第14章 A Nation On Wheels (3)

No genuine improvement of roads and highways seems to have been attempted until the era heralded by Washington's letter to Harrison in 1784.But the problem slowly forced itself upon all sections of the country, and especially upon Pennsylvania and Maryland, whose inhabitants began to fear lest New York, Alexandria, or Richmond should snatch the Western trade from Philadelphia or Baltimore.The truth that underlies the proverb that "history repeats itself" is well illustrated by the fact that the first macadamized road in America was built in Pennsylvania, for here also originated the pack-horse trade and the Conestoga horse and wagon; here the first inland American canal was built, the first roadbed was graded on the principle of dividing the whole distance by the whole descent, and the first railway was operated.Macadam and Telford had only begun to show the people of England how to build roads of crushed stone--an art first developed by the French engineer Tresaguet--when Pennsylvanians built the Lancaster Turnpike.The Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike Road Company was chartered April 9, 1792, as a part of the general plan of the Society for the Improvement of Roads and Inland Navigation already described.This road, sixty-two miles in length, was built of stone at a cost of $465,000 and was completed in two years.Never before had such a sum been invested in internal improvement in the United States.

The rapidity with which the undertaking was carried through and the profits which accrued from the investment were alike astonishing.The subscription books were opened at eleven o'clock one morning and by midnight 2226 shares had been subscribed, each purchaser paying down thirty dollars.At the same time Elkanah Watson was despondently scanning the subscription books of his Mohawk River enterprise at Albany where "no mortal" had risked more than two shares.

The success of the Lancaster Turnpike was not achieved without a protest against the monopoly which the new venture created.It is true that in all the colonies the exercise of the right of eminent domain had been conceded in a veiled way to officials to whose care the laying out of roads had been delegated.As early as 1639 the General Court of Massachusetts had ordered each town to choose men who, cooperating with men from the adjoining town, should "lay out highways where they may be most convenient, notwithstanding any man's property, or any corne ground, so as it occasion not the pulling down of any man's house, or laying open any garden or orchard." But the open and extended exercise of these rights led to vigorous opposition in the case of this Pennsylvania road.A public meeting was held at the Prince of Wales Tavern in Philadelphia in 1793 to protest in round terms against the monopolistic character of the Lancaster Turnpike.

Blackstone and Edward III were hurled at the heads of the "venal"legislators who had made this "monstrosity" possible.The opposition died down, however, in the face of the success which the new road instantly achieved.The Turnpike was, indeed, admirably situated.Converging at the quaint old "borough of Lancaster," the various routes--northeast from Virginia, east from the Carlisle and Chambersburg region and the Alleghanies, and southeast from the upper Susquehanna country--poured upon the Quaker City a trade that profited every merchant, landholder, and laborer.The nine tollgates, on the average a little less than seven miles apart, turned in a revenue that allowed the "President and Managers" to declare dividends to stockholders running, it is said, as high as fifteen per cent.

The Lancaster Turnpike is interesting from three points of view:

it began a new period of American transportation; it ushered in an era of speculation unheard of in the previous history of the country; and it introduced American lawmakers to the great problem of controlling public corporations.

Along this thirty-seven-foot road, of which twenty-four feet were laid with stone, the new era of American inland travel progressed.The array of two-wheeled private equipages and other family carriages, the stagecoaches of bright color, and the carts, Dutch wagons, and Conestogas, gave token of what was soon to be witnessed on the great roads of a dozen States in the next generation.Here, probably, the first distinction began to be drawn between the taverns for passengers and those patronized by the drivers of freight.The colonial taverns, comparatively few and far between, had up to this time served the traveling public, high and low, rich and poor, alike.But in this new era members of Congress and the elite of Philadelphia and neighboring towns were not to be jostled at the table by burly hostlers, drivers, wagoners, and hucksters.Two types of inns thus came quickly into existence: the tavern entertained the stagecoach traffic, while the democratic roadhouse served the established lines of Conestogas, freighters, and all other vehicles which poured from every town, village, and hamlet upon the great thoroughfare leading to the metropolis on the Delaware.