Historic Highways of America Volume X Part 4

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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sengers by the tollgates free, taking advantage of the clauses allowing free pa.s.sage of the United States mail by putting a mail sack on each pa.s.senger 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 pa.s.sed a law that pa.s.sengers 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sage 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] Pa.s.sengers 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 pa.s.sengers in their stage, and in the event of failing to do so, gate-keepers were allowed to charge the company for as many pa.s.sengers as the stage could contain.[49]

Stage lines were permitted to compound for yearly pa.s.sage of stages over the road and the large companies took advantage of the provision, though the pa.s.sengers 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 c.u.mberland 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 t.i.the 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 t.i.the 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 c.u.mberland 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 c.u.mberland 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 c.u.mberland 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 pa.s.s 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, ca.n.a.ls, etc., in 1836 was about $50,000, while Ohio received a greater sum than that in 1838 from tolls on the c.u.mberland Road alone, and the road was not completed further west than Springfield.

A study of the amounts of tolls taken in from the c.u.mberland Road by the various states will show at once the volume of the business done. Ohio received from the c.u.mberland 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 c.u.mberland 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 s.p.a.ce of eighty feet in width, and where the road pa.s.sed over a street in any city of the second cla.s.s, 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 inst.i.tution. 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 c.u.mberland 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 pa.s.sed over its stately stretches and dusty coils as stage- and mail-coach drivers, express carriers and "wagoners," and the tens of thousands of pa.s.sengers 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 pa.s.sing years. Fancy a journey from St. Louis to New York in the old coaching days, over the c.u.mberland 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 pa.s.sing 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 inst.i.tution, the Ring was an inst.i.tution. 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.senger- 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 compet.i.tion extended into every phase of the business--fast horses, comfortable coaches, well-known and companionable drivers, favorable connections.

However, compet.i.tion, as is always the case, sifted the compet.i.tors down to a small number. Companies which operated upon the c.u.mberland Road between Indianapolis and c.u.mberland 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 c.u.mberland 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 c.u.mberland 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 princ.i.p.al 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 pa.s.sengers. Upon the driver's high outer seat was room for one more pa.s.senger, 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 c.u.mberland Road were long, awkward affairs, without braces or springs, and with seats placed crosswise. The door was in front, and pa.s.sengers, 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 pa.s.senger traffic of the c.u.mberland Road bore the same relation to the freight traffic as pa.s.senger 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 cla.s.s 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 a.s.sistance 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.s 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 compet.i.tion in this line."

Teamsters received good wages, especially when trade was brisk. From Brownsville to c.u.mberland they often received $1.25 a hundred; $2.25 per hundred has been paid for a load hauled from Wheeling to c.u.mberland.[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." Compet.i.tion 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 compet.i.tors 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.senger coaches were published as railway time-tables are today. The following is a c.u.mberland Road time-table printed at Columbus for the winter of 1835-1836: