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The 620-mile road provided a path between the Potomac and Ohio Rivers and a gateway to the West for thousands of settlers. It was the first road in the U.S. to use the new macadam road surfacing. Today the route is followed by U.S. Highway 40. The National Road, also called the Cumberland Road, was one of the first major improved highways in the United States, built by the Federal Government. Construction began in 1811 at Cumberland, Maryland, on the Potomac River, and the road reached Wheeling, Virginia (now West Virginia) on the Ohio River in 1818. Plans were made to continue through St. Louis, Missouri, on the Mississippi River to Jefferson City, Missouri, but funding ran out and construction stopped at Vandalia, Illinois in 1839. The timing is too late for our earliest Stillwell ancestors to have used, but in travels later it probably was used.
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