Stage lines were permitted to compound for yearly passage of stages over the road and the large companies took advantage of the provision, though the passengers were counted by the gate-keepers. It may be seen that gate-keepers were in a position to embezzle large sums of money if they were so minded, and it is undoubted that this was done in more than one instance. Indeed, with a score and a half of gates, and a great many traveling on special rates, it would have been remarkable if some employed in all those years during which the toll system was in general operation did not steal. But this is lifting the veil from the good old days!

As will be seen later, the amounts handled by the gate-keepers were no small sums. In the best days of the road the average amount handled by tollgate-keepers in Pennsylvania was about eighteen hundred dollars per annum. In Ohio, with gates every ten miles, the average (reported) collection was about two thousand dollars in the best years. It is difficult to reconcile the statement made by Mr. Searight concerning the comparative amount of

business done on various portions of the Cumberland Road, with the figures he himself quotes. He says: "It is estimated that two-fifths of the trade and travel of the road were diverted at Brownsville, and fell into the channel furnished at that point by the slackwater navigation of the Monongahela River, and a similar proportion descended the Ohio from Wheeling, and the remaining fifth continued on the road to Columbus, Ohio, and points further west. The travel west of Wheeling was chiefly local, and the road presented scarcely a tithe of the thrift, push, whirl and excitement which characterized it east of that point." 50 On another page Mr. Searight gives the account of the old-time superintendents of the road in Pennsylvania in its most prosperous era, one dating from November 10, 1840 to November 10, 1841,51 the other from May 1, 1843 to December 31, 1844.52 In the first of these periods the amount of tolls received from the eastern division of the road (east of the Monongahela) is two thousand dollars less than the 50 Searight's The Old Pike, p. 298.

51 Id., pp. 362–366. 52 Id., pp. 367–370.

amount received from the western division. Even after the amounts paid by the two great stage companies are deducted, a balance of over a thousand dollars is left in favor of the division west of the Monongahela River. In the second report, $4,242.37 more was received on the western division of the road than on the eastern, and even after the amounts received from the stage companies are deducted, the receipts from the eastern division barely exceed those of the western. How can it be that twofifths of the trade and travel of the road were diverted at Brownsville?" And the further west Mr. Searight goes, the more does he seem to err, for the road west of the Ohio River, instead instead of showing scarcely a tithe of the thrift, push, whirl and excitement which characterized it east

of that point," seems to have done a greater business than the eastern portion. For instance, when the road was completed as many miles in Ohio as were built in Pennsylvania, the return from the portion in Ohio (1833) was $12,259.42-4 (in the very first year that the road was completed), while in Pennsylvania the receipts in 1840

were only $18,429.25, after the road had been used for twenty-two years. In the same year (1840) Ohio collected $51,364.67 from her Cumberland Road tollgates about three times the amount collected in Pennsylvania. Again Mr. Searight gives a Pennsylvania commissioner's receipts for the twenty months beginning May 1, 1843, as $37, 109. 11, while the receipts from the road in Ohio in only the twelve months of 1843 were $32,157.02. At the same time the tolls charged in Ohio were a trifle in excess of those imposed in Pennsylvania, therefore, Ohio's advantage must be curtailed slightly. On the other hand it should be taken into consideration that the Cumberland Road in Pennsylvania was almost the only road across the portion of the state through which it ran, while in Ohio other roads were used, especially clay roads running parallel with the Cumberland Road, by drivers of sheep and pigs, as an aged informant testifies. As Mr. Searight has said, the travel of the road west of the Ohio may have been chiefly of a local nature, yet his seeming error concerning the relative amount of travel on the two divisions in his

own state, makes his statements less trustworthy in the matter. Still it can be readily believed that a great deal of continental trade did pass down the Monongahela after traversing the eastern division of the road and that increased local trade on the western division rendered the toll receipts of the two divisions quite equal. Local travel on the eastern division may have been light, comparatively speaking. Mr. Searight undoubtedly meant that two-fifths of the through trade stopped at Brownsville and Wheeling and one-fifth only went on into Ohio. The total amount of tolls received by Pennsylvania from all roads, canals, etc., in 1836 was about $50,000, while Ohio received a greater sum than that in 1838 from tolls on the Cumberland Road alone, and the road was not completed further west than Springfield.

A study of the amounts of tolls taken in from the Cumberland Road by the various states will show at once the volume of the business done. Ohio received from the Cumberland Road in forty-seven years nearly a million and a quarter dollars. An itemized list of this great revenue shows