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diff --git a/41041-0.txt b/41041-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fdc7cc9 --- /dev/null +++ b/41041-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3612 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41041 *** + +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 +Archæological 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, coëxtensive 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 +éclat 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 fêted 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. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Historic Highways of America (Vol. 10), by +Archer Butler Hulbert + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41041 *** |