The largest town on the line of the road west of Columbus, in the State of Ohio, is Springfield, the capital of Clark county. The distance between Columbus and Springfield is forty-five miles. Springfield enjoyed for a number of years the advantages of the road, and felt a pride in being on its line, but its growth and development, the result of other agencies, have thrown a mantle of oblivion over the time when the rattle of the stage coach and the rumble of road wagons furnished the chief excitement of her streets.
The road penetrated Indiana at the boundary line of Wayne county, in that State. The length of the line through Indiana is one hundred and forty-nine and one-fourth miles, and the sum of $513,099 was expended on it for bridges and masonry. Work was begun at Indianapolis and prosecuted east and west from that point, in obedience to an act of Congress given in the chapter on Appropriations. The road was completed through Wayne county in 1827. It was not macadamized or graveled, and in the year 1850 was absorbed by the Wayne County Turnpike Company, under a charter granted by State authority. The length of this pike is twenty-two miles.
The second section of the act incorporating the Wayne County Turnpike Company reads as follows:
“The capital stock of said company shall be one hundred thousand dollars, divided into shares of fifty dollars each, and shall be applied to the construction of a turnpike road in Wayne county, commencing at the western terminus of the Richmond turnpike, about three miles east of Richmond, and to be continued westward on the line of the National Road to the county line between the counties of Henry and Wayne; and the State of Indiana hereby relinquishes to said Wayne County Turnpike Company all the rights, interests, and claims in and to the line of said National Road in said county of Wayne; the grade, materials, bridges, constructions of all kinds she now has, or may hereafter acquire from the General Government, in and to the said National Road: Provided, That in case the Federal Government should, at any time hereafter, determine to resume the ownership and control of said road, said company shall relinquish the same to the General Government, on receiving from it the full cost of construction as expended by said company.”
The section quoted discloses a point which the court of Somerset county, Pennsylvania, seems to have overlooked when it condemned that portion of the road lying within the borders of that county, took possession of its property, and decreed it free from tolls. The several acts of Congress ceding the road to Pennsylvania and the other States through which it passed, reserved the right of Congress at any subsequent time to resume ownership and control, and in case of the exercise of this reserved right, the question arises, what would become of the decree of the Somerset county court?
Prior to the construction of the National Road in Indiana, Robert Morrisson, the founder of the Morrisson Library, of Richmond, and one of the leading citizens of that place, was mainly instrumental in causing a gravel road to be made from Richmond to Dayton, Ohio, which was known as the “Richmond and Short Line Pike.” The engineers of the National Road adopted the line of Morrison’s road in Indiana, with the exception of one mile from a point near Clawson’s tavern to the Ohio State line. The Government survey carried the line east from Clawson’s tavern, and north of Sycamore Valley, over two long and steep hills, separated by a deep valley. To avoid these hills on the Ohio side, travel dropped down over a good country road to the Richmond and Short Line Pike at the State line. This country road was afterwards macadamized, but the distance between the State line and Clawson’s tavern has remained a gravel road until the present time, kept up and used as a portion of the National road, instead of the line over the hills north of Sycamore Valley.
Morrisson’s company was merged in the Wayne County Turnpike Company in 1850. This company issued seven hundred and eighty shares of stock of the par value of fifty dollars each, and operated its road until the year 1890, when Jackson township, by virtue of a popular vote, purchased that portion of it lying within her boundaries for the sum of $4,500, and made it free of tolls. In 1893, Wayne township bought the road within her boundaries for $11,000, and made it free. The preliminary steps are now being taken by the citizens of Center township to take a vote on a proposition to purchase the road within her borders. If this measure carries the road will be free throughout its entire length in Wayne county.
The Presidents of the Wayne County Turnpike Company have been Robert Morrisson, Jacob Brooks, Edmund Laurence, William Parry, and Joseph C. Ratliff, the last named having served continuously from 1871 to the present time, a pleasant gentleman of fine executive abilities.
This company has always paid dividends of seven per cent. on its capital stock of $39,000, and for the last ten years a majority of its stockholders have been women.
The rate of toll was two cents a mile for horse and buggy and one-half cent per mile for each additional horse, one cent for a horse and rider per mile, and one-half cent for a led horse.