ZANE'S TRACE AND THE MAYSVILLE PIKE
In the study of the Ohio River as a highway of immigration and commerce
it was emphasized that in earliest pioneer days the ascent of the river
was a serious and difficult problem. This was true, indeed, not on the
Ohio alone, but on almost every river of importance in the United
States. Of course brawny arms could force a canoe through flood-tides
and rapids; but, as a general proposition, the floods of winter, with
ice floating fast amid-stream and clinging in ragged blocks and floes
along the shore, and the droughts of summer which left, even in the
Ohio, great bars exposed so far to the light that the river could be
forded here and there by children, made even canoe navigation well-nigh
impossible. For other craft than light canoes navigation was utterly out
of the question in the dry seasons and exceedingly dangerous on the icy
winter floods at night--when the shore could not be approached.
Such conditions as these gave origin to many of our land highways. Where
pioneer homes were built beside a navigable river it was highly
important to have a land thoroughfare leading back to the "old
settlements" which could be traversed at all seasons. Many of our "river
roads" came into existence, not because the valleys offered the easiest
courses for land travel, but because pioneer settlements were made on
river banks, and, as the rivers were often worthy of the common French
name "Embarras," land courses were necessary. In the greater rivers this
"homeward track," so to speak, frequently abandoned the winding valley
and struck straight across the interior on the shortest available route.
The founding of Kentucky in the lower Ohio Valley offers a specific
instance to illustrate these generalizations, and brings us to the
subject of a thoroughfare which was of commanding importance in the old
West. We have elsewhere dealt at length with the first settlement of
Kentucky, making clear the fact that the great road blazed by Boone
through Cumberland Gap was the most important route in Kentucky's early
history. The growth of the importance of the Ohio River as a
thoroughfare and its final tremendous importance to Kentucky and the
entire West has also been reviewed. But, despite this importance, the
droughts of summer and the ice-torrents of winter made a landward route
from Kentucky to Pennsylvania and the East an absolute necessity. Even
when the river was navigable, the larger part of the craft which sailed
it before 1820 were not capable of going up-stream. Heavy freight could
be "poled" and "cordelled" up in the keel-boat and barge, but for all
other return traffic, both freight and passenger, the land routes from
Kentucky north and east were preferable. For many years the most
available messenger and mail route from Cincinnati, Vincennes, and
Louisville was over Boone's Wilderness Road through Cumberland Gap. But,
as the eighteenth century neared its close, the large population of
western Pennsylvania and northwestern Virginia made necessary better
routes from the upper Ohio Valley across the Alleghenies; in turn, the
new conditions demanded a route up the Ohio Valley from Kentucky to
Pennsylvania.
In our survey of Indian Thoroughfares, a slight path known as the Mingo
Trail is mentioned as leading across eastern Ohio from Mingo Bottom near
the present Steubenville, on the Ohio River, to the neighborhood of
Zanesville on the Muskingum River.[32] Mingo Bottom was a well-known
Indian camping-place; the name is preserved in the railway junction
thereabouts, Mingo Junction. A distinct watershed offers thoroughfare
southwesterly across to the Muskingum, and on this lay the old trail.
The termini of this earliest known route were near two early settlements
of whites; Mingo Bottom lies eight or nine miles north of Wheeling, one
of the important stations in the days of border warfare. The Mingo
Trail, swinging southward a little, became the route of white hunters
and travelers who wished to cross what is now eastern Ohio. The
Muskingum River terminus of the trail was Wills Town, as far down the
Muskingum from Zanesville as Mingo Bottom was above Wheeling on the
Ohio. It is altogether probable that a slight trace left the Wills Town
trail and crossed the Muskingum at the mouth of Licking River--the
present site of Zanesville. If a trail led thence westwardly toward the
famed Pickaway Plains, it is recorded on none of our maps. We know,
therefore, of only the Mingo Trail, running, let us say loosely, from
Wheeling, West Virginia, to Zanesville, Ohio, which could have played
any part in forming what soon became known as the first post road in all
the Territory Northwest of the River Ohio.
With the close of the Indian War and the signing of the Treaty of
Greenville in 1795, the American possession of the Northwest was placed
beyond question. A flood of emigrants at once left the eastern states
for the Central West, and the return traffic, especially in the form of
travelers and private mail packets, from Kentucky and Cincinnati, began
at once to assume significant proportions, and Congress was compelled
to facilitate travel by opening a post route two hundred and twenty-six
miles in length from the upper to the lower Ohio. Accordingly, the
following act: "_An Act to authorize Ebenezer Zane[33] to locate certain
lands in the territory of the United States northwest of the river
Ohio_" was passed by Congress and approved May 17, 1796:
"_Be it enacted, &c._, That, upon the conditions hereinafter mentioned,
there shall be granted to Ebenezer Zane three tracts of land, not
exceeding one mile square each, one on the Muskingum river, one on
Hockhocking river, and one other on the north bank of Scioto river, and
in such situations as shall best promote the utility of a road to be
opened by him on the most eligible route between Wheeling and
Limestone,[34] to be approved by the President of the United States, or
such person as he shall appoint for that purpose; _Provided_, Such
tracts shall not interfere with any existing claim, location, or survey;
nor include any salt spring, nor the lands on either side of the river
Hockhocking at the falls thereof.
"SEC. 2. _And be it further enacted_, That upon the said Zane's
procuring, at his own expense, the said tracts to be surveyed, in such a
way and manner as the President of the United States shall approve, and
returning into the treasury of the United States plats thereof, together
with warrents granted by the United States for military land bounties,
to the amount of the number of acres contained in the said three tracts;
and also, producing satisfactory proof, by the first day of January
next, that the aforesaid road is opened, and ferries established upon
the rivers aforesaid, for the accommodation of travellers, and giving
security that such ferries shall be maintained during the pleasure of
Congress; the President of the United States shall be, and he hereby is,
authorized and empowered to issue letters patent, in the name and under
the seal of the United States, thereby granting and conveying to the
said Zane, and his heirs, the said tracts of land located and surveyed
as aforesaid; which patents shall be countersigned by the secretary of
state, and recorded in his office: _Provided always_, That the rates of
ferriage, at such ferries, shall, from time to time, be ascertained
[inspected] by any two of the judges of the territory northwest of the
river Ohio, or such other authority as shall be appointed for that
purpose.
"APPROVED May 17, 1796."[35]
Zane evidently went at once to work opening the road to Kentucky, his
brother Jonathan, and son-in-law John McIntire, assisting largely in the
work. The path was only made fit for horsemen, particularly
mail-carriers. It is probable that the task was not more difficult than
to cut away small trees on an Indian trace. It is sure that for a
greater part of the distance from the Ohio to the Muskingum the Mingo
Trail was followed, passing near the center of Belmont, Guernsey and
Muskingum Counties. The route to the southwest from that point through
Perry, Fairfield, Pickaway, Ross, Richland, Adams, and Brown Counties
may or may not have followed the path of an Indian trace. No proof to
the contrary being in existence, it is most reasonable to suppose that
this, like most other pioneer routes, did follow a more or less plainly
outlined Indian path. The new road crossed the Muskingum at the present
site of the town well named Zanesville, the Hocking at Lancaster, the
Scioto at Chillicothe, and the Ohio at Aberdeen, Ohio, opposite the
old-time Limestone, Kentucky.
[Illustration: BRIDGE ON WHICH ZANE'S TRACE CROSSED THE MUSKINGUM RIVER
AT ZANESVILLE, OHIO]
One George Sample was an early traveler on this National Road; paying a
visit from the East to the Ohio country in 1797, he returned homeward by
way of Zane's Trace or the Maysville Road, as the route was variously
known. After purchasing a farm on Brush Creek, Adams County, Ohio, and
locating a homeless emigrant on it, Mr. Sample "started back to
Pennsylvania on horseback" according to his recorded recollections
written in 1842;[36] "as there was no getting up the river at that
day.[37] In our homeward trip we had very rough fare when we had any at
all; but having calculated on hardships, we were not disappointed. There
was one house (Treiber's) on Lick branch, five miles from where West
Union[38] now is." Trebar--according to modern spelling--opened a tavern
on his clearing in 1798 or 1799, but at the time of Sample's trip his
house was not more public than the usual pioneer's home where the
latch-string was always out.[39] "The next house," continues Mr. Sample,
"was where Sinking spring or Middle-town is now.[40] The next was at
Chillicothe, which was just then commenced. We encamped one night at
Massie's run, say two or three miles from the falls of Paint creek,
where the trace then crossed that stream. From Chillicothe to Lancaster
the trace then went through the Pickaway plains. There was a cabin some
three or four miles below the plains, and another at their eastern edge,
and one or two more between that and Lancaster. Here we staid the third
night. From Lancaster we went next day to Zanesville, passing several
small beginnings. I recollect no improvement between Zanesville and
Wheeling, except a small one at the mouth of Indian Wheeling creek,
opposite to Wheeling. In this space we camped another night. From
Wheeling we went home pretty well."
The matter of ferriage was a most important item on pioneer roads as
indicated by the Act of Congress quoted. The Court of General Quarter
Sessions met at Adamsville, Adams County, December 12, 1797, and made
the following the legal rates of ferriage across the Scioto and Ohio
Rivers, both of which Zane's Trace crossed:
_Scioto River:_
Man and horse 12-1/2 cents.
Single 6-1/4 "
Wagon and team 75 "
Horned cattle (each) 6-1/4 "
_Ohio River:_
Man and horse 18-1/2 "
Single 9-1/4 "
Wagon and team $1.15
Horned cattle 9-1/4 " [41]
No sooner was Zane's Trace opened than the Government established a mail
route between Wheeling and Maysville and Lexington. For the real
terminus of the trace was not by any means at little Maysville; an
ancient buffalo route and well-worn white man's road led into the
interior of Kentucky from Maysville, known in history as the Maysville
Road and Maysville Pike. On the Ohio side this mail route from Wheeling
and Lexington was known by many titles in many years; it was the
Limestone Road, the Maysville Pike, the Limestone and Chillicothe Road,
and the Zanesville Pike; the Maysville and Zanesville Turnpike was
constructed between Zanesville and the Ohio River. At Zanesville the
road today is familiarly known as the Maysville Pike while in Kentucky
it is commonly called the Zanesville Pike.
"When the Indian trail gets widened, graded and bridged to a good road,"
wrote Emerson, "there is a benefactor, there is a missionary, a
pacificator, a wealth-bringer, a maker of markets, a vent for
industry."[42] The little road here under consideration is unique among
American highways in its origin and in its history. It was demanded, not
by war, but by civilization, not for exploration and settlement but by
settlements that were already made and in need of communion and
commerce. It was created by an act of Congress as truly as the
Cumberland Road, which soon should, in part, supersede it. And finally
it was on the subject of the Maysville Turnpike that the question of
internal improvement by the national government was at last decided
when, in 1830, President Jackson signed that veto which made the name
of Maysville a household word throughout the United States.
In 1825, after a delay which created great suspense in the West, the
Cumberland Road at last leaped the Ohio River at Wheeling. Zane's Trace,
now a wide, much-traveled avenue, offered a route westward to Zanesville
which could be but little improved upon. The blazed tree gave way to the
mile-stone and the pannier and saddle-bag to the rumbling stagecoach and
the chaise. It is all a pretty, quiet picture and its story is totally
unlike that of Boone's rough path over the Cumberlands. For settlements
sprang up rapidly in this land of plenty; we have seen that there were
beginnings at Chillicothe and Zanesville when Sample passed this way in
1797. By 1800, Zane's lots at the crossing of the Hockhocking (first
known as New Lancaster, and later as Lancaster--from the town of that
name in Pennsylvania) were selling; his terms and inducements to
settlers, especially mechanics, are particularly interesting.[43]
As intimated, the Kentucky division of the Maysville Pike--leading from
the Ohio River through Washington, Paris, and Lexington--became famous
in that it was made a test case to determine whether or not the
Government had the right to assist in the building of purely state
(local) roads by taking shares in local turnpike companies.
This much-mooted question was settled once for all by President Andrew
Jackson's veto of "A Bill Authorizing a subscription of stock in the
Maysville, Washington, Paris, and Lexington Turnpike Road Company,"
which was passed by the House February 24, 1830. It read:[44] "_Be it
enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States
of America in Congress assembled_, That the Secretary of the Treasury
be, and he is hereby, authorized and directed to subscribe, in the name
and for the use of the United States, for fifteen hundred shares of the
capital stock of the Maysville, Washington, Paris, and Lexington
Turnpike Road Company, and to pay for the same at such times, and in
such proportions, as shall be required of, and paid by, the stockholders
generally, by the rules and regulations of the aforesaid company, to be
paid out of any money in the Treasury, not otherwise appropriated:
_Provided_, That not more than one-third part of the sum, so subscribed
for the use of the United States, shall be demanded in the present year,
nor shall any greater sum be paid on the shares so subscribed for, than
shall be proportioned to assessments made on individual or corporate
stockholders.
"SEC. 2. _And be it further enacted_, That the said Secretary of the
Treasury shall vote for the President and Directors of the aforesaid
company, according to such number of shares as the United States may, at
any time, hold in the stock thereof, and shall receive upon the said
stock the proportion of the tolls which shall, from time to time, be due
to the United States for the shares aforesaid, and shall have and enjoy,
in behalf of the United States, every other right of stockholder in said
Company."
In his first annual message to Congress, dated December 8, 1829,
President Jackson stated plainly his attitude to the great question of
internal improvements. "As ... the period approaches when the
application of the revenue to the payment of [national] debt will cease,
the disposition of the surplus will present a subject for the serious
deliberation of Congress.... Considered in connection with the
difficulties which have heretofore attended appropriations for purposes
of internal improvement, and with those which this experience tells us
will certainly arise whenever power over such subjects may be exercised
by the General Government, it is hoped that it may lead to the adoption
of some plan which will reconcile the diversified interests of the
States and strengthen the bonds which unite them.... To avoid these
evils it appears to me that the most safe, just, and federal disposition
which could be made of the surplus revenue would be its apportionment
among the several States according to their ratio of representation, and
should this measure not be found warranted by the Constitution that it
would be expedient to propose to the States an amendment authorizing
it."[45]
In his veto of the Maysville Road bill President Jackson quoted the
above paragraphs from his annual message, and, after citing both
Madison's and Monroe's positions as to internal improvements of pure
local character, continues:
"The bill before me does not call for a more definate opinion upon the
particular circumstances which will warrent appropriations of money by
Congress to aid works of internal improvement, for although the
extention of the power to apply money beyond that of carrying into
effect the object for which it is appropriated has, as we have seen,
been long claimed and exercised by the Federal Government, yet such
grants have always been professedly under the control of the general
principle that the works which might be thus aided should be 'of a
general, not local, national, not State,' character. A disregard of this
distinction would of necessity lead to the subversion of the federal
system. That even this is an unsafe one, arbitrary in its nature, and
liable, consequently, to great abuses, is too obvious to require the
confirmation of experience. It is, however, sufficiently definate and
imperative to my mind to forbid my approbation of any bill having
the character of the one under consideration. I have given to its
provisions ... reflection ... but I am not able to view it in any other
light than as a measure of purely local character; or, if it can be
considered national, that no further distinction between the appropriate
duties of the General and State Governments need be attempted, for there
can be no local interest that may not with equal propriety be
denominated national. It has no connection with any established system
of improvements; is exclusively within the limits of a State, starting
at a point on the Ohio River and running out 60 miles to an interior
town, and even as far as the State is interested conferring partial
instead of general advantages.
"Considering the magnitude and importance of the power, and the
embarrassments to which, from the very nature of the thing, its
exercise must necessarily be subjected, the real friends of internal
improvement ought not to be willing to confide it to accident and
chance. What is properly _national_ in its character or otherwise is an
inquiry which is often extremely difficult of solution....
"If it be the wish of the people that the construction of roads and
canals should be conducted by the Federal Government, it is not only
highly expedient, but indispensably necessary, that a previous amendment
of the Constitution, delegating the necessary power and defining and
restricting its exercise with reference to the sovereignty of the
States, should be made. The right to exercise as much jurisdiction as is
necessary to preserve the works and to raise funds by the collection of
tolls to keep them in repair can not be dispensed with. The Cumberland
Road should be an instructive admonition of the consequences of acting
without this right. Year after year contests are witnessed, growing out
of efforts to obtain the necessary appropriations for completing and
repairing this useful work. Whilst one Congress may claim and exercise
the power, a succeeding one may deny it; and this fluctuation of opinion
must be unavoidably fatal to any scheme which from its extent would
promote the interests and elevate the character of the country....
"That a constitutional adjustment of this power upon equitable
principles is in the highest degree desirable can scarcely be doubted,
nor can it fail to be promoted by every sincere friend to the success of
our political institutions."[46]
The effect of Jackson's veto was far-reaching. It not only put an end to
all thought of national aid to such local improvements as the Maysville
Turnpike, but deprived such genuinely national promotions as the
Baltimore and Ohio Railway of all hope of national aid. "President
Jackson had strongly expressed his opposition to aiding state
enterprises and schemes of internal improvement by appropriations from
the central government," records a historian of that great enterprise;
"from whatever source the opposition may have come, the [Baltimore and
Ohio Railway] company recognized that it must not hope for aid from the
national government."[47] The significance of Jackson's veto could not
be more strongly presented.