I keep getting requests for this so here it is again. Maggie --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- ------------ From: "Glenys J. Rasmussen" <glenys@sonic.net> Organization: Living Trees Research Subject: Re: [OHIO] Wagon Roads #6 To: OHIO-ROOTS-L@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU Thanks again to all who have passed along such nice comments. By the way, there is no #4 - I goofed on the numbers, sorry about that :-o Enter the Turnpike The wagon roads to the Ohio River from Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia all converged on the Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky, then up to the Ohio River. Using state money, the new state of KY upgraded the road through the Cumberland Gap to twelve feet wide in 1796. Other states were taking a different interest in their roads as well, particularly those roads which were being used for interstate travel. the concept of a state-owned "turnpike" came during this period, because the building and maintenance of a heavily traveled roadway was an expensive undertaking. And to pay for the roads, the states decided that "user fees" were in order. In the 1790's, the direct route across PA via Forbes' Road saw many Easterners moving west to Pittsburgh or Wheeling to reach the Ohio River. As the start of the main route to the west over Forbes' Road, beginning at Philadelphia, the Lancaster Pike was the name given to the first road built using some road building techniques borrowed from England. the route was virtually the same as the old "Lancaster Road" dating back to the 1720's; but the Lancaster Pike was significant not for the route, but for the quality of construction. Completed in 1796, the new road was financed under a right-of-way franchise granted by the State of PA to a private company. For a distance of some 70 miles, a three foot deep trench was dug, then filled with several layers of progressively smaller sizes of crushed rock, each layer tamped and packed solid. The inventor of this road was a Scotsman named Macadam, and the result was a "macadamized road". The Lancaster Pike was the first such road in America. The process is still being used. It has a final application of melted tar mixed with gravel to provide a paved surface. ... Water actually ran off the roadway, an unheard of event on any American road to that date. The Lancaster Pike was a hug success and became a profitable enterprise for the operators. Comfortable wayside inns soon catered to travelers all along the Pike, and regularly scheduled stagecoach service ran from Philadelphia to points West. Of course, travelers resented having to pay tolls for passage across the roadway, which was collected 'per head', including animals. But the speed and comfort one could travel on the Lancaster Pike by stagecoach or wagon was amazing and the all-weather surface was the showplace of highways. Stagecoaches pulled by six draft horses could maintain a consistent speed of 10-12 mph. This was a giant step forward in transportation, because the best travel time possible before this road was about 20 miles per day (walking speed). To trace the line of the old Lancaster Pike today, start as Philadelphia on US Hwy 30 and then take PA Hwy 340 into Lancaster.) Further north the route of the old Gesee Trail was to become the Mohawk Turnpike, the most important road for migrations across the state of New York. Following the valley formed by the Mohawk River, this road was continually improved due to the heavy demand of western migrations. By 1796, toll were collected at several points along the way from Albany to Utica and later all the way to Buffalo. this is the same path which in 1825 became the route of the famous Erie Canal and by 1850, the route of the New York Central Railroad. today it is the same general route as the NY Thruway (I-90). More to come ... -- >>Glenys Rasmussen<< http://www.sonic.net/~glenys/ >>"My home lies wide a thousand miles, In the Never-Never Land." (Henry Lawson)<< !^NavFont02F0D000006NGHHTH113A