CHAPTER XX.

THE NATIONAL ROAD.

The beginning of a new era of trade, travel, transportation and of material and social progress in Ohio dates from the construction of the Ohio Canal and the National Road. For the sake of topical continuity the latter will be here first considered.

In 1784 Philadelphia was the starting point of the only thoroughfare which made any pretensions to communication with the region then vaguely known as the Far West. After quitting the city and its neighboring settlements, its course, we are told, "lay through a broken, desolate and almost uninhabited country," and was supposed to be a turnpike by those who had never traveled it, but in reality was "merely a passable road, broad and level in the lowlands, narrow and dangerous in the passes of the mountains, and beset with steep declivities." Yet such was at that time the only highway between the Atlantic seaboard and the Mississippi. To the imagination the Alleghany chain of mountains then assumed the proportions of a tremendous barrier, separating those who passed beyond it from all connection, or hope of reunion, with their eastern friends.

To achieve the commercial conquest of this barrier, and extend into the great wilderness beyond it the domain of American civilization, were projects hindered and postponed by the poverty of national resources, yet none the less cherished by the earlier statesmen. With the tide of westward emigration which set in directly after the second war with Great Britain, and the resulting settlement and organization of new States beyond the Ohio, the opportunity for realizing these projects of extended and improved communication first began to dawn. What had before been a dream, then became a necessity, and quite as much so for political reasons as for economic. The utility of a great east and west wagonway, as a bond of union between the States, was no less obvious after the War of 1812 than was that of a great transcontinental railway after the War of 1861.

At the time of Ohio's birth, in 1803, the road, or rather trail, westward from Fort Cumberland crossed the mountains from Bedford, Pennsylvania, in two branches, which reunited with one another twentyeight miles west of Pittsburgh. The southern branch, known as the Glade Road, was that originally cut by General Braddock in his march on Fort Du Quésne, and passed through the dreary region of the great Savage Mountain then and since known as The Shades of Death. The northern branch was first opened by the British General Forbes when advancing against the same French stronghold in 1758, and therefore bore

the name of the Forbes Road. Both were rough, lonely, primitive, often beset with highwaymen and embellished to the imagination with startling tales of murder, robbery and accident. "The tavern signs, as if adapting themselves to the wild regions in which they hung, bore pictures of wolves and bears as emblems. High above the Alleghany summits the bald eagle soared."

As a preliminary step towards providing better facilities for communication. between the States east and the Territories west of the Alleghanies, the following clause was appended to the enabling act of April 30, 1802, by authority and in pursuance of which was organized the present State of Ohio:

That onetwentieth part of the nett proceeds of the lands lying within said state sold by Congress, from and after the thirtieth day of June next, after deducting all expenses incident to the same, shall be applied to the laying out and making public roads, leading from

the navigable waters emptying into the Atlantic, to the Ohio, to the said state, and through the same, such roads to be laid out under the authority of Congress with the consent of the several states through which the road shall pass.

This was followed by an act of March 29, 1806, authorizing the President to appoint three discreet and disinterested persons" to lay out a road from Cumberland, or some point on the Potomac, to the Ohio River at some point between. Steubenville and the mouth of Grave Creek. It was further provided in this act that, on receiving from the commissioners a satisfactory report and plan, the President might proceed to obtain the consent of the States through which the road would pass, and also take prompt and effective measures to have it built. As

to the construction, it was required that all parts of the road should be cleared to the width of four rods, that its surface should be "raised in the middle with stone, earth, or gravel and sand, or a combination of some or all of them," and that side ditches should be provided for carrying off the water. For the purpose of defraying the expense of laying out and making the road, the act appropriated the sum of thirty thousand dollars.

At the time this act and that of 1802 were passed, there was substantial unanimity among the leading contemporary statesmen of all shades of opinion in favor of giving national support to the building of roads and canals, and the improvement of navigable watercourses. Mr. Jefferson, who was then President, was no exception to this, but doubted whether the Constitution, strictly construed, would admit of the appropriation to such purposes of the public funds. He therefore suggested in his December message of 1806 such an amendment to the Constitution as would enable Congress to apply the surplus revenue "to the great purposes of public education, roads, rivers, canals, and such other objects of public improvement as may be thought proper."

The annals of Congress indicate that the original mover of this policy was Senator Worthington, of Ohio, but Mr. Clay, who entered the Senate in December, 1806, soon made himself its most conspicuous champion. He maintained not only that such a policy was desirable, but that it was already constitutionally authorized. His vigorous efforts were promptly seconded by public opinion, which found a voice in resolutions of the Ohio General Assembly, petitioning Congress as early. as 1817 for the construction of a great national highway between the East and West. Additional appropriations for the improvement, repair and extension of the Cumberland Road were therefore successively made as follows:

February 14, 1810, $60,000 for "making said road between Cumberland, in the State of Maryland, and Brownsville, in the State of Pennsylvania."

March 3, 1811, $30,000 to be reserved from the funds provided for by the enab

ling act of 1802, for the same purpose.

May 6, 1812, $30,000 for the same purpose, and from the same fund.

February 14, 1815, $100,000 from said fund, for building a road from Cumberland to the State of Ohio.

road.

April 14, 1818, $52,984.60, for liquidating unpaid claims on account of said

On May 15, 1820, an act was passed which recited in its preamble that "by continuation of the Cumberland Road from Wheeling through Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, the lands of the United States may become more valuable," and authorized the President to appoint three commissioners "to examine the country between Wheeling, in the State of Virginia, and a point on the left bank of the Mississippi River, to be chosen by the commissioners, between St. Louis and the mouth of the Illinois River," and lay out in a straight line from Wheeling to said point a road eighty feet wide, its course and boundaries to be "designated by marked trees, stakes, or other conspicuous monuments, at the distance of every quarter of a mile, and at every angle of deviation from a straight line." The commissioners were further required to deliver a report and plan of their work to the President.

From this act of May 15, 1820, dates the beginning of the extension of the Cumberland Road through Ohio to the West. In their report of January 3, 1821,

to the Secretary of the Treasury, the commissioners remark that the law limited the location of the road "through the intermediate country between the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to a direct line, with discretion only to deviate from such line where the ground and watercourses make it necessary." Strictly observing this requirement, the commissioners add, "in all probability neither of the seats of government of Ohio, Indiana or Illinois could be embraced by the location, although it has been ascertained that to carry the line through them all, commencing at Wheeling and ending at St. Louis, would not exceed in length a direct line between those points more than three miles."

But the supposed constitutional obstacles to the enterprise had not been surmounted. In May, 1822, President Monroe vetoed a bill to establish tollgates on the Cumberland Road, and accompanied his veto with an elaborate argument against the constitutional right of Congress to execute works of internal improvement, although admitting the power to aid such works from the National Treasury if constructed by the States. The same subject was brought forward again by a bill reported in January, 1824, authorizing the President to cause surveys, plans and estimates to be made for such roads, canals and like improvements as might be deemed necessary for postal, commercial or military purposes. To defray the expense of carrying out its purposes, this bill appropriated the sum of thirty thousand dollars. Eloquently and vigorously supported by Mr. Clay, it passed both houses of Congress, and was signed by President Monroe, who waived his objections to it on the ground that it only provided for the collection of information.

Although the particular measure thus enacted resulted in nothing more important than a few surveys, it was a turning-point in the history of the National, or as the statutes call it, the Cumberland Road, and thenceforward its extension through Ohio proceeded steadily. On the fifth of October, 1825, Jonathan Knight, engaged in locating the road from Zanesville westward, arrived in Columbus at the head of a corps of engineers, among whom was Joseph E. Johnston, afterwards one of the most distinguished generals of the Confederate Army. "We understand," says the Ohio State Journal in announcing this arrival, "that he [Knight] will return to Zanesville, and divide the line he has located into halfmile sections, and make estimates of the probable expense of constructing it. We are further informed that the line he will locate will be only about one mile longer than a straight line; that it goes about seven miles south of Newark, fourteen north of Lancaster, and intersects the canal about twentysix miles east of this place. No grade of the road, it is said, will exceed three degrees, except about fourteen miles of the hilly country near Zanesville, some of which will probably amount to four and a half.”

During the summer of 1826 Engineers Knight and Weaver, with their assistants, completed the permanent location of the road as far west as Zanesville, and made a preliminary survey of the line from Columbus west to Indianapolis. In Mr. Knight's report, laid before Congress during the winter of 1826 7, it was stated that between Zanesville and Columbus five different routes had been surveyed, that via Newark being the longest by two miles, twentyfive chains and fortyseven links, but having the lowest grade and being least expensive by $2,740. As to the location of the line westward from Columbus the Ohio State Journal says:4

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 purpose for several years to come. Thence the location passes through the village of Franklinton, and across the low grounds to the bluff which is surmounted at a depression formed by a ravine, and at a point nearly in the prolongation of the direction of Broad Street; thence, by a small angle, a straight line to the bluffs of Darby Creek; to pass the creek and its bluffs, some angles were necessary; thence nearly a straight line through Deer Creek Barrens, and across that stream to the dividing grounds between the Scioto and the Miami waters; thence nearly down the valley of Beaver Creek.

In June, 1827, the engineers left Columbus for the boundary of Indiana to locate the road through that State. At the same time it was announced that the grading between Wheeling and Cambridge had been nearly completed, and that the construction contracts as far west as Zanesville would soon be let.

The construction superintendent of the Ohio divisions of the road in 1827, was Caspar W. Weaver, whose report, for that year, to General Alexander McComb, Chief Engineer of the United States, contains the following statements indicative of the progress then being made in the work:

Upon the first, second and third divisions, with a cover of metal of six inches in thickness, composed of stone reduced to particles of not more than four ounces in weight, the travel was admitted in the month of June last. Those divisions that lie eastward of the village of Fairview together embrace a distance of very nearly twentyeight and a half miles, and were put under contract on the first of July, and first and thirtyfirst of August, 1825. This portion of the road has been, in pursuance of contracts made last fall and spring, covered with the third stratum of metal of three inches in thickness, and similarly reduced. On parts of this distance, say about five miles made up of detached pieces, the travel was admitted at the commencement of the last winter, and has continued on to this time. In those places where the cover has been under the travel a sufficient time to render it compact and solid, it is very firm, elastic and smooth. The effect has been to dissipate the prejudices which existed very generally, in the minds of the citizens, against the MacAdam system, and to establish full confidence over the former plan of constructing roads.

On the first day of last July, the travel was admitted upon the fourth and fifth divisions, and upon the second, third, fourth and fifth sections of the sixth division of the road, in its graduated state. This part of the line was put under contract on the eleventh day of September, 1826, terminating at a point three miles west of Cambridge, and embraces a distance of twentythree and a half miles. . . . On the twentyfirst of July the balance of the line to Zanesville, comprising a distance of a little over twentyone miles, was let. This letting of the road was taken at more regular and fairer prices than any former one.

The engineer concludes by recommending, in earnest words, that " a system or plan for the regular repair and preservation of the road should be early devised and adopted." This suggestion he reinforces with the remark that "that great monument of wisdom and beneficence of the General Government, the road from Cumberland through the Alleghany Mountains to the Ohio River, has nearly gone to destruction for want of that provident care and constant attention which it required, and its great utility claimed." The contentions which arose as to the choice of routes through Licking and Franklin Counties, caused considerable delay in the westward progress of the work, and seem to have assumed some political aspects, for in September, 1827, we find Mr. John Kilbourne, then a candidate for Congress, announcing that, as to "location of the National Road from Zanesville