The Road and the Roadside Part 1

The Road and the Roadside.

by Burton Willis Potter.

PREFACE.

The chapters of this book relating to the laws of public and private ways were written and read as a lecture at the Country Meeting of the Ma.s.sachusetts Board of Agriculture, in December, 1885, at Framingham, and have since been published in the "Report on the Agriculture of Ma.s.sachusetts for the Year 1885."

The laws as herein stated are, as I believe, the present laws of Ma.s.sachusetts relative to public and private ways, and therefore they may not all be applicable to the ways in other States; but inasmuch as the common law is the basis of the road law in all the States, it will be found that the general principles herein laid down are as applicable in one State as in another.

Believing that good roads and the love of rural life are essential to the true happiness and lasting prosperity of any people, these pages have been written with the sincere desire to do something to improve our roads and to encourage country life; and they are now given to the public with the hope that they will exert some little influence in promoting these objects.

B. W. P.

WORCESTER, Ma.s.s., _May, 1886_.

THE ROAD

AND

THE ROADSIDE.

CHAPTER I.

HISTORY, IMPORTANCE, AND SIGNIFICANCE OF ROADS.

The development of the means of communication between different communities, peoples, and races has ever been coexistent with the progress of civilization. Lord Macaulay declares that of all inventions, the alphabet and printing-press alone excepted, those inventions which abridge distance have done most for the civilization of our species. Every improvement of the means of locomotion benefits mankind morally and intellectually as well as materially.

"The road," Bushnell says, "is that physical sign or symbol by which you will best understand any age or people. If they have no roads, they are savages; for the road is the creation of man and a type of civilized society. If you wish to know whether society is stagnant, learning scholastic, religion a dead formality, you may learn something by going into universities and libraries, something also by the work that is doing on cathedrals and churches or in them, but quite as much by looking at the roads; for if there is any motion in society, the road, which is the symbol of motion, will indicate the fact."

As roads are the symbols of progress, so, according to the philosophy of Carlyle, they should only be used by working and progressive people, as he a.s.serts that the public highways ought not to be occupied by people demonstrating that motion is impossible. Hence, when we trace back the history of the race to the dawn of civilization, we find that the first sponsors of art and science, commerce and manufacture, education and government, were the builders and supporters of public highways.

The two most ancient civilizations situated in the valleys of the Nile and the Euphrates were connected by a commercial and military highway leading from Babylon to Memphis, along which pa.s.sed the war chariots and the armies of the great chieftains and military kings of ancient days, and over which were carried the gems, the gold, the spices, the ivories, the textile fabrics, and all the curious and unrivalled productions of the luxurious Orient. On the line of this roadway arose Nineveh, Palmyra, Damascus, Tyre, Antioch, and other great commercial cities.

On the southern sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean the Carthaginians built up and consolidated an empire so prominent in military and naval achievements and in the arts and industries of civilized life, that for four hundred years it was able to hold its own against the preponderance of Greece and Rome; and as might have been expected, they were systematic and scientific road-makers from whom the Romans learned the art of road-building.

The Romans were apt scholars, and possessed a wonderful capacity not only to utilize prior inventions but also to develop them. They were beyond question the most successful and masterful road-builders in the ancient world; and the perfection of their highways was one of the most potent causes of their superiority in progress and civilization. When they conquered a province they not only annexed it politically, by imposing on its people their laws and system of government, but they annexed it socially and commercially, by the construction of good roads from its chief places to one or more of the great roadways which brought them in easy and direct communication with the metropolis of the Roman world. And when their territory reached from the remote east to the farthest west, and a hundred millions of people acknowledged their military and political supremacy, their capital city was in the centre of such a network of highways that it was then a common saying, "All roads lead to Rome." From the forum of Rome a broad and magnificent highway ran out towards every province of the empire. It was terraced up with sand, gravel, and cement, and covered with stones and granite, and followed in a direct line without regard to the configuration of the country, pa.s.sing over or under mountains and across streams and lakes, on arches of solid masonry. The military roads were under the pretors, and were called pretorian roads; and the public roads for travel and commercial traffic were under the consuls, and were called consular roads. These roads were kept entirely distinct; the pretorian roads were used for the marching of armies and the transportation of military supplies, and the consular roads were used for traffic and general travel. They were frequently laid out alongside of each other from place to place, very much as railroads and highways are now found side by side. The consular roads were generally twelve feet wide in the travelled pathway, with a raised footway on the side; but sometimes the footway was in the middle of the road, with a carriage-way on each side of it. The military roads were generally sixty feet wide, with an elevated centre, twenty feet wide, and slopes upon either side, also twenty feet wide. Stirrups were not then invented, and mounting stones or blocks were necessary accommodations; and hence the lines of the roads were studded with mounting-blocks and also with milestones. Some of these roads could be travelled to the north and eastward two thousand miles; and they were kept in such good repair that a traveller thereon, by using relays of horses, which were kept on the road, could easily make a hundred miles a day. Far as the eye could see stretched those symbols of her all-conquering and all-attaining influence, which made the most distant provinces a part of her dominions, and connected them with her imperial capital by imperial highways.

The Romans not only had great public highways, but they possessed a complete and systematic network of cross-roads, which connected villages, and brought into communication therewith cultivated farms and prosperous homesteads. In Italy alone it is estimated that they had about fourteen thousand miles of good roads. Their laws relating to the construction and maintenance of highways were founded in reason and a just conception of the uses and objects of public ways; and they are the basis of modern highway legislation. By their law the roads were for the public use and convenience, and their emperors, consuls, and other public officials were their conservators. They were built at the public expense, under the supervision of professional engineers and surveyors, and kept in repair by the districts and provinces through which they pa.s.sed.

But during the dark ages, when arts were lost, when popular learning disappeared or found shelter only in cloisters and convents, when commercial intercourse between nations vanished, and when civilization itself lay fallen and inert, these magnificent Roman roads were unused and left to the destructive agencies of time and the elements of Nature. Rains and floods washed away and inundated their embankments; forests and rank vegetation overgrew and concealed them; winds covered them with dust and heaps of sand; and little by little in the process of ages their hard surfaces and ma.s.sive foundations were somewhat broken and caused to partially decay. That their remains still exist in every part of the world which ever bore up the Roman legions is conclusive evidence that they were built by master workmen who realized that they were responsible to posterity and to the eternal powers.

"In the elder days of Art Builders wrought with greatest care Each minute and unseen part; For the G.o.ds see everywhere."

In China, at one time, labor was so abundant that it was kept employed in constructing great walls and ponderous roads. The road-bed was raised several feet above the level of the ground by an acc.u.mulation of great stones, and then covered with huge granite blocks. It was found that in time the wheels of vehicles wore deep ruts in the stones, while the travelled part of the road became so smooth that it was almost impossible for animals to stand thereon.

In the ancient empires of Mexico and Peru, where there were no beasts fit for draught or for riding, magnificent roads were constructed for the treble purpose of facilitating the march of armies, accommodating the public traffic, and ministering to the convenience and luxury of the lordly rulers. In Peru two of these roads were from fifteen hundred to two thousand miles long, extending from Quito to Chili,--one by the borders of the ocean, and the other over the grand plateau by the mountains. Prescott says: "The road over the plateau was conducted over pathless sierras buried in snow; galleries were cut for leagues through the living rock; rivers were crossed by means of bridges that swung suspended in the air; precipices were scaled by stairways hewn out of the native bed; ravines of hideous depth were filled up with solid masonry; in short, all the difficulties that beset a wild and mountainous region, and which might appall the most courageous engineer of modern times, were encountered and successfully overcome. Stone pillars in the manner of European milestones were erected at stated intervals of somewhat more than a league all along the route. Its breadth scarcely exceeded twenty feet. It was built of heavy flags of freestone, and in some parts, at least, covered with a bituminous cement, which time has made harder than the stone itself. In some places where the ravines had been filled up with masonry, the mountain torrents, wearing on it for ages, have gradually eaten a way through the base, and left the superinc.u.mbent ma.s.s--such is the cohesion of the materials--still spanning the valley like an arch.

"Another great road of the Incas lay through the level country between the Andes and the ocean. It was constructed in a different manner, as demanded by the nature of the ground, which was for the most part low, and much of it sandy. The causeway was raised on a high embankment of earth, and defended on either side by a parapet or wall of clay; and trees and odoriferous shrubs were planted along the margin, regaling the sense of the traveller with their perfume, and refreshing him by their shades, so grateful under the burning sky of the tropics.

"The care of the great roads was committed to the districts through which they pa.s.sed, and a large number of hands was constantly employed to keep them in repair. This was the more easily done in a country where the mode of travelling was altogether on foot; though the roads are said to have been so nicely constructed that a carriage might have rolled over them as securely as on any of the great roads of Europe.

Still, in a region where the elements of fire and water are both actively at work in the business of destruction, they must without constant supervision have gradually gone to decay. Such has been their fate under the Spanish conquerors, who took no care to enforce the admirable system for their preservation adopted by the Incas. Yet the broken portions that still survive here and there, like the fragments of the great Roman roads scattered over Europe, bear evidence of their primitive grandeur, and have drawn forth eulogium from the discriminating traveller; for Humboldt, usually not profuse in his panegyrics, says, 'The roads of the Incas were among the most useful and stupendous works ever executed by man.'"

With the revival of human thought and civilization after the Middle Ages, the improvement of the roads engaged the attention of public and scientific men, and became once more an object of government; but for a long time the rulers who concerned themselves about roads thought more about repressing the crimes of violence and extortion thereon than they did about improving their condition for travel. The first act of the English Parliament relative to the improvement of roads in the kingdom was in 1523; yet in 1685 most of the roads in England were in a deplorable condition.

Macaulay says that on the best highways at that time the ruts were deep, the descents precipitous, and the way often such that it was hardly possible to distinguish it in the dark from the unenclosed heath and fen which lay on both sides. It was only in fine weather that the whole breadth of the road was available for wheeled vehicles; often the mud lay deep on the right and on the left, and only a narrow track of firm ground rose above the quagmire. It happened almost every day that coaches stuck fast until a team of cattle could be procured from some neighboring farm to tug them out of the slough. But to the honor of England, this condition of her roads was not allowed to continue very long. Although her progress in trade and prosperity has been marvellously rapid, yet such progress can be measured by the improvement of her roads, which are now unsurpa.s.sed anywhere in the world.

Beyond question, internal communications are of vital importance to every nation, and good roads are a prime necessity to every town or city. A good road is always a source of comfort and pleasure to every traveller. It is also a source of great saving each year in the wear and tear of horse-flesh, vehicles, and harnesses. Good roads to market and neighbors increase the price of farm produce, and bring people into business relations and good fellowship, and thereby enhance in value every homestead situated in their neighborhood. They cause a proper distribution of population between town and country. For many years in this country there has been a movement of population from the rural districts into the cities and manufacturing villages. Many ancestral homesteads have been deserted for promising "fresh woods and pastures new" in the commercial world. This centralization of population is evidently a violation of economic laws, and when carried too far results in business depression, in the multiplication of tramps, and in the origination and development of industrial and social troubles. The remedy for this state of affairs is found in the readjustment and proper distribution of population between town and country. When men, sick of waiting on waning business prospects, turn to the soil as their only refuge from non-employment and surplus productions of factories, and reoccupy and rehabilitate deserted or run-down farms, then business revives, and the wheels of industry and enterprise revolve steadily and with increased velocity at each revolution. Bad roads have a tendency to make the country disagreeable as a dwelling-place, and a town which is noted for its bad roads is shunned by people in search of rural homes. On the other hand, good roads have a tendency to make the country a desirable dwelling-place, and a town which is noted for its good roads becomes the abode of people of taste, wealth, and intelligence. Hence it behooves every town to make itself a desirable place of residence; for many people are always puzzling themselves over the problem of where and how to live, and those towns which have their floors swept and garnished and their lamps trimmed and burning ready to receive the bride and bridegroom, will be most likely to attract within their borders the seekers of farm life and rural homes. We now live in the city and go to the country; but we should live in the country and go to the city. This is "a consummation devoutly to be wished;" but it can never be brought about until good roads connect the cities and villages with the green fields and beautiful scenery of the country.

All money and labor expended upon them result immediately in a convenience and benefit to the whole community. Every one should deem it an honor to be able to do anything to improve and beautify the highways of his town. The Lacedemonian kings were _ex officio_ highway surveyors, and among the Thebans the most ill.u.s.trious citizens were proud to hold that office; and a few years ago Horatio Seymour, of New York, said that his only remaining ambition for public life was to be regarded as the best path-master in Oneida County.

CHAPTER II.

LOCATION.

When a new road is laid out it is important that it should be located in the best attainable place, considering the natural formation of the surrounding country; for when a highway is once established it is impossible to say how long the tide of humanity and commercial traffic will seek pa.s.sage over it. While the ordinary processes of Nature--rain, thaw, and frost--are ever at work lowering the hills and mountains and filling up the valleys and lowlands, the public highways of a country remain in the same relative positions from age to age.

The great commercial and military highway which in the early dawn of Roman history led from the banks of the placid Euphrates to the banks of the many-mouthed Nile--over which Abraham once wended his weary steps on his way to Canaan, over which the hosts of Xerxes and the brave phalanxes of Alexander the Great once pa.s.sed in all the pride and glory of war, over which the wise men of the East probably journeyed in search of him who was born King of the Jews, over which Mary fled with Christ in her flight into Egypt, and along which the early Christians travelled as they went forth to preach the fatherhood of G.o.d and the brotherhood of men--is to-day the highway over which is carried on the overland intercourse between the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf.

Many of the present roads in Italy and the neighboring countries are identical with the roads over which Caesar, Cicero, and other Romans travelled in the olden days; and the modern British roads are the same, in many cases, as those used by the ancient Britons before the Anglo-Saxon conquest.

The law of the survival of the fittest is applicable to the location of roads, and any well-located road is liable to be used as a public way during the occupancy of the earth by the human race; and if it is not made famous by the pa.s.sage of ill.u.s.trious persons or sanctified by the footsteps of saints, yet it is liable to be travelled through coming ages by "mute inglorious Miltons" and by "care-enc.u.mbered men." It sometimes happens that men and women, in doing faithfully and well the nearest duty, perform work which turns out better than they expect.

"The hand that rounded Peter's dome, And groined the aisles of Christian Rome, Wrought in a sad sincerity;

He builded better than he knew."

The originators of many great reforms in law and religion, in working to establish principles applicable and needful to local issues, have thereby, unconsciously to themselves, established principles which have proved beneficial and applicable to the whole human race. In the stress of trying times we have discovered in the const.i.tution of our country latent powers which its framers never dreamed were there. Thus it is with the humble occupation of road-building. A road constructed for the convenience of some primitive community or to gratify the caprice of some rich man or lordly ruler becomes often in after years an Appian Way for public travel and commercial intercourse.

A road may be located in one of three ways. It may be laid out in a straight line by crossing lowlands in the mud and going over hills at steep grades. The ancient Britons, like the early settlers in this country, established their homesteads and villages on commanding situations, and ran their roads and bridle-paths in direct courses by their habitations. The Romans, possessors of great wealth and abundant slave-labor, built their military and public roads in direct lines from place to place, regardless of expense. In this way they shortened distances somewhat, but their roads must have been constructed at enormous expense in money and labor. Their roads were marvels of engineering skill and workmanship, which even now, after the lapse of eighteen centuries, impress every thoughtful observer with the idea that he is in the presence of the work of the immortals. They threw arched bridges of solid masonry over rivers and across ravines; they cut tunnels through mountains, and sometimes carried their roads underground for the sole purpose of shelter from the sun; they levelled heights and made deep cuts through hills; and when they came to a marsh they built a causeway high enough and strong enough to make it safe and dry at all seasons of the year. This mode of location is still followed in the Latin countries of Italy, France, and Spain, where many of the roads are identical with the old Roman roads.

The other mode of locating a highway is to seek the best attainable grade the country will permit of by winding through valleys and around and across hills. There is obviously one advantage to a perfectly straight road between two places: _it is the nearest route_. But this is about the only advantage a straight road has over a curved one. In a hilly country a straight road is frequently no shorter than a curved one, because the distance around a hill is generally no greater than over it, as the length of a pail-handle is the same whether it is vertical or in a horizontal position. In an uneven country a straight road with anything like the same grade as the curved road can only be constructed at enormous and unnecessary expense and labor. Even in a level country a road curved sufficiently to give variety of view and to conform to Hogarth's "line of beauty" is preferable to a perfectly straight road, which is always tedious to the traveller.

"The road the human being travels, That on which blessing comes and goes, doth follow The river's course, the valley's playful windings, Curves round the corn-field and the hill of vines."

Moreover, we are told by competent engineers that the difference in length between a straight and a slightly curved road is very small.

Thus, if a road between two places ten miles apart was made to curve so that the eye could nowhere see farther than a quarter of a mile of it at once, its length would exceed that of a perfectly straight road between the same points by only about one hundred and fifty yards.

But, in any event, in road-making mere straightness should always yield to a level grade, even if thereby the distance is greatly increased; for on a good grade a horse can draw rapidly and easily a load which it would be impossible for him to draw on a steep grade.