Sec. 5. And be it further enacted, That said commissioners shall each receive four dollars per day, while employed as aforesaid, in full for their compensation, including all expenses. And they are hereby authorized to employ one surveyor, two chainmen and one marker, for whose faithfulness and accuracy they, the said commissioners, shall be responsible, to attend them in laying out said road, who shall receive in full satisfaction for their wages, including all expenses, the surveyor, three dollars per day, and each chainman and marker, one dollar per day, while they shall be employed in said business, of which fact a certificate signed by said commissioners shall be deemed sufficient evidence.
Sec. 6. And be it further enacted, That the sum of thirty thousand dollars be, and the same is hereby appropriated, to defray the expenses of laying out and making said road. And the President is hereby authorized to draw, from time to time, on the treasury for such parts, or at any one time, for the whole of said sum, as he shall judge the service requires. Which sum of thirty thousand dollars shall be paid, first, out of the fund of two per cent reserved for laying out and making roads to the state of Ohio, and by virtue of the seventh section of an act passed on the thirtieth day of April, one thousand eight hundred and two, entitled, “An act to enable the people of the eastern division of the territory northwest of the river Ohio to form a constitution and state government, and for the admission of such state into the Union on an equal footing with the original states, and for other purposes.” Three per cent of the appropriation contained in said seventh section being directed by a subsequent law to the laying out, opening, and making roads within the said state of Ohio; and secondly, out of any money in the treasury not otherwise appropriated, chargeable upon, and reimbursable at the treasury by said fund of two per cent as the same shall accrue.
Sec. 7. And be it further enacted, That the President be, and he is hereby requested, to cause to be laid before Congress, as soon as convenience will permit, after the commencement of each session, a statement of the proceedings under this act, that Congress may be enabled to adopt such further measures as may from time to time be proper under existing circumstances.
Approved March 29, 1806.
Th. Jefferson.
President Jefferson appointed Thomas Moore of Maryland, Joseph Kerr of Ohio, and Eli Williams of Maryland commissioners. Their first report was presented December 30, 1806, as follows:
“The commissioners, acting by appointment under the law of Congress, entitled, ‘An act to regulate the laying out and making a road from Cumberland in the State of Maryland, to the State of Ohio,’ beg leave to report to the President of the United States, and to premise that the duties imposed by the law became a work of greater magnitude, and a task much more arduous, than was conceived before entering upon it; from which circumstance the commissioners did not allow themselves sufficient time for the performance of it before the severity of the weather obliged them to retire from it, which was the case in the first week of the present month (December). That, not having fully accomplished their work, they are unable fully to report a discharge of all the duties enjoined by the law; but as the most material and principal part has been performed, and as a communication of the progress already made may be useful and proper, during the present session of Congress, and of the Legislatures of those States through which the route passes, the commissioners respectfully state that at a very early period it was conceived that the maps of the country were not sufficiently accurate to afford a minute knowledge of the true courses between the extreme points on the rivers, by which the researches of the commissioners were to be governed; a survey for that purpose became indispensable, and considerations of public economy suggested the propriety of making this survey precede the personal attendance of the commissioners.
“Josias Thompson, a surveyor of professional merit, was taken into service and authorized to employ two chain carriers and a marker, as well as one vaneman, and a packhorse-man and horse, on public account; the latter being indispensable and really beneficial in accelerating the work. The surveyor’s instructions are contained in document No. 1, accompanying this report.
“Calculating on a reasonable time for the performance of the instructions to the surveyor, the commissioners, by correspondence, fixed on the first day of September last, for their meeting at Cumberland to proceed in the work; neither of them, however, reached that place until the third of that month, on which day they all met.