The “corduroy” roads were made by placing tree trunks side by side and consequently could be constructed only where there was an abundance of timber. As these trees decayed with time and moisture the roads required constant repair and a great amount of valuable timber was wasted. It was not an uncommon thing for one of these roads to be destroyed in a single season by frost. In many places they actually delayed progress, as they were used as an excuse for delaying the construction of more durable highways. At their best they were rough, very slow and damaging to vehicles, “any attempt at speed being checked by immediate symptoms of approaching dissolution in the vehicle.” The effect on the driver and his passengers appears to have been equally disastrous, the “poor human frame being jolted to pieces.”
The common or graded roads were marked out by fences in the more settled and open districts, and in the woods by wide clearings. They were properly drained and bridged and an attempt was made to reduce steep hills. Although they did not possess an artificial road-bed, they were very serviceable except for the heaviest traffic. Their construction was expensive, however, as they were laid out in straight and direct lines with the idea of overcoming rather than going around obstacles in their path.
In the more settled parts of Canada the construction of the turnpike with its artificial road-bed began with the opening of the nineteenth century. The materials composing the road-bed varied. Gravel was used where convenient. In many districts plank roads were used after the Union, but unless they rested on a bed of sand were a failure owing to the expense of the frequent necessary renewals. The most satisfactory road-bed was of macadam, although in many places Canadian traffic was not heavy enough thoroughly to consolidate the materials used in its construction. The best roads of this kind were those outside of Montreal and Quebec. In Upper Canada the turnpikes were controlled by joint stock companies in the main and were kept in a miserable condition.
Before the War of 1812 the four principal roads in the provinces followed the routes taken later by the railways. The first, connecting Lower Canada with the Maritime Provinces, began at Point Levis, running thence to Temiscouata, whence it ran to Fredericton which it connected with St. John, terminating at Halifax, after traversing a total distance of 718 miles.
The second road followed the route taken later by the Grand Trunk and Great Western Railways, running from Quebec via Montreal, Coteau-du-lac and Cornwall, to Kingston and thence to York. From York it ran to Michillimackinac by way of Fort Erie and Detroit, a total distance of 1,107 miles.
The purpose of the third road, which ran from Montreal to the international boundary line en route to Boston, was later accomplished by the St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railway. The other road twenty-eight miles long connected La Prairie wtih Isle-aux-Noix.
On these roads the conveyances were the calèche and the post chaise. The charge was high, varying from six and one-half cents upward per mile. The first stages in Upper Canada, running between Queenstown and Fort Erie, charged four cents per mile. The original rate from Kingston to York by stage was $18.00 more than the present return first class fare from Montreal to Toronto. The fare between York and Niagara was $5.00. On the roads near Montreal and Quebec moderate rates were charged and a considerable traffic maintained. In the Upper Province however the roads were controlled by Companies who not only charged excessive tolls but kept the roads in poor condition.
Maitres de Poste, or postmasters, were first recognized by law in 1780 and some half a dozen ordinances and acts were passed in their favour or to control them between that date and 1819, when their privilege ceased. The distance between Montreal commonly called sixty leagues was divided into twenty-four stages. The “Maitres de Poste” were obliged to keep four calèches and four carioles. They had the exclusive right of passenger traffic by land, charging twenty to twenty-five cents per league—twelve to fifteen dollars the journey between Quebec and Montreal. Benjamin Franklin when deputy postmaster general of North America in 1766 stated before a committee of the house of commons that the only post road then in Canada was between Montreal and Quebec. The origin of the postal system of Montreal dates from 1763 and is due to the enterprise of Benjamin Franklin, who was then holding an important position in the postal department of the American colonies. Franklin, on hearing that the treaty of Paris had definitely made Canada a sister colony, without waiting for official sanction hurried thither although a man of fifty-seven years of age, not fearing the hardships of the wild journey. In his diary he records that in the spring of 1763 he set out on a tour of inspection of the northern districts under his control and did not stop until he visited Quebec and Montreal where he opened postoffices and arranged for a weekly courier between these towns and New York. His prompt action was afterwards appreciated by the postmaster general of England.
It is difficult to locate the position of the “village” postoffice established by Franklin. The postal communication thus commenced between Canada and the American colonies continued except for a break during the war of 1775 till the colonies had obtained their independence. In November, 1783, a few months after the treaty of peace, mails were restored between England and Canada through the medium of the new postal office at Burlington. This latter now became the terminus of the Canadian courier service. In 1792 the first postal convention between Canada and the United States benefited Montreal, although it was stipulated that the transmission of letters should be by United States fast mail packets and land service by Burlington.
Letters were carried by the packets at four cents from Great Britain to New York, then twenty cents added for the journey to Burlington, with the further charge of twenty cents on to Quebec and twenty cents more was demanded for the further journey through Canada. A letter would then have cost Montrealers about forty-four cents and that only if it consisted of a single sheet of paper and weighed less than an ounce. Above that, the price was quadrupled. A letter that today cost two cents[1] from Liverpool then cost about a dollar and sixty-four cents. But if the British postal service had been used a letter under one ounce would have cost ninety-two cents and above the ounce $3.64.