[c] "Maggoty Gap" describes a natural gateway of the Great Wagon Road (locally known as The Carolina Road) that made it possible for wagons and livestock traffic to pass through the Blue Ridge Mountains at Roanoke, Virginia near Maggoty Creek (now called Maggodee Creek).
(It reportedly took three months for him and his sons to travel a distance of about 80 miles from Roanoke to their destination at the "Shallow Ford" of the Yadkin River in the vicinity of Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
)[4] In 1753, the original 15 Moravians used Bryan's road to get a wagon to their Wachovia Tract located at present-day Winston-Salem, but took a wrong turn and missed Maggoty Gap; instead with great difficulty they traveled over nearby Windy Gap and rejoined Bryan's road at present-day Boone's Mill.
In 1838, Claudius Crozet (1789–1864) surveyed the road for its improvement as the Pittsylvania, Franklin, and Botetourt Turnpike, still made of dirt but with grades generally to be less than 4 percent and the carriageway to be a minimum of 18 feet wide (right-of-way to be a total of 40 feet wide).
[5][6] In his field notes, he had two sketches showing "Maggoty Creek" winding around in the vicinity of the present-day junction of State Roads 613 and 726 (Wades Gap Rd.
[d] His sketch showed the road continuing due north down to the cultivated fields of Starkey.