From the Reading Eagle: Forefathers nurtured roots of Route 222
Q: Did Route 222 play an important role in the American Revolution?
The road from Reading to Easton, now Route 222, was called King's Highway in 1776.
It was a critical artery for the movement of troops and supplies during the American Revolution.
Indeed, there's strong evidence that Gen. George Washington himself
traversed the road on his way to upstate New York in 1782, stopping off
in the Moravian town of Bethlehem.
Revolution, however, was not on the minds of most colonists when the
Reading-to-Easton road was proposed by Conrad Weiser, William Parsons
and other leaders in 1753; Indians were.
There had been massacres of settlers pushing north from Philadelphia to settle what was then a frontier region.
Weiser was an Indian agent who had a general store on what is now Penn
Square in Reading. Parsons, Pennsylvania's surveyor general, was
responsible for much of Reading's layout and is considered the father of
Easton.
The two men also were linked by military service.
Parsons, a major, served under Weiser, a lieutenant colonel, in the colony's militia.
Both men were visionaries who saw the need to connect Reading, Bethlehem
and Easton to clear the way for settlement. Travel in that area was an
arduous task, over winding Indian trails that could take more than a
week.
"William Parsons, the whip-tongued proprietary agent at Easton, and
Conrad Weiser, Reading's heavy-handed godfather, were not slow to see
the need for widening this forest track into a road," Tony Wallace wrote
a 1941 article in the Historical Review of Berks County.
Parsons, Weiser and other leaders petitioned authorities, saying the
existing route was "often diverted and obstructed and rendered almost
impassable."
Considering the modern-day backups at Routes 662 and 73 on Route 222, it might be argued not much has changed in 259 years.
Permission was granted and, in 1754, Parsons and an associate, David Shultze, began surveying the route.
"The various demands of civilized life must be levied on the light trace
beaten by the foot of Indian travelers," Wallace wrote. "Or else the
frontier between the Schuylkill and Delaware rivers will shrivel under
Indian attack and become a line of isolated outposts."
Parsons died in 1757 in Easton, where his house was bought by George
Taylor, who would become a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
It is maintained by the George Taylor Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
Weiser, one of Berks County's founding fathers, died in 1760.
The Conrad Weiser Homestead near Womelsdorf is administered by the
Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission with help from the Friends
of Conrad Weiser Homestead.
Neither man lived to see the role the road they envisioned would play in the formation of the United States of America.
