Historic Highways of America Volume XII Part 1

Historic Highways of America.

Vol. 12.

by Archer Butler Hulbert.

PREFACE

This volume is devoted to two great lines of pioneer movement, one through northern Virginia and the other through central New York. In the former case the Old Northwestern Turnpike is the key to the situation, and in the latter the famous Genesee Road, running westward from Utica, was of momentous importance.

A chapter is given to the Northwestern Turnpike, showing the movement which demanded a highway, and the legislative history which created it.

Then follow two chapters of travelers' experiences in the region covered. One of these is given to the _Journal of Thomas Wallcutt_ (1790) through northern Virginia and central Pennsylvania. Another chapter presents no less vivid descriptions from quite unknown travelers on the Virginian roads.

The Genesee Road is presented in chapter four as a legislative creation; the whole history of this famous avenue would be practically a history of central New York. To give the more vivid impression of personal experience a chapter is devoted to a portion of Thomas Bigelow's _Tour to Niagara Falls 1805_ over the Genesee Road in its earliest years, when the beautiful cities which now lie like a string of precious gems across this route were just springing into existence. For a chapter on the important "Catskill Turnpike," which gives much information of road-building in central New York, we are indebted to Francis Whiting Halsey's _The Old New York Frontier_.

The final chapter of the volume includes a number of selections from the spicy, brilliant descriptions of pioneer traveling in America which d.i.c.kens left in his _American Notes_, and a few pages describing an early journey on Indian trails in Missouri from Charles Augustus Murray's _Travels in North America_.

A. B. H.

MARIETTA, OHIO, January 26, 1904.

Pioneer Roads and Experiences of Travelers

(Volume II)

CHAPTER I

THE OLD NORTHWESTERN TURNPIKE

We have treated of three historic highways in this series of monographs which found a way through the Appalachian uplift into the Mississippi Basin--Braddock's, Forbes's, and Boone's roads and their successors.

There were other means of access into that region. One, of which particular mention is to be made in this volume, dodged the mountains and ran around to the lakes by way of the Mohawk River and the Genesee country. Various minor routes pa.s.sed westward from the heads of the Susquehanna--one of them becoming famous as a railway route, but none becoming celebrated as roadways. From central and southern Virginia, routes, likewise to be followed by trunk railway lines, led onward toward the Mississippi Basin, but none, save only Boone's track, became of prime importance.

But while scanning carefully this mountain barrier, which for so long a period held back civilization on the Atlantic seaboard, there is found another route that was historic and deserves mention as influencing the westward movement of America. It was that roadway so well known three-fourths of a century ago as the Old Northwestern Turnpike, leading from Winchester, Virginia, to the Ohio River at Parkersburg, Virginia, now West Virginia, at the mouth of the Little Kanawha.

The earliest history of this route is of far more interest than importance, for the subject takes us back once more to Was.h.i.+ngton's early exploits and we feel again the fever of his wide dreams of internal communications which should make the Virginia waterways the inlet and outlet of all the trade of the rising West. It has been elsewhere outlined how the c.u.mberland Road was the actual resultant of Was.h.i.+ngton's hopes and plans. But it is in place in a sketch of the Old Northwestern Turnpike to state that Was.h.i.+ngton's actual plan of making the Potomac River all that the Erie Ca.n.a.l and the c.u.mberland Road became was never even faintly realized. His great object was attained--but not by means of his partisan plans.

It is very difficult to catch the exact old-time spirit of rivalry which existed among the American colonies and which always meant jealousy and sometimes bloodshed. In the fight between Virginia officers in Forbes's army in 1758 over the building of a new road through Pennsylvania to Fort Duquesne, instead of following Braddock's old road, is an historic example of this intense rivalry. A noted example, more easily explained, was the conflict and perennial quarrel between the Connecticut and Pennsylvania pioneers within the western extremity of the former colony's technical boundaries. That Was.h.i.+ngton was a Virginian is made very plain in a thousand instances in his life; and many times it is emphasized in such a way as must seem odd to all modern Americans. At a stroke of a pen he shows himself to be the broadest of Americans in his cla.s.sic Letter to Benjamin Harrison, 1784; in the next sentence he is urging Virginia to look well to her laurels lest New York, through the Hudson and Mohawk, and Pennsylvania, through the Susquehanna and Juniata, do what Virginia ought to do through her Potomac.

The powerful appeal made in this letter was the result of a journey of Was.h.i.+ngton's in the West which has not received all the attention from historians it perhaps deserves. This was a tour made in 1784 in the tangled mountainous region between the heads of the branches of the Potomac and those of the Monongahela.[1] Starting on his journey September 1, Was.h.i.+ngton intended visiting his western lands and returning home by way of the Great Kanawha and New Rivers, in order to view the connection which could be made there between the James and Great Kanawha Valleys. Indian hostilities, however, made it unwise for him to proceed even to the Great Kanawha, and the month was spent in northwestern Virginia.

On the second, Was.h.i.+ngton reached Leesburg, and on the third, Berkeley; here, at his brother's (Colonel Charles Was.h.i.+ngton's) he met a number of persons including General Morgan. "... one object of my journey being," his _Journal_ reads, "to obtain information of the nearest and best communication between the Eastern & Western Waters; & to facilitate as much as in me lay the Inland Navigation of the Potomack; I conversed a good deal with Gen^l. Morgan on this subject, who said, a plan was in contemplation to extend a Road from Winchester to the Western Waters, to avoid if possible an interference with any other State." It is to be observed that this was a polite way of saying that the road in contemplation must be wholly in Virginia, which was the only state to be "interfered" with or be benefited. "But I could not discover,"

Was.h.i.+ngton adds, "that Either himself, or others, were able to point it out with precision. He [Morgan] seemed to have no doubt but that the Counties of Freder^k., Berkeley & Hamps.h.i.+re would contribute freely towards the extension of the Navigation of Potomack; as well as towards opening a Road from East to West."

It should be observed that the only route across the mountains from northwestern Virginia to the Ohio River was Braddock's Road; for this road Was.h.i.+ngton was a champion in 1758, as against the central route Forbes built straight west from Bedford to Fort Duquesne.[2] Then, however, Braddock's Road, and even Fort Duquesne, was supposed to lie in Virginia. But when the Pennsylvania boundaries were fully outlined it was found that Braddock's Road lay in Pennsylvania. Was.h.i.+ngton now was seeking a new route to the West which would lie wholly in Virginia. The problem, historically, presents several interesting points which cannot be expanded here. Suffice it to say that Was.h.i.+ngton was the valiant champion of Braddock's Road until he found it lay wholly in Maryland and Pennsylvania.

Gaining no satisfaction from his friends at Berkeley, Was.h.i.+ngton pushed on to one Captain Stroad's, out fourteen odd miles on the road to Bath.

"I held much conversation with him," the traveler records of his visit at Stroad's, "the result ... was,--that there are two Glades which go under the denomination of the Great glades--one, on the Waters of Yohiogany, the other on those of Cheat River; & distinguished by the name of the Sandy Creek Glades.--that the Road to the first goes by the head of Patterson's Creek[3]--that from the acc^{ts}. he has had of it, it is rough; the distance he knows not.--that there is a way to the Sandy Creek Glades from the great crossing of Yohiogany (or Braddocks Road) [Smithfield, Pennsylvania] & a very good one; ..." At the town of Bath Was.h.i.+ngton met one Colonel Bruce who had traversed the country between the North Branch (as that tributary of the Potomac was widely known) and the Monongahela. "From Col^o. Bruce ... I was informed that he had travelled from the North Branch of Potomack to the Waters of Yaughiogany, and Monongahela--that the Potom^k. where it may be made Navigable--for instance where McCulloughs path crosses it, 40 Miles above the old fort [c.u.mberland], is but about 6 Miles to a pretty large branch of the Yohiogany ...--that the Waters of Sandy Creek which is a branch of cheat River, which is a branch of Monongahela, interlocks with these; and the Country between, flat--that he thinks (in order to ev^d.

[evade] pa.s.sing through the State of Pennsylvania) this would be an eligible Road using the ten Miles C^k. with a portage to the Navigable Waters of the little Kanhawa; ..."

This was the basis of Was.h.i.+ngton's plan of internal communication from Potomac; he now pressed forward to find if it were possible to connect the Youghiogheny and North Branch of the Potomac, the Youghiogheny and Monongahela, and the Monongahela and Little Kanawha. Of course the plan was impossible, but the patient man floundered on through the foothills and mountains over what was approximately the course mentioned, the "McCullough's Path" and Sandy Creek route from the Potomac to the Monongahela. In his explorations he found and traversed one of the earliest routes westward through this broken country immediately south of the well known resorts, Oakland and Deer Park, on the Baltimore and Ohio Railway. This was the "McCullough's" Path already mentioned. Having ascended the Monongahela River from near Brownsville, Pennsylvania, Was.h.i.+ngton, on September 24, arrived at a surveyor's office (the home of one Pierpoint) eight miles southward along the dividing ridge between the Monongahela and Cheat Rivers.[4] On the twenty-fifth--after a meeting with various inhabitants of the vicinity--he went plunging eastward toward the North Branch of the Potomac "along the New Road [which intersected Braddock's Road east of Winding Ridge] to Sandy Creek; & thence by McCullochs path to Logstons [on the North Branch of the Potomac] and accordingly set of [off] before Sunrise. Within 3 Miles I came to the river Cheat ab^t. 7 Miles from its Mouth--.... The Road from Morgan Town or Monongahela C^t. House, is said to be good to this ferry [Ice's]--distance ab^{t}. 6 Miles[5] ... from the ferry the Laurel Hill[6] is a.s.sended ... along the top of it the Road continues.... After crossing this hill the road is very good to the ford of Sandy Creek at one James Spurgeons,[7] ... ab^t. 15 Miles from Ice's ferry. At the crossing of this Creek McCullocks path, which owes its origen to Buffaloes, being no other than their tracks from one lick to another & consequently crooked & not well chosen, strikes off from the New Road.... From Spurgeon's to one Lemons, which is a little to the right of McCullochs path, is reckoned 9 Miles, and the way not bad; but from Lemons to the entrance of the Yohiogany glades[8] which is estimated 9 Miles more thro' a deep rich Soil ... and what is called the briery Mountain.[9] ... At the entrance of the above glades I lodged this night, with no other shelter or cover than my cloak. & was unlucky enough to have a heavy shower of Rain.... 26^{th}.... pa.s.sing along a small path ... loaded with Water ... we had an uncomfortable travel to one Charles friends[10] about 10 Miles.... A Mile before I came to Friends, I crossed the great Branch of Yohiogany.... Friend ... is a great Hunter.... From Friends I pa.s.sed by a spring (distant 3 Miles) called Archy's from a Man of that name--crossed the backbone[11] & descended into Ryans glade.[12]--Thence by Tho^s. Logston's ... to the foot of the backbone, about 5 Miles ... across the Ridge to Ryans glade one mile and half ...--to Joseph Logstons 1-1/2 Miles ...--to the N^o.

Branch at McCullochs path 2 Miles[13]--infamous road--and to Tho^s.

Logstons 4 more.... 27th. I left M^r. Logston's ...--at ten Miles I had ... gained the summit of the Alligany Mountain[14] and began to desend it where it is very steep and bad to the Waters of Pattersons Creek ... along the heads of these [tributaries], & crossing the Main [Patterson's] Creek & Mountain bearing the same name[15] (on the top of which at one Snails I dined) I came to Col^o. Abrah^m. Hites at Fort pleasant on the South Branch[16] about 35 Miles from Logstons a little before the Suns setting. My intention, when I set out from Logstons, was to take the Road to Rumney [Romney] by one Parkers but learning from my guide (Joseph Logston) when I came to the parting paths at the foot of the Alligany[17] (ab^t. 12 Miles) that it was very little further to go by Fort pleasant, I resolved to take that Rout ... to get information...."

This extract from Was.h.i.+ngton's journal gives us the most complete information obtainable of a region of country concerning which it is difficult to secure even present-day information. The drift of the pioneer tide had been on north and south lines here; the first-comers into these mountains wandered up the Monongahela and Youghiogheny Rivers and their tributaries. Even as early as the Old French War a few bold companies of men had sifted into the dark valleys of the Cheat and Youghiogheny.[18] That it was a difficult country to reach is proved by the fact that certain early adventurers in this region were deserters from Fort Pitt. They were safe here! A similar movement up the two branches of the Potomac had created a number of settlements there--far up where the waters ran clear and swift amid the mountain fogs. But there had been less communication on east and west lines. It is easy to a.s.sume that McCulloch's path was the most important route across the ragged ridges, from one glade and valley to another. It is entirely probable that the New Road, to which Was.h.i.+ngton refers, was built for some distance on the buffalo trace which (though the earlier route) branched from the New Road. An old path ran eastward from Dunkard's Bottom of which Was.h.i.+ngton says: "... being ... discouraged ... from attempting to return [to the Potomac] by the way of Dunkars Bottom, as the path it is said is very blind & exceedingly grown up with briers, I resolved to try the other Rout, along the New Road ..." as quoted on page 21. The growth of such towns as c.u.mberland and Morgantown had made a demand for more northerly routes. The whole road-building idea in these parts in the last quarter of the eighteenth century was to connect the towns that were then springing into existence, especially Morgantown and Clarksburg with c.u.mberland. Was.h.i.+ngton's dream of a connected waterway was, of course, hopelessly chimerical, and after him no one pushed the subject of a highway of any kind between the East and the West through Virginia. Was.h.i.+ngton's own plans materialized in the Potomac Navigation Company, and his highway, that should be a strong link in the chain of Federal Union between the improved Potomac and the Ohio, became the c.u.mberland Road; and it ran just where he did not care to see it--through Maryland and Pennsylvania. Yet it accomplished his first high purpose of welding the Union together, and was a fruit of that patriotic letter to Governor Harrison written a few days after Was.h.i.+ngton pushed his way through the wet paths of the Cheat and Youghiogheny Valleys in 1784.

These first routes across the mountains south of the c.u.mberland Road--in Virginia--were, as noted, largely those of wild beasts. "It has been observed before," wrote Was.h.i.+ngton in recapitulation, "to what fortuitous circ.u.mstances the paths of this Country owe their being, & how much the ways may be better chosen by a proper investigation of it; ..." In many instances the new roads built hereabouts in later days were shorter than the earlier courses; however it remains true here, as elsewhere, that the strategic geographical positions were found by the buffalo and Indian, and white men have followed them there unwaveringly with turnpike and railway.

When Was.h.i.+ngton crossed the North Branch of the Potomac on the 26th of October, 1784 at "McCullochs crossing," he was on the track of what should be, a generation later, the Virginian highway across the Appalachian system into the Ohio Basin. Oddly enough Virginia had done everything, it may truthfully be said, toward building Braddock's Road to the Ohio in 1755, and, in 1758, had done as much as any colony toward building Forbes's Road. All told, Virginia had accomplished more in the way of road-building into the old Central West by 1760 than all other colonies put together. Yet, as it turned out, not one inch of either of these great thoroughfares lay in Virginia territory when independence was secured and the individual states began their struggle for existence in those "critical" after-hours. These buffalo paths through her western mountains were her only routes; they coursed through what was largely an uninhabited region, and which remains such today. Yet it was inevitable that a way should be hewn here through Virginia to the Ohio; the call from the West, the hosts of pioneers, the need of a state way of communication, all these and more, made it sure that a Virginia Turnpike should cross the mountains.

Before that day arrived the c.u.mberland Road was proposed, built, and completed, not only to the Ohio River, but almost to the western boundary of the state of Ohio; its famous successor of another generation, the Baltimore and Ohio Railway, was undertaken in 1825.

These movements stirred northern Virginians to action and on the twenty-seventh of February, 1827, the General a.s.sembly pa.s.sed an act "to incorporate the North-western Road Company."

Sections 1, 3, 4, and 5 of this Act are as follows:

"1. _Be it enacted by the General a.s.sembly of Virginia_, That books shall be opened at the town of Winchester, in Frederick county, under the direction of Josiah Lockhart, William Wood, George S. Lane, Abraham Miller, and Charles Brent, or any two of them; at Romney, in Hamps.h.i.+re county, under the direction of William Naylor, William Donaldson, John M'Dowell, Robert Sherrard, and Thomas Slane, or any two of them; at Moorfield, in Hardy county, under the direction of Isaac Van Meter, Daniel M'Neil, Benjamin Fawcett, Samuel M'Machen, and John G. Harness, or any two of them; at Beverly, in Randolph county, under the direction of Eli Butcher, Squire Bosworth, Jonas Crane, Andrew Crawford, and William Cooper, or any two of them; at Kingwood, in Preston county, under the direction of William Sigler, William Johnson, William Price, Charles Byrne, and Thomas Brown, or any two of them; at Pruntytown, in Harrison county, under the direction of Abraham Smith, Frederick Burdett, Thomas Gethrop, Cornelius Reynolds, and Stephen Neill, or any two of them; at Clarksburg, in Harrison county, under the direction of John L. Sehon, John Sommerville, John Webster, Jacob Stealy, and Phineas Chapin, or any two of them; and at Parkersburg, in Wood county, under the direction of Jonas Beason, Joseph Tomlinson, Tillinghast Cook, James H. Neal, and Abraham Samuels, or any two of them, for purpose of receiving subscriptions to a capital stock of seventy-five thousand dollars, in shares of twenty dollars, to be appropriated to the making of a road from Winchester to some proper place on the Ohio river, between the mouths of Muskingum, and Little Kanawha rivers, according to the provisions of this act....

"3. The proceedings of the first general meeting of the stockholders, shall be preserved with subsequent proceedings of the company, all of which shall be entered of record in well bound books to be kept for that purpose: And from and after the first appointment of directors, the said responsible subscribers, their heirs and a.s.signs, shall be, and they are hereby declared to be, a body politic and corporate, by the name of 'The North western Road Company;' ...

"4. It shall be the duty of the Princ.i.p.al Engineer of the State, as soon as existing engagements will permit, to prescribe such plans or schemes for making the whole road, or the several parts or sections thereof, as he shall think best calculated to further its most proper and speedy completion, and to locate and graduate the same, or part or parts thereof, from time to time, make estimates of the probable cost of making each five miles, (or any shorter sections,) so located and graduated, and to make report thereof to the Board of Public Works at such time or times as shall be convenient.

"5. The said president and directors shall, from time to time, make all contracts necessary for the completion of the said road, and shall require from subscribers equal advances and payments on their shares, and they shall have power to compel payments by the sale of delinquent shares, in such a manner as shall be prescribed by their by-laws, and transfer the same to purchasers: _Provided_, That if any subscriber shall at any time be a contractor for making any part of the said road, or in any other manner become a creditor of the company, he shall be ent.i.tled to a proper set-off in the payment of his stock, or any requisition made thereon...."[19]

A mistake which doomed these plans to failure was in arbitrarily outlining a road by way of the important towns without due consideration of the nature of the country between them. The mountains were not to be thus mocked; even the buffalo had not found an east and west path here easily. As noted, the towns where subscriptions were opened were Winchester, Romney, Moorefield, Beverly, Kingwood, Pruntytown, Clarksburg, and Parkersburg. When the engineers got through Hamps.h.i.+re County by way of Mill Creek Gap in Mill Creek Mountain and on into Preston County, insurmountable obstacles were encountered and it was reported that the road would never reach Kingwood. From that moment the North-western Road Company stock began to languish; only the intervention of the state saved the enterprise. However, in 1831, a new and very remarkable act was pa.s.sed by the Virginia a.s.sembly organizing a road company that stands unique in a road-building age. This was "An act to provide for the construction of a turnpike road from Winchester to some point on the Ohio river." The governor was made president of the company and he with the treasurer, attorney-general, and second auditor const.i.tuted the board of directors. The 1st, 2d, and 4th sections of this interesting law are as follows:

"1. _Be it enacted by the general a.s.sembly_, That the governor, treasurer, attorney general, and second auditor of the commonwealth for the time being, and their successors, are hereby const.i.tuted a body politic and corporate, under the denomination of 'The President and Directors of the North-Western Turnpike Road,' with power to sue and be sued, plead and be impleaded, and to hold lands and tenements, goods and chattels, and the same to sell, dispose of, or improve, in trust for the commonwealth, for the purposes hereinafter mentioned. And three of the said commissioners shall const.i.tute a board for the transaction of such business as is hereby entrusted to them; of which board, when present, the governor shall be president: And they shall have power to appoint a clerk from without their own body, and make such distribution of their duties among themselves respectively, and such rules and regulations ... as to them may seem necessary....

"2. _Be it further enacted_, That the said president and directors of the North-Western turnpike road be, and they are hereby empowered as soon as may be necessary for the purposes herein declared, to borrow on the credit of the state, a sum or sums of money not exceeding one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, and at a rate of interest not exceeding six per centum per annum....

"4. _Be it further enacted_, That the said president and directors, out of the money hereby authorized to be borrowed, shall cause to be constructed a road from the town of Winchester, in the county of Frederick, to some point on the Ohio river, to be selected by the princ.i.p.al engineer. And for the purpose aforesaid, the princ.i.p.al engineer, as soon as may be after the pa.s.sage of this act, shall proceed to lay out and locate the said road from the points above designated. He shall graduate the said road in such manner that the acclivity or declivity thereof shall in no case exceed five degrees. The width of the said road may be varied, so that it shall not exceed eighteen feet, nor be less than twelve feet. Through level ground it shall be raised in the middle one-twenty-fourth part of its breadth, but in pa.s.sing along declivities it may be flat. Bridges, side ditches, gutters, and an artificial bed of stone or gravel, shall be dispensed with, except in such instances as the said princ.i.p.al engineer may deem them necessary...."[20]

Other sections stipulated that the state had the right to survey any and all routes the engineers desired to examine, and that persons suffering by loss of land or otherwise could, if proper application was made within one year, secure justice in the superior or county courts; that the company appoint a superintendent who should have in charge the letting of contracts after such were approved by the company; that, as each stretch of twenty miles was completed, toll gates could be erected thereon, where usual tolls could be collected by the company's agents, the total sum collected to be paid into the state treasury; that the company had the right to erect bridges, or in case a ferry was in operation, to make the ferryman keep his banks and boats in good condition; that the company make annual reports to the State Board of Public Works; and that the road be forever a public highway.

The roadway was now soon built. Not dependent upon the stock that might be taken in the larger towns, the road made peace with the mountains and was built through the southern part of Preston County in 1832, leaving Kingwood some miles to the north. Evansville was located in 1833, and owes its rise to the great road. The route of the road is through Hamps.h.i.+re, Mineral, Grant, Garrett, Preston, Taylor, Harrison, Doddridge, Ritchie, and Wood Counties, all West Virginia save Garrett which is in Maryland. Important as the route became to the rough, beautiful country which it crossed, it never became of national importance. Being started so late in the century, the Baltimore and Ohio Railway, which was completed to c.u.mberland in 1845, stopped in large part the busy scenes of the Old Northwestern Turnpike.

Yet to the historic inquirer the old turnpike, so long forgotten by the outside world, lies where it was built; and can fairly be said to be a monument of the last of those stirring days when Virginia planned to hold the West in fee. Hundreds of residents along this road recall the old days with intense delight. True, the vast amount of money spent on the c.u.mberland Road was not spent on its less renowned rival to the south, but the c.u.mberland Road was given over to the states through which it ran; and, in many instances, was so neglected that it was as poor a road as some of its less pretentious rivals. A great deal of business of a national character was done on the Northwestern Turnpike.

Parkersburg became one of the important entrepots in the Ohio Valley; as early as 1796, we shall soon see, a pioneer traversing the country through which the Northwestern Turnpike's predecessor coursed, speaks of an awakening in the Monongahela Valley that cannot be considered less than marvelous. Taking it through the years, few roads have remained of such constant benefit to the territory into which they ran, and today you will be told that no railway has benefited that mountainous district so much as this great thoroughfare.

But in a larger sense than any merely local one, Virginia counted on the Northwestern Turnpike to bind the state and connect its eastern metropolis with the great Ohio Valley. Virginia had given up, on demand, her great county of Kentucky when the wisdom of that movement was plain; at the call of the Nation, she had surrendered the t.i.tle her soldiers had given her to Illinois and the beautifully fertile Scioto Valley in Ohio. But after these great cessions she did not lose the rich Monongahela country. It had been explored by her adventurers, settled by her pioneers--and Virginia held dear to her heart her possessions along the upper Ohio. In the days when the Northwestern Turnpike was created by legislative act, ca.n.a.ls were not an a.s.sured success, and railways were only being dreamed of. And the promoters of ca.n.a.ls and railways were considered insane when they hinted that the mountains could be conquered by these means of transportation. With all the vast need for improvements, the genius of mankind had never created anything better than the road and the cart; what hope was there that now suddenly America should surprise the world by overthrowing the axioms of the centuries past?

And so, in the correct historical a.n.a.lysis, the Northwestern Turnpike must be considered Virginia's attempt to compete successfully with Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New York, in securing for herself a commanding portion of the trade of the West. In all the legislative history of the origin of the Northwestern Turnpike, it is continually clear that its origin was of more than local character. It was actually the last roadway built from the seaboard to the West in the hope of securing commercial superiority; and its decline and decay marks the end of pioneer road-building across the first great American "divide." In a moment the completion of the Erie Ca.n.a.l a.s.sured the nation that freight could be transported for long distances at one-tenth the cost that had prevailed on the old land highways. Soon after, the completion of the Pennsylvania Ca.n.a.l proved that the ca.n.a.l could successfully mount great heights--and Virginia forgot her roads in her interest in ca.n.a.ls.