'As constructed in 1758, the Forbes Road overcame this rise by resorting to a zigzag switchback system of "seven reverse curves and two 90-degree turns, with several connecting long tangents --one about a half mile in length-- climbing the long and steep slope. The construction was accomplished by dragging large blocks, in which the mountainside abounds, into a line against which earth was scooped from the mountainside above, the large rocks serving as a retaining wall. A short, steep 'pinch' at the top completed the ascent" (Williams, 1975, p. 40). At the top, the road generally turned southwest along the crest, about 2 1/2 miles reaching the site of Jerry Spring, even recently a reliable source of Forbes Road water for travelers. In 1764, Captain Williams, the Chief Engineer on Bouquet's staff (...), considerably improved the route up Sideling Hill. "By producing a prolongation of the third long tangent of the switchback and taking advantage of an existing natural, inclined shelf rising along the side of the narrow valley of the falling Wooden Bridge Creek, for two miles, then passing through a gap between the lofty King's Knob and the main ridge of Sideling Hill, [Captain] Williams gained the comparatively level top of the connecting ridge to Ray's Hill summit (Williams, 1975, p. 40), joining the route of the 1758 road not far from Jerry Spring."' Briggs 8, citing Williams, E. G., 1975, Bouquet's march to the Ohio: The Forbes Road. Pittsburgh, PA: The Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania, 1975.
Of the initial path cut by Burd in 1755, one contemporary account notes "'Sideling Hill,' sixty-seven miles west of Carlisle, and thirty miles east of Raystown, 'is cut very artificially, nay more so than We ever saw any; the first waggon that carried a Load up it took fifteen Hundred without ever stopping;'... Hulbert p. 27, citing Pennsylvania Colonial Records, pp. 434, 435.
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Meyers, jr., James P. (October 1998). "The New Way to the Forks of the Ohio: Reflections on John Potts's Map of 1758". The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography. CXXII (4 (October 1998)): 385–410. S2CID113792645.
