yeah, it was was really interesting reading about that.
• 13:50
  You know, we we talked a lot, uh, we just talked a little bit about um John Um George Washington being a uh land speculator, and that 15 years before the Revolutionary War, he'd traveled to Ohio territories and he began buying up everything, and like you said, even more so than that.
• 14:00
  The Revolutionary War, he had traveled to Ohio territories and he began buying up everything.
• 14:04
  And like you said, even more so than that.
• 14:07
  Was this just a retirement plan for him?
• 14:07
  Was this just a retirement plan for him, or was there something else he was trying to accomplish?
• 14:09
  Or was there something else he was trying to accomplish?
• 14:12
  Yeah, he really wanted to be done after the revolution.
• 14:12
  Yeah, he he really wanted to be done after the revolution, and and and really who could blame him?
• 14:15
  And really who could blame him?
• 14:17
  He'd led a life of service.
• 14:17
  He'd led a life of service.
• 14:19
  Washington uh wanted to retire back to his Mount Vernon plantation.
• 14:19
  Washington uh wanted to retire back to his Mount Vernon plantation.
• 14:23
  He wanted to uh farm and and make money there.
• 14:23
  He wanted to uh farm and make money there.
• 14:26
  He actually was the largest whiskey distiller in America himself.
• 14:26
  He actually was the largest whiskey distiller in America himself.
• 14:30
  Wow.
• 14:30
  Um, but he wanted to collect his his rent on his western land.
• 14:35
  And one of the problems are the people we just mentioned, the Scots-Irish, you know, they were the ones living on his western lands.
• 14:42
  He was never really there.
• 14:43
  Uh, and they had lived there for 10 years.
• 14:45
  They cleared these lands, they farmed them, they they really turned them from wilderness to uh to to you know viable farmland.
• 14:55
  Uh, they buried their dead on these land, they had cemeteries.
• 14:58
  So Washington will, in 1784, just one year after the revolution, he's the most famous man in the world.
• 15:05
  He's going to travel to Western Pennsylvania over the mountains and confront these people he calls squatters, saying, you know, I should be a very wealthy man, but you're not paying your rent.
• 15:15
  Um, and these Scots-Irish want nothing to do with them.
• 15:18
  You know, back in the old country, back in in the in the British Isles, they suffered under what they called landlordism, these English landlords owning their land, keeping all the profits.
• 15:28
  That's why they left.
• 15:29
  And they view George Washington, who was English, by the way, um, by his name, they viewed him the same way.
• 15:35
  So they get into a big argument.
• 15:37
  Washington comes back in 1784 from that trip, and he writes a letter to the governor of Virginia saying, I am worried that there's two separate Americas forming.
• 15:47
  One in the East, Boston, Philadelphia, New York, and one in the West.
• 15:52
  Places like Pittsburgh and Morgantown and uh Marietta, Ohio, and Lexington, Kentucky, these sorts of places.
• 15:59
  And he's saying these people don't have a lot in common.
• 16:01
  They really don't communicate.
• 16:03
  And if we don't find a way to bridge East and West, and he doesn't know this, but this is going to end up being the national road.
• 16:10
  Uh, we could have a civil war here.
• 16:12
  We could have a secession.
• 16:13
  Uh, and that's essentially what's going to happen 10 years later when the whiskey rebellion begins.
• 16:19
  You know, I I guess I wasn't really, you know, I like I said, I learned so much from this.
• 16:24
  I'm not um, I don't remember in high school or in college, ever studying, taking any deep dives into American history.
• 16:31
  So the from the end of the revolutionary war until George Washington became president, was a six-year period of time.
• 16:39
  And that he, that's when they had the constitutional convention, and they sort of dragged him back into that time, and he showed up kind of by default and under like duress that he didn't really want to be there.
• 16:52
  Um so how did they co-opt him back into government?
• 16:57
  And why was he such a, you know, you wrote about this in your book, The National Road, that he was a kind of a stabilizing figure that when he would go to meetings and and group meetings and things like that, people would just settle down because George Washington was there.
• 17:12
  How did he become such a such an effigy for that?
• 17:16
  Well, like I said, all he wanted to do is retire, the poor guy uh in 1783.
• 17:21
  But he gets this idea that we have to unify East and West.
• 17:25
  And the way he wanted to do that was by building some kind of connection between his river, which was the Potomac.
• 17:32
  That's where DC sits right now.
• 17:34
  Uh, it goes all the way to Cumberland, Maryland in the West, to the Ohio River, which takes you to the Mississippi or even the Rocky Mountains if you go on the Missouri River.
• 17:44
  So he becomes uh, I would use the word obsessed with somehow connecting those two rivers, which are separated by about 130 miles.
• 17:53
  Um, so he leaves retirement to try to first improve the Potomac River to make it so a boat can enter it and go all the way to Cumberland unimpeded.
• 18:03
  That's step one.
• 18:04
  And he ends up meeting with representatives from Virginia and Maryland because they share the river.
• 18:09
  Um, and then he realizes from that meeting, 1786, a year later, we need more states involved here.
• 18:15
  Pennsylvania is going to have something to say, and Delaware is going to have something to say, and New York will probably have an issue with it.
• 18:22
  And that will lead to the next year, 1787, this massive convention of all the states.
• 18:27
  And Washington really goes because he cares about making this east-west connection.
• 18:33
  He's not really concerned about other things.
• 18:36
  That ends up being the constitutional convention.
• 18:38
  And he's the tallest man in the room.
• 18:40
  Guess who gets elected president, right?
• 18:42
  It's him.
• 18:42
  So he'll he'll never really get the retirement he wants.
• 18:46
  But like you said, being dragged in.
• 18:48
  He's not exactly kicking and screaming, but he's tired by that point.
• 18:52
  He's he's almost blind.
• 18:53
  He's got terrible eyesight, but he puts his country above all else.
• 18:58
  He he believes in duty above all.
• 19:00
  He believed in uh his faith in God, he would call it providence that he has a destiny, that America has a destiny.
• 19:07
  And if this was part of America's destiny, he would not stand in the way.
• 19:12
  You know, you mentioned, and we you corrected me before by saying about that 80,000 um or I'm sorry, 60,000 acres of land, and that the equivalence of that was an estate of about 780,000, which would be half a million dollars today in as in personal wealth.
• 19:30
  Were any of the other founders uh in American history even close to that in terms of uh land speculation or other ways that they may have become wealthy?
• 19:40
  There were some fabulously rich people in early America, and that that really gets back to the fact that when the British first settled here, they always kind of uh they kind of had this pitch, so to speak, that you should come to settle in America for free land, and lots of very poor people came here.
• 19:58
  But the very wealthy lords and dukes and aristocrats from England, they also got free land.
• 20:04
  They just got way more of it.
• 20:06
  You know, you might get 300 acres as an average Joe.
• 20:09
  Your neighbor might be the Duke of Cumberland's nephew, he'll get 300,000 acres.
• 20:14
  So land was always the way powerful people stayed in power.
• 20:20
  You know, like back in Europe, we had feudalism, we called it from the Middle Ages, where uh you're you're a lord and you're born rich, and really no matter what you do, you'll die rich.
• 20:29
  And if you're poor, you're not of the right bloodline, so you'll probably end up dying poor no matter what you do.
• 20:35
  The way the British brought that over, maintained power was through land.
• 20:41
  Wealthy people had way more land than poor people.
• 20:44
  So guys like Jefferson, Madison, um, Washington, the Fairfaxes, these are all big time names.
• 20:52
  The Stewarts, the Lees, they, you know, a few generations before the revolution, they kind of secured their place by getting as much of Virginia as possible.
• 21:00
  By getting as much of Virginia as possible.
• 21:02
  And that's what they passed down.
• 21:02
  And that's what they passed down.
• 21:03
  That's what we call generational wealth.
• 21:03
  That's what we call generational wealth.
• 21:05
  So that's how they did that.
• 21:05
  So that's how they did that.
• 21:07
  What I would say is Washington was really one of the few men looking to add to their land holdings.
• 21:07
  What I would say is Washington was really one of the few men looking to add to their land holdings.
• 21:14
  A lot of those guys had so much land already, they didn't need more, especially not in, you know, Cleveland, right?
• 21:14
  A lot of those guys had so much land already, they didn't need more, especially not in, you know, Cleveland, right?
• 21:20
  Which was the wilderness at the time.
• 21:20
  Which was the wilderness at the time, um, even though it's great lakefront property, it was very difficult place to live.
• 21:22
  Um, even though it's great lakefront property, it was very difficult place to live.
• 21:26
  Washington was really the one who was kind of land crazy, I would say.
• 21:26
  Washington was really the one who was kind of land crazy, I would say.
• 21:30
  Yeah, and that was when the um Connecticut Real Estate Company sent um what was this last name?
• 21:37
  Last name was Cleveland.
• 21:38
  Some it wasn't Grover Cleveland, the president.
• 21:41
  It was an earlier man, yeah.
• 21:43
  The other guy to buy all the land up to the Cuyahoga River, which splits the city in half.
• 21:50
  You know, the Cuyahoga River, even today is even though there it was, it wasn't until like the 1980s that there was a bridge that went from the east to the west side across a highway and the Cuyoga River split the city, and that everything east of the Cuyahoga River was purchased by the Connecticut Land Company, and everything west of the Cuyahoga River was um Indian territory.
• 22:13
  And even today, in 2026, the Cleveland is uh lives with this split.
• 22:19
  You know, when I travel and you run into fellow Cleveland Clevelanders, the first question you ask is are you an east sider or a west sider?
• 22:27
  So the the whole city grew up around the east side is more industrial, and it's where the art museum is in the symphony is and where a lot of the factories were in the west side was where they had uh a lot of the Puerto Ricans that came in during the the steel wars that came in and divided that up.
• 22:44
  And right now, and the west side is now today where more of the golf courses are and the larger properties and all those sorts of things.
• 22:51
  So, you know, the history that we go through uh pulls forward, you know, from that was you know, way back, way back then, and it was um uh really interesting to to see uh how the land speculation piece of your book, the National Road kind of plays into into into part for our whole American history.
• 23:12
  Yeah.
• 23:13
  Yeah, you know, the settlement of Ohio really is what gets George Washington's dream of an interstate highway connecting east and west off the ground.
• 23:22
  Because the federal government, you know, essentially acquired Ohio through treaties with Native nations, and they wanted to parcel out the entire state in in very uniform little units, little blocks.
• 23:36
  And what they came up with, and this gets to a name you mentioned earlier, Albert Gallatin, he'll be the Treasury uh secretary of the Treasury under Thomas Jefferson in 1801.
• 23:47
  He had this idea that Westerners will be the ones that benefit from the land uh from the road.
• 23:54
  Um, they should be the ones that pay for it.
• 23:56
  So every time the government sold a piece of land in Ohio to a settler family, a few pennies of each dollar would go to building this roadway.
• 24:06
  Um, and he said Westerners can pay for it, and we'll even let Westerners build it.
• 24:10
  So most of the national roads are going to be built by Scots, Irish, and German settlers living in western Pennsylvania and Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, uh, and the road will finance itself.
• 24:22
  It's really quite brilliant.
• 24:24
  Yeah, and then they revolted over that.
• 24:26
  They didn't want to, they said, wait a minute, you're not gonna take our money and spend it everywhere else, everywhere else.
• 24:31
  Why do you think that they decided that the Western frontier was going to stop at Ohio?
• 24:37
  I mean, they could look west and see more land.
• 24:40
  I mean, what was the impediment there?
• 24:43
  There were uh a few of them.
• 24:45
  Um, one of the big ones was if you look at the the war that ended the or the treaty rather that ended the American Revolution, 1783.
• 24:54
  America owned everything to the Mississippi River, which was for them essentially St.
• 25:00
  Louis and Northward, as far as Minnesota.
• 25:03
  Uh, so we know kind of how the story goes.
• 25:06
  We're going to through what they called manifest destiny, this idea that it was America's destiny to expand as much as they could.
• 25:13
  We know we're going to go all the way to the Pacific and beyond, even to Hawaii.
• 25:17
  But in Washington's time, you know, everything west of the Mississippi River was still technically Spanish territory.
• 25:25
  Uh, and he was not in a hurry to get in another war with Spain.
• 25:28
  So what we were going to see is America kind of incrementally growing.
• 25:32
  But the National Road wanted to take advantage of all of it.
• 25:36
  They didn't have a lot at the time.
• 25:37
  But um, again, if you can get all the way to the Mississippi River, then you could be sending ships all the way to the Rocky Mountains on the Missouri.
• 25:45
  That's just a matter of time until America takes that land.
• 25:47
  That's how Washington viewed it.
• 25:50
  Yeah.
• 25:50
  Well, it's just it's just so amazing of how that whole all evolved.
• 25:56
  And we're going to talk about after the break, we're going to take a quick break here.
• 26:00
  We're going to talk about how the uh national road evolved and then how it was uh sort of bypassed by the railroads.
• 26:07
  So we will so hold that thought right there for just a second, Brady.
• 26:10
  We're going to take a quick break to hear from our sponsor.
• 26:13
  America Out Loud Rate Talk Radio plays the 10 penny files on the iHeart Radio Network Monday through Friday at 3 p.m.
• 26:19
  Eastern.
• 26:20
  You can also listen anywhere in the world by going to America Outloud.news and logging it in through their media player.
• 26:26
  If you've missed any of these great conversations, and boy, we've had a lot of them, you can find them on Spotify, Pandora, Apple, iTunes, Tune In, iHeart Virtual Studio, uh, by putting in the 10penny files on any of those platforms that you subscribe to, or you can go to our website, which is dr10penny.com, hover over the podcast tab, and you'll see a drop-down window that says all podcasts.
• 26:49
  We couldn't have made it any easier for you to be able to find it in a location.
• 26:52
  We also post them on our substack, dr10penny.substack.com and the Christian ones we post on DR10, or we post on 10penny, walkwithgod.substack.com.
• 27:03
  We've got a great message coming up from our sponsor.
• 27:06
  Sit tight.
• 27:06
  We'll be right back with more with Brady Kreitzer to talk about the national road, which we're going to really dig into where this heads, uh, and you're going to be fascinated by this history.
• 27:17
  So sit tight.
• 27:18
  We will be right back.
• 27:19
  People are doing everything right these days.
• 27:21
  They're eating clean and trying to avoid toxins, and they're still not feeling well.
• 27:26
  That's because they no longer can avoid exposure.
• 27:29
  You can't avoid it.
• 27:30
  Toxins are everywhere.
• 27:32
  Things like glyphosate, heavy metals like aluminum and mercury, cadmium from cigarette smoke.
• 27:38
  They're all accumulating in your body every single day.
• 27:41
  And that buildup shows up as brain fog, fatigue, weight that won't budge, skin issues, gut problems, ADD and ADHD in our children, asthma in our kids, even accelerated aging.
• 27:54
  Detox is no longer optional.
• 27:57
  It's something your body needs to do every day.
• 27:59
  We recommend as a first step this detox spray because it works at a cellular level to buy and remove toxins from the body.
• 28:00
  Recommend as a first step this detox spray because it works at a cellular level to bind and remove toxins from the body.
• 28:09
  It's safe for the whole family, from infants to grandparents.
• 28:09
  It's safe for the whole family, from infants to grandparents.
• 28:12
  I even give it to my dog.
• 28:12
  I even give it to my dog.
• 28:13
  Go to DRTdetox.com and get started today.
• 28:13
  Go to DRT Detox.com and get started today.
• 28:17
  First time customers can get up to 82% off on your first bottle because exposures aren't slowing down, and your health shouldn't either.
• 28:17
  First time customers can get up to 82% off on your first bottle because exposures aren't slowing down, and your health shouldn't either.
• 28:25
  In fact, you should be getting well.
• 28:25
  In fact, you should be getting well.
• 28:27
  Oral hygiene hasn't changed in 50 years.
• 28:27
  Oral hygiene hasn't changed in 50 years.
• 28:30
  Brush, floss, repeat.
• 28:33
  We're told to use fluoride, which doesn't really address the acid creating bacteria.
• 28:38
  That is where the dentist recommended spray dental defense system shines.
• 28:43
  Sprite products contain xylitol, a natural sugar, which helps get rid of those nasty, smelly acid-creating bacteria in our mouth.
• 28:52
  The best way to care for your teeth and gums is by using spry.
• 28:56
  The spray dental defense system has a wide variety of products, toothpaste, mouthwash, mints, and chewing gums that are designed to work together to keep your teeth clean and mouth healthy and smelling sweet all day long.
• 29:09
  To get your oral care back on track in an easy, effective, and very tasty way.
• 29:15
  Switch to spray today.
• 29:17
  Ask your dentist about xylitol and the spray products.
• 29:21
  Sprite can be found online and at all fine natural product retailers.
• 29:25
  Successful weight loss is about changing the gut-brain relationship with food.
• 29:30
  I'm Dr.
• 29:30
  Kelly Victory with the Wellness Company.
• 29:32
  If you don't like needles, you'll love oral dissolving terzepitide RX.
• 29:37
  This doctor design solution works by targeting the GLP1 and GIP receptors that influence appetite and metabolism.
• 29:44
  Terzepatide helps with food portion reduction and satiety while changing how the brain responds to engineered sugars and unhealthy fats.
• 29:53
  And unlike injections, these are fast absorbing sublingual tablets placed under the tongue, paired with an energy boost of B6 and B12.
• 30:01
  Visit TWC.health slash outloud and use code out loud for an exclusive discount.
• 30:08
  Are you looking for a healthy snacks?
• 30:10
  But you've had enough of all the sweet, sugary energy bars.
• 30:16
  Good news.
• 30:17
  There's new bars to try.
• 30:20
  That savory crunchy and pack with goodness.
• 30:23
  Bear bars are based just on six simple natural ingredients.
• 30:29
  A certified organic veggie nut and seed bar.
• 30:32
  That's low temp dried, never baked or fried.
• 30:36
  Bear bars are plant-based, gluten-free, and loaded with nutrients and protein.
• 30:42
  Head over to bearbar.com slash outloud and get the exclusive discount just for America Out Loud listeners.
• 30:52
  That's B E A R B A Rom forward slash out loud.
• 31:00
  In just two minutes per day, you can reclaim your health and vitality and cut your grocery bill in half with one simple convenient product.
• 31:08
  Our doctor formulated Green 85 juice formula's powerful dose of ultra-concentrated essential nutrients, stops hunger in its tracks, and supplies your cells with what's missing in the grocery store food.
• 31:20
  It's packed with wheatgrass, corella, dandelion, moringa, spirulina, broccoli sprouts, osai berry, beetroot, probiotics, enzymes, vitamins A, D, K, B12, just to name a few.
• 31:32
  Go to ChemicalFreeBody.com forward slash out loud today.
• 31:36
  Get nature's super multivitamin Green 85, empower your immune system, cut down on your grocery bill, and save 20% on your first order.
• 31:45
  I'm Doug Evans, author of the Sprout Book.
• 31:47
  I want to share something that's powerful.
• 31:49
  You can grow your own food right on your kitchen countertop.
• 31:53
  Sprouting is an ancient method that turns ordinary seeds into living vegetables in just three to five days.
• 32:01
  No soil, no sunshine, no fertilizer, just seeds, water for under a dollar a serving.
• 32:07
  You can grow nutrient-dense packed greens anywhere.
• 32:11
  City apartments, dorm rooms, off-the-grid cabins.
• 32:14
  In a time when food prices are rising, sprouting gives you control, abundance, and peace of mind.
• 32:20
  Join the Self-Reliance Revolution.
• 32:22
  Go to thesprouting company.com slash out loud and use the code out loud for an exclusive offer.
• 32:30
  Feeling run down, foggy, or constantly drained?
• 32:33
  Your body might be lacking the support it needs at the cellular level.
• 32:37
  Recharge from the Wellness Company is a doctor-formulated supplement designed to restore your energy, focus, and immune function.
• 32:44
  It features the first ever combination of methylene blue and urolithin A.
• 32:49
  Clinically studied ingredients that support mitochondrial health, boost cellular repair, and enhance cognitive performance.
• 32:56
  With added NAD3, COQ10, and PQQ, recharge is the daily solution for deep lasting energy, not just a temporary boost.
• 33:06
  Visit TWC.
• 33:10
  And use code Outloud for 20% off your first order.
• 33:14
  Power up your body and mind with recharge.
• 33:16
  Is your gut a mess?
• 33:18
  Two-thirds of Americans suffer because of gastrointestinal issues, and I was one of them.
• 33:23
  That is why we created a three-step doctor formulated completely natural gut reboot system that you can do at home in just minutes a day.
• 33:32
  Go to chemicalfreebody.com forward slash out loud today.
• 33:36
  Get the Malcolm Healthy Gut Bundle, reboot your gut and your energy, and save 20% on your first order.
• 33:50
  The American experiment was a stroke of genius in a world of oppressors.
• 33:54
  July 4th, 2026 marks 250 years since the sign-in of the Declaration of Independence.
• 34:05
  America Outloud dot news is that place to awaken your heart, soul, and mind to the outlook.
• 34:24
  Well, welcome back, everyone.
• 34:25
  Today's conversation is with a specialist in frontier history of North America, Brady Kreitzer to talk about his mesmerizing and I learned so much from this book.
• 34:35
  His new book called The National Road, George Washington and America's First Highway West.
• 34:40
  Let me tell you just a little bit more about today's guest.
• 34:43
  Brady Kreitzer is an American historian, author, and educator who specializes in the frontier history of North America.
• 34:51
  His work often explores 18th century North American conflicts, diplomacy, and life along life along the early American frontier.
• 35:00
  He teaches in the Department of Social Sciences at Morris at Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and is an associate editor for the Journal of American Revolution.
• 35:00
  He teaches in the Department of Social Sciences at Morris at Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and is an associate editor for the Journal of American Revolution.
• 35:10
  Brady, I'm so glad to have you on the show.
• 35:10
  Brady, I'm so glad to have you on the show, and you've got eight books, so we're gonna have you back a lot to talk about all of American history.
• 35:12
  And you've got eight books.
• 35:14
  So we're going to have you back a lot to talk about all of American history.
• 35:18
  That's great.
• 35:18
  That's great.
• 35:20
  You know, um tell you know, we just alluded a little bit to Albert Gallatin.
• 35:20
  You know, um, tell, you know, we just alluded a little bit to Albert Gallatin.
• 35:25
  You have an entire section in your book about guy who lived in western Pennsylvania.
• 35:25
  You have an entire section in your book about guy who lived in Western Pennsylvania.
• 35:30
  He opposed the Wix whiskey task, whiskey tax, and later served as Secretary of the Treasury on under Thomas Jefferson.
• 35:38
  I mean, who even knows that?
• 35:40
  I mean, this guy was so important.
• 35:42
  He was the one that convinced Thomas Jefferson to fund the national road.
• 35:47
  And I could say if you stopped any American on the street and said, Do you know who Robert Robert Albert Gallatin is?
• 35:54
  Um, most people would have not an idea.
• 35:58
  So expand on the idea of who he is and why his and his importance to American history.
• 36:03
  Yeah, I love studying Albert Gallatin.
• 36:05
  So he's born in what is today uh Switzerland, and he's gonna come to America in 1780, right in the middle of the revolution.
• 36:13
  And he lives in Boston and he hates it.
• 36:15
  He feels like it's very dry and boring.
• 36:18
  So he settles all the way in the Western frontier, uh, in what is today Fayette County, Pennsylvania.
• 36:24
  And this is essentially like moving to the moon at this point.
• 36:28
  But he sees what George Washington saw.
• 36:30
  They even met in 1784 when Gallatin was a younger man.
• 36:35
  But he sees the future, the real potential of America is going to be in the West, you know, the Midwest at that time specifically.
• 36:43
  So Gallatin is elected to the Senate.
• 36:45
  He's actually expelled for being foreign-born.
• 36:48
  There were other foreigners.
• 36:50
  This was a very political move, though.
• 36:52
  But he gets to the House of Representatives.
• 36:54
  He's a numbers genius.
• 36:55
  He's like the ultimate number cruncher.
• 36:57
  He's short, he has a pointy nose, he's bald, he's got a thick French accent, but he's undeniably American.
• 37:05
  And he actually creates the House Ways and Means Committee in Congress, which we still have today.
• 37:11
  But as you mentioned, he will be Thomas Jefferson's number one pick to be Secretary of the Treasury, because nobody else in Jefferson's party can deal with numbers the way he does.
• 37:22
  And Gallatin will serve four different presidents in that capacity.
• 37:26
  He's the longest serving Treasury Secretary we ever have.
• 37:29
  During his tenure of office, this is the most amazing thing.
• 37:33
  He not only finances the national road, but he finances the Louisiana Purchase, the Lewis and Clark Expedition, and the War of 1812.
• 37:42
  And he does it all while at the same time lowering the national debt.
• 37:47
  It's incredible.
• 37:48
  So it's important we do know who he is.
• 37:49
  We need another one of him.
• 37:52
  Oh my gosh, do we ever, yeah?
• 37:53
  Do we ever?
• 37:57
  Yeah.
• 37:58
  So how did he convince Thomas Jefferson to fund the National Road?
• 38:03
  And as it was, where did it start and how far did it get?
• 38:08
  So the way Gallatin views the National Road is to complete George Washington's vision of connecting East and West.
• 38:14
  So they had about a hundred and thirty-ish miles between the navigable end of the Potomac River in Maryland to the Ohio River, either in western Pennsylvania or Western Virginia.
• 38:25
  And that was his goal to see that done.
• 38:28
  And Jefferson was very skeptical of it because Jefferson is a conservative.
• 38:33
  He knew that it would be very expensive.
• 38:35
  He also knew that it would have to go through at least three states.
• 38:38
  And if there's anything Jefferson hates, it's debating member states as president.
• 38:44
  He thinks it's going to be too complicated to do that.
• 38:47
  So that's where Gallatin comes up with the plan to let's let settlers fund it themselves through land sales.
• 38:54
  They buy land in Ohio, some some some pennies of each dollar go to finance the road.
• 39:01
  They pay for it themselves.
• 39:02
  It's a neutral cost.
• 39:03
  That's the idea.
• 39:04
  All the cost would be in maintenance.
• 39:06
  And uh for Jefferson, I think he liked that.
• 39:09
  And the other thing that he liked about it was constitutionally, the constitution actually says Congress must build roads to deliver mail, postal roads.
• 39:20
  And that's like the last thing anyone wants to talk about, especially Jefferson.
• 39:24
  But he sees, well, maybe this can be a mail road too.
• 39:26
  So he has this constitutional angle.
• 39:28
  It's paid for.
• 39:29
  He says, let's go for it.
• 39:31
  So they break ground on the national road in 1811.
• 39:35
  Now it's passed in 1806.
• 39:38
  That means for five years, Congress is debating how to even do this before ground's even broken.
• 39:45
  Um and Congress has its fingers all over it.
• 39:47
  You know, they they don't know anything about engineering, and they mandate that the road must meet certain proportions, 66 feet wide.
• 39:55
  But they say that it must be made of two layers of stone.
• 39:59
  One is uh the lower layer, which is each stone is seven inches in diameter, the upper layer, each stone must be three inches in diameter.
• 40:07
  And they give these poor road crew workers these iron rings, uh, one seven inches wide and one three inches wide.
• 40:16
  And these poor workers have to measure every single individual stone that's laid on this highway.
• 40:21
  It is the most ridiculously um inefficient slog you can imagine, which drives a guy like Gallatin crazy.
• 40:28
  But they do in 1818 finally reach the Ohio River.
• 40:32
  They choose wheeling Virginia, which will be wheeling West Virginia in the future, as the end point.
• 40:38
  And just like that, America has this incredible infrastructure project completed before the Panama Canal, before the Brooklyn Bridge, before the Golden Gate Bridge, we had the National Road, and I think that's why it's so important.
• 40:52
  It is important.
• 40:53
  And then it was really fairly functional that you write about between you know 1811 when they started it and then they build it out until about 1830.
• 41:03
  When it was overridden by steam-powered trains, talk about that transition and how the it collapsed the economy around all the economy things that had built up around the national road.
• 41:16
  Well, the national road is very slow.
• 41:18
  Uh, you know, it reaches Wheeling in 1818, and then it feeds passengers down the Ohio River.
• 41:24
  They don't break around in Ohio until 25, seven years later.
• 41:28
  And then, you know, Indiana becomes a state, Illinois becomes a state, and they have to go through the same process of land sales again.
• 41:36
  Congress is always fighting, you know, do we want to maintain this road?
• 41:40
  Why are we putting so much money into this road?
• 41:42
  Because railroads are developed, as you mentioned in the 1820s and early 1830s.
• 41:48
  Railroads go farther, faster than than anywhere anywhere else.
• 41:52
  Uh, but the national road still serves the entire Midwest in a way that railroads can't.
• 41:57
  So there's this push and pull in the 1830s and 40s uh to keep this relic of a national road finance because number one, it isn't even done yet.
• 42:00
  1830s and 40s to keep this relic of a national road finance because number one, it isn't even done yet.
• 42:08
  Uh, and number two, for a lot of farmers in places like Columbus and Indianapolis, Richmond, Indiana, Terre Haute, Vandale, Illinois.
• 42:08
  And number two, for a lot of farmers in places like Columbus and Indianapolis, Richmond, Indiana, Terre Haute, Vandaley, Illinois, that's their whole lifeblood.
• 42:18
  That's their whole lifeblood.
• 42:19
  Railroads aren't going to help them.
• 42:19
  Railroads aren't going to help them.
• 42:21
  So it's the old, it's the old issue we face in Congress all the time.
• 42:21
  So it's the old, it's the old issue we face in Congress all the time.
• 42:25
  Southerners may not like it.
• 42:25
  Southerners may not like it, New Yorkers, New Englanders may not like it because they're not in its path.
• 42:26
  New Yorkers, New Englanders may not like it because they're not in its path.
• 42:30
  But for people who live in the Midwest, uh, it's everything to them.
• 42:35
  And how long, you know, it kind of fell into disrepute, you know, through through particularly through the Civil War.
• 42:43
  Yeah, you know, and the way that it was sort of built.
• 42:45
  But but it went on to, after the Civil War, they went on to try to develop but redevelop the road and put it back into place.
• 42:53
  And it was the people that were riding bicycles during that time.
• 42:57
  Yeah, I forget what the name of it of them.
• 42:59
  What was the name of the magazine that they created?
• 43:02
  Uh, so by about 1870, the national road is pretty much abandoned.
• 43:08
  It's overgrown.
• 43:09
  We've all seen a road that's been left, you know, weeds are popping up through it.
• 43:13
  Um, America's on the move with railroads, but right around 1890, uh, bicycles, the safety bicycle becomes very popular in America, like you said.
• 43:22
  And bicycles are great from getting from point A to point B in a city, but there were no roads connecting cities, you know, only railroads connected cities.
• 43:31
  So bicyclists, and then the really important one, uh, but they were first.
• 43:36
  Bicyclists are joined by uh car manufacturers, and they begin what we call the good roads movement.
• 43:42
  So the magazine you mentioned was the Good Roads magazine.
• 43:45
  It had a million subscribers.
• 43:47
  That just blew me away when I read that.
• 43:49
  And um they they need to drive somewhere, they have no roads, and then they rediscover hey, there's this old road through the mountains that we've all forgotten about, the national road.
• 43:57
  And that will become, you know, first Route 40.
• 44:01
  Uh, but that will really be kind of the godfather, the grandfather of the whole interstate highway system.
• 44:07
  So that was all very much part of George Washington's original vision.
• 44:11
  You know, that just blew me away when I read that about uh that within three years they had a million subscribers to this magazine.
• 44:18
  Now you're jealous, right?
• 44:19
  When you're on social media, I was just gonna say that, you know, and the fact that we didn't have a postal service at that time that really delivered, you know, through the way that it does now.
• 44:30
  We didn't have the internet, we didn't have any ways for that to get out.
• 44:34
  How did they have a million subscribers?
• 44:37
  Who where did they read this material?
• 44:40
  You know, it really proliferated in cities.
• 44:44
  Uh if you lived in the countryside, you know, mail was tough to get, especially magazines and periodicals, because really what you had to do was mail be delivered to the closest city, and you'd pick it up whenever you could if you lived in the countryside.
• 44:57
  So magazines became very fashionable in the big cities like San Francisco, uh, Portland, Oregon, New York City, Boston, especially love bicycles.
• 45:06
  Uh, and it just took off from there, and you know, it matriculated through the odd issue might get into the suburbs, so to speak, and eventually could fall into the hands of a of a farmer, but um the the postal roads, once again is what really gave this life because there were millions of Americans who couldn't get mail, and America and Congress needed to make mail available to them.
• 45:31
  So there was this whole collision of events, cars, bikes, a need for mail, the national road was back, baby.
• 45:37
  That's how they did it.
• 45:39
  That's good.
• 45:39
  And you said it was in 1921 when the first federal highway act was passed.
• 45:44
  Yeah, um, to ensure that to going.
• 45:47
  I mean, those the dates of that really um uh surprise me because we didn't do anything to really develop a national highway system until Eisenhower in 1953, I believe.
• 45:59
  Yeah.
• 46:00
  Yeah.
• 46:01
  And so in the inner interim between that thing, how did the how did the roadways develop?
• 46:06
  And it was was this entire roadway system all considered part of the national road.
• 46:12
  So the roadways will develop in a way I think we could all understand.
• 46:16
  There were local roads everywhere by the 1920s.
• 46:19
  It was a matter of connecting them.
• 46:21
  So automobile manufacturers sponsored something they call the Lincoln Highway, went from New York to California.
• 46:28
  Uh basically not building a new road, but just kind of mapping out connecting existing roads.
• 46:33
  But very quickly, states got into the business of improving roads for interstates.
• 46:38
  So they developed a system, you know, uh east to west roads were numbered with even numbers, like Route 40, right?
• 46:45
  Um North and South would be odd numbers.
• 46:48
  Uh so you know, where I live, we have interstate 79.
• 46:52
  That's where that comes from.
• 46:53
  Um, and and you really had this like spider web kind of a network develop.
• 46:57
  But really, what drove that was World War One, because a lot of our soldiers spent time in Europe, who by the way had amazing roads, far better than ours, and they were moving over land to fight the Germans and their allies very easily.
• 47:13
  And here in America, we realized, you know, if we could attack in California and all of our tanks are in New Jersey, we can't defend ourselves.
• 47:21
  So interstate highways became as much about national defense as it was about the economy, but either way, uh it fed both.
• 47:30
  You know, you mentioned just briefly in passing there, another factoid that I learned from reading your book, The National Road, about that the east-west roads were numbered, even numbered, and the north-south roads were odd numbered.
• 47:43
  I had I never heard that before, and I thought that was really interesting.
• 47:47
  You know, through Cleveland, we've got I-71, North and South, and I-75 and 271.
• 47:53
  And I, you know, I never had any idea how those roads got got numbered.
• 47:58
  Did they did they crunch were they chronological chronological, or how did they come up with the numbers that they did?
• 48:05
  That was a real mess, to be honest with you.
• 48:07
  Probably too much to get into.
• 48:08
  One of the early, what I'll say is this one of the earliest interstates after Eisenhower funds this is I-70.
• 48:15
  And I-70 more or less mirrors the the original national road.
• 48:19
  It goes from Baltimore to Cumberland, Maryland.
• 48:22
  Uh, then it goes through uh uh Wheeling, West Virginia, Columbus, Ohio, Indianapolis, and so on.
• 48:29
  Um, and that's a really kind of different road than a lot of new modern interstates.
• 48:33
  If you're ever on it, you can feel like this is a much older, less amenable road.
• 48:37
  So the numbers weren't chronological in any way.
• 48:40
  Um, the only standard they had to meet was that north-south, east-west designation.
• 48:44
  So California, for example, is most famous for having the I-5.
• 48:48
  You would think the five would be on the East Coast somewhere.
• 48:50
  The five is way out in California.
• 48:52
  So I I can't say there's a real rhyme or reason toward that.
• 48:56
  Well, and you know, you said that you know, the seven-year war is sometimes called the the uh American the the Indian War, right?
• 49:00
  War is sometimes called the the uh Americ the Indian the Indian the the Indian War, right?
• 49:06
  The French and Indian War.
• 49:07
  The French and Indian War.
• 49:08
  The French and Indian War, right?
• 49:08
  The French and Indian War, right?
• 49:09
  And you talk about in your book a bit about the collapse of the Indian nations and that they signed something called the Treaty of Greenville.
• 49:09
  And you talk about in your book a bit about the collapse of the Indian nations, and that they signed something called the Treaty of Greenville.
• 49:18
  Yes.
• 49:18
  Yes.
• 49:18
  And how did that travesty affect American Indians and how is it still playing out today?
• 49:18
  And how did that travesty affect American Indians and how is it still playing out today?
• 49:24
  Well, so after the revolution, you know, Britain will find a lot of allies in the native world.
• 49:24
  Well, so after the revolution, you know, Britain will find a lot of allies in the native world because their argument was pretty good.
• 49:31
  And the argument was if America wins, they'll take your land.
• 49:35
  If you side with us, we'll give you trade agreements.
• 49:38
  So you had a whole uh whole slew of Native nations in what is today Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin.
• 49:46
  We call that the Northwest Territory.
• 49:49
  Right.
• 49:49
  And when the British surrendered, or they sued for peace in the revolution, those Native warriors, they had no choice but to keep fighting.
• 49:57
  So as soon as the American Revolution ends, all these Native nations continue fighting the United States now, really without an ally.
• 50:06
  Um and they will be the very first war America's involved in as a nation.
• 50:10
  And it begins the second the American Revolution ends.
• 50:13
  We call it the Northwest War.
• 50:15
  And George Washington will send armies out there in 1790 and 91.
• 50:20
  And those armies will both be just annihilated.
• 50:23
  The second one we call the Battle of the Wabash.
• 50:25
  Uh, that's still the worst defeat in American military history, 95% casualty rate.
• 50:30
  It's unbelievable.
• 50:32
  But Washington will ultimately build a new army.
• 50:35
  He will defeat the those native nations, uh, and they will sign what we call the Treaty of Greenville.
• 50:41
  And what it essentially does is forces Native people out of what is today Ohio to points further west.
• 50:50
  And you know, to to put it simply, it was sort of like um, you know, we don't care where you go, but you can't stay here is the idea.
• 50:57
  And when that document is signed, when that treaty is signed, all the Native peoples who lived in western Pennsylvania, the Ohio River Valley in Ohio, move westward and settlers replace them immediately.
• 51:09
  So that is what the Treaty of Greenville is.
• 51:12
  It kind of clears a hurdle to begin construction, so you're not building through a war zone of the national road.
• 51:19
  You know, there's so many, so many fascinating things about your book, The National Road.
• 51:23
  In fact, you've got nearly 30 pages of notes and references at the end of the book that talk that talks, shows documents, all the all the research and everything that you did in order to put this book together.
• 51:36
  And you said you've written about, I mean, you are a uh uh uh a historian about American history in this this particular era.
• 51:44
  Was there anything, any big surprises that you found along that you when you were investigating this or researching for this book, The National Road, that really kind of took you by surprise that you said, wow, I didn't know that before.
• 51:56
  Every day, Sherry, every day I research, you know, I'm always digging around documents.
• 52:00
  That's what I do for a living.
• 52:01
  And I see something amazing every day.
• 52:03
  I mean, I just wish we were talking about this earlier.
• 52:06
  I just want people to see the world the way I see it, you know, to see America the way I see it, because you know, your small town wherever you are may look a certain way to you, but it looked completely different a hundred years ago.
• 52:17
  And it represented so much more hope and opportunity.
• 52:20
  But one of my favorite stories about the national road is that once the road really opens up, we see these big Conestoga wagons traveling east to west.
• 52:30
  And all of them will have these long strings of what I would call like jingle bells on the side.
• 52:36
  And and they would rattle as these big wagons kind of barreled down the road, and they did that to keep drivers awake so they didn't fall asleep.
• 52:44
  But if you would ever crash your wagon, which happened regularly, um, whenever someone would tow you out, you would give them those bells, kind of uh in lieu of payment.
• 52:53
  So if you saw a wagon with just tons of jingle bells, you knew that was like triple A of its day, you know.
• 52:59
  But but here's what's really important.
• 53:01
  If you got to your destination, um and you still had your bells with you, you would say, we arrived with bells on, or I'll be there with bells on, and we still talk about that today.
• 53:11
  Yeah.
• 53:11
  So that's like some of that old road culture that that's kind of lost when the national road vanishes.
• 53:18
  That that survives, and that's one of the funny ways I think we still see it because I say that all the time.
• 53:23
  That's really that's really really interesting.
• 53:25
  I'm sure that there's just lots of surprises and things that we just didn't really know about.
• 53:30
  You know, we've we've spent this time together, and I've really enjoyed this because I thoroughly enjoyed your book.
• 53:36
  Um, we and I think we've given things sort of a good overview.
• 53:40
  And in the last couple of minutes that we have here together, what reason would you give people for getting your book and buy and reading it, you know, not just buying it, putting it on the shelf.
• 53:50
  Why do you want people to buy this book and read it?
• 53:53
  Well, I'll tell you one of the things that that really drives me is um if you look at the books coming out today, if you look at you know, people operating in history, it seems like no one really wants to celebrate the amazing things America's done over the last 250 years.
• 54:12
  I mean, um, if you look at the books being published, if you if you are willing to say something negative about the founders or about the founding generation, if you're willing to cut them down, you go to the front of the line.
• 54:24
  And I think that's a really dangerous thing.
• 54:26
  I'll never do that, you know, because when you look at the positives, the enormous positives a person like George Washington does, they so far outweigh any of the negatives.
• 54:36
  But unfortunately for a lot of students, they're only learning the negatives.
• 54:40
  They're they haven't got to learn the really great things.
• 54:42
  So that is kind of my charge.
• 54:45
  Like I want to remind people in the 250th anniversary why this country is so great and why it literally freed billions of people around the world since since its founding.
• 54:55
  I mean, look at all the people who used to be subjects of an emperor or a king who copied us and who now have the right to vote and free speech.
• 55:03
  Um, so I want to remind people what makes this country so darn great.
• 55:08
  Uh, and and I think looking at the things they made, they built with their own hands, I think it's a good way to do it.
• 55:14
  Oh, wow, what a great summary because that's absolutely true.
• 55:17
  And on everything that you said that you know, the younger generation just picks out the negative, and we don't put enough focus on how this country became great and what it was.
• 55:27
  So I want to thank you so much, Brady, for coming in on the show today.
• 55:32
  Uh, thank you for writing this book.
• 55:33
  I'm telling you, I was mesmerized by it.
• 55:35
  Thank you.
• 55:36
  I really really learned so much about American history, and it's an easy read.
• 55:43
  I mean, it's easy to read and to follow.
• 55:45
  It's uh um, it has a great chronological order to it, and it really explains things really well.
• 55:50
  So I want to thank you so much for writing it.
• 55:53
  Thank you for being on the show today.
• 55:54
  And I'm gonna have you back.
• 55:55
  You said you got eight books, so we've got a lot of material more material to talk about.
• 56:01
  And I want to thank all of my listeners who followed us here today and have been here every day with us.
• 56:01
  And I want to thank all of my listeners who followed us here today and have been here every day with us.
• 56:06
  Uh uh, you can tell the type of conversation that we have.
• 56:06
  You can tell the type of conversation that we have.
• 56:08
  They're always interesting, and the books are really riveting.
• 56:08
  They're always interesting and the books are really riveting.
• 56:11
  So I want to close out with one of my favorite verses from the Bible.
• 56:11
  So I want to close out with one of my favorite verses from the Bible.
• 56:15
  I close all of my podcasts with, whether it is live or pre-recorded, which is Romans 12 12.
• 56:15
  I close all of my podcasts with, whether it is live or pre-recorded, which is Romans 12 12.
• 56:20
  Rejoice in hope.
• 56:20
  Rejoice in hope, be patient in trouble and be persistent in prayer.
• 56:21
  Be patient in trouble and be persistent in prayer.
• 56:24
  Remember to lean into God, trust him for everything.
• 56:24
  Remember to lean into God, trust him for everything.
• 56:26
  His timeline may not be your timeline, but he's always beside you and he.
• 56:26
  His timeline may not be your timeline, but he's always beside you and he won't let you down.
• 56:31
  So we'll see you here again tomorrow at 3 p.m.
• 56:34
  Eastern, Monday through Friday on AmericaOut Loud.news and iHeartRadio.
• 56:37
  Um you can also follow it on our um dr10penny.com under the podcast tab.
• 56:43
  And so we thank we um thank everybody for being here with us today.
• 56:46
  We'll see you again tomorrow or the next time on the 10penny files.
• 56:51
  Have a great rest of your day, everybody.
• 56:53
  Goodbye and God bless