CHAPTER I

HISTORIC HIGHWAYS OF AMERICA

VOLUME 11

[Illustration: A MILESTONE ON BRADDOCK'S ROAD

[_See page 105, note 19_]]

HISTORIC HIGHWAYS OF AMERICA

VOLUME 11

Pioneer Roads and

Experiences of Travelers

(Volume I)

BY

ARCHER BUTLER HULBERT

_With Illustrations_

[Illustration]

THE ARTHUR H. CLARK COMPANY

CLEVELAND, OHIO

1904

COPYRIGHT, 1904

BY

THE ARTHUR H. CLARK COMPANY

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

CONTENTS

PAGE

PREFACE 11

I. THE EVOLUTION OF HIGHWAYS: FROM INDIAN TRAIL TO TURNPIKE 15

II. A PILGRIM ON THE PENNSYLVANIA ROAD 106

III. ZANE'S TRACE AND THE MAYSVILLE PIKE 151

IV. PIONEER TRAVEL IN KENTUCKY 175

ILLUSTRATIONS

I. A MILESTONE ON BRADDOCK'S ROAD _Frontispiece_

II. INDIAN TRAVAIL 19

III. OLD CONESTOGA FREIGHTER 50

IV. EARLIEST STYLE OF LOG TAVERN 87

V. WIDOW MCMURRAN'S TAVERN (Scrub Ridge, Pennsylvania Road) 134

VI. BRIDGE ON WHICH ZANE'S TRACE CROSSED THE MUSKINGUM RIVER

AT ZANESVILLE, OHIO 162

VII. PIONEER VIEW OF HOUSES AT FORT CUMBERLAND, MARYLAND 191

PREFACE

The first chapter of this volume presents an introduction to the two

volumes of this series devoted to Pioneer Roads and Experiences of

Travelers. The evolution of American highways from Indian trail to

macadamized road is described; the Lancaster Turnpike, the first

macadamized road in the United States, being taken as typical of roads

of the latter sort.

An experience of a noted traveler, Francis Baily, the eminent British

astronomer, is presented in chapter two.

The third chapter is devoted to the story of Zane's Trace from Virginia

to Kentucky across Ohio, and its terminal, the famous Maysville Pike. It

was this highway which precipitated President Jackson's veto of the

Internal Improvement Bill of 1830, one of the epoch-making vetoes in our

economic history.

The last chapter is the vivid picture of Kentucky travel drawn by Judge

James Hall in his description of "The Emigrants," in _Legends of the

West_.

The illustrations in this volume have been selected to show styles of

pioneer architecture and means of locomotion, including types of

earliest taverns, bridges, and vehicles.

A. B. H.

MARIETTA, OHIO, December 30, 1903.

Pioneer Roads and Experiences of Travelers

(Volume I)

CHAPTER I

THE EVOLUTION OF HIGHWAYS: FROM INDIAN TRAIL TO TURNPIKE

We have considered in this series of monographs the opening of a number

of Historic Roads and the part they played in the development of the

most important phases of early American history. But our attitude has

been that of one asking, Why?--we have not at proper length considered

all that would be contained in the question, How? It will be greatly to

our purpose now to inquire into the methods of road-making, and outline,

briefly, the evolution of the first trodden paths to the great highways

of civilization.

From one aspect, and an instructive one, the question is one of width;

few, if any, of our roads are longer than those old "threads of

soil"--as Holland called the Indian trails; Braddock's Road was not

longer than the trail he followed; even the Cumberland Road could

probably have been followed its entire length by a parallel Indian path

or a buffalo trace. But Braddock's Road was, in its day, a huge, broad

track, twelve feet wide; and the Cumberland Road exceeded it in breadth

nearly fifty feet. So our study may be pursued from the interesting

standpoint of a widening vista; the belt of blue above our heads grows

broader as we study the widening of the trail of the Indian.

To one who has not followed the trails of the West or the Northland, the

experience is always delightful. It is much the same delight as that

felt in traversing a winding woodland road, intensified many fold. The

incessant change of scenery, the continued surprises, the objects passed

unseen yet not unguessed, those half-seen through a leafy vista amid the

shimmering green; the pathway just in front very plain, but twenty feet

beyond as absolutely hidden from your eyes as though it were a thousand

miles away--such is the romance of following a trail. One's mind keeps

as active as when looking at Niagara, and it is lulled by the lapsing

of those leaves as if by the roar of that cataract.

Yet the old trail, unlike our most modern roads, kept to the high

ground; even in low places it seemed to attempt a double-bow knot in

keeping to the points of highest altitude. But when once on the hills,

the vista presented varied only with the altitude, save where hidden by

the foliage. We do not choose the old "ridge roads" today for the view

to be obtained, and we look continually up while the old-time traveler

so often looked down. As we have hinted, elsewhere, many of our pioneer

battles--those old battles of the trails--will be better understood when

the position of the attacking armies is understood to have been on lower

levels, the rifles shooting upward, the enemy often silhouetted against

the very sky-line.

[Illustration: INDIAN TRAVAIL]

But the one characteristic to which, ordinarily, there was no exception,

was the narrowness of these ancient routes. The Indian did not travel in

single file because there was advantage in that formation; it was

because his only routes were trails which he never widened or improved;

and these would, ordinarily, admit only of one such person as broke them

open. True, the Indians did have broader trails; but they were very

local in character and led to maple-sugar orchards or salt wells. From

such points to the Indian villages there ran what seemed not unlike our

"ribbon roads"--the two tracks made by the "travail"--the two poles with

crossbar that dragged on the ground behind the Indian ponies, upon which

a little freight could be loaded. In certain instances such roads as

these were to be found running between Indian villages and between

villages and hunting grounds. They were the roads of times of peace. The

war-time trails were always narrow and usually hard--the times of peace

came few and far between. As we have stated, so narrow was the trail,

that the traveler was drenched with water from the bushes on either

hand. And so "blind"--to use a common pioneer word--were trails when

overgrown, that they were difficult to find and more difficult to

follow. Though an individual Indian frequently marked his way through

the forest, for the benefit of others who were to follow him or for

his own guidance in returning, the Indian trails in native state were

never blazed. Thus, very narrow, exceedingly crooked, often overgrown,

worn a foot or more into the ground, lay the routes on which white men

built roads which have become historic. Let us note the first steps

toward road-building, chronologically.

The first phase of road-making (if it be dignified by such a title) was

the broadening of the Indian path by the mere passing of wider loads

over it. The beginning of the pack-horse era was announced by the need

of greater quantities of merchandise and provisions in the West to which

these paths led. The heavier the freight tied on either side of the

pack-horse, the more were the bushes bruised and worn away, and the more

the bed of the trail was tracked and trampled. The increasing of the

fur-trade with the East at the beginning of the last half of the

eighteenth century necessitated heavier loads for the trading ponies

both "going in" and "coming out"--as the pioneers were wont to say. Up

to this time, so far as the present writer's knowledge goes, the Indian

never lifted a finger to make his paths better in any one respect; it

seems probable that, oftentimes, when a stream was to be crossed, which

could not be forded, the Indian bent his steps to the first fallen tree

whose trunk made a natural bridge across the water. That an Indian never

felled such a tree, it is impossible to say; but no such incident has

come within my reading. It seems that this must have happened and

perhaps was of frequent occurrence.

Our first picture, then, of a "blind" trail is succeeded by one of a

trail made rougher and a little wider merely by use; a trail over which

perhaps the agents of a Croghan or a Gist pushed westward with more and

more heavily-loaded pack-horses than had been customarily seen on the

trails thither. Of course such trails as began now to have some

appearance of roads were very few. As was true of the local paths in

Massachusetts and Connecticut and Virginia, so of the long trails into

the interior of the continent, very few answered all purposes. Probably

by 1750 three routes, running through southwestern Pennsylvania,

central Pennsylvania, and central New York, were worn deep and broad. By

broad of course we mean that, in many places, pack-horses could meet and

pass without serious danger to their loads. But there were, probably,

only these three which at this time answered this description. And the

wider and the harder they became, the narrower and the softer grew

scores of lesser trails which heretofore had been somewhat traversed. It

is not surprising that we find the daring missionary Zeisberger going to

the Allegheny River like a beast on all fours through overgrown trails,

or that Washington, floundering in the fall of 1784 along the upper

Monongahela and Cheat Rivers, was compelled to give up returning to the

South Branch (of the Potomac) by way of the ancient path from Dunkards

Bottom. "As the path it is said is very blind & exceedingly grown up

with briers," wrote Washington, September 25, 1784, in his Journal, "I

resolved to try the other Rout, along the New Road to Sandy Creek; ..."

This offers a signal instance in which an ancient route had become

obsolete. Yet the one Washington pursued was not an Appian Way: "... we

started at dawning of day, and passing along a small path much enclosed

with weeds and bushes, loaded with Water from the overnights rain & the

showers which were continually falling, we had an uncomfortable

travel...."[1] Such was the "New Road."

The two great roads opened westward by the armies of Washington,

Braddock, and Forbes, whose history has been dealt with at length in

this series, were opened along the line of trails partially widened by

the pack-horses of the Ohio Company's agents (this course having been

first marked out by Thomas Cresap) and those of the Pennsylvania

traders. Another route led up the Mohawk, along the wide Iroquois Trail,

and down the Onondaga to the present Oswego; this was a waterway route

primarily, the two rivers (with the portage at Rome) offering more or

less facilities for shipping the heavy baggage by batteaus. It was a

portage path from the Hudson to Lake Ontario; the old landward trail to

Niagara not being opened by an army.[2]

Yet Braddock's Road, cut in 1755, was quite filled up with undergrowth

in 1758 as we have noted. It was "a brush wood, by the sprouts from the

old stumps."[3] In those primeval forests a road narrowed very fast, and

quickly became impassable if not constantly cared for. The storms of a

single fall or spring month and the heavy clouds of snow on the trees in

winter kept the ground beneath well littered with broken limbs and

branches. Here and there great trees were thrown by the winds across the

traveled ways. And so a military road over which thousands may have

passed would become, if left untouched, quite as impassable as the

blindest trail in a short time.

Other Indian trails which armies never traversed became slightly widened

by agents of land companies, as in the case of Boone blazing his way

through Cumberland Gap for Richard Henderson. For a considerable

distance the path was widened, either by Boone or Martin himself, to

Captain Joseph Martin's "station" in Powell's Valley. Thousands of

traces were widened by early explorers and settlers who branched off

from main traveled ways, or pushed ahead on an old buffalo trail; the

path just mentioned, which Washington followed, was a buffalo trail, but

had received the name of an early pioneer and was known as "McCulloch's

Path."

But our second picture holds good through many years--that trail, even

though armies had passed over it, was still but a widened trail far down

into the early pioneer days. Though wagons went westward with Braddock

and Forbes, they were not seen again in the Alleghenies for more than

twenty-five years. These were the days of the widened trails, the days

of the long strings of jingling ponies bearing patiently westward salt

and powder, bars of bended iron, and even mill-stones, and bringing back

to the East furs and ginseng. Of this pack-saddle era--this age of the

widened trail--very little has been written, and it cannot be passed

here without a brief description. In Doddridge's _Notes_ we read: "The

acquisition of the indispensable articles of salt, iron, steel and

castings presented great difficulties to the first settlers of the

western country. They had no stores of any kind, no salt, iron, nor iron

works; nor had they money to make purchases where these articles could

be obtained. Peltry and furs were their only resources before they had

time to raise cattle and horses for sale in the Atlantic states. Every

family collected what peltry and fur they could obtain throughout the

year for the purpose of sending them over the mountains for barter. In

the fall of the year, after seeding time, every family formed an

association with some of their neighbors, for starting the little

caravan. A master driver was to be selected from among them, who was to

be assisted by one or more young men and sometimes a boy or two. The

horses were fitted out with pack-saddles, to the latter part of which

was fastened a pair of hobbles made of hickory withes--a bell and collar

ornamented their necks. The bags provided for the conveyance of the

salt were filled with feed for the horses; on the journey a part of this

feed was left at convenient stages on the way down, to support the

return of the caravan. Large wallets well filled with bread, jerk,

boiled ham, and cheese furnished provision for the drivers. At night,

after feeding, the horses, whether put in pasture or turned out into the

woods, were hobbled and the bells were opened [unstuffed].... Each horse

carried [back] two bushels of alum salt, weighing eighty-four pounds to

the bushel." Another writer adds: "The caravan route from the Ohio river

to Frederick [Maryland] crossed the stupendous ranges of the ...

mountains.... The path, _scarcely two feet wide_, and travelled by

horses in single file, roamed over hill and dale, through mountain

defile, over craggy steeps, beneath impending rocks, and around points

of dizzy heights, where one false step might hurl horse and rider into

the abyss below. To prevent such accidents, the bulky baggage was

removed in passing the dangerous defiles, to secure the horse from being

thrown from his scanty foothold.... The horses, with their packs, were

marched along in single file, the foremost led by the leader of the

caravan, while each successive horse was tethered to the pack-saddle of

the horse before him. A driver followed behind, to keep an eye upon the

proper adjustment of the packs." The Pennsylvania historian Rupp informs

us that in the Revolutionary period "five hundred pack-horses had been

at one time in Carlisle [Pennsylvania], going thence to Shippensburg,

Fort Loudon, and further westward, loaded with merchandise, also salt,

iron, &c. The pack-horses used to carry bars of iron on their backs,

crooked over and around their bodies; barrels or kegs were hung on each

side of these. Colonel Snyder, of Chambersburg, in a conversation with

the writer in August, 1845, said that he cleared many a day from $6 to

$8 in crooking or bending iron and shoeing horses for western carriers

at the time he was carrying on a blacksmith shop in the town of

Chambersburg. The pack-horses were generally led in divisions of 12 or

15 horses, carrying about two hundred weight each ...; when the bridle

road passed along declivities or over hills, the path was in some places

washed out so deep that the packs or burdens came in contact with the

ground or other impending obstacles, and were frequently displaced."

Though we have been specifically noticing the Alleghenies we have at the

same time described typical conditions that apply everywhere. The

widened trail was the same in New England as in Kentucky or

Pennsylvania--in fact the same, at one time, in old England as in New

England. Travelers between Glasgow and London as late as 1739 found no

turnpike till within a hundred miles of the metropolis. Elsewhere they

traversed narrow causeways with an unmade, soft road on each side.

Strings of pack-horses were occasionally passed, thirty or forty in a

train. The foremost horse carried a bell so that travelers in advance

would be warned to step aside and make room. The widened pack-horse

routes were the main traveled ways of Scotland until a comparatively

recent period. "When Lord Herward was sent, in 1760, from Ayrshire to

the college at Edinburgh, the road was in such a state that servants

were frequently sent forward with poles to sound the depths of the

mosses and bogs which lay in their way. The mail was regularly

dispatched between Edinburgh and London, on horseback, and went in the

course of five or six days." In the sixteenth century carts without

springs could not be taken into the country from London; it took Queen

Henrietta four days to traverse Watling Street to Dover. Of one of Queen

Elizabeth's journeys it is said: "It was marvelous for ease and

expedition, for such is the perfect evenness of the new highway that Her

Majesty left the coach only once, while the hinds and the folk of baser

sort lifted it on their poles!" A traveler in an English coach of 1663

said: "This travel hath soe indisposed mee, yt I am resolved never to

ride up againe in ye coatch."

Thus the widened trail or bridle-path, as it was commonly known in some

parts, was the universal predecessor of the highway. It needs to be

observed, however, that winter travel in regions where much snow fell

greatly influenced land travel. The buffalo and Indian did not travel

in the winter, but white men in early days found it perhaps easier to

make a journey on sleds in the snow than at any other time. In such

seasons the bridle-paths were, of course, largely followed, especially

in the forests; yet in the open, with the snow a foot and more in depth,

many short cuts were made along the zig-zag paths and in numerous

instances these short cuts became the regular routes thereafter for all

time. An interesting instance is found in the "Narrative of Andrew J.

Vieau, Sr.:" "This path between Green Bay [Wisconsin] and Milwaukee was

originally an Indian trail, and very crooked; but the whites would

straighten it by cutting across lots each winter with their jumpers

[rude boxes on runners], wearing bare streaks through the thin covering

[of snow], to be followed in the summer by foot and horseback travel

along the shortened path."[4]

This form of traveling was, of course, unknown save only where snow fell

and remained upon the ground for a considerable time. Throughout New

York State travel on snow was common and in the central portion of the

state, where there was much wet ground in the olden time, it was easier

to move heavy freight in the winter than in summer when the soft ground

was treacherous. Even as late as the building of the Erie Canal in the

second and third decades of the nineteenth century--long after the

building of the Genesee Road--freight was hauled in the winter in

preference to summer. In the annual report of the comissioners of the

Erie Canal, dated January 25, 1819, we read that the roads were so

wretched between Utica and Syracuse in the summer season that

contractors who needed to lay up a supply of tools, provisions, etc.,

for their men, at interior points, purchased them in the winter before

and sent the loads onward to their destinations in sleighs.[5] One of

the reasons given by the Erie Canal commissioners for delays and

increased expenses in the work on the canal in 1819, in their report

delivered to the legislature February 18, 1820, was that the absence of

snow in central New York in the winter of 1818-19 prevented the handling

of heavy freight on solid roads; "no hard snow path could be found."[6]

The soft roads of the summer time were useless so far as heavy loads of

lumber, stone, lime, and tools were concerned. No winter picture of

early America is so vivid as that presented by the eccentric Evans of

New Hampshire, who, dressed in his Esquimau suit, made a midwinter

pilgrimage throughout the country lying south of the Great Lakes from

Albany to Detroit in 1818.[7] His experiences in moving across the

Middle West with the blinding storms, the mountainous drifts of snow,

the great icy cascades, the hurrying rivers, buried out of sight in

their banks of ice and snow, and the far scattered little settlements

lost to the world, helps one realize what traveling in winter meant in

the days of the pioneer.

The real work of opening roads in America began, of course, on the

bridle-paths in the Atlantic slope. In 1639 a measure was passed in the

Massachusetts Bay Colony reading: "Whereas the highways in this

jurisdiction have not been laid out with such conveniency for travellers

as were fit, nor as was intended by this court, but that in some places

they are felt too straight, and in other places travelers are forced to

go far about, it is therefore, ordered, that all highways shall be laid

out before the next general court, so as may be with most ease and

safety for travelers; and for this end every town shall choose two or

three men, who shall join with two or three of the next town, and these

shall have power to lay out the highways in each town where they may be

most convenient; and those which are so deputed shall have power to lay

out the highways where they may be most convenient, notwithstanding any

man's propriety, or any corne ground, so as it occasion not the pulling

down of any man's house, or laying open any garden or orchard; and in

common [public] grounds, or where the soil is wet or miry, they shall

lay out the ways the wider, as six, or eight, or ten rods, or more in

common grounds." With the establishment of the government in the

province of New York in 1664 the following regulation for road-making

was established, which also obtained in Pennsylvania until William

Penn's reign began: "In all public works for the safety and defence of

the government, or the necessary conveniencies of bridges, highways, and

common passengers, the governor or deputy governor and council shall

send warrents to any justice, and the justices to the constable of the

next town, or any other town within that jurisdiction, to send so many

laborers and artificers as the warrent shall direct, which the constable

and two others or more of the overseers shall forthwith execute, and the

constable and overseers shall have power to give such wages as they

shall judge the work to deserve, provided that no ordinary laborer shall

be compelled to work from home above one week together. No man shall be

compelled to do any public work or service unless the press

[impressment] be grounded upon some known law of this government, or an

act of the governor and council signifying the necessity thereof, in

both which cases a reasonable allowance shall be made." A later

amendment indicates the rudeness of these early roads: "The highways to

be cleared as followeth, viz., the way to be made clear of standing and

lying trees, at least ten feet broad; all stumps and shrubs to be cut

close by the ground. The trees marked yearly on both sides--sufficient

bridges to be made and kept over all marshy, swampy, and difficult dirty

places, and whatever else shall be thought more necessary about the

highways aforesaid."

In Pennsylvania, under Penn, the grand jury laid out the roads, and the

courts appointed overseers and fence-viewers, but in 1692 the townships

were given the control of the roads. Eight years later the county roads

were put in the hands of the county justices, and king's highways in the

hands of the governor and his council. Each county was ordered to erect

railed bridges at its expense over rivers, and to appoint its own

overseers and fence-viewers.

Even the slightest mention of these laws and regulations misrepresents

the exact situation. Up to the time of the Revolutionary War it can

almost be said that nothing had been done toward what we today know as

road-building. Many routes were cleared of "standing and lying trees"

and "stumps and shrubs" were cut "close by the ground"--but this only

widened the path of the Indian and was only a faint beginning in

road-building. The skiff, batteau, and horse attached to a sleigh or

sled in winter, were the only, common means of conveying freight or

passengers in the colonies at this period. We have spoken of the path

across the Alleghenies in 1750 as being but a winding trace; save for

the roughness of the territory traversed it was a fair road for its day,

seek where the traveler might. In this case, as in so many others, the

history of the postal service in the United States affords us most

accurate and reliable information concerning our economic development.

In the year mentioned, 1750, the mail between New York and Philadelphia

was carried only once a week in summer and twice a month in winter.

Forty years later there were only eighteen hundred odd miles of post

roads in the whole United States. At that time (1790) only five mails a

week passed between New York and Philadelphia.

It may be said, loosely, that the widened trail became a road when

wheeled vehicles began to pass over it. Carts and wagons were common in

the Atlantic seaboard states as early and earlier than the Revolution.

It was at the close of that war that wagons began to cross the

Alleghenies into the Mississippi Basin. This first road was a road in

"the state of nature." Nothing had been done to it but clearing it of

trees and stumps.

Yet what a tremendous piece of work was this. It is more or less

difficult for us to realize just how densely wooded a country this was

from the crest of the Alleghenies to the seaboard on the east, and from

the mountains to central Indiana and Kentucky on the west. The pioneers

fought their way westward through wood, like a bullet crushing through a

board. Every step was retarded by a live, a dying, or a dead branch. The

very trees, as if dreading the savage attack of the white man on the

splendid forests of the interior, held out their bony arms and fingers,

catching here a jacket and there a foot, in the attempt to stay the

invasion of their silent haunts. These forests were very heavy

overhead. The boughs were closely matted, in a life-and-death struggle

for light and air. The forest vines bound them yet more inextricably

together, until it was almost impossible to fell a tree with out first

severing the huge arms which were bound fast to its neighbors. This

dense overgrowth had an important influence over the pioneer traveler.

It made the space beneath dark; the gloom of a real forest is never

forgotten by the "tenderfoot" lumberman. The dense covering overhead

made the forests extremely hot in the dog days of summer; no one can

appreciate what "hot weather" means in a forest where the wind cannot

descend through the trees save those who know our oldest forests. What

made the forests hot in summer, on the other hand, tended to protect

them from winter winds in cold weather. Yet, as a rule, there was little

pioneer traveling in the Allegheny forests in winter. From May until

November came the months of heaviest traffic on the first widened trails

through these gloomy, heated forest aisles.

It can be believed there was little tree-cutting on these first pioneer

roads. Save in the laurel regions of the Allegheny and Cumberland

Mountains, where the forest trees were supplanted by these smaller

growths, there was little undergrowth; the absence of sunlight

occasioned this, and rendered the old forest more easily traversed than

one would suppose after reading many accounts of pioneer life. The

principal interruption of travelers on the old trails was in the form of

fallen trees and dead wood which had been brought to the ground by the

storms. With the exception of the live trees which were blown over,

these forms of impediment to travel were not especially menacing; the

dead branches crumbled before an ax. The trees which were broken down or

uprooted by the winds, however, were obstructions difficult to remove,

and tended to make pioneer roads crooked, as often perhaps as standing

trees. We can form some practical notion of the dangerous nature of

falling trees by studying certain of the great improvements which were

early projected in these woods. The Allegheny Portage Railway over the

mountains of Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, and the Erie Canal in

central New York, both offer illustrations to the point. The portage

track was sent through an unbroken, uninhabited forest wilderness from

Hollidaysburg to Johnstown in the twenties. In order to render the

inclines safe from falling trees and breaking branches, a swath through

the woods was cut one hundred and twenty feet wide.[8] The narrow

trellis of the inclines scaled the mountain in the center of this

avenue; wide as it was, a tree fifty feet long could have swept it away

like paper. The Erie Canal was to be forty feet in width; a clean sixty

foot aisle was opened through the forests before the digging could

begin.

Of course nothing like this could be done for pioneer highways; when the

states began to appropriate money for state roads, then the pioneer

routes were straightened by cutting some trees. It was all the scattered

communities could do before this period to keep the falling trees and

branches from blocking the old roads. Travelers wound in and out on one

of the many tracks, stumbling, slipping, grinding on the roots, going

around great trees that had not been removed, and keeping to the high

ground when possible, for there the forest growth was less dense.

The question immediately arises, What sort of vehicle could weather such

roads? First in the van came the great clumsy cart, having immensely

high and solid wooden wheels. These were obtained either by taking a

thin slice from the butt of the greatest log that could be found in good

condition, or by being built piecemeal by rude carpenters. These great

wheels would go safely wherever oxen could draw them, many of their hubs

being three feet from the ground. Thus the body of the cart would clear

any ordinary brook and river at any ford which horses or oxen could

cross. No rocks could severely injure such a massy vehicle, at the rate

it usually moved, and no mere rut could disturb its stolid dignity. Like

the oxen attached to it, the pioneer cart went on its lumbering way

despising everything but bogs, great tree boles and precipices. These

creaking carts could proceed, therefore, nearly on the ancient

bridle-path of the pack-horse age. On the greater routes westward the

introduction of wheeled vehicles necessitated some changes; now and then

the deep-worn passage-way was impassable, and detours were made which,

at a later day, became the main course. Here, where the widened trail

climbed a steeper "hog-back" than usual, the cart-drivers made a

roundabout road which was used in dry weather. There, where the old

trail wound about a marshy piece of ground in all weathers, the

cart-drivers would push on in a straight line during dry seasons.

Thus the typical pioneer road even before the day of wagons was a

many-track road and should most frequently be called a route--a word we

have so frequently used in this series of monographs. Each of the few

great historic roads was a route which could have been turned into a

three, four, and five track course in very much the same way as railways

become double-tracked by uniting a vast number of side-tracks. The most

important reason for variation of routes was the wet and dry seasons; in

the wet season advantage had to be taken of every practicable altitude.

The Indian or foot traveler could easily gain the highest eminence at

hand; the pack-horse could reach many but not all; the "travail" and

cart could reach many, while the later wagon could climb only a few. In

dry weather the low ground offered the easiest and quickest route. As a

consequence every great route had what might almost be called its "wet"

and "dry" roadways. In one of the early laws quoted we have seen that in

wet or miry ground the roads should be laid out "six, eight, or ten rods

[wide]," though elsewhere ten or twelve feet was considered a fair width

for an early road. As a consequence, even before the day of wagons, the

old routes of travel were often very wide, especially in wet places; in

wet weather they were broader here than ever. But until the day of

wagons the track-beds were not so frequently ruined. Of this it is now

time to speak.

By 1785 we may believe the great freight traffic by means of wagons had

fully begun across the Alleghenies at many points. It is doubtful if

anywhere else in the United States did "wagoning" and "wagoners" become

so common or do such a thriving trade as on three or four

trans-Allegheny routes between 1785 and 1850. The Atlantic Ocean and the

rivers had been the arteries of trade between the colonies from the

earliest times. The freight traffic by land in the seaboard states had

amounted to little save in local cases, compared with the great industry

of "freighting" which, about 1785, arose in Baltimore and Philadelphia

and concerned the then Central West. This study, like that of our postal

history, throws great light on the subject in hand. Road-building, in

the abstract, began at the centers of population and spread slowly with

the growth of population. For instance, in Revolutionary days

Philadelphia was, as it were, a hub and from it a number of important

roads, like spokes, struck out in all directions. Comparatively, these

were few in number and exceedingly poor, yet they were enough and

sufficiently easy to traverse to give Washington a deal of trouble in

trying to prevent the avaricious country people from treacherously

feeding the British invaders.

These roads out from Philadelphia, for instance, were used by wagons

longer distances each year. Beginning back at the middle of the

eighteenth century it may be said that the wagon roads grew longer and

the pack-horse routes or bridle-paths grew shorter each year. The

freight was brought from the seaboard cities in wagons to the end of the

wagon roads and there transferred to the pack-saddles. Referring to this

era we have already quoted a passage in which it is said that five

hundred pack-horses have been seen at one time at Carlisle,

Pennsylvania. For a longer period than was perhaps true elsewhere,

Carlisle was the end of the wagon road westward. A dozen bridle-paths

converged here. Here all freight was transferred to the strings of

patient ponies. Loudon, Pennsylvania, was another peculiar borderland

depot later on. It will be remembered that when Richard Henderson and

party advanced to Kentucky in 1775 they were able to use wagons as far

as Captain Joseph Martin's "station" in Powell's Valley. At that point

all freight had to be transferred to the backs of ponies for the climb

over the Cumberlands. In the days of Marcus Whitman, who opened the

first road across the Rocky Mountains, Fort Laramie, Wyoming, was the

terminus of wagon travel in the far West. Thus pioneer roads unfolded,

as it were, joint by joint, the rapidity depending on the volume of

traffic, increase of population, and topography.

[Illustration: OLD CONESTOGA FREIGHTER]

The first improvement on these greater routes, after the necessary

widening, was to enable wagons to avoid high ground. Here and there

wagons pushed on beyond the established limit, and, finding the way not

more desperate than much of the preceding "road," had gone on and on,

until at last wagons came down the western slopes of the Alleghenies,

and wagon traffic began to be considered possible--much to the chagrin

of the cursing pack-horse men. No sooner was this fact accomplished than

some attention was paid to the road. The wagons could not go everywhere

the ponies or even the heavy carts had gone. They could not climb the

steep knolls and remain on the rocky ridges. The lower grounds were,

therefore, pursued and the wet grounds were made passable by

"corduroying"--laying logs closely together to form a solid roadbed. So

far as I can learn this work was done by everybody in particular and

nobody in general. Those who were in charge of wagons were, of course,

the most interested in keeping them from sinking out of sight in the

mud-holes. When possible, such places were skirted; when high or

impassable ground prevented this, the way was "corduroyed."

We have spoken of the width of old-time bridle-paths; with the advent of

the heavy freighter these wide routes were doubled and trebled in width.

And, so long as the roadbeds remained in a "state of nature," the

heavier the wagon traffic, the wider the roads became. We have described

certain great tracks, like that of Braddock's Road, which can be

followed today even in the open by the lasting marks those plunging

freighters made in the soft ground. They suggest in their deep outline

what the old wagon roads must have been; yet it must be remembered that

only what we may call the main road is visible today--the innumerable

side-tracks being obliterated because not so deeply worn. In a number

of instances on Braddock's Road plain evidence remains of these

side-tracks. Judging then from this evidence, and from accounts which

have come down to us, the introduction of the freighter with its heavier

loads and narrower wheels turned the wide, deeply worn bridle-paths and

cart tracks into far wider and far deeper courses. The corduroy road had

a tendency to contract the route, but even here, where the ground was

softest, it became desperate traveling. Where one wagon had gone,

leaving great black ruts behind it, another wagon would pass with

greater difficulty leaving behind it yet deeper and yet more treacherous

tracks. Heavy rains would fill each cavity with water, making the road

nothing less than what in Illinois was known as a "sloo." The next

wagoner would, therefore, push his unwilling horses into a veritable

slough, perhaps having explored it with a pole to see if there was a

bottom to be found there. In some instances the bottoms "fell out," and

many a reckless driver has lost his load in pushing heedlessly into a

bottomless pit. In case a bottom could be found the driver pushes on;

if not, he finds a way about; if this is not possible he throws logs

into the hole and makes an artificial bottom over which he proceeds.

We can hardly imagine what it meant to get stalled on one of the old

"hog wallow" roads on the frontier. True, many of our country roads

today offer bogs quite as wide and deep as any ever known in western

Virginia or Pennsylvania; and it is equally true that roads were but

little better in the pioneer era on the outskirts of Philadelphia and

Baltimore than far away in the mountains. It remains yet for the present

writer to find a sufficiently barbarous incident to parallel one which

occurred on the Old York (New York) Road just out of Philadelphia, in

which half a horse's head was pulled off in attempting to haul a wagon

from a hole in the road. "Jonathan Tyson, a farmer of 68 years of age

[in 1844], of Abington, saw, at 16 years of age, much difficulty in

going to the city [Philadelphia on York Road]: a dreadful mire of

blackish mud rested near the present Rising Sun village.... He saw there

the team of Mr. Nickum, of Chestnut hill, stalled; and in endeavoring

to draw out the forehorse with an iron chain to his head, it slipped and

tore off the lower jaw, and the horse died on the spot. There was a very

bad piece of road nearer to the city, along the front of the Norris

estate. It was frequent to see there horses struggling in mire to their

knees. Mr. Tyson has seen thirteen lime wagons at a time stopped on the

York road, near Logan's hill, to give one another assistance to draw

through the mire; and the drivers could be seen with their trowsers

rolled up, and joining team to team to draw out; at other times they set

up a stake in the middle of the road to warn off wagons from the

quicksand pits. Sometimes they tore down fences, and made new roads

through the fields."[9]

If such was the case almost within the city limits of Philadelphia, it

is not difficult to realize what must have been the conditions which

obtained far out on the continental routes. It became a serious problem

to get stalled in the mountains late in the day; assistance was not

always at hand--indeed the settlements were many miles apart in the

early days. Many a driver, however, has been compelled to wade in,

unhitch his horses, and spend the night by the bog into which his

freight was settling lower and lower each hour. Fortunate he was if

early day brought assistance. Sometimes it was necessary to unload

wholly or in part, before a heavy wagon, once fairly "set," could be

hauled out. Around such treacherous places ran a vast number of routes

some of which were as dangerous--because used once too often--as the

central track. In some places detours of miles in length could be made.

A pilot was needed by every inexperienced person, and many blundering

wiseacres lost their entire stock of worldly possessions in the old bogs

and "sloos" and swamps of the "West."

A town in Indiana was "very appropriately" named Mudholes, a name that

would have been the most common in the country a century ago if only

descriptive names had been allowed.[10] The condition of pioneer roads

did, undoubtedly, influence the beginnings of towns and cities. On the

longer routes it will be found that the steep hills almost invariably

became the sites of villages because of physical conditions.

"Long-a-coming," a New Jersey village, bore a very appropriate name.[11]

The girls of Sussex, England, were said to be exceedingly long-limbed,

and a facetious wag affirmed the reason to be that the Sussex mud was so

deep and sticky that in drawing out the foot "by the strength of the

ancle" the muscles, and then the bones, of the leg were lengthened! In

1708 when Prince George of Denmark went to meet Charles the Seventh of

Spain traveling by coach, he traveled at the rate of nine miles in six

hours--a tribute to the strength of Sussex mud. Charles Augustus Murray,

in his _Travels in North America_, leaves us a humorous account of the

mud-holes in the road from the Potomac to Fredericksburg, Maryland, and

his experience upon it:

"On the 27th of March I quitted Washington, to make a short tour in the

districts of Virginia adjacent to the James River; comprising Richmond,

the present capital, Williamsburgh, the former seat of colonial

government, Norfolk, and other towns.

"The first part of the journey is by steam-boat, descending the Potomac

about sixty miles. The banks of this river, after passing Mount Vernon,

are uninteresting, and I did not regret the speed of the Champion, which

performed that distance in somewhat less than five hours; but this rate

of travelling was amply neutralized by the movement of the stage which

conveyed me from the landing-place to Fredericsburgh. I was informed

that the distance was only twelve miles, and I was weak enough (in spite

of my previous experience) to imagine that two hours would bring me

thither, especially as the stage was drawn by six good nags, and driven

by a lively cheerful fellow; but the road bade defiance to all these

advantages--it was, indeed, such as to compel me to laugh out-right,

notwithstanding the constant and severe bumping to which it subjected

both the intellectual and sedentary parts of my person.

"I had before tasted the sweets of mud-holes, huge stones, and remnants

of pine-trees standing and cut down; but here was something new, namely,

a bed of reddish-coloured clay, from one to two feet deep, so adhesive

that the wheels were at times literally not visible in any one spot from

the box to the tire, and the poor horses' feet sounded, when they drew

them out (as a fellow-traveller observed), like the report of a pistol.

I am sorry that I was not sufficiently acquainted with chemistry or

mineralogy to analyze that wonderful clay and state its constituent

parts; but if I were now called upon to give a receipt for a mess most

nearly resembling it, I would write, 'Recipe--(nay, I must write the

ingredients in English, for fear of taxing my Latin learning too

severely)--

Ordinary clay 1 lb.

Do. Pitch 1 lb.

Bird-lime 6 oz.

Putty 6 oz.

Glue 1 lb.

Red lead, or _colouring_ matter 6 oz.

Fiat haustus--ægrot. terq. quaterq. quatiend.'

"Whether the foregoing, with a proper admixture of hills, holes, stumps,

and rocks, made a satisfactory _draught_ or not, I will refer to the

unfortunate team--I, alas! can answer for the effectual application of

the second part of the prescription, according to the Joe Miller version

of 'When taken, to be well shaken!'

"I arrived, however, without accident or serious bodily injury, at

Fredericsburgh, having been _only_ three hours and a half in getting

over the said twelve miles; and, in justice to the driver, I must say

that I very much doubt whether any crack London whip could have driven

those horses over that ground in the same time: there is not a sound

that can emanate from human lungs, nor an argument of persuasion that

can touch the feelings of a horse, that he did not employ, with a

perseverance and success which commanded my admiration."

Fancy these wild, rough routes which, combined, often covered half an

acre, and sometimes spread out to a mile in total width, in freezing

weather when every hub and tuft was as solid as ice. How many an anxious

wagoner has pushed his horses to the bitter edge of exhaustion to gain

his destination ere a freeze would stall him as completely as if his

wagon-bed lay on the surface of a "quicksand pit." A heavy load could

not be sent over a frozen pioneer road without wrecking the vehicle. Yet

in some parts the freight traffic had to go on in the winter, as the

hauling of cotton to market in the southern states. Such was the

frightful condition of the old roads that four and five yoke of oxen

conveyed only a ton of cotton so slowly that motion was almost

imperceptible; and in the winter and spring, it has been said, with

perhaps some tinge of truthfulness, that one could walk on dead oxen

from Jackson to Vicksburg. The Bull-skin Road of pioneer days leading

from the Pickaway Plains in Ohio to Detroit was so named from the large

number of cattle which died on the long, rough route, their hides, to

exaggerate again, lining the way.

In our study of the Ohio River as a highway it was possible to emphasize

the fact that the evolution of river craft indicated with great

significance the evolution of social conditions in the region under

review; the keel-boat meant more than canoe or pirogue, the barge or

flat-boat more than the keel-boat, the brig and schooner more than the

barge, and the steamboat far more than all preceding species. We

affirmed that the change of craft on our rivers was more rapid than on

land, because of the earlier adaptation of steam to vessels than to

vehicles. But it is in point here to observe that, slow as were the

changes on land, they were equally significant. The day of the freighter

and the corduroy road was a brighter day for the expanding nation than

that of the pack-horse and the bridle-path. The cost of shipping freight

by pack-horses was tremendous. In 1794, during the Whiskey Insurrection

in western Pennsylvania, the cost of shipping goods to Pittsburg by

wagon ranged from five to ten dollars per hundred pounds; salt sold for

five dollars a bushel, and iron and steel from fifteen to twenty cents

per pound in Pittsburg. What must have been the price when one horse

carried only from one hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty pounds?

The freighter represented a growing population and the growing needs of

the new empire in the West.

The advent of the stagecoach marked a new era as much in advance of the

old as was the day of the steamboat in advance of that of the barge and

brig of early days.

The social disturbance caused by the introduction of coaches on the

pioneer roads of America gives us a glimpse of road conditions at this

distant day to be gained no other way. A score of local histories give

incidents showing the anger of those who had established the more

important pack-horse lines across the continent at the coming of the

stage. Coaches were overturned and passengers were maltreated; horses

were injured, drivers were chastised and personal property ruined. Even

while the Cumberland Road was being built the early coaches were in

danger of assault by the workmen building the road, incited, no doubt,

by the angry pack-horse men whose profession had been eclipsed. It is

interesting in this connection to look again back to the mother-country

and note the unrest which was occasioned by the introduction of

stagecoaches on the bridle-paths of England. Early coaching there was

described as destructive to trade, prejudicial to landed interests,

destructive to the breed of horses,[11*] and as an interference with

public resources. It was urged that travelers in coaches got listless,

"not being able to endure frost, snow or rain, or to lodge in the

fields!" Riding in coaches injured trade since "most gentlemen, before

they travelled in coaches, used to ride with swords, belts, pistols,

holsters, portmanteaus, and hat-cases, which, in these coaches, they

have little or no occasion for: for, when they rode on horseback, they

rode in one suit and carried another to wear when they came to their

journey's end, or lay by the way; but in coaches a silk suit and an

Indian gown, with a sash, silk stockings, and beaver hats, men ride in

and carry no other with them, because they escape the wet and dirt,

which on horseback they cannot avoid; whereas in two or three journeys

on horseback, these clothes and hats were wont to be spoiled; which

done, they were forced to have new very often, and that increased the

consumption of the manufacturers; which travelling in coaches doth in no

way do." If the pack-horse man's side of the question was not advocated

with equally marvelous arguments in America we can be sure there was no

lack of debate on the question whether the stagecoach was a sign of

advancement or of deterioration. For instance, the mails could not be

carried so rapidly by coach as by a horseman; and when messages were of

importance in later days they were always sent by an express rider. The

advent of the wagon and coach promised to throw hundreds of men out of

employment. Business was vastly facilitated when the freighter and coach

entered the field, but fewer "hands" were necessary. Again, the horses

which formerly carried the freight of America on their backs were not of

proper build and strength to draw heavy loads on either coach or wagon.

They were ponies; they could carry a few score pounds with great skill

over blind and ragged paths, but they could not draw the heavy wagons.

Accordingly hundreds of owners of pack-horses were doomed to see an

alarming deterioration in the value of their property when great, fine

coach horses were shipped from distant parts to carry the freight and

passenger loads of the stagecoach day.

The change in form of American vehicles was small but their numbers

increased within a few years prodigiously. Nominally this era must be

termed that of the macadamized road, or roads made of layers of broken

stone like the Cumberland Road. These roads were wider than any single

track of any of the routes they followed, though thirty feet was the

average maximum breadth. To a greater degree than would be surmised, the

courses of the old roads were followed. It has been said that the

Cumberland Road, though paralleling Braddock's Road from Cumberland to

Laurel Hill, was not built on its bed more than a mile in the aggregate.

After studying the ground I believe this is more or less incorrect; for

what we should call Braddock's route was composed of many roads and

tracks. One of these was a central road; the Cumberland Road may have

been built on the bed of this central track only a short distance, but

on one of the almost innumerable side-tracks, detours, and cut-offs, for

many miles. At Great Meadows, for instance, it would seem that the

Cumberland Road was separated from Braddock's by the width of the

valley; yet as you move westward you cross the central track of

Braddock's Road just before reaching Braddock's Grave. May not an old

route have led from Great Meadows thither on the same hillside where we

find the Cumberland Road today? The crookedness of these first stable

roads, like many of the older streets in our cities,[12] indicates that

the old corduroy road served in part as a guide for the later

road-makers. It is a common thing in the mountains, either on the

Cumberland or Pennsylvania state roads, to hear people say that had the

older routes been even more strictly adhered to better grades would

have been the result. A remarkable and truthful instance of this (for

there cannot, in truth, be many) is the splendid way Braddock's old road

sweeps to the top of Laurel Hill by gaining that strategic ridge which

divides the heads of certain branches of the Youghiogheny on the one

hand and Cheat River on the other near Washington's Rock. The Cumberland

Road in the valley gains the same height (Laurel Hill) by a longer and

far more difficult route.

The stagecoach heralded the new age of road-building, but these new

macadamized roads were few and far between; many roadways were widened

and graded by states or counties, but they remained dirt roads; a few

plank roads were built. The vast number of roads of better grade were

built by one of the host of road and turnpike companies which sprang up

in the first half of the nineteenth century. Specific mention of certain

of these will be made later.

Confining our view here to general conditions, we now see the Indian

trail at its broadest. While the roads, in number, kept up with the

vast increase of population, in quality they remained, as a rule,

unchanged. Traveling by stage, except on the half dozen good roads then

in existence, was, in 1825, far more uncomfortable than on the

bridle-path on horseback half a century previous. It would be the same

today if we could find a vehicle as inconvenient as an old-time

stagecoach. In our "Experiences of Travelers" we shall give pictures of

actual life on these pioneer roads of early days. A glimpse or two at

these roads will not be out of place here.

The route from Philadelphia to Baltimore is thus described by the

_American Annual Register_ for 1796: "The roads from Philadelphia to

Baltimore exhibit, for the greater part of the way, an aspect of savage

desolation. Chasms to the depth of six, eight, or ten feet occur at

numerous intervals. A stagecoach which left Philadelphia on the 5th of

February, 1796, took five days to go to Baltimore. [Twenty miles a day].

The weather for the first four days was good. The roads are in a fearful

condition. Coaches are overturned, passengers killed, and horses

destroyed by the overwork put upon them. In winter sometimes no stage

sets out for two weeks." Little wonder that in 1800, when President and

Mrs. Adams tried to get to Washington from Baltimore, they got lost in

the Maryland woods! Harriet Martineau, with her usual cleverness, thus

touches upon our early roads: "... corduroy roads appear to have made a

deep impression on the imaginations of the English, who seem to suppose

that American roads are all corduroy. I can assure them that there is a

large variety in American roads. There are the excellent limestone

roads ... from Nashville, Tennessee, and some like them in Kentucky....

There is quite another sort of limestone road in Virginia, in traversing

which the stage is dragged up from shelf [catch-water] to shelf, some of

the shelves sloping so as to throw the passengers on one another, on

either side alternately. Then there are the rich mud roads of Ohio,

through whose deep red sloughs the stage goes slowly sousing after rain,

and gently upsetting when the rut on one or the other side proves to be

of a greater depth than was anticipated. Then there are the sandy roads

of the pine barrens ... the ridge road, running parallel with a part of

Lake Ontario.... Lastly there is the corduroy road, happily of rare

occurrence, where, if the driver is merciful to his passengers, he

drives them so as to give them the association of being on the way to a

funeral, their involuntary sobs on each jolt helping the resemblance;

or, if he be in a hurry, he shakes them like pills in a pill-box. I was

never upset in a stage but once ...; and the worse the roads were, the

more I was amused at the variety of devices by which we got on, through

difficulties which appeared insurmountable, and the more I was edified

at the gentleness with which our drivers treated female fears and

fretfulness."[13]

Perhaps it was of the Virginian roads here mentioned that Thomas Moore

wrote:

"Dear George! though every bone is aching,

After the shaking

I've had this week, over ruts and ridges,

And bridges,

Made of a few uneasy planks,

In open ranks

Over rivers of mud, whose names alone

Would make the knees of stoutest man knock."[14]

David Stevenson, an English civil engineer, leaves this record of a

corduroy road from Lake Erie to Pittsburg: "On the road leading from

Pittsburg on the Ohio to the town of Erie on the lake of that name, I

saw all the varieties of forest road-making in great perfection.

Sometimes our way lay for miles through extensive marshes, which we

crossed by corduroy roads, ...; at others the coach stuck fast in the

mud, from which it could be extricated only by the combined efforts of

the coachman and passengers; and at one place we travelled for upwards

of a quarter of a mile through a forest flooded with water, which stood

to the height of several feet on many of the trees, and occasionally

covered the naves of the coach-wheels. The distance of the route from

Pittsburg to Erie is 128 miles, which was accomplished in forty-six

hours ... although the conveyance ... carried the mail, and stopped only

for breakfast, dinner, and tea, but there was considerable delay caused

by the coach being once upset and several times mired."[15]

"The horrible corduroy roads again made their appearance," records

Captain Basil Hall, "in a more formidable shape, by the addition of

deep, inky holes, which almost swallowed up the fore wheels of the

wagon and bathed its hinder axle-tree. The jogging and plunging to

which we were now exposed, and occasionally the bang when the vehicle

reached the bottom of one of these abysses, were so new and remarkable

that we tried to make a good joke of them.... I shall not compare this

evening's drive to trotting up or down a pair of stairs, for, in that

case, there would be some kind of regularity in the development of the

bumps, but with us there was no wavering, no pause, and when we least

expected a jolt, down we went, smack! dash! crash! forging, like a ship

in a head-sea, right into a hole half a yard deep. At other times, when

an ominous break in the road seemed to indicate the coming mischief, and

we clung, grinning like grim death, to the railing at the sides of the

wagon, expecting a concussion which in the next instant was to dislocate

half the joints in our bodies, down we sank into a bed of mud, as softly

as if the bottom and sides had been padded for our express

accommodation."

The first and most interesting macadamized road in the United States

was the old Lancaster Turnpike, running from Philadelphia to Lancaster,

Pennsylvania. Its position among American roads is such that it deserves

more than a mere mention. It has had several historians, as it well

deserves, to whose accounts we are largely indebted for much of our

information.[16]

The charter name of this road was "The Philadelphia and Lancaster

Turnpike Road Company;" it was granted April 9, 1792, and the work of

building immediately began. The road was completed in 1794 at a cost of

four hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars. When the subscription

books were opened there was a tremendous rush to take the stock. The

money raised for constructing and equipping this ancient highway with

toll houses and bridges, as well as grading and macadamizing it, was by

this sale of stock. In the Lancaster _Journal_ of Friday, February 5,

1796, the following notice appeared:

"That agreeable to a by-law of stockholders, subscriptions will be

opened at the Company's office in Philadelphia on Wednesday, the tenth

of February next, for one hundred additional shares of capital stock in

said company. The sum to be demanded for each share will be $300, with

interest at six per cent. on the different instalments from the time

they are severally called for, to be paid by original stockholders; one

hundred dollars thereof to be paid at time of subscribing, and the

remainder in three equal payments, at 30, 60 and 90 days, no person to

be admitted to subscribe more than one share on the same day.

By order of the Board.

WILLIAM GOVETT,

Secretary."

"When location was fully determined upon," writes Mr. Witmer, "as you

will observe, today, a more direct line could scarcely have been

selected. Many of the curves which are found at the present time did not

exist at that day, for it has been crowded and twisted by various

improvements along its borders so that the original constructors are

not responsible. So straight, indeed, was it from initial to terminal

point that it was remarked by one of the engineers of the state

railroad, constructed in 1834 (and now known as the Pennsylvania

Railroad), that it was with the greatest difficulty that they kept their

line off of the turnpike, and the subsequent experiences of the

engineers of the same company verify the fact, as you will see. Today

there is a tendency, wherever the line is straightened, to draw nearer

to this old highway, paralleling it in many places for quite a distance,

and as it approaches the city of Philadelphia, in one or two instances

they have occupied the old road bed entirely, quietly crowding its old

rival to a side, and crossing and recrossing it in many places.

"You will often wonder as you pass over this highway, remembering the

often-stated fact by some ancient wagoner or stage-driver (who today is

scarcely to be found, most of them having thrown down the reins and put

up for the night), that at that time there were almost continuous lines

of Conestoga wagons, with their feed troughs suspended at the rear and

the tar can swinging underneath, toiling up the long hills (for you will

observe there was very little grading done when that roadway was

constructed), and you wonder how it was possible to accommodate so much

traffic as there was, in addition to stagecoaches and private

conveyances, winding in and out among these long lines of wagons. But

you must bear in mind that the roadway was very different then from what

it is at the present time.

"The narrow, macadamized surface, with its long grassy slope (the

delight of the tramp and itinerant merchant, especially when a

neighboring tree casts a cooling shadow over its surface), which same

slope becomes a menace to belated and unfamiliar travelers on a dark

night, threatening them with an overturn into what of more recent times

is known as the Summer road, did not exist at that time, but the road

had a regular slope from side ditch to center, as all good roads should

have, and conveyances could pass anywhere from side to side. The macadam

was carefully broken and no stone was allowed to be placed on the road

that would not pass through a two-inch ring. A test was made which can

be seen today about six miles east of Lancaster, where the roadway was

regularly paved for a distance of one hundred feet from side to side,

with a view of constructing the entire line in that way. But it proved

too expensive, and was abandoned. Day, in his history, published in

1843,[17] makes mention of the whole roadway having been so constructed,

but I think that must have been an error, as this is the only point

where there is any appearance of this having been attempted, and can be

seen at the present time when the upper surface has been worn off by the

passing and repassing over it."

The placing of tollgates on the Lancaster Pike is thus announced in the

Lancaster _Journal_, previously mentioned, where the following notice

appears:

"The public are hereby informed that the President and Managers of the

Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike Road having perfected the very

arduous and important work entrusted by the stockholders to their

direction, have established toll gates at the following places on said

road, and have appointed a toll gatherer at each gate, and that the

rates of toll to be collected at the several gates are by resolution of

the Board and agreeable to Act of Assembly fixed and established as

below. The total distance from Lancaster to Philadelphia is 62 miles.

Gate No. 1--2 miles W from Schuylkill, collect 3 miles

Gate No. 2--5 miles W from Schuylkill, collect 5 miles

Gate No. 3--10 miles W from Schuylkill, collect 7 miles

Gate No. 4--20 miles W from Schuylkill, collect 10 miles

Gate No. 5--29-1/2 miles W from Schuylkill, collect 10 miles

Gate No. 6--40 miles W from Schuylkill, collect 10 miles

Gate No. 7--49-1/2 miles W from Schuylkill, collect 10 miles

Gate No. 8--58-1/8 miles W from Schuylkill, collect 5 miles

Gate No. 9--Witmer's Bridge, collect 61 miles."

There is also in the same journal, bearing date January 22, 1796, the

following notice:

"Sec. 13. And be it further enacted, by authority of aforesaid, that no

wagon or other carriage with wheels the breadth of whose wheels shall

not be four inches, shall be driven along said road between the first

day of December and the first day of May following in any year or years,

with a greater weight thereon than two and a half tons, or with more

than three tons during the rest of the year; that no such carriage, the

breadth of whose wheels shall not be seven inches, or being six inches

or more shall roll at least ten inches, shall be drawn along said road

between the said day of December and May with more than five tons, or

with more than five and a half tons during the rest of the year; that no

carriage or cart with two wheels, the breadth of whose wheels shall not

be four inches, shall be drawn along said road with a greater weight

thereon than one and a quarter tons between the said first days of

December and May, or with more than one and a half tons during the rest

of the year; no such carriage, whose wheels shall be of the breadth of

seven inches shall be driven along the said road with more than two and

one half tons between the first days of December and May, or more than

three tons during the rest of the year; that no such carriage whose

wheels shall not be ten inches in width shall be drawn along the said

road between the first days of December and May with more than three

and a half tons, or with more than four tons the rest of the year; that

no cart, wagon or carriage of burden whatever, whose wheels shall not be

the breadth of nine inches at least, shall be drawn or pass in or over

the said road or any part thereof with more than six horses, nor shall

more than eight horses be attached to any carriage whatsoever used on

said road, and if any wagon or other carriage shall be drawn along said

road by a greater number of horses or with a greater weight than is

hereby permitted, one of the horses attached thereto shall be forfeited

to the use of said company, to be seized and taken by any of their

officers or servants, who shall have the privilege to choose which of

the said horses they may think proper, excepting the shaft or wheel

horse or horses, provided always that it shall and may be lawful for

said company by their by-laws to alter any and all of the regulations

here contained respecting burdens or carriages to be drawn over the said

road and substituting other regulations, if on experience such

alterations should be found conducive of public good."

There were regular warehouses or freight stations in the various towns

through which the Lancaster Pike passed, Mr. Witmer leaves record, where

experienced loaders or packers were to be found who attended to filling

these great curving wagons, which were elevated at each end and

depressed in the centre; and it was quite an art to be able to so pack

them with the various kinds of merchandise that they would carry safely,

and at the same time to economize all the room necessary; and when fully

loaded and ready for the journey it was no unusual case for the driver

to be appealed to by some one who wished to follow Horace Greeley's

advice and "go west," for permission to accompany him and earn a seat on

the load, as well as share his mattress on the barroom floor at night by

tending the lock or brake. Mr. Witmer was told by one of the largest and

wealthiest iron masters of Pittsburg that his first advent to the Smoky

City was on a load of salt in that capacity.

"In regard to the freight or transportation companies," continues the

annalist, "the Line Wagon Company was the most prominent. Stationed

along this highway at designated points were drivers and horses, and it

was their duty to be ready as soon as a wagon was delivered at the

beginning of their section to use all despatch in forwarding it to the

next one, thereby losing no time required to rest horses and driver,

which would be required when the same driver and horses took charge of

it all the way through. But, like many similar schemes, what appeared

practical in theory did not work well in practice. Soon the wagons were

neglected, each section caring only to deliver it to the one succeeding,

caring little as to its condition, and soon the roadside was encumbered

with wrecks and breakdowns and the driver and horses passed to and fro

without any wagon or freight from terminal points of their sections,

leaving the wagons and freight to be cared for by others more anxious

for its removal than those directly in charge. So it was deemed best to

return to the old system of making each driver responsible for his own

wagon and outfit.

"A wagoner, next to a stagecoach-driver, was a man of immense

importance, and they were inclined to be clannish. They would not

hesitate to unite against landlord, stage-driver or coachman who might

cross their path, as in a case when a wedding party was on its way to

Philadelphia, which consisted of several gigs. These were two-wheeled

conveyances, very similar to our road-carts of the present day, except

that they were much higher and had large loop springs in the rear just

back of the seat; they were the fashionable conveyance of that day. When

one of the gentlemen drivers, the foremost one (possibly the groom), was

paying more attention to his fair companion than his horses, he drove

against the leaders of one of the numerous wagons that were passing on

in the same direction. It was an unpardonable offense and nothing short

of an encounter in the stable yard or in front of the hotel could atone

for such a breach of highway ethics. At a point where the party stopped

to rest before continuing their journey the wagoners overtook them and

they immediately called on the gentleman for redress. But seeing a

friend in the party they claimed they would excuse the culprit on his

friend's account; the offending party would not have it so, and said no

friend of his should excuse him from getting a beating if he deserved

it, and I have no doubt he prided himself on his muscular abilities

also. However it was peaceably arranged and each pursued his way without

any blood being shed or bones broken. That was one of the many similar

occurrences which happened daily, many not ending so harmlessly.

"The stage lines were not only the means of conveying the mails and

passengers, but of also disseminating the news of great events along the

line as they passed. The writer remembers hearing it stated that the

stage came through from Philadelphia with a wide band of white muslin

bound around the top, and in large letters was the announcement that

peace had been declared, which was the closing of the second war with

Great Britain, known as the War of 1812. What rejoicing it caused along

the way as it passed!"

[Illustration: EARLIEST STYLE OF LOG TAVERN]

The taverns of this old turnpike were typical. Of them Mr. Moore writes:

"Independent of the heavy freighting, numerous stage lines were

organized for carrying passengers. As a result of this immense traffic,

hotels sprung up all along the road, where relays of horses were kept,

and where passengers were supplied with meals. Here, too, the teamsters

found lodging and their animals were housed and cared for over night.

The names of these hotels were characteristic of the times. Many were

called after men who had borne conspicuous parts in the Revolutionary

War that had just closed--such as Washington, Warren, Lafayette, and

Wayne, while others represented the White and Black Horse, the Lion,

Swan, Cross Keys, Ship, etc. They became favorite resorts for citizens

of their respective neighborhoods, who wished at times to escape from

the drudge and ennui of their rural homes and gaze upon the world as

represented by the dashing stages and long lines of Conestoga wagons.

Here neighbor met neighbor--it was the little sphere in which they all

moved, lived and had their being. They sipped their whisky toddies

together, which were dispensed at the rate of three cents a single

glass, or for a finer quality, five for a Spanish quarter, with the

landlord in, was asked; smoked cigars that were retailed four for a

cent--discussed their home affairs, including politics, religion and

other questions of the day, and came just as near settling them, as the

present generation of men, that are filling their places, required large

supplies and made convenient home markets for the sale of butter, eggs,

and whatever else the farmers had to dispose of."

In our history of the Cumberland Road the difference between a

wagonhouse and a tavern was emphasized. Mr. Witmer gives an incident on

the Lancaster Turnpike which presents vividly the social position of

these two houses of entertainment: "It was considered a lasting disgrace

for one of the stage taverns to entertain a wagoner and it was sure to

lose the patronage of the better class of travel, should this become

known. The following instance will show how carefully the line was

drawn. In the writer's native village, about ten miles east of this city

[Lancaster], when the traffic was unusually heavy and all the wagon

taverns were full, a wagoner applied to the proprietor of the stage

hotel for shelter and refreshment, and after a great deal of

consideration on his part and persuasion on the part of the wagoner he

consented, provided the guest would take his departure early in the

morning, before there was any likelihood of any aristocratic arrivals,

or the time for the stage to arrive at this point. As soon as he had

taken his departure the hostlers and stable boys were put to work to

clean up every vestige of straw or litter in front of the hotel that

would be an indication of having entertained a wagoner over night!"

The later history of the turnpike has been sketched by Mr. Moore as

follows:

"The turnpike company had enjoyed an uninterrupted era of prosperity for

more than twenty-five years. During this time the dividends paid had

been liberal--sometimes, it is said, exceeding fifteen per cent of the

capital invested. But at the end of that time the parasite that destroys

was gradually being developed. Another, and altogether new system of

transportation had been invented--a railroad--and which had already

achieved partial success in some places in Europe. It was about the

year 1820 that this new method of transportation began to claim the

serious attention of the progressive business men throughout the state.

The feeling that some better system than the one in use must be found

was fed and intensified by the fact that New York State was then

constructing a canal from Albany to the lakes; that when completed it

would give the business men of New York City an unbroken water route to

the west....

"With the completion of the entire Pennsylvania canal system to

Pittsburg, in 1834, the occupation of the famous old Conestoga teams was

gone.[18] The same may also be said of the numerous lines of the stages

that daily wended their way over the turnpike. The changes wrought were

almost magical. Everyone who rode patronized the cars; and the freight

was also forwarded by rail. The farmers, however, were not ruined as

they had maintained they would be. Their horses, as well as drivers,

were at once taken into the railway service and employed in drawing cars

from one place to another. It was simply a change of vocation, and there

still remained a market for grain, hay, straw and other produce of the

farm.

"The loss sustained by the holders of turnpike stock, however, was

immeasurable. In a comparative sense, travel over the turnpike road was

suspended. Receipts from tolls became very light and the dividends, when

paid, were not only quite diminutive, but very far between.

"The officers of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company have always been

noted for their foresight, as well as shrewdness in protecting the

business interests of their organization--and none have given more

substantial evidence of these traits than its present chief officer, Mr.

Alexander Cassatt. In the year 1876 the horse cars had been extended as

far west as the Centennial buildings and it became apparent in a year or

two thereafter that they might be still further extended over the

turnpike in the direction of Paoli and thus become an annoying

competitor for the local travel, which had been carefully nurtured and

built up by the efforts of the railroad company. Under the leadership of

Mr. Cassatt a company was organized to purchase the road. When all the

preliminaries had been arranged a meeting of the subscribers to the

purchasing fund was held on the twentieth day of April, 1880. The

turnpike was purchased from Fifty-second Street to Paoli, about

seventeen miles, for the sum of twenty thousand dollars. In the

following June a charter was secured for the 'Lancaster Avenue

Improvement Company,' and Mr. Cassatt was chosen president. The horse

railroad was thus shut off from a further extension over the old

turnpike. The new purchasers rebuilt the entire seventeen miles and

there is today probably no better macadam road in the United States, nor

one more scrupulously maintained than by 'The Lancaster Avenue

Improvement Company.' Some parts of the turnpike road finally became so

much out of repair that the traveling public refused to longer pay the

tolls demanded. This was the case on that portion of the road lying

between Paoli and Exton, a distance of some eight and a half miles. It

traversed parts of the townships of Willistown and East and West

Whiteland, in Chester County and upon notice of abandonment being served

in 1880 upon the supervisors of these townships, those officials assumed

the future care of the road. The turnpike was also abandoned from the

borough of Coatesville to the Lancaster County line, a distance of about

eight and one-half miles. This left only that portion of the turnpike

lying between Exton station and the borough of Coatesville, a distance

of some ten miles, under control of the old company, and upon which

tollgates were maintained. The road was in a wretched repair and many

persons driving over it refused to pay when tolls were demanded. The

company, however, continued to employ collectors and gather shekels from

those who were willing to pay and suffering those to pass who refused.

"Thus the old company worried along and maintained its organization

until 1899, when the 'Philadelphia and West Chester Traction Company,'

made its appearance. This company thought it saw an opportunity to

extend the railroad west over the turnpike at least as far as

Downingtown, and possibly as far as the borough of Coatesville. Terms

were finally agreed upon with the president of the Turnpike Company, and

all the rights, titles and interests in the road then held by the

original Turnpike Company, and which embraced that portion lying between

Exton and the borough of Coatesville, were transferred to Mr. A. M.

Taylor, as trustee, for ten dollars per share. The original issue was

twelve hundred shares. It was estimated that at least two hundred shares

would not materialize, being either lost or kept as souvenirs. The

length of the road secured was about ten miles. The disposition of the

old road may be enumerated as follows:

SOLD

To Hestonville Railroad 3 $10,000

To Lancaster and Williamstown Turnpike Company 15 10,000

To Lancaster Avenue Improvement Company 17 20,000

To A. M. Taylor, trustee (estimated) 10 10,000

-- ------

Total miles sold 45

Total purchase money received $50,000

ABANDONED

Paoli to Exton 8-1/2

Coatesville to Lancaster Company line 8-1/2

------

Total miles abandoned 17

"The distance from Coatesville to Philadelphia, via Whitford, a station

on the Pennsylvania Railroad ten miles east of Coatesville, thence to

West Chester and over the electric road, is somewhat less than by the

Pennsylvania Railroad. Immediately after the purchase, Mr. Taylor

announced that it was the intention of his company to extend their road

to Downingtown, and, possibly, to Coatesville. But a charter for a

trolley road does not carry with it the right of eminent domain. Upon

investigation, Mr. Taylor discovered that the Pennsylvania Railroad

Company owned property on both sides of the purchased turnpike, and that

without the consent of that organization a trolley road could not be

laid over the turnpike. He further discovered that at a point west of

Downingtown the railroad company, in connection with one of its

employees, owned a strip of land extending from the Valley Hill on the

north to the Valley Hill on the south. The proposed extension of the

trolley road, therefore, had to be abandoned.

"As the turnpike road could not be used by the new purchasers for the

purposes intended, it was a useless and annoying piece of property in

their hands. A petition has already [1901] been filed in the Court of

Quarter Sessions of Chester County looking toward having the road

condemned. Judge Hemphill has appointed jurors to view the said turnpike

road and fix the damages that may be due the present owners. Whatever

damages may finally be agreed upon the county of Chester must pay, and

the supervisors of the different townships through which the road passes

will thereafter assume its care. This will probably be the last official

act in which the title of the old organization will participate. 'Men

may come and men may go,' and changes be made both in ownership and

purposes of use, but whatever the future may have in store for this

grand old public highway, the basic principle will always be: 'The Old

Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike;' and as such forever remain a

lasting monument to the courageous, progressive, and patriotic men whose

capital entered into and made its construction possible."

The principal rivals of the macadamized roads were the plank roads. The

first plank road in America was built at Toronto, Canada, in 1835-36,

during Sir Francis Bond Head's governorship. It was an experiment and

one Darcy Boulton is said to have been the originator of the plan.[18*]

In 1837 this method of road-building was introduced into the United

States, Syracuse, New York, possessing the first plank road this side

the Canadian border. In fifteen years there were two thousand one

hundred and six miles of these roads in New York State alone, and the

system had spread widely through the more prosperous and energetic

states. Usually these roads were single-track, the track being built on

the left hand side of the roadway; the latter became known as the

"turn-out." The planks, measuring eight inches by three, were laid on

stringers, these, in turn, resting on a more or less elaborately made

bed. The average cost of plank roads in New York was a trifle less than

two thousand dollars per mile. It will be remembered that the Cumberland

Road cost on the average over ten thousand dollars per mile in Maryland

and Pennsylvania, and three thousand four hundred dollars per mile west

of the Ohio River. Its estimated cost per mile, without bridging, was

six thousand dollars. It was natural, therefore, that plank roads should

become popular--for the country was still a "wooden country," as the

pioneers said. It was argued that the cost was "infinitely less--that it

[plank road] is easier for the horse to draw upon--and that such a road

costs less for repairs and is more durable than a Macadam road.... On

the Salina and Central road, a few weeks back, for a wager, a team [two

horses] brought in, without any extraordinary strain, six tons of iron

from Brewerton, a distance of twelve miles, to Syracuse [New York]....

Indeed, the farmer does not seem to make any calculations of the weight

taken. He loads his wagon as best he can, and the only care is not to

exceed the quantity which it will carry; whether the team can draw the

load, is not a consideration...." Such arguments prevailed in the day

when timber was considered almost a nuisance, and plank roads spread far

and wide.

Few who were acquainted with primitive conditions have left us anything

vivid in the way of descriptions of roads and road-making. "The pioneers

of our State," wrote Calvin Fletcher, in an exceedingly interesting

paper read before the Indiana Centennial Association, July 4, 1900,

"found Indian trails, which, with widening, proved easy lines of travel.

Many of these afterward became fixtures through use, improvement, and

legislation.... Next to the hearty handshake and ready lift at the

handspike, where neighbors swapped work at log-rollings, was the

greeting when, at fixed periods, all able-bodied men met to open up or

work upon the roads. My child-feet pattered along many of the

well-constructed thoroughfares of today when they were only indistinct

tracings--long lines of deadened trees, deep-worn horse paths, and

serpentine tracks of wabbling wagon wheels. The ever-recurring

road-working days and their cheerful observance, with time's work in

rotting and fire's work in removing dead tree and stump, at last let in

long lines of sunshine to dry up the mud, to burn up the miasma, and to

bless the wayfarer to other parts, as well as to disclose what these

pioneer road-makers had done for themselves by opening up fields in the

forests.... To perfect easily and naturally these industries requires

three generations. The forests must be felled, logs rolled and burned,

families reared, and in most cases the land to be paid for. When this is

accomplished a faithful picture would reveal not only the changes that

had been wrought, but a host of prematurely broken down men and women,

besides an undue proportion resting peacefully in country graveyards. A

second generation straightens out the fields at odd corners, pulls the

stumps, drains the wet spots, and casting aside the sickle of their

father, swings the cradle over broader fields; and even trenches upon

the plans of the third generation by pushing the claim of the reaper,

the mower and the thresher.... The labor of the three generations in

road-making I class as follows: To the first generation belonged

locating the roads and the clearing the timber from them. The wet places

would become miry and were repaired by the use of logs.... The roots and

stumps caused many holes, called chuck holes, which were repaired by

using brush and dirt--with the uniform result that at each end of the

corduroy or brush repairs, a new mud or chuck hole would be formed in

time; and thus until timber and brush became exhausted did the pioneer

pave the way for the public and himself to market, to court, and to

elections. The second generation discovered a value in the inexhaustible

beds of gravel in the rivers and creeks, as well as beneath the soil.

Roadbeds were thrown up, and the side ditches thus formed contributed to

sound wheeling. Legislation tempted capital to invest and tollgates

sprang up until the third generation removed them and assumed the burden

of large expenditures from public funds for public benefit.

"And thus have passed away the nightmare of the farmer, the traveller,

the mover and the mail-carrier--a nightmare that prevailed nine months

of the year.... An experience of a trip from Indianapolis to Chicago in

March, 1848, by mail stage is pertinent. It took the first twenty-four

hours to reach Kirklin, in Boone County; the next twenty-four to

Logansport, the next thirty-six to reach South Bend. A rest then of

twenty-four hours on account of high water ahead; then thirty-six hours

to Chicago--five days of hard travel in mud or on corduroy, or sand....

In the summer passenger coaches went through, but when wet weather came

the mud wagon was used to carry passengers and mail, and when the mud

became too deep the mail was piled into crates, canvas-covered, and

hauled through. This was done also on the National [Cumberland], the

Madison, the Cincinnati, the Lafayette and the Bloomington Roads."

The _corvée_, or required work on the roads of France, has been given as

one of the minor causes of the social unrest which reached its climax in

the French Revolution. American peasants had no such hardship according

to an anonymous rhymester:

Oh, our life was tough and tearful, and its toil was often fearful,

And often we grew faint beneath the load.

But there came a glad vacation and a sweet alleviation,

When we used to work our tax out on the road.

When we used to work our tax out, then we felt the joys of leisure,

And we felt no more the prick of labor's goad;

Then we shared the golden treasure of sweet rest in fullest measure,

When we used to work our tax out on the road.

The macadam and plank roads saw the Indian trail at its widest and best.

The railway has had a tendency to undo even such advances over pioneer

roads as came in the heyday of macadam and plank roads. We have been

going backward since 1840 rather than forward. The writer has had long

acquaintance with what was, in 1830, the first turnpike in Ohio--the

Warren and Ashtabula Road; it was probably a far better route in 1830

than in 1900. By worrying the horse you can not make more than four

miles an hour over many parts of it. One ought to go into training

preparatory to a carriage drive over either the Cumberland or the

Pennsylvania road across the Alleghenies. As the trail was widened it

grew better, but once at its maximum width it was eclipsed as an avenue

by the railway and, exceptions aside, has since 1850 deteriorated. Every

foot added in width, however, has contained a lesson in American

history; every road, as we have said, indicates a need; and the wider

the road, it may be added, the greater the need. An expanding nation, in

a moment's time, burst westward through these narrow trails, and left

them standing as open roadways. Few material objects today suggest to

our eyes this marvelous movement. These old routes with their many

winding tracks, the ponderous bridges and sagging mile-posts,[19] are

relics of those momentous days.