FOOTNOTES:
[1] Diary of George Washington, Sept. 2 to Oct. 4, 1784.
[2] Cf. “Journal of Lieut. Robert Parker,” The Pennsylvania Magazine, vol. xxvii, No. 108, pp. 404-420.
[3] Historic Highways of America, vol. v, p. 93.
[4] Wisconsin Historical Collections, vol. xi, p. 230.
[5] Public Documents Relating to the New York Canals (New York, 1821), p. 312.
[6] Id., pp. 352-353.
[7] A Pedestrious Tour, by Estwick Evans.
[8] Historic Highways of America, vol. xiii, ch. 4.
[9] Watson’s Annals of Philadelphia, vol. i, p. 257.
[10] See “Hulme’s Journal” in W. Cobbett’s A Year’s Residence in the United States (1819), p. 490.
[11] D. Hewett’s American Traveller (1825), p. 222.
[11*] It is curious to note that while the introduction of coaches is said here to be injurious to the breed of horses, Macaulay, a century or so later, decried the passing of the coach and the old coaching days because this, too, meant the destruction of the breed of horses!—See Historic Highways of America, vol. x, p. 122.
[12] Florida Avenue is said to have been the first street laid out on the present site of Washington, D. C. As it is the most crooked of all the streets and avenues this is easy to believe.
[13] Retrospect of Western Travel, vol. i, pp. 88-89.
[14] Moore’s notes are as follows:
On “ridges” (line 3): “What Mr. Weld [an English traveler in America] says of the national necessity of balancing or trimming the stage, in passing over some of the wretched roads in America, is by no means exaggerated. ‘The driver frequently had to call to the passengers in the stage to lean out of the carriage, first on one side, then on the other, to prevent it from oversetting in the deep ruts, with which the road abounds. “Now, gentlemen, to the right!” upon which the passengers all stretched their bodies half out of the carriage to balance on that side. “Now, gentlemen, to the left!” and so on.’—Weld’s Travels.”
On “bridges” (line 4): “Before the stage can pass one of these bridges the driver is obliged to stop and arrange the loose planks, of which it is composed, in the manner that best suits his ideas of safety, and as the planks are again disturbed by the passing of the coach, the next travelers who arrive have, of course, a new arrangement to make. Mahomet, as Sale tells us, was at some pains to imagine a precarious kind of bridge for the entrance of paradise, in order to enhance the pleasures of arrival. A Virginia bridge, I think, would have answered his purpose completely.”
[15] Sketch of the Civil Engineering of North America, pp. 132-133.
[16] “The Oldest Turnpike in Pennsylvania,” by Edward B. Moore, in Philadelphia Press or Delaware County American, June 22, 1901; and “The Old Turnpike,” by A. E. Witmer in Lancaster County Historical Society Papers, vol. ii (November, 1897), pp. 67-86.
[17] Sherman Day, Historical Collections of the State of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1843).
[18] The rise of the Pennsylvania canal and railway system will be treated in chapter four of Historic Highways of America, vol. xiii.
[18*] For these and other facts concerning plank roads we are indebted to W. Kingsford’s History, Structure and Statistics of Plank Roads (1852).
[19] The [frontispiece] to this volume represents a mile-stone which was erected beside Braddock’s old road, near Frostburg, Maryland, during the Revolutionary War. On the reverse side it bears the legend, “Our Countrys Rights We Will Defend.” On the front these words can be traced: “[12 ?] Miles to Fort Cumberland 29 Miles to Capt Smith’s Inn & Bridge by Crossings. [Smithfield, Pennsylvania] the Best Road to Redstone Old Fort 64 M.” The stone was once taken away for building purposes and broken; the town authorities of Frostburg ordered it to be cemented, returned and set up on its old-time site.
[20] The Lancaster Turnpike.
[21] “In these stages,” as Brissot [Jean Pierre Brissot de Warville, New Travels in the United States (London, 1794)] observes, “you meet with men of all professions. The member of congress is placed by the side of the shoemaker who elected him; they fraternise together, and converse with familiarity. You see no person here take upon him those important airs which you too often meet with in England.”—Baily.
[22] It consists of several layers of large logs laid longitudinally, and parallel to each other, and covered at the top with earth.—Baily.
[23] The sleighs not making any noise when in motion over the snow, the horses are obliged by law to have little bells fastened around their necks, to warn foot-passengers of their approach.—Baily.
[24] I was in company with a gentleman of the name of Heighway, who was going down to the northwestern settlement to form a plantation.—Baily. See p. 144.
[25] By D. Hewett’s American Traveller, the principal points on the Washington-Pittsburg route are given as follows:
| Distance. | |
| Montgomery c. h. | 14. |
| Clarksburg | 13. |
| Monocasy River | 8. |
| Fredericktown | 7. |
| Hagerstown | 27. |
| Pennsylvania State line | 8. |
| M’Connell’stown | 20. |
| Junietta River | 17. |
| Bedford | 14. |
| Stoyestown | 27. |
| Summit of Laurel Hill | 13. |
| Greensburg | 26. |
| Pittsburg | 32. |
| —— | |
| Total | 226. |
[26] Mr. Hewett gives this note of Montgomery C. H.: “This village is also called Rockville. There is an extremely bad turnpike from Washington to this place, so much so, that the man who keeps the toll house, after having taken toll, recommends travellers to go the ola road.”—p. 51.
[27] All the inns and public-houses on the road are called taverns.—Baily.
[28] Clarksburg.
[29] Hagar’s-town is ten miles from Boone’s-town.—Baily.
[30] McDowell’s Mill.
[31] Mr. Heighway, an Englishman who settled now at Waynesville, Warren County, Ohio.—History of Warren County, Ohio (Chicago, 1882), p. 412.
[32] Historic Highways of America, vol. ii, p. 109.
[33] The patriot-pioneer of Wheeling, the first settlement on the Ohio River below Pittsburg, which he founded in 1769, and where he lived until 1811. He was born in Virginia in 1747.
[34] The importance of the historic entrepôt Limestone Mason County, Kentucky (later named Maysville from one of its first inhabitants) has been suggested in Volume IX of this series (pp. 70, 89, 128). It was the most important entrance point into Kentucky on its northeastern river shore-line. What it was in earliest days, because of the buffalo trail into the interior, it remained down through the earlier and later pioneer era to the time of the building of the trunk railway lines.
[35] United States Statutes at Large, Private Laws 1789-1845, inclusive, p. 27.
[36] American Pioneer, vol. i, p. 158.
[37] An exaggerated statement, yet much in accord with the truth, as we have previously observed.
[38] County seat of Adams County, Ohio.
[39] Evans and Stivers, History of Adams County, Ohio, p. 125.
[40] Wilcoxon’s clearing, Sinking Spring, Highland County, Ohio.—Id., p. 125.
[41] Id., p. 88.
[42] Society and Solitude, essay on “Civilization,” pp. 25-26.
[43] See Graham’s History of Fairfield and Perry Counties, Ohio, pp. 133-134.
[44] Bills & Resolutions, House Reps., 1st Sess., 21st Cong., Part 2, 1829 & ’30, H. R., p. 285.
[45] Richardson’s Messages and Papers of the Presidents, vol. ii, pp. 451, 452.
[46] Id., pp. 483-493.
[47] Reizenstein’s “The Economic History of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad,” Johns Hopkins Studies in Historical and Political Science, fifteenth series, vii-viii, p. 23.
[48] I cannot resist the opportunity of nailing to the counter a wretched fabrication of some traveller, who represents himself as dismounting at a Western house of entertainment, and inquiring the price of a dinner. The answer is, “Well, stranger—with wheat bread and chicken fixens, it would be fifty cents, but with corn bread and common doins, twenty-five cents.” The slang here used is of the writer’s own invention. No one ever heard in the West of “chicken fixens,” or “common doins.” On such occasions, the table is spread with everything that the house affords, or with whatever may be convenient, according to the means and temper of the entertainers. A meal is a meal, and the cost is the same, whether it be plentiful or otherwise.—Hall.