This gentleman having landed in Baltimore, was, at an early period, impressed with the idea that this new country, situated immediately north of the centre of Pennsylvania and Maryland, must reap great advantages from opening a communication across the Alleghany Mountains ; and his first attempt at improving the Genesee Country was to examine, in person, the possibility of opening the communication. Not discouraged by the inforuiation he had received of the impracticability of the object, with four companions, on the third day of June, 1792, he left the settlement at the mouth of Lycoming Creek, on the west branch of the Susquehannah, and entered the wilderness, taking a northerly course. After ten days laborious exertion they fell on the Cawonisque Creek, and, from the course of the waters, vhey soon found they had entered the county of Ontario. It appeared by the map of the adjacent country that a direct road across the mountains would shorten the distance of the Genesee Country from the settlttaents in Pennsylvania at least one hundred miles, and the advantages attending the opening of this communication were so obvious, that, difficult as the undertaking was, he determined, without delay to try to effect it. Ry the month of November, of the same year, thirty miles Avere made sufficiently good to admit the passage of waggons ; and by the following August the road was completed to Williamsburgh, a distance of one hundred and seventy miles from the mouth of Lycoming Creek, where they had entered the wilderness to explore the route.