toll be collected between Columbus and the Ohio Central Lunatic Asylum. The county commissioners were to complete any unfinished portions of the road.56 Later (1877) the rates of toll were left to the discretion of the county commissioners, with this provision: "That when the consent of the Congress of the United States shall have been obtained thereto, the county commissioners of any county having a population under the last Federal census of more than fifteen thousand six hundred and less than fifteen thousand six hundred and fifty shall have the power when they deem it for the best interest of the road, or when the people whom the road accommodates wish, to submit to the legal voters of the county, at any regular or special election, the question, 'Shall the National Road be a free turnpike road?' And when the question is so submitted, and a majority of all those voting on said question shall vote yes, it shall be the duty of said commissioners to sell gates, tollhouses and any other property belonging to the road to the highest 56 Id., LXXIII, p. 105. bidder, the proceeds of the sale to be applied to the repair of the road, and declare so much of the road as lies within their county a free turnpike road to be kept in repair in the way and manner provided by law for the repair of free turnpikes." 57 The receipts from the Franklin County, Ohio, tollgate for the year 1899 were as follows: It will be noted that April was the heaviest month of the year. The gate-keeper re57 Laws of Ohio, LXXIV, p. 62. ceived a salary of thirty dollars per month. It is hardly necessary to say that this great American highway was never a selfsupporting institution. The fact that it was estimated that the yearly expense of repairing the Ohio division of the road was one hundred thousand dollars, while the greatest amount of tolls collected in its most prosperous year (1839) was a little more than half that amount ($62,496.10) proves this conclusively. Investigation into the records of other states shows the same condition. In the most prosperous days of the road, the tolls in Maryland (1837) amounted to $9,953 and the expenditures $9,660.51.58 In 1839 a "balance" was recorded of $1,509.08, but a like amount was charged up on the debtor side of the account. The receipts reported each year in the auditor's reports of the state of Ohio show that equal amounts were expended yearly upon the road. As early as 1832 the governor of Ohio was authorized to borrow money to repair the road in that state. 58 5 Report of the Superintendent of the National Road, with Abstract of Tolls for the fiscal year (1837). 59 Laws of Ohio, XXX, p. 8, CHAPTER IV STAGECOACHES AND FREIGHTERS ΤΗ 66 HE great work of building and keeping in repair the Cumberland Road, and of operating it, developed a race of men as unknown before its era as afterward. For the real life of the road, however, one will look to the days of its prime—to those who passed over its stately stretches and dusty coils as stage- and mail-coach drivers, express carriers and wagoners," and the tens of thousands of passengers and immigrants who composed the public which patronized the great highway. This was the real life of the road coaches numbering as many as twenty traveling in a single line; wagonhouse yards where a hundred tired horses rested over night beside their great loads; hotels where seventy transient guests have been served breakfast in a single morning; a life made cheery by the echoing horns of hurrying stages; blinded by the dust of droves of cattle numbering into the thousands; a life noisy with the satisfactory creak and crunch of the wheels of great wagons carrying six and eight thousand pounds of freight east or west. The revolution of society since those days could not have been more surprising. The change has been so great it is a wonder that men deign to count their gain by the same numerical system. As Macaulay has said, we do not travel today, we merely "arrive." You are hardly a traveler now unless you cross a continent. Travel was once an education. This is growing less and less true with the passing years. Fancy a journey from St. Louis to New York in the old coaching days, over the Cumberland and the old York Roads. How many persons the traveler met! How many interesting and instructive conversations were held with fellow travelers through the long hours; what customs, characters, foibles, foibles, amusing incidents would be noticed and remembered, ever afterward furnishing the information necessary to help one talk well and the sympathy |