FeetSummit of Wills mountain581.3Western foot of same304.4Summit of Savage mountain2,022.24Savage river1,741.6Summit Little Savage mountain1,900.4Branch Pine Run, first Western water1,699.9Summit of Red Hill (afterwards called shades of death)1,914.3Summit Little Meadow mountain2,026.16Little Youghiogheny river1,322.6East Fork of Shade run1,558.92Summit of Negro mountain, highest point[3]2,328.12Middle branch of White’s creek, at the west foot of Negro mountain1,360.5White’s creek1,195.5Big Youghiogheny river645.5Summit of ridge between Youghiogheny river and Beaver waters1,514.5Beaver Run1,123.8Summit of Laurel Hill1,550.16Court House in Uniontown274.65A point ten feet above the surfaceof low water in the Monongahela river, at the mouth of Dunlap’s creek119.26
“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 Willsmountain, 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 passingon 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 ofeach 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.
Map of Cumberland Road in Pennsylvania and MarylandClick here for larger image sizeMap of Cumberland Road in Pennsylvania and Maryland
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A flood of traffic swept over the great highway immediately upon its completion. Asearly 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 powerto 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 levyingof 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 appropriationmade 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, befixed; 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.
Chestnut Ridge, PennsylvaniaChestnut 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, andraked 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 slopesof 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 forcarrying 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.
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 oldand 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 ofwhose 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 dollarswas 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 enthusiasmby 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 theroad 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 twopoints. 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 roadwas 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.
Map of Cumberland Road in the WestClick here for larger image sizeMap of Cumberland Road in the West
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Concerning the route out of Columbus, theOhio State Journalsaid:
“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 thecreek 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 fencesand 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 centurygrew, 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 overlandthrough 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 itwould 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 preservationand 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 thisend 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 ofthe 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.
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 byan 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 placedall 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 thosebusy 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 ofsuch 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]forpermitting 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)