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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Historic Highways of America (Vol. 10), by
-Archer Butler Hulbert
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
-
-
-Title: Historic Highways of America (Vol. 10)
- The Cumberland Road
-
-Author: Archer Butler Hulbert
-
-Release Date: October 13, 2012 [EBook #41041]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ASCII
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORIC HIGHWAYS OF AMERICA ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Greg Bergquist and the Online Distributed
-Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
-produced from images generously made available by The
-Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-HISTORIC HIGHWAYS OF AMERICA
-
-VOLUME 10
-
-
-
-
- [Illustration: BRIDGE AT "BIG CROSSINGS"]
-
-
-
-
- HISTORIC HIGHWAYS OF AMERICA
- VOLUME 10
-
- The Cumberland Road
-
- BY
- ARCHER BUTLER HULBERT
-
- _With Maps and 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. OUR FIRST NATIONAL ROAD 15
- II. BUILDING THE ROAD IN THE WEST 71
- III. OPERATION AND CONTROL 91
- IV. STAGECOACHES AND FREIGHTERS 119
- V. MAILS AND MAIL LINES 142
- VI. TAVERNS AND TAVERN LIFE 152
- VII. CONCLUSION 174
- APPENDIXES 189
-
-
-
-
-ILLUSTRATIONS
-
-
- I. BRIDGE AT "BIG CROSSINGS" _Frontispiece_
- II. MAP OF CUMBERLAND ROAD IN PENNSYLVANIA AND MARYLAND 55
- III. CHESTNUT RIDGE, PENNSYLVANIA 65
- IV. MAP OF CUMBERLAND ROAD IN THE WEST 79
- V. A CULVERT ON THE CUMBERLAND ROAD IN OHIO 177
-
-
-
-
-PREFACE
-
-
-For material used in this volume the author is largely in the debt of
-the librarians of the State Libraries of Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio,
-Indiana, and Illinois. From the Honorable C. B. Galbreath, of the Ohio
-State Library, he has received much assistance covering an extended
-period. To the late Thomas B. Searight's valuable collection of
-biographical and colloquial sketches, _The Old Pike_, the author wishes
-to express his great indebtedness. As Mr. Searight gave special
-attention to the road in Pennsylvania, the present monograph deals at
-large with the story of the road west of the Ohio River, especially in
-the state of Ohio.
-
-The Cumberland Road was best known in some parts as the "United States"
-or "National" Road. Its legal name has been selected as the most
-appropriate for the present monograph which is revised from a study of
-the subject _The Old National Road_ formerly published by the Ohio State
-Archaeological and Historical Society.
-
- A. B. H.
-
-MARIETTA, OHIO, May 15, 1903.
-
-
-
-
-The Cumberland Road
-
-
- _It is a monument of a past age; but like all other monuments, it is
- interesting as well as venerable. It carried thousands of population
- and millions of wealth into the West; and more than any other
- material structure in the land, served to harmonize and strengthen,
- if not to save, the Union._--VEECH.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER I
-
-OUR FIRST NATIONAL ROAD
-
- _The middle ages had their wars and agonies, but also their intense
- delights. Their gold was dashed with blood, but ours is sprinkled
- with dust. Their life was intermingled with white and purple; ours
- is one seamless stuff of brown._--RUSKIN.
-
-
-A person cannot live in the American Central West and be acquainted with
-the generation which greets the new century with feeble hand and dimmed
-eye, without realizing that there has been a time which, compared with
-today, seems as the Middle Ages did to the England for which Ruskin
-wrote--when "life was intermingled with white and purple."
-
-This western boy, born to a feeble republic-mother, with exceeding
-suffering in those days which "tried men's souls," grew up as all boys
-grow up. For a long and doubtful period the young West grew slowly and
-changed appearance gradually. Then, suddenly, it started from its
-slumbering, and, in two decades, could hardly have been recognized as
-the infant which, in 1787, looked forward to a precarious and doubtful
-future. The boy has grown into the man in the century, but the changes
-of the last half century are not, perhaps, so marked as those of the
-first, when a wilderness was suddenly transformed into a number of
-imperial commonwealths.
-
-When this West was in its teens and began suddenly outstripping itself,
-to the marvel of the world, one of the momentous factors in its progress
-was the building of a great national road, from the Potomac River to the
-Mississippi River, by the United States Government--a highway seven
-hundred miles in length, at a cost of seven millions of treasure. This
-ribbon of road, winding its way through Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio,
-Indiana, and Illinois, toward the Mississippi, was one of the most
-important steps in that movement of national expansion which followed
-the conquest of the West. It is probably impossible for us to realize
-fully what it meant to this West when that vanguard of surveyors came
-down the western slopes of the Alleghenies, hewing a thoroughfare which
-should, in one generation, bind distant and half-acquainted states
-together in bonds of common interest, sympathy, and ambition. Until that
-day, travelers spoke of "going into" and "coming out of" the West as
-though it were a Mammoth Cave. Such were the herculean difficulties of
-travel that it was commonly said, despite the dangers of life in the
-unconquered land, if pioneers could live to get into the West, nothing
-could, thereafter, daunt them. The growth and prosperity of the West was
-impossible, until the dawning of such convictions as those which made
-the Cumberland Road a reality.
-
-The history of this famed road is but a continuation of the story of the
-Washington and Braddock roads, through Great Meadows from the Potomac to
-the Ohio. As outlined in Volumes III and IV of this series, this
-national highway was the realization of the youth Washington's early
-dream--a dream that was, throughout his life, a dominant force.
-
-But Braddock's Road was for three score years the only route westward
-through southwestern Pennsylvania, and it grew worse and worse with
-each year's travel. Indeed, the more northerly route, marked out in part
-by General Forbes in 1758, was plainly the preferable road for travelers
-to Pittsburg until the building of the Cumberland Road, 1811-1818.
-
-The rapid peopling of the state of Ohio, and the promise of an equal
-development in Indiana and Illinois caused the building of our first and
-only great national road. Congress passed an act on the thirtieth of
-April, 1802, enabling the people of Ohio to form a state government and
-seek admission into the Union. Section seven contained the following
-provision:
-
-"That one-twentieth of the net proceeds of the lands lying within said
-State sold by Congress shall be applied to the laying out and making
-public roads leading from the navigable waters emptying into the
-Atlantic, to the Ohio, to the said state, and through the same, such
-roads to be laid out under the authority of Congress, with the consent
-of the several states through which the roads shall pass."[1]
-
-On the third of March, 1803 another act was passed which appropriated
-three of the five per cent to laying out roads in the state of Ohio, the
-remaining two per cent to be devoted to building a road from navigable
-waters leading into the Atlantic Ocean, to the Ohio River contiguous to
-the state of Ohio. A committee was appointed to review the matter and
-the conclusion of their report to the Senate on the nineteenth of
-December, 1805 was as follows:
-
-"Therefore the committee have thought it expedient to recommend the
-laying out and making a road from Cumberland, on the northerly bank of
-the Potomac, and within the state of Maryland, to the Ohio river, at the
-most convenient place on the easterly bank of said river, opposite to
-Steubenville, and the mouth of Grave Creek, which empties into said
-river, Ohio, a little below Wheeling in Virginia, This route will meet
-and accommodate roads from Baltimore and the District of Columbia; it
-will cross the Monongahela at or near Brownsville, sometimes called
-Redstone, where the advantage of boating can be taken; and from the
-point where it will probably intersect the river Ohio, there are now
-roads, or they can easily be made over feasible and proper ground, to
-and through the principal population of the state of Ohio."[2]
-
-Immediately the following act of Congress was passed, authorizing the
-laying out and making of the Cumberland Road:
-
-
-AN ACT TO REGULATE THE LAYING OUT AND MAKING A ROAD FROM CUMBERLAND,
-IN THE STATE OF MARYLAND, TO THE STATE OF OHIO
-
-SECTION 1. _Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
-the United States of America in Congress assembled_, That the President
-of the United States be, and he is hereby authorized to appoint, by and
-with the advice and consent of the Senate, three discreet and
-disinterested citizens of the United States, to lay out a road from
-Cumberland, or a point on the northern bank of the river Potomac, in the
-state of Maryland, between Cumberland and the place where the main road
-leading from Gwynn's to Winchester, in Virginia, crosses the river, to
-the state of Ohio; whose duty it shall be, as soon as may be, after
-their appointment, to repair to Cumberland aforesaid, and view the
-ground, from the points on the river Potomac hereinbefore designated to
-the river Ohio; and to lay out in such direction as they shall judge,
-under all circumstances the most proper, a road from thence to the river
-Ohio, to strike the same at the most convenient place, between a point
-on its eastern bank, opposite to the northern boundary of Steubenville,
-in said state of Ohio, and the mouth of Grave Creek, which empties into
-the said river a little below Wheeling, in Virginia.
-
-SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That the aforesaid road shall be laid
-out four rods in width, and designated on each side by a plain and
-distinguishable mark on a tree, or by the erection of a stake or
-monument sufficiently conspicuous, in every quarter of a mile of the
-distance at least, where the road pursues a straight course so far or
-further, and on each side, at every point where an angle occurs in its
-course.
-
-SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That the commissioners shall, as soon
-as may be, after they have laid out said road, as aforesaid, present to
-the President an accurate plan of the same, with its several courses and
-distances, accompanied by a written report of their proceedings,
-describing the marks and monuments by which the road is designated, and
-the face of the country over which it passes, and pointing out the
-particular parts which they shall judge require the most and immediate
-attention and amelioration, and the probable expense of making the same
-possible in the most difficult parts, and through the whole distance;
-designating the state or states through which said road has been laid
-out, and the length of the several parts which are laid out on new
-ground, as well as the length of those parts laid out on the road now
-traveled. Which report the President is hereby authorized to accept or
-reject, in the whole or in part. If he accepts, he is hereby further
-authorized and requested to pursue such measures, as in his opinion
-shall be proper, to obtain consent for making the road, of the state or
-states through which the same has been laid out. Which consent being
-obtained, he is further authorized to take prompt and effectual
-measures to cause said road to be made through the whole distance, or in
-any part or parts of the same as he shall judge most conducive to the
-public good, having reference to the sum appropriated for the purpose.
-
-SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That all parts of the road which the
-President shall direct to be made, in case the trees are standing, shall
-be cleared the whole width of four rods; and the road shall be raised in
-the middle of the carriage-way with stone, earth, or gravel or sand, or
-a combination of some or all of them, leaving or making, as the case may
-be, a ditch or water course on each side and contiguous to said
-carriage-way, and in no instance shall there be an elevation in said
-road, when finished, greater than an angle of five degrees with the
-horizon. But the manner of making said road, in every other particular,
-is left to the direction of the President.
-
-SEC. 5. And be it further enacted, That said commissioners shall each
-receive four dollars per day, while employed as aforesaid, in full for
-their compensation, including all expenses. And they are hereby
-authorized to employ one surveyor, two chainmen and one marker, for
-whose faithfulness and accuracy they, the said commissioners, shall be
-responsible, to attend them in laying out said road, who shall receive
-in full satisfaction for their wages, including all expenses, the
-surveyor, three dollars per day, and each chainman and marker, one
-dollar per day, while they shall be employed in said business, of which
-fact a certificate signed by said commissioners shall be deemed
-sufficient evidence.
-
-SEC. 6. And be it further enacted, That the sum of thirty thousand
-dollars be, and the same is hereby appropriated, to defray the expenses
-of laying out and making said road. And the President is hereby
-authorized to draw, from time to time, on the treasury for such parts,
-or at any one time, for the whole of said sum, as he shall judge the
-service requires. Which sum of thirty thousand dollars shall be paid,
-first, out of the fund of two per cent reserved for laying out and
-making roads to the state of Ohio, and by virtue of the seventh section
-of an act passed on the thirtieth day of April, one thousand eight
-hundred and two, entitled, "An act to enable the people of the eastern
-division of the territory northwest of the river Ohio to form a
-constitution and state government, and for the admission of such state
-into the Union on an equal footing with the original states, and for
-other purposes." Three per cent of the appropriation contained in said
-seventh section being directed by a subsequent law to the laying out,
-opening, and making roads within the said state of Ohio; and secondly,
-out of any money in the treasury not otherwise appropriated, chargeable
-upon, and reimbursable at the treasury by said fund of two per cent as
-the same shall accrue.
-
-SEC. 7. And be it further enacted, That the President be, and he is
-hereby requested, to cause to be laid before Congress, as soon as
-convenience will permit, after the commencement of each session, a
-statement of the proceedings under this act, that Congress may be
-enabled to adopt such further measures as may from time to time be
-proper under existing circumstances.
-
- Approved March 29, 1806.
- TH. JEFFERSON.
-
-President Jefferson appointed Thomas Moore of Maryland, Joseph Kerr of
-Ohio, and Eli Williams of Maryland commissioners. Their first report was
-presented December 30, 1806, as follows:
-
-"The commissioners, acting by appointment under the law of Congress,
-entitled, 'An act to regulate the laying out and making a road from
-Cumberland in the State of Maryland, to the State of Ohio,' beg leave to
-report to the President of the United States, and to premise that the
-duties imposed by the law became a work of greater magnitude, and a task
-much more arduous, than was conceived before entering upon it; from
-which circumstance the commissioners did not allow themselves sufficient
-time for the performance of it before the severity of the weather
-obliged them to retire from it, which was the case in the first week of
-the present month (December). That, not having fully accomplished their
-work, they are unable fully to report a discharge of all the duties
-enjoined by the law; but as the most material and principal part has
-been performed, and as a communication of the progress already made may
-be useful and proper, during the present session of Congress, and of the
-Legislatures of those States through which the route passes, the
-commissioners respectfully state that at a very early period it was
-conceived that the maps of the country were not sufficiently accurate to
-afford a minute knowledge of the true courses between the extreme points
-on the rivers, by which the researches of the commissioners were to be
-governed; a survey for that purpose became indispensable, and
-considerations of public economy suggested the propriety of making this
-survey precede the personal attendance of the commissioners.
-
-"Josias Thompson, a surveyor of professional merit, was taken into
-service and authorized to employ two chain carriers and a marker, as
-well as one vaneman, and a packhorse-man and horse, on public account;
-the latter being indispensable and really beneficial in accelerating the
-work. The surveyor's instructions are contained in document No. 1,
-accompanying this report.
-
-"Calculating on a reasonable time for the performance of the
-instructions to the surveyor, the commissioners, by correspondence,
-fixed on the first day of September last, for their meeting at
-Cumberland to proceed in the work; neither of them, however, reached
-that place until the third of that month, on which day they all met.
-
-"The surveyor having, under his instructions, laid down a plat of his
-work, showing the meanders of the Potomac and Ohio rivers, within the
-limits prescribed for the commissioners, as also the road between those
-rivers, which is commonly traveled from Cumberland to Charleston, in
-part called Braddock's road; and the same being produced to the
-commissioners, whereby straight lines and their true courses were shown
-between the extreme points on each river, and the boundaries which limit
-the powers of the commissioners being thereby ascertained, serving as a
-basis whereon to proceed in the examination of the grounds and face of
-the country; the commissioners thus prepared commenced the business of
-exploring; and in this it was considered that a faithful discharge of
-the discretionary powers vested by the law made it necessary to view
-the whole to be able to judge of a preference due to any part of the
-grounds, which imposed a task of examining a space comprehending upwards
-of two thousand square miles; a task rendered still more incumbent by
-the solicitude and importunities of the inhabitants of every part of the
-district, who severally conceived their grounds entitled to a
-preference. It becoming necessary, in the interim, to run various lines
-of experiment for ascertaining the geographical position of several
-points entitled to attention, and the service suffering great delay for
-want of another surveyor, it was thought consistent with the public
-interest to employ, in that capacity, Arthur Rider, the vaneman, who had
-been chosen with qualification to meet such an emergency; and whose
-services as vaneman could then be dispensed with. He commenced, as
-surveyor, on the 22nd day of September, and continued so at field work
-until the first day of December, when he was retained as a necessary
-assistant to the principal surveyor, in copying field notes and
-hastening the draught of the work to be reported.
-
-"The proceedings of the commissioners are especially detailed in their
-general journal, compiled from the daily journal of each commissioner,
-to which they beg leave to refer, under mark No. 2.
-
-"After a careful and critical examination of all the grounds within the
-limits prescribed, as well as the grounds and ways out from the Ohio
-westwardly, at several points, and examining the shoal parts of the Ohio
-river as detailed in the table of soundings, stated in their journal,
-and after gaining all the information, geographical, general and
-special, possible and necessary, toward a judicial discharge of the
-duties assigned them, the commissioners repaired to Cumberland to
-examine and compare their notes and journals, and determine upon the
-direction and location of their route.
-
-"In this consultation the governing objects were:
-
-1. Shortness of distance between navigable points on the eastern and
-western waters.
-
-2. A point on the Monongahela best calculated to equalize the advantages
-of this portage in the country within reach of it.
-
-3. A point on the Ohio river most capable of combining certainty of
-navigation with road accommodation; embracing, in this estimate, remote
-points westwardly, as well as present and probable population on the
-north and south.
-
-4. Best mode of diffusing benefits with least distance of road.
-
-"In contemplating these objects, due attention was paid as well to the
-comparative merits of towns, establishments and settlements already
-made, as to the capacity of the country with the present and probable
-population.
-
-"In the course of arrangement, and in its order, the first point located
-for the route was determined and fixed at Cumberland, a decision founded
-on propriety, and in some measure on necessity, from the circumstance of
-a high and difficult mountain, called Nobley, laying and confining the
-east margin of the Potomac, so as to render it impossible of access on
-that side without immense expense, at any point between Cumberland and
-where the road from Winchester to Gwynn's crosses, and even there the
-Nobley mountain is crossed with much difficulty and hazard. And this
-upper point was taxed with another formidable objection; it was found
-that a high range of mountains, called Dan's, stretching across from
-Gwynn's to the Potomac, above this point, precluded the opportunity of
-extending a route from this point in a proper direction, and left no
-alternative but passing by Gwynn's; the distance from Cumberland to
-Gwynn's being upward of a mile less than from the upper point, which
-lies ten miles by water above Cumberland, the commissioners were not
-permitted to hesitate in preferring a point which shortens the portage,
-as well as the Potomac navigation.
-
-"The point of the Potomac being viewed as a great repository of produce,
-which a good road will bring from the west of Laurel Hill, and the
-advantages which Cumberland, as a town, has in that respect over an
-unimproved place, are additional considerations operating forcibly in
-favor of the place preferred.
-
-"In extending the route from Cumberland, a triple range of mountains,
-stretching across from Jening's run in measure with Gwynn's, left only
-the alternative of laying the road up Will's creek for three miles,
-nearly at right angles with the true course, and then by way of Jening's
-run, or extending it over a break in the smallest mountain, on a better
-course by Gwynn's, to the top of Savage mountain; the latter was
-adopted, being the shortest, and will be less expensive in hill-side
-digging over a sloped route than the former, requiring one bridge over
-Will's creek and several over Jening's run, both very wide and
-considerable streams in high water; and a more weighty reason for
-preferring the route by Gwynn's is the great accommodation it will
-afford travelers from Winchester by the upper point, who could not reach
-the route by Jening's run short of the top of Savage, which would
-withhold from them the benefit of an easy way up the mountain.
-
-"It is, however, supposed that those who travel from Winchester by way
-of the upper point to Gwynn's, are in that respect more the dupes of
-common prejudice than judges of their own ease, as it is believed the
-way will be as short, and on much better ground, to cross the Potomac
-below the confluence of the north and south branches (thereby crossing
-these two, as well as Patterson's creek, in one stream, equally fordable
-in the same season), than to pass through Cumberland to Gwynn's. Of
-these grounds, however, the commissioners do not speak from actual view,
-but consider it a subject well worthy of future investigation. Having
-gained the top of Alleghany mountain, or rather the top of that part
-called Savage, by way of Gwynn's, the general route, as it respects the
-most important points, was determined as follows, viz:
-
-"From a stone at the corner of lot No. 1, in Cumberland, near the
-confluence of Will's creek and the north branch of the Potomac river;
-thence extending along the street westwardly, to cross the hill lying
-between Cumberland and Gwynn's, at the gap where Braddock's road passes
-it; thence near Gwynn's and Jesse Tomlinson's, to cross the big
-Youghiogheny near the mouth of Roger's run, between the crossing of
-Braddock's road and the confluence of the streams which form the Turkey
-foot; thence to cross Laurel Hill near the forks of Dunbar's run, to the
-west foot of that hill, at a point near where Braddock's old road
-reached it, near Gist's old place, now Colonel Isaac Meason's, thence
-through Brownsville and Bridgeport, to cross the Monongahela river below
-Josias Crawfords' ferry; and thence on as straight a course as the
-country will admit to the Ohio, at a point between the mouth of Wheeling
-creek and the lower point of Wheeling island.
-
-"In this direction of the route it will lay about twenty-four and a half
-miles in Maryland, seventy-five miles and a half in Pennsylvania, and
-twelve miles in Virginia; distances which will be in a small degree
-increased by meanders, which the bed of the road must necessarily make
-between the points mentioned in the location; and this route, it is
-believed, comprehends more important advantages than could be afforded
-in any other, inasmuch as it has a capacity at least equal to any other
-in extending advantages of a highway; and at the same time establishes
-the shortest portage between the points already navigated, and on the
-way accommodates other and nearer points to which navigation may be
-extended, and still shorten the portage.
-
-"It intersects Big Youghiogheny at the nearest point from Cumberland,
-then lies nearly parallel with that river for the distance of twenty
-miles, and at the west foot of Laurel Hill lies within five miles of
-Connellsville, from which the Youghiogheny is navigated; and in the same
-direction the route intersects at Brownsville, the nearest point on the
-Monongahela river within the district.
-
-"The improvement of the Youghiogheny navigation is a subject of too much
-importance to remain long neglected; and the capacity of that river, as
-high up as the falls (twelve miles above Connellsville), is said to be
-equal, at a small expense, with the parts already navigated below. The
-obstructions at the falls, and a rocky rapid near Turkey Foot,
-constitute the principal impediments in that river to the intersection
-of the route, and as much higher as the stream has a capacity for
-navigation; and these difficulties will doubtless be removed when the
-intercourse shall warrant the measure.
-
-"Under these circumstances the portage may be thus stated: From
-Cumberland to Monongahela, sixty-six and one-half miles. From Cumberland
-to a point in measure with Connellsville, on the Youghiogheny river,
-fifty-one and one-half miles. From Cumberland to a point in measure with
-the lower end of the falls of Youghiogheny, which will lie two miles
-north of the public road, forty-three miles. From Cumberland to the
-intersection of the route with the Youghiogheny river, thirty-four
-miles.
-
-"Nothing is here said of the Little Youghiogheny, which lies nearer
-Cumberland; the stream being unusually crooked, its navigation can only
-become the work of a redundant population.
-
-"The point which this route locates, at the west foot of Laurel Hill,
-having cleared the whole of the Alleghany mountain, is so situated as to
-extend the advantages of an easy way through the great barrier, with
-more equal justice to the best parts of the country between Laurel Hill
-and the Ohio. Lines from this point to Pittsburg and Morgan town,
-diverging nearly at the same angle, open upon equal terms to all parts
-of the western country that can make use of this portage; and which may
-include the settlements from Pittsburg, up Big Beaver to the Connecticut
-reserve, on Lake Erie, as well as those on the southern borders of the
-Ohio and all the intermediate country.
-
-"Brownsville is nearly equidistant from Big Beaver and Fishing creek,
-and equally convenient to all the crossing places on the Ohio, between
-these extremes. As a port, it is at least equal to any on the
-Monongahela within the limits, and holds superior advantages in
-furnishing supplies to emigrants, traders, and other travelers by land
-or water.
-
-"Not unmindful of the claims of towns and their capacity of
-reciprocating advantages on public roads, the commissioners were not
-insensible of the disadvantage which Uniontown must feel from the want
-of that accommodation which a more southwardly direction of the route
-would have afforded; but as that could not take place without a
-relinquishment of the shortest passage, considerations of public
-benefit could not yield to feelings of minor import. Uniontown being
-the seat of justice for Fayette county, Pennsylvania, is not without a
-share of public benefits, and may partake of the advantages of this
-portage upon equal terms with Connellsville, a growing town, with the
-advantage of respectable water-works adjoining, in the manufactory of
-flour and iron.
-
-"After reaching the nearest navigation on the western waters, at a point
-best calculated to diffuse the benefits of a great highway, in the
-greatest possible latitude east of the Ohio, it was considered that, to
-fulfill the objects of the law, it remained for the commissioners to
-give such a direction to the road as would best secure a certainty of
-navigation on the Ohio at all seasons, combining, as far as possible,
-the inland accommodation of remote points westwardly. It was found that
-the obstructions in the Ohio, within the limits between Steubenville and
-Grave creek, lay principally above the town and mouth of Wheeling; a
-circumstance ascertained by the commissioners in their examination of
-the channel, as well as by common usage, which has long given a decided
-preference to Wheeling as a place of embarkation and port of departure
-in dry seasons. It was also seen that Wheeling lay in a line from
-Brownsville to the centre of the state of Ohio and Post Vincennes. These
-circumstances favoring and corresponding with the chief objects in view
-in this last direction of the route, and the ground from Wheeling
-westwardly being known of equal fitness with any other way out from the
-river, it was thought most proper, under these several considerations,
-to locate the point mentioned below the mouth of Wheeling. In taking
-this point in preference to one higher up and in the town of Wheeling,
-the public benefit and convenience were consulted, inasmuch as the
-present crossing place over the Ohio from the town is so contrived and
-confined as to subject passengers to extraordinary ferriage and delay,
-by entering and clearing a ferry-boat on each side of Wheeling island,
-which lies before the town and precludes the opportunity of fording when
-the river is crossed in that way, above and below the island. From the
-point located, a safe crossing is afforded at the lower point of the
-island by a ferry in high, and a good ford at low water.
-
-"The face of the country within the limits prescribed is generally very
-uneven, and in many places broken by a succession of high mountains and
-deep hollows, too formidable to be reduced within five degrees of the
-horizon, but by crossing them obliquely, a mode which, although it
-imposes a heavy task of hill-side digging, obviates generally the
-necessity of reducing hills and filling hollows, which, on these
-grounds, would be an attempt truly quixotic. This inequality of the
-surface is not confined to the Alleghany mountain; the country between
-the Monongahela and Ohio rivers, although less elevated, is not better
-adapted for the bed of a road, being filled with impediments of hills
-and hollows, which present considerable difficulties, and wants that
-super-abundance and convenience of stone found in the mountain.
-
-"The indirect course of the road now traveled, and the frequent
-elevations and depressions which occur, that exceed the limits of the
-law, preclude the possibility of occupying it in any extent without
-great sacrifice of distance, and forbid the use of it, in any one part
-for more than half a mile, or more than two or three miles in the whole.
-
-"The expense of rendering the road now in contemplation passable, may,
-therefore, amount to a larger sum than may have been supposed necessary,
-under an idea of embracing in it a considerable part of the old road;
-but it is believed that the contrary will be found most correct, and
-that a sum sufficient to open the new could not be expended on the same
-distance of the old road with equal benefit.
-
-"The sum required for the road in contemplation will depend on the style
-and manner of making it; as a common road cannot remove the difficulties
-which always exist on deep grounds, and particularly in wet seasons, and
-as nothing short of a firm, substantial, well-formed, stone-capped road
-can remove the causes which led to the measure of improvement, or render
-the institution as commodious as a great and growing intercourse appears
-to require, the expense of such a road next becomes the subject of
-inquiry.
-
-"In this inquiry the commissioners can only form an estimate by
-recurring to the experience of Pennsylvania and Maryland in the business
-of artificial roads. Upon this data, and a comparison of the grounds and
-proximity of the materials for covering, there are reasons for belief
-that, on the route reported, a complete road may be made at an expense
-not exceeding six thousand dollars per mile, exclusive of bridges over
-the principal streams on the way. The average expense of the Lancaster,
-as well as Baltimore and Frederick turnpike, is considerably higher; but
-it is believed that the convenient supply of stone which the mountain
-affords will, on those grounds, reduce the expense to the rate here
-stated.
-
-"As to the policy of incurring this expense, it is not the province of
-the commissioners to declare; but they cannot, however, withhold
-assurances of a firm belief that the purse of the nation cannot be more
-seasonably opened, or more happily applied, than in promoting the speedy
-and effectual establishment of a great and easy road on the way
-contemplated.
-
-"In the discharge of all these duties, the commissioners have been
-actuated by an ardent desire to render the institution as useful and
-commodious as possible; and, impressed with a strong sense of the
-necessity which urges the speedy establishment of the road, they have to
-regret the circumstances which delay the completion of the part assigned
-them. They, however, in some measure, content themselves with the
-reflection that it will not retard the progress of the work, as the
-opening of the road cannot commence before spring, and may then begin
-with making the way.
-
-"The extra expense incident to the service from the necessity (and
-propriety, as it relates to public economy,) of employing men not
-provided for by law will, it is hoped, be recognized and provision made
-for the payment of that and similar expenses, when in future it may be
-indispensably incurred.
-
-"The commissioners having engaged in a service in which their zeal did
-not permit them to calculate the difference between their pay and the
-expense to which the service subjected them, cannot suppose it the wish
-or intention of the government to accept of their services for a mere
-indemnification of their expense of subsistence, which will be very much
-the case under the present allowance; they, therefore, allow themselves
-to hope and expect that measures will be taken to provide such further
-compensation as may, under all circumstances, be thought neither profuse
-nor parsimonious.
-
-"The painful anxiety manifested by the inhabitants of the district
-explored, and their general desire to know the route determined on,
-suggested the measure of promulgation, which, after some deliberation,
-was agreed on by way of circular letter, which has been forwarded to
-those persons to whom precaution was useful, and afterward sent to one
-of the presses in that quarter for publication, in the form of the
-document No. 3, which accompanies this report.
-
-"All which is, with due deference, submitted.
-
- ELI WILLIAMS,
- THOMAS MOORE,
- JOSEPH KERR.
- December 30, 1806."
-
-Starting from Cumberland the general alignment of Braddock's Road was
-pursued, until the point was reached where the old thoroughfare left the
-old portage trail, on the summit of Laurel Hill. The course was then
-laid straight toward Brownsville (Redstone Old Fort) probably along the
-general alignment of the old Indian portage path, and an earlier road.
-From Brownsville to Washington was an old road, possibly the course of
-the Indian trail.
-
-As has already been suggested, there was a dispute concerning the point
-where the road would touch the Ohio River. The rivalry was most intense
-between Wheeling and Steubenville. Wheeling won through the influence of
-Henry Clay, to whom a monument was erected at a later date near the town
-on the old road. The commissioners rendered a second report on the
-fifteenth of January, 1808 as follows:
-
-"The undersigned, commissioners appointed under the law of the United
-States, entitled 'An act to regulate the laying out and making a road
-from Cumberland, in the State of Maryland, to the State of Ohio,' in
-addition to the communications heretofore made, beg leave further to
-report to the President of the United States, that, by the delay of the
-answer of the Legislature of Pennsylvania to the application for
-permission to pass the road through that state, the commissioners could
-not proceed to the business of the road in the spring before vegetation
-had so far advanced as to render the work of exploring and surveying
-difficult and tedious, from which circumstance it was postponed till the
-last autumn, when the business was again resumed. That, in obedience to
-the special instructions given them, the route heretofore reported has
-been so changed as to pass through Uniontown, and that they have
-completed the location, gradation, and marking of the route from
-Cumberland to Brownsville, Bridgeport, and the Monongahela river,
-agreeably to a plat of the courses, distances and grades in which is
-described the marks and monuments by which the route is designated, and
-which is herewith exhibited; that by this plat and measurement it will
-appear (when compared with the road now traveled) there is a saving of
-four miles of distance between Cumberland and Brownsville on the new
-route.
-
-"In the gradation of the surface of the route (which became necessary)
-is ascertained the comparative elevation and depression of different
-points on the route, and taking a point ten feet above the surface of
-low water in the Potomac river at Cumberland, as the horizon, the most
-prominent points are found to be elevated as follows, viz.:
-
- _Feet_
- Summit of Wills mountain 581.
- Western foot of same 304.4
- Summit of Savage mountain 2,022.24
- Savage river 1,741.6
- Summit Little Savage mountain 1,900.4
- Branch Pine Run, first Western water 1,699.9
- Summit of Red Hill (afterwards called shades of death) 1,914.3
- Summit Little Meadow mountain 2,026.16
- Little Youghiogheny river 1,322.6
- East Fork of Shade run 1,558.92
- Summit of Negro mountain, highest point[3] 2,328.12
- Middle branch of White's creek, at the west foot of Negro
- mountain 1,360.5
- White's creek 1,195.5
- Big Youghiogheny river 645.5
- Summit of ridge between Youghiogheny river and Beaver waters 1,514.5
- Beaver Run 1,123.8
- Summit of Laurel Hill 1,550.16
- Court House in Uniontown 274.65
- A point ten feet above the surfaceof low water in the
- Monongahela river, at the mouth of Dunlap's creek 119.26
-
-"The law requiring the commissioners to report such parts of the route
-as are laid on the old road, as well as those on new grounds, and to
-state those parts which require the most immediate attention and
-amelioration, the probable expense of making the same passable in the
-most difficult parts, and through the whole distance, they have to state
-that, from the crooked and hilly course of the road now traveled, the
-new route could not be made to occupy any part of it (except an
-intersection on Wills mountain, another at Jesse Tomlinson's, and a
-third near Big Youghiogheny, embracing not a mile of distance in the
-whole) without unnecessary sacrifices of distances and expense.
-
-"That, therefore, an estimate must be made on the route as passing
-wholly through new grounds. In doing this the commissioners feel great
-difficulty, as they cannot, with any degree of precision, estimate the
-expense of making it merely passable; nor can they allow themselves to
-suppose that a less breadth than that mentioned in the law was to be
-taken into the calculation. The rugged deformity of the grounds rendered
-it impossible to lay a route within the grade limited by law otherwise
-than by ascending and descending the hills obliquely, by which
-circumstance a great proportion of the route occupies the sides of the
-hills, which cannot be safely passed on a road of common breadth, and
-where it will, in the opinion of the commissioners, be necessary, by
-digging, to give the proper form of thirty feet, at least in the breadth
-of the road, to afford suitable security in passing on a way to be
-frequently crowded with wagons moving in opposite directions, with
-transports of emigrant families, and droves of cattle, hogs, etc., on
-the way to market. Considering, therefore, that a road on those grounds
-must have sufficient breadth to afford ways and water courses, and
-satisfied that nothing short of well constructed and completely finished
-conduits can insure it against injuries, which must otherwise render it
-impassable at every change of the seasons, by heavy falls of rain or
-melting of the beds of snow, with which the country is frequently
-covered; the commissioners beg leave to say, that, in a former report,
-they estimated the expense of a road on these grounds, when properly
-shaped, made and finished in the style of a stone-covered turnpike, at
-$6,000 per mile, exclusive of bridges over the principal streams on the
-way; and that with all the information they have since been able to
-collect, they have no reason to make any alteration in that estimate.
-
-"The contracts authorized by, and which have been taken under the
-superintendence of the commissioner, Thomas Moore (duplicates of which
-accompany this report), will show what has been undertaken relative to
-clearing the timber and brush from part of the breadth of the road. The
-performance of these contracts was in such forwardness on the 1st
-instant as leaves no doubt of their being completely fulfilled by the
-first of March.
-
-"The commissioners further state, that, to aid them in the extension of
-their route, they ran and marked a straight line from the crossing-place
-on the Monongahela, to Wheeling, and had progressed twenty miles, with
-their usual and necessary lines of experiment, in ascertaining the
-shortest and best connection of practical grounds, when the approach of
-winter and the shortness of the days afforded no expectation that they
-could complete the location without a needless expense in the most
-inclement season of the year. And, presuming that the postponement of
-the remaining part till the ensuing spring would produce no delay in the
-business of making the road, they were induced to retire from it for the
-present.
-
-"The great length of time already employed in this business makes it
-proper for the commissioners to observe that, in order to connect the
-best grounds with that circumspection which the importance of the duties
-confided to them demanded, it became indispensably necessary to run
-lines of experiment and reference in various directions, which exceed an
-average of four times the distance located for the route, and that,
-through a country so irregularly broken, and crowded with very thick
-underwood in many places, the work has been found so incalculably
-tedious that, without an adequate idea of the difficulty, it is not easy
-to reconcile the delay.
-
-"It is proper to mention that an imperious call from the private
-concerns of Commissioner Joseph Kerr, compelled him to return home on
-the 29th of November, which will account for the want of his signature
-to this report.
-
-"All of which is, with due deference, submitted, this 15th day of
-January, 1808.
-
- ELI WILLIAMS,
- THOMAS MOORE."
-
-
-It was necessary to obtain permission of each state through which the
-Cumberland Road was to be built; Pennsylvania, only, made any condition,
-hers being that the road touch the towns of Washington and Uniontown.[4]
-
-The first contracts were let on the eleventh and the sixteenth of April,
-1811, for building the first ten miles west of Cumberland, Maryland.
-These contracts were completed in the year following. More were let in
-1812, 1813, and 1815; and two years later contracts for all the distance
-to Uniontown, Pennsylvania were let. In 1818, United States Mail coaches
-were running between Washington, D. C. and Wheeling, Virginia. The cost
-of the road averaged $9,745 per mile between Cumberland and Uniontown,
-and $13,000 per mile for the entire division from the Potomac to the
-Ohio. Too liberal contracts is the reason given for the heavy expense
-between Uniontown and Wheeling.
-
-[Illustration: MAP OF CUMBERLAND ROAD IN PENNSYLVANIA AND MARYLAND]
-
-A flood of traffic swept over the great highway immediately upon its
-completion. As early as the year 1822 it is recorded that a single
-one of the five commission houses at Wheeling unloaded one thousand and
-eighty-one wagons, averaging three thousand five hundred pounds each,
-and paid for freightage of goods the sum of ninety thousand dollars.
-
-But the road was hardly completed when a specter of constitutional cavil
-arose, threatening its existence. In 1822 a bill was passed by Congress
-looking toward the preservation and repair of the newly-built road. It
-should be stated that the roadbed, though completed in one sense, was
-not in condition to be used extensively unless continually repaired. In
-many places only a single layer of broken stone had been laid, and, with
-the volume of traffic which was daily passing over it, the road did not
-promise to remain in good condition. In order to secure funds for the
-constant repairs necessary, this bill ordered the establishment of
-turnpikes with gates and tolls. The bill was immediately vetoed by
-President Monroe on the ground that Congress, according to his
-interpretation of the constitution, did not have the power to pass such
-a sweeping measure of internal improvement.
-
-The President based his conclusion upon the following grounds, stated in
-a special message to Congress, dated May 4, 1822:
-
-"A power to establish turnpikes, with gates and tolls and to enforce the
-collection of the tolls by penalties, implies a power to adopt and
-execute a complete system of internal improvements. A right to impose
-duties to be paid by all persons passing a certain road, and on horses
-and carriages, as is done by this bill, involves the right to take the
-land from the proprietor on a valuation, and to pass laws for the
-protection of the road from injuries; and if it exist, as to one road,
-it exists as to any other, and to as many roads as Congress may think
-proper to establish. A right to legislate for the others is a complete
-right of jurisdiction and sovereignty for all the purposes of internal
-improvement, and not merely the right of applying money under the power
-vested in Congress to make appropriations (under which power, with the
-consent of the states through which the road passes, the work was
-originally commenced, and has been so far executed). I am of the
-opinion that Congress does not possess this power--that the states
-individually cannot grant it; for, although they may assent to the
-appropriation of money within their limits for such purposes, they can
-grant no power of jurisdiction of sovereignty, by special compacts with
-the United States. This power can be granted only by an amendment to the
-constitution, and in the mode prescribed by it. If the power exist, it
-must be either because it has been specially granted to the United
-States, or that it is incidental to some power, which has been
-specifically granted. It has never been contended that the power was
-specifically granted. It is claimed only as being incidental to some one
-or more of the powers which are specifically granted.
-
-"The following are the powers from which it is said to be derived: (1)
-From the right to establish post offices and post roads; (2) from the
-right to declare war; (3) to regulate commerce; (4) to pay the debts and
-provide for the common defense and the general welfare; (5) from the
-power to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution
-all the powers vested by the constitution in the government of the
-United States, or in any department or officer thereof; (6) and lastly
-from the power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations
-respecting the territory and other property of the United States.
-According to my judgment it cannot be derived from either of these
-powers, nor from all of them united, and in consequence it does not
-exist."[5]
-
-During the early years of this century, the subject of internal
-improvements relative to the building of roads and canals was one of the
-foremost political questions of the day. No sooner were the debts of the
-Revolutionary War paid, and a surplus accumulated, than a systematic
-improvement of the country was undertaken. The Cumberland Road was but
-one of several roads projected by the general Government. Through the
-administrations of Adams, Jefferson, and Madison large appropriations
-had been made for numerous improvements. The bill authorizing the
-levying of tolls was a step too far, as President Monroe held that it
-was one thing to make appropriations for public improvements, but an
-entirely different thing to assume jurisdiction and sovereignty over the
-land whereon those improvements were made. This was one of the great
-public questions in the first half of the present century. President
-Jackson's course was not very consistent. Before his election he voted
-for internal improvements, even advocating subscriptions by the
-Government to the stock of private canal companies, and the formation of
-roads beginning and ending within the limits of certain states. In his
-message at the opening of the first congress after his accession, he
-suggested the division of the surplus revenue among the states, as a
-substitute for the promotion of internal improvements by the general
-Government, attempting a limitation and distinction too difficult and
-important to be settled and acted upon on the judgment of one man,
-namely, the distinction between general and local objects.
-
-"The pleas of the advocates of internal improvement," wrote a
-contemporary authority of high standing on economic questions, "are
-these: That very extensive public works, designed for the benefit of the
-whole Union, and carried through vast portions of its area, must be
-accomplished. That an object so essential ought not to be left at the
-mercy of such an accident as the cordial agreement of the requisite
-number of states, to carry such works forward to their completion; that
-the surplus funds accruing from the whole nation cannot be as well
-employed as in promoting works in which the whole nation will be
-benefited; and that as the interests of the majority have hitherto
-upheld Congress in the use of this power, it may be assumed to be the
-will of the majority that Congress should continue to exercise it.
-
-"The answer is that it is inexpedient to put a vast and increasing
-patronage into the hands of the general Government; that only a very
-superficial knowledge can be looked for in members of Congress as to the
-necessity or value of works proposed to be instituted in any parts of
-the states, from the impossibility or undesirableness of equalizing the
-amount of appropriation made to each; that useless works would be
-proposed from the spirit of competition or individual interest; and that
-corruption, coextensive with the increase of power, would deprave the
-functions of the general Government.... To an impartial observer it
-appears that Congress has no constitutional right to devote the public
-funds to internal improvements, at its own unrestricted will and
-pleasure; that the permitted usurpation of the power for so long a time
-indicates that some degree of such power in the hands of the general
-Government is desirable and necessary; that such power should be granted
-through an amendment of the constitution, by the methods therein
-provided; that, in the meantime, it is perilous that the instrument
-should be strained for the support of any function, however desirable
-its exercise may be.
-
-"In case of the proposed addition being made to the constitution,
-arrangements will, of course, be entered into for determining the
-principles by which general are to be distinguished from local objects
-or whether such distinction can, on any principle, be fixed; for
-testing the utility of proposed objects; for checking extravagant
-expenditure, jobbing, and corrupt patronage; in short, the powers of
-Congress will be specified, here as in other matters, by express
-permission and prohibition."[6]
-
-In 1824, however, President Monroe found an excuse to sign a bill which
-was very similar to that vetoed in 1822, and the great road, whose fate
-had hung for two years in the balance, received needed appropriations.
-The travel over the road in the first decade after its completion was
-heavy, and before a decade had passed the roadbed was in wretched
-condition. It was the plan of the friends of the road, when they
-realized that no revenue could be raised by means of tolls by the
-Government, to have the road placed in a state of good repair by the
-Government and then turned over to the several states through which it
-passed.[7]
-
-The liberality of the government, at this juncture, in instituting
-thorough repairs on the road, was an act worthy of the road's service
-and destiny.
-
-[Illustration: CHESTNUT RIDGE, PENNSYLVANIA]
-
-In order to insure efficiency and permanency these repairs[8] were made
-on the Macadam system; that is to say, the pavement of the old road was
-entirely broken up, and the stones removed from the road; the bed was
-then raked smooth, and made nearly flat, having a rise of not more than
-three inches from the side to the center in a road thirty feet wide; the
-ditches on each side of the road, and the drains leading from them, were
-so constructed that the water could not stand at a higher level than
-eighteen inches below the lowest part of the surface of the road; and,
-in all cases, when it was practicable, the drains were adjusted in such
-manner as to lead the water entirely from the side ditches. The culverts
-were cleared out, and so adjusted as to allow the free passage of all
-water that tended to cross the road.
-
-Having thus formed the bed of the road, cleaned out the ditches and
-culverts, and adjusted the side drains, the stone was reduced to a size
-not exceeding four ounces in weight, was spread on with shovels, and
-raked smooth. The old material was used when it was of sufficient
-hardness, and no clay or sand was allowed to be mixed with the stone.
-
-In replacing the covering of stone, it was found best to lay it on in
-layers of about three inches thick, admitting the travel for a short
-interval on each layer, and interposing such obstructions from time to
-time as would insure an equal travel over every portion of the road;
-care being taken to keep persons in constant attendance to rake the
-surface when it became uneven by the action of wheels of carriages. In
-those parts of the road, if any, where materials of good quality could
-not be obtained for the road in sufficient quantity to afford a course
-of six inches, new stone was procured to make up the deficiency to that
-thickness; but it was considered unnecessary, in any part, to put on a
-covering of more than nine inches. None but limestone, flint, or granite
-were used for the covering, if practicable; and no covering was placed
-upon the bed of the road till it had become well compacted and
-thoroughly dried. At proper intervals, on the slopes of hills, drains
-or paved catch-waters were made across the road, whenever the cost of
-constructing culverts rendered their use inexpedient. These catch-waters
-were made with a gradual curvature, so as to give no jolts to the wheels
-of carriages passing over them; but whenever the expense justified the
-introduction of culverts, they were used in preference, and in all cases
-where the water crossed the road, either in catch-waters or through
-culverts, sufficient pavements and overfalls were constructed to provide
-against the possibility of the road or banks being washed away by it.
-
-The masonry of the bridges, culverts, and side-walls was ordered to be
-repaired, whenever required, in a substantial manner, and care was taken
-that the mortar used was of good quality, without admixture of raw clay.
-All the masonry was well pointed with hydraulic mortar, and in no case
-was the pointing allowed to be put on after the middle of October. All
-masonry finished after this time was well covered, and pointed early in
-the spring. Care was taken, also, to provide means for carrying off the
-water from the bases of walls, to prevent the action of frost on their
-foundations; and it was considered highly important that all foundations
-in masonry should be well pointed with hydraulic mortar to a depth of
-eighteen inches below the surface of the ground.
-
-By the year 1818, travel over the first great road across the Allegheny
-Mountains into the Ohio Basin had begun.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER II
-
-BUILDING THE ROAD IN THE WEST
-
-
-The tales of those who knew the road in the West and those who knew it
-in the East are much alike. It is probable that there was one important
-distinction--the passenger traffic of the road between the Potomac and
-Ohio, which gave life on that portion of the road a peculiar flavor, was
-doubtless not equaled on the western division.
-
-For many years the center of western population was in the Ohio Valley,
-and good steamers were plying the Ohio when the Cumberland Road was
-first opened. Indeed the road was originally intended for the
-accommodation of the lower Ohio Valley.[9] Still, as the century grew
-old and the interior population became considerable, the Ohio division
-of the road became a crowded thoroughfare. An old stage-driver in
-eastern Ohio remembers when business was such that he and his companion
-Knights of Rein and Whip never went to bed for twenty nights, and more
-than a hundred teams might have been met in a score of miles.
-
-When the road was built to Wheeling, its greatest mission was
-accomplished--the portage path across the mountains was completed to a
-point where river navigation was almost always available. And yet less
-than half of the road was finished. It now touched the eastern extremity
-of the great state whose public lands were being sold in order to pay
-for its building. Westward lay the growing states of Indiana and
-Illinois, a per cent of the sale of whose land had already been pledged
-to the road. Then came another moment when the great work paused and the
-original ambition of its friends was at hazard.
-
-In 1820 Congress appropriated one hundred and forty-one thousand dollars
-for completing the road from Washington, Pennsylvania to Wheeling. In
-the same year ten thousand dollars was appropriated for laying out the
-road between Wheeling, Virginia and a point on the left bank of the
-Mississippi River, between St. Louis and the mouth of the Illinois
-River. For four years the fate of the road west of the Ohio hung in the
-balance, during which time the road was menaced by the specter of
-unconstitutionality, already mentioned. But on the third day of March,
-1825, a bill was passed by Congress appropriating one hundred and fifty
-thousand dollars for building the road to Zanesville, Ohio, and the
-extension of the surveys to the permanent seat of government in
-Missouri, to pass by the seats of government of Ohio, Indiana, and
-Illinois.[10] Two years later, one hundred and seventy thousand dollars
-was appropriated to complete the road to Zanesville, Ohio, and in 1829
-an additional appropriation for continuing it westward was made.[11]
-
-It has been noted that the Cumberland Road from Cumberland to Wheeling
-was built on a general alignment of a former thoroughfare of the red men
-and the pioneers. So with much of the course west of the Ohio. Between
-Wheeling and Zanesville the Cumberland Road followed the course of the
-first road made through Ohio, that celebrated route marked out, by way
-of Lancaster and Chillicothe, to Kentucky, by Colonel Ebenezer Zane, and
-which bore the name of Zane's Trace. This first road built in Ohio was
-authorized by an act of Congress passed May 17, 1796.[12] This route
-through Ohio was a well worn road a quarter of a century before the
-Cumberland Road was extended across the Ohio River.
-
-The act of 1825, authorizing the extension of the great road into the
-state of Ohio, was greeted with intense enthusiasm by the people of the
-West. The fear that the road would not be continued beyond the Ohio
-River was generally entertained, and for good reasons. The debate of
-constitutionality, which had been going on for several years, increased
-the fear. And yet it would have been breaking faith with the West by the
-national Government to have failed to continue the road.
-
-The act appropriated one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for an
-extension of the road from Wheeling to Zanesville, Ohio, and work was
-immediately undertaken. The Ohio was by far the greatest body of water
-which the road crossed, and for many years the passage from Wheeling to
-the opposite side of the Ohio, Bridgeport, was made by ferry. Later a
-great bridge, the admiration of the countryside, was erected. The road
-entered Ohio in Belmont County, and eventually crossed the state in a
-due line west, not deviating its course even to touch cities of such
-importance as Newark or Dayton, although, in the case of the former at
-least, such a course would have been less expensive than the one
-pursued. Passing due west the road was built through Belmont, Guernsey,
-Muskingum, Licking, Franklin, Madison, Clark, Montgomery, and Preble
-Counties, a distance of over three hundred miles. A larger portion of
-the Cumberland Road which was actually completed lay in Ohio than in all
-other states through which it passed combined.
-
-The work on the road between Wheeling and Zanesville was begun in
-1825-26. Ground was broken with great ceremony opposite the Court House
-at St. Clairsville, Belmont County, July 4, 1825. An address was made by
-Mr. William B. Hubbard. The cost of the road in eastern Ohio was much
-less than the cost in Pennsylvania, averaging only about three thousand
-four hundred dollars per mile. This included three-inch layers of broken
-stone, masonry bridges, and culverts. Large appropriations were made for
-the road in succeeding years and the work went on from Zanesville due
-west to Columbus. The course of the road between Zanesville and Columbus
-was perhaps the first instance where the road ignored, entirely, the
-general alignment of a previous road between the same two points. The
-old road between Zanesville and Columbus went by way of Newark and
-Granville, a roundabout course, but probably the most practicable, as
-anyone may attest who has traveled over the Cumberland Road in the
-western part of Muskingum County. A long and determined effort was made
-by citizens of Newark and Granville to have the new road follow the
-course of the old, but without effect. Ohio had not, like Pennsylvania,
-demanded that the road should pass through certain towns. The only
-direction named by law was that the road should go west on the
-straightest possible line through the capital of each state.
-
-The course between Zanesville and Columbus was located by the United
-States commissioner, Jonathan Knight, Esq., who, accompanied by his
-associates (one of whom was the youthful Joseph E. Johnson), arrived in
-Columbus, October 5, 1825. Bids for contracts for building the road from
-Zanesville to Columbus were advertised to be received at the
-superintendent's office at Zanesville, from the twenty-third to the
-thirtieth of June, 1829. The road was fully completed by 1833. The road
-entered Columbus on Friend (now Main) Street. There was great rivalry
-between the North End and South End over the road's entrance into the
-city. The matter was compromised by having it enter on Friend Street and
-take its exit on West Broad, traversing High to make the connection.
-
-[Illustration: MAP OF CUMBERLAND ROAD IN THE WEST]
-
-Concerning the route out of Columbus, the _Ohio State Journal_ said:
-
-"The adopted route leaves Columbus at Broad Street, crosses the Scioto
-River at the end of that street and on the new wooden bridge erected in
-1826 by an individual having a charter from the state. The bridge is not
-so permanent nor so spacious as could be desired, yet it may answer the
-intended purposes for several years to come. Thence the location passes
-through the village of Franklinton, and across the low grounds to the
-bluff which is surrounded at a depression formed by a ravine, and at a
-point nearly in the prolongation in the direction of Broad Street;
-thence by a small angle, a straight line to the bluffs of Darby Creek;
-to pass the creek and its bluffs some angles were necessary; thence
-nearly a straight line through Deer Creek Barrens, and across that
-stream to the dividing grounds, between the Scioto and the Miami waters;
-thence nearly down to the valley of Beaver Creek."
-
-The preliminary survey westward was completed in 1826 and extended to
-Indianapolis, Indiana. Bids were advertised for the contract west of
-Columbus in July 1830. During the next seven years the work was pushed
-on through Madison, Clark, Montgomery, and Preble Counties and across
-the Indiana line. Proposals for bids for building the road west of
-Springfield, Ohio, were advertised for, during August 1837; a condition
-being that the first eight miles be finished by January 1838. These
-proposals are interesting today. The following is a typical
-advertisement:
-
-"NATIONAL ROAD IN OHIO.--Notice to contractors.--Proposals will be
-received by the undersigned, until the 19th of August inst., for
-clearing and grubbing eight miles of the line of National Road west of
-this place, from the 55th to the 62nd mile inclusive west of
-Columbus--the work to be completed on or before the 1st day of January,
-1838.
-
-"The trees and growth to be entirely cleared away to the distance of 40
-feet on each side of the central axis of the road, and all trees
-impending over that space to be cut down; all stumps and roots to be
-carefully grubbed out to the distance of 20 feet on each side of the
-axis, and where occasional high embankments, or spacious side drains may
-be required, the grubbing is to extend to the distance of 30 feet on
-each side of the same axis. All the timber, brush, stumps and roots to
-be entirely removed from the above space of 80 feet in width and the
-earth excavated in grubbing, to be thrown back into the hollows formed
-by removing the stumps and roots.
-
-"The proposals will state the price per linear rod or mile, and the
-offers of competent, or responsible individuals only will be accepted.
-
-"Notice is hereby given to the proprietors of the land, on that part of
-the line of the National Road lying between Springfield and the Miami
-river, to remove all fences and other barriers now across the line a
-reasonable time being allowed them to secure that portion of their
-present crops which may lie upon the location of the road.
-
- G. DUTTON,
- _Lieutenant U. S. Engineers Supt._
-
- National Road Office, Springfield, Ohio.
- August 2nd 1837."[13]
-
-Indianapolis was the center of Cumberland Road operations in Indiana,
-and from that city the road was built both eastward and westward. The
-road entered Indiana through Wayne County but was not completed until
-taken under a charter from the state by the Wayne County Turnpike
-Company, and finished in 1850. When Indiana and Illinois received the
-road from the national Government it was not completed, though graded
-and bridged as far west as Vandalia, then the capital of Illinois.
-
-The Cumberland Road was not to Indiana and Illinois what it was to Ohio,
-for somewhat similar reasons that it was less to Ohio than to
-Pennsylvania, for the further west it was built the older the century
-grew, and the newer the means of transportation which were coming
-rapidly to the front. This was true, even, from the very beginning. The
-road was hardly a decade old in Pennsylvania, when two canals and a
-railroad over the portage, offered a rival means of transportation
-across the state from Harrisburg to Pittsburg.[14] When the road reached
-Wheeling, Ohio River travel was very much improved, and a large
-proportion of traffic went down the river by packet. When the road
-entered Indiana, new plans for internal improvements were under way
-beside which a turnpike was almost a relic. In 1835-36, Indiana passed
-an internal improvement bill, authorizing three great canals and a
-railway.[15] The proposed railway, from the village of Madison on the
-Ohio River northward to Indianapolis, is a pregnant suggestion of the
-amount of traffic to Indiana from the east which passed down the Ohio
-from Wheeling, instead of going overland through Ohio.[16] This was,
-undoubtedly, mostly passenger traffic, which was very heavy at this
-time.[17]
-
-But the dawning of a new era in transportation had already been heralded
-in the national hall of legislation. In 1832 the House Committee on
-Roads and Canals had discussed in their report the question of the
-relative cost of various means of intercommunication, including
-railways. Each report of the committee for the next five years mentioned
-the same subject, until, in 1836, the matter of substituting a railway
-for the Cumberland Road between Columbus and the Mississippi was very
-seriously considered.
-
-In that year a House Bill (No. 64) came back from the Senate amended in
-two particulars, one authorizing that the appropriations made for
-Illinois should be confined to grading and bridging only, and should not
-be construed as implying that Congress had pledged itself to macadamize
-the road.
-
-The House Committee struck out these amendments and substituted a more
-sweeping one than any yet suggested in the history of the road. This
-amendment provided that a railroad be constructed west of Columbus with
-the money appropriated for a highway. The committee reported, that,
-after long study of the question, many reasons appeared why the change
-should be made. It was stated to the committee by respectable authority,
-that much of the stone for the masonry and covering for the road east of
-Columbus had to be transported for considerable distances over bad roads
-across the adjacent country at very great expense, and that, in its
-continuance westward through Ohio, this source of expense would be
-greatly augmented. Nevertheless the compact at the time of the admission
-of the western states supposed the western termination of the road
-should be the Mississippi. The estimated expense of the road's extension
-to Vandalia, Illinois, sixty-five miles east of the Mississippi,
-amounted to $4,732,622.83, making the total expense of the entire road
-amount to about ten millions. The committee said it would have been
-unfaithful to the trust reposed in it, if it had not bestowed much
-attention upon this matter, and it did not hesitate to ground on a
-recent report of the Secretary of War, this very important change of the
-plan of the road. This report of the War Department showed that the
-distance between Columbus and Vandalia was three hundred and thirty-four
-miles and the estimated cost of completing the road that far would be
-$4,732,622.83, of which $1,120,320.01 had been expended and
-$3,547,894.83 remained to be expended in order to finish the road to
-that extent according to plans then in operation; that after its
-completion it would require an annual expenditure on the three hundred
-and thirty-four miles of $392,809.71 to keep it in repair, the engineers
-computing the annual cost of repairs of the portion of the road between
-Wheeling and Columbus (one hundred and twenty-seven miles) at
-$99,430.30.
-
-On the other hand the estimated cost of a railway from Columbus to
-Vandalia on the route of the Cumberland Road was $4,280,540.37, and the
-cost of preservation and repair of such a road, $173,718.25. Thus the
-computed cost of the railway exceeded that of the turnpike but about
-twenty per cent, while the annual expense of repairing the former would
-fall short more than fifty-six per cent. In addition to the advantage of
-reduced cost was that of less time consumed in transportation; for,
-assuming as the committee did a rate of speed of fifteen miles per hour
-(which was five miles per hour less than the then customary speed of
-railway traveling in England on the Liverpool and Manchester Railroad,
-and about the ordinary rate of speed of the American locomotives), it
-would require only twenty-three hours for news from Baltimore to reach
-Columbus, forty-two hours to Indianapolis, fifty-four to Vandalia, and
-fifty-eight to St. Louis.
-
-One interesting argument for the substitution of the railway for the
-Cumberland Road was given as follows:
-
-"When the relation of the general Government to the states which it
-unites is justly regarded; when it is considered it is especially
-charged with the common defense; that for the attainment of this end
-the militia must be combined in time of war with the regular army and
-the state with the United States troops; that mutual prompt and vigorous
-concert should mark the efforts of both for the accomplishment of a
-common end and the safety of all; it seems needless to dwell upon the
-importance of transmitting intelligence between the state and federal
-government with the least possible delay and concentrating in a period
-of common danger their joint efforts with the greatest possible
-dispatch. It is alike needless to detail the comparative advantages of a
-railroad and an ordinary turnpike under such circumstances. A few weeks,
-nay, a very few days, or hours, may determine the issue of a campaign,
-though happily for the United States their distance from a powerful
-enemy may limit the contingency of war to destruction short of that by
-which the events of an hour had involved ruin of an empire."
-
-Despite the weight of argument presented by the House Committee their
-amendment was in turn stricken out, and the bill of 1836 appropriated
-six hundred thousand dollars for the Cumberland Road, both of the
-Senate amendments which the House Committee had stricken out being
-incorporated in the bill.
-
-The last appropriation for the Cumberland Road was dated May 25, 1838;
-it granted one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the road in both
-Ohio and Indiana, and nine thousand dollars for the road in Illinois.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER III
-
-OPERATION AND CONTROL
-
-
-The Cumberland Road was built by the United States Government under the
-supervision of the War Department. Of its builders, whose names will
-ever live in the annals of the Middle West, Brigadier-general Gratiot,
-Captains Delafield, McKee, Bliss, Bartlett Hartzell, Williams, Colquit,
-and Cass, and Lieutenants Mansfield, Vance, and Pickell are best
-remembered on the eastern division. Nearly all became heroes of the
-Mexican or Civil Wars, McKee falling at Buena Vista, Williams at
-Monterey, and Mansfield, then major-general, at Antietam.
-
-Among the best known supervisors in the west were Commissioners C. W.
-Weaver, G. Dutton, and Jonathan Knight.
-
-The road had been built across the Ohio River but a short time when it
-was realized that a revenue must be raised for its support from those
-who traveled upon it. As we have seen, a law was passed in both houses
-of Congress, in 1824, authorizing the Government to erect tollgates and
-charge toll on the Cumberland Road as the states should surrender this
-right.[18] This bill was vetoed by President Monroe, on grounds already
-stated, and the road fell into a very bad condition. But what the
-national Government could not do the individual states could do, and,
-consequently, as fast as repairs were completed, the Government
-surrendered the road to the states through which it passed. Maryland,
-Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Virginia, accepted completed portions of the
-road between 1831 and 1834.[19] The legislatures of Ohio and
-Pennsylvania at once passed laws concerning the erection of tollgates,
-Ohio authorizing one gate every twenty miles, February 4, 1831,[20] and
-Pennsylvania authorizing the erection of six tollgates by an act passed
-April 11, of the same year.[21]
-
-The gates in Pennsylvania were located as follows: Gate No. 1 at the
-east end of Petersburg, No. 2 near Mt. Washington, No. 3 near Searights,
-No. 4 near Beallsville, No. 5 near Washington, and No. 6 near West
-Alexander.
-
-The Cumberland Road was under the control of commissioners appointed by
-the President of the United States, the state legislatures, or
-governors.[22] Upon these commissioners lay the task of repairing the
-road, which included the making of contracts, reviewing the work done,
-and rendering payment for the same. None of the work of building the
-road fell on the state officials. Therefore, in Ohio, two great
-departments were simultaneously in operation, the building of the road
-by the government officials, and the work of operating and repairing the
-road, under state officials. Two commissioners were appointed in
-Pennsylvania, in 1847, one acting east, and the other west, of the
-Monongahela River.[23] In 1836 Ohio placed all her works of internal
-improvement under the supervision of a Board of Public Works, into whose
-hands the Cumberland Road passed.[24] Special commissioners were
-appointed from time to time by the state legislatures to perform special
-duties, such as overseeing work being done, auditing accounts, or
-settling disputes.[25] Two resident engineers were appointed over the
-eastern and western divisions of the road in Ohio, thus doing away with
-the continual employment and dismissal of the most important of all
-officials. These engineers made quarterly reports concerning the road's
-condition.[26]
-
-The road was conveniently divided by the several states into
-departments. East of the Ohio River, the Monongahela River was a
-division line, the road being divided by it into two divisions.[27] West
-of the Ohio the eighty-seventh mile post from Wheeling was, at one time,
-a division line between two departments in Ohio.[28] Later, the road in
-Ohio was cut up into as many divisions as counties through which it
-passed.[29] The work of repairing was let by contract, for which bids
-had been previously advertised. Contracts were usually let in one-mile
-sections, sometimes for a longer space, notice of the length being given
-in the advertisement for bids. Contractors were compelled to give
-testimonials of good character and reliability; though one contract,
-previously quoted, professed to be satisfied with "competent or
-responsible individuals only." A time limit was usually named in the
-contract, with penalties for failure to complete the work in time
-assigned.
-
-The building of the road was hailed with delight by hundreds of
-contractors and thousands of laborers, who now had employment offered
-them worthy of their best labor, and the work, when well done, stood as
-a lasting monument to their skill. Old papers and letters speak
-frequently of the enthusiasm awakened among the laboring classes by the
-building of the great road, and of the lively scenes witnessed in those
-busy years. Contractors who early earned a reputation followed the road
-westward, taking up contract after contract as opportunity offered.
-Farmers who lived on the route of the road engaged in the work when not
-busy in their fields, and for their labor and the use of the teams
-received good pay. Thus not only in its heyday did the road prove a
-benefit to the country through which it passed, but at the very
-beginning it became such, and not a little of the money spent upon it by
-the Government went into the very pockets from which it came by the sale
-of land.
-
-The great pride taken by the states in the Cumberland Road is brought
-out significantly in the laws passed concerning it. Pennsylvania and
-Ohio legislatures passed laws as early as 1828, and within three days of
-each other (Pennsylvania, April 7,[30] and Ohio, April 11[31]), looking
-toward the permanent repair and preservation of the road. There were
-penalties for breaking or defacing the milestones, culverts, parapet
-walls, and bridges. A person found guilty of such act of vandalism was
-"fined in a sum of not more than five hundred dollars, or be imprisoned
-in a dungeon of the jail of the county, and be fed on bread and water
-only, not exceeding thirty days, or both, at the discretion of the
-court."[32] There were penalties for allowing the drains to become
-obstructed, for premature traveling on unfinished portions of the
-roadbed;[33] for permitting a wagon to stand over night on the roadbed,
-and for locking wheels, except where ice made this necessary. Local
-authorities were ordered to build suitable culverts wherever the roads
-connected with the Cumberland Road. "Directors" were ordered to be set
-up, to warn drivers to turn to the left when passing other teams.[34]
-The rates of toll were ordered to be posted where the public could see
-them.[35] "Beacons" were erected along the margin of the roadbed to keep
-teams from turning aside. Laws were passed forbidding the removal of
-these.[36]
-
-The operation of the Cumberland Road included the establishment of the
-toll system, which provided the revenue for keeping it in repair; and
-from the tolls the most vital statistics concerning the old road are to
-be obtained. Immediately upon the passing of the road into the control
-of the individual states, tollgates were authorized, as previously
-noted. Schedules of tariff were published by the various states. The
-schedule of 1831 in Pennsylvania was as follows:
-
-TOLLS ON THE CUMBERLAND ROAD IN PENNSYLVANIA (1831)
-
- Score of sheep or hogs .06
-
- Score of cattle .12
-
- Led or driven horse .03
-
- Horse and rider .04
-
- Sleigh or sled, for each horse or pair of oxen drawing the same .03
-
- Dearborn, sulky, chair or chaise with one horse .06
-
- Chariot, coach, coachee, stage, wagon, phaeton, chaise, with two
- horses and four wheels .12
-
- Either of the carriages last mentioned with four horses .18
-
- Every other carriage of pleasure, under whatever name it may
- go, the like sum, according to the number of wheels, and
- horses drawing the same.
-
- Cart or wagon whose wheels shall exceed two and one-half inches
- in breadth, and not exceeding four inches .04
-
- Horse or pair of oxen drawing the same, and every other cart or
- wagon, whose wheels shall exceed four inches, and not exceed
- five inches in breadth .03
-
- Horse or pair of oxen drawing the same, for every other cart or
- wagon, whose wheels shall exceed six inches, and not more
- than eight inches .02
-
- Horse or pair of oxen drawing the same, all other carts or wagons
- whose wheels shall exceed eight inches in breadth free
-
-The tolls established the same year in Ohio (see table, pp. 103-104)
-were higher than those charged in Pennsylvania.
-
-The philosophy of the toll system is patent. Rates of toll were
-determined by the wear on the road. Tolls were charged in order to keep
-the road in repair, and, consequently, each animal or vehicle was taxed
-in proportion as it damaged the roadbed. Cattle were taxed twice as
-heavily as sheep or hogs, and, according to the tariff of 1845, hogs
-were taxed twice as much as sheep. The tariff on vehicles was determined
-by the width of the tires used, for the narrower the tire the more the
-roadbed was cut up. Wide tires were encouraged, those over six inches
-(later eight) went free, serving practically as rollers. The toll-rates
-in Ohio are exhibited in the following table:
-
-TOLLS ON THE CUMBERLAND ROAD IN OHIO (1831-1900)
-
- 1831 1832 1836 1837 1845[37] 1900
-
- Score sheep or hogs .10 .05 .06-1/4 .06-1/4 {.05 .12
- {.10
-
- Score cattle .20 .10 .12-1/2 .12-1/2 .20 .25
-
- Horse, mule, or ass, led or
- driven .03 .01-1/2 .02 .03 .03 .05
-
- Horse and rider .06-1/4 .04 .06-1/4 .06-1/4 .05 .06
-
- Sled or sleigh drawn by one
- horse or ox .12-1/2 .06-1/4 .08 .06 .05 .12
-
- Horse in addition .06-1/4 .04 .04 .04 .05 .06
-
- Dearborn, sulky, chair, or
- chaise, one horse .12-1/2 .08 .12-1/2 .12-1/2 .10 .12
-
- Horse in addition .06-1/4 .04 .06-1/4 .04 .05 .06
-
- Chariot, coach, coachee,
- horses .18-3/4 .12-1/2 .18-3/4 .18-3/4 ... .30
-
- Horse in addition .06-1/4 .03 .06-1/4 .06-1/4 ... .12
-
- Vehicle, wheels under two
- and one-half inches in
- breadth .12-1/2 ... .12-1/2 .10 ... ...
-
- Vehicle, wheels under four
- inches in breadth .06-1/4 .06-1/4 .08 .08 ... ...
-
- Horse drawing same .03 .02 .04 .05 ... ...
-
- Vehicle, wheels exceeding
- four inches and not
- exceeding five inches .04 ... ... ... ... ...
-
- Vehicle, wheels exceeding
- four inches and not
- exceeding six inches ... .02 .04 .06-1/4 ... ...
-
- Horse or ox drawing same .02 .02 .02 .05 ... ...
-
- Vehicle, wheels exceeding
- six inches ... ... ... .04 ... ...
-
- Person occupying seat in
- mail stage .04 .03 ... ... ... ...
-
-Estimates differed in various states but averaged up quite evenly. To
-the rising generation, to whom tollgates are almost unknown, a study of
-the toll system affords novel entertainment, helping one to realize
-something of one of the most serious questions of public economics of
-two generations ago. Tollgates averaged one in eighteen or twenty miles
-in Pennsylvania, and one in ten miles in Ohio, with tolls a little
-higher than half the rate in Pennsylvania.
-
-Tollgate-keepers were appointed by the governor in the early days in
-Ohio,[38] but, later, by the commissioners. These keepers received a
-salary which was deducted from their collections, the remainder being
-turned over to the commissioners. The salary established in Ohio in 1832
-was one hundred and eighty dollars per annum.[39] In 1836 it was
-increased to two hundred dollars per annum, and tollgate-keepers were
-also allowed to retain five per cent of all tolls received above one
-thousand dollars.[40] In 1845 tollgate-keepers were ordered to make
-returns on the first Monday in each month, and the allowance of their
-per cent on receipts over one thousand dollars was cut off, leaving
-their salary at two hundred dollars per annum.[41] Equally perplexing
-with the question of just tolls was found to be the question of
-determining what and who should have free use of the Cumberland Road.
-This list was increased at various times, and, in most states, included
-the following at one time or another: persons going to, or returning
-from public worship, muster, common place of business on farm or
-woodland, funeral, mill, place of election, common place of trading or
-marketing within the county in which they resided. This included
-persons, wagons, carriages, and horses or oxen drawing the same. No toll
-was charged school children or clergymen, or for passage of stage and
-horses carrying United States Mail, or any wagon or carriage laden with
-United States property, or cavalry, troops, arms, or military stores of
-the United States, or any single state, or for persons on duty in the
-military service of the United States, or for the militia of any single
-state. In Pennsylvania, a certain stage line made the attempt to carry
-passengers by the tollgates free, taking advantage of the clauses
-allowing free passage of the United States mail by putting a mail sack
-on each passenger coach. The stage was halted and the matter taken into
-court, where the case was decided against the stage company, and persons
-traveling with mailcoaches were compelled to pay toll.[42] Ohio took
-advantage of Pennsylvania's experience and passed a law that passengers
-on stagecoaches be obliged to pay toll.[43] Pennsylvania exempted
-persons hauling coal for home consumption from paying toll.[44] Many
-varied and curious attempts to evade payment of tolls were made, and
-laws were passed inflicting heavy fine upon all convicted of such
-malefaction. In Ohio, tollgate-keepers were empowered to arrest those
-suspected of such attempts, and, upon conviction, the fine went into
-the road fund of the county wherein the offense occurred.[45]
-
-Persons making long trips on the road could pay toll for the entire
-distance and receive a certificate guaranteeing free passage to their
-destination.[46] Compounding rates were early put in force, applying, in
-Ohio, for persons residing within eight miles of the road,[47] the
-radius being extended later to ten.[48] Passengers in the stages were
-counted by the tollgate-keepers and the company operating the stage
-charged with the toll. At the end of each month, stage companies settled
-with the authorities. Thus it became possible for the stage drivers to
-deceive the gate-keepers, and save their companies large sums of money.
-Drivers were compelled to declare the number of passengers in their
-stage, and in the event of failing to do so, gate-keepers were allowed
-to charge the company for as many passengers as the stage could
-contain.[49]
-
-Stage lines were permitted to compound for yearly passage of stages over
-the road and the large companies took advantage of the provision, though
-the passengers were counted by the gate-keepers. It may be seen that
-gate-keepers were in a position to embezzle large sums of money if they
-were so minded, and it is undoubted that this was done in more than one
-instance. Indeed, with a score and a half of gates, and a great many
-traveling on special rates, it would have been remarkable if some
-employed in all those years during which the toll system was in general
-operation did not steal. But this is lifting the veil from the good old
-days!
-
-As will be seen later, the amounts handled by the gate-keepers were no
-small sums. In the best days of the road the average amount handled by
-tollgate-keepers in Pennsylvania was about eighteen hundred dollars per
-annum. In Ohio, with gates every ten miles, the average (reported)
-collection was about two thousand dollars in the best years. It is
-difficult to reconcile the statement made by Mr. Searight concerning the
-comparative amount of business done on various portions of the
-Cumberland Road, with the figures he himself quotes. He says: "It is
-estimated that two-fifths of the trade and travel of the road were
-diverted at Brownsville, and fell into the channel furnished at that
-point by the slackwater navigation of the Monongahela River, and a
-similar proportion descended the Ohio from Wheeling, and the remaining
-fifth continued on the road to Columbus, Ohio, and points further west.
-The travel west of Wheeling was chiefly local, and the road presented
-scarcely a tithe of the thrift, push, whirl and excitement which
-characterized it east of that point."[50] On another page Mr. Searight
-gives the account of the old-time superintendents of the road in
-Pennsylvania in its most prosperous era, one dating from November 10,
-1840 to November 10, 1841,[51] the other from May 1, 1843 to December
-31, 1844.[52] In the first of these periods the amount of tolls received
-from the eastern division of the road (east of the Monongahela) is two
-thousand dollars less than the amount received from the western
-division. Even after the amounts paid by the two great stage companies
-are deducted, a balance of over a thousand dollars is left in favor of
-the division west of the Monongahela River. In the second report,
-$4,242.37 more was received on the western division of the road than on
-the eastern, and even after the amounts received from the stage
-companies are deducted, the receipts from the eastern division barely
-exceed those of the western. How can it be that "two-fifths of the trade
-and travel of the road were diverted at Brownsville?" And the further
-west Mr. Searight goes, the more does he seem to err, for the road west
-of the Ohio River, instead of showing "scarcely a tithe of the thrift,
-push, whirl and excitement which characterized it east of that point,"
-seems to have done a greater business than the eastern portion. For
-instance, when the road was completed as many miles in Ohio as were
-built in Pennsylvania, the return from the portion in Ohio (1833) was
-$12,259.42-4 (in the very first year that the road was completed), while
-in Pennsylvania the receipts in 1840 were only $18,429.25, after the
-road had been used for twenty-two years. In the same year (1840) Ohio
-collected $51,364.67 from her Cumberland Road tollgates--about three
-times the amount collected in Pennsylvania. Again Mr. Searight gives a
-Pennsylvania commissioner's receipts for the twenty months beginning May
-1, 1843, as $37,109.11, while the receipts from the road in Ohio in only
-the twelve months of 1843 were $32,157.02. At the same time the tolls
-charged in Ohio were a trifle in excess of those imposed in
-Pennsylvania, therefore, Ohio's advantage must be curtailed slightly. On
-the other hand it should be taken into consideration that the Cumberland
-Road in Pennsylvania was almost the only road across the portion of the
-state through which it ran, while in Ohio other roads were used,
-especially clay roads running parallel with the Cumberland Road, by
-drivers of sheep and pigs, as an aged informant testifies. As Mr.
-Searight has said, the travel of the road west of the Ohio may have been
-chiefly of a local nature, yet his seeming error concerning the relative
-amount of travel on the two divisions in his own state, makes his
-statements less trustworthy in the matter. Still it can be readily
-believed that a great deal of continental trade did pass down the
-Monongahela after traversing the eastern division of the road and that
-increased local trade on the western division rendered the toll receipts
-of the two divisions quite equal. Local travel on the eastern division
-may have been light, comparatively speaking. Mr. Searight undoubtedly
-meant that two-fifths of the through trade stopped at Brownsville and
-Wheeling and one-fifth only went on into Ohio. The total amount of tolls
-received by Pennsylvania from all roads, canals, etc., in 1836 was about
-$50,000, while Ohio received a greater sum than that in 1838 from tolls
-on the Cumberland Road alone, and the road was not completed further
-west than Springfield.
-
-A study of the amounts of tolls taken in from the Cumberland Road by the
-various states will show at once the volume of the business done. Ohio
-received from the Cumberland Road in forty-seven years nearly a million
-and a quarter dollars. An itemized list of this great revenue shows the
-varying fortunes of the great road:
-
- _Year_ _Tolls_ _Year_ _Tolls_
- 1831 $2,777 16 1856 $6,105 00
- 1832 9,067 99 1857 6,105 00
- 1833 12,259 42-4 1858 6,105 00
- 1834 12,693 65 1859 5,551 36
- 1835 16,442 26 1860 11,221 74
- 1836 27,455 13 1861 21,492 41
- 1837 39,843 35 1862 19,000 00
- 1838 50,413 17 1863 20,000 00
- 1839 62,496 10 1864 20,000 00
- 1840 51,364 67 1865 20,000 00
- 1841 36,951 33 1866 19,000 00
- 1842 44,656 18 1867 20,631 34
- 1843 32,157 02 1868 18,934 49
- 1844 30,801 13 1869 20,577 04
- 1845 31,439 38 1870 19,635 75
- 1846 28,946 21 1871 19,244 00
- 1847 42,614 59 1872 18,002 09
- 1848 49,025 66 1873 17,940 37
- 1849 46,253 38 1874 17,971 21
- 1850 37,060 11 1875 17,265 12
- 1851 44,063 65 1876 9,601 68
- 1852 36,727 26 1877 288 91
- 1853 35,354 40 ---------------
- 1854 18,154 59 Total $1,139,795 30-4
- 1855 6,105 00
-
-About 1850 Ohio began leasing portions of the Cumberland Road to private
-companies. In 1854 the entire distance from Springfield to the Ohio
-River was leased for a term of ten years for $6,105 a year.
-Commissioners were appointed to view the road continually and make the
-lessees keep it in as good condition as when it came into their
-hands.[53] Before the contract had half expired, the Board of Public
-Works was ordered (April, 1859) to take the road to relieve the
-lessees.[54] In 1870 the proper limits of the road were designated to be
-"a space of eighty feet in width, and where the road passed over a
-street in any city of the second class, the width should conform to the
-width of that street," such cities to own it so long as it was kept in
-repair.[55]
-
-Finally, in 1876, the state of Ohio authorized commissioners of the
-several counties to take so much of the road as lay in each county under
-their control. It was stipulated that tollgates should not average more
-than one in ten miles, and that no toll be collected between Columbus
-and the Ohio Central Lunatic Asylum. The county commissioners were to
-complete any unfinished portions of the road.[56]
-
-Later (1877) the rates of toll were left to the discretion of the county
-commissioners, with this provision:
-
-"That when the consent of the Congress of the United States shall have
-been obtained thereto, the county commissioners of any county having a
-population under the last Federal census of more than fifteen thousand
-six hundred and less than fifteen thousand six hundred and fifty shall
-have the power when they deem it for the best interest of the road, or
-when the people whom the road accommodates wish, to submit to the legal
-voters of the county, at any regular or special election, the question,
-'Shall the National Road be a free turnpike road?' And when the question
-is so submitted, and a majority of all those voting on said question
-shall vote yes, it shall be the duty of said commissioners to sell
-gates, tollhouses and any other property belonging to the road to the
-highest bidder, the proceeds of the sale to be applied to the repair of
-the road, and declare so much of the road as lies within their county a
-free turnpike road to be kept in repair in the way and manner provided
-by law for the repair of free turnpikes."[57]
-
-The receipts from the Franklin County, Ohio, tollgate for the year 1899
-were as follows:
-
- January $ 36 00
- February 32 80
- March 39 90
- April 80 75
- May 67 25
- June 54 85
- July 47 15
- August 35 75
- September 29 27
- October 29 26
- November 35 05
- December 34 05
- --------
- Total $522 08
-
-It will be noted that April was the heaviest month of the year. The
-gate-keeper received a salary of thirty dollars per month.
-
-It is hardly necessary to say that this great American highway was never
-a self-supporting institution. The fact that it was estimated that the
-yearly expense of repairing the Ohio division of the road was one
-hundred thousand dollars, while the greatest amount of tolls collected
-in its most prosperous year (1839) was a little more than half that
-amount ($62,496.10) proves this conclusively. Investigation into the
-records of other states shows the same condition. In the most prosperous
-days of the road, the tolls in Maryland (1837) amounted to $9,953 and
-the expenditures $9,660.51.[58] In 1839 a "balance" was recorded of
-$1,509.08, but a like amount was charged up on the debtor side of the
-account. The receipts reported each year in the auditor's reports of the
-state of Ohio show that equal amounts were expended yearly upon the
-road. As early as 1832 the governor of Ohio was authorized to borrow
-money to repair the road in that state.[59]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IV
-
-STAGECOACHES AND FREIGHTERS
-
-
-The great work of building and keeping in repair the Cumberland Road,
-and of operating it, developed a race of men as unknown before its era
-as afterward. For the real life of the road, however, one will look to
-the days of its prime--to those who passed over its stately stretches
-and dusty coils as stage- and mail-coach drivers, express carriers and
-"wagoners," and the tens of thousands of passengers and immigrants who
-composed the public which patronized the great highway. This was the
-real life of the road--coaches numbering as many as twenty traveling in
-a single line; wagonhouse yards where a hundred tired horses rested over
-night beside their great loads; hotels where seventy transient guests
-have been served breakfast in a single morning; a life made cheery by
-the echoing horns of hurrying stages; blinded by the dust of droves of
-cattle numbering into the thousands; a life noisy with the satisfactory
-creak and crunch of the wheels of great wagons carrying six and eight
-thousand pounds of freight east or west.
-
-The revolution of society since those days could not have been more
-surprising. The change has been so great it is a wonder that men deign
-to count their gain by the same numerical system. As Macaulay has said,
-we do not travel today, we merely "arrive." You are hardly a traveler
-now unless you cross a continent. Travel was once an education. This is
-growing less and less true with the passing years. Fancy a journey from
-St. Louis to New York in the old coaching days, over the Cumberland and
-the old York Roads. How many persons the traveler met! How many
-interesting and instructive conversations were held with fellow
-travelers through the long hours; what customs, characters, foibles,
-amusing incidents would be noticed and remembered, ever afterward
-furnishing the information necessary to help one talk well and the
-sympathy necessary to render one capable of listening to others. The
-traveler often sat at table with statesmen whom the nation honored, as
-well as with stagecoach-drivers whom a nation knew for their skill and
-prowess with six galloping horses. Henry Clays and "Red" Buntings dined
-together, and each made the other wiser, if not better. The greater the
-gulf grows between the rich and poor, the more ignorant do both become,
-particularly the rich. There was undoubtedly a monotony in stagecoach
-journeying, but the continual views of the landscape, the ever-fresh
-air, the constantly passing throngs of various description, made such
-traveling an experience unknown to us "arrivers" of today. How fast it
-has been forgotten that travel means seeing people rather than things.
-The age of sight-seeing has superseded that of traveling. How few of us
-can say with the New Hampshire sage: "We have traveled a great deal 'in
-Concord.'" Splendidly are the old coaching days described by Thackeray,
-who caught their spirit:
-
-"The Island rang, as yet, with the tooting horns and rattling teams of
-mail-coaches; a gay sight was the road in merry England in those days,
-before steam-engines arose and flung its hostelry and chivalry over. To
-travel in coaches, to drive coaches, to know coachmen and guards, to be
-familiar with inns along the road, to laugh with the jolly hostess in
-the bar, to chuck the pretty chambermaid under the chin, were the
-delight of men who were young not very long ago. The Road was an
-institution, the Ring was an institution. Men rallied around them; and,
-not without a kind conservatism, expatiated upon the benefits with which
-they endowed the country, and the evils which would occur when they
-should be no more:--decay of English spirit, decay of manly pluck, ruin
-of the breed of horses, and so forth, and so forth. To give and take a
-black eye was not unusual nor derogatory in a gentleman; to drive a
-stage-coach the enjoyment, the emulation of generous youth. Is there any
-young fellow of the present time who aspires to take the place of a
-stoker? You see occasionally in Hyde Park one dismal old drag with a
-lonely driver. Where are you, charioteers? Where are you, O rattling
-'Quicksilver,' O swift 'Defiance?' You are passed by racers stronger and
-swifter than you. Your lamps are out, and the music of your horns has
-died away."[60]
-
-In the old coaching days the passenger- and mail-coaches were operated
-very much like the railways of today. A vast network of lines covered
-the land. Great companies owned hundreds of stages operating on
-innumerable routes, competing with other companies. These rival stage
-companies fought each other at times with great bitterness, and
-competed, as railways do today, in lowering tariff and in outdoing each
-other in points of speed and accommodation.[61] New inventions and
-appliances were eagerly sought in the hope of securing a larger share of
-public patronage. This competition extended into every phase of the
-business--fast horses, comfortable coaches, well-known and companionable
-drivers, favorable connections.
-
-However, competition, as is always the case, sifted the competitors down
-to a small number. Companies which operated upon the Cumberland Road
-between Indianapolis and Cumberland became distinct in character and
-catered to a steady patronage which had its distinctive characteristics
-and social tone. This was in part determined by the taverns which the
-various lines patronized. Each line ordinarily stopped at separate
-taverns in every town. There were also found Grand Union taverns on the
-Cumberland Road. Had this system of communication not been abandoned,
-coach lines would have gone through the same experience that the
-railways have, and for very similar reasons.
-
-The largest coach line on the Cumberland Road was the National Road
-Stage Company, whose most prominent member was Lucius W. Stockton. The
-headquarters of this line were at the National House on Morgantown
-Street, Uniontown, Pennsylvania. The principal rival of the National
-Road Stage Company was the "Good Intent" line, owned by Shriver, Steele,
-and Company, with headquarters at the McClelland House, Uniontown. The
-Ohio National Stage Company, with headquarters at Columbus, Ohio,
-operated on the western division of the road. There were many smaller
-lines, as the "Landlords," "Pilot," "Pioneer," "Defiance," "June Bug,"
-etc.
-
-Some of the first lines of stages were operated in sections, each
-section having different proprietors who could sell out at any time. The
-greater lines were constantly absorbing smaller lines and extending
-their ramifications in all directions. It will be seen there were trusts
-even in the "good old days" of stagecoaches, when smaller firms were
-"gobbled up" and "driven out" as happens today, and will ever happen in
-mundane history, despite the nonsense of political garblers. One of the
-largest stage companies on the old road was Neil, Moore, and Company of
-Columbus, which operated hundreds of stages throughout Ohio. It was
-unable to compete with the Ohio National Stage Company to which it
-finally sold out, Mr. Neil becoming one of the magnates of the latter
-company, which was, compared with corporations of its time, a greater
-trust than anything known in Ohio today.[62]
-
-To know what the old coaches really were, one should see and ride in
-one. It is doubtful if a single one now remains intact. Here and there
-inquiry will raise the rumor of an old coach still standing on wheels,
-but if the rumor is traced to its source, it will be found that the
-chariot was sold to a circus or wild west show or has been utterly
-destroyed. The demand for the old stages has been quite lively on the
-part of the wild west shows. These old coaches were handsome affairs in
-their day--painted and decorated profusely without, and lined within
-with soft silk plush.[63] There were ordinarily three seats inside,
-each capable of holding three passengers. Upon the driver's high outer
-seat was room for one more passenger, a fortunate position in good
-weather. The best coaches, like their counterparts on the railways of
-today, were named; the names of states, warriors, statesmen, generals,
-nations, and cities, besides fanciful names, as "Jewess," "Ivanhoe,"
-"Sultana," "Loch Lomond," were called into requisition.
-
-The first coaches to run on the Cumberland Road were long, awkward
-affairs, without braces or springs, and with seats placed crosswise. The
-door was in front, and passengers, on entering, had to climb over the
-seats. These first coaches were made at Little Crossings, Pennsylvania.
-
-The bodies of succeeding coaches were placed upon thick, wide leathern
-straps which served as springs and which were called "thorough braces."
-At either end of the body was the driver's boot and the baggage boot.
-The first "Troy" coach put on the road came in 1829. It was a great
-novelty, but some hundreds of them were soon throwing the dust of
-Maryland and Pennsylvania into the air. Their cost then was between four
-and six hundred dollars. The harness used on the road was of giant
-proportions. The backbands were often fifteen inches wide, and the hip
-bands, ten. The traces were chains with short thick links and very
-heavy.
-
-But the passenger traffic of the Cumberland Road bore the same relation
-to the freight traffic as passenger traffic does to freight on the
-modern railway--a small item, financially considered. It was for the
-great wagons and their wagoners to haul over the mountains and
-distribute throughout the west the products of mill and factory and the
-rich harvests of the fields. And this great freight traffic created a
-race of men of its own, strong and daring, as they well had need to be.
-The fact that teamsters of these "mountain ships" had taverns or "wagon
-houses" of their own, where they stopped, tended to separate them into
-a class by themselves. These wagonhouses were far more numerous than the
-taverns along the road, being found as often as one in every mile or
-two. Here, in the commodious yards, the weary horses and their swarthy
-Jehus slept in the open air. In winter weather the men slept on the
-floors of the wagonhouses. In summer many wagoners carried their own
-cooking utensils. In the suburbs of the towns along the road they would
-pull their teams out into the roadside and pitch camp, sending into the
-village to replenish their stores.
-
-The bed of the old road freighter was long and deep, bending upward at
-the bottom at either end. The lower broad side was painted blue, with a
-movable board inserted above, painted red. The top covering was white
-canvas drawn over broad wooden bows. Many of the wagoners hung bells of
-a shape much similar to dinner bells on a thin iron arch over the hames
-of the harness. Often the number of bells indicated the prowess of a
-teamster's horses, as the custom prevailed, in certain parts, that when
-a team became fast, or was unable to make the grade, the wagoner
-rendering the necessary assistance appropriated all the bells of the
-luckless team.
-
-The wheels of the freighters were of a size proportionate to the rest of
-the wagon. The first wagons used on the old roads had narrow rims, but
-it was not long before the broad rims, or "broad-tread wagons," came
-into general use by those who made a business of freighting. The narrow
-rims were always used by farmers, who, during the busiest season on the
-road, deserted their farms for the high wages temporarily to be made,
-and who in consequence were dubbed "sharpshooters" by the regulars. The
-width of the broad-tread wheels was four inches. As will be noted, tolls
-for broad wheels were less than for the narrow ones which tended to cut
-the roadbed more deeply. One ingenious inventor planned to build a wheel
-with a rim wide enough to pass the tollgates free. The model was a wagon
-which had the rear axle four inches shorter than the front, making a
-track eight inches in width. Nine horses were hitched to this wagon,
-three abreast. The team caused much comment, but was not voted
-practicable.
-
-The loads carried on the mountain ships were very large. An Ohio man,
-McBride by name, in the winter of 1848 went over the mountains with
-seven horses, taking a load of nine hogsheads weighing an average of one
-thousand pounds each.
-
-The following description is from the _St. Clairsville_ (Ohio) _Gazette_
-of 1835:
-
-"It was a familiar saying with Sam Patch that _some things can be done
-easier than others_, and this fact was forcibly brought to our mind by
-seeing a six-horse team pass our office on Wednesday last, laden with
-_eleven hogsheads of tobacco_, destined for Wheeling. Some speculation
-having gone forth as to its weight, the driver was induced to test it on
-the hay scales in this place, and it amounted to 13,280 lbs. gross
-weight--net weight 10,375. This team (owned by General C. Hoover of this
-county) took the load into Wheeling with ease, having a hill to ascend
-from the river to the level of the town, of eight degrees. The Buckeyes
-of Belmont may challenge competition in this line."
-
-Teamsters received good wages, especially when trade was brisk. From
-Brownsville to Cumberland they often received $1.25 a hundred; $2.25 per
-hundred has been paid for a load hauled from Wheeling to Cumberland.[64]
-The stage-drivers received twelve dollars a month with board and
-lodging. Usually the stage-drivers had one particular route between two
-towns about twelve miles apart on which they drove year after year, and
-learned it as well as trainmen know their "runs" today. The life was
-hard, but the dash and spirit rendered it as fascinating as railway life
-is now.
-
-Far better time was made by these old conveyances than many realize. Ten
-miles an hour was an ordinary rate of speed. A stage-driver was
-dismissed more quickly for making slow time, than for being guilty of
-intoxication, though either offense was considered worthy of dismissal.
-The way-bills handed to the drivers with the reins often bore the words:
-"Make this time or we'll find some one who will." Competition in the
-matter of speed was as intense as it is now in the days of steam. A
-thousand legends of these rivalries still linger in story and tradition.
-Defeated competitors were held accountable by their companies and the
-loads or condition of their horses were seldom accepted as excuses.
-Couplets were often conjured up containing some brief story of defeat
-with a cutting sting for the vanquished driver:
-
- "If you take a seat in Stockton's line
- You are sure to be passed by Pete Burdine."
-
-or,
-
- "Said Billy Willis to Peter Burdine
- You had better wait for the oyster line."
-
-According to a contemporary account, in September, 1837, Van Buren's
-presidential message was carried from Baltimore (Canton Depot) to
-Philadelphia, a distance of one hundred and forty miles, in four hours
-and forty-three minutes. Seventy miles of the journey was done by rail,
-three by boat, and eighty-seven by horse. The seventy-three by rail and
-boat occupied one hundred and seventeen minutes and the eighty-seven by
-horse occupied the remaining two hundred and twenty-six minutes, or each
-mile in about two minutes and a half. This time must be considered
-remarkable. The mere fact that these figures are not at all consistent
-need occasion no alarm; they form the most consistent part of the story.
-
-The news of the death of William the Fourth of England, which occurred
-June 20, 1837, was printed in Columbus, Ohio papers July 28. It was not
-until 1847 that the capital of Ohio was connected with the world by
-telegraph wires.
-
-Time-tables of passenger coaches were published as railway time-tables
-are today. The following is a Cumberland Road time-table printed at
-Columbus for the winter of 1835-1836:
-
-
-COACH LINES
-
-WINTER ARRANGEMENT
-
-THE OLD STAGE LINES with all their different connections throughout the
-state, continue as heretofore.
-
-THE MAIL PILOT LINE, leaves Columbus for Wheeling daily, at 6 A. M.,
-reaching Zanesville at 1 P. M. and Wheeling at 6 A. M. next day, through
-in 24 hours, allowing five hours repose at St. Clairsville.
-
-THE GOOD INTENT LINE, leaves Columbus for Wheeling, daily at 1 P. M.,
-through in 20 hours, reaching Wheeling in time to connect with the
-stages for Baltimore and Philadelphia.
-
-THE MAIL PILOT LINE, leaves Columbus daily, for Cincinnati at 8 A. M.,
-through in 36 hours, allowing six hours repose at Springfield.
-
-Extras furnished on the above routes at any hour when required.
-
-THE EAGLE LINE, leaves Columbus every other day, for Cleveland, through
-in 40 hours, via Mt. Vernon and Wooster.
-
-THE TELEGRAPH LINE leaves Columbus for Sandusky City, every other day at
-5 A. M., through in two days, allowing rest at Marion, and connecting
-there with the line to Detroit, via Lower Sandusky.
-
-THE PHOENIX LINE, leaves Columbus every other day, for Huron, via Mt.
-Vernon and Norwalk, through in 48 hours.
-
-THE DAILY LINE OF MAIL COACHES, leaves Columbus, for Chillicothe at 5 A.
-M., connecting there with the line to Maysville, Ky., and Portsmouth.
-
-For seats apply at the General Stage Office, next door to Col. Noble's
-National Hotel.
-
- T. C. ACHESON, _for the proprietor_.
-
-The following advertisement of an opposition line, running in 1837, is
-an interesting suggestion of the intense spirit of rivalry which was
-felt as keenly, if not more so, as in our day of close competition:
-
- OPPOSITION!
- DEFIANCE FAST LINE COACHES
- DAILY
-
-FROM WHEELING, VA. to Cincinnati, O. via Zanesville, Columbus,
-Springfield and intermediate points.
-
- Through in less time than any other line.
- "_By opposition the people are well served._"
-
-The Defiance Fast Line connects at Wheeling, Va. with Reside & Co.'s
-Two Superior daily lines to Baltimore, McNair and Co.'s Mail Coach
-line, via Bedford, Chambersburg and the Columbia and Harrisburg Rail
-Roads to Philadelphia, being the only direct line from Wheeling--: also
-with the only coach line from Wheeling to Pittsburg, via Washington,
-Pa., and with numerous cross lines in Ohio.
-
-The proprietors having been released on the 1st inst. from burthen of
-carrying the great mail, (which will retard any line) are now enabled to
-run through in a shorter time than any other line on the road. They will
-use every exertion to accommodate the traveling public. With stock
-infinitely superior to any on the road, they flatter themselves they
-will be able to give general satisfaction; and believe the public are
-aware, from past experience, that a liberal patronage to the above line
-will prevent impositions in high rates of fare by any stage monopoly.
-
-The proprietors of the Defiance Fast Line are making the necessary
-arrangements to stock the Sandusky and Cleveland Routes also from
-Springfield to Dayton--which will be done during the month of July.
-
-All baggage and parcels only received at the risk of the owners thereof.
-
- JNO. W. WEAVER & CO.,
- GEO. W. MANYPENNY,
- JNO. YONTZ,
- _From Wheeling to Columbus, Ohio_.
-
- JAMES H. BACON,
- WILLIAM RIANHARD,
- F. M. WRIGHT,
- WILLIAM H. FIFE,
- _From Columbus to Cincinnati_.
-
-There was always danger in riding at night, especially over the
-mountains, where sometimes a misstep would cost a life. The following
-item from a letter written in 1837 tells of such an incident:
-
-"One of the Reliance line of stages, from Frederick to the West, passed
-through here on its way to Cumberland. About ten o'clock the ill-fated
-coach reached a small spur of the mountain, running to the Potomac, and
-between this place and Hancock, termed Millstone Point, where the driver
-mistaking the track, reined his horses too near the edge of the
-precipice, and in the twinkling of an eye, coach, horses, driver, and
-passengers were precipitated upward of thirty-five feet onto a bed of
-rock below--the coach was dashed to pieces, and two of the horses
-killed--literally smashed.
-
-"A respectable elderly lady of the name of Clarke, of Louisville,
-Kentucky, and a negro child were crushed to death--and a man so
-dreadfully mangled that his life is flickering on his lips only. His
-face was beaten to a mummy. The other passengers and the driver were
-woefully bruised, but it is supposed they are out of danger. There were
-seven in number.
-
-"I cannot gather that any blame was attached to the driver. It is said
-that he was perfectly sober; but he and his horses were new to this
-road, and the night was foggy and very dark."
-
-An act of the legislature of Ohio required that every stagecoach used
-for the conveyance of passengers in the night should have two good lamps
-affixed in the usual manner, and subjected the owner to a fine of from
-ten to thirty dollars for every forty-eight hours the coach was not so
-provided. Drivers of coaches who should drive in the night when the
-track could not be distinctly seen without having the lamps lighted were
-subject to a forfeiture of from five to ten dollars for each offense.
-The same act provided that drivers guilty of intoxication, so as to
-endanger the safety of passengers, on written notice of a passenger on
-oath, to the owner or agent, should be forthwith discharged, and
-subjected the owner continuing to employ that driver more than three
-days after such notice to a forfeiture of fifty dollars a day.
-
-Stage proprietors were required to keep a printed copy of the act posted
-up in their offices, under a penalty of five dollars.
-
-Another act of the Ohio legislature subjected drivers who should leave
-their horses without being fastened, to a fine of not over twenty
-dollars.
-
-As has been intimated, passengers purchased their tickets of the stage
-company in whose stage they embarked, and the tolls were included in the
-price of the ticket. A paper resembling a waybill was made out by the
-agent of the line at the starting point. This paper was given to the
-driver and delivered by him to the landlord at each station upon the
-arrival of the coach. This paper contained the names and destinations of
-the passengers carried, the sums paid as fare and the time of departure,
-and contained blank squares for registering time of arrival and
-departure from each station. The fares varied slightly but averaged
-about four cents a mile.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER V
-
-MAILS AND MAIL LINES
-
-
-The most important official function of the Cumberland Road was to
-furnish means of transporting the United States mails. The strongest
-constitutional argument of its advocates was the need of facilities for
-transporting troops and mails. The clause in the constitution
-authorizing the establishment of post roads was interpreted by them to
-include any measure providing quick and safe transmission of the mails.
-As has been seen, it was finally considered by many to include building
-and operating railways with funds appropriated for the Cumberland Road.
-
-The great mails of seventy-five years ago were operated on very much the
-same principle on which mails are operated today. The Post Office
-Department at Washington contracted with the great stage lines for the
-transmission of the mails by yearly contracts, a given number of stages
-with a given number of horses to be run at given intervals, to stop at
-certain points, at a fixed yearly compensation, usually determined by
-the custom of advertising for bids and accepting the lowest offered.
-
-When the system of mailcoach lines reached its highest perfection, the
-mails were handled as they are today. The great mails that passed over
-the Cumberland Road were the Great Eastern and the Great Western mails
-out of St. Louis and Washington. A thousand lesser mail lines connected
-with the Cumberland Road at every step, principally those from
-Cincinnati in Ohio, and from Pittsburg in Pennsylvania. There were
-through and way mails, also mails which carried letters only, newspapers
-going by separate stage. There was also an "Express Mail" corresponding
-to the present "fast mail."
-
-It is probably not realized what rapid time was made by the old-time
-stage and express mails over the Cumberland Road to the Central West.
-Even compared with the fast trains of today, the express mails of sixty
-years ago, when conditions were favorable, made marvelous time. In 1837
-the Post Office Department required, in the contract for carrying the
-Great Western Express Mail from Washington over the Cumberland Road to
-Columbus and St. Louis, that the following time be made:
-
- Wheeling, Virginia 30 hours.
- Columbus, Ohio 45-1/2 "
- Indianapolis, Indiana 65-1/2 "
- Vandalia, Illinois 85-1/2 "
- St. Louis, Missouri 94 "
-
-At the same time the ordinary mail-coaches, which also served as
-passenger coaches, made very much slower time:
-
- Wheeling, Virginia 2 days 11 hours.
- Columbus, Ohio 3 " 16 "
- Indianapolis, Indiana 6 " 20 "
- Vandalia, Illinois 9 " 10 "
- St. Louis, Missouri 10 " 4 "
-
-Cities off the road were reached in the following time from Washington:
-
- Cincinnati, Ohio 60 hours.
- Frankfort, Kentucky 72 "
- Louisville, Kentucky 78 "
- Nashville, Tennessee 100 "
- Huntsville, Alabama 115-1/2 "
-
-The ordinary mail to these points made the following time:
-
- Cincinnati, Ohio 4 days 18 hours.
- Frankfort, Kentucky 6 " 18 "
- Louisville, Kentucky 6 " 23 "
- Nashville, Tennessee 8 " 16 "
- Huntsville, Alabama 10 " 21 "
-
-The Post Office Department had given its mail contracts to the steamship
-lines in the east, when possible, from Boston to Portland and New York
-to Albany. One mail route to the southern states, however, passed over
-the Cumberland Road and down to Cincinnati, where it went on to
-Louisville and the Mississippi ports by packet. The following time was
-made by this Great Southern Mail from Louisville:
-
- Nashville, Tennessee 21 hours.
- Mobile, Alabama 80 "
- New Orleans, Louisiana 105 "
-
-The service rendered to the south and southwest by the Cumberland Road,
-was not rendered to the northwest, as might have been expected. Chicago
-and Detroit were difficult to bring into easy communication with the
-east. Until the railway was completed from Albany to Buffalo, the mails
-went very slowly to the northwest from New York. The stage line from
-Buffalo to Cleveland and on west over the terrible Black Swamp road to
-Detroit was one of the worst in the United States. When lake navigation
-became closed, communication with northwestern Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin
-and northern Indiana and Illinois was almost cut off. Had the stage
-route followed that of the buffalo and Indian on the high ground
-occupied by the Mahoning Indian trail from Pittsburg to Detroit, a far
-more excellent service might have been at the disposal of the Post
-Office Department. As it was, stagehorses floundered in the Black Swamp
-with "mud up to the horses' bridles," where a half dozen mails were
-often congested, and "six horses were barely sufficient to draw a
-two-wheeled vehicle fifteen miles in three days."[65]
-
-The old time-tables of the Cumberland Road make an interesting study.
-One of the first of these published after the great stage lines were in
-operation over the entire road and the southern branch to Cincinnati,
-appeared early in the year 1833. By this schedule the Great Eastern Mail
-left Washington daily at 7 P. M. and Baltimore at 9 P. M. and arrived in
-Wheeling, on the Ohio River, in fifty-five hours. Leaving Wheeling at
-4:30 A. M., it arrived in Columbus at five the morning following, and in
-Cincinnati at the same hour the next morning, making forty-eight hours
-from one point on the river to the other, much better time than any
-packet could make. The Great Western Mail left Cincinnati daily at 2 P.
-M. and reached Columbus at 1 P. M. on the day following. It left
-Columbus at 1:30 P. M. and reached Wheeling at 2:30 P. M. the day
-following, thence Washington in fifty-five hours.[66]
-
-At times the mails on the Cumberland Road were greatly delayed, taxing
-the patience of the public beyond endurance. The road itself was so well
-built that rain had little effect upon it as a rule. In fact, delay of
-the mails was more often due to inefficiency of the Post Office
-Department, inefficiency of the stage line service, or failure of
-contractors, than poor roads. Until a bridge was built across the Ohio
-River at Wheeling, in 1836, mails often became congested, especially
-when ice was running out. There were frequent derangements of cross and
-way mails which affected seriously the efficiency of the service. The
-vast number of connecting mails on the Cumberland Road made regularity
-in transmission of cross mails confusing, especially if the through
-mails were at all irregular.
-
-To us living in the present age of telegraphic communication and the
-ubiquitous daily paper, it may not occur that the mail stages of the
-old days were the newsboys of the age, and that thousands looked to
-their coming for the first word of news from distant portions of the
-land. In times of war or political excitement the express mailstage and
-its precious load of papers from Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York,
-was hailed as the latest editions of our newspapers are today. Thus it
-must have been that a greater proportion of the population along the
-Cumberland Road awaited with eager interest the coming of the stage in
-the old days, than today await the arrival of the long mail trains from
-the east.
-
-Late in the 30's and in the 40's, when the mailstage system reached its
-highest perfection, the mail and passenger service had been entirely
-separated, special stages being constructed for hauling the former. As
-early as 1837 the Post Office Department decreed that the mails, which
-heretofore had always been held as of secondary consideration compared
-with passengers, should be carried in specially arranged vehicles, into
-which the postmaster should put them under lock and key not to be
-opened until the next post office was reached. These stages were of two
-kinds, designed to be operated upon routes where the mail ordinarily
-comprised, respectively, a half and nearly a whole load. In the former,
-room was left for six passengers, in the latter, for three. Including
-newspapers with the regular mail, the later stages which ran westward
-over the Cumberland Road rarely carried passengers. Indeed there was
-little room for the guards who traveled with the driver to protect the
-government property. Many old drivers of the "Boston Night Mail," or the
-"New York Night Mail," or "Baltimore Mail," may yet be found along the
-old road, who describe the immense loads which they carried westward
-behind flying steeds. Such a factor in the mailstage business did the
-newspapers become, that many contractors refused to carry them by
-express mail, consigning them to the ordinary mails, thereby bringing
-down upon themselves the frequent savage maledictions of a host of local
-editors.[67]
-
-Newspapers were, nevertheless, carried by express mailstages as far west
-as Ohio in 1837, as is proved by a newspaper account of a robbery
-committed on the Cumberland Road, the robbers holding up an express
-mailstage and finding nothing in it but newspapers.[68]
-
-The mails on the Cumberland Road were always in danger of being assailed
-by robbers, especially on the mountainous portions of the road at night.
-Though by dint of lash and ready revolver the doughty drivers usually
-came off safely with their charge.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VI
-
-TAVERNS AND TAVERN LIFE
-
-
-So distinctive was the character of the Cumberland Road that all which
-pertained to it was highly characteristic. Next to the race of men which
-grew up beside its swinging stretches, nothing had a more distinctive
-tone than the taverns which offered cheer and hospitality to its surging
-population.
-
-The origin of taverns in the East was very dissimilar from their history
-in the West. The first taverns in the West were those which did service
-on the old Braddock's Road. Unlike the taverns of New England, which
-were primarily drinking places, sometimes closing at nine in the
-evening, and not professing, originally, to afford lodging, the tavern
-in the West arose amid the forest to answer all the needs of travelers.
-It may be said that every cabin in all the western wilderness was a
-tavern, where, if there was a lack of "bear and cyder" there was an
-abundance of dried deer meat and Indian meal and a warm fireplace before
-which to spread one's blankets.[69]
-
-The first cabins on the old route from the Potomac to the Ohio were at
-the Wills Creek settlement (Cumberland) and Gist's clearing, where
-Washington stopped on his Le Boeuf trip on the buffalo trace not far
-from the summit of Laurel Hill. After Braddock's Road was built, and the
-first roads were opened between Uniontown and Brownsville, Washington
-and Wheeling, during the Revolutionary period, a score of taverns sprang
-up--the first of the kind west of the Allegheny Mountains.
-
-The oldest tavern on Braddock's Road was Tomlinson's Tavern near "Little
-Meadows," eight miles west of the present village of Frostburg,
-Maryland.
-
-At this point the lines of Braddock's Road and the Cumberland Road
-coincide. On land owned by him along the old military road Jesse
-Tomlinson erected a tavern. When the Cumberland Road was built, his
-first tavern was deserted and a new one built near the old site. Another
-tavern, erected by one Fenniken, stood on both the line of the military
-road and the Cumberland Road, two miles west of Smithfield ("Big
-Crossings") where the two courses were identical.
-
-The first taverns erected upon the road which followed the portage path
-from Uniontown to Brownsville were Collin's Log Tavern and Rollin's
-Tavern, erected in Uniontown in 1781 and 1783, respectively. These
-taverns offered primitive forms of hospitality to the growing stream of
-sojourners over the rough mountain path to the Youghiogheny at
-Brownsville, where boats could be taken for the growing metropolis of
-Pittsburg. Another tavern in the West was located on this road ten miles
-west of Uniontown. As the old century neared its close a score of
-taverns sprang up on the road from Uniontown to Brownsville and on the
-road from Brownsville to Wheeling. At least three old taverns are still
-remembered at West Brownsville. Hill's stone tavern was erected at
-Hillsboro in 1794. "Catfish Camp," James Wilson's tavern at Washington,
-the first tavern in that historic town, was built in 1781 and operated
-eleven years for the benefit of the growing tide of pioneers who chose
-to embark on the Ohio at Wheeling rather than on the Monongahela at
-Brownsville. Other taverns at Washington before 1800 were McCormack's
-(1788), Sign of the White Goose (1791), Buck Tavern (1796), Sign of the
-Spread Eagle, and Globe Inn (1797). The Gregg Tavern and the famous old
-Workman House at Uniontown were both erected in the last years of the
-old century, 1797-1799. Two miles west of Rankintown, Smith's Stone
-Tavern stood on the road to Wheeling, and the Sign of the American Eagle
-(1796) offered lodging at West Alexander, several years before the old
-century closed. West of the Ohio River, on Zane's rough blazed track
-through the scattered Ohio settlements toward Kentucky, travelers found,
-as has been elsewhere noted, entertainment at Zane's clearings, at the
-fords of the Muskingum and Scioto, and at the little settlement at
-Cincinnati. Before the quarter of a century elapsed ere the Cumberland
-Road crossed the Ohio River, a number of taverns were erected on the
-line of the road which was built over the course of Zane's Trace. On
-this first wagon-road west of the Ohio River the earliest taverns were
-at St. Clairsville and Zanesville. At this latter point the road turned
-southwest, following Zane's Trace to Lancaster, Chillicothe, and
-Maysville, Kentucky. The first tavern on this road was opened at
-Zanesville during the last year of the old century, McIntire's Hotel. In
-the winter of the same year, 1799, Green's Tavern was built, in which,
-it is recorded, the Fourth of July celebration in the following year was
-held. Cordery's Tavern followed, and David Harvey built a tavern in
-1800. The first license for a tavern in St. Clairsville was issued to
-Jacob Haltz, February 23, 1802. Two other licenses were issued that year
-to John Thompson and Bazil Israel. Barnes's Tavern was opened in 1803.
-William Gibson, Michael Groves, Sterling Johnson, Andrew Moore, and
-Andrew Marshall kept tavern in the first half decade of this century.
-As elsewhere noted, there was no earlier road between Zanesville and
-Columbus which the Cumberland Road followed. West of Zanesville but one
-tavern was opened in the first decade of this century. Griffith Foos's
-tavern at Springfield, which was doing business in 1801, prospered until
-1814. The other taverns of the West, at Zanesville, Columbus,
-Springfield, Richmond (Indiana), and Indianapolis, are of another era
-and will be mentioned later.
-
-The first taverns of the West were built mostly of logs, though a few,
-as noted, were of stone. They were ordinary wilderness cabins, rendered
-professionally hospitable by stress of circumstance. They were more
-often of but one or two rooms, where, before the fireplace, guests were
-glad to sleep together upon the puncheon floor. The fare afforded was
-such as hunters had--game from the surrounding forest and neighboring
-streams and the product of the little clearing, potatoes, and the common
-cereals.
-
-At the beginning of the new century a large number of substantial
-taverns arose beside the first western roads--even before the Cumberland
-Road was under way. The best known of these were built at Washington,
-The Sign of the Cross Keys (1801), the McClellan (1802); and at
-Uniontown the National and Walker Houses. At Washington arose The Sign
-of the Golden Swan (1806), Sign of the Green Tree (1808), Gen. Andrew
-Jackson (1813), and Sign of the Indian Queen (1815). These were built in
-the age of sawmills and some of them came well down through the century.
-
-It is remarkable how many buildings are to be seen on the Cumberland
-Road which tell by their architectural form the story of their fortunes.
-Many a tavern, outgrowing the day of small things, was found to be
-wholly inadequate to the greater business of the new era. Additions were
-made as circumstances demanded, and in some cases the result is very
-interesting. The Seaton House in Uniontown was built in sections, as was
-the old Fulton House (now Moran House) also of Uniontown. A fine old
-stone tavern at Malden, Pennsylvania was erected in 1822 and an addition
-made in 1830. A stone slab in the second section bears the date "1830,"
-also the word "Liberty," and a rude drawing of a plow and sheaf of
-wheat. Though of more recent date, the well-known Four Mile House west
-of Columbus, Ohio displays, by a series of additions, the record of its
-prosperous days, when the neighboring Camp Chase held its population of
-Confederate prisoners.
-
-Among the more important taverns which became the notable hostelries of
-the Cumberland Road should be mentioned the Black, American, Mountain
-Spring, and Pennsylvania Houses at Cumberland; Plumer Tavern and Six
-Mile House west of Cumberland; Franklin and Highland Hall Houses of
-Frostburg; Lehman and Shulty Houses at Grantsville; Thistle Tavern at
-the eastern foot of Negro Mountain, and Hablitzell's stone tavern at the
-summit; The Stoddard House on the summit of Keyser's Ridge; the stone
-tavern near the summit of Winding Ridge, and the Wable stand on the
-western slope; the Wentling and Hunter Houses at Petersburg; the Temple
-of Juno two miles westward; the Endsley House and Camel Tavern at
-Smithfield (Big Crossings); a tavern on Mt. Augusta; the Rush, Inks, and
-John Rush Houses, Sampey's Tavern at Great Meadows; the Braddock Run
-House; Downer Tavern; Snyder's Tavern at eastern foot of Laurel Hill,
-and the Summit House at the top; Shipley and Monroe Houses and Norris
-Tavern east of Uniontown, and Searight's Tavern six miles west;
-Johnson-Hatfield House; the Brashear, Marshall, Clark and Monongahela
-Houses at Brownsville; Adam's Tavern; Key's and Greenfield's Taverns at
-Beallsville; Gall's House; Hastings and the Upland House at the foot of
-Egg Nogg Hill; Ringland's Tavern at Pancake; the Fulton House,
-Philadelphia, and Kentucky Inn and Travellers Inn at Washington; Rankin
-and Smith Taverns; Caldwell's Tavern; Brown's and Watkin's Taverns at
-Claysville; Beck's Tavern at West Alexander; the Stone Tavern at Roney's
-Point and the United States Hotel and Monroe House at Wheeling.
-
-West of the Ohio were Rhode's and McMahon's Taverns at Bridgeport;
-Hoover's Tavern near St. Clairsville; Chamberlain's Tavern; Christopher
-Hoover's Tavern, one mile west of Morristown; Taylor's Tavern; Gleave's
-Tavern and Stage Office; Bradshaw's Hotel at Fairview; Drake's Tavern at
-Middleton; Sign of the Black Bear at Washington; Carran's, McDonald's,
-McKinney's and Wilson's Taverns in Guernsey County and the Ten Mile
-House at Norwich, ten miles east of Zanesville. In Zanesville, Robert
-Taylor opened a tavern in 1805, and in 1807 moved to the present site of
-the Clarendon Hotel, situated on the Cumberland Road and hung out the
-Sign of the Orange Tree. Perhaps no tavern in the land can claim the
-honor of holding a state legislature within its doors, except the Sign
-of the Orange Tree, where, in 1810-12, when Zanesville was the temporary
-capital of Ohio, the legislature made its headquarters.[70] The Sign of
-the Rising Sun was another Zanesville tavern, opened in 1806, the name
-being changed by a later proprietor, without damage to its brilliancy,
-perhaps, to the Sign of the Red Lion. The National Hotel was opened in
-1818 and became a famous hostelry. Roger's Hotel is mentioned in many
-old advertisements for bids for making and repairing the Cumberland
-Road. In 1811 William Burnham opened the Sign of the Merino Lamb in a
-frame building owned by General Isaac Van Horne. The Sign of the Green
-Tree was opened by John S. Dugan in 1817, this being remembered for
-entertaining President Monroe, and General Lewis Cass at a later date.
-West of Zanesville, on the new route opened straight westward to
-Columbus, the famous monumental pile of stone, the Five Mile House long
-served its useful purpose beside the road and is one of the most
-impressive of its monuments, today. Edward Smith and Usal Headley were
-early tavern-keepers at this point. Henry Winegamer built a tavern three
-miles west of the Five Mile House. Henry Hursey built and opened the
-first tavern at Gratiot. These public houses west of Zanesville were
-erected in the year preceding the opening of the Cumberland Road, which
-was built through the forest in the year 1831.[71] The stages which
-were soon running from Zanesville to Columbus, left the uncompleted,
-line of the Cumberland Road at Jacksontown and struck across to Newark
-and followed the old road thence to Columbus. The first tavern built in
-Columbus was opened in 1813, which, in 1816, bore the sign "The Lion and
-the Eagle." After 1817 it was known as "The Globe." The Columbus Inn and
-White Horse Tavern were early Columbus hotels; Pike's Tavern was opened
-in 1822, and a tavern bearing the sign of the Golden Lamb was opened in
-1825. The Neil House was opened in the twenties, a transfer of it to new
-owners appearing in local papers in 1832. It was the headquarters of the
-Neil, Moore, and Company line of stages and the best known early tavern
-in the old coaching days in Ohio. Many forgotten taverns in Columbus can
-be found mentioned in old documents and papers, including the famous
-American House, Buckeye Hotel, on the present site of the Board of Trade
-building, etc. West of Columbus the celebrated Four Mile House, which
-has been referred to previously, was erected in the latter half of the
-century. In the days of the great mail and stage lines Billy Werden's
-Tavern in Springfield was the leading hostelry in western Ohio. At this
-point the stages running to Cincinnati, with mail for the Mississippi
-Valley, left the Cumberland Road. Across the state line, Neal's and
-Clawson's Taverns offered hospitality in the extreme eastern border of
-Indiana. At Richmond, Starr Tavern (Tremont Hotel), Nixon's Tavern,
-Gilbert's two-story, pebble-coated tavern and Bayle's Sign of the Green
-Tree, offered entertainment worthy of the road and its great business,
-while Sloan's brick stagehouse accommodated the passenger traffic of the
-stage lines. At Indianapolis, the Palmer House, built in 1837, and
-Washington Hall, welcomed the public of the two great political faiths,
-Democrat and Whig, respectively.
-
-At almost every mile of the road's long length, wagonhouses offered
-hospitality to the hundreds engaged in the great freight traffic. Here a
-large room with its fireplace could be found before which to lay
-blankets on a winter's night. The most successful wagonhouses were
-situated at the outskirts of the larger towns, where, at more reasonable
-prices and in more congenial surroundings than in a crowded city inn,
-the rough sturdy men upon whom the whole West depended for over a
-generation for its merchandise, found hospitable entertainment for
-themselves and their rugged horses. These houses were usually
-unpretentious frame buildings surrounded by a commodious yard, and
-generous watering-troughs and barns. A hundred tired horses have been
-heard munching their corn in a single wagonhouse yard at the end of a
-long day's work.
-
-In both tavern and wagonhouse the fireplace and the bar were always
-present, whatever else might be missing. The fireplaces in the first
-western taverns were notably generous, as the rigorous winters of the
-Alleghenies required. Many of these fireplaces were seven feet in length
-and nearly as high, capable of holding, had it been necessary, a
-wagonload of wood. With a great fireplace at the end of the room,
-lighting up its darkest corners as no candle could, the taverns along
-the Cumberland Road where the stages stopped for the night, saw merrier
-scenes than any of their modern counterparts witness. And over all their
-merry gatherings the flames from the great fires threw a softened light,
-in which those who remember them best seem to bask as they tell us of
-them. The taverns near some of the larger villages, Wheeling,
-Washington, or Uniontown, often entertained for a winter's evening, a
-sleighing party from town, to whom the great room and its fireplace were
-surrendered for the nonce, where soon lisping footsteps and the soft
-swirl of old-fashioned skirts told that the dance was on.
-
-Beside the old fireplace hung two important articles, the flip-iron and
-the poker. The poker used in the old road taverns was of a size
-commensurate with the fireplace, often being seven or eight feet long.
-Each landlord was Keeper-of-the-Poker in his own tavern, and many were
-particular that none but themselves should touch the great fire, which
-was one of the main features of their hospitality, after the quality of
-the food and drink. Eccentric old "Boss" Rush in his famous tavern near
-Smithfield (Big Crossings) even kept his poker under lock and key.
-
-The tavern signs so common in New England were known only in the earlier
-days of the Cumberland Road as many of the tavern names show. The
-majority of the great taverns bore on their signs only the name of their
-proprietor, the earliest landlord's name often being used for several
-generations. The advancing of the century can be noticed in the origin
-of such names as the National House, the United States Hotel, the
-American House, etc. The evolution in nomenclature is, plainly, from the
-sign or symbol to the landlord's name, then to a fanciful name. Another
-sign of later days was the building of verandas. The oldest taverns now
-standing are plain ones or the two story buildings rising abruptly from
-the pavement and opening directly upon it. Of this type is the
-Brownfield House at Uniontown and numerous half-forgotten houses which
-were early taverns in Pennsylvania and Ohio.
-
-The kitchen of the old inn was an important feature, especially as many
-of the taverns were little more than restaurants where stage-passengers
-hastily dined. The food provided was of a plain and nourishing
-character, including the famous home-cured hams, which Andrew Jackson
-preferred, and the buckwheat cakes, which Henry Clay highly extolled. In
-this connection it should be said that the women of the old West were
-most successful in operating the old-time taverns, and many of the best
-"stands" were conducted by them. The provision made in a license to a
-woman in early New England, that "she provide a fit man that is godly to
-manage the business," was never suggested in the West, where hundreds of
-brave women carried on the business of their husbands after their
-decease. And their heroism was appreciated and remembered by the gallant
-aristocracy of the road.
-
-The old Revolutionary soldiers who, quite generally, became the
-landlords of New England, did not keep tavern in the West. But one
-Revolutionary veteran was landlord on the Cumberland Road. The road bred
-and brought up its own landlords to a large extent. The early landlords
-were fit men to rule in the early taverns, and provided from forest and
-stream the larger portion of food for the travelers over the first rough
-roads. It is said that these objected to the building of the Cumberland
-Road, through fear that more accelerated means of locomotion would
-eventually cheat them out of the business which then fell to their
-share.
-
-But, like the New England landlord, the western tavern-keeper was a
-many-sided man. Had the Cumberland Road taverns been located always
-within villages, their proprietors might have become what New England
-landlords are reputed to have been, town representatives, councilmen,
-selectmen, tapsters, and heads of the "Train Band"--in fact, next to the
-town clerk in importance. As it was, the western landlord often filled
-as important a position on the frontier as his eastern counterpart did
-in New England. This was due, in part, to the place which the western
-tavern occupied in society. Taverns were, both in the East and in the
-West, places of meeting for almost any business. This was particularly
-true in the West, where the public house was almost the only available
-place for any gathering whatever between the scattered villages. But
-while in the East the landlord was most frequently busy with official
-duties, the western landlord was mostly engaged in collateral
-professions, which rendered him of no less value to his community. The
-jovial host at the Cumberland Road tavern often worked a large farm,
-upon which his tavern stood. Some of the more prosperous on the eastern
-half of the road, owned slaves who carried on the work of the farm and
-hotel. He sometimes ran a store in connection with his tavern, and
-almost without exception, officiated at his bar, where he "sold strong
-waters to relieve the inhabitants." Whiskey, two drinks for a "fippenny
-bit," called "fip" for short (value six and a quarter cents) was the
-principal "strong water" in demand. It was the pure article, neither
-diluted nor adulterated. In the larger towns of course any beverage of
-the day was kept at the taverns--sherry toddy, mulled wine, madeira, and
-cider.
-
-As has been said, the road bred its own landlords. Youths, whose lives
-began simultaneously with that of the great road, worked upon its curved
-bed in their teens, became teamsters and contractors in middle life, and
-spent the autumn of their lives as landlords of its taverns, purchased
-with the money earned in working upon it. Several well-known landlords
-were prominent contractors, many of whom owned their share of the great
-six- and eight-horse teams which hauled freight to the western rivers.
-
-The old taverns were the hearts of the Cumberland Road, and the tavern
-life was the best gauge to measure the current of business that ebbed
-and flowed. As the great road became superseded by the railways, the
-taverns were the first to succumb to the shock. In a very interesting
-article, a recent writer on "The Rise of the Tide of Life to New England
-Hilltops,"[72] speaks of the early hill life of New England, and the
-memorials there left "of the deep and sweeping streams of human
-history." The author would have found the Cumberland Road and its
-predecessors an interesting western example of the social phenomena with
-which he dealt. In New England, as in the Central West, the first
-traveled courses were on the summits of the watersheds. These routes of
-the brute were the first ways of men. The tide of life has ebbed from
-New England hilltops since the beginning. Sufficient is it for the
-present subject that the Cumberland Road was the most important "stream
-of human history" from Atlantic tide-water to the headwaters of the
-streams of the Mississippi. Its old taverns are, after the remnants of
-the historic roadbed and ponderous bridges, the most interesting "shells
-and fossils" cast up by this stream. This old route, chosen first by the
-buffalo and followed by red men and white men, will ever be the course
-of travel across the mountains. From this rugged path made by the once
-famous Cumberland Road, the tide of life cannot ebb. Here, a thousand
-years hence, may course a magnificent boulevard, the American Appian
-Way, to the commercial, as well as military, key of the eastern slopes
-of the Mississippi Basin at the junction of the Allegheny and
-Monongahela Rivers. It is important that each fact of history concerning
-this ancient highway be put on lasting record.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VII
-
-CONCLUSION
-
-
-It is impossible to leave the study of the Cumberland Road without
-gathering up into a single chapter a number of threads which have not
-been woven into the preceding record. And first, the very appearance of
-the old road as seen by travelers who pass over it today. One cannot go
-a single mile over it without becoming deeply impressed with the
-evidence of the age and the individuality of the old Cumberland Road.
-There is nothing like it in the United States. Leaping the Ohio at
-Wheeling, the Cumberland Road throws itself across Ohio and Indiana,
-straight as an arrow, like an ancient elevated pathway of the gods,
-chopping hills in twain at a blow, traversing the lowlands on high
-grades like a railroad bed, vaulting river and stream on massive bridges
-of unparalleled size. The farther one travels upon it, the more
-impressed one must become, for there is, in the long grades and
-stretches and ponderous bridges, that "masterful suggestion of a serious
-purpose, speeding you along with a strange uplifting of the heart," of
-which Kenneth Grahame speaks; "and even in its shedding off of bank and
-hedgerow as it marched straight and full for the open downs, it seems to
-declare its contempt for adventitious trappings to catch the
-shallow-pated."[73] For long distances, this road "of the sterner sort"
-will be, so far as its immediate surface is concerned, what the tender
-mercies of the counties through which it passes will allow, but at
-certain points, the traveler comes out unexpectedly upon the ancient
-roadbed, for in many places the old macadamized bed is still doing noble
-duty.
-
-Nothing is more striking than the ponderous stone bridges which carry
-the roadbed over the waterways. It is doubtful if there are on this
-continent such monumental relics of the old stone bridge builders' art.
-Not only such massive bridges as those at Big Crossings (Smithfield,
-Pennsylvania) and the artistic "S" bridge near Claysville,
-Pennsylvania, will attract the traveler's attention, but many of the
-less pretentious bridges over brooks and rivulets will, upon
-examination, be found to be ponderous pieces of workmanship. A pregnant
-suggestion of the change which has come over the land can be read in
-certain of these smaller bridges and culverts. When the great road was
-built the land was covered with forests and many drains were necessary.
-With the passing of the forests many large bridges, formerly of much
-importance, are now of a size out of all proportion to the demand for
-them, and hundreds of little bridges have fallen into disuse, some of
-them being quite above the general level of the surrounding fields. The
-ponderous bridge at Big Crossings was finished and dedicated with great
-eclat July 4, 1818. Near the eastern end of the three fine arches is the
-following inscription: "Kinkead, Beck & Evans, builders, July 4, 1818."
-
-[Illustration: CULVERT ON THE CUMBERLAND ROAD IN OHIO]
-
-The traveler will notice still the mileposts which mark the great road's
-successive steps. Those on the eastern portion of the road are of
-iron and were made at the foundries at Connellsville and Brownsville.
-Major James Francis had the contract for making and delivering those
-between Cumberland and Brownsville. John Snowdan had the contract for
-those between Brownsville and Wheeling. They were hauled in six-horse
-teams to their sites. Those between Brownsville and Cumberland have
-recently been reset and repainted. The milestones west of the Ohio River
-are mostly of sandstone, and are fast disappearing under the action of
-the weather. Some are quite illegible though the word "Cumberland" at
-the top can yet be read on almost all. In central Ohio, through the
-Darby woods, or "Darby Cuttings," the mileposts have been greatly
-mutilated by vandal woodchoppers, who knocked off large chips with which
-to sharpen their axes.
-
-The bed of the Cumberland Road was originally eighty feet in width. In
-Ohio at least, property owners have encroached upon the road until, in
-some places, ten feet of ground has been included within the fences.
-This matter has been brought into notice where franchises for electric
-railway lines have been granted. In Franklin County, west of Columbus,
-Ohio, there is hardly room for a standard gauge track outside the
-roadbed, where once the road occupied forty feet each side of its axis.
-When the property owners were addressed with respect to the removal of
-their fences, they demanded to be shown quitclaim deeds for the land,
-which, it is unnecessary to say, were not forthcoming from the state.
-Hundreds of contracts, calling for a width of eighty feet, can be given
-as evidence of the original width of the road.[74] In days when it was
-considered the most extraordinary good fortune to have the Cumberland
-Road pass through one's farm, it was not considered necessary to obtain
-quitclaim deeds for the land.
-
-It is difficult to sufficiently emphasize the aristocracy which existed
-among the old "pike boys," as those most intimately connected with the
-road were called. This was particularly true of the drivers of the mail
-and passenger stages, men who were as often noted for their quick wit
-and large acquaintance with men as for their dexterous handling of two
-hands full of reins. Their social and business position was the envy of
-the youth of a nation, whose ambition to emulate them was begotten of
-the best sort of hero-worship. Stage-drivers' foibles were their pet
-themes, such as the use of peculiar kinds of whips and various modes of
-driving. Of the latter there were three styles common to the Cumberland
-Road, (1) The flat rein (English style), (2) Top and bottom
-(Pennsylvania adaptation), (3) Side rein (Eastern style). The last mode
-was in commonest use. Of drivers there were of course all kinds,
-slovenly, cruel, careful. Of the best class, John Bunting, Jim Reynolds,
-and Billy Armor were best known, after "Red" Bunting, in the east, and
-David Gordon and James Burr, on the western division. No one was more
-proud of the fine horses which did the work of the great road than the
-better class of drivers. As Thackeray said was true in England, the
-passing of the era of good roads and the mailstage has sounded the
-knell of the rugged race of horses which once did service in the Central
-West.
-
-As one scans the old files of newspapers, or reads old-time letters and
-memoirs of the age of the Cumberland Road, he is impressed with the
-interest taken in the coming and going of the more renowned guests of
-the old road. The passage of a president-elect over the Cumberland Road
-was a triumphant procession. The stage companies made special stages, or
-selected the best of their stock, in which to bear him. The best horses
-were fed and groomed for the proud task. The most noted drivers were
-appointed to the honorable station of Charioteer-to-the-President. The
-thousands of homes along his route were decked in his honor, and
-welcoming heralds rode out from the larger towns to escort their noted
-guests to celebrations for which preparations had been making for days
-in advance. The slow-moving presidential pageant through Ohio and
-Pennsylvania was an educational and patriotic ceremony, of not
-infrequent occurrence in the old coaching days--a worthy exhibition
-which hardly has its counterpart in these days of steam. Jackson, Van
-Buren, Monroe, Harrison, Polk, and Tyler passed in triumph over portions
-of the great road. The taverns at which they were feted are remembered
-by the fact. Drivers who were chosen for the task of driving their coach
-were ever after noted men. But there were other guests than
-presidents-elect, though none received with more acclaim. Henry Clay,
-the champion of the road, was a great favorite throughout its towns and
-hamlets, one of which, Claysville, proudly perpetuates his name. Benton
-and Cass, General Lafayette, General Santa Anna, Black Hawk, Jenny Lind,
-P. T. Barnum, and John Quincy Adams are all mentioned in the records of
-the stirring days of the old road. As has been suggested elsewhere,
-politics entered largely into the consideration of the building and
-maintenance of the road. Enemies of internal improvement were not
-forgotten as they passed along the great road which they voted to
-neglect, as even Martin Van Buren once realized when the axle of his
-coach was sawed in two, breaking down where the mud was deepest. Many
-episodes are remembered, indicating that all the political prejudice and
-rancor known elsewhere was especially in evidence on this highway, which
-owed its existence and future to the machinations of politicians.
-
-But the greatest blessing of the Cumberland Road was the splendid era of
-growth which it did its share toward hastening. Its best friends could
-see in its decline and decay only evidences of unhappiest fortune, while
-in reality the great road had done its noble work and was to be
-superseded by better things which owed to it their coming. Historic
-roads there had been, before this great highway of America was built,
-but none in all the past had been the means of supplanting themselves by
-greater and more efficient means of communication. The far-famed Appian
-Way witnessed many triumphal processions of consuls and proconsuls, but
-it never was the means of bringing into existence something to take its
-place in a new and more progressive era. It helped to create no free
-empire at its extremity, and they who traversed it in so much pride and
-power would find it today nothing but a ponderous memorial of their
-vanity. The Cumberland Road was built by the people and for the people,
-and served well its high purpose. It became a highway for the products
-of the factories, the fisheries and the commerce of the eastern states.
-It made possible that interchange of the courtesies of social life
-necessary in a republic of united states. It was one of the great
-strands which bound the nation together in early days when there was
-much to excite animosity and provoke disunion. It became the pride of
-New England as well as of the West which it more immediately benefited;
-"The state of which I am a citizen," said Edward Everett at Lexington,
-Kentucky, in 1829, "has already paid between one and two thousand
-dollars toward the construction and repair of that road; and I doubt not
-she is prepared to contribute her proportion toward its extension to the
-place of its destination."[75]
-
-Hundreds of ancient but unpretentious monuments of the Cumberland
-Road--the hoary milestones which line it--stand to perpetuate its name
-in future days. But were they all gathered together--from Indiana and
-Ohio and Pennsylvania and Virginia and Maryland--and cemented into a
-monstrous pyramid, the pile would not be inappropriate to preserve the
-name and fame of a highway which "carried thousands of population and
-millions of wealth into the West; and more than any other material
-structure in the land, served to harmonize and strengthen, if not save,
-the Union."
-
-What of the future? The dawning of the era of country living is in
-sight. It is being hastened by the revolution in methods of locomotion.
-The bicycle and automobile presage an era of good roads, and of an
-unparalleled countryward movement of society. With this era is coming
-the revival of inn and tavern life, the rejuvenation of a thousand
-ancient highways and all the happy life that was ever known along their
-dusty stretches. By its position with reference to the national capital,
-and the military and commercial key of the Central West, Pittsburg, and
-both of the great cities of Ohio, the Cumberland Road will become,
-perhaps, the foremost of the great roadways of America. The bed is
-capable of being made substantial at a comparatively small cost, as the
-grading is quite perfect. Its course measures the shortest possible
-route practicable for a roadway from tidewater to the Mississippi River.
-As a trunk line its location cannot be surpassed. Its historic
-associations will render the route of increasing interest to the
-thousands who, in other days, will travel, in the genuine sense of the
-word, over those portions of its length which long ago became hallowed
-ground. The "Shades of Death" will again be filled with the echoing horn
-which heralded the arrival of the old-time coaches, and Winding Ridge
-again be crowded with the traffic of a nation. A hundred Cumberland Road
-taverns will be opened, and bustling landlords welcome, as of yore, the
-travel-stained visitor. Merry parties will again fill those tavern
-halls, now long silent, with their laughter.
-
-And all this will but mark a new and better era than its predecessor, an
-era of outdoor living, which must come, and come quickly, if as a nation
-we are to retain our present hold on the world's great affairs.
-
-
-
-
-Appendixes
-
-
-
-
-APPENDIX A
-
-APPROPRIATIONS BY CONGRESS AT VARIOUS TIMES FOR MAKING, REPAIRING, AND
-CONTINUING THE ROAD
-
-
- 1. Act of March 29, 1806, authorizes the President to appoint a
- commission of three citizens to lay out a road four rods in width
- "from Cumberland or a point on the northern bank of the river
- Potomac in the State of Maryland, between Cumberland and the place
- where the main road leading from Gwynn's to Winchester, in Virginia,
- crosses the river, ... to strike the river Ohio at the most
- convenient place between a point on its eastern bank, opposite the
- northern boundary of Steubenville and the mouth of Grave creek,
- which empties into the said river a little below Wheeling, in
- Virginia." Provides for obtaining the consent of the states through
- which the road passes, and appropriates for the expense, to be paid
- from the reserve fund under the act of April 30, 1802, $30,000.00
-
- 2. Act of February 14, 1810, appropriates to be expended under the
- direction of the President in making the road between Cumberland and
- Brownsville, to be paid from fund act of April 30, 1802, $60,000.00
-
- 3. Act of March 3, 1811, appropriates to be expended under the
- direction of the President in making the road between Cumberland and
- Brownsville, and authorizes the President to permit deviation from a
- line established by the commissioners under the original act as may
- be expedient; _Provided_, that no deviation shall be made from the
- principal points established on said road between Cumberland and
- Brownsville; to be paid from fund act of April 30, 1802 $50,000.00
-
- 4. Act of February 26, 1812, appropriates balance of a former
- appropriation not used, but carried to surplus fund, $3,786.60
-
- 5. Act of May 6, 1812, appropriates to be expended under direction
- of the President, for making the road from Cumberland to
- Brownsville, to be paid from fund act of April 30, 1802 $30,000.00
-
- 6. Act of March 3, 1813 (General Appropriation Bill), appropriates
- for making the road from Cumberland to the state of Ohio, to be
- paid from fund act of April 30, 1802 $140,000.00
-
- 7. Act of February 14, 1815, appropriates to be expended under
- the direction of the President, for making the road between
- Cumberland and Brownsville, to be paid from fund act of April 30,
- 1802, $100,000.00
-
- 8. Act of April 16, 1816 (General Appropriation Bill), appropriates
- for making the road from Cumberland to the state of Ohio, to be paid
- from the fund act April 30, 1802 $300,000.00
-
- 9. Act of April 14, 1818, appropriates to meet claims due and
- unpaid $52,984.60
-
- Demands under existing contracts $260,000.00
-
- (From money in the treasury not otherwise appropriated.)
-
- 10. Act of March 3, 1819, appropriates for existing claims and
- contracts $250,000.00
-
- Completing road $285,000.00
-
- (To be paid from reserved funds, acts admitting Ohio, Indiana, and
- Illinois.)
-
- 11. Act of May 15, 1820, appropriates for laying out the road
- between Wheeling, Virginia, and a point on the left bank of the
- Mississippi River, between St. Louis and the mouth of the Illinois
- River, road to be eighty feet wide and on a straight line, and
- authorizes the President to appoint commissioners. To be paid out
- of any money in the treasury not otherwise appropriated $10,000.00
-
- 12. Act of April 11, 1820, appropriates for completing contract for
- road from Washington, Pennsylvania, to Wheeling, out of any money in
- the treasury not otherwise appropriated $141,000.00
-
- 13. Act of February 28, 1823, appropriates for repairs between
- Cumberland and Wheeling, and authorizes the President to appoint a
- superintendent at a compensation of three dollars per day. To be
- paid out of any money not otherwise appropriated $25,000.00
-
- 14. Act of March 3, 1825, appropriates for opening and making a road
- from the town of Canton, in the state of Ohio, opposite Wheeling, to
- Zanesville, and for the completion of the surveys of the road,
- directed to be made by the act of May 15, 1820, and orders its
- extension to the permanent seat of government of Missouri, and to
- pass by the seats of government of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, said
- road to commence at Zanesville, Ohio; also authorizes the
- appointment of a superintendent by the President, at a salary of
- fifteen hundred dollars per annum, who shall make all contracts,
- receive and disburse all moneys, etc.; also authorizes the
- appointment of one commissioner, who shall have power according to
- provisions of the act of May 15, 1820; ten thousand dollars of the
- money appropriated by this act is to be expended in completing the
- survey mentioned. The whole sum appropriated to be advanced from
- moneys not otherwise appropriated, and replaced from reserve
- fund provided in acts admitting Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and
- Missouri $150,000.00
-
- 15. Act of March 14, 1826 (General Appropriation Bill), appropriates
- for balance due to the superintendent, $3,000; assistant
- superintendent, $158.90; contractor, $252.13 $3,411.03
-
- 16. Act of March 25, 1826 (Military Service), appropriates for the
- continuation of the Cumberland Road during the year 1825 $110,749.00
-
- 17. Act of March 2, 1827 (Military Service), appropriates for
- construction of road from Canton to Zanesville, and continuing and
- completing the survey from Zanesville to the seat of government of
- Missouri, to be paid from reserve fund, provided in acts admitting
- Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri $170,000.00
-
- For balance due superintendent, from moneys not otherwise
- appropriated, $510.00
-
- 18. Act of March 2, 1827, appropriates for repairs between
- Cumberland and Wheeling, and authorizes the appointment of a
- superintendent of repairs, at a compensation to be fixed by the
- President. To be paid from moneys not otherwise appropriated.
- The language of this act is: "For repairing the public road
- from Cumberland to Wheeling" $30,000.00
-
- 19. Act of May 19, 1828, appropriates for the completion of the road
- to Zanesville, Ohio, to be paid from fund provided in acts admitting
- Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri $175,000.00
-
- 20. Act of March 2, 1829, appropriates for opening road westwardly,
- from Zanesville, Ohio, to be paid from fund provided in acts
- admitting Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and Missouri $100,000.00
-
- 21. Act of March 2, 1829, appropriates for opening road eighty feet
- wide in Indiana, east and west from Indianapolis, and to appoint two
- superintendents, at eight hundred dollars each per annum, to be paid
- from fund provided in acts admitting Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and
- Missouri, $51,600.00
-
- 22. Act of March 3, 1829, appropriates for repairing bridges, etc.,
- on road east of Wheeling $100,000.00
-
- 23. Act of May 31, 1830 (Internal Improvements), appropriates for
- opening and grading road west of Zanesville, Ohio, $100,000; for
- opening and grading road in Indiana, $60,000; commencing at
- Indianapolis, and progressing with the work to the eastern and
- western boundaries of said state; for opening, grading, etc., in
- Illinois, $40,000, to be paid from reserve fund provided in acts
- admitting Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri; for claims due
- and remaining unpaid on account of road east of Wheeling,
- $15,000; to be paid from moneys in the treasury not otherwise
- appropriated $215,000.00
-
- 24. Act of March 2, 1831, appropriates $100,000 for opening,
- grading, and so forth, west of Zanesville, Ohio; $950 for repairs
- during the year 1830; $2,700 for work heretofore done east of
- Zanesville; $265.85 for arrearages for the survey from Zanesville to
- the capital of Missouri; and $75,000 for opening, grading, and so
- forth, in the state of Indiana, including bridge over White River,
- near Indianapolis, and progressing to eastern and western
- boundaries; $66,000 for opening, grading and bridging in Illinois;
- to be paid from the fund provided in acts admitting Ohio, Indiana,
- Illinois, and Missouri $244,915.85
-
- 25. Act of July 3, 1832, appropriates $150,000 for repairs east of
- the Ohio River; $100,000 for continuing the road west of Zanesville;
- $100,000 for continuing the road in Indiana, including bridge over
- east and west branch of White River; $70,000 for continuing road in
- Illinois; to be paid from the fund provided in acts admitting Ohio,
- Indiana, and Illinois $420,000.00
-
- 26. Act of March 2, 1833, appropriates to carry on certain
- improvements east of the Ohio River, $125,000; in Ohio, west of
- Zanesville, $130,000; in Indiana, $100,000; in Illinois, $70,000;
- and in Virginia, $34,440 $459,440.00
-
- 27. Act of June 24, 1834, appropriates $200,000 for continuing the
- road in Ohio; $150,000 for continuing the road in Indiana; $100,000
- for continuing the road in Illinois, and $300,000 for the entire
- completion of repairs east of Ohio, to meet provisions of the acts
- of Pennsylvania (April 4, 1831), Maryland (Jan. 23, 1832), and
- Virginia (Feb. 7, 1832), accepting the road surrendered to the
- states, the United States not thereafter to be subject to any
- expense for repairs. Places engineer officer of army in control of
- road through Indiana and Illinois, and in charge of all
- appropriations; $300,000 to be paid out of any money in the Treasury
- not otherwise appropriated, balance from that provided in acts
- admitting Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, $750,000.00
-
- 28. Act of June 27, 1837 (General Appropriation), for arrearages due
- to the contractors $1,609.36
-
- 29. Act of March 3, 1835, appropriates $200,000 for continuing the
- road in the state of Ohio; $100,000 for continuing road in the
- state of Indiana; to be out of fund provided in acts admitting Ohio,
- Indiana and Illinois, and $346,186.58 for the entire completion of
- repairs in Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia; but before any part
- of this sum can be expended east of the Ohio River, the road shall
- be surrendered to and accepted by the states through which it
- passes, and the United States shall not thereafter be subject to any
- expense in relation to said road. Out of any money in the Treasury
- not otherwise appropriated $646,186.58
-
- 30. Act of March 3, 1835 (Repair of Roads), appropriates to pay for
- work heretofore done by Isaiah Frost on the Cumberland Road, $320;
- to pay late superintendent of road a salary, $862.87 $1,182.87
-
- 31. Act of July 2, 1836, appropriates for continuing the road in
- Ohio, $200,000; for continuing road in Indiana, $250,000, including
- materials for a bridge over the Wabash River; $150,000 for
- continuing the road in Illinois, provided that the appropriation for
- Illinois shall be limited to grading and bridging, and shall not be
- construed as pledging Congress to future appropriations for the
- purpose of macadamizing the road, and the moneys herein appropriated
- for said road in Ohio and Indiana must be expended in completing the
- greatest possible continuous portion of said road in said states so
- that said finished part thereof may be surrendered to the states
- respectively; to be paid from fund provided in acts admitting Ohio,
- Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri $600,000.00
-
- 32. Act of March 3, 1837, appropriates $190,000 for continuing the
- road in Ohio; $100,000 for continuing the road in Indiana; $100,000
- for continuing the road in Illinois, provided the road in Illinois
- shall not be stoned or graveled, unless it can be done at a cost not
- greater than the average cost of stoning and graveling the road in
- Ohio and Indiana, and provided that in all cases where it can be
- done the work to be laid off in sections and let to the lowest
- substantial bidder. Sec. 2 of the act provides that Sec. 2 of act of
- July 2, 1836, shall not be applicable to expenditures hereafter made
- on the road, and $7,183.63 is appropriated by this act for repairs
- east of the Ohio River; to be paid from fund provided in acts
- admitting Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois $397,183.63
-
- 33. Act of May 25, 1838, appropriates for continuing the road in
- Ohio, $150,000; for continuing it in Indiana, including bridges,
- $150,000; for continuing it in Illinois, $9,000; for the completion
- of a bridge over Dunlap's Creek at Brownsville; to be paid from
- moneys in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated and subject to
- provisions and conditions of act of March 3, 1837 $459,000.00
-
- 34. Act of June 17, 1844 (Civil and Diplomatic), appropriates for
- arrearages on account of survey to Jefferson, Missouri $1,359.81
-
- Total $6,824,919.33
-
-
-
-
-APPENDIX B
-
-SPECIMEN ADVERTISEMENT FOR BIDS FOR REPAIRING CUMBERLAND ROAD IN OHIO
-(1838)
-
-
-Sealed proposals will be received at Toll-gate No. 4, until the 6th day
-of March next, for repairing that part of the road lying between the
-beginning of the 23rd and end of the 42nd mile, and if suitable bids are
-obtained, and not otherwise, contracts will be made at Bradshaw's hotel
-in Fairview, on the 8th. Those who desire contracts are expected to
-attend in person, in order to sign their bonds. On this part of the road
-three hundred rods or upwards (82-1/2 cubic feet each) will be required
-on each mile, of the best quality of limestone, broken evenly into
-blocks not exceeding four ounces in weight, each; and specimens of the
-material proposed, must be furnished, in quantity not less than six
-cubic inches, broken and neatly put up in a box, and accompanying each
-bid; which will be returned and taken as the standard, both as regards
-the quality of the material and the preparation of it at the time of
-measurement and inspection.
-
-The following conditions will be mutually understood as entering into,
-and forming a part of the contract, namely: The 23, 24 and 25 miles to
-be ready for measurement and inspection on the 25th of July; the 26, 27
-and 28 miles on the 1st of August; the 29, 30 and 31 miles on the 15th
-of August; the 32, 33 and 34 miles on the 1st of September; the 35, 36,
-37 miles on the 15th of September; the 38, 39 and 40 miles on the 1st of
-October; and the 41 and 42 miles, if let, will be examined at the same
-time.
-
-Any failure to be ready for inspection at the time above specified, will
-incur a penalty of five per cent. for every two days' delay, until the
-whole penalty shall amount to 25 per cent. on the contract paid. All the
-piles must be neatly put up for measurement and no pile will be measured
-on this part of the work containing less than five rods. Whenever a pile
-is placed upon deceptive ground, whether discovered at the time of
-measurement or afterward, half its contents shall in every case be
-forfeited for the use of the road.
-
-Proposals will also be received at the American Hotel in Columbus, on
-the 15th of March for hauling broken materials from the penitentiary
-east of Columbus. Bids are solicited on the 1, 2 and 3 miles counting
-from a point near the Toll-gate towards the city. Bids will also be
-received at the same time and place, for collecting and breaking all the
-old stone that lies along the roadside, between Columbus and
-Kirkersville, neatly put in piles of not less than two rods, and placed
-on the outside of the ditches.
-
-
-
-
-APPENDIX C
-
-ADVERTISEMENT FOR PROPOSALS FOR BUILDING A CUMBERLAND ROAD BRIDGE AND
-FOR TOLL HOUSES IN OHIO--1837
-
-
-Proposals will also be received in Zanesville on Monday, the 1st day of
-May next, at Roger's Tavern, for rebuilding the Bridge over Salt Creek,
-nine miles east of Zanesville. The structure will be of wood, except
-some stone work to repair the abutments. A plan of the Bridge, together
-with a bill for the timber, &c., can be seen at the place of letting
-after the 24th inst. Conditions with regard to proposals the same as
-above.
-
-At the same time and place, proposals will likewise be received, for
-building three or four Toll-gates and Gate Houses between Hebron, east
-of Columbus, and Jefferson, west of it. The house of frame with stone
-foundations, and about 13 by 24 feet, one story high, and completely
-finished. Bills of timber, stone, &c., will be furnished, and
-particulars made known, by calling on the undersigned, at Rodger's
-Tavern, in Zanesville after the 24th inst. In making bids, conditions
-the same as above.
-
-All letters must be post-paid, or no attention shall be given to them.
-
- THOMAS M. DRAKE, _Superintendent_.
-
-P. S.--Proposals will also be received at Columbus, on Monday, the 17th
-of April, for repairing the National Road between Kirkersville and
-Columbus--by William B. Vanhook, superintendent.
-
- April 12.
- WILLIAM WALL, _A. C. B. P. W._
-
-
-
-
-APPENDIX D
-
-ADVERTISEMENT OF CUMBERLAND ROAD TAVERN IN OHIO--1837
-
-
-Tavern Stand for Sale or Rent.--A valuable Tavern Stand Sign of the
-Harp, consisting of 25-1/2 acres of choice land partly improved, and a
-dwelling house, together with three front lots. This eligible and
-healthy situation lies 8 miles east of Columbus City, the capital of
-Ohio, on the National Road leading to Zanesville, at Big Walnut Bridge.
-The stand is well supplied with several elegant springs.
-
-It is unnecessary to comment on the numerous advantages of this
-interesting site. The thoroughfare is great, and the growing prospects
-beyond calculation. For particulars inquire of
-
- T. ARMSTRONG, Hibernia.
- Dec. 4-14.
-
-
-
-
-FOOTNOTES:
-
-
-[1] _United States Statutes at Large_, vol. ii, p. 173.
-
-[2] _Senate Reports_, 9th Cong., 1st Sess., Rep. No. 195.
-
-[3] Keyser's Ridge.
-
-[4] The dates on which the three states gave their permission were:
-Pennsylvania, April 9, 1807; Maryland, 1806; Ohio, 1824.
-
-[5] Richardson (editor): _Messages and Papers of the Presidents_, vol.
-ii, p. 142.
-
-[6] Harriet Martineau's _Society in America_, vol. ii, pp. 31-35.
-
-[7] See Appropriation No. 27, in Appendix A.
-
-[8] For specimen advertisement for repairs see Appendix B.
-
-[9] The early official correspondence concerning the route of the road
-shows plainly that it was really built for the benefit of the
-Chillicothe and Cincinnati settlements, which embraced a large portion
-of Ohio's population. The opening of river traffic in the first two
-decades of the century, however, had the effect of throwing the line of
-the road further northward through the capitals of Ohio, Indiana, and
-Illinois. Zane's Trace, diverging from the Cumberland Road at
-Zanesville, played an important part in the development of southwestern
-Ohio, becoming the course of the Lancaster and Maysville Pike. See
-_Historic Highways of America_, vol. xi.
-
-[10] See Appropriation No. 14, in Appendix A.
-
-[11] See Appropriations Nos. 20 and 21, in Appendix A.
-
-[12] _Private Laws of the United States_, May 17, 1796.
-
-[13] _Springfield Pioneer_, August 1837; also _Ohio State Journal_,
-August 8, 1837.
-
-[14] Harriet Martineau's _Society in America_, vol. i, p. 17.
-
-[15] Wabash-Erie, Whitewater, and Indiana Central Canals and the Madison
-and Indianapolis Railway. Cf. Atwater's _Tour_, p. 31.
-
-[16] _Illinois in '37_, pp. 766-767. This was probably passenger and
-freight traffic as the mails went overland from the very first, until
-the building of railways.
-
-[17] _Ohio State Journal_, January 8, 1836.
-
-[18] _Laws of Pennsylvania_ (pamphlet), p. 500.
-
-[19] See Appropriation No. 27, in Appendix A.
-
-[20] _Laws of Ohio_, XXIX, p. 76. For specimen advertisement for bids
-for erection of tollgates in Ohio see Appendix D.
-
-[21] _Laws of Pennsylvania_ (pamphlet), p. 419.
-
-[22] _Id._, p. 523.
-
-[23] _Id._, p. 477.
-
-[24] _Laws of Ohio_, XXXIV, p. 41; XXV, p. 7.
-
-[25] _Id._, XXIII, p. 447.
-
-[26] _Id._, XLIII, p. 89.
-
-[27] _Laws of Pennsylvania_ (pamphlet), p. 477.
-
-[28] _Laws of Ohio_, XLIII, p. 140.
-
-[29] _Id._, LVIII, p. 140.
-
-[30] _Laws of Pennsylvania_ (pamphlet), p. 500.
-
-[31] _Laws of Ohio_, XXVI, p. 41.
-
-[32] _Id._
-
-[33] Concerning the celerity of opening the road after the completion of
-contracts, Captain Weaver, Superintendent in Ohio, made the following
-statement in his report of 1827:
-
-"Upon the first, second and third divisions, with a cover of metal of
-six inches in thickness, composed of stone reduced to particles of not
-more than four ounces in weight, the travel was admitted in the month of
-June last. Those divisions that lie eastward of the village of Fairview
-together embrace a distance of very nearly twenty-eight and a half
-miles, and were put under contract on the first of July, and first and
-thirty-first of August, 1825. This portion of the road has been, in
-pursuance of contracts made last fall and spring, covered with the third
-stratum of metal of three inches in thickness, and similarly reduced. On
-parts of this distance, say about five miles made up of detached pieces,
-the travel was admitted at the commencement of the last winter and has
-continued on to this time to render it compact and solid; it is very
-firm, elastic and smooth. The effect has been to dissipate the
-prejudices which existed very generally, in the minds of the citizens,
-against the McAdam system, and to establish full confidence over the
-former plan of constructing roads.
-
-"On the first day of July, the travel was admitted upon the fourth and
-fifth divisions, and upon the second, third, fourth, and fifth sections
-of the sixth division of the road, in its graduated state. This part of
-the line was put under contract on the eleventh day of September, 1826,
-terminating at a point three miles west of Cambridge, and embraces a
-distance of twenty-three and a half miles. On the twenty-first of July
-the balance of the line to Zanesville, comprising a distance of a little
-over twenty-one miles, was let."
-
-[34] _Laws of Pennsylvania_ (pamphlet), p. 419.
-
-[35] _Laws of Ohio_, XXVI, p. 41; _Laws of Pennsylvania_ (pamphlet), p.
-102.
-
-[36] _Id._, XXVI, p. 41.
-
-[37] Tolls for 1845 were based on number of horses, each additional
-horse being taxed about .20. Tolls for 1900 (in Franklin County) were
-practically identical with tolls of 1845.
-
-[38] _Laws of Ohio_, XXX, p. 321.
-
-[39] _Id._, XXX, p. 8.
-
-[40] _Id._, XXXIV, p. 111.
-
-[41] _Id._, XLIII, p. 89.
-
-[42] _Laws of Pennsylvania_ (pamphlet), pp. 534, 164, 430-431.
-
-[43] _Laws of Ohio_, XXXV, p. 7.
-
-[44] _Laws of Pennsylvania_ (pamphlet), p. 353.
-
-[45] _Laws of Ohio_, XXX, p. 8.
-
-[46] _Id._, XXIX, p. 76.
-
-[47] _Id._, XXX, p. 8.
-
-[48] _Id._, XXX, p. 7.
-
-[49] _Id_., XXXII, p. 265; XXX, p. 7.
-
-[50] Searight's _The Old Pike_, p. 298.
-
-[51] _Id._, pp. 362-366.
-
-[52] _Id._, pp. 367-370.
-
-[53] _Laws of Ohio_, LII, p. 126.
-
-[54] _Id._, LVI, p. 159.
-
-[55] _Id._, LXX, p. 194.
-
-[56] _Id._, LXXIII, p. 105.
-
-[57] _Laws of Ohio_, LXXIV, p. 62.
-
-[58] _Report of the Superintendent of the National Road, with Abstract
-of Tolls for the fiscal year_ (1837).
-
-[59] _Laws of Ohio_, XXX, p. 8.
-
-[60] Thackeray's _The Newcomes_, vol. i, ch. x.
-
-[61] In one instance a struggle between two stagecoach lines in Indiana
-resulted in carrying passengers from Richmond to Cincinnati for fifty
-cents. The regular price was five dollars.
-
-[62] An old Ohio National Stage driver, Mr. Samuel B. Baker of
-Kirkersville, Ohio, is authority for the statement that the Ohio
-National Stage Company put a line of stages on the Wooster-Wheeling mail
-and freight route and "ran out" the line which had been doing all the
-business previously, after an eight months' bitter contest.
-
-[63] The following appeared in the _Ohio State Journal_ of August 12,
-1837: "A SPLENDID COACH--We have looked at a Coach now finishing off in
-the shop of Messrs. Evans & Pinney of this city, for the Ohio Stage
-Company, and intended we believe for the inspection of the Post-Master
-General, who sometime since offered premiums for models of the most
-approved construction, which is certainly one of the most perfect and
-splendid specimens of workmanship in this line that we have ever beheld,
-and would be a credit to any Coach Manufactory in the United States. It
-is aimed, in its construction, to secure the mail in the safest manner
-possible, under lock and key, and to accommodate three outside
-passengers under a comfortable and complete protection from the weather.
-It is worth going to see."
-
-[64] Before the era of the Cumberland Road the price for hauling the
-goods of emigrants over Braddock's Road was very high. One emigrant paid
-$5.33 per hundred for hauling "women and goods" from Alexandria,
-Virginia, to the Monongahela. Six dollars per hundredweight was charged
-one emigrant from Hagerstown, Maryland, to Terre Haute, Indiana.
-
-[65] _Ohio State Journal_, February 9, 1838. "The land mail between this
-and Detroit crawls with snails pace."--_Cleveland Gazette_, August 31,
-1837. Cf. _Historic Highways of America_, vol. i., p. 29.
-
-[66] The northern and southern Ohio mails connected with the Great
-Eastern and Great Western mails at Columbus. They were operated as
-follows:
-
-NORTHERN MAIL: Left Sandusky City 4 A. M., reached Delaware 8 P. M. Left
-Delaware next day 3 A. M., reached Columbus 8 A. M. Left Columbus 8:30
-A. M., reached Chillicothe 4 P. M. Left Chillicothe next day 4 A. M.,
-reached Portsmouth 3 P. M.
-
-SOUTHERN MAIL: Left Portsmouth 9 A. M., Chillicothe 5 P. M., Columbus 1
-P. M., day following. Delaware 7 P. M., Sandusky City 7 P. M. day
-following. A Cleveland mail left Cleveland daily for Columbus via
-Wooster and Mt. Vernon at 3 A. M. and reached Columbus on the day
-following at 5 P. M., returning the mail left Columbus at 4 A. M. and
-reached Cleveland at 5 P. M. on the ensuing day.
-
-[67] "The extreme irregularity which has attended the transmission of
-newspapers from one place to another for several months past has been a
-subject of general complaint with the editors of all parties. It was to
-have been expected that, after the adjournment of Congress, the evil
-would have ceased to exist. Such, however, is not the case. Although the
-roads are now pretty good, and the mails arrive in due season, our
-eastern exchange papers seem to reach us only by chance. On Tuesday
-last, for instance, we received, among others, the following, viz., _The
-New York Courier_ and _Enquirer_ of March 1, 5 and 19; the _Philadelphia
-Times_ and _Saturday Evening Post_ of March 2; the _United States
-Gazette_ of March 6; and the _New Jersey Journal_ of March 5 and 19. The
-cause of this irregularity, we have reason to believe, does not
-originate in this state."--_Ohio State Journal_, March 30, 1833.
-
-[68] _Ohio State Journal_, August 9, 1837
-
-[69] It may be found upon investigation that the portions of our country
-most noted for hospitality are those where taverns gained the least hold
-as a social institution. Cf. Allen's _The Blue Grass Region of
-Kentucky_, p. 38.
-
-[70] The Virginian House of Burgesses met in the old Raleigh Tavern at
-Williamsburg, in 1773. (Woodrow Wilson's _George Washington_, p. 146.)
-
-[71] For advertisement of sale of a Cumberland Road tavern see Appendix
-D.
-
-[72] Mr. Edward P. Pressey in _New England Magazine_, vol. xxii, no. 6
-(August, 1900).
-
-[73] Grahame's _The Golden Age_, p. 155.
-
-[74] "The proper limits of the road are hereby defined to be a space of
-eighty feet in width--forty feet on each side of the center of the
-graded road-bed."--Law passed April 18, 1870, _Laws of Ohio_, LVIII, p.
-140.
-
-[75] Everett's _Speeches and Orations_, vol. i, p. 202.
-
-
- * * * * *
-
-
-Transcriber's Notes:
-
-1. Passages in italics are surrounded by _underscores_.
-
-2. Obvious errors in spelling and punctuation have been corrected.
-
-3. Footnotes have been moved to the end of the main text body.
-
-4. Images have been moved from the middle of a paragraph to the closest
-paragraph break.
-
-5. Certain words use an oe ligature in the original.
-
-
-
-
-
-
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